Pepper&Carrot



Pepper&Carrot (no spaces) is a web comic by French concept artist David Revoy about a young witch named Pepper as she completes her apprenticeship, her cat Carrot, and her friends and acquaintances (who are also largely named after food ingredients, yes) on the magical planet Hereva. The comic is made with contributions of world backstory, storylines, fanart, and translations into nearly three dozen languages by an active fan community, and various derivatives (role-playing games, video games, a board game, one episode of a serial animation adaptation) either already published or in the works; all according to plan as Revoy intended to build a free culture franchise (the comic is licensed CC-BY) which could serve as home base for various projects (thus he refers to the story universe, 'Hereva', separately from the webcomic). The plot of the comic has themes of slice-of-life, coming-of-age, and clever but simple humour; Revoy also stated he wants the comic to be accessible to a wide audience, so violence and sexuality is only ever indirectly discussed/portrayed. The art is detailed but cartoony, and Revoy has attributed video game art and anime/manga style as influences.

It can be read here.


 * All There in the Manual: The backstory of several characters, the backstory of the world, and an explanation of the magic system are found in the wiki.
 * Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Posh zombie canary.
 * Awesome but Impractical: Pepper can summon demons and black holes. This isn't all that useful in a slice of life series (although that seems to be changing as she seeks employment).
 * Backstory Horror: The Great War. So far it's only been talked about in the wiki, not the comics themselves. The witches of Choasah were.
 * Background Magic Field: Rea, like Mana but stored external to the user in the environment; discussed in the wiki but not yet in the comic, but shown in the comic in panel 8 of episode 33.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: Weaponized by Pepper in Episode 31. She uses "Jpegus qualitis" and "Qualitis Minimalis" which appears to cause Cayenne's subsequent panels to be of a worse image quality and causes an image to fail to load until Cayenne escapes it.
 * Grey Eyes: The godmothers, due to.
 * Canis Latinicus: The magic spells, with assistance from shoutouts (see below).
 * Concept Art Gallery: Revoy's blog discussing process.
 * Conveniently an Orphan: None of the apprentice's parents are shown; Pepper is adopted by the godmothers, and Coriander discusses the reason why she ascends the throne so young.
 * Cute Witch: The apprentices and arguably at least one of the godmothers.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: What does Pepper do when the other girls won't come to her party? Summon some demons! Subverted though,
 * Early Installment Weirdness: Pepper looks a lot younger in episode one than she does in later episodes. She also seems to have black hair instead of dark brown and is wearing a different outfit.
 * Edible Theme Naming: zig-zagged. While the witches and their familiars are named after spices and other foods (for reasons unclear aside from there being an entire school of magic for growing things) and a mayor named after a non-food plant, we have seen some royals with names that are pop culture references spelled backwards ('Lord Azeirf' for Dragon Ball's Frieza and 'Queen Aiel' for Star Wars' Leia Organa), a pigeon named simply 'Ms. Pigeon', and a prince with no apparent meaning to his (fantasy-styled) name.
 * Exposed to the Elements: In the holiday episode Pepper goes running around a snowy landscape in a coat, mittens and her usual short skirt. In The Dragon's Tooth she doesn't even bother with the coat.
 * Floating Continent: The cities of Komona and Kerberos. According to the wiki, other cities were lifted into the air during the war as well.
 * Great Offscreen War: The war between Magmah and Aquah.
 * Kaleidoscope Eyes: Pepper's eyes switch between blue and brown. It's easy to miss as neither color is particularly "flashy" and is likely due to evolving art style; no one remarks on it in universe.
 * Meaningful Name: As mentioned above, it's mostly not clear in-world why people have the names they have, but some clues are offered to the audience. Saffron is an expensive spice and the namesake of a witch with expensive tastes. Carrot was named after a bin of carrots he hid in and his orange fur. Spirulina is an aquatic witch named after an alga that lives in water. Her familiar (Durian) and another (Mango) are likely named after the codenames of Blender Foundation movies the author has worked on.
 * Name and Name: They appear in every episode.
 * No-Dialogue Episode: All episodes whose number is divisible by five. David says he likes to challenge himself to drive the story or characterisation forward without depending on textual dialogue, although symbols seem to not break the rules.
 * Our Demons Are Different: Chaosahn witches can summon a trio of Chaos Demons, but it's not widely known that they like tea and cupcakes.
 * Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons seem to be important to the pre-human history and ecology of Hereva, and come in many different kinds, from the lightning dragon (a purely electrical being) to the swamp dragon (which is normally docile but can throw mud around when aggrieved) to the humble dragoncow.
 * Our Genies Are Different: A walrus-headed genie lures whoever he can get to sign a paper into a life of easy wealth and fame.
 * Our Mermaids Are Different: The practitioners of Aquah must breathe underwater in order to attend their studies. The only one we've met doesn't have a fishtail, however.
 * Our Wormholes Are Different: Actually black holes, the generation of which is a signature technique of witches of Chaosah.
 * Our Zombies Are Different: Despite the name, the magic school Zombiah is not said to create George-Romero-esque zombies (with the stated aim being to avoid cultural appropriation from West African / Caribbean religions). Three revenants are seen and they seem quite keen-minded.
 * Shout-Out: The free software / free culture community is obliquely referenced a lot.
 * Slice of Life
 * White-Haired Pretty Girl: Shichimi (although it's more of a platinum blonde). Originally she was going to be albino, but David Revoy decided against it after reading about the complications of albinism.
 * The Wiki Rule: Details of Hereva are tentatively worked out in a source-controlled (and therefore community-contributed) wiki.
 * World Tree: The Great Tree of Komona.