Ask the Joker is a Q&A segment here on the PHB where you, dear readers, are invited to send in your Poptropica questions to have them answered, with wit, wisdom, and wisecracks, by one Incredible Joker.
Welcome to the first set of questions in this new PHB series, Ask the Joker! Many of you wrote in with your Poptropica questions, and now— *adjusts goggles* —I shall be offering my sage advice.
If you do not see yours in this post, do not worry — I am saving all submitted questions and they may be answered in the future. Now, onto your pressing questions, and my rambling amazing answers! 😂
Guessing by your name and appearance, are you related to Lucky Joker and/or Dr. Hare? ~Gentle Dolphin
I am not related to Lucky Joker as far as I am aware (unless… long lost relative? 😮). As for Dr. Hare, I guess that would be a hare-y situation to explain. So instead I will just play it by ear and hop onto the next question! 🙃👍
When do you think there will be a new island? ~EvilGirl31
They may release a few old islands first to keep people happy until the new ones are ready. They have the content of their old islands — it’s just a matter of getting them on the new Haxe system. Maybe we’ll get a few in early to mid 2021? Just speculating, though. And Fairy Tale Island, being a brand new island, is probably going to take more time to create — but still in 2021, if all goes as scheduled.
Either way, we should have something coming to help our impatience! 😂😛 Of course, even then, I will probably be procrastinating on completing it myself… 😅
What inspired the art and design for Poptropica? ~Shantelle W.
This one was not easy to find, and I’m still researching it a bit, but here’s some stuff you may find fascinating! Here’s a Q&A with Poptropica artist Abigail Grigg, which talks a bit about art styles and inspirations. Abigail’s advice? “Experiment and try new stuff!” You never know where you might dream up the next big idea.
And check out the PHB’s Poptropica Yearbook for 2007, which includes some fun pics of Poptropica’s early concept art before the game was even created. According to Poptropica’s founder, Jeff Kinney, Poptropica’s first concept was “an enormous map of single-scene rooms,” but it took a competitor making a game with a similar name as Poptropica’s working title, “Poptropolis,” for them to switch gears and start thinking about islands, the format we know and love today.
Art for Reality TV: Wild Safari Island
Primitive Poptropicans
That’s it for the very first Ask the Joker! Bring on your questions and I’ll see you in the next one. And quick thanks to Slanted Fish for letting me have the freedom to write 😂😜 and for her editing! 😅
How can you send in your questions to Ask the Joker?
That’s a great question! You can use the following methods:
📧 Send an email to justaskthejoker (at) gmail (dot) com. This way, you’ll get to keep your questions a surprise when they get answered on the blog.
💬 Comment on the latest Ask the Joker post. Your questions will be publicly visible before they appear in a Q&A post, but this allows others to interact with your question if they so choose. If you don’t have an email address, you can enter a fake one in the email field when you post your comment.
See you all next time, and remember: You can’t spell Poptropica without letters.
Howdy, Poptropicans! It’s Lucky Joker here with another sporadic installment of our Pop Fan Artist Spotlights series. The artist featured this time is… well, me! I promise I’m not self-centered. 😅
A few months ago, you may have seen a drawing challenge called Poptober — a list of 31 prompts (one for each day of October) created by MaryannTheConqueror to inspire a month of Poptropica fan art. Well, I decided to take the challenge head-on. Let’s take a look and see how I did. (Click the images to enlarge them!)
For day 1 of Poptober, I wanted to kick off the spooky month by depicting a spooky island. After some thought, I ended up going with the amazing Ghost Story Island by drawing the story’s most prime trio.
For day 2’s carnival theme, I knew I wanted to draw something from Monster Carnival (because duh! lol). I could’ve drawn the fabulous Ringmaster Raven, but instead, I shared the love and picked a couple of more underrepresented characters for my piece.
Due to the ambiguity of the prompt “Game,” I spent a lot of time thinking of what I was going to draw on day 3. Ultimately, I went with drawing Poptropica’s most popular common room game, Sky Dive. Once again, I portrayed two often glossed-over characters: Amelia and Crusoe.
When I read “water” for day 4, somehow the beach from my favorite island, Mythology (Flash edition), immediately came to mind. I think I captured the theme well in this one, and I don’t compliment myself often! Poseidon (the god of the sea) and mermaidsat the beach — how much more water can it get? I suppose if they were underwater, hehe.
On day 5, I couldn’t help being inspired from my favorite island a second time. I drew Medusa in a lair full of her collection of stone victims, including Hercules, to bring more of that special scariness that October entails.
To my surprise, there were plenty of considerations for day 6’s “doctor” prompt. Dr. Hare, Dr. Salerno, Dr. Jupiter, and the ever-so-newly-popular Dr. Beev were all pondered upon. However, I ended up drawing Dr. Lange and a colleague in a lab trialing vaccines (kind of appropriate in these times…).
“Blimp” — I feel like there are an infinite amount of options for this one. Here, you can see Mystery of the Map’s Mya, Oliver, and Jorge discovering the lands of Poptropica in the iconic aircraft (along with a cameo from a certain someone with his own balloon!).
For day 8, I drew some of the crew from one of our largest adventures, Skullduggery Island, standing proudly on deck. Pretty adventure-y if you ask me!
On day 9, there was nothing else I could bring myself to draw for “forest” other than the Elf Queen and the woodland creatures surrounding the magic orb inside their shady habitation. This one was very fun to draw, as was the next one.
Day 10’s prompt was “berry.” I think everyone who participated in this challenge drew something Zomberry-related and I’m no exception. I wanted to depict a feeling that was both equally spooky and amusing, so I drew DJ Saturday Nite partying it up with a number of blueberry zombies in the karaoke bar.
It took me a little while to come to a decision for what I was going to do for day 11. The theme was “bubble” and I eventually came up with Violet Beauregarde blowing a bubble with the chewing gum Mr. Wonka warned her not to taste. Tsk tsk…
When I saw that day 12 was “sneak,” I immediately thought a scene from the classic Spy Island would be perfect. Here you see a secret agent escaping the B.A.D. guys’ captivity at the docks.
For day 13’s “night” prompt, I had originally wanted to do a piece featuring a scene from Night Watch, but instead went with two of the forty thieves burglarizing the bazaar from Arabian Nights, and I’m not mad about it.
Day 14 was a lot of fun! What I did was combine the two Poptropica space-related islands, Lunar Colony and Astro Knights (which is one of my favorites). I drew Dr. Salerno accomplishing her long devoted mission of discovering alien life on the moon by depicting her greeting a couple of the Pewter Moon aliens.
On day 15, I couldn’t not draw this trio of some of Poptropica’s most popular villains. I mean, come on. The only villain possibly more iconic than these three is Dr. Hare.
At first, I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted to draw for “beach” on day 16, but I decided to show poor unfortunate Greg Heffley standing with his empty ice cream cone at the (wimpy) boardwalk. Just his luck!
My immediate thought for day 17‘s theme “machine” was to depict something from Steamworks Island. I wanted to be a little more outside the box and stretch the theme just a little bit, though. What I came up with was Shrink Ray’s CJ meeting her future self and being rewarded the medallion for Time Tangled Island. I mean, hey, she had to use a time machine to get there, right? And check out her little robot concierge in the background!
There were so many possibilities for “pet” that I was unsure what to choose. After brainstorming through many ideas, I wound up choosing quite possibly Poptropica’s most adorable little derpy companion… the Narf! And a whole bunch of them too! RIP medallion kid.
“Ship” was the prompt for day 19 and there were so many considerations! (This happens a lot, huh? Lol) Yet again, I went with a pair of characters you don’t see get very much attention in the community, and that was Beatrice and Hazel from Crisis Caverns. I can see these two ladies being a cute couple.
For day 20, I rendered up a piece of the Chthonian scaring away the mole people. I was actually quite puzzled on what I wanted to draw for this one, but I’m proud of what I chose.
I definitely knew that I wanted to take inspiration from the amazing Escape From Pelican Rock when I saw that the prompt for day 21 was “prison.” Here you see Big Tuna being provoked by Flashy Fosbury as he’s being dragged away by one of Pelican Rock’s security guards.
What better island represents the theme “wild” than Wild West? Little Miss Annie Oakley is definitely unleashing her wild side as she shows off her skills in a shooting contest. The others are quite impressed.
Day 23 was one of my favorite days of the Poptober challenge. I drew Annie and Jack in their clubhouse reading a book about old Japan for the theme “story.”
I had a lot of fun with day 24 as well! I wanted to create something super fun and exciting for the theme “music,” so I decided to draw up a couple characters from Reality TV Island rocking out on stage.
The prompt for day 25 was “past,” and I’m sure you could imagine how many different scenarios from Poptropica would work perfectly for this theme. I wanted to focus on an island (or a mini game, rather) I hadn’t highlighted before. Here you have a greeting scene from D.C. Diner, ca. 1893!
Day 26 was the total opposite of past. The theme was “future,” and below, in a dystopian time coming, Poptropicans are servants to the superior reigning robots.
“Storm” was the theme given for day 27 and my mind went straight to Super Villain Island. I drew Crusher — one of the inmates being held at Erewhon Prison — looking disturbed by the thunder and lightning outside his cell window.
Day 28‘s theme was “costume,” which was perfect considering it was so close to Halloween. Take a look at this spooktacular costume party scene taken from the classic Haunted House special! I really like how this one turned out.
For the “hero” prompt on day 29, I drew a cutscene that used to annoy me so much when I was a kid — Ned Noodlehead taking credit for “saving the day” after our Poptropicans did all the work. That darn Ned!
As Poptober began wrapping up on day 30, I was pretty worn out but determined to finish! The theme was computer, so I illustrated a tired employee, in front of his screen, working for Poptropica Worldwide Headquarters who looks pretty much like I felt at this point. Haha!
And finally, day 31 — ghost. Another perfect theme for Poptober and I’m actually very fond of how this one turned out. I finished off the month with a gloomy picture of Count Bram mourning the loss of his dearly beloved Annabelle as her ghost sits beside him.
Wowie, that was a lot! Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed doing this challenge. There were times I would lose motivation and fall behind, and I would get pretty bummed about it. In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t be so hard on myself, though, since it’s all in good fun. I’m just glad I have a ton of Poptropica art in my portfolio now. You can view more of my Poptropica-related work (and more) on my DeviantArt page.
Thank you all for reading. I’ll talk to you guys in the next one. Take care, stay safe, and pop on!
Hey Poptropicans—this is a guest post by Incredible Joker, who is piloting a new series here on the PHB. Got a Poptropica question? Ask the Joker!
Ice cubes! Now that I have gotten your attention with something as cool as I am, let me start explaining what this is all about…
Hello there, I am Incredible Joker and I will be trying out a new old idea. Back in the day, the PHB published a Poptropica fan magazine known as POPCORN or formerly The Poptropican’s 911 (you can read the archives here!). One of the segments in the earlier issues was “Ask PHB,” where the PHB team would answer your Poptropica-related questions.
And now, I’d like to bring that back—with a new flavor. As the PHB team is busy creating other amazing things on this blog, I have taken it into my own hands, or whatever it is we Poptropicans have, to host a Q&A segment here on the PHB. It’s called “Ask the Joker.”
This is where I invite all of you, dear readers, to send in your questions, anything at all — as long as it’s related to Poptropica! It can be about the game or the fandom surrounding it—from island help to glitches to crafting a fashionable seasonal outfit to fan-made art, stories, and so much more—I will try and answer what I can, helpfully and humorously (after all, you are asking a joker!). 😜
As this is just the pilot, we are still working out the structure of these Q&As, like how often it will be and how many questions we will answer in each post. It does depend on how popular this gets (or how little 😅)—so go ahead and share a question (or two or three) with me before you forget what popped to mind!
How can you send in your questions to Ask the Joker?
That’s a great question! You can use the following methods:
📧 Send an email to justaskthejoker (at) gmail (dot) com. This way, you’ll get to keep your questions a surprise when they get answered on the blog.
💬 Comment on the latest Ask the Joker post. Your questions will be publicly visible before they appear in a Q&A post, but this allows others to interact with your question if they so choose. If you don’t have an email address, you can enter a fake one in the email field when you post your comment.
I look forward to receiving and answering your questions in the next Ask the Joker! And for anyone still trying to get some inspiration for their questions, how about checking out the old PHB fan magazines?
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Incredible Joker. If you’ve got a burning Poptropica question or two, Ask the Joker for a fresh perspective!
The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. You can find some tips and guidelines on our page on how to Write for the PHB, and share blog posts on the PHC, our Discord server.
📰 If you have an idea for a PHB post, send it in! ✨
My name is Maryann, although if you’d like you can also call me Smart Bubbles, my Poptropican name. I am ecstatic to join this team, and I can’t wait to see where my time on the PHB goes!
As it is par for the course, I might as well give a brief introduction. On pretty much all social media I go by MaryannTheConqueror, including on the PHC Discord where some of you might have seen me. My absolute favorite island is Astro-Knights, and you can probably expect half my posts to be about it (and the other half to include a bunch of vague references and nudges to the Creators to prioritize its Haxe port).
I’ve been a fan of Poptropica for much, much longer than I’ve been active in its fandom. I started playing around the release of Skullduggery in May/June 2010, and kind of phased in and out of my interest in it. That being said, there was something about the game and its stories that captivated me and kept me coming back.
I became obsessed with finding any tiny bit of lore on the world and characters I could, and even began writing (embarrassing) fanfiction that I thankfully never put online. That being said, I still credit Pop as a major inspiration for my love of storytelling, as well as art after I had my chance to show my love in the 2016 #PoptropicaArt contest!
Astro-Knights by Maryann
I joined Discord around the time of the 2020 Tribal Tournament, and participated in Poptropica Month on YouTube as well. I also wrote a few guest posts for the PHB as well. Through this I’ve met many online friends and have started a lot of chaos and cults very dedicated groups.
Besides Poptropica, I also love Stardew Valley, Genshin Impact, and pretty much any artsy 2D RPG that comes my way. I also love reading (“Thunderhead” from the “Scythe” series broke my soul), and watching shows and movies, particularly animated ones! I’m also on Instagram, Tapastic (where I post my comics), YouTube, and of course, the PHC.
I can’t wait to write more, and I hope we have a fun journey together!
Hey Poptropicans, you read that right: the Poptropica Help Blog is starting a new initiative of giving away free Poptropica memberships!
We know how hard it can be to miss out on the special perks that members get, and we want to give you all a chance to get in on that fun. By the way, if you need a refresher on what membership has to offer, check out our Membership Tour page, updated for 2021!
All the details about the giveaways can be found on our new Free Poptropica Membership page, which you can find under the Community tab in our site menu. Here are the basics:
To enter for your chance to win, comment on the Free Poptropica Membership page and leave at least two other comments around the PHB within the month to be entered into that month’s giveaway.
We’ll announce a winner sometime in the final week of each month. If you don’t win, you can always try again for the next month!
For the full details, including all caveats and the philosophies behind these giveaways, head on over to the PHB’s Free Poptropica Membership page. That’s also where you get started on entering the monthly raffles!
We’re excited to bring you these opportunities for hopefully a long time to come. With both the thrill of a lucky draw as well as the encouragement to get involved with the Poptropica community, what are you waiting for? We’ll meet you in the PHB comments! 🥳
🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺 