Webcomic / Zoophobia

Welcome home. ^note  From bottom centre clockwise: Cameron, Zechariah, Spam, Vanex, Kayla, Jack, Damian, Fabian, Jackie, Carrie, Zill, Cierra, Venganza, KayCee, Styx, Camilla, Tom and Rusty.

Zoophobia is a fantasy/humour webcomic by Vivienne "Vivziepop" Medrano (later of Hazbin Hotel fame) about a neurotic young woman named Cameron who, when desperate for a job, winds up being unexpectedly thrust into Safe Haven, a fantastic world full of incredible beasts, unimaginable beings and zany characters. She receives a job as a guidance counselor at the Zoo-Phoenix Academy, where she faces head-on with a colorful cast of talking animals and strange creatures. Unfortunately, Cameron has quite the terrible case of zoophobia and is ultimately terrified by the very students and staff she must work with.

Now has a character page!

The comic is currently on an indefinite hiatus, with an animated series of shorts being uploaded to Vivziepop's YouTube channel. The first short, the musical "Bad Luck Jack", was uploaded on September 30, 2020.

Note: Links may not work due to a site revamp.

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This comic provides examples of:

• Aerith and Bob: There are characters named Vanexa, Zechariah, Venganza and Afkinz, then there are those called Jack, Tom and Nathan.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife/Amazing Technicolor Population: The characters that are standard, garden-variety humans and talking animals have perfectly ordinary coloration. There aren't many characters in this comic that fit that description.
• Ambiguously Brown: Just what ethnicity are Mirage, Phineas and Camilla?
  • Actually, Word of God is that Camilla is Hispanic.
• Anti Anti Christ: Damian, quite literally. He's the son of Satan himself, but prefers to hang out with his friends on the surface world. At first he does so against his father's wishes, but after telling his parents how much he hates living in Hell, Satan agrees to allow him to continue visiting the surface.
• Animal Eyes
• Animals Not to Scale: Some animals, such as Fabian, Zechariah, and Jackie in bird form, are enormous compared to how their species would look in real life. Cameron at one point outright refers to the animals as "oversized."
• Art Evolution:The site relaunch on July 29th, 2013 that followed a months-long hiatus brought with it new and improved artwork, with backgrounds featuring far more details, shading and colouring becoming more intense and attractive, and an overall cleaner look.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Subverted with Adina.
  • And averted with a lot of the villains.
• Beauty Is Bad: Phineas and Castello.
  • Word of God is that the latter is "one of the meanest male characters in the entire story".
• Big Bad: Numerous ones.
• Cartoony Eyes
• Cast of Snowflakes: Unsurprisingly, they started out as just a bunch of characters the artist drew before deciding to make a comic about them.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Reconciling with your girlfriend while your teacher fights the deranged vampire that just chomped on your neck not even a second ago several feet away isn't the best idea.
  Zill: No! I'm sorry for everything! Forgetting our anni-
  Kayla: Zill, you're seriously still thinking about that with what is currently happening?
• A Chat with Satan: Major Styx has one of these; to be expected however since Satan is his boss.
• Cool Plane: Snake’s plane.
• Cute Little Fangs: An abundant trait amongst both human-like and creature characters.
• Cute Monster Girl: Nearly every single monster girl.
  • And there are some cute monster guys as well.
• Dark Is Not Evil: A majority of the Hell residents, even Lucifer himself.
• Distracted by the Sexy: The general reaction to Tentadora's arrival at the school.
• Dramatic Thunder: During Cameron's interview, a bolt of lightning strikes outside the window as the interviewer stoically looks for a position for Cameron. It's one of the first hints that something about the interview isn't quite right.

• Extreme Omnisexual: Word of God states that the demon Angel will go after anything that moves.
• Faint in Shock: Cameron faints very soon after arriving in Safe Haven. Admittedly, leaning back to find that you are being loomed over by a giant cheetah in the previous frame could be traumatic. Luckily, Zech means her no harm.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: In the world of Zoophobia, we have shapeshifters, vampires, werewolves, sirens, menaces (related to sirens, but more aggressive), angels, demons, banshees, reapers, nature spirits, unicorns, dragons and many, many more species all existing together.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Some avians consider themselves superior to other species, especially when it comes to performing arts.
  • Leeson freaks out when he realizes Damian is a demon. The use of the trope is justified for two reasons. 1) He was a fundamentalist Christian. 2) Demons are not allowed in the area.
• Feather Fingers: Averts this. Any creature who can't pick up/hold things in their natural form has a human form.
• Fish People: The Aquians.
• Forgotten Anniversary: The second story arc "The Anniversary/The Talent Show" revolves around Zill and Kayla's.

• Glowing Eyes: Mostly done for dramatic effect, or to indicate power but some characters have them constantly.
• Happily Married: Alanzo and Jackie.
• Hellish Horse: Say hello to Brutis.
• Hellish Pupils: KayCee and many others.
• Heroic BSoD: Cameron experiences these often, notably here and here.
• High School: The story revolves around the students and staff of the Zoo-Phoenix Academy.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Despite her outwardly tough and promiscuous demeanour, Camilla is just a misunderstood girl with a bad reputation.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Non-romantic variation, Cameron seems to be at her least fearful (though that's not saying much) when around Zechariah and Jackie. At least until she finds out that Jackie is actually a giant shapeshifting bird rather than a human. And who says it's not romantic with Zech?
• If Jesus, Then Aliens: Subverted.
  Zech: "Aliens do not exist, Miss Cameron."
• Dream Reality Check: After ending up in Chastopher's office and running into Zech again, Cameron convinces herself that she is merely dreaming, and tries to pull this by yelling at herself to wake up. It doesn't work out.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Set up and paid off in a single page. Given everything that's happened to Cameron so far, the fact that this pushes her over the edge is telling.
• Interspecies Romance: Most of the romances in the series are this.
  • Kayla is a kangaroo, Zill is a demon-chimera mix.
  • Alanzo and Jackie are both macaws, but different species.
  • Jack's description states that he's a "jackal-mutt", which would suggest that his cousin is a "jackal-devil".
  • Fabian tries flirting with Cameron, among others.
• Jerkass Realization: As the title would suggest, Cameron has an enormous fear of animals and when she isn't frozen from fear, she tends to blindly attack anyone around her. This leads her to have to apologize to the mailman daily for constantly swatting him with a baseball bat or some other weapon. She admits that she needs to work on this.
• Light Is Not Good: Adina, a Knight Templar angel who believes that all sinful beings need to be purged from the world, (namely Damian).
• Magical Land: Safe Haven is inhabited by various magical beings.
• Marshmallow Hell: Damien finds Tentadora's hugs embarassing. "That woman raised me!"
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Chastopher, the school nurse, whose introduction has him preparing to examine Cameron with a screwdriver, because his stuffed unicorn told him she needed a checkup.
• Morphic Resonance: Shapeshifters all have hair and eyes matching the fur/feather/scale pattern of the animal they transform into.
• Mr. Exposition: Jack while explaining his curse and telling his entire backstory to Cameron, and this as-of-yet unnamed staff member's Info Dump, also to Cameron.
• Noodle People: And not just people.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Addison is unfazed by Tentadora's attractiveness, which is only natural being that he's gay. Damian as well for the obvious reason being that she's his nanny.
• Official Couple: Zill and Kayla are the token couple.
  • As are Jackie and Alonzo, who are Happily Married.
• Oh, Crap!: Happens to Zill after Sahara reminds him of his and Kayla's anniversary.
• Orwellian Retcon: Gunther and Afkinz were two character that Vivienne purchased from another artist. However, a copyright dispute led Vivienne led her to replace them with expies in the form of Gustav and Mackenzie. In addition, there was originally a nine-page story called "the Dream". However, Vivienne removed it because she felt it was too weak of an introduction the characters involved.
• Our Demons Are Different: A good percentage of Hell's inhabitants are very benign, hospitable, and even silly.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Animals can become vampires and being bitten alone doesn't cause one to turn. Requiring an elaborate and drawn out ceremony instead.
• Prehensile Tail: A majority of the quadrupedal characters possess these, even if they are species that don't naturally have them in real life. Examples seen so far include Zechariah, Fabian and Simon, despite being a cheetah, fox and coyote/vampire hybrid respectively.
• Pyromaniac: Apparently Damian tricked his cousin Jack into dating one. It ended with her setting him on fire.
• Quirky Doctor: Keiko and her nurse Chastopher of Zoo Phoenix Academy. First is a Dark Is Not Evil and Creepy Good Keiko who is a Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant with her stereotypical moments who is a Sheep in Sheep's Clothing while Chastopher is an Ax-Crazy Cloudcuckoolander human nurse - former dentist who became insane and killed his wife after she cheated on him and is obsessed with his plushie unicorn named Willis. Despite all this, they're competent in their jobs.
• Quirky Town: By virtue of being a setting full of quirky characters, Safe Haven is this.
• Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: Kayla refused to speak to Zill after he forgot their anniversary. One vampire attack later and they've made up.
• Right Behind Me: When Cameron runs away from the world's residents and stops right at the edge of a cliff, Zech walks up behind her, causing her to faint.
• Scary Flashlight Face: Damian does this to Cameron: "I'M THE ANTI-CHRIST!"
• Scenery Porn: Here and here.
• The Scream: Cameron does this quite often.
• Security Cling: Damian jumps into Tentadora's arms when his father makes an entrance.
  • Cameron also clings to Jackie when Sahara's magic explodes during her talent show audition.
• Shapeshifting: KayCee and Jillian. ^note What separates these two is that the forms they are able to take are unlimited, while the animal shapeshifters have only one other form.
  • Many, many characters are animal shapeshifters. So far, there have been avians (birds), serpentines (snakes), aquaians (fish and sea creatures) and deer spirits.
    • Vivienne states that only characters whose animal forms are limited (such as being unable to hold something due to having hooves or wings instead of paws/hands) have a human form to help them fit in society.
• Shout-Out: Damien is clearly a reference to The Omen. More specifically, both works feature a Antichrist character named Damien, who is the son of Satan and a jackal
• Sleeping Dummy: How Damien skips out on his tutoring to go to school. Not only does the tutor never suspect a thing, he believes he hears Damien answer his questions.
• Snake People: Latika is a naga, and also the 'Serpentines' (snake/human shapshifters).
• Speak of the Devil: Happens to Styx when he's scolding Bob and Larry for all the recent unruly demon activity.
• Speech Bubbles: All the characters have different colored word balloons, for example, Zill's bubbles are green, Jack's are light brown, Damian's are black and red, and Kayla's are powder blue. Cameron is the only character whose bubbles are the typical white and black bubbles.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Zech does this to Cameron here and here.
• Stealth Pun: Snake is a plane pilot.
• Stuffed into a Locker: Done to Jack by Damian after a confrontation. After that, Damian walks away telling him "It's only a week Jack! Hang tight."
• Succubi and Incubi: Tom and Tam are an incubus and a succubus, respectively.

• Those Two Guys: The twins Lenny and Vinny (aka Leo and Vince)

• Volumetric Mouth: Such as Cameron's scream(s).
• Wacky Homeroom: The drama and film classes.

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