Webcomic / Tiny Tots

The Four Main Tots; Audrey, Bella, Walt and Teagan

Tiny Tots (sometimes called "Tiny Tots Comics") is an internet web comic created by Cohen Case in 2020; following a massive falling out between him and a previous co-worker. Tiny Tots is mostly known for its characters, morals and comedy rather than the plotlines introduced. Most notably being examples of representation towards LGBTQ+, people of color and people on the autism spectrum.

Tiny Tots has released a total of 35 comics in the span of a year and a half, which many consider to be very impressive for being a full web comic series created by one person. Tiny Tots has also inspired a miniature cult-following that create their own fan-art and original characters inspired by the comics; many feeling relatability between the main cast of children for their representation of often silenced minorities, especially in children's media.

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Tropes:

• The '90s: The comic takes place in the mid-90's, with many references to the decade, many being related to the technology available at the time, such as the CRT televisions and telephones used.
• Abusive Parents: Although never shown or explicitly talked about, it is heavily implied that Keira's absent-father had abused her and her mother Kim, leading to the trauma that leads Keira to breaking down easily.
• Affably Evil: Choi Lee is a former-villain that is often still seen laughing maniacally and demanding things be brought to him rudely. Despite this, Choi Lee remains surprisingly charismatic with the tots, best example being in "Cash For Trash" where he politely asks Audrey and Eric why they knocked on his door, only to slam it on their faces anyway.
• Alliterative Name: Teagan Tot, Raven Ravage and David Daniel; the latter originally stemming from an inside joke outside of the comics.
• Amateur Film-Making Plot: The comic "Director's Cut!" is centered around the tots collectively creating a home movie out of boredom. The final product is an inconsistent short-movie consisting of a scientist (Bella) getting distracted by someone (Teagan) and being robbed by an unnamed villain (Audrey), who is stopped by "Super Walt". The comic concludes with the tots cheerfully stating that the movie wasn't very good.
• Ambiguously Bi: Stacy can be seen complimenting Waltrina, which is Walt's alter-ego seen in "One In The Same" after deciding to become a girl. Stacy has a crush on Walt in the series as a whole, though when meeting Waltrina, she has no problems with the gender identity of Walt, and still expresses love for him as a person.
• Animals Fear Neutering: In "Rabbit's Foot", the conclusion sees the tots keeping a stray rabbit that is let inside by Audrey and named "Choccy" by Teagan. After their dad allows them to keep Choccy, he exclaims "Now, who wants to go to the vet?", the tots cheer happily while Choccy begins to sweat nervously.
• Angry Guard Dog: In "Down In The Dumps" Eric is nearly attacked by a guard dog inside of the dump before being pushed out of the way by Audrey.
• Animal Lover:
  • Teagan is occasionally seen with affection towards animals, in "Rabbit's Foot" where she names and dresses up a wild rabbit that Audrey finds outside. Additionally, in "Septembers End" Teagan is seen dressed up as a bumblebee for a Halloween party.
  • Keira can be seen in "Same Page" picking out a coloring book full of Shih Tzu dogs, with her coloring it and wanting Bella to see her coloring.
• Art Evolution: Volume 1 had very thick outlines on all of the artwork, with Cohen originally detailing this was to coincide with the nineties aesthetic the comics were going for. Volume 2 took a major shift from this, with much more thin outlines being done to make the comics more visually appealing.
• Art Shift: Mostly used in dream sequences when one of the tots is thinking to themselves, usually changing the art style for a few panels to match the character's traits, an example being Bella's thoughts being sketched on lined paper to reflect her intelligence in "First Day".
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Walt in "One In The Same" becomes "Waltrina" temporarily for the majority of the comic, being complimented for their looks by their siblings and Stacy; the latter having a huge crush on Walt anyway, not caring about his gender identity.
• Band Episode: In "Band Together", Teagan, Tempo, Bella and Keira decide to try and form their own band after being introduced to Tempo and his hyper fixation towards music. Nothing comes out of these events until Tempo breaks down and is confronted by Teagan privately, where he begins softly playing the recorder and she begins to sing a short poem "You & I".
• Berserk Button: Teagan is heavily sensitive to being called or treated like a baby, with her bumping into Walt and Audrey making fun of her in "Mother Love", leading her to run and cry.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Teagan, Bella and Audrey.
• Bookworm: In "Same Page", Bella is overly excited while visiting the library with Keira, happily seeing books such as "To Kill A Mockingbird", "Charlotte's Web" and "Moby Dick".
• Brainy Brunette: Bella is the most intelligent tot, often being the one to come up with the solutions to problems between her siblings, even if they don't always work out the best. This also comes to aid when helping out her friend Keira and her occasional dramatic breakdowns.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The Narrator of the comics does this constantly, often poking fun at the events that take place inside of the comics themselves while talking to the audience.
• Breakout Character: Initially intended as occasional side characters, Keira and Tempo would both end up becoming main characters after extremely positive fan reception at their diversity and representation shown compared to most characters in children's media.
• Brand X: This is seen fairly often in the comics, the most notable examples are in "Store Wars", the name itself being a parody of Star Wars. This comic also includes two distinct restaurants titled "Mc Gurgles" and "Mendy's", mimmicking real-life fast food joints.
• Buffy Speak: Based on the age of the characters involved, this tends to happen every so often.
• The Bully: Parodied with Brad who has an intentionally stereotypical bully name and is extremely self-centered. Often picking on either Walt or Teagan, with Audrey usually telling him off; despite being friends with her.
• Character Exaggeration: Many of the tots' traits were exaggerated slightly after the beginning of the second volume; mainly to allow for more comedic and potentially educational purposes to the readers.
• Character Focus: Many comics focus on duos of friends, usually being Bella and Keira or Teagan and Tempo; sometimes being Walt and Stacy or Audrey and Eric. Alternatively, many comics focus on Walt, Audrey, Bella and Teagan all together.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The character Iggy appeared only in two comics, "First Day" and "Same Page" before being completely abandoned and never mentioned again.
• Color Motif: Almost every character in Tiny Tots was given a color based on this motif, as a mean for said color to be reflective of their personality.
  • Blue: Walt and Viola
  • Red: Audrey, Kim and Keira (Keira's is light red though)
  • Green: Bella
  • Pink: Teagan and Stacy
  • Purple: Raven and Gracelyn
  • Brown: Eric and Mr. Moyo
  • Black: Tempo, the Tots' Dad (though both of their cases being formality reasons) and Brad
• Crotch-Glance Sex Check: Happens off-screen in "Rabbit's Foot", though it is mentioned at the end when the tots' dad questions Teagan on how she knew that Choccy was a girl, Teagan stating she checked.
• Daddy's Girl:
  • Teagan is very close to her father, often going to him whenever something is wrong, most notably in comics "Toy Glory" and "Beauty Sleep", where she cries to him about about feeling bad.
  • Bella can be seen occasionally asking her father for advice, biggest example is in the pilot "Rabbit's Foot" where she admits to letting in a stray rabbit into the house privately.
• The Diaper Change: Most often found in a comic containing either Teagan's doll Libby or Pablo, diaper changes happen occasionally; usually being partially on-screen or cut off.
  • In "Mother Love" the comic concludes with Audrey apologizing to Teagan for making fun of her, promising to do anything to make up for this. Following this, Libby announces "Oopsie poopsie, please change me mommy!", the tots all stare at Audrey with big grins.
  • In "Deep Dark Secret" Teagan can be seen very briefly changing Libby's diaper in the opening of the comic.
  • In "Dirty Work", Bella is seen changing Libby's diaper, covering her nose in disgust.
  • In "Three Girls And A Baby", Keira, Bella and Teagan need to work together to change Pablo's diaper; with Teagan offering most of the assistance with Keira while Bella remains largely uninvolved.'
  • In "Season's Greetings", Keira and Pablo briefly leave the outdoor gathering to change his diaper, with Keira calling him a "little stinker", Pablo laughing.
  • In "Beauty Sleep" Teagan needs to change Libby's diaper after having used it out of fear from a large shadow chasing them down. This also being the most graphic detail put into one of these scenes, with the diaper low-hanging and the bottom half being drenched in brown.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Eric has long and overgrown hair that makes him appear more feminine to some readers, the reason for the long hair however is directly related to living in poverty and not having a barbershop to receive a haircut at.
• Dumb Blonde: Teagan is the least intelligent of the main tots aside from her younger brother Walt, though Teagan is largely blindly optimistic and carefree rather than outright stupid.
• Episode Title Card: Every issue opens with a title card, usually with a stylized logo and silhouettes of the main characters appearing in said comic.
• Evil Laugh: The tots' neighbor Choi Lee laughs maniacally many times as a force of habit.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Occurs in "Mother Love", where Teagan overhears Walt and Audrey making fun of her and her obession with her baby doll Libby behind her back, leading her to breakdown and cry; having Bella stand up for her.
• Exploiting the Fourth Wall: The entire bonus issue series of "The Tinies" (an awards show parody) allows fans to directly input their reactions to the comics released each respective year and even appear drawn in the Tiny Tots art-style in the comic itself, usually repeating lines they submitted when asked to explain their choices.
• Expy: Teagan has a remarkable resemblance in both design and personality to Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls.
• The Faceless: The Tots' Dad has never had his face shown, this has become a running gag of sorts, with the Narrator usually putting narration with his speech bubble over the dad's face, and struggling to come up with anything actually relevant to say.
• Family Theme Naming: Tempo and his mom Viola are both named after music influence. Interestingly, their last name Aria is also based off musical influence, though fans rumored it was also a reference to series creator Cohen's girlfriend Nora's previous online alias, "Daria".
• Fearless Infant: Keira's younger brother Pablo is almost always happy and cheerful, even in his first appearance with Keira crying in "Phone A Friend!" he remains supportive, offering his plushie to help sooth her.
• Filthy Fun:
  • Audrey is often seen getting or being dirty intentionally, usually by rolling in mud, belching or farting loudly, as she finds it to be fun.
  • Eric lives inside of the dump as he has no house, he is used to having fun by getting dirty. Though in his case it is a result of poverty rather than pure enjoyment, though he finds fun in it regardless.
  • Pablo playfully enjoys and laughs after using his diaper. His stuffed animal of a rat is also named "Stinky".
• Fiery Redhead: Audrey is extremely sarcastic and is very easy to anger, though she is a nice and caring person if you get to know her, most often seen with her constant teasing of her siblings, yet also caring immensely for them whenever they feel hurt.
• First Day of School Episode: The second comic to be released was "First Day", named after the tots' first day of kindergarten.
• Girlish Pigtails: Teagan, even giving Choccy pink bows and pigtails in "Rabbit's Foot".
• Good Parents: Every parent in Tiny Tots are all respectful and want whats best for their children, though notably the Tots' dad, Kim and Viola are standouts in this category, with each of them having completely different situations, often with troubling pasts and difficulties raising their children, but still give it their all and love their children for who they are.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: This occurs a few times in the series, both occurences being cut off swear words.
  • In "Toy Glory", while Audrey and Teagan begin to yell and argue over a game of tag and if Audrey immediately tagging Teagan was fair, this gets so heated that Teagan yells "WHY YOU LITTLE-", flipping the page reveals Walt ducking, saying "GASP! Language!".
  • In "Welcome Home", while Walt is listening to their neighbor yelling in the middle of the night, the neighbor yells the line "BULLS-" which gets cut off by Walt declaring he has had enough of the ruckus.
• Human Ladder: The Tots often stand on top of each other when looking over fences or behind walls, the most notably example is in "Welcome Home", where these both happen while spying on their new neighbor.
• Improvised Lockpick: In "Welcome Home", Audrey uses her fist as a way to open a sealed vent.
• In-Series Nickname: Teagan is most prominent with nicknames for other characters. Walt is "Bubby" and Audrey is "Audie", bubby being a nod to Walt being her 'baby brother'.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Audrey is often seen teasing her siblings, especially Teagan; at the end of the day however she cares for them all and if someone tries to mess with them, she will show her true feelings.
• Kids Prefer Boxes: In "Outside The Box", Walt is seen trying to create DIY crafts with a cardboard box, though ultimately remains clueless and distracted. However, Bella gets him on the right track after asking for help, where he has more fun then he did playing video games that same morning.
• Limited Wardrobe: All of the tots wear the same clothes in every comicstrip, with the exceptions of costumes in "Septembers End" and winter coats in "Season's Greetings". Also occasional formal wear, mainly in Volume 2's debut comic "Open Your Heart".
• Ludicrous Gift Request: Once used in a subtle joke, if you pay close attention in "Season's Greetings" you can see a Christmas list written by Walt given to Choi Lee (dressed as Santa), this list details relevant gifts in the year of 1996, and "A good episode of Incorporeal"; a diss towards Cohen's former co-worker's own series they planned around the same time of their falling out.
• Mad Scientist: The character Dr. Fluffle is written as a calm yet also erratic doctor, seen in the comic "Tooth Decay" performing dental care on Walt. Interestingly, they are also the shortest character; even shorter than Pablo, who is between 1-2 year(s) old in the comics.
  • Choi Lee could be classified under the label if his original drafts are accounted for.
• Mall Santa: Choi Lee makes a brief appearance in "Season's Greetings" as a Mall Santa with Walt handing over a list in the middle of a Christmas song.
• Missing Mom: Walt, Audrey, Bella and Teagan all live with a single father, without any biological or adoptive mother in sight; they still remain happy with their caring father despite this.
  • Audrey has briefly thought to herself about her mom supposedly leaving her in "Down In The Dumps".
• Moose and Maple Syrup: This trope is present in every comic to a certain extent, this is because of the series creator being Canadian himself, often leading to multiple instances of stereotypical "Eh?"s and being written in Canadian English; often using British slang far more than American words.
• Multiple Demographic Appeal: Tiny Tots was created with mass appeal in mind, meaning it could be read by kids as young as the ages of the tots themselves to as old as over 100 years old. The adult characters are a great example of appealing to older audiences, with their jokes mainly being much more likely to go over children's heads.
  • It has been proven in multiple instances the mass appeal is successful the way Cohen intended, with children as young as kindergarten-aged and people as old as eighty enjoying the comics after being introduced from active readers.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The plotline of every episode is meant to be extremely basic intentionally, that way the comics can primarily shine in the writing of the characters, dialogue and morals. Despite being a bold and risky move, this has proved to work with many readers.
• No Brows: The Tots are never drawn with eyebrows unless an expression is amblified by including them; usually played for comedic effect.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: The Tots have remained between the ages of 5-6 years old despite the series being around for multiple years; this is largely due to the plotlines needing their ages to remain young.
• Pants-Pulling Prank: In "In The Limelight", Keira's pants are pulled down by Brad as a prank.
• Parental Bonus: By far Tiny Tots' biggest strength with its comedy is the adult humor sprinkled throughout. Surprisingly, a lot of these adult jokes are actually said subtly by the tots themselves, though quite a few do come from the adult characters as well; primarily the tots' dad and their teacher Mr. Moyo.
• The Pig-Pen: Audrey.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Teagan and Walt; ironically being the first two characters guaranteed to be included in the Tiny Tots comics.
• Potty Failure: Pablo has yet to be potty-trained, with him using his diaper in "Three Girls And A Baby", "Septembers End" and "Season's Greetings".
  • While never shown, a remark about Teagan being "six and still can't use the toilet" is said by Audrey in "Mother Love", additionally, in "Beauty Sleep" there is a line spoken by Teagan's baby doll Libby about how she had used her diaper after being chased by a mysterious shadow with Teagan holding her, stating "I made a poopoo". A cut line had Teagan saying "I think I did too".
• Power Outage Plot: The comic "Deep Dark Secret" is based around a supposed power outage that scares Walt, as he is afraid of the dark. However it is revealed after gaining the courage to get up with the help of his siblings that it ends up solving itself immediately after.
• Queer Media: Tempo has two mothers, Viola and Gracelyn, with Viola being biological and Gracelyn being her girlfriend, Keira is lesbian, as seen with her huge crush on her best friend Bella. It should be noted in Keira's case, she is a young child and does not know what sexuality is, she just knows she likes girls.
• Sassy Black Woman: While not overly sassy, Keira's mom Kim could be classified as such, especially with her bitterness towards friendly rival Tim in "Store Wars".
• Speak in Unison: Occasionally done by Walt, Audrey, Bella and Teagan when talking to either each other in shock or talking to their dad in agreement.
• Straying Baby: In "Three Girls And A Baby", Pablo is temporarily let loose and cannot be found by Keira, Bella and Teagan. He is eventually brought back to the three after they fall asleep from looking for so long, where he sleeps with them.
• Theme Naming: Every single name in Tiny Tots was chosen intentionally to reflect the meaning behind the names and the correlation with the character's traits. There is one exception, that being Walt; who was named after Walt Disney, a huge inspiration for Cohen as a child.
• Title Drop: In "Season's Greetings", when presented with Walt's Christmas wish list, Choi Lee (as a mall Santa) refers to him as a "Tiny Tot".
• Toilet Humour: There are many examples of toilet humor, which with the age of the characters involved makes sense. Most of these jokes stem from either babies or Audrey.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Audrey and Teagan.
• Unsuccessful Pet Adoption: At the very end of "Rabbit's Foot", Audrey asks if they can keep a tarantula she found as well as the rabbit, her dad doesn't let her keep the tarantula.
• Very Special Episode: "In The Limelight" is directly about educating the readers about Black history and to treat everybody with respect regardless of the color of their skin.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Audrey and Brad are close friends, but are also constantly at each other's throats.