Machk and Poet traveling.
"You know you're living in a different world when there's a fucking cyborg wandering about. Nobody's born like that, kid."
Bicycle Boy is a post-apocalyptic adventure comic by Jackarais. It updates once a week, every Friday. As of January 2023, it's on its ninth chapter.
The comic follows Poet, a cyborg who woke up in the desert one day with no memory of how he got there.
It starts here
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This Webcomic provides examples of:
- After Action Patch Up: A common theme after the webcomic's many brutal, bloody fight scenes.
- After the End: The comic takes place an indeterminate amount of time after the apocalypse.
- Alt Text: Nearly every comic page has this.
- Anarchy Is Chaos: According to Machk at least, all anarchists in this world are bandits, thieves, and generally a bunch of jerks.Machk: A large portion of the community there are anarchists...[sic] and Stonehenge doesn't regulate her watch guard very well. If you look suspicious, they could get violent or try to take advantage of you.
- Apocalypse Anarchy: Groups of anarchist nomads are scattered throughout the desert, making travel difficult for other characters.Machk: These people are dangerous. Some folks just don't know where they're going, they walk straight into nomad territory, and BAM. They get the shit beaten out of them.
- The Apunkalypse: Though there's evidence of organized, rule-bound societies, it seems that most of the wasteland is governed by punks and ruffians.
- Artificial Limbs:
- Poet is a straight-up cyborg, so the majority of his body is artificial.
- Stonehenge has an uncomfortable artificial foot.
- Machk has a battery-powered artificial leg — he lost it serving in the military, when he stepped on a landmine.
- Tonio wears a glove that allows him use of 2 prosthetic fingers.
- Blood Knight: Darla loves getting into fistfights.
- Body Horror: Just all of Poet. Something terrible rendered the man limbless, hearing impaired, amnesic and without 30% of his torso. Judging by the doctor's reaction when he gets a checkup in Chapter 5, whatever remains of his organs may be a horrific mess.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Insisted by Poet when Machk attempts to make conversation about his cyborg body.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The Senator's soldiers wear glowing red spectacles and, while they do not have matching uniforms, every man has a splash of red on his outfit somewhere. Within LSC's city limits all the guards wear bright orange ponchos.
- Cowardly Lion: Poet has no idea what's going on most of the time and thus is scared of mostly everything.
- Cyborg: Poet, of course. His body is all mechanical, save for his head and part of his torso.
- Desert Punk: The story takes place in the middle of a vast, desert wasteland.
- Fingore: While being chased by soldiers, Darla gets shot through the palm of her hand, which eventually causes her index finger to rot and die.
- Flipping the Bird: One of Darla's favourite gestures. Machk flips her off too.
- Handshake Refusal: Poet doesn't know what to do when Stonehenge first introduces herself.Stonehenge: [Holding out her hand in greeting] The name's Stonehenge.
Poet: [Stares in silence]
Stonehenge: Uh... You need to work on your handshake. - Handshake Substitute: A running gag through the comic when Poet meets new people.
- When Machk holds out his hand, Poet mirrors him and they touch fingertips.
- Poet slaps Tonio's hand away and he tricks Poet into a sort of silly dap greeting.
- Upon striking a deal with Stonehenge, Poet slaps her palm, gets confused, then grips her hand too hard.
- Darla tries giving Poet a fist bump when they part ways. He leaves his palm open.
- When Machk holds out his hand, Poet mirrors him and they touch fingertips
- Heal It With Fire: Darla attempts this on her mutilated hand off screen, as evidenced by a bloody knife and remains of a fire found next to her after a fight. It is unclear whether it helped or not in the long run.
- Identity Amnesia: Right from the start, Poet is unable to remember a single detail about himself.
- Improvised Weapon: When the protagonists are forced to fight Slutman's gang, his followers make do with things like a lead pipe, rotten wood, a baseball bat, various knives, etc.
- Lady Looks Like a Dude: Some of Stonehenge's hench(wo)men look like men at first glance. Justified in that makeup wouldn't be of great importance, and that the more masculine women who could fight would have a better chance of surviving the (post-)apocalypse.
- Mutilation Conga: Jackarais loves kicking the shit out of his characters and then drawing their bruised and bloody faces in explicit, glistening detail.
- No Bikes in the Apocalypse: Inverted. The protagonist rides a bicycle shortly after waking up in the middle of the desert with no memories. Later, the group of Machk, Poet, Darla, and Wicky ride bikes "provided" by LCS on their way to Fort Anne.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The shack fight between Machk and Alsoomse.
- Polluted Wasteland: Cortez's note in chapter 3 hints that the world fell to nuclear war, and radiation poisoning is frequently alluded to.
- Post-Apocalyptic Gas Mask: One of Slutman's scraggly nomads, Bridget, is always wearing a gas mask, despite it not seeming necessary.
- Quest for Identity: Poet is mainly concerned with figuring out who and what he is.
- Robot Antenna: Among Poet's many artificial parts.
- Stern Chase: Poet attempts to flee from Stonehenge's nomads multiple times, but they ultimately catch up to him & Machk when they stop to rest.
- Storyboard Body: Darla gets new tattoos to commemorate notable fights she's been in (and claims to have won, regardless of the actual outcome).
- Super-Senses: Poet has a heightened sense of hearing thanks to his cybernetic ears.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Alsoomse explaining to Machk why she thinks Last Standing City is awful while simultaneously beating the shit out of him.
- Unspecified Apocalypse: So far, it is unknown to the viewer what exactly caused the end. Something that causes radiation poisoning...
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The Woobie: Poet spends most of his encounters getting the ever-loving snot kicked out of him. You can't help feel sorry for the guy. - Would Hit a Girl: Doesn't matter what gender you are, kicking Machk's door in in the middle of the night is a great way to get hit with a shovel.
