Webcomic / R.A.M. the Robot

R.A.M. the Robot is a Webcomic by RafVicAlf that began in 2021. The comics typically follow the titular R.A.M., a robotic raccoon, along with her buyer Jake and his friends Jeanette and Bud, and center around her experience as a robot and the crew's day-to-day lives.

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After the Great Space War (2429-2434) new and better technologies were developed, managing to create faster and cheaper spaceships. Now travel between Earth and Mars only takes a week on average.

Jake, after selling his first patent of one of his inventions, bought a ship. With his girlfriend Jeanette they would use it to create an interplanetary delivery service to finance more crazy inventions. But this job did not give him enough free time to make new devices so he hired someone to help him on the ship. That didn't reduce his tasks very much.

After many trips between Earth and Mars, and sometimes to Jupiter and Saturn, Jake and Jeanette saved enough money to buy a robot. This robot was a very cheap multitask robot which they named "Random Access Memory" (R.A.M.). Thanks to her, Jake had enough free time to be able to make inventions again which would lead the entire crew to crazy experiences.

''Katty and Zoey'', a spin-off starring Jake and Jeannette's adopted daughter Katty and her best friend Zoey started in 2024.

R.A.M. the Robot executes the following tropes:

• Abnormal Allergy: In "Status Quo", it's revealed that R.A.M.'s organic form is allergic to Ali, despite the latter being an alien creature from another dimension.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: "Evil R.A.M." showcases that R.A.M. has a literal good-evil slider in her back compartment. Jake curiously flips it, causing her eyes to turn red and her to begin maniacally plotting to start a Robot War.
• Alien Animals: Ali is an alien cat from another dimension. Despite this, it looks almost identical to a normal cat. Humourously, the crew find it weird in appearance because it's the only feral creature in their World of Funny Animals.
• Alt Text: Each strip has something humorous in its alt-text, usually a snarky comment on the events of the strip, a humorous Hand Wave or a Shout-Out.
• Alternative Calendar: Bud's birthdate is listed as "Mesha 20, 465" in the Confederated Mars Territories, suggesting that Mars uses a different calendar from Earth.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • "Broken Arm" has Jeanette accidentally pull R.A.M.'s arm off, and become understandably horrified at what she did. Though R.A.M. brushes it off as being loose already.
  • In "The Perfect Girlfriend" Jake accidentally pulls Jeanette's arm off, or rather her robot clone's. R.A.M. helps her reattach it in the next page.
• Art Shift:
  • In "RAM Across the Multiverse", R.A.M. and Jake enter a portal to another universe. While there, their proportions become cartoonier and they both gain Cartoony Eyes.
  • In "Toys", all four of the main cast are suddenly rendered in live action. Jake is a LEGO build, R.A.M. is a plushie, Jeanette is a paper cutout on a stick, and Bud is a wooden figurine. R.A.M. and Jeanette are even being held by hands, which both of their speech bubbles point to.
  • In "R.A.M. Across the Multiverse Extra", R.A.M. appears on a classic Gameboy, complete with greener lighting and scratches and smudges on the screen.
• Author Avatar: Rafva himself appears in "The Drawer" as the titular god-like Drawer of the world. R.A.M. asks him if his creations and her world will be as popular as things he's drawn fan art of, prompting him to ashamedly tell her to go home.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Multiple characters are seen fully naked but with no "naughty bits." It's implied that the organic characters have them, just covered by fur, while robots don't as a temporarily organic R.A.M. thinks her charging port moved under her pants.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: In "Crime And More Crimes", Jackie lists her crimes as robbing several banks, scamming many companies, stealing and selling several information from the Martian confederation's government to the D-Tron, and murdering 27 people.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": In another universe R.A.M. and Jake encounter a feral bunny that R.A.M. mistakes for something called an "esquilax".
• Caps Lock: All dialogue is rendered in complete capitalization, likely to make it easier to read.
• Casual Interplanetary Travel: Travel between Earth and Mars takes about a week, but there's no FTL travel. A news broadcast in a couple pages mentions a Sleeper Starship reaching Proxima Centauri after three centuries of travel.
• Cat Up a Tree: Ali gets stuck up a tree in R-Bots.
• Coca-Pepsi, Inc.: In "Memory", Jake watches a Panasony brand television.
• Colorblind Confusion: In "Ship Maintenance", R.A.M. is sent out to repair a damaged fuse box on the outside of the ship, with Bud giving her strict orders to replace the blue one, while telling her that replacing the wrong fuse could lead the ship to fail and everyone to die. Cut to R.A.M.'s vision, where everything is bluish grey with slight scan lines, and so all of the fuses look identical.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Jake turns R.A.M. into an organic creature with his reverse fossilisation machine in "Organic RAM". Naturally, you'd expect him to turn her back into a robot with a regular fossilisation machine. Nope, he uses an "inverted reverse fossilisation machine" to do the deed.
• Didn't Think This Through: In "The Upgrader", R.A.M., a robot, decides to stay home to assist the titular Upgrader, a robot that sells and replaces technology it finds. Come the next strip ("RAM 2.0"), she's been sold and replaced herself.
• Disappeared Dad: In "No Data", R.A.M. realises she has no idea who and where her father is. The next two comics detail Jake and Jeanette cleaning out old boxes while R.A.M. talks to her mother, who also doesn't know her father. In "R.A.M.'s Dad", R.A.M. gives up moments before Jake pulls out paper indicating he was her creator.
• Do Androids Dream?: An idea frequently brought up. R.A.M. is treated like anyone else and isn't shunned for being robotic, yet she has other differences. In "Soul" and "The Devil and RAM", she claims to have no soul, and "RAM's Best Day" suggests robots don't dream, as R.A.M. is completely unfamiliar with the concept.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The early comics didn't have R.A.M.'s name above them, and also primarily focused more on the negatives of being a robot, compared to the later comics which have all sorts of themes.
  • The first six comics were originally just called "RAM the Robot" with a number attached^note Except for the first one, which had no number.. When the comics were reuploaded to Rafva's personal website all of the six but the first comic were given proper names.
• Eating Machine: Averted, R.A.M. tries to eat an ice cream cone only for it to make her glitch so she opens her chest compartment and takes it out, intact.
• Emergent Human: In "Organic RAM", R.A.M. becomes an organic creature, before being turned back to normal in "Status Quo". Almost every comic in between those two depict R.A.M. trying and failing miserably to live well as an organic creature. R.A.M. even begs in "Status Quo" to be turned back into a robot.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Most of the comics are named based on what happens in them, such as "Beach Episode" and "R.A.M. at the Pawn Shop".
• Expendable Clone: In "Robot Clones", Jake creates robotic clones of all four of the cast to replace them so they could slip away without his mother noticing. Except that he programmed them all to have the exact minds of their real counterparts and not know they were clones. 15 minutes later, Jake's mother comes out of the house annoyed while clone Jake screams and has an identity crisis. Jeanette's clone comes back later when she doesn't want to take Jake to the dentist's herself.
• Extendable Arms:
  • R.A.M. gives herself one in "Mods are Fun". She figures she'll use it to clean the roof or something.
  • Such extensions also seem to be common on the R-Bots.
• Failed a Spot Check: "RAM is a Robot" shows that it took several weeks for Jeanette to realise R.A.M. was a robot, despite her robotic appearance and inhuman mannerisms.
• First Injury Reaction: After being temporarily transformed into an organic being, R.A.M. gets scratched up by Ali and feels pain for the first time. She finds it hilarious.
• Flash Forward: A couple pages have punchlines set years after the main comic.
  • In RAM's Joke Jake takes five years to react to R.A.M.'s Jump Scare prank. Confusing Jeanette and their daughter, while R.A.M. just says "finally."
  • In Scar Jake gets a tiny scar from a bad paper cut, then ten years later he makes up a less pathetic story behind the scar to entertain his kid, now named Katherine.
• Freudian Excuse: Jake's fear of dentists apparently stems from watching Jackie pretend to be a Depraved Dentist with a teddy bear and a spork when he was a baby.
• The Great Offscreen War: The Great Space War of 2429-2434 is mentioned in the comic's "about" page and page 35, being a conflict between the Interplanetary United States and Confederate Martian Territories. Mostly in the context of producing the advances in space travel that the main characters routinely use.
• Harmless Electrocution: Pretty much any error or physical blow will cause R.A.M. to spark or short out, but this never harms her.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Upon R.A.M. becoming organic in "Organic RAM", she calls Jake attractive. Jeanette steps in and aggressively claims him for herself, with R.A.M. then calling her attractive as well, causing Jeanette to gain an embarrassed blush.
• Horrible Camping Trip: Jake takes the crew on a "no technology" camping trip, even turning R.A.M. organic again and ditching their clothes when reminded that clothing is technology. He finally gives it up after a bunny breaks his leg.
• Humanity Ensues: While there are no humans ever depicted, "Organic RAM" has Jake use his reverse fossilization machine on R.A.M., turning her into a real Funny Animal raccoon. She takes a while to adjust, and ultimately decides to change back.
• Innocently Insensitive: Jackie acts like this in "Crime and More Crimes". After R.A.M. reacts in horror to Jackie admitting to murdering 27 people, the latter reveals she was just joking and that she just destroyed some robots. R.A.M.'s mood is not lightened whatsoever.
• Interspecies Adoption: A Flash Forward on page 88 shows that Jake and Jeanette will adopt a kitten in the future, the anthropomorphic kind.
• Interspecies Romance: Jake (fox) and Jeanette (red panda). Jeanette's cast profile also mentions that there's been a few of those in her family tree, explaining her European name and Asiatic species.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": "RAM and the Portal" introduces an alien cat. R.A.M. decides to adopt it and name it "Ali".
• Logic Bomb:
  • She doesn't explode, but Bud has R.A.M. divide zero by zero in order to use her overheating CPU to bake a cake.
  • R.A.M. does explode after an anesthetized Jake asks her what's purple corn? (Unless that was another hallucination.)
• Medium Blending: "RAM and the Portal" has the cast open a portal flashing between dimensions. Two of the images depicted are of a live action town and a live action LEGO figure.
• Morality Dial: R.A.M. turns out to have one, marked by a green smiley face and red frowny face.
• New Year Has Come: "New Year in Space" has Jake, R.A.M. and Jeanette fly by Sol III, aka Earth, on New Years day of 2504.
• New Neo City: Jake is once seen wearing a "I [heart] NNNYC" t-shirt.
• Oh, Crap!: "Broken Arm" has Jeanette become understandably horrified at having accidentally pulled off R.A.M.'s arm, but the latter assures Jeanette it was already loose.
• Phonýmon: In "R.A.M. at the Pawn Shop", R.A.M. goes to a pawn shop and tries to sell a "Wolfo" card. The next comic, "RAM's Revenge" reveals that Pokémon doesn't exist in their universe, and R.A.M. has no idea what a Pokémon is.
• The Pig-Pen: In "New Year in Space", Jeanette claims she hasn't showered since last year, with Jake pointing out that the "last year" New Years joke doesn't work in space. Jeanette responds by asking him what joke, prompting disgust from both Jake and R.A.M.
• Robo Family: R.A.M. refers to the factory arm that assembled her as her "mother," and says that her designer would be her "father," but doesn't know who he is since he never signed his work. Turns out he's Jake.
• Robot Kid: Zoey, from the spinoff Katty and Zoey, is a robot modeled after a fox kit. A detail she tries to keep secret from her robo-phobic best friend.
• Robot Me:
  • Jake made robotic clones of the crew to escape his mother making them go through multiple hard drives of his childhood photos. His clone was about to attempt the same thing when she figured it out, giving the clones an identity crisis.
  • Jackie sold the rights to her likeness for a new robot design, and used the money to buy a hacking computer. Ironically one of the robots based on her is a Space Ranger.
• Robot War: "Evil R.A.M." has R.A.M.'s evil plot be to head to the factory and flip the evil switch on every robot so they'll turn against their makers.
• Self-Deprecation: In "The Drawer", Rafva's Author Avatar appears. When R.A.M. asks him if his work will ever be popular, he hesitates for a moment before suggesting R.A.M. leave him alone.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: R.A.M.'s attempted card selling in "R.A.M. at the Pawn Shop" turns into a small arc as she swears revenge on the cashier for ruining her card. She abruptly cancels her revenge in "RAM's Revenge" when Jake gets her a replacement card from another universe.
• Shout-Out: Happens quite a few times.
  • "Soul" is an almost word-for-word Whole-Plot Reference to a scene from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Just One Bite".
  • "RAM and the Shinnning" is a Whole-Plot Reference to The Shining, with Jake and R.A.M. taking the respective roles of Jack and Danny.
  • In "Beach Episode",
    • R.A.M. claims to hate sand, as "It's coarse, rough, irritating and it gets everywhere."
    • Jake mockingly asks how Bikini Bottom is when R.A.M. sinks in the ocean.
  • "RAM and the Portal" has the cast open a portal that flashes between dimensions. One of the images depicted is of a live action LEGO figure in a fox costume.
  • "Robots Like Her" has the cast open another portal, this time leading to the Murder Drones universe. R.A.M. excitedly runs out to speak with another robot^note V, only for said robot to attack her offscreen. She then walks back to the portal while holding her severed head.
  • In "RAM's Revenge", Jake steals her a Pokémon card from another universe to make up for R.A.M.'s card being ruined.
  • In "Halloween", R.A.M. dresses up as a Disassembly Drone and Bud dresses up as Sandy.
  • The reverse fossilization process in "Organic RAM" comes from Futurama's Anthology of Interest II. Though R.A.M. shows a bit more moderation than Bender did, living long enough to have it reversed.
  • The sheet music seen in "RAM in Space" is taken from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's score from The Nutcracker, specifically "Waltz of the Flowers".
  • In "Alone!", R.A.M. and Ali end up in the nothing dimension from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "SB-129". The "alone" messages can even be seen in the background.
  • In "Ali Episode", R.A.M. objects to Ali being given a scarf that allows it to talk, to which Ali replies that "[she's] overthinking it, the point of a talking cat is to have fun.".
  • "Mee-Troh" is almost a panel for panel recreation of this Ozy and Millie strip.
• Space Police: The Space Rangers, who fight the interplanetary criminal organization Darktron.
• Space Trucker: The crew, though they're usually depicted more as a quirky delivery service ala Futurama. The animation "Waltz in Space" shows their ship clamping onto a line of cargo containers and pushing it from one space station to another.
• Speaks in Binary: R.A.M.'s mother talks like this in "R.A.M.'s Mom". The subline for the comic states that non-robotic machines are incapable of talking without binary.
• Sticky Shoes: "Waltz in Space" shows Bud wearing magnetic boots while Jeanette has fun floating around in microgravity without them, until Jake and R.A.M. hit the accelerator.
• Stomach of Holding: "Ali the Alien" reveals that Ali, R.A.M.'s pet alien cat, rides around in a compartment in R.A.M.'s lower torso, which she claims is warm and more spacious than it seems.
• Super Civil Services: The R-Bots, a group of discarded robots who've dedicated themselves to rescuing people, robots, and the occasional cat up a tree.
• Take That!: "Too Much Text: The TCG" serves as one to card games like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon, which are often criticised for having a bad habit of including overspecialised rules designed to close as many loopholes as possible and invoke as much Developer's Foresight as they can.
• Take That, Audience!: One of R.A.M.'s mother's comments translates to “Can you believe someone is trying to translate what I'm saying?”, poking fun at any reader trying to peak more behind the scenes.
• There Is Only One Bed: After a party at Jake’s parents’ house, his mom insists that he and Jeannette share a bed (Bud passed out on the couch). But despite being a couple they’re so uncomfortable with the situation that they don’t get any sleep. Possibly explained by the Pride picture showing Jake in asexual colors.
• Three Laws-Compliant: R.A.M. is confirmed to follow the second law in "RAM Maid", with Jake and Bud exploiting it to force her to dress up in a maid's outfit.
• Translator Collar: Jake invents a bandanna allowing Ali to speak in "Ali Episode", though R.A.M. thinks it takes away its charm.
• We Will Spend Credits in the Future: Credits are the only currency ever mentioned, usually in quantities suggesting an exchange rate comparable to yen.
• What Are Records?: In "Compact Disc", Jake is revealed to not know what a CD is. When he purchases one, he thinks it's just a weird-looking expensive frisbee.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Robots are implied to be incapable of romantic love in a few instances.
  • The first thing R.A.M. does upon being turned organic in "Organic RAM" is refer to Jake and Jeanette as attractive.
  • In "Compact Disc", R.A.M. uses herself as a CD player so her, Jake, and Jeanette can watch a romance film. While Jake and Jeanette enjoy it and lovingly hug each other, R.A.M. flatly comments on the actress inside.
  • That said Jake once reprogrammed RAM and Stacy the ship, causing them to proclaim their love for one another.
• Whole-Plot Reference:
  • "Soul" is an almost word-for-word recreation of a scene from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Just One Bite".
  • RafVicAlv made a list of these that he inserted into the comic. Including this page based on an episode of The Big Bang Theory and this one recreating a page of Ozy and Millie.
• Wizards from Outer Space: None have actually appeared in comic yet but Rafva has stated that RAM takes place in the same universe as his other comic "Bruja the Witch" and Jake references "old forbidden ways" to travel through dimensions using magic.
• World of Funny Animals: The entire universe seems to consist of different animal creatures. Jake is a fox, Jeanette is a red panda, R.A.M. is a robotic raccoon, and Bud is a dog.