Webcomic / The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!

Counter-clockwise from top: Princess Voluptua, Hibachi the Dragon, Molly the Monster, Bob Smithson, Jean Poule, Bob's House, Fructose Riboflavin

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A serialized, science fiction/humor Web Comic by Jim Cleaveland. It began life as a print comic appearing the newsletter and magazine of PSSFS, the Penn State Science Fiction Society, from 1993-1997, and was revived as a webcomic in May, 2006.You can read it here.

Bob Smithson was the world's most average man, leading a quietly dull life in the suburb of Generictown and reasonably content that way until the day he inexplicably became a Weirdness Magnet. Strange, paranormal things now happen to him almost daily. Unicorns appear in his yard. Dragons perch near his house. Alien spaceships crash into his roof. Actually, anything and everything likes to crash into his roof.

Bob sees it all through with surprising grace because, despite his seemingly infinite normalcy, he does have a few outstanding qualities. He is very kind and doesn't judge by appearances (such that he will give even a three-legged space jellyfish a chance to be friends with him if it is so willing). He has an uncommon amount of Common Sense. And yet he is generally too thick-skulled to fully grasp the frighteningly awesome implications of most of the stuff he encounters.

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For a humor comic, the characters show a considerable amount of depth. As absurd as the situations they encounter are, most of the humor derives from how the different characters react to them, and how they interact with each other.

• Bob Smithson, the title character, is the world's most average man. He runs a news stand in Generictown.
• Dr. Jean Poule is Bob's girlfriend, a biologist at the local college.
• Molly the Peanut Butter Monster is a pink furry monster born when Jean and Bob collided on the sidewalk, accidentally mixing an experiment of Jean's with Bob's jar of peanut butter. Sweet, brilliant, naive.
• Princess Voluptua is heir to the throne of the Nemesites, the local space empire. She appears to be a beautiful woman, but her real form is a giant butterfly creature.
• Snookums is a giant alien monster that got shrunk to the size of a basketball but still weighs many tons. Molly keeps him as a pet. Bob calls Snookums a "tentacle bunny."

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• Agent Ben & Agent Jerry are two FBI agents who frequently get stuck with the unenviable task of investigating Bob.
• Fructose Riboflavin is the greatest criminal in the Nemesite Empire.
• Galatea (Golly) is another peanut butter creature grown by a rival scientist. Far more angst-ridden and megalomaniacal than Molly.
• Roofus is a robot Molly built to repair Bob's frequent roof damage, but who unexpectedly turned out sentient.
• Hibachi is a fire-breathing dragon. His race evolved in the Age of Dinosaurs, and currently lives on the planet Butane in the Kuiper Belt. He frequently acts as Voluptua's flying steed.

Has a character sheet.

Ran twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays for most of its history, then fell into some nasty schedule slip. After announcing a hiatus in June of 2018, the comic resumed in November 2018 and has been updating Tuesdays and Saturdays again since then.

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The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! contains examples of:

• Action Survivor: Bob.
• Adventure
• Alas, Poor Villain: Though Voluptua still hates Fructose Riboflavin and wants him to face justice for his actions, she can't help but feel sorrow for him once Bob tells her his origin and she personally sees how pathetic he truly is.
• Aliens in Cardiff: Generictown.
• Aliens Never Invented Democracy: Princess Voluptua, the butterfly-like heir to an empire centering around the neighboring brown dwarf of Nemesis and viceroy of our solar system.
  • Though the Nemesites have a parliament, and the dragons have the "Draconic Althing."
• The Alleged Computer: Dean Martin's TRS-80.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Jean & Molly with the unicorns.
• Alliterative Name: Floyd Fitznewski.
• Amusing Alien: Molly.
• Ancient Astronauts: Inverted with the dragons, who started on Earth and left. Played straighter with their contemporaries, the Nemesites, but humans were apparently unaware of their visits.
• Apathetic Citizens
• Arranged Marriage: The first story arc, with Voluptua and Ahem.
• Art Shift: The ninjas without mask are draw in more anime-like style.
• Baby Planet: Fleen.
• Beautiful All Along: Princess Voluptua's true form.
• Big Dumb Object: Coney the Island.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Rocko Sasquatch.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch and Yeti: The Bigfeet.
• Brain Bleach: Bob needs some after seeing Rocko's Shirtless Scene.
  • And then there's this scene... Don't read the caption underneath... it would make YOU need some, too... You Have Been Warned.
• Butt-Monkey: Bob's roof.
• Casual Interstellar Travel: Justified. There's no FTL, but the Nemesites are absurdly long-lived, and relativistic-speed travel is ubiquitous.
• Cast of Snowflakes
• Catch-Phrase: Roofus: "I will fix the roof!" And Jean likes to say "Egad!" a fair bit.
• Cerebus Syndrome: the several early strips where more of surreal Sci-Fi comedy stories. However, while still comical, later arcs become evidently longer and more character driven.
• Character Development: Molly and Golly are born identical, and we get to see exactly how circumstances mold them into such very different people.
• Children Raise You: Bob and Jean raising Molly.
• Christmas Episode: Annually. This is probably the nicest.
• Cloning Blues: Galatea.
• Come to Gawk
• The Comically Serious: Bob
• Common Sense.: Pretty nearly Bob's defining characteristic.
• Crossover: There have been brief crossovers with Melonpool, Zortic, Sketch Comedy, and Zeera the Space Pirate. As well as a strip contributed to Dr. McNinja's◊ site.
  • Molly, meanwhile, has made a cameo in Everyday Heroes.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Bob once tried to take on Riboflavin, an old but competent hand-to-hand combatant, but Reality Ensues, and Riboflavin easily trashes Bob around.
  • Galatea promptly pays him back on the same coin.
• Cute Monster Girl: Several.
• Cyber Cyclops: Roofus.
• Dances and Balls: Which turn out badly.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: The Dragons had a civilization in the Age of Dinosaurs.
• Dirty Old Man: Mr. Dirtygeezer.
• Doppelgänger: Galatea.
• Dragon Rider: Voluptua and Hibachi.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Most story arcs involve at least some danger of this.
• Everything's Better with Princesses: Princess Voluptua.
• Everytown, America
• Evil Twin: The character of Galatea plays with this trope.
• Fantastic Racism: Many dragons resent the Nemesites; and hardly anyone takes Earthlings seriously.
  • Not even the sasquatches.
• The Federation: The Nemesite Empire.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: Hibachi and other dragons doth speak this way.
• Freakiness Shame: Voluptua displays this at one point.
  • The trope is averted by Molly, who is quite matter-of-fact about her strangeness.
• Future Slang: "Frass," used by the insectoid Nemesites. Look it up. It means bug poop.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Molly & Galatea.
• Generic Name: Generictown.
• Genius Ditz: Molly.
• Ghibli Hills: Pitcheresk Forest.
• Grammar Nazi: The North American Grammar Squirrel.
• Green Space Babe: Princess Voluptua.
• Halloween Episode: The annual appearance of the Halloween Monster.
• Have You Come to Gloat?: When Bob finds Galatea at the lowest point in her young life, shivering alone behind a trashcan in a downpour, she snarls, "So... You followed me! Why?? Come to gloat at me, while I'm in this pathetic state? How petty!" She's wrong, of course.
• Hello, Nurse!: Princess Voluptua.
• Heel Realization: Played for Laughs here.
• The High Queen: Princess Voluptua.
• Higher-Tech Species: The Nemesites.
• Hologram: Galatea's disguise-projecting beret.
• Hidden Elf Village: The Bigfeet.
• Hitchhiker's Leg: Molly, of all people, attempts this while hitchhiking in this strip, but the fact that she's covered with fur proves a hindrance.
• Humongous Mecha: Roofus, W2:9000, & Molly's robot lion.
• I Can't Do This by Myself: Galatea tries to get her sister Molly to help, because she doesn't want to have to conquer the world all by herself.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: Voluptua has one (both her wasp-waisted natural insectoid form and her humanoid disguise).
  • Lampshaded when she meets a female human for the first time and makes a mental note to yell at tech support for getting human proportions wrong.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Snookums used to be much bigger.
• Insignificant Little Blue Planet
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Roofus.
• Instant Expert: Supergeniuses Molly and Golly.
• Interspecies Romance
• Kaiju: Snookums's original form, Unigar the Vast Unicorn, The P.E.P.S.I. Monster, Molly's robot lion, Djali the Giantess.
• King Mook (Literally).
• Leeroy Jenkins: Fitnewsky doesn't really understand how a riot works...
• Lightworlder: Nemesites are from a low gravity planet so ordinary humans have greater strength and stamina than them. Because of the Square-Cube Law, Djali is better able to handle the Nemesite homeworld's gravity than Earth's, but she needs a breathing apparatus because lower gravity means a thinner atmosphere.
• Loads and Loads of Characters
• Love Dodecahedron: Explained here.
• Mad Scientist: Dean Martin, though he'd deny it; also Molly & Galatea.
• The Men in Black: Agent Ben & Agent Jerry.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Riboflavin wants to conquer the Earth and threatens to destroy it if they don't surrender. Bob lampshades this and makes Riboflavin look pathetic. The strip is here.
• Monster of the Week: Monsters are fun!
• Muggle Foster Parents: Bob & Jean to Molly.
• Multiple Demographic Appeal
• Nietzsche Wannabe: Galatea does a pretty good nihilistic rant at one point.
  • She did grow up reading Nietzsche, after all.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Lampshaded with Jean's formula that accidentally produced Molly.
• Non-Fatal Explosions
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Voluptua has these... even when she's a butterfly!
  • Seeing Jean without a shirt prompts Voluptua to exclaim "Well, those aren't ovipositors!" which probably explains things.
• No Transhumanism Allowed: Generally true for the Nemesites, despite their high-tech nature. Galatea and Voluptua spend a series of strips discussing The Singularity at one point, with the Princess describing why they try to be moderate with their technological use and Galatea grumpily calling them a bunch of cowardly Space Amish.
• Occupiers out of Our Country: Zippobic's complaint about the Nemesites on Butane.
• Official Couple: Bob & Jean.
• Older Than They Look: Voluptua is at least 300.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: Djali/Jolly.
• Perfect Pacifist People: The Fleenians. Consequently, they keep getting robbed.
• Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: The dragons sure learned their lesson after the whole iridium bomb fiasco 65 MYA.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: Galatea.
• Police are Useless
• Poster-Gallery Bedroom: Molly's room, with posters of Jose Carerras, Gamera, Stephen Hawking, and High School Musical.
• Powered Armor: Abby Primrose.
• Punny Name: Almost everyone, Most notably Dr. Jean Poule (Gene pool).
• Rapunzel Hair: Voluptua
• Rebellious Princess: Voluptua.
• Rip Van Tinkle: Upon awakening from a 300 year sleep, this is Lari the Ninja's first thought. When his siblings wonder if the strange modern world is the afterlife, he disagrees because "I don't think the dead pee."
• Roofless Renovation: Constantly carried out by professional roof-fixing robot Roofus. "I WILL FIX THE ROOF" indeed!
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Voluptua.
• Running Gag: There are several, but the main one is anything at all crashing into Bob's roof.
• Scolding the Fourth Wall Breaker: Bob is prone to fourth-wall-breaking, and his down-to-earth girlfriend Jean always calls him out on it.

  Molly

  Hey, mommy! Daddy's breaking the fourth wall! It's all avant-garde and stuff! Keen, huh?

  Jean Poule

  Oh, I hate it when he does that. It's so confusing.

• Shout-Out
  • This page has one to Everyday Heroes.
  • Pinky and the Brain, everyone?
  • A subverted "Scooby-Doo" Hoax by the original gang.
  • And here the author confess to be making shout outs of his favorites programs as a child.
  • DC and Marvel Comics respectively.
  • Heavy Metal in the last panel.
  • Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" here.
  • Howl's Moving Castle here.
  • Rendezvous with Rama here.
  • WordGirl here.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Molly & Galatea.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The strip plants itself firmly on the idealistic side with this encounter between Bob and Galatea.
• Space Amish: The dragons, to an extent.
• Space Pirates: The Pirates of Ipecac.
• Space Police: Officer Zodboink.
• Squee!: Jean has moments of these... ... especially here ...and here!
• Starfish Aliens: Aliens are never humanoid in their true forms, except for crossover cameos with other webcomics.
• Suburbia: Generictown.
• Take Over the World: Galatea, Fructose Riboflavin.
• Take That!: directed to One More Day, and later to JoeQuesada.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Bob is good at this.
• Techno Babble: Frequently lampshaded.
• Terraform: Butane, adopted planet of the dragons.
• Theme Twin Naming: Molly, Golly, & Jolly.
• There Are No Global Consequences: Lampshaded.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Bob.
• Tsundere: Jean.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Voluptua regularly; Riboflavin and Galatea sometimes.
• Übermensch: Galatea.
• Unfazed Everyman: Bob.
• Unicorn: They purr!
• Unobtainium: Borfomite.
• Unperson: The Nemesites consider Earthlings "wildlife".
• Unsound Effect
• Wacky College: Generictown U. is showing some signs of this.
• Wave Motion Gun: Borfomite beams.
• We Are as Mayflies
• Weirdness Magnet: Bob.
• Weird Science
• Weirdness Censor: Most of the townsfolk, but Mr. Bystander is the worst offender.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Molly, Galatea, Roofus.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Generictown.
• Where's the Fun in That?:
  Fructose Riboflavin: 'Bloodless victory'? Where's the fun in that?!
• Whoopi Epiphany Speech: Bob.
• Wild Take: Jean. In spades.
• Wonder Child: Molly.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Galatea.
• The World Is Always Doomed
• The World Is Just Awesome: Frequently: here, here, here, here, and here.
• Younger Than They Look: Molly, Golly, and Jolly.

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