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"Captain Doodle"
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Artist: arkEmail: arvo.kaulio@swipnet.se Website: -- Character's Story: Heavy black clouds were gathering above VeloCity skyline. In the glassneedle building belonging to Lagom Corp. the upcoming bad weather put a lid on the enthusiasm for Boss Beauforts future plans. That is, the wheather in combination with a never-ending flood of business buzz-words, sales figures, expected economic outcome, profit analysis, risk factors, break-evens and everything-you-don’t-wanna-know-about-something-you’re-not-interested-in. General Boredom had the staff in his firm grip. "Sales has gone down and the market is weak för products as these..falling market shares...increasing costs...future investments...therefore we launch a new...". Words, words, words. Boredom. Complete utterly boredom. Eyelids dropping and opening like windowshutters flapping in a hard wind. "This is going to be a tough one", Kenny Kendall, recently employed trainee, thought as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was torn by a devil between his will to take active part in the meeting and make a good impression and the fact that he was hardly able to stay awake at all. He heard the well-known sound of a looong yawn. "I’m doomed", he thought as he once again drifted away. Meanwhile, in the labyrith of shelves, display-stands and impressive pyramids of merchandise at Jesse’s Hardware Store in nearby suburb Chessmate City, a mediocre appearence was pedanticly counting inventories. "Meep! Meep! Meep!" A discrete blue rollerball pen in the pocket of the pale grey workingcoat was making an silent noice and the pen vibrated softly. "Jeeez! The doodalarm. To the doodle-chamber!". Senior hardware store assistant Winston Miller struck a hidden button down in passage 6, storage shelf 12 where exactly 637 different kinds of nails were stored. Winston knew, because all figures was accounted for by him. A hidden panel swung open and uncovered the tiniest closet, walls covered with high-tech electronics, cascades of wires like twisted spaghetti and diods glowing as a cloud of rainbow fireflies. Winston Miller stepped into the tight spot and closed the trap-door. Most carefully he folded his thin glasseyes and put them away in his breastpocket. The glasses made him look pretty much like the charicature of an serious accountant. A very, very serious accountant. If you ever saw the painting American Gothic by Grant Wood - remember the farmer? You get the picture - that’s Winston Miller in a nutshell. That is, the Winston Miller known to most people. He pulled a switch and the chamber made a grunt. Lights, like from an old Xerox, started flashing. The concept, proudly invented by Mr Miller in his sparetime (the blueprint was carefully written on brown, fat-stained paper bags from the local bagel-shop) worked much like a modern computer scanner. The main diffrence was it was 3D to 2D or vice versa, and the objects was’nt copied but transformated. That is, a living human beeing was turned into a living comic book character by the scan of a second. This methamorfosis would have made Gregor Samsa pale with envy, only Samsa was a fictive person and Winston Miller very much alive. Winston now felt the strange tickling surge that almost had become a drug, a weird feeling when the body twisted, jerked, turned into something pleasantly different. The mind went the same way, a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde kind of thing. And then, then it was complete. "Iiiiiiiihooo!", CAPTAIN DOODLE’s here to save your day! Now, you might expect the result of a super-hero transformation would be an eight-feet-tall, muscle-all-over, soap-opera-looks in a shining tight spandex suit super-duper-mega-man? Well...eer, that’s not exactly how the mind of Winston Miller worked. Captain Doodle stepped out of the closet, body size of a postcard with an ego size Texas. Almost invinsible from the side as he is thin as paper (actually he is fully made of paper). He’s everything Winston Miller is not; he’s loud, he’s chubby and he’s cheerful. Got a shirt like a bowling shirt, A cape (because everyone expects one according to Mr Miller) and a surf-a-doodle- flying-roller-ball pen for fast and most propriate transportation. Only the thin hair was the same. "Gotta work on that hair, ought to be more like Elvis, I think". Took off like an autumn leaf with a turbo-jet, surfing that amazing roller ball surf pen (more of a rocket it actually was). It’s really the perfect disguise, nobody notice a flinging piece of paper in the wind, even if the piece of paper all of a sudden make it’s own decisions and turns in the opposite direction of wind. Rapidly heading downtown to the shiny scraper of Lagom Corp., all steel and glass, impressive undoubtedly. The doodle-radar signalled: “Closing in on target! Closing in on target!”. “There, an open widow. Pretty much like an invitation.” Just a slot for an opening, but no problem for Mr Paper Doll - Captain Doodle. “Boredom, take heed, here I come”. He entered the building with caution. Staff meeting, important stuff. Boring stuff. About a dozen and a half round a oval table. “Their minds all on autopilot, or so it seems”. The deed of my archenemy General Boredom, no doubt about that. Yet to meet him in person, his traces are all over the city, all over the country. “Public menace that chap, just got to stop him”. And then there was the boy, almost passed out, head’s hanging. No time to waste. ZAP-a-doodle! An enery beam of magic ink shot from the fantastic Doodle-surf-pen. “Fight boredom! Obey creativity!”, the battle cry of Captain Doodle in Kennys ear woke him up all of a sudden. “What…, what’s that?”,a tiny odd character swooped past right in front of his face. Nobody else seems to notice. “What is this? What’s going on? Return of Roger Rabbit?”, Kenny thought. “Nooooo, iiiit’s Caaaptain Dooooodle!”, the strange little fellow made a perfect boomerang turn. Then he, or maybe it, or maybe whatever, was off again passing only an inch from Kennys eyebrows making him duck by reflex. “IT’S A BALL! A roller-ball! Iiiiiii-haaaaa!“, it was like a signature of the Captain, the way others spray graffiti tags or carved in wood in those days. “Oeoeoeoeo! Now what?” It was the rain-checker warning for approaching showers. “Water! The only thing I fear…except for maybe fire… and a pair of scissors and a shredder of course”, Captain Doodle got a vision of soaked dissolving copying paper in the gutter, not a pleasant future at all. “I’m out of here! No need to thank me”. Swoosh! Capitain Doodle left the room in a jiffy. “It was Captain Doodle!” Kenny thought seconds before the last minutes of his memory went blank (Capitain Doodle has also developed a clever mind eraser). Kennys attention was now totally focused on the writing pad in front of him, like a race horse with blinders. The parallell blue stripes on the white paper with the strict logo “Lagom Corp.” up left made him suddenly feel as happy as an angel, as light as a feather, as merry as a school-boy, as an old Scrooge waking up from a bad dream. Spellbound, his right hand began to draw. Awkwardly at first, but soon better and braver. Stars, flowers, eyes, shadings, all kinds of doodles came bursting out from nowhere. A new world was emerging. A blue and white world, the Doodle-world. “There you are”, an angry voice exclaimed. The voice belonged to an equally angry man Mr Jesse Halliwell, manager of Jesse’s Hardware Store. “Where have you been, I’ve been looking all over for you?”. “Inventory”, came a swift,dry and very precise answer from Winston Miller. Obviously you didn’t look close enough”. We’ve got 23875 half-inch bolts, but only 23667 nuts. I will order the diffrence in articles first thing in the morning so everything is in order, and there’s more, the boxes with the pliers that came this morning was covered with dust, I will speak to our supplier, this is not acceptable, not acceptable at all, and…”. “That’s good Winston. I’m sure you control the situation. You can be heading home when you have locked up. There’s a storm coming up, no more customers today. Thank god, I got rid of him so fast. Can’t remember why I was looking for him in the first place” , Jesse Halliwell thought with a relief. “But he’s an excellent assistant, in his field that is. Grey mouse, that chap”. Mr Halliwell would never ever question the boring details of an inventory, and Winston Miller was probably one of the best inventors on the planet. Not only could he recall every article code in stock by memory, but also every figure past. He could drive you nuts in short. “Well, another excellent quality he possess is the low wages he earns, always without complaint. Excellent. A bargain.”. Jesse Halliwell was a man of business and a really good deal always made him feel warm inside. Distant speech, time to tune in to the real world, Kenny.“And what’s your opinion Kenny”, manager Beufort asked all of a sudden. Kenny jumped up, as on command, pointed his index finger high in the air, thumb outwards. “IT’S A BALL!”, he shouted. Silence. Then he suddeenly realized that he was in the midst of an important meeting. Everbody was looking at him flabbergasted, then at boss Beufort, then back at him. Nobody knew what to say, or didn’t dare to. He felt like the statue of liberty in the center of attention and made an awkward grin. “It’s a ball”, he said as a silent echo. “Excellent!”, boss Beufort, a man known never to be exited exclaimed. “That’ s the spirit. Heck, I thought you youngsters only cared about computer games and obscure musical phenomena. That’s the way to go young man. We will start first thing in the morning, and you, you will be the manager of this project.” Kenny was indeed overwhelmed when boss Beufort heartily shook his hand. He just followed, not yet fully aware of what had passed. “How about that for an PR campaign? I can see it, huge billboards saying, no shouting: IT’S A BALL! It’s absolutely brilliant. “Hey boy, nice doodles by the way, you must be our new creative ace. Now let’s all have lunch”, he said whithout time for one breath. “It’s on me”. In company with a root beer, a bagel (cheese/ham) and a zillion offspring crumbs at the kitchen table in an anonymous appartment, Winston Miller recalled his last mission. "General Boredom again. I could sense his presence. One day we will finally meet. Well..., every ying needs it’s yang I suppose... how about inventing that teflon-covered rainsuit I’ve been thinking of...", when suddenly the pen at the table made a silent alarm..."some other day I suppose...". Comments: -- |
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