Cat-Men from Pluto

It’s been a busy week here at Single Edge Studios. I apologize about the lack of blogs, but I was away from my computer. You see, I was in space.

It all started on Monday morning. I got an excited call from Leigh, who said the government wanted to see us. Assuming it was about the whole ‘crossing state lines to fight vampires’ thing, we quickly prepared to make a run for it.

And by that I mean we ran in circles, crying, until men in suits and sunglasses picked us up. We were taken to an undisclosed location behind the Taco Bell in Kirkland, where we learned that the government needed our help.

It seemed that a force of Cat-Men originating from Pluto was heading towards Earth, bent on destroying us in a hail of asteroid-sized chunks of used litter. The government officer in charge, one Major General (that was his name, Major General of the Philadelphia Generals), explained that the Cat-Men were upset about us changing the classification of Pluto from planet to Kuiper Belt object and were thus intent on our destruction.

When asked why there were Cat-Men on Pluto, Major General explained that that was merely a humorous coincidence and had absolutely nothing to do with a plot by the Dog-Men of Kitten III. Major General went on to explain that only a crack team of comic-book creators could hope to stop the Cat-Men. The Cat-Men, he said, loved comics and only a superbly written and drawn comic could convince them to spare us.

After staring at him for a good thirty seconds, we were forced to then ask why they picked us for this most important of missions and Major-General explained that everyone else was busy and that Neil Gaiman gets motion-sickness in space.

So, there we were, the fate of the entire world in our hands. We had a scant four days to produce the greatest comic ever seen in the history of mankind, get launched into space, and then set-up a table at the first ever Space Con in the International Space Station.

Needless to say, Leigh and I set to work. I wrote as fast as I could. In a matter of hours, I burned out three keyboards, drank four cases of Coke, ate a pound of beef jerky, and consumed seven boxes of Everlasting Gobstoppers. Oddly enough, I then spent 90 minutes in the bathroom, but I digress.

When I was done, I handed the script to Leigh and he went off and did things with a pencil. No, I didn’t stay and watch (see the bathroom comment above), but I’m sure something magical happened, because some time later, the pencils were done.

And we did it. We had our comic, written and penciled. Major General whisked it off somewhere and after a light dinner, a finished comic, inked, colored, lettered, and printed was in our hands. I then pointed out that ‘equilibrium’ spelled wrong on page eleven and two hours and one gunshot later, the new comic arrived. We were set.

I will not bore you with the details of going into space (I only threw up twice), the difficulties of setting up a con table in zero-g, or how hard it is not to giggle when you meet a six-foot, eight-inch talking Cat-Man in battle armor and learn that his name is Boopsie-Tiddles.

And, as you may well have guessed, seeing as we’re all still here, we were successful. The Cat-Men decided to spare the Earth and we returned to the secret base behind the Taco Bell for a celebratory feast of Baja Gorditas and Nachos Bellgrande. Oh, we did enquire about a reward, seeing as we’d just saved the Earth, but Major General suggested that they would continue to overlook some of our more questionable activities (trying to transport flamethrowers into Florida to battle were-frogs, for one) in lieu of cash.

Seeing as we were in a heavily guarded secret government facility, we agreed.

And our comic? It’s safely locked away in case it should ever be needed again. We started to complain about that, but like I said: heavily guarded secret government facility.

Anyway, that was our week. Look for the usual blogs and updates next week, assuming the Fanged Lemurs of Epsilon IV don’t need to go walkies.

Cheers,
-Jason