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1[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/GASP_little.jpg]]
2
3Comic book series created in 2001 by Jimmy Gownley. Ostensibly for teenagers, but enjoyable [[ParentalBonus for adults]].
4
5Consists of seven collected volumes: ''The Whole World's Crazy'', ''What Makes You Happy'', ''Superheroes'', ''When the Past Is a Present'', ''The Tweenage Guide to Not Being Unpopular'', ''True Things (Adults Don't Want Kids to Know)'' and ''The Meaning of Life ... and Other Stuff''. The 8th (and final) collected volume, ''Her Permanent Record'' was released in 2012. One of the stories from ''The Whole World's Crazy'' has been released separately (''A Very Ninja Christmas'') together with a separate story of how Amelia met her friends.
6
7Fourth-grader Amelia Louise [=McBride=] moves with her newly divorced mom from New York to live with her aunt in Connerton, Pennsylvania. She quickly becomes friends with Reggie Grabinsky and the enigmatic Pajamaman (who moonlight as superheroes Captain Amazing and Kid Lightning), and just as quickly becomes VitriolicBestBuds with their other pal, loudmouthed Rhonda Bleenie.
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9The four of them form GASP, the Gathering of Awesome Super-Pals, to defend the neighborhood from evil. Amelia's life in her new neighborhood is fraught with obstacles hilarious and serious, from regular wars with the evil Ninjas from across town to homesickness for New York City and her father.
10
11----
12!!Provides Examples Of:
13* TheAllegedCar: The spectacular failure that is the [=AmazingMobile=].
14* AlphaBitch: Britney. She has a GirlPosse in the form of Christina and Jessica, who look exactly like her.
15* AndTheAdventureContinues: [[spoiler: "And I'm just getting started."]] May count as a SequelHook if the author decides to restart the series.
16* ArcWords:
17** "Insignificant."
18** Later in the series, "You can because you have to."
19* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking:
20** The [[PlanetOfSteves Legion of Steves]] is responsible for the Hindenburg, Three-Mile-Island '''and''' Dr. Phil.
21---> '''Captain Amazing''': How... how ''evil''!
22** Also Kyle's observation after seeing Amelia's parents together:
23--->'''Kyle''': If my parents ever got together their mere proximity to each other would create a burst of antimatter that would DESTROY LIFE ON EARTH! Plus they'd probably argue a lot.
24* ArtEvolution: Starting around ''Superheroes''.
25* ArtShift: Anything involving Tanner's or Amelia's mom's childhood is told in the form of comic strip "Li'l Tanner", drawn in the style of ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''. Anything after their childhood but before Amelia is drawn as "Tannerbury Tales", in the style of ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}''. One flashback strip actually mirrors ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}''.
26* BetterAsFriends: [[spoiler: Amelia and Kyle.]]
27* BewareTheNiceOnes: Violet.
28* BigApplesauce: Amelia hails from New York City and occasionally returns to visit her father.
29* BirdsOfAFeather: Kyle and Amelia both have {{Jerkass}} tendencies, [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold but are good kids at heart]], and both have divorced parents.
30* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:''Superheroes''. Trishia lives, but Amelia doesn't find out until years later- and she never sees Trish again]].
31** [[spoiler: Trisha reappears in a DreamSequence in the climax of ''Her Permanent Record'' but Amelia doesn't even ''recognize'' her]].
32* [[BreatherEpisode Breather Volume]]: Most of ''The Meaning of Life...And Other Stuff''
33* BrokenPedestal: Reggie's fantasies of Tanner shatter apart when she confesses she doesn't even know how to drive.
34* TheCape: Captain Amazing ''tries'' to be this.
35* CerebusRollercoaster: The comic very often switches between nostalgic childhood hijinks to serious drama about RealLife and [[GrowingUpSucks growing up]].
36* ChestInsignia: All the members of GASP have this, usually an initial from or symbol directly relating to their superhero name.
37%%* ChickMagnet: Pajamaman, ''somehow''.
38* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: A minor character known as "Earth Dog".
39* CityMouse: New York City girl Amelia is suddenly deposited in the suburbs after her parents split up. She even complains that the local nature trail is "too much green" for her.
40* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Elderly babysitter Kate Kadingo.
41** And, to a somewhat lesser extent, Reggie.
42%%* [[CoolUncle Cool Aunt]]: Tanner.
43* CuteAndPsycho: [[strike:Mary]] Ultra Violet is a slightly less homicidal version of this.
44* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Superheroes''. This volume begins to let the series drift away from ordinary childhood issues, containing more mature situations like Amelia finding out that [[spoiler:Trishia has a heart condition called a ventricular septal defect,]] and [[spoiler:Kyle daring Amelia to ride her bike through the Greenbelt at night to retrieve a comic book. Amelia crashes and ends up at the hospital.]]
45* DeliberatelyCuteChild: Rhonda's little pageant-kid sister Reenie. Of course she's [[SpoiledBrat a hellion underneath]].
46* EarlyBirdCameo: One of the kids in the testimonials video in Her Permanent Record is the main character from Jimmy Gownley's new webcomic Gracieland.
47* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The earlier volumes feel ''very'' different than the later ones.
48* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Amelia is shocked when her mother's date calls her "Mary"; she's used to her mother being just "Mom".
49%%** And, of course, Pajamaman.
50* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: Rhonda's new look at the end of ''The Tweenage Guide to Not Being Unpopular'' is the same style she's seen wearing in the {{Flash Forward}} at the end of ''Superheroes'' -- an outward sign of her newfound maturity and confidence in herself.
51* ExpressiveShirt: Pajamaman. His chest is always displaying punctuation marks and random symbols to show his thoughts.
52%%* SixthRanger: Ninja Joan, and to a lesser extent Kyle.
53%%* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Rhonda vs. Reenie.
54%%* GrandFinale: ''Her Permanent Record''
55* FromNewYorkToNowhere
56* FourthWallObserver: Amelia serves as our narrator and does so often by directly addressing us the readers.
57* HesNotMyBoyfriend:
58** Heading to GASP's first meeting, Amelia repeatedly and angrily denies that she likes Reggie, to the point of preemptively telling us to shut up.
59** In ''Superheroes'', Rhonda explains her attraction to Reggie, only to quickly divert attention to Amelia by claiming she also likes Reggie when he shows up in full Captain Amazing garb and screaming about fighting ninjas.
60* HeWhoMustNotBeHeard: Pajamaman never speaks. '''Never'''.
61* {{Jerkass}}: Kyle. Especially during the game of Truth or Dare in ''Superheroes''.
62%%** JerkWithAHeartOfGold
63%%* KidAppealCharacter: Tanner is a rare ''inversion'' of one.
64* LimitedWardrobe: As in ''Peanuts'', everyone pretty much wears the same thing every day, though it changes a bit in later volumes.
65* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: So subtle you'll miss it: [[spoiler:In a flash forward to high school, we see an over-the-shoulder shot of Rhonda from behind as she chats with Amelia. The jacket she's wearing has an athlete's number on the back topped with the letters "G-R-A-B-I..."]]
66* MilitaryBrat: Ninja Joan, whose father is deployed to Iraq. [[spoiler: He returns in The Meaning of Life ... and Other Stuff]]
67* MrImagination: Reggie. And how!
68* OfficialCouple: The ending to ''Superheroes'' implies that [[spoiler: Reggie and Rhonda will hook up in the near future]].
69* OhCrap: Frequently, such as when Amelia realize that Reggie and Rhonda are the school nerds, making her a nerd-by-association. And when she finds out she and her mom was moving significantly farther away.
70* OlderThanTheyLook: Aunt Tanner. It's very easy for new readers to mistake her for a teenager or woman in her early 20's.
71* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Come on, his parents didn't ''really'' name him Pajamaman. WordOfGod even confirmed he has a real name, and there are hints scattered throughout the books.
72%%* OpaqueNerdGlasses: Pajamaman wears them.
73* OutOfFocus: Pajamaman. As a HeroicMime comic relief character, he started to appear less as the series started to get DarkerAndEdgier.
74* PlanetOfSteves: Almost literal: the Legion of Steves.
75* PrecociousCrush: Reggie is just crazy about Tanner.
76%%* PuppyLove: Can get pretty bad about it.
77* SanitySlippage: Happens to Britney in ''Her Permanent Record''. By the time of her final appearance, she's completely incorherent.
78* ShipTease: Between Pajamaman and Ninja Joan, surprisingly enough.
79** There's also Reggie and Rhonda.
80** Amelia and Ninja Kyle.
81* ShoutOut: So, so many.
82* ShowWithinAShow: Softee Chicken and Intergalactic Ninja Fight Squadron.
83* ShrinkingViolet: Mary [[MeaningfulName Violet]]... at least until she becomes [[BewareTheNiceOnes Ultra Violet]].
84* SliceOfLife
85* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The comic occasionally tips over to the cynical side, but for the most part is pretty idealistic.
86* SofterAndSlowerCover: Years ago, Tanner wrote and produced a ''very'' vitriolic song about a man she had broken up with at the time. After gossip about this song spread throughout town, Tanner finally opened up about it by singing it in front of a crowd, albeit more gentle and softer than before. While the crowd boos her, Amelia and her mom are touched.
87* [[SmittenTeenageGirl Smitten Elementary School Girl]]: Rhonda simply adores Reggie. She reveals her reason in Superheroes.
88* SpinTheBottle: Amelia gets dragged into a game and winds up having to kiss Kyle. She [[OnceDoneNeverForgotten never lives it down.]]
89* SuperHeroOrigin: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] by Reggie in The Whole World's Crazy.
90* TimeSkip: Her Permanent Record seems to take place after a small one, as Amelia (and most of the other girls) seems to have hit puberty.
91* TrueCompanions: The four members of GASP.
92* UnderwearOfPower: Captain Amazing and Kid Lightning literally wear their underpants on the outside of their costumes.
93* {{Unperson}}: Amelia tells the reader of a future where an adult version of her searches for any signs of Reggie and finds no results.
94* UnrequitedLove: Reggie admits during a game of SpinTheBottle that he has no romantic feelings for Rhonda whatsoever. Rhonda is quietly devastated.
95* VitriolicBestBuds: Amelia and Rhonda. Reggie and Kyle, though sworn enemies, have this subtext.
96* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Subverted. Yeah, the main characters speak in LittleProfessorDialog and spend much more time [[PuppyLove thinking about romance]] than most RealLife 11-year-olds, but traces of little kid mentality are still undeniably ''there''.
97* WorthIt: This exchange from Her Permanent Record, after [[spoiler:Principal Wright reprimands Amelia and Rhonda regarding Reggie's "last stand."]]
98--> '''Rhonda''': Well, there you go! Friends, success, popularity, and now we've lost it!
99--> '''Amelia''': *sigh* Yep.
100--> '''Rhonda''': Well? [[WasItReallyWorthIt Was it worth it?]]
101--> '''Amelia''': [[WorthIt Totally.]]
102--> '''Rhonda''': You got that right, sister.

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