Pug Davis is a comic series by Rebecca Sugar (later famous for Adventure Time and Steven Universe) about a dog-headed astronaut named Pug Davis, along with his sidekick, Blouse.
It was reprinted in color in October 2019.
Pug Davis provides examples of the following tropes:
- Arbitrary Skepticism:Blouse: I guess I always kind of thought you were an... alien.
Pug: But I have an American spacesuit and I defend the Earth.
Blouse: Well... Superman's an alien and he defends the Earth.
Pug: Superman's made up. - Artificial Limbs: Pug has robot arms.
- Author Avatar: Sugar mentions in the reprint's foreword that she put a lot of herself into Blouse's personality.
- Black Comedy:Salesman: Please accept [the artificial arm], free of charge! It's the least we can do—half of our customers come by because you tore off one of their limbs.
- Bumbling Sidekick: Besides being a Non-Action Guy, Blouse often gets himself into trouble by acting impulsively.
- Characterization Marches On: The first story ends with Pug giving Blouse a black eye over what's implied to be a very minor slight. He's not remotely as hostile to Blouse at any later point.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- Pug was mutilated in a spaceship accident, and was brought back so bizarre-looking that he became a space explorer because he couldn't fit in on Earth (or stand to face the woman he loved).
- Blouse was outed to his parent when they walked in on him having sex with another man, and was implied to have run away and/or been disowned.
- Dismemberment Is Cheap: An alien dealer has a pile of extra limbs that can casually be stuck on to replaced damaged ones.
- Good Is Not Soft: Pug doesn't hesitate to respond to attackers with extreme violence. After a jellyfish Mind Rapes him and Blouse, he fight back cutting his way to its brain to repeatedly step on it.
- Human All Along: Pug isn't an alien that looks like a humanoid dog or a mutant dog, he's a mutilated human with Artificial Limbs and a head made out of a dog's.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Pug is very distant and won't even acknowledge Blouse as a friend, but still fights for Earth and never hesitates to bail Blouse out of trouble even when he gets himself into it.
- Mind Rape: An species of aliens, which look like jellyfish with human brains, read peoples mind on touch and them make relive their worst experiences—and if that's not enough, they make them experience other people's worst memories.
- Speech-Bubble Censoring: The last story is titled "Mindfuck", but a speech balloon partially covers the "u".
- The One That Got Away: While Pug was working at NASA, there was a woman he clearly was interested in, but after his reconstruction, he couldn't stand being seen by her and left.
- Shapeshifting Seducer: An alien out for revenge on Pug first turns into a human female, which doesn't work with Pug, who can tell she's a fake. Then she tries to come on to Blouse, who is gay and doesn't even understand that he's being hit on. The alien leaves and returns as a human male, which works on Blouse immediately.
- Straight Gay: Blouse is gay, and though slightly effeminate, is far from Camp Gay.
- Token Human: Blouse is the only obviously human character outside of flashbacks, although Pug's actually a human reconstructed to look like a dog.
- We Can Rebuild Him: When Pug was incinerated in a rocket test, they could only save his brain, legs, and some of his internal organs and torso. His head was replaced with a dog's and his arms with prosthetics.
- Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Pug has an American flag on the front of his spacesuit.
