Material Girl is a Webcomic created by Heartgear and hosted on DeviantArt. It follows the story of Noah, a teenager forced to live as a Wholesome Crossdresser after brushing off the local beggar girl. Failing to spare some coin, Noah finds himself a slave to Karma when his sister's wardrobe (somehow) acquires life and, in her absence, decide he'll make an acceptable replacement.
Unnatural forces aside, the comic remains mostly a slice-of-life comedy with a bit of drama and some messages for the readers.
You can start reading it on DeviantArt here
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The comic features:
- Big Damn Heroes: Mars and Ribbon during the final part.
- Bound and Gagged: A minor version — one of the animated clothing's favorite tricks is to simply gag him with animated ribbon and drag him where it wants him to go.
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Broken Aesop: Remember, your sexuality is a choice! Someone else just has to choose it for you and then condition you into following said sexuality. A retcon to Noah's past tries to fix this, but it still seems to contradict the overall message of the comic and turn very veeeery freaky. The creator did address these concerns, sort of."While I could explain it all, give my take on the situation and why it's taking place this way, and how this is still fulfilling my initial goal to 'Do something different,' I won't. I don't intend to insult the intelligence of my audience by hand-feeding reasons and deprive them of any personal discovery or vested interest." - Cassandra Truth: Telling the truth just won't help Noah's case. He becomes aware of that later.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The comic starts out as a joke a day panel each time, and then becomes much darker until Noah gets attacked by Rex and his goons.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Scotty and Chet disappear after a seemingly unresolved fight.
- Disproportionate Retribution: So he ignores a gypsy beggar and ends up having his entire life shattered and put back together in response? Harsh. But much depends on how much you read into the comic. It could be that the gypsy was completely unrelated to a later nervous breakdown, or her harsh words caused it.
- From Bad to Worse: One of the epilogues shows Noah's male clothing animating in much the same way as his sister's clothing, demanding equal access to him. The author's note suggests that they all start getting along afterwards. Symbolism, much?
- Gypsy Curse: In this case the Gypsy is a cute young-ish girl instead of an old crone.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Noah's solution to Rex swinging a heavy bat at Mars's head is to jump in the way, suffering a concussion for his troubles. It does apparently cause Rex to come to his senses, however.
- Homage:
- To Alice in Wonderland.
- Also, there's a comparison with Beauty and the Beast.
- The overall art style has some deliberate similarities to Calvin and Hobbes (e.g. cars 'float' down the street at high speed), and focuses on the interactions between a boy and his ambiguously-imaginary non-human sidekick.
- I Didn't Mean to Turn You On:
- Noah certainly didn't mean this with Rex, but had to face the consequences.
- He also kind of does it here.
- If It's You, It's Okay: By the end, Mars has figured out Noah's gender. He doesn't care. Also, in the epilogue, Rex is still quite torn over his attraction to Noah.
- Laser-Guided Karma
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Is Noah possessed by magically animated girls' clothing items, or having a nervous breakdown over the development of a non-male gender identity?
- My God, What Have I Done?: Ribbon's response to seeing Noah get the everloving crap kicked out of him by a bigoted bully. Also Rex's apparent offscreen reaction to Noah taking a bullet — er, bat for Mars.
- No Name Given: "Mars"; with no name given in the comic proper, the fans just followed the artist's lead and named him from his shirt.
- Stupid Sexy Flanders
- Take a Third Option: Which was possibly Noah's Moment of Awesome.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted — As the Cerebus Syndrome kicks in and Noah's new quirk goes from funny to disturbing, the "have you called a therapist" joke between Noah's parents becomes "we're locking you in the back of the car and making you go to one".
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Resolved with a bat to the head. Sorta. In the epilogue, it's shown that Rex is still pining over Noah.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Mars' shirt.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue
- Wholesome Crossdresser
