Vinci and Arty is a Slice of Life Furry Webcomic created by Candy DeWalt. It focuses on the lives of a gay male couple, Richard "Vinci" Nicolaides (Gratuitous Greek: Ριχάρδ Νικολαΐδης) and Artisan (Arty) P Sunspot, living in the fictional town of Ballpointe, Pennsylvania. Consult your physician before attempting to read this webcomic, and have your dentist on speed-dial.
On December 8th, 2013, the comic was restarted, with old strips starting from the very beginning posted on Sundays (and later a Sunday/Thursday schedule) along with a commentary on each one. A sequel comic called Stupid Fortune Cookie began running in late 2016, and picks up several years from where the original left off.
The archived strips can be found here,
while Stupid Fortune Cookie can be found here.
This comic provides examples of:
- Amnesiac Lover: the point of one storyline. A knock to the head makes Vinci forget everything that has happened since he moved from Greece to the United States, like learning the English language or being in love with Arty. What makes it worse for Arty is that pre-immigration Vinci was apparently kinda homophobic.
- Camp Gay: Arty could be the poster child for this, in the Furry Comic world. For all of Vinci's feminine looks and painfully adorable teacup raccoon mannerisms, he's the more masculine of the pair.
- Chocolate Baby: A variation; Vinci's parents are legally purebred chihuahuas, both of whom had "recessive raccoon genes" from way back, producing a pureblooded raccoon son who also could have legally registered as a purebred chihuahua.
- Darker and Edgier: Ms. DeWalt occasionally produces material for Jack, often with much a more violent and depressing style than the normal comic material, and
Word of God is inconsistent on whether or not it's canon. Note that even these Darker and Edgier bits are still extremely cutesy, and full of the kind of melodramatic Narm that would not be out of place in a Mobile Suit Gundam Wing yaoi fic, so "dark and edgy" is kind of relative.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Bright Eyes the kinkajou is, to put it bluntly, a bit of an asshole. He's also a yoga instructor.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Vinci. And Vinci doesn't even do this on purpose — most strangers will still confuse him for a girl. At one point Vinci even shaved his head, and someone still thought he was Sinead O'Cooner.
- Extreme Omnivore: Subverted. Vinci's chihuahua genes manifest in an unshakable urge to chew things, and he frequently ends up eating coins, wires, mousepads, and other random non-food items. He nearly dies of an intestinal blockage.
- Gayngst:
- Vinci is packing a hefty dose of internalized homophobia. He hates pride rallies and goes to excessive lengths to hide his relationship from his parents. When the couple's more conservative neighbours show off their discontent for the homosexual duo, he pins the blame squarely on Arty for being so open. He's apparently made some progress as of the sequel comic, which begins with him proposing to Arty.
- Arty goes into this one as well whenever his family comes up: he blames his father's suicide on the fact that he'd come out to him earlier that day.
- Guest Strip: Frequently has other artists post guest strips. Which can cause some confusion as some guest pages are more canon than others.
- Lethal Chef: Vinci, at one point, made cookies that got mistaken for fish, when the character had a crossover with another furry Webcomic, A Doemain of Our Own (ended). In general, the results of Vinci's cooking are usually depicted with a cloud bearing a skull and crossbones (like the poison symbol) on the "scent cloud" for a reason. Later updates have explained why: it may be caused by difficulties reading English recipes; he's prepared food from an all-Greek recipe book and had it turn out just fine. This would explain why he believes his food should turn out edible and tasty, though - after all, before he came to America, it did; he's just been overestimating his ability to coherently read English.
- Mister Seahorse: A literal example with the anthro seahorse, Arkie Illions; "The only guy I know who's so braindead, he was the one who came back pregnant after a wild party."
- Named After Somebody Famous: Vinci's mother named him Richard Nicolaides after "the sexiest man alive" — Richard Gere. Vinci's father is speechless.
- Older Than They Look: No matter what people think Vinci's actual gender is, they almost all think he's a kid.
- Straight Gay: Although Vinci isn't specifically gay (Word of God says he doesn't pay much attention to physical details), at least in regards to his relationship with Arty he technically qualifies.
- Which is a particularly amusing example, because 9 times out of 10 he's mistaken for a girl.
- Terrible Artist: Arty's attempt at artwork, compared to Vinci's.
