The ghosts and spirits in Two-Fisted Spiritualist are the unreal deal: they're all stolen from actual folklore. All of the characters in my comic are based on things people used to actually believe in, or in some cases, still do.

BABS BREZHNEV is one of the Slavic ghosts known as RUSALKI (singular: Rusalka). All Rusalki were once young women who died by drowning. They stay underwater throughout the winter months, and dwell in trees and glades in the summer. Rusalki resemble naked corpses, with tangled green hair and glowing green eyes. In some legends, they appear as old women, with wrinkled skin and remarkably large breasts. Rusalki drag passers-by into the water and drown them. Rusalki in the south of Russia, along the Danube, appear as beautiful young women. These Rusalki are described as moonlight-pale, with long blonde hair. Unlike their buck-naked cousins, they are modestly clad in veils of mist or diaphanous white gowns. They sing and dance, luring anyone they meet into the water. Then they kill them. There, better. Similar water ghosts in Russia and Eastern Europe are called Chertovka (Jokestress), Shutovka (Demon Joker), Leskotukha or Loskotukha (Tickler), and Khitka or Khitkha (Abductor).

Note: A previous version of this page described the Slavic ghosts called Vily/Veely (singular: Vila/Veela) as having the traits of the Southern Rusalki. That's been contradicted by another source that I consider to be more reliable. The book "Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia" by Carol Rose gives an entirely different account of the Vily. Evidently my original source, photocopied from a library book ages ago, confused attractive dancing fairy women called Vily with cave-dwelling murderous female ghosts also called Vily. Oh well.

Babs was a typical middle-class American teenager in the 50's, doing typical middle-class American teenage things like collecting Pat Boone records and thinkin' about nuclear armageddon. In 1957, she drowned in the Pine Park Community Swimming Pool, a victim of unsupervised horseplay. She was fourteen years old. She only recently started visiting Rowdy Joe's trailer. Of all the ghosts there, she's the most restless. She's annoyed by the complacency of much older spirits like Dapper Dan and Jolly Roger. She enjoys babysitting Penny Dreadful, but hates Buzz Bomb, who she views as a pest. As a Rusalka, she's generally very sweet, until you make her angry...

BUZZ BOMB is a TENGU, one of the mountain-dwelling goblins of Japanese folklore. Birdlike in appearance, their manner ranges from mischievous to downright malicious. They are gifted with the power to change shape, and can possess people. In some legends, Tengu are the malevolent ghosts of dead human beings. Greedy, hypocritical priests were said to be transformed into Tengu, as punishment. Some Tengu disguise themselves as Buddhist clergy, and try to lead people morally astray. Tengu have even been blamed for setting Buddhist temples ablaze. By the 19th century, woodcutters and hunters were making offerings to the Tengu, to assure themselves success. The tengu were believed to have control over thunderstorms and whirlwinds. In present-day Japan, country folk offer a cake to the tengu before chopping down a tree. The tengu are still worshipped in some mountain temples, and festivals are held in their honor.

The original Tengu legends are probably influenced by stories of the Chinese T'ien-kou ("Celestial Dog"), another mountaineering demon that sometimes appears as a winged, bird-billed humanoid. The birdlike Buddhist deities called Garudas are another likely influence.

Buzz Bomb the Tengu has a smirking, abrasive manner that most people find annoying. He likes to use his shape-changing abilities to play pranks on other people. The only spirit who can stand to be around him is Jolly Roger, who has a similar personality. Buzz and Babs are mutual enemies. Buzz has a grudging fondness for Rowdy Joe. While others are disgusted or alarmed by Rowdy Joe's various mental and physical eccentricities, Buzz views them as amusing. Also, he's indebted to Joe for his life. (I'll tell that flashback story after "Pinched Penny" concludes.) Because of this, Buzz feels obligated to help Joe on important missions. In a way, he's Joe's Sancho Panza.

What does CHESTER have to do with this picture? The answer will appear before the end of August.

DAPPER DAN is one of a legion of Irish ghosts known as DUBHLACHANS (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, "Dullahans"). The word "Dubhlachan" referred originally to any especially sullen person. Later the name was applied to headless Irish phantoms. Dubhlachans are famed for driving the Coach a bower, a ghostly carriage which passes by the homes of people who are doomed to shortly die. The above illustration of Dubhlachans from T. Crofton Croker's Fairy Legends was an inspiration to me. I decided to depict our boy Danny as a ghost who has a head, but not always the body to go with it.

In life, Dan's oversized cranium and ability to stand perfectly still for hours without a thought in his head catapulted him into a perfectly fabulous career as a wig model. His chief competition came from the blocks of wood used for displaying wigs (origin of the term "blockhead" by the way, no kidding!) Blocks did pretty much the same thing as Dan but didn't demand hefty salaries or have scandalous affairs with members of the Royal Family. Dan tried to hide his Irish origins in London, but his past literally came back to haunt him when he died: he is cursed to walk the earth as a Dubhlachan. He and his body are rarely on good terms. They don't even have the same fashion sense. ("This is an outrage. I can't believe I'm wearing that tie.") Dan's body travels the globe, but it doesn't like to take its cranium along for the ride. So, Dan the head finds himself at the mercy of anyone who is willing to tote him around. (Yes, I know his head seemed to be floating around of its own volition at the end of "Cock-a-Doodle-Die" but I have a perfectly good explanation for that, which is mentioned in "Secretions and Lies." Really.)

Dan is cultured, effeminate, insecure, and unbelievably self-centered. He is the favored object of torment for Jolly Roger. As a lazy, passive individual, he's fallen in love with the modern invention of television. His current favorite program is "Facts of Life."

JOLLY ROGER is a classic Romanian REVENANT, or vampire. These folkloric creatures have almost nothing in common with the velvet-clad noblemen created by Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. The differences are striking:

Revenants are not walking corpses; they're walking souls. A revenant's corpse stays where it was buried. At night, however, the revenant's soul escapes its body and wreaks havok. Revenants drink blood -- but most commonly from the chest, not from the neck. Revenants have the power to cause all manner of misfortunes, including hailstorms, excessive rain, plagues, sickly crops, and "dry" milk cows. In Iceland, revenants are said to dance loudly on frozen sod roofs. In Serbia, they overturn Gypsy caravans. Revenants cannot change into animals, or into mist.

Revenants are often self-created. Babies born with physical abnormalities, like cauls (or Roger's pointy ears), are thought to be marked as future revenants. Sins commited in one's life could condemn a person to vampirism in death. Various countries count suicide, witchcraft, prostitution, arson, theft, and even alcoholism as a sure routes to ending as a revenant. In Romanian superstition, it doesn't even matter if you lead a decent life... if a bat flies over your grave, you've had it! (And that, my friends, is the only connection in European folklore between vampires and bats.)

Revenants are not romantically pale. Far from it, in fact. If you saw a revenant, you'd probably assume he was sunburned. A Serbian expression for a ruddy, hard-core drunk is "blood-red as a vampire." Revenants are even redder just after feeding.

To kill a revenant, one must dig up his corpse, drive a stake into his heart, and chop off his head or drive a consecrated nail into his skull. Ceremonial executions like this took place all over Eastern Europe. But here's the interesting thing: physical "proof" of vampirism in a corpse can be debunked by modern forensic science. Mere burial, without embalming, can cause a corpse to decompose as much as eight times slower than it normally would. In reliable accounts of vampire "executions," the accused corpses belonged to the recently deceased. The bodies seemed to display post-mortem "growth" of hair and beard, lengthened teeth, weight gain, and new fingernails which replaced those that had fallen away. Blood around the mouth seemed to indicate recent feeding by the corpses. The bodies were pliable, like those of the living. When stakes were driven into the chest, the corpses would make horrible groans, and blood flowed out of the wounds.

There are forensic explantations for all of these things. Firstly, the skin shrinks as a corpse decays. This reveals previously unexposed hair and beard. The gums recede, making the teeth seem longer. The plumpness seen in vampiric corpses can be attributed to bloating, which is caused by the build-up of gasses in decaying bodies. The corpses were pliable because rigor mortis is only temporary. The "new" fingernails were most likely the shiny nailbeds, which were exposed when the nails fell off. Blood pools in the lungs after death, hence the gush of it when the chests were crushed by stakes. Furthermore, bloating can force some of this blood up the windpipe to the mouth, creating the illusion that the corpses were eating. Gasses in a bloated corpse can escape when the corpse is moved, or even if it's only settling, creating disturbing sounds. (This has been noted in the HBO series about morticians, "Six Feet Under.") Plunge a stake into a bloated corpse, and you'll hear something really awful.

(The bulk of this information comes from the wonderful article "The Real Vampire" by Paul Barber, published in the October 1990 issue of Natural History.)

Jolly Roger was born in a gypsy camp in Eastern Europe. He has some Sicilian ancestry... thus the name "Roger," which I read somewhere was Sicilian in origin... I, um, hope that's correct. Roger had a natural gift for insulting people. This was an essential talent, since he was constantly defending himself against people who teased him about his pointed ears. He was a chubby little boy, but at thirteen he shot up to the remarkable height of six-foot-ten. He is a husky, barrel-chested adult, with treetrunk arms and fists like Easter hams. Roger's unusual combination of ready wit and fearsome appearance led him to fame as a traveling court jester.

He played his last gig for Hungary's infamous Countess Elisabeth Bathory. Though very much alive, Bathory acted like a vampire. She killed hundreds of young women and drank their blood in a vain effort to retain her youthful appearance. Roger made the fatal mistake of debuting his new cross-dressing bit on a night when Elisabeth was drunk off her rapidly sagging ass. At his size, Roger must have looked like the bloody mother lode. The crossbones-shaped scar on his chest marks the wound that killed him.

Roger is a classic bully. He loves to dish out insults, but can't take them himself. His typical response to teasing is either a threat or swift, blinding violence. In direct contrast to Lob Lie-By-The-Fire, he never picks a fight with anyone larger than himself. Roger can be charming when he chooses to be so. He gets along swimmingly with Buzz, and behaves almost as a big brother to Babs.

So, has he ever killed anyone? To quote Roger himself (in "Pinched Penny" ), "Oh, sure! But hey, it was the 1600's. Everybody was doin' it back then." Roger is much more careful these days, mostly as a matter of self-preservation. To keep from attracting attention, he only drains a pint or two from his victims. And he's careful to choose only people who won't remember him, like drunks and accident victims (or drunk accident victims,) Goth girls are a favorite with Roger, since they want to be bitten by vampires anyway. He attacks sleepers in places with biting insects. He's not above robbing hospitals or blood banks for refrigerated blood, when he has the hankering for a "cold one."

LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE is an old British folklore character of rather murky origin and tenuous connections. He's roughly equivalent with the English hobgoblin, Scottish brownie, or German kobold. Only much, much bigger, or course. He is mentioned in the play, "The Knight of the Burning Pestle." 19th century author Juliana Horatia Ewing used him as the inspiration for one of her short stories. Lob is typically described as a large, hairy man with a tail, who performs housework in exchange for a saucer of milk and a place in front of the fire. John Milton called him the "lubber-fiend"... "lubber" because he's large and oafish, "fiend" referring to a possibly diabolical nature. One story claims he is the giant son of a witch and the Devil. His chimerical personality is reflected in the many forms of his name: Lob (meaning "clown" or "rustic"), Rob/Robin (as in Robin Goodfellow, a.k.a. Puck), and Hob (as in hob-goblin, or "Old Hob," another name for Satan).

Lob is lively, bawdy, flirtatious, full of mischief, and afraid of no one. For centuries, he was a hardworking spirit, content to do household chores in exchange for a bowl of milk and a chance to rest before a warm fire. By the time we met him, he'd soured on that sort of life. Finally wise to the fact he was an enormous, intimidating figure, he began to demand more and more food in exchange for less and less work. Eventually, he stopped working altogether. About eighty years ago, he took up residence in the United States. His reign of slackerdom was cut short (along with his arms, legs, and torso) by Rowdy Joe in the story "Big Little Man." Currently working his way back to tallishness, he's taken a fancy to Babs Brezhnev (as she's the only female in his immediate vicinity.) Jolly Roger has a burning hatred for Lob, because Lob stands up to him, and more importantly, because Lob is English. (Don't ask.)

PENNY DREADFUL is a Scandinavian baby ghost called an UTBURD. (Pronounce it "ootbird," on the special occasion you actually say it aloud.) The name utburd comes from an old Norse word that means "child carried outside." In other words, an utburd is a baby that was left outdoors to die of exposure. Fun, huh? The classic utburd gains superhuman strength over the years and eventually takes revenge on his or her parents. That's what Penny did, and believe you me, it was gruesome. Nowadays, Penny is very sweet-tempered, but she retains a lingering penchant for vandalism. Rowdy Joe dotes on her, and often gives her presents like pickaxes and nailguns.

Utburds have some qualities mistakenly attributed to vampires. They can take the form of animals and even slip through keyholes as a wisp of smoke. Unlike vampires, they can make themselves as large as houses. They can also turn invisible, which I have to admit would make Penny a cinch to draw. By the way, I have a confession to make about the drawing on the left. That's not an utburd -- that's a depiction of fairies stealing a baby. I couldn't find any pictures of utburds (old ones, I mean -- I don't want to violate any more copyright laws than I have to). Sorry.

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And then there's ROWDY JOE himself. Joe bills himself as a "two-fisted spiritualist," but technically, he's a SHAMAN. Shamans are important figures in many Native American and Asian cultures They're typically people living on society's fringes, who communicate freely with ghosts and supernatural creatures, and who will intercede on behalf of mortals. Joe can physically affect ectoplasm -- the stuff of which ghosts and spirits are composed -- whereas a normal person would pass right through it. That's where the two-fisted part comes in. The formerly giant Lob Lie-By-The-Fire found that out the hard way.

Here's what else we know about Joe: He's not fond of bathing, brushing his teeth, or washing his clothes. By his own admission, there are vast holes in his long-term memory. He's probably much, much older than he looks. His "mantle of office" is an oversized stars-and-moons-patterned bathrobe from a big 'n' tall men's shop. His body is a toxic alchemical stewpot, teeming with strange substances that shoot through his veins with the speed of a bullet train. He occasionally, and without warning, will levitate. He's short-tempered, generous, compassionate, and clever. He's a gifted medium, a middling fortune-teller, and a first-rate psychic surgeon. Joe spent some time in the 1980's acting as the mortal incarnation of the Toltec god Tlaloc. According to the Aztec god Xolotl, Joe has also dabbled in cockfighting and exotic dance (Joe remembers none of this).

And his last name? Undoubtedly fake. "Rasputin" means "debauched one" in Russian. The famous Rasputin took to calling himself that later in life, but it wasn't the name he was born with.

ANGIAKS (like Ice Flo, who was introduced on page 35 of "Pinched Penny) are the ghosts of Arctic native children who were left outside to die of exposure, when their families grew too poor to support them. Traditionally, the families or even the whole tribe would immediately move away after killing a child, just in case the angiak came back to get them. This was only a problem if the family had named the baby, and therefore given him or her a soul. (Just a note here: all the internet sources I've found say the angiak is from "Eskimo" myth, but "Eskimo" isn't really a tribal name. It means "chewer of fat" or something, and gets applied to nearly all the natives in Northern Canada and the Arctic Circle. So the term might be insulting, and I'd rather not use it.)

BROWNIES ("Big Little Man") are household spirits in Scottish and English folklore. They resemble tiny humans, and are hairy and brown. They often go naked, or in ragged brown clothing. Like a lot of fairy folk, Brownies sometimes have peculiar deformities, such as webbed digits. A Brownie may choose to ally himself with a mortal family. In that case, he would perform a great deal of the household and farm chores -- at night, when nobody could see him. The family would be obligated to leave out fresh baked goods or a bowl of cream, as payment. Any compensation beyond this would insult the Brownie. A Brownie who was thus offended would leave the house, immediately. If a Brownie overheard criticism of his work, he would not only leave, but also make a point of undoing his work, and the work of others, as well. Brownies are said to punish servants who are lazy or untalented. Some bandits used to invoke the guardianship of a Brownie when burying treasure.

COATLICUE ("Pinched Penny," starting with page 40) is the Aztec mother goddess. She's the mother of Huitzilopochtli, Xolotl, the moon, and the stars. With typical Aztec morbidity, her maternal aspect was combined with death symbolism. Womb = grave. Her names means "she of the serpent skirt." She owned nothing, and her clothing was made from rattlesnakes, which symbolized poverty. The Aztecs saw her as a grisly figure, with monstrous features and an appetite for corpses. A famous statue depicts her with claws, two serpent heads, and a necklace of human hands and hearts (I think it's from the Joan Rivers Collection). The statue was unearthed in Mexico City in 1824, and so dreadful-looking, that local priests had it reburied. It's in Mexico's National Museum now. I've seen a photo of it, and the weirdest thing to me is that she's built like a linebacker. I know guys who would kill for those shoulders. I've drawn her in both the monster version and a kind of a Nastassia Kinski/Betty Boop combo. (Oh, and about that bow on her head... that's an actual Aztec accoutrement. Trust me. I've seen it in books.) In "Pinched Penny," I show how she's given her worthless son Huitzilopochtli the boot, and kidnapped a whole passel of monster kids as replacements.

The CLOUD-EATER ("Pinched Penny," pages 13 and 14) is a giant from Zuni myth. He does indeed love to eat clouds. Sounds harmless, I know, but he was an ecological disaster back on Earth. No clouds equals no rain, get me? A young man named Ahayiute finally killed him with the aid of four magic feathers. The Cloud-Eater is a lot better off dead. He can eat all the misty ethereal limbo clouds he wants and not gain an ounce. And he's a friend of Joe, who calls him "C.E." My depiction of him is pretty fanciful -- the only description I have of him is from the book "The Purple Swan" (a great collection of Native American myths) which says he's as tall as a mountain "and can open his mouth so wide that it stretches from one end of the horizon to the other." I added the striped goatee and mohawk, tubelike Kachina eyes, and lightning bolt loincloth. And the fork. I hope that's okay.

HUITZILOPOCHTLI ("Pinched Penny," pages 29 & 30) is the Aztec god of war. Pronounce his name "WEETZ-ee-lo-POACH-t-lee." He is also known as the "Hummingbird of the South." His birth was miraculous... the mother goddess, Coatlicue, was doing some housework one day when a feathery ball fell from the sky. She picked it up and put it in her pocket. When she looked for it later, she found that it had disappeared. At the same time, she somehow "knew" that she was pregnant. Most of her other children, mainly the moon and stars, were miffed about Coatlicue's pregnancy. They chopped off her head, but two snake heads sprouted in its place. You go, girl! Then Huitzilopochtli burst from her womb, fully grown and armed, and killed the whole lot of them. Coatlicue survived, don't ask me how. Huitzilopochtli had a whole slew of nifty ideas for the Aztecs, like changing their name to the "Mexica," pronounced "May-SHEE-cah." In "Pinched Penny" I'm using the name "Aztec" because unlike "Mexica" it doesn't look like a typo, and because more people will know just what in the Sam Hill I'm talking about. It's also due to Huitzilopochtli's great advice, the story goes, that the Aztecs acquired their reputation among neighboring tribes as violent, treacherous warmongers. Huitzilopochtli's most distinguishing feature is his feathered left leg. Oh, and he's left-handed, too. I've portrayed this warrior god as an adult slacker who lost his job and moved back in with his mother. When his mom kicked him out, he asked Rowdy Joe to retrieve his magical fire weapon, explaining, "It's in my room between my electric guitar and my comic books." Fun fact: in my old notebook sketches for a different comic book series that I never got around to doing, Huitzilopochtli looks almost exactly like Buzz Bomb.

ICE FLO (first appearance: "Pinched Penny," page 35) is an ANGIAK. Both Penny Dreadful and she were kidnapped by the mad goddess Coatlicue. The two baby girls have nearly identical origins ("My parents left me outdoors to die of exposure too!") and upon meeting each other immediately became good friends.

ISIS ("Pinched Penny," lower left panel of page 11) is the Egyptian mother goddess. She was the sister and wife (eww!) of Osiris. When Osiris was killed and dismembered by her brother Set, she found all his parts and put them back together. Not only that, but she managed to impregnate herself with Osiris' dead body, and gave birth to a son, Horus. She raised Horus in secret. When Horus was fully grown, he laid the smack-down on Set. That's what I call a long-term plan. Isis is also the goddess of the dead and of funeral rites, and the protector of sailors.

KANALOA ("Pinched Penny," middle right panel of page 11) is a Hawaiian god who in some myths is lord of fishermen and the sea, and in other myths, a magic-teaching octopus-formed god of the underworld. Still other myths hold him to be one of the creators of the world. The breakdown of his name, KA-NA-LOA, means "the great peace." My version of him emphasizes the sea-god bit, and physically resembles a native statue.

A LOKHA ("Cock-A-Doodle-Die!") is a spirit animal resembling a chicken, utilized by Oklahoman Seminole witches. At night, Lokhas prey on human hearts. During the day, they hide inside their witch's chest. You can tell if someone is harboring a Lokha by their distinctive, ragged breathing. In "Cock-A-Doodle-Die!" Rowdy Joe implies that the Lokha can inhabit an innocent person without their knowledge, like a virus, but (spoiler warning!) that's just part of his scam. Actually, witches keep them inside their own bodies, on purpose.

The MANDRAKE [Mandragora officinarum L] ("Pinched Penny, middle left panel of page 15) is an actual herb that has inspired a lot of interesting folklore. The root vaguely resembles a human body. Okay, so it helps if you squint your eyes, and step about 300 feet away from it, and you're really drunk at the time. It was said to grow in spots where hangings took place, springing up from whatever human juices hit the ground. It couldn't be uprooted unless you observed certain rituals, and even then, it screamed really loud. Among its uses, it conferred invulnerability, was a charm for pregnancy, and an aphrodisiac, and it could even help one discover hidden treasure. According to Christian folklore, witches would wash the root in wine, wrap it in silk and velvet, and feed it stolen communion wafers. In Germany, people would add millet seeds to the root, for eyes. Then they would take care of it as if it were a child -- washing it, dressing it, and even tucking it into a little bed or coffin. The French thought it to be a fairy-like creature. In parts of medieval Europe, possession of the root was a capital offense. A woman in Orleans was hanged for having one in 1603, and three women were executed in Hamburg on the same charge, in 1630. Alchemists and herbalists used the mandrake for its supposed benefits as a cure-all and fertility drug. This tradition goes back to Bible times (Genesis 88:14-16). Some legends say that imbibing too much of a mandrake potion could result in vanity and madness. So, that explains Rowdy Joe's personality!

A MASAN ("Pinched Penny," page 35) is a Hindu child ghost. Masans will curse or kill any living child who steps in their shadows. If the hem of a woman's gown touches a masan's shadow, the masan will follow her home. Another version of the Masan appears in the form of a bear or a cloud of ash. It flings ashes on hapless children, infecting them with disease.

ODIN ("Pinched Penny," middle left panel of page 11) is the Norse king of the gods. He's a grim, stern fellow, the god of war, death, poetry, and wisdom. His ravens, Huginn and Muninn ("Thought" and "Memory") fly through the world and report back whatever they see. Odin's throne overlooks everything in creation. Hey, Odin-- paranoid much? He has a spear that never misses its target, a ring that produces eight more rings every nine days, and an eight-legged horse. His pet wolves follow him everywhere, and they get all his food, 'cause he only drinks wine. Odin only has one eye, because he gave his other one for a drink from the Well of Wisdom. (I guess my version went out and bought a glass one.) He hung on the enormous World Tree, impaled by his own spear, for nine days, which somehow taught him nine "powerful songs" (like Freebird and Desperado) and eighteen runes. Other aliases: Othinn, Wodan, and Wotan. May be armed. Approach with caution.

RAW GUMS (introduced in "Pinched Penny," page 37) is a famous cannibal in Arapaho myth. I first read about him in the book, "The Red Swan." Raw Gums' parents began to suspect he was a murderer when they saw scraps of human flesh between his infant teeth. They pretended to be asleep, then followed him after he climbed out of his cradle and left their teepee. To their horror, they saw him kill and eat a man. Soon after, the father tried to kill Raw Gums by wrapping the sleeping cannibal baby in fat and throwing him to the dogs. But as soon as Raw Gums hit the ground, he turned into a young man dressed in a buffalo skin robe. He danced around a fire, singing, "A skeleton, a skeleton." I would have said something along the lines of "So there," or perhaps "How do ya like me now?" or "I don't think so," but that's just me. Presumably the dogs didn't attack him. Frustrated, the entire community broke camp and moved away, leaving Raw Gums alone. Here the story takes an oblique turn that my white male brain doesn't really get. An elderly lady, White Owl Woman, happens upon Raw Gums. They play games and eat the food the other people had left behind. Then White Owl Woman asks Raw Gums a series of riddles. Raw Gums correctly answers every one. White Owl Woman tells Raw Gums that as a reward, "You may now strike my head at the top." He does, and the woman's brains turn out to be snow. The snow melts away gradually, and, as "The Red Swan" explains, "That is why there is a season of vegetation." The End. Huh? In "Pinched Penny," he was kidnapped by Coatlicue, and reverted to youth once more.

SHANGO ("Pinched Penny," first panel of page 12) is revered by the Yoruba people of Nigeria as the god of thunder, lightning, rain, and "testicular fertility." He is sometimes portrayed with three heads, and six eyes. In Santeria, he is identified with Saint Barbara. My depiction is based on a native statue, and includes some common attributes: his axe, his axe-shaped headdress, and his mortar. His manner is regal, suave, and shrewd. He lost his patience with Rowdy Joe and Buzz. Personally I don't blame him.

SIMARGL ("Pinched Penny," last panel of page 11) is a pre-Christian Russian/Slavic deity, the protector of seeds and new plant growth. His common form is that of a winged lion or dog. He may have originated among the Samaritans or Scythians as "Simurgh," a heavenly gryphon. I based my art style for that panel on Russian folk art. I know, I know, it looks like Dr. Seuss.

TLALOC ("Pinched Penny," pages 27 through 30) is a very old Central American rain god, probably originating among the Toltecs. He's analagous with the Mayan deity Chac, and the Zapotec god Cocijo. With the additional connections to fire, agriculture, and "the south," he was adopted into the Aztec pantheon. In the Aztec language, Nahuatl, his name means "He Who Makes Things Sprout." Period carvings portray him with big round goggle eyes and long, curving fangs, plus what looks like a moustache. I've read that the eyes are thought to represent the concentric rings caused by raindrops hitting water. I don't know about the rest. In his kingdom, Tlaloc welcomes the souls of those killed by water, thunderbolts, leprosy, and other contagious diseases. In Aztec lore, his wife is the goddess of water, and his son is the god of the moon. The Aztecs sacrificed countless children to him every year, in hopes of getting enough rain for their crops. They would throw the kids into a huge well, where they drowned. In theory, Tlaloc would send more rain if the children cried a lot. Yeah, that's nice. In my story I'm portraying Tlaloc as a retiree, because he's worked for a lot of different pantheons, and he's a lot older than the other Aztec gods. And so he has a white beard. (Beards were relatively common among older Aztec men, and were an attribute of some of their gods -- like Quetzalcoatl.) And he has a huge gut. I mean medicine-ball sized. It's really quite disturbing. I've referenced the countless statues of him by adding goo-goo-googly eyes and a permanent grimace. You'll notice that he never closes his mouth, and that his teeth are always bared. (This is also a tip o' the hat to actor Edmund Luyndek's sharklike Judge Turpin in the musical "Sweeny Todd.") Tlaloc is an old acquaintance of Rowdy Joe. Joe once told Buzz, regarding Tlaloc, "If memory serves (and it rarely does in my case) I spent late '85 and most of '86 as his avatar!* Or maybe we were 'secret Santas' or on the same bowling team or somethin'... I dunno." My version of Tlaloc is a genial, back-slapping "drinking buddy" type of guy, who has an unfortunate tendency to talk too much about nothing in particular. He has no patience for most of the Aztec gods -- he's referred to them in the past as "psychopaths." He especially dislikes Huitzilopochtli, because he's a hopeless mama's boy, and because he's always calling Tlaloc "Uncle" even though the two of them aren't actually related.

*avatar = the human incarnation of a god

the TLALOQUE ("Pinched Penny," pages 21 and 22) are the dwarfish priests/attendants/representatives/whatever of Tlaloc, the Meso-American rain god. They are sometimes described as "the five divisions of Tlaloc." It's a bit confusing -- Tlaloc himself was sometimes called "Tlaloque," so these little guys might be him in another form. Or they may be miniature clones, like Dr. Evil's "Mini-Me." I've read in some books that they're his priests, so I'm going with that. They were said to live on mountain tops. They were responsible for sending down different types of rainstorms, from beneficial showers to crop-destroying gullywashers. The only physical description I've read of them is that they're dwarves. So I spiced them up a bit by giving them the features of axolotls, the feathery-gilled Mexican salamanders.

XOLOTL ("Pinched Penny," pages 25 and 26) is an Aztec god who really should complain to his supervisor about being overworked. He has to push the sun through the sky, towards the ocean and sunset. At night, he guides the sun through the dangerous underworld, past dangers like biting dogs. He also has to guide the souls of most of the dead (it's complicated -- don't ask) to the lowest level of the underworld. And on top of that, he's the god of lightning, and the personification of Venus, the morning star. He is often depicted as a man with a dog's head, or as a skeleton with a skull head. And pronounce his name "Zuh-LAH-tull," unless you want to cheese him off. His twin brother is the vastly more famous and popular Quetzalcoatl -- y'know, the god that Montezuma mistook Cortes for. Good one, Montezuma. Xolotl's mom is the Aztec mother goddess, Coatlicue, and his half brother is the war god, Huitzilopochtli. Joe and Xolotl used to "party" together, 'though Joe's memories of that period are hazy at best. I guess vodka and alchemically-altered circulatory systems don't mix.