Line #27 ComicStrip/PreTeena


1	[[quoteright:328:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/product_thumbnail_6034.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:328: Teena (centre). clockwise from top: Tess (mom), Stick (BFF), Gordo (friend), Hugh (dad) and Jeri (sister).]]
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5	Allison Barrows' SliceOfLife account of the Keene family of New England. Hugh and Tess Keene are freelance artists with two daughters. The family dynamic is most often viewed through the eyes of eleven year old Teena (the [[http://www.gocomics.com/preteena PreTeena]] of the title), although the other principal characters are allowed their points of view. A newspaper comic strip about parenting, growing up, and family dynamics.
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7	This comic strip was first syndicated on newspapers starting from April 23, 2001, and ended its run at May 18, 2008, ending with a little over seven years of material, including reruns. The artist's reasoning for ending the run at that time was to attend to the needs of her son and daughter, who were at that time entering high school and college respectively.
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9	The archive of this comic strip can be found [[http://www.gocomics.com/preteena here]].
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12	!!This newspaper comic strip contains examples of:
13	* AlphaBitch: Jeri really wants to be one and gets most of the way there, as is seen in her dismissive treatment of Stick. But she is let down by a well-concealed streak of basic human decency that surfaces at the most inconvenient moments.
14	* AuthorAvatar: Compare the way Tess Keene is drawn to pictures of [[http://archives.starbulletin.com/2005/06/19/features/story2.html Allison Barrows]]. There is a definite similarity. Allison is also a mother of two children based in New England. Tess is a professional artist... and Allison's town of residence is ''Keene'', New Hampshire.
15	* BilingualBonus: Stick and her family sometimes use a little Yiddish. One of Teena's grandmothers is Lithuanian. It is revealed that Teena and Jeri both speak a little Lithuanian from her.
16	* BlackBeadEyes: Most of the characters, most of the time. Only the key character in the foreground usually has fully realised eyes.
17	* BlackAndNerdy: Gordo's friend, Goose, which is short for Augustus.
18	* BoyfriendBlockingDad: Hugh Keene, who finds any sign of his daughters being interested in boys is hard to deal with.
19	* BrainlessBeauty: Jeri, and her friends Kim and Tracey, who form a sort of AlphaBitch posse at their school akin to the Film/{{Heathers}} or the Fashion Club in ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}''.
20	* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Jeri. Although in one story arc, Teena and Jeri's grandmother reveals that Tess Keene was one too, as a teenager.
21	* BumblingDad: Hugh Keene, a man often out of his depth when dealing with his daughters.
22	* TheDitz: Jeri Keene, who for instance expressed perplexity as to whether she or her sister had been named after a female relative called Geraldine.
23	* DeadpanSnarker: Teena Keene, often when commenting on her sister's idiocy or her parents not quite getting it right.
24	* DrugsAreBad: The story arc where Jeri's friends Kim and Tracey are caught smoking behind the football field scoreboard.
25	* {{Expy}}: Johnson Pinecone looks and acts quite a bit like [[VideoGame/MonkeyIsland Guybrush Threepwood]].[[note]]Specifically his appearance in VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland (1997)[[/note]]
26	** Teena herself shares a lot, in terms of looks and outlook on life, with Peppermint Patty in ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''. To LampShade this, both the [=McBride=] twins from next door, whose RunningGag is to mistake Teena for a boy, have the same look and hairstyle as Marcie. [[note]]Patty's best friend in ''Peanuts'', who always calls her "sir"[[/note]]
27	** Teena's homeroom teacher, Mrs Jane Freeman, is drawn to look like Literature/{{Matilda}}'s kindly and loving Miss Honey. [[note]]That is, as Miss Honey is portrayed in the line-drawings accompanying the original children's book by Creator/RoaldDahl, not the Miss Honey of the 1996 film version.[[/note]]. Although Mrs Freeman has a more hard-bitten ToughLove aspect to her teaching style, it's clear she has genuine regard for Teena and Stick that approaches a kind of love.
28	* FearOfThunder: Tess Keene manifests this fear. While her daughter and her friends would happily go out to play in a thunderstorm and will sit discussing the cool noise and light show, Tess hides under the kitchen table.
29	* ForbiddenFruit: Johnson Pinecone only becomes attractive to Jeri after he seemingly stops chasing her and starts - apparently - going out with the gorgeous Candy. [[OperationJealousy In reality]] this is holding out SchmuckBait to get Jeri chasing him.
30	* ForcedIntoTheirSundayBest; Teena and Jeri, whose parents ensure they are regular churchgoers. Teena does not like dressing girly; Jeri does not like dressing conservatively. One strip has the girls lamenting the fact other people can get away with dressing ''extremely'' casually for church.
31	* {{Gasshole}}: Stick's burping skills have been mentioned on occasion, and demonstrated once or twice.
32	* GrandFinale: In the final week of this comic, Teena had a dream on the future of the main cast, excluding her parents. [[spoiler:Stick becomes a model, Jeri becomes a best-selling author, Johnson becomes a movie star, Goose becomes an inventor of see-through glasses and got rich because of that, while Gordo grew up to marry his college sweetheart and had children, which happens to be Teena herself. According to Teena, that is the best part of the dream.]]
33	* HeartbreakAndIceCream: At a pool party, Tess Keene comforts daughter Jeri when Jeri sees the new girl in town looks far better in a swimming costume than she does - and is getting on very well with Jeri's would-be boyfriend Johnson. Tess cheerfully tells her daughter this is one of those things, and we all have to face it sometime. Then she looks round and sees Candy's ''mother'' looks good in a bikini. The scene cuts to Tess and Jeri sitting miserably at the poolside, wrapped in blankets and miserably sharing a very large tub of ice-cream.
34	* HippieParents: Tess and Hugh are professional artists who work from home, and Hugh especially has a streak of laid-back Hippie Dad about him.
35	* HopelessSuitor: Johnson Pinecone. Who despite being illustrated as the sort of alpha-male teen boy any teen girl would adore (and they do!) - depicted as intelligent, caring, gentle, very good-looking - ''still'' does not meet Jeri's impossibly high standards. She frequently rebuffs him, but it doesn't stop him trying.
36	* HormoneAddledTeenager: Jeri Keene, who is dealing with being fourteen and female.
37	* InformedJudaism: Teena's friend Sabra Klein (Stick) who is stated to be Jewish, observes festivals such as Hanukah and Pesach, but still loves a ham sandwich.
38	* InsaneTrollLogic; Stick. StrangeMindsThinkAlike applies when Teena follows her friend's train of thought to its illogical destination. Stick's unique thought processes place her squarely in CloudCuckoolander territory.
39	* ThePerfectionist: Jeri. Her boyfriend requirements set the bar impossibly high.
40	* PlayingSick: Teena tries this - once - to escape a school test she hasn't prepared for. Jeri does this sort of thing ''all the time'', but Teena's conscience gets the better of her.
41	* PreachersKid: Johnson Pinecone.
42	* RidiculouslyHighRelationshipStandards: Jeri Keene has such elevated ideas of her own worth that when the perfect potential boyfriend shows up (he's smart, good-looking and adores her), she still doesn't think he's good enough and scorns him.
43	* RomanticFalseLead: Candy, who happily pretends to be Pinecone's girlfriend so as to get a response from Jeri.
44	* SeriesContinuityError: Teena's homeroom teacher is first introduced as Mrs Scott. She abruptly becomes Mrs Freeman with no explanation. In addition, Jeri appeals to the authority of an unseen person called Mrs Freeman to stop Johnson Pinecone throwing things at her (paper aeroplanes, and later the threat of ballistic food in the school canteen). But Jeri and Johnson attend a high school; Teena is in the top class in elementary. Her Mrs. Freeman might have been a canteen supervisor and not a teacher?
45	* SiblingYinYang: Teena is good-hearted, cheery and {{tomboy}}ish. Jeri is cold-hearted, moody and [[GirlyGirl girly-girly]]. Teena also still wants to be a good student in school, while Jeri doesn't care about that stuff anymore.
46	* StalkerWithACrush: Johnson to Jeri, until he wises up. She misses him when he suddenly isn't there any more.
47	* SomeCallMeTim: It is revealed that the sisters Jeri and Teena Keene were actually christened Geraldine and Christina. [[TheDitz Jeri]], having just heard the names of her four great-grandmothers [[note]]Merle, Harriet, Christina and Geraldine[[/note]] and learning she and her sister were named after two of them, asks "Oh. So which ones were we named for?"
48	* SuddenNameChange: Mrs. Scott becoming Mrs. Freeman.
49	* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Teena is not that interested in her looks or clothes (she mostly wears a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans) and has a rather short haircut. And that is enough for the twins next door to keep mistaking her for a boy. Jeri on the other hand is a wannabe AlphaBitch with a more "girly" look (including a more feminine wardrobe, long hair, ear-rings and make-up).
50	* WomenAreWiser: Tess Keene's handling of her daughters. But sometimes this misfires.
51	* YiddishAsASecondLanguage: This is part of the Klein family's AmbiguouslyJewish status: the family, not just Stick, will often spontaneously use yiddish terms and expressions, as in this strip. '''[[http://www.gocomics.com/preteena/2007/11/09 here]].'''

Context ComicStrip / PreTeena