Webcomic / Grim Tales from Down Below

Follow me to the edge of madness. and don't forget to send Jack a postcard from Yog-Sothoth.

The second crossover Webcomic from Vinson Ngo a.k.a Bleedman (the first being Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi), created in late 2004 (roughly a year after PPGD was started). Grim Tales from Down Below is a fan-comic based on fanfics, focusing on two characters created by E.R.M Griffin (DeadDoll00), the children of Grim and a now adult Mandy, from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, who in this Alternate Continuity are the king and queen of the underworld: Grim Jr. (a.k.a. Junior) and his patchwork sister Minnie (short for Mini-Mandy), while incorporating an origin fanfic for the two which was written by SonicRose.

Like PPGD, Grim Tales started off at DeviantArt before Ngo moved it to Snafu-Comics. Already well known, Grim Tales added more readers to Ngo's already overflowing fanbase. Ngo has a penchant for incorporating Narm, and Darker and Edgier, and extreme Fan Disservice in his works, and as such, the comic has garnered some controversy, particularly regarding a plot point within the comic dealing with real-life events.

After six years, the main series eventually finished in June 2009 and was apparently the end to the series. However, Ngo unveiled he was working a short sequel called AfterBirth which apparently deals with Minnie coping with her agelessness and being left alone after Junior sets out on a life of adventure. Here are some preview pics of the comic. This story, however, has been stated to be non-canon.

In February 2011, the comic continued with a mini-series called Grim Tales: What About Mimi (GT: WhAM). The comic follows Mimi, who is sent into the Grims' household to locate an object of immense power for him. During said mission, Mimi's past is brought to light bringing many shocking swerves with it. That eventually ended in July 2012.

After this came Grim Tales: Further Orientation (GTFO), which is a collection of short stories featuring the main characters.

After the aforementioned GTFO ended with the first "Mimi" file, he began on Grim Tales: Chapter VIII (Eight) in April 2013.

Yeah, if you haven't guessed by this point, Bleedman really loves working on this series.

If you're intrigued by all of the above, then commence reading. The sequel, Afterbirth, is uploaded fully on the wiki. (Warning: you will have to navigate carefully to avoid spoilers.)

Not to be confused with Grim Tales, a series of PC hidden object games about a time-traveling detective.

Now has a Character Sheet. Feel free to contribute.

---

Grim Tales from Down Below provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Mandy and Junior share a not-so-heartfelt moment. Judging from the Reaction Shot from the rest of the family, it's supposed to be an unusual, What the Hell, Hero? thing... if it's not already a regular occurrence.
• Accidental Pervert: In the middle of a battle between Mimi and Minnie, Junior's head and spine are dropped to the ground. Once he's on/near the ground, he's visually confronted with a clear view up Mimi's skirt.
• Action Girl:
  • Mandy is the queen of the underworld and is not afraid to get her hands dirty. She often charges into battles and refuses to retreat, even when her husband Grim does. Even before becoming the queen, she was an assassin who was very good at her job.
  • Due to all the training that she went through growing up, Minnie is quite a skilled sword fighter and gets multiple chances to showcase her impressive fighting abilities, especially in comparison to her untrained brother.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: some underage girls(like Mimi, Minnie and Chi) wears Stripperific clothing that is too risqué for their age.

• Antagonist in Mourning: Of all the evils in this universe, Aku plays this trope straight. He became so depressed after the death of Samurai Jack that he turned his home into a copy of Jack's culture to have something to remember him by.
• Art Evolution: Same as PPGD, the style changed as the comic progressed

• Author Appeal: Mimi and Junior have a very... suggestive relationship.
• Badass Family: Junior and his family definitely count and by extension his mother's lovers. But the biggest example would be Mimi's family which includes her father Him , her mother Blossom, her two aunts, Bubbles and Buttercup, and her grandfather Prof. Utonium . And if this picture is any indication, Dexter and Courage are part of the family as well.

• Barred from the Afterlife: It's revealed that Billy died some years before Grim and Mandy's wedding, and ended up in Heaven due to being "too stupid to be sinful". But the saints got fed up with him and kicked him out (literally). Billy then ended up in Hell for a while, but they got sick of him there as well. Nowadays, he's just wandering the Earth as a wayward spirit.

• Because You Were Nice to Me: Junior's Nergal side has reduced itself to help him on babysitting Mimi because Junior is way much nicer to it than its previous owner.
• Berserk Button: Do not mess with Junior if you don't want to face the wrath of Minnie. Which leads us to...
• Beware the Nice Ones: Minnie is sweet, gentle, respectful, and caring. Make her mad if you want to.
• Big Bad: Three of 'em: Oogie Boogie, Him, and finally Minnie's Nergal demons. Boogeyman in the non-canon sequel Afterbirth.
• Big Damn Heroes: Several. This being a quite prominent example.
  • Raven was looking like one in Mimi's flashback... until Him shows up.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Something of a recurring theme among the various families in play. Perhaps not surprising, considering the greater part of the cast is comprised of demons or worse. Depictions range in magnitude from being Played for Laughs silliness to jaw-dropping acts of hostility and abuse.

• Brother–Sister Incest: Minnie thinks of Junior as more than just a brother, despite her denials, This seems to indicate that at some point in the future Grim Jr. will return her affections . Right now they seem to have an odd brother-sister version of a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship. Continued with implications that Mimi might be Junior's half-sister as well, and her own half-sister seems to have feelings for her.

• Calling the Old Man Out: Nergal to Grim over how Junior and Minnie were conceived.
  • And Junior to Mandy over Mimi. Amazingly she's the one who backs down
• Canon Discontinuity: Grim Tales: Afterbirth, which was marketed as a sequel to the original webcomic, has been declared non-canon.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Minnie is not appreciative of Junior appreciating Mimi's skills, or her Too Kinky to Torture moment.
• Continuity Nod: While under Her-induced rage, Minnie makes reference to a piece of Valentine's day throwaway art involving the girl in the well.
• Cooldown Hug: Minnie gives Junior one to stop his monster side.
  • And before that Junior gave a Cooldown kiss to Minnie stop her from going School Days on him.
• Cosmic Horror Story: Every cartoon (and some other media) hero you have ever known and loved is dead and all that survived are the Eldritch Abomination's they protected us from, the only real human left is Mandy.
• Crossover: With several other shows. Most notably, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Danny Phantom.
  • Dora the Explorer, Teletubbies... where IS that Ice Cream Man from, anyway?
    • Prepare to feel very silly... he's from Spawn, of course. He's a paedophile serial killer named Billy Kincaid.
  • Even some characters from the obscure cartoon Visionaries appear as Many's henchmen.
  • Mandy's weapon vault is a room made of shout-outs to too many other books, movies, comics, cartoons and myths to count... but it's fun to try anyway.
• Crossover Relatives: Jack Skellington and Grim are brothers.
• Cute Monster Girl: Minnie; also Mimi (Him's daughter)
  • Afterbirth bring us more of them, including Mina who makes an actual appearance in the main series.
  • Now there's Chi, daughter of Aku.
• Darker and Edgier
  • Read Afterbirth. If you thought Grim Tales was morbid... you ain't seen nothing yet. Let's summarize: The happy ending of Grim Tales rebounds - Minimandy has undergone an "Afterbirth" making her permanently stuck in her zombie body. Prior to this Junior left, preferring to train himself as a lone wolf so that his powers don't affect his loved ones (even though Minimandy was helping him with it). She leaves, gets abducted by the Boogeyman and offers herself as his bride, giving up her remaining eye. Meanwhile, Junior is infuriated when he returns home to find her missing. This prompts a quest to find her, resulting in a rather disturbing encounter with an evil counterpart, Drax, while Junior's own half-siblings (born from Mandy and Dark Danny's illegitimate child) get used as science experiments. When the Big Bad is faced, he has captured the souls of children to fuel his own powers, and is defeated by getting literally dragged into the bowels of hell, telling the protagonists that they will burn for their parents' folly. And the ending... Dark Danny is back to cause some unknown trouble shortly after the protagonists head home, most likely to cause hell over seeing his children acting benevolently and not as the destructive forces of nature he intended them to be.

• Death by Cameo: Irwin, Hoss and Raven already have met that fate, now Blossom will more than likely be heading there soon. Or, at least, Fate Worse than Death.
  • Never Found the Body, For Raven and Hoss... and Irwin... well... it's not exactly verified.
  • It's mentioned offhand in GTFO that Him killed all of them, while Mimi was forced to kill her mother.

• Distracted by the Sexy: That was clever.
  • Grim's urgent entrance gets a little side tracked, as seen here. Not that we can blame him.
• The Dog Bites Back: The Nergal symbiote reveals that all the destruction it caused in Halloween town was to vent out all the frustration inside it for years of being Minnie's slave. According to it, Minnie was just like Mandy towards Grim to it; when Minnie returned from Heaven, it tried to devour her in desperation, because it didn't want to return under her heel.
• Dramatic Irony: It seems Demongo's info is outdated. When explaining Grim Household to Chi, he says that Junior is the weakest link in the family, with no skills or abilities whatsoever and that Minnie is the epitome of goodness and the example of a Proper Lady. Yeah.

• Failure Is the Only Option: Him knew all along that Mimi wouldn't be able to stand reliving her greatest fear via "Horror's Hand". The mission to retrieve it was pretty much his way of "disciplining" her for her earlier betrayal.

• Flipping the Bird: Junior to Mandy. Kid's either got a solid set on him for a skeleton, or an un-death wish.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: Minnie Mandy speaks like a person under the influence of too much William Shakespeare.
• Gender Equals Breed: Minimandy is a human and Junior is a reaper.
  • Somewhat subverted by the fact that Minimandy is actually the illegitimate child of Mandy and Nergal Jr.
• Ghosts Abhor a Vacuum: In the fight between Mina Harper and Mimi, after Mina uses her vampire powers to turn into a ghostly form to avoid getting crushed by a house Mimi threw at her, Mimi uses a vacuum to trap her.

• Hot Springs Episode: Aku has natural hot springs in his castle which leads to great amounts of Fanservice from his Gender Bender form.

• How We Got Here: The whole comic is basically one big flashback. Even having a flashback within a flashback when Junior tells Lock, Shock, and Barrel how his parents got together.
  • And Grim has a flashback inside THAT one.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Mimi pulls this is pretty much every appearance, some of them are truly absurd, and hilarious.

• I Just Want to Be Badass: Grim Junior is surrounded by formidable badasses far more powerful and dangerous than he is, which is difficult to bear when you're the Grim Reaper's 'son.'

• Incest Subtext: Minnie has... tendencies. Straight into text as of the latter half. Heavily teased.
• Inexplicably Awesome: It's never made clear why Mandy, even as a ten-year-old, had an aura more dark and evil than the Grim Reaper himself. Then again, does it really matter?
• Informed Ability: Helga Pataki can be a jerk, but the idea that she's ended up as ”the meanest and rottenest teacher in the underworld” is overdoing it.
  • However, this could be a case of Unreliable Narrator.
  • She was why Minnie talks the way she does, so it could be more of a Sugar-and-Ice Personality.
• Interspecies Romance: Mandy and Grim, Minimandy and Grim Jr., Mimi and Grim Jr., and Mandy and Nergal Jr.

• Loser Protagonist: For all his berserk buttons and what demon-reaper powers he may possess, protagonist Grim Junior is consistently flattened by any serious opponent he goes up against.

• Meaningful Background Event: During the fight with the Pumpkinator redux Nergal Junior's silhouette is visible.
  • On this page, there are three heroes which come to Mimi's aide, Irwin, Hoss, and Raven.

• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Most monsters tend to have enormous mouths full of pointy fangs. [[ https://www.snafu-comics.com/grimtales/gtfo Bleed's rendition of Mina]] from Mina and The Count is a mild example.
• Ms. Fanservice: Mandy grows up real nice. REAAAALLL NICE.
• Neck Snap: How Him kills Irwin.
  • Mimi pulls one on Junior also, but it's played for laughs as the whole page was a big Mortal Kombat spoof/parody/etc.
• Negative Continuity: The use of this in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is revealed to be Grim just not feeling like reaping them.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Observe.
• Noodle People: Minnie has extremely long legs for an eight-year-old girl, and highlights this by wearing leotards and extremely short dresses all the time. Exhibit A. It gets more pronounced as the Art Evolution goes on; in the beginning she looks more normal. Junior looks pretty noodley himself in this page.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Practically everything that happens in the story is Junior's fault for telling his sister off. Disaster Dominoes, anyone?

• One-Winged Angel: Minnie, with and without her soul. Particularly gruesome in the latter.
  • Was that all you got, WORM?
  • Him also has one which he assumes after being nuked
• Orphan's Ordeal: In this image, Mimi witnesses Raven's death at the hands of Him, barely able to utter the word "Mama" as she falls. Given what we know becomes of her under Him's "care"...
  • She survived, but given how things are going, give it another three pages...
    • Raven's not actually her mother. Her real mother dies several pages after that, and offscreen.

• Rescue Romance: Double subverted. Mimi was just able to delay Skulker enough time for Aku to rescue Chi and at first, Chi wasn't interested in Mimi for her being a "commoner" (despite being princess of another Underworld realm). But now Chi is head-over-heels for Mimi and paints those moments differently.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Unknowingly for her, Chi manages to put the finger in what's going on with Mimi's errand (from the "eaten by a demon dog" to "biting a boy's head"), and she just happens to be wishing her the worse for not replying her messages.
• Ruins of the Modern Age: When Mimi was affected by the Hand of Horrors, her greatest fear was centered in the Ruins of Megaville
• Ruling Couple: Grim and Mandy are always referred to jointly when it comes to the rule of the Underworld. Considering how Mandy is, this is no surprise.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Junior's Nergal side decided to step out now that Minnie is succumbing to her inner evil; he advises Junior to keep a close eye on Mimi just in case Minnie does something to her because now he's on his own.
• Shared Universe: with Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi (albeit a bit into the future)
  • Actually the co-writer/editor Bee Are and the colorist Seiryuga for PPGD have reportedly stated this to be false. Though as Seriyuga no longer works on the comic this has turned into a Flip-Flop of God.
• Shout-Out
  • Billy's unpredictable hourglass appears to be a shout out to Rincewind's.
  • Nergal Jr. shows up wielding Soul Edge Phantom.
  • The same page as Adult Mandy is on? Yea, tear your eyes off her and look to the bottom-right. It's a line-for-line reference to "LABretto", from Dexter's Laboratory. Just see for yourself.
  • The Angry Video Game Nerd cameos here as the personification of the Deadly Sin Wrath.
  • The demon-mecha has an odd Verbal Tic. Yes...
  • See The Cameo. Nasty Burger is from Danny Phantom.
  • "Am I not Merciful!?"
  • And just like the Jollibee shout out in The Power Puff Girls Doujinshi, Bleedman made a shout out to another another Filipino franchise in this page.
  • Next to the sword Mini pulls out of Jr's Body to fight Mimi is a red-hilted Frostmourne.
  • When Mimi infiltrates Grim's vault in the WHaM comic, every panel has one or two items on display in the background from some other franchise. They've ranged from Captain America's shield, to the Lament Configuration, to the Sword of Omens, the Omnitrix, Mjlonir, Hellboy's stone hand thing, Chemical X, Giglypi, a robot with Freakin Laser Beams, Spartan Shield, what looks like the silhouette of Link's shield, Freddy's clawed glove, and The Infinity Gauntlet. A silhouette that could be Hector Con Carne's brain, and the vial identified previously as Chemical X could just as easily be Antidote X, since it is black in color.
  • Mimi in this page somewhat resembles Senjougahara (as seen in that page's image).
  • The Golem may look familiar to those who watched Samurai Jack. He's the Lava Monster/Norse Warrior that Jack help set free. The size and color may be different, but the resemblance◊ is uncanny.
  • Mimi fires Angry Birds!
  • Him's replacement of Mimi's hands might be a reference to the folktale The Girl With No Hands.
  • Him's background looks like Giygas from EarthBound.
• Spit Take: In the last page of the Christmas Special, the Scotsman has this kind of reaction to seeing Emoji girl in a rather skimpy maid style waitress outfit.

• The Un Favourite: Poor Junior, doesn't mean his parents and especially his sister don't care though.
  • Particularly ironic when considering the later revelation that it's actually MINNIE who is Grim's Un-Favorite, due to her being the child of Nergal Jr., himself the son of his old rival, Nergal. He hides it flawlessly in front of his kids, but he definitely favors Junior over Minnie by a long shot. Whether that changed when Nergal's powers was passed from Minnie to Junior is another matter...
  • Mandy has also started to treat her son more favorably than her daughter. As she was actually quite impressed by her son developing a spine and standing up to her, while Mini Mandy's more recent actions have failed to do the same.
• The Unintelligible: The "Nergellian Speak" Minnie, Nergal and later Grim Jr. possess is show only as symbols and never translated. Even the Ngo himself lampshades he has no idea what their saying.
  • Although, sometimes you can get the basic idea of what they might be saying. Near the end, their "Nergellian" appears in the form of hearts.
    • One of the most recent pages actually translates a short conversation between Junior and Mandy in the Nergel speak as footnotes.
• Take That!: An extended flashback seems to be one directed at FusionFall. The combined strength of the entire Cartoon Network lineup fails to stop Armaggeddon at the hands of Mandy, Grim, and Him.
• The Voiceless: Mimi doesn't utter a word through her appearance in the comic.

• Those Wacky Nazis: Mandy admired Hitler and the third reich in her youth◊. Becomes jarring considering that Mandy has always favored chaos as opposed to totalitarian fascism and the author mentions her as having left wing political views that gave her a political position.
• Tomato Surprise: Minnie's actually the illegitimate child of Nergal Jr. and Mandy. Junior is also the illegitimate child of Mandy and an as yet unknown man, but the matter is dropped before that person is revealed.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Mimi being stretched out by Minnie only hurts her for a second until she starts liking it.
  • Comes back again in a recent chapter where she moans with pleasure as she places a burning hot chakra to her forehead.
• The Unreveal: Nergal knows who Junior's biological father is, but that's all we get on it.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: At first, Chi didn't want to be anything of Mimi, who had a huge Celebrity Crush on her. Now, Chi can't get enough of Mimi, who may be falling for Junior now.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Once again, poor Junior.
  • A non-character example. Remember Jack's sword? The weapon forged and empowered by the heads of 3 different pantheons while being made out of human goodness and valor and the only thing that can kill Aku? As if singlehandedly decimating the entire Cartoon Network line-up, traitor or no traitor wasn't enough, as Grim and Mandy found out, just one DROP of Him's essence extracted from Mimi was able to corrupt it into an Unholy Holy Sword.
• Villainous BSoD: A brief one, but with a twist. Dark Danny here contemplates the chaos and destruction of Megaville shown in Mimi's past via "The Hand of Horror". He has a BSOD of sorts not because he caused the destruction, but that he wasn't around to cause it. Also a touch of Fridge Logic when you realize that with all the heroes gone, that includes the young Danny Phantom, meaning their rivalry will never be settled like Dark Danny wanted.
• Wall of Text: Rather extreme in both this and this
• Willfully Weak: Junior and the symbiote are told by His grandfather, the Reaper King that they are each much more powerful than Mimi. However they believe otherwise because she made them feel that way on purpose, so they hold back their true potential without knowing they had any.
• Wham Episode: Grim Tales: What About Mimi? or GT:WhAM, where we learn about Mimi's Dark and Troubled Past and Junior and Minnie's path starts to divide.

• You Shall Not Pass!: After Mimi's demonic essence is removed and contained, Mandy orders Pain to remove her from the premises...but Junior's suddenly blocking the way and his eye is aglow. Defying your mother is one thing, but when she's Mandy, it takes some real Brass Balls, skeleton or not.

---