The Fiendish Pit of Dr. Fug Manpoo

Hack has long been a fan of English author Sax Rohmer’s supervillain Dr. Fu Manchu, a stalwart role of horror actors like Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee (Karloff’s 1932 film The Mask of Fu Manchu is particularly fun, with a pre-Thin Man Myrna Loy as the doctor’s evil daughter Fah Lo See). The character’s popularity has fallen out of favor in recent years (last being seen as a leading role in Peter Sellers’ film farewell The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu in 1979, although Nicolas Cage revived it for a section of the 2007 cult classic Grindhouse) due to its racist attitudes and “yellowface” casting.

That didn’t stop Hack from adapting Fu Manchu into a Korean pug supervillain named Dr. Pug Manpoo who craps into a massive pit in his castle and tortures his enemies by suspending them over it with the threat of dropping them in. Variety reports that Nicolas Cage is in talks to play the role in a film version.

Do This, Don’t Do That Can’t You Read The Sign?

Hack has long been irritated by the Five Man Electrical Band ‘s 1971 hit song Sign, in which a hippie reacts to all the signs he encounters with self-righteous indignation. Hack wrote this novel inspired by the tune, in which the last sign the hippie reads is labeled High Voltage. He rebelliously whips his wang out to wave it at the placard only to brush it against some wiring and fry his Johnson completely off.