The Bug Pond
is a slice-of-life comic by Jasmine Coté (AKA Momogirl on DeviantArt). Started in September 2013, the comic follows the day to day adventures of a group of insects living in a pond.
Common characters are:
- Dart, a dragonfly watchman who keeps the waters safe.
- Fang, Dart's spunky damselfly apprentice.
- Kid Katydid and Totter Tate, an introverted katydid vigilante and her trusty jumping spider sidekick who defend the insects of the pond from predators.
- Silver Flash, a macho silverfish who thinks he's way cooler than he really is.
- Eldwin Earwig, a gentle and kind earwig who's best friends with Silver Flash.
- Leodegrance, a foppish adventurer assassin bug with a heart of gold who frequently tries to win the heart of Kid, much to her annoyance.
- Grand Duchess Fancy Buttons, the more than eccentric ruler of the fireflies.
The comic mostly follows a gag-a-day format, but has recently delved into story arcs.
This comic contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Kid Katydid's job is to protect the insects of the pond. She is capable to take on a bird several times her size with relative ease.
- Alliterative Name: Kid Katydid, Totter Tate, and Eldwin Earwig.
- The Bartender: A potato bug named Raspberry runs a juice shop where Flash goes to express his woes.
- Chick Magnet: Apparently, Eldwin is really popular with the ladies, much to Silver's chagrin.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Grand Duchess Fancy Buttons and her firefly subjects.
- Comically Serious: Kid and Grand Duchess Fancy Buttons' chancellor, Chauncey.
- Cool Shades: Flash dons a pair of tough guy shades.
- Cute Little Fangs: Dart's apprentice, Fang has these.
- The Dandy: Leo is very concerned with his appearance.
- Demoted to Extra: Rowby the diving beetle was featured in some of the earlier comics and was even given a bio on the character page but hasn't done anything of significance since.
- Fantastic Racism: Flash's jealousy has lead to his disdain for flying insects. This would eventually come in conflict with his friendship with Eldwin when he learns earwigs can fly.
- Flashback: Kid has multiple flashbacks during part 1 of Masquerade Mayhem to when she first met Totter Tate.
- Flash Back Echo: Kid has flashbacks of a past rescue while performing a present day rescue.
- Guest Strip: One guest comic was provided by Shenanimation.
- Insect Gender-Bender: Largely subverted. The local ant colony is depicted as mostly female.
- In Touch with His Feminine Side: Eldwin.
- Halloween Episode: The comic devotes a page to the bugs celebrating Hallow-Bean, a holiday where the insects all dress up as their predators.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Flash dons a leather jacket. Not that it really makes him any cooler.
- Holy Backlight: Eldwin, when he rescues Flash from drowning.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While Leo can be quite vain, he does genuinely care about the well being of others and is eager to help those in need; even though he's not good at it.
- Large Ham: Leodegrance certainly qualifies.
- Masquerade Ball: The subject of the Masquerade Mayhem story arc.
- Oblivious Adoption: Inverted in a strip, a parasitic wasp is one of three children in a moth's family. The wasp's true parent says that the coppers will never make her pay child support.
- Only Friend: It's been stated that Eldwin is Flash's only friend.
- Primal Stance: Eldwin does one when scared by Flash's appearance after a week when he refuses to molt his exoskeleton.
- Kid also does one during the Masquerade Mayhem arc when put off by Benedict Bloodworth's smell.
- The Quiet One: Kid rarely speaks, and largely keeps what she says to a minimum.
- Returning the Handkerchief: Played with. Leo drops his handkerchief for Kid to pick up. She proceeds to stomp on it.
- Scary Scorpions: Playfully subverted. A little insect girl didn't want to dress up as anything scary for Hallow-bean, so she went as a scorpion princess.
- Shown Their Work: The comic has various facts about the insects and includes a few two-panel comics that highlight certain facts about the various species.
- Story Arc: While the comic has experimented with stories before, it is now currently running it's first major arc, Masquerade Mayhem.
- Talking Insects: And arachnids!
