Falcon Presto. Alfonso Crept. Frances Ploot. Preston Falco. The four of them crack reporters in a cracked world. These people bring you the stories no one else dares to.
Presto - former Marvel employee, fired for knowing too much. Has a really big nose.
Crept - ex CIA agent and bullshit world record holder. Picks at his feet.
Ploot - sophisticated, buxom, an arse to kill for and an ability that we can only talk about on www.sexmeupbaby.com.
Falco - one of the other three writing under a bad pseudonym.
These are Spoof Central - be afraid or just piss off!
It's been a busy month for the comics industry, but the highlight must have been when DC's ABC line won the best newcomer in the cheese category at this year's World CheeseFest03.
Morgan Pithithier, vice-chair for this year's annual cheeseathon, said, "delicate with the hint of sweat and patchouli oil."
Not to be outdone, Paul Levitz is making a comeback to comics, releasing a six-issue Gruyere miniseries called The Legion of Super-Cheeses.
Over at Marvel the interest has been focused on the new line currently being developed by the company's R&D wing. Crack Comics utilises technology never used before in the comics industry - comics infused with illegal narcotics. The line being produced in Bogotá and expected to ship, illegally, through Tijuana in time for this year's Sweat Fest in San Diego, are all in Hispanic and feature hardcore pornography as well as lickable pages.
Bill Jemas told Industry News, "There's a new generation of comics fans out there waiting for the next hit."
Say it quietly, but Dark Horse are still shit. If it wasn't for the Star Wars franchise this pony would have been led into the slaughterhouse about five years after Jim Carrey became famous. Apparently in an attempt to be seen as more hip and trendy the company repackage European language classics... well I say classics, what I mean is the stuff that the other, specialist, European repackagers, such as NBM, discard. It also publishes a lot of really MOR manga stuff and every so often Keith Giffen turns up and plummets the company to new depths, even if it's just for a coffee and a chat with Randy Stradley.
Image, despite the recent aberration with Keith Giffen, continue to prove that even if you haven't got a collective clue you can still produce comics that people will inexplicably buy. The big news at Image this month is the announcement of plans to work up proposals for a slew of new Spawn spin-offs and to celebrate the 12˝th birthday of the publisher there are plans to do a number of issue 12˝s which will take place between issues 12 and 13 of each of the original Image creators titles. Except for Jim Lee's WildCats, and Marc Silvestri's Cyberforce, or Rob Liefeld's Youngblood. Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino and Todd McFarlane have all said their issues will ship probably sometime between next week and November.
Harris Comics have a new Vampirella #1 coming out in August and October and January 2004. They plan issue #0s for July, September and November, while there's going to be a special Vampirella versus The Incredible Hulk #1 Annual in December. Except Marvel has refused permission for Harris to use the Hulk, so this has been replaced by Vampirella #1. The Vampirella #1 scheduled for January 2004 is now being retitled Vampirella 2004 #1.
It looks as though Fantagraphics is going to be sued by DC Comics for the publishing of Steep Hill's Superman versus The Gambia, which, of course, didn't feature Superman at all, but Aquaman.
Fantagraphics' Eric Reynolds said, "Screw DC."
DC's Paul Levitz said, "Eric has a potty mouth."
The fight continues.
Other industry news: Over in Britain nothing continues to happen. We phoned the self-proclaimed Stan Lee of British Comics, Dez Skinn to ask him what was happening in the UK at the moment.
Dez Skinn: Hello?
Alfonso Crept: Dez?
DS: Do you know what the bloody time is?
AC: Er...
DS: It's 3 O'Clock in the bloody morning! You must be American. Have you people got no idea that there's a time difference?
AC: Er... Actually I'm phoning from Stoke. I had a choice, three days in Brighton interviewing you on the pier or three days at a Holiday Inn in Stoke-on-Trent conducting the interview over the phone.
DS: You chose Stoke over Brighton?
AC: Mr Skinn, what kind of shape is the British comics industry in at the moment?
DS: Bloody awful. Viz only sells 60 copies now. The Beano and Dandy aren't really comics because they haven't got superheroes in them and the comics fans in this country are more interested in reading about comics than actually reading comics. However, my own publication, Comics International, despite never having sold an advert ever, ever, still needs to generate enough money to keep the 2,000 staff I employ, so we've branched out into specialist porn magazines.
We've got three magazines coming out over the next few months, Gay Dwarf Porn Action, Stumpfuckers Gazette and Dribble Queens International. I'm still doing my thing for comics though, each magazine has a comic strip in it and each strip has been specially created by me. Gay Dwarf Porn Action features a new revamped Big Ben for the 21st Century - he's trapped in a world full of gay dwarves he never made! Stumpfuckers Gazette has the adventures of Amputee Lass, the tragic story of a hero who loses her legs and in Dribble Queens International we've got a top secret strip drawn by Glenn Fabry and written by Alan Moore's mate, Tim.
AC: Bye.
Meanwhile in France they are producing tonnes of comics that most of us can't even understand and because they haven't got unfeasibly disproportioned bodies won't sell to even the Dark Horse reader. Belgium also has a massif comics following, but who cares?
Overall: at this moment in time the air is ripe for a big success. All companies agree that something is missing to turn comics back into the force they once were. All agree that what is missing are the readers. An independent survey carried out by Jim Bob's Comic Stall in Backwater, Hicksville, USA claimed there was less than 5 comics fan left. Of course these figures are subject to a swing of between 0% and 4,000,000% and therefore can only be deemed accurate by someone hoping for a cheap laugh.
I'll be back in a few weeks with the 2003 Comics Awards results and how the lives of the winners will change as a result. I'll see you then [winks].
Alfonso Crept has been inducing peyote for over a week and from last Thursday has believed he is the bastard son of Jim Morrison and Colleen Doran (despite the fact that the gorgeous Colleen probably would only have been about 3 and that makes Jim Morrison even more heinous than he is alleged to have been).
Next Week: Something Else
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