Expy / Webcomics

Following

Expies in webcomics are as follows:

• Bizarre Uprising: Pink hair, green eyes, and a Girly Girl? Mitsu's crush draws a lot of inspiration from Sakura Haruno, even if it's mostly just her looks.
• It was explained by the author that N4-T3 (Nate) of Bob and George, the Yellow Demon that was converted into a good guy, was an Expy of a guy named Nate with similar glass that was going to be in the hand-drawn comic that was originally planned.
• Miranda, Timothy, and Reseda from But I'm a Cat Person are AU versions of original characters from the author's earlier fancomic, And Shine Heaven Now. Ann Walker is a derivative of that comic's AU version of Little Orphan Annie. Several readers have identified Stuart Cohen as resembling (a sinister AU version of) Jon Stewart.
• One of Jolene's coworkers in Clover & Cutlass is a dual-knife-wielding ranger with monomaniacal bloodlust, and who ardently believes that Murder Is the Best Solution. All of this makes him a dead ringer for Belkar.
• Creative Release gives us Etoile, who is a very explicit expy of Ikari Shinji (he's a pilot who protects his planet from alien attacks and has doubts about his motivations).
• Natasha Wing from Electric Wonderland became introduced after Peter Paltridge's disgust with Chuck character Anna Wu playing a progressively smaller role compelled him to make his own Asian Action Girl.
• DARK MOON: THE BLOOD ALTAR:
  • Sooha has a lot in common with Bella Swan of The Twilight Saga. Like Bella, Sooha is a Cute Bookworm with low self-esteem who moves to a new town and meets two groups: one are vampires and the other are werewolves, later ending up in a Love Triangle with one from each group, plus tend to be a Damsel in Distress with both groups always coming to her aid. For bonus points, Sooha has long and straight brown hair like Bella has in the books. The very few differences is that Sooha is more cheery and actually wants friends and was badass with Super-Strength from the start even though she's not a vampire, unlike Bella who was a reserved loner that was passive and useless for most of the story. Fans of the series often compare Sooha to Bella in either a loving or derisive way.
  • Princess Selen is one to Princess Serenity from Sailor Moon. They're both the reincarnation of a high school student, had a secret romance with a Tall, Dark, and Handsome black-haired man twice, have a lunar-themed name and the typical Silk Hiding Steel personality of a Princess Classic. Even appearance-wise, both characters have Innocent Blue Eyes and their Iconic Outfit is a white ballgown with golden accessories. Also like the version in the 2003 live-action series, she appears out of nowhere with seemingly malicious intent.
• Grace, of El Goonish Shive, definitely has nothing in common with Squirrel Girl... oops. On the other hand, "cat girl"-to-"squirrel girl" substitution doesn't leave many options anyway.
• The Fan: Masked vigilante Maelstrom is not completely unlike a certain mascot of a certain band.
• Grrl Power:
  • Zephan Zoeng is an older Wang Chi from Big Trouble in Little China, per DaveB's comments for strip #1074.
  • The author readily admits that Gadgeteer Genius Digit is heavily inspired by Gadget Hackwrench of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. Lampshaded in "Mouse Averse", where Maxima is shown to reject Digit's first choice of a glowbod which would have made her look like Gadget.
  • Goose is acknowledged by the writer to bear an unfortunate resemblance to a certain video game character.
• Bro's rapping ventriloquist dummy Lil' Cal in Homestuck shares a large number of traits with Franklin from Arrested Development, one of Hussie's favourite shows.
  • In Act 6, we meet the Alpha kids, aka alternate universe counterparts of the original kid's guardians, who share some similarities to the dead trolls. Jane Crocker shares many similarities to Feferi and is related to her by adoption, Jake English has mirrors Eridan in many ways, Roxy seems to be based on Nepeta, and Dirk is Equius. Their aspect and even their relationships tie into this.
    • This isn't completely done without a callback to the fact that the session of the Alpha kids is a doomed session, and mirrors the fact that the trolls the Alpha kids are based off, are all dead. The session of the Beta kids is the scratched one, and the fact that the patron trolls of the Beta kids (Vriska, Kanaya, Terezi and Karkat) are still alive.
  • Given that Lord English, in both name and properties, is (at first unintentionally, but later canonically) similar to Lord British of Ultima, it seems that his servant Gamzee's miraculous inability to die in all timelines, despite such extreme injuries as taking dozens of Caliborn's bullets in the chest, makes him an expy of Chuckles.
• Lindesfarne from Kevin & Kell fulfills a very similar role to that of Samantha from Safe Havens: a kind, witty and intelligent scientist. Both were created by Bill Holbrook.
• Klunscomic:
  • Jesse the Killer is an obvious riff on Jeff the Killer, complete with the similar name, hoodie and Slasher Smile.
  • Jolly Jack's design and name is based off of Creepypasta character Laughing Jack.
  • In-Universe, Toona Cassirole is based off of Miss B, complete with godlike powers. It should be worth noting that Linnie Bygone, Toona's creator, was given permission by Miss B to create a character based on her.
• The Law of Purple has several characters who are explicitly expies of Yu-Gi-Oh! characters: Lette, who is Seto Kaiba with boobs and a sense of humor, Juni, who is based on Alister, and Carli/y/eigh, who is Zigfried von Schroeder.
• Magick Chicks has several among its cast, most notably human renditions of "the Bronies".
  • Rain and AJ are Rainbow Dash and Apple Jack respectively and have similar personality traits. The same is true of Chastity, who stands in for Rarity, Fluttershy is Skye, and Rosie is Pinkie Pie.
  • There's also Tiffany Winters, who is a parody of Buffy Summers. While Tandy is based on Rin Tohsaka, right down to being a mega twin-tailed tsundere and a Class S Zettai Ryouiki (when she's in uniform).
• Meawbin the creepy cat: In "TV", a Sadoko lookalike climbs out of a TV and is immediately harassed by Meawbin. "Meawbin Ch.9 for Howl Magazine" shows a different one who comes in just to pet a dog and leaves.
• In-universe case in MegaTokyo. Kotone, the Delicate and Sickly girl Kimiko is voicing in a game, is an expy of Tohya Miho, just like all other such girls in-universe. Miho's story touched the world so much that it became more real than she ever was. One of the side effects of this is that she created the Delicate and Sickly trope as writers tried to capture the emotion of her story. The other is that it brought her back to life to relive her sickness and die again. And again and again and again...
• The characters of Mike: Bookseller all work at a stand in for Barnes & Noble called Booksellers. Another bookstore (standing in for the now extinct Borders chain) appeared in the comic by the name of Booktraders.
• Muted: Raum, the demon Avaline summoned in her ritual, is said In-Universe to have a resemblance to Howl from Howl's Moving Castle, although neither cousin can remember the titular character's name.
• Momo from NEXT!!! Sound of the Future is one of Princess Peach. Her bangs, eye shape, and full lips are very similar, and her hair is the exact same colour as Peach’s earrings. On her character profile, she wears peach shaped earrings, and peaches are listed as one of her likes, meaning the similarities were almost certainly intentional.
• A lot of characters in Nixvir, particularly the gods, are intentionally similar to the gods of Classical Mythology. Zdios, the de facto leader of the pantheon, is similar to Zeus (albeit without all the infamous shapeshifting love-making stuff while still retaining the fierce temper); Choschech, his brother, is the World Oak's counterpart to Hades; his permamate Kori, the Queen of the Dead, is obviously intended to represent Persephone (her name being a pun on Persephone's original name "Kore"); Wallas-Darzea is similar to Pallas Athena, with her name being a pun on both "Pallas" and "Wallace" (puns on the name "Wallace" are common in Aeneas1's works); Varya-Aphrodisias is similar to Aphrodite, and even gets a scene reminiscent of Diomedes' wounding of Aphrodite; Arcuray, Zdios' son and the messenger of the gods, is obviously based on Hermes, and, of course, Iriya, the Goddess of the Rainbows and Eax the Goddess of the Dawn are based on both Iris and Eos respectively. That's just to name but a few. On the mortal side of things, we have Zeta Toad, who was loosely based on Toad of Toad Hall, albeit a much more foul-mouthed and dangerous variation; the Faerie Redmane, who is similar to a combination of the Faerie Godmother from the Shrek franchise and the Faerie Blackstick from William Makepeace Thackeray's The Rose and the Ring; Randalf del Rey, who is, ironically enough, closer to Merlin than the wizards that we're familiar with, and Old Harry Flowerpot is based on the Demon Headmaster from the novel series of the same name.
• Pepper&Carrot: The author has confirmed that Pepper's three witch mentors are intentionally similar to Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg from the Discworld novels. Cayenne looks similar to Paul Kidby's depictions of Granny Weatherwax in his Discworld artwork, and has a similar personality as well. Pepper's other mentors, Thyme and Cumin, both have some similarities to Nanny Ogg; basically, Thyme is more similar personality-wise, whereas Cumin has a closer physical resemblance. The non-canon Intercontinuity Crossover comic Superflu vs Pepper&Carrot has a brief nod to this when Cayenne is initially mistaken for Granny Weatherwax by one of the characters.
• Pills That Make You Green: As stated in the image description for his debut, Immortal Jeff is "a crudely drawn rendition of the character Immortan Joe from the movie Mad Max: Fury Road".
• In-universe example in Record Wisdom Bonus Yield: Yang apparently based her player character off 'Princess Panzer', a childhood PC of hers.
• Every major character in Sire shares the basic story and abilities of their relevant Sire/Dam, though they are unique characters to themselves. So far characters descended from The Invisible Man, Jeeves and Wooster, Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The String of Pearls have appeared.
• Survivor: Fan Characters, being based on the reality TV show, sometimes bases its characters on real-life Survivor contestants. Some of the most obvious examples are Season 3's Baxter having a dynamic patterned after the "Manipulative Bastard angers the jury too much to win" one like Boston Rob from All-Stars, and Season 7's Ventious having the leadership and charisma of Tom of Palau or J.T. from Tocantins (but not the Flawless Victory) and Ker from the same season being a lovable eccentric who ended up immunitying her way to the win much like Fabio's in Nicaragua.
• Phobia and Philia of Waterworks are parodies of Mario and Luigi, with Phobia being a tall scaredy-cat plumber with green lipstick, and her sister Philia being a stout, fearless plumber with red lipstick.
• Olivia, Tate, and Zoey from Weesh are rather obviously modeled on Alex, Riley, and Tristan from the author's earlier Angel Moxie. (Zoey is a teenager and Tate is a boy, but other than that...)
• Zebra Girl: Harold Duvase is one of Harry Potter. ("Du Vase" is French for "of the Vase", or "potter".)
• In Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal (2022), Doomfish is this to Doctor Doom. He's a goldfish wearing a Doom mask.
  • Subverted with Doctor Octopus Octopus, who's just an octopus wearing an eight-armed lab coat and a bad wig.