Webcomic / Skadi

"I sing this song, it is not long,
Her tale... it must be told!
From the North, she wandered forth,
'Tis SKADI! Strong & bold!
Her quest, it's said, her feet will tread -
A journey! Never ceased...
Until she's beaten, quelled & eaten,
The hide of every Beast!"

Skadi is a fantasy webcomic by Katie Rice and Luke Cormican (both professional animators who have worked on things like El Tigre and Teen Titans Go!)

The story follows the titled barbarian warrior, Skadi, who was kicked out of her tribe when she mistakenly attacked her father thinking he was a beast, causing him to believe she had turned cannibal.

Banished, Skadi decides to go on a quest to prove herself and eat every beast on her checklist. Joining her on her journey is Diseasoid, a odd furry beast that unwillingly gives off plagues that Skadi makes into a slave. Together the two fight adversaries, slay beasts and, in Skadi's case, just be unrepentantly unpleasant to everyone she meets while causing disasters in the process.

The comic was hosted on both its own website and Dumm Comics (although it was revealed that it would be leaving the latter site due to personal matters from the author), but both web domains have since expired. While it hasn't exactly ended per se, it did conclude its final story arc and went into hiatus in May 2016, with Katie promising that she would come back to it in the future after pursuing other ventures.

The domain has expired as of 2022, though Katie intends to reclaim it once she has more free time.

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Skadi has the following tropes:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Skadi's axe can go through entire beasts like butter.
• Action Girl: Skadi naturally, seeing that she's a barbarian.
• Anti-Hero: Though even then, that's stretching it. Skadi just does what she does according to her own whims and is likely to nearly (or even outright) kill whomever she saved in the process. She's really more of a Nominal Hero who causes a lot of harm to innocent people.
• Art Evolution: The comic's art style noticeably improved by the time it (unofficially) ended. Many of the characters (especially the female characters) in the older strips were frequently Off-Model, with rough outlines and rubbery noodle limbs similar to John Kricfalusi's art style. As time went on, the outlines became much more smooth, the designs were less exaggerated and more consistently drawn, and the characters' limbs became thicker and shorter.
• Art-Style Dissonance: The cute cartoony art style clashes a bit with the comic's extremely risque humor and (surprisingly) action packed arcs.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Skadi becomes a goddess and, after defeating Thork, is offered to join the rest of her world's gods.
• And the Adventure Continues: Despite becoming a Goddess, Skadi finds it boring and missing traveling with Diseasoid. So the gods send her back to Earth with a list of errands, essentially giving her a new quest. They likewise give Diseasoid and Boudica some new powers and the three head off together for a new adventure...after Skadi cites Boudica as her new slave and mentions she ate Diseasoid's parents. Hey no one said she was gonna go nice overnight.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In the final arc Skadi manages to complete Thork's quest and ascends to godhood then proceeds to beat the tar out of him for his betrayal via siding with her sisters and trying to make her into a slave. Though it takes some additional prayer from the other slaves to keep the tide in her favor.
• Barbarian Hero: Skadi once again.
• Big Eater: The duo get through a lot of meat.
• Black Comedy: Abuse, violence, and death are often played for laughs.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The three village trollops.
• Butt-Monkey: Diseasoid, suffers constant abuse from either Skadi or whatever situation they're in.
• Cannibal Clan: The villains of one of the early story arcs were a family who ate people by luring them with legends of a beast who ate people, leaving out the detail that they are the beast.
• Clothing Damage: Skadi sometimes loses her clothes from combat damage from time to time, but don't expect a Defeat by Modesty.
• Combat Pragmatist: Skadi's not one to beat around the bush, any advantage she has in a fight, she'll gladly take it.
• Comically Oversized Butt: This is the stated reason for the huge rear end of our titular barbarian hero. Katie Rice admits that she went out of her way to draw in a shot of Skadi's butt in every single comic for a quick laugh, saying she finds it funny.
• Crossover: There is a non-canon crossover with Harpy Gee drawn by the author of that webcomic herself which ended with Skadi killing the Harpy Gee cast.
• Cute Little Fang: A feature of Skadi's is that she has a small fang that helps make her look endearing in spite of her crass, violent and self-centered behavior.
• Determinator: When Skadi wants something, she won't stop until she gets it.
• Disproportionate Retribution: All over the place, in fact it was the reason Skadi was banished from her clan as she mistook her father's clothing for a beast and bit into him by mistake. He threw her out thinking that she had became a cannibal.
• Ear Notch: Skadi gets one after a fairy tears a chunk of her ear off. She's had it ever since.
• Everyone Has Standards: Skadi is a devoted carnivore and has the goal of eating the meat of every creature in existence, but draws the line at cannibalism.
• Executive Meddling: Done In-Universe as an April Fools Joke, the strip parodied what it would turn into if Nickelodeon adapted it for TV.^note Though ironically nowadays, the comic's humor would fit right in on Nickelodeon with shows like Sanjay and Craig and Breadwinners
• Exotic Entree: Skadi's quest is to eat every kind of meat, so naturally she has made a few species extinct along the way.
• Extreme Doormat: Diseasoid, but only for Skadi.
• Eye Scream: Played for comedy when a misunderstanding resulted in Skadi eating one of Boudica's eyes. Twice.
• The Fair Folk: The pair run into a few now and then...which usually results in said folks getting chopped up.
• Fan Disservice: Skadi has little-to-no clothing and is even nude in several storylines but all the very emetic situations that she tends to be in usually overshadows it.
• Female Fighter, Male Handler: The titular heroine's male companion (and slave) Diseasoid mostly serves as her squire and pack mule.
• Formerly Fat: As a prequel story arc showed, Skadi had a chubby phase at age 15.
• Gamebooks: Done at one point which allowed the audience to decided what happens in the next comic.
• Godiva Hair: Whenever Skadi has her breasts exposed and doesn't have her arms obscuring them, expect her breasts to be covered up by her hair.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: In the final battle which comes down between God Throk and newly made Goddess Skadi. Skadi's sisters start praying to Throk giving him a power boost over her. So Diseasoid counters by using the slaves the sisters had captured to pray for Skadi. This is more than enough for Skadi to re-gain the upper hand.
• Grossout Comic: From Diseasoid's highly unsanitary filth to a bird pooping inside Boudica's mouth.
• Genius Ditz: Skadi may not but the brightest bulb around, but when it comes to combat she's a force to be reckoned with.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Skadi's older sisters are always plotting to take her down.
• Hartman Hips: Skadi, the village trollops and several other characters. Skadi's huge hips and butt stand out as attention is drawn to them in pretty much every comic.
• Hates Reading: "Skadi hates 'book'."
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Skadi's sisters did some unspeakable things to her when she was a kid.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In the strip Play Dead, Stay Dead, Skadi plays a prank on Diseasoid by pretending to be dead and then scaring him, afterwards she clubs him for doing the same.
  • One strip has Skadi decide to dress more modestly, then start wearing armor that doesn't cover up her breasts or pudendum.
• I Ate WHAT?!: One of the "Lil' Skadi" strips shows that Skadi's sisters once pranked her by telling her that there were frozen lemon treats when what was actually there were icicles formed from urination.
• It's All About Me: Skadi is utterly selfish, so you'd better make it worth her while if you need her help.
• Jerkass: Skadi to anyone she meets, non-hostile or foe. It's been common for people to be mutilated or killed just because they had the misfortune to be in her vicinity.
• Jerkass Gods: Skadi's god Thork is a selfish, lazy bum who doesn't care about Skadi or the quest she does in his name. Then again, considering how she normally acts...
• Lean and Mean: Boudica is actually really skinny under all her armor.
• Literal-Minded: Boudica's feud with Skadi started when the latter ate her eye in response to Boudica remarking "Beast, my eye" towards Skadi's stated goal of finding the beast in Boudica's vicinity in order to complete her goal of eating every meat in existence.
• Loincloth: Skadi not surprisingly wears a loincloth to fit her barbarian motif.
• Made a Slave: Diseasoid is essentially a slave to Skadi; what makes it worse is that Skadi unknowingly killed his family in the process.
• Male Gaze: Fanservice or not, just know that there is a LOT of focus on Skadi's almost bare butt. And while her breasts and genitalia are often subjected to Scenery Censor when she's naked, her behind is always exempt from being obscured and still gets displayed noticeably when she's viewed from the back in those circumstances.
• Ms. Fanservice: Make no mistake though, Skadi is a a very attractive, very curvaceous young woman who shows a lot of skin, plus there are some occasions where she is nude.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Diseasoid, described as a bush beast.
• No-Sell: Skadi is immune to Diseasoid's plagues which allows her to travel with him unharmed. According to her FAQ, it's because she's "naturally tough".
• Not Worth Killing:
  • Skadi to an "admirer", Nit, who took her clothes, weapons and Diseasoid from her.
  • Near the end of the series, they face the same dilemma with Nit who now has a duplicate accidentally made from Boudica's new powers. Boudica wants to pay her back for all the trouble she gave them. But Diseasoid stops her since Nit and her duplicate start arguing with each other and Skadi, Boudica and he leave them be, figuring that's punishment enough.
• Older Than They Look: Boudica is in her twenties, but due to her height, how immature she usually is, and the artstyle. she could easily pass for a little girl.
• The Pig-Pen: Diseasoid very rarely bathes at all and is consequentially smelly and dirty on a constant basis. Skadi herself is pretty filthy too.
• Proud Warrior Race Girl: Skadi may be a prick, but she's a warrior through and through. And more than willing to prove it.
• Refuge in Audacity: This is one of those comics that has to be seen to be believed.
• Sadist Show: It might be easier to find characters that don't act like jerks or suffer from some kind of abuse.
• Scenery Censor: Whenever Skadi is naked, conveniently located objects are guaranteed to obscure any body part that isn't her butt.
• Slapstick: While Diseasoid certainly suffers a great deal of abuse, Skadi herself has suffered from a fair share of physical comedy over the course of the series.
• Stockholm Syndrome: A few strips tackle Diseasoid's struggles with this.
• Stripperiffic: Skadi's main clothing is a loincloth and a pair of tiny metallic breast covers. There are also several other female characters throughout the comic that qualify as scantily clad.
• To Hell and Back: A story arc saw Skadi accidentally killed and sent into the underworld where she had to fight her way out.
• Thermal Dissonance: For someone who only has a loincloth, breastplates and furry boots as their main accessory, Skadi doesn't seem to be too bothered by cold weather.
• Third-Person Person: Skadi normally refers to herself in third person.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: On a few rare occasions, Skadi can be nice, like when she decides to share her meat with Diseasoid immediately after she rudely refused to do so and then remembered how poorly her family treated her.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Skadi likes meat, and it is in fact her Series Goal to eat the meat of every living creature in existence (except for humans).
• Triple Nipple: Skadi apparently has a third nipple. On the back of her HEAD.
• Undeathly Pallor: Skadi is rather pale looking compared to most of the cast in the comic.
• Unknown Rival: Princess Boudica has tried to defeat Skadi several times. Skadi flattened her without even realizing she wanted to fight.
• Villain Team-Up: There seems to be one going on in the background of Skadi's former enemies.
• Who's Laughing Now?: One story arc saw Diseasoid get his hands on a powerful book and managed to take over the world with it.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: The circumstance of fortune smiling upon him only for things to quickly go bad for him again happens quite a lot to Diseasoid. Poor guy.