Jonathan Coulton and Greg Pak Announce Code Monkey Save World

Comic book writer Greg Pak and Internet musician Jonathan Coulton have launched a Kickstarter [...]

Code Monkey Save World cover

Comic book writer Greg Pak and Internet musician Jonathan Coulton have launched a Kickstarter campaign for Code Monkey Save World, a graphic novel based on the songs of Jonathan Coulton, written by Greg Pak and drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa. "Comics writer Greg Pak (Planet Hulk, Batman/Superman, Magneto Testament), internet superstar musician Jonathan Coulton, and artist Takeshi Miyazawa (Runaways) have joined forces to create a graphic novel that stars the much-loved monsters and super-villains from classic Coulton songs like 'Code Monkey,' 'Skullcrusher Mountain,' 'The Future Soon,' and 'Re: Your Brains,'" explains the campaign's website. You can see their Kickstarter launch video embedded below. The graphic novel will be colored by Jessica Kholinne and lettered by Simon Bowland, and digital copies will be produced in cooperation with Monkeybrain Comics. Code Monkey Save World follows Code Monkey, the put-upon coding monkey from the eponymous Coulton song, as he teams up with the seething, lovelorn super-villain from Coulton's song "Skullcrusher Mountain." The unlikely duo fight robots, office worker zombies, and maybe even each other as they struggle to impress the amazing women for whom they fruitlessly long. Other characters include office-worker-turned-action-heroine Matilde (the "you" to whom the song "Code Monkey" is sung), Laura the Robo Queen (from the song "The Future Soon"), Zombie Bob (from "Re: Your Brains") and the heroic curler (from "Curl").

Code MOnkey Save World tweet

According to the Kickstarter page, the project was kicked off when Pak jokingly tweeted that "You could field a pretty awesome supervillain team with characters from Jonathan Coulton songs," to which Coulton tweeted back "DO IT." And Pak was right: "There's a song called 'The Future Soon,' where a young nerdy kid who's in love with this girl Laura fantasizes about a future where he will win her love by creating robot army and taking over the world," Coulton told Wired. "As Greg pointed out, that seems like it's a prequel to 'Skullcrusher Mountain.' So that character – the boy in that song – could potentially grow up to be villainous genius in 'Skullcrusher Mountain.' What would happen to Laura under those circumstances? What would their relationship be like? That ties in very beautifully with "Chiron Beta Prime," which is all about these robots, this robo-slave colony where robots have enslaved humans." "This thing has monkeys, robots and zombies. It hit the trifecta," said Miyazawa. "How could I say no?" A few weeks ago, ComicBook.com was the first to report on the strange goings-on that seemed to indicate best-selling comic book writer Greg Pak and Internet music sensation Jonathan Coulton's long-teased collaboration would take the form of something called "Code Monkey Comix." It was a Twitter account that tipped us off--an account that remained pretty quiet for a while, although it's started tweeting more regularly in the last two weeks. On Friday, the account tweeted a notification that Code Monkey Comix now had a website, which promised more details today. Just a few minutes ago, Greg Pak posted a link to a Code Monkey music video, saying "Can't seem to get this song out of my head," after having teased for the last eight hours that there would be a 9 a.m. announcement coming today. He followed that up with a tweet that "Now would probably be a good time to follow internet superstar singer/songwriter @jonathancoulton."

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