Buenos Aires. Exe, 25 years old, has just lost his job and is not looking for another one. His neighbors and friends seem as odd to him as they always do. Online, he meets Alf, a boy from Mozambique who is also bored with his job and who is about to follow Archie, another boy who has run away into the jungle. Through the dense vegetation of the forest, Archie tracks ants back to their nest. One of them wanders off course and comes across Canh, a Filipino, sitting on top of a giant heap of earth and who is about to go back to his strange, beautiful home town, where he too has a miserable job.

When Leela is insulted by a group of space-rednecks (like regular rednecks, but in space) she enters the Planet Express ship in a demolition derby. She emerges victorious, but when she brings the damaged ship home and the Professor sees the fuel gauge, he’s enraged by the hit he’s going to take at the Dark Matter pump. Now the crew have to find a way to break Mom’s stranglehold on starship fuel, even if they have to wade through a Lord of the Rings-inspired fantasy-land to do it!

Having just been fired and dumped by his wife, life couldn’t possibly be worse for independent artist GORDON HAUGE (Mark Redfield)–until he wrecks his car and finds himself in purgatory that is. Once there, he is attacked by fanatic Shadowmen and legions of Ragmen–souls being enslaved and bent to some dark purpose. Gordon is rescued by an eccentric band of freedom fighters, people from different times of history who lost their lives in noble sacrifice. They recruit the reluctant and befuddled Gordon and set off on a wild adventure through the surreal landscapes of purgatory to battle the Despiser–an evil being who now reigns in this seemingly God-abandoned halfway house north of hell and south of heaven. Dealing with shifting reality, annoying monsters, armies of Ragmen and hair-raising car chases across bridges spanning oceans of lava our heroes battle their way to the dark macabre fortress of the Despiser. Written by Philip Cook [email protected]