The Bare Pit
The Bare Pit (very NSFW), originally under the name Loxie and Zoot,(very NSFW), by Stephen Crowley (also the author of Magellan) is a comic about the Koala Bay Bares Naturist Resort in Australia, a resort full of nudists.
But wait, don't be squicked! The comic is actually fairly wholesome, with a wide variety of characters, body types and plots. The comic also consciously avoids soapboxing about the issue of nudism, instead usually treating it as part of the setting.
Oh yeah, the comic is very NSFW due to the nudity - assume every external link on this page goes somewhere you shouldn't look at in public or at work - but the story is worth sticking around for.
It appears to have gone on permanent hiatus as of 2012. At least it stopped at the end of a story arc.
Tropes used in The Bare Pit include:
- Alpha Bitch: Mandy, who appears to be trying to break Darcy and Willow up before they even get together, who is harassing Willow for her choice of refusing to go nude at the campus, and who manages to sum up the difference between "girl who likes to be naked" and "nudist" (thus proving Willow's point) in one sentence:
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Mandy: (snort) Maybe she's worried about her small breasts. |
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- Australian Wildlife: Besides a possum and an emu, other types of wildlife occasionally show up.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Completely and utterly averted, even with the child and male characters. Everyone is drawn fairly realistically, even chubby and older characters. Whether this is Squick or not depends on the viewer.
- Zig-zagged with the actual dolls.
- Comic Within a Comic: One of the characters, Chook, produces a parody of sorts of the ultra-fundamentalist Chick Tract comics. Titled A Chook Tract, and loosely adapted from John Milton's Paradise Lost, the comic intentionally soapboxes Christian naturist interpretations of nudity in an effort to sway the opinion of a moral crusader within the main comic. Drawn and colored in a different style from the main comic, it also features Adam & Eve characters who look very similar to the lead characters from The Bare Pit's, um, genesis series, Loxie & Zoot.
- Comically Missing the Point: Darcy, Mandy and the other "Body Freedom Movement" members, who insist upon being nude even when it's unwise and unwelcome by some (if not most) on campus — but still permissible due to the Dean's clothing optional policy. They take issue with Willow, a card-carrying nudist, who refuses to strip on campus where it's unwelcome. Willow makes it fairly clear that she's reluctant because she feels unsafe and like she's titillating the voyeurs at school, something that goes right over the heads of the Body Freedom group.
- Distracted by the Sexy: In the "Prudes & Prejudice" story arc, Darcy acts like this when he and Willow discuss their differing ideas on social nudity.
- It's less "distracted by the sexy" and more "Distracted by Willow", as he's gained a crush on her just in time for her not to have a crush on him anymore.
- Easy Evangelism: There's an obvious and admirable effort to minimize it, but it's still very noticeable. Most noticeable so far in Prudes & Prejudice, when after a single protest a naked man manages to persuade a college dean to... make the campus clothing optional.
- He was actually doing so in an attempt to Squick the rest of the campus into opposing it.
- Foreign Cuss Word: Zoot's mother swears in Dutch when really pissed off.
- Gag Penis: One storyline involves a co-worker of Tina coming to an event with her, and being nervous about the size of his equipment, so he buys a prosthetic. Naturally, Hilarity Ensues.
- Gold Digger: Implied with Sabrina, Zoot's father's fourth wife, though she insists she's not. She leaves him at the end when he decides to leave more money to his grandkids, proving that she is.
- Hair of Gold: Willow
- Halloween Episode: Tales to Scare Your Pants Off (Halloween 2008) featured three spooky stories told around a campfire, even though the cartoonist admits that Australians don't celebrate Halloween the way Americans do.
- Happily Married: Loxie and Zoot
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Chook and Jasmine
- Jenny Everywhere: Shows up in this storyline.
- Man Behind the Man: Mandy blackmailed the college dean over his embezzlement and has been aiming to expel Willow from the school. That led to the dean's resignation and arrest. His successor promptly banned all nudity on campus.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Loxie's mother tries to convince her that Zoot is cheating on her with Willow, but Loxie doesn't believe it for a second. In an aborted part of the story arc involved, Loxie does start to worry about how much time Zoot is hanging out with their female friend.
- Multicolored Hair: Famke, Zoot's sister, whose hair is white and pink.
- Naked Apron: Done in an extremely rare nonsexual nonfanservice scene here, as befitting a comic about nudists.
- Naked People Are Funny: Mostly averted; the main humor about the nudity comes when people who aren't usually nudists, such as Kylie the newscaster, end up sans clothes.
- OOC Is Serious Business: Mungo, someone who is hinted to see what happens in the near future and usual acts indifferent with what happens around him, is completely surprised when Tash when with Abúi and Sven and even said Didn't See That Coming.
- Pass the Popcorn: Mungo does it in this comic.
- Shower Scene: Subverted; since the characters are already nude, being nude and taking a shower doesn't make it anything more than a mundane everyday event within the narrative. There is also a degree of Truth in Television as characters are occasionally shown having a quick outdoor shower before swimming in the pool, a practice required for hygiene reasons at real life nudist camps (and really, any pool in general). Examples - Tash; Daria; Willow
- Villain Ball: Mandy, who has gripped it so hard it's cracking. Just because Willow is a nudist and not a "Body Freedom Movement" member, Mandy is doing her best to assault Willow in every way she can. Mandy may be based on the real life Terri Sue Webb, whose "Freedom to Be Yourself" movement was similar to nudism but more militant, with the theory that if they could force people to see that nudity wasn't lewd, they would naturally come around. Didn't work out so well.