Webcomic / Poison Ivy Gulch

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Poison Ivy Gulch is a gag Western webcomic created by Max West and launched on June 1, 2020. The setting is in a ramshackle town somewhere in the American frontier of the 1870s. The eponymous town is home to Lotta Doler, a Professional Gambler plus her Kid Sidekick Ace and a load of other Western Characters.

Some (but not all) of the other characters are:

• Samuel Sidewinder, the town's mayor
• Marshal Art, the local lawman
• Herman the German, the hangman
• Rigg R. Mortis, mortician
• Pickaxe Paul, a local prospector

Has a Characters page under construction. A first book collection, Poison Ivy Gulch Saddles Up, was released in 2022.

Updated on Mondays and Wednesdays with the sporadic Sunday Strip, the format is a gag per day in black and white panels much like Newspaper Comic Strips.

Read it here.

This Webcomic Has The Following Tropes:

• Affectionate Parody: Spoofing the Western genre.
• All Deserts Have Cacti: Some strips are shown having the iconic Saguaro cacti in the background as shorthand for said background being desert.
• Alliterative Name: Mayor Samuel Sidewinder, Pickaxe Paul
• Anachronism Stew: Some of the characters are shown chewing bubble gum. Bubble gum wasn't invented until 1928 but this is ignored due to the Rule of Funny.
• Ate the Spoon: Two cowboys, Wilbur and Nimrod, make their coffee this way. The coffee is so potent that it ends up dissolving the bottom of Wilbur's coffee mug!
• Body in a Breadbox: Parodied when local undertaker Rigg R. Mortis reveals he literally keeps skeletons in his closet.
• Bubblegum Popping: Both Ace and saloon girl Lorraine are shown blowing up big bubble gum bubbles which then burst leaving them Covered in Gunge.
• The Butcher: Parodied when a man in a saloon says he works with animals daily; thought to be a farmer by saloon girl Lorraine, he identifies himself as a butcher, complete with cleaver!
• The Cameo: Mr. Peanut, mascot for Planters Peanuts, can be seen in the saloon in one strip.
• Carpet of Virility: Parodied here when a local hermit reveals his thick shirt isn't a shirt but body hair!
• Chez Restaurant: Mayor Sidewinder visits one of these only to learn that they serve disgusting entrees.
• Comically Missing the Point: A frequent device used for gags. A specific example includes a color Sunday Strip where a prostitute asks a passing cowboy if he wants to fool around. The cowboy, not understanding she means sex, asks her what she wants to fool around doing.
• Credits Gag: The credits page has funny credits in addition to the usual ones and legal disclaimers. Among them are a "your ad here" notice, a plug for a local bakery in Poison Ivy Gulch and even a notice that the fourteenth President of the United States was Franklin Pierce.
• Crossover Cameo: Fran of Litterbox Comics appears on 7/9/2023 for a high noon showdown where she draws her gun before Lotta.
• Cumulonemesis: Parodied in this strip when local prospector Pickaxe Paul sees "threatening weather" in the form of a snarling cloud.
• Desert Skull: Ace finds one of these and even lampshades it, asking aloud why there are always skulls out in deserts.
• Dirty Kid: Ace fits this trope; some comics show him spying on saloon girls while they are dressing or even Skinny Dipping.
• Don't Eat and Swim: Discussed by Lotta when she and Ace go Skinny Dipping but Ace not quite understanding her.
• The Executioner: Herman the German, executing people by hanging. Here though, it's Played for Laughs.
• Expospeak Gag:
  • A laywer uses the term "acetylsalicylic acid". When the judge clarifies that as being aspirin, the laywer says he can never remember that word.
  • While flirting with Wilbur and Nimrod, saloon girls Lorraine and Lullabelle offer them libations. They say they'd rather have drinks instead.
• Extreme Omnivore: In one strip, Wilbur comes across a display of B. Juliano's Canned Bacon. He eats it, can included, and remarks it tastes terrible.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: Marshal Art wears one.
• Fat and Skinny: Two cowboys, Wilbur (skinny) and Nimrod (fat), fit this trope.
• Fiery Redhead: Downplayed with Lotta; she can fly off the handle at times but normally isn't short tempered.
• Frankenstein's Monster: Appears in the 6/24/2020 strip as a justice of the peace or, as the mayor describes him, a justice of many pieces.
• Free-Range Children: Ace is shown wandering about town minus Lotta's supervision or even going out of town on an overnight trip Story Arc to a neighboring town.
• Gag Nose: Both Mayor Sidewinder and Rigg R. Mortis have very big, long noses.
• Glass Eye: Ace mentions his schoolteacher has a glass eye as part of a joke about her losing a pupil as a Pun.
• Harmless Electrocution:
  • Played with when lightning destroys Lullabelle's jelly jars.
  • Played straight when Lotta's new lightning rod fails to work.
• Hat of Authority: Mayor Sidewinder, the mayor of the gulch, is almost always shown wearing a hat with a big brim.
• Hook Hand:
  • Found on an opponent in a makeshift boxing match here.
  • Also found on a pirate playing against Lotta in a poker game.
• Hypocritical Humor: Played straight when a tough guy with Perma-Stubble barks at a bookseller to give him a book on manners, insulting him all the while.
• I'm a Humanitarian:
  • In one strip, a hermit encounters Pickaxe Paul and says he only eats natural food by doing this.
  • Parodied here when Mayor Sidewinder declines the merchant's lunch.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Marshal Art brings in someone for public intoxication. The suspect swears he is as "sober as a judge", only to find the local judge drunk on either moonshine or cider.
• Is It Something You Eat?: Inverted in the 12/7/2020 strip where Lotta asks Ace if he wants Hopping John for dinner. Ace mistakes this as a person's name; Hopping John is actually a dish from the Southern United States made with peas and rice.
• Juggling Loaded Guns: Happens on 6/11/2021 when an obviously drunk deputy shoots up Marshal Art's hat.
• Kid Sidekick: Ace to Lotta
• Liquid Courage: A saloon bartender offers a glass of this to a cowboy, specifically calling the drink this trope. Hilariously subverted when the cowboy responds that if he could drink the stuff, he wouldn't need courage in the first place.
• Mayor Pain: Mayor Sidewinder is the incompetent type and he comes off as a Sleazy Politician too. Examples of his incompetence are renaming a street rather than clean its stench and giving a non-answer to a citizen's question.
• Mind Screw: Ventures into this territory as background cacti are shown to point directions to characters or even blow bubble gum.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Lotta. Both her everyday dress and gambling dress show off her cleavage.
  • Saloon girl Lorraine Hester wears a low cut dress too, with cleavage visible and a bustle dress showing off an Impossible Hourglass Figure. Fellow saloon girl Lullabelle counts too.
• No Animals Were Harmed: Parodied on the credits page.
  A total of 28 buffalo, 15 donkeys, 8 oxen, 55 jackrabbits, 9 squirrels, 12 vultures, 18 lizards, 42 rattlesnakes, 80 scorpions and 69, 283 ants were killed during the making of this webcomic. In the creation of the same, I could accept nothing less than total realism.
• The Place: The title is the name of the town.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: Ace reacts this way when Lotta kisses him or when Lorraine did during her Establishing Character Moment.
• Post-Treatment Lollipop: Parodied in a variation; a bank robber wants to see if the bank he's robbing gives out lollipops and another strip has Herman the German thinking the paymaster gives out lollipops like the bank does!
• Pretty in Mink: Played for laughs when Ace gives saloon girl Lorraine a nice fur coat; he reveals the fur came from a local's dead mule!
• Professional Gambler: Lotta Doler
• Prospector: Pickaxe Paul. Strips with Paul show him out of town, searching for places to dig for riches.
• Punny Name: Lotta Doler ^note Lots of Dollars, Marshal Art, Rigg R. Mortis, Tab Stop
• Pyramid Power: Parodied when Mayor Sidewinder asks the local undertaker Rigg R. Mortis to build a pyramid for him. The undertaker taunts the mayor if he wants it built to scale as the mayor is short.
• Redhead in Green: Color artwork for Lotta shows her wearing green dresses and her hair as red.
• Scatterbrained Senior: Parodied here when the mayor meets an old man protesting senility.
• Stock Food Depictions:
  • Beer appears sometimes in strips set in the saloon. It is always shown in a glass mug with foam on top; color comic strips show it as being gold colored.
  • Bubble gum appears too in spite of being Anachronism Stew. Color strips show it as being pink.
• Sunday Strip: Posted on an intermittent basis.
• Sweet Tooth: Ace loves sweets as he has been shown blowing bubble gum bubbles and remarks about having to choose between cherry and custard pie at a cafe. Justified as he is a child.
• Symbol Swearing:
  • Ace does this when Lotta forbids him from reading any more dime novels because of their bad language.
  • It happens again when a boy curses out Mayor Sidewinder. The mayor asks the boy's mother where he learns such language, only for the mother to curse him out the same way too!
• Three Stooges Shout-Out: Three cowpokes named Melman, Lester and Cletus sometimes show up. They are basically clones of Moe, Larry and Curly.
• Undertaker: Rigg R. Mortis. He builds coffins, comments on death and likes hanging out with local hangman Herman the German.
• Webcomic Print Collection: Its first book Poison Ivy Gulch Saddles Up was released in November 2022 complete with extra strips not available elsewhere.
• The Western: Parodied.
• Wild Hair: Pickaxe Paul has both hair and facial hair covering his head, face and body.
• You Are Fat: A passing woman gets this from a talking scale, resulting in her smashing it in anger.