Melonpool

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Template:Infobox webcomic

Melonpool is a webcomic created by Steve Troop. The storyline centers on a cast of alien misfits and their adventures in space and on Earth. It has been published on the web since April 28th, 1996, making it one of the first webcomics.

Contents

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Artistic style

Melonpool is a daily webcomic, running in a comic book style format Monday to Saturday. Strips are in color and hand lettered. The strip is hand-lettered. Prior to the reboot (see below) the comic was in black and white (not grayscale), with a simple line art/India ink art style reminiscent of classic newspaper strips such as Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes.

Melonpool parodies many popular television shows, movies and other cultural phenomenon, such as Back to the Future, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Jetsons, and Gilligan's Island. Although it has a strong story arc, virtually all strips end with a punchline. Troop has described the latest arc as a cross between Lost and Serenity.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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Reboot

In 2005 Melonpool featured a complicated time travel stroryline, the upshot of which was that the universe was reset. As of such, any prior event in the Melonpool universe now may or may not have occurred, including those detailed below. Furthermore Troop has speculated that he will use this junction to make major changes to the cast, although most of the main characters appear to have "survived" the re-setting. The strip archives prior to 07/11/05 were removed from the site but were restored in March 2006 via a crossover storyline with Zortic, another webcomic. It is most likely that the multiple timelines aspect of the Melonpool storyline, along with the characters existing in these, will now be removed. These recent events can be paralleled with DC comic's Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline.

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Cast of characters

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Crew of the Steel Duck

Mayberry Melonpool

The Melotian captain of the Steel Duck, Mayberry Melonpool answers the question "What would happen if Gilligan played Captain Kirk?"

Mayberry is hopelessly addicted to Star Trek and Star Wars, He is captain in name, but his actual position is more in line with "chief scapegoat"... this is convenient since he actually causes most of the problems he's blamed for.

Mayberry's recent accomplishments include stranding the crew on an asteroid patterned after Gilligan's Island and eliminating various members of the crew by getting the Steel Duck too close to a temporal rift (which Mayberry incorrectly identified as Chinese food).

Ralph Zinobop

Contrary to popular belief, Ralph is not evil. He's just pissed off. He has good reason:

  • The engine of the Steel Duck is a temperamental hamster that runs off at the mere mention of "food".
  • The captain is a simple-minded boob with a Gilligan-like ability to ruin things.
  • He has two clones of himself running around (one good and one evil) and a future version of the good clone wreaking havoc with the space-time continuum in the year 2168.
  • His pilot has no opposable thumbs.

All Ralph really wants to do is regain his throne on the planet Zinobop. Why won't the universe cooperate?

Ralph is not really evil or a mad scientist; he's just a perpetually angry scientist.

Recently, Ralph was diagnosed with a fatal condition known as "cellular degeneration." Left untreated, Ralph's cells will become unstable within a year. Ralph's clone, Ralphie Zinobop also suffers from a less severe (and non-fatal) case of the same condition.

Sam T. Dogg

Former test pilot from the planet K-9 and the only member of the crew that possesses common sense. Sam is plagued by the curse of all dogs -- no opposable thumbs.

After Sam broke both paws in a fight with Mecha-Sammy, Roberta, having never set dog's bones before, accidentally gave Sam opposble thumbs.

Sammy the Hammy

One of Ralph's experiments gone awry. Sammy basically eats and sleeps when not acting as the ship's engine by running on a giant hamster wheel.

Ralphie Zinobop

Ralphie really is Ralph's better half. A clone made by the dupe-o-matic -- yet another Ralph experiment gone awry -- Ralphie has Ralph's defining aspect (his bad temper and anger) inverted.

Ralphie's promotion to Chief Engineer leaves little time for his other hobbies -- namely correcting time paradoxes and worrying.

Roberta Smeffinfeffer

Roberta Smeffinfeffer (that's Smeffinfeffer with five "f"s) joins the crew in late 1996 after being stranded on Earth due to a clerical error. She acts as the ship's doctor -- even though she only went to nursing school for one week.

Jalea Bates

Jalea Bates was born around May 22, 1977. Well, sort of.

Originally a protocol droid named J-LB8 (rumored to be the silver droid at the beginning of Star Wars), the then male droid was disassembled in the late 80s after a messy paternity suit threatened to ruin him.

In 2001, Ralph Zinobop accidentally sold half of J-LB8's parts at a garage sale. He assembled the remaining parts into a Pop-Singing android named Jalea Bates. Jalea has had quite the singing career, including such hits as "Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful" and "Overdue," songs which can be downloaded from the audio/visual section of the Melonpool page.

In 2002, Jalea's body was destroyed and her mind uploaded into the ship's computer during the "Zinoforming" process to make an asteroid Mayberry had got the ship stranded upon hospitable for the crew. Ralph made another body for her out of a vacuum cleaner and uploaded her mind into it. Several months later it was revealed that the Zinoforming process regenerated her body into a real human being, The human was a primitive hunter, and a mind swap using one of Ralph's inventions put Jalea into the human body and the hunter into the vacuum.

Since then, Jalea has been finding out what it means to really be human and currently acts as navigator aboard The "Steel Duck." She has recently attempted to revive her singing career but has found her voice lacking following her reconstruction as a real human being. Whether this was due to nerves, lack of practice, or the complete loss of her talent is unknown.

The Duck (aka Captain Quack)

An Earth duck that's been hanging around Ralph for eight years. The duck is occasionally promoted to captain to get Mayberry's goat.

The Cat (aka Maddie)

Roberta's cat Maddie is just a normal, everyday Earth cat ... or is she?

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Enemies

Fauntleroy Zinobop

Fauntleroy is basically a pure evil version of Ralph. Instead of creating an opposite clone (like Ralphie), Fauntleroy was the manifestation of all of Ralph's negative emotions, amplified to the nth degree.

Fauntleroy's body is a twisted, burned version of the original -- the aftermath of a run-in with a volcano while the crew was stranded on the Gilligan's Island asteroid. Revenge is his main objective, and will do anything to ruin Ralph's life and get back a perfect body.

Rasputin Melonpool

The Mirror Universe version of Mayberry. While Mayberry was fixated on Captain James Tiberius Kirk, Rasputin was obsessed with Khan Noonien Singh. As of early 2005, Rasputin and Fauntleroy have joined forces to get revenge on the crew of The "Steel Duck."

Mecha-Sammy

Mecha-Sammy is a robotic version of Sammy the Hammy created by Fauntleroy. Because its mind is patterned after the Jungle Boy character from Gilligan's Island, its intelligence is rather limited, but its strength and ferocity make it one of the most intimidating adversaries of the Steel Duck crew.

The G.R.A.I.S.E.

The Genetic Research Alien Intelligence Scientific Expedition is an alien race that acts as the scientific branch of an alien empire which has not yet been named. Their modus operandi appears to be abducting life forms from their native planets, experimenting on them, and putting them back on their homeworlds. When the G.R.A.I.S.E. mistook Melotian abductee Roberta Smeffinfeffer for human abductee Rebecca Samantha Pheiffer, they accidentally deposited her on Earth, where she remained until the crew of the Steel Duck found her. Another notable G.R.A.I.S.E. abductee is Elvis Presley.

King Zinobop

King Zinobop is Ralph's father and the former supreme monarch of Planet Zinobop. Extremely selfish, he arranged for his son to be banished to Planet Melotia and replaced with a robotic yesman. When the citizens of Planet Zinobop discovered this, they removed him from power and set up a democracy form of government for their world. King Zinobop is now seeking a way to return to Planet Zinobop and regain his power, just as his son is.

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Other characters

Steve Troop

Steve Troop makes several appearances in his web comic, generally (but not always) as an artist at his drafting table.

No-Da

The less-successful (and slightly more darkside) twin brother of Yoda of Star Wars, No-Da arrives in a box as part of a Jedi Training Kit in 1998 for Mayberry after being odered from the back of a comic, and attempted to teach Mayberry the "Grey-Side" of the Force. J-LB8 came from his garage.

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Bibliography

Cartoon compilations published (to date):

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External links

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