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Barb O. Saur 
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ugh, joyce just got fugly, and i’ll never get the third panel out of my nightmares.
Panel 3 reminds me of the Animal Crossing people, for some reason.
Now that you mention it, yeah she does look Animal Crossing-ish.
Fugly hell, check out her hard-boiled egg eyes in the last panel. I’ve seen the yolks turn a shade of green before, but never so over boiled to be blue…
I’m so proud of Joyce for not yelling at her.
Wait until she can process it further.
I can’t see her yelling or anything, just this little mental breakdown as she slowly starts to realise how many non-Christians there are in the world.
Right now, I’m having Dorothy’s thoughts.
As an avowed atheist… me too.
Joyce is a good person ;_;
A good person who happens to be a little on the stalker side… but a good person nonetheless.
There will be no yelling. Just pity for this poor, wounded person who has turned her back on God for some reason, and progressively more obnoxious (yet well-intentioned) attempts to show her God’s Love.
The yelling happens if Dorothy responds to those conversion attempts with rebuttals that actually make Joyce question her worldview.
Joyce’s new abductee superpower: to shut down other’s minds with the power of her hiccups.
Haha, Definitely adorable.
I’m with Dorothy on this one.
I must reluctantly agree
Hiccup in the FAAAAAAACE!
Sorry, tradition.
Cue Fiddler on the roof music:
http://youtu.be/gRdfX7ut8gw
I love you now.
Made more awesome by the screaming Joyce picture.
I tried to find a video with just the guy yelling “TRADITION” but to no avail.
I love that you have yet to change that.
Catchy.
mine either, Dorothy, seriously, she is trying so hard not to get mad that I cant really get mad at her for it, but at the same time, its bad that she has to try.
Dude, does Dorothy just give off some kind of brain-melting forcefield? I mean between Joyce’s shock hiccups and Walky’s still zonked out expression, you’d think she’s an evil telepath or something
ohhhh, that gives me an idea for fan-fiction, Dorothy, normal collage girl by day, world conquring telepath by night.
She would totally be the Anti-AmaziGirl!!
isn’t it obvious? she is the evil twin.
And if they were immune to each other’s powers like relatives tend to be in Marvel comics then Dorothy would be the only person who could truly criticize Amazi-girl.
I’d like to interrupt this to say your avatar is awesome.
Of course, the only option they’d be left with for fighting each other would be naked jelly wrestling.
Because that’s what the internet does to characters, the poor things.
It all makes sense now.
I just wonder how long it will be until Galasso tries to get Dorothy to join him…
He’s already working on it. Did you see how she broke that tall boy?
By the end of this strip, EVERYONE is broken.
If Dorothy thinks outrageous shell-shock is possibly adorable, maybe Walky has a chance with her after all.
You may be on to something there.
Joyce is as adorable as my cat is when he gets his head stuck in an empty tissue box. It’s funny, but very pathetic as well (you’d think he’d learn after the first two times…).
My favorite take on Joyce so far.
The hiccups in themselves aren’t that adorable. But Joyce trying to cover for them is.
Your cat is awesome.
It’s adorable Dorothy. It’s just too adorable for your mind to handle.
It is pretty damn adorable.
+1! Your avatar adds instant comedy of the wide range of “adorable” Joyce FAAAAACEs.
Will this hiccup thing end up like an episode of Azumanga?
I really hope not.
I really hope so.
Greatest. Show. Ever.
Silly DrPepperFan, Azumaga Daioh isn’t how you spell Pinkie Pie!
I can almost imagine Mike playing the role of Tomo as he tries to cure the hiccups… POOR JOYCE.
I fear she’s caught in a recursive loop. We need a comp-sci major to force-break it.
That is pretty hilarity, given your avatar.
omg i know how dorothy feels!!
Yeah, I can imagine Dorothy thinking “I’m surrounded by weirdos.”
Welcome to college.
that’s exactly what college is
lol, whut, right…
Why isn’t this kid at one of those unaccredited or might-as-well-be-unaccredited Bible colleges where the horror of reality outside the fundie bubble won’t always be threatening to melt her brain? Did her parents get expelled from Fundieland for disagreeing with a preacher or something?
Maybe her parents wanted her to be able to function in the world? It’s the It’s Walky!-verse, Joyce’s parents encouraged her religiousness in an effort to keep her from suffering an unwanted pregnancy (like her mom did).
Why are you so prejudiced and hateful of religious people?
Joyce fits the prejudices. She’s the most well-adjusted member of her homeschool group, and look at her. Is it any surprise people assume her parents are nuts, given how she turned out?
Maybe cause religious people have a history of being hateful and prejudiced? And basically ruining society for logical rational people?
I see. So logical rational people are being perfectly logical and rational in their hate and prejudice towards the religious.
Characterizing Joyce as merely ‘the religious’ reads to me as a prejudicial slur against the average religious person. In reality, she is f’n’ out there, far less socially adjusted and competent than the average religious person, and the explicit statement is that pretty much everyone else from her hometown is far worse. Characterizing them as normal is equivalent to characterizing the rest of the religious world as socially incompetent insular buffoons too.
And, to the degree that religious people are (inadvertantly) sociopatically maladjusted and/or damaging to society, it actually is indeed irrational to dislike them. It’s not evil to hate ‘evil’ – if it were then He-man would be a bad guy for opposing Skeletor, and then then where would we be?
*forehead smack* It actually ISN’T irrational to dislike them. Somebody’s diety is messing with my typing skills again!
Joyce is a rather perfectly executed critique of fundamentalist Christianity. There a lot to be critical of there.
Hatred and revulsion is not part of that, and shouldn’t be if any of you hope to take part in a civilized discussion about the topic. Pity and sympathy are to be expected, not the load of flame and hate that crops up in these comments every time Joyce mentions something related to her religious upbringing.
Why are you putting words in Jenny’s mouth? Or are you seriously denying that there are extremist religious schools that cut their students off from all outside influence? Because there are schools like that, and pointing out that *fact* isn’t prejudiced or hateful.
Perhaps your problem is that it hits a bit too close to home?
You can’t throw the word “fundie” around and expect people to take you seriously. I’ve heard that drivel enough to know exactly where she was coming from.
What nonsense. You cling to a single word that you’re taking out of context and pretend that you’re suddenly a mind-reader? No matter how you try to spin this, you’re still just putting words in her mouth.
Actually I shouldn’t have used the word “fundie.” It was dismissive and disrespectful. I apologize.
A Christian blogger I respect calls this particular group “RTCs,” for “Real True Christians,” because that is how they view themselves: their tiny offshoot of the enormous, variegated, and long-standing Church is the only Christian group. The rest of us–not to mention everybody else on the planet–are temporarily uninformed about the superiority of their little group, or just pretending to believe something (anything) else even though we know deep down that we’re wrong.
IME, somebody as sheltered as Joyce IRL would have been steered firmly away from a secular college; being a girl, she might be told that she doesn’t need college at all. Going to someplace full of unbelievers (that is, non-RTCs) to get an MRS degree would seem more like fishing for sharks by trailing one’s hand in the water.
Perhaps her pastor doesn’t know as much about this campus as he thinks he does.
You are oversimplifying and generalizing. There are conservative Christian groups that maintain a weak barrier between their families and the rest of society, and there are extremist sects that build that 10 ft thick, 50 ft tall concrete wall where the women are kept chained on the inside.
There has been nothing in the comic to allow us to assume the latter over the former; those who do so are letting themselves interpret the comic in a way that confirms a prejudiced world view.
I’m pretty sure that was covered in the early pages.
Eh her brain didn’t melt at Joe being Jewish so she gets SOME credit.I mean it kind of upset Beckey but she was willing to give it a shot- granted she wanted to convert him but that’s natural as a christian anyway to have that desire.
If it wasn’t for the fact Joe got beat up that is and she wasn’t more than a little crazy as proven then.
Joyce still has hope of developing and growing up. Thats what university and college does. A lot can happen just in your first year let alone a full degree,
Easy now.
I admit that Joyce is over-the-top with her religiosity. As someone who is religious (which, I’ll just spell out, means “Please don’t be hating on religious people for the hell of it, because I’m telling you RIGHT NOW that that’s irrational, petty, and unreasonable in the face of someone who IS being reasonable)–as someone who is religious, even I think she’s going a bit far. But she’ll change because, as we’ve seen, Joyce is repeatedly determined to see the good in people. That means that she’s coming to a confrontation between what she believes*, and the evidence (aka people who are good like Dorothy are also atheist like Dorothy).
Faced with that conflict between theory and evidence, Joyce will choose evidence. Which is why she doesn’t fall into the irrational fundie catagory–because she isn’t irrational, only fundie.
Put another way…
Joyce has a flax (excessive religiosity). There are other characters who have flaws–Billie with her bongoiness, Joe with his chauvinism, Walky with his, uh… Walkyness. These flaws are considered funny, normal, and/or adorable. So don’t be hating on Joyce with her flaw (which, personally, I see as less incurable than Billie’s).
Relax, will you? Jenny’s comment was very clearly not about religion in general. And considering Joyce’s sheltered-to-the-extreme religious upbringing, Jenny’s question is quite reasonable. Extremist schools like that do exist, you can’t deny that. So why *didn’t* Joyce’s parents send her to one of them?
We actually know at least part of the answer: their pastor said that Joyce was one of the more socialized members of their group so she could go. But it’s still a valid issue, considering how Joyce has been interacting with people so far.
I like how practical Dorothy is. Then again, I’ve never heard any atheist being violent over any book/bread product being destroyed in any particular fashion.
….Do religious people normally get violent at the destruction of bread?
Normally, no. Religion’s biggest problem are its outliers, and how very very noticeable they make themselves.
The Eucharist is what’s being referred to there, I think. And yeah, it’s a big deal to some Catholics, though the violent reactions are largely confined to the past.
Not blessed Eucharist are nothing but salty thin bread and have no meaning at all, catholics tend to get more pissed off if somebody steals the chalice or something from a statue of one of the many versions of the virgin though, at least here in Mexico.
Well, they’re sure just salty pieces of cardboard, bubt I’m sure they have meaning.
Look up PZ Meyer’s controversy. It’s sad that some segments of Catholicism get more upset over a wafer than over children starving to death.
No one here is doing any research, Atheism is a static point of view that hold Its roots in XVI pantheism and XIX natural philosophy & positivism, did cause a lot of deaths in the revolution of 1890. Many atheists cant explain or recognice the epistemologic jump of faith of their belifs and claimings but from a completly pragmatic point of view they do claim to be better.
As the social studies find correlation of psicological world views with ceirtain religions that do not mean causation, as religions tends to form a system of ideas and belifs that can sustain themself in their own isomorphism.
On those terms the interaction with religion is more important than the structure of belifs It holds. So people have their issues, Do they really think God care about dots and comas?
What? Atheism means without god, Pantheism is the belief that all is god.
Uh, no. Atheism is simply the rejection of theistic claims based on the lack of evidence. It makes no claims beyond that. It is static simply since no one has ever produced evidence. And when I say evidence, I mean, proper, empirical evidence, not “ooh, eyes are so complex, therefore God” or “I just know there’s something else” If atheism has roots, it’s in critical thinking, not pantheism. Pantheism is the belief in multiple god, that’s kind of in the opposite direction of atheism.
her FAAAAAAACEEEE reminds me of a fish out of water.
My my what a diverse cast: Christians, Jews, Athiests…. We need a Buddhist now….where’s Ninja Rick? *lol*
I’m betting Ninja Rick’s deity of choice is named “Viz”
Dorothy sums up DoA!Joyce in one sentence.
Joyce can’t lie!
And (if I may) that’s one *hic* of a tell she’s got!
Joyce’s facial expressions would work well if she were puke drunk…. the hiccups kinda fit too.
Hic!
I am totally shipping Dorothy and Joyce now.
This. It doesn’t take much to ship and this is like a big meaty bone for this idea. Major fandoms of pairings have set off on far less than this.
And I’m kind of proud of Joyce as an atheist/ ex-christian myself. She’s trying to hide it and be nice I guess even though her beliefs make it hard. Granted back when I still believed I just kind of stayed quiet apart from odd random nervy bursts (as generaly a extreme introvert who made Fluttershy at her meekest look obnoxious) and died a little inside thinking this nice person was going to hell for a while (granted that happened with various people).
Thank goodness I don’t have to deal with that mind-f*** anymore.
Everyone expected that all hell will break lose but did anyone thought that this will happen?
*No-HIC!*
XD
So darn adorable, squeeeeeeeeee~ \(*3*)/
calm before the storm?
Did someone’s bike get stolen?
Sometimes people forget to grab their locks when they get their bikes; I’ve seen a few left at the bike racks at my school.
Dear Bjorn: Nope. There are plenty of people who just leave U locks locked to bike racks. If it had been a stolen bike, there’d still be a wheel, and just a wheel, locked to the rack. Or something like that.
I kinda want the middle panel as my gravatar now.
You got second best?
So then make it your gravatar?
I love all the flack that Joyce is getting just for being startled that Dorothy is an atheist. Look at her, people! She’s embarrassed at how much it surprised her! Before we start tearing into her, let’s wait ’til she does something worthy of it, huh?
Wait, where did this soapbox come from
Seems to me more likely that she’s embarrassed at how clumsy and silly she just made herself look, what with dropping her books and getting the hiccups. I doubt she’ll think it’s a big deal that she was so surprised. After all, she probably thinks atheists are terrible, nasty people, so of course she’d be surprised that someone would admit to being one.
Well, that’s an interpretation, but I’ll give you that it’s a viable one. We’ll see how it plays out.
I doubt she thinks they are terrible, nasty people. She’s very positive, so she probably just sees Dorothy as misguided and will try to convert her, like she tried to with Joe.
Indeed. I’m sure she’d be more likely to use the word “Tragic” than “Disgusting”.
Still, equally shocking for Joyce to find out that her new friend has such a terrible affliction for lack of a better term.
I’m an atheist. And the most common reaction I get when I say so is something along the lines of, “You can’t be an atheist, you’re too nice!”
The usual stereotypes about us are generally quite nasty. And Joyce probably takes even that to a serious extreme, since she’s a caricature of a caricature.
I think she’s getting the flack she deserves, no doubt she’s about to spend the next several strips trying to convert her..ya know like she tried to do to Joe for being Jewish .___.
Just go with adorable, it will be simpler that way.
Walking in love is no longer the weirdest expression in this comic. Now it’s hiccuping Joyce. It looks like her eyes are about to pop out of her head.
I’m pretty sure that is adorable.
I’d say Adorkable.
Exactly.
And then Joyce and Dorothy find out they’re gay for each other.
Which will really muck with Joyce.
Glad to see I’m not the only one who read it that way… not that it’s gonna happen.
Hic!
Quick, scare Joyce out of her hiccups.
“I’m not really an atheist. I’m a SATANIST!”
…Did that do it?
IME, people with Joyce’s brand of damage don’t recognize the difference.
“…and Twilight sucks! Even the actors say so!”
Now she looks EVEN MORE like a Martian popping toy.
Is her face gonna be stuck like that??
Now Walky and Joyce match. They both make weird faces around Dorothy.
Hey, I found Joyce’s theme song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npgdw5Zb7TY&feature=player_embedded
I… I think I’m mildly disturbed by that video.
And I notice comments have been disabled for it. I wonder why?
OH LORD NO. If anything it would be an up-beat Christian song sang by children.
Having read your comment, I am now stuck with that “Jesus loves me, yes I know, cos the Bible tells me so” song as my latest Earworm.
Her face done in pencil towards the beginning haunts my nightmares.
Couldn’t make it through the first half of the video, not unlike the video it was based on.
The fact David spends the time giving Joyce those ‘Robins-egg Blue’ eyes makes her a stand out character in any of the versions I’ve read….And I started with this story. She is such a sweet Innocent cutie you can’t help but love her.
Until she physically assaults you, makes unkind remarks about your parents, OH YEAH and tries to convert you because she believes you are a heathen that will go to hell …
I hate Joyce, at least right now since the strip is relatively new but that’s why I keep reading because he’s made such interesting characters
Joyce makes me mad cause I KNOW girls just like her and they drive me utter and total bonkers XD
In the last panel it looks less like she’s hiccuping and more like she’s about to barf.
They’ll both send Dorothy to an early grave! XD
I’m gonna be perfectly honest; if Joyce was the most well-adjusted of the bunch that went to her Catholic school, I think the lot of her old classmates should probably be euthanized, seeing as she’s pretty a pretty fucked-up lil Christian herself.
I don’t see Joyce even finishing two semesters of college at this rate, before the ‘damned’ non-believers and their un-Christian ways drive her to seek sanctuary inside the local church for the rest of her life…
Here’s hoping she doesn’t go and murder one of the cast, like this fellow Atheist here…
According to an early strip, Joyce was home-schooled. That implies some extremist right-wing protestant sect, not Catholic.
As to the rest…well, we’ll see how it goes. Considering how long it’s taken just to get through the first week, it’ll be a long time before we see the end of the second semester.
Joyce is not Catholic. She’s Protestant.
….. is she evangelical?
oh I thought she was catholic. Well the more you know.
Did whatever Christian denomination that Joyce belongs to ever come up?
I’m voting for Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879.
(This will be funny, if you google it.)
Nice theory, I wonder if it will become canon.
I vote Schlafyism.
I’m glad to see that Joyce didn’t immediately start spouting off about her faith and how Dorothy is going to Hell. For now at least.
Agreed. I’ve been Christian for 16 years, and even I get annoyed when people go on rants like that.
Well, I’m relieved she didn’t go SUPER-CHRISTIAN-PRAYER-CIRCLE on her. I”m still Catholic, but those people scare the shit outta me.
You know that’s next, right? Once she can speak again?
I’m still solely amused by Walky’s completely zoned out look. It’s great.
i too love walky’s creeper face
You gotta hand it to her, Joyce is really trying very hard to be accepting of something that challenges her world view. I give her brownie points.
Or at least trying very hard not to hiccup.
I really don’t see how she’s trying to accept anything, just her being so shocked she got the hiccups and is trying to stop them….
I just saw and loved the ad on the Penny and Aggie page. XD
Lol at internet intolerence.
A cartoon parody has overexaggerated reaction but does and says nothing to the subject of said reaction and the internet athiests (not to be confused with real, sane athiests) fling feces like rabid monkies bringing up intolerance, hate and the inevitable persucution that follows.
But specefic Genocide is announced ‘honestly’ and not a single eye bats.
Silly internet athiests when are you going to learn Its not the religion, Its the people, the religion is just a backdrop for the rationalization of their deeds. Remove it and theyd find another one.
Yeah like those internet christians are not like the real, sane christians.
Atheism is usually masking some form of belif. I like when atheists have clear where they make the jump of faith. Is not like atheist are some army ready to take off the wacky religious people. Atheism is sometimes another way to hold personality together, I havent do any experiment but ex-religious people turned atheist carry much of their previous psycological burden with them and their choices are highly influenced by their new found freedom of choice. And many of them cant even analize religion without remembering those years of brainwashing.
The thing about Joyce is that she’s cute and annoying at the same time. Like a puppy that won’t stop barking or a unicorn’s horn shoved up your ass.
Personally, if I had a unicorn’s horn shoved up my ass, I’d probably be crying out with pain.
It’s hard to think so little time has passed with so many strips (super awesome strips, by the way) made so far, but as it has been so little time, I actually think Joyce is doing very well. Culture shock! College is often a shock to many in different ways, and I can definitely see Joyce realizing something along the lines of “Wow…I know all these really awesome people, good people that don’t follow my original belief structure…maybe it isn’t the most important thing about a person after all…”
Being an Indiana student myself, I have definitely seen people that have been a little…extreme and naive in their religious views. I was taken care of by a family at one time that was very strict in their religious beliefs and had home schooled children. I remember the mother complaining about how much her children changed when they went off to college, and I see a lot of changes in store for Joyce. I think that will be the most awesome part to watch in all this, is how much she will grow now that she’s getting a chance to really spread her wings.
I once tought people change cause they were weak or disfunctional… later I realized people dont really change.
Then I was proved wrong, and then I was proved right again.
The lesson is: after a while every time you think something is true and then you see is not you end feeling like a smartass for learning (till you actually understand you are a smartass, and they are ussualy always wrong)
It is. SO adorable.
oh, trust me its freakin adoarble
I vote yes to Dorothy’s last panel question!
I’m giving major props to Dorothy for not eyerolling at Joyce.
No, it is sad.
Heh heh… I hope that at my new school I can do this to someone.