Novella, perhaps?

Reposting of Part One of the newly revised Mo-Lan Devils story...

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Mok Leung stood at the entrance to the Cave of the Mo-Lan Devils, the ocean's waves licking at his feet, and held aloft his spear, Seventh Tooth of Golden Dragon.
            "Mo-Lan Devils!" he shouted into the darkness, his powerful voice echoing deep within, "I, Mok Leung, come to fight your champion. You have kept this fortress  hidden for many years, but on this day, red-faced Kwan himself has guided us! Give me face and present your champion, that I may defeat him with my Serpent Fist kung-fu!"
            There was a quiet shuffling in the cave, but no response to the challenge.
            "Mo-Lan Devils! If you do not give me face," he continued, his face turning red, "we will block up your cave with a thousand stones, leaving you to die slowly of hunger and madness!"
            Far inside the cave, a single ember glowed brightly and a torch flared up beside it. The small old man holding it walked slowly to the entrance of the cave, staring with white eyes at the six men who stood before him.
            "Since I cannot see you," he said to Mok's chest, "you must tell me. Are you strong?"
            "I am stronger than any man in the prefecture! These hands have pulled a running boar to the ground and broken its neck!"
            "Ah. Tell me, are you handsome?"
            "When the time came for me to marry, I chose the most beautiful woman in the land, and a dozen maidens dove to the bottom of Bronze Gar Lake, drowning with their sorrow."
            "Of course. And are you brave?"
            "When nobody would seek the Seventh Tooth of Golden Dragon, I alone went to the peak of Tung Ting to wrest it from the grasp of the Shou tribe's leader!"
            "And your men? Are they loyal?"
            "Only these men came with me to the Fog Plateau, where the spirits of corrupt ancestors can pit brother against brother, and we emerged with stronger hearts than ever!"
            The old man smiled, and pulled at the loose, rotting tunic that hung over his thin and bony frame.
            "So now you seek to destroy the Mo-Lan Devils, whose faces have not been seen in daylight for hundreds of winters?"
            Mok said nothing, but slammed the butt of his spear against the rocky ground, the brass rings at its tip smashing loudly together. The old man laughed, and turned back towards the cave.
            "Wait!" shouted Mok, thrusting Seventh Tooth at the old man's back.
            Like lightning, the wizened man spun and stopped the spear with the middle of his thumb.
            "Mok Leung," he said quietly, "if you kill me, who will teach you how to be King of the Mo-Lan Devils? Now come, my wife is making us dumplings."
            As they followed him into the cave, the sound of the waves grew almost deafening behind them.

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b

(no subject)

LAST CHANCE, MY MONKEYS...

This Plug Awesome Visual Artists on LJ post went out Friday afternoon, after a number of technical difficulties, so a lot of "Weekday Only" LJ'ers didn't see it.

So...check out the awesome that lurks below, if you want to get more suave-ass art/photography on your Flist every day.

And leave comments about it all, I (and the creators) prolly wouldn't mind hearing your opinions...

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Written Thursday Night, at Too Early a.m.

PLUGS, PART THE GAWDAMNED FIRST: The Visual Arts Edition.

And no, this isn’t even all the Visual Arts plugs. I’m only one man, and it’s after 2am, and I’m not even drunk. Your plug not here? Simmer, champ, this is an incomplete list

Let’s get this shit going!   

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So, imagine a fat stack of the best cartoonists in the land kicking out krush phat grooves every freaking week. Now stop wasting your time imagining it, ‘cause that shit is right here. 3-2-1…act_i_vate!!!

( Want To Know More About Act-I-Vate? )

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While a healthy mother was giving birth in a sparkly-clean hospital room, down the street that woman’s cousin was poppin’ out her baby on a dirty motel room bed.

And that kid, they named that kid de_act_i_vate

( Want To Know More About De-Act-I-Vate? )

 
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Beautiful girl lives in a beautiful place and takes beautiful pictures.

( Want To Know More About High Desert Arts? )

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“I really should add a disclaimer to all of these strips: This comic does not claim to be "funny" nor should the reader expect it to be so. The reader should also not expect the strip to make any "sense" in any traditional way. The image quality, and furthermore the readability level, of each strip is intentional. No refunds, exchanges, or apologies. All question, comments, and concerns can be left under the cast iron bloodhound that sits next to the door.”

So reads the message above one of  ericfmyers’s deliciously dilapidated comic strips.

( Want To Know More About Stop Making Sense Comics? )

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Jeremy "cleanskies" Dennis may or may not have a man’s name, but she’s always a woman to me.

Her LJ is frequently quite funny, and has a higher bug-encounter-per-entry ratio of anybody else’s that I know. Oh, and…

( Want To Know More About Jeremy? )

 
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riotmod is on drugs. The good kind.

Leave It To Jesus!, a comic of dubious moral value, is hystericalisms. There’s Jesus, a fuzzy Darth Vader, the personification of Robitussin,  two guys named Steve who are NOT Don Johnson and Tom Cruise…well…

( Want To Know More About Leave It To Jesus? )

 
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jimmahgee says I've already mentioned his stuff enough.
I say Jimmy Gardner needs to shut his cock hole. 

( Want To Know More About His Cock Hole? )

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robotaday : Every day, there is a robot. Do I need to spell this shit out for you?

Usually he makes the robots, sometimes others do.

( Want To Know More About Robots? )

 
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Can’t forget Jamie Dee Galey. Can’t forget Jamie Dee Galey.

Lord knows I've tried to...

( Wanna Know More About Blah Blah Blah Blah? )

 
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tiny_monster and her comics are so cute they practically kick you in the balls/ovaries. Politely.

( Want To Know More About Your Balls/Ovaries? )

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"Budda loves Jesus. Ohhh...and Jesus loves Buddha."
*throws coin in ocean and waves at it.*
"Now I'll always know where it is."

( Want To Know More About benjamin's Strange Movie Reference? )

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"So I decided to remix it by changing Fred's dialogue in each strip -- and, as it appears in the hateful right-wing tabloid The Daily Mail, I figured I might as well make his owners sexually deviant repressed middle-class folk (it's their target audience, after all) and Fred himself became the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, whom the Daily Mail regards as something of a liberal, but it's close enough."

And such is the world of fredbasset upfucked, mocking the world's most unfunny comic.

( Want To Know More About Fred Bassett Upfucked? )

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sirive cannot decide if he’s a sick bastard or if he draws the cutest kids in animal suits laying out the rhymes like nobody’s bidness.

( Want To Know More About Whatever The Hell I'm Talking About Now? )

 
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Now go, my monkeys, as I am cold and sore and weak.

Leave me to the horrible task of going upstairs and sleeping next to beautiful woman.

benjamin
PS - If you're not reading overcomp, then you're going to hell in like, ten minutes