Real Stuff: Death of a Junkie

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The first four frames of this comic (not including the title) are almost exactly how about half the episodes of MacGyver started.

It is too bad they dumped the body. His family will never get closure.

I like the variety of artwork in this series.

Poor Squirrel! Maybe a hiker or ranger found his corpse before the coyotes.

I’m starting to see these comics as a majorly awesome thing (instead of just pretty cool). There is a real world out there beyond your screens. E is sharing things you wouldn’t comprehend as feasible…when really they are what most of your entertainment is based on…situations like these that happen all the time outside of your comfy bubble of awareness. I applaud these comics. Now I never saw any junkies get dumped in a ravine, but people come and go man…

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Well, except that he’s making up a good bit of it.

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what? no, the title is real stuff. he can’t be making any of it up. it’s clearly all true.

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YES! And it’s always an expo or something! http://rdanderson.com/macgyver/location/location1.htm

See? If we just stick to polite topics like the criminal disposal of dead drug addicts, no one needs to get hurt, and we can just enjoy some good old fashioned fun.

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Let’s hope (that it’s made up).

It’s repugnant that Eichhorn’s concern, upon seeing the corpse, is: completing his pot purchase and getting out of there. And that he doesn’t follow up. There’s a family out there that will have a forever “missing” relative.

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I’ve spent a lot of time in the real world beyond my screen, and I don’t think it’s any major accomplishment to witness horrible and depressing things. It’s not hard to hang out on the corner, make friends with strung-out sociopaths, and then watch the horrible things that people do to each other. I don’t know why finding a group of folks who don’t care enough about themselves or other people to even report a corpse is more real than avoiding that kind of scene. If you think this story is awesome instead of just pretty cool, spend a month at a shelter and get to know the folks who would do anything for a buck. Things will be very real.

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That’s true of just about every raconteur that you’ve ever heard.

Christ, what an asshole.

There has not been a single comic by this guy that has made him seem remotely likeable or empathetic, and the tale is generally about being a big man around scumbags.

Hahaha sure is funny when some human being (junkie or not) gets treated like trash.

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My guess is your feeling of repugnance is expected and desired.

These comics would have much less power (to entertain or to outrage, or both) if instead of Real Stuff they were called Fake Ironic Stuff. (Most if not all of these stories are almost too heavily larded with irony.)

And I don’t think there’s much doubt that many of these stories are either fiction or heavily fictionalized, and this particular one certainly has the ring of fiction at least for me. After one story dealing with a string of killings, a bunch of people looked into it and could find not one shred of evidence to indicate the story was connected to real events. So right there you have at least one work of fiction, and a clue that the other stories should be taken with a grain of salt.

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"There has not been a single comic by this guy that has made him seem remotely likeable or empathetic, "

True, and probably not a coincidence or accident. Sounds like the intentional creation of a consistent character.

“Hahaha sure is funny when some human being (junkie or not) gets treated like trash.”

What makes you think it’s supposed to be funny? I see this story as tragedy, and almost certainly fictional, though surely the Real Stuff title is meant to sow the seed of doubt (maybe it is true?) and compound the reader’s sense of horror at this asshole’s life.

Boo Hoo. I would have grabbed my weed and got the fuck out of there too. It’s not like he knew the guy.

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Sure, except that a lot of readers seem to be under the illusion that he’s telling the truth just because he says so. I think it’s important to correct that. Espresso pointed out the serial-killer story with no real-world evidence; the other big one is “Het,” which is basically a clueless straight bigot’s fantasy of what he thinks gay culture might be like.

That’s the one thing I’ll say for the guy. I don’t believe you’re supposed to like fictional!Eichhorn. You’re supposed to think he’s a scumbag.

I think real!Eichhorn’s real bigotry shines through in “Het!”, though, and I’m not really interested in overlooking that.

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I don’t think it’s funny at all. This story is tragic - but all of Eichorn’s comics I have read so far have been tragic, but not in the way intended.

Tragic for his self concept, tragic for his attitude towards women, tragic for the space it takes up here.

If you accept that the “Dennis Eichhorn” character in these comics is a fictional alter ego, and that you’re not supposed to like him, can you really infer that this is a true reflection of the real-world Dennis Eichhorn’s attitude toward women and his overall self-concept?

It could be so, but it could also be that he’s taking some real incidents and imagining what might have happened had his basest, most shameful instincts taken over – the kind of base, shameful instincts we all have (unfettered greed, cowardice, self-preservation above all, vengefulness, etc.), but most of us never give free rein. In that light, it would simply be an exploration of a man’s darkest thoughts, not a reflection of the kind of man he really is. In literature, this is common as dirt.

I don’t know how much is true and how much is made up in “Het”, just like the rest of the stories.

I also don’t know how that one in particular reveals his true bigotry. It could just as easily be him building a story by asking “now what if I’d been a terrible asshole in that situation?”