Line #49 ComicStrip/KabouterWesley


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kabouterwesley.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:"I like existing"]]
3
4	''Kabouter Wesley'' (“Gnome Wesley”, or "Wesley the Gnome") is a Belgian series of short comics written and drawn by Jonas Geirnaert, first published from 2008 to 2010 in Belgian magazine ''Humo''. From fall 2009 onwards, the comics were adapted as cartoon shorts on television for ''Man bijt hond''.
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6	The series revolves around “Kabouter Wesley”, the titular grumpy gnome. It has a very simplistic and surreal style, and often portrays violent and obscene material.
7
8	Geirnaert created Wesley while working on his short film ''Flatlife'', to let off some steam, which explains the silly stories with a simple art style. Wesley is voiced in the series by Jonas himself, while the supporting cast is voiced by Jelle De Beule.
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11	!!Trope examples in Kabouter Wesley:
12	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: {{Parodied\|Trope}} when a robot appears in front of Wesley and claims to be from the future. Which time period? Next Wednesday.
13	* AllJustADream: Used in one comic where Wesley is obliged to temporarily use his freezer as a telephone due to technical work by the telephone company. When the work is done, he ends up calling with his cat. At the end, all of this turns out to have been just a dream [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext of Wesley's telephone]].
14	* AmbulanceCut: Happens in the comic where a hedgehog has dared to ask this question to two policemen:
15	-->'''Hedgehog''': What is the difference between a cop and a bucket of shit?
16	* AnachronicOrder: Episode 25 starts with the end card and Wesley in a bar stating that ''Film/{{Memento}}'' sucks. The episode starts making small jumps into the past, piece by piece revealing the story of how he got there.
17	* AnthropomorphicFood: In one comic, Wesley takes a talking and walking pita to his home, only to eat it after he has given the pita a tour of his house. Later, he takes home a small pack of chips without sauce and a cheese croquette, but those two end up eating Wesley instead of vice versa.
18	* ArmorPiercingQuestion:
19	-->'''Magic watering can''': If you say “Turbo” twice, I catch fire!
20	-->({{Beat}})
21	-->'''Wesley''': And what is the practical use of that?
22	* BestialityIsDepraved: When entering a computer competition, Wesley's self-made computer “Sloeber” suddenly exclaims: “Jan fucks goats”. Jan immediately admits having done only once, out of curiosity. Sloeber then shows everyone a censored picture of him in the act. Wesley wins the competition.
23	* BiggerOnTheInside: Kabouter Wesley's home mushroom appears to be barely bigger than himself on the outside, but actually contains, among other rooms, a neogothic chapel and an illegal chicory plantation.
24	* BigNever: One episode has Wesley ask an ice cream vendor for an ice cream, to which the latter replies with this. What follows is an extremely long ChaseScene in which Wesley keeps following the vendor for several years to get an ice cream.
25	* BlackComedy: The series has featured death, bestiality, violence and abuse for the RuleOfFunny.
26	* BottleEpisode: In one comic, a popped light bulb causes the entire story to play out in pitch-black darkness, with only the speech bubbles being visible. Wesley {{Lampshade\|Hanging}}s it:
27	-->'''Wesley''': Wow, somebody sure didn't feel much like drawing stuff here!
28	* CallBack:
29	** The impulsive gnome who runs over Wesley's house mentions in his backstory an uninhabited planet called Vognor 7, and the episode ends with the gnome and his mother leaving for Vognor 8. In a later episode, Wesley meets some aliens that also come from a planet called Vognor.
30	** The magic watering can from the "Turbo Turbo" episode is mentioned again in another episode, where it appears as part of a newspaper offering.
31	* ComedicSociopathy: If you say “Turbo Turbo” to the magic watering can, it gets set on fire, which is incredibly painful. Everyone else finds it gut-bustingly hilarious.
32	* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Happens in the comic where Wesley has seen a duck stepping out of a UFO and he reports this to a journalist. When the journalist asks him for a picture, Wesley delivers a picture... of the duck.
33	* CurbStompBattle: {{Implied\|Trope}}. After a friendship fairy challenges Wesley to a battle to the death, the episode cuts to a perfectly fine Wesley, commenting on how surprisingly quick it went.
34	* DeathAsComedy: There are several occasions on with characters die in quite bizarre ways. [[TheyKilledKennyAgain Even Wesley himself has died several times over the series.]]
35	* DeusExMachina: Wesley is shot by a police officer in one episode. After the officer mourns to Jesus that he regrets it, Wesley is revived again.
36	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: To make the pig survive, both of the pig exterminators suddenly die with no explanation given. They {{Lampshade\|Hanging}} it in deadpan voices.
37	* EstablishingShot: The episode with the malfunctioning TV set contains one that is explicitly marked as such.
38	* EvilSorcerer: Featured in the comic with the magic watering can.
39	* GilliganCut: Used on multiple occasions, an example is this moment:
40	-->''(Wesley has been sleeping in a prison cell, but he is suddenly awakened by someone on the outside)''
41	-->'''Fitted carpet dealer''': Pssst... Wesley the Gnome, it's me, the fitted carpet dealer. I've come to rescue you!
42	-->''(cut to the two of them sitting in the same prison cell)''
43	-->'''Fitted carpet dealer''': Sad that it didn't work out.
44	-->'''Wesley''': Yeah...
45	* GrammarNazi: One of two pig exterminators has the ability to ''hear'' dt-mistakes[[note]]A lot of Dutch verbs can end on either “d”, “t” or “dt”, depending on conjugation, but you can't hear that in conversation.[[/note]]. He keeps pointing out the other's mistakes. This gag works in the animations because, despite benig voiced, it retains the original comic's text balloons.
46	* InUniverseFactoidFailure: In one comic, a mountain goat claims to be the king of Persia. When Wesley reminds him that Persia doesn't exist anymore, the goat corrects himself by saying he is the king of Mongolia, which is confirmed when two Mongolians come to visit their king. It should be noted that Persia is the former name of Iran, not Mongolia.
47	* {{Jerkass}}: Wesley. He has a tendency to beat the crap out of everyone, even for petty reasons. This is also [[ZigZaggedTrope zigzagged]], as he is seen to have a caring side towards others sometimes. At least, until he loses his patience.
48	* MediumAwareness: {{Lampshade\|Hanging}}d in a short in which Wesley comes across several things that, [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall according to his remarks]], are extremely difficult to animate. Examples include an extremely detailed vintage car, [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext six firefighters on a motorcycle and a dog with six legs that starts to juggle with star shaped tetrahedrons while doing back flips]]. The short ends with Wesley apologizing to the animators by offering them a bouquet of flowers [[BaitAndSwitch which continuously change colours.]]
49	** The gag actually relies on the subtext that the episode was, just like every episode, originally created in comic form at a time when the series was already being adapted into animated shorts. [[TheEnd The final panel of the comic]] explicitly confirms this by declaring the story a ''[[{{Punchline}} gratuitous fuckery towards the guys who have to animate Wesley the Gnome]]''.
50	* MimeAndMusicOnlyCartoon: One episode lacks every dialogue as it only features Wesley walking past multiple signs with unnecessary information while whistling. Finally, Wesley accidentally falls into a pond and drowns.
51	* OrphanedPunchline: Wesley tells a joke to cheer up a crying penguin. Only the punchline (''Then I will go to my bike on foot'') is heard, to which the penguin exclaims that he doesn't understand the joke.
52	* OverlyLongGag: Used in a few comics:
53	** A dolphin who struggles for a few minutes to pronounce the word 'capsized', before he switches to the word 'sinking'.
54	** The two-part comic about the travel agency has a RunningGag about people constantly banging their heads against low-hanging signboards and all needing several hours to recuperate from it.
55	* PaperThinDisguise: How is a pig that looks like a poorly drawn cat hidden from pig exterminators? Hat, glasses and beard. Then it gets [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] when it turns out the “pig in disguise” was an ''actual gnome'' who owns a tree where he let the pig hide itself behind.
56	* PowerOutagePlot: One of the comics features this.
57	* SpeechBubbles: It's normal to see these in a comic, but as the cartoons are mostly unaltered adaptations of the comics, the speech bubbles show up there too. There are some jokes that make reference to spelling errors in the speech bubbles as well.
58	* StrawMisogynist: One comic has Wesley getting a visit from the commission for equal opportunities because his adventures never feature women. Wesley replies that this is because he thinks women are stupid (which the commission agrees with). After a woman is sought to participate, [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Wesley urges her to clean his house...]]
59	* StylisticSuck: Everything is low-detail, backgrounds are only used if the characters need to interact with it, the characters go OffModel all the time and everything has very rough outlines.
60	** {{Lampshade\|Hanging}}d by a pig that Wesley mistakes for a cat because it is very badly drawn. Wesley agrees and says that it applies to him too.
61	* SurrealHumor: The trademark of the series.
62	* TalkingAnimal: Many of the characters Wesley encounters are talking animals. Famous examples include the pig that looks like a badly drawn cat, the silly hedgehog, the stealing dolphin, the crying penguin, the pizza delivery rhinos and the mountain goat that is actually the king of Mongolia.
63	* TemptingFate:
64	** After Wesley punches a hedgehog:
65	--->'''Wesley''': What were you gonna do, call the cops?
66	--->'''Hedgehog''': [[BluntYes Yes.]]
67	** Wesley is getting shot at. Three kilometers away, two gnomes are filling the world's largest water balloon:
68	--->'''Gnome''': Almost nothing can go wrong now.
69	---> (cue both of them getting hit by the stray bullets)
70	* ToiletHumor: Has a few people eating poop. And poop falling down.
71	* UndignifiedDeath: Used several times for a comedic effect.
72	* UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist: Clearly the case with Wesley.
73	* VisualPun: Wesley causes a mushroom to loose its spores after beating it, after which Wesley is hit and killed by the train of seven o'clock.[[note]]The Dutch word ''sporen'' means both ''spores'' and ''railway tracks''.[[/note]]
74	* YoungerThanTheyLook: Although Wesley sports a white beard and sounds a little like an elderly man, there are no signs of him being any older than middle-aged. He apparently is very physically fit, running long distances and beating up others with powerful blows. Besides, he never acts like an old man either, and is actually revealed to be in his 40s.
75	* YourTelevisionHatesYou: One comic has Wesley watching a television programme about manufacturing faults that make certain television sets, including Wesley's, impossible to turn off or suddenly turn into the most bizarre objects.

Context ComicStrip / KabouterWesley