How to just save a group of messages to a file?

["Rupa Schomaker (list)" <rupa-list@rupa.com>]

Lets say that I have 100 or so messages that I just want to save to a
file (whether mailbox format or not).  Ok, that sounds easy.  About
half of them are large (100+k) HTML messages that may or may not be
formatted correctly.

I tried:

1) process mark the messages and use Xo -- worked up to the point I
   came across and HTML message.  pgnus decides to render it with w3
   before saving.  HTML is badly formated, w3 stops, the save stops. :(
   Not to mention that the message is a big monster table so it would
   take about 3 minutes to render (we already know this though).

2) Select the messages and use Of -- I'm asked for each file where I'd 
   like to save it.  Why can't I just say "use this file for everything"?
   So, I start hitting enter for everything and it goes to the next
   HTML message and procedes to try to render it and fail. :(

These messages are in an IMAP message store, so I can't just copy 'em
out (well, I could but not easily).  What am I missing (just want to
save the bytes that are in the messages to a file, no rendering or
interpreting or anything else)?

-- 
Rupa (rupa@rupa.com for normal email)
Please don't email duplicate replies.