Serious Business / Webcomics

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• In a The Adventures of Dr. McNinja story, tennis was created to make sure there is always a champion to battle an ancient death machine in a game of tennis every year so it does not destroy the world. The U.S. government loses a team of Navy SEALs to the tennis temple's security system every time they have to replace the current tennis champion, and they have to get through robot commando temple guards to even get to the temple. The entire concept is so ridiculous that the doctor, well-experienced with this sort of craziness, loses control and starts laughing hysterically.
• Darth Maul and Marluxia have come to blows over smoothie flavors in Ansem Retort.
  Maul: [while using Force Lightning on Marluxia] Say it, bitch! MANGO STRAWBERRY!
• Collar 6 features a BDSM society that keeps superpowered enforcers on retainer. Apparently the Judiaticizes are authorized to kill people.
• Ethan from Ctrl+Alt+Del, as well as Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade, tend to treat their respective hobbies (Videogames and/or tabletop gaming) as Serious Business, although this is probably just the authors poking fun at the "hardcore gaming" mentality.
• In Dating a Team Magma Grunt Brandon challenges the Team Aqua grunt to a duel for making fun of his girlfriend. Silly, but standard for Pokemon. Using Primal Groudon is not standard.
• Science fiction and fantasy, and the fandom that has built up around them, are very Serious Business in Fans!.
• Girl Genius:
  • The Jägermonsters really love hats. Nothing more needs to be said. When Agatha, the Chosen One, flips Maxims hat off, he even almost attacks her for a moment despite his Undying Loyalty to her. In fact, Maxim refuses to let Lars be buried Hatless.
  • The Incorruptible Library apparently takes reclaiming their books so seriously that they will (or at least, patrons honestly believe that they will) send strike teams to kidnap people who have overdue books.
• El Goonish Shive:
  • In the commentary of this sketchbook strip, Dan claims that having his characters' hairstyles in flashbacks maintain continuity and be logical is serious business.
  • The storyline Squirrel Prophet —which takes place in a trading-card game tournament while far more plot-important things happen at the same time— has a sort of Running Gag where several characters think something along the lines of "focus on the card games!" independently.
• In Las Lindas, Rachael feels this way about the fights in the arena. She cuts herself off before she can use this trope by name.
• The Perry Bible Fellowship: Skub is serious business.
• The writer of Questionable Content is evidently aware of the trope, or at least the term, though it tends to be invoked by name rather than appearing within the plot. The notes on this strip refer to this trope, as does the art in this strip.
• In Triangle and Robert, cooking and food is serious business. Cuisine magic powers the comic's most fearsome warriors, several of the characters have some sort of mystical cooking skill, most of them are descended from ancient lineages of battle-cooks, and it is eventually revealed that the entire universe is made out of pudding.
• Mal of Head Trip warns her siblings in the tone and posture of a drill sergeant (even using the words "troops," "soldiers," and "mission") not to talk or make any sound whatsoever while watching the final season of Battlestar Galactica. She is dumbfounded to find that they don't in fact give a rat's behind about the show.
• Emeril LeGoinegasque, a supporting character in Achewood, is the president of a club dedicated to the made-up hobby of Trashspotting, driving around on garbage day and building up extensively detailed personality profiles of people they've never even met based on what they throw out. He lives and breathes trashspotting, his character blog (yes, Achewood characters get their own blogs) was all about his trashspotting exploits, and he even had a trashspotting forum for a while. To him and his club, if to nobody else on Earth, other peoples' garbage is serious business.
  • Emeril's trashpotting even acts as a Chekhov's Skill in one arc, where Philippe goes missing — he manages to figure out where he's going based off a sole discarded can of baked beans.
• In Sluggy Freelance holidays are Serious Business. Bun-Bun actually tries to take over the world by becoming the patron figure of Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc.
• In Problem Sleuth, if something is "Incredibly Silly", you can pretty much be sure it's also "SERIOUS BUSINESS".
  • In Homestuck, the log header in John's dad's PDA declares ties to be Serious Business. Speaking of Homestuck, the trolls have a game called FLARP, which is the trollish equivalent of LARP (Live-Action Roleplaying). It's heavily implied that the "F" stands for "Fatal". A nasty Cycle of Revenge, involving one person getting killed (among other things) was set off because of a FLARP session gone wrong in which Vriska hurled Tavros off a cliff, crippling him. Trolls take their games seriously.
  • A magazine named "Serious Jester" is for those who really mean it.
• In Nectar of the Gods, bartenders are the general focus of the Webcomic, in the Tournament Arc bartending and mixing cocktails is very Serious Business! Where just drinking a specific type of drink can either fix a person's emotional problems in an instant or drive to induced suicide.
• As a self-aware cartoon character, Karen from Sketch Comedy treats the hazards of Cerebus Syndrome as Serious Business. Her anxiety is played for laughs.
• Something*Positive features the Teddy Bear Liberation Front. Plenty of people in Real Life find the idea of plushie fetishism weird or disturbing, but as fetishes go, it's pretty harmless. The TBLF think it's so disgusting they kill and torture people who make, sell, or use "yiffable" plushies.
• Precocious:
  • In the intro arc, a simple competition about who the better supervillain is turns into the famous "Gender Wars".
  • And the arc where Mr. Et discovers that Quincy killed his WoW character...not pretty.
• Tamberlane: Thanks to the rampant xenophobia and nationalism present within The Silver Sage islands, the residents talk about going abroad like it's walking straight into Hell and even have "stories" were anyone who leaves are turned into monsters.
• Parodied with Ultimate Mop Daisuke DX, the Show Within a Show from Anime News Nina about competitive janitoring.

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