We All Came Out to Mantra

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The cover of We All Came Out to Mantra, the fourth Newshounds compilation by Thomas K. Dye.
The cover of We All Came Out to Mantra, the fourth Newshounds compilation by Thomas K. Dye.

We All Came Out to Mantra is the fourth compilation of comic strips of the webcomic Newshounds by Thomas K. Dye. The book covers the comics between June 4, 2001 and August 2, 2002. These comics introduced Rochelle O'Shea as a main character, as well as introducing the character Sgt. Bully Runyon.

The book also has a special feature about Lorna as a child.

Contents

[edit] Notable Storylines

[edit] Clean And Responsible Animals (June 11-August 6 2001)

Lorna receives a message from one Dr. Alfred Qua, who orders her to use a new vaccine to be used on the KPET news crew. After the animals take their first vaccine (including Alistair and Ferris after some protest) Lorna is ordered to make them take another vaccine, but the doctors are very secretive about it.[1] After the vaccine, the KPET crew start to act oddly, becoming more right-wing, and avoiding topics considered not "Clean and Responsible". Lorna tries to complain to Dr. Qua, but she gets nowhere. Oddly, KPET's ratings raise after they become clean and responsible, even passing KRVL. In order to get back in the ratings again, KRVL consider doing a program on KPET's new success.[2] KPET decide to get Dr. Qua to talk in the program, but he tells them that it would be irresponsible. As a logical consequence, the vaccine wears off.[3] When they realise what has happened to them, they decide to use the KRVL broadcast to tell everyone what has happened. Whilst Dirk Snoogems interviews them, they let out all the facts. Not even the use of a church minister can stop them.[4]

[edit] Army Dogs (September 17-December 28 2001)

After 9/11, Sam decides to join the army as a bomb sniffer dog, and gets Wolfram to join him. Although Wolfram is at first hesitant, he changes his mind quickly when he sees the sergeant, Rochelle O'Shea.[5] At KPET, Lorna is forced to use Alistair as a temporary co-anchor, but his left-wing views often get in the way. After some training, Sam and Wolfram learn their first assignment, which involves working with Rochelle and the over-patriotic sergeant Bully Runyon. Their job involves finding a bomb at a complex site, which turns out to be the old Swallowemup Enterprises site.[6] Wolfram finds the bomb in a basement (which he falls through), and Sam finds a map with written in Arabic. Sam later finds Wolfram, and with Rochelle's help gets him out of the hole before it blows up. At KPET, Alistair's attack of the government after 9/11 causes an anti-terrorist government agency to monitor them. When Rochelle's commander, Colonel Marteau, reads the map, he plans to use it at a war conference. Later, at a bar, Runyon tells Wolfram that he an Marteau plan to fly a plan in the Afghanistani embassy in Berlin.[7] He tells Rochelle and Sam about the plan, who rush to the airport to stop Runyon, with large amounts of military police. Eventually, Marteau and Runyon are arrested, but despite their good work, they are dishonorably discharged.[8] After they leave the army, Wolfram invites Rochelle to work at KPET again as a field reporter, and she accepts, but Renata does not take it well.[9]

[edit] Internal Audit/Insider Trading (January 21-February 14 2002)

Virgiltech is undergoing an internal audit, thus KPET need to hand in their accounts the day after tomorrow. Lorna asks Dorian and Kevin to sort out the accounts, but when Dorian leaves Kevin to finish, he falls asleep on the job. As a result, Virgiltech appear to be ruined.[10] At Virgiltech, the company sues 100,000 employees for insider trading, including KPET. Lorna gets Alistair to act as lawyer to try and stop the lawsuit, but luckily Virgil himself steps in to stop it.[11]

[edit] Local Yokels (February 18-March 21 2002)

Sam interviews the manager of a losing baseball team, the Yokels, and he seems to force Sam to be put in charge of it. Sam clearly sees that the team are a total bunch of losers, but when Kevin mentions a sarcastic idea of replacing the contracted players with better players faking their identies, Sam goes out of his way to find 25 good players, all of whom are coaches in the little leagues.[12] Sam manages to drug the real players and get the fake players to play, but Lorna does not approve of Sam's activities, claiming that that is a conflict of interest.[13] Whilst worrying about his position, he forgets to drug the real players, thus the fake players threaten to kill him, but Sam stops them buy offering his management contract to the fake players.

[edit] Grand Center (April 2-June 3 2002)

Wolfram and Rochelle become worried about living at KPET, so they decide to find their own apartment, at the run-down Grand Center apartments. When Renata learns about it, she refuses to believe it, thinking that Rochelle is doing a special undercover feature.[14] She researches into the building, and uncovers that it has been the scene of a series of mass murders since it was first built. The long Wolfram and Rochelle stay, the more convinced Wolfram is that the place is haunted by some ghost or a murderer is staying there. He even sees a head coming through the wall,[15] although it is later exposed by Renata to be a hologram. Renata goes back to the apartment to see what is to blame, and later is arrested accused of being a killer.[16] At the apartment, Rochelle discover a tiny note, which reveals that the people trying to get Rochelle and Wolfram out of the aprtment are the spiders living there, who confess to the police about the whole crime. When the police come with Renata, the spider that confessed offers to name names, but the poice kill it.[17] The other spiders are killed by Sunflower Chemicals.

[edit] Other Features

[edit] Vacation Time!!

This special feature tells a story set in 1982, where a young Lorna, still living in New York going on holiday with Ernest and Julia to Los Angeles. During the trip, Ernest tries to curb Lorna's obsession with the news.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Newshounds 22 June 2001 Clean And Responsible Animals: Closed-Minded.
  2. ^ Newshounds 9 July 2001 Clean And Responsible Animals: KRVL's Feature Piece.
  3. ^ Newshounds 13 July 2001 Clean And Responsible Animals: Six Minds Exploding.
  4. ^ Newshounds 27 July 2001 Clean And Responsible Animals: Slanderous Gossip.
  5. ^ Newshounds 24 September 2001 Army Dogs: Reunion.
  6. ^ Newshounds 19 October 2001 Army Dogs: Mission Locale Revealed.
  7. ^ Newshounds 23 November 2001 Army Dogs: Runyon Rambling.
  8. ^ Newshounds 12 December 2001 Army Dogs: A Hero's Reward?
  9. ^ Newshounds 24 December 2001 Army Dogs: Renata Protects Her Territory.
  10. ^ Newshounds 28 January 2002 Internal Audit: The Final Curtain.
  11. ^ Newshounds 13 February 2002 Insider Trading: Record Profit.
  12. ^ Newshounds 1 March 2002 Local Yokels: Many a Truth…
  13. ^ Newshounds 11 March 2002 Local Yokels: Over the Shock.
  14. ^ Newshounds 11 April 2002 Grand Center: Renata's Greatest Fear.
  15. ^ Newshounds 30 April 2002 Grand Center: Inappropriate.
  16. ^ Newshounds 16 May 2002 Grand Center: Waiving Miranda.
  17. ^ Newshounds 28 May 2002 Grand Center: A Poor Bargaining Position.

[edit] External links


Newshounds
Books:
Newshounds (book) | Tonight's Top Story | Press Badge Blues | We All Came Out to Mantra | Regime Change | Surgery in the Park | All the Newshounds Fit to Print
Other:
Thomas K. Dye | Recurring characters in Newshounds
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