The Caviar Kid

The Caviar Kid
Author(s)	Virgil Rocca
Website	http://the-caviar-kid.bravehost.com/
Update schedule	most Mondays and Thursdays
Launch date	2008
End Date	2008
Genre	Dark Comedy, Drama
Rating(s)

The Caviar Kid was a webcomic created by Virgil Rocca. The strip focused on David, a high school dropout, his girlfriend, Bernadette, and younger cousin, Sebastian, and featured unauthorized appearances from Vinci & Arty. It made a number of references to the author's influences, which included Clerks, Fritz the Cat and Jack.

The Caviar Kid featured a distorted sketchbook style accomplished by the author's admitted lack of effort into drawing each comic. Rocca claimed that this was intentionally done this way in order to create the comic's intended look. Music also played a strong role in the strip, which referenced multiple artists, songs and albums. The strip received little attention, and ended with multiple unresolved cliffhangers.

Overview

The Caviar Kid focused on 17-year-old high school dropout David Carradine, a drug user with an inability to hold a regular job. His girlfriend, Bernadette Vons, graduated with a C-average, and is a shoplifter, and sexually promiscuous. David's inability to use a condom has led Bernadette to have several abortions. David's younger cousin, Sebastian Valley, is a angsty, omnisexual film fan. For the first two story arcs, Sebastian is unemployed. In the third story arc, New Romantics, he is hired as a clerk in a video store. The trio live in a small apartment in the fictional town of Sistray, 20 miles from Seattle, New York and Las Vegas. Rocca claims that the strip was inspired by his family history and stepbrother. The main characters are portrayed as selfish, ignorant and immature. They often make hateful remarks at each other and usually laugh at their own comments. The title characters from Vinci & Arty appeared as reoccurring characters within the strip. Rocca did not seek permission to use the characters beforehand.

The Caviar Kid was drawn in a distorted, rough sketch-like style accomplished by quickly drawing the comics and using correction fluid and computer enhancement to achieve Rocca' intended look. The strip also incorporated the use of live-action photographs as backgrounds. Acknowledged influences on the strip included Kevin Smith's Clerks, Ralph Bakshi, whose films Fritz the Cat and Coonskin are referenced within the strip, and David Hopkins' Jack. Rocca also cited music as a strong influence on his work, referring to a number of independent and underground artists and songs within the strip, including The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa. Seattle bands are a particular point of reference. Following the death of Isaac Hayes, Rocca ran a tribute to the singer.

Rocca referred to The Caviar Kid as an underground comic, citing the fact that he did not advertise outside of MySpace and viral methods. The first Caviar Kid strip, "Are You Smarter Than An 11th Grader?", was republished without the author's permission on Comic Genesis, under the title Venus In Furs, which was the title of the strip's second story arc. The strip's only review was posted on July 15, 2008, on LiveJournal. It described The Caviar Kid as being similar to Clerks and Swingers, and complimented the strip's dialogue as being highly realistic. The strip ended with multiple unresolved storylines, including Bernadette once again becoming pregnant and Sebastian's apparent death in a car crash. Soon after, producer Logan Miller posted an update claiming that Virgil Rocca had been hospitalized for "heroin and Viagra abuse", and later edited WikiFur claiming that "Rocca" died of a heroin overdose.