Ugly Club
is a tumblr-hosted webcomic by Phana-Banana. The premise is that a Massive Multiplayer Crossover group of Public Domain Characters form a support group for their personal appearance issues.
The support group consists of:
- Erik, the group leader (from The Phantom of the Opera)
- "Jim" (from Frankenstein)
- Quasimodo (from The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
- The Beast (from Beauty and the Beast)
- Gwynplaine (from The Man Who Laughs)
Ugly Club contains examples of:
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Averted, since to do otherwise would be missing the whole point of the premise.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Quasimodo's a bit nicer than he is in the novel. (Maybe being in a more accepting environment has helped?)
- And Call Him "George": Jim has an unfortunate incident of this when he tries to befriend a human child, although fortunately the kid survives.
- Berserk Button: In Cyrano de Bergerac's guest appearance, his nose.
- Cringe Comedy: Dea's Innocently Insensitive jokes.
- Fictional Counterpart: The Beast watches "The British People Baking Stuff Show" to relax.
- Fun with Acronyms: The Enigmatic Masterminds Union (a group of public-domain supervillains), or E.M.U.
- Furry Fandom: Doctor Moreau, anachronistically.
- Innocently Insensitive: Dea's a good-natured girl, but many of her jokes unintentionally poke at the club members' sore spots.
- Legion of Doom: E.M.U., a group of public domain supervillains consisting of The Invisible Man, Doctor Moreau, Professor Moriarty, and Dracula.
- The Napoleon: In his guest appearance, Cyrano is drawn as very short (although that might just be in comparison, since some of the club members are enormous) and very ready to throw down.
- Reformed, but Not Tamed: Erik is trying to be less murderous, but it's a work in progress.
- Sliding Scale of Beauty: All the club members are on the Ugly side of things, ranging from Gwynplaine (an otherwise normal-looking young man with a disturbing permanent Slasher Smile) to Jim and the Beast (obvious monsters).
- The Speechless: Quasimodo communicates in subtitled ASL.
- Token Good Teammate: While all of the club members are portrayed sympathetically, Gwynplaine is the most likely to object when Erik does something supervillainous.
- Truer to the Text: The portrayals of the club members are based on the book version of the characters, and contain aspects often left out of adaptations, such as Quasimodo's communication difficulties and Erik's history with the Daroga.
