Here's a spooky treat for everyone, a grim, time travelling collaboration with Visceral Stories!
After purchasing a kid's toy from a vintage comic book, Zach is amazed to learn that the device actually works as intended! But all is not as it seems. Now trapped in a home hell-bent on finding its owner, Zach fears all of that lost time is catching up with him with no way back. Then again, does he want to?
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Mortem Post was a relatively small comic book publisher back in the day. It was a subsidiary of Whitton Press, one of the largest publishing companies worldwide, and was best known for its horror anthology stories and science fiction serials. It started in 1957 with Movie Monster Menagerie, made to test the waters on whether the classic monsters were still viable. It was such a resounding success, it even required a second print to keep up with demand. So it began. With simple names like Scary and Macabre, paired with cover images considered scandalous for the time, Mortem quickly became the name of horror comics.
It led the pack for decades, inspiring the likes of Cronenberg, Raimi, and Del Toro. However, after the founder retired in the 80s, sales took a nosedive, and Mortem Post was no more. It was ultimately absorbed into its family company, while the assets were auctioned off to other publishers, most of which didn't make it to the new millennium. Sure, you might see Draculiera pop up as a legacy character in a DC Pride special, or The Creep From The Grave as a playable character in Dead By Daylight. But while Whitton Press is still on everyone's lips, Mortem Post was all but forgotten these days.
Which is what truly intrigued Zach as he fell down the rabbit hole of old school comics. He'd always been a fan. Who didn't like Marvel? But he'd never read any issues older than himself until the past year as some escapism from the real world. It wasn’t like he hated where he was at in life, but it would be a fallacy to say he enjoyed his current situation. With a disdain for school, a boring yet simple part-time job as a cashier, and no real desire to go to college, he felt trapped. It felt like he was going through the motions of becoming a young adult - doing things not out of interest, but instead out of obligation and societal expectation.
These thoughts danced around in his head as he flipped through one of his vintage Macabre comics, sitting on a futon surrounded by dozens of superhero figurines and memorabilia. He had a whole shelf full of Macabre Comics by now - so many in fact, that he was still trying to finish reading them all. At least his comic collection and enjoyment of video games provided him some joy and some reprieve from a world where everyone expected him to be thinking about his future.
Zach sat in silence, occasionally brushing his long blonde bangs from his forehead while he intently read about a zombie uprising. Despite its groundbreaking advancements in horror fiction for its time, the stories were pretty camp by today's standards. The black & white artwork, made to avoid the Comics Code Authority, meant the gore was suggestive at best.
As he turned the page, an advertisement caught his attention. In bold pop art letters, the words “TIME TRAVELLING DEVICE” exploded off the paper. There was a four-panel strip of kids using it to visit the age of the dinosaurs, followed by an idealistic future. The zany visuals and hyperbole made him chuckle. These kinds of ads always popped up in these retro comics. X-ray specs that didn't work. Sea monkeys in underwater kingdoms that were actually microscopic shrimps. He didn't even think those handheld pies were as good as Spider-Man claimed.
Usually, he glazed over the information, but this one caught his eye. Something about the device seemed peculiar. It was an object resembling a hybrid between a pager and a first gen iPhone, placed dead center as the focal point of the page, surrounded by additional text bubbles stating the words “WOW!” "REALLY WORKS!” and “ONLY $1 USD!”
Advertisements like these were usually exaggerated in both claims and art style. But it almost looked like the device had a touchscreen. A quick online search showed it was theoretically possible, touchscreens were invented in the mid-sixties. But being used on hokey kids toys? And just for a dollar? That seemed absurd. Even adjusted for inflation, a device with that kind of tech wouldn't be that cheap, even in this day and age. It had to be a scam, like all the other retro ads of the time. Yet the longer he stared at this strange advertisement, the more compelled he felt by it. Hell, it even had an attached coupon you could cut out and send in the mail. Zach rolled his eyes and smirked. The company had likely gone bust decades ago. But what if they hadn't? He had to at least see what kind of cruddy $1 device he'd receive. Who knew, maybe it'd be a pretty cool relic of the 60s and actually be worth something.
So Zach photocopied the page, he couldn't bring himself to cut up one of his vintage comics. Then he filled out his name and address on the coupon, stuck it in an envelope with a crumpled dollar bill, and sent it out into the wild. It was a fun distraction from his actual problems, and maybe it'd be a fun story to tell at the bar.
