Holographic imaging firm finds going public can be a wild ride; Reverse merger takes strange turns.(Intrepid World Communications Corp., MangaPets Inc.)

Byline: Tom Henderson

Jim Fischback's recent effort to take his Birmingham-based hologram-imaging company, Intrepid World Communications Corp., public through a reverse merger with a Vancouver company is a tale of Japanese cartoon porn, online British gaming and dashed expectations.

Fischback said he'd been looking for what is referred to as a clean shell - a public company without legal or financial liabilities that for one reason or another has ceased operations.

Last November he thought he'd found just what he was looking for in MangaPets Inc., a company incorporated in Delaware and based in Vancouver that over the years had morphed under a variety of names from software to online gaming to cartoon porn.

Nothing had panned out, and it was no longer transacting business or generating revenue - it had no revenue and a loss of $42,498 for the first quarter of 2007 - but it was a clean shell whose stock could still be bought over the counter.

Intrepid and MangaPets officials signed a letter of intent on Dec. 4. The agreement called for MangaPets' stockholders to pay $11.5 million to own about 30 percent of the resulting entity, including $1.5 million due 10 days after the closing on Jan. 29.

From the time talks began in November, MangaPets' stock rose from a low that month of 70 cents to a high in January of $4.10 on news it was doing a reverse merger with a company with real prospects.