Nobody Scores!
is, as the under title puts it, a little comic about inevitable disaster. Three roommates (and their downstairs neighbor) have "adventures" which frequently consist of at least one of them dying or being brutally injured in an extremely comic manner. Everything's back to the way it was in the next strip (unless it's a multi-parter).
The characters are:
- Sara Peterson: the frequent straight person to Beans and Jane, Sara wants to be a Corrupt Corporate Executive.
- Jane Doe: the funny sociopath of the group, she's often the instigator of their "wacky schemes."
- Beans Mulroney: the resident angsty artist.
- Raoul Walker: their downstairs neighbor and the true straight man. He's very smart and snarky. Also, "he hates you very much."
Other characters include:
- Biff: a meathead fratboy.
- Catface Sara/Jane/Bean's cat
- Fucking Julie: is Sara's workplace rival.
- Genghis Khan: works at as a copy editor in Sara's Office.
- Rafael: brings the fun.
- Skeleton Warrior: likes to shout "CREEEEEEE!" a lot.
- Summer: Granola Girl friend/acquaintance of the main cast
As of July 2020, the comic has been on hiatus since 2012
This comic provides examples of:
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Puckish Mr. Jack, obviating the need for plot mechanics since 1957.
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Bites Jane here. Bites everyone else there.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: A plague of Strawman Politicals.
- Artistic Licence: Anatomy: Neckbones don't work that way! But it looks hilarious.
- Artistic License: Physics: Gliese 581d is 20.4 light years away, so a round trip of 1250 years would average 0.03c, slow enough that time dilation would only save about 8 months. On the other hand an average of 0.9c would take 45 years away (=2055) and 19.6 onboard.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Shibamame.
- Author Avatar: The most likely suspect is confirmed at the bottom of this page. A more direct self-insertion appears here, here and there. A blink and you'll miss it appearance here.
- Bad Ass Boast: Upon being asked if she's entering an illegal martial arts death match
- Black Comedy: Almost every strip. The death of main characters is played for laughs on a regular basis.
- Blood Knight: Jane, gleeful agent of chaos in a strip in which unusually nobody dies. This is a fairly consistent element in her characterization.
- The Caper: Perpetrated successfully by the three mains.
- Casanova Wannabe: This guy. It doesn't end well.
- Celebrity Paradox: Weirdly averted when the cast are surprised to discover evidence of the existence of Superman.Sara: So... We live in a universe where Superman exists?
That is stupid but kind of comforting. - Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Jane, again as always. Or perhaps Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Sara sometimes achieves this.
- Cosplay: Parodied here.
- Cowboy Cop: Parodied.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Or perhaps just your autonomy.
- Dada Comics: Falls into this because of many, many surreal moments, including a black box that ejects severed heads of celebrities.
- Dead Baby Comedy: With a side order of I Am a Humanitarian here.
- Die for Our Ship: In-Universe Parody: "Hermione loves Snape!" "Hermione loves me!"
- Digital Piracy Is Evil: Satirized, Beans is "wanted dead or alive for aggravated file sharing".
- Driven to Suicide: I guess?
- Drunken Master: Parodied.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Uncharacteristically, Sara is uncomfortable with profiting by selling severed human heads on eBay.
- For Jane, child human trafficing.
- For Jane, child human trafficing
- Extreme Omnivore: Jane Doe. Actually played about as realistically as you could expect, for a Negative Continuity Gag A Day strip: she apparently gets her stomach pumped a lot. By age eight, she has had at least fifteen pumpings, the latest (at the time) being a can opener. This didn't stop in childhood, either. On occasion, it even results in death.
- For Inconvenience, Press "1" - Seen here.
- Funetik Aksent
- Grammar Nazi: Mr. Tarquin is a real spelling Roman. Complete with a shout-out to the Third Punic War.
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Sara here.
- Hidden Depths:
- Sara has a weakness for poetry that she attempts to repress by any means necessary.
- Jane, generally an Idiot Hero, once drops the word syncretic into her usual slacker babble.
- Beans, as a complete artiste, leaves no depths unrevealed if he can help it, being more likely to have Hidden Shallows. The whole concept is visited here.
- Sara has a weakness for poetry that she attempts to repress by any means necessary
- Homage: To many things, including family comics and Homicide: Life on the Street.
- Hurl It into the Sun: ...or the next best thing.
- Insane Troll Logic: Sara this time.
- It's a Wonderful Plot: For Beans.
- Jade-Colored Glasses: Sara as Evil Over Lord.
- Jaw Drop: Jane, for the first 5 panels here.
- Kafka Komedy
- Le Parkour: An interest of Jane's. It goes badly.
- Local Hangout: Coffee Snout. Many appearances, central role in this tragedy.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Jane. More like crazy insane girl though.
- In "Nobody Scores with Pixie Chicks", Jane resents being a trophy quirky girlfriend and decides to adopt respectability as a quirk.
- "Nerf" ends with her date assuming her sudden inability to walk is also a quirk.
- In "Nobody Scores with Pixie Chicks
- Mary Sue: Raoul explains the concept in-universe.
- Medium Awareness: Raoul comments on the title of the strip.
- Monster Clown: The cast is too horribly jaded even for this.
- Negative Continuity: Or, as the FAQ states, "There's no continuity in Nobody Scores! Unless specified by a handy sign that says "Part One" or "Part Two." So when the world gets overrun by wombats or Sara becomes a vampire or Beans dies of consumption, everything goes rewind before the next comic, exposing our beloved cast to more horrible, horrible fates. Imagine Groundhog Day without a victory condition."
- Nightmare Fetishist: Not who you expect this time.
- Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie: "Pirates vs. Ninjas: The Worsening" and "Nobody Scores with Awesome".
- Old Shame: In-universe in Open Mic Shame Night.
- Parallel Parking: Provides the page image.
- Precision F-Strike: Sara and her nemesis Julie preface each other's names with this.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The conclusion of this strip.
- Retool: During one of the sporadic hiatuses he contemplated replacing the entire cast and setting. During the latest hiatus he's now just contemplating replacing the setting.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder:Sara: Do you feel safer with like Lex Luthor having a million dollars
or with that cool million resting in the bank account of this girl right here? - Rule 34: Name-checked.
- Serious Business: Hula Hooping.
- Sex Is Violence: Sara is enjoying this way too much.
- Shout-Out - Several in-jokes based on Firefly and Serenity, such as in the margin notes on the bottom of these two comics, and the pilot's name in this comic. Gee, I think he's a fan!
- Of course, there are other Shout Outs, such as the one here to another cult movie, and here to a less-cult, but still pulpy movie.
- Multiple Calvin and Hobbes references here.
- To Lord of the Flies here.
- To Jurassic Park for Beans.
- To A Fish Called Wanda in the marginalia here, and quite possibly another here.
- To The Princess Bride here.
- An arc referencing Street Fighter with a helping of Kill Bill starts here.
- An homage to Pan's Labyrinth in this strip.
- To Duck Amuck here with a helping of TooKinkyToTorture.
- To Atlas Shrugged with a bonus of Watchmen here.
- An homage to The Ring and Let the Right One In here.
- To A New Hope here with a generous side of Deconstruction.
- Jane's bookmark toolbar links to The Motley Fool financial site and Ann Althouse. Possibly a shared login with Sara and Beans?
- xkcd gets a shout out in the marginalia.
- Of course, there are other Shout Outs, such as the one here
- Sinister Surveillance: The Panopticon arc is one of the longest to date.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Both teased and consummated in this one.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Observe the catastrophic results of external validation!
- Snakes Are Sexy: Jane knows the score. For Sara it's Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?
- Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Appear here.
- Take That!: To FunkyWinkerbean with a helping of Medium Awareness.
- Technician Versus Performer: Beans sees himself as a performer to Sara's technician in this swordfight. It doesn't end well for him. Jane does better, through sheer insanity.
- The Fair Folk: Well, yes.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted, but unheeded.
- This Is My Boomstick: Subverted.
- Tilt Text: Notes and doodles often appear in the margins of the strip, forcing the reader to turn their head.
- Too Dumb to Live: Everyone, it seems.
- Too Kinky to Torture: A variant here, where Sara turns vampire and tries to feed on Beans, but she's put off when she find out he's into it.
- True Art: In-Universe Parody, most often with Beans. For example.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Frequently, but a prize example.
- The Vamp: Jane can quite effectively solicit male interest. It usually ends badly for them. Sometimes she takes a more direct approach. This also ends badly for them.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Sara and Jane. The horrors inflicted on Beans are more an afterthought.
- Woman Scorned: A two-for, for double the fun.
- Would Hurt a Child: And that's terrible. Realistic consequences follow.
- Your Head Asplode: This guy.
- Zombie Apocalypse: "She's now a newly viable member of the workforce!"
