Webcomic / Monsterkind

It begins...

Written by Taylor C., Monsterkind is a story about humans and monsters living in a city ruled by segregation and inequality. Monsters are treated as second class citizens, and are not allowed in certain areas of the city— especially those inhabited by wealthier humans.

Wallace Foster is a human who has just been transferred into District C of Fairway City. He has never lived among monsters until now, but he's quickly realizing that they aren't as bad as everyone has made them out to be.

Change and progression have never come easy in this backwards city, but perhaps Wallace can help close the gap between human and monsterkind and bring the two together in harmony. He'll at least try.

First page can be found here.

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This webcomic provides examples of:

• Alliterative Name: Kip Kaizer, Molly Monday, and Ben Baker. If we're counting businesses/places, there's Cuddy's Cafe.
• All There in the Manual: This post on the comic's tumblr describes a lot about the Monsterkind universe, including the description of each district from A to D (E is deliberately left out).
• Almost Kiss: Between Ben and Wallace in chapter 4, before Kip interrupts them and ask if he's interrupting anything.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Mostly provided by the monster inhabitants.
• Ambiguously Gay/Bi: Questions regarding most of the male characters' sexuality are unavoidable thanks to the in-universe Ship Tease and the guys themselves not outright refusing that he may or may not have feelings for the other male. The fact that the author ships them as well and had expressed it through drawings several times (case in point, Valentines Day) doesn't help either. Or maybe they were bi/gay from the start but it doesn't have to be stated blatantly.
  • There's also Wallace Foster. In here, he blushes when he sees Ben. At first, it looks to be simply out of embarrassment but he does it in a few panels as the pages go on. Then when he said he could call him since he has his number...
• Ambiguous Gender: Louise is hard to identify as either male or female, and is referred to as "they/them" by the author, implying that the character is genderqueer.
• Ambiguous Situation: In chapter 3, Molly talks with Ben and Roy with Louise. According to Molly, Roy is having memories of things that didn't happened, that they've known each other for 5 years maybe but he claims to know her and her father. According to Roy, Molly doesn't remember him and they are childhood friends and she has lost their memories of their time together. This leaves the situation ambiguous on which of them is in the right.
• Ambiguously Human: Some monsters definitely look monstrous, while some could pass as human with no problems. Ben is one example of such a monster.
• An Ice Person: Kip, as confirmed by Word of God. Cue, ice/snow puns.
• Art Evolution: Compare chapter one's cover (pictured above) with the cover of chapter three.
  • Character designs, too. Wallace, for example, had very yellow skin which in time, changed to a more flesh-like color by the third chapter, and the huge cowlick on his hair was gone. But the most notable would have to be Ben. Here's a comparison◊.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Roy, Molly, and Ben are an example of this.
• Big Red Devil: There is an as-yet unnamed background monster with red skin and huge horns, and Black Eyes of Evil. He doesn't appear to actually be anywhere close to evil, though his design is obviously meant to evoke this trope.
• Crapsaccharine World: District C is a bright and colorful place, even with the monsters roaming around which is a given due to amazing technicolor population. But as Louise puts it, monsters are under heavy surveillance daily and messing up could already mean serious trouble for them. This is most likely what happened to Charlie. Louise's line sums it up as well.
  Louise: Even "nice" things have dark secrets.
• Cute Monster Girl: Molly. Kip and Roy are Cute Monster Guys.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Kip doesn't appreciate the nickname 'Kipster'.
• Establishing Character Moment: Charlie's first line of dialogue is "Who the HELL are you?!" directed at Wallace, followed by screaming at his roommate to shut up when they try to explain, and then assaulting Wallace while threatening to kill him. This is setting up to be a Subverted Trope, however, as the next time we see Charlie he's tending to flowers with his hair pulled back with a headband, is suffering from flashbacks and expresses concern for Wallace. At the very least things are more complicated than him being "the one violent asshole monster".
• Even the Guys Want Him:
  Cuddy: Kip, you attract business... and girls. Lots of girls. And dudes.
• Extra Eyes: Molly's four eyes. No, not the glasses.
• Eye Scream: Roy's googly eyes can be removed at will as seen here. Though this is Played for Laughs.
• Fantastic Racism: The main issue of the comic.
• Fish People: Some characters have this characteristic.
• Fish out of Water: Wallace is a human who has never even seen a monster his entire life, and now he's living in a monsters-only apartment complex.
• Flashback: The introduction of Chapter One where it shows Wallace working in an office and is being greeted by his co-workers, implying that he had a pretty good life up until Jerry shows up to tell him the news that he's being transferred.
• Genki Girl: Molly has shades of this.
• Gratuitous French: Eno, Kip's therapist, usually does this when not being punny.
• Hipster: Parodied with Kip, along with one panel pointing to factors (i.e. clothes, glasses, haircut, etc.) what makes one look like a hipster as Cuddy explains. She's also responsible for bringing up the embarrassing nickname "Kipster". Naturally, Kip disagrees and takes it with much chagrin.
• Heart Symbol: Pops-up a lot, especially where Molly and Biv are concerned.
• Horned Humanoid: Ben has two protrusions covered by his hair that look like horns, and thus, the only striking feature that confirms him as a monster, though he could still pass as a burly human.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Since it is them that implement the discriminatory treatment of monsters when in reality, they're mostly harmless.
• Innocent Bigot: This is what the humans that haven't seen a monster for real seem to be, especially Jerry; the guy Wallace was talking to at the start of the prologue. Apparently, they're stuck in the mindset that monsters attack at any chance they get, hence Jerry's message reminding him to lock his doors.
• Ironic Name: The city of Fairway and is under the rule of segregation and inequality.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Louise is very blunt with Wallace, and threatens to snap him in half if he breaks their trust... but they are still willing to invite him into their home, and they even make him tea. And they also stop their roommate from potentially beating Wallace to death.
• Keet: Roy G. Biv, massively so.
• Last-Name Basis: Downplayed with Roy as he is sometimes referred to as Biv.
  • Cuddy, the eponymous owner of the Cuddy's Cafe. Her first name is Florence.
• Local Hangout: Cuddy's Cafe.
• Monster Clown/Creepy Doll: Roy avoids the creepiness and scariness of both tropes due to his dorkiness but is clearly meant to be this type of monster because of his stitched-up, ragdoll body-type along with having a big red nose and wearing bright colorful clothes.
• Motor Mouth: Biv's Establishing Character Moment is a page that is literally half speech bubbles.
• One Head Taller: Or even more. Roy G. Biv automatically since he is canonically 6'7" and towers over most people, humans and/or monsters.
• Our Monsters Are Different
• Precision F-Strike: "Just stay away from us you piece of shit!!" Until this moment, the language in the comic had been fairly tame. This is the moment when you realize that maybe this cartoony, brightly-colored comic isn't for kids.
• Punny Name: Roy G. Biv. Who is a rainbow-themed monster.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Ben the apartment manager. He chastises Kip for his treatment of Wallace and explains why it was not okay.

• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Charlie has a lizard tail, spikes, and scales on his skin, and is easily the most abrasive monster met. While the other monsters Wallace tries to interact with on his first day on the job merely slam the door in his face, Charlie slams him into the coffee table hard enough to draw blood and screams death threats while Louise has to physically restrain him.
  • Subverted when later Charlie is regretfully hoping Wallace is okay and promising that he will try harder to be calm if Wallace came back. He is even upset to see he accidentally cut off the flower while absorbed in a flashback.
• Romancing the Widow: Wallace has clearly become interested in Ben, who seems to be grieving his last love. However, their Almost Kiss shows that these feelings aren't exactly one sided.
• The Scottish Trope: Just by saying you're from District A can have all the monsters think of you negatively and will not let you get a word in edgewise.
• Ship Tease: While at first the ships were pretty loose and it was easy to think the comic would follow the Kip/Wallace relationship with some possible tendencies towards Kip/Roy and Wallace/Molly, later chapters have introduced Pascal and have Ben as a more active character, resulting in the plot having a much more focused tendency to tease Wallace/Ben, Roy/Molly and Kip/Pascal.
  • This one is pretty blatant on the Wallace/Ben ship, Holy moly. And then some.
  • Charlie implies that Roy has been interested in Molly ever since they were children and describes him as being starry eyed for her.
  • [[This extra comic]] shows that Kip thinks of Pascal while in the shower.
    • Also, by the time they meet, there are Love Bubbles in the background.
• Stealth Pun:
  • Molly has four eyes, both literally and figuratively.
  • Kip is confirmed by Word of God to be an ice monster, and his reception of Wallace is initially very... cold.
• Talking Animal: Lots of monsters are this.
• Token Human: Wallace is, so far, the only named, confirmed human in the comic. Cuddy and Kate may be human, but it is likely that one or both of them are human-looking monsters.
  • Averted, as Cuddy and Kate have now been confirmed to be humans via their official character profiles.
• Two Guys and a Girl: The monster trio: Kip, Roy, and Molly.
• Wham Line: After Ben reminisces a human friend he once knew who he described was just like Wallace and concludes:
  Ben: She was a friend to all.
  Wallace: Where is she now? Do you still talk to her?
  Ben: She's dead. She was killed.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Wallace, so much so that it borders on Too Dumb to Live. He doesn't realize until Louise spells it out for him that monsters react adversely to him because he's human, and they then have to elaborate that being human gives him rights that monsters don't have. He also reacts to Charlie's paranoid freak-out by smiling and going for a handshake. Charlie then slams his head into the coffee table.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Molly gives Kip a quick pep talk that pretty much boils down to this.

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