Lies, Sisters and Wives
is a webcomic by Øyvind Thorsby. It is a 34-page farce of lies about a man with a wife and mistress.
Jim is married to Matilda, whose father is Jim's boss. Jim is secretly seeing another woman, Jessica. One day, while Matilda is out of the house with her parents for a trip, Jessica comes to see Jim. Things don't go as planned, and Jim ends up spinning lie after lie to keep the truth hidden.
It was originally posted on Webcomics Nation in 2010. After the site shut down, it was reposted on Comic Fury.
Note: Some of the trope names below may be spoilers.
Contains examples of:
- Affair Letters: Fredrik turns out to have a mistress who sends him letters. When he thinks that Jim has discovered his affair, he assumes he read the letters.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Due to wacky misunderstandings, Elisabeth ends up thinking that Jessica has sex with horses. She is horrified and flees the room.
- Blackmail: In the end, Jim has the role of blackmailer unknowingly thrust upon him. Fredrik reveals to Jim that he has a secret daughter from an affair — assuming that he knows already — and gives him the job in Bergen to keep him quiet.
- Contrived Clumsiness: Jessica pours Fredrik some whiskey. Fredrik thinks she's poisoned the drink, so he drops the glass on the floor, pretending it was an accident.
- "Fawlty Towers" Plot: Jim tries to cover up his affair with Jessica, resulting in an increasingly tangled web of lies to cover up previous lies. To Arthur, he claims that Jessica is his wife and Matilda's sister. To Matilda and her parents, he claims that Jessica is Arthur's wife. When Arthur's actual wife comes over, Jim claims to Matilda's family that she is Jessica's sister. To Bob, he claims that they are all Mormons and that he, Matilda, Jessica, Agatha, and Arthur are in a polygamous marriage. This all culminates in the police busting in and trying to arrest Jessica as a serial killer and Arthur on charges of murder, pimping, bestiality and bigamy. Jim's lies end up unraveling and the truth comes out.
- Karma Houdini: Jim, who was cheating on Matilda with Jessica, ends up getting everything he wanted and more: leaving Matilda, keeping his job, getting the job in Bergen, and Jessica staying with him.
- Like Is, Like, a Comma: Jessica peppers her speech with "like".
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Due to various characters having different understandings of the facts, often they will have conversations that they interpret in wildly differing ways.
- Arthur, who thinks that Jessica is Matilda's sister, asks Matilda about her sister and comments that she and Jessica look nothing alike. Matilda tells him about her actual sister and is confused why she and Jessica would look alike.
- Elisabeth says to Agatha that Arthur wants to be married to Agatha's sister, the call girl. She thinks that Jessica is both Agatha's sister and Arthur's wife, so from her perspective she is simply pointing out that Arthur is not bothered by his wife's profession. To Agatha, who is Arthur's actual wife, Elisabeth is telling her to her face that her husband would rather be with her sister.
- Fredrik, who thinks that Jessica is Arthur's wife, says to Agatha (Arthur's actual wife) that Arthur is attracted to Jessica. Agatha, who thinks that Jessica is Fredrik's daughter and Jim's wife, is outraged.
- Elisabeth thinks that Jessica is a call girl, while Fredrik thinks she's a psychologist. Elisabeth calls her job terrible, while Fredrik defends it and suggests that both Elisabeth and her brother could benefit from sessions with Jessica. Elisabeth storms out.
- Elisabeth talks to Arthur about his wife's job, calling it a disgrace; she thinks he's married to Jessica and that Jessica is a call girl. Arthur's actual wife is a psychologist, and Arthur thinks that Jessica is a veterinarian. Arthur says his wife's clients think she's good, and mentions Jessica sticking her hands up (animal) bottoms and working with horses. This results in Elisabeth thinking that "Arthur's wife Jessica" openly sleeps around with other men, anally fists people, and has sex with horses.
- Arthur tells Fredrik that Jessica sometimes euthanizes her clients without their knowledge. Arthur, who thinks she's a veterinarian, is talking about animals. Fredrik, who thinks she's a psychologist, thinks he's saying she kills people.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Bob comes under the false impression that Jessica, Matilda, and Agatha are all Fredrik's daughters. In truth, only Matilda is. However, his assumption that Fredrik has three daughters turns out to be correct. Aside from Matilda and her unseen veterinarian sister, it turns out that Fredrik has a third, secret daughter with a mistress.
- Slut-Shaming: Agatha and Elisabeth disapprove of Agatha's sister being a call girl (though they have different ideas about who "Agatha's sister" is). Jim goes along with it just to try and get them to move on from the topic before they can discover they have different information.
- Trauma Button: To stop Arthur from discovering Jim and Matilda's wedding photo, Jessica starts screaming her head off. She and Jim explain it away as her having a crippling fear of spiders due to a traumatic experience.
