No Pink Ponies
is a serial slice-of-life webcomic by Remy "Eisu" Mokhtar, based around Jess, her friends, and her new comic book store. Jess, the main character, is a clumsy comic book nerd who grew up with very good looks. Her nerd tendencies have a habit of overriding her confidence in her image, however — so much so that she started her own comic book store just to lure a cute guy into talking to her. This actually manages to work, sort of.
The comic follows the life and times of her best friends Lyla, her brother, four nerd friends, Cute Comic Guy, and Mel. And Maureen.
Despite their importance to the plot, none of the male characters has a name, whereas all the female characters are named. Word of God says their names will probably never be given because the comic is based on a female perspective on nerd fandom.
This comic provides examples of:
- All Love Is Unrequited: Well, some love. Maureen has seriously fallen hard for Jess. Unfortunately, Jess has no intention of switching teams.
- Captain Ersatz: Done intentionally with all the comic book heroes mentioned in the series.
- Comic-Book Time: The comic was supposed to update in real time. But then it slipped into a hiatus for a while back in 2008. Then the creator tried to make up for lost time by working to catch up to the current time again, but slipped into another couple of hiatuses for a while. So the comic was still updating, still trying to catch up, and hence saying it was still 2010 in 2013. That was confusing... Eventually, in May 2014, the creator decided to declare a three-year Time Skip to bring the comic's date back into line with reality.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Jess.
- Eating the Eye Candy: The female characters in this comic are especially prone to acknowledging the attractions of good-looking males. The effect can be used to sell coffee.
- Idealized Sex: Averted, Jess and her boyfriend's first time wasn't that great due to him having no experience, but she expected this and didn't mind. When this gets back to him on the grapevine, he's a bit put out for a while.
- Nerds Are Sexy: The characters may be nerds, but they are mostly cute nerds, often with sex lives.
- Nerds Are Virgins: The four nerd best friends in the comic store seem at first glance to fit the trope, but then this turns out to be subverted; of the aforementioned four, the fat one is married with a daughter, and the short one is apparently The Casanova. Not to mention the examples of Jess, who has had lots of partners, her boyfriend as of the later strips, Jess' brother and his wife...
- No Name Given: All the male characters. Lyla's boyfriend lampshades this here and here.
- Sassy Black Woman: Lyla is an understated version. She has the highest tendencies toward snarking and ribbing of all the characters.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Jess' boyfriend is one of the sweetest guys you could meet and the ladies are (very literally) lining up to throw themselves at him.
- Time Skip: A three-year jump was declared in May 2014. bringing the comic's timeline back into synchronization with reality.
- Unexpected Virgin: Jess's boyfriend, to her surprise.
