Mind-Blowing

Hiya, Mike Grell here.  You may know me as the creator of Jon Sable Freelance, The Warlord, Starslayer and other masterpieces of sequential art.  Of course, I’m assuming you a) are awesome and b) know good comics when you see them.  What can I say, I have faith in my readers.

What you might not know, however, is that I am also, as the good folks at Wikipedia put it, “an avid big-game hunter”.  Although I have to say, dudes, while I appreciate the shout-out, the adjective is totes in vain.  ‘Cuz if it floats, flies, lopes, scuttles or crawls, the Grellmonster will put a bullet between its eyes and slap it on his dinner table.  Give me an elephant gun and a desert island full of nothing but rabbits, I’m not gonna turn up my nose--those bunnies are going down.  Buckteeth and big, floppy ears all over the fuckin’ place.  ’Cuz it ain’t the size of the package that counts, right ladies?

Now don’t get me wrong, I loves me some big-game hunting.  There’s nothing quite like sitting crouched in the tall grass, sighting down (iron sights only, ’cuz I kick it old-school like that) on something huge and endangered, the rifle butt slamming against your shoulder as you pull the trigger and pop its heart like a water balloon…gives me a fuckin’ hard-on just thinking about it.  And as for actually doing it?  Well brah, let’s just say there’s a reason I wear a jimmy-hat at all times when I’m out in the bush.  And yes, that is a double entendre.  And before any of you tree-huggers ask, no, that’s not the only way I can bust a nut--just ask my wife.  Or my mistress.  Or both--they know each other, they’re totes cool with it, go on shopping sprees together and shit.  Never let it be said the Grellster can’t keep his women satisfied.

But lemme tell ya, hunting isn’t all blowing away dumb animals, using their blood as warpaint and eating their hearts raw (to absorb their power, natch).  There’s the not-so-fun stuff too--hauling gear, camping in the rain, digging holes in the ground to poop in (what are those called again?  I can never remember), spraying yourself with deer urine, squatting in one place for hours at a time, being miles away from the nearest woman (sure, there’s a few lady hunters, but most of ‘em ain’t buying what Grandmaster Grelle Grell’s selling, if you know what I mean), shit like that.

Hours or days of hassle for two seconds’ payoff might not sound like a good tradeoff, but believe me man, it totes is.  Try it for yourself if you don’t believe me.  Though I have to warn you, shit can get crazy out in the field sometimes.  I mean like really, really crazy--like Christine O’Donnell crazy.  I could tell you some stories.  In fact, you know what?  I’ll tell one right now.

Huh?  Whuzzat?  Why am I writing this instead of drawing a comic?  Good question, brah, with an even better answer--’cuz I ain’t getting paid, that’s why?  Mofos think they’re my kids or something, wanting a bedtime story or some shit!  You know what these d-bags are offering?  Half a six-pack of Simpler Times pilsner, that’s what!  Man, I hate pils--tastes like it was strained through a fuckin’ sock!  

Ah, what the hell--I just got kicked out of ANOTHER AA group, might as well get my buzz on.  Any port in a storm, right?  So all right, I’ll write something up--but that’s all.  You want purty pitchers to go along with--that you pay for.  Even comic-book artists have their pride.

So anyway, this happened back in ‘98.  I was hunting elk in the forest, beats me if I remember which one--Yellowstone or Redwood or some shit.  Trust me, brah, when you’ve hunted in as many forests as I have they all start running together in your head.  I do remember being the trees still being green in the middle of November, so a pine forest I guess.  That doesn’t really narrow it down, though.  Oh well, like anybody cares.

Anyhoo, like I said it was the middle of November, in the forest, which is gonna be cold and wet as hell no matter where you are.  And it was that day, I don’t mind telling you.  Big fat cold drops rolling down my face, getting warpaint in my eyes.  Yeah, I said warpaint.  When it comes to hunting, your acronym of the day is ABP--Always Be Painted.  Never hurts to look like a badass, even if your opponent don’t give a shit.  Especially then.  ‘Cuz if you’re staring some big-ass bear or lion or whatever dead in the eye, you got BRING IT BITCH written all over your face (I literally do that sometimes--can you say “badass”?), and the thing’s too fuckin’ dumb to realize it?  You will feel like a god.  A.  GOD.  Well, you’ll probably already feel that way what with the gun and all, but more so.  You’re gonna feel like Super-God; you know, the God God is afraid of.

Like I was saying, my paint was getting all messed up--looked more like it read BLIRG II LUCII or some shit.  Wasn’t just the face paint getting washed away either--I could barely smell the doe-piss anymore.  Here I’d spent all morning damn near MARINATING in the shit.  That stuff is expensive too, especially the Chinese black-market stuff I use.  Totally illegal--they say it makes hunting too easy, if you can believe that.  Yeah, you try hauling 50 pounds of gear in and out of the forest sometime, then we’ll talk about easy.  That, and if it’s about “difficult” why do you let us use GUNS?  That makes splattering animal-brains pretty fuckin’ easy, lemme tell ya!  If you’re really worried about “easy”, why don’t you make us go out there with ball-peen hammers?  Though, actually, I did that a couple times, and I gotta say…but that’s another story.

So anyway, the pee-smell’s starting to wear off and I’m limper than a…a…really limp thing.  I’m about to call it a day, pull this rubber off and head back to town when all of a sudden this buck comes trotting out of the brush.  And what a buck it was!  An absolute beaut (no homo) from head to toe.  And the antlers!  Most centerfolds don’t have racks this nice--I’m serious, this thing must’ve been, like, a fifty-pointer.  I have never wanted to hang something on my studio wall so badly.  I swear to you, Bambi’s dad (was Bambi a deer or an elk?  I always get those mixed up) decided to end it all, stepped off the silver screen and into G-Rell’s sights.  ‘Cuz if you’re gonna go out, might as well get your sendoff from the best, right?  So the old lowercase jumps right back to attention, I raise my gun and…

Okay, something you need to know in order to understand this next part.  At the time, I had recently come into possession of several hundred rounds of gas-tipped rounds--that is, exploding bullets.  They pretty much turn any gun into a tiny rocket launcher.  Get hit with one of these and KERBLOOEY--get turned into a meat smoothie from the inside out.  Yeah, pretty gnarly--even more gnarly if you hit the colon.  Blood and shit EVERYWHERE, like my bathroom on Enchilada Night.  Now I know what you’re thinking--”Sweet Jesus Mikey, that is a horrible way to die”, and you’re afraid to say it ‘cuz you don’t wanna sound like a pussy.  Well, don’t worry about it, ‘cuz you’re right, brah.  I wouldn’t wish that shit on my worst enemy.  Fuck, I wouldn’t wish that shit on Joe Quesada, it’s so nasty.  Knowing these things are out there and anyone can buy them makes me wanna burn my NRA card sometimes.  Then I go clean my guns and the feeling goes away.  Mourn ya till I join ya, C.H.

So no doubt you’re wondering--what in the almighty living fuck was I even doing with these ungodly abominations, much less bringing them hunting?  Well brah, to that I can only say, your guess is as good as mine.  Last time I hit the gun store drunk, lemme tell ya.  I didn’t even realize I had them by the time I was out there--I was a little buzzed when I loaded the truck (noticing a pattern?), so I must’ve just grabbed a few ammo boxes at random and tossed them in.  It’s a miracle I managed to bring the right caliber this time (unlike that time I  went on a trip with some buddies.  Closest I’ve ever been to dying.  But that, again, is another story.)  And somehow, I swear to you, I still didn’t notice when I busted open a box and crammed the things in my rifle.  I have no idea what was wrong with me that day; I don’t normally get that far into the zone.  Or that drunk.  Maybe it was a combination of both?  Maybe I was in the drunk-zone?  I have no idea.

So here I was, sighting down on the Tom Cruise of elk, unaware I’d loaded my trusty Winchester (or “Winkie” as I like to call it) with distilled nightmare.  As far as I knew, the round I was fixing to put between this elk’s eyes was the garden-variety copper-jacketed.  I pulled the trigger and…

Before I tell the rest of this, I need to make something crystal: this shit actually happened.  I’m not just telling some story, not just trying to make you laugh/cry/puke/shit yourself/whatever.  One hundred percent pure unvarnished truth, homes.  There’ll be a couple spots where you’ll be like “there’s no way it works like that!”  And if I hadn’t seen it for myself, I’d totes agree with you.  But I did, and apparently it does.  Or at least, it did that one time--I’ve gone through a lot of hassle (and animals) trying to make it happen again and it never has.  One in a billion thing, I guess.

I took the shot, it went high and clipped the very top of the elk’s skull.  There’s this huge BANG and, I shits you not, everything above the poor bastard’s eyes disappears.  I mean just literally VANISHES.  Well, okay, not quite vanishes, more like races as far away from the buck’s brain as possible.  Both antlers pop off, shoot in opposite directions into the brush--I searched for two hours afterward and only managed to find one.  And the skull?  You’d think some rednecks’d tried to make a hand grenade outta the fuckin’ thing.  Bone shrapnel flew EVERYWHERE--tearing down leaves, embedding themselves in tree trunks, leaving a kickass scar on my cheekbone, shit like that.

Remember what I said earlier?  All that “ohh explodey-bullets are awful and I wouldn’t do that to one of God’s precious creatures BAAAWWWW” crap?  Yeah, fuck that.  This shit right here was stone freakin’ AWESOME.  Blew so much man-chowder my balls felt like raisins afterward.  So much the condom burst like an overfilled balloon and left me with a pantload of Grell-goo.  Every time I moved I made “squelch, squelch” noises until I could get back to the hotel and change.

But I haven’t even gotten to the really awesome part!  You’re probably thinking this poor bastard’s gray-matter made like my man-juice and got splattered all over the place, right?  WRONG.  What happened instead was, the two hemispheres peeled apart, like, I dunno, buttcheeks (I’m totes not gay--that’s just the best metaphor I can think of), and drooped over the elk’s somehow-still-intact eyes.  It was like the grossest game of peek-a-boo ever up in this bitch.  Blew my goddamned mind.  The elk’s too, come to think of it.

So what did old Farmer-In-The-Grell do?  Well, first I sat there in absolute shock for a couple minutes, just stewing in my own baby-snot.  Then, I thought “there is just NO WAY anyone is gonna believe this,” so I pulled out my Polaroid and took a few pictures of the head, the skull chunks, everything I could find.  Then I cleaned the kill, hauled it to the truck, and headed back to the hotel.  Then I took a shower and changed into clean pants (I just threw the Spunky Brewsters away).  Then I faxed the pictures to my old buddy Garth Ennis, who was working on Preacher at the time, then called him.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, what’s up?” he said.

“You are not gonna believe what happened today,” I said.

“Why?  What happened?”

“Check these pics I’m faxing you, brah.”

“Okay…can I call you back?  The fax is in the other room and I don’t have a cordless.”

“No prob,” I said, and he hung up.  A few minutes later he called back.

“Dude…is this shit for real?” he asked.

“Sure as shit is,” I said.

“No fucking way!”

“No, it totes is!” I said, and told him what happened.

He was quiet for a couple minutes, then said the only thing that made sense.

“Ho.  Ly.  Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s pretty fucking nasty, dude.”  And as anyone who’s read Garth’s stuff knows, if he’s calling something “pretty fucking nasty” it’s gotta be REAL bad.

“You should put that shit in Preacher, brah,” I said.

“I wouldn’t take this shit from you!  Put it in your stuff!”

“I can’t, man!  I haven’t worked in two years!  Besides, it’d look weird coming from me--people expect shit like this from you!”

Garth sighed.  “Can’t argue with that, I guess.  Fax this over to Steve, willya?”

“Will do,” I said, and hung up.

A couple days later Garth called me at home.

“Mike, dude, I have some bad news.”

“What?”

“You know those pictures you sent me?”

“Yeah, what about ‘em?”

“Turns out that shit’s not gonna be in Preacher.”

“What?!  Why?”

“Steve won’t draw it.  Apparently when he saw the faxes he puked for, like, twenty minutes straight.  He says it’s too out-there even by our standards and we’d be begging to get cancelled.”

“Aww, that weak-ass limey motherfucker!”

“I know.  These Brits, dude--not a decent pair of bollocks between them.”

Now it was my turn to sigh.  “Aw, hell.  Guess I’ll have to do it myself after all.  Thanks anyway, man--I owe you a Guinness.”

“Oh, ha-bloody-ha!” he said, and hung up.  I wasn’t even trying to make fun of him that time.  Why are paddies so fuckin’ thin-skinned?

So, a couple years later I got back in the comics biz.  I tried like a mofo to stick the elk pics in somewhere, but somehow the opportunity just never presented itself.  And quite frankly, I’m tired of waiting.

So you know what?  Fuck all y’all.  I couldn’t think of a way to end this anyway--let’s put some lovely parting gifts up in this bitch!  Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time anywhere, I present to you…(drum roll please)…the pictures in question!

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(Editor’s note: Assuming these supposed photographs exist, Mr. Grell apparently decided against providing them, submitting instead several close-up photographs of male genitalia, presumably his own.  We take exception to Mr. Grell’s attempts to “dick-roll” our readership and accordingly decline to upload the images.)

DISCLAIMER

The preceding was a work of fiction.  It was not written by Mike Grell, nor is it meant to imply such.  No attempt been made to depict Mr. Grell’s beliefs and mannerisms in an accurate manner.  I have not met Mr. Grell myself, and have no reason to think he writes/talks like a retarded frat boy (if you will excuse the redundancy) who uses the terms “totes” and “brah” to excess (I.e. more than zero times).  Nor is there any reason to believe Mr. Grell derives sexual excitement from the death of animals, is unfaithful to his wife, assumes women who share his interests to be lesbians, refers to himself by annoying nicknames, is an alcoholic, a sexual exhibitionist, or derives unfair advantages through illegal means.  It is certainly possible Mr. Grell does indeed possess one or more of these attributes to a certain extent, but I consider it unlikely.