Kick The Dog / Webcomics

2 Following

Kick the Dog in Webcomics.

• This is parodied👁 Image
  in an 8-bit Theater strip.
• Khrima from Adventurers!, he kicks cute things👁 Image
  .
• As soon as the villain, Frans Rayner, of the D.A.R.E To Resist Ninja Drugs and Ninja Violence story arc is introduced, he gets into this trope.👁 Image
  It could be seen as his Moral Event Horizon... but they are just mooks who failed him because of Dan McNinja's Incendiary Exponent.
• In Awkward Zombie, the Author Avatar does this literally👁 Image
  .
• But I'm a Cat Person takes this from the dog's point of view. The kicker's identity is still a mystery, but the aftermath inspires the heroes (at least, one of them) to commit to being on the dog's side.
• In Captain SNES, Mother Brain (a Harmless Villain in the show the comic is based on) takes it half-literally by smacking Captain N's dog Duke into a pit filled with Omega Energy just to spite the Captain. This upsets not only her enemies, but also her henchman, King Hippo.
• Zenith, from Commander Kitty never misses an opportunity👁 Image
  to👁 Image
  insult👁 Image
  Nin Wah👁 Image
  over her cyborg arm.
• Cyanide and Happiness uses this, taken as literally as possible, as the entire punchline, and stinger, in one of their animated shorts.
• In Darths & Droids #774👁 Image
  , Vader blowing up Naboo with the Peace Moon (translation: Alderaan with the Death Star). Discussed in The Rant:
  The Comic Irregulars: If you're going to have your bad guy do something despicably evil by destroying something huge, make it something that the PCs care about. Something they've fought for and made sacrifices to save.
  
  Something they've actually heard of before.
• Ludwig Von Koopa in A Day With Bowser Jr. He freaking punches a defenseless kid who tries to save Bowser Jr from his death!
• In Distortion Nuzlocke, Blue kills Johnny's pet rat under his foot.
• Dreaming Freedom: After finding out that Jeongmin has a crush on Jaehyeok, Juhyeon begins dating him and turns him against her.
  • Jayheok himself does this to Jeongmin by believing that she bullied Juhyeon, despite knowing Jeongmin longer than he has Juhyeon.
• The Dreamland Chronicles: They told to keep out of trouble, so the guard abuses👁 Image
  children before them.
• Alexander, the devil responsible for Redwen being a tiefling in Dungeons & Doodles: Tales from the Tables, cements his pure evil by incinerating one of his tiefling army after she is defeated by Angie, a move which severely pisses the paladin off with its sheer cruelty.
• Discussed by Tanna and Elon in this strip👁 Image
  of Ears for Elves, though no literal puppy-kicking happens.
• El Goonish Shive:
  • In the "Parable" arc, literally kicking a dog is one way to earn "evil points" in the in-universe video game. Susan considers doing it, as she doesn't appreciate her character having angel wings, but she can't bring herself to go through with it.👁 Image
    
  • For the opening scene👁 Image
    of "Sister 3" Part 18, Dan wanted to make it clear that the aberrations were monstrous killers, but didn't want to show an innocent bystander being killed. Enter (and swiftly exit) an Asshole Victim who was planning to Burn the Orphanage as a distraction from his robbery, with the ultimate goal of stealing puppies loved by children to train as attack dogs.
• In Endstone, Bolo literally smacks the dog, Gog, in the head with a chicken bone.👁 Image
  
• Very literal instance in General Protection Fault, in one of Trudy's earliest appearances👁 Image
  , complete with giggle. This turns out to be one of her nicer traits as the strip progresses.
• Homestuck:
  • Vriska Serket has kicked all the dogs. All of them. And has even shot a couple, though she got shot back for at least one of those dogs.
  • Eridan's destruction of the Matriorb, a defenceless, harmless object that the survival of the troll race depended on. Unlike some of his other actions, which could be seen as self-preservation or acting in the heat of the moment, this action was deliberate, calculated, and something he stood no personal gain from.
  • In the Act 6 Act 3 intermission flash, Cronus acts pretty creepily to Meenah, but his really earns his status as a Jerkass when he goes off on an abusive rant to Mituna for something that very clearly wasn't his fault.
  • Caliborn takes great glee in doing this whenever he can. It's extremely rare that he so much as interacts with anyone without insulting or physically injuring them in some way, often just for the hell of it.
• Nemen Yi, the Chosen of Battles in Keychain of Creation. When she first shows up, her moral status is indeterminate: sure, she's trying to sequester the group's precious artifact, but it had just been stolen by the villains for world-ending purposes. Then, after one of the team gets it back, the Chosen of Battles looks like she's ready to throw down on the group — until Marena points out that that would be illegal👁 Image
  . Fortunately, the conundrum of whether we're supposed to sympathize with Nemen Yi or not is solved in the very very next strip👁 Image
  , as she immediately chooses to try and steal the artifact and bait the rest of the group into attacking her first (so she can "defend" herself) by attempting to behead Secret, on the legal technicality that even though she is a defector from team evil and working for the protagonists, she's still an Abyssal Exalted. Going straight for The Woobie's neck just to get around a bureaucratic roadblock in your path is what we call "a signal".
• In Knights of the Old Republic, Darth Bandon attacks a guy as he's walking in to meet Darth Malak, and Darth Malak electrocutes two people for no apparent reason at one point.
• This👁 Image
  strip of LICD has a literal example.
• Richard the Warlock of Looking for Group does this on a regular basis, usually for comic effect.
  • Quite literally.👁 Image
    
• Minions At Work. Well, I don't feel really good about who we stole the candy from but you have to admit... it was easy👁 Image
  .
• New Knight Templar Xaphrael kicks the dog within his first half dozen strips in Misfile when he nearly chokes resident Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Cassiel in this strip👁 Image
  (for doing her best to get Rumsiel in trouble).
• In Monsieur Charlatan, Magda belligerently demands of Isidore when he last fed the cat.👁 Image
  
• Ragnar, the deranged Flying Brick snowman who rules the snow world with an iron fist, does this several times throughout Nixvir. The first time being when he destroys one of the steel girders holding up the upper plate of Overchester, causing it to fall on the middle plate, and killing hundreds of people and the second time being when he attempts to beat an oracle to death with her own tripod, and then proceeds to burn down the temple she's in anyway using his Eye Beams.
• Seymour, the Knight Templar vampire hunter from Nosfera does this when he kills some monsters after they had ALREADY SURRENDERED.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Kubota has kicked several puppies. He not only orders his men to kill a pregnant woman (which doesn't work that well, but still...), he seals the deal by poisoning and killing his assistant Therkla, just so he can make an effective escape. This last act might even put Kubota into even worse territory.
  • Vaarsuvius threatening Elan with death👁 Image
    when Elan says that he will not cover up for Vaarsuvius killing Kubota. In addition to suggesting that Elan had an affair with Therkla behind Haley's back. Note that Elan is their team-mate.
  • Killing Kubota in itself was a pretty significant moment, as though the guy definitely deserved it, Vaarsuvius didn't even know the guy's name. They just saw that Elan had tied him up, heard him talking about a trial, and then killed him to avoid a trial: not because he might escape justice, but because it would take too long and probably be boring.
  • Belkar constantly complains about not getting to kick any dogs. Although, he does eventually cross the line with his teammates when he kills the Oracle, an act which comes back to bite him hard as it triggers the Mark of Justice curse.
  • Yukyuk here👁 Image
    . He had no way of knowing that Mr. Scruffy was an enemy — he just decided to shoot a cat for fun.
  • Xykon, of course, as you would expect from a Card-Carrying Villain. His favorite is sending the Mooks to their deaths. Redcloak does the same until his My God, What Have I Done? moment during the battle of Azure City.
  • Tarquin. We know his political moves are evil, but in case the audience would feel it justified, he quickly shows that he is still evil. Even Elan realizes this when it's practically spelled out in giant flaming letters made of escaped slaves. Later, Elan sarcastically mentions the trope to him, but...
    Tarquin: "There is one more thing, Elan — then you may begin your long walk across the desert, if that's your decision."
    Elan: "What, do you have a bunny you need to punch in front of me or something?"
    Tarquin: "No, I'm talking about your dismal combat performance back in the pyramid." to his aide "Though make a note of the bunny thing for next time, that's good stuff."
  • Vaarsuvius is on the receiving end of a kick when Qarr, for no apparent reason, decides that what Vaarsuvius needed was to have salt rubbed in the wound of realizing how many people they killed by casting Familicide. There was literally no reason for him to do that, especially given how Qarr was there to convince V that it wasn't their fault and push them further into evil, and Qarr kind of ruined that scheme when he was indulging in diabolic mocking.
  • And there was very little need for Nale to rub it in Malack's face that he had killed his children. He shouldn't have been surprised by Malack's reaction👁 Image
    .
  • Bounty hunter friends Ganji and Enor get on Tarquin's bad side when they extort a comparatively small amount from the general. In a Disproportionate Retribution, Tarquin arranges for the two to fight a duel to the death in the Empire's arena. As Roy put it, "That lizard folk may a jackass, but he still doesn't deserve this. It's like watching someone duel their own puppy."
  • To demoralize Roy and put him under his thrall, the High Priest of Hel brings up one of Roy's worst memories— failing to save his dead little brother Eric from a Magic Misfire caused by his father's negligence, then cruelly wondering how many pieces Eric was left in afterwards. It backfires, not only does Roy break free of the enchantment and realizes his Weapon of Legacy powers, it causes him to realize that what he thought was a vampirized Durkon is not Durkon, as the real Durkon would never even think something like that.
• In Our Little Adventure, Peganone, Eva and Randi were attacked by Angelo. Not only they lost the fight, but Angelo ended up magically forcing the Paladin Eva to slay her own horse. The dramatic effect of this was lessened by her horse easily being able to outrun her, and Angelo getting bored and calling it off. It was still very cruel and unnecessary.
• At the end of a Penny and Aggie storyline, Charisma rants to her illegitimate son's face that he exists to ruin her life, after a series of events he had no control over, in front of her boyfriend. Needless to say, he leaves her soon after.
• More or less literally happens in The Q Man when Talbot remotely performs a command override during the Q Man's first mission👁 Image
  .
• For the first part of RPG World Galgarion comes across as a comical somewhat harmless villain. But as Cerebus Syndrome set in, Galgy got several surprisingly evil moments, including his attack on the Mubble village👁 Image
  , the slaughter of a turncoat henchman's family👁 Image
  and finally murdering Reka.👁 Image
  Some or all of these might count as crossing the Moral Event Horizon as well.
• And, of course, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal gives us a literal example👁 Image
  .
• Misty Snow from Shadowgirls. She was racist at the age of 5, and when she grew up, she became a teenage Queen of Jerkass. Her biggest feat in kicking a dog? She made Lin betray her best friend Becka for popularity, and led her in a trap, but instead of embarrassing her in public, like Lin thought it would end, Becka almost gets raped by three guys. And Misty was meanwhile playing with Lin's guilt, and thinking about it made Fate Worse than Death even worse.
  • And if you think Misty's bad, just wait until she becomes Possessed By Mother Hydra, who surpasses her in kicking a dog like hell. And she has this👁 Image
    promo art.
• In Sinfest, Satan assures Slick that the spray was labortory tested on orphans.👁 Image
  
• Several times in Slightly Damned:
  • First, we have the as-yet unnamed hooded archer, whose first action in the story is to kill Sakido.
  • Shortly afterwards, we're introduced to Lazuli and Talos, two demons who got their kicks out of tormenting Kieri.
  • And shortly after that, we learn Kieri's bunny form was a curse from a rabbit spirit (go figure), who did it to her for the lulz.
  • And then there's Denevol, who despite being an Angel, has done nothing but kick dogs (and bunnies) since he appeared.
  • Azurai was largely played for Black Comedy for several chapters, but we see how truly nasty he is in the St.Curtis arc, where none of his actions are Played for Laughs. He viciously beats up the elderly Denevol, who was already heavily injured at that point, murders Sanjulo after his partner, Kazai, sliced a piece of his horn off, and when he captures Kieri, he asks Buwaro what "that bitch's" full name is, showing himself to be a blatant sexist on top of being a remorseless killer.
  • Dakos tortures an angel child and tells his mother he'll let him go on the condition that she sings for him, knowing full well the magic braces placed on her makes speaking impossible.
  • Iratu flat-out tells his adoptive brother Buwaro to his face that he should have died instead of Sakido, stating that she gave up her life for "something stupid". He's even callous enough to try and kill him in cold blood himself later on, blaming him for Darius and Sakido's deaths.
• Sluggy Freelance:
  • Aylee (actually her evil clone) gets one of these after she goes through her corporate executive transformation. She attacks the gang's Halloween party and leaves all the guests unconscious outside and taunts Riff with the knowledge that she can kill him and everyone he knows so easily.
  • K'Z'K gets one when he takes over Gwynn's body (the second time). Trying to kill Riff, Torg, and Zoe? Well, they did foil his evil plans; there's some legitimate revenge motivation going on there. But trying to kill Kiki👁 Image
    , cute Talking Animal who never means anyone any harm? Then you've gotta pay.
• Squid Row I must be off to kick puppies!👁 Image
  
• Used for an Establishing Character Moment in Terra. In a flashback apparent Big Bad Solus Kalar orders one of his underlings to kill a human civilian in cold blood. When the underling attempts to fake it when Solus' back is turned he isn't fooled and hunts her down himself.
• Mr. Bignose from Tragic Deaths does this quite literally.
• Unsounded:
  • Starfish spends quite a lot of time being unnecessarily cruel, especially to children. He forces Matty to watch as Ana and Knock drown his father, which unsettles them despite them being killers for hire who have no issue with murder.
  • Keon core leaches Elan when Elan was already disarmed and quickly dying, just to ensure Elan's death was as horrifically painful as possible in what little time he had left. He also steps on Elan's hand as the dying man reaches for his Peaceguard badge, for added petty cruelty.
• In Urban Underbrush, Clive tells Cassidy that Caius doesn't live there, he just drops in -- so he shouldn't be in on the gift exchange. Cut to a woe-begone Caius outside, holding a gift meant for Clive and thinking "I don't?"👁 Image
  
• A hilarious literal example👁 Image
  , from the Webcomic Van Von Hunter.
• Zebra Girl:
  • Sandra does this to her entire town once she fully embraces her demon nature. Things get really serious when you realize that she imprisons and tortures (at least, mentally) Sam.
  • After being turned back (temporarily) into a human again, Sandra steals Mabel's thimble from her, just because she can. However, this time, she takes pity on Mabel and gives it back. This is the first sign of humanity she has shown in months.
• In Silk: Shards of the past👁 Image
  , when Snakebite Andi is shocked at how much power Crow Daddy has gained, he blasts her to the wall with a sonic blast. He uses his powers on her two more times, once when she chewed him out for using Barry the Chink as a human sacrifice where she gets held in place with his telekinesis, and again when she gets blasted with red lightning after she suggests that he add one more member to his True Knot clan.