Explanation of Episode One:

This inauguaral strip of "Stroff Park" highlights a few key issues. For starters, our hero Dr. Chris Stroffolino is obsessed with deceased poet Laura Riding, a.k.a. Laura (Riding) Jackson, a.k.a. that crazy chick who had a hot affair with novelist/critic/poet Robert Graves back in the day. Probably because of his antipathy towards organized religion (no doubt exacerbated by working at a Catholic college) and fundamentalist modes of thought, Stroff, though obsessed with Riding, does not consider himself a "fanatic" like Mark Jacobs (editor of The Poems of Laura Riding). Stroff thinks that Riding's talent is far superior to Robert Graves', and is currently trying to bring Riding's out-of-print critical work Contemporaries and Snobs back into the literary spotlight.

Stroff's students have mixed feelings about the merits of this project. While Nate takes seriously any kernel of literary discussion, Kay remains unimpressed by Riding's poetry, and Christine sometimes has a hard time paying attention in class (hence, the creation of this strip).

(From left to right, the characters in each panel of this strip are Kay, Christine, Stroff, and Nate.)

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