Toby

From Candypedia
Toby
GenderMale
SpeciesDog
AffiliationAlejandro’s gang
DebutConfrontation, page 8
January 15, 2010 (2010-01-15)

Toby is the dog forever standing a step behind Alejandro in the alleys of the Cinder Station area, a grinning sidekick whose main contribution to a shakedown is a great deal of barking. He looks like the comic relief of the gang in Confrontation, and then Trapped reveals that he is the one who actually keeps Augustus on the hook. He is also the gang member Lucy puts on the pavement with a single kick.

Personality

Toby finds Paulo’s phobia funnier than Paulo does in Confrontation.

Toby is a dog who barks in every sense of the word. When the odds are stacked his way he is cocky and grinning. He tags along behind Alejandro, laughs at his boss’s lines[1], helps himself to other people’s snacks[2], and in the old flashback days looks rather like the friendly one of the three.[3] That friendly face is a bit misleading. Toby is the one who watches from the bushes, keeps what he hears to himself when it suits him, and makes the phone calls while his boss prefers to delegate.[4][5][6]

Toby is at his nastiest when the other person is already down. His answer to Paulo charging him is a page-long wall of barking, and once Paulo is sobbing with his hands over his ears, Toby pins him to the wall and sneers “Wassamatta, li’l kitty. Got a problem with loud noises?” before stomping on his stomach.[7][8] Funnily enough, he had no idea Paulo was genuinely phobic of barking. Veronica’s commentary says he only meant to scare the kids off and stumbled into the phobia by accident.[7] Toby is just as nasty with words when there is nobody to hit. When Augustus turns up alone on carnival night, Toby tells him he is “too soft, kid” for planning a big evening for a girl instead of simply going for it.[9]

The bravado does him little good against Lucy. One kick leaves him wailing on the pavement, and he hobbles off to sit out the entire rest of the alley fight.[1] He knows his place around Alejandro too. A joke at the boss’s expense earns him a backhand in the flashback, and in the present-day scenes of Trapped he edges away down the couch when Alejandro starts screaming at the television.[3][10]

Appearance

In Trapped, Toby looms over Augustus with all the reassurance of a loaded gun.

Toby is a dog, drawn looming over Augustus when he leans in to remind him who holds the cards.[5] He has dark, floppy ears and a pale muzzle, with a notch missing from one ear.[10] In his debut he wears a white ringer t-shirt.[11]

In the Trapped flashback, a younger Toby wears a t-shirt, pants and a sweatband on his head, and is drawn before his ear was torn.[3]

Significant events

In Confrontation, Toby is content to let Alejandro handle the violence.

Toby first turns up in Confrontation, during the kids’ eighth-grade year, grinning behind Alejandro at the Cinder Station area bar while a drunk Mike is led outside.[11] The two of them step out behind the group in a dead-end alley after Mike smashes Alejandro’s radio, and Alejandro demands two hundred dollars for it.[12][13] Toby barks Paulo to tears and stomps on him, then holds Mike by the shoulders after Mike elbows Alejandro.[7][8] He is laughing and asking whether the kids will pay up while Alejandro kicks Mike’s head into the pavement, until Lucy taps him on the shoulder and puts him out of the fight with one kick.[14][1]

At the end of freshman year he is back in an alley in Moving On, smoking and humming when Augustus arrives from the carnival without Daisy. Toby needles him about his failure with Daisy and then, once Alejandro shows up, outs Augustus’s crush to the boss.[9]

In Trapped, he is on the couch in Alejandro’s apartment when Augustus arrives with a bag of snacks, and he sits through Alejandro’s rage at a newscaster who looks like Lucy.[15][2][10] The chapter’s long flashback shows he has run with Alejandro since Augustus was a small child, and that his spying on Melanie led to her near-fatal strangling and to the blackmail that has kept Augustus stealing ever since.[3][16][5] During Augustus’s repeated senior year, he reports that Toby wants him to drop out and that the gang’s daily calls go to voicemail.[17][6]

He also appears in a few non-canon what-ifs. All or Nothing rewrites the Trapped flashback around Melanie catching him in the bushes, Another Way plays the Moving On alley scene again without giving him a line, and Augustus mentions him in Another Intervention.[18][19][20]

Major relationships

Alejandro

Toby’s joke earns him the boss’s usual review.

Toby does much of Alejandro’s dirty work. In Confrontation he backs Alejandro’s escalations, from barking Paulo down to holding Mike still, and he is still asking whether the kids will pay up while Alejandro is kicking one of them in the head.[8][1] Years on, they have settled into a division of labour. Alejandro, in Augustus’s words, “prefers to delegate”, and Augustus is sure it is Toby making the daily calls.[6] Veronica has said Toby is usually the one making those calls, out of an “annoyed stubbornness”, though she adds that it does not happen constantly.[21]

Alejandro’s regard for his second is pretty thin. When Toby ribs the boss for getting the gang banned, he is backhanded across the head and told to “Shut the fuck up”.[3] When Lucy drops him in the alley, all he gets is “Take a break, Toby.”, and Alejandro calls him “my pal” while sizing Lucy up for himself.[1][22] In Trapped Toby manages Alejandro’s rages the way you manage weather, scooting down the couch, eyeing him sideways and looking anywhere else after Augustus takes a beating.[10][23] When Melanie is being strangled, he steps forward with a mild “Dude, wait.”[24]

Augustus

Toby’s warning leaves no doubt who holds Augustus’s leash.

Toby has treated Augustus as the kid of the outfit since the day Alejandro caught him shoplifting. He stood by with a slight smile while Alejandro did the recruiting, and it was Melanie, not Toby, who bothered to tell the boy his name.[3][25] Years of shared hauls and group walks followed.[26][27] Toby kept talking down to him. On carnival night he mocks Augustus for planning a romantic evening for Daisy. Then, with a hand cupped to his cheek, he tells Alejandro that “Our little Gussie” has a thing for the nerd of the group, which earns Augustus the accusation of sleeping with the enemy.[9]

Whatever Alejandro believes, it is Toby who holds Augustus’s leash. He is the one in the bushes when Melanie says she loves Augustus, and the one who tells Alejandro there is someone else, which nearly gets her killed.[4][16] He claims he “couldn’t make out the ‘other man’”, while making very sure Augustus knows he could pull the trigger whenever he liked.[5] Augustus has seen Alejandro lose it too many times to risk that, so he keeps stealing.[5] Toby keeps Augustus skipping classes even when he cannot afford another absence.[28] By Love Again, Augustus has been held back a year and Toby is pushing him to drop out.[29][17] In Escape Route, Augustus is letting the daily calls go unanswered, and finds it rather refreshing.[6] In a 2024 answer, the authors suggested that Alej and Toby had no idea where he was, and might not find him before graduation.[30]

Minor relationships

Melanie

Toby is the only witness to Melanie’s confession in Trapped.

Toby and Melanie ran with Alejandro together for years, yet the two of them never exchange a word in their main-comic scenes. She is the one who introduces him to the young Augustus.[25] What he does instead is watch. He frowns at her from the bushes during her confession, stands with his arms crossed while Alejandro strangles her over it, and later takes her to the hospital.[4][16][31] The non-canon All or Nothing finally gives them a conversation. Melanie catches him spying and offers to pay him off, and he answers that “I already sent the text.”[32] That version of the story leaves him bloodied and motionless against the wall after she comes for the pair with a wrench.[33]

Quotes

Wassamatta, li’l kitty. Got a problem with loud noises? Toby, pinning a sobbing Paulo to the wall in Confrontation

AUGHHH SHE REALLY GOT ME!! Toby, shortly after meeting Lucy’s foot in Confrontation

You’re too soft, kid. I woulda just gone for it, not planned out some big night for her. Toby, reviewing Augustus’s carnival plans in Moving On

Our little Gussie has a thing for the nerd in the group. Toby, helpfully informing Alejandro in Moving On

You could teach him somethin’. Alej here got us banned a while ago. Toby, to Augustus, at Alejandro’s expense and moments before a backhand, in Trapped

Dude, wait. Toby, trying to interrupt Alejandro as he strangles Melanie in Trapped

Trivia

  • Veronica originally planned for Alejandro and Toby to be the city bullies who tormented Paulo as a child, but scrapped the idea as absolutely ridiculous. That is why Toby’s barking hits Paulo’s phobia by sheer luck.[7]
  • Toby is on-panel behind Alejandro at the bar well before the alley scene, but nobody says his name aloud until Alejandro tells him to take a break.[11][1]
  • Asked about the pair’s future, the authors joked they wouldn’t be too surprised if the cast someday saw Alej and Toby on the news being arrested for not getting jobs and paying their rent.[30]
  • Fans kept assuming Toby or Alejandro was Tess’s ex. Veronica’s answer was that Roger had green hair, so no.[34]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 14
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 86: Trapped, page 3
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Chapter 86: Trapped, page 11
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chapter 86: Trapped, page 28
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Chapter 86: Trapped, page 34
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Chapter 102: Escape Route, page 6
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 10
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 12
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Chapter 40: Moving On, page 1
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Chapter 86: Trapped, page 4
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 6
  12. ↑ Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 8
  13. ↑ Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 9
  14. ↑ Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 13
  15. ↑ Chapter 86: Trapped, page 2
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Chapter 86: Trapped, page 29
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 95: Love Again, page 23
  18. ↑ All or Nothing, page 4 🔒 (members only)
  19. ↑ Another Way, page 12 🔒 (members only)
  20. ↑ Another Intervention, page 5 🔒 (members only)
  21. ↑ “Ask response on Alejandro and Toby’s phone calls”. 2026-07-28.
  22. ↑ Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 15
  23. ↑ Chapter 86: Trapped, page 6
  24. ↑ Chapter 86: Trapped, page 30
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Chapter 86: Trapped, page 13
  26. ↑ Chapter 86: Trapped, page 15
  27. ↑ Chapter 86: Trapped, page 26
  28. ↑ Chapter 86: Trapped, page 35
  29. ↑ Chapter 95: Love Again, page 22
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 “Ask response on Alejandro and Toby’s future”. 2024-09-30.
  31. ↑ Chapter 86: Trapped, page 31
  32. ↑ All or Nothing, page 5 🔒 (members only)
  33. ↑ All or Nothing, page 15 🔒 (members only)
  34. ↑ “Ask response denying a Toby–Tess connection”. 2017-05-20.
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