Frederick the Great (webcomic)

Frederick the Great: A Most Lamentable Comedy Breaching Time and Space is a webcomic about the 18th Century Prussian monarch Frederick the Great. Except he's a time traveler with the personality of a giggling schoolgirl. And he travels with Isaac Newton, Peter the Great, and Abraham Lincoln, fighting just about everybody.

As you can tell, this is not exactly a sane comic. Much of the humour comes from juxtaposing various historical figures into increasingly bizarre situations, such as making Isaac Newton a literal math wizard, making Salvador Dali into a supervillain attempting to destroy all rationality, Emily Dickinson as a Goth ninja, and so on. There's a lot of very obscure jokes, but the 'Gentlemen Scholars' (as the comic's creators, one Count Dolby von Luckner and one Geoff like to call themselves) post lots of handy historical background in The Rant.

Highly recommended for history buffs and fans of absurd humour.

Can be found here.

Tropes used in Frederick the Great (webcomic) include:

• Alternate History: The heroes' actions seem to be resulting in this
• A Million Is a Statistic: Played for Laughs with Peter the Great. His idea of enlightened rule is the mass slaughter of serfs.
• Badass: Most of the cast
• Badass Bookworm: Scientists and mathematicians makes up a good section of the cast. Given the nature of the comic, they tend to be incredibly powerful.
• Berserk Button: For Newton, mentioning Leibniz (or Euler, for that matter) will send him into a fury.
• Big Bad: Either Ethan Allen, Calvin Coolidge, or Possibility. It's hard to tell at this point.
• The Big Guy: Peter the Great
• Crazy Awesome: Everyone
• Eldritch Abomination: Picasso briefly becomes one
• Friend to All Living Things: Abraham Lincoln learned how to talk to animals from the Baba Yaga
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Subverted, for the most part. Despite having many historical figures as protagonists, the majority of the cast are really quite terrible people.
• Historical Hilarity: Built into the premise
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Pretty much the point of the comic
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite the massive changes done to the timeline, famous people still tend to be born at the right times
• Jerkass: Everyone, with the possible exception of Abe Lincoln
• Knight Templar: Calvin Coolidge
• Nice Hat: This is how Frederick travels through time
• Only Sane Man: Isaac Newton, or so he feels most of the time. But he too can succumb to megalomania.
• Ret-Gone: Paul-Henri Delaflote used to be a very important scientist, but was erased from history
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Calvin Coolidge. Seriously
• Shout-Out: Several:
  • The 'future' arc is admittedly inspired by Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • The same arc features a direct reference to Ender's Game
  • Joseph Campbell shows up wielding a lightsaber. This is a reference to his influence on George Lucas during the writing of Star Wars.
• Stable Time Loop: The 'future' arc
• Super-Powered Alter Ego: Abraham Lincoln can become Flaverham Lincoln, a mighty juggernaut powered by pure funk
• Take That: Napoleon, an avowed fan of The Empire from Star Wars, suffers a psychotic breakdown when he sees them defeated by the Ewoks.
  • The Gentlemen Scholars (or at least the Count) don't have a very favourable opinion on Carl Jung or his work. To their credit, this dislike doesn't really show that much in the comic (Jung's Jerkass tendencies aren't any worse than anyone else's in the comic), but The Rant for those strips was incredibly vitriolic.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: It's a time travel comic. This is to be expected.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Many of the jokes require a lot of historical knowledge. Usually the Gentlemen Scholars are kind enough to provide helpful information in The Rant.
• Villain by Default: Averted. For an historical comic, 'classic' historical baddies such as Josef Stalin and Those Wacky Nazis have yet to show up, in favour of more bizarre antagonists like Ethan Allen and Pablo Picasso.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Peter the Great rarely has a shirt on
• West Coast Team: More accurately, Eastern Civilization Team. Frederick's euro-centric team has a significantly more competent Eastern counterpart, led by Nader Shah. They don't get on very well.
• World of Badass: Oh yes