Deo (webcomic)

Deo was a furry webcomic written and drawn by Grimal.

Two Guys On A Plane
The first official comics in the series are titled Two Guys on a Plane and it features two male furries of unidentified species who are dating. They talk some about their relationship, then one reveals devastating news: they are terminally ill and his treatment has not been working. He was told he had three weeks to live over a month ago. They argue some, then think back to their first dates. They hug, and the non-sick lover begins to see the sunrise. The ill lover goes limp in his arms - why this happens is unconfirmed, but it is assumed he dies there in his lovers arms. Who these characters are is never revealed, and what purpose they serve is unknown. They are never mentioned again, despite being the opener into the comic.

The Claw
The story that takes up most of the current comic, The Claw, revolves mainly around Deo, a bisexual male rat in a big city that strongly resembles New York City, fighting his loneliness and feelings alongside Foncè, a blue tiger. Deo ultimately ends up falling in love with Foncè, which leads to them splitting off their friendship. The story begins by showing Deo being rejected by almost everything and everyone. His father abandons him for making a B+ in school as opposed to an A, he beats himself up over being only Cum Laude at graduation, he's rejected for being on a sports team, his teacher scolds him for drawing monsters, his friends reject him for wanting to "play ball", another friend rejects him for listening to "Lascive Attack" and two friends ditch him for their respective dates. Deo finds solace in sitting by a tree at night, while Foncè sits on the other side of the tree. They don't see each other face to face because of the darkness and they don't reveal each others names for days first. When they first meet, Deo is contemplating suicide. Foncè talks him out of it. At the end of the chapter, they both look around the tree and see each other for the first time.

The comic then splits off into different chapters, titled by the characters names in order: Laura, Nadia, Mayte, Foncè and the Epilogue. Each one follows a different character as they struggle through life. In the end, all of the characters collide for one final dramatic ending that ties up all of their story lines.

The Downtown Lights
After The Claw ends, the next story arc begins. The chapter begins with Ger (a rat) and June (rabbit), a gay couple, sleeping together. The train tracks wake June and he complains about how loud Ger snores. Ger is a high ranked executive at a business and June is an office worker at the same office. Overhearing a phone call, Ger is aware that the relationship between the two is widely known.

The story then splits to other characters, much like the previous arc. It begins to follow a story of several more gay characters: Martin, a lizard, Keifer, a gay kangaroo who is going to meet up with several other guys at a gay club, Chase, a lynx who is headed to the same club and Neil, Chase's roommate. The rest of the story revolves around these characters and their romantic relationships with each other.

The chapters follow the time of day instead of just the characters. There are three chapters: Sunset (leading up to them all meeting), Midnight (the gay club activities) and Sunrise (the aftermath of everyone's actions).

Things We Tell Ourselves
This arc returns to Deo. It begins with him dreaming. In his dream, he reunites with Foncè. They begin to have a lightly heated argument about their seperation when the room they are in begins to collapse, and Deo wakes up, yelling at himself for having the dream.

The next scene is Deo leaving a plane, confessing to himself that he is becoming too used to being alone. He no longer has a problem with being alone, flying alone, having nobody to meet him at the airport.

A new character is introduced: Hans, a gryphon who has a job acting as a gargoyle at the local church. Nothing else is revealed about him yet.

Deo checks in at a business conference. While his back is turned, Foncè, while having an almost schizophrenic argument with himself in his head, rushes up and hugs Deo. Both afraid of blowing it in front of their respective potential lover, timidly agree to go out for coffee. Both of them talk to themselves out loud once, but neither noticed the other doing it directly. The comic then returns to Hans.

Ending
Starting around the beginning of 2008, updates came extremely sporadic, sometimes missing months at a time. This continued until about August of 2008, when all the updates from the "Things We Tell Ourselves" arc were taken down from the website, leaving only the previous two. The website has a news page, but it has absolutely nothing listed about why the pages were removed. Every page of the webcomic has a note at the bottom of the screen now: "DEO was updated three times a week from 2002 to 2007." It is assumed that Deo is finished, as the posts use the word "was".

In Print
Deo: The Claw was published on October 18, 2007. It is available on Amazon and Lulu. It features the first two arcs, Two Guys on a Plane and The Claw. It also contains author's notes, several sketches of most of the characters and the first six strips of the third arc, The Downtown Lights.