All Over the House

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Once a student, always a student.

All over the house is a humorous webcomic created in 2009 by Creator Couple Zoe Robinson (art and writing) and Jennifer Kirk (writing). The humor in the comic comes mainly from the interactions of its central duo, who apparently live together despite their massive differences in lifestyles, world views and relative levels of sanity.

The cast are:

• Emily Moll Dee Westwood: A former journalist who managed to get elected to Parliament on the basis that she was running against a complete moron. Despite being something of a Mad Scientist, she is the comic's Straight Man and spends much of her time despairing at the state of humanity.
• Tesrin Eloise Rhododendron Stepford-Brown: A (surprisingly) successful barrister who practices demonology on the side. An Upperclass Twit crossed with a Cloudcuckoolander.
• James Rohan Jameson: A systems administrator who lost his job in the recession and now works as a blogger and tech consultant. Tends to be the butt of any technology jokes going and relies far too much on advice from the Internet for his own good.
• Gary Seville: Long-suffering artist who desperately wants his computer to just work. Mainly gets used for art jokes and as a foil for James' technology jokes.
• Sally Jameson: Younger cousin of James. Has a pet bear because James asked 4chan what a good present for a fourteen year old girl was.
• Daniel Snottleby: The former MP for the area where Emily lives. Lost his seat to her at the 2010 General Election and now sees himself as Emily's nemesis. Has a thing for parsnips.
• Harry Miller: Snottleby's long-suffering political adviser. Tends to play the Straight Man to Snottleby's repeated Idiot Ball-holding antics.
• The Gorms: Cute and loveable monsters who live in a multi-storey "shed" in Emily and Tesrin's garden. Good with repairs.
• "Uncle Bob": The Nameless and also The Unseen.
• Adam Prometheus Frankenstein: A monster trying to live a normal life in suburban England.

Tropes used in All Over the House include:

• Art Evolution: The artwork has developed from angular monochrome images to rounded, coloured and shaded art.
• Artifact Title: What, exactly, is all over the house? Reading some of the more modern strips, you would be hard pressed to find out. It originally referred to the monsters Tesrin summoned.
• Author Avatar: Although not designed as such, the main characters often serve as substitutes for the writers.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Suggested in this strip.
• Bilingual Bonus: Jokes occasionally turn up in Latin; usually referring to someone called "Caecilius". This is a joke in itself, or maybe even a Shout-Out, as Caecilius will be familiar to anyone who has studied the Cambridge Latin course.
  • Examples include graffiti daubed on a wall in ancient Rome, saying "Caecilius was here".
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Tesrin is a barrister who summons demons.
• The Cameo - Emily and Tesrin appeared in The Life of Nob T Mouse during its Revenge of the Nasties storyline.
• Chekhov's Gun: The soldering iron and capacitor from the time travel story form a major part in the later All over the mouse crossover story.
• Crazy Prepared: Tesrin in this strip:

Tesrin: "Case files; train tickets; Ward's Treatise on escaping the bowels of hell dimensions (Second Edition)...".

• Crossover: Emily and Tesrin ended up in Blobland thanks to a misused spellbook during Homeward bound. The story in which this happened acted as a lead in to a crossover story.
• Crisis Crossover - The All over the mouse storyline and its lead-in stories almost certainly qualify here.
• Defictionalization: 'The Blobland Band' books and radio show are mentioned in the All over the mouse story as being Tesrin's favourites as a child. Word of God says these are on their way (although the "radio show" will be in the form of audio CDs).
• Demonic Possession: this strip in particular.
• Fictional Counterpart: OnTV News 24, Larry the Locomotive and Mr Adventure
• Fictional Document: Tesrin loved The Blobland Gang books, film, TV and radio shows as a child. They are all apparently based on Hubert Schlongson's visits to Blobland, making these an example of The Multiverse, too.
• Funetik Aksent: Played for laughs in a news report about regional accents on street signs, to enhance 'local identity'.
• Homage Shot - W.D. Cooper's famous The Boston Tea Party is recreated, with some differences, in an episode where Tesrin steals the tea from Boston harbour. The recreation even includes Cooper's signature, which is absent from the original.
• Incredibly Lame Pun - Tesrin's favourite brand of tea is "Mr Tea""
• Lethal Chef - Tesrin can't cook, but not for want of trying.
• Mistaken for Gay Tesrin, in Homeward Bound, then both Emily and Tesrin in All over the mouse:

Derrick: "Increase your penis size? Attract men with bigger breasts? And here's me thinking you were gay." Tesrin: "Hey, we've all got to pay our way through law school somehow."

• • Emily again in newspaper reports after she became an MP.
• The Multiverse: Tesrin read The Blobland Gang stories as a child. They are based on Hubert Schlongson's visits to Blob City, where The Life of Nob T Mouse takes place.
• Must Have Caffeine - Tesrin requires a near-constant source of tea.
• Odd Couple - The source of much of the comedy in the strip is Emily and Tesrin living together.
• Odd-Shaped Panel - Skewed ellipses with part of a character popping out of them occur so often they are almost a signature effect in Robinson's long-form comics.
• Planet of Steves - The Army of Daves is recruiting now.
• Politics - This strip, and probably this one, too.
• The Professor: Emily builds weird devices in her spare time, including once making a Time Machine out of an old amplifier.
• Retroactive Preparation: This strip discusses the necessity of remembering to come back and plant the items you needed.
• Running Gag - Tesrin often mistakes mundane things for zombies; like festival-goers, and the wind.
• Shout-Out - Oh, so many. Amongst them are:
  • Tesrin wearing Gabe's t-shirt in this strip.
  • Tesrin often wearing a Nob Mouse t-shirt.
  • Max Ernst's The Elephant Celebes appears in this strip.
  • This Lovecraft-inspired episode.
  • Tesrin has the Seal of Rassilon on her bedroom wall.
• Shown Their Work - The physics behind the time machine in the All over the mouse story is based on real physics, albeit with a few modifications.
• Spit Take - Emily is not adverse to this, especially when given shocking and unexpected news.
• Stable Time Loop - This strip, which is also a case of Help Your Self in The Future.
• Strip Buffer: The comics are produced at least one month in advance.
• Sweet Tooth: Tesrin is such a chocoholic she can hear a bar being unwrapped across thousands of miles.
• Throw the Book At Them: Implied in, and used as the title of, this discussion of one of Tesrin's cases.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl - Tesrin is a definite tomboy, while Emily is more of a girly girl.
• Transsexual: Newsreader Penny Menace is heavy implied to be trans in this strip. It is confirmed during a media smear campaign.

Emily: Ummm... how do you know this guy? Penny: He did my stag party. ... It's a long story.

• Weird Science - Emily is a crazed inventor at times, and her devices almost always fit this bill.
• Write Who You Know: Emily is a writer and broadcaster, as is Kirk. Tesrin is a magic-using barrister, while Robinson is a law student and lapsed pagan.