Webcomics is a very diverse medium with many authors and artists being fans of various other forms of media, franchises and etc. This page lists as much Shout Outs as possible from several online comics coming from the Webcomics media.
Works with their own subpages:
- 8-Bit Theater
- '32 Kick-Up
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
- Air Ride Adventures
- All Saints Street
- Aqua Regia
- Awful Hospital
- Black Adventures
- Brawl in the Family
- Charby the Vampirate
- The Chosen Four
- Cirque Royale
- The Crossroad
- Cobweb and Stripes
- Commander Kitty
- Consolers
- Cursed Princess Club
- Darths & Droids
- DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything
- Dysfunctional Family Circus
- El Goonish Shive
- Ennui GO!
- Erfworld
- Erma
- Exterminatus Now
- Everyone Is Home
- Freefall
- Girl Genius
- Go Get a Roomie!
- Grand Blues!
- Grrl Power
- Guilded Age
- Gunnerkrigg Court
- Heroine Chic
- Homestuck
- Housepets!
- IToons
- Keit-Ai
- Kid Radd
- Kill Six Billion Demons
- League of Super Redundant Heroes
- Life of Wily
- Magick Chicks
- MegaTokyo
- Monstar
- MoringMark - TOH Comics
- My Impossible Soulmate
- The Noordegraaf Files
- Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint
- One Piece: Grand Line 3.5
- The Order of the Stick
- Our Little Adventure
- Ow, my sanity
- Poison Ivy Gulch
- Precocious
- PS238
- Questionable Content
- qxlkbh
- Redd
- Roommates
- Rusty and Co.
- Sabrina Online
- Sandra and Woo
- Schlock Mercenary
- Sketch Comedy
- Skin Horse
- Square Root of Minus Garfield
- Unsounded
- Vampire Cheerleaders
- Weak Hero
- The Whiteboard
Other Works:
- 21st Century Fox is full of various references and shout outs, to the point we'd need an entire page just to list them. The most common ones include classic songs ("White Cliffs of Dover"), various Sci-Fi movies and the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.
- Akuma's Comics has plenty of these, taking place in a Massively Multiplayer Crossover verse, but The Undertaker stands out as one big Shout-Out to... well, guess. Other than the name, his sprites are recolors of Kane, his evil organization is called The Ministry, he uses a chokeslam
in his first appearance, and his finisher is called the Super Tombstone. Which is like a regular Tombstone, only from ten feet up and on fire. This gets lampshaded in this first appearance, where Akuma mistakes him for a Kane cosplayer. note Akuma: Nice costume, but Kane doesn't wear a mask anymore...Undertaker: I'm not Kane. I'm The Undertaker! And don't you dare say "I don't look like him!" - A 2005 Antihero for Hire mentions "the Eccleston effect forming across the D-W matrices".
- Arthur, King of Time and Space:
- Many secondary characters are based on other comic characters, including Elaine of Carbonek, who is Helen B. Narbon, with her loyal knight Sir Bromell as Mell (a male Mell in the baseline arc).
- Merlin's magical incantations are English phrases in Greek script, usually from appropriate 20th century sources. For example, the incantation to trap someone in a cave is "Both please, but never mind the bread". The one to intentionally initiate a jump to another arc is "Seventh chevron encoded".
- Merlin's rambling when trapped in the Crystal Cave include insisting Gawaine is "unbalanced" with gold and silver in the same pouch, and something about oysters, just like Sherlock Holmes in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective".
- The superhero arc is an extended Shout-Out to various superhero characters and tropes, mostly obvious (Kingman is Superman, White Night is Batman), but also subtler (one storyline features Percivale as Kingman's lawyer; no mention is made of a heroic identity, but he's blind).
- The space arc's Ancient Greece is also full of superhero Shout Outs: Hercules is Superman, Arachne is Spider-Man, etc...
- One strip, in which Arthur asks Merlin if there are other groups of people going through the same adventures in different time periods, features Sherlock's Sherlock Holmes and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes's Dr Watson.
- Awful Hospital: Several, most recently a monster in the distance resembling the Fault Victim, but also including a poster depicting Bill Cipher, which has reappeared at least twice now.
- Baskets of Guts:
- Maria◊ is a sewer system worker. She even has that very uniform.
- Sons of The Don and their two friends are a four-man band of quite dashing hooligans◊. With canes. And if that's not enough, one of them sports very noticable makeup.
- Image cover◊ of Chapter 3 is one to Conan.
- Cover◊ of Chapter 8 parodies ''Woman with a Parasol'' by Claude Monet.
- Paraanatomists on the last panel of this strip◊ resemble "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" by Rembrandt.
- Maria
- Batman: Wayne Family Adventures:
- In episode 4, "Alert", Batman and Red Hood mimic the famous "pointing Spider-Men" meme.
- The second part of the "Crush" three-parter has Stephanie quote the "You're doing amazing, sweetie!" meme.
- Episode 22, "The Tournament", features two shout-outs. The first is Damian and Duke's etiquette training, the moment a reference to a similar scene from The Princess Diaries. The second is the game the Batkids play for the tournament, a rather obvious Mario Kart expy.
- In episode 53, "Online", one of the webpages Barbara pulls up is a video titled "BATGIRL CRASHES MY PARTY?!", the video featuring a boy in a yellow shirt and backwards blue cap, a clear reference to the RSE and HGSS iterations of the Youngster class from Pokémon.
- One of the final panels of the "Win or Lose" two-parter is Red Hood walking towards his motorcycle, the framing of the panel a near exact duplicate of Kaneda walking towards his bike from the iconic poster of AKIRA.
- The title of episode 108, "There Can Only Be One", references the iconic Tagline and Arc Words of the Highlander series.
- Episode 111, "Haley", after Tim says the Haley is "too cute for your own good", Dick says thank you. Tim proceeds to respond with the "I could not have been more clearly talking to the dog." quote from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
- The Bedfellows:
- "My Little Donkey" in the "Jacked Ass" cartoon is a parody of My Little Pony and especially My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
- The "Keys Keys Keys" music video is a parody of "Get Low" by Lil' Jon.
- The game played in "Two Friends Play Frenzy" is similar to Rampage.
- Beeserker:
- Many, usually (but not exclusively) to video games. The list includes Pokémon, Mega Man, Metroid, Metroid again, and The Little Mermaid.
- Chapter 3 is titled "A Tale of Two Scootsies", which references A Tale of Two Cities.
- Many, usually (but not exclusively) to video games. The list includes Pokémon
- Better Days:
- The title of Chapter 9, about one of Lucy's peers dating her to get a stab at her mom, was appropriately titled "Lucy's Mom"
- The hospital shown late in the comic is named after singer Grace Jones as an In-Joke between Naylor and a friend. Another Jones appearance appears in Original Life.
- Beyond the End references the famous Devilman "it's laced with drugs" scene.
- See if you can spot the sneaky visual Shout-Out in this ''Bigger Than Cheeses'' strip. (Answer: That's unmistakably a Gary Larson cow.)
- Bittersweet Candy Bowl once had a huge number of them, but they have tapered off in recent times.
- Pokémon, Di Gi Charat, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney references are scattered all throughout the comic.
- David apparently watches Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- Apparently, Taeshi reads Lackadaisy Cats.
- I'm feeling a Light Yagami vibe...
- Lucy's Halloween costume is a shoutout to a genre-shifted roleplay on the forums, where Lucy's expy was a vampire with that exact design.
- Blown Away features appearances from a friendly face who likes to go inside Cubic houses
- Blue Yonder:
- Kevin observes he's faster than a speeding bullet, but not that much faster.
- Having code-named Jared "Chicken Little", Black Dog tells him the sky has fallen.
- Kevin observes he's faster than a speeding bullet, but not that much faster.
- Bob and George: "Oh god, I hope it's not Superman, he's a dick."
- Boy and Dog:
- The small town in which Buffet Of Lies takes place is named for American actor Ted Danson.
- Buster from Buster Wilde Weerwolf watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this page.◊
- A sort of a Naruto shout out appears in The Cartoon Chronicles Of Conroy Cat when Doggy is training Conroy how to be a toon. Conroy comments how it sounds a lot like chakra from Naruto. And is immediately hit whit a crow-bar for it.
- Cassiopeia Quinn:
- The Alt Text present for all strips consists of quotes taken from a variety of science fiction stories.
- The gelatin blobs the vanaa are seen eating in one page include one containing a tiny metroid.
- When asked how many famous "space people" she's met, Cassiopeia recalls an encounter with the Fourth Doctor, is one of the bounty hunters present when Darth Vader sent them after the Millennium Falcon and stealing scientific secrets while witnessing an argument between Hakubi Washu, Rick Sanchez and Doctor Farnsworth.
- This page is a giant Where's Waldo? of sci-fi references, with people visible in the casino crowd including a krogan, Farseer Taldeer, Lilo & Stitch and Hedonism Bot.
- When fighting Dr. Botz on a planet of Lilliputians where the buildings come up to their shoulders at best, Theira lets out a loud Skreeonk.
- When the orphan kids are tasked by their teacher with selecting a book for class study, Nisa picks The Lord of the Rings, which she mistakes for a historical novel.
- One of the alien species present in the galaxy is the Green Men, Ares tarkas, four-armed, tusked, green-skinned humanoids from Barsoom.
- Chicanery is overflowing with corny pop culture references. For starters, two story arcs are largely parodies of Parasite Eve and Metal Gear Solid.
- City of Trees:
- The song playing in the opening club scene is "Monsters" by Ruelle, the same song used in the opening of Shadowhunters, a reference to the webcomic's fanfiction roots.
- Malik Nazari's cleric certificate is signed by Leonard McCoy and Beverly Crusher, both doctors from Star Trek.
- The song playing in the opening club scene is "Monsters" by Ruelle, the same song used in the opening of Shadowhunters
- Coga Nito has a few musical Shout-Outs [Wonderwall, Red Special, Smooth Criminal] that are themselves a Shout Out to Jojos Bizarre Adventure and its various musical Shout Outs, especially when you consider that Pieces resemble Stands.
- An Easter Egg early on in Chapter One is a direct reference to 'It was me, Dio!'
- The Corpse and the main character's ability being spinning-related put one in mind of the Steel Ball Run arc in particular.
- When Niko is introduced to Robin, she makes a remark about 'like the strawhat' when she hears how their names sound together.
- Com'c has a few, including this str'p featuring an X Days Since sign that is a shoutout to xkcd's example of the same trope:
- Sign: 38 days since someone reset this xkcd reference
- Creative Release, an interactive metafiction webcomic, contains a lot of more or less subtle shout outs.
- Turn 006’s glass shards and broiler element refer to Penguindrum.
- Turn 006 and 007’s doors, which seemingly each lead to the acquisition of a specific form of magic, refer to the first room of Kingdom Hearts.
- Turn 009’s end card simultaneously refers to Penguindrum and Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- Level 01’s title is “The Scientist, the Witch and the Con Artist”.
- Turn 010 is a homage to xkcd. “Minimalist mode: ON”
- Given the number of Shout Outs to Penguindrum, Turn 010’s “idol singer duo” may refer to the idol duo “Double H”.
- Turn 016 introduces Etoile, a young boy piloting an entity called “Unit 01” to defend his world from alien attacks, who wonders why he does it and concludes that he probably just wants to be praised.
- Turn 017 features heavy references to Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Look out for scissors!
- In Cthulhu Slippers there are constant shout outs to H. P. Lovecraft and other works that reference the mythos such as the Evil Dead series in this comic.
- Ctrl+Alt+Del featured a character strikingly similar in appearance to Tyler Durden from the movie Fight Club speaking for the character Ethan with the line "he fell down some stairs" to explain to a doctor the reasoning behind some suspicious facial trauma.
- Similarly, there's a strip where Ethan imagines himself in a "happy place"—a frozen cave with Ted's hated pet penguin, and a giant mallet. The penguin's even panicking and thinking, "...slide?"
- To The Big Bang Theory in this strip.
- A rare subtle example is a small vocal tic for Embla, which according to seasoned gamers is a match for SHODAN.
- The Daily Derp: The Daily XKD3RP mimics xkcd. Also, Derpy referencing the "Substitute" move from Pokémon.
- Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures:
- Pip. Pip's appearance, general personality and temperament pretty much make him Mab's answer to Flinx's minidrag.
- Also, look carefully at what is exposed of the Clan Mink page. Can't see it? "Status: This was a triumph! I'm making a note [obscured by speech bubble] success!!"
- To what the frig kind of book does Oolong stock in that library these day!
- This comic contains a shout out to a certain song.
- Las Lindas: the horror movie!
- The next page has Code Name: Hunter.
- The entire wardrobe montage. With bonus allusion to tentacle rape and several Wholesome Crossdressers.
- The bottom of this page references a scene from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
- The characters play Candy-Land Adventures in #1453 and #1460. Candy Land is a simple children's game. Candy-Land Adventures transforms this game into an RPG like Dungeons & Dragons, complete with rolling dice, fighting monsters, and arguing about the rules. Roles include Peppermint Paladin and Rogue of Red Hots.
- #287 references The Princess Bride.
- For some reason, Regina has a Florence Ambrose plushie in her room.
- "Demonology 101", Cubi Mind-Abilities, Page 2 quotes some law book. The quote is from the United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 5.
- Pip
- Daughter of the Lilies:
- Demonseed Redux:
- Jean and Dee go to a party in Chaser and Mercy's Cosplay. The irony of the latter is noted.
- When Galadrel tells Chica that he's his son, Chica asks to cut the Star Wars crap. He's not bluffing.
- This Dinosaur Comics strip contains a Shout Out to this◊ The Perry Bible Fellowship strip.
- Dominic Deegan:
- "I'm not trapped [in Hell] with you, you're trapped in here WITH ME!" The author claims it was accidental. Coincidentally, the same quote happens to be his friend Tim Buckley's forum signature on his own website.
- Dominic's Father's grasp of orcish bears a striking resemblance to Monty Python's Hungarian Phrasebook sketch. "I cannot wait til lunchtime" is a direct quote.
- This strip, with "Ghost in the Spell" as an obvious shout-out to Ghost in the Shell.
- Dragon Ball Multiverse:
- Page 466. That's madness!
- The band that plays just before the second round starts looks like the cantina band from A New Hope.
- When U1 King Kai talks about Namekians' weakness to whistles, we can see next to him spectators who look like Edward Elric, Urdnot Wrex, Mai Tohika, Catherine and the Tenth Doctor.
- Right after the mass resurrection, several characters from several zombie-related franchises make an appearance, such as Claire Redfield, Lee Everett, Clementine, Ellie and Fayt Leingod.
- Page 466.
- In Dragon Mango:
- Mango wishes the goblins would come and take Cherry away right now!
- Sherbert School is protected by a game of Tetris.
- When she hears that the Goblin King is in love with Mango, she asks whether he is tall and handsome and a snappy dresser with long flowing hair and a great singing voice.
- A student says that the source of magic is midichlori- — and is driven from class.
- Steve the Great and Powerful
- The competitive sport of Pock-fighting
- They meet up with Peaches, and her three animal companions.
- Dregs: Mags the rat hunter's combat gear looks right at home in S.T.A.L.K.E.R..
- Drive (Dave Kellett): Skitter's Laser-Guided Amnesia is referred to as like a "bad episode of Gilligan's Island".
- The only real recurring shout-out in Elf Blood lies in Carlita Delacroix, a large-breasted dark-skinned catwoman. Other shout-outs have included the obligatory sunglasses one-liner and a hidden magical community with corresponding Take That!.
- A handpuppet of Grace from El Goonish Shive can be seen in this filler comic of The Wotch
- There are several other shoutouts, mainly to EGS, in the comic. Ivan mentions having a cousin in Moperville, "where all that weird stuff happens".
- And don't forget the climax of one recent story arc. About six webcomics get referenced in a single update.
- And the Maginet is used by a magician to spread the word. One of the people shown is wearing plaid and is asking for advice on how to catch a demon girl.
- The top row of panels in this page of Erfworld is formatted like a Partially Clips (Rob Balder's other webcomic) strip.
- And, given the nature of Erfworld, it is easier to count pages that don't have shoutouts to something, explicit or otherwise.
- One troper lost a bet about five pages without a shout out, because he didn't recognize Sergeant Schlock from Schlock Mercenary in this strip and the Leeroy Jerkins here; but at least he had chicken.
- One troper lost a bet about five pages without a shout out, because he didn't recognize Sergeant Schlock from Schlock Mercenary in this strip
- This strip◊ features a cameo by the Weird Sisters.
- And, given the nature of Erfworld, it is easier to count pages that don't have shoutouts to something, explicit or otherwise.
- In Everyday Heroes, the bio pages for Dolly Bird and G-Nat mention that their father was a genetic engineer known as the Somewhat-Below-Average Evolutionary (a Shout-Out to Marvel Comics' High Evolutionary). Another episode features three consecutive panels of Shout-Out references:
- First, the strip is set in Kurt Vonnegut's hometown of Indianapolis.
- Second panel features Mell Kelly from Narbonic, and the Muzak is from the song "Wind Beneath My Wings". ("Did I ever tell you you're my hero?")
- Third panel has a sign labelled "Sciuridae Labs", a reference to El Goonish Shive.
- Faux Pas:
- Myrtle will not come out, not by the hair of your chinny-chin-chin.!
- A fox being released into the wild waits in a transport coop numbered A113, a reference to the classroom of Cal Arts where character animation is taught.
- Myrtle will not come out
- Fillbert:
- Nyan Cat is copied.
- The "Planet of the Aces" poster is one letter off from Planet of the Apes, and features an actor named Rod McDowel, a pun on Roddy McDowall who played Cornelius in Planet of the Apes.
- Nyan Cat is copied.
- Foundation - The Psychohistorians: During his courtroom trial, Seldon literally shouts the words, "decline and fall of the Galactic Empire", which is only one word off from the inspiration for the (original) work, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon.
- FreakAngels had this little gem: "All your forthcoming bone fractures are belong to us." The scene is a shout-out to the infamous "All your base are below to us" line from Zero Wing.
- The webcomic Freaks N Squeeks has a boy-genius mouse whose full name (used only once) is "Albert Jeremy Nonn". In case you don't get how that's a shout-out, try sounding out just the first syllable of each name.
- Simon And Freddy:
- In Playtime, Steve recites a portion of the John Denver song "Take Me Home, Country Roads."
- The eighth strip is not only called "What Does The Fox Say?", but also has Simon say the title in the third panel, much to the chagrin of Freddy. It's a reference to a song by Ylvis.
- In Autumn Poetry, Freddy recites the first three lyrics of the Nat King Cole song "Autumn Leaves."
- In Playtime
- The Fuzzy Five: The Fluffton P.D. has an Officer Krupke. For extra points, the strip title is Hey, Look! Social Commentary!
- Furry Fight Chronicles has Kalita pulling a page out of Black Orchid's Finishing Move from Killer Instinct to go for a One-Hit Kill by flashing her breasts at Muko taking advantage of her Fatal Flaw exactly like Orchid does herself complete with Muko's Muko's facial expression of someone whose face is going to explode because they witnessed something so perfect that they're brains can't process it. And her manager Cookie pointing out how unexpected it was for Kalita to flash her breasts, even noting how she thought Kalita was more of the reserved kind.
- In General Protection Fault:
- In the climactic battle of Surreptitious Machinations, the news teamreporting is WPET, with humans who are analogous to the dogs of KPET in Newshounds.
- Planck's Rousing Speech in To Thine Own Self is a Shout-Out to Braveheart.
- The "old abandoned junkyard" has a sign saying "Foreman's Junk and Salvage".
- The first universe they visit in "Strange New Worlds" is an extended Shout-Out to Krazy Kat. Trish is Krazy, Nick is Ignatz, Fooker is Bull Pup and Patty is the brick.
- The first character they meet in the Funny Animal universe of "shadowCoin" is D.C. Smythe, an old character of Darlington's who Word of God describes as "a parody of a parody". He's a cat, but other than that is a white-furred British secret agent with an eyepatch.
- Other universes visited include one based on The Legend of Zelda and one based on Sailor Moon.
- In the climactic battle of Surreptitious Machinations, the news team
- In "Gifts of Wandering Ice a model of the Planet Express ship appears in Elie's study, among her trinkets from the old world.
- Good Guy Comic has a visual reference to Aliens.
- In Holiday Wars, April Fools' Day makes a shoutout to Gilmore Girls, as seen in this strip
- The climax to an arc in Housepets! brought out this gem from Ghostbusters:Res: HEY MAGMA BREATH! I HAVE ONE QUESTION! ARE YOU A GOD?
The Forgotten: No, it is—
Res: THEN DIE. - The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! is full of these, including references to Bugs Bunny, Mr. Magoo, Pepe Le Pew, The Transformers, Pinky and the Brain, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python, Sesame Street, Barney & Friends, You Can't Do That on Television, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Martin and Lewis, Bob & Ray, Little Richard, Marcel Marceau, Mr. T, Richard Nixon, Che Guevara, Bloom County, Peanuts, Terry and the Pirates, Norb by Pinkwater and Auth, Melonpool, Zortic, Zeera the Space Pirate, My Little Pony, Tenchi Muyo!, Ultraman, Where's Waldo?, Metropolis, Gamera, Frankenstein, Indiana Jones, Return of the Jedi, Clash of the Titans, Heavy Metal, Spider-Man, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Last Unicorn, The Little Prince, Zork, The Legend of Zelda,'' Atari, Izod, Pepsi and Penn State University (where the strip originated).
- The spaceship quiz featured spaceships from Cowboy Bebop, Flash Gordon, Doctor Who, Josie And the Pussycats In Outer Space, Doctor Snuggles, and 3-2-1 Penguins!!
- The spaceship quiz
- In Wily's Defense has tons and tons of shout outs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, just about anything else by Joss Whedon, Ace Attorney, Max Payne, 24, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, The Legend of Zelda, EarthBound, Street Fighter, The King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, Sonic the Hedgehog, Don Henley, Farscape...
- In Irregular Webcomic!:
- Isaac Newton has a time machine shaped like a police box. The noise it makes when dematerialising is "Jurrrz".
- The Death arc has occasional nods to Death of the Discworld, most notably this strip which has a paraphrase of the bit in Terry Pratchett's author bio about his first day as a journalist.
- Frequent shout outs to The Lord of the Rings in the Fantasy arc.
- Will Shakespeare quotes the famous line from Macbeth, "Out, damned spot!," to get his dog out of the server room.
- Irrelevator references this scene from Gunnerkrigg Court in comic 26.◊
- I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space!!! has Red Shirt Shout Outs starting here and here. Unfortunately, some fans forgot the cardinal rule of Red Shirts (hint: they die) and fell in love with a certain Red Shirt.
- Jack:
- Among other things, to various other web-based furry works, Watership Down, Earthworm Jim, and Nine Inch Nails.
- The afterlife is distinctively based on The Divine Comedy.
- In a recent arc, a character Richek reveals that he's seen the grim reaper numerous times and considers him somewhat of a friend, but no one else has ever seen him, and he doesn't know his name. What does he call his tall, rabbitty pal? "Harvey!"
- Obligatory link to the first example of Buster Charlie's dislike of Redwall.
- The bathhouse in "Frigid McThunderbones" is filled with Shout Outs of random cartoons.
- Jayden And Crusader frequently references other webcomics including the Wotch, the Wotch Cheer, Misfile and Questionable Content
- A List of Karate Bears Shout Outs
- Karin-dou 4koma contains numerous Monster Hunter references:
- The Kinru and Ginru's names as well as being collectively called the Otomos is a reference to the Felyne Comrade (or "Otomo Airu") feature of the portable games.
- Mifi's body being "burnt ultra-deliciously" or "Hmmm! So tasty!"
- The text box that shows up after Tamaryu smashes a watermelon into a fine pink spray.
- Knights of Buena Vista features not only Disney shouts outs (given it's a Campaign Comic based largely on the Disney Animated Canon), but to various other works, from Star Wars to films by The Asylum.
- Lightbringer does it a lot. Main character quotes Watchmen, his friend once dressed-up as a spoiler, and when he asked another character about how can he be sure he don't kill anybody, the answer he get was Cassandra Cain
- Light Roast Comics has a shout-out to Bey Blade here.
- Many, many in Lovecraft Is Missing. Not only to Lovecraft's own works, but also Robert E. Howard and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
- Lots found in the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Fan Webcomics by Entropy Max, including, but not limited to, Neon Genesis Evangelion (sample◊), Haruhi Suzumiya (sample◊), Doraemon, Astro Boy (sample◊), and Magical Witch Punie-chan (sample◊).
- Ménage à 3 features a fair number of shout-outs, mostly to pop culture; see the comic's own page.
- Just for one, Gary often wears shirts with various symbols from retro TV shows, like ReBoot, as well as newer but still rather obscure shows, like Code Lyoko.
- Late in its run, the comic introduced various new characters who were shout-outs to the cast of the same creators’ fantasy comics — Eerie Cuties and its spin-offs. These characters, and the habit of introducing more such, then carried over to the follow-up comic, Pixie Trix Comix.
- In Mob Ties, you can play a fun game called the Mob Ties Shout-Out drinking game. Take a shot every time you spot a Shout-Out on a strip. Just be sure to play it someplace where you can get emergency medical attention very quickly, or you may be dead before you get halfway through the archives.
- In Monster of the Week, Shaenon Garrity's The X-Files recap comic, Mulder's ID photo shows him lounging in swimming trunks, just like the X-Files parody in The Simpsons.
- Moon Crest 24 has a few of these here and there. However, the Beach Episode chapter is chock-full of them. Can you spot them all?
- In Mortifer, when Lord Artemis is explaining his reason for "removing" Johnathan:"He's done no severe crime. technically, he was a good angel. But lust is not a good quality. Leads to jealousy. Leads to anger. Leads to violence.
- In this strip from Muertitos, Lafcadio hides in a closet among a pile of plush alien toys, including Lum Invader, Marvin the Martian, ALF, King Nikochan, Dr. Zoidberg, and Sgt. Keroro.
- Narbonic has so many shout outs and obscure references that one has to read the Director's Cut version to find all of them. Shaenon Garrity lists everything from other webcomics to manga to Shakespeare.
- Nerf NOW!!'s news post here: "Sigh. Times are tough."
- Early in the "A World Without Piffany" arc in Nodwick, the hapless henchman plummets between realities... passing, as he does, a police box with a scarf stuck in the door. The author, Aaron Williams, seems to like Who shoutouts, since he has also had an elven healer mistakenly refer to Piffany as "Romana", and then offer her a jelly baby. (The latter in a parody of the Dungeons & Dragons (2000) movie, where the equivalent character was in fact played by Tom Baker.) A further Doctor Who parody comes with the wizards whose psyches reside within the Orb of Omnescience; their appearances and personalities come from the Third, Fourth and Fifth Doctors, plus Romana.
- In No Rest for the Wicked, the cat from "Puss in Boots" is named Perrault.
- Also, Red tells Perrault about a plan to get through gates: "Your huffing and puffing wouldn't blow it down."
- Also, Red tells Perrault about a plan to get through gates: "Your huffing and puffing wouldn't blow it down
- The Packrat shouts out to Back to the Future, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (a reference which synth geeks will get the most easily) and Spies Like Us. The author, Retarded Animal Babies creator David C. Lovelace, also declared shout-outs to CustomSynth and Metasonix, although these aren't shout-outs in TV Tropes' sense.
- In Pebble and Wren, the Halloween strips show Pebble dressing as R2D2 from Star Wars, holding a Spider-Man mask, and eating a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figure.
- The Petri Dish:
- One strip has Bob saying, "Exterminate" and waving a plunger. This is a reference to Doctor Who, where the Daleks have appendages that look like plungers and say, "Exterminate". He also appears as a Cyberman at one point.
- In one comic, Bob imagines Eve from WALL•E.
- There are several Star Trek references including Thaddeus thinking Captain Kirk could win against Captain Picard in a fight, Thaddeus appearing as Captain Picard, and two men talking about dilithium.
- In one strip, people dress as Star Wars characters for the "May the fourth be with you" joke.
- One strip parodies The Wizard of Oz and also, Bob wants a heart because of the Tin Man and is scared of the flying monkeys.
- When a zombie poops, they say, "I guess the children's book was right— everyone poops!".
- An optician refers to a pair of thick glasses as "Farnsworth glasses", a reference to Professor Farnsworth from Futurama.
- Several references to Farmville exist, although the cartoonist seems to not know that cows don't need feeding and mooing is just a random noise that they make.
- Pibgorn: First panel, Edward Hopper.
- Princess Princess (2012): The setup with Sadie locked in a tower is quite similar to Rapunzel. When inside without an easy way to get down, Amira even asks how long her hair is, but Sadie says to forget the idea-she's not Rapunzel.
- Pupster:
- Jakata asks where Dairy King is in the third page of Pup, Pup, And Away.
- Kevin finds a Mycrosoft Doors laptop in the fourth page of Egg Over Easy.
- The laptop has an icon titled The Internet in the sixth page of Egg Over Easy.
- Pupster and Danny use Boogle on the laptop in the seventh page of Egg Over Easy.
- Pupster and Danny goes to Mallmart in the fifteenth page of Egg Over Easy.
- Kevin watches Pretty Pretty Horsey on the laptop in the twentyfourth page of Egg Over Easy along with other videos shown there.
- A Pepsi logo.
- Nyan Bunny.
- asdfmovie.
- Pingu.
- A Pepsi
- Pupster and Danny use Bookface and find out about TFC in the twentyseventh page of Egg Over Easy.
- Danny beats Pupster in checkers in the seventh page of Lookie and an iconic quote is spoken.
Pupster: Heh... Danny, come on, bro. This is madness!
- PvP is rather fond of pop culture and video game references. In addition, this strip was an obvious shout out to the Holiday Wars arc of Sluggy Freelance.
- ReBoot: Code of Honor: The chapter names are plays on the titles of classic works: Paradigms Lost, The Day the Net Stood Still, and Apocalypse Gnosis.
- In Realmwalker there are numerous references to other media: Luke reads a story about a "sneaky snake and a bookshop angel", a reference to Good Omens, Thrym refers to Gunhild as Doctor Who, several chapters are named after Bjork songs, The chapter art for episode 17 has the main characters dressed in The Beatles' Sgt pepper outfits, and A troll alludes to having a "cousin Moomin".
- In Rusty and Co., numerous — such as a shout out to The Order of the Stick when they have Art Evolution. Level 6 is particularly rich, with references to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, William Shakespeare, and The Muppets.
- Sandusky contains multiple classic rock references.
- Satan and Me has a short imagine spot in which Satan acts out the infamous bloody bucket scene from Carrie.
- Here Schlock the mercenary travels in "A bright, blue box, nice and inconspicuous" which "looked bigger from the inside."
- SERGOM has a nice reference to the current Twix ad campaign.
- Shadowgirls artist Dave Reynolds throws in a lot of these into the book. Some are nods to personal friends, fans of the book, and sources of inspirations.
- Sheldon The Tiny Dinosaur: The titular character occasionally meets and/or dresses up as characters from other fictional works:
- Befriending Pikmins
- Dressing up as Lapras.
- "Dragon-ing up" as Smaug.
- Cosplaying as Godzilla, whom Sheldon is apparently a Fan Boy of.
- Befriending
- The April Fool's comics at Shortpacked! involve a Shout Out both subtle and obvious. They use the same narrative structure as Dinosaur Comics, but with the panels arranged vertically.
- And then there's this familiar-looking coffee house. (Later named as Cofferight Theft.)
- And then there's this familiar
- Shot and Chaser:
- Olly compares Tre to Grandpa Simpson for walking in the door, and then imeadiatly turning around and leaving an establishment once he sees what's inside.
- The first chapter is titled Digging to Hell from the lyrics from the Super Furry Animals song "Liberty Belle" from the album Phantom Power.
- Tre is delighted to discover a Luther Vandross tape in his dad's collection, as its release date means his dad bought and hid it from Tre's mother after Tre's mother had abolished all secular entertainment for the family making it "contraband".
- Other tapes from Tre's dad's collection brought on the storm chasing trip include some Detroit Spinners and Stevie Wonder, along with a number of sermons Tre and Olly are much less enthused about.
- Silent Hill: Promise: The heroine has a Problem Sleuth poster on her bedroom wall. Promise borrows its interactive format from MS Paint Adventures.
- Sonic the Comic – Online! features the occasional shout-outs to the Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics). In the 250th milestone issue Sally was revamped from her original anthro-shift design◊ to something that more resembles her Archie◊ design◊ (though it looks like something Sega would make). Joe Sushi also wore a jacket◊ similar to his Archie design◊.
- Amy is seen wearing a Green Lantern shirt in one of her solo stories.
- This strip of Slightly Damned shouts out to The Legend of Zelda and Ace Attorney.
- There are also more subtle Ace Attorney shout-outs with some of the speech bubbles fading to red at the bottom when a character is angry.
- Torg from Sluggy Freelance is named after the character Torgo from Manos: The Hands of Fate.
- The elftrooper line from this Sluggy Freelance strip is a shout out to A New Hope.
- The elftrooper line from this
- Smithson:
- In Chapter Two, the college radio station is playing a series of losing Eurovision Song Contest entries. While most of them are real, the scene opens with the last line of "My Lovely Horse".
- In Chapter Three, the line "She's a gig, she's roadside, man" is fake made-up slang from For Better or for Worse.
- The graffiti in the steam tunnels. All of it.
- In Chapter Two, the college radio station is playing
- Spinnerette has things like a security guard who pulls off a Crowning Moment Of Awesome showing up with "CMOA" on his jacket in his next appearance, and a Canadian superhero known as The Werewolf of London, Ontario. Also, a villainess learns magic from a Dungeons & Dragons rulebook, and you would not believe how often Marvel and DC are mentioned (especially Marvel, because it's...kind of obvious the writer is a fan of Spider-Man).
- Sticky Dilly Buns: The coupling of "Matt" and "Dillon" is a rather arbitrary shout-out that carried over from the parent comic, Ménage à 3. However, nobody in the setting ever seems to notice the coincidence until Ruby, who evidently has a fondness for old television, lampshades it instantly.
- String Theory (2009):
- You can see Andrea working as a prison guard and Dr. Drakken in a prison outfit in the first panel of page 47.
- Schtein has framed posters for Casablanca and Doctor Zhivago in his apartment.
- Early in his career Schtein was found shoving kittens into the Forced Evolutionary Virus injection chamber.
- You can see Andrea working as a prison guard and Dr. Drakken in a prison outfit in the first panel of page 47
- Super Stupor is pretty blatant when they do a shout out to the TV Tropes Wiki itself, in this strip.
- There are plenty to found in Toki No Tanaka, largely to Nintendo games and exclusively to Japanese media (funnily enough).
- Too Much Information (2005) has plenty of sci-fi refs, but the serious Shout-Out is given by Gina Gibs, the mother of main character Ace (who actually is The Ace). Years ago we learned she spoke lots of dialects of four Oriental languages, and has served in the Air Force in Korea as a translator when Ace was little. Then we learned she picked up some other languages 'when she was bored', like Arabic. Then she re-enlisted in the Air Force at the height of the Iraq War. What does she really do for the Air Force? Something else entirely.
- In Urban Underbrush, the cat climbs on a box to feign a dogfight as the Red Baron.
- Waterworks:
- Urist McWorkman is one walking Dwarf Fortress reference.
- Also, there's the "Hitmontop" worker. In addition to spinning around on his head, he attempts to use triple-kick on Slick. Later, Slick is told to "mash the B button" to stop one of the goo creatures from evolving.
- The sisters Philia and Phobia are two overall & cap wearing plumber siblings, one red and one green.
- There's also one to Super Mario Sunshine when Connie asks José if he's going to use his jetpack to fly around collecting blue coins.
- This panel is a reference to Prequel.
- Johnny from the interlude looks like Johnny Bravo especially when you consider his position in the team's Theme Naming.
- Charlie's pumpkin is a reference to the Running Gag from MS Paint Adventures.
- This strip from WCI High features a shout-out to ''Bambi Meets Godzilla''.
- xkcd strip "Qwertial Aphasia" has the Alt Text "If this were SMBC, the alt-text drawing thingy would be a giraffe hooker fluttering her eyelashes." The following day, Zach did just that.
- The Alt Text for this strip contains one to Cryptonomicon.
- The "Swine Flu" strip has one Twitter message saying, "How long until the Swine Flu reaches me here in Madagascar?" and another from Questionable Content's Hannelore.
- Science question spinoff "What If?" tosses an Alt Text reference to Avatar: The Last Airbender, at supersonic speed naturally.
- The Alt Text for this
- YU+ME: dream :
- This page of is both a Shout-Out to The Twilight Zone and an annoyed fan.
- This page, as well as others from this section, are Shout Outs to two other webcomics, Sister Claire and Evil Diva.
- While many of the different styles are Shout Outs, the style that starts on this page, is a definite Shout-Out to Junko Mizuno.
- And Disney style in this page.
- And Disney style in this page
- The Cheese Man is in the last page of this 5 page update.
- Skleebs was a Shout-Out to some fans on the original forum. Unfortunately, it brought more drama than the author anticipated.
- This page references another webcomic: Diesel Sweeties.
- This page
- Zebra Girl: A number of cameos, usually involving the Maginet. Hell, that entire arc bears more than a few similarities to Serial Experiments Lain... albeit without as much Mind Screw.
- Zandra is unable to taste food now that she is a demon. The only exception is, of all things, coffee. A certain lich would kill her over and over for that.
- When Jack is learning the name of his ancient magic book, the last guess he makes as to its name, partly cut off, is "the Book of E—" No prizes for guessing what he meant.
- The first clearly seen vampire calls herself "the Bloofer Lady", which is a rather obscure reference to Dracula.
- Dave Davenport of Narbonic found drinking in a bar here.
- The creator of We Are The Wyrecats loves to name drop pop culture references as well as other webcomics.
- Zandra is unable to taste food now that she is a demon
- There's one to Taken in issue #5 of Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal (2022):Throg: "We Pet Avengers haveth a particular set of skills we hath acquired over very long careers. Skills that maketh us a nighmare to people like thee. If thou doth come forward now that'll be the end of it. But if thou doth not, we will looketh for thee, we will findeth thee, and we will—"
