Pebble and Wren
is a comedy webcomic that toys on the idea of "monsters under the bed" that focuses on a monster named Pebble and a girl named Wren.
Although Pebble was sent to scare Wren, the two are actually best friends, and monsters live alongside humans in harmony (the principal of Wren's school is even a monster).
Recurring characters include Wren's two dads Donald and Phil and Pebble's mother Violet.
The webcomic was created in 2018 by a man named Chris Hallbeck.
Pebble and Wren provides examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: Pebble, short for Pebbluhneghy, is called that next to normally-named individuals like Donald and Violet. Pebble was apparently named after their great-grandfather.
- All Just a Dream: One strip shows Wren apparently gaining Pebble's abilities, but it was just a shared dream that she and Pebble had due to monster telepathy.
- Ambiguous Gender: Pebble is referred to as a "they" sometimes and a "he" other times, but never a "she".
- Ambiguous Situation: In one strip, Wren is eating a doughnut. Pebble asks if it's a "roxell puff" and when Wren asks what that is, Pebble replies that a roxell is a lizard that has "oily puff balls" in its armpits that it shoots stomach acid from. Wren loses her appetite and walks away, so Pebble looks deviously at the doughnut. It's unknown if roxells really exist or if Pebble was lying to make Wren lose her appetite so he could get the doughnut.
- Baffled by Own Biology: In one strip, Pebble gets his/theirnote first caffeine rush from eating raw coffee, wondering why it makes him/them feel so happy despite "tasting angry".
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: In one strip, Pebble and Wren are having shared lucid dreams and exploiting the fact that they can breathe in space because they're dreaming.
- Benevolent Monsters: Pebble and most other monsters are friendly and sociable.
- Big Eater: Pebble likes to eat and can eat quite a lot (but not infinity) in one sitting.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Pebble puts whipped cream on hot dogs and pizza.
- Bookworm: Wren seems to enjoy reading and has been seen reading in several strips. So has Pebble, but he also eats books.
- Buffy Speak: Pebble often says slightly grammatically-incorrect things like "I'm afraid it will explosion my mouth" (instead of "explode in my mouth").
- Catching Some Z's:
- Pebble once snores with a single Z.
- Donald's pyjama shirt depicts a cloud sleeping with a single Z.
- Comically Missing the Point: A running gag is Pebble not quite getting the point.
- He often takes things literally.
- When Wren complains about a pack being hard to open, he opens it in his mouth but swallows the pliers inside.
- Cyclops: Pebble's dad has one eye.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Apparently, Donald doesn't like being called by his first name except for Violet.
- Dream Episode:
- There's a story arc about the title characters having shared lucid dreams after finding out they can.
- Another strip is about Pebble entering Wren's nightmares.
- Eat Dirt, Cheap: When Pebble and Wren pretend to be in space, Pebble asks if some imaginary rocks are edible. Wren says no.
- Eating the Enemy: In the shared dream the title characters have about the "shape", Pebble defeats it by eating it.
- Extra Eyes: Violet has three eyes and so does the principal.
- Extreme Omnivore: Pebble's eaten mice before and he often eats non-food objects like backpacks and toothbrushes. His father also eats furniture, but only when he's lonely.
- Fight for the Last Bite: Zigzagged in one strip. Wren takes a cookie out of a bag and Pebble says, "Do I hear snacks?". Wren says that it's the last one, but offers it to him. He says, "Thank you" and eats the bag instead.
- Fire-Breathing Diner: Discussed when Pebble shape-shifts into a rocket ship and Wren asks if he can shoot fire and fly. Pebble replies, "Depends on what I had for breakfast".
- Fooled by the Sound: In one strip, Pebble hears Phil using a razor and believes there are bees in it, scaring him.
- Got Me Doing It: Wren once briefly picks up Pebble's unusual syntax and says, "Close enoughing."
- Grossout Fakeout: Zigzagged in a strip. Pebble allegedly mistook Wren's doughnut for a growth that grows in the armpits of a creature. However, he could have been making that up to put Wren off so he can eat it himself.
- Halloween Episode: One story arc is about Pebble's first Halloween.
- Happy Rain: Pebble doesn't mind using himself (themselves?) as an umbrella for Wren.Pebble: "I like the wet."
- Help, I'm Stuck!: Wren once pretends to be stuck in a stool... and then actually gets stuck.
- Imaginary Friend: Pebble imagines a little monster running along the sidewalk while driving in the car.
- Immune to Jump Scares: In one early strip, Pebble the monster pops out from under Wren's bed and yells, "Raa!", but Wren doesn't even bat an eye.Wren: "You can't just jump up like a goof yelling 'raa'! That's so boring."
- In-Series Nickname: "Pebble" is short for Pebbluhneghy.
- Interspecies Friendship: The title characters are a monster and a human and great pals. Violet and Donald are another monster-human friendship.
- Jump Scare: Wren defines jump scares in one strip and describes Phil accidentally scaring her as one in another.
- Like Mother Like Son: Violet and Pebble both love whipped cream.
- Literal-Minded: Pebble sometimes takes things literally, such as when Wren says, "You can't be here!", he says, "Yes, I can, you're talking to me right now."
- Mr. Imagination: Pebble and Wren seem to be a Mr. and Ms. Imagination— they're both very imaginative and often play make-believe together. They have lots of pretend adventures, but their favourite seems to be pretending to be in space.
- Name and Name: The title of the comic is "Pebble and Wren".
- Nightmare Fetishist: Wren apparently enjoys watching scary movies and says that it's pointless having a non-scary monster.
- Nightmare Sequence: One series of strips is about Wren having nightmares about a "scary shape".
- No Name Given: We never find out the names of Pebble's father.
- Partially-Concealed-Label Gag: When Pebble is looking for a job, he sees a sign saying, "Small monsters". He gets excited because he is a small monster, only to find that the sign actually says, "Small monsters need not apply."
- Pun:
- Pebble sees a little cucumber once and calls it a "cute-cumber".
- Pebble once counts forks by saying, "Onek, twok, threek, fourk."
- When Pebble accidentally gets crumbs in his eyes, he says, "Eye have made a mistake".
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When Pebble pretends like he eats cats to scare Wren, she says, "You. Eat. Cats?!?"
- Race-Name Basis: When Wren meets Pebble, she calls him, "monster".
- Rubber Man: Pebble can stretch his(?) body out like an elastic band as part of his shapeshifting abilities. Wren lacks this ability but she has dreamt that she has it.
- Say My Name: When Pebble eats Wren's bed legs, she shouts, "Pebble!".
- Scary Stinging Swarm: In one strip, Pebble mistakes Phil's razor for a box of angry bees that eat the facial hair off and seems nervous at the idea of it.
- Shout-Out:
- Pebble is once seen dressed as R2D2 from Star Wars.
- In one of the Halloween strips, Pebble holds up a Spider-Man mask.
- Pebble once gets a sore belly from eating a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure.
- Talking in Your Sleep: Wren once has a nightmare and yells in her sleep.
- Tastes Like Purple: Pebble describes coffee beans as "tasting very angry".
- Tears of Joy: Discussed when Pebble reveals that he used to believe that rain was trees crying, but didn't use to think they were sad.
- Telepathy: Monsters are telepathic, so Pebble and Violet are able to "think jokes" to each other. Humans can also be taught telepathy, as evidenced by Wren and Donald learning.
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Parodied. Monsters are benevolent but it's traditional for them to live in human children's closets and under beds and scare them.
- Toilet Humour:
- One rule Wren makes for Pebble is "no farting in my room".
- Pebble claims toilets creep him out and when asked why, he says, "Have you seen what they eat?".
- One strip has Pebble taking "the toilet is running" literally.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Downplayed for whipped cream, or "creamy whips" as they put it, which is Pebble's favourite food and a running gag, but he likes all kinds of other food too.
- Unnamed Parent: Although all other parents are named, Pebble's father isn't.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Pebble can shapeshift.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Pebble is afraid of spiders, being alone, and toilets.
- You Are Grounded!: When Wren's dads find out that she and Pebble climbed a tree (which she's not allowed to do since she broke her arm climbing a tree a while back), they ground them both.
