Unspeakable Horror!

Night of the Zombie SkunksMy latest comic book in the VP Prez series, "Night of the Zombie Skunks," was released last week, and I am really happy with the final product. The production value of the comic book is really high: excellent art by Brian Hess, beautiful and vivid colors by Charco Lucas, awesome cover art by Joel Robinson, great work by Adriano Moraes the new intro/outro artist, and the comic itself has high quality pages and printing.

I recently left the VP Prez project, so this is my penultimate issue in the series. The script for the May issue, "Rue Morgue High," was also written by me (and there is another issue in the production queue, but that one may or may not be solicited). Based on a recent press release from the publisher, it looks like the series is going to go down a darker path from here, targeting a more "adult," traditional gothic horror fanbase. 

The majority of my scripts for the series have featured odd crossover elements like animal characters and cyborgs (or animal cyborgs like Canus the dog).  In the second issue, the main characters are Neanderthals fighting werewolves.  The third issue, "Whistle to Open Worlds," featured a bizarre racial satire.  With the exception of the the third issue, my scripts have been targeted to a young adult audience, including a lot of adolescent characters. 

A reviewer described the first issue as "kooky" horror, and a review from Fangoria, although a positive review that really understood the fairy tale subtext of the story, emphasized that the story was more for adolescent readers than adult horror fans. 

So, "Night of the Zombie Skunks" is the most kooky issue yet with the most adolescent animal characters.  And it is also the gayest.  Most everything I write has gay subtext, but this story is really gay.

"Night of the Zombie Skunks" is an allegory about puberty and being a gay adolescent in Junior High, and the story is enacted by anthropomorphized, Bambi-like forest creatures. The protagonist is young Stevie the Skunk.

The central conflict is that Stevie wants to "stink" like the other boys at school.  I think that "stinking" in the story is clearly a metaphor for puberty (there's also a joke at the end about deodorant), and also a metaphor for fitting in with the straight kids.  A couple of bullies at school are terrorizing Stevie because he hasn't started to stink yet.  This is very important for adolescent skunks.  However, the bullying is more sinister because it is blatantly homophobic.  When I wrote the story, I definitely intended for Stevie to be a gay boy, and he even has a pin-up of a James Dean skunk in his locker.

After going to his parents for advice, Stevie is sitting in the windowsill, yearning to stink like the other boys at school, when a gigantic owl swoops down and kidnaps him.  The owl (kind of like Ursula in the Little Mermaid) grants wishes, and Stevie wishes for an unparalleled stink.

The next morning, in the shower, Stevie gets his wish, and his stink arrives.  However, his stink kills every skunk who smells it, and they become zombie skunks.  The zombified skunks all have an especially horrible skunk stink, which drives all of the other forest animals out into the open, which was the great owl's plan all along, so he and his buddies can have a gigantic feast.

OK, so the plot is a little weird, but let's get back to the allegory--Stevie's ultra-powerful stink represents his weirdness and his alien-ness.  His stink even kills his mother, which I think really represents how a lot of gay kids feel--that their weirdness is going to shame and disappoint their parents.

Now that I've decoded the super-gay meaning of "Night of the Zombie Skunks," I hope you will pick up a copy at your local comic book store.  Like I said above, it is really a beautiful, high quality comic, and it is my most gay comic book, which I am really proud of.