Our wonderful Goobers, from top left to bottom right: Razzlyn, Rosco and Georgetta.
Goober Grove is a comedic webcomic created by artist Jasmine Wright. Started in 2020, it follows the (mis)adventures of the titular Goobers as they live out their lives in a Grove in West Virginia.
The main trio consists of:
- Razzlyn, the gold-and-cyan goober. She's a quirky artistic type, but also the most level-headed of the group. She likes pottery, spaceships, and death metal.
- Georgetta, the green goober with a head shaped liked a rabbit-ear TV. She's a Street Smart sweetheart, and likes reality television, magazines, and string beans.
- Rosco, the frog-like maroon goober. He's energetic and rascally, and enjoys hockey, shoe-shopping, and arson.
The series can be read here
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This webcomic provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Rosco is implied to be this towards Ziggy, if the "Company Policy" comic is any indication.
- Aborted Arc: The "Razzlynette" story arc abruptly ends after "Tattoo-Tooie," as the writer failed to think of a good conclusion. Ultimately, this is reflected by the numbering, which skips straight from 39 to 40.5. (See Unusual Chapter Numbers)
- All There in the Manual: Several details about the characters and setting are revealed in the author's Twitter posts, including some that haven't yet appeared in the comics. For example, Dr. Masimasi is bitter divorced lesbian, and Razzlyn has an older sister named Dazzlyn.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Despite all being ostensibly the same species, every goober seen so far is wildly different in color.
- Ambiguously Human: The goobers are decidedly not human, but they aren't animals either, and live in a setting otherwise identical to the real world. It's unclear whether humans actually exist in this universe.
- Apathetic Clerk: Ziggy, who works at the local convenience store. Ze doesn't much care about Rosco attempting to rob zir.
- Art Evolution: The character designs for the goobers started out Super-Deformed, with huge heads and small bodies, but gradually leveled out into more humanoid proportions. In the process, the overall artstyle became a bit more round and three-dimensional.
- Art Shift:
- For a period starting with "Sketchy", comics were rendered in pencil and paper and colored digitally, due to the artist's tablet breaking down. With the appropriately titled "New Tablet," the style shifts back.
- Another occurred during Hourly Comics Day, where the characters adopted monochrome color schemes to match their speech bubbles, and backgrounds were drawn simply as lineart, a change made to make drawing a new comic every hour actually plausible. This style would later be adopted for interim "Goober Grove mini" comics and subsequent iterations of Hourly Comics Day.
- "Last Time on Goober Grove" is drawn by Rosco, adopting sloppy and simplistic lineart combined with Crayola colors. The comic is similarly attributed to Rosco (with help from Jasmine Wright).
- Artsy Beret: Razzlyn wears one, indicating her quirky and artistic nature.
- Attending Your Own Funeral: Rosco and Georgetta, having not seen Razzlyn in a couple weeks, immediately assume she's dead. They hold a funeral for her, which she ends up showing up to, unaware it's her own.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In this comic, Rosco holds an ice cream cone so tall that it extends to the panel directly above it; Razzlyn, in said panel, notices and reacts to it.
- Buried Alive: Rosco and Georgetta think Razzlyn is dead, but accidentally bury Ziggy instead. Ze doesn't seem to mind, since it means ze gets time off work.
- Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Georgetta has a pet pelagic siphonophore, which she consistently refers to as a dog. Her veterinarian, Dr. Masimasi, is not happy about it.
- Call-Back:
- During Hourly Comics Day, when Rosco prepares Razzlyn a pretzel, which is actually a slice of bread with salt, something Georgetta did towards the start of the comic. The twist? This time it's road salt, as a further callback to the comic immediately before.
- Rosco flubs a reference to Wayside School by getting a tattoo of a potato on his hand, which upsets Razzlyn to the point of Wall of Blather. 31 comics later, Razzlynette does the exact same thing, to Razzlyn's dismay.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: All of the dialogue boxes are color-coded to match the character they belong to.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Georgetta seems prone to this, a notable example being when she names a star after herself. Razzlyn points out that the "star" she pointed at is actually Venus, only for Georgetta to claim it isn't anymore.
- Rosco, as well. Upon hearing the news that Razzlyn turned 21, he exclaims that this means she can be elected to most public offices in Minnesota (the goobers live in West Virginia).
- Continuity Nod: Rosco's new hand from "Graverobbing" is red in comparison to his magenta-ish body; in "21 Years Old", Rosco still has a red hand, and it is kept in every subsequent comic.
- Cosmic Entity: The Night Sky is sentient in this universe, and communicates via constellations.
- Costume Evolution:
- Humorously downplayed. While most characters have retained their Limited Wardrobe over the course of the comic's run, roughly a year after the comic started, Rosco's shirt changed from having the number 15 to the number 16. The shirt is otherwise identical.
- Artwork from Jasmine Wright on Twitter has shown Rosco wearing a jersey with a 14 on it during high school, and a shirt with a 5 on it as a young child.
- Crash-Into Hello: Razzlyn meets Razzlynette when the latter literally falls from the sky immediately after Razzlyn says "It's not like I can expect for the perfect woman to fall from the sky!"
- Decided by One Vote: Subverted in "City Council", where it turns out Georgetta is the only person that voted for Rosco, but since the town they live in is so small, he's able to get onto the city council anyway.
- Eat Dirt, Cheap: A variation. Georgetta, a Lunarian, eats moon rocks for dinner. She complains about it, but her gripes are more along the lines of personal distaste rather than the rocks being inedible.
- Embarrassing Tattoo: Rosco gets one, which he later regrets so much after a scolding from Razzlyn that he cuts his hand off. He's fine, though.
- Eternal Employee: As is revealed in one of the Hourly Comics Day comics, Ziggy works 24 hours at the convenience store. Ze'd do anything to get a break, even if it's being Buried Alive. When ze finally gets a proper break, ze spends it asleep.
- Extreme Omnivore: Rosco expresses a desire to taste road salt, and later makes Razzlyn a "pretzel" made from bread and road salt. When Rosco later goes fishing, Razzlyn asks him if he's planning to eat the pond scum "like he did when he was 8".
- The Flatwoods Monster: Appears in the comic "Flatwoods," where Razzlyn asks it about love, only to get sprayed by mustard gas.
- Grave Humor:
- Among the headstones seen when the Goobers go grave robbing are "Beans Sullivan" (1571-2008), "It kinda hurts," "Expired," "Kinda dead," "Ouch! It's not alive," "The Ghoulies" (1954-1987), "Curdled Milk," and "Lil' Chungus".
- Razzlyn's headstone reads "If she's not dead, then we sure messed up."
- Grave Robbing: When Rosco gets rid of his hand, the Goobers rob a grave to get him a new one. Razzlyn is apprehensive.
- Gretzky Has the Ball: Rosco believes poker is played with Pokémon cards. The girls are more baffled by the assortment he has than anything.
- Human Popsicle: Rosco gets a story arc centered around this during Hourly Comics Day 2022. That being said, his "time machine" is a convenience store refrigerator, and he only stays frozen for a few hours.
- Jerkass: Rosco holds up convenience stores, regularly burns down houses, and forces Razzlyn and Georgetta to rob graves when he cuts off his own hand. Even the stars think he's "a huge jerk". Fortunately, he's also a Butt-Monkey.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: "Sketchy" uses a Stealth Pun based on this concept, Razzlyn notices Rosco stealing a can of soup, and asks him what he's doing. He tries to defend himself, but Razzlyn remarks that he looks sketchy, only for him to retort that she looks sketchy, too. This occurs at around the same time as an Art Shift where comics were rendered in pencil and paper due to the artist's tablet breaking down. Likewise, when the art returns to being digitally produced, Georgetta comments on feeling refreshed "as if the artist got a new tablet" (which she claims is a common saying on the moon).
- Literal Metaphor: Rosco constructs a literal strawman to argue his stance that arson is okay.
- Literal-Minded: Razzlyn misinterprets the meaning of an "ice sculpture contest" and submits a clay sculpture of an ice cube.
- Love Confession: A passionate love confession comes from an automated spam call of all places during Hourly Comics Day 2022.
- Lunarians: In "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays," Georgetta is revealed to be from the moon, and goes on vacation to visit her family there.
- Magic 8-Ball: One of the hourly comics has Rosco treating the Night Sky like this, repeatedly asking if he'll make a million bucks tomorrow, until the Night Sky straight up gets tired of him.
- Metaphorically True: Georgetta makes Razzlyn a salted piece of toast and claims it to be a pretzel. When Razzlyn presses her about it, she points out that pretzels are just bread with salt.
- Moon Rabbit: Georgetta, a character with rabbit-like ears, is from the moon as a nod to this trope. She complains to her parents that she's stuck eating moon rocks while the neighbors are pounding mochi.
- The Mothman: Played for Laughs. A statue of the creature exists, like in real life, and Rosco and Georgetta like to slap its ass for fun.
- Mundane Horror: Ziggy puts up a "dry floor" sign, and when Razzlyn questions the practicality of doing so, Ziggy replies with "IF YOU KNEW WHAT I KNOW, YOU'D BE MORE CONCERNED THAT IT'S DRY."
- Noble Shoplifter: Parodied when Rosco holds up a convenience store. He asks for all the money in the register, and the clerk convinces him to pay it back. Then he realizes something's off... he forgot to tip!Rosco: "I'm not saying you HAVE to give me all the money in the register, it's more like a recommendation!"
- Non-Human Head: What Georgetta's head actually is is hard to define, but it most resembles a television.
- Noodle Incident:
- This gem from Rosco:Rosco: "Maybe she died. I've seen people die before. It could happen."
- And a similar case when Ziggy comments that ze's been Buried Alive "again".
- Several are implied in "Company Policy," including Rosco asking about things such as where to store 13 gallons of slime and how to disarm a nuclear warhead.
- This gem from Rosco:
- Obvious Rule Patch: The company policy of Ziggy's store is mostly not to ask Ziggy about several oddly-specific subjects, which ze implies are solely due to Rosco.
- Oddball Doppelgänger: Razzlynette bears a strong resemblance to Razzlyn, down to her name, but there are several key differences in her color scheme, face, and fashion sense. She's essentially what Razzlyn would look like if she was designed to be more stereotypically "girly".
- The One Guy: Of the main Goober Group, Rosco is the singular male.
- Only Sane Man: Dr. Melicity Masimasi, Georgetta's veterinarian. When she points out that Georgetta's "dog" is actually a pelagic siphonophore and Georgetta replies with "they don't like being told their life is a lie!", Dr. Masimasi resigns herself to the situation: "Stop pretending you understand things, Melicity. Reality will forever perplex you."
- Persona Non Grata: Rosco has apparently been banned from normal hospitals, leading him to visit Dr. Masimasi, a veterinarian.
- Raised by Wolves: Razzlynette was kidnapped as an infant and raised by birds. They were never able to teach her how to fly.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Rosco and Georgetta notice they haven't seen Razzlyn in a while, and presume this means she's dead. They hold a funeral for her, which she subsequently shows up to.
- Ripped from the Headlines: One strip has Razzlyn and Georgetta comment upon the Seuz Canal obstruction. Georgetta suggests that a second boat should block the Panama Canal, leading to Rivalry as Courtship between the two boats. In other words, she's shipping.
- Self-Imposed Challenge: In-universe. Georgetta tries to speedrun Rhythm Heaven... which is a rhythm game, so it can't actually be "speedran" in the traditional sense. Her strategy is just to arrhythmically mash the buttons.
- Shout-Out:
- In "Tattoo", Rosco gets a tattoo of a potato on his hand in reference to Wayside School. Razzlyn, a fan of the books, points out he flubbed the reference (the original tattoo was on the ankle).
- Later on, Razzlynette gets the exact same tattoo in the exact same place, giving Razzlyn an exasperated reaction. The title of the strip that this occurs in is "Tattoo Tooie".
- "Speedrun" features Georgetta playing Rhythm Heaven Megamix, with the screen showing a Goober-fied version of the Tap Trial minigame.
- The Smurfette Principle: Parodied with Razzlynette, a pink version of Razzlyn who has eyelashes and lipstick to indicate her being Razzlyn's designated love interest. The joke is that Razzlynette is deliberately a Satellite Love Interest with no real character of her own outside of her infatuation with Razzlyn... who's already a complex female character.
- Spammer: Subverted in Hourly Comics Day 2022. Georgetta seems happy to talk to an automated spam call, which later confesses love towards her.
- Stealth Pun: "Sketchy" uses one, which could refer to Rosco's suspicious attitude, but also the Art Shift that happened at the same time.
- The Voice: Ziggy's "boss" is only ever seen through their speech bubbles, which are Red and Black and Evil All Over.
- Token Evil Teammate: Rosco likes to shoplift and burn down his friends' houses for fun.
- TV Head Robot: Georgetta evokes the look of one, but she's Ambiguously Human rather than a robot.
- Unusual Chapter Numbers:
- Decimal points are often used to designate "Goober Grove Mini" comics with a simplified art style that occasionally interrupt an ongoing story arc. For the first Hourly Comics Day, these were used in tandem with letters for each new comic. The second Hourly Comics Day utilized letters again, but without the decimal point.
- Comic #040 is skipped over, due to the Razzlynette storyline being an Aborted Arc. The comic skips straight from #039 to #040.5, a "mini" comic made for Lesbian Visibility Day.
- Wall of Blather:
- Seen when Razzlyn criticizes Rosco's failed Wayside reference; her speech bubble covers the entire background of the last panel. She does the same thing when discussing table etiquette with Razzlynette.
- Happens again when Rosco's asserting he's friends with Ziggy, the convenience store clerk; the various ways Rosco says this fill up the last panel, while Ziggy simply stares back.
- Webcomic Time: Generally averted, as the comic progresses in real time. Razzlyn was born on October 4th, 1999, and that day's comic in 2020 involves her turning 21. It is played straight in a couple instances where a comic is a direct follow-up to a previous one, such as "Buried Alive" and "Razzlynette".
