Randal's Friends is a webcomic by Howdie. The comic started in the form of short comic strips in 2011 when Howdie was 21 and became a longer story with issues, titled as "lucids", in 2015.
The comic focuses on the daily life of Randal Ivory, a very peculiar and dark minded young boy who wants nothing more than to make friends. Randal's Friends is usually contained to the Ivory household, but will occasionally take place in various run-down locations.
This webcomic contains examples of the following tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: There are a number of things left unexplained and in the story. The backstories of the characters Nyon and Nyen is considered information lost to time. Luther being the guardian of his younger brother Randal has never been addressed. Sebastian ended up in an adoption center, but there was no explanation for how he got there. Based off of how Sebastian reacts to the world around him, it's implied that the it was not always like that.
- Crapsack World: With an exception being the Ivory household, all buildings look worn down. The few human characters are placed in ambiguous and dark situations such as an entire classroom being killed by a group of fake people. Both animals and humans are sold as pets despite them having no difference to the other non-human characters in terms of intelligence.
- Little Bit Beastly: All animal characters look like humans with animal ears and sometimes tails.
- Surreal Humor: The comedy of Randal's Friends comes from the lack of real world logic.
