Well, the Daily Victim Artist Search has officially wrapped up. It came unexpectedly to an end this afternoon. I strolled into my cluttered office, piled high with resumes and art samples, and cleared a space for my hamburger and fries. I turned on my computer and the sound of my email beeping was like a bell choir and went on for five minutes. I silently wondered how I'd gotten roped into doing this.

Then, in walks Fargo, wearing a flowered shirt and carrying two suitcases. "What up Freakshow?" he asked, slamming his butt into a chair and putting his feet up on the desk (knocking to the floor a sorted pile of applications as he did so).

"What are you doing?" I asked, eyeing the suitcases. "You're not fleeing the country, are you?"

"Nonsense!" Fargo replied, waving his hand dismissively. "The time to do so has long since passed and I blew it. Nope, I'm getting married. Then I'm out of here for a couple weeks to sun myself on the warm sandy tropical beaches of --" he paused to flip through a travel brochure "-- Iceland, it looks like."

"You're getting married?" I stammered.

"Why yes -- weren't you invited? Oh, of course not, I forgot how much I dislike you. Well, anyways, I'm sure you don't need my help going over the rest of the -- what is it? 3600 submissions? Wow, if that many people had been submissive in real life I'd never have gotten married."

Anger rose to flush my cheeks. "What are you talking about? I can't finish this off! Besides, who's going to write the feature while you're gone?"

Again Fargo waved his hand, then grabbed my burger and started to eat it. Dribbling lettuce down his chin, he mumbled through a full mouth: "Mnnnph yes, yes, well, it's a good time to take a break, right?" he swallowed, then grew exited as he spoke. "It's certainly not for want of artistic talent, we've got tons of good people who wrote in. But, when we change artists, if I keep the feature going, I want to go BIG!" And with that, he made a sweeping gesture with his arms that dislodged my hamburger and sent the meat patty sailing into my fishtank. "Aw crap, will you look at that? You just wasted a perfectly good burger."

He could see I was upset.

"Chill dude," Fargo continued, wrapping the remains of my burger up neatly in the wrapper. "In a couple of weeks, the Daily Victim might come back better than ever. Who knows? Just keep going through those artist portfolios and gimmie the best when I get back. Speaking of which -- oh yah, I was supposed to be at the church an hour ago. And I still gotta pick up one of those -- whatchacallit? 'Rings.' Hold the fort, dude!"

With that, he put on a hat, grabbed his bags, and strolled out of the room.

The hat was my hat.

[Fargo returns to GameSpy October 18th. Thanks for reading, and thank you to all the artists who sent in applications! Contrary to the comedy above, Fargo is actually going over each and every one. See you next month!]