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Our "heroes", Daniel and Abigail.

Yes... urgent message to the king. "She wasn't buried deep enough."

BACK was another webcomic written by loveable scamp KC Green (Gunshow) and drawn by his friend Anthony Clark which follows the adventures of Abigail on her quest to end the world.

"Wait, what?"

The comic keeps KC's typical charm and humour and combines it with Anthony's clean art. The comic chronicles Abigail's journey from town to town, with the end goal of reaching King Dang's castle. A young druid called Daniel started following her after she saved his town, serving as a guide for Abigail. He hopes to convince her to save the world rather than end it but has a hard time dealing with Abigail's attitude.

BACK concluded on April 28, 2021, after seven years and over 800 pages.

Needs some wiki magic help with typing and indexing.

BACK contains examples of

  • Accidental Marriage: Due to a combination of factors, including a ticket and an explanation of what love is, Daniel and Abigail accidentally end up married in Daggum.
  • Aerith and Bob: Burpo, Dang, Darn, Frick, Sippus... Daniel and Abigail.
  • Abnormal Ammo: Abigail uses stomach medicine in her revolver to beat the Tummy Boys.
  • Abusive Parents: The Head Southern Witch acts like an emotionally abusive one to Abigail. They barely care about giving Abigail a name, but still use it to guilt-trip Abigail when she starts to doubt the "end of the world" plan.
  • Accidental Misnaming: Abigail refers to the Tummy Boys as the Stomach Men, the Gut Friends, and the Tummies.
  • After the End: The world of Back seems to have gone through a particularly nasty but survivable one as the only civilization is run by the kind, just ruler King Dang and his Quirky Miniboss Squad of enforcers.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: Most of the world's inhabitants are semi round/oval shaped humanoids of light shades of green, purple or blue.
  • Ambiguously Human:
    • While normal humans are around, most of the world's beings are close but not quite, as described above.
    • Also applies in-universe to some creatures that are close to the aforementioned beings, are a bit off. Most of King Dang's agents are plain weird, not to mention the clown and Abigail. She sort of gets more of a pass for being undead though.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Try being fast, Dead Man, when your feet have been lopped off.
  • The Antichrist: Abigail, in a way. She's supposed to bring about the end of the world, and she seems pretty much invincible. There's also a secret society set out to stop her.
    • Though by now, the Society of Clocks has concluded that Abigail will not so much destroy the world as more press the reset button and begin a new age, which still fits the Antichrist pattern.
    • She occasionally shows hints of potential to become an Anti Anti Christ.
  • Apocalypse How: The world of BACK seems to be set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and references to some sort of sanity-eroding 'Crack' are made. Although the fact that the whole planet is a giant's body, Krud is very close to the butt, and witches live even further down suggests a more mundane explanation for what the 'Crack' is.
    • Abigail's goal is to start another one when she reaches King Dang's castle. She doesn't know how, but believes that the solution will be self evident when she arrives.
  • Arc Villain: The story progresses by Abigail (and Daniel) making her way through different settlements towards the capital. In each of these, she usually faces Dang's horrible, despicable enforcers.
    • Krud has the Tummy Boys who tyrannize the local population with brutal taxes and violence.
    • Cripes has Pee Boy, who has hoarded all the water by himself (literally), with the locals dying of thirst. Additionally, the Clown is genuine threat to be dealt in between.
    • Accursed has the Dead Man, who is a far more powerful adversary, on top of being a not particularly vile person, who finally forces Abigail to question herself. While violence is used to deal with him, he turns out to be a fairly reasonable person. The fact that diplomacy is not used is something that begins to bug Abigail.
    • King Dang is technically the Big Bad, but largely just serves as the boss, who doesnt really do a lot to the main story. However, he does more directly play the role of main antagonist in the Princess Darn storyline.
    • Blasted has some sort of zombie-like inhabitants who lurk and threaten Abigail and Daniel from the Shadows. Spectacularly subverted when its revealed that they are The Society of Clocks.
    • Shoot basically has a parody of one. The whole "town" is pretty much a bus stop, and the issue at hand is the obstructive tollman.
    • Daggum has Crannie, a bombastic presenter who puts Abigail in a series of death traps on top of dueling her by herself. She continues what the Dead Man on Accursed did, and strongly questions Abigail on her resolve.
    • Odious is seemingly ruled from the shadows by the mysterious Queenie and her mafia-church-gang group. Unlike most of the previous Arc Villains, Queenie is powerful enough to openly defy Dang.
  • Art Evolution: Over the course of the comic, the line art becomes thinner and cleaner.
  • Ax-Crazy: As it turns out, the Head Southern Witch is completely out of their gourd. During their confrontation with Abigail in King Dang's palace, they go on one hell of a Motive Rant: they were born from the earth the same way Abigail was, and spent their apparently-endless lifespan observing the world grow and change. But then...it stopped changing. And they decided that, if civilization was going to come to a halt, it all deserved to burn, and outright admits that they see themself as justified because they're an immortal being who can do whatever they want to stave off their existential boredom.
  • Back from the Dead: Abigail, apparently.
  • Barehanded Blade Block: Abigail stops a guillotine this way.
  • Bedsheet Ghost: Some townsfolk try to scare the Tummy Boys out of town with this. Guess how well it goes.
  • Berserk Button:
    • The clown is not pleased when Daniel steals his clothes for Abigail after her set gets melted off.
    • Do not suggest that Frick's numbers are wrong.
    • The Head Witch screams at Abigail and throws a car at the implication that the people of the world are "nice".
    • Hurting or threatening Daniel seems to have become one for Abigail.
  • Big Bad: King Dang, the despotic ruler of the world. He's is more of the Greater-Scope Villain for the main plot, as the various Arc Villains tend to be his subordinates, but he himself doesn't directly interact with Abigail and Daniel. As explored later, Dang's actual hold on the world is pretty feeble, maintained with the aforementioned superpowered individuals in the outer cities, while in the inner ones he has an internal power struggle with Queenie, who in turn is in direct contact with Frick, who is supposed to be Dang's dragon but is in fact The Mole for the Society of Clocks. Ultimately, it is the Head Witch who is revealed to be the Man Behind the Man, having orchestrated Dang's rise to bring about the End.
  • Big Good: The Society of Clocks, which oversees the wellbeing of the world and has contacted and directed both Princess Darn and Abigail.
  • Big Red Button: Parodied; when Crannie calls for Sherlock to push the "red" button on the controls for the stage, he's confused because literally every button on the console is red... except for one, a blue button that is labeled with the word "red".
  • Bland-Name Product: Peppo Bismol
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Abigail's views are a little... warped on account of her being undead. For example, she only ends up helping Daniel against the Tummy boys because she's thirsty.
  • Bookcase Passage: Princess Darn has one.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Abigail has never loaded anything except things that aren't new, unused bullets into her revolver on-page.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Crannie's obstacle course contains (among other things), buzz saws, chain saws, buzz chains, and saw saws.
  • Breaking Speech: Crannie lays it thick on Abigail, calling her out on her indecision and lack of an actual goal, despite that fact that her presence threatens the world. It nearly works if not for the fact that Crannie just had to bring Daniel into the equation too.
  • Brick Joke: The aptly named town of Krud becomes this with the reveal that the world looks like a person and all the towns are on the back. Considering that Krud is the town furthest south and "crud" can be used as a Minced Oath replacement for crap...
  • Broken Bridge: The toll gate at Shoot. Daniel initially tries to climb over it, causing another gate to come down and whack him on the head. A Chain of Deals for two dollars ensues. Eventually Abigail gets so fed up with the whole thing that she just knocks the toll booth over.
  • Broken Pedestal: Daniel was in a bit of a Crisis of Faith, lacking a sense of purpose in his daily life. Thus, when Abigail came along and kicked asses all around, he felt inspired, began to hero-worship her, and followed her on her journey. It doesn't take him too long to realize that Abigail often relies more on her instincts and luck than any genius, is a bit of a Jerkass rather than a hero, and lacks a life purpose herself note . Notably, he sticks with her nonetheless, and because of Daniel, Abigail begins questioning herself and her actions and taking more initiative, which arguably leads to Daniel's respect for her returning stronger than before.
  • Bullet Catch: Abigail can perform these, notably without using any fancy tricks to do so. She just grabbed the bullet between her fingers, and then immediately loaded the bullet she caught into her own gun and shot it back.
  • Cain and Abel: It's revealed in Chapter 11 that Frick and Queenie are siblings. The former has allied with the Society of Clocks to save the world while the later remains entrenched in their villainous ways and swears vengeance because Frick stepped on her pizza when they were kids. They make up in the climax.
  • Call-Back: When the Clown attacks Abigail in Cripes, she states "Daniel, there is a clown". Upon reaching Daggum, several chapters later...
    Abigail: "Daniel... There are clowns..."
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: Abigail asks Daniel to open a bottle for her while he has a gun to his head.
  • Ceiling Cling: In order to escape King Dang, Princess Darn does clings to the underside of her bed canopy. For five days.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: While the series never really looses its comedic side, after arriving to Accursed, the issue at hand is philosophically questioned and the following opponents are more dangerous and visceral (especially Queenie).
  • Chain of Deals: Parodied. Daniel and Abigail have to go through the whole rigmarole in order to pay the toll to gain passage to Daggum through Shoot. It's as frustrating and annoying to them as one would think, and Abigail eventually decides to go with Cutting the Knot.
  • Close Call Hair Cut: Abigail gets one in Odious when Teenie throws a knife at her.
  • Co-Dragons: The King appoints a team of Sheriff's to run the land as underbosses. They are: The Tummy Boys, Pee Boy, Dead Man, Cannie, Queenie, and Frick. Each is empowered by the blood of the land to enforce King Dang's will and each rule a territory (with Frick overseeing Dang's own capitol) and Abigail needs to defeat them all to free the people.
  • Cooldown Hug: Darn, Eenie, Meanie, Teenie and Frick all give one to Queenie to defeat her.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Several spoilerific examples, due to the quirky nature of the comic.
  • Crapsack World: Early on its played for laughs, but as the series advances, the incredibly deplorable state of the outer cities becomes more apparent and is taken seriously. The presence of Dang's downright sadistic enforcers makes it more glaring.
  • Cult: The Society Of Clocks, who claim to feel the "biological urges or the world", and have tasked themselves with stopping any and all threats to the planet. They're actually the good guys in all of this, and help Abigail along the way, believing she's not going to literally end the world, but "reset" it, and in doing so save the living planet from whatever King Dang is doing to it.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: The fight against Crannie is the first in which Abigail stands no chance at all, what with Crannie being stronger than Abigail and an extremely skilled and experienced arena fighter. Though she only gets warm; what really gets to Abigail is when Crannie begins to take all her achievements, motivations and intentions apart.
  • Curse Cut Short: In once instance, King Dang is interrupted by the next panel.
  • Death Course: The obstacle course on Crannie's Challenge, which seems to be 50% deadly traps, and 50% Noodle Implements. Most telling of all however is the fact that Crannie herself doesn't know where it ends.
  • Death Faked for You: Abigail probably wasn't killed and resurrected by the Witches, she was only made to look dead long enough that King Dang would be convinced and bury her right at the Witches' doorstep. She was actually half-awake for the entire ride in her casket from Goodness to Krud.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Several examples including:
    • The Tummy Boys threatening to attack a bartender that can't pay his taxes.
    • A clown following and attacking Abigail over his clothes being taken.
    • The Dead Man sentencing a woman to beheading for not following her script.
    • A car with its alarm going off being thrown high into the air for bumping into one of the witches.
  • Distant Finale: After Abigail defeats the Cool Witch and King Dang, the last few pages focus on what everyone is doing now that they are gone. The world is slowly beginning to heal, the Sherrifs have voluntarily turned themselves in for their crimes in aiding the king, the towns are being brought back to life and reformed, Daniel has become the head of the druid coven and Abigail is now living alongside everyone else back in Krud.
  • Double-Meaning Title: The comic starts with Abigail being brought back from the dead, yes, but the other reason for the name is that the entire kingdom is built on a humanoid's back... or at least something that resembles it.
  • Dumbass No More: Abigail was never dumb per se, but she's prone to act on instinct. In Odious however, when she has a run-in with Queenie's Boys, she manages to talk her way out of the situation and at the same time get herself and her allies some information they need.
    Mattie: Nice thinkin', Cowgirl! You talked yourself right out of that fight.
    Daniel: Wow, yeah, Abigail! When'd you cook that up?
    Abigail: *visibly proud* I've had thoughts.
  • Elite Mooks: When the palace guards all abandon their posts after the End of the World is made known to the public, the Head Witch provides Dang with a regiment of newer, fancier-looking guards for the impending final confrontation. However, they're not that much more intelligent or capable than the previous guards were, just more loyal to the cause.
  • Enemy Civil War: Not quite, but Dang's hold of the inner world politics is surprisingly weak, with Queenie and Crannie each having influence that threatens his rule on certain areas, not to mention that Frick works closely with Queenie behind Dang's back... who himself is covertly working with the Head Witch. Worsened as Queenie begins to more openly (and successfully) defy Dang.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Frick is shown to be somewhat disturbed by King Dang's explanation of what you should do to a "tick". And later on, King Dang himself is seen to be considerably disturbed by Queenie abducting Princess Darn to "have some fun with her".
  • Evil Versus Evil:
    • King Dang and those under his employ come off as amoral jackasses who have no problem jerking their subjects around and exploiting them, but Abigail seems little better when she is willing to shoot two babies because they might be threat and with her stated goal of ending the world. That said, Abigail literally has no idea who she is or how the world works, so she's going completely on raw instinct, and she doesn't actually want to end the world, it's just the only goal she's been given in life.
    • With Abigail not knowing right from wrong, that still leaves the Head Witch of South, who works decidedly against the king, but is a cackling, self-serving Jerkass themself. And they're definitely more keen on the end of the world than Abigail herself is; they initiated the whole matter in the first place.
  • Expy: "Damned" Heat is blue, has spiked hair, a face with a snout, wears red sneakers and has super speed, much like a certain hedgehog.
  • Extreme Omnivore: Well, roasted lizards when you can't find anything else are one thing, but Abigail doesn't mind swallowing a mug of sand, either... no, Abigail, poker chips are not the edible sort of chips...
  • Fade Around the Eyes: Does this with, of all things, a telephone. The strip where King Dang learns that Abigail is alive and has a violent mood swing ends with a shot zooming in on his cat-shaped telephone, as everything goes dark except for its eyes.
  • Fartillery: The Tummy Boys are experts at this mode of attack, creating acidic blasts and concussive shock waves with ease.
  • Fat and Skinny:
    • The Tummy Boys, Burpo as the skinny and Sippus as the fat.
    • Knook and Crannie play into this role as well. Knook is scrawny and while Crannie isn't necessarily fat she's much rounder and bulkier.
  • Foreshadowing: Some of Burpo's dialogue seems to hint that the current government is a wild west style tyranny is for a very good reason.
  • The Friend No One Likes: Among the villains, no one likes Sherlock Holmes; as a result he's constantly sent out to do tasks to simply get him out of the way.
  • Gasshole: The Tummy Boys, Burpo and Sippus, have this down to an art. Bonus points for being absolutely massive tools.
  • Good All Along: The inhabitants of the hotel in Blasted. They seem like malevolent cultists but upon realizing Abigail's intentions cease hostilities and are shown to be quite nice. They stand against King Dang and seek to end his drilling of the planet. Late in the story, Frick is also revealed to be a member and becomes an ally to the heroes in the last two chapters.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!:
    • Not really in dialogue, but places and certain characters use soft-swears as names.
    • One of Queenie's boys, Teenie, seems to be constantly spewing soft oaths.
    "Why we gotta come all the way up this time to this crap-snackin, butt town!!!"
    • Also, Daniel at occasions:
    "How the hey did this get up here?"
  • Great Detective: Chapter Seven introduces one. It's just flat out Sherlock Holmes. Except he's kind of an idiot.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: One of King Dang's guards is successfully distracted by a mouse handpuppet. A mouse handpuppet that's refinancing the mortgage on his mouse house.
  • The Gunslinger: Abigail woke up knowing literally nothing except how to fire a gun, but she can fire it pretty well.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Abigail is prone to this, starting to shoot furiously with her revolver when she feels provoked.
  • Heel Realization: After eavesdropping on the Head Southern Witch gleefully laying out what a colossal failure he is as a ruler to Abigail, a huge serum-dosed Dang sends the Witch flying with one punch and falls to his knees, admitting that he's been just as awful as they said he was. And when Abigail responds to his plea for forgiveness by asking him who he is, Dang punches the ground in anger...and then laughs mirthlessly about how he's a nobody.
  • Hell Hotel: The hotel in Blasted. It's abandoned, dusty, and overgrown, with rotten food in the kitchen, and ghostlike figures haunting the place. And then Abigail disappears... It turns out to be inhabited by the Society of Clocks, who (once they've stopped seeing Abigail as a threat) are actually quite clement.
  • Hero Protagonist: Abigail is the main protagonist but she comes off as more of a Nominal Hero due to her attitude and intent.
  • Hollywood Hacking: Subverted when Knook tries to hack the controls to the shooting gallery/obstacle course. Not only is it incredibly slow, it then fails completely thanks to the firewall, so much so that the laptop itself becomes a target in the show. Which Abigail manages to hit.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Frick is one to King Dang.
  • I Lied: King Dang's new order about taxes needing to be paid at the end of the week, is simply a scroll with this on it.
  • Interface Screw: Daniel hanging upside down flips the comic upside down before he even opens his eyes.
  • It Amused Me: At the end of the day, the Head Southern Witch admits that every evil, duplicitous thing they've done was motivated by boredom, which (in their eyes) justifies it all, because being an immortal being born from the Earth itself gives them the right to do whatever they want.
  • Jerkass:
    • Due to her callous attitude and utter conviction that she doesn't need anyone's help (and a certain tendency to snark at Daniel's misfortunes), Abigail comes off as mean, arrogant and petulant. How much this is a result of her apparent memory loss due to being undead and how much is her actual personality is not known. However, she does get better about this.
    • The Tummy Boys get mention for threatening dismemberment and almost carrying out an execution just because the townsfolk couldn't pay the taxes which Burpo had just shortened the deadline for.
    • "Damned" Heat as well, who wanted to have someone beheaded for no reason whatsoever, just to carry out his idea of a thrilling theater play.
  • Large Ham:
    • King Dang. One of the notes accompanying his concept sketches at the end of the physical book version is "Very animated dude".
    • Crannie's mannerisms are very big and bombastic. It comes with being a game host and entertainer in a Las-Vegas expy.
  • Laughably Evil: King Dang may be a funny little short green man, but that doesn't change the fact that he's a tyrannical ruler attempting to suck the world dry of life.
  • Lighter and Softer: Compared to a lot of KC Green's other works, BACK is surprisingly restrained, feeling more PG-13 at most.
  • Like Is, Like, a Comma: Mattie, though it's not her usual speech pattern, lapses into that when she's nervous.
    "[...] and like, we also feel that now, okay get this, we feel that the cowboy lady is actually, like, cool."
  • Madness Mantra: The Clown's "Those are my clothes!"
  • Make an Example of Them: The Tummy Boys try to make an example of the Bartender for not paying his taxes (the same taxes that had suddenly been due that day) by cutting off an arm. Daniel tries to intervene, but this merely makes him their new target instead.
  • Making a Splash: Peeboy is a giant sponge-like member of King Dang's enforcers and can seemingly use the water in himself to sustain severed limbs and retain his amorphous form. He also seems to leak much less than a normal sponge should for how engorged he is.
  • Mask of Sanity: Almost literally the case with the Head Southern Witch. When Abigail starts to have doubts about her mission, the Witch reacts with violence, tempered into Tranquil Fury. Then, during their battle with Abigail and Frick at Dang's Palace, they begin laughing as they utterly lay out both of them, and goes on a Motive Rant in a mockingly conversational tone. When Dang arrives, having overheard their mocking him as an utter, wretched failure and dosed with enough serum to turn him into a giant, he sends them flying THROUGH the palace with one punch. When they come back, they're screaming and cackling with maniacal glee, their now-uncovered face revealing an insane Slasher Smile and crazed red eyes.
  • Meaningful Name: It's all taking place on someone's back.
  • Minion with an F in Evil: Sherlock Holmes is on King Dang's payroll, but he's far from the most competent of his minions, and despite being told to distract Abigail instead himself gets distracted by the enormous amounts of poker chips she had picked up off the ground and tried to eat.
  • Monster Clown: Whilst not quite as monstrous as other examples, the Clown. He's strong enough to both crack rock and punt Abigail halfway across town, and is filled with murderous, unfathomable rage because... Daniel and Abigail stole his clothes. He used to be the postal worker in Accursed, before he snapped and stole the town clown’s clothes.
  • The Mole: Knook, the close friend / lover of a King Dang goon (Crannie), is secretly a member of the Society of Clocks, who are trying to help Abigail get to Goodness without being caught. Frick, the king's right-hand man, reveals in Chapter 11 that he's also a mole on behalf of the Society.
  • The Mole: Knook, who is secretly a member of the Society of Clocks despite working for the sheriff of Daggum. Much later on, Frick reveals that he is also part of the Society, while simultaneously being King Dang's most trusted lieutenant.
  • Morality Chain: Daniel is one to Abigail... albeit a very loose one, taking her from "evil" to "less evil". Thanks to his influence, she even starts to question the prophecy a little. In many regards, it's not so much that he chains her to morality than that he explains basic morals to her, as Abigail just doesn't know them.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Crannie, who has four arms. A throwaway comment by Knook reveals that she grew the fourth arm after drinking the mysterious chemical.
  • Negated Moment of Awesome: "Damned" Heat has revealed his true identity, along with the truth behind Accursed, and orders the townfolk to attack Abigail! ...The townsfolk proceed to stand around talking in a confused jumble as they try and make sense of what just happened.
    "What?! You all betray me?"
    "What's to betray? We were only acting!"
  • Newspaper-Thin Disguise: Whilst trailing Queenie's boys, Princess Darn uses a newspaper with an eye-slot cut in it.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: To help Abigail on the obstacle course she has to pass, Daniel tries to manipulate the controls, but since he just wildly smashes buttons at random, he ends up making the situation much more perilous for Abgail. And then he starts fighting with Sherlock, right on the console.
  • Non-Indicative Name: The Dead Man isn't actually dead.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: Abigail looks pretty different compared to other people under her cloak.
    • From what we've seen so far, anyone working for King Dang possesses some rather strange physical oddities.
  • No-Sell: As Princess Darn soon finds out, King Dang. Her attempt at stabbing him and punching him ends with a broken knife and a broken hand.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Sure, King Dang seems like the greatest moron alive, but he apparently can't be physically harmed by traditional means like knives or punches, walks straight through walls with no hindrance whatsoever, and he has this nice Super Serum to his use. Also, what he managed to make of the country speaks for itself.
  • Offing the Offspring: It's implied King Dang does this to any princess who gets too close to discovering what he's up to. Later subverted, as it's revealed that they're all being held as political prisoners. He's horrified by the thought of any of them actually being hurt.
  • Off with His Head!: How Mrs. K is almost executed.
  • Orcus on His Throne: Dang doesn't really move from the capital, and even there his operations are restricted to inner politics (which he is losing, hard) and issues in his castle with Princess Darn. Even as he hears of Abigail making her way to the capital to literally bring about the end of the world, he doesn't make any direct move against her. She in turn plows through her sheriffs and her advance towards the capital is so far unstoppable. Somewhat justified, as if such news got out the panic would be catastrophic, while Dang himself might not be a match for Abigail. Not to mention the inner city politics keep him weak in the scheme of things.
  • Perpetual Smiler: One of Queenie's boys is always smiling.
  • Plummet Perspective: Whilst fighting with Crannie in the rafters, a falling sandbag demonstrates just how far up she and Abigail are.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: WATCH! OUT! FOR! THE! NOSE!!!
  • Rainbow Speak: One of the brothers at Shoot lapses briefly into it whilst parodying Chain of Deals/Fetch Quests.
    "You'd need to find a knife to cut off the crusts, to do it right. [...] But I did see a punk in the abandoned pharmacy using a knife to carve words into the walls of the abandoned pharmacy."
  • Rebellious Princess: Princess Darn, all of them, fighting in secrecy to depose King Dang.
  • Retcon: In chapter 7, the leader of the Society of Clocks refers to "Mr. Nook", husband of "Cranny"; when the story reaches Daggum three chapters later, Knook is a woman (though she still seems to be the lover of Crannie).
  • Room Full of Crazy: "SHE IS COMING END OF THE WORLD SHE IS COMING END OF THE WORLD"
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Princess Darn has been working for a long time to find out and stop whatever plans King Dang has been up to, as part of an ongoing conspiracy enacted by every princess in the kingdom's history. Zig-zagged with Dang himself, as while he is not exactly doing nothing, he is generally idiotic and his storylines mostly revolves around both Princess Darn and Queenie outmaneuvering him.
  • Running Gag:
    • People commenting on Abigail having bad hair.
    • "Daniel... there are clowns." After the clown encounter in Cripes, Abigail really dislikes clowns — to such a degree that, contrary to her usual Literal-Minded understanding, she calls people clowns not because they really are clowns or to insult them, but simply because she finds them threatening and they're dressing funny.
  • Screw Destiny: Queenie's motivation is revealed to be this. Despite being (formerly) part of the Society of Clocks, she doesn't want the world to end, and became disillusioned with the Society's insistence that You Can't Fight Fate.
    Queenie: "I will not roll over and let the world decide what's best for me. We're the ones who till the fields and build great cities and monuments! We're the ones who are ALIVE!"
  • Serious Business: For Frick, dealing with numbers is no laughing matter.
  • Sharp Dressed Woman: Crannie wears a blue tails suit, matching silk hat, and white gloves for her shows.
  • Ship Tease: Abigail says she doesn't love Daniel. Within that very same update, they get married.
  • Shoot the TV: King Dang is so upset by Princess Darn's "escape" from her locked room that he destroys the monitors to his surveillance equipment, proceeding to spend the next few strips with TVs stuck on his arms and legs. Upon finding another TV, he headbutts it and has that stuck on his face too.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: Teenie.
  • Skilled, but Naive: A lot of Abigail's character boils down to this. She's extremely strong, a crack shoot, has so far defeated any obstacles she's come across, catches bullets mid-air, hunts down gigantic whales... and doesn't know what sleep is, or idioms, or weddings, or love, or why the end of the world should be considered a bad thing, or how to open bottles.
  • The Sleepless: Abigail. Subverted later on, however. She's not actually undead, so she still needs to sleep, but her lost memories apparently included the very concept of sleep so she didn't know she still needed it.
  • The Starscream: Queenie, the sheriff of Odious, is actively conspiring to overthrow King Dang.
  • Stock Punishment: After her change of role to "Town Moron", Mrs. K is next seen in these.
  • Straight Man: Frick plays off of the more erratic King Darn this way.
  • Super Serum: The strange chemical that King Dang gives out to his enforcers, which does anything from turning the Clown into a whale, to healing Princess Darn's broken arm.
  • Super-Strength:
    • Abigail can hit very hard, launching people miles into the air with a kick and stopping a bullet through sheer brute strength.
    • The Clown takes this to hulklike levels. He can crack rocks with his bare hands and punts Abigail through buildings.
    • Even the goofy King Dang can effortlessly break through a stone wall.
    • The witch is EVEN STRONGER, slamming the ground and tossing a car into the moon.
    • From what's been seen, it looks like anyone who comes into contact with the strange chemicals being carted around the castle will get this.
    • Meanie is strong enough to throw a man across an entire town. He also manages to kick a door off its hinges and across the room with enough force to flatten Abigail against the wall.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: While Crannie muses on Knook's apparent betrayal, she also admits that there are a few things she's keeping from Knook as well. She then tells Abigail very clearly that their relationship is great despite that, even though Abigail doesn't know who Knook is.
  • Take a Number: The wedding chapel in Daggum operates on this system.
  • Teleportation: The Dead Man's power.... is not this. It's actually Super-Speed.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: When Abigail get's a new change of clothes, the action pauses for a dramatic sequence as she returns to her old look. Right as she starts to talk, however, the Tummy Boys knock her through a window.
  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Played for Laughs; Abigail catches two lizards, one of which is obviously female, identifiable by the bow on her head... which remains a part of her and thus of the barbecue all the same.
  • Theme Naming: All the cities, towns, villages and some of the characters in this world have Minced Oaths as their names.
    • There's Krud, Cripes, Accursed, Blasted, Shoot, Daggum, Odious and Goodness.
    • The characters King Dang, Princess Darn and Frick continue the trend.
  • Time-Passage Beard: After being locked up in Dang's dungeon for so many years, the former princesses are all elderly women who have grown impressive beards.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: After sleeping for the first time, Abigail lets her doubt about the world ending plan and loyalty to Daniel become more obvious.
  • Two Girls to a Team: The King assigns Sheriffs to lead the land in his stead and gifts them the empowering vials. This Quirky Miniboss Squad has two women: Crannie and Queenie.
  • The Undead: Abigail was raised from the dead via ambiguous methods by the Witches. This has left her missing a few crucial details such as what sleep is. Made more ambiguous later on when we see that she was actually barely conscious all the way through her burial, meaning that she might not have been killed and resurrected but only made to look dead so King Dang would take his attention off of her.
    • The Dead Man is also this, and it's implied he also has seerlike abilities to see the future. Subverted when it's revealed he's not actually dead, and is instead just a very fast man.
  • Universal Ammunition: Abigail's revolver can fire a bullet she just caught in mid-air. That's the least bizarre thing it can shoot.
  • Unsound Effect: *GAVEL GAVEL GAVEL*
  • Villain Cred: King Dang and Frick can't help but be impressed by the beatdown Crannie gives to Abigail. Frick even provides pro-wrestling style commentary.
  • Visual Pun:
    • Frick has two hands on the right side of his body, and he is King Dang's right hand man.
    • "I never realized I needed a purpose. I just sat in mud, for pete's sake, ha ha!" "Yo." "Hey Pete!"
  • Viva Las Vegas!: The city of Daggum is Back's equivalent to Vegas. Lots of casinos, Elvis impersonators, marriages, and stage shows. Sherlock ends up with a gambling problem, Abigail and Daniel get married, and the Sheriff of the town challenges Abigail to a highly televised fight.
  • The Unsmile: "Damned" Heat does a rather unsettling one here.
  • Weird West: The southern towns, though things get progressively more modern as the story travels north towards the capital city.
  • Wham Episode:
    • Chapter 8 reveals several things: Abigail was shipped down to the graveyard near Krud, at the orders of King Dang. The Head Southern Witch also had a hand in matters, and on the way Abigail and Daniel indirectly encountered one another. Also, Abigail can sleep.
    • Chapter 10: the "world" is a person and everyone in the comic lives on her back. Suddenly everything about how the world is "dying," and King Dang extracting a weird liquid from deep underground, makes a lot more sense.
    • Chapter 11: Frick is revealed to be The Mole for the Society of Clocks within Dang's court. Queenie, meanwhile, is Frick's sister and a renegade from the Society who wants to avert the end of the world, if only so she can usurp Dang and rule the planet herself.
  • What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Along with not knowing about concepts such as sleep, Abigail lacks an understanding of what love is. She does, however, understand "like".
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Daniel tries to call out Abigail on her goal and her attitude towards people, but it bounces right off because she simply does not care — and also, she didn't ask Daniel to come along, he urged her to take him with her, so he can hardly expect to pressure her with what he thinks she should do for his people.
  • Why Couldn't You Be Different?: The Head Southern Witch is immensely displeased by Abigail straying from their orders.
    Witch: I don't know where you get these ideas of empathy. Of free will! This is almost insulting! After all I've done for you!
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: After the fight with the Monster Clown in Cripes (the first enemy to give her serious trouble), Abigail develops a mild phobia of clowns. This leaves her very uncomfortable in Daggum, which is populated almost entirely by clowns.
  • Would Hurt a Child: After the Tummy Boys explode from Peppo Bismo they're reduced to Tummy Babies. Abigail still tries to execute them only for the townspeople to stop her.

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