Full-Moon Fever - From the Casebook of 'Moondog' Mendez

(originally published 6th of June, 2021)

Introduction.
    Two of the more convoluted cases ever cracked by crimefighting werewolf and would-be actor, Mike 'Moondog' Mendez involved a Roller Disco called 'Dreamland'. 
    Ironically, the first of these stories was never intended to see print. 
    'Moondog' writer Sam Berger was a visionary, but was notorious for getting scripts in late¹, so his editor insisted he completed a certain number of stories which could just be inserted in for an issue when he was unable to get a script in on time (known in the business as 'inventory stories'). Berger resented this, and so, whenever his editor would pitch him a story he considered worthless, he'd hack it out as an inventory script, thinking that the prospect of having one of these terrible stories see print might motivate him to get scripts in on time.

'Moondog' #44 (1977) - 'The Phantom of the Roller Disco!'²
    The story begins with Moondog and Moonchild heading to San Francisco to investigate mysterious happenings at a luxurious disco pleasure palace called 'Dreamland'. As they head on up, Moondog fills his partner in on the backstory. 

    During the late 60's, Moondog met a young man named Simon Icarus who was working as a sound effect tech on a terrible B-movie Moondog was appearing in. Even then, it was obvious to Moondog that Harris had far too much talent to be working on cheap grindhouse junk. Cut to 1974, and that premonition would come true, and Simon, who'd done years more work as both a sound engineer and on movie effects tech, called him up to tell him about a project he'd landed in. He'd been commissioned to build the world's most elaborate roller disco and pleasure palace on Earth in the refurbished old 'Dreamland' Ballroom³. Moondog recalls the look on his face as he ran through all the weird gadgets and gizmos he'd incorporated into the design. 

"It's Great! I have complete autonomy... and an unlimited budget! Anything I say, they'll sign off on! Secret doors, sliding panels, hydraulic floors that raise and lower at the push of a button! It's like Boris Karloff's playground in here!"

    The only downside was his business partner, a shifty-looking snake oil salesman called Mendy Czarnystok⁴ who gave Moondog a bad feeling. He warned Simon to watch his step around the guy, but didn't want to mess with his big break.

    Moondog and Moonchild arrive to find Mendy in a panic. A little over a week ago, he explains, Simon vanished. He didn't freak out, because this wasn't the first time he'd done so. He'd always been the temperamental artist type, and would occasionally vanish to go lay on the beach or gaze at the stars or hang out in the desert or whatever it too to recharge his 'inspiration'. This time, though, was different. Just before Simon disappeared, Mendy had been hiring dancers for the club, and this one girl, Jessica Angel, really seemed to turn Simon's head. He didn't think of it at the time, but maybe this girl got inside Simon's head and convinced him to "... I dunno... go live on a commune eatin' nuts and berries or somethin'!"

    The thing is, several nights ago, stuff started going wrong with the disco's technology. Again, this is nothing new. It's high tech stuff and, without the only guy around who knows how to keep it running smoothly, of course it's going to go a little haywire every now and then. And so far, it's been little stuff, but with the amount of technology in here, if something serious goes wrong, it could be dangerous! I might have to shut the place down, and with my overhead, that could shut me down!

    Moondog and Moonchild investigate. They discover that Mendy had over-committed, and took out large sums of money from a loan shark named Percy Malone, who was leaning on him to turn 'Dreamland' into a front for his coke operation. He'd been trying to keep the information from Simon who, being the idealist he is, would try and confront or even threaten Malone. He doesn't know what's happened, but he's afraid that Malone may have decided to take Simon out of the picture. As time goes on, and Simon fails to reappear, the technological breakdowns are getting worse, club patrons report sightings of a mysterious figure who seems to appear and disappear at will and the club is forced to close as a safety risk. Malone begins to lean on Mendy to sign over control of 'Dreamland' to him and, with several of the accidents being near misses on him, Mendy is seriously considering it, even though it'll wipe him out.

    The climax happens during a late night meeting where Mendy is due to sign over the club to Malone. Malone had sent Jessica Angel, the young dancer, to audition and had asked her to come onto Simon. That way, she'd be able to feel him out as a potential risk, and report to Malone if he did something stupid. Unfortunately, when she tried to warn Simon (whom she'd begun to have genuine feelings for) of the danger he was in and persuade him to run away, Simon confronted Malone instead. In response, Malone arranged for two of his men to arrange for Simon's body to turn up floating in the bay.

    What Malone didn't know was that Simon had survived. Making his way back to Dreamland, his mind filled with an incoherent rage and suffering brain damage due to oxygen starvation, he hid in the service access shafts and vents he'd built throughout the building and plotted his revenge using his knowledge of the building's architecture and devices. In the end, Moondog and Moonchild are able to save Simon, but his mind seems to be irreversibly shattered and he's committed for his own safety. They have enough evidence against Malone to put him away, but nothing about the conclusion is clean and nobody gets a happy ending. "It was a beautiful dream... it's just a shame that no dream lasts forever..."

'Moondog' #73 (1980) - 'Full Moon Fever!'⁵
    Three years later, Moondog is in a very different place. Several years ago, his old partner, Moonchild inexplicably vanished, and even years later, he still hasn't managed to entirely shake the funk that that event left in its wake. It seems almost like destiny that it is at this point that he is contacted by a voice from his past.  

    Carole Sellers was a young and upcoming singer and actress who'd seemingly appeared out of nowhere and seemed destined to have Hollywood at her feet. She was talented and attractive, but there was something about her - an almost uncanny charisma and magnetic appeal that couldn't quite be defined. Moondog had encountered her when he'd been contacted about a small role in her film debut, only to discover that her agent had discovered that his payrate as an actor was cheaper than hiring a bodyguard.

    Carole, you see, had begun to attract unwanted attention from a frustrated, would-be artist turned deranged costumed stalker calling himself The Iconoclast. He'd become obsessed with Carole, believing her to be an 'Earthbound Muse' and believed, if he could sacrifice her in a mystical ritual, that he'd be able to wipe out all beauty on Earth. If he couldn't create art, then nobody would be able to. During this case, several odd events (which may have just been coincidences) occurred which suggested that possibly The Iconoclast's theory wasn't as half-baked as it seemed on the surface.

    In the wake of this case, Carole abandoned her career, effectively shutting down the film (which meant that her agent didn't have to pay Moondog a dime!) and became something of a recluse for a time. 

    Now, years later, she'd been lured into making a comeback film and she wanted 'Moondog' there as a way of repaying his kindness, especially with her agent treating him so poorly at the time. As if this wasn't enough, the film would also feature one of Mike's childhood cinematic heroes, Guy Laredo⁶. 

    The film itself was intended to be a meditation on the faded glamour of Hollywood in an age of crass exploitation and shallow commercialism, and to reflect that, the film-makers had decided to film in a setting which once represented the Golden Age of Hollywood's glamour and romance, had been transformed into something crass, sleazy and destructive during the 1970s, and was now a mere shell of its former self... the 'Dreamland' Ballroom.

    The film-makers had come in and done an incredible job of restoring the place. In the film script, a young woman (Sellers) inherits the old place and, desperate for cash, is on the verge of selling it to a real estate mogul. However, before she can, she's convinced by the building's elderly caretaker (Laredo) that a building is much more than bricks and beams and mortar. It's made of memories, and memories are worth preserving. The rest of the film would have interspersed musical numbers tracing the building's long and colourful history with the story of them gathering the resources needed to re-open the old place, despite the interference of the villainous mogul and his henchmen. 

    Tragically, filming wouldn't even start before the cast and crew would be trapped inside the building, unable to escape. Unknown to everyone, Simon Icarus had, due to a clerical error, been accidentally released from the institution where he had been held for the last three years⁷. With nowhere else to go, he had returned to the ruins of the 'Dreamland' where his rage, fear and desire for vengeance had attracted a malevolent psychic entity which fed on fear. There, in the darkness beneath the ruins of his greatest triumph, Simon had seemingly been consumed, and the man who had once been The Phantom of the Roller Disco had become The Roller Boogie-Man!⁸

     What followed was a desperate battle with Moondog desperately trying to prevent harm from coming to the cast and crew despite his enemy's combination of deadly deathtraps and supernatural powers. The details of the final, climactic battle are uncertain as, at some point, Moondog took a severe blow to the head and was concussed, resulting in what may or may not have been a vivid hallucination. 

    Carole, glowing with a luminous halo, transformed Guy into the image of his young self, complete with the mask, cape and sword associated with his most famous role. She drew upon the powers of all the dreams of the cast and crew, to drive away the darkness and banish the Boogie-Man forever. In the final seconds, as the final shadowy scraps of the Boogie-Man vanished, a radiant, winged form emerged from the body of Simon Icarus and, like its namesake, took flight. Just before leaving, Carole thanked Moondog for all he had done, and for showing her the way back home. Clasping hands with Simon Icarus, both of them flew straight upward, through the ceiling and away into the sky. 

    Hours later, as rescue crews helped the survivors from the wreckage of the building, none of the remaining cast or crew seemed to have any memory of what had occurred beyond a certain point and none seemed to know where Carole had vanished to. As he was being seen to by paramedics, Moondog asked Guy Laredo if he had any recollection of what had happened. In response, he sighed, "I don't know that anything actually 'happened'. That's a word for real things, and I don't know that anything we saw had to do with reality. It was... the stuff that dreams are made of."⁹

Epilogue.
    This would be one of the final issues to be written by Sam Berger and the series would be cancelled soon after, with the writer's interest in the work was dimming with each pointless argument or piece of micromanagement coming from the new editorial staff. 

    Even this story shows evidence of that, having been Frankensteined together from bits and pieces of his older work. By this stage, he had already relocated to Los Angeles and begun working in animation at this stage, something he would increasingly dedicate himself to as his comics work wound down over the remainder of the year. 

    He wouldn't return to comics until 1987, when a new editorial team who were willing to give him much more creative control, reached out to him. This would result in a six-issue follow-up mini-series, 'Moondog: Down and Out in Santa Cruz', which would be an attempt to do for the 'greed is good' 80's what the original series had done for the 70's. Unfortunately, while his wit and satirical talent was still as sharp as ever, he'd lost a lot of his passion for the comics industry and didn't really follow up the miniseries with anything else.

    The Dreamland Ballroom would make one future appearance a decade later, in the 1990s in a story not written by Berger. By this stage, 'Moondog' had fully retired from acting, and almost fully retired from heroics, taking up a role as a radio DJ and late-night horror movie host. While recording an EP with surf guitar band and teen investigators, The Breakers, a series of odd events occurred in his broadcast and recording studio. 

    Initially seeming like nothing more than freak accidents, they got worse and worse until it became apparent that there was something supernatural behind them. Tracing the influence to a basement storeroom, the gang discovered a mirrorball salvaged as a souvenir from the Dreamland which still contained a tiny fragment of the Roller Boogie-Man's essence. While not powerful enough to fully reconstitute, it was enough to require an Electrical Exorcism to see it off for good.¹⁰

1. This was something Sam Berger and his inspiration, legendary comics writer Steve Gerber had in common.
2. This is, of course, a tribute to Gaston LeRoux's 'The Phantom of the Opera' and to Brian DePalma's 'Phantom of the Paradise' (1974). 
3. The heyday of the original 'Dreamland Ballroom' was the 1920s and 30's. I don't have plans for it at the moment, but it's nice to have it on hand.
4. This is a nod to Max Bialystok from Mel Brooks' 'The Producers' (1967). Czarnystok is a Polish village in the region of Podlasie. The Capital of Podlasie is Bialystok. Sometimes, I just do this stuff to entertain myself.
5. As I say in the Epilogue, this one's a bit of a Frankenstein of bits and pieces here and there. Its main influence was the film 'Xanadu' (1980) in which an immortal muse decides to give up eternal life, gambling on the ever-lasting appeal of roller-disco.
6. Guy Laredo started out as a riff on Gene Kelly's roll in 'Xanadu', an aging actor from the Golden Age of Hollywood. However, with Mike Mendez being a young Latino kid in the 50's who'd always been a massive fan of the movies, I saw the possibility of adding in one of his early cinematic heroes. 
   Guy (born Guillermo Rodríguez) was a handsome leading man who played a wide role, from Latin lovers in romantic pictures to swashbuckling swordsmen, jungle explorers or bold adventurers in adventure movies, and even appeared in several musicals as a song and dance man. He is best known for playing 'El Aguila', the swashbuckling ancestor of El Aguila Azul who battled injustice in Old California and Colonial Mexico in a series of movies in the 1930s and 40s.
7. If he'd waiting a year, he wouldn't have needed an accident as 1981 was the year when Ronald Reagan would push a bill drastically cutting funding for mental healthcare in California, turning multitudes of desperate, needy people into the street. This is a particularly tragic example of the sort of synchronicity that I run into all the time with this project. 
8. This is a tie-in to the nascent Slasher genre, which had begun with 'Hallowe'en' (1978) two years earlier and continued with the first installment of 'Friday the 13th' (1980). 
   Decades later, teen hero the Lifeguard, as part of the super team Collide-O-Scope, would confront an entirely separate Boogieman while attending school at the Claremont Academy in Arcadia. 
9. This is, of course, a quote from 'The Maltese Falcon' (1941).
10. Electrical exorcisms courtesy of William Hope Hodgson's Thomas Carnacki and his trusty electric pentacle, and the "high voltage messiah" from 'The Ruling Class' (1972).