Damned If I Do, Damned If I Dunston

When I worked in comics, my friends mocked me for not being productive enough; now that I write, my friends mock me for being too productive (see the Mark Martin comment on yesterday's Myrant post).

This, of course, makes me doubly glad I snuck two "Cunti Rice" into my comments on Mark's blog and he didn't see 'em.

My malingering taint of Catholicism had me feeling a little (wee bit) guilty about that until I read Mark's January 11th post on his blog, and then I decided I'd done the right thing and would continue to, as often as I possibly could.

An aside to Mark: Mark, I don't read the fucking New York Times! You've obviously confused me for Rick Veitch, who does. Every day. So much for your typically wrong-headed presumptions, Pumpie! Besides, Hank Wagner wrote more of the book than I did, so there! And if you slap my Valley News out of my hand, I'd just slam my boot on that girly-toe of yours and you'd be the one crying like an itty-bitty frail! You could call me childish, but I prefer calling it Dunston.

So, fine. Until, that is, the following email arrived. Wednesday, I'm looking forward to abuse over dinner with Chris Golden and cronies, aka The Vicious Circle, for which I've been pre-tenderized by the following blog-related flan mail from some flounder, a member of said Vicious Circle:

No, Kotzwinkle looks more like Horse Badorties than I do.

"Steve,

Excellent web site! What really hit home with me is the Dunston Checks In page.

Why, you ask?

The Dorky Day you had while writing it, of course. Anyone who has read Kotzwinkle’s The Fan Man will love the references and understand how seeing it is like meeting up with a long-missed friend.

That said, I need to present a certain observation. For those who haven’t read The Fan Man, He is Horse Badorties, a pot smoking, pill popping, meditating (hence the “dorkydorkydorkydorky”) fellow from the Viet-nam-folk-music-loving-hippy-era who has a penchant for fifteen-year-old girls… Oh, and if you were to use the Avon edition of Fan Man, Illustrator Keith Bendis’ rendition of Horse Badortis has a striking resemblance to our very own Steve Bissette.

Hmmm, and I though Fan Man was fiction…"

I fleetingly ponder corralling my personal Celestial Choir to sing a can of whoop-ass, if only to assert that I do not have a penchant for 15-year-old-girls and neither pop pills nor smoke pot any longer, but decide against it, realizing a dorky day will relieve that tension. Besides, I can projectile vomit on the email author's plate when he least expect(orate)s it on Wednesday, and no one will be the wiser.

Though still a little woozy and reeling from that, I recover quickly, only to find

my AccentUK Zombies anthology cover "looks almost like John Byrne-ish," which leaves me gacking dry-heaves and gasping for air.

Overcome with grief, I briefly consider hacking off my right hand so I'll never ever draw again, but realizing my double-bone-pronged stump-smears might appear even more like a John Byrne drawing to Supermoderator Marvelguy, I relent and collapse into my bowl of gruel.

Freshly embittered and seeking any venting venue in reach, however unfair or unjustified, having been taught by President Bush that it's OK to smack down anyone in reach after 9/11, I scheme new ways to sneak the insulting moniker "Cunti Rice" into Mark's blog...

Have a Dorky Day!

Below: No wonder I'm feeling Byrned...
now, I ask you -- John Byrne???? Really?????