In Alacart life tastes good!
Dollicious ("Delisie" in the original Polish) is a comic book series created by the Polish artist Magdalena Kania alias Meago
and the writer Maciej Kur (duo also know for creating Emily Hush). The characters started around 2011 as a series of character designs by Meago, published on the internet that gained large online popularity (including cosplays) and later were published in a small artbook format. Later after Meago teamed up with Kur it became a comic web series for a while. In 2021 the series returned in comic book format, published in Canada, USA and some other countries, with plans for an animated series announced. There where plenty of merch released base on the comics including pillows, keychains, collecitve cards and a board game (released in Poland). It was also published in Polish magazine Relax.
The series takes place in City Alacart in the magical land of Delliland, where every food exists as a little girl called the Delipals. The main focus is a family of noodle-hair Pasta sisters, with main cook Ramen aspiring to become the land's greatest chef. The stories also follow some of Ramen's friends, including Cucamelon who runs a clothing boutique, Chocdip (Chocolate covered strawberry) who has a rock band and Tiramisu, a foodie who is obsessed with being original. It's slice of life mixed with wacky hijinks and cooking comedy.
A trailer for the first book can be found here.
This comic book provides examples of:
- Agent Mulder: Pumpkin. Not only she belives in every urban legend she hears, but she has ten extra conspiracy theories for each one to make it even more mysterious (or as she put it "spoooooky") She has entire internet show dedicated to exploring them.
- Animal Motifs: Gummi is obsessed with bears and loves anything that is bear-themed.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Major Ursa (Gummi's super-hero persona) is a bear theme super-heroine who only solves teddy-bear themed crimes.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: All characters are personifications of foods.
- Art Evolution: The original designs went from more traditional manga kawaii, to more realistic looking, to finally more cartoonish Bande dessinée influance style.
- Attention Whore: Tiramisu will go out of her way to get attention and at the same time put even more work to act like she dosent care about it.
- The Cameo: Ramen and Chocdip appeared on posters in Emilka Sza another comic created by Meago and Kur.
- Child Prodigy: Tagliatelle, one of Ramen's younger sisters, is a kid, yet is presented as a genius level mechanic, a inventor who can build things in a split second and works as the fix-it-woman of the Pasta Cafe.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Guarana, Bubble Gum, Gummi and Pumpkin. Tiramisu is a dead-pan example (She at points seam to be down right insane, she just acts serious about it).
- Cool Big Sis: Bow and Lasagne idolize Ramen for her cooking skills and she always take some time at the side to teach the two how to cook and improve their skills. She tries to be as fun as possible while doing this and she even read them recepies book to sleep.
- Pho also been shown to be spoiling her younger sisters and of the oldest three sisters (Spaghetti, Pho and Shelly) Bow and Lasagne seam to see her as "the fun one".
- Conspiracy Theorist: Pumpkin has an entire show dedicated to Deliland's urban mysteries. It starts with her showcasing her conspiracy wall (where she makes some peculiar connections, to say the least), and then the rest of the episode follows her as she takes on an odd case of a pig climbing a tree every day and delves into a series of over-the-top theories trying to explain it, ranging from aliens to doomsday prophecies.
- Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: How Pumpkin view the world, motivated by excitement that the world is "spooky cool".
- Cute Mute: Gnocchi.
- Declarative Finger: A habbit of Bay Leaf when she is lecturing, preaching or moralizing others.
- Dreadful Musician: Chocdip's band "The Wild Ones". No one can stand their loud music, and Ramen dreads the idea of having them play anywhere near her restaurant.
- Edible Theme Naming: Every single character is named after a food (pasta, fruit, dessert, weed etc.), as well as having their design based on it and including some of its traits in their personality or some other in-joke.
- Edible Theme Clothing: Pretty much every character has at least some element of the food she is representing.
- Family Business: The Pasta sisters run a restaurant.
- Fictional Currency: It's been established in second book that Delliland's currency is literaly named "Dough". (In Polish version the local currency is named "Sałata" (Salad) which is also a slang for money)
- Floating Continent: Heavenly Delight, the city of the Candy girls, is located on a island among the clouds and you can only get there by a special elevator.
- Food Porn: The art makes all the dishes Pasta Sisters cooks extra yummy. One story has Ramen make every dessert in the cook book to find something that will please the Picky Eater Tiramisu.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Pho (the carefree, prankster who like things done her way) plays this dynamic with Shelly and sometimes with Ramen or Spaghetti.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: At least in Polish translation Cucamelon calls Monstera by her full name "
Monstera Deliciosa Ceriman" when she tells her firmly they are going to the dentist. - Gadgeteer Genius: Tagliatelle who is able to build anything from a robot, to space rocket in few seconds.
- Genki Girl: Guarana is overly energetic, jolly, and crazy, often acting first and thinking later. It serves as a Genius Bonus as Guarana fruit has more caffeine then Coffey.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Spaghetti's anger fits are a running gag; most often, they happen when something can hurt her business, make her restaurant look bad, or lose a customer.
- Hidden Depths: Tiramisu showed this in one story where, after going bonkers with her obsession to prove she is original and bursting with anger at Gummi, she realize her mistake and is ready to put aside her comical quirks to apologize and have a moment of self-reflection that maybe she, in fact, has issues. Gummi, being a good friend, assures her she likes her the way she is because being herself is what makes her happy.
- Improbably Female Cast
- Kindly Vet: Thyme. She is a vet and one of nicest and most plesant characters.
- Lady Land: The land appears to be female only.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Ramen has seven sisters (four younger and three older).
- Level Ate: The whole of Delliland is like this.
- Master of Illusion: Birthday Cake works as a stage illusionist and is shown to be very good at it.
- Museum of the Strange and Unusual: Pumpkin the horror-geek runs a small museum full of odd and "potentialy strange" objects she found.
- Never Trust a Hair Tonic: With a twist: Bow and Lasagne accidentally add Ramen's hair tonic to tomato soup, but since Ramen's hair is made of noodles, it makes all the noodles in the soup grow into 'Jack and the Beanstalk' style beanstalk, all the way to the floating city of Heavenly Delight.
- Odd Name Out: Subverted in real life. While some fans were quick to point out that Monstera is a plant and not a food, the truth is that the Monstera plant has edible fruits, making Monstera fitting the naming theme of Fruitbowl Island characters such as Guarana and Cucamelon.
- The Scrooge: Spaghetti always get triggered when something can make her restaurant lose money or make less money then she should.
- Secret Identity: Gummi's Major Ursa superhero persona (even if part of joke is that she don't even try to hide who she is).
- Shout-Out: Spinach is buff and down right super strong.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: With eight Pasta sisters, there are plenty of examples of contrasting personalities, but probably the biggest ones were played out between Pho (a carefree prankster who likes to cut corners) and Spaghetti (an organized, profit-driven Neat Freak ), as well between Tagliatelle (an introverted, The Comically Serious, Literal-Minded Miss Fix it), and Gnocchi (an imaginative, energetic and playfull Cheerful Child)
- Signed Language: The Tea Family (Pu Erh, White Tea, Rooibos, and Green Tea) are all deaf and communicate in sign language, with their speech bubbles coming out of their hands, not mouths. One story focuses on Gnocchi (a toddler) learning sign language from Green Tea. During a big event happening live on TV, Bay Leaf is shown providing sign language translation for the Teas.
- Silence Is Golden: Some of the best-regarded stories in the series are completely dialogue-less. They usually focus on characters who rarely use much vocal communication or don't talk at all, like Gnocchi (who is a toddler), Tagliatelle (who is very introverted), or Green Tea (who communicates in sign language). While still rich in hilarious moments, these stories tend to be more heartwarming and focus on characters bonding.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Tiramisu tend to use very rare and pretentious sounding words just to stand out verbaly.
- Spoiled Brat: Monstera the influencer is very entitled, vain, prone to childish tantrums, and, as Cucamelon learns the hard way, not someone one should admire.
- Supreme Chef: Ramen (but the other sisters are talented chefs as well)
- Parental Bonus: Delipals uses the names of 'Nectar' and 'Ambrosia' as exclamations ("Oh my Ambrosia!", "Sweet Nectar!" etc.) and celebrate them as legendary figures.
- Picky Eater: Tiramisu. She tend only to eat what she consider original enough to be worthy of her taste buds. One story center on Ramen trying to please her and proving this to be quite a challange.
- Pictorial Speech-Bubble: A lot of dialogless stories replace dialog with pictures, usualy played up for over the top comedy and the characters are presented in on more kawaiieque estetique. Even some dialog driven stories have these, such as where Birthday Cake explain her magic trick to Pho and her plan is shown step by step in picture form.
- Workaholic: Ramen's main character merit and flaw is her obsession with her job, which is cooking. On one hand she honestly loves and enjoys it, puts a lot of passion and love into it and when she is not working in her restaurant she likes to make meals for her friends and family. However she is more then once played as comically obsessed with it to the point other characters find it disturbing. At one point when Watermelon is looking for Ramen in the morning she just assumes she will find her sleeping in the kitchen rather then in her bedroom (and is right).
- World of Pun
