Sodium Eyes
Sodium Eyes (first strip) is a Slice of Life Web Comic centered on the day-to-day activities of four girls living in a City With No Name. Like many Slice of Life series, it's not about anything in particular, but rather simply jumps from one Seinfeldian Conversation to the next, with occasional short story arcs. The main characters are:
- Kaela Paulsen, a masseuse and a part-time model. Something of a Yamato Nadeshiko, Kaela is extremely empathetic and insightful, and her status as Team Mom lends her an air of maturity and sophistication. Kaela is also the only one of the girls who seems to have a job.
- Lumina Rosendahl, a sweet, innocent artist-girl with glasses and green hair. In one of the few artistic liberties the author has allowed himself, Lumina is a literal Friend to All Living Things, and early in the comic made the decision to stop eating meat. She went to high school with Kaela, since which time she has harbored some not-so-secret feelings for Kaela (see previous comments regarding Kaela's empathy and intuition).
- Miya Chapman, a wordsmith and verbal fencer of the highest caliber. Some might find her speech patterns eerily similar to those of Tycho Brahe. She's a quick thinker and is always ready with a joke, no matter the topic of conversation. Miya is also an Otaku, with a particular fondness for Haruhi Suzumiya.
- Neiko Sayuki, the last of the girls to join the main cast, is an introverted and sarcastic girl of Japanese ancestry. While at first seemingly reluctant to admit to anyone (including herself) that she was actually coming to consider the other three friends, she's since come out of her shell a bit and softened up a bit. Neiko's good with computers and is something of a gamer.
This webcomic is now on hiatus while the author is working on a game to be released on Steam.
This webcomic provides examples of the following tropes:
- American Accents: Sherry has a Southern accent; Miya deliberately excised hers to avoid preconceptions about her level of intelligence.
- Animesque
- Art Evolution: Although the art has always been quite good, the style has evolved and changed over the course of the comic.
- City With No Name: Other than the fact that it's located somewhere north of the Deep South, and that it's probably somewhere in the continental US, nothing about the setting is really known.
- Deadpan Snarker:
- Neiko, also The Snark Knight.
- Miya, when she's not a Large Ham.
- Friend to All Living Things: Lumina
- Generic Cuteness
- Grammar Nazi: Miya. She apparently got Kaela to stop using "txt spk" in text messages.
- Halloween Episode: For a few strips around Halloween, the characters are dressed up, often in referential costumes.
- Head Pet: Rao
- Inherently Funny Words: "Diaper."
- Miya later on criticizes this approach to humor, considering it generally lazy and uncreative.
- Large Ham: Miya, during some of her rants.
- Local Hangout: The Lucky Star cafe. Lampshaded, as the cast specifically goes looking for a local coffee shop to serve as a "designated meeting place."
- Meganekko: Lumina
- Me Love You Long Time: Anton and Torri, sort of. Anton specifically prefers Asian girls, and while they're self-admittedly something of a Takahashi Couple, they complement each other nicely.
- Otaku: Miya
- Seinfeldian Conversation: The comic mostly jumps from one to the next.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Miya sometimes approaches this, but hasn't really crossed the line. She does have a distinctly educated way of speaking, though.
- Team Mom: Kaela
- Technicolor Eyes: Red, green, yellow, blue, and purple. It's even in the title.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Miya and Neiko, at first. It was really more "finally, a Worthy Opponent" than anything else.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Kaela