Webcomic / Beach WZRD

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Beach WZRD is a low-fantasy webcomic by former animator turned cartoonist Mc Nostril. The first three chapters can be read on his website.

Beginner witch Melody has just passed her trials and been appointed local beach witch. Unfortunately, on her first day of work, she has to deal with an errant, condescending, sociopathic drunken wizard who claims the beach as her domain, starts making threats on the locals, erecting dangerously unstable wizard towers and conducting poorly thought-out magical experiments. Will Melody's optimism and good will be enough to make up for her inexperience in dealing with this magical menace with an acceptable amount of collateral damage? Probably not.

This comic provides examples of:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: Lampshaded by Melody. Wizards in general seem fond of alliteration when naming their spells, and Wizard in particular employs it when she makes threats or insults. The comic's "Cast" page also lists the characters as "Diminutive Do-gooder", "Magical Menace", "Wave Watcher", etc.
• All Witches Have Cats: Lampshaded by Wizard, who assumes that Melody has "A talking black cat familiar named Azaziel or something". She is mostly right except that the name is slightly different and it doesn't talk.
• Bag of Holding: Wizard can store all sorts of items in her magical hat, and mocks Melody for not only using a pouch, but a fanny pack at that.
• Bewitched Amphibians: Witches do not have spells, they have "curses" such as boils, rashes, warts and turning people into frogs – considered to be a "classic". Melody transforms Wizard into a frog at some point out of frustration.
• Big Brother Mentor: Melody's big brother Melvin, an experienced and accomplished Witch, occasionally gives her advice on request and offers to come and help her on several occasions – but Melody refuses out of desire to prove that she can handle herself.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Despite her undeniable proficiency with Arcane arts, Wizard spends most of her day drinking, slacking, or both in order to recover from her last hangover.
  Melody: Can't you make it^note "It" being a magically-conjured corpse that was technically never alive, but still looks awfully like a dead body vanish faster [than a week]?
  Wizard: Of course I can.
  Melody: … But you're not going to.
  Wizard: Of course not.
• Comedic Sociopathy: A major part of the comedy simply stems from Wizard's absolute disregard for other people's safety and/or dignity.
• Curse Escape Clause: When Wizard is transformed into a frog by Melody, she reasons that the cure is usually to be kissed by a prince or other member of royalty. However, royals are not that common in this modern setting… So she opts for symbolic royalty instead, and manages to lift the curse by forcibly kissing an ant queen.
• Cute Witch: Melody herself is considered adorable in-universe, even by Wizard herself – albeit in a very condescending, "you're trying so hard to look intimidating" way.
• Didn't Think This Through: A specialty of Wizard's and the closer she ever gets to admitting a mistake, although she makes it sound much better in her own words:
  Gigantic Sand Fleas: SKREEEEEE!
  Melody: OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH
  Wizard: Huh… I may have overlooked some variables.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Wizard's name is never revealed and she does not bother giving it, so everyone just calls her "Wizard". Downplayed with Melody, whose first name is given… but Wizard never bothers remembering it either, so she just calls her "witch".
• Evil Is Petty: Wizard is only low-key evil, but is very prone to taunting, belittling and humiliating Melody every occasion she gets that doesn't require too much effort. In particular, she will not accept that Melody does not recognize the absolute superiority of wizards over witches.
  Wizard: … Are you implying that wizards are not objectively the greatest ? […] I see. This would be insulting if it were not so pitiable. The gap between our abilities is so large, you cannot even perceive it! It appears some higher education might be in order… Perhaps someone more on your level can make you understand how much better than you wizards are in every way. (It is important to know these things.)
• Evil Sorcerer: Wizard is not actively evil, in that she does not seek people to enslave or destroy, but she does show a complete lack of concern for other people's safety and/or dignity, and casually mentions that if people annoy her too much, she considers making them explode a suitable course of action.
• Faking the Dead: Abra the Jocular created the Abra Cadaver^note Not to be, as it so often is, confused with its vulgarized distortion "Abra Cadabra" or the iZombie episode, or the Powerpuff Girls villain, or the crime novel of the same name spell which creates a perfect copy of Abra (and only Abra), fundamentally indistinguishable from the original in every way, except it's dead. It is considered a milestone of magical history that revolutionised how it was studied and practiced, though Abra herself mostly used it to mess with people by employing this trope.
• Flying Broomstick: Melody has one and uses it as her main mode of transportation. Wizard finds it predictable and unoriginal.
• Forced Transformation: 
  • Melody uses the classic "turn into a frog" curse on Wizard out of frustration. Problem is, she doesn't know how to turn her back, and while the curse does wear off after a few days, it is advised to take in the cursed person and make sure they don't get eaten by a predator in this weakened form, something which Melody didn't consider.
  • When asked to help out with lifeguarding duties, Wizard turns a random beachgoer into a shark in order to prevent him from drowning…even though he hadn’t actually entered the water yet and immediately starts to suffocate. To prevent him from either drowning or suffocating, she then turns him into a crocodile, which he’s actually not too bothered by, until the spell wears off at an inconvenient time, leaving him naked on the floor of a restaurant in front of dozens of people. 
• Four-Fingered Hands: Averted… until Wizard gets turned into a toad, who do only have four digits. Which unfortunately makes her unable to perform spells that should be trivial for her, as they require a precise hand configuration.
• Global Ignorance: Wizard doesn't bother to know where the beach she ended on is located until it's relevant to the matter at hand. When that happens, she genuinely has no idea whether she could currently be in South Africa and/or Namibia, has to ask the (undoubtedly white) beachwatcher, and drops the matter entirely as soon as she gets a negative answer. Apparently she has much more important things to learn about than extremely basic geography and ethnic distribution.
• Good Witch Versus Bad Witch: Played with. The main dynamic is "good, well-intentioned and sensible beginner witch versus drunken, uncaring reckless yet very powerful wizard".
• Grievous Bottley Harm: While transformed into a toad and unable to perform magic due to insufficient fingers, Wizard defends herself against predatory seagulls with "the power of a true master of the arcane" – smashing them in the face with her wine bottle.
• I Meant to Do That: Wizard's standard response any time one of her actions, magical or otherwise, has unforeseen consequences. Melody does it from time to time with comparable success.
• Lady Drunk: When she isn't performing dangerous magic, insulting people or sleeping, Wizard is usually seen drinking. She may also be seen drinking while doing the aforementioned.
• Mage Tower: Wizard makes a few attempts at building one, which backfire, before settling for the beachwatcher's elevated chair.
• Magic Is Feminine: Subverted. Both main characters are female and spellcasters, but it's soon clear that witch and wizard are gender-neutral terms for different types of spellcasters who can both be male or female.
• Magic Misfire: Wizard is as powerful as she is reckless, accident-prone and unable to admit she screwed up, resulting in a lot of magical accidents.
• Make My Monster Grow: Among the aforementioned magical misfires, Wizard builds a miniature sandtower then magically enlarges it to make her Wizard Tower. Unfortunately, she also made the sand fleas grow…
• Non-Mammalian Hair: Wizard satisfactorily notes that even transformed into a toad, she retains her fabulous haircut.
• Not So Stoic: The normally irritatedly aloof Wizard loses her composure and screams in a panic when one of the sand fleas she accidentally enlarged jumps into her tower.
• Our Witches Are Different: The Witches of the Beach WZRD world formerly operated as a kind of police service that protected ordinary people from magical dangers, but with the advent of modern technology and urbanisation, these magical dangers have become far less common, so most witches have been reduced to doing community outreach, and only really use their magical powers for placating the odd malevolent spirit or tangling with rival magic users.
• Phantasy Spelling: Parodied with the Wizard, who is very insistent that large predatory cartilaginous fish are called “shorks”.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Invoked in-universe. Melody notes that her employers have never really explained what her duties as a witch actually are, and prior to the wizard showing up, she was just going to hang out with her friend Pierre and practice magic. Her brother Melvin, a veteran witch, eventually explains that witches have more or less become obsolete in the modern era and his day to day duties mostly consist of fairly mundane community work. 
• The Pollyanna: Melody is determined to focus on the positive no matter what happens, and has some success in that field. 
• Quick Nip: Wizard drinks all day long, and it doesn't seem to hamper her magical abilities, or not that much.
• Robe and Wizard Hat: Played with. Since the characters are on a beach and in a modern setting, Melody instead wears a cape over her swimsuit, while Wizard's robe looks more like a snazzy open coat over a skirt, bikini and stockings. They keep the hats, and Wizard's hat also doubles as her Bag of Holding.
• The Scapegoat: Melody calls her big brother Melvin for advice on what to do about the Wizard’s various magical mishaps, but doesn’t want to admit that there’s a Wizard causing trouble in her jurisdiction, so she blames it all on her friend Pierre. When Melvin physically shows up to find out what’s going on, Pierre tries to introduce himself by name, which leads to Melvin staring him down and giving him the “I’ve got my eye on you” gesture.
• Sitcom Arch Enemy: Melody’s brother Melvin has one of these in his own turf in the form of an immensely powerful wizard who has a penchant for erecting invisible buildings and inconveniencing people. 
• Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: Wizard again. She sums it best :
  Wizard: Witch, I will do as I please because A: I am a Wizard; B: You do not own this beach, and C: I am a Wizard.
• Self-Induced Allergic Reaction: Wizard is allergic to ant venom, which poses a problem when she receives multiple ant bites from breaking into their anthill to kiss their queen in order to lift her transformation into a toad.
• Semantic Superpower: Magic can operate on pretty linguistic-based rules. For instance, the classic "turn people into toads" curse which is typically cured with a kiss from royalty doesn't work with a kiss from a modern figure of authority – say, a mayor's son or daughter. However, a kiss from a "King" Gull or ant Queen would work.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: Protagonist Melody dresses for simplicity, practicality and modesty with no consideration whatsoever for style, taste or appeal. Antagonist Wizard wears a flamboyant open coat over a short skirt and striped bikini, complete with stockings.
• Slapstick Knows no Gender: The two main characters of the comic are girls, and none of them are immune to comical injuries.
• Smug Snake: Wizard through and through. Although she does has impressive powers, the fact that they frequently blow up in her face never tarnishes the admiration she has for herself.
• Solitary Sorceress: Averted with Melody, who is very much social and whose role requires that she mingle with people. Played straight for Wizard, who abhors company and wishes to be left to her drink-''research''.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Melody is the sensible Straight Man and Wizard is the Wise Guy.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: Melody’s big brother Melvin is an accomplished witch and even something of a local celebrity, which makes her all the more insecure about her magical inexperience and all the more determined to deal with the Wizard on her own. 
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Melody indulges in it a lot, to the point that Melvin occasionally lampshades it.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Parodied - the mob who go to confront Wizard have a pitchfork. When Melody asks where they even got it, since there aren’t any farms in the area, they say they usually just hang it above the bar to convey a sense of rustic charm. 
• Unequal Rites: Minus the gendered aspect, since both professions are mixed-gender. Witchcraft seems to deal more with pretty practical matters like wounds, illnesses and birthgiving, while wizards experiment to re-shape reality, and are being awfully smug about it. Melvin reveals that Mages, Warlocks and Sorcerers also exist in the setting as separate magical disciplines, although how they differ from Witches and Wizards hasn’t yet been explored. 
• Weaksauce Weakness: Wizard has extensive spell protection on her at all times, but they ignore the very basic "turn to toad" witch curse – it's not specified why, but it can be inferred that it could be another type of magic, or that Wizard didn't bother learning to protect herself against what she doesn't consider "real magick". What's more, she could normally easily dispel it with a simple handsign – one that requires five fingers, which toads don't have.
• Wizard Duel: Parodied. Wizard and Melody get into a contest where Wizard casts impressive spells or brings up occult artifacts in order to impress a small child they chose as referee, and Melody keeps outdoing her with mundane prestidigitation tricks or granola bars.