
Sequential Art Before you click... is a webcomic drawn by Phillip M. Jackson (a.k.a. Jolly Jack) about a group of unlikely housemates. Art is a chronically frustrated graphic designer (and the only human living in the house); Kat, a cat girl, is a fun-loving photographer; Pip, a penguin, is a stereotypical video-game geek who makes a living buying and selling items online, and Scarlet is a naïve and energetic squirrel girl whose erratic behaviour and short attention span mask her true intellect. Over time the household is expanded with Kat's adoption of a non-anthropomorphic platypus named Leonard, a mysterious infestation of Denizens, and the rescue of Scarlet's sisters(?) Amber, Jade and Violet.
Sequential Art veers between cozy Slice of Life moments and Art's role as a Cosmic Plaything. Sometimes life is fairly ordinary — Christmas shopping, computer problems, and things like that. Sometimes life is a little surreal... Art may end up playing the Realm of Lorecraft boardgame against a squirrel hivemind. And surprisingly frequently, life gets extremely surreal, such as the housemates' brief involvement in the secret global struggle between retardium-harvesting aliens and the merman who engineered the terrible secret behind 3D movies. No, really. Also features occasional appearances by the small, wisecracking hamster who apparently draws the strip.
Sequential Art provides examples of:
- 0% Approval Rating: Miss Strinpit is an extremely unpleasant person, capable of antagonizing anyone she meets, not just her students. She's so despised that upon her demise due to heart attack, the students merrily sing "Ding-Dong, the witch is dead". Kat summarizes her faults (which leads to Strinpit's fatal heart attack):Kat: You're a short, bad-tempered, condescending, evil, unfair and hateful Bully!
- A-Cup Angst: Surprisingly, Kat.
She's not exactly an A-cup though. If this strip
or this drawing of her
are anything to go by she's far from it.
- Adorable Fluffy Tail: While Christmas shopping with Kat Vance, Scarlet the squirrel girl feels something gripping her tail. It's a little girl, utterly charmed by the luxurious fluffiness of Scarlet's tail. Both the girl and Scarlet proclaim simultaneously: "I know what I want for Christmas!"
- Adventures In Coma Land: One story arc is based on Fallout, and is revealed at the end to be the result of Pip suffering from asphyxiation from locking himself in a fridge because he'd been playing Fall Out 4 to excess and thought a power outage was the end of the world.
- Aerosol Spray Backfire: Pip goes to kill a spider in the bathroom using aerosol deodorant and a cigarette lighter. He succeeds in torching the entire bathroom and singeing himself as well in strip #9. However, Pip only supplied the ignition source; moments before, Scarlet had used an aerosol can to drive that same spider out of the attic and into the bathroom in strip #462.
- Aesop Amnesia: It would appear that Pip failed to learn his lesson from last time when he Lets Hilary stay at their place and hooks up with her again, only to find out in the next strip that he's only doing that because she's basically blackmailing him into letting her stay with them or else she'll have them arrested for destroying her house, and he is clearly not as clueless about the situation as he was the first time.
- Aerosol Flamethrower: Pip's attempt to kill the shower spider.
- The Aesthetics of Technology: Pip makes the mistake of stealing tech from the Denizens based on appearance.
- Aliens Steal Cattle: The Eldak designated "Gary" was assigned to harvest cow lips."Gary": I am always assigned this task. I deem this: unfair.
- All Men Are Perverts:
- Pip certainly is. Art nine times out of ten is more of an Accidental Pervert.
- And then there's that tenth time
.
- All There in the Manual: While 99% of what you need to know is in the comic, you'd never know that JJ's secretary and valet, Helga, is actually a valkyrie unless you visit his deviantArt page.
- All Up to You: Twice. Art even lampshades it.
- Alpha Bitch: Hilary, Kat's rival since grade school.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: The general reaction when Kat accidentally gives her old Sadist Teacher a fatal heart attack. Nearly everyone was singing Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: For some reason, whenever Art tries to tell people what goes on in his house, describing the inhabitants makes people think that he's crazy... despite catgirls and other anthropomorphic creatures existing with no problem alongside humanity, as shown whenever Kat and Pip go outside and do things.
- Arch-Enemy: Jack.
- Art Evolution: Subtly Lampshaded.
Word of God is, the artist didn't bother to create permanent references for characters and uses the latest strips instead, causing a drift over the years.
- Ass Shove: "Where's your sword?"
- Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: Once the Eldak realize their weapons can't kill Art, the next logical step is to run away.
In their defense, they were trying to kill him because they thought he was a Walking Techbane, and... well, they're tech. Finding out that he's immune to their weapons and is coming right at them is grounds to run.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Scarlet exhibits this
behaviour, she's really a good scientist, but lacks any concentration capacity.
- Attention Whore: Hilary. It's revealed that the reason why Hilary and Kat are having their feud is because, when they were kids, Kat had the same lunchbox as Hilary, and Hilary thought that would take attention away from her. Every fight they've had since then developed from that initial act of jealousy.
- Aura Vision: Vanity Thorn can see auras as well as ghosts."Good call, Stoker."
- Author Appeal: Busty anthro women with thin waists.
- Author Avatar: Mr. Jackson appears as a hamster
. Usually.
◊
- Pip approves of the reason why.
- Author Tract: A few minor barbs, rather than rants. (The author has other comic strips for his full-fledged rants.)
- Awesome, but Impractical: Pip grabs a rather large gun because it looked dangerous. It actually is powerful as it was shown to blast off a door, but it's actually just a popcorn popper, and as such has a range measured in only a few centimeters.
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: The animal characters.
- Batman Gambit: The Think Tank pulls one on Pip in their "Realm of Lorecraft" board game
.
- Battle in the Rain: Kat Vs. Hilary
- Beach Episode: Sadly no. The Trope is just referenced and lampshaded here
.
- Beam-O-War: A tiny one
, but the effect is there.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Inverted in two ways by Hilary: For starters, she's an Alpha Bitch who frequently uses Sleeping Their Way to the Top, while the "good" or at least guilty part of her looks like half
a zombie abortion
.
- Berserk Button: Pip really doesn't like quick-time events.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Pip!
- Big Eater: Scarlet
- Big "NO!":
- Pip, when the comic store is burning down
.
- Kat
, upon seeing Hilary's Literal Split Personality.
- Pip, when the comic store is burning down
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Art
- Big Red Button: Admittedly, we can't tell what color it is, but it grabs Scarlet's attention in the same matter and thus Kat has to intervene to prevent potential disaster.
Given it's an Emergency button, we can probably assume it's red.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Well, at least a medium-sized one.
- Bilingual Bonus: From a very foul-mouthed Roman legionnaire.
Panel 2 translation
- Bland-Name Product: Far Trek, EBuy (eBay), The Metrix, Temple Raider, Realm of Lorecraft, Nightlight, and the list goes on.
- Hello Pages deserves a mention.
- Strip 735
has four: Arkham Lockdown, Contemporary Warfare 3, Skyroam, and Saints Boulevard 3.
- Bleached Underpants:
- Referenced in-universe: Art draws such material for a commission in one strip.
- Also, Hilary, a former porn star.
- Braces of Orthodontic Overkill: Kat had these when she was in primary school.
Art describes an old yearbook photo as looking like "a bear trap with whiskers."
Hilary: Doesn't that oil-derrick in her mouth make her look adorable?! - Brain Freeze: Scarlet in comic 219
.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Charcoal, dust, dusty charcoal...
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: OZBASIC mnemonics
.
- Break the Cutie: Pip seen here
.
- Break the Haughty: Hilary, Kat's arch-nemesis from grade school, downgraded from high-powered advertising executive to sitting in the unemployment office. Next to Pip, who wants to talk about her previous "career". One has to ask, how much further down can she go?
Pretty damn far.
And
then
brutally
subverted.
- Breast Expansion: The squirrels advise Kat against eating the giant apples they've grown since they're full of muto juice, and the last time they had it tested on them caused Amber to experience severe swelling for a while
. This warning has the opposite effect from the one that they wanted, but the growth Kat undergoes is not
the effect she was hoping for.
- Brick Joke:
- Strip 398
went from Noodle Incident to Brick Joke
9 years later.
- After the Denizens storyline, Pip scavenges some of their technology from the basement of the house and sells it on eBuy, and as a result, on strip 344, a couple of collectors get transported to the Gobi desert due to one of the pieces of technology being still functional. On strip 765, Pip gets his eBuy account cancelled on account of an outlandish claiming about those very memorabilia collectors being stranded in the desert and supposedly one having to eat the other.
- Art
using
Crtl+Z
.
- Strip 398
- Broken Record: Scarlet in this strip.
- Brown Note: An image that combines all known fetishes
.
- Bullethole Door: Or at least a beamhole trapdoor.
- Butterface: Dot, a mutant in a Fallout world Pip ends up in, is a super curvy woman.... with only one eye, hideously oversized brain, lipless mouth that can't close, and multiple prehensile tongues
.
- Buxom Beauty Standard:Kat: [looks at the picture Art is drawing] Are those her boobs, or did a couple of zepplins land on her chest?
Art: IT'S JUST A COMMISSION!
- Call-Back:
- The very first strip
and this strip
over five hundred strips later. And then another almost five hundred strips later still
...
- And for a more literal Call-Back, there's Crazy Boris, who may or may not also be Crazy Sven. And possibly the guy on the box of crackers
.
- The spider from all the way back in strip 7 makes a re-appearance during Scarlet's flashback, as well as somewhat justifying how Pip managed to blow up the bathroom with a deodorant flamethrower.
- Another call back is in strip #765 regarding the Denizens' technology that Pip sold to the two nerds in strip #344. It teleported them to the middle of the Gobi desert in Mongolia, and one apparently had to eat the other.
- The very first strip
- Cassandra Truth:
- The intruder's female, she's a five foot tall squirrel-thing...
- Once more
when Kat gets kidnapped.
- Collecting insurance when a penguin with a homemade flamethrower blows up the bathroom trying to kill spiders.
- Emergency services outright disconnect the phone call when they learn that it's yet another insane story from the gang's house.
- The intruder's female, she's a five foot tall squirrel-thing...
- Casual Danger Dialogue: In addition to the usual banter, sometimes somebody just can't work up the energy for panic anymore.Pip (face down on the floor in despair): I was going to stop Scarlet and company from inadvertently building another doomsday device[...] Could you go and talk the squirrels down before they wipe us all from existence?
- Catch-22 Dilemma:
- When Pip first starts playing Legends of Lorecraft in panel 136, he starts as a Level 1 serf, and needs armor and a sword to go on treasure quests. However, armor and swords cost money, which is earned by obtaining treasures. Pip lampshades his dilemma nicely.
- And the reason he's even in this mess? When he tried to join a Pick-Up Group upon first spawning, he made the mistake of partying with a Griefer, a thief who stole all the gear that he originally spawned with. Real MMORPGs do not let characters go without weapons or armor, nor allow other players to take their only equipment for precisely this reason.
- Catfight: Usually involves Kat and Hilary. Latest example here
.
- Catgirl: The appropriately named Kat (short for Kathleen).
- Cats Are Mean: Generally averted. Sometimes
invoked.
- Cat Smile: Kat gets one occasionally, particularly when feeling smug (or when brainwashed...).
- Cerebus Syndrome:
- Downplayed. Several times the artist has taken a few months to do long arc stories involving the plucky characters combating dangerously powerful adversaries like the Denizens or Oz, only to have the conflict resolved and go right back to the "Gag-a-Day" format.
- Played with in the case of the "retardium" arc: increasingly breathless revelations of a secret power struggle led the cast toward what seemed to be a moment of dramatic choice. Instead, Art realized both sides were idiots. So the gang went home and got back to the gag-a-day format.
- Cheek Copy: It's implied
that Pip did this with Art's scanner.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The chip in the back of Art's neck, which he only thinks is there. Probably.
- Chekhov's Pez Dispenser
Gun!!
- And then there's Chekhov's Ghoul
. Thought it was just a throw-away Take That! at Uwe Boll? Think again.
- Chew Bubblegum: Pip quotes the famous line before passing out weapons to rescue Kat.
- The Chew Toy: Poor Leonard.
If anything non-lethal, but unpleasant can happen to him, it will. If it cannot, it happens anyway.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The 'anti-tech energy' and the fake chip that counters it.
- Clothing Damage: It takes a little over 350 strips
for Scarlet's only shirt to disintegrate after being caught on a doorknob.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Who says gamers are immature?
- Colourful Theme Naming: The Squirrel
Girls
: Ambernote , Scarletnote , Jadenote and Violetnote . Which were derived from their Subject Numbers — 4M83R, 5C4RL37, J4D3 and V10L37.
- Comically Missing the Point: in 1223
, Scarlet, while looking at a bag of mixed nuts, is told by "the internet" that she can't have nuts in November. Kat takes a beat to consider whether or not to correct her, and realises it's best left unsaid.
- Companion Cube: The Buddy Brick, as seen here
.
- Contempt Crossfire: Art is told to redo a drawing by both the marketing and censorship departments: one wanting more cleavage or the ad won't sell, one wanting less cleavage or the ad won't air.
- Cool and Unusual PunishmentJack: Dance, tubby! Dance or ISSUE ONE GETS CREASED!
- Cooldown Hug: Art gets one from Kat, when's he's understandably upset with Scarlet after she THREW HIM IN FRONT OF A DEATH RAY!
- Cosmic Plaything: Art's skill of collecting troubles and dangerous adventures is only outmatched by the Universe's eagerness to provide them.
- Covers Always Lie: Mr. Jackson really gets on his soapbox about this one.
- Covert Pervert:
- Kat
. This particular example is made extra funny by the fact that she wanted Art to draw a high fantasy version of her. Meaning she wanted to see how he was fantasizing about her. Another instance in which she goads Art into drawing a sexy elf for his Christmas cards. She gets REALLY into it.
- Scarlet and possibly her sisters seem to really enjoy the view here
. He's still there
, cleaning, for three years In-Universe. And sporting the French Maid Outfit for good measure.
- Kat
- Crazy-Prepared: Pip's ready for the Zombie Apocalypse.
- Crossover: Leonard gets zapped
◊ into sibling Dada Comics strip Spider and Scorpion during the Jack and the Denizens arc.
- Curse Cut Short: "YOU UTTER B--" BING-BONG!
- The Cutie: Scarlet (and her sisters, by association).
- Cutting the Knot: Pip once inherited a puzzle box from a dead relative who had been a jewel thief. The box contained a priceless diamond, but to get it, he had to solve the puzzle. Pip just dropped the box on the floor, smashing it open.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The Denizens are pretty sinister looking things but they're pretty much harmless... except for Jack
- Dark Secret: While in strip 398, it looks like Art and Pip may have killed someone
, it's later revealed that they instead buried a dressmaker's dummy
. To be fair, this was covering up the fact that when they took the dummy, it accidentally kicked off a series of feminist riots that burned their college to the ground.
- Deep-Immersion Gaming: Often when the gang plays games (digital or otherwise), the strips show them being dressed in whatever gears their characters would have been wearing. How they appear during the short arc of Realm of Lorecraft tabletop session is one example, including Scarlet who imagines herself as the "battle cube".Pip: You can't play as the dice, you dink!
- Defiant Strip: Pip has promised to sell a squirrel girl (namely Scarlet) to an online buyer named Eyurin for four thousand British pounds. When Pip can't locate Scarlet, and can't refund the money, Eyurin protests by stripping naked on the front lawn in strip #165. Even Pip's flatmates, Art and Kat, are horrified and squicked at this sight.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Hilary, as of this strip
, which also marks the first time she's seen with a smile of contentment rather than out of pleasure at someone's suffering. Subverted later. HARD
- Delayed Reaction: Here
.
- Department of Redundancy Department: "Prepare for deadly laser death time... with LASERS!"
- Detail-Hogging Cover: See Covers Always Lie
- Disaster Dominoes: From a drunken prank
to feminist protests to riots and fires
. So far so good.
- Disembodied Eyebrows: Pretty much everyone who has eyebrows has had them floating off their head at one point or another.
- Distanced from Current Events: Invoked in comic 1209
as Art and Pip want to play a game to take their minds off of the news (specifically the 2022 invasion of Russia into Ukraine). The board game they pick up is called Supremacy, all about nuking countries to win, and both agree, in clear discomfort, to find another game.
- Distracted by the Sexy:
- A drugged Kat trying on a borrowed swimsuit that's way too big for her: it's threatening to fall off if she doesn't keep holding onto the garment. This distracts Art from thinking about how to escape a Reality Show also serving as a prison for those threatening to reveal a covert Alien Invasion.Art: Yeah. That's helping my focus.
- Very surprising, but it would seem even Scarlet can be affected by this.
However it's more likely that she wants the Handsome Prince to stay longer, and to do so she increases the chores which he must do before leaving.
- A drugged Kat trying on a borrowed swimsuit that's way too big for her: it's threatening to fall off if she doesn't keep holding onto the garment. This distracts Art from thinking about how to escape a Reality Show also serving as a prison for those threatening to reveal a covert Alien Invasion.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The root cause of the 20+ year grudge between Kat and Hilary seems to have come from Hilary feeling less special
because Kat also had a "Pink Pony" lunchbox.
- Door Dumb: Art tries to unjam a door to rescue Scarlet, only to find out Scarlet herself is accidentally jamming the door
by pushing instead of pulling.
- Double-Edged Answer: A psychotic AI gasses all personnel in a government facility. As Art, Pip, and Scarlet are sneaking in, Pip uses a small mirror to see around a corner.Art: Well? Any security guards?
Pip: Uh, yes and no. - Double Entendre: Kat claims that there's pee in her bag in this strip.
Turns out to be the Wintendo Pee.
- Double Take: Art, when he hears that Kat killed her former teacher
.
- The Dreaded: Several, and they are quite understandable.
- Jack is one for the entire cast; diminutive he may be, but his control over the denizens and the fact that he's taken out a country with them certainly makes him a force to be reckoned with. Despite his small stature, he can wield a chainsaw very menacingly.
- Mrs. Strinpit for Kat; she was Kat's old bullying teacher from Middleschool, who'd give Kat detention for everything and continued to speak down to her even as an adult.
- Rebecca Mace for Pip and Art; Rebecca is a mentally disturbed woman that Art and Pip pulled a prank on, she then found out who pranked her, found where they lived and hammered on their door and screamed for an entire night.
- Pickles for Pip; an Animalistic Abomination in the shape of a chihuahua from the game World of Lorecraft, which turns its own insides out on a whim. It is specifically stated to be a "Hellhound".
- Dream Sequence: 622
to 634
- Droste Image: Pip meets the Author Avatar hamster in the strip
itself. He gives Pip a copy of his latest strip (which at the time was that very strip). Pip looks at the strip, which is about Pip looking at the strip, looking at the strip, looking at the strip and so on.
Pip: Woah. Trippy. - Dynamic Entry: Kat slams Hilary with a flying kick to the face for the above-mentioned lies she spread about Kat.
- Eldritch Abomination:
- Four live in the town's requisite Haunted House.
- Also: the Denizens, creatures that evolved from the shadow of a condemned criminal. Although the Denizens actually become rather cute after their leader was incapacitated, leaving them to mill around the house aimlessly, watching soap operas and assist with random chores.
- Epic Fail: The only way to describe Art's attempt at wrapping a present
.
- Epunymous Title: It's a work of Sequential Art featuring a guy called Art.
- Everyone Can See It: Say "yes, Ms. Thorn"
... Valentines
sequence — pleasant surprise, blush, awkwardness, facepalm.
- Evil Twin: Played
with.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Sequential Art refers to comics. Even more so, it's the story of a guy called Art.
- An artist named Art, no less.
- A sequential artist.
- An artist named Art, no less.
- Exploding Closet: Art gets buried by one in this strip
.
- Of course, it includes the kitchen sink.
- Explosive Overclocking: "For the love of God, man! Shut it down! SHUT IT DOW-
- Expy: Many, usually Bland-Name Product-type expys, but special mention should go to the Eldaks, who are fairly obviously inspired by Doctor Who's Daleks. They even use the same Catchphrase: EXTERMINATE!, and their name is an anagram of "Daleks."
- Eye Scream:
- "There's a Shift key in my eye."
- Scarlet doesn't like candy canes.
- Which leads to a Brick Joke
- Which leads to a Brick Joke
- "There's a Shift key in my eye."
- Fate Worse than Death: When Art, Kat, and Pip get captured by the "aliens", they beg not to be killed. Instead, they get put in a cast for a reality TV expy of Big Brother. The trio immediately wished they had been killed instead.
- Faux Affably Evil: Jack and Oz are both extremely evil, but they're just so funny at the same time.
- Flashback Twist: Twice. Art asks Scarlet if the washing machine broke. Kat asks Scarlet if anyone messed with the Christmas lights.
- Flash Step: Kat intervenes.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Pickles the Dragon. Looks like a cute puppy/dragon hybrid right? It unleashes its "beast" side by
TURNING ITSELF INSIDE OUT!
- Foreshadowing: Most major arcs are derived from events in earlier strips. Sometimes this double-dips with Brick Joke, such as Pip getting his eBuy account suspended (leading to the Pip-Hilary arc) when buyers report his item got them stranded in the Mongolian desert.
- Funetik Aksent: Part of the writer's signature style is spelling random things phonetically.
- Furry Confusion:
- Leonard, a non-anthropormophic platypus kept as a pet by an anthropomorphic cat.
- Scarlet makes a bird-targeting turret to get rid of the wild birds scaring her sisters. It immediately targets Pip (fortunately it was unloaded).
- Furry Reminder:
- Kat deals with some birds that were annoying her and Art in a rather species-characteristic manner
.
- After Art buys a laser pointer, she feels insulted that he'd think she'd do that
. Scarlet, on the other hand...
- Kat deals with some birds that were annoying her and Art in a rather species-characteristic manner
- Gadgeteer Genius: Scarlet. Managed to use household tools to build a working Wave-Motion Gun. Also her sisters managed to make a lawnmower escape the earth's atmosphere.
- Its been argued that Scarlet might be a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass.
- They've turned a Slanky into perpetual motion engine.
- Genius Ditz: Scarlet and her sisters. Scarlet can be inventing an actual laser gun in one comic
, and be completely hypnotized by a spinning washing machine
in another.
- G.I.R.L.: Invoked and averted here
.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Pip certainly seems to think so.
- Then there's this
non-canon fanservice-y accident. There was plenty of times it could've happened during DeCerto storyline. A pity it didn't.
- Then there's this
- Glasgow Grin: A variation. It's stated in Jack's official bio that his "mouth" is actually a crack in his face, meaning he's broken. This pretty much explains why he was the only Denizen who turned out to be evil.
- Going Commando: Strip 34
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Art and Pip steal a dressmaker's dummy (one belonging to an objectophile who thought of it as a sentient being), sending photos of postcards as if the dummy were on vacation, culminating in sticking breasts on it. This infuriates the local Straw Feminist to the point of causing riots on campus, and then the dummy's owner recognizes them...
- Groin Attack: Pip receives one here
due to a significant difference in size.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Kat stays sober all year... until New Year's Eve, when she gets totally smashed. Her "New Year's Resolution" for several years now has been to "stop drinking so much alcohol during the holiday season".
- Hive Mind:
- Again, Scarlet and her sisters. The reason they're such ditzes most of the time is that each is one part out of a 4-part superintelligence. As seen when everyone plays the board version of Land of Lorecraft: everyone against Pip, the squirrel sisters manage to pull off a spectacular plan on Pip to allow Kat and Art to beat him unhindered. Which just goes to show, never challenge a bio-supercomputer to a strategy game.Scarlet & her sisters: ...we are legion!
- The Denizens also seem to need a truly evil member of their species — such as Jack — to behave in any way malevolent.
- Again, Scarlet and her sisters. The reason they're such ditzes most of the time is that each is one part out of a 4-part superintelligence. As seen when everyone plays the board version of Land of Lorecraft: everyone against Pip, the squirrel sisters manage to pull off a spectacular plan on Pip to allow Kat and Art to beat him unhindered. Which just goes to show, never challenge a bio-supercomputer to a strategy game.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Jack.
- Uwe'Boll... immensely.
- Homage: The "Quinten R&D" arc.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Pip and Fern in this "Victory Pose"
- Human Resources: It turns out that the aliens are on earth to harvest Retardium, an ambient energy naturally given off by the 'willfully ignorant'.note .
- James Cameron wants to stop them... because they are hogging all the people dumb enough to pay to see his movies.
- Hurl It into the Sun: This is how the Eldak wants to kill Art, whom they believe is a Man of Kryptonite for them, after all their other methods fail to crack the Think Tank's safety bubble which is encasing Art at the time.
- Hypocritical Humor: Art of all people cannot take characters with crazy eyebrows seriously
.
- Also, Kat gets her hands on the Attacknoid's remote here
.
- Scarlet may be one of fiction's quintessential Genki Girls, but she can't stand it
when a drugged up Kat starts talking a million words a minute.
- Also, Kat gets her hands on the Attacknoid's remote here
- I Am Legion: Scarlet and the rest of the Think Tank quartet. Partially subverted in that they are not willfully malevolent, but they are dangerously intelligent when in close proximity (they can weaponize practically anything they get their paws on), and it seems that they can only function as adults when they are in the same room. If any of the girls are even as far apart as being in different levels of the house, they devolve into spastic, ditzy Genki Girls with random bouts of super-genius.
- Idea Bulb: Kat Vance has an incandescent bulb appear above her head in strip #649.
- I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Here.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Subverted
.
- Imagine Spot: Now and then. Strip 527
, for instance.
- Improbable Weapon User: Scarlet threatens Jack with Grievous Harm with a Body using Leonard
- I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: A reciprocal example
: while shopping for Christmas, Scarlet gets the attention of a little girl fascinated by her fluffy tail, and they BOTH want to take the other one home.
- Incendiary Exponent: Ezekiel Pretz doesn't stop trying to stab Kat and Vanity after he gets set on fire. At least until his arm falls off.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Scarlet and her sisters again. Even after the artist bleaches the comic's underpants, the most they ever wear are t-shirts, and they have no qualms about removing them.
- Innocent Innuendo:
- Ironic Echo Cut: Seen here.
- It Makes Sense in Context: Art sucking up a spider crawling up his leg
, only for Kat to walk in and see him placing the handheld vacuum somewhere very delicate.
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: The Infiltrators aren't actually evil; they came to Earth to harvest a type of energy emitted by humans in greater quantities than any other species in the universe. It's called retardium and is generated by willful ignorance.
- It's Been Done: Scarlet's latest invention
(which, for once, doesn't explode) is a piece of garment keeping your arms free while being warmer than a T-shirt. She calls it "The Mono-Portal Torso Warmer".
Kat: That's a poncho.
Scarlet: That... is such a good name!
- Karma Houdini: A number of the more dangerous situations that the protagonists find themselves in can be traced back to Scarlet in one way or another, as well as more destructive actions such as when she activates a Kill Sat. These are typically never brought up again, presumably due to a combination of her cuteness and her essentially being socially and developmentally retarded.
- Kids Are Cruel: To Art at least. Timmy talks to Kat nicely and normally while, at the same time, barraging the poor sod with snowballs.
- Killer Rabbit: Leonard the platypus
, of all characters.
- Kill Sat: Jack's favorite toy.
- Large Ham: Jack.
- Leet Lingo: Scarlet's lab number is #5C4RL37
, whiler her sisters also have the same naming convention; #4M83R (Amber), J4D3 (Jade) and V10L37 (Violet)
- Let's Get Dangerous!: When the Villains come out to play: You got to get dangerous. PIP DANGEROUS!
- Limited Wardrobe:
- Pip is by far the guiltiest, wearing his trademark sweater on the hottest day of summer; he cools down with frozen food taped around him
.
- At first, Scarlet is naked, only being covered by objects and such in the panel. When she finally gets a (singular) shirt, she never changes it. Lampshaded in strip 102
when Art suggests she wash it, so she does — without taking it off. Pip immediately senses the lewdness, but Art looks away in annoyance.
- Pip is by far the guiltiest, wearing his trademark sweater on the hottest day of summer; he cools down with frozen food taped around him
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!Art: [as the shower backs up and floods] Damnit, which one of you drain-clogging furballs was in here last?
- Living Crashpad: Art "landed
on something soft."
- Living Shadow: The Denizens
- Lock-and-Load Montage
- Logic Bomb: Destroys Wall E in the Director's Cut
- Look Behind You: It doesn't work
.
- MacGyvering: Scarlet and her "sisters" worked in R&D. Thus, they used to build all sorts of crazy stuff they invent as Think Tank. One request stated too vaguely
, one souvenir blaster, a handful of scavenged random parts — and Hilarity Ensues.
- Mad Scientist: Think Tank.Scarlet: Me and the girls can fix eet!
Art: D'you mean "fix" or "weaponise"? - Magic Skirt: Averted.
- Marshmallow Hell:
- Why the Author Avatar is a hamster.
- Also, look at that smug bastard Leonard here.
- Here
, as well, although he's much less pleased with the situation.
- Meat Puppet: OZBASIC does this briefly to convince Kat that the guards he's just gassed to death have become zombies in order to get her to flee the room so her friends don't find her. In the next strip, he is shown manipulating two dead scientists into having a pretend tea party, as a little girl would with dolls.
- Medium Awareness: Scarlet changes the comic to Widescreen.
- Merging Machine: In strip #1151, British Prime Minister Johnson announces contagion restrictions that include a ban on gatherings of more than two people. The four squirrel girls panic at the thought of being separated, so they create the "Huddle-On Collider" to fuse themselves into a single entity. The result of this daffy device is the multi-limbed abomination that pursues Kat through the basement tunnels in strip #1157.
- Merging Mistake: When responses to the COVID-19 pandemic forbid gatherings of four or more people, the squirrels are terrified at the prospect of being separated, and design a machine to merge them into a single entity. The resulting combination of four, fanservicing furry girls is... less appealing than one would expect
.
- Million Mook March: The Denizens.
- Now they all reside in the protagonists' basement.
- Mini-Mecha: 4mb3r pilots one starting here
.
- Mirror Reveal: When Art was passed out during holiday merriment, his two flatmates shaved his head in strip #122. A contrite Kat shows him the results in a mirror. Art is shocked at first, then displeased. Strangely, Art's huge eyebrows were left intact.
- Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: OZBASIC, as stated above, is an homage to GlaDOS and is to Kat what GlaDOS is to Chell.
- Mistaken for Pedophile: "He asked if I know what a floppy dick is."
- And the Candy Cane 2.0...
- Ms. Fanservice: "Quickly, Helga! To the web-cam!"
- Mundane Made Awesome: Salad
.
- Mundane Utility:
- Scarlet throwing up into the Denizens' wormhole.Pip: As a Far Trek fan, I have to say; I think that's a serious misuse of a worm-hole.
- Pip uses a TIE Interceptor to go grocery shopping.
- The Denizens using a short-range raygun to cook popcorn
.
- Scarlet throwing up into the Denizens' wormhole.
- My God, You Are Serious!: When Pip and Hilary were working in a retail store, Hilary tells Pip to separate the summerwear and winterwear. He tells her he can't tell the difference, prompting Hilary to angrily ask if he seriously can't tell apart winter clothes from summer clothes. Pip simply gestures to his normal attire of pants and turtleneck sweater, which he wears everyday. Hilary Facepalms, realizing he's serious.
- Nemesis as Customer: Achieved by proxy when Alpha Bitch Hilary Locke visits ad studio Wiquid for a women's wear campaign. Once she discovers that Art works there, Hilary immediately goes into jerkass mode. It's not because she bears Art ill will; instead, she's aiming for her nemesis, Kat Vance, with whom Art shares a flat.
- Nerd Glasses: Pip wears a pair of goggles.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Demon-summoning zombie pirate Ezekiel Pretz.
- Nobody Poops: Discussed
in regards to My Little Pony.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Mr. Funk Cho
note , Jimmy Dapp, Sean Connolly.
- Noodle Incident: "Do you think anyone will find her out here?"
- Looks like we'll be getting more detail soon
- see Brick Joke.
- And as one ends, another begins
.
- And as one ends, another begins
- What did Art do with his hand?
- Looks like we'll be getting more detail soon
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: Kat stands up for herself against her old teacher Mrs Strinpit after the woman tries treating her as she did when she was a little girl The shock of someone standing up to her kills the woman.
- Not So Above It All: Hilary always acts like the perfect, dominating businesswoman. Well, almost always:Hilary (peering into the thrift store's bargain toy bin): Is that a 'Pink Pony' lunchbox?!
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: In his initial appearances, Jack was a complete joke of a villain. Then he almost nukes the world. Yikes.
- Not-So-Innocent Whistle: Scarlet
whistles after she accidentally gives Jack the technology for a powerful ray gun.
- Number of the Beast: Lampshaded
, or something, by the Author Avatar himself in the 666th strip. It even has a ZALGO reference.
- Oblivious to Love: Art and Kat to each other. Even being pincushioned with Cupid's arrows leaves no reaction.
- Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Art and Pip in Comic 1204
, where they both make a Double Entendre about breasts and legs, with the final panel showing a confused kid who doesn't get the joke, and their mother phoning the "internet police", clearly to complain about the joke.
- Oddly Visible Eyebrows: Art's eyebrows can be seen through his mage bandanna in
these
strips.
Yet he feels Narm when he sees Sylar on TV...
- Lampshaded
by the artist.
- Lampshaded
- Oh, Crap!: Jack gets a spectacular one at the end of his story arc.
- Kat after her and Vanity's ordeal with the Eldritch Horrors, when she realized that through it all, she forgot to take pictures of the whole thing.
- Pip when Kat showed him that Hilary had been lying to him the whole time and never cared about him in the slightest.
- Art says this verbatim during the Quinten story arc when he realizes that OZBASIC is trying to up-link to Jack's Kill Sat.
- Only Sane Man: Art.
- Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?: Art and Kat trapped in a closet. BROOM HANDLE!
And in the next comic: "Well, then stop rubbing your arse against me!"
- Our Dragons Are Different: Ms. B transforms Hilary into a dragon mount. To combat them Liam transforms Kat into a dragon as well.
- Parental Substitute: Kat and Art could very well be this to the Think Tank. Also, Pip plays the part of being the resident Aloof Big Brother with a side of Jerkass.
- Percussive Maintenance: Done to Scarlet in one of the Christmas lead up pages Jingle Bells indeed
- Perpetual Expression: Pip's face rarely changes thanks to his Opaque Lenses and unnoticeably small mouth. That definitely doesn't mean he doesn't emote.
- Perky Goth: Vanity Thorn, an old friend of Kat's. It's the coffee. "From introvert to extrovert in one cup!"
- Petty Childhood Grudge: The reason Hilary hates Kat and seeks to bully and demean her at every opportunity, is that Kat too had a Pink Pony lunchbox as a child
.
- Pimped-Out Car: Art's scooter thanks to Scarlet. Seen here
.
- Pity Sex: Hilary's fall culminates in no less. With the worst person possible, naturally.
But it all turns out to be false.
- Porn Stash:Art: Have you been using my laptop again?
Kat: I like the way that folder is marked "reference material". - Powered Armor:
- Scarlet and her sisters make a suit in this strip
to fight a giant bug. Or rather were intending to make a Humongous Mecha, made a scaling error, then liked it and made more "Soopa Soots".
- ...but later built one
Mini-Mecha anyway — as a carrier
for them. Aerospace carrier.
- Scarlet and her sisters make a suit in this strip
- Power Glows: "Why do these mystical tomes have to be so bright?!"
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: "Technical difficulties will continue."
And then subverted, as no asskicking occurs, with the foes being too shaken by this display of badassery.
- Pre-Explosion Glow: BOOM!
- The above link is also an example of Explosive Instrumentation.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: She. Is. Bad. For. You.
- Puppy-Dog Eyes:
- Despite being a cat girl, Kat does this pretty well.
- The giant ladybug
is good at it too.
- Despite being a cat girl, Kat does this pretty well.
- Pure Is Not Good: The personification of Hilary's happiness loves everything due to its nature as a being of pure happiness. Art proves that it is an always-cheerful sociopath by asking if it likes to set fires and it replies that fire is awesome.
- Press X to Not Die: Pip ''really'' dislikes the trope
, considering it to be lazy game design.
- Rapid Hair Growth: Art was shaved bald as an Easter prank. He pours a bottle of hair restorer on his dome in strip #132 and waits. No further hair appears on his head, but he does almost instantly push out a Russian czar beard. Next, in strip #133, Scarlet the squirrel-girl lost all her head fur to bubblegum. She drinks Art's bottle of hair restorer. The result is she gets her head fur back, plus triples her body fur.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: After the faux Narnia arc and the destruction of Hilary's house, she ends up living with Art and Kat with the plan of having the denizens rebuild.... Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened and suddenly Hilary is cooped up with the gang much longer than anyone anticipated, much to Kat's dismay.
- Revenge by Proxy: Hilary.
- Revenge Porn Blackmail: Hillary Locke visits Art's workplace as a client, seeking an ad campaign for ladies' lingerie. When she discovers that Art is flatmates with Kat Vance, Hillary goes maximum bitchy, poo-pooing every proposal Art submits. Fortunately, Pip recognizes Hillary's name, and discovers her I Was Young and Needed the Money income: posing for lurid stag mags, which have made their way onto the internet. A Downplayed Trope, as Art merely seeks to have Hillary behave like a normal client to keep her lurid past secret, though Kat wants her to wear her panties on her head all day.
- Right in Front of Me: Pip ends up insulting what he thinks is Hilary's dragon mount, in reality, Ms. B turned her into a dragon.
- Sadist Teacher: Ms. Strinpit - possibly only towards Kat and the kids in her last school, judging by how she gave Hilary the easiest questions while giving Kat detention for answering questions right while telling her she was wrong (Then giving her even more detention for using a calculator to prove she was right). More like Evil Teacher, really.
- Sarcasm-Blind: Do not suggest
to the Think Tank that they build something dangerous, even as a joke.
- Sarcastic Clapping: Once Art and Pop have purged the stupid drugs out of chicken guy and he frantically announces that the aliens are controlling them Pip retorts with this while Art just stands with an expression that screams "Gee, no shit."
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Yoink!
- Say It with Hearts: Think Tank finally notices the Flying Trashcans:Squirrel Girls: ♥ ♥ Field test! ♥ ♥
- Scenery Censor: Scarlet originally ran around the house naked. Kat eventually got her a jumper. Her sisters wear shirts from their old science lab. They're still one awkward pose away from falling out of them.
- Scooby Stack: The squirrel girls express their fear of open spaces by hugging a doorway in a Stack.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Art, as Kat finds out while watching a slasher with him and Pip.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Art's arguably justified reaction to learning that James Cameron is actually a merman at war with ugly but affable reality-show-hosting aliens over 'retardium', a precious energy source derived from human brains when they're... idling.
- Sequential Artist: Considering the title, it's not a surprise that this is Art's occupation.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
- Employed by Pip at one point to trick Scarlet into going through with one of his crazy schemes.
- He does it again, this time to sell "an exquisite example of early-nineties cult decoration" — which is a singing electric sunflower.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Vanity mistakes Art and Kat for couple. Kat says Art is just a friend. Sure...
- Newer material reinforces that they might be more than friends.
- Shipper on Deck: Vanity for Art and Kat.
- Ship Tease: Sequential Art doesn't do it nearly as much as other webcomics but every so often the readers will be teased with a little moment between Art and Kat. Some of them are about as subtle as a brick to the head. From anonymous Valentine's Day cards
to finding the perfect mattress
.
- Anchored Ship: On the other hand, as we can see
, it's not going anywhere any time soon.
- Anchored Ship: On the other hand, as we can see
- Shout-Out: References turn up from time to time. Usually ranging from Charlie Brown and Dilbert and Wally watching an orbital cannon
demolish a building with the Pv P logo and vaporize Gabe.
- And note the village sign in this
strip.
- The lab the squirrels are originally from, along with the AI that controls the whole thing, bear an uncanny resemblance to Portal.
- During a photo shoot
, Kat and Vanity stay at the Overlook Hotel.
- "Tomb"?
- Combination Star Trek: The Next Generation and 1984 in this strip
.
- And then there was Minecraft
.
- The Martian Invasion story arc has one to
Doctor Who. The Eldak are basically expies of the Daleks, their very name is an anagram of the infamous pepper-pots and they use the Dalek's Catchphrase, "Exterminate!". Then another
to Star Wars when Pip finds some TIE Interceptors to play with
. And it starts off with one to The War of the Worlds (1898) when the aliens land on Horsell Common
.
- The Subliminal Messaging Pip encounters while Christmas shopping
includes a directive to kill the phonies.
- Pip the penguin apparently has an Uncle Feathers
who was a career criminal. Sure enough, his last name turns out to be McGraw.
- The storyline
about DeCerto manor and immortal pirate.
- The investigation crew includes guys named Pete, Ray, Winston and Egg.
- Speaking of that trio who ain't afraid of no ghosts, the squirrel-girls have made a proton pack
.
- Skull serves as a Random Encounter in Realm of Lorecraft.
- It may just be Art Evolution (no pun intended) but Art's eyebrows get larger and squarer after awhile...
- On page 142
, a Dalek can be found at the bottom of the fourth panel.
- And on page 808
, the characters inadvertently send a bolt of lightning back in time to Hill Valley, CA on November 12, 1955.
- Comic 831 appears to start a story arc in vein of They Live!.
- A subtle one in comic 834: the website address is a reference to Hudson's "ultimate badass" speech in Aliens, and who's on the webcam? James Cameron wearing the armor from said film.
- Art, Kat, and Pip are forced to participate
in an Expy of
Big Brother, which appropriately enough is shot in the Hotel Orwell.
- 896
begins a story that's a pastiche of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
- Mr. Jackson gives his malfunctioning computer
a damn good thrashing.
- A Fallout 4 parody runs from 941
until 980.
- And within that:
"The maniacs. They blew it up."
- And Pip encounters a woman with three breasts.
- Pip gives the Brotherhood of Squeal the door code to Vault 111: One two three four five.
- And within that:
- 988
& 989
introduce next-door neighbors, Gender Flip parodies of Roger & Jessica Rabbit. Jessica resembles a stereotypical male biker.
- In 1157
, the squirrels transform themselves into an unholy amalgamate that bears a suspicious resemblance to the Huddle and the device they created to merge themselves is called the Huddle-On Collider.
- The Neutrino Wand
used to split them up again is clearly based off of a proton pack.
- The Neutrino Wand
- The story beginning with 741
has the same set-up as "Button, Button", the short story that became the film The Box.
- And note the village sign in this
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Pip and Hilary, of all people.Kat: (seeing the two kiss) *urp*... Oh God... For the love of all that is good and holy, don't do that again.
- Side-Story Bonus Art: The gallery
on DeviantArt — enjoy
fanservice, trolling, trollservice...
- Significant Anagram: Eldak —> Dalek
- Skinny Dipping: Scarlet does this
after escaping the lab pf her captors because she wanted to catch fish. It gets her washed upstream
.
- Similar Item Confusion: Strip #130 has Kat ask Pip to retrieve shears, so as to cut away bubblegum from Scarlet's fur. Pip brings large hedge clippers, at which Kat scolds, "Barber not gardening, you little cretin." Poor Scarlet nearly panics.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: After around 600 comics of basically hating each other...
Turns out to be
All Just a Dream. Kat was Squicked afterwards.
- Sleep Cute: After being bored to sleep by the Metrix Trilogy, Kat falls asleep onto Art's shoulder. And keeps falling
.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Crazy Sven, the cab driver who brought Art home from an also-crazy village in the earliest days of the strip, is also notable for introducing Jack to the story by giving him to the heroes.
- Smooch of Victory: Art saves Kat from the Denizens. She rewards him, but the conditions weren't quite ideal
.
- Snowball Fight
- Speak in Unison: What the Think Tank do whenever they synchronize.
- Speak of the Devil: Pip at least believes this is the case.
- Speech-Bubbles Interruption: Scarlet does this when Pip discovers her for the first time.
- Spit Take: This guy
when he sees that James Cameron is a mermaid, with a seashell bra and everything.
- Speaks in Binary: When Scarlet and her sisters reuniteas the Think Tank
, this is what they do.
- Spooky Silent Library: Under the House.
- Squee: Kat's reaction to her first Royalty Check.
- Squirrelly Ears Lawyer: Scarlet and her sisters.
- Starfish Language: Unsurprisingly, the four Eldritch Abominations speak in Black Scribbles
.
- Stealth Insult: Inverted
when Art gives Kat a Stealth Compliment.
- "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In-universe — Art gets very annoyed
Kat's having fun with her new Wintendo system. He gets over it. We think.
- Straw Fan: Both in the comic and in the various Author Tract images and journals the writer posts. Usually stuffed with sawdust made from ugly sticks just so you don't miss who's supposed to be wrong.
- Well, to be fair, he admits he has the same sort of weaknesses
.
- Well, to be fair, he admits he has the same sort of weaknesses
- Straw Feminist: Art and Pip stick a set of rubber breasts onto Vanessa, Rebecca's favourite dressmakers dummy, and send her a postcard saying it "got them for its new man" in what a few students realize is clearly a prank. One female student immediately takes this to its illogical conclusion that it's an example of misogynistic ideology and starts a protest demanding the ones who sent the postcards to be expelled, leading to a full blown riot that destroys parts of the campus.
- Stripperiffic: Lampshaded by Kat.
- If Scarlet is anything to go by
then the squirrel sisters go around wearing nothing but their t-shirts and panties.
- Art also has an Imagine Spot of such outfit that pretty much consists of The Thong of Shielding in this strip.
- Kat ends up doing the exact same thing, unfortunately for her it doesn't quite translate when she tries to put it down on paper.
- If Scarlet is anything to go by
- Stuff Blowing Up: Most of the Think Tank's inventions lead to this.
- Stunned Silence: VERY awkward moment here...
- Stupidity-Inducing Attack: It was what is keeping all the cast members of the reality TV show the three protagonists were thrown into from leaving. It turned out the aliens had injected something into the water that makes the victims stupid then discredit them on national TV as the victims are people who have found them out and could potentially blow their cover. Unfortunately for Art and Pip, Kat also falls victim to this....
- Subliminal Seduction: Played with here
. Technically, this isn't subliminal.
- Super-Deformed: In Scarlet's imagination, anyway.
- Supervillain Lair: Again, Under the House in the form of an Elaborate Underground Base.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After Kat is turned into a Dragon with her mind left unchanged, she finds she is unable to walk, as a normally bipedal creature can't just adapt to quadrupedal movement in an instant. The other Dragon, Hilary however 'has' had their mind changed to be more animal like, and has no problem moving on four legs. When Kat tries to breathe fire in her dragon form she has no idea how to.
- Swallowed Whole: Scarlet and a couple trick-or-treaters got eaten by a giant bug, she used her suit's air tank to blow it up
.
- Take That!:
- Uwe Boll is ragged on in at least two comics; see below.
- Nightlight gets one as well, when Pip is disgusted with how the movie got Scarlet and her sisters to think that all vampires are hot, sparkly, and nonthreatening. He promptly treats them to Oldman's version of Dracula.
- Of course aside from a story arc in vein of They Live!, this
.
- The newsreel title for Boris Johnson reads: "Dropped Trifle."
- One about the many Disney remakes:Pip: It was made by the mockbuster studio "The Asylum". I lump all their films together.
Hilary: "Mock-Buster"?
Pip: A film created to exploit the publicity of another major movie with a similar title or subject.
Hilary: oh.
[beat panel]
Hilary: Are Disney now in the mockbuster business?
Pip: Actually... now that you mention it...
- Teacher's Unfavorite Student: When Kat Vance takes an assignment to photograph students at Devlin Academy, she learns that the headmistress there is Miss Strinpit in strip #238. In strip #242, Kat spells out to her boss just how miserable Strinpit made her junior years. Strinpit is still a blocky, humorless witch when Wentworth and Vance arrive for the shoot.
- Team Pet: Leonard
- Tear-Apart Tug-of-War: Kat Vance and Hilary Locke get into a fight over a nice tank top, beginning in strip #113. A tug-o'-war concludes the drama by strip #117, resulting in the garment being ripped in two. Suddenly, neither female wants it, especially when a store security man insists upon payment.
- Tears of Remorse
- Tender Tears
- That Came Out Wrong: On every level imaginable here.
- There Are No Girls on the Internet: Art convinced Pip
the girl he meets on "Realm of Lorecraft" is really a guy. Turns out she actually is a girl — and for extra fun, is every bit as bimbo-tastic as her character's design.
- This Explains So Much: Art's reaction when Pip reveals his uncle, who he admired and wanted to go into the same line of work, was a career criminal.
- This Is Unforgivable!Pip: They made Scarlet cry. They. Must. Pay.
- Throwing Your Gun Always Works: Well, it was a fake gun to begin with.
- Token Human: Art, though other humans do show up in small roles.
- Transplant: Kat and Vanity were characters from a superhero comic Jackson had done years prior.
- Unpleasable Fanbase: In-Universe example, poor poor Art.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Whenever Art and Kat are together they're either Like an Old Married Couple or Ship Tease happens. Everyone Can See It, even the squirrelgirls.
- Lampshaded painfully here.
- Lampshaded painfully here.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: In the aforementioned Dream Sequence, Hilary
convinces a guy that Kat is really a post-op named Kevin.
The guy, who was interested in Kat, squicks hard. Hilary is doing that just to ruin Kat's evening.
- Unsound Effect: Hat!
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Pip, he once sold Scarlet on Ebuy just because he didn't want "negative feedback".
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Scarlet takes the fact that the Denizens have a trans-dimensional wardrobe remarkably well.
- Later Art and Pip exit the very same trans-dimensional wardrobe where the sight of Kat and Hilary completely nude, fighting over a curtain for modesty's sake, and screaming insults at one another only invokes mild indifference.Art: Huh.
Pip: At least they're not breathing fire.
- Later Art and Pip exit the very same trans-dimensional wardrobe where the sight of Kat and Hilary completely nude, fighting over a curtain for modesty's sake, and screaming insults at one another only invokes mild indifference.
- Unwanted Assistance:
- The squirrels all like to "improve" things the cast uses around the house. We'll start with the black-hole lawnmower as an example. See also Stuff Blowing Up above on Kat's reaction to their mad science.
- When the squirrels develop battle-suits, they end up using the headgear's simple viewing-system to overcome their agoraphobia. The HUD analyze nearby objects and provides a threat level and primary cause of threat. So we see things like Kat: 10% (Claws) or Denizen: 50% (Legion) or Scarlet: 2% (Ally).
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Neither Art nor Pip had the slightest idea that slapping obviously fake breasts on a dummy as a joke could lead to mass riots.
- Victoria's Secret Compartment: Helga
- In case you were wondering exactly why PMJ's Author Avatar is a hamster...
- Villainous Breakdown: When the Eldak's best attack simply reverts Art back to his normal, slim self, they instantly believe that he's invincible and panic.
- Villainous Legacy: The first two major arcs have an intriguing example of a recursive legacy. OZBASIC in the final stages of its gambit hacks Jack's leftover Kill Sat and intends to use it. Except that same Kill Sat comes from designs Jack got from Scarlet's handiwork, which means that OZBASIC was hacking into a derivative of Quinten technology.
- Walking Techbane: Art, and any other artists
. At least until getting the chip. This became the focal point for on entire story arc... complete with a Dalek expy race out to kill him because of it.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Scarlet's sisters were brainwashed into having a crippling phobia of the outdoors to prevent them from ever running away like Scarlet did. Of course, this being Think Tank, the limitation was eventually circumvented by tinkering up opaque visors that show everything without depth perception.
- Weirdness Magnet: Lampshaded when the cast are inadvertently drawn into a plot involving alien infiltrators.
- Wetware CPU: Amber, Jade, Violet, and Scarlet formed a four-part organic supercomputer at Quinten R&D.
- Wham Episode: For Pip
, anyway. Holy crap.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:OZBASIC: You have served your purpose. Prepare
for deathly laser death time..... WITH LASERS!
- Your Head A-Splode: Here.
And here
- Your Vampires Suck: "Oh hell no! I will NOT have one of cinema's greatest monsters belittled by hair-product-obsessed pretty boys. Not while my movie selection still stands! Oldman! You are needed!
"
- Yuri Fan: Pip once tried to trick Kat and Scarlet into kissing under the mistletoe to catch on camera.