if you happen to be into that whole social networking thing...

http://www.facebook.com/billypurgatory

http://www.myspace.com/billypurgatory

and i found myself dirigible..

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Get Thee Behind Me Devil Bird

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research...

goggles

palm tree + red

Ulysses Purgatory

lyrics regarding yards and time zombies

Billy's Yard



From hallowed pirch does black bird sing

A clutch, a circumstance, a binding dream

A boy rounds the corner of a darkened city street

to find a death filled scream

The zomie awakens into time travelling rings

Miles Davis is dead

all that remains: vinyl shards

The bird of doom waits patient

outside in Billy's yard



-Helford Jersey

new images

Matchsticks and Rosary Beads

The Old's engine coughed softly, more something he could feel than hear. It was just like someone had taken his normal life and cranked it down a bit - none of the chaos was abandoned but the intensity was momentarily tossed into the drunk tank and left to sleep it off.

Lucinda Drew was listening to her father yell at her over the phone while she tied her blondeness into a ponytail. She had a match between her teeth in the way that a normal girl would be subconciously nesting a bobby pin. Billy watched her body defy the hot wind off the road here in the borderland between day and night. Cradling the phone and then deciding it was too much all at once and letting it slide off her shoulder and gallows swing. She was focused on tying her hair and he still couldn't tell what she'd eventually found in the glove box to do that.

She'd missed a strand of hair and the wind had it and couldn't let it go. It was just like the first day he'd seen her, sitting on her father's front porch steps on winter break, hair pulled back in jeans and a snowman sweater. The very definition of dressed down. No make-up and no care in the world save whatever it was she was reading.

"We're so close, Billy. We're not turning back."

Billy opened the door to get in, not sure if she wanted him to drive her on or talk her out of it.

"You read that in the stars, Goldilocks?"

"Fuck the stars, I was looking for the city lights. You can see them from space."

She climbed in with him and pointed down the highway.

"Tonight the stars are following me."

Then the world restarted. She turned up Murder City and the engine could no longer be tamed and she spit the match out the window as the desert went dark again.

The sign said Las Vegas 111 miles, Billy Purgatory was twenty-three years old and tonight he was following Lucinda to.

from a conversation...

it's about a kid and his father, and a guy who doesn't understand love. it's about finding your place in the world, and learning what true destiny is all about. it's about secrets and misconceptions and lies and that ultimately there is no perfect mate, no perfect family life, no utopia around the bend. there is no messiah coming and if one does, it's certainly not going to be you. but none of that matters anyway, because life is all about the experience, not the outcome.

* * *

Jesse James

i've heard of the Satanic Five, they were carnival folk who sold their souls to an out of work rainmaker/snake oil salesman named Edgar Goft. or so the legend goes. they fanned out and each lived thirteen lives, thirteen wives, thirteen professions. all met back at a train station outside Omaha for the Devil's Pullman to slip them into hell. the story changes as to who was waiting for them on the train to hell - in almost all cases Billy Carter gets them drunk, there's a chess match with a samurai and the train is eventually robbed by Dutch immigrants who use Nazi gold to fund Woodtock.

This is what halfway looks like...

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old school, photocopied, stapled together zine-style...

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Testing mobile blogging...

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New 'Zines, T-shirts & madness...

Update:

As you can see, there are a lot of talented people helping me with this. I've done a lot of writing this week, mostly on the Medusa parts of the story. It's odd to me how the things that I didn't expect to be big parts of the story take shape on their own and sort of grow and take over.

Thanks to everyone who's reading and helping me with this. You're all very appreciated and you inspire me.

The Chrome A Novel by Helford Jersey

Click here to read Chapter One for free online!


When the Chrome condition realizes its essence is trapped and hidden deep inside of all things it will then awaken itself by the fire of the Logos to spontaneously combust into a dancing machine created to reflect the very hologram it aspires to become.
From the Annals of Soliton...BTE

cyborg billy purgatory by Claushtane Bertron

THE CHROME A NOVEL BY HELFORD JERSEY (click here)

So yeah, you can have too many notes...

Realized today that I have three notebooks of story and research, one of which is all novel content (chapters) that I've written out by hand and haven't typed up yet. So everyday is like Sunday was all about note consolidation, drawing diagrams and maps and etc's. Re-copying important notes into one giant notebook - so it's all in the same place.

Oh, and I'm working on another story that some of you know about at the same time for when I get Purgatory burn-out.

Oh, and I spent part of the morning figuring out what exactly 'the abyss' is.

By the time I get everything out of notebook three I might be halfway written. It's an odd cool feeling.

Thanks to all of you for reading and being ever so supportive.

Halloween...

Vicars, Captains, Vampire Girls & The Satanic Five

You wish the door, you wish the gate /
Know then it is an hour and not a date /
Night numb slumbers in sunshine's womb /
Man's crooked circle 'round the FIVE pecked tomb /
Squint your eye down the Tesla flask /
Snap your thumbs, kiss her mask /
From bolt to hinge we sing your doom:
Flower, Moon, Owl & Broom

-from THE CURSE OF THE SATANIC FIVE by Helford Jersey

* * *

Billy seemed lost as always when presented with such beauty as the Holy girl lent to those who had only sorrow as repayment to her charity. Drunk yes, but that didn't stop his turning to face head first the foul-striped old tiger. Billy kicked hard enough to snap a normal man's neck. The connection, even as hard as it was, couldn't separate the Vicar's neck from his body. A Grendel'd abortion upon the world were things like this old man. Only hate kept it animated. It had no dreams of its own. It wanted nothing but to win.

* * *

"...and when the Spanish began the funding of the expedition across unknown waters, so it was Columbus and his ships had sailed beyond the watchful eyes from the shore of those wishing his voyage well. The order was given to unlock the chest given him by the aristocracy and to take from it the dark flag of the Satanic Five. To raise it high over the uncharted portion of the sea so that THEIR gaze from atop the high mast might be the first dead eyes to stare at the new world..."



* * *

So far as I knew, I was the last. I told myself that, but knew that my sisters most likely remained and continued to birth foul machinations into the night. Mannequins of a sort, golems, a sketchy representation of that which our Father's legions had once been. I knew better than to believe they would ever choose the path that I had then, but in my best moments - my quiet moments, I was able to rid my mind of them. To fall into that place where I truly felt alone. It was a blessing, this ever after obscurity. If I could only blend and bend and weave enough magic silk around new skin then perhaps I'd one night be far enough from them and what I had been that it wouldn't matter anymore. If I've ever wanted anything completely born of truth and purity it was that very thing at that very moment. To vanish.

I didn't do half bad.

University was its own compact globe, and if I stayed in its borderland and didn't venture too far off the campus then I had talked myself into the fact that I would never have to face what I was. That I didn't truly belong there, I was a child of that portion of the map which held this warning. Danger: There be monsters here.

It was no problem to move about my new homeland at night. Humans at this age rarely sleep. Always in motion by night, sleeping away a good portion of the morning. It was a pattern that mirrored my own very well. I can remember sitting in their classrooms, at first just showing up at random to see what it was they were trying so hard to learn which made this such a crucial time waster for them - four years or more is a lifetime when you're as short lived as they. While my kind are rarely immortal, we can continue on for hundreds of years. Humans are lucky if they make it a half century the way they poison themselves. This was always one of the arguments made to the weaker of my peers if they ever felt any remorse for how we treated the normals. If that speech didn't work, the pointing out that humans have no regard for their own existence, then you didn't get a second lesson. We taught you the meaning of mortality first hand and moved on.

I found no issue in assuming ones identity when I actually enrolled. I was tested, surpassed their limited expectations, and was given a room, cheap books filled with mostly lies their scholars had scuttled together and allowed to sign up for anything which interested me at the time (that is, after my academic advisor and I had come to a little 'understanding').

I dealt with them in groups very well, but one on one I always had difficulty with individual humans. Those who ran the university kept insisting that I share my room with another. They pared us female with female and every term there would be a new one standing in my room smiling and chattering. This was the most draining part, how they rarely respected silence.



I'd blacked the window and pushed my bed to the wall containing it and dared them or anyone to inquire about the darkness. For whatever reason, none ever did. I suppose they're more intuitive than I give them credit for. Most of them avoided me after that initial awkward first night and I was happy to just ignore them. When they were intoxicated they'd sometimes extend that hand of friendship and beg me to go out with them and their friends, but I avoided their night gatherings. It was too easy to fall out of my peaceful zen at their parties. Their males were easily excited to the point of inappropriateness and that would just make me excited in my own way and before I knew what was happening I was stuffing another of them into a furnace.

It's still amusing to me they blamed it all on that janitor. The man was, without question, disturbed and would have eventually snapped. Maybe I saved more of their lives than I took.

the undead son of a bitch actually smiled at me

If I offend the universe so much...

"Karma will laugh hysterically at your grand apology."

now, it's serious!

i mean business...

more writing journal scribbling; artemis

i'm so not an 'artist' and not trying to be, but when i make notes i doodle lately and they're kinda fun to me. i realize i'm not steranko.

medusa

Ugliness made her whole. This is truth - birds falling from their nests at least offer the ground a last gift kiss, rabbits in the stew pot have no complaints regarding cold wind, a man bartering with quicksand enjoys a last episode of lively and logical argument against the laws of nature before his time is spent and death moves the discussion to other more pressing agendas.

She relished the solitude. Invited it. Becoming horrible - cursed. Ugly began her spiritual awakening. She always felt as half a person. Her beauty was the lust burden of others which she was forced to sentry. Beauty, such a sad drape, a lose petal closed over a troubled heart. All wanted a gift from her which she did not possess and therefore could never freely give. She was an empty festival in this way.

All about Moses

My friend, and Billy Purgatory collaborator, Moses D. Jaen. A tremendous artist and sculptor and an all around great guy.

From his website:

Let me share a little about myself, I was born and
raised in Queens, NY. Attended the School of Visual
Arts, where I graduated with a BFA in Illustration
and Cartooning.

I'm a self taught sculptor, sculpting since 2004.
I love the process that comes with sculpture,
from designing an original piece, to translating
it to sculpture.

You should visit Moses' website, (click here!) the artwork is fantastic. His sculpting ability especially continues to grow and having the privilege of knowing him these past few years I am consistently amazed at the (evil) genius which he sends out into a world that really needs creative people like him.

Thank you for all your help, sir. I have taken liberty to post some of your work here, I hope you don't mind.









































(all the artwork/images posted above are the property of Moses D. Jaen)

Billy Purgatory : Blinky's Episode 1

This is the original Billy comic that Moses and I did for Bill's Blinky's Zine which we sold at San Diego Comicon and is still available for purchase online. It's a great zine and includes interviews with Jackson Publick of the Venture Bros., comic book writer Leah Moore and famous pin-up artist Olivia (among many other wonderful things).

I will always be in Moses' debt for helping me put this together. Bill, you too for talking us into it.

Art (zine, comics, concepts, etc)

i make things

Our former Master fancied himself a general, and we'd all heard the stories of how ancient he was and how many campaigns he'd fought against the humans, or siding with one aspect of man to subjugate the other. His cruelty and tyranny was said to be legend even amongst the demons. Standing on conquering bank as the pyramids rose stone by stone across the river, cunning shenanigans all across Asia against the Huns. Back alley deals with the Reich and participating in the slaughter of the Monks for the annexing of Tibet. He was said to have laughed the day they dropped the first Atomic Bomb. "Mortals and their waste of blood." He liked to brag that he'd drunk more than all of man's armies combined had ever spilled. He's the one, I'm told, who took note of me in the ruins that day, and how young Billy Purgatory had become enraptured with me while we first tried to take him. It was his masterstroke to use me against the boy and it was ultimately his downfall to think that I'd ever allow myself to be coveted without consequence by a human.



When I was older and our home had fallen into chaos I found myself so red with anger that I broke the unspoken rule of entry into the royal house and pushed past one confused and fearful sentry after another. My eyes glowed hot that night and it might have been by my own hand that the sparks flew which sent the place ablaze. I can't remember such insignificant details now, if I did start that fire I can't be blamed fully. Our cancer was spreading and they'd made their putrid lives such rich kindling. I was amazed at what a sad waste of a thing this overlord who had inspired such fear in my youth had turned into. His room was table upon table of dusty toys, pewter soldiers cast himself, lined up to replay the greatest battles of their history. Midway and Custer and Gettysburg. How he studied them, hours wasted in darkness when he should have been out forging his own war against the air gulpers, the sow on two legs, shaking their baboon asses at the gods and dreaming of a world so overflowing with baubles and beer and vanilla ice cream that they'd die smiling drowned and engorged on their own excesses.

Man has sugarcoated their reality to the point that truth is a meaningless distraction not even fit for their poets to piss a line about in the snow. Yet I realized that night too, that we were no better. At least the monkeys had poets still.

Then I finally came face to face with him, hunched and stinking on a stool like he was about to milk the tits of madness. His spine like a gnarled root, his fingers bleeding on his only hand, the left. He'd long ago lost the right arm, near to the shoulder. He smiled at having a visitor, his face long ago eaten away by the BUG and his excessive feeding. He reached out with an old scrap of leather that revealed itself finally to be a shoe.

"What am I?" This I asked, more calmly that I'd planned.

"Salvation of our race." He hadn't fed properly in so long he barely retained fangs.

"Then what does that make you," I asked?

"Can't you see?" He was puzzled now, like he'd plainly revealed a great secret and I was far too daft to see. "I'm again what I started as - a shoemaker."

At his feet were cobbling tools. The shoe was covered in his own blood.

To say simply that I beat him to death with the first thing I grabbed would be understating the ferocity of the dam which broke of me and swallowed him from soul to mouth.

I'm writing (yes!) - Anastasia

I followed the short happy one down. Her heart held no rage against the world. She had no enemies. She was loved by all, most especially her God.

When I embraced her outside by the cemetery gates, I asked her, "You're ready, aren't you?" She replied in a kiss to the little cross she wore around her neck, with its tarnished savior and black rosary bead. "Si", followed by another kiss to my cheek. There was so much peace with her lips, so much conviction. Not a hint of fear.

I held her tight and smelled her hair, it reminded me of yule hearth smoke. Gingerbread porn. Mitten fingers weaving garland. I didn't, couldn't, toy with her neck or tease, I just clamped down fast as she had nodded reply to my question, which ultimately now dealt with things ending - and if we both could cope with such thirsty change. When she couldn't hold me anymore I let her slip lightly down and it was finally and only then that the music really stopped, for I had at the very least continued to hum the entire night, even as we kissed. I laid her down to rest under an elm by the fence.

Done wrong.

Stuff from notebooks, etc...

The "novel" is about a quarter of the way written. It's 90% plotted. I don't know the ending, but I never know the ending.

The first book is called Billy Purgatory & The Death Truck Tales. The Devil Bird will be part of it.

I already know that book 2 is going to be Billy Purgatory & The Curse of the Satanic Five. It's Billy's Empire Strikes Back.

Moses says he'll do some illustrations - which has me very excited as always.

Boatwright's cover of Gun Street Girl (Tom Waits)

This is something Billy would waste a lot of time building...

Purgatory + welding torch!
(thanks Robert!)

Metal Half Pipe!
Skaters Dream!
RMStringer

Robert's Flickr (click!)

(image by RM Stringer Photography (c)

"Anastasia" by Alicia

"Anastasia" 18x24" Acrylic on Canvas - for J.J. <3

Billy's vampire sort of girlfriend (because, well, she does try to kill him a couple times).

From the future, when they're all grown up.

Click here for more of Alicia's art!

new Blinky's Zine!

We're only beginning to work on it. Bill said it's a go. There will be a collaborative Billy Purgatory story/comic. More details soon.

(image credit RM Stringer Photography (c)

Mother Purgatory - by Moses (of course)...

Billy Purgatory image by Vasilis Lolos

Vasilis Lolos work can be seen in the pages of The Pirates of Coney Island (Image Comics), Spider-Man Family #2 (Marvel), 24Seven (Image Comics) , Wolverine Firebreak (Marvel) and the Graphic Novel The Last Call which he wrote and drew for Oni Press. He also self-publishes several mini comics.

Vasilis Lolos (click for his site)!

Hoodoo

God make sky, devil paint black.
God make bird, devil make bat.
God make garden, devil grow fruit.
God make eye, devil take tooth.
God make rain, devil make flood.
God make man, devil want blood.

-Diary entry, untitled lyrics, blues singer Walter 'Tugbone' Hatchet, 1927

(Image credit of RM Stringer Photography (c)