Dandy and Company



Dandy and Company is a comedy, adventure, furry webcomic started in 2001 by cartoonist Derrick Fish, and a twist on the standard Boy And His Dog story. The titular character is a sarcastic and fiercely independent talking dog who lives with his owners, the Brooks family, in the suburban area of Loudonville, Ohio.

Dandy's constant pranks, jabs, and outrageous antics affect the the family and basically anyone else who crosses his path, particularly their 13-year-old cheerful son Bernard, who is the secondary protagonist and spends the usual preteen activities playing with his dog. Dandy can be SO biting that when Fish produced a tribute strip to announce the winner of Best Comic in the annual Web Comic Awards, Dandy actually cursed and slapped his butt toward the "camera" in response to his own strip not even being nominated (though, this should be stressed that this is an extreme case). Rounding out the cast are Bernard's clueless and jaded parents Mae and George, Dandy's sometimes-girlfriend Maryweather (also a talking dog), and Dandy's younger brother, Mistake. The strip originally started as a Slice of Life comedy with Dandy's actions being the focus, and with the start of the Beanie-Quest saga, quickly introduced a bigger universe of characters, and the more epic, action-adventure side that is inspired by Superhero and science-fiction comic books.

Dandy and Company is written and drawn in the standard Newspaper Comics format, and has been printed into five volumes twice, with the current print done under Lulu Press. Many elements are inspired by Calvin and Hobbes, with the art style reminiscent of the Looney Tunes. Humor is comprised mostly of character quirks, Breaking the Fourth Wall and frequently caters to geek culture.

Announced on April 21st, 2010, that the strip will return for the last time on August 2nd... to share the final story arc of the entire webcomic.

On January 2011, however, the entire site was taken down by its host, because Derrick simply could not continue to pay the subscription from his financial issues. The URL now redirects to a makeshift Dandy And Company Blogspot page that utilizes about the same design, and he is still selling his books there. He still intends to wrap up the canon storyline one day. Here's hoping for the best...

Tropes:

 * Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal - Most of the furry cast, except for Maryweather, who's a Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal.
 * Author Guest Spot - Derrick makes so many appearances, while still remaining outside the storylines, that he's become somewhat of a supporting character.
 * Bold Inflation (though less so nowadays)
 * Breakout Character - Snuffles first appeared in one arc as a nameless extra in a scene where Dandy tries to escape from a pound. He has since gotten bigger and bigger parts until he became probably the most compelling character in the strip!
 * Bumbling Dad - George
 * Character Development - Many characters undergo changes in this strip.
 * Cut and Paste Comic - Any time a character's pose doesn't change from panel to panel, Derrick uses this to cut down on drawing time. Fortunately, the strip is never intentionally set up with this in mind.
 * Deadpan Snarker - Everyone.
 * Do-Anything Robot - Mr. Fuzzy, and Mr. Fuzzy 2.0
 * Filler Strip - the annual Total Chaos Week, and Sunday's commission samples.
 * Flowery Elizabethan English: The demon Skeezicks talks in bad pseudo-Elizabethan English. The cartoonist specifically made reference to The Mighty Thor in describing his speech patterns.
 * Four-Fingered Hands - The entire cast.
 * Genius Ditz - Mistake.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Homemade Inventions - Mistake has made, among other things, a supercollider in his basement.
 * I Am Your Father -
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold - Dandy in later strips
 * Loveable Rogue - Dandy.
 * Meganekko - Maryweather.
 * Our Werewolves Are Different - For starters, they have no human form at all.
 * Put on a Bus - The Muñez family.
 * Retcon - The entire story of
 * Ridiculously Cute Critter - Mistake. Dandy can't stand him for this reason, so it only makes sense that Mistake's name was his doing.
 * Schedule Slip - Derrick Fish has moved, divorced, switched jobs, and found a new girlfriend through the course of the strip, which led to numerous schedule changes, hiatus's, reruns, and side material.
 * Skunk Stripe - Mistake gets a white streak through his hair and down his face from one of his inventions going awry.
 * Strip Buffer
 * Tertiary Sexual Characteristics - Maryweather is the only dog in the strip in the CURRENT timeline that wears a shirt, and who has human-looking hair on her head, and eyelashes. Subverted with Pumpkin, who intentionally walks around nude to protest human empowerment over animals (but also wears glasses).
 * Timey-Wimey Ball - ... maybe. This troper mostly just got too confused trying to figure out which form of time travel the strip uses.
 * Trash the Set - How Derrick struck the Muñez family from the strip.
 * Web First - As said, the online strips were compiled into 5 paperback volumes twice.
 * Webcomic Time - The comic has been going since 2001, but the time spent in the universe of the strip figures around 3 years, due to the 1-year Time Skip in the middle. Gets even more confusing when you figure in the time-traveling retcons, references to 7 years of feature films that Bernard wants to see, and Fish's numerous hiatuses.
 * Web First - As said, the online strips were compiled into 5 paperback volumes twice.
 * Webcomic Time - The comic has been going since 2001, but the time spent in the universe of the strip figures around 3 years, due to the 1-year Time Skip in the middle. Gets even more confusing when you figure in the time-traveling retcons, references to 7 years of feature films that Bernard wants to see, and Fish's numerous hiatuses.