Dragon Tails

Started way back in '99, Dragon Tails is a daily, 3D-rendered Web Comic that focuses on the lives of a group of eight young dragons, a pair of kung-fu squirrels, a cat, several malfunctioning robots and other assorted characters.

It updated daily for five years (only ever missing one update) and went on hiatus for about a year before coming back for about two years and then, fading out again around March of '08. Dragon Tails went off hiatus in June '09 only for the weekly updates to stop in early 2010 again.

There are about 2000 strips in all with a strong continuity and consistent humor.

Not to be confused with Dragon Tales, the kids' tv show with a similar name.

Tropes used in Dragon Tails include:

• Aerith and Bob: The main characters, named Bluey, Goldy, Brainy, Enigma, Lemuel, Corlis, Abijar and Cornelius.
• Apocalyptic Log: Subverted.
• Art Evolution: After the RPG arc Art Shift, long-time readers would've been surprised to see the visual quality has improved a lot, such as that the author has seriously improved both the models and the characters' expressions, among other things.
• Art Shift: The entire superhero arc was hand-drawn.
  • The RPG arc is another arc of this, the visual style was basically to look like a 3D RPG.
• Badass: Enigma.
• But Thou Must!: Beaten to death in one strip of the RPG Mechanics Verse storyline.
• Chainsaw Good: Blueu's weapon in the RPG arc is a chainsaw-toaster.
• Chekhov's Gun: Abijar and Cornelius show up during the first Christmas storyline when they're actually in the artic looking for Santa. The reason? The later Time Travel arc.
• Cool but Inefficient: Most of Bluey's inventions.
• Cousin Oliver:

Barry: Any nearby sentient machines you've built that are still operational?
Bluey: Well, there's Colin, Bios, and Jay the uncomfortably enthusiastic toaster.
Jay: YIPPE KI-YAY! THIS BREAD BE SMOKIN'!
*boom*
Bluey: So as I was saying, Colin and Bios.

• Fun with Acronyms: Subverted.

Bluey: Behold, my Christmas Holographic Refracting Illusion System, or "Barry" for short.

• Gainax Ending: Spoofed. The dragons used the ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion as the only thing that could confuse an omniscient being.
• Genius Ditz: Bluey is, technically, intelligent, but his short attention span and passion for explosions renders everything he makes a potential threat.
• Henway: Subverted here.
  • And here too.
• I Know You Know I Know: Poor Norman...
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Played straight with an Ion Cannon here. Lampshaded in the last panel and here
• Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: Colin can knit a nuclear warhead out of an old sack using his eyebrows.
• Meta Guy: Everyone in the RPG Mechanics Verse storyline, Enigma especially.
• Medium Awareness: Tim loves using this one.
  • They're not going to have a punchline in this one.
  • Combined with Genre Savvy here.
  • Fools! This is a comic strip!
• Noodle Incident: It's going to be The Easter Bunny Incident all over again...
• The Not-Secret: Lemuel was under the impression his crush on Firewing was subtle. It was not.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: What Bluey did with the robot he hi-jacked, afterwards it became a gag for the comic to rub how awesome it was in our faces.
• RPG Mechanics Verse: The most recent storyline drops the characters into one of these.
• Schedule Slip: Fully averted for a full 2000 strips. It went under multiple hiatuses after that, though.
• Shout-Out:
  • To Pokémon here.
  • Davey Crocket, which is the name of Corlis' skinning knife.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: The janitor robots of the future are inexplicably well-armed.
• Tank Goodness: Pulled off here.
• Talking Animal: Norman and Normeena are the main two.
  • Played with here.
  • Really played around with once Moppy shows up.
    • And again with Luna, Colin's Pet Rock/Significant Other.
• Technical Pacifist: When not piloting robots of destruction Lemuel is a huge pushover.
• This Means War!: A Verbose variation is done here.
• Unreliable Author: Many threads on the DT forums speculate about where the comic will go, or how a plot point will be resolved. Tim likes to jump into these himself and gleefully spread "Word of God" comments ranging from snark, to Blatant Lies, to things you think are Blatant Lies but it turns out aren't.
  • "I'm thinking Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies."
  • "I'm thinking once I've finished the RPG storyline I'll just turn the whole website into a tech blog to discuss motherboards and memory sticks. Should be pretty exciting stuff, I hope I don't lose too many readers."
  • "Actually it's part of my elaborate 11 year setup to a Fight Club style twist - prepare to have your minds blown. "
• War for Fun and Profit: Bluey makes weapons for both Norman and Enigma. It doesn't help that he enjoys making this stuff...
• Weapons Grade Vocabulary: Corlis typically make a cutting remark, witty retort or sarcasm in whatever events that's happened, but his attempt to use his jokes as this in this strip resulted in a failure, as robots simply removed their speech recognition modules.