Fleep

Online Version

Fleep currently appears in the weekly newspaper, "Asian Week". It's about a boy who wakes up in a telephone booth which has been mysteriously selaed in an envelope of concrete. Using only the contents of his pockets (two pens, a paperback novel, three coins and 20 ft of unwaxed dental floss) our hero must fashion and execute an escape plan before he runs out of oxygen. Believe it or not, I try to end each strip on a cliffhanger which is very challanging considering most of the 42 strips take place inside this one phone booth.

Fleep is everything I wish that a comic strip could be. It's ambitous, mysterious and utterly masturbatory. About a quarter of the strips feature the main character working through various math problems. They are some of the most dramatic math problems you'll ever see in a comic strip. I believe that Fleep is my best strip to date. It is also a complete comercial disaster.

The editors at "Asian Week" felt that the theme of the strip didn't really jive with the rest of their newspaper and decided to cut the run at number 28. I imagine all along, they really wanted an Asian Boondocks or Cathy. But gosh darnit, I did the best strip I could and if I did what they wanted it wouldn't have been the best. I really thought there were enough people out there like me who would just fall in love with the strip. But I think it just confused people.

The full run of Fleep will continue on the Modern Tales website.