“Tableau Terrible” was intentionally designed using a limited palette of “sprite”-type icons, seen at right in their home in the Adobe Illustrator symbols palette. Along with the lattice-like colored backgrounds (and the occasional solid background), these elements are used as building blocks to create the entire world seen in the comic.

These elements/characters/props include:

Madball: a floating sphere with a 5-o’clock shadow. You might remember him from 80s toy land.

Office tower: the ugliest piece in the whole TT game. Loosely inspired by Berlin’s offensive Park Inn Hotel.

Bungalow: a working man’s tenement home. Suitably bleak and utilitarian (read: no windows), doubles as furniture.

Fernsehturm (TV Tower): Based on Berlin’s famed tower of same name, albeit with a crooked mouth. Makes wisecracks, used in multiple ways to exert power over others.

Commuter train: a midterm addition to the cast, strung with its brothers to move people around. Other uses: sled, anvil, shield.

Party troll: another midterm addition, never without his signature tumbler of whatever scotch is cheapest in this week’s episodes.

Mr. Gut: faceless everyman, making a half-hearted attempt at a Richie Rich haircut. Sadly, the gut wins out. Lay off the beer, bro.

Demon: a standard stock character, arms outstretched in a dim approximation of “action”. These fellows used to haunt the Berlin S-Bahn stations before gaining employment here on TT.

The Guru: an old trope in the world of comicdom, and used sparingly. Hagar the Horrible buried this conceit in the late 80s, albeit the Far Side made a brief run at resurrection.

Tank: another rare character who makes a very late appearance. Turret to the side suggests teenage-hood.