Impulse Freak #1
Impulse Freak is a collaborative comic book project of
SITO.org. A book
with many artists and as many narrative twists.
The first issue of Impulse Freak was published in
November of 1996. Artists were wrangled via zine-art networks
and the Internet. Each was asked to continue (or "pre-tinue"
as the case may be) the previous artist's work. All participants
submitted a three-panel comic-strip, each continuing the
story of Stip, the little stick monkey. When it was over,
Impulse Freak had 33 sets of three panels from
32 artists around the world.
The artists
The story emergent
The story, if you want to call it that, has evolved in
some cool ways. Stip starts out as a feather on
the winds of fate, just looking to survive in his voiceless
way. The monkey then goes through a weird transformation
while ensconced in the laundry of a schoolgirl. He emerges
in a frenzy of greed and violence unchecked until he is
physically and metaphysically bifurcated by self-hate
in the form of a chainsaw's blade. One half of Stip tosses
the other half into a volcano, only to see second Stip emerge
as a massive skeletal uberbeast in classic Japanese movie
gargantuform. The non-monster half of Stip joins the
army to fight the beast but is quickly shellshocked
into naked defenselessness, wandering the streets scheming
to raise funds to purchase a pair of black velvet stretchy
pants to cover his simian butt. In an open-ended flashback,
Stip recounts past money-making
efforts and a trip to the moon to fulfill a
philosophical void. On that trip, Stip recalls, he partook
of the Pschedelic Darwinian Chocolate and dodged the sub-Lunarian
Space Potatoes. Immediately thereafter, he is accosted by an
incessant television that urges him to gastrointestinal
emergency and quirky amnesia. One thing (amnesia) leads
to another (benevolent decapitation) and Stip has his
first drink. Martini. Shaken, never stirred. We close
the curtains on the monkey, passed out amid the shards of
a broken beverage.