Even in the strips set in contemporary times, Earl is depicted variously as a corporate executive, a working-class person, a prisoner, or a homeless beggar.
Many of the cartoons have also been reprinted in the newspaper strip On The Edge which Martin does in partnership with psychologist Dr. Jon Carlson and which uses them as an opening visualization to personal counseling advice.
The character's strangest appearance, however, was in the truly bizarre self-published single issue comic book Boffo In Hell (1995).
In this issue, co-drawn by the cartoonist's teenage son Jay Martin, lovable loser Earl Boffo is transformed into a realistically drawn Image Comics-style scarlet-suited satanic superhero, and his little dog Weederman into a huge humanoid werewolf, after a powerful giant alien wedding ring falls to Earth and jams itself onto Earl's skull like a metal headband.
The powered-up pair then battle an escaped trio of overly-muscled genetically altered mutant psychopaths who they accidentally dispatch to the title netherworld where the dead villains promptly kill all the devil guards and take over, setting up the storyline for future issues that never saw print.