Forever 16 - TV Tropes

Forever 16 is a webcomic found on DeviantArt about Joel Maxwell, a 16-year-old in Minnesota during the '90s, who is a big fan of music, cartoons and movies.

His friends include his disgruntled food court worker girlfriend, Michelle Hseign; his best friends, Steve and Aaron; Steve's girlfriend, the punk rocker Jocelyn (she, Joel, Steve and Aaron form the band Westworld), and the animation fanatic and object of Aaron's unwanted affection, Kendra.

The series takes place in the 1990s and allows the author, JB Warner, to pay homage to the culture of that time while quite a number of strips take place in modern times as well.

The comic ended up being rebooted and renamed Nineteen-Ninety-Something in late 2014 due to JB wanting the comic to have more development and take place entirely throughout the 90s, which was his original intention.

Can be found here; http://jbwarner86.deviantart.com/ and here; http://1990somethingcomic.com/

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This webcomic contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc: When Kick-Ass came to theaters, JB made an outline for a story where Steve and Jocelyn dress up as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl and become vigilantes. This gets a Discontinuity Nod in this strip when Steve wants to do the same thing again when he sees The Green Hornet movie.
• Adapted Out: Abby is no longer present in Nineteen-Ninety-Something, as JB felt like she wouldn't have benefited much as a character in said series, and simply made her become her own character in what was originally a spinoff of Forever 16 titled Adorkable.
• Adults Are Useless: Virtually every adult that appears in each comic tend to be either jerks, idiots, unhelpful, or all three.
• AI Is A Crap Shoot: Michelle's upgraded Watson-esque computer trys to kill Joel in order to be Michelle's boyfriend.
• All Men Are Perverts:
  • Aaron West is a total perv. Kinda deconstructed a bit in NNS, where Aaron becomes conflicted over whether or not he likes girls for their hotness or for their personality.
  • Joel Maxwell used to be this until he met Michelle.
  • Steve sometimes tends to be a bit perverted towards his girlfriend Jocelyn, not that she really minds though.
• Alpha Bitch: Lindsay Duquense, also head cheerleader. Exaggerated in Nineteen-Ninety-Something, where she practically rules the whole school.
• Art Evolution: JB has shown some major improvement in his art over the last several years. Evidenced by an art evolution meme he made.
• Author Appeal: JB loves putting his (or other) characters in a pool of water (in either swimsuits or street clothes). Also anything from the '90s.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Michelle has this in the story line where the school's Alpha Bitch tries to break her and Joel apart. Do not make her angry. You wouldn't like her when she's angry...
• Casanova Wannabe: Aaron West, definitely. Again, this is deconstructed in NNS, where he becomes legitimately depressed by his constant failures to get a girlfriend (that and JB wanted to show off a more sympathetic side of him after too many complaints about his character being a douche bag).
• Darker and Edgier: Nineteen-Ninety-Something is much more mature than Forever 16.
• Deconstructive Parody: The whole premise of the comic is a deconstructive parody of almost everything that was popular or took place during the 1990s.
  • Overlaps with Affectionate Parody at times, depending on the subject matter.
• DreamWorks Face: Demonstrated here;
• Distracted by the Sexy: Joel is very in to Michelle's dancing to Zumba Fitness.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The strips of what eventually became Forever 16, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, had this with rougher artwork and a Joel who was more like his friend, Aaron West, early on here.
  • Forever 16 could now be considered this to anyone who's currently reading the Nineteen-Ninety-Something comics.
• Fan of Underdog: JB is a huge fan of Meg Griffin, Roberta Tubbs and Hayley Smith for the shows putting them off to the side. He has made much fan art for the three of them, Hayley in particular.
• Foregone Conclusion: The 2014 storyline of Joel going on a date with Denise Holbrook is this as it takes place before he met Michelle (trope namedropped here).
• Halloween Episode: ''Jocelyn.com'' and ''Blair Necessities''
• Hate Sink: Lindsay and her family are deliberately made to be as unlikable as humanly possible.
• Homage: To TheBoondocks in this page. Also the below mentioned examples of Pulp Fiction and Jurassic Park in the Shout-Out examples.
• Jerkass: Aaron and Jocelyn at their worst, the Duquense family is perennially assholes described here and Kendra's older brother demonstrates this here.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While they may be jerks most of the time, Aaron and Jocelyn do value their friendship with Joel, Michelle, and Steve.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: The Duquenses. Even more so in Nineteen-Ninety-Something, where Kevin and Lindsey are straight-up psychopaths.
• Just Here For The Hot Goth Girl: Tabitha believes that people only read her "Asphyxia" magazine solely so they could masturbate to the pictures of her.
• McDonald's: Joel starts working there here.
• Meaningful Rename: JB renamed his comic Nineteen-Ninety-Something in late 2014 since it makes more sense, considering that the comic is meant to take place in the 90s.
• Ms. Fanservice: Jocelyn can be this from time to time, but Denise Holbrook takes the cake in the "Animal Magnetism" arc. Aaron describes her by saying "She's got great hooters and she never wears a bra", later offers Joel sex here and here.
  • Lindsay and, to a lesser extent, Jocelyn in Nineteen-Ninety-Something.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: See AI Is A Crap Shoot above.
• Oh, Crap!: Joel gets this face in this comic when he learns before having sex with Denise that Denise doesn't shave.
• Perky Goth: Tabitha from the newer comics. Tabitha actually started out as a more... disturbing girl when the comic was still called Forever 16, but JB made her perky to contrast the more gloomy goth stereotypes.
• Prince and Pauper: Justin Beiber, of all people, and Joel as explained here.
• Retcon: Word of God says strips from 2010-2011 are non-canon here.
  • Nineteen-Ninety-Something changes the backstory for most of the characters:
    • Steve met Joel and Aaron in detention, while Forever 16 implies that they've been friends from the start.
    • Jocelyn was also the member of a band and was a lesbian before a falling out with her girlfriend (who was the lead singer of said band) led her to quit and eventually become Steve's girlfriend. In the original comic, Jocelyn never really had an actual backstory other than meeting Steve and joining Westworld.
    • The Duquense family end up moving into Joel's neighborhood neat the start of the comic; there's no mention of this in Forever 16.
    • Tabitha is portrayed as a much more perky and fun-loving girl with a BDSM fetish as oppose to the near suicidal emo from the original.
    • Westworld, the name of Joel's band, was conceived by Aaron after seeing a concert and finally decided to do something with his life by starting his own band.
• Shout-Out: The comic is this out of universe and the characters do this deliberately themselves in universe. Such examples include;
• Spin-Off: The strips Adorkable features secondary character Abby as a college student. As of now, Adorkable is its own webcomic since Abby was Adapted Out of the Nineteen-Ninety-Something reboot.
• Take That!: JB uses the comic to take shots at things he doesn't like, such as Justin Beiber, the 2010 Yogi Bear movie and Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccine crusade.
• Time Skip: Not an in-universe one, but a sketch page has the main cast appear as 21-year olds.
• Title by Number: Referencing the age of the protagonist, 16-years-old.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Joel gives this to Lindsay Duquense when she tries to get him to cheat on his girlfriend, Michelle, here.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Said word for word by Jocelyn when her little brother switches Mystery Science Theater 3000 to CatDog. Her boyfriend, Steve, doesn't mind.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Joel in Nineteen-Ninety-Something, where he became an even bigger smartass than in Forever 16.
• Took a Level in Kindness: On the other hand, Aaron in Nineteen-Ninety-Something isn't has arrogant as he was in Forever 16.
• Who Would Want to Watch Us?: Kendra, fed up with the formulaic lineup of Fox's animated programming, decides to make her own cartoon. Crosses into Self-Deprecation with this strip;
• World of Snark: Oh yes...
• Yoko Oh No: This was the case with Jocelyn in Forever 16. Aaron, at first, refused to let Jocelyn join the band simply because Steve was dating her. In actuality, Aaron didn't want her in the band because then he'd be the only member without a girlfriend.

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