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Pogo Stick Contributors
Pogo Stick is a "Telephone Improv" comic. That means a new person adds a panel every day, taking the story in a new direction. Some of the people responsible for this mess:
REGULARS: |
 Adam Prosser is just a man...a man who feels, sometimes, that the burden is more than he can bear. He didn't choose this power, but the only alternatives are those who would pervert it to their own ends. As one who abhors the thought of control, Adam realized that he, paradoxically, was the only one qualified to shape the course of the world, for all our children's sakes. Still, he lies awake each night, dreading the day he must initiate...the Tycho Alternative. |
 Michael Rosen-Molina devoted his life to the Flabovian emperor Nichtengoort XVII, only to throw away his influence by sticking up for the doomed citizens of Lower Slobovia. He was castrated and banished, at which point he joined a monastery and devoted his life to the chronicling of history. His numerous, accomplished scholarly works remain our most invaluable record of that turbulent era. Michael died in AD 856 after a protracted fast; dubious sources say the corpse smelt of violets for weeks after death. |
 Andy "Speaker" Floyd came to this planet with the hope of saving us. His mission was to slowly alter our DNA, eventually making us incapable of violence. He worked for several major drug companies throughout the 50s, and distributed free pharmaceuticals at Woodstock, but in the 80s he tragically succumbed to the power and wealth his own chemical genius brought him. Eventually, he fell in love with a human girl, who ran off with all his money; his spaceship having been left to rust, he was reduced to selling nickel bags on the corner of 5th and Elm. You can still see him there of a chilly night, crying for his failed mission. |
 Caleb Sevcik's early experiments with Webcomics led inexorably to the dark arts. Progressing further and further through the levels of training needed to become one with the Nameless Things, he eventually foresook this plane of reality...for the time being. Thinking too hard about what he's up to will only make you nervous. |
 TD McEachern is a colourful character, beloved by the children of South America. On the first day of spring he flies through the air on the back of a winged tortoise, dressed in motley, and visits each village in turn. When he comes upon a sprig of lilac tied to the doorpost, he leaves candy and oranges, along with indecipherable chalk markings. His caperings cause all who see him to laugh with glee. Ask him too many questions, though, and he'll play pranks on you for the rest of the day. |
 Throughout the slums of Chicago, they speak in hushed tones of Theresa Henchar. Some say she was a nurse in the civil war who suffocated her charges. Others say she was a socialite during the Jazz age who murdered her children. The legend goes that her vengeful spirit still haunts the city, disappearing into blind alleys and never re-emerging, or hitching rides in taxicabs and speaking in tongues before vanishing without a trace. Saying her name three times while looking in a mirror will cause her to appear, clutching a bloody scarf and moaning. |
OTHERS: |
 Jim Zubkavich, it is said, dwells on a floating island beyond the ninth wave. He is attended by 16 Vestal Virgins, and has been known to bestow favours upon those mortals whose antics amuse him. His divine patience has limits, however, as the tale of Hoodok the Donkey will illustrate. |
 On April 21st, 1989, Dan Beeston stumbled into the Hogs' Head tavern outside Lancaster. Clearly drunk, yet with staring eyes that seemed as though they had beheld the fires of hell themselves, he smashed a glass on the ground and began to recite prophetic quatrains. None of those who were present will speak of what was said, but Mr. Tom Edgefield quit his job as a construction worker the next day, saving himself from the great Bridge collapse, which occured a week later. Once he had finished speaking on that fateful night, Dan drained his drink and stumbled out into the night, never to be seen again. |
 Until recently, the preserved corpse of Sylvan Migdal was kept in a rarely-visited room in the basement of the Prague museum of natural history. Apparently having been caught deep within the Black Forest, the body had six fingers on each hand, horns, and a tail, and was covered in blue fur. Some claimed that Sylvan represented a missing link in human evolution, but their theories were largely ignored. The body mysteriously vanished five years ago while on loan to a museum in Frankfurt. |
 Outside a village in Portugal in 1875, three children claim they saw Mason "Tailsteak" Williams descend from the heavens in a blaze of celestial light. Tailsteak delivered a message of hope and love for the world and showed them a vision of paradise, before ascending once more into the clouds. Some doubt the veracity of this report, yet young Julio's tuberculosis was mysteriously cured, and the town's well water purified ever since. The spot is now a holy shrine and gift shop. |
 Ever since she was young, Kathleen Jacques had the ability to move things with her mind. Fearing what could happen, she kept herself isolated from others, until the night of the disastrous homecoming dance. Afterwards she became a runaway, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake, until caught by government agents in Nebraska. She is now kept in a secret holding facility under the Mojave desert, with no less than 30 feet of formica between her and the staff at all times. |
 After a brief career as a sideshow geek, A. Wahl "graduated" (if that is the right word) to the rank of fortune teller and mentalist. He caught the eye of a talent scout for interscope records and had a novelty hit in 1958 in "Can you Read My Mind". He was invited to all the trendy Hollywood parties, but friends say his passion was the second album he was working on, which he claimed would "change the world". By 1960, however, Wahl was dead in a mysterious auto-erotic asphyxiation incident. Teenage girls across America wept for what might have been. |
 The rightful heiress to the throne of Thudaria, Liz Groenveld was taken from the palace by a faithful servant on the night her parents were massacred. Raised by the warrior lizard-men of the South, she grew up the equal of any man with the blade, and eventually turned to piracy. The sight of her red hair as she stands at the prow of her ship has driven many a sailor mad with fear, and still more mad with desire. But she has vowed to take no man into her bed until her uncle the usurper lies dead before her, and her parents are avenged. |
 Justin Pierce is the protagonist in the cult philosophical novel Justin's Many Deaths by Heinrich Guttenberg. First published in 1960, this highly metaphorical tale tells of a man who gains power in proportion to the amount of apathy he feels towards the Universe. Eventually he becomes a sort of uncaring God, all-powerful yet unable to bring himself to move. Translated into English a few years later, it became extremely popular on college campuses. These days, however, it is mostly assigned by burnt-out college professors and is a dreaded part of any English cirriculum. |
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