I was honored be asked to create a series of boards for Antihero—so excited that I kind of tinkled in my pants a little bit when the box of boards arrived at my house. No dachshunds here. Pigeons: the Antihero mascot (ala Todd Francis). Magnificent, majestic, monstrous pigeons. A note on the title, “The Taal Of The Taube,” since a couple people have asked what it means:
Taal (Dutch) = language.
Taube (German) = pigeon.
Taub (German) = deaf.
A Tale Of A Tub = Jonathan Swift.
I have no idea what any of that means, but it sounded cool at the time.
Ursquabra
The wealthy King prayed to the Gods to send him a sign of their support for his upcoming war. The Gods sent the King a beautiful dancing bear, which he was to sacrifice in their honor, but the greedy King kept the beautiful bear for himself and instead sacrificed a goat thinking the Gods wouldn’t notice. They noticed. To punish the greedy King, the Gods made his lovely daughter Paloma fall madly in love with the bear. Shortly after their unholy union, Paloma delivered the monster Ursquaba into the world. The filthy flying beast with a bear’s head has a ferocious appetite with only one objective: to eat the rich.
Jägermeister, The Magical Fairy Stag
The Jägermeister was hunting in the woods when he came upon the virgin goddess Fartemis who was bathing near the shore of a large, dark lake. The young hunter was smitten by the goddess’ naked body as she frolicked in the waters, and he was transfixed by the sounds of her beautiful white buttocks that were farting, flapping, quaking, quacking, barking, burping, poofing, pooting, grumbling, rumbling, rattling, roaring, blowing, belching, stinking, sneezing, coughing, clapping, grunting, gurgling, squeaking, steaming, tooting, saluting, and just generally being flatulent. As he stood on the bank completely enthralled, Fartemis caught him watching her. For profaning her virginity and listening to her Sacred Southern Songs, Fartemis turned the Jägermeister into a Magical Fairy Stag, which was promptly dragged to the bottom of the licorice black lake by a Banshee Octopus. Together they feast on the blood of passing hunters in their underwater grotto and occasionally distribute swords to Kings with Certified Divine Lineage.
The Circusfixion
A circus came to town. Its ring leader was the Carpenter Pigeon, a foolish street performer well known for his dubious miracles and bizarre parables about fat men in red suits, bunny rabbits that lay eggs, and endless stories about ghosts and demons that frightened the children. The local authorities didn’t like the cut of his jib, so they arrested him for hijacking a mythology and circusfixed him to an iron cross in the center ring of his very own 666-Ring Inferno at the top of a mountain. Three days after his death, the Carpenter Pigeon gave himself a resurrection erection, turned into a Zombie, and then was promptly abducted by Aliens who have probed him in his Holy Black Hole at the edge of the Event Horizon for Eternity. Amen.
Squabzilla vs. Eaglejira
Squabzilla, a giant prehistoric mutant pigeon that was resurrected by nuclear testing off the coast of Paris, laid her eggs in an empty nest atop a very tall French mountain. Eaglejira, also a giant prehistoric monster reawakened by radiation, was like, “Nuh-uh, bitch, that’s my nest!” And then Eaglejira let fly her war cry, “E Pluribus Unum!” and fired a fiscal nuclear la$er bomb out of her beak. The shot narrowly missed the pigeon and blew up behind her. Eaglejira’s economic bomb cost so much money that it caused the stock market to crash and forced Eaglejira into a Great Depression. The victory went to Squabzilla, who safely hatched a whole flock of mutant pigeon chicks that all became artists and poets who wore berets and they lived happily ever after.
The Great Statue Rebellion
During the Great Statue Rebellion, sculptures, effigies, figurines, carvings, bronzes, graven images, busts, heads, etc. from around the world rose up and revolted against pigeons and other fowl that had been defecating on their heads for thousands of years. They even wrote up a “Declaration Of Incontinence” which claimed they had “certain unalienable Rights Of Idolization,” which included the right “to stand majestically on a base in a park, or in front of a government building, without being covered in caca, poo-poo, doo-doo, dung, poop, diarrhea, crap, shit, scat, waste, manure, dumps, droppings, dookies, turds, feces, and excrement.” The rebellion was, of course, a complete failure and pigeons continue to shit in the eyes of heroes everywhere, every day.
War Pigeon 18
Pigeons fought extensively on both sides during WW1 and WW2, and amassed an abundance of decorations for their bravery, but not many know that War Pigeons were regarded as an elite class of fearsome warriors in ancient times. One famous War Pigeon, who comes to us from the fifth century Visigoths, was known simply as “18.” There is historical evidence that 18 may have contributed to the sacking of Rome in 410 AD. One surviving text, a Visigoth exaltation of 18, suggests that this powerful Pigeon was beheld as some sort of demon with great power, or even a descendant of the Moon: “Rise Prince Of Darkness, and take flight upon blackened wings. O Holy War Pigeon, Son of Moon, rain death upon our enemy, and drown his cities in crimson horrors, lay his lands to waste, and smite his children in a storm of blood. Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of this Beast, for it is a poultry number, it is the sum of six, six, and six: 18.”