Ozy and Millie

File:Ozy and Millie.jpg

Ozy and Millie was a webcomic by DC Simpson that followed the daily lives of its two titular characters, who are children in an anthropomorphised-animal version of the Northwestern United States.

It was written in the style of a Newspaper Comic, with a four-panel format, writing reminiscent of Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes, and an ensemble cast that seems inspired by Pogo. The story arcs meander through political commentary and philosophy while simultaneously dealing with the children's own problems such as fitting in at school.

Characters:

• Ozymandias ("Ozy") Justin Llewellyn, a young Arctic fox. Tends towards excessive zen stoicism and Deadpan Snarker-dom.
• Millicent ("Millie") Mehitabel Mudd, a red fox. Excitable and rebellious, prone to random acts of destruction, but has a good heart.
• Llewellyn, a dragon and Ozy's adoptive father. He appears to be slightly over a century old and is prone to Historical In Jokes, especially ones related to obscure presidents (e.g., he claims to be responsible for William Howard Taft getting stuck in the White House bathtub), as well as bad Zen jokes. He runs for president every four years, despite having seceded from the United States to form the nation of Greater Llewellynland.
• Ms. Mudd, Millie's mother. A lawyer and single mother. Although the most normal of the main four characters, she is implied to have been similar to Millie at her age. Also, her "hair" is blue for some reason. In October 2008, near the end of the strip's run, her full name was finally revealed as Mililani Minerva Mudd.
• Avery, a raccoon child prone to mindless following of pop-cultural trends.
• Timulty, Avery's younger brother, who radiates Incorruptible Pure Pureness (it helps that he's four years old).
• The dread pirate Locke, a fox who lives in a magical land inside Llewellyn's couch, is subject to Merlin Sickness, and is Millie's father.
• Felicia, a sheep and the Alpha Bitch (who later started moving in the Defrosting Ice Queen direction).
• Jeremy, a Jerk Jock rabbit who seems to live to stuff Ozy into trash cans. He's also attacked Millie a time or two.
• Stephan, a truly epic geek.
• Isolde, Llewellyn's niece, Ozy's cousin, and an aspiring reporter. Often helps Llewellyn with his plans and babysits Ozy and Millie.

Now has a Character Sheet.

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Tropes:

• All Animals Are Dogs: Millie wags her tail when happy.
  • Could be justified by the human level intellect and it being an active choice on her part that she does because she's imitating what she's seen dogs do in-universe
• All Girls Like Ponies: Millie joins Locke's rebellion against Llewellyn when she finds out it's because Llewellyn wouldn't give him a pony.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Stephan's love interest rejects him in favor of Jeremy.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Lampshaded.
• Alliterative Name: Millicent Mehitabel and Mililani Minerva Mudd.
• Alternate Universe: The world under Llewellyn's couch cushions.
• Alpha Bitch: Felicia.
• Ancient Conspiracy: Lots, played for laughs. Most of them have been organized, perpetrated, and extended by dragons. For the Lulz.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Many jokes throughout the series
• Art Evolution: Lampshaded at one point.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The fate of Ozy's biological mother. She invented the perfect flavor of ice cream, you see...
• Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny:
  • Millie Mudd here. And that was just the latest example.
  • Practically by name here
• Author Appeal: A look at some of the author's other art reveals that they have, of all things, a shaving fetish. This was worked into the comic as a Running Gag.
• Author Filibuster: Simpson was known to work her liberal views into some of the strips.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animals: Most of the cast, with the exceptions noted below in Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal and The One Who Wears Shoes.
• Beat Panel: Usually after Llewellyn or Millie says something off-the-wall. Often followed by a Flat What.
• Bilingual Bonus: Dr. Wahnsinnig, the school psychiatrist. Her name means "insane" in German. Which is ironic, considering she's something of an Only Sane Lemur compared to the rest of the staff.
• Butt Monkey: Ozy.
• Calvin Ball: House Rules Parcheesi.
  • Lampshaded here.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Millie and Llewellyn.
• Contemplate Our Navels: Lampshaded here.
• Cute Little Fangs: Cute little vulpine fangs. Despite the cast being comprised of several carnivorous animals (some of which are mythological) most often their teeth are downplayed. The art usually only highlights Millie's fangs, whenever she's saying something particularly crazy.
• Deadpan Snarker: Ozy.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm: Avery
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Llewellyn legalizes cutting tags off mattresses, leading to a lot of trouble with the U.S. government "across the border".
• Eccentric Mentor: Llewellyn.
• First Kiss: Millie's kiss to Ozy, delivered to convince Felicia she didn't like him.
  • Ozy's first, Millie's second. Her first was improvised by her school play co-star Avery. Millie was irate; her replies involved a wedgie and a punch in the face, at minimum. As Avery wasn't wearing pants at the time, that's quite a feat.
• Follow the Leader: Not a proper version of this trope, but deserves mention: Avery. Avery, Avery, Avery. So desperate is he to be a part of the "in" crowd that he will suffer literally any indignity you'd care to throw his way, provided that you tell him, or imply, or otherwise obliquely hint that it's what the cool kids are doing these days.
  • Avery is almost more of a parody of this personality type most of the time; while other people buy brand-name products to try to be trendy, Avery imitates their ad campaigns.
• Genki Girl: Millie.
• Girls Have Cooties: The "cool people" sometimes think so.
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: Flying Couch.
  • Don't forget Pinkness Poisoning.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Ozy by far. Speculation runs he's worn dresses more often than pants. Timulty tends to be nude save for his fur. Llewellyn and Millie get their own nude scenes as well. Note that whenever Ozy ends up bald, he does have to cover up; once this is done with pants, but usually he manages with either a long shirt or awkward camera angles.
  • Some fans have noted that Ozy generally seems to have a "two articles of clothing" rule, especially since some newer images of his older self show him wearing just a beret and scarf instead of his usual hat and vest.
  • Also, Avery and Ms. Sorkowitz.
  • Llewellyn starts out fully clothed, but eventually stops wearing pants (used for a joke once and then never commented on again).
• Happily Adopted: Ozy quite likes having Llewellyn for a father, even if he is a dragon.
• Historical In-Joke: Llewellyn loves these. So much.
• Hollywood Nerd: Stephan.
• Hurricane of Excuses: When Millie decides to practice running for president. She ends with "I had to wash my styrofoam!"
• Ice Cream Koan: Sometimes literally. Simpson seems to be of the "All koans are ice cream koans and that's the whole point" school of thought.
• The Ingenue: Timulty.
• Inexplicably Awesome: Llewellyn. And, in fact, dragons in general.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Millie certainly seems to qualify. More than once she's participated in dancing naked in the rain in front of Ozy. She also attended class picture day sans her overalls, from the bus stop all the way to school.
• Innocent Prodigy: Nearly all the youngsters at some point.
• Jerk Jock: Jeremy.
• Karma Houdini: Jeremy is never punished for his bullying.
  • May be a case of sorta subjective Truth in Television. To a kid who gets routinely bullied, it seems that the bully never truly gets what he deserves for it or they would have stopped a long time ago. There is an entire story arc about how Millie gets punished for hitting Jeremy back after he hit her, simply because the teacher didn't see the first offense. Many a bullied kid can tell you similar stories.
• Least Rhymable Word: Llewellyn invents the "authentic Llewellyn-brand borange" just so that orange will have a rhyme. He's a bit unclear about what exactly it does.
  • Not to mention that the very first strip has Ozymandias relieved that the kids at school can't make childish bullying rhymes about him because nothing rhymes with his name.
• Like Brother and Sister: Ozy and Millie. Especially now that their parents are married.
• Long Runners
• The Man Is Sticking It to the Man: Parodied.
• Master of Delusion: Millie here.
• Mattress Tag Gag: See Does This Remind You of Anything?, above.
• Meaningful Name: Dr. Wahnsinnig, the school psychiatrist. Her name means "insane" in German.
  • Mildly ironic because she's the Only Sane Man of the school faculty.
• Merlin Sickness: Locke.
• Name and Name
• Nice Hat: Ozy's top hat, which he got from Llewellyn.
• No Name Given: Ms. Mudd, until October 2008.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: subtle but visible on Millie's mother.
• Noodle Implements: Often combined with Historical In Jokes by Llewellyn for such masterpieces as "...that photo of me with Mrs. Calvin Coolidge and all the whipped cream."
• Noodle Incident: Isolde accidentally sneeze-fried Ozy three times
• The One Who Wears Shoes: Isolde and Locke. Also, Ms. Mudd, in the early comics, though they were phased out with the comic's Art Evolution.
• Only One Name: Llewellyn, apparently. The evidence is this wedding invitation.
• Orphaned Series: A followup series showing Ozy and Millie's later life was planned but never written.
• Our Dragons Are Different: In this case, they're a Brotherhood of Hats whose Hat is "benignly eccentric".
• Painting the Fourth Wall:
  • Llewellyn's font (and those of the other dragons, with the exception of the teenage Isolde). According to Word of God, the weird font represents the dragon accent, and Isolde lacks the accent because she has grown up in the US. Lampshaded here when a character says to Llewellyn "You also speak in a non-regulation font."
  • In addition, Jeremy, the dull-witted bully, speaks in all lowercase, in a cruder handwriting style.
• Parody Retcon: Millie attempts this here.
• Phrase Catcher: Anybody talking to Llewellyn for long will end up going "Wait. What?"
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: After a couple of years, Simpson aged the characters about two years, appropriately, but they then remained that age.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni - Millie is red and Ozy is blue.
  • But only in regards to personalities. Ozy is actually grey. Although his hatband, the only non-neutral color in his design, is blue.
• Retcon: With regards to curses.
• Rule of Funny: The character sheet on Jeremy: "He's a rabbit because that seemed funny."
• Running Gag: Ozy ends up bald at least once a year.
• Schedule Slip: Toward the end, the update schedule became "whenever the new strip is ready", which in practice meant roughly two to three times a week, on no particular days of the week.
• Seattle: The setting for the comic...
  • Write What You Know: ...probably because D.C. Simpson lives there.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Actually a Self Fulfilling Wish.
• Seven Minute Lull: Implied in an early strip. "Implied" because it didn't visually portray the lull.
• Shaggy Dog Story: Most of Llewellyn's stories. At one point Ozy remarks, "Some kids look for Waldo. I look for Dad's point."
• Shout-Out: Along with Added Alliterative Appeal. Millie's middle name is "Mehitabel", as in Archy and Mehitabel (sic) by Don Marquis.
  • Also, Isolde's dragon professor is Smaug (from the animated version).
    • Ozy's great-grandfather is named Pervical Smaug Llewellyn.
  • This comic has Locke quoting the Bob Dylan/Byrds song "My Back Pages".
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Here. Actually plausible...
• Spoof Aesop: Several, including "Pirates are good at math."
• The Stoic: Ozy.
  • Not So Stoic: Ozy looked like he was gonna cry after hearing about his birth mother.
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: Captain Locke shows up at this point of the wedding. After confirming that Llewellyn loves the bride, he hits the groom in the face with a pie, starting a food fight. Of course, pie fights are a traditional part of dragon weddings, so it isn't as disruptive as you'd think.
• Stuffed Into a Trashcan: Jeremy's (most likely) daily hobby involving poor Ozy. This webcomic exemplifies and often abuses this trope.
• Such a Lovely Noun: Done twice: once by Millie, once by someone from the government.
• Tomboy: Millie defines the trope and manages to be cute at the same time.
• Totem Pole Trench: Isolde and Millie try this to get Ozy pants from some lobbyist in Washington DC, but the lobbyist targets see through it instantly.
• Undermined by Reality: Let's just say that the less you know about the author's personal life, the happier you'll be.
• Volleying Insults: Ozy and Millie had a friendly version of this in one strip, in one of their games: iambic pentameter slam.
• The Wonka: Again, Llewellyn, who blurs the lines between Dumbledore, Frizzle, and Wonka.
• Would Hit a Girl: Jeremy, because Millie accused him of being sexist when he said he wouldn't.
• Word Salad Humor: Millie's attempt at creating a catchphrase for Avery, among other things.
• World of Funny Animals
• You Are the New Trend: Happened to Millie once. Strangely, it starts out with Felicia mistaking something Millie did for "the latest thing" even though Millie has never been a setter or follower of trends.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Ms. Mudd. It's a tribute to Marge Simpson.