The Suburban Jungle

The Suburban Jungle is a webcomic by John "The Gneech" Robey hosted on Keenspot. It belongs in the furry or anthropomorhic animal genre.

Premise

The comic's storylines are usually of the "slice-of-life" variety and are centred around model Tiffany Tiger, her friends and her relatives. The comic chronicles Tiffany's ventures into the world of fashion and entertainment as well as her love life and the life of those she knows. The writing style combines light humour, mostly appropriate for all ages, with romance and sometimes even adventure.

The world of The Suburban Jungle is like our own reality but it is solely populated by anthropomorhpic animals. Furtermore, predation (in the style of Kevin and Kell) exists, but with many laws, both written and moral, concerning where and when a kill may be made.

Characters

Main characters

Tiffany Tiger

Tiffany is the star of the comic – the website's main page even reads "The Suburban Jungle – starring Tiffany Tiger!" A young mixed breed (Bengal and Siberian) tiger, Tiffany struggles to make a name for herself in the entertainment industry, with varying degrees of success over the years. She has been in photo shoots, presented fashion awards, starred in a b-movie reminiscent of Barbarella and may star in a similarly themed television series. For most of this time she has also been working for the Information Technology Department of MegaHugeConGloMaCo, a company whose purpose is to merge with other companies.

Through that time, her love life has also been rather turbulent. Her good looks charm many, but until now she hasn't managed to have a stable relationship, much to her dread. Her longest running affair yet has been with Conrad Tiger, but Conrad broke up with her, realising that both needed things the other could not offer. Things are looking up again, however; Tiffany recently rediscovered love in the face of her longtime friend and admirer Leonard Lion.

Tiffany is ambitious, bright, and persevering; although the way to fame is strewn with many obstacles, she always fights to overcome them.

Leonard Lion

Leonard Lion is Tiffany's current boyfriend and the bartender of The Watering Hole, a bar famous for its "No Predation" policy, which allows both predators and prey to use it. While Leonard's job is more stable than Tiffany's, he hasn't fared much better in love. He has been divorced from Glory, an ambitious lioness which left him when he was fired from a job, and he had been completely lonely since...until Tiffany came along.

For more than two years, Leonard bantered, flirted and supported Tiffany emotionally, but to no avail. Tiffany remained either oblivious or indifferent to his advances. When she finally saw the light, Leonard had just managed to get over his crush and stepped down in favour of Conrad. After he and Tiffany broke up, however, Leonard finally got together with Tiffany.

Leonard is wise-cracking, but also fair and loyal. His support of the "No Predation" policy in his store shows a degree of compassion towards prey species, a compassion which he leaves at the door when he goes hunting.

Dover Cheetah

Dover is a computer programmer who until recently worked in MegaHugeConGloMaCo's I.T. Department. He is so good at his job that working with computer code all day has inflicted him with a strange speech impediment: he can only talk in a strange amalgam of normal English and generic computer code, referred to from fans as "D-speak" or "Doverspeak". For example, "Hello, my name is Dover" comes out as:

"SET (GREETING)= HELLO

LET (MY_NAME)= DOVER"

This impediment, coupled with Dover's somewhat geeky personality (he has been known to follow trends such as trading card games and online shooters) did not make him popular with girls, until Tiffany's half-sister Comfort took an interest in him. The two quickly fell in love, then got engaged and eventually married.

Dover has a likeable enough personality, but being an only child in a rich family has left him somewhat spoilt. Until recently, he would go to great lengths to get his way – one memorable example had him sabotaging the company's system so that Tiffany would have to work overtime and miss her date with Conrad. Comfort has had a beneficial effect on his personality since she makes him so happy.

Another distinctive trait of Dover is his inability to hunt, partly because he has never had to, partly because of his squeamishness and partly because of his empathy with prey species.

External links

• The Suburban Jungle website