Webcomic / Clown Corps

Clown Corps is a webcomic by Joe Chouinard about crime fighting clowns.

Mary McBell is a highly skilled burglar who is caught robbing a casino owned by a corrupt billionaire by the Clown Corps, Pinfall City's eccentric and elite law enforcement organization. After being arrested, her transport is attacked by terrorists. Due to her saving the trainee clown who was taking her in, she's given the opportunity to join the Clown College instead of going to prison. While attending the College alongside a number of quirky Clown Corps agents in training, she and her classmates find themselves facing off against the dark machinations of the Shadow Circus, a secretive group seeking the downfall of the Corps by any means.

It updates every Monday and Wednesday.

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Clown Corps provides examples of:

• The Ace:
  • The Clown Corps only accept the best of the best. Hundreds apply each year to Clown College and only about dozen or so manages to get in.
  • McBell is a master of multiple martial arts and did so well in high school that she graduated early. She attempted to join the Clown Corps a few years prior to the comic's beginning but was rejected due to her entrance essay being weak.
• A-Team Firing: The Shadow Circus' mooks have absolutely atrocious aim. One of them mentions that he shoots with his eyes closed and hopes he'll hit something.
• Attention Whore: The Goth Clown initially acts like an Aloof Ally who doesn't care about his classmates' opinions but it quickly becomes obvious that he's desperate for acknowledgement from his peers.
• Bait-and-Switch: Done liberally to say the least. It is a webcomic about Non Ironic Clowns after all.
  • The comic's first few pages make it seem like some kind of heist story. It's only when McBell opens the safe to reveal a clown nose and is then cornered by a trio of pie-wielding clowns that the real basis of the story becomes apparent.
  • At one point during the College's tour of Pinfall, the tour guide shows the group a door marked "Restricted" that leads to their most secret projects and tells them they're not allowed to enter. Ragdoll stays behind for a moment to take a peek anyway, opening it to find... a broom closet. Except this itself is actually the bait, as the Shadow Circus Mooks break into that same closet to reveal a hidden keypad that opens a door to an actual secret lab.
  • During McBell's fight with Echo, the former is cornered by the latter on top of a walkway after a long sequence of trying to escape the mime. McBell stops, stares Echo down, and...
  McBell: Y'know... It's become painfully obvious I can't outrun you. Guess it's time to stop running. I'll just have to knock you out.
  [Both Echo and McBell start running towards each other]
  McBell: (throws another platform creating pie on the ground and reverses direction) PSYCH!!
• Boxed Crook: What the original plan was for McBell, that she would have to serve a few years in the Corps after completing Clown College. Agent Mustard changed the terms of the deal without permission, requiring McBell to only finish the college, because she wanted her to be able to choose how to live her life.
• Boxing Battler: Bout is a boxer who lacks most of the gimmicks of other clowns.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • McBell frequently makes references to the fact she's in a webcomic. Bout remarks that he only understands about half of the things she says and thinks she has a problem with talking to herself.
  • During Clown College orientation,McBell manages to skip Dean's lecture on the campus's rules and regulations by placing a "Later That Day" textbox in the next panel.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The Clown Corps are an organization of crimefighting clowns and most members have some kind of silly quirk or personality. However, each and every agent is a highly skilled operative who are expected to take on the most dangerous criminals of the city, including evil clowns with similar abilities.
• The Comically Serious: Agent Binky. He's basically a character from a police procedural who is a part of an organization of crimefighting clowns.
• Casual Danger Dialogue:
  • The Clown Corps and the enemies often engage in mid-fight banter. Agent Binky hates this trope and he found fighting the silent Echo refreshing.
  • McBell frequently talks during fights and chase scenes, once explaining that she can easily talk while running and fighting because she's really into cardio.
  • Fuchsia criticizes the Trapeze Twins for doing this when they try to stop their fight and tell her their backstory mid-battle.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Alexander Platt, a billionaire who underpays his employees and uses his monetary connections with Pinfall's mayor to make the Clown Corps act as his personal security force. He also supplies the Shadow Circus with weapons and supplies and tried to murder Binky and Mustard when they began snooping into his affairs.
• Da Chief: Director Snowqueen.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Fuchsia's parents were killed by a burglar, something that puts a strain on her relationship with McBell once she learns
  • Played for Laughs when Diamidov and Pirouette tries to tell Fuchsia their sad and multi-chaptered backstory only for Fuchsia to have none of it.
• Disappointed by the Motive: Mustard is this with Gus Gilborn a.k.a. Ringmaster’s motive. The man behind the Shadow Circus, who had started a cult to hurt the Corps, was just a narcissist with too much self-importance. He only did it because he wanted to, that’s it. Mustard is genuinely furious that one asshole on a power trip could cause so much damage, insisting it can’t be that simple. Binky has Seen It All, so he isn’t surprised.
• The Dragon: Echo, an evil mime who is the main muscle and 'favourite' of the Ringmaster. Unusually, she is not the Ringmaster's Number Two, as her inability to talk means she's rubbish at coordinating the Shadow Circus' minions. That job instead falls to The Captain. She eventually becomes the Dragon Ascendant after Gus is taken down and arrested, with The Captain still serving as her Number Two.
• Double Meaning: During his speech during Clown College orientation, Dean Squeaky remarks that the elite Clown Corps don't worry about things like burglaries. McBell, who was arrested by the Corps for burglary, was initially annoyed at the comment but later realizes that he was directly addressing her upon learning that the Dean supported her acceptance into the college as a small act of rebellion against the Corps.
• Enemy Mime: Echo, a silent mime working for the Shadow Circus with the ability to copy the routines of clowns. She is also disliked and feared by her allies aside from the Circus's leader. Direct Snowqueen believes that Echo could be the most dangerous enemy the Corps have ever faced.
• Evil Counterpart: The Shadow Circus is this to the Clown Corps. Invoked, as the Ringmaster's modus operandi is to make these for whoever he wants to defeat, having previously done so to a Sentai team and other organizations who have 'opposed' him, starting with his high school debate team.
• Faceless Goons: Invoked. The Shadow Circus is made out to be a much larger organization than it is in part because the grunts all wear the same uniform and masks, other than their captain. None of them are given a name, are actively prevented from socializing, and, it is theorized, told that they're the sole survivor whenever a group of them gets taken out. The situation is deliberately designed to make it look like the Shadow Circus has hundreds of troops, when it's doubtful that there's more than forty, and not even the goons themselves know it.
• False Friend: McBell's criminal teammates avoid prison time by selling her out to the cops and falsely painting her as a cruel gang leader who threatened them into helping her with robberies.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In Chapter 2, when Bunsen is analyzing the remains of the grenade fired at Oats and McBell she notes that it doesn't match any known manufacturer, meaning it had to have been illegally made and sold instead of stolen. Her line of thought about how that means the manufacturer isn't related to the crime is interrupted when she notices Mustard and says her name, with Binky snarking that he hopes the manufacturer isn't related to Mustard either. As it turns out, Echo, The Dragon to the mastermind behind the attack, is Mustard's sister.
  • Binky at one point accuses Mustard of treating McBell as a Replacement Goldfish for her deceased younger sister. McBell winds up being the only clown who can reliably counter Echo, who is said younger sister.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Fuchsia refuses to hear out Diamidov and Pirouette when they try to tell their tragic backstory, remarking that whatever they went through isn't justified in trying to kill people.
• Gag Nose: The Shadow Circus grunts have big red noses attached to their masks. A few complain that they tend to break off easily.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Fuchsia is one. During her entrance exam, she lost her fight against Honeypot but got in anyway due to being able to invent a device that could defeat her in only a few hours.
• Heroes "R" Us: The Clown Corps are an emergency response team of crimefighters who deal with high-risk cases.
• I'm Not Here to Make Friends: McBell initially wants to reject her classmates' attempts at friendship order to get through Clown College with as little trouble as possible but quickly finds herself befriending them regardless.
• Improbable Weapon User: The Clown Corps use hi-tech weapons and gadgets designed after clown props.
  • The standard weapon of the Clown Corp are gloves that teleport pies directly to their hand. Most of the pies have some practical effect to them such as being filled with a sticky substance that can restrain someone, being able to put out fires, some being smoke bombs, etc.
  • Agent Binky uses pistols that shoot out confetti blasts strong enough to knock a person out.
  • Dean Squeaky uses balloon animals that he can transform into a variety of weapons. Swords, hammers, a gattling gun... Echo one-ups him by bringing out a tank.
• Incompatible Orientation: Bout spends most of Chapter 2 trying to work up the courage to ask Fushsia out on a date, only to for her to tell him she already has a girlfriend.
• Ineffectual Loner: Binky, whose stubbornness and inflexible morals means he has a history of discarding friends and partners (both romantic and work-wise) if they don't live up to his standards; consequently he's been alone for much of his work- and personal life. Part of his Character Development involves him learning not to be so quick to burn bridges with others.
• Interservice Rivalry: The Clown Corps is implied to have this with the Pinfall City Police Department. Detective Soto is highly critical of the Clown Corps, believing that they have essentially become another branch of law enforcement and considers their insistence of keeping up their clown motif to be a decades long joke.
• Jack of All Trades: Unlike other clowns, McBell lacks a specialized routine and is able to adapt and improvise to situations on the fly, something that allows her to fight Echo to much greater success than her peers.
• Karmic Thief: How McBell views herself for robbing Alexander Platt as he was a billionaire who made his fortune by paying his workers slave wages while also never paying taxes.
• Knows the Ropes: Oats is a rodeo clown who fights with a lasso. She switches to power cables in her new persona as 'Livewire'.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Fuchsia is dressed in all pink and acts pretty peppy, with an interest in clothes, and she eventually reveals that she has a girlfriend.
• Martial Arts and Crafts: The series is about clowns with fighting styles based on circus gags.
• Might Makes Right: Strongman was born with a mutation that made him inhumanly strong. He quit the Clown Corps after being repeated reprimanded for his reckless and destructive behavior and eventually decided that his strength meant that he could just take whatever he wanted rather than get a job.
• Monster Clown: The Shadow Circus, particularly their leaders, Ringmaster and Echo.
• Mooks: The Shadow Circus mostly consists of goons in identical uniforms and clown masks. The Captain can be distinguished from the rest by the teardrop on his mask. The Mole later reveals that the mooks are actually recycled between fights, and there are at most forty of them. The Shadow Circus uses gaslighting and cult techniques to keep them from realising this.
• Mouth Stitched Shut: Echo, the evil mime that works for the Shadow Circus, is revealed to have this when her mask is knocked off. Her first action upon having the stitches undone is to tell someone to fetch her some solid food.
• Non-Ironic Clown: The Clown Corps.
• Not What I Signed on For: Binky is troubled by the Corps as they move farther from their origins as fire fighters and become elite government agents, worrying they may soon become something more corrupt.
• Parasol of Pain: Mustard's routine involves using umbrellas and parasols both in battle and for mobility.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The password to the Pinfall Science Center's database is "Sciencerules55". McBell remarks that they should at least add an ampersand or something to it.
• Power Copying: Echo's ability is to seemingly copy the routines of clowns and improve upon them.
• Repulsive Ringmaster: The Ringmaster of the Shadow Circus, though in appearance he's coded as just another clown.
• Sad Clown: Brought up several times. A lot of the Clown Corps have surprisingly tragic backstories, such as Fuchsia losing both her parents or Mustard's younger sister dying in a car crash. Ragdoll even apparently signed up for the College mostly because they noticed a lot of clowns seemed a lot less cheerful than a clown should naturally be.
• Secret Identity: Being a clown is such a dangerous position that, hence why they wear clown get-ups and take on silly names. Detective Soto, critic of the Clown Corps, mocks the fact that there's no reason they can't just wear sunglasses to hide their identity to similar effect
• Signature Move: Every clown aside from McBell has a routine, a special set of unique skills, abilities and fighting styles that they've honed to use to great effect.
• The Stoic: Agent Binky, who very rarely emotes visibly. The juxtaposition of the stoic constantly wearing clown makeup and a big red nose is part of his character as The Comically Serious.
• Taking Up the Mantle: Agent Mustard originally wanted a famous celebrity while her little sister wanted to become member of the Clown Corps. When her sister died in a car accident, Mustard chose to become a clown out of a sense of duty.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: The Clown Corps utilizes only non-lethal methods of fighting crime.
• Took a Level in Badass: The Clown Corps' were originally just a bunch of rodeo clowns who helped firefighters who developed into Pinfall City's most elite crimefighting force.
• Totally Radical: Ollie has shades of this, being a skateboard enthusiast who occasionally talks with 90s slang.
• Unskilled, but Strong: PJ is one of the most unstoppable fighters at Clown College, so much so that Snowqueen is considering making him a provisional trainee. However, his routine only works when he's asleep. He's unable to tap into his abilities while awake and he can't fall asleep during stressful situations where his routine would be useful.
  • The Ringmaster injects himself with a mutagen that grants him superhuman strength. With his lack of combat skill and experience, it doesn't help him at all.
• Wham Line: Mustard manages to knock off Echo's mask during their fight at the arcade, which itself is a minor Wham Shot showing that Echo is mute because her mouth has been stitched shut. The real kicker, however, is what she says after.
  Mustard: It's her. It's Maggie. My sister is alive.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Alexander Platt was working with the Shadow Circus, supplying them with weapons and supplies. The Shadow Circus kills Alexander Platt when he was about to be captured Binky and Mustard after a failed attempt to kill them. It was later revealed that the Circus always planned on offing him in the future and that confrontation with the Clown Corps simply sped things up.