The Monthly Rag

Before we move chronologically on in this tale, let me sidestep for a brief moment to discuss an important piece of Rag history that has heretofore been curiously overlooked. If our newspaper were to have a mascot of any kind, the often crudely drawn cartoon hero on the back page would likely be it. Sir Terrence began life as a video game character as far back as early 1992. Andrew and I had chosen to take some beginner lessons in Pascal programming language for our computer class, which meant we were sent to the back of the room to slave over ugly looking PC’s with a textbook as unfriendly as the DOS we wielded. Huge console fans (SNES was our trade at the time, though Andrew had a Neo Geo, the working bastard), we pooled our resources to go balls out on a creation of our own. Few people made it past chapter 3 in the legendary Pascal do-it- yourself handbook, so due was made by harnessing what we’d learned from the short introductions. Graphics, even primitive ones, were just not going to happen, so the game became text-based and played like one of those old choose your own adventure novels. All we had to do was come up with the story, write it out, and use the basic if/then layout for the program to run accordingly.

It’s no secret that I harbor an obsessive love for the 1983 Don Bluth/Rick Dyer Dragon’s Lair arcade game, which I’ve written about in the paper on many occasions, and from that particular template Sir Terrence was born. He’s my facsimile Dirk the Daring, and he started off as a scrawled and nameless variable on the original bumbling knight (usually all over my desk or homework or paper-bag book covers). His personality materialized for our game, however, which we ostensibly titled Sphincter Quest because Andrew and I have a few screws loose in the locker-room humor department. Although lacking pretty images, Sphincter Quest went into production–most of it during class. Our teacher left our area relatively unmanned, because for some reason he thought only the good kids took the advanced programming route. A few of them did fit the stereotype (there was a guy near me that got up to like Chapter 13 and was actually really absorbing the shit), but the two of us were merely giggling idiots trying hard to keep a straight face when authority was close to busting our criminal laboratory. I’ll try to summarize the breakdown of our game plot the best I can from memory: In the glorious kingdom of New Sodom (Andrew gets props for that creation–and yes, I wish it was mine), there lived a well-hung hero named Sir Terrence (the Erect). The voluptuous 400 pound Princess Janet has been kidnapped by the foul Nympho-(censored due to uncanny similarity to last name of class instructor), and taken to his evil lair against her will. It’s up to you to read through the journey and make the correct choices to save the obese maiden.

Look, I’m not saying I’m proud, here, I’m just saying how it was.

Sir Terrence and one of his many unsightly demises.

At any rate, the player was given one life, just like the real world, and after a few paragraphs of colored fontography, a decision would have to be made that would affect story continuity. A correct choice would send Sir Terrence further along on his quest, but otherwise…it was death in the most disgusting and often sexually abhorrent way possible. The game body consisted of three levels, one following wilderness encounters through Deep Sphincter Valley, another over the treacherous Mountain of 69 Peaks, and finally on into the Tower of Strapless Dildo’s where your prize was waiting to be rescued from the ultimate villain. We got the pieces all into place, and then all of the cause and effects to match up, and after adding a set of sound effects (a nice BIP if you made a winning move, or a flatulent sounding ONK if you screwed up) we began smuggling students back to our workbench one at a time to see who could score the highest. Much fun was had until our dear teacher stumbled upon my main copy hidden on the hard drive and did something awful to the coding. The damned thing never worked right again, but Terrence lived on in our hearts and dreams and found his way to the only place that was left to travel after silicon Heaven. About the time we expanded to eight full pages (see earlier chapter), we had massive space to suddenly fill, so I happily revived my fifteen-inch packing warrior in illustrated form. Issue to issue, he tried to save a (much leaner) princess from my revised baddie Voritmar–usually failing miserably by the end of each printed episode.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but here at The Rag, recycling a lewd idea is always welcomed and encouraged.

CONTINUE TO PART 11