Homer’s Iliad has its famous second chapter, the roll call of Greek ships sailing to fight in the war with Troy. A war that begins with the kidnapping of beautiful Helen and the anger of brave Achilles. Each ship carries characters who figure prominently in the battles described throughout Homer’s epic poem.

Many comic strips and comic books also open their sagas by featuring an introductory strip or page that provides a roster of the heroes and villains to be encountered in the stories that follow. Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates begins this way (see here).

In a similar fashion, Marvel Comics in the 1960s featured many character sheets – “pin ups” – with gonzo images by Jack “The King” Kirby or Steve “The Objectivist” Ditko and bonkers wordplay by Stan “The Man” Lee describing key characters in the Marvel superhero universe (and here).

Here’s my homage to that roll call impulse.

This week the heroes and villains of The BuBu Moderno who inhabit “The Upper World,” the Symbolic World of everyday life.

The Prime Movers/The Frost Giants/The Titans

Every saga begins with legendary figures who got the world going. The Prime Mover in Ancient Greek philosophy. The Titans of Ancient Greek Myth. The Frost Giants of the least successful Thor movie in the MCU.

For The BuBu Moderno, there are three wise guys who travel far and wide looking for knowledge, but find only folly. (They are a bit picky when it comes to their enlightenment). They grow bored with all the searching and fall sound asleep underneath a large Douglas Fir tree (apparently they were somewhere in Oregon).

Lightning and thunder and all of that. Rain and mist gently bedewing their fatigued, snoozing bodies. As they dream, they construct worlds.

Their names – passed down through time from cephalopod to cephalopod (the BuBus are teensy, tiny creatures related to the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish) – are Grotto Sam, Flammo, and the Holy Man (pictured above).

The Primer Movers.

The Dwellers in the Symbolic World.

Mort AI plays chess with Freedy C. Braine while The Punchman jumps from the upper world to the lower world (the imaginary world dreamed up by the sleeping brains of Grotto Sam, Flammo, and the Holy Man – in unison, I imagine).

Freedy C. Braine. The Nose.

Freedy C. Braine sits in their easy chair in their study on a sunny Sunday afternoon as dust floats in the air, when suddenly… a microscopic tube lodges itself in their left nostril. What lies within the Tube?

M. Bott, The Punchman.

M. Bott collects the fees for traveling between the worlds and frankly gets punched a lot. But he can take it. He smiles through it all. Is he a god? Or simply a fool?

Mort AI, The Chess Master.

Mort AI plays chess. He loves to play chess. It’s very logical. No intuition or imagination necessary. And he can think ahead many steps. He can calculate the odds of winning, given any move. He understands none of the large context involved in life, but he loves to make a deal. He loves chess. He has been playing chess with Freedy C. Braine, our every person, for a very long time now. Is checkmate next?

The Mimis.

The Mimis. The Dwellers of the Upper World (the symbolic world) as they appear while traveling in the Lower World (the imaginary world). The BuBus live in the lower world. Is this the world in Freedy C. Braine’s Nose?

The BuBus. An Infographic.

Next Time: More on the BuBus, the micro-cephalopods that live in the mucosal tissue in Freedy C. Braine’s Nose. At a microscopic level, this environment is quite conducive to growing a civilization. As we shall see.

©2025 D. Leopard/Otto M.