Teamworking Day: Camel Healthy Nerves Part 1

Dennard: Stop whatever personal-growth thing you’re doing, this is important.

Brendan: Ow! My brain’s eyes!

Dennard: It’s my latest creation. I stole it. This is Camel’s Healthy Nerves campaign from the 40’s, 50’s, and next week. I’m selling it back to them, unchanged. What do you think about smoking? The suicide kind, not the soul-expanding kind.

Brendan: Sure, now that I’m not reviewing whiskeys to pay my rent, I could use a new drug to ruin my health for money.

Dennard: Perfect! You’re an ideal test friend. Lab comrade. Guinea ally. You already like smoking, so you can pretend my ads convinced you. See, Camel’s suffocating like their best customers. While new poisons are better in every possible way, cigarettes won’t go out with dignity. Death-sticks plan to scratch, sob, and urinate to the end. A bit like the country.

That’s where I come in. I’m saving Big Tobacco by stealing fat wads of their money. But I’m not wasting new work in the Sick Old Man of Earth. So we’re running old ads. Unchanged. It’s bespoke service: no machine can out-steal a man that Does Not Care.

Brendan: I’m torn. The last time I was assigned an inhalants campaign, it cost me my career to help a vape corporation poison douchebags. On the other hand, I’m entirely in favor of cheating rich people and Neo-Confederates, so let’s light up.

Dennard: Wonderful! Here’s your feedback interface.

If a piece is art, press “Smash.” If it’s still art, but not your type, press “Smash” anyway. The more of these you approve, the less work I have to mime this month. Your first category is:

Dennard: To mine some holy profit from the local mood, I’m stealing some army ads. Someone just jumped Poland, so we’re on the patriotic pulse. Think “Nothing beats a Camel after a good kill. Except two.” Hey, that’s pretty good! But theft’s the future, until we blow up the future.

Brendan: Depleting our troops’ lungpower during a war of invasion feels like actively sabotaging the fight? If I were a tobacco company I’d let boatfuls of my cigarettes get seized by the Nazi-Communists after dipping them in hashish-juice, but again: creative thinking like this is exactly how I got squeezed out of branded content.

Dennard: Fascinating! Anyway, check this:

Dennard: Look what one king proudly risked for oil. I look forward to younger, dumber heroes finding that spark. Maybe even children I’ve taught! They use different slang, so they could use some hardening.

Note the T-Zone’s return. Camel’s mildness makes you bulletproof. It’s the perfect brand claim: no one can test it and live. Racism, however, is testing quite well this year, so this ad has really come home.

Brendan: I had an actual Aunt Nellie and she was the most racist relative in my family, so I'm on familiar terrain. Unfortunately, we are in the sky, not terrain, so I'm going to have to trust my instrumentation that this is about the same level, the same way I trust Camels's costlier tobaccos for a cool smoke that's "mild" on my throat and nerves, whether in the cockpit or in the bed, which I also call the cockpit. Not for reasons you think. It has a thriving chicken-fighting circuit.

Dennard: Do I hear an incoming smash? Yes, in fact, I do. Smash like one of the twenty blind enemy pilots that Charles dodged in his true story.

Brendan: This is a kneejerk pass for me, because racism is never funny, unless a blonde nun does it to a bartender with a ten-inch penis.

DENNARD: Cool prank, throwing out that free money from a limited pool of material. Now let's get right with commerce. Our next pilot isn’t:

DENNARD: Not all heroes die in planes: some die underfoot, dressed like Mustard Elves, waving “left” to pilots that passed out six minutes ago.

Brendan: What a guy! He saves your life and then he gives you a cigarette when you owe him a carton. I’m not convinced by any of this.

Dennard: It’s okay, I’m convinced for both of us. My Camel-enhanced T-Zone knows branding brilliance better than any audience. I love this, so we love this.

Brendan: Smashing a fuel-filled engine on a deck full of explosives, then lighting a cigarette is just how men said hello in 1945.

Dennard: September’s greatest martyr. We agree.

Brendan: One of these guys is definitely fucking the other’s wife. The only mystery of this murther bid is whether it’s by my goodsir’s request. I can’t pick sides until it’s solved.

Dennard: You missed the Smash button! I’m sure you’ll nail it next time.

To keep these relatable, I’m also stealing ways to die on dry land. The T-Zone works for bleeding out the jungle and sinking to the ocean floor. Or rather, dodging both with your Camel-enhanced reflexes.

Dennard: The Chemical Warfare Service! If you have questions, you’re on a list.

Brendan: This dogface's favorite thing to do is kick back with his fellow GIs and discuss why Camels are so popular with our fighting boys over there battlin’ them Ratzis. And no, it's not because you can see Marilyn Monroe in the camel's leg. It's because you can see God in the dilating pupils of a bayoneted man, and after a blood-orgasm, a man needs a smoke. I guess I’d need a cigarette too after jocularly killing a stranger over differing preferences in overlords.

Dennard: You get it! There’s a raw, sensual thrill to a pre-charge smoke. “Sensual” is ad for “final erection.” Postmortem boners have nothing on pre-mortem boners. Just look out for traitors with Lucky Strikes. They wouldn’t hire me, so I’m replacing each slur with “Lucky Lover.”

Dennard: I'm getting concerned. Three suitors, zero smashes. It’s looking a little volcel in here, Brendan. I don’t know about you, but I join focus groups to fuck.

Brendan: I want to support your advertising ascension, if only so I’m no longer the most soulless yet least prolific Hot Dog writer. But if my brand loyalty is unearned, I’m sending you unarmed to your doom, like an aikido grandmaster at a strip mall pilates demonstration.

Dennard: Does doom test well? Then kill me. Do it now. Send me to Mammon, this tariffed world holds nothing for a sold soul.

Dennard: Maybe you’re more into roleplaying war. Healthy Nerves took credit for a generation of athletes, and I intend to change nothing. Starting with America’s game:

Dennard: Before you start: Lou Gherig also had a little disease called excellence. Where are the studies on excellence? Why don’t researchers connect drugs to excellence? Camel just wants kids to value excellence before they can spell it.

Brendan: This is so far from my frame of reference it’s an archeological artifact: a time when baseball mattered, the meaning of the word “larruping,” the lost language of graphic storytelling to describe a hearty serving of no-more-steak. If this comic convinces me to smoke, there’s no need to stress-test the others. It will be a universal codex.

Dennard: Stop reading other comics, they don’t test well. And keep avoiding real history. Coughing fits gave tobacco athletes a bad name, but I think Healthy Nerves can change that. Alongside our new SmokeFit workout channel. Join SmokeFit to get Steamin’ hot. Wait, I fucked that up—

Brendan: Forget it, Dayle, you’re flogging a dead efferent system. I may concede cigarettes look cool, but I can never forgive their anti-larruping consequences.

Dennard: There are nuances. I’ll think of them later. For now, I suggest you moderate your—

Brendan: This game is everything I hate about dating apps post-2015. The only way to win is simply not to play.

Dennard: Brendan, I don’t think you get Smash or Pass. The joy isn’t rejecting the weak. It’s telling another human “you’re my chosen meat. And now the internet knows.” You can do that to these ads.

The dented wall makes me look angry. But I’m really enjoying the spirit of collaboration. Just like Hans Thorner, another patient educator:

Brendan: Sir, you expect results of me these ads simply haven’t implemented. With all dear respect to our bromance, the smoking hazards are the least disturbing depiction of 1950s life. These people can’t even fall down a hill without breaking for a fix.

Dennard: Press the button, you piece of—friend. Trust Hans. Hans spends all winter around injured children, so he’s basically a doctor.

Brendan: I appreciate your best efforts but if making my dad love me couldn’t get me invested in sports, I don’t see why heart disease would.

Dennard: Weird, my Camel-boosted T-Zone should have me smiling. Instead, I’m stuck with…what do they call it? Low net worth face? Why are you doing this to me?

Kidding! Two Camels and some tape, and I’m back to smiling! Let’s help the working men of America smile too.

Dennard: Dying for sport or the state’s great, but working men die too. I presume. I haven’t talked to a normal in years. These ads connect to a normal I drew in my journal.

Dennard: See how reliable Joyce is? Someone asks for his body, he plays along. I bet Joyce would’ve broken that button by now. Why not be more like Joyce? Do you hate Camels, and thus commerce, and thus our fair reich? Joyce is spinning in his early grave.

Brendan: I just don’t understand why flagpoles need steeplejacks. Do poles require a lot of maintenance? Why can’t we design one that can be lowered? If you do a job this confusing, you probably do smoke Camels for health.

Dennard: Life’s not all about selfish “reasons.” There’s also doing what you’re told for our god, Profit. Then enjoying six minutes of chemical relief, that also kills you, before the next task. My point is button button press the fucking button.

Dennard: Piss! Lord Mammon, give me the credit to accept with indifference the things I cannot buy, credit to buy the things which should be bought, and a 2025 Apolitical Soy-Free Tesla.

Dennard: Speaking of gravity and its consequences: you can also fall for friendship, helping other Joes reach their falling appointments. In fact, there’s no better way. This one’s close to my heart. Let Camels kill you, before labor does. Art itself.

Brendan: Before we had OSHA we had cigarettes. Is there a reason these guys can’t clip into safety wires? Does that interfere with the smooth smokification of the nerves’ cool-guy receptors? The relationship between tough and stupid is some sort of necessity-axis parabola.

Dennard: He’s starting to believe. Smash that button like it resembles your parents.

Brendan: I want to, but Adam Tomey is looking at me, and I dare not move, lest his snapping teeth strike. Boy does he have a face you just can't get anymore. You'd have to raise a 21st century child on boiled trotters and Camel cigarettes to recreate this Boy George/Killer Klown.

Dennard: That’s Healthy Nerves for you! Mine are shot now. My hands tremble with the guilt of a thousand neck holes. I started today as a person, and will leave it something new. I want to say sorry, but I’d make the same choices with all the knowledge I have now. New ad!

Next up, a speedboat racer who bursts through a wall to find a threeso–

Dennard: Wait, I’m not done Drapering. You haven’t even seen it. You can’t smash blind. Gloryholes are for people, not ads. Brands need a little romance.

Brendan: Is he busting through a brick wall? Do Camels give you Kool-Aid Man powers? Hahaha, finally, a smoker for me!

Dennard: I did it! Wasn’t this supposed to fill the hole? Life feels the same. Like my degree and job and other degree and marriage and money and publishing and future marriage. How many polyps does it take to make a T-Zone whole? What is my speedboat?

Brendan: What a day Pope's having. He found the peak of already awesome speedboating, won a competition on the bones of his foes, got a movie contract, and now twins want to give him a happy ending. I'd start smoking too!

Dennard: Keep that momentum. Don’t think, or inhale, or even light your next Camel. You need focus to survive a lion attack:

Dennard: Animal breaking’s just like a speedboat. Very smashable. If you throw the word abuse at everything, you’ll never get anywhere with lions. They’re like children, or employees, or selves. There’s never enough discipline, just like there’s never enough nicotine. Do you have any complimentary Camels left? I’ve gone through mine.

Brendan: At this rate I’m worried we’re not going to have any Camel keepers left.

Dennard: We’ve done the research: animal suffering’s the only way half our base can finish.

Brendan: Boss-brain brags about repeating mistakes that never catch up with you, but only ad-brain calls it a victory for experience. Experience would have said to stop messing with the most dangerous lions? Or have such a poorly designed lion chute. I would have smashed this if the lions overthrew their captors and started smoking.

Dennard: Dope, I’m only furious in my mind and soul. Speaking of fucking with big cats, the circus is in town!

Dennard: At the circus, magic is alive. And a mid-stunt cough spells death. So toughen up those lungs with a Camel before setting foot in the Big Top.

Dennard: Or the rodeo, whatever. All categories are fluid but two: people with bunker credit, and the doomed. If it gets me in the second group, this is a circus. Feel me?

Brendan: It has clowns and animals regularly killing their abusers. Feels circusy to me.

Dennard: A coward hears “this animal hates to be ridden, and no one’s done it and lived.” A Camel smoker’s already climbed the bull. They’ve seen their own deaths, and fuck staring at the cancer ward ceiling.

Brendan: The printer had to do an actual color hold on those plaid lines. All that extra labor to get cowboy Ken Roberts killed by taurus-cancer when they could have just let the cow graze in a field and eaten him after he passed from natural causes. The only ethical animal captivity is my cat and dog, in order to kiss them.

Dennard: Consider this: living and dead bulls hold the same number of particles. That’s from a comic! You love those, and these. Keep smashing for Alan Moore. Trusting companies will go better for you. As his best friend Morrison says: one witch’s prison is another witch’s opportunity. We’re in the same coven. Smash smash.

Brendan: These panels are too verbose even for Alan Moore. Ads from the ‘50s would write 3000 words on a single page, yet still swerve into a transition like, “Speaking of hanging onto an F-14 by your fingernails, concentrating on Camels is shown to deliver Relaxatonin, with even more smoke!” Get outta here.

Dennard: This rage takes me back. Like all children, I dreamed of dying in the circus. After reading about therapy, I now dream of surviving the high wire. The next ad speaks to that.

Brendan: This is madness. No one should be doing this. If I tried it two inches off the ground, I'd have three broken ankles, and doctors would tell me that my T-Zone would never teach me from experience again. What darkness haunts Harold Alzana that every night he dares five thousand strangers to watch him die?

Dennard: Everyone dies, from a great height, screaming. But not everyone smokes. Will you let your tasty Throat Zone go untouched? Or are you gonna smash?

Brendan: If I worked a job where death was the retirement plan, I guess I’d smoke too. What are you keeping your lungs clean for when you’ll know they’ll be perforated by your floating ribs? It’s a solid argument…for someone else. However, I am a comedy writer, so statistically speaking, I will die of starvation or exposure as my bills pile up.

Dennard: Darkling what the fuck was I thinking? You just need more cats. Well, Camels can help you play with lions!

Dennard: Or torture lions! They’re the official brand of animal pain. Smoke Camels if you hate camels. When your furry foes get testy, Camels can even hypnotize them! Somehow. Alright, I fold. This one might kill a few kids. Quickly, instead of slowly.

Brendan: A Lucky Strikes man might ask himself whether 25 extremely territorial male predators should be crammed into a confined space and whipped. But Terrell smokes Camels, so his T(estoster)-Zone is clear of introspection. He tortures cats for a living, and society calls him a hero.

Dennard: Well, there’s acrobats here too. A little short on cat torture, but peerless falling. Shortness of breath helps you lock in a good fulltwist. I can’t do those, but it feels right. And that’s all a smashable ad needs.

Brendan: Yeah, but why are the tobacco growers paying for Camels instead of simply keeping a bushel at home to dry? The only part of this strip convincing me is Tony Concello setting records for her sex in a time when society frowned on physical fitness for women as a form of contraceptive (forbidden). Now there’s a rulebreaker I’d light up in tribute to!

Dennard: Now we’re talking. Like anyone in a bar after 3 AM, we’re ready to smash. And we don’t care what the ad looks like, thinks of us, or does to our health.

Dennard: Finally! We found your selling point! Pin-up carnies, who knew? Every soul has a crack somewhere. We can stop here. I’ll get the rest of these samples back to Misktatonic, thanks for your time.

Brendan: No! Let’s keep going! More Antoinette Concello! More kickass carny women! The addiction isn’t the cigarettes, it’s the ads! I need–MORE, Dennard. MORE!

Dennard: Let go of me–

Brendan: I know you’re holding, you sonifaas-*krashboombang*

[Strangled sounds heard from Teamworking Booth before 17 minutes of silence on remaining tape. Only discernible noise is the occasional flick of a Zippo and heavy breathing.]

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Patrick Herbst who lives in a constant state of bliss thanks to that sweet sweet tobacco and tar.

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