Peräsmies is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 underground

Underground comix

Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...

 comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 drawn by Timo Kokkila that appeared in the Pahkasika

Pahkasika

Pahkasika was a Finnish adult humour magazine, edited by Markku Paretskoi and published from 1975 to 2000.Unlike the British adult humour comic Viz and the Nordic adult humour magazine Pyton/Myrkky, Pahkasika did not include much pornography despite sometimes very ribald jokes...

 magazine from 1983 to 2000. The strips were initially written by Kokkila together with Sami Laitala. Other scriptwriters have also occasionally participated in the comic.

The comic depicts the adventures of Peräsmies, a Finnish superhero

Superhero

A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

 and a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of Superman

Superman

Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

. The name Peräsmies literally means "Butt Man" and is a play off Teräsmies which is the Finnish name for Superman. The "official" English name of Peräsmies, according to Kokkila, is "Phartman", although "Pooperman" might better capture the essence of the original pun.

Peräsmies is a middle-aged, severely alcoholic

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 homeless man living in a landfill

Landfill

A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...

, whose only superpower is the ability to fart

Flatulence

Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The medical term for the mixture of gases is flatus, informally known as a fart, or simply gas...

 supernaturally hard.
He gained this power as a result of consuming a can of radioactive pea soup

Pea soup

Pea soup or split pea soup is soup made, typically, from dried peas. It is, with variations, a part of the cuisine of many cultures. It is greyish-green or yellow in color depending on the regional variety of peas used; all are cultivars of Pisum sativum.Pea soup has been eaten since antiquity; it...

, pea soup being the stereotypical flatulence-inducing dish in Finland.

Peräsmies uses farting primarily as a rocket engine

Rocket engine

A rocket engine, or simply "rocket", is a jet engineRocket Propulsion Elements; 7th edition- chapter 1 that uses only propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet. Rocket engines are reaction engines and obtain thrust in accordance with Newton's third law...

, which enables him to fly. In some occasions Peräsmies has also used farts as a chemical weapon. His farts have also had more esoteric uses such as melting holes in ice. Despite his alcoholism and lack of any semblance of personal hygiene

Hygiene

Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...

, he has good intentions and often manages to save the world in the end.

One notable Peräsmies strip set the hero against his Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 counterpart, Toveri Pieru ("Comrade Fart"). They first competed against each other by saving people from disasters, but finally Peräsmies challenged Toveri Pieru to a drinking competition, which Peräsmies won. The strip ended with a moral

Moral

A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...

 lesson:

Remember, children — violence

Violence

Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...

 is not a solution to problems, but alcohol

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

 is.

Peräsmies was killed by a drunk driver in the last issue of Pahkasika. However, a sequel titled Peräsmiehen poika ("Son of Peräsmies") has been appearing in the Koululainen

Koululainen

Koululainen is a Finnish magazine directed at children and youths. It treats, among other things, schooling, music, books, pets and sport. The magazine is published once per month. In addition to articles, the magazine contains lots of different competitions. A special, thicker, issue called...

 magazine since 2003.

The Finnish Film Foundation

Finnish Film Foundation

The Finnish Film Foundation , is an independent foundation with the task of supporting and developing Finnish film production, distribution and exhibition. It is supervised by the Department for Cultural Policy in the Ministry of Education....

 has agreed to support the Finnish film studio Helsinki-filmi to make a film about Peräsmies.