camwyn | Holy !*&(), it's Chibi Hellblazer.

No, not literally (although

chn_breathmint has drawn a very nice chibi of ol' John). No, I refer instead to the Cartoon Network show The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. They ran a marathon of this cartoon today on Cartoon Network, and since Grandpa spent most of today sleeping, I left it on while I knitted and kept an eye out for him.

The premise: Two kids. The boy's a moron, the girl's intelligent but highly cynical- in the course of the entire series she's never smiled once, unless you count a brief period where Billy was in control of her body. The premise is that Billy's hamster was dying and the Grim Reaper (who has a Jamaican accent for some reason) turned up to claim it, but Mandy tricked him into a contest for the hamster's soul, and Grim said he'd be their friend forever if he lost. Naturally, he lost. Mostly 'cos Mandy cheated. A lot.

Grim winds up basically babysitting the kids, doing their chores, etc. There are, of course, periodic outbursts of supernatural activity and such. Mandy, who is blonde as well as cynical and intelligent, takes the supernatural in stride- usually she's quite knowledgable about it, too. (Billy takes it in stride 'cos he's too dumb to know he should be shocked.)

Did I mention the part where one of the recurring characters is a British-accented fiend named Nergal? On one of today's episodes he created a giant carnival in the middle of their town because he wanted friends. He's not real clear on the 'friends' concept, though. When the Five C's of Friendship failed to do the trick, he decided to MAKE people be his friends. It involved tentacles. And possession. Between that episode and the "Son of Nergal" one I saw, all I can say is- if Mandy isn't an Elseworlds by-blow of John's, then she's GOT to be related to him somehow. Possibly through the white sheep of the family, whose descendants moved south from Canada, or something. I dunno. That, or he met her in an airport; he was waiting for his plane (delayed for the fifth time) and saw the Grim Reaper, and then saw her bossing him around, and they wound up talking just because there is a severe dearth of people with brains in most airports...

"Wait a tic. Who's that?"
"Which one?"
"The tall bloke in the suit, with the glowing green eyes and black skin."
"Oh. That's Nergal. He's married to Billy's Aunt Sis."
*PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF*
"Out of curiosity, does it hurt when that much coffee comes out your nose?"
"YEFF."