2025 STAFF ROLL PLAYLIST

Many roads lead to the burning house . . .

Knight Man Stage/Yuko Takehara (Mega Man 6 NES OST)

Monkey Magic/Godiego (Monkey Magic OST)

House on Fire/Girls on Film

Kevorkian/Public Enemy

This Is The Life/ “Weird Al” Yankovic

Black Inferno/Guido & Maurizio De Angelis (Raiders of Atlantis OST)

Shakedown/Bob Seeger (Beverly Hills Cop II OST)

City of Crime/Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks (Dragnet OST)

Dare To Be Stupid/ “Weird Al” Yankovic

Playin’ Dumb/Tchotchke

Dunning Kruger’s Loser Cruiser/Tropical Fuck Storm

The Big Rock Candy Mountains/Harry McClintock

Iris Out/Kenshi Yonezu (Chainsaw Man-The Movie: Reze Arc OST)

Citizens On Patrol/Michael Winslow & the L.A. Dream Team (Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol OST)

Call Any Vegetable/Frank Zappa

Sutekh’s Lair Theme/Marshall Parker (Nightshade NES OST)

Blastfighter Theme/Fabio Frizzi (Blastfighter OST)

Dance or Die/Peter Aykroyd & Pat Thrall (Dragnet OST)

It’s a Dog’s Breakfast (For LR)/The Paranoid Style

Jurassic Park/ “Weird Al” Yankovic

Muneyake Bar/Shinobu Amayake (Omega 6: The Triangle Stars OST)

The burning house leads to many roads . . .

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #94:

Does Santa Claus celebrate Christmas, or is he like, “Dude, this shit is my fucking job. I’m working. I ain’t celebrating shit!” ?

Or maybe Santa celebrates some bizarre, secret Clausian holiday that maybe only him and the elves and the reindeer and a select group of insiders know about?

Who else is in the know?

Mothman? Chupacabra? The Men in Black? The Mad Gasser of Mattoon? Spring-Heeled Jack? The Jersey Devil? Nessie? The probe-happy Greys? Mulder’n’Scully? A scholarly cartoon owl? That dude that wrote all those books about urban legends in the 1980s and 1990s? That dude who wrote that ‘End of History’ book? What about the other dude who wrote that book about Generation X with all the vocabulary words in the margins? Is the Flatwoods Monster in the know? Was the Flatwoods Monster the one who wrote that Generation X book?

Hey, I’m just one of these Inquiring Minds you hear about.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #224:

NEW RESEARCH OUT THIS WEEK SUGGESTS THAT A BADGE MAY BE A METASTATIC FORM OF A DESIRE FOR THINGS TO MAKE SENSE.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #90:

The air conditioning unit that’s more mold than air conditioning unit.

THAT-A-WAY!

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #17:

Go on YouTube, and start watching a full playthrough of one of these surrealistic horror video games-Silent Hill, Hollowbody, Sanitarium, Heartworm, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, The Cat Lady, Corpse Party, D2-or pick one that you prefer that isn’t listed here.

Notice how the intrusive ads become the new jumpscares.

At first, I hated it.

Now, I think these advertorial invaders should become part of horror game design best practices.

Think of it as an additional thematic concern.

A lot of these games explore identity and memory.

The advertorial invaders can weave in the concept of total corruption . . .

. . . or is it mere distraction?

Hmmm . . .

Really makes you think . . .

OCCLUSION #7:

It gets you up in the morning

It’s a kind of liquid armor

A gift that flaunts its Faustian Bargain-ness

More in the register of Goethe’s clawing, climbing, fighting towards the godhead

Than in the spirit of fuddy-duddy Marlowe’s moralism

Satan-as-aggro-life-coach

Not

Satan-as-the-burning-monster-mouth-that-swallows-you-into-the-lake-of-acid

But still

It puts its thumb in your eye jelly

You have to drink it down deep

You’ll resent it

Even though

No

It doesn’t push you, it drags you 

Which is what you chose, isn’t it

And yes

You’ll hurt if you say no

Lots of things are like that

But this one’s particularly bitter

Even as it displaces your beyond lame borderline vacation-ass self with a momentum that wears your face so well

F.A.Q. #25:

Q: What lies beyond the stygian depths where Behemoth and Leviathan dwell?

A: Some vending machines, a mobile device charging station, a waist level stand distributing a free weekly sales paper, and a hip little indie coffee shop that’ll be lucky to be in business six months from now.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 89

 

THE NEW SIGNAGE #34:

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE JUST RIPPED OFF NUMBER ONE’S MASKS TO FIND YOUR OWN FACE STARING BACK AT YOU. THANK YOU.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #223:

CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT FILED ON BEHALF OF OVER TEN THOUSAND HUMAN-COUCH HYBRIDS CLAIMING DAMAGES FOR TRAUMA CAUSED BY BEING ABANDONED BY VICE PRESIDENT VANCE.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #89:

The redactor who redacts himself without being compelled to do so by any order from above or law of the land.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #26:

Silent Side Story.

This is West Side Story + Silent Hill.

You’ve got two gangs of monsters-the Nurses and the Grey Children-dance battling to see which team gets to ride in the flying saucer piloted by a dog.

Meanwhile, Pyramid Head and Officer Cybil are a mismatched pair of buddy cops looking to enforce the law upon lawless abominations.

Pyramid Head’s got lots of personal shit. He’s depressed that he’s just the manifestation of some random dude’s desire to be punished. He aspires to be so much more! He’s been taking dance lessons. He’s reading the Stoics. Even though he’s known for wielding a sword he’s been hitting the firing range to expand his repertoire to include the M-60 machine gun, the bazooka, and the person-portable railgun assault system. He sees himself as Protagonist Material, like in a Resident Evil or Doom game. He does mime. He does hosting. He does close magic. He’s working on some fucking amazing singer-songwriter shit-just, like, totally conquering the folkie scene in Silent Hill.

Cybil’s got her own Protagonist Dreams working. Although they’re kinda boring, she figures she could brush up her detective skills by starring in a few of those point-and-click mystery games. She just doesn’t want to get stuck in some godforsaken hidden object purgatory-not even once. But options are scarce these days. She’s gotten a lucrative offer to star in some cutscenes for a video pachislot thing, but that’s another purgatory she’s trying to avoid. She also finds Pyramid Head’s barista-esque pretense of saying,”Oh, but I’m really this other thing” to be incredibly tedious. But she’s also kinda in the same place as him. It’s tough.

The Nurses and the Grey Children have to dodge those trifling cops while winning dance battles to improve their techniques.

Lots of multiple endings tied to various abstruse mechanics will surely guarantee repeat box office as audiences fleeing the suffocating heat of Climate Inferno luxuriate in 4-D air conditioning effects.

Fun for the final survivors of the Human Family!

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #222:

ENORMOUS QUANTITY OF EPSTEIN FILES FOUND LINING THE INSIDE OF ELON MUSK’S SLEEPING BAG.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #44:

Those Vanity Fair pics of the Trump cabinet people?

They’re rather unflattering. 

My guess is that in the next few days there’s going to be an official statement from the spokesvillain for the Dick Tracy Rogues’ Gallery disavowing any connection with this ghastly gang of ghouls.

And these same ghouls can surely forget about launching any Only Fans accounts after the United States government collapses over this Christmas season.

Life is especially tough for those with severe appearance deficits. 

Even more so in this capitalist hellscape that values image over substance, lies over truth, and cruelty over compassion.

Boo-hoo.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 88

THE NEW SIGNAGE #33:

CONGRATULATIONS. THE CAST OF NEON GENESIS EVANGELION HAS JUST SURROUNDED YOU IN ORDER TO CONGRATULATE YOU. THANK YOU.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #88:

The bauble beyond all price.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #221:

HOME ALONE REBOOT PROMISES TO TACKLE LONELINESS EPIDEMIC.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #25:

Reading Rainblow.

Basically, it’s LeVar Burton getting replaced by Tony Montana. The producers want more of an edgy, 1980s vibe going forward, so Burton gets a pink slip. 

As Tony descends into cocaine psychosis, he starts hearing the voice of his beloved dead sister who tells him that assassins are hiding between the pages of all the books. Tony whips out his “little friend,” and blasts all the books. 

Once all of the books have been killed, Ronald Reagan appears.

“Son, I want to shake your hand!”

Tony Montana-whose heart is about to explode-gets super self-conscious about shaking the Gipper’s hand because his sister is now whispering in his ear that he needs to scrape off all the bugs that are covering his body from crown to soles. Tony excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Reagan stands in place, smiling into the middle distance. We see Tony enter the bathroom, shut the door behind himself. Soon enough, we hear him start to scream. Reagan’s head pops off and flails about on the end of a spring whilst making wacky sound effects. The bathroom door opens, and a gigantic spider comes out, giving us all the impression that Tony’s cocaine-enhanced mentality allowed him to metamorphose into a huge arachnid to eat all the bugs that were tormenting him.

“Okaaaay, Mr. President . . .”

We cut back to Reagan’s flailing, spring-mounted head.

We cut to the giant spider surging directly into the camera.

We cut to the gorgeous Miami skyline at golden hour.

Roll credits.

THE NEW DREAM #50:

I’m cataloguing the largest comic book collection on Earth. 

flash crimson 1990s serial killer music video edgelordy visuals as I sneak into a rich man’s palatial Citizen Kane-ass estate, blade in my hand, song in my heart

I guess it’s my collection now.

I’m soaked in mayhem, howling ecstatically as I run up and down unruly stacks’n’piles of long boxes that constitute a winding, confounding subterranean labyrinth born of some gnawing collector’s pathology

Most of the collection consists of copies of The New Dream #50, a heavily hyped double-sized collector’s edition featuring a holografix foil cover which was touted as a great jumping-on point for new readers. 

I’m vibrating with battlehype, crown to taint, I’ve just slain thousands of goblins and assorted hommunculi to secure the site

They must’ve printed, like, a billion of ‘em.

My aura of victory imprints itself upon huge swathes of the collection, displacing corny old spandex soap operas with my glory 

Totally worthless. 

Later, I try to sell these newly emblazoned comics online, but no one buys ‘em

You find one in every dollar and quarter bin across the land. 

People look at the pics and they think I’m trying to sell fire-damaged backstock

People use ‘em to cover their carpets when they do indoor remodelling. 

Now, when I sleep I get sensations of being dragged down into the earth by some terrible weight

You can find pictures online of people wrapping themselves in its pages so they look like postmodern Pop Art mummies. 

I awake, still inside the Old Dream, but now I know it’s over, it’s been over, it’s never not been over

Oh, the memes with this one. 

I can’t stand the twist on this one, that I’m also the guy who constructed this Citizen Kane-ass mausoleum with pretentions of houseness

Oh, the bonfires where people dress up as criminal clowns, and say, “It’s not about the dreams.”

It’s always about the dreams

So, yes, The New Dream #50 was overhyped and over-printed. 

Flooded the market with dreams

But The New Dream #49, now that one was underhyped and underprinted, because it was a fill-in issue that had little to do with the ongoing storyline. 

Reality is the actual collector’s item, and that one’s even more worthless

The regular writer/artist team quit after The New Dream #48 to start their own independent comic book company. 

It’s like when you go through a dollar or a quarter bin and you end up pulling a full two year run of some high quality independent title

So they brought in some ringers to squeeze out #49, and then they delayed #50 so they could build hype for the new creative team and the new creative direction for about a year. 

And it’s worth less than a Florida Governor during a hurricane

It was all for nothing. 

I mean, sure, you could read it

The New Dream staggered on through #55 before getting all-over shitcanned. 

But what if everybody found out you actually read the comic books you buy?

But The New Dream #49, now that one’s a real Grail, a big ol’ White Whale. 

Would you ever live down the shame of such an exposure?

You never come across that one.

Would you ever be able to build a Citizen Kane-ass mausoleum big enough to hide your pathetic self from the world?

It’s an old dream.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #220:

WELCOME, BIG DAWG, TO THE HEADLINES: NEW SOCIAL RESEARCH DATA SUGGESTS THAT IF YOU WERE COMPLAINING ABOUT THAT CHICKEN JOCKEY SHIT EARLIER THIS YEAR YOU MAY AS WELL START COMPLAINING ABOUT 6-7 RIGHT DAMN NOW . . . THE UNITED STATES HAS ANNOUNCED A NEW SCHEDULE OF WAR CRIMES TO BE COMMITTED AGAINST BOATING ENTHUSIASTS IN BLUE STATES AS A COMPLEMENT TO THE WAR CRIMES BEING COMMITTED AGAINST VENEZUELA . . . SAUDI ARABIA’S CROWN PRINCE HAS JUST LAUNCHED A VACUOUS FREEFORM PODGRIFT IN THE STYLE OF MARC MARON AND JOE ROGAN. HIS UPCOMING GUEST LIST INCLUDES DAVE CHAPPELLE, BILL BURR, LOUIS C.K., AND KEVIN HART. WHILE MANY LISTENERS LOOK FORWARD TO THE NO DOUBT SCINTILLATING CONVO, MOST OF THE ONLINE FAN CHATTER SEEMS TO BE EXCITED BY THE AD READS FOR OVERPRICED CEREAL, UNDERWEAR, MATTRESSES, DATA HARVESTING THERAPY SCAMS, BONER PILLS, AND FREELANCE DISMEMBERMENT SERVICES . . . AND FINALLY, WE TURN TO PRESIDENT TRUMP WHOSE RECENT SPATE OF MEDICAL EXAMS SHOW DEFINITIVE DIAGNOSTIC PROOF THAT BUBBA’S STILL KNOCKING THEM VOCAL CORDS LOOSE . . .

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 87

THE NEW SIGNAGE #32:

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE ENDED NO WARS. IN FACT, YOU HAVE STARTED WARS. GIVE YOURSELF A FAKE PEACE AWARD. OR FIND A CORRUPT ORGANIZATION OR INDIVIDUAL TO GIVE YOU A FAKE PEACE AWARD. TRUST THE BOGUS PROCESS, BIG DAWG. THANK YOU.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #87:

That moment when you try to take off your wristwatch, and the damn thing won’t come off because you’re just an action figure. The wristwatch is just part of your overall mold.

EMERGENCE #6:

. . . Darst is burning. He looks amazing. He’s titanic as he strides towards us fresh from battle. The low angle helps with this. He’s this helmeted, masked, unreadable man cloaked in fire striding right into camera, gonna trample us!

And now there’s the crew in respirators, bringing a fire extinguisher and fire blanket to bear upon the suddenly human scaled figure of Darst.

Close-up of Darst’s unreadable, precision cut sight orbs curvily reflecting a scene of mass destruction. We draw closer to a mirror image of a bat-like face, eyes bulging out of its sockets like they’ve been choked loose.

We swing our camera mind around to survey the destroyed city. We see a bat-winged monster man lying with his head twisted completely backwards upon a city-scale bed of rubble, eyes bulging out of its sockets like they’ve been choked loose.

We cut to Darst’s back as he strides away from us, towards some glittering future city that stretches out to the vanishing point.

Darst, when the fire’s out, lumbering through the set, battery low, his personal mobile maintenance crew slightly struggling to attach a giant nutrient solution bag to a long and thick tube. Crew people standing all about at loose ends-

Jump cut to Darst embedded within an elaborate command chair, enclosed head tilted back, lens orbs scanning the sky, or one assumes. 

Jump cut to five people swarming Darst, still embedded within his ultratech throne, each one working on some section of his costume. 

Burning Darst superimposes itself upon the image of Darst within his ultratech throne in the form of a throwback optical. We’re looking at the two things at once. Burning Darst points his occulted face towards the sky . . .

THINGS NEVER SAID #49:

“In this Season of Gratitude and Giving, I would just like to take this opportunity in Jesus’s name-which just slipped my mind, but it’ll come back to me-to give thanks to the blessed toymakers of this planet who have seen fit to gift me with a box including action figure depictions of all four members of the Fantastic Four. Praise be. However-and I do not wish to sound ungrateful in this Season of Gratitude and Giving-however I cannot help but speak to the self-evident dilemma of this moment. Which is as follows: I only want the new Ben Grimm. That’s it. I don’t need the other three. Look. It’s like this . . . those of us who buy the action figures . . . we’re just interested in the Ben Grimms, the Incredible Hulks, the Banes, the Godzillas, the Voltrons, the Hulkbuster Iron Men, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Men, a few Master Chiefs, a Mechagodzilla could be nice, a well done Goro could work in a pinch, maybe a Ghost Rider here and there, and maybe, like, one really gnarly tongue hanging out Venom-that’s it. We don’t need Mr. Fantastic or Invisible Lady or the Human Torch-Ghost Rider’s already got the Torch’s spot to put it bluntly. You see what I’m getting at here? In the movies and the comic books-neither of which I’m familiar with-the boring-ass characters have their place. Because, like, in movies and comic books-which are stories-you need boring characters to accommodate all that boring-as-fuck English Major Shit. Uhh, y’know, like, uhhh . . . exposition? Uhh, theme? Plot’s one, I know that, plot’s the one I always remember. I did okay with that one in school. Not great. Just okay. I got by. D’s a passing grade your senior year. I’m not a spiritual man, but I believe in that Senior Magic. But in the world of action figures-my world-the boring-ass characters do not have a place. ‘Cause my world is all-action-all-the-time. You understand? So. I will gladly add the new Ben Grimm to my shelf of Ben Grimms. There we go. And these other three can go right into the trash. Like so. All the people who’ve been downsized from the economy by AI can have a few extra toys to keep their starving children distracted while scavenging for semi-edible food waste. And all’s well on planet Earth. Praise be to ol’ Jesus What’s-His-Face.”

THE NEW DREAM #49:

It’s not the same.

My local comic book store opened in a new, bigger location.

Like, Wal-Mart Super Center Inescapable Labyrinth of Consumer Desire big.

You could call it huge.

Gargantuan, even.

And they don’t even sell comic books anymore.

Just Pokemon and Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh and baseball cards and the inevitably doomed re-launch of Illuminati New World Order. 

They have comic books.

They’re all in a great big pile in the back.

You can take as many as you want for free.

But then you’re required to walk back to the front of the store while all the trading card gamers throw rocks at you.

It sucks.

I found myself missing the older, hipper version of my local comic book store.

So, I went back to the old location which was tucked away inside a grimy, nondescript strip mall.

It was still open.

I’m like, “What?!”

I go inside.

There’s just a broom with some stick-on googly eyes minding the till. 

I wave hello.

The googly eyed broom pitches me on pre-ordering The New Dream #50 which is a double-sized issue featuring a holografix foil cover in a sealed plastic bag featuring a trading card loose in the bag.

I consider this carefully.

I had never read a single issue of The New Dream in my life.

The googly eyed broom tells me #50 is supposed to be a great jumping on point for new readers.

Who am I to argue with that?

I place my pre-order . . . but then I slouch back to the new location.

I figure I’ll drop some heavy dollars on the inevitably doomed Illuminati New World Order re-launch.

It’s gonna work out this time.

No one’ll ever throw a rock at me ever again.

I can feel it.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #24:

An AI deep fake remake of Mr. Majestyk wherein Charles Bronson just wants to get his Labubus back.

The original version in which Bronson just wants to get his melons back will be available as an unlockable special feature, which will also offer Gallagher boss fight DLC at a price point attractive to mindless gamer drones.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 86

 

THE NEW OBVIOUS #43:

When you say, “He looks like Woody Harrelson,” that’s just a circumspect way of saying, “He’s a bald guy.”

THE NEW SIGNAGE #31:

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE  ENTERED THE ZONE OF AREA. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM ALL THOUGHTS, ACTIVITIES, AND BEHAVIORS. THANK YOU.

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #44:

IF YOU LAUNCH YOUR FISTS AS PART OF A SPECIAL ATTACK YOU MAY, IF POSSIBLE, RETRIEVE YOUR FISTS TO BE RE-ATTACHED ONCE THE BATTLE HAS BEEN WON. HOWEVER, RE-ATTACHMENT MAY ONLY PROCEED ONCE YOU HAVE SUBMITTED YOUR FISTS FOR IDEOLOGICAL SANITATION PROTOCOLS TO ENSURE RE-HARMONIZATION WITH THE BODY POLITIC.