Maximumble
is a Slice of Life webcomic by Chris Hallbeck. The series began in 2010. It is a Stick-Figure Comic, with almost every human character being virtually identical in appearance, distinguished only by their clothing.
Some strips are also animated on Chris's YouTube channel.
Maximumble includes examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: Several animated shorts add more stuff that are not present in the original strips. For example, "Horse" just makes a pun with "water" and "Walter", while its animated version adds a sequence with the protagonist taking the horse to eat Walter's flowers and getting called out by the narrator.
- Ambiguous Gender: In general, the characters are featureless stick figures without any Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, which means there's no way to tell a character is female unless they're referred to as such. The animated version doesn't help matters either, since Chris Hallbeck does pretty much all the voicework.
- Author Avatar: Chris Hallbeck appeared in at least one strip to advertise his Patreon and merch store.
- Bearded Baby: In "Long ago", a wizard explains to another character how he was created, and a week later, his Wizard Beard filled in.
- Black Comedy: In "Two hands", a man tells his friend Steven over the phone that he needs to let him go because he needs to use both hands. He then proceeds to use both hands to text and lets go of a rope, sending Steven plunging down a cliff.
- Chew-Out Fake-Out: In "Batty", a father berates his son for dressing as Batgirl... because the skirt clashes with the Bat-symbol and his shoes are impractical.
- Comically Missing the Point: In "Werewolf", a vampire overhears a werewolf mocking vampires. The vampire is just confused about why the werewolf keeps saying the word "neck". note
- Easy Road to Hell: In "Goodness", one person went to hell when they died, just because of a single snide comment on the internet about getting an Android phone when the other person asked about an iPhone problem.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Mr. Whiskers is a gaping void treated like a pet cat, and was adopted from a shelter.
- Mean Boss: In "Suggestions", a boss has a suggestion box for his employees to put their ideas into. It's actually just a shredder.
- Medium Awareness:
- In "Style", the characters discuss one character's hair stylist and the other's desire for a new one, before acknowledging that neither character has hair and saying the script must have been written for a different comic strip because it doesn't make any sense.
- In "Tea", one character is making rude comments about someone else when a third character stops him and tells him he needs to swap his dashed lines for speaking to bubbles for thinking. He then proceeds to physically swap them to get him to shut up.
- Puppeteer Parasite: "Report" and "Approval" feature a boss wearing a hat that is obviously an alien commanding his brain, which he promptly denies, but his employees aren't fooled.
- Right Behind Me: In "Werewolf", a werewolf mocks vampires, only for a vampire to show up in line right behind me. The vampire misses the point, however, and is just confused about why the werewolf keeps saying the word "neck", which none of the characters have.
- Self-Deprecation: In one strip, two characters labeled "Me" and "Also me" talk about how one can't think of any ideas for a new comic strip, and wants to make a strip about how he can't think of any ideas, which the other one makes fun of him for. The second character then points out that he's sitting at a fake cartoonist drawing table, and in reality he sits on a couch and draws on an iPad.
- Superficial Suggestion Box: One strip has a Mean Boss set up a suggestion box for their employees. It's actually just a shredder.
- That Came Out Wrong: In "Parts", a child innocently says that they're drawing their mom's "downstairs parts". They are, of course, referring to their mom's feet, which she uses to go downstairs.
- Truth Serums: "Truth" features a dentist injecting their patient with truth serum before asking "have you been flossing?"
- Turned Against Their Masters: Two characters developed a robot to perform household tasks like vacuuming, then walking the dog, then cleaning up after the dog. It became a killer robot after being assigned this last task, as it was supposed to use its vacuum ability to clean up after the dog... and the vacuum also just happened to be its mouth.
- Utility Weapon: In "Boss Battle!", a man is asked to use his sword to open a package.
