"Mimi & Eunice" is a comedic online comic strip series created by Nina Paley in 2010. The work sheds a negative light toward copyright law, with Mimi and Eunice, two circle-shaped characters, debating matters such as copyright and politics, and in later strips, trans women, in a hilarious manner in many strips. Aside from political messages, the strips sometimes use Hypocritical Humor.
The series originated from a video in late 2009 to early 2010 called "Copying Is Not Theft", where two bunny shaped characters, both resembling Mimi, sing about the differences of copying and stealing.
Every strip is released under Creative Commons, which allows people to use part or whole of these strips, provided that the creator, Nina Paley, and strips are attributed.
Examples of tropes used in Mimi & Eunice:
- Ahem: Beethoven clears his throat as he approaches Eunice in "The Attribution Song" for misattributing his song to herself. Eunice, however, gets scared as she turns around and looks at him, and she eventually runs away.
- Digital Piracy Is Okay: An occurring element throughout the strips and in the videos focusing on copyright, which the work shades a negative light towards. The song "Copying Is Not Theft" has a couple of bunnies holding copies of optical discs and books that have been shared to them. The song discusses the differences of stealing and copying, and the lyrics at the end of the song are "That's why copying is fun". Using works is portrayed as okay, as long as it is attributed to its original creators, as demonstrated in "The Attribution Song", where Eunice pretends she wrote Beethoven's songs.
- Hypocritical Humor: An element relied on. In one strip, Mimi says that "Copying Without Permission is Stealing", which Eunice exactly replies with in the next panel, only to be called out by Mimi in the 3rd panel.
- Line Boil: The animation lines in "The Attribution Song" squiggle around throughout the video.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: In "The Attribution Song", Eunice takes Mimi's copy of Beethoven's Symphony and erases Beethoven's name, replacing it with her own name. Mimi doesn't fall for it, however, and eyerolls.
- Straw Feminist: A transgender variant. Jenndra Identitty, a transgender penis-shaped creature who identified as male at birth, believes that men can become into trans women. She gets aggressive if she isn't referred as a trans woman, and she has a rainbow-striped baseball bat, so that she can encourage sane transgendered characters to think she is right.
- Unnaturally Looping Location: In "The Attribution Song", Eunice, after being caught by Beethoven, freaks out and runs away from him. As she runs away from him, she does a lap around the whole world, and eventually bumps into Beethoven’s computer, with its back obstructing her way. That is where Mimi and Beethoven were the whole time.
