Joe and Monkey
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| Joe and Monkey | |
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| Author(s) | Zach Miller |
| Website | http://www.joeandmonkey.com/ |
| Update schedule | Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday |
| Launch date | July 27, 2004 |
| Genre | Humor |
Joe and Monkey is a webcomic written and illustrated by Zach Miller. It debuted on July 27, 2004. New comic strips are currently posted every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Usually presented in black-and-white with occasional color strips, the strip follows the horizontal newspaper 4-panel format.
The comic regularly features Joe Banks, a delivery truck driver for the fictitious Red Fox Delivery Company, Monkey, Joe's talking simian companion, and Kleptobot, a slightly evil kleptomaniac robot. Joe and Monkey spend much of their time discussing a wide range of relevant and irrelevant topics mostly from current events in pop culture and politics, typically interjected with Joe's slightly off-kilter view of reality. Kleptobot, as per his name, spends most — if not all — of his time stealing things.
Joe and Monkey is a member of a Boxcar Comics, a webcomic collective.
Guest artists have included Mitch Clem, Brian Carroll and Joe Dunn.
Contents |
[edit] Characters
[edit] Major characters
- Joe: The aforementioned 22-year-old truck driver for Red Fox. First appeared in Miller's previous comic, 'No Pants Tuesday.' He claims to belong to the Jewish religion, but to him this may have more to do with the fact that he wears pants than anything else[1]. Joe has had to make adjustments since his family moved in with him after his parents' house burned down while they were on vacation. For some reason, he has an abnormal fear of ducks[2] that may or may not be related to a cursed Argentine treasure [3]. Joe was once sued by the RIAA for illegally downloading MP3s[4], but was eventually acquitted by majority vote.[5] He also has a knack for getting the plots of Tom Hanks movies mixed up in his memory. The reason as to why Joe and Monkey are responsible for stopping Kleptobot has never been elucidated. Joe was fired from Red Fox for gluing his face to the table on a five-dollar bet[6]; he would get his job back a month later due to an unexplained phone call[7]. Joe is the lead singer of 'The Negative Adjectives,' his band with Blake and Fletcher of the webcomic Nothing Nice to Say. On stage, he wears an eyepatch that makes him look like Bazooka Joe.[8]
- Monkey: Joe's simian companion. In 'No Pants Tuesday,' he was revealed to be a demon from Hell with his own agenda — which consisted mostly of talking, playing video games and "being awesome." In this continuity, Monkey joined Joe after a botched bra delivery from South America. Monkey has had a massive redesign from his original appearance in 'No Pants Tuesday' (which can be seen in the "prequel" story Joe vs. the Volcano), most notably in his hair and coloration. Interestingly, Monkey shares Joe's fear of ducks.
- Kleptobot: an evil robot thief who serves as the primary foil in the comic. Items he has stolen include Joe's delivery truck, money, suits from the 1950s, other peoples' ideas, signs, and Monkey. To quote Miller directly, "I created the design of Kleptobot, roughly referencing Futurama's Bender, Diesel Sweeties' Red Robot, and Black Hole's Maximillian." His creation was apparently the impetus for Miller to create JaM as a separate comic in collaboration with Mitch Clem. Despite his villain role, he seems to have developed a friendship-like relationship with Joe's sister, Megan: while he helps her with a bully problem [9], he ultimately ends up cutting away her hair[10]. During a story arc in which Megan was abducted, Kleptobot was initially a suspect in her kidnapping [11], thought to have done so in retaliation for her kicking sand in his face when he asked for help [12]. However, it was Kleptobot who found and rescued Megan from her child-murdering abductor [13], against whom Monkey took the intentionally omitted final revenge [14][15].
[edit] Supporting Cast
- Megan: Joe's 7-year-old sister [16]. Joe once thought of trying to use her to appear more responsible in order to pick up girls by pretending she was his daughter. He allowed her to skip out on the first day of school, because she didn't feel like going. Megan displays defiant tendencies, such as spray-painting "Joe Sucks" on his garage door when he told her to paint the garage [17]. In a remarkable display of continuity, the tag still remains later, though obviously altered by Joe [18]. In a story arc during the summer of 2006, Megan was abducted by a child-murderer, [19] and was ultimately saved by Kleptobot.
- Joe's Parents: first appeared after Megan reminded Joe to pick them up at the airport, albeit four weeks late [20]. Joe's dad, a radio personality, shares his son's inept talent in respect to Tom Hanks movies. He also feels that insurance is a gamble, and failed to cover his house for that reason. Joe's mom was revealed to be a lawyer in a story arc that found Joe returning to court for pirating TV episodes on the Internet.
- Josh: Joe's friend and former coworker at Red Fox delivery. Since their firing, Josh now works with the Devil at a coffee shop [21] that notably does not serve leprechauns.
- Leprechaun: first appeared on September 13, 2004 [22]. Since then, has been delineated as a con-man who seems to have become Monkey's mortal enemy. [23][24] Whether this is because they are roughly the same size is unknown.
- Uncle Hank: Joe and Megan's "crazy" Uncle Hank has yet to actually appear in the comic, and may be a permanent off-screen character. He visited Joe et al on Christmas 2005; in the build-up he was mentioned to have sold all his belongings and hid in a bomb shelter since 1999, afraid of an attack by the Millennium Bug, which he thought to be (a giant alien spider). Hank is also said to have once released all the birds from the zoo, which took five weeks for the zookeepers to recover from.
- The Devil: shares a similar countenance as his appearance as a character in No Pants Tuesday, but appears only rarely in cameo roles.[25]. The Devil either works or passes himself off as a barrista at the Starbucks equivalent in the Joe and Monkey world. He would rather watch Dharma and Greg reruns than start Armageddon [26].
- Pandora's Bucket: A bucket hanging just out of reach above Joe's house from a string that appears to descend from the sky, itself. Joe has consistently failed to discover what it contains, despite his best efforts to do so. Kleptobot once successfully stole the bucket, only to have an identical one magically reappear on the string some time later.
- Kurt Russell: First appeared in the first Joe and Monkey strip [27]. Kurt Russell occasionally appears to assist Joe and Monkey in the defeat of Kleptobot's evil schemes. He is depicted with long hair and an eye patch à la his portrayal of "Snake" Plissken in the films Escape from New York and Escape from L.A. Joe and Monkey's relationship to Russell is unknown, as is why an actor is fighting a robot, or for that matter, why a delivery boy and a monkey are fighting a robot.
- Blake and Fletcher: Joe's bandmates, and the main characters of the webcomic Nothing Nice to Say. Their band, the Negative Adjectives, has appeared in both comics, and minor characters from each generally make up their audience.
[edit] Other Robots
- Kriticbot: appears to be a blue-green, palette-swapped version of Kleptobot with an image of a television with a "rabbit ears" antenna on his chest. Indicated by his name, instead of stealing things, he critiques TV programming. [28][29]
- Kryptobot: another robot of the Kleptobot design that speaks in cryptograms [30].
- Giant Monkey Robot: a replica of Monkey created by Joe when he realizes that Monkey will not always be there for him [31].
- A slew of other robots that are variants of Kleptobot's design were shown at the Krimson Robotics wherehouse [32].
[edit] Awards
Totally Boned: A Joe and Monkey Collection is the 2006 Lulu Blooker Prize winner in Comics. [33]
