Webcomic / Life of Riley

"Life of Riley... a phrase used to indicate a carefree life. I never once thought it applied more to someone than Dan."

An old webcomic, now defunct, written by Aaron Sacharow and Dan Jaaren of ClanBOB fame. It depicts the adventures of Dan Jaaren, as he attempts to live his life in the midst of supernatural events and extraordinary circumstances. Fortunately, this is not difficult, because Dan is (a.) a conduit, more powerful than any earthly being, channeling the power of the gods, and (b.) a moron.

The archive of the comic can be found here, without any modifications of old strips.

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This Webcomic provides examples of:

• All There in the Manual: A lot of characters are never properly introduced into the story, especially when all the Bobs show up. Since they are all actual members of the clanBOB community, the comic sort of assumes you already know who they are.
• Ambiguously Brown: More ambiguous than usual with Cowkitty. Due to the art style, it's not clear if she has dark skin, or simply light brown fur.
• The American Civil War: Randomly referenced in a joke story arc before the comic succumbed to Cerebus Syndrome.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Evil Dan has shades of this, despite not being any kind of martial artist.
• Batman Gambit: Naoko used one to get Naisa to kill her, as well as the entire organizations which was using her to find Source's Tear.
• Battle Aura: Going Stage 2 or Stage 3. Especially notable in the Duel of the Dans, in which Dan's aura is blue and Evil Dan's is red.
• Beat Still, My Heart: Gore does this to HIMSELF to impress a girl. It doesn't work out very well.
• Big Bad: Jezebel. Later, Lillith.
• Bilingual Bonus: If you know French.
• Bloody Hilarious/Gallows Humor: Early comics featuring Gore (appropriately) often involved things like missing body parts and dead bodies being left on the couch.
• Brick Joke: In a filler gag strip, Aaron admonishes Jone for breaking house rule # 467: "No area effect spells in the house." A whole story arc later, this comes up again.
• Butt-Monkey: For a guy with incredible cosmic power, Dan sure gets jerked around a lot.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Oh so much. What started as a gag-a-day strip evolved into an epic arc culminating in the potential death of God.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Jone seemed to fill no role in the early comics except to be Gore's crazy ex-girlfriend. Later, she turned out to be vitally connected to a major plot point.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Chloe, Dan's girlfriend in the earlier strips, just sort of disappeared without explanation. Occasionally, it would come up on the forums, and Dan would tersley reply that she simply "moved out," with no further explanation.
  • Actually was directly addressed much later on.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Jone, especially while Gore was still seeing Naisa.
• Cluster F-Bomb: In this strip.
• Cue the Sun: Gore's reward for helping to stop Jezebel's invasion is that he is now able to go out in the sunlight without harm. He realizes this only when he wakes up on a beach as the sun is rising.
• Cute Monster Girl: Jone.

• Department of Redundancy Department: Evil Dan shows us how it's done.
  Evil Dan: I, DAN, shall utterly CRUSH, BREAK, HUMILIATE, and DEFEAT...ummm...OTHER Dan...UNTIL HE DIES DEAD!!!!
• Distracted by the Sexy: In an effort to force Dan to go Stage 3, the goddesses develop a battle strategy that hinges on Manda flashing him. It works.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Jezebel extracts the power sealed within Naisa by, apparently, making out with her. Both Dahn and Jone get pretty squicked out.
• The Dragon: Jarris.
• Driving Question: For a while, it was "What is the nature of Evil Dan's power?"
• Evil Twin: Played for laughs with Evil Dan, opposite of Good Dan. Both of them are morons.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Happens a lot, although mostly to original characters (as opposed to those who are real life members of clanBOB.
• Expy: Evil Dan has more than a little in common with Tatewaki Kuno.
• Eye Scream: Aaron looses an eye to a mushroom samurai in an early gag strip. Later, Gore gives him one of his eyes. Being a vampire, Gore can regenerate.
• Gender Bender: Whenever either Dan changes "Stages," it happens to those around them. Also, Len does this to Dan directly when he refuses to spar with Cowkitty, and Manda makes reference to doing the same to the President as a prank.
• Genius Ditz: This trope is more or less the reason why Dan can go Stage 2.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Calling in the Bobs to fight Jezebel's army and give the heroes a fighting chance.
• Gratuitous Japanese: From various characters, to the annoyance of others, a Running Gag.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Jone is half human, half succubus.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: When the goddesses divert some of Jezebel's energy into Jone, she immediately uses the sudden power burst to start brutalizing her dear old mum.
• Humans Are Special: Jezebel realizes this when Dan goes Stage 3, and promptly abandons her entire invasion attempt.
• Hypocritical Humor: Shortly after an earlier comic had delivered a rather long-winded Take That! against Vampire: The Masquerade, a vampire character is shown using the Theft of Vitae Thaumaturgy power. Dan actually pops into the comic momentarily to point out the use of the power and calls himself out on it, saying "I've got a lot of gall, don't I?"
• Infinite Canvas: There's really no set size to the comics at all. Some are as short as one panel, while other can involve scrolling down a lot to read in their entirety.
• Invisible to Normals: Gore has an interesting variation. While not invisible, per se, normal people can't see that he's chalk white with pointy ears.
  • This isn't quite that passive; based on the little old lady that the cops see when him and Tess fall out the window, it seems he is projecting a controlled image over himself, rather than simply looking like himself minus conspicuous features.
• Jive Turkey: Evil Dan, after attaining Stage 3.
• La Résistance: The Bobs become this when Jezebel invades, mobilizing with surprising speed and manpower.
  Mikmoo: The Bobs make the Illuminati and Masons look like Brownie Scouts.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall
  Electric Pixie: MASTER ninja THEME song!
  Evil Dan: Like anyone is going to get that reference.
• The Legions of Hell
• Lemony Narrator: The narrator of Duel of the Dans is definitely this.
• Lighter and Softer: The Duel of the Dans is a story arc of complete zany nonsense, compared to the much more dramatic stories that made up most of the comic.
• Lord Error-Prone: Evil Dan uses lots of big words and likes to brag about his superior intellect, but pretty much everyone (INCLUDING Electric Pixie) regards him as a an idiot on par with Good Dan.
• Memory Gambit: Dahn had her memory erased as part of a plan to infiltrate and sabotage Jezebel's plans.
• Mr. Fanservice: In-universe, Gore is apparently this.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Naisa killing Naoko and ruining Dahn's plan to find Source's Tear.
• One-Hour Work Week: Pretty normal for a web comic, but none of the characters jobs are even MENTIONED, though needing money for rent comes up several times.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. Not only is there Good Dan and Evil Dan (aka, Blue Dan and Goatee Dan), we later meet a character named Daniel Escalante.
• Orphaned Series: When it was orphaned, it almost broke up ClanBOB permanently, because the site it and all the other clanBOB material was hosted on was lost along with it.
  • Despite this the forum community continues, and still includes folks who appeared in the comic. Webcomics still play a role in the community, as they founded PlanetBOB.
• Our Angels Are Different: Starseeds.
• Our Demons Are Different: At least some of them, like Jone.
• Panty Thief: Cowkitty's sidekick, Bunny Steve. Given that Dan has admitted to being heavily influenced by Rumiko Takahashi, it's likely Steve is an Expy of Happosai.
• Parental Abandonment: According to this strip, Gore's dad (Al Gore), refused to acknowledge his existence, at least until it was convenient for him.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: Stage 2 and Stage 3 apparently do this.
• Power Perversion Potential: Aaron and Steph at the end of this comic.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Dan and Evil Dan. Their Battle Auras display this prominently when they fight.
• Running Gag: Dan blowing bubbles in the milk as a filler comic.
  • Also, innocent bystanders having their genders spontaneously reversed whenever one of the Dans enters Stage 2.
  • "You're NOT Japanese!"
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Naisa, against Dahn's captors. She violently murders hordes of people just to get to Naoko. And keep in mind, she's a starseed.
  Naisa: Indiscriminate slaughter is a good warm up for a session of delicious protracted torture.
• Self-Deprecation: Dan is an interesting case. On the one hand, he's the main character who weilds incredible cosmic power, but on the other hand, he's an idiot who constantly gets dumped on.
• Self-Insert Fic: the majority of the cast were based on real life folks who Dan and Aaron knew. One of the entire story arcs involved them gathering all the BOBs (real people from the community) to stop The Legions of Hell.
• Serious Business: The first story arc revolves around the fate of the world being decided...by a paintball war. Later, the two Dans settle their differences with a Dance Dance Revolution duel.
• Shirtless Scene: Why, hello there, Gore.
• Shout-Out: The character Mentat is named for the Mentats of Dune. Another comic involved Dan making webshooters, suffice to say they were numerous.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Probably Tess' defining character trait.
• Start of Darkness: It's implied by narration that Naisa is starting to turn to the Dark Side, with the pivotal point being when she killed Naoko and everyone who worked in the underground facility.
• Succubi and Incubi: Both Jone and her mother Jezebel are succubi, but neither is ever shown to seduce anyone at all. It is implied, however, that Jezebel seduced Dahn before she regained her memory. It was to bring her over to her side, however, not to drain her energy or anything.
• Take That!: In the vampire story arc, Danny Escalante makes fun of Vampire: The Masquerade, as well as the people who play it.
  Danny: I mean, when I READ some of the shit they say we believe, I wonder how they keep straight faces reciting it night after night. And all those rules and traditions? Come on people, we're fucking vampires!
• Two Gamers on a Couch: Started off with this basic formula, but quickly gave way to Cerebus Syndrome after the first major story arc.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Naisa's Roaring Rampage of Revenge. She slaughters hordes of people, including Naoko, who was merely a helpless tool in the organization's plan. Seriously, Naisa? You didn't think twice about killing a quadrapalegic hooked up to a bunch of machines!?
• Unfazed Everyman: Aaron and William both play this role.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The last time we see them, Evil Dan was hospitalized from his fight with Good Dan, and Electric Pixie had had her gender flipped and never reverted. What happened to them afterwords is never mentioned.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Jone becomes this during the Jezebel invasion story arc. Although she herself has become a powerless mortal, her disipated energy is what allows her mother to manifest in the third dimension.
• Xanatos Gambit: Jezebel uses this after the goddesses sealed away a portion of her power in Naisa's collar. By accepting Dan's challenge, she bides her time so that she can regain enough power to finish her assault on earth, regardless of the outcome of the paintbrawl. It doesn't work, however, since Dan effectively takes a third option by going Stage 3, scaring Jezebel into retreat.——