Shamrock Squid
File:Shamrock-squid.jpg
Shamrock Squid, as drawn by Dan Clowes in Eightball #10 (Feb. 1993)
Publication information
PublisherFantagraphics
First appearanceEightball #10 (Feb. 1993)
Created byDan Clowes
In-story information
Team affiliationsGrip Glutz, Paddy Spud
Abilitieshumanlike intelligence
ability to speak

Shamrock Squid is an "open source" comic book character who first appeared in the pages of Daniel Clowes' Eightball, and became a recurring character in other comics published by Fantagraphics. The character is actually an octopus (similar to the Hanna-Barbera character Squiddly Diddly), having eight tentacles, rather than the ten a squid has. A pastiche of the stock Irish character found in a lot of early comic strips, Shamrock Squid is of Irish ethnicity, green (when drawn in color), and smokes a pipe.

While Shamrock Squid was originally featured in Eightball in a one-page "gag" with another new character, Grip Glutz, he made cameo appearances in other alternative comics such as Doug Allen & Gary Leib's Idiotland and Peter Bagge's Hate. The most extensive (and apparently) final appearance of Shamrock Squid was chronicled by Bagge and Adrian Tomine in a seven-page piece in Hate #28 entitled "Shamrock Squid: Autobiographical Cartoonist." The story lampoons autobiographical alternative comics, teenage angst, and fandom; in the story, Shamrock Squid is much less overtly stereotypically Irish than in his earlier appearances.

List of appearances

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  • Eightball #10 (Feb. 1993) — "Grip Glutz and Shamrock Squid," by Dan Clowes
  • Idiotland #6 (Aug. 1994) — page of "Shamrock Squid" strips by Doug Allen and Gary Leib
  • Hate #27 (May 1997) — "Up the Irish," by Peter Bagge and Eric Reynolds
  • Hate #28 (Jan. 1998) — "Shamrock Squid: Autobiographical Cartoonist," by Peter Bagge and Adrian Tomine

See also

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References

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