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Web Comic: Rusty and Co.

Rusty, Mimic, Cube

Format(s):	Webcomic
Genre(s):	RPGMechanicsVerse (Fantasy), Comedy

"Okay, forget the lockpicks... Does anyone have HANDS?"

— Mimic

Rusty and Co. is a fantasy webcomic by Mike R., based on Dungeons & Dragons, about a monstrous trio of adventurers. Literally.

With the charismatic Mimic, absurdly cute rust monster Rusty, and the silent yet deadly Gelatinous Cube, the three set out in search of fame, fortune, and experience levels — and every level (adventure), they ally themselves with an Action Girl for at least part of the level.

Of course, things that would be obstacles to more conventional adventurers pose no problem for these three, whereas other more simple tasks create great difficulties. Expect hilarity (with a side of Lampshade Hanging) to ensue.

Can be found on its own website

. Has a Character Sheet.

Rusty and Co. provides examples of the following tropes:

Action Girl: It seems that each level has one, including the Princess, Madeline, Roxanne and Prestige Perkins.
Alt Text: From level 1:18 on.
Ancestral Weapon: The dwarf's quest is to recover one of these.
Animesque: More and more along with the Art Evolution.
Art Evolution: After the first chapter (or level, as it's called), the artwork becomes more streamlined. This gets lampshaded in a bonus strip, with a Shout Out to The Order of the Stick.
Art Shift: Pulled off due to the Belt of Genre Changing.
Aside Glance
- Prestige, after seeing the capabilities of Stabs.
Prestige: I was just chased by brain-eating monster mobsters, and that was still the scariest thing I've seen all day.
- Mimic manages the exploit of doing an obvious one while lacking eyes:
Madeline: Have you seen any monsters acting weird?
(beat panel)
Mimic: Yer gonna have t'be more specific than that.
Ass Shove: A Funny Background Event in #4.8. Mimic disguises himself as one of the Pixie Chicks' speakers. One of them plugs her guitar into him.
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: This is what results from Rusty getting hold of the Belt of Genre Changing.
Rusty: EAT TOKYO?
An Axe to Grind
- Cleave-Hand. This also doubles as Hook Hand.
- Handsome D'an the illithid, who's carrying a huge axe with him.
Badass Boast: Of the villainous variety:
Calamitus: Do you think mundane matter could best my formidable necromantic powers? I have transcended the limits of mere flesh and blood...and I will shatter your bodies and dance upon your entrails!
Badass in a Nice Suit: The illithid mobsters.
Bar Brawl: Madeline ends up starting one.
Bare Your Midriff: Princess' first outfit, and the Pixie Chicks'.
Beat Panel: Plenty.
Big Eater
- Rusty's solution to just about everything is "Eat <metal thing relevant to problem>?"
- Cube is seen eating several hundred slices of pizza.
Bland Name Product: Who doesn't want a can of Cloaker-Cola while listening to music on their Eye-pad and checking Feysbook using Druid?
Blinding Bangs: Used to great effect to hide the fact that one of the Pixie Chicks helping the Princess is really Roxanne.
Blob Monster
- Gelatinous Cube
- the Gibbering Mouther
Brain Bleach: Mimic wants lots of beer so he can forget that the Princess is in love with a wight.
Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
Plaidbeard: ...razzafrazzin' heroes...
...razzafrazzin' mimics...
...razzafrazzin' mimic heroes...
Brick Joke
- Remember the dwarf from level 1? Yes, the same one who gave the first quest, was killed by Gelatinous Cube, got better, and was killed again by Cube? He's seen at the very end of level 4, in the aftermath of the Big Bad battle. It's never explained how he got better a second time...
- Remember the "magic" hoe Madeline purchased from a gnome? Well, on Level 5 that guy tries to sell more cutlery.
By the Lights of Their Eyes
Captain Colorbeard: Plaidbeard, the dwarven pirate.
Chekhov's Badger Launcher
Chekhov's Gunman: Remember the barbarian ("Robespierre SMASH!")? He reappears. So far, twice.
Con Man: Or con gnome, to be precise. This is how Madeline got her hoe, which she originally thought was magic.
Conspicuous CG: The elder god in Level 6.
Cool Horse: Parodied.
Curse Cut Short: By a well-placed Written Sound Effect.
Handsome D'an: I don't care! Shoot them up their <DING>
Cute Monster Girl: Yuan-Tiffany
Death Is Cheap: Averted and explained in one of the third-level critical missives.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Rusty's eating habits assist an elder god out.
The Don: Don Polpo
Double Entendre: Rusty's "Eat hoe?" on seeing Madeline leads to Mimic concluding that the comic will never pass muster with the Comics Code Authority.
The Dragon
- Cleave-Hand, for Grinner.
- V'innie, for Don Polpo.
Eldritch Abomination: The elder god.
Enemy Mine: With Yuan-Tiffany in the sixth level.
Evil Gloating: Calamitus has a nasty tendency to get caught up in this, allowing the good guys to surprise him.
Eye Poke: Prestige Perkins tries this on the Illithid door-keeper Handsome D'an, who has enough good sense to step back. Too bad she still uses the extended fingers to cast "Melf's Acid Arrow" right in his face.
Face Palm
- No, Mimic has neither face nor palm. Yes, he can still facepalm nonetheless.
- The hipster vampire also does it while scrying on his sister making a fool of herself.
Fairy In A Bottle: Who happens to be a Hard Drinking Party Girl.
Finger Poke of Doom
- Subverted (in a literal sense) with a magic spell.
Calamitus: Well, that's the good thing about magic. [...] It's handy.
- And again by Prestige. It's not the finger that's deadly, it's the Melf's Acid Arrow being emitted by it.
Flaw Exploitation: Used against the vampires, both to break a dominate and to get around regeneration powers.
Fourth Wall Mail Slot: Critical Missives in-between chapters.
A Friend in Need: Madeline goes looking for a rope to help Rusty.
Funny Background Event: While Princess talks privately to Cube in chapter four, an elf is in the background trying to plug her guitar into an amp. Hilarity Ensues.
Genre Roulette: With an item called the Belt of Genre Changing... you can guess what happens.
Genre Savvy: The blackguard Malevolus is smart enough to realize how dangerous the one-two punch of Rusty and Gelatinous Cube's abilities really is.
Malevolus: The exit is this way!
Giant Squid: There's a kraken in the moat of the two vampire hipsters. And it wears puppets on his tentacles.
Golem: Calamitus's giant metal golem.
Rusty: Eat statue Eat statue Eat statue Eat statue Eat statue???
Hard Drinking Party Girl: who happens to be a Fairy In A Bottle.
Hulk Speak: Krog; Robespierre
Hybrid Overkill Avoidance: Offered as advice.
Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: "Level" chapters.
Incredibly Lame Pun: The wight in the forest pulls one:
Mimic: Yoiks! Who're you? We don' wanna hurt youse!
Wight: I... was once... the White Knight.
(beat)
Wight: But now I am... the Night Wight.
Mimic: A'ight, well... now we wanna hurt youse.
Insult Friendly Fire: Mimic accidentally does this to Gelatinous Cube when he sees another cube.
Knight in Shining Armor: The wight in the forest claims he used to be one.
Knights and Knaves
- Done with two talking doors. Mimic's solution? Become a third door.
- Parodied again later (in level 5), with two even more obnoxious doors. Rusty's solution is deliciously straightforward, and hinges on his ability to eat metal.
Last-Second Word Swap: Malevolus is about to have a "You shall not pass" moment, then he looks at the adversaries and does the math.
Malevolus: ... And if you want to reach the Inner Sanctum, you'll need to go...
... through... (looks at Rusty, then Cube, then think what happens when the both of them go through him)
... that tunnel there, then hang a right, then the next right, then straight on to the big doors.
Luminescent Blush
- Happens to Gelatinous Cube of all people.
Madeline: Wasn't he green a moment ago?
Mimic: Okay, seriously, ya gotta stop stickin' your hand in strangers.
- Also to Madeline herself.
- Rusty gets one after he eats Roxanne's underwire.
The Mafia: Complete with illithid (mind flayer) members.
Modesty Shorts: Madeline is sensibly wearing (anachronistic) biker shorts under her leather skirt in her first appearance. (In the second, she's wearing winter clothes, making the matter moot.)
Monster Adventurers: The whole starting concept of the webcomic.
The Nose Knows
- When the Princess defends her smoking, Mimic points out that monsters hunt through smell.
- Stabs can recognize that Prestige is a cop by smell alone.
- The guards to the Inner Santcum of the Tentacallis Dungeon are grimlocks, who are blind and hunt through smell.
- And Madeline can smell Character Alignment.
Offscreen Crash:
Mimic: Boris Vallejo ain't gonna paint that.
Roxanne: Exit Grinner, stage right... er... and stage left.
Oh Crap
- When Presti accidentally bursts into Don Polpo's dining room.
- Presti again, when she sees the Magic Missile built by the Tentacallis.
Oh My Gods!: Literally used by Prestige Perkins after Mimic and Cube save her.
Only The Knowledgable May Pass: The bottle fairy does this, by accident.
Orphaned Punchline: Subverted.
Our Gryphons Are Different: They're quite friendly to their fellow monsters.
Paper-Thin Disguise
- The Princess uses this. She really should take off her hat first.
- Used again by Prestige. It's her ability to fake an illithid's smell that helps pull this off.
Pie in the Face: From a bugbear channeling Fozzie Bear.
Pirates: Plaidbeard and his crew. Played as a comical type 1.
Point That Somewhere Else: Plaidbeard to Madeline's hoe.
Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: Madeline's quest hooks, courtesy of Derek the Cleric.
Mimic: Am I on Dr. Seuss's Candid Camera?
Pulling Themselves Together: The vampire does this, though you can mix it up for them.
Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "This. dress. was. vintage."
Punctuation Shaker: The illithid mobsters: T'oni, R'occo, D'an, S'al, S'ammy, V'innie, B'enny, J'immy...
Railroading: Parodied with the land pirate's ship, who runs along a track... just after a "plot hook" is delivered by artillery.
Mimic: An' here I thought "on rails" was jus' an expression.
Reality Warper:
- Anyone who gets their hands (or tentacles, or whatever) on the Belt of Genre Changing effectively gains this power.
- The Python, once amplified. (Another Madeline story. Do they attract her, or does she attract them?)
Rebus Bubble: Sir Malevolus is quick to realise that
- [Armoured Malevolus] + [rust monster] = [unarmoured Malevolus] and
- [Unarmoured Malevolus] + [gelatinous cube] = [skeleton Malevolus]...
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Subverted with the wight.
Retcon: Yuan-Tiffany the yuan-ti became Y.T. the lamia, due to a legal dispute.
Riddle Me This: The bottle fairy tries this but has clearly forgotten the riddle.
Rule of Three: The she-vampire puts her head back on three times.
Running Gag / Once per Episode: Mimic's suggestions that the group "disguise ourselves as common, unassuming pieces of furniture". He's always ignored.
Schizo Tech: Electric guitars and soda machines accompany your traditional fantasy fare. Oh, and a Magic Missile.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Sir Malevolus cuts and runs from the threat posed by Rusty and Cube.
Seashell Bra: "They're just B-shells, but thanks."
Secondary Character Title: Rusty is more of a mascot overall; the main protagonist thus far is Mimic.
Shout Out
- The aforementioned one to The Order of the Stick is only one of them.
- The Bottle Fairy asking the riddle is an obvious Expy of Navi, down to repeating the infamous "Hey! Listen!" verbatim.
- In strip 38 of level 6, Mimic is apparently trying to come up with an answer to "Why is a raven like a writing desk?".
Snake People: A redheaded, female lamia (once a yuan-ti) appears in the Tentacallis' dungeons.
Something We Forgot: Mimic forgot all about Stabs, leaving her to face an army of monsters. Cut to Stabs Atop a Mountain of Corpses.
Speaks In Shoutouts: The chatty zombie uses only cliches and proverbs.
Sssssnake Talk: Yuan-Tiffany mixes this with a Texan accent.
Step Three: Profit: On Madeline's first appearance.
1. Find Baddies.
2. Smite Baddies.
3. Profit!
Sudden Videogame Moment: "Rusty Runner" in level 6.
Talking Is a Free Action: Averted humorously, with the Alt Text lampshading the whole thing.
Mimic: Do somethin'!
Prestige: I can't, I'm too busy screaaaaaaaaming!
Talk Like a Pirate: Plaidbeard, of course.
Talk to the Fist: Madeline delivers one to Plaidbeard. Mimic objects to it (if only because he wanted to hear more about what was going on).
They Have the Scent: Why Mimic warns the princess against smoking.
Turn Undead: What happened to the Princess's wight boyfriend. (Mimic understood something different, though...)
Umbrella Drink: Put to unusal use by Prestige to uncloak an invisible informant.
Unexplained Recovery
- "I got better." is used word for word by a dwarf quest giver (who got killed by Cube).
- Calamitus.
- Even better, the Grinner.
Unsound Effect: Quite a few of them. See the below example for the most obvious one.
Vancian Magic: Lampshaded with a "VANCE!" Unsound Effect for a Color Spray spell.
Visible Silence: Robespierre does this upon being approached by an information-seeking Mimic.
Visual Pun: When Gelatinous Cube seizes the Belt of Genre Changing, the result in the next panel is naturally... Cubism.
Volleying Insults: The "pirate" duel.
Wall of Blather
- The Wight's long explanation about the mission and the Princess is blanked out by a summary.
- Calamitus doing his monologue is similarly obscured, as Mimic and Princess aren't paying attention.
When All You Have Is a Hammer: Eat hammer? Roxanne's first appearance also references this trope, when she says that she wants to do something with all the points she put into whittling.
Who Would Be Stupid Enough: Cuts to the paladin with Int as her Dump Stat.
Wrong Turn At Albuquerque: Spoofed with a Xorn in Level 6.
Xorn: I knew I should'a taken that left turn at Abeir-Toril.
X-Ray Sparks: Parodied by Mimic, who shouldn't have bones to begin with.
Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Used for the signs, most notably the "Ye Olde Proverbial Hook Inn".
You No Take Candle: Lampshaded by Robespierre the barbarian in #3.21:
Robespierre: Roxanne is beloved member of Robespierre's family, despite fancy city ways. And insistence on using pronouns.