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The long-speculated identity of a local resident’s psychological disorder has turned out to just be fucking trichotillomania, a neurosis in which sufferers compulsively pluck hairs from their head and body for whatever fucking reason.

“Yeah, that’s why I’ve got this little bald spot here under my chin,” said the local man, who claims to have suffered from this “disorder” for most of his life. “I mean no one can really see it, so it’s like, eh, whatever.”

The man’s neighbors were appalled when they finally learned of his completely fucking retarded affliction.

“Are you fucking kidding me? That’s it? I thought we were gonna find out he was like a fucking pyro or something,” one neighbor said. “So, what, he just plucks his whiskers out? What the fuck?”

“Can’t he just not do that?” said another neighbor.

It has been reported that the man’s fiancee is helping him cope with the disorder by pointing out his plucking when she sees him do it.

“Sometimes I go into the bathroom if I find a hair that’s really bothering me, though,” the man added after his fiancee left the room.

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Note: I wrote this for the Tee-mab book (still available for purchase!) well over a year ago. Not many people have gotten to read it, but I really like it and consider it amongst my best material, so I’m recopying it here for everyone to devour. Yum yum yum.

In most parts of the world, superheroes comprise an extension of local police forces. Though modern superheroes are revered by the citizens that they swear to serve, the world’s superhero systems have a long history of vigilantism and blatant showmanship.

The first reported superhero appeared in the mid 1800’s, a flamboyant performing crimefighter who called himself Mr. Splendid. Splendid, with his trademark handlebar mustache and billowing pants, captured the public’s imagination as he independently defeated criminals in epic battles featuring dazzling displays of acrobatics. His service to the law proved to be indispensable, but in time, Mr. Splendid’s handsome looks and flashy pageantry began to attract criminals who sought to build similar fame for themselves. Thus the first supervillains entered the spotlight.

According to news records, Mr. Splendid’s first encounter with a supervillain was in the spring of 1867, when he faced off against the rogue physician, Dr. Smallpox, in a small town in Pennsylvania. The hours-long battle that ensued was filled with brilliant pyrotechnics, gripping drama, and carefully choreographed hand-to-hand combat. Citizens all throughout town came to gawk at the spectacle, and after nearly an entire afternoon of rave critical reviews, Dr. Smallpox offered a draw. Mr. Splendid accepted the offer, only to challenge Dr. Smallpox again several weeks later after having recruited the world’s first super sidekick — a local adolescent who took the name Jonathan Magnificent — to tip the odds in his favor.

Dr. Smallpox responded by recruiting a comrade of his own: a mad vagabond named Frederick the Rabid. Seeing yet another stalemate, Mr. Splendid sought out further allies, prompting Dr. Smallpox to act in turn. So the cycle continued until the conflict, though entertaining beyond the wildest imaginations of all who witnessed it, became a meme that spread out-of-control throughout the world.

The fights, while dangerous, had proved too delightful for the public to be willing to live without them. Nevertheless, the wanton destruction that typically accompanied superbattles necessitated legislation, and so the North American Stylized Crimfighting Commission (NASCC) was founded in 1877 in an attempt to minimize — through careful regulation — the impact of the rapidly proliferating superconflict, while still maximizing the entertainment value that it provided.

Today, in America, there is one superhero or superduo for approximately every 5000 civilians (duos are allowed to share posts, and have similar rights to married couples in most states). To ensure that the balance between villains and heroes remains even enough to keep the battles interesting, most district posts are reserved for heroes who have acquired the single-minded attention of a similarly-abled supervillain. It is not uncommon for new college graduates to spend several years making a meager, independent living before entering a nemesisial relationship with a supercriminal.

Controversy over the superhero system continues to this day. Supporters maintain that heroes are needed to combat the ever present supervillain menace, while detractors frequently point out that these villains only came to exist in the first place because of the vanity of the superheroes. One thing, however, remains clear: The battles are really damned cool to watch.

Ray Merkler
Accredited Superologist
October 5, 2007

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I left the webcomics world a year ago today. I still don’t quite know how I feel about it.

The TMABB site is still there, still showing the goodbye entry, still advertising the book that people finally stopped buying a few months after the end. I don’t load the site very often, but it’s never easy when I do. I miss it, even despite how much I hated working on it half of the time. It’s sort of the way you miss an ex.

The whole thing is still incredibly disappointing for me. Webcomics has always been a pretty tight community, and I guess I just really wanted to be a part of it, to be known. Part of me still does. Tee-mab was simply not succeeding, though, despite my best efforts.

I was trying! Really! But two years of giving it a solid go without seeing any significant growth in audience? If it was going to succeed, it would have after the first year. I stuck it out longer than I should have, though, because I wanted to be really sure that things weren’t going to turn around. And they didn’t. I mean, okay, at least I broke even on the book, but I only printed 15 copies. So I quit.

The good news is, my life has gotten a lot better in the last year. My weekly routine is now basically free of stress. I’m making real progress on my current big project, after having stalled on Ultimate Epic Conflict Advance!. My fiancee and I have managed to build a homebrewing blog that pays for more than its share of my Dreamhost account. I have a fiancee. So things are totally better now. Quitting proved to be the right decision.

There’s just still a lot of guilt. I still have the story in my head, but it looks like it’s never going to get finished. I hate that. It’s a really good story, I swear. I’ve told it to a select few people and they seemed to like it. We were about six months away from the most awesome-sauce plot twist ever when I quit. You’d've loved it. You would’ve crapped your pants and it would have smelled like feces.

Maybe I should have quit sooner. If I had realized the strip was failing before I used up all of my energy on it, I would have had it in me to at least close out the story.

I hope I can revisit TMABB some day, give it a full blown do-over from square one. For now, though, I have more potentially lucrative projects that I want to give my attention to.

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