Holiday Wars

Cover for "Holiday Wars" Volume 1: The Spirit

Holiday Wars is an ongoing webcomic which involves each holiday being embodied by a physical entity, and the girl who is caught in the middle of their struggle.

Premise: Holidays reflect the current culture of a society and, like a shifting tide, they change. Realizing this, The Easter Bunny declared war on the other Holidays in the hope of gaining the one thing that can guarantee his immortality: The Holiday Spirit. Foreseeing The Bunny's betrayal, Santa Claus hid The Holiday Spirit and marked Tegan Cassidy, a human infant, granting her the ability to find it.

After 16 years of war, nearly all the Holidays have been killed or have joined The Bunny. Led by Earth Day, the rag tag group of observances still fighting, turn to a now-teenage Tegan in the hope that she can lead them to The Holiday Spirit.

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Tropes used in Holiday Wars include:

• Academy of Adventure: Madison High School ends up being one where teachers & staff are Holidays and it is attacked by evil Chicken-Soliders.
• Alpha Bitch: Beth is the perfect example of this.
• April Fools' Day: first appears as a character in this strip.
• Artifact of Doom: The "Holiday Spirit" serves as this
• Ask a Stupid Question: Ask a Stupid Question is personified as a character who only speaks with stupid questions.
• Bearer of Bad News: Taylor is this when he has to inform Tegan that the Easter Bunny is out to get her.
• Big Bad: The Easter Bunny is the main villain of "Holiday Wars"
• Bond One-Liner: In this strip,April Fools' Day discusses one liners and then uses one as he defeats Labor Day in a fight.
• Call Back: In this strip, Labor Day makes a reference to something that happens before the timeline of the main storyline.
• The Casino: There's the Jack O'Lantern casino in Vegas which is ran by Halloween.
• Cat Fight: A true high school cat fight breaks out between Tegan and Beth in this strip.
• The Champion: Taylor is this when he saves Tegan from a giant Chick Solider.
• C-List Fodder: Superbowl Sunday is this and is killed off near the begining of "Holiday Wars".
• Conveniently an Orphan: Tegan is one.
• Deadpan Snarker: Labor Day often delivers these types of lines.
• Down the Rabbit Hole: Tegan Cassidy gets sucked into a world where the Holidays are personified as characters and are at war with each other.
• Easter Bunny: is the main villain of "Holiday Wars"
• Electric Torture: The Easter Bunny electrocutes April Fools' Day to keep him under control.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: A zombie t-rex shows up in this in this strip.
• Exposition Fairy: Earth Day is basically there to only give exposition at the Act I turning point.
• Exposition Party: Halloween takes the three main cast members into a room to give them the backstory of the war.
• Girl Scouts Are Evil: April Fools shapeshifts into the form of an evil girl scout. You can check it out here
• Handy Remote Control: The Easter Bunny has a remote that zaps and controls April Fools' Day.
• Homage: The coach getting the protagonists name wrong in this strip is an homage to Neil Gaiman's Coraline.
• Hope Bringer: Tegan brings hope to those who have been fighting and losing the war against the Easter Bunny.
• Hot Librarian: Misses Cooper, Administrative Assistants Day, fits perfectly into those role and even has the Tina Fey/Sarah Palin glasses to match.
• Kick the Dog: The Easter Bunny does this right off the bat when he torture and kills Santa Claus.
• Kid Hero: Tegan
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Tegan has this reaction ^{[dead link]} when Labor Day says The Easter Bunny is trying to capture her.
• Faceless Goons: The Chick Soldiers are the Easter Bunny's faceless henchmen.
• Must Have Caffeine: Tegan is a coffee junkie
• Mr. Exposition: Earth Day is basically there to only give exposition at the Act I turning point.
• Nice Guy: Although he can be grumpy, at his core Taylor is one of these
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: a zombie t-rex shows up in this in this strip. It then is regularly refereed to as "an undead dino."
• Ordinary High School Student: Tegan is the perfect example of this
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: Tegan's snow-flake shaped birthmark is a perfect example of this, as seen in this strip.
• Parental Abandonment: Tegan is an orphan
• Plot Coupon: The Holiday Spirit
• Rule of Cool: but the thirty foot Thanksgiving turkey soldiers all have futuristic shades and a big gold medallion that says "Butterball"
• Santa Claus: is killed.
• Seeker Archetype: Tegan is seeking The Holiday Spirit to end a war between all of the Holidays.
• Shapeshifter Baggage: Although April Fools' Day is a shapeshifter he does have the limitation that his mass always stays the same. Labor Day explains this in this strip.
• Shapeshifter Default Form: April Fools' Day is a shapeshifter and his default form is that of a ratty looking teenager as seen in this strip.
• Shout-Out: April Fools' Day makes a shoutout to Gilmore Girls in this strip.
• Slave Collar: April Fools' Day has a watch attached to his wrist that lets The Easter Bunny control him.
• Strange Girl: Tegan Cassidy is a very strange girl and doesn't fit in with anyone from her high school
• Super Bowl: Shows up as a character in this strip.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: The Bunny teams up with The Forgotten which allows him to keep track of the story's protagonist. You can check it out here
• Talking Animal: Ground Hog's Day is personified as a talking animal.
• Toilet Humor: April Fools' Day lines a shopping plaza with dog poop, which can be seen in this strip.
• Took a Level in Jerkass the Bunny actually admits to being a jerk in one of the more recent strips, but he really did take a few more levels over the course of the story
• Took a Level in Badass Tegan, enough said
• Transformation Sequence: April Fools' Day is a shapeshifter and in between forms he turns into a giant glob resembling an ink blot, as seen in this strip.
• Trickster Archetype: April Fools' Day for obvious reasons fits into the this archetype.
• Tyrannosaurus Rex: A zombie T-Rex shows up in this episode.
• Urban Fantasy: Holiday Wars falls into this genre because although it has fantasy-like characters it is set in the real world
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: April Fools' Day is a shape shifter who can take any form he wants.
  • However as Labor Day explains no matter what his form he always retains the same mass, this is followed up by an amusing game of chicken
    • in fact it explained that all abilities of the Personified Holidays have clear cut limits to their abilities, if not out right stated by a character it is taken as given while you read the story