The Whiteboard

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The Whiteboard is an unusual paintball-themed Furry Comic about an Alaskan airsmith polar bear named Doc and his animal friends (all of them Funny Animals) as they play paintball, deal with ornery customers of Doc's shop, and cause crazy stuff to happen by building machines way more powerful than is necessary.

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Tropes used in The Whiteboard include:

• Abhorrent Admirer: It's not completely clear, but it's hinted that Doc may be one of these to Pirta. And Kasi is definitely this to Jinx. For now.
• Alcohol Hic:
  • Jinx, in this New Years Eve strip.
  • In this strip, a no-neck who's had a few too many has his comment peppered with hics.
• Animal Stereotypes: Most of the non-human characters display some obvious stereotypical behavior from time to time.
• April Fools' Day: Many April Firsts since the beginning have had a special strip, on the general theme of Fan Service.
• Art Evolution: Okay, so it's a bit hard to tell, but Doc's appearance, along with the other regulars, has been refined since the beginning strips.
• Artifact Title: And how! The first five strips were doodled on a whiteboard. Between strips #11 and #12, there's a sixth for the 4th of July. He now uses the computer for his comic-drawing needs, so strips on the titular medium now account for less than 0.5% of all strips, and that percentage gets smaller every update.
• Author Avatar: Doc is more or less the author as a polar bear.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier:
  • The 2010 Zombie Apocalypse story arc featured an apparently up-armed version of the APC from Alien, its firepower consisting in part of an ungodly amount of guided missiles as well as several machine gun turrets.
  • Before that, Doc fitted a regular M2A3 Bradley IFV with a hot tub, complete with girls and probably an entertainment system, as a gift for the Army after the Real Life capture of Saddam Hussein, in 2003.
• Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity: Played with by Jinx who has convinced his dad to buy him a chain saw. As well as doing... other things.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animals: Lampshaded:

Swamp Fox: ". . . why do I even own socks?"

• BFG:
  • Paintball guns! Most would be illegal in the sport, especially the railgun and rocket-launcher.
  • And then there's this beauty, from the real 2005 April Fools' Day strip.^[1]
• Big Ball of Violence: Nobody outshops Doc on Black Friday.
• Big Eater: Doc, granted he is a polar bear but once he ate an entire deep-fried walrus.
• Non Sequitur Scene: To celebrate the 1500th strip, a big can-can line appears out of nowhere on Red's paintball field with most of the main cast, leaving behind some debris in the last panel along with a very confused Pirta.
• Bland-Name Product/Brand X: Khil and Khil Jr. chainsaws.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall - Leaving the frame, here.
• Butt Monkey: Swampy regularly gets stapled to the ceiling, among other things.
• Caffeine Bullet Time: Done fairly realistically in one arc. Doc has to wear goggles in order to see in the wind-tunnel-like air friction, and causes objects he exerts force on to blow to pieces. He even accidentally plows through several buildings. Of course, it's started by a quart mug of energy shots.
• The Cameo: Nearly every Halloween, other comic characters show up for Doc's party. The list is extensive.
• Carnivore Confusion: Averted. Rainman wanted lettuce on his half of the pizza. Swampy wanted fieldmouse and ground squirrel while Jinx wanted lemmings.
• Cast of Snowflakes: The furry cast is easily identifiable. The humans... not so much.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Bandit gets one of these when Doc upgrades Bandit's firepower in one game.
• Clown Car Base: Red asks Doc if his truck was bought from a circus clown after seeing a bunch of players and gear being unloaded. Doc says no, but notes that it uses the same technology.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Bandit is forced, via being duct taped to a couch, to watch a Martha Stewart show marathon after pulling a prank on Doc and Roger.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Sandy threatens Doc that she will cut off his ears with piano wire and staple them to his knees.
• Does This Make Me Look Fat?: Asked of Swampy by Sandy, in this strip.

Run Swampy! It's a trap!

• Don't Ask, Just Run: Doc's "oops" "tend to have a minimum safe distance"
• Dope Slap: Doc, delivering one to Roger.
• Duct Tape for Everything: Doc uses duct tape to fix anything, as well as using it to remind people not to take off their helmets during a paintball match. Usually because he can't find the stapler instead.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
  • Doc, Swamp Fox, Bandit, Snowshoe, and Rainman are all primarily referred to by their nicknames. Rainy's mother once called him Daniel but most of the others' real names are unknown.
  • Jinx's real name is Jimmy, as revealed when he introduces himself to Doc. Let's hope that's an antonym.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: In this strip, the title of the movie the gang is going to see isn't stated, but Roger points out that "guns, fast cars, and explosions" are specifically mentioned in the title.
• The Faceless: Swampy, who is almost never seen without his face obstructed by his hat or some object, and almost every human character, by virtue of having indistinct circles-for-heads.
• Failsafe Failure: Thing blow up regularly in this webcomic. One of the reasons for this is that the fail-safes never work in this comic.
• Fan Service: April Fool's Day tradition!
• Fastball Special: Doc tossing Jinx as a scout and launching Kasi at Jinx.
• Foot Focus: This strip.
• Foreign Queasine: No, not the moose-burgers. Those are pretty tame. Try deep fried walrus. Then again, Doc IS a polar bear.
• Four-Fingered Hands: In the first few strips, Doc was depicted with 5-digit hands, but shortly after the strip's name became an Artifact Title, the character design was changed to have 4-digit hands, with a note by the author explaining the change.
• Furries Are Easier to Draw: The humans are drawn as people with floating heads. The non-human cast is drawn somewhat better, but only somewhat.^[2] The technical and mechanical devices though, oh-ho, they're drawn exquisitely! According to several posts by the author on the TWB forums in August 2011, however, he's using more detailed humans to get more practice with drawing them, and moving away from the "floating bubble heads".
• Gadgeteer Genius: Both Doc and Roger are very good at what they do. When they work together, they make very dangerous machines.
• Gale Force Sound: Doc using new speakers
• Gangsta Style: A custom work order for a paintball marker. Doc and Roj seem unimpressed, but hey, it's work.
• Girls Have Cooties: "Ew! I'd rather kiss a chainsaw!" Of course, she's also the reason for all those band-aids, so it's sort of an appropriate comparison.
• Gender Bender: After pressing a button with a Shmuck Bait warning sign, in the May 22, 2012 strip Roger is transformed into a woman.
• Genius Bruiser: Doc easily qualifies, being built like one would expect of a polar bear, and who builds things like pizza teleporters, mecha, and reality-altering devices (as a paintball gun!) as a hobby.
• Girls with Moustaches: Sandy greets a customer to Doc's shop, and is told by the customer that he wants to deal with a male employee. She ducks behind the counter, and comes back up with a fake moustache on her face, asking again if she can help him.
• The Grim Reaper: The standard skeleton in a cloak showed up a couple times in one-shots to pick up a marker, while Doc came face to face with a somewhat less traditional psychopomp at the end of the "Doc ODs on caffeine arc".
• Halloween Episode: There's almost always has a Halloween-related story around October. Mostly it's just parties where Cameos from other webcomics abound, but on occasion it's a full story arc, like with the 2010 Zombie Apocalypse story arc.
• Hand or Object Underwear: Used in this strip.
• Hot Mom: Mrs. Cheetah.
• Humongous Mecha: Apparently Doc is building one here.
• Hyperspace Mallet: Often used by Doc against customers. Sometimes appears much larger. Subverted in some instances where Doc's mallet is seen in a glass case behind his desk.
• I Have a Family: In this strip, after watching an awful movie Doc threatens a janitor with violence over it. The janitor pleads for pity on account of having three mouths to feed. Two goldfish and a gerbil, which is sufficient to get the janitor off the hook.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Lampshaded in this strip.

Doc: I'd say it's too early for puns...but that presumes at some point there's a correct time for them.

• Infinite Canvas: This strip.
• Insane Troll Logic: According to Doc, he won't need a parachute when he next goes skydiving. He'll just bring along an extension cord or some welding leads, and it's an even bet that they'll snag on something before he lands.
• Interspecies Romance: Jake (skunk) and Pirta (snow leopard), Kasi's mother (Cheetah) and Howie (wolf).
• Is That What They're Calling It Now?: Pirta, to Jake.
• It Came From the Fridge: Twice, both times it was a tentacled monstrosity.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: "Oh, my mom doesn't have anything against caffeine."
• Kill Sat: Roj used one in a game once.
• Kiss of Distraction: Kasi uses a smooch of distraction to beat Jinx in a video game. His reaction wasn't quite blissful, however.
• Klatchian Coffee: The crew of The Whiteboard, after (or in the middle of) a particularly interesting New Years' party (and that's saying something), manages by accident to create a coffee strong enough to cure astigmatism, boost intellect, and add a cup size to women. The effects are temporary.
• Long Runner: The comic has been on the net since June 2002.
• Loophole Abuse: Cross-country skis are perfectly acceptable on a Paintball Field.
• Luminescent Blush: Sandy shows one of these when the usual crowd is cheering Swampy's having slept with her the night before.
• Macross Missile Massacre: seen in this strip, as a response to a zombie outbreak.
• Mad Scientist: Doc and Roger, Roger slightly more so.
• Magnetic Weapons: Roger's paintball rail gun.
• Massive-Numbered Siblings: Jinx's reason for spending so much time at Doc's is his eight sisters.
• Meat Versus Veggies: "Vegies are what food eats". Poor Rainman, who is a rabbit in a cast full of carnivores.
• Misapplied Phlebotinum: Multiple cases. Doc uses a teleporter to get pizza delivered to his shop, and Roger once built a Tokamak fusion reactor into an Autococker.
• More Dakka: Lampshaded, averted, played straight, mocked, and wholeheartedly indulged in many times.
• Ms. Fanservice: Pirta, in-universe at least. The fact that she favors scanty clothing (even in Alaska) and her feline anatomy means she's always walking on her toes (and therefore looks like she's always wearing very high heels) may imply this for real life readers as well, or at least for the author. (Considering Doc is at the very least... fascinated... with her, this is not likely unintentional.)
• Must Have Caffeine: Goes to ridiculous levels when the refrigerator full of Mountain Dew is crushed, the coffee machine wasn't fixed from its last misadventure, and Doc resorts to drinking energy drinks. By the 5-gallon bucket.
• Near-Death Experience: Starting here, though a bit unusual as the manifestation is telling him he should have died. A long time ago.

"Son, you use high explosives just to make breakfast. We're amazed you made it past puberty."

• The Noseless: Every human lacks a nose in the strip (see Furries Are Easier to Draw, above).
• Not That Kind of Doctor: "Doc" isn't actually one, in spite of his nickname, but it beats having the ER staff laugh at you again.
  • Come to think of it, Doc's medical skills were probably why the ER staff laughed at him.
  • Though that raises the question, what's with the boxes of med school stuff?
• Oh Crap: Every now and again, like when Sandy and Pirta find out about Doc's webcam.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Doc, Swampy, Shoey, Bandit, Rainman, Jinx.
• Only Sane Man:
  • Or, in the cases of Sandy and Pirta, sane women. They are the only ones who don't take the other character's antics in stride.
  • Now that she's gotten a proper arc, Tawny is in this role too as the counterpoint to Snowshoe.
  • Jake, in almost every situation, is far more level-headed than his friends, and is often frustrated by their extremes (see Roger dragging him off during the PvP/The Whiteboard crossover).
• Only Six Faces: The humans (for the most part) only have one face. The furry cast is more varied. Doc Nickel isn't above a bit of a Take That Me on the subject, as seen in this April Fools' Day strip.^[3]
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Swampy, here.
• Paintball Episode: The author knows the game inside-and-out. He makes markers for the game!
• Pass the Popcorn:
  • Bandit and Roger enjoy a bowl of popcorn while listening to Doc smash the heck out of a telemarketer.
  • The "Selling Tickets" variant happens occasionally too.
• Percussive Maintenance: All over the place. It actually works every once in a great, long while, like in this strip.
• Powered Armor: Roger once improvised one for reffing, but scrapped it after he fell over and needed a can opener to get back up. Some later strips suggest he might be trying a Mini-Mecha design.
• Punny Name/Bilingual Bonus: Pirta is Inuit for "snowpack," the pun comes from the fact that she's a snow leopard, at least according to her.
• Puppy Love: Kasi towards Jinx. At present the feeling is somewhat one-sided.
• Ring Ring CRUNCH: Subverted. Alarm clock rings. Doc's paw comes out from under the covers with what looks like a Colt 1911. Clock promptly shuts up.
• San Dimas Time
• Scenery Censor: Used straight at least a few times.
• Schedule Slip:
  • Not for the comic itself, but Doc's work orders in-universe. One (unfinished) order was apparently chiseled into a clay tablet when it was placed, the implication being it was sent in several millennia ago.
  • Happens to the strip, from time to time. Usually accompanied by a strip in which Doc and Roger both look like flounder with both eyes on the same side of their heads. Also accompanied by an explanation for why that day's strip isn't up. The flounder strips never appear in the archives.
• Shmuck Bait: In this strip, Roger is presented with a button with a warning sign reading "For the love of God do not push this button!", as a filler strip. Doc Nickel invited readers to suggest the results of pressing the button, and got several hundred replies (after expecting only a dozen or so). Strips illustrating the suggestions are usually posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• Shout-Out: Quite a few of them are for fairly old movies and old TV series:
  • Dirty Harry gets a nod here.
  • In the alternate version of this strip, found here, MythBusters gets a nod.
  • The Siege of Bastogne.
  • There's also the "Webcomic of the Week" footnotes beneath the comics, which give shout out's to other webcomics that Doc reads.
  • Jinx was introduced as having a more formal name of Jimmy, and in this strip his last name is revealed to be Olsen.
  • Strip 1152 has a sign on the counter saying "Beware of the Leopard". Likely a H2G2 reference.
• Shower Scene:
  • Done as part of the 2007 April Fools' Day strip, here, much to Sandy's discomfort.
  • Done again for 2012's April Fools' Day, with Pirta as the victim. The second time the end result wasn't quite so pleasant for Doc and Roger.
  • And then Doc himself fell victim to the gag via Roger's repeated mashing of the button mentioned in the Shmuck Bait entry.
• Shown Their Work: In this July Fourth strip, take a close look at Roger's shirt. "Red legs" is the nickname for US Artillery personnel, from the red stripe along the leg of their uniform pants during the American Civil War.
• Smelly Skunk: Jake, whenever he is surprised.
• Snowball Fight: An indoor fight breaks out in Doc's office, in the story arc where Kasi was introduced, starting here.
• Spam Attack: Doc and Roger are worshipers in the Church of The Spam Attack, particularly the varieties involving high explosives.
• Stable Time Loop: Starting here and confirmed here, Doc and Roger have created a time-traveling wormhole that goes back about a week.
• Stuffed Into a Trashcan:
  • Roger, starting here.
  • Swampy, too.
• Sudden Anatomy: Characters usually talk without their mouths visible. Occasionally they do when they're saying something with a lot of force or emotion.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: The earliest example is here.
• Take That:
  • Taking a swing at journalists who claim paintball is a war simulator.
  • The password to Doc's e-mail account is "pbn suxxors".
• Taught by Television: Sandy, who had no prior experience with paintballing, is shown repairing a marker at Doc's shop after months of reading the shop's e-mail, and says she figures she could probably build a whole nuclear reactor because of that experience.
• This Means War: Kasi (the young cheetah girl) says to Doc, after he dumped a bunch of snow on her, "You realize, of course... that this means War."
• Through a Face Full of Fur: Sandy
• Time for Plan B: When surrounded by the other team at an "outlaw" paintball field,^[4] in this strip, the team goes through their options, including Attack Plans B, Delta, and Zero (the last involving two zeppelins and a smoke machine).
• Time Machine: The product of a drunken night of inventing.
• Toilet Humor: Poked fun at in this strip.
• Tomboy: Kasi, apparently one of the reasons she and Jinx get along so well.
• Trademark Favorite Drink: Mountain Dew! Which Doc has his own brewing plant for, and makes several times stronger than the commercial variety.
• Up to Eleven: Doc and Roger often build very dangerous things—usually weapons—together. This even applies to the coffee, which smokes, sparks and melts glass pots.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Some shout-outs are fairly old or obscure (or both) and there is some science which can be difficult to understand, such as Doc's explanation of teleporter physics.
• Visual Pun: Like many a Time Travel story, a time travel arc in May 2011 contains a pair o' Docs.^[5]
• Walking Techbane - This customer qualifies.
• Webcomic Time: The characters often spend most (or all) of the summer of each year playing one-days-worth of paintball. Lampshaded at least several times:
  • Comes up here first.
  • Later, it comes up again in this strip. For those at the paintball field it's been only a few minutes, but for Pirta it feels like it's been two weeks.
• Weirdness Magnet: Doc's shop, according to Jake, qualifies as one of these. (Pirta agrees.)
• What Would X Do?:
  • Daryl asks himself that about Doc when on the field, but given Daryl isn't a rather large polar bear who runs a paintball shop, the possible answers don't do him much good.
  • WWJMBD^[6]
  • Pirta asks herself what Doc would do, in a 1 vs 1 face-off against Tawny on the field, in this strip.
• What You Are in the Dark: When given the chance to wipe off a hit and not be seen, Rainman calls himself out.

"Integrity means doing what's right, even if nobody is looking."

• Worth It:
  • Was getting socked for sneaking a kiss from Sandy worth it? According to Swampy, "Oh God yes".
  • For the sake of an April Fools' Day gag, apparently sneaking in a look at Pirta in the shower wasn't worth it to Roger and Doc.
• Wrench Wench: Apparently, Tawny—she's a better paintballer than Snowshoe, to the point of being responsible for taking care of his equipment.
• Write What You Know: The author's biography makes it pretty clear that he knows what he's talking about (he even owned a paintball field for a couple years).
• You Do NOT Want to Know: A common reaction by the regulars when Sandy or Pirta^[7] asks about any particular weirdness happening.

Jake: "If past experience is any indication, we'll be better off not knowing."

• Zombie Apocalypse: during October 2010.

1. ↑ Which one is the "beauty" is left as an exercise for the audience.
2. ↑ The animals mouths are seldom seen, even when they're talking. They're usually only seen if they're shouting.
3. ↑ see both right-hand corners of the grid
4. ↑ basically no real rules
5. ↑ Play on "parodox", for those who missed the "pun" part.
6. ↑ John Moses Browning, often considered one of the gods of the firearm world.
7. ↑ moreso the latter, not having been around the gang for as long as the former