Fantastic Racism/Web Comics

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The general distrust of the outsiders in Project 0.
  • In the Captain SNES universe, RPG sprites are considered arrogant, dumb and really angsty.
  • In Chess Piece, the king's father is a bigot of just about everything while Jack Fenton is one towards ghosts. Interestingly, there are two countries of ghosts - one in a Phantom Zone called Purgatory, the other in Anartica - and the King of Dalv has a best friend who happens to be a ghost-and his general.
  • Crimson Flag: Red foxes ("reds") versus grey foxes ("greys"). There are other kinds of foxes, but so far there doesn't seem to be any antagonism involving them.
  • In Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures, Dan, as an adventurer, hates demons. Especially succubi and incubi. Learning that he's an incubus himself only worsens it, making him hostile to anyone who wants to teach him how to use his powers, fearing that they will "make him like them" à la The Virus.
    • To be fair, most of them are Card Carryingly evil, mainly because they're powerful. The nice ones are the exception. (His first would-be teacher, Aaryanna, isn't exactly subtle about what she expects Dan to use his powers for, and Lorenda's mother has a blatant might-makes-right philosophy).
      • Of course, as Abel explains, most Cubi are jerks because they were raised like that, not because they're Cubi. Dan and Abel are obvious examples, since both were raised as Beings and neither is evil.
    • Also, Dragons and Cubi (or at least Clan Cyra Cubi) apparently don't get along very well.
    • Also from DMFA, there is a species-wide restraining order against the fae that prohibits them from approaching either any girl-scout in general, or two girl-scouts in particular (who may have died of old age by now).
  • In Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, prejudice against orcs is commonplace, as seen here. Luna, a human with unusually large lower canines, has suffered spillover racism on occasion as well (her teeth look like orc tusks... at least to humans; orcs can easily tell the difference). That's the only thing she has in common with orcs, but nobody said racism was rational.
    • Oddly enough Luna's colleague Melna, an actual orc, has suffered far more at the hands of other orcs in her homeland than she ever did in Callan.
  • In Elf Only Inn, part of the backdrop is the racism between elves and dark elves. It's fun for characters of one race to hurl insults (and even weapons) at characters of the other race. However, one player (who plays a Duke Nukem persona) doesn't get it: He takes up the "cause" of the dark elves, calls Meghan a racist, and in general makes Meghan and the dark elf player agree to take up their battle another time.
    • Taking the metaphor further, Meghan starts to question whether they couldn't form a friendship between elves and dark elves. Offer hastily rescinded when she learns that the dark elf queen admits only two roles for regular elves: slave labor, or sacrifices to the spider god.
  • In 8-bit Theater, Black Mage has made the claim that White Mages cannot understand the experience of a Black Mage due to all of the discrimination against Black Mages because of the color of their spells.
    • Let's not forget how Thief feels towards the Dwarves, and vice versa. To the point of practically egging Black Mage on whilst they were in Dwarfland, and not objecting to all the destruction taking place. Then again, Thief never rally does seem to object to the violence/crimes committed by The Light Warriors...
  • In Even in Arcadia the protagonist is foreigner Laelen Rojas, who is discriminated against by the local Fae for her ethnicity. So far in the story the only Fae who doesn't treat her this way is her mentor, Odai.
  • In Freefall, Artificial Lifeforms, both robotic and genetically engineered, are treated as second class citizens at best and as slaves at worst. Of course, it's often the very reason they exist in the first place (artificial, remember?).
  • Frog Raccoon Strawberry has a little fun with this when Strawberry is seen by Marco, a real frog. He calls her "speciesist" and shows up later in a raccoon costume. Strawberry is not offended at all.
  • In Girl Genius, racism against constructs is prevalent. There's also prejudice against Sparks, but it tends to be more justified, due to the way their Science-Related Memetic Disorder works.
  • Spoofed in this strip from The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, with gay not-Transformers.
  • Goblins is built around this trope. The "goodly" races, such as humans and elves, hate the goblins and all other monster races. In turn, most goblins also hate humans ( the White Terror has a perfectly good reason for this though). The central characters of this story have, through their battles with each other and their own kin, come to question these distinctions.
    • The recent arc has revealed the deeper difficulties involved in overcoming this inherent prejudice, namely that the "monster" races tend to be very different from the "good races" on fundamental levels. For a human from a society of monogamous relationships, finding out the usual method of reproduction for the Yuan-ti is essentially a giant ball of males try to impregnate a single female is a bit much.
  • In Harkovast, every race is even a different species and generally mistrust the other races. Sometimes they can have children between them, and the "half-caste" offspring are left with the dilemma of following one side or the other's culture, where they might not be accepted in either.
  • The Trolls in Homestuck have a caste system based on blood color, with red being the lowest and purple the highest. Equius, a literal blue-blood, considers himself superior to the other trolls and is conflicted about his feelings for red-blooded Aradia. Ironically, Gamzee, the third-highest-ranking of the twelve trolls by blood color and Equius's direct superior, is a lovable idiot with rather base tastes for a member of the aristocracy and doesn't seem to care about class.
    • The sea-dwelling Eridan may or may not ascribe any serious value to his "kickass royal blood," but he hates land dwellers and has expressed the desire to kill them all.
      • Eridan's best friend Feferi, whose blood is literally the highest-ranked shade of purple in the history of existence, believes the hemospectrum is arbitrary and meaningless and shouldn't inform one's interactions with other trolls. She's heard Eridan's aquatic-supremacist rhetoric so much that their first in-story conversation starts with her cutting him off and giving him a lecture about the fundamental equality of all trolls regardless of hemochroma or habitat before he can start in on another tiresome rant.
    • A fan once pointed out how illogical it is that the difference between the highest and lowest possible blood colors would be nothing more than a fraction of a shade. The author responded that of course the system is irrational. Racism isn't supposed to make sense.
    • The Condesce drives humanity to extinction because she finds human reproduction distasteful and tried to force them to follow Trollian mating practices. She's also a horrible ruler to the Carapaces, though Dirk surmises (correctly) that she probably wasn't much nicer to her fellow Trolls.
  • In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, there is tension between the dragons of planet Butane and the Nemesites who rule them, as depicted here.
  • In The Kenny Chronicles, Tarneckis (genetically engineered human-like animals created by pirate scientists) aren't allowed the same rights as humans and the attitude that they shouldn't is apparently prevalent enough that claiming your political opponent supports giving them rights constitutes mud-slinging. Is it any wonder why the majority of Tarneckis live on cruise ships where humans aren't allowed.
  • The Law of Purple has the planet Caligula, where skin color is random, there are barely any sort of religious traditions, and the culture is as non-sexist as a sexually dimorphic species can get it. So they divide themselves into two races based solely on ear shape, and "2nd Kind" are generally condemned to live in horrendous conditions as a result.
  • In Linburger Demi Humans are treated as second class citizens, and are heavily discriminated against. They even have to surrender a seat on the subway if a human wants their seat. Likely related to their hedonistic lifestyles.
    • Most ironic, is that the Cyll used to live in upper class society. Then Gotterdamerung happened, the Cyll lost their power, and now they live the way do. Unknown if the other Demihuman races had a similar origin.
  • Matt from Murphy's Law hates elves, mainly due to envy; according to Word of God, the only reason that some elves are stuck-up jerks is that, well, they're people too.
  • My Middle Name's Adventure has Winston the Dragon complain [dead link] about the world's stereotypical view on dragons.
  • Order of the Stick uses this in several ways. Redcloak, The Dragon, is a goblin, and treats hobgoblins like dirt until one saves his life - he then becomes a goblinoid supremacist (Technically, he says he hates all Humans equally, admitting that he may be a speciesist, he never wanted to be a racist). Wizards, who gain magical power through study, are contemptuous of sorcerers, whose magic is a genetic gift and of clerics whose magic is a gift from the gods. And in the Start of Darkness print Prequel, it's revealed that the Exclusively Evil races are that way because they were specifically created by the gods to be defeated, and their ultimate plan is an attempt to create equality for themselves.
    • In a purely comic example, Celia(a winged humanoid)'s retort to Haley calling her an "airhead" is "Hey! There's no need for racial slurs!"
    • Frequent elephant-in-the-room example: Yok-yok, Redcloak's village, and metal-head orcs are treated by (in at least one case, Lawful) Good adventurers (in at least one case PALADINS) as expendable, regardless of guilt or innocence, down to innocent civilians, including children. The adventurers don't get their alignments changed over it, nor do the Paladins lose power over it. The Giant lampshades that the D&D settings themselves have Fantastic Racism.
    • I don't believe it's ever been referred to as actual racism, but Token Evil Teammate Belkar seems to really, really hate kobolds.
  • Planes of Eldlor has dark elves and orcs which are generally reviled among the other races.
  • In Spacetrawler, the Tornites were legally declared non-sentient by the galactic government because of their terrible fashion sense. Similarly, the Eebs are exploited because it's so lucrative; to make this easier, the government claimed their lack of willpower makes them non-sentient.
  • In the published webcomic Trace, when extraterrestrial creatures come to earth, the energy they release cause some mutation among choice humans turning them into traces who for the most part simply exist to fight troubles. There are agencies devoted to the training and protection of Traces. Though hiding that you're a trace automatically gets you put in jail for roughly three months, and if you happen to become a trace when you already have a family well... yeah.
  • Ugly Hill, has the minority one-eyed monsters discriminated against by the majority two-eyes.
  • Yamara: "There's no racism like fantasy racism. Like no racism I know."
  • In Schlock Mercenary, the only big problem of this sort seems to be with Ob'enn ("their current cultural dogma calls for the eventual extermination of all non-Ob'enn"). Though the Enireth seem to generally dislike humans for historical reasons.
  • Bob and George: Fighting like cats and dogs -- while able to think about it. Here, here, here, and here.
  • From Regular Guy: admittedly, the Queen of Planet Ninurta is in a conventional same-sex relationship. It's just somehow weirder when it's aliens, and they have to destroy the Earth to distract from it.
  • In Strays, Holland contacts Feral to deal with a man preaching discrimination and murder.
  • Most of the backstory of Twokinds revolves around the three main races hating each other.
  • Ancients in Impure Blood. Now concentrated on the hybrid descendents. Though Elnor thinks Roan should make the effort.
  • In Endstone, the higher animals are a Little Bit Beastly and indeed, interfertile with humans. They're still butchered for meat.
  • In Orange Marmalade humans aren't overly fond of vampires. They've been able to live in society for around two hundred years and aren't how they used to be due to the lack of human blood, etc. But many people refer to them as blood-sucking murderers and say how they should all die out.
    • There's a mixed opinion on how vampires see humans. Some want to live happily with them and some think they're parasites.
  • In Off White, a snow leopard refers to humans as "wretched apes." Also some of the humans really don't like wolves.
  • Several magical races in At Arms Length feel superior to mortals. Also, many of the more powerful races feel superior to other magic races. These races are in turn disliked by the "lesser" magic races.
  • In The Lydian Option Hodges is a member of the Terran Brotherhood - a racist group of humans, and believes in a conspiracy to use human genes to create human-alien hybrids.
  • In The Zombie Hunters, people who get scratched by zombies or are infected with their blood or saliva become "infected", but not zombies, so long as they don't die and aren't actually bitten. Although technically there isn't supposed to be any racism between infected and uninfected, it's actually extremely common, with infected living separately from uninfected, often being pressured into taking dangerous jobs such as going into zombie-infested territory (as they can't be infected again) and being forced to wear armbands publicly identifying them as infected.
  • In A Mad Tea Party, humanity is united at last, but there sure is a lot of racism against aliens and genetically engineered people.
  • In Does Not Play Well With Others Nikki had to ask a guy to clarify what exactly he means by "you people". There's really not much of either, however.