I’m starting off with a classic — the famous (and to some infamous) Arduin series by the legendary Dave Hargrave. From the top I want to make clear that I absolutely love the Arduin series. It contains material that I used for years in my D&D games, and in some cases still do. However, I am also of the opinion that the series is also one of the most insanely over-the-top examples of munchkin power-gaming ever published, one which remained unequaled until the publication of The World of Synnibar in the mid-90s (and don’t get me wrong — I also love Synnibar, for many of the same reasons — more on that particular work in a future entry).

Dave Hargrave’s contribution to the world of roleplaying is well-known. As one of the original cabal of west-coast gamers in the late 60s and early 70s, he and his compatriots, including such titans as Greg Stafford, Jeff Pimper, Steve Perrin, Clint Bigglestone, Tadishi Ehara and many others, brought their own ideas and sensibilities to the industry, injecting it with energy and imagination that drove it ahead for decades. Their contributions continue to be seen in the still-published Runequest and that classic of classics, Call of Cthulhu, a game that is still going strong decades after its original release.

Hargrave’s history and adventures have been amply chronicled elsewhere and they make for very interesting reading. His skills as a gamemaster, the high power-level and mortality rate of his years-long Arduin campaign, his elaborate house rules, fiery temperament, his feud with Greg Stafford and his legal tussles with TSR are all the stuff of history, and kind of beyond the scope of this piece — we’re going to focus on the obsessive madness that was (and actually still is) the Arduin series.

Journey to Arduin

Shannon Appelcline describes Arduin as  ”a collection of rather ‘gonzo’ house rules” but calling Arduin “rather gonzo” is like calling the language in a Tarantino film “somewhat profane.” Arduin is a joyful melange of every single bizarre idea that crossed Dave Hargrave’s eccentric mind, and despite his continual insistence that Arduin was its own roleplaying system, totally distinct and separate from that alliterative thing published by those guys in Wisconsin, his books contained a treasure trove of modular rules, tables, classes, monsters and treasures that could be slipped into a D&D game with all the subtlety of a GBU-28 bunker buster.

Once more I’m going to journey back to the late 70s when I was attending Portland State University and gaming every weekend. This was about the time that my original group was splitting at the seams after a new group of younger players had joined, bringing a more power-gamer oriented style of play and sending me and my immediate companions off into our own separate group (the one where we could cast unlimited Sleep spells and automatically retired at fifth level).

I stayed in touch with members of the old group however. Though the overly-competitive nature of their campaign turned me off, I was impressed by their willingness to experiment, to use house rules and to resist the rigidity that TSR was injecting into AD&D. Among the various features that they added were such things as the All the World’s Monsters supplements from Jeff Pimper and Steve Perrin, and a curious collection of digest-sized booklets — The Arduin Grimoire, Welcome to Skull Tower and The Runes of Doom, all authored by David S. Hargrave.

I liked what I saw — there were really off-the-wall monsters, bizarre treasures, new character classes and tables, Tables, TABLES! I was later to learn that Hargrave had presented this eccentric collection of supplemental materials to Chaosium as a self-contained gaming system, but that it had been rejected, triggering a feud between Hargrave and Greg Stafford that was to last for years. After this rejection, Hargrave struck out on his own, publishing the supplements himself, and the rest his history.

As I’ve previously noted, being a broke young college student I played D&D with photocopies of the original booklets. I similarly borrowed the Arduin books and copied parts of them as well — since they were written in more or less stream of consciousness style, broken up into individual sections and horrifically organized (see below), it was easy to copy only those portions of the books that interested me, such as the pages that had naked women on them.

I still have those photocopies today — they’ve held together surprisingly well. However, I was able to score copies of the original booklets in cut-out bins at local gaming stores over the years, so later editions of the original Arduin trilogy are now in my possession.

So let’s start with book one, shall we? It’s titled simply The Arduin Grimoire, and I can’t help but wonder whether Hargrave’s decision to publish it as a digest-sized booklet wasn’t influence by the fact that D&D was originally released in the same format.

The original printing features art by the awesome Erol Otus, who contributed extensive work to TSR’s AD&D books, including the cover for Deities and Demigods. He also provided illustrations for the Lovecraftian deities that were listed in the first edition of that volume, but excised later (along with Moorcock’s Melnibonean pantheon) due to copyright issues. The Arduin Grimoire was Otus’ first major project, and a preview of things to come.

Mind you, his art in this book is no great shakes — he’s clearly a talented but inexperienced artist, and in later editions of the book his work was removed and replaced by pictures from the more-established Greg Espinoza.

So what of the book itself? Well, like the other volumes in the original trilogy, The Arduin Grimoire is a heady glimpse inside the mind of its creator. Dave Hargrave was apparently an outstanding game master, and had a real talent for running games on the fly, throwing in everything but the kitchen sink and coming up with elaborate rule systems essentially off the top of his head. While this made for a really great GM and a fine game designer, what Hargrave really needed was the discipline and organization that a good editor and/or developer could provide. He would spew out the amazing ideas, the elaborate tables, imaginative monsters, new spells and artifacts, then his editor would whip the resulting chaotic jumble into something resembling a coherent final book.

In all honesty, none of the Grimoires show signs that anyone other than Dave Hargrave worked on them. They throw out rules that are alternately brilliant and silly almost at random, they are dotted with typos and clumsy revisions, and they are printed in an all but unreadable tiny, Courier-style font, a telltale sign that the whole thing was typed up on a word processor with no access to professional typesetting or layout services (and having done that job back in the days before desktop publishing, I’ll tell you that such services were not cheap).

And before we get into the meat of the work, we need to be honest with ourselves. Despite Hargrave’s protestations to the contrary, the Arduin books were intended as supplements for D&D. Any suggestion that they were anything besides this is silly. Certainly, Hargrave’s version of D&D differs significantly from the original (character levels up to 100+, anyone?), but at its heart Arduin must have been intended to supplement rather than replace D&D, since its rules modules slide and click into D&D so effortlessly.

In one particularly goofy instance of D&D imitation, Arduin’s monster statistics include an entry called “% liar.” Presumably this is a measure of how honest the creature is, but it’s also very telling since it’s a duplication of a similar statistic in original D&D called “% lair,” a rather silly number intended to indicate how often a creature was present in its home base. In the first edition of D&D, the statistic was misspelled “% liar” and this misspelling found its way into the Arduin Grimoire as if it was a legitimate statistic. Each and every monster stat block has “% liar” listed right after “Number Appearing.”

And so the fun begins with Hargrave’s opening dedication, which I reproduce below in its entirety:

I am deeply indebted to many people, without whom many of the ideas on these pages would have died stillborn. It has been a long, long year of trial and trouble, but made easier by friends both old and new. This supplement is dedicated to them certainly and with heartfelt gratitude, but it is also to those characters that lived, loved, and died in pursuit of loot and glory that my true dedication goes.

Keryu, leader of the forty-seven Ronin; Elric the Hell-Lost; Daniel the True Defender of the Dreaming Isles; Jothar, Champion of the House of the Rising Sun and Baron of the Realm; Kazamon, the Ring Bearer, hobbit and changeling; Benk the Benighted; Hismal Assad’s Twelfth Lancers; Mithrom, bandit turned demon; Mogadore the drunken dwarf; Zorella, amazon leader of the doomed Hell Raid; Lasuli, elven and unafraid; Fredrick the Bold, Slayer of Smaug and Sauron; Bolo Mark Nine, destroyer of a dungeon and near slayer of an entire world; the Seven Spartans and their never broken shield wall; Talso the grim mage; all of you are forever graven int he iron legends that will forever follow your steps through alternity. To you and the shades of near four hundred dead I lift a tankard of Rumble Tummy’s ale in respectful salute.

Without all of you I could never have dreamed my dreams of glory, nor beheld the beauty of the Misty Mountains of Arduin.

I’d say that there was an entire column’s worth of material in that dedication alone. First of all – four hundred fucking dead? Did they print character sheets on toilet paper or something? Jesus Christ that guy was a freakin’ sociopath… (And I mean that in the nicest way possible.)

And then there’s Bolo Mark Nine… Keith Laumer fans I’m sure know that a bolo is a giant cybernetic tank equipped with nuclear missiles and capable of laying waste to an entire continent. Yes, folks… giant nuclear-armed cybertanks could be player characters on Arduin.

I’m not even going to mention Fredrick the Bold and his twin victories over both Sauron and Smaug. Hell, not even Gandalf could have pulled that shit off. Holy crap, we are in for one major roller coaster ride here, kids.

(Rumble Tummy’s Ale? Seriously, Dave? Seriously?)

After his dedication, The Arduin Grimoire kicks off with what Hargrave calls a “Forward.” Now I know it’s kind of petty of me, but I think that he meant “Foreword”, and to add insult to injury I feel compelled to point out that forewords are not normally written by the author. This might best be called an “Introduction” or possibly a “Preface,” but certainly not a “Forward.”

I have no picture to put here, so here’s a sexy cosplayer. Seriously… Anyone know this woman? Got an email address or something?

Hargrave immediately gives us a taste of the take-no-prisoners trench warfare that was roleplaying publication in the 70s when he notes: “About three years ago fantasy role playing games began to become extremely popular… At first it was something new and wonderful… About a year or so ago things began to change: the joyous game was becoming big business. And those non-amateur game designers took on all the trappings of those things that have profit as their main motivational force: greed, secretiveness, hunger to ‘control the market’ and all of that other garbage.

“Amateurs who tried to publish their ideas were being told to cease publication if their ideas even remotely resembled any those big business types had published. Yet those same people ripped the amateurs’ ideas off quite freely, and with dismaying frequency.”

After reading a few of Gary Gygax’s vitriolic columns with their condemnation of APAs and anyone who wasn’t Gary Gygax, I can’t say that I’m unsympathetic to Hargrave’s position here. On the other hand, roleplaying games presented a fairly new phenomenon in the world of copyright, in that they presented the basic rules, but others produced work that derived from those rules and could be used with them, but at the same time did not actually COPY anything. In the end, I sympathize far more with the David Hargraves of the world than with the Gary Gygaxes.

As I said above, The Arduin Grimoire would have benefited from the services of a good editor. The first thing I noticed, after the crudely-typed word-processor text, was that all of the books are horrifically organized, written almost stream-of-consciousness, with each topic given one or two pages before Hargrave barreled on to the next. The subjects are broadly grouped together, but within these sections, topics are presented willy-nilly with no regard for order. Almost nothing is in alphabetical order.

Rather than a solid, concrete set of rules, Arduin reads instead like notes for a future roleplaying game. The text refers to rules, systems, spells and character classes that apparently don’t exist, rules are very ambiguously worded, effects are mentioned but never described, and so on.

The book starts promisingly, with a section called HOW TO PLAY THE GAME, which opens with a paragraph titled OVERLAND TRAVEL. While this paragraph does indeed describe movement distances, overland travel procedures, etc., it then segues into rules for random monster encounters, combat procedure and how to determine initiative — topics that wander quite a distance from the original subject matter.

Now we jump to a page called POINT SYSTEM in which XP awards for various events are given, such as death (yes, you get XP for dying in Arduin), being the sole survivor of a party (apparently this happened quite a bit), being cursed, obtaining cool magic items, casting certain spells, etc.

Next comes experience tables for Arduin character classes such as Thief, Slaver, Techno, Courtesan, Assassin and so on (as noted, not in alphabetical order), with XP totals for levels one all the way up to 105th level and beyond.

Next, in keeping with D&D’s strange obsession with keeping non-humans down, is a table with level limitations by class for each of 41 (count ‘em — 41, all jumbled together in non-alphabetical order) player races, including the standard humans, elves, hobbits (Hargrave didn’t seem too concerned about Tolkien’s estate and their lawyers), dwarves and half-orcs, but with the addition of such exotica as uruk hai (different from half-orcs how?), amazons (yes, amazons are a race in Arduin… More on them later), kobbits (a kobold/hobbit hybrid… OH MY GOD!!), saurig (lizard-men), phraint (insect-men), gnorcs (gnoll/orc… since I think gnolls were originally supposed to be gnome/troll hybrids, this is getting downright messy), and so many more. These seem a bit harsh — as in D&D, humans can advance an unlimited number of levels in every class, while other races are severely limited.

Immortal, arrogant elves who have built ancient and powerful civilizations and act like they’re better than everyone else, for example, can only advance to 10th level as warriors, and 8th level as Clerics, Mages and Thieves. They are, however, allowed unlimited advancement as Psychics, and “All Others”, but cannot become Monks or “Palidins” (sic).

Most races are like this — they are seriously limited in most classes, forbidden from a few, and able to advance to unlimited levels in one or two. The distribution of these limitations seems, well, pretty random. Half-elves, for example, can be 10th level clerics, but only 6th level wizards, 12th level thieves but only 8th level warriors. Centaurs can be 4th level clerics, 12th level warriors and 3rd level psychics. And so on.

No wonder humans run the show. They can rise to 100th+ level in everything. Hell, if I were a human I wouldn’t be the slightest bit scared of an elf warrior, since he can never be higher than 10th level.

Next come ability limitations by race and gender. This has always been something of a sore point in roleplaying, since females invariably are given lower Strength and Constitution scores than males, but usually higher Intelligence and Charisma. I know that on average women are not as strong or large as men, but I’ve known women who were almost as tall as me, and one or two who could have put me through a wall, so I think this concept is kind of outdated. Just roll your stats and let the chips fall where they may — if you have a female with an 18 Strength, then have fun with her.

Don’t worry, censors… That’s a sword in the Vampusa’s left hand.

Next comes one of those tables that makes Arduin so much fun. It’s called the NOTES ON FANTASTIC BEINGS, and includes columns for player races’ average lifespan, age of majority, usual alignment, “ability to mate fertilly with humans” (so that’s where all those half-elves come from… and no, “fertilly” is not a word, but that never stopped Hargrave), general temperament and notes.

These brief, concise overviews of racial characteristics are extremely useful  for GMs who want to come up with characters on the fly, and for players to provide guidelines on behavior. Mind you, they’re also kind of weird. The Amazon, for example, has a lifespan of 90, age of majority of 18, alignment Neutral, able to mate with humans (assuming they want to), have a general temperament of Boastful & Arrogant, and under notes we learn that they are “Pushy, man-baiters, frequently lesbian.”

I’m not even going to get into how sexist Arduin is (or maybe I am, but later), but come on, Dave. An amazon is a powerful, aggressive, proud female warrior, so naturally she’s arrogant, a man-hater and frequently lesbian. I don’t know about you, but I’ve known a few amazons, only some of them were lesbians, and they all liked me just fine.

Next comes another useful table, the CHARACTER AND ALIGNMENT OF PLAYERS CHART. Apparently you have the option of choosing your alignment at random, and this chart gives guidelines for behavior and outlook for no fewer than 14 alignments (rather than the paltry eight of 3E and the paltry two of 4E). I have to admit, when Dave Hargrave goes, he goes big.

We have the familiar Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil axis, as well as a couple of others such as “Moderately” or “Marginally Lawful” (oddly enough there’s no “Marginally Chaotic”), “True Chaotic” (which us purists insist on simply calling “Chaotic Neutral”), “Amoral,” “Amoral Evil” and “Insane.”

Each alignment has a column for “Kill Factor,” “Lie Factor,” “Tolerance Factor,” “Loyalty Factor,” and “Cruelty Factor” although there is no explanation of what this means. If nothing else, it illustrates Hargrave’s penchant for reducing everything to percentage rolls. Does “Kill Factor” equal the percentage chance that a character of that alignment will try to kill you? How about “Cruelty Factor”? What the hell does that mean? The chances that the character will be cruel? Of so, how?

The last column is a hoot — under “General Notes” it tells us that Lawful Good is “Goody two shoes type, always smiles,” Marginally Lawful is “Losing ‘faith’ in the ‘system’”, Neutral Good is “Ready to accept most any decent idea,” True Chaotic is “So unpredictable even he doesn’t know what’s next” and Chaotic Evil says “You never know what he’ll do, but you can be sure it’s nasty!”

As loony as all this sounds, it really is a breath of fresh air compared to the stodgy, pretentious stuff that was coming out of TSR at that time. This, remember, is when Original D&D was switching over to AD&D, and Gygax was busy telling us that we had to play the game exactly as he’d written it, or we were all traitors who would wreck everyone else’s fun. As Hargrave was a huge advocate of critical hits, spell points and other heresies, my guess is that he sat squarely in Gygax’s crosshairs.

Next we come to one of the most fun collection of tables you’ll ever see — the Special Abilities chart. Each group of classes has its own percentile table, with a list of abilities ranging from the mundane to the bizarre. Roll a 37 for a fighter and you get “Ex-seafarer, who cannot be drowned even in full armor (he sheds it).” A roll of 18 for a wizard yields “Time and gate competent, with total inability to use all ‘cold’ spells.” Roll a 60 for a cleric and you get “Desert born, add plus 3 to constitution and ability to find water (90%).” Roll 00 for a techno or courtesan and you hit the jackpot — “Roll once on any three tables of your choice ignoring this number, but if you can’t use what you roll up, tough, you’re stuck with it.” And so on.

I loved these tables and used them a lot, though my characters invariably got abilities like “Hates all animals (and they can sense it so will attack 85% of the time)” or “Obese glutton of unsanitary and foul habits, -6 charisma, plus 6 versus poison” while my friends got stuff like “Sexual athlete, plus 5 charisma versus opposite sex, never get enough” or “Flesh tastes bad to monsters (98% chance they’ll spit you out).”

If you happen across a copy of The Arduin Grimoire, I strongly urge you to at least check out these tables — they will fuck your campaign up in the most entertaining way possible.

Next we finally get to character classes (remember what I said about organization?), including several (but not all) of the character classes listed earlier — here we have (once more in glorious non-alphabetic order) the Trader, Psychic, Barbarian (the class had not been introduced by TSR yet), Rune Weaver, “Techno’s” (sic), and Witch Hunter. Notably absent are the Courtesan, Slaver, Alchemist and Saint, even though they were discreetly listed on the earlier XP chart.

The classes are a strange lot — the rules for them are typically amorphous, with lots of room for GM and player interpretation (and, I’m sure, argument). The psychic can’t use magic, has to have low physical stats and gains special abilities such as “Mental scream” every few levels. The Barbarian is listed as being “extremely vulnerable to magik,” but no actual rules for this vulnerability are presented. As we all know, Barbarians can “go berserk,” adding +4 to their attacks but subtracting -3 from their defense. “Once berserk, they will fight blindly for 1 melee turn for each level less than 20th level that they are, even if all of the enemy are dead. There is also a 60% chance for 1st level Barbarians going berserk uncontrollably, rolled for every melee turn.”

Okay, I’m confused. A Barbarian can go berserk at will, but must fight “blindly” for a number of rounds — say 10 for a 10th level Barbarian. What does he mean by “blindly”? He’ll attack anything? Attack the nearest figure? Attack trees and rocks? Attack the darkness? And when that period is over, is he still berserk, and can he continue to use his +4 to hit? Once more, it feels as if we’re reading someone’s campaign notes, rather than a coherent rules set. No wonder Chaosium rejected Arduin.

And so it goes — Rune Weavers are spellcasters, but it takes them one round per spell level to cast, and they get more spell points than regular casters. “Techno’s” (sic — dammit, Hargrave needed a copy of Strunk and White!) “are specialists that disbelieve 100% in magic and work from a strictly scientific point of view… They are constatnly dismembering dragons to see where the flame thrower was hidden!” Medicine Men are “Barb    ian priest/mages” (sic), Witch hunters “are religious fanatics (99% Chritian) that are obnoxiously ‘holier than thou’ in their attitude towards just about everyone and everything.”

The entries are all organized differently, as if (surprise!) Hargrave developed them all separately, then pasted them together for the book. Some have a single mass of text with the rules all run together, others (such as the Witch Hunter) are organized with headers and specific rules, each given its own lettered paragraph. Witch Hunters have entries for “Advantages” and “Disadvantages” but no other classes do. They have a level chart listing their “Fighting Capability” as being equal to “Man +1,” “2 Men,” “3 Men,” “Hero,” “Myrmidon +1,” “Super Hero,” and so on (reflecting the original D&D fighter level table, though I can’t for the life of me figure out what is meant by “3 Men.”).

The characters really are all over the map, with rules ranging from ironclad specifics to vague guidelines. To play them would require a huge amount of GM interpretation, yet Hargrave assures us that everything in Arduin has been playtested over “hundreds of hours “ of gaming. Clearly these rules worked for him and his fellows, and given that he brags about over 400 PC deaths, his players kept coming back.

I think that more than anything else, Arduin’s character classes tell us a lot about David Hargrave and the state of gaming in those days. Despite TSR and Gary Gygax’s insistence that everyone march in lock-step and play the game exactly as written (lest they be condemned as talentless fools and hateful luddites), a lot of people (I would even go so far as to say “most people” but I have no real proof of that, beyond the people that I myself gamed with) played the game any damned way they pleased.

Hargrave’s campaign was clearly high-powered, had a huge death-rate, and was pretty much over-the-top in every aspect. It was also very fast and loose, and given the vagueness of many of the “rules” he cites in his work, required some pretty heavy GM interpretation.

Fun as it is, the confused jumble of half-rules, guidelines and polite suggestions that passes for character class entries is followed by the Multiversal Trading Company Price List. Interestingly enough, armor is listed as “Defensive Weapons” which is an odd designation, but the chart is pretty familiar to any rpg-er.

Now we get to the magic rules which are, as always, pretty vague and make sense only in reference to the original D&D rules from which they are derived. Hargrave discusses in considerable detail how long it takes to memorize spells (one hour per spell divided by the number of spells that the mage may memorize at his or her current level).

In his example, a fifth-level mage takes three hours to memorize one third, two second level and one third level spell. Honestly, who ever really did that? Everyone I ever gamed with simply assumed that the mage’s spells automatically regenerated each day and didn’t bother intricately mapping out how long it took to memorize spells. I can imagine the real effects now:

It’s bright and early in the morning in the Lost Dungeon of Death. The party has awakened, unspiked the door, eaten a hasty breakfast and is preparing to set forth once more.

FIGHTER: Hey, guys, let’s go! I want to investigate that temple complex we found yesterday! I think there might be lizard men!

THIEF: You betcha! That idol with the giant gemstone eyes looked pretty sweet! Come on!

WIZARD: No, wait up guys. I have to memorize my spells.

FIGHTER: Criminey! Always with the spell memorization. How long is that gonna take?

WIZARD: Only three hours or so. Just hang on and I’ll get started.

THIEF: Oh, fuck. Here we go again. Okay, who wants another pot of tea?

Hargrave then goes over some familiar rules. Mages can’t wear metal armor. At fifth level they can use magical swords and a tenth level they can use all magic weapons (there is an uncomfirmed report that Gary Gygax experienced a minor stroke when he read that rule).

Then we get into one of the more bizarre rules that Arduin presents. Apparently, you only get one saving throw against a given spellcaster’s magic. If you save once, you save every time that caster throws that particular spell at you. The opposite is true too — if you fail a save against Magico the Magical’s fireball, then you continue to fail every time he casts a fireball at you. Until of course, “you yourself go up a level” at which time presumably everything resets and you can start making saving throws again.

Holy crap, that sounds complicated. I’d have ignored this rule the first chance I got.

Next comes something that sums up Hargrave’s love of minutiae and his fondness for percentage rolls all in one beautiful paragraph.

The upshot of all this is simple; you have to have to have your magical goodies where your hot little hands gan get them at an instant’s notice. And if you want to really jazz up your game, just add in a PHUCKER PHACTOR. What’s a P&P you ask? Simply put, it is a percent for mages or whomever, to grab the wrong end of a wand or to read off the wrong spell on his scroll in his haste to slay the onrushing purple uglys (sic) that are going to eat him. A suggested base is 50% to start, going down 2% per level attained, and modified by your dexterity (-5% per each point over 12 or conversely adding 5% for each point less than 9).

Oh my God. Seriously? Phucker Phactor? Mage’s have a 50% chance of accidentally grabbing their wands upside-down? You’d think they’d take that into account. Wouldn’t a fumble on the Attack roll be more realistic?

Erol Otus’ take on Gandalf’s battle with the balrog, I think.

Hargrave goes on to suggest a surprisingly modern-sounding solution to a common problem that was not addressed until D&D 3E — touch attacks. If a magical attack simply requires contact and not penetration, he suggests giving the attacker a flat +4 bonus to do so. That’s elegant, though I think I prefer the “Touch AC” solution that D20 adopted.

Finally we get to another of Gary Gygax’s sore points — spell points or, as Arduin calls them, “manna points”. Here’s the formula that Hargrave used: “Take the mages (sic) intelligence and multiply it by his level, then if his intelligence is 8 or less, divide by four. If it is 9 to 12, divide by three, and if it is 13 or greater divide by two. Therefore, a 7th level mage with an intelligence of 16 would multiply 16 x 7 = 112 and divide 112 by  2 = 56 manna points that the mage will generate each twelve hour period of rest.”

Whew. More math. More fun. And the fun continues when we actually start casting spells. Most first level spells, we are told, cost one to one and a half manna points. One and a half? In addition to all that multiplication and division we’re expected to keep track of half points. At this point, Gary Gygax’s complaint that spell points add more unnecessary bookkeeping is beginning to sound better and better.

A mage can use his “manna” (I believe the correct spelling is actually “mana” which Hargrave uses later in the book) points to cast spells he has memorized, but how many spells can he memorize? Again, Hargrave’s answer is in the form of a guideline, but he essentially tells you to use whatever system you like:

…the Dungeons and Dragons game has a nice workable system but as this is the Arduin Grimoire, here’s mine: For every two levels of experience, a mage can use one level of spells… However, there is a limiting factor based upon intelligence… the user’s intelligence is divided by two, thus a mage with an 18 intelligence could do up to ninth level spells…

So take whatever I have that you like, use the old established system, delve into Empire of the Petal Throne, Red Moon and White Bear (sic… The game was actually called White Bear and Red Moon, and can be purchased on Amazon for a mere $269) in a magic system. Who knows, it may end up such a good system that people will want you to publish your supplement!

And so once more we have the general outline of a decent magic system, but lacking any specifics or exceptions. How do mages get spells to memorize in the first place? Do they have spellbooks as in D&D? Spells can be cast at fractional power with similarly fractional mana expenditure — do you round up or down? Does “half power” halve the range as well as the damage? If you are using spells from another game such as D&D, how much mana do those spells cost? And so on.

There’s a really joyful sense of experimentation and chaotic wildness to Hargrave’s work. It’s mad, to be sure, but it’s a pretty intense and infectious madness. I keep coming back to how rigid TSR was growing at this point, and how imaginative and unfettered the rest of the growing gaming industry had become. The entire situation seems today like a huge disconnect between TSR and their customers, as Gygax savagely condemned the very people he should have been encouraging.

Another welter of charts follows — the “Turn-Away” (i.e. turn undead) chart, the “Detect Ability” chart which lists percentage chances for various classes and devices to detect such things as poison, evil, magic, alignment, weather, enemies, undead, treasure, traps, invisible objects, etc., etc., and tables of saving throws for items, character classes and races.

When Mr. Oogie Boogie says/There’s trouble close at hand/You’d better pay attention now/’Cause I’m the Boogie Man

I love the next table to death — it’s a random matrix for generating magical items. Roll a 50 in the “Type of Weapon” column and, for example, you get a bolo (yes, a bolo — the weapon, not the giant cyber-tank). Continue to roll, and you discover that it is a +3 attack, +2 damage, Intelligence 15, Ego 16 magic bolo with the ability to detect undead, makes its user 100% immune to dragon breath and has a 9-step level draining ability.

Whew! That’s a lot for a damned little bolo. This table gives some other goofy results, like a dancing vorpal crossbow or a battleaxe of elemental conjuring.

Next we have a table for “prismatic walls and their usage.” I’m not entirely sure that prismatic walls deserve a full table here, but in any event you learn that a Bronze prismatic wall “stops all spells fired from wands, and does damage only to wands (they explode).” This is still more of Hargrave’s rough-note taking that takes the place of actually writing rules, and is only one example. I presume that any wand that “fires” through a bronze prismatic wall explodes, but the rule says “does damage only to wands.” Is the explosion harmless to the wielder, then? If so, how much damage is inflicted and does the wand get a save? I’m sure that all of this was handled by Hargrave on the spot, and may have changed from gaming session to gaming session.

The entry for Violet prismatic walls is similar — its effect is “General anti-magic shell, insanity.” What the hell does this mean? Anyone inside it goes insane? Anyone who tries to cast through it? Move through it? Look at it? Arduin is delightfully goofy and exuberant, but don’t expect specifics here. Ever.

Now we finally get to spells and even though there are only a few pages of them, they are indeed impressive. I can only go over a few of the more choice spells. They’re all identified by name, level, mana cost, range, area and effects. As I’m sure you’ve guessed they are jumbled together in random order, but thank goodness they are organized by character class.

Given the vagueness of Hargrave’s “rules” up to this point, his spells are surprisingly specific. The first spell in the druid list, for example is Yalywyn’s Spell of the Singing Winds:

Level: 3rd; Mana cost: 3 plus 3 per hour to sustain. Range: 120′; Area Affected: 60′diameter plus additional 10′ per level over level needed to use. Effects: A wonderfully scented gentle wind blows melodious music within the spell area, which immediately charms all up to 6th level into sitting and listening raptly.

Holy crap, that’s only the first spell! To me it seems like a pretty damnably powerful spell, since it apparently automatically (and “automatically” says to me “no saving throw”) charms every single life-form of level 6 and under in an area of over 45,000 square feet! And it evidently continues for as long as the caster cares to maintain it!

The fun never stops in Arduin — mage spells have names like Stephan le Strange’s Spell of the Instant Idleness, which essentially does the same thing as the Singing Winds spell, although targets are granted a saving throw. Masayuki’s Mist of Malevolent Misery creates “a purple, roiling, squirming greasy fog that moans and gibbers,” causing all victims of 2nd level or under to automatically choke to death (you get a save if you’re 4th level or higher, but still “suffer from intense confusion, dizzyness, nausea and watering eyes as long as still in the cloud,” even though there is no explanation what game effects these conditions have). Yorgan’s Falling For Forever Spell causes the target to become weightless and “fall” upward away from the planet at a rate of 100′ per turn. Khurluu’s Call of the Hell Spawn summons one demon locust +1 per level over minimum.

Clerics aren’t neglected either — they get things like Visions of Hell that causes victims to “see all your deepest ID nightmare sin living color and stereophonic sound. They can kill if they’re believed in.” The Spell of the Horns of Joshua (yes, the Judeo-Christian faiths are alive and well in Arduin) buildings to collapse (though again there are no specifics for the size of building, how much damage they do, etc.), and inflicts damage on everyone in the area.

As you can see, Hargrave didn’t hold back when it came to spectacular, Biblical-level spells. Jehovah might be a pretty mellow guy in this reality, but in Arduin he’s a fuckin’ badass. Real Old Testament Wrath-o-God shit here, kids.

Rune weavers then get some of their own spells, webs that they weave with magic. The webs are all different colors and have various effects — white webs cause cold damage, flashing metallic blue webs cause electrical shock, while mottled grey-green webs cause those caught in them to be “stoned for the duration of the web.” As this web is called Argoth’s Spell of the Spider Golem I strongly suspect that when Hargrave said “stoned” he meant “turned to stone” rather than “being reduced to complete dumbass status after using recreational drugs.”

The awesome Arduin campaign map. It makes it all seem almost real.

Magical items follow, and they’re exactly what you’d expect from David Hargrave. The Misty Boots of Silent Speed allow the wearer to move on any surface, even illusions (!) at double speed and with absolute silence. Consider the consequences, my friends. An illusionist casts the image of a bridge across the deep chasm and presto! The rogue with the Misty Boots is across in a trice… Damn.

The Golden Drops of Heavenly Essence will “100% restore any dead being regardless of damage or how little of said being is left. They will cure disease, insanity and amnesia. They are so rare that only 21 drops have been seen in the last 1,200 years!”

Now I admit that I skipped most of the next section, packed with combat charts, guidelines for melee and missile combat and other stuff that I never really cared for in the first place. One of the best-known, most widely-known and infamous sections of Arduin is next, and it’s the part that I turned to most often. I speak, of course, about David Hargrave’s legendary Critical Hit and Critical Fumble tables!

But I think that’s going to have to wait until the next entry, as it’s getting late, my entry is already downright epic, and I’m exhausted. Tune in next time for the last part of the original Arduin Grimoire (including monsters and demons!), and the next two volumes in the series — Welcome to Skull Tower and the Rooms of Dune!

Excuse me. I mean Runes of Doom. My apologies. Peace out.

The event takes place at the Hollywood Theater, a Portland movie palace from the 1920s that now houses a repertory company and shows a wide range of art films. The place maintains its ancient ambience quite nicely and is, I am told by people who actually worked there, definitively haunted. I myself — normally Mister Rational Thought who rolls his eyes at “Ghosthunter” shows on Discovery — felt some moments of being watched and glimpsed shadowy figures in dark corners, so I can’t conclusively say that I don’t believe that something still lurks there.

I can’t say that I’ve attended every single festival (I started around ‘02 or so I think), but I’ve attended enough to know that it’s a blast every year. It’s a great opportunity to meet both HPL writers like S.T. Joshi and W.H. Pugmire, and to actually discuss filmmaking with the creators themselves. I think the high point for me was when I had the pleasure of meeting the great scream queen Barbara Crampton, from Reanimator and From Beyond. It was in Reanimator that she participated in one of the most disturbing sex scenes of all time, being molested by the severed but still living head of the late David Gale. Like pretty much all of the actors I’ve met, she was a class act and it sounded as if she had a blast being menaced by extradimensional monstrosities.

The fest includes feature-length films as well as shorts from around the world, and though the works are of varying quality they’re always pretty fascinating. I managed only two of the four short blocks this year, seeing such varied flicks as the awesome George Jones and the Giant Squid, Seizures and Grasshopper. As you might note, sometimes the connection to the great HPL is a bit tenuous, but there’s always at least a slender thread binding them.

Members of the HPL Historical Society performing “At the Mountains of Madness.”

Non-film highlights included witnessing the members of the HP Lovecraft Historical Society presenting their radio-play version of At the Mountains of Madness, live and in person. These guys are all theatrical actors with amazing voices, and their live play included a cool newsreel-style film that they created entirely out of old newsreel footage, portraying the supposed Miskatonic Antarctic expedition. For a real treat, check out these guys’ radio plays.

I managed two feature films that I have not seen for years, and both of them were pretty awesome. First was John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, which I think is one of his best works. I’d recommend anyone who enjoys SF and supernatural cinema to check it out — it’s clearly inspired by Lovecraft and the works of Nigel Kneal, specifically the Quatermass movies (Carpenter himself wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym Martin Quatermass, and characters in the movie have Lovecraftian names like “Marsh” and “Danforth”). A science professor and his students are asked by representatives of the Catholic church to investigate a mysterious object that has been discovered beneath a church in Los Angeles — an object that has been there for centuries and has been watched over by a secret order of priests called the Brotherhood of Sleep. The malevolent entity inside the cylinder reaches out, possessing first the street people of the area (led by a pale-faced Alice Cooper) then members of the team in an effort to summon its “father” from his prison in an alternate dimension. To call the entity “Satan” is a horrific understatement. There’s plenty of creepiness and philosophical discussion of science vs. faith, good vs. evil, and the ending is creepily ambiguous.

The crown jewel of the festival however was what is being called the “Cabal Cut” of Clive Barker’s neglected masterpiece Nightbreed. In a story that I fear is far too common in Hollywood, Clive Barker directed the film in the wake of the successful Hellraiser, then presented it to studio execs, who stared at him blankly, said “I don’t get it,” and told him to reshoot half the movie. While the result was not a bad film by any measures, it also wasn’t quite what Barker had in mind. The movie flopped due to studio indifference, but a VHS copy of the rough cut was found a couple of years ago. The rough video footage was then spliced into the existing film, pushing it to 144 minutes in length (the final edited studio cut was a mere 102 minutes), and making the story quite a bit more coherent. According to Russell Cherrington, the gentleman responsible for the new cut, there is real interest in seeing the Cabal version released to video, and with up-to-date digitization techniques, the rough video footage can be restored to crisp, clean DVD/Blueray quality.

The official “Nightbreed” poster kind of made it look like “The Breakfast Club” for mutants…

In brief (and there are awesome resources for this film to be found elsewhere), Cabal (spoiler warning) is the story of Aaron Boone, a young man tormented by dreams of an underground city inhabited by bizarre monsters. His psychiatrist, Dr. Decker (director David Cronenberg in one of his few appearances as an actor) manipulates Boone and frames him for a series of brutal murders, which Decker himself actually committed. Shot dead by police, Boone returns to live as a “Nightbreed” and finds the city of Midian, “where the monsters live” apart from humanity. The “monsters” are actually the Tribes of the Moon, the last survivors of ancient races who once inhabited earth but were exterminated by the violent humans. Boone joins their community but soon after his girlfriend Lori follows and discovers Midian for herself. Dr. Decker in turn follows Lori, learns about Midian and is determined to destroy it and its inhabitants, aided by the police and by violent local humans. In the battle that follows, Boone releases the Berserkers, a band of savage Nightbreed, which destroy the human attackers. Dr. Decker dies in the battle as well, and Midian is destroyed. Now given the name Cabal by the ‘breed’s god Baphomet, Boone is charged with finding a new city for the outcasts. Lori is still in love with Boone, and kills herself rather than lose him, but he restores her to life, transforming her into one of the Nightbreed. Roll credits.

That really glosses over a lot of the story, and the entire thing should be seen in its entirety. As I said, the original cut wasn’t really all THAT bad, and tells sorta the same story, but with more of an emphasis on Dr. Decker’s murders, giving it more of a “slasher flick” feel, rather than a horror/fantasy/love story as Barker intended.

Though I loved the film, it wasn’t without its faults — some of the plotting is a little jumpy. The scenes where Boone returns to live and escapes the hospital are confusing, and they are followed almost immediately by scenes of Boone and his companion Narcisse in Midian, with Boone having already been more or less accepted by the Nightbreed. Most of the humans, particularly the cops, are portrayed as fairly one-dimensional rednecks (First cop: “I think we’re only killing ‘em ‘cause they’re different!” Second cop: “Isn’t that reason enough?”). Nightbreed can easily be seen as a movie about racism, sexism and homophobia, but the  allegorical elements are laid on a bit thick.

Honestly, that’s all beside the point, I think that Nightbreed’s strengths, especially in the new cut, overwhelm its shortcomings. I can see what a heartbreaker this whole project must have been for Clive Barker — after trying to make the Star Wars of monster movies, he had his work taken away and chopped down into a truncated little remnant of itself, misunderstood by studio execs (who hadn’t even watched the entire movie) and promoted as a slasher flick. To add insult to injury, many critics laid the blame at Barker’s doorstep, suggesting that the uneven pacing and incomprehensible plot (a result of studio cuts rather than Barker’s direction) proved that he was a hack director. Barker pretty much stayed out of Hollywood until Lord of Illusions in 1995 (another pretty awesome movie that tanked at the box office, unfortunately).

The remainder of the festival went as smoothly as I’ve come to expect, with crowds of alternative types surging from tiny theater to tiny theater (I skipped a whole short block because the theater was at least 90 degrees and humid), a small dealer’s room in the lobby upstairs, an adjoining structure renamed the Esoteric Order of Dagon and given over to readings and game demos (including Sandy Peterson’s Cthulhu Wars, which I regrettably did not see), speed painting contests, panels for Lovecraft enthusiasts and after parties at Tony Starlight’s Lounge.

About my only real complaint is that while I usually have companions on Friday and Saturday, most of my friends end up abandoning me on Sunday leaving me to attend the festival solo. Sunday morning i did my electronic bill paying and discovered that I was kind of broke for the rest of the month, so I attended the event feeling pretty glum, even going so far as to consider not seeing the Cabal Cut, which was one of the main reasons I attended the fest in the first place. Rescue came in the form of friendly artist Lee Moyer, creator of some awesome literary pinup calendars and more book covers and posters than a normal human can count, whom I got to hang out with before the flick and who shared some of his newest art with me, so it ended up being a decent time after all.

Unfortunately, I ate too much popcorn and pizza and spent the night with severe indigestion, so today I’m feeling a little unsteady. I think that after a lifetime as a popcorn connoisseur I’m probably going to have to swear off the stuff and maybe smuggle in bananas or something when I go see movies.My diabetes simply isnt forgiving enough for me to overwhelm it in that fashion.

So that pretty much encapsulates the spirit of the HPL film fest for me — I have a great time every year even though I usually have to go stag on Sunday, and the celebration of Lovecraft and his works gets bigger and more impressive all the time. One of these years I’m hoping that John Carpenter or Guilermo del Torro joins us. And if anyone reading this wants to go, by all means let me know. Maybe we can hang out on Sunday.

It’s been a pretty wild couple of months. I actually signed a contract with a literary agent and was quite excited at the prospect (I’d been looking for an agent for over a year and FINALLY got one — yippee), only to have the gentleman inform me last week that maybe repping me was more than he could handle right now. I spent the day in deep gloom, dropped him a polite thank you and got back to business. I’m currently trying to contact an agent whom I was in discussions with, then broke off when I signed with this guy, but I haven’t heard back from them yet, so that window might be closed as well. On the positive side, I have a 15k word pulp story almost finished for Pulp Empires, have completed an assignment for Paradigm Press’ Witch Hunters rpg and will probably get another one soon, so it’s not all bad.

I’m at the HP Lovecraft Film Festival here in Portland for the weekend and I hope I can get some photos. Last night we watched some very high-quality short horror/supernatural films from a range of countries, and a very nostalgic revival of John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness (screenplay by John Carpenter under the pseudonym “Martin Quatermass” which should mean something to all those fans of 1960s British sci-fi out there). It holds up pretty well, actually. Later I look forward to seeing the brand spanking new “Cabal Cut” of Clive Barker’s Nightbreed, another potentially great film that was cut to ribbons by a studio that didn’t understand fuck all about what made Barker’s work so special.

I can only repeat my past assertions that HPL himself probably would have been horrified to see what a crowd of alternative-types his work has attracted, but I’m not complaining a bit. Even though it reminds me that I really feel as if I was born too early (certainly before being a geek became sexy), I don’t mind the opportunity to go hang out with a fanbase that includes writers, filmmakers, poets, artists, Goths, punk rockers and very attractive women with body piercings and tattoos. God knows, if I’d tried to get women interested in HPL back when I was in my twenties, I’d have been locked up.

Anyway, owing to work and the various writing projects I haven’t updated in a while, but I’m determined to at least get some minimal thoughts blogged on a regular basis from here on out. I’m also working on a new column about the odd and bizarre rpg products that I’ve encountered over the years, and kicking it off with David Hargraves’ The Arduin Grimoire, one of the most flamboyant collections of over-the-top gaming supplements ever produced.

Stay tuned. More to come, hopefully this very weekend.

We didn’t stop of course, but given that performing was at that moment not feasible, my singer/ex-gf/bff Rhia and I decided to focus on learning to record music. I dropped a small bundle on a recording package, taught myself the basics and we went to town. The result is our first recording, “Sound of Wings,” a song that Rhia wrote about the hero of one of my many unpublished novels, and also (I suspect) about me, and just the thought of someone actually writing a song for me gets me all misty-eyed and sentimental. So here is our first recording — this is not the final version (it needs violin, drums and some reworking of the vocals, particularly the first chorus), but it’s a labor of love and devotion and friendship that makes me very happy. It’s not slick, it’s not professional, and it’s got all sorts of glitches and mistakes, but dammit, it’s our fucking song. Enjoy.

Sound_of_Wings

And (quick revision after the fact) here for the record, are the lyrics, proudly written by Rhiannon Louve:

SOUND OF WINGS

Who am I? Just a man

Grounded by life’s demands

Got no hopes, got no plan

Anymore

Who am I? Just a man

I don’t know where I stand

But I dream of a time

When I’ll soar

I’ve seen death, and I’ve seen pain

I’ve seen love and pain again

I’m still here, I’m still sane

But what for?

Take a breath, wear the chain

Weather passion’s wind and rain

Still I cry in my soul

I want more

CHORUS

Sound of wings

Through my dreams

Nothing’s ever as it seems

Make the shift, brave the rift

Here I roam

Take my face

And take my name

But to my soul you have no claim

I may burn, but I’ll return

To my home

BRIDGE

Here in darkness

Self I’m finding

By my power

Fear I’m binding

Through survival

Revelation

Through compassion

Transformation

Who am I? Just a man

Yet much more than I began

My whole world in my hand

And it sings

Who am I? Just a man

But I taste life and understand

My heart soars on the soft

Sound of wings

REPEAT CHORUS

Yes, I know it’s photoshopped. But it’s so appropriate…

One of the reasons I love Metalocalypse is its farcical sense of self-importance. In the show’s world, death metal is the most popular form of music and the band Deathklok is the world’s sixth-largest economy. It’s been described as the world that death metal fans wish existed.

Liberality for All takes that same attitude and transfers it to the real world. Here, conservative talking heads and bloggers like Rush, Coulter, O’Reilly, Matt Drudge and even the likes of Dr. Laura Ingraham (apparently Glenn Beck was too wacky even for Mike Mackey, as I note he is never once mentioned in the series) are pillars of American freedom, and the last bulwark of democracy in a nightmare world of liberal tyranny. Needless to say, they are the first targets of the Islamofascist hit-squads after 9/11, and once they’re gone the forces of darkness have free reign to conquer the nation. That Mike Mackey endows a bunch of political talking heads with such awesome power is proof that he drank about a gallon of Fox News’ Kool-Aid before writing each issue of LfA.

This is pretty high-falutin’ stuff, especially for what critics have since begun to refer to as the “Conservative Entertainment Complex.” A more nuanced view of these people might suggest that, rather than freedom and democracy, their goal is to make money and obtain higher ratings, and to tell conservatives what they want to hear. The case could be made that, in the last election, far from acting as guardians of conservative principles, they actually contributed to the defeat of the Republican candidate by assuring right-wing voters that the polls were all wrong, and the usurper/socialist/Kenyan Obama was on the way to absolute and certain defeat. The exile of Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and Dick Morris from the hallowed halls of Fox News is just one sign of the onset of reality.

Although the third and unexpectedly final issue of Liberality for All was on the stands, Mike Mackey had even more ambitious plans for shattering the liberal’s stranglehold on liberty. He released a short preview (available on the old website here), cleverly titled Libarro World, which was intended to run as a supporting feature in LfA. I’m not going to bother lampooning it — Mackey does a perfectly good job on his own. Suffice to say it’s a one-joke strip in which conservative duplicates of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Howard Dean (seriously? Howard Dean?) and Ted Kennedy are created in a scientific accident, much to the chagrin of their babbling, oblivious libtard originals (recall, this is set in the fantasy world of Mike Mackey’s conservative imagination in which relatively conservative democrat Hillary Clinton is a loony leftist extremist and legitimate military veteran John Kerry is a draft-dodging flip-flopper).

As heavy-handed as the rest of LfA (sample jokes… Hillary shrieks “Does it take a village to get this thing started or what?”, Dean says to Kerry “For crying out loud! We just voted! First you vote for it… Now you vote against it?” and keeps suggesting — big surprise — that they clear everything through the UN), the never-completed supporting feature pokes crude fun at a former DNC chairman, two future secretaries of state and a now-dead senator. Enough said.

So with that needless prolog out of the way, we can proceed to the end of our trip through Liberality for All.

RIP, Matt Drudge — a real patriot, slain by treachery. His spirit shall LIVE ON!

Liberality for All: Issue Three

Regrettably, Issue Three is still stuck in flashback-land, mostly following the tale of the svelte, muscular and sleekly hairless (save for that hot moustache, of course)  Sexy G, aka G. Gordon Liddy.

I’m going to reiterate that while Mackey seems determined to transform his conservative heroes into smoldering slabs of man-muscle for his own amusement, nowhere is this more evident than in the portrayal of the fragile, septuagenarian Liddy, who despite his advancing years (and without the benefit of the magical nanites that grant eternal youth and sexiness to both him and his partner Sean Hannity) still struts around the pages of LfA in tight pants, wielding massive and manly weapons, and kicks ass like a 20-year-old Navy Seal. His journey from elderly criminal and Fox News contributor to sex-god for a new era continues unabated in this issue.

To satisfy all those Republican comic collectors who are clamoring for more, LfA #3 again features two covers, and what covers they are. The first portrays a young boy — presumably li’l Reagan McGee — trying to tear down the hateful UN flag and replace it with the stars and stripes, presumably soaked in the blood of patriots and martyrs to liberalism.

The second cover is my favorite of the entire series — It portrays conservative blogger Matt Drudge, his signature porkpie hat lying nearby, his computer screen (with “Drudge Report” across it, in case we missed the point) splattered with his blood, while two treacherous thugs, their blue uniforms emblazoned with UN insignia, stand over him with drawn weapons. Matt’s dead of course (just like all us treacherous liberals wanted all along), but his face is turned away from the viewer, so I can’t tell whether Donny Lin fucked his portrait up as well.

The credits page lists Mike and Donny of course, and unaccountably also includes credits for Libarro World, which was penciled by one Aditia Wardhana and colored by one “Nichx.” Once more, Mike Mackey appears to have turned his back on good old red-blooded American comic artists, farming out his artwork to Indonesians, who presumably work for a lot less money. And once more, the artist appears to have vanished from sight, as a quick Google search reveals that there are a LOT of Indonesians named Aditia (or Aditya) Wardhana, but none list their occupation as “comic book artist.”

LfA now returns to the white house as young President Chelsea turns her hateful visitor, Ambassador Usama (btw, I’m using Mackey’s spelling, “Usama” rather than the more common “Osama” — he probably did so because only liberals spell it that way) over to the fat and sweaty care of VP Moore, who shows him around, eager as a young puppy to serve his new terrorist master.

Michael Moore in his motorized wheelchair. Because he’s so FAT, you see. Because LIBERALS are FAT.

Now poor li’l Chelsea (who Lin portrays as a real babe, by the way — something that I find vaguely creepy) tells the black nanny to make sure she washes little William Jefferson to remove the bloodstains left by Usama’s murderous fingers, then addresses the hateful, wizened, America-hating surrender monkey himself, UN Secretary General Jacque Chirac (who, as president of DIRTY, SURRENDERING FRANCE, REFUSED to join with George W. Bush’s COALITION OF THE WILLING when we went into Iraq to take out that MONSTER, Saddam Hussein, thus showing that he HATES AMERICA and is a DIRTY SURRENDERING FRENCHMAN, now head of the UNITED NATIONS, who have TAKEN OVER AMERICA and TAKEN AWAY OUR GUNS. Everyone knows that the French do nothing but surrender and give in to terrorists, and are clearly ENEMIES OF AMERICA. I’m emphasizing this because I’m afraid that Mike Mackey might have used too light of a touch in his original and people might not get it).

The conversation between Chelsea and Chirac is, once more, a prime cut of Mike Mackey’s worldview. “We need much more than we originally asked for” from the UN, Chelsea says, her big doe eyes gleaming with tears as she realizes how her own mother betrayed the land she loves so much.

“Chelsea,” Chirac replies, all Gallic reason and sympathy while contemptuously referring to the president by her first name, “why don’t you follow in your parents’ footsteps and raise taxes on the rich?”

“Run for president, Chelsea,” they said. “It’ll be fun, Chelsea,” they said.

Hard cheese, Frog-boy. “There are no rich in America anymore,” Chelsea mourns, thinking fondly of how the wealth of billionaires like Donald Trump used to rain down upon the nation like a shower of gold. “When their tax rate hit 90%, most of them emigrated to Britain or Israel.”

Fun Facts for Conservatives: The top tax rate in the United States is now 39.6%. In our heroic ally Britain, the top rate is 50%, and in our heroic ally Israel it’s 46%. Both of these states also have national healthcare, or as you like to call it “socialism.” In that socialistic police-state to the north commonly called “Canada,” the top rate is 54%, and that is one of the highest in the world. No state has a 90% top tax rate, not even the hateful communists in China or the backwards rustics of Sweden. Just keepin’ things in perspective.

Back to Chirac’s beatdown of poor Chelsea. “Just like the rich,” he says, nibbling on a snail while surrendering to the Germans, “always thinking of themselves first, never the good of the whole. Which reminds me, the recent recovery of Hannity’s laptop may lead to the discovery of FOIL’s lair.”

Nice try with the non-sequitur (sorry for using a French word for something, but I can’t think of a better one) says Chelsea, but what about the money?

No can do, Chirac replies, sipping champagne out of his mistress’ high-heeled shoe while smoking a pack of cigarettes. Not a good time. Nosireebob.

Chelsea furrows her little brow and stamps her little foot at this. “Do you realize the sacrifices America has made to the UN over the past decades? [And by 'America' I assume she means 'The United States of America' but like many conservatives, Mackey believes that the US occupies two entire continents.] America is on the verge of bankruptcy because of our capitulation to the very nations that make up the UN!”

If only Reagan had been armed, this never would have happened.

(Try saying that three times fast… In the words of Harrison Ford, “Hey George — maybe you can write this crap, but you sure as hell can’t say it!”)

Chirac now shows his true colors — yellow. “Madame President,” he sneers, “your tone is as if (sic) you have wealth or military strength to bargain with… YOU DO NOT! For now you will make do with what the UN allows you to have. MWAAAHAHAHAHA! Bring me another prostitute!”

(That last part is mine, but you have to admit that it makes sense.)

Chirac stomps away, leaving Chelsea to go wash her hands.

CLANG.

Now back to Reagan McGee, typing at his computer (the libs actually let people have computers? Holy shit, they’re dumber than I thought, and believe me that is dumb) when his mom (having after 20 years graduated to MILF status) hands him a present that his dad wanted him to have. She’s been holding onto it for two decades, and I wonder what it is. It’s way too small to be a firearm, but as far as I’m concerned that’s THE ONLY THING HE COULD HAVE GIVEN HIS SON THAT WOULD HAVE ALLOWED HIM TO FIGHT FOR FREEDOM…

Sorry. Seriously, this whole thing is really starting to affect my mind. As young Reagan accepts his prezzy and we prepare for yet another flashback, the TV drones on with the usual, predictable libtard news.

No, seriously. This is all us liberals really wanted from the guy… sheesh… Was that so hard?

“…Ambassador bin Laden’s apology at the Unity Tower in New York… At 8:45 a.m. tomorrow, as light bathes the Unity Tree, Ambassador bin Laden will apologize while promising to usher in a new era… is also being celebrated at the Light-of-Peace [Uh-oh, it's the word "peace" -- must be another dumb liberal thing] ceremony in Hollywood hosted by Barbra Streisand [SEE? Told you.]…”

(Yup, you got us cold, Mackey… All us liberals wanted was an apology from that mean ol’ bin Laden. All he had to do was gaze into the video camera, make his eyes real big and say, “I’m sowwy,” and our liberal hearts would have melted. “C’mere, ya big lug,” we’d croon, throwing our arms around good ol’ Usama and holding him close. “I can’t stay mad at you!”)

Okay, back to six-year-old Reagan, sitting in class being programmed by his fellow-traveler teacher.

“Decades of saber-rattling an military posturing by warmongers caused a divide in the world,” she lectures. “Under President Hillary Clinton’s wise leadership, we are withdrawing our violent forces from all over the world, to be absorbed into UN peacekeeping forces.”

On the blackboard, of course, are the words From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, which needless to say is something that Hillary Clinton was careful to work into every one of her communisitic, America-hating speeches, and which she repeated every night before going to bed, instead of praying like a good American.

None of this sits well with the li’l patriot Reagan. Idiot, he thinks. Feeding us this garbage again. I… can’t… take… this… ANYMORE!”

“My father is in the army reserve and he can barely retreat without bullets!” Reagan declares. That’s one thoughtful six-year-old, dontcha think?

The teacher raises a finger to scold our little renegade. “Your warmongering father should not be there in the first place!”

“America has been betrayed by the UN!” Reagan shouts, in a cry that soon will be echoed by thousands — nay, millions — as they rise up in righteous anger. Again, pretty good for a first-grader.

Well, just as the teacher’s about to send Reagan to the Gulag, he’s instead called to the principal’s office. On the way, he punches the condom-dispenser that’s in the middle of the grade-school hallway (because us liberals WANT CHILDREN TO HAVE SEX and want CONDOM DISPENSERS IN KINDERGARTEN… CLANG!) and stomps into the office, only to see an Army sergeant with a letter for him. He gets the message (like we weren’t expecting it) and runs out screaming (altogether now) “NO!” (Btw, the message is that his dad’s dead, slain by the liberal traitors… I mean North Koreans or something.)

He’s still screaming when he runs out onto the schoolyard, past a newspaper with the headline Fox News Bankrupt!, past a flagpole where the UN flag flies above the stars and stripes, and past a big sign that says SUPPORT U.N.IFICATION. 

(I’m beginning to think that his school’s name is Clumsy Right-Wing Metaphor Elementary or something, given the sheer density of symbolic elements that surround poor little Reagan.)

Some day, Little Reagan, you’ll haul this flag down and spit on it. No, not that one… The blue one… No, wait…

As he’s out there, he sees another little girl being forced to stare at the flagpole, up in his classroom and their eyes meet (does she grow up to be that hot Liberty Belle chick I wonder…). As Reagan stands beneath the flapping, fluttering symbol of EVIL INCARNATE (that would be the UN flag), his shadow grows into that of a God-fearing, gun-loving, freedom-fighting-for American MAN, and we’re back in the present.

And speaking of presents, he’s still holding the one from his dad and hasn’t opened it, while the libtard news continues to blather.

It’s the evil Alan Colmes again. “With us today,” he says, “is Freedom’s guardian, who is also a PETA representative… So why is Freedom dying?”

CLANG! You see FREEDOM, is actually a BALD EAGLE, and the bald eagle is the SYMBOL of AMERICA. And since the EAGLE (named FREEDOM) is DYING, then FREEDOM in AMERICA is DYING, too. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

“Well Alan,” replies the PETA guy (and for once Mackey and I agree on something, and it’s that PETA is a bunch of loons, but that’s a discussion for another day), “since the death of his mate Glory [CLANG!] he has refused to eat his prey, flavored soy pseudo-rats.”

“How about feeding Freedom live prey?” Colmes asks, knowing the answer.

“His soy-prey has the same nutritional value,” huffs the PETA guy, “and live prey? Well, that’s just plain MURDER. Instead of starvation, we have decided to put Freedom to a humane death tomorrow.”

Get it? They’re PUTTING FREEDOM to DEATH, which symbolizes the DEATH OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA.

Did you hear me? I said, THE DEATH OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA!

We never do find out what Dad’s present to little Reagan was, but Mom does say, “He would be so proud of you.”

Reagan shakes his head sadly. “I haven’t done anything for him to be proud of…” He raises his eyes with growing hope and determination, gazing at the screen where Freedom the Eagle stands, condemned to death by liberal/PETA treachery and says, “…Yet.”

She keeps the cross of Jesus close to her heart. Close to her quivering, softly-swelling, pale pink heart…

Back at FOIL HQ, Sexy G is there, clad in a tight, tight, TIGHT turtleneck and what appear to be riding breeches (but are probably supposed to be military-style trousers with cargo pockets), inspecting a wounded finger, while extending his neck to a length of approximately two feet. Nearby, a hot blonde in a tight, tight TIGHT body suit stands, holding a smoking automatic rifle (and it ain’t the ONLY thing that’s smokin’, believe me). She has a huge silver cross around her neck, too, a symbol of her unending devotion to Jesus, hanging sweetly between her succulent, overflowing breasts.

“Nice shot,” Liddy says.

“I aim to please, Lovie,” replies Ms. Hottie. Holy crap. Is she actually fucking this 90-year-old fossil, or is she just flirting with him? Either way… Creepy. She’s still unidentified, btw — I think Ollie North called her Diana (though she looked different in Issue One), and Mackey never once mentioned Anne Coulter as being a member of FOIL. Perhaps she’s actually Sarah Palin, rejuvenated by the power of nanites and provided with huge, supple, heaving breasts and a round, sensual ass.

Noor (aka “Oscar”) is nearby, mixing up his special formula. “Quickly, Gordon,” he urges. “I can’t measure the effectiveness of your cellular reconstruction until you’re unconscious.”

“Too bad Annie is not operational,” Gordon complains. “We could useher tomorrow. Can you imagine Annie wading through all those UN troops? It would be a massacre!”

“True,” agrees Noor, “but let’s get you five by five before worrying about robotic PMS!”

Yup, nothing like a sexist joke about how cranky women get at that time of the month to cement your rep as a fearless conservative defender of freedom, Mike. Keep up the good work.

So Sexy G reclines his rippling muscular manliness on Oscar’s exam table and drifts off to slumberland, hoping that this time he doesn’t have nightmares.

No such luck. We’re back in 2006, when, in the words of Reagan’s interminable narration, “terrorists tried to kill every vocal conservative. And all the free health care in the world would not help those killed.”

They apparently didn’t bother with Glenn Beck. Everyone KNOWS he’s crazy…

CLANG!

“I was only a child, but I don’t remember too many tears shed in the media. Like other times when patriots have died, it seemed unpopular to step forth to support the fallen.”

(Get it? Because LIBERALS HATE HEROES and HATE AMERICA!! You know, I’m starting to get a little hoarse from pointing out Mackey’s subtle messages, but I’ll carry on, because… well, fuck… You know… AMERICA!)

G. Gordo, fresh off nailgunning that evil terrorist, visits the hospital to see how his special buddy, Sean Hannity is doing. There, he meets Ollie North and Noor, who is determined to save the gravely wounded Sean, and with him, freedom.

“My machines can make him as good as new,” he says, patriotic determination oozing from every pore. “In fact, better than he was before.”

Their bedside conversation is interrupted by the cops, who show up to arrest poor G. Gordon “for the possession and illegal discharge of a gun within the city limits.”

(For the last time, libtards… It’s not a GUN, it’s a WEAPON or a FIREARM!)

Back in Oscar’s lab, Noor notes “His nanites are reacting very aggressively. Cellular repair and telomere replacement both at a consistent 102%. That means unless he takes a bullet through the pump… He’s probably now immortal!”

G. Gordon Liddy — hot and sexy… forever! Yes, Liberality for All is a true conservative fantasy. Too bad it’s not real.

…Or is it?

Okay, back to the G-dog’s remembrances. A long-haired hippy-type lawyer is talking to the press, liberal platitudes and hate-speech spewing from his disgusting left-wing cakehole.

“Mr. Liddy’s archaic belief in the Second Amendment has earned him 30 years in federal prison,” he says, “which is the mandatory minimum sentence for the possession of a handgun within the New York City Limits. And although no body was found, human and pig blood were discovered in a warehouse where we believe Mr. Liddy brought harm to an innocent Arab youth.”

Oh yeah? How about a TERRORIST Arab youth, huh? I mean, hell, it’s up to conservatives to defend freedom, and if it takes torturing a suspect with a nailgun, then by God and Jesus and all that’s fuckin’ holy THEY’RE GONNA DO IT! Because… Well… AMERICA!

“In this new American era,” Reagan prattles on, “yesterday’s patriots are today’s criminals, and history always makes the determination (sic) between the two. Obviously, crime pays, or there’s be no crime, but does patriotism pay when leaders turn away from the nation’s founding principles of yesterday? Who can blame those of us who embrace such criminals (sic).”

Back in the lab, Noor suggests that “the nannites (sic) in Gordon’s biosystem are exceeding their design capabilities… I may be able to help Sean and Ollie with their vision… Maybe even get Annie to behave rationally.”

Ms, Hottie, who is sitting in on the proceedings, and calls everyone “Lovie” (maybe she’s fucking all of them… even conservatives need casual sex now and them, I guess), says that “Annie” makes her uncomfortable, while in the corner we see the shadow of a high-heeled figure shrouded in covers. Maybe that’s the mysterious “Annie” — a hot, spike-heeled warrior robot with the stars and stripes painted across her generous bosom, perhaps? We’ll never know.

Back to G’s past. With no explanation of how he slipped his treacherous liberal-forged bonds, we see Sexy G being picked up by Ollie North at New York Harbor with the betrayed Statue of Liberty (a gift from the French, wasn’t it?) in the background.

“The base is not far,” heroic Oliver says, “Our liberal masters saw fit to close Manhattan’s FEMA base. Sean, Oscar and I reopened it!”

Sexy G expresses concern that Ollie is going blind (“Yep! A bit more each day,” North replies), and that this might be contributing to the fact that he’s driving them both straight into Long Island Sound.

No fear, they drive into the hold of the carp-shaped supersub we saw in Issue One.

“Once Hillary closed all the military bases, they scrapped the top secret toys as well,” Oliver explains to a chorus of falling anvils. “The base could survive a nuclear strike against the city, and has underwater access… Because of a few silent patriots on the ‘Right’ side [get it? RIGHT SIDE] this base has been erased from all recorded records.”

Recorded records? Damn. It would be terrible if it was still on all of those unrecorded records, wouldn’t it?

“The Coulter Laws have made us all fugitives,” Ollie continues. “I guess it’s appropriate that this base is underground.”

So Sexy G meets his fellow rebels, Oscar and Cyber-Sean, and together they begin the fight for freedom.

Remember when Sexy G said he was afraid of nightmares? Well, he gets one, and boy is it hilarious. He dreams he’s sleeping, and a hand touches his naked shoulder.

This is so damned funny. I haven’t laughed so much since watching the last “Fox and Friends.”

“Wake up, GG,” whispers a coarse but feminine voice. “It’s time for our ‘STAFF MEETING! [It's subtle, but I THINK she means SEX].”

Sexy G rolls over to see his partner, and sets eyes on the most hideous harpy from hell…

HILLARY CLINTON!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

“I thought I didn’t know what fear was,” he mutters, quivering in terror.

Okay, enough hilarity… Back to the serious subject matter — bionic conservatives fighting terrorists and liberals.

Oscar is discussing a nanite treatment with Oliver North (and we all know how that’s going to turn out, don’t we… Not one, not two, but THREE bionic, nanite-enhanced patriots to battle for justice…), while on the big monitor Alan Colmes, Prince of Evil, says that tomorrow is the day that the good and kind-hearted Ambassador bin Laden is going to deliver his apology.

Then we see the Freedom the Eagle broadcast, in which the slimy PETA guy reveals that he’s going to kill Freedom. Get it? Kill Freedom… Because Freedom is…

O0ps, sorry. I already explained that.

Sexy G watches the story, eyes narrowing, wheels spinning with in his gleaming, hairless and oh-so-strokable head, while the blonde chick smiles seductively at Cyber-sean and escorts him and Ollie from the chamber, presumably for a hot all-right-wing three-way.

Also in an inset, we see Noor slipping unnoticed from the room. What could that signify, I wonder?

Okay, okay, let’s wrap this travesty up, shall we?

Next we’re at UN HQ, where the treacherous Jacques Chirac is talking to a black-clad, buzz-cut blonde Aryan type, discussing how they’re going to find that damned elusive Hannity.

Soon, Herr Chirac, ve vill begin ze FINAL SOLUTION for ze disposal of zese troublesome conservatives… Heh, heh.

The blonde guy turns out to be a German UN military rep, named Commander Hissler. (Get it? His name is HISSLER, and he’s GERMAN. Just like HITLER. And his NAME is “HISSLER” so it sounds just like HITLER, because the UN is just like NAZIs, and GERMANS are… No, wait… This whole clumsy allegory thing is really starting to break down, isn’t it?)

Herr Hissler assures Chirac that the robbery at the Department of Peace resulted in the theft of only one item, something called “a Glucus Communication device. After 34 years, we are not concerned with any security issue it might pose.”

Boy, is HE gonna be SURPRISED when SEAN HANNITY uses the GLUCUS DEVICE TO RESTORE FREEDOM IN ISSUE EIGHT! HAW!

“And the conservative dissidents?” Chirac asks, and Hissler chuckles.

“UN forces found Matt Drudge hours ago. His website is now shut down… permanently. And during the arrest…” Hissler flashes an evil, evil UN-German-Nazi-Communist-Socialist-terrorist-tax-the-rich grin, “he apparently committed ‘suicide.’ BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHH!”

(Again, I editorialize. He doesn’t really laugh. He just grins happily.)

“Finally,” continues Chirac, “what of FOIL?”

“We have an expert working on that right now,” replies the blonde thug, lovingly stroking his blue ray copy of Farenheit 9/11. “Thanks to Dr. Noor Ilham, who has joined us, we are attempting to retrieve security data from Hannity’s laptop.”

NOOR ILHAM! You mean “Oscar” — the guy who saved Sean Hannity’s life, made G. Gordon Liddy the sexiest beast among all sexy beasts, who has fought for justice and America and freedom for all three issues of this magnificent comic? NOOOOOOOOOO!

Say it ain’t so, Noor! SAY IT AIN’T SO!

Yes, it’s Oscar, betraying his friends and sucking up to the United Nations traitors.  ”I will be able to tell you everything about the location of the FOIL lair. In a few short hours (sic),” he assures Chirac. “Rest assured, nothing will stop the ambassador’s address tomorrow.”

“Sometimes,” Reagan McGee’s narration closes this issue, and with it, the entire run of Liberality for All, “you just don’t know who to trust.”

The issue ends with a couple of color plates, one of McGee and Gordon kidnapping Freedom the Eagle (like we weren’t expecting that), and the blind and brokenhearted Ollie North kneeling in the street with a discarded and battered American flag clutched in his freedom-loving hands.

Of course, the shocking “twist” ending is nothing of the kind… From the previous issues it’s obvious that Noor/Oscar has no intention of betraying his conservative buddies. He already knows the location of the secret freedom lair, he already controls the programming and operation of Hannity’s bionics, and he already is injecting weird substances into both Sexy G and blind Ollie. Unless he’s hatching a grotesquely convoluted plot against FOIL, it’s clear he’s acting as a mole in the UN, misleading them as part of Sean and Gordo’s plan to stop bin Laden’s plot against New York, and retake control of the traitorous LIB network.

And so, on a note of false suspense which fools no one, “America’s first conservative comic book” comes to a close, and you can probably predict pretty easily how the next five issues will go. More flashbacks, more disjointed blather from Reagan McGee, the rescue of Freedom the Eagle, the cyber-punching of bin Laden in the middle of an astonished UN, and a heroic speech via the newly-restored Fox News Network, informing the world that America’s back, and we’re not taking no shit from no one. And oh yeah, Chelsea Clinton decides she’s a conservative after all and then goes down on Hannity, Liddy and North simultaneously in the special “All Adult” issue.

Liberality for All: The Aftermath

As a publishing entity, ACC Studios lasted about ten months. As noted in the first part of this series, Mackey was largely ignored by the mainstream comic industry publications, a fact that he suggests, unsurprisingly, was due to liberal bias. What was more likely, as I previously suggested, is that the mainstream comics journals generally didn’t pay much attention to indie books, and certainly didn’t want to waste ink on them until they’d proved themselves in terms of sales. Outlets like CNN, The Guaridan, Fox News and their ilk didn’t care that Liberality for All hadn’t actually published a single issue when they interviewed Mackey — they just wanted to chum the water with some controversy, and attract a few sharks.

In this interview, Mackey comes across as a reasonably likable geek, and given his passion for the subject it’s kind of hard not to hope he succeeds with his li’l conservative comic book. However, toward the end of the interview he makes the following statement:

Yet there are aspects of the story that liberal readers should love: there is no war… ever! Michael Moore is the Vice President. The “Coulter Laws” have made conservative talk radios and other such conservative “hate speech” virtually illegal. America clears all international decisions through the United Nations. And last but not least, George W. Bush is not even a blip on the radar. Liberals should love this book, shouldn’t they?

Not to flog a dead horse, but it looks as if Mackey doesn’t really know shit from shinola when it comes to liberal political thought. He genuinely believes that liberals want Anne Coulter censored and that the United States be transformed into a simpering UN client-state. This, he thinks, is what liberals “love,” but all it shows is how little he really understands about liberalism, and it’s very difficult if not impossible to truly satirize something you don’t understand.

Issue Three shipped in July of 2006, but the promised fourth issue (listed as available for pre-order) never materialized. For ten glorious months, from October 2005 to July 2006, ACC Studios was flying high, and Mike Mackey was feted by the objects of his worship, interviewed by the hated liberal mainstream media (here’s an interview with him in which he mistakenly believes that The Guardian is a conservative paper, triggering loud guffaws from everyone who has actually read the damned thing), talked about throughout the blogosphere, and even promoted by his idol Cyber-Sean himself, who I’m sure told him he was a great American.  Sadly, Mackey never got to meet Sexy G, who probably had an appointment at the steam room or something.

A few websites reviewed the book, with the response ranging from reasonably positive to negative to overtly hostile (more the latter than the former, I’m afraid). Even the beloved conservative journal The National Review refused to take the book seriously, calling it “a carnival of colorful absurdity” and noting that it did nothing but conform to most liberals’ stereotypes of extreme right-wingers. It all ended abruptly without so much as a whimper. Issue Four languishes in limbo and we’ll never find out whether Reagan McGee and G. Gordon actually managed to rescue Freedom the Eagle.

It didn’t take long for the marketplace to chew ACC Studios up and spit it out, just like they treat most other independent publishers. All the controversy and Sean Hannity plugs in the world couldn’t change the fact that Liberality for All was an amateurish and inept conservative screed thinly disguised as an action comic book. LfA ended up suffering the worst fate imaginable for a comic book — it was utterly and totally forgotten by everyone. Except me, of course, since being a liberal I love inflicting pain on the innocent and those who can’t fight back. ACC’s web page still exists, a mute and tragic testament to its creator’s unfulfilled dreams. LfA’s wikipedia page was deleted on March 17, 2012

By the way, I just found this blog, which has a brief overview of LfA, and (wonder of wonders) says a lot of the same things I just said (for example, he was just as confused about Ralph Nader’s appearance in Issue One as I was), though in a much more succinct and non-rambling manner. The author even goes so far as to suggest that Mike Mackey has a man-crush on Sean Hannity, rather than Sexy G, who clearly deserves it more. Interesting how two entirely different readers of the same comic can come to such similar conclusions, eh?

It may seem like an odd thing for me to say, but Liberality for All might have been a good book in the hands of a Grant Morrison or an Alan Moore. Despite my enjoyment of books like Watchment and V for Vendetta, I’ve always considered them to contain somewhat conservative messages buried deep down under all the action and good writing. My reading also suggests that books like The Authority, which I have not read, also present fairly conservative values in an entertaining fashion.

Every political philosophy needs its ass kicked every now and then — every mode of thought needs to be questioned, dissected and criticized. As I noted in a previous entry, I think I could write a pretty good story about liberal politics gone wrong, and I dare say it would be less blunt and ham-handed than the work of Mike Mackey. But his clumsy treatment of the subject in Liberality for All makes the works of Alan Drury and Ayn Rand seem downright Shakespearean. Where a scalpel is called for, he uses an anvil, and where a light touch is required, he deploys a nailgun and pigskin.

Liberality for All is a product of anger and fear, not reasoned discourse or careful thought. It’s a document written by a man who genuinely believes that the blue-berets are at his door, that the black helicopters are on their way, and that only the heroic intercession of aging, overweight blatherskites who work for an Australian billionaire’s cable news channel can possibly save us.

Reality caught up with Mackey and LfA, for in November of 2006 the Republicans in congress were taken to the cleaners by a voting public long weary of a fruitless War on Terror. These same voters rejected the hated and feared Hillary Clinton in favor of the even more terrifying Barack Hussein Obama and a Democratic supermajority in congress. And after this conservative nightmare scenario — so close to what Mackey postulated — occurred, what happened? There were no moves to transfer the military to the UN, no attempts to silence conservative critics, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continued.

The Clyde Caldwell illustration that inspired “Liberality for All.” No. Really. I couldn’t make this up.

The arch-criminal bin Laden was finally brought to justice, by the administration of a simpering, socialistic liberal, but conservatives proved singularly unwilling to give credit to a Democratic president. No, the Freedom Tower hasn’t been renamed. Bin Laden isn’t bringing a suitcase nuke to New York. The last American eagle isn’t being fed soy-rats by PETA. Alan Colmes isn’t running Fox News. The “liberals” (who aren’t really liberals at all… I hate to disappoint you) control both the Senate and the White House, and the American voters have had the lack of good taste to keep them there through two national election cycles. The right-wingers are still bemoaning moves for gun control and national health care, but freedom seems surprisingly intact, and our streets seem to be relatively free of UN troops. Liberality for All is a bizarre artifact of a very bizarre era, one which I’m only too happy to leave behind.

In the end the same free market capitalism that Mike Mackey embraced is what doomed Liberality for All, and neither he nor future legend Donny Lin have shown their faces since. It’s kind of a shame, really… I was really looking forward to the nude centerfold of G. Gordon Liddy.

That isn’t the point of protests, my friend replied. Political protest isn’t intended to educate or change anyone’s minds. It exists so the protesters can vent their anger, and to piss off the opposition.

So you’re saying, I replied, that political protest is just another form of jacking off?

While I’m sure that there is something to the man’s argument, I think that it’s not an especially intelligent or convincing one. The types who just get together so they can scream and wave signs aren’t really helping. They’re just preaching to the choir and firing up themselves — check out pictures of the Tea Party rallies from three years ago if you have any doubts. I think that real protest — effective protest — should exist to educate and enlighten, as well as to enrage. I thought that the Occupy protesters did a pretty good job of that, even though they were infuriatingly disorganized, and managed to flush all of their enthusiasm down the drain by not building on it, or doing anything besides protest.

Early concept art. I really can’t get over the fact that this is what Mackey and Lin think Hannity actually looks like (see inset).

I mention this only because that’s what I think Liberality for All represented — an elaborate four-color process neocon masturbatory fantasy, intended only to highlight how pissed off its author was, and (supposedly) to fire up the outrage of other neocons, whose enthusiasm might be lagging a bit, given how inadequate their simplistic world-view was proving.

Author Mike Mackey’s response to another fuckin’ liberal critic in the letters column pretty much points this up. I’ll deal with the letters in more detail later, but suffice to say Mackey seems downright delighted that liberals find his book to be funny. It seems to me that a good work of satire should at best cause those whom its aimed at to question their own views, rather than keeping them entertained and amused, but this subtlety seems lost on our intrepid author. Were I to write a dystopian tale in which the tenets of liberalism and progressive thought were perverted and turned into vehicles of repression (and believe me, I could write one — unlike Mr. Mackey I at least have sufficient perspective to see how my own political beliefs can go wrong, and how those of opposing views might actually be right once in a while), I’d probably be kind of unhappy if liberals found it amusing. Not so Mr. Mackey. He seems bound and determined to keep the hilarity flowing, and in Issue Two, he does just that.

Liberality for All: Issue Two

As we learned in Issue One, the world of LfA has gone to shit, and the blame can be laid squarely on the slumped, underdeveloped shoulders of the political left — the libs and bleeding hearts who thought that the US brought 9/11 on itself, and whose answer to the entire crisis was to go whining to the U.N. Now of course, the liberal pigeons have come home to roost — America is a client-state to the internationalists at the United Nations, our military has been “absorbed” and forced to wear those faggy French blue berets, our guns have been taken away, our freedom of speech and the press destroyed by the treachery of Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, and worst of all, the collective conscience of the nation — right-wing talk show hosts — have been silenced by Islamic hit squads. It reads like Alan Drury’s Come Nineveh, Come Tyre! only with Muslims instead of Communists.

Another pinup featuring Mackey and Lin’s favorite hunk, G. Gordon Liddy, or as they’d like us to call him, Sexy G.

Unfortunately for us, Issue Two largely fumbles the ball, dropping the exciting “Usama’s-gonna-blow-up-New-York” plotline in favor of extended flashbacks, explaining how our once-proud nation became a toxic swamp of oppression run by cowardly Frenchmen and simpering libtards. To Mackey’s credit, we do get a lot more sexy glamour-shots of the manly G. Gordon Liddy being macho and kicking ass, further cementing my assertion that Mackey had a huge man-crush on the guy (and that’s fine, btw… every consenting adult in this great nation has the right to pursue love and happiness with other consenting adults in any way he/she sees fit, and if you disagree, well I guess you just hate America).

In addition, even I must admit that Donny Lin’s art has graduated from the level of a talented high schooler to that of a promising art-school undergrad. His tendency to draw weird lines all over people’s faces has been reduced, and he seems to have gotten better at digital coloring. Maybe in a couple more decades he really will be the comic artist legend that Mackey predicts he will be. Mind you, this will probably only happen if he buys up all remaining copies of Liberality for All and hides them in his parents’ basement, and that’s really not likely.

The diabolical Alan Colmes, ladies and gentlemen. Are you scared yet?

While Donny Lin’s art has graduated, I’m sorry to say that Mackey’s scripting remains as sophomoric as ever. The tale opens with our narrator continuing to blather. From the text I’ve finally been able to gather that the annoying bloviator is none other than Reagan McGee, the young man who called the Hannity show in Issue One, and was hanging out with that cute redhead with the nice ass while they defaced UN posters.

Again, the narrative captions serve as more of an annoyance than anything else. They form a complete, if somewhat rambling, discourse that carries on for the length of the entire issue, but as in Issue One, they are utterly disjointed, and since they’re spread out over numerous panels, the reader is forced to backtrack to figure out exactly what Reagan is saying. It doesn’t matter much anyway — his narration is more of a neoconservative Greek chorus than anything else, underlining action in the foreground that doesn’t require it, and self-importantly intoning things that we already know. Reagan’s a decent enough young man, mind you, but like most early 20-somethings, he doesn’t realize when he’s starting to sound like a pretentious douchebag.

Here’s what he really looks like, btw. For once, Lin actually figured out how to draw someone recognizably. He DOES have a kind of evil grin, doesn’t he?

Speaking of pretentious douchebags, Issue Two unsurprisingly opens with a couple watching the Sean Hannity show. It’s a flashback to 2006 and the horrors of the Al Gore presidency. The voices of conservative freedom have yet to be silenced, I guess, for Hannity is busy mixing it up with his arch-foe, ultralib traitor Alan Colmes.

I’m going to pause here for a moment to refresh folks’ memories on exactly who Alan Colmes is (was?), since in future issues of LfA he becomes a daemonic force of evil whose very presence causes  conservative men to become gay and boils to break out on the skin of Republicans. The esteemed Mr. Colmes was, for a few years anyway, what Fox News referred to as a “hard-hitting liberal” commentator. He was, in fact, the only “liberal” on the entire  network, and his job was to function as Sean Hannity’s human punching bag. Hannity normally talked him down, interrupted him, insulted him and made him look ineffectual. The only people who took Colmes seriously were his employers at Fox. Most liberals considered him to be something of a joke, and in 2009 Fox News finally accepted reality and fired him. If you have any doubts that Colmes was nothing but a well-paid straw man erected just for Sean Hannity to knock down, you might want to read this or this.

Knowing this, it’s surprising that Mackey chooses to demonize the poor guy, transforming him into one of the architects of innocent, heroic Sean Hannity’s downfall. At least Lin’s caricature is recognizable for once, though the upturned devil-eyebrows seem kind of over the top to me. Mackey really picks the low-hanging fruit when it comes to targets for his savage satire, doesn’t he?

Anyway, back to the great debate. As might be expected, Sean Hannity is heroically demolishing the craven Colmes’ liberal delusions.

“Vice President Clinton said unlike her predecessor, she fully supported diverting even more money from the military budget to social programs here in America,” Colmes gushes.

“Finally!” ripostes Hannity. “A Hillary Clinton promise I can believe! What an administration! Is it any wonder Vice President Lieberman resigned?”

“And what,” counters the Spock-eyebrowed Colmes, “is wrong with reducing a bloated military?”

“BLOATED?” demands Sean. “We are abandoning military bases world wide, like rats leaving a sinking ship! Over the past six years, President Gore has done nothing but gut the military and grovel before the United Nations.”

“But with our strengthened relations with the UN,” drools Colmes, “we just don’t need the military like we used to!”

Well, enough is enough “Certs is a candy mint/No, Certs is a breath mint” style argumentation for Hannity. He brings up a satellite feed direct from Seoul, South Korea, where Fox News correspondent Oliver North is on the scene, reporting live on how the libs have betrayed our brave fighting doughboys and -girls.

Donny Lin’s Oliver North, and the real Oliver North, in a much more familiar setting.

“Kim Jong-Il’s North Korean forces are slaughtering the South Koreans by the thousands,” he desperately reports, hoping someone, somewhere will hear him and end the liberal madness. “We’re calling the invasion of this city… THE SEOUL HARVEST.”

Oliver North, for the uninitiated, was a highly decorated USMC Lieutenant Colonel, and served as deputy director for political-military affairs in Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council. During his tenure he was accused of conspiring with Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, and of involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, in which American arms were sold to the radical Islamists in Iran, with profits used to fund the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. He was also alleged to have been directly involved in drug smuggling activities by the Contras, which they also used to fund their military operations. North was convicted of three felonies, but the convictions were overturned on a technicality by the fancy-pants lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union. Once more, Mike Mackey chooses another noble, morally-unambiguous hero to represent his selfless cause.

(And it’s probably pointless to keep saying this, but comic-book Ollie North looks nothing like real-life Ollie North. While this is probably kicking Donny Lin while he’s down, I’m going to keep doing it, cuz I’m a liberal and have no heart.)

“We have been informed that the promised assistance from UN troops is not coming,” Ollie breathlessly continues. “I have never seen anything like this. It’s like…”

KER-WHOOM! A North Korean shell goes off nearby, and Ollie finishes.

“…HELL!” Talking straight into the camera, he concludes, “That was too close. America should know that President Gore has betrayed the…”

Too late, Ollie! The liberal cut the feed before you can reveal the depth of Al Gore’s treachery!

G. Gordon Liddy’s dream of playing Brainiac in the next Superman film was cruelly crushed that day.

Back to Sean “Babyface” Hannity, whom Donny Lin still makes appear to be about 17 years old, introducing his next guest, Sexy G himself, the G-meister, the OG, G-Man G. Gordon Liddy, who’s in town to attend the Fight for Freedom Rally at the soon-to-be-renamed Freedom Tower that’s being built on the site of the 9/11 tragedy.

“What is the big deal?” slobbers Colmes. “It hasn’t even been finished yet, so what is wrong with renaming an unfinished building? Don’t you believe in global unity?”

Sexy G sneers. “You mean like the unity between President Gore’s nose to (sic) that of the collective rear of the UN?”

Not only does Sexy G engage in incredibly convoluted metaphor, he can’t even state them grammatically.

And so we cut away from all the Colmes-bashing to the fireman from issue one and his son, little Reagan, our narrator. Dad you see, is in the national guard and is being deployed to the fiasco in Korea (if Al Gore is stabbing our troops in the back, why are we deploying fresh forces? No, never mind…).

Hey kid… Yer mom’s hot. Since your dad’s gonna be killed in Korea, do you think I could get her phone number?

Mom worries that dad’s going to lose his fireman’s wages, but dad’s adamant. “Honey,” he says, “I’ll be fine. And it’s my duty to go.”

“I know,” she replies, wiping away a patriotic tear, “but I want a bright future for Reagan… College and all that.”

Not to fear, dad replies. “He’ll have a bright future… As long as he has two parents that love him.”

Now if you’ve seen enough action movies, you know what’s coming next. Sean and Sexy-G are going to be signing books tomorrow, so mom suggests that she and little Reagan go downtown to get daddy that book he wanted.

“So he can take it to Korea wit him!” cries little Reagan. Damn he’s happy. Only the most savage, cruel-hearted monster would want to take so much happiness away. Someone like a…

Liberal.

I think little Reagan’s teacher is a liberal lesbo or something… I mean, look at those sensible shoes.

Next day, cute li’l Reagan is in school, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (I’ll give you three guesses how that turns out).

Meanwhile, his droning narration begins in earnest.

“There is nothing more patriotic than freedom of speech” he tells us. “As long as you don’t say the wrong thing.”

Oh, you mean like US Out of Iraq or Hillary for President? I really can’t help making statements like that, since Mackey’s writing has a gigantic “KICK ME” sign taped to its back.

Okay, okay, let’s get it over with. Li’l Reagan says “Under God,” the teacher has a shit-fit and makes him stare at the flagpole until he learns his lesson. And while he does, some hyper-patriotic gradeschoolers haul down the UN flag that’s flying traitorously alongside Old Glory, then deface it and put it back.

Teacher returns. “Have you learned your lesson yet?” “Yes,” Reagan replies, and when the teacher looks out the window at the defaced UN flag she exclaims (altogether now), “OH, MY GOD!”

(That’s ironic, see? She objected to Reagan saying “Under God,” but when she saw the flag, she said, “Oh, my God,” so it’s funny and ironic. Another anvil falls on the reader’s head.)

“I am sick of hearing how the hyper-sensitive feel,” adult Reagan continues. “Where in the Bill of Rights does it say you have the right ‘not’ to be offended?”

Mom picks up li’l Reagan and he asks, “Mommy, what is a patriot?” (Honest to God, when I read the kid’s dialog, I imagine him talking with an adorable li’l lisp, as in “Mommy, what’s a patwiot?”)

Sean Hannity couldn’t make it to the signing, so he had Tom Cruise fill in for him. Unfortunately Tom kept signing the books “best wishes from Galactic Emperor Xenu.”

“Well,” she replies, “someone who loves, supports and defends his country, I suppose. BUT ONLY IF IT’S RUN BY CONSERVATIVES! IF IT’S RUN BY LIBERAL DEMOCRATS, THEN YOU’RE A PATRIOT IF YOU HATE AND DESPISE YOUR GOVERNMENT, CLAIM IT ISN’T REALLY YOUR GOVERNMENT AT ALL, CALL EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH YOU A TRAITOR, INSULT YOUR ELECTED LEADERS AND BREAK THE LAW!”

Sorry, that’s not really in there… You see, I’m using irony, just like Mike Mackey.

Ahem… So the parade of predictability continues. “Like Daddy?” asks our lovable little conserva-tot.

“Yes,” mom replies, “I would say your daddy is definitely a patriot.”

This pleases li’l Reagan. “I’m going to be a patriot when I grow up,” he declares.

So mom and Reagan troop down to the bookstore to get Hannity’s latest screed signed. They missed Sexy G, but it’s okay. Reagan walks up to Sean and declares, “My daddy is a patriot!”

“Reagan,” says Sean, blinking away America-loving tears, “you should be proud of your father. He’s a great American!”

At least the wife and child of Noor, the not-evil Muslim, got to meet Tom Cruise before they died.

Sean’s next customer is a vaguely south-Asian looking guy named Noor Ilham and his headscarf-wearing wife. Knowing that not all Muslims are terrorists and that unlike the scourge of liberalism, Islam can be twisted to evil purposes by evil, unscrupulous men, Sean happily signs. Noor runs out to his car to get another book to sign, and Sean learns from Noor’s wife that he is a big fan and a bio-mechanical engineer, working on nanotech and bionic enhancements.

Wow, Sean exclaims, just like Oscar Goldman from The Six Million Dollar Man! You know… I think this might be plot material.

Well, his wonder is short-lived, for elsewhere in the building a filthy bearded terrorist is setting off a suicide vest while (of course) muttering “Allahu akbar!”

Somehow Super-Sean senses that this is happening and tries to throw himself onto Noor’s wife in a desperate effort to save her and their innocent little baby, but he is too late. The bookstore goes up like Mitt Romney’s election-night victory fireworks would have had he actually won the election, killing or maiming everyone and leaving poor Noor outside, with only his battered copy of Injustice and Liberality for All  to comfort him.

Knowing that without Sean Hannity to defend it, freedom itself will wither and die, al Qaeda strikes!

Before I continue, I have to say that for once I notice that Mackey has dialed back the silliness, for a moment at least. Noor is of course Oscar, the nanotech genius who gives super-Sean his magic arm and makes Sexy-G an immortal sexy beast with his amazing nanotechnology. As his wife is wearing a headscarf, I presume Noor is supposed to be of the Muslim faith, which is a level of subtlety that I never expected from the good Mr. Mackey. Amid a rising tide of clumsy writing and on-the-nose symbolism he’s thrown in a character with a tiny bit of nuance, and for an instant I began to wonder whether LfA wasn’t going to become a little less of an angry polemic.

Nah, no such luck. In the next scene we’re back to our usual hackyened fare as Sexy G is riding in a cab to the airport, listening (surprise!) to Rush Limbaugh. The Fat One is busy complaining about those damned libs who are trying to suppress Anne Coulter’s new book as “hate speech.”

“They will not rest,” he declares, “until they’ve silenced us all… Kkkkkk…. Krrrzzzz…”

CLANG! After a brief respite in the form of a realistic and interesting supporting character, the anvils are back, and they fall thick and fast from here on.

Filthy Muslim terrorists don’t stand a chance against the sheer manliness of Sexy-G’s massive forehead.

Sexy G gets out at his destination only to be jumped by a couple of filthy Arabs, who pull scimitars (yes, scimitars) from their louse-infested beards and attack, not knowing that they are doomed, for they face an American with a firearm.

Sexy G reaches into his coat. “Didn’t you ever hear the joke about the Islamofascist that (sic) brought a sword to a gun fight?”

(Hey, hold your horses, G-man… It’s not a gun! It’s a pistol or a weapon. And it should be treated with respect, even if it’s made by Smith and Wesson.)

He takes out the first assailant by shooting behind himself without aiming (what a hunka man!), then quips “Here’s the punchline” as he kneecaps the second.

“You two just cost me four bullets, at twenty-five cents each,” he growls. “I want my dollar back!”

Sensual and lithe as a muscular bald-headed panther he may be, but Sexy G needs to work on his wisecracks a little.

I’ll go torture terrorists in a few minutes. Right now, me and Harley would like some sweet alone time…

Honestly, once more I’m pretty unclear about what happens next. G. Gordon pulls a shipping invoice from the wounded assassin, then we cut to the interior of a warehouse where a greasy guy in an apron is delivering a couple of barrels. Then G walks over to a crate that’s marked “Harley Davidson.”

He opens the crate, discovering a mint condition 1930 Harley that’s intended to be shipped to Saudi Arabia.

“I don’t think so,” Sexy G purrs, stroking the Harley like a lover.

“Trying to kill me,” he snarls, opening the trunk of his car and pulling out the wounded assassin, “that I might forgive. But condemning a Harley-Davidson to life in a desert. I DON’T THINK I CAN TOLERATE THAT!”

“Do you know what sand does to an antique engine? Sand sticks to oil,” he declares, throwing his prisoner to the ground and brandishing a bucket full of crimson liquid, “like pig’s blood sticks to skin!”

“NO! NOOOO!” cries the craven terrorist. “Allah will not…”

“Let you into heaven?” Sexy G holds up a bloody pig skin. “That’s right. Now you’ll tell me exactly what I want to know. Or I’ll duct tape these pig skins around you!”

After that, the cowardly terrorist’s resolve collapses like Alan Colmes’ arguments and he admits that bin Laden sent him to kill the famous and dangerous Sexy G, and others would die at the same time.

Great Scott! thinks Sexy G. That means that Rush and Anne might be… NO!

He turns on the radio only to hear the devastating news that freedom has been destroyed.

Liberality for All takes a hard turn into “Saw” territory.

“…Among them Rush Limbaugh, who famously noted he had talent on loan from God, has settled his debt with the almighty today, found with half his brain behind his back. Others confirmed dead include Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham, all killed in what seems to be a string of both attempted and successful assassinations on conservatives nationwide…”

This gets Sexy G’s patriotic dander up, believe you me. “I was only bluffing when I said I would duct tape pig skins to you,” he says, his voice a low throb of rage as he produces a pneumatic nailgun, “you see, I DON’T HAVE ANY DUCT TAPE!”

(Okay, I can dig the whole “nanites make GGL immortal” schtick — it’s a comic book, after all. But this portion of the comic is set in 2006. That a 76 year old Liddy can kick ass on two al Qaeda terrorists while looking all hot and buff and sexy goes a long way toward confirming my suspicion about Mike Mackey’s secret obsession with the guy.)

And so we leave our patriotic defender of liberty, busily torturing his captive to death with a nailgun in the great tradition of American warriors, and return to the tragedy at A to Z Books. Fox News reporter Kiran Chetry is bringing details of the atrocity live (of course it’s Fox — the other networks only report on dumb stuff like school massacres and mall shootings, SO THEY CAN TAKE AWAY OUR GUNS!), and like every good Fox reporter, shoves her microphone into the face of a grieving victim. It’s Noor, of course, who tells us that he’s lost both wife and child in the explosion.

Meanwhile, Reagan’s narration babbles on, to the point where I’ve pretty much stopped paying attention. “The loss of liberty leaves a void in the soul, which (sic) yearns for fulfillment. It’s the nature of those who have been robbed of such a precious gift to never stop searching for it.”

Sean Hannity zaps terrorism, just like he zaps liberals every week on his Fox News(TM) show!

In a jarring shift back to the present day of 2021, Super-Sean comforts the grieving Noor. Noor dries his tears and mans right up, and gives Sean a big hand — a cybernetic hand, that is! He’s designed a brand new arm “using a new software code from my contact at the Department of Peace.”

(Of course, if the word “peace” is associated with anything in this series, it’s the traitorous, limp-wristed, daisy-eating libtards who are so naive as to think that there’s any alternative to constant warfare and violence. Silly people.)

“It’s tougher,” Noor tells Sean, “than the bionic liver I designed for Teddy. Just try not to be as hard on it.”

CLANG!

Evil just OOZES from Alan Colmes every disgusting liberal pore, doesn’t it?

Elsewhere in the secret Conserva-cave, Sexy G is cradling his big sword and watching Fox — Oops, sorry “Liberty International Broadcasting” (Get it? The initials are “L.I.B.” like LIBERAL, because the media is RUN BY LIBERALS! Hence, the initials L.I.B., because that’s short for “LIBERAL”!) — where Alan Colmes downright daemonic visage dominates the airwaves.

I guess Alan Colmes got a shot of some kind of super-nanite serum too, because in Mackey’s world he’s an evil mastermind who pals around with terrorists. He’s hosting live coverage of a visit to the White House by your friend and mine, the greatest and most generous, peace-loving guy in the world, his buddy Ambassador Usama bin Laden!

Fun-loving Usama is introduced by the snail-eating UN General Secretary to the rather hot President Chelsea and her cringing, bowing and scraping fat tub of subhuman lard vice president, Michael Moore, who drools “Sir, it continues to be an honor advancing your efforts.”

Soon after taking office as vice president, liberal filmmaker Michael Moore announced that he was actually a moleman.

“And this,” Chelsea says, indicating a baby held by a black nanny, “is my son, William Jefferson.”

(Who’s his father? I’m sure we’ll find out in a future issue and it will be another subtle and sophisticated jab at a liberal icon.)

“He stays here while you rule this nation?” Usama asks, for no other reason than to give Mackey another straight line.

“Oh, little Willie just loves to play in the Oval Office,” gibbers the quivering, sweat-covered vice president. “He always has.”

CLANG.

(It’s a joke, see? President Bill Clinton had SEX in the White House. And “Willie” is slang for “PENIS.” So when Michael Moore says that “Little Willie just loves to play in the Oval Office,” he’s actually referring to Bill Clinton having SEX IN THE WHITE HOUSE! It’s a JOKE! Get it????)

Oh, NO HE DIDN’T!

Usama then scares the hell out of the baby and admires the Oval Office. He looks greedily toward the president’s chair.

“The fates of many nations were decided from this very spot. May I have the pleasure?” he says, moving to sit down in it.

Needless to say, the cringing Secretary General and the crawling, sycophantic Moore say “yes,” even though President Chelsea says it’s “inappropriate.”

America’s chair of freedom is crushed by the ass of tyranny.

“How comfortable it is!” declares the filthy killer of thousands as he leans back in the most sacred chair in freedom-loving America. “I must admit I always wanted to do this.”

Back at underwater Conserva-lair One, our heroes are of course outraged.

“Ollie,” Sean says, slapping one of his companions on the back, “for once, be glad you’re blind!”

(Yeah, yeah, it’s Oliver North. The crowd goes wild.)

Our orgy of conservative outrage is interrupted by the appearance of a hot blonde in a halter top (no, not the Liberty Belle from Issue One, dammit, but she does bear some resemblance to what a conservative might think Anne Coulter looks like), who tells Ollie that her mission is accomplished (where have we heard that before, I wonder?)

She draws back the cover on a giant computer console, and Ollie tells his friends that it is “The S.D.I. Mobile Command Center, and with it, the return of the Strategic Defense Initiative!”

Holy shit, those terrorists are in trouble now!  Issue Two ends on this high note, and we’re told to wait for Issue Three:

This can’t be Anne Coulter… Her adam’s apple is missing.

“As Ambassador bin Laden’s ‘apology’ approaches, President Chelsea Clinton begins to question America’s ties with the United Nations. G. Gordon Liddy’s [gorgeous, sexy] body undergoes repairs that explain both his and Hannity’s origins. Although blind, Oliver North begins to set his sights on freedom as Reagan McGee remembers a day he wishes he could forget.”

We end with another letters column. The lead-off is from some hipster who says he read LfA cover-to-cover in the comic shop and didn’t pay for it, and Mackey justifiably condemns the creep as an Anti-American pinko fag.

The next letter is from a conservative essentially telling the libs that they can dish it out but can’t take it, since they’ve been so mean and unfair to poor President Bush and all those patriotic Republicans, it’s only just that LfA be just as distorted and stupid.

Just another American, showing his patriotism in the spirit of G. Gordon Liddy.

“The America portrayed in the comic,” he concludes, “could easily become reality if the far left gained control. I’m still waiting for a lib to prove me wrong, hasn’t (sic) come up yet.”

When he says “far left” of course, he means moderate Democrats, since at this point Hannity and his friends considered Hillary Clinton to be a dangerous, unhinged extremist ultraliberal.

Another letter complains about the whole “Coulter Laws” thing, assuming (correctly) that Mackey considers the Fairness Doctrine to be the first of these laws. Mackey replies, “Congrats to Dan, our first liberal reader to view the ‘Coulter Laws’ as ‘fairness.’ No doubt interrupting one of Anne Coulter’s college speeches is what you consider ‘equal time’?”

Mackey shows a certain native cleverness here, using a classic “straw man” attack. Since other people whom you agree with have done something unethical (interrupting Anne Coulter’s speech at a university, which happened a couple of times), therefore you must also believe that it’s okay. Therefore, you are a foe of free speech and support censorship.

Of course he doesn’t have any clue as to whether Dan supported interfering with Anne Coulter’s free speech, but since he’s brought it up he walks away claiming victory.

See above.

As for the Fairness Doctrine, it was government policy from 1949 to 1987, and required holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission’s view, honest, equitable and balanced. By no definition would the Fairness Doctrine have “censored” Anne Coulter — in fact, it required that views like hers be presented, but only if done so in a “fair and balanced” manner (sound familiar?).

In 2005, when LfA was being published, there was a move in congress to restore enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine, and needless to say, it caused conservatives to have kittens. The move went nowhere, and the Fairness Doctrine is today something of a dinosaur, with the Obama administration instead advocating for opening the airwaves to more broadcasters with as many diverse viewpoints as possible.

Whether the Fairness Doctrine was a good idea or not is up to the individual. Rather than taking Mike Mackey’s word for it, free speech and ethics expert that he is, read about it here and decide for yourself. The fact is that it was in place in this country for nearly 40 years and did not result in a liberal dictatorship, nor did it cause — directly or indirectly — the confiscation of firearms or a takeover by the United Nations.

Mackey gets a couple more letters telling him how fucking hilarious he is, to which he replies, “One thing is certain: Conservatives and Liberals seem to live in such different worlds that praise from the icons of one side is viewed as pathetically amusing by the other. So I will leave it to each reader to answer the question: ‘Liberality For All’: Serious or Satire, Parody or Prophecy?”

Ditto.

(See my suggestion above that LfA is just a huge conservative wank-fest… If Mackey were attempting to educate or change minds, I might feel a tad more respect for him, but since he’s pretty much admitted that LfA is a right-wing stroke-book, I’m not terribly inclined to take him seriously.)

Finally we end with a conservative fan, who pretty much confirms my opinion of Mackey’s serious readers by saying, “Finally, a voice of reason has decided to create a comic worth collecting. Surely, this comic is going to raise the wrath of the uninformed, hate-their-own-country, pacifistic, boot-licking left. I must say though, it truly terrifies me that this work of fiction could be a work of fact if the vocal minority were allowed to have their way.”

I give up… This really isn’t a satire, is it? This is what certain hard-right demagogues thought would really have happened had Al Gore been elected president. It’s alternate history written by the John Birch Society. It’s a clarion call to keep the Democrats out of the White House, and a dire prediction of what will transpire should another lib win the presidency.

Good thing no liberal has been in the White House since George W, huh? I mean, if one of those bleeding hearts actually won the election through some weird fluke, we’d be overrun by terrorists in no time… The UN black helicopters would be swooping down to take our guns while our schools would be turned into socialist indoctrination centers, where our precious little angels would be transformed into propaganda-spouting junior revolutionaries… I mean, damn! Thank God no damn liberal has managed to…

Oh, wait.

Sorry, never mind.

Do you think that Donny Lin used a cartoon circus strongman as his model for G. Gordon Liddy? I’m half-convinced myself.

Issue Two concludes with more art, including some nice sketches of our heroes. Oliver North (listed as “Oliver Hero”) is extending his arm, allowing an American eagle (what else?) with an approximately 10-foot wingspan to land on it, while Sexy G is at his sexiest, casting a smoldering glance of to one side, resplendent in sensual black leather, a rigid steel saber clutched firmly in one massive forepaw.

If nothing else, Liberality for All did its best to turn an aging felon like G. Gordon Liddy into a sex symbol. Too bad it only ran three issues.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of this exciting report in my next exciting post!

AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!

America… FUCK YEAH!!!

Anyone who has read this blog (both of you) has probably noticed that I spend a lot of time waxing nostalgic about the 1980s. I admit it — I kind of miss the era, especially since I was a lot younger and my knees didn’t make so much noise. But there are other eras that I can write about, and I probably should so I don’t seem like too much of an old fogey.

In the early ’00s, for example, it was a great time to be a neocon. The years of 2003-2006 were certainly days that future conservatives will look back on through a mist of tender nostalgia. We were winning the War on Terror. The Islamists were on the run, and freedom was on the march, in Iraq, Afghanistan and — hell – everywhere! Sure, the Iraq War was dragging on a little longer than we’d have liked and sure, we never found any of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction (to the neocon’s credit, however, we did find a factory that made helium for balloons), and sure, that public park in Baghdad with a statue of George W. Bush hadn’t yet materialized, but, hey! We’re America, and that means winning. In those days, being a neocon was sophisticated, glamorous, even sexy. Fox News was riding high, Sean Hannity was the man of the hour, and there were hit songs about the war, tellin’ all them libruls to stick a sock in it, we real American’s gonna git ‘er done. A few bold conservatives even suggested that the Democratic party could be completely eliminated, and replaced by a far more sensible one-party system.

Of course, woe unto you if you had the temerity to be against the war. After all, opposing the legitimately-elected government of the United States and its undisputed leader was tantamount to treason. Only an America-hating, terrorist-loving libtard who wanted al Quaeda to win could possibly be against us bringing American-style democracy to the freedom-starved middle-east. Thank God that that bastard Al Gore wasn’t elected despite winning the popular vote… He’d have been over there sucking bin Laden’s dick while singing Kumbaya. 

And so it was that, in the tumultuous year of 2006, a small independent comic book company located in Lexington, KY and called ACC Studios launched the roughest, toughest, most kickass manly neoconservative graphic series ever, Liberality for All. My own words cannot possibly do justice to this series so here, in its creator’s words, is a synopsis of the planned eight-issue miniseries. I have left it in its original, charmingly clumsy form, with the minor exception of throwing in that annoying (sic), signifying lack of grammatical skill on the part of its original author.

America’s future has become an Orwellian nightmare of ultra-liberalism. Beginning with the Gore Presidency, the government has become increasingly dominated by liberal extremists.

In 2004, Muslim terrorists stopped viewing the weakened American government as a threat; instead they set their sights on their true enemies, vocal American conservatives. On one dark day, in 2006, many conservative voices were forever silenced by terrorist assassins. Those which (sic) survived joined forces and formed a powerful covert conservative organization called “The Freedom of Information League”, aka F.O.I.L.

The efforts of F.O.I.L. threaten both the liberal extremist power structure and the U.N.’s grip on America, (sic) the U.N. calls F.O.I.L. the most dangerous group in the world. It seems the once theorized Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has now become a reality.

The F.O.I.L. Organization is forced underground by the “Coulter Laws” of 2007; these hate speech legislations (sic) have made right-wing talk shows, and conservative-slanted media, illegal. Our weakened government has willingly handed the reins of our once great country to the corrupt United Nations. The Department of Political-Correctness is required to assist U.N. monitors to properly edit all print and broadcast media. Live broadcasts are a thing of the past; all transmissions are monitored by the U.N. and any ‘offensive’ material is dumped.

Here’s a picture from the ACC website. Yes, that is supposed to be Sean Hannity stopping the Hillary train. This was back when conservatives were all wetting themselves in fear of the Clintons, and an Obama presidency wasn’t even a gleam in anyone’s eye.

Rupert Murdoch’s decision to defy the “Coulter Laws” hate speech legislations (sic), has bankrupted News Corporation. George Soros has bought all of News Corps assets and changed its name to Liberty International Broadcasting. LIB’s networks have flourished and circle the globe with a series of satellites beaming liberal & U.N. propaganda worldwide.

The New York City faction of F.O.I.L. is lead (sic) by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, each uniquely endowed with special abilities devised by a bio mechanical engineer affectionately nicknamed “Oscar”. F.O.I.L. is soon to be joined by a young man named Reagan McGee.

Reagan was born on September 11th, 2001. He is the son of a NYC firefighter whose life was spared by attending his son’s birth. Reagan has grown to manhood in an ultra-liberal educational system: being told, not asked, what to think. With personal determination, which alienates him from his contemporaries, he has chosen the path less traveled…the path to the Right.

Two decades of negotiation with the U.N., and America’s administration of 2021 (President Chelsea Clinton and Vice President Michael Moore), has (sic) culminated in a truce with fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, or so America is told. The honorable ambassador from Afghanistan has come to NYC to address the U.N., (sic) his name is Usama Bin Laden. Ambassador Bin Laden has announced that he plans a public apology for the “misunderstanding” of the events of 9/11. This apology will occur exactly 20 years to the minute the first plane hit the WTC; this will be on the observation deck at the newly renamed “Unity Tower” built on the hallowed grounds where the WTC once stood.

Tomorrow is September 11, 2021, the twentieth anniversary of the horror of 9/11, or as it has become more politically correct to say “the unfortunate events resulting from the uprising of middle-eastern fundamentalist Islam”. Just days before his arrival in NYC, Bin Laden made a brief visit to Iraq, now a nuclear power that is run by the vicious Uday Hussein. In Iraq, Bin Laden received a tactical nuke that is now contained in his private diplomatic briefcase. Bin Laden plans far more than an apology at the Unity Tower.

F.O.I.L. has become aware of Bin Laden’s plot to destroy NYC and has devised a plan to stop him while simultaneously gaining permanent control of LIB’s satellite network. Unfortunately, U.N. Forces have discovered the secret location of the F.O.I.L. Lair. It is a race against the clock to save NYC from a nuclear holocaust and the world from liberal domination. Only with F.O.I.L.’s help, can “Liberality For All” once again become “Liberty For All!”

No, I’m not making this up. I mentioned this comic a few months ago and I think posted a few covers, but the very existence of such a book has really fascinated me, and I’ve finally managed to get my hands on all three existing issues (the existence issue four, listed as “NOW ON SALE” at ACC’s website remains questionable; if anyone has it, please let me know). So sit back and enjoy the next few entries, folks. We’re going to have some fun at ACC comics’ expense.

I guess the first thing I (and in fact many readers) wondered was whether it was serious or not. There have been some fake right-wing comics published in the past, like this one, for example (which was actually pretty bad), and after a quick glance through Liberality for All I was left with the impression that it was a cunning liberal spoof on what kind of comic book a paranoic right-wing nutjob might write. If so, it’s pretty brilliant, since I laughed my ass off from cover to cover.

Here’s an image I found when I did a GIS for “Mike Mackey.” I don’t think this is actually a picture of him, but who knows?

Alas, that does not appear to be the case. Much (if not most) of the time, extremist politics strays into the realm of self-parody. It’s been said that most fanatical creationist propaganda can’t be distinguished from satire, for example. And I’m not being partisan, either; it doesn’t matter whether propaganda is liberal, conservative, communist or fascist, if it’s extremist, it has a tendency to be downright laughable. Such is the case with Liberality for All, and writer Mike Mackey has said, emphatically and repeatedly, that he means every word he says.

Here’s ACC’s website, crude and all alone, still standing like a rock against the liberal tide six years after shipping their last few issues. (Previews of the first few issues of LfA are still available there as well, in case you don’t believe me.) The front page proudly displays a picture of Sean Hannity (the real one) holding up a copy of LfA number one, and links to a series of press releases, the last one being dated July, 2006, after which no further content has been added. One wonders who is paying for keeping the site on-line, as it presently serves as nothing but a stark reminder of how unsuccessful the planned mini-series was.

So who were ACC Studios, anyway? Well, there’s Indonesian comic artist Donny Lin (Hey! What are they doing shipping our valuable American jobs overseas? Why didn’t ACC use an AMERICAN artist? Did they want the terrorists to win?), of whom ACC says the following:

Fantastic! That is the only word to describe the art of Donny Lin. He can do it all. His mastery of the sequential form is genius. At one point in the beginning of every great artist’s career, someone becomes the first to realize they are looking at the work of a future artistic legend. It’s the point in time where future publishers, if they only had a time machine, would go back to, and become the ones that were the first to work with him. Such an artist is Donny Lin. Every comic collector will one day come to know that name… Donny Lin. Expect great things from this future legend, you will get it (sic)!

Well with that kind of an introduction, I eagerly combed the Internet for more information about future artistic legend Donny Lin — who knows? Some of his early work might be available cheap on e-bay, sold by some ignorant slob who doesn’t realize what a gold mine he has. My detailed search revealed that since working on LfA, the esteemed Mr. Lin has produced… Well… Actually, no other comics at all. In fact, the handful of legitimate reviews of LfA that I could find all single out Lin’s art as being especially weak and amateurish. We’ll get to details on the art later.

(Personally I think that since Donny Lin is from Indonesia, home of al-Qaeda linked terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiya, he was actually a fundamentalist Islamic mole planted in ACC to purposely ruin LfA, but that’s only a theory… Maybe if I write it down on a chalkboard it will make more sense…)

LfA was proudly written by one Mike Mackey, who was of course the sole owner and operator of ACC Studios, and also the designer of its web page (now we know who to blame). As with the good Mr. Lin, I have been unable to find any more writing credits for Mr. Mackey since LfA’s untimely demise. My guess is that his career was ruined by the liberal hit-squads that Al Gore sent out to kill all the Fox News commentators (yes, that really is in the comic… Just wait…). I imagine today he’s somewhere in a fortified compound stocking up on 7.62mm ammo while he waits for the UN black helicopters to arrive.

I get the impression that LfA’s demagoguery arose in response to what Mackey perceived as unfair distortion of conservative beliefs by the liberal media. As in, ”Distort my political views, will you, you liberal comic book writers, you? Well, I’ll just distort your views too! Nyah!” It’s not an entirely unfair accusation, though one has to cherry pick through a lot of liberal thought to see distortions that are as extreme as this sort of  thing (careful of that last link, btw… the crazy is very high and very thick and the webmaster apparently doesn’t mind that his page is about a half-mile long), which I think is far more common among conservatives than liberals. Mind you, I’m obviously one of those terrist-lovin’ hippies from Orygun, so you don’t have to listen to me.

In any event, I think that this kind of response to perceived unfairness by the media is really a case of two wrongs making a right, sort of like Fox News claiming it’s “fair and balanced,” not because it’s actually fair and balanced, but because everyone else isn’t “fair and balanced,” so it’s okay for them to distort everything through a right-wing lens.

So enough of that. There’s sufficient political polemic on a single page of Liberality for All to fill about ten of my own blog entries, so I’ll just let Mackey’s sterling scripting speak for itself. Everybody seated? Ready to begin? Here we go!

Liberality for All, Issue 1:

Cover A… I kind of expected better from Larry Elmore, frankly.

LfA Issue One had two covers, in case you were a collector and planning on making a lot of money when it became a huge international bestseller. The first was created by the inestimable Donny Lin, and it’s not too bad. The second was by the great fantasy artist Larry Elmore (LARRY FREAKIN’ ELMORE had something to do with this fiasco? Holy shit…) and is actually not all that great. The Lin cover has some motion and dynamism to its portrayal of cyber-Sean Hannity and his friends, while the Elmore cover is downright static, with a lot of wasted space and slightly artificial poses. The G. Gordon Liddy character is supposed to be thundering along on his manly Harley, but as drawn he looks as if he’s just sitting in one place spinning his tires to produce smoke.

Our tale begins with some weasly-looking liberal type driving his car through the peaceful, freedom-loving streets of New York City, while listening to the Rush Limbaugh show. The Rushster is in the process of introducing his colleague, the insightful Sean Hannity, who will begin broadcasting “some time next year, in mid-September 2001″ and says he looks forward to joining the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Just as Rush and Sean start making dark predictions about America’s grim future should liberal usurper Al Gore actually win the presidency (“…Let’s all pray, because without strong leadership, America’s future is doomed.” “As usual Rush, you’re exactly right! The course the liberal lefties have this country on is deadly!”) the driver swerves to miss a dog in the street, then plows into the rear of another car and explodes. The second car is clearly labeled “Corvair”, and the driver’s vehicle has a “Nader 2000″ sticker, but alas neither saves him, for by the time the FDNY arrives, the driver is toast.

Cover B… Honestly, some pretty decent work. Too bad the interiors aren’t even close to this quality.

Meanwhile, the captions are forlornly wondering “God knows what events led us to where we are today. What was it? What was it that shifted power and leadership so far to the left? Was it one man, one event?”

Clearly we’re supposed to realize that something significant has happened, but it took my reading one of several interviews with Mackey on-line to actually figure out what it was, thick-skulled liberal traitor that I am. The driver was of course Ralph Nader, even though Donny Lin apparently had no idea what Ralph Nader looked like, and of course since he rear-ended a Corvair, his painful death has a sting of irony, as Ralph Nader wrote Unsafe at Any Speed, which many blame for destroying sales of the Corvair. Nothing like the brutal, agonizing death of a real, living individual to drive your point home is there, Mike?

(Of course none of the foregoing is mentioned anywhere in Issue One, so the prolog just kind of sits there in limbo with no actual connection to the rest of the story. A great start to a great comic series, huh?)

Suddenly, it’s a year later and we’re witness to one of the greatest tragedies that this nation has ever seen — the election of Al Gore as president.

Oops, sorry… I meant the 9/11 attacks, though you wouldn’t know it from Mackey’s writing, which is more geared toward baiting people he doesn’t agree with than to actually showing any empathy for the tragedy.

This is supposed to be a picture of Ralph Nader (see inset). The resemblance is uncanny, don’t you think?

Anyway, it seems that that librul bastard Al Gore was elected president because, of course, Ralph Nader died painfully, ironically and hilariously a year ago, and now the pot-smokers in Florida have no one to vote for. The next panel after the falling towers portrays President Gore (at least I think it’s President Gore… once more Donny Lin doesn’t seem to be very good at actually portraying living people) riding along the street in his bullet-proof popemobile, spouting platitudes to the ignorant masses.

“Let us first understand their motives,” the arch-traitor airly declares, his heart bleeding all over his expensive suit, “to help us avoid repeating the actions that caused these attacks. Time will help us forget this pain.”

Yes folks… Al Gore would have told us it was all our fault, and that we need to understand our attackers. Once more, thank God that that limp-wristed SOB was never elected, else Mike Mackey’s horrifying Orwellian vision of the future might have come true.

The scene ends with the image of an exhausted New York Fireman huddled against his truck in the shadow of the WTC’s wreckage, and the ominous caption “My father said that the smell of the aftermath at Ground Zero would never escape his memory… Nor the memories of anyone who dug through that immense grave. Maybe we all should have experienced it the way they did. Perhaps then we would not have forgotten.”

The caption now continues over scenes at a hospital where another fireman cradles his infant son. “My dad always said that I saved his life that day… I guess in a way, I did. He was at the hospital with me and mom. You see, it was the day I was born. Most of his friends died as heroes that day. Mom always said a part of dad did too.”

(By the way, have you ever noticed that conservatives always wax eloquent on the firemen and others who died on 9/11, but in all other instances they dismiss New York City as a cesspool of vice and liberalism? Funny how the only way you can get respect from certain right-wingers is to die…)

And now it’s two years later, December 2002 and some kind of bland-faced guy in a pink shirt is talking on the radio, saying “Welcome back to the Sean Hannity Show…”

Oops, it’s actually Sean Hannity. Once more, the character portrayed in the comic bears absolutely no resemblance to his real-life counterpart. For an artist whom Mackey describes as “a future artistic legend,” Donny Lin really needs to work on his portraiture. At first I thought it might be an evil Sean Hannity clone created in a lab by Al Gore and Rachel Maddow, but when he continues to speak, it’s clear that he’s the real McCoy.

Al Gore’s Popemobile. Awesome ride.

“I am telling you, folks; I need something to wake me from this nightmare, the nightmare of Al Gore’s presidency… It has been over a year, and what has President Gore done about 911? ZILCH! Al Gore’s liberal administration says negotiations with the fundamentalists are going well. I don’t care how madmen feel! I want them brought to justice, not negotiated with, not appeased! Al Gore’s radical, liberal agenda is robbing America of justice. Thanks, Al. Thanks for all the liberal fodder for my second book. I am going to call the book Injustice and Liberality for All.”

Great title, dude! Run with it!

As Heroic Hannity’s plea goes unheard across the liberal-dominated world, we now focus in on the secret lair of the overfiend himself, the diabolical Usama bin Laden, who continues to craft his nefarious schemes, untouched by the naive and foolish President Gore.

“The American government poses no threat now,” he cackles, looking over maps of the US. “We will negotiate with the infidels until our daggers are sharpest. However, we now have other enemies in America that (sic) must be dealt with.”

Press here if you want to amp the suspense up even further.

And so the plot is laid, the pieces are in place, and the the evil grows, unnoticed by anyone save the staff of Fox News…

It’s 19 years later and Usama has stopped by to visit his buddy Saddam Hussein, and his disgusting son Uday (since, of course, we didn’t have George W. Bush and Operation Iraqi Freedom to save us from his machinations). Never mind that Hussein and bin Laden despised each other, and that despite Darryl Whorley’s hit song, Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 — no, this is the world of Liberality for All, and if Mike Mackey says that Saddam and bin Laden conspired against America together, well by GOD it must be true.

So bin Laden accepts a briefcase nuke from Uday and off he flies to New York City to address the U.N.

Did Sean Hannity EVER actually look like this?

EGADS! What treachery is this??? America’s most hated and feared foe is being allowed to visit New York City? How can it be??? Such a travesty could only transpire if our beloved democracy as subverted, and handed over lock, stock and barrel, to a band of terrorist-loving traitors. Traitors like….

Liberals.

So as “Ambassador bin Laden” is eagerly ushered into the U.N. by his lickspittle traitor “American” guides, the captions eloquently begin again with the following exhortation:

“Throughout its history, America’s freedom cost hundreds of thousands of its bravest souls; they died to flame (sic) the torch of liberty… under the belief that their spilled blood would not be in vain. The price our benefactors paid purchased a tomorrow full of hope and peace to leave to their children… Peace which was won through strength, not negotiated through appeasement. What have we, the recipients of our forefathers’ sacrifice, done with that inheritance? The blood of millions has greased the collective war machine of history. And while there are many conflicting historical paradigms as to the best method to conduct and execute war… every teaching on warfare agrees on one principle each of us learned as children… which is: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

(Mind you, I have never found that particular dictum in the works of Sun Tzu, Tacitus or Frederick the Great, but maybe I haven’t been looking hard enough.)

So it is, proclaims the UN guy, who looks kind of like Bob Newhart, that “Today ushers in a new era of peace,” then introduces “one of the architects of that peace — the honorable… Ambassador Usama bin Laden.”

As the evil bin Laden takes the podium, we cut quickly to some other members of the UN, including France, Canada, Spain and Germany, who are all grinning and exulting. The guy from Germany looks particularly disturbing. Stupid non-Americans…

The greasy UN foreigners chuckle while bin Laden makes nice. Bad, wicked, NAUGHTY United Nations!

Bin Laden (who in reality would never have set foot anywhere near the United Nations) begins to speak, thanking Secretary General Jaques Chirac (Zing! Take that, French guy who didn’t support us in the Iraq War!), Vice President Michael Moore (Zing! Take that, fat documentarian who made an anti-George W. Bush movie!) and of course President Chelsea Clinton (Zing! Take that, person who is the daughter of a politician Mike Mackey doesn’t like!) for their spineless capitulation assistance in peace negotiations.

For you see, Ambassador bin Laden is here on a mission of peace. He intends to publicly apologize for what he (and the rest of the UN/Liberal-dominated world) refers to as the “misunderstanding” of 9/11. He will, he claims apologize on the 20th anniversary of the event.

Of course, being Usama bin Laden, he can’t be trusted and as we all know, he’s carrying a suitcase nuke and plans to destroy New York. Only the most naive, innocent and politically brain-dead moron could possible believe…

Oh, right. It’s the world of Liberality for All, and all us libruls blamed the US for 9/11 and desperately want to sing Kumbaya with the terrorists. I almost forgot.

“How forceful,” our still-unidentified narrator opines, “will the slap to our collective face need to be in order to bring us back to our senses?”

Pretty hard for some, I guess, but not for the pair outside the building who are busy defacing pro-UN propaganda posters. A handsome young man in a jeans vest with an embroidered eagle and the proud word “PATRIOT” and a hot, leggy redhead in a short skirt and a halter top emblazoned “Liberty Belles” (I love how no matter what a comic book’s politics are, some things never change) add “DO NOT” before the inspiring words “Support the UN”. With intellectual counterpropaganda like that, America will be free of foreign domination in no time, I guess.

Oh, that Liberty Belle ass… Rowrr…

The handsome couple’s date is cut short by the appearance of the police, clad in blue uniforms, with blue berets, who spout phrases like “Stop that! You Kriminell!” and “Sacre bleu; that’s just up the rue!” to show how non-American they are. Yes, the United Nations is now America’s police force, just like all us liberals wanted.

As the cute redhead is being dragged off she shouts, “Let me go, you blue pig!” Which brings up an interesting conundrum — why is it that a war protester who refers to the police as “pigs” is a traitor, while a hot redhead right-winger who uses the same language is a freedom fighter? What? Because when libs do something it’s wrong and when conservatives do exactly the same thing, it’s okay? Wait, you’re confusing me…

While this goes on, an overhead video screen broadcasts news such as, “… the capture of Michelle Malkin…” and “… has elevated Matt Drudge to the FBI’s number one most wanted criminal…”

(Keep an eye out here… Mackey drops a lot of names familiar to fans of right-wing blogs and talk shows. Whenever it’s a conservative, he or she is a martyr to freedom, while whenever it’s a liberal, he or she is a leader saying or doing something anti-American. Mackey’s satire is about as subtle and nuanced as a falling anvil.)

Never fear, true Americans… salvation is at hand, for nearby is the secret broadcast van of the cybernetic hero of freedom, Sean Hannity. When the UN goons realize that their arch-nemesis is nearby, they release the couple, who run of singing a little ditty, “Let freedom ringgg!!!, (sic) Let the white doves singggg!!! Let the whooole world know that this is a day of reckoninggggg!!!!” Apparently Ted Nugent is still alive and writing lyrics.

Sean Hannity, post cybernetics. If he looked like this on his show, I might watch more often.

In his red-lit lair, Hannity (who STILL looks nothing like the real Hannity) begins his pirate broadcast while the diabolical forces of world government frantically try to triangulate on his signal.

“Folks, we fast approach the 20th anniversary of the Sean Hannity show. Many things have changed in the past two decades. But one thing that’s the same is, I am still here speaking for those who can’t.”

(Btw, when the hell did Hannity ever speak “for those who can’t”? My impression was that he spoke for those who couldn’t fucking shut up, but that’s just my opinion, and I clearly hate America.)

UN troops, under the command on one Gerhart Higgler (get it? He’s FOREIGN. From the U.N. That’s why he’s speaking a FOREIGN language and isn’t AMERICAN), close in on Sean’s van, and it looks as Liberality for All is going to end at Issue One, but don’t count a Fox News commentator out so quickly.

“And regarding the U.N. enforced FCC hate speech legislation?” Sean continues, “I’ll say it again! I will never obey any of the ‘Coulter Laws’!”

(Remember what I said? Now Anne Coulter’s name is dropped, because of course us liberals all want to censor and silence conservative speech, and we’ll name our censorious laws after her. Mind you, I’m still trying to find the speech where Al Gore advocated repealing the First Amendment. Keep those anvils falling, Mike!)

Once more, Donny Lin’s likenesses to the real people are UNBELIEVABLE. It’s as if the real Sean Hannity just stepped out of the page…

So Sean’s format hasn’t changed too much — he’s still taking calls from listeners, and the first is from a “Lib” named Jeff. Uh-oh, Sean says sarcastically, I used the “L” word — guess I’m in trouble now… haw, haw, haw.

Needless to say Jeff is another deluded naif who has been blinded by the treachery of the mainstream media. “Ambassador bin Laden has become a man of peace,” he insists pathetically. “We should do like the UN says and trust that the truce will bring a peaceful future.”

Super-Sean is having none of it of course. He replies, “TRUST? Like America trusted Chelsea, Michael Moore and the lunatic liberal lefties? Bin Laden is speaking at the 20th anniversary of 9/11, for heaven’s sake. Look, Jeffie — you may have forgotten, President Chelsea and her unshaven miscreant of a vice president may have forgotten, but I will never forget what the terrorists did to me… and what the liberal left has done to our country… Our nation’s once mighty military conscripted into UN troops (sic)! God taken off our money and out of the Pledge of Allegiance [fun facts about America kids... the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1898 by a Christian socialist named Francis Bellamy and was not adopted nationally until 1942; the words "under God" were only added to the pledge in 1954 at the insistence of the Knights of Columbus -- AP] not that anyone should swear allegiance to what the ‘new’ American flag represents!” (As one might expect, btw, the stars on the “old” American flag have been replaced by a UN logo, just like all us liberals have wanted for years.)

Sean hangs up in disgust and talks to his next caller, a “freedom fighter with the patriots” named Reagan (clang! Another anvil falls). How, as a freedom-loving REAL American, young Reagan asks, can he help out FOIL in its battle against UN tyranny? Why, by doing just what you’re doing, Super-Sean replies.

“The Freedom of Information League is not just composed of the few vocal conservatives left in America,” he continues, “FOIL represents all those who realize that America has fallen asleep and entered a nightmare. With each voice of reason shouting together, America can be awakened from its slumber. Reagan, you and your friends keep up the good fight; you’re a great American.”

Apparently all three black Republicans actually listen to the Sean Hannity show.

“Thank you, sir,” replies young Reagan as he hangs up. “We will.”

Oh my GOD — Reagan is the guy who almost got busted for spray-painting the UN poster! The irony! And while I’m on the subject, where’s the cute right-wing chick in the short skirt and the halter top? I want to see more of her.

All this time, the UN thugs are closing in on Cyber-Sean, but he’s not worried. He closes his broadcast (which must have lasted all of three minutes) with the inspiring words, “Remember, FOIL is here for you folks, and let not your hearts be troubled; the true America will return!”

I also forgot to mention that the talky captions have continued through all of this, with our still-unnamed narrator blathering on and on. The captions are sprinkled at random across numerous panels, interfering with the action and flow of the story, and their commentary is so disjointed that it’s all but impossible to figure out what they’re actually saying. I’ll include his entire spiel here, but you really don’t have to read more than the first couple of sentences:

“What will it take for all of us to listen for that voice in the wilderness? Once upon a time, Americans understood the meaning of sacrifice. The benefactors of all we held precious volunteered to be targets in war after war, and if they survived, they said, ‘I was just doing my duty… Just doing my job.’ [Unless of course they were John Kerry, in which case he faked his injuries and wasn't a real hero like Glenn Beck or Anne Coulter or Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh... Oh, wait... None of them served in the military? Never mind -- AP] Such honor is a concept that many who grew up in their shadow fail to comprehend or appreciate. They became an ignorant generation which failed to separate their benefactors’ heroism from humility. However, there were a few who understood. But the ignorant majority said, ‘They were just doing their duty… Doing their jobs.’ The generation I grew up in felt entitled to freedom and rights which they did not earn. Without paying the price of their own blood, many felt, by providence or design, that they somehow deserved the rewards they were born with… Or worse, having never fought or sacrificed, these rewards seemed as abundant and invisible as the air around them. And like that air, it was only missed when its precious supply was taken away. That which is given and not earned is seldom appreciated. Like spoiled children, we squandered our fortune of freedom and liberty and were shocked when it was gone. Now that generation of fools stands on the shoulders of giants and, with outstretched arms laden with wanton (sic) bowls of entitlement, unashamedly asks… ‘Please, sir, I want some more.’ Those who fought for our rights etched, then eroded, a path of destiny for this country to plow. The turbulent current that boldly swept this country through time… has been diverted by poor leadership. The flow of freedom that welled forth from our nation’s capitol has stagnated into the dank swamp of its geologically historic roots. Many liberties have been lost there, pulled down to the murky depths. But America can rise forth (sic) and return to her greatness again. It will take bravery, ingenuity and the right heroes, determined to make it happen.”

Can someone please tell me what is happening in this panel?

OKAY, I GET THE MESSAGE BUT HOLY CHRIST WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP????

While the narrator is busy demonstrating the meaning of the word “logorrhea”, Sean is preparing for the assault of the UN lackeys, and communicating with his friends, Oscar and G-Man. When the blue-beret clad troops burst through the doors of his van, Sean doesn’t waste any time, lashing out with his gleaming cyber-arm, grabbing one of their (clearly European-designed) automatic rifles, then zapping them with a charge of incapacitating, red, white and blue energy, generated by GOOD OLD AMERICAN HYDROELECTRIC POWER!

He then escapes by ripping through the roof of his own broadcast van (hopefully he has a large number of replacements in storage), shouting “IT’S CRUNCH TIME!” (Sorry, Sean — I knew Ben Grimm. Ben Grimm was a friend of mine. And you’re no Ben Grimm.)

Now the action and writing get extremely confusing, but I think I know what happens next. While a shadowy figure on a motorcycle leaps from an adjoining building, Sean downloads the “deactivation codes” for the UN guards rifles (you see, since the UN made us register all our firearms, they also implanted chips that allow the authorities to deactivate weapons, and also — gasp — chips that prevent anyone but a weapon’s authorized user from firing it… The horrors of UN tyranny once more rear their ugly heads), then calmly stands while the wicked UN troops place him under arrest (“for violations of FCC hate crime legislation and crimes against the United Nations government” of course) and his motorcycle-riding friend lands on the roof of his van.

Sean hands his bald and moustacioed buddy a rifle he took from a guard. The savage UN guy below (who looks kind of like Richard O’Brien from Rocky Horror) tells him “Put down the gun, Herr Liddy.”

Madness takes its toll…

Yup, it’s conservative hero, G. Gordon Liddy, who once did dirty work for president Richard M. Nixon, organized and led a series of burglaries targeting Democratic party locations, and served 52 months in prison for burglary, conspiracy and refusal to testify. If ever there was a freedom-loving defender of liberty, it was this man, people.

(And I know it’s petty of me, but in the year 2021, G. Gordon Liddy will be 90 years old. Of course, Mike Mackey has an answer for that, and I’ll get to it later. And one more thing — Lin’s art makes Liddy’s forehead appear to be about a foot tall.)

GGL accepts the gun and scans it with his amazing cybernetic implants.

“The XM-9,” he muses, bravely oblivious to the UN goons who now surround him. “You know, I evaluated the XM-8 for the NRA. Before the organazation was officially disbanded. So many cold, dead hands.” CLANG! Anvils are falling like rain. “It shoots fine, but I hate all this electronic gun control junk.”

Of course you hate it, G. Gordon — because you’re a REAL AMERICAN!

“I’ve always found the best gun control,” he finishes puckishly, “was by (sic) using two hands!”

Well, the UN goons are all foreigners, so they have no appreciation for such subtle American humor (and are probably confused by Liddy’s fucked-up grammar), so the commander tells Liddy, “We both know you can not even load a round if you are not the gun’s authorized user.”

How tall would you reckon Liddy’s skull is? At least 14 inches I’d say…

Of course, this is nonsense, as G. Gordon quickly tells them. Those nasty liberal user-control chips are very easy to reprogram, and also to remotely deactivate (if you have cybernetically-implanted head lasers, of course, which the ancient but surprisingly spry G. Gordon has), and finally…

“It’s not a gun!” he triumphantly declares. “It’s called a weapon or rifle. You should respect it. Even if it’s made in France.”

ZING! Score! Take that, snail-eating Gallic George W. Bush non-supporters!

Stung by Liddy’s bold taunting, the UN troops allow their quarry to escape, leaping from the back of the van and onto the freedom-loving streets of New York (well, only freedom-loving if they have a Republican mayor, which they DON’T). As they drive away, the Richard O’Brien-looking German guy pulls what looks like a Luger and fires, hitting Cyber-Sean in his cyber-arm.

As the Freedom Duo flees, Sean manages to get his arm working long enough to fire off a massive EMP pulse (“THOOM” — was ACC paying Jack Kirby’s estate royalties for the sound effects, I wonder?) that knocks out all the UN’s pursuit vehicles and provides our heroes with a clean getaway.

So that’s about it for issue one. Cyber-Sean and Cyber-G. Gordon escape to a weirdly-shaped submarine that apparently cruises around under the Hudson River, then arrive at their secret underwater base, where Oscar (the guy who built their implants, I guess) waits along with Sean’s lovable pooch Marty, a super-computer complex and a number of super-minions, who tell our heroes that — yes — the evil and treacherous bin Laden’s brought a suitcase nuke to NYC.

I think I made Issue One of Liberality for All sound a hell of a lot more complex than it actually was. In the end, it’s a typical self-published comic — the writing is poor, the narrative is hard to follow, the action is fragmented, the art is at best passable, and the grammar is appalling. At least all the words appear to be spelled correctly.

What REALLY happened to bin Laden. That whole Obama-Seal-Team-Six-commando-raid-Pakistan thing is just a bunch of left-wing propaganda.

We end up with a letters column, which since this is Issue One, is either made up, or taken from e-mails.

The lead-off letter notes that LfA is getting all sorts of mainstream media attention, and wonders why it the comic industry isn’t paying attention. This of course gives Mike Mackey a chance to spout off, suggesting that there is a liberal conspiracy in the comic industry to keep people from reading or collecting his book.

(A possible answer might be because the mainstream media doesn’t know shit from shinola, and are reporting on LfA because it’s controversial, not because it’s a good comic. The industry might be ignoring LfA for the same reason it routinely ignores other indie comics — either because a) they’re indie comics, not produced by major publishers, or b) because they suck donkey dicks. In the case of Liberality for All, I think both reasons are a very real possibility.)

Mackey then takes on his liberal critics, and boy does he mop the floor with them. Like me, the first wonders whether LfA is serious or a work of satire, saying “Either you are a brilliant mind, knowing that dumb*** conservatives will buy this so they can have their persecution fantasies stoked, while liberals will buy it for the hilarity… or, you yourself are the aforementioned conservative mind and need serious help.”

That’s pretty much what I thought when I first heard of the book, but Mike Mackey’s insightful reply quickly slashes his first liberal foe to ribbons.

“Yes,” he replies. “I need serious help. Won’t someone… Please… Help me?”

Well played, sir! This battle of wits is over!

Mackey’s next ultra-liberal critic says, “I was struck by the broad assumptions you have made. You assume that a liberal government is Orwellian when in fact traits from 1984 exist today in the Bush administration. (For the sake of brevity I will summarize the gist of his other 200 word commentary (sic), to a mere 9… Bush is a liar, Hallburton, no WMD’s, Abu Ghraib)”

The parenthesized section is Mackey, of course, since there is at least one glaring grammatical error. His reply to this laughably sad critic is pure Mike Mackey gold:

Ah! Go hug a tree, ya bleedin heart!

Oh my GOD… He’s GORGEOUS, big forehead and all!

We get letters from a couple more fans and a couple more critics, along with more of Mackey’s insightful wit and biting sarcasm. To round out the book we get a couple pages of color art, one portraying Cyber-Sean (at least I THINK it’s cyber-Sean… once more I can’t quite recognize the character because I’m looking at him through rose-colored hippy glasses while eating my granola and presiding over a gay marriage ceremony) throttling Osama with his cyber-arm, and the other showing 90-year old, but oh-so-sexy hunk G. Gordon Liddy riding his hot, manly motorcycle and riposting with his hot, manly fencing foil (FOIL, get it?). I wonder at a comic that promotes conservative values, yet portrays one of its characters in such a starkly homoerotic fashion, but no matter.

From the get-go, Liberality for All comes across like a propaganda magazine produced at a barbed-wire enclosed compound deep in the Idaho panhandle. Its satire is inept and ham-handed, its art is at best high school level, and it approaches its subject matter with a ludicrously self-important level of deadly seriousness, as if Liberality for All is one of the most important documents in the history of American political thought. In the end, it comes down to a simple message — liberals bad, conservatives good (“Oh yeah?” I hear Mike Mackey bellowing. “What’s so wrong with that?”)

And oh, yeah… the whole 90-year-old G. Gordon Liddy problem? In an interview, Mackey mentions this and informs the interviewer that Liddy, Hannity and the still-unseen Oliver North have all been given regenerative nanite treatments that keep them young. In fact, he tells us, G. Gordon Liddy is actually immortal! Perhaps this also explains Liddy’s grotesquely oversized melon-like cranium…

So in the end, the most diabolical villains that Mackey could come up with among American liberals were Chelsea Clinton and Michael Moore (no, seriously — Michael fucking Moore… Does anyone even pay attention to that guy anymore?), and the only hope that America has is an immortal, invincible, cybernetically-enhanced convicted criminal G. Gordon Liddy (a figure whose real political career ended decades ago), a partisan and demagogic TV news commentator and another convicted criminal (Ollie North). If they’re the best we have, I guess the terrorists really did win.

More next post. Stay tuned for the exciting Issue Two!

When last we left the heroic quartet, they’d been confronted by a ghastly vision — the image of their old mentor Gavin, who was apparently some kind of freakin’ wizard, and got himself in trouble, forcing him to call on his old flunkies for help. The next installment opens as the adventurers set out from Gavin’s inn to rescue their friend and mentor, Grindal.

I’m noticing that whoever wrote this really likes names that begin with “G” by the way, which is likely to cause confusion. After all, Ralph Bakshi got so confused by two villains (Sauron and Saruman) with “S” names that he renamed one “Aruman” in shameless contravention of Tolkien’s tales. Mind you, the actors kept forgetting and calling him “Saruman,” but no matter.

While Bill Willingham’s art continues to improve and really looks too damned good for a crappy advertising campaign like this, the editing leaves something to be desired, for in the second panel Grimslade says “Weve walked a long way,” proving that wizards don’t need to mess about with namby-pamby shit like punctuation.

Ever the master of the obvious, Valerius then says “Yes. The moon will be up soon,” and Saren purses her pouty, dark-red lips and says “There is somthing (sic) strange about these woods.” No one ever claimed that spelling was a D&D adventurer’s strong suit, but hell — this is for kids dammit — at least try to use correct spelling.

Indel of course remains the world’s most inept rogue, and carelessly utters, “Nah! It’s just your imagina… ulp!” This last comes when an arrow embeds itself in a tree about an inch from his face. Frankly I really wonder why they continue to associate with Indel, but they’ve already left the inn and it’s too late to turn back.

The arrow shooter is another cute blonde woman in a green Robin Hood outfit, accompanied by a bald druid-looking mofo, who shouts “Who dares tresspass (sic) in the woods of Oakthorn?!” Hell, the spelling in this installment is going from bad to worse.

Saren handles the situation, telling Oakthorn that they didn’t mean to disturb anyone, but this isn’t enough for the druid and his blonde companion, for Oakthorn intones “Enough! They must… not leave… the forest!” as he and the woman transform into wolves.

Okay, shit just got real. The wolves leap at our heroes while Indel, ever the comic relief asks, “Uh… Couldn’t we talk about this first?!”

The rampant combination of question marks and exclamation points in this installments makes one mourn the passing of the interrobang, which might have made the letterer’s job much simpler.

So ends another installment, with our heroes fighting for their lives after another of Indel’s pathetic failures. We pick up a few weeks later in media res, with the lithe Saren ducking away from a leaping werewolf while saying “A simple spell will paralyse (sic) this one !!”

Okay, hold on a minute. Are all spells “simple” in this adventure? And even though this was written before spellcheckers, “paralyze” is not that hard a word to spell. And once more, our heroes fight monsters and don’t kill them.

The lack of killing continues in the next panel as Indel finally tries to do something useful, like stab Oakthorn. But even this endeavor ends in failure, for the druid turns himself into a raven and escapes. Indel just can’t seem to catch a break.

So on they press. Unable to catch the fleeing bird, our heros (sic) continue their quest… Through the black samp of Lobella!

This whole spelling thing is getting silly. During this period, TSR was so busy trying to prove to the world that their game didn’t make kids kill themselves or worship Satan that they forgot to promote good, basic literacy. Sheesh, guys… Use a freakin’ dictionary or something.

…Ever closer to their final goal!

Now Grimslade points toward distant green blobs and says “Behold! The Mountains of Ash!”

Will Grindal be on the other side? the caption excitedly asks. Well, if past events are any indication, there are likely to be more monsters that run away or can easily be defeated by a simple spell. And also, some guy whose name begins with “G” even if it isn’t Grindal.

And so we come at last to the final installment in our heros’ adventures? Do they find Grindal? Are there more exciting exploits in the offing? Will we ever see Saren naked?

Well no, not really, since TSR apparently gave up on the whole enterprise, leaving the bold adventuring band suspended in limbo along with Pinsom, Jasmine, Wormy, Fineous Fingers and all the other comic strips that were started, then abandoned by the Game Wizards.

Well, anyway — the adventurers must be having problems in the mountains of ash, for the caption tells us that they’re caught in a sudden avalanche. Grimslade now takes on the panoply of Captain Obvious and says, “Evil forces are at work here!”

Valerius isn’t happy, for he’s carrying their female companion, and neither of them are dressed for the weather. “Saren has been hurt!” he says. “We must act quickly!!”

Grimslade is no slouch. “This magic scroll may provide us with an escape!” he cries. “DIMENSION DOOR!!” And with a Woooosh! sound effect, the spell carries our heroes…

…To an ancient castle! Could the end of the quest lie here?

I don’t REALLY need this picture here, but it’s MY blog, dammit!

Nope. We’ll never know. One wonders whether anyone ever tried to find out what happened after the strip ended, but as far as I know, Valerius, Indel, Grimslade and an unconscious Saren are still stuck in that damned castle and probably will be for all eternity.

Yet another ignominious end after a promising start. At least a decade or so later when TSR licensed Dungeons and Dragons to DC comics, the stories had beginnings, middles and ends. As for this little band of delvers and their destined-for-greatness artist, the road had come to an abrupt end.

And so my friends we come to the end of another installment. Maybe I’ll deal with another obscure D&D-related product or phenomenon next week, but in the meantime stay cool, have a happy new year, and keep fighting for what’s right.

Peace out.

It was during the 1980s that Dungeons and Dragons really caught on as a national pastime. It had been growing in popularity and sophistication through the 70s of course, but by now it had competition, and the genre of tabletop roleplaying games had finally come of age. Others like Chaosium, Flying Buffalo and GDW had their own products, but D&D remained the undisputed king of the roleplaying hill.

Unfortunately all was not well in the house of TSR. The Blume Brothers, Brian and Kevin had squeezed Gary Gygax out of power and proceeded to run the company into the ground, purchasing automobiles, furniture and needlepoint companies (no, really!), hiring far more people than the company needed, overprinting products and generally throwing spanner after spanner into the works. Gygax was briefly able to wrest control of his company back, but in a struggle of almost Shakespearean dimensions he was eventually forced out for good in 1985, after which TSR had a series of up- and downswings that eventually ended with the heavily indebted company sold to Wizards of the Coast in 1997.

All that was in the future however — in 1981, TSR was riding high and they were determined to go beyond the limitations of being a simple little game company from Lake Geneva. In the early ’80s they changed their logo to a bearded Greco-Roman profile emblazoned “TSR: The Game Wizards” on all their products. Though some were innovative (and others, unfortunately, were horrific), D&D remained TSR’s flagship product, and they were determined to expand their customer base.

So besides games, what do gamers love? If you say “Mountain Dew and Cheetos” you’d be right, but that’s not what I was thinking of. Besides games, gamers love comics, so a series of ads aimed at comic book readers was just what the doctor ordered.

In mid-1981, full-page ads began appearing in comics across the country, depicting the four-color adventures of the bold adventuring band that consisted of Valerius the fighter, Grimslade the magic user (why the hell didn’t TSR just call ‘em “wizards” anyway? More of Gygax’s obfuscation and complications, I guess) and cute l’il Indel the elf. Not Indel the thief, or Indel the rogue. Elf was a character class back then, gods only know why.

The first strip was, well, kind of special in the way that a cute but slightly brain-damaged puppy is “special.” It’s crudely-drawn, and the adventure portrayed was about as interesting as watching bread rise.

In the opening panel, we’re told that our bold adventurers have found a secret door in the ruins of Zenofus Castle, which as we all know is a pretty unpleasant place. Zenobus, clad ina grey smock, with a grey chamberpot on his head, approaches the door while Grimslade plays the better part of valor card and hangs back. In the rear rank Indel kind of prances and flits merrily, clad in a yellow tunic with red hose and hat. He really doesn’t look much like an elf to me — he really looks more like a malnourished hobbit, and by the scale of these pictures is about three feet tall.

Well, tiny and flitty though he may be, Indel uses infravision (remember infravision? That was before just saying “okay, okay… They can see in the dark…”). The passage, we’re told is empty, but Indel bravely volunteers to go on ahead. “It may be a booby trap,” he says.

What, the whole corridor? Wouldn’t “It might be trapped” be better? And it would also avoid using the embarrassing term “booby.” There are, regrettably no boobies in this strip, seeing as how our little dungoneering trio is a boys-only club. But wait! This will change, and will also allow me to post a few NSFW pictures later on in the article.

The adventurers proceed cautiously through narrow, twisting corridors, the caption tells us. This is portrayed by having Valerius crouch down slightly, holding his sword and puny little shield in such a way that he looks as if he doesn’t have arms, while Indel walks about a foot ahead of him, torch in one hand, creeping along in his little elf-boots.

Suddenly…

They hear sloshing noises, smell rotted vegetation; they see a shambling mound. Now I may not be the best grammarian in the world, but damn that’s a crappy sentence. Just because you’re producing a cheapo, crudely-illustrated pseudo-adventure strip to sell your damned roleplaying game.

This is all kind of clumsily presented, for in the first panel we see the shambling mound striding forward while Indel shouts, “LOOK! ASHADOW!” (that’s how it’s written, anyway). In the next panel, Indel is leaping up as if he’s on springs, his face even with Grimslade’s bearded visage, while Valerius hovers in featureless orange space nearby.

Grimslade, who apparently missed the elf’s original exclamation, says “What do you see, Indel?” while the mysteriously weightless Valerius shouts “QUICK! ATORCH!” (This adventure evidently took place before spacebars were invented.)

In the next panel, the three adventurers are standing calmly in the middle of the orange corridor while the mound’s shadow approaches. Valerius’ sword projects from his side and the shield appears stuck to his chest — again, he seems to be utterly armless, which is bad news if you’re a fighter. Beside him, Grimslade looks pissed-off, as if someone in the kitchens burned his omelet, and says “Maybe a hold-monster charm will save us!” to which Valerius replies, “We need a charm, quickly!” At least this is how the conversation appears to go due to the placement of the word balloons.

Next panel, Grimslade raises his arms and chants a bunch of squiggles inside a hexagonal word balloon, while Valerius, now mysteriously shrunk to the size of a pixie, stands rigidly at attention, his sword upright and his shield still epoxied to his chest. Jagged orange lightning leaps from Grimslade’s fingers, hitting the shambling mound with a “ZAP!” sound effect.

In the final panel, the mound is shambling off away from our heroes, but their troubles are far from over, for the walls are now green and dripping oozily.

“Look out! It’s dripping!” Indel cries. You can’t slip anything past that elf, let me tell you.

“Green slime!” shouts Valerius, now grown back to full size, with a real right arm clutching his broadsword.

“Don’t touch it!” Grimslade warns, reaching out a finger as if he’s about to touch it. “It is certain death!”

Boy, I’m worried for our heroes now. Are they ever going to get out of this bind? Well, we’ll just have to wait until the next episode, since that’s the end of part one. Instead of a final panel, we have one of those little dotted-line clip-and-send-in coupons that no one ever clips and sends in. This one says Explore exciting worlds of fun, fantasy and adventure with Dungeons & Dragons (R) and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (TM) adventure games. Send in the coupon today for your free color catalog of games and accessories. At the bottom is the ubiquitous TSR “The Game Wizards” logo, along with seriously inadequate space for the eager new gamer’s name, address and zip code.

Well, we didn’t have to wait too long to find out what happened to our heroes, for a couple of months later the second installment hit comics. And damn, was it an improvement. The art was head and shoulders above part one, and the lettering and coloring were better as well. No longer did our heroes float in an orange void — now the dungeon actually had walls and doors. And Indel doesn’t look like a red-and-yellow clad pixie anymore.

But things looked grim for our boys, for the green slime nails Indel squarely, eliciting an AGGH! from the unfortunate elf. Though his friend is about to perish, Valerius knows that elf rogues are a dime a dozen and is more concerned for his equipment. “It’s eating my sword!” he exclaims.

Grimslade is sensible. “Forget the sword, Valerius,” he says. “We’ve got to save Indel!” So Valerius rolls his eyes and evacs Indel while Grimslade casts a fireball to take out the green slime.

Now our story takes a jarring left turn, for the caption tells us that Suddenly, a figure steps out from the shadows. And what a figure it is, too — a strapping blonde in a skin-tight tunic with her luscious thighs visible for all to see. And oh, yeah, she has a mace, so she must be a cleric.

Valerius knows this vision of clerical loveliness. “Saren!” he cries.

“No questions now,” she shoots back. “How’s Indel?”

Okay, so where was the cleric all this time? Or did they just forget that the party needed one when they threw part one together? And did it also occur to TSR that they should throw at least tiny bone to female D&D players and admit that not EVERY character is a strapping all-Hyborian male? Anyway, Saren is with the party now, and she’s a definite improvement.

Within the space of a panel, Saren’s powers restore Indel and the party loots the room. “A magic sword!” Valerius exclaims. “It’ll replace my ruined one!” Again with the sword, Valerius! Don’t you know that there are more important things than swords? Like hot, blonde clerics with impractical armor?

Grimslade is having none of this. He orders Indel to look for secret doors, and the poor elf’s luck deserts him yet again — not only does he fail to detect secret doors, he falls into one and vanishes.

Saren now shows that she’s just as good at stating the obvious as any man. “He’s gone!” she says, and the now-bald and -white-bearded Grimslade replies, “That means we’ll have to go even deeper into the dungeon, to rescue him!” And so, with yet another free catalog coupon, we end the second installment of Dungeons and Dragons comic ad cartoons.

A panel from Bill Willingham’s “Ironwood.” This is that NSFW part I was telling you about, btw.

So who’s the new artist, anyway? He sure makes a difference, and he seems to really like drawing women. Well, I’ll tell you — it’s none other than Bill Willingham, writer, artist and all-around talented guy, who got his start illustrating early TSR D&D modules like White Plume Mountain, Isle of Dread, Against the Giants and a bunch of other stuff. These days he’s known as one of of the comic industry’s leading writers, with such diverse books as Fables, the Elementals and Justice Society under his belt. His early work here added a touch of class to a rather unexciting advertising campaign, and still lives on in D&D nostalgia websites and blogs like this one.

Now, I’m the last person on earth to pander. You know that I hate the very notion of using such tawdry concepts as nudity, sexual titillation and innuendo to make my blog more interesting. So when I include a couple of panels from Bill Willingham’s erotic comic series Ironwood here I do so in the interest of historical scholarship only. And when I recommend that anyone who reads this blog and likes hot comic art with handsome guys getting it on with curvaceous women, and curvaceous women getting it on with each other, go out and find a copy or two of Ironwood from Fantagraphics, I’m doing it only so that the fine art and writing of Bill Willingham will gain greater and more widespread appreciation.

And I can’t mention Willingham and Ironwood without noting that my own Wulf the Freelance series (available right here on my Smashwords page in a variety of electronic formats, at a price that is so cheap I’m practically giving it away) drew huge inspiration from Ironwood, both in terms of appearance and concept, to the point that I’m not sure that it would have existed had it not been for Willingham’s work. My hat’s off to ya, Bill. Keep up the good work!

Anyway, back to our thrilling D&D adventure and the vaguely interesting exploits of Valerius, Indel, Grimslade and (yum!) Saren.

Soooo, we’re to Episode Three at last, in which the now much-better-drawn Valerius, Grimslade and “the mysterious Saren” (as the caption informs us) now search the dungeon for their lost companion, Indel. How do they do this, you ask? Well, by wandering around the dungeon, shouting Indel’s name.

Clearly our heroes aren’t terribly experienced with dungeoneering, since everyone knows that this is a pretty dumb thing to do. Sure enough, a band of evil goblins jumps from the shadows!! shouting “Get them!” and “Take their treasure!” as goblins are wont to do. Maybe next time they won’t go stomping about, making noise and bellowing at the top of their lungs.

Grimslade, all resplendent in his new white, wizardly beard, doesn’t bat an eye. He declares “Stand back! I’ll take care of them,” and sure enough in the next panel the goblins are all snoozing quietly. “A simple sleep spell stopped them!” Grimslade cries, while Valerius urges “Come…! We must find Indel!”

(Notice how everyone shouts in this strip, since every single piece of dialog ends in an exclamation point. They still haven’t learned that you need to keep quiet in a dungeon…)

Well, since Valerius mentioned Indel, we cut to the luckless (and somewhat clumsy) elf, who has tumbled down a shaft, shouting “Oh, my head!”, once more alerting any monsters that happen to be nearby, and this time it’s nothing so mundane as a bunch of goblins.

Indel (who is now blonde, even though last episode he had brown hair) mutters “A light from around that corner. Perhaps it’s a way out!” and blunders right toward it.

No such luck for Indel. After almost getting killed by green slime, then failing to find the secret trap door, he is now confronted by a glowering, green-eyed red dragon who, in typical draconic fashion, rumbles “Greetings, mortal worm!” to which Indel gulps “Oh my! I think I’m in trouble!”

That, Indel, is the understatement of the age, and just happens to be a pretty good cliffhanger to end our epic seven-panel strip on.

The next installment is the first one which Bill Willingham actually signed and opens with a recap of poor Indel (now once more a brunette) and his monstrous encounter. Indel should not despair however, for elsewhere the “mysterious” Saren tells her companions that “My powers tell me he’s behind this door,” while leaning forward against a door and displaying her rather curvaceous assets.

Valerius is all business however, and shouts “Then we must get through!” Clearly this dungeon was built by the low bidder for in the very next panel we’re told A mighty blow from the fighter’s shoulder opens the door with a crash, revealing Indel and his new scaly, firebreathing friend, who doesn’t look at all happy to see the intruders.

Well in the words of AC/DC, if you want blood, you got it, and as Valerius unsheathes his new magic sword and says “Now it’s your turn, dragon!” we’re primed and ready for some heavy-duty combat, with magical steel and courage pitted against dragonfire and magic. Wow, what a showdown it’s going to be… We’ve been waiting months for this and now…

Now, the dragon looks at the glowing yellow sword and his face takes on the expression of a disappointed puppy. “The great sword Naril!” he whines. “Stay your hand, warrior! You and your friends may leave in peace!”

Aw, crap! After all that buildup the great worm caves like a house of cards and lets our heroes escape unscathed. It’s kind of like Sauron’s army issuing from the Black Gate, only to have the big guy say, “Hey, Aragorn! Only kidding! You can be king and I’ll just leave, okay?”

So in the last panel, everyone’s smiling as if they’ve actually done more than just put some gobbos to sleep and bully a defenseless dragon. “What a day!” Indel says (laugh it up, buster… You’re the one who couldn’t find the stupid trap door). “Come!” replies the mysterious Sarel. “Gavin’s Inn has a warm fire to relax by.”

And so ends the first incredibly lame installment of Dungeons and Dragons comic book ads. The caption urges us to Watch for Indel and his friends in upcoming Dungeons and Dragons adventures! but it just doesn’t seem worth it at this point.

What I’m seeing here is evidence of TSR’s great 1980s wimpout. As D&D grew more ubiquitous and widely known, that whole stupid “D&D makes kids worship demons and kill themselves” trope grew with it. TSR was determined to become a wholesome family game company, and if they showed what really went on in D&D games (and in the pages of a comic book read by children yet!) they’d probably end up adding fuel to the fire. So as they removed references to demons and devils from 2E they also produced the infamous Dungeons and Dragons Saturday morning cartoon show (which featured a band of dumbass kids transformed into obscure D&D player classes such as acrobat, cavalier and barbarian, then set loose in D&D land along with the bleating horror known as Uni the Unicorn), and pap like these comic ads in which goblins are gently put to sleep and dragons are intimidated into letting the heroes escape.

Kill goblins? No sirree, not in our wholesome family game! We overcome monsters non-violently. After all, Valerius’ sword really doesn’t serve any purpose other than scaring off big lizards… If we actually had him stick it in something, that might be construed as violence, a thing that TSR and D&D would never, ever advocate!

Sorry, I wandered. We’re not done with the adventures of Valerius and company, since the strip ran for another four installments, longer than that other classic comic strip, the wretched Pinsom, which I blogged about a few months ago.

So we pick up our heroes’ adventures as they relax at Gavin’s, and for a few panels the story threatens to turn into a clip show.

Willingham’s art has evolved once more, growing more distinctive and detailed. There are a few slightly more “cartoony” elements to it (such as Saren’s surprised face in panel five), but overall it’s obvious that his artistic technique is improving by leaps and bounds.

Saren opens the strip by saying “That was a close call, eh Valerius?” (which it really wasn’t… the dragon was a complete and total pushover). Valerius — now with his helmet off, revealing a chisel-jaw and a full head of rich raven locks — replies, “Not nearly as close as our first adventure, Saren!”

Rolling his eyes upward Grimslade (now looking a little less angry mage-like and more peaceful and grandfatherly) reminisces, “It seems like only yesterday when we were introduced by my mentor, Grindal…”

And now of course we cut to a flashback, while Wayne and Garth wiggle their fingers and say “Doodle-oo, doodle-oo, doodle-oo,” and the wizened and balding Grindal (who looks an awful lot like Grimslade does now) encompasses the group with a wave of his hand, saying “…A healer, an elf and a fighter. They will be your companions on this quest, Grimslade.”

Here’s another page from “Ironwood” because I’m getting tired of staring at four-color process, and also because this blog needs more gratuitous nudity.

So your mentor gets to pick your companions for you? That seems kind of harsh, and I’d probably have issues with being given dungeoneering partners in that fashion, but Grimslade (younger now, with a ginger beard and a full head of hair) doesn’t seem to mind. The others all look pretty much the same, and the partnership turns out to be a match made in the seven heavens, for Grimslade then says that “We had to overcome many perils to find the fabulous Heart of Mekron!”

Now here they do show Saren and Valerius fighting a black dragon, but all the curvaceous Saren is doing is casting a defensive spell while bold Valerius just holds up his sword. Not exactly a rip-roaring blood-and-thunder melee, but I guess it’s better than just scaring the dragon off.

Grindal approves, since they don’t bother to sell the Heart of Mekron off for half book price, but instead bring it to him. He says, “You have all done well! You will make a fine wizard one day, Grimslade!”

All this reminiscing is strangely prescient, for now we cut back to the present, where a ghostly figure has appeared in the inn, wailing “HELLLP MEEE!”, causing Indel (who really is the Snails of the group) to fall backwards out of  his chair.

The apparition wastes no time in introducing himself. “It is I…” he begins, but Saren cuts him off, crying “Grindal!” Grimslade (who looks as if he’s had one too many) stares and says “GASP!!”

To be continued, kids. Where did the strange figure come from, what does he want, and what does fate have in store for our adventurers? Well, the fact is that we never do find out, any more than we learn that clod Pinsom’s destiny, but we’ve at least got a couple more strips to go before our heroes are consigned to limbo.

So with that I think I’ll bring this installment to a close, but stay tuned, for more descriptions of our brave adventurers’ brave adventures lie ahead. Personally I think they’re a pretty inept bunch of bunglers, but hey — at least they have their own comic strip, which is more than I ever had. See you all soon.

And oh yeah — Merry Christmas! Or Happy Solstice, Hanukkah, Festivus, Kwanza or whatever you’re celebrating. If we all wrote more gaming supplements, erotic swords and sorcery novels and blogged about trivialities, this would be a much happier world. Peace out.

When I first considered putting these reviews on my blog, most comments were to the effect of “What a stupid idea. You should consider running a porn site instead.” Besides those, the most frequent comment was, “When are you gonna do Beastmaster?” Well, wonder no more. That day has come.

Oh my god! They’re hot, Hot, HOT!

Beastmaster or, more accurately, The Beastmaster (it was made back in the days when movie titles used definite articles, unlike later days when we got titles like Fight Club and 300), is another epic from the 1980s (like so many other sword and sorcery flicks), when as we all know Ronald Reagan was president, cocaine was the drug of choice, Duran Duran and Motley Crue played on the radio, and Madonna was just another annoying pop-star who dressed like a cheap whore.

The Beastmaster was ostensibly based on the work of the same name by celebrated SF author Andre Norton, but the flick differed from its source material so radically that the good Ms. Norton had her name removed from the credits. It stars a young and handsome hunk named Mark Singer, lithesome lovely ex-Charlie’s Angel named Tanya Roberts, the buff and deadly John Amos (aka Kunta Kinte and the father on Good Times) and a menacing, putty-nosed Rip Torn as the chief villain. It was by written and directed by Don Coscarelli, the genius behind the low-budget horror sensation Phantasm, and featured all kinds of cuddly, ferocious and feathered animals as our hero’s friends and allies. With a pedigree like that, what could possibly go wrong?

Of course, that’s a rhetorical question, as Beastmaster (okay, okay, I’m dropping the definite article, too… sue me) was lambasted by critics and tanked at the box office. Then a strange thing happened — it went to cable, where it became a staple for premium channels (prompting, according to the little fun facts booklet that came with the DVD, comedian and conservative asshat Dennis Miller to suggest that HBO actually stood for “Hey! Beastmaster’s on!”), spawning two sequels and keeping Mark Singer and his co-stars in the public eye for years (nay, decades) to come.

Not bad for a flick that was released at the same time as An Officer and a Gentleman, Friday the 13th 3-D, ET the Extraterrestrial and The Road Warrior. Even less bad for our favorite, the low-budget, evil wizard, bulging-pectoral, naked breasted, hacking and chopping extravaganza that is sword and sorcery cinema.

Leo the MGM lion show his displeasure about not being cast as Dar’s companion.

(And also before beginning I’d like to note that I am enormously grateful for the aforementioned little fun facts booklet that came with the DVD for some excellent trivia and behind-the-scenes info. The booklet, it seems was written by the storied Andy Mangels, whom I’ve met and socialized with several times, and who is a bit of a legend in the world of comic book writing… Nice booklet, Andy.)

Join us then for the adventures of Dar, barbarian warrior par excellence, his animals, his sword and his bulging pectoral muscles.

The MGM lion introduces the action, setting the tone for the beast-fest that follows, and leading into a title card that says Leisure Investment Company presents. Now this fills me with confidence. If there’s anything that says sword-and-sorcery adventure, it’s Leisure Investment Company. Well, it’s okay, we can let it slide… Let’s get to the swords and nudity, shall we?

We open on a carved stone face that rotates before our eyes, opening a wooden gate to allow a bunch of robed figures, clearly up to no good, to march through, toward a towering stone pyramid. Inside, a trio of witches writhes around that great staple of sword and sorcery cinema — the magical pool of water in which their enemies can be observed.

The witches are an odd lot — the bodies of hot nubile custom car models and the faces of George Romero zombies. I can’t say that it’s a terribly erotic combination, unless you happen to swing that way, which I don’t. I generally like women to be alive, or at least have all their flesh intact before I’ll even consider going out for coffee.

In strides our villain, the villainous Maax (pronounced “May-Axe” fyi), played with villainous intensity and villainous facial prostheses by the villainous Rip Torn. The role was originally intended for the villainous and bugfuck-crazy actor Klaus Kinsky, but the deal fell through over a $5,000 difference over salary, leaving our boy Rip to take up the slack. Given what we now know about what a maniac Klaus was, the resulting film might have been completely different. One of the great “what ifs” of swords-and-sorcery history…

King Zed, back when he still had eyes.

“Maax, high priest of the city of Arak, the god Arrgh has spoken.to us.” Yes, it does indeed sound like the god’s name is “Arrgh.” “The truth is known to ussssssssssssss. The truth is hungry. The truth is horrible. The prophecy dooms you!”

Maax is unfazed by this and insists that they tell him the prophecy and damn the torpedoes.

“You will die at the hands of Zed’s unborn son.”

“Then,” Maax replies predictably, “Zed’s unborn son will die.”

Well, isn’t this a sad kettle of fish? You know how prophecies go in works of fiction such as fantasy novels, Greek tragedy, movies and the Bible… The baddie is told that a certain child will grow up to kill him, so he has all the children killed, or the parents killed, or the parents of the parents’ friends killed, expecting to frustrate the prophecy, but lo and behold the very act of trying to kill the child sets in motion the forces that allow said child to kill said baddie… We’ve seen it before, but Maax apparently hasn’t, and continues to insist that Zed’s kid is toast, and the prophecy will be frustrated.

Just then another complication arises — it’s King Zed, marching in with his personal guard, led by the imposing warrior Seth, played by the versatile John Amos. Yup, not only is Maax planning to kill Zed’s kid, it turns out that Zed is king of the whole damned city-state. And he has the lack of good taste to show up just as Maax is planning the dirty deed.

Zed suggests that Maax has been planning a child sacrifice. Maax replies that Arrgh demands the life of an unborn. Zed nixes the plan and exiles Maax, telling him to go practice his creepy religion in the outlands with the barbarian Juns.

Maax by firelight. Not a pretty sight.

Maax responds to this by simply digging himself in deeper, telling the king that the unborn child he plans to sacrifice is Zed’s and that it must be cut from its mother’s womb, branded with the sign of Arrgh and sacrificed.

Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t really set well with Zed, who says that he has the power to put Maax to death. Maax doesn’t reply, but only nods at one of his red-robed acolytes, who obediently swings a funky chain-weapon, impales its blade in the ceiling beam and hangs himself right there in front of god, the king and everybody.

Okay, Maax is obviously trying to make a point, though I cannot for the life of me see what it is. He’s confessed to high treason, murder, evil magic and various other crimes, told the king that he intends to gruesomely kill his unborn child, and opened himself up to a decree of death by slow torture. So what does he do? He orders one of his bodyguards to kill himself, evidently just to spare Seth the trouble. Many and mysterious are the ways of evil high priests of Arrgh.

The king doesn’t seem to take the hint and follows through with his plan, not to have Maax torn apart by rabid stoats (which is what I would have done in his place, to be sure), but to exile him instead, so the next scene is of Mister M and his cronies riding out to exile through the city gates, while in the background a red-robed figure leads a what appears to be a brahman bull along the street. Remember that cow — it’s important later.

Well, King Zed is going to be terribly sorry for showing mercy to Maax, for in the next scene the mysterious robed figure, who turns out to be one of those hot chicks with the zombie faces, sneaks into the king’s bedchamber where he and his wife are sleeping, immobilizes them with a magic potion and uses Arrgh’s evil magic to literally suck the unborn child out of its mother and into the womb of the cow, which stands placidly outside.

Now I don’t care that they’re evil witches, and their faces could stop a clock, but at least they’ve got nice asses…

Now that, I have to admit, was quite a feat. If it were possible in the modern era, with our overall lack of magic and sorcery, it would revolutionize the science of obstetrics, and probably end the whole abortion controversy once and for all. Unwanted pregnancy? No problem — find one of those fanatical pro-lifers who protest outside abortion clinics and transfer the unwanted fetus into her. Presto! No problem. All you need is a pro-lifer who’s willing to give birth to, raise and care for your unwanted child and…

Oh. Sorry. Never mind. Back to the movie review.

Later that night, the evil priestess offs the cow and crouches beside it in the moonlight, apparently delivering the baby by Caesarian section, though I suspect they didn’t call it that. She brands it with the aforementioned sign of Arrgh and gets ready to do the bloody deed and finish off the poor screaming kid.

Fortunately for the infant, a bald guy with a donkey happens upon the scene and pretty much instantly digs what’s going on. I mean, consider this — a weird blue fire, a robed hottie with a face like a dead tuna, a slaughtered cow, branding iron, a sacrificial dagger and a screaming infant… The conclusion is unavoidable. The creepy-looking chick is up to something, and it’s time to whip out the spinning bronze ginzu of death.

Yes, the humble donkey-guy carries a deadly throwing weapon that he uses to impale the would-be murderess. He creeps up on her, only to find her robes empty and the evil priestess herself standing, hissing behind him. At first it looks as if the guy is doomed, since she is able to levitate his sword away and knock him backwards just by gesturing (yet another common s&s cliché).

Our savior is made of sterner stuff however — he grabs the levitated sword that she conveniently stuck in the ground right in front of him, and impales the hag, then flips her into the fire where she immolates instantly. Scratch one witch. Don’t worry, though… Maax has two spares.

(This, by the way, is why burning of witches was so popular. They ignite quickly and burn brightly, providing both warmth and a cheery blaze.)

Young Dar learned from his wise and enlightened father how to really annoy his neighbors. Then later on he got all blonde and sexy.

Well, luck is with our infant, for the kindly man turns out to be none other than Young Dar’s Father (that’s what it says in the credits folks). Lacking any other name, we shall cal him Lothar of the Stilt People, a race of kindly farmers who live in the village of Imor, in houses built, for no apparent reason, on tall stilts. Lothar brings the young child home to the accolades of the other Stilt-folk, and in a twinkling our infant is about 12 years old and his foster-father is training him with sword and brass throwy-thing, which we later find out is called a kaypa (or at least that’s how it’s pronounced).

Lothar and young Dar have a great time risking their friend Tees’ life by knocking his hat off his head with the kaypa, but as they’re laughing raucously at their own hijinks, Dar’s spider-sense starts tingling, and the victim of their jackanapes is grabbed by a really big bear.

Now that would normally put a kink in anyone’s day, but instead of fleeing, Dar confronts the bear, walking fearlessly up to it and apparently persuading it to take a hike. It’s a day late and a dollar short for Tees who is dead as a doorknob. Lother, who saw how Dar sent the bear packing, tells his son to keep his secret powers just that — a secret.

With that, Dar runs off to organize a funeral party and we jump ahead another decade or so to see that skinny Dar has grown up into a hunky, muscley blonde California surfer-dude.

His father looks a bit older, but is still in good shape, the diet and outdoor life in Imor must agree with him. He bids the hunky Dar good day, and our hero heads off with his faithful dog Kodo and all the other men of the village to toil all day in the soybean fields.

Dar doesn’t seem to be the most devoted of workers, as he spends time throwing a stick for Kodo.

Rather than returning the stick, the heroic Kodo returns, telling Dar “Bark, bark, bark! Woof!” This translates to “Hey, you moron! I see dust rising in the distance! The Juns are coming! The motherfucking Juns!!!” Fortunately for Kodo, Dar understands at least the rudiments of what he’s trying to say and rallies the other farmers to hustle back to the village, for a plume of dust is indeed visible in the distance, heralding the coming of the fearsome Jun tribesmen.

Dar wins the sixteenth annual Imor farm implement relay race.

Back in Imor, Dar’s father observes the approach of the Jun horde, led by the fearsome Jun chieftain, who looks kind of like Lord Humungus from The Road Warrior, only with bat wings on his head. Lothar and the other villagers make a stand, but they don’t do much to slow down the attacking Juns, who ride into the town, killing as they go.

Meanwhile, Dar and the other men of the village race across the fields, desperate to stop the enemy before they can get to the village’s supply of candied yams.

The Imorites are no slouches in the defense department, for they make a pretty good account of themselves, pulling Juns off their horses and tripping them up with ropes, and when Dar’s forces arrive it looks as if the tide might just turn.

Dar knows his stuff, too — a Jun cavalryman shoots a crossbow bolt through his shield, but Dar simply turns the shield around so the bolt points outward and kills the Jun with it. Take that you Jun bullies!

Regrettably, Dar’s part in the battle is short for, as he flings himself at the Jun chieftain, another rider bashes him from behind with a mace, sending him tumbling insensible to the ground. The heroic Kodo, who knows what life would be like under the Juns, races to Dar’s side and pulls his unconscious body to safety, even though he gets a crossbow bolt in the side for his troubles.

As the victorious Juns exult and carry of prisoners, their real leader shows up with his escort of red-robed priests. Guess who? Yup, it’s our pal Maax, the hardest-working villain in show biz! He grins happily at the carnage, and we cut away to the unwounded Dar, regaining his senses nearby, his faithful pooch dead beside him.

Kodo the dog. RIP.

Dar has a brief glmpse of the destroyed village through the eyes of a nearby eagle who just happens to be passing, and rushes back to Imor, finding just about everyone dead. Well, actually everyone’s dead — butchered, stuck full of arrows, impaled or otherwise rendered irrelevant to the plot. Angry and sad, Dar stacks the bodies, including his father and beloved dog, then sets the whole mess on fire and takes up his sword, striding away with his foster father’s voiceover echoing in his ears.

Dar, the gods have put their mark on you, and someday you will find out why. Til then this mark will be your guide. My sword and my kaypa will be your trusted companions. Protect Imor your home, and if anything should happen to me, look for our enemies, the Juns, and you may search for your destiny in the Valley of Arak.

On his way out of the ruined village, Dar once more encounters the black eagle, which appears to adopt him and allows him to see through its eyes. KEWWELLL! Finally, a sword and sorcery hero with cool powers instead of a muscle-brained steroid case…

Okay, I think we’re all aboard the plot train now. Dar, son of the king of Arak, must seek his destiny and avenge his people’s destruction at the hands of the savage Juns and the evil Maax with the help of his amazing animal companions. What else does he need?

Well, a couple of boon companions and a hot chick would be perfect, and we’ll have them in short order. In other flicks, he would also need a comedy relief character such as Snails the thief or Ergo the Magnificent, but the good Mister Coscarelli has spared us that particular cliché, and pretty much everyone in this movie takes his or her job seriously. Thank goodness…

Cut to Dar, sexily working out with his mighty sword on a clifftop while his eagle soars overhead, and I think we’ve made it to the end of Act One.

Had Beastmaster been filmed in 3D, this scene might have been even more interesting.

That evening, while cooling down from his manly workout, Dar encounters the film’s other stars, a pair of mischievous ferrets who make off with his sword belt. He pursues them through the forest, until he falls off a cliff into the ubiquitous adventure movie quicksand pit. Dar uses his special powers to command the two ferrets to gnaw through a branch so that it falls and rescues him, he crawls to safety and on the way rescues one of the ferrets who’s gotten himself sucked down into the muck. With our characters now fully bonded by shared peril, Dar names his new friends Kodo and Podo, and it looks like the adventuring party is nearing completion.

But we’re not done yet. Now Dar gets another animal-vision, this time of an unfortunate black tiger who has been captured and is being tormented by a trio of Juns. Well, hell — they’re torturing an animal and they’re Juns. That’s two reasons to kill them right there, and before you can say “Michael Vick,” Dar is all over the evil barbarians. He sends his ferrets to go mess with the Jun mooks while he polishes off the others — throwing the kaypa at one and sending his eagle to rip the eyes out of the other.

The kaypa misses on its first leg, but we’ve seen these movies before and know that most throwing weapons are actually boomerangs, and sure enough the kaypa swings around to land with a thunk in the middle of the Jun’s back. The ferrets keep the last two Jun mooks from getting to their crossbows, Dar hacks the first one down, then frees the tiger and lets it have its way with the last surviving Jun. A good workout and a healthy meal — just what every tiger needs to start the day.

Well, we’re about ready now. Dar notes that the eagle is now his eyes, the ferrets are his cunning and the tiger is his strength. The tiger he names Ruh. I guess the eagle doesn’t get a name, huh?

Now Dar demonstrates that his luck has changed. The whole stolen-child-human-sacrifice-burned-village thing is in the past, for as he approaches a picturesque waterfall and deep green pool beneath, what do you think he sees?

It was scenes like this that made the 1980s worthwhile.

Yup, you guessed it — a couple of beautiful young women swimming naked, one blonde and one a Charlie’s Angel. Yes, it’s the gorgeous Tanya Roberts, known as Angel Julie Rogers, Bond Girl Stacy Sutton and of course as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Oh yeah, she was also in That 70s Show. And here she is, all wet and topless. Dar knows what to do — the blonde is obviously only incidental to the movie — the real objective is the cute redhead.

Accordingly, he takes action as only the Beastmaster can. He has the ferrets steal the redhead’s stuff, causing her to (regrettably) slip into her very brief fantasy chick outfit and pursue them into the brush. After seeing this flick a million times now, I at last find myself wondering exactly what the ferrets stole, since she’s swimming in her fantasy chick outfit and can slip back into it rather than run nakedly into the forest after the ferrets… I checked the DVD and it looks as if they stole a towel or something, which wasn’t a really big part of the average hot fantasy babe’s equipment, but it worked, so who am I to fault Dar’s cunning plan?

But this is only part of Dar’s cunning plan. He then sends Ruh in to confront her and of course terrify the beautiful woman that he has the hots for. In some says, I’d say that Dar was history’s first stalker…

So while the redhead is staring at the monstrous tiger in utter wide-eyed terror, Dar slips up behind her, embraces her in his manly arms and says “Don’t move. The beast is fierce. If we show no fear, we might escape.”

He then uses his Beastmaster powers to tell Ruh to bugger off and let the Dar-monster make his moves… Ruh is reluctant but finally splits and Dar turns to take his reward, an awkward kiss, which ends — much to our relief — with the redhead knocking him to the ground and throttling him, demanding to know who he is.

“I am Dar,” he says. “I am no threat to you.”

Yeah, right…

Now that his first ploy has crashed and burned, Dar plays the sympathy card, telling her that his village *sniff* was burned… by the Juns *sniffle* and that he has sworn revenge. This causes her to waver and Dar turns the tables, flipping her over and lying astride her, chuckling like a pedophile on “To Catch a Predator” right before Chris Hansen shows up.

Kiri demonstrates that she knows how to top from the bottom.

Well, Dar’s not a complete boor, and he actually has the courtesy to ask her name before he tries to ravish her. She replies that she is Kiri, slave to the Temple of Argh. What luck!

Dar sees that Kiri’s back is scarred and comments that “They whip you like… like a beast!” and all his libidinous plans for the afternoon suddenly go right out the window.

Feeling like a complete jerk, Dar lets Kiri get back up and tries to make up for his behavior by offering to help her escape. She looks tempted but turns him down since her whole family will die if she runs away. She splits leaving Dar looking pretty damned ashamed of himself.

Okay, now Dar’s got another quest — to get Kiri the hot redheaded slave to take that outfit off again. He gathers up his animal allies and heads after her. Ironically, they’re going to the exact place where the bad guy that he has sworn vengeance upon lives, but he doesn’t know that yet.

Hey folks, it’s a fantasy. Go with it.

As the fellowship…  Sorry, I mean Dar and his companions… head into the wilderness, night falls and they spy an odd collection of glowing cocoon like pods hanging from a gigantic tree. As there is ominous music playing, we know that something bad must be about to happen. They cautiously creep toward the place, and discover a boiling pot filled with human body parts and a captive in a cage, obviously intended for the evening’s meal. Before Dar can turn around and run back toward the safety of the nearest town brothel, which is what I would have done, he is confronted by the camp’s occupants, a crowd of tall, faceless inhuman figures who advance on him in ominous silence.

Batman! Nana nana nana nana nana nana nana nana… Batman!

The guy in the cage looks like a total mook, but Dar frees him anyway, apparently figuring that it’s best to have as many allies watching your back as possible, even if this guy looks like, at best, a 1st Level Commoner. Alas, it doesn’t work, since the poor shlub flees right into the arms of the faceless creatures — literally. They wrap him up in webby batlike wings and when they open them up again — presto! — only bones left. These guys are self-contained rendering plants with wings… Very impressive.

Now the horrific walking cuisinarts advance on Dar, sizing him up as the main course, but when Dar’s eagle swoops down and alights on his shoulder, they back off and instead give him a medallion inscribed with an stylized eagle — it’s apparently the creatures’ corporate logo, and they have to respect and defend anyone with the ability to telepathically communicate with large birds. Yeah, that one’ll do you or me a helluva lotta good if we ever run into them, won’t it? We’d be shish-kebabs in five seconds flat.

Now assured of the eternal friendship of the creepy faceless wing-people, Dar continues on his journey, finally reaching the city of Arak, which of course is where he was born. Errr… conceived. Errr… transferred from his mother’s womb into a cow. Oh well, it’s his hometown but he doesn’t know it. More of that fateful sword and sorcery irony.

Arak is a little less pleasant than it was when Dar left. It’s surrounded by a moat of boiling tar, and thousands of impaled bodies lining the roads. Apparently the local equivalent of the Patriot Act is in effect.

The Arak Chamber of Commerce was puzzled by the lack of tourist trade after the Jun conquest.

Dar’s welcome in his old home town makes the Fellowship’s entry into Edoras look positively festive, as streets and their cute little stucco huts are deserted and the stench of death permeates every corner of the place. Dar slips into a conveniently-discarded cloak and heads toward the center of town to find out what the locals do for entertainment.

Well it just so happens that it’s human sacrifice day in Arak, and the high priest Maax is at the top of an Aztec-style pyramid busily doing what he loves best — throwing screaming children into the flames and raving to the populace about how they’d better follow the will of Argh or they’ll all end up this way.

After throwing a pudgy kid into the fire (yes, he really kills kids in this movie, that sicko), Maax says that Argh demands more blood and has an adorable blonde girl dragged up the steps to her doom.

Well, this is all too much for Dar. He spots Kiri in the crowd, but to his credit decides that saving an innocent child is more important than getting a little sugar from the slave chick, and besides if he rescues the little girl it’ll score beaucoup points with his would-be girlfriend.

Accordingly, while Maax chews scenery like a real pro, Dar commands his eagle to swoop down and grab the child even as Maax tries to shove her down the chute with his skull-staff. The eagle triumphantly flies away with the kid, the people all fall on their faces in wonder — all except Dar, of course, who really doesn’t fully understand the concept of low profile yet. Maax looks deeply disappointed (no, I mean really disappointed), but recovers quickly, saying that the child’s rescue was a sign from Argh, accepting the sacrifice and carrying her into the heavens in one piece rather than as a stream of tiny ashes.

Maax doing what he does best… Terrifying innocent children.

Of course this satisfies no one, any more than when the Catholic church tried to tell us that the priests weren’t molesting all those choirboys. But the people are pretty thoroughly cowed by this time, and all go home, leaving Dar to wander the city streets that night, seeking out the little girl’s home and returning her to her jubilant parents.

By this time, we’re pretty sure that Dar’s a different type of barbarian hero. Sure your Conans and your Talons and your Deathstalkers do “good” kinda/sorta, but only if it’s to their benefit, and even then only if there’s some hot piece of female ass involved (or possibly male as well in the case of Deathstalker).

For you D&D nerds out there, most of these guys are chaotic neutral with occasional good tendencies. Dar on the other hand, seems to be one of the few who actually strayed permanently over into chaotic good territory and does stuff because it’s right and proper and good and not just because it might get him laid.

The happy peasants, including father Sacco, pretty much fall all over Dar with gratitude, calling him “Master” and swearing eternal loyalty and friendship. See folks? How many people talk to Deathstalker like that? Damned few, let me tell you. I’m still thinking that chaotic good is the way to go…

Sacco, ladies and gentlemen… He’s not really the heroic type.

Sacco sits Dar down and brings him up to date, providing vital plot exposition along with a peasantish meal of gruel and water. The Juns captured the city, you see, imprisoned the king in the pyramid. It further seems that Maax has been a busy little villain, for he is now the Juns’ high priest and has been left in charge of the city, assisted by his red acolytes and his “fiendish witch women.”  The king’s son (presumably not Dar, who was never actually born) has disappeared, and the Juns are using Arak as a kind of human sacrifice ATM machine, taking children and nubile women to feed the demon-god Argh.

Never mind all that crap, Dar says, what about that hot redhead? Where is she?

(Okay, so Dar may be chaotic good, but he still lets the little head do a lot of his thinking. You really can’t help it when you’re a barbarian.)

Fortunately for the forces of good, Kiri and the other slave girls have also been taken to the pyramid for sacrifice. Now Dar can rescue them both, saving the kingdom AND getting some hot naked reward-sex in the bargain. This is kind of the same thing that Talon did in The Sword and the Sorcerer, but with all due respect Dar is nowhere near the horny slimeball that Talon was. Now firm in his commitment to save the city and rescue the smokin’ hot redhead, Dar, pats the girl on the head, thanks Sacco for the meal, takes his leave and vanishes into the night.

Okay, back to the darkness of the evil pyramid. Maax is communing with his witches and his red priests.

“Argh wants this stranger,” he says. “Bring him to me, this ‘Master of the Beasts.’ This ring will lead you to him.” With this, he slips an oversized gold ring onto the finger of his lead red priest, and the hunt is on.

Dar can’t talk right now… He’s all choked up…

In the nearby wilderness, Dar is hanging with Ruh and planning his next move, unaware that the ring-wearing priest is in the tree overhead. The ring opens to reveal an eyeball, which then transmits images of Dar back to Maax, who immediately sees the mark of Argh on Dar’s palm and realizes that Dar is actually Zed’s son.

Maax responds to this the way that evil priests have done since time immemorial. He orders his minions to kill Dar.

Easier said than done, oh scenery-chewing one.

The first priest tries to strangle Dar with a hanging noose (they’re crafty, these assassin-priests of Argh) while a second rides up bearing a crossbow. Rather than immediately shooting Dar in the neck, the second priest only watches while Ruh sneaks up from behind and rips the first priest a new one. Failing his morale check, the mounted priest then rides away, despite his superior weaponry and the fact that his would-be victim is on the ground gasping for air.

Oh well, they’re mooks for a reason. Dar sends Ruh after the fleeing priest and we watch the chase in beast-o-vision for a few moments until Ruh gets overconfident and falls into a pit.

Okay, NOW the stupid priest swings up his crossbow and gets ready to use it. Before he can puncture the poor helpless Ruh however, a heavy staff swings out of nowhere and nails the priest right in the breadbasket. Nearby stands… yes, it’s Seth, the captain of the king’s guard from the beginning of the flick, and a young boy (guess who!), leaning on their staffs and laughing.

This only pisses off the priest, who attacks with his weird chain-weapon, but of course Seth just brushes it off and kicks his ass once more, sending him tumbling into the pit trap, where Ruh looks skyward, says (in tiger-language) “Thank you, god!” and proceeds to chow down.

Haw! Haw! Watching mooks get eaten by tigers is funny!

“You face the animal on his own terms,” Seth says sagely as the priest’s screams echo up from the pit, “you find you are not so very strong.”

(And now for a little ancient history — I have to recount yet another anecdote from my days of watching cheap fantasy flicks in theaters. We attended with a bunch of SCA people, many of whom make gamers and computer nerds look positively well-adjusted. One particular individual who was prone to the occasional pretentious comment watched the scene in which Seth beats the priest’s ass with his big stick and loudly commented, in the middle of the theater and with an entirely straight face, “He who fights a master of the staff is thrice a fool.” Yes, there really are people like that in the world, gods help us all…)

At this point Dar shows up and bares his mighty sword (okay, I think we’ve managed to scrape the bottom of the barrel when it comes to sword jokes, so I’ll lay off), prompting Seth and his young ward to stand on guard, as if to say, “Okay, bring it, Blondie.” Fortunately, Dar continues to show himself to be smarter than the average barbarian, realizes that they helped to save Ruh and thanks them for their help.

The trio then shove a fallen log into the pit, allowing Ruh to escape. The kid is impressed by the tiger. “Is he yours?” he asks.

Dar replies, “We fight together sometimes,” which only adds to his cool-o-meter rating. “I hope someday to be able to repay your kindness.”

He then gets ready to leave, but Seth reminds him that life is a circle, which suggests that he probably saw The Lion King, even though it won’t be made for 5,000 years or so. This catches Dar’s interest, so he stays to exchange more exposition, telling Seth that he’s the last of the Imorites. Seth introduces himself and the boy, whose name is Tal. They are, he says “Pilgrims on our way to worship at the temple of Argh.”

Study hard, my young pupil and one day you’ll be a muscular babe-magnet like Dar.

Yeah, right… And I’m the Queen of Hyboria…

Dar comments that Seth’s pretty good with a staff for a humble pilgrim, to which Seth replies that all pilgrims have a deep love of life, “especially their own.”

“I too am on my way to worship at the temple of Argh,” Dar says, glancing meaningfully at his sword.

(Apparently, by “worship” they mean, “kill every mother-loving Jun, gut every miserable red priest and behead every single solitary evil witch in the entire freaking kingdom, then slice Maax into tiny pieces and feed them to the ferrets.” Pilgrims, you see, speak in their own secret language.)

The three agree to travel together and it looks as if this particular movie’s fellowship is pretty much complete. Later that evening, Seth dispatches with pretense, saying that he’s busy raising an army, and taking Tal back home to confront Maax and free his father, the king.

Again, the ol’ sword-and-sorcery coincidences abound. Tal is Dar’s brother (or at least half-brother), but neither of them know that (or at least we don’t think they do, as I’m not sure whether Lothar ever told Dar about where he really came from), and they’re going to rescue the old king, who is actually Dar’s own father. Imagine what fun that will be…

Dar also tells the whole story, introducing his animals, including the ferrety brothers, whom he says steal trinkets and treasures for him… I guess that’s how he manages to pay his bills at the inn. Among the stuff that the ferrets took is, of course, Maax’s eye-ring, even though we never saw them lift it off the red priest’s body. In a moment of sheer and unutterable bad luck, Dar tells Tal that he can keep the ring if he likes it. Now, why anyone would like that tacky piece of crap, I have no idea — it looks more like it should be hanging around Flava Flave’s neck than adorning the finger of the young prince of the realm. Then again, the kid’s young. He hasn’t really developed a sense of taste yet, so he puts the ring on, and the plot continues.

You take your lousy human-sacrificin’ Argh-lovin’ paws offa MY hot cousin!

Also among the junk is Kiri’s belt and when they see it, Seth and Tal react badly. Dar lamely explains that it belonged to a slave girl and that he’s trying to save her before she becomes the next sacrifice to Argh. Seth is still a bit overwrought, but does nothing other than to brusquely state that they will leave at dawn.

Hmmm… Kiri is no slave girl? You mean she might be, like, a princess or something? Maybe Tal’s sister?

Oh gods, I hope not… That would make her Dar’s sister, even though he doesn’t know it, and when he finally rescues her, they’ll…

Oh, gods, no!

Well, not quite that bad… Tal reveals that she’s his cousin. That would be okay if they were in, say, Florida, but not in others (some research reveals, surprisingly, that cousin marriage is legal in California but not in West Virginia. Go figure). And if Tal’s only his half-brother, well, then if she’s on his mother’s side that takes her out of the running altogether, so I think we need not worry about Dar and Kiri producing flipper-babies if and when they do finally get together. We will keep a weather eye out for information on Tal’s mother so we can make sure Dar isn’t heading straight into the shallow end of the gene pool.

That night while our heroes are sleeping, Maax’s ring opens its beady little eye just as Dar sends his eagle off to seek out Kiri, seeing her and the other temple virgins (well, women anyway) clad in white, escorted by a number of red priests on foot. I’m not really sure where they’re supposed to be going, as we were under the impression that they were going to be sacrificed at the giant pyramid, but that doesn’t matter. Our heroes’ rescue plans unfold.

The next day, the future victims are being herded along by the squad of future red priests toward the river where a rope-drawn ferry awaits, manned by three cloaked figures. Gee, I wonder who they’ll turn out to be…

We are filled with shame for our failure. Please drown us in the river.

At the dock, Kiri shows what a plucky little thing she is by kneeing a priest in the victuals, to which the priest responds by pounding her and shoving her head underwater. This kind of moves up our heroes’ schedule, so they redouble their efforts to drag the ferry to the dock. As soon as they arrive, Seth wastes no time in clobbering the priest that’s molesting Kiri (remember, he who fights a master of the staff IS thrice a fool), then Dar whips off his cloak and the other priests are so impressed by his ripped physique and his snarling black tiger that they put up very little fight, ending up as either prisoners or acolyte cutlets.

Dar approaches Kiri and gives her the old “The beast is fierce” line, and of course it’s obvious that romance is in the air. Just as they’re busy tying up the captive priests, another squad of baddies arrives, this time on horseback and armed with crossbows (which seem only capable of striking the ferry’s dragon figurehead rather than any of the actual people on board). Our four heroes start hauling away on the rope, but they’re moving too slow, so Kiri very sensibly ties the captive priests to an anchor and pushes them overboard. Dar cuts the ferry loose and they drift down the river, away from the squad of frustrated priests.

Now this is all well and good, and Kiri is now rescued and in the strong, beefy arms of Dar, but there were several other sacrificial maidens in the caravan. What the hell happened to them? There was a brief shot of them running away, but for all intents and purposes they’ve disappeared from the film. I imagine that they didn’t get far, since those mounted priests are probably royally pissed and won’t be too sympathetic if they find the fleeing women.

Heh heh… Heh heh… Dar’s gonna, like, score. Heh heh… Heh heh.

(There’s a movie convention that I find kind of annoying, actually — the disappearing minor character. Once they have served their purpose, minor characters walk away, jump out a window, or otherwise vanish, never to be heard from again. Remember the scientist guy who rescues Domino at the end of Thunderball, for example? He jumps out of the Disco Volante right before it blows up, but when we see the liferaft, only Bond and Domino are in it. Did the guy die? Did he swim away? Damn…)

Sorry, more woolgathering. Back to the river, where our four intrepid adventurers are now drifting along as carefree as Jim and Huck. Tal asks Dar to rescue his father, and we all know that Dar’s going to say yes. However, he decides to use the situation for his own gain (there’s that chaotic alignment rearing its ugly head again), and asks Tal to send Kiri over to ask him.

“What can I do to convince you to help us?” she asks.

Yeah, yeah, we get the picture. Dar holds out for about five seconds, but moments later they’re snogging like horny sophomores, and Tal says confidently, “I think he’s going to help us.”

Nah, kid. What was your first clue?

The next day, the companions part ways as Seth ventures out to find allies, and the other three head back toward Arak to raise some hell before the cavalry arrives.

Dar sends the eagle to go fetch Sacco, who suddenly transforms into the dreaded comic relief, protesting that he’s a coward and asking the eagle whether he can get someone else instead. That’s it, Sacco… Way to pay a guy back for saving your daughter…

The Juns were able to recruit several members of the band Slipknot to their evil cause…

Fortunately Sacco’s transformation into Snails is brief. He eventually relents, and in the next scene transports Dar, Kiri, Tal and the animals through the city gates. Unfortunately, that damned ring is still on Tal’s finger, and transmits images of the three intruders straight to Maax’s command center where, like the evil guy that he is, Maax begins to make plans to give Dar and his companions a warm welcome.

Dar, Tal, Kiri and Ruh sneak into the surprisingly unguarded temple and slip down a narrow corridor. Let’s see, that’s a low-level fighter (Tal), a low-level rogue (Kiri) and a mid-level druid/barbarian and his animal companions. We’re going to have to lower the challenge rating of the upcoming encounters just a little if they’re going to survive…

Dar first encounters open cages filled with green-eyed fetish-freaks wearing spiked claws and vambraces… As this is the eighties, it’s not surprising that the villains include members of failed heavy metal bands among their hordes.

Dar avoids the spiked gauntlets by grabbing chains that hang from the ceiling for some reason, then pulls a random lever that shutters all the cages so Tal and Kiri can follow. Good gods, pulling a random lever? Do you have any idea what would have happened if the party had pulled a random lever in my campaign? I can at least say that it sure as hell wouldn’t have closed the cages.

In the next corridor, the trio finds a grill in the floor and look down to see an unfortunate prisoner being tortured in order to transform him into one of the heavy-metal guys from the cages — Tal says they’re called deathguard, and extreme torment transforms them into wild beasts. Mind you that doesn’t really sound like the best way to create an army of killers, since they’re as likely to kill Juns as the Juns’ enemies, but these barbarian hordes aren’t really known for their logic and sensible conduct.

The keys that they need to open the king’s cell are in the chamber where the deathguard is being made, so Dar sends the ferrets in to nab them. While Kodo and Podo are being lowered down, Kiri slips away, opens a convenient hidden door and vanishes. WTF???

While they go down, Tal explains more of the process of deathguard creation, as the priest encases the prisoner in “deadly armor” (the armor is deadly? Hell, that’s one nasty deathguard), drains his blood and damages his brain “with a mysterious green liquid.” (I suspect it’s Reanimator juice, but that’s only a guess.) Finally, the priests drop a glowing green leech down the victim’s ear (“Khaaaaaannnn!”) and slap on the black disco-bondage helmet, and voila. One deathguard ready to go.

Kodo and Podo then throw another monkey wrench into things by surprising the priests, who are distracted long enough for the deathguard to break free, kill them, bash down the door and escape. In the process he snaps the line holding the ferrets, but before Dar can do anything, Kirri reappears to show him the secret door. She’s changed into a cute little rogue outfit complete with dagger, which Dar notices with obvious interest. Dar urges Tal to follow along, telling him that the ferrets will “catch up.” Well, he’s the Beastmaster, I guess he knows best…

Ever the source of useful plot exposition, Tal tells Dar that the outfit indicates Kiri is actually a “trove warrior” — an ancient sect that used to control the pyramid. That’s about all we ever hear about the matter, but it at least succeeds in making Kiri more than your average screaming piece of barbarian arm-candy.

They find the king’s cell and Dar looks around for the key-bearing ferrets, but Kiri discovers that the door is unlocked. DON’T DO IT, KIRI! IT’S A TRAP! NO ONE LEAVES THE KING’S CELL UNLOCKED UNLESS THEY PLAN TO SLAM THE DOOR AND LOCK YOU IN AS SOON AS YOU’RE…

Oh, never mind. They go in even though everyone in the audience is screaming at them not to.

Tal and Kiri go to rescue the king, while Dar creeps back down the hall looking for Ruh. The tiger seems MIA until he jumps out, killing a guard who was about to ventilate Dar.

Dar returns to the cell, and discovers that the king is there, but unfortunately he’s missing his eyes. The damned Juns apparently used them as salad garnishes.

“Uncle,” Kiri says. “It’s me.” Unfortunately the king just isn’t very observant right now for some reason…

Oh, what a feeling/Stabbing on the ceiling…

While the heroes try to get the king on his feet, Maax and the witchy-chicks sneak up and slam the cell door behind them. Wow… Never saw that coming, did we?

Maax chuckles in his evil, Rip Torny way, and says they’ll be sacrificed at dawn. They haven’t reckoned with Ruh, however, who is still outside and once more saves the day by charging down the corridor, forcing the two villains to retreat into the cell with their captives. Maax grabs Tal and holds a knife to his throat while Dar and the witch-woman square off, and Ruh sits at he door, looking at Maax as if he’s a half-pound piece of Porterhouse.

The witch blinds Dar with pixie dust, then crawls up onto the ceiling (yes, witches can do that, apparently), preparing to drop down on him from an unexpected angle like Lestat in that awful Queen of the Damned movie. Dar has luckily not seen Queen of the Damned, but he’s the Beastmaster, dammit, and through Ruh’s eyes he is able to see where the witch is, and in short order turns her into an oversized cocktail weenie.

Kiri manages to get the knife away from Maax just as Ruh bashes the door down (I didn’t know tigers could do that… I guess you learn something new every day), but Maax is nimble for an evil high priest, and escapes leaving the heroes behind. They get the king on his feet and prepare to flee while elsewhere in the dungeon, the key-bearing ferrets lead the berserk deathguard on a merry chase.

Now it’s Tal’s turn to find the secret passage, and he leads the escapees into an adjoining room where he turns a crank to raise a big stone skull that’s blocking the exit. Dar sends Ruh along to protect the others, then turns back to go find those mischievous ferrets. Kiri urges him to follow but the big loveable lug refuses, returning to the dank recesses of the dungeon.

Look out for that deathguard! What deathguard? Ohhhh, THAT deathguard…

Dar’s search for the ferrets is short indeed, for he runs into a crowd of red priests, who send him fleeing back into the skull room, where he cuts the chain holding the skull and seals himself back in. Outside, the priests are too busy bashing down the door to notice the arrival of the ferrets, quickly followed by the deathguard, who proceeds to engage in some spiked vambrace-fu while Kodo and Podo slip beneath the door for their touching reunion with the Beastmaster. Of course he’s already sealed off the exit, but what the hell… They’re too cute to be angry with for long.

As it turns out, Kiri also stayed behind (it’s love, I tell ya!), and leads him down the alternate escape path, down the air shafts.

Oh my gods… Another hero escaping down airshafts… When are villains going to learn to make their airshafts too small to crawl through!

The deathguard breaks through, but the lovers are away, and emerge from the airshaft high on the castle walls. Kiri is definitely a higher-level rogue than we’d originally thought, and brought the requisite 50 feet of rope, allowing them to scale the cliff even as the Deathguard scuttles along the airshaft after them. As they’re halfway down, he shows up, and begins hacking away at the rope, but the Beastmaster still has a few tricks left. The eagle swoops down on the deathguard, he overbalances and tumbles down the cliff to a merciful death.

All seems well, but wait! The rope was damaged and now it’s fraying! Oh no — Dar and Kiri are going to pancake…

The pair plummet to certain death, but fortuitously land on a shipment of soft, comfy pillows that happen to be passing by.

After this incident, the city gate of Arak was known as “The Deathguard Tenderizer.”

No, actually they land in the back of Sacco’s wagon, proving again that Dar’s Luck stat is one of the highest ever recorded. Finding the gate blocked, Dar has the eagle carry the ferrets up to the top of the gatehouse and sets them to work gnawing through the rope.

While they’re waiting for the ferrets to finish, Kiri proves her worth by nailing an approaching guard with an eagle-shaped shuriken, but then gapes in horror as four deathguards approach, followed by a whip-wielding priest. They make for the gate, but the ferrets aren’t done yet. All seems lost.

Up in the gatehouse, the lone guard sees Kodo (or maybe it’s Podo… hell, I can’t tell) chewing on the rope, and makes ready to cleave the poor creature, but Podo (or Kodo) deftly slips up his tunic and demonstrates the British pastime known as “ferret-legging.” Bitten in a very uncomfortable place, the guard accidentally chops the rope, then plummets and goes splat as the ferrets scramble to safety. As the wagon lurches through the gate, Dar chops the counterweight rope and the heavy gate slams down, squashing the deathguards in an imminently satisfying fashion. The two ferrets complete the escape by dropping into the wagon as it leaves.

*Whew!*

Strong men, too can cry, Mister Lebowski. Strong… men… too.. can… cry…

Our triumph is short-lived, for in the next scene King Zed shows what a dick he is, lurching about, pontificating, rejecting everyone’s pity and insisting that he only needs 35 warriors to kick Maax out on his Jun-lovin’ ass.

Dar, Kiri and Seth look dubious at this, and Dar stands up to give Zed the straight scoop — sure, they can kill Maax, but once he’s gone the Juns will be all over the city like a duck on a junebug. He needs a while army, not 35 peasants with sticks.

Despite this sage advice, and the support of Kiri, Seth and Tal, Zed continues to insist that the conquest of Arak will take only a few hours, that the citizens will greet them with kisses and flowers, that there won’t be any insurgency, they’ll find the WMDs and the entire invasion can be paid for by oil revenue from the moat full of tar that surrounds the city. Dar, he says, is just “a freak who speaks to animals,” and “I NEED NO COWARDS BY MY SIDE!!!”

This is all too much for Dar, who turns and leaves, tears running down his face. Once more, Dar shows himself to be a cut or two above the average movie barbarian, showing that he actually has emotions other than bloodlust and horniness. Kiri shows up to offer Dar some sympathy (no, unfortunately not that kind), but even she can’t help him.

Damn. I KNEW we should have voted for Obama.

“Go crawl down a hole with your animals,” Zed sneers, and returns to planning Operation Araki Freedom. And what a humdinger of a plan it is — his own son will lead the charge, and their subsequent Shock and Awe tactics will send Maax down to defeat. Unfortunately, Tal’s still wearing the eyeball ring, and Maax’s surviving witches hear the whole plan. Seth finally notices the staring eye of doom and stabs it out with a stick, then warns Zed that Maax knows all their plans.

Zed, predictable, refuses. Years ago, you see, Maax killed his queen and enslaved him, so he’s just gotta have revenge. His neocon advisors have assured him that they know EXACTLY where Maax is hiding his WMDs and no namby-pamby, terrorist-loving liberal is going to stand in the way of the final liberation of Arak. The plan stands, even though Maax knows the whole thing.

“We’re doomed,” Seth says mournfully.

Zed replies that you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want, then heads off to his ranch to go clear brush.

Oh, wait… At least now we know that Tal and Dar don’t have the same mother. Maybe Kiri isn’t really his cousin…

Oops… Back in the dungeon, Kiri called the king “uncle.” Aw, crap. I guess Dar and Kiri will have to have genetic counseling before they do the deed…

While you’re planning my horrible death, I think I’ll take a little nap…

The next morning Dar awakens to see Sacco riding hell for leather from the city. He confirms that, as all the liberal doomsayers predicted, the whole plan went to hell — Zed underestimated the number of troops needed to hold the city, they never found any WMDs, the insurgency proved stronger and more resilient than they’d anticipated, Zed’s advisors had no real plans for governance of Arak after the invasion, and they never developed a viable Arak exit strategy. For this reason, Zed and all of Dar’s friends are going to be sacrificed at sunset. Go figure.

Cut to the menacing pyramid and a crowd of thoroughly dispirited Arakis. A cart arrives carrying Tal, Seth and Kiri. Maax looks down on the sacrificial fire and is well pleased.

But never fear. The Beastmaster is riding to the rescue, even as Kiri has her oddly Catholic-looking robe ripped off (she still has her trove warrior outfit on underneath, unfortunately) and is dragged up the pyramid, where the despondent-looking Zed sits.

Now it’s Maax’s time to shine.

“Your king Zed has denied the god Argh,” he bellows. “Now he will die as will his kin!“

(Okay, he’s no Jeremy Irons, but damn this man can devour scenery…)

Dar arrives, galloping through the unguarded gates and unleashing his multipronged counterattack. Maax could, of course, have foiled Dar’s plans completely just by barring the gates and putting men on the walls, but once more the evil overlord misses the most obvious defenses.

Okay, kids, is THIS sword and sorcery enough for you?

Dar rides into the city square and tosses the ferrets into the cart where Tal and Seth are bound, then starts hacking guards. The ferrets quickly gnaw through Tal and Seth’s bonds, the two escape, throw off their robes (Seth still has his leather bondage armor), grab swords and we’re off to the races.

For a kid Tal proves pretty badass, slicing guard after guard. The crowd goes berserk and turns on the priests, Seth swings his cleaver left and right and even Ruh gets into the act, chowing down on some unfortunate guards who probably weren’t even supposed to work this shift.

Dar battles his way to the top of the pyramid, where Maax is having a hard time getting Kiri to hold still for sacrifice. Once Dar makes it all the way, one of the witch women casually informs Maax that he’s now doomed, since the unborn has arrived.

Well, it looks as if maybe Dar’s “surge” has saved Zed’s Arak strategy, but Maax can’t resist one last dig before he gets his just deserts. He gives up on trying to sacrifice Kiri and instead strides over to Zed, where he tells him that his unborn son has arrived. Just as Zed realizes that Dar’s his son and that he’s been acting like a complete Jerk, Maax stabs him, then attacks Dar.

Here’s why history records Maax last words as “YEEEEEOWCH!!”

For a moment it looks like the weenie priest might have the upper hand over the beefy Beastmaster, but it doesn’t last long. Dar stabs Maax with his own dagger, and the priest falls. Dar turns on the witch woman, but she is able to turn herself into a pigeon and escape… Why Dar doesn’t send his eagle out for a quick snack is anyone’s guess.

Back to some action packed fighting on the pyramid as Seth and Tal finish off the last guards and the victorious Arakis swarm up the steps.

All seems well until we see that Maax isn’t quite dead yet. He rips the dagger free and advances on Dar who is busy carrying Kiri down the steps. The ferrets see what the bastard is up to, and Kodo launches himself at Maax, Maax screams and they both go tumbling into the sacrificial flames, exploding like cheap fireworks. Both Podo and the Beastmaster are terribly despondent, but at least the city is free and we can now celebrate…

Oops, not yet. From the top of the pyramid, we see the dust of the approaching Jun horde. Apparently news travels fast in the world of the Beastmaster. Despite the demands of many to flee, Tal concurs with Dar’s advice that they stay and fight. The people cheer (didn’t they just want to flee a second ago?), and soon they’re pulling down the bridge and covering over the petroleum moat under Seth’s guidance.

Dar likes his Juns served hot.

Back at the pyramid, Dar isn’t sitting idly around mourning Kodo. He remembers the bat-people’s medallion and hands it over to his eagle, who flies off with it.

That night, the people are arrayed to defend their city, and the Juns arrive in all their Road Warrior-type glory. The people retreat through the gates and the Juns charge… right into the disguised tar moat (I guess they forgot it was there after the last time they conquered the city). Despite some well-placed crossbow bolts, the Arakis shut the gates, leaving Tal, Seth, Kiri and Dar on the other side to set the tar on fire. Tal gets bolted as he tries, but Kiri sets a Jun on fire, then Dar kicks him into the moat and we’re treated to a pyrotechnic fantasy as the whole thing goes up in flames, taking half the Jun army with it.

Wow… I’m still of the opinion that any movie in which a guy catches on fire is automatically cool, and this flick is no exception.

The Juns are still dangerous, and some of the survivors get across the burning moat, but Dar and company hack them individually as they do so, in a flaming, blood-soaked conga line of death. Soon numbers begin to tell, however, and our heroes are quickly surrounded by angry, oily, smoking Juns. Finally the Jun chieftain leaps his horse across the flames and challenges Dar to single combat.

Dar has his cool Beastmaster sword, but the Jun chief has a big flanged mace with extendable spikes, and as we all know if a weapon is exotic it must automatically be superior to all others, so it’s a pretty even fight. After a ferocious struggle, the chieftain ends up impaled on his own mace spikes, Dar kung-fu kicks him, and flings him into the flames. Victory! Hurrah!

Hey Juns! SURPRISE!

Of course Dar is now surrounded by vengeful Juns who just saw him off their chieftain, so his work has only just begun. Dar and Seth stand back-to-back and prepare to meet the gods personally, when the black eagle flaps down out of the night and alights on Dar’s arm.

No, the eagle hasn’t come to witness his master’s last few painful moments of life. He’s brought friends. Yup, the bird people from earlier in the movie… They apparently still feel some kinship with Dar, and busily envelop and devour the surviving Juns as Dar and friends retreat back toward the gates. The people cheer, the Juns die, and we get Tal into one of the stucco huts to see to his crossbow-wound.

Yeah, Tal lives and will become king. As he’s getting ready to leave however, Seth sees the mark on Dar’s hand and realizes that he’s the true king. Nah, that’s not for me, Dar replies. Tal will make a great ruler.

“Besides,” he says, “he already has the strongest right hand that any leader of men could want.”

Seth for his part can’t really argue with this, and the two buff barbarians say their farewells. Dar leaves his kaypa in Tal’s capable hands and departs from the city, Ruh at his side. *sniffle.*

Awwwwwwwwwww…!

No wait, we’re not done yet. While Tal and Seth say goodbye to the black eagle, Kiri comes running after Dar in all her red-haired, blue-eyed hotness, Dar sweeps her up in his manly arms and says…

“Nope, sorry. You’re my cousin. I just can’t. It’s just too creepy. I don’t want flipper-babies.”

Dar… I… I know you’re my cousin, and I know that our children may be born with two heads but… but I LOVE you!!.

Actually, their eyes meet and we end the film with Dar and Kiri embracing on a picturesque mountaintop while Ruh patrols nearby, the eagle flies overhead, and Podo appears with two cute baby ferrets, just enough to carry on the dynasty.

So that’s it. As was previously mentioned, Beastmaster kind of tanked when it was first released, but has attained cult status in the intervening years, spawning two sequels and a TV series. In many ways it’s the iconic sword and sorcery movie, and manages to do just about everything that a low-budget fantasy epic is supposed to. Of all the flicks we’ve reviewed this is a real fave and not just because I love animals and think that Tanya Roberts is hot.

In the decades since the release of Beastmaster, its principals have done relatively well. Tanya Roberts got those gigs as a Bond girl, Sheena and the sexy-but-dumb neighbor on That 70s Show, Marc Singer has worked steadily, doing voice work, TV series and starring in the series V, even landing a role in the Beastmaster TV show in 2002. John Amos was and continues to be a household word in the world of television drama, with recurring roles in The District, Men in Trees, The West Wing, 30 Rock and more.

As for Rip Torn… well, he’s been in just about everything from Robocop III to Will and Grace, Dodgeball and — like John Amos – 30 Rock. Oh yeah, he also played Tom Green’s father in what many considered to be the worst movie ever made, Freddy Got Fingered, and also starred in a police video that portrayed his drunken rant at police officers after being arrested for DWI in 2004. He was busted for DWI again in 2006 and yet again in 2009. On January 29, 2010, Torn was arrested after breaking into a Litchfield Bancorp branch office in Lakeville Connecticut, and in December, 2010 he plead guilty to reckless endangerment, criminal trespass, criminal mischief and the illegal carrying of a firearm. Rip received a two-and-a-half-year suspended jail sentence and three years probation, and has so far managed to keep his drunken ass out of the slammer, but stay tuned — he’s only 82 years young and there’s still plenty of time. His mugshot remains one of the most popular on the Internet, along with such luminaries as Nick Nolte and Yasmine Bleeth.

Rip Torn then…	…and now. Which do YOU prefer?

And so we draw yet another episode to a close. Join us again next time as we descend once more into the blood-soaked Pit of Swords and Sorcery. Fight on!

Sword and Sorcery Rating:

4 Broadswords

You really can’t do much better than this one, including as it does a toned and brawny swordsman, cute animals, sword battles, evil priests, a sacrificial pyramid, wicked witches, a lost prince and a hot redhead who is at least partially naked. The Beastmaster rules.

Comedy Rating:

1-1/2 Broadswords

There’s actually not a lot of intentional humor in this film, and what there is consists of cute animal shots. That’s really okay, since there also isn’t a lot of unintentional humor here either. For once, the script actually strikes the right balance, and isn’t too over-the-top or so ridiculous that you have to laugh.

Violence Rating:

3 Broadswords

Battles, sword fights, murders, stabbings, animal attacks… What more can I say?

Titillation Rating:

2-1/2 Broadswords

A fair amount of skin is on display here (and I’m not discounting the gorgeous Mark Singer running around in a loincloth either), but there’s only one really good nude scene. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it — it’s Tanya Roberts, who is good for two swords right there — and the rest of the movie is actually pretty chaste. Now the whole thing about Dar and Kiri being cousins, THAT’S a little weird…

Awesomeness Rating:

4 Broadswords

This one goes all the way, folks. It’s the gold standard for beefy sword-and-sorcery adventure. All hail Dar!.

Is this the best movie we’ve reviewed so far? Actually, in my admittedly prejudiced opinion, it is. Go down to the video store and rent it today, and you’ll hear your delighted friends declare, “Hey! Beastmaster’s on!”