Something Happens
is a weekly Web Comic in the vein of The Far Side, created by Thomas K. Dye of Newshounds. With the exception of Guest Strips (by Tim Tylor, among others) when Dye has needed to take hiatus, there is almost no continuity between individual strips, allowing for maximum absurdity potential.
At the beginning of 2010, Dye took an extended hiatus from Something Happens to focus on a personal project. He returned on August 4th of that year, but then ended the comic for good on January 1st, 2012.
...and we all know what that means! That's right, it means we (and by "we" we mean "you") will have to save an archive of it and upload the file on archive.org. You know, before the site goes kaput! Unless, of course, you don't edit this wiki, in which case this whole paragraph does not concern you and we urge you to just carry on doing what you're doing and pretend you didn't read this.
This Web Comic provides examples of:
- A God Am I: Subverted, when a fish tries to convince a newcomer to the Afterlife that "God" was a typo.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Three robot "children" who grow up delinquent.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Luckily, the Zednoughts are still putting Humanity on Trial, so maybe we have some time.
- Another set of aliens lighten up after seeing two people wreck their cars.
- Dada Comics
- Book Ends : Everyday Something...Happens...What! Where When!
- Delivery Stork: Causes trouble for a woman booking an airline flight.
- Drinking the Kool-Aid: Kool-Aid Man himself gives a blogger a massive "Reason You Suck" Speech for using this trope. His kid believes he may have an ulterior motive.
- Everybody Knew Already: Bev knows all about it.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Somethings happen, sho 'nuff!
- Humanity on Trial: Return in seven centuries, thirty-six years, five months, two weeks, and four days to see the final verdict over-turned on a technicality!!!
- Humans Are Bastards: Several. Check out the Humanity on Trial link above for one.
- Intelligent Gerbil: All over the place. What, an absurdist comic is going to stick to plain old animals?
- Ironic Echo: Is that an ant farm, or an Etch-A-Sketch?
- Jumped the Shark: Referred to by name in-universe when the gods watch television.
- Left Hanging: The focus of a strip with a message.
- Mad Scientist: One builds robot children that grow up delinquent. Another puts a rival into a whole other virtual world — although he was in the rival's virtual world.
- Master of Illusion: Steve in Tyler's virtual world — which Tyler built in Steve's virtual world.
- Meaningful Echo: One person's parents tried this, to subverted effect.
- Meaningful Name: One strip is interrupted by a character who points out how co-workers Chris and Judy are heavy-handed religious metaphors.
- Operator from India: ...or maybe a little farther than that.
- Self-Empowerment Anthem: This strip has one that a teenage boy is rocking out to via his computer... until he's recognized (somehow, there's no visible webcam) and the computer stops the song to inform him that the song's message still applies to him but with several unspecified conditions, caveats, and codicils that the speaker doesn't have enough time to list then. They're all on file with the RIAA if the boy needs them though, and he's told that it's nothing personal, they just have to cover themselves for legal reasons. He's still permitted to "'rock out' to the music if it helps", but it doesn't. The song then continues, but he (understandably) no longer in the mood for it.
- Send in the Clones: Two parents feel their son Kyle is so successful they clone him into Kyle II — Kyle III, and Kyle IV: A New Beginning.
- Shout-Out: Besides the one above, this strip about deciding America's new Bill of Rights has a subtle one to Bone as one of the "common sense rules": "Never play an ace when a two will do."
- Side Effects Include...: Eternazec.
- Skewed Priorities: The source of many a punchline, whether it be finding civilization or discovering paradise.
- The Problem with Pen Island: "Guantanamo Terrorist Training Camp."
- Title Drop: In the first (proper) and last panel.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Eternazac, an immortality drug, has more dreadful side-effects than you can shake a stick at, mostly pertaining to being immortal.
