Occasionally, news stories slip through the cracks in our editorial edifice. Fortunately, nothing gets by your intrepid Nomaville-based reporter.

Zoologists have announced that a creature captured in the Pacific Northwest of North America is not the fabled Sasquatch as first thought, but rather Ian Billings, a rock guitarist thought to have perished following complications from a camping trip. Billings apparently had not bathed, shaved or had a haircut since his debut album with Switchback 5 in 1994, which enjoyed mild success on college radio. Researchers bagged Billings when he sauntered into a trap comprised of a rabbit carcass and back issues of “Field and Stream,” a publication thought to be Bigfoot’s favorite since he frequently writes letters to the editor. Billings is pleased to be back in the spotlight and is entertaining the notion of reforming Switchback 5. “This time,” says Billings. “I’m driving the van.”

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Jiminy Cricket, best known as Pinocchio’s sage grasshopper pal, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The bug rose to international prominence with the publication of his tell-all “His Nose, My Lies” which launched his self-help empire. However, his satirical book “Bad Advice for Worse Times” nearly tanked his career with such unfortunate chestnuts as “The message in the bottle is ‘drink’” and “Yes, I think that skirt makes you look fat.” Now, Cricket is broke and hoping to salvage his business with another tell-all “The Blue Fairy Made Me a Real Little Man.” If Cricket can’t turn a buck out of his new book, he plans to get religion and join a swarm of locusts to wreak havoc as a plague.

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A teenager claiming to be the Anti-Christ sent to Earth to hasten the Apocalypse was released by authorities today following his arrest and incarceration for disturbing the peace and supplying false identity. The latter charge was dropped when his lawyer, Beelzebub, was able to substantiate the boy’s claims, though the young troublemaker still faces charges of disturbing the peace for throwing water balloons at girls wearing white t-shirts. As his attorney explained, “Clearly, the Anti-Christ has a lot of growing up to do. He wasn’t even supposed to be here until 2012, but he sneaked out of the Gates of Hell to hang out with his friends. When he’s of age he’ll do some real havoc.” Jurors were sympathetic to the Anti-Christ’s boyhood shenanigans and waived the $666 fine he faced by permitting him to do community service at a local home for lost souls.

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Several thousand pennies left the U.S. Mint with a typo this week. The coinage, which usually features the four-word epitaph “In God we trust,” was released to the masses reading “In Zod we trust.” The misspelling has raised debate regarding the separation of church and state as well as concerns about the whereabouts of General Zod, the leader of a threesome of evildoers vanquished to the Phantom Zone in “Superman: The Movie.” Zod later returned in Superman II and took over the United States with his hot evil girlfriend and man-child sidekick, Non. Authorities will not comment whether the misprinted pennies are the work of the evildoer, though some believe it could betoken his return to the current Superman movie franchise as a promotional device. 20th Century Fox was recently reprimanded after it hired the Franklin Mint, a private manufacturer of collectible coins, to place an image of Marvel crime-fighter the Silver Surfer on the backs of 40,000 California statehood quarters. Of course, it would take 25 Zod pennies to contend with one Silver Surfer quarter, but neither coin can compare to the Daedalus Howell Commemorative Tin Bouillon Bar. This begs the question, am I a superhero or supervillain? (Diabolical laughter.