Blood Money Boogie

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

What is Blood Money Boogie? Simply: Violence. Lots and lots of violence. Blood Money Boogie is a Deviant ART-based comic by "Ranfield." It follows the adventures of a male and female mercenary in a unit of mercenaries. And they are hardly heroes. Expect plenty of bloodshed and an equal amount of dark comedy.

Blood Money Boogie can be found here


Tropes used in Blood Money Boogie include:
  • Ambiguously Brown: Vassily. Half-Russian, half-Afghani, his skin tone is more than a few shades darker than a light tan.
  • Armor Is Useless: Subverted. Horribly subverted, but also lampshaded. Vassily has to wear a plate carrier under his assault vest because he refuses to wear a more "traditional" vest like the rest of the Trading Company.
  • Author Tract: Happens occasionally, mostly regarding the author's dislike of modern "activists."
  • Awesome but Impractical: Vassily likes to wear an M33 assault vest. While stylish, it provides no actual protection, thus necessitating that he wears a plate carrier underneath.
  • Ax Crazy: Sadie. Very much so.
  • Badass: Pretty much everyone in the Trading Company.
  • Badass Grandpa: Uncle Chandy.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Sort of. Sadie is generally implied to look pretty at best and rarely gets into too many scratches. The Jormungand shooters on the other hand...
  • BFG: The Destroyer.
  • Black and Grey Morality: The free-wheeling mildly-psychopathic-but-still-vaguely-nice Trading Company mercenaries or the white supremacist Jormungand mercenaries?
  • Blood Knight: Sadie.
  • Blue and Orange Morality: Vassily.
  • Boom! Headshot!: Happens occasionally.
  • Break Out the Museum Piece: One of the pair's primary long-range weapons in Somalian Samba is a scoped Mosin-Nagant. Aside from that, much of Vassily's choice in equipment tends to verge on this mostly because he prefers older equipment.
  • Bulletproof Vest: As mentioned, both of them wear vests, and they work. But Vassily is more encumbered thanks to his preference for wearing an assault vest.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: Uncle Chandy.
  • Cannon Fodder: The Somalis militia in the Somalian Samba arc.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: A good deal of it during the gunfights.
  • Character Blog: Run by a background character, but serves to explain how it all sort of comes together.
  • Cold Sniper: Vassily.
  • Cool Guns: Very much so, although the pair tend to use more exotic equipment more frequently.
  • Dead Baby Comedy: Very much so.
  • Death From Above: The Mi-8 Hip with flechette rockets. Does the term "stapled to the ground" mean anything?
  • Designated Hero: Vassily and Sadie.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Possibly one of the few redeeming factors of the two protagonists.
  • Expy: Somewhat complicated, but Vassily and Sadie are based on old RPG characters who were in turn based on M and Special from Brian Woods's The Couriers.
  • Eye Scream: What happens when Sadie gets her hands on some kebab skewers and the two have to extract some information?
  • Feel No Pain: Vassily.
  • Former Regime Personnel: Jormungand is comprised primarily of old-fashioned Afrikaaners. Likewise, the Trading Company has its own share of Russian and failed state mercenaries.
  • Friendly Sniper: Sadie. Although she's more of a "Psychopathic Sniper" than anything else...
  • Good Old Ways: One of the primary differences between Vassily and Sadie when it comes to choosing dakka. Sadie likes the shiny new things while Vassily displays a general distrust of anything younger than he is.
  • Gorn: As the author likes to point out about his research on wounds and trauma: "I've got pictures!" Blood Money Boogie is not particularly for people with weak stomachs.
  • Grimdark: Passes over straight into Dead Baby Comedy.
  • Gun Porn: The author has noted that it is perfectly possible to construct everything shown in the strips. It's that thorough, and it's not limited to just the weaponry.
  • Gunship Rescue: The Mi-8 Hip.
  • Hero of Another Story: A good number of the Trading Company shooters can pass for this.
  • Hollywood Tactics: Applied really only with the untrained Somali militia and some Jormungand shooters.
  • HSQ: It occurs.
  • Kick the Dog: No witnesses.
  • Kill It with Fire: Molotov cocktails.
  • Knife Nut: Sadie.
  • Meaningful Name: Played with. Vassily al-Rahman is not peaceful, and Sadie Goodheart is a psychopath.
  • Mood Whiplash: Yes.
  • More Dakka: Yes.
  • New Meat: Vassily is introduced with the latest hire, stepping off the chopper.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Sadie.
  • Pet the Dog: Kind of.
  • Pretty Little Headshots: Only with the Whitney Wolverine considering that it's a .22 LR pistol. Everything else is guaranteed to only occasionally leave dental records.
  • Private Military Contractors: The author goes at length to differentiate between a PMC and the mercenary units that the Trading Company and Jormungand are.
  • Punch Clock Villain: Sadie doesn't particularly care if you were just doing this to pay for your kids' college fund.
  • Reality Ensues: Despite running on Rule of Cool, the series is still very realistic. You deserve that heatstroke for wandering around in the Somalian summer wearing a sweater and well over a hundred pounds of equipment.
  • Retired Badass: Uncle Chandy.
  • Rule of Cool: Yep.
  • Scenery Gorn: Yes, Somalia does look like that.
  • Shout-Out: Occasionally.
    • Uncle Chandy is possibly the most blatant reference.
    • Also, you half expect Uncle Chandy to rip your still-beating heart from your chest while chanting "Kali Ma!"... Yeah, his detailed shots look like Mola Ram.
    • A fairly obscure reference comes in the form of how Vassily has been kitted out, his general loadout sans shemagh looks a lot like the outfit worn by Delta in Black Hawk Down.
    • Jormungand's general appearance looks like the popular "modern PMC" look favored in American airsoft.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Strongly cynical.
  • Take That: One of the strips is a fourth wall breaking lecture by Vassily about the inherent flaws of activism.
  • The Ladette: Sadie.
  • The Stoic: Vassily.
  • Unflinching Walk: Yep.
  • War Is Hell: Indeed.
  • We Help the Helpless: Subverted as well as something of a Take That, the Trading Company will work for just about anyone if the money's good.

Sadie: Rookie, we don't rescue kids because we care. We rescue kids because their parents can afford our prices.

  • Urban Warfare: Much of Blood Money Boogie is slated to deal with it.
  • Word of God: Well, the author/artist is a troper...
  • Your Head Asplode: The Destroyer. It's a sniper rifle that fires autocannon shells. Do the math.