This is a nice and odd comic that is out there enough to be compelling but not crazy enough to lose the readers. All in all the jokes are often and funny enough to make me want to come back.
— Tutters
I'd like to think I'd have the same snarky sense of humor if I were a disembodied narrator.
— Twitchy Fan
Books Don't Work Here is a meta-flavored webcomic
by Kai Faydale with a plot and No Fourth Wall. The main character is a webcomic actress and the strip revolves around the challenges she has to face: imaginary scripts, an Unreliable Narrator, plot holes, meta walls, wacky physics, Mad Science, and budget cuts. Updates once a week.
This webcomic provides examples of:
- ...And That Would Be Wrong: This strip. This other strip. is titled ...And That Would Be Wrong and relates to the Director playing God with his characters.
- Author Powers: The Author is the narrator and takes an active hand in directing the characters. Not that it does him a lot of good most of the time.
- Cheshire Cat Grin:the Mad Scientist B.S M. otherwise known as Sparky tends to smile like this when he is up to something, and whether it will work or not he always tries to be up to something.
- Death Trap: So far there have been sharks, mind control rays, and deadly lasers.
- Evil Laugh: the Mad Scientist Sparky laughs so hard he chocks here, and again here.
- Flash Back: Lampshaded in this Books Dont Work Here strip which starts a Flashback which took place before the Flashback they are already in started.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: This strip.
- Got Volunteered: Robin gets volunteered in the very first page.
- I Fell for Hours: Lampshaded as Robin falls down a wormhole in strip #19. "You can only fall for so long before you just can't maintain the same level of panic."
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Sparky loosing horrible or winning by different rules.
- Interactive Narrator: The series has a very talkative narrator who can't keep his nose on the other side of the fourth wall and out of his character's business.
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Sparky explains that the Anti-nonbeliefinator 1000 uses moon dust and antimatter to temporally reverse the gravitation pull on the victim's hold on reality.
- Jaw Drop: Robin does this Here
- Mad Scientist: While Sparky only has a bachelor's degree, he is far enough removed from lucidity to qualify.
- Meaningful Name: Robin Galling would never admit that her last name has any significances even if she did choose it herself.
- Meaningful Rename: Robin renamed herself (giving herself the last name of Galling) and giving the Mad Scientist the nickname Sparky.
- No Fourth Wall: The character arguing with the narrator certainly qualifies.
- No Social Skills: evidently the Mad Scientist is a bit of a nerd, and needs to invent crazy devices to get girls. well that or kidnap one.
- Not Hyperbole: When The Narrator and The Protagonist talk about playing God here. It's practical advice.
- Put on a Bus: Lamp Shaded here when the Main character and her room mate head to the mall at the same time as the author has to move and get a new job. The author's avatar also makes an appearance getting on the bus as they get off. Which gives Robin an opportunity to punch him in the face.
- Rage Against the Author: The comic lives and breathes this trope, with it starting out as the main character's defining feature in chapter one. She has yet to play nice with the narrator.
- Reality Warper: The Author created the world and can change it at will. He has been seen to *poof* things into existence when he forgot to create them earlier. Interestingly enough the main character Robin has also learned to take advantage of the world’s malleable nature: changing character's names, pulling objects out of nowhere, and even creating characters herself, though much of her control over the comic comes from bullying the narrator.
- Speechbubbles Interruption: This strip.
- Title Drop: here. in the second chapter.
