Sherman's Lagoon
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| Sherman's Lagoon | |
|---|---|
 "Sherman's Lagoon" title bar. From left to right: Hawthorne, Sherman, Fillmore. |
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| Author(s) | Jim Toomey |
| Current status | Running |
| Syndicate(s) | Pacific Press Features (1991) Creators Syndicate (1991-1997) King Features Syndicate (1997-present) |
| Launch date | May 13, 1991 (on Escondido Times-Advocate) |
| Genre(s) | Humor |
Sherman's Lagoon is a cartoon strip by Jim Toomey that is syndicated daily in over 150 newspapers worldwide. It first appeared in the Escondido Times-Advocate on May 13, 1991.
The strip takes place at the fictional Kapupu Lagoon by the island of Kapupu in the North Pacific Ocean, west of the Elaboab Islands in the Palauan archipelago of Micronesia.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Characters
Sherman - The main character. Usually not the most intelligent of all creatures, Sherman is however a good-hearted great white shark. He often likes to bait "hairless beach apes" with a variety of items, including beer bottles, wallets, and other props. In addition, Sherman likes to fight giant squid, sometimes for dinner, sometimes just for fun, and at least once over a loan. Dolphins and jellyfish are his two sea-borne enemies. Recently, he and his wife Megan had a baby shark, whom they named "Herman". The strip has recently been focusing on Sherman and Megan's amusing attempts to care for their newborn child.
Megan - Wife of Sherman. Always wears a string of pearls. Has possibly the most fiery temper and personality on the comic strip. Her activities include cooking, shopping, caring for Herman, fishing for humans with Sherman, and often threatening Hawthorne for a number of practical jokes played on her. On one or more occasions, Megan has also fought the Giant Squid.
Fillmore - the lonely bachelor sea turtle of the comic strip. Fillmore's hobbies include reading (a lot), caring for his own son, and having as many conversations with the other sea creatures as possible. Once a year, Fillmore also makes the long mating trip to Ascension Island, which has always ended in failure for him (perhaps because he uses so much cheap cologne). During one such trip, he found a baby sea turtle and adopted him, naming him Clayton.
Hawthorne - the scheming hermit crab of the strip. Hawthorne, unlike other hermit crabs, prefers a beer or soup can for a shell rather than a "normal" shell. His interests include scamming the other members of the strip out of money or resources from time to time, cracking jokes, and pinching hairless beach apes (and Sherman). The pinching business has brought a lot of laughs to the strip; a couple of times he claimed insurance when his businessess "burned" down, although they were underwater. Hawthorne has tried everything from his regular claw to his metal, artificial claw to his snapping hovercraft to his robotic landcrawler (armed with a deadly claw), and even telepathy. He also hates Windows computers and therefore Bill Gates (he pinched him once).
Thornton - the sleepy, hibernating polar bear that occasionally shows up on the strip. He usually does not keep a good alarm clock, and always seems to find more reasons to delay going back to the north pole. He enjoys sleeping constantly on the beach of the lagoon.
Ernest - The brainy fish of the strip. His interests include going on long trips with Sherman to the ends of the ocean, hacking into government computer systems and launching missiles from military bases in Vermont to Canada. Ernest, possibly the youngest of the characters, is a good companion for Sherman.
Captain Quigley - the ever-persistent fisherman trying to hunt down Sherman. Their rivalry apparently goes back years. Sherman once states "My mother ate his mother." Quigley has used a number of different tools in his quest to catch Sherman, ranging from an ordinary fishing pole to a killer robot dolphin. He seems to be constantly outwitted by the shark and his friends, however.
Bob The Bottom Dweller - A bottom-feeding sea creature whose species is unspecified- though he might be a type of flounder, he's most often referred to as "One of those really ugly fish". He doesn't speak too often aside from belching, and has a habit of eating stuff found on the bottom such as a radio (before the Fillmore and Sherman discovered this, they thought he was singing opera). In one of the first comics featuring him, he was less ugly and could talk, even pulling a gun out on the other characters. Nowadays Bob is portrayed as a spotted, big-lipped fish with bulging, misshapen eyes and a belching habit.
Kahuna - An undersea statue reminiscent of the moai on Easter Island. The other characters come to Kahuna for wisdom, though Kahuna's logic cannot always be trusted. He's also known to have magic tiki powers, such as turning Sherman and Fillmore into humans so they could walk among them (as well as go to a rock concert).
Apu-ko-hai wears a huge Tiki mask and fires lightning bolts (and his kitchen sink) from the clouds. Kahuna refers to him as a 'tough cookie.'
Herman Son of Megan and Sherman, named after one of Sherman's brothers. Was originally born with an eye disease that placed both eyeballs on the side of his head. Vision has since been fixed.
[edit] Sherman's Lagoon Books
- Sherman's Lagoon: Ate That, What's Next?. Cartoons from 1996, published in 1997. ISBN 0-8362-3660-2
- Poodle: The Other White Meat - The Second Sherman's Lagoon Collection. Cartoons from 1998, published in 1999. ISBN 0-8362-8287-6
- An Illustrated Guide to Shark Etiquette: The Third Sherman's Lagoon Collection. Cartoons from 1999, published in 2000. ISBN 0-7407-1247-0
- Another Day in Paradise: The Fourth Sherman's Lagoon Collection. Cartoons from 1997, published in 2001. ISBN 0-7407-2012-0
- Greetings from Sherman's Lagoon: The 1992 to 1993 Sherman's Lagoon Collection. Published in 2002. ISBN 0-7407-2192-5
- Sherman's Lagoon 1991 to 2001: Greatest Hits & Near Misses. Published in 2002. ISBN 0-7407-2676-5
- Surf's Up: The Sixth Sherman's Lagoon Collection. Cartoons from 1994-95, published in 2003. ISBN 0-7407-3309-5
- The Shark Diaries: The Seventh Sherman's Lagoon Collection. Cartoons from 2002, published in 2003. ISBN 0-7407-3815-1
- Catch of the Day: The Eighth Sherman's Lagoon Collection. Cartoons from 2003, published in 2004. ISBN 0-7407-4670-7
- A Day at the Beach: The Ninth Sherman's Lagoon Collection. Cartoons from 2000 - 01, published in April 2005. ISBN 0-7407-5130-1
- Surfer Safari: The Tenth Sherman's Lagoon Collection. Published in August 2005. ISBN 0-7407-5452-1
- In Shark Years I'm Dead: Sherman's Lagoon Turns Fifteen. Published in March 2006. ISBN 0-7407-5702-4
