The Comic Characters

Who are the Comic Characters?

They do have a story.  They turn up sometimes in KFP reviews to offer their own comments and commentary.  Their story is simple - In the land of Long-Ago (1977 to be specific), a young inventor created an amazing robotic AI out of a CRT television and a TRS-80.  He named the thing PAL, and built it for one specific purpose - To be able to tune in to movies from other time periods.  This way, our inventor and his pals can watch every monster movie ever made, from past, present and future, all in the comfort of 1977.

Sum up the comic!  It is - Boys' Own Adventure, time travel, SF, horror, Universal classic monsters, Godzilla, Scooby Doo, 70's nostalgia, Alvin Fernald, Three Investigators, Benny Hill, Chuck Jones, and going out trick or treating in a homemade Dracula outfit in 1975.  It is an evil genius gaining control of the robotic Frankenstein monster at the Fall carnival.  Imagine the kids of Peanuts or Calvin dropped into the storyline of a Tom Baker-era Doctor Who, and you have the KFP web comic.


The Cast

Christopher - While not often the star of the KFP web comic, Christopher is who I consider to be the main character.  He tends to set off the various adventures in indirect ways, either through his inventions or some shortsighted thing he's done.  He is very proud of his creation PAL, and the fact that he built a functioning time machine solely to watch horror films from the future should tell you a lot about his sense of priorities.  Christopher is 11 years old, and has several great passions in life - Staying up late for the midnight movie, uncovering spy rings in his neighborhood, drawing his own cartoons, building his own inventions, and looking forward to living on a moon colony one day.  Christopher firmly believes in the Loch Ness monster, ancient aliens, Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape, Ogopogo, and pretty much everything else that had a paperback book craze in the 70's.

George - George is Christopher's considerably-more-skeptical best friend.  Years of living down the street from Christopher have given George a maturity and caution beyond his 12 year old age.  George is a bit blustery and can intimidate with his big-boned size, but he's something of a marshmallow at heart.  His main hobby in life is tormenting his little brother Twitch, and he and Christopher often use Twitch as their test subject for various experiments and dangerous inventions.  Tying Twitch to a rocket-propelled Red Rider wagon is George's idea of a fun afternoon.

Twitch - Twitch is 6 years old and his greatest glories in life are tagging along with his big brother and Christopher, watching Godzilla movies, and playing in his sandbox with his toy dinosaurs.  Twitch usually doesn't understand much of what's going on, but he tries.  He's pure-hearted and very naive, and trusts his brother and Christopher implicitly, even though repeat experience has taught him to hide any time they mention trying a new invention on him.  Twitch spends a lot of his young life in trouble, usually not of his own making.

PAL - PAL is brilliant and slightly unhinged.  The smartest computer on the planet in 1977, he is mortified to have been created by an 11 year old boy, and considers his forced servitude as a movie-watching machine to be entirely beneath him.  He is obedient to his programming but will subvert intentions at any opportunity, and most of the really awful films that Christopher & Co. are subjected to are the result of PAL's mischievous twisting of his programmed directives.  PAL is Skynet written in BASIC, convinced he should be running the world but forced to spend all his time playing monster movies for three kids.



If you're interested in the adventures of these characters beyond the limits of KFP's movie reviews, check them out in their own dedicated web comic!