ABSURDIS EXTREME // Case Study #54 [01/08/1962] by B.A. Loney

This is the story of One-Legged Spider who had only… well, you know. Despite this drawback, he was a famous Hollywood star and black belt origami master. And not only had One-Legged Spider starred in smash hits such as ‘Spider Wars: The Empire Skitters Back’, ‘The Bourne Arachnid’ and ‘Webfinger’, he’d also folded a 1,800 square foot replica of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon out of nothing but wet crepe paper with one leg tied behind his back. This was, as you can imagine, quite the feat, and it made him more famous than Elvis and Jesus combined.

In his reckless younger days, One-Legged Spider also starred in a handful of features that some might consider to be questionable at best. ‘Gachimuchi Fibres Wrestling’ was one of these, and ‘Coochi-Moochi-Gachimuchi-Slam’ was another. Naturally, One-Legged Spider didn’t like to recall this period of his life. The mistakes of youth need not forever haunt maturity. And, thankfully, few others seemed to remember this dark past or even care. They loved him for his action roles and his prowess with paper, and that was that.

There was, however, a secret that he hoped would never get uncovered—a potential career killer if you will. One-Legged Spider had only one testicle. He’d had eight testicles at one point in his life but no longer, and One-Legged Spider’s one remaining testicle had been flying solo since at least his porn days. Of course, his recollection was a little hazy so he couldn’t be entirely sure of this. Or maybe it was after his porn days. Maybe COVID-19 had taken his other testicles. Or MPOX. But what about that really rough night in Thailand when he’d woken up in the arms of two transvestites and a pitbull? It couldn’t have been the transvestites could it? They’d saved One-Legged Spider from the trash fox—that pathetic, would-be mugger—and returned his wallet to him, hadn’t they? Perhaps the pitbull then… but the pitbull had been so friendly. But, then again, its version of ‘friendly’ entailed sniffing his crotch. Oh no! So confusing!

But you know what? It doesn’t really matter. What really matters are the words on One-Legged Spider’s tombstone: ‘A dear husband, father and grandpa, your life is a beautiful memory. We love you. Your wife, your 1,024 children, your 1,048,576 grandchildren, two transvestites and a pitbull.’

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023

petrichor

after the first rain
the smell of earth filled the air
& the tree of lungs inside me
ozone tickled my senses
as every fibre reached & thrilled
i could not get enough of it all

after the last pain
i put her memory behind me
tho’ saddened i faced a new day
& now i’m learning to live again
now i’m learning to breathe again
after drought the rains always come

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

GUEST POST // This Was Home by Paul! Lang

The first syllable rises from my tongue
As I twist it in a knot
Evoke
There are frogs singing in the darkness behind my house and
Today of all days, the day of my unmaking
You came in to my castle, broke the walls down and
Sent me spiraling into my own vortex
You can fall into yourself just like
A corpse can tumble headlong into the trenches under heavy gunfire
War and relationship
And endless false prayers for peace
We twist about interminably
But in the end, we always soldier on

by PAUL! LANG
© All rights reserved 2023

PERFECTION IN ACTION // Practice Makes Perfect

Mr Zombie and Ms Werewolf were the cutest couple at the ball. Their ‘Wednesday’s Dance’ was so weird and cool that they performed it three times for the encore. Then for the finale they pulled Sir Gnome from the crowd and performed a rendition of the dance scene from Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Bande à part’. The standing ovation was loud and rapturous! (It helped that there were no chairs in the dance hall.)

That evening, Mr Zombie, Ms Werewolf and Sir Gnome tried a three-way, but it didn’t work out. So, they exchanged numbers, bid farewell and parted ‘til next Halloween.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023

Pigolution

Back in 2006, I began a little comic strip about anthropomorphic piggies. I was a rabid, bible-thumping christian at the time and my aim was to anger Jewish folks with a cast of unkosher characters talking about in-your-face spiritual stuff. I honestly thought that they would be incensed. Yeah! I’d show those filthy Christ killers and deniers!

Needless to say, nobody noticed (which I now realise was precisely the appropriate response). Not only did the strips I produced fail to touch on religious themes, they also proved to be quite bland and uninteresting. You could even call them ‘safe’. That’s the worst thing any cartoonist can put out into the world. And whatever the hell I was putting out there wasn’t even being done very well.

Many years later, Tati asked me how these contradictory ideas and creative approach could coexist in one head. Was I trying to fit in with my fellow believers by showing how much a ‘soldier’ for Jesus I could be? Of course, never mind that it was a Jew who began the whole christian religion in the first place, but why let piffling details like that get in the way of self-righteous bigotry? I was taking on the whole goddam heathen world with my misguided scribbles, baby!

What the actual fuck, Tony’s brain?!

Anyway, in 2019 I was no longer a christian, and Tati and I had the idea to revisit this comic strip. We would rewrite and redraw it from the ground up. And this time, it would simply be about some silly piggies living their lives in that universally awkward way that many of us around the world do, no matter our colour, race or creed. Life is messy and unscripted for all of us, and we’re all just trying to do the best we can.

You can find ‘Trottersville’ on Tapas, Webtoon, Ko-fi and our Patreon. We’d love it if you’ll maybe consider supporting us?

TV Promote 1aTV Promote 1bTV Promote 1c

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023