Pep Talk #9: The Sim-Phony by John Arcudi and Herman Melville

Writer John Arcudi's entry on Wikipedia reads as follows:

John Arcudi is an American comic book writer, best known for his work on The Mask and B.P.R.D., and his series Major Bummer. Arcudi grew up in Buffalo, New York. He attended Columbia University as an English major and "devoured the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and William Faulkner with equal enthusiasm." I'm guessing that he also read Moby Dick.