Lost Frog

This isn’t a mystery, it’s a quest. The cryptic adventure begins with “if I looking for frog, him name is hopkin green frog” scribbled on some lined paper with a small front and profile view, hand-drawn, of the missing frog. I’m not exactly sure how I stumbled across this site, but when I started gazing over the clues to Hopkin frog’s whereabouts, I was hooked. Hours went by, and I just kept clicking on the image, trying to find out what was next. The only way I can describe lostfrog.org is as a visual adventure in which the pieces of the initial message are edited into various random images. Everything from kindergarten spelling tests to TV stills to old communist propaganda art is modified to feature the small image of the frog with the question “who took my frog?” The images appear at random and sometimes repeat, but even after you’ve seen the same images played over and over, you can’t help but feel that quitting the search might mean that Hopkins green frog will be forever lost. The photoshopping of the images is impressive, seamlessly blending grainy Osama Bin Laden video with the familiar frog call below in subtitles. The effect is hilarious. Even the current transit-system-anagram craze is hit up with each subway stop renamed to “who took,” “my frog” and “hopkins green.” My personal favourite is the muddy image of Hopkins in a security camera monitor of a subway platform, innocently looking up. There is no other info from this site: no author, no submissions, no thumbnails of the images. Nothing. Despite this lack, the search is not in vain. The first, crumpled paper image assures us that “P.S. I’ll find my frog, love Terry.” (James King)

www.lostfrog.org