History WebComic / LeastICouldDo

* AffectionateParody: StarWars, Creator/SandraBoynton, Laugh-In, superhero comics, oh, so many

* AscendedExtra: Jumpmaster Julie begins the series as just a hot skydiving instructor, but she eventually becomes Rayne's girlfriend.

* AuthorAvatar: Rayne Summers has an awful lot in common with Ryan Sohmer. Even their names are pretty similar (Rayne = Ryan, Summers = Sohmer). Also, Rayne's {{jerkass}} brother Eric looks like Sohmer (and is the character Sohmer has claimed represents him), while Harry The Homeless Artist was modeled on [=deSouza=], who was homeless for a time before he began collaborating with Sohmer.
** The pilot for the series [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ked4N_BNZ0Y&list=UU2bF3oZhfE2cDrurqv_LvYA Con Season]] demonstrates this further. It's mostly Sohmer goofing off with people while the other members of Blind Ferret say how great he is.

** Rayne woke up one day from a bad hangover to find a naked Cyndi in his bed.

* BeenThereShapedHistory: Rayne, through some creative tennis-ball dodging, was apparently responsible for Film/TheMatrix series.
* BrickJoke: In [[http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comic/20080926 this]] comic, Rayne says to Noel that he would desecrate Noel's wedding bed on his wedding night. [[spoiler:In [[http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comic/20090911 this]] strip he doesn't...in the night, at least.]]

* CommitmentIssues: Rayne

* DeadpanSnarker

* FiveManBand:
** TheHero: Rayne
** TheLancer: Noel
** TheSmartGuy: John
** TheBigGuy: Mick
** TheChick: Issa

* {{Geek}}s

* ImAManICantHelpIt: Subverted.

* ImpossibleHourglassFigure: Issa has one of the largest racks in the comic, equally wide hips, and a waist that could fit through a keyhole.

* IntercourseWithYou

* ItsAllAboutMe: Rayne, to the point where he tells [[spoiler:Mick]] that in order for him to be interested in [[spoiler:Mick and Tammy's upcoming wedding]], the event has to be about ''Rayne''.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Rayne.

* LovableSexManiac: Almost the definition of the trope.

** [[http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comic/20070629 "He's like a puppy...that you just want to strangle. [[DerailedTrainOfThought And then neuter to protect future generations]]."]]

* MrViceGuy: Rayne. Just... Rayne.
* NearDeathExperience
* {{Nerd}}s

* OutOfFocus: John, for ''years'', thanks to Real Life Writes the Plot (see below).

* PhraseCatcher: Jumpmaster Julie. "Hai."
* ThePornomancer
* {{Practical Joke}}s

* ReallyGetsAround: Rayne

* SlidingScaleOfFourthWallHardness: More often than not, it's stiff as a sheet of iron, but the scale moves quite a bit on occasion, sometimes veering into MediumAwareness or [[NoFourthWall disappearing altogether.]]

** To WesternAnimation/DuckTales, with the short stories ''Con Tales''.
** To WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic, ''and'' [[InvokedTrope invoked]] the TwentyPercentCooler trope (see the comic title) in this [[http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comic/20121020 strip]].

* TakeThat: multiple

* ThreeWaySex

** A recent storyline where Rayne helps his old paper reinvigorate itself into a new format seems to be a way for Sohmer to express his dissatisfaction with newspapers as a medium and the way they are run, containing more than a few {{Take That}}s to newspaper owners and publishers.

* MotiveDecay: Rayne's original reason for getting a job with IDS was because he saw a news report about Marcy (a very attractive and rich CEO) and made it his personal goal to bed her. The last mention of his quest was during the vacation arc in early 2007. Briefly reversed in by arc in September 2011, where Rayne gets jealous over Marcy's new boyfriend and he admits that he was interested (which she responds to by saying he should have ''done'' something, and that his inaction meant he missed his chance).

* IgnoredEpiphany: The arc with Marcy's boyfriend made it look like Rayne might come to terms with his man-whore behavior, after realizing that he missed his chance with Marcy because he assumed she would just wait for him to make his move and never find any other men. But then he gets over it by watching ''LordOfTheRings'' with Ashley, and by next week he's back to normal.

* ProgressivelyPrettier: Inverted with the "Suck for a buck" prostitute, who starts out looking quite normal and even rather attractive. These days she's wall-eyed, lank-haired, and all skin and bones.

* OutOfFocus: John, for ''years'', thanks to Real Life Writes the Plot (see below). A more recent example is Rayne's secretary, who was shown giving birth, then having problems at home, and then vanished for the most part.

** [[http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comic/20070629 "He's like a puppy...that you just want to strangle. And then neuter to protect future generations."]]

* ForcedMeme: A meta-example. Ryan Sohmer [[http://coelasquid.tumblr.com/post/87617683563/spacetwinks-webcomic-history-ryan-sohmer attempted to get some attention at a panel]] (and exploited it during a petition) by having one of his fans go: ''"Why isn't Ryan Sohmer writing DeadPool?"'' The response from Creator/JoeQuesada is the stuff of legend if you're not fond of [[SmallNameBigEgo Ryan]], especially since this move was a rather [[ItsAllAboutMe unprofessional way to grab attention]]:

** In the arc "Young Readers", the story shifts to a Creator/SandraBoynton parody for three and a half pages.

* ArtShift: Least I Could Do and its weekly offshoot "Least I Could Do: Beginnings" are in two markedly different styles.

* ArtEvolution: Sohmer picked up artists who were progressively more skilled, and said artists' also styles evolved over time.

* PrisonRape - Averted early on in the strips run as it was for the most part implied to be consensual, played straight later in it's run.

* AuthorAvatar: Rayne Summers has an awful lot in common with Ryan Sohmer. Even their names are pretty similar (Rayne = Ryan, Summers = Sohmer). Also, Rayne's {{jerkass}} brother Eric looks like Sohmer, (and is the character Sohmer has claimed represents him) while Harry The Homeless Artist was modeled on [=deSouza=], who was homeless for a time before he began collaborating with Sohmer.

** Rayne encounters [[Webcomic/GirlsWithSlingshots Hazel and Jamie]] in a grocery store, but [[https://leasticoulddo.com/comic/20080526 fails to convince them to join him in a threesome]].

* ImaginaryFriend: Ashley's is Lou Ferrigno. [[http://leasticoulddo.com/comic/20100414 Only he's not so imaginary.]]

* ContestWinnerCameo: Every ValentinesDay there's a contest where the winner gets to go on a date with a character of their choosing (and yes, [[PerverseSexualLust several of them have gotten busy]]). Rayne has only gotten two dates in seven years; one was with a gay man, and the other was a near-disaster[[note]]She was German, and the guys tricked him into dressing as a Nazi; only Katie's intervention kept her from walking out[[/note]]; the rest has been a pretty even distribution of cast members (John, Mick, Issa, Eric, Cyndi and Jumpmaster Julie have all been picked once).

One of the three webcomics from the creative team of Ryan Sohmer and Lar [=DeSouza=] (the others being ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup'' and ''Webcomic/TheGutters''). The award-winning ''[[http://www.leasticoulddo.com Least I Could Do]]'' is mainly a gag-based comic strip (although every month it features a StoryArc or two that last about a week) about the misadventures of a group of longtime 20-something geek friends living in the city. The stories mainly revolve around sex, love, modern life and all things geeky from ''Franchise/StarWars'' to ''Franchise/StarTrek'' to ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' to {{comic book}}s to video games and back again.

* Noel, a DeadpanSnarker who tends to fall somewhere between Rayne and John in views on life and dating. Although added onto the strip several years into its run, he long supplanted John's role as Rayne's foil while also becoming Rayne's primary wingman.
* Mick, the overweight, tech-savvy and good-natured friend who has the misfortune of being Rayne's punching bag. He is perhaps the most socially awkward of the group, but although Mick's inability to pick up women has frequently been a source of jokes, he nonetheless has had the best luck in healthy and committed relationships.

Sohmer had tried to get a LICD [[AnimatedAdaptation cartoon]] [[ThePilot pilot]] off the ground. He asked $75,000 (half the projected budget, with him footing the other half) from his fans; by the projected deadline, [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/537261515/least-i-could-do-the-pilot around 1,200 backers had donated well over $100,000.]] The pilot can be found on Vimeo, albeit unofficially. You can also buy the video on the official iPod/Android app. No word yet on if it's been picked up, however.

* WebcomicTime: Belatedly averted. See page for more details.

* LyricalDissonance: The (proposed) opening theme to ''LeastICouldDo: The Animated Series'' is rife with this--it's a cheery, upbeat tune about desiring to live life while facing absolutely none of the consequences or repercussions for one's actions.

The main character is the incredibly promiscuous Rayne, who, if you were to judge lecherousness on a scale of one to ten with ten being the highest a human could possibly be, would probably hit somewhere [[BrokeTheRatingScale around a twenty-three]]. Throw in a lot of IdiotHero, a few dashes of {{Manchild}} (with a few hints of PsychopathicManchild), and a lot of JerkAss and you will have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Rayne, although there are many occasions where he shows greater depths behind the intentionally and unapologetically shallow face he presents to the world.

* CallingTheOldManOut: Mick is doing this to his mother over [[spoiler: her place in the murder of his father/her husband.]]

* FutureLoser: Subverted. Rayne is shown a vision of how he ends up as an old man. It shows him sitting by a fireplace, alone, with just a servant tending him. But then the story is more fleshed out and we see [[spoiler: Rayne is stupidly well-off, and he shows nothing but the utmost hospitality and generosity to his old friends, their families, and his own niece.]] About the only thing that hints at it being played "straight" is [[spoiler: Rayne never had any wife or kids of his own, but then again, probably didn't want either one anyway.]]

* GenerationXerox: Ashley is basically a female 5-year old Rayne. Just without the extreme interest in the opposite sex (which is good, since, you know, FIVE). She's shown to have an attention span even shorter than his (though perhaps it's justified, since, again, five years old), and in Rayne's vision of the future, [[spoiler: she's taken his place as company CEO after he retires, matching his business sense as well]].

* StatusQuoIsGod: For major, and more serious events, averted. Played straight with Rayne's [[HilarityEnsues Zany Antics arcs]]. Lampshaded when he has flashbacks to sleeping with a sadomasochist and throws popsicles at a hot girl who tries to talk to him, but Noel expects the "issues" will go away by Monday ([[spoiler: [[PlayingWithATrope and double-subverted]] only to bring it up the next Friday, to find by the last panel that it's an IntercourseWithYou speech]]).

** [[http://leasticoulddo.com/comic/20090820 Punished]]. [[spoiler: Desouza (the arm hair tipped us off) immediately bitch-slaps John for doing it.]]

* ForcedMeme: A meta-example. Ryan Sohmer [[http://coelasquid.tumblr.com/post/87617683563/spacetwinks-webcomic-history-ryan-sohmer attempted to get some attention at a panel]] (and exploited it during a petition) by having one of his fans go: ''"Why isn't Ryan Sohmer writing DeadPool?"'' The response from JoeQuesada is the stuff of legend if you're not fond of [[SmallNameBigEgo Ryan]], especially since this move was a rather [[ItsAllAboutMe unprofessional way to grab attention]]: