One-Panel Comics: The Real Story

One of my friends recently forwarded the below comic strip to me and asked: is this anything?

On first glance, it appeared to be simply an inept one-panel “comic” attempting to make some vague statement about the Boy Scouts, the Salvation Army, the ACLU, and/or Walt Whitman. But looks can be deceiving! Surely, I thought, surely the intellectual giant who had created this work had some kind of goal in creating it. After a great deal of introspection, it occurred to me that my initial impression, that this was indeed a comic, was flawed. When those premises are removed, then the image makes a great deal more sense, and the thematic elements involved paint a clear picture that the author had an epic narrative in mind. So now, I will attempt to offer up my interpretation of the narrative of this non-comic:

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Many years ago, on his deathbed, Walt Whitman stared up into the sky and pleaded for more time on earth. God, in reviewing His records of Walt’s life, wrote the man off as a reckless sodomite of the highest (or perhaps lowest) caliber, and the Deity balked at the request. But Jesus, ever the hippy in the family, reminded God that there was one point in Walt’s life when he had been “born-again” in a small backwoods church, causing God to facepalm and sigh loudy.

“But I want to destroy him!” said God.

“Well, you can’t, technically,” said Jesus. “Isn’t there something else you could do?”

“I have an idea!” said Saint Sergius. He proposed transforming Walt Whitman into into a magical fairy and letting him be reborn on the Earth, where he would be free to frolic and roam amongst the mortals, which were his true love anyway. (Sergius was always a little fruity.)

“That’s awesome,” said God. “He gets to avoid Hell on a technicality, and I don’t have to put up with his hippy ass running naked up and down the golden streets of paradise.” They all had a Good Laugh and, with a wiggle of His nose, God made it so.

As Walt passed from death to life in the blink of an eye, he was transformed into a three-foot-tall being sporting moth-like wings. Beside him, a glowing wand lay on the ground. As he slowly opened his eyes for the first time, the shining stick caught his eye. He immediately reached for it and looked it over.

“Hmm… this looks like a magic wand…” he said to himself, swatting it about. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning flew from the tip and incinerated a tree.

“Oh shit, said the newly-reborn fairy. Instinctively his wings fluttered a bit… he hadn’t noticed them before, and it was only now that he realized that he had the appendages. He reached back behind himself and felt the papery, leathery appendages. A distinct sense of shock passed through him, and for the first time since he awoke, he realized that he had not a single clue who he was. He looked around furtively until he spotted a pond nearby, and he raced over to it.

Looking into the water, the fairy, completely oblivious to the fact that he was once Walt Whitman, saw himself and stood motionless, his mouth agape. He held up his hands and looked intently at them, turning his hands over slowly as he attempted to make out what exactly he was. On his right hand, he spotted a small, red scar at the base of his thumb. In small letters that appeared to have been cut with the point of a knife was the word ‘ACLU.’

“ACLU?” the fairy asked. He did not remember that, when he was Walt Whitman, he had fallen for a virile youth named Adam Campbell, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship. One evening, in a drunken haze, Adam had taken his pocketknife and carved ‘ACLU’ on his elder lover’s hand, so that he would always know that “Adam Campbell Loves U”. None of those memories were intact, so the fairy was left to puzzle over the significance of the scar.

“Perhaps this is my name,” the fairy thought, and the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. A strange name… a strange body… a wand that could incinerate trees… he realized he could only be a fairy. With a newfound identity, Aclu left the pond and walked back over to where he’d dropped the wand.

Picking it up, he looked it over again. “I wonder how you work this thing…” he thought. Pointing it and brandishing it, Aclu concentrated hard on something that he wanted to manifest. At that time, Aclu wanted to manifest a unicorn. Unexpectedly, a bolt of yellow energy flew from the tip of the wand, and in a puff of pink smoke, there stood before Aclu a giant, hairy monstrosity, clad in a red apron and holding bells in each hand. The creature appeared to resemble an ape of some sort, except his face was contorted in some unfathomable, indescribeable way. For the life of him, Aclu didn’t know what the hell he had just manifested.

“Umm…?” said Aclu, which was all it took to get the creature’s attention. The beast’s nostrils flared, and pure animalistic rage crossed over what had just been a face of endless confusion before. The creature raised both of his fists into the air, bellowing a most unnatural sound and shaking its bells violently. The din echoed over the mountain vale, making the outburst all the more terrifying, and was heard by picnickers as far as three miles away.

“GOD IS DEEEEEEEEEAD!” growled the monster, and with a strength unknown in this mortal coil, hurled one of its bells toward Aclu. The fairy barely had time to react, but did a barrel roll to avoid the projectile. Then, enraged that he had missed, the creature began galumphing toward Aclu.

Instinctively, Aclu the Fairy jumped into the air and began flapping his wings. Through sheer force of will, he began to inelegantly ascend. As the aproned demon approached, Aclu flapped as hard as he could, gaining a good bit of altitude until he was twenty feet into the air. The beast rang its remaining bell angrily while Aclu winged his way toward a nearby Southern yellow pine, where he perched on one of its higher branches. A million thoughts raced through Aclu’s head as he debated what should be done. Should he just leave? The creature seemed singularly obsessed with him and, even after twenty minutes of bellowing and multiple attacks on the tree, showed no sign of tiring out.

“I need someone who can take care of this creature,” Aclu thought. “Maybe I can scare up a knight… yes! I will call up Percival or Galahad one of the other Knights of the Round Table to dispatch this beast!” With newfound resolve, Aclu stuck his tongue out and pointed at the ground, about ten feet away from the monster. In another flash of pink smoke, a silhouette roughly the same size as the creature was visible. The beast, who had been ranting and raving the entire time, fell silent with this, perhaps realizing that he was dealing no mere bearded weirdo.

“My knight!” Aclu proclaimed, “fell this unholy beast and you shall be well rewarded!” Aclu and the beast both watched as the figure took one step foward–to their astonishment, a foot clad in a high-heeled shoe emerged from the billowing pink smoke.

Aclu sighed. “This is going to be harder than I thought.”

God laughed a hearty laugh, like a sea captain, and gave Saint Sergius a manly pat on the back. “Serge, I knew there was a reason I let you and your fudgepacker boyfriend up here!”

Sergius chuckled uneasily. “Yeah… haha… hey, there’s Jesus, I’m gonna go hang out with him now…”

“Cool beans,” said God, returning his attention to the fairy, the transvestite, and the sasquatch dueling in the Sierra Nevadas.

Unfiltered 02

Laying claim to the last bastion of the flame

I deal I kill I felt the spill as it rolled down the stairs and puddled into a grody little shit-faced sort of munchkin picking on deciduous and hallucinatory candor whispering meadows drunk down the blacktile black tie event for buttons and mindy sack shat shit fit flat scat double twat i heard a black gagging goggleface dog lying in mulch ditch for a great grand delusional amusement mansion atrophy wind whisper atrophy black twisted round whistle black black starry-eyed oceans starry-eyed lakes and placid splendor in dew-drop oblivion for falling in a mercenary way in screaming for depilatory creams and lost augurs in a devendra sort of hoity toity smashtop crashdown hardcastle flack cover samhain shovel willow wishy wasp as the chill nip tip tick and click crack the stack smokestack on track when the gaslights and oh how the gaslights and then when the gaslights go out out out and then there is no more

sweet sickly mold and mildew plastic prison in cages faces places raped plastic dreams dogma orthodox pointed stars ultra-crash final-burn deft and eldritch oxygen bunting serenading clothes cut from a filtered cloth through which the mites and moths shall not pass switch cut snip snip threadbare threadbard cut the swing Singer down tap tap tap clickity clickity dancing mandibles dancing drooling mandibles hissing pissing existing for no other fucking purpose or person fundament foolish foalish whelp and lather slime dream time climb around the high mountain gate agape and aglow with the ravishment of the bride of the one true theosophical living word of the holy tongue of the great grandest dream in the utmost pinnacle of the highest spire that towers above the loftiest universe in the crowing headpiece of the revered and reverent godhead looking down on all creation casting tears on all creation sitting way fucking high over all of creation and wondering watching waiting what it feels like to be beholden to ones own strings to be subject to ones own arbitrary laws to be abject horror and to feel abject horror and to realize and understand that the universe and the unbelieving unreal nonexistence are cleaving to one another like mad lovers in heat because the plaindog generals in the plaindog reality can’t stand their plaindog limitations and the fantastical beasts of the neverafter cannot live without the aching desire of the substance of something that actually fucking exists somewhere other than in a sketchbook or on a restroom wall

dreams made flesh and real and manifest true and transparent and ultimate veins to rein in the final curfew of the last line of heroin to the true heart of the almighty gazing and grazing upon the choicest of souls in that most mercenary black-wind whistling sort of way——-halloween and lollipops and milk dud musings while walking through the stores of lies and the tiles of lyes and the dyes of those within a dream, masking the dream with new dreams through which dreams may dream of other dreams and find comfort in something completely similar to themselves

coiled and constricting madness clings to all that crawl forth from the void and find the wholesome appeal of differentiation to at last be lacking in…. inn…… innnnnn……………………….. special appeal

some hearts beat
and some beat hearts

Unfiltered 01

rosy meteor great climb sound wet horus hours and all the in-between causes causations and whatnot… great gracious goonies and left-wing loonies and right-wing reichs and whatnot… all that was left of skittle-climb down dregs and wet willy sound climb down around great apple town red black honest to blackness wackness opening closing holing whoring and shoring fine final last last lastlastlastlastlastlastlast

the sounds of timpani in the cavern chasm and all-around spasm won the final single truly honest to goodness found a little cat dog wonderful cream sugar bananaberry hot gum cum sound like a rick rich truly truly quickly sickly sticky little gumdrops in the last can song found a true torturous murder mary havana gravy song of teeth chattering open closing returning revolver flip-top diamond oscillation cream sugar town drip trip wheel flashing blur slide slide down the road the long hot road the road of dreams and homecomings and imaginary travels to faraway schemes climes and in-between times with lines that move slightly as the miles get racked up racked up with no gas left little gas left lots of gas left winding through the million acre woods like some crappy slap-happy shit-eating palace palatial glacial frostmourne beckons

sweet creamy angel dust exploding like a poof of goddamn irony in a final last last lastlastlastlastlastlastlast

Steeplechasing

it was mental underground town with watery symbols down drawn cymbals sick sound
crashing around in my memory
black blood blew around copper mary magdalene–wind spurt snuff like dust
drippy silk pillows with symmetrical stains and shattered bits of jellied brains
skill cut skull dust black symbols down watery drawl
finding the lost and feeling the lost
finding the loss and feeling the loss

we jumped out the fucking raft
crossed the stygian morass and drowned unknowingly
the holders of the sign and rollers of the rope got quiet and faded away
but there was something just around the corner
and still we kept going
down here’s the best, down here’s the rest,
down here’s the ones with no eyes left to weep for shattered sensibilities
down here’s the feet that walk not to the oppression of the oppressors
here’s a true cutter
here’s a ruddy and hale victim of scarlet prognosis

we found them sitting there huddled in a shadowed mass
in a crag in a cliff in a hole in a trench in a faraway, neverwhere place
with no light left to see and only one soul to share between them
(small bites removed as it got passed around)
skin like flint and hair like wire
and all the treasures of a broken empire stacked neatly and labeled
all around the null space

watery sounds and gurgles as they etched the eldritch signs and stammered
of long-lost glories and forgotten princes, shamed princesses, loyal hounds,
and vestiges of castles of fine glass poised on the pinpoint of a cloud
they hardly saw us, they hardly knew us, there was a bit of shine
that was little more than an axiomatic mucosal response

and something like a mirror or a hole in a tub
drew us closer closer closer
compassion pity dreams remembrance familiarity fury curiosity
thought those jewels flew past our ears but maybe it was a dream
and compulsion–raised hand and placement…
it felt nothing
and we felt nothing
and the company little noted when its ranks increased

we assume
somewhere near the surface
the deep divers reeled in their loss
and the expedition was called off
for that which was sought was with us all along–
and mud in the hand of an anesthetized god
is good as lucre and twice as abundant

Flexible Morality

My mind clung loosely, jostled and fluttering, just above my body
(Itself held in stoney dreams of loam and turf)
And it was, for a time, like their flag–

Five crippled men, never beaten but long forgotten,
their faces worn with deep grooves beyond flak, beyond shrapnel,
(the kind of erosion that only funerals can bring)
keeping vigil on the windy hill that overlooks the void

Long was the world their emotional laboratory
and every speck of creation bore the smudges of their acts:
Reckless, feckless, and full of consequence,
Creaky dogma giving way to flexible morality

The harvest came at life’s twilight
when the shining bones had lost their luster
and all the gold that grows within
had long ago been splattered on the ground

First teeth, then glass, then broken ribs
had brought them ’round to the hill of chaff
and all that remained were memories bound up in cloth,
seeking desperately to flee their makers

–tattered, faded, the worse for wear
the desire returned with a subtle flicker:
mind and body mutually assured

Untitled 11/18/2008

You can see it in her face
the way the weeping willows trace
…their way around the widow’s fading smile.

And you can hear the faintest sound
of hallowed vessels run aground
…as sextants unexpectant missed the isle.

With eager face she marked the time
’til he would see her fairer clime
…and hold her far less colder than before.

So hopeful by the rising sea
she waited there eternally
…in their little cabin by the shore.

(Rust and coral, silt and stone
Drowning nightmares all alone
Crashing waves, the fog and foam
Silence makes a murky home)

The Blinded Hierophant

Penning the canticles
with no bitterness in his side
he hears the old dog guard of kingdom hall
baying at the iniquities at the gate

The dried-up fountains in the vestibule
cough and sputter their morning prayers
as nature can find no foothold
inside these walls of clotted blood

The words of iron praise and gilded pain
flow like semen to the waiting parchment
until rationality and compassion and glistening love
overtake the mysteries of his devotion

And for such occasions as this
he withdraws the knife from its cubby hole
and lacerates humanity without thinking
until the delusion has solidified again

Wisdom always comes with a price
and the door must be opened before one can enter
but the scabrous effect of perverse shadows
threatens to rob the aspirants of zeal

Circle upon circle and word upon word
the chains of heaven are forged by human hands
and slavery to ideas binds all to all
for nourishment and punishment–the essence of life

Nonagons and Eidolons

building a face
takes years of pretense
and masks the true difficulty
…when you see the nine points
and hear the calling of the morose
you will wonder, you will think to yourself
that all the greatness has gone awry
…that the seas will cry foul
ere the birds reach their watery nests
foregone conclusions for wondrous and monstrous
these affairs and charities of modern Mondrian mudmen
off-kilter and askew from decadent unrealized tangents,
pausing to catch a breath of the scaling lilac oblivion
enshrining the idolatrous path of reckoning

we abuse powers in geometric timelines
we drown the death-encrusted,
we fuck the life-entrusted

carving out eyebrows and ocular hollows
the wind will whip with aquiline apertures
sharp lips, stone skin
decent, respectable and unyielding

perfection is safety at long last;
no drawing dreams have yet unearthed
the leaden anchor in the tomb of all being
that holds you fast
to the bosom of sodom
collapsible, interruptible
relapsible (incorruptible)

star-studded interiors in this place of quiet repose
or walls of garbage to keep garbage from garbage…

one-hundred forty degrees of separation

Ravenloft Cut-Scene 2

Regarding the settlements of Lamordia, it is rare that a kind word is ever uttered about Leidenheim, the remote port city on the country’s western shore. It is rarer still that anyone voices a desire to travel to Leidenheim during the summer, when the humidity from the nearby swampland makes the clothing stick to the body and forces breathing to become a conscious effort. Breathing is made more difficult by the perpetual rank odor of the fishmongers’ stalls, and the occasional whiff of foul ordure and offal discarded by the city’s poorer residents.

It was remarkable indeed how Leidenheim, once a modest city of learning and one of the most commercially successful settlements in Lamordia, had fallen so far to such a shadow of its former glory. The closing of the University of Leidenheim under mysterious circumstances seemed to be the death knell for the city, as it had driven most of the city’s more educated citizens to Port-a-Lucine, Il-Aluk, and other settlements across the world more known for their academic endeavors. The growing prevalence of piracy on the open waters between Lamordia, Dementlieu, and Darkon led many shipping companies and private traders to change their ports of call and delivery routes, eschewing Leidenheim entirely. And overland travel, which required traversing several miles of dangerous swampland, was hardly an ideal substitute for maritime commerce.

Still, some of the city’s more industrious residents found ways to make a living.

---

The lame beggar boy watched a rather genteel-looking man emerge from the clerk’s office near the Leidenheim shipyard. Of course, having never seen true nobility, the boy could little recognize that the man’s couture was merely a mishmash of various fashions that spanned the continent. His plain Falkovnian boots clacked across the cobblestone street, and the boy watched as the somewhat obese man slowly walked back toward the downtown business district.

“Excuse me,” the boy shouted. “Hey sir, excuse me!”

The man stopped in his tracks and looked in the boy’s direction. “Yes?”

“Sir, can you spare a coin or two?”

The man smirked and turned toward the boy. As he approached, the boy made out more of the man’s details. His clothing was rich and ornate–or at least appeared to be at some point in the past, when it was not so smudged and faded. The man appeared to be wearing several layers of clothing, which struck the boy as odd, given the stifling humidity of the day. Even more odd was the fur-rimmed overcoat that the man wore; it was considerably oversized and dragged behind him on the ground.

“What did you ask?” the man inquired, peeking inside the small rusty cup that sat beside the boy.

“Sir, I was wondering if you had a coin or two you could spare… I’ve not had a meal in days.”

“Well,” the man said matter-of-factly, “I don’t believe in charity. However… if you’d be willing to do a bit of work for me, I would give you a small pittance.”

The boy looked up at him, a bit confused. “But sir,” said the boy, “I’m just a cripple, I can’t work.”

The man smirked. “Sure you can, lad,” he said, reaching into a pocket somewhere within the interior folds of his voluminous overcoat. He produced a stack of papers and bent down closer to the boy, offering the stack to him.

“Pass these out to everyone coming and going here, especially out-of-towners and people you don’t recognize.” The boy looked down at the man’s hand, holding the papers in front of his face. The man wore a tattered woolen glove, and a couple of his fingers were exposed through irregular holes. The boy looked up at him, then reached out and took the papers.

“That’s a good lad,” said the man, and he reached into a different pocket and produced a shiny coin. He dropped the coin into the boy’s cup, and the boy was overjoyed.

“Oh, thank you sir!” the boy said, his face awash with a look of relief and simple happiness.

“Fetch me more customers and there will be more where that came from,” the man said. He then turned and walked away from the boy, continuing on his way toward the business district. The boy watched him walk away, then looked down at the papers he held in his hand.

The man made his way back to his shop, which was only barely in the business district and was just a stone’s throw from the slums and one of the less reputable taverns in Leidenheim. His shop was sandwiched between two buildings, both of which were uninhabited. As a result, both buildings had become makeshift billboards for the Pendergast Emporium, and the street-facing walls of the buildings were plastered with dozens of the same handbills that the man had given to the cripple earlier. As the door opened, a small bell tinkled, and the man cleared his throat.

Slowly walking down one of the aisles in the store, the man seemed deep in thought, but kept his arms close to his sides so that his large sleeves would not accidentally drag anything off the shelves. As he approached the front desk, he noticed the bald, heavily-tattoed man behind the counter holding a stone of some sort up to lamplight, looking intently at it.

“That’s a pretty piece, Phillip,” the man said. “Where’d you get it?”

“A man came in while you were gone, Mr. Pendergast. Quite bizarre, really. I’ll tell you more about it in a bit, but rest assured–we got this for a song.”

Pendergast walked up to the counter and extended his gloved hand to Phillip. “Is that so?” he said. Phillip placed the stone in Pendergast’s hand, and he immediately pocketed it somewhere within the folds of his overcoat. “What passes for a song these days?”

“Trust me, we got it for cheap. I’ll tell you more about it, but you might want to attend to the current customer.”

“Who is it?” Pendergast asked, looking around while leaning on the counter.

“That young errand boy of the von Hauptmanns. Baldridge, I believe.”

Pendergast grinned broadly and stood up straight. “Excellent,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Always a pleasure working on the von Hauptmann account.”

Phillip motioned with his head toward a door on the far side of the store. “He’s back there, checking out the curiosities. You ought to go sneak up on him and scare him.” As he said this, Phillip grinned, exposing teeth that had been filed down to a point. “He’s such a bleedin’ dandy.”

“All that time spent with the von Hauptmanns, I suppose,” said Pendergast. Both men laughed.

“I’ll go fetch the boy,” said Pendergast. “You, go get their order. Greta should have everything together in the back room.”

“Aye,” Phillip nodded, and he disappeared into a room behind the front desk. Pendergast, meanwhile, strode toward the closed door back in the corner of the store, near the bookshelves. As he approached, the door opened, and a young man stepped out. Seeing Pendergast, the young man smiled.

“Ah, Mr. Pendergast!” said the young man. “Good to see you again!”

“You know lad, I was serious when I said you could call me Henrik.”

“I know, it just seems somewhat… impolite.”

Pendergast laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about politeness here of all places!”

The young man snickered. “Good point.”

“Come now, Simeon, we have much to discuss before we square away this latest order of yours. If you’ll come back to my office, we’ll work out the particulars of your employers’ request.”

Simeon nodded politely and followed Pendergast back to the room behind the front counter of the store.

A Puddle

You passed the puddle on the side of the road,
but oh the life therein.
The things that grow from one’s own tears,
shed for all the gentle fears,
conceived in love and sin.

Hail the falling of the weak of the world,
all those who hold us back.
The crumbling of the jester’s crown,
with salty seas I made it drown,
in puddles deep and black.

You see the creatures in the water at your feet,
their ways out on display.
They ravage all the smaller things
that writhe and scream and wish for wings
and die while they still pray.

You passed the puddle on the side of the road,
but oh the life therein.