Lou

A comic book (and later animated series) created by French artist Julien Neel starring a tween girl, Loulette — Lou to friends — and her single mom, Emma, an aspiring Space Opera writer (who gets published eventually). Lou ! started out as a gag series, but from the second volume onwards, it focuses on story and continuity, with more characters being introduced and existing ones getting more important roles.

---

Lou ! provides examples of

• Adaptation Expansion: The Animated Series stays pretty faithful to the comic book, but has a lot of added material.
  • Adaptation Displacement: And by now, it’s probably better known than the comic.
• Adult Child/Bumbling Mom: Emma is a good mother, but she can be rather immature.
• Black Best Friend: Mina, to Lou.
• Blinding Bangs: Emma (lampshaded by Lou in the sleeve notes of the first album). Oddly enough, she combines this trope with wearing glasses.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Lou and Tristan, as well as Emma and Richard, all in the first album.
• Comic Book Time: Averted. Lou is 12 years old in the first volume, but by the fifth volume she is 14.
• Disappeared Dad. Lou’s. We know what he looks like, however, because he appears in both flashbacks and in present-time cameos.
• Doting Parent: Lou's grandma is usually the exact opposite of this to her daughter. But when she learned that Emma had published her first novel, she ran right down to the local bookstore and bought 14 copies, announcing to everyone that “My daughter wrote this!” When Emma returns to her hometown for a book fair (as part of a book signing tour that had been a disaster up until then), the whole town throws a parade in her honor, with her mother in front happily reminding everyone that "She's my daughter!"
• Excited Show Title
• Hair of Gold: Lou
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: Emma’s Author Avatar, space amazon Sidera, certainly seems to be this. Although her Sidera stories were apparently good enough to get published.
• Hot Mom: Emma – A buxom Meganekko Sweater Girl with Hartman Hips? Yes, please!
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Grandma.
• Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places: Both the fathers of Emma's children seemed like nice, reliable guys. But neither of them were prepared to accept the responsibility of fatherhood.
• Motor Mouth: Marie-Emilie
• Named by the Adaptation: The name of Lou's mom is never mentioned in the comic. The reason why we know it's Emma is because it was mentioned once in the animated series.
• No Export for You: The animated series runs on Disney Channel in France. Considering that the premise is a tween girl living with a single mom who was never married to the girl's dad in the first place, it seems unlikely that Disney Channel in the US is ever going to run it. Averted with the comic books, all of which have been translated into English.
• One of Us: In addition to writing science fiction stories, Emma is a video game addict, and she gets turned on when her boyfriend quotes Yoda.
• Sassy Black Girl: Mina
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Grandma.
• Shipper on Deck: Lou to her mom and Richard.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Lou thinks of her friendship with Mina as type 2 of this trope. According to the sleeve notes, they are the only ones who tolerate each other’s bad attitude.