"I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool" is an 8-page comic by Al Columbia that appeared in the fourth issue (August 1995) of the comics anthology Zero Zero . It was originally created for the never-published third issue (#2) of Columbia's comic book series The Biologic Show . [1] Its title is a play on the song "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool".
Seymour Sunshine and Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy read an announcement by Alexander Crowley promising a reward "in excess of $1,000,000,000" to whoever can acquire one of the hummingbird pies baked by Cinnamon Jack, a blind man said to have murdered his own twin brother. The garrulous, impulsive Knishkebibble browbeats the mute, reluctant Seymour into joining him in an attempt to recover one of the pies. As the two approach Cinnamon Jack's cottage, they find it surrounded by the impaled heads of his victims. Jack, a scowling, heavyset man wearing dark glasses and carrying an oversized folding blade, stands in front of the doorway. When Knishkebibble rudely demands one of his pies, Jack cuts off Seymour's nose, then attacks Knishkebibble. Knishkebibble dodges Jack's swings and kills him by prying off most of his head from his jaw. He hands Seymour's nose back to him with a resigned sigh, and they enter the cottage.
The two are disappointed to find the inside of Jack's single-room dwelling barren except for a bathtub, a mirror, and a bowl containing the remains of a small animal. While Knishkebibble amuses himself in the empty bathtub, Seymour looks into the mirror and is puzzled by the appearance of an orange dot in the center of his forehead. When he touches it he experiences a vision of his brain being removed from his skull, and shuts his eyes in fear. Reopening them, he finds a pale doppelgänger with pointed ears grinning at him in the mirror. Seymour flees across the room in a panic and runs into a wall, knocking himself unconscious. The doppelgänger climbs out of the mirror and capers about the room while transforming his body in strange ways. Turning his hand into a revolver, he shoots and kills Knishkebibble.
Coming to, Seymour picks up a brick laying on the floor and throws it at the doppelgänger, but the projectile dissolves into a swarm of moths. The doppelgänger surprises Seymour by offering a handshake, which he hesitantly accepts, and tells him "Pleased to make your acquaintance," to which he replies "Oh, likewise I'm sure." As the two shake hands, the doppelgänger's hand suddenly turns into a pair of clippers which cut off Seymour's hand at the wrist. Seymour glances down at his severed limb in alarm, then looks up to see the doppelgänger's head changing into a malevolent, serpentlike form as it moves towards him. The story ends enigmatically with an exterior view of the cottage at dusk.
While its plot - summed up by Paul Gravett as "scheming little Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy and his hapless crony Seymour meet the Devil and die" [2] - is rudimentary, "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool" is admired for its meticulous design and its powerful evocation of mood. Tom Spurgeon wrote that it "allows the reader to slowly realize, like the best horror films, that the adventure you are currently enjoying is going to end in ways too terrible to imagine." [3] An editorial in the final issue of Zero Zero noted that issue #4 "always sells out before any other issues at conventions, even when we take extras," [4] on the strength of Columbia's contribution.
"I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool" was among the first of Columbia's comics to conspicuously show the influence of the animated cartoons of Fleischer Studios, particularly the Out of the Inkwell series with Koko the Clown and surreal, dark-themed shorts such as Bimbo's Initiation and Snow-White . The story's dense layout, which fits as many as 32 small panels into each page, creates a strong sense of visual rhythm similar to that of the Fleischer films. [5] Also, its two color palette, which is restricted to copious fluorescent orange and small amounts of brown, recalls the look of the studio's Cinecolor Color Classics shorts of the 1930s. [6] Columbia explicitly acknowledges the Fleischer influence at the end of the story, offering them his "sincerest apologies."
According to Eric Reynolds, Columbia listened to the Kicking Giant song "She's Real" obsessively while drawing "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool". [7]
Jacob Kurtzberg, best known by the pen name Jack Kirby, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He grew up in New York City and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons. He entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before ultimately settling on Jack Kirby. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. During the 1940s, Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics.
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Al Columbia is an American artist best known for his horror-themed alternative comics and illustrations. Comics writer Heidi MacDonald has described him as a "cartoonist’s [cartoonist] whose body of work is as unforgettable as it is slim." His noted publications include the comic book series The Biologic Show, the art book Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days, and short stories including "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool" and "The Trumpets They Play!". Other media in which he has worked include painting, printmaking, music, video, and set design.
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Big Numbers is an unfinished graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and artist Bill Sienkiewicz. In 1990 Moore's short-lived imprint Mad Love published two of the planned twelve issues. The series was picked up by Kevin Eastman's Tundra Publishing, but the completed third issue did not print, and the remaining issues, whose artwork was to be handled by Sienkiewicz's assistant Al Columbia, were never finished.
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Half-Wits Holiday is a 1947 short subject directed by Jules White starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges. It is the 97th entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures starring the comedians, who released 190 shorts for the studio between 1934 and 1959.
The Popeye Song Folio is a collection of 24 songs issued by Popular Melodies, Inc. 1619 Broadway, New York City in 1936. They contain the tunes played in the various Popeye cartoon short series directed by Dave Fleischer.
The Biologic Show is a comic book series written and drawn by Al Columbia. The first issue, #0, was released in October 1994 by Fantagraphics Books, and a second issue, #1, was released the following January. A third issue (#2) was announced in the pages of other Fantagraphics publications and solicited in Previews but was never published. "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool", a color short story with a markedly different art style originally intended for issue #2, appeared instead in the anthology Zero Zero. In a 2010 interview, Columbia recalled that the unfinished issue "looked so different that it just didn’t look right, it didn’t look consistent, and it didn’t feel right to keep putting out that same comic book, to try to tell a story where the style is mutating." The series' title is taken from a passage in the William S. Burroughs book Exterminator!. The passage in question is quoted briefly in a story from issue #0, itself also titled "The Biologic Show".
"The Trumpets They Play!" is an 8-page comic by Al Columbia. A cartoon interpretation of the Book of Revelation featuring his recurring characters Seymour Sunshine and Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy, it was published in BLAB! #10 in 1998.
"Amnesia" is an 8-page comic by Al Columbia. It was published in the twentieth issue of Zero Zero. Columbia originally created the artwork for a slideshow in a Tales from the Crypt CD-ROM video game being developed by Inscape but turned it into a comic when the game was cancelled.
"The Blood-Clot Boy" is a 6-page comic by Al Columbia. It was published in the sixteenth issue of Zero Zero.
Popeye the Sailor is an American animated series of comedy short films based on the titular comic strip character created by E. C. Segar. In 1933, Max and Dave Fleischer's Fleischer Studios adapted Segar's characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. The plotlines in the animated cartoons tended to be simpler than those presented in the comic strips, and the characters slightly different. A villain, usually Bluto, makes a move on Popeye's "sweetie," Olive Oyl. The villain clobbers Popeye until he eats spinach, giving him superhuman strength. Thus empowered, Popeye the sailor makes short work of the villain.
"Part 2", also known as "The Return, Part 2", is the second episode of the third season of the TV series Twin Peaks. It was written by Mark Frost and David Lynch, directed by Lynch, and stars Kyle MacLachlan. "Part 2" was broadcast on Showtime along with Part 1 on May 21, 2017, and seen by an audience of 506,000 viewers in the United States. In addition, the two episodes were shown as a feature at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where they received a standing ovation. The episode received critical acclaim.
Absolute Carnage is a 2019 comic book crossover published by Marvel Comics, by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman.
Amnesia: The Lost Films of Francis D. Longfellow Supplementary Newsletter No. 1 is a 2018 comic book by Al Columbia. It is a 24-page collection of promotional posters allegedly created for animated cartoons by the (fictional) titular director/producer and his company, Podsnap Studios. Some of the "lost films" feature Columbia's recurring characters Seymour Sunshine and Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy, which are depicted here as cartoon characters performed by voice actors. The posters also contain references to earlier Columbia works including "The Trumpets They Play!", "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool", and his 1997 "Amnesia" short story, suggesting continuity with Amnesia's fictional universe.