Gigaman: "I'm hopeless at what I do"

Interview with an anti-hero By Slimer

Many of you know Gigaman from the popular comic strip in DBA disk magazine. But who is the man behind the mask that constantly risks his life to help others? Many of you don't know that the strips are based on a actual real life superhero. Slimer went to find out and met with the real Gigaman at an undisclosed location in Amsterdam. Read the exclusive interview with an anti- hero.

S: First of all a compliment for your mask, it's eh, very glittery.

GM: Thank you, it's Gucci. Got it for my 50th birthday together with a lovely new Spandex superhero costume. It was a gift for saving Gucci's poodle. The poor animal was caught with its leash on a spinning ceiling fan. The fan wouldn't turn off, so Gucci called me. I came and saved the poodle. As a reward I got a new outfit. The poor dog only walks in circles now.

S: The costume is very ... interesting. Are you aware that you've somewhat a cult figure in certain circles?

GM: No I wasn't aware of that. I've never seen myself as cult figure, but if it opens up a market for fan merchandise than I have no problem with it [laughs]

S: You should know that Richard Karsmakers is a huge fan.

GM: Richard who? I don't know a Richard Karsmakers.

S: He is the only guy who laughs about your comic strip adventures.

GM: He doesn't sound like a nice guy. These strips are deadly serious and certainly not meant to be comical. I can't help it that sometimes things go wrong. I'm desperately trying to help people.

S: I've heard that your super powers manifested itself during your early childhood. When did you first discover that you were different?

GM: The first time I noticed was when I was about 7 years old. I pulled our cat's tale, like so many children do. I had no harm in mind but suddenly there was a lot of panic and my mother started screaming at me "what have you done!?, what have you done!?" Suffice to say the cat was never the same again. It's been in an animal clinic for 4 months and when it got back home it wouldn't come near me.

My parents really got worried when they discovered that I had the ability to fly. A few weeks after the cat incident they found me on the roof of the house. They had to call the fire-brigade to get me off again. It was when I started breaking things in the house that they sent me to a doctor. The poor man didn't know what to do with me and called the government.

S: What did the government do?

GM: The took me to a secret laboratory and tried experiments on me. They asked me to demonstrate my powers. They quickly found out that I'm very clumsy and that clumsy and superpowers do not go well together Now they don't want to have anything to do with me.

S: What happened?

GM: I cannot go into details but there was an huge explosion involving 6 sheep, a banana, a vacuum cleaner and lots of casualties. The government told the media that it was an underground nuclear bomb test. It was the only way that they could explain away the huge crater.

S: Wow

GM: indeed. It was an accident. I still have nightmares about those poor innocent sheep.

S: What did you learn from this experience?

GM: That my superpowers are unreliable. I'm permanently invincible but my super-strength and flying powers only work for random periods of time. Sometimes they last for a hours, sometimes only for only a few minutes.

S: This sounds very inconvenient for a superhero, still you try to help other people when they are in trouble.

GM: Yes, I do, but most of the time things go wrong. I'm hopeless at what I do.

S: Do you see consider yourself as a hero?

GM: Hero is only a label that people give you.

Oh, I forgot do you care for some coffee?

--- afterword ---

Here the interview ended. According the Gigaman's mom, who was present during the interview, things went horribly wrong when her son offered Slimer a cup of coffee. Slimer was rushed to the nearest hospital with second degree burns and a severe whiplash. The burns came from Gigaman spilling hot coffee on Slimer's crotch and the whiplash when Gigaman tried to spin-dry him.

Slimer.

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