Celebrity Paradoxes in webcomics.
- Darths & Droids is about roleplayers playing a tabletop RPG following the basic plot of the Star Wars movies, but the notes on strip 50 have specifically stated that there is no Star Wars in the universe where they are. They then extrapolate
on how that would impact things such as Mark Hamill's and Harrison Ford's careers, Spaceballs, the fate of sci-fi in media, and finally what the webcomic Darths & Droids would be parodying instead of Star Wars: Harry Potter.- On top of that, that very sentence links to a sample page from that alternate universe Harry Potter strip, which includes a full site layout, cast page, FAQ, and a (non-explorable) archive complete with 50 strips of punny stip titles. Then, when the main strip # 100 was released, this page was silently edited with the same extrapolation on a world where Harry Potter never existed, complete with a link to a The Sound of Music comic with the same bells and whistles. The process repeats every 50 strips, going through X-Men, Aliens, The Wizard of Oz, 300, Avatar, Terminator, Jaws, Casablanca, The Muppet Movie, Inception (appropriately enough), Pirates of the Caribbean, Futurama (despite - or probably because - one of the lines being "* is known (barely) for doing voiceovers for poorly selling computer games, but gains widespread fame after his appearance in the first Futurama movie."), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Forbidden Planet, Ghostbusters, Jason and the Argonauts, Jurassic Park, Bridget Jones' Diary, nature documentaries, Vacation, 'ET The Extraterrestrial, Apollo 13, Pac-Man, and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (the last update, after which they stopped adding layers).
- On the other hand, once you get deep enough into the recursion, the outer layers occasionally start reappearing. After all, there's no reason why Star Wars couldn't exist in a world where the characters are playing a home-brew RPG based on 300. In fact in the world where the Comic Irregulars are making a screencap comic based on Pirates of the Caribbean, it is stated that Keira Knightley is known primarily for her role in The Phantom Menace.
- Star Wars already exists in the Sound of Music RP 'verse, if the titles are anything to go by (It's a von Trapp!).
- On the other hand, once you get deep enough into the recursion, the outer layers occasionally start reappearing. After all, there's no reason why Star Wars couldn't exist in a world where the characters are playing a home-brew RPG based on 300. In fact in the world
- Problem is, we're the outermost layer. What story are our roleplayers acting out?
- Postcard (from Comments on a Postcard) - and their roleplayers are acting out Garfield.
- Of course the 300, Avatar and Inception ones, being based on recent movies, are more forced/less accurate than the previous ones. (Avatar's nonexistence led to Titanic (1997) not existing?)
- Postcard
- Although its spiritual predecessor DM of the Rings never explicitly referenced this trope, Fridge Logic leads one to wonder how D&D became popular in a world without The Lord of the Rings.
- It's also worth noting that in the universe where Jim, Ben, Pete, Annie, Sally and Corey are playing a given game, the Comics Irregulars are still making a screencap comic about a fictional roleplaying group with their names and personalities...
- On top of that, that very sentence links to a sample page from that alternate universe Harry Potter strip, which includes a full site layout, cast page, FAQ, and a (non-explorable) archive complete with 50 strips of punny stip titles. Then, when the main strip # 100 was released, this page was silently edited with the same extrapolation on a world where Harry Potter never existed, complete with a link to a The Sound of Music comic with the same bells and whistles. The process repeats every 50 strips, going through X-Men, Aliens, The Wizard of Oz, 300, Avatar, Terminator, Jaws, Casablanca, The Muppet Movie, Inception (appropriately enough), Pirates of the Caribbean, Futurama (despite - or
- This Frakking Toasters strip has the cast of Battlestar Galactica sitting down to watch Battlestar Galactica.
- This page of the fancomic Touhou Nekokayou describes a world without Touhou Project like Darths & Droids did. The author would often silently add more examples to the list...
- David Willis makes occasional appearances in Shortpacked! and has an ongoing rivalry with Ethan regarding the Transformers Wiki. He even rented out the store to propose to his girlfriend.
- The Contemporary Arc of Arthur, King of Time and Space is set in a version of the Present Day where Arthurian Legend doesn't exist. This normally doesn't come up, but in this strip, Arthur is clearly listening to ... whatever their version of Camelot is.
- This strip is even more blatant.
- This strip
- Ashe Rhyder's Roommates fancomic completely reverses this trope. Both the movies/books and the characters from them exist. The characters often watch their own movies, mention their actors, or refer fan service.
- Jareth: "Wait. Javert... When the hell did you get so bloody tall?!" Javert: "As it turns out, Quast is tall. Bet you wish Bowie wasn't so short."
- And then there's Devious Gingers, an in-universe tv show starring some real actors. Some of those actors play characters who have appeared in the comic.
- This Ménage à 3 Strip: the authors of the comic, as authors of their other comic selling merchandise for it.
- An The Order of the Stick comic has a semi-canonical episode where Gary Gygax appears in the afterlife, meeting with Roy. Since this is a world in which Dungeons & Dragons and Gygax do not exist, but which is heavily based on D&D (a specific edition of it, no less) to the extent that characters talk about experience points and +1 swords, this is... confusing. Even more bizarrely, the games themselves exist in-universe: Roy and Roy's archon start playing a game after meeting Gygax, and Kabuto is shown to have a copy of the 4e Dungeon Master's Guide. The Order even meets their 4e counterparts at one point in Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales, although the adventure is presumably non-canonical.
- Likewise, when Lord Shojo as a spirit adviser tell Belkar to "play the game" (he means for Belkar to conceal his sociopathic tendencies in order to fit into and better take advantage of society) Belkar is confused since he points out their world is not a game like D&D but a world that generally conforms to the rules of the game of D&D, to which Shojo replies "not this game!" indicating some knowledge of the game despite it not existing.
- This Joe Loves Crappy Movies strip ponders how Jonah Hill can appear in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and its spin-off Get Him to the Greek as two separate characters, despite Russell Brand playing the same character in both films.
- Spinnerette explains that superhero comics in this verse are actually merchandising deals with actual superheroes, either directly or Very Loosely Based on a True Story. This leads to Spinnerette making her original costume out of sewn-together Venom costumes, and even having to change it because she got a cease-and-desist from Marvel for infringing on Spider-Woman.
- Weirdly averted when the cast of Nobody Scores! are surprised to discover evidence of the existance of Superman. They have the typical pop-culture osmosis knowledge, but had assumed he was fictional.Sara: So... We live in a universe where Superman exists?
That is stupid but kind of comforting. - In this strip of The Hero of Three Faces fancomic, Sherlock and Joan from Elementary discuss a series that is clearly Sherlock, including the books it's based on, without mentioning any proper nouns that would be strangely similar to their own names.
- In El Goonish Shive, there is a strip which features a desktop background which is based on a filler strip. It's Lampshaded both within the former strip and in The Rant but not explained.
