Bristled
From WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia.
| Bristled | |
|---|---|
 Beth and Ru present Az with a birthday present | |
| Author(s) | Stephanie Mebius |
| Website | |
| Update schedule | Wednesdays and Saturdays |
| Launch date | 2006 |
| End Date | Currently running |
| Genre | Furry/Comedy |
| Rating(s) |  |
Bristled is a webcomic by Stephanie Mebius centered around the lives of three female roommates.
Started unofficially on deviantART in the summer of 2006, Bristled was given its own domain and website on 30 November. The comic was initially drawn in digital format consisting of black-and-white line art, with an occasional full-color comic. Due to the popularity of the colored version, it was then produced in full-color on a consistent basis. However, due to real-life constraints on the author, the comic has returned to a black-and-white format, with some gray shading included for added depth. Occasionally a full-color comic is still produced. It is created entirely in Adobe Photoshop, using a Wacom Intuos 9"x12" graphics tablet.
Contents |
[edit] Characters
The characters of Bristled are animals of varying species, living together in a society that mimics real life. Though the anthropomorphism is evident in every facet of the comic, some instinctive behaviors still control their lives.
[edit] Azraelle Wormser
Often going by shortened names such as Az or Azzy, Azraelle is a common raccoon. Her fur is medium grey with a darker band of fur across the face, as is characteristic of raccoons in general. She wears a light blue shirt and jeans, and a gold bracelet on each wrist. Despite never being able to see her eye color in the comic itself, her right eye is brown and her left eye is blue. Her hair is also a dark blue; it is generally considered to be dyed this color.
Azraelle is known to be somewhat flippant regarding the "real world," and will often ignore facts and logical discussion that she does not consider fun. She is approximately 28 years old, has held intermittent temporary positions in data entry, but does not hold any sort of degree or higher education. Azraelle is notorious for eating large quantities of food amazingly fast, often to the chagrin of her roommate. She claims to have invented several "sure-fire" money-making schemes; her most famous is the "Sock Experience" that supposedly lets customers feel what it is like to be laundry. Azraelle is also addicted to the high-speed Internet connection that was active in the apartment until Beth had it shut off in order to reduce the monthly bill overhead.
If ever needed, Azraelle chooses to arm herself against threats with a garden shovel.
Az is also a half-life fan. She even dressed up in a HEV suit that Gordon Freeman wears during a halloween party. She even sports his glasses. Due to the attention to detail, it is unknown how she made the suit or where she got it.
[edit] Bethany Annabelle Morrison
Usually seen relaxing in the apartment wearing her signature pink ringer midriff shirt and grey sweatshorts, Beth is a blonde albino rabbit with oversized front teeth. She also typically wears gold hoop earrings. Though never seen in the comic, her eyes are red. She almost always keeps her hair tied back in a ponytail. When at work, she is seen wearing a black turtleneck with three-quarter-length sleeves and brown khakis.
Beth is a vegetarian, enjoys meditating (presumably to relieve the stress that her roommate Az causes her), and currently works for the United States Post Office. Though being a very active exerciser, Beth will also sit and watch her favorite television shows when her roommate isn't bugging her. She also enjoys reading and considers herself well-versed in literary history. She usually puts up an intelligent defense against Azraelle's mindless rants and annoyances. In response to Azraelle's carefree view of life, she sometimes feels she must take on the role of the "responsible one." This leads her to often act similar to Az's mother.
Beth's general dispostion is rather bleak; according to Azraelle, Beth has been seen to smile only twice in the last year. Although she is usually in a pessimistic state of mind, she rarely ever lashes out. But when she gets really upset, she will make a choking gesture with her hands. Az refers to this as the "Force-choke," and has only ever seen her use it once.
Despite her fit and healthy physique, Beth was very obese during junior and senior high school, earning the degrading nickname "Behemoth" by her hip, trend-following peers. This obesity subsided slightly after school, but was still present when she married a few years later. Beth is currently divorced.
[edit] Ruac Lycia
The newest tenant in the apartment previously shared only between Azraelle and Bethany, Ruac (or simply Ru) responded to an ad placed on a telephone pole (presumably placed by Azraelle). At first, Ru was tricked by Az into thinking that they needed another roommate in order to relieve financial stress caused by having a loved one on life support. In reality, it was simply an attempt by Az to keep high-speed Internet access. Despite this, Ru has agreed to stay in the apartment.
Ruac is a cheetah with dark grey hair and blond highlights. Her eye color is red, seen once in a close-up. She has a few eccentricities in her speech, often saying "yush" instead of "yes". She has mentioned that she has a large sum of money at her disposal, though exactly how she obtained it has not been revealed. She is generally cheerful and happy at all times.
Though there are currently three tenants sharing the apartment, the apartment itself only had two bedrooms. Ruac currently sleeps in Azraelle's bedroom, whereas Azraelle has volunteered to sleep on the couch. Since the apartment is inhabited by all females, Ru often feels it unnecessary to cover herself up after showering or bathing. The first time Beth saw her, Ruac was wearing only a purple towel on her head.
Ruac has a trans-dimensional shape-shifting specter, known only as "The Shadow," as a pet. She can communicate directly with it in person, and long-distance through a series of crystals.
[edit] The Shadow
Not much is known about the Shadow, other than it is a trans-dimensional shape-shifting specter, and that it belongs to and obeys commands from Ruac. Usually prefering to appear as a vaguely humanoid cloud with red eyes, it is capable of taking on many different forms, from simple objects to people. While in its cloudy form, it seems to only be able to communicate through grunts, slobbers, whines, and other similar sounds. However when it takes the form of another person, it can apparently adopt their speech patterns as well.
The Shadow can communicate with Ruac long-distance via a series of crystals that Ruac can set out. While Ruac speaks out loud during this process, the Shadow can simply relay his thoughts directly to Ruac. He is also apparently capable of direct-thought communication with anyone he chooses to touch (as seen in the dual-action episode "All Events Are In Real-Time," wherein he surrounded Beth with cloudy tendrils in order to give her pertinent information about what had been happening around her). At one point he even demonstrated the ability to temporarily override Ruac's body through her proximity to the crystals in order to inform Azraelle of information she was looking for.
[edit] Other characters
[edit] Mr. Wallace
Mr. Wallace is Azraelle's boss, a short, fair-tempered koala.
[edit] Doug Duncan
Doug is one of Azraelle's co-workers, a Golden Retriever who has a penchant for telling really bad jokes. Meeting him for the first time, Doug introduces himself to Az by using a gag hand. This prompts Azraelle to invent a linear scale by which to rank "lame" jokes, and naming the scale after Doug. (The false-hand gag was initially rated a 23, which she almost immediately raised to 24.5 after it was found that the gag hand wouldn't let go.)
[edit] Rodney Poole
Rodney, a dark-haired squirrel, works with Beth at the Post Office, and secretly has a crush on her. He usually sits by himself at lunch time, but not out of loneliness, but rather seemingly out of respect for the "natural order of lunch" that he observes in his co-workers; a sort of peaceful, zen-like state that everyone supposedly reaches. Of course, to his co-workers, he is simply a loner.
[edit] Craig Moyer
Craig is a trouble-making domestic cat who works with Beth at the Post Office. He relates everything in his life to role-playing terms and concepts, and uses his lunch time to play tabletop role-playing games with his friends. He is quick to suspect his co-workers of schemes and keeping secrets, and generally doesn't seem to trust many people.
[edit] Artemis Sweeney
One of Craig's few close friends, Artemis is a bird, although the exact species is unknown. He is only ever seen wearing dark sunglasses and a black beret. His headfeathers are tucked back under the beret, and appear to be dredlocked. Though less suspecting than Craig, he will go along with Craig's ideas when there's a chance he might be right.
[edit] Crystal Lewis
Another of Beth's co-workers, Crystal is a short ferret species with curly black hair, usually pulled back in a pony tail. She is usually very on-edge while at work, worrying about meeting her quota so she won't be fired.
[edit] The Suit
Bethany's interviewer and seemingly the Human Resources manager at the Post Office, The Suit is a dull-reddish fox in a grey business suit and sunglasses, bearing a striking similarity to Agent Smith in the Matrix films. So far no name has been mentioned, but everyone at the Post Office seems to recognize him, and somewhat fear him. This may be due to the fact that he is known to dish out "sucker punches" at random.
[edit] Frank Thomas
Seen during a flashback story arc, Frank is Beth's ex-husband. He is a tall albino rabbit like Beth, but has dark hair and whiskers. His family owned a weight loss clinic that he was hoping to inherit. In order to do so, he wanted to find a sure-fire product that the clinic could sell, thus bringing the company out of debt.
[edit] Steph
On occasion, the author herself will appear in the comic to explain some information and generally just to break the fourth wall when needed. She appears as a brown raccoon, as opposed to Azraelle, who is grey. She is sometimes seen wearing glasses (as the author also will do), and changes outfits and hair style in every appearance. This is the only way the author will show herself in the comic. In the Bristled FAQ, she jokingly states that she cannot show photos of herself due to the claim that in order to make the comic successful she had to sell her soul. Thus, she will not actually photograph. She mentions that it's tough enough for people around her, because the only way to even see her in person is through reflections.
[edit] Story and style
Bristled is usually shown using a typical four-panel layout, though in several episodes the layout has been increased to six panels, and in one case a total of twelve panels are used in a single episode. The characters are drawn in simplified forms, with strong lines and vivid colors. Speech appears over their heads in the typical comic-strip format, with the occasional narration in yellow rectangles.
The comic is set in the apartment that the three rent, but sometimes shows their various places of work. The time and place is a modern-day anthropomorphic USA; the locale is unspecified, but is generally considered to be an urban environment.
Though many of the episodes are self-contained "quickies," a few story arcs have also developed.
- The first story arc involved Azraelle's first day at her temp job, where she is required to use a co-worker's cubicle until one can be made ready for her. Later she rushes home during her lunch break to get her time card and finds herself distracted by snacks and an overwhelming urge to surf the Internet.
- In a later story, Beth confronts Azraelle about the lack of finances and suggests that they sacrifice the high-speed Internet access until they start pulling in more income. This causes Azraelle to object and suggest an alternate course of action: getting another roommate in order to relieve the strain caused by the rent money instead. As Beth is out applying for a job at the Post Office, Az interviews and agrees to let Ruac become the third roommate. When Beth comes home to find a naked Ruac in the apartment and Azraelle nowhere to be found, she calls Azraelle on her cell phone to find that she's out buying an online game (EverQuest II). After Beth finds out that Az tricked Ruac, she turns the tables on Az by having the high-speed Internet connection shut off anyway.
- In the Spring 2007 arc, Az finds Beth the next morning apparently suffering from extreme lack of sleep, mumbling about "the eyes." Taking her bed for the night, Az emerges a few hours later to find Beth terrorized by a strange figure in black. After whacking it with her trademark shovel, the creature takes the form of Ruac - unfortunately, the real Ruac turns up to spoil the fun. She appears to have power over the being, who she sends back to another dimension to "think about what it has done."
- When Beth receives an E-mail about the company summer picnic which states that she can bring a friend, she decides against telling Azraelle about it. Azraelle suspects something is up but is not sure what. She tells Ruac, who then enlists the help of the Shadow to secretly tag along with Beth to work, disguised as her left earring. However, after the Shadow realizes just how boring data entry can be, he takes it upon himself to wander away from Beth's ear. He inadvertantly causes a great deal of mayhem as Rodney trips and is knocked out while accidentally de-pantsing the Shadow, who has taken on Beth's form as a disguise. Artemis and Craig pursue the Shadow through the Post Office hallways, and culminating in the women's restroom. While Rodney faces being fired by the Suit for apparent sexual harrassment, Beth realizes that the Shadow has followed her to work and is causing all the problems around her. Striving to keep the Shadow's existence a secret and preventing Rodney's firing at the same time, she seeks help, only to be presented with a compensatory check for emotional damages that Rodney supposedly caused her. Before being given the choice to accept (and thus causing Rodney to lose his job) or turn it down with no proof of his innocence, a loud shriek is heard as Crystal discovers the unconscious body of Craig in the women's restroom.
- Simultaneously as the above plot, a smaller plot is being told in parallel back at the apartment, as Azraelle explains to Ruac about Beth's brief marriage to Frank. She first shows Ruac Beth's wedding photo, in which Beth appears moderately overweight. Azraelle explains that her husband was trying to save his family's weight-loss clinic from financial problems (and thus proving to his family that he deserves to inherit the business), when he was mysteriously contacted by a company selling black-market weight-loss products. Giving in to the prospect of making a lot of money, he promised to deliver the money needed in exchange for a wonder drug that allegedly caused dramatic weight loss results after taking only one pill.
[edit] Bristled Lite
Occasionally a special episode will be presented, labeled as "Bristled Lite." These segments are meant to be one-shots in which the author takes time to explain some piece of information, such as why the comic has taken so long to update. These episodes are generally not considered to be of the main, numbered procession of episodes (the author privately labels them by adding a B to the end of the last numbered episode).
Next to the Bristled Lite logo, a tag line often appears. Past episodes have had lines like "Now with half the effort!"; "Now Humor-Free!"; and "Recommended by that one doctor out of five who just HAS to be a trouble-maker!"
[edit] Trivia
- The first episode of Bristled is actually number fourteen. There are a total of thirteen unpublished episodes that the author had created before renaming the comic to "Bristled," and two since. She has hinted that they may be completed and published at a later date.
- The comic was originally to be named Fur Real, and then later Fur Hire. Later, as Steph was working out character concept sketches, the name "Bristled" came to her after drawing an image of Azraelle with her fur bristled up.
- The apartment where Az, Beth, and Ru live is number '73.' This number was inspired from the apartment number of one of Steph's friends in real life.
- The characters Azraelle Wormser and Ruac Lycia are actually the names of two player characters used in the online game Second Life. The character of Azraelle belongs to the author herself, while Ruac Lycia is a friend; Bethany Morrison is the only main character that was created solely for the Bristled webcomic.
- The name Azraelle is a faux-feminization of the name Azrael, most commonly known as the Angel of Death. Rumor is that the author started using the name as an homage to a cat that she used to own, having the feminized name.
- In the episode "On Your Toes" Beth is seen in a fantasy sequence riding a motorcycle that is based on a Suzuki SV-650s.
- In the episode "Regarding Bethany," the image of Beth's security badge includes her employee number, 19771216. This is actually Steph's birthdate (December 16th, 1977).
- Episode 56, "T.K.O.", featured an Easter-egg drawing of a Head Crab from the Half-Life series of games located just above the logo; Steph has made several references to the game series throughout the comic.
- In the episode "Inner Conflict," two small figures that represent Beth's good and evil sides appear on her shoulders. The "good," who turns out was just there to find a good place to read, was in fact reading The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.
