Happy 5th anniversary, Harry Hembock: Dark Designs!

It was a long journey getting this thing done, and out there.
And I bounced back and forth across 3 computers along the way.

I was at one point going to do a sequel that would have been in long form multi-page episodes like the Harry books are, but, that fell by the wayside.
I might post the materials I had gathered for that some other time.
The title was going to be "Champions Of The Weird".

Here's the original post announcing the minisodes were on their way.
Link.
And here's the post asking for audience participation to get me rolling just before minisode #1.
Link.

Those were the pre-beginning, but it truly began with the posting of minisode 1 on July 10th, 2008.

Here's the entire saga again.

• Issue #1
• Issue #2
• Issue #3
• Issue #4
• Issue #5
• Hembook/minisode crossover.

If anyone wants to HAVE the issues, I have them in .cbz and .pdf format, just send me an e-mail request, and they're totally free. It's a smoother reading experience being able to turn the pages.

Also, here's Paladin's excellent character profiles.

• Wikisode: Harry Hembock
• Wikisode: Deathgrasp & Scourge
• Wikisode: Bishop & Doc Donner
• Wikisode: Legion Of Liberty

Read More......

Quantum Dissolve: Chapter Nineteen. (Streetsweepers vs. Tomahawk-Fuzz)

He announced himself to the world openly and abruptly.
Dressed up in police attire, mustached, and marching down the street swinging a tomahawk around screaming "I will slice your noggin off!!".

Every now and then, he would twitch in confusion, as if listening to voices only he could hear.

JS and Chokecherry were at the scene almost immediately.

Tomahawk-Fuzz had ahold of someone's scalp, and had the blade held ready to strike.

JS tazed him in the back of the neck.
His victim escaped.

As JS tied him up with zip ties, Chokecherry noticed the bluetooth earpiece Tomahawk-Fuzz was wearing, and quickly deduced someone was instructing him.

JS went back to the car, and dug out the wi-fi tracing equipment they'd just looted off the Transposer robot a couple days prior.

Chokecherry slipped the tomahawk into her handbag while no one was looking.

After a few minutes using the tracer, they found the person commanding Tomawk-Fuzz in a hotel room just a block away, and it was....a 6 year old boy.
Chokecherry knocked him out with a chloroform rag.
They found the boy was wearing two bluetooths.
One to send, the other to receive.
Someone was using the kid as a relay.
"Despicable", JS grumbled.

They traced the second signal to a room just down the hallway.
"Stupid", Chokecherry grumbled as JS kicked in the door.
It was a fat hairy guy.
JS was not merciful.
The beating savage, but quick, the recipient, pathetic.

All they found on him besides the cellphone gear, was a crucifix, and a copy of C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity".

They both shook their heads in contemptuous annoyance.

"Another Hadesburster", JS thought to himself.
Dragging the kid into it was a new low though.
"Well, you're gonna see a lot of horrible shit in this line of work", he figured.

JS finished tying up the fat guy, and set about leaving him and Tomahawk-Fuzz, whomever he really was, as a combo package for the cops.

Meanwhile, Chokecherry took the kid to be taken care of by friends of hers.

A pair of lesbians.
Asian lesbains.
Who voted for Obama.

Turned out to be the best thing for everybody.

Read More......

Quantum Dissolve: Chapter Eighteen. (Streetsweepers vs. Transposers)

Dusty and Irma saw it on the news, and were immediately horrified.

Some nerd, about their age, maybe younger, had tinkered together first a small test model of, and then a scaled up version of, a working transforming robot.
A Transposer.

It unfolded from a car, and worked in both modes.
Rolling as a car, and walking upright, if a bit jerky, in robot form.

The model was cute.
The big one, with weapons, was not.

The nerd's name was Franky Donaldberg, and he intended to sell this beast to the military.

Dusty and Irma instantly knew the implications.

A killer robot that hides itself as a normal car?
That could ONLY be for urban pacification.

It made drone spying look like Disneyland.

One of those in every city could crush a lot of freedom.
One of those on every BLOCK would just about eradicate it.
A garrison in every city?
Forget it, game over.

Dusty conjured in his mind, images of these things smashing up a city, with all the remorse of a Hollywood CGI fuckfest.
A CGI fuckfest directed by a hack who previously directed soda pop commercials.
Then, they'd make that very movie out of the event.
And sell action figures.

Dusty described this very scene, and Irma nodded along.

The mission was clear.
The Streetsweepers would have to not just destroy, but humiliate it.


The thing rolled down main-street of Lentilville.
Robot from the waist up, car from the waist down.
It was a secret nighttime trial run, cops had the roads closed off.

A small metallic green crossbow bolt thunked into the thing, in the rubbery bit under one of its breastplates.
A thermite charge on the arrow kicked in, and melted a gaping hole.

Chokecherry rode out from an alleyway, astride her red motorcycle (which she had dubbed the Cherry-sicle), and slam-dunked a pipe-bomb into the freshly melted hole.
The pipe-bomb exploded.
The robot ground to a halt.

15 seconds later, it seemed to flutter almost back to life, but Chokecherry circled back around, pulled out a red painted service revolver (that she had dubbed her Cherry-popper), and fired into the hole growling "Fall! Fall!".
THEN it stopped.

The cops did nothing.
They were on JS's side, after all.
Plus, none of them wanted to lose their jobs to a fucking robot.

Jade Shade drove up in his car, popped the trunk, and furiously started unloading power tools.
Chokecherry rode up, and started helping.

They had the robot stripped in under 20 minutes.

It was a juicy haul.
A flamethrower, a grenade launcher, a machine gun, a 3 watt laser for JS's utility belt, several fancy computer parts, and the arms, possibly to modify into strength harnesses later (couldn't hurt, they figured).


Franky Donaldberg sat at his workstation, tears of rage streaming down his pale gaunt face.
He hated The Streetsweepers more than anything he had ever hated in his life.
His dream.
His American dream.
And worse, all that money.
They had taken it from him.
It was his by right.
He was smart, good things were his by right, that was the rules, how dare they?
How dare they break the rules?
His rules!
They would pay for this.
This he vowed.

Read More......

Happy Higgs Day!! (Again!)

So, it's been a year, and scientists are preeeeeetty decently sure it's a Higgs.
Fairly sure.
We'll see how it goes next year.

Also, happy birthday, America.
We'll miss the freedom we used to have, our manufacturing base, an education system we could be proud of, privacy, television that didn't make us want to die, food that wasn't as deadly as smoking, and competent non-surly service employees, but hey, it was a good run.


Read More......

Quantum Dissolve: Chapter Seventeen. (Streetsweepers meet Mage-shiv)

JS and CC were out on patrol, when suddenly they saw her saunter up.

Brunette, average height, athletic build, and clad in some sort of bikini deal made of horror latex made to look all bio-tech, and painted silverish grey.

She had a gauntlet made of the same stuff that came to a clawed glove on her right hand, and there was a gemstone mashed in there.

"He's taken, bitch. Move along", Chokecherry murmured in annoyance.

"Oh...okay, well, anyway, you guys have met me, so, you can still use my Bacon points. Oh, right, hi, Mage-shiv, there, now you've met me".

She waved goodbye, and left.

"That was odd", JS said.

"Get used to shit like this", CC grumbled.


Read More......

Oh, all right...

It looked a little naked, so added a description anyway.

So, from the old "official home of Harry Hembock, and all his fellow Zone Dweebies. Also, rants, essays, the occasional poem, stuff going on in my life y'know, blog shit".

To...

"Official home of Harry Hembock, and all his fellow Zone Dweebies, and Jade Shade, and his fellow Streetsweepers. Also, blog stuff".


Read More......

Quantum Dissolve: Chapter Sixteen. (Rise of The Streetsweepers)

JS awoke in the alleyway.
She was gone.
Someone had pulled his pants back up, fastened them up, refastened his utility belt,  closed up his coat, and cleaned him up.
He was really hoping it was her that did it, and not some wino.
Or worse.

He headed back home.
First, changing back to Dusty in his car, in the parking garage he'd left it in.
He tried to rotate the location around.


The apartment door was unlocked, he went into defensive mode.

He dug the wrist crossbow out of his duffle bag, and put it back on, and held it out in front of him.
He was beginning to regret his stance on no guns.
This was most cumborsome.

Someone was in his bathroom.
He heard the shower running.

He did a sweep of the apartment, just in case. Nothing.
Nothing else on top of the bathroom intruder, anyway.

He held the crossbow at the bathroom door, and waited.

Out she came, like she belonged there.

Irma, Chokecherry, naked, wrapped in a towel.

She saw the crossbow, and simply said "hot water's gone, better wait 15 minutes", while aiming her thumb back towards the bathroom.

Dusty growled "all right, what's this bullshit? You pulling a David Letterman stalker routine on me lady? Speak fast, I WILL kill you if you say the wrong thing".

Irma rolled her eyes.
"Look, if I wanted you dead, I'd've planted a bomb, and left. If I wanted you dead, and also the satisfaction of offing you personally, I'd've hid in a better spot to which to pounce. Or, better, sniped you from your window. And, if I wanted your identity outed, and Jade Shade destroyed, I could have blabbed your whereabouts to the FBI weeks ago".

Dusty lowered the crossbow.
"So, what's this bullshit about?".

"I told you last night, I want to be your partner. Consider this part two of the audition".

"And part one was?".

"Putting those assholes in body casts".

"And the...".

"Sex? That was fun".

Dusty's head was spinning.

"Look, I told you I...".

"Work alone", she said in a mockery of the Jade Shade voice "yeah, you said it enough times, cowboy, not buying it".

"How do you figure?".

"From a practical standpoint, the fact I'm even here proves you kind of stink at this. Or, at the least, you can't do it alone. Not for much longer until you get your ass killed. But, more to the point, I've looked through your junk. Phase 1 of your plan, get even with the people that hurt you. You've done that. Phase 2 is something bigger. It'll no doubt involve having a whole team. Well, here's your start. Oh, and keeping a superhero diary? Really stupid, by the way".

"Well...you have a point...but you didn't have to..".

"Damned near rape you, and break your secret identity? The hell I didn't. How else were you going to let someone in? A formal audition? How was one going to do that? Send in tapes? Like I said, you kind of stink at this. And if I didn't know better, you looked like you were on a suicide path".

Dusty slumped on the bed.

"...and if I say 'no'? Then what?".

"I'll be really sorry for you, but I'll keep your secrets, and you'll never see me again".

Dusty rolled it all around in his mind for awhile.

Irma got bored of waiting.
She dropped her towel.

They fucked again.
Without the mask in the way, they got to kiss this time.


Dusty and Irma lay in bed, covered in sweat, and the matter was settled.
Chokecherry would be Jade Shade's partner.

It felt right.
Like the day he saw the original mask in the store.
Like when he busted out of the suburbs hallucination.
Like the alleyway sex.

He wasn't going to fight that sense anymore.
So far, it was dead on target.

He held her close, and sighed, and stared into her strange violet eyes.
"Where have I seen eyes like that before?", he tried to recall.

"So.....team names. What are we called?", he said aloud at last.
The next two hours were spent bouncing ideas back and forth.
A lot of terrible ones.

"Cherrylime", based on a merging of their costume colors.

"Bogeyberry", based on a merging of their costume/naming themes.

And from Irma "The Creamdream-Dreamteam".
Dusty had no idea where she got that one from.

It was her absolute favorite, and it was a nightmare talking her away from it.

They finally settled on "The Streetsweepers".
Although Irma kept wanting to mumble "A.K.A The Creamdream-Dreamteam", onto the end of it.

As they began to fade off to sleep, Irma said "hey, I know, let's get married".


The next day, after a trip to the Justice Of The Peace, Irma was Irma Irwin.

It was fast, but Irma pointed out, "what were we going to do, go out on some boring coffee dates? We already know the one gigantic thing we have in common. Why bullshit ourselves?".

"Besides", she added "if it really doesn't work out, we can have a quickie divorce, superhero style. We'll kill each other", a big smile when she said that.


That night, they were back in costume, on JS's favorite rooftop.
Chokecherry kept calling him "Jadey".

Jade Shade had a morbid feeling that was going to stick.
"Oh well, it's that, or Creamdream-Dreamteam. The compromises begin", he thought to himself.

He smiled at her.
The mask hid it.

She smiled back anyway, assuming.

Gunshots at a bank.
They ran into action.

Read More......