Jack Flanders

Jack Flanders, full name Jonathan L. Flanders, is the protagonist of a series of audio dramas produced by the ZBS Foundation. He is the creation of writer and sound artist Thomas Lopez and is played by actor Robert Lorick.

Jack is an adventurer who travels the Earth exploring both familiar physical places and a metaphysical land called the Invisible Realms. His character adapts as the story requires, ranging from a bumbling fool to a competent and professional detective into spiritual mysteries. Well-versed in the occult, folklore, primitive magic and various mystic phenomena, he is able to withstand most reality-altering experiences and generally has an open mind towards all things.

Being a character of audio drama, his physical appearance is not entirely clear, but he is depicted with blond hair in the CD cover art, and is now in his late 60s or early 70s, having attended college in the late '60s. In Tropical Hot Dog Night (2007) his friend Claudine describes him as "six-foot-two with blond hair". In Somewhere Next Door to Reality, a shop assistant says that he resembles the French poet Jacques Prévert. As the nephew of those adventurers from a past age, Lord and Lady Jowls, Jack is somewhat of a man out of time, dressing in a white suit and Panama hat. On at least two occasions he's obliged to wear a pith helmet and other adventurer's garb. On another, he promises to wear an ascot tie, which he presumably had with him.

He attended University of California, Berkeley in the late '60s, although it is not known what he studied. He loves coffee, and likes to sample the local brews during his adventures. He frequently drinks beer but seldom wine or spirits (he does drink Port in one episode of The Fourth Tower of Inverness, and rum in The Mystery of Jaguar Reef). He may have smoked during his student days ("not since I read the Surgeon General's report", he says in The Fourth Tower of Inverness), and in Moon Over Morocco is able to provide a cigarette to a Moroccan, possibly implying that he smoked then, but now has some difficulty tolerating the presence of people who smoke. On one occasion, at least, while living in London prior to the first adventure (The Fourth Tower of Inverness), he swallowed hashish ("purely by accident") and saw a unicorn as a result. In Moon Over Morocco, he says that he meditates and never uses any drugs. He doesn't exercise. For a "few years", he says in Return to Inverness, he was a vegetarian but gave it up. "You have to have the right body type to be a good vegetarian," rejoins chef Wham-Bam Shazam.

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