Madison

From Candypedia
Madison
GenderFemale
Age18
BirthdayOctober 19, 1990 (Libra)
GradeSenior as of Table for One
SpeciesCat
OccupationStudent
AffiliationSenior friend group
DebutTotal Recall, page 15
October 24, 2013 (2013-10-24)

Madison is a senior at Roseville High School and Jessica’s girlfriend. Whatever she is feeling about anything, the room finds out at once. She transferred in during tenth grade[1] and settled comfortably into the senior friend group, where she can usually be found planning movie nights or threatening Paulo. For months she nurses a grudge against a girl named Lucy without ever having a conversation with her. When she finally does tell Lucy off, the girl can’t hear a word of it.

Personality

Madison’s idea of constructive criticism comes with a punch.

Madison takes the group’s Friday movie nights personally. She hates gym class and pre-calc, adores trashy slasher sequels, schedules movie nights, and scolds anyone who dares to skip one.[2] Pretty much any annoyance gets a loud response, with a middle finger or a punch thrown in as well. She is also completely soft on Jessica, gushing over her play and planning a signed-CD surprise for her, and she can swing between the two moods inside a single sentence.[3][4] Madison is quite sure she is a nice person, and she announces every single grievance to prove it. She even talks Mrs. Turner into a horror-movie assignment for an easy A. As she puts it, “I’m a VERY persuasive student!”[5]

Madison loses her temper at almost nothing. One insulting remark at the beach earns Paulo a punch in the back,[6] and one case of mistaken identity has her vowing to wring a total stranger’s neck.[7] When Madison is seriously angry, though, somebody else is usually the reason. Her fiercest takedown of Paulo is entirely about how he treats Rachel,[8] she interrupts him at Daisy’s birthday to heckle him with Rachel’s feelings,[9] and even her hallway rant at Lucy is framed as protecting Jessica from further hurt.[10] The commentary under the Paulo confrontation sums her up in five words: “she fights for her friends.”[8]

Despite her bravado, Madison is pretty scared of not being good enough. Before junior prom she stood in a fitting room convinced that Jessica would not want a geeky-looking nerd with brand-new glasses for a girlfriend.[11] When she learns Jessica once had a crush on Lucy, she worries that she might be a replacement.[12] Her big hallway tirade stalls halfway through and slides into worrying that Jessica is too good for her, so she has to argue herself back up out loud. “Nobody wants a whiner who constantly feels sorry for herself! Not her not anyone!” Veronica’s commentary describes that page as Madison trying to practice self-love when tearing herself down would be easier.[13] Months later she still lets slip a joke about never wanting to get between Jessica and the love of her life, and then insists rather too quickly that it was a joke.[14]

She filters none of it. Veronica has called her a “nervous chatterbox” whose foot ends up in her mouth as a result,[15] and the comic backs her up at every turn. Madison cheerfully asks an entire lunch table about the weird incest thing, her outsider’s read on a school play in which Mike and Lucy played siblings.[16] Her apology to Sue for that remark manages to insult Sue’s actors and bring up Lucy’s suicide attempt one right after the other, which is the page where the commentary crowns her queen of the condition and declares it terminal.[17] Her word-vomit about Lucy in Double Down leaves Jordan feeling like a bad brother, too.[14]

Madison’s anger settles into a clear-eyed verdict about Rachel’s feelings.

When her friends are angry, though, Madison can be the one talking sense. While Rachel, Matt and Jordan fume at Jessica’s play for borrowing their lives, she insists it was well-made. She can’t even work out which character was meant to be her, and the commentary calls her the most level-headed person in the group that day.[18] She is the one who says Jessica shouldn’t apologize at all,[19] and the one who points out that the friends’ tidy reconciliation changed nothing, since the play is still the same play.[20] Once she understands what Lucy has been through, she is willing to put her grudge aside.[14] She also turns her clumsy apology to Sue into some genuinely useful advice about going easier on herself.[21]

Appearance

Veronica’s “original Madison designs,” drawn before Madison even had a name.[22]

Madison is a brown cat with darker brown hair and glasses.[23] She has bangs and usually wears her hair loose.[24] She got the glasses in the side story Love Letters right before junior prom, and was not thrilled about the timing.[11] That first prom appearance puts her in a strapless, full-skirted dress with a cup of punch in hand,[23][25] and the beach trip has her in a white patterned sundress.[26]

Veronica’s early concept sheet, drawn before Madison even had a name, shows a nerdier “grumpy bookworm” look. That got scrapped because it started to resemble the older Molly design, and the bangs were changed too so people wouldn’t ask whether this was Molly.[22] The comic itself would rather compare her to Lucy. David greets her as a second Lucy-baby,[1] Mike calls her Lucy after bumping into her,[7] and Veronica’s commentary only allows that the two aren’t “complete clones.”[1] Veronica has also admitted that a brown-haired cat girl with glasses and a big bust came out eerily like the way she draws herself, while insisting firmly that Madison is not her.[24]

Significant events

Madison’s story starts before she ever speaks in the main comic. In the side story Love Letters, a newly transferred sophomore Madison asks Jessica to pair up in Mr. Holloway’s history class, and the two bond over hating him.[27][1] By junior year Rachel has spotted the crush and badgers Madison into asking Jessica to junior prom,[28] which is where the main comic first shows her, standing silently beside Jessica in Total Recall.[23]

Jessica insists Lucy is in the past and not, like, an ex, in Golden Hour.

Her speaking debut comes on the summer beach trip in Golden Hour, where she and Jessica are already a couple.[29][6] Later in the trip, David’s chatter reveals Jessica’s old crush on Lucy, and Madison worries she is a replacement.[12]

Madison spots Lucy and immediately makes it everyone’s problem.

She carries that grudge into senior year. Mike calls her Lucy by mistake on the first day,[7] and lunch-table gossip helps her identify the girl Jessica liked.[16] In Love Again, she confronts Paulo over Rachel’s feelings[8] and later spots Lucy with Augustus outside school, to her loud displeasure.[30]

In PDA, Madison finally tells Lucy off, only to learn that Lucy is half-deaf and heard none of it. Jessica reassures her with a kiss.[31][32] Jessica also organizes her surprise birthday party at the bowling alley in Fair Game,[33] where Madison celebrates turning eighteen with her friends.[34]

By winter, Madison is willing to put Lucy’s needs ahead of her jealousy. In Double Down, she welcomes the suggestion that Lucy join a group mall trip, explaining that she hadn’t realized what Lucy was going through and wants someone to keep an eye on her.[14]

Later, Madison defends Jessica’s play during the argument in Method Acting, earning a sharp rebuke from Rachel.[35] In Participation Trophy, she opposes Jessica apologizing[19] and then helps Sue put the reception of her own play in perspective, after an awkward start.[17][21] She is at the senior table when Augustus finally joins it in Line in the Sand.[36]

Major relationships

Jessica

Jessica pets a sulking Madison in Table for One.

Jessica and Madison are a couple that simply works. They clicked back when Madison was brand new to Roseville. In Love Letters, she picks Jessica as her history partner,[27] and Jessica’s own account is that they spent a great deal of time hating on Mr. Holloway together and just sort of clicked.[1] It took Rachel to get Madison to admit the crush, and her eventual prom invitation consisted mostly of trashing junior prom until Jessica said she’d love to go.[37]

Madison’s insecurity about Lucy is something Jessica answers rather than exploits. In PDA, after Madison’s hallway rant collapses into fretting that she is not good enough, Jessica kisses her. She tells Madison she loves her and finds her adorable, then reassures her about the comparison: “You run circles ’round her, don’t you worry.” Madison, being Madison, immediately starts fishing for the rest of the list, asking about talents and personality too.[32] Veronica has since confirmed that Jessica’s old crush was mostly physical and that Jessica would not leave Madison for Lucy, describing Madison as a nervous chatterbox rather than someone with Lucy’s baggage.[15]

Day to day, Jessica manages the temper and Madison worships her for it. Jessica teases her into volleyball,[38] pets her head when she sulks,[39] and reels her in with a firm “Maddie, stop”[40] or a bop on the head when words fail.[9] She also throws Madison a surprise eighteenth at the bowling alley, and the two squeal in unison over having a corner of the alley to themselves: “No weirdoes.”[41] Madison, in turn, plans a trip to a distant mall for a signed CD to surprise her,[4] and even a group scolding over skipped movie nights comes with the exemption “(Not you Jessica you’re perfect)”.[2] When Rachel snaps at Madison during the play argument, it is Jessica who tells her not to talk to Madison that way.[35]

Lucy

Madison tries to defend Jessica while Lucy hears none of it.

Madison wages a one-sided feud for months, and the feud is far more about Madison than about Lucy. It begins as a name on the beach trip in Golden Hour, when David cheerfully tells her she is just like his Lucy-baby and that no wonder Jessica is dating her.[1] Madison demands to know who the hell Lucy is and whether she is a replacement for her,[12] and from then on every stray mention feeds the fire. Mike calls her Lucy by accident on the first day of school, and she vows to wring the stranger’s neck.[7] Lunch-table gossip about the incest play tells her exactly which girl Jessica once liked.[16] Spotting Lucy walking with Augustus outside school brings out a shouted profanity.[30]

During the tirade in PDA, Madison blurts out what the grudge is made of. She spots Lucy at the lockers and lets fly, and the first real accusation to come out is that Lucy thinks she is great just because she is pretty.[42] She warns Lucy to stay away from Jessica, who is spoken for and very happy, then adds under her breath that she hopes so, anyway.[13] By the end she has landed on something sincere, promising to make Jessica the happiest she can be and telling Lucy that Jessica has been through enough.[10] Lucy, half-deaf and facing the other way, hears none of it. Madison’s first response on learning this is to swear she’ll get her for it.[31]

Madison puts the grudge aside in Double Down. When Augustus suggests bringing Lucy on the mall trip, their friends freeze in the hallway and stare at her.[43] Madison says she hadn’t realized what Lucy was going through, and her answer is plain: “Someone oughta keep an eye on her, right? I know I’d want to.”[14] She still refers to Lucy as “the girl” when talking to Sue,[17] but later shares a cafeteria with her without incident.[36]

Paulo

Madison asks Paulo to consider Rachel, with considerably more force than tact.

Paulo is smitten with Madison before she even starts hitting him, and her replies could hardly be less encouraging. His line at the beach volleyball game gets a wish that he catch a disease.[44] She follows it with a raised middle finger; when he learns she is dating Jessica and grumbles that she’s a waste, she punches him in the back, and his lovestruck reply is that “you hit like her too”.[6] Veronica’s commentary on those pages notes that Paulo has a type,[44] and she has said elsewhere that he seemed taken by Lucy’s and Madison’s shittiness alike.[45] Daisy later pictures Madison among the girls Paulo has been drawn to.[46]

Madison confronts him over the way he treats Rachel in Love Again. She catches him flirting with Courtney and calls it pathetic. Paulo fires back that the man-hating act is getting old and asks whether lesbians are always like this; Madison responds by accusing him of mistreating his girlfriend.[47] He insists Rachel is not his girlfriend and can leave whenever she wants, but Madison keeps pressing him about stringing her along and leaves him looking guilty.[8] She is more interested in Rachel’s feelings than in what Paulo calls the arrangement. Daisy’s birthday picnic gets him glares and middle fingers,[40] plus a heckle that now he knows how Rachel feels.[9] He keeps orbiting anyway. Matt brought him to her eighteenth-birthday party,[48] to her loud dismay,[49] and Paulo cheerfully offered to drive her to the mall when she needed a ride.[4]

Rachel

In Method Acting, Rachel reminds Madison that even referees have breaking points.

Rachel built Madison’s relationship with her own hands, and she has been refereeing Madison ever since. In Love Letters, Rachel clocks the crush before Madison will admit to it, reveals that Jessica likes girls, and watches Madison flee shouting that that’s good for her.[50] She then badgers Madison into asking Jessica to junior prom. Madison sets a condition: if Jessica says no, Rachel owes her lunch through the end of the year.[28] In the main comic she keeps a hand on the wheel. She gleefully stirs the pot when the Lucy crush comes out at the beach,[12] covers for Madison at the lunch table,[16] and tells her to be nice to Paulo at Daisy’s party because the two of them worked things out. Madison mutters that Rachel has told her a lot of other things, too.[40]

Madison repays all this with plenty of affection. A gloomy Rachel gets the offer of a movie and a Burger-Tron dinner on Madison’s dime, along with a smothering group hug,[5] and the two celebrate strikes together at the bowling alley.[51] They clash during the play blowup in Method Acting, when Madison tries to calm everyone down and Rachel snaps, “Shut up, Madison! This doesn’t AFFECT you!”[35] The rift doesn’t last long, though. By Participation Trophy, Madison is once again at the table needling Rachel as usual.[52]

Minor relationships

Jordan

Burnt Bridges gives their movie night a distinctly physical review.

Veronica’s commentary reckons these two are peas in a pod,[43] which in practice means they communicate largely in punches. The pair hold movie nights together and trade playful punches over whether cookies beat her dad’s octopus-cut hot dogs,[53] and Madison admits the kid is hard to resist hitting.[54] She also deadpans about his Tiff fixation,[55] though she and Jessica are the ones consoling him when Tiff walks out of the party.[56] When Madison puts her grudge against Lucy aside, she points out that this is Jordan’s sister they’re talking about.[14]

David

“Maddie-baby” is David’s invention, and he has kept it in use over Madison’s loudest objections. On the night he coins it, he also asks her to say “jerkface” like Lucy. Madison’s furious “DON’T CALL ME THAT YOU JERK!!” earns a cheery “Close enough!”[12] His babbling about his Lucy-baby is also how she works out who Jessica’s old crush was.[16] Months later, she recoils when he pops up beside her with the same nickname, and he still doesn’t mind a bit.[52]

Sue

Madison insists the terrible acting proves Sue’s plan worked.

Madison’s mockery of the incest play was one of the voices rattling around in Sue’s head, and Sue says so herself when she’s crying over it.[57] Jessica is the first to tell Sue not to talk about herself that way,[58] and Madison piles in with an apology that barely gets started before adding “Your actors sucked!” Sue points out that she has undermined her own point a little.[17] All the same, Madison gets there in the end. Nobody talked about the play afterwards, she points out, because Sue’s class heard the news of a classmate nearly dying the very next day, so Sue might go a little easier on herself.[21]

Quotes

I’d rather you catch a disease, loser. Madison, rebuffing Paulo at the beach in Golden Hour

For real? Summer vacation’s supposed to give me the chance to AVOID gym class! Madison, being invited to volleyball in Golden Hour

I can’t believe this! Am I just a replacement for SOME BITCH?! Madison, hearing about Jessica’s old crush in Golden Hour

I swear I’m going to find this “Lucy” and WRING HER NECK Madison, after Mike calls her the wrong name in Table for One

You better stay away from Jessica because she’s spoken for and VERY HAPPY!
I.. um.. hope, anyway. Madison, bravado running out mid-sentence in PDA

(Not you Jessica you’re perfect) Madison, making an exception mid-lecture in Burnt Bridges

But do I really have to wait an ENTIRE MONTH between Knifeman 3 and Knifeman 4?! Madison, on the true cost of cancelled movie nights in Burnt Bridges

So maybe remember those details.. .. and go a little easier on yourself? Madison, salvaging an apology to Sue in Participation Trophy

Gallery

For a complete gallery, see Gallery:Madison.

Appearances by volume

Outfits

Trivia

  • Madison was planned well before she showed up. Veronica has said that Matt was never meant to become a character, but Madison was, because she wanted to give Jessica a girlfriend and plotted Madison out for a while.[59]
  • Her silent background debut at prom ran on September 26, 2014, just over a year before her speaking debut in Golden Hour on October 14, 2015.[23][29] Veronica had to redraw her design to match that earlier cameo.[22]
  • Madison’s beloved Knifeman slasher franchise reaches its fourth entry with The Reknifening.[2][53]
  • The two pages in Love Again where Madison, Jessica and Matt cheer Rachel up were not in the chapter’s original thumbnails. Veronica added them because she’d take any excuse for their antics.[30]
  • An alternate pairing strip in Ships Ahoy, Season Four revisits the PDA setup with a Lucy who answers back. Lucy says she has zero interest in Jessica; Madison ends up understanding Jessica’s taste.[60]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 31
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 111: Burnt Bridges, page 1
  3. ↑ Chapter 121: Method Acting, page 14
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chapter 112: Fuel Economy, page 4
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 95: Love Again, page 26
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 9
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Chapter 92: Table for One, page 3
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Chapter 95: Love Again, page 4
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 18
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 99: PDA, page 4
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Love Letters, page 14 🔒 (members only)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 32
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 99: PDA, page 3
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 Chapter 114: Double Down, page 13
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 “Ask response on Jessica’s old crush on Lucy”. Tumblr. 2026-06-08.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Chapter 92: Table for One, page 10
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 12
  18. ↑ Chapter 121: Method Acting, page 23
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 2
  20. ↑ Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 5
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 13
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 “Original Madison designs”. Tumblr. 2016-03-09.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 15
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 “Ask response on Madison resembling Veronica’s self-portrait”. Tumblr. 2026-05-01.
  25. ↑ Love Letters, page 15 🔒 (members only)
  26. ↑ Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 7
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Love Letters, page 1 🔒 (members only)
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Love Letters, page 11 🔒 (members only)
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 5
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 30.2 Chapter 95: Love Again, page 27
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Chapter 99: PDA, page 5
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Chapter 99: PDA, page 6
  33. ↑ Chapter 104: Fair Game, page 1
  34. ↑ Chapter 104: Fair Game, page 24
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 Chapter 121: Method Acting, page 24
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Chapter 127: Line in the Sand, page 37
  37. ↑ Love Letters, page 13 🔒 (members only)
  38. ↑ Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 6
  39. ↑ Chapter 92: Table for One, page 11
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 40.2 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 8
  41. ↑ Chapter 104: Fair Game, page 2
  42. ↑ Chapter 99: PDA, page 2
  43. ↑ 43.0 43.1 Chapter 114: Double Down, page 12
  44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 8
  45. ↑ “Ask response on Paulo’s attraction to Lucy and Madison”. Tumblr. 2025-12-26.
  46. ↑ Chapter 117: Good Enough, page 16
  47. ↑ Chapter 95: Love Again, page 3
  48. ↑ Sugar Substitute, page 2
  49. ↑ Chapter 104: Fair Game, page 3
  50. ↑ Love Letters, page 8 🔒 (members only)
  51. ↑ Chapter 104: Fair Game, page 12
  52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 3
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 Chapter 111: Burnt Bridges, page 2
  54. ↑ Chapter 111: Burnt Bridges, page 3
  55. ↑ Chapter 104: Fair Game, page 4
  56. ↑ Chapter 104: Fair Game, page 8
  57. ↑ Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 10
  58. ↑ Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 11
  59. ↑ “Ask response on whether Madison was planned”. Tumblr. 2025-10-15.
  60. ↑ Ships Ahoy, Season Four, page 7 🔒 (members only)
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