Issue #1: Hello Hollow World
Transcript
Skulljack Issue #1
Still only 25 Toiretto coins!!!
Commentary
Toiretto coins is a reference to a smart toilet bot swarm crypto mining operation in my short story The Miracle, published in my short story collection Death March to Happiness
[Paid Sponsor Advertising]
Transcript
Tumor not ready for harvest? Accelerate your growth now with Metastasizzle!
Commentary
This is a preview reference to topics covered in Skulljack Issue #2
Transcript
I shuffled my corpse to the bar after a 14 hour shift at the orphan crushing machine factory. Don’t worry. We don’t crush orphans there. We just make the machines that crush the orphans somewhere else.
Commentary
The orphan crushing machine factory part is a reference to the orphan crushing machine meme.
Transcript
I couldn’t really afford the drinks since my corporate credit income is worth less and worthless, but I needed a good ol’ fashioned live soak to forget the day.
Commentary
The bar name Alcoholics Autonomous is a play on words of Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s the name of a bar featuring old rusted robot bartenders in a cyberpunk Snow White short story I haven’t written yet.
[Paid Sponsor Advertising]
Transcript
You wouldn’t download your soul.
Commentary
This is a reference to the 2004 anti-copyright violation ad campaign by the Motion Picture Association.
Transcript
This automaton sits down next to me and orders an oil treatment. It’s one of those embodied LLM models that they trained to paint and sculpt. We call them infinite monkeys.
Commentary
The infinite monkey comment references the Infinite Monkey Theorem.
When I was younger, I pronounced the word automaton as “auto matton” because I only ever read the word rather than heard it spoken.
I made a version of the bomber jacket that Skulljack is wearing using glow in the dark heat press vinyl for the Corporate Sellout logo and the “your void is warranted” statement.
Transcript
I’m minding the bottom of my glass when it turns to me and randomly generates a line.
Transcript
“Do you ever feel like your work isn’t appreciated?” “I just don’t feel like my art has any real meaning anymore, you know?”
Commentary
Finding a good cathode ray tube monitor is difficult these days. Apparently everyone who had one realized geeks were interested in retro art and music displays.
Transcript
Whoever smashed its chassis open in the back alley behind the bar owes the Paignton Art Collective a lot of credits for destruction of property and infliction of artistic distress.
Commentary
This text references the Paignton Zoo in Devon, England, which conducted a performance art experiment with macaques relating to the infinite monkey theorem.
Transcript
Run Haiku.exe Impact Detected I lie on the ground broken Is this how I die?
Commentary
My favorite haiku is by Etheridge Knight:
Making jazz swing in
Seventeen syllables AIN’T
No square poet’s job.