dogbad

VIEW EPISODE 12 AS A SLIDE SHOW!

1.”Discus” Ted is incensed at the noisy, raucus hubub whirling around poor Señor Hoss. He leaps up onto the bar and
addresses the now bifurcated, beat-up equine. He doesn’t care that this uninvited crimson combatant, this Tabasco Devil has, in fact, unexpectedly sprouted out of the very body of his victim- to Ted they are just a couple of unruly customers,
and for Hoss, it’s not his first offense.
“That’s enough! You yeggs are outa here- I had all I’m gonna take a you bums!”

2.The Tabasco Devil and Señor Hoss regard Discus Ted in silence. Hoss is reeling from the blows he has received from that mean ol’ debbil.

3.Ted calls for Deputy Bucky Skank.”Dep-dee, take these bums where they can’t do no more harm.” Could Ted be referring to harmine, or harmaline, the reduced hydrated form of harmine? Harmaline and harmine both flouresce under ultraviolet light, and this property could account for the strangely bright colour scheme we’ve experienced over the past several panels. Might the beer be spiked? Why, if so this whole episode may be oneirophrenic! How do you know, dear readers, that you are not dreaming?
“With pleasure!” Bucky replies as he leads the two malefactors to the Dogbad hoosegow.

4.Confined in the dark and filthy gaol cell, Hoss tries to make relevant small talk with Tabasco:
“I don’t suppose you have any money, do you?” He knows what imprisonment is about. It’s a way for the gaolers and their
financiers to get money for nothing.

5.Help is on the way. Word travels fast in small towns, and Kit McKlaw has been looking all over Dogbad for Hoss. Now he’s heard:
Hoss is in Hoosegow-Hock for fighting with a strange-looking foreigner. McKlaw arrives at the gaol house to post bail for his Hoss.
Kit doesn’t like Bucky Skank, and the feeling is mutual. Kit: “I hear you got my Hoss in here.”
Bucky: “Yup. That’ll be sixty dollars.”

6.Deputy Bucky continues: “Thirty dollars for your Hoss and thirty dollars for the Chink.”
Hearing this makes Kit angry. He is being baited.

7.Kit is not about to take this kind of abuse from a dog: “Now, hold on there, Bucky! I never saw that feller before-
and what’s that ‘chink’ business about, anyhow?” Bucky replies defensively: “Well, he don’t speak English. And he don’t
look like no Injun, do he? He looks sort of…Early Rental.”

8.Kit throws gold money on the desk. He has no time for banter with a half-wit mutt.
McKlaw has the last word: “Bucky, your gross ignorance and insensitivity are staggering, and may be compared only to your GREED-”

A pertinent ethnobotanical/ anthropological note: HARMINE and HARMALINE are alkaloids occurring naturally in plant species used by Amazonian Shamans (usually described as “Witch Doctors” in Comic Books, Pulp fiction and Hollywood Movies). These dream-inducing substances are components of a complex class of vision/telepathy-inducing preparations decocted from the native Banisteriopsis vine combined with dimethyltryptamine-containing species of shubs from thegenus Psychotria. The preparation is known in literature and folklore as Ayahuasca.
Shaman, Brujo, Curandero- I still like the sound of “Witch Doctor”.-RS
“You are the Witch Doctor but I am the Vampire!”- Rainford Hugh Perry

VIEW EPISODE 11 AS A SLIDE SHOW!

1.Back in Dogbad town, Señor Hoss and Señor Hsss approach the office of the town’s resident Assayer, Mister Wurlitzer, a wordy dog who never states in three words what could be said with twenty. Señor Hoss holds high hope that Señor Hsss’s strange urinary disorder could net them both some bullion dividends- if they play their cards right!

2.They enter the Assayer’s Office. It is dark within the small room. There are no windows, and no lamps. Having given a small glass bottle containing Señor Hsss’s sample, they stand silently as their eyes adjust to the dark sienna ombre. Mister Wurlitzer stands inside a barred cage enclosure, carefully rolling the bottle in his hand, squinting through his C-bridge pince-nez:”This is a rather very small sample- very rather. I’ll see what I can do but in the mean time try to drink a lot of liquids and return to me a more substantial measure… Try very hard.”
Hanging beneath the counter is a notice:
“IF YOU EXPECT TO RATE AS A GENTLEMAN DO NOT EXPECTORATE ON THE FLOOR.”

3.Retiring to the inside of the Dogbad Saloon, Señors Hsss and Hoss evade the steely glare of the landlord. If “Discus Ted” is holding a grudge against them, he is keeping it to himself for the moment. Señor Hoss buys a pint and tries to get Señor Hsss to join in. Señor Hsss only stares at the bar top. Hoss cajoles his friend to join in libation. “I don’t know why you’re so down in the mouth- if it’s what I think it is we could be rich! Worst case scenario, if you got Lou Gehrig’s Disease or something… we’ll probably still have enough left to pay the Neptune Society.” Hsss is unmoved.

4.The two are beginning to notice the atmosphere within the saloon is strangely alive- hyperelectric, for want of a better term, with little dots, molecules even, dancing within the air, the walls, even their dialogue baloons. Colours are remarkably bright, and their very beings pulse with a supernatural energy. This is very non-ordinary. They’ve been in this room five hundred times before but they’ve never seen it as it is now. Hoss keeps the monologue going: “I’m sure it’s probably nothin’- the desert does strange things… I’m not feeling so great myself… my beck hurts like a sump batch.”

5.Suddenly some kind of hell breaks forth in the precise part of Hoss’s back that Hoss was dwelling on. His hind quarter jumps up and down involuntarily as it projects the kind of noises you hear when Mighty Mouse is pounding a single-stroke roll down on the head of Oil Can Harry: “BOUDOU-BOUDOU-BOUDOU!”

6.Hoss can’t believe what he is experiencing. It hurts like a battleship full of kidney stones. A strange, writhing mass of undifferentiated tissue is rising out of his rump, punching and grasping the space around it as it grows bigger and more humanoid in shape.

7.Within ninety seconds (seeming ninety lifetimes to poor Señor Hoss) a fully articulated torso has grown out of Hoss’s butt. It is alive, conscious, malevolent and red and stinging hot like a barrel of Tabasco sauce. The creature comes in swinging a heavy Herculean club. His eyes burn with malicious intent and his countenance is like some daemon from a fifteenth century Tibetan Tanka. He looks mean. He IS mean, and he is attached to Señor Hoss like a Siamese Twin Devil. This does not bode well.

8.The Tabasco Devil whams the club direct on top Hoss’s head, spewing stars and nearly knocking his teeth out.
What a situation!

VIEW EPISODE 10 AS A SLIDE SHOW!

1.Señor Hsss is staring from behind a boulder. He flicks his tongue as his snake eyes burn through you.
“SSSSSSSSSSSSSS!”

2.Señor Hsss is grimacing and straining- streams of purple droplets spray the rock:
“SSS…SSSS…SSS!”

3.Señor Hsss has finished peeing on the rock. He is disturbed by what he sees- his urine has turned a bright purple, flecked with gold!

4.He yells to Señor Hoss standing nearby. “HOSS- Lookee here!”
Hoss: “I don’t want to look!”
Hsss:”NO, listen! Every time I pee-”

5.Hoss interrupts: “YOU, PEE? Snakes pee?” He continues in a sarcastic tone of voice. “I never knew that. Thanks for sharing.”
“NO” exclaims Señor Hsss, “Hossy, this is serious.”

6.Hssy continues,”Ever since we came off the mountain for the last couple of days I’ve been peeing PURPLE… with little gold flecks”.
His concern is evident.

7.Señor Hoss stands silently regarding this development. Señor Hsss is worried- he looks up at Señor Hoss,
hoping his equine friend will proffer some good solution.

8.Señor Hoss has a sudden Eureka: “Lets head for the ASSAY OFFICE!”

VIEW EPISODE 09 AS A SLIDE SHOW!

1.Señor Hoss is shaking Señor Hsss. “Señor Hsss! Wake up! It’s time!”
Hsss is unknowingly dragged kicking and screaming from his nightmare of Goldmine Sacks.
“MAL DIEU! What a horrible dream!”

2.As Señor Hsss emerges from the hypnagogic world he sees that the two of them are standing on a redrock cliff,
overlooking a gigantic peaceful valley.
“I don’t see amything” says Hsss.
“Amy minnit now…” replies Hosss.
It is past midnight, just before the first black thread of dawn.

3.WHOOOOMB! The peace of the valley is suddenly reduced to subatomic particles.

4.Blinded by the unimaginably bright flash, the pair’s eyes gradually regain function-
they see a burning orange bright mushroom cloud growing from the opposite side of the valley.
“I’ll be the donkey’s mulberry!” Stutters Hoss.
“Chup Bash!” spits Señor Hsss.

5.Hoss and Hss both feel an unfamiliar warm sensation on their skins. They discover a shower of micro-fine white particulate matter
descending from the first heaven.
“Is it snowing?” asks Señor Hoss, “There can’t be that much dandruff in the air!”

6.Señor Hsss catches some of the stuff on his tongue. It burns.
“HOT SNOW?”, he asks aloud.

7.Señor Hsss wants none of it. “Let’s go hone!” he insists. Señor Hoss does not even consider it- he looks down at Señor Hsss,
arguing: “WHAT! We came all this way, missed the sunset, didn’t see the sunrise, and now you want to go HOME?”

8.”Sob the sum rise” says Señor Hsss. “I’m goim’ hone.” It is not clear if he is transposing his consonants intentionally,
or if he is displaying the effects of radiation sickness. He paraphrases an old song: “You want to see the sum rise? Just sit there and stare.”
In the foreground, a red-complexioned stranger surveys our scene.

VIEW EPISODE 08 AS A SLIDESHOW!

1.Señor Hsss and the tortoise confront each other. “What’s the big idea?”, demands the tortoise. Señor Hsss replies: “You took the words right out of my mouth!”

2.Hsss picks up his sombrero and goads the tortoise with cool detachment: “Sorry I spoiled your nap, Daddy-o!”
The Tortoise is losing control.”NAP!?? You always barge into peoples’ office?”

3.”This is my OFFICE!” shouts the Tortoise. He is genuinely offended at what he considers an intrusion on his personal space.

4.”Office?” Señor Hsss and Señor Hoss look around in wonderment. The desert around them does not resemble any office either of them has ever seen.

5.The Tortoise brandishes a passport-sized identification document bearing his picture, name and place of employment:
“Cuspidore, Overton. Goldmine Sacks Employee Number 9069408000.”
“I’m a compliance officer at Goldmine-Sacks”, he brags.

6.”That’s WEIRD”, replies Señor Hsss. Cuspidore shoots back:”WEIRD? I have a stesdy job with a major Wall Street firm and I’m WEIRD?”
He gestures behind with his thumb toward the assorted rocks and cacti and appears to address them:
“HEY.FELLAS! I got a friggin’ snake in a sombrero, with a Fu Manchu mustache over here telling me what “weird” is!”

7.Like a Greek chorus in a bad peyote trip, the entire landscape animates to exclaim as one being:
“WE ALL WORK FOR GOLDMINE SACKS!”

8.Señor Hsss opens his mouth as if to scream in protest, but nothing comes out. His voice box is frozen.
Who ever heard of a talking snake, anyway?