This publication employs the miracle of Visicomboics. Sounds complicated, right? Like something that involves Esperanto and arcane symbology from a bygone era. Well... true. Visicomboics is for the discerning reader who wants to have a more transcendent experience when reading a comic book.

Through the employment of Advanced Visicomboics, we have raised up the medium. How, you ask? By labelling our brand with a fancy word we made up: Visicomboics! It just sounds more, well, educated. Erudite. It's sophist if not sophisticated.

So. What is the secret to reading Advanced Visicomboics? You must follow these steps, in order:

1. Open the comic to this page and read these instructions carefully.

2. For the full Visicomboic reading experience, we recommend this comic be accompanied by a beverage and a pastry, or other carbo-hydrate laden food. Alcoholic and/or hot beverages are preferred. Inebriation can really help. For a first reading, we recommend a coffee (or tea) and a donut (or muffin). For maximum effect, there should be some chocolate in either the coffee or the pastry. Consumption of the pastry should be paced with the reading.

Ideally, you will finish the comic at the same time you finish the pastry and the beverage. This, however, can take some practise. Do not let this discourage you. Quite often the pastry is finished first, then the beverage, and then the comic. Fortunately you can always postpone finishing the comic until you have a new pastry and beverage. The wonder of Visicomboics is that you can try a different food every time you read it. The story is entirely different with wine and cheese, for example, or, say, orange juice and cereal.

3. Read as per your usual comic, only with the knowledge that it is more complicated. The differences are very subtle, however, and are difficult to quantify. Suffice to say that it is only comprehensible to those of superior intellect, such as yourself.

4. Once finished reading, you can repurpose this Visicomboic work into an airplane through folding, or use it as kindling. The sky, or your imagination, is the limit! Just try and start a fire with a DVD!

5. Engage your imagination. We are harnessing techniques pio-neered by conceptual artists here: simply close your eyes and pretend that this comic is the greatest thing you have ever seen in your entire life. Don't think about the actual comic, think of the concept of the comic, think of the ultimate, Platonic ideal of a comic, and then project that image onto this comic. And voila, you hold in your hands the greatest comic never made. Visicomboics!

6. Be careful not to expose this comic to high doses of telluric current, lest the contents metastasize into reality and become a mortal peril to you and your loved ones.

© James Turner 2008