
In an insane world it's the only sane choice.
Mal: Sim? Want to get a beer after work?
Sim: That would interrupt my prayers for death.
Sim: That would interrupt my prayers for death.
Cthulhu Slippers is an office comedy webcomic set after the return of H. P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. Written by Andrew Jack and drawn by Natalie Metzger it chronicles the misadventures of Mal, Sim and Zoe, three humans stuck working for Cthulhu Corp after the end of the world.
This comic provides examples of:
- Amnesiac Dissonance: After Zoe resets reality to deal with a squid problem, Cthulhu briefly reverts to his pre-Cthulhu Corp ways
.
- And I Must Scream: Mal becomes trapped in a strange void where death does not exist. Apparently being digested is possible but perhaps is not fatal.
- Animalistic Abomination: Lord Wuzzy, head of Marketing, is shaped somewhat like a kitten with a disproportionately large head, tiny ears, and a distended smiling mouth that spirals at the corners.
- Apocalypse How: The comic exists somewhere between Class 1 and Class 2.
- Author Avatar: Writer Andrew Jack has made it fairly clear that Mal, the dim witted protagonist, is supposed to be him.
- Black Magic:
- Sim makes liberal use of this to send a case of 'Can O' Shoggoth' to a difficult customer.
- Virtually the entire computer system runs on this.
- Averted in this strip
as it turns out you can summon Cthulhu with beer and chips.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Despite their immense destructive power, the abominations that run Cthulhu Corp aren’t evil so much as selfish, alien and criminally stupid.
- Cats Are Mean: Lord Wuzzy, head of marketing appears to be a very large kitten. A very large, very mean, very dangerous talking kitten.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Sim has no problems killing other people, or even field testing his only friend's body armour while said friend is still wearing it. Not that Mal has any problems with the latter, either.
- Cosmic Horror: All of the Great Old Ones are this to some degree, but Hastur in particular fits this trope. Even his... toilet business has tentacles and spikes.
- Crapsack World: It's played for laughs, but the world has gone through being doomed and come out the other side.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Mal straps the Necronomicon to his chest thinking an indestructible book makes a good bulletproof vest. He's mostly right, although the book hates him for it.
- Cute Is Evil: The failed Cthulhu Corp product 'My First Necronomicon' is both adorable and in many ways far worse than the real Necronomicon, especially if you haven't deleted your browser history.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Mal and the ceiling squid. The squid even comes to Mal's defence against a knife wielding cultist.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Cthulhu himself is surprisingly nice.
- Eldritch Abomination:
- Most of characters who aren't in the main cast are this to some degree.
- The personification of internet hate is a more literal example, but it's still played for laughs.
- Human Resources: Nyarlathotep takes his job as Human Resources manager very literally.
- Improvised Armour: In the page image Mal has strapped the Necronomicon to his chest as protection against...pretty much everything.
- Inconvenient Summons: Mal gets out of being sacrificed to Hastur by summoning him himself, before he's had his coffee, and blaming it on the coworker who was about to kill him.
- Inhuman Resources: Nyarlathotep is not what you'd hope for in a Human Resources manager. Still his depredations are better than working in the call centre.
- Killer Rabbit: "No one had warned Lord Dagon about the seagulls, which were also hungry. He will be missed."
- Lovecraft Lite:
- The Old Ones rise. People die. The few humans that remain are subject to the whims of all powerful monsters with no morals. It’s played for laughs.
- Again, Dagon got killed offscreen by seagulls.
- Reprinting the Necronomicon makes the knockoffs Lighter and Softer to the point that they're finally recalled for being truly annoying rather than dangerous. And also, they replaced Hastur's coffee with decaf.
- May Contain Evil: ‘Can O’ Shoggoth’. 100% fatal, 100% of the time. It’s insanely popular.
- Mugging the Monster At Cthulhu Corp don't bother Hastur until he's had coffee.
- Must Have Caffeine: Hastur demands his coffee.Hastur: WHO DARES DISTURB HASTUR BEFORE COFFEE HAS BEEN INGESTED?
- Naked People Are Funny: Mal strips down a lot, and one time when he's trapped in the dreamworld he goes streaking through Nyarlathotep's dreams.
- Noodle Incident: We never do learn why Sim is sending Mal all those squid
.
- Obviously Evil: Nyarlathotep is clearly evil, even if he is still a little goofy looking.
- Only Sane Man: Usually Zoe, occasionally Hastur.
- Played for Laughs Every horrible thing that happens is this.
- Sigil Spam: Magic glyphs are everywhere. Buildings still standing outside of Cthulhu Corp must bear a Cthulhu Approves! sticker.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The personification of all internet hate was sealed on page 2 of the Google results of Zoe's search. No one had ever checked it before.
- Shout-Out: So many. To HPL himself almost constantly, not to mention a shout out to the Evil Dead series in this comic
.
- The main character's names are a shoutout to Firefly.
- Cthulhu looks quite a bit like an Eldritch octopoid Eleventh Doctor.
- This strip
is a shout out to Jonathan Coulton and his annual JoCo Cruise
.
- The book 'My First Necronomicon" is a shoutout to the Littlest Lovecraft
children's book.
- This strip
is a shout out to Star Trek combined with a Take That!.
- Nyarlathotep calls Mal (after he runs naked through Nyarlathotep's dreams - it's a long story) the "King in Nothing", a reference to Hastur being called The King in Yellow.
- The Hex Box, aside from being an obvious Take That! at the Xbox One, could also be a veiled Sonichu reference, as a similarly named console (this one based more on the Xbox 360) can be seen getting cut in half in Issue #8.
- Stealth Pun: When Zoe's internet search releases a manifestation of internet hatred, she summons Lord Wuzzy from Marketing, a kitten-shaped Animalistic Abomination. Instead of a cat macro, it's a macro cat!
- Summon Bigger Fish: How do you deal with the embodiment of internet hate? Summon a giant cat
.
- This Loser Is You: Mal, although to be fair it could also be said that this loser is the comic's writer too.
- Toilet Humour: This strip
has a fairly clean example.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Necronomicon. Mal has a copy in his desk. It has the email addresses of all of the Elder Gods inside and a penchant for installing undeletable search bars on people’s web browsers.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Hastur will murder for coffee, Cthulhu enjoys beer and chips, and Nyarlathotep favors the blood and organs of the innocent.
- Work Com with a side of Lovecraftian horror (-comedy).
- X Days Since: "It has been XX days since an employee was eaten by a nameless horror."
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Mal becomes Human Resources manager after he kills Nyarlathotep (again, it's a long story).