(NOTE: Brad Reed originally submitted this idea to me a couple weeks back, and I liked it so much that I removed one of mine to make room for it, because it’s nifty. I tweaked it a bit, but this is still mostly Brad’s.)
The reasoning is simple: you all know about ley lines, right? And how in popular fiction where there is magic, there are inevitably places where lots of these ley lines meet up, and that’s where magic becomes more powerful and spells have more oomph and faeries still walk the Earth and occasionally go to McDonald’s (redcaps love Big Macs for some reason) and children born in the area become Mystic Defenders or the like?
Well, it follows that if there are supermagical places where the ley lines converge, then there must also be submagical places where the ley lines are way the hell off on the horizon. These are the Boring Places, where magic is mostly absent. Children born here grow up to become accountants, chiefs of human resources and the boring kind of scientist who sniffs at MythBusters because they make jokes and such. In these areas, magic is especially hard to do. Not impossible – but difficult, because you’re martialling the energy of the universe at a distance. It’s like you’re used to broadband and suddenly you’re back using 24K dialup.
The most boring of all places – the single least magical place on Earth – is a small town in New Jersey, twenty minutes from of Newark. And the least magical place within that town is Herbert’s Taco Hut, which if it were not for its location would be your standard “Mexican restaurant run by white people who have never seen a chili pepper in their lives” joint. It should have had the lifespan of any other mediocre restaurant in the middle of nowhere (IE, short). But Herbert’s does very good business indeed, for one simple reason:
It’s where sorcerers and mages come to do business. Because it’s safe. Herbert’s is the magical equivalent of an old Wild West township, where you have to check your six-guns with the sheriff when you enter. Most sorcerers can muster a simple teleportation spell for a quick escape from it if necessary (and those that can’t can prepare something similar in advance) but not much else. SHIELD and HYDRA and everybody else all know about it, but nobody ever tries to fuck with Herbert’s because having a neutral ground (which happens to serve mediocre burritos) is inherently a useful thing to have at one’s disposition.
And because of this, it’s not only a place to do business, but a place to network, to chat, to simply unwind and shoot the shit with one’s fellow magical practitioners. After all, the food isn’t that bad, and they let you bring your own booze for a small surcharge (and you’ll want to, because their beer selection is terrible), and how is anybody going to know that you just stole the fabled Red Ruby of Un’nx if you don’t have someplace to show it off? Plus, it offers the best grounds on the planet for picking up within the profession. (There is no guarantee that the person you take home won’t try to sacrifice you to a demon prince – but come on, you think magicians are going to give up sex?)
And yes, Stephen Strange goes there occasionally. Because he has to make appearances, keep tabs on goings-on, keep his ear to the ground – and because it’s nice, every once in a while, to take off the mantle of “world’s most powerful sorcerer” for an hour or two and just tuck into some nachos.
Top comment: While we’re mentioning ley lines, can we get a story where Dr. Strange investigates Disney World to see if it truly is ‘the most magical place on Earth’?
I’m partly interested to see the mysterious origin of Walt Disney’s occult practices, but I mostly just wanna see Dr. Strange ride the tea cups. — RobotKeaton
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I was going to say, “Now we know where Strange told Uatu to get a burrito,” only now I see, having looked at it again, that that was actually in Queens.
All those mages are lucky it turned out to be a restaurant. Imagine if it had been a mechanic’s shop.
“Hey, Earl, that guy from New York? Strong….Strange? Yeah, Strange. He says his brake pads are shot again.”
“Why the hell is he coming here, then? We told him to try someone closer, he shouldn’t be driving that car across the bridge!”
“I dunno, maybe he forgot. At least he brought that hottie with him this time.”
*cough* You need to get much further than 20 minutes from Newark to get white folks who have never seen Mexican food.
/lived next to Newark for six months
Doesn’t this almost completely go against the whole “source of magic” thing from way back?
If magicians, sorcerors, and whomever get their powers by trading favors with extradimensional beings, why would it matter to those extradimensioal beings where you are when you ask for favors?
Unless this place is the equivalent of a magical cellphone deadzone.
Either way, how could a place just outside Newark be that far removed from (the obviously numerous) leylines that Strange must tap into regularly up in New York.
Why not Idaho?
There isn’t really such a thing as 24K dialup.
You could refer to a 2400bps modem as 2.4k, but not 2.4K, which might be what you meant. (Big K is Kelvin, little k is kilo.) There was a very popular 28.8k standard for a while, but most people’s first internet dialup account was 56k.
My own first modem was 0.3k, or 300bps, so I remember upgrading to 1200bps and thinking it was all I’d ever need, since 2400bps was slightly faster than I could read or type. 2400bps was overkill.
Maybe it’s the sugar rush from the danish I just ate, but this made me giggle like crazy.
“Why the hell are we at this place again? It sucks!”
“Because, Indrani, sometimes one wishes for a quesadilla one does not have to vanquish before eating it. Also, free refills.”
Combining this with Deadpool leads to hilarity.
“I’m afraid we must consult with a rather distasteful individual.”
“NACHO TIME!”
Even better, Deadpool gets behind the counter, puts on a paper hat and apron and actually starts making better food – and works there for a week before he gets bored and leaves.
Laurie: They had better not have sub-par chimichangas though or they’ll have to change the name to Herbert’s Bloodbath.
Btw, MGK, Happy Victoria Day.
I realize that it isn’t until May 18th, but that’s where I am on my sudoku calendar, so there you go.
Not to be rude, but isn’t this just the Center of America from American Gods? Ripping things off so completely is not like you, MGK.
Of course, if he doesn’t like the service, Doom will rant and rave for 10 minutes… then just leave a 5% tip.
Okay, so I admit that magic doesn’t have to make sense, but shouldn’t teleporting yourself somewhere be harder/more magically intensive than, say generating a bolt of electricity? And if so, then Herbert’s is less a place where you have have to check your six shooters, and more like a place where you have to trade your assault rifle for a derringer.
malakim2099:
Fool! You would dare insult DOOM!? The magnanimity of Latveria’s lord and master is without bounds and in his infinite wisdom, he understands that waiters and their ilk draw the majority of their income from tips! It is one of the many ways in which he surpasses the skinflint, RICHARDS!
“Not to be rude, but isn’t this just the Center of America from American Gods? Ripping things off so completely is not like you, MGK.”
As noted in the article, it’s a near-univeral trope in magic fiction. It’s like accusing Harry Potter of being a rip-off because the wizards have wands.
Also, there’s a MEXICAN joint called HERBERT’S? I MUST VISIT!
Of course, should DOOM say that he wishes his taquitos with extra sour cream, any mere waiter would be wise to comply lest they face the just consequences for their insubordination!
Re: Doom tipping
So at some point (The emperor Doom plot?) there was one of the Doom – Namor meetings that occur because Namor’s pattern recognition is basically nonexistant. Namor arrives at the restaraunt in a trench coat and fedora. When he gets asked for his reservation – BAM. Laser from off panel. Fries the coat and cap and leaves Namor smoldering. And there’s Doom, chilling at a table with the bread. You have to wonder how many private investigators, hard-nosed detectives, and exhibitionists that he lasered into oblivion before he got the one that was Namor.
So what I’m getting at is that the guy that casually lasers people in restaraunts probably gets a good deal of meals on the house.
It seems a little convenient that the least magical place on earth happens to be located in the United States, and in New Jersey in particular. One would think that the placement of these magical dead zones would be more or less random.
Perhaps the absolutely least magical place on Earth can actually be found at a patch of ocean off the coast of Antartica, and Herbert’s simply happens to be the most convenient magical dead zone for magicians living in North America.
Yeah, I love the idea and the delivery, but the location is all wrong. You’ve got half a dozen major historical landmarks and another half dozen sports stadiums within a two hour drive of anything in Jersey. You can’t tell me the Liberty Bell, the Empire State Building, and Atlantic City don’t all have some major juice pumping through them.
If you’re looking for a dead zone (with sub-par Mexican), you’d be better off popping this place up on the tail end of Tennessee or maybe one of the Dakotas or something. Find some interstate highway no one likes (I recommend I-35… I fucking hate I-35) and drop it somewhere along that route.
But I’m just not buying Jersey. I mean, crazy shit happens in New Jersey all the time.
Darn it. This idea makes me want to (a) write up and submit one of my thirty Doctor Strange mini-ideas and (b) get a burrito.
Zifnab Sez: ” If you’re looking for a dead zone (with sub-par Mexican), you’d be better off popping this place up on the tail end of Tennessee or maybe one of the Dakotas or something. Find some interstate highway no one likes (I recommend I-35… I fucking hate I-35) and drop it somewhere along that route.”
May I suggest the western half of Kansas? Seriously, if any of you have ever driven between Kansas City and Denver you know that the back half of Kansas is like the Great American Wasteland. Corn and Wheat for miles, no trees, no hills, no rocks, and the wind ALWAYS blows. And in the summer it’s hot as hell.
RE: Lay lines
Why does it matter that if your near a sports stadium your next to a lay line? Granted I know shit about lay lines, but people = lay lines? How does that add up? I mean it makes more since for them to be strange, random focuses of magical energy. I mean these things have probably been around since the formation of Earth, why should they shift because Bob Millionare builds a corporate eyesore?
“As noted in the article, it’s a near-univeral trope in magic fiction. It’s like accusing Harry Potter of being a rip-off because the wizards have wands.”
Like hell. Ley lines and certain places being more magical than others are noted as a near-universal trope. It then “follows” that there’s less magical places, and the rest of it — a single supremely unmagical location used as neutral ground in the magical world — is presented as an idea. It’s a Center of America rip from top to bottom, right down to using it for a meeting place.
Except that I haven’t gotten around to reading American Gods yet. It and Anansi Boys are on my “to read” stack.
Are the owner’s aware of all this? Or are they continually mystified as to all these guys in capes showing up?
“Except that I haven’t gotten around to reading American Gods yet. It and Anansi Boys are on my “to read” stack.”
Well, you’re going to hate the Center of America part of American Gods then, because you got pipped to the post on this one. Sorry.
There’s a certain “wizards-like-baseball” vibe I’m getting off some of these stories, so it makes sense that stadiums would be built in magically significant places, if for no other reason than wanting a good view from your seat in the Astral Plane right behind home plate.
That, and ley lines tend to converge at geographically significant places. I’ve read a number of books that make the Mississippi, the Amazon, and the Nile magically significant destinations. Even man made landmarks – like the St. Louis Gateway or the Seattle Sky Needle or the Egyptian Pyramids – tend to mark magical points of interest. Large populations of people and their stadiums tend to be located close by.
Oh yawn. Why don’t you go throw a fit about MGK even using the Dr. Strange character idea to begin with? ZOMG! He’s been in, like, a thousand comic books already. What a total rip off?
I mean, he openly stated that his three apprentices idea was a direct homage to House. And the “someone is stealing blue” idea he lead off with didn’t just fall out of the sky either. Hell, I don’t think I’ve read a single posting yet I’d describe as 100% Grade-A never-heard-that-before. Oh no! The “Path in Winter” is such a total rip off of an Arete Quest from Mage: the Ascension! Oh no! Insect aliens is such a total rip off of D&D’s Formians and Xill. Oh no! Nyarlathotep is a direct rip off of Nyarlathotep! Hell’s bells! Stop the presses!
No one cares about your whiny crap.
“Except that I haven’t gotten around to reading American Gods yet. It and Anansi Boys are on my “to read” stack.”
Great minds think alike, eh?
More on ley lines:
I’ve skimmed the wiki on ley lines (sorry for the constant misspelling in the other post) and from what that says, if you believe in the New Age take on ley lines, then cities pop up around ley lines because of there existence. Simplify because a lot of big buildings are there doesn’t mean a ley line HAS to be there, it’s just more likely. Plus, how do we know how expansive the ley line is? Let’s say Manhattan has a lay line, why is it so powerful that you can feel it outside of Newark? Maybe it’s only as wide as 5th Avenue. Or maybe the lines are laid out in such a way that Herbert’s is completely missed in the crossover. That’s one of the reasons skeptics give for the unbelievable nature of ley lines. There’s no definitive map of them. So if you just want to draw a much of lines across a map and call them ley lines no one can say otherwise.
The ideas of ley lines (and their relative scarcity/abundance) is also the underlying source of magic in Robert Asprin’s MYTH Adventures series. Ley lines have been around a long time, and other writers have had similar ideas. Doesn’t mean it’s theft. A thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters will eventually write Marvel Apes, it doesn’t mean they read it to begin with.
Also, MGK, get on reading those two books. There’s no excuse for any geek to not have read all of Gaiman’s work, especially the good stuff.
There are plenty of excuses, most notably the fact that Gaiman has crapped out one or two major turds. Did you read “Whatever Happened To the Caped Crusader”? My god, what dreck.
Blarg: “There’s no excuse for any geek to not have read all of Gaiman’s work…”
Should I do: over 100 novels and several hundred comics I have to read first.
GRRRRR. I can’t spell today. That should say “Sure I do.” Damn it.
“Did you read “Whatever Happened To the Caped Crusader”?”
No. Skimmed it though. All I can say is Gaiman is no Moore. They should have done it 20 years ago for it to be really relavent. And I think the idea that Alfred as the Joker to keep Batman from turning into a hermatic nutter is an interesting idea. Isn’t it all out of continuity anyway?
I don’t know from Gaiman, but to me, this is a very Stan Lee concept.
And I mean that in a good way.
Wizards love to watch vampires play baseball.
My copy of American Gods was the first signed on the tour, and I’d met Neil two days before. I just re-read it last summer (and liked it better than the first time, when I hadn’t thought too highly of it). Andrew: your qualm with the idea is the whole point, and I think it’s less akin to the idea that HP ripped off wizards with wands, and more along the lines of wizards in boarding schools tropes. Just like Rowling didn’t rip off Gaiman’s Books of Magic, and just like Star Wars is just the hero myth fully executed. Calling this a rip-off is a bit like calling Dumbledore a rip-off of Yoda.
Not to mention that your accusation is misguided. This is quite obviously Brad’s idea. Didn’t you read the first paragraphs?
MGK, considering your to-read list: Anansi Boys is the better start. It’s a great, near-perfect novel.
That said, Zifnab’s totally right about Jersey. Nailed dead to rights.
I think the owners would have to know about how their restaurant functions in the magical community. They’d need to be like Switzerland: informed, but neutral.
“All I can say is Gaiman is no Moore”
Thank GOD for that. That’s like pointing at a politician and saying “You, sir, are certainly no Benito Mussolini!”
Brick HardCheese: I mainly meant that Man of Tomorrow is better then Caped Crusader, but I know where your going.
@Zifnab (re: New Jersey’s magicalness): No, no, see, where you’re going wrong is picturing the ley lines as highways and not going to the logical conclusion. There are lots of places in America that are considered far away from civilization because they’ve got no highways anywhere near them, but those tend to be nice, farm-y kinds of places with their own intrinsic farm-y value. If you want real, honest hellhole status, where civilization is only a distant blip on the horizon, try an underpass in a big city.
Which is to say: Herbert’s actively has the magic sucked out of it by the physically improbable electromagnet that surrounds it, just like the hobo who lives under 101 North is always trying to tell me happened to him.
While we’re mentioning ley lines, can we get a story where Dr. Strange investigates Disney World to see if it truly is ‘the most magical place on Earth’?
I’m partly interested to see the mysterious origin of Walt Disney’s occult practices, but I mostly just wanna see Dr. Strange ride the tea cups.
Suburban New Jersey is probably not the least magical part of America, much less the world. Somewhere on the Great Plains, probably. Which is also more likely to have white-people Mexican restaurants than New Jersey, which has a lot of Mexican people.
Since Herbert’s isn’t unmagical enough to prevent teleports, it doesn’t need to be within a train ride of New York City.
It’s not exactly the case that Herbert’s has no ley lines anywhere nearby. Rather, Herbert’s is at the heart of a Mundane Singularity, which causes ley lines to warp and bend around it, much like a black hole warps light from nearby objects.
The adjoining office park, which hosts several office supply trade journals, and no fewer than six debt collection agencies, is doubtless the real culprit.
It’s not exactly the case that Herbert’s has no ley lines anywhere nearby. Rather, Herbert’s is at the heart of a Mundane Singularity, which causes ley lines to warp and bend around it, much like a black hole warps light from nearby objects.
Fine, say it better than me. 😛
Emma: Hey, you both explained it better then I did.
RobotKeaton: “see Dr. Strange ride the tea cups.”
I want to see Riley Brown draw this.
“The adjoining office park, which hosts several office supply trade journals, and no fewer than six debt collection agencies, is doubtless the real culprit.”
Don’t forget the payday loans!
If you cn find it Neil Gaiman’s work on Miracleman is probably least read and most underaprreciated work. Great idea for the Doctor Strange, buta good idea for a series would be Deadpool working at Herbets’. Because every place like Herberts’ needs a heavy to keep the peace. Also would Herbert happen to be an old pedophile who needs a walker to get around?
This idea is awesome, and if I wasn’t already subscribed to your blog’s RSS feed, I would be based on this post alone.
The real ley lines cross in my crotch.
One of his proteges should keep whining about wanting to go there until Strange finally relents and takes them all. Probably Creaky. I can imagine Creaky mistaking the slogan “most magical place on Earth” for an occult statement. Or even if he knew it wasn’t, his alien view of how magic works might make him think that it’s magical simply by saying it is.
Plus, you know… Creaky in Disney World? That has so much story potential.
I’m pretty shocked that we’ve got to 50 comments and no one’s mentioned “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hambergers” (I never figure out how to do links, so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I_Left_Harry's_All-Night_Hamburgers)
It’s pretty much the same idea, except that it’s a diner for extra-dimensional travelers, not a crappy tex-mex plance for wizards. Also, it’s located in West Virginia cause if you’re going to port into Earth-2836 by mistake, one of those post-apolocaptic worlds, no one’s going to take a shot at middle-of-nowhere WV.
It’s also got nice gimmick I’d like to see incoporated in this idea: An unflappable owner who has to figure out how make change from Next-Earth-Over currency (Herbert: That’s the ES-Pecilaity de la Casa, and a deep-fried ice cream. $16.37. Or 6 seer crystals. No, I won’t take a check. Need a reciept?). I mean, Strange takes a few lunch meetings with visiting beings, right?
And Deadpool is quite fond of Chimichangas. They remind him of the sound of his skull knitting back together.
Apropos of Dr. Strange in Disney World, one of the many pleasures of “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” was driving Strange (in his 1602> garb) around Murderworld in a bumper car.
(and also Strange forgetting to properly close markup tags.)
I mean, you can rationalize it any way you want. It just seems kinda silly to make the least magical place on earth within driving distance of at least three major ley line nexus points. It would be like putting a desert in the middle of the ocean. You can wave your hands and make it happen (really big desert island!), but it’s going to make suspension of disbelief just that much harder. Especially after the whole proximity to ley lines as an explanation.
If MGK wants to just fiat this place as a magical dead zone and drop the ley line explanation, go nuts. It’s magic. It just doesn’t flow for me from the build up.
Given the chance, I’d tackle this concept from a slightly different angle. I’d tell the story from the point of view of the people who work at the restaurant, while showing the various conversations between more well-known characters happening in the background. It could even overlap with ongoing stories, simply telling select moments from a less often seen prospective.
Stressfactor said on April 24th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
“May I suggest the western half of Kansas?”
May I suggest Garden City, Kansas?
I even have a good catch. Garden City actually has a lot of Mexicans (43-44% Hispanic), but that doesn’t stop Herbert from opening his heavily Americanized Mexican food.
So, who would eat Herbert’s inauthentic offerings with so much authentic food available? A wizard did it.
I can imagine the interns causing real trouble here.
Western Kansas is certainly a desolate wasteland (I can say that, I’m a Kansan) but putting something that’s already similar to the Center from AG in the same state is just asking for trouble. It’s not hard to find other flat prairie wastes. Oklahoma, eastern Colorado, parts of Nebraska or Montana….
I live in the desert southwest, and I can tell you we have plenty of white boy mexican joints here. Real Mexican population doesn’t mean they are running all the restaurants in an area.
I think that what Zifnab was getting at is that the better parts of human civilization tend to thrive in the presence of ley lines while a lack of ley lines tends to discourage creative thought and even joy. Thus, monuments, art centers, and even sports stadiums tend to grow at their junctures. That doesn’t preclude a dead zone, though. Ever heard of a Faraday cage? Properly configured, running current through a structure prevents signals from entering or exiting.
Oh, I don’t know…I think if you’ve got a place where a whole crazy bunch of ley-lines intersect with improbable density (like Doc’s Sanctum, let’s say for the sake of argument), you might expect some relatively nearby zone to be swept pretty free of them — the lines that might have intersected there in the normal course of events instead being all clumped up a few miles away.
Sounds plausible enough to me. Pseudo-mathematical, even.
Have any of you guys read/played Unknown Armies (the tabletop RPG)? its kinda based on Tim Power… anyway this is more of a UA idea then a Dr Strange idea. They’ve got a loose group of mages who all work at McDonalds, give out random magic in Happy Meals, and stopped the Y2K bug
also: http://www.weirdnj.com
i love the whole ‘places of power in historically signifcant areas’ thing but i think Gaiman/Powers magic dosen’t really fit in with over the top insane Dr Strange magic
Thanks for the inclusion, MGK. I appreciate it.
I placed the restaurant (originally called “Taco Cabeza” after a joke in the TV show “Breaking Bad”) in Jersey City, which is pretty darn close to NYC, which is supposed to be super-duper magical. Why? If you’ve ever been to Jersey City, you’d instantly recognize it as the least magical place on Earth.
If it helps, forget Ley Lines and instead think of magical potential as bumps in the fabric of the world. NYC is a huge spike in magic that creates a pit right next to it. (Or maybe the pit in Jersey City created the spike in NYC — whatever.) Really, we’re deep, deep into handwaving territory here.
The two reasons to put The Least Magical Place on Earth in a cheap Mexican restaurant in Jersey City (or twenty miles away from Newark, whatever) are the only two reasons that should matter when creating a “Doctor Strange” story.
First, for dramatic effect — the contrast,
proximity, and ridiculousness of the site recommend it strongly as a story tool. “The most magical places on Earth” are always grand, dramatic vistas loaded with history, both magnificent and horrible. Thus, as an obvious reversal, such a site’s opposite should be as quotidian as possible. Dull. Depressing, even. Since Doc stories are human-focused, that means that the site couldn’t simply be a dull, natural craphole. It’d have to be a man-made eyesore of no special meaning.
Second, Wong loves tacos, and it’s best to stay on Wong’s good side. Dude will end you if you get between him and a platter of Herbert’s chicken tacos.
The Taco Hut’s believability and acceptability in a Doc story would be directly tied to how good the story is that invokes it. If the first story with “Herbert’s Taco Hut” were a modern classic, few readers would give a rat’s heinie why it was the way it was. It’d be accepted as part of the regular Doc mythos. If the story stank, no matter how well it fit into “magical logic,” the setting would tank and people would find reasons to hate it.
PS — I’ve never read Gaiman’s novels, but, as others have pointed out, this is a very obvious idea. It’s a simple reversal of a common Doctor Strange story element, and I don’t think it’s been done in a Doc story before. Plus, mmm, tacos.
Sounds fun…reminds me of the bar from the Dresden Files.
…I was all set to demand that Herbert’s Taco Hut be replaced with Giovanni’s Pizza in Milford, PA because I just really want to see Dr. Strange and (House, MD style) Co. + Defenders + Dr. Doom have a really tense dinner of delicious homemade pizza and delicious homemade vanilla ice cream while Wong and the Night Nurse try to keep the peace. (Night Nurse is chauffering, because obviously: no magic transportation.) Also, I lived there this one time. Milford, that is, not Giovanni’s. It was pretty epic.
Plus. How nerdy-as-shit would it be to have Dr. Doom stop into the Frazetta museum in PA? PRETTY DAMN.
Then I remembered Newark, NJ makes me feel a little like dying, so I concede that anywhere best described as “just outside of Newark” really has nothing going for it at all. Besides magical superheroes eating tacos in costume, that is.
All of you need to stop hating on Newark! I live in North Dakota. NoDak makes Newark look like a haven of culture and sophistication.
I would have chosen Beyonne NJ, for it’s connection to Marvel history…but Newark is good.
Why do the online pharmacies love Herbert’s Tacos so much?
It’s not that Herbert’s is really devoid of magic. It is away from most of the ley lines, & seems to have an inhibitor of most conjuration. But what makes it so good as a meeting place is that while offensive magic & divination mostly don’t work there; there is one intermittent flash line that runs nearby, allowing a mage to teleport out but not for his destination to be consistently trackable.
Finding another spot with such a low magical potential isn’t that hard. Finding one with this particular combination of restrictions is quite rare, & neither the interior of an avionics factory in Wichita nor an auto body shop in the Shi’Ar galaxy, to give a couple of known examples in temperate climes, is as appealing as a place where they expect human customers.
I’m just thinking about the normie side of this whole situation. I figure the most amusing way to play it would be to have most or all of the staff and normal customers ridiculously and *willfully* oblivious to what their witnessing. Like they see somebody levitate a bottle of ketchup and their reaction isn’t “what did I just see?” it’s “fuck this shit I don’t care I’m going home in 10 minutes”, and then like refusing to acknowledge it happened unless somebody drags it out of them.
The staff reaction to the costumes would be something like in a denny’s next to an anime convention: Mocking disdain mitigated by indifference.
And I want the ley line that would permit teleportation out to be in the bathroom, so when somebody on the wrong side of a grudge sees Doom walk in, they all up jump from their steaming burritos at once and make a break for the restroom. Really I just like the idea of high level magical beings sneaking out through the bathroom.
These are all horrible ideas for what mgk is going for with this pitch (which really is a great one, btw). Really, they’re more deadpool joke ideas than anything.
I’ve just recently started reading your 30 reasons you should write Dr. Strange, and I’m really enjoying it. I stopped to reply because of the picture in the post. Herbert’s Taco Hut is a local landmark in San Marcos, Texas. http://goo.gl/maps/xHNhF.
It has some of the best Tex-Mex food and strongest margarita’s around. They also have a wall covered in photographs of famous and semi-famous people. I think it is hilarious to imagine all those photos replaced by pictures of sorcerers and wizards.
[…] me as a reasonable man as well as being chock-full of good comics ideas (although probably the most intriguing comic idea he ever presented was a collaboration), but I have no doubt in my mind that he means it when he says in panel number […]