Affably Evil / Webcomics

"I mean, just because I'm evil doesn't mean I have to be rude. It's important to me to be a good host. That's just how I was raised, y'know? We are living in a society, after all. We have rules. Without them, we'd be no better than... than... FOREST IMPS!!!"

— Garland, 8-Bit Theater

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• 8-Bit Theater: Garland fits squarely in this category; he'd just as soon hang up inspirational posters in his dungeon and bake cookies for his enemies as kill them. The one time he did build a death trap, he tried filling it with acid, but the Forest Imps who live around his castle switched it with Mountain Dew. (Forest Imps, incidentally, are the only creatures Garland will go ballistic over. No small wonder, since they tease him all the time and he can't convince anyone that they're messing with him.) He has his moments though. Then there's being when his underlings decided to mutiny, and have a meeting about it. It appears that Garland, in true Laughably Evil fashion, is catering the meeting and made tacos just for the occasion. When the smarter minion calls him out on it, he casually breaks down the reasons why the mutiny will fail, and then reveals that the tacos were full of amnesia peppers. "In 10 minutes this meeting will have never happened." It could also be because he is incredibly thick and doesn't know how to be evil. Which makes you wonder, is he just not very good at evil, or is he Genre Savvy enough to realize that being a competent villain is typically a death sentence in an RPG Verse?
• Angel Moxie: Tsutsumu, so affable that after his defeat, it turns out he arranged for the heroes to get all his stuff.Frigg.
• Apricot Cookie(s)!: The Director of Darkness is relativity polite; even when he's being harsh, he's usually just scolding someone for doing something wrong.
• Temujin in At Arm's Length. Very pleasant and friendly for a megalomaniac, she doesn't mind complimenting or flirting with henchmen while planning despicable acts.
• Aurora (2019):
  • The Collector is personable and well-mannered, tends to become genuinely cheerful and excited when discussing a subject of interest to her, maintains a polite tone at all times and makes conscious effort not to insult or belittle others — even when she's in the process of dissecting their souls or destroying their cities. She decides to quickly move Vash away from the screaming that's bothering him so much, seemingly forgetting that she caused said screaming.
  • Doctor Jolon is surprisingly friendly as well, with his nice guy persona only changing slightly when he reveals his true motivations. Unlike the Collector, however, he hasn't been fundamentally altered in body and soul, and it's quite likely that he actively acts nice to manipulate others. Interestingly, he at one point claims that everyone is faking their kindness, and when offering a deal to Falst he's very open about it benefitting him more than Falst.
• Satan from Casey and Andy seems like a nice person (and she's very cute), but is still the lord of all evil and not unwilling to capitalize on it. Amusingly, she could almost always solve the problem at hand with a flick of her hand, but chooses not to, because she likes the evil schemes of the villains. But woe if they harm her boyfriend...
• Most villains from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures fall under this category one way or another. Between this and a generous helping of Villainy Discretion Shots, there is a major part of the fanbase that fails to acknowledge them as evil at all.
  • Pyroduck said it best: "Discomfort and a saccharine voice of malice! Must be... Fa'Lina!".
  • Lorenda explains her relationship with her family.
• In Cthulhu Slippers, most of the Old Ones are this, with the exception of Hastur and even then he gets better after coffee.
• In The Dragon Doctors, Cary is so charming in person that it's easy to miss that she is a criminal mastermind who feels few compunctions about killing or crippling anyone in her way — or, for that matter, about the massive collateral damage that some of her schemes cause.
• Lord Kyran from Emergency Exit. Anyone up for smoothies?
• The Beelze family (except Diva herself, who is just affable) of Evil Diva. Notably, her father. He's an all-around nice guy who bakes cupcakes for his daughter to share with friends at school, and he is also the guy who you sell your soul to in exchange for fame/fortune/doughnuts (he likes watching TMZ to "catch up with old friends"). Satan himself might also qualify...or maybe being affably evil is just a requirement for all of Hell's employees, as it certainly makes it easier to corrupt the righteous.
• The Fourth has the Villain Protagonist Lord Tiberius Skarva, as well as his father, who is known among villainy as a man who helped keep many monsters and demons in employment.
• In Godslave, Turner attempts this when playing Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are with Edith, trying to convince her that he's not interested in killing her and only wants Anpu. Given how he has already tried to murder her twice at this point, it's not very effective.
• Grrl Power:
  • Vehemence, who strikes up a friendly battle commentary with Sydney when she goes to see why he's just watching the fight, agrees with her that "For Whom the Death Tolls" looks like a total dork in that cheesy costume, wishes her well when she leaves, and turns out to be the mastermind of the entire supervillain attack.
  • Deus, head Of Machina Industries, visited a mid-African nation with an offer to boost its economy, while being the Man Behind the Man. When the leader refused, Deus had him assasinated in front of his son (while stating that he would have been 'removed' eventually, for being too corrupt). Immediately after, he tries to comfort the leader's son, and show proof of some of the (corrupt) things his father had personally done or authorized, to show that it wasn't just some random killing.
• Guilded Age: Iver, Savasi Warlord, doesn't really make much effort to hide how much of a Smug Snake he really is and how clearly he's just using the World's Rebellion to make himself rich, but at least he's charming about it. On the Gastonian side of things, His Grace Iwatani is a Manipulative Bastard extraordinaire playing the cultists and his own allies against each other to advance his own agenda, but at the same time he puts on a friendly and concerned facade to whomever he's speaking to, he's shown nothing short of frank admiration for how well Syr'nj has handled herself as a member of the Heads of Houses, and he's a genuinely doting father to his son, Taro.
• Homestuck:
  • Clover of the Felt is noted to be eccentric but "highly cooperative" and was willing to open Lord English's vault if the Midnight Crew solved his riddles. Later events of the comic put Clover's behavior in a more hilarious light, as it turns out leprechauns view riddles and dancing as a form of courtship— so his affability was him trying to flirt with the Midnight Crew.
  • The Draconian Dignitary is incredibly ruthless, but two of the three versions we've seen have been surprisingly generous and kindly when not blasting chunks out of the planetary surface or murdering people — the Alternian version, Diamonds Droog, spends most of his time as Aradia's exile encouraging to go with her feelings and congratulating her (although things on which he was congratulating her are questionable), and the post-scratch version gets along extremely well with Jane's Dad and makes sure he gets plenty of shaving cream and pipe tobacco in his Luxury Prison Suite.
  • The Courtyard Droll and his various alternate selves are usually silly and ditzy, with the Droll from the Beta kids' session temporarily forgetting his mission to hang out with John. Despite this, CD has an astonishingly high body count because his superiors know how to manipulate him, and he's not particularly averse to killing people despite being kind of dumb and friendly.
• Despite having a face made of rotten meat and imbued with the Touch of Death, John Deth in How to Raise Your Teenage Dragon is a rather cheerful sorta fellow who loves his job.
• The Prestidigitator of The Incredible and Awe-Inspiring Serial Adventures of the Amazing Plasma-Man fits this one nicely, though it could be argued that he's not really all that evil.
• The Head Alien from It's Walky! is as funny and easygoing as he is evil, and really a nice guy as exemplified here:

  Head Alien to Joyce: I may be your enemy, but I just can't suffer your crying.

• Lucifer (he hates being called "Lucy") in Jack.
• Kill Six Billion Demons: The Seven Black Emperors split roughly evenly between this and Faux Affably Evil (Jagganoth, being an Omnicidal Maniac, is not a very nice person period).
  • Mammon, Demiurge of Greed, turns out to be a genuinely polite and nice worlds-conquering Dimension Lord who is trying to monopolize Throne's economy; he is a Benevolent Boss to his employees/fanatical worshippers and generous to his visitors (provided, of course, they are visitors and not thieves planning to plunder his Dragon Hoard, which many of his 'visitors' suddenly decide sounds like a very good thing to be indeed when face-to-face with Mammon). Suffering from dementia and The Fog of Ages due to guilt and Age Without Youth presumably has something to do with it.
  • Your Pal Gog-Agog is a chipper young clown who is a self-proclaimed 'biggest fan' of main character Allison. She's also a trillions-sized Hive Mind of worms-that-walk, who simply takes the form of clowns (at the moment). She's known as the "Devourer of Worlds", turns people that strikes her fancy into more worms, and being the Demiurge of Envy does not take it well when people ignore or belittle her, but her cheerfulness is completely genuine.
  • Jadis, the demiurge of Sloth, is so tormented by her perfect knowledge of everything that she's passed way past being a ranting Straw Nihilist or the Despair Event Horizon. Her 'personality' (or what's left of it) has turned into an awkward, milquetoast dork who simply 'wants' (to the extent she can 'want' anything at all) for people to suffer slightly less. Even Allison has problems being angry at Jadis since there is no point (she already knows whether or not you are going to be anyway), and Jadis thinks of her moments with Allison fondly (which she always perfectly recall even when she hasn't lived them yet, or lived through them eons ago) since Allison is the only person she's been able to talk with at all for over a millennium.
  • Mathangi ten Meti, also known as "Auntie Maya", is a perpetually drunk and slightly overweight old woman who vacillates between cheerfulness and philosophical on the drop of a hat, is kind to children, and offers small wisdoms and proverbs to people she encounters. She is also a Master Swordsman and one of the Mystical 108 pursuers who seek to capture or kill Allison for her magus key apparently so she can use the Key to get revenge on Incubus. Also, a Retired Monster formerly known as "The Destroyer" and former bearer of the word FLAME, who laid waste to 20,000 worlds during the Universal War and has oceans of blood on her hands.
• Lackadaisy: Mitzi loved Atlas, his employees respected him and he tended to take in "strays" who were down on their luck. That said, flashbacks of the murders that Viktor and Mordecai committed under his employ make it clear that Atlas was a ruthless man with blood on his hands.
• Legio Arcana: Eve is remarkably polite and charming even when she’s withering flowers with her hands, threatening members of the Legion, and performing a vivisection on a pig.
• Richard from Looking for Group.
• Dom from Megatokyo is an old college buddy of Piro and Largo, and has even loaned them money when they were in a tight spot. He is also a ruthless corporate enforcer who can get quite menacing on occasion.
• Von Gernsbach in Minion Comics presents himself as a WikiLeaks style campaigner for freedom of information, taking the protagonists under his wing.
• MS Paint Masterpieces has Wily and Quintet which is not really surprising, considering who Quintet used to be.
• My Deepest Secret: If you disregard the whole "psychotically and violently obsessed with his girlfriend" thing, Elios is quite the gentleman. He adores Emma, brings her soup when she's not feeling well, offers her a shoulder to cry on when she's upset, and arranges romantic and thoughtful dates for them, which she loves. There are many comments from readers saying, "If he wasn't a murderer, I'd date him!"
• Niels from Niels. He will always kill enemies with a smile, and is always very polite and nice around his friends.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Early on, the Big Bad Xykon is Faux Affably Evil, and his seemingly unfocused, borderline ditzy mannerisms might make you think he fits in this category. You'd be very wrong. He is still kind of funny, though...
  • General Tarquin. Just listen to him describing how he managed to create those big, flaming letters to celebrate that his son has returned. All while telling said son just how much he means to him. However, it was this very line that finally broke through Elan's obliviousness and revealed that he was really Faux Affably Evil.
    Tarquin: "I mean, the prefects only informed me about the escaped palace slaves around dusk. My men had to get out to the mountains, recapture them, nail them into position, and then get the oil out there in time to light the rebellious little pricks on fire in unison. It's really pretty impressive, logistics-wise, when you think about it."
  • Malack, Tarquin's former adventuring buddy and current Evil Chancellor, is also very much Affably Evil. He gets along very well with Durkon, and may even be more genuinely nicer than Tarquin, even though he's also Lawful Evil. Having lost several children violently, he also has very mundane woes that he openly discusses with fellow parents. Except those children were revealed to actually be vampires, meaning his "special bond" was of a much more nefarious nature.
    Malack: ...and Tarquin keeps telling me that if I want more children so badly, I should just find the right person and get to it, but...I don't know.
    Vaarsuvius: Have you ever considered adoption? Surely your political climate produces no shortage of orphans.
    Malack: Yes, but...I'm worried about not having that, you know, special bond...
  • Redcloak. He hugs his mom, takes his niece and nephews to the circus, wants papers color-coded when filed and feeds people to their minions while preparing to hold a metaphorical gun to gods' heads.
  • Thog is generally Affably Evil when he's not being Ax-Crazy. On at least one unfortunate occasion, he was both at the same time.
    Thog: yay! resisting arrest is fun!
  • Hilgya is friendly and likes to flirt with Durkon and doesn't seem to hold the Order in any real malice. However, she's willing to stand by while Nale butchers an innocent Fae so she can steal the talisman Nale is looking for, lets her companions ambush the Order, including her would-be boyfriend, and revealed in her backstory that she tried to murder the dwarf she was in an arranged marriage with (and while being in an arranged marriage is hardly conducive for the happiness of a free-spirit like Hilgya, the fact that her husband was friendly towards her and she opted for murder first instead of just running away like she would do anyway does not reflect well on her attitude toward sentient life). She is Chaotic Evil, with far more emphasis on the Chaotic.
  • How about the Three Fiends: Lee, Cedric, and Nero? They persuade Vaarsuvius to give them access to eir soul for a few, to destroy many of the black dragons on the planet (and by extension, the Draketooth clan), and so on — but they're always polite, sensible business-oriented individuals.
  • Oona the bugbear, one of the newer recruits to Team Xykon, is an upbeat Boisterous Bruiser, who has not so far been seen to get angry, genuinely cares for her animal companions (she's a beastmistress), and talks to the Monster in the Darkness with as much respect as O-Chul did (although telling him very different things). When Redcloak asks her to kill Durkon and Minrah, she doesn't see why, but decides "Oona is not having compelling reason not to kill them, and little bald man in red cape did say please. Good manners are being rewarded!"
• The Shadow Child aka Disbelief from Roommates comes off as this. He is even genuinely empathetic to and disturbed by the suffering his very existence causes. And then turns around and describes in great detail how he intends to destroy his enemies (or yours if he likes you), so he obviously enjoys this aspect of being a personified negative emotion, even if he regrets some others. He is also cuter than a creature like him has any right to be. And that's meta comic with a cast mostly composed of Retired Monsters (and Retired Badasses) so the trope can be applied to almost all of them in one degree or another. But the kid still stands out.
• Ongoing Completed imageboard Gamebook Ruby Quest has Red, who dresses nicely, helps you with his cane, and warns you not to ask questions or he'll have to rip your throat out.
• Sam & Fuzzy:
  • Mr. Black, a former Tyke-Bomb for the Ninja Mafia. Unlike his counterpart Mr. Blank he's (mostly) mentally stable, mostly a Benevolent Boss to his associates, and is a strong believer in everyone getting their due and that hard work should be rewarded. He's still a sociopathic ninja who has no problems with murder and criminality, and also in order for him to get his due, Sam has to die, but Black feels that's Nothing Personal. In fact, after Sam proves to be extremely skilled at staying alive, Black decides he's equally fine with blackmailing Sam into killing the Ninja Mafia.
  • Mr. Rexford from the same comic is an Underground industrialist who's head of an Omniscient Council of Vagueness that secretly controls much of human society. He is a firm believer in the status quo, believing that the topside world cannot handle all the weirdness in the Underground and enforces breaches harshly. Outside of his role as a conspiratorial, world-controlling old dinosaur (literally), Rexford is soft-spoken and polite and believes in smart business and reasonable relations with his fellow Committee heads, and is firmly convinced in the wisdom of his cause.
• Posey in The Sanity Circus is Affably Evil towards Attley - she talks constantly of trying to help her, and still smiles and talks like they're just as good friends as they were before it turned out Posey is an Eldritch Abomination in human form. To everyone else, though, she is only Faux Affably Evil at best.
• General Alessandro Corvo, in Sarilho. While described as a Glory Seeker, he seems nothing but a normal and polite man, albeit one with a slightly sharp tongue.
• General Xinchub, in Schlock Mercenary. Self-described as "the biggest ace-hole in the game", most of what he does is to further his own career, including heading the development of one branch of the Laz-R-Us supersoldier tech, and threatens field executions, only to allow bribery to get off instead. However, he also hires the Toughs to bring Breya in despite the conflict of interest (Kevyn is her brother) because he knows they have the best chance of getting her in, and alive even. Contrast with Admiral Emm, who developed a different branch of Laz-R-Us that allows for Mind Rape and comes off as a sweet old grandmother....
• Pretty much everything that talks in the Dungeons & Dragons-influenced comic Speak With Monsters at least reaches this level of goodness. Some monsters break the fourth wall to brag about how useful they are to DMs, some argue that their actions are justified in the long run, and some just get Pet the Dog moments between ripping out humans' hearts.
• Doctor Universe and Greta Gravity from Spinnerette run the line between this and Punch-Clock Villain.
• The Varn Gene Mage from Terinu is pleasant and forgiving of his Dragon's occasional failure, and is utterly appalled at how one of his allies treats her prisoners. Oh, and he's responsible for a few billion deaths during the original invasion of the Earth. No biggie.
• Tork, the Geckoid thief from tinyraygun, especially compared to his egomaniac of a sidekick, Vector. He's surprisingly laid back about stealing Nepta's stuff, and isn't even all that interested in Nepta herself.
• Two Evil Scientists has this in both of the Conquerors From The Future.
• In True Villains, most of the main cast fits this trope. Xaneth and Elia are the main two, but even Bayn can be charming when the situation calls for it.
• Weak Hero:
  • Jake is described as The Ace, and proves it when he shows up and reveals himself to be outgoing, kind, and deeply loyal to his friends. His first time crossing paths with Gray has him applauding Gray for taking down a bully and even complimenting him for it. And then, while still smiling, he shocks Gray with an Armor-Piercing Question about Gray giving in to his bloodlust, followed by the casual reveal that he beat up one of Gray's companions in order to provoke the gang's leader into attacking him. His outgoing nature doesn't go away when he starts to play dirty, which just makes it even more eerie.
  • Chungil is polite and cheerful when he introduces himself, and doesn't try to hide that he's a Corrupt Corporate Executive who's only getting involved for the sake of his own profits.
• Pretty much all the main characters in Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic. They are all technically evil monsters, but that doesn't mean they spend all their time doing evil deeds. Arachne the drow will give you sensible relationship advice...then return to her dungeon to torture her collection of captives. Lewie the lich will lend you some skeletal minions to help out around the house...then attempt to Take Over the World through mind control. Good old Mrs. Bloodhand is the nicest, most motherly orc you are ever liable to meet...but put her in a position of power and she turns ruthless and Machivellian. Put her in a battle and she turns deadly.
• Jigsaw in Zodiac. He's one of the villains with the more monstruous appearance, but also very polite and suave, and he praises his foes while fighting them.
• John Lees in the series, For Love Nor Money. If you encountered John Lees when he wasn't in the middle of brutally assaulting his tenants or raping his sister-in-law, he would come across as a soft-spoken, cultured and charismatic man wearing expensive suits and riding around in Rolls-Royces, a typical politician for the era, but one hiding extremely dark pleasures and pass-times.
• Pretty much every character in Lackadaisy is like this. They’re all gangsters and thugs of some sort, but on the surface they appear to be friendly and businesslike people.

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