A webcomic by Dan Ciurczak. Find it here
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Vibe is about a young witch doctor named Baron Bones. Baron's job is to find people carrying bad vibes around, extract them, and fight the monsters that are formed from them with the help of his three Loa: Ogoun (Loa of fire), Jean Petro (Loa of ice), and Agau (Loa of storms). After his parents die, he and his sister Brigitte were taken in by their aunt. However, after Brigitte vanishes, Baron starts to have nightmares about her. Then, things go from bad to worst when he meets a man named Furio, who claims that Brigitte stole a totem from him and tries to get Baron to tell him where she is, claiming that she's back in town.
After discovering Baron doesn't know where she is, Furio manages to track her down on her own, but discovers that she's using the Loa Ghede and has grown dangerously powerful. Baron and Brigitte then begin to track each other down, while Furio struggles to figure out a way to defeat Brigitte and get back the totem. Additional problems arise when one of Baron's classmates is possessed by one of her bad vibes, and Baron struggles to hide the situation from his aunt to convince her he's grown up.
Contains examples of:
- Alliterative Name: Baron Bones.
- All Your Powers Combined: Bonding with all three Loa. It's generally inadvisable, though.
- Aloof Big Brother: Or sister, in this case: Brigitte to Baron.
- Alt Text: Starting in chapter 4.
- Art Shift: When Bree is telling her story, the art takes on a paper cutout look.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Bad Vibes born from powerful negative emotions can grow to enormous size.
- BFS: Wielded by Baron when bonded with Ogoun. Gets an ever bigger one when he bonds with all three Loa.
- Bookends:
- Volume 1 is bookended by the "plip" of raindrops and what appears to be a heart monitor.
- One of the first and last things to happen in volume 1 is Baron running after Bree while being held back by a bunch of hands. The angle is the same, too, with Baron running from the left and Bree retreating into the distance on the right.
- "Back to Camera" Pose: The volume 1 cover shows Bree in the background, turned away and glancing at the reader from over her shoulder. This reflects her departure in between the prologue and the present day story, the distance she puts between herself and Baron (who is in the foreground, facing toward the reader), and the mystery of what's up with her.
- Color-Coded Characters: Each of Baron's loas is associated with a color: red for Ogoun, blue for Jean, and green for Agau. It shows up in their designs and powers, and when they're fused with Baron, their speech text is in their color.
- Distant Prologue: The first few pages take place at Baron and Bree's parents' funeral, when Baron was a little kid. Then a slightly older Baron is shown waking up in his room and interacting with Bree, with his narration saying that that was the last time he'd seen her. Then it jumps ahead five years to the present day.
- Elemental Speed: When Baron is bonded with Jean, he can use his ice powers to skate around at high speed.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: Baron's Loas, with Ogoun, Agau and Jean, respectively.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: Baron's loas. Ogoun is fire (magma, actually), Jean is ice, and Agau is lightning.
- Funetik Aksent: Furio's strong Jamaican accent, which combined with his overuse of slang makes him borderline unintelligible.
- The Heartless: Bad Vibes, born from negative emotions coalescing into monsters.
- Hollywood Voodoo: An interesting example. On one hand, it is most definitely not an accurate portrayal of voodoo. On the other, beyond the obligatory Voodoo Doll (which Furio even refers to as Voodo 101), most stereotypical depictions of voodoo are absent, going instead for a pseudo-shonen style.
- Idiot Hair: Sylvia has two strands sticking up from the back of her head.
- In the Hood: In Bree's first couple appearances after her return, she's wearing a hood.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Jean grumbles over Baron's puns.
- Mana: Or rather, Mojo.
- Off with His Head!: Done to Baron by his sister Bree. Perhaps unintentionally.
- Only Sane Man: Jean, among the Loa.
- Orphaned Series: The webcomic went into an indefinite hiatus in February 2016. According to posts by the author that came out shortly after, he broke off from Hiveworks (the platform he had partnered with to make the comic) and thus it was highly unlikely he was returning to the series anytime soon. In 2018, he would confirm that the series wasn't completely dead, but that there was little chance he would return to it anytime soon. As of 2021, he still hasn't returned to the comic, signaling the likelihood that the series ended on a massive cliffhanger with no future resolution planned.
- Panthera Awesome: Jean, a Loa that takes the form of an ice-covered panther.
- Poor Communication Kills: Furio Furio Furio. When Baron initially doesn't give him the information he wants about Bree, he initiates a fight that marks him squarely as a foe in Baron's mind, and doesn't explain himself after. He is completely surprised when, every single time afterwards, Baron not only refuses to listen to Furio's pleas for help but starts fighting him, even when Furio isn't being aggressive. The fact that Furio keeps using overwhelming force in turn doesn't help his case at all. However, this is somewhat justified; Furio never had a proper childhood, his mother instead making him have a life of duty. This kept him from really interacting with people, just knowing how to do voodoo.
- Punch a Wall: At the start of chapter 3, Baron punches a bathroom mirror in frustration.
- Pungeon Master: Baron likes to make pun one-liners during combat. He tries, at least.
- Shōnen: An inspiration of the work.
- Shout-Out:
- Jean calls an idea of Baron's a "terrible, awful, no good, very bad idea".
- Jean and Ogoun make references to AKIRA.
- In chapter 3, when Sylvia's legs give way it makes a "QWOP" sound effect.
- Bree quotes Macbeth's "Life's but a walking shadow" speech.
- Jean calls
- Straw Nihilist: Subverted. Bree seems to be this, creepily telling Baron that "life is meaningless" during her Motive Rant. But her actual reaction to this conclusion is that now she wants to become a god herself and give life the meaning she thinks it deserves.
- Waxing Lyrical: Ezili on this page:Ezili: Each phase shift is still making me harder, better, faster, and stronger than the last.
- Wham Shot: Near the end of volume 1, Bree suddenly turns and beheads Baron in a single movement.
