Creeptid City, USA: Introducing The Tooth Clowns

In 2024, my old pal omgjeremy (of Retrovania “fame”) and I started up a brand new website called creeptid dot com. It’s not up right now, so don’t look at it. Jeremy just takes sites down without mentioning it to anyone, don’t worry. It’s something he’s always done, I think, throughout our whole history of making sites together, a history that spans thousands of years.

And before you ask and before I forget to never mention it again, leaving you all hanging — a creeptid is a term that cchris invented and I subsequently started using for the sort of people who would be cryptids, except they’re real and around the edges of society. The anti-social people, and the social people who are simply odd. Weirdos might be a good word for it. But since I am so heavily involved in the cryptid scene now, creeptids are adjacent to that, and include cryptids. It includes other monsters too. It even includes sentient puppets, marionettes, and dummies! It even includes you and me, pal.

I really should buy my own shirts more often.

Our big idea — which might still happen — was to be something of a repository of the strange and unusual in the Greater Cincinnati Area. We would visit and report on shops, people, museums, attractions, geographical locations, etc, that are weird or are weirdos. An upcoming events calendar, a functional page of free ads for places we knew that linked to their contact info or websites, of course merch, and possibly even a forum like in days of old! Those would have been our features. We would have been providing a great service to the community. — We still can!! Some day.

This isn’t what the business pages looked like exactly, but you get the general idea. Like the backs of newspapers!

Sometimes when you have an idea, you strike while the iron is hot. You jump in both feet first so that you don’t lose any momentum. Sometimes, you figure that you’ll start now but then refine it as time wears on. That’s more or less how sneer campaign started, after all. But this one, part of the motivation was also to get Jeremy to move here, so that he can be a local reporter of area happenings and happenedses. He’s a person of Indianapolis, which isn’t that far away, but it is far enough away that it’s too far to be considered local to here.

Well, he hasn’t moved here to Covington yet, so what even is the point, right?

Unfortunately for me and the world, I also wanted to make comics for that site, because I enjoy making comics. I have plenty of ideas of what creeptids are, and I wanted to make these comics in much the way I had been making my Unicorn Valley comics twenty plus years ago. So until creeptid dot com comes back with a vengeance and something to prove, I will just put these things on here I guess.

First, be introduced to the Tooth Clowns. I don’t think I even need to explain them. Just see them for what they are and let them be.

This is a single page, six panel comic titled Creeptid City, USA. It starts with an overhead view of a city (presumably Creeptid City) and through the panels it zooms in. There are narration squares that say things like "in a particular neighborhood, entertainment is promised." Down an alley, between garages, we zoom farther into brightly colored, tiny bits of paper, which in panel 5 are shown to read: dental circus arts by professional teeth! See! Look! Tooth clowns perform for you! Today! And then crossed out prices of $20 and $10 until it is replaced by FREE admission!

The final panel is of three crestfallen looking teeth dressed in clown face and wig, saying things like "I'm not sure anyone's showing up." And "how can this be?"
This single page comic has five-ish panels. The top half of the comic is actually of circus posters and ads to lure in spectators. The largest one says Toothclown Circus talented dentition eager to entertain you, with this in quotes: "A show designed to impress all." Along the bottom of that poster it says "twice a day in Creeptid City, USA."

Alongside that poster are a lot of smaller ads that say: attend and be amazed. Five cent admission. Come one, come all. Standing room only. No refunds. See: unique tumbling acts, daring hijinks, masterful juggling, feats of magic, tomfoolery, Hans Strongtooth, comical defiance of death, and the World's Fattest Tooth!

The last four panels show a guy and a girl standing in the same alleyway as the last comic, politely clapping as the teeth perform stunts. One of the clowns by the ankle of one says "thank you for your nickels and applause!" The ringmaster begins to say something about their patronage, but one of the people interrupts by saying "hey aren't you kinda big for teeth?"

The teeth look shocked and offended and ask "... do you think we are *human* teeth? Dressed like clowns?"

The last panel is a close up of the uncomfortable people saying "uh no. of course not."

Instead of saying "the end" it then says "embarrassing."

I only got to make two comics along this theme (and six in total) before I found creeptid dot com to be no longer up and I had to ask what happened to it. But what will the story of the Teeths Clown be? Where will they go? Can they survive as a troupe of very talented entertainers? What of this Hans Strongtooth and what of the World’s Fattest Tooth??

Stay tuned, I will surely draw more.

Because Tooth Clowns are my favorite thing. They will be my legacy. I will put teeth on the map and Covington, Kentucky, shall henceforth be known as the City of Teeth.

Sneer Back

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