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2%% MOD WARNING: Do NOT link to strips containing sex, nudity, or other sexually explicit images.
3%% This is a bannable offense.
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5%% Note that this comic also has a Characters page at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/MenageA3
6%% PLEASE check that anything you're about to add here is not already adequately covered there!
7%% Tropes which are clearly specific to a single character should go on that page and not here.
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9%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1650937706053826100
10%% Previous thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1333977314005030600
11%% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.
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13[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81ulq3ttsel.jpg]]
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15->'''Yvan:''' I'll be honest, Gary. You seem to have quite the dating life.\
16'''Gary:''' Well... it's mostly just a string of improbable-sounding coincidences--
17-->-- [[https://pixietrixcomix.com/menage-a-3/quite-the-dating-life #958]]
18
19''Ménage à 3'' is a webcomic created and drawn by "Giz" (Creator/GiseleLagace), and co-written by Giz and "Dave [=Zero1=]" (David Lumsdon). It ran from May 17, 2008 to April 9, 2019. ''Ménage à 3'' centers around the life of Gary, UsefulNotes/{{Montreal}} resident and (initially) 29-year-old virgin. Upon losing his old roommates Matt and Dillon at short notice after they decided to hook up with each other, Gary is desperate to find a couple of new roomies to pay the rent.
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21Things change drastically for Gary when two girls, [[ManicPixieDreamGirl Zii]] and [[MsFanservice [=DiDi=]]], suddenly start sharing his apartment. Zii, obviously perplexed by Gary's (unwanted) purity, declares that her goal is to make him more confident and help him lose his virginity. But life proves full of distractions for all three of them, as other characters and objectives come and go through the story.
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23The comic is a RoommateCom in SexComedy mode; hence it has a {{sitcom}} atmosphere overlaid with lewder-than-most jokes, with a touch of SliceOfLife style at low-key moments. Almost all the main characters, [[MrFanservice males included]], get their naked shots, and many of the storylines revolve around characters' sexuality or relationships. MenActWomenAre is averted, and even inverted; the female characters may nearly all be MsFanservice types, but they're generally proactive, whereas the male lead is a bit of a nebbish.
24
25In short, it's ''Series/ManAboutTheHouse''/''Series/ThreesCompany'', just with more nakedness, and no Creator/DonKnotts (too much comedy of errors as it is--plus, this is 21st-century Montreal, so even the crankiest landlord is unlikely to object to shenanigans so long as they don't interfere with rent payments). Or, ''Film/TheFortyYearOldVirgin'' in webcomic form. The writers themselves describe it as an "Creator/{{HBO}}-style {{rom com}}," which, if you take "HBO-style" to mean "unabashed nudity," is approximately accurate. Most of the characters embody various tropes familiar from American comics or Japanese manga, though sometimes with personal twists; see [[Characters/MenageA3 the Characters page]] for lists of identifiable tropes specific to individual cast members.
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27Incidentally, this is constructed as a very traditional four-panel strip (the western equivalent of a {{Yonkoma}}); there are always four panels, or occasionally some double panels. Originally, they appeared online as a single row of four, but since a major Website redesign in early 2020, they have been posted in a [=2x2=] layout. (As the print collections have always been printed with this [=2x2=] format, any double panels are always located in positions 1 and 2 or 3 and 4. Also, the very last strip is an exception, as it consists of a single double-width, double-height panel.) Likewise in the tradition of classic comic strips, the great majority of strips end with some kind of comedy punchline, despite the fact that there is a continuing story.
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29[[RRatedOpening Even the first page]] [[EstablishingSeriesMoment is NSFW]], but the site does include a [[https://pixietrixcomix.com/menage-a-3/for-new-readers warning about that]] before it. '''The trope pages below should not have direct NSFW links.'''
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31''Ménage a 3'' generated two {{spinoff}}s during its run: ''Webcomic/StickyDillyBuns'', featuring former side-characters Dillon, Amber, and Chanelle; and ''Webcomic/SandraOnTheRocks'', featuring [=DiDi=]'s ex-colleague Sandra. The authors eventually announced that the comic would end in 2019, and carried this through with a final strip on April 9th of that year. Several plot arcs were brought to a conclusion, with at times surprising amounts of CharacterDevelopment, although some things were left hanging. On the day of the final strip's appearance, a {{sequel}}[=/=]{{spinoff}} comic, ''Webcomic/PixieTrixComix'', was announced to start two days later, and this appeared as promised. Also, in 2021, a one-off print/PDF comic, ''[[ArtistAndTheBand Zii and the Troublemakers]]'', continued the stories of some of the characters a little.
32
33----
34!!''Ménage à 3'' contains examples of:
35[[index]]
36* MenageA3/TropesAToF
37* MenageA3/TropesGToL
38* MenageA3/TropesMToR
39* MenageA3/TropesSToZ
40[[/index]]

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