Wendy

Left to right: Wendy, Lucy, Yumi and Miki

Confusing everyone nonstop since 1999

Wendy is a webcomic about Wendy and her three roommates. It’s also a webcomic about a talking cat, a squirrel car, an erroneous narrator, an army of slutty gynoids, a talking bear, an obnoxious guy named Jack with a sword for an arm, and lots and lots of hours in front of the television. Sprinkle in generous amounts of Fan Service, add plenty of wacky humor and you’ve got one of Josh Lesnick’s oldest and most elaborate webcomics.

A mostly silly and lighthearted comic that became just a little Darker and Edgier during its second act, Wendy followed the adventures of the title character a bespectacled hedonistic bisexual named Wendy, her deceptively sweet gal pal Yumi, her cheery goth genius friend Lucy and occasionally the reluctant fourth roommate Miki. At first glance this webcomic wouldn’t seem to have much of a plot and you’d generally be right but as the comic progressed it began to develop one that became darker and more dramatic the more you went into it. Wendy was cancelled after the second part and was never really given a proper conclusion.

Most notable for being the inspiration to its companion work Cute-Wendy which itself is a prequel to Josh Lesnick’s largest comic Girly. Wendy is a decidedly rare webcomic that could very well be the definition of Old Shame and Creator Backlash. It has been sporadically available on the internet for more than a decade, but as of Spring 2016 is nowhere to be found.

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Tropes used in Wendy include:

• Eighties Hair: One of the defining characteristics of Dr. Andrea.
• Absolute Cleavage: By the third comic, even!
• Action Girl: For instant Action Girl, just add guns! All three girls armed themselves during the second part of the comic.
• Alpha Strike: The Combat Android fires all of her weapons simultaneously in an effort to destroy the Über Android… it doesn’t work. The resulting fireworks are enough to blow up an entire factory.
• Amusing Injuries: Inflicted on the three main characters a number of times, usually prompting a visit to Dr. Andrea.
  • Yumi once set Lucy on fire just to get Lucy to take her clothes off.
  • Wendy and Yumi practiced some Slapstick comedy on each other during the Beach Episode. The cartoon violence got a little out of hand.
  • Then there was the time that Lucy and Yumi foolishly attacked a giant penguin…
• Angel Unaware: Wendy.
• Anime Hair: Just look at Wendy’s hair! Crazy color? Check. Improbable Hairstyle? Check.
  • Yumi’s puffy pink peekaboo doo is pretty distinctive, as are Miki’s luxurious Blue Locks.
• Anything That Moves: Wendy, though we don’t actually see much of it in the comic we do hear about it.

… And that was the most exciting 14 person orgy I ever took part in!

• Art Evolution: Josh’s illustrations notably improved throughout Wendy’s run.
  • Then there’s the so-called ending which has a completely different art style.
• Art Shift: During part two, Wendy notices that she’s acting more serious than usual; the art style momentarily follows suit.
• Backstory Horror: Averted. According to the afterword, Yumi was attacked and raped sometime in the past and Wendy’s obsessive desire to protect Yumi drove her kind of mad. This was to be revealed sometime in part three but seems to have been Ret Conned out of existence.
• Bandage Mummy: If the girls ever found themselves in Dr. Andrea’s examination room, chances are they would be covered in bandages.
• Bare Your Midriff
• Beach Episode: It was called the "Beach Trip" for a reason, you know.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn:
  • Wendy- Brawn
  • Lucy - Brains
  • Yumi - Beauty
• Beehive Hairdo: This is the defining feature of the stuffy Beehive Lady.
• Big Bad: The Angry Lesbian: Lez.
• Big Ball of Violence: Wendy and Miki once fought so violently that explosions and a missile erupted from the ball.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Jack has a prosthetic sword grafted directly onto his shoulder.
• Bleached Underpants: Wendy and her friends were featured as pinup girls on the Wendy Project before leaving all that behind to star in a humorous (though still often suggestive) comic. Some of the earliest versions of the Wendy comics were basically Hentai but those were replaced.
  • Nowadays Wendy is featured on Slipshine Josh’s adult pay site, so it looks like the underpants have been un-bleached...
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Yumi seems like the last person on earth you should trust with a gun, but she’s actually a terrifically adept markswoman.
• Calling Your Attacks:

Double… trout attack!

• Captain Obvious: After the girls discover the usually serious Miki walking around in a penguin suit and acting completely insane, Yumi remarks that she’s acting strangely.
• Censor Steam: See the entry on Shower Scene below.
• Cat Fight: One of the few activities Wendy and Miki do together.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Averted. According to the epilogue, part three was meant to be even darker and more dramatic than part two but the comic was cancelled before this ever happened.
• Cloudcuckoolander: All three of the main characters actually. Singing while playing the banjo without pants in a vat of porridge, slathering the front half of your naked body in peanut butter, operating a motorized squirrel car in the house, none of these things are normal.
• Darker and Edgier: Most of part two.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Miki hurls the talking cat out of a window when it gets on her nerves in comic 42.
  • Then there was that time she nearly beat Wendy to death (for giving sex suggestions to her sister).
• The Ditz: Yumi.
• Do-Anything Robot: The Combat Android had a fantastic array of weaponry, among other things.
• Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: The recurring Narrator character had one.
  • So did the gentleman in comic 71.
• The Dragon: The Combat Android and later the Über Android.
• Drop-In Character: Jack, much to everyone’s’ dismay.
• Easily-Detachable Robot Parts: The Wendy androids were easily dismantled by gunshots. They could even be decapitated by a slap to the face.
• Erotic Eating: Yumi really enjoys potato chips.
• Evil Knockoff: The combat android; for the rest of the androids, see Robot Me.
• Expy: Yumi, Wendy and Lucy are all loosely based off of characters that appeared in a comic that Josh Lesnick created in 1996: Bishoujo Mamono Hunter Senshi Yumi Chan. Miki is a direct transplant from an even older comic called Asylum.
• Fan Service: This comic was created by Josh Lesnick, Fan Service is pretty much a given!
• Flash Back: Lucy gets one in Comic 72.
• Friends Rent Control: How exactly do the girls earn enough money to stay in a nice four bedroom apartment? None of them seem to work, aside from setting up the occasional lemonade stand.
  • Might have something to do with Wendy being able to mold reality as she sees fit.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: You’ve gone and hit Miki’s Berserk Button.
  • The glowing eyes of a huge squirrel is one of the last things the Combat Android ever sees.
• Glowing Mechanical Eyes: The Über Android.
• Godiva Hair: Wendy’s unusual hairstyle is practically designed for this, utilized by both Wendy and Lucy during the Beach Episode.
• Good Bad Girl: Wendy.
• Guns Akimbo: Yumi does it best.
• Hall of Mirrors: Parodied when Yumi bursts into a room full of obvious cardboard cutouts of Miki. Yumi decides to take the systematic approach and punch them one by one until one of them says "ouch".
• Hammerspace: No matter where she was, Lucy always seemed to have a spare black robe.
  • Just where do those girls get all those guns?
• The Hedonist: Wendy.
• The Heroine: Wendy.
• Heel Face Turn: The combat android after some reprogramming.
• Hospital Hottie: Dr. Andrea. Helloooo, Ms. Fanservice!
• Interactive Narrator: Wendy and her friends were usually aware of the narrator’s presence when he made his occasional appearances.
• I Remember It Like It Was Yesterday: In the very first (revised) comic Wendy does some reminiscing about sharing chicken salad sandwiches with Yumi. Comes complete with the obligatory Analogy Backfire.

Yumi: Uh huh… that was thirty minutes ago.
Wendy: But it seems like only yesterday!
Lucy: Wendy… that’s the eighth time you’ve remembered that… knock it off!

• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Miki fulfills this trope. She might knock Wendy senseless but she’s only doing it to protect her sister.
  • And of course she reprograms the Combat Android to help Wendy towards the end of the comic.
• Kids Are Cruel: They were certainly cruel to Lucy when she was a child.
• Kill It with Fire: After realizing they had stolen Jack’s car, the girls torch both the car and their clothes.
• Lack of Empathy: Wendy’s three overbearing, hypercritical detractors: The Angry Lesbian, the Beehive Lady and the Blowhard Critic.
• Let's Get Dangerous: The three main characters become Action Girls when an army of slutty androids start messing with their lives.
• Loners Are Freaks: This was the primary reason Lucy was picked on as a child.
• MacGyvering: Lucy is able to inexplicably craft complex objects out of scraps and debris.
  • Miki turns out to be just as adept at this as Lucy, and she’s even better with electronics!
• Mecha-Mooks: The Wendy androids.
• Megaton Punch: Jack winds up on the receiving end of a sucker punch that sends him flying high up into the air. He creates a sizeable impact crater when he lands.
• Most Common Superpower: Wendy’s superpower is the most common superpower. She even has the power to turn it on or off!
  • Yuki certainly qualifies as well.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Miki is extremely protective of her sister Yuki. Corrupting Yuki would be a very bad idea.
• Narrator: Wendy had a recurring character that was literally called the Narrator.
  • The talking cat once took this role in a recap between parts one and two.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Miki and Wendy were no strangers to catfights but one particularly heated spat got a little out of control. Sure, Miki had a few bruises but Wendy very nearly bled to death. (She got better.)
• Non Sequitur: They’re freaking everywhere.

Yumi: A vole is eating my head!

• Not What It Looks Like: Miki catches her sister Yuki and Wendy exiting the bedroom looking disheveled and worn, turns out that they were just jumping on the bed.
• Only Sane Woman: Miki.
• Opaque Lenses: Wendy was frequently drawn with these.
• Our Angels Are Different: Assuming the original plot of part three is canon, a sex-crazed bisexual is not exactly how you would describe a typical angel.
• Painted-On Pants: Lampshaded.

How did she get into those pants??

• Punched Across the Room: Wendy gets punted clear across a room, through a door and into the hallway by Miki.
• Pyromaniac: Didn’t we mention that incident where Yumi set Lucy on fire?
  • It’s a fair bet Yumi tossed the match that torched Jack’s car, too.
• Quintessential British Gentleman: Subverted in comic 58.
  • Played absolutely straight in comic 71.
• Rapunzel Hair: Can be said of all four main characters, but especially Lucy.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Lucy.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Wendy delivers a doozy to her enemies in part two.
• Ridiculously-Human Robots:

She even gave you private parts!

• Robot Master: The Angry Lesbian.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: The Combat Android and especially the Über Android frequently invoked this trope.
• Scenery Censor: Used in the Beach Episode, Lampshaded even!
• Seashell Bra: Yumi wore one for most of the Beach Episode.
• Shower Scene: And how! comic 69 had a particularly racy shower scene complete with Censor Steam. This was one of the comic’s most obvious examples of Fan Service, an uncensored version was even available at some point.
• Slap Slap Kiss: Averted. While having one of their usual spats, Wendy unexpectedly kisses Miki much to her shock and horror. However, it wasn’t even Wendy who kissed her, just a Wendy Android.
• Smug Snake: Lez.
• Standard Fifties Father: Lucy sees her parents as an ideal fifties couple.
• Statuesque Stunner: Lucy stands an Amazonian 6’3”.
• Stripperiffic: Miki’s sister Yuki is actually a super-sexy superheroine dressed in skin-tight spandex. She even had her own Spin-Off comic at some point…
  • The Combat Android is made of this trope.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The Wendy androids were particularly combustible even when hit with non-explosive ammo.
• Sweat Drop: Josh Lesnick has explicitly admitted in an old commentary that he liked using them in Wendy.
• Talking Animal: The talking cat and the talking bear.
• Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Lucy.
• Tempting Fate: In Comic 53, Wendy repeatedly invites disaster by saying "Now things can’t get any worse", causing her to be hit by ever larger calamities.
• Ten-Minute Retirement: After getting her butt kicked by the Combat Android Wendy decides to call it quits and ignore her antagonists. After just a couple of pages she’s fighting harder than ever.
• Terrible Trio: The domineering Angry Lesbian and her bumbling cohorts: the Beehive Lady and the Blowhard Critic.
• The Three Faces of Eve:
  • The Child: Yumi
  • The Mother: Lucy
  • The seductress: Wendy
• This Means War:

Wendy: This time they’ve gone too far! They’re past the threshold! They’ve crossed the line and pushed me over the edge! They slapped the wrong badger! Threw one too many foul balls! They took the sandwich and ran with it off a cliff into my-
Lucy: Okay, Wendy. We got it…

• Unreliable Narrator: The narrator character was always invariably proved to be either wrong or just making stuff up.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Played for Laughs; seeing someone eat a banana is Wendy’s ultimate weakness in comic 54.
  • The Angry Lesbian, Blowhard Critic and the Beehive Lady were disabled by a hug from a giant teddy bear.
• What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Comic 9.

Quick! Clear your mind and think thoughts of pure frabjousosity!

• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: The main characters in Wendy all have Technicolor hair.
  • Wendy herself has green-cyan hair.
  • Yumi’s hair is bubblegum pink.
  • Lucy’s hair is dark blue or indigo (she went jet black when the comic switched to a grayscale format).
  • Miki gets bonus points for actually having blue hair.
  • Yuki’s hair is pale fuchsia.