Line #43 ComicBook/Jellyfist


1	->''"I'm not so sure you can fault it for anything other than being pure nonsense."''
2	-->-- '''Jhonen Vasquez''', and though he's referring to a single story he may as well be summing up the whole book.
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4	[[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/001_small_6827.png]]
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6	''Jellyfist'' is an single-issue AnthologyComic written by Creator/JhonenVasquez and illustrated by Jenny Goldberg. The basic conceit was to see what happens when the author and artist are deliberately uncommunicative. The result is about as bizarre as one might expect, especially given the parties involved.
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8	The book is adorned with commentary from the two running down the sides of the pages.
9	----
10	!!''Jellyfist'' provides examples of the following tropes:
11	* TheAnnotatedEdition / {{MST}} / SelfDeprecation
12	* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: "Sign of Times" contains a giant baby that just sits around drooling on itself until a giant flounder flies through the air, collides with it and explodes.
13	* AuthorAppeal: Vasquez and bees.
14	-->'''Vasquez:''' I am the ''Bee-master''. Love bees. Often. Almost as often as I eat them...in big bowls...fulla honey.
15	* BodyHorror: The "talking car" in "The Grocery Parking" is, in fact, a woman who was converted into a car.
16	* BreakTheCutie: What happens to the little rabbit thing in the untitled comic after "Breakfast".
17	* BreakingTheFourthWall: Gloonch and the squid both do it in "Portrait of a Chewing".
18	* BreatherEpisode: Vasquez considers "Portrait of a Chewing" this.
19	* ChildHater: Goldberg.
20	-->'''Goldberg:''' The kid in this one ["Minipigs"] is awesomely grotesque, though...he's a very true representation of how I view most children."
21	* CoatFullOfContraband: The salesmen in "Minipigs" has...well...pigs.
22	* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Vasquez's commentary text is in brown; Goldberg's is in blue.
23	* DelayedReaction: The blob in "Ext Some Place - Day" takes a panel to react to Bloops' "Why hey there!! I'm eating your internal organs!!"
24	* DeusExMachina: "Muffin Top" suddenly blasting off rocket-style at the end of "History of Violence".
25	-->'''Vasquez:''' [[LampshadeHanging That ending is what ghosts call a deus ex machina.]] Which I accept, [[SarcasmMode but how else can something this powerful conclude?]]
26	* DontExplainTheJoke:
27	-->'''Goldberg:''' Talk to my sister.
28	-->'''Vasquez:''' I'll talk to her...with the bumper of my ''car''! Get it? Because I'm going to hit her? With my car. [[AndThatsTerrible It's not nice.]]
29	* DullSurprise: "Not to mention how unfazed the baby is by the explosion on it's neck."
30	* EldritchAbomination: Pantsiford's pants are filled with these in "The Old Gods".
31	* FastballSpecial: The man in "Downtown LA" who attempts to dispatch his hoboified wife by throwing their toddler at her.
32	* FlyingSeafoodSpecial: The giant flounder in "Sign of the Times".
33	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: "The little cactus weenie" in "Breakfast".
34	* GagPenis: Several characters are anthropomorphic embodiments of this trope.
35	* ISOStandardUrbanGroceries: Check off both the paper bag and the baguette for Goonch's groceries in "Portrait of a Chewing".
36	* LiteralMinded: "Sign of Times" was inspired by a restaurant poster reading "don't be such a big baby."
37	* KillerRabbit: The titular Little Thing of "Little Thing Lost" was "kicked out of [his] village....and then poisoned for killing all those people."
38	* MoodWhiplash
39	-->'''Goldberg:''' Yeah, I'm always a big fan of the stupidly abrupt changes in mood.
40	* RandomEventsPlot: Pretty much every story in the book.
41	* SanitySlippage: Goldberg appears to be undergoing this in the commentary for "He Gonna Do It". It even freaks ''Vasquez'' out.
42	* SlidingScaleOfRealisticVersusFantastic: None of the stories are full-on realistic, but how "real" the art is (human protagonists vs. animals or blobs; domestic settings vs. hellscapes) generally give a good indication of how much sense the events of any given story is going to make.
43	* SpaceIsNoisy: Averted--a caption box at the end of "Baby Beehead" goes out of its way to point out the explosion at the end is silent.
44	* SurrealHumor: A rough outline of the first comic: a rabbit tells a piece of feces it likes stuff. Three years later, the poop says it likes stuff too. The bunny, upon hearing this, goes insane and then dies. The piece of poop goes fishing. Roughly every other story in the book makes about as much sense as what you just read.
45	* SpontaneousHumanCombustion: "Das Bleemp", the dick-thing that asks about sandwiches going to hell begins levitating and then becomes engulfed in flames. There's no evident reason for this, though Vasquez clarifies in the commentary that "the prospect of no Heaven and Hell for this guy's sandwiches just ''breaks'' him."
46	* ToiletHumour: "Das Bleemp".
47	-->'''Vasquez:''' Why is that guy an enormous penis? Was that right, too?
48	-->'''Goldberg:''' Well, uhhh....I actually have no exact reason outside of the fact that penises are hilarious.
49	* TooDumbToLive: Vasquez pegs the dad in "Downtown LA" as this, between breaking the window keeping the hobos out and just curling up and letting them surround him when they have one point of entry.
50	* VoodooShark: Vasquez's attempts to explain the weirdness of each story often just makes them weirder.
51	* WordSaladTitle
52	* ZombieApocalypse: Er, kind of. The hobo invasion in "Downtown LA" is set up like, in Vasquez's words, "a traditional zombie movie."

Context ComicBook / Jellyfist