A SrGrafo in Time
is a webcomic by SrGrafo that ran from 2019 to 2022, with one strip posted per week to the subreddit r/SrGrafo.
It starts as a series of meme templates. After a few dozen strips, a storyline starts to emerge, which eventually comes to involve a zombie apocalypse and a whole heap of time travel.
After the comic's conclusion, the author posted a video explaining the story.
Contains examples of:
- Alternate Self: There are a number of different versions of the main character as a result of time travel.
- Alternate Timeline: As explained via chart in "Who are you?", time traveling into the past splits off a new timeline.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- In "Disgusting!", an infected person pukes up a stream of blood and the main character is shown reacting with disgust. The next panel, it turns out that the main character is reacting to something else entirely, and that the infected person is actually some distance away.
- When Mike sees the prisoner, he looks nervous and tries to avoid his gaze. The prisoner sees him and rushes toward him, arm raised as if about to strike him, but next panel it turns out he was rushing to embrace him.
- Boom, Headshot!: Mike kills the zombified blonde woman via a shotgun blast to the head, blowing it clean off.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The comic starts out as a lighthearted gag series and becomes considerably darker and more dramatic as it develops continuity.
- Deadly Hug: After the green-haired clown is bitten by a zombie, he asks the main character for a hug. He obliged, and tightens it to crushing levels just as the other character starts to turn.
- Dem Bones: The underworld is full of horned skeleton minions.
- Devil's Pitchfork: The demonic skeletons in the underworld wield pitchforks. Billy leaves his behind when he leaves the place.
- Evil All Along: The bunker man introduces himself as an ally, but turns out to be trying to use the other characters, and soon turns on them.
- Eyeless Face: The zombies have no visible eyes, which just serves to make them look creepier.
- Facial Horror: After the bunker man, in his new buff body, is shot through the left side of his face by Mike, he turns, revealing that the right side of his head is normal while the left is a bloody mess.
- Flashback Echo: In the flashback strip "Sole Survivor", a young Officer Mike comes across a kid sitting surrounded by blood — the sole survivor of the Colorless Clown. A few strips later, in "Sole Survivor #2", a present day Mike comes across the kid — now a man — sitting in a puddle of blood, having killed the clown. The next strip, "Origins", has a panel of flashback Mike reaching out to help the kid, juxtaposed with a panel of present day Mike sadly reaching out to cuff the man.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Billy was originally a little demonic skeleton from the underworld. When he accompanies the main character back to the surface, he puts on the appearance of a human boy. The strip where he changes his appearance is titled "A friendly disguise".
- Genre Roulette: It starts out as a gag series with no continuity, then starts developing continuity while still being mostly comedic, then takes a turn for the dramatic with the arc about the main character and his mother, then becomes a zombie apocalypse story, then a sci-fi time travel story.
- The Grim Reaper: Death is a scythe-wielding skeleton in a black hooded cloak who shows up when the main character's mother passes away to carry her to the underworld.
- Handshake Substitute: When the main character reunites with the prisoner, they greet each other in a tough and manly fashion by clasping hands while flexing their arms, as if doing bicep curls.
- Happy Flashback: When the blonde woman turns into a zombie, a flashback montage shows how she and the main character met and grew closer, just before cutting back to the present, where she is attacking the main character.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The prisoner sacrifices himself in an explosion to take out the giant zombies so the others can get away.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: One of the birds in the park being fed by the caretaker passionately declares to the other birds, "I say no more." The next panel, bird seed rains down on them and the bird starts gleefully stuffing its face, saying, "Oh shit, yes yes!!!"
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The main character punches right through the torso of the zombified purple-haired clown.
- Improvised Weapon: The blonde woman fashions a spear out of materials at hand and uses to kill zombies.
- Lodged-Blade Recycling: The main character gets stabbed, pulls out the knife, and uses it to stab his attacker back.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Before parting ways with the main character, the Grafo with the stitched up face scars tells him, "Say hi to Mom for me," implying that he is his son in another timeline.
- Meaningful Background Event: "Someone touched my cheese" focuses on a couple of rats. In the background are the main character and Billy, standing at the graves of their fallen comrades.
- Meaningful Echo: When the main character explains his prison break plan, the prisoner says, "This guy is a fucking genius." Later, before sacrificing himself, he says, "I am not a fucking genius. But I'm smart enough to do the right thing."
- Mercy Kill: The main character kills the green-haired clown after the latter is bitten by a zombie, just as he starts to turn.
- Monster Clown: The Colorless Clown is a serial killer in a clown mask who targets children.
- Monster Mouth: The zombies have gaping mouths with long sharp teeth that take up their whole faces. The giant zombies have vertical mouths.
- Nerd Glasses: Junior wears square glasses and is shown to have some nerdy qualities. He asks Billy if he wants to see his card collection, and he is smart enough that when he looks over the bunker man's files on time travel, he realizes that the man has been deceiving them and that what he claims is a time machine is actually not.
- Orphaned Punchline: In "Clown Reflex", the clown says "That's What She Said" in response to something the main character says, but it's not shown what he's responding to.
- Pass the Popcorn: When the main character fights the Grim Reaper, Billy watches from the sidelines with popcorn and a soda cup, chowing down.
- Rescued from the Underworld: After main character's mom is taken away by Death, he dives into the underworld after them and beats up Death. However, his mom is accepting of her death and gets him to back down, so he sadly returns to the surface.
- Rugged Scar: The prisoner has one scar across his eye and one on the side of his head, adding to his tough appearance.
- Scars Are Forever: The prisoner gets some wounds on his face during his childhood from his experience with the Colorless Clown, and as an adult, carries scars in those same places.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Some flashback strips show Mike and 055 going to the past to prevent events from transpiring in the future. In "Reshaping wrong-doings", a guy looks at a document with approval before promptly being beaten up by the two time travelers suddenly appearing from a portal. In the next strip, "Painful correction", two kids are prevented from getting to know each other by the two time travelers appearing at their first meeting to beat them up.
- Shout-Out: When the main character charges into the underworld after Death, he is wearing the same helmet as the Doom Slayer.
- Sweetheart Sipping: In "Drinks and Smiles", the blonde woman and the main character are shown growing closer together. In the first two panels they are drinking from separate bottles or glasses, but in the last panel, they are sharing a drink with two straws.
- Taking the Bullet:
- The green-haired clown spares the main character from a zombie bite by jumping in to take the bite himself.
- 055 tries to stab Mike, but the main character pushes him out of the way and gets stabbed instead.
- Tattooed Crook: In "Prison Call", the main character is seen to have gained several tattoos during his time in prison.
- That's What She Said: In "Clown Reflex", the main character says something (which is left up to the reader) and the clown responds, "That's what she said!" The other characters are unamused.
- Took a Level in Badass: The main character enters prison as a regular-sized guy, and after a Time Skip, he's seen to have become huge and buff. This comes in handy later for fighting off zombies.
- Two-Faced: After the bunker man shows his true colors and starts trying to kill the other characters, he receives horrific injuries to one side of his head, resulting in a face that's half normal and half looking like a bloodied red skull monster with a fanged, hanging jaw.
- Two-Keyed Lock: To prevent a nuclear explosion, two people are needed to turn two keys in different switches at the same time.
- Universal Group Reaction: In response to the green-haired clown's That's What She Said joke, the main character, Mike, Billy, and Junior all look at him with narrowed eyes.
- Wingding Eyes: After the purple-haired clown is killed, his eyes become Xs.
- Zombie Apocalypse: A virus transforms people into zombie-like creatures that overrun civilization, attacking anyone who is not infected.
