Casey and Andy
Casey and Andy is a completed webcomic by Andy Weir, about a pair of Mad Scientists and their wacky hijinx as they deal with their girlfriends, try to Take Over the World, and kill each other, (Repeatedly), play RPGs, annoy next door neighbour Jenn, test-drive their inventions and do battle with Andy's nemesis, Grover Cleveland. Bob was there, too.
It can be found right here. It was on Series Hiatus for a very long time, before Andy finally went back to conclude the final story arc and the strip.
Andy Weir went on to write the highly acclaimed Science Fiction book The Martian. This is most certainly not that kind of story, and C&A may end up in Old Shame territory for the author. But really, the comic is quite good; you should try it.
Tropes used in Casey and Andy include:
- The Ace: Quantum Cop, who starts out knowing everything except bovine dentistry. A strangely high number of his solutions to quantum mechanics problems involve hitting people with sticks.
- All There in the Manual: Jenn's occupation was "international jewel thief", first revealed if you bought David Morgan-Mar's C&A GURPS module.
- Art Evolution: First strip, next-to-last strip.
- Can Not Tell a Lie: Quantum Cop can't lie. He eventually gains the ability in the final arc as Character Development.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Lord Milligan. He goes out of his way to make sure that most, if not all, of the tropes of classic villainy occur come hell or high water.
- Cerebus Retcon: Conspicuously averted; the creator is very insistent on not giving an explanation for how the titular characters keep on dying and coming back to life.
- Cheated Angle: One strip mentions that the cartoonist had to move the cat around slightly between frames because otherwise it wouldn't be visible from certain angles.
- Chekhov's Gun: The Casey vaporiso-annihilatomat reappears after 168 strips, and the nineteenth century white house teleport-o-mat reappeared more than 350 strips after it was first shown!
- Confusing Multiple Negatives: Casey tries to get the King of Sweden to leave his couch this way. It doesn't work.
- Contractual Genre Blindness: Lord Milligan is an Evil Overlord, with many expected tropes taken to extreme.
- Dangerously Genre Savvy: The Quantum Crook uses Milligan's flaws to his advantage.
- Death Is Cheap: Andy dies in strip #1.
- Distaff Counterpart: Andy in every alternate universe.
- Enemy Mime: The Mime Assassin is a walking trope.
- Everything's Better With Bob: And he was there, too.
- Evil Chancellor: Evil Grand Vizier Milligawain, from the Mountain of Mages arc Except he's really not bad; Court Wizard Kasor is the real villain.
- Evil Feels Good: One of the perks with dating Satan
- Evil Twin: Quantum Cop and Quantum Crook.
- Fan Service: Once in a while Weir would take a break from the regular comic to make sexy, somewhat more realistic "cheesecake" pictures of Satan or Mary.
- Fetish: It's more or less stated during the final arc that Quantum Cop's turned on by Jen's thieving. Kinda puts his job in a new perspective, doesn't it?
- For Inconvenience Press One: This strip.
- Frame Break: Here!.
- Geeky Turn On
- Genius Ditz: "Brains that run so fast they short-circuit themselves" is a pretty apt description of the titular characters.
- Girl Scouts Are Evil: Don't ever mess with Don Cindy.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Somewhat of a drawback with dating Satan
- Grover Cleveland: Andy's arch-nemesis.
- Horny Devils: Lampshaded
- I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!: Trope Namer.
- It Runs On Nonsensoleum: many of their random inventions, in varying degrees work on nonsense physics or just because.
- Mad Scientist: both Casey and Andy.
- Medium Awareness: the comic panel borders are the edges of the space-time continuum in this strip.
- Mirror Universe: accessed by accident, and the origin of the Quantum Crook.
- Ms. Fanservice: Satan
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: "No! Wait! My inventions must not be used for peace!"
- Not a Morning Person: In one strip, Satan is literally a monster until she gets her cup of coffee.
- Number of the Beast: The comic ended with strip number 666.
- Oh Crap: Satan's #2 tries to supplant her by absorbing all her evil, thinking it will make her disappear. Instead, he turns her into the Archangel Lucifer, who proceeds to kick his ass.
- Overprotective Dad: God...
- Parody Sue: Rob Petrone.
- Perverse Sexual Lust: Andy, towards Frances Cleveland.
- Planet Eater: Can you blame it for starting small?
- Running Gag: lots.
- Satan Is Good: Or at very least, really adorable.
- Scry vs. Scry: Quantum Cop and Quantum Crook pitting their wits
- She Is All Grown Up: An amusing example when Casey fails to recognize Don Cindy the evil Girl Scout.
- Standard Female Grab Area: Being a traditional dark lord has its benefits
- Teach Him Anger
- Theme Tune Roll Call: The C&A Cast Song, written by Andy Weir himself, and performed by the band Moosebutter.
- Thing-O-Matic - All of their inventions are named this way (with one exception). At one point, someone asks them to "build a machine to track time trails", which they say makes no sense, but then are immediately able to once she rephrases the request as "build a time-trail-track-o-mat".
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
- This Is Gonna Suck: "This has 'bad day' written all over it."
- Too Dumb to Live: As mentioned above, Casey and Andy manage to get themselves killed or kill each other in a lot of very creative, effective ways. A submarine that uses a chimney for air supply? Come on.
- Fatalball, anyone? The GURPS supplement makes a large point out of the fact that Casey and Andy hold all the records, including the one for Only People Stupid Enough To Play.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Our heroes have been tied up by the bad guy. Satan obviously could break free from her bonds and free them--but she really likes being tied up.
- Unsound Effect: Silence
- Weirdness Magnet: Jenn has an "abnormal probability curve".
- Writer On Board: Some of the strips are this with the author using the characters to tell the audience of his point of view.
- Write Who You Know: Casey, Andy, Mary, Jenn, and even Lord Milligan are all based on real people.
- Well, Casey and Andy are. The others are just named after real people.
- And in a possible deconstruction of this trope, the real Casey & Andy once went to a Halloween party as their comic-selves.
- Also, Cujo (Andy's cat).
- X Days Since...: X seconds since...
- You!: The final story arc kicked off with one of these and a Schmakk!! to the head.