Center: Zee Furlong, our hero. Clockwise from bottom center: O, Norm, Bell, Del, Copycat, Felina
Shortcats is a webcomic made by Eugenia Joyuen, also known as E-Joy (title card painter for The Blockbuster Buster).
The comic follows the life of Zee Furlong, your average guy from the cat-populated Keyboard City, located in the big Universe Computer. Once Zee discovers he is capable of remembering everything after the “Universe Resets” (which are named “CTRL Z” by them), he and his best friend O decide to use his newfound talents.
You can read the comic strips here
(the english version). The original posts in Spanish can be found in WEBTOON.
This webcomic provides examples of the following tropes:
- Beach Episode: One of the Story Arcs has the gang going to Norm’s beach house during a heatwave in Keyboard City.
- Cats Are Mean: Subverted with some characters, since all are cats, essentially. The trope applies straight with Copycat and downplayed with Bell in Sarcasm Mode.
- Childhood Friends: Zee and O have been besties since Elementary School, Norm also was in that classroom. At the same time, he and Bell have known each other since they were kids.
- Cosmic Retcon: In-Universe. Since the Shortcats live in a Universe inside a computer, the system tends to reboot from time to time with a “CTRL-Z”. Zee (and some members of the Furlong line) is the only one who can remember what happened before the resets.
- Extreme Omnivore: Tabby. According to Bell, it ate some of her sculptures and snacks. By the time it starts to mutate, it tries to eat both Zee and Felina.
- According to the Bytebug Manual, bugs can eat anything made of data, which includes literally everything in the Keyboard Universe.
- Face Palm: The others frequently have this reaction when Zee screws up.
- Felina and Norm did this after Zee and O were sitting on Bell’s sculpture… again.
- O does this as well when Zee fails to renegotiate the apartment's rent.
- "Friends" Rent Control: Justified with Zee and O’s new apartment, which is a two-bedroom duplex in Block S (near a convenience store, subway station, and Key U), since it’s rumored that it’s haunted by an old witch.
- Foil:
- Bell and Copycat are both artists, with the difference that Bell is so conceptual and profound that nobody understands her pieces, while Copycat has a lot of technical skill but lacks originality, resulting in most of his pieces being knock-offs.
- Bell and Norm come from wealthy families who wanted to marry them since childhood. While Norm fully embraces his money and social status, Bell constantly condemns capitalism and rejects getting favors because of her father’s influence. Also, both of them have a very dry sense of humor and are very cultured with ditzy best friends.
- Gadget Watches: The “Repeat-O-Meter” is a special gadget created by O to help Zee with the Time-Resets, using an iWatch from Norm (Norm still doesn’t know where his watch is). It helps Zee to trigger the Resets to the last saved time. Even if the Universe resets itself, the watch still stores the information of the last saved time.
- Haunted House: Zee and O get a good apartment for a very cheap price, but they soon notice that it's haunted. The guys still react to it like an annoyance, and they even see this as a great perk that lowers the rent price.
- Killer Rabbit: Felina finds a creature she adopts as her pet and names Tabby. Zee and O later find out that the creature is actually a very dangerous Byte-Bug Alpha Level and it's going to eat everybody in a matter of seconds.
- Love at First Sight: During the College Flashback arc, Zee falls in love with Felina with only one glance. Felina reciprocates, but both are too shy to act immediately.
- Punny Name: Oh, so many...
- The title itself is a play between "shortcut" (as in keyboard commands) and "cat".
- Norm's family name is "New" since he is based on Illustrator's shortcut for "New File" (he gets new stuff always).
- "Felina" is Spanish for "Female Feline", while her last name "Pryde" is also cat related.
- Copycat's name comes from his habit of "Copying artwork"
- Reset Button: The “Repeat-o-meter” works as this, as it can Reset Time to the last saved point. Since it takes a lot of time to charge, Zee and O have to use it only in extreme cases. This eventually becomes the last resort option when they can’t resolve a CTRL-Z case.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Zee is aware of all the Time Resets. O eventually develops a device that allows him to save information from the alternate line and learn the facts by reading the History Scripts.
- Roommate Com: Many of the strips fit. Zee and O have been roommates since their first year of college and continue to live together after their Graduation. They are joined by Zee's girlfriend Felina, her best friend Bell, and their common friend Norm.
- Shipper on Deck: Norm’s parents are actively trying to get him and Bell together.
- In the X-Mas Special, Felina can be heard telling Zee not to force anything between Bell and Norm yet, they have to realize it themselves.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Zee and Felina can come across as this.
- Start My Own: Zee got fired from the job he hated. After solving their own "ghost" problem at the apartment, he and O take Felina's suggestion and open their own "Problem Solvers" Agency.
- Undisclosed Funds: Norm is very rich, to the point he always gets the brand-new-anything of whatever he wants. So far he hasn't noticed whenever O "borrows" stuff from him.
- Visual Pun: Right before his graduation speech in front of the whole class, O gets frozen, to the point Zee has to wheel him to the stage podium, while he is inside the ice shard. O eventually manages to “break the ice with a joke”.
- World of Funny Animals: All the population of the Shortcats universe is [[Shortcut-based cats]].
