Shamrock Squid is an "open source" or "public domain" character which first appeared in the comics of Daniel Clowes. Despite being named a squid, Shamrock Squid is an octopus, not unlike the Hanna-Barbera character Squiddly Diddly, both having eight tentacles, rather than the ten a squid has. Shamrock Squid is of Irish ethnicity, green (when drawn in color) and smokes a pipe.
While Shamrock Squid was originally featured in Clowes's comic book Eightball as a comic companion to "Grip Glutz" in a one-page "gag", he has also made surprise or cameo appearances in other alternative comics such as Peter Bagge's Hate and Rick Altergott's Doofus. The most detailed, epic and perhaps final use of Shamrock Squid was done by Adrian Tomine and Peter Bagge in a 7 page piece in Hate #28 entitled "Shamrock Squid: Autobiographical Cartoonist", which lampooned autobiographical alternative comics, teen angst, and fandom. It would seem that the gag has gone as far as it can. In "Shamrock Squid: Autobiographical Cartoonist", Shamrock Squid or "Shammy", was much less overtly Irish (in accent and mannerism) than in the other pieces.
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