Fluble
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Fluble (rhymes with "bubble") is a comic strip drawn by Christopher Mastrangelo and made available on the web as a webcomic. Fluble appeared in the Brown Daily Herald five times a week, when Mastrangelo was a student at Brown University. It ran on the web from October 23, 1997 to May 15, 2001.
Fluble tells the story of Fluble Marshell, a genetically re-engineered frog, living with a variety of strange roommates and neighbors in Syracuse, New York. Fluble is at times a re-casting of the Job story, at times a meditation on depression and insanity, and often simply an aggregation of (loosely) popular cultural references, concept humor, and endless asides.
Fluble art could be described as a very 'busy', and within the confines of the small panels text is often squashed, and any blank space is usually filled with other characters, textures, or amusing objects in the background. Since much of the comic's humor comes from its dialogue some readers felt it had "too many words."
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2.1 Fluble Prometheus Marshell |
"Getting" Fluble
As mentioned on his website, Mastrangelo offered the advice that Fluble is an absurdist comic and its humor is for humor's sake. Attempting to find allegory or metaphor in the strip is at best boring and at worst insulting. The comic itself also took a few good natured jabs at Brown's leftist community.
Characters
Fluble Prometheus Marshell
A genetically engineered frog-like thing, he is the protagonist of our strip, he is depressive, lazy, and quasi-amoral. He is perennially unemployed. His romantic life consists of pining for, and occasionally making clumsy advances towards, Clown.
Following the "cosmic belch of wrath" from a space god named Woobie, Fluble became involved in a time-warp that resulted in him becoming the "Fünderlord" of dystopian Fünderland, carved from the aftermath Woobie's failed apocalypse. However, Fluble then became involved in a struggle with himself and the rebels for control of future-history.
Burble Hadrogobodoz
A "Tomato-like being" who was once a godlike entity, but was demoted for incompetence. Burble has at times advocated the use of both morphine and amphetamines, among other potentially dangerous activities. However, his creator explains he is "hypersane" and simply reflects the inherent absurdity of the universe. This may explain why Burble seems non-pulsed to bizarre events, remaining largely good-natured and perpetually cheerful.
There is some suggestion in the secret history story "Burblequest" [1] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19990201) that he may be tied to an original pantheon of gods led by Fishman. At any rate, at some point in his deep past he wore funny horns and served a "Fish-lord." Later he was more of a knight-errant, and razed most of Central Europe with Attila the Hun.[2] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=20000110) He also collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and worked for Scotland Yard sometime in mid-century.[3] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=20010205) Or thinks he did.
In emergencies, Burble can transform into gigantic death-robot Burbletron. Burble is the "Sacred Patron Saint of Pork" [4] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19990917). He's capable of consuming four bags of "cheez doodles" in 30 seconds. [5] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19980916) . His favorite color is 12 1/2.[6] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19981015) His only fear is his arch-nemesis, Sandwhich Man. [7] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19980421) He is also known as Burble of Syracuse; Gamlin the Red, Master of the Obtuse; The Maddened Fez; Loophole Bungowick; Dr. Xavier Q. Rodriguez; and Vulcanized Tire Man.
In 2000, Burble briefly "took control" of the strip (re-dubbed for the duration "I Like Bunnies") [8] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=20001010), the result being even more nonsensical than usual, and featuring several spoofs of other comics. The "Epilogue" to "I Like Bunnies" features a mock commentary on the "final" panel, in which a cupcake explodes, from a professor of Modern Culture and Media (Brown's postmodernism department).
Dr. Balt Baltmer
Balt hails from the planet Coreezbic, where nerds are cultural icons, much as sports heroes are on earth. He arrived on earth after having his spaceship shot down by rogue Space Fratboys, and is stranded here, much to his ire. He is the sole proponent of rationality on Fluble, dubbed "the tortured realist" by Mastrangelo. He keeps up his work as a scientist, pursuing investigations into biology, computer science, and studies in the controversial field of funk power. (see above) More sensible than the other characters, his occasional silliness tends to be overshadowed by his more deranged peers.
Schrafka
Schrafka is a conspiracy theorist radical socialist cat who occasionally harangues and/or spends time with the Fluble gang, often providing something vaguely like comic relief--or at least, bemusing tangents that break away from the current plotline.Schrafka is occasionally a good-natured barb aimed at members of Brown's chapter of the International Socialist Organization or other high-energy leftist student groups.
Mac The
Mac The (his full name) is a whale, who can occasionally be called upon to fly, beat people up, or provide relationship advice. He occasionally operates a donuts-and-prostitutes stand ("International House of Ho's and Doughnuts" [9] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=20010433)), and is also a known cannibal. He is reasonably intelligent but often indifferent to the misery of others.
Clown Marie Coinean
"Some sort of curvy man thing," Clown is Fluble's love interest and the comic's token female. She's a sad person, at least partially because all her pets die. A disconcerting exception is the aptly named Uglyfish, a well-intended gift from Fluble. Clown works as the Special Assistant to the Assistant Associate Director's Associate Assistant Director Director for the firm of Wolf, Haberman, Imposing Monolith, and Wolf. Clown has the ability to melt brains with her saccharine affection. Back in the day, they called her "Iron Wanda." [10] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19981030)
Sorcel
Sorcel is Fluble and Clown's imaginary son, conceived, as it were, during "A Momentary Lapse of Reason." He appears at various junctures in Clown's or Fluble's mind, but like Occam, he can also manipulate physical objects, to the confusion of Balt. He likes radishes, and when not being hallucinated he lives in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where "all lost dreams go," and where there are very large radishes. [11] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19991206)
Zangoth
Zangoth is an Archdemon of Hell who appears in various situations serving various purposes. Early on, he leads Belgium to victory over a Fluble-commanded Luxembourg. Later, he and Clown date.
Rubble
Rubble is Fluble's evil twin, created when their creators dumped their leftover evil all over him because there's, "No point wasting decent evil." [12] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19990322) He possesses a British accent and an insatiable thirst for evil. His name rhymes with Fluble's because their "creators were fantastically unimaginative." [13] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19990319) He suffers from a typical younger-sibling inferiority complex. [14] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19990323) Rubble has all of Fluble's vices and negative points, but is generally more capable to carry out his plans and goals.
Zooper
Zooper is the smartest "thing-that-isn't-a-mailbox". He has shapeshifting abilities and is usually called in for information and exposition to forward multi-strip plots.
Moosh
Moosh is the land-dwelling octopus in the comic.
Fluble's cosmology and meta-cosmology
Good, evil, and the creation and condition of the universe are represented frequently and conflictingly in Fluble. There are roughly two groups of storylines and depictions, which might be identified as the cosmology and the meta-cosmology. The cosmological group is developed primarily through encounters with various figures like God and Bob, Lord of Hell, and in them the creation of the world is set forth, along with the histories of heaven and hell. The meta-cosmology of Fluble is suggested mainly in a handful of singleton (i.e., non-storyling, non-continuity) strips showing certain figures which, in the normal course of events, are not metaphysically significant but who in these contexts appear to take on metaphysical significance.
God
God in Fluble is a loud voice that emanates from above along with big "twinkle" signs. He retired at least once, but returned at the end of "The Curse of Hesferestheroth" to turn Number One into a can of pringles. God likes yak heads. [15] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19981123)
Gorgoroth
Gorgoroth was a Demon-God and the original ruler of hell. He originally created the evil penguins. Later, he was accidentally turned into a ski resort.[16] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=20000315)
Number One
Number One is the prime evil of several Fluble plotlines. He's in charge of the Evil Penguins, and at various junctures has taken over running the universe from either God or God's opposite.
Woobie
Woobie is an "exiled monster space god" created from the excess chaos siphoned by Number One from the Evil Penguins. This makes Number One his father in a sense; only, Number One was a neglectful father, and Woobie has some serious abandonment issues, which he returns to inflict on the world in "The Wrath of Woobie"
Beast
Beast is Number One's gigantic, steam-powered computer, located on the planet Vobos, home of the Evil Penguins. "Beast is happy beast."
Bob, Lord of Hell
Bob is the incompetent, unfortunate successor to the throne of hell. Also, Fluble's landlord. His one weakness is airline peanuts. [17] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=20000116)
Archangel Hal
Archangel Hal is Bob's counterpart in heaven.
Meta-Cosmology
The Meta-cosmology is revealed partly in singleton depictions implying that the ultimate controlling factors of the flaublian world are other than those suggested in the cosmological storylines. Two in particular stand out: In the first, the earth is represented as a billiard ball on a pool table where the "Congress of the Gods", including Fishman and Occam, is playing a game. [18] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19990505) In the second, in fact in the thus-far final Fluble strip, the world is shown as a snow globe in the mouth of an octopus being poked by Fishman while Occam looks on and offers critique.
Fishman
Fishman is somewhat omnipresent in Fluble, not as a point of doctrine, but simply by appearing in the background of many, many strips--on posters, in crowds, and, frequently, flying a bicycle-like contraption which may be a pedal-powered ornithopter. [19] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19980303) across the sky. Fishman usually (thought not always) has no (apparent) effect on what goes on around him. However, the meta-cosmological strips suggest that Fishman is the ultimate, more-or-less benevolent controlling factor in Fluble's universe. [20] (http://www.fluble.com/fluble/comics/fluble20010515.gif) It is unclear whether Fishman has anything to do with "God" as depicted elsewhere in Fluble.
![[20]](http://www.fluble.com/fluble/comics/fluble20010515.gif){kind=link}
Occam
In the continuity strips, Occam is a "hallucinatory gargoyle" who occasionally lives in Fluble's head and leads him to the dark side. He is a frequently occurring character who appears to have no special powers except messing with Fluble. There are, however, hints that he is a Flaublian Satan (not to be confused with Bob, Lord of Hell, Gorgoroth, Zangoth, or other lesser Flaublian evils), including his repeated self-description as "a man of wealth and taste," in reference to "Sympathy for the Devil" by The Rolling Stones. In the meta-cosmological strips he appears to be a force counter to Fishman, and an advocate of harsher measures taken against the mortal protagonists; thus he may be seen to resemble the Satan of the Job story, who is midway between the generic Old Testament Satan, i.e., one of a class of prosecutorial angels who messes with humans in the service of God and the later singular "rebel" angel of later Jewish, Christian, and Muslim myth, typified in Milton's Paradise Lost.
Trivia
- Most Fluble strips includes a vertically-written side-note, usually between the ultimate and penultimate panels. It occasionally has something to do with the strip, but often not. Examples: "SPOOOON!!!!!!", "Culinarily is now a word."
- In many strips there's a pull-out box in the lower-right corner or on the rightmost edge with a "Next:" message that usually has a slight relation to the current strip and none to the next.
- Fishman appears in various guises throughout the strip, including as posters saying "Fishman was here!"
Historic figures appearing in Fluble
Fishball
Fishball is apparently played with a mallet, a baseball glove, and a fish, and can be played in singles or doubles. [21] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=20000226)
Controversial Flubles
There was some concern expressed by the conservative Jewish community at Brown over Fluble's repeated use of "God" without the medial "-" ("G-d").[22] (http://browndailyherald.com/stories.asp?dbversion=2&storyID=2628) Mastrangelo replied with a comic in which Fluble and Burble, puzzled as to what "G-d" might stand for, ask God, who responds, "How the hell should I know? I'm not Jewish." [23] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=20000922). The final line of the comic is Burble's happy exclamation: "Great! Let's all eat pork." Interestingly, there was no similar outcry voiced over the "Kosher Pork" storyline, in which Burble succeeds in persuading Hasidic Rabbis that pork is Kosher, and that they can say "Yahweh", to which the Rabbis reply, "Hot damn! Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh!". [24] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19990915)
There was also some concern over the portrayal of student activism in "Annoying the Socialists." [25] (http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19971125)
External links
Official Site (http://fluble.com)