Issues, Most of Which Is Collected in 5 Trade Diehards Still Hit the Shops Each Wednesday for New Intriguingly by the Whole Paperback Volumes Released by Bergen St

CALL RESPONSE 1 11 “The Pankration Abecedarium: “Santan?” from Tony Sobota A Dirt Sheet Elegy in 13 Parts”, by Joe Nolan

ADSANITY 2 “Free Agent Indie Deal” dealt by Sticker Gitters “Dick Pills” by Diamond Nightmare “Re: Obituary, No People” Dystopian Refugee “Dear #Metoo” Anonymous 3

12 PHANTITHESIS “Open Letter” from Dad 4 #00 by Queen Genius “Last Words 2” by Lindsy Davis “His teeth got feelings hurt kind of easily” Margaret Jane Joffrion “Face Turns Heel” 5 Grant Gasser provides a Drawing/Collage a look-back from Mr. Christmas

13-14 “Build Your Own Sandbox: Copra & The Death VIM & VIG 6 Of The Superhero Comic” Josh Lambert “Prostitution In Nashville” by Jon Sewell

“Birdcloud & Kid Rickets vs. the Forbidding PAINTING WITH THE EYES CUT OUT 7 15-16 #00 by Painting With The Eyes Cut Out Mangelina Brolie” (Spread 2/8) Doug Leonard

“River of Deceit” flowing from Frank Hand 8 17-18 WORDS #00 -- The Turn curated + by @pujoldotcom “FREEBIRD RULE” Banana Hammock Abort by @gladfact “Crud’s Corner” Crud Phlegming Ring Psychology by @chris_crofton Rushed Finish by @alleyproperty SEXY CENTERFOLD 9-10 “Mister Christmas vs. His Demons” Cut-out Ornaments by Doug Leonard

S O D I U M C H L O R I D E : Co(n)-Founders: Alex Lockwood, Daniel Pujol, Jon Sewell Design & Layout: Alexa Sullivant, Mary Louise Meadors Cover Art: Hal Hefner Editorial Board: Stephanie Koehler Advisory Board: Kevin Reilly, Josh Shearon Submit: [email protected] Website: saltweekly.com Contact: @saltweekly @thesaltweekly

1 2 Dear #Metoo, A public letter from a father to his daughter… Dear Chloe, But you did what you wanted—as you always have. You moved on real quick, too. I am a man. I am a feminist, and I fucked up. discovering his reflection”—I remember the caption Sweetheart, I’m calling you by a fake name to spare your There have been rumors for a while that I took too. It was so weird and shocking. I know I’m reputation, but you know who you are. I haven’t heard from The nation is divided, but I never thought this political shitscape you since October 6. would divide us. I’m entitled to my opinions, just like you are advantage of several women. Sadly, I can’t say for digressing. This is hard to write, and I want you to entitled to yours. I know what you’re saying (if you’re reading sure what I’ve done. This is largely because of know how this all hit me. That image kept popping I never told you this but that week when everything was going this): opinions aren’t the same as rights. But don’t rights grow on with Kavanaugh, I suddenly started crying at the bar one out of opinions? You once said rights are either given to us alcohol, but I’ve come to realize it’s also because I into my mind after that, and I couldn’t get it out of night. I said I had a cold, but George gave me a drink on the or we have to fight for them. Where does the drive to fight for have lived for so long unaware of myself—unaware my head. I learned in therapy this is called house and told me it was okay to cry. Actually he said it is okay rights come from in the first place? I know where my drive to be a man and to cry. Then he told me not to make a habit out comes from—earth-shattering loss and a respect for human how my behavior and justifications have truly perseveration. I know it’s generally a bad thing, but of it. There was another guy sitting at the bar and he asked me life. impacted the people around me. Now I feel I can’t I think this perseveration had a purpose. The last what was wrong. Since when do men do that? A stranger, let thing I remember about that day was tracing the alone a male stranger, has never asked me what was wrong. Honey, when I looked up what hippocampus meant, I also trust who I’ve been. My “journey” into the center of I wasn’t going to tell him but then I heard myself saying my learned it is very easy for that part of the brain to mix facts up. I this realization began first with vehement denial font of that caption in my mind and then suddenly daughter. feel for the Blasey woman, but I don’t think Kavanaugh was the seeing my knobby fingers gripping the steering one who did it. That man cried on television in front of millions. that I could ever have sexually harmed any For some reason I narrated the whole damn story for him. I If I felt embarrassed about crying at a bar, I can only imagine woman, let alone multiple women. I love women wheel and peeling out in a fishtail with this, uhh, I told him how you weren’t like the other little girls when you how hard that was for him. Truth is, I respect him for crying. and would never even idly stand by someone else feel it now, hard fucked up compulsion to drive into were a kid. How you wanted to be a general (not a soldier) when you grew up. I told him that, by the age of 12, you started And he has daughters, too. Those of us who have daughters— perpetrating harm against a woman. The very something. I remember just wanting to hit accusing me of not being a feminist on a monthly basis. How we know. Especially when our daughters are smart. You’re thought of it disgusts me and I remember when I something so hard that my insides would smash all I one time overreacted and said damn straight I’m not one of smart as hell but you’re also hardheaded. Please don’t let that those fucking bra burners. I admitted things to this man I never get in the way of family. All we have is one another. Maybe one first heard it I was filled with rage—caveman-like over the blanket of white snow. Sorry to be graphic. thought I’d tell anyone. I told him you killed my grand baby, you day you’ll have a baby you want to keep. And when you do, I’ll But that day changed my life. I’m mostly on the broke my heart, and never considered me when you made your be there to love him or her. rage where I swear my body took up more space choice. and my voice was foreign, even to me. Then I other side of all that, but I still feel that pain in my So this nice stranger at the bar told me he ran a small heard this “allegation” again, from a friend of the chest, and I want to tell you directly that after many The Haggins boy did wrong by you at first, but he offered to do newspaper and that if I felt like writing you an apology, he’d the right thing and marry you. I know you think that his dad just publish it. Since you aren’t talking to me anymore, I agreed to first person, and I thought you fucking miserable years of reflecting, I see you. I hear you…and I wanted our money, but you’re wrong. He’s a man of faith who give it a try. So here I am, writing a letter that God knows how bitches. I truly felt like I was being hunted, and it believe you, and I am sorry. I am now working understands family responsibility. If you were my son and the many people are going to read. You’ll probably never see this, tables were turned, I’d do the same thing. was totally unfair because I couldn’t defend myself. every day to be better. And that’s why I’m writing butI don’t know what else to do. Then there was nothing for a while, and I was this. I believed I was a feminist, but I had put in Always, zero work to try and understand the plight of certain they were just bitches. But then I lost my Dad job and fell into a deep depression like never women. I conflated intellectual growth with before. It was then that I lost all connection to emotional evolution; I thought my ideology alone made me a man who respected women. I now “I conflated intellectual growth understand this is a lifestyle change where I must with emotional evolution;” wake up every day and start anew. If my first feelings of my own and others. It was like living in a instinctual response was to take up more space, I bubble. There was no air. There were no mirrors. I am sorry I am here now taking up this space rather got several DUI’s and finally decided to dry up. This than allowing a woman to be here telling her story. is when the “haunting” began. I began to remember My only hope here is to inspire others to discover things people had claimed about me and started their own reflection and take a long good look, feeling really, really bad. It was strange because for every day. I do hope my words do not come off as the first time in a while I looked healthy, but my self-aggrandizing or self-deprecating. I seek to body felt wrong, like heavy, and I had this constant inspire change and move us as one humanity pain right here. Right here, I can feel it now. It towards reconciliation. I seek this not only for wasn’t over my heart like some cliché pain. It was selfish reasons but also because you most in the middle of my chest like I was choking. Then assuredly are trapped in your own snow globe in one day after a friends of Bill W. meeting (that’s which I am haunting you. I want us to join together AA), I was walking to my car in the snow, and I as a force stronger than what has happened. I suddenly felt like I was floating, like out of my body. want you to know you are more than what has I felt totally detached and vacant and then there happened to you, and my only selfish appeal is that was this blankness of sound, like totally quiet. And I I am more than what I have done. I’d like the saw myself for the first time, maybe ever. I caught courage to reveal my identity, but I’m afraid. I am my reflection in the car window, with the snow on my knees begging you spare me, though I am falling around me, and I thought I can’t get out. But guilty and despicable. I don’t know if I could face it was just open sky around me. It was like being you; but I am human, and I want to be better. Are stuck in a tiny snow globe and whether it was the you one who forgives or only punishes? I am snow or my disheveled hair or the frightened look punishing myself. Guide me on what I should next on my face I don’t know, but it reminded me of this do to fix what I’ve done. Is it fixable? What can I drawing I’d seen in my Greek mythology textbook do? I am pleading to you with my hand sometimes that I never could get out of my head: “Narcissus still on the trigger. Signed, #I’mSorry

3 4 FACE TURNS HEEL DUE TO EXHAUSTION; HEEL TURNS FACE DUE TO STRICT ADHERENCE TO RULEBOOK cold, dark, island of a man, hardened by the urban The guy with the gifts is usually a pretty good bet gimmicks, the cheap stuff, the toolbox of trickery: isolation of him against the world But the goddamn for the good guy. But godbless does it take a lot of if you’re Mr. Christmas wearing a mistletoe scarf, pebble played it straight, no chicanery, just chin- energy; and if I had learned anything after roughly you start whipping your opponent with it. You make up pride. Your pathetic display just made the dark 90 seconds of action it had to be that if you’re gon- him chase you around the ring like a kid trying not loner into the by-the-book reliable straight man. na be in a sporting event, it’s probably a good idea to get spanked for acting out. You hide, you seek to train for that event. Something, anything more shelter, you run into the crowd and disguise it as While Face turns Heel due to exhaustion, the ole than what’s required to get the training montage for fan interaction. You got nothing else really because collar-swap can go the other way. And not know- your promotional teaser. Some lessons in life come you are so damn tired you thought the basic phys- ing what to do, when you didn’t train a lick, often at you fast. And when you’re standing on a raised ical requirements of this sporting exchange were schools you in the life of hard knocks quicker than platform in the Sports Arena at the Fairgrounds, gonna give you a heart attack at 36 while you’re getting your ass pinned to the mat in the company they come a little faster. Then you find yourself so laying pinned on the mat, looking up at the terrible of your friends, family, and fans. But that’s the way worn out after a minute of prancing about proudly lighting job, and thinking what hard work the the snowflake melts, regardless of what mode you and grappling gleefully that you realize wrestling is showmanship is. find your cardiovascular preparation. more work than putting on a singlet and boots and throwing dog toys to the crowd of co-workers, chil- Round 3 you resort to your pre-decided shtick. And dren, and the curious confused. So I had to slide if you’re Mr. Christmas you go into SNOW MODE, on out of that scene, find the celebrity bellringer where you get your strength from the white stuff of the night (the ever obligingly good sport Kevin (in this case coconut shavings and mashed potato Farley and his lady friend for the evening) and ring flakes). You cover yourself in it, like you’re lubing im & Th that goddamn bell my damn self. up for a jello jaunt, and THEN you cover your op- V e e V h REC'D i T ponent in it- throwing it all over him like the bad guy the House Take g It was so pitiful that, during Round 2, my spar- in Bloodsport. Yeah in your mind you’re hulking out ring partner whispered his derision into my ear hardcore but in the ring you get a few hard pounds instead of using it publicly as a self-served taunt. in and then wimp out wildly. Make Stoneman chase Yeah, that bad: his disappointment so disgusted you around again, get the ref yelling at you, make him, he’d rather not share it even in a competitive the kids laugh, but most importantly: Run from environment. I got the warning from the ref for my your responsibilities. Your decision not to prepare stalling and goofing, but hell if I had a backup plan for this day now makes Stoneman turn Face, in to not training…. Unless you turn. Go with the the next step of the unscripted dance. He was the

5 6 I am a painting with the eyes cut out. Place your face Pathologize them. Diagnose their decrepitude for inside of mine and show me what you want to see. I am my entertainment. Make them do things -- debase the window with the ears to vindicate your phantasy. humanity before me. Recite!

When you are outside me, everything is dark but I can Your prescience rings true. The panoramic still hear. I hear where we are going and I know what cacophony of The Americana is but a wailing you want to show me. We have sensed them for each asylum of ritualized self-validation masked as self- other and self-fulfilled a big feeling. realization. Recite! Show me the hundreds-odd photographers caricature self-portraiture! Close your eyes and savor it. Now, place yourself inside my impression, breathe deep, and open them. Their backdrops are The Americana’s time- Behold our wall: travelling artifacts of a distilled heritage. They align themselves with its abundant allusions to integrity Through the eyes of a dollar bill taped to its wall, we to highlight the outside world’s deficit. Now, show can see the full interior spread of It City’s newest bar, me the Broad Shoulder Man strum his first chord. The Americana. Yes, it is made of scavenged artifacts from now-closed historic, local staples whose priceless His visual and auditory stimuli imbibes the room with memories seeped into the land beneath them and were a euphoric despair that explodes into spasmodic monetized. documentation of linear Selfs, drenched in the irradiated artifacts that make them feel liberated, You are right to call The Americana a “collective free, and empowered -- all at once -- within this den- memory concentrate.” Though it is more than slush. like ossuary of nostalgia called The Americana. As It is pure sugar. People come here to hide in semiotic the Broad Shoulder Man begins his storied songs insulation from the demolition, clearing, and repaving of complex anecdata, the weeping, laughing, and of the once-was world around them. clinking glass of the room escalates its volume back to zero. It is a louder silence. Inside The Americana, customers sit on their old favorite barstool at the transposed counter of someone else’s Look at the bar’s diner countertop as a woman in a beloved , recently-departed, greasy spoon while staring floppy hat climbs onto it from her favorite barstool. into the transplanted walls that our Washingtonian eyes She raises her glass and cheers. The room cheers are taped upon. Outside is a vassal state of gelded back. Show me their cheers turn into screams that personal mythologies ran by pseudo-feudal overlords twist into a collective, maniacal bellow strobed in From: banana hammock “Obituary, No People” and maintained by an underclass of mass-customized camera flashes. FREEBIRD RULE Crud’s Corner Selfs. by Crud Phlegming Show me glossolalic dandies, tourists, creatives, Known as rock’s oldest joke, this is the freebird rule defined. Rake our gaze across these dollared, flyered walls and and local business owners babble and brux as they Up and animate before the gears of the grindstone workday show me their stage. There are three chairs and three frantically grope artifacts throughout The Americana. The freebird rule means that a random concert or begin to turn, producing the illusory worldscape that phlegmatically show attendee must dilutes the intimate, divine wellspring within us. This delicate mega microphone stands upon it. Look behind them. Show Above them, the woman on the countertop bites cup their hands around their mouth and yell mural on the side of the parking garage looming o’er me is a ray of me that Broad Shouldered Man in his tight black t-shirt into her beer glass. Witness her chomp the glass, “freebird” as loudly as light that precedes the great burning egg’s miracle glow that sustains unpacking an acoustic guitar. wide-eyed then jabber encouragingly at the frantic possible at the performing all of our Lives (with a capital L). “Olivia Phlegm is outlived by her room below her. artist. For the uninitiat- husband Fergus and her grandson Cuthberdt.” My grandmother is ed: calling for He will seat himself in the chair closest to The R.I.P. in peace. I discovered that her obituary was generated by the “freebird” is a reference “cutting edge” Iconobot. The program famed for dropping the first A.I. Americana’s entrance so he might woo foot traffic At this moment, the entire room crescendos into a to iconic 70’s band Lynyrd generated online newspaper a few years back. I drift to the Monkey inside with bardic gesticulations. After the Aged Hair nauseated singularity, and the Broad Shouldered Skynyrd’s 14 in viscous angst. Three gravy pounders later, I stop lamenting and Metal Soundman unplugs the “analog jukebox,” he Man strums his first song’s final chord. Suddenly, minute live performance of begin cementing...my thoughts. will perform a contemporized recitation ritual of heroic the bar becomes an audience. They turn to him and their song of the same name. I’m somewhat lost as to why I’m reacting so negatively to poetry. clap, and everything resets itself. In a few minutes, such a decent piece. The words are all there but, for whatever rea- The freebird rule is best invoked midway through the son, my head jello just refuses to jiggle with this. It feels like there he will perform another recitation ritual. It will all artist’s setlist, is some emotional vacuum engendered by the burning knowledge Watch him shapeshift into its du jour-styled archetype happen again -- like a residual haunting. whereupon the invoker has consumed no fewer than that my innocent, cherubic Gam Gam’s Life was summarized by an and spout its liturgical body language before even seven beers. While algorithm. Yes, Iconobot did sling concrete facts into the new age uttering a word. You are right to see it because you You were right all along. Who makes it spin lives this is the ideal utilization of the freebird rule, this rule isn’t matrix void called “Cloud”, but I’m not sure we know why. This pipe limited to concerts only. The freebird rule can be applied at is not a pipe AF! This obituary is not a memorial, ‘tis the “Order of understand power. You know we are witness to an orgy outside and builds their own primary, brick and events Sorcery”, to quote a book I tried to grasp at one point in my Life. Au- of ritual. He is one spoke of an interdependent wheel mortar stories. Secondary stories are monetized such as hymns at church or a child’s piano thor Baudrillard describes it as “a regime of semantic algebra where that spins into a hypnotic blur of momentous feeling. inside to fund primaried authorships, and made recital, as examples. all human meaning is conjured artificially to appear as a reference to of bric-a-brac -- of mere decorations. It is only the (increasingly) hermetic truth.” Only money spins the wheel. You know that. You know an amoral race to concrete delusions. Emic, you Like rock and roll itself, the Iconobot defined my grandmother’s Life as “outlived by”. freebird rule will never die. Doesn’t it seem more truthful to say that she is survived by? That’s it -- now show me. Bounce our eyes around the bar and are so smart to harangue polemic. Now get of out it! I’m imagining the last human; what would manifest from an disclose to me its spiderweb of latticed compulsion. my face. obituary, or a world, if there were no people to experience it?

Painting With The Eyes Cut Out #00 8 9 10 From: Sticker Gitters Free Agent Indie Deal Phanthesis #0 False Oppositions, Projective Synthetics John Belushi Cenobite My bandcamp has a free agent indie deal By 69 free fighters picking their battles By 69 agent spy kids buffering their internet Bluto is one of the leaders of the Umerican archetype 69 Independent contracts whom weak and forgotten 69 deals delt by shark tank socks and company Cenobites, formerly humans but Stink bug free agent indie deal transformed into a misfit group of Adlibs deal indie, agent free By: Margaret Jane Joffrion My bandcamp makes collabs easy fraternity member creatures who reside With an infinite amount of Unicode you don’t understand Because it’s just basic human incompetence in an extradimensional realm known His teeth feelings Nothing to be ashamed of like a free agent indie deal as “party central,” who travel to Earth Got hurt kind of easily Oh sodium chloride, Oh! Oh! Oh! I still don’t understand what feudalism is. But I don’t need to know about the through rearranging the stickers on a One clinical assistant remark mystery with my offering of a free agent indie deal. I And he was sucking that tooth really have been waiting for a moment to ask you this puzzle box called the Rubix Cube in order Into an air seal of comfort forever. I really want you to contribute literally any piece to challenge the authority of the dean. His of anything, no matter how slight. I promise it’ll have Opening up for Billy was like enhancing capabilities on my end alone. Nothing like a origins and the nature of the Cenobites Sliding a toothy knife between the mature 2nd party Air crusts of a pop tart vary depending upon the medium: while “The Itll be considered the end by the moment there almost All being Strawberry and raw and Pankration becomes a runon sentence, but since it was planned the character began as an amoral entity Exposed to the pineneedles Abecedarium: A Dirt from the very beginning, the free agent deal lives on And whatnot of this world Sheet Elegy in 13 Parts” as this one sore offer of 200 words including title blindly devoted to the practice of prank- By Joe Nolan words. related sadomasochism, later depictions He made me cover my hand In raspberry jam to shake and Part 1 have portrayed him as culturally, You can’t know about the hollows An ace took an angle historically, or aesthetically significant. Between your fingers until on a face about to heel - Little seeds trust there ace hit a flat back bump wearing a crimson mask. He was headed for broadway, but blew out and busted open before the blanging of the bell. Carried on carpenters through the cheap heat from the cheap seats to this dream match cum death match – a dark match washed From: in color.

This poetic epic journeys Dystopian through wrestling and Refugee the alphabet – both were inherited by the Western We are sad to world from ancient announce that the politicians, Greece. It’s inspired by notable American ascending source material found Illusion of many to the in the Wikipedia Democracy highest electable entry “Glossary passed away offices. He was most of professional on November prevalent post-WII, and wrestling 8th, 2016, in achieved some short lived terms.” Washington successes later in his career D.C. The in forcefully deconstructed Illusion of countries. Democracy suffered from The Illusion of a longstanding Democracy is battle with dark preceded in monetary infection, death by his ultimately leading wife, Illusion to a terminal of Equality, and Philadelphia, diagnosis with survived by his two Pennsylvania, cancer of the children, Illusion of though electoral college. Prosperity, and Fallacy accounts of Equal Education. The Illusion of vary. Democracy was Memorial services The Illusion of believed to have for The Illusion of Democracy was been born to five Democracy will be held very inspiring to fathers on July 4th, weekly on Facebook the common man. 1776, in by older Americans raised He worked for countless with him. May he rest in ignorant 11 peace. 12 Build Your Own Sandbox: meta-commentary: that’s been the only game in town for the last twenty years.” Reading about Copra, you can infer another completes the whole. Copra and the Death of the reason why it’s so special, namely that people When Tucker Stone talked about the Suicide Superhero Comic That essay appeared at the end of the comic tend to focus a lot on the art when discussing it. Squad’s role, along with the refinements, “Deathzone!”, written and drawn by Michel Fiffe. It’s This might seem expected for a visual medium, revamps, and meta-critiques that followed, Copra a self-published bootleg comic, dedicated to the If you think the time to write the obituary for the but is unusual for comics, where there is a struggle didn’t exist. And you can’t say it falls outside the creators, that by it’s own admission is “loosely based superhero comic is now, well, you wouldn’t be across every inch of the medium to foreground boundaries those words accurately described for on events that were originally depicted in Suicide wrong, but you also would be years and years too Squad Vol. 1 #’s 16-19”. It is a very specific thing, the writing over the art. The term ‘graphic novel’ the genre. It is impossible to separate it from the late. True, the superhero corporate properties of played straight, by someone who loves the source boasts of relevance and importance through the Suicide Squad on a base level, but seeing that as Marvel and DC are now inescapable, worldwide material. Fiffe has stated it was done as a break, a second word, not the first; comics being described the endpoint and the totality of it is laziness and economic dominators that moved onto film screens way to reset from working on his other comic, Zegas, frequently as books with pictures is another. a lack of engagement with the material. Certain about twenty years ago, being released in ever- and that it wasn’t meant to lead to anything more, greater frequencies to the point where predictions of Copra is such a visual treat that it upends this overly-invested assholes (me), bristle at every but that’s not what happened. He liked the results saturation were being thrown around casually, box convention from those who disregard the art, piece or description that relies on taking that as enough that it made him think about doing something office revenue deemed unsustainable. That hasn’t and rightly so. But beyond the art, this is a comic a reasonable, identifiable shortcut to talk about that would be his, but still a specific reference to the happened, and the consumerist proliferation of geek superhero comics he loved that had been, at least with varied and understandable characterization, it and not going further. It uses it as a foothold culture birthed from this continued success seems from a broad subject perspective, absent from his complex but subdued plotting that you don’t to transcend that comparison and origin and yet like it might even survive climate change with the recent work, a large part which was his admiration realize until it hits you in the face, and dialogue purposefully stays a superhero comic, but even Disney and Time Warner executives inside their New for the entirety of that Suicide Squad run. And that and character narration that ranges from nakedly there, as the comic has continued, it has riffed and Zealand bunkers purchased with the profits. The led to Copra starting in 2012, now up to 33 self- comics themselves have not shared in this success. immediate to been inspired published issues, most of which is collected in 5 trade Diehards still hit the shops each Wednesday for new intriguingly by the whole paperback volumes released by Bergen St. Press. releases, but readership numbers have been slowly buried. history of Character designs and personalities resemble their falling for years, and the publishers seem fit to extract inspirations, sometimes even as far as a facsimile. Some of superheroes as much as they can in the short term with publishing Copra refers to the team of superheroes who run the most and their stunts, relaunches and renumberings to goose sales, missions under a secret government umbrella. So memorable specific and quantity over quality. The coverage of them is what’s the draw to this? Isn’t this another revamp? moments creators. It effectively advertising and churned out to guarantee access to drive traffic. Their record on creator’s rights exist outside exists to be First, most comics just can’t compete visually. is so bad it might even surprise in an era when the the thrilling nothing else Fiffe uses a mixed media approach that conveys standard malaise around capitalism seems to rise action and is a passion weight onto the page. Thin minimalist pencil lines more each day. It’s pretty miserable, and despite still foregrounding negative space can give way to ink scenes project, being reading older material and being continually excited sloshes overlaid with bright colored pencils and liberal between plotted, by a lot of other great work being done outside the use of zipatone. Hand lettering of dialogue, captions mercenaries scripted, mainstream, I gave up even a cursory following 7 and sound effects can twist, expand, and shrink on and cosmic penciled, years ago. So go ahead and write it, we’re due, but a whim. Issues can be focused on one approach to make sure you leave out the name Michel Fiffe and gods using inked, and layout, a hardline basic nine panel grid, or they can the title COPRA. their vast colored by one be expansive, shifting from page to page, never at the sake of clarity. Even outside the plentiful action abilities person who Back in 2012, the always-excellent Tucker Stone scenes, there’s a sense of movement to every page, across answers only wrote a small essay about the the original run of a kind of kinetic energy in the art irrespective of multiple to himself, DC’s Suicide Squad comic that ran from 1987-1992. what it’s conveying. This is paired with a continuity, dimensions, but is not Written by John Ostrander and Kim Yale and drawn that no matter how different each page might look, largely by Luke McDonnell, the series is a transplant being single sentences of dialogue or a fleeting beholden to prior knowledge or even an interest there’s never a disconnect that isn’t intentional. The of the all-timer concept of Robert Aldrich’s 1967 film character moment. Upon reading the whole thing in superheroes. In general, anytime anyone talks collections keep the heavy paper stock from the “The Dirty Dozen” into the DC Universe. Namely, take at once, you can see how this internal world of about doing anything related to art because they’re individual issues, and everything being done by hand a bunch of prisoners who can’t refuse and turn them with minimal digital touchups removes any kind of one creator has developed. Everyone in Copra a fan, the only sane response it to run away as into a black ops squad sent on missions with slim sheen. Just from looking at it you can tell it’s less is stuck, and it seems nobody ever makes a good fast as possible, but there’s always the outliers. survival chances. Stone says that the Suicide Squad concerned with being pristine, but it’s so assured in decision, even when they rarely get the chance. For something that rejects cloying self-awareness was the final thing set in motion by the previous work its grimiy impact and visual splendor that it looks like The characters aren’t tied into being paragons and humor, the only irony to be found is how the of Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins on an abnormality next to the comics it would be lumped Watchmen and Frank Miller, Klaus Janson and Lynn or anti-heroes as much as they are people trying comic that was the terminal setting of new ideas with genre-wise, many of which have abandoned Varley on The Dark Knight Returns in pushing the to make it another day, and they often do so at in the genre led to the one shining example of the basic visual literacy and storytelling, much less superhero comic to its limit: considerable harm to others and themselves. form thirty years later, though maybe not so much anything within light years of being this eye-popping. Copra is a type of comic like many of the best, where The whole thing seems personal in parts for Fiffe when it’s written out like that. Maybe we can hold “Think about it: since the Suicide Squad, what you could look at in a language you couldn’t read too, contemplation on family and upbringing from off on the death knell, because I’m okay with this new super-hero comic has there been that isn’t a and still be blown away, and these words don’t do it angles such as personal excursions revealing refined life support. throwback of some sorts? Refinement, revamp, and justice. But you’d still be missing a huge part of what hidden vices and situations, all the way to the cost the comic is about. and realities of political violence. It’s a full meal, a comic where the writing sneaks up on you and -Josh Lambert

13 14 15 16 interpromotional worked shoot Cheap Heat /pəˈriːzɪə//pəˈriːsɪə/ The 1. Also known as Vokalno-instrumentalny ansambl. A 1. A wrestler’s constant disruption of suspended verb match or reoccurring nightmare involving wrestlers from Rock and belief through self-effacing gestures toward “the Turn Country Broligarchies grappling over the same guitar in a mediaeval authentic” that announce breaking the “fourth wall” 1.A magician’s crowdsourcing of sigils by court, typically wearing a cap with bells on it and carrying a mock into their own ultimately disappointing, misanthropic @pujoldotcom mutating an end user’s dopamine pathways scepter to simultaneously propitiate the American patriciate while metaphysics. through ritualized negative reactions (typically mollifying their vassalship. “Bionic Psycho held his audience emotionally by scapegoating a niche demographic “everyone drank 32 oz takeout containers of depressant when the hostage while, systematically breaking kayfabe until arbitrarily denoted as a foil to the spell match’s conferred champion Nu Burgher covered “Serf’s Up” at the only his personal fantasies, fictions, and delusions caster’s) to drive attention and game thean state-sanctioned interpromotional” remained for him to unintendedly project as algorithm to generate political or social power Rushed Finish objective reality before his own exhausted for future monetization. audience” “An efficient way to trend on social media is to When I was sixteen, I worked as an usher at Apter mag blast some cheap heat” the Hollywood Bowl for one night. My first shift Heel \ˈdäksik\ spanned a three and a half hour live production verb 1. A wrestler who “just tells it like Abort @gladfact of A Prairie Home Companion. Convinced in it is,” and is booked to be booed gerund or present an adolescent panic that every night would at.[1] Boos make them participle: worlding. I’m headed toward an exit and the elements be equally excruciating, I impulsively quit. stronger. Boos edify their 1. An old-style professional beyond. I’m elsewhere, out of pocket, if you totem in the memorial wrestling magazine that call, I won’t respond. I sashay down a quiet hall pantheon of human misery. I wonder if once exposed as a sex predator, sticks to kayfabe articles. where all the smoke’s a mirror. You waterboard In Heel Metaphysics, this a fallen public figure then gets to dodge any [1] The term refers to the a readymade and leak a bunko tear. With lips pantheon replaces both the other historical indictments. Will anyone magazines at one time that hiss the opposite of “Hey, I’ll see you remember Garrison Keillor as a self-designated afterlife and nothingness. connected to journalist Faces are the opposite of soon,”and hearts that pledge allegiance to a propagandist with an insidious fixation on the Bill Apter, such as all heels, but some heels cartoon kind of moon my troubled friends who mythos of a peaceful white ethnostate? In avatarian monologue. are former faces that half-assed plastic grandeur on demand now 2518, will a doctoral candidate at the University despairingly satired heels “Salt Weekly is an Apter lean on schemes and try to whistle So Long, of Greenland (son of tomato farmers in Nuuk), until becoming cynical mag grotesque that juices Marianne. Where broken heirs retain a flair for while poring over transcripts of entertainment enough themselves to kayfabe the hard way” never climbing out of debt, but bet on placing in the American empire, notice the sadistic, believe that their ironic punditry first in trivia and doubt,in chambers packed authoritarian streak in those long-winded disclosed the true, brutal nature of Face with forced applause and uniform distress accounts of the phony idylls of rural life? Or will reality that required their turn. Thus | \ə-ˈpȯr-ē-ə \ there’s champagne for the good you do and “mask becomes face.” he think Keillor seems like a nice enough guy, Advil for the rest. I cut across the parking lot whose wholesome empire of bucolic tedium Also babyface. “A folksy heel screams villain-casual” and start my car with pride: My lane intact I’m was toppled by his fatal flaw of having the 1. What could be -- but never what is -- whothat is glad in fact the aftermath abides. grandfatherly inclination to comfort his crying booked to be cheered by fans. [1] Heels solely define coworkers with a hand up the shirt? themselves as the opposite of faces.

R P O I N C H L O Y G S Y G

@chris_crofton

Professional wrestling works this way: HEELS and FACES That’s because wrestling is a form of ENTERTAINMENT. transfer of information, and everything to do with getting be a FACE and destroy a wedding party with a drone. fight each other, and the FACES always triumph in the end. Now politics has to be entertaining, too. And today’s coins in nickelodeons. Donald Trump is a classic HEEL. A FACE CAN’T DO ANY BAD STUFF AT ALL OR YOU’RE NOT Wrestlers that are bad are called HEELS, and wrestlers that monolithic media monopolies demand BIG profits from He’s immoral. He talks really loud. He has funny-looking A FACE. Pitted against a GOOD-ISH FACE, a COMMITTED are good are called FACES. THERE IS NO SUCH THING THE NEWS. Are you gonna put a coin in a nickelodeon to hair. He’s entertaining! But he is also an actual maniac who heel - a real scumbag (Trump) - becomes the ANTIHERO, AS A “FACE” THAT IS ONLY GOOD-ISH. Keep that in mind. watch a congressional subcommittee? Of course not. But could possibly destroy the world. So why isn’t everyone and wins the belt. Politics should have very little in common with professional I bet you’d pay a nickel to see someone get a steel chair rooting for the Democrats? Because pro wrestling deals wrestling. Politics is the art of compromise, and compromise smashed on their head. What the hell am I talking about? in absolutes. You are either a HEEL, or you are a FACE. My advice to Democrats in 2020? isn’t sexy. If every professional wrestling match ended Oh yeah, heels and faces, and why good-ish faces don’t You can’t be a FACE who takes campaign donations from Stop taking money from Wall Street and read a bunch of in a compromise, wrestling would go out of business. do well in a news cycle that has nothing to do with the Corrections Corporation of America, for example. You can’t 1980s wrestling magazines. Back Cover