College Roomies from Hell!!!
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Dave, Mike, and Roger
College Roomies from Hell!!! or CRFH!!! as it is known to fans, is an Internet-based webcomic strip by Maritza Campos-Rebolledo. Running since January 1, 1999 and featuring a new comic strip every day, College Roomies from Hell!!! depicts the lives of six college students attending an un-named college somewhere in the United States. Forced out of their dormitory by a gas leak explosion, Mike Green, David Jones, Roger Pepitone, Marsha Hart, Margaret Browning, and April Sommers now live in an apartment building near their college and suffer natural, supernatural, and academic indignities and drama in this alternately hilarious and dark serial comic strip.
College Roomies from Hell!!! is hosted by Keenspot. Its author, Maritza Campos-Rebolledo, is a resident of Yucatán state, Mexico, and actively participates on the comic's message boards.
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Characters
The heart of CRFH!!! is its main characters, Mike, Dave, Roger, April, Marsha, and Margaret, along with a host of other folks to keep them out of equilibrium.
Michael Redford Green
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Michael Redford Green
Michael Redford Green
Mike began as the focus of the strip, an apparent everyman baffled by the bizarre world in which he found himself. Since moving into an apartment with Dave and Roger, however, he has revealed a manipulative, even cruel streak, tormenting his roomies into fulfilling his demands. It is sometimes said (especially by Roger) that his evil smile warps the space/time continuum. Despite this, he is intensely loyal to those he loves, especially his girlfriend, Marsha, and his sister, Blue. He is also protective of his roomies, even if he sometimes makes their lives difficult. Mrs. Campos has compared him to a wolf--vicious to outsiders, fiercely loyal to his pack. He loves his TV, considers the remote control his pet, and secretly cries in sad movies. He also has a fuzzy caterpillar collection and, back home, has a horse named Espresso.
Mike encouraged his roomies to go on their first misery journey (an alcohol-fueled trip of forgetfulness, with unexpected consequences). On the way, the guys unwittingly took part in a porno movie, hijacked a plane, and swam in and drank contaminated water, developing strange mutations as a result. Mike's left arm mutated into a tentacle, which is super-strong, able to change colours, and supposedly will grow back if cut off. During the blue mushroom hallucination sequences, Mike has demonstrated secret knowledge beyond that of the other roomies. Mike has also nearly died more than once, and at least twice has been tortured by the Devil, who seems to take an active interest in the lives of the Roomies. Mike stole a magic staff from the Devil, which protects him.
Mike's greatest nemesis is his wealthy mother, who strives to control his life. His greatest concerns are about his sister, Blue Green, who is still in high school but who wants to break free of their mother like Mike did, and who has a passionate crush on Mike's roommate Dave. Mike also has a brother, Louie, who is an amateur at manipulation but tends to sides with their mother against Mike, hoping for favors. Mike's father and mother have long been divorced, and Mr Green leads a life of care-free debauchery.
David Jones
David Jones
Dave is supposedly the 'normal one.' An only child, he comes from a working-class family and is often short on cash, but he works very hard in school and is very conscious of his grades, usually getting the second highest marks in class, after Margaret. He has had a crush on Margaret Browning since high school, but this is complicated by the fact that Blue Green has a crush on him, and with Margaret sending distinctly mixed messages, he has begun to turn to Blue for comfort. Dave has a pet cat named Chester, who got the name because he often rides around clinging to Dave's chest. Dave has allergies, most notably a fatal reaction to bee stings.
Dave's passion for Margaret has driven him to extremes. He once made a wildly coloured shirt with the subliminal message 'Love me' disguised on it, which temporarily brought positive results from Margaret until she discovered the trick and kicked Dave in a most sensitive area. Dave has gone on a misery journey when she rejected him, accidentally slept in a bed with her, fought Cthulu's micro-dragon with her, dated the calculus teacher Mr Dover for her, taken her on a date where he had to fight with the Devil but also made love to Margaret in the rain, hidden in a nunnery to avoid her, moved into an apartment with her, moved out of the apartment, and vowed to give her up, just at the time the readers (but not Dave) learnt that Margaret really did love him, but dared not show it. As part of trying to give Margaret up, Dave has slept with Mike's sister, Blue.
As part of the misery journey, Dave gained 'Ray-of-Death Vision' or laser vision that allows him to shoot a laser out of his eyes. This can burn or cut through things, push things away, or pop popcorn. It also causes Dave a headache if kept up for too long, and when Dave is tired, he sometimes cannot perform.
Whenever he has erotic thoughts, for instance when seeing Margaret skimpy clothing, or even when Mike or Marsha mention such things, Dave tends to brainwarp, meaning he gets nearly catatonic and entirely unable to think or act for awhile. Strong brainwarps have lasted ten minutes or more.
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Chester the Soul-Cat
Dave and Chester
Roger Pepitone
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Roger Pepitone
Roger Pepitone
Roger has always been the resident screwball, even in this band of misfits. His parents are married, but separated, and his twin sister Lily attends another college. Roger dates Diana, who attends the same university and who works as a prostitute on the side to earn money for medical treatment for her ailing father. Roger has a stuffed coyote named Pepe, a pet rock named Fluffy, and his left hand periodically turns evil and tries to take over the world under the name of Mr Hand. Mr Hand is a natural outgrown of Roger's insanity, not the result of a misery journey, mutation, blue mushroom hallucination, or diabolical influence, unlike so many other oddities in the world of CRFH!!! Roger does fairly well in school despite sleeping in most of his classes. To make up for this, he sleeps while writing his tests as well, and typically aces them.
Fluffy
Roger and Mr Hand
While on Dun-Dun Island, however, Roger lost control under extreme physical and mental stress and transformed into a more powerful form that was possessed by Satan. In that state, he killed some of the guards that were torturing him. Ever since, he seems to have attained a degree of control over his transformations; for example, he can transform half-way and back at will. More importantly, according to Maritza Campos-Rebolledo, Roger is not all that worried now about taking a human life, since he has already done so.
Roger's mother recently tried to attack Margaret, who then fatally wounded her in self-defense. Roger arrived at the scene just in time to have some last words with his mother.
Marsha Hart
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Marsha Hart
Marsha Hart
Of the three girls, Marsha is the cute one, or at least the one who trades most often on her cuteness. Marsha is currently dating Mike, and they are deeply committed to one another, but Marsha remains jealous of a former best friend who stole her old boyfriend from her. There is still a restraining order on Marsha, but she is learning to control her temper.
The daughter of a master chef and his wife, Marsha deeply desires to be able to cook as well as her father, but produces dishes that range from the merely inedible to the highly toxic. This may be due in part to her tendency to shop at 'Food and Poison, Inconveniently Mixed,' the source of blue mushrooms (not to mention the Devil's Avocado). In addition to her inability to cook to her (or anyone else's) satisfaction, Marsha suffers from 'Snow White Syndrome,' being swarmed by hosts of cute and fuzzy animals whenever she goes outside. For this reason she is reluctant to enter the woods and hates jogging through the park.
Marsha is currently angry at April for an attempt to take Mike away from her, or at least to damage their relationship. This led to a recent attempt of suicide by falling off a building, but Marsha suddenly sprouted bat wings and landed to safety. It is thought that this mutation was brought about by Marsha being bitten by a bat-potato hybrid referred to as "batato" while cleaning out a particularly neglected refrigerator.
Margaret B. Browning
Margaret B. Browning
Margaret is an overachiever, insisting on the best work from herself and all those around her. Although this earns her many As in her classes, it sometimes offends her friends. This is but one of the many tragedies in her life. Under circumstances still not fully explained, both her parents were killed sometime before she came to college.
Margaret is plagued by dreams of the Devil, who has apparently chosen her to be his bride and the mother of his child at some unspecified future date, and she blames the Devil's influence for the death of her parents and her difficulty in making friends. She claims not to love Dave, who has a crush on her, but it seems that she secretly feels very strongly for him, too. When the Devil took Dave's soul, she offered hers in exchange. However, because she is afraid of what the Devil will do to anyone whom she seems to love, she has tried (albeit inconsistently) to push Dave away and discourage him.
Due to Margaret's fixation on the End Times, which she believes are coming, she has become a survivalist. She is skilled enough in martial arts to take down a number of sport jocks. She has a large stock of guns, grenades, and other survival equipment and the skill to use them, and has proven to be able to subsist in the wild without any special gear if she needs to. Even when afflicted by the extreme cuteness brought about by Cthulu's micro-dragon, she was able to fire her grenade launcher into the creature, defeating it. Margaret has a few other oddities, as well. For example, she tends to sleep naked, much to Dave's consternation.
Recently, Margaret self-exiled herself into the woods so as not to endanger anyone she loves. She unwittingly failed miserably at this when Roger's werecoyote mother, who preyed on these woods, attacked her. Margaret shot her in self-defense and killed her, while Roger arrived just in time to see his mother die by the hand of one of his friends.
April Sommers
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April
April Sommers
April's past remains mysterious, although the print comics #6-9 reveal that her family works in a circus (her family includes her widowed father, her step-mother the bearded lady, and another close relative named June), and that April left them behind to try to create a normal life. April has not had much luck with this.
By nature a kind, sweet, moral, and just person, she has been guided by her Imaginary Floating Wiser Self. Imaginary Floating Wiser April has appeared several times in the strip to advise April against foolish courses of action. However, she has rarely heeded this advice. The latest appearance of Imaginary Floating Wiser April even suggested that April had rejected her alter-ego so completely that she had been killed.
April briefly had a relationship with Will Erixon from the comic Fans, but that has since ended, leaving them both feeling alone and rejected.
Despite her moral nature, April has grown increasingly frustrated with the fact that nice people often finish last. To her surprise, she recently realised that she loved Mike, and tried to take him away from Marsha. She did not succeed in this, but did manage to alienate both Mike and Marsha, and grew more distant from her other friends as well. She is now trying to make amends for this rash action.
April is still the odd one out among the roomies. Mike and Marsha care deeply for one another, as do Dave and Margaret, and oddball Roger has a steady girlfriend in Diana - leaving April the proverbial third wheel.
Blue Green
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Blue Green, Mike's sister
Blue Green
Blue is Mike's little sister. She is still in high school, but will soon be entering college, probably at the same school that her brother and his roomies attend. Visiting Mike early in the school year, she met his roomies and became infatuated with Dave, an infatuation that since blossomed into love (at least on her side). At first, Blue frightened Dave with her outgoing, flamboyant, and at times exhibitionist-like behaviour. He has since come to appreciate her love for him, even as he remains torn by his love for Margaret.
Mike is very protective of Blue, as is their mother, although in a different and more controlling way. Mrs. Green nearly killed Dave when she discovered that Blue was in love with him, but she has since decided to let matters run their course lest her pressure to keep them apart drive Blue closer to Dave and away from her mother.
Blue nearly died from eating Marsha's cooking on a visit to the apartment building where the roomies live, shortly after making love to Dave while he was delirious from overwork and insomnia.
Hazel Green
Mike and Blue's mother has money, beauty, the power that comes from having money and beauty, and the Machiavellian ruthlessness to use all three however she deems appropriate. It's been implied over the course of the comic that the matriarch of the Green family has resources rivalling those of small countries -- some inherited, some built on the inheritance through her own actions, and much earned not entirely legally -- and she wields it like the business empire it is. Her recent engagement to the equally powerful figure, and alleged supervillain, Vernon Damascus will no doubt increase her holdings dramatically.
Madame Green was an unseen force until the Holidays storyline, but one that had clear influence over her children's lives even then. She cares for the physical safety of her offspring, but is quick to engage in psychological manipulation (or even outright reprogramming!) "for their own good." This has done nothing to endear them to her, and they refer to her as "the Dragon" when they're sure the room they're in isn't bugged. In fact, Mike deliberately refused all aid from his mother when selecting a college in order to claim independence from her. Mrs. Green seems to respect this move and has done little to interfere in his life since he left (but she considers him fair game when he visits home, and has resorted to manipulation to GET him home). Blue is still under her boot, though, and she knows that she can still exert influence over Mike through her when the situation calls for it.
She has also adopted multiple children, which double as loyal henchmen. The only ones named to date are Louie and Jay, the latter being fervently (and unrequitedly) in love with Blue.
Mrs. Green hasn't quite decided what to make of Blue's new love interest, but is apparently willing to tolerate Dave as long as he does nothing to hurt her. This hasn't stopped her from keeping tabs on him in her own way (meaning a surgically implanted tracking device), and she'll gladly encourage the idea that she's one step away from killing, torturing, or reprogramming the poor fellow if it'll keep Blue in line. At some point Mike was convinved that said reprogramming had already happened.
The Devil
Satan, the Father of Lies, the Adversary; this force of evil has taken a great interest in the lives of the roomies, claiming to have played a role in the destruction of their original dorms, and tormenting Mike, Dave, and especially Margaret on numerous occasions. His precise goals are not clear, but he seems to be behind most of the problems the Roomies face.
Minor Characters
In addition to the major characters above who appear most frequently, CRFH!!! has a cast of eccentric minor characters suitable for the insane world inhabited by the protagonists of the strip.
Waldo and Steve
These inept Devil-worshippers have been a thorn in the side of the Roomies since their first search for a new apartment in the first story-line. They have held Dave captive with the help of a summoned daemon (who was run over by a truck after Mike pushed him out a window), summoned Satan himself (in the instance where Dave lost his soul), kidnapped Chester, Pepe, Fluffy, and the remote control in an attempt to ransom the Devil's Avocado from the Roomies, and worked with Margaret on a science project (against all their wills--the groups were assigned by the chemistry professor).
Ray o'Light and Pokono
A hippie and his girlfriend, these two residents in the apartment building shared by the Roomies have helped with chemistry projects and, more importantly, helped exorcise an evil spirit from a TV bought from 'Curses, Spells, and Second-Hand Electric Devices,' and later got the spirit out of April.
Mr Dover
James Dover, is the evil calculus teacher. He once took Dave on a date as part of a deal to change the date of a major test. However, after watching Dave sweat the entire evening, he revealed that he was not only straight, but married. He had simply pushed Dave to the limit to teach him not to worry so much about things, a lesson that largely went unlearnt. Mr Dover continues to abuse and harass his students, and is despised by all.
Mary-Ann
Mary-Ann, like Margaret, is an over-achieving student that attended the same high school as Margaret and Dave. The ultimate brown-noser, Mary-Ann tries to get A's not by studying hard, but by pleasing the teachers. She does everything she can to get on the good side of the faculty and other authority figures, and her obsessive-compulsive desire for straight-laced perfection has a history of driving Margaret crazy. Initially existing only as Margaret's off-panel nemesis, her first actual appearance within the comic coincided with her involuntary selection as April's partner for a chemistry project. A fan-made comic once posted on the CRFH!!! message board that depicted Steve with an unlikely, comedic longing for her has led other fans to sporadically produce similar works pairing the two together.
Earl
Earl has filled in at several jobs, usually as a bartender, but also selling costumes during the Fabric Eating Bugs story-line. He apparently makes fake ID cards as well.
Vernon Damascus
A man of obscene wealth, Damascus owns Dun Dun Island, a secret fortification worthy of any obscenely wealthy megalomaniac. Not much else is known about him aside from the fact that he is currently engaged to Hazel.
Harry Green
Mike and Blue's father and Hazel's ex-husband, he's a notorious womanizer. Although divorced, he and Hazel are still on speaking-terms with one another. A recent misinterpretation of events has led him to believe that Mike is gay, sending him to the hospital with a heart attack and outing him as a homophobe.
Fletcher and the FBI
Fletcher, along with characters familiar from the X-Files TV program, once captured and attempted to interrogate the Roomies shortly after their mutation on their first misery journey. Eventually he helped them fake their deaths so they could escape. Mulder and Scully later returned in a failed attempt to arrest Roger and Ray for creating powerful hallucinogenic drugs during chemistry class. Afterwards, Mulder got fired and had to take a job as a pizza delivery boy to get enough funds to get his fire extinguisher into college.
Thadeus
Butler to the Green family. Secretly pines for Mrs. Green and works in her service in hopes of one day having his love blossom, but is largely ignored by Mrs. Green. Usually actually makes a point to help Mike and Blue avoid the reach of their mother in hopes that either will put in a good word for him.
Off-line media
College Roomies from Hell!!! is available in other media as well as on the Internet. Archived strips from past years are available on compact discs (along with exclusive bonus stories), and a line of comics has also been printed, featuring stories not told on the web site. These additional publications are written by Maritza Campos-Rebolledo and have been edited by Jerry Alan Sayers and Clint Boskey. Shirts and stickers are also available through the main web page.