The Wotch

The Wotch is a cartoon-style English-language webcomic created by "Anne Onymous" and "Robin Ericson" about the magical adventures of two like-named characters. Its plots are clearly influenced by American comic books, as well as manga and anime, notably Ranma ½ and Naruto, 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. Unlike most webcomics, all off the the Wotch's costs are fully supported by donation income.
The comic is divided into issues and seasons, with about 30 comics per issue and nine issues per season. The first daily page appeared on November 21, 2002. The comics have been posted on an update schedule that has varied during the Wotch's history, and it has stopped several times due to outside events. In particular, it had three long hiatuses, from November 1, 2003 to April 23, 2004, from November 10, 2004 to January 5, 2005, and from December 29, 2006 to February 28, 2007. During these, the comic often maintains regular updates by posting filler comics authored and illustrated by guests.
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 to 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.
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 characters into female characters and vice versa. It is used for comedic effect.
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" (A play on an anagram of the name "Jason"). (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 Samantha Wolf. 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: '
Cassie Sinclair- Cassie is seemingly normal high school girl, if one ignores the fact that she is a goth. She has a healthy interest in magic, and is known as the "resident witch" among her friends. Although her powers were quite weak, they have increased drastically, and she is growing into a competent magic user with great potential. Cassie is a very determined girl; someone who sets goals and strives hard to achieve them. Unfortunately, Cassie is also a very jealous girl, and when she sees someone achieving those goals easier than her, she tends to get almost resentful. She sees Anne as a rival due to her innate magical ability, and due to her close friendship with Robin, on whom she has a crush.
Samantha "Wolfie" Wolf-Wolfie is small, but sporty, almost tomboyish, and very athletic. She is a werewolf, cursed to transform into a wolflike form every night of a full moon, and the two nights surrounding it. This form gives her increased strength. She also has a heightened sense of smell which is available to her even in her human form, which she can sometimes use to identify transformed people. Unlike most therianthropes, Wolfie has the ability to retain her human mind while she is in werewolf form. Many of her ancestors were also werewolves. These ancestors used a magical heirloom amulet, to keep their human consciousness even during the three nights a month that they transformed. Somehow, both the lycanthropy curse and the power of the amulet combined in the Wolf bloodline, meaning that Samantha does not need the amulet when she transforms. Because of this, she has given it to her best friend, Katie McBride, so that she can keep her mind as a werecat. Both Wolfie and Katie have discovered Anne's secret and are respectfully keeping it.
Katie McBride-Katie is a young Irish lass with fiery hair and a fiery attitude to match, Katie is rather proud of her Irish heritage, and dresses accordingly. who is Wolfie's best friend in the world. Katie is a werecat, cursed to transform into a catlike form every night of a full moon, and the two nights surrounding it. In this form, she has increased strength, speed, reflexes, jumping ability, and larger breasts. She also has a heightened sense of smell which is available to her even in her human form, which she can sometimes use to identify transformed people. She needs to wear a magical amulet given to her by Wolfie to retain her human mind while in werecat form; if she transforms without it, she becomes a mindless, feral animal. She also seems to have a bit of a problem with Jason, mainly because of his redhead obsession. However, it could be more than that, as they have revealed that the two have some sort of history from last time they were alone together. They have sworn not to speak of it and nobody (including the readers) knows what it is.
Evan Onymous-Evan Onymous is a 21-year-old computer technician and Anne's older brother. He is more commonly known as "E" by his friends and family, as emphasized by the large letter "E" on his shirt. He was the first person Anne revealed her magic to, and has kept her secret well. Evan runs his own computer repair service, and is Anne's temporary guardian while their parents tour the world. E is a responsible, smart, and calm guy...when he's not a little girl (literally). E's favorite thing about Anne's Wotchism is the amulet she found that returns a person to a younger age. E often asks Anne to make him younger so that he can relax after a hard day of work. The spell has an odd side effect of transforming him into a girl in the process, an effect which, as E said, he can live with. He has two magical alter-ego's. Lilly ("Li'l E") is Evan's 4-year old alter ego. Spunky and energetic, Lilly is E's favorite way to relax after work, leaving adulthood behind and just embracing youth! Lilly is always a handful, but loves her big sister very much. Although they share the same body and are fully aware of the other person within them, they are distinctly different people. And Missy ("Miss E") is the grown-up version of Lilly. She's the same age and is as mature as E.
Professor Sorgaz/Mingmei Wu-Mingmei Wu ("Ming" to her friends) is a Japanese foreign exchange student at Tandy Gardens High, as far as most students know. In reality, she was once Professor Sorgaz, the school's economics teacher. Anne created a clone of herself manifested from her anger to take one of Prof. Sorgaz's tests in her place. However, Anger lost her temper while doing so and, realizing she could now act freely without Anne's other personality traits keeping her in check, transformed Sorgaz into a stereotypical Japanese schoolgirl. Horrified by the change, Sorgaz then ran into another one of Anne's manifested personality traits, Joy, and begged for her help. Misunderstanding the problem, Joy then cast a spell meant to make a person's mind appropriate for their body, causing Sorgaz to believe that he really is a Japanese schoolgirl named Mingmei Wu. When Mingmei's original memories of her life as Sorgaz finally resurface, it leads her into a massive identity crisis. When she tells Anne, Robin, Jason, Katie, and Wolfie what had happened, Anne is more than willing to change her back into Sorgaz; however, after hearing her friends telling her how much they'd miss her, she gives the matter further consideration and realizes that Mingmei has a happier life than Sorgaz ever did. She decides instead to remain as Mingmei and combine her two personalities into an amalgamation with the best qualities of both. Ming gets to live on, and Prof. Sorgaz gets to recapture the youth that he squandered. Afterwards, Mingmei fabricates an alibi for Sorgaz's mysterious disappearance and starts wearing more American clothing.
Miranda West-Miranda West was the previous Wotch. Currently, she is Anne Onymous's mentor. Her residence is in a forest near Tandy, where she lives with her phoenix, Arizona. Little is known about her past, except the rare mention of her friends when she was younger.
Miranda West retains a serious, no-nonsense attitude. She disapproves of Jason and Robin consistently being with Anne and knowing that Anne is the Wotch. Miranda has warned Anne that this behavior is dangerous for Jason and Robin, but she has never taken that advice, much to Miranda's disappointment. It is possible that Miranda discourages this idea because her own friends have died because of her position as the Wotch.
Cameos and Crossovers
The Wotch takes place in the same universe as some other webcomics (known by most fans as "The Wotchiverse"), and has had several in-canon crossovers and cameos of characters of other webcomics. The most notable crossovers and cameos include:
* The Accidental Centaurs:: The canon Wotch story arc "Accidental Wotch" is a full-length joint story with Accidental Centaurs, written by Thomas Revor, with pages drawn alternately by Anne Onymous and AC's John Lotshaw. The same storyline was titled "Wotch This" in AC. Revor, Lotshaw, and artist Ian "Tran4of3" Samson also collaborated to produce a pair of canon "Sunday Special" story arcs centering on AC's Lenny and the Wotch's Angelique the Djinn.
* The Wotch: Cheer!: Cheer! is a spinoff webcomic by another author, centering on four minor characters who appeared in an early Wotch storyline. (see section on below)
* Zebra Girl: Sandra and Crystal have had cameos in The Wotch, and Anne appeared in a cameo in Zebra Girl on the Magi-Net, noted in the Wotch by Miranda West.
* Triquetra Cats: Triquetra Cats takes place in the future of the Wotch canon and has mentioned Wotch characters several times; and its SERVICE organization was created at the end of the Wotch's "D.O.L.L.Y." story arc.
* Abstract Gender: Two characters and from AG appeared in a cameo in the Wotch, and the AG school has played TGHS in sports.
Many other webcomics have depicted characters or elements from the Wotch, such as Exiern and Misfile, and the Wotch has depicted characters from other webcomics as well, such as Krakow.
==Cheer!==
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.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu