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!
Welcome to Stoop Necfart, The team’s latest addition to the… er… team.
SPANNER’S GLADE, Colorado [Reuters]. When the two police officers arrived at the trailer park home of eccentric comics fan Cecil B. DiMaggio [32], they weren’t expecting to find much. “It was just routine, we were following up on an anonymous tip-off,” recalls 47 year-old father of four, Sheriff Seamus Aloysius Poncherello. “Of course, we get these kind of callouts all the time, and most the time it’s just a waste of time. I‘ve been a cop for 25 years, and I still don’t know what it is about these comics fans that gets people so suspicious.”
“I think it’s those storage bags,” chimes Deputy Mary Muldoon, a petite yet asymmetrical 47 year-old father of four. “Those bags look kind of suspect. And why do they go to the same shop at the same time every week? If I was a law-abiding American, I guess I’d be suspicious too.” Both officers laugh at that last remark.
Of course, statistics prove that the vast majority of comic-book fans are not criminals and law enforcement agencies admit that most – if not all – of the raids carried out on their homes turn out to be fruitless. Despite this, veteran cops like Poncherello and Muldoon know that all reports of suspicious activity must be vigorously investigated, particularly when the suspects belongs to a minority social group whose every action is disproportionately misconceived as suspicious. “I heard about this guy they arrested up in the mountains,” says Poncherello. “He’d been stockpiling military hardware without a permit. The guy had tanks, surface-to-air missiles, the whole kit and caboodle. Said he kept it in case Galactus tried to devour our world.
“I hate to have to say it,” admits Muldoon, “but most of these comics fans are clean as a bell. Well, at least in the eyes of the law.”
That night in Spanner’s Glade, though, would prove to be an exception.
When the officers arrived at DiMaggio’s home he was happy to let them in. “Got to admit,” says Muldoon, “I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The place was a mess: there was a rack of comic storage boxes that covered a wall and I kept stepping on action figures engaged in lewd acts. Like I said, nothing out of the ordinary.”
It was Poncherello, though, who noticed a bundle of paychecks [‘cheques’] and bills [‘notes’] that had been hastily concealed behind a poster of Buffy star Alyson Hannigan [‘Alison’]. The payments had originated from the Cayman Island bank accounts of various top comic publishers, and none of them were made out to DiMaggio. “So I ask him,” says Poncherello, “‘Care to tell me who John Byrne is, buddy? And Frank Miller? And Mike McMahon? Do these guys know you have their money?’” With that, DiMaggio panicked, bolted out of his trailer and collided with a tree. He then fell down a ravine and was attacked by a bear.
After handcuffing the injured suspect and reading him his rights, the two officers continued their search of DiMaggio’s trailer. Before long they discovered that the wall of comic boxes formed a concealed doorway. Behind the doorway, a large hole had been dug into the floor of the trailer. “It was really weird,” says Poncherello. “I knew right then that we were dealing with a real sicko nutjob bastard. Don’t tell the guys at the precinct this, but I felt like that Judy Foster chick in ‘Silence of the Lambs’. I even talked like her for a while.”
The hole went deep into the ground, and the only way they could get down it was via a firefighter’s pole: “The DA said that DiMaggio got the idea from Batman,” says Muldoon, “but I don’t know nothing about that. I’m a cop: I don’t read comics.” Without waiting for backup, the two brave officers descended the pole. At the bottom, they found a vast dungeon. A forensic investigation later revealed that DiMaggio had dug it all out by hand: “I’ve got to admit,” says Poncherello, “the guy had really big hands.”
Within the dungeon they found three very frightened men. They were bearded, dressed in rags and chained to the floor. Nearby were three drawing boards.
John Byrne [52], Frank Miller [46] and Mike “Mick” McMahon [36-24-36] were three of the biggest names in the comics industry. During the 1980s, they became synonymous with some of medium’s most popular characters, including Superman, Batman, The X-Men and Jugger Grimrod from the Alien Legion. According to court psychologist Dr Bobbi Carolgees: “[DiMaggio] had a very unhappy childhood… [and] turned to superheroes as a means of escape. The writers and artists of these adventures became like a surrogate family to him. In fact, it was not uncommon for him to embarrass himself in front of panelists at comic conventions by accidentally calling them ‘Daddy.’”
During the next decade, however, these creators tired of the conceptual restraints and work-for-hire ethic of the superhero comics industry and embarked on more personal projects. To an obsessive superhero fan like DiMaggio, this was nothing less than a betrayal. “DiMaggio descended into a severe rejection psychosis,” claims Dr Carolgees. “He fervently believed that these creators had stabbed him in the back.. [that] they had pissed on his emotional cornflakes. Of course, this reaction was inevitable. His parents had deserted him as a child to embark on more personal projects.”
DiMaggio had decided that if his fanboy family of favourite artists didn’t want to play with the toys in the sandbox anymore, then it was his duty – as a loving son and a comics fan - to chain them to the floor of an underground dungeon and make them see the error of their ways.
Byrne was his first victim. It was 1993, and the artist had just completed work on Next Men [a radical reworking of The X-Men], Danger Unlimited [a radical reworking of The Fantastic Four] and Babe [a radical reworking of mediocrity]. Byrne met DiMaggio – who claimed to be a hotshot Filipino comics publisher - during a fishing trip to Colorado, and was lured into his trailer with big talk about tax incentives and ‘creator’s rights’. Shortly after his release, Byrne said: “You know, people say to me: ‘John, how could you have been so naïve?’ But let me tell you this: the people who say this – invariably and without exception – did not work in the comics industry during the early-1990s. Back then, this sort of thing used to happen to illustrious, Eagle Award winning comic professionals all the time. I’m just unlucky that it resulted in a 10-year kidnapping ordeal.”
In 1997, British artist McMahon became DiMaggio’s next victim: “Well, to tell you the truth, like a lot of people at the time, I was getting rather disillusioned with the state of the comics industry and was quite keen on diversifying into other fields and suchlike. Then, one day, this General DiMaggio bloke wrote to me saying that he’d like me to work for the Pentagon. Apparently, the US Military wanted to launch a new range of affordable leisure footwear inspired by my drawings of Judge Dredd. The letter came with strict instructions for me to keep schtum on the matter on account of the confidential nature of the Pentagon. He also enclosed a one-way plane ticket to America. I thought to myself:
Miller met DeMaggio in 1999, during a Hard Boiled audio-book signing tour: “The lying weasel told me he was Mayor of Denver. Said the City Fathers wanted me to design a giant mosaic for its train station. Wanted something on the theme of anti-censorship. Spent weeks working on the design: a massive triptych with Marv from Sin City in the centerpiece, Gaffa tape all over his mouth. He was going to be flanked by two well-upholstered, Uzi-totting prostitutes symbolizing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I even started buying the tiles, for Chrissakes. Went ‘round to DiMaggio’s trailer to discuss things, next thing you know I’m chained to the floor of a dungeon with John Byrne and some Limey who draws big feet.”
Even by comic industry standards, DiMaggio subjected his artists to a cruel and brutal regime. During their captivity they were fed only once a day on a strict diet of Hostess Twinkie Bars and Sodastream Cola. “Frankly,” says McMahon, “the culinary offerings left a lot to be desired.”
He regularly checked up on his prisoners to make sure they were producing their daily quota of superhero artwork. Any generic lapses were met with severe punishment. “I was working on a Spider-Man strip in the dungeon one day,” recalls Byrne, “and I thought to myself: Hey – wouldn’t it be fun to do a ‘Day In The Life of Aunt May’ yarn? I know what you’re thinking – and you’re right! It’s one of those crazy ideas that only an illustrious, Eagle Award winning comic professional could come up with! No supervillains, no fight scenes, no cliffhanger ending – just an everyday tale that any American senior could relate to! Naturally, when DiMaggio inspected the artwork he wanted to know where Spider-Man was. He wanted to know who the supervillain was. ‘That’s just it, old buddy!’ I said, ‘There’s no Spider-Man! There’s no supervillain! It’s Aunt May all the way!’ Well, the guy went into an apoplectic rage! He smacked me across the eyes and beard with a rolled-up copy of Previews and withheld my rations for a week! After he left, Miller threatened to kick me in the spleen for calling DiMaggio ‘Old buddy’. Believe me, friend: that was a bad day in the dungeon. You can rest assured it was the last time I tried to do anything exciting or innovative in comics.”
To make matters worse, DiMaggio made it almost physically impossible for the artists to draw. “I mean, frankly, it was bad enough being half-starved and chained to the floor of a dungeon,” recalls McMahon, “but this DiMaggio chap kept our drawing boards out of arms reach. He was concerned that we might use them in an escape attempt. I must admit, Frank, John and myself did discuss the possibility of making a break for it on numerous occasions, but, needless to say, none of these plans ever got off the drawing board. I can tell you something else: it’s not particularly easy to draw on a surface that’s out of arms reach. We were forced into using six-foot long felt-tip pens just in order to reach the paper. It goes without saying that under these circumstances, the quality of our artwork suffered somewhat.”
Miller is the first to admit this. Holding up a copy of his controversial comic-book series DK2, he snarls: “Look at this shit! Look what that sick psycho dwarf bastard made me do! I don’t know about you, but when I look at this, you know what I think? I’ll tell you what I think: I think that this looks like it was drawn by a f*****g guy chained to the bottom of a f*****g dungeon using a f*****g six-foot long felt-tip pen, that’s what I think. Just a pity no one else thought of that. I might have got busted out a lot sooner.”
But, of course, no one did. Whilst Miller, Byrne and McMahon continued to create pages of increasingly grotesque ‘drawings’ that were obviously produced under torture, the comics industry failed to investigate the matter further. As DiMaggio invented fake quotes and phony press releases from the artists claiming – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary - that they were now producing the best work of their careers, no one in the comics press was brave enough to cry “Bullshit!” In fact, the only people who seemed to notice that something was amiss was the vociferous minority of comics fans who frequent Internet bulletin boards, but no one took them seriously on account of their lousy punctuation.
Now that DiMaggio is safely behind bars, the three artists have tried get back to their normal lives. “I must admit that I found it rather difficult to adjust to life on the outside,” admits McMahon. ““For one thing, it took me quite a while to get used to drawing with a normal-sized pen.”
Has the experience changed these artists in any way? “Too damn right it’s changed me,” hisses Miller. “Before this happened I told gritty, violent, hard-boiled yarns. Now I’m doing the life of Jesus. Just do the math.”
“You know,” says Byrne, “when someone becomes a hot comic creator - a ‘Superstar’, so to speak – the first thing they do is stop going to comic conventions. Hey, we’ve all done it! You stop talking to people, you cut yourself off from the outside world. This all adds to your mystique, this helps cultivate your celebrity. Since my ordeal, though, I want to spend more time with friends, family and even ordinary people. After all, I was kidnapped by a psychotic control freak and held captive for ten years, but nobody noticed I was missing. They all thought I was being pissy.”
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