Elmer is a Philippine comic book written by Gerry Alanguilan.
Set in a world where chickens suddenly and inexplicably acquire the sentience and intelligence to stand in equal footing with human beings themselves, the story focuses on Jake Gallo and his family of chickens, specifically on Jake's father, the titular Elmer's experiences, as they strive to live and fight for their rights in a world that was once alien to them.
Elmer contains the following tropes:
- Ambiguously Gay: Francis, Jake and May's brother, is suspected of being gay by his siblings on account of rumors and his tendency to groom up way more than he should, though nothing's confirmed or denied on his end.
- Blood Knight: Joseph, Elmer's brother who was a fighting cock before the chickens gained sentience. He even admits that fighting is the only way of life that he knows. In an interesting twist however, as despite this, he refuses to join the more bloodthirsty Mitra Gang, wanting to go down fighting the way he would want to, in glory, fighting for what he believes is right so naturally, he goes down fighting two gun-wielding men in a bid to protect Elmer and Helen, just as he's always wanted.
- Carnivore Confusion: Humans used to eat chickens, and neither has forgotten it. Jake's mother cooks a really good roast duck. A newspaper headline mentions an egg embargo.
- Cultural Translation: The story is non-explicitly but clearly set in Alanguilan's native Philippines, probably Laguna Province where he lives, and entirely written and presented in English. So "Farmer" Ben would almost certainly be Mang Ben (Mr. Ben) instead in the original Filipino context.
- Fantastic Racism: Between the humans and the chickens. It's best seen with Jake, who explicitly hates humans with a fiery passion before Character Development kicked in. Later in the comic we see that this hatred comes in part from when he was young and human classmates he'd thought were friends attacked him.
- Feather Fingers: They aren't drawn as hand-like (or with realistic wing anatomy, either) but chickens are able to use their wings as ably as hands, even using cell phones.
- Interspecies Friendship: Farmer Ben has had a close friendship with the Gallos since they became sapient. He encountered a sapient chicken before the mysterious flash and beat it to death in fear, but regretted it and was filled with guilt, and protected and supported the Gallos even at great cost to himself for many years.
- Interspecies Romance: Jake is attracted to human women and fantasizes about one of them regularly. He's very uncomfortable finding out that May's engaged to a human man, though.
- Mature Animal Story: About chickens with human-level intelligence, and humans.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Jake towards his little sister May's fiance after he finds out that her husband to be was actually a human.
- Our Humans Are Different: The flash led to tremendous unrest. Eventually the UN declared that chickens were human in order to get them legal protections and rights. They're still called chickens, but they're also human.
- Short-Lived Organism: Jake reflects that his parents are twenty five and that's really old for chickens, though in the old days they were lucky to get past ten.
- Supporting Protagonist: Arguably Jake, as the bulk of the narrative focuses itself not on him, but on his father, Elmer's experiences from the time the chickens first gained sentience.
- Talking Animal: The chickens of course. Unlike most examples of this trope however, they don't immediately start off as such when they first "awakened" and gained awareness as they had to learn the humans' language first like infants before they could fully communicate outright.
- Uplifted Animal: A mysterious white flash in 1979 gave chickens humanlike intelligence and the ability to speak. In the aftermath, scientists dissecting some found no explanation for why chickens could do this now, as well as being able to use their wings like hands. In fact, some few had it even before then.
- Wham Shot: The comic opens with an offscreen Jake bombing a job interview and being given the "don't call us, we'll call you" routine. On the next page, he angrily says, "It's because I'm a CHICKEN, isn't it?!", as he's revealed to be a talking chicken dressed in office clothes, surrounded by humans.
- You No Take Candle: Elmer's journal starts out with this kind of wording as he's still working on language.