Pokey the Penguin

Pokey the Penguin is a surrealistic online comic strip. Visually it resembles the drawings of a four-year old with a short-attention span and poor motor control. The individual strips have little or no apparent logic on first glance, are filled with apparent corrections (crossed-out words, occasionally images scribbled over), and lack evident punch-lines. All th same they are filled with glimmerings of plots and strange connections between things, and the dialogue--by contrast with the drawings--has a peculiarly knowing and subtle air about it, despite the fact that it is delivered entirely in italicized capitals with multiple exclamation marks. Pokey's fans persistently see it as a work of genius; in any case, and "HERE ON RUM ISLAND WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN RUM!" and "IN MEAT-SPACE, EVERYONE IS YOUR FRIEND!!!" are unlikely to be the work of a four-year old. The comic is produced, intermittently, by an undisclosed person or persons identified on the page solely as The Authors.

The characters are more or less as innumerable as the plots are inscrutable. Still, mainstays are:

• Pokey the Penguin
• Mr. Nutty, a capitalist snowman
• a young female penguin, variously identified as "Small Child" or "Little Girl," who is apparently Pokey's sister.
• Skeptopotamus
• Headcheese, a French-Canadian Penguin
• Gustavo, a potato chip
• A boxing glove (purportedly possessed by the devil).
• Rick Wallace

"Chicago-style" is a term used in the strip meaning to do something without pants.

External Links

• http://www.yellow5.com/pokey/
• http://www.rit.edu/~flf1754/pokey/ (The RIT page is out of date, pokey continues to be published irregularly.)
• http://www.rit.edu/~flf1754/pokey/pokeyfaq - Pokey FAQ