Jack Flanders is the hero of a series of audio dramas produced by ZBS. Some of his adventures have appeared on radio, but all have been published in various recorded audio media.
He first appeared in The Fourth Tower of Inverness and has had many adventures since then. He is a Gentleman Adventurer, Bold Explorer, and paranormal investigator, poking into mysteries to help out friends and relations. He has visited several different planes of being and socialized with a wide variety of non-human, semi-human, and ex-human beings. His adventures all have a comic, light touch and are laced with the mysticisms of various cultures.
Adventures to date:
- The Fourth Tower of Inverness
- Moon Over Morocco
- Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders
- Ah-Ha Phenomena
- Dreams of Rio
- The Mystery of Jaguar Reef
- Travels With Jack
- Return to Inverness
- Midnight at the Casa Luna
- Traveling Jack
- The Fantastic Voyages of Jack Flanders
- Steam Dreamers
- Do Angels Really Have Wings
Tropes found in Jack's adventures:
- Action Hero: One of Jack's mottos is "I always present a moving target."
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Characters are perfectly comfortable talking about the audience. At one point, one character describes an eerie feeling of being watched and is reassured it's just the audience.
- Cool Old Guy: Jack is getting into that age bracket, though he was not in the first stories.
- Dream Land: Jack has been there several times.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Jack's setting, beyond the more or less ordinary world he starts out from.
- Femme Fatale: The Lady Madonna Vampira, in Fourth Tower of Inverness.
- Interactive Narrator: Mostly not, but occasionally characters will do things like correct his pronunciation, and, at the end of Fourth Tower of Inverness, the narrator gives Jack a ride in the jeep back to town (and out of the story).
- Long List: Early in Dreams of Rio, a mechanical voice starts listing all of the types of Coca-Cola available. The list keeps going even as the narrator is talking over the top of it.
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Missoula, though not a very sinister one, in Fourth Tower of Inverness. Well, he's called a mad scientist, but his effects are more Magic-Powered Pseudoscience.
- Magical Negro: Mojo Sam the Yoodoo Man, Jack's frequent companion.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: The character Little Freida, and her variations.
- Mega City: At the start of Dreams of Rio, all of North America has become one giant city, mostly devoted to selling Coca-Cola.
- Narrating the Obvious: As per standard with radio dramas. Since Jack has a distinct (and sometimes interactive) narrator, the characters don't have to describe their own circumstances quite as much as they otherwise would, though they still do more than they would in another medium.
- Our Dragons Are Different: They breathe fire and looks exactly like classic dragons but they are thought-forms from the collective unconscious.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The Lady Madonna Vampira, in Fourth Tower of Inverness, is an energy vampire. She starts a love affair with a victim, then breaks it off in the middle, going off with all the guy's psychic energy, leaving him an Empty Shell, at least for a while, and making her something of a succubus. She is, however, one of the good guys (more or less) and can't help herself.
- Psychic Powers: Loads of characters have 'em.
- Really 700 Years Old: The recurring/reincarnating character Little Freida is (at least sometimes) a Venusian child who seems about ten in Earth terms but declares herself to be "a million and a half years old."
- Walking the Earth: What Jack mainly does. Also walks other places.
