Comics File: Zerns Sickest

“Zern — this one giggles when you photocopy it. Tried to burn it. Fire came out purple. Keep it in the lead box. — M.”

“CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION.”

Here’s a short piece written for the fictional “Zern’s Sickest Comics File” — in the voice of a jaded underground comic archivist. Submitted to Zern’s Sickest Comics File, Tier: Black Label Zerns Sickest Comics File

Found in a crawlspace beneath a defunct “Funny Bone” franchise (Cleveland, 1999). Wrapped in butcher paper. No publisher, no date. “Zern — this one giggles when you photocopy it

Approved for Sickest File, but only between 3–4 AM. Do not read aloud. Do not show to anyone who still believes in punchlines. If the dog starts whispering again, mail the file to the dead letter office in Yuma. Keep it in the lead box

Seven pages. Pen and white-out on pulpy newsprint. Art style starts like a forgotten Mad magazine backup strip — big feet, crosshatched shadows, talk bubbles shaped like coffins. By page three, the panels begin to melt . Characters repeat dialogue in loops: “Why is my skin humming?” A recurring mascot — “Laffy the Metabolic Dog” — sheds his fur in one continuous, unbroken strip, revealing a second face underneath that only whispers stock prices from 1987.

A single-panel splash, page 5. A clown saws a woman in half on stage. Her torso floats upward, trailing viscera shaped like calliope pipes. The audience is drawn in exact, soulless corporate-art style — smiling, clapping, sipping soda. The clown’s eyes are photographs of real eyes, glued on.