Two actor performances in the style of a scene out of a movie.
It is the year 1991, and the villainous, blood-thirsty sadist Tony Caulfield, who pursued our heroes across the globe in the first volume, is only eleven years old, and not a monster. Not yet. Four stories, where psychological horror butts heads with raucous comedy and savage erotica, four stories that unearth the grotesque roots of the mystery that is Maranatha.
Once when Tony was reading his books on the top ledge of the barn, he found Puck, his family's groundskeeper, with a male prostitute. Instead of turning the doberman in, Puck convinced the young cougar to accept a promise of a future favour. Tony's father Troy has become an angry, violent drunk ever since losing his career, and when one night he beats his wife and child for trying to escape into the night, young Tony finally knows what he wants from the the secret-harboring groundskeeper.
Roger Gagnon is a humble Canadian moose happily supporting his wife and two calves with a good job selling oil equipment over the border. But when the United States elects a brash, unstable, immigrant-hating pig as their next President, things rapidly change. Now a simple business trip will turn into a insane, politically-fueled war between the richest nation on Earth and one lone moose just trying to get back to his family.
Gagnon has traveled by train across the American border hundreds of times, and it's all been quite rote. Until today. In his first trip since the new President's anti-immigration orders, the unlucky moose encounters an American pig immigrations officer all too ready to enforce the new laws as he sees fit.
It's supposed to be one of the easiest jobs imaginable for an introvert like Mohammed Wing. It takes years to fly a ship all the way out to Uranus and back, the only place in the solar system that goes as long without any sunlight for so long. It should be just ten years on a state-of-the-art ship playing videogames, eating good food, and letting the computers do the work. Unless a surprise happens, like an alien lifeform arrives.
Partially contractual obligations but mostly on rabbit android Warren's insistence, Mo is pressed into donning his spacesuit and exploring the recently discovered floating remains of an apparently alien starship. Even though scans indicate the ship is abandoned, the beaver is reluctant to be the first Earthling to set foot on an alien vessel. But even if he'd rather hide behind the planet's shadow and forget this discovery, he finds himself fulfilling his contract and exploring the ship.
In a distant solar system, a group of tree-living astronauts were sent out on a mission to find another inhabitable planet for their arboreal way of life. When they returned, they found their planet obliterated. Stranded, the team tries desperately to piece together clues of what happened, and more importantly, find any remnant of their civilization. Low on resources, the crew's odyssey finds them battling despair, mutiny, and dwindling chances of survival. Can they find their home, in a new world, before their search destroys them?
Jinix, after being threatened by Captain Horgrath during their argument, decides to take matters into his own paws. The squirrel starts secretly sowing seeds of distrust in fellow crew members, inciting them into a mutiny. Ta'ina, the ship doctor, has been eating in the galley when Jinix sits down and shares his plan, hoping for her support.
Chicago. 1929. The streets run red with the blood from Al Capony's ruthless gangs, controlling everything from bootleg liquor to state senators. And when he needs the top driver and gunner to do his dirty work - there's no way in hell he'd choose these two bozos. But Tony Provolone is a ferret with a mission to be the best getaway driver for the mob, and the tommygun-toting grizzly bear Vinny Mozzarella will do anything to prove he's got what it takes to be the G-man. Even if they both have to fake it the whole way. When they're marked for an 'early retirement', the two have to put their differences aside and find out who set them up, before they nap with the fishes. Or something like that. Whaddya want, I ain't no college boy!
After getting chewed out by a lieutenant in the mafia for bringing stale lasagna to the gang meeting, the two are sent out on a drive by hit, the target unknown until they open an envelope presumably assigned to them. As they argue, they realize they took another duo's assignment by mistake, and the intended targets make the two very nervous.
Fired from his stock broker job due to stress, Walter Benswar finds the opposite problem of being unemployed and stir crazy while waiting for employment. He begins to question his sanity when he starts hallucinating his apartment neighbors dying in gruesome ways, and not being able to tell if he was committing the murders in a stupor of ennui. Until he hallucinates his OWN death.
Walter, after having been questioned and released by the police department, has apparently awoken to blood on his paws, a carving knife in one of them. He is standing in the apartment of his rabbit neighbor Janice, and her brutally stabbed body at his feet. As he is trying to make sense of it all, he hears the voice that has been giving him his hallucinations. His id-based desires. And now, his murderous rampages.
Roger Gagnon is a humble Canadian moose happily supporting his wife and two calves with a good job selling oil equipment over the border. But when the United States elects a brash, unstable, immigrant-hating pig as their next President, things rapidly change. Now a simple business trip will turn into a insane, politically-fueled war between the richest nation on Earth and one lone moose just trying to get back to his family.
Gagnon has traveled by train across the American border hundreds of times, and it's all been quite rote. Until today. In his first trip since the new President's anti-immigration orders, the unlucky moose encounters an American pig immigrations officer all too ready to enforce the new laws as he sees fit.
Gather ye around, and let me spin the tale of the Mighty Sir Render, the boar knight who singlehandedly ran away from every battle he ever faced, at whom cowards scoff and birds excrement upon! And tell also the tale of the fair Maiden Tiewahn, the exotic red panda princess whose hand in marriage he so desired, but could only attain if he proved his courage! It is a short story, alas...
Sir Render had defeated the ogres that had plagued the town, using nothing but a lucky shot from his bow and arrow to cause an avalanche and crush them. Now the hero of the kingdom, the 'brave Sir Render' finds himself alone with his heart's desire, the beautiful Maiden Tiewahn. But he has one more challenge to overcome! His 'Biggest' one yet!
When a dingo scavenger comes across a wrecked truck in the middle of the outback, he finds an incredible rifle in the cab with a pair of dead kangaroos. But then he finds more than he bargained for as the sole survivor of the crash turns out to be an armadillo gagged and tied up in the back, opening up a mystery for the desert dog.
Sam and Murphy make it out of another kangaroo trap alive by the skin of their teeth. But while the two are unharmed, their relationship take a near fatal blow. Just before they escaped, one of the boomers expressed shock to Murphy when he found out the dingo was helping Sam get away. "Don't you know what we brought him here for?" the roo asked before they fled, leaving Murphy with the nagging feeling Sam isn't the hero he thought. Shortly before the pair met, a dingo chief named Benny was mysteriously killed while standing in his fortified compound. Murphy never knew who killed the deeply loved leader, but he may have found out.