Webcomics United: It's Awesome
A webcomic featuring webcomic characters living their lives and working, you guessed it, in webcomics, focusing on the life of Zip M. Stiff, a young chibi Filler who has no idea how his work works, despite being one of the best qualified fillers in the whole syndicate. Together with a bunch of friends who are also Fillers and some bureaucrats, they poke fun at Webcomic Tropes and have relatively normal lives in the funniest way possible.
The comic started as a gag-a-day comic without many aspirations, and now has a big underlying plot that spans between other smaller plots. Not to mention the author is quite fond of Foreshadowing and Cliffhangers...
This comic provides examples of the following tropes:
- Art Evolution: Lots of it. Zip, for one, gets eyelids over time, and Theo's hair is always changing.
- Art Shift: Other comic's styles are mimicked as good as can be when featured.
- In-story: Miss Ribbon undergoes "de-cheesecaking procedure", going from Animesque to a more rubbery style.
- Awful Wedded Life: The briefly featured Lockharts, from the Funnies Syndicate.
- The Cameo: Lots of extras in the background are actually characters borrowed from other comics.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Known as "The Aardvark Flu"
. It's a very serious disease. - Chekhov's Gunman: Flora, Jello's girlfriend, mentioned en passe in a very early strip, then becomes a permanent addition to the cast. The same happens to Ribbon, who starts as a random stall worker, then informercial hostess and, finally, VP of Human Resources and another addition to the regular cast.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: Ohm and his "sharky" grin.
- Closer to Earth: Ella to John, but smoothly being subverted.
- Crossover: Part of the premise of the comic.
- Cute Mute: Mim, Zip's current girlfriend.
- Distracted by the Sexy: SEX!
- Embarrassing Middle Name: Zip M. Stiff. The "M" stands for "Maid".
- Fanservice: Elevated to the category of holiday within the Webcomic World.
- Ms. Fanservice: Ribbon, until she decided to put a stop on that. It's unsure whether this worked or not.
- Gentle Giant: From the looks of it, Theo's father.
- Guest Strip
- Halloween Cosplay: Used once, averted in the next year.
- Hit You So Hard, Your X Will Feel It!: September threatens to fire Zip so hard even his kids will be born fired. Given the current economy, that's one harsh threat!
- Lampshade Hanging: Well, duh. It's a meta webcomic.
- Filler Strip: Sometimes in Incredibly Lame Pun form.
- Only Sane Man: Jello for the fillers, Ribbon for the bureaucrats.
- Meta Guys: Zip sometimes wonders why they make comics, and who reads them, but that questioning is quickly dismissed.
- Ms. Puchok exhibits some odd Fourth Wall awareness.
- Noodle People: The aptly named Noodle.
- No Fourth Wall: Actually, there is one, and it's called... The Wall. Some people are said to come from beyond it, including Ribbon. The people within don't talk much about it, though.
- The Noseless: Zip takes that after his mother.
To avoid the dreaded "snoutface" effect, though, his nose is described as "mostly invisible", appearing in full profiles. - Painting the Medium: Puchok gives a course on "Panel Dynamics", which consists in moving in a single panel. It's easier done than said, really.
- Stealth Pun: not wanting to give them away, but there's the one in The Aardvark Flu, and the title of Flora Leaves, which was admittedly unintentional.
- Spinoff Babies: Spoofed.
- Supernaturally Young Parent: Because she's a sprite, Ella looks no older than her own son, even when displayed in higher resolutions.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: John and Ella, a stick figure and a previously starlet and muse of sprite comics. He isn't bothered and loves messing up with her admirers.
