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Marten Reed, an indie-rock fan living in Northampton, Massachusetts with an adorably sociopathic little robot, runs into a girl at a bar, Faye Whitaker, a barista who's just moved from Savannah and needs a friend, but adamantly no more than a friend. She then accidentally burns down her apartment building while making toast and needs a place to live - namely, Marten's couch. Before long, he meets Faye's coworker Sara, who falls just out of panel just in time to be replaced by her sultry, gothy boss Dora Bianchi.
Then, beginning at strip 500, everything changes.
Can be found here . A print collection is coming, featuring re-lettered and sometimes re-drawn versions of the first arcs.
This series provides examples of:
- AI Is A Crapshoot: Presumably at some point in the Back Story, Marten paid good money for Pintsize...
- Animesque: Some of the characters' expressions and other little things. One particular little thing: Momo, pictured here, here, and here.
- In the authors comments, Jeph explains that Anime-style anthro-P Cs have a supply of opaque, viscous goo they can excrete for the express purpose of emulating cute anime sweat drops.
- Another example is Marigold's adorable little :3 smile in this comic.
- Art Evolution: "If you don't like the art, wait two weeks!"
- Art Shift: The flashbacks from Faye's past.
- Author Appeal: The once-constant and still numerous indie rock references. Also "Will I ever get tired of drawing my characters in Victorian-era-esque clothing? All sources point to "no"."
- Also the term "schadenfreude" and made-up derivatives thereof.
- Beard Of Sorrow: Steve, after a break-up.
- Benevolent Boss: Scott, Dora, Tai.
- Beware The Nice Ones: Hannelore is NOT TAKING YOUR SHIT ANYMORE.
- Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The 666th strip. Also, the "hell ass balls" couch. To a lesser degree, strip 1135 features Dora, Tai, and Marten with random mustaches that go away in the next strip, though they were hiding from the naked old people fucking each other...
- The mustaches were for Cinco de Mayo. The annoying part is that Jeph only alluded to it on Twitter and forgot to mention it in the daily commentary...
- Bi The Way: Yes, Dora is attracted to women. Yes, she's in a monogamous relationship with a man.
- Body Horror: Pop!
- Brain Bleach: What Marten needs after he finds out how Dora discovered she was bi...
- Breakout Character: Hannelore has recently won a poll by a landslide naming her as the most popular character, shocking the author. Quite a ways for what was a supporting one-note character added to an already sizeable cast.
- Brother Chuck: Sara; see above- it became a long-running gag, but no characters would ever mention her after the first 100 strips except in one or two Mythology Gags.
- Burger Fool: Notably avoided; Dora did threaten Faye with having to wear an apron again but since they were discarded in the first place to better show off The Merch...
- And by that we mean the T-shirts. Get your mind out of the gutter!
- Cargo Ship: Momo-tan x anatomically-correct-Sousuke-doll 4eva!
- Cerebus Syndrome: The strip started as a boy and his robot, but in no time moved to sarcasm and joking about music and music fans, while developing the relationships between the characters before taking a turn for the dramatic about #500: retaining the joke-a-day format..
- Jeph lampshades this in the commentary/news for strip #1481.
- Character Blog: Marten, briefly; every major character recently got a Twitter feed.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Dora drifts into this at times.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Word Of God has explicitly compared Hannelore to Osaka.
- Couch Gag: The specials board.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: "Let's Finish This..."
- Crowning Moment Of Funny: Several; this troper puts forth strip 1349.
- Cute Bruiser: Faye, literally.
- Dark Skinned Redhead: Ellen in older strips: exhibit A.; now that the other characters aren't so pale, Ellen's skin is not significantly darker: exhibit B., and Tai.
- Deadpan Snarker: Especially Faye and Dora, sometimes Marten.
- Defictionalization: Most of the T-shirts sold in the store were first worn by members of the cast.
- Deus Angst Machina: Parodied in one strip, and it involves bears, aliens, and the Illuminati.
- The Ditz: Raven is not the sharpest of minds, but shows hints of being brighter than she seems...
- Dogged Nice Guy: Angus
- Doomy Dooms Of Doom: The coffee shop at the center of the series is called Coffee Of Doom.
- And the sign on its bathroom door says "Restroom of Doom!": exclamation theirs. Though they once lovingly referred to it as "The Cave Of 40 Asses"
- There's also the news post for this strip.
- Dream Sequence: Here, here, and here. To quote Deathmole Jacques, "I could do one of these dream-comics for every single character and I STILL wouldn't be tired of the conceit. I am so weird."
- Dysfunction Junction:
- Faye: Her father's suicide and her subsequent nervous breakdown.
- Hannelore: Raised on a space station by a mad scientist.
- And so obsessive-compulsive she makes Adrian Monk look normal.
- All of the other characters have more-or-less normal backgrounds (at least as far as we know). And yes, this is counting Marten's mother's job, as that doesn't seem to have caused Marten any trauma.
- Eagleland: Pintsize at one point claims his destructive, belligerent and annoying behavior comes from his American locale settings.
- He does become very civil and even kind when switched to British English language settings. The characters speculate as to how much of that is real personality change and how much is Pintsize being Pintsize.
- Also frequently invoked by the characters, with more than a bit of Western-Mass "alternative" condescension.
- Embarrassing First Name: Raven goes by her middle name because she despises her Welsh first name, Blodwyn.
- Expy: Jeph mentioned in a recent forum post that he designed Marigold to be essentially "an Anglicized version of Konata from Lucky Star."
- Flanderization: A few members of the cast, but Hannelore is the strongest. Although Your Mileage May Vary, and this could come off as completely hilarious...Characterization Marches On - the circumstances under which she was introduced would be out of character for her now: Marten too, probably...
- Referenced later on when Dora asks Hanners, "If you have OCD, how come you have, like, ten earrings and you smoke?". Hannelore handwaves an answer by saying, "Well, a girl has to have some glaring inconsistencies in her life."
- The piercings are better-explained here, and anyone who works at a tattoo & piercing shop can vouch for the truth in Hannelore's statements: i.e. they're the most sterile places imaginable. She also explicitly says she was on "powerful anti-anxiety meds" that made her "not herself". A Lampshade Hanging, really.
- Pintsize wasn't always /b/ personified. He used to just be kinda silly.
- Faye herself points out that she used to be a "bitch with issues", but now that she's in counseling and getting to the root of her issues, she's "just a bitch".
- Generic Cuteness: Most of the cast is quite young: early to mid-20s., and the parental characters are somewhat unconvincing. For instance, Marten's mom has facial characteristics similar to the core cast, but with a single wrinkle and an older-woman's hairstyle. Dora's father only manages to look his age because he's portly and bald.
- Gorgeous Period Dress: For rent at a local theme bar.
- Also the reason Wil got hired at said bar.
- Grandma What Massive Hotness You Have: Acknowledged in-universe with Marten's father.
- And his mother, for that matter.
- Groin Attack: A couple.
- In one strip, a drunk and passed-out Faye accidentally headbutts Marten in the crotch just prior to vomiting.
- In this strip - "Metal foot...to...mantenna array! Pain level...Shatnerian...in intensity!"
- Head Tiltingly Kinky
- High Octane Nightmare Fuel: "MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP!!!!"
- Hollywood Pudgy: Faye.
- Arguably Averted: she's regarded as a very attractive woman in-universe. Faye herself is a bit self-conscious about her weight, but many real people have the same hangups, so it's a kind of deconstruction of the trope.
- Marigold seems to fit the trope, though.
- Hot Shounen Mom: Of course Marten's mom is hot - she's a BDSM porn model.
- If You Ever Do Anything To Hurt Her: Veronica warning Faye, Faye warning Dora, Dora warning Sven...
- Imagine Spot: the last panel of this, but that's a subversion, the next comic reveals that it's not imagined at all, the comic's world simply is that bizarre.
- Informed Ability: Not an "ability" per se, but Faye has always supposed to have been quite curvy and big-bottomed. The first hundred or so strips utterly failed to show this, with no discernible difference between her and Dora. Currently she actually fits: made more notable by the fact that the rest of the main cast are built like bulimics (or at least your average indie concert-goer), with the exception of Marigold.
- Also, for as notorious as Pintsize is about wreaking havoc, he almost never seems to do anything more than be a nuisance while on-screen.
- Insane Troll Logic: "Shall I make you a tinfoil hat?".
- I Want My Beloved To Be Happy: Faye uses virtually these very words to Marten in strip 567.
- Jumping The Shark: Pintsize lampshades and parodies this: by name, even. here. Common opinion seems to disagree with him...
- The Krusty: Sven doesn't exactly fit the trope because he's a. young, and b. a writer, not a performer; but he has the mindset of writing music for Money Dear Boy..
- Les Yay: Faye and Dora - before Characterization Ensued. Hannelore and Marigold currently, despite - and possibly in spite of - Jeph himself saying that said pairing is not, was not and never will be happening. Then again, when has Canon ever stopped the shippers?
- Lethal Chef: Inverted, Faye's cooking is fine, she's more of a danger to herself when she is in the kitchen.
- Local Hangout: The coffee shop.
- Long Runner: About seven years old now.
- Lysistrata Gambit: Natasha threatens to withhold sex from Amir for a month if he doesn't agree to name the band Deathmole.
- Mama Bear: Marten's Mom warns Faye off of hurting him.
- Master Of The Mixed Message: Faye to Marten.
- Matchmaker Crush: In the earlier strips, Faye was telling Marten how Dora liked him and Dora was giving Marten advice on Faye.
- Memetic Outfit: Marten's "TEH" shirt and Faye's bearmonster shirt.
- The Merch: Characters will sport a new funny slogan or t-shirt in a few strips, then Jeph will talk about it in his Info post, then it will show up in the Merchandise section. Doing a massive Archive Crawl, you could see this six or seven times in a short span. It ain't called the "Questionable T-Shirt Factory" for nothing.
- Milholland Relationship Moment: Dora/Faye after Dora got together with Marten two days after Faye told him "Not now." Also numerous others, including just about any time someone confesses something to Marten.
- Misaimed Fandom: Us. That's right, this very page. Based on Jeph's twitter (Sep 4th, 2009) and news posts on the comic main page, he was so upset that we have Hannelore and Marigold listed under Les Yay that he addressed how stupid he thinks that is in this comic. Of course, he also stated that this page is like "every idiotic comment in his forums on one page". Does that mean we're going to change this article out of respect for his wishes? According to recent edits,
yes nope.
- Modesty Towel: Sven wears one in strip #1081.
- Moe: This is part of the reason for Hannelore's popularity with male fans.
- Moral Event Horizon: If this spoiler
Read after the arc starting at strip 500! Guest Strip were Canon, Pintsize would have crossed it.
- Same with this: also non-canon.
- Mundane Fantastic: There are little robots everywhere, Hannelore was born on a space station.
- Mundane Utility: One of two possible explanations for caped superheroes who deliver food.
- Naughty Tentacles: Inverted by Pintsize's doujinshi, "Butt Castle," which is eighty pages of tentacle monsters being raped by schoolgirls.
- Nice Hat: The Worry Hat.
- Nightmare Fuel: Tapirs..
- Noodle Incident: Number 402.
- Nosebleed: Female example here.
- Not Good With People: Marigold and Hannelore, type 1. To a much lesser extent, Dora and Faye, type 2.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Many fans suspect ditzy Raven is doing just this, especially since she returned to school to get a degree in Physics.
- Open The Iris: Inverted by Dora in strips #1323 and #1343, and Faye in #1450.
- Out Of Focus: Steve; once a major character, he'd all but disappeared for a year, leading many readers to e-mail Jacques asking about his whereabouts, leading in turn to a Lampshade Hanging strip and a request from the cartoonist to stop asking. The worry was he's been Put On A Bus.
- It wasn't the first time, either; early in the strip he disappeared for nearly a hundred pages. Then again, it is Webcomic Time... So Yeah. He returned a few months after a Lampshade Hanging, having had some rather interesting adventures while he was gone.
- The above-mentioned Angus McPhee also qualifies, though this is arguably justified by Faye's and Sven's frenemies-with-benefits relationship. He's since reappeared as a semi-regular again.
- Unfortunately, Raven has fallen into this as well, as she has not appeared in quite some time. Strip 1306 was the last she was seen, if memory serves correctly.
- It's official..
- Painting The Fourth Wall: In this strip Faye's "SCORN!" takes physical form to propel Angus out of the door of the coffee shop.
- Perky Goth: Formerly Dora, although Dora and Raven each abandoned the goth look a long time ago now.
- Pet Homosexual: Scott, Tai, and probably any future bosses Marten will have.
- Plucky Comic Relief: The robots in general and Pintsize in particular.
- Precision F Strike: Although they curse a lot, seeing it come from Hannelore was just awesome.
- Put On A Bus: Often believed to be the case with many supporting characters who someday return, but Steve's exes Ellen & Meena, and Amir's girlfriend Natasha were basically excised from the cast once the relationships were over.
- Natasha has a perfectly good reason for disappearing. She is introduced as Ellen's roommate, then drags Marten into the band. When she breaks up with Amir and leaves Deathmole, none of the characters have any reason to talk to her anymore, and she's been a Jerkass for a while by that point.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: Pintsize behaves like this when Marten changes his locale to British.
- Raised By Wolves: Hannelore, raised by a clinically Mad Scientist and a Bad Boss on a space station.
- The Rant: Sometimes rather long and detailed, frequently an indecipherable drawl.
- Red Eyes Take Warning: Faye issuing a death mandate to Pintsize against Sven's latest hook-up.
- Refuge In Audacity: Executed in 982, somewhat lampshaded in 989.
- An unintentional example can be found in 1115.
- Robot Buddy: the AnthroPCs.
- Rule Of Funny: Most of the crazy stuff that happens, but Hannelore's obsessive-compulsive disorder deserves special mention since, as an OCD sufferer himself, Jacques can hardly be said to have not done the research..
- Sarcastic Confession: Of sorts. Hannelore's first meeting with Marten..
- Science Related Memetic Disorder: Hannelore's father.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: Constantly.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Marten lapses into this when drunk..
- Ship Sinking: Complete with Lampshade Hanging (and Take That) here..
- Show Within A Show: The manga/anime Magical Love Gentleman; Marigold is a serious fan, and introduced Hannelore to it.
- Shown Their Work: one troper from the Northampton area is continually impressed by the backgrounds of the city, since anyone familiar with the real Northampton can recognize the slightly-changed version of real places.
- Shrinking Violet: Marigold.
- Smoking Hot Sex: Pintsize.
- Also Faye's snarkgasm of SCORN!: see Unsound Effect below.. "Phew! I need a cigarette!"
- Sorkin Relationship Moment: partial trope namer.
- Spit Take: A double one - Et voila..
- Spock Speak: Faye, at first, justified as she wanted to hide her Southern accent..
- Spy Speak: No, mother, the peaches are NOT ripe!
- Squick: Pintsize's thumb-toes.
- Time Skip: Between 1310 and 1311.
- Took A Level In Badass: At first, it was assumed that Steve's 'bus trip' was the result of a drunken stupor. Then he was more or less validated with this.
- Too Much Information: Angus and Marigold are roommates. It's bound to happen.
- Trash Of The Titans: Marigold's epically messy apartment, until Hannelore got to it.
- Tsundere: Faye.
- Turned Against Their Masters: Mentioned by Faye when she issued a death warrant to Pintsize at someone.
Faye: Damn. Okay, okay, how about if you ever lose your morality programming and go berserk, she's the first one you kill?
Pintsize: I think I can do that.
- Unsound Effect: ASS-GRAB!.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Faye and Dora and many others.
- Webcomic Time: Some stretches of years can be nailed down to a few days thanks to a particularly long stretch of 'later that day' or 'the next morning'-type events; problematized further by up-to-the-minute music references. When creator Jeph Jacques was asked about this on the comic's forum, he replied "You know how glass isn't actually a solid, but an extremely viscous liquid? Yeah.".
- Well Intentioned Extremist: The VespAvenger, arguably.
- What Did I Do Last Night: In strip #1081, after Faye wakes up after having hooked up with Sven between #1079 and #1080..
- What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome: "My name is Hannelore Ellicott-Chatham. I end messes" - go on, tell me you don’t hear a cheesy action movie intro score there.
- Or the Terminator theme. Dun-dun-dun-da-dum!
- With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Marten quotes this, and Hannelore turns it on its head.
Hannelore: It actually doesn't. My mom never woulda gotten where she is if she thought she was responsible for her actions.
- The Woobie: HANNELORE. You just want to hug her, except that would only distress her more.
- Yaoi Fangirl: Marigold, if her "YAOI ZONE" shirt is any indicator.
- And now, Hanners. To quote Deathmole Jacques, "This cannot be good."
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