Girl Genius
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Girl Genius

Jiminez Hoffmann is a Paris resident and university student who has cheerfully, no, gleefully taken up the (evidently) self-assigned duty of helping The Master of Paris deal with rogue Sparks who bother the tourists and generally upset the city's peace. He is a Spark himself; among his inventions are a automatic swotting (ie studying) machine and a Kinetic Accumulator hammer.

When first introduced, he has a painfully obvious crush on the Master's daughter Colette Voltaire.

He has at least one brother, Aldin, who works in the The Incorruptible Republic of the Immortal Library of the Grand Architect. The two of them have engaged in numerous adventures together, much to Aldin's dismay and displeasure, usually resulting in Jiminez (sometimes called Jim by his brother) being seriously injured in some fashion and/or Aldin being taken prisoner. Aldin's strictly factual write ups of these fantastic adventures leads many in the Library and Paris generally to treat them like latter-day incarnations of the Heterodyne Boys (to Aldin's further frustration and embarrassment).

Thanks to one of these escapades, Jiminez is a hero to a subterranean civilization (called Mole People by Kaja, and known in-comic as the Talpini) living near the Immortal Library. As a result of said heroism, he is now the Mole King's officially adopted son, and has gotten himself roped into an arranged marriage to a "fellow" royal as part of a peace treaty. He does not immediately learn that his betrothed is Larana Chroma, Arguron princess and fellow student, or that she is nursing her own crush towards him.

Adventures with Agatha[]

Jiminiez first appears in the comic when he disrupts the would-be abduction of cake-shop patron Agatha by Pierre Van Stron (who also happens to be his roommate) with a perhaps too-successful test of his aforementioned hammer. He later attaches himself to Agatha's expedition to Paris's infamous underworld including the Black Market and the Immortal Library, hoping to gain some much-needed extra credit by finding the missing Doctor Dio Zardeliv.

While helping Agatha and Co. explore the abandoned Corbettite vaults in the Library, Jiminez gets sprayed in the face with acid by a clank, leading to Agatha and him constructing a helmet from the remains of his attacker which allows him to see beyond the visible spectrum of light, up to and including X-Rays. This ability proves useful when it comes to cracking into the vault containing their target: Prende's Chronometric Lantern.

He and Larana eventually, finally, work out their various romantic difficulties, and happily go off together to fight monsters.. er.. rule the Argurons after her successful coup against her father the King of the Silver Lands. According to Aldin, he also entirely replaces his damaged eyes with those of a cat, giving him the ability to see in the dark.

Possibly relevant outside information[]

E.T.A. Hoffmann was a highly-influential real-life 18th century writer of romantic and horror fiction; some of his work served as the inspiration for the opera The Tales of Hoffmann, which features both a clockwork female robot and a "Muse".

Buck Godot (from an older Studio Foglio comic) is of the genetically-engineered high-gravity race Hoffmann.

Character's name is reminiscent of Jimmy Hoffa. (Except he's everywhere —for now— instead of nowhere.)

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