GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #688: ZEGRUS FROM TAURED

*puts on Kolchak hat*

 

In July of 1959 a man was arrested in Tokyo for illegally entering the country with a phony passport from a phony country. When pressed on the matter he doubled down on his passport being real, and his country being real. He said he was from Taured, which had been around for a thousand years. Except there isn't a Taured on this planet. He was able to speak in the language of Taured, though, and he claimed to be there on business. Official business. While he was from Taured, he was working for the CIA to meet with businessmen in Japan, possibly on an intelligence mission. But those businessmen had no idea who he was. Plausible deniability?

John Allen Zegrus was then arrested so the authorities could investigate his claims. He was placed in a heavily guarded hotel room, but when they checked on him he had vanished without a trace. The only way out was a window, and it would have been impossible for him to go that way and not leave his corpse on the streets below.

Taured might not exist on this earth, but what about other earths? Could Zegrus have been a man from an alternate universe?

That's what a lot of people believe. Considering how I sometimes feel that I'm from a different earth, that I crossed over sometime in January 2020 and can't find my way back, I feel that I might have a kindred spirit in Zegrus. I don't actually believe I'm from another earth, but there are times when it seems so eerily true to me. Sometimes I wonder.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance said these immortal words, and they're so very fucking true. Because if you had the choice between believing the truth and the legend, almost everyone would want to believe the legend. That was what a lot of people did with Zegrus. Too bad the story you just read is almost completely fake.

Almost. Zegrus really did exist, and he really did get arrested for trying to enter Japan with a fake passport. But he didn't disappear from a heavily guarded hotel room. He was brought to trial for his crimes and apparently tried to kill himself in front of the judge, possibly to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. But he was found guilty and did his time, and when he left Japan he really did vanish without a trace. No one knows whatever happened to him.

But we do know that whoever he really was, he was a conman a la Frank Abignale. This man flew all over the world scamming people into letting him live the high life in fancy hotels with free food and drink and so on. Because almost every country he tried this in believed him without question. Japan was a little more thorough, though, and he got busted for it. No mystery there.

But lo! and fucking behold! No one tells that part of the story. It's always the legend and the mystery. Because even when faced with facts, people choose to believe in fancy. And that might be the tragic flaw in humanity. In the end it's going to be what kills us all, and there may be nothing we can do to stop that.

Goodnight, fuckers. Sweet dreams.

While looking for that picture of Kolchak, I also found this, which made me laugh.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #424: THE ENDING OF DARK SHADOWS

 

So as many of you know I finally finished the original Dark Shadows series. I've seen a lot of people complaining that there is no real ending. I don't think I agree with that. I believe there are three endings. And maybe four. If Peter Jackson added in Frodo's return to the Shire and his battle with Saruman and Wormtongue for Hobbiton, he might have beaten out how many endings Dark Shadows had.

Oh yeah, spoilers, if you haven't seen the show.

So the first ending: Barnabas, Julia and Professor Stokes coming back up the stairway into the future. Honestly, this is where the show should have ended. I believe their actions in . . . well . . . ah fuck it. It's super complicated, and I'm not sure I get it. So way back, Barnabas and Julia went back in time, and when they came forward in time to the present(-ish) they discovered the Collins family had been torn asunder, and Collinwood had been burned to the ground. They went back in time to fix the problem and discovered why the Collins family has such bad luck. Turned out they killed a sorcerer during the times of the Witch Trials, and he cursed them forever and ever. Except they repaired that bit and went back to the future to discover a very happy and untroubled Collins family. An uncursed Collins family. On the one hand, I hate that it undid nearly the entire show. Hell, probably the whole show. But they succeeded at their plan, and that makes for a great stopping point. It is, at least, *an* ending.

The second ending: The forced ending. So back in the past Lamar Trask gets shoved into a parallel universe by Quentin Collins (kind of) where he dies before the eyes of a parallel 1840s Collins family, and they are still cursed but in a much different way. Everyone thinks it was a spurned lover whose body doesn't decompose and is displayed in an evil room in Collinwood. The family has a lottery as to who must go in that room and spend the night, and no one has ever survived sane. They've either died or gone crazy. Sure enough, the two who go in there come out bonkers. Gabriel comes out a stark raving murderer, and Morgan isn't even himself; he's possessed by the spirit of the spurned lover. And it turns out, that guy didn't curse the family. Brutus Collins was disgusted by the weakness of his own family and curse them himself! It takes a stranger, Kendrick, who is only there to find out who killed his sister, to break the curse. And everyone lives happily ever after, right? Well, no. Because one of the family is carried into the parlor with an obvious vampire bite on her neck. So they really did plan to continue? Probably. But before it aired, they knew they were canceled, so they added in a quick voiceover explaining that it was just a coincidence. A mere animal bite. No vampires here. The end.

But . . .

The third ending: Sam Hall's epilogue. He was asked after the show ended what became of the characters he'd written for years, and he gave very specific answers. One of them was granting my biggest Dark Shadows wish of all. Barnabas finally acknowledged Julia's love for him, and they got married. Poor Quentin never did find the answers he was looking for and walks the earth a tortured man/werewolf/Dorian Gray. Roger doesn't live long after that final episode. And so on. I found that ending to be the most satisfying because even with the curse lifted, Quentin is still fucked. Nothing changes for him.

And then the fourth ending: the comic book series. Honestly I see no reason for Dynamite's series to exist. For some reason they decided that the story had to be finished. A story that had been finished no less than three times. But I'll say I enjoyed it. Even though Angelique (or Miranda, if you prefer) sacrificed her life to save the Collins family, she's back and evil in the comics, and she and Barnabas continue their love/hate relationship even though it ended in a very cool way on the show. Eh, it was a fun read, but you can skip it in my opinion.

I've seen all Dark Shadows has to offer. The original show, the two movies, the remake show, many novels (the best of which are written by Angelique herself, Lara Parker), a bunch of comic books (the original Gold Key books!) and even a few books written by the cast about their experiences and an album of the score. What I have not seen is the Tim Burton movie, and I dread ever seeing it. It looks like a parody of the show. Dark Shadows may have been unintentionally funny a lot of times, but the key word there is "unintentionally." They took their material very seriously. There were very few purposeful jokes in their scripts. I'm told there's a blowjob scene in the movie, for fuck's sake. On Dark Shadows, NO ONE HAD SEX. Was there romance? Sure. But as far as the show goes, sex is completely alien to the characters. I suspect it might have been in the bible for the show, like in the Batman bible it says that he's a virgin.

But yeah. I guess someday I'll see it. As I understand it Jonathan Frid has a cameo, and it would be nice to see him again. But the joke goes that he was so embarrassed by the movie that he promptly died just before it was released.

*sigh* Yeah, yeah. I'll watch it. Just not anytime soon, okay?

PS: If you like Barnabas Collins, and you like Carl Kolchak, you should probably read "Interview with a Vampire." I remember enjoying the short story more than this comic book, but they're both good.