Wolf Rider (The Graphic Novel)

Hello all, Arthur Fatkins here. I finally got around to posting the entire Wolf Rider comic online for all to enjoy! I finished this sometime last year, and I hope to start working on a second installment soon! This is only the prologue to the Wolf Rider saga...the poor bastard still has a long way to fall. If you'd like a zip file with higher resolution images, please email me at OddMoniker@Comcast.net. Enjoy!

9/15/08

Wolf Rider by Arthur Fatkins

Bearhunter 2: Night Never Sleeps

by Charles D. Pompenhop

I am a man of many names. Some call me Bearhunter. You can call me Amchuck.
For hundreds of years my people have lived here, at peace with the nature. My Great, Great Grandfather lived off this land, and
then his son, my father and finally, myself. When the cold winds blow from the west, I find shelter in the ice. I wrap myself in
animal pelts to stay warm, like so many of my ancestors before me. I hunt, fish, and cook what I trap. Hibernation is not an
option. If I fell asleep for long, and the windchill dropped below -50, I'd be a dead man.

Here in the frozen wilderness, time moves at a much slower pace. The sun never sets...but that doesn't mean it's never dark. I live in a realm of infinite twilight, teetering on the edge of the world. The silence is deafening. The loneliness...soul
crushing. I have heard stories of people traveling four-hundred miles out from the city to "find themselves" here. Me...I came
here to lose myself. I haven't seen a television screen in eight years. I haven't heard my own voice in three. There is no reason for me to speak. Words freeze instantly and shatter in midair.

I am writing this in the hopes that others might learn from my mistakes. When it is man-against-beast, you can't afford to be foolish. The beast, in my unfortunate case, was a true monster: a twenty-foot-long bird of prey with razor sharp talons and feathers so white and pure, they put the surrounding landscape to shame.

I had first encountered this abomination in the Fall. Journeying from a hillside reservoir and down into the valley below, I set up camp with a mind to do some hunting before the season began to turn. For days, I hunted wild elk and rabbits with a spear I had fashioned from a wild dog's jawbone. I ate like a king and life was good....for a time. However, as the nights began to grow colder, I found success to be more and more elusive. The elk had retreated to the hills from whence they came, and the rabbits returned to their burrows for the winter. Things were looking bleak, and I still had a long journey ahead of me and back up the mountain.

And then, one day, I saw it. What appeared to be a massive eagle's nest hovering on the skyline just above the trees. I climbed the tree to retrieve my treasure...three fabulous eggs, each the size of a man's head! What a feast! I packed up my camp, and began the uphill journey back to a more hospitable climate. My adventure was cut short when suddenly, the sky grew strangely dark. Flapping it's gargantuan wings above me was an enormous snow white owl! I was filled with fear and awe and was unable to move. It screeched with such ferocity that my blood curdled. Fearing for my life, I held out the newly acquired nest in offering to the creature, assuming this was just a mother looking for her young. Selfishly, I did not return every egg to her...I kept one hidden in my yak skin pelt. I was afraid that if I surrendered all I had, I would starve before making it back to the mountain's peak. The mother bird retreated, her vengeful spirit quelled...or so it seemed.

Three days ago, after returning to the mountain top, the beast returned. As I was stoking a fire to cook the egg I had hidden, I heard her bone-rattling battle cry. With a screech, the great white owl swooped down from the sky and snatched up her lost child in her powerful, razor-like talons. But she wasn't done yet. Circling back around, the giant bird lunged at me, claws outstretched. I had no time to react. The pain felt like I had been hit by a truck covered in knives. My stomach burst open like an overcooked sausage, staining the snow around me a striking red color. I was barely able to drag myself back into my cave before the monster was able to strike her death blow.

And now here I sit...huddled, freezing, slowly bleeding to death. Gut strings from rat carcasses can stitch wounds only so well. Yes, I write this in the hopes that anyone who find my remains will realize my errors and refrain from making their own similar ones.

I have only one final

THE END

This Is Albert Quimm

Wrapping my fingers around the knob, I heaved the door open with unexpected force, causing me to tumble violently into a group of students taking a smoke break below the fire escape. Old bones cracking, I stood up and brushed myself off, trying to ignore the sea of poisonous glares coming from all sides. The dark haired boy nearest me was the first to speak.
"Principal Quimm...what are you doing here so late?" This was Jarvis Bennet. I knew his name, because I was fucking his mother.
"Are you ok?" spoke a young woman with dyed green hair. She casually dropped her smoldering cigarette behind her and stepped on it. The others in the group did the same.
"Yes, thank you. I'm fine. No need to worry. Would..." I could feel my face turn red as I extended my hand, "Would somebody be so kind as to help me up?" Jarvis complied and pulled me to my feet. I stood there for a moment, catching my breath. It was silent. Somewhere far away, a dog barked.
"Mr. Quimm, do you...sleep here?" Jarvis again. Behind him, a lad with a pierced nose stifled a laugh.
"Do I sleep here? Of course I don't sleep here!" I insisted, though it was a lie. "I was working late! Say, what are all you kids doing here after hours! Campus is closed!"
"Um, we were just leaving," said green-haired girl. The others hastily nodded in agreement.
"Well good."
Again, a moment of uncomfortable silence. I could sense the kids were waiting for me to leave, so they could continue smoking and god-knows-what else.
"Uh...Professor," began Jarvis, his voice cracking awkwardly, "Do you...have you been hanging around my house? I thought I saw your car in the driveway the other night..."
My heart leapt into my throat and delayed my response. Another boy in a hoodie snorted, but the green-haired girl elbowed him in the gut.
"Well, Mr. Bennet...I..." I began, but quickly changed the subject. "...I will buy you all beer if you promise to go home and never smoke on school property."
The snorting boy snorted once more, and received another jab in the stomach.
"Or, I could have you all expelled. Your choice."

* * *

Several minutes later, I was carrying sacks of assorted liquor out of the 7-Eleven and handing it to a group of underage students in a rusty green Mazda.
"Now...you kids enjoy yourselves...don't tell anybody! And remember our deal."
The carload of students nodded their heads excitedly, and sped off into the night.
"That was almost too easy," I laughed to myself. Zipping up my winter coat, I began the six block journey back to the school. I also had plans for the remainder of the evening.
Finally, returning to my office, I waved to the night janitor, unlocked the door and slipped inside. Sitting down, I loosened my tie and picked up the phone. After three rings, a voice.
"Hello?"
"Hello...Ms. Bennet? This is Albert Quimm..."

The Road: Part One

by Wolf Rider

Tonight, a chilly moon crept across the sky like a spherical slug trying to escape a dank black tar pit. I parked my bike in the men's outhouse behind a local bar, because it was starting to smell like rain, and went inside to have a few drinks before the inevitable storm.
"What'll it be?" asked the barkeep. I jerked where I sat, but said nothing. For awhile, we just stared at each other. Something was wrong...the air was stale. I could feel it cling to my skin, and it tightened my jaw when I finally said:
"You don't...have any...," I began.
"...Alcohol," I continued.
"...do you?" I concluded.
The room was silent, until the muscles in the barkeeper's face pulsed and pulled at one another, and moved his lips apart and seperated his teeth, causing a thin strand of saliva to extend from his lips and snap in midair, and he said:
"I'm sorry sir, didn't you read the sign outside? This a non-alcoholic bar. In fact, this is J.P. McBasketfingers, the good-time family pizza buffet and Xtreme sport arcade!"
We both paused.

What happened after that, I can't recall. All I can remember is the last thing I knew, I was barely conscious in a field across from the now flaming colossus of splintered wood and charred brick which used to be a good-time family pizza buffet and Xtreme sport arcade. Suddenly, thunder. And rain. From above.
"Just my luck, NOW it starts raining," I wheeze as I pull myself onto my singed bike. Before long, I'm on the road again, where everything is exactly as it seems and there are no false notions or empty promises. This is home. But what had happened? Was this blood on my hands, or pizza grease? Or was it cheap gasoline?
"If the road could speak, might it be crying?" I pondered, before speeding up and over the hill and into the dark wet mountains.