Joe and Monkey
| Joe and Monkey | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Author(s) | Zach Miller |
| Website | http://www.joeandmonkey.com/ |
| Current status / schedule | unknown |
| Launch date | 27 July 2004 |
| Genre(s) | Humor |
Joe and Monkey is a webcomic written and illustrated by Zach Miller. It debuted on 27 July 2004. New comic strips were posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. However, the comic has not updated regularly since mid-2008. Usually presented in black-and-white with occasional color strips, the strip follows the horizontal newspaper 4-panel format.
The comic regularly features Joe Banks, a delivery truck driver for the fictitious Red Fox Delivery Company, Monkey, Joe's talking simian companion, and Kleptobot, a slightly evil kleptomaniac robot. Joe and Monkey spend much of their time discussing a wide range of relevant and irrelevant topics mostly from current events in pop culture and politics, typically interjected with Joe's slightly off-kilter view of reality. Kleptobot, as per his name, spends most – if not all – of his time stealing things.
In January 2008, Zach Miller stated on the Joe and Monkey website that he would be changing the comic strip from a daily schedule to Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates. He also indicated a desire to shift from mostly black and white to a full color format, though the majority of strips since then have remained black and white. The strip did not update from 14 February 2008 through to 2 June 2008 due to Miller's involvement in preparing the upcoming Dark Horse Comics publication of fellow webcomic artist Mitch Clem's Nothing Nice to Say.
After a long Hiatus (a year) the comic strip started updating again in July 2009 with a new story that spans 157 pages.
Joe and Monkey is a member of a Boxcar Comics, a webcomic collective.
Guest artists have included Mitch Clem, Brian Carroll and Joe Dunn.
Characters
- Joe: The aforementioned 22-year-old truck driver for Red Fox. First appeared in Miller's previous comic, 'No Pants Tuesday.' He claims to belong to the Jewish religion, but to him this may have more to do with the fact that he wears pants than anything else , as he is unable to identify a menorah . Joe has had to make adjustments since his family moved in with him after his parents' house burned down while they were on vacation. For some reason, he has an abnormal fear of ducks that may or may not be related to a cursed Argentine treasure . Joe was once sued by the RIAA for illegally downloading MP3s , but was eventually acquitted by majority vote. He also has a knack for getting the plots of Tom Hanks movies mixed up in his memory. The reason as to why Joe and Monkey are responsible for stopping Kleptobot has never been elucidated. Joe was fired from Red Fox for gluing his face to the table on a five-dollar bet ; he would get his job back a month later due to an unexplained phone call . Joe is the lead singer of 'The Negative Adjectives,' his band with Blake and Fletcher of the webcomic Nothing Nice to Say. On stage, he wears an eyepatch that makes him look like Bazooka Joe.
- Monkey: Joe's simian companion. In 'No Pants Tuesday,' he was revealed to be a demon from Hell with his own agenda – which consisted mostly of talking, playing video games and "being awesome." In this continuity, Monkey joined Joe after a botched bra delivery from South America. Monkey has had a massive redesign from his original appearance in 'No Pants Tuesday' (which can be seen in the "prequel" story Joe vs. the Volcano), most notably in his hair and coloration. Interestingly, Monkey shares Joe's fear of ducks.
- Kleptobot: an evil robot thief who serves as the primary foil in the comic. Items he has stolen include Joe's delivery truck, money, suits from the 1950s, other peoples' ideas, signs, and Monkey. To quote Miller directly, "I created the design of Kleptobot, roughly referencing Futurama's Bender, Diesel Sweeties' Red Robot, and Black Hole's Maximillian." His creation was apparently the impetus for Miller to create JaM as a separate comic in collaboration with Mitch Clem. Despite his villain role, he seems to have developed a friendship-like relationship with Joe's sister, Megan: while he helps her with a bully problem , he ultimately ends up cutting away her hair . During a story arc in which Megan was abducted, Kleptobot was initially a suspect in her kidnapping , thought to have done so in retaliation for her kicking sand in his face when he asked for help . However, it was Kleptobot who found and rescued Megan from her child-murdering abductor , against whom Monkey took the intentionally omitted final revenge .
Later on Joe was forced to stay with kleptobot at the robot factory after ants took over Joe's house and he needed to fumigate. Megan was treated wonderfully but Joe was forced to stay with monkey in a closet. Joe and Monkey inadvertently wake up a deactivated robot called Kvetchbot who throws him out of the closet. Kvetchbot gets upgraded but when he finds out the Soviet Union had fallen and it is the year 2007 he attacks Kleptobot. The two proceed to do battle through the city which culminates with Kvetchbot downgrading Kleptobot from being Y2K compatible so his generator would burst. Kleptobot reveals his reactor to be cold-fusion and nobley flies into space so the city would live his last action is to grab hold of the Fox news satellite and then detonates. On Earth Kvetchbot threatens to kill Joe and Monkey saying that when they're dead he'll start on Megan. Monkey tells Kvetchbot that won't happen and promptly tears Kvetchbot to pieces. Joe reveals in a sort of epilogue that they stayed with the robots who couldn't put Kvetchbot back together "Either that or they didn't try I wasn't really paying attention" as he put it. Although go comics reveals in upcoming comics that Joe is sitting right across from Kleptobot while telling the story to a waitress. When asked what happens, Kleptobot jokes he's robot Jesus before revealing whenever he fights he uploads his data onto a server so if he's destroyed he can be re-installed onto new hardware. When asked if this cheapens death Kleptobot responds "Yes, it does" but he amends "However, I did promise to take Megan out for a banana split. And death is nothing when compared to the power of ice cream" revealing that once more Kleptobot is truly a hero.
Awards
Totally Boned: A Joe and Monkey Collection is the 2006 Lulu Blooker Prize winner in Comics.