The Wotch

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The Wotch
Author(s)	Anne Onymous and Robin Ericson
Website	http://www.thewotch.com/
Current status / schedule	Updating every Tuesday (occasionally friday)
Launch date	2002-11-21 [1]
Genre(s)	Fantasy/Comedy
Rating(s)	PG - for comedic fantasy violence and action and suggestive themes.

The Wotch is a webcomic by "Anne Onymous" and "Robin Ericson". The first daily page appeared on November 21, 2002. The comic has a simple cartoon style. Its plots are clearly influenced by manga, particularly Ranma ½ by Rumiko Takahashi, while the mixture of humour and drama is reminiscent of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which is occasionally referenced explicitly) and Jeff Smith's Bone. The comic is season-based, with about 9 issues a season.

The Wotch updated on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays but has experienced several delays due to outside events. In particular, it went on hiatus from about November 10, 2004, but returned to its normal schedule on January 5, 2005 following a successful donation drive. Donation income has since supported Anne Onymous. On December 29, 2006 the strip was placed on a second significant hiatus caused by real-life personal issues afflicting the author. The comic maintained regular updates during the hiatus by posting comics authored and illustrated by numerous guests. Regular story comics restarted on February 28, with Anne Onymous once again doing the writing and drawing. As of March 18, 2008, the comic only updates on Tuesdays and Fridays.

1 Plot
2 Content
3 Major Characters
4 Cheer!
5 The Wotch: My Sister, Myself
6 Connections with other webcomics
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Plot

Two high school students, Robin Ericson and Jason Grey, are curious about Anne Onymous, the new girl at school. Jason is particularly smitten with her because of his fetish for redheads. What's more, Anne seems to have magic powers. Jason thinks she must be a witch, but when he confronts her she tells them she is actually a Wotch. It all began one day while walking in the woods near band camp, she found a box containing a magic flute and was told by a mysterious voice that the flute had given her the magicks of the Wotch - which she must use wisely.

In any event, her powers have a tendency to go wrong, causing endless chaos for her friends and classmates. Unknown to her, in another dimension the Dark Lord Melleck Xaos (pronounced kay-ahs) and his henchmen are plotting to exploit the powers of the Wotch in order to rule the world. Xaos's efforts usually cause Anne's spells to misfire with even more catastrophic results, resulting in strange transformations (Jason frequently finds himself transformed into a girl, "Sonja," which he doesn't mind so much as long as he/she has red hair!), and the appearance of mythical creatures on the school campus.

Meanwhile, the editor of the school newspaper, Ivan Bezdomny (the name of a character from Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita), is determined to find something interesting to put in the paper, which means that Anne and her friends have to try and prevent him from finding any evidence of her powers while at the same time trying to put right the latest disaster.

Anne lives with her older brother. She frequently transforms him into a little girl at his request, because he finds having the simple mind of a small child to be relaxing.

It has been suggested that this article be split into articles entitled List of Characters, Spells, Objects, and Anomalies in The Wotch and its spin-offs, accessible from a disambiguation page. (Discuss)

[edit] Content

The Wotch contains mild comedic fantasy violence and action, peril, and suggestive themes. It is the equivalent of a PG rated movie.

The comic is also heavily reliant on supernatural gender transformations, often changing male characaters into female characters and vice versa. It is used for comedic effect.

[edit] Major Characters

Anne Onymous – Anne Onymous was a completely normal high school girl until she found a magical flute at Band Camp. As she held it in her hand, she was told that she was the latest in the Wotch line. Still learning, her lack of experience has been the cause of many crazy events in Tandy Gardens. At first, she tried to hide her secret from everyone except her older brother/younger sister, until Jason Grey, initially obsessed with redhead Anne, inadvertently saw her float a pencil to her hand while stalking her. Since then, she's let her secret be known to Jason, Robin Ericson, Angelique the Defective Djinn, Milo Happerbasket, Katie McBride, Samantha Wolf, Ally Taverner, Ally's boyfriend Joe, Mingmei Wu, Irene Lew and James Thompson. She seems to have a crush on the adult version of Link from the Zelda series. She is usually portrayed wearing a pink t-shirt and a purple skirt.

Robin Ericson – Robin is close friends with both Anne and Jason. He originally considered Anne to be just a friend; however, he has developed a crush on her (which she seems to neither notice nor return). Robin has no extraordinary abilities whatsoever, and all three times he tried to use magic, the attempts failed miserably. Shamed by the fact that he could neither help nor protect Anne, Robin has recently taken up martial arts. He often serves as the voice of reason when Anne is flustered by her latest magical mishap, or when Jason is simply being himself. Robin has a younger brother named Kirk, who calls himself by the name "Kirkashi". Robin usually wears a black t-shirt with a Rutgers scarlet knight logo on it. He has an Invader Zim poster over his bed. When he is a girl he often called "Robyn". Unlike Jason, Robin is not quite comfortable when he is transformed into a girl.

Jason Grey – Jason's entire life revolves around three things: reading comic books, making sarcastic remarks, and redheads. Jason is the third member of the trio, and maintains a high level of stoicism, commenting only once in a while, usually still while reading his comics. He remains perfectly calm in even the most dire of situations, such as being the only one to notice that one of their friends had just transformed into a bloodthirsty werecat. In fact, it seems as though the only times when he isn't completely taciturn and laconic is when A): a new comic/movie has just come out, or B): his redhead sense starts tingling. Jason is obsessed with redheads, completely ignoring the existence of girls of any other hair color. In fact, the only non-redhead he has ever been attracted to was, quite ironically, the love of his life, a Djinn named Angelique, who is currently in the Djinn dimension. Anne has a habit of transforming Jason into a redheaded girl. He was originally incredibly annoyed by this, but is no longer bothered by this (unless he is not transformed into a redhead). He has named his alternate form Sonja. (S)he recently went out on a date with a boy named Larry in order to get him to stop constantly calling him after seeing 'her', and being smitten. The date ended with Larry kissing 'her', leaving Jason in a state of shock. He seemed to be doing better afterward, but whenever he sees Larry, he screams and runs off in a panic. Jason's usual attire is a grey t-shirt with the letters "CMX" (short for comics) in a yellow blurb.

The Cheer! Squad – Alexandra King, Samantha Smith, Cher Lita Harper, and Joanna Star are seemingly the only four cheerleaders in all of TG High. They were originally four Football Jocks/Bullies named Aaron King, Gene Smith, Sunny Leo Harper, and Colin Star, who were transformed into Cheerleaders by Anne's Personified Feminine Pride when they were picking on Wolfie. Joanna is the only one who remembers their past lives, though it is revealed early on in the "Consequences" story arc that Alex has had a dream about her life as Aaron. The four star in their own Comic: Cheer!
Other important characters include Cassie Sinclair, Samantha Wolf, Katie McBride, Evan Onymous, Mingmei Wu/Professor Sorgaz, and Miranda West

[edit] Cheer!

The Cheer! Squad: (In a "Z" pattern) Alex, Jo, Lita, and Sam

The Wotch: Cheer!, or just Cheer!, is an official spin-off comic started in August 2005 by one named Tselsebar, and updated in four-panel greyscale thrice a week. It follows the slightly absurd life and times of four cheerleaders of Tandy Gardens High, who ubenknownst to themselves started out as football jocks/bullies until they ran afoul of the Wotch's personified feminist side. The group has decided that it's their mission to get everyone to actually come to the school's sporting events and raise school spirit. The comic is mostly within Wotch canon, but what is and isn't is ultimately decided by Anne Onymous.

[edit] The Wotch: My Sister, Myself

This article or section contains information about an unreleased video game.
The content may change substantially as more information becomes available. Please do not add speculation to this article, and remember to cite a published source for details.

The Wotch: My Sister, Myself is an upcoming canonical Nintendo DS (formerly for the Game Boy Advance) game being developed by multiple members of the comic's forums, in particular those known as Phantom Inker, Thom Khatt, and Lilly Onymous. Recently Rebecca Heineman has signed on to help the devleopment of the game and speed up its production. Its gameplay is planned to be similar to Secret of Mana and the 2D Legend of Zelda games. All that's known for sure about the plot is that Anne Onymous' sister is kidnapped and her friends vanish as well, so off she goes to rescue them all. The game's engine uses LISP for event scripting and BSP trees for collision detection and pathfinding.

The developers changed platforms citing several factors: GBA development is ramping down as the DS is replacing it, the DS has more RAM and better audio quality, greater storage capacity on the DS game cards and more effects.^[1]

[edit] Connections with other webcomics

The Wotch has been shown to take place in the same universe/multiverse of certain other webcomics (known by most fans as "The Wotchiverse").

Another comic, Zebra Girl by Joe England, also appears to have been confirmed. Sandra (the main character of the comic) has made multiple cameos in The Wotch, as well as another character named as Crystal. Anne made a cameo at one point in Zebra Girl on the Magi-Net, which is a sort of magical equivalent of the Internet created by Joe England. Its existence was confirmed in the Wotchiverse when Miranda West mentioned it here.

The comic Triquetra Cats, taking place a few centuries in the future, shows Anne and Xaos in a flashback montage about Magic-Users. There is also a mention about Wolfie and her amulet, though the story has been altered over the years. Wotch merchandise can also be seen being sold at a comic shop in Triquetra Cats.

There have also been cameos by characters from Abstract Gender and Krakow, and Rich Wilkins, a Wotch character from Ekaltsew High School, (and a reference to Buffy antagonist Richard Wilkins III) has made an appearance in Abstract Gender.

Moperville, the town in which the events of El Goonish Shive occur, is mentioned early in the series. There was also a short filler series, intended as a joke, describing a satirical Wotch/El Goonish Shive crossover. More recently, a character has been introduced who was created when she fused with the remains of a "Goo Monster" that her master had defeated- this is an apparent reference to the goo monsters that were sent to alternate dimensions by the El Goonish Shive character, Lord Tedd. El Goonish Shive is another webcomic, similar to the Wotch in its frequent transformation and gender-swapping. Two Uryuoms, aliens from the world of El Goonish shive also appear in a filler. The Wotch has never actually been referenced in the EGS continuity, only in the form of guest comics and fan art.^[2]^[3]^[4]

The webcomic known as Casstoons, made by fans of the DC Comics character Cassandra Cain as a protest to her current status is the DC-universe and as a parody of comics in general, also has some minor links to the Wotch. Anne is a fan of the Casstoons and has made some guest comics for it, but the only in-continuity link between the two is a small cameo of Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown as they appear in the Casstoons.^[5]

In the webcomic Exiern the magician in the first chapter cast a spell in an attempt to call forth the Uricarn Demon, and instead summoned a Unicorn, the creature that Cassie was trying to summon when she called upon the Uricarn Demon.

The Wotch did appear, briefly, in a non-canon filler comic in the Misfile comic.^[6]. Additionally, art of misfile characters has appeared in the art section of at least one spinoff comic.^[7]

[edit] References

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