Com Media/Characters

The Prints
A media category defined by their reliance on ink, paper, and printing presses.


 * Adorkable
 * Bishounen / Bifauxnen
 * Four-Temperament Ensemble
 * Phlegmatic: Literature
 * Choleric: Journalism
 * Melancholic: Comics
 * Sanguine: Mail
 * Old Media Playing Catch Up: They've been rivals to media newer than themselves since forever
 * Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Mail, Lit, and Journ have this sibling dynamic.
 * Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: They all have shades of this. Except Journalism, of course.

Print Literature—Sean Macmillan
Represents books, both fiction and nonfiction. Oldest of the prints and the patriarch of the print family. He wears a sweater vest and long sleeve shirt, evocative of an intellectual writer.


 * Anything That Moves / Bi the Way
 * Big Brother Mentor
 * Brilliant but Lazy: Not so much "lazy" but more on "laid back"
 * Bumbling Dad
 * But Not Too White / Inscrutable Oriental: He's part Irish, part Chinese.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: His head is in the clouds.
 * Covert Pervert: Not very open about it, though, but whenever he's caught...
 * Chivalrous Pervert
 * Dangerously Genre Savvy
 * Genius Ditz
 * Green Eyes
 * Heroic Wannabe
 * Hollywood Nerd
 * Immortal Immaturity: He still manages to act like a goof despite his great age.
 * Impoverished Patrician: At points in history, he becomes this.
 * Mr. Imagination: He likes to imagine and can materialize weapons and climate conditions with ease
 * Non-Action Guy
 * Older Than They Look: Looks like a 40-something-that-looks-young-for-his-age
 * Only Sane Man
 * Parents as People: He and comics do not get along often. He has his moments, though.
 * Team Dad: To the Prints, particularly to Journalism. To his actual son, however...
 * Time Abyss: He has no stated age and is implied to be very old.
 * What do you mean, he's not didactic?

Print Journalism—Jimmy Pulitzer
Print Literature's brother. Represents newspapers and magazines. He dresses as a cross between depression-era newsboy and 40s journalist.


 * Caffeine Bullet Time
 * Cool Loser
 * Cool Uncle: To Comics, his nephew.
 * Deadpan Snarker
 * Grammar Nazi: Can't stand grammar errors
 * Green Eyes
 * The Hero: The closest that the series has to one, really.
 * Intrepid Reporter
 * Never Live It Down: His time as the "yellow kid."
 * Nice Hat: A newsboy cap with a press tag. Back in the day, he wore a fedora.
 * Noveau Riche: As the yellow kid.
 * Parental Substitute: To Comics
 * Rich Bastard: During his yellow kid days. And then Radio came and he lost it all.
 * Smoking Is Cool: He smokes a lot.
 * Wangst: He likes to ramble about how he's a dying medium.

Cartoons and Comics—Clark Macmillian
Literature's son from Visual Art. Represents comics as a storytelling medium, including He and dad don't get along often. Closer to his uncle and his half-brother, Animation. Wears a heavy overcoat over a gray shirt with a word balloon in it.


 * Antihero: Or so he wants to think
 * Basement Dweller: He lives in his family's basement.
 * Bishounen
 * The Cape (trope)
 * Clark Kent Outfit
 * Emo Teen: Emo Young Adult, actually, representing The Dark Age Of Comics. This Darker and Edgier phase in the 1990s did not end well
 * Flying Brick: He has superpowers which he uses for stupid everyday things such as:
 * Eye Beams to warm the coffee
 * Flight to walk in midair.
 * Generation Xerox
 * Gray Eyes: Silver, actually.
 * Heroic Bastard
 * Heroic Build: For a skinny dude, he's quite buff.
 * Hippie Parents: Art and Literature.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold
 * Made of Iron
 * Mister Imagination
 * Sequential Artist
 * Sleeves Are for Wimps: Under his jacket, his shirt has no sleeves.
 * Fun T-Shirt: Said shirt has a word balloon on it.
 * Troubled but Cute: Supposed to evoke this, for some reason.
 * The Unfavorite: Treated as a bastard by his own father.
 * Used To Be A Sweet Child
 * Wangst: About the 90s.
 * Weaksauce Weakness: Deathmate is his kryptonite.

Mail—Cody Williams
Represents the postal system. The only girl among the prints, in between Journalism and Literature. Dressed as a mail carrier.


 * Bifauxnen
 * The Determinator
 * Gender Blender Name
 * Girls Love Ponies: In her younger days, relies on a horse.
 * Gray Eyes

The Audio Visuals
Characterized by their adherence to the simultaneous use of audio and visual equipment, usually for broadcast or home consumption.


 * Big Screwed-Up Family
 * Executive Meddling: A recurring theme
 * Old Media Are Evil: Many of them are Jerk Asses

Television—Walter Logie Farnsworth
The de facto leader of the media, representing the television industry and live-action TV shows. He wears a suit and a lapel mic. Video's older brother.


 * Antenna Hair: Duh
 * Idiot Hair
 * Asexuality: May have something to do with TV portraying sex unrealistically.
 * A whole smattering of big brother tropes, including:
 * Big Brother Mentor
 * Big Brother Instinct
 * and Big Brother Is Watching
 * Blue Eyes
 * Butt Monkey: He's essentially a huge Take That to television networks in general. But not all the time.
 * Chick Magnet
 * Executive Meddling: Often ends up being controlled by this, but he does this for his survival and it isn't always bad.
 * Jerkass
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He has a soft spot for children
 * Friend to All Children
 * Madness Mantra: RATINGS
 * Network Decay: He's prone to this, to the point that he's called out often.
 * Parental Substitute: To his sister, Video.
 * Psychopathic Manchild: Sometimes
 * New Media Are Evil: He views Internet as this. Everyone younger than him views him as this.
 * Slasher Smile
 * Stupid Sexy Flanders: He does this to a lot of the media.
 * TV Tropes is ruining his life
 * Violent Glaswegian: He's from Scotland, as television was invented there.
 * Yandere

Video—Mary Sue Farnsworth-Phillips
TV's sister and confidante. Representing video technology. Dressed like a production manager.


 * Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Of Radio
 * Non-Indicative Name: She isn't a Mary Sue Classic, nor is she
 * Yandere

Recording Industry—Vince Raymond Phillips
A tall man representing the recording industry and recording technologies. Dressed in a 70s pimp suit.


 * The Big Guy / The Brute: Depending on whether
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold
 * Happily Married: To Video
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: With Radio
 * Jive Turkey
 * Knight Templar: Because Digital Piracy Is Evil
 * Papa Wolf: To Music Video
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: With TV, his brother in law.
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy / Happily Adopted: He and his adoptive father have been split with the whole mainstream thing.

Music Video
Daughter of the Recording Industry and Video representing music videos as a distinct medium. A teenage girl dressed in party clothes.


 * Bratty Teenage Daughter
 * Dating What Daddy Hates: She has a thing for Internet.

The Digitals
Representing computer-based media, this groups marker is the almost universal presence of Nerd Glasses.


 * Adorkable: They all are, to some extent.
 * A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In a way, this is what they technically would be.
 * Hollywood Nerd
 * Polar Opposite Twins: Internet and his twin brother Intranet.
 * Sibling Seniority Squabble: Averted. Internet is canonically older per history (if history were to be adhered to strictly, by about 20 years). Cue MST3K Mantra.

Internet—Rossum Frederick Bell
Represents the modern Internet and the culture therein. Looks like a regular (if nerdy) teenager. Son of Computer Tech and Telecommunication, and the older of a pair of identical twins.


 * Annoying Younger Sibling
 * Blond guys are jerkasses: He's a collosal asshole.
 * Big Brother Instinct: Very protective of his little sister Podcast
 * Bratty Half-Pint: A teenager, as opposed to the other media who are between 20 and 40.
 * Cute Kitten: He has one as a pet
 * Deadpan Snarker
 * Extroverted Nerd
 * Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The "foolish" one.
 * Genius Ditz
 * The Internet is not a girl
 * Jerkass
 * The Keet: At his least jerkish, he comes off as this.
 * Know-Nothing Know-It-All
 * Military Brat
 * Mouthy Kid
 * New Media Are Evil: He gets accused of this often; while not unjustified, he sometimes feels it goes too far.
 * Non-Human Sidekick: The aforementioned cat
 * Tagalong Kid
 * Teens Are Short: Averted. He's taller than his father and is as tall as TV.
 * Teen Genius

Intranet—Robert Licklider Bell
Represents Internet-like localized internal networks. Dressed similarly to his identical twin brother Internet.


 * The Dutiful Son
 * Everything's Better with Bob
 * Sibling Yin-Yang: A reclusive, level-headed, but kind of limited in knowledge as opposed to his brother who is extraverted, mouthy, and ludicrously knowledgeable.
 * Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The "responsible" one.
 * Twin Telepathy: Representing the interplay between intranets in real life and the Internet.
 * The Workaholic

Computer Technology—Timothy Babbage Bell
Representing all of computer-based media sans networks and mobile devices. Dressed like a nerdy IT dude. Father of the digital siblings and married to Telecommunications.


 * Geek Physique: He's short.
 * Hollywood Nerd
 * Parents as People: Keeps Internet, who gives him all sorts of viruses, within arm's distance through a wall of fire.
 * Parental Favoritism
 * The Patriarch
 * Reasonable Authority Figure
 * Shoulder Angels: Mac and PC. Linux appears and is ignored.

ARPANET—Taylor Bell
Internet's older sister, based on the Internet's predecessor. Dressed in an American military uniform.


 * Drill Sergeant Nasty

Podcast—Miley Bell

 * Cuteness Proximity
 * Kawaiiko
 * Young Entrepreneur

Video Gaming—Kirby Park
A relative to the Audiovisuals and the Digitals. Wears a stylized South Korean competitive Starcraft team jacket.


 * Gratuitous Foreign Language: 1337sp33k and on occassion, Korean.
 * I Lied: His only joke so far.
 * Hikikomori: Not very fond of the outdoors.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair

Cinema—Fritz Stevens

 * Camp Straight / Single-Target Sexuality: He's Visual Art's ex-husband, and tries to win her back, but fails.
 * Companion Cube: A bullhorn/megaphone that he carries around.
 * Oscar Bait: Tries to woo her with drama. Fails.
 * Summer Blockbuster: What turned her off in the first place
 * Le Film Artistique: Even this doesn't work.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Sometimes.
 * Nice Hat: A beret
 * Prima Donna Director
 * Reasonable Authority Figure: To Animation
 * Good Parent
 * Parental Substitute: To TV, to a certain degree.
 * Sitcom Arch Nemesis: To Theatre.

Animation—Charlie Steve
Representing the modern animation industry that traces its origin to the silent era. A wacky, animesque man dressed casually, wearing a backpack. Art's son from Cinema and Comics' half-brother.


 * Anime Hair
 * You Gotta Have Green Hair
 * Awesome Hammerspace Backpack: Wouldn't be Animation without it.
 * Crazy Prepared
 * Four-Fingered Hands: Everyone else has five.
 * Friend to All Children: He'd hate to admit this, but yeah.
 * Goggles Do Nothing
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A Nice Guy, but way into Dead Baby Comedy and Naughty Tentacles.
 * Covert Pervert
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to his half-brother's red.
 * The Stoner: Has shades of this
 * Totally Radical

Photography—Renee Daguerre
Represents photography as a technology and artform. Dressed as a stereotypical photographer. Journalism's love interest.


 * Bifauxnen
 * Blithe Spirit
 * Camera Fiend
 * Companion Cube: A camera
 * Intrepid Reporter
 * Kuudere
 * Nice Hat: A bucket hat
 * Tomboy

The Telegraphs
Represents technologies dedicated to transferring verbal and written information without the use of physical transportation. Nominally would include Internet.

Radio—Giacomo Marconi
Represents radio technology as a whole and radio broadcasting in particular. Dressed a a disk jockey.


 * Ambiguously Brown
 * Bald of Awesome
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: With the Recording Industry
 * Military Brat
 * Power of Rock: Wields it as a weapon

Telegraphy—Samuel Bell
Represents the sum total of telegraphic technology up to wire. Originally a sailor, now a distinguished old gentleman in an anachronistic Victorian suit.


 * Everybody Knows Morse: Well, he does.
 * Impoverished Patrician: He lives off odd jobs.