|
|
|
|
|
Jack (Comic)Jack is a web comic by David Hopkins. The characters are anthropomorphic animals (furries), but the comic is intended for a mature audience both graphically and in its themes. It is divided into a number of arcs (subplots) that last from 5 to over 50 pages. It updates thrice weekly, typically on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, though occasionally it updates a little late. At times it has been a five-day a week comic. It is in both black & white and color, depending on the story arc. This article contains spoilers. Plots The comic's subplots cover subjects related to the attitude a person can lead in life and its consequences to them and to the people around them. These subjects generally don't have explicitly pointed morals, since Hopkins' objective seems to be rising the dilemmas in itself, and bringing a more inside view of these, often discussion the commonplace concepts of "right" and "wrong". Frequent features are disease, rape and suicide. Most events take place on Earth or in Hell, although some are in Heaven and Purgatory. Characters Although Jack has a number of recurring characters, the focus of the comic is very strongly on its subplots. Hence, Jack and the other main characters are usually secondary characters within these. Jack, the main character, is the deadly sin Wrath, and it is his job to collect the souls of the dead and lead them to their final judgment as the grim reaper. He does not enjoy this duty, but it is apparently part of his punishment for sins committed while he was a living being. It has been revealed that Jack was a genocidal dictator in life, but little of his past is known, as he remembers very little of his life. Though he has stated he is blessed to not remember his life, he has sought out the help of the angel Farrago in restoring his memories. The only sin who follows the rules, he is also the only sin on friendly terms with the forces of heaven. He is portrayed as a wizened green rabbit, wearing a ragged brown cloak and most often seen carrying a scythe. In the arc Wednesday's Child, it was found that Central and Jack had a relationship prior to their deaths, but discontinued it because Jack still loved Jill, despite her death. Fnar the unborn is one of Jack's few friends in hell. A fetus whose pregnant mother was killed, Fnar wanders around in Hell, but because he died before he was born, he is innocent and pure, and therefore does not comprehend the pain that surrounds him(A crow ripped off his nose when he first arrived in hell, and Fnar didn't feel it at all). Though he died as a fetus, he appears mature physically, though mentally he is a rather simple creature, and very trusting. Fnar's name is an acronym for the phrase "For no apparent reason". Apparently, Fnar is able to manifest himself in Heaven and Earth (and presumably Purgatory as well), despite his nature of being locked in Hell. Fnar's father was revealed to be Drip, who presumably had either an abusive relationship with, or raped Jink, Fnar's mother. Farrago is a junior angel who first met Jack when the two of them tried to prevent a plane from crashing as the result of the interference of another Sin. Becoming fast friends, Farrago restored some of Jack's memories accidentally with a kiss. Farrago is kind and trusting. She often visits hell and confers with Jack, a relationship her superior angel Central initially disapproved of. Unlike the other angels, at the beginning of the comic Farrago appears with only bloody stumps for wings, having lost them to a Sin. Much later in the strip, Farrago receives a kiss from Jack, restoring her wings. Central is a senior angel who has little fear of the Sins. She initially has a very antagonistic relationship with Jack, but later she and the sin become friends after Jack aids in the redemption of the soul of a suicide victim, Virgil. She has a great deal of faith in God, and follows the rules to the letter, unquestioningly. Central lived at the same time as Jack, and apparently died before Jack's eyes. Her weapon of choice is a pair of sickles. Drip is the Sin of Lust. Depicted as a monstrous blue rat with distinctive black eye markings, in life he was a rapist and murderer. His punishment in Hell is that though he can reenact his sins in life in hell, he cannot feel any pleasure from what he once did. This does not stop him from terrorizing a number of hell's denizens. Drip and Jack get along poorly, and Drip has used Jack to capture souls he himself released from hell, so that he can rape them for eternity. Drip was quickly beheaded after a meeting with Central in the Wednesday's Child arc, and was returned to Hell, and it was shown that Drip is often a pawn in Kane's plans, despite his wishes. Later, Drip was shown to have an abusive grandmother who often cruelly disparaged and molested the young Drip. Kane is the Sin of Envy. He and Jack are the two most ancient of the Sins, and lived at the same time and were at the least tangentially aware of one another. For a very long time, Kane is only seen as a strange shadowy creature. However, at the end of the "Frightened Virgil" story arc, he emerges from the shadows and shows himself to be human, a race apparently extinct in the modern "Jack" world, though time does not seem to run in a totally linear fashion in the afterlife. He commands an army of "Rework" zombies, and has expressed a great deal of interest in the angel Farrago for unknown reasons. Strangely, Kane seems to know and be a match for Reckonin, the Angel of God's Fury. Bob and Lisa are the Sin of Gluttony. Cannibals in life, their punishment in hell is that though they can devour their fellow denizens of the netherworld, their hunger can never be sated for long, and everything in hell has a strong sulfur taste. Though the two were apparently lovers in life, their relationship is often a raucous one, and both have cheated on the other. Separate, they appear as mortals, but they can combine to form their horrific hell form, a monstrous distortion of their normal raptor forms. Bob can vomit up a repugnant stew of corpses, and grow incredibly long and sharp claws, and Lisa can fly and spew fire. Minor characters Vince is the Sin of Greed. A conquering emperor/prophet who formed his own radical religion in life, he is the same in death. He has a great number of hell's denizens as followers, and every day has games in a colosseum reminiscent of the Colosseum in Rome, though the games in Hell are even darker than the real world Roman bloodsports they were based on, and sometimes involve live sacrifices. Vince's species is uncertain because of the disfigurement of his body (the removal of his genitalia, nose, and eyes, and the sewing of his facial orifices along with a burning) at the hands of his hellbound victims and followers. Jink is Fnar's mother. For a long time, she is imprisoned in a wall in hell for her sins in life. Fairly late in the strip, she is freed from the wall by Fnar and reveals to the readers (but not to Fnar) that Fnar's father is the Sin Drip. She is a kindly character, and loves her son deeply. Silverblue was sentenced to hell for committing suicide. Dressed as a goth, she was first seen stuck in her place in the afterlife as punishment for her sins in life, reliving a twisted version of her final day on Earth. Due to the intervention of Jack her eyes were opened to her sins and her situation, and she has started on the path to redemption. She, like Jack, is a rabbit, though she is white in color. Arloest was sentenced to hell for committing suicide after being raped and controlled by Drip in life. Her punishment in hell was originally to be able to see the future; however, in hell, time has no meaning (though whether this is true is open to some debate, as at times it seems things must be happening in chronological order) and thus her ability is rendered useless. She makes a deal with Drip to be released back to the mortal world while retaining her ability to see the future. She discovers upon her return that she doesn't truly want to be able to see the future, and eventually opens a restaurant in order to help people. A kindly soul, eventually she is forced to reveal the depth of her powers when she manages to prevent the deaths of two people through her future sight. Her position betrayed by Drip, Jack is bound by the rules to return Arloest to hell, where she is now constantly victimized by Drip, though Jack retains her friendship. Additionally, Drip prevents Arloest from remembering her friends, only allowing her to remember that she promised never to forget them. Jack sees Arloest's confinement to hell as unfair. Trixi and Tet are the online alter-egos of two of David Hopkins' friends. In the strip, as in real life, they are a couple. However, in one of the earlier strips they both died, and are now in Heaven, where they were later visited by Fnar. Trixi is a rabbit and Tet is a fox/wolf cross. The Sin Vanity has only appeared a couple times in the strip. Her punishment in hell is to be horrifically disfigured; she has no skin, and thus always must stay in the dark or a cloak for risk of revealing her true nature. Ted is the main character of two story arcs, "All Work and No Play" and "Welcome to Purgatory". He has a crush on Shanna, a woman he works with, who inspires him to try to live again so he can get into heaven. He is a good person, but when he died he turned the tables on his killer and killed them in order to protect his friends from death. John was a coworker of Ted's. Murdered by the same person, he aided Ted and Shanna in killing their murderer, but unlike his friends did it because he wanted personal revenge. Because of this, he went to hell, another placement decision Jack strongly disagrees with. Brian was a school shooter, featured in one of the first strips. Though it seemed he was a character unique to that arc, his torture of being laughed at constantly in hell was referred to a number of times. This punishment was a result of his belief in life that everyone was laughing at him, when in fact this was untrue. Eventually he was freed by Kane and used to distract the forces of heaven and Jack in order to smuggle a monster into hell. The Devil has appeared only once in the strip. A shapeshifter, at times he seems to be an icon representing Hopkins himself. Though he seems to break the fourth wall a few times, something done only in that arc, the arc itself is explained as being comic strips written by the devil in order to torture Todd, a man who believed in fate. Though in life his actions were his own, in death he is led to believe fate truly does control him as punishment. Reckonin (sometimes referred to as Reck) is a very powerful angel. One of the few male angels appearing in the comic (the other being Plato), he seems to be kindly, though he has also been seen descending from on high to punish blasphemers in hell. While not physically imposing, Reckonin is a particularly dangerous and canny fighter. He has been observed to fight with two "longsword" weapons in tandem, and is capable of improvisational fighting. Also, author Dave Hopkins is on the record as stating that Reckonin is a superior fighter to Jack. It is unknown as of yet who Sloth was in life, or what he did, but his punishment is to be the very ground of Hell itself. He feels every movement in Hell, and as such may never rest. A number of other characters appear in "Jack". `Many of them only are in a single story line, and a number are the online personas of Hopkins friends, while many more are original characters created by Hopkins. A few characters from other comic strips appear in "Jack", including Gene and Cotton, from Gene Catlow; Sue Deer, from A Doemain of Our Own; and Vinci and Arty, of Vinci & Arty. Jack has also had guest appearances in a number of other comic strips. The Christian God has yet to appear in the strip, and has been referred to using both masculine and feminine pronouns by the angels. Symbolism "Jack" is based in Christian mythology, but the world and its rules are not totally consistent with the typical Christian views. The angels are the forces of good, and the sins are evil personified. Many of hell's denizens seem to enjoy inflicting pain on one another, though many seem to be decent people. However, there are a number of shades of gray in the world. At times, people who were essentially good ended up going to hell, and a number of good people appear in hell, beacons of light in the darkness. The most notable of these is Jack, the only one of the Seven Sins who seems to be on the road to redemption. The unfairness of the fates of many of these people, and the observations of Jack on the unfairness of life, are a central themes of this rather dark comic. Incidentally, there is speculation among "Jack's" fanbase that just as Drip, Jack, and their brethren personify the seven deadly sins of the Catholic Church, the angels opposite them personify the seven distinct virtues. For example, the angel known as Reckonin is proposed to represent the virtue of self-control or self-mastery; he is rarely seen behaving in affectionate or sexual behavior (unlike his fellow angels), has never been seen to lose his temper directly, and even fights with a notably calm, detached attitude. One of the most notable symbols in the strip are the eyes. The sins are depicted as having no pupils. The average soul in hell (and most recently deceased people) have very tiny pupils, indicating their lack of knowledge about their own sins. Living souls, angels, those in heaven, and sins masquerading as living souls have full-sized, perhaps over-sized, pupils. A few denizens of hell, most notably Silverblue, have normal eyes, indicating they are aware of their own sins and are on the path to redemption. The Devil, however, has completely black eyes, which may reflect his nature of damnation. External links
|
 |
|
| Copyright 2005-2009 OnPedia.com. All Rights Reserved |
|
|