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A webcomic by Jackie Lesnick.

Describe Girly here.

Good luck with that! Explaining the plot is like explaining a train wreck. Not a bad kind of train wreck. Y'know, the kind of train that has lots of elephants, and puffy kitties, and weird superheroes...

A half-Dada, half-Adventure, entirely comical webcomic about Otra and Winter, two girls with more than their share of quirks who live together in the city of CuteTown. They go on adventures (for the sake of adventuring). There is a very eclectic supporting/main cast, including, but not in any way limited to: El Chubacabre (or Chuy)- a carefree, then troubled (oh handy Character Development) young man with unique women issues, Collette- a half-cutpaste videogame nerd, Policeguy- a responsible, pragmatic officer of the law and occasional Butt-Monkey, Lucy- a self-declared genius veterinarian/animal fitness trainer, Chuy's two brothers- who are attempting to get revenge for their brother (despite the fact Chuy is fine), Captain Fist - whose head is a fist - and the rest of the CuteTown PD.

An overall lighthearted comedy, it revels in its own quirky humor. There's more to it than one might expect.

The series also plays with tropes left and right, and in some very interesting ways that must be seen to be believed. It is definitely worthy of your time, and is recommended reading for tropers.

Lesnick has expunged the original version of the comic from the live internet, and now offers an edited version in two digital collections, found here.

What many people probably don't know is that Girly is actually a sequel to their previous comic Cute-Wendy which in turn was an alternate take on Lesnick's original webcomic and personal Old Shame, Wendy.

After 764 strips, the comic reached its Grand Finale, but Jackie eventually made a spinoff (set inbetween various Time Skips within the comic) called Down Together (posted sporadically in their "Extra Comics" section). Their main project for a little while was Doctor Voluptua (too NSFW to link), and they're also a contributing artist and founder of Slipshine, a erotic comic paysite, and later poured a lot of work into Princess Panic, a 2-D video game project with Paper Mario-styled gameplay in the (very) early planning stages, with some parts of the story uploaded as a comic on Webtoons. Lesnick also created another webcomic called You Suck, which can be found here.

Now has a character sheet.


This series contains examples of:

  • Action Girl: Given how shonen-Animesque the comic is, it's inevitable. Winter and Otra both qualify, Officer Hipbone is a down-and-dirty bruiser, and even Collete has had a few moments, though mostly video game related.
  • Alt Text: This was added to comics from #151 onwards; however, as time has passed and the comic's website has changed, the alt text is no longer accessible.
  • Animesque: The first hundred strips are done in this style, before undergoing Art Evolution (see below). Despite this, the plot still uses various tropes from animĆ© at various points.
  • Art Evolution: And how. The most recent strips are the most glaringly evolved.
    • Jackie Lesnick made a conscious decision at one point to stop imitating manga artists and remove many of the Japanese elements in their art. Their later style is much more influenced by western-cartoons now, with the comic itself going from resembling a manga, to looking a little bit like Jhonen Vasquez's work, before finally ending up like a webcomic drawn by John Kricfalusi.
      • As recent as comic #754, Lesnick has acknowledged that their art had slowly become anime influenced again over time.
        "My art became so anime again, I don't even know how it happened this time."
        "You can never escape anime."
  • Artifact Title: For the first 80 strips, Otra was only known as "Girly". After the reveal of her name, she's rarely (if ever) called "Girly".
  • And the Adventure Continues: The comic ends with Otra and Winter's daughter and her sidekick going off on their own adventure, complete with the words "Never the end".
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: El Chupacabre's name is not meant to evoke the chupacabra at all; the name was chosen just because it sounds funny when said in an outrageous accent. His brothers follow the same pattern, naming themselves with a semi-comprehensible string of Spanish words that changes every time it's mentioned. Word of God also says that they are not Hispanic.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: In #679, Officer Getskilled is invited by Immortal Guy to join him in the Ancient Land of the Immortals, which he accepts.
  • Author Appeal: References to 1940's cartoon history, a strip referencing one of the author's favorite bands (which doubles as a Title Drop and Shout-Out to the song that she named the strip after).
  • Back for the Finale: Everyone who had a name or a unique character design throughout the series returns in the final chapter to help fight off the final enemies.
  • Badass Normal: Most of the cast have no special powers. The CuteTown PD don't even have guns. But they still get into the thick of the fight and try to save the day.
  • Battle Couple: Once they hook up, Otra and Winter are more dangerous as a team. The same is true for Policeguy and Hipbone.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Winter, a capable adventurer with many eccentricities (the largest one being her fondness for adventures)
  • Cursed with Awesome: Chupacabre is irresistible to women, the greatest lover alive, and apparently has unlimited sexual stamina. It makes having a meaningful relationship kinda hard. Eventually both he and his ex-wife learn to embrace their power as nigh-insatiable, irresistible love-gods.
  • Denser and Wackier:
    • Inverted — Girly is less dense than Cute-Wendy was, and while it is still wacky, it's more coherently so. Also, Cerebus Syndrome eventually sets in.
    • The artwork becomes more and more insane and cartoony as the comic undergoes Art Evolution, due to Jackie choosing to reject anime and follow "the great prophet Kricfalusi".
  • Destructo-Nookie: Subverted. Sex is quite literally a weapon in the Girly world.
  • Deus Sex Machina: How is the Final Boss ultimately defeated? By the two leads using a very intimate means of invoking The Power of Love.
  • Distant Finale: The last few panels of the final strip focus on Otra and Winter's teenage daughter, with her own sidekick.
  • Expy: A cavalcade of Jackie's obscure and semi-obscure creations have appeared in the comic over the years.
    • Doctor Lucy and Nurse Yumi would be the most recognizable ones. They both come from her previous webcomic Wendy. Miki and her sister Yuki (who appeared in many old comics of hers, but Wendy is the best known) also appear briefly as Evil Sidekicks toward the end of the comic.
    • The HappyCo staff — consisting of Tina the chairman, Cheyenne the secretary, the bodyguards Miles and Headlock, and the scientist Broadway — are all taken from her unfinished fantasy adult comic The Pet Elf. All the characters are drawn with hairstyles and headgear to hide the elf ears and ogre horns they originally had.
    • Josh Means and Lemon are childhood creations of hers. Some of their comics are archived on her main site.
    • Captain Fist starred in a couple one-off comics during the Cute-Wendy days, before finally getting a starring role in Girly.
    • The Knight originated from a comic Jackie did for a high school assignment.
    • Finally, Cutewendy herself was a character exported from Wendy... this character creation got the whole snowball rolling that led to Girly's creation. Essentially, the comic's entire existence stemmed from an Expy.
  • Fetish: A gang of vore fetishists makes an appearance.
    Alt Text: I apologize to those who had to go look this up and learn something they could have spent their whole lives without knowing.
  • Flash Back: Chapter XIII is an arc about Winter avoiding having flashbacks after an arc that was loaded with them. A Take That! toward Family Guy indicates that Lesnick may have wanted to stop her comic from becoming similarly overloaded by flashbacks.
  • Foreshadowing: That hackneyed romantic comedy plot Pop-Culture Girl outlines in the first two panels of the comic ever? That's a pretty handy summary of the first four chapters.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: Averted at first, but from strip #336 onwards, it is (mostly) played straight.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Chapter XI of the comic's story (appropriately named "The Great Mix-Up") has most of the main cast swapping bodies with each other thanks to the Nebulous Evil Organisation they keep getting involved with.
  • The Fundamentalist: A recurring side character is a street pastor who constantly yells at passers-by about how they'll all be burning in Hell. Towards the end, he receives a like-minded sidekick who is much worse.
  • George Lucas Altered Version:
    • In 2021, a few pages were redrawn by Jackie to remove insensitive material that didn't age well:
    • #314 removed a joke which implied a depressed Chuy was thinking of cutting himself (before revealing he merely intended to shave).
    • #529 had two men being covered in tossed paint, with a white guy being covered in black paint and becoming a blackface stereotype. The redrawn version excises this in favor of the paint bucket narrowly missing several targets, including the two men.
  • Happily Married: Chuy and Autumn were this, until it was discovered that monogamy was literally killing Chuy. They divorced, allowing Chuy (and Autumn) to casually screw other people as well. They're still an Official Couple, they just have lots of sex with other people in addition to each other.
  • Hartman Hips: Most of the girls in the comic are guilty of this. Winter and Hipbone are two glaring examples.
  • Hammerspace: Where Otra's sword and Winter's giant dildo reside when not in use.
  • Henshin: Orta here. From nude to dressed to the nines simply by drawing her trademark O/Zero. Of course, she is a fashion designer. In this comic, that makes sense.
  • Hotter and Sexier: The love scenes are usually censored with animals but after years of censor panels, the "climatic" "battle" is fully explicit.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick:
    • Slightly subverted. Winter and Otra work quite well as a team; however, Winter is useless without a sidekick to protect, while Otra, though perfectly capable of solo adventures, hates doing them.
    • Later played straight in the last storyline with multiple new sidekicks popping up. It was eventually justified as they were specifically created to be perfect sidekicks and then deconstructed when the sidekicks decide to take the lead due to being so much better than the people they followed.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Winter's giant talking dildo and the epic dildo sword she made by combining it with Otra's sword.
  • Informed Ability: One of Chuy's brothers has a culinary degree from the Academy of Vancouver. Apparently this trope applies even more than usual, as even he forgot about it.
  • Informed Attribute: Collete is half-cutpaste. This one was actually demonstrated thoroughly and consistently up until the final arcs of the comic; the problem was that nobody got the joke until it was spelled out.
  • Jumping-On Point: Chapter XII, over halfway through the comic's total length, is mostly dedicated to providing short recaps of the preceeding 11 chapters to get new readers up to speed. Notably, it's the only chapter to be rendered in full color.
  • Love Epiphany: It takes Otra until the very end of Chapter III to realize that she loves Winter.
  • Mama Bear: Even Marshmallow Kitty goes Mama Cat to protect her family from the sidekicks.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Winter. Interestingly, this seems to be a personality she developed purely to get Otra. Before her, she was a very cultured, dull and incredibly selfish girl. So while having none of the personality of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Otra still plays the role for Winter.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • The police guy who keeps running into Otra and Winter at the beginning of the strip is actually named Danforth Policeguy. Seriously.
    • Officer Getskilled in his very first appearance is the reddest of Red Shirts. He not only survives to the end of the strip, he becomes immortal.
    • There's also Officer Oneshot, who appears for a single story arc, then vanishes entirely.
    • And, of course, our protagonist, Otra. "Otra" means "other" in Spanish. In addition to reflecting her initial feelings of isolation and loneliness, Otra's name is a callback to Girly's parent strip Cute-Wendy, wherein Cute-Wendy's sidekick was known as "the other girl".
  • Mistaken from Behind: When Winter finds a faerie that is identical to Otra by behind.
  • No Man of Woman Born: Not actually a prophecy, just a phrase: during Otra's Faceā€“Heel Turn, she says to Winter, "I don't want to be your sidekick anymore". How did Winter get her back? Saying she'll be Otra's sidekick from now on if that's what it takes.
  • Noodle Incident: Many. Otra refers to a previous instance in which Winter instigated "interspecies animal bootknocking", and a lot of the plot of chapter VIII is driven by a particularly crazy adventure that is never explained.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist:
    • Not only is Doctor Lucy an omnidisciplinary veterinarian (shown at various times performing optometry, chiropractics, dentistry, psychiatry and aerobic instruction on various animals), she is also a Gadgeteer Genius and an elephant-whisperer.
    • Also a debatable aversion of Mad Scientist: Doctor Lucy is sometimes arrogant (quick to remind people of her genius), but her abilities are always used for the good of the community.
  • Sick and Wrong: A giant chicken lays a giant egg. Winter cooks the giant egg into a giant omelet and shares it with the chicken.
    Otra: This is like eight million degrees of wrong.
  • Sidekick: Just about every character either has one or is one. This becomes a major plot point later.
  • Something Else Also Rises: A water hose.
  • Spinoff Babies: As revealed on the last page, Otra and Winter's daughter and Chuy and Autumn's daughter grow up, pair off, and go have adventures of their own.
  • Sprite Mirroring: In a rare non-video game example, one of visual cues that Collete is half cut-paste (before the artist stopped bothering with it) was that when she turned in one direction her shirt would be mirrored from its design when she's facing the other way. Especially obvious when she's wearing a shirt with writing on it.
  • Stylistic Suck: The in-universe print comic Funny Bunnies, among others.
  • Sunglasses at Night: Hipbone wears these so often, Policeguy doesn't recognize her when she appears without them.
  • Take That!: Collete's father was drawn entirely with cut-paste, both in Girly and its precursor, Cute-Wendy. Her mother was drawn normally, and so she wound up being half cut-paste. Having her like video games falls right in line with the many other times Jackie has criticized the artwork of many Gaming Webcomics.
  • Thundering Herd: In Strip 598. The natural result of any chase scene involving a pair of gigantic household pets.
  • Time Skip: The story sometimes jumps ahead a few months between chapters. Down Together is about what Otra and Winter get up to within those months.
  • Webcomic Time: Mildly lampshaded in strip #429 with "It feels like it's been two years, six months and seven days when it's actually been two months and five days!"
  • Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Parodied/lampshaded during a fight between a mallard drake and a female chicken.
  • Yuri Genre: Otra and Winter's relationship is surprisingly deep, especially considering Lesnick's, ahem, other work.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: By the looks of this comic....

Good night!

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