Watch “The Kill Corporation”

Property of Dynamic Range Media

Sadly I am unable to think of any seasonally appropriate scary/creepy things to post today (I am saving all of my Halloween material about dreams and nightmares for next week!). Therefore I am dedicating today’s post to hyping my friend’s visionary online TV project! My friend, Dan, is a gifted director in Hollywood who has crafted several online TV programs. The first of these shows is a whole series of mini-webisodes which portray a terrifying near-future dystopia of…wait, actually I will tell you about the action-packed series shortly; first let me explain Dan’s business idea.

Business before ultraviolence…

Dan believes that in the near future there will be no broadcast or cable television:   programming will be accessed directly through the internet (indeed, most of the people I know under thirty already get their programs this way). He therefore decided to sidestep the nightmarish business of pandering to sharklike Hollywood producers and make his own content directly for the web.

The web likes original content!

Although moving to the web gave Dan and his team endless freedom, it also imposed its own severe limits, since they had to make their first program with a shoestring budget. I mean this literally—Dan had the pecuniary resources for string for shoes. This tiny production budget had to cover cameras, props, professional actors, settings, lights, costumes, special effects, catering, stunts…everything.

Hmm…

Dan’s first program has to work so that he can get more funding for the amazing programs to come. He thus constructed this first show “The Kill Corporation” to appeal to very broad tastes. This is a savage world of primary colors, ruthless characters, and non-stop action.

The Kill Corporation takes place in the business world of tomorrow. Litigation and internecine office politics have been replaced by “terminal arbitration” a swift and final method of conflict resolution carried out by the eponymous third party corporation. Parties involved in arbitration are understandably desperate to win their disputes and they cajole the arbitrators with every manner of blandishment. Some arbitrators chafe under this corrupt scheme—or become generally lost—and the main way to solve such problems is, of course,  more arbitration.

Pictured: Schlubs

This works out as you would imagine with unlikable corporate schlubs desperately bumping each other off in hopes of moving up the hierarchy of their own horrible organization. Painted with the vivid expressionistic lines of classic farce, The Kill Corporation transcends its genre to project a satirical vision of humankind’s eternal inability to administrate anything without producing a bloodbath.

Be forewarned, the website for the series is located within the fictional world of the show. While this means you can’t actually purchase terminal arbitration as billed—it also means you can participate in fun online games and hijinks!

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The Wombat

Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus)

It’s the final day of Furry Mammal Herbivore week which has so far featured two different lagomorphs, one rodent, and the enigmatic hyrax. To mix things up a bit we are ending with a marsupial–the stolid wombat.  The wombat’s unusual moniker comes from the Eora language which was spoken by the Aboriginal people who originally inhabited the Sidney area. There are three species of wombats and all are powerful burrowing herbivores which are active mostly at twilight and at night.  Wombats are marsupials but the openings of  their pouches face backwards to prevent dirt from getting inside as they dig.  Although wombats are not often seen, their presence can be identified by the many burrows which they excavate and by their distinctive cubic scat which looks like bouillon cubes (you’ll have to look it up on your own).

Wombat physiognomy betwrays their close relation to koalas.

Wombats are larger than this week’s other herbivores, reaching nearly a meter (3 feet) in length.  Although they are preyed on by dingos and Tasmanian Devils, their large muscles and heavy claws give them some protection (as does their tailless haunch which is composed largely of dense cartilage).   A predator following a wombat into a burrow is confronted not only with the shield-like flesh of their rear-quarters but also with fearsome donkey kicks from their powerful back legs.  Wombats are never far from their burrows since they construct up to 12 at various spots around their territory.  Even if they are related to the dimwitted koalas, wombats are said to have a more complicated brain than other marsupials (although their intelligence in no way approaches that of the brilliant monotreme echidna) and they often surprise trappers and zoologists with their clever evasive thinking.  Additionally, when hard pressed, they can run 100 meters in less than 10 seconds—impressive when one learns the human world record is 9.58 seconds.

Death of a Wombat (Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1869, pen and ink)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painter, poet and weirdo, used the wombat to parody the Victorian taste for overly lugubrious gothic melodrama in his sad drawing “The death of a Wombat” (above).  The drawing shows a plump 19th century gentleman weeping for his deceased wombat friend while declaiming the following lament:

I never reared a young Wombat
To glad me with his pin-hole eye,
But when he most was sweet & fat
And tail-less; he was sure to die!

The work might be a parody but I find the poor dead wombat curiously affecting.  Fortunately all wombats are now protected by Australian law.  Despite such protection, the creatures are still having trouble competing for grazing with cattle, sheep, and above all rabbits.  Hopefully wombats will continue to endure–the endearing little bulldozers are an irreplaceable component of Australia and Tasmania.

Aww!