Webcomic / Out at Home

Out at Home is a webcomic by Alex Wendzel that started on November 19, 2008. It started as a family Sitcom-style strip, but morphed into a comic about HighSchool-aged Kate Beckett (Not this one) and her best friend Penny O'Brien. The comic combines slice-of-life dialogue and attitude with outlandish, outsized situations and gags. Most of the strips fall into story arcs, sometimes with added audio or video content. Each arc is separated by one-off gags. It's different, as it rarely if ever delves into the emotional and relationship drama featured in most webcomics about teenagers.

Character page under construction. We mean under construction.

The comic is technically done, as the last strip foreshadowed some sort of reboot.

The new comic is called Living to Death.

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Out at Home includes examples of:

• Accidental Misnaming: Andrew Luaertet (the agent in the Appetite for Destruction arc) continually calls Thurman "Thimrod". When corrected the first time, he simply states that Thimrod has more bite and continues to refer to him as Thimrod.
• Alt Text: Starting here.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Parodied in this guest strip.
• Art Evolution: The artist bet on art school and the strip was the winner.
  • Penny was the only one to notice the various tweaks the author made regarding the drawings.
• Bond One-Liner: Ordog cracks one after beheading a man with a garbage can lid.
  Ordog: I think it's time to take out the trash."
  [Ordog picks up a garbage can lid and heaves at his pursuer. It slices through the man's neck, beheading him.]
  Ordog: "...pickup Monday, eight A.M."
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Penny, a bunch of times.
• Call Back: In one strip, Penny mentions that it's the third-worst situation she's ever sobered up to. A while later, we see this.
• Cool People Rebel Against Authority: Thurman has a habit of doing this, from listening to Dubstep (and abandoning it when Herman likes it too), to "Waiting up" for his father to come home from a date.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Thurman's plan to sneak into prom, relying on the "Wouldn't I come up with a better idea?" aspect.
• Crazy-Prepared: At least Penny has this covered with her alarm clock, on account of her breaking them every morning, just look here.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ordog.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: The General to Mim: "You worthless whore! I'm going to boil your eyes and feed them to the bears!"
  • Also, Mim does this in Herman Beckett's Funtime Question Computer Show when she threatens to cut out Herman's eyes and balls and switch where they're positioned on his body.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Mim has it out for Herman for firing her... which was entirely her fault. That doesn't stop her from trying to kill him, though.
  • Skye had a massive enough grudge against Kate to fake her own death and frame Kate for it. And all because she was using the red crayon in grade-school.
• Dissimile: The General does this in one strip.
  The General: "The American soldier is a finely-tuned machine, capable of literally anything except for the things it cannot do."
• Distracted by the Sexy: Perhaps Herman shouldn't go car shopping on his own.
• The Ditz: Thurman, who's inherited his father's complete absence of sense (see Idiot Savant below,) but apparently not his sporting ability.
• Eating Contest: Thurman enters one here.
• Epic Fail: Mim's attempt at poisoning Herman... doesn't go as planned due to premature Evil Gloating.
• Erotic Eating: Subverted (like most of the Fanservice moments) here.
  Alt Text: If anyone is actually turned on by the last panels of comic 2, PLEASE get help.
• Everything's Cuter with Kittens: Herman doesn't like the sound of the "United Evil College Fund", but is convinced when told that a $100 donation rewarded the donor with a free kitten.
• Fiction 500: According to the cast page, Herman's net worth surpasses the GDP of Uruguay. His ability to attract wealth is so great that he receives a literal boatload of money, in the form of a yacht filled with gold coins, just for starting a podcast.
• Frame Break: Penny does it here.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Alasdair serves as this due to Your Cheating Heart - but every now and then, he reminds them why he's their friend.
• Fur Bikini: Penny wears one for the 300th strip celebration.
• Gas Lighting: Of the "progressively smaller furniture" variety.
• The Generic Guy: Dustin, to the degree where it got lampshaded by Herman.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Invoked here, because Dustin always wanted to do it.
• Green Eyes: Penny.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Invoked and lampshaded here.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Penny.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: Alasdair, in this strip.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Near the end of the Prom arc, Kate has a very well-deserved reason for it. She shares it with a cop later.
• Idiot Savant: Herman, who is an idiot in every way except for being an incredible baseball player.
• Impairment Shot: Penny has one after being drunk for much of a story arc.
• Instant Sedation: Parodied here.
  Mim: Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
  Gina: Um... no, it doesn't.
  Mim: Now, Adam! (Adam gives Gina a Tap on the Head)
• Literal-Minded: "My dad always told me a penny saved is a penny earned..."
• Mathematician's Answer: Thurman tried this on a Geography test - he answered "Earth" for half the questions.
• Medium Awareness: Penny has a very firm grasp of her existing in a webcomic, though she doesn't always address it. Best exemplified here.
  Kate: Why are you talking to that wall?
• Mistaken for Gay: Generally not a good sign when even your father thinks this. Although he is the resident Cloud Cuckoo Lander.
  Penny: G'night, everybody!
• Non-Indicative Name: Operation Karate Bullets, a top secret military initiative which Herman is nearly killed just for appearing to get in the way of, is... a health care plan.
• Noodle Incident: Penny has a few of these tied to her being drunk. Some are mentioned here.
• Not Helping Your Case: Penny informs Kate that she's not what one would call "Dainty".
  Kate: I am so dainty! ...I am dainty as fuck!
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Mr. Liszt over ice-cream.
• Oblivious to Love: Kate is this in spades during the Prom arc, culminating in this.
• Precocious Crush: Eddie has a huge one for Penny, starting here.
  Eddie: Penny... she shines as bright as the coin that bears her name.
• The Power of Love: When trying to get Eddie to do her a favor, Penny uses his crush with an offer of an on-the-mouth kiss. He manages to not only get a 2-hour project he'd expected to be tight done immediately, but also ran it to her side fast enough that even she was shocked.
  Alt Text: You baffle Penny, you're doing something REALLY unusual.
• Primal Scene: A little older than typical, but still not a great sight to walk in on.
• Reality Ensues: 30 seconds after Ordog and co. break into a heavily guarded government facility...
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The General in the Karate Bullets arc.
• Shout-Out: One story arc is called "Appetite for Destruction".
  • In the background of the school play there can be seen a Tardis and the Starship Enterprise.
  • The alt-text of this strip reads "He's one oooold mutha–SHUT YO MOUTH!"
  • Kate mentions sharing a name with another Katherine Beckett in the first strip in the Halloween arc.
  • Kate apparently likes Death Cab for Cutie.
  • Comic 200 has the same twist as Duck Amuck.
  • Strip 300 borrows a pair of characters from Dinosaur Comics.
• Stylistic Suck: The clip art Wendzel used for The General's slideshow presentation on Operation Karate Bullets is intentionally out-of-date.
• Take That: Here, to Bill O'Reilly.
• To the Batnoun!: To the Hermanmobile!
• Totally Radical: Herman did a Driver's Safety video in the '90s.
• Word of Gay: According to this strip, Bob is. Ed is the result of a drunken One Night Stand.
• Worst News Judgement Ever: As a background gag; the town paper chooses "Editor's Daughter Available for Prom" as its cover story over "Robots Enslave Iowa" here.

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