Disturbing Stuff: Asexual Zimmerman Fanfic

How could someone introduce an Asexual at the very end of an erotic fanfic?  For those of you curious about the fanfic I mentioned when talking about my Asexuality, I’ll give a rough summary of the general outline I had in mind.  There will be several compressed stories with the humourous highlights left intact.  I tried to make it as SFW as possible without showing any of the images, but large swatches of the narrative still sounds very very dirty.

Fans of Zimmerman’s drawings should have an idea of what I’m referencing.

For those who don’t want to read all the parodic elements and skip straight to the disturbing parts, search for the word ‘Remember’ and read down from there.

JACK's Uncollected Comics

There are times when I wish I had better foreknowledge of how to properly download and save files of webcomics, never knowing that they might not be around forever.  Neko's House had numerous differently named files, which would make saving all of them a chore without proper foreplanning.  I'm regretting not saving any of City of Reality when I had the chance.  Part of that was because some of the pages had Flash images, which were embedded in the stories, and could only be saved via saving the entire page and finding the sole SFW file in there.  That, and I was sure that such ambitious quality comics would surely be collected into dead tree form sometime in the future.  But my optimism was sadly misplaced.

Part of stems from wanting to wait until the story is done before going to the trouble of saving everything.  Another is contemplating the desire to reread something again and preserve it for future generations.  There are so many hours in the day, and the latest influx of newer comics popping up make it hard to resist temptation.  Not to mention the

I was able to save 70 Seas, and the mouseover text and commentary of Larp Trek.  I mention this because there were times when I thought the domain home had run out from the experience that is JACK.  The comic had been bouncing on and off of servers multiple times, going from keenspot to Pholph with weekly updates, going into sporadic updates, to fewer updates, with less and less impetus to see what wild things were going to happen next.  There's supposedly two final arcs to wrap everything up, but considering the amount of stuff and lack of keeping everything that's happened so far straight, there's not much hope of ever seeing the ending.

When the site wasn't available, I began to panic and started using the webarchive to gather as much material as I could before it was too late.  And then the creator made the entirety of JACK available for download, though the Flash file for Short 30: Twist Twist Twist doesn't work.  Those who've seen the 3rd page in action know what I'm talking about.

The crossed out words don't show up, though everything else is intact.

What I particularly liked about JACK was the convenient option of showing all the pages of a story arc in one fell swoop, which made speedreading notoriously easy without having to go to the trouble of constantly clicking for the next page.  Though sometimes it wasn't always perfect, as some pages in Two For You were confusingly out of order, and homosexual elements in How To Make A Monster were missing.  (Since the website is no longer available, these are now moot points) Two For You also had some bonus pages by typing the answers into the webpage address that I have yet to find.



When JACK wasn't being worked on, the creator David Hopkins seems to have busied himself with doing commission artwork and doing the nonsensical Perils of Paula and a Furry version of Friday the 13th.  But when JACK was on hiatus, he made an adaptation of Pink Floyd's The WALL in a kind of form of therapy that can only be described as a self-indulgent rant that was so noxious and poisonous that after a few lyrics, I couldn't bear to look at it.  And there's a LOT of disturbing stuff in JACK that I like, which should tell you something.  You can check out parts of it in the links here, but consider yourself warned.

All this is to say that while browsing the Pholph home page on webarchive, I came across some comics that didn't seem to be available elsewhere.  Namely, the JACK version of Terror at 20,000 Feet.  Sadly, the 4th and 9th pages are missing.  Originally, I wasn't going to keep them if I didn't have the whole collection.  But coming back upon them later, I figured I might as well save them while I still had the chance, since they weren't available elsewhere.  And the gist of the story is still present even with stuff missing.



This is where the 4th page would normally be.  Ironically enough, while I like the concept of the Twilight Zone, I'm not a fan of the execution.  The old episodes seem to take too long, and could easily be condensed in half.  And they all focus on just ONE slightly off-kilter element of reality instead of multiple.  Other shows that have parodied the elements and endings of the show have basically ruined the Twilight Zone for me.  I'd say that Neal Shusterman's short stories come closest to my idea of what a Twilight Zone episode should feel like.




And again, here's where the 9th page would be.  I imagine there'd be lots of black with floating eyeballs here.  I've never seen the episode here, save for the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror version.


That's supposed to be Kane, the supposed Big Bad of Jack driving the truck there, but he's made such little of a commanding impression in the comic that he's more anticlimatic than actually intimidating.

Disturbing Personal Project: THIS IS THEY

Frequent visitors may have noticed that I haven’t exactly been updating my blog as much as I would’ve liked to.  This isn’t from a lack of subject material - indeed, I have TOO MANY potential comics to choose from, and finding the proper comics is somewhat of an uphill struggle.

But another potential reason (other than being involved with Real Life stuff and marathoning several TV series) is that I’ve been preoccupied with a personal project of mine, a WebNovel that I just recently started; THIS IS THEY.  Fitting that this should happen during the month of Nanowrimo where people take the challenge to submit a writing project of fifty thousand words to motivate them into jumpstarting the writing process.

The act of writing a whole novel from the base up can seem like a daunting task for those not used to the craft, but there’s a simple way out of this - simply start writing anything - ANYTHING, no matter how bad it is.  Get into the habit of writing so it'll be easier as it goes along, and get the bad stuff out of the way.  Deliberately creating bad writing out of the hopes that something good might come from the ashes.  Just keep writing and writing until the sheer amount of material overwhelms what you have.  Write until you can’t write any more.  Write crap to get the crap out of the way, so you can focus on the good stuff.  Failing that, write crap intentionally so that it’ll be so bad that it’ll ironically be good.  Since I mostly deal with humour, this kind of rationale comes easily to me.

Of course, that’s not exactly my method.  I prefer to think things through, and like to know where I’m going.  As long as I’ve got a rough outline of my story, and can see the potential plot threads tying together, I can write whatever comes to mind.  The trick is putting all those thoughts in a coherent manner that makes sense.

I’d been wanting to share my stories for some time, but had no knowledge of a reputable site that would allow chapters to be read in chronological order.  Eventually, I decided on WordPress after seeing another WebNovel there, but the site is remarkably user unfriendly, and as such I only have an index, and chapters, which are the same thing.  For the time being, you can access the next chapters by clicking the "Next Post" links near the bottom of the page, but I'd like those to be higher up.  Until someone helps me format the site to my liking, it’s gonna remain in Beta stage for now.

I’d been wanting to do this since my first foray into creating a quasi-history of Anime in America by it’s reluctance to be accepted, and portray various Anime characters as caricatures of Pokemon, since that was the Anime that caused the Japanese import to explode in popularity, and would result in mainstream acceptance of thinking that ALL Anime was Pokemon.

My intent was to have the artistic style start out as American, in 9-panel Watchmen format, which would be completely blown apart during the instances that Otakus - people who’d been possessed by Fansubs - would have to be exorcised via a secret organization devoted to keeping Anime from getting popular, run by their mysterious shadowy founders, The Rabbit & The Mouse, who would constantly bicker over their seating.

“By all rights, my chair should be higher!”
“Your ears are at the same height as mine.”

Once the Possessed Otaku would be taken care of, the panels would go “back to normal”, but slightly and subtly changed every time throughout the years 1990-1999, becoming more angular, allowing for bleeds and experimentation.  My intent was to show that despite wanting to remain original, we become more influenced by our surroundings than we care to admit.

Sadly, I had to shelve this ambitious project, since I had no way of sharing my ideas with anyone on a similar wavelength to mine.  Even after doing a Prequel and a Sequel to the main story.  The main story would be inspired by American comics, the Prequel Shojo Manga and the Sequel Shonen Manga, but I hit writer’s block after being unable to do proper research on the mostly oral history of Anime in the 70's, which was before my time.  Also, the mass Xenophobia aimed towards Anime had largely passed over in rise to the latest generation being unaware of the biases toward the medium.  Someday, I might post samples of what I had planned if anyone’s interested.  (Hint hint!)

Getting back to my main topic...

My WebNovel inspiration comes from the numerous Isekai Manga, where some hapless schulub gets reincarnated or summoned into a Fantasy World where they become Overpowered Author Avatars in an RPG Fantasy setting gaining more powers and an ever-growing harem, the most famous of which is Re:Monster, which while enjoyable for its world-building, has its fair share of problematic issues regarding treatment of women, very much in the same vein as Paladin of Shadows, which prompted a reviewer to mention the numerous quotes of “John Ringo, NO.”

Most of these Isekai Manga first took the form of WebNovels, one of my favorites that spurred me on was Kumo desu ga, nani ka? (So I’m a Spider, So What) a series that I tended to compulsively reread.  And I’m notoriously finicky, so this was something that greatly appealed to me.

My inspiration for doing so was from Berkley Breathed’s creative process that led to the birth of Bill the Cat - an unashamed abomination of Garfield that was intended to be a major turn-off that wound up being the opposite outcome.  I figured that the best way to find success was NOT to rehash whatever media was wildly currently popular (Vampires, Wizards, Ninjas), but to venture into realms that hadn’t been explored because no one ever dared try.  Also, it was borne from the frustration of not finding enough reading material that appealed to me.  There’s an old saying that if something you want to read hasn’t been written yet, go ahead and write it.  After this, some people may want to rethink that particular inspirational quote.

Basically, I wanted to create something that would be considered utterly unmarketable.  A cross between LoveCraft and Kafka.  LoveKafka, if you will.  I figured that the surest way to commercial suicide was to combine the traits of two highly regarded literary giants into one comprehensive package.  People may praise their contributions, but when it comes to actually buying their works, their sales numbers are remarkably low, save for stylish snobs and record-keepers.  I’d combine the Alienation of LoveCraftian lore with the darkly humourous workings of Kafka.

The stories I do aren't considered normal stories, by any stretch, though they take a lot of inspiration from multiple sources.  People do all kinds of darker material compared to the lighter stuff, which appeals to some audiences down where their tales don't get told because there's no perceived market for them, and are considered too dark and/or depressing.  My WebNovel also took inspiration from Dirk Manning's Nightmare World, an Anthology collection where the stories are loosely connected.  Though at this point, it’s still in its early stages, and will take a while before the connections become obvious.  I’d always been more in love with the IDEA of The Twilight Zone than it’s actual execution.  My stories probably slant slightly towards The Outer Limits, but with a stronger humourous bent and better writing.  Updates will sadly be slow in coming given my high quality control, and my tendency to write notes for future chapters not fully fleshed out yet, and notes strewn all over the place.

I'm still not crazy about the layout, and Wordpress isn't as intuitive as blogspot is.  I only used it, because another WebNovel, ParaHumans, had the chapters in its sidebar, as well as having everything in Chronological order.  I've yet to figure out how to format it the way I want to.

Ironically enough, my impetus for doing this was inspired back when Obama was still in office, and the world had yet to encounter the stigma of continuous impending doom.  Instead of instilling an ever-encroaching sense of increasing stats and new abilities, I wanted to convey the sense of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming power.  Instead of exploring a futuristic world that would just as likely become false within several generations, I wanted to take the opposite tack, and explore Universal themes that would still be relevant far into the future.  Keen-eyed readers will recognize that my inspiration for the first story in my WebNovel is actually borne from an early issue of Transmetropolitan.

At this point, you may be wondering just what THIS IS THEY is actually about.  Well, that's difficult to describe without spoiling anything.  If you haven't been successfully scared off yet, here's the link to the first chapter again.  Future chapter updates (and influences) will be noted in due time.

I actually wanted to use the font from below on top, but was unable to figure out how.

Dark Funny Animals

Disney's Zootopia is one of the best animated movies they've ever done, which is quite an achievement compared to their last 3-D attempt at drawing attention away from the Pixar club, Chicken Little.  (Anybody remember that stinker?)  It tackled multiple serious topics addressing sexism and racism in an entertaining manner without managing to sound preachy in it's message.  It served a strong feminist message that was made possible by flipping the viewpoint of the original script.

The original premise for Zootopia was much darker.  The way that predators was kept in check was not out of equality, but by their wearing shock collars that would activate if they grew too excited.  One deleted scene was a young bear joyfully accepting his rite of passage of having said collar wrapped around his neck, much to his father's sad reluctance.  Then, once the procedure is complete, he starts gleefully bounding about, only to receive a shock... to which he looks back at his father with a new sense of betrayed understanding.

Funnily enough, despite the soul-crushing rejected script, it's inspired Zistopia (a pun on dystopia), an AMAZING fancomic based on this rejected premise that's FAR more ambitious than the original script.

In this universe, Nick Wilde is a formerly jailed conman who's been assigned to help a hardboiled workaholic Judy Hopps who's been on the force for several years, in tracking down a serial feral killer.
The roles are familiar, but the development is Very different, and we get to see a LOT MORE of Judy's inner family of 275 relatives, of which we only saw her mother and father.  There are also cameo appearances of other characters in alternate roles, and rejected characters that were never used, such as Honey the Conspiracy Badger, Mob Boss Kozlov and his Massage Angels.

Some of the more memorable scenes involve a chasing game at an underground "pleasure" park, to dialogue in the "Cud Club", the herbivore corporate businessfolk, making witty observations among their bantering, and Judy visiting pregnant predators at the Hospital.

If there's a fault, its that due to the draft nature of the panels, sometimes it's not always clear where dialogue balloon starts and ends.  Sometimes it'll be from the right hand side instead of the left.  Othertimes it'll be from the lower middle, arching upwards and then bending backwards into itself.  Still, if a panel doesn't make immediate sense, just try again until it does.  This slows the pace down somewhat, and sometimes requires rereading, but it's worth it, and there's only a few instances when it happens, so it's not entirely detrimental.  Some of the later artwork has been taken up by guest artists willing to pick up the slack, so the main artist doesn't wind up overwhelmed, and they get a chance to show off their skills along the way.

Then there's MisterMead's wonderfully depressing Judy is Dead series, where despite the Women in Refrigerators suggestion, actually deals with an older cynical Nick trying to cope with July Hops, a cousin who's a dead ringer for Judy.  Much of Chief Nick's reactions towards July are direct parallels to Chief Bogo in the movie.

Somewhat surprising is the popularity of the early dark draft, which had much less comedic elements that could've threatened to spoil the mood of the movie overall.  Or maybe it's not that surprising after all.  One thing that comics - anthropomorphic comics - do well is tackling the element of mature themes by dressing them up in easy-to-digest bites of condensed information.  Maus, anybody?

Tim Hurting's quasi-autobiographical essay on Donald Duck (that I based one of my recent entries on), compared Donald Duck to acting like a man who just happens to look like a duck.  His stories wouldn't be as nearly amusing or identifiable if he were an actual human.  The deceptive nature of Funny Animal comics is that they look easy to make, but can be surprisingly difficult to do well.  It's a delicate balancing act between making the material family-friendly or risque, depending on the audience the author's writing for.  The fact that so many artists are emboldened to follow down the dark path of Zootopia as a way of testing their strengths is encouraging for their willingness to experiment beyond relative safety norms.

It's also a sign that audiences are better equipped to handle mature themes filtered throughout so-called childish mediums.  Adults wouldn't have been able to handle a faithful adaption of the actual Fox & the Hound book back then, but chances are they'd be more open to the idea now.  They might still feel scandalized, but the overall shock of wholesome animals engaging in despicable acts would've lost most of its power.  Of course, an actual faithful adaption with the nuances of internal thoughts and no dialogue would be extremely difficult, and the extremely depressing ending wouldn't guarantee multiple re-readings, making engaging such a project a tricky proposition.

Of course, that's if we limit ourselves to American sensibilities.  European artists such as Lewis Trondenheim (Dungeon) and Jason (I Killed Adolf Hitler) are more popular for their use of anthromorphic animals, possibly because their roles are less emphasized or detailed than the competition.  European comics act on a different wavelength, and the closest they come to emulating American genres is through their Noir comics such as Blacksad and Inspector Canardo.  Incidentally, these pages above and below come from the silent comic, Fox Bunny Funny, which could be a metaphor for being born in the wrong body.  In Furry circles, this is called "Otherkin"; though in my punny universe, it would be considered Fur-Play.

Now, the following is just my personal interpretation, and shouldn't be considered Gospel.  Anthropomorphic Funny Animals was seen as an attempt to try to emulate the kind of cartoonish seriousness that was mainly seen in European comics and Manga... with variable results, ranging from Shanda the Panda to Fred Perry's works, to more forgettable fare.

One could say that the rise of sudden maturity (or immaturity) in Furry comics was out of a desire to tackle issues that wouldn't normally fit in a typical punch-up Superhero comic.  While the childish world of Superheroes managed to make themselves relevant by tackling relevant issues of today, Funny Animal comics were looked down for appearing to be too appealing towards children.  In the same way that Manga managed to tackle mature themes and disturbing imagery within the confines of uber-cute protagonists and casts, so too did Furry comics attempt such ambitious stories along similar lines.

And when attempting to branch out into a new field that people don't have much experience with, there's bound to be some missteps along the way.  There's a sense of trying too hard when compared to others who've matured the craft beyond pure shock and schlock.  This leads to failed attempts such as adapting Fritz the Cat and Howard the Duck, with scriptwriters and directors grossly misunderstanding their satirical elements.  (Watership Down and Plague Dogs didn't suffer from adaption distillation, presumably because they were novels)  And there's the webcomic Scurry, which is the mouse version of humans surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.

As long as we're talking about Funny animals in adult situations, we're going to have to veer into the uncomfortable realm of sex.  And indeed, a fair amount of the popularity of Furries deals with porn.  Somehow, the aspect of nudity becomes more attractive if human flesh is substituted for animal skin, instead of hiding nipples over skin-tight spandex costumes.  (At least they're being honest about what they want to draw, and not covering up behind flimsy excuses)  After all, when you have cute-looking athletic characters interacting, the compulsion to corrupt them is practically irresistible.  But really, is it all that different from wanting to see other familiar childhood characters fans'd been attracted to for years, such as Supergirl and Batgirl, put into erotic situations?  Playing fantasy scenarios out is just another extension of playing with familiar story elements.  Who wouldn't want to pair up characters with magnetic personalities and good chemistry?

Of course, when dealing with repressed sexual outlets, that pent-up frustration can lead to all kinds of weird subcategories of fetishes, including (and not limited) to

• Vore
• Growth
• Shrinkage
• Unbirth
• Gender-reversals

And others that haven't become popular enough to garner their own fetish subgroups yet.  So, it's welcome that we have TG Weaver's wonderfully cute attraction between Zootopia's main characters conveyed through crayon-border art, and Zootermission's unspoken sexual tension just bubbling beneath the surface.


I'm willfully ignorant about Furry culture as a whole, preferring instead to enjoy their output through their stories and drawings instead, not caring much about the motive and rationale in creating such things in the first place.  Dig deep enough behind any creative process, and you're bound to find all kinds of salacious details you may not agree with.  I don't have much of a barometer for what is and isn't considered normal in ways of social thinking, not having acclimated myself with the community as large.  I read a wide range of stories not as a way of confirming deeply held beliefs (though those can be reassuring once you've got the formula down pat) but also as a way of understanding other viewpoints that may not have been obvious to me.

American comics existed within only two extremes - childish cartoon comics aimed exclusively at children, or realistically drawn comics... ALSO aimed at children.  Soon enough, the two genres would split, fragment and divide even further when the serious art comics would start exploring adult themes, while still proclaiming to advocate for being "safe for children".  Even Feiffer had trouble with selling his product, because his works were considered too serious for children, but too tame for adults.  Only MAD Magazine helped bridge the divide, having various artstyles in it's anthology humour collection.  It wouldn't be until Bloom County came that the possibility was that there could be a natural progressive point between two extremes.  And even then, the reason Hollywood wouldn't finance a Bloom County project (according to Breathed) was because they couldn't comprehend of a world composed of talking animals existing among humans.

The 4th Album of Inspector Canardo, The Return of Rasputin,
was the last appearance of humans in its books.

Just as the concept of a Teenager (and later, Tween) came to revolutionize the growth process of a child into an adult, did it occur that maybe comics could benefit from gradual reading levels.  Sadly, these were mainly reduced to Superhero comics, since Independent comics were seen as little more than failed cash grabs of the latest hip fad, and wouldn't reach mainstream appeal without wider recognition.

Not everybody can be an Alan Moore, and this was clearly evident in Mark Millar's appropriately titled Unfunnies, which goes for immediate shock value,  without ever trying to tie these taboo-breaking conventions into something meaningful.  It's as if, being broken free of the Comic's Code Authority, their first instinct was to delve into all manners of depravity just to see if they could.  It's one thing to create things of bad taste.  It's another to expect audiences to be attracted to unpolished garbage.

It's why I could never get into ElephantMen, because all the women are objectified waifs where the men are strong powerhouses.  As a commentor said, "(The) concept looks kinda cool, but is ruined by the idealized and objectified women. SO cliched. I mean, hey, you've got your Blonde, your Asian, and your African 'Hot Chicks' (and she of course has to be the 'unwanted daughter of an African crime lord'. Gag.) one for each fetish! How sexist and boring. Are there no female 'Elephant Women' and the human men who love them? No... of course not. I won't be picking this up any time soon."

The story is told through dribs and drabs, where hardly anything of substance happens, and is told more through narrative boxes than outright dialogue.  There's flashbacks to events that happened during the war, contrasting these wild soldiers now having to live in a society that fears and persecutes them, but that's hardly enough to garner my attention.

Even though updates have been rather sporadic with unexpected hiatuses and there seem to be server problems, Jack is still a webcomic that I keep coming back to, simply because of the compelling artwork, capturing nuances and dialogue.  The first two stories deal with the perspective of an aborted fetus and a recreation of Columbine.  That alone should give you an idea that this isn't exactly appropriate material for children.  Yet, for all it's gore and hysteria, it manages to accomplish a level of realism and humanity with the characters and stories.  For as much as it deals with life after death, there's an astounding amount of time spent in the "living" world, even though the fantasy element never quite goes away.

The basic concept is that there's a reaper from hell who's the pure embodiment of the sin Wrath, who was a domestic terrorist in his former life.  Pretty much all the other sins are extremists who died doing what they wanted, and became representations of the sins they emulated.  (For chuckles, I'd like to see somebody do a physical representation of the Seven Virtues someday)  It is for these reasons I considered Jack the Furry equivalent of Sandman.  Indeed, the latest conclusion to it's latest storyline which was put on indefinite hiatus has a line quoted from The Devil that seems deliberately lifted from Gaiman's Magnum Opus.

For a comic that had its namesake protagonist as being the viewpoint of a sympathetic Reaper, there were varying complaints that it oftentimes went off into tangents that had nothing to do with the overall story,
and a disturbing focus on Drip, the personification of Lust.  At the time, I didn't think much of these criticisms, seeing these as minor nitpoints, since likewise in Sandman, the titular figure was less the controlling focus of the narrative, and more the vehicle around which stories orbited around.

So I was confused about why something I enjoyed so much was constantly criticized for an extremely nihilistic viewpoint and called "one of the worst webcomics", only because the overall disturbing crapsackworld was a reflection of the author's filibuster tracts.  There's a website devoted to nit-picking all the specific things that are wrong about Jack.  Especially when those visions of Hell were offset with brief moments of heartwarming scenarios amidst all the darkness and depravity.

I wasn't aware of the unfortunate history of Dave Hopkins, which involved threats of rape and abuse towards his wife, who he'd had a falling out with.  It wasn't until it was pointed out that a large portion of his Jack stories focused exclusively on Drip, the incarnation of Lust, and that the majority of his sympathetic viewpoints is towards rapists.  That, and his avatar was represented as a blue skunk, who also just happened to be the Devil in his stories.  In that sense, Dave Hopkins is among problematic authors alongside H.P. LoveCraft and Dave Sim who are revered, despite their views.

To anyone who hasn't been scared off yet, and is feeling intimidated at catching up the entire exploits of the comic, there's a handy-dandy arc viewer for ease of catching up.  Though for some reason, some of the pages in Two For You are all mixed up, causing no small amount of confusion.  But that's not the only arc that's messed with - one of the early stories, Games we Play in Hell is left out, because it's implicitly aimed at someone, and some of the homosexual implications regarding Drip's backstory is left out, though both can be found in the directory, if you know where to look.

But for sheer outright dystopian depression, very little surpasses the mind-blowing experience that is Ptiluc's world of Pacush Blues.

Pacush Blues is a series of self-contained stories involving rats that started out as a series of short black humour comics in greyscale.  But starting from the fourth album, was done in colour with progressively longer stories with increasingly disturbing content, issues and gore.

The fourth and fifth volumes is a satire on organized religion involving a Rubik's Cube and a Gumball machine.  The sixth volume is a savage journey across sea, land and air.  (In that order)  The seventh volume involves a struggling homeless rat trying to find solace inside a research lab, and failing.

Imagine not being outside the Bunny testing lab in Bloom County,
but actively living and surviving inside it.

And this is just the first testing level.
The others are just as bad, or worse.

For me, the most traumatizing comic I ever saw was the 8th album of Pacush Blues, "Logic of the Worst", or "Worst Case Scenario", where philosophical rats traverse a frozen landscape, get mutilated, randomly killed off (one mistakes the snow for cocaine, and keeps snorting it up, freezing his nose off), resort to cannibalism, and the lone survivor gets roped into a capitalism scheme he can't begin to comprehend.  Even predators like cats and crows don't even bother preying on them, since they're too terrified by their surroundings to bother.  A botched lobotomy is the closest it comes to approaching a happy ending.

If I could've understood what was going on, I'd probably be even more traumatized.  As such, it's one of my pipe dream scanlation projects, since people either find undertaking the task as being understandably intimidating, either in terms of subject material, translation hurdles or emotional fatigue.  But we shouldn't feel scared about wanting to explore groundbreaking material, no matter how much the truth may hurt us.  It's only by testing the boundaries of our knowledge that we learn how to grow.

Scary Traumatic children's books

As a child, I was a regular omnivore for books with pictures, and my parents willingly obliged.  Instead of a Tooth Fairy replacing my molars with money, I found books underneath my pillow.  But since there were so few interesting Comic Paperbacks, let alone Newspaper comic collections, finding new material was always a challenge.  Scary Poems For Rotten Kids by Sean O'Huigin was the only Hanukkah gift I ever got that severely disagreed with me.

First off, I was so distressed by the fact that they thought I was a lousy kid that they felt they needed it told to me in the title alone.  And the interior art and poems were more disturbing than funny to me.  Maybe it would've appealed to rowdy children who were in to the joke, but to someone of my sensitivity, it was an obvious mismatch.  My parents were generally good judges of finding books that appealed to my tastes, but not this time.

Other books that had me recoiling away from the page came from the library.  One of these was A Monster Is Coming! A Monster Is Coming!  by Florence Parry Heide, whose works of deadpan observation, best represented by The Treehorn trilogy, as illustrated by Edward Gorey.

It was a fairly typical edutainment book, where the boy would notice a monster gradually coming inside their house via the window, naming each body part that showed up while his sister replied, "Don't bother me, I'm watching TV."  I was perfectly fine up to the first three body parts (hair, eyes, nose) but was weirded out by the monster's teeth, which were wider than they had every right to be.  And that same rictus grin was present for every new frightening part shown, while the sister remained blissfully oblivious to the growing threat behind her, her last words being "DON'T BOTHER ME, I'M WATCHING TV."

There was another short early reader book that had a man passing by random men in sunglasses & trenchcoats at night, and becoming progressively scared as each person smiled unwaveringly bigger smiles, larger than the last man he passed.  One of these unnerving smiles came from a DOG for some reason.

I'm really sorry I don't have any available pictures - it loses something in the retelling.  The closest comparison I can give is that they made the Joker's grin look normal.

And that's counting Tim Sale's Joker.

Dinosaurs are generally accepted as being one of the most attractive merchandising bonanzas for children, regardless of gender or age.  They're basically hulking monstrosities that actually existed, and may have inspired countless stories from various civilizations trying to explain their bones via myths and legends.

They're so widely accepted nowadays that it's easy to forget that despite their merchandising nature, they were still brutal animals, and capable of violent acts.  One children's book (possibly The Mysterious World of Dinosaurs) had realistic drawings of of said extinct creatures, but had dripping blood falling from their encounters with predatory carnivores.  The wounds were probably superficial scratches, but it was still a jarring experience to come to terms with.  Somewhat like having all your experience of combat via war movies, and encountering the real thing, and succumbing to PSTD yourself.

Even Children's classics aren't immune to traumatizing children.  Maurice Sendak was told that some readers of his most honest audience shied away from the creatures in Where the Wild Things Are, and said that "Not all children are alike", or words to that effect.  In that same vein, I was deeply disturbed by Mrs McGinty and the Bizarre Plant by Gavin Bishop.

Mrs McGinty is a pinch-faced woman who's relentlessly teased by the neighbor kids.  On a typical day, she randomly chooses an ordinary-looking plant for sale.  The next day, it's clearly outgrown the flowerpot, and is transferred to the garden, where it grows even larger.  While the opening act gave the premise that this plant would serve as a kind of justified revenge for being persecuted, the neighbors start revering Mrs. McGinty for her awe-inspiring plant instead.  What disturbed me apart from the Lovecraftian plant of gargantuan design towering over the houses and people was how everybody seemed perfectly fine rather than horrified at this force of nature.  The cover had what looked like spiky leaves, and the base was an off-putting purpleish colour.  How could they not be repelled by this force of nature that dispelled nothing but sheer wrongness from its being?

The plant is later picked up by a team of botanists who want to examine it for themselves, and is ferried away via helicopters.  Afterwards, Mrs. McGinty is on better terms with her neighbors, and there's an epilogue at the end of a hint that the whole nightmare scenario would happen again.

One of the reasons I studied library science was so I might be able to find certain children's books that affected me as a child.  The other being that I'd be able to look up certain books without having to attract wary attention.  However, despite my best efforts, my attempts at finding certain children's books has turned up naught, save for smatterings of memories here and there.  The Bath is one of them - do you have any idea how many children's books about taking baths there are???  The Bath started out fairly innocuously.  A boy with his animated rubber duckie was told by his mother not to turn the faucet.  Typically, the boy rebelled almost immediately, being tempted while staring at the face-like features of the bathtub features.  The boy turned the handle, but nothing came out.  The boy kept turning, and turning (even the rubber duckie helped) and still nothing came out.  Then...

A creature crawled out of the faucet.  A smiling blue Muppet-like creature.  In the descriptive rhyming stanza, It had wings, it had fins; it could dance, it could sing.  The creature then made a proclamation of having nothing less than what would amount to an enjoyable experience.  And although the boy had been frightened at first, it accepted its claim to splashing, diving under the water and having fun.

Soon, more creatures came pouring out of the faucet along with the notably absent water.  These ranged from "The humpy one, the lumpy one, and one covered with weasels."  While most of them were accommodating at first, later creatures took on a more menacing and threatening nature, and the dimensions of the bathtub had swelled to oceanic proportions.  The bathroom walls had disappeared somewhere in the horizon, and there were monsters that splashed water hard, and set the water on fire somehow.  All the while, there were prophetic warnings of "Two Minutes More" to "ONE MINUTE MORE" before the boy's mother came back to see the awful mess he'd made.  And still, creatures were pouring out, to which the first one asked, "Why did you turn that faucet?"

Somehow amidst the rocking tidal waves, the rubber duckie found the singular weak point by simply pulling the plug.  At which point, all the creatures started spiraling down the drain in rapid fashion (including the flying ones) just in time before the boy's mother came far enough through the door to catch him disobeying her.  (The first creature had to be pushed down, since he was resisting sharing the other's fate)  While other children's books had touted the power of imagination, this book showed how our imaginations can go awry with us, going down dark paths we never even considered in the first place.

Another title I'm unsure of (#? Minutes to / till Midnight) is something that was designed like a Golden Book, but with war as the topic, told almost via buildings and a notable an absence of people.  The only person I remember was a boy pointing towards a plane while shouting a warning.  It sounds like a badly-made photoshop designed to shock, but I swear I saw this in a doctor's office while waiting for my appointment.  All throughout the narrative, there was a countdown to what would amount to a bombing attack, though no explosions were ever shown.  The last image was Big Ben underneath a black sky with the last sentence being "death had come", or words to that effect.  Pretty heavy stuff for a first reader experience.  I've never been able to find anything resembling it since.

Kigitsu Katsuhisa's Franken Fran

Just recently, I was introduced to the welcome and long overdue news that one of my favorite Mangas, Franken Fran was finally licensed.  Way back when David Welsh was looking for appropriate Horror-themed titles, I suggested this title in his comments, which he later posted two days later.  It's one of the few instances that I'm grateful for being called out for my contribution.

"I like to think of Franken Fran as Pinoko all grown up, and being raised with the Doctor’s medical skill would make her a prime candidate for doing outlandish operations that would be banned in any country. Admit it – all the elements are there – she’s a childish tumor with no qualms of ethics or humanity, and enjoys operating madcap experiments that would make Desty Nova proud, just for the fun of it."

Part of the appeal is the ditzy "Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter" trait taken upon its head by having said makeshift Frankenstein daughter fill in for the Professor's absence, which allows her to do all kinds of weird experiments on an unsuspecting audience who only expect the best of her service.  Despite her ditzyness and ability to cry at a client's prospective plight, her dexterity and multi-tasking is far beyond the realm of mere mortals.  Furthermore, she accepts all her clients wishes without judgement, no matter how outlandish they may seem.  Need to repair your failing eyesight?  Just upgrade to a broader spectrum where you can see radio waves.  Want to become immortal?  Just inject yourself with Cancer cells.  Her descriptions of horrific medical terms is put in such a  matter-of-factually way that it's hard to stay mad at her otherworldy detachment to the subject.  A certain amount of desensitization is necessary for surgeons to succeed in their operations.  A doctor who faints at the sight of blood is probably in the wrong line of work.  (Though one that could operate blindfolded and work by touch would be interesting, if practically limited)

Considering the amount of medical skill she displays, and that she's only his assistant, the Professor's (who's often referenced to, but never seen) ability must be on a truly staggering level.

While the majority of Franken Fran is standalone stories, there's a reoccurring theme where the Professor's other daughters resent Fran's usurping what they assume should be their job, but since their talent lie more on assassination than saving lives, they're not really suited for it, and despite their bloodthirstiness, they're far less frightening than the girl who's casually rearranging your inner guts to save your life.

It's certainly gained something of a cult following, and was one of the first series that I helped foster some interest in for a reluctant blogger who was put off by the cheesecake covers (which are blatant lies that don't reveal the gruesome science behind them)  For a long time, I thought it'd never get licensed, due to one of the early chapters having an unusually ambiguous ending that was a culturally specific urban legend that's rather obscure.  Whether the notes will be as extensive as the scanlators' will be undetermined.  Even if that remains a mystery, the majority of the series is enjoyable for its satirical black humour and would be a natural progression for fans of Black Jack.  Of all the Mangas influenced by that classic (and there are many), Franken Fran with its multitude of mad science and condensed storytelling is easily the best.

However, there was only ONE story that I was reluctant to re-read again, amidst stories of a cult based around a macroscopic human circulatory system and anthropomorphic transplanted human limbs.  (I've read a lot of Shintaro Kago stuff)  That one story involved a specific type of plastic surgery.

While there were other stories that involved bodily mutilation to achieve changing genders or achieving immortality, those weren't as disturbing to me as this one.  In this instance, the client wanted to have her appearance changed to become more appealing to her boyfriend.  While putting on a false front to appear more attractive is nothing new, this goes far beyond the realm of applying permanent makeup.  No, what she wanted was to look like a character from a popular Shoujo Manga.

The characters are already cartoonily exaggerated, so taking that prospect further just raises the shackles for me. Not to mention that Asian people's self-respect about their epicanthic eyes is a self-image problem.  It strikes too hard to me for a series that plays fast and loose with medical plausibility.

As if the process of maintaining an already impossible body figure wasn't bad enough, she's regulated to a state of constant check-ups and monitoring to the point where her existence is limited to just appearing beautiful.  She has to be on a very limited and restricted diet due to the amount of food she can fit in her mouth, and lie in a tank of nutrients to cultivate her unnatural body image.  It's awkwardly similar to Michael Jackson's post-surgical conditioning.

More to come...