The Freak Issue (comic story)

The Freak Issue was an early Jenny Everywhere comic story. Though created by Gretchen Quixote early on in Jenny's history, it is not considered part of the original line-up of the 13 first Barbelith Jenny stories.

When the theft of his stuffed Giant Panda makes neurotic fun-fair-owner Mr Haffalife even more of a menace to his underpaid employees than ever before, Jenny Everywhere and Trip decide to get involved and solve whatever has everybody on the pier in such a gloom — from Haffalife to the nihilistic stand-keeper Ani.

Worldbuilding

Jenny

This story features a Jenny Everywhere who has Trip as a sidekick-slash-best friend. She was apparently created by mad scientists as “a prototype for a superior human species”; she has an “ultra-sensitive endocrine system” and occasionally develops new powers, including “a mental conduit to the invisible plane of ecstasy unobtainable to we average mortals” and, most recently, the ability to feel other people's ennui. Although it goes unremarked upon, she also displays the ability to levitate Giant Panda.

Universes

This story takes place all in one universe, which is rather mundane and includes a seaside town similar to Right-On By The Sea.

Other

Mr Haffalife worked in a circus as a young man, but his dream since childhood was to build a funfair, which he eventually achieved, building and owning the amusement park on the pier.
Ani keeps a journal called This Place Is A Mess.

Continuity

The ending narration notes that this is the second story to end with a full-page spread of the whole cast dancing. This references COMIC: Name's Not Down.
This story takes place in a seaside town with a pier home to a fun fair, which appears to be Jenny Everywhere's home. Name's Not Down and COMIC: Damn Fine Hostile Takeover featured a different Jenny living in such a city, Right-On By The Sea; it is unclear if the city in The Freak Issue is intended to be a parallel universe version of it specifically, but the aesthetic connection from a real-world perspective remains.

Behind the scenes

Read online

The Freak Issue was once available on Nelson Evergreen's website. As it is no longer online, we reproduce the seventeen pages of The Freak Issue here.