Stubble Trouble

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Stubble Trouble is a Furry Comic created by R. C. Powell. Started in December 2008 and posted on Deviant ART, Stubble Trouble follows the misadventures of Rennon the Shaved, a furry with a shaving fetish, and his friends. Their world is often Mundane Fantastic with superheroes, supervillains, magic, and bizarre happenings. Much of the humor derives from pop culture references, character interaction, and the concept of a furry with a shaving fetish.

Creator R. C. Powell also made a short-lived Sprite Comic called Contra Farce.

Tropes used in Stubble Trouble include:
  • Aborted Arc: Did Robert ever have lunch with those two girls from the beach?
  • All Crimes Are Equal: The Municipal Enforcer
  • Alliterative Name: The Samarium Skier, the Lake Erie Litterbug, the Malicious Mud Monkeys of Minnesota, the Anthro Arbiter, Captain Cloaca, the Polluting Punk Posse, Justice Jellyfish, and the Atomic Amish Man
  • All Myths Are True: To a certain extent. Hell, demons, and ghosts are shown to be real. Bigfoot is real and he owns a bowling alley. An alien went on a date with a main character. Some superheroes and villains can use magic. A small furry pixie was briefly featured. Santa Claus teamed up with the Municipal Enforcer and Justice Jellyfish to save Christmas from the Krampus.
  • Amusement Park of Doom: The Anthro Arbiter fought Ninja Grannies and Malicious Mud Monkeys at an abandoned amusement park.
  • Animal Stereotypes
  • Art Evolution
  • Artificial Limbs: Ally's left leg is replaced with a prosthetic after a car crash some years back.
  • Ascended to Carnivorism: The issue of Carnivore Confusion is never really brought up; but in one comic, Becky, a rabbit, orders a bacon steakburger after several herbivorous species order plant-based meals. She is called a monster by a gazelle, but doesn't seem to care.
  • Author Avatar Arguably, Rennon is the in-comic "fursona" of the author, but R. C. Powell has appeared as himself (as a human) in a couple of strips.
  • Bald of Awesome: It takes guts to be a shaven furry. Also, Madame Cueball.
  • Bald Women: Rachel has shaved off all her fur except her tail since high school. Mel went bald soon after dating Rennon and has remained that way for nearly the entire comic. Ally had very short hair or possibly a buzzcut in the comic's early days. Rosie has accidentally gone bald twice. Becky recently shaved off all her fur. Madame Cueball is a local super hero whose name and identity come from her complete lack of hair ("bald as a cueball").
  • Beach Episode
  • Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Mr. Yin, a skunk ape, owns a bowling alley.
  • Big No when Mel took a break from shaving, when Justice Jellyfish was injured in a fight
  • Body Horror: Gynette's nightmare, the deaths of Eco-Freako and the Mathemagician, a certain April Fool's Day comic, the Municipal Enforcer and the Anthro Arbiter killing criminals, that time when Rennon got too hot on a summer's day
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall
  • B-Side Comics Some story arcs will prominantly feature characters who had, up to that point, been rather minor.
  • Butt Monkey The Samarium Skier is widely viewed as the biggest loser of the super heroes and has been abused and made fun of in his few appearances so far. He is based of the hideously weakened Silver Surfer from the NES video game.
  • Chest Insignia: The Municipal Enforcer's logo looks very much like Superman's famous insignia.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Gynette
  • Dark and Troubled Past Gynette finds out more about her mysterious past, learning that she is the half-demon spawn of the lord of the spiders and will be used to help him take over the world.
  • Everythings Better With Bunnies: Becky
  • Everythings Nuttier With Squirrels: Rachel, a squirrel so nutty, she shaves all of her fur off except for her tail
  • Eye Scream Mel lost her right eye as a kid and she wears an eyepatch to cover it.
  • Fetish: Rennon, Rachel, and later, Mel, have shaving fetishes. Gynette's headlessness is considered Fetish Fuel as well.
  • Fish Out of Water Jeremy, the only human in the main cast
  • Four-Fingered Hands: The furries featured have four-fingered hands while any humans featured have five fingers. Rosie commented on this to her human boyfriend. Some hoofed animals have three hoof-like fingers. Also, Ally and Becky have three-toed feet while other furry characters have four.
  • Framing Device The first strip set up the fact that Rennon was trying to create his own webcomic. This notion has largly been dropped.
  • Funny Animal Almost everybody
  • Furries Are Easier to Draw
  • Furry Baldness: Rennon, Rachel, and Mel. At times, Ally, Rosie, and Becky.
  • Furry Confusion: Ally, an anthropomorphic cat/fox, bought a regular pet cat
  • Furry Fandom: The main cast are mostly furries, so is the author (a part of the real-life furry fandom).
  • Gag Haircut this has happened to Rosie a couple of times, both when she was cooking
  • Giant Spider
  • "Gift of the Magi" Plot Liasonya sold her long Rapunzel Hair and fur.
  • Halloween Cosplay: The main characters dress up as various other fictional characters from TV, movies, and video games.
  • Hilarity Ensues
  • Humongous Mecha: Several superheroes fought off a city-wrecking giant robot while guest stars from another webcomic wondered why nothing this cool ever happened in their town.
  • I Love Nuclear Power: A couple of the local superheroes, such as Justice Jellyfish and Atomic Amish Man.
  • Important Haircut Mel agrees to shave off her fur for her boyfriend Rennon. Played for Laughs, but also represents a milestone of sorts for their relationship.
  • Interspecies Romance Pretty much everybody... but especially Rosie and Jeremy, a Rottweiler and a human.
  • Journey to the Center of the Mind: Gynette's nightmare story arc
  • Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!: Over half the world's population consists of anthropomorphic animals, while the rest are human. No one cares, and something like humans and furries dating is not taboo.
  • Losing Your Head Gynette can take her head off and enjoys being decapitated. The (formerly) popular character, Lilith the Headless Goth Vixen also makes occasional appearances after befriending Gynette.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters Gynette: part jackel, part spider.
  • Mundane Fantastic: Aside from half the population being furries you've got superheroes and villains, magic, fairies, demons, and dinosaurs.
  • Never Mess with Granny: the Ninja Grannies
  • New Age Retro Hippie: the environmentally-obsessed super villain, Eco-Freako
  • Our Demons Are Different: Gynette's parents, the spider lord Teeraal and the shapeshifter Bardi
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: The Mathemagician and Eco-Freako
    • Jacob Marley Apparel: The Mathemagician was still torn in half and his clothes bloodied from his first and final battle. Eco-Freako was blown to bits, with only his skull surviving in his ghost form. Back from the Dead: Both of them were resurrected by Teeraal in order to capture Gynette.
  • Parody Names: The Samarium Skier, Winston the philosophical neighbor whose face is hidden behind a fence, the Incredible Polk
  • Perma-Stubble: Rennon, Rachel, and Mel have been shaven bald for the majority (or, in Rachel's case, the entirety) of the comic's run
  • Primal Fear: Gynette's nightmare
  • Put on a Bus: Robert and Liasona, two minor characters from the beginning of the comic. She went away to go to college in Pittsburgh, he was frozen in carbonite for cheating on her.
  • Rapunzel Hair: Liasonya
  • Saving Christmas: Santa Prime teamed up with the Municipal Enforcer and Justice Jellyfish to save Christmas. Although the actual action wasn't seen, it can be assumed that it was An Asskicking Christmas.
  • Self-Deprecation
  • Self-Insert Fic: While Rennon is the fursona and representative of the author writing the comic, R. C. Powell has shown up in the comic as himself.
  • Shape Shifter Gynette
  • Shout-Out Lots of pop culture references and occasionally cameos of characters from webcomics whose authors the artist is friends with.
  • Species Surname: Becky thought it was a dumb idea until Rachel pointed out that the same principle applies to her name.
  • Spider Limbs: Gynette
  • The Cameo: Ozy and Llewellyn from the popular furry webcomic Ozy and Millie make an appearance when Rosie suspects that her recent baldness is due to the Llewellyn family gypsy hair curse from that comic. Also appearing is Claire la Mouf, another popular character from D. C. Simpson, the creator of Ozy and Millie.
  • Token Human: Jeremy
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Bigfoot is real and he owns a bowling alley. You can see dinosaurs if you go to the zoo or camping. Superheroes and villains battle without any media attention or public notice. A long-dead President is resurrected as a Frankenstein/Hulk. Oh, and of course, half the world's population are furries.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous? The Municipal Enforcer cut a guy in half with a sword fish for some parking tickets and a very bad attitude.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Ally inexplicably started dying her fur blue in #202. Gynette was shown with blue hair in #233 after having bubblegum pink hair for a time.
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