Eugene was born in Blighty, (Yorkshire) to English parents, Eugene and family moved to a small provincial town in New Zealand when he was 9. His father, an authoritarian, bought a gas station and Eugene, always a husky lad, was pumping gas after school every day when just 10 years old. Occasionally, a local yobbo would “do a runner”, leaving Eugene holding the bowser and no cash. When this happened, Eugene was told the money lost would be coming out of his pocket. Early experience in deficit management was gained; Eugene was never paid for pumping gas. Later, as a High Schooler, Eugene got a job working part-time for a delicatessan which expanded his waistline more than his wallet, but he managed to save enough money for a one way ticket to London by the time he was 17 and informed his frantic mother from a pay-phone in Tooting that he wouldn’t be coming home for a while.

   Free from his father’s critical scrutiny, Eugene went a little berserk. He indulged his burgeoning, gargantuan appetite for his favorite vices; food, booze, drugs and sex; not necessarily in that order, but certainly in concert with one another. Evicted from one dwelling after another for the inconvenience that his volcanic, hedonistic eruptions caused his neighbors, Eugene finally settled into a bed-sit around the corner from “the Agency” where Zim was employed as a “go-’fer”. Running low on funds, he approached the Creative Director of “the Agency” with some dog-eared, rambling missives that he had written to his father (but never sent) and was hired “on the spot” as a junior copy-writer.

   On meeting Zim, he initially considered him a “wanker”, but over the course of the next year, found him to be a kindred spirit despite their opposing political views; Eugene tended to view the USA as the source/cause of most of the world’s problems and ascribed complex conspiratorial theories to any and all political discourse.

   Eugene and Zim got to work together on selected projects after it was discovered that Zim had some drawing ability. Contact with clients was avoided; management was concerned over the pair’s sometimes innapropriate humor and inadequate personal hygiene.