Wapsi Square

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Wapsi Square
Wapsi Square Volume 1 print collection: Monica, Dietzel and Tepoztecal
Author(s)	Paul "Pablo" Taylor
Website	http://wapsisquare.com/
Current status	Updates weekdays
Launch date	September 9, 2001

Wapsi Square is a webcomic by Paul "Pablo" Taylor, about the eccentric lives and relationships of a group of neighbors from the fictional square of the title, in Taylor's home town of Minneapolis.

The strip began as a kind of comic soap opera, but events took darker and more surreal turns, often involving the supernatural. The main character, Monica, has psychic powers and has been befriended with a mischievous Aztec (or pre-Aztec) god of alcohol. Moreover, she and her friend Shelly both suffered traumatic childhood events which are connected, and which often color their present-day relationships.

The development of the comic toward more complex storylines has been accompanied by an increase in the sophistication of the artwork from its fairly loose original style to its current stylized look, with characters appearing in front of lower-contrast grey backgrounds.

The comic made its debut on September 9, 2001. In October 2003 the comic was picked up by Keenspot, but on May 24, 2005 it left KeenSpot to become part of the Blank Label Comics consortium.

Wapsi Square maintained a regular three-times weekly schedule from its inception until July 2004 when it was increased to five days a week. The comic is usually a black and white single strip, but has occasionally expanded into color and/or bigger formats.

Contents 1 Print collections 2 Characters 2.1 Primary 2.2 Supporting Cast 3 Trivia 4 Running Gags 5 About the author 6 External links

[edit] Print collections

• Wapsi Square Volume 1 (ISBN 1-932775-17-X) was published by KeenSpot in February 2005. This covers the early days of the strip in a compact format. It was obviously intended to be the first of a series, but the series was dropped when the strip left KeenSpot.
• Wapsi Square: 2001 - 2004 (ISBN 978-1-4116-5442-6 ) was published through print on demand company Lulu.com from June 2006. Starting again from the beginning but covering a much longer period, this is a large-format 160-page volume with a layout (by Steve Troop of Melonpool) designed to make the best use of the strip's occasional format changes.

[edit] Characters

(Partially derived from Wapsi Square website)

[edit] Primary

• Monica Villareal - a short, very busty young woman, half Irish, half Mexican and possessing an extremely long tongue. To all outward appearances she is charmingly awkward and naive, but this masks some deeper psychological problems. As a child she often spoke to her great-grandmother, only to be told that the great-grandmother had died twelve years earlier. Later she spent four years in psychiatric care after a failed suicide attempt. After her recovery she gained degrees in Art History and Anthropology, became owner of an antiques store and currently works for the University Museum. It was there that she accidentally awakened the diminutive god Tepoztecal, who has been a constant presence in her life ever since.
  • The dark side of Monica's psychic powers is evidenced by a storyline in which her self-doubt took on human form and urged her to attempt suicide once more. Monica succeeded in banishing it as well as coming to grips with her other dark impulses as Monica has come to understand that they cannot hurt her or force her to do things, only suggest and convince, and that not heeding them leaves them powerless.
  • After Monica visited the Bibliothiki and met Phix the sphinx, she gained the ability to teleport (or "poit", after the accompanying sound effect) unaided. Her returns from the Bibliothiki have so far been off target, leaving her butt first in a bucket and falling down a flight of stairs.
  • Monica has also been shown to have telepathic conversations with Jin.

• Tepoztecal (Tepoz for short) [a variation on Tepoztecatl ]- one-foot-high, blue-skinned Aztec god of alcohol (though probably much older than the Aztecs and appropriated by their culture), awakened from a 400-year slumber by Monica and now living with her incognito. His powers involve all aspects of alcohol; he can create the perfect martini out of thin air, prepare any type of alcohol-marinated food, and make people instantly drunk. He once transported a marinated turkey directly into Monica's stomach to help her sleep. This worked, but caused some digestive complications. He is apparently not a figment of her imagination, since Dietzel can see him, and both Shelly and Katherine have also seen and spoken to him. He considers himself Monica's friend and protector despite the fact that she (sometimes) hates him and has often been placed in danger by his actions.
  • Tepoz was given the charge of guarding the Golem Girls after glyph readers had separated them. Unlike previous guardians, Tepoz took the trouble to isolate the discrete essences of the girls and return their personalities and identities to them. Previously, the girls were intermixed to the point that they may as well have been three identical golems.
  • Tepoz was given the duty of "watching over" Monica by Kukulcan. At the time Tepoz mentioned that it had something to with the "Calendar Machine", to which Kukulcan responded that Tepoz had been out of it for 400 years and that something had to be done.

• The Golem Girls: Bud , Brandi, and Jin - three "drunken college girls" with fangs, summoned by Tepoztecal. They are actually temple guardian golems of enormous power that were once combined to form a chimera. Originally they looked and acted like annoyingly frisky teenagers, because that was the way Tepoz envisioned them when he summoned them. Due to Monica's mysterious status as a "glyph reader", they are generally extremely deferent to Monica's wishes, often humorously so. Monica eventually learns that they were subjects of human sacrifice whose mishandled transformation into the chimera unleashed a destructive rampage that destroyed a civilization in 10,500 BC, as commemorated by the Great Sphinx of Giza.

Only when separate were they controllable, a task that was originally given to the reluctant Tepoz and later to the equally-reluctant Monica. After a discussion with Jin, Brandi, and Bud have been given their memories of the past back, and are trying to deal with living in the "real world", and are no longer drunk.

• • Bud (later calling herself Acacia Budur) is capable of manifesting as a goat. Bud is perhaps the most emotionally damaged by what happened to them, but also appears to be more determined to have a life again. She currently works at a dance studio.
  • Brandi manifests as a lion and spends a great deal of time reading and making coffee. She is by far the gentlest of the Girls. Brandi found employment as an office manager in her new life.
  • Jin manifests as a giant serpent and later was revealed to be Tochtli (Rabbit), child of the goddess Mayahuel, who intervened in the creation of the chimera by making it so that she was one of the ones to be sacrificed. She disrupted the chimera's creation by committing suicide before the ritual could be completed. This enabled her to maintain partial control over Brandi and Bud, but was unable to stop the destruction of the ancient world. In addition to fangs, Jin has snake eyes on a regular basis and they emit beams of light when she is angry or excited.
    • During the chimera's incarceration, Jin was able to leave and pursue her own interests, including being a spirit guide to Shelly and Monica. She and Tepoz have a yet-to-be-revealed history. Some speculate that they are related either by birth or by marriage. This theory is consistent with Aztec mythology, where Tochtli and Tepoztecatl are members of the Centzon Totochin (Four Hundred Rabbits), children of Mayahuel, and are strongly related to octli, the traditional alcoholic drink of the Aztecs, and to drunkenness.
    • Jin appears to have started up a relationship with Alan, a friend of Kevin, whom she met in a bar some months back. For Halloween she dressed up as Little Bo Peep and he dressed up as a Big Bad Wolf.

• Shelly Wahnee - a Native American girl from the Southwest, proud of her Comanche heritage. Plays cello and bass guitar and has a music degree. Plays bass in Jacqueline's band Fermented Banana and works in her father's auto repair shop. Her refusal to admit that she has a crush on Owen was complicated by Owen's relationship with Lakshmi. She also feels close to Heather, but is uncertain about her true feelings because of Heather's lesbian attraction to her. Shelly also has an inconvenient tendency to let her mouth and impulses get the best of her, resulting in some awkward moments (such as when she barges into Jacqueline's yoga class) as well as unintentionally hurting people's feelings. She is shown as being powerfully built, with broad shoulders and a strong upper body.
  • She also has psychological issues related to her mother's death which complicate her attitude to relationships. Her attempt to talk things through with Heather was interrupted when a bowling ball fell on her head and knocked her unconscious. A second attempt was interrupted by an attempted mugging. After seeing off the mugger, Shelly and Heather finally reached an understanding.
  • Tepoztecal has hinted cryptically that events from her childhood involving the rabbit god Tochtli are in fact meant to link her to Monica, presumably to be a stabilizing influence in her often bizarre life. Bud has also independently sought her advice on "normal" human behavior.
  • Shelly's mother, a linguist with special interest in Mesa Verde pictographs and Olmecs, left four clay dolls in her daughter's keeping, saying that Tochtli told her to care for them. While Shelly originally thought that the dolls represented Bud, Jin, Brandi, and Monica, Monica determined that the dolls are actually time setting keys to a clock, theorized to be a quantum device.
  • After answering Phix's riddle, Shelly was given a hammer as a reward.

[edit] Supporting Cast

• Dietzel - Monica's "almost human" bull terrier. Seems to have picked up some of Monica's geeky awkwardness in his training. He does not speak, but is somewhat anthropomorphic in his attitude, facial expressions, and understanding of events. In this respect he is somewhat reminiscent of Gromit.

• Amanda Ehrlich - a photographer by trade, she is Monica's closest friend and sternest critic. Described as "a strong willed individual who believes that natural selection has been destroyed by society and thusly we are perpetuating a nation of idiots".

• Owen Albrecht - a long-time friend of Shelly, he is an easygoing young man who plays guitar and keyboards in Fermented Banana. Owen eventually became Lakshmi's boyfriend, despite being slightly intimidated by her size and strength, having completely failed to notice Shelly's interest in him. However, he is aware of her femininity on some level, despite the many years of thinking of her as "one of the guys".

• Jacqueline Bontemps - a formerly shy and retiring girl from Maine who came out of her shell in high school and became a drummer in a friend's band. She has inherited a fortune from her Great Aunt, but prefers to lead a 'normal' life. Runs a yoga studio and still performs as the founder-member of Fermented Banana. The band's name comes from an incident that Monica told them about: one day while trying to brush her teeth in the dark she squeezed the contents of a fermented banana onto her toothbrush by mistake.

• Kevin - Monica's boyfriend. He is tall, kind, and handsome. They first met when Monica was assigned to curate an exhibition of Kevin's photographs, and then began dating after Kevin accidentally hit Dietzel with a Frisbee (while trying to simply land it near him). Kevin had apparently been aware of Monica for some time, and was looking for a pretext to ask her out. Kevin is largely unaware of Monica's metaphysical leanings; he has never seen Tepoz, thinks Bud is Monica's old college roommate, and has been convinced by Monica that a trio of skeletons he found in her basement was actually a Halloween decoration, rather than an artifact of the chimera (see the "More than Shadows" story arc).
  • One of Kevin's friends (Alan) has recently started a relationship with Jin, though he appears to be unaware of her true nature.

• Daren Watkins - bartender and confidante to Monica and her friends. A former school teacher, which he sometimes finds similar to running a bar. Has a phobia of bananas and thus will not allow Fermented Banana to play at the bar.

• Lakshmi Prasad - a tall athletic young woman of East Indian extraction. She has won an Olympic medal for swimming and her other interests include windsurfing and rock climbing. She also has a summer job at her father's construction company. Although she is very muscular, she thinks of herself as feminine.

• Heather Mills - a tough Texan from a military family, she has Army experience, electronics expertise and an enthusiasm for shooting. She is also a lesbian. Currently program director for an ailing Minneapolis radio station. Her boss says she works too hard. Her closest friend is Shelly, on whom she has an unrequited crush. She has not yet met the other regular characters, except Owen. Owen briefly flirted with her when Heather was in a band (Intentional Thumbprint) that once opened for Fermented Banana at the Plow in Des Moines, Iowa. Heather sang and played acoustic guitar in the band. Shelly described the band's music as “a bit folky”. Heather recently connected with Vickie Talbot, one of her fans from her Intentional Thumbprint days.

• Katherine Gilchrist - an expert in preservation and restoration, she works in the University Museum's textiles and materials department. Once revealed to Monica that she is a closet nudist at home. Lives alone except for a pet fish. She collects spiders in an apparent attempt to overcome her arachnophobia. She has a compassionate personality and is thoughtful and intelligent, but her chronic shyness puts her off meeting people. She also seems to have an uncanny ability to read people and their emotions. Spending most of her time indoors has given her a pale complexion which, coupled with her dark, hollow eyes and fugitive smile, tends to put other people off meeting her as well, perpetuating her loneliness. Discussions in the strip's Forum revealed that fans like her and would like to see her find happiness. A chance meeting with Tepoz, whose appearance did not faze her at all, led her to discuss her interests with Monica over drinks at Daren's bar.

• Tina Rosario Aldaco Guzmán - owns Mucho Mocha, the local coffee house. She is always unfailingly optimistic, despite occasionally getting orders wrong, and tries to see the good in everything and everyone. In spite of this, until recently nobody seemed to know her last name. Monica's attempt to find out more about her only caused her to blurt out hints of a shady past. If asked about her fang-like teeth, she replies that there was a mix-up at a dental lab when rebuilding her dentition following a car accident, which was the result of her testifying against her mobster father in a major trial. Tina has no recollection of the event, or even, apparently her previous life. Brain damage has left her with altered perceptions of reality which seem to leave her confused to a certain extent.
  • Tina is most likely connected to the four sunstone keys; she was shown winding a clock with a key that looked like one of the clay dolls, and has fangs and silver eyes.

• Phix - a bespectacled sphinx, librarian of an extra-dimensional library referred to as "The Bibliothiki". Phix maintains a "no humans" rule for access to the library as humans burned the library's portal on earth, the Library of Alexandria. Phix challenged Monica's access to the Library, demanding the answer to a riddle with Monica's death as the penalty for a wrong answer; this was later revealed as a test to see whether Monica dedication to learning the library's secrets. After Monica correctly answered the riddle, Phix gave her a copy of "Machine Before The Sunstone", which carried a picture of one of the dolls that Shelly guards on its cover. Monica later brought Shelly to the library, where Phix subjected her to the ordeal of the riddle. After Shelly gave a different (but also correct) answer, Phix gave her a small hammer whose purpose Shelly had to figure out for herself. Once Monica and Shelly departed, Phix reflected that the girls had some painful growing up to do, just as she had from the days when she really was a murderous monster.
  • Phix's riddle - "I've never seen your face, yet I kiss it every day. You can see me all around you, in the treetops where I play"
    Monica and Shelly each gave different answers to the riddle; Phix rewarded both of them, but did not actually say that either of their answers was correct. Fans have speculated that other characters may also be asked the riddle and will give still other answers.

[edit] Trivia

• Wapsi Square gets its name from the Wapsipinicon River which runs through northeast Iowa. Locals refer to the river as "The Wapsi".

[edit] Running Gags

• The weather changes so fast nobody can enjoy the good parts of it
• Shelly losing her temper
• Tepoz getting people drunk by snapping his fingers
• Bra jokes

[edit] About the author

Taylor is a native of Iowa and attended the University of Northern Iowa, where he studied photography and art history.

He moved to California after college with his now ex-wife. She was originally from Mexico and got a bilingual teaching job in a mostly Hispanic area. While there, Taylor took various photography jobs and was a substitute grade school teacher.

He later moved back to Iowa to open a photography studio with a good friend from high school (it is now being run exclusively by that friend). At this time, he started dating his present wife, whom he had met during college. He credits her as a big inspiration for starting Wapsi Square.

Both Taylor and his wife liked the Minneapolis area, so after five years of running a photo studio (and surviving a long-distance relationship), he sold his half of the studio and trekked up North.

Taylor spends his time working on Wapsi Square and managing an apartment building in Minneapolis.

[edit] External links

• Wapsi Square
• Blank Label Comics
• Keenswag Store: Wapsi Square Volume 1