Shadowlight's Lighthouse

Webcomics Nonillustrated, Part Eight: Love Hurts
July 24th, 2009
Current Music:"Hey There, Delilah", the Plain White T's
Panel 1: Judy Dear is slumped against Sally's chair, the crossbow bolts still sticking out of her back. Sally has a shocked expression on her face, looking down at Dear.
Sally: You killed her!! You bastards! oh, wait. werecat. right. ...but even so.*
Dear (tiny cursive) I'm all right. It's fine....If you'll excuse me, I think I need to powder my nose...
Sally: uh, yeah, me too

Caption: *Author's Note: Sally's finely honed werewolf senses can distinguish types of werecreatures by the distinctive smell of their blood.


Panel 2: Sally follows Judy as she staggers down the hall (leaning against the wall for support but also leaning forward slightly to suggest continual momentum) ...

Panel 3: ...and is right behind her when she opens the door to the bathroom, which contains a Bulk-size jug of antiseptic and an assortment of surgical tools, including the type of pliers used to pull out bullets.

Dear: (tiny crisp print) Sally, if you'll be so kind to help? These feel like they'll come out better from the back.

Sally: Sure. So...crossbow bolts?

Dear: (tiny crisp) not as fun as bullets.


Panel 4: Dear is leaned forward onto the sink basin, facing the mirror, while Sally uses the pliers to carefully pry the first of the quarrels out.

Sally: Look, Judy, I know I've only known you for two hours, so if you tell me to keep my snout out of this, I'll respect that, but while we're alone, I have to ask--

Sally: Why do you put up with this?


Panel 5: view from mirror, looking straight at Judy's face, (which wears a slight smile, with arched eyebrows, despite the blood trickling from her mouth) Sally behind her, glancing up with her hands still on the pliers.

Dear: (tiny, crisp) Sally, you're a Changer, so I know you can keep a secret. Can I tell you something in the strictest confidence, just between us girls?

Sally: sure.

Dear: (tiny crisp) When Marvin first got his curse, he was terrified of what he was becoming, of his animal nature coming out, of hurting me. So, I showed him that he _couldn't_ hurt me. You see, changers of my generation didn't change in public. It just wasn't done. If I'd turned into a big jungle cat right in front of people, well... they would've run in panic, or called a zookeeper! but, this? It might shock people, but it's not a threat to anyone. It's a quiet way of showing I'm more than what I look like. Ever since, this has been our little game, the way we show we're not afraid (of each other, or ourselves), that we love each other the way we truly are. ...and I have to admit, it's kind of exciting, not knowing when it's going to happen or what form it will take.


Panel 6: Living room. Panda is now sitting on the couch that Marvin and Mal are still standing next to. They all look at a loss for words.

Caption: Living Room...

Panel 7: As in Panel 6

Marvin: ...so, Pluto's not a planet anymore?

Mal: I was surprised, too.

Panda: It turns out there's a whole swarm of them out there. Let Pluto back in, and you'd need to let in all the kuiper objects, and whatever's out in the Oort Cloud.

Marvin: hm. That'd be hard to write a song about. Nothing rhymes with "Oort".

Panda: ...yeah.


Panel 8: Back in the bathroom, Sally is pulling free the last of the quarrels.

Sally: So, this is some big, kinky trust exercise? It's not really abusive at all?

Dear: (tiny, crisp) Oh, sometimes we'll get mad and use it to get out our frustrations. Most couples fight. We mostly just dismember each other... but if Marvin thought for a minute he'd really hurt me, he'd stop on a dime.

Sally: huh. ...do you have tweezers? I think some of this one broke off inside.


Panel 9: a few seconds later, Dear (still bent over) is handing Sally the tweezers.

Dear: (tiny crisp) So, you and Mal don't have any understandings like that?

Sally: Me and Mal?? Hell, no. I'm not dating him. He's a vampire, for Christ's sake!

Dear: (tiny crisp) I've seen mixed marriages work.


Panel 10: Close-up of Sally staring intently into Judy Dear's wounds, as she picks around inside with the tweezers.

Sally: *sigh* This might take a little while.

Dear: (tiny crisp, off-panel in direction of her head) Some things do...

Sally: Forget it, Judy.


Panel 11: Living room. Panda is looking up attentively at Marvin, who is bent at the waist towards Panda, holding one hand out towards him, fingers outstretched, palm down; and grinning widely as he talks. Mal, behind them, has his head back and eyes clenched shut, roaring with laughter.

Caption: ...a little while later.

Marvin: so then the cabbie looks at Sammy DelRubio, then he looks at Mal, then he looks back at me and says, 'I don't know what you guys've got, but I'm hosing this whole cab down with bactine as soon as I get back to the garage!'

Mal: HAH-ha-ha-HA!!
[note to letterer: The transliteration of laughs into print is, as you know, a treacherous science. One might say it's simpler to put in a cloud of "HA"s in various sizes and call it good. Then again, I don't have a letterer, so I had to put something.]


Panel 12: Marvin's attention is snagged by Dear, fully recovered, stepping into the frame. (Mal has stopped to catch his breath and dry his eyes.)

Panel 13: Close-up of Marvin's ear. Dear's lips are near it, parted slightly.

Dear: (tiny, crisp) Marvin, darling, no more crossbows. They give me splinters. Sally was forever getting them all out.

Marvin: (tiny, crisp) oh! Yes, dear.


Panel 14: Dear, smiling serenely, stands next to Marvin, who looks over at Mal, who looks pleasantly surprised.

Marvin: Hey, Mal-- you want to buy a crossbow? It's slightly used, but I could let it go for cheap.

Mal: wow! Seriously??


Panel 15: Marvin is now reaching for the crossbow, abandoned just beyond the panel in the direction of the wall and mantlepiece. Dear has rolled her eyes in a bemused expression. Sally pokes her head into the panel from the direction of the rest of the living room and looks at Mal with annoyance, as he does to her. Panda ducks his head down to stay out of this.

Sally: Mal, so help me, if I so much as feel the wind of one of those bolts flying past, I will nail you into your coffin with no cellphone for a week.

Mal: Yeah, I hear you, Sally.

Sally: Listen and remember, bloodsucker.


Panel 16: Sally is gone again. Marvin has resumed his previous position (from Panel 14), except now he's holding the empty crossbow. Mal looks at him ambivalently.

Mal: I..i'll think about it.


Next time: the Epilogue. probably.

Webcomics Nonillustrated, Part Six: Someway, Somehow... (not so much indecent as just long and silly
July 14th, 2009
Current Mood:amused strangely accomplished
Establishing shot (night, full moon) of a ranch-style house and cypress trees, with a marshy pond filled with flamingos in the foreground. Caption reads: "The Jobblewocki's Flamingo Ranch/ Citrusville, Florida"

Panel 2: Interior. Marvin (looking the same as my ill-gotten userpic from the 1950s) and his wife (prim, young, blond, June Cleaver-ish) greet Mal, who is standing in the open front doorway, as well as Sally and Panda, standing behind Mal. Sally looks confused.

Marvin: "Mal! Golly, it's been ages, hasn't it? You look great!
Mal: "Thanks. I try to stay out of the sun. It causes wrinkles."
Marvin: "You remember my wife, of course? Dear, these are Mal's friends, Sally Black and Panda Sapien. "
Dear: (in teensy tiny faded cursive print) 'assorted greetings and pleasantries'

Panel 3: The personae have stepped inside.
Marvin: "Mal, can we get you something to drink?"
Dear, with a slight smile, holds her forearms out towards Mal, wrists upward.
Mal: "No, I'm good."
Marvin; "Anyone else? I've got some Jonestown Cola in the fridge."
Panda: "No, thanks. The bubbles and the cyanide bother my stomach."

Panel 4: a spacious living room furnished in an art deco, early 1960s style. In the background, Mal and Marvin chat comfortably, while Dear looks on contentedly from a few feet away. In the foreground, Sally, now irritated, glares at Panda, who is sitting next to her and shrugging.

Sally: What the hell?? This is Part 6? Where was Part 5, and how'd we get here?

Panda: You skipped Part One, so I skipped Part five.

Sally: Yeah? Well, Part one was three lines. I'm guessing Part Five must've been a good deal longer. So Marvin and his wife are still alive, huh?

Panda: Sure, why not? There's no comedic potential in them being dead.

Sally: They're the same age they were 60 years ago! Care to explain that, for those of us who missed the epic Part Five?

Panda: Well, as weres, they're magical creatures--

Sally: No. I'm a werewolf. We age. You've seen my grandfather. Try again.

Panda: Clean living, healthy lifestyle, and using every product exactly as directed could--

Sally: Eternal Life through Pepsodent and cannibalism? Weaksauce.

Panda: Summer Daydream?

Sally: That's Dounsbury. Mal's only entitled to weekly delusions and two 15-minute psychotic breaks per day, neither of which should be diverting me from my busy schedule.

Panda: Ok, they were put in cryogenic suspension by the Witness Protection Program for ratting out the Broccoli* crime family.

Caption: *(pronounced 'bri-COH-lee').

Sally: the Broccoli crime family?? Who are they? Why do they want Marvin and Dear dead? Since when does the Witness Protection Program have technology like that? or was all this explained in Part Five?

Panda: No, Part Five just drops cryptic hints. It's actually all revealed in 'Marvin & Dear #0'. It's, umm, highly collectible, so there might not be any left by the time you get to the comicbook shop.

Sally: Convenient. You're digging yourself a hole here.

Panda: *sigh* I know, but you have to do that to build a foundation.

Caption, bottom right: to be continued in Part 7. (no, really this time)

Webcomics Nonillustrated: Part 4: A New Bloke
July 11th, 2009
This one's kinda long, so I'm putting it in the comments. It's not sexually explicit, but it's... somewhat explicit. horror-comedy. might count as fanfic, of a tv show I never saw. attempts to find video footage suggest that a local live tv series from the 1950s probably was never recorded to film in the first place, meaning it's impossible for me to have seen it. This is, in any event, a 're-imagining' (like Tim Burton calls his fanfic) It's not Shakespeare, but at least I'm writing something.
Our story picks up a few hours after Part 3, with Steven (a human version of Panda) and Sally (in human form) sitting on opposite sides of Mal (as a huge blob of black energy covered with red eyes ala' 'Hellsing'! ok, no, actually he's also in humanoid form) in Mal's living room...

Comment by me: so, apparently comments have a maximum length. hrm. ok, I guess I'll post it as a new entry, and hope the Adult Content setting will do what my lj-cuts never do.

*ripcrinkletearcrinkle*
Sally: "A Sarah Palin Chew Toy?? Wow, Mal, where'd you find this?"
Mal:You can find anything on the Internet if you look hard enough. It talks, too. 26 Palin quotes, in case you need Instant Rage!"
*ripcrinkletearcrinkle*
Mal: "a box of Chocolate Covered Scabs! I didn't know they still made these."
Glory: "a little place called the Aztec Candy Co. in New Mexico. An admirer sent one of their chocolate-filled -while -still -beating -hearts for Valentine's Day. I sent it back, but I figured you'd appreciate their wares more than I did."
*ripcrinkletearcrinkle*
Glory: "oh, honeybear! It's a diadem of mystic orange flame! How'd you know I used to wear one of these?"
Panda: "temple wall paintings in Assyrian ruins, a few emails to some anthropologists to follow up... the hard part was finding someone who could actually make jewelry out of orange flames."
*ripcaaarefullyseparateandunfold,preservingthewrappingpaper*
Sally: "Panda, for crying out loud, just rip the thing!"
Panda:"but, Sally, it's such nice paper, I don't want to ruin"--
Sally: "next year, I'm just getting you wrapping paper for Christmas."
Panda (holding up book): "_Fire & Nice: Getting Rid of this Polite Nice Guy Crap and Speaking up for Yourself_ This is actually a book? "
Sally: "You'll thank me later."
Panda: "Thank you, Sally."
Sally: "No! I said later! Read the book first!"
Panda: "ok, Sally. (looks straight at the Fourth Wall) From all of us at Malpanda's Journal, to all of you out in the Blogosphere... "
Mal: "Who's he talking to?"
Sally points. Mal looks at Fourth Wall, screams, and falls over onto the floor.
(all, in Unison, even Mal): MERRY CHRISTMAS!

There are ... certain segments of the population who live under the fallacious belief that a refusal to follow the morality of the herd makes them ubermenschen, freed from any obligation to follow the rules by the simple realization that they don't have to follow the rules. (Do note the circularity; the backwards understanding of what poor, crazy Nietzsche was trying to say; the potential for further civil disintegration, as more worthwhile citizens ask themselves why they follow the rules when these @wipes are barely punished for ignoring them)
These amoralists fancy themselves wolves in sheep's clothing, pulling said wool over the eyes of the Shepherd, preying on the surrounding flock at leisure. Now, should you see one of them (for they are often not as hard to spot as they think they are) please give them this message, from me, as someone who should know: "You are not a wolf. You are merely a black sheep, and one day, when you're not expecting it, the jaws of the beast that Shepherd was trying to protect you from will clamp down on your neck, and you'll sorely regret that you got yourself on the wrong side of the fence." Will you tell them that? for me, your Aunt Sally? for their own good and the general societal welfare? in a boat with a goat?

[Our guest commentator today is Sally Black, an outspoken critic on social issues. We're now presuming that allegations that she is a feminist werewolf are, uh, distortions at best.]

Hey, people. This wasn't gonna be my first commentary, but due to time constraints, I have to get this one out soon. More general barks will have to wait until later. I also wanted to write a commentary supporting a ban on bear-baiting, but if y'all can't piece together for yourselves that bears are an important part of the forest ecosystem and that luring them into traps to kill them purely for your own amusement is twisted and wrong, then nothing I say is gonna have small enough syllables for you to understand.
Now that the bear-baiters are gone, I'd like to urge the rest of you to vote on November 2nd. Vote early so you don't forget, and if you do forget, turn around and go back and try again. Don't be turned off by the crassness of the political races. Don't be turned away by shifty polling place tricks. Don't get turned around by weird butterfly ballots. If you registered and they try to say you didn't, raise a fuss. If the ballots are unclear or hard to read, have them explain it to you in minute detail. Voting is your right as an American, and I want you to demand that right and exercise it to its fullest extent. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for in the Presidential Race. Your decision's none of my business. All I'd ask is that you think your choice over carefully first, and not base it solely on one or more of the following lousy bits of reasoning.

1. "I'm voting for Bush/Kerry because Kerry/Bush looks creepy." Honestly, most of your politicians look creepy. I don't know if it's something to do with the gene pool of your rich white men from old-money families, wear and tear from decades forcing themselves to smile when they don't really want to smile, or what, but it's not an accurate gauge of anything. Abraham Lincoln had Marfan's and clinical depression. Do you really think he'd look good in shirtsleeves and natural light on CNN? How about FDR?

2. "Kerry flip-flops on the issues". Weren't your last two presidents accused of being flip-floppers? In fact, weren't they generally considered by sizable pieces of the citizenry to *be* flipfloppers? Wasn't Bush's own father an example of how the ability to change one's mind when confronted by new information or circumstances can be a great asset as a politician and a strategist? Isn't his son an example of how an inability to change his plans even when circumstances completely reverse around him can be catastrophic? I sometimes think, if a nuclear war wiped out 90% of the Earth's population, Dubya would turn to Cheney and say, "Well, Dick, now that the whole Iraq thing's taken care of, I think our first priority should be more tax cuts to stimulate the economy."

3. "We can't change leaders in the middle of a war." In that case, you might never change leaders again. You see, you can win a War against a country (if you plan well and work hard enough). You can win a war against an organization (if you stop trying to swat flies with a sledgehammer and use an intelligent approach). You cannot, however, ever win a war against an emotion (like "terror") or a type of human endeavor (like "committing terrorism" or "using drugs"). It's a fundamentally impossible task. You can influence people's choices, but you can't ever force them at tank-point to change their ways. You can't be everywhere, watching everyone, all the time. You can't kill Death with a gun, because killing causes Death. Why, then, have your solidiers been sent to attack Fear with their "Shock-and-Awe" bombing tactics?

4. "Bush is a Christian." Whereas Kerry is, obviously, a Buddhist, right? It's those Tibetan robes he's always wearing that give it away. Look, which God you *profess* to serve doesn't mean squat if you don't serve His (or Her or whatever) purpose by acting according to an appropriate moral code. You shouldn't have to *tell* anyone you're a Christian. Act enough like Christ that they'll just know it. In fact, act enough like Christ that everyone will think you must belong to their religion, whatever it happens to be. I know humans can't always be that perfect, but your current leaders don't seem to be making much of an effort. The fruit is rotten on the branch. In November, you can smell it in the air.

5. "I'm not voting for Kerry because I know anything about him. I'm just voting against Bush." Y'know, Adolph Hitler was elected to his office by the people of Germany. I can't help but notice that Hitler, while dead and not an American citizen, is, nevertheless, not George Bush. When you say, "anything is better than this!", you'd better hope really hard that you're right.

6. "I own a multinational conglomerate. I vote what's best for GlobalMegaCorp." Okay, first, when did the hypothetical person you made up so you could dodge taxes start running your life instead of vice versa? Second, (and try to follow along with this one, because it's apparently hard for humans to grasp this sort of thing) democracy is rule by the people. If the people use that power for their own self-interest, even to the detriment of others, then this nation will be ruled by evil beings--its own people, oppressing each other. I'm asking you to vote your conscience, not your checkbook or scorecard; for the greater good, not for a chicken in your pot that came from someone else's dinner table. For that one moment, you have power over a nation. Reign justly.

Peace and Justice, everybody. That's my rant. We now return you to your regularly scheduled lives, already in progress.