Impulse Freak #1

Impulse Freak is a collaborative comic book project of SITO.org. It is a book with many artists and as many narrative twists. It is part of a series of collaborative comics on SITO.

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

Bob Anderson
Kristen Ankiewicz
Uncle Aussie
Ranjit Bhatnagar
Menice Blackman
Matt Bristow
Ben Brown
Glenn Carnagey
Gino Fabrikini
Fredd Gorham
Ken Hale
Raven Hanna
Tom Hart
Dean Haspiel
Denny Hill
Chris Horn
Molly Kiely
Karl Kotas
David Lasky
Pat Lichty
Inverna Lockpez
Carrie McNinch
Kristin McQuillen
Josue Menjivar
Josh Neufeld
Lauren Rabinowitz
Jesse Reklaw
Amy Ilyse Rosenthal
Barrett Ryker
Pete Sickman-Garner
Jen Sorensen
Ed Stastny

The emergent story

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.