Broken Plot Device is a Mundane Fantastic Furry comic created by Lis Boriss. It takes place mostly within Byron Factory apartments, which is in turn located in an unnamed east-coast city. The comic takes place on a parallel version of Earth, as is evidenced by ninjas and giant fighting robots existing in "normal" society.
The comic mainly centers around the lives of Lizardbeth, an easily distracted webcomic artist with a massive coffee addiction; Maxine, a rather blunt and overly sarcastic woman who nevertheless seems to have Lizardbeth's best interests at heart; and Sid, the lionhearted friend of the previous two. Other characters that often appear include Zig, the slightly withdrawn robotics engineer; and Sylver, a man who considers himself god's gift to the ladies (the ladies, however, tend to find his company a bit unpleasant).
Broken Plot Device often parodies various popular video games and other things generally associated with nerds, sometimes through use of the games "Realm of Warquest" and Warmillenium 40k.
However, due to the creator's stated dissatisfaction with the comic over the last year, and a messy personal incident, the comic was discontinued in 2012. In March 2015 it came back as a Patreon-sponsored project, available to non-subscribers here.
Broken Trope Device:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Zig attempts to create a robot dinosaur toy that'll be the Next Big Thing. He ends up with... a robot dinosaur toy that thinks with the penis it doesn't actually have. Most of Zig's time is spent trying to debug Rex, with mixed results.
- Art Evolution: Character designs have become more refined over the length of the strip.
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Lizardbeth and some of the other characters.
- Berserk Button:
- Don't take Max's cigarettes.
- Don't harm Sid's friends. He WILL beat you within an inch of your life.
- Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Liz and Zig are both iguanas, but they look radically different, Zig looks more like a real iguana while Liz's spikes resemble hair.
- Body Horror: Shedding is not pretty.
- Boisterous Bruiser: When Sid isn't in Papa Wolf mode, he tends to respond enthusiastically to a fight, deliberately setting up a Ninja Trap out of boredom. When Scissors reports to his boss, Sid is visible in the background having the time of his life against Rock.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Dr. Washe created a Death Trap that looked like a game of Trouble (Yes, really.). Not only was he busily explaining how it would work, he left the victims unsupervised when a minion called for his attention.
- Brand X: "Realm of Warquest". Warmillenium 40k.
- The Cameo: Jay Naylor (drawn as his Better Days character Fisk) in this strip (as Nay Jaylor). Boriss insists that it's not a Take That! towards Jay.
- Coming-Out Story: Zig was in the Transparent Closet to begin with, so it wasn't much of a surprise. Even so... Poor guy.
- Damsel in Distress: Not so much. Max escaped with no trouble, and freed the villain's main target while she was at it. Offscreen.
- Death Trap: Of the Gas Chamber sort. As per the trope, easily escapable.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Shedding is clearly a parallel for menstruation.
- Dramatic Wind: Inix seems to summon one up in panel 4.
- Embarrassing Tattoo: Zig wasn't exactly in the best state of mind when he got his.
- Everybody Knew Already: It was made fairly clear that Sid and Max knew Zig was in the closet. Apparently, they thought it was cute, or were at least waiting for him to talk about it.
- Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Sid, in his El Rey persona, gives a mugger a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown... while the guy is begging for mercy.
- Female Gaze: Er... More like "Homosexual Male Gaze". Sid repeatedly caught Zig staring at his butt. Zig was clueless.
- Foreshadowing: Well, Rex's Single-Target Sexuality now makes a lot more sense, considering who built him. And, uh, this.
- Fun with Flushing: One story arc has Liz locking herself in the bathroom with Max's cigarettes in an effort to get her to quit smoking. Max eventually calms down and talks with her on the other side of the door and says that Liz is right, but hears flushing, which she assumes means Liz flushed her pack down the toilet (she was actually flushing a spider) and angrily busts the door down.
- Friendship Moment: Averted. Sylver apparently is too wrapped up in posturing and ego to realize what Sid's trying to tell him.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Zig makes robots, a combat-ready suit of technologically advanced armor, and a nuclear-powered, self regulated hoodie. And those are just the things we've seen.
- As of now, he also completed a working Portalgun.
- The Glomp: D'awwwwwwwww...
- Highly-Visible Ninja: Phil, mostly because he is a very, very bad ninja.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Dr. Washe kidnaps Max to get back at Zig who beat him in a Pokémon competition. Zig was there because he's a bit of a dork. Dr. Washe was there to get back at kids for destroying the arcades of the doctor's youth. As Max puts it, "oh my god, you're the lamest villain ever!" After his plan is thwarted and he's in tears, he's placated by an offer of a game of Skee-ball.
- Jerkass: Sylver. He's in a relationship with a girl he doesn't seem to care about because he was threatened with physical harm if he didn't date her. Plus he thinks cheating on her (if he could actually get another date) to "not count"... because she's a fat chick.
- Last-Second Word Swap: My Gods! I haven't seen one of these in cennnnnnn... decades?
- Ley Line: The Byron Factory apartment complex is built on top of one.
- Lovable Lizard: Protagonist Lizardbeth is a lovably eccentric iguana.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Sid singlehandedly tracks down a mugger who attacks Liz and beats him until he's helplessly begging for his life.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: Lizardbeth and Inix. They (and Zig) also have navels.
- Noodle Incident: Bagel Incident — "... I don't think I'll ever be able to eat bagels again."
- Older Than They Look: Inix is stated in her bio to be hundreds of years old.
- Omniscient Morality License: Inix seems to think this justifies what she does to the other people in the apartments. Her higherups have an even more widespread license, which they used to revoke hers. We have yet to see if any of it is actually justified, though Inix at least is doing something to help the people around her.
- Papa Wolf: Don't tick off Sid. Really, don't.
- Pet the Dog: Scissors makes an attempt to cheer up his boss.
- Powered Armor: Zig made some once, for a project that got cancelled. Of course, he still has it lying around, which comes in handy when Max gets kidnappped.
- Psycho for Hire: Scissors apparently takes "alotta pride in my work". Dr. Washe apparently "still [has] stains on the walls". And this is the guy who described Sid as "a total psycho... He's like a flying murder machine!" Dr. Washe is disturbed.
- Punny Name: Doctor Gaiman Washe.
- Quirky Mini Boss Squad: Dr. Washe has a trio of minions. In order...
- Rock, The Brute. An armadillo, has not yet vocalzised more than grunts or screams. Easily outsmarted by "El Rey" and a Hall of Mirrors.
- Paper, The Evil Genius. A gazelle, or possibly antelope. Attempts to assault Zig with a replica sword, and is out-trivia'd by him. This resulted in a Skyward Scream as Zig snuck past him.
- Scissors, the one who does Cold-Blooded Torture, enthusiastically. A rather snarky ferret. Is freaked out by Sid's enthusiasm for combat. This, in turn, freaks out his boss.
- Robot Buddy: Rex the cyber-apatosaurus was supposed to be one. He's still a bit buggy, starting from "massive egotism", to "hitting on every girl on sight", "cringing in terror at being touched", and currently "hitting on Sid and drawing him naked". He's getting a bit better as Zig recodes him again and again.
- Ship Tease: Sid's just being pragmatic in a dangerous situation, but still...
- Shout-Out: Zig's powered armor, according to Paper, looks more like Mega Man than a Cylon.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Sylver. He's a jerk who thinks he's God's gift to everything. And so far shows little to no actual competence. When things go sour - often by his own actions - he typically responds by slouching off and angrily demanding "why can't everything be cool?"
- Stripperiffic: Take a good look at the outfit Inix wears in earlier strips.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Max plays a game of 'Angry Chickens'.
- Theme Naming: Dr. Washe's minions are named Rock, Paper, and Scissors.
- Unknown Rival: Dr. Washe to Zig. Later becomes known. Still isn't that dangerous.
- Unusual Euphemism:
- ARTGASM!!!
- "God is pissing in my Cheerios."
- Unstoppable Rage: For your own sake, do not fight dirty with Sid. It only serves to anger him, and he's really scary when he's really angry.
- For that matter, don't take Max's cigarettes, either.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Rex recently had a Wi-Fi chip installed. The horny little robot now has full access to the web.