So, after some discussion Cam and I have decided that we’re going to let Pandora’s Placebo die. We loved the concept, but in the end it just didn’t work. Idon’t want to give the impression that we’re not going to be comicing, because we are setting a up a new comic as we speak. Thanks for sticking with us, there will still be some updates here for a while as we approach the new comics launch.

On a very slightly related note, I’ve set up a new blog for my writing, which has come some way from my initial tinkerings. If you’re interested, you can find me at Andrewjackwriting.com.

Yes it’s a pseudonym.

Thanks for bearing with it, we’re going into our cocoon for a bit but we shall return with extra mandibles!

Andrew

We haven’t given you the comic loving for some time now. Cam’s out until at least the end of March with his injury, so we’re still making grandiose plans for the relaunch…

And doing nothing about them.

In the mean time though I thought I’d post up the first few chapters of a book I’d thought I needed to get down on paper (and out of my head!). I haven’t named it yet but I hope you enjoy…

Chapter One!

“Sorry, but this thing is done for.”

Chris Paxley closed a dented, rust spotted car hood and looked over at his partner. “We’re walking.”

“I got five years more than I deserved out of it”. Chris’ partner heaved himself out of his chair. “Still, I daresay walking might do me some good, at least until the old girl can be replaced.” Robert Pacston looked at his now former car with genuine sadness. “Can we hold on to the hood ornament before you get the wreckers in?”

“The one you nicked?” Chris had already begun unscrewing an incongruous metal cat from the hood in front of him.

“Re-appropriated.” Robert shuffled over to take the cat. “His bill remains unpaid.” Like many independent contractors, he considered an unpaid bill to be the height of rudeness.

“We did burn his house down, could be some hard feelings there”.

“That was entirely justified”.

“As you say”. Chris picked up the phone, his off hand leaving grease stains on the dial. “Hey, got a wreck for you guys. Can you swing by and pick ‘er up? Four fifteen Candle Road”.

There was a pause. Robert saw Chris wince.

“Tell them the risk is now minimal, our previous issue has been contained for well over a year.”

Chris covered the receiver with his palm. “The say it’ll be a fiver to come and get it.”

“Not a chance. Call another wrecker, preferably one with some gumption”. Robert looked at the sad wreckage of his Car. He would have settled for a wrecker who wouldn’t charge him to come and get it.

Or at least didn’t read local papers.

“There aren’t any others, gumption or otherwise. This is it.” Chris still had his hand over the receiver.

Robert sighed. “Fine, it’ll just sit there otherwise”. Robert took the car’s stolen figurine and returned to his desk, a tiny oaken island in Paxley and Pacston Investigations’ warehouse. The metal cat took up residence next to a pile of books, a mouldering cup of tea and an elderly orange tabby cat, who regarded the new addition to it’s domain with undisguised contempt.

“You want a cup of coffee?” Chris had returned the phone to its cradle.

“Please”. Robert scratched what could optimistically be called the tabby’s ears. “I think Freet here would like a saucer of milk, if you’re up.”

“Would he now?” Chris made his way to the company icebox, set into the middle of the floor amid a complex chalk circle. “Perhaps Freet could tell me why we can’t just get electricity hooked up like everyone else. Getting milk was never meant to be a grand adventure.”

“Just wear the gloves and don’t disturb the chalk.” Robert moved his attention to under Freet the cat’s chin, eliciting a half purr for his troubles.

Chris picked up a heavy pair of gloves from the floor next to the box. “And if I disturb the chalk?”

“Don’t disturb the chalk.”

“Right.”

This had been an oft repeated conversation since Chris had discovered that an electrically run refrigerator was unlikely to lead to his untimely death, regardless of how much cheaper it was to simply draw an ornate circle on the floor and cross yourself every time you wanted some butter.

Gently, Chris slid the frontage of the metal box to the side, there was a momentary sense of somewhere very far away, and clattering noise as a metal bottle rattled our of the front of the hole and into Chris’ outstretched gloves.

“It’s creepy that it knows what I want in advance.” Chris crossed over to a battered workbench set into the wall, with a flick of a lever on the wall a conventional, if bizarre looking, gas stove sprang to life. “And it takes ten minutes to melt the milk cube into something usable”.

“Just one of the many benefits of a correctly applied magical theory.”

“Except you’re not exactly sure where the milk goes to get cold, are you?” Chris picked up the metal bottle, which had begun to form frosting on its sides, in a pair of tongs and proceeded to dip it in and out of flames.

“Not… exactly”. Robert hesitated, he was slightly shaky on where exactly Mrs Carmichael’s weekly pints of milk went. The spell he had put in place on the warehouse floor had specified that the place be both cool and elsewhere.

They had discovered within the first week that the milk came back so cold that glass bottles tended to explode on the return journey.

The second week provided them with a rock solid lump of butter for Robert’s morning toast. Neither Chris nor Robert remembered putting any butter into the box, however it had been cold, and Robert had wanted buttered toast, so he hadn’t argued.

Further thoughts about Paxley and Pacston’s every so slightly unnatural dairy products were interrupted by a horn blast at the warehouse’s main door.

“YOU GOT A CAR FOR PICKUP?!” The voice warbled back and forth over several different tones.

Chris cupped his hands around his mouth to reply. “YEAH!”

“CAN YOU BRING IT OUT HERE!? I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO GO IN!”

“IT’S BROKEN!” Chris drew breath. “I’LL JUST OPEN THE MAIN DOOR AND WE’LL HITCH IT TO YOUR TRUCK.”

“NO!”

Freet’s purrs were momentarily the only sound.

Chris looked at Robert for guidance. “What?”

Robert looked at the car. It seemed even rustier than it had been before. And heavier somehow. “Perhaps he would like us to, er…” Robert waved his hand over at the pile of books on his desk, “utilise a paranormal means of getting the car outside?”

“HELLO?” The voice outside had settled on a pitch, “MR TIMBLAKE SAYS I’M NOT TO LOOK IN. YOU JUST BRING THE CAR OUT HERE”. There was a pause. “IF THATS OK?”

“HOW WOULD MR TIMBLAKE LIKE US TO GET A CAR THROUGH OUR MAIN DOOR WHEN THE CAR IS BROKEN AND THE DOOR IS BLOODY CLOSED”. Chris bellowed. He kept walking towards the warehouse’s main door.

Robert flicked through the pages of a worn green note book that he had pulled from his waistcoat and stood up, dislodging a now furious Freet as he rose.

The voice outside, that Chris assumed belonged to a new hire at Timblake’s Wreckage returned with some vigor. “MR TIMBLAKE SAID THAT IF I LOOKED IN, MY SOUL WOULD BE SNATCHED AWAY BY IMMORTAL DEMON WOMEN.”

“YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY! ALL I HAVE IN HERE IS A BROKEN CAR, A FAT GIT AND A CAT WITH BOWEL PROBLEMS.” Chris turned sharply back to Robert who had begun drawing on the stone floor around Paxley and Pacston’s sole means of transportation.”We don’t have any immortal demon women do we? You know Sharon wouldn’t be happy about that at all.”

“I dare say Mr Timblake might have meant immoral women from Devon but I suppose you never know. Might as well leave the door closed, you’ll let the fog in.” Robert finished of the complicated looking sigil he had drawn around the car.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea Robert? The last time you tied to move something you sweat out ten pounds and had to lie down for two days.” Chris has stopped heading towards the main door and had turned for the relative protection of a solidly built oak closet. Freet, who, like most cats, knew the shape of a bad idea when he saw one, had already taken up residence underneath.

“I’ve done considerable work on the empowerment process. This should come straight out of my own ample power supply.” Robert slapped his stomach, which wobbled for a moment before settling under his hand. “No lie downs required”.

Robert carefully placed his notebook back in his waistcoat.

“I SHOULD BLOCK MY EARS IF I WERE YOU MATE”. Chris bellowed outside, before clamping his hands over his ears.

“WHAT?” The wreck collectors voice had again abandoned any pretense of a central tone. “MAYBE I SHOULD COME BACK LATER?”

“Ah, good point, Chris my man”. Robert walked back to his desk to remove a sickly yellow blob from a jar hidden amongst the books, half of which went onto each of his ears. “Now…”. Robert placed his left hand back on his stomach, then extended the the right towards the car. “WON’T BE A MOMENT.” Robert yelled outside.

Robert spread his fingers and inhaled. His voice warped around the words as he intoned;

“AFECATEF TIONEVER HEFFTS TEEM!”

For a moment nothing happened, and a casual observer without a blob of wax in each ear would have heard a querulous voice from outside the warehouse.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY IN THERE?”

Then suddenly all of the sound was sucked out of the room, and the car vanished into the floor as if a giant hand had suddenly plunged it underwater. Even through blocked ears Robert and Chris both felt the deepening silence pull at their inner ear like a hooked fish. The floor inside Robert’s chalk circle rippled, then snapped back into solidity as if nothing had ever happened.

From outside came a loud crash and a string of obscenities. Each one higher pitched than the one before.

“Do I want to look outside?” Chris poked his head out from behind the wardrobe. “Or should we just leave him to it?”

Robert was examining his waistline. Even through the fabric Chris could see slight hand-print melted into the big man’s stomach.

“You OK Robert?”

“Mmm? Ah yes, probably best to leave him to it. From the sound of things the car is now easily accessible without our new friend having to peer into our den of iniquity.” Robert poked a finger into the depression in his waistcoat. The coat itself remained unharmed. “I may need to work on spreading the drain on my resources more evenly though.”

“I”M JUST GONNA GO NOW!” The voice from outside was already getting further away.

“DON’T YOU WANT YOUR FIVE POUNDS?” Chris produced a bank note from his top pocket. He waved it at the blank wall.

“Let him go, Chris, Mr Timblake will be relieved to know his new man’s soul is safe from us.” Robert returned to his desk and scribbled in is notebook. “Besides, now I need supper.”

Chapter two

“This is why we can’t afford a decent car”. Chris was contemplating the remains of a pint of beer as Robert wrapped himself around a large bowl of the loacl pub’s stew. “Do you even know what’s in that stuff?” Rumour had it that the stew had simply been added to over the years, and the pubs owner Herrod, had violently resisted any attempt to clean the perpetually bubbling cauldron that took pride of place in the “The Bubble and Squeak”.

“It’s more than edible and I was in the mood for something hearty.” Robert stuffed another spoonful of the brown gunk into his mouth, followed by a wedge of brown bread. “Besides, we’re meeting Thom, he said he had something for us.”

“When did you talk to Thom?” Chris waved at Herrod, indicating that his beer had reached a critically low level. “I thought he was still in hospital.”

“Got out Wendsday, sent me a telegram about a chap he was camped next to while they were healing.” Robert burped gently into his hand,then nodded to Herrod for a top up. “It’ll take more than a poorly machined gasket to keep Thom down”.

“He was on fire! It was only a week ago?!” Chris swapped his empty beer glass with Herrod for a full one. “Thanks Herrod”.

“Ugh.” Said Herrod.

“Indeed our friend seems to posess some remarkable powers of recouperation. Thank you my good man, any chance of soem more of your fine stew?” Robert waved a bucket sized bowl under Herrod’s nose.

“Ugh.” Said Herrod, as he took the bowl and returned top the kitchen.

“A man of few words, Herrod, but a wizard with stew.”

“Good lord Thom!” Chris had caught sight of a slight figure worming it’s way to their table. “Shouldn’t you be recouperating?” Thom plonked himself down with a grunt. He was entirely devoid of any hair, even his eyebrows seemed to have been burned away. Thom himself was the colour of uncooked chicken.

“Not a bit, a week is more than long enough to be lying about.” Thom coughed, a tiny chunk of soot landed on the table in front of Robert. “Stew any good there big man?”

“A perfect example of Herrod’s finest.” As if summoned Herrod appeared beside their table with Robert’s bowl, a fine film of fat had already begun to form on the top. “A bowl for my friend here, on me.” Robert indicated Thom.

“I don’t really have time…” Thom began but Herrod had already retreated towards the kitchen. “As it happens I came to talk to you about the man who was next to me in the burn ward at St Mary’s.”

Robert sat forward in his chair and retrieved a second, blue notebook from his coat pocket.”Yes, you said he might a spot of work that suited our particular talents.” He picked up a pencil lying next to his second, rapidly congealing bowl of stew.

“Your…talents. Yes.” Thomas glanced at his own bowl and grimaced.

“No need for that Thom.”

Thomas remained transfixed by his stew. “Sorry, man of science and all that. Anyway, about this man. He was covered in the strangest burns; they ran in fine stripes up and down his body.” Thomas coughed again, this time a slightly larger lump of soot dislodged itself and landed squarley in Thomas’ bowl of stew.

Gloop.

Chris stared at the bowl, eyes wide. A tiny hole left by the sooty lump was slowly oozing back into place. “Egad man, I think we should be getting you back to that burn unit. We can talk to your friend there.”

“He was not my friend.” Thomas cleared his throat. “I mearly noted to him that we shared a common predicament. He asked after my injuries and I explained to him my particular area of research.”

“Setting things on fire?” Chris folded his arms onthe table in front of him.

“Alternative uses for heat as a power sorce, thank-you.” Thomas coughed again, this time into his hand. “And I am fine. I made myself a healing elixir this morning and my burns are very nearly healed already”.

“Very well. Now, the man you spoke to?” Robert turned a new page in his notebook.

“He gave me his name, one Jahn Vražda, he had been brought in by the new England Power Board to take a look at something they’d found in one of their thermal dams.”

Chris and Robert’s eyes met. “Something?” said Chris.

“Yes! Some sort of a metal cubezoid. It had been generating the heat that the Power Board was taking from the dam, apparently no matter how much water they ran over it, it never cooled down.” Thomas hacked into his hand. “Perhaps another elixir might…”

Thomas’ fingers dug into the table.

“I think we’ll start towards the hospital now”. Robert stood and looked at Chris. “Take an arm will you? We’ll get a cab.”

Thomas spasmed and a jet black gore shot out of his mouth, coating Chris and Robert in a thick mixture of ashes and blood.

Robert wrestled a still spasming Thomas to the ground.”Gods! Chris hold him still!”

“I’m bloody trying!” Thomas was a slight man, yet even Robert and Chris combined bulk couldn’t holding the spasiming man still. Thomas continued to spew ash and blood as a silent cry twisted his features.

Sweat flooded Robert’s face as he forced a hand over Thomas face and drew a hasty sigil into the ash and blood on the floor around them.

“BETA HER! HARÈ BET” Robert’s voice cut off in a wheeze as bright red tendrils shot from his palm into Thomas’ mouth and the big man sagged forwards. “Thomas?” He whispered.

Thomas had stopped spasiming and the fountain of gunk had subsided to a dribble.

Chris relaxed his grip slightly. “Has anyone called a Dr?!” He yelled to the room in general.

“I sent the boy to get Doc Churchill for us.” It was more that herrod had spoken to a customer, or anyone, for almost a decade. “It wasn’t the stew was it?”

Herrod’s brow was furrowed as he looked over Thomas’ now still form.

“I doubt…” Robert began, but was drowned out as Thomas’ chest cavity exploded with incredible force and the world went dark.

Cam has managed to break his arm after attempting to argue with an area of ashpalt.

I’m glad he’s OK, although the temptation is strong to mock his pain mercilessly. Fortunately it’s his non drawing arm that’s incapacitated so our planned relaunch continues to be…well planned at the moment. This is turning out to be a far bigger project than we had planned.

 

Thanks again for bearing with us, feel free to leave alternating praise/blame for Cameron here.

 

I already know you love me.

 

Andrew

The word is “hiatus”. Cam and I, due to a wide variety of things needs to take a couple of weeks off from the comic and sort out our increasingly complex lives (including anew web comics type project). This isn;t the end of Padora’s Placebo but it will herald in a few changes as our current modus operandi wasn’t really working that well.

We’d like to thank you for keeping up with us so far, and when we come back we will be bringing with a newer more pimped comic for you to enjoy.

I’ll let you all know how things are going, and when he;’s recovered fromt he mysterious lurgie that has struck him down Cam will be on here as well. If anyone out there would like to request any changes to the comic, leave a comment here and we’ll see what we can do.

I can’t find Cam. I have been left to surmise that he is either still in Temuka (a small town in New Zealand) or somewhere busy fellating himself. I guess it’s possible that he could be both stuck in Temuka and abusing his god given flexibility, but I think they still hang people in Temuka  for that kind of thing.

So clearly no comic today, if Cam had a cellphone I could call him and inquire as to when we shall post one up  but he doesn’t have a cellphone, so I can’t. Right now I’ll venture a tentative “Monday” for our next effort depending on whether or not the vengeful mob that’s been following me around finally decides to make it’s move.

Andrew

The good news is that my once festering leg has returned from the dark side is actually operational once again. A few more weeks of rehab and I should be able to return to kicking some head for a hobby.

The bad news is that both Cam and I have had our rather hectic December schedules suddenly catch up to us and we are both badly in need of a day or two off. I’ll be posting up here next week but it’ll be Friday for the next installment of the increasingly inaccurately named Christmas special.

We would thank you not to burn us in effigy on New Years.

Speaking of which, here’s hoping 2009 is the best year you’ve ever had. Thanks for reading.

Andrew

My Christmas has been a good one so far. I ain’t dead, which is always a good start, for a feel my extended family might find my lurching to life as a damned thing, neither living nor fully dead, disconcerting.

I doubt my girlfriend would be surprised in the slightest, since she washes my socks.

As an early present to myself I purchased a book from Neil Gaiman, called “The Graveyard Book” which now ranks among the top five books I have ever read that aren’t by Terry Pratchett. Like Pratchett, Gaiman has always been good, great even, but unlike many stagnant (Laurel K Hamilton I’m looking at you) he keeps on getting better with everything he does.

I won’t ruin “The Graveyard Book” for you, I will simply insist you purchase your own copy and enjoy reading it. Don’t make me come over there…
Merry Christmas folks.

Andrew

I worry about Google Ad words. If gay bear dating is your thing, I’m in no position to judge you, but it’s really not what I had ever expected to see as part of a website I was running. I also can’t get the mental image of a grizzly bear in a tutu out of my head.

It’s still dangerous, perhaps even more so because of the tutu.

General Christmas silliness is continuing unabated, both within the comic and without. My house is covered in little bits of paper, the horrific remnants of my attempts at gift wrapping (the invention of the Christmas themed gift bag has saved me many times), but for once I have everything done in time for Christmas Eve without having to expend a kidney to do so.

Our twelve days of lunacy is clearly going to continue on after Christmas day, but considering the original takes place in the twelve days after Summer Solstice/Jesus’ birthday/No more money day (take your pick) I feel like we’re covered.

Apologies about the late comic, entirely my fault this time.

The feeling you would like to watch the world burn is not an uncommon one. My particular malice for the world is tempered by the fact that I actually quite like it and any generalised world burning would wipe out several things that bring me considerable amounts of joy. What I need is a more specific kind of vengence on the deserving, like a targeted meteor strike.

Or perhaps a well trained grizzly bear. I’d call him Moe.

As awesome as Moe would be, a deep part of me knows that Moe would turn on me as soon as I ran out of treats. Still there’s got to be some humor value in seeing me mauled by a bear, and I exist but to serve you, the reader, in any way I can. So can anyone hook me up with a bear? I’ll put it on Youtube.

I’m closer to being properly healed, and no longer spend half my day in a painkiller induced coma. Now that my brainmeat sees the world as it really is, I’ve realized that our site needs some more work, so stay tuned for an updated look for Pandora’s Placebo. That’s assuming I don’t get bitten by the lazy bug. Or die.

You never know with me.

As a complete aside, if you get the chance, go and see a movie called In Bruges. As long as you’re not allergic to the word fuck I guarantee you an enjoyable viewing experience. If indeed you are allergic to the word fuck, I suggest you seek immediate medical attention.

I’m still away  with my evil, now bitterly disappointed, republican leg, which has managed to retain a mild infection despite everything we’ve thrown at it. I’ve acquired some more anti-biotics that cover a wider spectrum of nasties.

I’m hoping that by the end the week the evil spirits shall have been cast out and I can start trying to get my fitness (both physical and mental) back.

One thing I was particularly struck with while in hospital was that no matter how bad my situation got (and it got pretty bad for a while there) I was one hundred times luckier than most of the people around me. I was initially in a ward with patients whose last moments will be in a hospital room, and so many of them had to face that alone.

My friends and family stuck by me and came and visited despite my continued drug induced daze and I’m more grateful to them than I can properly express. I’m rarely truly frightened, but when they started talking about cutting off my foot I felt properly scared.

Having the people I love around me made all the difference. You know who you are.

I’ll be funny (or at least weird) again tomorrow.