Jack

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Jack
Author(s)	David Hopkins
Website	http://www.pholph.com/
Update schedule	Unknown
Launch date	March 1st, 2001
End Date	Ongoing
Genre	Horror Drama Action
Rating(s)

For the article on the title character of this webcomic, see Jack (character).

Jack is a webcomic created by David Hopkins which debuted on March 1st, 2001. It has an overall storyline based around Hell, sin, and redemption, woven into individual story arcs, each concerning a subset of the characters in the comic.

Jack hovering over Tet and Trixi

[edit] Plot and theme

Jack's initial arc involved a child named Fnar, who was little more than an unborn fetus whose life was ended in its first few months. This arc also introduced the primary character for which the comic was named: Jack. This character is portrayed as a rather ragged green rabbit in rags, wielding a scythe much akin to the various incarnations of the Grim Reaper.

The comic centers around decidedly mature themes in one form or another, most notably in the visual artistic form. It also prominently features Hell, as demonstrated by the third strip in the debut arc which allowed Fnar to meet his mother, restrained to a cave wall with the rock actually encompassing her right leg and holding her arms as if it were eating her. The mature themes of the comic are made quite plain at that time, as the woman bore a stab wound under her left ribs near the stomach and also had her throat slashed. The blood from these wounds is still dripping in the scenes, and Fnar himself looked grisly as he was "aged" by Jack in stages to the age of a preteen boy.

Jack's plot bounces around quite often, but it remains true to the Hell theme for the most part. On occasion, strips are published which pertain to real world events, like the Angry Brian story arc which depicted events similar to those of the horrific Columbine High School Massacre. Other features of the comic include the appearance of real places like the former World Trade Center that was destroyed in the infamous and very tragically devastating terrorist attacks of 9/11. It should be noted that the Angry Brian story arc sparked heavy feedback from the readers and was what earned the comic a large reader base.

Similarly, Jack features Heaven (as you might expect) as well as angels. These two forces do not fight each other much in the comic; in fact, for the most part they appear to work together without any major problems, although this may be due to the focus on Jack, the most amenable of Sins. Some arcs do take place in the mortal world, in which both sides occasionally find themselves, usually revolving around Jack's job as Grim Reaper.

In all, the comic can be morbid, but it has its tender moments and optimistic highlights. Not all the characters of the comic are doomed to Hell for eternity. They all have a chance to eventually live on Earth again in new forms as a test to see if they have "learned" from their previous life's mistakes. If so, they are admitted to heaven. If not, they are condemned once more to the bowels of Hell.

Did you know? Mab of Mab's Land and DMFA has drawn a series of chibified versions of the characters of Jack. These are displayed in Mab's Chibi Hell.

[edit] Cameos

There have been many cameos on Jack, including appearances from Pink, Skye Bluedeer, SueDeer, Mab, Gene Catlow & Cotton, Vinci & Arty, Silverblue and Trixi & Tet.

The comic recently featured what may have been a cameo appearance of Uncle Kage in the Joann and Jeremy arc. Depicted as he has usually described the meaning of the name, a roach, he features in the arc as a guest speaker at a wedding in his labcoat delivering a speech about God and love while taking one or two breaks during the speech to sip wine out of a martini glass. He later wanders in the crowd, being approached and called by name by the groom and thanked for the speech, to which Kage said "Why thank you m'boy. By the way, I certainly hope you remembered what I said, because I sure don't." This could be due to being drunk when he gave the speech, though. In the same strip, the characters Vinci & Arty can be seen dancing together in the first panel.
2, the Ranting Gryphon is referred to in a Jack comic short, in which a "ranting talent agent" whose species is a gryphon has a small '#2' written in over his head.
The Funday Pawpet Show is referred to in Those That Run.
Jack appeared on A Doemain of Our Own as one of the potential explanations for the disappearance of Eric from the plotline