Ménage à 3 (webcomic)

Ménage à 3 (often abbreviated as Ma3) is a webcomic published by Pixie Trix Comix and created by artist Gisele Lagace & Dave Lumsdon, known as Giz and Dave Zero.^[1] It was started on May 16, 2008, and is currently ongoing. Set in Montreal, Canada, the webcomic follows the lives and adventures of three roommates in their attempts to find love, success and the pleasures of life. Ménage à 3 is consistently rated amongst the top 50 webcomics annually and has enjoyed success in print in addition to online.

Plot

Ménage à 3 centers around the life of Gary, Montreal resident and 29-year-old virgin. Upon losing his old roommates Matt and Dillon at short notice (when they decide to become an official gay couple), Gary is desperate to find a couple of new roomies to pay the rent. Luckily, Matt and Dillon put an ad in the local paper to find new people in need of shared living quarters, and before long, the search pays off. Things change drastically for Gary when two girls, Zii and DiDi, suddenly start sharing his apartment. Zii, obviously perplexed by Gary's (unwanted) purity, declares that her goal is to make him more confident and help him lose his virginity. But life proves full of distractions for all three of them, as other characters and objectives come and go through the story.^[2]

Characters

Primary

• Gary - Gary Thompson is the main character and the protagonist of the series. At the beginning of the webcomic, he is still a virgin and works at a call center, but has a passion for drawing comics which he eventually starts to turn into a career. Much of the storyline arcs revolve around him. He is extremely shy and nervous around women, to the point where he passes out if he sees one naked. He eventually loses his virginity to Kiley.^[3]
• Zii - Suzi Nielsen (nicknamed "Zii") is Gary's roommate. Petite in stature, she is extremely sexual, having encounters with both men and women in group and one-on-one settings. She lives a carefree life trying to restart her music career in an all-girl band. Her primary focus has been to get Gary to open up and enjoy the physical pleasures of life.
• Didi - Désirée Chastel is Gary's other roommate; she is French Canadian, specifically a francophone Québécquoise originally from Laval. She is known for her physical beauty and large breasts, which seem to enamour both men and women equally. She is described as "Amazonian strong". She is sexually unsatisfied, becoming more and more frustrated as the series has progressed.^[4]

Secondary

• Yuki - Yuki Ōyama is Zii's ex-girlfriend and technically Gary's ex-girlfriend, too. She was his first real girlfriend. Her father is a Japanese comic book writer; her mother is Japanese Canadian. She is a drummer and has reunited with Zii in her band. She has a fear of male genitalia, due to stumbling upon her father's tentacle hentai in her youth.^{[‡ 1]} As a result, she and Gary have not been intimate, as this is a fear she is trying to overcome. Later in the series they break up, but Yuki still has feelings for him. She has an irreconcilable rivalry with Sonya.
• Erik - Erik is a charming, handsome, rich man and Zii's ex-boyfriend, who was somehow able to temporarily rid Zii of her inability to stay monogamous. He initially managed Zii's new band, but has since assumed the role of managing Pretty Boyz with Electric Toyz, a glam metal band^{[‡ 2]} headed by Zii's rival, Angel. He is one of the many male suitors who failed to satisfy DiDi. He has a sister, Erika.^{[‡ 3]}
• Sonya - Sonya claims to be straight but is obsessed with Zii. She was once in competition with Yuki to be Gary's girlfriend. She is the bass player in Zii's new band. Has an irreconcilable rivalry with Yuki.
• Lita - Lita is Zii's cat and although she hates most people, she seems to be affectionate of Gary (much to his misfortune as he is allergic to cats).
• Kiley - Kiley Shefford is a psychology student at McGill University and burgeoning and clumsy therapist who once treated Yuki with her issues but ended up sleeping with her boyfriend, Gary, but only because they both think Yuki was gone; when they realized she was still in Canada, she "breaks up" with Gary and starts a therapeutic routine in order to overcome her attraction to Gary. She has issues with the size of her breasts and may be a sex addict. She was in a relationship with Matt, whom she met during a farm trip, but ended it due to his dishonesty. And she has yet to lose her attraction to Gary.
• Matt - Matthieu "Matt" Lanteigne is Gary's former roommate and former lover of Dillon. He and Dillon moved out to bring their relationship to the next level. In truth, he is bisexual and has cheated on Dillon multiple times. He is one of many men who failed to satisfy DiDi, but in this case was because some unfortunate circumstances every time they try to have sex and DiDi's obsession with Gary. He was in a relationship with Kiley, and is currently nursing an inferiority complex to Gary.^[3]
• Junghan - Junghan (often just called Jung) is a friend of Gary's and manager of a comic book store called Pixie Trix Comix who still lives with his mother for financial conveniences. He hires Zii as an employee, where he torments her by making her wear his handmade cosplays. After Zii and Erik's breakup, he assumes the role of band manager, and costume designer.
• Peggy - Peggy is a nurse who moves in with Sonya and assists her in her attempts to win over Zii. Shortly after meeting and getting involved with Matt, she becomes addicted to pegging.

Former

• Dillon - Dillon is Gary's other former roommate and Matt's ex-boyfriend. He is strictly homosexual and is more interested in a caring relationship than sex. He becomes the protagonist of his own spin-off series, Sticky Dilly Buns.^[3]
• Amber - Amber LaRose is a former porn star, Gary's former sexual obsession, and ex-girlfriend of Zii. It is insinuated that it was Zii who inspired Amber on the path to pornography. She is very fond of Gary and, as a result of having had sexual relations with him, is attempting to regain his admiration. She left the series with Dillon after they became roommates. She has a younger sister, Ruby.^{[‡ 4]}
• Sandra - Sandra Arden is a former co-worker of Didi and romantic partner to Matt. She and Didi attempted to have a lesbian affair with horrible results as they both realized they are straight. She has left the series as the protagonist in her own webcomic, Sandra on the Rocks, where she becomes a budding model and ex-secretary to Senna.
• Senna - Senna Muniz is a transgender lingerie model from Brazil. She was originally seeing Matt, but successfully pursued a sexual relationship with Gary. However, as a result of crossing paths with her ex-secretary Sandra while on a date with him, Gary ultimately breaks up with her.^{[‡ 5]} She speaks Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, French, English and Spanish.^{[‡ 6]}

Style and themes

Example of how the author begins and ends a year's volume. Left panel is the first strip showing Gary having a bad dream. Right panel is the last strip showing Yuki having a bad dream.

Ménage à 3 is storyline based. Each strip is connected to a greater storyline arc, or chapters, that culminates with a resolving event. Arcs tend to last anywhere from 10 to 30 strips and are part of an annual storyline volume. Over the course of the year, only days have passed within the storyline.^[5] Each volume ends the second week of May with the following strip initiating the next volume of strips. Each volume is symmetrical in that the last strip is similar in style to the first strip of the volume. For example, in volume one, Gary walks in on his roommates having sex in the first strip whereas in the last strip, Dillon walks in on his lover having sex with another.

Ménage à 3 mostly tackles themes related to sex and relationships - rarely in a serious manner. The characters deal with trying to overcome a myriad of issues. The characters range from being heterosexual, heterosexual but questioning their sexual orientation, in denial of their sexual orientation, bisexual, and homosexual. They deal with issues of trying to find sexual satisfaction, jealousy of each other, competing over each other, and trying to find a committed relationship. Characters also deal with issues from their past, such as being a pornstar or traumatic childhood experiences.

Reception

Ménage à 3 is consistently rated in the top 50 webcomics^[4] on the internet and is one of the top 25 most read.^[6] Reviews for Ménage à 3 have commended the artistic style as being similar to Archie Comics^[4] in a setting comparable to the American 1970s television show, Three’s Company, but with much more nudity and a heavier sexual theme more in line with the American Pie movies. Some online reviews have been critical of Ménage à 3's amount of nudity and explicit panels showing sexual actions.^[2] The NSFW label has been criticized by some reviewers as a downside, but others have noted it as a strength, claiming it is obvious the webcomic is geared towards a certain demographic.^[7][8]

References

Individual comics

In the text these references are preceded by a double dagger: ‡

External links

• Ménage à 3 webcomic
• Pixie Trix Comix