Nanetta hops quite cheerfully into the Apsinthion Device this time around.
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter Three, Page Ten written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
Meanwhile, in the laboratory Ashley Madder couldn’t get into, Nanetta appears about to become the subject of an experiment.
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter Three, Page Eight written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
If neither being a seductress nor a spy will work, perhaps being a stalker will.
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter Three, Page Six written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
Corwin concludes a justly popular lecture.
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter Three, Page Three written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
Perhaps this could be called femme fatale fail.
While Professor Corwin lectures, Nanetta and Moira signal to each other the need for a meeting with him. Ashley seems to be contemplating a different sort of meeting…
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter Three, Page One written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
The “abolitionist program” that Corwin is lecturing about is real, the work of British philosopher David Pearce. You can read about it at his site The Hedonistic Imperative.
…and in the light of day it becomes evident that there are secrets.
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter Two, Page Twenty-four written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
Lon had the good idea of doing a Nanetta Rector pinup, and I added some copy. I think it makes a nice “virtual back cover” for Chapter One.
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter One, Cover written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
And that marks the virtual back page of the Tales of Gnosis College, Volume I, Number 1. We have reached a milestone in this history of this site. The entire chapter is now available on a page of its own, where it reads in a somewhat more logical direction than it would in a series of blog posts.
You can also get Chapter One as a torrent, either as a CBZ (comic book archive) or PDF file. The CBZ is here:
And the PDF is here:
Look for Chapter Two to be coming in April, where Moira Weir starts checking out the strange Professor Corwin. The mad science will be kicking into high gear, and believe me, Lon has already drawn some amazing stuff to represent this. So stay tuned!
Update 20110402 at 1300 GMT: Since Issue #2 is now posting out here at EroticMadScience, Issue #1 is now on its own sub-page here.
Nanetta might feel blissful upon finally getting home, but her roommate Moira now seems worried about what might be going on.
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter One, Page Twenty-One written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
And thus ends Chapter One!
Nanetta realizes that SCIENCE requires decisive action.
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter One, Page Twenty written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
Nanetta ponders in wonderment at the strange spectacle she has just witnessed.
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Apsinthion Protocol Chapter One, Page Nineteen written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)
Now if I were there I would probably be reminding Nanetta of David Hume’s famous remark on the elusiveness of personal identity.
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I call reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me. But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.
—Treatise of Human Nature Pt. IV, Sec. 6.
Or at least I would be so reminding her, once I got the image of Anwei emerging from the pool out of my head. Which might take a while.