Dela the Hooda was a furry comic by Style Wager that ran intermittently from 1998 to 2016 about Cordelia Aldershaw, a foxlike alien from the dimension of Mhâr who became trapped in Peabow, Canada after getting caught in one of a halfling mad scientist's experiments. There she meets Sue Chan, a Chinese-Canadian grad student who takes her in as a secret roommate, and Jake McRoss, her slightly obnoxious ex-rock star neighbor. Later on she starts a relationship with computer guru Frank Dunn and meets other aliens and dimensional refugees such as the Cockney-speaking mouse Edith Piccadilly.
Unfortunately due to the website's domain lapsing the most complete archives are found on Style-Wager's VCL site
(some adult art included). Dela last updated in 2016 as Style started working on other projects, including a more "adult" sequel series called "Brave New World" set roughly a generation later.
Tropes:
- Alternate Universe: As explained in one of the first comics, there are two categories. Alternate universes are like Earth save for diverging at some point in history and are fairly easy to travel between, while parallel dimensions are entirely different worlds with some similarities that are practically inaccessible. For instance, Edith's homeworld is an alternate universe where Erasmus Darwin accidentally unleashed the Jenner plague, while Mhâr is in a parallel dimension inhabited by several different sapient species that inspired Earth myths.
- Blind Without 'Em: Jake's sunglasses turn out to be prescription, he's dangerously nearsighted without them or regular glasses. When it's revealed Dela mentions one of her cousins who managed to skate by with her sense of smell until she got a news stand confused with the barbecue stall next door.
- Closet Geek: Jake, his "cool guy" persona was invented by the record label and he decided to keep it up after the band imploded. Though he still tried setting up a D&D game with his bandmates while on tour.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Mhâr jump drives are reverse-engineered from a Precursor ship and are built around a kilometer-long loop of mithril, expensive enough to bankrupt small countries. Dr. Zap was trying to make a more affordable miniaturized version when he accidentally sent Dela to Canada.
- Fox Folk: Hood are essentially anthropomorphic vulpines native to Mhâr, some carry a gene that allows crossbreeding with humans (including Dela). They're not any more inherently magical than other Mhâr species, but Sue hypothesizes that they inspired Asian Fox Spirit myths.
- Funetik Aksent: Dela had a thick accent◊ when she first appeared in Canada, though it disappeared after the first arc. Meanwhile Dr. Zap speaks with a (fake) Germanic accent and Edith has a Cockney accent.
- Geeky Turn-On: Both Dela and Frank are computer people, they first met when he was delivering Sue's new computer, they started talking shop, one thing led to another...
- The Grays: Dela catches a couple of Grays planning to probe her neighbors and befriends them.
- I Choose to Stay: The undrawn last arc was meant to include Dela visiting an alternate Mhâr where she never worked for Dr. Zap and wound up trapped in a loveless marriage to her jerk of a boyfriend. Inspiring her to return to Terra and stay there.
- Incompatible Orientation: Jake has a crush on Sue, who's a lesbian.
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: The ICONOCLAST operating system from Mhâr is designed to adapt to any hardware, but for some strange reason it becomes sentient after Dela installs it on a primitive Terran computer.
- Interspecies Romance: Dela the hooda starts a relationship with Frank, a human. Later Jake (human) gets together with Edith (Jenner mouse).
- Legally Dead: Dela has been declared such on Mhâr, one arc is about her mother's attempt to sue Dr. Zap for her "death." And ends with Dr. Zap being declared legally dead after tech-ninjas destabilize his machine and he disappears with it in a burst of energy.
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Zap, Dela's boss for about a day before one of his experiments sent her to Canada. Aside from accidentally discovering interdimensional travel his niece mentions a time he built a barbecue that wound up leveling a city block.
- The Men in Black: Canada's "Men in Plaid" don't have the budget for nice Italian suits, they do have neuralizers though. After some initial misunderstandings they've helped Dela out of a couple tight spots.
- Omniglot: According to her ref sheet◊ Dela developed the ability to speak any language spoken to her after coming to Earth, though she's unaware of it. Possibly explaining why her accent vanished after the first arc and how she can speak English in the first place.
- Science Fantasy: Mhâr has been described as "The Lord of the Rings meets Babylon 5," it's inhabited by not only hood and humans, but halflings, dwarves, goblins, catfolk, and monkeyfolk (no elves though), mages are uncommon but extant, and they've colonized multiple star systems using precursor tech.
- Uplifted Animal: The Jenner plague in Edith's home universe and Earth "prime" as of "Brave New World" infects mammal fetuses and converts them into anthropomorphic animals that are reproductively compatible with humans.
- Weirdness Censor: Most people assume Dela and her other animal-like friends are oddly-realistic fursuiters or hallucinations. A Running Gag of the first half of the series was Dela's elderly neighbor going to a psychiatrist every time he saw her, until his grandson mentioned seeing her and he accepted that she was real (and was much relieved).
- Weirdness Magnet: Since Dela's arrival Peabow has become something of an interdimensional and interplanetary crossroads. After the MIP visited her they workshopped the idea of making the town a weirdness containment zone, but her ref sheet also mentions that she's become a bit of a literal one.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: An early arc had Dela, Jake, and Sue wake up in bed together after a night of drinking. Followed an in-universe month later by a pregnancy scare (which turned out to be food poisoning).
