Annotated Chronic: Moon Unit Zeek

In episode # 72, Quincy alluded to a comic I created back in high school titled "Moon Unit Zeek". A few words on that:

I created quite a few comics when I was a kid. The first was "G.I. Bo", which was just G.I. Joe with rabbits instead of people. At the time it always bugged me that there was no guy named "Joe" on the team. Who is this cat who was so special they named a goddamn special forces team after him? And why don't we ever see this guy?

These issues kept me awake most nights so I decided to create my own team where the team namesake had a leader that fit. So the lead rabbit was named Bo. And he was a bad ass rabbit if ever there were one; tough, confident, a smart ass. Basically me with toughness and confidence.

These guys also fought Cobra. They were actual snakes. That thing lasted about 6 issues, and I even cajoled my brother and my friend Scott Primeau to write letters so I could have a letters page. Awesome.

I also did a book with ninja dogs called "K-9", and that never made it past issue one. In high school came my most prolific work, which included "Tornado Man" and "Moon Unit Zeek". Tornado Man was a scientist who could- you guessed it- turn himself into a swirling funnel of destructive air. Things would threaten his hot lab assistant and Tornado Man would then proceed to Fuck Shit Up for his enemies. Pretty straightforward, pretty boring.

Ahhh, but then there was Moon Unit Zeek. My tour de force. Zeek was a high school punk with a mohawk and triangle shades that he wore night and day. He was a gigantic asshole, and apparently not very bright because he rolled around in some fairly aggressive toxic waste that of course granted him super powers.

Zeek could emit radiation blasts, and if I remember correctly he could also shoot electricity. The radiation also gave him mind control powers. Zeek had many adventures in which he would take revenge on those who had bullied him in the past with exquisite violence. He would also use his mental abilities to have sex with cheerleaders and such. I suppose in a sense you could say they were artificially willing...but no. Let's face it. He conducted wide scale rape.

So what does this tell you about me? One, I've never had an original idea in my life. G.I. Bo was a copy of GI Joe, and K-9 was a complete rip-off of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Tornado Man is so generic I don't even know where to start, and Moon Unit Zeek was basically a "what if Sid Vicious were actually Frank Zappa's son" riff. OK, kind of inventive to combine the two I guess, but you couldn't change the name a little just to throw the dogs off the scent, dumb ass?

And the more things change, the more they stay the same. I still have no original material whatsoever. But if you listen to the show, you know that already.

Secondly, we're already establishing the sexual inadequacies at an early age, which is precious. Moon Unit Zeek was everything I couldn't be; powerful and sexually active. So I had him do it. With an attitude. Ah, the follies of youth....

-Ryan