Well Merry Christmas Boys and Girls!

Well gosh, children, it's so nice to get a chance to see you all on this most special day! Oh, but I should introduce myself. You can call me...oh, I know, how about Mommy Despair? That's so cute! I'm quite proud of myself! You see, little Johnny has come back home for the holidays, bless him, and while he's busy checking his stocking, he seems to have left his laptop logged into his little website! What a silly child. I'm sure I raised him better.

Now, let's see here...oh, my, judging by this site, I think Santa must have made a mix up with all those gifts. I mean, making fun of religion, and all the profanity and allusions to deviant sexuality! Goodness me, it's a good thing I found this! I'm sure Johnny would have written some other horrible little story, and just gone and soured everyone's holiday spirit! Good thing Mommy Despair is here to keep the season bright.

Why, that reminds me. Did he ever tell you all why they call him Johnny Despair? I bet you thought he just picked it out himself, because it sounded all "punk." Oh goodness me no. He didn't pick the name at all, you see. It was... gosh, how many years ago was it? Hm. Oh, Johnny, would you get in here and help your mother out with something?

Oh, my, maybe I shouldn't have called him in. He looks livid! Oh, but he's soo cute when he's all pouty and stompy. Isn't my handsome little man just the cutest! "Ma, stop it," he says. Well maybe you should have kept your computer more secure, mister, and we wouldn't be in this boat. You know I worry about your computer, and the identity thieves and all. But anyway, do you remember how long ago it was you first got your little nickname?

Ohhh, he doesn't look mad anymore, internet peoples! "Ma, don't go there, please," he says to me. But it's such a sweet little story, and even appropriate for Christmas! Well, fine, if you won't help I'll tell it on my own. Oh no you don't, mister, hands off! On Christmas Day, you can't even give your mother, who worked and sacrificed and slaved to bring you up, put you through college, and get you the damn laptop you're trying to snatch away, you can't even give her the simple gift of being involved in her son's life? Hmmmm?

That's what I though, mister.

Anyway, it was a number of years ago, a bit before Christmas break. Little Johnny was still in grade school, and he was so excited for Christmas, as all children are. But Johnny was not exactly a popular child, I hate to admit. He would get teased and picked on. He had, well, there's not a nice way to say it, is there....he had emotional issues, you see. Took everything oh so seriously. And not just the way a child does; he'd be murderously angry over a lunchtime insult, or be shamed into silence for days over a little mistake. There's nothing wrong with being an...emotional child, of course, but it made him such an easy target for the other boys and girls. I always told him: if you stop reacting, they'll stop doing it, but did he listen to his mother? Noooooo....

Well like I said, it was a little before Christmas, and Johnny was excited. He carried his list to Santa all around with him, to remind him to be good, he told me, although I knew it was really so he could add more things as it came to him. Well, one of the other children saw him working on his list and snatched it away. The boy said something like, "Aww, little baby is working on his list for Santa. Aww, little baby don't even know that Santa ain't real!" (I'm just guessing, here, based on what Johnny told me later, of course.) And then he laughed and tore up the letter. I think he might have made it into spitballs, or made Johnny eat it, or something. I don't really recall that part. Something else mean happened, I think.

Well little Johnny was so upset, he just started bawling. I mean he would not stop! He just kept crying and crying and crying and class couldn't go on like that so they sent him to the principal's office and called me to get him. And when I got there, well, I told you he's so cute when he's pouty! I couldn't take the poor boy seriously. He was so upset, but all I could do was pinch his little cheeks and say, "Aww, what's wong wif Mommy's widdle Mistah Sadness? What's makin' her little Johnny a little Johnny Despair?"

Oh, and let me tell you, that dried those tears right up! He was so embarrassed! "Nothing!" he said, and put on his bravest little face. And that was so cute too! So I imagine I don't really need to tell you, that from then on, every time he made a little pouty face, I'd tease him, say, "Excuse me, widdle Mr. Despair, have you seen my Johnny? I swear he was just here," or something like that. Ohh, but he hated it! And, of course, eventually other mothers heard about it, and then their children did, and pretty soon everyone in the neighborhood knew all about my little Johnny Despair.

Well, I hear the neighbors at the door. We always do a little Christmas exchange, you see. They were like a second family to my little Johnny, I had to be away so often. Now, Johnny, you better not delete this. I'll be checking your little site, even if it makes me uncomfortable, and making sure this is still here. I'm your mother, goddamnit, and I won't be ignored. You know how a lot of moms say "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it?" Remember, Johnny: you may have grown up big and strong, but I have cop friends. And guns. And a whole lot of quiet woodland where you could hide almost anything.

Don't mess with me, Johnny. I am your fucking mother.

Merry Christmas all you strange little people who read my son's nasty little website!

Call your mothers.

I'm serious.

Man, Swine Flu Is For Posers

Stand back, boys and girls, don't get too close, and hurry up and put on the supplied face masks and sanitary gloves. It's your boy Johnny Despair, Esq. here, and he's sick, baby, sick. But not with that flash-in-the-pan swine-flu business. Hell no. That ain't no respectable kind of sickness. Nuh-uh. Your boy's got some old-school fukken' disease right here. Got some pneumonia all up in his lungs, wreckin' the place, all coughin' up gobs of boogers 'n blood and sounding like a big old pile of dyin' grandpas. Pneumonia is a real friggin' sickness. That shit killed presidents, man, at least one of 'em. I think. I may currently be hallucinating under fever. Whatever. Pneumonia is bad shit, no doubt. So, you know, not been a productive week, unless you count massive sweats and disorientation as being productive.

So, as a little gift to you (but mostly myself), I'ma link ya'll to some righteous entertainment while I'm out of commission. Now, for reasons that have nothing at all to do with a contest that he's runnin', now seems like a hell of a time to spread my deep love of Wondermark. Wondermark is a great comic. It is consistently really, really funny. David Malki! is a guy who knows how to write comics. He has put essays up on his site about this very subject, and they are also very friggin' funny. Malki! is really a guy who ought to be a much bigger force in webcomics, in my estimation: he's clever; he's handsome (raaawr); he's nice; he's productive (despite only updating the comic proper twice a week, he does regular sketches, and various essays and blogs posts means there is content basically every day); his aesthetic sense is poised to pounce upon the exposed jugular vein of the steampunk/anachro-fashion movement like a beautiful, misunderstood vampire eager to drink it dry and not even give a shit and not even be beautiful but a disfigured old monster with horrible claws and barely human anatomy because that is how my vampires role and jesus FUCK can I stop seeing Twilight ads in my fucking convalescence pretty pretty fucking please I know bitching about Twilight is now about as cool as bitching about Fox News but honestly I am sick and I do not need this shit all up in my eyes; he's all about these "beards" that the kids seem excited about these days; and he produces one of the most listenable podcasts I've ever heard, Tweet Me Harder along with Kris Straub, who is, last time I checked, a friggin' institution or something. True story about Tweet Me Harder: I once listened to it so harder, that I was unintentionally talking like a weird Kris Straub/David Malki! slash-fic lovebaby for days. It took three hours of listening to the Sex Pistols to cure it.

Oh, another item for the list: David Malki! designs some of the net's best shirts. Don't believe me? Consider the evidence. If I was a cartoon character and could only wear one shirt forever, it would be hard not to pick "Steam Powered Heart."

Okay, going back to forcibly losing fluids from various holes. Drink your orange juice and don't lick strange objects, kids, and you may just avoid the terrible fate of the sad, the pitiable, the ever-on-the-verge-of-covering-himself-in-sick,

Johnny Despair, Esq.

Stuff I Found Lying Around My Place

Well hey there, boys and ghouls... wait, shit, Halloween was last week.

Anyway, it's your boy Johnny Despair, Esq. back again. Now, before I get started, I wanted to just throw out an announcement or two.

First: For those of you who've been paying attention, waiting with (master)bated breath (haw!), "Hail To The King" will be concluded shortly. My uncannily talented and eerily incomprehensible co-worker, Mr. Jack Happy, has been really frikken' outdoing himself on the art, and wants to makes sure it looks just right. Seriously, don't even ask about it, if he's working on something. Dude is crazy territorial. Next thing you know, he'll be peein' on shit just to "ward off interlopers" or whatever.

I kid, I kid.

Everything at his place is already covered in piss.

Second: fuck, did I have another announcement? Well, I guess it's that I got stuff coming up, so my updates may be even less regular than they have been. But whatever, ya'll already figured out I don't exactly got the trains running on time or whatever.

So, let me tell you a little about ME. Because, lawd knows, I don't talk about me nearly enough. See, I'm a guy with stuff going on. Not a job or anything, no, but I take classes sometimes. Also, I kinda got some looming debts and whatever, and it can kind of be a thing, when you get real dedicated to dodging some creditors. On a related note, I'ma be kicked outta this place I'm livin' in pretty soon. It's kind of a long, boring story, but I'll tell you this much: when you live above a lawyer, you don't respond to noise complaints by lowering yourself onto his balcony with a grappling hook and taking a monster shit. Allegedly.

So, I been doin' some packing lately, and bein' as I'm about the most interesting sumbitch who ever lived, I been unearthin' some crazy junk just lying around. So I though I might let ya'll get a glimpse into the world of the latest and undoubtedly the greatest Internet Somebody who ever lived.

Alright, let's see... got handfulls of paper with various scribblin's and whatnots on 'em. Lotta these 'r terrible, which makes 'em mine, but some of these ain't half bad. Like:

My old roommie Red did that 'un. It's a character called Reginald Ponswalloh, from a series of stories that I'm still brewin'. I can't remember for the life of me why the hell he's in a dress, or what's up with the bird. I'ma...I'ma chalk that up to a metaphor, or somethin'

Here's some weird ass old note, seems to be something about starting an, I don't know, gossip or news site, I guess? There's a couple of article ideas written here:

"Many people know the story of Angel and Bones star David Boreanaz's rise to fame: while walking some dogs one day, he was 'discovered' and the rest was history! But did you know that he's never owned a dog in his life, and is legally forbidden to touch one? Or that he's secretly one of the 'wee folk', a magical race of diminutive tricksters adept at illusion? Who'd have thought walking imaginary dogs could make you rich?

So Colplay's new album is pretty popular. Fun Fact: The preceding sentence was the only note I left before trying to blow my brains out! My ex always did say I have a thick skull! Ah-ha-ha!

The internet "bluzz" about The Dark Knight has been huge, and to whet fans' insatiable "blopetite," they're released Gotham Knight, which many are describing as 'The Batmanimatirx.' Which would make Batman Begins 'The Batman Bematrix,' and the pending Dark Knight 'Utter Goddamn Bullshit!' "

I have no clue what that was all about. Let's see here... there's a fairly lengthy set of notes for the concept to a game which, according to the scribbled-in margins, "Would sell more than a fuck-machine made out of anti-aging medicine and those horrible fucking Dan Brown novels." It seems to be based on the two largest-growing exploitable internet trends of the time: Steampunk aesthetics and... sigh... "dickgirl" pornography. Here's a good example page:

A few things to note: (don't worry, nothing explicit on that page other than some naughty words) a) I began this section with the header "Filthy Disgusting Masterpiece"; b) I apparantly cracked myself up a lot, judging by all the underlined "Ha!"s; c) holy shit I totally need to copyright the name "Cockraiser," that shit is genius. If you're curious about the "story," it seems to revolve around an incubus trapped in a succubus' body, and wanting to break into the "boy's club" of the upper ranks of demonhood, who sets about fucking with the Earth to erode notions of gender roles/identity. She gives steam technology to women pioneers, and uses some psuedo-science hormones or someshit to make all the men docile and feminine. She then goes about seducing/boning the most influential dudes remaining in the world to make them bow down to the supremacy of womankind. Meanwhile, the Church sends out a... "Dominatronix" (dominatrix matron... ugh) to whip these men back into shape and restore the power of the patriarchy.

This is probably the single most insane idea I have ever had.

Except for maybe whatever prompted this:

This notebook, dated 2007, filled with names culled from a local paper's obituaries. This may have something to do with why I didn't last at that newspaper gig.

No, seriously. That's all there is.

I don't even know. I apologize to everyone who died in 2007 if I did some sort of bizarro-ritual or something and then blacked out and forgot about it. Uh... my bad?

Speaking of bad, as in content and organizational strategies, remember those doodles I mentioned earlier, and about how there were some good ones that clearly weren't mine? Well, here's some "control" images.

Let me give this abomination some context: Back when I started these, dream-maker and internet SUPAHSTAH KC Green had started up on what was to be known as the "Bad Comics Challenge," an epic quest to see if he could, in fact, make bad comics. And not just a few, either. No, he had to, by his own hand, forge 200 bad comics. It was incredible. And, seeing an excuse for my sinfully lame illustrations, I thought I'd try it, too.

I made it nowhere near 200. That shit is hard, you guys, especially if you ain't in the habit of comic-making. I made a few batches, though, and I guess I'm in a mood to make you look at 'em. Whatever; after that steampunk/femdom thing earlier, there's no possible way I could make anyone think even less of me.

So, you may have noticed, if you weren't either put to sleep by the "jokes" or permanently blinded by the "art," that I was working with "themes" in the various batches of ten. The first set's them is "Movie reference and then S&M joke," and the second set here's theme is "People's reactions to the first set."

Why did I show you this? Because it was easier than coming up with new content? No, not really. I had to scan shit and try to come to grips with how fucking horrifying my life is. No, I showed you all this to make a point. If I ever threaten ya'll that I might show you my "older work," you fuckers settle the hell down and behave. Because I will do it. This crap barely scratches the iceberg. This isn't even the Cliff's Notes on the horrors lying scattered across my apartment. I could unleash an endless stream of pain on your asses, should the mood take me. So whenever you see something that ain't two motherfuckers in a shaky-ass panel standing dead still, looking straight ahead, delivering pathetically structured jokes, you better be goddamned thankful, is all I'm sayin'. I work hard so that you don't see this kind of shit, ok?

Unless of course this turns out to be the most popular thing I've ever done.

Shit.

~ A missive from the gaping maw of the abyss, and your old pal,

Johnny Despair, Esq.

Dilly-Dalliance

Well, chaps, it seems that no box can contain this radical force of nature! Yes, sir, the Despair is here and queer and you had better just get used to it; especially those of you of the dour and God-y types. Get it? Got it? Tip-top!

Hmph, well, between the two of us, Mister Fuddy-Duddy and yours truly are still running just a tad behind—sorry, boys and girls, but it's just gonna hafta wait one more day for the dramatic reveal!

But, believe you me, it will be a glorious one! Not like some… terrible tragic peepshow gloryhole in the alley… Gads, no! It will be more like that hot dollface at the expensive hotspot.

Until tomorrow, sweeties, I bid you adieu! Also, wave 'Cheerio' to Jack as he hangs from the cieling and hisses, on your way out, won't you?

Not For You Studios Presents: A Rare Literary Find!

[Note: Sorry, kiddos, for not tunin' in at the same Despair-Time, same Despair-Channel last week. I was at Small Press Expo, kickin' it anachronistic-school, takin' names and creepin' out Meredith Gran. Sorry I was wierd. You're a real nice lady. Anyway, more con details later, maybe. And now: As the title says.]

James Joyce is undoubtedly one of the most famous authors of the 20th century, with a collection of works as dense with meaning and allusions as they are influential. Perhaps best known for his Ulysses, his unquestioned masterpiece, but his neither is his earlier work unforgotten. His infamous collection of short stories, Dubliners, was composed between the ages of 22 and 25, yet is just as complex and rewarding as anything he's written. Recently, yet another classic Joycian composition has been unearthed: a previously unknown collection of stories that compliment and build on the rich themes of Dubliners: Americaners. Here, we are pleased to present some excerpts from this recovered marvel, which we are sure is not long off from being elevated to most celebrated positions in the literary canon, as well as some brief introductory analysis.

In our first excerpt, “A True Patriot,” Joyce once again explores the theme of man's struggle against the horrible inevitabilities of the universe, of the common worker's endless battle to retain some control over his existence, and the sad lows that this losing war drives him to. “Sunday Mornings” turns Joyce's attention to the church, as one might expect of that classic religious provocateur. “Hard Work” focuses primarily on the senseless brutalities that are so often encouraged by male bonding rituals, touching briefly on the question of where the blame in these situations lies, on the individuals, or on the society. “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds” continues Joyce's exploration of manhood, this time directed towards the study of often predatory male sexuality and its consequences.“Wastes” is truly classic Joycian stream-of-consciousness, which is always a deceptively complex delight, giving wonderful insight into the amazing mind which gave rise to so many complex, wonderful characters.

A True Patriot

A dark red truck races along a tired back road. The driver's heart races along with, faster, setting the pace as the lead car. His name is short and crude, either Frank or Earl or perhaps even Bob. It is irrelevant, much like his suspended license and his pending court date. He is tense, willing the Earth to somehow compress so his destination might be closer. He will make it, he tells himself, he has to.

A single rock sticks out of the barely-paved road, a mineral-based iceberg in his path. Bloodshot eyes weary of long hours at the mill and longer hours at the bar fail him. The truck sails smoothly over the rock like a longboat cresting a wave. The heap reconnects with the road in a jarring cacophony of scraping and shaking. It is too much for him. For an instant, he eases, and in that instant, he is lost. The man releases a long, greasy tube of excrement into his coveralls.

His face reddens with shame. He mutters some curse towards the minority that served him his ethnically flavored yet inescapably Americanized dinner. He blames them, the Mexicans or Italians or perhaps Chinese who prepared his meal, though his heart is not in it, and the ugly slur tastes bitter upon his lips.

He finally arrives at home. He pounds through the front door of his trailer and back to the bathroom. “What stinks like shit?” his wife calls. He kicks the dog, and then the other dog, and thinks about chasing the other three down and kicking them, too, just to show them, but goes to clean himself instead. He sees the mirror hanging over the sink and avoids looking at himself. He wipes the massive, smeared pile of crap from his good pants and studies the bumper sticker taped onto the mirror: “These colors don't run.”

Sunday Mornings

Sunday mornings, Father Randy stood before the crowd and told them God's inalterable, immutable will. Sunday afternoons, he followed them to the local sportsbar and indulged. He was a good man, a pious man, and after all, beer was not so different from wine. Father Randy often joked about his Buds being sacramental booze. People rarely laughed at his jokes.

Father Randy almost never drank alone, and there was no one he wouldn't drink with. He drank with old Hershel, who preferred Old Testament stories, and he drank with young Tommy, who never wanted to “God talk” with Father Randy. Father Randy drank with the ladies about town, as well. Norma Jean and Bobby Sue and Sally Sally all consented to pass the time with the good father, in and out of the bar. Some places might have talked about such conduct, but people around these here parts were decent, God-fearing folk, and they knew that Father Randy was a man of God, and God moves in mysterious ways, and after all even a man of God is still just a man, let he without sin cast the first stone, and so on.

Besides, Father Randy still maintained his duties as a reverend. He was never late for services, and he always made sure someone was taking confessions. He himself manned the confessional four days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Wednesdays were slow, and he felt sure he could simply skip that day's services, but he didn't because he was a man called by God, after all. Saturdays were the busiest day, as people wanted to get themselves right with the Lord in time for Sunday morning. Saturdays he heard all sorts of sins. He heard about cheating, lying, lusting, and even stealing from time to time. He never judged them, for it was God's domain to judge mankind. He showed them the way back on to God's path, and he prayed for them to be strong and resist the Devil's wicked temptations.

Out of all the people Father Randy prayed for, he prayed for Joey Gren the most. Joey came in every Saturday night to seek forgiveness for his sins. Joey never said it was him, but Father Randy could tell. He'd drank with the boy many times, still drank with the boy, in fact. Ever since Joey started confessing, though, Randy felt strange, sitting next to each other, sharing a pitcher. Joey'd take a drink, and Randy couldn't help thinking about the places he knew those lips had been. Joey'd laugh over something, maybe one of Randy's jokes, and his laugh was so easy, so friendly, that Randy could only think about all the other boys that Joey had laughed with. What drove a man to do those things, those horrible, disgusting things? How could he just sit there, knowing what he'd done? Knowing what people would do, if they knew? More than that: why did Randy still share his Sunday afternoons with him? What drove him to hear more about those illicit sins?

One Sunday morning, Joey didn't make it out to services. Father Randy filled his sermon with the full severity of God's wrath. Father Randy couldn't wait for it to end. He needed a beer. He needed a lot of beers. He rushed through the proceedings in a sweat. At the bar, he drank like he did back in his school days: recklessly. On this day, there were no jokes. Father Randy couldn't help but speak. He spoke the truth, but without honesty. He poured out the knowledge he had of Joey Gren's sins. “In a town this small, how could I not tell who it was,” he asked them. The places, the times, the acts, the men. All of this he heaped on them, hoping to free himself of this terrible knowledge. No one interrupted him. When he could not say anything else, he simply left.

That week, he could not sleep. Why had he said all that? No, the real question was: why did it matter that Joey wasn't there? This Saturday, when they met again, in the confessional, he would ask. He'd ask more than that. He'd ask questions he thought he could never ask.

Saturday came. Father Randy could barely contain himself. He did all things in his normal way, careful not to let anyone notice anything different about him. But every time he heard the confessional door open, he felt himself stir.

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned.” It was just old Hershel. He didn't come into confessional all that often; Randy had the distinct impression it was something against him, personally. “Though I done it in the Lord's name, I have committed the deadly sin of Wrath. That little queer you done told us about? Well, I done strung his ass up, inna tree, the way folks used to.” It was old Herschel. In a town this small... Randy stared at the floor of the confessional, searching for something. But of course, he knew that this was the only way it could end. Closing his eyes, he blessed old Herschel and sent him on his way.

Hard Work

Thunder split a dull gunmetal sky, but the men gathered in the bar couldn't hear it over their cheers. The television was broadcasting images of brightly colored cars speeding around and around a track, and they all marveled at their speed and their circling ability. Their drinks are staggeringly cheap and plentiful and do nothing to soften the incessant pain of their pedestrian lives. But the cars drove on, and that was such a clever thing for them to do.

Someone won and the race ended. The men continued to cheer nothing throughout the evening, even as they were thrust into the miserable, storming night. There were four of them, there, stumbling through the parking lot. In a dazzling display of cunning and skill at the very least equal to that of the race car drivers', all four make it to their own chariots and persuade them to life. The first, Bobby Mitchell, dashed himself against a tree in a truly tragic scene. “Big” Curtis Lee was far more successful, only hitting a passing vagrant. Billy Bobson made it home unmolested, parked his car askew across the driveway, filled his passenger seat with vomit, and passed out. But Russel Hass took home the gold. His voyage home was a simple thing, as was easing the car into its proper place, as was finding the right keys for the front door, as was beating his wife, nightly, for reasons that only true gentlemen could understand. Tonight, he beat on her before taking in the meal she had prepared him, and even before his customary glass of whiskey. It is not that these things brought Russel any joy; but, one does what one must to get by.

Gentlemen Prefer Blonds

It was Friday, and for Hank Johns, this meant two things. The first was that it was payday. The second was that he could afford to buy some pussy. The women he purchased often referred to it as “attention” or “company” or “a date,” but in this act, Hank did not harbor any illusions. He knew he was buying nothing more or less than a few hours of their time and a big, messy farewell.

Hank loved whores. He loved to watch them walk, carrying confidence in their product and anxiety. What was it exactly that worried them, Hank sometimes wondered. Was it fear? Of arrests, of being robbed, left bound and gagged and maybe gutted out in some cheap hotel? Of blacks, perhaps? Hank's father taught him how to pick out whores, how to know their tricks, how to avoid getting caught up in their personal tragedies. Hank wondered: what did their fathers teach them? Were they taught how to hide a gun, how to shoot it, how to squeeze men for their last dollar? Were they taught how to drown it all away in the same bars they worked?

Hank's father always told him not to think about whores, just holes. Hank used to think this was wise advice; it was certainly the easiest way to avoid getting taken in, after all. But Hank found that half the fun was in the thought of it. Thinking about their fears. Thinking about what made them do it. Desperation? There weren't many jobs around, that was for sure, and everyone needed to eat. He could tell, from stretch marks and the occasional cesarean scar, that many of them had children. Hank liked to think of those children, liked to imagine them watching him as he used their mothers. Sometimes he stood in screaming crowds outside the doctor's offices, and as he looked at all the signs urging to “think of the children,” he'd get hard. His wife, standing beside him, always seemed to notice, always turned away in disgust. Did she know? It didn't matter. Perhaps she whored too, maybe she was in other bars picking up men, or being picked up. The thought of this, though distasteful, was not enough to stop him.

This Friday night, Hank was lucky. A fresh one walked into the bar. Hank could tell by the way she avoided the bar, avoided ordering a drink, that she hadn't done this before, and actually thought it mattered to the bartender that she was underage. Hank wondered how underage she was, and felt a furious stiffness growing in him. He walked up to her. “Hay thaar, sweet thang.” She flinched as he laid his hand upon her, withered under his smile, but he knew she would not turn away. “Is thar a keg in yer shorts? Kuz I can't wait to tap that ass.”

Wastes

A fat, blotchy redneck drinks awful booze. His face is horrible and his mind unbelievably dumb. He loves only awful things and is just a stupid jerk. He hits his wife and his kids and minorities sometimes when no one is looking and what a miserable piece of crap you're thinking well you know what surprise he's the perfect metaphor in every way for this stupid goddamn country.

—Sweet American dreams, kiddies, from your very own oogie-boogey man,

a certain Mr. Johnny Despair, Esq.

I Found A Funny Thing In My Inbox

Alright, so, you know how I mentioned the shit I'd been up to over the past year? And the part about the lawsuit, right? Well, I got a n email this week. Apparently, some crappy little, I dunno, I guess like a local news rag or something, picked up my story, right, and wants to run a piece on it, and they sent me a waiver to sign and whatever and a preview of the story.

I figured, what the hell, let people read it. Get some 'a the scuzzy little details about the whole sordid affair. And then I figured, well hell, if it's good enough for these assholes 'round here, that I don't even know, then it's good enough for all you out there, who I also don't friggin' know.

Bizarre Agenda of Local Survivalist-Cult Figure Revealed

Lawsuit, Self-Published Magazine Paint Disturbing Picture

By Franklin Wolfram, Staff Reporter

We've all noticed the blight of foreclosed properties in our troubled community, and we've also noticed the swelling number of homeless thriving on those abandoned lands. Being upstanding members of the community, we've had no real idea what was going on in those darkened lots. But a recent lawsuit has provided an unnerving insight into the madness going on in our very backyards.

In our own sleepy neighborhoods, there has been a clandestine, secretive group, stalking through the shadows, sifting through our trash, and forming war-bands. This group had no names, no central leader, no single base of operations. Even now, the police can't say for certain that they've got this bizarre fringe group rooted out. There could still be splinter cells lurking about. The police have taken to referring to this group as the “Followers of the Apocalypse.”

One local man, however, has taken credit for founding this organization. An eccentric man who has gone to some lengths to conceal his true identity, paperwork indicates that his legal name is Johnny Despair, though there is no verification of when this name change was enacted, or where. His reign over the Follower of the Apocalypse was brought to an end a few months ago. Not in a glorious police raid, or by rebellious factions within his own twisted commune, but by an anti-discrimination lawsuit. Shaun Kreuz, one of the men who filed the lawsuit, described his first meeting with Mr. Despair:

“Well, you see, me and a few of the other guys, we'd heard about it, and it seemed like, I guess, fun. But when we get there, he's just sitting there, you know, on this stack of DVD cases, smoking, and giving us this evil eye. And we told him we wanted to join. Then he started cursing, a lot, and asked what was wrong with us. And, so I said, “Well, I'm sure, good sir, that you couldn't possibly be referring to our religious convictions. As we all know, Hubology is a respected religion, and I won't tolerate any sort of statements against it.” And then, he started swearing more, and talking about killing us, and doing awful things to our bodies, and I think he may have peed himself. Well, we know better than to hang around where we're not wanted. We also no better than to let such a lucrative lawsuit simply pass by. I mean, seriously. He didn't have a leg to stand on. He was screwed. Big time.”

Mr. Despair's “legal team” filed a number of objections and counters to these claims. They attempted to claim temporary insanity and have their client declared unfit to stand trial. I have managed to obtain some of the documents associated with this plea, and to further gain insight into the mind of this sinister force, I would like to print some of them here.

Editor's note: Not all of the evaluation is presented. Some is basic information, such as the doctor making the interviewee aware that the interview will inform his decision if the interviewee is fit to stand trial. Some is not available to us, do to legal concerns. It is still being printed, however, due to our believe that there is enough we can disclose here to give the public a better understanding of the case in general. Both parties have endorsed the running of this excerpt, though the evaluating doctor has declined to have his name revealed.

Editor's note: from here, the rest of the interview is unavailable. The entirety of the evaluating doctor's notes on the interview are available, however, and presented here.

But there is more to the story of this madman, of this self-styled revolutionist and his plans for his deranged fellowship. Further research has dredged up a series of underground " 'zines " published by the infamous Mr. Despair. They are shoddily-crafted offerings which would be truly terrifying if not so pathetic. Preachy, meandering, paranoid rants and musings on no subjects in particular, signifying nothing, he nonetheless managed to get others to contribute to these incendiary leaflets. One issue, in particular, carries a sinister, apocalyptic tone, as Mr. Despair rambles on about why it is he's collected this terrible tome:

Clearly, it is quite disturbing to think that this fiend, this manipulator, this unrepentant reprobate is still lurking, still scheming, somewhere in our very own quiet community.Police say that there's nothing to worry about, but of course, they have all the guns. Dear readers, remain vigilant. There is a madmen running loose in our very own backyards!

And his name is Johnny Despair, Esq.