FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #43:

Somebody assembles the “Griffin Dunne Super Saga Cut.”

You have After Hours. It’s basically the whole damn movie. It’s a good movie. No reason not to include the whole thing. 

You get to the ending of After Hours . . . there’s some weird distortion . . . you get some clips from some old mummy movies, like the mummies rising from their tombs . . . ZAP! We’re at Lip Service. That was that made for cable movie starring Griffin Dunne. The way I see it is that in After Hours you have the wild, adventurous days of the Dunne character . . . and then in Lip Service you have the Dunne character trying to settle into a more professional groove. It works well enough right up to the moment when he gets punched by a clown-

SOCKO!

Our man gets knocked right into Search and Destroy . . . and this movie depicts the sinister and hungry years of our hero, as he finds himself displaced by shifting economic tides into a no man’s land of paperback crime thriller schemes’n’antics. We’ll maybe splice in some Peter Weller sequences from The New Age to provide a juxtaposition with the Dunne character. Weirdly enough . . . Search and Destroy has a happy ending. Kinda . . .

Montage of Mulder and Scully just saying no to the Cigarette Smoking Man & Blade the vampire hunter cleanin’ up the bloodsuckers & true Godzilla fans rallying to reject Hollywood’s Fakezilla & Frank Black vs. Y2K serial killer hysteria & 2000 election controversies starring Brooks Brothers rioters & 9/11 & Dubya’s “Mission Accomplished” 2003 & Billy Joel still just shrugging at the fire & Oh Dae-su enduring captivity in Oldboy-

Boom. We’re in Game 6. Well, just the scenes with a down’n’out Dunne. We’ll edit it so it seems like he’s alone, just talking to himself-fantasizing about being a younger, richer Don DeLillo protagonist-cut to Robert Pattinson riding in the back of the super limo in Cosmopolis-

Suddenly, we’re back to the ending of After Hours . . . Peter Weller reincarnates as Robocop . . . Oh Dae-su comes howlingly awake from his hypnosis . . .

After Hours is strong stuff. You can’t walk too far from it, y’know?

SIMPLE PLEASURES #32:

Submitting to the official continuity . . . but then you burrow down deep into its most obscure quarter, extend your antennae, and proceed to amass tremendous power that subtly and irrevocably steers the mainline-via occulted, radiative influence-towards giddy catastrophe.

You never take credit.

You never take responsibility.

You’re a total unknown.

You did it just for the sake of doing it.

You did it so you’d have some worthwhile entertainment for a change.

Beats hell outta Must See TV!

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #32:

Use cakes and pies as vehicles for your action figures.

Take a bunch of spring loaded rocket launchers, embed them in a carrot cake, and now you’ve got yourself a deliciously lethal new war machine.

Worried about that growing pile of casualties and dead bodies? Send in a red velvet cake to gather them up as a flavorful style of ambulance.

Slices of key lime can be launched as rockets.

Ornate wedding cakes can be deployed as heavy bombers.

You can have brave fighter aces chase each other through the skies inside flying tiramisu.

Do your plastic fighting men need to get to the battlefield in a hurry? Just have them merge with a pumpkin pie, and then toss it like a frisbee towards the front line. Think of it as a new, experimental vehicle straight out of the R&D division. If it crashes or lands weird then that just gives you an opportunity to roleplay a crash or mechanical failure scenario. Time to send in a bunch of figures merged with a firetruck themed birthday cake to deal with the emergency. And there’s nothing stopping you from putting that cake on top of a skateboard to put it in motion.

There’s no limit to what you can achieve once you start incorporating cakes and pies into your action figure adventures!

PLACES YOU CAN GO #16:

This is that place you’re just passing through . . . but you kinda wish you could stop, get out’n’about, really explore it, soak yourself in it, buy a souvenir, dig through the dollar bins of the local comic book stores, try the coffee, sample the cuisine, get lost in the nightlife, sample the local varieties of home cooked designer drugs, break some hearts, get your heart broken, wake up with a stranger, wake up with a bunch of strangers, hunt down an obscure secret boss fight, expand your customer base, get lost in a primeval dark forest where everyone clandestinely gathers to ritualistically invoke faceless gods of avarice to deputize the true secret masters of this region, become the mysterious figure in the nightclub who offers people various Faustian bargains, establish an underground monster factory on behalf of your evil organization, actually visit the museum, actually visit a local art gallery, grow to enormous size and destroy the military while knocking down all the buildings, make some friends, wake up with all the strangers-

But you can’t.

You gotta stay in motion.

You got somewhere to be.

Fortunately, you’ll forget about the alluring places you just breezed through once you get where you’re going.

Unfortunately, you’ll start thinking about ‘em again whenever you next get on the road.

One of these days this will tear you in two.

One of you will stay on target for your pre-determined destination.

The other one of you will get lost in all the sidejaunts. 

You’ll start having a lot on your mind.

In fact, your brain will likely start to output a third entity that somehow mixes the experiences and perceptions of these two yous-it’s that whole “never ending quest for novelty” thing. Brains do this to you. Be prepared.

But, also . . . start thinking about how much damage you can do once there’s three of you out’n’about in the world . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #113:

A breeze consisting of a spirit of innovation that scarcely distracts you from the oppressive broil of the Heat Dome.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #263:

WHEN I WAS PUTTING ON MY JACKET, OKAY, IT FELT WEIRD. IT FELT IMPOSSIBLE. WHAT DO I MEAN BY THIS? IT’S LIKE . . . I FELT THE DANGLY BITS OF LIKE A FRINGE THING, YOU KNOW? LIKE A FRINGE JACKET? LIKE THE LITTLE FRINGY THINGS-I FELT ‘EM, BY CHRIST, I FELT ‘EM! BUT THAT’S THE THING. I DON’T WEAR A FRINGE JACKET. MY JACKET IS TRIM TO THE LINE, SQUARED OFF, TO THE BASICS, TO THE ESSENCE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? SO, WHAT IS THIS FRINGE I’M FEELING? IT’S NOT EVEN THERE! YET I’M FEELING IT ON ME-HOW IS THAT, UH, UH, HOW IS THAT-HOW COULD IT BE? THE WAY I FIGURE IT IT’S EITHER ONE OF THOSE ‘GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX’-LIKE THERE’S THIS OTHER REALITY THAT’S TRYING TO INTRUDE ON MY BASELINE, RIGHT? AND THAT’S CAUSING ALL SORTS OF NONSTANDARD EFFECTS . . . OR . . . OR . . . IT COULD BE A PHANTOM FRINGE. LIKE A PHANTOM LIMB. BUT IT’S A PHANTOM FRINGE. NOT A PHANTOM FRIDGE, THAT WOULD BE A WHOLE DIFFERENT THING-IT’S A PHANTOM FRINGE. BUT HERE’S THE THING: I’VE NEVER REALLY BEEN INTO FRINGE JACKETS. THEY’RE JUST NOT MY THING. SO IT’S NOTHING I’VE EVER WORN, NOTHING I’VE EVER PURCHASED, NOTHING I’VE EVER LOST. YET, HERE I AM, EXPERIENCING PHANTOM FRINGE. ‘TIS A MYSTERY . . . BUT I THINK I’VE SOLVED IT. LIKE THIS: SOMEONE ELSE’S PHANTOM FRINGE HAS GOTTEN LOOSE ONLY TO LAND ON ME. SO, BASICALLY I’VE CAUGHT SOMEONE ELSE’S HAUNTING LIKE A GODDAMN COLD VIRUS. IT’S THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES SENSE . . . STOCKS ARE UP . . .

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #52:

DURING THE INVESTIGATION PHASE, DO YOUR BEST TO NOT GIVE CIGARS TO THE PERAMBULATOR-BOUND OLD MAN BABIES NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY CRY. USE OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS IS A KNOWN CAUSE OF CANCER. WINNERS STAY TOBACCO FREE FOR THE WIN.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #101:

Wait . . . did I never own Genocyber on DVD in reality? 

Was it just in a dream?

SIMPLE PLEASURES #31:

Letting a cruising funk-rock orchestral theme spiked with soaring jazz trumpet solos play as you ravage the enemy country buffet.

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #31:

Have your most favorite action figure mediate a conflict between drive thru fast food items and a box of microwaveable doppelgangers of those drive thru fast food items.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #42:

A sequel to Mr. Majestyk in which the ghost of Mr. Majestyk (played by a resurrected and exquisitely restored Charles Bronson) journeys deep into the land of the dead to reconcile with his dear slaughtered watermelons. Of course, come Christmas time, we’ll release a kid friendly version in which Mr. Majestyk is journeying deep into the land of the dead to reconcile with his dear slaughtered Skibidi Toilet action figures. Both versions will feature exciting action sequences in which all the bad guys Bronson killed in movies like Death Wish, Death Wish 2, Death Wish 3, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, Murphy’s Law, The Dirty Dozen, and Death Wish 5: The Face of Death all attack Mr. Majestyk thinking he’s basically the same character who appeared in all those other movies over the years. The big twist ending involves a duel to the death between Mr. Majestyk and a mysterious entity known only as Final Bronson, who seems to be Mr. Majestyk’s shadow self. Once Majestyk prevails against Final Bronson he must then fight the Robot Masters from the first six Mega Man games. And then, at long last, Mr. Majestyk will be permitted to have a proper final battle with Sephiroth. Big explosion. Elaborate computer generated cut scene. And then that staff roll hits with Prodigy’s “Funky Shit.”

OCCLUSION #8:

Behold!

Dedman O’Deadly

in all his gothic-barbaric skullular glory

impenetrable void eyes resting upon high bony cheeks anti-gazing from an elaborately wrought pseudo-medievalist helmet mask

wielding a heavy sword in his right hand, giving the deathly one leave to use his left hand to gesture airily and ironically during various monologues and marketing presentations

O’Deadly took his name from the marquee outside a neon adorned comedy club wherein someone billed as ‘DYLAN O’DEADLY: THE QUIPPING SLAYER’ is assumed to be headlining.

O’Deadly, during most of a full episode of Justice Prevailer, strolls about a gaudy entertainment district, taking in the sights, speaking philosophical nostrums, and occasionally slashing the souls from hapless victims to power his experimental heart, ‘ventually saving the life of a corporate honcho who’s being menaced by a squad of Citizens Band radio slang obsessed toughs.The grateful corporate scumbag offers up both his soul and his riches to O’Deadly, who uses these newfound resources to conjure up a monster army to bedevil Justice Prevailer.

This is all in the accursed second half of the Justice Prevailer series, when budget cuts and injuries significantly reduced the scope and scale of the fight scenes. The producers decided to emphasize stalkery horror sequences over spectacular pyrotechnics and bone crunching martial arts battles. By the time the final episode rolled around, the production was down to a single functional stunt performer, so all they had was Justice Prevailer, all on his own, shadow boxing with stationary monster suits on surrealistic, noirish sets while O’Deadly verbally hectored him from some abstracted mystical realm. This culminates in Justice Prevailer’s cat-suited personal secretary Valky crying out for him to return from the land of the dead. But a Prevailer must stay the course. And so he marches towards the smug death’s head visage of Dedman O’Deadly who mockingly gestures from the deck of the producer’s yacht, which has been hastily dressed to resemble some kind of a ghost ship for the grand finale.

I didn’t like any of this. I thought it was both trifling and lame. I spent years putting together my own fan filmic ‘correction’ in order to provide a proper ending to the saga of Justice Prevailer . . . which itself became controversial . . . thus inspiring other ‘corrections’ from other fans even more entitled than me, if you can believe that! 

I guess there’s still no definitive ending to Justice Prevailer. Myself and a few others are the hardest of the hardcore fans. We keep making these damn fan movies, always trying to top each other. One day, we’ll all meet inside an abandoned warehouse for the final battle to hit each other with clubs while hidden cameras record such a blunt force apocalypse. On that day . . . we’ll all get to be winners . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #262:

A NEW STUDY OUT TODAY SUGGESTS THAT PEOPLE WHO PURCHASE AIRPORT STYLE PAPERBACKS AT GROCERY STORES MAY BE ATTEMPTING TO RELIVE VARIOUS FEELINGS OF NOSTALGIA FOR THE LATE 1990s. THE STUDY’S FINDINGS ARE HIGHLY PROVISIONAL AT THIS TIME, AND WILL REQUIRE FURTHER REFINEMENT THROUGH A RIGOROUS PROCESS OF CAPTURE AND DISSECTION OF BOOK PURCHASERS OVER THE COMING MONTHS AND YEARS . . . A NEW STUDY OUT TODAY SUGGESTS THAT FIELD RESEARCHERS WHO CAPTURE AND DISSECT PEOPLE WHO PURCHASE AIRPORT STYLE PAPERBACKS AT GROCERY STORES MAY BE ATTEMPTING TO RELIVE FEELINGS OF NOSTALGIA FOR THE MID-TO-LATE 2020s. THE STUDY’S FINDINGS ARE HIGHLY PROVISIONAL AT THIS TIME, AND WILL REQUIRE FURTHER REFINEMENT THROUGH A RIGOROUS PROCESS OF CAPTURE AND DISSECTION OF FIELD RESEARCHERS OVER THE COMING MONTHS AND YEARS . . . A NEW STUDY OUT TODAY SUGGESTS CAPTURE AND DISSECTION ARE KINDA JUST THINGS I LIKE TO DO. I DON’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN MYSELF. I COME FROM HELL, YOU KNOW . . . STOCKS ARE UP . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #112:

A static sense of spiralization.

SIMPLE PLEASURES #30:

Making your own continuity out of what you dig out of the dollar and quarter bins at the comic book store.

It only has to make sense to you!