David Gonterman, aka Daveykins, FoxFire, or David Foxfire, is a fan-fiction author and artist who is known mainly for the controversial "American Kitsune" fanfic and the furry themed FoxFire/Scarlet P.I. webcomic series.
Dating back to 1995, he has produced several Crossover stories, which involve the likes of Sailor Moon, Power Rangers, and the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise (which, in his fanfic universe, all take place at the same time). He was one of the first Sailor Moon fanfic writers to insert himself as Serena's one true love, and he was rather prolific when it came to writing self-insert fics. He also gained infamy among fans of the show's gay cast members. In one of his more infamous stories ("American Kitsune"), they died at his character's hands while his insert character made a homophobic rant justifying their deaths. He is also notoriously thin-skinned, having once written a story that saw him beating up Mystery Science Theater 3000 co-star Mary Jo Pehl in response to others MSTing his work.
He has also created a furry-themed webcomic series called "FoxFire", which was later retooled into "Scarlet P.I." He also created a guest strip
◊ for It's Walky!. (David Willis himself created a guest strip for Gonterman
as well, but the former considers their strip-swap an Old Shame)
He seems to attend the Shoji Kawamori school of continuity, i.e. pick and choose whatever you want from the previous stories and throw the rest out. As such, readers of his work should expect Kudzu Plots.
Easily as notorious in the 90s and early 2000s as Christine Weston Chandler and Dakari-King Mykan are today, he's managed to fade from the public eye, mostly by maturing in the intervening years, and with the fast turnover of the fanfiction scene, newer arrivals have simply outdone him. Nevertheless, all tropes and other relevant discussion relating to him and his work should be handled with the same degree of tact as the other two.
A trilogy of tangentially linked stories incorporating the character of David "Davey Crockett" Kintobor into the world of Sonic the Hedgehog.
The most infamous story of his works. Sailor Moon meets Power Rangers meets Sonic the Hedgehog meets anything else Gonterman could think of at the time. Davie meets Sailor Moon and the Power Rangers and rants about how he hates gay people while gleefully murdering the gay villains from Sailor Moon.
Two separate but interrelated strips. The first series, which was named FoxFire, ran for 240 strips before being dropped without a resolution. After a recent comic convention, Jim Goodlow comes home to find a package with a female fursuit in it. He's surprised to find out that it's a sentient creature and needs to a symbiotic relationship to survive. Hilarity Ensues as the suit (originally named Susan, before being changed to Scarlet) becomes Jim's crime fighting alter ego as he continues his career as a professional cartoonist. Things get a little confusing from that point on.
In 2004, a total Retool and reboot was started under the name of Scarlet PI, with there being 123 strips. Jim Goodlow reappears, but is changed from a cartoonist to a prodigy cop that can't get a job. (Interestingly enough, he's also Straight Gay, but it instead just feels like repentance on Gonterman's part.) After failing to find a job, he happens upon a box dumped near his apartment. It contains an advanced prototype female fox fursuit, which was created by a corrupt corporation (not an Alien Invasion this time, Benevolent or not). Of course, he leaps right into it due to wanting to seduce men, investigating the corporation as an obligatory exchange.
These stories and comics initially seem unrelated, but they are set in the same universe- there are many crossovers of the various characters in other stories. Most of them incorporate the character of Adam Packbell, if at least only tangentially.
A self-published Peter Pan fanfic about a Lost Boy named Adam Packbell. The advertising blurb claims that it is "equal parts autobiography, adventure story, and Shrek-style parody of every recent novel set in Neverland including the official sequel". Adam Packbell is a central character in many of the Planewalker-verse comics and books.
A Sailor Moon inspired story about a young witch in a southern community. After Sue "comes out of the broom closet", life goes well for her as everybody accepts it. However, her lifestyle is threatened: when a succubus attacks and kills a couple people, she is the only one able to stop it. It abruptly ends before she starts her journey, so what happens is unknown. Like Fauna Force, this was meant to steal the audience from its source of inspiration.
The plotless adventures of a robotic foxgirl and her boyfriend. Difficult to describe.
A continuation of Baka Breakers, with Adam Packbell (See Lost Boy Found- it's the same character) running a coffee shop in a small town roughly 70 miles from Las Vegas, or 'Sin City' as Gonterman loves calling it. Primarily a Slice of Life comic, except for the android catgirl Tara and the anthropomorphic mice running around; as well as the hints to Adam's magical side. Arguably half-decent for the first three dozen pages or so, precisely due to its less ambitious, slice-of-life style... at least until the Token Minority Japanese girl comes in.
An original story based loosely on Magic: The Gathering done in a Magical Girl style. In ancient times, a portal between Earth and Dominaria was briefly opened and then sealed off, leaving behind artifacts which contained the souls of mages. In modern times, a young girl named Jamie came in contact with one of these books and was infused with a spirit of a Planeswalker. The symbiotic creature now acts as a paragon of justice... when not just being a giant Jerkass. Adam Packbell appears in a Yu-Gi-Oh!-esque tournament based on Magic, and Richard Kronos and Sue from Night Soldiers appear in the audience.
Gonterman's response to Sonic the Hedgehog, Fauna Force, starred Johnathan Brisby, originally introduced in the Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers/The Secret of NIMH crossover story The Rangers of NIMH. Johnathan, an accomplished street magician, stumbles upon the Animaster, an evil lion who has recently turned a small cadre of humans into animals via a process known as 'furricization' (a none-too-subtle play on roboticization from the Sonic universe) and takes them in to form a team that can fight against the Animaster. It was intended to "steal" the audience from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)...
An inept Disney Script Fic of sorts, which includes Gonterman's self-insert being praised by Disney executives as an insightful genius for portraying Pocahontas as a "donamatrix" in his fanfiction and a paragraph-long sidenote about how none of the Disney characters actually died in their films.
Scott Trucker, a Texas Ranger, gets sent back in time to Feudal Japan after a tornado scoops him up. He becomes part of a war against another time traveler who has taken over a sizable portion of Japan. As the site hosting the comic points out, the self-insert isn't named after Gonterman this time, but the hairstyle is a dead giveaway.
NiGHTS: The Third Dreamer
A rare Gontercomic about NiGHTS into Dreams…, ostensibly a spinoff from Archie's own NiGHTs miniseries.. The plot does not seem to exist until about two pages before the comic abruptly stops, when the titular 'third dreamer' is revealed. Notable for containing the most strangely rugged Gonterman insert known to date. Who beats Charles Barkley in a one-on-one basketball game and dunks right over his head. Seriously. He also has an uncanny resemblance
◊ to Ali Al-Saachez of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 fame. Hide your women, lock your doors and get in the Gundam!
David Gonterman gets fed up with the MSTs of his work, creating a reactionary comic in which he defeats brutally kills his most vocal opponents and takes over the Satellite of Love. Also includes a bunny Sexbot for no real reason but Author Appeal. The source of the infamous "Clinton Jobs".
Medical equipment is being stolen by Norton Nimnul. After meeting up with Johnathan Brisby, the Rescue Rangers go out to stop him. Pretty much the gold standard for both blind trust in the spellchecker and absolutely no proofreading whatsoever, its first sentence reads "The Ranger's where flowing a leaded of break-ins." Usual tripe that wouldn't be too exceptional except for the fact that it introduced Johnathan Brisby, who became Gonterman's mascot of sorts.
After the US cancellation of Sailor Moon, David ends up catching said character after an explosion in Japan launches her across the Pacific. An Adaptation Distillation of Sailor Moon: American Kitsune. Note: link is to a "Fan Art" MST, since the unaltered artwork is generally considered to be lost.
A reactionary comic made when he discovered Archie Comics' plan to kill off Sally in the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) comic continuity. After assigning his own sense of outrage at the idea to, uh, everyone else in the world, David consoles an outraged Sally, offering a solution. Famous that it got Ken Penders' attention.
Sort of the follow-up to Sally Protest, The Mobius Chronicles is an alternate continuity that diverges from issue 47 of the official Sonic the Hedgehog comic book. Naturally, Gonterman promptly makes himself the main character. MSTed here, here and here.
- American Kitsune, chapters 1-3 (Andrew Cook)
- American Kitsune, chapters 4-6 (Andrew Cook)
- The Piasa Bird (Franzie von Karma)
- The Piasa Bird (Pamachu)
- Excerpts from Foxfire (puppetchaos)
Gonterman's work provides examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: With so many crossovers, it's inevitable. A good example: Davey and Lord Zedd.
- Author Avatar: Nearly every main male protagonist. Even a few female ones, too.
- Alien Invasion: The villains in the original Scarlet P.I.
- All There in the Manual: Gonterman gives a lot of supplemental information in random-side stories, blog entries, pages buried within his websites, scribbled notes on sketches of characters, and in descriptions on DeviantArt submissions. Gee, it'd sure be handy for him to tell us this stuff in the stories, eh?
- Artistic License – Biology: Eating expired food will give you a cold and make you sneeze.
- Author Appeal: Anthropomorphic foxes, robot girls, masks, mimes, clowns and mind control.
- High heels and corsets on his women, all the time. Even if it does not make sense.
- Take some Sonic the Hedgehog, put in a self insert, a lil' Sailor Moon, just a pinch of Battletech and a healthy shake of Power Rangers... half bake for three weeks..
- Author Filibuster: Taken to the extreme in American Kitsune, where Davey-kins rants about how homosexuals made his life a living hell. Adam Packbell has 'blog entries' in the Lost Boy Found novel where he rants about Ritalin; and goes out of his way to call MSTings "troll fanfiction" during a court case. The weird thing is that the people who made his life a so-called living hell were just high school kids calling him gay, and it seemed he was blaming gay people for giving the bullies an excuse by existing. Gonterman later recanted his positions on this subject.
- Ascended Fanboy: David in Sailor Moon USA.
- Anti-Hero: Richard Cronos and a few of his 'edgier' self-inserts appear to be attempts at Antiheroes, but they're more like Disney Anti-Heroes.
- Becoming the Mask: Most "Zoot" wearers start to lose their original identity. Even Jim and Scarlet seem to mush into a single being.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Davey and Usagi in BAM 1.0
- The Cameo: Shall we list the ways?
- President Barack Obama appears in BAM 2.0.
- Gonterman has a less-than-flattering cameo of his real self when Adam looks through a magic mirror in Livewire Latte. Characters from other comics and stories appear in short cameos in both Planeswalker and Livewire Latte.
- In Scarlet P.I. 1.0, Rael the Transvestite Bunny is based on a real person (Do not click if you are faint of heart, or faint of butt)
- Many celebrities in Scarlet P.I. 1.0
- Canon Welding: Due to the Mega Crossover tendencies, it appears that everything takes place on one big world, with a few alternate dimensions thrown in. It doesn't make it any easier that he frequently reuses character names and appearances, making it unclear if it's supposed to be the same character at different stages of life, or not.
- Character Filibuster: The Rangers of NIMH has Rescue Rangers expressing Gonterman's thoughts on the then-current state of Disney.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Adam uses this in Lost Boy Found to bring the fairy he found back to life, albeit using a computer program to find websites via a search engine about the belief in fairies being true and to make a clap sound through the speakers.
- Clothes Make the Superman: In both Scarlet P.I. comics, It's the sentient fursuits that have the powers, not the people wearing them. The wearers just serve as a glorified power battery.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The typical result of Gonterman's self-insert entering a battle.
- Determinator: Let's be honest here, Gonterman himself. Only a Determinator would have the will to keep on doing what he does, even if he's near-universally regarded as bad.
- Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: The opening of Kitsune .44.
- Expansion Pack Past: Davey and ED.
- Falling into the Plot: Sailor Moon USA begins with Gonterman watching the series, then walking outside... and catching Usagi, who falls out of the sky and right into his arms.
- For the Evulz: Some of his villains don't seem to have much of a motive other than making people miserable.
- Flanderization: Most of the characters from the external canons only had one or two of their character traits kept intact, being defined exclusively by the traits that Gonterman viewed as most vital. Even his original characters tend to flatten over time.
- Giftedly Bad: His many works have certainly attracted more attention than most online artists and writers.
- Gratuitous Spanish: Robbie from Lost Boy Found. Even though English is apparently his first language.
- Hands in Pockets: Much like Rob Liefeld, Gonterman avoids drawing feet whenever possible. The only exception he makes is for high-heeled boots, as the Author Appeal gives him enough motivation to finish.
- Hollywood Cyborg: Many, many instances.
- Human Resources: The evil Zoots in Scarlet P.I. use humans as glorified batteries and memory storage. Good zoots are partners.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: In the original Sonic fanfic version of Blood and Metal Alpha, the chapters were called "Zones", and divided further into "Acts", much like the classic Sonic games.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: In Sailor Moon: American Kitsune Part Two, Davey shoots and destroys Lord Zedd's throne on the Moon from the Earth, using a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun fired at a soda can launched into the air, while Lord Zedd is sitting in said throne. In spite of this, Zedd is left completely unharmed.
- Informed Flaw: In the remake of BAM, Gonterman informs us in supplemental materials that Eric likes beer a little too much. This doesn't seem to play at all into the plot.
- Interquel: There's a few side-stories on one of Gonterman's site that appears to take place sometime during the new series of BAM. The Scarlet P.I. novel is one of these, too.
- Instant Fan Club: Scarlet gains a lot of fans overnight.
- Kudzu Plot: Do we REALLY need to explain this one?
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Davey's father is Robotnik. Averted in the remake.
- Kavorka Man: Unintentionally evoked in pretty much everything he creates.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Blatantly avoided in Scarlet P.I. 1.0
- Magical Negro: A pseudo-example happens in the BAM remake, as the scientist who transforms Eric and gives him his powers is black.
- In the old version of Blood and Metal, Old Man Coyote, while not human, is a deity from a 'mystical' non-western culture, and helps give Davey, a white American, some of his powers.
- Mega Crossover: Everything is liable to crossover with everything else.
- Mighty Whitey:
- Semi-Justified in Kitsune .44, as possession of a hefty revolver and 1990's knowledge in feudal Japan would give you some advantages.
- Davey/Eric in BAM crossing over from America to another world and saving everyone. Made even more blatant in the rewrite, as Eric is essentially creating an alternate-universe United States.
- Mind Control: Evil Zoots in Scarlet P.I. get hosts through this. One of them even has hypno eyes. Copper Mystrian gets a lot of mileage out of this, too.
- Mundane Fantastic: Lost Boys, fairies, android foxgirls and other blatantly magical and science-fiction elements exist in a world that's more or less the 'real world.'
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Davey's cybernetic arm, Ed's closet, and many miscellaneous objects that Davey has collected. Scarlet becomes a psionic capable of teleportation within one strip in Scarlet P.I. 1.0
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Davey Crockett himself in BAM, but also the introduction of the Sailor Senshi to the Morphing Grid and the highly modified Battletech robots.
- Old Shame: Gonterman hates BAM 1.0 and American Kitsune. He's also tried to erase most of his older works from the internet, though archives of them stick around.
- Only Six Faces: More like only two, male and female. Maybe three if you throw in "furry." Only one set of eyes, that's for sure.
- Orphaned Series: He rarely finishes anything. Only Lost Boy Found got finished, and the original Scarlet P.I. had a pseudo-ending where Scarlet rides off into the sunset, or in this case, the furry convention circuit.
- Out of Character: All the Sailor Moon characters, but especially Usagi. Rampant elsewhere.
- Pet Homosexual: Jim Goodlow in Scarlet PI 2.0. Scarlet gets the attention, Jim's stuck in the suit.
- Powers as Programs
- Puppeteer Parasite: Good Zoots get permission from their hosts. Evil zoots don't.
- Many others appear across the Gontercanon, even (supposedly) heroic ones.
- Remember the New Guy?: Scarlet Foxfire has a daughter in Scarlet P.I. who just randomly shows up.
- Reused Character Design: Reuse of names, character archetypes and designs is frequently common and intentional.
- Riding into the Sunset: Scarlet/Jim and Sarah in the "end" of Scarlet P.I. 1.0. Actually, it's the furry convention circuit and they're driving a car but... yeah.
- Robot Girl: Roll-chan in NiTRO and Tara Kit in Baka Breakers and Lost Boy Found. The latter also mentions one named Aline Rabbit who used to work in Las Vegas's Red Light District.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: The Rangers of NIMH."The Ranger's were flowing a leaded of break-ins."
- Self-Deprecation: Gonterman openly mocks himself now.
- Sexbot: Gonterman loves this trope, nearly every more-recent creation of his includes at least one. The most obvious is Aline in Baka Breakers, who is a former robo-hooker who kills terrorists in Afghanistan ... or something.
- Shout-Out: To many things, perhaps even TV Tropes in BAM 2.0. Here's a fun game: take a shot with each new reference to a completely different canon. Your liver won't make it through to the end.
- Showing Off the New Body: Scarlet, after Jim becomes her host.
- Slice of Life: Livewire Latte and Baka Breakers, but Livewire moreso.
- Slipknot Ponytail: On this page Gen's braids become un-braided between panels. As the commentary points out, this is clearly a conscious stylistic decision.
- Straight Gay: Jim Goodlow in the Scarlet P.I. reboot.
- Take Over the World: The motive of many villains.
- The Remake: Blood and Metal, Scarlet P.I. Other stories and comics have recieved psuedo-remakes
- Third-Person Person: David Gonterman sometimes talks about David Gonterman as if David Gonterman is a different David Gonterman than the other David Gonterman.
- Token Minority:
- Gina the hospital intern and Professor Obacain (lolwut) in BAM 2.0. Both are black.
- Adam's gang in Lost Boy Found cover a variety of races and backgrounds.
- Jim Goodlow in Scarlet P.I. 2.0 is gay
- There's a Muslim in Baka Breakers, but he seems to be a subversion of this trope due to his strange behavior. Once he jokingly suggests to Davey that he'd could get Allah to call in a jihad; making it sound like a divine airstrike. The biggest part of his characterization seems to be that he's just a weird, sarcastic guy.
- Trapped in the Past: The driving point of Kitsune .44.
- True Companions: Gonterman's main characters will typically have a group that is closely associated with them, but it's most noticeable in Lost Boy Found where Adam's gang is almost always together, even going to Neverland together.
- Unsound Effect: DRAMATIC ENTRANCE!!! AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUN FIRE!!!
- Unusual Euphemism: At the end of NiTRO, Roll-Chan reveals she gave Gonterman some "Clinton Jobs." "Oh yerf" (which is a Take That! to yerf.com, which Gonterman had some drama with); along with the standard furryism of 'yiffing' in Scarlet P.I.
- Wham Episode: American Kitsune, Chapter Seven, which had the infamous twist.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: David can come up with ideas for plots that would be interesting if given attention and development, but he also tends to get excited about the next big thing in the plot and completely change the topic of his webcomic. He will start a plot about an extraterrestrial police officer battles Earth gangsters with illicit alien tech, then out of nowhere the plot is about Professional Wrestling, then the same character has a wacky episode about hiding their Secret Identity (never an issue in later strips), then there is suddenly a F-to-M transsexual with Psychic Powers (he wanted to add a friend of his into the plot).
- Worthy Opponent: Captain Hook is this to ''both' Peter Pan and Adam Packbell.
- Wunza Plot: He's a cartoonist who needs a job! She's an alien symbiotic costume!
Websites detailing Gonterman's work:
- FoxFire Studios - The official David Gonterman website.
- DaveykinsFoxFire on deviantART - The official deviantART page maintained by him.
- The Gonterman Shrine - A website that compiles some of Gonterman's more infamous older works. It hasn't been updated since May 2001, but it feels just as current now as it did back then. Contains the entire published texts of Blood and Metal and Sailor Moon: American Kitsune, amongst others.
- This section delves deep into Gonterman's psyche, analyzing and exposing his mental and life issues to the entire world.
- This section
- MSTron - An MST3k-style website that includes FoxFire, Night Soldiers, Baka Breakers, and Planeswalker. Officially dead, but a mirror remains.
- The 'Viewtiful Gonterman' chain at Lard Pirates, which is "picking up where MSTron left off."
- The 'Viewtiful Gonterman' chain at Lard Pirates
- An Interview With David Gonterman. An online interview with the Gonterman himself.
- The Sisto Files, a collection of Space Ghost themed MSTings that also include some of Gonterman's early works, Sailor Moon USA and Sonic: The Mobius Chronicles. Note that this is mirrored from a GeoCities site that no longer exists and many of the non-Gonterman links are now dead. Gonterman-related content also mirrored here.
