#due dillgence

[becomingtoday]

Preparing With Diligence

To be purposefully tenacious is acting intentionally. With reason and uncommon determination in a consistent, dedicated manner.  Not being swayed, continuing forward in spite of any obstacles or perceived challenges to our "Becoming Today".

This week we’ve begun exploring new forks along our shared path. Together we will encompass many things arriving at possible solutions: Remain open to new possibilities. Remember failure is always an option.  Be persistent. Don’t give up on your ideas and openly share them. Seek and actively accept feedback and help. Be flexible and willing to change your ideas. Become patiently…

[banrions]

annnnnd i have finally gotten covid. merry fucking christmas to meeeee

[popculturebuffet]

Monthly Muppets: The Deranged Glory of Willkins and Wontkins (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Welcome back all you happy muppets and a bit of a schedule change as Follow that Bird's been bumped to march, though as a compensation next week you'll be getting TWO bits of monthyl muppet madness. For those just joining us welcome to monthly muppets where I look at muppety madness monthly and thankfully today's replacement is something i've been wanting to talk about since Emma brought it to my attention in the first place. It's also what was pre internet a pretty obscure part of Jim Henson's history: back in college, Jim was still finding his love of puppetry and one way to hone his craft and get some dough, something I can relate to given this is a comission and all, was to do adds. Wilkins Coffee, a now defunct coffee company, asked for some.. and the results were deranged magic that were so succesful it lead to tie in "hand muppets", over 50 skits and work that despite being decades old and only 10 seconds long held up so well it became popular again. So what are the wilkins coffee ads? Well like a lot of muppet concepts their simple but a lot to unpack: Wlikins, a cheery muppet usually offers wontkins, his gloomy red (though you can't see it in the ads as their black and white) victim a cup of Wilkins Coffee or brings it up. When Wontkins says he dosen't like it... and wilkins gets.. violent. Here's one of the more notable examples

Yeah and if you think him wiping blood off his blade after presumingly running a man through for not liking wilkins is just a one off, I did my due dillgence and recorded EVERYTHING that happens to poor wontkins over the course of 15 minutes worth of wilkins coffee ads.. over the course of the ones I watched, almost the complete filmography the following was inflicted on this poor muppet:

Wontkins got Blasted with A Canon, shot by some dude offscreen,hit by a club ran over by a bandwagon, blinked out of existiance, dynamited with TNT, threatned with a guiltoine, attacked by an evil dead tree, caked in the face and had hot coffee poured over him, beaned with a hammer, tarred and feathered, shot by an illicit coffee peddling wilkins, pelted with eggs, kicked out of a tree, stabbed to death with a fencing saber with Wilkins having to wipe the blood off, Wilkins making the washington monument fall on him with Telekinesis, hit up for 65 dollars, blown up along with his house!, attacked by a vengeful mr wlikins godlike powers, got his television blown up by wilkins who can apparently appear inside tvs, GIVEN THE ELECTRIC CHAIR, sawed to death with a giant supervillian Buzzsaw, clubbed three times till he spread the word of wilkins, stepped on by mr. wilkins, eaten by a giant fish that was subbing for a whale, shoved off a giant brick wall to his death, told he won't be paid till they sell more wlikins, hammered in some sort of torture machine, given some… weird box, nearly got knives thrown at him blind, nearly ran over by wild horses, married Wilkins, shot in the dick by a cowboy wilkins, drowned in a swimming pool of wilkins coffee, given tiny birds, had the price jacked up, boiled to death in a coffee of wilkins to be eaten by racist sterotypes, conked by a steel can of wilkins, scared by ghosts, given a malfunctioning parachute for a sight gag, thrown out of a hot air ballon, exploded or possibly shot again by wlikins pretending to be a fortune teller, stabbed, forced to be a reindeer, shoved out of a plane, shot with an arrow, shot out of a cannon, clubbed with a giant ball, had a bottle of ginger ale broken over his hair, had the pool of water for a hive dive moved dying by concussion, given a strike in baseball that shockingly wasn't a literal strike, lifted into the air and dropped by a vengeful god, shoved into the sea to uncertain doom, stamped with a checkmark for later extermination, shot AGAIN this time for democracy, clanged inside a bell, tortured with another hammer machine, had it implied his throat was slit, LITERALLY BRANDED WITH AN X, dropped down a sewer, eaten raw coffee, scared by a headless wilkins, RAN OVER BY A STEAMROLLER, left to rot in a tower. dropped off a mountain to his demise, sprayed by a water canon and implied he needs to be brainwashed, lifted up to his death by the hand of fate, had Wilkins cause an auto accident using his car to prove a point, got shot in the face with a camera, punched by a boxing glove, and dropped out of a plane via barrel roll

Just to tabulate all that I looked over those and followed James A Janeses kill count rules, counting how many times Wilkins defintely died from whatever wonkins did, even if we didn't see it, along with my own touch of every time he got assaulted.

So Wilkins got killed a total of TWENTY FIVE TIMES, and with a combind runtime of 14:58, that lead to a kill on average every 1.79 minutes. and he was assaulted about 20 which dosen't get a runtime for this bit. So you'd think this was a bit too cruel to work... and you'd be wrong. Yeah while obviously it's horrifying as it is hilarious that Wontkins suffered this much abuse it's done quickly and is so over the top, so disprortinate, so cruel.. ti's comedy GOLD. It's a delight to see just what horrible shit Wilkins does yet and honestly the ones where he tortures wontkins are always funnier than the ones with just some sort of sight gag for the most part. Jim Henson was a master of physical comedy and these shorts are some of his best. It's also worth remembering a LOT of muppets humor is built on slapstick cruetly and the trick is it dosen't pile on too much or has the targets be nondiscript enoguh for it to work. I do feel deeply sad for wontkins, but we don't see his pain linger enough for it to last and he's fine next short ready to get pummled, stabbed, shoved to his death or put in some torture device. and the sheer lengths Wilkins goes to are just sadistic. Would I want to hang out with Wlikins? Fuck no, wilkins coffee no longer exists and while he shilled for other brands I can't guarantee he's not rightly locked up in some deep muppet vault for muppet kind's own saftey and won't ask me for wilkins just to murder me and then ironically weekend at burnies my corpse as his own muppet.

But these adds are simple sharp and funny. Henson clearly plays both using a proto-kermit voice (though Kermit already existed by then, if not in his final form) for wilkins and something similar to Rowlf's eventual voice for wontkins. The results are just great. They do offer some logistics such as did Wlikins build a wagon, elaborate torture amchines and several buisnessses just to torment wontkins? The answer.. is probably yes and just adds to it. The fact he goes to lengths and commits enough crimes to get him put away for several life sentences just over coffee is the charm. I may not have nearly as much to say as I thought.. but I encourage you to seek these ads out and watch them.. and watch out for wilkins. If you see him lurking outside your house hide, call the police and for the love of god just offer him what cofffe you have and lie it's wilkins if you value your own life. Thanks for reading. Next month, we're doing some more early henson as it's the muppet show YAYYYY.. specifically the PILOTS: the muppet valentine's show and the muppets: sex and violence. See you later this week.

[popculturebuffet]

Monthly Muppets: The Muppets Haunted Mansion (Comissioned by Emma Fici)

Happy Halloween all you happy muppets! Welcome and welcome back to Monthly Muppets, my regular look at all things muppety. Today we have something perfect for the spooky season as we take a look at last year's D+ Halloween Special and at the time of this writing the latest full on muppet project, with Mayhem coming oh so soon, The Muppets Haunted Mansion!

Just to get this out of the way upfront I DID do my due dillgence on the haunted mansion, watching a two part video from offhand disney on it that nicely covered the ride's structure and varoius ghosts so I knew who was who, and I got more info from my good friend Jess, who watched this with me this year and the last. I didn't end up needing most of it, but I felt it was prudent. That said i'm as you can tell not a hardcore fan having not gone on the ride hwen I was in Florida (having been really scared of spooky things at the time and overestimating how terrifying this). At most I suffered through the Eddie Murphy movie when it came out. Will i review that for halloween next year?

i'm not touching it unless someone comissions it. Do plan to review Werewolf By Night, next year though time permitting. So look forward to that.

That said what I have seen of the ride is delightful and i'm bummed I missed out on it: it's creative, wonderful and has evolved considerably. Also gonna look into the vastly diffrent paris version. So while I'm not exactly a haunted mansion superfan I do love and respect the ride and thanks to defunctland disney parks and ride design as a whole. And as far as ride accuracy goes they did a smashing job.

It takes bits from both the florida and calfornia versions, and the results re gret and while a few things are missing, it's likely because this special was cut down rather than a lack of love. It's clear the writers loved this ride and wanted to do it justice and the results made me more curious about the ride after both watches as a result. It's a clearly loving tribute.

As a special itself it's decent and with a simple setup and plot: Gonzo is invited to a mansion to try and last the whole night there and being Gonzo naturally responds to a creepy invite to a mysterious mansion where a famous magician famously vanished in the less fun way with a resounding

While Pepe tags along because Gonzo needs a sidekick and they coudln't get Rizzo apparently. After getting warnings from both Shirley and Harry Frickin Potter, their greeted by the Ghost Host, the usually disembodied voice of the mansion but since a in person celebrity gets residual non muppets fans to watch, we have Bojack Horseman himself to greet our heroes and issue a challenge: survivie the house, exit by sunrise or stay forever. It's a simple spooky premise and allows the rest of the muppets to show up as the various ghoulies and ghosties. Except Alice Cooper. Satan must've had him working overtime.

The simple concept works decently enough , just a simple setup to get two muppets into the mansion so the rest can play the various rolls with Fonzie as the Hatbox Ghost. Which confuses me. Not Fonzie as HBG, he looks really awesome and creepy despite having a very small roll and the HBG has an interesting history having been always intended for the ride but due to faulty animatronics not being used initially and only being reinstated with a new animatronic in 2015. No I wondered what a hat box is.. it's a box for storing and transporting hats.. Why this was ever necessary I don't know.

The muppets for the various Haunted Mansion varatious are incredible. While the Muppet Crew always put great work into temporary models for our classic troupe, they really outdid themselves this time and the results are visually impressive and fun to watch and there are a few good gags here or there. THe limo Drivers snark, two ghosts who accompany the ghost host constanlty getting the cute to go dun dun dun wrong, and of course the ballroom scene having a brief touch of one of my faviorite recurring muppet show bits, at the dance. THe problem is while this isn't a TERRIBLE special it does feel rather.. flat a lot of the time. Part of it is likely the shaved run time but a lot of it feels like they just don't knwo what to do beyond "put x muppet into the roll of x ghost". It works a lot, and it's still visually great but there's not a ton of the heart or madness that makes the muppets the muppets. The heart that is there isn't bad, as Gonzo faces his greatest fear and it genuinely gets horrifying as he rapidly ages him, with Gonzo worrying about being forgotton.. only for Kermit,as naturally bein ga ghostly trap it's showing him the party to rub it in, saying Gonzo dosen't need to be worry about being great. He's great as is. It's genuinely sweet if not set up well enough. Also it has to be said Matt Vogel HAD NOT gotten Kermit down yet. This has been talked about a lot, especailly before WHY Steve Whitmire was let go went public, but I can't really dance around it: Whlie Matt seems to have settled into the roll he clearly wasn't given any traning, Steve's fault, and thus sounds VERY awkward. Like he ALMOST has the voice but just not quite. I really do feel for the guy as he had ot take the roll suddenly, while Steve was trained personally by jim for it and while I don't want disney to corpratize the muppets more than I have, I do hope this conviences them to prepare succesors better much like they have for the various performers for mickey and friends. And tbf on that front Tony Anselmo, THE BEST Donald Duck, took a while to get comfortable too. I have faith matt will.

The problem is it's just a lot of style without subtance. Good production but not a lot of great gags to back it up. NOt terrible.. but nothing really amazing like some of the productions we've covered here. It's not TERRIBLE, but outside of a few shining moments it's not memorable. I forgot a lot of this till the rewatch. It's not BAD nor was it unplesant to watch, but i'll likely forget it again and didn't have a ton to say on the quality: it's .. fine.

The only other major problem with Pepe whose VERY clearly here because no one else would date the walking flag of a black widow tha tis Constance Hatchaway, played incredibly here by Taraj P Henson who luckily is one of those performers game to ham it up and thus fits in fine, and her various husbands trying to warn him, as well as Uncle Deadly just.. resigned to the fact pepe is likely going to die and not carrying as the minister is fucking great and a highlight of the special. I just wish it was rizzo instead of pepe. Nothing against Pepe but he spends most of the specail eithe rignoring red flags or whining that this isn't a celebrity party which gets old fast

Speaking of celebrities we have a lot of cameos to adress: First up is Yvette Nicole Brown whose adorable as the LImo Driver who is positive our heroes won't make it out alive and is plesantly suprised when they do. When then have OG Starkid and music maestro Darren Criss who sings a wonderful song highlighting all the ghosts represnted by the tombstones in the ride queue. While he is a weird choice for the graveyard man as he's you know, not an old man and not dressed in old man makeup or anything, his voice, commitment ot the bit and general charm make up for it. I mean it's Darren Criss. I"m not going to say no to him singing to me in his lovely voice. No one is. He's the man.

The graveyards also where we get most of the celebrity cameos: I genuinely care about most like Danny Trejo (Who apparently is just welded to the muppets and i'm on board with that), the late great Ed Asner, this is us now alumnis Crissy Metz (that show was good cheesy sappy fun) and of course this beautiful son of a bitch

We also have Jeanie Mai. We also have some busts cameo: child actress skye jackson, some guy who hosted the game awards, Justina Machedo from the criminally cancelled one day at a time reboot and the pontaic bandit himself Craig Robinson. Most are just short and there and gone. We also get a quick cameo from

So that's nice. Finally we have Will Arnett as the ghost host. I'm on record being a fan of Wills so it's no suprise I like his performance: he's nicely chilling and while not as hammy as the actual ghost host, does a good job adding spooky atmosphere while also being hilarously deadpan. He's really effective in the part, truly supporting gonzo when he leaves and helping him ocne he's won to save pepe. I don't know WHY he's saving pepe but he is.

So for our final bit it's onto the music:

Starting and ending us off we have a BITCHING cover of Dancin in the Moonlight by electric mayhem that's also in the credits and i'm happy to learn later got released so i'll be listening to that on loop. It's both perfect for the halloween theme and just a great song already that's naturally made better with Dr. Teeth's vocals. Amazing stuff.

Rest in Piece is a lovely cameo filled diddy by Darren. As usual with anything he sings it's great, and the various cameos are really hilarous. It's truly haunting and yet also fun, just like the mansion itself

Life Hereafter is a fun ballroom diddy with all the muppets and one of the highlights of the special, especially since it's that rare opportunity Will Arnett gets to sing. Why Bojack never did a full on musical episode given all it's creative swings for episodes is beyond me.

Finally we have Tie the Knot Tango, Constance and Pepe's duet. It sure did happen

So that's muppets haunted mansion. l'm honestly sad I didn't have more to say: the haunted mansion itself is a deep hole of intresting I hope to dive more into and it had great cameos but ultimately it suffers from the era it came out in: ti's clear that after the commerical failures of Muppets Most Wanted and "The Muppets" tv show, Disney didn't know WHAT to do with it, not having the faith to do anything more with it and thus trying smaller projects to see if those took off. Thankfully they are trying something creative and new iwth the Muppets Mayhem so we'll see how this goes.

As for how this ranks it's pretty easy this go round

MHM goes right next to our last feature, The Muppets Take Manhattan. So not rock bottom but The Muppets Wizard of Oz set a very high bar for the worst on here and it'd take a LOT to be worse than that, just as it will take a lot to beat out david bowie at his david bowiest.

Next time i'm getting to sesame street just in time for thanksgiving with Follow That Bird .Until then thanks for reading, follow for more, reblog this to pass it around and join my patreon to help me keep making these.. and watch out for hitchhiking ghosts.

[popculturebuffet]

In terms of you saying Jim Cummings didn't do voicework for Amphibia in a recent Rescue Rangers review, he actually did do voicework on Amphibia (albeit credited as additional voices) as a stuffy rich man in Swamp and Sensibility, the alligator and imaginary dragonfly in Scavenger Hunt, and the security guard in Day at the Aquarium.

THis is the second time I was told this in 24 hours... but yes I was wrong. It can happen. I didn't do my due dillgence because I thought, wrongly apparently that jim would have a bigger role than that. And i'm still not sure why he didn't. like i'm not asking that he had a big recurring role, just that he got a promient guest spot instead of minor roles.

[popculturebuffet]

Death Valet Chapter 1: PHD In Jackassery (Commission by WeirdKev27)

Happy Halloween all you happy people! All spooky things day is upon us and with a big review for halloween that HAS to be done on the day, a busy next two days, and just a lot I reshuffled the deck a bit and moved this spooky comission from kev up to now so I had something breezier before reign storm. So here we are. 

Death Valet is my first webcomic i’ve reviewed and it’s something i’m suprised took this long. I’m a fan of comic strips and webcomics are often the next evolution of that, so it’s no real shocker I have many  i’m a massive fan of.  Something Positive, PvP, and anything by John Allison. Just anything the man is a genius and I intend to retrospectivise his stuff at some point, but I have some other retrospectives to finish and planned for next year. I’m also geninely not sure where to begin as there is a LOT. My point is I respect the game no matter the format so I was happy to check out one Kev liked for him, especially since it follows an alligator bounty hunter, Allistair Garth. I’ll get more into the premise as we go as this first chapter naturally sets everything up. So join me under the cut for some good old fashioned elder god stompin actoin with Death Valet!

This comic is written and penciled by Aliex “ FoxByFiction” Fox , inked by Ingicnio Anibil Del Megio, and shaded and colored by Neal Anderson. 

We open with a badass shot of Allistiar Garth breaking up a cult of vampires at a theater.. before being stuck trying to fetch a cab with a giant casket in tow containing one of said vampires. It’s a damn good opening, showing off what our hero does, and the casual comedic tone of the world.

We then get parallel stories for a bit: One follows Winston, a normal human man whose heading to Helterville, a city full of monsters out in the open and the first of it’s kind, and freaks out seeing a robot get some gass fro ma pump> it also has bat wings for some reason

Winston is freaked out by everything.. but has failed to get a job anywhere else so this is his best shot any and has an interview iwth Garth. 

Garth meanwhile turns the vampire into his family, a nother great gag and heads home before picking up a job from a phone call, from someone named marigold that gives hunters like Garth targets to go after for a decent slice of cash at the police station. Garth’s job is to hunt criminals and bring them in as you’d expect for a fictional bounty hunter, though it requires way more heavy ordiance and a demoncatcher, which yes is a dreamcatcher but for demons. 

Garth prepares to head off only to hear the doorbell and remember “oh fuck beans that was today”. He decides to take it though and lets Winston in.. and asks him to cook. That’s half of what garth needs, a personal chef since the last thing he cooked turned out like this 

You gotta bake the souls JUST right so they stop screaming. He always forgets that. The other half is being a valet and Garth is going to give Winston an on the job interview as he needs someone to drive him now and Garth frankly is going to have to be able to handle paranormal stuff for this job. It’s a stark truth: it’s okay to be a little shellshocked, and unlike some works like this Garth is fully sympathetic.. but he’s blunt Winston NEEDS to be ready for this.. and sign a waiver. He can’t get ANOTHER death lawsuit. Curse that pizza. 

So they hit the road and it turns out Garth did his due dillgence on Winston: Winston is actually a professional chef, having worked at a greasy diner till the health department nuked it from orbit. And given this universe that might have been literal. He also got top marks at his culinary college... til lhe was expelled.  Winston tries to play that off... but Garth dug into the full story: An infamous crime boss named Sanchez was bullying winston’s and being a reall dick to everyone and everything, so Winston sacrifcied his own education to get Sanchez thrown out. Since then Sanchez has been making sure Winston can’t get employed and made the poor guy afriad for his life.  It’s why despite the danger he’s up for this job in the first place: this is his literal last shot and unlike the other prospective employers, Sanchez dosne’t REMOTELY phase Garth as fighting vampires and elder god really takes the seasoning off an old school crime boss. He also plans to deal with the guy for Winston eventually which instantly makes him better than almost every boss i’ve ever had. 

He also admits Winston has to come with him.. for his own saftey. He fully admits Winston’s Car simply isn’t a tank and won’t protect him, while Garth can and easily will. I do like Garth quite a bit: he’s got a kurt russel energy to him, calm in the face of danger but charming most of the time He’s a fun character and is easily what makes this comic work depsite it’s issues.

One of which we might as well go ahead and get to: The dialouge can be stale at time. There’s good bits here and there but a lot of it feels more “explain the characters motivations or give out exposition” than actually trying to let the characters tell the story. It’s a common mistake and one easily corrected with future chapters. I will not hold back criticism as Fox, like me, is getting paid for this via patreon (and impressively makes 65 bucks a month, good on him), but I also won’t be too hard on the first chapter of a work: a LOT of webcomics start off awkward. Something Positive started off with way to much shock humor before settling into far more clever uses of it, PvP started off blockily drawn and slowly evolved into character humor and for authors of multiple works: David Willis has openly MST3K’d his old work when reposting it for his formerly puritanical values and storytelling mistakes, while John Allison flat out tells people to skip his first webcomic bobbins (not to be confused with it’s later remake which I highly recommend, available at bobbins.horse) because it was not very good and even his breakout hit Scary Go Round took some time to find what it truly wanted to be. What i’m saying is works like this take time and patience to hit their stride. When your working by yoruself mostly, fine tuning it and figuring out what to do next and what’s good is mostly on you. I know i’ve had to work to make these reviews REALLY good and figure my early work is also not very good and has gotten way better with time. So I sympathize. I won’t hold back, but I will be kind about it because why should I be shitty? 

Anyways back with the story we interput the drive for a bank robbery in progress, which Garth was allerted to on his phone but brushed off.. till he sees it. And... well you need to see it for yourself. 

Not only is that an awesome image, but the idea itslef is great. And that’s really the comic’s strength: it’s fairly creative: while the setting of a town filled with supernatural beings and other weirdness isn’t NEW, he comes up with creative set pieces like this, the vampire theater or an old man cyclops crossing the street earlier. Fox really has a talent for creating cool shit for you to look at and his art is expressive and fun to look at. The only weakspot is winston who looks like an old man in his cheekbones, but it’s one minor flaw in a work that looks really fun and expressive. We do get easily the worst line in the comic

But overall the scene is awesome. 

Garth breaks it up with a simple tranq and it turns otu the money was inside it. He gets a quick reward and the admiration of a pretty anthrmorphic unicorn and we’re on our way. So Garth explains WHY he needs a valet.. and I love it: cars aren’t made for his species. No really that’s it. He can’t work the pedals right. Having to Uber and Cab everywhere is expensive and while he COULD pay to get a custom coupe he could drive himself crunching the numbers he found the cost would cut too deeply into his MASSIVE weapons budget. And Given the things he takes on sacrificing ammo for a ride when a personal valet is cheaper and gets him a cook in the bargin, well that’s a no brainer.

So they enter the cemetary and Garth lays it out there in what I consdier to be the best scene of the chapter, asking if Winston’s TRULY ready for this. 

It show’s off both’s characters perfectly: Garth is nice, and dosen’t judge winston if he’s not ready to deal with freaky shit for a living, and WILL find the guy another job. But he is honest; Winston needs to be able to hunt monsters to do this and needs to not run shaggy rogers style every time. And wintston steals himself: despite his way too many pages of doubt and fright.. he’s willing to face this. 

Winston literally drops into the catacombs bellow and we get a funny scene where it turns out his holdling on wasn’t necessary as the drop isn’t that bad, and our heroes set forth. They smell rancid meat and hear chanting finding the cultist behind this, Vormir, who seems to be Garth’s equivlent of the box ghost as he fights him al lthe time but dosen’t take the guy remotely seriously. Vormir has an army of zombies, simple reainmated dumb ones called Zombuculi that do simple tasks like robots but you know... zombies.

Garth finds there’s a bit too many for his taste and simply plans to tranq Vormir and move on.. but finds Vormir’s almost finished his creepy ritual, so they don’t have time for it. 

Thankfully Vormir isn’t THAT bright or talented so what he gets is Sheldac, what Garth descriibes as the most powerful candy ass in hell. Basically your standard first boss in a work: looks creepy enough to be a threat but not really one to our protagonist especially if their already pretty seasoned. So while looking at him makes Winston die just a smidge, he’s not a big threat and the most he does is creep over a porno mag till Garth makes his entrance and we get just.. a great bit from vormir. 

God I love it. Just everything about this. But Garth gets his most awesome mooment in the chapter with a little bit of chekovs gunplay, tricking the demon long enough to do this. 

So we get an awesome fight as Garth with two tommy guns an da chainsaw gripped in his tail goes to down on the zombunculi, while Winston fanboys.. and we get the obnoxious “Ash williams would love this guy” line. 

It’s fine to show your hero is badass but don’t SAY it all the time. It spoils the moment  when your talking constantly about how awesome your hero is and what not. Show don’t tell. That said this is awesome.. and leads to Wintson getting his own awesome moment as Vormir notices him and sicks some Zombunculi on him. Winston is naturally terrified.. but takes them out easily.  He runs out of bullets.. but is able to take one out by pulling Quimby and throwing his gun.. which takes out a stalactite. Also Garth murders mickey mouse. That happened. Garth captures vormir and we get to the wrap up: Garth gets way more than he expected and gives Winston his pay, having hired him. He also explains that while Winston WAS scared the other applicants, who were facing simulated danger and not a real situation, booked it out of there. While Winston thinks he’s afraid, Garth says he’s braver than he knows. 

We wrap the story up with a tease for the next chapter, which I might do at some point: A tiger man and his cohorts, a drunk prickly furry and some snake eys looking guy said guy keeps hitting on to his annoyance, have done a hostage situation.. and the tiger man announces it’s part of a larger plant to take out garth once and for all. While he does that a monkey man watches the situation.. for Sanchez. He also let’s him know about winston and it shocks sanchez that “not have a job” didn’t lead the guy to misery or giving up or killing himself. End of chapter

Final Thoughts:

This was a decent comic. As I said it has some flaws.. but their easy enough to ignore ofr a fun action story with a neat protagnist. it nees a bit more to stand out on it’s own, but I feel that could be added with the next chapter and geninely hope the writer returns to complete the third. Overall an enjoyable spooky bit of fun> Thanks for reading. 

[popculturebuffet]

The McDuck Gala (Comission For WeirdKev27)

Sometime During Season 2:

The McDuck Gala: An annual event for charity hosted by McDuck Industries and various other coporations. This year is hosted by the Tropy Foundation and Glomgold Industries as part of both's partnership with Change for Chicks.

Glomgold: Owlson! I told you to get the cheapest vendors possible.. this.. this is quality food" (Shoves an entire plate of meatballs with toothppicks in his mouth) Ow curse you pointed wood!

Owlson: Mr. Glomgold, for the last time we are NOT skimping on the budget on one of the biggest events of the year and creating a PR Nightmare because of some paranoid fear Scrooge is going to... (Notices Scrooge pocketing a bunch of appitizers into plastic bags) okay clearly he is and I will deal with that. But i'm not going to let your petty rivalry

Glomgold: Petty?! The man gave me a dime and attacked me in a dream!

Owlson: I... don't have time to unpack.. any of that. You have tried to kill him on 999 seperate occasions. I counted. Including trying to blow him up on live television, trying to stab him with a spork at last years gala and serving "Shark Soup" the year before that.

Glomgold: It's like sharkfin soup but with live sharks it's clever.

Owlson: Debatable... the point is we have more.. important things... (Is looking at the latest person entering, Philliane Trophy, philanoprhist and globtrotting adventuerer)

Glomgold: Owlson.. TELL ME I'TS CLEVER..

Phillieane: Gentleman, ladies and others

Glomgold: There's others?

Philliane: I'm pleased to announced that redbeak's treasure has been found.. and is being donated to tonight's proceedings!

Applause from the Crowd:

Owlson: (Goes over to introduce myself) Well.. Uh.. hi i'm

Phillinae: Oh my god.. your Zan Owlson. Please your reptuation speaks for itself.

Owlson: Why.. thank you. (Both shake hands)

Flintheart: Owlson! Get over here and help me put all the food in my coat before scrooge gets it!

Owlson: (Ignores him entirely) I'm sorry

Philly: Don't be... i've.. dealt with him before. Including his "murder scrooge with a giant laser for the children" foundation.

Owlson: I wish I could tell you I didn't know that was a thing but I do my due dillgence. I can't tell you how much money he's wasted with hairbrained schemes, half baked plots and straight up murder attempts.

Philly: I know all that money could feed a

Both: Country for a year (Both blush a bit)

Philly: So tell me what...

Giant Mechanical shark: (Breaks through the skylight)

Glomgold: Oh good the entertaiment is here EVERYONE COME WATCH SCROOGE DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH!

Scrooge and Philly: (Sighs) Every year flinty)

Glomgold: I spared no expense! Bwahwahahha

Owlson: Did you spend our entire entertainment budget on that clunky contraption?

Glomgold: yes.. what else would I sepnd it on? It's also where our contribution went. The greatest charity begins with mechancial sharks.

Owlson: of all the..

Philly: STUPID, WASTEFUL, USES OF MONEY. (Rolls up her sleeves) Excuse me one moment (Storms over and picks up the shark with her bare hands and starts hitting glomgold with it, punctating every hit with a word) THAT. MONEY. WAS. FOR. THE. CHILDREN. YOU. SELFISH. EGOCENTRIC. FAKE BEARDED.

Glomgld: this beard is r

Philly: I'M. NOT. DONE. GROTESQUE. MOCKERY. OF. A. DUCK. BEING!

Owlson: (In awe)

Scrooge: (Smirking) She's single you know)

Owlson: I wasn't.. it was purely in a professional sense. You need to stop stealing horderves

Scrooge: I'm helpnig pay for them! Besidess I'll give you her number if you look the other way.

Owlson: (Hands him her phone in defeat)