Charby the Vampirate



Charby the Vampirate is a webcomic that has been hosted on the webcomic site Drunk Duck since 2004. Though it preceded the other two "Vampirates" by a year, it wasn't terribly notable until the art improved. It started off as a loosely linear, dark comedy, based on horror movie send ups and a Take That of the Spinoff Babies phenomenon but revealed later that it actually has a plot.

The title is a bit deceptive because while the titular character is a main character, he's not THE main character. The comic revolves around the trials and tribulations, lives and unlives of the various denizens of an isolated tourist town named "Kellwood". The comic typically focuses on the residents of a bizarre cabin in the woods, where Charby (the aforementioned vampirate) and his werewolf best friend Menu have accumulated a crowd of friends that now live there too. It also follows the goings-on of a somewhat amateur monster hunting organization that is keeping the evil beasties living in Kellwood's dense, mountainous forests from snacking on the town's residents. Currently the cast amounts to 95 named characters, all with their own personalities.

The "Vampirate" bit is addressed within the first few revamped (ha! pun!) pages of the character's origin, and is referred to in some of the character's traits (his weapon of choice is two hooks, and his battle cry is "Yarrr!" and he wears a lot of stripey pirate shirts).

Despite some instances of gratuitous blood spilling (it is paying homage to monster movies after all) the comic is actually pretty tame beyond that, as there's no swearing, nudity, sex or obvious fan service. A few cheeky jokes here, and there but nothing offensive. It's rather more like a hyperviolent children's Saturday morning cartoon, if anything.

This comic provides examples of:

 * Animal Gender Bender Charby's "skeetos", Sanguine and Malaria
 * Art Evolution: Here's one of the first pages and a more recent page.
 * Badass Abnormal Victor
 * Badass Adorable Sure, they could kill us. But they're so CUTE!
 * Badass Longcoat Victor, and his boss Blaine
 * Battle in The Center of The Mind
 * Blood Lust
 * Beautiful All Along: Subverted.
 * Catch Phrase: "I like chicken." Quite matter-of-factly indeed.
 * Crashing Dreams: Several times.
 * Cute Witch: Mye, natch.
 * Defeat By Modesty: "Looks like you came out on top after all!" -Adria
 * More like "attempted defeat by modesty", as Mye is unwilling to get killed just to preserve her decency.
 * Deus Angst Machina: Charby recounts the tale of his first girlfriend and the events that lead to him devouring her and her entire village by accident, to a lovelorn Zeno.
 * Ensemble Cast: as mentioned in the description paragraph.
 * Evil Eye
 * Funetik Aksent: Tony speaks with a very obvious accent that may or may not be intended to be something Germanic.
 * Girls Have Cooties: "Eek you have girl hair!"
 * Good Angel Bad Angel: An Alp's good angel isn't that good.
 * Grievous Harm With a Body: Well, now he's unarmed!
 * Grotesque Cute: She's not really THAT kind of zombie... Mannick likely qualifies with the portal full of arms and teeth on his belly, which he pulls his hats out of.
 * Heroic Sociopath: Nearly all of the guys in the cabin.
 * Horned Hairdo: Charby
 * How Do I Shot Web: At least they have nearly forever to figure things out.
 * It took Charby a few centuries before he accidentally discovered that he was not vulnerable to sunlight.
 * Well, a good vampire should never discover it, as it has tones of Good Thing You Can Heal.
 * I Hate You Vampire Dad: The feeling is mutual, vampire son!
 * Horror Hunger
 * Implacable Man
 * Its a Long Story
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: And how. Last count, over 95.
 * Magic Hat: Two, in fact. Kavonn's hat, and Tony's alp "tarnkappe".
 * Which double as Nice Hats.
 * Don't forget Mannick, he has a hat for every occasion.
 * In particular, wearing the appropriate hat lets himt alk to animals
 * Man I Feel Like a Woman: Don't mouth off to the cranky warlock who wants discuss dating troubles.
 * Mind Rape: Quixote does this quite frequently.
 * Mismatched Eyes: Mannick, red right eye, grey left eye.
 * Monochromatic Eyes: a LOT of the characters, in fact.
 * Monster Mash: By design, naturally.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Vampirate!
 * No Except Yes: Kavonn does this too.
 * One Steve Limit: Averted. One of The Rose Sisters is named Rosemary, and so is one of Zerlocke's sisters. When they eventually meet, Rose Sister-Rosemary demanded that she other be destroyed. (She isn't.)
 * Our Vampires Are Different: Several species of the bloodsuckers, the focus being on the mockingly titled "Elite", who are kinda like vampire supermen.
 * Playboy Bunny: "Bunny", an accidental magic mishap that befell Mye when she tried to help Menu. She turns into an attractive demon when she sneezes.
 * Prehensile Hair: "Oh gross, he's gonna touch me with his hair!" -La Belle, about to get ensnared.
 * Psychic Assisted Suicide
 * Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat
 * Punished With Ugly: Inflicted by Kavonn.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: About everyone in the cabin that looks like a kid but really isn't, save for Phineas who is a teen,(for his species since he's 10 years old) and Tony who is full grown for an Alp, just short like a dwarf as Alps tend to be.
 * Red Right Hand: The artist, who represents the ganglion cyst in her drawing hand as a demonic possession. It gives her bad ideas.
 * Sanity Has Advantages: Charby doesn't mess around.
 * Sealed Evil in A Can: Mm, mm, Bad!
 * Show Some Leg: Attempted (and failed) here
 * The Man Is Sticking It to The Man: Hector lives and breathes this trope
 * Third Line Some Waiting: Considering the hugeness of the cast, most of the plot threads (especially the one's that only relate to a single character) progress at a snail's pace.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: See Catch Phrase above.
 * Transhuman Treachery: Humans that get turned to vampires also realize their inner jerk.
 * There has been at least one who didn't.
 * The Elites who deal w/ Quixoto, particularly the chick.
 * Unwanted Harem: Mye suffers from this, though it's later revealed there's a reason for it.
 * Vampire Fiction
 * Vampire Bites Suck: It ain't no dainty pin prick, and definitely not sexy!
 * Villain Protagonist: They have soft sides, but let's just say these are not Friendly Neighborhood Vampires.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: In fact a few of the relationships here are like that...
 * Your Head Asplode: Zeno favors the "Scanners Special"
 * Your Vampires Suck: Elites are outrageously more powerful than the traditional vampires that also exist in the comic. Neither like each other as can be expected.