The Truckula Trilogy - From the Casebook of ‘Moondog’ Mendez

 (originally published 29th of April, 2019)

Introduction (1). Of all the wild adventures of Mike ‘Moondog’ Mendez, the most revered, even to this day, are his battles against the Vampire Big Rig, Truckula. Originally conceived by series writer Sam Berger as a throwaway satire of the whole trucker/CB Radio fad with a sly aside about the oil crisis thrown in for good measure, it nonetheless became one of the most well-regarded issues of the series. Berger resisted returning to the character for years, finally doing writing a follow-up three years later. Fans would have to wait nearly ten years for the third, as the ‘Moondog’ series was cancelled in 1980 amidst acrimonious clashes between the eccentric and strong-willed Berger and an increasingly restrictive editorial staff. There was apparently considerable resentment of the degree of autonomy Berger had been given by previous editorial teams. In mid 1980, Berger left the company altogether to take up work in animation. This proved a godsend as, in 1987, with their differences resolved, the company gave Berger another chance to work on Moondog, with a six-issue miniseries. Having had considerable dealings with both marketing execs and toy company people, he was in an ideal position to satirize them in a third Truckula story (2).

‘Moondog’ #18 (1975) - ‘Hell Haunts the Highways!’ The story opens with our hero is working on another dead-end acting gig on a Z-grade movie. Out in the desert Northwest of LA, shooting has begun on the Werewolf Western, ‘Tin Stars and Silver Bullets’ (3), and the shoot is behind schedule. Several loads of gear being shipped up from LA have gone missing, and Moondog is roped in to investigate.

The Title Screen for 'Tin Stars & Silver Bullets' (1975)

After encounters with the proprietors of a local roadside diner and truck stop, who share blood-curdling tales of the open road, he investigates a series of strange ‘car accidents’ along the highway with a pair of local highway patrolmen. He gets the sense that the cops are hiding something, and there’s an implication that some of the locals know something, but more powerful forces in local law enforcement have a vested interest in keeping things quiet. Eventually, he is led to a local hermit and prospector who tells him the terrible tale of a monstrous truck with an insatiable lust for fuel, that haunts this stretch of highway by night, but before the hermit can complete his tale... Truckula Attacks! Soundly defeated in his first encounter with the Vampire Truck, Moondog returns to the film set to consider his options on to find it in an uproar. The cast and crew are revolting against the director because nobody wants to take the highway out to the shooting location, leaving everyone low on “extremely necessary” luxuries (4). At an impasse, Moondog contacts Professor Dundee for advice and the two try and figure out how you can find, much less stop a Vampire Truck. Eventually, they manage to discover Truckula’s lair inside an old automotive graveyard (where else?) and make a plan to defeat him once and for all! Recruiting the film’s technical crew, they transform the graveyard into a trap, siphoning all the oil from all the cars and draining the reserves. Unfortunately, this takes too long and, as night falls, Truckula awakens and Moondog has to keep him busy while everyone else gets into place. The battle drains Truckula’s tank and he’s desperately trying to escape the graveyard and get back on the highway when a car appears. Pouncing on it, he attempts to drain it dry... but the trap is sprung. The car’s an experimental prototype created by Professor Dundee and designed to run on Solar Power. “Well,” remarks Moondog, “That’s one way to take down a gas-guzzler!” The solar energy reduces Truckula to rusted scrap and his chassis is disposed of in the graveyard’s car crusher (5).

‘Moondog’ Giant-Sized Annual #5 (1978) - ‘The Brides of Truckula!’ Out in the desert near to where Truckula was defeated, an antisocial eccentric runs what he charitably calls a ‘Roadside Museum of Curiosities’ (which is more like a big yard full of tacky crap). One day, while scavenging for more ‘exhibits’ for his museum, he discovers the remains of Truckula in the old auto graveyard and brings it back with him. While cleaning the rusted metal cube, he cuts himself and Truckula Lives Again! (6) Weakened after his near-death experience, Truckula lacks the strength to hunt, and relies upon the Curator to provide for him in return for the Curator’s heart’s desire. The Curator answers immediately that he wants a Bride, for what does it profit a man to rule over All Of This, but with no-one to share his kingdom with.

"All of This!" (7)

Truckula uses vampiric fascination to draw potential Queens to the musuem - truck stop waitresses, short-order cooks, park rangers, etc... - but each time, they are found wanting and become mind-controlled Priestesses for the Curator’s Temple of Treasures. Moondog comes looking when the niece of one of the Ring of Solomon goes missing, last seen along a disturbingly familiar set of highway. He heads out, discovering the same mix of superstitious hysteria and official ineptitude and obstruction as before, while slowly becoming aware of a substantial number of missing women over the last month or so.

Eventually, Moondog tracks down the Curator, dressed in his full ‘High Priest of Trash’ regalia (8), who has finally found his true Bride, and is about to be joined in unholy matrimony (with Truckula presiding) with his Queen of Kitsch. Moondog’s got to try and bust up the wedding while being attacked by a host of whiffle bat, rubber-chicken, totem-tennis pole and lawn-dart wielding mind-controlled ‘Priestesses’ and defeat the Curator, all without harming anyone! ‘Moondog’ Vol.2 #4 (of 6) (1987) - ‘The Return of Truckula!’(9) Largely retired at this point, Moondog is contacted by a toy company executive about the possibility of working as a spokesman at a big Toy Fair. Needing quick cash, he reluctantly agrees on the basis that it’ll be ‘easy work’. Turning up at the venue, he discovers the product he’s promoting is ‘Monster Trucks’, a toy line the company is hoping will be picked up by an animation company for a Saturday Morning Cartoon. Basically a cross between Public Domain Movie Monsters and ‘Transformers’, the range includes a series of toy vehicles including the heroic Van Helsing and Mini Harker, and bad guys Tankenstein, The Hatchback of Notre Dame, The Creature from the Black Saloon and... Truckula?(10)

From the people who brought you 'Dinosorcerers', 'Skate Robots' and 'Piratical!'

Moondog is freaked out by this and seeks out the Toy Company president, a 27 year old kid who believes Moondog is just a self-promoter who exaggerated and made-up most of his ‘adventures’ (11). What’s more, as a marketing ploy, the company has made a number of Limited Edition ‘Monster Trucks’ Toys incorporating metal from the original Truckula! Chaos ensues as the cursed metal activates and... Truckula Lives Again... AGAIN! (‘Evil... on an Unprecedented Scale!’) After an extended fight with a bunch of vengeful and murderous toys, Moondog is beaten, battered, bruised and technically in breach of his contract with the toy company. He manages to recover and secure the cursed Truckula fragments, and the company ends up spinning the fight as a publicity stunt and making a stack of cash at the Trade Fair. Moondog, of course, sees not a penny of it.

* * * * * * * * * * 

(1) Like so many characters, Truckula has a weirdly obscure ‘secret origin’. We were about to start a new Supers RPG set in Europe with the team being a kind of ‘European Union’ of Superheroes. One character I considered but rejected was a trio of French Super-Spies who could join forces to form a single superpowered gestalt being I called ‘Tricoleur’. One of the other players said, “Truckula? What, like a vampire truck?” And I replied, “No... but now I have to do that!”

(2) A lot of this is based on the real career of Steve Gerber, who left Marvel acrimoniously due to issues with new Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter and a lawsuit over ownership of Howard the Duck. He moved to LA and did indeed work in animation. Later, he was coaxed back to do another Howard miniseries.

(3) One of Moondog’s biggest assets was also his biggest problem. As an actual werewolf, many of the people who wanted him in their movies were the sort of people who only wanted him in their movies so they could cut their special effects budget.

(4) In the metafiction, Sam Berger had grown up in LA, with a family who had substantial show-business connections. As a result, he had plenty of ammo when it came time to lampoon petulant, entitled and weird Hollywood types.

(5) The original story started out as an absurdist parable on the oil crisis and America’s reliance on fossil fuels. Berger was an early adopter of solar technology and even back in the 70’s, saw it as the wave of the future.

(6) Despite Truckula’s unexpected popularity, Berger resisted any and all attempts to bring back Truckula for the sake of bringing him back. It was never enough just to have a vampire truck - it had to have something to say. As a result, when he did his second, long-awaited Truckula sequel, the vampire truck spent 90% of the story as an inert cube of rust, a supporting character in his own story. Berger got the idea for ‘the Brides of Truckula’ when he happened across the idea of giving Truckula a ‘Renfield’ analogue. As he’d just returned from a driving trip around the Southwest, it was a simple matter to translate Renfield’s lust for the lives of small animals, to the Curator’s obsession with discarded trash.

(7) This image is actually of the ‘Cathedral of Junk’, in Austin TX.

(8) Berger had always had a fascination with modern cults, dabbling in several, including Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius himself, and based the Curator and his Priestesses on the bomb worshippers in ‘Beneath the Planet of the Apes’ (1970) and the Family in ‘The Omega Man’ (1971). He returned to these themes with the ‘EVOL’ & ‘ETAH’ stories.

(9) After a change in editorial, Berger was lured back to write an all-new ‘Moondog’ mini-series in the late 80’s. After a decade in LA during the height of the 80’s, he had plenty to satirize and he was writing Moondog as much more burned out and cynical to reflect his own feelings of disillusionment. The series, ‘Moondog: Down and Out in Santa Cruz’ dealt with Moondog losing a lawsuit and owing a massive amount of money. Desperately needing quick cash, each issue featured a different and almost inevitably futile, attempt to raise the cash.

(10) I had a lot of fun coming up with these, but it took me ages to come up with an idea for a good guy for ‘Truckula and the Monster Trucks’... the eureka moment of “Van Helsing!’ was so profound it not only stopped me walking, but I nearly fell over.
(11) This was almost certainly a dig at his old editor who, while he had something of a reputation as a 'boy genius', was also renowned for intrusive micromanagement of long-term creators and a resistance to more avant-guard ideas in favour of proven money-makers.