Webcomic / Paranormal Mystery Squad

Katie, Charlotte and Stephanie

Paranormal Mystery Squad is a manga created by Adam Arnold with art by ComiPa (Vol 1), Ian Chang (Vol 2) and Micheal Shelfer (Vol 3) and licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment. It, and its sister manga, Vampire Cheerleaders, are hosted by Pixie Trix Comix (also host of Ménage à 3, Magick Chicks and Eerie Cuties).

The Paranormal Mystery Squad is a group of three young women who hunt ‘cryptids’, i.e. monsters.

The print (and e-book) versions of Volumes 1 & 2 are sold as the second half of the Vampire Cheerleaders books. Volume 3 marks the seemingly permanent merger with Vampire Cheerleaders opening with one big crossover.

Now has a character page.

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Tropes:

• All Myths Are True: In addition to classics like vampires and werewolves, there are such things as Native American Deer Women, Phoenixes, Chupacabra and what appears to be Mothman.
• All Women Are Lustful: On this strip
  • Lita also show signs of this
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Steph sees her teen sister as this to a degree.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Played straight in the online and e-book editions of Volume 2, but averted in the hard copy edition, at least above the waist.
• Breaking the Bonds: By pissed off wolfed up Katie.
• Cassandra Truth: Despite raising some valid points about how vampires could be disguising themselves as highschoolers, JC and Char continue to dismiss Steph's suspicions.
• Colossus Climb: Against K'aannl'ngua
• Convection, Schmonvection: Charlotte is rescued virtually unharmed from a fully engulfed wicker man.
  • Katie's tail isn't so lucky
• Crossover: See Shared Universe.
• Cute Monster Girl: Katie. The Deer Woman at the beginning of Volume 1 wasn't bad looking either.
• Cute Wiccan: Charlotte.
• Damsel in Distress: Katie gets kidnapped by Theo and has her chained to a bed so that he can have his way with her. Subverted: She manages to defend herself and knock him out by the time the rescue arrives.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Paranormal Mystery Squad consists of a Goth, Werewolf, Wiccan and Dhampyr and they have a bat as the Team Pet.
• Description Cut: At a very public trial, the judge gives the Squad 2,000 hours of community service as punishment for various crimes. He then asks if Steph if she has anything else to say, and she clicks off the TV, since it was actually a recording of the trial.
  J.C.: I can't believe you said that.
  Steph: He deserved it.
  J.C.: Yeah, but he doubled our hours!
• Devil in Plain Sight: The Vampires of Bakertown High, who masquerade as the school's cheerleading team and student council.
• Dhampyr: J.C. Summerfield
• Eldritch Abomination: this guy
• Eye Scream: Stephanie stabbed one of K'AAN'NGUA's Eyes
• Fake Kill Scare: Leonard Dies! At least, Steph clearly is having a good time. Oh, well.
• Fan Convention: The Squad has to do community service in the form of an appearce at ParaCon, which are full of people who consider the crew as evil hunters.
• Fantastic Racism: Steph's attitude towards all 'cryptids'. Then her sister became one. Even more "off" due to two crossovers with Layla. Layla evidently managed to miss the whole TV fame of her old friend and "kill all cryptids" video on YouTube, but for her obliviousness is in character. She had to talk about it with oh so polite Maria, though.
• Fun with Acronyms: It is no accident that they are known as ‘’PMS’’.
• Gag Penis: Used to test if certain feelings still cause Katie to change into her werewolf form.
• Goth: Stephanie.
• Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee: At the beginning of Volume 2.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Stephanie appears to be well on her way down this road at the beginning. She gets better.
• Idiot Hair: Katie has one sticking up in the back. Reflects here tendancy to act without thinking.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Just short of a fight with Katie as she goes through her first change.
• Irony: Steph starts out hating cryptids and ends up literally embracing them as the Hive Queen of the moth men.
• Jerkass: Steph whose always so quick to point out someones flaws.
• Mark of the Supernatural: Charlotte has a less noticeable version with one blue eye and one green eye. There are hints that this is a hallmark of her magical affinity.
• Mercy Kill: How Steph views slaying monsters that were born human. She initially plans to do this with her sister, but is talked down by JC and Charlotte.
• Monster Wrongs Group: Steph finds herself butting heads with PETM (People for the Ethical Treatment of Monsters), who demand that ‘cryptids’ be captured alive and unharmed.
  • A notable subversion (especially when compared to PETA) is that PETM are well aware cryptids are dangerous and even have standard issue tasers. As Summerfield put it, they're naive, not stupid.
  • O'Keefe takes the entire thing to ridiculous extremes, such as refusing to let the army bomb an "innocent cryptid" who mind-controlled half the county (there are good reasons not to drop a bomb on a bunch of people, but that isn't one of them) and later gets the president to declare a Kaiju that's about to destroy the city and possibly the world an endangered species, forbidding the military from attacking. Well, the Squad is forbidden too, but they ignore it.
• Near-Rape Experience: The reason Mr. Campbell summoned the team to his farm not to investigate, but to be breeding stock for his son. The climax of volume one begins when the son kidnaps Katie in order to try again.
• No Periods, Period: Averted. Katie seems to delight and using her teenaged PMS as an excuse to ignore diplomacy (and propriety).
  • It later becomes a plot point as the now werewolf Katie ends up being in heat as a result.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: O'Keefe has the President order Briggs to stand down his forces because it would violate Congressional law to attack K'aannl'ngua, an endangered Cryptid species. The military then pulls out, allowing the demon to wreck Las Vegas.
• Off with His Head!: Steph is quite effective with that sword.
• Oh, Crap!: Everyone's reaction to Mr. Campbell going openly hostile, but especially Katie when Theo changes.
  • A more comic version when the sea monster Steph just speared swam off rapidly. "Oh Frak...!" Yank!
  • Said just before Abandon Monster!
• The One Guy J.C. Summerfeild
• Parental Abandonment: Stephanie and Katie’s parents were killed about a year before the story starts (and after Steph’s appearance in Aoi House).
• Paranormal Investigation
• Spit Take: Recently during the VC/PMS crossover, Katie has one over The Reveal that O'Keefe is a lesbian.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The general put in charge the incident in Volume 2 comes off sympathetic to the PMS crew, and most definitely does not like O'Keefe's presence and interference.
  • When they kill the Kaiju rampaging around Vegas (which O'Keefe got named an endangered species), he gets them issued a full pardon, and the 4,000 hours of community service fully commuted.
• Shared Universe:
  • With Aoi House and Vampire Cheerleaders, with Stephenie being introduced in Aoi House, and there being cameos between VC and PMS. With PMS being hosted on the same site as Eerie Cuties and Magick Chicks, there is some talk of seeing if a link is plausible between them.
  • A couple of guest comics by Adam for Eerie Cuties were set in a flashback focusing on Layla and Steph as kids. Turns out it was Layla that gave Steph her hairpin saying that they (her and Steph's hairpins) come in pairs. The two strips close with Steph in the present day wondering what Layla was up to at the moment. As far as Adam is concerned, the comics are canon for Paranormal Mystery Squad.
  • Which, coupled with the latest comics (as of this writing), where Nina, Layla, Blair and their mother Maria make an appearance, pretty much confirms that Eerie Cuties, Magick Chicks ^note  by extension, since it shares the same universe as Eerie Cuties., Aoi House, Paranormal Mystery Squad and Vampire Cheerleaders all share the same universe.
  • All of the main cast of Vampire Cheerleaders have made at least one appearance. Lori and Lesly here, Heather here, and finally Suki and Zoey here.
  • Volume 2 of VC had some references to events that were happening, or about to happen, in PMS. Adam has stated that Volume 3 will have a full-scale crossover.
• She Who Fights Monsters: Steph’s hatred of cryptids has some unfortunate levels.
• Shout-Out: All of Charlotte's spell incantations are pop-culture references. No one knows why (not even her).
  • Stephanie makes Ghostbusters (1984) jokes (too bad the lawyer had No Sense of Humor) and her ringtone is the movie theme.
  • Adam]] freely admits that this page was an extended Shout-Out to Ginger Snaps.
  • Steph chose to use a jian (Chinese 'fencing' sword) due to being a fan of Soulcalibur.
  • Be seeing you.
  • What the belgium was that
  • Get yer stinkin' paws off my sister, you damn dirty wolf!
  • You don't buy black lingerie unless you want somebody to see it.
  • From this page, it's probably safe to say that Steph's seen Red Dwarf.
• Theme Naming: Many Batman (and the wider DCU) references are made in the names for the various characters.
• The Unfair Sex: Steph as per most of her jerkass tendencies, for example she blames the whole Katie turning into a werewolf on J.C. when really Katie had wandered off on her own. J.C, despite being a nice guy, thankfully isn't a doormat and more than willing to call her out on this.
• Trash the Set: the final arc "Vampire Cheerleaders In Space and Time" starts out as a bizarre fusion of the two comics with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Mothman Prophecies and quickly snowballs into a gloriously gonzo space opera with [Shout-Out Shout Outs] to every urban legend or paranormal story imaginable. By the time they're done they've gleefully trashed the settings of both comics to the point where nothing less than a full Continuity Reboot could restore them.
• Unusual Euphemism: You were "double-clicking your mouse," weren't you?
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: "Cryptoslaughter" has only recently been made illegal, and appears to remain a civil offense.
• Whole Costume Reference: After being defeated by Lita in Volume 2, Char finds herself dressed up as Zatanna, Steph as Alice from the Resident Evil: Extinction and Katie as Claire from Resident Evil: Afterlife.
• Van Helsing Hate Crime: Steph who believes all cryptids are evil roughly stemming what happened to her parents. Things gets complicated when her sister is turned into a werewolf and the newest member of their team is revealed to be a Dhampyr.

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