Cheap Thrills
Cheap Thrills is a furry slice-of-life/romance webcomic featured either here or here (includes sketches and preview art). The story starts out with a teenage rabbit named Jeordie, living a high life of booze, drugs, and girls, until he finally settles down with a childhood friend of his, Bethany, who has her own problems with her broken and abusive family. On the sidelines with their own subplots are Erik and Anna, Jeordie's other childhood friends; and Frank, Jeordie's and Anna's drug dealer with a messed-up life of his own.
The comic is divided into chapters, where each chapter jumps forward several months later and changes the art style, always for the better.
- Abusive Parents: Bethany's mother.
- Alpha Bitch: Sally
- Ambiguously Brown: Jeordie is said to look like this In-Universe, due to having a Sudanese father and American Indian mother.
- Art Shift: A flashback sequence in chapter 2 is done in a much simpler style.
- Badass Boast
Bully: Outta my way, you freak! I'm not afraid of you!
Frank: Oh really? *flicks out a knife and grins* Well you should be.
- Banned From Argo: Frank is not allowed on school property anymore thanks to getting caught selling drugs. Several times.
- Berserk Button: Bruce hits Jeordie's when he repeatedly insults Erik and Pam, in addition to the fact that Jeordie has not been having a good time lately.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Bethany
- Blatant Lies: "I have told you a million times! That is a hand-rolled cigarette!"
- Butch Lesbian: Anna
- Childhood Friend Romance: Bethany and Jeordie
- Citizenship Marriage: Gladys comes to the conclusion that Jeordie's parents did this, and she may be right.
- Dead Little Sister: Faris, Jeordie's little brother
- Deadpan Snarker: Anna and Bethany
- The author herself.
- Domestic Abuser: Bethany's mother, implied with Frank's mother, and a few of Jeordie's ex-girlfriends' boyfriends.
- Drugs Are Bad: Zig Zagged. Jeordie avoids drugs for the most part, but he still acts as drug dealer for a couple neighborhood scum. When his parents discover a stash, they merely give him a lecture on personal responsibility and then smoke it themselves. Played straight in the Wham! Episode.
- Dysfunction Junction
- Early-Bird Cameo: Frank shows up at a party in chapter 1, way before he becomes an important character in chapter 3.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: At least three of them for Jeordie.
- Flat What: Bethany's reaction to Erik's talk about marrying Pam.
- Foreshadowing: Jeordie gets a lecture on being careful with drugs. A few pages later, he finds out why.
- The latest chapter, based on a conversation with his father and certain visual evidence, seems to be foreshadowing that Jeordie has become a meth addict due to stress.
- Functional Addict: Several characters have addictions to various substances, but most seem to function for the most part.
- Furry Denial: The author states that, despite appearances, everyone is technically the same species, and thus no one would have a reason to say they weren't "human".
- The author has the ability and has completely redrawn several pages of the characters as humans. The reason they are furries is because the characters are more endearing this way. Especially Jeordie.
- Gang of Bullies: Faris gets picked on by them. So does Jeordie, to a lesser extent.
- Green Eyes: Mirza and Jeordie have these, which carry over into their human forms.
- Gym Bunny: Erik is actually straight, but otherwise fits the stereotype, since he's convinced that if he doesn't keep up his workout and watch his diet he'll "hop on the lard train back to fat-town" and Anna likes to use this to insinuate that Erik is actually gay.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Gladys. She also refers to Jeordie as a "sand rat" and makes ham when he comes over for dinner since she's under the (incorrect) impression that he's a Muslim.
- Hypocritical Humor: Frank at one point advises Jeordie to never trust a crackhead... while lighting what looks like a crack pipe. (He's actually smoking meth.)
- Hypocritical Heartwarming: Jeordie gets pissed off that Bruce's little brother was throwing rocks at Faris, and says that if anyone's gonna throw rocks at Faris, it'll be him.
- Incompatible Orientation: Frank is in love with Anna who likes the ladies. Erik is extremely wary of anything Frank does around her and is convinced that he's going to try and rape her, something Frank vehemently denies.
- Jerkass: Jeordie (particularly in Chapter 1). He gets (slowly) better.
- Also Gladys, Bethany's mother.
- Jerk Jock: Bruce and his gang.
- Massive-Numbered Siblings: Bethany's family, for several generations. She alone is one of eight children.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Jeordie gets subjected to one, and while he technically started the fight he's too drunk to continue it after the first punch or fight back.
- No Periods, Period: Averted, Anna suffers from one during a party and needs a place to rest.
- Oblivious to Love: Chapter 1: Jeordie confesses to Bethany about his crush on a friend named "Delilah.". Bethany later tells Anna that she thinks that Jeordie is in love with her (Anna). Bethany also obliges with the "He can't be talking about me" part of the trope when Anna suggests it's her (Bethany) Jeordie has the crush on.
- Overprotective Dad: Anna thinks Erik is this for her, despite him being the same age as she is.
- Petting Zoo People
- Raised Catholic: Bethany's entire family.
- Shotgun Wedding: Bethany believes that her parents only got married because her dad got her mom pregnant, and one of Bethany's greatest fears is getting pregnant herself and winding up in a loveless marriage like theirs.
- This also applies to Erik and Pam though they haven't yet gotten married.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Jeordie's parents, at least as far as Faris is concerned.
- Stepford Smiler: Bethany's mother, Gladys, to the general effect of Type A. She's not particularly cheerful and upbeat, but she pretends she's happy with the way her life turned out while actually not being so.
- The Stoner: Jeordie and Bethany smoke weed together in one of the early pages of chapter one in a forest. Jeordie's parents were also hippies in the late '60s and upon finding his weed stash, his father says he'll flush it down the toilet. He and Jeordie's mother proceeded to smoke it themselves.
- Squee: When Bethany learns that Pam, Eric's girlfriend, is pregnant. She immediately imagines (stated, not shown) a 'little Eric running around', and proceeds to visibly and audibly squee. She then performs an excellent Mood Whiplash when asked by Jeordie if SHE wants to have a kid, responding with "HELL no!"
- Title Drop: Here.
- Too Dumb to Live: Jeordie. His heart is usually in the right place (from Chapter 2 onwards, at least).
- True Companions: Most of the main cast, especially evident here between Erik and Jeordie.
- Wham! Episode: Jeordie and Anna find some shrooms and decide to take them. It... goes badly. First Jeordie rips out a chunk of Anna's hair. Then because Jeordie's in no condition to get his brother from soccer practice, his mom goes, and they both die in a car crash . Jeordie still blames himself for it.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Word of God says Rigsby is based on cities in Wisconsin and Minnesota, with early refs to places in Oregon.
- Your Cheating Heart: Bethany's dad, as she and her mother traumatically found out when she was a child. It's hinted that Gladys wasn't quite as much of a Jerkass, at least to Bethany, prior to this discovery.