Two-panel newspaper comic from the 1900s with a setup as follows:
- Panel 1: Someone annoys Everett True.
- Panel 2: He yells at and/or physically punishes whoever annoyed him.
The simple setup just works, however, because all the situations are things people could relate to at the time, and many of them apply even today. For example, Everett is attending a baseball game when a group of men crowd him and say to him "Did you see that?" "Did you see that hit?" "You should have seen that!" He beats them up, saying "Yes, I saw that! And I'd love to see what's going on in the field right now if you'd all get out of my face!" Or Everett is being told by his doctor that he doesn't really have a medical problem and that he's just imagining the pain. In the next panel, Everett's beating up his doctor and telling him "This pain is all in your head. It's not really there. You're just imagining the pain."
And so on. Just think of your own personal pet peeve about everyday life, and imagine someone beating up the person responsible for it. Everett True becomes your hero.
The strip is definitely a product of its time however. Some of the situations that occur in the comic don't really make sense in modern society due to changes in social norms or lifestyle (people don't ride horses anymore, for instance), and there's occasional Values Dissonance. Everett only beats up men, and mostly just yells at women. Sometimes he gets back at women other ways, such as throwing a woman's puppy out the window because she was openly doting on it too much and annoying the other passengers on the train, or destroying a counter where several female clerks were working. There are some strips where Everett is the target of punishment for his wife, Mrs. True. Adding to the charm is that frequently Everett True uses verbose, but not imprecise language to scold whoever is annoying him at the time.
Still, by and large, The Outbursts of Everett True is entertaining if only to watch a parade of Asshole Victims get what they deserve.
The Outbursts of Everett True provides examples of:
- Acrofatic: Everett can pull off backward kicks and dance lightly on his feet, in spite of his size.
- An Aesop: There were regular strips in which Everett True retaliated against people who were casually cruel to animals, children, or who tried to take advantage of women. Or just in general he stood up and said everything everyone else was afraid to say.
- Angry White Man: One strip has Everett run into an unashamed racist who mocks Everett’s support for civil rights, saying “Racial equality my eye!” Fittingly, the man finds himself nursing a black eye by the time Everett is done with him.
- All Crimes Are Equal: Everett will attack people who beat animals, swear in front of children, profit off war, abuse service folk, spit tobacco on the sidewalk, smell too nice, dress too fancily, or have wrist watches instead of pocket ones. He might have a few issues.
- Asshole Victim: The big part of the fun. Many of them are still assholes by today's standards.
- Author Tract: Created when A.D. Condo, a largely meek, timid man, thought up the concept of a man who had no qualms about unleashing his wrath on the day's minor annoyances. Most of the strips were, in part, Condo's own views.
- Awful Wedded Life: Everett spends one wartime strip speechifying about how the best punishment for men who got quickie marriages to avoid the draft out to be forbidden to get divorces after the war is over. As for his own marriage, let's just say he and his wife are well-matched.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: In one strip, Everett comes across a man viciously beating a dog to “train” him. Everett is only too happy to repay the man in kind.
- Banana Peel: Everett slips on one here
◊, and promptly punches the guy who dropped it. - Brutal Honesty: Everett always says what he thinks, often in the most brash fashion imaginable.
- The Cameo: Buster Brown makes an appearance here◊.
- Corporal Punishment: After a bratty kid aimed his air rifle in Everett's direction, Everett told the boy to stop and the kid refused. Verbally acknowledging that it wasn't within his rights to do so, he spanked the kid anyway.
- Corruption of a Minor:
- Everett catches a man attempting to convince young boys to steal things, and naturally unleashes his wrath on the man.
- He also hates it when people swear in front of children.
- The Dandy: Rather than beating them up, Everett tends to mock fancily-dressed gentlemen by "mistaking" them for ladies.
- Deadlier Than The Male: The only person who can give Everett a taste of his own punchy medicine? Mrs. True.
- Death Glare: In one strip, two men are seated on a trolley and taking up so much space an old lady can't sit down. Everett just glares at them, and they wisely make space for the other passengers.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Cathartic as it may be, beating someone senseless for annoying you is generally considered a bit beyond the pale.
- Dodgy Toupee: Everett would rather see his fellow men bald than resorting to one of these.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- In the earliest strips he worked as a clerk of some sort. Unsurprisingly, his customer service career didn't last and he was eventually shown with an office job.
- A lot of the earlier strips are more about Everett loudly expressing his grumpy opinions (e.g. a musical performance is terrible, some cigars are awful, this hotel is a flop house). He's also often surrounded by other characters vocally agreeing with him (sometimes moments after having politely praised the performance etc.) His better-known solo physical crusades against injustice and rudeness came later.
- The Edwardian Era
- Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Naturally, due to the standards of the time, nothing approaching swear words are used. That doesn't stop Everett's rants from being entertaining.
- Hates Being Touched: You'd imagine anyone who knew anything about Everett True would realize they're taking their health into their hands if they do things like poke him in the chest when making a point, or slap him on the back in greeting, but some fools do it anyway. Once.
- Hates Everyone Equally: You'll suffer if you get on his bad side, regardless of race or creed.
- Hypocrite: Everett holds a particular disdain for these, though that doesn't stop him from being a hypocrite himself sometimes.
- Illness Blanket: At the end of the story arc where Everett tries and fails to clean the house, he wraps himself in a blanket, puts an ice pack on top of his head and gives himself a Footbath Treatment after exhausting himself.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Everett applies this when he can. Leave a horse outside in the brutal winter weather for three hours without a blanket? Everett will show you what it's like. Splash paint in his face? Get ready to taste the rest of the bucket.
- Meaningful Name: Everett True always says what he's thinking — which is often what everybody is thinking, but no one else has the courage to say.
- Men Can't Keep House: In one of the rare story arcs, Everett snaps at his wife over how she turns the house upside-down every time she does spring cleaning and how he'll handle it instead. He then proceeds to wreck the house trying to clean it and eventually exhausts himself while his wife and son laugh at him.
- More Deadly Than the Male: When Everett tries to go up against his wife every once in a while, he frequently ends up as the one on the receiving end.
- Mugging the Monster: In one strip, a robber holds Everett at gunpoint. He quickly regrets it.
- Non Sequitur, *Thud*: Everett's response to a man talking of making money off the Great War is to leave the guy flat on his back, muttering "Well, well, well! So this is little Elsie! My, how she's grown!"
- Offhand Backhand: What you get if you try to read over Everett's shoulder.
- Outdated Outfit: Everett True's clothes are dated even by Edwardian Age standards. Also invoked when he is depicted wearing a stove-top hat and someone remarks: "You must have bought it before The Civil War."
- Patriotic Fervor: Shortly after America's intervention in the First World War, Everett took to beating up conscientious objectors or wasteful people.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Everett is warmly regarded as a colorful character who's always in the right and unafraid to speak his mind by both the strip and the characters themselves, even when his actions border on the psychopathic or sadistic.
- Rage Against the Author: Everett has met his author and promptly beaten him up for invading his privacy◊.
- Recursive Canon: The comic strip exists in-universe, as seen here◊.
- Same-Sex Triplets: Averted. When Everett's wife gives birth to triplets, two of them are male (Sal and Mike) and one is female (Peg).
- Stay in the Kitchen: Inverted. Everett's wife makes it violently clear whenever he tries to give orders to the maid or the cook that running the house is her business and he'd better keep his nose out.
- Stout Strength: Everett doesn't seem to have any problem beating up the people that annoy him, even whole crowds of them.
- The Unfettered: Everett will do always something about whatever's bothering him, come hell or high water. He's been known to tell off preachers, assault politicians, beat cops with their own billy clubs, and vandalize property without hesitation in order to set things right—as noted above, he even beat up his own artist.
- Worth It: One strip has Everett in court for assaulting an officer and being charged a $50 fine (which was a lot of money in those days, hundreds of dollars at least in today's money). On his way out, Everett says to himself "It was worth the money! Any officer that gets abusive with newsboys and peddlers ain't fit for the force."
- Would Not Hit a Girl: Everett doesn't use violence on women who annoy him, but usually yells at them instead. Sometimes he embarrasses them instead, such as spraying them with a hose.
- You Are Fat: Many people have teased or patronized Everett True for his weight, and have been walloped in response.
