Joe Btfsplk
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Joe Btfsplk is a character in the comic strip Li'l Abner. He is well-meaning, but is the world's worst jinx, bringing bad luck to all those around him. A small dark dripping cloud hovers over his head, to symbolize his bad luck.
One storyline in the early 1970s features Joe trapping his cloud in a special jar. Joe becomes handsome and successful, then realizes that he wasn't meant for that life. He opens the jar. As he walks back into his normal existence, cloud again following him, he is for the moment satisfied to be who he really is.
In addition to the obvious comic effect, Li'l Abner cartoonist Al Capp often used Joe Btfsplk as a deus ex machina to produce miraculous rescues or to effect plot twists.
[edit] Etymology
- "How else would you pronounce it?" --Al Capp
According to Capp, btfsplk is a rude sound. During public lectures by Al Capp, he demonstrated this phatic sound by closing his lips, leaving his tongue sticking out, and then blowing out air, which is also called a raspberry or Bronx cheer.
Joe Btfsplk may have been the inspiration for the name of the impish character Mr. Mxyzptlk from the Superman comic books. However, except for their nonsensical surnames and their short stature, the two characters are not otherwise similar. Superman's fifth-dimensional nemesis, originally named "Mr. Mxyztplk", debuted in September 1944. Btfsplk had first appeared in June 1942.
