The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 13: “Choices”

The Wheel of Time - Book 1 - The Eye of the World

At last, after 47 chapters of meandering, the group of seven actually get somewhere. But before we get to that, let’s talk about the meandering!

Rand gets a first-hand experience on what it feels like to get some of that good, good Aes Sedai rehabilitation! One by one, Moiraine gives everyone a special touch that drains all the achy tiredness out of them. The caveat is that she can’t do that for herself, so she’s tired as a wounded moose after the fact and needs her beauty rest while the likes of Rand, Mat, and Perrin do dumbass somersaults with the gleeman.

It takes another several nights to get to their destination of Baerlon, and actual honest-to-god city. It’s like in Pokémon when you finally get to Celadon City after all those shit towns and long trails through grass and woods and caves. Just like Pokémon. Anyway, Moiraine and Egwene continuing having those two-hour late night chats that make Rand jealous. He attempts to eavesdrop again, careful not to break twigs and give himself away or else he’ll be slaughtered right there on the spot! One day when Egwene removes the braid in her hair, the international symbol for taking Aes Sedai Apprenticeship seriously, Rand gets really mad and insinuates that Aes Sedai are services of the Dark One and other thrown shade. He says this loud enough for everyone to hear, which is funny.

So they finally reach Baerlon, right? The kids are in awe while Thom the Gleeman scoffs at these podunk backwater kids and their ability to be easily impressed by barely-cities like Baerlon. More like Baerly a City! At this point there is some hush-hush secrets that need to be kept: here Moiraine is known as Alys and Lan is known as Andra. They are not Aes Sedai and a Warder, they are a couple of nobodies from Bisbee, Arizona.

The group arrives at the main gate where a guard welcomes his good buddies Alys and Andra and their hick child friends. He recognizes that clown Thom too. The guard fills them in on some goings-on, and it’s a lot to take in for the likes of some nimrod like me reading this danged book. The Children of the Light are in town, and that’s annoying. Also, the false Dragon’s army is moving from Ghealdan to Tear, and that’s a whole big bowl of bad news! Here’s why, per Thom: *juggles*

But really, the legends say that the Stone of Tear can only be fallen if the Dragon is truly reborn. It is never supposed to fall unless the Dragon Reborn wields the Sword That Cannot Be Touched, which is lodged into the Stone itself. Like King Arthur.

The group arrives at the Stag and Lion, an inn that prides itself on the hottest baths (scalding) and the hottest food (scalding). They Can’t Hardly Wait.

I also need to make a note here that Moiraine accidentally leaked that it’s nutso that there are two prospective Aes Sedai from the Two Rivers area! Such a thing has never happened! But when Egwene inquires as to who it is, Moiraine goes “BRRRTT!” and tells her to put it out of her head. It’s not important. And her path is a different one.

So that’s intriguing. Intriguing like a pimple.


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Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1 – “I Fought the Law and Kicked Its Butt!”

* Part 1 of 7 of the REDemption storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1 – “I Fought the Law and Kicked Its Butt!”!

This series already loses 50 points for that awful Issue #1 title. BUT, it’s time for something completely different. Chipping away more at the New 52 Batfamily, I now tackle Red Hood and the Outlaws, a thing I’m completely unfamiliar with except for a passing reference to Red Hood in Batman: The Man Who Laughs. From what I gathered, the Joker used to be Red Hood. I could be totally, utterly wrong about that. I should be ashamed of myself!

Since I don’t have much of an introduction for this one, I shall kindly step aside and let MYSELF take the reins. It’s all yours, Tom.

Thanks, Tom, you little rapscallion.

Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1 [November, 2011]
Written by: Scott Lobdell
“I Fought the Law and Kicked Its Butt!”

Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1

Looking at the cover, I don’t know how I feel about this already. For one thing, NONE of those three are recognizable to me. How am I supposed to enter this thing with any sort of sense of investment? And another thing, why are these three on top of each other’s shoulders while fighting four guys with guns (and one with a crowbar, apparently)? That looks very unwieldy.

“His name is Roy Harper. He’s an idiot. Nice guy, but an idiot.”

Blunt narration, straight to the point! This means I can’t be the only one who jumped into this series with little background. I’m glad they expected this from people and didn’t hit the ground running with something like “RED HOOD, YOU GOTTA ELIMINATE DR. CRABTABULOUS! REMEMBER YOUR CREED! THE FATE OF JUPITER LIES IN YOUR HANDS; AT LEAST ALTERNATE JUPITER. YOU KNOW HOW JEFF CAN BE WHEN IT COMES TO WORKING UNDERCOVER WITH THE NEAPOLITAN INITIATIVE, SO IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO FARNCH YOUR WAY THROUGH DOOPINE CITY FIRST.”

Anyway, Roy Harper’s an idiot. He looks like if Shaun White fucked Eric Stoltz from Mask. His handcuffed ass is being escorted to outside quarters of the prison. He doesn’t see sunlight too often. He has a visitor, believe it or not. I, for one, believe it, because I don’t know this guy and I’m told that, while an idiot, he’s a nice guy.

The visitor is a really fat, sweaty pastor. “You have five minutes to confess your sins,” one of the guards tells Harper. The open room they’re in is surrounded by guards on a high walkway circling the perimeter.

“I am Pastor Beerback of the International Agency of Amnesty – and these conditions are deporable,” he cries. He has little lightning bolts around his surprised head, indicating the universal sign of “finding something deplorable”. “Rest assured, I’ll be filing a complaint with the state department!”

Filing a complaint with what? Pen ink scrawled on an enormous ham? The guards don’t give a shit what this man of God thinks. Shake a leg.

Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1

Is that electricity in your pants, or are you happy to see me?

Pastor Beerback asks for some privacy and the overly macho guard slinks away. Beerback opens his bible, revealing the pages hollowed out and containing a weapon. A retractable weapon I guess, but it doesn’t seem like a very big book to me to be able to contain anything actually helpful.

“Holy God!” exclaims Harper.
“Exactly, son,” responds Beerback, checking behind him to make sure nobody ain’t seein’ nuthin’, “An open mind and an open book will set you free.”
“Is that really my bow?”
“Yes.”
“And you realize this is totally insane, right?”
“Amen!”

Beerback lifts one of his suspenders and it makes a clicking sound. Immediately, the pastorly face breaks away and a man in a red hood appears underneath the charade. Or, if you will, a Red Hood. “His name is Jason Todd,” announces some more narration, this time from Roy Harper. I suppose Jason Todd did Harper’s narration. “A lot of people say he’s crazy. Like, say, the entire staff of Arkham Asylum. Maybe they’re right. I’m hardly in a position to judge anyone. But as he pops out of his disguise – blows the chain off my ball – and gives me my bow and quiver?…”

“…Let’s just say the Red Hood is MY kind of crazy!”

All right! A dangerous criminal and another dangerous criminal! I like where we’re going with this! Perhaps a third dangerous criminal is in the mix as well?? That’ll really blow the chain off my ball!

These two shoot up the place. Guns and bullets and bows and arrows. Funny how this rescue attempt turned into bloodshed. Ha ha oh well.

After busting the (wooden) front door down (by launching a guard through it), they (Red Hood and one Outlaw) escape (the prison).

Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1

Are those keys in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?

“Tell me you broke down and asked your old pal for keys to the Batmobile,” Harper says as they keep sprinting.
“Something like that,” Todd responds, showing him something that’s not at all the Batmobile, but it sure is “something like the Batmobile”. It’s a military humvee of some kind. Let’s burn rubber, baby!

Now they’re driving in a vehicle killing people instead of running on foot and killing people. “So what happened, Red?” Harper asks as they speed across bumpy terrain at 700 mph, “You said that if I took this gig – if I became a Soldier of Fortune – that I was going to be on my own.”

But on his own he ain’t right now! Harper likes this. Maybe they could be a team again!

“The only reason I’m here is ‘cause if anything happens to you – that would make me the worst former sidekick ever,” Todd answers rather sweetly, I suppose.

OK, third dangerous criminal time: Starfire from Planet Tamaran, which is also my favorite motorcycle manufacturer. Starfire is barely wearing any clothes, and I wouldn’t expect any female superhero/supervillain type to wear more than eight square inches of cloth on her body at any given moment.

“Born a princess. Raised a slave. The Citadel were a militant race. She was traded into slavery by her sister – an effort to buy peace from a race of maurading aliens. So she’s not a big fan of soldiers… on any world. It’s a feeling I thought I could use to my advantage today.”

Blah blah blah. Jason Todd sure likes to talk. I don’t like that about him already. I don’t like my human characters to talk. Or see or hear or eat or sleep. Or love or live or fuck or die. Seriously.

Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1

Is that a red hood on your head, or are you happy to see me?

Todd also implies, and by “implies” I mean “directly says unprovoked”, that he and Starfire have kanoodled and slurped each other. And that is No. 8 on my list of things I don’t like my human characters doing! That’s a big one.

“Is there anything else I can do, Jason,” Starfire says, flying alongside the humvee after having blasted the three tanks ahead that were threatening the likes of them with their tankiness. Jason Todd tells her to get the fuck out of here and, like, kill some more miltiary guys and tanks when you get a chance, please. His wish is her command! And off she goes. Harper is sad that he wasn’t introduced, but this idiot wasn’t going to get any from firecrotch anyway! Ha ha! Get it? Firecr– oh never mind.

THREE WEEKS LATER… ON THE ISLAND PARADISE OF ST. MARTINIQUE: “I know I shouldn’t be here. On this planet. I’m not wanted here. Very few aliens are. But what are my options? Besides, those two humans make me laugh. When I can tell them apart.”

That’s Starfire talking. If it’s even possible, she’s even more scantily clad than a few panels ago when she was rather scantily clad. There are two pages dedicated to showing her bikini-ed body from three different angles, and there’s no doubt in my mind that artist Kenneth Rocafort was leaking vital penial fluids while drawing this stuff up. I’m not posting any of it here for free. Buy the book, you weirdos.

By now I’ve noted that Jason Todd gets the black narrative boxes, Roy Harper gets the red ones, and Starfire gets the pink ones. Keep this in mind, it will be very important for me and not for you!

Harper and Todd are hanging out on the beach staring at her like a couple of creepy sex offenders. They are enjoying the sunny beach! Harper has a Bloody Mary! Todd has a boner!

“And here I thought you hung out in an abandoned opera house. In Gotham City,” Harper says, still staring at the lady.
“Pffft, Gotham sucks,” Todd proclaims rather PRESUMPTUOUSLY. Don’t you know that Gotham is BATMAN’S city? Show it some respect! “The psychopaths that live there deserve each other. Even the bad guys.”

Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1

Is that a Dick Grayson on your mind, or are you happy to see me?

Here’s the thing about Tamarans, man. They’re aliens, see. Humans are barely anything. Just lumps of nothing, really. Dumb chunks of meat that, like, talk or something. And you know how much Tom hates it when humans talk! Really ruffles his feathers. Plus, when it comes to Earth, Tamarans don’t care about shit. Ergo, therefore, and verily, she doesn’t give a damn about anything any of us have to talk about at all. Can I freshen your drink?

A woman with white braided hair and a tight black jumpsuit approaches Todd and asks for a moment of his time. Her name is Essence. She is the last person Todd expected to see again. What’s shaken, babes?

“There have been several murders recently. Where organs have been taken from living bodies,” she reports. Well isn’t that a fucking buzzkill, lady. We are on an island paradise right now, and this kind of news isn’t cool at all.

Todd doesn’t want to hear it. “Don’t fall off your broomstick on the way home,” he says, walking away. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! The organs were taken years before the victims died. With no incisions! How does that grab ya?

This means something called the Untitled were involved. Intriguing.

Meanwhile, Roy Harper is boring the shit out of Starfire, but she still asks him if he wants to fuck her. He goes “KAK!”, but then he says ok.

Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1

Yeah yeah yeah. He’s happy to see her. We get it.

Todd doesn’t want anything to do with these “Untitled”. If that is their real name. Something is also said about the “All-Caste” and the Untitled is why the All-Caste were formed centuries ago. Anyway, it has nothing to do with him or her, so let’s move on.

Essence is like, sorry buttface, but it actually does have something to do with us. Check this out: *pulls out fancy portal viewing mirror thingy after casting some runes* I don’t know what she’s showing him. It looks like a dirty bag on the ground. This apparently shocks Todd. Something about a woman. This is supposed to be Essence’s jurisdiction, though, I suppose. She says she was banned from the All-Caste and Todd knows that!

And she begs Todd to “return” for her, even though he vowed never to “return”. Essence looks sad. Todd agrees to “return” for her. That was quick. I barely paid attention to any of that, but REST ASSURED that Roy Harper and Fire Stick are humping somewhere on the beach right now!

“Half a world away… …in the city of Chicago.” Hey, I’m there right now! Can you see me? I’m waving as I leap off the Hancock Tower and plummet to the sidewalk below.

Red Hood and the Outlaws (Vol. 1), Issue #1

Is that a whatever on your whatever, or are you whatever whatever whatever?

A young man is sitting among his twelve computer screens. He downloads a photo of Starfire in a bikini that a young kid took on the beach and sent to his various Instagrams and Twitters and TikToks and Friendsters. “A Tamaranean. On Earth. At last.”

Then he unzips his pants and grabs some off-brand vaseline…

Back in St. Martinique, Harper and Firestone are sleeping soundly in a really crappy-looking bed. Jason Todd sneaks into the cabana, grabs his red hood from a dresser drawer, and slinks back out.

Twelve hours later in the “Well of the All-Caste” somewhere high up in the Himalayan Mountains, where it’s even scarier than the Well in Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Jason Red Todd Hood kneels over a gross, desiccated, unsexy corpse body. He looks like he’s in a temple in Skyrim. Hey, that’s two video game references in a single paragraph! Those are two of the only ten video games I’ve ever played! Am I exaggerating? Who knows!

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, Ducra. I’m sorry you sent me away. I’m sorry I let you.”

He hears shuffling. He looks behind him. Looks like a bunch of those shuffling dungeon dwellers in Skyrim, wielding all sorts of axes and scythes and one guy even has a scepter with a feather attached! Todd aims his gun. “Finally. Someone to shoot.”

“TO BE EXPLAINED…”

Final Thoughts

They had to wrap the last few pages with a few open mysteries or else no one who bought this comic book would bother with anything going forward!

Eh, I’m not impressed at all yet. This is essentially Bro Comics: Featuring Bro, his buddy Bro, and the Ho that the Bros want to bone. And some people may like that! I, for one, only like, uh, maybe 80% of that.

So I’ll keep going!


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The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 12: “Across the Taren”

The Wheel of Time - Book 1 - The Eye of the World

The travelling group of sorcerer types, children, and a clown are finally, finally, going to be crossing the city limits out of Two Rivers and into Hicksville. And that’s saying something.

After having successfully bribed the ferry operator into hauling half a dozen of his men oustide in the foggy dead of night to transport a bunch of nerds across the river, Lan and Moiraine return the favor by summoning a terrifying whirlpool on the riverbank that destroys the ferry completely! Lan gives the ferryman a handsome sum for the damages incurred, which means he can’t bitch too much. The ferryman and his crew leave into the woods, and group continues on their way.

The horses are getting tired, so Lan agrees to set up camp. The kids are terrified that the Draghkar or the Darkfriends or Myrddraal or the Dark One or Trollocs or god knows what else — there are so many damn nothings to keep track of — but Lan is confident that they’ll be safe and also put a sock in it. Moiraine takes this opportunity to pull Egwene aside deep into the woods so they can have a little Girls Night Out. This makes Rand suspicious, but he’s a pantswetter so who cares what he actually thinks.

As one would suspect, Moiraine is teaching Egwene about the Ways of the Wheel, as it were! Saidin and saidar the the True Source and the One Power and why things work the way they do and how you can get the cheat codes for them. Moiraine could sense in this child that she has what it takes to be an Aes Sedai, which will really make Rand empty his bowels into his Year 1350 underpants. Egwene is eager, yet cautious. When Moiraine displays a trinket (an angreal, as it were) and helps Egwene channel some power through it, Egwene jumps for joy and glee! It takes months for women in Tar Valon to do even a fraction of what Egwene accomplished with no training!

“Rand! I’m going to be an Aes Sedai!”

Consider the pants thoroughly pooped.


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Have Yourself a Merry Little Munchausen

As I sit here this morning with a mug full of Very Irish Coffee (a thermos full of Irish whiskey with a teaspoon of Folger’s), looking out the window at the majestic Chicago scenery (a 120-foot back alley full of the entire city’s garbage), and enjoying the peace and serenity (my two children screaming about mittens at 7:30am), I look to my daily dose of completely insane non-political Fox News stories.

What’s in the news in the last week?

November 25, 2022
Minnesota mom allegedly took son’s blood, forced siblings to dispose of it in scheme to fake illness

A Minnesota woman charged with child torture allegedly stole her son’s blood and treated her two other children for medical conditions they don’t have. Jorden Nicole Borders, 32, is charged with three counts each of child torture and stalking in the alleged abuse of her children: an 8-year-old girl, and two boys, ages 9 and 11, Fox Minneapolis reported.

Authorities began investigating Borders after the 9-year-old boy was being monitored by doctors. His hemoglobin numbers kept dropping, with Borders claiming the hospital was removing too much blood. However, her children told authorities they saw her take blood from their brother and put it in a cup and had them flush it down a toilet, a court complaint states. They said she would often do it before doctor visits.

Munchausen by proxy statistics

This Sex Distribution graph shows that Munchausen by proxy perpetrators get WAY more sex than the victims.

Ay Carumba! The article goes on to describe the anguished child’s account of his mother asking him to not tell anybody about this as she continued to drain his body of extremely vital fluids. Now, I’m no child psychologist. I barely even know what my own children are saying when they ask vague, incomprehensible questions like “can I have some food?” or “why is there a pile of hay on my bed?” But wouldn’t it be very difficult for a 9-year-old to pretend everything is ok when his mother is literally removing blood from his body on a daily basis? Perhaps Jorden Nichole Borders expected the children to be way too lethargic to be able to string two coherent words together.

What do they call this? Munchausen syndrome by proxy? Making up fake symptoms or causing real symptoms to make it look like the child is sick in order to garner sympathy from family, friends, colleagues, pastors, teachers, police officers, construction workers, hobos, heroin addicts, and mimes? I suppose some of these horrible people have a really good imaginations, ones that are beyond “my kid has a cough”. It makes me want to look up other Munchausen by proxy cases for… uh… research purposes.

  • Wendi Michelle Scott – “Intravenously fed her daughter magnesium and withdrew blood to make her appear sickly and caused her daughter to suffer from severe diarrhea, blood loss, vomiting, high fever, and a rapid heart rate.”

This lady sounds like a trip, man! I would think there would be much easier ways to fake a child’s illness that doesn’t involve a collection of hypodermic needles and an ample supply of liquid magnesium. For example, one could feed him or her nothing but Saltines, Styrofoam packing peanuts, and a delicious cocktail of Diet Pepsi and Drano. Watch that hair fall right out their head in massive, tufty clumps!

Doctors were at a loss as to why Scott’s daughter was diarrhea-ing all over over the place. It was suspected to be leukemia, but when America’s top doctors were unable to cure any mysterious symptoms through various blood transfusions or digging her bone marrow out with ice cream scoops, they had no choice but to pump her full of radiation over and over again to drive away that nasty invisible killer! Too bad that only increased her risk of cancer. Gotta spend money to make money, I always say.

In the end, Wendi Michelle Scott got hers. 15-year prison sentence, which is actually over in about a year or two. No one decided to inject Scott with magnesium, or even some of the heavier elements on the periodic table, even though she probably deserved just a little bit of it. Just enough for some of that revenge diarrhea.

The Act - Joey King

To be completely honest, this is a pretty good Phil Collins impersonation.

  • Dee Dee Blanchard – “Dee Dee, a Hurricane Katrina survivor, faked multiple chronic illnesses of her daughter, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, both for sympathy and charitable benefits. Her abuse of Gypsy-Rose led to the girl eventually aiding a secret boyfriend in the murder of Dee Dee, after which the abuse was finally discovered. Gypsy-Rose’s experience has been dramatized in movies and TV shows.”

They dramatized this one in the Hulu series The Act, which I have avoided seeing because Joey King has an upsettingly round head! I’m sure this whole story is painstakingly re-enacted down to the finest details, including the parts where “Gypsy hid in the bathroom and covered her ears so that she would not have to hear her mother screaming” and that Gypsy’s boyfriend stabbed Dee Dee “17 times in her back while she was asleep” and that “afterwards the two had sex in Gypsy’s room”. How deep were the stabs? In which sex positions did these two lovebirds perform their lewd, primal copulations? Watch The Act to learn this and much, much more! Or less!

At any rate, Gypsy’s childhood was plagued with poisons, unneeded wheelchairs, home diagnoses of multiple and/or missing chromosomes, frequent visits to the Special Olympics, and superfluous anti-seizure medications. About half of that sounds like the sweet life, but in later interviews with Gypsy she claims she had a bad time through most of her childhood? Sounds to me like we have a real whiner on our hands.

  • Shauna Dee Taylor, “A Floridian woman who medically abused all 10 of her children, with a specific fascination with their internal organs; she poisoned her infant daughter in a 2013 incident and caused the child to suffer liver damage, setting up a sympathy donation fundraiser page online for the child.”

We have a winner! First of all, be wary of women with three names. They will Munchausen by all kinds of proxy with you and their kids. Second of all, Florida! Third of all, ALL 10 of her children! ALL TEN! You would think the older kids from this second-rate Duggar clan would have caught onto the bullshit and tried shielding the younger kids from the same damage, but they were so Munchausened that they didn’t even know which way was up anymore.

Munchausen by proxy statistics

I’ve never heard of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, but I’d bet that it doesn’t contain any rampant child abuse scenes or any magnesium-injection plot points.

Here’s a bonus fourth-of-all for ya: “specific fascination with their internal organs”. I suppose this actually means a specific fascination with irreparably damaging their internal organs with cocktails of insulin and milk, Tylenol iron supplements, and, I shit you not, currency. Pennies and dimes. A family containing ten children was well off enough, apparently, to sacrifice loose change to the literal bowels of younglings!

Here’s the kicker for me. Shauna’s husband Bill suspected that something was amiss, to put it lightly. Even after having three of his children removed from their custody by the state, Bill was heard to say during an interview “On the several visits to the emergency room, I was scratching my head thinking, my gosh. How could all my kids have such severe medical issues?” Not reported was Bill’s affinity for swallowing his own coins, as well as buckets of lead-based paint, causing him to go blind and deaf and becoming a quadriplegic with mental regression to that of a 5-year-old autistic child with 14 extra chromosomes and a belly full of ball bearings.

I hope these three accounts have brought to your attention the dangers of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Perhaps this informative post will allow you to avoid the pitfalls and traps that these three women have stumbled into, and that you can be successful in your own pursuits to poison your innocent, unsuspecting children! I do what I can for the people.


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Paper Girls, Issue #11

* Part 1 of 5 of the Paper Girls Volume 3 storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #11! So good of you to join me again after the most briefest of hiatuses. Unless, of course, you’re stumbling upon this after I burned through the series. In which case, don’t listen to me. Time is a circle! And since the Paper Girls TV series dropped on Amazon Video in late July, I figured I really need to watch that ASAP… and to me, “ASAP” means “as soon as I finish the comic series”. So I gotta get going.

In the previous storyline, three out of four girls are transported to the Year 2016. Mac died of cancer in the early ‘90s. Tiff no longer lives in Stony Stream. Erin not only still lives in Stony Stream at age 40, but she also still works at the newspaper. She is unmarried and riddled with anxiety.

However, Old Erin proves to be a useful ally, and she helps the troupe of preteen paper girls to the next point of their adventure, likely killing herself AND her helicopter pilot younger sister Missy in the process.

After jumping through a time portal hovering above downtown Cleveland, the girls land on a mysterious hill with a mysterious crop-circle type impression of a demon goat holding an apple. KJ is there, and she claims that she hasn’t bumped into any other human being since she arrived at this mysterious point in time.

Let’s crack open Issue #11, which will introduce more questions than are actually answered! Ahhh, I missed this.

Paper Girls, Issue #11 [February, 2017]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Paper Girls, Issue #11

Whoa doggies! A semi-supersized issue! You know what that means: a 5,000 word write-up! Strap in, dorks, I might be in rare form this time. (Unlikely)

Is that tattoo-faced Erin in the bushes? Badass, yo.

The very first panel shows either a clod of dirt or a large poop ball hurling through the air. The disgusting wad of whatever smacks KJ in the back of her head. She is playing field hockey. She is being picked on.

“Whoever threw that is a dead woman,” she snarls.
“I’d like to see you try, kike,” a mean girl says smugly, surround by other mean-looking mean girls. Sorry for writing “kike” on my blog. That’s not nice.

KJ is beyond shocked that she was even called this.

“You heard me, KJ. That’s what the ‘K’ stands for, right?”

Wow! Rude! Hella rude! KJ is gonna tell Coach right away and she’ll beat your ass ruddy, she will! Make no mistake, sister! It’s Chinatown, bitch!

“Coach?” this awful blonde girl sneers, “She’s the first person we heard call you that.”

Well that sucks. KJ starts running toward her enemy in a feral rage, wielding her stick like a baseball bat.

“Karina,” an old woman, KJ’s grandmother, appears out of nowhere floating five feet off of the ground, “save your hate for the real monsters.”
“Those girls are monsters, Bub!”
“They’re cowards little one.”

Listen to Bub, KJ. Bub’s been around the block a few times. And by that I mean, she’s been pushing her “Bubble’s Depo” cart around the block a few times. Google that.

“Give them nothing but your pity,” Bub tells KJ, putting her hand on her shoulder and revealing the Auschwitz tattoo on her arm. 11706.

Wait a minute. Something’s not right… and it’s the number.

“The worst is behind you, Karina. Right behind you.”

Paper Girls, Issue #11

Gah! Goddamnit, Bub! You know I hate it when you do that.

Right behind KJ are the mean girls, and they turned into hella zombies speaking that hella alien language that’s popular with the teenagers these days. All four of them spit red blood-like liquid at KJ, which traps her in a wash of the stuff not seen in such an overwhelming manner since the blood elevator from The Shining! Except with, you know, maybe more blood actually?

KJ wakes up from her dream. No apples in KJ’s dream, just antisemitism and drowning in blood. Wholesome stuff, really. “Can’t sleep either,” Erin asks, sitting against a fallen tree trunk with an open Cleveland Preserver chock full of the newsiest news that money can buy. A bonfire crackles. Tiff is sound asleep. I don’t know where the fuck Mac is.

The girls are camping out in the same clearing in the forest where that time-and-space traveling capsule was located. The one where those Teenage Mutants helped Erin survive her gunshot wound.

After Erin comments that they’re still living whatever nightmare KJ may have had, KJ responds that there are scarier things than being lost in the woods in some unknown timeline.

“At least we’re stranded on dry land,” KJ says, stretching and putting on a jacket. KJ doesn’t swim, she’s afraid of the water. She watched a cousin drown in a pool when she was in first grade.

Heh. Awkward… uhm…

“Hold on,” KJ gapes at her sort-of friend, “are you seriously reading the funnies? At a time like this?”

Yes! Yes she is! That Garfield, he sure likes his lasagna! Hahahaha! Don’t get in his way! LMAO LOL! “I’m trying to figure out what the heck time this even is,” Erin says as KJ notices she’s been reading the newspaper from November 1st, 1988. That’s yesterday. So it’s the day after yesterday. Which is today. Case closed! Not the the day after tomorrow, though. That’s Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum. And it sucked.

Paper Girls, Issue #11

ACK!

But yeah, Erin’s not really trying to figure out what day it is. She’s reading the funnies. And she claims that she likes Crankshaft more than Calvin & Hobbes, which is complete fucking blasphemy and I fucking hate Erin now. What a horrible little whore.

KJ just now notices that Mac is missing, but no worries! She’s just chilling alone by the nearby river catching fish and floating around and swimming upstream to mate. That’s not good, though. She shouldn’t be alone. Well, she should be alone to mate. Well, no she shouldn’t. Also, she’s 12. So stop thinking about that so much, you awful person reading this right now. I’m calling the police.

Does your prison have WiFi? Good! Let’s continue then. Tiff stirs and wakes up. She gave Mac her flashlight, so she should be A-OK. Also, Mac’s tough and she’ll punch any beaver that looks at her funny.

“So what, we promised to never split up again,” KJ shouts incredulously at the half-asleep Tiff, who is opening one eye at her. Annoyed. Mac can take care of herself. She’s punching crocodiles. Relax.

Erin pipes in to tell KJ that she offered to accompany Mac, but she wanted to be alone. Probably to think about all the cancer she’s going to have. Just riddled with so much cancer. Packed to the gills. “I think maybe she had to go number two,” she says, staring back down at her newspaper while KJ and Tiff look at her like they want to throw rocks at her head.

Mac is indeed by the river, staring down forlornly at the single cigarette left in her pack. Cancer stick or no cancer stick? Save it for later? Eat it now? What’s the point, she may as well just kill herself. Just attach a rock to her legs and jump in that river. I told you she was hardcore.

Paper Girls, Issue #11

Gesundheit! Want a cigarette?

Well, getting surprised from behind by a bow-and-arrow wielding… Erin-looking girl wasn’t expected to be in the cards today, that’s for damn sure. But here she is with a necklace made out of computer chips and some tribal tattoos on her face. “H’achti roo!” she hollers. Mac stays frozen in her spot.

“Look, I have no clue what you’re saying, but I just found out my expiration date, and it’s already way sooner than I’d…”

Mac is distracted by a red shooting star. Or, at least it looks like a red shooting star. Wild Erin calls it a “Pentago”. I think I had that for dinner last night.

While Wild Erin is distracted, Mac knocks her bow away and the arrow flies into the trunk of a tree with a big, loud THWOK! I think I had that as a side dish.

Ok, fuck it, we don’t need weapons. Wild Erin lunges at Mac and wraps her hands around her throat. “RRAIIIIE!” Wild Erin screams while Mac is all “blub blub blub hrrrk blub”.

Good timing! The other three girls emerge from the woods to watch Mac getting choked out! “Stop staring… and coldcock this bitch!” Mac yells while KJ stands petrified, unable to perform the requested coldcocking.

It’s because… wait for the reveal… wait for it…

Wait for it…

I’ll go grab a snack. I’m feeling leftover pentago with a side of thwok.

OK, I’m ready now. Whew, I feel better! It’s because Wild Erin has a baby strapped to her back.

“Jahpo! Nee… nee mahdi Jahpo!” she yells, possibly angry because she thinks someone’s gonna steal her baby? Not today! This ain’t Raising Arizona with Nicolas Cage! Well… wait… maybe it is?… no, no it’s not.

The three girls tell Wild Erin to cool her jets. Mac, now relieved of her choking out situation, starts getting back up. I’m starting to realize that this woman may not be a Wild version of Erin after all. BUT, I’m going to continue calling her as such until I’m proven otherwise! It’s only fair.

Paper Girls, Issue #11

Whoa whoa, hey, whoa. Not in front of the children, now.

The four of them stupidly assumed that this baby was Wild Erin’s brother, but they were boobily mistaken. Probably ‘cause she’s, like, twelve years old. Just like them. And, as far as they all know, they’re not mothers themselves. It seems strange! Odd, you might say. “We don’t even know when this is,” Tiff says, “Maybe children had children a million years ago.”

“Or, maybe this is what happens in a million years,” Erin argues, always the buzzkill. Mac wants to talk about the red shooting star, but the sudden KRAKs in the woods are a matter to attend to immediately.

“Muire!” Wild Erin exclaims. “Muire feeh!”

A massive yeti-type thing emerges going “GAHHRRE!” and it’s very scary looking. These girls should probably run away. They should run away from the muire feeh right now.

It knocks Mac in the river. While the three girls scramble to find something to save her, Wild Erin tugs at her arrow in the tree. KJ sadly hands Tiff her field hockey stick, but it’s not for what you think it is. KJ jumps in the river! How’s that for a good friend? I wouldn’t jump in the river for nobody, that’s for sure. Damn skippy.

Somewhere else in the woods, a large capsule descends from the sky and scopes out the environment. Radiation is minimal. Atmosphere is breathable. Climate is comfortable. Time to get out!

The door of the capsule cracks open with a big hissing sound. A lady who looks like P!nk emerges from within. Or maybe La Roux. She’s cyberpunky, darn tootin’.

Paper Girls, Issue #11

Stay tuned for Art Bell at 11:30, with special guest Alf!

She hops out with hover boots and scopes the land out. She records her notes for posterity, perhaps to become famous someday to be the “woman who invented time travel”. Dr. Qanta Braunstein. She arrived safely and successfully at her target date…

11,706 BCE

Exciting!

Final Thoughts

11,706 BCE, huh? Let’s look that up…

Domestication of the goat! Domestication of the sheep! Oh man, this is going to be epic!


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