Wapsi Square
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Wapsi Square is a webcomic by Paul "Pablo" Taylor, about the eccentric lives and relationships of a group of neighbors from the fictional square of the title, in Taylor's home town of Minneapolis.
The strip began as a kind of comic soap opera, but there has been an increasing tendency for events to take darker and more surreal turns, often involving the supernatural. One of the characters, Monica, has psychic powers and is on speaking terms with a mischievous Aztec (or pre-Aztec) god. Moreover, she and her friend Shelly both suffered traumatic childhood events which seem to be connected, and which often color their present-day relationships.
The development of the comic toward more complex storylines has been accompanied by an increase in the sophistication of the artwork from its fairly loose original style to its current stylized look, with characters appearing in front of lower-contrast grey backgrounds.
The comic made its debut on September 9 2001. In October 2003 the comic was picked up by Keenspot, but on May 24 2005 it left KeenSpot to become part of the Blank Label Comics consortium.
Wapsi Square maintained a regular three-times weekly schedule from its inception until July 2004 when it was increased to five days a week. The comic is usually a black and white single strip, but has occasionally lapsed into color and/or bigger formats.
Print collections
- Wapsi Square Volume 1 (ISBN 193277517X) was published by KeenSpot in February 2005. This covers the early days of the strip in a compact format. It was obviously intended to be the first of a series, but the series was dropped when the strip left KeenSpot.
- Wapsi Square: 2001 - 2004 (ISBN 9781411654426) was published through print on demand company Lulu.com from June 2006. Starting again from the beginning but covering a much longer period, this is a large-format 160-page volume with a layout (by Steve Troop of Melonpool) designed to make the best use of the strip's occasional format changes.
Characters
(Partially derived from Wapsi Square website)
- Monica Villareal - a short, busty young woman, half Irish, half Mexican. To all outward appearances she is charmingly awkward and naive, but this masks some deeper psychological problems. As a child she often spoke to her great-grandmother, only to be told that the great-grandmother had died twelve years earlier. Later she spent four years in psychiatric care after a failed suicide attempt. After her recovery she gained degrees in Art History and Anthropology, became owner of an antiques store and currently works for the University Museum. It was there that she accidentally awakened the diminutive god Tepoztecal, who has been a constant presence in her life ever since. The dark side of Monica's psychic powers is evidenced by a recent storyline in which her self-doubt took on human form and urged her to attempt suicide once more. Monica succeeded in banishing it - for the time being. Recent storylines have hinted at more psychic revelations concerning Monica, such as having many personal demons, though Monica has come to understand that they cannot hurt her or force her to do things, only suggest and convince, and that not heeding them leaves them powerless.
- Tepoztecal (Tepoz for short) [a variation on Tepoztecatl ]- one-foot-high, blue-skinned Aztec god of alcohol (though probably much older than the Aztecs and appropriated by their culture), awakened from a 400-year slumber by Monica and now living with her incognito. His powers involve all aspects of alcohol; he can create the perfect martini out of thin air, prepare any type of alcohol-marinated food, and make people instantly drunk. He once transported a marinated turkey directly into Monica's stomach to help her sleep. This worked, but caused some digestive complications. He is apparently not a figment of her imagination, since Dietzel can see him, and both Shelly and Katherine have also seen and spoken to him. He considers himself Monica's friend and protector despite the fact that she (sometimes) hates him and has often been placed in danger by his actions.
- GGG's (The Golem Girls): Bud (later calling herself Acacia Budur), Brandi, and Jin - three "drunken college girls" with fangs, accidentally summoned by Tepoztecal. They are actually temple guardian golems of enormous power that were once combined to form a chimera. Bud is capable of manifesting as a goat, Brandi as a lion and Jin as a large snake. Around Monica, however, they usually look and act like annoyingly frisky teenagers, because that was the way Tepoz envisioned them when he summoned them. Due to Monica's mysterious status as a "glyph reader", they are generally extremely deferent to Monica's wishes, often humorously so. Monica eventually learns that they were subjects of human sacrifice whose mishandled transformation into the chimera unleashed a destructive rampage that destroyed a civilization in 10,500 BC, as commemorated by the Great Sphinx of Giza. Only when separate were they controllable, a task that was originally given to the reluctant Tepoz and later to the equally-reluctant Monica. After a discussion with Jin, Brandi, and Bud have been given their memories of the past back, and are trying to deal with living in the "real world". They also seem to be no longer drunk.
- *Jin Turns out to be the goddess Tochtli, (Mayahuel) who intervened in the creation of the chimera by making it so that she was one of the ones to be sacrificed. She disrupts the chimera's creation by committing suicide before they had a chance to complete the ritual. This enabled her to maintain partial control over Brandi and Bud, but was unable to stop the destruction of the ancient world. During the chimera's incarceration, Jin was able to leave and pursue her own interests, including being a spirit guide to Shelly. Jin and Tepoz have an as yet to be revealed history. Some speculate that they are related either by birth or marriage.
- Dietzel - Monica's "almost human" bull terrier. Seems to have picked up some of Monica's geeky awkwardness in his training.
- Shelly Wahnee - a Native American girl from the Southwest, proud of her Comanche heritage. Plays cello and bass guitar and has a music degree. Plays bass in Jacqueline's band Fermented Banana and works in her father's auto repair shop. Her refusal to admit that she has a crush on Owen was complicated by Owen's relationship with Lakshmi. She also feels close to Heather, but is uncertain about her true feelings because of Heather's lesbian attraction to her. She also has psychological issues related to her mother's death which complicate her attitude to relationships. Her attempt to talk things through with Heather was interrupted when a bowling ball fell on her head and knocked her unconscious. A second attempt was interrupted by an attempted mugging. After seeing off the mugger, Shelly and Heather finally reached an understanding. Tepoztecal recently hinted cryptically that events from her childhood involving the rabbit god Tochtli are in fact meant to link her to Monica, presumably to be a stabilizing influence in her often bizarre life. Bud has also independently sought her advice on "normal" human behavior. It has since been revealed that Shelly's mother left 4 clay dolls into her keeping and that Tochtli told her to care for them. Shelly also has an inconvenient tendency to let her mouth and impulses get the best of her, resulting in some awkward moments (such as when she barges into Jacqueline's yoga class) as well as unintentionally hurting people's feelings.
- Amanda Ehrlich - a photographer by trade, she is Monica's closest friend and sternest critic. Described as "a strong willed individual who believes that natural selection has been destroyed by society and thusly we are perpetuating a nation of idiots".
- Owen Albrecht - a long-time friend of Shelly, he is an easygoing young man who plays guitar and keyboards in Fermented Banana. Owen eventually became Lakshmi's boyfriend, despite being slightly intimidated by her size and strength, having completely failed to notice Shelly's interest in him. However, he is aware of her femininity on some level, despite the many years of thinking of her as "one of the guys".
- Jacqueline Bontemps - a formerly shy and retiring girl from Maine who came out of her shell in high school and became a drummer in a friend's band. She has inherited a fortune from her Great Aunt, but prefers to lead a 'normal' life. Runs a yoga studio and still performs as the founder-member of Fermented Banana. The band's name comes from an incident that Monica told them about: one day while trying to brush her teeth in the dark she squeezed the contents of a fermented banana onto her toothbrush by mistake.
- Daren Watkins - bartender and confidante to Monica and her friends. A former school teacher, which he sometimes finds similar to running a bar. Has a phobia to bananas and thus will not allow Fermented Banana to play at the bar.
- Lakshmi Prasad - a tall athletic young woman of west Asian extraction. She has won an Olympic medal for swimming and her other interests include windsurfing and rock climbing. She also has a summer job at her father's construction company. Although she is very muscular, she thinks of herself as feminine.
- Heather Mills - a tough Texan from a military family, she has Army experience, electronics expertise and an enthusiasm for shooting. She is also a lesbian. Currently program director for an ailing Minneapolis radio station. Her boss says she works too hard. Her closest friend is Shelly; she has not yet met the other regular characters, except Owen. Owen briefly flirted with her when Heather was in the band that opened for Fermented Banana at the Plow in Des Moines, Iowa. Heather sang and played acoustic guitar in the band. Shelly described the band's music as “a bit folky”.
- Katherine Gilchrist - an expert in preservation and restoration, she works in the University Museum's textiles and materials department. Once revealed to Monica that she is a closet nudist at home. Lives alone except for a pet fish. She collects spiders in an apparent attempt to overcome her arachnophobia. She has a compassionate personality and is thoughtful and intelligent, but her chronic shyness puts her off meeting people. The fact that she spends most of her time indoors has given her a pale complexion, which coupled with the fact that she seldom smiles and has dark, hollow eyes, tends to put other people off meeting her. Thus her loneliness is something of a vicious circle. Discussions in the strip's Forum revealed that fans like her and would like to see her find happiness. A chance meeting with Tepoz, whose appearance did not faze her in the slightest, led her to discuss her interests with Monica over drinks at Daren's bar.
- Tina Rosario Aldaco Guzmán - works at the local coffee house. She is always unfailingly optimistic, despite occasionally getting orders wrong, and tries to see the good in everything and everyone. In spite of this, until recently nobody seemed to know her last name. Monica's attempt to find out more about her only caused her to blurt out hints of a shady past. If asked about her fang-like teeth, she replies that there was a mix-up at a dental lab when rebuilding her dentition following a car accident - though as with all answers regarding her personal life, this may yet be another fast-talking fabrication... There has been considerable fan speculation that she may somehow be connected with Tepoz and/or the GGG's, particularly after she was seeing using a key that greatly resembled Shelly's clay dolls to wind a clock. She was later revealed to have silver eyes.
Trivia
- Wapsi Square gets its name from the Wapsipinicon River which runs through northeast Iowa. Locals refer to the river as "The Wapsi".
Running Gags
- The weather changes so fast nobody can enjoy the good parts of it
- Shelly losing her temper
- Tepoz getting people drunk by snapping his fingers
- Bra jokes
About the author
Taylor is a native of Iowa and attended the University of Northern Iowa, where he studied photography and art history.
He moved to California after college with his now ex-wife. She was originally from Mexico and got a bilingual teaching job in a mostly Hispanic area. While there, Taylor took various photography jobs and was a substitute grade school teacher.
He later moved back to Iowa to open a photography studio with a good friend from high school (it is now being run exclusively by that friend). At this time, he started dating his present wife, whom he had met during college. He credits her as a big inspiration for starting Wapsi Square.
Both Taylor and his wife liked the Minneapolis area, so after five years of running a photo studio (and surviving a long-distance relationship), he sold his half of the studio and trekked up North.
Taylor spends his time working on Wapsi Square and managing an apartment building in Minneapolis.
External links
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