Our... er... heroes?
Greg Pak: It occurs to me that you could field a pretty awesome supervillain team with characters from @JonathanCoulton songs.
Jonathan Coulton: @GregPak DO IT!
—The tweets that launched everything.
Jonathan Coulton: @GregPak DO IT!
—The tweets that launched everything.
A collaboration born on the internet, Code Monkey Save World is (or will be - see below) a graphic novel/miniseries starring several characters from Coulton's musical works, thrown together in an attempt to save the world, hopefully managing to get the girl in the process. The comic was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter, and is being written by Greg Pak, penciled by Tak Miyazawa, colored by Jessica Kholinne, lettered by Simon Bowland, and released by Comixology and (the appropriately-named) MonkeyBrain Comics. The Kickstarter page may be found here.
Characters drawn from Coulton's works include:
- Simian coder Charles, or "Code Monkey", and his love interest, Matilde, from the song of the same name
- Vijay Dutt, better known as Skullcrusher, the Super Villain from "Skullcrusher Mountain" (and the POV character of "The Future Soon")
- Laura the Robo Queen of the Robot Overlords from "Chiron Beta Prime," who was Vijay's childhood crush in "The Future Soon"
- Bob the zombie office worker from "Re: Your Brains"
- The Captain, the heroic Minnesotan curler from "Curl"
- The giant squid from "I Crush Everything"
- The Creepy Doll from... er... "Creepy Doll"
This comic provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Both Laura, the Robo Queen of Chiron Beta Prime, and Matilde, a nine-year veteran of the Army, count.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Skullcrusher's...er, crush on Laura, and Charles' affections for Matilde.
- Asshole Victim: Skullcrusher probably deserved his base getting destroyed.
- Berserk Button: Don't call Charles "Monkey." He has a name.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Skullcrusher, Bob, the Giant Squid, and the Creepy Doll are voting boardmembers of an LLC dedicated to doing supervillainy. Charles is promoted to the board as the senior (sole remaining) employee at his branch office where he worked as a web developer.
- Comedic Sociopathy: It's really hard not to like Bob, even as he... well...I admit it, the screaming and carrying on part is actually pretty awesome.
- Creepy Doll: Take three guesses. This one likes knifing random people, has psychic powers, and shouts "Eternal Curses" all the time.
- Cyborg: The abovementioned Robo Queen, constructed from the love interest in the song "The Future Soon".
- Damsel out of Distress: Matilde is easily dismissed as a normal woman working in an office. It turns out she's also an Army reservist with nearly a decade of experience and little inclination to wait for a rescue team.
- Drives Like Crazy: Skullcrusher.
- Face–Heel Turn: Matilde turns evil...or, rather, joins Robo Queen, upon realizing that she is LESS evil then SCM...
- Face–Heel Revolving Door: Turns back to good when Robo Queen reveals she wants to take over the world, then helps Robo Queen save the world, leaving them both technically good.
- Incompetence, Inc.: What SCM Industries essentially boils down to. It's a massive MegaCorp that campaigned for
dolphin burgers and non-biodegradable food holders. - Loser Protagonist: Surprisingly, this goes to Skullcrusher. It's obvious that much of his villainy is to impress a woman, but every attempt is met with failure.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Of Jonathan Coulton's song characters.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The Punkey. Everyone other than Skullcrusher, including the normally unflappable Laura, considers it disgusting.
- Mundane Made Awesome: The plan to save the world relies on one thing: curling.
- Odd Couple: Charles, at worst neutral on the hero-villain axis, is press-ganged into helping Skullcrusher, who's a literal Card-Carrying Villain.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. There's Manager Rob, and Bob from Columbus, who turns out to be the leader of the zombie horde. Neither of them ever goes by "Robert," though.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The ones in the horde Bob leads are smart and dextrous enough to operate modern firearms. Bob himself qualifies, too, having the same mental capacities as a living human.
- Punchclock Villain: Most of the employees of SCM didn't even realize they were members of a supervillain organization until Laura explains things to Matilde.
- Salary Man: Charles.
- Unexplained Recovery: Manager Rob, repeatedly.
- Unfazed Everyman: Skip the curler really only knows how to slide smooth teakettle-shaped things across a slippery surface. So of course he has no problem being asked by the government to save the world, as long as it involves sliding a teakettle-shaped bomb across a slippery asteroid.
