Oh, Now I Get It

April 15, 2015 12:16 AM

In 1995, Zippy was explained. In 2001, Jerkcity (contains NSFW dialogue and extremely occasional NSFW imagery) was explained. And now, in 2015, Pokey the Penguin is finally explained. You know, probably. (Click the cover of The Pokey Principle to begin reading.)
posted by BiggerJ (21 comments total)

YES
posted by Spatch at 12:51 AM on April 15, 2015 [21 favorites]

This is kind of like reading Ulysses, where I need a reader's guide for the reader's guide.
posted by Literaryhero at 12:57 AM on April 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

I haven't finished the Pokey commentary, but it seems like something Vladimir Nabokov might have written after a web-comics binge, a Pale Fire for the 21st century...
posted by Agave at 1:53 AM on April 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've never metanarrative I didn't like.
posted by Devonian at 1:58 AM on April 15, 2015 [12 favorites]

Oh my God, I had forgotten about Pokey. My friends and I were obsessed with Pokey back in high school. Maybe the only way to truly understand Pokey is to be a 15-year-old who eats lunch in the computer lab every day.
posted by teponaztli at 3:19 AM on April 15, 2015 [10 favorites]

WELL I think that was probably a bunch of nonsense, although also probably true. In any event though, the Tao te Ching parodies in part 3 are delightful. The bibliography, too.
posted by hap_hazard at 3:46 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

I thought that Pokey was the quintessential example of outsider art, made by someone struggling with dissociative schizophrenia (hence the random leaps and seeming indifference to continuity).
posted by acb at 4:01 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Comic deconstruction tl;dr: Three rocks.
posted by delfin at 5:42 AM on April 15, 2015 [7 favorites]

GUN.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 6:44 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: And don't forget, often embedded in the non-sequiturs is a scathing cultural critique.
 
posted by Herodios at 6:44 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Sorry to disappoint but I AM NOT ACTUALLY SORRY!!!!! NOW LET US SHATTER YOUR WORLDVIEW
posted by BiggerJ at 6:53 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

ALSO THIS
posted by BiggerJ at 7:00 AM on April 15, 2015

Before there was youdontsurf, before rage comics, before tree comics, before even Dolan. There was POKEY THE PENGUIN!.
posted by Nelson at 7:03 AM on April 15, 2015

Although it's slightly less adventurous in its experiments with form, I've long thought of Pargu the Penguin (seen here teaching about sharing) as Pokey's spiritual successor.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:27 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Before there was youdontsurf

WUT?
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:33 AM on April 15, 2015

Thank you for loving pupkin.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 7:51 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Over in my weird mirror world country, we grew up on Friend Bear, which I'm now gathering is the off-brand Pokey where the beak got repainted to look almost kind of (but not really) like a snout.

[GRASS]
posted by byanyothername at 8:51 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Pokey is idiocy disguised as genius disguised as idiocy.

I thought about whether I should put in a comma to help parse that. Then I wondered exactly how you would parse it.

idiocy disguised as (genius disguised as idiocy)
(idiocy disguised as genius) disguised as idiocy

They seem logically equivalent. But they feel different. Which came first, the idiocy or the deception?

Then I thought, yeah that's what Pokey is about.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:11 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

the idiocy of my genius is my idiocy..

or the genius of my idiocy is my... idiocy?
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:03 AM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

it's about time this happened
posted by beefetish at 11:45 AM on April 15, 2015

Pokey the Penguin has a posse
posted by jcruelty at 8:38 PM on April 15, 2015