The Search for Retina Soybean

Back in the day, I used to see this mop headed half-midget (midget & a half?) named Dan in various cities across the U.S. for the bulk of a summer. He stuck out, primarily because he sported a savage afro & a referee shirt. Dan spent his time listening to a seemingly endless supply of Frank Zappa bootlegs with herculean habituality while criss-crossing the country in a stretched-out cadillac that had two rows of back seat, facing one another. The Man smoked like an old broke stove, uncountable Old Golds. I did an overnight shotgun stretch with him from Denver to East Kansas City, MO. I can't even remember what we talked about, but it was 80's Shiek Yerbouti-ish FZ that night. The symptomatic, annoying timbre of Zappa's keyboard choices during that era kept an edge to us during those lean wee hours through the blankest region this side of anywhere, hurtling refugees crossing over an obscured and sombre demesne. Dan would draw these astounding comics that managed to be completely bewildering without feeling obsolete. The strip was called Retina Soybean, and I wish I could remember anything about them.
I was sitting at home lamenting the lack of a decent Comic Book Shop in this town. I ish I knew what was happening in Y, The Last Man, the only title I read with regularity. I couldn't get the scoop without ensconcing myself in the online usenet newsgroup comic book community. If I couldn't hang with Tom Waits Fans, then noway am I going to keep up in any fashion less than significantly more annoying than driving somewhere or getting a subscription. So I decided to look up Tank Girl, which got me thinking about comics I liked which flipped me right back, in the context of my subjective chronomental rolodex, to Dan...
I couldn't find Retina Soybean, but I did dig up Dan's last name, which took me here. Perfect. Could 4'8" Dan have become an actor Popular in Poland, appearing in "Die You Zombie Bastards!"? I could see him playing " Hippie, Robot, robotnik polowy na wyspie piekło" in a Zombie movie... seems thematically congruous. Does the actor Dan Vena look like that Dan Vena?IMDB identifies his role as being "Hippie, Robot, Hell Island Field Worker." By now, I want to see this flick, regardless of which Dan is which. He apparently also worked as a grip on said film. No picture of Dans. I'll take one for the team and order it... IF I CAN FUCKING FIND IT... It came out in February, and is nowhere to be found. I don't understand how a movie with the tagline "The World's First EVER Serial Killer Superhero Rock'n'Roll Zombie Road Movie Romance" managed to fall off of the RADAR... The Horror Channel site gave it 3 out of 5 Mugs o' Blood. For low-budget Zombie, that means good.
















Retina Soybean... Wherefore art thou?