A webcomic written and drawn by Matt Speroni of How I Killed Your Master fame, The Dreadful is a fantasy story in a Wild West setting. It stars Kit, a cute demon ("Devikin") gunslinger who wields the eponymous weapon, a magicalpistol. It also has a fairly strong supporting cast, that is becoming more developed as the comic goes on. These include Boozloaf, a minotaur preacher; Erin, a wingedsniper; and Liz, a sharpshooter who once ran with the same gang Kit did.The story begins with our heroine shot in the back and left to bleed out in an alley. Someone called Judge Catherine finds her lying there and whisks her away. She recovers after two days in the hospital and is taken to meet with a detective agency. They task her to hunt down and kill the leader of her old gang, Jeanne Noelle. Given that Jeanne was more than likely the one who ordered her shot, Kit has no problem with this. But the job may not be as simple as it first appears...You can find it here.
Anachronism Stew: The setting is nominally Wild West / Weird West and the standard sidearm is a single-action revolver, but then you have things like Burke's drum-fed grenade launcher, and meta-references to .jpgs.
Art Evolution: Kit gets lips on page 62, and the overall style moves from Animesque to more realistic. Unusually, it's a deliberate and immediate shift rather than a gradual change.
Axe Crazy: Burke, who was planning to kill Liz and feed her to a steadily increasing chain of predators.
Bad Boss: Burke again, who shoots a henchman for making a bad joke.
Berserk Button: Don't imply anything unpleasant about Poe in Kit's presence.
Also, don't call her Pinky. If you do, this happens.
Bus Crash: After being briefly introduced early on, "Muttonchops" and the centaur agent initially sent to accompany Kit reappear several dozen strips later as heads on pikes.
Astonishingly enough, this becomes a plot point when Ith, the starved fairy, resurrects Erin by possessing her.
Genre Savvy: Upon seeing the slug-revived things, Erin and Ith instantly guess that they are zombies and shooting them in the head would be the best course of action.
Wrong Genre Savvy: Except that these particular zombies apparently don't work that way.
Immune to Bullets: Burke takes one between the eyes and it only annoys him.
All devikin are as long as they aren't silver (though Kit is tough even by those standards). It can still knock them out for a while, particularly if you get them in the head.
Burke: No one interfere. This is my soup. And fortune... IS MY SPOON!!! The eggs I lay HATCH PAIN!!! I am a bolt of lightning in a lightning bolt factory!!
Lightning Can Do Anything: Trying to get drunk on magical reagents can make you vomit lightning, with unpleasant results.
Our Elves Are Better: They have excellent hearing, but the one we've seen thus far was killed too quickly to learn anything else from.
Painting the Fourth Wall: After Ith revives Erin and they start Sharing a Body, Erin's speech is in the standard font for the comic, while Ith's is in a more "jagged" font.
Erin: Will nothing keep itself dead?! *realizes* Not that I am complaining, Ith.
Pungeon Master: Boozloaf and Kit, at least when they're around each other.
Punny Name: The Moomons. Word Of God is that these cow-people only superficially resemble Mormons, their religion having nearly been called Cowtholic instead.
Reality Ensues: For a given value of "reality". A posse shows up at Kit's hideout. Their arrogant leader threatens and insults Kit while flipping his gun around Revolver Ocelot-style. It looks like an epic gunfight is about to ensue, but Kit simply shoots the hammer of his gun mid-flip, causing it to shoot him in the head.
Sadistic Choice: In flashback, after a job went bad, Jeanne gave Kit and Poe a choice. Either they kill the unarmed, bound and hooded bookkeeper that they took as a hostage, or Jeanne would do it. And if Jeanne did it, she would get creative about it.
Sharing a Body: Erin and Ith (the fairy Liz had bottled up) as a result of a possession-based resurrection.
Erin: They look like zombies, so I assume the best place to shoot is the head. You agree? Ith: That is what I would suggest. Though Dr. Clarke in his essay on "Necromorphosis" suggests the limbs. I think he's a crackpot, personally.
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