Original Life/YMMV


 * Accidental Aesop: The "It's A Wonderful Life" knockoff story is not only Completely Missing the Point of its source material, but actually manages to make the world look like a better place without Fisk around. Elizabeth is happy and content instead of constantly miserable and angry, her children are generally well-behaved or at least harmless instead of physically violent hellions, his sister seems happy and content as well, and so on. The only "horror" of all this is that Fisk himself (and by extension Naylor) doesn't approve of how they're happy. This results in the arc having the messages of "The world would be better off without Fisk" and "Fisk's approval is more important than anyone's happiness".
 * Arc Fatigue: MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS.
 * Blatant Lies: Naylor said that Original Life was intended to be a Lighter and Softer strip as compared to Better Days, and he would do his best to "just keep it fun". That didn't last very long. As of this writing, the most recent strips are following Fisk and Red as they wrap up a covert assassination job.
 * Completely Missing the Point: The strip mocking Tron: Legacy indicates that the point of "removing oneself from the equation" sort of went over Naylor's head.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Charlie. It's gotten to the point where the Hatedom fears for Charlie every time she shows up in the strip because they don't want to see "the last likeable character in the strip" get ruined.
 * Also, Angelica. Usually treated as the villain of the piece, the strip's detractors look on her as something akin to a hero as she's one of the few characters that isn't a complete asshole.
 * Family-Unfriendly Aesop: The infamous "muffin arc" goes into great detail about just what a hero is supposed to be. The comic asserts that a hero is someone who does a job for money, and does not do more than is required of them by that job or their pay, and that in fact trying to help people out of a sense of moral obligation or selflessness is unheroic, bordering on villainous.
 * Not to mention the moral that if someone tries to be a hero for entirely selfless reasons, people will instantly take advantage of him or her and use them.
 * Fridge Horror: One character is a doberman...with sheared ears.
 * Memetic Mutation: About as official as it can get, since Fisk now has his own Meme Generator template
 * Most Writers Are Adults: None of the kids in this strip talk or act like kids.
 * Nightmare Fuel: "I want his hands."
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Fisk and the group of unsanctioned assassins that employs him seem to fall under this, judging by the explanation in Better Days.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: The Ass-Man gene.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: Obviously, being the work of Jay Naylor should be enough of an indication that this isn't a kids' comic, but for those readers who ignored the header and the pornfolio covers running alongside the comic, note that despite the look of the comic, it features frequent cursing and Nightmare Fuel, as well as references to sex, infidelity, and assassination.