SPOOKTOBER DAY 15 – TRAPPED
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES:  PULP / MEN’S LIT, BETRAYAL, FAST FOOD
TAROT INFLUENCE:  THREE OF SWORDS

TITLE:  MY GIRL WAS KIDNAPPED BY THE REDS

Premise:  The pulp/mens lit idea always makes me think of how obsessed anti-communists were with killing Castro, think of that book A Bullet for Fidel.  How do you work in fast food tho..?

Young soda jerk (FAST FOOD) in 1960s US Midwest dreams of anticommunist espionage (PULP / MEN’S LIT), while his day-to-day life falls apart.  His girlfriend leaves him (BETRAYAL) for cool beatniks (THREE OF SWORDS) and they become the villains in his spy story.

The Villain:  The soda jerk, of course.  He sees the leader of the beatniks as a right hand man to Castro himself, and stalks the cool cats and kittens to a riverboat casino, where he makes his move.

Horror Element:  First thing he does is kill the crew of the boat, causing it to go out of control.  Passengers have to choose between abandoning the boat, risking drowning, or dealing with The Killer.  The first to take their chances in a life vest meet grisly fates and the remaining people feel trapped (TRAPPED).  I think, Cape Fear vibes.
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This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers.  This went pretty well except that gemini was shit at understanding some basic instructions and I had to do some restructuring in photopea before I finished up in openai.

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SPOOKTOBER DAY 16 – MUTANTS
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES:  JEALOUSY, MIDAS TOUCH, EXES
TAROT INFLUENCE:  FOUR OF SWORDS, INVERTED

TITLE:  TOUCH MY HEART

Premise:  In this world every human is just bristling with intense energies that could lead to superpowers, like, idk, some kind of adaptation to high radiation or something.  Things that throw off the balance like catching a cold can, if rarely, lead to manifestations like spontaneous combustion or telekinetic destruction.  To keep that in check, the genetic variation of mutation is monitored and controlled.  The genome is 100% mapped and defined, almost all of the knock-on effects and multifactorial expression worked out, to where they can define and detect the most dangerous mutations, and eliminate them.

Some people don’t get their shots, you know?  We live in a society etc etc.  Some outsiders reach adulthood with mutant powers (MUTANTS), or develop them from retroviruses or other epigenetic causes. They have a secret criminal underworld with its own rules and social mores.  There are factions, but the prevalent attitude is to use those powers for personal advantage, and above all, to not get caught and gene-therapied.

The vast majority will know one to three “tricks” and never learn more, but there are martial arts -type senseis who can help mutants learn to use their powers in more different ways.  That power alone can bring them into conflict with each other, the most skilled mutants kinda like immortals in Highlander.  “Freeradical” is one of these, and has been doing random acts of terrorism against politicians and the wealthy for years – with dangerous touch attacks (MIDAS TOUCH).

On the other side, there are government agents called “supersoldiers” who are not mutants, but use tech to access their energy and do battle.  They either kill or gene therapy the mutants out of existence.

The Villain:  Freeradical’s showy power attracts enemies, who form a coalition to bring him down.  Some are envious of his power (JEALOUSY), others consider his public crimes a danger to the mutant underworld, and at least one is a disgruntled lover (EXES).  “Firecat” has decided not only that she hates that former bf, she hates everything that reminds her of him – including her own mutant powers.  She turns state’s evidence, voluntarily submitting to gene therapy, in hopes of helping the agents catch Freeradical and do the same to him.

Horror Element:  Losing identity, losing ability.  Maybe the supersoldiers could be scary guys.  Also, this is a world where a random person on the street might explode or shoot lightning bolts and die messy.  Horror is all about the telling of the story, right, but for me to say that about a superhero comic is like saying that about a hallmark movie.  Dubious.

Anyway, Freeradical feels like giving up, the whole world against him, but hearkens to the words of Albert Camus as he is about to be defeated, and his blaze of glory turns into victory (FOUR OF SWORDS, INVERTED).  Kill ’em all, boyee!
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This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers.  The anatomical issues on the little dudes here were egregious lol.

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