Webcomic / Free Spirit (2014)

aka: Free Spirit

Everything is not necessarily impossible with Winnie around.

"... she's a magical character who — whoda thunk — actually makes stuff happen! Frequently! And it's not generic crap like fireballs or electricity (that makes you a bender, not a magician) — it's genuinely unpredictable phemonena."

— Peter Paltridge, "Dark TV Vault: Free Spirit"

Free Spirit is a Platypus Comix series that began in 2014. It is a Fan Webcomic that Peter Paltridge based on the short-lived 1989 sitcom of the same name, though with a Setting Update placing it in present day.

Every 100 years, a witch must provide assistance to a mortal in need. When the time comes for the fun-loving Cute Witch Winnie Goodwin to grant a mortal's wish, she finds herself becoming a Magical Nanny and new friend to young Gene Harper and his two older siblings, Robb and Jessie. The kids' father, divorced executive Thomas Harper, remains unaware that Winnie can perform magic. Hilarity Ensues.

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Free Spirit provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc: "Robb's Not Dead" remained only 2/3 done before Peter posted the Halloween Episode "Hallowinnie II: Season of the Witch", and remains unresolved to this day.
• Accidental Misnaming: When Gene lands a TV role in "Wish Gone Amiss", the producers call him, "Gene Halper," instead of, "Gene Harper." After Gene expresses a desire to quit the show, Winnie declares that since his contract and his signature give two different spellings of his last name, the studio can't claim ownership of him.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Winnie enjoys Halloween in "Hallowinnie II: Season of the Witch" more strongly than she did in the sitcom's Halloween Episode.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Winnie has a few powers that she didn't have in the original TV show, such as the ability to create Mind-Control Music. Inversely, she insists a number of times that "Magic can't control love!", which contrasts with the fact that the TV show had an episode in which she brainwashed a quarterback's girlfriend into developing Single-Target Sexuality for Robb instead of the quarterback.
• Alliterative Names: At least two of Winnie's alter egos, Fräulein Frankfurtress and Liz Lolly, have these.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Winnie believes in "Wish Gone Amiss" that the Disney Channel kid-com Boss of the World has this. She declares that even Gene could give a more professional performance, so the two of them decide to fly to Hollywood, and have Gene audition for the channel's next show.
• Bad Future: "Robb Harper Presents The Donald Trump Glorification Special" has Winnie use a Crystal Ball to examine several disastrous possibilities if Donald Trump becomes President of the United States.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: "A League of Robb's Own" follows Robb's efforts to steal the so-called "most beautiful girl in the world", Becky, from her boyfriend, Buford. After Robb wins her heart through dishonest means, Jessie warns him that Becky's other suitors might jealously attempt to steal her from him. Robb fends off those suitors, but eventually decides that he and Becky have No Sparks.
• Beach Episode: "Song of the Siren" sends Winnie and the Harper clan to the beach, starting on page 10.
• Behind a Stick: In the first comic, Winnie hides from Thomas behind a lamp that looks skinnier than she does.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: "Bedbugs and Broomsticks" has Winnie and the kids confront some giant bedbugs, who grew after sucking Winnie's magical blood.
• Bile Fascination: "Wish Gone Amiss" has an in-universe example, in which Robb considers watching Boss of the World for ironic enjoyment. Winnie spares him from witnessing the show's stupidity by asking him to do something "dangerous and irresponsible" instead.
• Birthday Episode: "Skyway to the Danger Zone" has Winnie and the Harper clan celebrate Jessie's 14th birthday.
• Blithe Spirit: Winnie.
• Brainy Brunette: Whenever Winnie needs something about the mortal world explained to her, Jessie usually explains it.
• Break the Cutie: Winnie's superior, The Stranger, tries pulling this on Winnie in "Love That Winnie", in order to convince her that witches and mortals can't stay friends. The entry below for Screw Destiny goes into more detail.
• Brick Joke: The first page of "Junkyard Stories" indicates that the kids left the bathroom door locked before visiting the junkyard with Winnie. In the last panel, Thomas has a Potty Emergency because of this.
• Brought Down to Normal: "Love That Winnie" has Winnie tell the Harper kids that living in the mortal world causes her to lose her powers. It doesn't really, but Winnie decided to give the kids a Secret Test of Character to prove that they love her not just because of her magic.
• Casanova Wannabe: Robb.
• Catchphrase:
  Winnie: Not necessarily!
• Chekhov's Gun: In "Skyway to the Danger Zone," Winnie collects an egg beater while flying, and tells Jessie that it might make a good weapon. Later, she throws it at a drone, causing it to explode.
  Winnie: Somehow...I knew I would be needing this someday!
• Chekhov's Skill: In the pilot, Winnie teaches Gene how to bowl with a customized alley. In "When The Stranger Calls", Winnie bets her right to live among mortals on Gene winning a game of "agniklorvath", a magical variation of bowling that uses a larger version of that same alley.
• The Chew Toy: Robb.
• Cliffhanger: Due to an update to Toon Zone's servers taking longer than expected to finish, Peter only got to post part of "Love That Winnie" before Summer 2014 rolled around, leaving readers hanging on page 8.
• Comically Missing the Point: By the end of "Song of the Siren", Jessie expects Winnie to have learned to refrain from careless use of Mind-Control Music. Instead, Winnie proclaims that she'll continue singing whenever she wants, and if she accidentally hypnotizes someone into performing a dangerous act, she can hypnotize other people to solve the problem.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Boss of the World originally showed up in the Mulberry comic "Heiress a Parent" before "Wish Gone Amiss".
  • Liz Lolly makes use of a Forced Meme from the Platypus Comix article "Errors of Corporate Judgment" in "Abnormal Science".
    Just...completely FROGGY!
• Convenience Store Gift Shopping: Birthday presents that Jessie receives in "Skyway to the Danger Zone" include a Wooly Willy, a sweater, a trucker's hat, and an egg beater. Fortunately, not all of her presents turn out that lame.
• Dance Party Ending: "Song of the Siren" has one (see the second link in the Comically Missing the Point entry above) accompanied by Winnie singing One Direction's "Best Song Ever".
• Darker and Edgier: The worst that happened in the TV show's ninth episode, "Love That Winnie", involved Gene becoming bitter at Winnie for refusing to help him escape punishment for breaking an antique watch, although that blew over the next morning. The comic version wrings extra drama out of the possibility that Gene only likes taking advantage of Winnie's magic.
• Death Is Not Permanent: In "Hallowinnie II: Season of the Witch", Winnie and the Harper kids meet a woman who lost her parents in a magical incident, and spent the next few decades attempting to learn enough about magic to bring them back. Winnie assures her that this death should prove easier to reverse than a "physical" one, and offers to use her own knowledge of witchcraft to help her reunite with her parents.
• Decision Darts: "Wish Gone Amiss" has the casting directors of Iguana with an Instagram use these to pick an actor, as opposed to judging each candidate individually. Winnie uses her magic to make the dart hit a picture of Gene.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Peter doesn't color these comics, instead using various shades of gray and white.
• Demoted to Extra: Thomas doesn't have as big a role in this comic as he did in the show.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Winnie becomes guilty of this in "Wish Gone Amiss", after Gene asks her, "...why can't you bring my mother back??"
  Gene: I thought if you were really magical...you would have done it by now!
  Winnie: Gene, I can't make her come back if she doesn't want to...
  Gene: Why not?
  Winnie: Because magic can't control love...
  Gene: Are you saying she didn't love me??
  Winnie: No! I mean I can't force her to care-I mean-I-
• Dirty Old Men: Winnie gets captured by some in "Abnormal Science", a parody of Weird Science.
• Disney Death: The Harper kids barely survive a car crash in "Love That Winnie".
• Distracted by the Sexy: In "Robb's Not Dead", the sight of female breasts causes Robb to hear all others' dialogue as Blah, Blah, Blah.
• Eating Lunch A Lone: Jessie doesn't seem to have many friends at school. For starters, her best friend ditches her for a more popular crowd in the first comic.
• '80s Hair: Winnie has this.
• End-of-Episode Silliness: On the last page of "When the Stranger Calls", Winnie tells the Harper kids that now that she can live among mortals, she might move into a suburban house made of chocolate. She proceeds to transform the Harpers' house into a confectionary palace, and says that "maybe" she'll change it back before Thomas comes home.
• Episode on a Plane: "I Love Bread" has Winnie reluctantly join the Harper family on an airplane flight to Florida.
• Episode Title Card: Each comic from "When The Stranger Calls" to "Bedbugs and Broomsticks" has its title written on the top of its cover page, with red font and an exclamation point at the end.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Dogs go mad in the vicinity of witches like Winnie.
• Fantastically Indifferent: Winnie claims in the pilot that the other witches and warlocks of her homeworld feel less impressed with her power than the mortal Harper kids do.
• Fictional Sport: Agniklorvath, a game in the witches' realm that's basically bowling with carnivorous plants along the alley, Pinball Projectiles instead of balls, and a revamped scoring system.
• Flight:
  • Winnie has a Flying Broomstick that can quickly transport people to anywhere in the world, and turn them invisible while traveling.
  • "Skyway to the Danger Zone" has Winnie temporarily grant birthday girl Jessie the ability to fly by herself.
• Foreshadowing: At Jessie's birthday party in "Skyway to the Danger Zone," Thomas informs her that the delivery service had a few problems, causing all of her presents to get lost in the mail. It later turns out these problems arose from Amazon testing out delivery drones, which Winnie and Jessie encounter and receive packages from.
• Gag Haircut: Winnie gives some to Gene in the Free Spirit short posted on DeviantArt. Winnie gets one, too, in the last panel.
• Gender Bender: Winnie turns Robb into this in "Robb's Not Dead".
• Gone Horribly Wrong: When Winnie interrupts Robb's flirts with Becky in "A League of Robb's Own" by hitting him with a truck, Becky gives him the Kiss of Life, then proclaims her love for him.
• Gratuitous Rap: "Song of the Siren" pits Winnie in a rap battle of Teen Witch proportions.
• Groin Attack: Winnie arranges for the Crotch-Kick Fairy to strike Robb a few times, starting in "A League of Robb's Own".
• Hearing Voices: In "When The Stranger Calls", a higher-up from Winnie's realm tries to convince the Harper kids to let him take Winnie away by telling them that Winnie's wanted by the authorities of her realm, and could inflict Cold-Blooded Torture on them if they keep her long enough.
• Homage:
  • The cover page of "Wish Gone Amiss" redraws Winnie and the Harper kids in the styles of Mike Judge's cartoons.
  • "Abnormal Science" has a cover that evokes that of Taylor Swift's 1989.
• Humans Are Bastards: In-Universe given by Winnie as the explanation for why the magical world doesn't intervene more (such as to prevent disasters or ease suffering)...most of her race wrote off humans as a lost cause eons ago.
• I Choose to Stay: Winnie could have left the Harpers after helping Gene win the bowling tournament he got forced to attend in the Pilot, but she had so much fun with those kids that she decided to live with them.
• Ignoring by Singing: "Love That Winnie" has Winnie try to drown out the Stranger by singing Lana Del Rey's "Summertime Sadness".
• Interactive Fiction: "Let's Play" traps Winnie and the Harper kids inside an old computer, requiring the player's help in typing them a way out.
• It Makes Sense in Context: In Peter's article on the Halloween Episode of the original series, he posted this panel from the comic◊ while saying, "Here, have an out-of-context panel from a future story." About five months later, the story "Song of the Siren" placed the panel in this context: Winnie informs Jessie that some people gave her gifts after becoming hypnotized by her singing, and she accepted most of them to act polite.
• Justified Title:
  • The pilot relates the series' title to Winnie like so:
    Winnie: To you guys, I'm amazing! Where I come from, I'm nothing special...I'm nobody! They told me I'd be miserable here...but I feel I was lied to...You really appreciate me...you make me feel like a star! I fit in better here...in this world...with you...then I ever did back home! I feel..........free!
  • "Song of the Siren" receives its name from Jessie comparing Winnie's Mind-Control Music to the melodies that sirens sang to lure sailors into crashing their ships against jagged rocks. Later, Winnie's singing causes Thomas to almost crash his car against a truck. Even later, she accidentally directs a boat towards some jagged rocks, but manages to prevent a collision.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: According to Winnie, after a witch finishes granting a mortal's wish, the mortal forgets about meeting her as she heads back to her homeworld.
• Loophole Abuse: "A League of Robb's Own" has Winnie use this to allow herself and the Harper kids to escape Connecticut's snow for Hawaiʻi.
  Gene: Winnie? Dad wants us to buy some milk!
  Winnie: Did he say where?
  Gene: No!
  • Winnie regrets this after she and Gene discover that milk costs more in Hawaii than in Connecticut.
• Magic Misfire: Winnie does this sometimes.
• Magic Versus Science: Winnie confesses in "Abnormal Science" that the witches and wizards of her realm find electricity more chaotic than magic. She recalls that by the time they finally figured out spells that could overpower electric devices, mortal inventions became even more complex and powerful.
• Magical Gesture: Among others, Winnie turns her wrist a special way to make her broomstick appear.
• Make a Wish: Winnie first appears in the Harper household after Jessie wishes for a companion, and Gene wishes for help in bowling. Exactly whose wish summoned Winnie remains ambiguous.
• Master of Disguise: Winnie.
• Mid-Season Twist: The seventh comic, "Love That Winnie", marks the point when the friendship between Winnie and the Harper kids becomes so strong, the kids become impervious to her superiors' brand of Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• Mind-Control Music: Winnie accidentally discovers in "Song of the Siren" that her singing can hypnotize mortals into performing such activities as giving her nice things or breaking into Spontaneous Choreography.
• Mirrors Reflect Everything: Winnie doesn't enjoy the fact that her magic can bounce off mirrors and hit an unintended target.
• Missing Mom: The Harper kids' parents are divorced, as mentioned above.
• Mundane Made Awesome: For starters, Gene asks Winnie to demonstrate some witchcraft for Robb and Jessie by fetching him some eggs. Winnie fulfills this task by filling the kitchen cupboard with live chickens, proceeding to take two eggs from one of them.
• Mundane Object Amazement:
  • In "Skyway to the Danger Zone", Jessie excitedly unwraps the first birthday present Winnie gives her, but finds nothing but a Wooly Willy.
    Winnie: Isn't it fascinating? The possibilities are endless! I was playing with it myself for three hours before the drugstore closed on me!
  • In "Junkyard Stories", Winnie and the kids visit a junkyard. Winnie admits feeling curious about the stories behind some of the objects she finds, and uses her magic to allow herself and the kids to see those stories.
• Mundane Utility: "Bedbugs and Broomsticks" has Winnie grant the kids some magical BFGs, so that they can help destroy the bugs. However, since Winnie ultimately finds other means of defeating the bugs, the kids end up only using the guns to clean the remains.
• Must Make Amends: In "Wish Gone Amiss", Winnie regrets allowing Gene to audition for a Disney Channel kid-com after watching TV news reports of Former Child Stars leading lives littered with crime and scandals. She then spends the rest of the comic trying to get him kicked off the show, so that he won't follow in their footsteps.
• Mythology Gag:
  • "When The Stranger Calls" recycles some heartfelt dialogue from the sitcom's premiere episode:
  Gene: Aw, Winnie! Can't you make some more magic and stay?
  Winnie: Gene, if I could make some real magic, I'd make another you, and take you with me!
  • One of Winnie's Imagine Spots in "Love That Winnie" quotes several scenes of the show. Another page reuses the plot of the last episode ABC aired, in which Winnie has to get out of marrying Dave Coulier.
• Never Split the Party: Winnie enforces this in "Bedbugs and Broomsticks", when objecting to Robb's plan for everyone to split up.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The advertisement for "Junkyard Stories" provides a lampshaded example. It calls the comic, "Explosive Junkyard Adventure!", and shows Winnie and Jessie Outrunning a Fireball. However, a disclaimer reads, "ad may not depict actual events in story".
• Ninja Prop: "Hallowinnie II: Season of the Witch" has Winnie beat Robb with her subtitles after he refuses to get into the Halloween spirit.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Between Winnie and Thomas, anyway. While they constantly played Will They or Won't They? in the original sitcom, Peter fears that making them a couple would require Winnie to out herself as a witch to him.
• Not a Morning Person: Thomas appears so drowsy in "Bedbugs and Broomsticks", he doesn't appear disgusted after accidentally swallowing a spider. He blames some bedbugs for this.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In the pilot, Gene winning the bowling tournament.

• Old, Dark House: Winnie and the kids visit one in "Hallowinnie II: Season of the Witch". Its only inhabitant, aside from a loose witch hunter, is a mortal woman who knows more about magic than most mortals do.
• Opening Shout-Out: The ending of "Love That Winnie" evokes that of the sitcom's title sequence.
• Poe's Law: Robb falls victim to this in "Robb Harper Presents The Donald Trump Glorification Special", when hosting a Variety Show tribute to Trump. Robb receives phone calls from Chris Christie and Trump himself, angrily commanding him to stop mocking Trump. Winnie informs Jessie that she faked Christie's call, but not Trump's.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: Too many examples to list here.
• P.O.V. Cam: "Robb's Not Dead" uses one to view the whole story from Robb's perspective.
• The Power of Friendship: In "Love That Winnie", the Harper kids appear to lose their memories of Winnie, but the genuine emotional bond they formed with her helps them regain those memories.
  Winnie: You broke the spell!
  Jessie: What? What spell? I can't break spells!
  Winnie: No...Magic can't control LOVE!
• Production Foreshadowing:
  • Winnie made a guest appearance in the Electric Wonderland comic "Into Thin Aerynn" months before Peter officially decided to give Winnie her own comic.
  • The Keiki story "Haole Berry" has a scene where Beefer throws rocks at Winnie, Jessie, and Gene. He admits to Keiki that he doesn't know who any of them are, but has an inexplicable hatred for them.^note The reason probably relates to Peter's announcement that Free Spirit will displace Keiki as a flagship comic. "A League of Robb's Own" revisits the scene from Winnie and the kids' viewpoint.
• Professional Butt-Kissers: The first vignette in "Junkyard Stories", which begins after Winnie and Gene touch a bowl, takes place in a workplace in which all of the employees deliver extraneous and insincere flattery to their Stupid Boss. The bowl is used by a "Mr. Wu" to serve a slice of birthday cake to the boss. Since Mr. Wu seems like the only employee who didn't need a reminder of the boss' birthday, this sincere act of respect earns him a promotion, prompting all of the surviving employees to kiss up to him.
• Really 700 Years Old: Winnie looks and acts like a young adult, but was actually 349 by the time she met Gene.
• Repeating Ad: An in-universe example is used in "I Love Bread". On the retro TV show app Jessie watches, this Weight Watchers ad starring Oprah Winfrey keeps interrupting the Cagney & Lacey episode she tries to watch. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, the ad loops on all the in-flight TVs and even the screen in the cabin as a result of Winnie's magic.
• Sadistic Choice: "Love That Winnie" poses one for Winnie: After she overhears the Harper kids boasting that they can use Winnie's magic to become Karma Houdinis, she feels compelled to choose between continuing to live with mortals who apparently love taking advantage of her, or allowing the kids to forget ever meeting her.
• Screw Destiny: In "Love That Winnie", the Stranger tries to guilt-trip Winnie over giving Robb a car, even though he can't drive. He tells her that she basically signed the Harper kids' death wishes, and since a falling-out between Winnie and Gene left them unable to see, hear, feel, or remember her, they would have been better off never becoming her friends. Winnie triumphantly declares that even though the odds favor the kids dying prematurely, she'll try to do whatever she can to save them.
• Secret Keepers: At least during the first few stories, no mortals other than the Harper children know about Winnie performing witchcraft.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Winnie fears getting trapped in a mirror. A witch can not escape one by herself, and if no one lets her out before it breaks, she will die.
• Setting Update: Unlike the TV show, which was set in The '80s, the comic updates the setting to 2014.
• Spiders Are Scary: Gene, Robb, Jessie, and Winnie spend the first three pages of "Bedbugs and Broomsticks" arguing over who should kill a spider crawling on the kitchen table.
• Splash of Color: Orange-skinned fast food cashier Julius provides "A League of Robb's Own" with this. Doubles as a Visual Pun of Orange Julius drinks.
• Tagline: The fake TV Guide-style advertisements that open comics from "A League of Robb's Own" onwards use the tagline, "The web's most bewitching new comedy!"
• Take That!:
  • The pilot lampoons some current pop female singers after Winnie zaps up some tickets for Robb and Jessie to watch "Lady Plastique".
  Peter Paltridge: In the original [show's first episode], Robb and Jessie want to see a metal band named "Pond Scum." Here it's been updated to something people would pay for today — a female singer who puts on so much costuming and padding you can't tell who's really under there. Seems like Lady Gaga, but I was thinking of Nicki Minaj, who's so overdone that she literally looks like a plastic doll.
  • The kids recall in "Skyway to the Danger Zone" that Winnie tried to watch The Big Bang Theory, but found it "too far-fetched!" To put her standards of realistic TV into perspective, they also discuss her developing an interest in Sleepy Hollow.
• Taken for Granite: In "Bedbugs and Broomsticks", Winnie saves Gene from a bedbug's grasp by turning the bug into a giant stone statue, which flattens the other bugs as it falls.
• Technology Uplift: Winnie accidentally almost causes this in "Substitutiary Locomotion". She lets slip to the Harper kids that drones will someday become mortals' main form of transportation. Despite Winnie's warnings not to use this forbidden information to tamper with the future, Robb and Gene try to profit by helping develop such a powerful drone.
• Temporary Blindness: Winnie develops this in "Robb's Not Dead" after playing the Virtual Boy Waterworld game for too long.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: The second vignette in "Junkyard Stories", which begins after Winnie and the kids touch a bed, features a boy who believes he has a monster living under the bed. It turns out to be a homeless vagrant.
• Time Marches On:
  • The original sitcom had an episode titled, "Love That Winnie", which contained some Imagine Spots placing Winnie and the Harpers in a sitcom from The '50s. The comic has a story with the same name, except Winnie imagines herself and the Harpers in a show from The '80s / The '90s instead.
  • When Free Spirit entered its third year as a flagship Platypus Comix series, Peter updated the first panel of page #2 of the Pilot to read, "Harper House present day", instead of, "Harper House 2014".
• The Unintelligible: Gene and Winnie only speak gibberish when dressing as Banjo-Kazooie in "Hallowinnie II: Season of the Witch". Subtitles translate for the reader.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: In the pilot, Winnie removes Lady Plastique's mask to reveal she's actually a man. Robb then discovers that "she" isn't even a real singer. Or the only 'Lady Plastique'.
• Vicious Cycle: The ritual of a witch granting a mortal's wish every 100 years can seem like this for a witch who considers mortals beneath her.
• Visible Invisibility: Even though Winnie's broomstick can turn its passengers invisible, the readers have no trouble seeing them.
• The Voice: Winnie's superior from the witches' realm, the Stranger, manifests itself as a disembodied voice.
• Welcome Episode: The first comic, a loose adaptation of the show's premiere episode, details how Winnie came to live with the Harpers.
• Wham Episode: "Hallowinnie II: Season of the Witch" has Winnie and the Harper kids realize that the Harper kids aren't the only mortals in town who remember meeting a witch...
• The Witch Hunter: The shapeshifting monster Pauzaracht hunts and eats witches.
• Workaholic: Thomas spends more time at the office than at home, allowing Winnie to perform magic behind his back.

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