Dumbing of Age Book Twelve

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Kindergarten
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May 19, 2026

Kindergarten

by David M Willis on February 23, 2011 at 12:01 am
  • 04 - The Bechdel Test
└ Tags: joyce, sal

Discussion (95) ¬

[ Comments RSS ]
  1. Jen Aside
    Jen Aside
    February 23, 2011 at 12:01 am | #

    Joyce: She remembered! Sorta! =D

    • DaniellePhantom
      DaniellePhantom
      February 23, 2011 at 12:03 am | #

      it takes a lot for someone to remember someone else’s clothing! i never remember what i wear anyway, i would feel honored if someone else did. 😉

      • Alechsa
        Alechsa
        February 23, 2011 at 12:32 am | #

        That’s a common jibe, even if they WEREN’T wearing the same thing… it’s just a ‘dear god you are a total geek and I can’t remember ever seeing you in anything that WASN’T geeky’ sneer that the popular kids always gave the geeks in high school.

        Clearly, Sal has not matured past High School mentality yet… which combined with Joyce still being in Grade School mentality… is a volatile mix. Someone else needs to catch up to them… NOW.

    • David Herbert
      David Herbert
      February 23, 2011 at 12:20 am | #

      Joyce makes sure you remember her by putting on your helmet and making vroom noises.

      • DaniellePhantom
        DaniellePhantom
        February 24, 2011 at 7:11 am | #

        this is very true.

  2. DaniellePhantom
    DaniellePhantom
    February 23, 2011 at 12:02 am | #

    i would say sal’s being unnecessarily nasty to joyce, but A: it’s sal and B: joyce doesn’t get it anyway…

  3. addude
    addude
    February 23, 2011 at 12:03 am | #

    Sal isn’t out to make friends, which makes all the more cooler so Joyce is going to want to be her friend more

  4. ScytheAkse
    ScytheAkse
    February 23, 2011 at 12:04 am | #

    awwww poor joyce 🙁 i would date her.. but i have a special skill for corruption

    • Rowen Morland
      Rowen Morland
      February 23, 2011 at 12:09 am | #

      Is it your penis?

    • gangler
      gangler
      February 23, 2011 at 12:19 am | #

      That’s actually why I’d date her. Corrupting is sexy sexy work 😉

    • ScytheAkse
      ScytheAkse
      February 23, 2011 at 12:42 am | #

      corrupting IS sexysexy work. and it ENDS with my penis… gotta start gently tho… so smooth mike wouldnt even know to hit me 😉

      • Ruthless
        Ruthless
        February 23, 2011 at 1:06 am | #

        BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

        Hahahaha!

        Hahaha!

        *ahem*

        HA!

        =D

        • ScytheAkse
          ScytheAkse
          February 23, 2011 at 1:34 am | #

          -_- i never should have shown u this comic. and you KNOW i have certain *ahem* skills.

          • Ruthless
            Ruthless
            February 23, 2011 at 1:44 am | #

            No, you shouldn’t have shown me this comic. Now I will follow your posts and incessantly make fun of them.

            Certain skills? NO IDEA what you mean. 😛

          • Trae Dorn
            Trae Dorn
            February 23, 2011 at 7:47 am | #

            For the record, y’all are creepy.

          • ScytheAkse
            ScytheAkse
            February 23, 2011 at 10:01 am | #

            lol only cuz you dont know us!!

          • Crimson Magic
            Crimson Magic
            February 23, 2011 at 11:53 am | #

            I… I don’t think that would help.

          • ScytheAkse
            ScytheAkse
            February 23, 2011 at 12:12 pm | #

            we have an interesting group of friends. but we like each other so its ok 🙂

          • Ruthless
            Ruthless
            February 25, 2011 at 5:53 pm | #

            For the record, if you think we’re creepy, I don’t think you’ve seen much of the internet.

  5. Rognik
    Rognik
    February 23, 2011 at 12:08 am | #

    If Joyce REALLY was dressing for the first day of kindergarten, she’d have pigtails or braids.

    …actually, that could be kinda hot.

    • Madock345
      Madock345
      February 23, 2011 at 12:28 am | #

      Pigtails, a sweater vest and with stockings that come up past her knees and a skirt that comes just below, so you can just catch a few rare glimpses of thigh.

      • ScytheAkse
        ScytheAkse
        February 23, 2011 at 2:16 am | #

        madock… you are very very disturbing

        • zuche
          zuche
          February 23, 2011 at 9:43 am | #

          Nah.

          It’s not disturbing until a lollipop and a skipping rope are added to the picture.

      • Lokitsu
        Lokitsu
        February 23, 2011 at 5:19 pm | #

        Would you prefer Joe in pigtails with a sweater vest and with stockings that come up past his knees and a skirt that comes just below, so you can just catch a few rare glimpses of thigh?

    • Digidestined of Trust (Tim)
      Digidestined of Trust (Tim)
      February 23, 2011 at 12:29 am | #

      She actually would look quite cute with that.

    • Ruthless
      Ruthless
      February 23, 2011 at 1:46 am | #

      I think that image is now stuck in my mind forever. Thanks a lot.

      • NightRoseK
        NightRoseK
        February 23, 2011 at 7:17 am | #

        Mine too… >_>

  6. Gianni
    Gianni
    February 23, 2011 at 12:18 am | #

    Joyce just doesn’t have a clue… she’s not going to find another Becky from the group she’s associated with so far.

  7. Digidestined of Trust (Tim)
    Digidestined of Trust (Tim)
    February 23, 2011 at 12:30 am | #

    Yeah, poor Joyce. She’s having a rough go at it right now and Sal ain’t helpin. If I were a character (which I’d like to be) I’d ask her out.

  8. Undrave
    Undrave
    February 23, 2011 at 12:43 am | #

    Now where’s Billie?

  9. Vanessa
    Vanessa
    February 23, 2011 at 12:47 am | #

    PLEASE tell me someone forces her to quit smoking. Someone like Mike… okay, or Joyce. One of those two, and no one else. Although they did both fail to knock the perviness out of Joe, so… hmm….

    • Viktoria
      Viktoria
      February 23, 2011 at 1:41 am | #

      Why? It’s her choice. It’s a bad choice, that may well end up killing her, but so’s owning a motorcycle. Why object to one but not the other?

      • zuche
        zuche
        February 23, 2011 at 9:59 am | #

        Because a motorcycle can be used as a form of transportation with about as much risk of killing someone else as you would with a car.

        Smoking bans in enclosed public spaces and near air vents weren’t put into place just because cigarette smoke smells bad.

        • Viktoria
          Viktoria
          February 23, 2011 at 12:48 pm | #

          No, they were put in place because people don’t mind someone’s rights being taken away as long as it’s not their rights. If someone’s smoking and you don’t want to be around that, just move away.

          • Blightning
            Blightning
            February 23, 2011 at 1:08 pm | #

            The same argument works the other way. If there’s a no smoking sign and you want to smoke, just move away. It makes even more sense because you’re the person sticking a slow, cancery deathstick in your mouth. As opposed to someone with asthma who can’t breathe around smokers.

            Nicotine is a privilege, not a right.

          • zuche
            zuche
            February 23, 2011 at 1:21 pm | #

            You do not have the right to poison me.

            I admit to loathing smokers, because too many of them have been self-indulgent and irresponsible about it. As a I child, I remember being dismissed as rude for asking an adult at a restaurant not to smoke at the dinner table we shared while I was still eating. Later, I remember when a non-smoking section was still likely to have smoke blown in.

            I remember when smoking was allowed in military transports, and people who got addicted from being in a closed van for an hour a day of exposure. I remember when drill breaks gave you the choice of standing in the rain of going to the smoking shelter.

            I remember guests in my house destroying one of my grandfather’s wood carvings to use it as an ashtray. I remember guests who smoked in my apartment after being told to smoke elsewhere, and using my dishes despite the fact I had an ashtray they could take with them. I remember at least three occasions on which people used something I was still eating or drinking as an ashtray while I was called away to fill an order. And while I can still soldier up twelve flights of stairs or stand out in -20 weather because some self-indulgent waste of sperm decided to foul up the elevator or the bus shelter, neither I nor my respiratory ailments should have to tolerate that sort of thing.

            I look at the number of butts smokers leave on the ground because they’re too damned lazy to field strip them and throw out the paper.

            You’ve got no right to smoke wherever you please, any more than I’ve the right to build the sort of hell you so richly deserve, or to send you there.

          • ShadeTail
            ShadeTail
            February 23, 2011 at 2:17 pm | #

            Oh sure, Viktoria. When some smoker is fouling up the air of the enclosed space where I have to work or eat or whatever, I can just move away (unless I’m in a car, or in an elevator, or on a jury pool, or at home, or…). And, presumably, I can take my work or food with me. Of course, then I won’t have a desk to work at or table to eat at, but better to let that smoker continue poisoning the air I have to breathe later instead of ask for a break for my chronically asthmatic lungs.

            Or, on second thought, no. That smoker can damn well move somewhere else and stop fouling up the air I have to breathe later. Unless, of course, said smoker is a so utterly self-absorbed as to not notice or care about the people around him or her.

            Your smoking is not a right. I need clean air more than you need nicotine.

          • Doom Shepherd
            Doom Shepherd
            February 23, 2011 at 2:23 pm | #

            You have exactly the same right to create your noxious cancer cloud of oppressive chemical warfare near me as I have the right to punch you repeatedly in the FAAAAAAAACE.

            Which I will do.

          • zuche
            zuche
            February 23, 2011 at 3:28 pm | #

            One more point on the “just move away” argument: Note that I pointed to laws about smoking near air vents. Similar ones apply to smoking near public entrances as well, because air vents and entrances don’t move.

            Tell you what, though. I’m willing to compromise. You can smoke wherever you please when I have the right to urinate with the exact same limitations. If I have to put up with cigarette stains and smell on my clothes and in my food, surely you can surely tolerate the same effect as a result of a natural bodily function.

          • Smoker
            Smoker
            February 23, 2011 at 9:09 pm | #

            It’s in regards to the general outrage that sparks in the comments here whenever Sal lights a cigarette. Hence the “you fanatics” and not a reference to a single individual.

        • Lokitsu
          Lokitsu
          February 23, 2011 at 5:22 pm | #

          Zuche, you are my new best friend.

          • Sarah
            Sarah
            February 23, 2011 at 6:05 pm | #

            I’d like zuche to be my new best friend too.
            I also agree with Blightning and Shade Tail: smoking is a privilege, not a right. So many people throw around the word “right” in talking about their “right to do” x,y,z when really what they mean is that they want to be able to do x,y,z without suffering any consequences for their actions. So basically, Viktoria wants to be able to poison herself (I’m presuming by the name that we’re dealing with a female…I may be wrong) and others without anyone telling her that she can’t even though her actions are effecting other people. That’s simply wrong. Everyone has to deal with the consequences of their actions. If she wants to poison herself, then she has the privilege to do so, but away from people like me who don’t want to be poisoned. That’s called being considerate of other people.

          • Smoker
            Smoker
            February 23, 2011 at 6:27 pm | #

            I hope you fanatics never roll your windows down in traffic and have the best in-cabin filtering system available because you breathe all the same stuff in traffic every day. Or walking on the sidewalk. Or pretty much just being outside in any industrialized city.

            She’s OUTSIDE. Get over yourselves.

          • Sarah
            Sarah
            February 23, 2011 at 9:06 pm | #

            She never said anything about being outside.

          • Smoker
            Smoker
            February 23, 2011 at 9:10 pm | #

            Hit the wrong reply button. Look up one tier.

          • Shade Tail
            Shade Tail
            February 23, 2011 at 9:13 pm | #

            Hey, Smoker. I’ll get over myself when you get over your selfish entitled attitude. Just because other people are forced by economics to drive cars doesn’t give you the right to foul up my breathing space even more with your filthy habit.

            People have to drive cars for their jobs and getting food. You don’t have to smoke for any reason, except that you seem to enjoy pretending you have any right to be holier-than-thou.

  10. Dierna
    Dierna
    February 23, 2011 at 1:00 am | #

    So Joyce was homeschooled…..that explains alot

    • Madock345
      Madock345
      February 23, 2011 at 1:44 am | #

      It has been brought uphttp://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/socialized/ before

    • goatman95111
      goatman95111
      February 23, 2011 at 4:37 am | #

      Honestly, I was homeschooled for two years (5th and 6th grade), but that didn’t turn me completely crazy. Of course, the folks are a little different, and were pushing me to de-stress and slack off more before I lost my mind in the public school system.

      • zuche
        zuche
        February 23, 2011 at 10:09 am | #

        People are homeschooled for a lot of reasons. Some are at home to have their education tailored to their personal needs. Some are kept at home to protect them from new ideas.

        I’m afraid I don’t have the links anymore, but you should still be able to find articles online by people expressing their concern with how the religious right co-opted home schooling programs and support in North America.

  11. Shift
    Shift
    February 23, 2011 at 1:09 am | #

    Despite how much I disliked Joyce in the previous storyline, I feel sorry for her here.

    • ShadeTail
      ShadeTail
      February 23, 2011 at 1:17 am | #

      I can’t say that I do. She’s so ridiculously sheltered that she needs some exposure to people who don’t fit her mold.

      And in an odd way, I could say the same thing about Sal.

      • Shift
        Shift
        February 23, 2011 at 1:27 am | #

        Huh? Umm… I think I need to clarify what I mean. Yes, she needs to be exposed to other people who aren’t in her normal comfort area. But that’s not what I mean when I say I feel sorry for her.

        Instead its BECAUSE she was sheltered. She doesn’t understand how to read people, so watching her follow Sal around like a puppy (who Sal will not doubt manipulate due to her ‘bad girl’ behavior and will eventually probably hurt her feelings) is kinda sad to watch.

        • Seraph
          Seraph
          February 23, 2011 at 9:28 am | #

          Given Sal’s history in the other comics and behavior so far in this one, I’d say she’d skip past the manipulating and straight to the hurting. Sal’s kind of a blunt instrument.

        • zuche
          zuche
          February 23, 2011 at 10:18 am | #

          I’m not sure Sal has enough interest in other people to actively manipulate them. She’s such a loner that the woman sharing a room with her never sees her there.

          • Shift
            Shift
            February 23, 2011 at 4:48 pm | #

            I doubt Sal has to work hard to manipulate Joyce. All she has to do is say “Go get me food” and I bet Joyce would come back with a Thanksgiving Spread.

        • ShadeTail
          ShadeTail
          February 23, 2011 at 11:01 am | #

          Well, OK, I can see what you mean there, Shift. I’m still not quite ready to pity her for that. It’s a bit early to start speculating on what will end up happening between them. The comic has only barely started, after all (we’re still on the first week of the new semester). And extreme comic exaggeration happens a lot with these characters. For all we know, they’ll end up best friends for the *correct* reasons instead of the wrong ones.

  12. TheAlucinaut
    TheAlucinaut
    February 23, 2011 at 1:45 am | #

    I really like Joyce. She’s sweet, cute, & yes, maybe a little out of her element, but many of us are at that age. I think it’s unfair to judge her so harshly for being 18 & raised in a certain kind of home.

    & also I think all of the sexualizing her up in here is a little…weird.

    • Viktoria
      Viktoria
      February 23, 2011 at 1:56 am | #

      It’s traditional. Her character is the reason we now talk about “Perverse Sexual Lust”.

    • Madock345
      Madock345
      February 23, 2011 at 4:40 am | #

      How could you even Question The Trope Namer for Perverse Sexual Lust?! she is the origonal, lust girl prime!

      (it should be noted that my posts on the subject are jokes, Im gay, so ummmm… no joyce fantasies here.

    • Tristan J
      Tristan J
      February 23, 2011 at 6:03 am | #

      I am so glad I’m not the only sliiightly creeped out by the fandom.

      • TsunamiJane
        TsunamiJane
        February 23, 2011 at 7:38 am | #

        Isn’t that the whole point of fandoms?

    • NightRoseK
      NightRoseK
      February 23, 2011 at 7:22 am | #

      I haven’t read any of the other comics with these characters, so I just sort of assumed that Joyce was different (sexier/less naive) in the others and people were drawing from that, so it didn’t seem as creepy… But maybe not? *confused*

      • Seraph
        Seraph
        February 23, 2011 at 9:30 am | #

        Actually, in the other continuity, she refused to acknowledge the existence of sex at all. At the age of twenty-one, her idea of where babies came from involved fairies.

        • Tin Roof
          Tin Roof
          February 23, 2011 at 6:12 pm | #

          That changed eventually though. She evolved as a character considerably and eventually grew to have regular premarital sex.

        • Kavonde
          Kavonde
          February 23, 2011 at 8:29 pm | #

          And she murdered her clone for dressing immodestly and having sex with Mike.

          • Pagannerd
            Pagannerd
            February 23, 2011 at 9:27 pm | #

            That was pre-maturation, though. There’s a lovely comic somewhere in the archives where Obscenely modest Joyce and Slutty Joyce are arguing with each other as she loses her virginity… Only to be clipped round the earhole by a Joyce dressed in a comfy jumper who tells them to “settle down… I’m trying to enjoy this.”

      • Brendan
        Brendan
        February 23, 2011 at 11:21 pm | #

        Her original was all over the map. At first she was only slightly naïve, much less than here (and had gone to high school), but about as puritanical, to the point that being forced to watch a fairly vanilla porn film was enough to drive her to wipe her own mind. Then she was even more naïve than here, too naïve even to be puritanical, to the point that Sal and Jason have to give her “The Talk,” after which she reacts to sex like an eight-year-old who’s just heard of it. This lasts until an oversexed “Bizarro” version is created, who implies her memory loss is at least partially conscious repression, and for that Joyce *murders* her in cold blood. (She gets off first because the government designates the clone as an infiltrator, then when the public gets wind and doesn’t buy that, she’s pardoned for her role in a major battle.) She cools off about sex after that, and by the time her memories have come back fully, she’s only a little prudish. I think the “Perverse Sexual Lust” meme started after the “Anti-Joyce” arc.

        • Brendan
          Brendan
          February 23, 2011 at 11:23 pm | #

          Should clarify – by “after,” I mean “well after,” between that arc and the one where she regains her memories.

        • Brendan
          Brendan
          February 23, 2011 at 11:28 pm | #

          Oy! No! It’s from before even “The Talk,” after she’d gotten her own mind wiped to erase the memories of “pre-marital hanky panky.” Although, to be fair, it wasn’t clear at that point she’d forgotten what sex was, just that she was really, really, hung up about… er…

          …ah, Internet. Never change.

          • David
            David M Willis
            February 23, 2011 at 11:37 pm | #

            The term “perverse sexual lust” dates from … Roomies!, maybe? Late Roomies! or early It’s Walky!. It originated from a site poll, not the strip itself, and originally referred to fans’ lust for a fictional character.

    • Seraph
      Seraph
      February 23, 2011 at 9:32 am | #

      I judge her harshly for the violence. If it weren’t for that…well, she’d still be really, really annoying, but comically so.

    • begbert2
      begbert2
      February 23, 2011 at 10:55 am | #

      The sexualizing: Joyce literally has nowhere to go but more sexualized than she currently is. And given her writer and the precedent, there is an exactly 0% (or perhaps -2.6%) chance she won’t go there. We’re just anticipating the trend.

      Also, she’s not drawn *un*sexy. Besides the fact she has as good a figure as any yet seen, remember that dress?

  13. thinofsubstance
    thinofsubstance
    February 23, 2011 at 2:29 am | #

    Just commenting to say–oh my god is that Batman with a Wang Fire beard?

    If so, WELL PLAYED, SIR OR MADAM. +1000

    If not, it’s a pretty cool avatar anyway! +10

    • Animaniac
      Animaniac
      February 26, 2011 at 1:25 am | #

      The beard is tentacles.. it’s Bathulhu

  14. NF
    NF
    February 23, 2011 at 7:49 am | #

    How many more comics of this do you think it will take Sal to realize that Joyce is too oblivious or too fragile for her snark and she then actually has pity for Joyce?

    And now I’m imagining Sal taking Joyce under her wing and training her in the ways of Sal.

    “Holy cow, was that Joyce on a motorcycle?”

  15. Trae Dorn
    Trae Dorn
    February 23, 2011 at 7:50 am | #

    Aaaand begin Joyce thinking Sal is so much more cooler than she is, when Sal is actually equally broken (just in a different way).

    Assuming Sal Walkerton is anything like Sal Walters of course.

  16. ziggy78eog
    ziggy78eog
    February 23, 2011 at 9:02 am | #

    Sweater vests, the everyday semi formal wear.

  17. zuche
    zuche
    February 23, 2011 at 10:25 am | #

    Joyce has become…the new Number Two.

  18. Robert in San Diego
    Robert in San Diego
    February 23, 2011 at 10:43 am | #

    I get the whole “dressing for dinner” thing, and why parents and family who are into that wouldn’t bother with updressing for kindergarten (because everyone who’s read the description knows that at some point in kindergarten there will be physical play and fingerpainting, sometimes unintentionally simultaneously). What slightly astounded me growing up was parents who didn’t know their kids knew how to tie neckties. Admittedly, that’s rare.

  19. Chaun
    Chaun
    February 23, 2011 at 10:44 am | #

    To be fair to Sal, Joyce WAS wearing that sweater-vest on monday: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/wait/

    • begbert2
      begbert2
      February 23, 2011 at 10:56 am | #

      Her Monday, not your Monday.

      • Chaun
        Chaun
        February 23, 2011 at 6:48 pm | #

        So? Time is relative.

        • Pagannerd
          Pagannerd
          February 23, 2011 at 9:29 pm | #

          Actually, it’s more like a ball. A ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey… stuff.

  20. Prospero
    Prospero
    February 23, 2011 at 10:52 am | #

    Is it just me, or does Sal look really sad in the first panel?

    • Prospero
      Prospero
      February 23, 2011 at 10:53 am | #

      Yes! I’m Sal. My first post is a win!

  21. Ozzmandius
    Ozzmandius
    February 23, 2011 at 11:07 am | #

    Now I feel saddened that I did not experience that in Kindergarten. Damn uniforms.

  22. Mike
    Mike
    February 23, 2011 at 1:18 pm | #

    So, if Joyce’s sweater is Blue and Blue, is she De Ting? is BLUE AN BLUE ON DE TING!!!

    • Pagannerd
      Pagannerd
      February 23, 2011 at 9:30 pm | #

      Oh my Gods, WHERE THE HELL HAVE I READ THAT BEFORE?!?!?! Damnit, it’s going to piss me off all day ’til I work it out…

  23. asdfasdf asdf
    asdfasdf asdf
    February 23, 2011 at 8:32 pm | #

    first

    • Pagannerd
      Pagannerd
      February 23, 2011 at 9:31 pm | #

      See, now that’s just silly.

  24. Dahlia
    Dahlia
    February 23, 2011 at 9:41 pm | #

    ^ ^;; I don’t think Joyce gets it…. Its ok, though, we still love Joyce (when shes not batsh*t insane).

  25. Random Citizen
    Random Citizen
    May 22, 2012 at 10:06 am | #

    I just imagined a kindergartner Grace dressed up in a tiny vest with a lunch box showing up to her kitchen table. Think about it you’ll daaww for a second.

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