International ComicContinuity
"The ICC is comic hipsters."—Just about everyone, at one point or another
Describe International ComicContinuity Here.
Yeah! We're really excited to be doing the All The Tropes page for the International ComicContinuity.
Ah... I'm a bit busy today. Can we start tomorrow? Or next week? Screw it, we're too lazy for this.
...
Fiiine.
The International ComicContinuity is an ensemble of fifteen teenagers that have wasted the majority of their lives making some of the best multiple Story Arcs detailing the lives of their renamed author avatars and other created characters represented by colored squares which in turn represent characters in another universe inspired by a dead toyline about storyline-centric plastic buildible action figures placed in outlined boxes and hosted on the largest internet-based forum dedicated to said dead toyline of children's construction toys.
The International ComicContinuity is a large group of fifteen Bionicle webcomic authors that banded together to create a shared universe. They mainly consist of Sprite Comics stemming from the BIONICLE mythos detailing the lives of their Author Avatars. While the continuity itself only officially formed on January 3rd, 2010, the series themselves go farther back, two of them as far as 2006.
It is notably different from other continuities on BZ Power because it combined a large amount of pre-existing comic series (ten, originally) and made them co-exist together in one universe while still preserving all of their timeline. Since then, it has grown into a fifteen-member group with nineteen comic series and two multi-author ones.
The current members of the ICC include
- Kahinuva: Founding member, and one of the two who got the continuity rolling to begin with. His flagship series is Live, Learn and Lawsuits, a rather standard comedy piece, but he also heads the Taone Nui Offline Game project.
- Philbert: Founding member, and one of the two who got the continuity rolling to begin with. His initial primary work was The Comics That May Or May Not Be Made By/Involve Philbert, a quirky comedy series, but has throughout the life of the ICC dabbled in numerous other comic projects.
- Gerlicky: Founding member. Much valued among the continuity, regardless of what he thinks. His ICC work is the That's Messed Up! trilogy, consisting of the photocomic original That's Messed Up: The Series, the spritebased sequel That's Messed Up: Creator's Wrath, and the as yet unrelased That's Messed Up: The Legendary Gerlicky; he also contributes the parodical SpoofQuest!.
- Tavakai: Founding member. He initially contributed VakamaTK's Comics, but this eventually came under his new project, TavKorp. It was then succeeded by A Room With A Mahi.
- Bladeran: Founding member. It's a bit of a continuity injoke that, even over a year later, he still hasn't got his planned series for the ICC off the ground. He contributes his older work, BladeTitan974's Comics.
- Gavla: Founding member. Arguably the most popular comic maker on BZPower, having recently smashed the record of the longest topic within the comic community, or possibly even BZPower in general (10,000+ posts). His flagship work is Gavla's Comics, an enormous series spanning numerous story arcs of differing tone and theme; notably, his works are the only ones not explicitly set within the ICC universe while still being ICC canon.
- Dlakii: Founding member, and a former moderator of BZPower. Was banned from BZPower under highly questionable circumstances in March 2010, shortly after the ICC's founding, but continues to make a strong contribution to the ICC when he's not choked down by his university work; some of the ICC love making sport of subtly lampshading this fact in their work. His sole series for the ICC was The Newsroom, an office farce set in the headquarters of the beleaguered television station Channel Billion.
- Coleanuva: Youngest active member who just got his series "Coleanuva's Ski Resort" off the ground, taking place in, well, a ski resort.
- Zakitano: His primary contribution to the ICC is BIONICLES ADVENTURS COMIXS. Oh, and a little series of no significance called The Pirogi Vampire.
- Tamroc7: Has been planning City in the Sky, a more serious adventure series, but that has yet to come to fruition.
- Janaro: His current series is Janaro's Café, set in a reality-warping restaurant.
- Nuparurocks: His sole series for the ICC is Nuparurocks' Comics, a series acclaimed among the community for its unique brand of humour and visual mastery; he also runs a daily strip within it.
- Tapika: Formerly associated with the North-Western Isles Continuity. His series is I Made This, a reboot of a series he once did for the NWI; he also ran a few other series such as Private Eye Tapika.
- Fried Ingenuity / Jin / Nerdgirl-hime: The only female member of the ICC. Her contribution is This Brick Wall, which generally eschews sprites in favour of hand-done pixel drawings and the occasional photo edit.
- Superkid11: The most recent member, and easily the one with the longest history in the area of BIONICLE sprite comics. His recent relaunch of his work, SK Inn, is his sole contribution to the ICC; none of his prior works have been incorporated.
The current series/projects of the ICC include:
List to be expanded on.
- (3L)2: Live, Learn and Lawsuits: The credited birthplace of the ICC; it was the central hub for the continuity itself for a while until it got moved into a blog post. Its generally a mix and match from different genres; part deconstruction of the general comic maker cliches, part science fiction extravaganza, part alternate universe drama and part plain old comedy series set in a Post Cyber Punk world. Originally known as Live, Learn and Lawsuits, but became (3L)2: Live, Learn and Lawsuits later for its second season.
- The Comics That May Or May Not Be Made By/Involved Philbert [dead link] :
- That's Messed Up:
- SpoofQuest:
- TavKorp:
- BladeTitan974's Comics:
- Gavla's Comics:
- The Newsroom:
- Coleanuva's Ski Resort [dead link] :
- BIONICLES ADVENTURS COMIXS: A series full of beautiful graphics that outshine the rest of the continuity.
- The Pirogi Vampire [dead link] : Zakitano's "landmark" series which practically no one remembers and even fewer care about.
- City in the Sky [dead link] :
- Janaro's Café [dead link] :
- Nuparurock's Comics:
- Private Eye Tapika:
- II Made This:
- This Brick Wall [dead link] :
- SK Inn:
- Noob War:
- Mask of Existence:
- Taone Nui Offline Game: Another Genre Deconstruction, but this time with a tongue-in-cheek look at Western RPG with Shout Outs to pretty much anything the creators like (or dislike). Originally a game split off from Live, Learn and Lawsuits, but soon evolved to be a game related to the whole continuity.
- Abnormal Ammo: Fikou has dual pistols that shoot webs instead of bullets.
- Aborted Arc: The Newsroom in its entirely, owing to Author Existence Failure. A planned reboot still hasn't gotten off the ground after almost a year of planning.
- Also, no one has yet seen what happened at the dinner between Myarti and Atoma.
- Not to forget the finale for Live, Learn and Lawsuits: Alternative Saga.
- And the TPV movie with its at least two musical numbers.
- Achievements in Ignorance: Many of Janaro's achievements in cooking have resulted from this.
- Aliens Speaking English: Justified as the Matoran Language itself was already based on English and they just use it as a shorthand instead of writing out all those circles.
- Played straight with Chilly, however, who could automatically speak the language of the Matoran once she landed on Meta-Nui in Gavla's Comics.
- Ambulance Chaser: Ravorhk, although Deconstructed, see "Frivolous Lawsuit" below.
- Amoral Attorney: Ravorhk and Taterman stand out as the best examples.
- Army of Lawyers: The OCLL has quite the amount of lawyers who often "attack" in "swarms".
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Cowman, being of the Type II variety.
- Another Dimension: All of the Story Arcs in Gavla's Comics take place in an alternate dimension adjacent to the IC Cverse.
- Antimatter: Getting more commonly used in Gavla's Comics.
- Author Avatar: As per BZ Power tradition, all members have the main characters in their series who bear the authors' username and, to a bit of a lesser extension, the same personality. Although it does sound a bit cliche, the avatars do also carry a lot of their author's faults as well, so it does work.
- Author Powers: Used early on by Philbert and Tavakai, although use of it has died down in their later works. Lampshaded in SpoofQuest by Gerlicky and Played for Laughs with khain00ba (Noob Kahinuva).
- Badass Spaniard: Gnuklear - at the very least, he speaks Spanish.
- Backstory: Nearly all of the series include some sort of backstory.
- Beam Me Up, Scotty: Blade has never actually said "Its muffin time!", despite it being claimed to be his catchphrase.
- The Bechdel Test: Though they haven't had much time to speak with each other outside of combat, the main female characters of City in the Sky pass.
- Bizarro Universe: The Noob Universe, in which Noob War takes place. Also, the obviously named Bizarro Universe, although it ironically enough fits the Mirror Universe trope much better than this one (see below).
- Boisterous Bruiser: Veoh Raiwor from City in the Sky.
- Brick Joke: "Bob's Law" from "Ask Kahi" came back into play at the epilogue, in which Gerlicky got bunked with a Zombie Infectee.
- British Accent: Zakitano is said to talk and sound like the Doctor.
- Tapika and Janaro as well, seeing as how they are actually from England.
- Censor Box: Occurs throughout the continuity, often with the box being signed either "Pohuaki" or "Black Six" (respectively the BZP Global Moderator in charge of the comics forum, and the head administrator of BZ Power). Sees particularly heavy use in Nuparurocks' Comics, most memorably when large portions of an ode to Megan Fox gets censored by Black Six to the point that the whole second verse is censored.
- Also used in a guest comic by Philbert when Makito gets his shirt taken off, because the reader could not grasp the true form of the content.
- Chef of Iron: Janaro, thanks to his skill with utensils, especially his frying pan. Oh, and he's got a magic cookbook too, so there's that.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Zakitano and Makito, though the latter borders on just plain insane.
- Combat Tentacles: Gnuklear has these mounted on nuclear missles.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Geru in the Taone Nui Offline Game. His main theory in-game is that he and the world doesn't exist, but that its all part of one big video game. Which is ironic, since, you know, they are in a video game.
- Continuity Nod: Used very prominently, since most of the authors read each others' series. Notable examples would be Blade showing off the Meta Sword in VakamaTK's Comics, Janaro in Janaro's Cafe watching his doppleganger Clonaro cook in Nuparurocks' Comics (and him actually going to beat him up in prison later on in the latter's series) and the numerous comics harking back to the OCLL's original encounter with Kahi.
- Since the demise of The Newsroom as a standalone series, Channel Billion Studios has been used as a means of easily threading the continuity together.
- Cool Mask / Mask of Power: Inevitable since this is BIONICLE fanwork; the fanon Kanohi Eraksa, the artifact to which the existence of reality in the ICCverse is literally bound, takes this Up to Eleven.
- Cool Sword: The Meta Sword, along with its Evil Weapon counterpart the Meta Blade.
- Cosmic Entity: The actual name used for many of the powerful beings in the ICC Multiverse, such as the Couch Potato Entity, the Octopus Baby Entity, the Talking Plant Entity, the Noob Entity, the Forger, and most probably Falibor. There are also the Demientities, such as the Seeker and Vor.
- Cosplay Fan Art: Most recently, Atoma's stint at dressing up as Hatsune Miku.
- Crapsack Island: Vara Nui.
- Crisis Crossover: Mask of Existence was supposed to be this. Noob War also counts, albeit to a lesser degree.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Evil Lord Tantrum built a fully functional Ridiculously Human Robot, GKYT4, something which previously only the Great Beings could accomplish, but instead of mass marketing them, he just tried to make her kill Gerlicky.
- Darker and Edgier: Private Eye Tapika was far more dark than the average BZP comic series - or indeed, anything else in the ICC -, taking place in a Film Noir version of Taone Nui.
- Development Hell: The reboot of Bladeran's work, to the point where it's basically achieved internal Memetic Mutation within the ICC. Also, the relaunch of The Newsroom.
- Dream Team: A more Meta Example, the ICC themselves are made from several of the best active comic artists on BZ Power.
- Drop the Hammer: The Gr'mahr Hammer, wielded by the Demientity Vor.
- Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: BladeTitan974's Comics' second season took on the name Quest for the Meta Sword and more recently Rising Suns.
- Elemental Nation: Meta Nui has more of a traditional elemental village segregation, with such locales as Ko-Meta (the ice village) Po-Meta (the stone village) and so on.
- Emoticon: Arguably one of its more unique usages is the Emoticon Fruit, a small peach-like fruit the size of your fist that has an emote stamped on it, with each emote relaying what kind of flavor the fruit has (i.e. =P is sweet and sour, >=[ is bitter, :O is spicy, etc.). Genetically bred for Rule of Funny.
- Evil Twin: Played straight with alternate terrorist Kahinuva, Ennar and Bladeran in one of the alternate dimensions in The Alternative Saga, but inverted with Bizarro Gerlicky, (since Bizarro Gerlicky has the opposite personality of the "real" Gerlicky, he is thus a very nice, patient and caring person).
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: VakamaTK's Comics, Gavla's Comics, Nuparurocks' Comics and BladeTitan974's Comics. Need we say more?
- Fan Art: Basically the entire focus of the continuity. Most of the sprites used in the series were not ripped from any BIONICLE video game but were instead hand-sprited by a kit maker and subsequently edited; such is the common practice on BZP.
- Fanfic: A small number of prose stories were written for the ICC, such as Ask Kahi and Kahi Govaki: Ace Attorney.
- Fan Film: Ennar is planning to make a film adaption of his comic series.
- Fantastic Racism: Part of the reason Gnuklear - and later, a large slew of parody heroes - was devised was as a vehicle to play with and mock the prevalence of this theme in Hero Factory.
- Fantastic Noir: Basically the whole premise of Private Eye Tapika.
- Five-Man Band: From BladeTitan974's Comics:
- The Hero: Blade
- The Lancer: Chokii
- The Smart Guy: Onepu (formerly)
- The Big Guy: Tekatu
- The Chick: Katoka
- Sixth Ranger: Ketru or Battle Arachanoid
- From Nuparurocks' Comics:
- The Hero: Ennar
- The Chick: Linnea
- The Lancer: Myarti
- The Big Guy: Mitch
- The Team Pet: Makito
- For Want of a Nail: The "Shadow Gali Empire Dimension" splits off from the main timeline in which Gavla did not actually defeat Shadow Gali. Because of this, both Meta-Nui and Hapori Nui are taken over, Linnea and Myarti are captured by the Strogg, and Ketru gets infected with a Strogg virus and becomes Shadow Gali's apprentice. To make matters even worse, Shadow Gali now has the Meta Sword in her possession, and plans to use it to bait Blade from the newly formed Resistance.
- Word of God is that another such nail is the reason that the dimension in which Kahi is a terrorist exists.
- Friendly Enemy: Battle Arachnoid.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: Played for Laughs with the OCLL, who threaten Kahi with many such threats. Deconstructed, however, because Word of God says that they actually know they can't really get away with most of their accusations, but they like to try and intimidate their opponent with the hope that they have no idea what actually can go on.
- They also tried to use the same tactic on VakamaTK when they "invaded" his studio.
- Funetik Aksent: Used in SpoofQuest and Live, Learn and Lawsuits for Inspector Sanso.
- "VHERE VERE YOU ON ZE NIGHT OF ZE MURDER?"
- Fun with Acronyms: Polymath's "Recursive Energy Teleportational Active/Reactive Device", which is a Portal device.
Kahi: Remind me never to let you name anything again. Ever.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: Nuparurocks' Comics constantly has religious words as swears and religious themes. And in one instance, "Hell" was used (This was edited in another version).
- Plus there's the Fun With Acronyms example above.
- Girls with Guns: Linnea and her mother both use guns quite extensively.
- GIS Syndrome: Used in Nuparurocks' Comics extensively, but has also made its presence known in The Newsroom, Live Learn and Lawsuits and several of the others.
- Guardian of the Multiverse: Its strongly implied that there is at least one, although it is not known who.
- Good Ol' Boy: Mitch Menard.
- Halloween Cosplay: Numerous Halloween comics have used this trope, notably Blade dressing up as Link and little kids dressing up as Gavla and Dark709 when Trick or Treating at Nuparurocks' Comics.
- Hammerspace: Justified, as the technology to use hammerspace exists in-universe and multiple companies sell hammerspace containers.
- Hatedom: A very treacherous person.
- Head Bob: Ennar's animations usually have the characters bobbing their heads to the dialogue.
- Heterosexual Life Partners: Janaro and Tapika's relationship is like this, overlapping with Incompatible Orientation from Janaro's end.
- Infinity-1 Sword: The Nui Sword.
- Infinity+1 Sword: The Meta Sword and the Meta Blade respectively.
- Along with the Gr'mahr Hammer.
- In Name Only: By design, very little of the ICC has any intersection with BIONICLE canon. Virtually all they have in common are species and naming conventions; the ICC sets itself in its own separate offshoot universe, which judging from the mess that was BIONICLE 2008's endless parade of pocket dimensions is actually plausible from a canon viewpoint.
- Word of God: Greg Farshtey has said that all fanfiction is technically possibly canon as an alternate universe.
- Inspector Javert: Shelek Holmes, the criminal investigator and interrogation expert who often tries his tactics on the cast of VakamaTK's Comics.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: A slight crossover between Ennar and Darcsyde (a member of the Next Generation Continuity) occurred in both of their daily strips in which Darcsyde kidnapped Makito and was threatened to a fight by Mitch.
- Another one has taken place in Live, Learn and Lawsuits, because of Terton being the Special Guest.
- Jerkass: Gerlicky.
- Joker Immunity / Not Quite Dead: Makito has been "killed" so many times that the tenants at Nuparurock's Comics consider it a normality.
- Just for Pun: The continuity's very name - it was explicitly named so to allow for the use of the abbreviation International ComicCon. Several utility accounts on various websites used by the Continuity are even called "IntComicCon".
- Kent Brockman News: Channel Billion Studios has a really severe case of this.
- Logo Joke: Several variants of the ICC logo have been used for different purposes, including frozen and Halloween versions, respectively. Also, the logo itself is often used in a series' logo as a substitute for the letter "I" or "C".
- Live, Learn and Lawsuits always does something with its logo for every Christmas comic.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: And how. Every comic series had its own set of original characters, villians, citizens, organizations and other various characters. Put them all together and you have a full fledged continuity.
- Metaplot: The current comics are all leading up to Mask of Existence.
- Mid-Season Upgrade: Kahi went from near bankrupt comic maker to the richest man in Taone Nui in between the original season of Live, Learn and Lawsuits and (3L)2.
- Mirror Universe: The Bizarro Universe, both visually (as all the colors in said universe are inverted from their ICCverse counterparts) and character-wise (all of the inhabitants are Evil Twins of their ICCverse counnterparts). Played with in SpoofQuest.
- Model Sheet: All the sprite comics use spritesheets made from scratch, which basically are the "model sheets" of the genre.
- The Multiverse: The ICC Multiverse, affectionately nicknamed the "MultICCverse".
- No Hugging, No Kissing: Averted - Matoran here can actually reproduce, unlike in canon, and several relationships have occurred throughout.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: After Kahi became one of the richest men in Taone Nui, things for the "Live, Learn and Lawsuits" cast changed.
- Official Couple: Ennar and Linnea are probably the most prominent examples in the series, as they are now officially married after about several years of Ship Teasing.
- Atoma and Myarti, although not going as far as the above, have recently been promoted to this status. Atoma is also apparently bearing Myarti's child.
- Gavla and Chilly are generally regarded as being together, up to them actually having children together, (although they didn't get them as humans normally would).
- Only Known by Their Nickname: An example of this applying to a company: no-one ever uses Channel Billion Studios' real name, to the extent that Dlakii doesn't even remember it and was impressed when Tapika actually found and used it.
- For the more common variant with characters we have Bladeran, who is almost always called Blade, rarely Blade Titan, and never BladeTitan974. Due to Author Existence Failure, the name Bladeran was revealed, but the comic went on haitus soon after before he could be called by it.
- Also Storm. You can literally count with one hand the times he's been called by his full name, StormLasher479.
- Gavla as well is normally called either Gav or Gavla, never by his actual name, Gavilan.
- Only One Name: Generally all of the characters, although it is averted with a few, such as Kahi Govaki.
- One-Shot Character: The Geico Employee in the first comic for Live, Learn and Lawsuits.
- One-Winged Angel: Given that he's a tribute to Xehanort from Kingdom Hearts, the main antagonist of "City of the Sky," Xensahort, gets a few different forms.
- Original Character: Almost all of the characters featured throughout are original fan characters, with only scant appearances and references concerning canon ones.
- Orphaned Series: Almost half of all the series involved have been discontinued in one way or another. Plans to continue are unfortunately frequently left in Development Hell.
- Pac-Man Fever: Averted hard, as many specific, current-gen games are mentioned and played with, always being depicted on the correct system. This is due to most of the members being avid gamers, and many of the games mentioned are the ones they are spending a lot of time playing with at the moment (time which then distracts from comic work). Pokémon and Mario games usually are at the forefront of this, with EarthBound references starting a small rise, thanks in no part to McGyiyg.
- Parody Episode: The Newsroom had many of these, the last being Cake Surprise Investigations.
- The current saga of Live, Learn and Lawsuits has Gavla and Eljay competing in an Iron Chef parody television special.
- Most of the SpoofQuest yearly-mask comics involve Gerlicky spoofing one of the other ICC Comics, such as VakamaTK's Comics, BladeTitan974's Comics, and Live, Learn and Lawsuits.
- Palette Swap: BIONICLES ADVENTURS COMIXS lampshades how Von Nebula and Hydraxon use the same mask, in that Hydraxon is a crude recolouring of Von Nebula. The same is done with Berix and Ackar.
- Pardon My Klingon: While the phrase "Karzahni" has been used several times to the chagrin of some of the older members, others have also been used because of blockage of expletives by the word filter.
- Pocket Dimension: One is used by the people who make Hammerspace containers.
- Poirot Speak: Notably Inspector Sanso.
- Porn Stache: Gnuklear.
- Put on a Bus: Kaima from VakamaTK's Comics got fed up with her school and subsequently left both it and the series.
- She did come back in Live, Learn and Lawsuits a year later, however.
- Reality Warper: Makito defies every possible law of nature. Also the WIZARDs, basically an entire 'subspecies' of Reality Warpers.
- The Kanohi Eraksa and the Reality Cube also give the user the ability to reshape reality, although using either is strongly prohibited because it is very easy for said user to lose control and just erase reality as a whole.
- Recurring Character: "Gavla's Comics" has several of those, like the Fourth Wall Cop.
- Toa Igniter as well, although he's almost moved up into being a Regular Character.
- His archenemy, Gnuklear, has also appeared in numerous series.
- Relationship Upgrade: Myarti's overhearing of Atoma's laments about him being so Oblivious to Love made him finally get officially together with her.
- Repetitive Name: Ravorhk Rahvork, the head of the Official Comic Land Lawfirm.
- Reset Button: Everything that happened in LLL's Alternative Saga was undone by the end of it, save for Enigma Isle being teleported next to Taone Nui, LLL Towers being formed in the middle of Kato, and everyone's memories of the event (although most people did shrug it off as a dream).
- Retcon: Several series, including VakamaTK's Comics and Live, Learn and Lawsuits were originally on Hapori Nui, the Comic Land. This was later retconned to them being on Kaitro Nui and Taone Nui, respectively.
- To a lesser extent, the Grammar Hammer was originally intended to be an Affectionate Parody of Mjolnir. It was later retconned to be called the Gr'mahr Hammer.
- Also The Pirogi Vampire seasons 1-6 and thus no longer canon.
- Ridiculously-Human Robots: The ICC variants of the Matoran, oft nicknamed the ICCtoran, take this a few steps further than their canon origin and have the ability to eat with their mouths and reproduce.
- Running Gag: Makito.
- Also Blade's exploding toilet.
- Sailor Earth: Most new members' series are either retconned to have always taken place in one of the existing islands or, if they have their own, is said to have always been there.
- Schedule Slip: The ICC series are infamous for this, often owing to Author Existence Failure.
- Averted with Nuparurocks' Comics: Season Beta, however, which has currently the longest running daily strip in BZ Power history and save for one or two weeks has not missed a day since.
- Serious Business / "Stop Having Fun!" Guys: In response to how disappointingly rampant this attitude is around BZ Power, especially its sprite comic community, the ICC practically has it in their mission statement to go out of its way to poke fun at and avert this attitude. Of course, the practitioners of said attitude don't really see the humour.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Polymath seems to be using this a lot, although it is more toned down.
- Ship Tease: Gavla and Chilly seem to be growing closer in recent instalments of Gavla's Comics.
- Shout-Out: The comics regularly refer to other media: The Newsroom and VakamaTK's Comics have several references of Pokémon and CSI: Miami, most of Blade's work includes homages to The Legend of Zelda and Metal Gear, Tapika's work has a lot of MS Paint Adventures references and Live, Learn and Lawsuits has a multitude of shout outs ranging from Home Improvement Home Improvement and the The Cosby Show to 8-Bit Theater and Iron Chef. Also, Taone Nui Offline Game is probably pretty much going to be one huge homage to EarthBound, YouTube Poop, the history of the BZP comics forum, and pretty much anything else the ICC members like.
- Nuparurocks' comics in particular, liked to reference Daft Punk Daft Punk, Ranma One Half Ranma, Mister Rogers Neighborhood Mister Rogers'Neighborhood and Dora The Explorer Dora The Explorer among other things (up to the point where Both Daft Punk and Dora were recurring characters in the series).
- Something Completely Different: BIONICLES ADVENTURS COMIXS is this to "The Pirogi Vampire", being radically different from the main series.
- Speech Bubbles
- Sprite Comic: The ICC consists almost entirely of sprite comics, with That's Messed Up: The Series, Private Eye Tapika and This Brick Wall probably being the only exceptions.
- One of the founding tenets of the ICC was the goal of proving to the BZ Power community at large that BIONICLE sprite comics don't universally suck, a common belief among the community of the forum.
- Stock Subtitle: (3L)2: Live, Learn and Lawsuits and Nuparurocks' Comics: Season Beta.
- Also, That's Messed Up: Creator's Wrath and That's Messed Up: The Legendary Gerlicky.
- Strip Buffer: Formerly used for Nuparurock's Comics, but now more of a "make tomorrow's comic today" line of production.
- Word of God from Tavakai says that he has about 15 stored in case his topic begins to suffer from activity.
- Stylistic Suck: BIONICLES ADVENTURS COMIXS, a side series of The Pirogi Vampire. Heavily inspired by Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.
- Though really, BAC in and of itself is probably bursting with tropes, and can probably even name a few of its own.
- Sunday Strip: Nuparurock's Comics has one of these every Sunday.
- Symbol Swearing: As a result of BZ Power's infamously heavy-handed word filter, there are countless instances of expletives being bowdlerised into symbols.
- The Verse: Almost all of the comics take place in what has been nicknamed the "IC Cverse.
- Three Amigos: Janaro, Atoma and Shadow.
- Also, Chokii, Oneou and Tekatu, although they've been also said to be Too Dumb to Live.
- Took a Level in Badass: StormLasher479 used to be a pitiful villain on the competence level with Sir Pickles. However, it turns out he was just Obfuscating Stupidity this entire time to try and throw Blade off track and soon turned out to be quite the villian.
- Toxic Phlebotinum: Energized Protodermis, which usually destroys or mutates whatever it is poured upon. Except for VakamaTK/Tavakai and Kahi/Kahinuva, of course.
- Trigger Happy: Mitch, of course.
- Twenty Minutes Into the Future: Most of the comic locations take place in islands with a technological level that is not that different from our own. Several different and advanced technological objects do exist, but not enough to squarely put the entire world into a Post Cyber Punk era as a whole.
- Unobtainium: The most common is Protodermis, a variant of Iron in the BIONICLE mythos. Organic Protodermis is also provalent, as it is found in all ICCtoran. There are also:
- Exidian, an extremely tough and somewhat rare mineral, also originally from the BIONICLE mythos.
- Blue Crystals, which power the Starter robot.
- Polydermis, a mixture of Exidian and Organic Protodermis known for its exceedingly durable properties and light weight.
- Energized Zamors, which can be harnessed to produce a multiverse breeching Portal Gun.
- Molant, a liquid that is found in pockets of molten lava and can be cooled into a solid object that projects heat.
- Excidite, a much stronger but heavier version of Exidian, as well as being much more rare.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Averted; all the islands are given placement within the world and there's been several rough maps and/or information about the relations between each island released.
- Will They or Won't They?: Atoma and Myarti had it going from the Aborted Arc from the pre-daily strip Nuparurocks' Comics: Season Beta until it finally got resolved resulting in a Relationship Upgrade (see above). Ennar and Linnea also had it going from the beginning of the series, although they got promoted to Official Couple.
- Ketoka and Tekatu have also been in this state for about three years now.
- Video Game Settings:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewer complex that lies underneath Kato
- Capital City: Kato itself
- Cyberspace: The Server
- Hub Level: Janaro's Café
- To a lesser extent, the restaurant and usual hangout place actually named "The Hub", run by Gavla
- Shifting Sand Land: Zola Nui