Webcomic / Deathbulge

"No doors were harmed in the making of this webcomic." This phrase applies to many webcomics. Not to this one.

Deathbulge is a highly mature — read, brilliantly immature — comedy webcomic created by British cartoonist Dan Martin, which has been updated... mostly regularly since its first comic was uploaded on June 13, 2012. The comic is characterized by outlandish hairstyles (if it's in the Scalp folder of the Hair Tropes page, Deathbulge has probably covered it), bowling ball heads (sometimes literally), and humour your mother probably wouldn't approve of.^note There are many, many, many butt jokes.

The comic initially detailed the day-to-day exploits of a fictional band calling themselves Deathbulge, made up of four wackjobs- bassist Simmer, vocalist Bren, guitarist Lennox, and drummer Brovil, along with their manager, Nevin. Emphasis on initially, as for most of its run it has dedicated itself largely to one-off comics featuring one-off characters, with some recurring favourites such as the Baby Bin Guy and Barry Friendly. Yes, it's that sort of webcomic.

Occasionally, Dan himself appears in the comic, usually accompanied by Ian the buff half-human half-skeleton fisherman (read: a skeleton who is a fisherman, and not a fisherman who specializes in skeletons).

An RPG derived from the comic and inspired by titles such as Final Fantasy, Grandia, LISA and EarthBound was released in 2023. Titled Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands, this game stars a metal band called Deathbulge who find themselves trapped in a cursed and rather literal battle of the bands. Please mind that this is a completely different Deathbulge from the aforementioned Deathbulge, made up of a guitarist named Faye, a drummer named Brov- er, Briff- and the aforementioned skeleton Ian on the bass guitar. Naturally, the battles and class system are entirely music-inspired, but note that it's not a Rhythm Game.

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Deathbulge provides examples of:

• Alt Text: A staple since comic 170, Swear Jar.
• Artifact Title: The comic was about the exploits of the band Deathbulge. They still exist, but their last appearance at the time of writing was on November 2, 2015. The last time a comic was actually about them was September 21 of that year, and don't ask when the last time they did band stuff was.
• Art Evolution: The characters themselves have always been straightforward; it's the backgrounds Dan's really gotten ambitious with. It's not uncommon among the most recent strips to see lovely digitally-painted backdrops.
  • Even more recently, he's also worked with a warm digital painting style for whole comics, not just the scenery.
• Art Shift: Be thankful for Deathbulge's simple style. It's protecting you.
  Lennox: Why aren't we usually drawn like this?!!
  Bren, now a full-bodied and very naked middle-aged man: Hey guys.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Lennox's pick-shaped guitar in the first comic.
• Badass Santa: Arrives on the 24th day of Deathbulge's 2017 advent calendar comic to, alongside a beefy Rudolph, banish the chocolate dragon released by the opening of the 24th door.
• The Bartender: Staniv, who is the only staff member of his own bar.
• Be the Ball: Bren should freelance as a ball, he'd make more money that way.
• Big Fun: The large and universally-beloved Barry Friendly embodies this. Just look at his name.
  • Just don't try to out-friendly him. You'll lose.
• Black Comedy: This trope is a staple. The comic is called Deathbulge, for crying out loud. Consequently the comic is often Bloody Hilarious, as bloody deaths are a time-tested punchline.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Happens frequently. First notable instance here.
• Bull Seeing Red: If there is a bull in the panel, it is going to headbutt something.
  • If you give a bull a red tablecloth, he'll probably destroy a table.
  • Subverted here, when a matador getting no reaction from a bull is told he was flaunting his cape the wrong way. When he flips it, he takes it from a yellow side to... another yellow side, this one reading "YO MOMMA." He is promptly gored, because that's the kind of comic this is.
  • In a later comic, one bull headbutts a kid wearing a red shirt who was challenging the bull to charge him because of said colour. The bull does indeed wallop the kid, and when asked about it by another bull reveals that the attack wasn't because he was mad at the colour red- rather, it was because he hates common misconceptions about bulls.
    • However, this incident just serves to bolster the stereotype.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Satirically subverted, almost into Good Parents. They're well-meaning parents, at least.
• Eats Babies: Nevin, or at least he'd sure like to. Y'know, maybe there's a reason he and he alone has white eyes and seemingly never wears clothes.
• Expressive Hair: See above.
• Flaming Hair: Played with. It's been played straight, and it's been mimicked to show someone is a certified cool-guy.
• Forbidden Fruit: Lennox is a slave to this, in classic rocker style.
  Lennox: Oh God!!! Oh man!!! I just remembered that I only ever want what I can't have!!
• Glasses Pull: Satirized.
• Grandfather Paradox: Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack went back in time to the night he was conceived and consequently deflated his father's-
• Homemade Sweater from Hell: The Ultimate Christmas Jumper, which is decked out in fake snow, flashing lights, tree branches, ornaments, gift boxes, candy canes, and rotating visages of Santa Claus and Rudolph.
• Improbable Hairstyle: Many of them, and they only get less feasible as time progresses.
• Interactive Comic: Dan made variants of this for the 100th and 200th Deathbulge comics, wherein he asked readers for lines of dialogue which he then molded into narratives. They're about as sensible as one might expect.
  • There's also Bovril's Big Adventure, a more traditional type of interactive comic which ran for 50 pages over about three years, alongside the main comic.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Young José's character more or less revolves around being this, with a sprinkling of Right for the Wrong Reasons depending on whether he's deceptively smart or a lucky guesser.
• Losing Your Head: Many many people, very very often, as early as the sixth comic.
• Mystery Box: The band's reward for saving the world from demonic trousers and saving an animé girl high school is a mysterious box... containing... the board game 7 Wonders! Wheyyy!!
  • A later comic introduces a Super Mystery Box, able to generate anything when it is first opened. If you're lucky, maybe you'll even get more Super Mystery Boxes!
• Nostalgia Filter: One recurring character has this constantly on, spending ludicrous amounts of money in the pursuit of childhood bliss.
• Noticing the Fourth Wall: An extreme example happens to Ian here. While he does have Medium Awareness, he's still understandably horrified when he gazes upon concept art of himself in the Deathbulge Development Chamber- a grim reminder that he's no different from the rest of the comic world.
• Ocular Gushers: ft. the Baby Binner.
• Odd-Shaped Panel: There are instances here and there, but using tree branches to outline the panels is perhaps the coolest.
• The Omniscient: Buffasus, the Being of Unlimited Knowledge and Wisdom.
• One-Person Birthday Party: A couple of times, once with Simmer and once with Ian.
• Overly Long Gag: Bass the Bass is a bass named Bass who sells bass guitars from their home base, called Bass the Bass' Bass Base, and you will be reminded of it every time they show up.
  Bass: What about this double bass double bass with a bass bass strapped on to it with bass tape? It comes with a bass!
• Parlor Games: One pair of recurring characters is Dylan and Ricardo, who seem to really enjoy Truth or Dare. Okay, perhaps only Dylan. Ricardo just suffers somehow.
• Pro Wrestling Episode: While it's been a theme before in shorter strips, the Deathbulge Rumble of the 400th comic is the definitive, 54-panel Deathbulge pro wrestling episode at the time of writing.
• Pro Wrestling Is Real: When there's a pro wrestling gag- and there are a few- expect people to die.
• Punny Name: Bass the Bass sells bass guitars from their bass base, and Barry Friendly is the nicest guy you'll ever meet.
• Running Gag: It's a strip-format webcomic, so of course there are numerous.
  • Sega Bass Fishing, and bass in general for that matter.
  • Kicking doors open is a signature of the comic.
  • Slam-dunking things into basketball hoops. People are often one of these things, and sometimes are the hoop themselves. Not always a good idea.
    • A similar gag is the dunking of objects- namely people, and especially babies- into garbage cans.
• Share Phrase: "Wheyyy!!"
  • Not an uncommon turn of phrase, given, but it popped up a lot in the early band-focused days of the comic.
• Speech Bubbles: Of course it uses them, being a webcomic, but boy does Deathbulge have fun with them. Speech bubbles in Deathbulge are often physical entities within the world, be they outright sentient beings, elements of people's hairdos (of course), or forcibly clawing their way out of the mouths of infants.
  • Side note: never cut one open, even if someone manages to get stuck inside. It's not worth it.
• Spiders Are Scary: Used a couple of times. Both will make you antsy.
• Surprise Party: The gang throws one for Simmer... six months in advance. On the plus side, that makes it all the more surprising. On the downside, well, when his real birthday rolls around...
• Tear Off Your Face: Quite a lot, actually, among other types of Facial Horror.
• Tempting Fate: Forms the basis of many Deathbulge punchlines, typically in the form of "you can't tell me what to do" and company.
• Toilet Humour: It's a staple of Deathbulge. Bums, barf, poo- you name it, urine for it.
• Trouser Space: Bovril has access to one of these.
• Waddling Head: Bren doesn't have a whole lot of body to speak of.
• Wheel of Decisions: Lennox spins a globe to decide on a vacation spot, and his finger stops it... in the middle of the ocean.
• World of Jerkass: If their name isn't Barry Friendly, they almost certainly suck in one way or another.
• World of Pun: Naturally, being a gag-a-day webcomic.