The SSH in Pictures

The Hypergamouse cartoon at Arktoons

At the original Alpha Game blog, an artist and I introduced a comic strip called HYPERGAMOUSE. The name, as should be obvious, was a blend of the concept of hypergamy with the mouse characters of the comic. I thought it might be a good way to get across some of the concepts involved in the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy without triggering people the way they so often do.

This was the first comic strip every published.

We only ever did nine of them, since drawing them turned out to take more time than the illustrator could justify spending on them, but in retrospect, it’s surprising how much of the subsequent series was already established in those 27 little frames.

10 years later, after Arkhaven Comics had been established and the Arktoons site was launched, I revived HYPERGAMOUSE as a weekly comic with the help of Lacey Fairchild, a talented illustrator who brought a useful female perspective, as well as a charming style, to the revived comic.

Now there are 105 episodes that will soon be collected into a book, and the astute Sigma Game reader will no doubt be able to identify the various SSH ranks, from Alpha to Omega, that are featured in the comic. Today’s episode, entitled DESSERT, stars a relatively new male character encountering a pair of young women at the tennis club.

HYPERGAMOUSE has turned out to be the unlikely star of the Arktoons platform. It will be interesting to see, as public awareness of the SSH continues to grow, if it eventually becomes popular enough to enter the mainstream.