Webcomic / The Backwards House

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The Backwards House is a Mascot Horror webcomic created and written by Skynix Art.

The story is about a cursed VHS tape that entraps the soul of our protagonist, Catie. Now living in an old children's cartoon as "Curious Cat," our hero will have to live with Funny Animal children who live under the care of the mysterious matron, Mother, while trying to avoid losing their memory and their very identity. Will Catie be able to escape? Or will Curious Cat choose to stay in this colorful world?

The comic also has a dub which can be watched on Skynix's own YouTube channel. Episode 1 can be watched here. The comic can be read here, and the video prologue can be watched here.

The Backwards House contains examples of:

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: All the characters are anthropomorphic animals that wear one minor item of clothing. (Curious Cat's bow on their tail, Mighty Mule's bandana, Missy Mouse's scarf, etc.)
• Alliterative Name: Most of the children have alliterative names (Curious Cat, Empathetic Elephant, etc.), the only exceptions being Funky Monkey (who has a rhyming name), Foxtrot (who has a Punny Name), and Od-Dog (whose name is a near-palindrome). Lampshaded by Mighty Mule during the game show when he names his and Missy Mouse's team "Team M&M's".
• All There in the Manual:
  • The description for the comic in official sources mentions that the story takes place inside a cursed VHS tape, something which is never actually revealed in the comic, though there are hints that something like that is going on.
  • The animated trailer for the comic also serves as a prologue, showing what the other characters were doing right before Catie entered the house. Downplayed in that nothing particularly important is revealed.
• Always Night: It's always pitch black outside the Backwards House. The characters only know it's daytime when the lights come on.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Most of the children have bright fur/skin colors not found in nature, the exceptions being Catie and Shy Shark. Downplayed with Od-Dog, whose fur is natural, but has unnaturally colored freckles and paw pads. Justified since, in-universe, they are trapped in an old children's cartoon, which often did (and still do) use brightly colored animals to appeal to children. In Chapter 10, Catie and Od-Dog's human forms can be seen, both wearing clothes that correspond to the colors of their house forms, implying that one's color inside the house is determined by what one was wearing when watching the VHS.
• Ambiguous Situation: Mother tells Curious Cat that she's not allowed to enter their room, because it's their room, not hers. Does she simply mean she follows her own self-imposed rule about not entering children's rooms to give them privacy, or does she mean she physically can't enter the children's rooms?
• Ambiguously Evil: Mother is clearly untrustworthy, but she does seem to have some genuine care for the children, even defending them from Nightmares. In Chapter 11, this trope is subverted when she commits her first unambiguously villainous act, gouging Empathetic Elephant's eyes out. However, her true motives for keeping everyone in the house are still unclear.
• Animal Stereotypes: Most of the children have traits matching stereotypes fitting their species — the cat is curious, the monkey is mischievous, the elephant has a good memory, etc. Subverted during Funky Monkey's game show when Catie guesses that his favorite food is bananas, which all the other contestants see as horribly offensive stereotyping. However, this trope is then hilariously Double Subverted when the real answer turns out to be banana smoothies.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: The animated trailer at first takes place entirely within a CRT television screen, up until the moment where Od-Dog opens the front door, when the animation suddenly switches to fullscreen.
• Blatant Lies: At the beginning of Chapter 3, Catie bonks heads with Od-Dog after waking up and immediately asks him if he was watching them sleep. Od-Dog says an overly long 'no', only to immediately admit that he was watching them.
• Blind People Wear Sunglasses: All the characters in the main cast (save for Mother) are pint-sized anthropomorphic animals that wear one accessory article. The blind character, Funky Monkey, wears shades.
• Brutal Honesty: In the animated prologue, Od-Dog reveals "Od-Dog 2.0", a crude replica of himself made of cardboard which he is clearly proud of. Despite this, Mighty Mule does not hesitate to say, "That's meant to be you?" incredulously.
• Bullying a Dragon: In Chapter 11, while distracting Mother to prevent her from discovering Od-Dog and Catie, Empathetic Elephant vents all his anger and frustration on her, going so far as to say that she is not his mother. She responds by gouging his eyes out.
• Closed Circle: Something keeps the characters from simply running away from the house. When Catie tries to leave through the front door, they see a seemingly endless expanse of grass and run for an indeterminate amount of time, only to end up back in bed inside the house upon closing their eyes.
• Crapsaccharine World: The world of the cartoon. It's really cute and cozy, everyone in it is nice and adorable, no one seems to need to work... oh, and you can't leave, and there are monsters that roam the halls at night.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In Chapter 2, Mother dispatches a Nightmare offscreen with little effort. Happens again in Chapter 11.
  • In Chapter 10, The Doorman easily overpowers the trio of Catie, Od-Dog, and Empathetic Elephant, sending the latter two retreating and killing Catie without even being injured by them.
• Disabled Snarker: Funky Monkey is blind and constantly makes witty remarks, sarcastic retorts, and just messes around with the other characters in general.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Posh Pine and Shy Shark appeared in a (possibly non-canon) short before Chapter 4 was released.
• Empty Shell: Implied with Od-Dog. As Empathetic Elephant explains to Catie, after he entered the basement, he realized he was too late to return home, then shut himself in his room for days, possibly weeks, never coming out. When he did finally leave his room, he had forgotten his name again and everything that he did when he did still remember his name.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Funky Monkey establishes himself as a trollish jokester immediately upon being introduced when he calls Catie a squirrel, despite having just heard Mother name them Curious Cat.
    Curious Cat (Catie): What are you doing?
    Funky Monkey: (feeling up their head) I'm making sure I get a good look at ya. Sharp canines, whiskers, pointy ears, and a fluffy tail. You must be... a squirrel!
    Curious Cat: I'm a cat, you moron!
    Funky Monkey: Well, how am I supposed to know that? I've never seen a cat before.
    Od-Dog: You've never seen anything before, Funky Monkey...
    Funky Monkey: (deadpan) Don't patronize me.
  • Posh Pine introduces himself to Catie by insulting them for being an hour late to breakfast while pointing at his shiny gold watch and telling them they're not making a good first impression, establishing his wealthy background, obsession with punctuality, and unpleasant personality.
• Eye Motifs: Eyes are a recurring symbol of a character's mental state. Characters who remember their past identity are shown with a shine in their eyes while those who have forgotten have pure black pupils (something apparently noticeable In-Universe with Empathetic Elephant reacting to the shine fading from Catie's eyes when they temporarily forget during a game of Hide and Seek). Mother wears her hat so it covers her eyes, and Empathetic Elephant closes his eyes when he acts deceptively.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: Mother wears a hat with a brim so wide, her eyes are cast in perpetual shadow.
• Eye Scream: In Chapter 11, Mother brutally gouges Empathetic Elephant's eyes out when he lashes out at her.
• Face Framed in Shadow: Mother's eyes are always cast in shadow. In-universe, this is explained by the enormous Eye-Obscuring Hat she wears, but symbolically, it also represents her deceptive nature.
• Failed Attempt at Scaring: In Chapter 10, Od-Dog tries to scare Catie by shining a flashlight up at his head from under his jaw while the two are in the dark. Catie is utterly unfazed and responds by clapping their hands and saying "boo," which scares him.
• Fantastic Racism: Catie guessing that Funky Monkey's favorite food is bananas is treated as horribly offensive stereotyping by the other contestants.
• Food Porn: There is an impressive panel containing the dinner the cast is fed.
• Funny Background Event: There are many examples of funny things happening in the background of a panel, most of them involving Shy Shark, given her tendency to stay out of the way of others.
  • Shy Shark accidentally scares Mighty Mule while swimming in the pool.
  • Shy Shark hides in the bathroom behind the shower curtain, despite both Posh Pine and Curious Cat knowing she's right there.
  • Shy Shark approaches Funky Monkey, who is busy digging through the storage pile, and she seems to be a second away from getting bopped in the head by a thrown screwdriver.
  • Shy Shark tries to carry a stack of books three times taller than her, then worries over a passed out Posh Pine.
  • While all of the other children are trying to pass the egg race under their own power, Missy Mouse forces Mighty Mule to carry her on his shoulders and balance both eggs in one hand each.
  • Posh Pine relaxes during the cooking segment, making a distressed Shy Shark do all of the work for their team.
• Gilded Cage: The house is a lovely place for a family to live... and Mother intends for everyone to stay put.
• Given Name Reveal: In Chapter 12, Catie and Od-Dog follow some noise to where one of the kids hid their name, learning that Empathetic Elephant's real name is Elliot.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Played straight twice, and downplayed once.
  • The first time it's played straight is when Mother maims a nightmare, with only Catie's reaction to the sound of it being seen.
  • The second time is when Mother gouges Empathetic Elephants eyes out to make him forget his name, depicted through their shadows on the library wall.
  • It's downplayed when the Doorman bites off Catie's head after they fail to kill it, with the gruesome act being depicted, but only in a two-color black and white fashion that excludes most detail.
• Hates Common Food: Implied with Posh Pine. During the "snack break" portion of the game show, while everyone else eats a slice of the same cake, Posh Pine has an entirely gold slice (presumably, it's covered in edible gold foil). He also carries a golden egg during the egg race, while everyone else has a normal egg.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In Chapter 11, Empathetic Elephant injures his own leg after seeing that Od-Dog left a trail of blood, then confronts Mother alone to prevent her from learning that he was working with Catie and Od-Dog. Mother ends up gouging his eyes out.
• He's Back!: In Chapter 13, Od-Dog, having previously lost his hope, his memories, and his true personality, suddenly returns to his true self and immediately starts making a new plan with Catie.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Mother wears a hat with a brim so incredibly wide, it's a wonder she's able to fit through doors.
• Insane Troll Logic: During the game show, Funky Monkey asks the contestants what color his eyes are. (Since he always wears shades, this is not a trivial question.) Catie and Od-Dog take a shot in the dark and guess green, while the others admit they don't know. Instead of revealing his eyes, Funky monkey reasons that, because he has never seen his own eyes and therefore does not know what color they are, the teams who did not answer are correct. This infuriates Catie.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: During the animated prologue, Foxtrot lightly scolds Mighty Mule for insulting Od-Dog's self-recreation and tries to compliment it herself, but immediately finds that she can't come up with anything nice to say about it and calls it awful.
• Ironic Name:
  • Most of the children have names that describe something about them: Shy Shark is shy, Od-Dog is quirky, etc. The exception is Empathetic Elephant, who is never shown to be particularly empathetic; on the contrary, he's fairly standoffish and aloof. This can be explained by the other characters losing their true personalities when they forgot their names and slipping into their house personas, which never happened with Empathetic Elephant.
  • Played for Laughs during Funky Monkey's game show. Od-Dog names his and Catie's team "Team Friendship", which Catie calls a stupid name right to his face. Funky Monkey remarks that "half of Team Friendship isn't very friendly."
• Loss of Identity: Those who enter the House quickly forget their names, and once one forgets their own name, they quickly forget everything about their previous life, including the fact that they ever had one, even losing much of their original personality. This is most evident with Od-Dog, who is introduced as an extroverted, outgoing, slightly quirky character, but when he regained his memories in Empathetic Elephant's flashback, he became snarky and fiercely independent.
• Meaningful Name: Foxtrot seems to be the one character whose name doesn't say anything about them — until the dance battle, where she reveals herself to be quite the formidable dancer. (The comic itself points out that a foxtrot is a type of ballroom dance for the benefit of those who don't already know.)
• Mind-Control Eyes: As shown in the VHS animation and later in the comic itself in Chapter 4, the bodies of those trapped in the show have their eyes flashing rings of blue, yellow, purple, and pink, given that Catie struggles and fails to look away from the television as it's shown in Chapter 4, these are likely the result of the humans undergoing hypnosis by the TV to keep them looking at it.
• Morphic Resonance: In Chapter 10, Catie and Od-Dog's human forms are shown, both bearing a certain resemblance to their house counterparts. Catie's beanie in particular has a shape reminiscent of the top of their head in their cat form.
• Mundane Made Awesome: At the end of Chapter 9, Empathetic Elephant finds kitchen knives to use as weapons against the nightmare guarding Mother's room. Catie remarks that, given their tiny bodies, the knives are more like swords. In the next chapter, this ends up being subverted when they get curb-stomped by the nightmare.
• My Nayme Is: The odd dog actually spells his name "Od-Dog". Lampshaded by Catie in Chapter 3.
• Nervous Wreck: Shy Shark is constantly frowning, easily startled, and spends a fair amount of her onscreen presence hiding behind objects and other people. She also happens to have a phobia of cats, leading her to spend the first chapter of the comic hiding from Catie.
• Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: Od-Dog's coloring book starts with genuinely good art that could have been done by a teen or adult, transitions into horrific paintings of the various Nightmares he's encountered, and then reverts back to childish scribble after he regresses.
• Nobody Poops: Lampshaded by Catie when they ask Posh Pine if using the bathroom is even necessary in their cartoon bodies. His answer isn't shown, but it would seem to be 'no'.
• Non-Standard Character Design:
  • While most of the cast look like critters from the 80s cartoons the comic emulates, Mother is a colorless, tall, realistic human who looks like she belongs in a horror manga.
  • Downplayed with Missy Mouse and Shy Shark, who have Black Bead Eyes in contrast with the other characters' Black Dot Pupils. They also both seem to lack thumbs, which makes at least some sense given Shy Shark's species, but not with Missy Mouse.
• Odd Friendship: Posh Pine and Shy Shark have little in common, yet they seem to get along, with Shy Shark trusting Posh Pine to keep her safe from Catie, who she fears. They even team up for Funky Monkey's game show.
• Overly Long Name: Invoked by Funky Monkey during his game show. When he asks Foxtrot for her team's team name, she responds, "I think there's been a mistake, I'm missing my teammate!" as her intended partner, Empathetic Elephant, did not show up. Funky Monkey, being the troll that he is, deliberately misinterprets this as Foxtrot actually giving the name of her "team" and even passes the name along to Mother when she appears to judge the dance-off.
  Mother: First up is team: "Uh I think there's been a mistake, I'm missing my teammate!?" Hmm, what an unusual, and slightly long team name.
  Funky Monkey: That's what I said!
• Proscenium Reveal: Inverted when Funky Monkey's game show, which apparently took place on a stage in front of a live audience, is revealed to have actually taken place in the living room the whole time. Even Od-Dog has no explanation for this.
• Punny Name: The fox character is named "Foxtrot", which is also a type of dance. This is pointed out by the comic itself during the dance-off scene, where Foxtrot proves herself to be a skilled dancer.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Od-Dog, who has both the body and the personality of a golden retriever, serves as a character foil to the much more subdued, snarky, and logically-minded Catie.
• Restoration of Sanity: Remembering ones name also restores one's personality, as Catie returns to their previous personality after remembering their name again, as does Od-Dog in Empathetic Elephant's flashback.
• Resurrective Immortality: In Chapter 11, Catie learns that the children can't actually die in the house. If they do, they just respawn. In Chapter 13, Od-Dog reveals that he once killed The Doorman, meaning that this applies to the Nightmares as well. The conversation between the chained up child and Mother at the end of the chapter implies that he once killed her before as well, meaning that everyone in the setting is effectively immortal, at least as long as they stay in the house.
• Shout-Out: One of the prizes on Funky Monkey's game show is the Gum-Gum fruit.
• Shrinking Violet: As her name suggests, Shy Shark is incredibly shy and quiet and spends most of her onscreen time hiding behind objects and other people. The canon reason she didn't appear until Chapter 4 is that she was hiding from Curious Cat (Catie) with Posh Pine due to being afraid of cats.
• Species Surname: Mother names each of the animal children some variation of (Adjective) (Their Species), from Mighty Mule to Empathetic Elephant to the protagonist Curious Cat. Foxtrot appears to be the only exception to this.
• The Speechless: Missy Mouse is mute and communicates via a wooden sign.
• "Staying Alive" Dance Pose: The disco sequence during the game show features many visual allusions to Travolta's moves in Saturday Night Fever.
• Symbol Swearing: Harsher swear words like "shit" are censored by using symbols in place of letters. Lesser swear words like "damn" are uncensored.
• Talking with Signs: Missy Mouse is mute and communicates by holding up a wooden sign that says what wants it to.
• Trail of Blood: In Chapter 11, Od-Dog realizes he left a trail of blood leading to where he, Catie, and Empathetic Elephant are hiding in the library. Empathetic Elephant injures his own leg to take the fall for it.
• Trapped in TV Land: The titular House is located inside a supernatural VHS tape that sucks in and traps the viewer. Whether or not the Backwards House is a fictional cartoon in-universe is unknown, but the world is clearly styled after the trappings of children's edutainment TV.
• Trope Telegraphing: At the beginning of Chapter 13, there are several panels where the no-longer-so-innocent Od-Dog is visible, but his eyes are closed, obscured, not visible due to perspective, or conspicuously just out of frame. Given the comic's recurring and thematic usage of Eye Motifs, one can easily guess that the chapter is setting up the reveal that his eyes have changed, indicating that he has regained some memory. Sure enough, though he doesn't remember his name, he has regained his original personality and remembered how he got past The Doorman.
• Unsound Effect: In Chapter 7, "STAND" and "STRETCH" are written like onomatopoeia.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Virtually every interaction between Funky Monkey and Mighty Mule involves the former teasing, insulting, or aggravating the latter in some way. However, this very behavior is what clues Catie in that Funky Monkey considers Mighty Mule his best friend.
  Funky Monkey: Okay, last question... Who is my best friend?
  Catie: (to Od-Dog) Don't worry... I know this one. (to Funky Monkey) It's Mighty Mule.
  Funky Monkey: And why do you think that?
  Catie: He's the one you tease the most. And no matter how he pretends to act, he never really seems to stay mad at you for it. That's just how best friends are.
• Wham Line:
  • During Empathetic Elephant's flashback in Chapter 6, Od-Dog, who had previously remembered his name and reached the basement where the exit to the house lay, returned up the basement stairs and said one thing: "I was too late."
  • Chapter 12 has Empathetic Elephant reveal another attempted escape attempt, this time involving all of the other kids. It went horribly wrong when on the night it was supposed to be executed, everyone had their names erased. Since Mother (supposedly) can't enter their rooms, Empathetic Elephant only has one other possibility (which acts as a cliffhanger line for the chapter).
    Empathetic Elephant: One of the other kids... could be a traitor.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: The character imprisoned indefinitely by Mother who is introduced at the end of Chapter 13 has yellow eyes. He manages to trick Mother into thinking he'd cooperate with her, only to lash out and bare his teeth at her, his yellow eyes glowing in the dark. Him actually being an evil character is dubious given Mother's nature as the antagonist, but he is clearly deceptive and apparently killed Mother once before.
• You Can't Go Home Again: As Empathetic Elephant explains to Catie in Chapter 6, Od-Dog once made it to the basement where the exit presumably lies, only to find out he was "too late", implying that children who stay too long in the house are stuck forever.
• You Don't Want to Know: During the animated prologue, Funky Monkey asks Empathetic Elephant to describe Od-Dog 2.0 (Od-Dog's crude recreation of himself). Empathetic Elephant simply takes one look at it and says, "You don't want to know."