5. UnComix One-Shots: Meek's Chiller Theatre (Un-Iverse # 19)
Rating: PG. Some innuendo and brief blood, but nothing much else objectionable.
Author's Note for UnComix One-Shots #5: Meek's Chiller Theatre (Un-Iverse #19)
I have drawn 59 issues of The Un-Iverse as of this update, including the entirety of The Mistress Augatha Arc. UnComix One-Shots #5 Meek's Chiller Theater remains one of my very favorites.
The first Meek's Chiller Theatre story (out of four) is easily the best, which is okay, because it perfectly sets the tone for all the rest that follow.
The Stella Stickyfingers story was my favorite thing I had written and drawn at this point in time. And the outline describing what happened in the story was nonexistent. I had the premise and that's it. Stella meeting her father and the stuff about "The Magic Trick", (which somehow makes The Un-Iverse seem literate for the first and only time) were things I only discovered as I wrote the actual script. This is very unusual for me, and most scripts I write "without a net" rarely impress me. The fact that this DID is why I love it. The real Magic Trick is writing an amazing script on the spot. I can only very rarely do it and this is my proudest achievement of that.
The story also says something about The Un-Iverse many people will not like. And I have to say tough shit. If you believed The Un-Iverse was either some cynical satire too hip for the room, or a burgeoning torpid action cartoon wannabe, hate to burst your bubble. But The Un-Iverse is NOT cynical. It wears its heart on its sleeve and is not afraid to make you feel something. If you thought the shticky nature of some of the characters like The Humans, the Unkie Matty's Funhouse cast, or Donna Demented meant different, I'm sorry, but THIS is what it's all about to me. If I could write nothing but stories like this, I would.
The Gilda and Piranha story is the most traditional story in the issue. It's my least favorite of these stories for that reason, but I do not remotely think it's bad. It actually gives us some interesting canon insights about prophecies and their reliability we haven't gotten anywhere else.
While the Stella Stickyfingers story is designed to tug at the heartstrings the entire way through, I love the shock emotional wallop the Bill The Blue story surprises us with on the last page. It's a typical (if above average) Un-Iverse comedy short story, and then shit gets mythological and cosmic (in that order) at the end. I love the story for that reason, even if the Epilogue almost feels like a separate story itself.
The story of Bill and Infinitesimal Microbe is one of the oldest stories in the canon. Outside of the new Epilogue, I did a similar version of the story when I was 12 (although Microbe was named Tiny there). The hilarious bits of Bill in Microbe's mouth with the "camera" focused on Tiny's unconscious head for multiple panels while we hear Bill's snarky quips off-screen are pretty much lifted verbatim from the story from when I was a kid. It was literally the only good story I came up with when I was 12, so I am glad I was able to polish it here, and fit it into the current canon. And the newly created Epilogue with Louie Dawg makes the story even better in my mind, and ties it into everything else.
Copyright Matt Zimmer and UnComix 2017-2020. All Rights Reserved.
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