My Bloody Valentine (comic story)
My Bloody Valentine was a standalone Jenny Everywhere comic story written by David Barnett and John Miers. It is believed to have been the first of the original Barbelith stories to enter production, though it was only the second released. Though set on Valentine's Day, it was not actually a Valentine's Day release.
Contents
Plot
It's Valentine's Day across the Multiverse, and Jenny Everywhere's shifting rapidly between several of the universes in which she exists, each one bringing a new jolt of some sort which knocks her from one to the next; in each world, her date has something extraordinary to offer. But what will her human date on boring old urban Earth give her? And is the extraordinary really what she wants when she lives and breathes it every day?
Worldbuilding
Jenny
- Jenny Everywhere appears to exist simultaneously across several different universes with a more-or-less identical physical appearance, shifting her awareness from one world to the next but physically present in all of them at once, and becoming dizzy and distant in any given world when her consciousness is elsewhere.
- Offhand remarks by Jenny indicates that she drinks alcohol and that she is interested in pursuing a sexual relationship with at least one non-humanoid alien being.
- Jenny does not appear to be open to her human date about her true nature, pretexting it being “her time of the month” to explain her dizzy spell when she has in fact rapidly shifted her consciousness through several dimensions.
- Jenny ruefully remarks that she would like one of her Valentines to someday gift her a box of chocolate or some other normal gift.
- The last panel shows that somehow, all the gifts given to the various Jennies are available to the Jenny of “Universe A”, with the bond between the cross-dimensional Jennies going beyond blurred lines of individual awareness and into some sort of physical shifting of matter, even if Jenny isn't seen to physically shift herself.
Universes
- In this story, Jenny shifts between four unnamed universes:
- “Universe A”, home to the story's main Jenny, seems to be an urban, contemporary Earth, though not devoid of supernatural elements.
- The Jenny of “Universe B”, also an Earthlike setting, is apparently a glamorous master-thief in a committed relationship with a male counterpart.
- In “Universe C”, she has some sort of relationship with a mad scientist specializing in the study, and, sometimes, creation, of strange animals.
- In “Universe D”, Jenny inhabits a sci-fi, outer-space setting and is in a romantic relationship with a huge nonhuman being.
Other
- The master-thief claims that the diamond he and Jenny are stealing would allow them to buy Paris.
- Jenny Anydots is a Gumbie Cat, genetically engineered by the scientist as a present for Jenny.
- In “Universe D”, Jenny and her date consider going to the Lava Columns of Skantagria, to the Kalafarian Swamps to see the Moonflies at play, or to the circus which has set up on “the third moon”.
- Jenny's nonhuman date in Universe D travelled to the Mountains of Ismalia through the Barren Desert of Qlaq and “engaged a female Raggalisk in hand-to-hand combat” to obtain the Raggalisk Egg they give her, as “they were sold out at the shop”.
- Jenny's human date in Univers A, meanwhile, claims he sold his soul to a “minor Hellhound of the Seventh Circle” to get her one of the only three existing copies of the Plasmanomicon.
Continuity
- The jolt of a piece of toast popping out of the toaster in “Universe A” coincides with Jenny's first shift from one universe to another; as such, the toast is given significant attention in the first page of the story. A liking for toast had earlier been established on the Barbelith Forum as one of Jenny's traits, and would go on to become a recurring quirk of Jenny's character.[3]
- COMIC: Soulless Mate was written as “a Spiritual Sequel to a Portion of My Bloody Valentine”, picking up the narrative of Universe A's Jenny and her boyfriend].
- COMIC: The Death of Jenny Everywhere, also written by David Barnett, alluded to the master-thief Jenny, suggesting that she had died during the robbery attempt.
- One of this story's incarnations of Jenny (the “space opera” incarnation) was one of the Jennies glimpsed by the Nommo in COMIC: Say The Word.
- Several characters from this story made cameos at the interdimensional Christmas party in COMIC: Merry Christmas Everywhere.
- In PROSE: Morning After, a Jenny recalled how “one of [her]” had “gotten into trouble” trying to steal a diamond from the Louvre.
- The Plasmanomicon was referenced again in PROSE: The Hermetic Garbage of Jenny Everywhere by Jeanne Morningstar and PROSE: The Folly of Men by Scott Sanford.
Behind the scenes
Read online
My Bloody Valentine was originally available on John Miers' personal website. It was also available on queergranny.com. Both pages are now offline. However, the former page was recorded on the Internet Archive, allowing us to reproduce the six pages of My Bloody Valentine here.
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