Some stories have a message...kinda...

Additional Notes:

WARNING! (The real one)

This story is pretty offensive, it can get graphic and downright ruthless at times so if you don’t like that sort of humor, don’t read this story. But if you read it anyway don’t complain if you get offended, I did warn you and keep in mind it IS only a story.

(Or read it anyway, get offended and leave a hilariously triggered comment, that's fine too.)

Also, don't bother trying to "win" either. You can't. Just heed the moral lessons you may learn.

One musician's tale in a dying world

Additional Notes:

If you’ve read and liked Necromancer, then this might interest you as this story takes place during the same course of events of that story. (Not a prequel, not a sequel, but an equal!)

However, this story is definitely more “story” than “game”. In fact you shouldn’t even bother reading it if you’re intent on “winning”. You can’t. That being said, there is a “true ending” to this story and you’ll probably know if you get it. If you do get it, you can consider it a “win” if you like.

There are a few points in the story where there are links that lead to “Letters to Home”. While not necessary to understand the story, they do provide a little more insight into the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings on various situations.

The last hope for a dying empire

Additional notes:

This story can be very long assuming you're not dying. Years pass and your surroundings will most likely change. You may very well live a life time in the story.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the epilogues.

There are 13 epilogues total.

There are also several points in the story where there are links that lead to more background information on various people, places, things and events. While not completely necessary to understanding the story, they do give you more insight into it.

Carnivals aren't all fun and games.

Additional Notes:

While there is only one spot that contains extra histories for this story, it's basically the background information of all the major characters and factions. It's strongly recommended that these are read due to the fact that your character will be interacting with most of these folks in his attempts to successfully accomplish his task(s).

This story has a very factional feel to it, so choose your allegiances carefully to get one of the better endings.

If you see a bright light, duck and cover!

Additional notes:

I should point out that this story can be very long assuming you're not dying. Years pass and your surroundings will most likely change. You may very well live a life time in the story if you're lucky. You will also experience a completely different adventure depending on how you escaped the initial nuclear strike. (Assuming you do survive it.)

As with any of my writings, the "story" comes before the "game". However, this story was written in a "game like" format. So while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the 4 special endings. (You'll know if you get one because you'll get an epilogue)

This one's for the kids, no really!

Additional Notes:

This story has clear cut win/lose endings. There is nothing excessively unusual about this story, it's just a simple "children's story".

(Yes, you can still die in it)

Running the family business isn't easy!

Additional Notes:

In a few places there are links for history or certain characters. While not necessary to understand the story, they do provide further background information.

There are several endings varying in degrees of good/bad or neutral outcomes. Technically there is one very happy ending, but it isn't labeled as such.

Underneath the sickness there's love...

Additional Notes:

WARNING!

This story contains a lot of graphic content, if you are offended by ultra violence, explicit sexual descriptions, tons of swearing, blasphemy, inappropriate dark humor, and brutal misanthropy in general then DO NOT read this story!

Of course now that I’ve mentioned all the things it contains, you’ll probably read it anyway, you sick little monkey.

Well don’t complain if you get offended, I did warn you and keep in mind it IS only a story.

(Or read it anyway knowing it'll offend you and leave an amusingly triggered comment. That's fine too.)

This also isn't really a "win/lose" type story. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just a tale about a very twisted man and his very twisted lifestyle.

Additional Notes:

This story is definitely more "story" than "game", however there are two distinct paths that can be followed, each with their own pitfalls and additional choices. There is also "one true" ending in which can be considered a "win" (You'll know if you got it, because you'll get an epilogue)

This story can get long, and assuming you're surviving, years do pass in it and you and your environment will change. There are a few points in the story where there are links that lead to more background information on various people and things. While not completely necessary to understand the story, they do give you more insight into it. The text that accompanies some of the pics are also done for similar purposes (Your journal entries, personal thoughts, letters written to you, etc)

Humanity never changes...

Additional Notes:

There are links leading to various background information and your character's current thoughts throughout the story. In some cases these may provide greater insight since some mysterious things can occur in this story.

There are also several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. Technically there is one ultimate "winning" ending, but it isn't labeled as such.

Emotions can be wonderful or dangerous...

Additional Notes:

This story has a few bits that are probably a bit on the disturbing side. Not many, but they are there in places. So if you don't like that sort of thing, you probably shouldn't read it.

This story in general is probably a bit odd and less verbose than most of my other stories. There are also several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just the tale of a teenager who definitely has some issues.

From humble beginning to infamy and beyond!

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as a "sequel" to Innkeeper.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the 12 epilogues.

Things would be so much easier if your name was Mary Sue

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as:

A direct sequel to the "Good Girl" short story in Tales From The Basement.

A semi sequel to the other TFTB short stories, Repression, TRASH, Love SICK and Geek.

A semi prequel to Ground Zero.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can still "win" by getting one of the epilogues.

There are 16 epilogues total.

Because Basement Dwellers are people too!

Additional Notes:

This story is three stories in one. Your first choice will lead to a separate tale of a different “basement dweller”. Each one is mostly different in tone.

Ebay Escapist is weird and random. It’s the least verbose of the three. (Or my stories in general)

Good Girl is the longest and most descriptive of the three. There is some weirdness going on here too, but is mostly kept much more in "reality". There is a cast of characters link in the beginning to help you keep up with who’s who.

Anime Addict has a lot of offensive language and humor, so if you don't like that sort of thing you shouldn’t read this one.

In all the tales there are several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. While there are some endings better than others, these are basically just tales of basement dwellers.

It's an edgelord boogaloo!

Additional Notes:

This story is three stories in one where it follows a different protagonist based on the first choice.

This story is also probably really offensive or something. Probably shouldn't read it if that's not your thing, but feel free to do so anyway and complain loudly in the comments since those are always good for a laugh.

Anyway, there's your extra warning. You can't say you weren't told.

Incel Insanity and Whining Wokie are all new tales, while Film Fanatic is a "reboot" of sorts of an older story called Exploitation Theater. Yes, it's finally here and been greatly expanded on.

As always the story is always more important than the game focus, but also as always, you definitely can get better endings than others.

Three ladies. Three legends.

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as a connection to Rogues, Eternal and Necromancer.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However there is an epilogue for each "winning" ending.

Yee Haw! It's a trailer park life for me!

Additional Notes:

This story has a ton of offensive langauge and humor so if you don't like that sort of thing, you probably shouldn't read it. Though given the setting, the language used is pretty accurate.

This also isn't really a "win/lose" type story. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just a tale about a typical day of a degenerate that lives in a trailer park.

Nah passive aggressive is for the other faggier writing sites. Here we're just normal aggressive.

The problem with this generation is you've had the misfortune of being brought up in an overly coddling time where someone has deemed "Oh noes this is offensive!" And now there's a disease at most places where everyone has to watch out for someone's fee fees or else! 

We're not doing that here.

Now it's not really your fault but hopefully you can unlearn some of that weakness during your time here. You'll be better for it, I assure you.

In the meantime you can quietly read and rate stories or make some of your own!

The important thing though is that everyone has fun.

Next five coming up

Issue 6: A Gathering of Heroes

Didn’t they already gather before?

This starts off in Winged Monkey territory in the northeastern part of Oz and a brief mention of how despite their occasional role in its history, nobody really knows where their allegiances lie, but everyone knows them to be a noble race.

The monkey folk become alarmed when they see Wogglebug flying on Gump and the ex-prince monkey boy arriving. They immediately arrest them saying they aren’t allowed here, especially since the ex-prince is exiled. Woggle is a bit perturbed stating they have important business to discuss, but Mr. Nameless already says this wasn’t too surprising for him and they go willingly.

Cut to the other Freedom Fighters in the forest where Hungry Tiger is busy eating as usual while getting patched up by munchkins. Pumpkinhead states since HG is in better shape, he and HG are going to find a secret tunnel under Em City to try to just bypass defenses and get straight to the Nome King. 

Seems like a good idea, but isn’t the standard nome MO to attack from underground? Seems like they’d just all be under there anyway.

Anyway Mary isn’t too keen on Jack leaving since she feels he’s the closest thing to a friend she has since she first got rescued by him. Jack says its too dangerous for her to risk going being a puny human after all. Meanwhile Amber makes like a white knight stating that he’ll be around to protect Mary, which then causes Jinjur to state she’ll be around to protect Mary too…from Amber.

As Jack and HG leave, Mary goes over to Amber saying she’s been rude and wants to thank him for saving her life earlier

Then she kisses him on the cheek. Wow. Well make up your own mind that if Mary is just being a big whore here or if Kevin’s dick game is just so weak that it doesn’t make up for the rest of his personality so she’d be better off trading for a new model. (It’s a trick question, it’s both)

Cut to Mombi and her ladies auxiliary brigade. They’re currently at the former HQ of the Freedom Fighter and using it as a new base for themselves. Mombi’s already plotting the next major step in the Nome King’s downfall because she’s not content on being a servant stating that he forgets that once her sisters ruled this land and if not for her help, he wouldn’t have even gotten as far as he did.

She picks up a piece of Tik Tok stating she wishes he could be put back together and made loyal to her, but for now she’ll just keep the piece as a souvenir of her victory. She then tells her ladies for everyone to gather at Em City, the next step is going to be soon.

Cut to the trio with Kev and Pete. Scarecrow remarks on the things they’ve said about earth and he says the place sounds magical too and that Dorothy didn’t mention anything like what they’re saying. They then come across some Quadlings.

Tin Man and Scarecrow try to call out to them, but they immediately run and beg for mercy still believing they’re evil. When they learn that isn’t the case, they give the group some proper food and talk a little about their current situation. Pete and Kev are mainly worried about Mary, though Scarecrow tries to reassure them that she probably found refuge with those fighting the Nome King. 

As for getting back to earth, the Lion says since it was probably magic that brought them here, it’ll be magic to take them back so they’ll need to seek out such magic. Unfortunately the Wizard isn’t around anymore and a Quadling says the Nome King is going to try to marry Ozma to become the true king. Kevin says he doesn’t remember her from the movie leading to the Tin Man saying how Ozzite seem to know more about earth than the other way around since he seems to think it’s a fantasy land. (And Kev never saw Return to Oz obviously since Ozma was in that and this comic is taking place in the 90s long after it was already out (And on VHS)

Tin Man then goes into a bit of history about who Ozma is, then one of the Quadlings fills in a bit more background of what’s been going on to Kevin and Peter (and even the trio since they apparently are a bit out of the loop as well), though this is stuff we as the readers already know.

Then they all go to sleep and Kevin is just thinking how saving Oz is going to get him any closer to Mary, but there’s little else to do right now. He just takes comfort in that his dog is still with him. (Might as well seeing as Mary’s already kissing other dudes since their short time here)

Cut back to Wog and Monkey boy who are now sitting in a cell. Wog starts questioning Monkey about the situation, which he tells him that he got exiled for questioning the king and then Wog of course is stating how this is a fascist police state that shuts down independent thought, however he’s also pissed at Monkey for not explaining this sooner and was retarded since now they’ve taken themselves out of the fight against the Nome King. Monkey boy still thinks that the king will see them though since it’s his dad.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighter’s camp where Jinjur is speaking to an old munchkin who states he’s tired of the war and he longs for this vigil ends. He soon gets his wish when some giant wolf creature jumps out and rips his throat out. Jinjur kills it, but there’s more of them with the alpha stating that the BANEWOLVES will bring destruction to the two legs.

(Not sure if the Bane Wolves were a thing in the OG books or just this comic. Probably was some sort of mention of evil wolves in the books since that sounds fitting in a place where it’s a lot of talking animal or animal like beings.)

And that’s it for this comic.

Issue 7: Monkey in the Middle

This whole series is just folks constantly fighting armies of little people

Alright this one starts off with Wog and Monkey boy finally getting taken to the king where he’s yelled at for coming back in the first place. Wog tries to explain their situation, but nobody wants to hear from a pompous giant roach, so Monkey boy gets his say finally.

He goes on about the Nome King fucking up Oz and all that, to which the response is the same and that’s yeah that’s not our concern. Monkey Boy then points out the NK isn’t going to stop there and he’ll surely turn his attention to conquering them too, though it’s pointed out that their land is pretty remote and nothing of any real value that NK would want. The response to that is that doesn’t really matter since NK is just a control freak that likes power for its own sake. Not to mention he’s ultra paranoid that’s not likely to just let an independent well equipped unified army just sit on his doorstep. He’s not an honorable sort and needs to be taken out.

Well it took some doing, but Nameless Monkey Boy finally gets through to his dad who says yeah maybe they’ve been following the “Law of the Cap” too strictly for too long and so he gives his son his name back and says he can come back home. So back to Reynar Abbella it is.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighter camp that got attacked by the Bane Wolves and it’s not looking too good for the as they’re outnumbered and surrounded by them. Sawhorse takes on a few. Amber is doing his usual white knight shit of claiming how he’ll protect Mary, while Mary is going on about how she can handle herself. A couple of Munchkins remark about how they won’t shut up and meanwhile Jinjur is being an absolute Chadette by actually focusing on shooting multiple wolves with arrows.

Fortunately for all of them Hungry Tiger shows up and kills a few and threatens the alpha which causes them to slink off saying they haven’t heard the last of the Bane Wolves. Mary asks where Jack is, though HG says he’s on his way and he’ll soon show them the one who’ll guide them through the secret tunnels into Em City.

Cut to the trio who just show up at the front gates of Em City because fuck any sort of strategy. They knock on the gate which is answered by some nome who wonders what the hell the three kings are doing there. Tin Man states they want to see the Nome King immediately which causes the gate guard to state he’ll be right back.

Meanwhile the Nome King is talking to himself stating the obvious about how all his enemies have fallen but his one prize still remains out of reach which Is Ozma who continues to delude himself that she WILL love him. But then he snaps out of it and states he needs to focus on not only the remainder of the resistance, but also Mombi who he knows is scheming against him.

In comes the gate guard who states the trio are outside which really alarms NK and states what the hell does he pay Mombi for. He then tells him to stall them while he gathers his artifacts to destroy them for good.

The trio and the earthers are still waiting around and Kevin points out that while they wait, the nomes are probably trying to figure out how to capture them. Kevin might be a terrible businessman, but he’s actually got more common sense than most in Oz.

At this point there’s a REALLY fucking stupid bit with the Scarecrow where he starts replying to Kevin and during the dialog he says a line “Now that we three are free…” and then he breaks the 4th wall saying “Try saying that 3 times fast.” this is followed by his head shaking and going (Wakka wakka wakka) leading to the next panel going “Anyway…” and then returns to the story proper.

It’s really fucking retarded and probably the expressions they drew made things worse since he’s really punchable looking. Though I should point out, the Scarecrow says a lot of dumb goofy shit when he returns back to being good. This just happens to be one of the worst examples.

Anyway…

As Kevin predicted, the nomes come out in force with little clubs ready to beat them to death. A multiple page fight scene goes on, but soon the nomes do that death from below attack and more pop up from the ground to drag them under where hundreds of them are. 

Cut back to Reynar who is rebonding with his dad over some beers. Wog still doesn’t understand why the laws were so strict in the first place since it wasn’t even like Reynar was trying to take the throne from his dad. Reyna explains how their race used to be more fun loving rascals but one day they took the “It’s just a prank bro” thing too far, kidnapping the northern queen’s finance and dumping him in the river on their wedding day!

The queen didn’t like this and created a magical cap that would control the destiny of the monkeys to the wearer. So they created this book with a set of laws for them to follow. Fortunately when Dorothy killed the Wicked Witch of the West they got the cap back.

Unfortunately during the middle of this tale, a monkey servant reports that the cap is gone.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighters where Jack says the nomes have mostly closed up all the tunnels they dug in order to get under Oz, but there’s still one they didn’t create that they didn’t know about. HG then presents who knows those tunnels and will e the guide and it’s the Queen of the Field Mice. (Another character from the OG books)

And that’s it for this issue.

They brought back the Munchkin Mailbag letter page and there’s another rambling page by Stu going on about some shit, but nothing major. Except for one guy who wrote that his comic book guy was so hyped about Oz that he let him take home the first issue to read to see what he thought of it. The dude said he had his doubts at first, but after reading it he liked it a lot.

In fact, he stated he liked it so much he didn’t take the comic back to the store and had essentially stole it. Not sure of the thought process of either, if the dude was just never going back to that place or the store owner was fine with him taking it without paying since he figured he’d have ongoing sales with the dude buying the new ones. Guess that’ll just be one of those little mysteries as Stu scolded the guy in his reply of saying he hoped he went back and paid for the comic.

Issue 8: The Itzy Bitzy Spider

Don’t worry, the first page still has folks fighting an army of short people

As already stated, the issue starts off with the trio fighting an army of nomes. Well the Tin Man and Lion are at least, the Scarecrow is being useless as usual having already been ripped apart during the fight last issue and his head calling for help. Though Tinny and Lion are doing the retarded thing of holding back, by not using the EDGE of the axe or claws, but state they will soon if they don’t turn the tide of nomes.

Which at this point Kevin is like “What the fuck are you waiting for?”

Kev and Lion soon manage to locate Crow’s body parts in the sea of nomes and reunite his body with his head again. Which allows him to FINALLY become useful as he does his tried and true “Summon Crows” spell and a shitload of them come forth from his cloak to murder the shit out of the nomes while they escape.

I suppose it makes sense that the Scarecrow isn’t really the fighter of the bunch given he’s just flimsy straw held together by some raggedy clothes. He’s obviously the “magic user” class and this gets addressed more in a prequel spin off I’ll get to later.

Nome King gets pissed at his minions for letting them all escape and orders scouts to go find them.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighters speaking with the Mouse Queen and she says that while her rodents have found signs of the caves that the nomes are still using. Amber asks if she knows the way through them to the castle in Em City, but MQ says they haven’t actually ventured through them, they just know that enough nomes use them that the castle must be on the other side. They’re going to have to discover the way themselves.

Fat help Mini-Mouse was.

Cut back to Em City where Peter managed to be the unlucky one to not escape and gets thrown before the Nome King. NK demands to know how the trio overcame the mind control spells, but Peter won’t cooperate. NK asks wouldn’t it be better to be on the winning side and cooperate, but Pete stays consistent leading to NK beating him and throwing him in the dungeon.

Cut back to Mini-Mouse leading them to the entrance to the caves where they can figure shit out themselves, but it should lead to the unfinished portion of the dungeons. Mary asks why Em City even has dungeons since it’s supposed to be a friendly happy place before NK came along. Amber says in wasn’t always a dungeon and used to just be an extra food storage area for the banquets.

So the group set off and time passes. Eventually they get to the cave entrance where party members start leaving. Mini-Mouse takes off as she never went that deep into the caves and Hungry Tiger of all folks leaves stating that he’s going to guard the rear tunnel so if any nomes show up, he can deal with them and they won’t get potentially trapped between two enemy hordes. The big pussy is probably just feeling claustrophobic again.

Jack actually tells Mary that she’s free to stay behind as this really isn’t her fight as she’s mentioned earlier, but she tells him to stop being melodramatic and if it doesn’t work out, they’ll just have to find a way to escape. She also goes on to say she’s starting to feel like getting transported to Oz wasn’t an accident, like she was meant to do something important here. Just like when Dorothy did when she had her adventures.

So now it’s just Amber, Jack, Jinjur and Mary pushing depper ahead. Jack at this point mentions there’s rumors that goblins have started returning to the caverns closer to the surface. Much like the Kalidahs and the Bane Wolves, all the more evil creatures in Oz have been taking advantage of the Nome King’s reign. Jinjur says they haven’t been seen since before her grandfather’s time.

As far as I can tell there were brief mentions of goblins in the Oz books (Specifically the song the Munchkins sing when the Wicked Witch is dead), but they never actually showed up. Though goblins have been a staple in fantasy long before Oz, so it’s not really unusual to have them.

In anycase, they aren’t around at this time. What there definitely is though is spiders. A shitload of giant hostile spiders because hey it’s Ozland down under.

While everyone else is freaking out Jinjur once again is getting down to business shooting the 8 legged freaks. Everyone starts fighting and Mary gets herself in trouble by sucking as a fighter. Fortunately Jack grows some vines which allows her to climb up to a nearby tunnel entrance and escape. The others soon follow since the spiders are pretty much endless.

Cut back to Peter now chained to a stone floor in the dungeon where a nome jailer is insulting him along with stating that he’s still one of the lucky ones since NK has made the offer that if Pete gives up all the info on what he wants to know he’s free to leave unharmed (The jailer also saying that grieves him to say) Of course Pete still isn’t cooperating which the jailer states is fine with him since if he thinks he’s going to be rescued, he’s retarded. The Freedoom Fighters have spent 10 years trying to take back OZ and are no closer to their goals.

After the jailer leaves, Pete’s wondering about some of the stuff he said, specifically the Freedom Fighters, which then causes his cellmate hanging on one of the walls to speak up saying that they’ve heard about that group before and it gives them hope. Pete didn’t know anyone else was in the cell so he asks who’s there and it of course turns out to be Ozma.

That’s it for this issue.

More reader mail, none of it amusing as usual. Someone is still bitching about wanting the comic in color. If this had been a Deadworld letter’s page, King Zombie would’ve called him a faggot and told him to fuck off. Probably following up with “How’s that for color?”

Issue 9: Clash of the Titans

Evil again or just one of those classic misunderstanding between heroes in comic books?

This one pick up with Wog, Gump and Reynar flying in the air and spotting HG and Sawhorse standing by the cave entrance. (Both Gump and Sawhorse barely get any panel time throughout the comic and you often forget they’re even around other than occasional reminders)

So all these folks reunite with the only good news is that Reynar got his name back and welcomed home, but the bad news is that the monkeys won’t be joining the fight because the CAP was stolen so they can’t do anything being slaves to the law and all. HG says the rest entered the caves on their way to confront the Nome King though he’s currently smelling an evil scent in the air.

Cuts back to the Nome King who once is talking to himself for the benefit of the readers. He’s basically just going on about how his plans are looking less secure what with the trio becoming good again and earth’s showing up. He starts telling himself that Pete is going to talk after spending time in his dungeon, but then he gets pissed and starts breaking shit because Ozma is still holding out on him and has done so for a decade now.

He goes to some chamber where he’s keeping the older Dorothy stating he could’ve just put a mind control amulet on Ozma too and won that way, but it would be like putting in a cheat code to win the game and not as satisfying. He then goes on to say that Dorothy better pray that Ozma continues to hold out because the day she gives in and marries him is the day she won’t be necessary anymore and he’ll kill her.

I suppose the only upside to all of this is that NK has probably not fucked Dorothy in any way since he’s got such a hard on for Ozma.

Mombi enters at this point saying that there’s reports of the winged monkeys being in disarray since someone stole their CAP. NK says that’s good new they probably won’t be attacking, but it brings up the question of who actually did. He starts implying maybe one of Mombi’s lackies did it since he’s aware that she has her own plans.

Mombi states that’s not true and for him to not look for treason when there is none. He gives her one more warning that if he finds any solid evidence that she’s plotting against him he’ll turn her into an inanimate object along side the good witches.

NK then states that the trio are free of their spell which Mombi didn’t know about. NK also tells her earthers are about and he’s got one captive. He wants to know if the Freedom Fighters got more reinforcements coming from earth since its apparent that the barriers between the worlds are down now. He tells Mombi to go interrogate Pete.

Meanwhile Pete is talking to Ozma and currently fawning over how beautiful she is despite the more immediate concern of being chained up in the fucking dungeon. Ozma says she doesn’t even know how long she’s been in the dungeon though she’s guessing years, she also asks if Pete is from earth.

Pete says he is and the two sort of exchange info on what’s been going on from each other’s perspectives. Upon hearing that the trio have been freed of their charm spell, this gives Ozma even more hope that the tide might be finally turning.

In any case Pete’s obviously down bad for Ozma even in these conditions and it becomes apparent when Mombi comes in to have Pete taken away and they look at each other with hope. This leads to Mombi wondering what the hell went on between the two.

Cut to the trio who are hiding out in a nearby forest since the nomes can’t travel underground as easily when there’s a bunch of roots in the way which is fucking retarded, but whatever. Kevin though wants to get back in the fight immediately because he’s already lost two of his people and all he’s got left is his dog. Tin Man tells him to calm his ass down since going pants on head retarded again to the front gates isn’t the move.

Scarecrow though comes up with the bright idea of staying in the forest safely from afar, splitting up and scouting for weaknesses in nome activity with once again a big dumb ass expression on his stupid face.

Cut back to Jack and Amber who are still climbing the vine rope to escape from the spiders, though the spiders are chewing through the vine so Jack decides to do the heroic sacrifice thing of jumping down and keeping them occupied. Amber however won’t let this slide and jumps down with him so he doesn’t get turned into pumpkin pie. A noble gesture and all, but retarded since they’re still severely outnumbered. At this point Jinjur and Mary come running back wondering why the hell they’re still fucking around with the spiders.

Amber gets bit, Jack’s getting munched on and Jinjur’s out of arrows so she’s going to go jump down for close combat, but fortunately Mary holds her back. Amber shouts for them to leave, but Jack manages to grow one last vine for Amber to also escape. Amber at this point gets the hint and finally retreats to rejoin the ladies. Mary cries a bit as she hears the screams of Jack getting EATEN ALIVE.

Cut back to the Lion doing some scouting. He senses something and then gets attacked by Hungry Tiger. Tin Man clobbers HG in the back of the head with the flat part of his axe (As usual) and then Reynar grabs the axe from him. This causes Scarecrow to get ready to unleash his crow then he’s smacked to the ground by Wogglebug who further beats him saying this is for Pyff.

Kevin and his dog finally catch up only to find all these freaks fighting each other because one side thinks they’re still evil, and the other believing they’re allies of the Nome King. So yeah, it’s a misunderstanding.

That’s it for this issue.

More reader mail and about the only stand out is apparently some guy saying he didn’t like issue 2 any more than issue 1 and that issue 3 was a little better but still too corny so they need to work on it. The response was that they’re glad he’s giving the comic a chance, but seeing as they’re going on issue 10 now, he needs to consider a better delivery service. Lol.

Another page of rambling by Stu. This time he’s going on about the comic book industry, pointing out that as a more indy publisher they must be doing something right if people are paying 2.95 for a black and white comic with less access to big advertising, stating that people want to see new ideas and not just the same shit most of the industry shovels out. I can understand defending the artistic choice and not doing what everyone else is doing.

But then he also goes on about how more G-Rated stuff needs to be a thing. While the 90s started having the darker and edgier story shit in the main publishers (Marvel/DC) it wasn’t like there wasn’t any G rated stuff. The usual kids comics like Casper or Archie were still around. Meanwhile these guys are literally turning what’s traditionally thought of as a children’s story into something darker and edgier. 

Pick a side Stu, pick a fucking side.

Issue 10: Reunion

Spoiler: The Nome King does not in fact turn into a giant this issue

It starts off with Mombi bringing Peter before the Nome King sitting on his throne with Dorothy by his side looking off into space as usual. I thought Mombi was supposed to interrogate him, but apparently she just decided to drag him back to NK for him to deal with again.

Pete of course is still defiant, prompting Mombi to threaten him, but NK says he can answer willingly or become like his thrall queen and answer under his command. Which sounds like NK is proposing Booty Warrior style tactics. 

Ignoring the possibility of getting his cheeks busted, Pete ponders if this is Glinda sitting on the throne next to him causing Mombi to tell him to stop mumbling and to tell them what forces are coming from earth since they know the barrier is down between the two worlds. 

So Pete trolls them saying that a few Panzer divisions are coming along with Hercules Gunships and a few thousand special troops. They should be arriving any time now. NK doesn’t even know what the hell all of this means, but Mombi says she’ll get the truth out of him.

Cut back to Amber, Jinjur and Mary where they patch themselves up and rest before continuing on. They come across a solid black door with no handle. They can’t get it open and going back through the spiders is a death sentence. Mary somehow gets the idea that there might be another way to open it, and starts climbing the rock wall near the door. After being told to be careful and her stating she’s climbed harder rock walls before, she discovers and upper latch that she undoes to open the door.

They get in and after a bit of stomping around through more obviously man made (nome made?) tunnels they stumble upon Ozma’s cell and free her. They are going to have to go back the way they came though through the spider anyway, but Amber is positive that they’ll make it now that they have Ozma and nothing can stop their victory. 

Fortunately they don’t have to rely on Amber’s foolish idealism as they stumble upon Jack Pumpkinhead who is in a half chewed state, but not dead. (Half of his head is gone though) He says the spiders ended up leaving since they didn’t enjoy the vegetarian meal what with traditionally being meat eaters and all, so the way is clear.

However, Amber himself isn’t looking too great and falls to the ground. The spider bite he got earlier has finally kicked in with the poison, so they carry him for awhile before settling down to rest, hoping he can just pull through. While Amber’s going through his poison coma, Mary’s keeping an eye on him and even holding him at times. Yeah Mary’s definitely already forgetting about comic store boy.

Jack goes on about Amber’s background a bit and how it shapes his outlook on life making Mary realize that’s why he’s so hung up on being heroically brave to the point of foolishness. Next day, Amber wakes up and he’s completely better, in fact he’s telling everyone else to get up saying they got the kingdom to save (Or queendom rather). Mary once again is practically about to wrap her legs around him stating she was afraid he’d die from the poison, but he states his body is strong all the while shirtless and displaying a Chadly smirk on his face.

Meanwhile the other half of the Freedom Fighters are duking it out with the Trio over who is actually a good guy or not. Kevin is about to step in, but Sawhorse blocks him saying he isn’t sure what a skinny runt like him could do to help the evil kings anyway. Kevin protests saying they aren’t evil anymore because the spell was broken, but Sawhorse isn’t buying it saying they’ve terrorized the land for 10 years and he doesn’t even believe Amber that they’re under a spell so why should he believe him. 

Kevin doesn’t have an answer so there’s more fighting between the groups. And other than the Tinman, the trio are getting the worst of it with Wog even throwing some sort of fire beans at Scarecrow lighting him up. Kevin tells him to stop, drop and roll which the Scarecrow does thinking that was an excellent idea. 

Seriously, he never knew this? Wizard better give him an upgrade in brains at some point.

The fighting stops though when Amber and the rest stumble upon the group and then Mary shouts to Kevin excitedly running into his arms leaving Amber to look on in sadness. And he thought he was so in there too.

Mary asks what happened to Peter, Kevin says he got captured by the nomes but doesn’t know more than that. Ozma then pipes up saying she briefly met him in her cell but the nomes took him away after they talked and mentioned the trio were good guys again.

And then everyone makes up and they all have renewed hope on taking out the Nome King.

That’s it for this issue.

No letters this time, but Stu decided one page of rambling wasn’t enough so he did two pages this time. He mostly goes on about the price of comics and the whole dedication to making sure there’s at minimum 28 pages of story/art in an issue and keeping it fairly timely as far as publishing goes.There’s some other industry talk as well. (Like not reprinting their issue one under 3 million different cover thus making issue 1 genuinely scarce for those that collect)

I will say the Oz comic was coming out on a fairly regular basis when compared to say the other flagship comic Deadworld which had some major fucking problems with being out on time.

I imagine this is due to Ralph and Stu actually being directly in charge of Oz despite now working under Caliber. They basically were still operating with old Arrow comics moral code in place except now they didn’t have to really worry about all the unfun stuff that comes with actually running a company. (Until they resurrected it a third fucking time, but more on that later.

Alright we’ll probably continue with the next five comics in the main timeline rather than jumping back in the past again. Stay tuned!

Sure it does, you said something particularly wholesome so you got the wholesome pom.

It definitely is a wholesome and accepting community.

Silent Night Deadly Night (The Movie)

This film is a remake of the old 1984 movie, so comparisons are going to be the main focus.

Horror remakes tend to have better chance at being just as good as the original than most other genre remake attempts. There’s multiple reasons for this of course, but the main one is usually horror movies tend to have simpler plot, especially if it was a slasher to begin with.

Typically what is done is to just redo the original and modernize it a bit. Increasing the blood and guts level is usually done since you can put more of that in a movie than you might have been able to back in the 20th century (With some exceptions of course) Usually this approach more or less works, especially if you throw in a couple of nods to the OG version.

Deviating from that tried and true method can have mixed results. For example Rob Zombie’s Halloween did the whole Michael Myers backstory which sort of provided a bit more background than just MM being some evil force of nature, but most didn’t like that. Though it doesn’t help that the first Halloween is one of those sacred cow horror movies that’s considered untouchable so remaking it considered unthinkable.

We can take the Psycho remake as an example of pretty much coloring by the numbers step by step and people STILL hated it. Why? Well because Vince Vaughn is a terrible actor for one, and two it was another movie where it’s a sacred cow that didn’t need to be remade.

Fortunately for Silent Night Deadly Night it was never held in as high regard when it first came out. In fact it managed to get banned in several theater by meddling pearl clutchers while critics bashed it all to hell. Of course in usual fashion this probably helped it do better than it normally would have. Hell it even did better than Nightmare on Elm Street at the time.

But it had its time and then it went into more of a cult status rather than horror icon. A bunch of straight to video sequels of only the second movie I bothered to even watch (and that movie was half made up of all the kills from the first movie!). Only the first movie is really known to any degree, though the second one probably has the most memed line of “It’s Garbage Day!”

Still, it’s probably a bit surprising that it took this long for someone to remake it, especially when there’s been lesser horror movies already remade. Maybe it was a rights issue or something.

So is the remake better or worse? Does it just retell the same story or does it do something different?

It actually manages to balance the different and the similar pretty well. First off it definitely goes in a different direction as far as the killer Santa goes.

Billy in the original is a boy who got trolled by his crazy grandpa of Santa actively punishing folks who were bad and then later that same night gets traumatized by seeing a criminal dressed as Santa kill his dad and try to rape his mom before killing her too. Then he gets raised in an orphanage run by a sadistically strict Mother Superior nun who beats him.

So it’s little wonder that when he grows up and is working at a toy store, he snaps the night they make him dress up like Santa and he goes on a killing spree.

The OG movie isn’t really played for laughs, but of course if you’re a twisted sort (Like me) you’d probably laugh at a few unintentional bits like the cops accidentally wasting a deaf priest dressed as Santa in front of kids since he couldn’t hear them telling him to get down on the ground.

Alright spoilers for the remake!

The remake does a major thing different immediately. Billy still talks to his grandpa, but grandpa just dies coughing up blood in front of him instead of trolling him. Then on the drive home  Billy’s parents get killed by a killer Santa. It dispenses with his immediate childhood after and jumps ahead to him being a young adult and having a dead body in the bathroom in the motel room he’s sleeping in. He’s also hearing a deep voice that’s speaking with him and telling him who to kill and what not to do, etc.

He drifts into a small town and gets a job at a small shop as a stock boy and starts connecting with the shop owner’s daughter who also works there. She’s a bit weird too as it turns out. Namely has an explosive temper to the point of getting violent. She’s also got an ex-boyfriend cop who she broke up with due to punching her in the face.

So for quite some time, the movie sort of leads you to believe that Billy’s just hearing a voice in his head like a crazy person. It isn’t really until the movie is nearly over that you get the whole story though.

What’s basically going on is a Dexter like situation. And if I had to pick another influence, then a lesser known horror movie called Frailty (A cool movie with Bill Paxton) seems like it might have been drawn from.

Basically Billy isn’t really a psycho slasher at all in this one, or at least not one targeting innocent people. Everyone he targets has some sort of dark past they’re hiding which typically means they’re killers themselves. This isn’t quite apparent at first, though by the time he gets to the Nazi slaughter house, you can tell something more is going on.

Yeah, there’s a whole splatter scene where he’s hunting some woman who is detected as a “naughty” person and when he gets there, it’s a big Nazi Christmas party. So he ends up killing them all, even against the voice telling him to not get reckless and to at least take a gun.

As Billy explains it later to his girlfriend, when his parents got killed, his mom managed to get in a good stiletto heel stab to the killer’s neck before he blew her away with a shotgun. Billy however felt compelled to grab killer Santa’s hand and that’s when something supernatural happens which is Charlie’s spirit (The Killer Santa) jumps into Billy and explains what the score is.

He waits until Billy is 17 before he makes him kill anyone though since he needed to be old enough to be ready. First kill was his abusive foster mom who was routinely beating all the kids she took in and collecting the money.

Oh in case you were wondering, Billy's parents were assholes that had fucked with grandpa's meds to kill him for inheritance shortly before Billy went in to visit him. Which is why Charlie targeted them (He was a janitor at the nursing home)

He only kills around Christmas though. Basically he uses an advent calendar to track everything (Putting a bloody fingerprint in the box in a Dexter like trophy collection). And the general rule is, he HAS to kill someone or else he loses control and will potentially kill an innocent. It is implied a few times that this has happened, but they don’t really show any flashbacks about it. This is why Charlie didn’t really want Billy getting involved with the shop owner’s daughter and at one point Charlie even has to talk him down from potentially killing a little girl while dressed as Santa (Dressing as Santa is more of a flip switch that gets him more in the killing mood)

Meanwhile there’s also this ongoing bit where there’s someone going to various small towns in the area snatching kids. The kid snatcher ends up also killing the store owner all of which leads up to Billy telling his girlfriend the truth about himself since she’s going on about wanting revenge on the one who killed her dad. (Fortunately Billy is able to home in on the snatcher since seeing him on the video camera, Charlie is able to do the supernatural GPS thing.

This leads up to the climax of Billy killing the snatcher, but getting severely wounded in the process. He isn’t dead yet, but the ex-boyfriend makes him that way since he shoots him and he’s been following the two of them.

The girlfriend weeps over his dying body. Charlie tells Billy to grab her hand and then she gets the same spirit transfer except Charlie is gone and now it’s Billy’s voice speaking. Meanwhile the ex-boyfriend is seeing if she’s genuinely okay, but now when she looks at him, she sees that he was involved in covering for the snatcher by taking bribes. so she kills him and then it ends with her taking on the new role of the Christmas Avenger.

And that’s it for the movie.

Overall I liked it. It had a few nods to kills from the old movie (Like using deer head antlers to kill his foster mom and someone saying “It’s garbage day!”)

I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s better than the original though and was probably about the same level of enjoyment for me.

Nah, read it just before 9th grade (and High school in general) with 3 other books since it was sort of explained during the school's new student orientation that those books were going to be gone over in English class.

As it turned out only 2 of the 4 really were and I don't even think we spent much time on Anne Frank meaning I'd wasted all that time reading books like a sucker.

It's a diary that this Jewish girl wrote while hiding out from the Nazi with her whole family in an attic. Usually one of the books read in high school English class.

Probably just the same old idiot that was trying to talk to Avo and troll her too.

Yep, he's dead.