Monty and the Former Star of the Strip
Monty (formerly Robotman and then Robotman and Monty) is a comic strip by Jim Meddick that was started in 1985 and is still running to this day.
In the beginning it starred Robotman, a robot who believed he was from another planet, living with the Milde family until he found his geeky creator Monty, who had given him false memories of being an alien, though he did have to leave Earth when aliens showed up to abduct him, leaving Monty as the star of the show.
The latest strip can be read here
.
The comic provides examples of the following tropes:
- Aborted Arc: Whatever happened to all this about Monty actually being from space??
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: In this comic strip, Monty is having an encounter with The Grim Reaper while shopping at Walmart. Turns out that the Reaper only wanted to buy hoodies for "Casual Fridays".
- Fanservice: Meddick has drawn some very hot women.
- Joisey: The arc focusing on Monty's house being haunted has someone mention the house is in New Jersey.
- The Man Behind the Curtain: A 6-strip story arc features the assassins from the planet Thyroid threatening Robotman (with messages tied to stones and to suction pad-arrows). Robotman is scared of them due to their reputation. In the end, they are four very small creatures, shorter than Robotman's foot. Breaking the fourth wall, Robotman and the assassins argue whether this has an Aesop or is simply a good idea for The Twilight Zone (1959).
- Medium Awareness: Most characters are aware this is a comic.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Dwayne, a nerdy vampire, only eats animal blood and ketchup.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Downplayed with Robotman since he's noticeably different from anyone appearing in the strip (before Monty appeared) but he pretty much blended in.
- Religious Robot: Robotman once confused a burger joint's take-out plastic microphone in the shape of a clown head, believing it was some sort of deity.
- Shout-Out: There are several!
- Guess who Loco Ohno is a parody of?
- Plenty to Star Trek and Star Wars.
- Monty was told at one point that the comic world is not real, but a fictional realm, referred to as The Comix.
- Monty was once bitten by a radioactive Ladybug.
- There's been a two-week parody of Lost that revealed "The Others" to be the cast of Gilligan's Island.
- There was also an Apocalypse Now reference in there.
- The three-week story Lord Of The Thing.
- Fleshy resembles The Pink Panther somewhat.
- The Shining was spoofed once.
- Apparently the title is a tribute to Monty Python.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Monty's role started growing more and more after he was introduced, making Robotman himself Demoted to Extra.
- Spotlight-Stealing Title: Robotman became Robotman and Monty, then finally just Monty, reflecting the above.
- We Will All Be History Buffs in the Future: Averted. Professor Xemit, a time-traveller from the year 2525 stranded in the present, gets asked who will win the 2008 US presidential election. He tells Monty that he has no idea, given the early 21st century is (to him) an extremely long time ago.
