A comic not of sight or of sound but of mind

Seeing as it's October and all that, here's something slightly "spooky" yet still in fitting with the "main" theme of the "project" that's "been" going on "here" for the "past few" months. Sort of. It's an oddity, that's for sure - something that from the cover looks like a parody of The Twilight Zone, but is actually several outdated parodies of cult TV shows and a handful of Zit reprints.

It's... The Twilight Clone, from 1991, and helmed by Spit! contributor, Mr. Michael Hingley. I can't find ANY information on this one, anywhere, and found it by chance in a box full of 2000AD back issues in a second-hand "collector's emporium" in Manchester, sometime last year. Something tells me that The Twilight Clone had big ambitions, and maybe something came of it, who knows? If that "something" ever DID happen, it didn't survive up to the Internet age, so here it is.

There's good intentions afoot here - Hingley's obviously a big fan of Rod Serling and his legacy, as evidenced by the biopic he did for the back cover:

And the introductory page promises fun things:

Only to be immediately followed by this piece of duff from Bruce Gilligan - this one's approaching Jockstrap levels of badness:

I've got my suspicions that Gilligan IS one of the uncredited contributors to Jockstrap, but only slightly... There's a slight semblance of a story here, and this is from seven years before Jockstrap, but you never know.

Anyway, one Zit reprint after this we get a few pages of TV parodies, which you may or may not find amusing, depending on how much you're "into" certain TV shows:

There's also this going-nowhere thing from Graham Hey (a name amongst Viz clones that's almost as ubiquitous as Anthony Smith or Nigel Maughan):

At least it's in fitting with the "theme" of The Twilight Clone, a "theme" that also takes in "hilarious" photo captions:

And more TV parodies:

There's the obligatory swipe at Viz there in that last panel there...

The Twilight Clone would get a few points for effort if it didn't all fall apart in the middle, when this happens:

Call it something to make up for a lack of material, but it doesn't bode well for any future issues when the "fun packed pages" include such wonders as Theodore Platt, He Lives in a Flat:

Hingley's own Honest Jol, He's On the Dole:

More of Graham Hey's Zit material, and more of that Gilligan's stuff:

There's even a Hey/Gilligan collaboration!

Sorry you had to see that.

Anyway, I mentioned the "ambitious" nature of The Twilight Clone earlier on, and that's none more apparent than in this advert at the back of the thing, offering membership to the Twilight Clone Membership Club:

Badges, posters, bookmarks and everything! Did anyone ever join? Did The Twilight Clone ever make it to a second, third or even fourth issue? There was certainly a smidgen of potential here for something reasonably fun, I'll give it that much.

For now though, let's just pretend it appeared from another dimension, confused/depressed people a bit then went home again. That'll do.