The Sloppy Gods

A retro Zeke the Berserker story finally sees the light of day.

After sitting in the vaults for 45 years until the printing rights expired, I can finally show you a lost “Zeke the Berserker” Comic from 1978.

The full story continues after the comic.

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In 1978, I was a sixteen year old punk from the little podunk town of Big Flats in upstate New York. There wasn’t much in Big Flats that could positively occupy the time of a kid who had a lot of potential artistic talent and a love of Sci-fi and Horror comic books.

It was this boredom that pushed me to decide that I needed to hitch-hike my way down to New York City. I saw it as a place where my unpolished artistic talent could find the proper respect it deserved.

Like any other sixteen year old, I was overly presumptuous about my abilities, while being equally ignorant of everything else in the world.

But I didn’t let that stop my quest. I tucked a bunch of my art in a portfolio and a twenty dollar bill in my shoe, stepped up to the road, stuck out my thumb and off I went.

It took a couple of days and several rides from various dodgy potheads, and possible pedophiles, but eventually I arrived at my destination. My journey’s end took me to the place where I imagined they’d welcome my amazing artistic talent with high praise and garlands of roses.

When I walked into the lobby of 635 Madison Ave., I expected to see a huge neon placard in a futuristic type declaring this the home of Heavy Metal magazine, but instead there was just a small building directory near the elevator.

A scan of the directory didn’t list Heavy Metal anywhere. I panicked that my trip was pointless until I asked a stranger heading to the elevator if Heavy Metal was located in the building.

The stranger replied “Those long haired weirdo coke fiends? Yeh, they’re on the third floor.”

As the stranger stepped up to the elevator button, I looked him over. He seemed rather weird himself. He was dressed in a brown leisure suit with lapels so wide they could guarantee flight if a person was running fast enough. Although I doubted he could gain much speed from those wide blue wingtip shoes he wore.

His eyes were hidden behind round sunglasses that were so dark I though that maybe he was blind, but then he pressed the elevator button without searching for it.

Under the sharp nose that supported his specs he wore a razor thin mustache that topped even thinner lips. A toothpick in the corner of his mouth was twirling around in the corner of his mouth as he spoke to me.

“You look like a nice kid. You should probably head back out the door now.”

The elevator doors opened up.

“But if you insist…”

He allowed me to enter the elevator with him.

One the ride up he asked me why I was there to see these Heavy creeps. I told him I was here to show my art and sell a comic.

“You seem pretty sure of yourself there, kiddo. By the way, are you a virgin? If so, I suggest you walk into the office with your portfolio behind you.”

Being the country rube that I was, I didn’t understand his comment, but I followed his advice none the less.

The elevator doors opened to a reception lobby.

“Here we are, kid.” The stranger said to me as he gave me a slight shove out of the way as he also exited the door.

A blond bombshell sat behind the receptionist’s desk. She glared at the stranger. She was exceptionally pretty, at least until she opened her mouth and screeched in a high pitch that sounded vaguely like a parrot.

“P.J. wawnts to speak to ya, O’Donoghue. Who’s da kid? You haven’t been hitting’ up da West Side Highway again, have ya? Remembaw what Matty said about bail money.”

“No, Babycakes, just the usual five martini lunch at Club Macanudo. Oh and tell Simmons that our tab is no longer good at that place. Made me look like a complete asshole.”

I stood there taking in this conversation and the accents.

O’Donoghue pointed at me and told the receptionist, “The kid here wants to sell a comic to Sean or Val.”

The receptionist gawked at me and told me to take a seat here in reception.

While sitting there I began to wonder if maybe I should have stayed put in Big Flats. I could have safely been hanging out with my pals, and stealing beer from neighborhood garages, instead of sitting here watching the assorted wildly dressed nuts pass in and out of reception.

One guy launched out of the elevator and at the receptionist. He was screaming in a foreign language. It was mostly incomprehensible except for a few words like “Payment,” “check bounce” and “Bastards!” This continued until a large Black security guard came through a door, grabbed him by the neck and took him back down the elevator.

Two other guys exited the elevator on its return trip. They were both carrying portfolios. I supposed that they were artists like me. One of them said that they were dropping off “The goods from Columbia.” I wasn’t sure if they meant the college, or the country, but I noticed the other guy had a revolver tucked in his belt.

In my rural naivete I assumed college must be really dicey in NYC.

Finally, after about two hours, a woman walked out to greet me.

She introduced herself as Valerie Marchant. She was one of the editors at Heavy Metal.

I thought to myself, “Now I’m getting somewhere! Next stop, The Comic Book Hall of fame!”

Teenagers can be so dumb.

She asked me what I was doing here at Heavy Metal. I told her in my best self-confident attitude that I thought my art was worthy of their great magazine.

She smiled the kind of smile that adults used when they’re amused by the tenacity, and sheer idiocy, of a teenager. My dad used that smile a lot so I knew it well.

I tried to suppress my dismay and insisted that I show my portfolio. Valerie said she only had a few minutes but If I made it quick she’d take look. It was condescending, but considering what I went through to get here, I settled for any attitude that came with a foot in the door.

She suggested that we go to her office instead of doing the review here in reception.

I followed her back to her office. As we walked I noticed just how beautiful she was and my raging teenage hormones decided to also take notice!

“Dammit Not Now!” I silently screamed down at my crotch. “Be a professional artist! Not a Teenager!”

Thankfully I got distracted by looking into some of the other offices as we walked down the hall.

Most notably, there was this twisted little man screaming in French at his drawing board.

Valerie pointed him out, “That’s Phillippe Druilett. He Always gets like that near a deadline. Don’t make eye contact with him.”

Once we got to her office I quickly unzipped my portfolio and showed her my assorted work.

She skimmed over most of it with a speed that I found unsettling. However she did stop to peruse this one 4 page comic I made called “The Sloppy Gods.”

“Well this certainly is an outlier!” She exclaimed.

I told her that I wasn’t a lair, and that this is was a comic I was proud of.

To my surprise she said she loved it and wanted it for an upcoming issue of Heavy Metal! I nearly fell over from the announcement!

My little trip paid off! I struck gold! I was sure that the rose garlands would be laid around my head at any moment!

Valerie then said, “Now all we need to do is have you sign a little bit of paper work so you can get paid.” At which point she produced from a drawer in her desk, a contract that had to be a full reem’s worth of paper.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Nothing to worry about. All standard boiler plate stuff. Just sign here and here and we can get you on your way.” She then forced a pen into my hand and “helped” me sign my signature to the stack.

Once done, she took the original art of “The Sloppy Gods,” walked me to the elevator and helped me into it. As the doors began to close, she said, “You can expect tear sheets and payment when…”

But I never got to hear when the payment would arrive since the doors closed before she could finish her sentence.

As I rode down the elevator, I had a sneaky suspicion that I was just taken through a well-rehearsed hustle.

I left the building and headed to Port Authority Bus station where I used the twenty in my shoe to take a Greyhound bus back home.

Once home, I tried contacting the Heavy Metal offices to find out about tear sheets and payment. But I suppose the receptionist was too busy yelling at the staff to be bothered with answering the phone.

I told my friends and my family about my trip and that I was getting a comic in the famed Heavy Metal.

No one believed me! They thought I was delusional. I asked where they all though I was for the better part of the week. My friends and parents didn’t notice I was gone. They all thought I was squirreled away in my room drawing.

Seriously?

Two months later I got a package from HM communications. It contained the promised tear sheets of the printed comic that frankly looked as if it was trampled upon. Also included was a letter that had a ten dollar bill stapled to it.

The letter read as follows.

“Mr. Flynn,
Attached are tear sheets and a kill fee for your comic. 

Once we went to press and printed it in issue #7, Richard Corben got wind of the comic and threatened us with a lawsuit for infringing upon his “Den” character. 

After that, the Robert E. Howard estate decided to join the band wagon by saying “Zeke The Berserker” infringed on “Conan The Barbarian.” 

Unfortunately this meant we had to physically remove your comic from the 2 million copy print run. This cost us big time. But since we own the printing rights to your work for the next 40 years, we’ll find a use for this somewhere. 

Maybe in the Kazakstan edition of Heavy Metal. Nobody reads that. 

We’ll let you know.

Sincerely,
Valerie Marchant and Sean Kelly”

They never let me know where it was used and they never did return my original art!

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Now if you believed any of the above tale, I must be getting better with my creative fiction writing.

I decided to have a bit of fun this week and jump into an alternate reality. I hope you had fun with this as well.

I also hope the editors of Heavy Metal and National Lampoon will also be amused and not threaten legal measures.

In case you aren’t familiar with my dog, Zeke, and his alter ego, Zeke the Berserker, you can check out some of the comics here:

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I hope you had fun and have a great week.

Cheers,

Ed