The Psychedelic Journal 2013!

The newest edition of Psychedelic Journal Of Time Travel is here! It features a rather excellent story by me and David Broughton in mind-frazzling, earth-shattering colour!

Of course you want it.

Get it here.

Happy Boxing Day. Have a free comic.

'Yuletide Fear!', with words by me and grotesquely festive artwork from Matthew Herbert, is a tiddly little one-page strip in Shocking Chillers 2012, a free Christmas horror comic. Grab it here.

Merry Christmas!

The Pop-Art Phantasm + The Thought Gardener #4 (of #4)

STOP!


New readers begin here!

Shrouded by scraps of torn paper, The Seeder and I sat in a condemned flat block. Ink-blotched fingers scribbled half-written nonsense, the descriptive beginnings of the final battle.

“NO. THIS SITUATION IS UNFAVOURABLE.”

He spoke those five irritating words, time and time again as we struggled with the English Language. Ideas were tossed around, everything centred around our most glorious sacrifices to Ares, our biggest and most brutal of wars.

“YOU FORGET.” The Seeder would remark.

“THE WEEDER IS NOT YOU. HE IS BEYOND YOU.”

Digging cheap plastic pen through lined paper, I tried again.

My hands began to shake.

A familiar voice whispered into my ear.

“OBSCURATUR CUM FICTA, EXPONENDO CUM FACTO.”

My left hand began to write.

“TAKE US BACK TO THE BEGINNING.”

The first panel description set the stage.

+

THE THOUGHT GARDENER #1. THE FINAL ISSUE.

PAGE 1:

(NARRATION)

CHURNED MUD LIES AT THE HEART OF OUR WORLD -

HOME TO SPROUTING SHOOTS WHOSE ROOTS STEM FROM OUR EVERY ACTION.

IN THIS SPHERE OF EXISTENCE, THOUGHT EXISTS ONLY AS PLANTATION!

THESE FERVENT CONCEPTS BLAZE ATOP THIS REALMS FERTILE GROUND,

SNAKING ACROSS DIMENSIONS TO PROBE THE MINDS OF THOSE WHO WILL GROW TO CULTIVATE THE EARTH!

TWO FORCES STAND AGAINST EACH OTHER, PULLING AND PUSHING IN THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OF ALL THOUGHT.

THE SEEDER AND THE WEEDER.

YET THE WEEDER HAS GROWN IN POWER, DUPING HIMSELF INTO THE PHYSICAL REALM.

IN THE MIDST OF THIS DIRE NEW WORLD STANDS THREE...

THE SEEDER, MYSELF, AND JOHN BARTLEBY.

WE STAND ON THE EVEN GROUND OF THE IDEASCAPE, READY TO WAR.

THE WEEDER STANDS AGAINST US, EVEN IN POWER AND HUNGRY FOR OUR DEMISE.

+

Earth became less than a twinkling star, galaxies away. The soil beneath our feet was rich, freshly churned and sweetly pungent. These were tangible ideas.

John softly uttered a single word, communicating our awe to the universe.

“... fantastic...”

I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that I was even able to breathe at all.

“You're here.”

“Of course! I am in The Society, after all.”

I chuckled. Of course.

The Seeder marched forward, taking lead in his homeland.

“BRACE YOURSELF. HE COMES.”

Above, giant stalks of pulsing vegetable-like mass cascaded down towards us, anchoring themselves in the ground. The Seeder lumbered down from his perch, having grown fat on our minds. Impossibly sinuous legs sprouted from an impossibly rotund mass, a repugnant clash between the obese and emaciated.

I cannot fully explain what happened next, but needless to say, we did not meet in a battle of physical force. In fact, I can only say for sure that we won because I am here, fully able to recount this tale.

The Weeder charged forward, and The Seeder hissed, braced and ready for the first blow.

It did not come.

Painlessly, we were broken down into our constituent elements. Skin slid off to reveal muscle, muscle contracted to reveal bone, bone was instantly ground down into nothingness. John Bartleby became liquefied, the phantasm reduced to liquid smoke. Merely sand and fog on the fields of idea, we sunk into their realm.

A ream of plain white paper hung in the ether. Partially reformed, the soles of our feet became jet-black, imprinting our permanent marks on the massive sheet of paper.

Thinking only of a world without The Weeder, without the Seeder; without extremes, we ran.

We thought of a world in perfect balance, able to retain and discard ideas at will, and we ran until that paper ran out.

At the end of the line, we jumped into nothingness.

I landed in our world.

I assume that John Bartleby landed in his.

You do not remember these events. If The Seeder had won, you would not have remembered these events. That does not make them any less real, any less momentous.

The next time inspiration hits, just think...

Who really gave you that idea?

The Pop-Art Phantasm + The Thought Gardener #3 (of #4)

STOP!


New readers begin here!

The 14^th of March 2012, in an eradicated timeline.

Last week passed the world without a hitch, right?

Business as usual, right?

Not for me.

Lying in that dank basement and still spaced out from my meeting with The Society, The Thought Gardener regarded me with frenzied eyes.

“WE'RE IN TROUBLE, YOU KNOW.”

Pushing that damned fork even further into my chest, I struggled to question his announcement. It was a lot less... dastardly than I had expected.

Not only that, but he hardly fit the description of 'evil being, hell-bent on erasing important human thought'. Dressed in a plain and seamless white jump suit, The Thought Gardener was entirely devoid of distinguishing features. He was a man of monochrome; jet-black hair atop plain white skin. His face was just as barren, with feature perfectly in proportion with his normal-sized head. Nothing about him was misshapen or untoward. He was a job-less Action Man, a completely blank slate. It were as if he had based his entire existence on what little script John Bartleby had written, lacking the imagination necessary to fill in the descriptive blanks.

“... trouble?”

The Thought Gardener relented, pointing his fork away for once.

“EARTH. IT IS NOT FUNCTIONING AS IT WAS BEFORE YOU MET WITH THE SOCIETY. ALL THOUGHT IS IN DANGER. THE WEEDER HAS BEEN MADE FLESH.”

Question after question built up in my mind, jamming the signal to my mouth. At maximum sensory overload, I could barely stutter out a syllable.

This man was not The Thought Gardener.

So, who was he?

“COME.”

In one single, smooth motion, he hoisted me up on his shoulders. The basement distorted around us, the world violently sucked out in the vacuum of space, and we were gone.

We reappeared at the centre of Trafalgar Square.

“LOOK.”

The world had stopped moving. With glazed eyes and chins slicked with dribble, the entire population of London had been stopped in its tracks.

“SEE THE WEEDERS INFLUENCE.”

Each person perilously swayed in the breeze, balanced but precariously so. Eternally locked in their last activity, they wore expressions of perfect neutrality.

All transport had been frozen, their drivers suddenly denied of any and all thought. Starved of human input, their vehicles had simply rolled to a halt. Sure, bumpers had been scuffed and bent, license plates snapped in two by a sudden and widespread neglect, but it could have been so much worse. The lack of any kind of massive crash suggested a traffic jam, but that didn't take a genius to figure out, given the location. I shuddered to think of what the dual carriageways looked like, or anywhere a plane might have very suddenly landed.

“I HAVE MADE A GRAVE MISTAKE.”

“Huh? You are the Gardener, aren't you?”

“YES AND NO.”

Helpful.

“TWO SIDES OF ONE FORCE EXIST IN THE PLAINS OF IDEA. THE CREATURE YOU KNOW TO BE THE THOUGHT GARDENER IS DIVIDED INTO TWO HALVES: THE WEEDER AND THE SEEDER. THE WEEDER EXISTS TO PLUCK IDEAS FROM THE HUMAN BRAIN, AND THE SEEDER EXISTS ONLY TO PLANT THEM. ONE TO GIVE AND ONE TO TAKE AWAY.”

“... and you are?”

“THE SEEDER.”

“... then how is this your fault?”

“JOHN BARTLEBY HAD PROVED TO BE A MOST USEFUL TOOL. I WOULD GIFT HIM AN IDEA, SOMETHING VERY DANGEROUS THAT ACTUALLY EXISTED FAR BEYOND THE REALM OF HUMAN COMPREHENSION, AND HE WOULD MAKE IT FICTION. ONCE MADE REALITY AND THEN DESTROYED IN HUMAN STORIES, THE DANGER WOULD ALSO CEASE TO EXIST IN THE PLAINS OF IDEA. THE WEEDER HAD FOREVER BEEN A NUISANCE, ERASING ALL I HAD WORKED FOR. I GIFTED JOHN BARTLEBY THE IDEA OF THE WEEDER, WITH THE HOPE THAT HE WOULD UNDERSTAND.”

The grave reality of our situation slowly began to dawn on me.

“You've made a big mistake.”

The Seeder nodded.

“AS SOON AS JOHN BARTLEBY TYPED THOSE FIRST FEW WORDS OF THAT SCRIPT, THE SEEDER WAS BROUGHT INTO YOUR REALM OF EXISTENCE. WITHOUT THE CONCEPT OF THE SEEDER TO MAINTAIN THE BALANCE, THE SEEDER DESTROYED HIS CREATOR AND RAN AMOK.”

The heat of hate began to course through my veins.

“You killed John... with a half-baked idea? If you had told him the full story, you could have protected him.”

“IF JOHN BARTLEBY HAD FULL KNOWLEDGE, HE MAY NOT HAVE OPTED TO DESTROY THE WEEDER.”

“... or he might have killed you both.”

The Seeder nodded solemnly.

“... and now you've doomed us all!”

“UNLESS...”

“... Unless what?”

“HOW GOOD ARE YOU AT ENDING STORIES?”

NEXT!

ON THE PLAINS OF IDEA, THE CREATOR IS KING!

THE FINAL BATTLE FOR THE POWER OF HUMAN THOUGHT.

THE 3RD OF APRIL, 2012.

The Pop-Art Phantasm + The Thought Gardener #2 (of #4)

STOP!


New readers begin here!

The 14^th of March, 2012.

Far from the dark mahogany palace of Gothic architecture I had expected, John Bartleby's lawyer was based in a rather drab office block, a yawn-inducing floor of off-white pre-fabricated cubicles and overtly harsh lighting.

I waited, sat in an uncomfortably high swivel chair, as the lawyer's assistant served me tea. He messily splashed milk into the delicate cup, drowning the accompanying biscuit in a moat of light brown sugary goodness. Caffeine-deprived, I attempted to thank him, but he had already vanished into that labyrinth of MDF partitions. I heard the clumsy crash of his shin as it hit a waste paper bin, the hushed curse and subsequent scuttle to the kitchen.

As I waited, I mulled over the probable cause of John's death. The man's interior had been a twitching haven of psychedelics ever since the alchemical creation and popularisation of L.S.D. His subsequent fits of crazed scribbling only served to prove to me that he was, at the time, of a very delicate mental disposition indeed.

Regardless of the inevitability of his death, the circumstance of his demise was still rather suspicious.

The script he had died over was initially seized as potential evidence, even though the enquiry was not treated as suspicious. Post-mortem revealed little, 'natural causes' was decreed, his body was released and buried; the only obvious murderer was time. The script was released to Karen Bartleby, John's sister, who then passed it to me, decrying it as 'an awfully written reminder of a great guy's mental decline.' I had read it a thousand times in the couple of nights that followed, seeing it for what it was; the embryo for John Bartleby's incomplete magnum opus. The scope was almost unimaginably grand, and a great sadness befell me, knowing that those few words were the only written on the subject. If only he had designed any characters...

“Good evening, sirs...”

I instinctively looked over my shoulder, eager to see who had evaded my senses and crept into a seat unbeknownst.

Nope.

Just me.

The lawyer smiled meekly.

Evidently, he had only scripted for a crowd.

“Firstly, allow me to offer my condolences. John Bartleby will be sorely missed. His final effects shall be divided as such. His personal possessions shall be handed over to Oscar Maltby...”

“... including, but not limited to, any uncompleted work he may have been working on at the exact time of his death.”

The exact time. It was oddly, eerily specific.

“John Bartleby's effects shall remain in place at his home in Kettlesham, except his personal notepad.”

My pulse raced under my skin. The answer was within reach.

The lawyer fumbled for a key, clumsily opening his desk-drawer.

“He wanted you to have this immediately.”

He produced the battered little black notepad and slide it across the table.

“I can tell it was of great personal value to you both.”

I nodded, hands trembling as I reached to unclasp the gold latch.

Click.

Amidst impeccably handwritten notes, obscured by the haunted, spider-web scrawl of the possessed, lay a single untouched paragraph.

+

OBSCURATUR CUM FICTA, EXPONENDO CUM FACTO.

THE SOCIETY OF SPOOKS WELCOMES YOU.

12:15

THE SEVENTEENTH OF MARCH. TWO THOUSAND AND TWELVE.

13 CLOVE AVENUE, GREENWICH.

+

I immediately booked the train ticket.

Convention dictated that The Society of Spooks should have been a grand Masonic Hall of sorts, the kind of place where moustachioed men consulted The Financial Times whilst quaffing expensive port and smoking exotic tobacco from Rhino-horn pipes. Away from the carrion screech of their disgracefully aging wives and the squawk of their cash hungry trust-fund children, they would bond over their truly first-world problems.

No.

Sadly, The Society was slightly less ornate. The place seemed like a stoner's hovel, the kind of place where red-eyed teens would lazily attempt to invoke some hellish spirits whilst giggling over a packet of Dorito's.

A converted wine cellar, The Society of Spooks reeked of a place bought cheaply due to the inherent stigma in spaces that had suffered the violent deaths of its every occupant.

The dank little grotto seemed to groan around my entrance; the wooden struts keeping the building on top from collapsing downwards visibly strained from my intrusion.

A sigil had been gouged neatly into the concrete floor, a 4 pronged garden fork. I immediately recognised it from the notepad. It had been repeated thousands of times within those arcane pages, bordering as well as weaving in and out from contorted figures.

I surveyed the bare hall, at once forgetting why I had entered.

+

THEN, JUST LIKE THAT, YOUR MIND TURNS!

+

Confused, and suddenly struck by hunger, I retreated to a nearby cafe.

Momentarily an amnesiac, I sipped Tea and ate a Panini whilst combing through my satchel for something to relieve the boredom of dining alone.

I came across the notepad. Flicking through the pages, I was an oroborous come full-circle. The lightning bolt of recollection struck me, re-energising my mind with the white-hot current of an unsolved mystery. I glanced at my watch. 11:37.

Once more, I gazed at that sigil, and once more, I forgot why I was there.

11:47.

Back at the cafe, I recovered the notepad.

12:03.

I entered Society Hall a third time.

12:15.

My temple seared with pain and the Hall spiralled outwards. Gaunt and blank figures craned their necks up as I began to plummet to an impossible depth.

Babbling incessantly, I could only gaze in existential terror as the world bottomed out in front of me. I wasn't falling at all. Everything else was.

A viscous fluid trickled directly from my throat, congealing into A's, G's and H's; the only possible way to scream. It was as if language itself had suddenly refused to be expressed through sound, relegating itself only to the letters we link each sound with.

The jet black letters shot out into nothingness, guiding my way to the end of the line. A little further down, they pooled into a platform; as pearlescent and as dark as marble. Standing shakily on that platform of words, I peered around the peculiar world of pure notation. The blank figures were nowhere to be seen. Loose punctuation drifted back and forth like jellyfish, aimless and adrift in the universe of thought.

For hours, I panicked. Darting back and forth on that tiny platform, I held my head in anguish, gripped by madness and completely unhinged from everything I had perceived to be real. My mind throbbed as it struggled to contain the enormity of the truth.

When my head finally cleared, so did the grammatical waves. The gaunt figures came forth from the miasma. Paper-thin and eternally trembling, the three spectres were totally focused on my presence.

“SURELY YOU'VE EXPERIENCED HIS INFLUENCE...”

They began, quoting from John's last script.

“...SURELY YOU REALISE WHY HIS POWER MUST BE EXTINGUISHED?”

I nodded.

The Thought Gardener.

“JOHN BARTLEBY WAS THIS CLOSE.”

A wispy hand formed in front of me, holding its thumb and forefinger mere centimetres away from each other.

“AS THE SIMPLEST OF FICTION, THE THOUGHT GARDENER'S ENTIRE REASON FOR EXISTENCE WOULD HAVE BECOME TRIVIAL.

I understood. In the world of pure thought, every concept sprang fully-formed inside my head, unravelling in intimate detail.

“... and when we all knew the cause of lost ideas, when the concept was destroyed in something as basic as a child's comic book, we would all realise how powerless it was, even if we didn't believe the story to be true.”

The spectres nodded.

“... so motive aside... How was John killed? The Thought Gardener isn't tangible, is he?”

“WITH THE EXCEPTION OF JOHN BARTLEBY'S DEMISE, THERE HAS BEEN NO EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT THE THOUGHT GARDENER CAN AFFECT THE PHYSICAL BODY.”

The most obvious question burned.

“So, how do you know he didn't just die of old age?”

The spectres shuffled uncomfortably.

“WE DO NOT.”

I failed to stifle a chuckle.

“THIS IS WHY THE NOTEPAD WAS CREATED: TO DRAG A THIRD PARTY IN TO EXAMINE ALL EVIDENCE AND DRAW THE CORRECT CONCLUSION.”

“... and for that matter, how did John learn about The Thought Gardener anyway? Educated guess?”

An awkward silence befell the platform.

“WE DO NOT KNOW HOW JOHN BARTLEBY BECAME AWARE OF THE THOUGHT GARDENER. WE ONLY KNOW THAT HE WAS RIGHT.”

My left eyebrow arched as I became less and less convinced in the reality of my experience. The spectres could sense my disbelief.

“WE ARE THE SOCIETY OF SPOOKS. WE KNOW THAT HE WAS RIGHT BECAUSE WE ARE HIS PEERS. ON YOUR WORLD, WE WOVE GRAND TALES OF SUPERHEROISM AND ADVENTURE. OUR WORK TRANSFORMED THE MORALS OF MANY, EMPOWERING THEIR SOULS WITH SYMBOLS OF NOBILITY AND STRENGTH. WE HAVE BEEN REWARDED WITH THE ALL-VISION. OBSCURATUR CUM FICTA, EXPONENDO CUM FACTO. OBSCURED WITH FICTION, EXPOSING WITH FACT.”

As the spooks spoke those final words, the platform of words began to degrade. The marble beneath my feet returned its original form, a fragmented scream, as existence hit the rewind button on itself.

Back in the basement, a sharp pain ran through my chest. My vision hazily returned as my mind regained control of my physical body. A gardening fork had been thrust to my chest, pinning me to the floor.

“So...” boomed a maniacal voice.

“... I can't exactly say I've been a massive fan of your work so far.”

The Thought Gardener had been summoned to our world, and the entire human race instantly seemed as frail as the common weed.

NEXT!

STAY INDOORS.

THINK OF A BLANK ROOM.

GUARD YOUR MIND.

The 27^th of March 2012.

The Pop-Art Phantasm + The Thought Gardener #1 (of #4)

It is with the heaviest of hearts that I announce the untimely passing of John Bartleby.

Despite being anonymous to the world at large, John's work made an indelible mark on the modern comic book. As a ghost writer and artist during the late sixties and seventies, John helped to craft psychedelic fantasy for everyone from DC Thomson to Marvel Pop Art Productions.

This is probably news to you, but not to me.

As a family friend, I fondly remember John Bartleby at Christmases and Easters, family birthdays and weddings, funerals and fundraisers, weaving wild tales to enraptured ten year olds without regard for occasion.

Like many of his peers, he often failed to do true justice to the concepts of which he spoke. The English language seemed ill-equipped to handle the furthest reaches of the man's imagination. There was no capital letter bold enough, no full-stop of comma strong enough to hold back his fevered mind.

In spite of this crude, hyperbolic articulation, John Bartleby was an endless font of ideas. A single off-handed comment of John's could have fuelled a lesser author for years, and thanks to the collaborative nature of comic books, they often did.

Only his study betrayed him as a creative force guiding the hands of some of the greatest comic book artists and writers of all time. John's workplace was the pen-and-ink manifestation of his frenzied creativity, it walls lined with thumbnails and lay-outs, costume designs and ink-smudged scripts; type-written but scribbled over, corrected into obscurity.

His diary was permanently open to the contacts page. Phone numbers, all containing area codes to far-off lands, were attached to well-known names I do not wish to disclose here out of respect to their bodies of credited work.

Much like those entirely uncredited comic books from the first quarter of the 20^th century, it is impossible to compile a definitive list of stories that John co-created.

The reasoning behind this self-imposed obscurity was most peculiar.

John Bartleby always believed that the characters he created, from the rambunctious school-boy to the gleaming cosmic super-hero, owned themselves. He flat-out refused to own up as their creator, considering credit to be an offence of the highest order.

John Bartleby did not believe in fiction. As a result, he gifted his entire body of work of others, believing himself to be nothing more than a conduit to neighbouring dimensions.

From a child dazzled star-blind, I grew into a young man determined to follow in his footsteps. I began to take notes, attempting to expose his thought process so I could better understand the medium.

Sadly, blood does not run through stone.

Soon, I realised that I had missed the boat. His study was a museum, his stories merely reimaginings of earlier work. The seventies were long over, and John Bartleby had long since retired to the sedate world of the elderly.

Despite this inaction, occasionally, his muse overcame him. With dilated pupils, sweaty palms and trembling fingers he would scribble, if just for a moment, before snapping his notepad shut and pretending that he had merely been sitting there the entire time.

I obsessed.

What was he working on? Had he migrated further into obscurity, still as prolific as ever? It was possible. I read as much as I could. Every issue that passed under my nose was potentially John's, and I attempted to learn how to recognise his style by poring over the books I knew he had drawn and written.

It was impossible. The man was a chameleon, and without his help, the true extent of his influence would remain a mystery.

So, I'm sure you're wondering, why do I claim to respect John Bartleby's final wishes when I am at the same time exposing him on such a pathetic medium as my personal website?

The answers begins with an unfinished script.

+

THE THOUGHT GARDENER #1.

PAGE 1:

(NARRATION)

CHURNED MUD LIES AT THE HEART OF OUR WORLD -

HOME TO SPROUTING SHOOTS WHOSE ROOTS STEM FROM OUR EVERY ACTION.

IN THIS SPHERE OF EXISTENCE, THOUGHT EXISTS ONLY AS PLANTATION!

THESE FERVENT CONCEPTS BLAZE ATOP THIS REALMS FERTILE GROUND,

SNAKING ACROSS DIMENSIONS TO PROBE THE MINDS OF THOSE WHO WILL GROW TO CULTIVATE THE EARTH!

IN THE MIDST OF THIS MUDDY WORLDSCAPE STANDS ONLY ONE...

THE THOUGHT GARDENER.

SURELY YOU'VE EXPERIENCED HIS INFLUENCE!

SURELY AN IDEA HAS POPPED INTO YOUR HEAD, ONE WHICH IMMEDIATELY STRIKES YOU AS BRILLIANT!

THEN, JUST LIKE THAT, YOUR MIND TURNS!

YOU CAST THE THOUGHT ASIDE...

... AND THE IDEA NEVER REACHES FRUITION, LEFT TO ROT, AS MUCH AS ANYTHING CAN ROT, IN THE EPHEMERALITY OF A DISCARDED THOUGHT!

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED THE PRUNING SHEARS OF THE GARDENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

+

John Bartleby continued typing the letter 'N' long after the paper had run out. He finally stopped the following morning, when an EMT lifted his cold nose from that particular key.

The funeral was small but dignified, classy and respectful. A few days passed, and I found myself summoned to an attorneys office.

John Bartleby had left me something in his will, and it was about to lead me towards something truly incomprehensible...

Save the date!

You have been duly summoned to the Society of Spooks.

The 20^th of March 2012.

HERE!

FUTUREQUAKE #20 IS HERE!

Futurequake #20 is out now!

This issue is absolutely jammed, and features my darkly humorous future fable 'DOES NOT COMPUTE!'

Matty Redmond's responsible for the awesome artwork on this five-pager. Grab it here!