YMMV / Gold Digger

• Arc Fatigue: The first one hundred issues of the color series were fairly serialized. The story lines were often five to ten issues long and were often woven together as part of a larger narrative. However, after the time skip, Fred Perry decided to go for a Lighter and Softer feel for the comic. Story lines became two to three issues long and they often don't add much to the ongoing narrative. And while big reveals and large story lines still happen, it can take months or even years for the larger plot to make significant progression.
  • How long storylines are and how fast arcs progress has shifted back and forth during the years, with it getting more long-storyline oriented at times and then shifting back to smaller or more stand-alone stories.
• Archive Panic: There's quite a lot to catch up on at this point. Luckily, Fred Perry has posted the first 199 issued of the comic for free online.
• Ass Pull: A common occurrence in the comic. Concepts will be introduced without any warning to help the plot proceed and during fights characters will often use spells and martial arts techniques never seen before and Gina make use of brand new technology that just so happen to be effective against whatever villain she's confronting. Due to this Fred Perry will often include caption boxes to explain what is happening.
  • Also villains will often be taken out in convoluted ways. For example, when fighting Madrid, Gina used a holo-force projection to make a reflective illusion of herself to fool Madrid she was in front of her while she went behind her under an invisibility cloak and disabled the beta engine she was using. When Madrid tried to teleport to safety, Gina had already rewired it to teleport to her base on the moon, trapping Madrid there for some time.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: No matter how detailed the story gets or how big the cast gets, Gold Digger will always be best known as one of, if not the most Fanservice filled comic (both normal and furry) on the market since 1992. The author created Rule 34 and annual swimsuit specials do not help. However, unlike a lot of examples of this trope, the fanservice compliments the already excellent story rather than carrying it.
• Creator's Pet: A minor case with Gina, as she is presented with many flaws and problems. However, she still has a personal army of nearly invincible robots, as well as countless other seemingly unstoppable weapons and inventions. All her friends and family are expert fighters and powerful mages. All her enemies are either dead, indisposed, are now her allies, or are comically disadvantaged against her. As such, it's hard to for the comic to have tension in a Gina-centric story when she holds so many cards.
• Complete Monster:
  • Dreadwing was once a lowly iron dragon, who helped raise the young platinum dragon T'mat. When T'mat surpassed him in power, Dreadwing attempted to kill her before being defeated and banished from the dragon race. Unable to accept T'mat's love for him, Dreadwing would discover the device called the Time Raft and used it to return to the other dragons, defeating, mutilating, torturing and raping T'mat to destroy any love she might have for him and force her to suffer whenever she saw their daughter. Massacring many dragons, Dreadwing attempted to recruit his own private force by offering his chosen recruits the option to torture their mates to death or watch as Dreadwing erased infant dragons from existence. When they refused, he made good on the threat. Traversing other worlds, Dreadwing became a violent scourge, destroying as he willed before being defeated by Gina Diggers. Entering into a "cosmic chess game" with her older, alternate timeline self Ancient Gina, Dreadwing still takes the chance to murder those he could before launching an attack on the world of Jade, aiming to subjugate it and even attempting to kill his own daughter D'bra with no remorse. Egotistical, sadistic and filled with loathing for whatever he cannot control, Dreadwing stands as the comic's most enduring and horrifying monster.
  • The former werewolf patriarch Brendan makes a pact with dark powers to achieve incredible powers which he tests by murdering his own wife. Engineering a "peace" between the werewolves and werecheetahs by creating a drought that kills many of the latter, Brendan betrays the werecheetahs and commits utter genocide on them, massacring the men, women, and children. He is only prevented from killing a single baby thanks to the sacrifice of her mother and the intervention of archmage Theo Diggers. Brendan also plans to sell his own people into slavery to fulfill his own end of the deal, and mocks his own daughter for adhering to any standard of honor before she defeats and imprisons him. Escaping later, Brendan tries to murder his own children and mocks the only surviving werecheetah, Brittany "Cheetah" Diggers, for her clan and biological parents' deaths, intending to use his powers to freeze her as living stone and keep as a trophy for all eternity.
• Crossover Ship: Brittany is often paired with the Ranma ½'s main character despite the fact she's a werecheetah, meaning he could never face her wereform without snapping. Then again, several of them not only acknowledge this fact, but proceed to use it as part of the process to remedy his phobia of felines.
• Cult Classic: While it isn't necessarily on the levels of notoriety as the heavy hitters on the market. The Comic has sported an admirable 30+ Year history with collections worth of spin-offs and reprints, and it has consistently remained one of it's publisher's Best selling comics. (If not the best selling.)
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Brianna, Ayane, and Sheila (and to an extent Her brother, Gar and the rest of The Edge Guard.) Are some of the more notable examples, as evident by the fact they got expanded roles in the main comic and various spin offs.
  • The Ninja Pirate Leprechauns became one of the more known characters outside of the comic, No thanks to A 'You are A pirate video.' Made by Fred himself.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The below-mentioned detail about the "Oblivion" arc hits all the more hard in Issue 294 (out of the series' 301), when Gina Diggers, you know, the titular character, dies and the following six issues are about her niece stepping into her shoes to fight the Final Boss. Guess she lost the coin toss…
• Hilarious in Hindsight: At one point, Perry had been toying with the idea of killing off Britanny at the end of the "Oblivion" arc (he didn't). How did he decide whether to go through with it or not? A coin toss.
• Les Yay: Plenty between Crush and Xane. Mostly on Crush's part. For Crush, it seems to be a matter of If It's You, It's Okay for Xane. That said, Crush does it on purpose because she likes flustering Xane.
• Memetic Mutation: Not a lot of people realise that the infamous "You Are A Pirate" animation (warning: NSFW) was not only animated by Fred himself, but that it actually features characters from Gold Digger - those being Captain McMorgan and his crew of pirate-ninja-leprechauns.
• Popular with Furries: Given that a good chunk of the cast consists of (Well-Toned) Beast folk. Is it any surprise that many fans of the comic are furries?
• Rule 34: ...with some of it drawn by Fred himself.
• So Okay, It's Average: The OVA, no doubt it's a marvel of animation especially done by only one man over several years (and hand drawn no less). But some complaints against it is pacing, the awkward pauses between dialogue (as obviously the VAs did their lines separately) and drawn out scenes can make it a bit of a chore to get through.
• Strangled by the Red String: Brianna and Zan's relationship. They go on a few dates and Brianna finds out she's pregnant and she's totally fine with it, and she tells Zan and he's totally fine with it, and suddenly they are totally in love and engaged in a blatant example of Babies Make Everything Better. It really sticks out when compared to every other relationship in the series, some of which developed organically over several years. They do get more chemistry built in their dynamic in later issues, but the order of events do stand out.

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