Integra, with her angel begging her to remember her duty and her devil trying to convince her to act on her emotions for once. Played with in that Integra's angel and devil appear in full-size versions during a storyline taking place in Hell.
Timothy, whose angel and devil get a decent amount of prominence, not only symbolizing Timothy's inner conflict between his loyalty to Enrico and desire to do right, but his burgeoning gender identity issues.
Enrico has Bad Angel...and Delirium, who's filling in for Enrico's good angel while he's lost in her domain. This is taking place while Enrico goes insane with power and starts to slaughter innocent Protestants.
Integra's and Timothy's respective devils appear briefly together, trying to discourage their respective humans from teaming up with someone who's (nominally) an enemy...only to promptly be Distracted by the Sexy when Timothy awakens the Sword of Dios and both he and Integra are briefly naked.
Parodied in Batman and the Bat-Titans where Batman hallucinates a Tiny Batman (the shoulder devil) telling him to whoop the Titans' asses, a Tiny Beast Boy (the shoulder angel) telling him to ask for redemption instead, and a taco (his food conscience) telling him he's hungry for tacos and burritos. Tiny Beast Boy questions if a Food Conscience is really a thing.
In Bob and George, Bob has a pair, but he mostly ignores them and acts evil in spite of the good angel and without needing the influence of the bad angel. Your mother sent me
Elvis the Siamese cat is confronted with a moral dilemma in Breaking Cat News, as his angelic conscience (black cat Puck in traditional angel gear) warns him not to touch the Halloween snacks laid out on the table, while his bad angel (white cat Lupin in a red devil suit) accompanied by the four Robber Mice, similarly garbed, entices him to partake. When one of the mice mentions that there's bacon in the snacks, Puck is also tempted.
Bug Martini: When Bug considers a frivolous purchase, want vs. need is represented as two different versions of Bug wearing glasses. Need points out that Bug needs to buy light bulbs, while Want shoves Need aside, saying, "Light bulbs shmight bulbs! He can use candles!"
Played with in thisCasey and Andy strip: Andy wants to talk with a hot girl but his good angel disapproves, and, because Andy is going out with Satan, who has control over all "shoulder demons", she appears instead of Andy's bad angel and threatens him.
In Jennifer Babcock's C'est la Vie, the ditzy-but-sweet Valley Girl Donna Fitzpatrick has a smaller version of herself as Angel, as per trope. But the demon takes the form of a smaller, snarkier, version of her louche and cynical best friend, Mona Montrois.
Nice Guy Joel from Filthy Lies finds himself with an angel on each shoulder.
Joel: Two angels? Shouldn't one of you be a devil? Angel #1: Nope. You are a total candyass. Angel #2: Totally.
Frank from Coga Suro has a classic "shoulder angel" and "shoulder devil". These are unusual in a few ways: his "shoulder devil" has been known to leave Frank and influence others, and his Good Angel has appeared in full human size at least once.
When Frank finally activates his Artemis, it has two different colour schemes, echoing the opposing colour schemes of his Good Angel and Bad Angel.
College Roomies from Hell!!! expands on this trope by having the angels and devils be various sizes depending on how much the character listens to one or the other: e.g., nice guy Dave has a life-sized angel, while the Anti-Hero Mike has one barely the size of his ear. That brings up all sorts of unanswered questions later when it is revealed that Mike is actually the reincarnation of the arch-angel Micheal. There's also April's Imaginary Floating Wiser Self, who seems to be something else entirely but serves as her conscience in a pinch.
Comedity: Arguably the entire point, or at least a central theme. Garth's various psychological elements are characters in their own right and make up a council in his head. Though they aren't just advisors... The personality sprites actually constitute Garth's mind; they're frequently shown piloting his body Mobile-Suit Human style.
In the A Complete Waste of Time in-comic MMORPG META, you have devas who pretty much serve this purpose. The positive (Philanian) ones spell their "f"s as "ph"s, and the negative (Mizanian) ones substitute "z" for "s", regardless of how the player normally speaks.
In this strip of Cyanide and Happiness, a student is confronted by his shoulder devil and angel when debating the prospect of reusing his science fair project from the previous year for the upcoming fair. He ends up deciding to kill and dissect the two to present a project on their anatomy instead.
Jennie Breeden's Author Avatar in The Devil's Panties often features her Good Angel and Bad Angel, though occasionally the two concur. The Good Angel is dressed traditionally, while the Bad Angel wears a black and red corset, a micromini skirt, platform boots, horns, and little bat wings. Both otherwise look like Jennie herself (or like her Avatar, which other strips show as no longer resembling the real artist). Later, they're joined by a fairy princess representing Jennie's latent girlie side - though she still wears combat boots.
Shoulder angels and shoulder demons in Devil May Care are apparently humans who are paid to act as other people's conscious (to foster goodness or corruption respectively). They are tiny and invisible to humans while in this form, and they can only have an actual effect if they genuinely mean what they say.
One of EATATAU!!!'srunning gags is the bad angel messily gunning down the good angel (usually a result of Sha'shiva getting horny). Flipped around when Sha'shiva throws herself at Kor'la and the latter's own good angel messily guns down the bad angel (since they're in the cockpit of a battlesuit at the time; It Makes Sense in Context).
Parodied in 8-Bit Theater, where Black Mage has a Bad Angel (Evil Side) and a Worse Angel (Atrociously Evil Side) where what little difference they have is severely blurred. When he is at a point where his teammate is in danger, instead of debating whether to help him or not, they debate between letting him die or letting him die and killing everyone. He compromises by letting him die and dancing on his corpse. He also has an Inner Scrutiny.
Moderately Evil Side: He's supposed to double check what you're thinking before you say anything so you don't look like a jackass or moron. You usually don't pay any attention to him.
El Goonish Shive has several examples to illustrate internal conflict, but they rarely fit the traditional good angel versus bad angel dichotomy:
One sequence has Susan question whether or not to go to a gender-swapping party with the aid of her Curiosity (a spotted catgirl) and her Logic (a Vulcan). To her horror, Curiosity comes up with an argument that wins Logic over, so Susan has no real choice in the matter.
Later, her Nature (blonde-haired self) and Nurture (blue-haired self) argue over whether or not to hug Tedd for standing up for her. Makes sense once you know her backstory.
When Catalina kisses Elliot in front of the school as part of a misguided attempt to stop false rumors that he's gay, the comic cuts to a visual representation of Elliot's mind. The ego is in the center, with additional representations that appear to be confusion, shyness, logic, libido, and conscience. The fact that some of the representations are female may have deeper meaning.
Larry has a dudebro and a decent person who appear to help him resolve the internal conflict when he discovers that Sarah asked another guy out on a date despite calling him out on his unwanted advances earlier. Dudebro Larry is presented as ignorant rather than evil, and is legitimately convinced that he's the good angel.
In the Squirrel Prophet arc, Sarah has a werewolf who represents her desire to build a deck that makes narrative sense, and a vampire who represents her desire to ignore story and just focus on winning.
Then there's Grace's, whose logical side takes the form of her in a business suit, and an emotional side who is barefoot and otherwise dressed like a stereotypical hippie.
Susan's Nature and Nurture show up again, though as full-size figures in a metaphorical corner of Susan's mind rather than as shoulder angels.
Nanase gets an angel and devil here when debating whether to tell Susan about all the obnoxious things Diane has done in the past. They show back up in an NP storyline when she's debating whether or not to admit that she's too nervous to play a tabletop RPG with Ellen.
Ashley gets an angel and devil for a brief "nice character has a shoulder devil that fails at evil" gag. Devil Ashley claims that she wants Nanase to risk a transformation-induced wardrobe malfunction, but only if it's an informed choice. Angel Ashley can only lampshade the lack of evil.
Angel Ashley: Are you sure you know what your job is?
Friendly Hostility likes to use this one occasionally. There is one sequence where a good angel is attracted to the classic bad angel. She says they can't be together because they are on opposite sides, so he gets a transfer to the bad side, just to learn that she's transferred to the good side.
In Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, Chibi Sue has a realistic shoulder devil and a chibi shoulder angel who both advise her to have sex. And when Sue's returns unsatisfied, her devil and angel have HLSin front of her.
"W-where's the angel? The one that tells me to be good?" "That's in cartoons, you ditz. Nope, God only had enough miracle sauce to make one of us per person. And it picked the bad side because... spite, mostly." "So who's supposed to tell me what the right thing to do is?" "If you can't figure that out without an angel, then you kind of suck."
In How to be an Artist by James Turner, Turner's Author Avatar summons "the two spirits that every artist needs to guide them: Rampaging Narcissism and Crippling Insecurity!" Narcissism has horns, and Insecurity has a bent halo.
In It's Walky!, when Joyce is finally about to lose her virginity, she has visions of her slutty alternate "evil" self and the hyper-puritanical "good" person she used to be. The slutty version eggs her on, the puritan castigates her. Their bickering is then interrupted by a vision of Joyce as the more balanced, mature individual that she is now, who tells them both to shut up as she wants to enjoy the moment.
The Japanese Beetle has a villain called The Enabler, whose entire shtick is that he's a Professional Killer using Incredible Shrinking Man and Telepathy powers to pose as someone's Bad Angel and drive them into self-destruction. When he attempts this on the titular hero, Ken's first response is to ask, "Where's the guy for my other shoulder?" He finally realizes something is up when his pre-teen fan Katie asks "Who's that mean little man on your shoulder?"
In Jayden And Crusader, the character Kat has a mental illness which manifests as a tiny angel and tiny devil when she does not take a proper course of medication, as demonstrated here They do not seem to provide any advice, only to chatter inanely.
Juvenile Diversion initially plays it straight while Kyle ponders whether to open a mysterious box in Jenny's mountain lodge... until next page where the two angels get quite intimate and the box turns out to contain Jenny's gay Porn Stash.
In Kevin & Kell, Mei Li's good angel is an orange cat, and her bad angel is a black cat. Apparently, this is because she's a tiger. More specifically, she was originally a regular cat who forced herself to be a tiger through sheer willpower.
Subverted when John's Bad Angel is none other than Darth Vader, who encourages him to sleep with the hot single mom of one of his students. When John asks where his Good Angel is some time later, his question is answered by Chewbacca appearing on the other shoulder. At one point Jar-Jar Binks appears, apparently as a Good Angel, but naturally John has no problem with Vader killing him.
Later, the aforementioned single mom has her own Angel, in the form of Jeannie, though whether she's good or bad is unclear (she encourages the woman to sleep with John, and sleeps with Bad Angel Vader as well).
In Leftover Soup, Jamie alludes to it when presented with two opposite opinions on what to do with his board game designs (both options are considered better than the status quo, "nothing").
In Life With Lamarr, Barney's shoulder angel and devil both advise him to eat Lamarr. When he questions as to why the angel is agreeing with the devil, the angel replies that "[Lamarr's] a freaking head-humper!".
In MegaTokyo, Piro has been assigned an agent named Seraphim from the "Conscience Enforcement Authority," who effectively fills the role of the good angel. However, she has a non-stereotypical personality, often being sarcastic and frustrated about lack of funding. An obnoxious male character from her past, Asmodeus, shows up to aggravate her and fill the role of the bad angel, not so much tempting Piro toward evil as discouraging character development. Meanwhile, a hamster named Boo ("all that the temp office had") tries to assist Seraphim as Largo's conscience, and he tries hard, but being unable to speak makes a difficult task nearly impossible.
Later it turns out that Seraphim is actually supposed to advise her clients on all sides of their moral conflicts, while Asmodeus claims to be morally impartial, stating "fun is fun, there is no good or bad".
Ménage à 3 plays with this trope, usually more for comic than heavily subversive effect:
At one point, Zii's shoulder devil has her shoulder angel Bound and Gagged. This later turns into an all-out subversion when the devil and angel work together. Later again, her shoulder figures are simply a pair of naked women (strip #846, February 04, 2014, NSFW); she's not getting any moral or immoral ideas from anywhere, she's just being driven to the point of insanity by temptation.
When DiDi's devil shows up, it's actually surprised: "Wow! I don't think you called for me since the third grade... HOLY CRAP! Check out the rack on me!" This is quickly followed by her angel showing up — except that DiDi is such a nice person (or at least thinks of herself that way), her "little shoulder angel" is more than twice as tall as the real DiDi. Later again, her angel — operating at more normal size — actually manages to smack her hard enough to sting for having bad thoughts.
Used and subverted in Misfile. Ash — a boy who has been accidentally turned into a girl — is understandably disturbed when his Bad Angel appears in the traditional hooker getup. The fact that the Good Angel's outfit is hardly any less feminine doesn't exactly put Ash's mind at ease and Ash has a low opinion of angels in any event. (A slacker angel working as a filing clerk caused his predicament in the first place.) The subversion occurs, of course, when both angels urge or approve the same course of action: Ash's angels team up to encourage her to "assist" Emily through a window and to talk with her after a particularly nasty fight.
Parodied and lampshaded in MS Paint Masterpieces: Mega Man, having an internal struggle, gets two good angels. He points out "aren't one of you supposed to be the bad angel?"
Narbonic took this trope to its extreme: characters are pestered by little winged personifications of their good sides, bad sides, social lives, inner children... the list goes on. The gag is more prevalent in earlier comics, but it can pop up once in a while in later ones. It's probably a Mad Scientist thing.
Except for Mell, who only has one angel. Sitting on her shoulder, constantly whispering "Kill. Kill. Kill."
Also note that Helen's good angel once urged her to nuke her school.
Later Sweetheart is shown with an "angel-puppy" sprite who chews her out for passing a job off on Tip, then shuts up when they spot him drinking wine in a hot tub with two people he's slept with previously.
When Jane finds a Game-Breaking Bug in a video game, her bad angel encourages her to exploit it before it's fixed, while her good angel tells her to report it so it's fixed faster...and then tell Morgan she did it for an increase in reputation and possible real life rewards, prompting Why Didn't I Think of That? reactions from both Jane and the bad angel. Later, when the bad angel encourages her to play videogames with the newbie Victorie because she's an easy target, the good angel instead encourages Jane to teach Victorie how to play videogames...so her victory would be that much sweeter. Again, cue Why Didn't I Think of That? reactions from both.
Playing it straightest is this strip, which references the fact that Dungeons & Dragons (which the comic parodies) has an alignment systeminvoked based on both good/evil and law/chaos, so in addition to a traditional set of good angel and bad angel, Elan also has a lawful angel and a chaotic angel (who resemble a Modron and a Slaad, the outsiders for those alignments), neither of which are much help — the lawful one speaks in binary and the chaotic one is a Talkative Loon. The good and evil angels also, unsurprisingly, look like a Solar and a Pit Fiend respectively, examples of an angel and a devil in the game.
Belkar Bitterleaf, the Heroic Comedic Sociopath halfing ranger/barbarian, has what appears to be a Shoulder Devil and a Shoulder Demon. One argues for instant gratification of his evil impulses; the other advises that restraint would allow him to have more fun in the long term. He initially expresses confusion at the appearance of a second devil (evoking the 8BT example), but is told that the angel "doesn't work here anymore". Cut to an angel in a straitjacket saying "He just kept stabbing them, over and over... he's a halfling, he's supposed to be jolly... Why isn't he jolly?... WHY ISN'T HE JOLLY?!" Now there's only the two devils... and theSlaadinvoked, but as the devils warn Belkar "trust me, you don't want him to come out."
When Haley the rogue loses the ability to speak, she first hallucinates a version of herself that's dark and sarcastic and cynical — her moody teenage self, acting as de facto Bad Angel. Then her optimism shows up to act as Good Angel. Then, as the stress causes her psyche to fracture further, she has a complete ensemble of her various personality traits, all showing up at once and arguing over each other. It's not exactly helpful. Though the metaphorical "Bad Angel" is actually quite sensible and not really bad, just gloomy and with a defeatist attitude. A point of the arc is that Haley does have to stop listening to her, not because she's evil, but because it's a stage of life that Haley has outgrown and is no longer helpful.
Subverted in Otaku No Yen in this strip. Shortly after appearing, the angel stops trying, since he also agrees with the devil, but had to make an attempt to do his job first. Later on, the devil (having tied up the angel elsewhere) reappears alone and argues that the absence of the angel indicates that there is nothing wrong with what is currently going on.
The sci-fi comic Outrim has Prudence's shoulder beings (representing Reason and Emotion instead of Good and Evil) too polite to disagree.
Aggie's shoulder angel scolds her for thinking of pursuing Karen's boyfriend Marshal — until Marshal tells Aggie that Karen went from a frumpy nerd to an ultra-popular sex goddess purely on her own initiative (when in fact Aggie assisted in the transformation). Then the angel says, "I got nothin'. Go get him." Aggie has no corresponding shoulder devil "You don't get one! You ARE one! Shaaaaaame!"
Karen herself has a shoulder angel — who mostly seems to spend her time bound and gagged as the prisoner of Karen's two shoulder demons. See here. At another time, though... See here.
In Periodus, the angel is a positron with a halo and the devil is an electron with horns (1). They don't actually care what's going on; they just love to argue.
PHD featured an early strip where Granola Girl Tajel decides to apply for a job that will let her exploit her Humanities degree to sell software. Despite this, the application process is essentially an Aborted Arc.
Occurs in the Polandball comic strip "Poland's Conscience◊. The bad angel is represented by Nazi Germany, while the good angel is represented by the Vatican. Funnily enough, they tell him the same thing, further reinforcing Poland's Heteronormative Crusader status.
And again when Anti-Madeline (who is two inches tall) shows up to give Sir Malevolus advice which basically amounts to killing everyone. Malevolus invokes the trope by asking if there shouldn't be someone giving him helpful advice on the other shoulder, upon which the drunk Bottle Fairy lands on his other shoulder and promptly barfs.
Lampooned and Lampshaded in Sailor Sun when Bay's bad angel is nearly late because she has to do double duty as Honey's conscience. She apparently plays both roles straight after taking a moment to get into character.
In an early appearance[1] the devil is advocating Bay have some sexyfun with Auction Guy. ("What's the problem? He's hot. You're hot! It's a perfect match!") When Angel Bay points out they're not really females, Devil Bay responds "Really? Then what are these? Shock absorbers?"
At a critical point in Volume Four of Sam & Fuzzy, Gertrude gets caught in an argument between her inner child (playing the role of bad angel) and her... Conscience Cat. When Gertrude asks why her good side is represented by a cat, it simply replies that "cats are neat!"
Conscience Cat went on to become a semi-regular that began haunting Devahi. He's rather ineffectual at his job.
In Sandra on the Rocks, Sandra's good angel looks understandably irritated at having to fly round the room waving signs to remind her of important stuff. Her bad angel is presumably sitting back and watching the fun.
In #3242, the devil is called Id, the angel is Superego, and there is also an abstract shape called Pure Reason that takes such a neutral point of view it amounts to nihilism.
This one has an angel encouraging good, a devil encouraging evil and a black hole called Despair encouraging doing nothing of importance. Despair wins despite the angel and the devil teaming up to encourage doing something, anything.
Schlock Mercenary has some fun with this, starting with this comic, in which Tagon mistakes his good angel for a giant talking bug and shoots him. The next two cartoons in the series revolve around the fact that Tagon knows he's not supposed to take advice from the bad one, and the two angels' increasingly violent attempts to convince or fool him. Or just screw with his head.
"Wait for it... waaaaiiit for it..."
Parodied extensively in Sluggy Freelance. Different characters have different shoulder angels and devils, reflecting their personalities and usually not played very straight. Two separate strips of the comic are devoted to describing the events at a bar where the good and bad angels of the characters hang out. The shoulder angels are also drawn differently for each character; Riff's and Zoë's have normal human proportions, whereas Torg's, Gwynn's and Kiki's more childish angels are big-headed chibis. The good angels tend to wear robes and the devils more revealing clothes.
Riff has such a low-key personality that instead of a good angel and a bad angel, he has an "I dunno" angel and an "I dunno" devil. Just once, when Riff is confronted with a truly difficult moral dilemma, his angels not only talk but switch shoulders.
Torg's bad angel is way too zealous to be persuasive, and instead of coaxing Torg towards temptation, he usually just yells at him to kill everybody.
Zoe's angel is insecure and dressed in a heavy robe, whereas her devil is relaxed, confident and kind of Stripperific, seeming more irresponsible than evil. As a result, when the two share their opinion, the devil usually wins. In fact, on one occasion, the angel ends up being so unconvincing that the devil doesn't feel the need to say anything.
Gwynn's angel is willing to admit what Gwynn herself never does, that she's attracted to Torg on some level; she and her devil join together in shouting her down.
Kiki's (she's a ferret) angels are pretty standard, but she hides them behind the couch rather than deal with what they say. There, they get eaten by the perpetually starving Zombie-Head-on-a-Stick; since she absorbs what she eats (she's currently very stupid because she hasn't been getting brains to eat, for example), this causes her to spout "good and evil" little zombie heads above her head that promptly start trying to eat her.
A peculiar example is found in the "Meanwhile in Hell" guest strips by Ian McDonald, where the trope is once played straight if humorously — except that the shoulder angel and devil belong to Satan. So we end up with a generically good Satan-angel who is telling Satan to do what's right.
Here, the carib Mousse from the "Oceans Unmoving" arcs has a shoulder devil that suggests he sabotage the life-skiff two of the other caribs will use to get to help so he can be alone with the only female. His "angel" simply moos. But then again, the story was being told second-hand...
Played with in Snowflakes. Enzo has two shoulder devils, and no angel. When he asks why, one of the devils tells him: "You're a five year old."
In one Sticky Dilly Bunsstrip, Dillon’s angel takes the form of his friend Amber (dressed notably sexily for an angel, but Amber is a former porn actress), representing his good sense and restraint, whereas his devil looks like himself, as it represents his old bad habits of thought. To confuse the issue further, Amber’s sister Ruby (who might under many circumstances represent his conscience) shows up as an angel-devil, reprsenting Yaoi addiction.
In Stupid Short Eevee Comic, Troll is a demon-like Jolteon who personifies Bolt’s selfish desires while Wimp is an angelic Jolteon that tries to get him to do nice things to others. Played for Drama in that it only makes him more anxious, though their antics are still comedic at times.
Not quite the same thing as this trope, but early on in Thinking Too Much to Think Positively, as Xan was figuring out her gender identity, she would be sometimes be visited by two characters called the Cis Fairy - who tried to convince Xan she was really a confused cis man - and the Trans Fairy, who would tell Xan to accept the fact she's trans. Here's an appearance from them.
An Ugly Hill comic has Hastings' shoulder angel and devil arguing with one another about whether or not Hastings should cheat on his wife with a woman he met in a bar. Hastings reveals himself to be drunk, and the shoulder devil exclaims "He's wasted! I win by default!"
Unicornographylampshades this in one strip by having one character tell both the angel and the demon of the other character "you know, since this is the astral plane, i can heard both of you"
Played mostly straight in Too Much Information; Ace's good angel is a ghost he helped "move on", and his bad angel is a sexy demoness. Oddly enough, they seem to have a lot in common...
Although the good angel is definitely sneakier than the bad angel, and may be less worried about consequences.
Zoe of Venus Envy has these fairly often, most notably with an entire chapter centering around the two arguing over whether to masturbate.
Shows up in this episode of VG Cats where crazy old homeless guy Dr. Hobo has, instead of a Bad Angel and a Good Angel, a Hobo Angel who encourages him to do bad stuff, and an Inner Clown who rants incoherently. ("Woof! I'm a cow!")
In thisWulffmorgenthaler strip, with the caption: "Sign you're having a serious drinking problem", a man's shoulder devil point to a glass of beer, saying "Drink another beer, you know you want to...", promptly followed by the shoulder angel chiming in with "Great idea! Drink! Drink! Drink!".
In The Wotch, Robin does not have an angel and devil, but a Jedi and a Sith (while his best friend Jason has two Siths who only argue over whether Vader or Maul is better).
where Batman hallucinates a Tiny Batman (the shoulder devil) telling him to whoop the Titans' asses, a Tiny Beast Boy (the shoulder angel) telling him to ask for redemption instead, and a taco (his food conscience) telling him he's hungry for tacos and burritos. Tiny Beast Boy questions if a Food Conscience is really a thing.
Chaotic Evil) and angel (looking like Madeline the Paladin
