All that being said, I have something to share with you. I had an idea about a year back (around the same time II was wrapping up) for a book about the most obnoxiously perfect character ever. I know that sounds dumb but hear me out. As an amateur writer, I read a lot of other amateur writer’s work and give them critiques. For the most part I give fairly positive reviews with a few things I would change so they can tell I actually read it but after about the 20th story I read, I noticed a pattern, all their main characters are damn near perfect. The stories almost always starred a person with brains, brawn and great cheek bones to boot, the proverbial ‘Perfect Being’ made flesh. Occasionally, they’d have a scar on their face but really that’s just to sell the “torture soul” and “Bad-ass” angles.

Anyway, as a joke, I started writing my own “extreme” version of what everyone else was already writing and I called it, The Epically Amazing Adventures of Detective Jambalaya Gumbo, MD. Enjoy…

Chapter 1

Detective Jambalaya Gumbo MD awoke alone in his Double-Wide California King bed. The minor creaking sound would never have woken a normal man but Jambalaya was in no way normal. Besides his chiseled, Brad Pitt dwarfingly good looks and fit, hairless body; “Jumbo”, as the ladies called him, had trained his senses since he was 7 and a half months old to be the world’s greatest Detective. Nothing got by him and the faint sound of the Assassin’s foot touching his authentic African Mpingo wood floors might as well have been a screeching alarm.

Jambalaya eyes shot open and he quickly debated which of the many weapons in his tastefully decorated room he would use. The twin Desert Eagles under his pillow? Too obvious. The hand carved Trident given to him by the King of Egypt for safely landing his plane without wings or an engine while fighting off 30 members of the League of Evil? Nah, he used that last time. No, Jambalaya would make this battle sporting and, with a flash of his wrist, he ripped out a section of his 3,000 thread count sheets.

As the door swung open, the armed killer was stunned to see the most handsome man he’d ever saw blindfolded and waving him in, inviting his attack.

“Bring it” said Jambalaya with a wicked smile, “I always prefer a fight to the death to my normal morning exercise”.

The Assassin screamed something in Japanese, which most people wouldn’t have understood, but Jumbo understood completely, and began swinging a pair of hand axes wildly at his target. Jambalaya allowed his assault to get close enough for the murderer to not feel like it was hopeless but far enough away not to endanger his perfect teeth and hair.

After a full minute of unrelenting fury, the assassin began to slow ever so slightly, to which, Jambalaya got bored and back flip kicked him unconscious.

Jambalaya sighed, “Don’t tell me that’s it!”

At that moment, no less than a dozen more killers crashed through Jambalaya’s various windows and 50 more stormed up his staircase and into his room.

“Thank God” Jambalaya said, looking to the heavens and then, the fight was on.

After 5 minutes of gunfire, screams of unimaginable pain and no less than 15 security deposit-revoking explosions; the last of the Assassins was sent flying out of Jambalaya’s high rise window, to which he untied his blood stained blindfold, looked around and said, “Breakfast time!” and then walked down the stairs to his well-stocked kitchen.

After thoroughly washing his hands, Jambalaya began preparing his signature White Truffle and Shark Fin Soup that he learned to make from blind Tibetan Monks when he got a video call on his Prototype Iphone X. Jambalaya’s partner, Barry Sangria was looking particularly miffed at him.

“Yes, Barry?” Jambalaya answered.

“Yes, Barry?! That’s all I get? I had to hear from one of my contacts that The League sent a division of hit men to your house.”

Jambalaya smiled, “Sorry Mom, it’s not like I had time to text you in the middle of the siege… well actually, I could have but it would have been rude to the trained killers.”

“Mom?! You dick! I’m just saying I would have like to help you bust a few heads, that’s all. Also, not that I’m ‘mothering you’ or anything but are you hurt?” Barry asked, changing his tone from annoyed to concerned.

Jambalaya considered the brawl and answered, “My knuckles are a little sore but otherwise I’m no worse for wear… in fact, these guys didn’t really seem to be The Leagues best.”

“That makes sense, I had heard from one of my contacts inside The League that any of their operatives in training that didn’t make the cut would be re-purposed as shock troops and sent directly at you to redeem themselves.” Barry explained, hoping that Jambalaya wouldn’t deduce why he had withheld this information until now.

“This is about Lexi, isn’t it?” Jambalaya asked, trying to hid his announce.

Barry took a moment to gather his thoughts but could see that Jambalaya already knew his reason.

“Lexi has been a member of The League on and off on more than a few occasions and you are, let’s say, “chummy with her” from time to time”.

“You think I’d blow your man on the inside’s cover?” grumbled Jambalaya.

Barry stared in silences for a moment and Jambalaya suddenly realized how badly he had walked into this one. Jambalaya let out a single word that both brought a feeling of shame to him and told Barry that he understood completely, “Serbia”.

“That was a long time ago; we were both different people and Lexi…”

Jambalaya interjected, “She’s in my past now. Don’t worry, I learned my lesson in Serbia… don’t trust anyone anymore, not even myself.”

Barry and Jambalaya remained silent for a while and then Barry, as if he had forgotten why he had called, spoke up, “I’ve got word that our old friend, Damien Von Blackheart found his way out of Spacecatraz Prison.”

“Blackheart is a small-time League middleman, how did he get the juice to break out of the inescapable, Centuple-Max penitentiary I designed?” Jambalaya said while pulling up the Prison’s digital blueprints.

Barry gave Jambalaya all the information he had, “I’m not sure but he must have had a lot of help from the inside and out, all 67 fail-safes were knocked out and everyone who could I.D. the culprits are either dead or missing.”

“The League must be behind this… nobody else, besides one of us, could have pulled this off but why would they go through all the trouble? Damien is a real bastard and all but they’re much bigger fish in Spacecatraz and no one even made a play for them.” Jambalaya said, looking over the updated post-attack Prison manifests.

“I’m sorry, Detective Gumbo, I’ve got to let you go. I’m getting called into the President’s Office so I can brief him on the escape.”

Barry always called Jambalaya “Detective Gumbo” when anyone from the US Government was in earshot. Barry didn’t like to let on that he and Jambalaya were friends. Knowing Barry’s background the way Jambalaya did, he didn’t blame him. The people Barry use to work for would take any hint of humanity and use it against their ‘employees’.

“Alright Agent Sangria, I’ll meet you at Spacecatraz in O 1400 hours… assuming I’m converting to Mars Time properly?” Jambalaya smiled, knowing full well that he had converted properly since he was charged with deciding the time zones on all the Planets up to Uranus.

Barry looked at Jambalaya through the view screen for a moment, trying not to role his eyes, “Aye Aye, Sangria out.”

As Jambalaya placed his one-of-a-kind, super phone on his rare, pure white marble kitchen counter, he sensed a slight variation of air pressure in the room.

“Lexi, it’s been too long.” Jambalaya said smiling as he turned around.

Lexi stood in front of Jambalaya, as beautiful as ever; with her golden hair obscuring one of here flawless eyes and stunning figure, perfect for utterly destroying a man… both in and out of the bedroom. She was like an even hotter Scarlett Johansson and in actuality, she made Johansson look like some sort of retched cow-beast-thing.

“Hey, Jumbo.” Lexi said, as if they had last seen each other on much better terms.

Their fit, hairless bodies collided and at first, neither were sure if they were picking up where they left off when he swore he’d kill her if he ever saw her again or picking up from the hotel bedroom from the night before that. Jambalaya quickly got control of Lexi’s wrists, whipped her around and restrained her with a pair of handcuffs he kept in a nearby kitchen drawer.

Lexi pushed free of Jambalaya’s grip and spun to face him, “I wasn’t sure where we stood after Serbia,” and then smiled seductively at her shackles, “and these don’t exactly answer my question.”

“Where we stand is I said I would kill you if I ever saw you again and now you’ve called my bluff.” Jambalaya said, trying not let on how glad he was to see her.

“Jumbo, I…”

Jambalaya interrupted her, “Don’t bother, I already know why you’re here… it makes perfect sense, really. Part of Blackheart’s plan must have something to do with me, he thinks my weakness for you will get me off my guard and then you’ll either kill me or I’ll kill you, both, of course, working towards his end of keeping me away long enough to pull off some heist or terrorist attack, thus getting back into the good graces of The League and hurting me in the process… stop me when I get something wrong, would you?”

“Blackheart is trying to kill me…” Lexi said plainly.

Jambalaya searched her face but she knew nothing and even she wasn’t a good enough liar to fool him, “Fine. Then his threat on your life is his way of keeping me worried about your safety, instead of investigating his escape and tracking him down. Simple, really.”

“Well, I’m glad that people trying to kill me is just a mere distraction for you.” said Lexi, less than amused with Jambalaya’s cold conclusion.

Jambalaya quickly weighed his options and came to a decision, “How do you like Mars this time of year?”

Thanks for reading Chapter One. If I get the idea people enjoyed it from the comments, I’ll post the next Chapter soon.

Let’s start by getting some of the really unimportant characters out of the way…

The New Guy

New Guy: Hey!
Jordan: What?! You were only in like 85 of our 131 episodes…
New Guy: So, you were only in 99!
Jordan: Exactly… I was in more!
New Guy: If you’re going to do unimportant characters; why not do WoW Guy or that degenerate, Tim Cruse?
Jordan: You leave Tim alone! That man is a Saint, he wouldn’t hurt a fly… unless that fly was hot or Tim was drunk.
New Guy: See, this is my…
Jordan (continued): …Or if Tim had struck out with a Grasshopper first or…
New Guy (speaking to the reader): Yeah, I think he’s just going to keep listing reasons why Tim would have sex with a fly for a while…
Jordan (still at it): Perhaps, if the fly was ugly but it brought one of it’s fly friends into the mix then…
New Guy (speaking to the reader): I’ll tell you what, while he’s at that, I’ll catch you up on what I’ve been doing, sound good?

I guess the best place to start with me is right after we all got fired from Imagine Industries. I went home and called my Sister right away; she’s my rock and I don’t know what I’d do without her. She said that I was better off without that place and was wasting my time and talents trying to please people who were incapable of appreciating me. I decided she was right and starting floating my resume right away. I got a few nibbles right off but no bites, til finally, I got a call from an old friend who was working for Mitt Romney’s political campaign. He said he’d get me an interview and, sure enough, I got the job writing speeches for the guy. Full disclosure, I’ve never written a speech before this job and I really don’t know what I’m doing but no one has caught on yet. I randomly threw out having Mitt sing-talk his way through, “America the Beautiful” as a joke but they actually loved the idea and the next day this happened.

Anyway, enough about work, I met someone recently, her name is…

Jordan (still going): If the fly is a real “butherface” that got a boob job then sure, in those few 165 instances, Tim would hurt a fly but besides that, Tim is a total Saint.
New Guy: Hey, why don’t you think of reasons why Tim would nail a centipede now, I was about to tell them about my love life.
Jordan: Oh good, I cut you off before you scared everyone away. I think they’d like to hear about me now.

So, after I lost my job at Imagine Industries, I called New Guy’s Sister, she’s my rock.

New Guy: You’re such an a$$hole.
Jordan: Hey, I didn’t interrupt you, did I?
New Guy: Actually, you kinda did…

Anyway, she said to stop calling her or she’d call the Police, that is so New Guy’s Sister. Her advice really spoke to me and after a lot of soul searching and a failed attempt to translate the comic into a new format, I decided to man up and do the right thing… kill myself. First, I tried all the regular methods; carving “Brooks was here” into a beam then hanging myself from it, shooting myself in the face to kill my alter-ego before he could blow up all the major banks in the city, Flying my Bat-Wing over the Ocean while carrying a nuclear bomb away from Gotham, jumping off a bridge before an Angel shows me what would happen to all my friends and family if I never existed (p.s. They were way better off) but nothing worked.

So finally, I took my failure as a sign from God and joined the Priesthood. After only a few short weeks, I took my vows and was tricking people into all sorts of crazy leaps of faith. I recently got a paraplegic to think that if he truly believed hard enough, he’d walk again. He literally fell out of his wheelchair and flopped around for an hour and a half before he cried and gave up. I told him that, “I guess the Lord doesn’t love you”. Classic!

New Guy: You’re a Monster!
Jordan: Are you just figuring that out now? Anyway, I’ll let Josh fill you in on what he’s been up to next week. Spoiler alert, he’s Gay now.
New Guy: I don’t think…
Jordan (interrupts): Clearly.
New Guy (Annoyed stare)
Jordan: Boom! Episode 2 burn!
New Guy: I can really see why people would miss us.
Jordan: Sarcasm?
New Guy (shrugging): I don’t even know anymore.

Jordan | June 13th, 2012

The Beginning And The End

I am truly conflicted and deeply saddened to tell you that this will be the last episode of Imagine Industries. After a year and a half and 145 comics, we’ve been forced to call it a day. I’m not going to whine about all the obstacles that lead to this and complain about, “what went wrong” but suffice to say, 2012 was not our year. It does seem fitting to end this way though, with little Josh and Jordan, meeting for the first time in a comic drawn by Sale. It reminds me of a simpler time, when we were all excited and hopeful for the future of our little comic that could.

I want to say thank you to everyone who read us every week, shared opinions on our comment board and generally just made this comic kick-ass! I hope that you all had fun watching our little group of douche-bags stumble through their misadventure and I’m really sorry I couldn’t have given you an ending to their story, like I had planned. I will say, I intend to wreak a bit more havoc before they were done (and possibly start WWIII).

I won’t speak for the other members (though, I do invite them to tell you on here) but for me, I am going to focus on writing a Novel or two after this. Besides the Star Wars fan fiction I shared with you in the past, I also I have a Fantasy Novel and a Comedic-Western film script in the works. If anyone is interested, please keep the Imagine Industries fan-page ‘liked’ and I’ll give you the heads up upon any of their completions. Otherwise, always feel free to message me directly through Facebook or my email (Jordanimagineindustries@gmail.com).

I intend to leave the website up as long as we have it paid for so feel free to read back through them anytime you’d like. I will hopefully have a printed book of our comics available for our fans in the near future.

Thanks for reading and May The Dorks Be With You…

Jordan Cardwell

P.S. Mine!

Josh | June 22, 2012

The End of the World as we know it…

So here we are on the final day of Imagine Industries and all I can think about is the first time Jordan and I stayed up for over 24 straight hours to try and make this dream we had a reality. From the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows, I can honestly say this is one of the first times in my life that I have believed in a dream I had, and actually accomplished it. I could not have done it without Jordan every step of the way, but the fact that we made all this come to life blows my mind.

You could say that I am a person with big dreams and very little follow through. I enjoy thinking and fantasizing about everything I COULD do in life, but RARELY do I actually see it through to the end. There were several times with this comic that I wanted to quit, but between our teamwork, our fans, and the fun, I just couldn’t give up. Our time has finally come and it’s a bitter goodbye to all the people we have gotten to know over the last year and a half. February 21, 2011 was one of the best days of my life and will forever be imprinted in my mind.

A few shout outs before I say goodbye. To Colleen and Jon, our super fans, who have been with us since the beginning. Jordan and I always wanted to have at least a couple people obsess over our work and we got that stroking of our egos with the two of you. Thank you for all your love and support.  Bra, you have also been with us since just about the beginning. You have shared insight, ideas, and even got immortalized (not necessarily how you WANTED to be), in our little rag tag comic. We hope that the laughs were more than enough pay back for all your support and help over the year and a half. Sale, you talented little Serbian S.O.B. This project would have never made it off the ground without the magical stroke of your pen. From the first time you made us out as characters, until the very end when you had to part with us, you breathed your life and blood into the comic and I know that myself and every other reader places you at the TOP of the web comic artist mountain. I would pin your art up against ANY web comic online, and we cannot thank you enough. And of course Jordan. I know I shared before about his impact on this comic but he is our Captain Reynolds. The work you did, and the fun we had doing this was something I think we can both be proud of. We were professional, diligent, and motivated (well for the most part) to keep it going as long as we have. You are one of my best friends and it’s great to know that now that this is all over we can still hang out, relax, and talk about once upon a time.

Thank you for everything, Imagine Industries. You were an idea, that came to life, and we could not be more proud of what you grew to become.

~Josh Lenhardt

Here is my list.

1. The Escapist (http://www.escapistmagazine.com)

This site has a couple of things to offer, chief amongst them is Zero Punctuation. For those unfamiliar with what ‘Yahtzee’ does, Zero Punctuation is all about the rapid-fire, hyper-critical, video game review. I could go on and on, trying to explain but it would be far simpler to just show you…

Not only does the Escapist cover my need for overly critical video game reviews but it also has (slightly less) overly critical movie reviews featured in, “Escape to the Movies” and there is always something interesting happening on their forum and news ticker.

2. College Humor/Funny Or Die

In a lot of ways, these are the same site. Random videos (mostly funny) and lots of side stuff for flavor. If I had to highlight any part of both sites, it would be CH’s Troopers and well…

On the FoD side, there are a few stand outs, Between Two Ferns being clearly the standoutyest (not a word? Well, it should be).

3. Twxxd.com

I’ve often said that I don’t really like most webcomics (including my own from time to time) but Twxxd is consistently an exception. I’ve liked a lot of what they’ve done (particularly in the last year) and I really feel like they’ve found their rhythm. Anyway, considering how much I like them and how critical I am of webcomics, I’d say that is a pretty strong endorsement.

4. Hulu.com

This is mostly so I can keep up on the Daily Show without paying for Cable.

5. The Pirate Bay (www.thepiratebay.org)

That’s right, folks! I’m part of the problem. But don’t judge me too harshly, I mean, how long has it been since you actually BOUGHT a CD?

… and that’s kinda it. I mean, I get on Facebook to tell our fans that there’s a new comic or WYWW up and I get on my gmail when I need to but really, those are my constant sites… pretty sad, huh?

So, now do you see why I need your help? Where do you go (or where do you never go anymore)? Share your web experience with me so I can at least add one or two new, “Go To” sites to my bookmark.

Thanks for your advice and now, enjoy a bit of Stephen Lynch.

Seriously though… where the F#@% did this guy go?!

Jordan | June 18th, 2012

The Old Lint-Trap

So, this episode was inspired by Josh not coming to the shoot sporting his ‘Josh-Gear’.  We had a few episodes planned for that day but instead, in rolls Josh dress like… not Josh and we decided to just go with it and write a brand new episode on the spot (cause we’re cool like that).  Hopefully we’ll be back on track this Friday with a PLANNED episodes but, who knows… next time he could just show up dressed like a Clown.

Great!  Now I’m going to have Nightmares…

If you’ve enjoyed this comic, please take a second to Like Us On Stumble. Also, if you like to join our Facebook fan page, Click Here.

Jordan | June 15th, 2012

I Miss Heath…

So, full disclosure, I was a little underwhelmed with “The Dark Knight Rises” version of Bane the first time I saw it. Subsequent viewings of trailers have brightened my perspective but I still have reservations. It’s nothing against Tom Hardy as an actor but I guess I always saw Bane as a cartoonishly powerful freak of nature. Here is why I’m optimistic though… I didn’t think Heath Ledger would make a good Joker before I saw the last film.

I believe my bias comes from growing up on the Cartoon series and comics. My ideal Joker, before I saw The Dark Knight, would have been Hugo Weaving or Willem Dafoe… you know, someone who LOOKED more like Mark Hamill’s Joker. Well, Ledger proved me dead wrong and I hope Hardy does the same but I won’t get my hopes up.

Not cause I don’t believe it will be great but if I go in expecting less, then I can’t be disappointed.

Here is hoping that we are all blown away with the awesomeness that is DKR but I’m going to assume the worst, for my own safety

If you’ve enjoyed this comic, please take a second to Like Us On Stumble and Upvote Us On Reddit. Also, if you like to join our Facebook fan page, Click Here.

Imagine Industries Rises

We’ve been putting a lot more thought and effort into growing our sites fan base in resent weeks and, as you may have noticed, there has been a few minor changes (you know, besides the fact that we do a photocomic now ).  One of the biggest changes is that we’ve expanded the way we (try to) bring in traffic.  Besides the text links to our Stumble/Reddit posts (which we really appreciate you guys liking/upvoting), we also moved our Scribol ad to right under our comic.  For those of you not familiar with Scribol, it is a completely free site (at least for you and I) dedicated to introducing fans to new media (like us).  The way it works is, every time one of our readers click one of their links, Scribol advertises us to a new reader.  It’s a pretty sweet program and best of all, you can help Imagine Industries without spending a cent.

As always, our goal is to provide free entertainment to you, our fans but look at it this way.  If we grow II to the point that we being to take in money from our ads, we will be able to take time off our Paying Jobs to focus on our comic.  This means, better comics and very possibly, more comics a week.  I don’t know about you but I would LOVE to put out 3 comics a week… or more.

I debated what I should do; I was a fan but I didn’t want to bother him while he was eating and, if I did talk to him, I’d almost certainly make an ass of myself. As I pondered what to do, he finished up his meal, downed the rest of his drink, gathered his things and then walked right next to my booth and stopped. I looked up to him with reverence that, I assume, a devote Christian would look up to God with and smiled. He looked me over for a moment and then uttered a few words I will never forget, “A Strawberry Daiquiri?! Jesus Christ, kid…” and then walked away, shaking his head. I was ecstatic! Not only did George Carlin talk to me but he insulted me!

Any fan of Carlin’s knows how awesome that is.

Out of respect, I only drink Long Islands now.

Well, that story didn’t nearly take me as long as I thought it would. If you have story where you met someone awesome, please share it in the comments. I leave you now with some vintage Carlin, what is dead may never die.

Jordan | June 11th, 2012

If you’ve enjoyed this comic, please take a second to Like Us On Stumble and Upvote Us On Reddit. Also, if you like to join our Facebook fan page, Click Here.

The Fight Of The Century
I’ve been a big fan of Joss Whedon for over a decade; so when The Avengers came out and became a Mega-hit, I was of two minds.  Part of me said, “Finally, the mainstream audience, that he has always deserved, will see Joss’ genius!” and another part said, “Screw all these people who are suddenly coming out of the wood work and saying Whedon is great!  Where were they when Serenity didn’t have the box office numbers to bring back Firefly?!”

They are both, relatively, valid feelings but ultimately the knee-jerk, a-hole side of me needs to squeeze his stress-ball for a bit and let my more accepting side take the wheel.  There are many great things about The Avengers; the films great, it might dethrone Cameron’s duo of C+ Box Office Leaders, and, possibly best of all, it will introduce the rest of Joss Whedon’s works to a huge, new audience.
And maybe, just maybe, it will finally convince Michael Bay that big budget, action movies can be both over the top and good.  Or better yet, he’ll just give up altogether and we will never have to stomach another Transformer Garbage-a-ton or another Transformance from Shia Labeouf (Seriously, has anything he’s been in NOT sucked out loud?).

Ok, ok, ‘Disturbia’ was passable and I never actually watched ‘Holes’ but still…

Jordan | June, 8th, 2012

Inside Joke

First things first, we have word from our site’s designer that we are (and already was) Malware free and he petitioned to have the site reinstated.  He told us the last time this happened with a site he was working on, the petition process only took a day.  I hope that is the case with us as well.

Now, to this comic.  As you may have noticed (unless your eye sight is awful) this episode was actually drawn (and by Sale, no less) and not Photostyle.  Sadly, this does not mark Sale’s triumphant return but instead is an episode we did for our friend, Bra, months ago for his birthday.  Hopefully, Josh or Bra comments on this comic and explains what this episode is based on, since I wasn’t there…

That being said, I’m pretty sure Bra crapped his pants at a Kwan’s… just a hunch

Speaking of Bra, he is currently trying his hand at drawing a very special run of comics for us.   I don’t want to talk too much about it but I should have an official announcement in the coming weeks.

I don’t know about you but I am really looking forward to Monday… especially if that damn Malware warning is gone!

CATS

Laser Kitty: I believe this is the video that inspired Andy Samberg…

Slow-Motion Cat: Or as most Cat-Owners know it, Cat going at it’s normal speed.

Simon’s Cat: They have a ton of these videos at www.simonscat.com (not to be confused with Simon-Scat.org). They are all really funny… except the final one where Simon dies and his cat bumbles around while trying to eat him eyeballs first.

Dogs

He’s like the Chuck Norris of K-9′s

Dog vs Leaves: All the leaves are brown… and wet… and dirty… but damn it, I have to get my ball!

Overachieving Pug: And you thought Asians expected a lot from their children…

Sadly this video won’t embed but it’s too good not to link.
http://youtu.be/z2BgjH_CtIA

The Final Showdown

Finally, an internet video where the music IMPROVES the clip.

Lastly, if you have a good pair of headphones, Nicole suggests you all check out this link. Most of the audio tricks (I’m sorry Gob, Illusions) are pretty cool but my favorite by far is the one called, “Matchbox”. It’s just plain creepy.

Hope you liked the videos. It may have taken you minutes to watch them but Nicole searched around for over 2 hours to gather them all. Man, internet videos are time-wasters no matter what, huh?