History ComicBook / DylanDog

** Roberto Recchioni seems to love this trope. The issue "Oggi Sposi" ("Just Married") has John Ghost comment on Dylan Dog's serial life and noting that everything happening to him (such as status quo being resetted every month) is happening because they're comic book characters. John Ghost even comments on a few events as being classical narrative tropes (such as [[spoiler: Groucho's death being a classical example of WidowedattheWedding]]).

* BeautyEqualsGoodness: While Dylan is a handsome man who ends up sleeping with attractive women and girls, the comic regularly [[AvertedTrope drops a nuke]] on this trope, usually with the BitchInSheepClothing clients that fuel the recurring HumansAreTheRealMonsters themes of the series. A more on-the-nose example of this is in Issue #82 "Away from the Light", with the gorgeous Rebecca Pleasance turning out to be a cruel, unfaithful consort and opening fire on the [[DarkIsNotEvil deformed people]] that live in Samhain's cave.

%%* BeautyEqualsGoodness: The series drops a nuke on this trope.

The second-best selling Italian comic book, once the first during the "Dylan craze" of the early [[TheNineties '90s]]. Created by Tiziano Sclavi and published by Sergio Bonelli, ''Dylan Dog'' is a ReferenceOverdosed series focusing on a former UsefulNotes/ScotlandYard detective now known as the "Nightmare Investigator", who lives on 7 Craven Road, London and fights monsters, demons and many more otherworldly creatures [[CatchPhrase for £100 a day plus expenses]], or solves cases about horrifying sociopathic criminals. The series (at least during its early years) managed to [[DeconstructorFleet deconstruct horror clichés]] and to create an intriguing, flawed and sympathetic AntiHero in a [[BlackAndGrayMorality morally complex world]]. ''Dylan Dog'' was also known for the surreal, poetic quality of its writing and its black humour.

* MySkullRunnethOver: In an issue, a scientist is looking for a way to [[NinetyPercentOfYourBrain unlock the full potential of the human intellect]], but all of his test subjects die in [[YourHeadASplode predictably gruesome ways]]. It turns out that an adult's intellect is "atrophied" after a life of underuse, and only babies are flexible enough to survive the process. When the scientist, mentally unbalanced after years of frustrations, experiments on his newborn daughter, it finally works [[GoneHorriblyRight even too well]].

* AlasPoorVillain: One of the series' trademarks.

* BeautyEqualsGoodness: The series drops a nuke on this trope.

* BreakingTheFourthWall:
** Happens in some of Sclavi's surreal stories.
** [[FourthWallObserver Groucho does this on occasion.]]

* ButtMonkey: Poor Jenkins.
* CanonDiscontinuity: Dylan once said that he married Lillie Connolly while she was in prison, but in other occasions he claimed to have never been married.

* ChivalrousPervert: Dylan '''is''' this trope.

* DeadpanSnarker:
** Dylan and Bloch, mainly.
** Groucho as well, obviously.

* DeconstructorFleet: The series during its best years.
* DependingOnTheWriter: Pink Rabbit. May be justified and enforced in-universe: according to a fan theory, he was a psycho in "Pink Rabbits Kill" because the first drawing artist who summoned him was a crazy murderer, and he turned into a {{Toon}} [[ObliviouslyEvil who doesn't understand what "death" is]] in the sequel "The Land of Colored Shadows" because the second summoner was a nice guy.

* DeusExMachina: Often needed to save Dylan's ass.
* DiabolusExMachina: This one is fairly common too.

* DumbBlonde: Anna Never.

* EnemyWithout: An interesting variation where A deribelately forces B to become A's EnemyWithin, so that A may physically interact with its own evil side. [[spoiler:The disfigured villain initially wants to "commit suicide" by eliminating both his good-looking substitute and Dylan Dog, whom he forces to become his serial killer character "Joe Montero". He changes his mind and ends up [[ICannotSelfTerminate using Montero to kill himself]]]].
* EvenEvilHasStandards: In one story, a literal devil hires Dylan to stop a scientist from unleashing an horrific virus she created, which acts like a contagious cancer and makes the victim a TechnicallyLivingZombie.
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: In one story, Groucho is repeatedly trying trying to tell a joke about three men about to be executed (the guillotine blade keeps stopping just above their necks, so the first two are pardoned due to an Act of God, but the third man announces that he's figured out where the fault is) to a nice old lady who is an unwitting friend and companion of the evil witch, but is constantly interrupted before he can get to the punchline. After the witch is defeated, they later sit down for some tea, and Groucho finishes the joke. She doesn't get it. And then she decides to kill them all, monstering out and revealing herself to be considerably more powerful than her late friend despite acting like a dimwitted old granny the whole time.

* FieryRedhead: Lillie.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Played with. Dylan gets laid a lot, but multiple ex-lovers have described his sex skills as "average" or unremarkable.
* GreenAesop: Dylan's favourite.

* HeterosexualLifePartners:
** Dylan and Groucho.
** Dylan and Marcus in the film.

* HotWitch: Kim.

* HumansAreBastards: Oh, boy...

* KnightInSourArmor: Inspector Bloch.
* KnightTemplar: Many of Dylan's enemies.

* MonsterOfTheWeek

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Groucho.

* PerpetualPoverty: How Dylan and Groucho live.
* PluckyComicRelief: Groucho!

* SarcasmBlind: Jenkins. [[NoSenseOfHumor Can't get humor, either.]]
* SceneryCensor: Happens all the time (like in other Bonelli comics). Breasts (with *gasp* nipples!) and butts (female and male) are shown but the genitals still need to be covered with strategically placed items, pieces of furniture, or (during showers, baths and similar) implausibly high splashes of water... especially irritating since the rest of the water is often not splashing at all.

* SerialKiller: An alarming number of them.

* TerrorAtMakeOutPoint: Happens often since this comic uses and deconstructs all horror tropes, but "Golconda!" offers a unique twist to it when two teenagers making out in the woods get killed by a giant tentacular eye, and more surreal events take place from that moment on. [[spoiler: In the end it's explained that the place where the two teens went was a spot of unexplored land, where no human ever set foot in history, and by doing so while making love [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom they opened a breach]] that allowed some "Elemental Sprites" (the eye, the men with bowler hats, etc.) to come out and wreck havoc, thus Dylan and the GirlOfTheWeek seal it by having sex in that spot]].

* TrademarkFavouriteFood: Dylan is vegetarian and likes going out for a pizza. Also, inspector Bloch is always seen with a pint of beer when drinking along Dylan, who drinks tea instead.

** Roberto Recchioni seems to love this trope. The issue "Oggi Sposi" ("Just Married") has John Ghost comment on Dylan Dog's serial life and noting that everything happening to him (such as StatusQuo being resetted every month) is happening because they're comic book characters. John Ghost even comments on a few events as being classical narrative tropes (such as [[spoiler: Groucho's death being a classical example of WidowedattheWedding]]).
** The whole point of the final story arc before [[spoiler: the SoftReboot]]. As has become a well known fact that the apparently doomed Dylan Dog universe lives on a StatusQuoIsGod rule, [[spoiler: John Ghost]] manages to force a reboot by arranging for every single character to break the StatusQuo until the end. When it does actually happen [[spoiler: Dylan Dog itself becomes able to reach a limbo inhabited by Tiziano Sclavi, the antropomorphic incarnation of the ills and shortcoming fueling his creation of Dylan Dog himself and every idea about the characters, used and discarded. He's then able to kill Sclavi and ignite a full reboot of the universe with all the hoarded ideas]].

* FlatEarthAtheist: Dylan is strangely skeptical for someone who has faced all sorts of supernatural occurrences. However, he does it to make sure he isn't being made a fool of with a scheme meant to worsen his [[HeroWithBadPublicity bad reputation]], and also to respect his clients, being willing to turn down the gig if Dylan thinks that recruiting an OccultDetective is unnecessary. As he puts it in Issue #1, his method is to "consider all possible solutions until only the impossible remains".

* JackTheRipoff: Issue #2, "Jack The Ripper" [[spoiler: initially makes it seem like Jack has returned from the dead to kill again after being summoned through a SpookySeance, but then the killer turns out to be a copycat, who's none other than the GirlOfTheWeek. However, in the ending it appears that Jack briefly returns for real to kill her off.]] In a later story, "Memories from the Invisible", the murderer that slays prostitutes is initially theorized to be a copycat of that Jack the Ripper copycat.

* JackTheRipoff: Issue #2, "Jack The Ripper" [[spoiler: initially makes it seem like Jack has returned from the dead to kill again after being summoned through a SpookySeance, but then the killer turns out to be a copycat, who's none other than the GirlOfTheWeek. However, in the ending it appears that Jack briefly returns for real to kill her off.]] In a later story, "Memories from the Invisible", the murderer that slays prostitutes is initially theorized to be a copycat of this Jack the Ripper copycat.

* JackTheRipoff: Issue #2, "Jack The Ripper" [[spoiler: initially makes it seem like Jack has returned from the dead to kill again after being summoned through a SpookySeance, but then the killer turns out to be a copycat, who's none other than the GirlOfTheWeek. However, in the ending it appears that Jack briefly returns for real to kill her off.]]

The second-best selling Italian comic book, once the first during the "Dylan craze" of the early nineties. Created by Tiziano Sclavi and published by Sergio Bonelli, ''Dylan Dog'' is a series focusing on a former UsefulNotes/ScotlandYard detective now known as the "Nightmare Investigator", who lives on 7 Craven Road, London and fights monsters, demons and many more otherworldly creatures [[CatchPhrase for £100 a day plus expenses]], or solves cases about horrifying sociopathic criminals. The series (at least during its early years) managed to [[DeconstructorFleet deconstruct horror clichés]] and to create an intriguing, flawed and sympathetic AntiHero in a [[BlackAndGrayMorality morally complex world]]. ''Dylan Dog'' was also known for the surreal, poetic quality of its writing and its black humour.

** Issue #154 "Time's Beat" establishes that [[Literature/PeterPan Neverland]] exists in Dylan Dog's universe and the story works as a DarkerAndEdgier follow-up to ''Peter Pan'' in which Dylan deals with Smee, Tinkerbell, Peter and the Lost Boys after they settled down on Earth. [[spoiler: Despite the darkness, it does have a SurpriseHappyEnding.]]

* FlatEarthAtheist: Dylan is strangely skeptical for someone who has faced all sorts of supernatural occurrences. However, he does it to make sure he isn't being made a fool of with a scheme meant to worsen his [[HeroWithBadPublicity bad reputation]], and also to respect his clients, being willing to turn down the gig if Dylan thinks that asking help to an OccultDetective is unnecessary. As he puts it in Issue #1, his method is to "consider all possible solutions until only the impossible remains".

* FlatEarthAtheist: Dylan is strangely skeptical for someone who has faced all sorts of supernatural occurrences. Although, he explains that his method is to consider all possible solutions until only the impossible remains.

** Issue #154 "Time's Beat" establishes that [[Literature/PeterPan Neverland]] exists in Dylan Dog's universe and the story works as a DarkerAndEdgier follow-up to ''Peter Pan'' in which Dylan deals with Smee, Tinkerbell, Peter and the Lost Boys after they settled down on Earth. [[spoiler: Despite the darkness, it does have a rare happy ending.]]

** However, the [[SoftReboot]] after the Evil Meteor Story Arc made a moot point out of that.

* SharedUniverse: Set in the same continuity as most of the modern Bonelli (the publisher) comics, such as ''Zagor'', ''Martin Mystere'' (on whom the cartoon ''WesternAnimation/MartinMystery'' is ''loosely'' based on), ''Dampyr'', and others, with some characters moving between series. A story also established that [[Film/CemeteryMan Dellamorte]] exists in Dylan's universe.

* ShoutOut: Countless, that make the [[FantasyKitchenSink Kitchen]] [[SciFiKitchenSink Sink]] universe of this comic. Many of them are EasterEggs that appear in a panel or two, so trying to list all of them would be a superhuman task.

* RedheadInGreen: Lillie Connolly is shown to wear a green hat and a green skirt in comic book covers and colorized stories. It's probably a reference to the fact that she's Irish Catholic.

** Ocasionally subverted, up to including {{Male Frontal Nudity}}, but it is mostly on either corpses or monsters.

* SerialRomeo: Dylan genuinely believes that he loves each of the women he is attracted to. Often lampshaded by Bloch and Groucho. In a recent episode he reflects on that and seems to understand that he does not need to convince himself that he's in love with a woman to have a good sexual relationship with her.

* VomitingCop: Bloch, every so often. He takes antiemetics to try to [[SubvertedTrope subvert this trope.]]

* SurrealHorror: The series is very prone in throwing Dylan and the characters in bizarre and nightmarish situations, which usually set up a CruelAndUnusualDeath. The aforementioned "Golconda!" is a prime example of this trope being in full effect, but even that's just scratching the surface.

* BlessedWithSuck: "The Fairy of Evil" follows Dylan trying to help a woman named Banshee who causes horrible accidents and dangerous, surreal events to happen around her. It's later revealed that she was born dead, but then got hit by falling antimatter that granted her "anti-life", bringing her to life at the cost of being cursed to generate misfortunes. [[DrivenToSuicide It doesn't end well for her]].

* ApesInSpace: In an early issue, a mysterious and powerful being from space turned out to be [[spoiler:an ape from a secret (and forgotten) space mission, which had devloped SuperIntelligence and PsychicPowers by passing through a NegativeSpaceWedgie.]]

* CaptainErsatz: There are countless of them in this ShoutOut-heavy series. Some examples: in "Pink Rabbits Kill" there's an animation company held by a guy named [[Creator/WaltDisney Sandy Sidney]], Mana Cerace the boogeyman is a Captain Ersatz of [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Freddy Krueger]] and Dr. Killex is a pretty obvious one of Franchise/HannibalLecter.

** John Ghost's ultimate goal is to save Earth and humanity, or at least Britain and its people, from complete annihilation. He's also an incredibly petty serial dog-kicker (renting out Creator/GordonRamsey's entire restaurant and ordering fish just to have it thrown away because he hates eating fish is just one example among many) and a mass murderer.

** John Ghost's ultimate goal is to save Earth and humanity, or at least Britain and its people, from complete annihilation. He's also an incredibly petty serial dog-kicker (renting out Gordon Ramsey's entire restaurant and ordering fish just to have it thrown away because he hates eating fish is just one example among many) and a mass murderer.

* DarkIsNotEvil: Dylan ''loves'' this trope. Although Dylan himself has a bit of PrimaryColorChampion with his red shirt and blue jeans.