Pangaea

I used to keep a dream journal when I had amazingly surreal or bizarre dreams. Today I am going to write online about a dream where I was playing blackjack in a elephant graveyard.

All of my goodbyes had been said, hands shaken, hugs given. Life possessions distributed to friends and family, with the one exception of my grandfather’s dual set of playing cards. After walking the earth for many days and nights in solitude, I finally came upon the somber elephant graveyard. I walked amidst giant femurs and ribcages, the muted tourniquet of clouds above holding back any bleeding of sunlight into the dank, stale air. The bones of Mufasa and Scar from the Lion King were also there. I didn’t like either of them. I passed by Scar’s bones because he was a sneaky murderous lion, but I stopped and looked down at Mufasa’s bones. He was just your standard noble animal king. Nothing special. I picked up Mufasa’s skull, rotating it around to locate a good grip between the canine and molar teeth, then drop-kicked Mufasa about forty feet into the air, and laughed maniacally as he crashed into an elephant tusk, smashing into a million pieces. HaHa!! Screw you Mufasa!! I desecrated your remains!! Ahahaha!!

Pausing from my revelry, I leaned against a massive skull, drooping backwards into the abysmal eye socket. All the dead in repose made me think about my grandpa’s playing cards. I slunk back further into the eye socket and opened the hard black plastic container. Inside were two decks of cards laying on gold satin, clasped in place by a taut black band of velvet. One deck showed a white rose upon red wood with a silver trim, the other bore a red rose upon apple green wood with a golden trim. Both decks were slightly faded and showed cracks of age, but were in very fine condition, still crisp to the touch yet slick and sharp to maneuver. A dead elephant came by and saw me looking at the cards. He asked if I wanted to play blackjack. I said I didn’t really like playing cards in graveyards, preferring rather a riverboat casino or a foreign online establishment where one can fail miserably without losing face amongst peers. He persisted in his request, adding in haughty quips regarding my scrotum and mother. I responded with my own lengthy string of cusses and then dealt the white rose cards onto the level portion of a nearby spinal column. We began to play blackjack. The first few hands seemed to fall evenly. I suppose the dead elephant was only playing then to observe my movements, as I was doing the same watching him. We had no money because we were both dead. So we gambled by tearing off pieces of our skin as low wagers and various organs as higher wagers.

After a few dozen hands the dead elephant began to play more aggresively, taking hits and doubling down where most players would hold. The pile of flesh and organs grew higher and higher on his side of the spine. Yet he did not laugh or boast as I grew thinner and thinner, slow gambling away all my body until I was just a dead skeleton, having only a bleedy eyeball, a kidney, and five lumps of skin left to bet. I dealt the dead elephant one card down and a six showing. I dealt myself an ace down and a nine showing. The elephant bet a heart, three lungs and a sloppy pile of intestines. I had to go all in to match. He hit one card. The queen of spades. Sixteen showing. I held at twenty. I flipped over my ace surmising victory. But as I reached towards the pile of flesh and organs the dead elephant flipped over a five. Blackjack. He drew in all the winnings with his large greedy arms. The elephant said he would take my skin and organs and try to make a new body that he could inhabit. Waddling away with all of my dripping entrails and some of his, I became enraged at the brazen pachyderm. Jumping atop the giant spinal column, I ripped out one of my sharper looking ribs from my chest. Screaming and hissing I fiercely threw the rib overhand at the dead elephant who had waddled towards the edge of the graveyard. The rib found its mark and lodged itself in the lower neck of the dead elephant. He wavered for a moment, then collapsed amongst the bones and flesh and gruesome organs.

He cried out to me. You idiot! Now we are both stuck here forever. Neither of us can go anywhere or walk about or leave this place!!! He fell silent and lay there in his misery. His words quickly struck true. I found that without my rib, any movement was extremely painful. I fell to the earth amongst the bones, soon to join them in slumber. I looked at the remaining red rose deck of my grandpa’s treasured playing cards. They had slid from the black container during our play and were scattered about in the wind, mobile ornaments to the elephant graveyard. I watched them flutter by, but could not reach out to touch them. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even play blackjack.

After a winter hiatus of acute hermitage, Pangaea is back again to broil fine cuts of steak and tell jokes. New strips starting May 7th. Until then there will be various illustrated examples of zoolatry.

After a long summer hiatus, the Pangaea crew is back in action to wreak havoc, fight jellyfish, insult Foxtrot,destroy horticultural plagues, and gripe about stuff. Stay tuned Monday through Friday for new strips!

Apparently I have gained God status amongst geeks. Check out the interview I did for Pangaea.

Revisiting childhood in comic-zine form has never been so sweet as it reads in the pages of Matt and Jeanie Bryan’s Moses & Bean. As the titular characters take turns starring in each issue, readers are treated to a charming and honest look at growing up in rural Missouri. Bean ventures through summer camp, older siblings, and a menagerie of strange animal friends, while Moses struggles with bullies at grade-school, scary teachers, and the dreams and disappointments of being in a teenage metal band. Like any great ‘slice of life’ comic, Moses & Bean is both sad and hilarious. It creates beautifully rendered vignettes into those odd memories that always resurface when we think back into our adolescence. Jeanie Bryan writes with an alluring candor, and Matt Bryan’s artwork gets more intricate and expressive with each issue.

But beyond great stories and artwork, Moses & Bean has a certain magical quality about it. The stories contain just enough text and details that you have that feeling of floating through a pleasant memory. The whole picture may not be clear, but all of the key elements and emotions are there to sift through and enjoy. My only real gripe with Moses & Bean is that there isn’t enough of it. But I do hope to one day sit down with a thick graphic novel with hundreds of pages of Moses & Bean adventures.

I suppose I can cut Matt and Jeanie a little slack with the multiple side projects they’re working on, leading the Urchin Sketch Collective of St. Louis comic artists, running the online Urchin Sketch blog, and publishing the Mixed Feelings comic anthologies once a year. This creative couple is well on their way to local notoriety and beyond. Check out all their great work at:

http://mosesandbean.blogspot.com/

and

http://urchinsketch.blogspot.com/