"new daily comic strip i invented about what it’s like being married to Betty Boop"
— Alec Robbins
A Life Embellished webcomic about the titular Alec Boop (nee Robbins) and his life being married to Betty Boop. Claimed to be based on Alec Robbins' real life, and posted on his twitter account
and a website, the webcomic features Alec meeting (and usually having sex with) characters from various media, including Family Guy, The Sopranos and even Homestuck.
Extremely NSFW.
Has a spin-off flash game, Mr. Boop and the Curse of the Dinner Party; tropes applying to this game are included in the Mr. Boop section. There is also a pseudo-sequel comic available on the webpage, Mr. Group, in which Alec attempts to trap a group of his online followers (and himself) in a Deadly Game. Tropes for Mr. Group are listed separately at the bottom of this page.
Mr. Boop contains examples of:
- Adventures In Coma Land: Most of Book II is this, following Alec being shot by Sonic.
- Art Evolution: Played for Horror in book IV as Alec increasingly draws Liz to resemble Betty until he's just drawing Betty again.
- Art Shift: In Book II, during Alec's coma dream after being shot by Sonic The Hedgehog, and at the end when depicting the "real world".
- Again in strip number #166 when the "real" Alec is depicted.
- Art-Shifted Sequel: Book IV is written in a much more detailed style to represent taking place in the "real" world.
- Bittersweet Ending: Strip #217 ends with Alec finally breaking out of his delusions and ending the comic once and for all in a parody of the End of Evangelion. Unfortunately, he has destroyed his relationship with Liz in the process, and the ending implies that Alec will still be struggling with his mental health for a long time.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Strip #50 has Alec telling the audience that just having "vanilla" sex with his wife after a series of sexual adventures is allowed. The ends of Book II and III have more notable (and plot-relevant) wall-breaks, with Book IV obfuscating where the line between reality and fiction actually is.
- Brutal Honesty: When the cast's therapist starts treating one of the escaped prisoners and hears him talk about how much he loves watching people die, she realizes she finds him hot. She then asks her own therapist if that's messed up, to which he responds: "Yes. You shouldn't be a therapist."
- The Cameo: A live-action video of the fans “forgiving” Alec for not being actually married to Betty Boop features brief appearances from Tim Robinson, Mara Wilson, and Justin McElroy as themselves.
- Captain Obvious: Characters' thought bubbles often remind the audience of things they already know. Alec referring to Betty Boop as his wife is an extremely prominent example. This taken to disturbing levels in Book IV when it's used to highlight the obvious disconnect between the real world and Alec's fantasies.
- Casual Kink: Alec and Betty seemingly have no issue making their somewhat kinky lifestyle public.
- Celebrity Resemblance: Dr. Sonic the Hedgehog goes on a date with a woman because she looks like Betty Boop.
- It's implied "real" Alec started dating Liz because her name could be shortened to Betty. Further exemplified when he starts drawing Liz to match Betty Boop instead.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Book IV is much less goofy than previous books, being presented as an actual diary comic of Alec Robbins' life during the real-life COVID-19 Pandemic. This gets even heavier, then, into full-on Cerebus Retcon territory, as Alec starts dating a woman who, rapidly, begins to be drawn and written with the tone of the earlier comics, all while being shown outright as disapproving of this portrayal, feeling embarrassed and mistreated by it.
- Chekhov's Gunman:
- Liz first appears in a Breaking the Fourth Wall joke way back in Book II's ending before having a major role in Book IV.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Betty's father is convinced that this was her sole motivation for marrying Alec.
- Deconstructive Parody: Of the Self-Insert Fic on two fronts.
- On the authorial side, the story is basically about a shunned, socially awkward dork obsessing over a fictional character, eventually making comics as a way to live out his dreams of interacting with said character. Where this becomes a deconstruction is that writing Mr. Boop slowly erodes Alec's mental state. The story paints Alec as becoming more and more delusional as the ideal world he's created for himself in his comics begins to overtake his reality, and Alec begins to really think that he and the completely fictional character of Betty Boop are in love. These mental issues reach their height during Book IV when the comic becomes a diary of sorts, and Alec begins drawing his real-life girlfriend more and more like Betty...
- In terms of being a self-insert story, numerous self-insert tropes like Relationship Sue and Author Avatar are invoked to highlight Alec's increasing instability. The high amount of sexual content is offputting instead of erotic, since Alec's sex-crazed comic life is clearly meant to a placeholder for his own real life issues with romance. The love between Alec and Betty is also purposely shallow, since Alex is projecting his ideal romantic relationship onto a fictional character who cannot properly reciprocate. All of this comes to a climax in the last ten strips when Bugs snaps, holds Alec at gunpoint, and begins interrogating him about why everything seems so fake and shallow.
- Dreamworks Face: Alec and Betty, whenever they think about how hot they find each other.
- Easily Forgiven: Bugs Bunny after trying to kill Alec. Later, Sonic for doing the same thing, and nearly succeeding.
- Ethical Slut: Alec and Betty both have voracious sexual appetites, but would never do anything that might hurt each other or anyone else.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Alec's therapist can't help thinking about how hot Betty Boop is.
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: After Alec overcomes his feelings of not deserving Betty, their alone time includes a lot of sex, and problems with jealous people are mainly solved with threesomes that escalate into orgies.
- Everyone Is Bi: Seemingly no one is immune to the siren call of a threesome with Alec and Betty.
- Subverted somewhat by the fact that Bugs seems utterly uninterested in Alec, and only has a threesome with him in order to have sex with Betty Boop.
- Extreme Omnisexual: Betty and Alec seem willing to have sex with anyone. And everyone is willing to accept, which solves most interpersonal problems...except for Betty's father.
"This is one problem you can't threesome your way out of."
- Fanservice: There is quite a lot of uncensored, naked Betty Boop...
- Fan Disservice: ...And then there's scenes of uncensored, naked Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and Alec.
- Faux Horrific: Mr. Boop and the Curse of the Dinner Party has ominous music, dialogue, and setting descriptions, culminating with finding Alec's diary and finds out his and Betty's nefarious plot is to... have a threesome with the player character.
- Fetish: At one point, Alec mentions that making a comic about his sex life with his wife (Betty Boop) is "part of his kink".
- Flanderisation: Visually, Alec is drawn more stylistically over time. Lampshaded in strip #166 when the real Alec is depicted for the first time, in a much more realistic style.
- Gainax Ending: The final strip is a literal example, being an extended parody of the trope codifier End Of Evangelion.
- Genre Shift: The first three books are mainly a surreal Cringe Comedy farce. Book IV slowly shifts it into a psychological horror story, as Alec begins to reject the real world in favor of his Betty Boop fantasies. Even when the art style returns to its goofy format, the unsettling undercurrent of delusion remains.
- The Ghost: Alec's first wife Samus Aran is mentioned but never depicted, aside from a clip of her in her own games during the ending montage.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Betty's father's lawyer realizes he's spent his whole life working for a greedy, awful man, and he decides that from now on he's going to fight for the good guys. The very next panel is blank due to the comic being cancelled and the character is never seen again.
- Here We Go Again!: Partway through Book IV, Alec's depiction of "Liz" gradually changes to be more like Betty Boop, resulting in reliving the start of "Mr. Boop".
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Book III has a major antagonist in the form of Betty Boop's Dad. However, in the webcomic's final update, the actual "Betty Boop's Dad", Mr. Fleisher (presumably Mark, current chairman of Fleisher Studios and the still-living grandson of Betty's creator Max Fleisher) is depicted receiving a letter of apology concerning the use and depiction of his intellectual property...to Mr. Fleisher's absolute confusion.
- Hollywood Law: Betty Boop's Dad's copyright over his daughter seems to give him the power to decide who she marries.
- Hotter and Sexier: Betty's sex life is depicted in much more graphic detail than the original cartoons.
- Ignored Epiphany: Several times Alec acknowledges that it isn't healthy for him to center his entire existence around Betty, and one of his ex-wives specifically says she divorced him because she was uncomfortable with his single-minded devotion to her and wanted him to live his own life.note The topic is always brushed off dismissively and Alec goes right back to worshiping Betty.God Betty: "You have a lot of issues you'll need to work through when you wake up from your coma."Alec: "To be quite honest, when I wake up from my coma the only thing I'm doing is having sex with my wife. I didn't learn anything from any of this I'm just going to have sex."
- Informed Attribute: Sonic is said to be particularly "sexually open" but doesn't appear to be more so than the rest of the cast.
- Interspecies Romance: Alec and Betty with Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Sonic the Hedgehog et al.
- Ironic Echo: Strip #200 is a complete redraw of the very first strip. At this point, a reader may be horrified rather than amused.
- Journal Comic: In-story, a fictional one, Mr. Mr. Boop, replaces Mr. Boop after Alec "ends" the comic. It gradually evolves back into Mr. Boop as Alec turns his new girlfriend Liz into Betty.
- Kavorka Man: Despite Comic Alec being drawn extremely exaggeratedly, he has managed to marry Betty Boop, Madame Gina and Samus Aran. Even in the "real" world, he wins Liz's heart quite effortlessly, though she resists his efforts to turn her into someone she's not.
- Kayfabe: Part of the appeal of the comic is Alec Robbins constant public commitment to the idea that the comic is based on his "actual real life".
- Finally broken when Alec publicly confesses in strip #166 that he was misleading the audience and was never married to Betty Boop...only to start falsely depicting his real life and break it again in the finale.
- Life Embellished: Even after the Kayfabe is broken, Book IV starts off as an accurate autobiography of Alec Robbins's real life... up until he starts misrepresenting Liz's words and appearance to make her into his ideal girlfriend, much to the real Liz's annoyance. Alec goes as far as claiming that she agreed to marry him and legally changed her name to Betty Boop, allowing him to reboot Mr. Boop.
- Living Aphrodisiac: Betty Boop seemingly can't go anywhere without everyone around her thinking about how hot she is.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Alec struggles to perform the first time he and Betty try to have sex, due to his fears that he's not good enough for her and that she'll leave him. Just two sessions with a therapist later and all their issues are very, very solved.
- Loving a Shadow: Alec falls for Liz because she reminds him of Betty, and when she departs from the script he simply rewrites her behavior to suit his fantasies.
- Medium Blending: Has live-action video segments featuring interviews with Alec.
- Montage Out: "Mr. Boop: Endgame" is a series of strips which shows what all the characters are doing as the comic is cancelled.
- Multiple Endings: The Curse of the Dinner Party has two endings: The good ending where the player has an off-screen threesome with Betty and Alec, and the bad ending where the player "accidentally" leaves the house.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Bugs' original plan.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Alec's immediate reaction when he first sees the the Angelic Abomination that resembles Betty and appears as God in his comatose dreams is a devious "oh HELL yeah", and he takes many of the stranger aspects of the dream in stride (like when he ends up inside God!Betty's womb).
- The therapist that many characters visit is attracted to the escaped prisoner who constantly gloats about how much he enjoys killing people. Later she tells this to Cathy, who agrees (in graphic detail) that people who could hurt or kill her are hot.
- Offscreen Breakup: Implied between Alec and Liz, sometime after he completely warps his depiction of her into his shallow fantasy. In the ending, he and Liz pass by each other again at the grocery store... but she walks away without even looking at him, while he tearfully glances back at her.
- Older Than They Look: Betty Boop is 90.
- One-Steve Limit: Subverted with Sonic The Hedgehog and Dr. Sonic the Hedgehog (no relation).
- Painting the Medium: The comic's title changes to "Mr. Robbins" after Alec and Betty get divorced. It also changes to "Mr. Mr. Boop" when it starts focusing on the comic's actual creator...before changing back to "Mr. Boop" when he's slipped back into depicting himself as living a fantasy with Mrs. Boop.
- Parody Episode: Strip number #55 is a direct homage to the infamous loss.jpg, and strip #90 is Loss in reverse.
- Strips #151-164 all reference The Sopranos by ending each strip abruptly with a black panel, representing the cancellation of the comic. There's even a cameo by the Sopranos themselves.
- The final strip is an extended reference to End Of Evangelion.
- Poor Communication Kills: Sonic's plan to get the Divorce Lawyer to kill Alec.
- Subverted when Alec easily defuses the situation by simply talking to the lawyer, leading Sonic to take direct action.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: In Book I, strip 33, Alec recognizes when a certain train of thought (threatening suicide if Betty ever left him) would be manipulative and decides against it. In Book IV, he's clearly manipulating what "Liz/Betty Boop" is shown thinking, and in strip 205 specifically, he says he'll flip out if she leaves him.
- Really Gets Around: Sonic describes himself as "a pretty sexually open guy". Following Alec and Betty taking his advice and hosting threesomes/orgies, they gain this reputation, to the point that Betty Boop's Dad's Lawyer arriving at their house is mistaken to be a last-minute orgy addition.
- Revealing Continuity Lapse: In Book IV, after marrying "Liz/Betty Boop", Alec is now shown working at Quiznos with Bugs Bunny and Peter Griffin instead of Subway.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: In Book IV, Bugs Bunny has "little flashes of memories" that help him realize that the "current" reality is going through the same motions as the "fake" one, leading to an existential crisis.
- Self-Insert Fic: A parody of the genre, displaying Alec as a beloved Kavorka Man who's Happily Married to Betty Boop and eventually gets to have orgies with other characters. But it's gradually deconstructed. It soon becomes clear that Alec is living a complete delusion, as would anyone who spends their days obsessing over being married with a fictional character.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Betty is apparently aware that Alec makes comics about her sex life, and supports him.
- Show Within a Show: A quick gag at the end of Book II depicts a girl reading the "Mr. Boop" comic and questioning the author's mental state. This is brought up again in Book IV, when said girl, "Liz", starts dating Alec after recognizing him as the comic's author.
- Sleeps with Everyone but You: Sonic's reaction when he finds out Alec and Betty had an orgy with everyone but him.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Betty is so attractive that she and Alec struggle to consummate their relationship for most of book I as he's too insecure to perform. She also causes a lot of people to want her husband dead.
- Species Surname: Played straight with many of the copyrighted characters but subverted with Dr. Sonic the Hedgehog, a normal human who happens to have the same name as Sonic.
- Stylistic Suck: The website is made in an intentionally ugly and antiquated style.
- Tempting Fate: Betty at the beginning of Book III:
"It's really great that nothing bad is going to happen to us ever again."
- Through the Eyes of Madness: As Alec's delusions increasingly dominate Book IV.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Alec and Betty, and later, Alec and Liz, who notes that his low stature was one of the only things he didn't exaggerate about his appearance.
- Toontown: Even the characters aren't fully sure whether they're humans or cartoons.
- Unreliable Narrator: Alec. First, played for laughs at the end of Book III when it's revealed he was never actually married to Betty Boop, and then played for drama later on as he portrays his new girlfriend as gradually being morphed in his head into Betty Boop.
- Wham Line: In strip #182.
"I’m so glad I met you, Betty."
- Wingding Eyes: Alec gets them a lot when thinking about his wife.
Mr. Group contains examples of:
- But Thou Must!: Learning from the Off the Rails vote, Alec's subsequent punishment poll has two options: one that floods the room while sending in a monster and forcing one of the participants to eat a bug, and "same as above".
- Cassandra Truth: When the majority of Deadly Game participants decide to leave when they're allowed to, the first thing they do is tell a police officer about what happened. Said officer doesn't believe them and, since they're wearing nothing but chains and scraps of cloth, takes them to jail for public indecency.
- Cat Girl: Issue #46 has a Catboy Alec in the group of Alec clones, which Tracy points out to try and convince Ren to trust them.
- Cliffhanger: The actual end of the comic is one, with someone off-panel confronting Evil Alec, Evil Alec thinking "it's a shame this is the end because something crazy is happening now!", and a final panel that just states "End of the Whole Comic Again but For Real This Time".
- Comically Missing the Point: When introducing themselves to the Alec clones, Tracy says that her full name is Tracy Morgan, like the comedian, and that she makes a living posting her own amateur porn online. When Ren blushes and asks if that's true, Tracy assumes Ren's just baffled by her name and states that her parents were big fans of his comedy.
- Deadly Game: The initial premise of this pseudo-sequel is that Alec has trapped some of his social media followers in a "puzzle dungeon" set up in an abandoned Home Depot and wants them to participate in games with the punishment of death for failure. Things immediately go Off the Rails when Alec lets his other online followers decide the first punishment and the majority pick "let everyone go free".
- Fake-Out Fade-Out: The comic seems to end at strip #13, with everyone being free to go, and the last panel just stating "End of the Whole Comic". The following "Epilogue" page continues the series to strip #51.
- It's Personal: Ren, one of the Deadly Game participants, had already gone through the game in the past and watched her best friend die, so she decides to stick around to get revenge on Alec.
- Loony Fan: Tracy, one of Alec's followers and a participant of the Deadly Game, willingly continues to participate after everyone is allowed to leave just because she wants to spend more time with Alec.
- Off the Rails: Alec genuinely didn't expect the online vote to decide a punishment to result in "let everyone go free", which would've ended the Deadly Game completely if two participants (one seeking revenge and one that just wants to have fun with Alec) didn't stick around. Alec even namedrops the trope in the actual final comic.
- Screw Yourself: The two Alec clones that escaped from Evil Alec married each other, and all of the ones still held captive are seen making out with each other.
