Ginger's Bread is a webcomic by Carl Sjostrand. It follows the exploits and misadventures of Ginger Paulsen, an unemployed young woman who spends her time playing video games, baking cookies, drinking at the bar and annoying her friends. After losing her job in the first episode, she tries to find employment and open her own cookie shop — hence the title — with the help of her friends, Ryan and Kelly, with varying degrees of success.
The comic began in 2008 and has since accumulated a modest but loyal fanbase. It's known for its quirky sense of humour, colourful artwork, endearing characters, pop culture references and simple overarching plot with only small amounts of story in between. Fun, non-threatening and well worth a look.
The last proper update was in January 2019. The author has posted a couple of updates since then citing personal issues for the lack of updates, but promising to continue when they can.
Ginger's Bread provides examples of:
- Art Evolution: Not very noticeable, but there have been subtle changes. Compare Ginger in the first strip to this later one.
- Attempted Rape: Fairly non-threatening and used for comedy in a one-shot comic, much to Ginger's belligerent bewilderment. As the guy puts it, "I'm... I'm not a very good rapist."
- Berserk Button: Any mention of Joséphine sends Kelly into a rage. See Running Gag for Ginger's.
- Better as Friends: Ginger and Ryan dated briefly in high school, but realized it wouldn't work and broke it off before things got too heavy.
- Butt-Monkey: Ginger, though Ryan and Kelly aren't far behind. Art and Hugh also qualify.
- Crossover: With Between Failures in this strip and again here. It's also made clear that the strip takes place in a world where Kilgore Trout (in reality the Author Avatar of Kurt Vonnegut) is an actual science fiction writer. Kelly names her pet hedgehog after him but Ginger isn't a fan.
- Cryptic Conversation: A relatively mundane one- Ryan's father mentions that everyone should get ready for their rent to get a lot higher. This is foreshadowing his real estate schemes, which will cause property values in the area to rise and, thus, tangentially result in higher rent for Ginger and the other business owners on the street.
- Dirty Old Man: Daniel Diamond.
- Dumb Blonde: Ginger certainly has elements of this.
- Foil: Ryan and Kelly seem to be this to Ginger.
- For the Funnyz: Ginger has a few moments like this, though the aforementioned "Dead Parrot" joke probably take the cake. Kelly and Ryan are not impressed.
- Friend to All Living Things: Kelly, the vet.
- Genki Girl: Ginger.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Ginger yells at people in Swedish a few times. Usually "Du ska passa dig!" meaning something akin to "you better watch yourself."
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: The main trio seem partial to a drink, but Ginger far outdoes the guys, to the extent that Ryan refers to her as a lush more than once.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Arthur and Hugh. Ginger and Kelly may qualify.
- Incompatible Orientation: While it's not entirely certain that Kelly is completely straight, it's pretty clear that she's a long way away from entertaining a relationship with Josephine.
- Insane Troll Logic: Ginger wonders whether "bless this mess" means that the mess in question is deemed sacred, and to clean it would be a sin.
- Jerkass: Subverted. Though Ginger has a habit of saying insulting or nasty things, she doesn't mean it out of malice, but rather she has a tendency to speak before thinking.
- Just Friends: Josephine tries to patch things up with Kelly and be friends with her, despite being enemies in high school. when proposing they become friends, she invokes this trope as a joke. She's not joking, though- she has a one-sided crush on Kelly, and knows she'll likely never return the sentiment.
- Luminescent Blush: Ginger, when Ryan discovers her dancing on the couch in her underwear, though Word of God says she's more embarrassed about Ryan discovering this hobby of hers than she is about being pantsless.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: Ryan and Kelly's response to most of Ginger's ideas and exploits.
- Odd Couple: Ginger and Ryan.
- Pet Baby Wild Animal: Kelly's hedgehog, Kilgore, though the "baby" part is negligible.
- Polar Opposite Twins: Joséphine and her twin sister Bianca.
- Pun-Based Title
- Relationship Upgrade: Kelly and Ryan; though outside of one comic of them hanging out without Ginger, little has changed in the comic.
- Retired Outlaw: The comic left off with Ryan learning that his dad used to be a master thief. Explaining some of his shadier behavior.
- Running Gag: Ginger would like everyone to stop suggesting her dad is Thor.
- Shout-Out: Loads, including Pokémon, Sonic the Hedgehog, Ace Attorney, Monkey Island, Naruto, Futurama, Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park and a number of obscure bands of which the author is a fan. The author has also referenced TV Tropes itself in a recent strip. In another strip, Ginger took on (human versions of) Autumn, Bud, Jacob and Tiffany from Precocious.
- Smug Snake: Joséphine.
- Straight Gay: Steven.
- Straight Man: Ryan and, when he appears, Sean.
- Terrible Interviewees Montage: Complete with a cameo from Scruffy.
- Those Two Guys: Arthur and Hugh.
- Thunder Hammer: Ryan and Kelly once gave Ginger a taser shaped like a hammer as a birthday present. At first she was annoyed that they were persisting with the joke that her (very Swedish) dad is Thor, but then she decided it was a pretty cool weapon.
- The Unreveal: When it looks like we'll finally see what the other side of Ginger's face looks like in a photo, it's obscured by her father's finger in the shot.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Ginger is afraid of spiders, and even references the Trope Namer when she brings this up, since she's an archaeology enthusiast. The author himself is much the same.
- Yandere: Ginger can be this.