Coozy For Hire - Comics

Pointless Killing #008

In this episode: Bont finds a photo album of some of his past kills and reminisces about many jobs well done. He then throws it out the window, killing yet another with the blunt force of the album.

Oh my God, I made a clip show.

Pointless Killing #007

In this episode: Jim is accosetd by an alien. He manages to trap the extraterrestrial in a glass(?) chamber and shock it into submission. He then uses a shrink ray on it and smooshes it like a bug.

I'm beginning to sense a pattern here... Pipe bomb, freeze ray, shrink ray... Yep, I must have been really into Duke Nukem 3D at the time of these comics.

Pointless Killing #006

In this episode: Bont is hauled off to jail for killing a man with a freeze ray. He subsequently uses the ray to escape and smash the prison. Then the fugitives are hit by a random train I guess?

I was starting to think these were getting more and more nonsensical, but then this one is pretty much a solid plotline from beginning to end. Not that it's a good or even comprehensive plot, but it's not jerking from one scene to another.

Pointless Killing #005

In this episode: Jim Bont is inflicted with a cold, and kills people with atomic sneezes maybe? Smiley joins Jim as a sidekick, and is subsequently killed in a Indiana Jones-inspired cavern. Jim blows up the cave with a pipe bomb.

Jim Bont clearly does not live on our Earth.

Pointless Killing #004

In this episode: Jim blows up the Mayor's house and meets Smiley, who agrees to be Bont's assistant in the next issue. Bont's wife returns inexplicably from the dead. Commentary: I don't know why Jim Bont had a vendetta against the mayor (or perhaps the long line of mayors?), but I think it may have had something to do with this hilarious new show called "South Park". See, they had this running gag where every episode, the same character would die and on the next episode he'd be back to life and nobody seemed to notice. It was a worldwide phenomenon, so I was probably copying that. At least, that's my best guess.

Pointless Killing #003

In this episode: Jim Bont has to think outside the box to defeat an armored foe. A small freak with superpowers goes on a rampage. Bont gives chase but is powerless to stop him. Deus ex machina ensues when the "THE END" in the last panel crushes the freak. Commentary: Oooooh. Now the killing is pointless. At least, we don't hear of any motives this time around, and there are none that can really be derived from the janky plot.

Pointless Killing #002

In this episode: Jim Bont gets a medal of honour for stopping terrorists from the New Mayor who is abruptly murdered. Bont goes home to show the medal to his wife, who he finds dead the the hand of another terrorist. Bont's house (and more importantly, his medal) are exploded.

Commentary: I know the title is Pointless Killing, which really it is, but wouldn't that suggest complete lack of a plot? Each story (while poorly fleshed-out) is mostly complete, and there's even a strong continuity bond throughout the series. Most of the time, the killing being done is for some reason, so matter how superficial. I guess my point is that I was coming up with completely irrelevant titles long before "Coozy For Hire".

Pointless Killing #001

In this episode: Our hero Jim Bont kills the mayor to help pay his bills. As he's taking the body back (presumably to prove the hit), it's smashed by a car. Jim discovers that his employer is a giant, sentient Mr. Big candy bar.

Commentary: Let it be known that these crazy stick figure comics were not my own brainchild. My friends Mike and Taylor (who you know from Spare!) were doing these ages before I was. I basically just took the idea and applied new names and ever-so-slightly new scenarios. In the end they're all just stick figures murdering each other, but at the time, they seemed to us like franchises that could really blossom into something great one day.

Pointless Killing #000

Here is the first page in a very special 11-page series of really, really old comics.

Much like Spare! (which I really need to get finished), this is a comic drawn back in my school days. Only this one dates back all the way to grade 6. That's like... 1997/98? I think that's right. In any case, it's friggin' old, and I must say, somewhat uninspired. I'll tell the tale in later posts, because here I want to explain how my old comics worked.

Back in the day, my friends an I mass-produced these motherfuckers, and being that the new "issue" had to be out ASAP, we limited ourselves to stickmen. Also, we may have been too lazy to do fleshed-out people. In any case, since stickmen are pretty hard to tell from one another, every comic series had a simple character code: each character had a unique hat or hairpiece. Sometimes it would come down to another random accessory, or maybe we'd have to monogram the hats, but that was the basic code.

I think that the character intro page was a generosity exclusive to me, as I was always afraid that people would get lost trying to remember the difference between the guy wearing his hat to the left and the one wearing his hat to the right. These pages usually only came up when the series in question reached a good 6 or so episodes.

Doodle Filler #01

Oddball by Association

Innovative Housing Options

My Life As A K.K.King

Take a Big Bite out of Life

Sea Filler #00

Militia Garbage

Ah, I've missed doing these MSPaint doodles. So much fun. I decided to give Ryan the week off, and also this gives me the freedom to do completely off the wall garbage I don't think would fit in with the normal comic. And that's that. When will I strike next? You'll never know!

Spare! #069 - Tayman Begins

This one is the beginning of a small arc wherein Taylor is obsessed with Batman. It's mostly true, this comic in particular, and I think it's quite a funny arc myself. Basically the story about how this happened is that at one point, Taylor bought the original Batman movie (starring Adam West), possibly out of a bargain bin, and afterward would constantly rave about it. I took the opportunity to turn it into comics, and that's where we are now.

Okay, my description is bland and disjointed. I just can't really write right now. I even skimped on the drawing by copy and pasting the guys from an older comic. I dunno. just not in the mood to giv'er or at least do it up right. So I'll quit now.

Original: Spare069.

Character Filler #01

Tater's Close Encounter

Spare! #068 - Without a T

True story. Except for the chair. I may have actually been that harsh with my words, I cannot remember. In any case, who takes off the damn tomato? Freaks.

Original: Spare068.

Demoralization

Time-Lapsed

Suggestive!

Spare! #067 - Mister Roboto

Yeah, I said it was over, but we're still sort of dragging it out. Ryan's got a bit of a problem letting go, and needs to have something to fill that empty space, right? It's probably better to give him another imaginary friend than to have him turn to the bottle to ease the pain, anyway.

Original: Spare067.

Tater Hits The Road

Spare! #066 - Worst. Arc. Ever.

And there, it's finally over. Sort of. Well, there won't be any more imaginary girlfriends around here. At least not in Spare!. Coozy For Hire itself has a rich roster of imaginary characters, so you'll keep seeing them in there.

The whole sad ending is there because honestly, I wanted to end this charade, but couldn't for the life of me come up with a funny way to do it. I guess I could have done somethign action-oriented instead, but it's probably okay to go with a route that shows that as much as I build him up, Ryan isn't completely invincible. Nothing else to really say about this one.

Original: Spare066.

[Insert Crouton Joke Here]

Spare! #065 - Disco's Back

Continuing the last comic's theme of imaginary breakups. Not much to say here, it's more of a story-advancing comic.

If you don't get the title, you don't love Spare! nearly enough.

Original: Spare065.

Tater's Great Escape

Spare! #064- Back To Reality

Ugh. I don't even have it in me to make real commentary right now. My head's got so many things running through it at the moment that I can't even hope to focus.

The brunt of it would be that this is relating to the series of strips I made about having an imaginary girlfriend and the things I did to sour the relationship. I can only assume you've forgotten all about those ones, thanks to the big long Spare! hiatus there.

It is also continuing the idea that Justin is totally against my imaginary girlfriend. I think maybe I liked the idea too much, which is why it irritated him so. In any case, this little sequence spawns its own arc of sorts, so get ready for more talky talky and less comedy.

Original: Spare064.