Line #34 Webcomic/CheckerboardNightmare


1	[[quoteright:263:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chex_7938.gif]]
2	''Hello TV Traps Wikipedia! It's me, Checkerboard Nightmare! You may remember me from my hit webcomic, ''Checkerboard Nightmare''! What you may not know is that it's always been my dream to be on TV. In fact, I almost had my own series, but those executives were too small-minded to recognize the brilliance of my pilot script for ''Hard Action Squad and the Space Valkyries''. And if you've read my comic, ''Checkerboard Nightmare'', then surely you know that I'm all over the traps. All kinds of traps: booby traps, trap doors... booby traps... ''
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4	''What's that? TV '''Tropes'''? Is that even English? Oh, stab me in the face with lasers, I gotta go! Remember to read ''Checkerboard Nightmare''!''
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6	Bad Chex! Back in your box!
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8	Ahem.
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10	''Checkerboard Nightmare'' was Creator/KrisStraub's first webcomic. It tells the epic story of Checkerboard Nightmare and his Sisyphean quest to improve the readership of his webomic, ''Checkerboard Nightmare''.
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12	As you may have noticed, Chex is a bit of a ShamelessSelfPromoter, and the comic likes to abuse the FourthWall. The premise, coupled with Chex's complete aversion to coming up with new ideas, gave the comic a platform for very thorough satire of {{webcomics}}.
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14	Aside from the title character, the central cast consists of:
15	* Lyle, the quintessential StraightMan and Chex's defense attorney.
16	* Vaporware, the obligatory "wacky" cast member: a robot who dreams of [[KillAllHumans killing all humans]] and enjoys choking people.
17	* Polkadot Dream, the obligatory girl: the bona-fide star of her own webcomic, and Chex's unrequited love interest.
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19	In 2005, the comic came to an end. Then Kris Straub revived it and retooled it as an irregularly-updated, strictly gag-per-day affair; the last strip of this incarnation was posted in 2007. Straub's ownership of the strip's site ([[http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/ checkerboardnightmare.com]]) lapsed in 2015, but its content is still available through the Internet Archive's [[https://web.archive.org/web/*/checkerboardnightmare.com WayBack Machine]], and for the 2000-2005 run also on [[http://chex.chainsawsuit.com/ Kris Straub's own site]][[note]]'''Chex:''' Enjoy your time here in my ''silent digital '''tomb!'''''[[/note]].
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21	Vaporware went on to become a minor villain in ''Webcomic/{{Starslip}}''. Chex made a brief cameo in ''Webcomic/{{Starslip}}''[[note]][[http://starslip.chainsawsuit.com/starslip/also-he-was-katarakis/ April Fools 2011]][[/note]] and ''Webcomic/{{Chainsawsuit}}'', where he tried in vain to make one last comeback.
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23	----
24	!!Provides examples of:
25	%%* AnimatedActors
26	* BestialityIsDepraved: The revelation that [[spoiler:Dot]] has had relationships with (sentient but non-anthro) cats completely overshadows the revelation that [[spoiler:her art style was plagiarized from Chex.]]
27	* CallToAgriculture: Vaporware's brief career as a strawberry farmer.
28	* CanonWelding: In the final strip [[spoiler:Vaporware is sealed in a water heater and launched into space. Several millennia later, he is picked up and reactivated by the crew of the ''[[Webcomic/{{Starslip}} Fuseli]]''...]]
29	* CerebusSyndrome: {{Lampshaded}}--it's known as {{Canon}}itis and it's a potentially fatal illness.
30	%%* CharacterTitle
31	%%* CloudCuckoolander: Chex.
32	* {{Crossover}}: Too many to list them all.
33	* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Initially the comic was black and white, then switched to color when Chex visited some other comics. Eventually settled on black and white inside Chex's comic and full color outside the comic.
34	* EldritchAbomination: Subverted. We're led to expect a sanity-shattering Lovecraftian monster when we're told that the Unraveled is beyond human comprehension. [[spoiler:Turns out it's a being whose ''enlightenment'' and ''selflessness'' are beyond human comprehension. But then he gets corrupted by the Apocalypse Shard and turns evil during the end of the series. He gets better.]]
35	* FinalBattle: The first comic ends with an all-out brawl between the main cast, the entire Universe Of Failure, and [[ContinuityNod every character]] Chex has ever wronged.
36	* FollowTheLeader: InUniverse. Chex seems incapable of originality, as he's constantly looking for new trends to piggyback on for fame and fortune.
37	* FuneralCut: The [[https://web.archive.org/web/20071218115452/http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com:80/ final comic]] was a parody of both ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' and ''Webcomic/ThePerryBibleFellowship''. A romantic nerd sits around, waiting for a ManicPixieDreamGirl to come and shake his life up... then we cut to his tombstone. There's no explanation for how he died.
38	* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Shrodinger the Cat. He can see every possible reality at once, and has been driven insane by the knowledge.
39	* IceCreamKoan: Anything the Unraveled says.
40	* JerkAss: Chex. He may simply be legally insane.
41	* KillAllHumans: Vaporware's stated goal is to exterminate humanity. Mostly he just settles for choking Lyle.
42	* LampshadeHanging: [[http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/retro/20021206.shtml Gets a lampshade hanging itself.]]
43	-->'''Chex:''' All I have to do is take a bunch of webcomic conventions that people know, parade them in my strip--not even really ''do'' anything with them--and in ''acknowledging them'', make myself out to be a ''master satirist''!
44	%%* {{Metafiction}}
45	* TheMonolith: They're like vermin, actually.
46	* NoFourthWall: This comic doesn't just break it; this comic took the fourth wall out behind the shed and shot it. Then burned the body and snorted the ashes.
47	** Turned on its head during a storyline where Vaporware decides to ''rebuild'' the fourth wall, causing Chex and a bunch of characters from various self-referential franchises to try to stop him. [[spoiler:He manages to defeat them all and rebuild the wall, only for [[SnapBack things to return to normal shortly afterwards]].]]
48	%%* OnlySixFaces
49	* PerverseSexualLust: As it turns out, Dot owes most of her in-universe readership to this.
50	* ScoldingTheFourthWallBreaker: The comic broke the fourth wall constantly, but wasn't above mocking the concept as well. In one story arc, Vaporware decides that fourth-wall-breaking is just a crutch for lazy comedy writers, and he completely bricks over the fourth wall so it can never be broken again. (Naturally, a SnapBack undid this at the end of the arc.)
51	* ShamelessSelfPromoter: Chex may very well be the patron saint of this trope.
52	%%* StraightMan: Lyle.
53	* TotallyRadical: Do Chex's attempts to appeal to trendy teens all fail miserably? Right as ass they do.
54	* UnmovingPlaid: All over the place.
55	* YouMeanXmas: "X-Holiday".
56	----
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58	->'''Chex:''' I've been thinking about the nature of the self-aware comicstrip lately.\
59	'''Chex:''' Normally, whenever a strip runs out of ideas, it becomes self-referential.\
60	'''Chex:''' I've been self-referential from the beginning.\
61	'''Chex:''' I think I've been giving my readers the wrong impression.\
62	'''Vaporware:''' I don't.
63	-->-- [[http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/d/20010316.shtml March 16, 2001]]

Context Webcomic / CheckerboardNightmare