Jim started digging at the crossroad. He felt heavy, he wasn’t quite sure if it was the pasta or the meat, but eating before coming was probably a bad idea… but it’s not as if he had experience with this stuff.

Once the hole was big enough, he wrapped a silver dollar in one original page of Krazy Kat and buried it in the dirt. Then, he waited.

A fly started to bother him. Hopefully, a sign of success. Maybe, a sign that someone somewhere had received the offerings. Maybe, just a fly.

It was just a fly.

It took a good hour before someone showed up. It was a man, smallish, blond, blue eyes, baseball cap, and military jacket.

“Hi Jim! Happy Monday! Bought something for the wife? Your anniversary is coming up soon!”

Jim had never met the man and was not quite sure what to answer. But it did not really care for an answer.

“The name’s M̵̠̄a̷̯̐m̸͓̀m̴̰͝ȯ̵͚̾͜n̴͔͔͆ , but you can call me mom. Me and the boys discussed and I might have a job for you. You see, I have a project I am really looking forward to. It’s a comic strip, kind of funny, but not really, but it stays in your head afterward. God, does it burrow and dig itself a space in your head… Think of the market opportunity!”

The man had perfect teeth.

“Trust me, I have done that with songs in the past – the Java was great but also kind of limited, you cannot really produce merch around a song – this will be a million times better.

It would be a pretty standard contract: fame and fortune for you, what you love most – plus perks – for me. I would tell you what to draw, how to draw it, and you will never, ever, draw something else. No original work, no one-off comic strip, no glimpses of your soul in between the jokes. Clean corporate material.

Interested? You are going to love the lead character, he is called Garfield…”