Let me tell you a story here...
- The Devil had it all thought out.
Condensed it into big black clouds.
A huff, and a puff, and his belly came through...
Whoops! The Devil, now, he's looking for you!
Mind My Gap is a multimedia project/interactive "graphic novel" created by Rosto A.D. and adapted from "The Four Riders of Dog", a small nonsensical book he wrote from which he based his entire fantastical world upon, and the songs created and performed by his band "Thee Wreckers".
It depicts the lives of two anchormen, Diddybob and Buddybob who have spent the entirety of their lives in a television studio, recording episodes for their show "Living Interior". While Buddybob is quite content with this set up, Diddybob starts to question his surroundings and wonders what really is "on the outside". The story is divided into two sections: "The Open Horizon" which shows how the two men lived and the sequence of events which led to Diddybob being in the situation he is in, and "Diddybob's Travels" which portrays Diddybob's experiences and trials as he explores the world "outside" and tries to find a way back to the life he threw away.
The website
contains video conversions of the original interactive Flash project, songs, and information about the project.
This work provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: Rosto explains a lot in several behind the scenes videos of the Triology movie, not that it makes things any clearer.
- Ambiguously Gay: Heavy Bull, interior designer for Living Interior.
- Anachronic Order: "The Open Horizon" is set in the past, "Diddybob's Travels" are set in the present, yet the series recommends switching constantly back and forth between the two,.
- To add to this. A prolouge episode happens with "Episode VIII: That Damned Ol' Mirror of Perspective" followed by "Episode IX: So Far So Evil" which seems to take place just after Buddybob goes "outside" with "Episode X: Big White" going back to just after Diddybob left for the outside. And that's not even getting into the mess of time jumps that occurs throughout which implies that the events of Maps 3 and 9 and Episodes VII and XI are happening at the same time.
- Arc Words: The little ditty at the top of this entry. Might be considered the series Leitmotif.
- Art Evolution: The first few episodes are, for the most part, simple still images with line drawings with very short loop animation if there's any animation at all, though as the series goes on, the art becomes more detailed and the animation more ambitious and complex.
- Art Shift: The art and style of story telling is ever changing in the sequences set "outside" compared the the more consistent style used in scenes taking place inside the studio. This is brought into sharp focus in "Map 5: Desert" and "Episode V: Xposure".
- And I Must Scream :In Lonely Bones, Buddybob is forced to fall in and out of the fountain for all eternity trapped in the moment of "Now", alternating between watching the last moments of his only friend's life play out in reverse, and being slammed into the ceiling of the studio which was once his home. The experience physically disfigures him and it is implied that, over time, he will lose all sense of himself and of time, becoming the Ugliest Man in the World.
- Badass Longcoat: Virgil.
- Bad Boss: Virgil is shown to repeatedly throw his minions into the shattered remains of his mirror in "Jona/Tomberry"
- Big Bad: Virgil, the devil himself.
- Bigger on the Inside: The entire map is contained inside the Devil's evil wicked whale.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Virgil breaks it with every narration. "Map 10: Space" has special mention as Virgil uses a series of loading screens to have a huge rant.
- Bungled Suicide: Diddybob attempts and fails to shoot himself with the very gun he killed Jona with
- Catchphrase: Virgil: So far so good/evil
- Not be scared.
- booh Frikken Hoo.
- Diddybob: too too.
- Ugliest man of the world: Aw Shoot!
- Langemahne: wow wow wow
- Dark Is Evil: Virgil and his black coat.
- Devil, but No God: From what the series shows, no God can be found. Though with the way Virgil handles things, he might be God as well.
- Evil, Inc.: The Open Horizon Network: Better safe than sorry.
- Evil Minions: Pretty much everyone Diddybob meets on his travels are one of Virgil's agents.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Virgil.
- Evil Uncle: Virgil's debut appearance in Rosto's work was in "The Four Riders of Dog" where he was referred to as "Uncle Virgil".
- Eye Scream: The cover of "Episode VII: Splintertime" As well as Virgil extracting the shard with eye attached from Buddybob
- Faceless Goons: How Virgil's minions appear in "Lonely Bones"
- Fairy Tale: "Map 9: Forest" tells the story of the Langemahne in this fashion.
- Gainax Ending: What exactly did you expect?
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The Ugliest man of the world is doomed to repeat a cycle lasting no longer than roughly 10 minutes.
- Harping on About Harpies: The nude Pink Planes which first entice Diddybob to desire exploration in the outside.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Diddybob and Buddybob.
- Hollywood Voodoo: Louie, the Shaman of the city.
- Icarus Allusion: Anglobilly Feverson on his quest to see the hole in the sky.
- Life of the Party: Ishka, leader of the partizans.
- Losing Your Head: The Langemahne in, aptly enough, "Beheaded".
- Then Virgil's... Mask?
- Louis Cypher: See Meaningful Name bellow.
- Magic Mirror: That Damned Ol' Mirror of Perspective.
- The Langemahne can use any body of water as a warping mirrors. That is until Virgil had anything to say about it.
- Meaningful Name: Virgil S. Horn
- The S stands for "S#tan".
- "Santa is almost my name"
- Mind Screw: The plot, the characters, the decisions, the setting, the creator, the designer sofas... Name one thing that isn't a mind screw in this.
- Mummies at the Dinner Table: Buddybob with Diddybob in Maps 11 and 12.
- Mythology Gag: Everywhere. Since the series is loosely based on an old book and the meaningless lyrics of several songs the creator made before, some of the events and throw away lines are in there just because they where in the book or songs.
- "Blood stains on your precious whites?"
- Diddybob and Buddybob themselves were taken from a previous short called "Live to Work. Work to Live" complete with their furniture obsession.
- The Langemahne, first appearing in the chapter "Hook" from "The Four Riders of Dog"
- Virgil too first came from "Wreck-A-Lula", also from "The Four Riders of Dog"
- Off with His Head!: All Langemahne fear to lose their heads. A fate which seems to befall any Langemahne that makes a theatrical appearance.
- Oh, Crap!: In Jona/Tomberry, the very moment Virgil realises he doesn't have his whale any more.
- Oral Tradition: The Rise and Fall of the Legendary Anglobilly Feverson.
- Parody Commercial: "Buddy Bob Says"
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: Possibly "Thee Wreckers" count as this.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Diddybob is Red and Buddybob is Blue.
- Sheltered Aristocrat: Both Diddybob and Buddybob can be said to be this.
- Shifting Sand Land: Map 5: Desert
- Shoot the Dog: Diddybob shooting Jona because his constant crys drives him insane.
- Show Within a Show: Living Interior.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Map 6: Arctic
- Snowy Screen of Death: At the end of the last episode of Living Interior.
- Spin-Off: The "Monster of Nix" is a strange mixture of types 1, 4, 8 and 11. Only Virgil, Jona/Tomberry, and the Langemahne make an appearance from the "Mind my Gap" universe, with all other characters being completely original, and absolutely no reference to the original story is made, and indeed Nix is intended to be a standalone feature. It is difficult to say where the events in Nix take place before or after the events in Gap, assuming time has any real meaning in this series any more.
- Thee Wreckers Tetralogy is a more straightforward Type 3. Their debut in Map 12 was the first film of the Tetralogy, followed by Lonely Bones serving as Map and Episode 13. The next two videos are said to take place away from the world of Mind My Gap.
- Spontaneous Human Combustion: How Diddybob dies
- The Chosen One: Tomberry to the Langemahne.
- The Dragon: Possibly the Evil Wicked Whale.
- The Fair Folk: The Langemahne.
- The Movie: "Jona/Tomberry", a part of the "Mind My Gap Short Film Trilogy" which seems to complement, explain, complicate and contradict the main series all at the same time...
- While Monster Of Nix is possibly a prequel/Side story to Mind My Gap.
- The Mirror Shows Your True Self: "It shows who ones is and where one is but always the wrong way around."
- The Stinger: Jona/Tomberry has one linking to the events of "Map 4: Sky"/"The Rise and Fall of the Legendary Anglobilly Feverson" (Kinda... See Timey-Wimey Ball bellow.)
- The Voice: Virgil narrates the ordeal and remains ever unseen right up until he presents himself in Episode 9: So Far, So Evil.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: It starts out sensible enough, "Diddybob's Travels" take place in the present while "The Open Horizon" are the events leading up to the current story, but then a phone call from the future in Map 5 directly effects the past in episode V, then there's the Ugliest Man of the World who travels from Map 7 to Episode VII resulting in Buddybob leaving the studio to look for Diddybob which is continued in the "Diddybob's travels" where Map 9 seems to be happening at the same time as the events of Map 3 Where Diddybob is still alive but in map 10, Diddybob is already long dead due to Map 7....
- Then comes Episode XII "The Evil Wicked Whale" which seems to imply the events of Map 12 coincide with the events of Maps 3 and 4 as well as the events of Episodes XI and XII which lead to the events of Episode VII preceding/following from Map 7
- Which means that all at once Buddybob is A) in the studio having his eye hit by the mirror shard B) in the forest receiving the whale from the Langemahne C) in the hotel, smashing the mirror in the first place D) on top of the whale as Diddybob gets swallowed... Seriously, what and when is going on around here?
- Unreliable Narrator: Virgil fits this to a "t".
- Villainous Breakdown: At the end of Jona/Tomberry, Virgil, now trapped without his whale and an incomplete mirror repeatedly throws his minions into the shards of glass in frustration when they tell him they can't get back his whale.
- White Void Room: What seems to be outside and Diddybob finally explores it in the aptly named "Episode X: Big white"
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: The "outside" which is inside the belly of a whale seems to be constantly stuck in the "now" while the Open Horizon Network Studio has a normal flow of time. This could be the cause behind all these time complications.
