Whatever happened to our webmaster?

[Moni]

No one's seen him since the Café du Nord show.
I'm scared

[Merlin]

Who? Me?

[BladeRunner]

Perhaps she means the band, but don't worry we love you just as much.

[Moni]

Who? Me?

But yes.

No posts these days?

[John]

Remember, the Long Winters are only Merlin's third or fourth favorite band. He probably is over posting on their message boards. How are things over at the ASIA fansite, Merlin?

[grant]

It isn't Asia at all, I'm afraid.

Here, this should clear things up.

Purloined from Merlin's personal collection, kept under glass in a humidity-controlled display case at the foot of his bed, ("so I can see it right before I go to sleep and then as soon as I wake up"):




Sorry, Merlin. I thought it best if they knew.

It's far, far better than hiding.


.

[Merlin]

Gosh, I'm sorry.

Were you guys talking to me?

Sorry, I was over at the Bauhaus community site smoking cloves in the dark.

[ChadyzGroove]

Well what a shame third or fourth favorite band pshhhh they are my second far above third and forth only below matthew good and im not quite sure he is a band. so i suppose that as a band they are number one.

[grant]

Sorry, I was over at the Bauhaus community site smoking cloves in the dark.

Merle's In Parties? (it's in the caaaaan!)

[John]

I've actually been to the foot of Merlin's bed, (on a fact-finding mission sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society), and although there are many expended oxygen cannisters left behind by earlier expeditions there did not appear to be any Kiss-related shwag. And now that you mention it the oxygen cannisters looked more like Asthma inhalers.

[grant]

If he'd known you were coming, the case would have been shifted under the bed itself.

The comic is, after all, printed with Real Kiss Blood. For some, it's a priceless treasure.

[Merlin]

As you know, Grant & John, the only way that I can retain my remaining strength is by sleeping in a modified hyperbaric chamber that gently infuses the air with a misting of ephedrine, noble gases, and of course, my signature essence of lilacs.

Madeline's a sport to put up with it, but, yes, I usually awake refreshed, alert, and enthused to prepare heaping piles of thick-sliced bacon.

[John]

I have to confess that I didn't linger there. The air was heavy with foreboding and I had the distinct feeling I was being observed even though I was utterly alone. There were many artifacts strewn about, yet it was strangely ordered as if the objects themselves were animate and arranged by their own design in a posture of supplication to their absent master. There was an antechamber upholstered all in velvet and Corinthian leather that was attended by an aged orangutan dressed inexplicably in the costume of a Hussar cavalier who lazily munched horse chesnuts as I took some quick Geiger readings. Hanging from the trunk of an enormous stuffed Asian elephant was what appeared to be the deathmask of Natalie Wood. I exited his rooms as I had entered them, through a sandstone tunnel adorned with Masonic hieroglyphs and advertising clip-art, then through a sewer-lid into the sub-basement of a dim sum parlour/discount computer outlet. The afternoon fog of San Francisco was a warm embrace compared to my hour in Merlin's chamber.

[grant]

That's not Natalie Wood, actually. That's his college girlfriend, Serena.

He was never quite the same after they found her... but let us not discuss such things.

Yes, bacon. Cooking it in quantity does awful things to velvet wallpaper, as Merlin's kitchen proves.

[eric!]

corinthian leather is a wonderful thing.

it was originally in advertisments for lincolns, wasn't it?