That's the way the teddy bear has her picnic...
Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees is an ongoing comic book by Patrick Horvath.
Samantha Strong, a brown bear, lives in the peaceful little town of Woodbrook, where life is nice and slow and everybody knows everybody. A perfect place... except for the fact that Samantha has a hobby of driving to the city, abducting a random person, and taking them out to the woods where she chops them up and buries them, which she's been doing for over twenty years. Despite this, all is well and good in Woodbrook... until a dead body is found strung up on a parade float for the town's bicentennial. With the town thrown into a panic, Samantha vows to find who's upset things before her little hobby is discovered.
Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees contains examples of:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Cherry dies begging for her life.
- Asshole Victim: Cherry fucking Gherkins, who's incredibly unpleasant to everyone except her husband.
- Beat It by Compulsion: Sam always carves her victims up, puts their pieces into paint cans, and buries them in separate holes. Not getting rid of them properly comes back to bite her when an offended Nigel uses them to reveal her secret to the town.
- Broken Pedestal: Nigel idolised Sam and started killing people to get her attention, with the ultimate intention of teaming up with her. In response, Sam tells him that they're not teaming up, they're not friends, and he can kill whoever he wants, but he needs to keep it out of Woodbrook. He is not happy.
- Carnivore Confusion: One cover for issue 2 features Cherry staring with some morbid fascination at a pig's head in a deli display. Of course, this mostly serves as a visual metaphor, and the actual comic clarifies that sapient and non-sapient animals exist together in this world.
- Commonality Connection:
- Since he was a child, Nigel had always felt that Sam was special and interesting, not like the other people in Woodbrook. This is most likely due to some subconscious recognition of their mutual insanity.
- Subverted when Nigel thinks that as soon as Sam learns he's been serial killing in an effort to impress her she'll be overjoyed and eagerly accept him as an associate. Sam is not and does not.
- Control Freak: Although she doesn't let it show around people (save for emphasizing neatness and tidiness in her shop), Samantha commits murder because she finds the notion of shutting down the chaos of a life and having utter control over something (namely her victim's body) to be a centering experience that quiets the voices in her head somewhat.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Marvin- disemboweled, arms split in two and draped over the crosspiece of a float, and the killer nailed his ankles to the mast.
- Didn't Think This Through: Issue 4 reveals that the killer stalked Sam, discovered that she was a serial killer and started killing people to impress her so she'd want to team up with him. It apparently never occurred to him that a serial killer who does as much as they can to conceal their murders and the remains of their victims is not going to be the kind of person to whom the very public, attention-grabbing murders he's committed would appeal at all.
- Dissonant Serenity: Although Sam smiles when dealing with others as a way to mask her sociopathy, it seems that when she's committing murder the calm and relief it causes brings her a genuine relaxed smile.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Sam has one in Issue 5 while watching two non-sapient bears fight over a deer one of them killed, and seeing one kill the other.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Sam mentions that she regards Lola as the closest thing she has to an actual friend, and seems to be genuinely worried about her physical condition. Nigel also seems to care about his mother—she may be the only one he feels a connection to, besides Sam.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: After cornering Cherry in the elementary school and chopping her head off, the killer puts her head on a mop and writes 'Head of the Class' on the wall behind her with her blood.
- Evil vs. Evil: Sam's only issue with Nigel's murders is that they're putting her at risk of exposure as a murderer herself.
- Expy: If the town is meant to be one of Busytown in general, Samantha may be an intentional Corrupted Character Copy of Miss Honey
. In the first issue, a young female cat wearing a blue bow also appears who closely resembles Sally Cat. - Family Business: Samantha's hardware store originally belonged to her parents.
- Furry Confusion: There are non-anthropomorphic animals in this world. For example, Samantha encounters a regular bear and a fox.
- Foreshadowing: Chapter Two's cover is Cherry looking at pig heads in the window of the butcher shop.
- Furry Reminder:
- Charlie and his family are moles and they all wear thick glasses.
- Bertie can pull his head into his shell.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Cherry has one, which contributes to her unpopularity.
- Interspecies Romance: Cherry, a pig, is married to Howard, an owl.
- It's All About Me: Again, Sam's only issue with Nigel's murders is that they're putting her at risk of exposure as a murderer herself.
- Morality Pet: Howard is the only one to whom Cherry is nice. And he's legitimately upset by her murder.
- Mature Animal Story: One about a serial killer looking for another serial killer.
- Mummies at the Dinner Table: Subverted. It seems like Melody has her husband's body in her bed but it turns out it's just a dummy.
- Neat Freak: Sam's response to anxiety appears to be severe cleaning, as demonstrated when Nigel reveals he's been stalking her and knows her secret.
- Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: Woodbrook is an incredibly peaceful town. It's why Samantha goes to the city to abduct her victims, because if a murder ever happened in Woodbrook, everyone would be talking about it for years.
- Not Me This Time: Samantha is a murderer, but she's never killed anyone in Woodbrook, as a disappearance would be noticed. She wants to find out who the actual killer is, because if her secret is found out, everyone will think she's the guilty party.
- Oh, Crap!: Issue 4 ends with Nigel killing Charlie and leaving his body in the hardware store, after digging up the cans of Samantha's past victims and putting them in the hardware store too, forcing Samantha to flee.
- Only Friend: Samantha calls Lola this.
- Out-Gambitted: After tricking Melody out of her house in order to investigate it, Samantha hears Melody come in and hides herself. Melody talks to the dummy in her bed and tells it she's taking a shower. Hearing the shower start, Sam sneaks out of her hiding place and heads for the door, only to be confronted by Melody, who's holding a gun on her.
- Plot Allergy: Samantha learns that Nigel is also allergic to lavender.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Samantha notes her own interest in finding and stopping Woodbrook's new serial killer by the end of the first issue- the murderer is such a psychotic showoff that there is significant risk that her own killings might be uncovered with all the new attention.
- Red Herring: After hearing from Bertie that he had heard a sneeze after Melody (the only other person working on his float) had supposedly left the room due to her flower allergy, Sam sees her sneezing near flowers and begins to suspect her as the other killer. After tricking Melody into leaving the house, Sam sneaks in and discovers Melody's terrible secret: After the death of her husband, Melody made a dummy in his likeness and has treated it as if it were alive for decades. Oh, and she's not the killer.
- Second-Person Narration: The first four issues are in first-person narration, but Issue 5 switches to second-person.
- The Sociopath: Samantha is aware that she is one, though she's adept at faking otherwise. While attending the funeral for one of the Woodbrook victims, she watches the emotions of those around her with interest and notes that she's probably caused these emotions in others numerous times, finding the prospect fascinating.
- Stalker without a Crush:
- Suspecting that Melody is the killer, Samantha begins quietly stalking her, and even sneaks into Melody's house in an effort to confirm her suspicions.
- Nigel has been stalking Samantha for a year, even before he knew she was a killer.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Sam spends the first part of Issue 5 hallucinating that her dead, carved-up victims are walking around, and is genuinely unsure whether she's going insane or if everyone else is just not bringing it up. She later goes into a cave and hallucinates that her head is held on by brightly-coloured balloon snakes.
- Town with a Dark Secret: That secret being that the owner of the hardware store is a serial killer. And now another serial killer has suddenly appeared.
- Wham Shot:
- The last page of Issue 1, which shows the first victim's body exposed for all to see.
- Marvin's funeral, when Sam hears Nigel sneeze, realizes that he's the killer and they have a Held Gaze as he realizes she's figured it out.
