Inside cover for the second issue of The Murkoff Collection
Outlast: The Murkoff Collections is a comic book series published by Red Barrels. They are written by series writer J. T. Petty and illustrated by GMB Chomichuk and The Black Frog. Each comic issue serves as a prequel to The Outlast Trials in which we see the origins of the Prime Assets and their introduction to the Murkoff Corporation. Each issue is told from the perspective of Murkoff's Director of Historical Refinement, Clyde Perry, during his tenure as an agent of Murkoff's Collections Department.
The comic series was first released online on September 15, 2023, with the second issue releasing on September 22. The third issue of series was released on July 12 2024.
Epigraph[]
"The rapidly expanding Murkoff Corporation uses science and cutting-edge psychotherapy to promote liberty, prosperity, and the strength of free markets around the world. The Murkoff Collections Department searches for assets, subjects, and techniques potentially useful to the organization, especially in the buildup of the potentially revolutionary Sinyala Facility".
Story[]
Issue 1[]
Clyde Perry travels to Blackwell, Oklahoma to conduct surveillance and eventually interview Sergeant Leyland Coyle. Perry watches Coyle's actions from afar which include standing in the middle of open fields during heavy thunderstorms and embracing the lightning that crashes down around him.
Soon after his observations, Clyde investigates Coyle's home, in which he finds various policeman awards and trinkets he collected during his military service in the pacific theatre. Clyde eventually arranges an interview with Coyle under the pretense of a bribe which soon goes south and results in Coyle beating Perry almost to death. Breaking his fingers and beating him to the point where he later accounts urinating blood.
Issue 2[]
We join Clyde Perry again as he travels to Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia to conduct an interview with inmate Phyllis Futterman. Perry is escorted through the prison to an interrogation room where he comes face to face with Phyllis and her makeshift puppet, Dr. Futterman.
Perry begins to recall Futterman's life before her imprisonment when she worked as her father's dentist, cheering up kids with her duck puppet. We learn that her popularity grew so large that in 1951 she aired her own TV show dubbed 'The Mother Gooseberry Hour'. Things soon went south for the show after Phyllis' father's death. Her show took a dark turn and she began conditioning the children watching her show to murder their parents, all the while they were unknowingly being drugged via the mail order dental drops the show promoted. Her studio was soon raided by the police on charges of racketeering and kidnapping and she was soon arrested after murdering two officers with a drill.
Twenty minutes into the interview, Phyllis began to lash out at Perry and attempted to kill him using her hand puppet. Fortunately for Perry, she was shackled to her seat and was unable to land a good hit on him. Perry managed to escape the room shaken but unharmed.
Issue 3[]
We follow up with Clyde Perry on October 1, 1959. We see him speeding down highway 31, roughly 30 miles out from New Orleans. We see him making contact with an employee of Franco Barbi's father at what appears to be a café or bar in a remote area, The employee shows pictures of a 10 year old Franco whilst reciting the origins of the photo. A story in which Franco took his father's shotgun and a shot a man who owed his father money. The recoil from the shotgun caused the stock to smash into his face, breaking his cheekbone, eye socket and teeth. The employee notes how it was the only time Franco's father was proud of him
The employee continues the story into Franco's teenage years where he became his father's button man. Commenting specifically on how he ruined his father's shotgun by sawing off the barrel. Franco's crimes grew to be so abhorrent that even his father struggled to keep the police at bay, which would eventually force his father to send him off to Miami to help a "mutual friend" of the CIA and Mafia involved with business in Cuba. A popular story told among the Barbi family mob. However, Perry notes that this "popular story" sounds a lot like a "false story". The employee makes note of this and tells Perry what the true story behind why Franco had to leave Louisiana, a story in which he was sleeping with his own step mother, his father's fourth wife, who would sexually humiliate him. It was the only thing Franco enjoyed sexually when with a woman. His father would eventually find out and ban him from ever coming back to New Orleans.
Perry makes his way to Miami and makes contact with a bartender who is also a CIA asset. They would discuss Franco's drinking habits, including his favorite cocktail called wolfs milk. A concoction made up of gin, milk, egg whites and amaretto. The bartender tells Clyde how Franco would take a thermos of the drink with him during raids in Cuba. Perry uses this information and is eventually able to make contact with a former associate of Franco who would go on these raids with him into Cuba. He is unable to provide any solid information on Franco's whereabouts, but he does advise Clyde to investigate a bar and brothel called 'The Gator-Hook Lounge'.
We see Clyde pull up in front of the building. It is unsure what happens next, but the panel after shows a standoff between Clyde and the bartender. The former with a gun and the latter with just a knife. It is not known what happened after, but Clyde ends up on a couch surrounded by prostitutes who all gossip about Franco. They mention how a co-worker of theirs, a woman named Jenny, was the only prostitute willing to sleep with Franco.
Clyde is able to stake out the working place of Jenny, a motel called 'The runaway inn motel'. He hears screams inside and goes to investigate. Coming across the naked corpse of Jenny, her stomach split open with what appears to be something stuffed inside. Perry pays no attention and goes to grab the motel rooms telephone, noting Franco's personal effects still in the room despite there being no sign of him. Before he is able to grab the phone, he hears a voice behind him. He turns around to see Franco crawling out of the split open stomach of Jenny. He wails like a child before cackling at Perry. A fight ensues between the two which ends up in Clyde getting shot in the mid section by Franco's sawed off shotgun. Luckily for Perry, a bystander walks into the room to investigate the noise and Franco chases him away. This gives Clyde enough time to lock himself inside the motel room and call a phone operator, most likely to get a connection to the CIA's phone line.
It is unknown what happens after, but we see on a telex note that Clyde survived and was stabilized in Miami before being flown to Texas for skull surgery and leg reconstruction. The note ends by saying "Franco Effective Practitioner Of Violence And Extremely Charismatic Individual. Highly Recommended For Project Lathe. Caution Recommended During Collection".