Comic story for mature readers: Recycled Man™
Read "Recycled Man: What Goes Around" by Walt Jaschek, Paul Daly and Don Secrease. With Walt's introduction to the project. Presented as a 5-page preview and free digital download of the entire comic.
Cover and back cover to Recycled Man: What Goes Around: the comic book
"A thunderstorm explodes over Saint Louis. The barometric pressure plummets. The sky turns grey as a guilty conscious. And I am remembering..."
So begins RECYCLED MAN™: WHAT GOES AROUND, a comic book one-shot thriller for mature readers, introducing us to the darkest character yet in the Walterverse. It's rescue and retribution as Recycled Man targets a violent thug, sending him to his fate via the anti-hero’s power to “accelerate Karma.”
BONUS FEATURE in this same issue: A good-guys-versus-monsters short adventure comic starring TERRANAUTS: 2020. Both features are by the creative team of Walt Jaschek, Paul Daly and Don Secrease -- in their pulpiest comic yet.
Here is the cover and the first five pages, followed by the comic’s prose introduction by Walt. The link to download the entire PDF comic is at the bottom of the post.
End of Recycled Man: the preview! Scroll to read Walt’s explanation of this comic, followed by the opportunity to download the entire issue for free.
When Endings Begin: Introduction to Recycled Man
By Walt Jaschek
"What goes around, comes around."
A somewhat world-weary, cigarette-smoking art director I worked with back in my ad agency days used to say that a lot.
He was right a lot.
He wasn’t talking metaphysically. More transactionally. If the flu is going around, you’re going to get the flu. (That was before the shot. I am pro-shot.) If a client pays late, the agency is going to pay late. If somebody buys lunch with a counterfeit dollar, you’re going to get it as change.
He also used lean back, blow a smoke ring, and say, “Life’s a bitch and then you die.” My younger self had to actively shrug that off. My carefully crafted optimism had to be shielded.
But he was right about that, too, in his way. We’re here for a blink, the challenges never stop, and if you don’t hone optimism and resilience, life will seem, as per Thomas Hobbes, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
“Life’s a bitch and then you die” is snappier, I think.
All those quotes were on my mind when the notion of Recycled Man was born a few years ago, in a notebook, late at night.
My concept of Karma – as in, creating your ultimate fate through the arc of your daily behavior – was continuing to evolve. I kept seeing both good and bad behavior manifest fate indirectly, and over time. Thieves don’t necessarily get robbed in return, but check out prematurely. Robbed of time. The corrupt are called out, at least by history. The poor winner loses it all.
Eventually. But often the pace of Karmic repercussions can be glacial, as in glaciers, which we used to have.
My impulse for Recycled Man was that he could accelerate Karma. He could cut to the chase. See the nasty out the door.
This introductory story, in which he does just that, hints – not subtly – at a backstory I worked out in the very same notebook. Here are the first two pages.
It is, I hope you’ll understand, a deliberate change-up for me: a toe-tip into (what I hope is) pulpy drama. That’s new for a writer whose work is typically more light-hearted. Or was.
But as Don Secrease started adding seer-your-retina color to Paul Daly’s evocative art, I knew we had to get a print and digital edition out there – partially to gauge reaction, partially to give our new publishing company, Comicmood, a jump-start. (Will the story continue? Oh yes, if engagement and sales warrant. Let us know what you think in the comments below.)
Filling out the issue: a new story I guest-wrote for Terranauts: 2020, an incarnation of the long-running team created by Paul and Don, and on loan for this appearance. “The Call of Cold, Dark Places” matches the book’s tone, I thought. (Splash below.)
More characters are in development — get ready, here they come —and I think they all have a certain Karma of their own. The unworthy will vanish quietly. The worthy?
They’ll come around.
Walt
Here’s how to download a free PDF of Recycled Man: What Goes Around.
Subscribe for free to this, my Substack newsletter. Don’t worry. I seldom send out emails, and when I do, it’s usually something interesting.
Get your free PDF download here. Remember, this comic book is for mature readers.
Comment and share!
Enjoy good Karma, even if it is accelerated…
Recycled Man is trademarked and © 2024 Walt Now Studios.