Dominic and Claire are a pair of characters created by Max West, making their debut in a 24-hour comic, followed by the 2019 comic book The Dominic & Claire Funnies from Different Mousetrap Press. This was followed by two more titles - Dominic & Claire Fun-Size and Dominic & Claire Circus - in later 2019 and early 2020, both funded by Kickstarter.
Dominic is a 7-year-old anthropomorphic kitten living in the town of New Gestad; the comics reveal he is the cousin of Rusty Duncan, protagonist of Sunnyville Stories, making the work a Spin-Off.
Claire, the deuteragonist, is a 14-year-old anthropomorphic porcupine living next door to Dominic. She plays the Straight Man role to Dominic, setting him up to say something funny and often laughing at his antics.
Other characters include Chester, Claire's older brother and Dominic's primary antagonist; Dominic's family (his father, mother and little sister); Claire's best friend, Amber (a squirrel); Rusty, Dominic's cousin from Sunnyville; and Dominic's friends, Bryan (another squirrel), Gino and Pinky (two pigs who are also brothers).
In contrast to the more artistic Sunnyville, Dominic & Claire's comics are a Gag Series, emphasizing jokes over story and character.
This comic contains examples of the following tropes:
- Bubblegum Popping: In Funnies, Claire blows bubble gum as she listens to Dominic's baseball story; Dominic pops the bubble with his finger and a following panel shows Claire peeling off the gum stuck to her quills.
- Butt-Monkey: Chester, Claire's older brother; he's always on the receiving end of Dominic's antics.
- In one of the two stories from Funnies, he keeps trying to make a phone call to Dominic's mother, only to have Dominic constantly answer the phone to Chester's frustration.
- He doesn't fare better in other stories, one even have him getting drenched by a jet of water from a clam.
- Deadpan Snarker: Dominic
- Early-Bird Cameo: Dominic appeared alone in a bonus story in the limited edition comic, the Sunnyville Stories Super Special #2.
- Gag Series: Consists of short vignettes involving Dominic doing or saying something funny with Claire reacting.
- Name and Name: Named for the two protagonists
- Non-Ironic Clown: Dominic and Claire turn up on the cover of Circus, both dressed as clowns hence the title.
- Saw "Star Wars" Twenty-Seven Times: Dominic claims to have seen TRON fifty-five times in one story to justify to Claire that he knows about machines.
- Shout-Out:
- Hai Karate is mentioned in Fun Size. This was a budget brand of men's aftershave popular in The '70s.
- In Circus, Dominic tries to get a coconut custard pie with whipped cream at an automat, a nod to the 1947 Bugs Bunny cartoon Slick Hare. Just like in the cartoon, Dominic ends up getting a Pie in the Face!
- Special Guest: Rusty shows up in Circus in a story reprinted from the Sunnyville Stories Super Special #2.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: In their story together, Rusty teases Dominic about loving Claire which he denies. Dominic returns fire by taunting Rusty over Samantha from Sunnyville; Rusty says she's just a friend, blushing when doing so.
- Straight Man and Wise Guy: Dominic is the wise guy and Claire is the straight man.
- Two Gamers on a Couch: Played straight in Funnies. The second story in the funnies has Dominic sitting on top of a wall and recounting to Claire an anecdote about being on a baseball team as she stands by the wall to listen.
