Sam and Fuzzy

Those darts are expensive!

Sam And Fuzzy is a webcomic written by Sam Logan, started in 2002 and updating regularly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It follows the adventures of Sam, a very regular twenty-something man, and his roommate Fuzzy, a psychotic jerkass of a teddy-bear-looking-thing, who live in a Planet Eris-located modern-day America.

The story is divided in (so far) five volumes with a very notable (and arguably successful) use of Cerebus Syndrome to create an overhanging story from what started out as a "joke of the week" strip, as Sam and Fuzzy get embroiled into ever-more complex, wacky and dramatic adventures and go from (unsuccessful) taxi drivers with a demonically possessed refrigerator, to (unsuccessful) booksellers, to (unsuccessful) metal band roadies, to (unsuccessful) fugitives on the run from an international crime syndicate, to (so far barely successful) professional problem solvers. Other recurring elements involve the Ninja Mafia, a Mafia containing Ninjas, Fuzzy's Mysterious Past and Laser-Guided Amnesia, the machinations of Corrupt Corporate Executive Mr. Sin, and 17th century chemist Robert Boyle.

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Tropes used in Sam and Fuzzy include:

• The Ace: Carlyle.
• Action Survivor: Sam.
• Affably Evil: Mr. Black. Sure, he wants to resurrect the ninja mafia as a meritocratic crime syndicate, but the fact that Sam has to die to fulfill his ambitions is nothing personal -- in fact, he's perfectly willing to settle for blackmailing Sam into officially denouncing his claim and then letting him go on his merry way.
  • Mr. Sin is usually quite open and friendly as well.
• Ambition Is Evil: Mr. Black wasn't exactly a 'nice' person by any standards while a standard Blankface, but his antagonizing of Sam comes as a result of this trope: Mr. Black can't bury the remains of the Ninja Mafia until Sam is buried with them.
• Anachronism Stew: Fuzzy's "memory" of the disturbed delusion decade.
• Analogy Backfire: Never tell Fuzzy that "whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger".
• Attack Pattern Alpha: Shamelessly mocked here.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Like here.
• Ascended Extra: Future Fuzzy has so far had about ten appearances in the comics. Only four of them have been official comics and his last appearance in the strip's Canon was in 2004: He continues to have regular appearances each year in the guest comics.
• Ascended Fanboy: In-universe example: Most of the Ninja Mafia's Mooks and lower-level operatives appear to be ninja fanboys who signed up for the chance to be real ninjas and earn money doing it. The blankfaces are Tyke Bomb versions of the trope.
• Ax Crazy: Mr. Blank, and really, most of the ninjas.
• Barehanded Blade Block: Aaron manages it. [[spoiler:Justified, as the hand is {{[http|//samandfuzzy.com/668 literally] Made of Iron.}}
• Beleaguered Assistant: Willis for Earl in the "Noosehead" arc.
• Big Bad: The story currently looks like it may be setting up Mr. Sin in this role. He shared the spotlight with Mr. Black for most of the Noosehead and Emperor arcs, and became the primary antagonist of "Sam and Fuzzy fix your problem". Lately, he's been locked in a villainous arms race with Hazel and Brain.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Several of the Noosehead musicians, most notably lead man Sidney "The Sicko" and his second singer Nicole. Subverted as none of them are very evil at all; Sidney secretly wants to be a folk singer and Nicole is Sam's girlfriend.
• Body Surf: Fridge can hop from body to body in close proximity. Well, could. Sexxica/Candice finally manages to take him out by killing every host within range, including herself.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: See Running Gag below.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Here.
• Brown Note: Here.
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Arguably, the band Noosehead consists of nothing but these. And Nicole.
• Captain Ersatz: The Island contains fairly obvious captain ersatzes of Real Life artists who died while still popular, including "Elton Priestly" (Elvis Presley), "Curtis Cutter" (Kurt Cobain) and "Big Pimpin' G Moneydogg" (amalgam of pretty much every rap artist killed 'before his time', like Tupac Shakur). "Christy Spelling" resembles Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears, but neither of the were dead at the time the comic was made.
• Carnivore Confusion: What sort of absurd talking crab with a psychiatrist's licence would eat his own kin... er, wait. Nevermind.
• Cassandra Truth: Here.
• Catch Phrase: Carlyle "I can take you where you need to go."
• Cerebus Retcon: Fuzzy's Mysterious Past was initially Played for Laughs, with Fuzzy doing things like having his mother (a real brown bear, which turned out not to be his mother) visit and later claiming he sold all proof of his childhood to National Geographic for some cash and a Nice Hat. Said mysterious past, and the Laser-Guided Amnesia that erased it, are currently a major part of the comic's drama.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Well, it's still mostly comedy, but now it's comedy with an overhanging plot.
• Chekhov's Gun: The comic makes liberal use of both this and foreshadowing. Take the interactions between Fuzzy and Crush in the context that Crush is Sam when compared to strips before the Ninja Emperor assassination, or this conversation between Hazel and Rexford in the context that Brain (the cat) eats people's memories.
• Character Development: Sam and Fuzzy are the main examples, but also several side characters like Lance, Sidney, Gertrude... Most of the characters, come to it.
• Characterization Marches On: The early comics have Sam being more socially awkward (such as having an interest in polka) while Fuzzy was a lot more sadistic (wearing a monkey corpse as a bodysuit).
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Sam eventually develops one of these after spending too much time being on the receiving end of Big Damn Heroes.
• Classy Cat Burglar: Hazel.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Fuzzy, although this side of him has diminished as time has gone by. Malcom, due to his conspiracy theories. Mr. Sin, an evil version.
• Cool Old Guy: Mr. Ackerman, Sam's boss at the taxi company.
• Conservation of Ninjitsu: To a certain degree. Most of the Ninja Mafia's employees aren't very dangerous whether they appear alone or in a horde. The Mr. Blank vs. the horde of ex-mafiosos (which serves as the page image) fight plays it very straight, however.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Malcom.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mr. Sin.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Malcom keeps ranting about crazy conspiracies, and turns out to be right about them, up to and including the space gophers. It turns out that his hairdo has been intercepting transmissions from bugs in the SinCorp headquarters.
• Cuteness Proximity: The Grrbils intentionally use this as a weapon.
• Darker and Edgier: Parodied here. Later parodied again, then re-parodied.
• Deadpan Snarker: Several characters over the years. Sam is probably the most consistent.
• Death Is Cheap: Followed by a parody of this trope right here.
• Defensive "What?": See the page picture? Good. Fuzzy does that quite a bit, as does other less morally upstanding cast members like Sin.
• Demonic Possession: Fridge is the result of a demon possessing Sam's fridge mold and can possess other beings nearby. It refuses to possess Sam and Fuzzy out of principle -- it's not that desperate.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life: Sam spends much of the first arc, and arguably all of the second, doing this. His hand is eventually forced into finding one, although when it does Sam seems to find that a good thing.
• Determinator: Mr. Blank. He can get distracted due to Rule of Funny, but in "serious" strips he cannot.
• Diabolical Mastermind: Mr. Sin.
• Disembodied Eyebrows: Fuzzy, lampshaded at one point.
  • Mr. Sin embodies the trope - even forgetting to put his eyebrows on.
• Dumb Muscle: Ox.
• Eldritch Abomination: Hazel's "cat," Brain is a nasty piece of work even by the Underground's extremely tolerant standards.
• Elton Lives
• Especially the space gophers!!
• Cute Kitten: Conscience Cat invokes this to justify his role as Gertrude's Shoulder Angel.
• The Faceless: Carlyle by having his Face Framed in Shadow the few times he appears, doubling as He Who Must Not Be Seen.
• Fan Service: Humorously averted:

Fuzzy: Sam! Where have you been? You just missed our most commercially viable adventure ever! Bullets and boobs...nonstop!

• Filler Strips: Sam and Fuzzy has a set annual period for guest artists, known as the Obligatory Guest Artist Weekly Duration (or O-GAWD).
• Foreshadowing: Toward the beginning of the "Noosehead" arc, Malcolm says some things that most would dismiss at first as being the ravings of a paranoid nutcase who's been breathing too many fumes, but in fact they reference key elements of the coming arc. A guest comic after the arc's completion calls attention to this.
  • Zig-zagged in this strip, which takes place during a flashback and foreshadows an event ten years in the future during an arc already finished. Take a bigger fall than that, indeed.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Edwin... Kind of.
• Fur Against Fang: In the Sam and Fuzzy-verse, being bitten by a vampire turns you into a werewolf. Werewolves, naturally enough, don't like vampires much.
• Hands in Pockets: Subverted in this
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Carlyle. In addition, there's Sin's true Space Gopher form, which has only been shown partially obscured and in the shadows.
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: Some of the Skull Panda strips. For a certain value of 'Mary Sue'.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Fuzzy, prior to the show hitting Cerebus Syndrome. While he still has the occasional stand-alone strip he's since undergone Character Development and is a lot more restrained and Played for Drama.
  • Skull Panda, Dead Baby Comedy incarnate.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: In the Noosehead arc, Crush is Sam. The other roadies nicknamed him Crush after he dropped an amp on his foot.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: The Ninja Mafia isn't usually very 'stealthy'.
• Hulk Speak: Ox.
• Humiliation Conga: Gertrude's backstory.
• I Have Many Names: Mr. Sin has had so many names that he's actually in danger of running out of aliases.
• Implacable Man: Mr. Blank. Standing in his way for whatever reason is not a good idea. In the end, it takes having his face carved up, being beat up by Sam and thrown off the side off a flying skyscraper to kill him.
• In the Back: The ninja mafia usually don't fight fair. Especially not Blank, who killed Black with a sword through the back.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja: The ninja mafia started out like this (or appeared to) before becoming a major plot point.
• It's Pronounced Tro-PAY: Too-che-sto-nay.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Fuzzy. Lance too, after some Character Development twenty-four hours of solid exposure to Fuzzy.
• Jumping on Point: Six of them, as of April 2010 - the archive is divided into different arcs, and the sixth just ended.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Somewhat averted in that the swords of the Ninja Mafia are completely un-katana like.
• Karmic Death: Mr. Blank is finally killed when he is hit by the corpse of Mr. Black, which he had murdered previously, and loses his footing while trying to climb back up a flying building.
  • And if you can stomach Black Comedy, it's hilarious.
• Killer Rabbit: The Grrbils. They intentionally cultivate this image.
• Knight of Cerebus: Arguably kicked off by Fridge. Although he starts off as comic relief, his actions in the "Friday Night" arc drag Sam into the Ninja Mafia plotline that has dominated the last four years of the comic.
  • Mr. Blank and Mr. Black further do this after Sam gets set up as the one who murdered the Ninja Mafia leadership.
• Koan: Carlyle tends to speak in koans or other forms of vague, yet always appropriate, advise.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Someone wiped Fuzzy's memory roughly a year before he met Sam. It's eventually revealed that Hazel and Brain did it, and that Fuzzy used to be "Eric", the third member of the band.
• Last Second Chance: Sam, to Mr. Black. If not for Blank's interference, he would probably have taken it.
• Let's You and Him Fight: How Sam keeps a couple of dangerous and moderately psychotic Ninja Mafia lieutenants busy so they don't get bored and try to off someone else. When it turns out that this is actually completely normal, Sam sent them back at it, but restricted them to nonlethal methods.
• Love Redeems: Defied by Gertrude. When accused of it, she denies it (in a "You Watch Too Much X" way, not a "She Is Not My Girlfriend" way) and states other reasons for the Heel Face Turn.
• Mad Artist: Jhonen Vasquez Rikk Estoban. Played mostly for comedy.
• Martial Arts and Crafts: Ninja Mafia
• Masquerade: Most of the story's weird, inhuman creatures and unsavoury criminals live in (or at least visit) the Underground, a network of hidden cavern-cities linked by tunnels stretching across the country. Normal people have never heard of it. (Although major soda companies still manage to put up billboards there. Somehow.)
  • Maybe the soda companies are owned by people belonging to the Underground?
• Meganekko: Candice.
• McNinja: Ninja Mafia, again.
• Mobile Suit Human: Sin
• Mysterious Mercenary Pursuer: Mr. Blank.
• Nerd Glasses: Mr. Blank. Presumably contacts under the mask.
• Never Found the Body: Lampshaded, subverted and parodied in short order with the corpse of Mr. Blank.
• Nice Guy: Sam. It's one of his defining traits, judging by all the people who lampshade it.
• Noodle Incident: Discussing the return of Mr. Sin here.

Sam: At least tell me you've got some idea what he's up to.
Dt. Morris: ...No. But hopefully something less traumatic than last time.
Sam: Where did he get that many greased ferrets, anyway?
Dt. Morris: Those nuns are never going to be the same.

• • Turns into a Brick Joke later when Dev is going through the files on Sin.
• The Noseless: Nicole, Lampshaded here.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Sid and Crush. Sam and Gertrude.
• Odd Name Out: Subverted. Sam thinks he's the only emperor on the list without a nickname. He's wrong.
• Omniscient Council of Vagueness: There's one made up of Underground entrepreneurs and businessmen. They seem to run things on the surface as well.
• Oracular Head: Roger. Only Fuzzy can hear him, though. This arguably says more about Fuzzy than it does about Roger.
• Our Vampires Are Different: "Urban legend, vampire bites don't actually do that. They turn you into a werewolf."
• Planet Eris
• Plot Tumor: The series was at first about random jokes and semi-normal life. Then ninjas were added because ninjas are cool. They went away but would eventually come back to determine essentially the entire plot for the majority of the series.
• Put on a Bus: Not counting guest strips, Future Fuzzy hasn't popped up since 2004, and Carlyle hasn't been seen or heard from since 2006. But the most surprising example was when Sam was put on a bus for a few months, before it was revealed that he was Hidden in Plain Sight from the beginning.
  • The Bus might have returned in the case of Future Fuzzy. Maybe.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Detective Morris (after some Character Development, and exposure to Sam).
• Red Herring: After Sam and Fuzzy go missing after the events of the third book, the story picks up again following the roadies of Noosehead, one of whom is Fuzzy and the other two are Crush and Aaron. Both Crush and Aaron resemble Sam physically and mentally, Fuzzy has an equally familiar relationship with both, Crush shares Sam's ability to get himself into trouble, while Aaron shares Sam's at times neurotic behaviour and freaks out at the slightest mention of the Ninja Mafia. Aaron is the red herring: He's actually the ex-ninja mafioso Jackson. He even succeeds at fooling Blank, who finds out at the same time the reader does.
• Robot Me: Fuzzy. Mass-produced, even.
• Rule of Cool: Parodied.
  • The entire Ninja Mafia. I mean, come on it's a Ninja Mafia. Eventually Deconstructed by Sam when he (wisely) points out it's more of a Cult than a mafia, run by cynical crooks who exploit what is essentially employees who are all Ascended Fanboys.
• Running Gag: One notable one is "the death of 17th century chemist Robert Boyle."
  • "Robots? Clones? Robot clones?"
• Sarcastic Confession: Here.
• Save the Villain: Subverted when Sam lets Fuzzy kick Mr. Blank over the edge of a flying skyscraper.
• Schizo-Tech: Played for Laughs here.
• Shout-Out: Sin's code for arming the Buddy Bears is a cheat code for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (which, in turn, is the birthday of the game's lead programmer).
  • And the deactivation code is a subtler-than-normal instance of the Robert Boyle Running Gag.
• Slasher Smile: Mr. Sin has a habit of this.
• Sitcom Arch Nemesis: The creator, Sam Logan, and Jeph Jaques of Questionable Content are mutual Sitcom Arch Nemesises to each other. Played for Laughs by both sides involved.
  • Lance is introduced as one. It's quickly abandoned as neither side are really belligerent enough for 'nemesis' status.
• Smash Cut: Invoked by Fuzzy in the Cold Open of Volume Six, after Sam describes his plans for the Ninja Mafia:

Fuzzy: The kind of thing they might make a movie about someday!
Sam: Yeah! Maybe!
Fuzzy: And in that movie, they'll cut from this moment right to the part where everything goes to hell.
Sam: Wait, wh-

• • It then cuts to the title card, Sam And Fuzzy Get Famous.
• Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Fuzzy.
• Spoof Aesop: Several of The Merch is T-shirts with slogans like "Murder is not an appropriate method for career advancement" and "vampirism does not make stalking attractive".
• Stable Time Loop: In a guest strip, no less.
• Stepford Smiler: Possibly Fuzzy, via Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• Invisible to Gaydar: If Detective Morris is a lesbian (implied, but not stated outright), she is one of these.
• Super Loser: Edwin. There are lesser examples as well of supernatural beings that are explicitly referred to as 'lame' by the remaining cast, but Edwin is by far and large the most blatant.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Mr. Blank.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Like here.
• Take That: Edwin is a walking Take That to the Twilight franchise.
  • Word of God is that Edwin was an unintentional reference (in fact, a recent Q&A said that a lot of his references tend to be the unintentional variety unless he specifically draws them in that way), but the timing of it still makes perfect sense.
  • Sid manages to make an in-universe example: When Mr. Sin attempts to pressure him into making more music for him while on the Island, Sid makes one loud, angry and vicious heavy metal song -- the only one he will ever write -- which is a single long tirade about what a prick Mr. Sin is and contains a Long List of things Sid wants him to shove up his- you get the point.
• Taking You with Me: Heroic example: Candice killing Fridge.
• Tempting Fate: Sam's tempting of fate is lampshaded in this comic. Fuzzy's is lampshaded and inverted here, while Mr. Y's is played straight here.
• The Imp: Fuzzy, when he's not being a Heroic Sociopath.
• The Merch: Attempted subversion with the in-universe creation of Skull Panda, a character that "will appeal to alienated youths and wannabe social outcasts" by being simultaneously edgy and cute. Later played straight when the author realized the character was legitimately appealing; Skull Panda currently has two t-shirts for sale.
• The Rival: Lance was this to Sam in the first arc.
• The Straight Man: Sam.
• There Are No Therapists: Subverted. At one point, Sam does go to see a therapist, but said therapist is both horrifically incompetent and a giant talking crab. See for yourself here.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Referenced with the Non-Disclosure Automaton.
• Too Spicy for Yog Sogoth: Fridge attempts to possess Ox. It goes poorly, because Ox is so dumb it can't think when it's possessing him.
• Tranquil Fury: The fight between Mr. Blank and Mr. Black.
• Tyke Bomb: Ninja Mafia Blankfaces are trained from very young childhood.
• Unfazed Everyman: Sam.
• Unknown Rival: Gertrude has practically every aspect of her life inadvertently ruined by Sam's actions. He doesn't remember any of it. She does.
• Unstoppable Rage: Again, the fight between Mr. Blank and Mr. Black.
• Visual Pun: Skull Panda is Invulnerable to the Cold Vacuum of Space.
• We Help the Helpless: The NMS.
• Weirdness Magnet: Fuzzy explicitly calls Sam one.
• What the Hell, Hero?

Mr. Black: What the hell, man? I thought you were supposed to be the nice one!
Sam: What can I say? Every single person I know is a bad influence.

• White Gloves: Initially, Sam appeared to have them. Later, he had actual hands.
• World of Cardboard Speech: Sam makes one to himself at the end of book 3.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: this is how the Ninja Mafia works - at least, this is how it works if you kill the entire Ruling Council (so none of the official successors are left alive). Sam, as the only survivor of the murder of the previous Ruling Council, is therefore considered the rightful Ninja Emperor - and becomes the focus of all the plotting that comes with it. It's also the only way Sam can "step down". Since Emperors rule for life, someone has to kill him to take his place.
• You Killed My Father: Fridge eventually possesses a ninja and kills DJ Positive. Candice reveals herself to be his daughter moments before she kills herself and Fridge's body at the same time.
• You Will Be Spared: A somewhat dark version. When Blank kills Black, he claims to Sam that Black was his oldest and only friend, and that he made his death as quick and painless as he possibly could -- but if Sam thinks he's deserved the same treatment, he is sadly mistaken.
• Your Tomcat Is Pregnant: Here.
• Your Vampires Suck: See Take That above.