Webcomic / Bits And Bytes

Order Up! ^note From left: Nolan and Gretha

Bits and Bytes (technically the full title is Bits and Bytes Restaurant) is a video game themed webcomic by Argentina-based artist Maximiliano Baldo a.k.a megawackymax

It follows Nolan Nett, a chef freshly graduated out of school who opens his own restaurant called Bits & Bytes. Initially as with any opening venture he finds difficulty at first as he barely got any customers. But business picked up from the most unexpected of clients: video game characters! What follows is his trials and tribulation in running an eatery with all manner of weird customers to which he's soon joined by Cooking Mama and Zess T serving as fellow chefs and later a waiteress named Gretha Sharp whom he's taken a fancy to.

Originally part of a gaming newsletter, it was converted into a webcomic after the newsletter was shut down with the comic now translated for all to enjoy. Updated on the Tumblr site as well as seen on megawacky's DA page. The series ended in 2018 with an animated finale. Though Max has stated he'll come back to the comic now and then when he feels up to it.

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Bits and Bytes has the following tropes:

• All Just a Dream: The "Reality" arc in which Nolan supposedly dreamed up the whole comic in response to his restaurant going bankrupt and having to face reality afterward. Turns out that was the dream as he tested out using an Oculus within the restaurant but the video game dimension made the device go screwy and put him in a coma. Gretha calls up Raz and Dr. Light to help pull him out of the system.
• Art Shift:
  • The place changed into an old school RPG at one point to serve a customer.
  • The Christmas 2012 story is done in a pastel style.
  • When Nolan and Gretha get stuck in the Don't Starve world, they revert to the game's style.
• Berserk Button: Don't trick Gretha into thinking she'll get a PS4, or anything valuable to gamers for that matter, then bait and switching her with a Oyua. Nolan (and later, Mario) learned this the hard way. Likewise making fun of her overbite, though Nolan used that as a setup to ask her to move in with her.
• Big Eater: Kirby naturally. Nolan tried to do a buffet style set up at one point and Kirby was the first to try it. Take a wild guess how that turned out.
• Breakout Character: Gretha according to Max. A friend saw her old design and suggested he use her. Max took such a shine to her that he made her part of the cast.
• Contemplate Our Navels: After LucasArts shut down, Nolan and Gretha think about how different the gaming ages have become from their time as kids to today.
• Deadpan Snarker: Zess T, keeping with her character from Paper Mario.
• Invisible to Normals: Video game characters seem to be invisible to normal people save gamer fans such as Nolan and Gretha.
• Lost in Translation: Since the comic is being translated from Spanish, there are a few times this happens. The first Christmas arc in particular suffered from this since it's meant to be told in rhyme and, as you can imagine, English and Spanish have different rhyming schemes.
• Relationship Upgrade: Nolan and Gretha over the course of comic. Their relationship is shown very naturally with getting to know each other, becoming friends, having feelings for one another, going on a first date, having arguments and make-ups, eventually Nolan asking Gretha to move in with him and finally, after a year of dating, her hand in marriage.
• Ripped from the Headlines: As with any video game centered comic, a lot of the humor is based on current events in the gaming world.
• Running Gag: The Easter holidy strips in which Cooking Mama goes a little overboard in planning her Easter Egg hunts.
• Shout-Out: To TVTropes itself. Max was quite surprised and honored to find the comic has it's own page here.
• Take That!: On some occasions such as pay-to-play features in main games, Kickstarter funded games that don't deliver on their promises, and Konami's decisions to go into Pachiko machines after their controversial firing of Hideo Kojima. Gretha is especially vindictive in a lot of these cases.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Cooking Mama and Zess T. The two aren't above pranking or harming each other for the heck of it.
• Work Com: Pretty much the premise, think WORKING!! only with video game characters (and less jerkass ones at that).