Bruno the Bandit

Bruno, Fiona and the enemies he made

Bruno the Bandit is a long-running fantasy Web Comic by Canadian cartoonist Ian McDonald. Most of its humor comes from being set in a standard medieval fantasy world, but with computers, TV home shopping and vacuum cleaners. The rest comes from the protagonist Bruno Bunkleyutz (a strong but somewhat dim bandit), his smart sidekick (Fiona the micro-dragon) and his wacky family: Eunyce, his former warrior hottie Action Mom; Ambrose, his one-armed bandit father, and Elysia / Ella, his girlfriend, a fame vampire.

The comic enjoyed noticeable success for a long period of time until the author burned out and dropped it in the middle of a storyline.

According to a news post by the author earlier this year, the strip may make a comeback.

The site is here.

---

Tropes used in Bruno the Bandit include:

• Action Mom: Eunyce.
• Adipose Rex: King Xerxes.
• Affectionate Parody: on Conan the Barbarian, H.P. Lovecraft's Cosmic Horrors, and so on
• All Just a Dream
• Exclusively Evil: Supermodels, apparently.
• The Antichrist: Has an equivalent, the son of Xubuxx, who's noone else but Carlin! And he's still good!
• Attractive Bent Gender
• Author Guest Spot
• Author Tract: The later strips became Author Tracts on whatever Ian wants to complain about, to the exclusion of everything else.
• Bad Guy Bar: The Belching Hydra, Bruno's favorite bar
• The Bartender: Otho of the Belching Hydra
• Big Eater: King Xerxes
• Big "What?": Kind of a Running Gag, often varied, inevitably lampshaded and eventually toned down a bit.
• Burger Fool: Archio's
• Chewbacca Defense: Fiona tries this, as Bruno's lawyer. Not exactly successfully.
• Completely Missing the Point: Fiona, here
• Crossover: Bruno and Fiona once appeared in a guest strip story for Sluggy Freelance, and McDonald did the Sunday strips for a while.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: Ailix
• Cue the Flying Pigs: The pigasi (yep, you read that right)
• Cute Monster Girl: The medusa stand-in for Monica Lewinsky
• Doppelganger: The Döpplegangsters, here
• Dumb Muscle: Bruno himself, though he did have a clever moment or two at times.
• Dying Clue: Parodies the scene from The Da Vinci Code.
• Easter Egg: Read some of Maledict's spells backwards and find out!
• Eats Babies: Emperor Goldang, here
• Eldritch Abomination: Parodies H.P. Lovecraft's ones, with Shub-Megawrath, her sister Cindy and Archio, the fast-food demon.
• Emo: Sour Ron
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: You can even have them mow your lawn!
• Evil Chancellor: Valditch (at least occasionally)
• Evil Empire: Hyperbolea, in the Good Guy arc
• Evil Sorcerer: Maledict
• Exact Words: Used by Carlin when he reveals that he's the son of Xubuxx, to destroy the
• Eyepatch of Power: Tyler One-Eye
• Forbidden Fruit: This is what makes Chess so popular in Suna City. Until it was legalized.
• For Halloween I Am Going as Myself
• Freaky Friday Flip: Happens to Bruno and Fiona once
• Golden Mean Fallacy
• Grand Theft Me: Bruno suffers this in the story with Lady Decrepta.
• Guest Strip: Ian McDonald, as mentioned above, used to do the "Meanwhile in the Dimension of Pain" strips for Sluggy Freelance.
• Hellhole Prison: Skullbreak
• Henpecked Husband: King Xerxes
• Hermit Guru: Carlin Nietzsche
• I Am Not Weasel: Bruno always calls Fiona "lizard".
• I Was Quite a Looker: Eunyce, the former Warrior Hottie
• Lipstick Lesbian: Cara the Cutpurse and Red Sonata, here
• Literal Metaphor: the strip's full of these. See Jumping The Shark above for an example.
• Little Miss Badass: Bruno's daughter Delorus
• Long List: See the first strip.
• Luxury Prison Suite: Coddlesworth
• May-December Romance / Gold Digger: Bruno and Lady Decrepta
• Meaningful Name: Queen Xanthippa (still not on God Save Us From the Queen levels)
• Mister Seahorse: Close to. Thanks(?) to a magic ring, Bruno can feel the pain of a woman giving birth. It's revealed to be All Just a Dream.
  • The All Just a Dream revealer in turn was all just a dream. Not long after Bruno is awakened from his daydreams of debauched rule and carnal excess, Ambrose makes a number of pointed comments about Bruno's pregancy-escapade.
• Money, Dear Boy: While certainly not as bad as the usual example of this trope, the author made it clear from early on that his ultimate goal was to make money off of the comic, first from syndication and then The Merch. A lack of success on both counts was a contributing factor to the strip's cancellation.
• Monster Clown: Archio
• Mr. Alt Disney: A fame vampire named Valdyzny. Complete with Shout-Out to Mickey Mouse.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Fiona
• Our Dragons Are Different: Said micro-dragons, who're pretty intelligent.
  • And good eating.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: Averted, they're not even twice as tall as humans.
• Our Vampires Are Different: said Fame Vampires, quite similar to our world's celebrities.
• Political Correctness Gone Mad: Parodied here and in the following strips
• Punny Name: Clonin the Barbarian Wilderness-Enhanced, Xanax the Warrior Princess, Numth'kul the demon...
• Role Called
• Satan: Called Xubuxx here.
• Schedule Slip: In the later run, unfortunately more and more.
• Schizo-Tech
• Sdrawkcab Name: The countries Asuton and Adanacton. Also, read some of Maledict's spells backwards.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Numth'kul in the snarebox
• Seven Deadly Sins: A whole story arc starting here
• Shout-Out: Many, to Garfield, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, The Sandman, Stephen King, Walt Disney and so on (see also Affectionate Parody, Take That). Also Carlin Nietzsche.
• Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Happens with Delorus.
• Spanner in the Works: This role is traded around by the entire cast from story to story;
• Spikes of Villainy: Featured in a fashion show, here
• Spit Take: Fiona here
• Sssssnaketalk: Here
• Straw Feminist: In one story, there's a group of them who seem to have made nagging a religion. Here.
• Strawman Political
  • In one case, quite literal.
• Take That: Radical atheists, comic syndicates, The Da Vinci Code and Sword of Truth (and Ayn Rand), among others
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: "Uncle" Lucius.
• Trope Name: Here
• Villain Protagonist: Albeit not a competent one.
• Walking on Water: Ailix of course can do this, and his follower Carlin too.
• Who Shot JFK?: Transposed to Bruno's fantasy world, becoming the question: Who shot King Xerxes... with a pea-shooter?
• Xanatos Gambit: The blue bird of happiness likes to play these with Bruno, but since the strip broke off, we may never learn what he really had planned.