The Woobie/Web Comics



" : You are as cold as always Rilian. Rilian: My roles requires me to be cold. Otherwise I would be overcome by the immense sadness it brings me to have to kill you,."
 * The title character of The Intrepid Girlbot is a big ball of woobie-ness, but be careful not to hug her too long or you might get zapped.
 * White Mage is the closest thing to a woobie in Eight Bit Theater.
 * Ryan/Rachel Hawke in Abstract Gender.
 * Rayne, the author of Abstract Gender, also almost qualifies in some people's minds, what with the Curse and all.
 * Roast Beef from Achewood, who is "from circumstances" which cause him to suffer from depression and possibly avoidance disorder, and is subjected to a constant stream of bad luck in life in general. This is made all the more noticeable given that his best friend is Ray, who becomes rich without trying and was only prevented from becoming President because of.
 * Dark Smoke Puncher is about the closest The Adventures of Dr. McNinja gets to having a Woobie. He hides his intelligence behind false idiocy and slang, and his fantasy is apparently having his father hug him while expressing approval of computers. There's also Gordito, whose father was murdered by PETA.
 * Hell, the doctor himself. His entire childhood was an exercise in Training From Hell, and he's had to lose his mentor to death three times. The same mentor. One of those times involved  His parents disapprove of his job as a doctor. When all the drug-ninjas he killed , he blamed himself, thinking they wanted revenge. The list goes on.
 * Mongo the uber-ninja, when he learned
 * Actually, if all of the characters weren't awesome incarnate, about half of them would qualify as Woobies.
 * Alien Dice has Lexx as a main character who grows up in an uncaring orphanage and is forced to fight as a pokemon/gladiator (really). Lisaan, supporting character, gets rejected for being a half-blood and then sold into slavery. Cue much angsting which contrasts nicely with most of the other cast's cheerful attitude and grand stand in society.
 * Sy, from the Alchemist Muse's webcomic Asylum- Blacklight is a woobie to an extreme (has even been declared so by word of god, when Muse listed the tropes Blacklight follows and subverts. In the OC tournament "The Cure", Sy demonstrates his ability to fight and kill opponents, and yet end up still being the one you feel sorry for in the end.
 * Archipelago has Blitz. The poor guy has Trauma-Induced Amnesia, Ocean Madness (though there were a few other factors), is missing an eye (which he took out by himself, by the way), and mind is broken completely beyond repair. It's even stated that even if he was 'fixable', he may not like what he finds. Add the fact that he's a total sweetheart who just wants to be helpful, and you can't help but want to give him a hug.
 * Bob and George take your pick
 * The Sorrow, in the Metal Gear Solid fancomic The Cobra Days. Partly due to the abuse he takes from his Heroic Sociopath comrades, partly because his spirit-medium powers have a distinct element of Blessed with Suck at times.
 * And then there's the fact that he's Doomed by Canon to die at the hands of his lover once the Cold War breaks out.
 * Dave Jones in College Roomies From Hell!!!; the whole main cast have moments like that, really, but Dave is the designated woobie most of the time.
 * This is an example of a character's fan-inspired Woobieness saving them from scripted death.
 * The above is somewhat of an apocryphal tale; Dave was actually saved from death because the author thought of a better plotline.
 * Skylar, from Coming Up Violet is quickly becoming this almost as fast as the comics get posted. Seriously, this guy just can't seem to catch a break. Of course, he's also the resident Chew Toy with the shippers.
 * Vincent and Darrik from The Cyantian Chronicles.
 * Abel from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. Dear God, Abel.
 * Jyrras might count as well.
 * Comedy is hard when it doesn't involve physical/emotional pain
 * Komiyan from Darken qualifies. He's a cowardly drow with bad eyesight who wears glasses and has a courageous side. He looks absolutely adorable. And he rarely gets to do any badassery for long before being whomped by something. Or stabbed, or shot, or tortured.
 * Grimal's Furry webcomic Deo succeded in woobiefying the ENTIRE MAIN CAST. Every single one has something terribly, terribly wrong in their personal lives, and you keep reading just in the vain hope that something good happens to em at some point. This is a webcomic where you want to take the entire cast, put them in a room, and give them all blankets and hugs. And some group therapy.
 * Ed from Digger (pictured... unless they've changed it).  Who doesn't want to give him a hug and some tea? At least Digger feels the same way.
 * Angel from Domain Tnemrot has been revealing her back story lately.
 * Scapegrace from Daddy Long Legs has shades of this at times, with his extremely sad and depressing dreams, which indicate his childhood was not exactly nice and his family was dysfunctional and screwed up. Oh and he's probably having the same sickness his dad had, showing the same symptoms, so there's the possibility that his days are numbered. And really, Harvestman and Crane are pretty much his only friends, and even Crane thinks him to suspicious and creepy, such as the scene where he immediately thought Scapegrace to be the cause of his missing son. It's hard not to feel sorry for him.
 * The titular character of Dominic Deegan, who seems to run into more problems than he knows what to do with, and always thrusts himself headlong into them, to the point where he eventually traded the "crippled" role with his own younger brother. Of course, there's also a good portion of the fanbase who just want to punch him instead.
 * Rilian, of all people, might count as one. He seems to have had all of three good friends in his life, . Nobody else seems to like or trust him because he's a spooky looking necromancer. Then there's the , when he acts friendly and gregarious and just plain likable; followed by the revelation that  . His woobiedom can be seen here.


 * Luna. Let's see, born with a set of rather unappealing tusks, bullied and belittled by her entire family throughout her entire life as a result, Forget one hug, this woman needs, nay, deserves a hundred of them.
 * Drowtales has several varieties of Woobie, since it's set in a Crapsack World where cuties get broken on a regular basis. There's the main character Ariel, her friend Faen who can't control her empathic powers, Naal'suul, who shouldn't even be alive, and Jerkass Woobie Syphile as well.
 * Pretty much everyone in El Goonish Shive, to some extent, but Grace and Justin in particular.
 * Ellen, at least when she's introduced (as an Opposite Sex Clone who remembers everything the original does... as far as she's concerned, her body was changed, then her life is no longer hers, then it turns out she's probably going to die within a month... she was having a seriously bad week.) From this point on, some think she stays the Woobie, while others think she turns into a Jerkass. Others take a third option.
 * Recently Susan has been getting another good Woobie streak, not to mention Catalina...
 * To summarize Susan's Woobieness (which in it's own way is as bad as Grace's), she
 * and to make her woobienss more complete, she's capable of being incredibly cute at times, to cement her need for a hug.
 * Dan has said that sometimes he wishes he could actually hug his characters, especially Catalina.
 * Tedd too. Mysterious Past indeed. Or at least Lord Tedd.
 * Grace. Oh poor, poor Grace. She's  Dan even draws a sketch where he apologizes. He even titles it "It's my comic, and I'll cry if I want to."
 * Rumiko Takahata in Fans, especially regarding her romantic relationships, so often that the rule 'Rumy must suffer' became an in-joke in the fan forum.
 * Florence in Freefall has been skirting this trope lately, what with the Mad Scientist . Averted because she's approached the situation as a problem to be solved with her usual level-headed good cheer, but geez, this troper can't be the only one who wants to hug her with one arm and use the free hand to hold a blaster on said Mad Scientist until he fixes her.
 * Methinks that position is covered by the The Faceless security guard who chewed out said Mad Scientist for just that.
 * This Troper doesn't just want to threaten the Mad Scientist, but to actually blow off a kneecap and then trade Florence's memory restoration for calling an ambulance. Sadly, blood loss might make his hands shake or something.
 * I doubt he could. He seems more like a middle manager who knows enough about how Florence works to explain it to Sam than somebody who could do brain surgery (or whatever discipline of science fixing Florence would fall under, if not that).
 * The Ecosystems Unlimited security computer made me want to hug it in this strip. It's incredibly incompetent at its job and the humans it works with don't really recognise it as a person, so I can understand why that would have happened, but that was literally the only compliment it's ever received. Poor little buggy AI. It doesn't seem overly bothered by being treated with exasperation, contempt, and the occasional death threat, though. In fact, it's more of a Large Ham than anything ("Security guard: RECOGNIZED! Room 101 door: OPENED! Element of surprise: RETAINED!").
 * Black from Grey Is every time you hear more about his past you just want to hug him and make it all better. Luckily White is there to do it for us
 * When this troper first saw Zimmy in Gunnerkrigg Court, she seemed like the last character she'd want to give a big hug out of sheer sympathy. Well, recent chapters, especially this page, have proven that wrong.
 * Boxbot would be a woobie, but he is disqualified for being terrible.
 * Annie herself qualifies pretty well. Her mom's dead (and up until then lived most of her life in the hospital with her) and her dad's disappeared without a trace. Comparatively, that doesn't sound so bad until you learn that
 * Annie recieves an even worse revelation later on in the story.
 * Gamma, too. Because of Zimmy, she barely gets any sleep and she thinks everyone hates her (because she doesn't speak English - Zimmy doesn't want her to learn - and Zimmy lies about what other people are saying because she thinks that Gamma would abandon her if she had the chance to make other friends), but she's so sweet and so devoted to Zimmy that she doesn't mind any of it. And when her feelings get hurt you just want to give her a big hug and tell her everything's okay.
 * The whole main cast of Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name has their woobie moments, and they even come in several distinct flavors:
 * Although he constantly insists that its Definitely Just a Cold, Hanna makes for a good classic woobie at times.
 * Conrad walks the line between Jerkass Woobie and The Chew Toy, depending on the viewer and whether it's Played for Laughs or Played for Drama.
 * And finally, Veser is just an archetypal Jerkass Woobie.
 * Sir Muir in Harkovast
 * Tavros from Homestuck, in this update especially. Basically an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain with heavy emphasis on "sympathetic". Andrew just refuses to give the poor guy a break.
 * What's worse, Tavros' eventually discovers his primary tormentor has actively created the unstoppable monster endangering them all. He finally decides to challenge her, not for his own sake, but for everyone's. As soon as she realizes he means it for once,
 * And as of recently, we get more information on the other trolls; it establishes them as closer to the neutral end (with the exceptions of Eridan and Vriska):.
 * Hell, even Vriska, HUGE 8ITCH though she is, winds up being almost tragic. While she's done a number of really awful things, it eventually becomes clear that
 * Sollux and Aradia are probably second only to Tavros in terms of Woobie-ness among the trolls. Aside from being responsible for the software's creation, both are Cursed with Awesome Mad Oracles; Aradia hears voices, and Sollux has serious self esteem issues.
 * WV as well, It also turned his antics with Can Town into a huge (and hugely depressing) Funny Aneurysm Moment.
 * The latest addition to Homestuck's woobie list is most definitely Karkat.
 * Later on, he watches and starts openly sobbing when  It got better, but still.
 * On a related note, Katia Managan from Prequel is designed to be this trope; "Making a cat cry" is actually in the subtitle. Everything in the universe seems hellbent on making her miserable. She grew up with horrifying nightmares every night for most of her young life, blamed by her family for said nightmares forcing them to live in poverty, never been hugged once, become a homeless alcoholic and generally seen as a slut for her drunken misadventures and, despite her best efforts, never made any money. And that's just the backstory; it gets worse once she tries reinventing herself. Recently, after a long time when it looked like everything was going to be alright for her, it was all cruelly snatched away.
 * King from Housepets. He was once a human who was a member of PETA. Now he's become fate's doormat.
 * Inhuman has several of these. In the main comic, Kyotoshi and Soshika Lypha, whose parents were murdered in front of them, and (arguably) Grey.
 * Two of Inhuman's B-Side Comics, Jet's Story and The Cemetery seem to be designed to Woobiefy Jet and Koji, respectively.
 * No one here has mentioned poor Dina Sarazu of Its Walky here? The love of her life dumps her for another girl, she gets ignored and overshadowed whenever she makes an important discovery, a few of the characters hate her because she got saved from being crushed  and she ends up in a relationship with a violent Jerkass who is only nice when he's drunk and thinks she's completely useless.
 * Kano Jurgen, Kid, and especially Dark from Kagerou. And they're all the same guy.
 * Secret from Keychain of Creation is very much the Woobie - though one of the Exalted, she's been given the Black Exaltation, turned into basically a superpowered, Exalted vampire cursed and doomed to bring death and destruction to the world - and she hates it. Worse, she has serious self-confidence issues, and is really kind of a hopeless, lovable klutz when separated from her malevolent, sentient shapeshifting sword in a world where epic heroes do violent things to each other all the time.
 * Riley Zinc from A Loonatics Tale. Death of his father... check. Several mental/physical complications from lack of sleep, eating, and anguish from said parental death? Check. Paranoia and extreme superstition? Check.... and he's a musician on top of everything else. Don't you just wanna make him feel better?
 * Piro and Kimiko from Megatokyo. Also, Ping, Yuki and maybe Miho. Largo and Erika also have their moments. Hell, let's just declare the entire cast to be woobies and get over it. Except Dom and Ed. Not that it'll stop people from trying.
 * Junko has recently been hit with the Woobie stick really hard with . Seeing what up till now was a strong, spunky female character looking like she's about to burst into tears combined with the implication that has made many people ANGRY.
 * It is worth noting that Nanasawa Kimiko crosses into Woobie territory in universe as well as out. Not only does one of her senior colleagues ask their boss if a hug would be appropriate, she is later horrified to find she has attracted an army of sympathetic minor characters, calling themselves the Nanasawa Protection Coalition.
 * Rumisiel in Misfile is at first glance an apathetic, alcoholic, drugged up, loser who couldn't even manage to put files back in the right cabinet, since then however he's gained an emotionally distant father, a screwed up overachieving (and formerly mass murdering) brother, an Ex from hell (almost literally), but on occasion shown a surprisingly intelligent, loyal and tender side and has become a textbook woobie.
 * ...or not. A better case can be made for Ash being the Woobie, considering that the condition that has caused so much angst also makes the impulsive to give a hug both stronger and… appealing.
 * Mika of Mob Ties. Cute little goth waif? Check.  Big check. Hates everything because of all the trauma she has been through? Double check. She will make you want to hug your monitor to death.
 * Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Renoir from Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden; although they are going through Character Development, they're still woobies at heart.
 * Nana's Everyday Life takes this to ridiculous levels as it Crosses the Line Twice. Imagine a comic about Nana from Elfen Lied and Henrietta from Gunslinger Girl constantly suffering undeserved divine punishments, one after another, in a constantly-repeating loop that only ends with
 * Though it must be said that  Which, in my mind, makes it that much more tragic.
 * Kevin J Dog from Newshounds. A hard luck Extreme Doormat who recently gained weight after finding out Stormy got married.
 * And now his new girlfriend's Jerkass sister is making his life worse.
 * And it seems things were awful before Lorna adopted him.
 * Lorna and Rochelle also have some woobieish traits.
 * Opey the Warhead is about a boy named Opey... who also happens to (at least appear to) be a nuclear warhead. When the class realizes he doesn't explode on impact, he immediately becomes the victim of the entire classroom (well, three kids, but it's After the End) of bullies. Despite not having a face, Opey is amazingly expressionate and totally woobie material being a generally sweet-natured kid.
 * Therkla in Order of the Stick. She's sweet, likable, and a fan favorite from almost her introduction. Then she falls head over heels in love with the guy she's been told to kill, only to have him go "Sorry, already spoken for". She then risks her life for him, and ends up  Ouch.
 * Even much-hated Knight Templar paladin Miko got a Woobie moment...
 * In this strip Vaarsuvius manages to go from near-genocidal maniac to woobie in three panels.
 * Vaarsuvius's woobie status had already been established in this strip, though It Got Worse after that.
 * The climax of the arc in particular gives us plenty of Woobie moments for Vaarsuvius. It's beginning to seem like the character exists only to be beaten up...
 * And it still goes on.
 * To this troper, Redcloak, during the prequel Start of Darkness
 * Haley, at times. Especially when you find out that she is obsessed with money because
 * Er, not quite. As we see in On the Origins of PCs, Haley was obsessed with money even before that.
 * David Andrew Bartlett, protagonist of Ow, My Sanity To put things in perspective, he ended up in the possition he's in because when facing an apparently imminent death by Eldritch Abomination, his only wish was that someone had given a crap about him during his life. The first person to do so is said Eldritch Abomination.
 * Ceasar Wolfe from Pandect would be a normal 17-year-old boy except that he's infected with a Virus that overwhelms him with uncontrollable feelings of lust. Naturally, no one trusts him, no one wants to be around him, and his name has become a synonym for "pervert". When he finally gets a genuine offer of friendship, it takes him completely by surprise.
 * Charlotte in Penny and Aggie is an interesting case. At first, she seems simply angry and bigoted, but we gradually learn more about her, her woobieness becomes quickly apparent. And then there's.
 * Penny Arcade's "Automata" seems designed for this. If you can read the first strip, and then the other five, and you don't want to give him a hug, well, you might just be a robot.
 * Jonas Faulkner of The Phoenix Requiem is not having a great time of it. His friend shoots him after he escapes from an insane asylum. And then It Gets Worse.
 * Jeremy from Platinum Grit. And if the abuse he suffers over the course of the comic isn't enough, his backstory involves a childhood of being tormented by his Axe Crazy cousin while the rest of the family shunned him as a simpleton.
 * Jacob and Vincent share the role in Precocious as they somehow keep optimistic and cheerful in a world of cynicism and cognitive dissonance.
 * Hannelore in Questionable Content. Even turkeys agree.
 * And hugging her just causes more problems.
 * Before Hanners arrived, and, Marten was pretty much the strip Woobie.
 * Lately, Marigold has taken a sharp turn in that direction as well, to the point that Hannelore gives *her* a hug.
 * Germany from Scandinavia and The World. Just look at this strip.
 * Estonia just never gets a break.
 * Leonard in Sequential Art is a tiny platypus with a seriously bad case of bad luck, usually in form of unintentional starvation and this kinds of events? They are regular occurences. It should be funny, but there's that utterly pitiful Puppy Dog Eyes that really makes the reader want to hug him.
 * Amber O'Malley in Shortpacked!, although in the most recent story, she's starting to throw this off.
 * Leslie seems to picking up whatever Woobie-ness Amber is throwing off.
 * Slick of Sinfest fits perfectly in this category during the deeper moments of the comic. The guy honestly loves Monique to the point that he was willing to sell his soul in exchange for her shallow happiness... and a pony. Yet he can rarely catch a break or even express himself with her, mostly due to his own libido and ego, but lately not even when he's honestly trying.
 * This comic further confirms said woobiness. Jesus, someone hug him.
 * Squig also has his moments.
 * As does Fucshia, due to Fantastic Racism, like here
 * Buwaro from Slightly Damned counts.
 * Things have gotten both better and worse for Buwaro. Worse:  Better:
 * Sluggy Freelance has Oasis being quite Woobietastic, when she's not being Ax Crazy or Badass. Idiot Hero Torg gets a few moments of this during That Which Redeems. Even Aylee gets it during her visit to the parallel world where her species exists.
 * Sawyer from Sore Thumbs.
 * Jinx, the Cirbozoid technology officer in Kris Straub's Starslip. He is often put down by Vanderbeam and is unfortunately unable to fight back in most circumstances due to the "natural subservience" of his species. The Cirbozoids' baffling physiology also tends to put off most personal involvement from other crew members, and when it does overlap, the trope is just magnified.
 * Arcturus Winrock from Suicide for Hire.
 * Gaaranooki from Supah Nario Bros.
 * Quentyn in Tales of the Questor. In fact, this trope is specified by the bully, Rahan, of why he picked on Quentyn: everyone feels so sorry for Quentyn that he gets away with everything no matter how outrageous the trouble he stirs up in Rahan's eyes.
 * Keith Keiser of Twokinds: Accused of murdering his parents (He did kill his father - in self-defense, his father murdered his mother), exiled in order to protect his father's reputation (he was a high ranking military leader), manages to fulfill the impossible conditions of his exile (capture the Grand Templar, which happens to be Trace), only to be ordered to betray Trace (who he considers a friend) to the Bastians. And along the way, he develops feelings for the Kedrian assassin, Natani... self-loathing, misogynistic, gender-confused, biologically female Natani (Made worse because Bastians are prudish and xenophobic by nature and culture), and has been ordered to kill her to be accepted back into society.
 * You forget being engaged to a Keidren who then gets cold feet, goes into hiding and avoids him for several days. Her village turns him out saying she doesn't love him anymore. Finally, when he and Natani might have a relationship potential, she shows up, asking for forgiveness. On another note he has just had to . Poor, poor, Keith.
 * Jake Miller in Umlaut House; in the second series, Pierce Lee takes this role up.
 * Lynn in Union of Heroes but what else do you expect from a superheroine called "The Eternal Victim"?.
 * The whole basis for Warbot in Accounting is how much it sucks to be the titular death robot. In just a single comic, he
 * There is also Ashton from Winters in Lavelle. It doesn't matter what he tries to do, he still looks like a beaten puppy, either that or in some cases a "sad lil praying mantis".
 * xkcd presents the Spirit rover as this.
 * Jone White-Eye, from Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic. She successfully became the woobie in her first page. All the others were just icing on the cake.
 * YU+ME: dream has pretty much all the humans end up in woobie positions: Fiona, Lia, even Sadako in her viewpoint chapter.
 * In The Zombie Hunters, James, a trainee in a team of Post-Zombie Apocalypse Disaster Scavengers, ostensibly begins as a Chew Toy, due to comically "freezing up" at the sight of a few Crawlers, a zombie class that doesn't pose much of a threat. He's enough of a klutz that he even ends up falling into a Creepy Basement, but he's injured in the fall, and becomes solidly a Woobie. After that literal.
 * Poor, poor Sizemore Rockwell from Erfworld. He's a pacifist in a world where nothing but war exists, and he lacks the free will to exercise his beliefs and is forced to kill. He's interested in all sorts of magic, but is only talented in his own field, and his boss considers him useless and can't even remember his name. Did we mention he's one or two deaths away from being the Last of His Kind?.
 * He's also one of the greatest examples of the Stoic Woobie ever. To sum it up perfectly is this simple quote "when life gives you crap, you make crap golems". He's being very literal...
 * Schlock Mercenary got Leutenant Sorlie. If suddenly being thrown at a band of mercenaries as a spy/nonsensical "cultural liaison" without any privacy at all was not enough, there's more... And then It Got Worse, though she seems to get tougher now.