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Polio was a character I made up in 1997 for a video with my brother, Myles Langlois. In the video, Polio was being fired from a job for a variety of reasons. One of the managers sings these reasons to Polio in a brief (soft rock) song. The lyrics are as follows: "You come to work late every day, all you ever talk about is getting laid. You dropped acid in the coffee pot, the staff OD'd and the day was shot . . . you downloaded a virus and you wrecked the computers from looking at pictures of girls' naked hooters, you put a ham sandwich in the paper shredder, wrote the boss's wife a pornographic letter, brought your sick dog to work in an empty beer box, when Anderson complained you called him a queerbox, these are just a few of the things you've done, not to mention the times you pinched my buns." The manager escorts Polio from the building and Polio asks him to light his jetpack for him. Polio blasts off but then returns to shoot the manager in the chest several times. Polio then returned in a story called "The Evil Adventures of Polio" which was published in "Protoprize #1" (published by Samuel Appleface comics in 1999). In this story we find out he is in love with a beautiful prostitute named Lady Jane. He attempts to kidnap her but fails when his jetpack fuse is extinguished by the rain. He then escapes from a mob of 14 angry people, led by Lady Jane,Êwho wish to kick his ass. Polio's next appearance was in Polio vs. Mittel, where his dog, Palsy, is swallowed whole by a wolf in the park. Polio and the wolf's owner, Mittel, engage in a violent battle. While they are resting (after beating each other viciously) a giant, obese man named Gustaveric arrives in the park and swallows the wolf. Polio and Mittel defeat the giant (using a wasp covered ice cream cone) and take him to a hospital where a doctor first removes the wolf from Gustaveric's belly, and then the dog from the wolf's belly. ÊPolio and Mittel become friends in the waiting room after their pets are returned to them. The final appearance of Polio was in the "Protoprize" Trade Paperback compilation published by Hot Hail Comics in 2005. In this story he is working with a supernatural being called "The Slime Queen" and they are attempting to take over the world by reviving human corpses as an evil algae man army. The electrician, Dixie Snails, her friend, Double Amp, and three prostitutes, Gust, Corina Roberts, and Wendianne, foil the Slime Queen's plans. At the end of this issue, Polio has been left unconscious in the house during the final battle out on the street so it is not known what has become of him. I made the 6-foot-tall Polio doll in the year 2000. The artist/musician Dame Darcy and I were planning a doll show at the time and I wanted to have some unusual and intimidating dolls to show at the exhibit. I'd been making a lot of dolls with Michael Dumontier and decided to try a larger size. I also made a Medusa doll that was about 7 feet tall. We called the show "Dolls, Dolls, Dolls" and exhibited at the "Royal Art Lodge" studio. The Royal Art Lodge was a Winnipeg artist collective of which I was a member in 2000. After that, the large dolls were shipped to Richard Heller Gallery where I believe they were shown at least once. Drue Langlois |