Life of Riley (Web Comic)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Life of Riley... a phrase used to indicate a carefree life. I never once thought it applied more to someone than Dan.

An old webcomic, now defunct, written by Aaron Sacharow and Dan Jaaren of ClanBOB fame. It depicts the adventures of Dan Jaaren, as he attempts to live his life in the midst of supernatural events and extraordinary circumstances. Fortunately, this is not difficult, because Dan is (a) a conduit, more powerful than any earthly being, channeling the power of the gods, and (b) a moron.

The archive of the comic can be found here, without any modifications of old strips.

Tropes used in Life of Riley (Web Comic) include:
  • All There in the Manual: A lot of characters are never properly introduced into the story, especially when all the Bobs show up. Since they are all actual members of the Clan BOB community, the comic sort of assumes you already know who they are.
  • Ambiguously Brown: More ambiguous than usual with Cowkitty. Due to the art style, it's not clear if she has dark skin, or simply light brown fur.
  • Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Evil Dan has shades of this, despite not being any kind of martial artist.
  • Badass: Gore. Among his list of accomplishments are sing beating and breaking the horns off of Jarris, suplexing Jezebel, and killing eleven of the fourteen vampires (all of whom were apparently older than him) who came to kill him (one got away, and two were finished off by Jasmine).
  • Batman Gambit: Naoko used one to get Naisa to kill her, as well as the entire organizations which was using her to find Source's Tear.
  • Battle Aura: Going Stage 2 or Stage 3. Especially notable in the Duel of the Dans, in which Dan's aura is blue and Evil Dan's is red.
  • Beat Still My Heart: Gore does this to HIMSELF to impress a girl. It doesn't work out very well.
  • Big Bad: Jezebel. Later, Lillith.
  • Bilingual Bonus: If you know French.
  • Bloody Hillarious/Gallows Humor: Early comics featuring Gore (appropriately) often involved things like missing body parts and dead bodies being left on the couch.
  • Brick Joke: In a filler gag strip, Aaron admonishes Jone for breaking house rule # 467: "No area effect spells in the house." A whole story arc later, this comes up again.
  • Butt Monkey: For a guy with incredible cosmic power, Dan sure gets jerked around a lot.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Oh so much. What started as a gag-a-day strip evolved into an epic arc culminating in the potential death of God.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Jone seemed to fill no role in the early comics except to be Gore's crazy ex-girlfriend. Later, she turned out to be vitally connected to a major plot point.
  • Chris Carter Effect: Partially due to the comic being orphaned, a lot of plot points were never resolved or explained. Indeed, the last twenty or so comics give a lot of answes that actually just result in a lot more questions. Chief among them:
    • Why is Gore so strong, and who is this mysterious individual he and Tess speak of? Is that the vampire that created him? And why does he look so different than all of the other vampires?
    • What is the nature of Evil Dan's powers? It's said to be somehow different from Good Dan's, and near the end it's sort of implied that he's actually channeling source energy from Seth, but nothing is clearly established. For that matter, whatever happened to Evil Dan and Electric Pixie?
    • How did Dan come back to life? Lillith suggests that he may be the new Christ, but we don't get a definitive answer before the comic was abruptly dropped.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Chloe, Dan's girlfriend in the earlier strips, just sort of disappeared without explanation. Occasionally, it would come up on the forums, and Dan would tersley reply that she simply "moved out," with no further explanation.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Jone, especially while Gore was still seeing Naisa.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: In this strip.
  • Cue the Sun: Gore's reward for helping to stop Jezebel's invasion is that he is now able to go out in the sunlight without harm. He realizes this only when he wakes up on a beach as the sun is rising.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Jone.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Electric Pixie. Evil Dan is excellent Snark Bait.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: Evil Dan shows us how it's done.

Evil Dan: I, DAN, shall utterly CRUSH, BREAK, HUMILIATE, and DEFEAT...ummm...OTHER Dan...UNTIL HE DIES DEAD!!!!

  • Distracted by the Sexy: In an effort to force Dan to go Stage 3, the goddesses develop a battle strategy that hinges on Manda flashing him. It works.
  • Divide by Zero: The Duel of the Dans has a distinctly adverse affect on reality itself. To a lesser degree, this happens any time either of them goes past Stage 1, usually resulting in a Gender Bender for everyone in the surrounding area.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Jezebel extracts the power sealed within Naisa by, apparently, making out with her. Both Dahn and Jone get pretty squicked out.
  • Driving Question: For a while, it was "What is the nature of Evil Dan's power?"
  • Mr. Fanservice: In-universe, Gore is apparently this.
  • Evil Twin: Played for laughs with Evil Dan, opposite of Good Dan. Both of them are morons.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Happens a lot, although mostly to original characters (as opposed to those who are real life members of Clan BOB.
  • Expy: Evil Dan has more than a little in common with Tatewaki Kuno.
  • Eye Scream: Aaron looses an eye to a mushroom samurai in an early gag strip. Later, Gore gives him one of his eyes. Being a vampire, Gore can regenerate.
  • Gender Bender: Whenever either Dan changes "Stages," it happens to those around them.
  • Genius Ditz: This trope is more or less the reason why Dan can go Stage 2.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Jone is half human, half succubus.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: When the goddesses divert some of Jezebel's energy into Jone, she immediately uses the sudden power burst to start brutalizing her dear old mum.
  • Horny Devils: Subverted. Subverted. Both Jone and her mother Jezebel are succubi, but neither is ever shown to seduce anyone at all.
    • It is implied, however, that Jezebel seduced Dahn before she regained her memory. It was to bring her over to her side, however, not to drain her energy or anything.
  • Humans Are Special: Jezebel realizes this when Dan goes Stage 3, and promptly abandons her entire invasion attempt.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Shortly after an earlier comic had delivered a rather long-winded Take That against Vampire: The Masquerade, a vampire character is shown using the Theft of Vitae Thaumaturgy power. Dan actually pops into the comic momentarily to point out the use of the power and calls himself out on it, saying "I've got a lot of gall, don't I?"
  • Infinite Canvas: There's really no set size to the comics at all. Some are as short as one panel, while other can involve scrolling down a lot to read in their entirety.
  • Invisible to Normals: Gore has an interesting variation. While not invisible, per se, normal people can't see that he's chalk white with pointy ears.
  • Jive Turkey: Evil Dan, after attaining Stage 3.
  • La Résistance: The Bobs become this when Jezebel invades, mobilizing with surprising speed and manpower.

Mikmoo: The Bobs make the Illuminati and Masons look like Brownie Scouts.

Electric Pixie: MASTER ninja THEME song!
Evil Dan: Like anyone is going to get that reference.

Naisa: Indiscriminate slaughter is a good warm up for a session of delicious protracted torture.

Danny: I mean, when I READ some of the shit they say we believe, I wonder how they keep straight faces reciting it night after night. And all those rules and traditions? Come on people, we're fucking vampires!

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