Bardsworth
is a webcomic about the adventures of Mike Cosley, an Ordinary High-School Student who finds a portal to a fantasy world in his closet. He ends up going to college at the prestigious Bardsworth Academy to learn magic. A fun family-friendly webcomic.
Characters include:
- Mike Cosley: Having been unpopular at his high school, Mike seeks to start a new life at Bardsworth. Cheerful and silly with a great love of cookies.
- Fawn: A fairy who befriends Mike. Cheerful and at times temperamental.
- Kris: Mike's roommate. A serious student and a bit of a loner.
- Crystal: A laid back and playful elf girl who Mike begins dating.
- Keira: A hyperactive bard student. She's also Crystal's roommate.
- Professor Fitzpot Fizzlebottom: A powerful wizard and Bardsworth professor whose house is on the other side of Mike's closet. Takes responsibility for Mike by helping him get into Bardsworth.
- Francis: Fitzpot's friendly demon butler.
- Danyel: Crystal's brother, who loves to prank Mike with various embarrassing spells.
- Tammy: Mike's older sister.
- Rayner: A former (and estranged) pupil of Fitzpot's, who was cast out of wizard society and who shows a particular interest in Mike.
- Raven: One of Fawn's sisters, and The Eeyore of the family.
The author is writing a prose version of the story, Bardsworth University. There are two volumes out thus far.
This webcomic contains examples of:
- Achievements in Ignorance: In this comic, Mike creates a convincing illusion, despite being in the presence of suppression stones that should prevent it.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Demons are implied to be like this, with the obvious exception of Francis.
- Art Evolution: Lampshaded once, with Mike looking around a now colored world and having the feeling that something is different...
- Beware the Nice Ones: Hurting Mike's friends is a good way to incite his fury.
- Big Eater: Mike can really pack it away. Most often it's cookies, of course, but he'll ask for seconds when it comes to just about anything sweet.
- Big Sister Instinct:
- Despite the fact that she torments Mike regularly, Tammy will look out for him.
- Raven is very protective of her siblings, as well. Do not think you can attack them and get away with it.
- Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Fairies are a female One-Gender Race. When a community wants more members, they do a ritual with some part of nature (usually a young tree) and something like thirty baby fairies result. A species called the Arbori the same way, as do the all-male demons, though their version is implied to be nastier.
- Butt-Monkey: Mike. Accidentally blowing things up during an exam, getting tackle-hugged by Keira, being stalked by a Grimble... the guy can't catch a break.
- Creator Cameo: One of the Grimble's enchantments causes Mike to briefly turn into a real life Peter Tarkulich. He's pretty freaked out by it.
- Cute Kitten: Whiskers, the Cosleys' family cat. Extremely friendly and cuddly, he gets along famously with Fawn and his only real flaw is a tendency to knock down ornaments from the Christmas tree when the family's decorating it.
- Emotional Powers: Apparently, magic requires strong control over one's emotions.
- The Eeyore: Raven for the fairy community. Where the other fairies are cheerful, sunny personalities, Raven is gloomy and short-tempered. Turns out that this attitude is due to her having been a Fairy Companion to a human girl once, but then abandoned when the girl fell in love.
- Fairy Companion: Fawn for Mike; Penelope for Rayner. It's revealed that fairies who latch on to humans might form a "spirit bond" to them, creating a very deep relationship. The bond can be broken, but it's harmful to do so.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: "Danyel Luthor Amethyst, just what do you think you're doing??"
- Gender Bender: Mike is temporarily inflicted with this (among many other things) after being enchanted by a Grimble.
- The Glomp: Keira frequently greets people this way, especially Mike. Her little sister Kara does this too.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: After Malcolm blasts Fawn, Mike starts glowing with power, prepared to lay the smackdown on him. Seen here
- Informed Attribute: Tammy's "tormenting" of Mike is constantly referred to, but hardly ever shown; when she appears in the comic she's more often presented as a caring but aloof big sister who's only looking out for Mike. She does snark quite a bit at him and allude to acts of torment, but seldom if ever follows up on it and usually apologizes if she's gone too far.
- Mascots Love Sugar: Upon receiving some pixie stix, Fawn falls into a sugar addiction.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Fawn is one of thirty sisters.
- One-Gender Race: The faeries are all female and the demons all male. Fawn speculates on this.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Mike. Well, except that he's a trimagus, meaning he has three sources of magical energy instead of the standard two.
- Power Incontinence:
- A spell cast in a dream leaks over into the real world
- Also getting distracted in class
- A spell cast in a dream leaks over into the real world
- A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Rayner, for Fitzpot. Though the relationship goes deeper than that — Rayner is not only an ex-pupil, he's actually Fitzpot's son.
- Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Kris and Keira seem to be headed in this direction.
- Shout-Out:
- "I wasn't even supposed to be here..." [1]
- At one point, Mike is seen looking at a copy of Hyperion. He's also worn a TMBG shirt a few times.
- Realworld!Mike has a Girl Genius poster on his wall.
- "I wasn't even supposed to be here..." [1]
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Francis has a habit of appearing out of nowhere.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Mike really likes cookies.
- For Fawn it's Pixie Stix, after Mike introduced them to her (partly as a joke).
- Translator Microbes: The spell mentioned here
