Yes...it is true. I graced Franta with a phone call Saturday night/Sunday morning...
The following is a transcript:
Bring Bring Bring
Franta: Hullo?
"bsams", or someone posing as HEROKILLER's "literary agent":
The fee wil be 3 thousand dollars. Is it possible for you to cut a check today?
Franta: Customarily, Mr....um, "Smith"...
"Agent": "Joe". Call me Joe...
Franta: Well..."Joe"...customarily we pay no "fees" for these appearences. Usually they, the attendees, show up as a gesture of friendship towards the event handler...
"agent": The three thousand dollars are....a "discount friendship fee".
Franta: I....see...
After some discussion, a check for 285 dollars was finally agreed upon. The "literary agent" claimed that this amount was just a "starter fee", and would be treated as such. Then, the "real HK came to the phone", or as the caller claimed. There was some muffled, shuffling sounds, and a oice that sounded strikingly similiar, yet a few octaves lower was then on the line.
HK: Hey, Franta...baby...now, listen....
Franta: Is this the same person?
HK: You wound me. Now listen...we gotta get this fee thing outta the way.
Franta: As in..."additonal fee"?
Another shuffle, and the "agent" was back.
"agent":
Fee. As in Fee Structure. It's an ugly word, but I think we need to get this outa the way before HK gets back. Or he'll walk.
Franta then excused himself from the phone for a moment, but left the speaker phone option on. The following is snippets of a recording of the events that followed:
"agent": This is horse shit.
HK: I tell you something else. I smell a screw job.
"agent": This guy'll pay.
HK: Right. Like you got those guys at Marvel to pay those "mental anguish charges" over the whole Spider-Clone and Heroes Reborn thing? Did you ever get that money outta them?
"agent": Are you sure they never paid? They told me...uh...they sent the check to you...
HK: Somehow...I'm not surprised. I'll tell you what we do. This time we screw them before they screw us.
"agent": High Five!
HK: High Five!
"agent": Check this out...
HK: Look what I got....
Later investigation discovered that the phone call had been made from one messageboard member's home, a self proclaimed "LLance". This is odd, for LLance was confirmed to have been in Chicago at that very time, though upon returning to his home, he discovered that his VCR, 300 dollars in cash, a Ming vase, and one (1) box, Fruity Pebbles, had gone missing.
HEROKILLER and bsams have not been found for comment, though reports of them in a Tijuana hotelroom with 3 hookers and a case of vodka have yet to be substantiated as hard fact.
