Flat What / Webcomics

• 8-Bit Theater uses this a lot, mostly by Black Mage and Sarda (the latter involving an incident that almost completely broke his brain).
  • It's important to note that Sarda is the most powerful character in the comic (except for Chaos. Who he turns into.) and downright omnipotent as well as only about 30 seconds younger than the universe itself, and due to a Stable Time Loop has already experienced this same event from his younger self's perspective. He just had his mind broke by a character who managed to Dual Wield longbows with two arms twice resulting in wielding four bows, each with three arrows apiece loaded.
  • The Lich reacts this way after Black Mage pulls a Not Now, Kiddo on him (discussing killing his son, Vilbert, right in front of him, on his own property, without even bothering to turn around to address Lich.)
• The Adventures of Dr. McNinja:
  • Part of a Running Gag is that whenever something on TV mentions him in some fashion (the infamous "McNinja Burgers" from McDonald's, mayor Goodrich fingering him as the partner in the town's zombie defense system), the titular doctor will spend one brief panel staring at the TV in surprise and saying "What." in the next.
  • Also, this is how Dan McNinja opens his tirade against the pirates in the bar he's hiding in, declaring his intention to burn the place down on the way out.
  • A sort of extended variation of this trope is used for the doctor reacting to how Dan McNinja wound up on fire. "You. Lit. Yourself. On fire. Why did you light yourself on fire." Punctuated as it was in the comic.
  • In the "Army of One" storyline, Doc's reaction to Franz Rainer defending himself against the McNinja clone horde, taking full advantage of the Inverse Ninja Law.
  • And then there was that time the Doctor was shocked by his own improbable motorbiking skills. This time with no punctuation whatsoever.
• Awkward Zombie demonstrates the appropriate male reaction to the Pokémon Musical.
• This is Axe Cop's reaction when he enters Narnia through a wardrobe... though it should be noted there's nothing special about magically entering a world with talking animals and fantasy creatures compared to what goes on in his comic all the time. In fact, his arrival makes Narnia considerably weirder.
• This Blank It comic is both named for, and delivers, upon Aric finding that the world contains an infinite loop.
• Arianna gives one in chapter four of Castoff after Frankie is bitten by a snake but is completely fine afterwards.
• Dumbing of Age has one here, as Joyce plans to hook her roommate Sarah up with her boyfriend's roommate Jacob.
• In Dream*Scar, this is Vix's reaction to seeing what happened to Ophelia.
• El Goonish Shive: Dan is a big fan of having characters react to stuff with a flat what. Just a few examples: Susan seeing an immortal that looks like Santa Claus, Justin walking into a monster made of fire outside the comic shop, Raven being unimpressed with Grace's squirrelly form, and even one in Japanese with Mrs. Kitsune reacting to Nanase's honesty around whether she'd drink alcohol.
• Parson Gotti of Erfworld, on Maggie unexpectedly casting a suggestion spell on Stanley to make him leave the room and appoint Parson chief warlord.
  Parson: Lolwut.
• Explorers of Souls:
  Pikachu: I have no idea what you're going on about. Partners? Adventures? Sounds too tough for me. Plus, I don't even know who you are...
  Mel: WAIT, WAT.
• The revelation of the premise of The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon.
• Avatar of Far Out There does one in reaction to a particularly flamboyant mad scientist.
• First Contact does it on occasion:
  • Being an Interactive Comic can lead to weird situations like this
    SISERA: So, Uriel, what brings you here to this lovely little offworld paradise?
    URIEL: oh y'know just wanted to check out the sites, lick an alien or two, get my mack on.
    SISERA: what
  • Also here, when Uriel notices Adam's lack of shirt and starts showing off his body too.
    ADAM: this was totally worth getting my favorite shirt eaten by a giant bug.
    URIEL: what
• The nameless mercenary from Flaky Pastry reacts appropriately to this rather... unconventional technique.
• Nick gets one in General Protection Fault when Trudy accidentally slips that she isn't the alternate universe self everyone thought she was.
• Page 86 of Grrl Power: After dealing with Sydney's skittishness for several pages, they finally find out what she's hiding in the tube on her back. Seven unmarked orbs float into the air and do nothing. Maxima looks at this and says "what." It's so much less than what everyone was anticipating.
• Mort the ghost from Gunnerkrigg Court does this one when Annie has her other undead friends scare the bejeebers out of him (as a roundabout way of apologizing) in this strip. (This one is the setup for it.)
• Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name:
  • Here's a great one from the mouth of a sassy bat.
  • And also from the mouth of Conrad, who is NOT invited to the party.
• In Hark! A Vagrant, Sucre elicits one of these from Bolivar after suggesting that maybe they shouldn't be fighting for freedom all the time. Which, of course, is a completely incomprehensible idea to Bolivar.
• Since the protagonists of Homestuck are only connected through IMs, bouts of confusion are common.
  • Karkat says this several times in conversations with John, Terezi, and Gamzee. Also, this gem:
    KARKAT: WHAT HAPPENED TO VRISKA? WHY IS SHE PASSED OUT ON THE FUCKING FLOOR?!
    JOHN: because i punched her in the face.
    KARKAT: WHAT
  • Since Dave almost never uses punctuation, all of his "what"s are flat.
  • Another gem:
    JADE: oh yeah by the way dave...
    JADE: youre a pretty good kisser!
    JADE: even when youve got cat lips ;)
    DAVE: WHAT
• Done hilariously by Zelda in "How Skyward Sword Should Have Ended",◊ a (spoileriffic!) fan comic of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
• Diane from Iron Crown gets a nice one when she hears about traitors being the cause of the current mess she's in for the first time. One can only imagine she shares the same attitude her father (a dictator) has towards them.
• From Johnny Wander, we get this gem.
• The Last Days of FOXHOUND:
  • Psycho Mantis' reaction to being told that Berthold could talk. Being psychic and thus differently-brained, Berthold couldn't get through to him.
  • Also, this strip:
    Liquid: Say, huh... Why don't you levitate yourself up here? You can do that.
    Psycho Mantis: Couple of reasons. First, it takes a lot of concentration, and getting blown up sort of threw me off a little. Second, there's a stalactite the size of a goddamned baseball bat lodged in my chest.
    Vulcan Raven: Stalagmite.
    Psycho Mantis: What.
• This is Megaman's catchphrase in Megaman Sprite Comic, almost beginning each comic strip with a flat "what".
• Strip #343 of Michael Firman's Moe, accompanied with an extra-large speech bubble for emphasis.
• In the "Crux's Climb" story arc of A Moment of Peace, Story asks Ito if he thinks she is happy sitting by the pool waiting for Crux, for which he answers "yes". Apparently it wasn't the answer she expected.
• Occurs in Mountain Time when an onion sensei is asked about the human status of Donna the Bears, a woman whose mind is several bears.
• The Order of the Stick: In the "Snips, snails and Dragon Tales" segment where the members of the Order make up stories (read: Take famous stories from Real Life and parody them in a 3.5 context), Roy's retelling of Hamlet has Hamlet (played by Roy) utter this when the play he set up to make Claudius (played by Xykon) admit to his father's murder gets... slightly derailed. (The leader of the theatre troupe was played by Elan, and the rewrite went slightly Off the Rails.)
• In PepsiaPhobia, Phobia's reaction◊ to being told that Philia is her and Klepto's daughter.
• Felix of Pixie Trix Comix demonstrates the trope here. Typically for this comic, the context involves somebody determined to go to bed with him.
• Questionable Content:
  • A good one from Faye.
  • As well as this one from Faye.
  • Dale provides an excellent response to a Cloud Cuckoo Lander with one here.
  • And Marten to Tai.
• Nita's reaction to "THE AWESOME (untested) POWER OF YOGIC FLYING" in the Scary Go Round Spin-Off Giant Days.
• Mike Warner of Shortpacked!! had this reaction upon learning that Amber had adopted a pair of hamsters.
• Sleepless Domain: When Rue launches into yet another of her many conspiracy theories, it prompts this response from a classmate.
  Rue: The Daylight Update is more or less unofficial propaganda, y'know. They use it to control public perception of what we do. It turns our job into a facet of pop culture so it seems less serious.
  Girl: ...What.
• In Spare Keys for Strange Doors, Marion reacts to the arrival of a unicorn this way.
• Sticky Dilly Buns: After Dillon claims that all the guys who cheated on their girlfriends to be with him were straight, Ruby says, "What."
• Schtein's reaction in String Theory when he's been told that he's been assigned to the garbage duty at the prison.
• Joyeuse delivers one in Swords when she finds out that, per a past royal decree, since the Rapier Tapir defeated her in one-on-one combat while she was Queen of Hiltshire, he's taken her throne and is now the new king of Hiltshire. And then another one when Rapier Tapir actually talks.
  Rapier Tapir: Thankyou, everyone, for this great honor. I will do my due diligence to reign with kindness and dignity.
• The Team Fortress 2 tie-in webcomic "The Naked and the Dead" has Miss Pauling drop one when Soldier's fiancee Zhanna tells her to "stay away from [her] man" — in this case, because a) Miss Pauling is confirmed lesbian by Word of Gay, and b) Soldier is so much of a complete frickin' lunatic that only the similarly unstable Zhanna would really be that interested in him. For bonus points, at the moment this is being said, Soldier is resting between waves of robots, which he has been fighting while naked and covered in honey, and the only element that makes it make sense in context is that it's the Soldier doing it.
• Touhou Nekokayou:
  • From this installment of :
    Eirin: Yes, it tastes almost exactly like "Tewi is trying to get me and Mika to pull a prank."
    Reisen: What
  • Used word for word here.
• TwoKinds February 10, 2012. Mike insists that Keith — a member of a race incapable of magic — once transformed him into a girl.
  Natani: Wat
• Waterworks (mild spoiler): A particularly confusing conversation eventually elicits this reaction from Slick after a couple of beat panels.
• Welcome to the pharmacy!: A non-verbal variation; Matt’s glasses go blank with a question mark above his head when Jessica mentions that she has the same problem he does where people assume she speaks Chinese because of her ethnicity - he had given Jean-luc the go-ahead to hire another employee because they needed someone who could help their chinese speaking clientele, and Jean-Luc sheepishly admits he found her so cute during the interview he completely forgot to ask her what languages she knows.

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