Posts Tagged ‘r. d. harless’

Alleged ‘scientists’ have found that bears, yeah bears, have begun living in the Chernobyl Nuclear Exclusion Zone, which you may (but probably don’t, kids) remember from the time it shat radiation all over the Ukraine and gave Finland contact cancer. Up ’til now, Chernobyl has just been a human-shunned wasteland of wacky, tumor-filled animals too stupid to read caution signs, but now that fun has come to an abrupt end (like the Pope showing up at your bachelor party) ’cause friggin’ bears have migrated there to soak up sweet Ukraine millirems. Some people might call this a tragic example of the perils of Nature’s indifference to Man or a reminder that we are the custodians of our world, but those people are idiots because realists recognize it for what it is: Armageddon (with bears). Because bears plus radiation plus the fucking Russians equals Communist Ursus Super Soldier Program for the Crushing of America All Time.

"Now watch closely. I will show you how to kill this animal with one swift motion."

“Now watch closely. I will show you how to kill this animal with one swift motion.”

It’s no coincidence we’re finding this out now. Suddenly, the Russians invasion of Ukrainian territories in the face of outrage from the international community and native protests of “I come from Ukraine, you not say Ukraine is weak” makes sense. The Russians are out to capture these radioactive bears for military purposes (way better than U.S. Navy military porpoises). The Russians have been all about the bear since way back. Bears have been a long-time symbol of Russian strength and vodka tolerance, from the popular images of circus bears on unicycles to Ronald Reagan’s famous “There is a bear shitting in the woods” re-election ad up to the election of Dmitry Medvedev (80% of Russian voters thought he might have been an actual bear named Dmitry). And the bear has not been excluded from the Russian campaign to destroy capitalism and all it stands for (you really have no idea what the hell I’m talking about do you, kids?). This grizzly lust for bear superiority goes back to the time of Vladimir Lenin, when the Soviet Ursus Program became a national priority with Lenin himself saying, “Give us the bear for eight years, and it will be a Bolshevik forever.” In the nineteen-twenties, Russian ‘scientist’ Sergei Bryukhonenko experimented with reanimating dead dogs and their various parts and organs (seriously, this happened) with the final goal being the creation of an army of reanimated zombie bears conditioned by Ivan Pavlov to be loyal to Stalin through the use of food and prosthetic mustaches. When this failed, Cold War-era Ruskie ‘scientists’ tripping balls on LSD used the Ivanov experiment notes to create hybrid bear/human soldiers to serve the proletariat interest. The only viable product of these procedures, however, was Misha the bear, who was subsequently trained by the KGB to kill and eat President Jimmy Carter at the 1980 Moscow Olympic games, leading to the U.S.-led boycott of the games (thank you, Freedom of Information Act). The scheme and program were briefly revived in the 2000s, tripling down to create codenames the Hare, the Polar Bear, and the Leopard for the GRU, but, once again, our president’s team manufactured a reason for him not to attend the Russia-hosted games (better luck next time, babushka fuckers!).

So, being that the only successes of the Soviet bear soldier program have been cute animals double-tapped for their failures in shallow graves after closing ceremonies, what do we have to worry about if the Russians get their hands on these new radiation-mutated bears at Chernobyl? Surely, their Soviet incompetence will just squander this opportunity as well, right (don’t tell Putin I said that)? Well, here’s the problem. There’s evidence that birds in the Exclusion Zone are beginning to adapt to the high levels of radiation and even thrive on it (you can already fly, birds, stop rubbing our noses in how awesome you are). What does this mean? Simply that nature finds a way? No, dickbag, it means that there are Ukrainian birds that are now invulnerable to nuclear strikes. And if a damn hollow-boned tree rat can adapt that way, so can a bear who’s way higher up the food chain (now THAT’S science). Nuclear-proof mutated superbears would make the entire U.S. nuclear stockpile irrelevant, and then we’d all just be sitting on tons and tons of lethal nuclear material for no damn reason, and that’s not my America, jack.

This shocking revelation should be a wake up call for our country. Do you want our boys in uniform going toe-to-toe with radioactive superbears that may or may not have hulking capabilities? If you’re like me, you do not want that, not in a million years (when we’ve evolved to thought carrier waves and make babies by sexy, sexy stereophonic reproduction). I did a mock-up sketch of what one of these creatures would look like to scare all of you but promptly fear-vomited all over it, so you’ll just have to use your imaginations. The bottom line is if we don’t do something about this, that cocky s.o.b. Putin (DO NOT tell him I called him an s.o.b.) will conquer this country, and I won’t tolerate a head of state who can’t keep his damn shirt on when there’s a camera around. My plan to combat this is as follows: shove the entire San Diego Zoo into the old Nevada Proving Grounds. With three hundred megacuries of leftover radiation, it dwarfs the fifty megacuries of Chernobyl (U-S-A! U-S-A!), and that means it’ll really get some weird shit going fast. Bat-eared foxes that kill with math, psychic anacondas, poison dart frogs firing forty darts a minute with acid for blood. How can we lose? Of course, there’s the chance that these aberrant nuclear horrors spawned from desert testing could turn on the populace (someone should make a movie about that), but it’s a chance we’ll have to take. The Russians are doing it, guys, and if it’s good enough for the Reds, it’s good enough for the Red(s), White(s), and Blue(s).

Not on my watch, Ivan.

Not on my watch, Ivan.

Advertisement

So, yes, Donnie’s sequel is in the process of being written. I’m not going to drop any plot points or anything because this thing could second drafted to hell and back and leave me looking like a jackass that doesn’t know what he’s doing. And I am not in the habit of making myself look like a jackass that doesn’t know what he’s doing on purpose. But the important takeaway for you, the hypothetical reader, is this: you can haz sequel. Narrative is getting forged and shit. There is dialogue. F-bombs are being dropped willy and also, nilly. And when They Tell Me I’m The Bad Guy: Return of The Beast hits your Kindle like a drunk starting a fight with the sun, it will do so as the product of a lot of work, overthinking, and the emotion you hu-mans call ‘love.’ For now, though, it’s still mostly that first thing: a lot of work. And work is hard. Write that down.

Hugs and Kisses,

R.D.

This is at least as accurate as anything you see on Walking With Dinosaurs.

This is at least as accurate as anything you see on Walking with Dinosaurs.

Maybe you didn’t know this, but Paleontology is 99% guesswork (+ or – 3%). These jackholes dig up bones out of the ground, glue them together in an order that makes sense only to them, then concoct some story about what this animal was like based on its body shape (paleontologists: just like Mean Girls). What color are dinosaurs? Fucking flip a coin, man, nobody knows. Probably green. Lizards are green, right? Fuck it, make ’em green. Shit like this is standard operating procedure in paleontology, and that’s when it’s functioning like it’s supposed to, much less when you’re talking the hoaxes like taping a lizard tail onto a chicken skeleton and saying it’s a new kind of dinosaur, which I am totally not making up. There is shit going down in that field of study every day that you don’t know about and not just because you’re stupid (you’re probably not). The reason you don’t know about these mistruths and power-drunk antics? Big Museum shells out a lot of money to keep you in the dark. That’s right, America, those boring buildings that collect government subsidies and gift shop money are perpetrating lies all over you (small, placard text lies). It’s all part of a conspiracy by the dinosaur industry, Big Museum, and the animatronic mafia (the ones who really killed Jim Henson), and it’s been going on for a while.

This crap started in the 19th Century during what was called the Bone Wars. Back then, it was a bleak time. Scientific hoaxes were frequent, scientists lived like warlords, and Thomas Edison fought against Nikolai Tesla’s army of war elephants by electrocuting them willy-nilly all over the place. Two science tyrants, Othniel Chuck Marsh and Edward “The Drinker” Cope, wanted to get all up in that untapped fossil money (The Academy of Natural Sciences was making it rain, yo). Their armies battled each other across the American West, staging bloody raids to steal dinosaur skeletons that left thousands dead. In their rush for that sweet cash from Big Museum, these men slapped together random bone pieces, threw some Latin around, called the other guy’s work ‘thoughtless bullshit,’ then adjourned to their harems. The public, however, were none the wiser to their lies, suffering through a Dust Bowl caused by all the fossil digging. The damage done to Science by Marsh and Cope’s ceaseless bloodshed was incalculable, and knowledge became jealously hoarded by shadowy sects until Albert Einstein consolidated power to bring the one true Science back to the people like a crazy-haired Prometheus.

During WWII, this is what paleontologists said Stegosaurus looked like. They also said he bought war bonds and recycled his scrap.

During WWII, this is what paleontologists said Stegosaurus looked like. They also said he bought war bonds and recycled his scrap.

Much of what we take for granted about dinosaurs is the result of this bone race. Take Triceratops, for example (widely accepted as the best dinosaur by intelligent people). It’s come to light now that specimens found are probably just the juvenile form of the Torosaurus rather than a separate species as previously thought. But because paying customer don’t know what the hell a Torosaurus is, that sumbitch got aced out of the books and forcibly re-assigned as adult Triceratops (he still feels like a Torosaurus inside). Why? Because Steven Speilberg’s got a fucking warehouse full of Cera merchandise he’s still trying to get rid of, and if you don’t think he’s the mouthpiece for the dinosaur industry, I’d like to introduce you to a little film you might’ve heard of called We’re Back. And don’t even get me started on Stegosaurus. That fat, plated bitch is all hearsay and conjecture, and I don’t pay good money to go see conjecture at the museum (unless it’s at The National Conjecture Museum – your tax dollars at work).

And as if all that’s not enough, now paleontologists are taking away all the cool shit about dinosaurs that they flat-out made up to get fossil groupies (known in the industry as “lissoirs” ’cause they polish that bone, son). Those awesome horns some dinosaurs have? Probably just for mating displays (the dino version of skinny jeans) rather than awesome Saturday Night Ass-Kicking at the tar pits. Tyrannosaurus, Latin for ‘King Fuck of Balls Mountain,’ might’ve had furry, baby bird-like feathers on it until maturing (between that and the tiny arms, very self-conscious teen years). Contrary to what we were told, bigger dinosaurs didn’t, in fact, have a brain up their asses (unlike paleontologists – burn!). And the let-downs just keep coming.

We’ve been told for years by Big Museum that dinosaurs were the end-all be-all of animal coolness in the name of selling us overpriced tickets to go read some shit on a wall that we could read on the Internet (maybe in a book?). Slowly, though, the depth of the dinosaur industry’s reckless lies is showing, and we’re starting to learn that dinosaurs pretty much just got the vapors at the sight of a mammal and slap-fought each other for food (then cried themselves sick about it for days). The majesty of these creatures is gone because it never really existed, it was all manufactured for the poon-tang and money that all paleontologists crave single-mindedly. What is there left for children to believe in? Nothing, that’s what (don’t tell them that). I don’t know who should be held accountable for this fraud because apparently John Hammond is fictitious, but I’ve got some pikes sharpened and ready. It’d be pretty cool if one of you dirt-diggers volunteered to be made an example of. For Science. The Science of Vengeance.

Who likes bad guys? Everyone, that’s who, bitch. This is R. D. Harless’ Profiles in Villainy.

Like all women, Killer Frost is volatile, man-hungry, and will drain the life from you. While her primary archenemy is the Bechdel Test, she also clashed repeatedly with the character Firestorm. Because fire and ice. Do you get it? No, really, do you get it? This is not a character for which subtlety was ever even contemplated.

Just tell her she's pretty and this all goes away.

Just tell her she’s pretty and this all goes away.

Prior to the (of course) lab accident that created her, Killer Frost was Dr. Crystal Frost, a specialist in cryonics. Really, what the hell else could she have been? The world was much more literal back then. If your name was Frost, you were a scientist who worked with cold. If your name was Woodrue, you were a scientist who worked with plants. God help you if your last name was Shitslinger; you’d be a scatologist at S.T.A.R. Labs and get turned into a crap monster or something. To her male colleagues (stupid penis walkers), Crystal was known as “The Ice Maiden” because she was unapproachable and standoffish (read as: bitch wouldn’t put out, bro; probably a lesbo). There was one man, however, who had melted her heart. And just prior to the malfunction of her life’s work, a thermafrost chamber (because, again, ice), her affections were rejected by this fellow scientist (MEN, amirite?). This shocking ending to a relationship that only existed in her head became the catalyst that caused Dr. Frost to hate-love all men (thanks again, Science). Protip: if a fellow scientist is about to dick around with some crazy contraption they’ve invented and never successfully tested, leave that person the fuck alone. Just keep your eyes on the floor and your mouth shut. If she confesses her undying love for you, nod and suggest having coffee later to talk about it. Maybe then she doesn’t want to murder your ass when everything blows up her emotional, irrational face.

After Frost’s thermafrost refrigeration system accident in the Arctic (Seriously, do you get it yet?), her body was altered into a kind of blah blah blah, she was cold all the time and that’s all you really need to know, like your girlfriend always having to have a blanket over her on the sofa but more and also homicidal. The accident gave her the ability to create and control ice, and, oh shit, she could also mind-control with her kiss, which infected people’s bodies with her tainted ice and made them blindly loyal, which is exactly how ice and the human brain works. Her skin also went blue and she decided to wear a tiara and a low cut ball gown split almost up to her thigh gap, but how dare you think she’s a slut just because she dresses like a trampy body-painted prom queen. Frost kiss, motherfucker! And, as if all this wasn’t bad enough for a borderline shut-in, because some man had broken her with “it’s not you, it’s me” like five minutes ago, she dedicated all of this shit to taking her pain out on all men (this is how the female mind works, guys – take notes).

She's practiced this speech at least a dozen times to her cats.

She’s practiced this speech at least a dozen times to her cats.

To keep herself alive and dick-kicking, Killer Frost now had to absorb the heat from others to the point of their death. A thoroughly modern woman, though, she had no problems easily accepting this (because fucking MEN, amirite, ladies?!). Luckily, a guy who was a walking nuclear battery with his head on fire happened to be nearby, and, thus, Killer Frost entered into a lasting obsessive-, stalking-, and abuse-based relationship with the character Firestorm, who possessed the mind of an intelligent grown man and a high school jock in the same body, the simultaneous bad boy/father-nurturer dynamic that Frost and all other women crave. And because of Firestorm’s heat (his body heat), she decided to pin her entire existence on staying as close to him as physically possible at all times with the looming threat of violent, psychotic behavior if he ever tried to get away from her. And if that sent a chill down your spine, it’s because this character was created from the pure distilled fear of all men.

After a fairly short career of man-eating and overly-dramatic ice-centric wordplay, Killer Frost found out she was dying from her condition. Reacting as any woman would to news of this kind of import, she flipped the bitch switch and decided to go out the same way she’d lived: killing the world right in the phallus. During her final rampage, she died in atomic flame while kissing Firestorm, who tried to save her life by sacrificing his heat in a noble, white-knightish protective gesture and/or final middle finger to feminism (Seriously, the writer was like, “Screw subtlety, son; I’m Gerry motherfucking Conway”). During that last kiss with a nuclear man, Dr. Crystal Frost was accidentally vaporized on the George Washington Bridge, and that is not a joke even though it doesn’t sound like something a human being would ever have reason to say. But the legacy of Killer Frost lived on. After her death, her frenemy Louise Lincoln decided to repeat the accident that jacked her girl Crystal all up, thereby making herself the new Killer Frost. Her reason for doing so? Women be crazy. Never forget.

Who likes bad guys? Everyone, that’s who, bitch. This is R. D. Harless’ Profiles in Villainy.

I've obviously given up on my appearance.

I’ve obviously given up on my appearance.

Old comic book villains harken back to a simpler time when people with no real motive or aptitude decided to become “evil” for the purposes of money or some vague, illusory notion of power. You’re not going to fall into toxic waste and then take over the world, but you’d think at least one person in the history of civilization had actually done that the way these guys try. And when it comes to guys with little to no reason whatsoever to break bad, Dr. Otto Octavius is right up there near the top of the list (a list almost exclusively populated by disfigured scientists).

On paper, Doctor Octopus is the perfect villain. Arrogant, an alliterative name, has a doctorate degree, foreign accent, crazy technology, and an animal-based nickname. If he was a eugenics-advocating Nazi, he would be the whole package (then watch your ass, Red Skull). In practical terms, though, what the hell is this guy’s problem? He was widely recognized as a brilliant scientist. He had a legitimately fantastic workman’s comp lawsuit after the accident that jacked him up because why in God’s name did his supervisor let an employee conduct radiation experiments in solitude with no oversight using a potentially dangerous harness wired to his nervous system that he cobbled together himself? That’s, like, forty OSHA violations right there. Otto could have sued the shit out of Acme Labs or wherever the hell it was that allowed that kind of thing to go on and been set for life. Plus, bonus, he’s got four bad-ass arms grafted to his doughy abdomen. That’s a ticket to instant celebrity and a guaranteed pity prize from the Nobel committee.

So what’s this jackass do instead of talk to a competent injury lawyer? He goes, right off the bat, into full-tilt bullshittery. He takes the medical staff that saved his life hostage in a total dick move that isn’t really villainy so much as it’s just being an asshole. It’s weak planning, too, because what the hell is the endgame there, not to mention it’s really overreaching considering that the biggest plot Otto had hatched up to that point was probably figuring out a way to ‘accidentally’ brush up against his intern’s blouse. Naturally, in the middle of this morphine-fueled, poorly thought-out supervillain debut, Spider-Man showed on the scene to blow up Otto’s spot in lieu of letting a seasoned professional hostage negotiator do his job. But, wielding beginner’s luck and the power of the ‘all is lost’ moment, Otto proceeded to beat Spidey like a red-headed step mule with those mechanical arms that he refuses to make millions off of by patenting. Total facepalm rookie move, though, he doesn’t double-tap the sticky kid in the unitard, just tells him he’s not worth it like it’s a friggin’ After School Special and chucks him out a window. That’s some bush league stupid, and, after shitting that bed pretty hard, Otto moved on to taking over a nuclear facility instead of a hospital (because in the sixties every other building had something nuclear in it). It’s there that Spider-Man rallied back to knock him out with one punch, putting an end to Otto’s, I don’t know, scandalously non-peer-reviewed after-hours research or whatever.

Now here’s a helpful test to see if you should be a criminal. If a nerdy teenager who doesn’t have four giant, articulated metal arms grafted to his spine can lay you out cold with one desperate swing, go apologize to everybody you just took hostage, plea bargain the charges down to a couple of years, and use that time to get your life together with the prison psychiatrist. You are clearly not built for the world of crime. Sadly, no one intervened to tell Doctor Octopus this. They all just sat back and watched him shit the bed over and over. I mean, let’s look at the illustrious career of Doc Ock:

-Killed a police captain. Accidentally. With negligence and shoddy masonry. While getting punched in the face.

-Tried to become a gang leader, which . . . c’mon, man, put down the Sopranos box set. I’ll give you credit for the track suit and the terrible Eastern European thug haircut, but you’re not gangster.

-Tried to steal atomic equipment.

-Tried to steal atomic submarine.

-Tried to marry May Parker to get his hands on an island with an atomic power station that she somehow inherited (Relatable. See how Marvel heroes had problems just like yours?).

Here’s another helpful test to see if you should be a criminal. If any of the heists you plan have the word “atomic” in them, immediately quit what you’re doing. If you need three degrees to know why a thing is worth stealing then science is your clearly first love, not curb-stomping shopkeepers for protection money. And, yes, you’re right, even Albert Einstein created a doomsday weapon in a secret underground lab, so go ahead and chalk that up as a point for you if you want, but he didn’t stick up liquor stores to finance it and he didn’t use the a-bomb to ransom Long Island. Look at the way you think, man! You need to take a step back, Otto. Consider the choices you’ve made and the consequences that have resulted. Make a personal inventory. Then suck it the hell up, polish your resume (tip: gloss over prison time), and go get a job at a defense contractor or an R & D firm. And I mean someplace legitimate like Lockheed-Martin or Raytheon, man, not fucking AIM. Shit, would you just get your life together for once?

According to somebody in England, wild Bumblebees are getting deadly viruses and infections from domesticated Honey Bees, so much so that it’s starting to cut into the bee population. This is serious. Pollination is how food is made (just plants, though, not delicious meat). Diseased bees puts our food in jeopardy, and since we can’t count on lazy-ass flowers to pollinate themselves and migrant workers are not a viable long-term solution, we need those bees. But bees, apparently, need to go out pollinating all over the place with other bees after a long day at the hive or whatever. It’s a part of their culture, and, unfortunately, they have no other alternative. It’s not like they can get drunk and play X-Box all night, and my own solution, Bee-Boys and Bee-Girls Clubs of America, is floundering (the Kickstarter has been disappointingly slow). So the next best thing is to educate the Bumblebee population on how to protect themselves. Otherwise, we’re talking epidemic-level BVD, and nobody wants to see a gaunt Honey Nut Cheerios mascot reveal on TV that he contracted BAIDS from Barry Benson or something. Yes, I used Bee-AIDS as an example because this is not an issue to make light of by making jokes about, like, Hepatitis ‘Bee’ or something. Grow up, you guys, this is serious.

As a public service, here are some safety tips for you wild Bumblebees. Pay attention.

Abstinence is the best prevention – I know you’ve got that itch of being with a Honey Bee that you want to scratch, but is it worth the risk? With the Internet around, you can safely satisfy those urges by yourself (sample searches: Queen Honey Bee, Honey Bees on Flowers, and, if you’re open-minded and into it, Honey Bees Flying). I know it’s not the same, but it’s the smart thing to do. Besides, you’ve built the experience of being with a Honey Bee up so much in your fantasies that the reality can’t possibly live up to it. You put it on a pedestal, admit it.

Stick to your own kind – This one is going to be controversial. I know we’re living in a progressive time, but it’s just a fact that other Bumblebees are less risky for you to be with than those filthy Honey Bees. I don’t care how fine that Honey Bee is or how much she’s twerking her abdomen at you, you don’t know where she’s been. And I know, she’s from that colony your friend Mark told you is full of girls who are dtf, but that’s the point. She’s got mileage on her, bro. And she’s probably crazy, too. And, ladies, that Honey Bee guy *does not* know the queen and *cannot* get you in to meet her if you show him you’re cool. He is also *not* worker caste, he’s a friggin’ drone. He’s lying to you. He doesn’t do charity work for larva, either. Look at him, he’s skeezy as hell; don’t be stupid. Why not go out with one of those nice Bumblebees you see at church on Sunday instead?

Life is short – You guys only live about three weeks, and most of that is working at the hive. That’s not a long time. Sure, you’re out there smelling the roses all day, but three weeks isn’t even long enough to binge-watch all of Breaking Bad after work. Why shave days off of your lifespan and severely reduce the quality of the days you have left with an incurable virus you got from some dirty, dirty Honey Bee? That Honey Bee’s not going to stick around when you get sick. Is that what you think? God help you if it is because that Honey Bee will find somebody else. That Honey Bee doesn’t care about you. You will die alone. And unloved. Bleak shit.

In closing, wild Bumblebees, just remember that every stigma or stamen you touch isn’t a virgin like they say they are. They’ve pollinated before, and when they pollinate with you, you’re pollinating with every bee they’ve been with. And a lot of those bees are Honey Bees because that flower is a freak. Also remember that any honey bee that tells you they’re clean is a liar. Their shit is rotten. Sure, they look so sweet and tempting and the fact that you’re being told not get with them makes it all the more alluring, and Mark says that Honey Bees are just . . . different from the bees you’re used to going with, but don’t do it. Leave that honey bee alone. You are forbidden from ever seeing a Honey Bee again. FORBIDDEN.

There. That should take care of it. You’re welcome, Science.

Who likes bad guys? Everyone, that’s who, bitch. This is R. D. Harless’ Profiles in Villainy.

Black Manta is the foremost master of one of the last great frontiers of crime: underwater felonies (suck it, Goldfinger). Outrun the cops with your feet and wheels, land chumps, Black Manta’s got the ocean on lockdown ( ‘Ain’t No 5-0 in the Abyss’ reads the bumper sticker on his submarine). From a humble beginning of boatjackings and robbing underwater 7-11’s, Black Manta rose to be the leader of a group of loyal henchmen dedicated to perpetrating some of the only things actually illegal in international waters (could have stuck to running gambling ships or floating brothels, but I guess you forego subtlety once you buy a manta-shaped sub). These acts of sabotage and piracy have made him the sworn enemy of Aquaman, mostly because there’s only one superhero in the whole friggin’ ocean and Manta can’t just find a spot to perpetrate somewhere in the thousands of square miles of water that isn’t adjacent to the guy’s home.

Guess how long I had to float here motionless so these fish would feel comfortable enough to approach me? Guess, Aquaman!

Guess how long I had to float here motionless so these fish would feel comfortable enough to approach me? Guess, Aquaman!

After fifteen years of damp, briney conflict with the King of Atlantis (giving him a *sick* swimmer’s body), Manta arrived way late to the Civil Rights party in 1977. As a newly-minted activist, he decided that his goal would be to take over the oceans so that they could be populated by oppressed African-Americans (no word on how the African-American community felt about this — their reaction may have surprised him). Black Manta also removed his mask for the first time ever, showing everyone that he himself was African-American, which shouldn’t have been that shocking considering his name literally starts with ‘Black Man.’ The revelation allowed him to join the racially-descriptive ranks of characters like Black Lightning, the Black Racer, Black Panther, Black Goliath, and Vykin the Black (It was a different time, kids), but, not content solely with that elite status, Black Manta also committed the baller-ass move of murdering Aquaman’s infant son right in front of him (by slow suffocationohdamn!). You can’t buy that kind of (undersea) street cred, but, arguably, it did not win him any points for his (undersea) equality crusade. In true superhero tradition, though, Aquaman was not able to exact lethal vengeance for the crime due to the King of the Seas’ staunch morality and/or Manta’s status as highly-toyetic intellectual property.

Black Manta is still around today but no longer making many waves (puns: the last refuge of the damned). He never topped infanticide (who among us does, really?), but he still harbors an unending grudge for a man who’s most notable ability is talking to fish. One would think that in this age of expanded ocean exploration, Manta could make some money taking a bunch of oil platforms on the east coast hostage or ransoming James Cameron, but he’s a simple man with simple needs: he’s killed a couple of Aquaman’s friends, tried to kill both Aquaman and his wife, and tried to kill his own son. Like I said, the man left subtlety behind a long, long time ago.

Black Manta: Hater 4 Life

Black Manta: Hater 4 Life

Bloody Copper, Roaring Lead is officially down to clown, guys. Hardboiled fiction has been an enormous influence on me, and this is my love letter to both it and one of my other big loves, the western. It’s the tropes and archetypes of the two biggest pulp genres of their day clashing against one another in a murder mystery: a cynical P.I., a powerful rancher, merciless thugs, the high desert, wry wit, and vicious cowboys all set during Prohibition. I made it especially for you guys for Christmas so don’t be douche about it. Get this s-word on your Kindles or be b-words.

Holiday Hugs and Kisses,

R. D.

BCRL Cover 8-6

Soooo, the hardboiled thing is done. That’s right, finished. I could keep going back to it, polishing it, never satisfied (i.e., the George Lucas treatment), but it’s ready to send out to publishers. It feels effin’ great (or ‘just the tops’ in my current vernacular). It also means that Donnie is back up to bat (also up to bat: re-learning how to swear. You buncha bitch-ass shitheads).

Unfortunately for you guys (motherfuckers), I don’t like to tease plot details, characters, or story points (so suck it, assholes). But I’ve said before the last two chapters of the first book really tell you everything you need to know about the direction the sequel is going. Like They Tell Me I’m The Bad Guy, there are going to be psychological underpinnings to it the same way Polarization/Pendulum Effect was a sort of runner through the first one (spoiler: the theme was not f-words and nicotine). Also, Donnie’s still not going to be a damn Mary Sue (trope alert, dickhead). He’s been given the power to make fuck-ups on a grand scale so of course that’s exactly what he’s going to end up doing because he’s Donnie and Donnie fucking knows best despite all evidence, right? (biiiiitch)

So hang in there, fans. Shit is going to get way more real and way more unreal before this thing’s through (*middle finger*).

Hugs and Kisses,

R. D.