Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons - Text PDF
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons - Text PDF
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons - Text PDF
Printed m Conodo
DC Comics Inc.
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Vernons Auto Repair c. 1928. {left to right) My father; myself, age 21; Moe Vernon; FredMotz.
I'd my dad and Moe would be sitting there in his office, which had
go into the shop with
glass sides so he could watch the men working. Sometimes, if my father wanted to check
something out with Moe before going ahead with his work, he’d send me over to the office to do
it for him, which meant that I got to see the insides of
Moe’s inner sanctum. Or rather, I got to
hear them.
You see, Moe was an opera buff. He had one of the new gramophones over in the corner
of his office and allday he used to play scratchy old seventy-eight recordings of his favorites just
as loud as he could manage. By today’s standard, “as loud as he could manage'* didn't amount
to a whole lot of noise, but it sounded pretty cacophonous back in 1930, when things were
generally quieter.
The other thing that was peculiar about Moe was his sense of humor, as represented by all
the stuff he used to keep in the top right side drawer of his desk.
In that drawer, amongst a mess of rubber bands and paper clips and receipts and stuff,
Moe had one of the largest collections of tasteless novelty items that 1 had seen up until that
point or have seen at any time since. They were all risque little toys and gadgets that Moe had
picked up from gag shops or on visits to Coney Island, but it was the sheer range of them that
was overwhelming: every cheap blue gimmick that you can remember your dad bringing
home when he'd been out drinking with the boys and embarrassing your mom with; every
ballpoint pen with a girl on the side whose swimsuit vanished when you turned it upside down;
every salt and pepper crewet set shaped like a woman's breasts; every plastic dog mess. Moe
had the works. Every time anybody went into his office he'd try to startle them by displaying
his latest plaything. Actually, it used to shock my dad more than it did me. I don’t think he liked
the idea of his son being exposed to that kind of stuff, probably because of all the moral
warnings my grandfather had impressed upon him. For my part, I wasn't offended and I even
UNDER THE HOOD 3
found it kind of funny. Not the things themselves. ..even by then I was too old to get much
amusement out of stufflike that What I found funny was that
. for no apparent reason, a grown
man should have a desk drawer full of such ludicrous devices.
Anyway, one day in 1933, a little after my seventeenth birthday, I was over at Vernon's
Auto Repairs with Dad, helping him poke around in the oily innards of a busted-up Ford,
Moe was in his office, and although we didn’t find out till later, he was sitting wearing an
artificial foam rubber set of realistically painted lady's bosoms, with which he hoped to get a
few laughs from the guy who brought him the morning mail through from the front office
when it arrived. While he waited, he was listening to Wagner.
The mail arrived in due course, and the guy handing it over managed to raise a dutiful
chuckle at Moe's generous cleavage before leaving him to open and peruse the morning's
missives. Amongst these (again, as we found out later) there was a letter from Moe’s wife
Beatrice, informing him that for the past two years she’d been sleeping with Fred Motz, the
senior and most trusted mechanic employed at Vernon's Auto Repairs, who, unusually, hadn't
shown up for work on that particular morning. This, according to the concluding paragraphs
of the letter, was because Beatrice had taken all the money out of the joint account she shared
with her husband and had departed with Fred for Tijuana.
The first anyone in the workshop knew about this was when the door of Moe’s office
slammed open and the startlingly loud and crackling rendition of “Ride of the Valkyries"
blasted out from within. Framed in the doorway with tears in his eyes and the crumpled letter
in his hand, Moe stood dramatically with all eyes turned towards him He was still wearing the
.
set of artificial breasts. Almost inaudible above the rising strains of Wagner swelling behind
him, he spoke, with so much hurt and outrage and offended dignity fighting for possession of
his voice that the end result was almost toneless.
"
“Fred Motz has had carnal knowledge of my wife Beatrice for the past two years
He stood there in the wake of his announcement, the tears rolling down over his multiple
chins to soak into the pink foam rubber of his bosom, making tiny sounds in his chest and
throat that were trampled under the hooves of the Valkyries and lost forever.
And everybody started laughing.
I don’t know what it was. We could see
silence.
About hour passed before some-
half an
one went in to apologize on behalf of every-
body and to see if Moe was all right. Moe
accepted the apology and said that he was
fine. Apparently he was sitting there at his
walk. So maybe it’s safe to tell you about all the stulT you probably bought this book to read
about. Maybe it's safe to tell you why I’m crazier than Moe Vernon ever was. I didn’t have a
drawer full of erotic novelties, but I guess I had my own individual quirks. And although I’ve
never worn a set of false bosoms in my life. I’ve stood there dressed in something just as
strange, with tears in my eyes while people died laughing.
II.
By 1939 was twenty-three years old and had taken a job on the New York City police
I
force. I've never really examined until now just why I should have chosen that particular
career, but guess it came as a result of a number of things. Foremost amongst these was
I
probably my grandfather,
Even though 1 resented the old man for the amount of guilt and pressure and recrimina-
tion he'd subjectedmy dad to, suppose that the simple fact of spending the first twelve years of
I
Nevertheless, some of the things that I saw in the city during my first few years here filled me
with a sort of ethical revulsion that I couldn't shake off. To some degree, 1 still can’t.
The pimps, the pornographers, the protection artists. set dogs onThe landlords who
their elderly tenants when them out to make way for more lucrative custom. The
they wanted
old men who touched little children and the callous young rapists who were barely old enough
to shave. I saw these people all around me and I’d feel sick in my gut at the world and what it
was becoming. Worse, there were times when I’d upset my dad and mom by loudly wishing I
was back in Montana. Despite everything, I wished no such thing, but sometimes I’d be mad
at them and seemed like the best way to hurt them, to reawaken all those old doubts and
it
worries and sleeping dogs of guilt. I’m sorry did it now, and I wish 1 could have told them that
1
while they were alive. I wish I could have told them that they were right in bringing me to the
city, that they did the right thing by me. wish could have let them know that. Their lives
! I
jokes and the rumors and the innuendo, but what it comes down to for me is that I dressed up
like an owl and fought crime because it was fun and because it needed doing and because I
goddam felt like it.
Okay. There it is. I've said it. I dressed up. As an owl. And fought crime. Perhaps you
begin to see why I half expect this summary of my career to raise more laughs than poor
cuckolded Moe Vernon with his foam teats and his Wagner could ever hope to have done.
For me, it all started in 1938, the year when they invented the super-hero. I was too old
for comic books when the first issue of ACTION COMICS came out, or at least too old to read
them in public without souring my promotion chances, but I noticed a lot of the little kids on
my beat reading it and couldn't resist asking one of them if I could glance through it. I figured
if anybody saw me I could put it all down to keeping a good relationship with the youth of the
community.
There was a lot of stuff in that first issue. There were detective yarns and stories about
magicians whose names I can't remember, but from the moment I set eyes on it I only had eyes
for the Superman story, Here was something that presented the basic morality of the pulps
without all their darkness and ambiguity. The atmosphere of the horrific and faintly sinister
6 HOLLIS MASON
that hung around the Shadow was nowhere to be seen in the bright primary colors of Super-
man’s world, and there was no him of the repressed sex-urge which had sometimes been
apparent in the pulps, to my discomfort and embarrassment. I’d never been entirely sure what
Lamont Cranston was up to with Margo Lane, but I’d bet it was nowhere near as innocent and
wholesome as Clark Kent’s relationship with her namesake Lois. Of course, all of these old
characters are gone and forgotten now, but I’m willing to bet that there are at least a few older
readers out there who will remember enough to know what I’m talking about. Anyway, suffice
it to say that I read that story through about eight times before giving it back to the complain-
ing kid that I'd snitched it from.
It set deep inside me, and kicked all those old'
off a lot of things I'd forgotten about,
fantasies that I’dhad when I was thirteen or fourteen back into gear: The prettiest girl in the
class would be attacked by bullies, and I’d be there to beat them ofF, but when she offered to
kiss me as a reward, I’d refuse. Gangsters would kidnap my math teacher, Miss Albertine, and
I’d track them down and kill them one by one until she was free, and then she’d break off her
engagement with my sarcastic English teacher, Mr. Richardson, because she’d fallen hope-
lessly in love with her grim- faced and silent fourteen-year-old savior. All of this stuff came
flooding back as I stood there gawking at the hijacked comic book and even though I laughed
.
at myself for having entertained such transparent juvenile fantasies, I didn’t laugh as hard as I
might have done. Not half as hard as I’d laughed kt Moe Vernon, for example.
Anyway, although I’d occasionally manage to trick some unsuspecting tyke into lending
me his most recent issue of the funnybook in question and then spend the rest of the day
leaping tall buildings inside my head, my fantasies were to remain as fantasies until I opened a
newspaper in the autumn of that same year and found that the super-heroes had escaped from
their four-color world and invaded the plain, factual black and white of the headlines.
The first news story was simple and unpresupposing enough, but it shared enough ele-
ments with those fictions that were closest to my heart to make me notice it and file it in my
memory for future reference. It concerned an attempted assault and robbery that had taken
place in Queens, New York. A man and his girlfriend, walking home after a night at the
theater, had been set upon by a gang of three men armed with guns. After relieving the couple
of their valuables, the gang has started to beat and physically abuse the young man while
threatening to indecently assault his girlfriend. At this point, the crime had been interrupted
by a figure “Who dropped into the alleyway from above with something over his face" and
proceeded to disarm the three attackers before beating them with such severity that all three
required hospital treatment and that one subsequently lost the use of both legs as a result of a
spinal injury. The witnesses’ recounting of the event was confused and contradictory, but there
was still something in the story that gave me a tingle of recognition. And then, a week later, it
happened again.
Reportage on this second instance was more detailed. A supermarket stick-up had been
prevented thanks to the intervention of “A tall man, built like a wrestler, who wore a black
hood and cape and also wore a noose around his neck" This extraordinary being had crashed
in through the window of the supermarket while the robbery was in progress and attacked the
man responsible with such intensity and savagery that those not disabled immediately were
only too willing to drop their guns and surrender. Connecting this incidence of masked inter-
vention with its predecessor, the papers ran the story under a headline that read simply
“Hooded Justice." The first masked adventurer outside comic books had been given his name.
Reading and rereading that news item, 1 knew that I had to be the second. I’d found my
vocation.
ALAN MOORE
writer
DAVE GIBBONS
illustrotor/letferer
JOHN HIGGINS
Colons!
LEN WEIN
editor
RICHARD BRUNING
designer
JENETTE KAHN
president/publisher
OICK GIORDANO
vp- executive editor
BOB ROZAKIS
production monoger
PA1 BASTIENNE
mgr. editorial coord
TERRI CUNNINGHAM
mgr. editorial odrinn.
PAUL LEVITZ
executive vp
JOE ORLANDO
vp- creative director
ED SHUKIN
vp-cnculntion
BRUCE BRISTOW
marketing director
PATRICK CALDON
controller
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jeez, x just
DON'T KNOW
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stand gEiNS
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MEAN DON'T
,
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see you ?
' anyway,
WHAT ABOUT
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r SEE YOU
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UNTO HIMSELF
THE SOUL OF
OUC DEAR
BROTHER HERE
DEPARTED, WE
THEREFORE;
COMM IT
HIS BODY
TO THE
GROUND,.,
f you Pt& you
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~ we oon 'want
CALL YOUPSELF vieilantes 'we
A COMEPlAN ? YOU tee WANT PES’LAR
a anna ^ COPS ! a
^ RAPIST ! J
SON ISA
police
POLICE
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YOU
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potato,
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N
N/&HTMAPE COMBO IAW }/ SAID AAV .
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" TMEW-WE'PE
SOCIETY'S ONLY
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KEEP IT UP LONG
AS WE WAVS TO-
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6000AMN
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IN A HALLOWEEN lower bast /> MOSTLY ON V NUTS A
SUIT ? V _ fS/DE J' HiS OWN
THESE
> days... „
v US
But
THE OOUNTCV'S
DISINTEGRATING WHAT'S
HAPPENED to AMERICA 1
WHAT'S HAPPENED TO
THE AMERICAN DREAM
I HEARD
I a ^ao/v\
vxjice
HEAVEM,
UNTO me.
IA/PIT 6 -.
HEAVEN (£.IVE
IT IS IN
USTHIS PAYDUP DAILV
gPEAD, AND FOC&lve U6
Due T«espA^sie.E....
Sot deliver ue
FGCW EVIL.
D , , , '
EDGAR I DON'T
’
I...
WILLIAM KNOW WHAT
JACOB! YOU'RE TALKING
ALSO KNOWN ABOUT. I'M A
AS EPGAR
WILLIAM
VAUGHN, BUfjlNErS^M'
ALSO KNOWN
AS WILLIAM
ed&ar
$Ri6LtT.„
...Also
known AS
MOLOCH.
Y WM- when
7 HE BROKE IN,
^
T
HE WAS THERE,
IN Mv ROOM
OQUNKf
STIFF. Wf
SOUNDED
CGA-ZY X
T 55£ ME HE '
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HIE MAEKOrF THE SENSE *7iL ME
6UV WAS SCARED
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L ceY/wfe... J
^ ENEMIES
eoe ao&ty
YEARS WHY
ShOulD hB
VISIT
•I YOU'? j
<
, ,
MEAN
I
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the
TOU&rt-t
was
\fJOQ up
YOU
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i mean r
Thought X
,
I MEAN VOu ,
W4w I
FOU&MT THAT DON 'WANNA
8io Blue seek think I
YOU KNOW WHAT DON WAnNA'
I TELLVA
WHC KNOWE
WHICH WAV
HE'LL TUMP
IF ANYBODY
mE&SEE With
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^
r he
misht...
HE MI6HT
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" DON'TChA
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IN THIS PLAOE
I MEAN -WHAT
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WHAT SETS ME T ,
WAW !
THEBE
V'APEVA
jUMBITCH
,
TTT
VEPY WBLL
COPIED DOWN
uumnh NAME OF
Company.
REPORT THEM
LATBfS
YOU'PiF
OFF
HOOK
FOP
NOW.
. ,
SUT nor
...
cweeicon
l ove ,
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ecrr-ruee... -
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of zeven&e. i wanv neve r M<no
scweMe. I auesnons answese
PLanneo 1 soon
DU0H6 HIS J noTHins is 1
De’Caoe j I insOLuSue
gewino \
SOPS, jdf
. F
hiJt ih
'W-
us ? a lips
OF COriFUCT
with no
TIMS FOP .
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we po wnaT
we Have u|
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ill 1! \ V
ft
11- 11 ii .. u
.
bloks yrvoeRSTOOD.
reeaiec> it ukeo tokb,
8ut hc unoeasTOoo ne .
breaking, even
though my heart
is aching.
I should be
drinking a toast
to absent friends
instead af these
comedians.
—Elvis Costello
UNDER THE HOOD
Presented here are the excerpts
THE HOOD. In these
P
f ro^ UNDER
Hollis Mason
next chapters
discusses the
'
with
< the [•»
Minutemen Reprinted -
M ^
Erom the moment that I decided somewhere dc^-ihtnde my sell that I wanted to try rny
hand at being a costumed adventurer, to the moment 1 first stepped out into the night with a
mask on my I are and the wind on my bare legs, took about three months. Three months of
self* doubt and self-ridicule. Three months of sell-conscious training down at the Police Gym-
nasium. Three months figuring out how the hell 1 was going to make myself a costume.
The costume was difficult, because couldn’t start designing it until I'd thought of a
I
name 1 his stumped me for a couple ol weeks, because every name 1 came up with sounded
stupid, and what really wanted was something with the same sense of drama and excitement
I
as “Hooded Justice"
Eventually, a suitable handle was provided inadvertently by one of the other cops that 1
worked with down at the station house. He’d invited ine out fora beer after work two or three
rimes only to be turned down because wanted to spend as much of my evenings working out
I
in the Police Gymnasiums as possible, after which I’d usually go to bed around nine o'clock
and sleep through until five the next morning, when I'd get up and put in a couple of hours
workout before donning my badge and uniform in readiness for my day job, After having his
offer of beer and relaxat ion turned down yet again by reason of me wanting to be in bed early,
he finally gave up asking and touk to calling me “Nile Owl" out of sarcasm until he finally
found somebody else to drink with.
liked it. Now all
‘‘Nile Owl,’ had to come up with was the costume.
1 1
A
masked adventurer’s costume is one ol those things that nobody really thinks about.
Should have a cape, or nocape:* .Should it be thick and armored to protect you from harm, or
it
flexible and lightweight to allow maneuverability? What sort of mask should it have? Do bright
colors make you more ol a target than dark ones? All of these were things that 1 had to consider,
Eventually, opted lor a design that left the arms and legs as free as possible, while
1
protecting my body and head with a tough leather tunic, light chainmail briefs, and a layer of
Jtat he r-over-ch a run ail protecting i my head. I experimented with a cloak, remembering how
the Shadow would use his cloak to misguide enemy bullets, leading them to shoot at parts of
the swirling black mass where his body didn’t happen 10 be. In practice, however, found it too 1
unwieldy. was always tripping over it or getting it caught in things, and so 1 abandoned it for
1
With the mail and leather headpiece hiding my hair, found I only really needed a small 1
domino mask to conceal my identity, but even this presented problems that weren't obvious at
first glance. My first mask was attached to my face by the simple expediency of a string, but
thisnearly got me killed fluring rny first ever outing in lull costume, when a drunk with a knife
hooked his fingers into the eyeholes ol the domino and pulled it down .so that I could only see
out ol one eye. II Id been less fit and alert or he’d been less drunk rny career might well have
ended then As it was 1 was able to tear off the mask completely and then disarm him, trusting
that the alcohol would fog any clear recollection of my fat e. After that, dispensed with the I
siring ami stuck the mask to my lace using spirit gum, such as actors use to attach false beards
Or mustaches.
I became Nile Owl during the early months of 1939, and although my first few
first
exploits were largely unspectacular, they aroused a lot of media interest simply because by
1939, dressing up in a costume and protecting your neighborhood had become something of a
fad, with the whole ol America at least briefly interested in its development. A month after I
made tny debut a young woman who called herself The Silhouette broke into the headlines by
.
boiler suit started cleaning up the city’s waterfronts under the name of The Comedian. Within
twelve months of Hooded Just ice’s dramatic entrance into the public consciousness, there were
at least seven other costumed vigilantes operating on or around America’s West Coast.
There was Captain Metropolis, who brought a knowledge of military technique and
strategy to his attempt at eradicating organized crime in the inner urban areas, and who is still
active to this day.
There was The Silk Spectre, now retired and living with her daughter after an unsuccess-
ful early marriage, who in retrospect was probably the first of us ever to realize that there could
be commercial benefits in being a masked adventurer. The Silk Spectre used her reputation as
a crimefighter primarily to make the front pages and receive exposure for her lucrative model-
ing career, but I think all of us who knew her loved her a little bit and we certainly didn’t
begrudge her a living, I think we were all too unsure of our own motives to cast aspersions
upon anybody else,
There was Dollar Bill, originally a star college athlete from Kansas who was actually
employed as an in-house super-hero by one of the major national banks, when they realized
that the masked man fad made being able to brag about having a hero of your own to protect
your customer’s money a very interesting publicity prospect. Dollar Bill was one of the nicest
and most straightforward men I have ever met, and the fact that he died so tragically young is
something that still upsets me whenever I think about it. While attempting to stop a raid upon
one of his employer’s banks, his cloak became entangled in the bank’s revolving door and he
was shot dead at point-blank range before he could free it. Designers employed by the bank
had designed his costume for maximum publicity appeal. If he’d designed it himself he might
have left out that damned stupid cloak and still be alive today.
There was Mothman and The Silhouette and The Comedian and there was me, all of us
choosing to dress up in gaudy opera costumes and express the notion of good and evil in
simple, childish terms, while over in Europe they were turning human beings into soap and
lampshades. We were sometimes respected, sometimes analyzed, and most often laughed at,
and in spite of all the musings above, I don’t think that those of us still surviving today are any
closer to understanding just why we really did it all. Some of us did it because we were hired to
and some of us did it to gain publicity. Some of us did it out of a sense of childish excitement
and some of us, 1 think, did it for a kind of excitement that was altogether more adult if perhaps
less healthy. They’ve called us fascists and they’ve called us perverts and while there’s an element
of truth in both those accusations, neither of them are big enough to take in the whole picture.
Yes, some of us were politically extreme. Before Pearl Harbor, I heard Hooded Justice
openly expressing approval for the activities of Hitler’s Third Reich, and Captain Metropolis
has gone on record as making statements about black and Hispanic Americans that have been
viewed as both racially prejudiced and inflammatory, charges that it is difficult to argue or
deny.
daresay some of us did have our sexual hang-ups. Everybody knows what eventu-
I
ally became of the Silhouette and although it would be tasteless to rehash the events surround-
ing her death in this current volume, it provides proof for those who need it that for some
people, dressingup in a costume did have its more libidinous dements.
some of us were unstable and neurotic. Only a week ago as of this writing, I received
\fes,
word that the man behind the mask and wings of Mothman, whose true identity I am not at
liberty to divulge, has been committed to a mental institution after a long bout of alcoholism
and a complete mental breakdown
Yes, we were crazy, we were kinky, we were Nazis, all those things that people say. We
were also doing something because we believed in it. We were attempting, through our per-
sonal efforts, to make our country a safer and better place to live in. Individually, working on
our separate patches of turf, we did too much good in our respective communities to be written
off aw a mere aberration, whether social or sexual or psychological.
It was only when we got together that the problems really started. I sometimes think
without the Minutemen we might all have given up and called it quits pretty soon. The cos*
turned adventurer might have become quietly and simply extinct.
And the world might not be in the mess that it’s in today.
IV.
There’s no mystery behind how the Minutemen first got together. Captain Metropolis
had written to Sally Jupiter care of her agent, suggesting that they might meet with a view to
forming a group of masked adventurers who could pool their resources and experience to
combat crime. The Captain has always had a strategic approach to crimefighting, so I can see
why the idea would appeal to him, although back then I was surprised that he’d made an effort
to get in touch with Sally. He was so polite and reserved that Sally's drinking, swearing and
mode of dress were guaranteed to shock him speechless. Later, I realized that Sally was simply
the only costumed vigilante forethoughtful enough to have an agent whose address was in the
phone book.
Sally’s agent (and, much later, her husband) was an extremely shrewd individual named
Laurence Schexnayder. He realized that without the occasional gimmick to revitalize flagging
public interest, the fad for long underwear heroes would eventually fade, reducing his girl
Sally’s chances of media exposure as The Silk Spectre to zero. Thus it was Schexnayder, in
mid- 1939, who suggested placing a large ad in the Gazette asking other mystery men to come
forward.
One by one we came, over the next few weeks. We were introduced to Sally, to Captain
Metropolis, to each other and Laurence Schexnayder. He was very organized and profes-
to
sional, and although only in his mid-thirties he seemed very mature and respectable to us back
then Maybe that was just because he’d be the only person in the room not wearing their boxer
.
shorts over their pants. By the fall of '39 he’d arranged all the publicity and the Minutemen
were finally bom.
The mystery is how the hell we managed to stay together.
real
Dressing up in a costume takes a very extreme personality, and the chances of eight such
personalities getting along together were about seventy -eleven million to one against. This
isn’t some of us didn’t get along, of course.
to say that Sally attached herself pretty swiftly to
Hooded Justice, who was one of the
biggest men I’ve ever seen, I never
found out name, but I’d be will-
his real
ing to bet that those early news reports
weren’t far off in comparing him to a
wrestler. Strangely enough, even
though Sally would always be hanging
onto his arm, he never seemed very
interested in her. I don’t think I ever saw
him kiss her, although maybe that was
just because of his mask. Anyway, they
started going out together, sort of, after
the first Minutemen Christmas Party
in 1939, which is the last time I can
Thefirst Minutemen Christmas party, 1939
remember us all having a real good (from left to right; The Silhouette, Silk Spectre,
time together. After that, things went Comedian Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis
,
After that, things deteriorated. In 1946, the papers revealed that the Silhouette was living
with another woman in a lesbian relationship, Schexnayder persuaded us to expel her from the
group, and six weeks later she was murdered, along with her lover, by one of her former
enemies. Dollar Bill was shot dead, and in 1947 the group was dealt its most serious blow when
Sally quit crimefighting to marry her agent. We
always thought she might come back, but in
1949 she had a daughter, so that clinched that.
Eventually, those of us who were left didn’t even
fight crime anymore. It wasn’t interesting. The
villains we’d fought with were cither in prison or
had moved on to less glamorous activities.
Moloch, for example, who had started out aged
seventeen as a stage magician, evolving into an
ingenious and flamboyant criminal mastermind
through underworld contacts made in his world
of nightclubs, had moved into impersonal crime
like drugs, financial fraud and vice clubs by the
late ’40’s. Eventually, there was just me,
Mothman, Hooded Justice and Captain
Metropolis sitting around in a meeting hall that
smelled like a locker room now that there
weren’t any women in the group. There was
nobody interesting left to fight, nothing notable
to talk about. In 1949, we By
called it a day.
then, however, we’d been around long enough to
somehow inspireyounger people, God help
them, to follow in our footsteps.
The Minutemen were finished, but it
’
Early publicity poster of Moloch, 1937 didn 1 maUer The da™age had already been
-
_ done.
INSURIOUS, 1 SAW THAT Che waves about y
HELL- BOUND SHIP’S BLACK Me WERE SCARLET
FAILS AGAINST TUP VFt ldha COAMING, HORRl&LV
INDIES SKY,AMO KNEW
AGAIN THE STENCH OP FAILO r
WARM, VET STILL TUB
FREIGHTER'S utpBOUS
POWDER, AND MEN’S MEAN ,1 ' CREW CALLED OUT,
BRAINS, AND WAR
I
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READ THE NEAP v.MORE SLOOP!" Aa
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TOM, ,
PLEASE, IT'S
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after he failep to
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absubp i said/' ton,
YOU KNOW MOW EVERY
PAWN THIN& IN THI&
WORLD FITS TOGETHER
EXCEPT PEOPLE "
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"ESPECIALLY
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THAT'S WHV
I'M TALKING
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I WANT THE SUT THEN THIS LATEST THINS
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*\N\Se Hf SAID QKAYM5
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—
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right 5 —GENESIS chapter 18 verse 25
UNDER THE HOOD U
the excerpts
Presented here are
HOOD. In this
from UNDER THE
tne
with permission or
V.
The Minutemen didn’t get to usher in
mi
the 1950s with a Christmas celebration the
way we’d ushered in the ’40s, and perhaps
that’s appropriate. The decade
disbanding of the group was cold and bleak,
both for me in particular and for masked
following the
r
adventurers in general. Plus, it seemed to go
on forever.
1 think the worst thing was the belated
realization of just how much a fad we’d always
been, something to dead columns of
fill the
the newspapers right alongside the Hula
Hoop and the Jitterbug. Ever since Sally
Jupiter married her manager, his tireless,
shrewd efforts as a publicist had been notice*
ably absent. He’d recognized that the day of ggw- v Ji
4
the costumed hero was over — even though we
hadn’t — and he'd gotten out while the getting 1947: SaltyJupiter marries Laurence
was good. Consequently, we found our Schexn&yder. Can you spot thefamous faces in the
exploits being reported less and less fre- crowd?
quently. When they were reported, the tone --
was often derisive I can remember a lot of hooded vigilante jokes coming into circulation
.
during the early fifties. The mildest was one that suggested we were called The Minutemen
due to our performance in the bedroom There were an awful lot of bright blue gags about
.
Sally Jupiter. 1 know, because she told me most of them herself the last time I saw her.
Sally had a baby girl named Laurel Jane in 1949, and it seemed to be right about then
that her marital problems started. These were widely discussed, so I don’t think I need repeat
them here. Suffice it to say that the marriage ended in 1956, and since then Sally has done a
first rate job of bringing her daughter up into a bright, spunky youngster that any mother
most of us. With Captain Metropolis having such an outstanding military record and with
my own service in the police force, we both were more or less cleared of suspicion right away.
Mothman met with more difficulty, mostly because of some left-wing friends he’d cultivated
his student days. He was eventually cleared, but the investigations were both lengthy
during
and ruthless, andthink that the pressure he was underat that time prompted the beginnings
I
of the drinking problem that has contributed so much to his later mental ill-health.
Only Hooded Justice refused to testify, on the grounds that he was not prepared to reveal
?
for fear of being uncovered while ihe Communist witch hunts were at their most feverish The .
piece also implied that Muller had probably been executed by his own Red superiors.
1 always wondered about that. Muller disappeared at almost exactly the same time as
Hooded Justice was last seen, and the two men had corresponding builds. Whether the body
washed upon ihat Boston shoreline belonged to Muller or not, neither he nor Hooded Just ice
were ever seen or heard from again Were they the same man? If they were, were they really
dead? If they were dead, who killed them? Was 1 looded Justice really working for the Reds? I
doh’t know, Real life is messy, inconsistent, and it s seldom when anything ever really gets
resolved it’s taken me a long time to realize that
Otic ot the big problems that faced costumed heroes at the time was the absence of
costumed criminals of any real note. don’t think any of us realized how much we needed
1
those goons until they started to thin out. You see, if you’re the only one who’d bothered to
turn up ior a free-for-all in costume, you tended to look kind of stupid. If the bad guys joined
in as well, it wasn't so bad, but without them it was always sort of embarrassing, '{’here had
never been as many costumed criminals as heroes, but with the end ofthe 1940s the trend
grew' muc h more pronounced.
Most ofthe crooks turned costumes along with their criminal careers, but some
in their
just opted for a less extroverted and more profitable approach. The new breed of villains,
despite their often colorful names, were mostly ordinary men in business suits who ran drug
and prostitution rackets. That’s not to say they didn’t cause as much trouble... far from it; I
just mean much fun lo fight. All the cases I ended up investigating during
that they weren't as
the ’50s seemed sordid and depressing and quite often blood-chillingly horrible. I don't know
what it was. [here just seemed to be a sort of bleak, uneasy feeling in the air. It was as if some
.
essential clement of our lives, of all our lives, was vanishing before we knew entirely what it
was, 1don’t think I could really describe it completely except maybe to somebody who
remembered the terrific elation we all felt after the war: we felt that we’d taken the worst that
the 20ih century could throw at us and stood our ground. We felt as if we’d really won a hard-
earned age of peace and prosperity that would see us well into the year 2000. This optimism
lasted all through the ’40s and the early ’50s, but by the middle of that latter decade it was
starting to wear thin, and there was a sort of ominous feeling in the air
Partly it was the beatniks, die jazz musicians and the poets openly condemning Ameri-
can values whenever they opened their mouths. Partly it was Elvis Presley and the whole Rock
V Roll boom. Had we fought a war for our country so that our daughters could scream and
swoon over young men who looked like this, who sounded like that* With all these sudden
social upheavals just when we thought we’d gotten everything straight, it was impossible to live
through the 950s without a sense of impending catastrophe bearing implacably down upon
1
the whole country, the whole world. Some people thought it was war and others hi night it was
i
flying saucers, but those things weren’t really what was bearing down upon us* What was
bearing down upon us was the 1960s,
The '60s. along with the mini-skirt and the Beatles, brought one thing to the world that
was significant above all others — its name was Dr. Manhattan. The arrival of Dr. Manhattan
would make the terms “masked hero" and “costumed adventurer” as obsolete as the persons
they described. A new phrase had entered the American language, just as a new and almost
terrifying concept had entered its consciousness. It was the dawn of the Super-Hero.
Manhattan's existence was announced to the world in the March of 1960, and don’t I
think there can have been anybody on the planet who didn’t feel that same strange jumble of
emotions when they heard the news. Foremost amongst this assortment of sensations was
disbelief. The idea of a being who could walk through walls, move from one place to another
without covering the intervening distance and re-arrange things completely with a single
thought was flat-out impossible. On the other hand, the people presenting this news to us
were our own government. The notion that they might simply have made it up was equally
improbable, and m the face of this contradiction, it became gradually easier to accept the
dream-like unreality of those first newsreel images: a blue man melting a tank with a wave of
his hand; the fragments of a disassembled rifle floating there eerily in the air with nobody
touching them. Once accepted as reality, however, such things became no easier to digest. If
von accept that floating rifle parts are real you also have to somehow accept that everything
yo U 'vc ever known to be a fact is probably untrue Thai peculiar unease is something that
most of us have learned to live with over the years, but it's still there
The other emotions that accompanied the announcement were perhaps harder to iden-
tifyand pin down. There was a certain elation ... it felt as if Santa Claus had suddenly turned
out to be real after all. Coupled with and complementary to this was a terrible and uneven
sense of fear and uncertainly. While this was hard to define precisely, if I had to boil it down
into three words, those words would be, “We've been replaced" I’m not just talking about the
nan-powered costumed hero fraternity here, you understand, although Dr. Manhattan’s
appearance was certainly one of the factors that led to my own increased feelings of obsole-
scence and my eventual decision to quit the hero business altogether. You see, while masked
vigilantes had certainly been made obsolete, so in a sense had every other living organism
upon the planet. 1 don’t think that society has fully realized yet just exactly what Dr. Manhat-
tan’s arrival means; how much it's likely to change every detail of our lives.
Although Dr. Manhattan was the most prominent by far of the ’New Breed’ of costumed
heroes he wasn’t quite the first nor by any means the last In the closing months of 1958, the
.
papers mentioned that a major opium and heroin smuggling racket had been busied by a
young adventurer named Ozymandias, who seemed 10 have quickly gained a reputation
amongst the criminal fraternity for his boundless and implacable intelligence, not to mention
a large degree of athletic prowess,
I met both Dr Manhattan and Ozymandias for the first time at a charity event in the
June of 1960. Ozymandias seemed to be a nice young fellow, although I personally found Dr.
Manhattan to be a little distant. Maybe that was more my fault than his, though, since I
found it very difficult to feel easy around the guy, even once I’d got used to the shock of his
physical presence. It’s a strange feeling.,, the first time you meet him your brain warns to
scream, blow' a fuse and shut itself down immediately, refusing to accept that he exists. This
lasts for a couple of minutes, at which time he’s still there and hasn’t gone away, and in the end
you just accept him because he’s standing there and talking to you and after a while it almost
seems normal.
Almost,
Anyway, at that charity event. was Red Cross relief for the ongoing famine in
. . I think it
India... a lot of things became apparent to me. Looking around at the other adventurers
there, 1 wasn’t happy with what I saw: The Comedian was there, imposing his overbearing
personality and his obnoxious cigar smoke upon anyone within reach. Mothman was there, a
glass in one hand, slurring his words and letting his sentences trail ofT into incoherence.
Captain Metropolis was there, his paunch starting to show despite a strict regimen of Cana-
dian Air Force Exercises. Finally, leaving the two younger heroes aside for a moment, there
was me: Forty-six years old and starting to feel it, still trying to cut it in the company of guys
who could level a mountain by snapping their fingers. 1 think it was when that moment of self
insight hit me that 1 first decided to finally hang up my mask and get myself a proper job. I’d
been about due to retire from the police force for some time, and I started wondering about
what I wanted to do now that the thrill of adventure had finally started to pale. Looking back
over my life, 1 tried to work out what I’d been doing during my existence’s happier stretches,
in order to form a basis for my future contentment.
After much deliberation, I concluded that I’d never been happier than when helping my
dad beat some sense into an obstinate engine down at Moe Vernon's yard. After a life of
crime-fighting, no notion seemed sweeter to me than that of spending my autumn years
contentedly making dead vehicles run again in the confines of my own auto repair shop.
In the May of this year, 1962, that’s exactly what I opted to do,
I lb mend cars. Probably for the rest of my life. As I see it, part of the art of being
retired,
a hero is knowing when you don’t need to be one anymore, realizing that the game has
changed and that the stakes are different and that there isn’t necessarily a place for you in this
strange new pantheon of extraordinary people. The world has moved on, and I’m content to
watch it from my armchair with a beer by my side and the smell of fresh oil still on my fingers.
Part of my contentment comes from knowing that there have maybe been some overall
consequence of my twenty-three years behind the mask. This knowledge came to me in the
shape of a letter from a young man whose name I’m not at liberty to reveal. He told me of his
great admiration for my efforts as Nite Owl and proposed that since S’d retired and would no
longer be using the name, perhaps he could borrow it since he intended to follow my example
and become a crime-fighter. I’ve visited his home since then and seen some of the fabulous
technology he intends to bring to bear on the war against crime, I was certainly far too
impressed to refuse him the use of what I’d always thought was a dumb name to begin with, so
by the time this sees print there be a new Nite Owl patrolling the streets of New ‘Vbrk.
may well
Also, Sally Jupiter tells me that as soon as little Lauries old enough she wants to be a super-
heroine just like her mom, so who knows? It seems as if from being a novelty nine-day
wonder, the super hero has become a part of American life. It’s here to stay.
1 AM WATCHING
THE STARS,
ADMIRING THEIR
COMPLEX
TRAJECTORIES,
THROUGH SPACE,
THROUGH TIME /
WATCHMAKER
!
WATChES
POCKET WATCH HAVE VOU „ JPPBO THE
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PICTURE,
PARTICULARLY
OF THE
crow?
rMATTER
r
yes? 1
WATCH RIGHT
VST’ *
W2
janey ? A/O DON
PON 't do '
ASK ME
X NEED &OP CAN
STAY AND WATCH
please
,
PW0706BAPH OF (YE
anyone HAS.
wrntuKjtc
I THOUGHT
T'D JUST ABOUT
SEEN ITAli-t*
JON ?
TWEiR SL
STARE U
AND INSUBSTANTIAL
INTHE SUDDEN PLACE
OP ULTRAVIOLET.
SUNBURN IN
NOVEMBER
S\fc\v°
IT'S OCTOBER, (QB5. I'M IT SCINTILLATES, A WINK
BA&KIW& (N THE TWO- intended for the
MILLION-YEAR-OLD LI6HT TRILOglTEG AUU
OF ANPROMBDA I CAW SEE LONS DEAD.
THE SUPERNOVA THAT
E&NST HAS TM& DISCOVERED
IN le&S, A CENTURY a go.
SUPERNOVAS ACE WHERE
GOLD PORMS; THE ONLY
PLACE ALU GOLD COMES
FROM SUPERNOVAS
i i UiMp,
FEBRUARY, (AGO, AND
IT'S IT, ..ESPECIALLY
EVERYTHING IS FROZEN I - THIS HELMBT
AM starting to accept WHAT'S THIS
that I SHALL WEVEG F£EL , SY/V!SOU
COtD ok WARM again . \. STAND EOS.1 j
' UH vVELL IT ^
MEANS U l£E ATOMS
,
,
,
ATOMIC POWER,
LIKE THAT,,, .
MEANIN&LEG&
IT'S
gH
a Hvosoaen atom
would Be mope
APPROPRIATE I a-BUT
DON'T THINK Af THAT'S
\
^
r shall be the only
wearing /# place
. this, y/i WHERE voue
evaa&oc
r shows th e
TBS \V.kYf[
:
VM ‘
i BOYS SAV
you nebo a
^ffiTVJ \\ T ty SYMBOL , ,
ACCORDING- TO
I MA|
march
'
,
iq&o... PENTAGON SOURCES,
THIS ASTON ISH N
|
<£»
INDIVIDUAL CAN CONTROL
T ...AND HERE,
1
r
DEMON STR ATI N 6
...STILL REEUN&
r..STU WE ATOMIC STRUCTURE THAT A PATTON
FROM TMIS MORNIWG'5 1
repeat-. ITSELF. WE SEE HIM TANK POSES HIM
ANNOUNCEMENT. _r
HE HERE DISMANTLING no greater
POSSIBLY THE MOST SUPERMAN A RIFLE WITHOUT L DIFFICULT /, 1
j
SI&NIFICANT exists TOUCWNS IT..,
EVENT IN RECENT AND HE'S
WORLD HISTORY j AMERICAN
^HASTHEPE
r BEEN NO
^ ^
RESPONSE from the
kBEMLIN AS OF
THIS TIME,,. A
Whowand
r
INDEED
...
this almost
,
^
ALTHDU&H PHOTOGRAPHED
LATE THIS AFTERNOON
INSTEAD,WE
ASKED THOSE
UNBELIEVABLE DEVELOP- AT THE SlLA FLATS COSTUMED
MENT WILL AFFECT TEST BASE THE Vl&lL ANTES r WELL,
THE PACE IN WEAPONRY I SUPEPHUMAN... COO E- REMAIN NS I UHH, WE'RE
ANp SPACE TECHMOU&V NAMED L>R- MANHATTAN .
FROM THE ALEASEO,
HAS VET TO BE HAS NOT SPOKEN J
... I940'S OBVIOUSLY.
N ASSIMILATEO A ^ TO THE press J^k HEPO FAP
HOW THEY
.
FELT, ^ A
GILA FLi
TEST B
:-TO 0QUOTN>
AND \lE)(T
THIN&, EVERV-
rr 'LL BELIEVE gOOVS TALKING
(T When r ABOUT ITS
FASHION
BNIFICANCE
S/Q>N(F1CANC
CAN YOU
IMASlNBl
IT'SNOVEMBER THE
NEWSPAPERS' CALL ME
A CRiMEpiGHTER SO ,
THE MORALITY OF
MV ACTIVITIES
ESCAPES' ME .
DALLAS I©
STILL EIGHT-
EEN MONTHS
A WAV'."
WITH SOMEONE
r LIKEYOU ABOUND, THE
^
WHOLE SITUATION CHAn&ES
YOU CAN DO ANYTHING
ALL X SOT TO OFFER
\S A GOOD LEFT HOOK
NAM I'M , \
SETTER OFC RE- \ BE AWHILE
f ... And IT'LL SEE I UNDERSTAND
,
TjT WELL,
c the new 's
ELECTRIC CARS
SHOULD BE EVEN
V SIMPLER y
EIGHTEEN MONTHS
AWAY, AN ELECTRfO
-IMOUSINEIS
LIMOUSINE IS PULLING
PULLING
ONTO OEALEY PLAZA...
? ?
TUST LIKE
y that like I'm a
/ PUPPET ? TON YOU KNOW 1
f
1
^
HOW EVERYTHING <N THr£>
world PiT$ together except
PEOPLE YOU& PREDICTION S f
...THIRD, UH, r 1
GUESS 1 SHOULD
IT'S- 11364- . I'M IT'S lPfe-6 I'M WELCOME EVERV-
INFORMING the IN A ROOM OF SODY TO THE
PENTAGON THAT PEOPLE WEARING FWST
FtRET &VEI
EVER
I'LL NO LONGER D IS GUISES. MEETING £7F
8E WEARING the came-
rue WHOLE OF Qu&rses
AAV COSTUME.
you ! i
knew you were
seeing her?
" I KNEW /
^
IT'S Sites
YOU TO COME
op
x
A UU.i,
YPU» 7
you're
$/CK' MOW
OU T ON PATROL GtRL- oto rs ewe
WITH ME. MV FRIEND FOURTEEN
MOM TAUSHT WOW' T v pifteew
ME EVERYTHIN^ M/MO,
SHE KNEW gUT WILL
I'M STILL PRETTY she?
A/£W TO ALL ,
THIS. Vi
x
A YOU TELL HER '
.
Another name,
APART FROM PC’-
MANHATTAN? .
NAME'S
JON
,
> V
Y OODPAMNEO /
thirty : >/
r you t
TELL WER
ANp SEE
WHAT SHE
SAYS TO
v THAT f
I
;
,
n11
Jji
,
f
h-
INKGq, I'M RECEIVING NEWS <S/lA flats
closes down
OF MV FATHER'S DEATH . IN IR 70 ON
LAURIE'S
. IN JANUARY W7I, PRESENT
TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY; NIXON IS ASKING ME TO
WE MOVE INTO OUR NEW 7 INTERVENE in VIETNAM,
IN iA5R , HE'S OPEN INS A \ WASHINGTON APARTMENT. /
WNilE TEN YEARS EARLIER.
TELES RAM FROM THE —L,
KENNEDY IS AVOIDING AnV
MILITARY INFORMING MENTION OF CUBA
1 *
1
I'VE
ACCIDENTAL pISINTESRA- NAME TO THE PUBLIC -
— IN CONCEALING* IT
MARCH. I'M IN
IT'S
SAIGON, BEING
REINTRODUCED to
EDWARD BLAKE, THE
COMEDIAN HE WORKS .
BLAKE IS INTERESTING*
I HAVE NEVER MET
ANYONE SO
DELIBERATELY amoral
AS I COME TO
UNDERSTAND VIETNAM
AND WHAT IT IMPLIES
ABOUT THE HUMAN
"ONDITION I ALSO
CONDITION,
,
TO SURRENDER TO
(T'Smav. I THE VfETOONS ME PERSONALLY,
have been ARE EXPECTED THEIR TERROR OP
HEBE TWO To SURRENDER ME BALANCED BV
months . WITHIN THE AN ALMOST
WEEK. MANY religious awe.
HAVE GIVEN
themselves
UP ALREADY,,,
I I =» lUOCH^I'ICO. lUlt^lt-'IINK
TOCREATE SOMETHING X ,
I NO LONGER
WISH TO LOOK
AT DEAD
THINGS*.
rr'S iq7S. THE PAPERS ARE
FULL OF THE PRESIDENT'S HIS REAL NAME IS
PROPOSED CON&rtJUTfOtJAL APBIAN V£f0T, A SELF-
amendment allowing, MADE MILLIONAIRE •
GOES
PUBU
r
THAT'S, BuSASTtE
SHE'S A SENETrCALLV
IT'S LEAPT
in the last
PORWAPP ’'•l
fifteen
O
nM
ALTERED 4V/VX YEARS a\Z£RYTH/N6 E£|
THEY COST RATHE** r i hadn't 11
HAS, from, guantum
A LOT TO PE£0> REALIZED THAT physics to
.
VIABLE..,
...AND WE OWE
IT ALL TO YOU
WITH vour HELP, HIS EYES ARE SAP
OUR SCIENTISTS AND KNOWIN6- HI&
are LIMITED SERVANTS BRING* US’
ONLY BY THEIR INDONESIAN FOOD
AND HE TALKS ABOUT
HIS BUSINESS PLANS,
ALL THE TIME
FEEDING, SCRAPS TO
WiS BEAUTIFUL
MONSTPOOS CAT,,.
CUOOSING A SPOT
IT'S IA&5. IN IQT7, A City i5 SHOUTING. BELOW ME i
r LOOK at ^
WtWLOOK AT
THAT FSBAK IT'S !
AGAINST GOO
AS LONS AS I CONTINUE
AU&UST 3 RD, IAT 7 : VI&ILANTISM IS NOW TO ACT UNDER U S.
THE EMEC&ENCY ILLEGAL AO AIM * AS SOVERNMENT SUPERVISION,
BILL PROPOSED IT WAS BEFORE TREY I AM EXEMPT FROM THE
BY SENATOR ALTERED THg LAWS LAW. THEY CAN HARDLY
tceeue has seen TO ACCOMMODATE OUTLAW ME WHEN TL££R
passed. StRATESICALLY COUNTRY'S DEFENSE
USEFUL TALENTS RESTS IN MY HANDS
SUCH AS MYSELF.
BLAKE IS ALSO
EXEMPT SINCE
HE TOO WORKS
ENTIRELY FDR
THE SOVERN
MENT
RAM An HOSTASE
I I
SITUATION* EVEM
HIS HARSHEST
CRITICS FALL SILENT.
LAURIE STILL HATES
HIM, HOWEVER.
*****
r m A.
AND
IT'S iQftl NOW. LAURIE SHE'D LIKE IT HERE . BUT THIS IS ILLUSION
... .
in their future.
SILICONE THAT SEEMS
IT'S WELL-E0U1PPE0 PREGNANT WITH THE
FOR MV WORK BUT , POSSIBILITY OF every
LAUCiE feels wEve CONCEIVABLE SHAPE,,.
LOST OUG PRIVACY
® w® :
the streets smell
OF OZONE RATHER
THAN GASOLINE
PLAT INTANGIBLE
BLOTS OF GRAY
SHOE ACROSS THE
SUMMER SIDEWALKS,
THE SHADOWS OF
OVE RHEAD AIRSHIPS
^KV:~Tf H
ITS SATURDAY, OCTOBER
i2*th, and we are
iqbs,
SEIN& INFORMED DP
11 WEDNESDAV THE IGTH LAURIE
IE
.
ON A BOOPfOP IN THE
PAST 1 PULL HER
t
&rVTEEN-VEAR-OLD
BODY TO ME BREATHING
,
.y
gone to a Place without
clocks without SEASOMft
,
WITHOUT HOUR6LASSE6
TO TRAP THE SWIFTIN&
PINK SAND.
A WORLD GROWS UP
ABOUNO ME. AM X
SHAPIN& (T, OR DO
ITS PReDeTERMINEp
couTDuR& guide
MV HAND?
IN (AA5,THE &OMBS
ARE falungon
JAPAN THE C06€> ARE
,
FALLING ON BROOKLYN,
SEEDS OF THE FUTURE,
SOWN CARELESSLY,..
am x to blame, then?
OB THE FAT MAN ? WHICH OF uS
OR MV FATHER, FOP (5 RESPONSIBLE?
CHOOSING MV CAREER?
PERHAPS TwE wOBuD
S NOT MADE PERHAPS A CLOCK. WITHOUT
N0THI.N6 iS MAPE A CRAFTSMAN -
PERHAPS IT Sw\PLY
IS, HAS BEEN, WILL
always se there,,.
r Am STANDING on a
FIRE ESCAPE IN iflA-S,
CEACHIN6 CUT TO STOP
RATHER, TA*e THE COG5
JVW
AND FLYWHEELS FROM
THEM ALL
HIM, PIECE
TOSETHEC A6AIN...
The reteose
ABOVE THE MODUS
MOUNTAINS, of atom power
JEWELS in A MAKEft- has thonged
LtSS MECHANISM THE
Rst m f Tf or it e e.
,
f- (
everything
ARE STARTING TO PALL
except our way
of thinking...
The solution
to this problem
of mankind.
DR. MANHATTAN:
SUPERPOWERS
AND THE
SUPERPOWERS
DR. MANHATTAN:
Perhaps in the process of reconstructing its corporeal form, this new
and wholly original entity achieved a complete mastery of all matter;
able to shape reality by the manipulation of its basic building blocks.
When news of this being's phenomenal genesis was first released to the
world, a certain phrase was used that has— at varying times— been
attributed both to me and to others. On the newsflashes coming over
our tvs on that one sentence was repeated over and over
fateful night,
again: 'The superman exists and he's American.'
I never said that, although ! do recall saying something similar to a
persistent reporter who would not leave without a quote. I presume the
remark was edited or toned down so as not to offend public sensibili-
ties; in any event, never said 'The superman exists and he's Ameri-
!
can'. What 1 said was 'God exists and he's American'. If that statement
starts to chill you after a couple of moments' consideration, then don't
be alarmed. A feeling of intense and crushing religious terror at the
concept indicates only that you are still sane.
Since the mid-1960s, when the dazed and numbed mass conscious-
ness first began to comprehend the significance of this new life form in
humanity's midst, the political balance has changed drastically. Many
people in this country fee! that this is for the best. America's unques-
tioned military supremacy has also provided us with a certain eco-
nomic leverage where we can dictate the economic policies of the
western world and direct them to our advantage. There is little wonder,
then, that the idea of a world run by an omnipotent God-King owing
allegiance to the United States seems eminently desirable. By placing
our superhuman benefactor in the position of a walking nuclear deter-
rent, it is assumed we have finally guaranteed lasting peace on earth. It
is with this last contention that my most serious point of issue lies: 1 do
DR. MANHATTAN:
YOU THINK
JV>SCAQEP
HUH ?
YOU
THINK T'V
SCARED OC & CME
Shaky little
iLiNKIE WITH A
5w.'T£H8LADE t
T WASN'T
I 60 IU& TO
...I POINT |T
WAS NT ,
AT Y00
OH, &OP
LOO K ,
please,
WHAT VO
YOU WANT
WITH
ME 7
NOTHING
JUS T
PASSING.
'
OLP AMP ”
ALONE. THOUGHT
you MIGHT
APPRECIATE
COMPANY.
WONDER
WHO ?
!>—
NOW THEY'RE KNOW ANY- StOB&CHACU
Both gone very THING. ' NOT PLEASE, IT
CONVENIENT CONVINCING WASN'T ME
ENOUGH- X DON’T
WHO IS IT,
KNOW '
MOLOCH?
WHO'S
BEHIND
KNOW
WHOIT
^ ,
&OWE NOW- IE
ANYTHIN^ SHOULD
SEERE EH MEMORY
CONTACT ME BY
LEAVING, NOTE
TRASH CAN
OPPOSITE &UN&A
DINER AT ,
T¥~
50RQV CAn 7{ \'E
& 80 UT AAA^E
M ESS OMELETTE
MTHOUT <
gREAKthtfo
FEW
£&&€>
OKAY, ,
r
MORE QUESTIONS OFFICER
\ CAPALDt WILL DRIVE YOU
TO THE HOSPITAL
r-rwfifel
'
KITCHEN T
KNIFE THEIR
NAMES WERE
CLAVE Aw O
DOMINIQUE
vouP DAY
TLE6E MOGwjwG AMO
6(jT C-M^GlN^
P&VCH -
YOUR AT/DS
OUTS ARE
MOSTLY
MEDIA ^ THAT
inspired,
r SOMETH
IW& ££S£,
MAm -
. .
_____
SURE THIS WARS
Tflv«OM£ A A/D FAMILY r
where JHE SAME LODKIW SERIOUS
1
LOOK BUOYANT
ENOUSH TO REACH
DAVtDSTOWN .
NOT UNAIDED A ,
r next month s
D attempted to Banish COMIC BOOKS
THIS REPULSIVE NOTION, ARRIVE EARLY,
to DAYS FROM TIERS -
MAN ARRIVES
r Aww it'll , k LATE * 6 ODD AM W
NEVEC HAPPEN WAR'S
wonder what's SCREYVW
DELAYIN' the new EVE&V*
frontiersman ?„ THIN&
v L'P J
Finally ™
APPROACHlNb THE
SHALLOW CRAVE .
r BEGAN DIGGING
AAV SCHEME WAS
L OATH SOME ,
... BUT IT I
BUT J HA£> /"
NOT LET WO CHOICE /A
!E
&VERYTHING I LOVED , L-L (N&N& TO \' TZemOV/NO THEIR CLOTHING,
EVERYTHING- 1 LIVED THE MEMORY V T TORE IT TO RlSSONS,
FOR DEPENDED UPON OF MV W>FE /& Binding them together
MV REACHING- DAVIDS BYEE, I DRAGGED
TOWN IN ADVANCE OF MEN UP FROM
THAT TERR/BLE / underground, Occasionally,
V freighter
,
\j SAND TRICKLING T would pause
FROM THEIR j IN MY WORK,
. SOCKETS yd ENTRANCED BY
THE STARTLING
BEAUTY OF A
TATTOO OR THE
ENIGMA OF AN
OLD SCAR . ,
S'avefied, i waited
FOR DUSK AND EBBTIDE,
-c:
7)oth(N& WOULD
TAKE IT FROM ME
:
I HAVE A LOT OF / J
ROOM THE SE
I MEAN ,we'pe both
PRSENOS wE'GE gOTH
IN THE SAME LINE OF
WORK', WE 'PE BOTH ,
rog&cuagh'& toughal . access STweer, soys with nesr, peeuep off race
e>CToge& tq&e
it err. -
sprov cans were oepacirv^ Fouoep it, hip instoe yaci-
asanooneo euitDins WITHOUT my FOCe
woken or eceven gy
:
,
MewocizeD Tweia DescRiPTion v noftODY kmowS. yC
SWOUTinS OUTSIDS DISTURgep Twen paepaaeo for wocft.
to Fino x hop Fauuen
asteep without cewovms
THe srm from mv Heap
Tioooeft THOM T THOUGHT
should se mors caae^uL
nogouY knows
who i a«
Dion'T
C.IKS it,
^^
wages
DOOPWtXY
LOOk.
naunreo.
O-
an aFFaia,peRHaps? dip ^
v ru^PecTYk ensineec pc.
C1
ManHOTTOn's extee to
Make boom for peeisecs?
ateo, swe hotcd coMieo an i
| newspapers, a Pa ie of teas
Srean&Leo gv own caces, i
TEulYA the
t PUTH, TH'S
W^OLE BLOODY
CLsTHE SUN
ClAM&EREO v
V J'o SWALLOWED TOO MUCH
8 /ROFLESn I P SWALLOWED
1
\ ON A FAST STRUCK ME
AND 1 GREW , J
,. FAINT. ^-''1
r
IMeAtV,
WORLD WAETHCE 5 T ,
A NIGHTMARE THE
IT'S
ONLY PEOPLE WHO CAN EVEN
THINK ABOUT IT APE THE
ASMS COMPANIES
THEY'RE SPEEDY Yl MEAN, 0NY
vou
YWATCH
r
you
^1 €?vElZVTHtNfy
TU.tEC> above,
GREEDY FOR PEOPLE SEE
THE ?
^ see? > The oulls
SLAUGHTERHOUSE '
i
WATCH the 1 SCAVENGERS DON'T THEY everybody CHORUS AFFOGPEP
FINANCIAL WHEELED { KNOW WHERE escapin' NO DISTRACTION j
PAGES THOSE HUNGRILY THIS IS INTO COMIC FROM AAV
6U VS, THEY'RE TOST SCREAMS gOORS An' NAUSEA, ANPT I
HELL RETCHING, \
ME MV KNEES
,
MA*le A LEATHERS. J j TO
i KILLING / V S/CK / BETWEEN MY RAFT$
timbers, sosun ,
RIDLEY STARED A
t up at me. ^ 1
JV ’» h~gy-r
~CMS SUDDEN xW
yfj
I MEAN, ALL
THIS , )T
r
AFGHANISTAN ’IS
PAKISTAN NEXT ?
! '
r
OH WOW, WHAT IE APPARENTLY, HE
r t he > WITH EVERY BODY
IT WAS SCARED THERE ^PERHAPS I THINK WWSE
'
major TODAY? EVERYBODY'S WAS GONNA gE A THEY DON'T V IT'S THE DECOR
WLLAfNS ON THIS TOTAL
.
WAR ISN'T THAT HAVE YOUR f BOUND HERE. ALL
L DEAD j
^
ACS ALL \PEATH TRIP A
LIKE OnThE ^
NEWS THIS MOPNINS,
PO/V
NOBODY WOULD
BE O/eAZY ENOUGH TO
1 S? YOUTH ANO / THIS e&ypTIAH
^
.OPTIMISM J STUFF. IT'S VERY
Moeeio very
obsessed WITH
SOME SUV WENT NUTS, START ONE, SO WHY& DEATH.
KILLED HIS RIDE YOU EVERYBODY ON SUCH
SEE THAT? *>
,
X. POWNEf? ABOUT
|T*»
1 ,;
lmjrPTT ,T
iii' Iii
THAT? >
VEIDT'S A
REAL HERO J AWOKE AT '
LI KLE TMIS
SUY KILLED X YOU
TpIpW*®'
1
DID CHARITY DUSK AND DRANK HIS *7PS A \J NEVER KNOW.
WEEK AGO w TOU NEVER
.
TP
3 ENEATH MY RAFT,
SOMETHING MOVED
Message
pso.v
,K*, WCVCifH
XOTj^Kn. +
\\10yjm
'
J^y '^•'0^W'jj3jJJt\ .
^ soMCTwinc. eewasomo
_ .
in his eyes .
^
gOMeriMeg.THe niSHT
ig seneeous to Me
DAM,
beally, afteb whebe
I^ WELL, KNOW iSN'T^
n
Kb MUCH BUT
iKkw *.a i iA; n
IT SHOULD gE
j /“-i i
YOU
ti-v . -1“
iT
rs. flit— lJ
r slice
comfortable and M
YOU DIDN'T
KNOW HOW
grateful
i thoughts:
WAS (3 CNNA
EE SLEEPING
H
; vj
DOWN THE
SLEEPING filGHT
EH HALL YOU WAKE UP iF
r
r
(50SIMA <SLEEPTILL
THURSDAY. THANKS
FOG LOOK IN© OUT
6 LAO T
COULD
WELL
I AM FOC
TWI6
TONIGHT, THIS-
IS like
Pv
IU9nv
THE NIGHT AND NEED A
ANYTHING-
IN
Jk
FOP nrit
t DAN. YOU'CE
ME, wr-ir*
LIKE A £16
r _
,
HELP
HEAVEN brother, you
KNOW THAT -*
UH, LIKE
COFFEE OR
A&Riethl
STUFF LIKE
that.
6000WI6NT.
LAU«<E -
Whatever was ^\jl J CLUNG TV MY
BENEATH MV BOAT '
mast AS THE
COMMENCED A VIOLENT PLATFORM TILTED
thrashing, Almost FURTHER THE
SPILLING ME AMONGST i WATER BEGAN
THE GNAWING
,
HORRORS —-<J ^ JO Soil WHITE.
SOMETH/ HE WAS
>
'
v
SURFACING 4
HOW SHALL X
v
DESCRIBE <T ? IT
WAS MASSIVE /LIRE
MO SHARK I'D EVER.
HEARD tell of, WITH
skin neither Black
NOR WHOLLY WHITE
But a palE and
MOT TL ED YEl lOW d
T—
HA LF BLIND HA LF
; S
OEAO, WHOLLY DERAN6ED
gY AGONY 7 THE YELLOW
LEVIATHAN ATTEMPTED
TO SWIM AWAY, DRAGGING
MV RAFT Ini ITS
BLOODY WARE
J hung on
DESPERATEL V,
CURBING IN
THE SittER,
STINGING SPRAY
" . , A
A COPY
\ HUSTLER .
STILL geiN6lu6
l
L(6H T TP
THE WOBDD?
ever let SWIMMW& ~
. UP ? A WOBICINO THg
STREETS THESE
PANS TARES A
REAL MENSCH
T&EUEF WAS
FLEETING, MY
PROSPECTS
STILL PARK
• AY Hh * *
WOMEN £#
AGAfNST S' S
, .
r
Y'KNOW tME 1 WELL ,TWERE * MEM I U^ED 6UBE y'KNOW,ALL TODAY
WAV THE WORLD
(
IS TODAV, I 6UE6S
1
THAT'S
twe
NBVB& SEEM
MARKET ?YGECOGD
TO OtW T ME
HAD
I'VE MAP THi* PUNMV
PEELING, IT'S LIKE
HOME o' THE66 PHONE roe peace THi& &LBBVE k THERE'S SOMETHING j
MESSIAHS AMD
ILLUMINATE!?
AMD EML^HT-
ENMEMT
&E$?&N , L IN THE AIR , <
TYPES BSALlV I
r THAT'S
SOUNO WAVES
M AM THEY'RE
CONUNS’ PROM
THE PHONE
T maybe
pQ. MANHATTAN, SOME OLD
0?YMANC)tAE> ... ENEM Y MAYBE
SOMEBODY’S SOMEONE
MASKS.
KILL INS YOU METIS/
JACOBI SOME- L P&t&OfiJ- J
BODY WANTS
OS DEAD J
HeeZ
SUNNtNb
V WAS
1WAS
IT UNPERSONS 7
IT Jimmy
TU&QU&H THE fytMMiCK OR
NAMES l THE KINO OR SKIN ?
LOT OR QUESTIONS
no answers
MAYBE 1
YOU CAN
Emu&hten
ME ,
^22 .
.
NOW. 7f THERE'S
ANYBODY IN THERE —Tl
^11 tJ
% AP 7E&
... *
F C'fAON,
RORSCHACH-
,
MAKE
LET'S
CAN'T MAKE
:
YOU TO SEND THEM flft : THIS A
OUT FIRST j] t ANY PROMISES WOE CLEAN
"i UNHARMED... Mill! FOR YOUR SURRENDER.
, SAFETY. J
TRAILED
SET UP-
WALKED
NO, NO, G(&HT
NO- INTO IT.
STUPID
STUPID
STUPID
HBLtN-
W£i/E& NEVER
SURRENDER
- TEN SECONDS.
. Rorschach, you're
r/PTcfA/ MAXINE THIS TOU&H
SECONDS ON YOURSELF
FIVE FOUR.:
OKAY.
^ 1
THAT'S IT-
TIME'S UP AND
WE'RE COMWG
IN I HOPE
YOU'RE
they 'be ci6 ht
gEWJMD US Dk'AYc.
OkTAY, W£'S UP
WERE 50ME*
^ WHEBE,,,
r ww,l
CX3m'T4Ms:£
TMT5- TWE
OWi’e AM
StMfMAL. ...
CHARLIE. WHAT'E
HAPPBNIAJ& 7
f WtlU6
' AfWO>
EAVES
G ft ARE
mv eves, mam UU&T RJK6ET
mw Eves... J THE Ft&E »NP
COR 6O0&AK&
OBJ UP
^ MERE !
AAHUH
aaauh
HUH Of .
ev£BYrniN&
BALANCES-
Tyger, Tyger
burning brighc
In ihe forest
UbLY U
TERBpe c ol ttie night
dose o[ i he
discussed
ISJBfls saw E C
m rair
s
last chapter* the
able position The brief surge of antkomic book respected artist in a rapidly burgeoning held, and
sentiment in (he mid fifties, ft bile it could conce tv- fans awaited the ftrsi issue of TALES OF THE
ably have damaged E C as a company, had instead BLACK FREIGHTER with relish
mme to nothing and leit them stronger as a result Nor were they disappointed The firs! issue is
With the government of the day coming down classic Orlando The script by i hen newcomer
try had suddenly been given the blessing of Uncle shone by the darkly compelling majesty of Grlan
Sam himself— or al least J Edgar Hoover llnsur dos textures, shadows and faces
pn singly, as one of the few companies to antici The story served as an introduction to ihe vessel
pate the coming massive boom in pirate- related ihai lent the book its title, and which was itself
material, E C flourished and their hold upon the apparently burrowed from a ship referred lo in
Until May, I960. That dale saw the first publica- firsi story, three men wilh different paths through
tion of an extraordinary new title from National life have all been led lo the same dockside tavern
( omn \ now DC The book was
:
t ailed Tales of the in search of work The place is deserted save for a
W
Black Freighter and while its sales never ale
A MAN ON stories to
The
each other
stories are recounted as small self
quite tupped those EG of thp giants such as impressed and offers them passage upon his ship
PIRACY and BUCCANEERS, m terms of critical By the time the men are aboard the ship and have
;n rUirri and influence upon idler books of the noticed ihe dreadful, dcalhly smell that seems to
same type, TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGHTER exude from the ships timbers, it is tou late The
made an impression upon the comic book land- three hapless sailors learn that ihe ship is a vessel
scape that remains tu this day Indeed, with DC from Hell iiself to take on hoard the souls of evil
comics currently reprinting he I first classic thirty men so lhat they may walk its blood-stained decks
issues of the title and apparently meeting with for all eternity
Whal exactly was it that made TALES OF THE From the marvelous scene m the first man s story
BLACK FREIGHTER so special? Despite the fact where two ghouls fight to the death wilh shovels in
that nowadays most people are dltracted by Ihe the worm- infested tunnels
controversy surrounding the later issues of the beneath a churchyard, JOE ORLANDO, CIRCA 1953
book, it should l>e remembered that (hts Mile was right through the haunt
very popular from the outsel So Whai was it ihai ing and evocative final
fascinated all I hose thousands of readers in the shots of the horrible black
WelJ. lo begin with, it was almost certainly the while mist, the art is
artwork of Joe Orlando, who drew ihe eniire book breathtaking, conveying a
from its first issue 1 h rough issue mne with (he tangible sense of doom
exception of GALAPAGOS JONES, a raiher insipid and evil even in those
back-up feature that lasted until issue six Orlando, places where the writing
well-received run of SARGASSO SEA STORIES in With Ihe issues that fol-
5
also began In gradually improw in quality as the Freighter which they climb to take their rightful
writer became used to I he medium With rapidly positions on hoard the ship, remain some of
CHAPTER
increasing confidence Shea began attempting Orlandos most haunting work on the series
ideas fur Tories which at the time seemed wildly By issue five, reader reaction was obviously in
radical and innovator The third issues story. favor of the litle. and the praise seemed lo be
Between Breaths" is mid from the viewpoint of a divided equally between Orlando and Shea,
man who is drowning. alternating between mem According to insiders receiving Ian mad for the
ones of his past life a> they flash before Ins bulg' first lime in ins life had an adverse effecl upon
H
ingeyes and hnmfic dest upturns uf w hat it h like the wriier, who f>egan to see himself as the driv-
to drown Even read lodav, the story induces an ing force of the book, becoming increasingly
almost tangible sense uf MjfhoOon, so thal fin- resentful of Orlando s clearly important role and
ishing the slerv am) pull ing I he book down is harassing I he artist with impossibly detailed
in dirtily j relief The e losing images, with a multi- panel descriptions and endless carping requests
tude m 1 dead and drowned men walking aims the (or revisions of artwork already drawn
OINK bed toward* the anchor rope of the Black Despite growing friction within the creative
TALES OF
team, both lasted on
I ward |
we first begin |t> see the
dark and pessimism moral sense
hr lilies showing that were later to
fours
60 /
TREASURY
TREASURE
OF
ISLAND
COMICS
to go unnoticed when slotted in between the work escape from the island by whal may be one of Ihe
of great western comic artists such as Gil Kane mosl striking and horrific devices thus far in
and Alex Toth. Despite having Orlandos early pirate comic books: digging up the recently bur-
work on the series to live up to, on TALES OF ied and gas-bloated corpses of his shipmates, the
THE BLACK FREIGHTER, Feinberg was finally manner lashes them together and uses them as
given a chance to shine For some reason, there the floats on an improvised raft on which he
are few incidents on record relating friction hopes to reach the mainland (hence the title of
between Feinberg and Shea, and indeed Ihe two this chapter) On reaching the mainland safely
by Orlandos departure!,
En any event ihe nexi iwenly or so issues of the
as The Figurehead", which deal unflinchingly upon his horrific craft we see the increasingly dis-
with male homosexuality and Ihe harrowing traught and dishevelled mariner trying desper
Marooned spring most readily to mind ately to reach his home, even resorting to murder
In 'Marooned . a two-part story occupying to acquire a horse for himself In the final scenes,
issues twenly-lhree and twenty-four of the book s thanks to the skillful interplay of lext and pic-
run, we see Fcmberg and Shea ai iheir blood- tures, we see thal the mariner though he has
freezing best. Unusual in that it is a one character escaped from his island, is in Ihe end marooned
story narrated mostly in captions, Marooned" from the rest of humanity in a much more terri-
wrecked by the Black Freighter before il ran Problems set in for the book around issue
return to its hometown and warn at ul Ihe hell- twenty-fire, when Shea began his controversial
mariner s torment at I he
knowledge that while he is
•at
run of issues based around the contents of plun- as those in any of his stories, the writer appar-
dered books m the library of the Freighter's cap- ently vanished from his home one morning and
lain including banned tomes supposedly has not been seen since, although police are con-
originaJly headed for eternal suppression within tinning their inquiries. In his wake he leaves not
the vaults of Vatican city when stolen en route by only a siring of excellent novels and screenplays,
the pirates. Described as blatantly pornographic] - but also an exemplary run of pirate stories which
lour of the protected five stones were rejected by today fetch mint prices ol almost a thousand dol
DC, which brought about the argument in which lars according to the Overstreet Guide.Stories there
.Shea quit the hook and comics as well, going on to be rediscovered and reexamined. Like so many
to write such classic novels as the twice-filmed of the fascinating sunken treasures lurking just
FOGDANCING beneath the surface of this fabulous and compel-
Al the time of this writing, Shea's where- ling genre,
abouts are unknown In circumstances as strange I'
62
PROM THE NOTES OP DR. MALCOLM
LONG, OCTOBER 25 TN, tO&S- FIRST INTERVIEW WITH KOYACS HE’S VERY WtTHPRAWH ,W\TU
.MS'S EVEN MOPE Dl&TUBgED NO EXPRESSION TN eiTHEC FACE
than x'p ueapp, euT i'm oa votes setting a response
.
X WANT you
TO LOOK ATIT AMD
TELL ME WHAT
v you see >
~
I -a. ttvOtts?*-. ~Z
PHYSICALLY, HE'S FASCINAT- NEVERTHELESS, I'M CONVINCED
INGLY U6ly T COULD STARE T CAN HELP HI n\.NO PROBLEM
AT him FOP houRS. ..EXCEPT 16 eevOND THE SPA &P OF A
THAT HE STARES BACK, WHICH 6000 PS VCfVOANALVE T, AND
I PfNPuncomfortable. HE they tell me i'm very pood.
NEVER SEEMS TO BLINK GOOD WITH PEOPLE
sooo. THAT'S
twecors don't like him; THE VERY GOOD
itNpeewomp doesn't like him,
nobopy likes him.tve never
MET ANYONE OUITE SO
«<
okay;
ALIENATE? HOW ON EARTH WALTER, NOW
DID HEiSS’T LIKFTHIS? T WAinT YOU
TO TELE ME
WHAT'S ON
THE CARD,..
T AWH, WHO NEEDS
-
rPLEASE,
ok baby,
LISTEN,
HE'S KiMDA BACK
WAO0S PLEASE
DON'T SET
V MAO.,,
'
pve SUCKS 1
you &A$TAep .'iOu
,
LOUSY '
r OUTT^
MV WAY,
QETAZO.
r shoulpa
youknow LISTENED to
WWAT YOU EVERY
JUST COST MB, BLSE
YOU U&LV
little
BASTARD ?
AAAAAAM’
AA mA A C
£jCCrt
WOHOEgEUL
REALLY
THINK
wAlTER, I'M vERV THEBE'S
PLEADED WITH
YOUR RESPONSES
THI& AFTERNOON, DON'T
AND I iVANT YOU YOU ?
TO KNOW J
i
>
THAT, jL.
ILL
SEE YOU
tomorrow.
X VEAH,
,,.TA(_KIW6 WWAT^A
to you, MATTEP^YA
pee a oc
. WHAT^ a
HA MA 5UEE WWV
WA J 6QT EVE(?V
50 METHiM BODY SLBB
I COULD DOE 6 WAV ,
HUH 7
YOU LITTLE
SON OP..
AA*A*AA !
MONO
Q\H,&OC>!
NO NO NO
HOLD HlSAi<?/VlS IBTtA £l lolled
HOLD Hie £/P SEE HIM
ARMS that
Siting
^LIKE AN Blame the
,
ANIMAL parents
LIKE A
MAD P0& exactly
' (
E A MAO
LilC
ns-tsi.
V-o(r^
—— '
X'LL TELL
YOU SOME
TWNU,
DOCTOR
3 , —
A 6ED Ifo
children's home became
LEFT !
•
1
IN
G2 SPECIAL ORDER FOG dress
NEW DO MANHATTAN $P(N-
—
"wrong
Black and whue.
moving, changing
unskilled manual worker off fabric viscous fluids NOT UGLY I SHAPE g(jT
MBMEWr industry ;
^
BETWEEN two
Q^TU/CCi. TuU/\ I AwCD/^ LATEX,
layers
Jr flTfrv'
:
AT All. fl not mixing-
HEAT and pressure SENSITIVE , La B NO GRAY
"JOB SBAGABle
0UT UNPLEASANT 'CUSTOMER YOUNG GIRL , ITALIAN
HAD TO HANDLE UAME NEVER COLLECTED ORDER.
female Clothing. SAID DRESS LOOKED UGLY .
WhEn I mAD
CUT it ENOUGH, rsoon 1 , r TWO YEARS T
ITDIDN'T LOOK BECAME PASSED MARCH
lIKE A WOMAN SORED (064 STOPPED
Anymore "
fabric AT NEWSSTAND
had no ON WAY TO
useleft WORK, SOUGHT
IT IN PAPER THERE
TRUNK.. she was .
FORGOT FRONT A
ABOUT V
.
page Aa
H
GAPED ro«TU«ED KILlEP HERE SOME OF THEM SVEN WATCHED.
• N NEW YORK OUTSIDE HER MADE A
Own APARTMENT gufLDIWG FACE THAT X
I KNEW WHAT PEOPLE WERE, COULD SEAR
then, behind all the evasions, TO LOOK AT
ALMOST forty NEIGHBORS ALL THE SELF-DECEPTION IN THE
HEARD SCREAMS NO&ODV DID ASHAMED for humanity, mirror
Anything NOBODY CAllSD T WENT HOME X TOOK
COPS SOME OF THEM. EVEN THE REMAINS OF HER
HATCHED do you UNDERSTAND 7 UNWANTED DRESS,..'
WALTER fFS WHAT I THINK
HAPPENED TD KITTY r YOU'VE SEEN
V M5?OH,
WO. YOU JUST
TMrNK IT THINK
Genovese rbalcv conditioned well., t YOU'RE '&OOO
ne&ATtve
WITH A WOULDN'T
SAY THAT-
v people : y
WORIO view
there ace
6000 PEOPLE,
TOO, LIKE.,.
LA/L-rV
You SPENDING SO
MUCH TIME WITH
ME, DOCTOR?
YOU DON'T
SPEND Awv
TIME WITH
w THEM.,,
7 DON'T WANT
TO MAKS NE-
WELL JUST
WANT TO KNOW
WHAT MAKES
zm:
THE GUARDS INTERVENED, AS THEY DRASSED HIM MY EARLIER OPTIMISM WAS
DBA66INS KOVACS AWAY TO AWAY RORSCHACH SPOKE OBVIOUSLY UNFOUNDED.
SOLI TAP Y ANp THE OTHER TO THE inmates HE'S SETTINS WORSE
MAN TO THE PRISON hospital .
S X
HE "NONE OP YOU UNDEB-
ACCOCDlWS TO THE DEPUTY STAND fU NOT LOCKED UP TN
WARDEN, his Bug ns WERE HEBE WITH YOU YOU'RE LOCKED
HOPPtFiC HOT COOK UNO UP IN HERE WITH ME."
FAT X DON'T L'KE TO
THINK ABOUT IT
AM IA JJUST
SC MiY' - RE-AO BACK WHAT
UP KC«yr *vi-ii-i r
OW.Hl,6LORlA .
~ ACTUALLY, REMEMBER 1
MAI? N WASN'T PLANNING LAST NtGHT,
YOU 'PE NEVES ON SLEEPING MAL 7 WHEN
60 NNA SLEEP JUST YET , 1 PEOUIBED
WITH ALL THAT Attention ?
COFFEE j
THIS KOVACS
INSIDE / CASE YOU KNOW
L YOU . /[ requires
A LOT OF
ATTENTION..
T &LOR\A, / PGANKLY I Vj
ptEA&e 1 ’
THINK IT'S T
THEN WAS UNFAIR OF YOU
TW/FiN NOW TO SPINS UP
,is wbw. WHEN YOU KNOW
, T NEED TO J
•K WORK yl
OH WELL,MAVgE
I JUST SOMETIMES 1 YOU'RE LOCKED UP fM WEPE
NOTICE HOW OP TEN with ME," lie SAID'
YOU SPINS UP r WAIT '
COME SACK
HERB. WE CA W
eooo NiOHT, . TALK...
iVAL
he<& eiOhT
ABSOLUTELY BlOHT
Al&bUT,
eoe... /Tweafter
r ^
MURDER’
OF KITTY
A alriOmt, > SENCYESETDU
.this
Walter.. deoped Yo
AFTEPNOON X VENT YOUR
WANT TO PICK HOSTILITY
UP WHERE UPON TW£
Jk
WE LEFT
OFF..' A \ awe
J l b- i
world ...A
'
SOP T?
f ONSOFT
f 6CUAA
X,
WOW OO TOO YOUNO
YOU TO KNOW ANY
MSAN 1 SETTER. MOLLY-
COODLEO
V THEM A
AS
OPPOSED > \ f WELL, LOOKING* AT
YOUfl FILE, TMEPE‘5
to AAR no eecoao of
TACOS! ANp SEStOUE VIOLEWOE
TH£ OTHER A&AinST CRIMINALS
MURPERs N BEFORE A 75 I
VOU'GE
OHA R&ED
WITH , LIKE
PRESUMAftLY I SAY
SOFT
MOT
RORSCHACH *w nss, worked
WITH MITE OWL ‘until ME
BRinGinG STREET GOT S OFT
NOT GANGS UNDGC LIKE (?£ST
CONTROL TACKLED
THE $\6 FIGURE
together. brought UNTIL HE
DOWN UNDERBOSS SUIT. *
TOGETHER. GOOD
TEAM.
THINGS EVERYONE
KNOWS IN GUT
THINGS EVERYONE
TOO SCAPED TO
FACE. TOO POLITE
TO TALK ABOUT.
I3b| '*!
HE UMPEO^TOOP
f UNDERSTOOD r once a ^
MAW'S CfiPAOTY MAN NAS
FOR HORRORS seen, he can
AnO we^ER NEVER TURN
(SUIT. SAW THE L|iS BACK
WORLD'S BLACK ON IT. NEVER
UNDERBELLY PRETEND
AND NEVER IT DOESN'T
. SURRENDERED. v EXIST A
— — , .
BUT HE NEVER SAYS WHAT IT/S THEY'RE NOT what TURNEO IT S AS IF CONTINUAL CONTACT
THAT compels HIM IT'S NOT HIS HIM INTO RORSCHACH. WITH SOCIETY'S <?KM ELEMENTS
CHILDHOOD, MIS MOTHER 09. WAS SHAPED HIM INTO SOME-
MTTY GENOVESE THOSE THINGS TH INS GRIMMER, SOMETHING
JUST MADE him OVER-REACT TO EVEN WORSE
THE INJUSTICE IN THE WORLD
S IF ONLY X COULD
THEV'Ce CONVINCE HIM THAT
NOT WHAT EEI ISN'T LIKE
UFE IT?™ I
SOUGHT A GA2 ETTE ON WAY S0 WAS THE FRONT RAGE AT HOME, GLORIA SEEMED
HOME, INCLUDING A SMALL RUSSIAN TANKS WAVE ANXIOUS TO SWEETEN THINGS
PIECE ABOUT KOV4CS WHICH ENTERED PAKISTAN AFTER YESTERDAY AND TOLD
THE NEWSVENDOR pointed? ME SHE'D INVITED GAWDY AniO
OUT EXCITEDLY X GUESS WE DIANA TO D 1 NWEG TOMORROW.
DOES THAT TO EVERYBODY- ON SEVENTH AVENUE, SOMEONE
HAD SPRAYED SILHOUETTE
FIGURES ONTO THE WALL. IT
apparently, reminded ME OF THE
KOVACS VISITED PEOPLE DISINTEGRATED AT
W 5 NEWSSTAND * TRIVIAL, BUT HIROSHIMA LEAVING ONLY
REGULARLY. UNSETTLING. THEiR INDELIBLE SHADOWS
TODAY HE HELLO/
TOLD AA& aoetcu.AC m
EVECYTMiMfi. HOW AP£
|
YOU
TODAY ?
HALF.
siAiee some six tears
J OLD KIDNAPPERS SEL'EVED
1075 SHE WA& CONNECTED TO DCASSeO
KiPNAP v BOCUE CHEMICAL BY MO DECIDED
CASE POHTUNE WORD PPPVv TO INTERVENE
PERHAPS KIDNAPPERS- PBOAAiSED
VOU STUPID MISTAKE thought op PARENTS T'P
rememsei? PATHgt? WAS BUS LITTLE CHILD. BE TURN HER
DRIVER mO MONEY abused, UNHARMED.
P(?I 6 mtehEP
DIDN'T LIKE
IT PERSONAL
REASONS
/ SmDCk OF \ / IT WAS N
IMPACT CAW KDVACS WkO
AtOt^O MV A CM 5AIP "/WrwgB"
JET DP WMBMTM THEM, MUFFLED
$pATTeceo UWDEO LATEX.
(pwi CHEST, (T WAS KOVACS
LIKE HOT ,
WHO CLOSED
\ PALLET J HIS EVES. ,
V PUT
ACC DC Di MS DBIWKIM6 1
r TO AAV IN POE? WHEW X
MAWT,MAW USIW& (CALLED
PREMISES NAMED BETUPWEDTO
DR^SSMAXEBS
AT TEW PDRTY-
* *
- -
r r
HELLO, tf'MOK.i.
resor WHO'6 GOT
Dabney -a bask roe
I'M HOME ^ Wc>dy? ,
m'm
$ms
•nt’T 1
LOOK,,. LOOK,
r know what
T^U
r
THIWK I’M
SOMETH IW6 TO ou.&oo 1
YOU TWfWK. DO WITH THAT PLEASE,-
LITTLE 6«?U WHAT 00 YOU
WANT? -
r WfcLL,
V'VOU ^
WELL
A/OT^OKAY
OKAY?
,T'iv\
7
^CAW'T
r PRQVS 1
ANVTHIM& T 1
YES 'AM AT
DO '
V0 U
S=
SHOULDN'T
.V£V<E#
MAKE
n (N .
MEAN
WMAT AM I
SUPPOSED
3
6TOOT JN STREET
HATCHED £T g<JC?M
8LA£«&nMN 6 gELUE£
—
;
SMOLDEBINJ6 gg£ST<N& ;
IWTO PLAV^E OmE gVOWE
i
l l Bill
watcwEP h£u£
.
THERE <3
NOTHiNS ELSE
TMJ6 BuODEfflE^^
^ gxrSTEN
CanDO^
CE \ NO
r
VVAS REBORN
THEN, FREE TO
SCRAWL OWN
DESIGN ON TMfS
only morally blank
US, . WORLD A
/Viv ;•
WAS RORSCHACH
.
NIXON PR0M15
MAXIMUM FORI ON *7TH AVENUE, THE
HIROSHIMA LOVERS WERE STILL
TRYING INADEQUATELY TO
CONSOLE ONE ANOTHER
OPVOUCS? J
n yet? J-
WTHIS
r
LOOK, MAYBE
SUCH
ISN'T
A &OOD IDEA
L RI6HT wow...
- l .
Bridle no!
a i Hi monsters
leu ye become
o monster
mid if you
into the nbysv
the obyss go/u
oho inlo you
friediith
Wilhelm
Nietahe
I — ^ r a
Form WALTER
mi York .
Sice Department
WHAT TAN
z^^^" riyi
„„
KOWCS, Walterjlo^dJ '
pijamc
trams
Address
Burn CLICKS
KOVftCS
Mothers name
^
Ui^ticwn
Monday,
rw - ^”'THT
octobe
veu^M^ *?£ tu
ounded the
^ ^
of
se ° £ ^*“" K A
MOtOCH,
.,
— follcW11^
Mured
.„
»
«» -
“oTftr^ -
*r
an anonymous
- 9 arrest.
<*e«^ ^ ^
0 shot at
point
1=
»
p,Uoo ° ffl<*” while Officer a sternw and
r qU1
' ^ 5lu>ttore
hospital^ -powered qraPPling
1
'
10 / 22 / 85 )
•
blank ranqe
wi ll aas
'
Ust as of this
itinn .
,
(
^ discovered m
crltic al
still on the
0«P U Kdv of ** ‘ than
the house
*«>
was ®PlotBl
'
^ ,
the
^ „rder —P» £ooly, less
^^ it should
shot threw «, fingerprints ig lack
the kitchen,
^W
-» I**’ of daeobl.
WO
*,»»lw«l
feet away.
,)lil “ W was wearing
noeaen has
'
•
imrder
Ms location
I
Z prints is
. il! hlthouqh
1-
_
«—»
^ ^^
1
previous
I given his
^ ^ ciM ,
few other those of
mltm e
in the
mrdet house! nurdors atf
i
^ of wanted
I
wacs
GBWJ> «"*
M has no.
'
“
nwms
^ tao other
two years
in the
later
•*»
s™«>
»
'
^ of 1,71.
«« ™WU
^
'
’
ii f
rapist Art into !»• „«e os fU*""
c heene , ,
the of **»“ Chariot'
chewrno
the contents ,*«.
^^
follows ^eet, J^=
the tine
of wrapped =*» ^cent
M , iIvilvidually
rel fL subway syst™.
'
” ’ rose,-
batten' P«* ^terq round and one red
,
! 1
sugar,
nations
one dollar
dr«!
fi ft V "
rt
^ alMt
^ >ssorted hnse
an elaborate
cyp
chM-'^
cologne for
toe crashed
I •— aij^r»» i«w
Tden rf st(Wl0
during
black pepper-
^
W «“-ri'^ st ™ Y uinw
IT
________
-C7Ikr.il, TnMrf"*
aui1 "
New York State Psychiatric Hospital
West Branch
from
tion in normal society, ring his time at hte home, removed
Kovacs did very well at schoolwork,
his mother's negative inf ence,
literature and religious ed-
excelling particularly in the fields of
uscation as well as possessing an impressive .
si
tate Psychiat
r,c Hospital
Branch
news was b
*a
'Good •
ter K °vacs
esidence ln s
the f ?l
tv^; fc
this
then aged si
m l0yment
3n h
h
in a me
t
Lai
or a r
Sr eS ° f
*o
sm
'
tcs lef t
a parp
nt ly re caDH ^ a P a ^tments
a K f l
he
j
duaJ Ufe garment
*
f
ui «
the
bet we ft mid*
j:iSi1 eVlde
-3
nce
en t and
fh? ex tsthat gives
troub led *£;
5 3 ®°me Police a cle^ 6c insight
pro Pl>et-e off 1Cer s have
last"*
Veral years -doom sandwieh-b,
5U t as oard man
?SS ff
'. lf an y- this
'
Kovacs reifuses
i dot provable to di*
t
gh i
90 1 hi
nave been »w? "«te rii i rela
at such
an ear- «
Jno to his
?''«? dcrim, piwt,ocopies ear
, at the of
?«
SJ"' trans o 7 „ Chari
M y Barents r°n Home, one
f ^i"iptic w h en 1
\
red when he was eh
of Kovacs’ Kovacs
voir ^ d I i enni jnf-
teen
Sn Charlton
[ft) Home
always getting
t because he was
Truman and she
liked President
becaus
,ide to President Truman,
war when
;he country during the
* ou1d
? „as the kind of qjy
uiuh fiahtino the Nazis ai
He dropped the
ONE AM
* man was in
old house *ith my
mom. They were eating
dough, and my mom some stuff like
choked on 'ece.
,
The guy with
of her throat. her tried to fish
He got his whole it out
,d in her m
Whole arm down her outh and then it
throat. was like he had his
He told me to
the house was get a doctor, so
all different ran out of the
I
^^
a pantomine
with two gu ys j n
uit
to -eren't dancing „
* Wflpn the
y got nearer, ] saw
ace and chest and together like Siamese
stomach. twins, joined
The
? any
ears, two on either faC,? ’ >0U C °
side of the head fa
tomg
r i nn
towards each other.
U,d °n ^ thei
growing into each ,h e i r
other as well, hand, » ere
dancing sideways
but 7 “ *" ' 0ur 'to f to and
towards me down the
dark
they mr , sort
c-p.ng pm up, wrapped r'' 5 in<l
around thei nfeet uontethi
and underwear t, ,and I looked
and stuff. down and j saw it
They were coding was trous
feelings when I towards me. and then
woke up. Dirty f ee li
, woke up. , had
^set me, physically. to. thought, and
_. The drean, „
; couldn’t h SO rt of
- : just talking about
it."
jrmm fa k
J a applet ast, e<pt
f Me txkmt 4<u
X<Hble ide*kfy A
^A/U
ft>
fmdifskMd
UfridtoMt Maf
Utoii
M ^ u(
r
Amh That'S ArtpsTlv / I PONT KNOW
ME? T JUST SOOT WIPE IT'LL ..the comfoian
I’M LINE- OFF J'M JUST 6 LAO *t uaoeeeo, ton
ftUTLOOK YOU'RE OKAY ,
ey/led, some-
AT VOUP one tBiES TO
BEAUTIFUL shoot AOO/AN,
SHIP... „ _, WH E N YOU RORSCHACH
'^SCR&AMeO, I THOUGHT k HIMSELF SETS
L TAKEN
..WELL, Y' KNOW
EVER SINCE THE
COMEDIAN
DIED-,,
^ BY THE
POLICE.., y
j
r rs that t
why you we»e
TUNING VOUB
SHIP ? a
1
WHAT? OH, f VOU'VE SOT
NO, MO, NOTHIN* SOME wondebful
LI ItTE THAT. Z DOWN
WAS JUST nepe.iT's like
7-INKEpihS, A MA&ICIAn'S
you know, CAug obsome-
NOTHING J l ThiNG.., .
SS«K>US A'
TuST A X,
THEBE SCHOOL KID'S
AW PANTABY that
embar&a&sment SOT OUT OP it On
HA NO A REFLECTION.
VEAH WELL
, , V'KNOW,r'M
t »WL/n rv>
, j. OH, THAT'S f
r
I WAS 1 X MEAN, HE ALWAYS
AT LEAST YOU REALLY IMPRESSED JUST SOUVENIR* always SEEMED DISAPPOINTED
WEBE LIVING- BY ALL This ANO JUNK LIKE , KIND OF IN ME, ME WANTEO ME
OUT YOUR OWN EQUIPMENT, it ^ THAT. ~jt SURPRISED TO FOLLOW HIM INTO
FANTASIES T MUST HAVE COST ABOUT ,
BANKINGS ttwas
WAS LIVING YOU A FORTUNE
^ thatJ TUST INTERESTED
^MONEY,
,
A
-
51 CK WPAAAfsi ,
0/ffPS AND
CALLED HeCSELF r "tHe STUFF. THAT
push woman TWtUOHT I keep WA& MY
OR SOMETHING LAOY '
MEAWtN# to PAWTA5Y,
TMCOW THAT WM£N I VVA5
PlCTUGE A KlO TO :
HOW IT /&„,
I TOST
rUKED BIROS,
^
MOSTLY. TUST
THE IDEA OF
. FLYINS.., A
r ,i, BUT
THEN T GUESS
THAT'S PRETTY
OBVIOUS .
>
~
SUftE.
W WELCOME
f ABOARD \
T AMD DON'T
WORRY...
YOU WANT I WON'T
TO TAKE A TOUCH
LOOK AROUNO ANYTHING.
WHILE I FINISH
CHECKING* THE
. SHIP OUT? j
E
I UKE THEP 6 SW/ all ^=H * RADAS HEY, THESE Aft WHAT'S
iNVtSi&LE'* SOY/ WHAT'S TERRIFIC IT'S LIKE, THIS
YOU REALLY HAVE THIS WHEN I WAS SMALL, SGEEN
^ ALL THIS STUCP CLOSET MOM SOT ME THIS
WELL,UH, / uww. Psui?ec> oar, w Bee ? . 61 JT0£ WITH ALL
ACT U fitly, ALONG THIS OHAlB Y DON'T YOU? A THESE NEAT
WITH THE- CON- CPntbol IS LITTLE SPARE X<
LEALEP kSVTS ANO STICK!NS UNIFORM*
TU/egW£S,MAWW6 t A LITTLE...
WO CO ONERS special ^
helps /wake L auxiliary
THg SHIP
GADAG
M
AST
COSTUMES
AH,,. THAT'S
WV/&/SIE vT'It SETTER, .
~ UHOee WAT£K ^
Woe*. LET'S SEE
•FLAMERS FUWCTIOWIWS
WATER CANNON
fUMOTlOHlNS,,. A
FOGSCREENG FUNCTIONING
.,BADlATrON SHIELDS
w PUN CTfON INS'- >-
THAT'S m~
IT THAT
'
DDES IT/ NO
MO BE StfOKMb
I'M ALL
Through.! j
QUIT ! J|
r
MEAN
~
I ,
TALK ABOUT
DANGEROUS
FIAgtTG... ,
. '
PGOSA&LY
WON'T THIS
V TIME,
. either j
,
r THESE ^
DAVS ITHARPLY
BOTHERS me
. AT ALU J
vou'ee 1
talking
NO NO, NOT REALLY XU ST ¥ OH, UH WELL, IT'S r
YOU WERE
1
SBNTfMBNT, I GUESS f Short for
ARCHIMEDES REALLY INTO A wp^ yEAH " .
ABOUT,
Y'RNOW, r^MON ...rw ^7
MERLIN'S PEI
SWORD W WE STONE
OWL IN THE THAT KNl&HTs
ARMOR FAwTA
I GUESS
J- Y
WHAT WE FINISHED HERE. TAKE ARCHIE I SAW TH(
THE PISNEY / \T FIGURES
y
STUFF AS AKII / ...y'ifNDW,
pip YOU so you
the rear exit once and,,,
1
/ BEING A
STILL . wont set p/rty WELL "IKNOW. IT'S CRIMBfIPHTBR
miss ALL L. CRAWLING UNDER ) 7U&T A STUPI AMP EVERYTHING.
THAT ARCHIE, Js NICRNAM& IT WAS JUST THIS
STUFF 1A ADOLESCENT/
HERE'S THE
BY >T WATCH
X ROMANTIC
.
THING, a
YOUR £,T£f> .
NOTHING WRONG
Y™ I MEAN
it f this SAse-
with adolescent
NO... I DON'T
WHY I HANG ONTO
KNOW
&wf MBNT, IT'S
ROMANCE ALTHOUGH ALREADY THIS STUFF I MEAN,
MOST PEOPLE DON'T
'T ENORMOUS (SOT OWE X KNOW THE
SPEND SO MUCH i WHY NOT SELL ROMANCE \S A
MONEY GETTING / SOME OF THIS S. ove*,..
OLD EQUIPMENT
AND TURN IT su Essr ^
F...X
INTO, I OUNNO, JUST DON'T HAVE
THE HEART TO
THROW OUT ALLTHE
Engagement
N PRESENTS a
E
OH PAN YOU ‘ Y
WELl T WAS
SOUND LIRE MY 1 RICH SORER,
r
&
f
X G>U ESS
HCLU 9 WAS > w REMEMBER 1
I
MAiDEM AUNT AND THERE WERE
J ENOUGH
,
r
my hero, he MIS
V< 01 TinS
SELLA AOTHER
_--<T GUYS DOING IT 1
WAS RB-rtfMNb
WHEN I WAS
6 APA 6 E,THAT FIRST
TIME T WAS
=- l AWESTRUCK
441 (
11 ^ SOT DIDN'T STARTING OUT, a
Y WHAT t FEEL G/P/C- SO I WROTE AND
A 6KFP IP I COULD
GOT YOU INTO ULOUS,,, j
IMS BUSINESS CARRY ON HIS J
IN THE FIRST j
k NAME Jt
k PLACE ? A
/
FRIEND AND Ff&HTER, SfYTY- WHENEVER feliowshipof /h-
l
kT
EVERYTHING
JVY LIRE PART
,
V Y'KNOW ? fck.
rt
CE&BNPARY
SE/N&&
S
Hfcri
> '- — ^ OFHOOP
'=^fc{ A RROTHER.
OR
V^OtJl jCTl something j
EVENTUALLY
...BUT r I MEAN, WHO prototype
T REALIZED the NEEDS ALL £XO SKELETON
COMEDIAN WAS THIS HARP- first time
RI&HTt IT'S ALL WASETC CATCH X TRIED
CRAP DRESSED HOOKERS AND MOVING in
PURSE - IT, it SPOKE J /
SNATCHERS'* MY ARM . A / TH^T
X MEAN NEVER Ml SOUNDS
„
A txt'
c? e- i
AGAIN . Mm /
f TME
SORT OF
COS TUME
AT COULD
TI4
EEjAllv
'
YOU
'
TP 'SB**
,
~
SOON AFTER I ^ WHAT T'fA WASN'T ANYTH INS
STARTED OUT, WE SAYING IS, 6000 ABOUT THOSE
BLITZED TH£ 8t&> HE WAS YEARS? T MEAN, ALL
Pt&UPE TOGETHER RATIONAL THESE GADGETS YOU B REALLY
TACTlCA LLY, . THEM. DESIGNED,,, IF THAT 'INTEREST
RORSCHACH WAS WAS/We.I'P FEEL. eo in
BRILL!AN
WAG
T.
E>0 f OYER ^ K PROUD, y v ALL
>
THIS
,
STUFF?
UNPREDIC TABLE J THE YEARS,
THAT MASK'S
EATEN HIS
s. brains.
WELLMU
T MEAN , OAw, DON'T 7 hmaa they work ySFI Iffif/ HA HA HA HA.t-iO , IT'S
IFYOU LIKE BE 50 SELF- BEST >n darkness Tea* mffi mostly PRETTY BORINS,.
DEPRECATIN6
X WAS ADMiRfWS
SO I'LL KILL
LISMTS IVE SOT
THIS LITTLE CONSOLS JK}
THE
f r;
H ¥^— k
:
ICT /
i
RESPIRATOR masks, smoke
KOMSS, FiNSERPRInT KIT,
POCKET LASER, THIS
MV BELT LITTLE CONSOLE,,,
WHAT ^
l IN -Rfc
?V
;
—
W*1S^^dmSbM
H£BE,„
— W ELSS HAVE
YOU GOT IW YOU
fs'FTVTJl /ir Tueee * chocolate KNOW
\}Y ’•^LKOT RATIONS’BOY
-*5si <Sr”a scout knife?
yTNx «yfl A CMS' ISSUE
WVi^. (.-OntSaCFP-
Tives ? >
the
USUAL
STUFF-
TON ? MO
ALTHOUGH
I keep
T BUT, you SEE, EVEN
WHEN T WAS WITH
HIM, HE WAG NEv'ER
amp, like, it
wasnt just the
(EOLATION. T USED
I
thinking I REALLY TWfi»e TO WORK OUT IN
&HOULP there was no real A GV/VI A LOT AS
HUMAN CONTACT, A KiD ALL BY
,
£L
.
MU&DE&tEOQ
GrQDS 5 AKE
NO MILK: TWO
SUGARS. POLISH AOL*
^
SAYINCt OH, INCIDEN-
TALLY, DID YOU SEE
that PACKAGE that
ARRIVED FORME ?
oh,well ,v'kwow
PROM ROCKBfSLLtR MY OLD YOU UKE want TO GET in IOTA LOT r 6 UESS ,
V
.
r LATEST in a
-
.,,
SECIES OF TENEMENT
ORES ALLEGEDLY
DESIGNED TO REMOVE
t SITTING TENANTS ...
|
ANYTHING SINCE MENTION kovals a& *4 wazi pervert'
LAST APRIL MOST OQNtTHQLO&Y, TODAY/ AND SAtD THAT hE'D FREGUEnTLV
l people find it All MEAN FOLKS £0RT 0 F POU££ v propositioned her
\ PRETTY BORING, / while SWITCH AaOwED/VFWS sex OAtCY , .
EStiGA-
investiga- CAMERAMEN
tions INTO INTO THE
cAPTueeo APARTMENT ha '
r
VISILAMTE
Rorschach
USED BY
RORSCHACH
KNEW
, IT ' ,
WSTACKS
r SHE pointed out
OP RIGHT WING
LITERATURE INCLUDING SACK
ISSUES 0P THE
, NEW FRONTIERSMAN ,
A , „ ,
we asiced
hector
x\ r
FRANKLY, ISN’T
WE
IT TIME
YEAH. HE'S
WOT GONNA
sympathize ?
AFTER HE SHOOT* •/ don't y
f
CO/VS,
oft
CARRYING
MALCOLM
GODFREY,. the REASSESSED g£ EASY FOR A OOP With A <REMIND OUT THE EXAMI-
FGONTIERS MAN'S RORSCHACH .AS A TUOy TO GRAPPUNGHOOK ME IT WAS NATION, HAS HIS
EDITOR, IF A PATRIOT AND SYMPATHIZE k (SUN? > ME WHO first interview
HE MAO ANY America*/ ? WITH... ‘
/
COMMENT... / / FOLLOWING l
THING FOR,
HIM. J
AFTERNOON. .
Kvpu...AND dip
s££ THAT
' A TENSE
HEARING KOVALS ,
JIEWYOfiSt
POOM^Z mean, AWAIT* TRIAL/
WAS THAT PENDING
V GROSSO L PSYCHIATRIC
W EXAMINATION.
r HE TOLD ^
pressmen he felt
'CONFIDENT AMP
. optimistic* . j
ISTANJUS
FIGHT INS
SPREADS
1STAN
0 QUETTA
ADDRESS - x
PAKISTAN INS CONS RES 6,
PRESIDENT NIXON
SAID THAT AMERICA
WOULD 'CONSIDER
HER OPTIONS
X MANHATTAN'S
v
\\ departure W.
A, MADA7WE,WITH
PICTURES MDS t
,
Z/
7 Americas
WHILE, APATHETIC jf demonstrator*
WERE ARRESTED
BOWES, skin / / EUROPEAN DUGINS SCUFFLES
f
MILITARY WITH POLICE
W
.
r
X
is
mean,
this
\
'
A\i INSTALLATION*
HAVE BEEN
r
Another placed
FALSE ALARM V ON FULL
OR HAS THE BiG l\ ALERT .
COUNTDOWN
L FINALLY
i STARTED ?
r
me, r WISH I
~
COULD TU-ST
I -WsAi
r
SPLIT,
Lf'f- i *
.
-SHEA
WHO WROTE
CHILDREN'S PIRATE
^ 1
DREtBERG
AND 'FOGOANCiNO'/ ...YOU'RE
VANISHED FffOW RAVISMtN^
HI* &OSTON HOME
TWO YEARS A SO..,
f
7 WHILE IN
YORK THE
NEW NO, SuT SERIOUSLY, AAA OH. > 7 Wf'BE VERY
I'M r
, YOU LOOK terrific HEY, LAUClE,/P£&1 S£ EXCITED AND I
ON THE / CHIEF
v CENSES J PHVSICIST,
. DB ED
k COREY-
iNSTlTUTE" Toff
EXTPA5PAHAL
STUDIES
|L\ \ l
K'V
Lev
ii
Ii
IE +
-
^ i/
,1
r v'KNOW YOUR
TROLJ&LE? YOU'RE
INHIBITED .
UN
IN,UH,IN
what
...
INHIEI T££>
KW05 OF
OH, ALL
WAVS.
LAURtE 7
SHOULD
T/
/
OH MV
DARLINS.lT'S
iNCREpsfeLE
,
>
,
r.„ SHOULD
TH INK I AM
^
UNFORGETTABLE
^ TOO.
.
rr— "T-
WI NOSTALGIA v pop UNF0R6ET
ET- AMD NOW, IN A LADrES AND GENTLEMEN,
Sf..ev VEIOT jf REPEAT SHOWING OF PERFORMING LIVE IN AID OF
/ last charity
July '5 The INDIAN FAMINE appeal
SPECTACULAR, WE BRING we PRESENT ADRIAN VEIOT
f
YOU OZYMANDiAS THE ONE .The ONLY...
HIMSElF, ADRIAN
veiDT, A-r THE
. new york OZYMANPIAS
\ A5 TRODO/HE /
“ HEI?E„.L&T
ME MOVE AO.QUHD
MY ELBOW'S PRESS rNG
c*n your Chest.,.
MMM
WHAT ? OH ..
HERE, LET WE
DO THAT.,,
$&, COULD... A
r
THAT '5
ENOUGH
THAT'S
ORE AT,,,
,
IT TAKES AND
...SPiNNInS
THROUGH THE
Of-v ^ DON'T WORRY
LAURIE, VOU'ee D0IN6.
A&AINST
AIR
THE LIGHTS,
Vm. sorry,
it ISN'T
\ FINE, /
JTIST YOU .
IT'S
L PERFECT JUST.,, a
T HEY,
RELAX.
^
IT'S OKAY
WE DON'T
HAVE TO
RUSH
THIN6S.,.,
r THANK >
VDU. THAnk / KLAP
YOU VERY XLAPKLAP
MUCH. KLAPKLAP
KLAP
NOTHING
STILL .
CHINA,,, A
IT D£E£N T MATTE C
J
.
I KNOW UOW IT
WHEN THINGS
NOT
WELL
3 LBSP
NOW,
OK AV ?
50WN...?WHAT
ABE YOU OOlls10
POWN HERE ? I
WOKE UP, AND
THE TV WAS
5T<LL ON
and everv-
THIS MASK
IT'S THIS „ K THE AIR, JO BLOW
KILLER THIN6 X TERROR I \
...
BEARING /
DOWN ,
\
AwAv the COS-
WE8S T .
AHH,
WELL
A HH YOU'RE
, MAYBE TAKE WHAT LISTEN,
BIGHT IT'S A THE SHIP OUT YOU 6ET
STUPID, MID -U»FE OP SOMETHING, r who's 7 the rest
CRISIS BIND OF GET MYSELF TO KNOYY^ OF VOUP
IDEA. T DON'T STRAIGHT.,. you said Stf/r on
EVEN know IT'S PADAP WHILE X
WHAT I WAS INVISIBLE 60 SET
PLANNING SO 7 ~ PR&SSEP
TO PO. WHO’S TO
KNOW?
UH, WILL RAN A SCAN OH ! VES I'M SORRY.., HE WOW- IT'S HEW ACTUALLY
THIS IE EARLIER; WERE ALWAVS SIVES THAT LIKE B£iN& .TS A FOBSOTTEW
THINS NOT A FEATHER OUT MOV/N& little lurch when ON A GHOST section of su&-
STILLPLY OF PLACE LET ME HE STARTS UP CAN'T TRAIN- THE WAV I CONVERTED
QKAV ANO tost plus the SEEM TO IRON DOORS BUMP AFTER BuviNS
EVERY' IT OUT. OPEN, YOU THE SUILDIN6
Twins? (
ENTER tht
BETTER TUNNEL,.
WASH
hwm .
THESE
SOT SCOT WINDOWS
IN HIS DOWN
Before
we WIT
THE EXIT
TUNNEL
IS IT OKAY
TO &0 TMI5
A DERELICT w/*£f-
RUSTED
RELAX TOST 1,^7 M
jsm^m DfiV ICE ARCH lE
house two blocks kidoims bpeathes smoke as
FAST ? WHERE A/OffTV I OWN SHUT 7 StTirn okay, SCREENS . WELL As P/SE
PAN ABE ||ir
A
COES THE THAT, TOO. ^ IN A MOMENT
TUNNEL come YOU-.? . t'm soino to 7 OKAY NOW,
out~> JUST *7 TAKE HIM UP TOST holo tight,
IE STEEL m HAVE TO ahranse T’M KOllINS
'OPS OVER ,\< SOME CLOUP COVER SACK THE
the End of the v'V WITH the PQ&- WABB house
TUNN£L HAVEN'T
RUSTEP SMUT
SCREENS,, V
.
roof. j
.
~ THIS
GREAT,
IS \
BEMEMgEBiuS which
SWITCHES WH iCh ;
SEQUENCES. IT'S LIKE
The OLD instincts
-ABE MPR/NTEP ,
dm mv e/mgeR' A
k TIPs...
the ASTRODOME
LIKEA BUMPER
ON A SfANT
4
AY/Y& PL
K AMCH/A/E... a
,.
:
*w ;•
DAN ? ^
WHAT’S THAT
DOWN On OUR
right ?
<j>ej sack
POKtto
IT'S
~
SOME THrM MOM 7
THAT
AT THg THE
(5CJY Nsi
8UIL0IN& ! SPACE SOCKET
IS THAT
}
OU.MAN, I T f NO PROBLEM X
~
r CRAY, DON’T BEUeVZ
.
IT'S US WHO
TOST SOT
WOKE UP
i AT FOUR
^ IN THE
AW !
r THESE ^
FLAMES ACE CUMglNi
PRETTY FAST WOW‘£
THE EVACUATION
R COMING 7 J
OH YOU
, IF LISTEN. I'M WELCOME PLEASE MAKE VOUft- HERE'S THE
KNOW THE r smokey the ABOARD „ SELVES COMFORTABLE, LAST LISTEN,
USUAL LADY, r BEAR'S SECRET &U T try WOT TO touch T DON'T CARE
WILL YOU MISTRESS. NOW PA any Buttons weu SB ABOUT your
SO ACROSS, will you please rH ft T^SERVINS COFFEE IN A
>
'ALLERGIES'
please ? just MOVE OR -J.T--* JL FEW MOMENTS. OR YOUR
1URCW YOURSELF 'MEDICINE'
t OVER THE SiOE JUST SET IN
t ACE k OR SOME' EVERY- THE SHIP,
you with
THE FIRE
Py thins ? ^ IS
BODY OUT
. YET? !
YOU ASS-
HOLE. jA,
.
<
DEPART-
MENT >
^ YOU'RE MV THRILL *
HOW MY PULSE INCREASES
J JUS T GO TO PIECES
| WHEN I LOOK AT YOU,
1 ‘COS YOU'RE MV THRILL.
I^aria
fejacina
PfuinrM
1
ntnnm
T
1HAW VWMAI
1 okay, w fee DON'T TOUCH
NOTMN& 0BEM5 TO MATTES OVER* THE THAT YOU WANT
'
WHERE s
MY WILL ?
WHY THIS
GTSANGE
DESIRE,..
SOOD-
NI6HT,
NOW
/ IT '5
OKA V
I THINK X
^
CAUSHT THE
TITLE. ,
WSUCH
f
there no n
'5
THIN© AS
QUITTING. TU 5 T
SOM ETIMES THERE'S
A LONGERPAUSE
BETWEEN H£L APSeS,
L RIGHTS .
DAN WAS ,
TONIGHT &OQO
DID YOU EIRE
k. IT?
YOU'RE
RI&HT. IT MAS. A
^
$t& APPETITE
WViVtWM
!N 6ATtA 8L£
^ \
ive seen thinking
A&OuT THAT, AND
UUH? WELL f I PEELWE HAVE
I'M OPEN TO CERTAIN
$U&&£ST/0MS OBLIGATIONS TO
WHdT $HAL L .
one pearewry.
WE DO /
N£XT ? /
I think we
SHOULD SPRING
Rorschach
the span of its wings or the length of its tarsus, we somehow lose
S ^
'--V-
.
:
*
%\ canvases, cascades of carefully
toned browns and golds that would
/,
*
' a shame Kandinsky, misty explosions of
col or to rival Monet? I believe that we do. I
glimpse the cold, alien madness that Max Ernst perceived when he chose to robe his naked
brides in confections of scarlet feather and the transplanted monstrous heads of exotic birds.
When some ocean-going Kite or Tern is captured in the sharp blue gaze of our Zeiss lenses, we
must be able to see the stop motion flight of sepia gulls through the early kinetic photographs of
Muybridge, beating white wings tracing a slow oscilloscope line through space and time.
Looking hawk, we see the minute differences in width of the shaft lines on the
at a
underfeathers where the Egyptians once saw Horus and the burning eye of holy vengeance
incarnate. Until we transform our mere sightings into genuine visions; until our ear is mature
enough to order a symphony from the shrill pandemonium of the aviary; until then we may
have a hobby, but we shall not have a passion.
When 1 was a boy, my passion was for owls. During the long summers of the early fifties,
while the rest of the country was apparently watching the skies for incoming flying saucers or
Soviet missiles, 1 would hare across the New England fields in the heart of the night, sneakers
munching through the dried grass and bracken towards my watch, where I would sit peering
upwards in hope of a different sort of spectacle, ears straining for the weird scream that meant
an old bird was out combing the dark for sustenance, a mad hermit screech, glaringly distinct
from the snoring hiss of a younger owl.
Somewhere over the years; sometime during the yawning expanse between those snug years
in the afterglow of a war well won and these current times, huddled in the looming shadow of a
war unwin nable; someplace along the line my passion got lost, unwittingly refined from the
original gleaming ore down to a banal and luster less filing system. This gradual tarnishing had
gone unnoticed, unchecked, finally calcifying into unthinking habit. It was not until compara-
tively recently that I managed to catch a dazzling glimpse of the mothcrlode through the
accumulated dust of methodical study and academia: visiting a sick acquaintance at a hospital
in Maine on behalf of a mutual friend, walking back across the shadowy parking lot with my
mind reduced to blankness by the various concerns of the day, I suddenly and unexpectedly
heard the cry of a hunting owl.
y /
It was a bird advanced in years, ils shriek that of a deranged old man, wheeling madly
through the dark and freezing sky against the ragged night clouds, and the sound halted me in
my footsteps. It is a fallacy to suppose that owls screech to startle their prey from hiding, as some
have suggested; the cry of the hunting owl is a voice from Hell, and it turns the scrabbling voles
to statues, roots the weasel to the soil. In my instant of paralysis there on the glistening
macadam, between the sleeping automobiles, 1 understood the purpose behind the cry with a
biting clarity, the way I'd understood it as a boy, belly flat against the warm summer earth. In
that extended and timeless moment, I felt the kinship of simple animal fear along with all those
other creatures much smaller and more vulnerable than I who had heard the scream as I had
heard it, The owl was not attempting to frighten his food into
were struck motionless as I was.
revealing itself. Perched with disconcerting stillness upon its branch for hours, drinking in the
darkness through dilated and thirsty pupils, the owl had already spotted its dinner. The screech
served merely to transfix the chosen morsel, pinning it to the ground with a shrill nail of blind,
helpless terror Not knowing which of us had been selected, I stood frozen along with the
rodents of the field, my heart hammering as it waited for the sudden clutch of sharpened steel
fingers that would provide my first and only indication that I was the predetermined victim.
The feat hers of owls are soft and downy; they make no sound at all as they drop through the dark
stratas of the sky The silence before an owl swoops is a V-Bomb silence, and you never hear the
one that hits you.
Somewhere away in the crepuscular gloom beyond the yellow-lit hospital grounds I thought I
heard something small emit its ultimate squeal. The moment had passed, I could move again,
along with all the relieved, invisible denizens of the tall grass. We were safe.lt wasn't screaming
for us, not this time. We could continue with our nocturnal business, with our lives, searching
for a meal or a mate. We were not twitching nervelessly in stifling, stinking darkness, head first
down the gullet of the swooping horror, our tails dangling pathetically from that vicious scimitar
beak for hours hefore finally our hind legs and pelvic girdle are disgorged, our empty, matted
skin curiously inverted by the process.
Although I had recovered my motor abilities in the aftermath of the owl's shriek, I found that
my equilibrium was not so easily regained. Some facet of the experience had struck a chord in
me, forged a connection between my dulled and jaded adult self and the child who sprawled in
faint starlight while the great night hunters staged dramas full of hunger and death in the opaque
jet air above me. An urge to experience rather than merely record . .
f
y
had been rekindled within me, prompting the Ihoughl , f j / I
$ $
processes, the self-evaluation that has led to this current \ / M/ii /a /
article.
\\ \\tj I /f/j
As I remarked earlier, this is not to suggest that I Y\ij\ \ // II jJ w / '/ja
immediately foreswore all academic endeavor and \ tfvki / q /
**
M //t/y/j
research pertaining to the field in order to run away
x
V ft \ „ y
and eke out some naked and primordial existence \
in the woods. Quite the contrary:
into the study of my
I hurled myself
subject with renewed fervor,
\
v
v i
V
N
^^
able to see the dry facts and arid descriptions in
^ \J \
the same transforming magical light that had V^' - 1
favored them when I was younger. A scientific understanding of the beautifully synchronized
and articulated motion of an owl's individual feathers during flight does not impede a poetic
appreciation of the same phenomenon. Rather, the two enhance each other, a more lyrical eye
lending the cold data a romance from which it has long been divorced,
immersing myself avidly in dusty and long untouched reference books 1 came across
forgotten passages that would make me almost breathless, dreary- looking tomes that would
reveal themselves to be treasure houses of iridescent wonder. 1 rediscovered many long-lost
gems amongst the cobwebs, antique and functional stretches of descriptive prose which
nonetheless conveyed the violent and terrible essence of their subject matter effortlessly
I stumbled once more across T.A. Coward's engrossing account on an encounter with an
Eagle Owl: "In Norway ! .saw a bird that had been taken when in down from the nest, but it not
eyes"
Then of course there is Hudson's accounl of the Magellanic Eagle Owl which he wounded In
'
Patagonia: 'The irides were of a bright orange color, but every time l attempted to approach the
bird they kindled into great globes of quivering yellow flame, the black pupils being surrounded
by a scintillating crimson light which threw out minute yellow sparks into the air," In long-
buried words such as the foregoing 1 caught some of the searing, apocalyptic intensity that I had
felt in that wet hospital parking lot in Maine.
Nowadays, when 1 observe some specimen of Carine noctua, 1 try to look past the fine grey
down on the toes, to see beyond the white spots arranged in neat lines, like a firework display
across its brow. Instead, I try to see the bird whose image the Greeks carved into their coins,
sitting patiently at the ear of the Goddess Pallas Athene, silently sharing her immortal wisdom.
Perhaps, instead of measuring the feathered tufts surmounting its ears, we should speculate
on what those ears may have heard. Perhaps when considering the manner in which it grips its
branch, with two toes in front and the reversible outer toe clutching from behind, we should
allow ourselves to pause for a moment, and acknowledge that these same claws must once have
drawn blood from the shoulder of Pallas.
IIVilWW
' y O ? -
V 4G£S-
\ YEARS TO
\ USE IT,'
HE HAD A
SEEMS
WOMAN
WITH
. HIM.
'
YOU'RE TALKING -J LAURIE 7 MV HMM. WELL PAW CONFIRMS IT TO OUR SORDID PAST
ABOUT THAT KLlO 7 paushter THE MEOIA WHEW HE CALLED YEAH I GUESS IT POES.
WHO SUCCEEDED lahrie? But '
HAVEN'T CANCELLING TONIGHT'S XVE Been thinking about
YOU ? SO WHDS SHE HATEP REAUZEP BEER SESSION. OLD TIMES A LOT LATELY,
THIS WOMAN? ADVENTURING! j YET, BUTX DIDN'T SAY MUCH, y. WISHING I'D KEPT IN
WHY SHOULD DID, SOON BUT UBS PLANNING Pv TOUCH WITH PEOPLE ,y
^ SHE...? AS X l SOMETHING.,.
HEARP J
/' L IVINS
^ WITH HIM? A TAKES
'MEEK AFTER TON YOU SACK
SPLITS? JESUS, HUH?
w PAST WORK
oh rvE r
, no, I've gained NAH . IT'S
CHANGEO 1 SOME WEIGHT, DIFFERENT FOR
SEVERAL / HOW t r WHY, T But i can still GUVS.ro FEEL
HAIRS- STILL. ABOUT YOU 7 8LESS YOU, SQUEEZE INTO ’
sTUPtp...
T TRY TO FROM YOUR HOLLIS, THE OLD
KEEP IN TRIM, VOICE. YOU'RE But THAT'S COSTUME IF X
WORKING DOWN SOUNDING PROBABLY V DON'T BREATHE Pf'-flP-. Vall...ALTHOUGH
IN
REPAIR SHOP
THE
/,
YOUNGER
THAN <
TUST
SENILITY ,
W. ^ '
,
jSrr W pbeparing
the kips
POUND HERE ARE
AnD EVERY- A V SV&t. ’ .CJ
FOR
THING- YT YOU EVER
try ON R
i .
AUTD
REPAIR5
/ HALLOWEEN UBXT
WEEK, SO WHO
you#? Old m» i— „
KNQ
t
WS 7 MAYBE
, DUDS? XXL DIG OUT
7
mt t-r
* j
Bag<ft55*SB8 .g VITAMIN
BlpUKMIU
’
HM-UH,WELL, r I BETTER 60 YEAH, WELL, AN V WAY, THANKS
LISTEN, IT'S BEFORE X PUT THAT'S FOR THE NEWS,
BEEN 6 BEAT TOO MUCH STPArN NixONomcs- AND DON'T GET TOO
TALKING TO ON MY BANK WE'BE ALL- MISTY-EYED
YOU, SALLY i ACCOUNT. GOD FEELING THE THINKING ABOUT
But calling KNOWS IT PINCH I , OLD TIMES. IT AIN'T
CALIFORNIA IS t NEED
DOESN'T GUESS. A healthy
.
EXPENSIVE. . L ANYMORE
'
YOU TAKE
CARE NOW,
. HOLLIS.
OLD GHOSTS
, . ' , \,
t MEAN, T REMEMBER
iQ 77-..
SHED A HATED
w TODAY VVOULDA
seen cue awwi versa ey
^ HOW THIS SUPER-
HERO THING T RORSCHACH
£>EE tNNA
AS4*
r 1 still CAN'T
believe it...himcomin'
>
SUNDAY. 27Th OCTOBER TURNED OUT DOC i GAZETTE ME NECE EVEPv DAY, NOBODY
FUNNY, THIS TIME O V6AF MANHATTAN ATTACKED REALIZIN'. STILL, THAT'S
^ ShE’S ALWAYS cm > EXILED, OZY- &OfA£ QTHE2 LIFE LOTTA STUFF
:
KTRIAfl
fc
Those T
Ea Glorious
HM PAYS; THAT
•• INNOCENCE ...
-j REMESASEREO her 1
WAVING GOOO&VE FROM ThE *
VERANDAH SHADOWS. 3UUU&HT
T>ead. r IMAGINEC>
MV SHtPM AXES
\
ILLUMINATING ONE ...
CHEEK Bone, IT
- n ia
;
—n BLOATED CORPSES,
CARRYING MY RAFT ON
FtSHEATEN BACKS.,, ,
CSN. NOTICE! Sj I
CAR VINE RELENT-
LESSLY UNTIL ALL
HER PERSONALITY,
all her subtleties
OF POSTURE AND
EXPRESSION ARE
OBLITERATED ~
.REDUCER TO J
KMEAT...
Finally,
FACED WITH
^
HORRORS Both
intolerable
and UN-
AVOIDABLE,
X CHOSE ,
MADNESS 4
THIS is
INSANITY
we're vouns ^5
L OVERS, THEWORLD COULD T ANDNOT N.
IT'S
END TOMOR/WW AMO HOW SOME*
INSANITY.
ARE WE SPEND inO SUNDAY THING'S GOING ON'-
EVENING 7 WE RE PLANNING COOP ADVENTURERS
to Bust a homicidal ATTACHED WITHIN
MANIAC OUT OF 7 LAURIE,
^
A
SING'S INS
Y
'
v
ELEVEN DAYS ISN'T
COINCIDENCE A
OH
YOU LIVED
WITH TON.
dan, you DIDN'T
COMB CONTRACT
^LOADLISTEN I 'LL \\WP MAvSE " DA/ CANCER FROM
S/ACES
THOSE
,
AFTEE THIS
MOPfl WMEDIA
f
that cancep-scape
ASSAULT THAT
, -,
HIM.
NOBODY
MAYBE
CIGARETTE, ^
^ OtCAV? .
PROMPTED JON'S EXILE
WAS PACT OF SOMEBODY'S
PLAN MAYBE SOMEONE
DID- A
INTENDED JO STA CT
K
.
WO CIO WAR
j
/ ^ MY COMPUTER
MK TrlHEfi. f LISTSMOST PEOPLE
A/OVA EXPRESS
MENTIONED AS
EMPLOYED &Y A
RESEARCH COMPANY
CALLED "DIMENSIONAL
DEVELOPMENTS "
\ BETWEEN ’67 AND
i.V '&5 WEIRD,
:
HUH?
A
^
JAnEy THEY FUND YEAH? WELL THAT RORSCHACH'S AMO WE MAY NOT
...
SLATER, THE institute AND YOUR LOGIC BEEM HAVE longto^et rr
WALLY fOR EXTRA SPATIAL BOTH T MEAN, lUVESTiSATiMS TODAy'S GAZETTE
WEAVE®, studies; another WHY RISK THIS THING MENTIONS DEATH
THEY EVEN COMPANY, PYRAMID SPRINGING A ALL ALONE THREATS FOLLOWING j
SAVE MOLOCH nrtn/TBiizA
A TEMPORARY
JOB WHEN
LIABILITY LIKE
RORSCHACH ? WE
TOOK ENOUGH
.
VEST EPOAV'S
PAT INCIDENT
HOT /
^
HE left CHANCES WITH
prison. THAT TENEMENT
ICt it's
BT IMPORTANT,
7 LAUBiE. IF JON'S
' f«i£ And its
CONSEQUENCES WERE
PREMEDITATED,
MAYBE IT'S THE ,
MOST IMPORTANT
THINS IN THE
WORLD
; ,
SUPERHERO saves
world HUH ? this IS
,
ow,o5wot/suy V WEDLL,,,
¥ yeah,
That had the white
HOUSE,THE LINCOLN MEMOi
GOME ELABORATE f PATROLS and Then home to me
SCAM TO GET ME OWN UP LAURIE F WERE OKAY. And TOW'S FABULOUS
BACK INTO MV
COSTUME, EIGHT? f ha ha ^
^ LAUDiE,THE
DOESN’T THS BRING
all those old
times flooding
I HAD WINE
DIFFERENT
ROUTES L
APARTMENT WE were
HAPPY THERE- WE..,
COSTUME WAS SACK? Nt&HT OVER
VOU&
WHAAAT7
THAT'S RIDICULOUS
v (DEA.,, A
PATROLS; HAVING
A SECRET .. ^ J WASHINGTON'S
ROOFTOPS.
,
ROUTE FW£
t WAS 6E&T.
1 LOATHE that
HALLOWEEN SUIT.
OBVIOUSLY, I
WORE IT TO
HELP YOU
r OH DAN
SORRY- T
I'M
KEEP MENTIONING
TON. HE JUST
POPS UP WHEN I
DON’T EXPECT IT.
r worry ^
don't I MEAN IN \1 { PAN , SOME-
,
EARLY DAYS.
IT'S HIS POSITION, TIMES, I FEEL
A PEW SKELETONS knowing before OBLIGED TO
ARE BOUND TO KEEP hand would STOP US. I MEAN,
TUMPING OUT OF BE COMPROMISE A JAIL BREAK
L THE CLOSET A he MIGHT feel
OBLIGED TO
stop as.
A
Av
J I CAN'T BELIEVE
WE'RE TAKING
this
W
r
ASSUMING
somebody's ^
using ton to
SERIOUSLY. TRIGGER ARMAffEDDON
Y JUST
I WAS
THINKING
THEN HOWflW ULD
Wg TAKE IT? IT'S
A&OUT ADRIAN WE
OUGHT TO CONTACT
HIM, BUT MAYBE NOT
v
l
SERIOUS.,, A
.
TILLAFTER THE ,
V TAlLgREAK
r ...AND
FOR RORSCHACH,
IF THE MOOD
AROUND THAT
PRISON GETS
ANy U&UBR ,
IT'S A MATTER
OF LIFE OR .
v DEATH- J
' ,
r
DHH-., f H£Y, LOOK, THIS
what do iSTwesoL/rAtfy
I
YOt/SUYS WINS .YOtJ'RE NOT
y want A supposed to BE
jV ? HERE IF ANYBODY
SmmII $£B4
i
+st COUlO
Ait SET INTO
,
/
r hey, TROUBLE, yr
C MON
t»we a
BREAK ,
HUH ?
v five minutes
t
alone with the
...anOthE BABY YOU'RE MIN DINS
RID'7 YOU STILL DON'T WORRY WE
HAVE A W/£> k WONT hurt Him. a
THAT'S St&HT.
k ISN'T ly ?
we TUST
WANT to say
HELLO- J
MAMA. \
SMALL 1
But y'knovv, you 'RE
Rt&HT. THIS is A
ITS A LONG TAMff^V W*
YOU MUST HAVE » THANK YOU,
'•
INCIDENTALLY, THAT
&UY vou 8(JBNBO IS you
WORLD" I SMALL WOe LD I'VE THOUGHT you COULD LAWRENCE - PYIN&. MAYBE NEITHER
L/VfTHAT. BEEN IN IT NOW FOR FOffSST WHAT YOU Tv
.
6000 .
MICHAEL? AND THAT OWL Jr. .MOW THESE BUT DON'T WORRY l SEE,WHEN
' TWENTY Ng
Guy- Funny, // things comf IT'LL NEVER /(\ HE CROAKS,
...
r AND
THEM YOU
DIE 6V
tNCHBS
THINK
ABOUT
IT.
,
MEAN. V
I AIN'T ABOUT WO SWEAT. Y'RNO W TWO
\ /KINDS
GUYS THAT \ NO. NOTHING I'M
-
JGOTTA GO/ V OP PEOPLE
,
YOU \/
ou GMTTA
WM
NOVEMBER'S A
HAWK taring a
OH, \i I'LL BET. INCIDENTALLY,
DON'T V I'm sorry for soring
I MEAN, RESCUING fire
VICTIMS NOBODY CONDEMNS
SPARROW N FLIGHT WORRY \ YOU WITH THAT TALK ,
THAT, 6UT IF IT WENT ANY
OMINOUS RINDA LIPE ASOUT ADVENTURERS
1
FURTHER.-. t 'S LIRE NOVA
i
AW'
HELL...
SURPRISES
I HOPEI SINCE I ARRESTED
DIDN'T SPOIL RORSCHACH ,TH EY'VE
BEEN PREYING ON
v WY MIND j
r
THOSE NS
characters t
that dame .the
SILK SPECTRE ',
WILL GOOD
evening,
DETECTIVE
SUDDENLY,
WE HAVE A
deadline
'
OCTO&EfR
TU(RTy-pm*T„,
... WELL DON'T JUST
, STAND im is wis Sl>iBE, FINE, WHAT-
TT-IEBE LIKE AN ASSHOLE, okay ? IT'S EVER. WHERE THE
NMETEEM BI6HTY-
,
' UH, > Still weed that filler in ADDRESSED "TO HELL & THATI
FIVE ." THERE 'TUAT*5 R(6hT back. SOMETHING OUTTA THE PEOPLE OF OTHER picture?
ALL- STRAIGHT her£,mr THE CRANK PILE. THE TEWNUED THERE'S ONLY
SOD F BEY STATES OF TWO HEBE .
FOllOW-
FRONT If r'sM A\1 1 fHONTI fc v. UP...
MY SOOJHIS Y'KNOW, it's SEYMOUR, JUST SET OKAY THAT'S IT,,, LISTEN
PIECE SHOT
,
THE WOOD ON PULLED THAT picture , WHAT I'M COINS <A P/HER SHIT, NO HANKY-HEAP
THE STREET-. TENEMENT THE
DO, Of GARBAGE SET ME A f
THE WAR RESCUE... WRITER ^ I HAMSUR&SR AN AMERICAN
PARANOIA,
And NOWALL
KNOW WE
USED IT
WAPPROPRIATE
HUM WAmSuRSER /
,
th <5 MASKED BEFORE/ MATERIAL
i
*1AiV STUFF FOR THE
HALLOWEEN
. EDITION.
W WHILE,
MEAN -1
r'LL SET
THISwhole
pantomime
READY TO
MIT THE
. STREETS
HE IV — *
fBDNTItRSP'Ml
rWOMOR 15
HpNOHIU IT , UKE WE \ HONOR JS LIKE WE
HUVK ICAi I HAtVK SAWClUAlSVW
.
M4WK.,,»MEltNCSlX.\
\
x 1 WR£TT£ TH16 $rv%y YOUNG CHEW THEIR 6OOD&YE , , JOVASLE way / RESEMBLANCE
WMEW I WAY OUT OF THEIR } \ mb Shea? \ OF MAKING A LETS GIVE THE
LEAVE
hE EE
MOTHERS WOWS /
WAS OUlTe AN /
V 'ErtAI A\ TVK£ A FINAL
ONCe-OVGK J
EXPERIENCE /. .
, ,
,„MV O plw 'PM.WU£LEde today's new ^\W its been THE IT CLAIMED WE WERE
VVAW iS QUITS POSSIBLE
VVITHIM THE WStfT T£W
FRONTIERSMAN
MAXES AM APPEAL
\J
'
p&cei&EO 8Y
NOVA EXPRESS
frontiers
MAN rfCOMMUNISTS,
E
e/FCE
HA, FUNDED &V
' <
in ouft
OAVBt SCONCE ! VIABLE FOR CLEMENCY VYRlTER-gpiTOC? WAS,DH,AN DA!. MANHATTAN
THAT Ml&HT dougroth as attack exent^A /iMn m iti
600 KW0W& WHAT "ATTEMPTING JO UPON myself F
THESE PEOPLE: HAtfS GRAFT AN ACCEPT- AND MY
iN&reAO of ABLE FACE ONTO MAGAZINE
&LO&ictEO
kLAN -STYLE 1'
brutality
[T'S PUCE COMEDY AS FOR D OU& ROTH. MEANWHILE, AS JUST COMING 7 FEARING A RfOT,
NOVA EXPRESS '5 THEIR PUBLIC resentment goovys IN TinF prisoner PRISON SPOiCES-
FINANCED SV.OFALL EDITORIAL. TOWARDS MASKED HEROES scalded ev MEN SAY THEY'RE
THINGS, A VEftV I'D call FOLLOWING DR MANHATTAN’S CAPTUSLP "LOOktNG INTO THE
ORDINARY VERY IT "SPIRIT ABANDONMENT OF EARTH Vf&iLANTE TAWS OF HEU
ALL-AMERICAN OF NUREM- police admit having RORSCHACH
delivery company. BERG no evidence to support DIEDTHIS
CERTAINLY NOT humors of vigilante AFTERNOON PRETTY GOOD. CAN
BY MOSCOW involvement in hardly wait till
WAIT A SATURDAY'S TENE- IT'S DARK
MiwufE MENT RESCUE -
AfcJ THrs im
HERE
. !
0U> MOVIES.
r Y6AH,THIS ^ THEY SAID
space buy comes
TEW
tesus,
I
APARTMEHTS TO
/ Joey the
.
pays OATETTE AIK
YOU WANNA RAVES OUTTA
THE GRAVE,
,.
T OWAGH EVERY-
AgOuT
]
/
;
, ,.
THESE
Si/PBRPA&B
THEY'RE THE
SUVSX
MATE. J
J/V MYGWH6&,
DEGPE&AT E t
FOR COMPANY 1
1?H£/R VOCES
SPOKE FROM
COM VERSEP with SEHEATH Th&
MY PERISHED RAFT -.THICK',
\ SHIPMATES. &USGIM&L
EARLY THIS ~
FI&UJ
BETTER
HIM AFTER OTIS
'
CROAKED ,THAT
YE^B/BtJT
EVEBVgOOV
layvcewoe,
F
HUPBV THE &OD-
THIS. A
TAKEOVER k THIN&S RETURN ANP
DEVILS APE FREE TO
ROAM THE Nf&HT’
(SETS A DAMNED ARC WELDER
i
fir WHATSA- ^
r MAttFB?
TOO fM
THERE ? 6 OWN A
, SET Plenty
k. warmer ,
WE'RE SONNA
OUT THROUGH
thebe and then
THAT SASTAPO'S
Sonna FIND our
WHAT THE
score is;
look.., DON'T WDROY
CONVICTS PUT in YDUC
we'ce in the EARPLU6S SO WE
OCCUPtEp Can THE
MIT
section. &CC3MND CUNNIN6-
I'M TURN'N& ON
'ME SCPEECHERS
MOW DIP A IA*
YOU TALK
ME WTO
THIS "’THIS
IS &ETTrN6
&CA 2 y...
A ’
Y Ou'BE GONNA
BE HAMSUP&E8
YOU'RE ^oimMA BE
GMOKBO MEAT.
YOU STINKING,
LOUSY,*
r murkm .
NEVER.
DISPOSED
OP&BWAGE
W Th TOILET
BEFORE
OBVIOUS/
l Really. ,
T WD-
n 0 thin 6
YOUR
MOVE
,
O-
uh, we'Re not
INTERRUPTING
ANYTHING 7
W H A7
r passes Aie ^
ot* WE,
>
to rescue him, r THERE
MEPOESWT EVEN
r
DID WHAT
THANK US DOESN'T
1
ir's ^ HAD TO SE
l EVEN 5AV j OkTAv.M DONE. CAN
V HELLO '
7 N
Tw r k.' LEAVE
T JU 6 T L NOW j
H^At^D
HIM
HE LL WHAT'S
, ELUBL4
HG &OHN& FN
THERE 7 THAT
&UMPW&,,
DEAFEN WHAT
Although YOU WHEW BROUGHT
NEVER LIKED I gfflNG YOU OUT OF
you r uniform HIM UP RETIREMENT?
NOTHING TAKING MASK
PERSONAL
~
W WAT'S HE
IMPLYING? I
JUST DON'T
BUY THIS
CONSPIRACY
IS ALL A
!
k AWE ^
i
,
l
THERE'S EQUIP
Afwr to
.
k COLLECT a
WTVSMT
hold ^
WE'fiE
GOING HOME TO
ROOST...
ok Ay, that's V uu,lauRie^ what VOU SOUND \7 YEAH. IT'S
EVERYTHING are YOU DOM/G? UPSET 15 V JUST STUFF
FROM UP HERE,
BUT I HAVE
— EVERYTHING f catching
OKAVI
.
J UP WITH ME
SOME STUFF TO 1{/ CHAn&inG
CHANGING
¥Y/YOUR CALENDAR
...THE TAIL'
LOAD DOWN CALENDAR. BREAK,1 HIS
IN THE BASE Another hqurxVu. WAR THING
flAENTf SO BE NOVEMBER ..EVERYTHING'S
JUST SO
L SHITTY.
Fk GUESS ”
t/ WANT
I
r
SOMEBODY TO
WAVE A WAND
AND MAKE IT ALL
SETTERS KUOtf
GOP, Y£S.YES,T
WAS JUST THINKING
BUT TON, WOW
hi
PipYOU KNOW 7 X
NEED TO SEB YOU,
YOU APPEAR ...
MEAN, IT’S ALL
so oeas ex
MACHtNA ...
LAURIE?
W MO J
DANIEL?
DOOB6ELL
RINGING —
PEOPLE
OLiTgioe
DANIEL
POLICE
i
r DOWN STEVE, tF
those THOSE GUYS
STARS' ACEM T POWA/
r
MAP SOME -
TER START
T UiH& MIDDEN THlNkONfr
PACK THERE about THE
F POM H«S CAPTAIN'S
Att/tl/pe ATT ITUDE
IT
AfN'T
CiQhiNrA
SE SWEET
NESS and
...AND THFN OLD HEWS SOWS
Our damnation
the sodden DEAD, DOMINATING
.-
n obsessed They spore of a \ THERE'S THIS SUPER OUPERS SPBUNS
HEAVEN, wheSE ONCE TERRIBLE HEARD THAT SLOT -FACE
we All LIVED and NQIGE-
their BuaeuNG dialogues
DIED, SENTENCED
,
4»>— —Mi
r AY,
— . ABOUT
THE
6uy. _
XX? due S/NS TO THIS DEEP,
RUH- FIRST,
THERE'LL Be this
PANDEMONIUM WE
WORLD A
.CALL THE
,
ON rue RADIO,
you hear
...AND,**/
THE FASTEST P\
\
. Bl6 FLASH.,. WHAT WENT v wind,., _4«Sa
YEAH 'AN' IT’S
K POWNi
HIS PAULT, DR BLUE
ASS MANHATTAN
^Truly, /s hell*
AND DEATHS SOUGH HAND
OUR ONLY DELIVERANCE
NEEDS iT?M08SIN
WHAT* l DrD k 60 KICK HIS SAY CUN LESS END. 1 r* THE STREET, &UYS
EVER k i IT... .
A ...THE
Y
_
horror...
YELLIN'... >
SKY t
SURNlNS
^ ... ANP
THEN THE
SHOCK-
WAVE...
, .
D900&3 &
asBt-iooiyi?^
" JUST SIVE ^
m a tfoMevr
HERE- LEMME
SEE-. APPLES.
i
£ ANDY... THAT'S
IT, I OUES&
r ALRt&HT,
ALffl&HT, I
HEAftyA VfA
CO/VUN&.
inur vr 7.
DEBE 7
DECF,
W
I UP-
^ BUI DBBF,
3 HUT
I MEAN.
WE PE f
kVWAT IrMISHED] !&HIT,MAN,
YOU K HERE. A LOOK. AT
- & tm£ 6UV
DIO
7
0O tnBSE lav
EATIBS, f V0 U...
I CAbi'T i
On Hallo we en
The old ghosts tome
oboul us. and
they speak to some
to others they
re dumb
— Hoilowe en
Eleanor Farjeon
I
^
p TR|M ON LEFT SPREAD
^ ™ HU
Ml WW Issue VII
I
No, 21
FRONTIERSMAN
t
X
uj
z
z
<
CD
NEW FRONTIERSMAN
l
I i
NEW FRONTIERSMAN Thursday. October 31st. 1985
the cossack boot of the U.S*S,R. there wen: many of our so-called fair-weather-
friend European allies who were bleating about
Nova Express, heaping libel upon libel, has
followed up this potentially catastrophic feature supposed infringements of international law.
with an article in its current edition that at- Yet what are laws made for, if not to serve
tempts to draw tenuous links between recent mankind? And if those laws through unfore-
news items involving former masked adven- seen circumstance become no longer applicable,
is it not more noble to follow the course of right
turers and work them into some wild -eyed con-
spiracy theory, apparently forgetting that most and justice; to serve the spirit of the law rather
11
of the “news items involved were generated as than its every dot and comma? In my book,
u direct result of Nova Express and its irrespon- anyone answering that question in the negative
is someone without the moral backbone neces-
sible scaramongering! Roth refers gloatingly in
his article to the fact that back copies of the New sary to call himself an American. In the case of
Frontiersman were found in the rented apart- the Nova Express articles and their per-
ment of captured vigilante Rorschach after his petrators, 1 would go so far as to call such a
1
arrest, citing this as “proof of the aforemen- denial of lime-tested patriotic virtues as being
I
NEW FRONTIERSMAN
I
TRIM ON LEFT SPREAD SAFETY I
Thursday October
.
31st. 1985 NEW FRONTIERSMAN 3
As we see if . -
NOW, I
QVVEY /
KMOW
VHERE VOU
i
I WANT UFF 1
<
A FAIR M DA-
ANP 2AT S r
Honor fs //fce . .
.
fconf.)
l
NEW FRONTIERSMAN
I
i
-
New frontiersman
y
jr
' W-we'RE a,
60IHG- TO
TALK. MAYKE WE'LL
FWP £-CWVE WAV
. OUT Of THIS -
IT'LL
>_ MESS. >> BE OKAY-
danbeaUy.
YOU TAKE
v CAR E.
DANIEL?
DOOfigEC-L
RiW(5F|W6f... ^ PEOPLE <
OUTSIDE, DANIEL
POL foe. -
W B'CIE ALL X
fPUPPETS.
LAURIE.
I'M JUST A PUPPET
WHO CAN SEE
V THE &T&IMGS .,
ff,
/f/ 60 UP TO THE
WE SHALL X
/ see the modus
if BALCONY you can
ft; /
X\ sopor MOUNTAINS
u\ F«OArt TWEfte.
I
WELL
WHAT IF I
DON'T?
TON, WHAT ARE
YOU TRYING* TO
V- YOU r MO. MOT > AAaAa&U OO TO ME ? WHEN
KNOW YET. BUT IN A YOU'RE LIRE TAWS
ABOUT FEW MOMENT'S I CAN'T EVEN
Mg AND wt/'ae eoiN 6 talk to YOU, let
OAM TBLU alone debate
\ TO ME
S,
/A
J
THE WHAT
WA*5 ^T_I
DESTINV
OF THE
WORLD.
DESTINY
OF THE
WORLD-
MUM ?MY
earliest
MEMOEY?
11
WELL. I ... I WAS
FIVE, SOMETHIN*
LIKE THAT. I MUST
HAVE 60 T WOKEN UP
THEpe was shouting,
..
DOWNSTAIRS...
V WELL,
™
~ &OD t PEBL&, P OR C'tfOHtUEVS
vou know, THAT HEAft THE
IfEALUV, YOU NEED L MATTER? J ^ rnsr,., a
analysis, r Mr
w. SERIOUS.*
*- ikz?
WAS thebe
* i^rr j fi i
IT MEANS YOU AW CHILD.
& SAMBO ^OfA E THAT'S WHAT ALL
RIGHT ? THIN6. ITMEApvS THIS ABOUT,
IS
YOU PEACHED SOME REMEMBER?
r plus, he was
AENJlE you know
^ DP THAT MAGICAL
roaaance And
INHAT
means in A guv
GENTLENESS BULLSHIT THAT
they PROMISE
AHVW^V, ^
DON'T VCTJ WDftCy
L rRE that 7 EVEN YOU WWENI ABOUT
A SLIMMER J future that's
n of it ? taken CA&e /
tfc. OF. >|f.
"I TIPTOED DOWNSTAIRS TO THE "..AND THERE WAS THIS toy, “I LIFTED IT, STARTING A
TV ROOM IT WA£ PARR AMD NEXT THIS SNOWSTORM BALL, WITH A BLIZZARD. I KNEW tT WASN'T
DOOR THEY WERE ^H0UTfN6 TINy CASTLE IN^IOE, EXCEPT IT REAL SNOW, BUT I COULDN'T
WAS U*EA WHOLE WORLD; A UNDERSTAND HOW IT FELL
WORLD INSIDE THE BALL , , SO SLOWLY
NO&OPY KNEW I WA& THE PE
.
1
THE^e WEM
T6 WEftt JUST
MINE. EVERYTHIN^ PELT “it WAS LIRE A LITTLE GLASS
SBCRBT AMD ENCHANTED.,, Bubble of somewhere else
imm
I FIGURED inside THE BALL
WAS SOME different
SORT OF TIMS
SLOW TIME
. ; ,
r LARRY, "
r WHAT DON'T YOU
ACE YOU 0>U?£ TAKE
DOING THIS OUT ON
DOWN HER SHE'S
’
HE R£ 7 OWLY A
. WHAT,,. *70' SHE'S
. VULNERABLE.,
X WITH
r mean,
OAN IT
>|^
7 LIKE THAT. AS A
ISN'T
COVER HE'S MORE SORT
OP PECerrtVE THE type
YOU CAN POUR YOUR
V TPOUSteS OUT TO,,,
N
yTHE
'
don't you see
FUTILITY OF
ASKING ME TO SAVE A
WORLD THAT r NO
LONGER HAVE ANY .
v STAKE IN? JX
TON,!.,.!
CAN'T TAKE THIS,
AS VOW St&HTSEElNS ON
WISH. MACS, OPINIONS
instant wArs» when
down thebe the
MISSIIES COUCP BE
FtVfNS PlfeHT
Mow'
humanity is
ABOUT TO BECOME
.
WAVE TO ASK, ACM IEVEP,., 0/Y IT! SALLY, CLEAN UP HEARD WORKOUT SO? YOU
WOU- WE'RE AN S/TT/N6 IW it WA H'A REALLY YOUR ACT, IT ALL SONNA BE A 8r&
INSPIRATION.., AMO AS,„ HA HA SALWE SOT BEFORE rousH super-
THAT NEW SOV what r HA <
> COMPANY
k
\ LADY, LIKE /
.
DIDN'T
UNCLE MOLLIS <?IVE IT
YOU KNOW, BUT TO HER YET.
THIS 016 HUNK T FI SHRED
OVER WERE, THIS SHE'S
"
IS VOUB UNCLE VOON&.SHE
NELSON YOU'VE DON'T WANNA
SEEN THE REAP THAT
PICTURE.,, OU> STUFF"
r J !
UH...MP
ARE.., t LEWIS.,
ARE MY
RELATIVES
MERe'’ .
OKAY OKAY, I'LL X BUT DON'T in MV opinion, \ f NO l(F£. NO LIFE AT ALL, BUT
ADMIT LOTS Op WE HAVE IT'S AHIGHLY G ANT STEPS, NINETY FEET HIGH
I
PEOPLE HAVE MESSED- SOME overrated SCOURED SV DUET AND WIND INTO
UP LIVES THAT DON'T IMPORTANCE phenomenon A CONSTANTLY CHANGING TOPO-
ACCOMPLISH Any- TO THE ,
NOW
WOULD IT 3E
GREATLY IMPROVED
By Aw Oil PIPE-
v LINE ? y
j
r GOD ^
DAMN, WHY
ABOUT THE
fENVIRONMENT-.
(
BELOW, WHERE
VOLCANOES
WON’T THIS WITHOUT LIFE, SOILED THE
THING THERE WOULDN’T PERMAFROST
. LIGHT? .
m&j£t
SOT 'CHAOTIC
’
ADOLESCENCE,
CHIPPING ME
Sty SHE
PUSHED
y me
\ "
I
s MS,,, y
' FASCINATED \
gv Jpocurs 6ETTIN6
TWISTED ,-WTO WEIRD
SHAPES, res us owst:
vou should have j
L SEEN ME
BEFORE /
Ck I MET you yl>'
, .
t m'WWi.r'i
" I REMEMBER STARING AT "
THEN IT COL LAP SEP EVERYBODY OUTSIDE WATCHED THEM GO
A VOU T JUST COULDN'T SET USED LEAVING EXCEPT NELSON AMP PAN SHIP RORSCHACH
IN HI
TO VOU J MEAN, YOU HAD A ADRIAN. SIS DISAPPOINTMENT.., SNEAKING AWAY INTO THE
GREAT BODY, BUT, V'KNOW, BUSHES HE SAVE ME THE CREEPS
IT WAS BLUE
‘YOUR GiftLPmBNP TANEY,
SHE GLARED At ME ALL THE
WAY THROUGH.
'
THERE’S
1
GOT HERWAlR
gUT OTHEU-
r
UH,YEAH ^ SAD YOURSELF. HER EYES.,, EVEN WISE, YOU 'RE
r
YEAH. YOU'RE HERE.,. LEMME GOT THAT LIKE HER.
LAUREL ? THE COMEPMN TAKE A FUNNY LITTLE l YOU'RE A /
LAUREL JAnE,
THAT
t CAUGHT YOUR V MOLE,., J ^LOOKER ^
IS ACT in THERE
. R GHT ?
I j YOU WERE
WELL. ^
UW THANK
,
w YOU. .
r HELL ^
GONE OUT
NO here , there
NOT LEMME... THAT'S
MUCH SETTER
B !
’
HI, " NOT LONG E MOUGN IN ,„ANDAS CHRIST, we WERE
SAL. MY gOOK, EDDIE ^ FOft YOU, JUST TALKING CAN'T r I KNOW WMAT YOU T
LONG Aft THERE A &UY TALK TO HIS, ARE, XVe
EDWARD SLAKE-
TIME NO DEPTHS Y'KNPW, HIS OLD KNOWN WHAT YOU WERE
NO r LAUREL TAME, YOU WON'T. FRIEND’S DAUGHTER? FOR TWENTY' FI YE YEARS
SEE. vou PUT THAT THINS SINK A X MEAN WHAT DO AND DON'T YOU EYES
OUT AND COME HERE
IMMEDIATELY. WE'RE
TO ? M t
,
YOU THINK I AM
0
k. forget that. ^
v GOING NOME.
SET lfvT
THE CAR
LAURIE.
SALLY, \ NO-
LISTEN,! \ things r and "we drdye Away in silence
THOUGHT WE'D r LIKE THAT THEY'PE NOT I LOOKED BACK AND HE XUST
SETTLED r
DON'T EVER GOING TO STOOD THERE WATCHING US
,
SET IN
THE CAP,
, GIRL! a
DOESN'T THAT ~
MOVE YOU MORE
than A Bunch of
V PUS8LE ?
O
/ “n , i. \
f GIVE UP thi& \ 1
IS JUST ROUND
PM CIRCLES 'CAN'T
f/ I READ
ATOMS, LAURiE
\N VOU TELL ME how/
THiS CONVERSATION
/
I SEE THE Ancient ENDS AND SPARE
SPECTACLE THAT fffffTHED ME THE
the bubble Beside
THiS.HUMAn LIFE /
\
V,
a&ony? y /
\ is BRIEF AND /.
VV MUNDANE .
V
'
IT ENOS
WITH YOU IN
^
TEARS. ..LOOK THEBE
OLYMPUS MONS
< APPROACHES >
x TEARS ? >
v-you MEAN I
LOSE * you MEAN
SOU DON'T lOM£
BACK TO EARTH ?
7^ 7 RETURN TO
EARTH at some >
/
POINT IN MY PUTOPE
THERE ARE STREETS PULL
OP CORPSES THE DETAILS .
V ACE VA6US /
UNCEBTAIN. y.
.
y LOOK AT IT; A
VOLCANO AS LARGE AS
MISSOURI ITS SUMMIT
,
BREATHTAKING
AND THE
...
UNIVERSE WILL
NOT EVEN
/ &8EATU- ^ Nortce ,
TARING? 70 W,
VVHAT ABOur THE
WAR? YOU'VE 60T
TO PREVENT IT' /y we’ve ^s\
EVEBVONE Will '/ been through
v\
v ote l THIS BEFOR& ,
LAURIE. YOU ARGUED
THAT HUMAN LIFE
WAS MORE SIGNIFICANT
THAN THIS EXCELLENT
DESOLATION, ANP
L I WAS NOT /
\ convuyceo //
r ...BUT WHERE
W attempted
f
YOU
n
ARE THE PINNACLES
TO RIVAL THIS
OLYMPUS? WHERE
to COMPARE THE ARE THE DEPTH©
MERE uncertainty TO MATCH
IN YOUR EXISTENCE
WITH THE CHAOS
^ THOSE OF... jS
OF THE WORLD
V BENEATH US... /
AHH BUT
,
X
WE NEAR THE
VALLES MAP/NERIS
YOU MAY SEE TOR
v YOURSELF. >
a
*r: *i* *
Ttzx LLJI
XMORESTRETCHES
IT
THAW THREE
X
THOUSAND MILES, SO
THAT OWE BMP «W£)W6
PAY WHILE THE
OTHER EWPUCE5 /
V NISHT. sy
f TEMPERATURE X
difpepefnces breed
ShRi&KINS WINDS THAT
HERO OGEAWS OP POO
alonO can vow
X
, FOUR WLB©
PEER
y
C>
JEWISH NAME-
r WELL,
EDDIE ’’ Any
OPINIONS?
MISS
TUSPECCYK
GOOD TO SEE
YOU
"
juspeczyk: 1
PlPN T H
^WAT '5
MV NAME
TO YOU ?
-
KID /
YOU «/r JUSPBCZVK ACE YOU
HEft ? Sure
sepdre you
YOU 6QMB' WANNA
KfCK&O S 00 V TAKE
MEC??TWAT GET THIS
[SN T
r
THE HBQ ALL THE
WAY YOU SOY- L WAY?
T^eAT FRtENO
P£ACME$?j
SA*
MEANS
NOTHIN#
^ OH, FOP
SOD'S 5 A Are
TON, JUST NOW
LAW THIS THINS.
V.
' R
you WERE
WftONS
ABOUT THAT
MAYBE
ABOUT A
LOT OF
THIN OS
" .
I WON'T SEE EXISTENCE SURPRISED, COULDN’T IMAGINE / ONLY RELAY- \ SHUTTING OUT
. IN HUMAN TERMS.,. why r<? bear a grudge . '
enough to see UNDERSTANDING,
1
EMOTIONS
BLIND YOU
LOOK AT
l YOURSELF;
\ ANGRY,
v\ SHOUTING
rn l
o i
”.
i
i7j r.nrry
T'M THROUGH fWANT
r DON'T
'MOM, I'M THIRTEEN WHY CAN'T TH INKINS ABOUT r
TO ’’Christ, WE WERE just talking
I READ UNCLE HOLLIS'S BOOK ? MV LfFS, SEE IT r CAN’T A SLiY TALK TO H!5,Y'KN0W,
I DO ALL THIS TRAINING TO gE LOOK! NS BACK DON'T WANT HIS OLD FRIEND’S DAUGHTER?
A COSTUME HERO I CAN'T ON ALL MY TO TALK WHAT DO YOU THINK T AM?
EVEN READ ABOUT THEM ? "
,
STUPID A ABOUT
MEMORIES A fcv IT. A
” UH, NOW, HONEY, MAYBE
MOM KNOWS BEST I GUESS
Y IT'S BEEN Y
I wasn't thinking r
A DUMB LIFE,
AND IF THERE’S
ANY DESIGN,
His iV'KNOW,
IS OLD FRIEND'S
DAUGHTER ?
r
Think:
x don't ee >
STUPID THERE 'S WHAT DO
W I - I MEAN
”
r LOOK, HERE,
YOU'RE W- NOTH INS TO YOU Think MY C IAS MY
AVOIDING AVOID.,, J .
I AMI ? MOM'S
,
LIFE,
SOME- THERE S noth INS
TWINS, j THERE WORTH
H«5
..HJ5,V ’KNOW. "... FRIEND'S AVOrDiNS, IT'S
OLD FRIEND'S DAUGHTER? all JUST
DAUGHTER'’ i MFANinS-
WHAT DO YOU L. LESS,., j
THINK I AM ?
r only once
I-XVE ^ old FRIENDS DAUGHTER
never had
any OCCASION “,..Y'know,HIS
TO AVOID TH£ "WHAT DO “HIS, Old FRIEND'S
. TRUTH... .
YOU THINK. V'KNOW, DAU..."
HIS...
wo. no, 6 He
WOULDN’T SHE
COULDN'T HAVE
NOT AFTER
HE.,,
..TU6T COULDN'T
SUSTAIN THE
“
anger
YOU'RE NOT
YOU'RE
l NOT’. .
"„.AWP THERE WAS THIS TOY, " I LIFTED IT, "I FIGURED
THIS SNOWSTORM RAUL, WITH A STARTING A INSIDE the
TINY CASTLE INSIDE, EXCEPT IT buzzard i BALLWAS
WAS L ICE
I A WHOLE WORLD, A KNEW IT WASNT SOME
WORLD INSIDE THE 8 ALL... REAL SHOW, DIFFERENT
BUT r COULDN'T SORT OF
UNDERSTAND TfflAE
1
IT WAS GLASS
LIKE A LITTLE HOW IT CELL
BURBLE OF SOMEWHERE ELSE SO SLOWLY
SLOW
TIME
^ ,
” OF
COURSE N
NOT SLAKE ,
/WHOLE
'
»v X
THAT BASTARD, LIFE'S A
AND MV M- TORE ONE
MOTHfR,THEY 616 -STUPID,
.
' But,., ^
Ll5TEN,YOuVE
TUST BEEN
SAYING LIFE te
MEANINGLESS
SO HOVV
CAW.,.? ,
r changed
MY MINP.
rrrr —
BUT.
WHY
/ DYNAMIC MIRACLES N
EVENTS WITH OOPS
...
AGAINST SO astronomical
THEY'RE EFFECTIVELY
IMPOSSIBLE LIKE OXYGEN
SPONTANEOUSLY BECOMING
SOLO T LONG TO .
X. OBSERVE SUCH /
SN^ A THING /-7A
and yet, in
^ --O'
rf
/ A
EACH HUMAN COUPLING/
THOUSAND million SPERM vie
FORA SINGLE EGG. MULTIPLY THOSE
ODDS BY COUNTLESS GENERATIONS
AGAINST THE OODS OF YOUR ANCES-
TORS BEING ALIVE 7 MEETING 7
SIRING THIS PRECISE SON', THAT
SN. EXACT DAUGHTER.,, S ,
"
TO SO >
Ole-TILl
specific a porm
reOM THAT CHAOS
UNTIL
... 'SNyf- OP IMPPO&A&UTY,
YOUP MOTHER \V. LIKE TUftNINO A/P
MAN V
,
LOVES A
SHE HAS EVERY \
v TO GrOLD,.. A
REASON TOHATB,
AND OF THAT TLfAT IS
UNION, OF THE THE CROWNINS
THOUSAND MILLION UHUKBUHOOO
CHILDREN COMPETING
FOR FERTILI ZATfON, .
IT WAS YOU I
ONLY YOU THAT Jj
emersed.
f
yy
THE
thermo-
dynamic
MiRAUB.
Tnats a thermodynamic
MIRACLE T MEAN YOU
.
,
COULD SAY THAT ABOUT
ANYBODY IN THE WOULD
"anybody
IN THE
WORLD
"X CORSET
WE 6 ATE CONTINUALLY
AT THE WORLD AND IT
SROW5 BULL IN OUR
PERCEPTIONS. YET SEEN
FROM ANOTHER'S
VANTA6E POINT, AS IF
NEW, IT MAY STILL TAKE
THE BREATH AWAY.
"COf*e DRY YOUR EYE&, FOR YOU
...
"ORv YOUR
EYES-..
m m
* *
- *
•
t
*
i
* *
S
*
>
•
+
* .
* •
•
m 1
• .
As (or os we con
purpose of human
existence is to
kindle o light of
meaning in the
darkness of
mere being.
— C. 6. Jung
MEMORIES.
DREAMS,
REFLECTIONS
n
DAILY
January' 12, \m
VILLAINS VIE FOR
VOLUPTUOUS
VIGILANTE explaining to do to her huWy arafwtr lQO>
Goons are going ga-ga over the hack home on the ranch 4.
*
Jh~. -k **. u *
rather have her take me in than two
old cops anytime * says Claude,
Zft ft"
'
'f i 7
tat
whu received a tight fine and has
J tL~L ™ri,
dUT71tJk
)/
iinre quit drinking
pumping gasoline.
and taken a job
,1 pU llPJl <rU d<
Sally, who
eventually hopes to
wove on to modeling work or 'd, /W*
Bflvics, tells llh that there is already
t movie about her life in the works
(t^ railed Silk Spectre: The
p
Silly Jupiter Story'enthuses Sally
*ind uS already in the planning
stages. I-±ro and 1 have met with
'
T^^-^ri?¥?zrc
Mr King Ikylur of Hollywood, and
rverybody^ very excited about It
we
wish spunky Sal
°r~f
I'm sure all
y#i*s* jr
V srt*As9rK*&j! <Cy / ^
V/yv-r dun-g) £&.#_ I^f /C^n
usmc
MARINE LIEUTENANT
N[LS 0I. G.BBNt"
I
CWSW'*"'
It *ould rear Ita ugly hand. X am delighted te find that you Btmr*
thea* inrllaetioaa, S
I note ill ao from py perusal of t he presa that there ere several
America 1
and 1 nave already devised such to a* cones
Inga an and paas-^
codes ema i
,
words and strategic exercise* that would serve ui well In our war on NS \j
is enclosed.
Captalp Metrepelli /
February 3rd, 1948
Dear Sally,
Haven’t been in touch lately because 1 thought you should
have time to get over poor Bill's funeral. However, there's things
that need talking over *
Nelly called last night, upset over yet another tiff with
H J
. , Those two are getting worse. The more they row and act like an
old married couple In public, the harder they are to cover for* I
know that you've provided a pretty steady alibi for H.J. up to now,
and that the publicity we got from that hasn’t exactly hurt you either,
but it can't last much longer Nelly $ ays he's always out when Nelly
*
calls, out with boys* and apparently there's a lot of rough stuff going
on. One of these punks only has to go to the cops with a convincing
story and some convincing bruises to back It up and it would be the
Silhouette fiasco all over again.
t honestly wonder how long it can last. Lewis is drinking
harder all the time, and has been very low since the thing with Bill.
Mason is a big bouncy boy scout, same as ever, but with Nelly and H.J.
acting up it's a pretty sorry spectacle at the meetings these days.
Maybe now is the time to pull out and cut our losses. We’ve made
quite a sum, you know, and I’ve often talked about a place out west
somewhere maybe now's the time we could take It on as a viable partner-
\
T
^'rmade
Cheaply
,d ,hat thls mm be avoidec
even by *0' -movie stand
^»sfa?a ar ,
PROBE: Sallv. how much it was, I'm justsaying that we all its like what if, y'know? Whal if,
would you say that ils a sea knew; and we knew she wasn't moment maybe really
just for a ,
1
thing, putting on a costume) the only one, and we slung her did want mean, that .1
SALLY: No. I don't . . out just the same. When she got doesn’t excuse him, doesn't ex-
We]I let me say this, for m<\ it
n murdered like that I mean, 1 cuse cither of us, but with all that
was never a sex thing. It was a never really liked her Ursula, douht, what it is lo come to terms
money thing And think for ] Was that her real name? I didn’t with it, I can l stay angry when
some people it was a lame thing, know that. I didn't like her, but I'm so uncertain about my own
and for a liny few, God bless throwing her out We feelings , ,
wasn't fair, Jt wasn't honest. I awful You know, rape is rape worried aboul hei But m the
mean, she wasn't the only gay and there’s no excuses lor it, ah end* l think shell see what it was
person m the Mmutemen Some I gave her. think she ll start to
I
wluteiy none, but for me, felt [
professions, don't know, they see her life next to the lives of
( . t felt like I'd contributed m
attract a certain type some way L other kids and she'll start think
that misplaced
PROBE: Who else was gay? guilt, whatever mv analyst said*
mg in terms of what I saved her
SALLY: I'm not naming any- from instead of what 1 con-
I really felt that, that I was some
body was a couple of the guys, how demned her to
It as much blame for
to
and they're both dead now, One for letting myself be his victim not PROBE: You think so?
died recently. I'm not saymg who ma physical sense, but but SALLY: I hope so.
HOW
ARE THINGS
HAmOJNS
. WERE ?
WE DO WHAT
WE CAME DOWH HERE
FOR WE STAY AT
-
DEFCON TWO..,
HOW MUCH DOWW \1 ALL RlOHT, ALL r
L0N6ER ? MERE HOURS 1 ftifiHT
*!<
’
THAT'S what <T CEELS 0,000
TIREO OF ALREADY I'AA DOiUG WE'RE TO BE WORKING
SKULKING WEED TO NEAR the wharves AT WiTHVOU AGAIN,
DOWN HERE COLLECT SPARE SACk'iws onto LAST PAniEL. PITY MISS
IMPATIENT UNIFORM and YOUR NEIGHBOR- TU6PECZYK
WORK TO PERSONAL HOOD RIGHT COULDN'T STAV
BE DONE EFFECTS, SO l WITH US . V
THAT WE Ci
proceed
- ' .
>,
ASSUMING
so, MAKE INQUIRIES
AMONGST UNI DEC
VEAH X.
GUESS SO
WT PERHAPS
HUPN.YeS.
r
HE'LL
1 THE TWINS /6,^
we've got so i
VOUK SPACE
re v WORLD WUATEVFR'S
\i also, with i SE LESS DISMISSIVE t-ITTFE TIME TO 1
OUTFIT'S BEMiwp Elimination this MIASM OF IDEA AFTER j
Fi 6 u«e out
WHERE YOU OF MASKER HEROES killer k ATTEMPT ON i WHO'S POIM&
LEFT IT, IS SOMETHING g(G thing, we aV OWN L(FE„. Jk THIS 1 MEAN,
-
-3
SOMEWHERE AOSiASf J T-'
— DOWN THIS ws'ce talking A
. WAV PEAR FIRE somebody Ji
ESCAPE MAJOR Just
SOME-
BODY
KNOWS
ves.all
'ACCOMPLISHEPSO t
easily, lesson IN
vulnerability. must
^BE MORE CAREFUL.
IN FUTURE ^ ,
FUTURE
uaGMaoH WHAT
FUTURE
, I .
,J .Ik/WA'—J
iarsBsis
TALNACHJ
ea*® fl.oo
IPNLY ,
r
THAT'S MY SOME OF XUST
WHOLE POINT : US HAVE hAnG
WE'RE lOORtnG ALWAYS I’ ONI &V
AT WORLD WAR LIVED ON FINGER
three within EDGE , nails
THE WEEK , ' DANIEL.
IT IS
POSSIBLE
MEAN, WHAT
T TO SURVIVE "...and
DO WE OO j ThE THERE IF NEVER
STAKES AWE SO YOU OBSERVE LOOK
Hf&H AND RULES.' A DOWN
humanity 15
SO CLOSE TO
THE EP&E .
. /
'
MBS,
SHAiRP.
L0N6
TIME NO
6E£.,
VERY A
BUD /
RORSCHACH ?
COME ON, MAN
LEAVE IT.,,
V PLEASE.
W OHr
W DON'T
$AY
f THAT NOT
IN FRONT
k OF MY
ll\ KIDS
P0 YOU STILL W5M
TO STUDY THE MONITORS
AMD CEOOR’O VDUR 08-
s equations before
V dinner? if you (y
.
*«E HUNGRY...
rDINNER
r
no. let
WAIT. THE
WORK COMES PI PST, AS
EVER THESE ARE
THINGS TO OO,
PROBLEMS TO
\
<
SOLVE,.,
A
9®A f^ri im LJ
:
-
ii i
lrW jS
J3
OF COURSE NOT
YOU'RE IGNORING
THE SUBTEXT-
SO ,
^
INTO THE MAJOR EROTIC
VIDEO COMPANIES THAT'S Jr VERY GOOD. the ^
SHOULD SHORT term. ALSO, WE EQUIPMENT IS BEADY,
INCREASED WE BUY SHOULD NEGOTIATE SIR WE SHALL RETIRE
SEXUAL iMA&ERY, INTO >•< CONTROLLING SHARES IN AMP LEAVE YOU TO
EVEN IN THE OH.,.? , SELECTED BA8i POOD YOUR WORK WE
CANDY ADS .
AND MATERNITY SOOOS KNOW THAT YOU .
k. manufacturers k PREFER TO BE j
it An
IMPLIES
erotic under-
pr-
j_
THINK
Iv
Iv
alone down
HERE. yya
current NOT I'M READY
UNCOMMON IN to begin
TIMES OF Wl'AP RECORDING
REMEMBER THE NOW
bas y Boom,. .
^ YES >
THAT'S
RIGHT ALL
ALONE.,.
HATE THIS. THESE OOAAPUVEK r
J WASN'T,,, UNNECESSARY " COWEPIN& DOWN
ALL DAY ON searches i ve
;
FASTIDIOUS
i CAN'T ALL
t KEEP HANDS
Vsive me
^SMALLEST
^ CLEAN
,
A f FIN&ER ON
MAN'S HAND
T'LL PRODUCE
INFOBMATION.
COMPUTER
UNNECESSARY
" THIS X
FACE ACL 1
THAT'S
wEC£SSAJRY
wn)
CmV.W lVi
rWF SHOULD
ASK QUESTIONS
inthE UNDER-
WORLD. yv
DON'T PLAY LOOK, THE COME 01 AW THIS DIMENSIONAL DEVELOP
^rWASTE TIME *
3*^.
6AIY55 WITH
/W£.
YOU LEARNED, ACCIDENTALLY,
ABOUT SOME ISLAND,
EP^
r WHO
MENTfi COMPANY EMPLOYED
MOLOCH. MAYS E HIS PLACE
LOOKING FOR SOME SCHEME jT KNEW WHEN SLAKE
PATTERN WHEN
PATTERN ty, OBVIOUS.
ASAfNST
*-
TON &LAKB
SUSPECTED
^WAS BUGGED
,
VISITED ? ^
B W£ mask j the plot against ^anything
tow combe First \ ?
SLAKE 6 KILLED WHEN
he discovers PT
^ sy that'd also ^8
r
YOU'D LISTEN, ' EXPLAIN HOW T
THAT'S WHAT I'M THEY KNEW AgOUT AMO
TBYIHS TO SAY" YOU# iNV&STfSATIOHS VElOT
WHAT IF there and were asle to
/S HO MASK I FRAME YOO...wrmoor
Y KILLER? A REQUIRING AMY
k ‘MASJf KILLER ' J
MM
A
ADRIAN 5
PROSLEM AZlWS T
listen ,TVE /VAO it
WHO the hell DO
’
"T...LOOK,
RORSCHACH,
VPf&HT
RIGHT
T
LISTEN, YOU'RE
WE'VE gOTM
gOT
THAT VWS A a YOU THINK YOU APE ? T M SORRY BEEN DOWN HERE
CLEAR 'OUT
ASSASSINATION
ATTEMPT, LISINS .
gH you live ope people
WHY.; INSULTING Ti-Pm
NOBODY COMPLAINS
T SHOULDN'T
HAVE SAIO
ALL THAT ,
TOO LOWS. JT
MUST BE PARK
ENOUGH TO
A HIRED • PR, BECAUSE the y THINK SURFACE sy
KILLER-. —
if S*V
T"Y YOU'BE A Soppamned NOW. I'LL TAKE
UJNATtC ... > ^ HIM UP
> YOU
KNOW HOW
HARD IT 15
Seiwe YOUR
. FRIEND 7
P-fli there's < I MEAN, down here in
WELL , no sense THIS zrUNK GARDEN t IS
AN V WAY, WAITINGdown THIS ANY PLACE TO HfXO
THERE'S.,. ,
HERE ANy THE REUNION OF THE NfTE
L LONGER. / . OWL RORSCHACH TEAM?
LET'S 60 tJP TO ^
y VISIT THE CRIMINAL
FRATERNITY A NO REALLY,
,. ,
START PLOWSlNS J
v THE DEPTHS.
y
'
y'lew o\n,
SOAAE NICE
n^7
STCAI6HTCCWWARD
BRUTALiTy,AFTEKf
WADING KNEE-DEEP
in THIS CONSPIRACY
WEfCDNESS Poft
. so long,., Aj
7 HELL /
^
IT'LL BE
LIKE COWINS
. HOME > 1
,
liAiAUL -mmrmmrma
3 WAS RETURNED, SPLASHING In BROAD CHARCOAL STROKES, Deliberating upon this, i
NOISILY THROUGH THE EN- NIGHT SHADED THE SKY , STARTLED AT THE SOUND OF
CUMBERING SHALLOWS, SUN HORSES APPROACHING, PICKING
MULL )N6 THE HORIZON BEHIND DAINTILY ACROSSTHE SHINGLE;
ME A POWER IN A OlAsS J SAT AMONGST VOICES, male AND FEMALE,,.
V
.
SLAUGHTERED
‘
ONLY REVENGE .
L REMAINED 1
X>iSMOUNTlNS, THEY TETHERED^, y/tTH DAVIDS TOWN CAPTURED, He COMFORTED THE WEEPING,
THEIRSTEEPS TV DARK WOODEN WHY WOULD BRIGANDS ALLOW HYSTERICAL WOMAN, AND MY
GROINS, TUTTIN6 OUT LIFE CHARRED THIS SCOUNDREL FREE PASSAGE HEART GREW COLD WAS MV
k Rigs PROM THE BEACH FOR HIS MIDNIGHT TRYSTS ? f WIFE COMFORTBO g EFOSE
HAD HE COLLABORATED t / HER EXECUTION, WHILE THIS "
SCREAM W
Screaming my hatred, j
RUSHED DOWN THE NIGHT SLOPE
TOWARDS THEM, BUT ALL THAT
ESCAPED MV UPS WAS THE
BLACK LANGUAGE OF GULLS.
Clutching
THE ROCK,
MV hand
FELTHUGE
DEPORMED
STARTLED,
THEY
TURNED J
. ! — K
When death
was assured,
RESIGNATION
y TOO BIS TO ^
f
Like.itS
'
LENT HER r
EYES A jj
1
is&Ssi
thebe
now,weve . ^
SOUGHT ONE OF
™ v YOUR PAPERS
MAVgE PERHAPS VOU'0
TOPAV,AAAVgE LIRE TO TBY
A
.
TOMORROW/ v OURS 7
SUT SOON FOR
k SURE ,
VS*
(F/
YOU KEEP
AMKV FROM ME !
^
1
l tWYOUR OODDAMN
k. SQUI06V AWE f A
I
SOT OFFERED
the errand ey
MY tfOS5, FREI6HT
CO-ORDINATOR
AT PYRAMID
oeLiveerFS...
M- MAYBE
HELL Tr
PUNNO. I TOOK
W
THE JOB, LOT OF T
OTHER SUVS
WERE SETTIN'
SOME ACTION I
FIGURE WHY NOT?
NOW EVERYBODY'S
6E TTIN RILLED,
'
My LIFE'S A J
NIGHTMARE A
NEVER CROSS
owe o' you Wr : l knew
PEOPLE NOT W
IT! I KNEW
KNOWINGLY f YOU'D V/CT/MOE *ve
i
^
!
'
OETOFFMVC>4Se.'
WEARING A KNOT DOESN'T
M6 AW T‘M connected
WITH THAT STUFF
LAST N/GHT. LOTTA
k PEOPLE DRESS LIKE
MAN. A
PROTECT YOU ? u
UEABD THE BECAUSE YOU WERE ' HOPE
NEWS SlAmiNS UNAWARE WHOSE THAI THOUGHT
THAT MASON EXECUTION YOU WERE COMPORTS
GUY '6 MURDER ARRAN SiNE ? , YOU WHILE
ON KNOT TOPS, WAITING
thought 'Suit' MAYBE PERSON for AY TO
UKE THEY ARRANGING YOURS L. FALL
Evcas>£'. POESNT KNOW
HAGGLE U$ EITHER. NOTHING
PERSONAL, hEHN ?
WHO DID LT KCLM...NO YOU TELL THEM 1 r 0U6HTTA
TELL ME WHO 'T KNOW,,, TELL THEM THEY'RE TAKEOUT THIS
P/D JT,V0U &HUCH,.,6AN6. .
DEAD' you KNOW ENTIRE
SLIME 'WHO KiOS SAWdtANe HOW MUCH PIRE RAT HOLE
MURDERED CUNNIN& POWER I HAVE NEIGHBORHOOD !
OH
5HIT TAkE
THIS AND
&RIN6 ARCHIE
DOWN I
TSEE.
RULER, CAN
HAVE REVENGE YEAH, OKAY
FOR MASON'S THANKS, RORSCHACH
DEATH REALLY THANK YOU
MEANT TO
COMFORT
YOU
,
"RELAX EVERYBODY'S
UPON DECK FOR THE
EVACUATION PARTY
ONCE THE LAST OF THE
Equipment's aboard,
THE SHIP'S READY
TO PUT OUT
"
’WHAT...? VI? SHEA “WELL, THEY'RE BEING PAIP PROBABLY ILLEGAL, BUT WHO
REALLY HA HA HA HA
‘
ENOUGH TO VANISH AWP FORGET CAPES' J"W1 CONTENT TO BE A
1
g RAT)NC, WE LEAVE
TONIGHT
THIS PLACE AFTER ALL THESE like your swiPwaecPED
MONTHS HELL, T SAW WORM *VEAH ,.AndT KNOW WjHKTHAT VOYA&ER y DID HE ESCAPE
Lfc'ITH And LiN PA LEV UPON GEMff TfC/ST&a v, FUSUESSErtx p F//S ISLAND?"
DECK EVEN THEY WERE SMILING...' ME ThEV'D USED A HU wan
BRAIN MAKING THAT GOD-
D AM NED SPECIAL EFFECT
weLL,YeS 6UT, (
1 .HEY., FEEL
THAT * WE'RE MOVING *
MMM MIRA,
MEETING YOU
MAKES UP FOR
EVERYTHING
we'll FIND
SOME PLACE
TOGETHER
and ...
"HELL, WHAT'S
- PIGGING INTO
I MY p *'
RJC6ET IT, WHATEVER
IT IS ICAW'T WAITjJUTIL WHAT'S THAT
A HOTEL ON THE MAINLAND SOME COUNTS*? LET
AFTER years with that feiwpA MF S0E THAT.
SEXLESS OAF AND HIS Boy IT'S... A
SPOILED SONS, I’M UNDER THE
IMPATIENT- ^ TABPAUUH
MAX, FOR SODS ^
'
'
LEINtiE SWITCH
THIS U&HT SAKE, CONCENTRATE
ON Mg'. THE CBEW
must ws/r THIS
PACT OF THE SHIP,
AND I THINK j
WE MJ6HT NOT A
HAVE VERY jgk
lOns. Arm
r /wax 7 >
MAX, you're so
PL BASS. Art if WHAT'S
t WffONO 7 ,
IT
? .
WE WHOLE BUILDING
¥ FUNNV
USUALLY
•y
L.OOKBO
A<5 VVE CAME IN
W
maybe me...
DESERTED "MOV EMSER
I5T,4 34JA.W
LEAVE LOR
WORKS HERE KARNAK."
UNTIL r WAIT A MINUTE,
EARLY IN WHAT'S THfS’APPOINT-
.
-V^ QUESTION
/ /S, WHAT 1
/
r
NEXT ? VEl&T
UNAVAILABLE. CANT
(COUNT ON HIS HELP.
must Review
i
PLANS- A j
f KNOW DELIVERY
COMPANY BEHIND VEIOT 1
«
r ™
MURPBR SIP ACCORDING I'D HOPED
to YOU, ALSO OWNERS OP ADRIAN Ml 6WT
DIMENSIONAL DEVELOPMENTS. HELP WITH
THUS MAYBE BEH/nO - THAT A
\ MANHATTAN FRAME.
WATS
THEIR
ANGLE?
. DELIVERIES I
NEED
DIRECT ROUTE
TO PEOPLE
BEHIND
PYRAMID,
INDICATION
WHERE TO
t START.-.
-
also ateed BUT THEN, INSANITY WOULD Wt HUHN- ...UNLESS PLOT DOG
RECOGNIZE
Marine why should WHO HAS 6EEM ONLY MOTIVE V MOLOCH FROM BEYOND HEADED Bust
I
'
.
REEDY
REQUEST HLCESS
RIL FILES 8
'PVHHVJO
DELIVERIES**
pR5$wom?m
need answers
QUICKLY WOULD §r OTHER
^— —'q FUNNY.., Ancient
PHAROAhG looked
understand
NOW WHY
ON VERSE OF f HORSEMEN
APOCALYPSE
death and
CANT BE FAR
war already IV
Behind
sA
A f.
forward to end of
WORL0- BELIEVED
CADAVERS WOULD RISE,
* always
MISTRUSTED
FASCINATION
...IN
ANALYSIS,
US OR
IT'S
FINAL
OH
SHIT
J RECLAIM HEARTS FROM WITH RELICS THEM.
here A y fTHF A GOLDEN TARS must Be AND DEAD
IA
\
HR WE BE 5 PR5SWDR0
HCCFPTFD -
I THINK WERE f
THE E&YPTtAM NAME FOR
IN BAD 7 ROUBLE 02 YMANQtAS.
THE PEWbOKl BEHIND
TWI5,TH6 PERSON HE /et/VS
we'Re up zmuBT RORSCHACH
IT, !
RUNS PYRAMID
DELIVERIES,
AM I 1 DIMENSIONAL
DEVELOPMENTS,
THE WHOLE
SWPW"
pm/wia mtvemts Eg
HVWW i RNflIWrt Eg
VfWfffW/Arti 3 HD5 r'.'V
Ml twmF / 5M7
i/b^*?
t'RfHKUnw'N
ffl/XOWS
W
/
I khow ^
IT'S CRAZY, \r NARNAfC ,,, >
AND X DON'T r RAME5E5 BUILT >
WANT TO BELIEVE A &LSANTIO NALL
IT, BUT PERHAPS THERE ; A MONUMENT
WE SHOULD KARNAK MUST BE J
VFIND ADRIAN
K PAST J
.
yeidt'5 antarctic i
K RETREAT
l
M
K BETTER ~
6 RAB THOSE
PAPERS FROM
HIS DESK.,.
^ IT'S A LONS
JOURNEY, ANO THEY'LL
MAKE BETTES REA DIMS
than the lifejacket
. INSTRUCTIONS /
RO&&CMACH ’S TOURNAL . \
ossuMins joucnev possiBle,- OFFtces 8 ©low, weoD^Tcnes
MOVEMSee 1ST, ! 9& 5 r
. TRQCkrmS HIM TD HIS LOlR MOffkins DOILY SROiVeS OF
OhLY OPTIOH. STILL FeCL THouSanos. tnsi dr, across
FindL enTRY ? LEFT uneasY. unFOMfLiOR CLOCK faces, as oeseRveo
veiOT'S OFFICE XU ST TERRITORY as Tnose of celebrities,
ftepope MipmsHT wo nos cOMrtente fiool lops
He COULD KILL US ftOTH
th ene in snow. noeooY
ooe\BeR6 convmceo
, veiar's would eveR Know.., oeuvion
BeHIHP CVGRYTHlnS, is SOllOPS
serious about vismns closer,
artTORCTica owlship
. / FIRST ni6UT FavORino
capoSLe, appapem-LV, j in nove^eea TH6 SPUR/
but aae we ? I . spoRins
Twe Rein-
raw cold
TOn I^HT,
I THinK
we WILL
Be Gone
soon .
mud
pa&TeR Twan '
veicrr is ”
DRPlSe«G PPRMAPS FOSTER if ReaDino this now,
Twanwe. ceruen fbow WHeTHPR I OM OLIVE OR
Mission seews unt-iKeLv. oeao.vou will know
TRUTH ; WWaTfiVPR PR8CISe
noTURE of this cons Pi ROC Y,
THIS LOST enrpv QDRi an vbiot ResponsiBLe.
will Shortly moil
TO upnaL ro on ly
people can trust. Have pone
gesr to
MOKe this
lCSIBUP
geuteve
vpiOt can nor it PairTs
iMosme Moee DISTURflinS
Dan&eROus PtCTURe .
OPPonenr.
Dnei&epo J
ineeo to I
CuecK my '
MOIL DROP,
we Beuieves
.
ms. -
u.Tr/^-jy,/ai
aPPRcaare your rccC^t ' ...anp step irvro
support ano nope worlp Twe shadow now
Survives Lons enouow for WITHOUT COtAPLOfTlT
THIS to ReaCH YOU, BUT
Tonus ace m east BeeLin,
ano WRtTins is on woll
ROeSOHOCH,
HoveMges
for my own 1ST, 1905-
PORT. R66ReT
noTHinfe wave
.
tiveo life,
ceee FROM
COMPROMISE...
,
r ALL THIS
rCRAZINESS ^J
Y IT AIN'T FAIR >
WE DIDN'T ASK FOR aHEAD , DA ViDSTOWN
NO WAR THERE'S NO GOIN’ DOWN LAY SLEEPING, LITTLE
GODDAMN JUSTICE IN THE ORDINARY
-
DREAMING WHAT
. THIS WORLD j !
&UY GOT NO APPROACHES. /*
PROTECTION, LIKE
A TURTLE WITH
NO SHELL HE'S
ALL WASHED
.
L up' A ,
CfBA NOONING
THE NAKED
\
MONEYLENDER
TO THE COLD
SURF, I LED
THE HORSES
FROM THE
BEACH.
Wr
J
I MEAN, AT
LEAST THOSE ^3
\
pl
UnRECOGNIFASLE W,
CQHPSe’S CLOTHING, SUPER 6UYS TRIED 1
I WAS THE CONCEALED TO protect folk.
IMPLEMENT OP 600 'S MAV6E WE SMOUL&A
v RETRIBUTION y^t LISTENED MAYBE THEY
HAD A MESSAGE,
k Y 'KNOW? J ,
r MEAN, T
T
THERE'S GOTTA ... 8UT r'M
PE SOMEBODY IN K[NP OF
LOOKIN' OUT A RUSH .
FOR US,
k RI6HT? ^
j
THIS WAR BUSINESS,
HUH i CRAZY ME, '
JUST A
sazette,
I ALWAYS PIN PLEASE NO
A&AINST THAT OFFENSE,
ATOMIC WEAPONS
STUFF
Cantering
com/ MOONLIT
V A
LANES , J SPIEO \
THE DARK, ft
UNMOVING POEM V
OF A PIRATE
SENTRY, WATCHING Trot tins unhurriedly^
SULLENtV TO AVOID SUSPICION, I
FROM ATOP AN i RODE PAST, IF HE NOTED J
EMBANKMENT '
THE LOVERS' UNUSUALLY 1
I HELD MV i EARLY RETURN FROM. THEIR
BREATH.,. Jk ASSIGNATION, THE SENTINEL
SAID NOTHING, PERHAPS
ASSUMING WE'D ARGUED.
^
mail roc SEYMOUR. BRING I MEAN, CEP UH THIS
VA. that in Hfee HOLOCAUST ABOUT pia&T ONE'S
AWP OPEN |T '
TO BREAK, EVERY- SOME
aaavBe that THIN& HAPPENING JOURNAL
thanks LA7-V TERK AT ONCE, AM T
FEIN BERG SUPPOSED TO
MANAGED TO HANDLE THINS*
A
.
r " DE-AD \
DOG IN
ALLEY THIS
MORNING,
nae TREAD
ON BURST
. STOMACH..
V&&T& fortress
W how ay ie n&abbv, along /THlHk:
1 DON'T > W 50AKIW6
X MAD HIM T(
f MUCH
,
^ THE COASTLINE
FURTHER \ THAT'S WHAT
7 ify
/ WE'VE
SOT MUCH
r ON A
RIVER 8EO ALL veSTgft.
1
OANtEL ...
COMING IN
TOO LOW
TOWARDS
CUFFS... j
/ INTERFERE
don't wish to
WITH
\
RUNNING OF SHIP,
BUT SHOULD PERN APS
Poll up sharply
V BEFORE.., W*
1
I'M TRYING
T'M TRYING TO
Full him uP,
GODDAMN it <
? WAIT
WAIT, I THINK
IT'S L0MIN6.
I THINK
s. WFVE...
—
ALRIGHT _
,4i-Sl6HT,I AT/VS?(V '}'
JESuS CHffIST,.,
lemmB
TRV TO...
WWOO~ fA/A/K
£?0A^.„
r
HOLD <?W
TO SOMETHIN*
I'M LOSING IT .'
DANIEL
r IT&
OAr^y, we
0/0 t i
' we
fLEAPtO
V THE. j
^ DANIEL,
ENGINE 7U6T
,
STOPPED. .
WHAT
.
HOW BAD IS
DAMAGE TO
v SHIP?
Y0\J SPEAK OUT THE well (Whatever GOD, YES _ THEN you
SIKES WHILE t get vou want. USED THESE THEY KNEW f SHOOT our OF THAT
INTO MV SNOW a WHEN WE TOOK WE COULDN'i '
TUNNEL. WITH THE
SUIT. ^4 GIVE ME A
SECOND AWOl'LL
UNDEPSOSS.
REMEMBER
GET ARCHIE
down these
GAS OOUO,ALLTH£
RAIS RUNNIM& AHEAP
r UH...YOU'RE SOKE OPEN THE REAR riding Along AND FIGURED OF YOU
l CAN’T FIT YOU OUT Door so you . SEWER, a they were
in Something a CAN UNLOAD a SAPE...
LITTLE WARMER ? . THOSE.- MAN
THEIR.
PACES.
YES. GOOD
NIGHT. THINK
OF IT OFTEN
/AG I SECAil. ,
controls simple ;
JUST TWO PEDALS zr tch
AND STEEPING ' LOOK AT-
v column TN AT ICE.
SETTER FI*
IT SOON AS
WE GET
l SACK ...
1*0 Winston
Prescient
MoHirtng ond EWopn,*,,
r:r
agister
-
trademark and
:~-
^
T
copyright
th
C ° PyT1,Jht upfln
agister a copyright
a i™e yon
may hove some
—W™
their costumed
ourselves Thin „
tstigating the
S 3eem to
and illeqa1
S ° hay to me,
V™
seem to be
situation reg,
^ink that since
there can be nc
images, leaving
us free to
but I ’nt advised
J
'
1
t
•
^rzrLzsr with these individuals,
ther
- be
zr :rr - • si *
*”«» o, “
rr *“- -—- ‘r*”
.t
ly
r, understand
.
n t
Play any p art in
that the peep
of the iane
ay
aPPrQPtiate to
'
°
,n aritlC1PaLion
°*
^ 3 *oajor role
her up
ywt
as5 3 feline
m
sidekick, mok
our rather tn*rcha
approvral concerning
raising.
in th<? JbSent;e ° f an this eapai
sorno Q f the boyg
* i^diat*e le<? al difficulties, i
T„'°v*‘
Ziggurat of
: ki “
Death" r„i„
- ZZT'l is d\mmy
Cal]ling neict
promotional
to discus
lea
heo Winston
Marketing ai
opment
(10003): HHw 0*1:
Hew Figure f With fdfh£
(OZDOOIl OiymandW
posable action *
nwdcloHhe To^mer no
This tutly
authentic* infl tun
headband, is
o 0*1*hl
wild-famous physique lOZWWZ): tt»
\teidl New Accessoiy' Pains
graphs 01 this lafflous
(OZWffi): ftMWh** 1
cabin are;
Fulty poled tully dctaibed
Hew FtQWti- not m
has a re« cabin’ Batteries
teaied vigilante
* mzoOM)' Moloeh:
{0ZB0D1): Hoiwhaeh
This sr New Figure' With d(
New Accessory' can tt
jacket. now you
grappling flU n is underwi
a length of li prince ot the
along wdh
IQIB0O3) Bubasli*:
A T
'
rfZ'
lfA
cm*#
, .
Adrian Veldt
Pmudent and CEO
Angela Neuberg
Director
Veidt Cosmetics L Toiletries
Dear Angela, , .
.
good, but it avoids the most significant element of the Nostalgia campaign:
and
an
In the soft focus imagery and
romantic atmosphere, the advertisements conjure
that the success of the campaign is directly
me
idyllic picture of times past. It seems to
or more,
that has endured for the past forty years
1 inked to the state of global uncertainty
the future unlikely,
in an era of stress and anxiety,
when the present seems unstable and
and withdraw from reality, taking
recourse either m
the natural response is to retreat
of a half -imagined past.
fantasies of the future or in modified visions
relevant and indeed successful in a
While this marketing strategy is certainly
begin to take into account the fact that one
context of social upheaval. I feel we must
endure indefinitely. Simply put, the current cir
way or another, such conditions cannot
won t
immersed in will either lead to war, or they
^
Adrian Veidt
- -
Adrian V*ldt
ne "
that. lkoi* ikflfaS <lot to bo *
and magnetism
we can offer you
all these
course.
ttnnqs .
btiUn orde
jj*
W SM5TSV1- «*-
just a bodybuilding
yoUI More than who will be fit
men and women
capable young
—
world that awaits
difficult v
in our future
can
MWrtl" M* * "",y ... in In VOU
1
oO^OW i> a
follow it through.
J
I
I _ -
and if you i
understand, of abili
a whole new
realm
as t
notice the results to find in
can expect
summary of what you
brief
«"“Hrr£sr-
«— followed
rsrjrs:£i“
correctly,
gwn
car . tur
biologic* r
cin be Lun&d.
"TOw-—
anyone can he a hero
YOU^DfHiWOHiD ___
organic being.
you am a whole
just as part
also
yourse so are you
complete unto of the
consisting
•'
dSLs
lf*
"“l"
1
behind II.
* V«
V.« I*"-
wnM of a larger
social ori
the * Hite
world.
nd healthy
work, with,
in
When you
mind and
yourself are strong and
* in a healthy
j react
body, you wiU
you
HCM THANO IHC BM1
world around
^ positive
change H
*f*Y
^
l0
the better
the
if you are able, and
sc
porter upon any
ll H
'r-
mg a*
wvi*
Pa
hKo
r.u"
15 k in ® traw
mina no Ihe
your part in It.
either surrender
actions to the
responsibility
physical fitness
Method for-
Veidt
welcome to every one tf
conclusion, latent within
exciting potentials youll
guide to real persevere
step by step that if you
i
within, and 1 know
what you
II be intrigued by
«s
different person bo need heroes just
s book a oii>q
world just ar
i bright new
be
,es one of them could
and
a^hes and encouragement.
Adrien Veidt
l
‘1
; S
MULT -SCREEN
I PERCEPTUALLY, THIS
VIEWING IS SEEMINGLY SIMULTANEOUS INPUT
anticipated &v burroughs' ENGAGES ME LIKE THE
CUT-UP TECHNIQUE- HE KINETIC equivalent Of
SUGGESTED RE- ARRANGING An ABSTRACT DC
WORDS AND IMAGES TO EVADE IMPRESSIONIST
rational analysis, allowing PAIN TINS
subliminal hints of
the future to
~ V LEAR THROUGH,,, PHOSPHOR -DOT
CJ o SWIRLS JUXTAPOSE
MEANINGS COALESCE
AN IMPENDING FROM SEMIOTIC CHAOS
WORLD OF EXOTICA, BEFORE REVERTING -I’.
GLIMPSED ONLY TO INCOHERENCE-
PERIPHERALLY.
TRANSIENT and
EL USIVETHESE
,
MUST BE GRASPED
Quickly.
fimbue
cc*APUTER ANIMATIONS
even breakfast
this JIGSAW*
FRAGMENT model
X %
IN CONJUNCTION
f WITH MASSIVE FORECASTED N ^
CEREALS WITH AM HALLUCIW OF TOMORROW ALIGNS TECHNOLOGICAL acceleration
OSENIC FUTURITY; MUSIC itself Piece By piece, APPROACHING THE MILLENNIUM,
CHANNELS PROCESS (HFOR- SPECIFIC AREAS THIS OBLIQUE AND SHIFTING
MATtOH-gUP*, AVOIDING NECESSARILY OBSCURED CATHODE MOSAIC UNCOVER
LINEAR PRESENTATION, BY INDETERMINACY, j, the Blueprint for an era )
IMPLYING LIMITLESS A v Of NEW SENSATIONS /
1 PERSONAL CHOICE,.. A \ AND POSSIBILITIES. /*
/assumptions
f
HOWEVER. BROAD >
regarding
r THESE reference n THIS POSTULATE!? FUTURE
POINTS ESTABLISHED, AN MAY be PRAWN WE CAN
.
,-^Ae>
f
AN AfTERTHOUSHT
7 WE METHOD HAS AN £ARU£R
OBSERVATION
ENDS.
IT'S ALL RIGHT/
&IRL NO need
FOR RESTLESS -
7WC
IN THESE
CONDITIONS,
OUR VISITORS
fOL
precursor than burroughs NESS. THE INSIGHT
iHT W
’ WON'T VET BE
In THE SHAMANIST/C TRADITION HOUF WASN'T MAJOR, WITHIN TEN
Of- DrVINING RANDOMLY VflOT NEW BUT DESERVED MILES OF
SCATTERED GOAT INS!ARPS... YORK TIME, RECORDING KARIN AJC
THE SUBJECT FDR A , ELEVEN EIGHT BESIDES, WE'RE
, SUBSEQUENT DISCOURSE, , EEN PM LO& IN NO HURRY
> _ PEPWAPS •
[f(S And file. >
REALLY, IT MUST Be SO
SETTING EVEN DISORIENTATING
THIS FAR IS THEIR PURSUIT LEADS
A BREATH- THEM DEEPER INTO
TAKING MORAL AND INTEL'
EFFORT, LECTUAL REGIONS AS
GIVEN THEIR UNCHARTED AND
LIMIT- DEVOID OF landmark
ATIONS AS THE TERRITORIES
CURRENTLY SURROUND -
IfJ/Z TUF.M
LOOKS LIKE THERE'S WO 1
THERE BEEN
I'VE
ISN'T WONDERING
A NY. ABOUT
k tmAT.„ J
IT ~
r pipN'T READ
LIKE SOMEONE
OUT TO OARVE A
headstone for
. humanity..
ANO ANYWAY,
THIS IS ADRIAN, POO HA WELL,
SOD'S SAKE' WE THAT '5 A
KNOW HIM. HE TRICKY
NEVER KILLED .
OWE,.. ,
THIS IS THE
WORLDS
smartest mam
WE'RE TALKING
kABOUT HERE SO J
l HOW CAN you J
^ r«x? yi
E E
qe
r
COME ON,
Oldgerl we
HAVE a few
MAT TE&5 JO
ATTEND T0
BBfOff they
GET HEP?
/ I
r
T SUPPOSE ^
VE seem WAlTfN^
ft3RAM OPPORTUNE
MOMENT, &UT THERE'S
wo point putting
THINGS OFF Any j
K LOM&EK... A
r NOT
COMPANY
FURTHER?
NO 7
r PAIR
EN0U6H YOU
WAIT THEBE
THIS WON'T
TAKE A
MOMENT .
Y HELUO, ^
f MY P BIENDS rVE"
Pinched my
WORK NOW, AND
T’P HONOeep
86
JF THE ThBEE op
YOU WOULD TOiN
ME POE A SMALL
DEINK IN THE
k VIVARIUM,
k BEFORE J
m A
OlNUErR
, : /
PARTYIN' HOLOCAUST
1
YAN<? AM' ITS BI&HX
COMIM',&ODDAMN VANS VANS THEV LL ^ DOWN THE XJnaware that
KNOT HEADS COTTA MUSIC TO ALL COMB avenue i '
DEATH WAS
PARTY X CAN NEAR DROP BOMBS OUT F TOUTIN' TELLVAJHIS AMONSST THEM,
THAT SPD-FORBiD-I- gV IS WHAT DRUNK, COVERED is A bap THEY'D KNOW
CALL-JT^MUSlO C LEAR IT IS... IM TATTOOS intersection ITS DARK i
FROM MADISON i Anp BAR. VOU NEVER EMBRACE \
SQUARE '
v"-. MOW WHAT'S
1C without EVER
SONbiA TURN A UNDERSTANPIN6
UP NEXT A * WHY m
PmPSTOWN SLEP
DESERTED SAVE
^ FOR SILENCE
6 IRL- ^
fbiend ex
WE've SEEN
FISHTIN& j
NESS, T SLUD&EOH&D
HIM, HIS SCREAMS
UNNERVlNSLY SHRILL . -
. EVERYTHIN!? J
'
r M l&WT X NOT
CELEBRATE THE FORTUNES
THAT HAVE MADE THIS
^ ' TWO ALIEN
UNIVERSES, SEflARATED
mm
~ T ...BUT voo are
r/Sht, Of course.
TODAY MARKS AN
EVENT B SPECIALLY
VIVARIUM POSSIBLE 7 A ev A MEMSftAWE OP WORTHY of sucm
K
.
t
MIRACULOUS 6CJS6L6 v FRAGILE 6 lAS$ A ATTENTIONS.
OF TROPIC AWA SET
INTO ENDLESS SUB' /
y. -Z ECO IVAST£S.„ <
r WHAT, IN ^ B7 IN MANY
^
MV LIFE, DOES V WATS IT
/
not deserve REPRESENTS the
CELESRATIWS ,
CULMINATION of
A DREAM MORE
THAN TWO
i THOUSAND
Ik YEARS OLD- ,
W
... ALTHOUGH\ WHAT CAUSED ‘JperhAPS I DECIDED
to un coves TM£ 1
SUCH P8ECOC- HTOSE INTELLIGENT,
seasons for my IOUSNESS ^ MY l| RATHER Than OTHER-
CURRENT ELATiON PARENTS WERE I W'&E * PERHAPS WE
DNir n£ED NOT INTELLECTUALLY ALL make SUCH
DELVE iJUlTE SO UNREMARKABLE
DEEPLY INTO / POSSESS IWG
ANTIQUITY S NO OgVIOUS
&ENETIC
ADVANTAGES
yFORTY
A WERE >
years
W'LL SUFFICE
SACkT TO my
CHILDHOOD ,
"
MY INTELLECT set TME 0WLY MUAMfJ
BY SEVENTEEN, MY PARENTS ME APART PACED being with WM ALEXANDER OF MACEDONIA I
WITH DIFFICULT I T C£LT AMY
,
M
OD YOU
unqe&$tamo^
TT
r WANTED ^
’T WAS DETERMINED TO MEASURE TO MATCH HIS
MY SUCCESS AGAINST /W.S FIRSTLY, ACCOMPLISH -
J GAVE AWAY MV INHERITANCE MENT PRINTING
70 DEMONSTRATE THE POSSIBILITY AN AGE OP
DC ACHIEVING ANYTHING, ILLUMINATION
STARTING FROM nothing TO A BENIGHTED
world J
W TOWANTED
HAVE
f
something
TO 5AY TO
HIM. SHOULD
we meet rw
THE HALL OF
L LE&END&
WITHOUT
Bfle&AWStf 'AT
UNNECESSARILY,
W^TfTUTED THOUGH WHO CAM
THE AwtlEMT 5UCW TMIM&&'
JUCJ&E 3
A gUNCHOF THIRTY J
GUPPIES HEY
WE * FELLA,
1
EYCUSE
ME,..
YCANJOSEPHINE,
WE WALK FOR
A WHILE?! DON'T
UKT£ THISKIND OF
NEIGHBORHOOD.
r T (AA a ifYT ^
CRYING WHO THE
>
...PERHAPS BECAUSE
1
TWO WITH H
SWORD
lateral
THIN KING, YOU
SEE CENTURIES
AHEAD OF HIS
I FOLLOWED *
f MIW THROUGH y WHERE HE'D
y
BABYLON, UP THROUGH r TURNED SACK '
OF- WAR
-X
MARTIAL WISDOM J
AS T WENT ^Jk
VaM'»
TH/R T y-Tf-t&EE AMONGST >T& MV ODYSSEY, I WANDERED INTO HISTORY, 2 HEARD DEAD KINGS
PUrNED ZlSGURATS, 1 SAW AT THE PESERT AND
\
A
ATE A BALL OF
HASHISH
J\ BEEN GWEN
\ IN
I'D
TIBET, v
HUMAN SKULLS .
SHADOWS
'VflKtX« DO
YOU Un DEC
STAND MY
SHAME AT SO
INADEQUATE
A REWARD 7
r - 0 r «
WE GOTTA
J9f Hins? mb Distantly, a lynch- PROTECT Where was my error ? PAUSING, J STOOD PANT (Mb, SOSSlNG,
'
M0S HOWLED 7H£ MONEYLENDER OUR WOMEN THE FREIGHTER WAS 1 LISTENING TO THE WHYPSORYE SOUND A
floated at my net r noble wtbvT- |
AMP KLD5^ HEADING FOR DAVIDS Or M.V PURSUERS, CLOSER NOW AS
even TOWN IT SHOULD HAVE
|
logical
MORALLY
we OUGHT a
strike
^ FIRST u
r
HUH SAY, i
I DipN'T MEAN
. NO HARM,, j
- >
UH£P£A*A$lE J
. — -
“c^ £- TRUTH LQQMBO
unavoidably
{fl
1
WUE SEEMED Gradually, j understood &£FOGEm&*>l I
TO BE WAITING '
WHAT INNOCENT INTENT &WAM TOWARDS THE 1
NOT HOVERING HAD BROUGHT ME TO AND? f
ANCHORED Fm&t&ER, 1
TO STRIKE,., UNDERSTANDING, waded j
WAITING TO TAKE \
OUT BEWND MY DEPTH EXTRA HANPG ABOARD
THAT'S WHAT’S
Therbpbbbm WRONG WITH TH<5 «— - 'They'd comb to l
no Plan to wOrl o wp iNieisrrtve K i< DAVIDSTOWN TO ,
\
CAPTURE DAVOS T se NICE YOU WAIT UNTIL THEY
TOWN. WHAT -TBYTO HELP, COULD COLLECT THE
COULD A MORTAL YOU WIU& OP ONLY PRIZE THEY'D
EVER VALUED,
|
T ^
&EINIC O'
WAR, tut e?v-
&QE>Y 60TTA
t
'
?7lvSHOULDERS
A CHED. THE .
SHIP WAS *
MASSIVE NOW ,
r
THIS MUST
BE HCUA/
y
PLEASE.
LET'S JUST
X
^ ORPINABV
PEOPLEFEEL
SET fA/S/Oe around
AnO WORRY ABOUT k US A
ONE MV£TERV AT A
77/M£ ALL THIS
WHireMESS.Tt*
\ PEEL INS £>DRT
V OF EXPOSED >
' UP«Ffff,WE
have Any
CAmouFLA&E
v/e'ee out op
OUR HA URAL
1
ENVIRONMENT
YEAH t 1 1
hitler was
r TESU^DOf ^ NOTHING ,
SUPPOSE YOU'RE 1
vegetarian if
AT TWI5 PLACE r
MM ^
Y ACTUALLY, PISHT SUT IT-5 BOTHERS YOU,
I THOUGHT Z MAP SOIN6 TO LEAVE VEfOT
5CWE- STUFF in THE W CAN THAT '5 A Y SUBDUE 1
FEEL AWFULLY I TO ME A
t OWL'S NEST.. ASK POINT HOW DO r
WM FIRST, STRANGE- WE '5
VEiPT, WE APPROACH if POSSIBLE SUCH A CAPIM6,
WHEN WE HIM ^ WHAT Dp MAY NOT COwSCrEMTlOU5>
r MEAkJ,what ^
T FIND wE SAY^ j GET SECOND ^i/Y ME'5 A
THE HELL 15 THAT . WlM i CHANCE ASK PACIFIST, A .
DON'T EVEN
K RECOGNIZE ... ,
3 c
r ~
SUGGEST
WE PROCEED
QUIETLY FROM
. HERB A
PAMMIT, VDU KNOW WW/tT r WHAT WE Att
TWig 10 ABOUT ' PYRAMtQ TRfeo TO DO, "AAV neSTOAGE
DELIVERIES ME BEHIND AFTER INITIAL MADE IT 5EW
you THi£ wuCiE MESS, AMP YOU'RE STRUGGLE TO RND POGsrfiLE TO
KNOW BEHIND PYRAMID J OUR FEET T'M END INJUSTICE
TO
TRYINlG £V DEMOLISHES
KCH&ZT ^ k fMRROVB THE ce/ME
ADRIAN .
WORLD ^ SYNDICATES.
WHAT ABE
YOU TPvin& LI WE When
t to po . I STARTED
OUT
"
TMI5 NOTION, THAT C*\M\hlAL&
MONOPOLIZED EVIL was (TSBLP
DEMOLISHED BY MY SECOND CASE "
1
RESEARCHING 1 Aw OPERATIVE RECO&NiZtN& VLE, *^ I STUDIED HIS
MY MASKED SOVEG^MEnT' UNEARTHING
11
HE ATTACKED f UMfTATfONSi
PREDECESSORS SOURCES REVEALED, the OPERATIVE, ANYWAY, SKILLFUL FBfNT,
IINVESTIGATED TRACKING HIM "MiSTAWN& A DEVASTATING
THE MID FIFTIES -
to £>OC*XAjV£ ME FOR A A UPPERCUT: UTTLiv *'-=«
Di PROVED C&WfNAL f* -'*
( EA^iBR
'EDWARD
8 lawE
WON. IN
THE SHORT
TCOAA
i_L I
STILL I ''V
, KNOW WHAT 5 HE WAS
-i "
MAD SLAKE FOUND HOODED OBSERVER * IN PALLAS MINDING
,
gV TONI ••
&y 0 B6 T1NY, RATnee THAN
CHOICE TUB WATCHMEN ON THE
WALLS OF WORLD FREEDOM "
"
WAS WE
rehearsing
IT, PERHAPS,
AS THE
J .. .NEVER SUSPECTING
THAT ON THE WALL*
OF WORLD tyranny,
CCOSS-H AIRS
"WE ALL REALIZED THEM UOW BAD
THINGS WERE I CONTINUED AD-
VENWRN&, Slit it seemed hollow
I DESPtSED MVSELP;
MY SHAM CRUSADE
KNOWING MANKIND'S
problems, T'd
MOTORCADE WATCHED AWW BLINDED MYSELF
REACHED THE TO THEM
plaza ’X POLISH T
ONLY THE
SYMPTOMS:
LEAWN6 THE
DISEASE rTSELF
UNCHECKED
I BEST COMEDIANS
\ ACCOMPLISH
Sk THAT
X ALSO SWORE
3 "COWSOLINS NELSON,! LEFT- THAT When next ... IT WOULD
* OUTSIDE, BLARE ARGUED With i met Blake or OEI?TAINLY
LAURIE AND HER MOTHER AnY OTHER POE, BE ON MV
THOUGH PERHAPS TERMS a
NOT On MV
"i swore TERRITORY..
TO DENY
His KIND
THEM? LAST
SLA Ctc
LAUGH AT
EARTH'S
EXPENSE "
- ' 1
1
yy “ A
2fi
ME YOu'L l ASK FOR A 1 OF COURSE I'M SORRY U YOU PARE DON'T YOU
(v_ _J
1
TRANSFER TO DIFFERENT THAT '5 W NAT WITH A WORLD PULL THOSE IV PAjes SET INVOLVED'
WORK WITH DIFFERENT I WAWT, OF SCZBW-UP5 AnO 7^
II) PEOPLE^
PATIENTS r CAN f gUT, UH„„ MANIC DEPRESSURES Ai/ MALCOLM, THEY'RE U*/" DIDN"
COME HOME -IF THAT'5 j I'M MOT &OJN& TO /£§f ARE YOU HURTING /jW LISTEN to A WORD
WHAT YOU W$4A/r > 5MARB MY Life /W LISTENING EACH ffV I JUST
;
WORLD
UKE
L
>w thins * A SELf OET DRAWN
TOWARDS ANOTHER
/I
J
M RUN VISION* I SAW THE
SORRY FROM HEAPS NAILED TO
w/£,„ please HEAP OF SOME IT& THE IT ITS PROW, MEA&D
PLEASE BODY ELSE'S WORLD DRUNKEN lAU&MTER-
under- GRIEF, T DON'T j
Bncouba&ememts
stand V WAnt to $BB? AALU- gARUTEO FROM TU£
YOU AeS-A/M 1
A* DECKS ASDYB „ ,
•
.
\
rf
JMj
/f
1
— Tfc •
20
BRUTALLY, I'D
SEEN BROUGHTTs
FOR THE FIRST TIME.
I GENUINELY UNDER-
j--
MY FIRST STEP WAS TO
STAND SACK AS FAR AS r
I saw £A STAND WEST
f LOCKED INTO AN ESCALATING
^1
nose TO NOSE STOOD THAT EARTH
T
I COULD, TO VIEW THE ARMS SPIRAL, THEIR MUTUAL TERROR 1
WITH MANKIND'S MIGHT PIE. 1 BEC06- YET WHAT PROBLEM FROM A FRESH AND SUSPICION MOUNTING WITH THE
MORTALITY, NiZEDTUZ FRAGILITY MISSILES MAKING THE POSSIBILITY!
,
r GRADUALLY,
~
I CLOSED UPON
THE HEART Of THE
DILEMMA . a
~ ^
here was a
KNOT TO TRY
EVEN ALEXANDERS
l INGENUITY.
,
-
wy
~ BOTH SIDES
REAMED THE SUICIDAL
^
IMPLICATIONS Of NUCLEAR
CONFLICT. YET COulDn't
5T0P RACING TOWARDS IT
LEST their OPPONENTS
V
Y SHOULD OVERTAKE A
THEM USk
-<< AFRAID of
their WEAPONS, AFRAID
OF LOSING Them AFRAID
,
TO SLINK OR TURN
V THEIR SACKS „ A
MEANWHILE, AS STOCKPILES SIMPLY T HOWEVER, WITHOUT SIMILARLY, T_UML £$5 DNE POSSESSED
GREW, AS GIVEN THE A SOLUTION THE MUSCLE TO SACK
EXPENSIVE ARSENALS
MEANT LESS CASH 7 DEDUCED HUMAN
COMPUTERS MATHEMATICS
Of the
a practical
solution at HAND,
what USE WAS
WOULD SF IT UP, THE BfUJTE FOWf/i
.
r r too*
ANOTHER
STEP SACK,
AMP TW0J6HT
AGAIN.
, ' -
r WAR ASIDE,
ATOMIC DEADLOCK
GUIDED US DOWN-
HILL TOWARDS
ENVIGONME MTAL
RUIN.
PROCEEDS V j
IW
TRAPPINGS TQ GATHER
Dust ~^B
a
r
...AS
IF IT HAD
NEVER
BEEN
22 .
TWAS
HP WORLD J'D TRIE0TOSAVE
BEYOND RECALL WAS
V Anp PROM THE PECKS Agove
a cheer went up, gam gross
LOST T
A HORROR -AMONGST HORRORS and slack, its stench
\ MUST T DWELL. - AFPRONTtNS HEAVEN /d
SNAKED F people
SEE,
SOWN DON'T PEACH
SPLUTTERING <7L/r AND
GRAggED MAKE
l CONTACT
W THAT'S WHY
THERE'S THIS
COMMOTION/
ALL THE TIME/
THIS CONFLICT
PEOPLE DON'T
CONNECT WITH
EACH OTHER
SO... WHAT'S
YOUR NAME
WH A DP A YA
DOW' HERE
T
ST EYE, yen JUST LISTEN, MILO, YOU HELL ANOTHER.
'
FIGHT SOT SUSPENDER LEAVE WORK EARLY POR " THAT'S ^ MWOTE, wE'D
PULL THIS AIN'T youa AW A BEER WITH YOUR JOEY' THAT'S HAVE SEEN
a
OVER PROBLEM SOME SHIT Brother business ONE OF MV v <?ove
OTHER UNIT CAN l ain't &ONNA t psrveps,
l HANDLE it a INI A r TALK
. FlOHT... about lousy
TIMING ( a
POLICE WHPT'S
HAPPENING'* j
,
JON, BEING TOO POWERFUL VES- WEAVER FIRST, m ean while, SINCE TON PROVED THE ONLY HERO
AND UNPREDICTABLE to SLATER and moloch TAKIM& TELEPORTATION retaining public
EACH
STEP WAS
V
’
FIT MY PLANS, NEE DEO
BEMOV/NS THUS
CAT&P unwittingly
EXPOSED TO 1 £DWNTA6E
OP MEW
^SS/£t£,WHY
DEVELOP ELECTRIC
T Sympathy, I
G>L*lf TWO
synchro- DIMENSIONAL DEVELOP- RADIATION, THEY TECHNOlO&V, CARS ? mv YEARS BEFORE
nized MENTS HIRED HIS PAST WERE CLOSELY 7 SESEARCHEO RESEARCHES WERE THE KEENE ACT,
ASSOCIATES OBSERVED igenetics*,* VITAL LIKE My
, < CONCENTRATING
S£ CULTIVATED AS SU3 ASTif* WA£ ISLAND, SECRCTLV ON MV PLAN
WEAPONS AGAINST Aw EAftuv PURCHASED IN
AND 5uCCE»xnANO
GAVE THEM TBLBPOXT-
CANCER 7 ATtOM
•-»
v I
CONFESSION IMPLIES
"unable to unite the world sy SLAVES PENITENCE 1 "I PICTURE HIM, SWIMMING TO
ALEXANDER METHOD MURDER . MERELV REGRET W(S THE ISLAND, DAGGER IN T££T*t.
.I WOULD T&fCK IT; Pffl^HTeN It
++
you ACC DENTAL
I
PENETRATING ITS INSTALLATIONS
towards $ai nation wnH histcry's CONFESS ^ involvement A WHAT HE FOUND MUST HAVE
greatest practical jokb COMP AS A TFRPlHt.F BLOW
RETURNING
y BY FROM
f
NfCARA&UA
A!S,Ub SPOTTED A
SHIP DOCKING AT AN UN-
CHARTED /StAvO SUSPECTING
SANDIN/STA BASES. HE
,
r ,„but I HAD
MOlOCw'S PLACE
&U&&ED,AND I
UNDERSTOOD
. PERFECTLY/ .
AUHA
the plan blare had uncovered
was TUIS to FRIGHTEN GOVERN-
MENTS INTO CO-OP ERATION I ,
HA HA
WOULD CONVINCE THEM THAT MA ADRIAN
'
"
r'M AFRAID The
DISCOVERY RATHER
DROVE THE WIND
FROM HIS SAILS '
"SLAKE UNDERSTOOD,
\ XAHPERFECT
INTRACTABLE
> LV. too HE.
MV PLAN WOULD
KNEW
/ PROBLEM CAM ONLY BE SUCCEED .THOUGH
V
RESOLVED 6Y STEPP!*! 6 ITS SCALE
BEYOND CONVENTIONAL TERRIFIED HIM.
SOLUTIONS ALEXANDER THAT'S WHY HE
UWDERST OOP THAT, TWO TOLD NOBODY"
THOUSAND YEAH5 A SO, IT WAS TOO SIS
L JN SOROtuM J TO DISCUSS.,,
AT THE END, HE
UNDERSTOOD.
DAZZLING TRANS-
FORMATION WAS AT
HAND FOR MANKIND
"
rN EXTINCTION
HITLER SAID PEOPLE
SWALLOW LIES
THIS <S EASILY, PROVIDED
CRAZ.V THEy'CE «ys ENOLI&H
WHO'D I PLANNED to build
RELIEVE MY MONS TER, TELE-
AN ALIEN PORT IT TO A CERTAIN
INVASION
W SV THEN,
f RORSCHACH'S
“I'D hired mv own killer.
THROUGH A THIRD PARTY WHEN I
neutralized
STOlfcN PSYCH-
jw 1
f
fA ASK KILLER
HUNT NEEDED
FED HIM THE CYAN/oa CAPSULE
perhaps we realized this.
,
f
MOT CePLJfeLl c
serial V ft lain d q
^
vo u 5 e^0D5ly tm^mk:
I'd explain tty master-
stroke if tmere
GEM AIMED THE SLIGHTEST
£HANtE Of YOU J
L AFFE^TIN6 ITS A
OUTCOME ?
DID (T
THtRT V*FIVE
MINUTES
i A&O
'
SKac
My name is
Oiymondios,
king of kings:
Look on my works,
ye mighty,
and despair!
—Ozymandias
Percy
Bysshe
Shelley
!
Homo
t
T
he laughter of Adrian Veidt is deep
and rich, filled with a warmth I
hadn't anticipated as the jet hed
irrangcd towered me gently from (fit* blank white
antarctic ski/ towards the dangerously small-
me, his
sapiens fashion. He's walking towards
sm He somimdiere between *hu kie Coogan
and J.FK.. sticking out a hand that grips mine
strongly enough to make me glad it's friendly. lie
glances towards the gymnasium windows, out
look tny black hyphen of the landing strip, set into side which a blizzard seems to be commencing
the endless park in far helou The landscape was
1
i and smites again.
!
hard and void, too hit/ If* get to y rips with, and / Wo/ the sort of snow you 1
re used to in Califor-
M
expected much the same of any man who'tl nia ,
Mr Hath .
choose to live in it A
coke joke! Adrian Veidt Ozy-freakin'-man- ,
fhe plane was met at the landing strip by three ditts himself has just told me a cake joke !
enthusiastically friendly Vietnamese men who Wtmonu-ee! We fall easily into conversation from
led me between obelisks of dark marble with roll- that point on, and after he's dressed he takes me
ing purple highlights towards the fortress domi- fora four tf h is fortress, op ulejit beyond the wild-
nating the nude white reaches beyond. est of Versa illes. Wc end up in a la rge
dreams
Servants? My liberal sensibilities recoiled at sectum of the main hall whxrc one wall appears
tin* concept with ft predictable kneeprk. Later ,
to be entirely cfWeml with 7V screens, all tuned
howrv* K on learning that the men had barn Viet- to different channels. It is here that we hold our
vtrny refugees hi danger of losing their lives in interview, (tad notice his eyes gfbm drifting
l
the purges following Americas victory without across the not of Hashing images os wc speak.
Vcidt s interim flow 1 wasn't so sore. Since Ant- It 's only after I e.xj) vess worries concern in ff beak-
arctica is owned hy rat nation, the men are the- ground noise and tny reeotrling equipment that
oretically s<tfefrom cxtmdition, and their nomi- he thinks to turn the sound of the multiple tele-
nal boss them more as respected
seems to treat visions down They don't seem to affect hfs con
r
friends than as lackeys. Orta inly, they them central ion tii all
seines seem deliriously happy with both their bit Hcfore launching into tny interview spiel 1 ,
and that land ford take u breath and remember why Tin here. Al-
Mr Veidt has made the effort to understand
11
most lost in the cacophony surrounding the old
our culture. He talks to ns of ten concerning our Tricksters Const i tut tonal amendment scam,
religions beliefs, asking many questions." The one of America's best -respected and most consis-
man who tells me this is sincere and heartfelt in tently left leaning superheroes quietly retired
his testimonial, showing an almost fat luniy pro fnnn crimefighting to pursue a career in busi-
tcctive anxiety that this magazine should not ness When this magazine phoned him to ask
m is rep resen t h is rm ployt r. why he kindly offered to fly me up to his ant-
,
to watch while he finishes up, and as I observe me a lot of money when she died, hut gave to I it
that perfect Swiss watch of a body twirling and charily when was seventeen. wanted to prove
J I
circling above me in cosy defiance of gravity, off that could accomplish anything I wanted starting
l
and the headband, Every y t rifriend Tee had in potential Alternatively, you could do as Jon did:
the past four years has wanted to lay this guy, fall into a nuclear reactor and hope for the best,
more than dagger, more than Springsteen or t)n the whole, think I l prefer to stick to my own
f)’tMth or any of those also-rans, and non here I 1
methods. (Laughter)
tim st/u luting up at him and yes, goddamn it, I
, , NOVA: You'll forgive me for saying so, but isn't
have to goddamned admit that he looks like a that philosophy a little Norman Vincent Peale?
goddam ned god! I ran V quite believe hell submit That self realization stuff* How exactly do you
to being interviewed by someone so obviously exploit that potential to the degree that you ob-
mired in the dreys of the gent pool as myself. viously have?
. but here he comes* dropping to th(\ floor,
.
VEIDT: The disciplines of physical exercise,
picking up the pnrfde towel that I realize later is meditation and study aren't terribly esoteric. The
net natty the tun ic of bis costume, ami wiping means lo attain a capability far beyond hat of the t
himself beneath the arms with it in a distinctly so called ordinary person are within reach of
n
*17
*1
everyone, if their desire arid their will are strong much good for he world as a whole. Those evils
t
enough, I have studied science, art. religion and a are just symptoms of an overall sickness of the
hundred different philosophies. Anyone eould do human spirit, and don't believe you can cure a
1
as much. By applying what you learn and ordering disease by suppressing its symptoms. That whole
your thoughts in an intelligent manner it is possi ( ontac-bOfJ approach to our society's problems, I
hie to aeeomplish almost anything. Possible for despair of it, It doesn't work. Maybe as a busi-
the*Vjrdinary person ."There s a notion I’d like to nessman can do more good, on a more mean-
l
suppose basically it boiled down to my inc reasing one of us. Futurology interests me perhaps more
uncertainty about the role of the costumed hero in than any other single subject, and as such devote l
the seventies. What does fighting crime mean, a great deal of time to its study. Even so, tech-
exactly? Does it mean upholding the law when a nology is progressing at an ever-accelerating
woman shoplifts to feed her children, or does ii
pace, and by early next century would hesitate to
I
mean struggling to uncover the ones who, quite predict any limitations upon what we might be
legally, have brought about her poverty? Yes, fve capable of. would say without hesitation that a
1
busted drug rings and been accused of being an new world is within our grasp, Tilled with unimag-
establishment pawn for doing so that hap-. .
inable experiences and possibilities, if only we
pened a lot in the sixties. IVe also uncovered plots want iibadly enough* Not a utopia I don't, . .
by breakaway extremist factions within the Pen believe that any species could continue to grow T
tagon for example the plot to release some un- and keep from stagnation without some adversity
T
VEIDT: Of course. Of course I do. I'd be ignoring doing it's having a political bias. Believe me,,,
ihe facts if I didn’t accept those things as strong you have to meet him to understand. mean, I
possibilities. As i said, it all depends on us, on which do you prefer, red ants or black ants?
whether we, individually, want Armageddon or a NOVA; Uh .? Well, I don't have any particular
. *
, not such an obvious question as it seems. I believe VEIDT; Exactly Well, imagine how Jon feels,
|
there are some people who really do want, if only Rorschach, don't know very well, I believe he's a
1
subconsciously an end to the world. They want to man of great, integrity, but. he seems to see the
be spared the responsibilities of maintaining that world in very black and white, Manichean terms. I
world, to be spared the effort of imagination personally believe that to be an intellectual
needed to realize such a future. And of course, limitation.
there are other people who want very much to NOVA: And the Comedian? I understand there's
live. I see twentieth century society as a sort of no love between you. 1 heard that he beat you
lost
race between enlightenment and extinction. In in combat, back when you were just starting out . ,
one lane you have the four horsemen of the VEIDT: Yes, well, that was a case of mistaken
apocalypse . .
identity and general misunderstanding. For some
NOVA; . . . and in the other? reason ithappens a lot when costumed crime-
VEIDT: The seventh cavalry (Laughter) fighters meet, for the first time. (Laughter)
thinking of Rorschach, the Comedian, Dr. me the world’s best-groomed man, then hey that’s
Manhattan . , .
okay too. (Laughs) No, no, I don't mind being the
VEIDT; Jon? Right-wing? {Laughs) If there’s one smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't
thing in this cosmos that that man isn't capable of this one, Q
THE TIMES
TH£Y ARC
fl ’CHANGING
NOSTALGIA BY VEIDT
A STRONGER LOVING WORLD
' THAT'S UNUSUAL I’D >
EXPECTED US TO SgAPPEAft
ON EARTH MUCH EARLIER
M ID WIGHT, THE STATIC INTERFERENCE.
NOVEMBER I NOTICED EARLIER MAKES
EECONQ everything so unprechctable
OBVIOUSLY, IT WASN'T
. CAUSED by a war- >
\ HEAO DETONATION /j.
WHAT,
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'
ADRIAN, LOOK, HALE
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AWAY WHOA. ,
1
r DON’T 8(JY COULD YORK
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CAT AWAY INVASION YOU'CE
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. STORY. BEING VEIOT,
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OF CAT
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/ WHAT
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REALLY
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^
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HAVE PLANNED IT '
f I JUST X I COULD the psychic was Twe key, THE BRAIN WAS
don’t suv 1
POOR YOUKT& ROBERT DESCHAmS A PSYCHIC
IT ANY OP IT 1 ACQUIRED M« BRAIN AFTER RESONATOR
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VOU WOULDN'T DEATH AND Wf SENETiClrfTS WOULD AMPLIFY
KILL HALF NEW CLONED SOMETHING MU#H ,
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POWERFUL FROM IT/ jl— IT, THE SI&UAL
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TELL YOU ]K MY CREATURE ///
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MAX SH£A~ THOSE KILLED WORLD- EARTH has met INVOLVED ARE
DESCRIPTIONS ODTR ISHT KV WIDE WILL A FORCE so ALL DEAD/
OP AN ALIEN THE SH OCK, HAVE BAD DREADFUL IT RILLED BY
WORLD, jH/RA MANY WILL DREAMS FOR must «e killers WHO
M AN !&U '6 BE DftrvEN years to REPELLEO, HILLED EACH
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