The Spooky Files #3

Sister Justine's true face is composed of a cock, two vaginas, and a sphincter full of teeth.

If you are pregnant or have a heart condition or are pregnant with a baby with a heart condition, you should not read my commentary of The Spooky Files #3 because things are going to get quite spooky indeed. But first, I need to practice being the World's Greatest Detective by taking the third course in the Trixie Belden Course For World's Greatest Detectivating!

This course is titled "The Case of the Tricky Tattoos!" Since I live in Portland, Oregon, I bet I'll be pretty good at solving crimes involving tattoos and/or non-prescription glasses. Here is the case:

Trixie is investigating a robbery in which there are four suspects: Donna the Dip, Dapper Dave, Jailbird Joe, and Carol the Con. Where was the robbery? The 1940s?! Did somebody steal a thing that represents the 1940s that would be totally hilarious to people that grew up in the 1940s but since I didn't I can't think of any? Maybe a Zoot Suit? Or a Nazi? Anyway, Trixie has four clues to help her nab the culprit! If one of those clues is "They had a tattoo on their neck," that's my vote for the guilty party!

1. Three of the suspects are right-handed, and three of them have tattoos on the opposite wrist from the hand they write with. Wrist tattoos? Really? Those aren't hardcore! I think the fourth person is the thief!
2. Neither Dapper Dave nor Jailbird Joe has a tattoo on his left wrist, but both Jailbird Joe and Carol the Con have scars under their left eyes. How are these clues related to the crime? Are we just trying to figure out which suspect looks the most like a criminal? I don't even know what the crime was yet!
3. Donna the Dip writes with a different hand than Dapper Dave does. So what?!
4. The guilty suspect has no tattoos on either wrist. So arrest the person without any tattoos on their wrists then! What are you asking me for?!

Let me get this straight. Some place was robbed and the police just nabbed four people on the street who happened to have fishy nicknames. Then a witness came forth and said, "The thief didn't have any tattoos on their wrists." Then the cops went, "Duh! Which one could it be! Somebody get Trixie Belden over here!" Using my great deductive skills and impeccable logic, Jailbird Joe must be the thief because his nickname is "Jailbird"! Also he has a neck tattoo and the witness was all, "Yeah, yeah. That's totally the guy that stole all of those dildos. Also, Dapper Dave was the left handed one and since the trend in this town was to only put tattoos on the wrists of their non-dominant hand, Jailbird Joe should have had a tattoo, if he had a wrist tattoo at all, on his left wrist! That's when I shouted, "A-ha! Jailbird Joe! Your nickname is well earned, culprit!"

Okay, I made up the thing about the neck tattoo but the solution was Jailbird Joe so pretty soon I'm going to have The Batman's job!

That wasn't very spooky, was it? Let's get to the spooky stuff now. LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!

Just kidding! That was like when the counselor at camp tells a scary story that doesn't really have a scary ending to it so he just kicks the fire into the face of the kids while screaming the last line of his story.

Camp Counselor: "AND THE MAN WITH THE HOOK WAS UNDER THE BED LICKING THE GIRL'S HAND AND NOW HE'S STANDING BEHIND YOU!" *KICK FLAMES BURNING SCREAMING*

Since smallpox was wiped out in the non-biological warfare vaults world, do kids still get vaccinated against it? I thought there was a cut off year between those of us with a smallpox scar on our arm where we were inoculated and those of you with clear, unblemished skin who will never run into one of your government sponsored alien hybrid clones one day.

The girl is attacked by her shadow and that's just the time Ray Fawkes and Ben Templesmith decide we should experience a flashback! Jerkos!

Just like Sister Justine had a flashback last issue, Drake gets a flashback this issue. It's about a time she was stoned out of her mind as she and a friend went to pick up some drugs and wound up in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Something about a drug deal turned into a cop killing initiation and possibly Matches Malone being involved. We'll return to that story later.

Rook continues to investigate the Midnight Shift because he's totally their Dana Scully and he's all, "This can't be what it seems!" and "Aliens aren't real; it was probably bears!" and "Please God, give us the faith and wisdom to understand the scientific reasons behind these supposedly supernatural events. Amen."

Back at the hospital, the shadow escapes from its source body!

Smallpox has become shadowborne!

I think Oral Herpes went shadowborne decades ago. I'm pretty sure you can catch it just be having somebody's shadow pass over you while your mouth is open.

Back in the flashback, Drake turns out to be not high at all and an also she's an undercover cop. She can also knock people down with her screams. When did Black Canary go back to her maiden name and join the Gotham Police Department? Does she have a sister? Maybe this is her evil shadow twin that left Black Canary when she began dating Condor because she was so disgusted by him.

Back in the present, Doctor Tarr stops the spreading epidemic by talking to the shadow in Weird Little Girlese.

Maybe it can join the team?

Back in the flashback, Corrigan was the cop in the trunk that Drake had to save by killing all of the drug dealers and totally blowing her cover. And Jim Corrigan knows more about her Supernatural Scream than she does. She's probably a banshee. But the flashback doesn't let the reader know her secrets because the point of the story was just to show how Drake and Corrigan met and became partners. Unless there was a different point to the story!

Back in the present, Drake removes the shadow from the girl using a flashlight to cut it away. The shadow disappears and the girl dies or falls into a coma or some other sad thing that makes Drake cry. Unless she was crying for some other reason!

This case was just another spooky case involving a general rise in spookiness in Gotham City. The city is under attack by spooky forces and only the Midnight Shift has what it takes to stop it!

Gotham By Midnight #3 Rating: +1 Ranking. This book is good and I love the art but it could definitely be spookier. Somebody needs to turn the Spooky Rating to 11. No, to 12! Turning the dial to 11 is so three or four decades ago!

The Spooky Files #2

The Spooky Files! Starring Moldy and Skulker!

I'm already feeling spooky just from this cover! Unless Jim Corrigan is palming the nun's pudenda. No wait. That's even spookier. I wish I could read this book with the lights off so I could get really scared but I don't want to go blind! Did you know you could go blind from reading in low levels of light? That's what my grandmother said and why would she lie to me? She loved me!

Did you know that Friday the 13th The Final Chapter (that's Part IV!) takes place the day after the third chapter which takes place the day after the second chapter which takes place five years after the first one? Which means that only the first and fourth parts, so far, take place in the year they were filmed. The other two take place in the future! And apparently only one, maybe two of them take place on Friday the 13th! I guess Jason Voorhees is one of those people that celebrate their birthday all week long.

Also, I knew that Corey Feldman was in The Final Chapter but I was surprised to see Crispin Hellion Glover in it! I'd completely forgotten about that. I like him a lot! He's a certified genius (certified by me and my money which I paid to go see him two nights in a row a few years ago and which also bought me three of his books). I bet you didn't know he has books! He has books! They're not what you'd expect though because you're boring and you expect boring things that bore me. Not you! I'm talking to that one person that I can't stand that's still fucking following me! You know you hate me and everything I say, so why are you still reading?!

Last issue, Internal Affairs of the Gotham Police Department were investigating The Spooky Files because they don't believe in general spookiness. They figured it had to be some kind of scam, running a department that was chasing ghosts and werewolves. But Sergeant Rook (unless he was a Lieutenant) learned at the end of the issue that spookiness is all around us! Especially when you wander out of a swamp and into a haunted schoolroom with possessed kids and demonic teachers! School was spooky enough with just cheerleaders and football players. I might have lost my mind completely if it was full of ghosts too!

You can tell this classroom is haunted because of the spooky lighting!

Rook begins evacuating the screaming children while Jim Corrigan prepares to fight the demon nun. Rook is new to the job so why does Corrigan give him the difficult task?!

Oh! Remember the spooky girls who only spoke in tongues? They start flipping the fuck out when Sister Justine, The Spooky Files' Resident Holy Person, enters the house to stick a tongue depressor on their souls. That sends her into a flashback or a reverie or a daydream about her past.

Her previous church was fucked up. I mean it was spooky! This comic book isn't rated mature enough to be called The Fucked Up Files.

Back in Slaughter Swamp, Rook has rescued all of the children except the monkey in the dunce cap. He should probably leave the monkey alone! I bet it's going to be trouble. At the very least, he might get splashed by demon brains when Jim Corrigan blows the creature's head off. Better to stay out in the swamp with the kids mumbling in tongues.

Jim Corrigan keeps resisting The Spectre's advances which means nobody's going to buy this comic book! They want to see great big green glow in the dark vengeance! They don't want to see Jim Corrigan playing MP3s of school bells which cause the Demon Teacher Nun to explode!

Actually, that was kind of cool. Not very spooky though. I would have been more scared if he did some kind of exorcism ritual with lots of Latin and lit candles and splashing holy water and...no, come to think of it, that shit is over! We've seen the crap out of that crap. One of the reasons Constantine's television show has been so boring is because he just recites Latin whenever he needs to beat back the forces of darkness. He should be using ghost busting phone apps!

Oh Rook! Stop being so Dana! "Oh, oh! There's a logical explanation! Silly to think aliens! Probably more like, um, bears!"

Now that all the missing children have been accounted for, Corrigan and his team need to figure out what's going on. Why are the kids still speaking a language that nobody can identify? What kind of possession is taking over religious figures? Why is Gotham constantly generating more and more spooky content?

Next issue, the investigation gets serious! Seriously spooky!

Gotham By Midnight #2 Rating: No change. I love the look of this comic book. I enjoy the dialogue. And I'm loving the setting of a small department barely getting by in the bureaucracy of the Gotham Police Department. It really is a mix of The Wire and The X-Files. And just like those shows, I think it's going to take a few more issues before things really get rolling and nobody will be able to put this thing down. At least those are my hopes and aspirations for this title. I hope it hasn't been cancelled already!