Here’s a “comic” of sorts that I put on my various social media accounts yesterday, but figured maybe it wouldn’t hurt for them to have a permanent on-my-actual-website-which-I-personally-own home. So here they are!
This is one of those ideas which don’t really have a place in the webcomic itself, as Joyce and her universe are kinda anchored outside of time. Dumbing of Age doesn’t exist in any specific year (as mentioned in the FAQ), and this idea required the calling out of actual years and actual events in real history. Sliding timescales are neat but sometimes also kind of not!
plus also if i wrote this comic yesterday and put it into the buffer today it wouldn’t even publish until next january anyway so
(comments closed because i was tired of the flood of shit about how killary is the REAL antichrist –the point’s kind of flying directly over your noggin)
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Ahhhhh, baby Joyce is so cute!
Middle Hank (that’s Hank, right?) looks a lot like Mike and this disturbs me.
Oh Carol. Carol, Carol, Carol. You and (early) Hank suck so much omg.
Wait … so Joyce and Mike are half-siblings? Or estranged cousins?
Yes.
Middle dude’s hair is different, I think that must be someone else.
Hank’s hair thinned as he got older. It’s Hank.
That trademark Mike impossihair is what threw me; I keep forgetting that other characters can have it too.
Damn it if that isn’t absolutely perfect
That first panel sounds like the god-emperor of mankind. Unfortunately I have to report this comic to the inquisition, for excessive heresy.
Well there goes the neighborhood, literally.
If you are possibly the god of atheism that might make you the anti-christ.
I’ve been pointing this out to Christians for months. I’ll send them this link instead now. 🙂
Though, honestly, Hank doesn’t seem THAT DUMB. Is he?
He seems to be taking stock of his life and beliefs recently, which is good, but not all that long ago he was on board with keeping Joyce away from Dorothy and her parents because atheists would ‘endanger her soul’. Even if he was being a little facetious here, I don’t think it’s too out of character for him.
I blame peer pressure.
Eh I learned this a long time ago so who knows if it’s been debunked but like it’s almost inevitable basically that you won’t be the same person from 7 years ago and even be completely different in beliefs. (I think it was 7 years as the ballpark figure of time). This isn’t just for kids to adults but also for adults too.
Hank was giving passive aggressive bs in Joyce’s face early on in the comic (only a month or so in comic time?) and has only been recently begun to develop in some areas. Like he was already starting to show inklings/potential in the past, if we believe the fact he always kind of hated Toe Dad- but Joyce is helping kick things into overdrive in the development stakes and give that extra push. Basically 2016 Hank may look at 2008 Hank and want to die a little inside potentially.
It’s possible that this is where you heard the 7 years thing:
http://www.joyceandwalky.com/d/20050510.html
Just, like, in general? Like walk up to Christians and say “trump’s the antichrist?”
Why not? I should have started when I thought of it in June. Back when it was funny.
Stupid question, but Joyce’s family is from Indiana and they seem like they’d be in line with a lot of Pence’s stuff, so shouldn’t they love him?
WARNING: JOKE EXPLAINED
the browns didn’t make the sign
and donald trump doesn’t care enough about mike pence to learn his name
Being from Indiana means you are less likely to care about Pence, not more likely. Pence is pretty universally hated, with zero chance at reelection or future state-level offices, which is why he made his Faustian bargain.
Basically this. Granted, his anti-abortion and anti-LGBT stances means someone like Carol would still support him, but his career was dead in Indiana. It was bad enough that the state GOP was openly questioning if he should run for re-election. Trump offered him a way out of losing his re-election bid.
Is the “golden throne” a reference to that comedy roast? “The plan called for Trump to be driven onto the stage in a gilded golf cart…”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-inside-story-of-donald-trumps-comedy-central-roast-is-everything-you-thought-it-would-be_us_57fbed42e4b0e655eab6c191
I thought it was a reference to his toilet.
Toilet humor – it’s in the Bible!(R)
donald trump owns literal golden chairs, in which he and pence were interviewed by the media when he announced his running mate
Ornate golden chairs with white leather padding. Usually you only see those in grainy, washed out videos of totalitarian regimes.
Or on TBN
Little on the nose there. It almost makes me question my atheism and think of the christian god just burying his face in his hands when so many of his followers are not getting his VERY OBVIOUS warning signs.
To be fair, don’t the words kind of imply that a fair chunk of people would miss the obvious warning signs due to how charismatic the antichrist is? It does seem like it wouldn’t need a beware if it wasn’t likely for people to fall into it
But he’s not even very charismatic, I really don’t get it. Like, completely aside from his fitness to hold office or his human decency or total lack thereof, he just doesn’t seem like a pleasant person to be around.
He has money, so he’s charismatic. That’s how it works.
…he’s endorsed by Charisma. (The magazine for Christians who can’t abide the thought of not being assholes.) Does that count?
He has so much charisma. He’s got charisma coming out of his eyes, out of his wherever. He has so much– believe me it’s a lot– way more than his opponents by the way– that he has a lot. I can’t even say how much charisma he has, but believe me it’s a yooooge amount. His opponent has weak charisma! Sad!
Don’t your readers get “jokes”?
Here is a picture of his golden throne, for those who haven’t seen it yet.
Everything in this picture is terrible.
No, it a reference to the gold plated bathroom Trump has in one of his homes
Is that supposed to be Carol wearing the hat and holding the “Trump” sign in the final panel?
And who or what is “MAGA”?
Acronym for “Make America Great Again”
Probably stands for “Make America Great Again” … it was easier than trying to spell it all out.
Honest, when I posted my reply Pizzasgood’s answer was not there.
May Assault Girls Again
Yah, but people around the world are supposed to like the Antichrist. He’s not supposed to be blatantly evil until he gets into power. Obama was well liked going into office, whereas Trump isn’t even liked by his party, or even the people who are voting for him.
Antichrist is also supposed to appear to initially be a peacemaker, a role Trump only sorta kinda fits, if greater isolationism can count as peace.
Of course, the whole antichrist thing is a bit of a contradictory mish-mash to begin with. But if I had to pick one part of the myth that I’d place as prominent, then I’d go with the whole “Guy everyone loves” bit. And by that definition, neither Trump nor Hillary are even close to fitting the description. Bernie Sanders would be closer there, as even people who vehemently disagree with his politics believe he is an honest man, generally speaking.
If everyone has to love him, then anyone you’d think is the antichrist cannot, by definition, be the antichrist.
“whereas Trump isn’t even liked by his party, ”
As someone who regularly talks to Conservatives and other Rightists, yes he is.
He is *loved* by them.
Most important is that Revelations only cares that he sways the earthly church, which Trump is doing.
Francis has already told Catholics in the US not vote for Trump.
Joyce’s family wouldn’t consider the pope part of the earthly church though, on account of the catholicism=satan worship thing. They would consider the earthly church to be…the type of christians who love Trump.
And they don’t even see the irony.
Right, because American Catholics are famous for listening to the instructions of the Pope.
Which is why about 70% of them use birth control regularly, and 98% have used it at least sometimes, for example.
But Trump isn’t promising isolationism. He’s openly espousing “bombing the sh*t” out of the Middle East. He’s repeatedly asked why he can’t use nukes in briefings.
Let’s just assume he’s mental unstable all the time and that he inadvertently pressures healthcare professionals to say that he has a clean bill of health.
“Inadvertently”?
The real problem with Trump being the Antichrist is that the Antichrist is supposed to bring the entire world under his sway, rather than just attain a bare majority in the key portions of one nation. Same problem with Obama, Reagan, or any other common choice for a Presidential Antichrist. Heck, the folks who say the UN is the Antichrist are closer to the mark just because they remembered that the rest of the world exists.
Sometimes I feel like you’re writing my life… Only now, with this election, I’m not a college student, but a 35 year old mother of 3.
Oh….
suddenly, it all makes sense!
Given Mary’s opinion of Robin DeSanto I wonder if maybe her one redeeming quality might be that she isn’t a Trump supporter. If so then that is one nice thing that could be said about her.
So cool and so timely. Have never understood how people who can purport to be so religious can be so hypocritical. And I would like to think that it is a weak mind that can be so until I think of Hasidim. Just goes to show how well the rights’ tactics of relentless pounding in of propaganda has been effective.
Overheard in Heaven:
GOD: “They scared enough?”
ANGEL: “Not yet.”
GOD: “You got Trump running?”
ANGEL: “Yup.”
GOD: “Hurricanes?”
ANGEL: “Yup.”
GOD: “OK then; send in the clowns.”
They’re already here.
Gah, “Don’t bother, they’re here.”
Lyric fail…
Just in time for Trump’s inauguration!
(I just scared myself.)
As long as the betting markets still have Hillary winning we’re safe.
So was there actually a reason why people thought (think?) that President Obama could be this Antichrist fellow?
He was popular and charismatic and For Some Reason He Looked Scary I Can’t Put My Finger On It.
…right, that’s what I was afraid would be the answer.
Every president is someone’s personal antichrist. Science Fact.
So what passage is 2004 from, or is that your translation?
ha ha ha ha ha
There’s no “single passage.”
Antichrist theology is handpicked from across the entire Bible as one pleases, the same way “prophesies about Jesus” are found. Like, there’s so much in the Book of Daniel that’s claimed to be about the Antichrist, even though (obviously) the book never uses the name, and it’s just never ever challenged. And they take these various things from disparate ends of the Old and New Testament and yank them out of their context and put them together to form a narrative that never actually existed. Books about the Antichrist that do this is a whole cottage industry. I should know, ‘cuz I read about everything on the subject that the late Eighties and early Nineties had to offer. (My favorite was the one about how Saddam Hussein was the Antichrist because he was rebuilding the ancient city of Babylon.)
To summarize, the picture painted by the first illustration is probably from sixteen different places and was a fairly widespread interpretation when I was younger.
The candidate I always find amusing is King Juan Carlos of Spain.
What?
As with any other candidate you get a bunch of people adding 2 plus 2 and getting 23239823. With Juan Carlos the starting point seems to be the creation of the EU, which some people decided had something to do with the End Times. A guy named Charles Taylor wrote a book pushing the idea of Juan Carlos as Antichrist back in 1994, and the evangelist Jack Van Impe was big on the idea as well.
Wow, it does not feel like the EU is that old. Mostly because it doesn’t feel like I was that young when I learned about it getting established.
Dang, Hank aged a lot in four years.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with Fred Clark (“Slacktivist” over on the Patheos website) but he’s an “evangelical” pastor, but of the very liberal variety (meaning: pro gay rights, believes in evolution, pro social justice and feminism, etc.)
The reason I mention him is that he did (is still doing) a great long-running series where he really dissects the seminal “antichrist” tract of the modern Christian era: “Left Behind.” In a series of posts that have ended up stretching over years, he went page by page through the thing pointing out not just how bad it is as literature, but how bad it is as theology (not just in how toxic a worldview it promotes, but in how much of the so-called “literal reading of the Bible” is really cherry-picking specific verses and adding in a bunch of cultural baggage from the late 1800s to create a church doctrine found nowhere in the actual book.)
It’s some great reading, and as he came out of that sub-culture as well, it gives a lot of perspective into the reasoning and background of the kind of mentality that can easily lead to what you’re portraying in the comic above.
Here’s a link to an index of all of the posts in that series. (As you can see, there are a LOT of them.) http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/11/05/left-behind-index-the-whole-thing/
(Sorry for the rambling, but I do think Clark is a great source for reading on the culture wars where they impact the tension between modern evangelical Protestantism and ideas of social justice and charity.)
I liked the Left Behind series 🙁
That said, I also read it as I would any other work of fantasy fiction, so whatever they were hoping to accomplish didn’t even have a chance.
Right, I read it like that as well. I always can accept God in fantasy books that prove he exists in that world. Not that I finished the series, but the effects of God were apparent in that book series and so he clearly existed in that universe. Same sort of thing with the Dresden Files, the effects were seen, so in that world, it’s true.
Sounds like Nicolai Carpathia.
Please don’t remind us of that 7th grade crap.
Yeah it’s totally the religious women who are going all wooooooo over Trump.
Some are. The majority, no, but some are. Quite a few of those who are are the nondenominational fundamentalist evangelical types that raised Joyce.
I believe Willis has said before that his mother is pro-Trump as is his step-mother, so Carol being so does not surprise me, as she and Hank were an amalgamation of his old community (although as Hank began some character growth, that may no longer be the case, or he may be influenced by the more positive people).
The first one is competent. Also some is a criminal if the are found guilt in a court of law and our government’s cybersecurity is crap.
No they’ll just replace the previous two parties and we’ll still be screwed.
*someone*
I can’t agree hard enough.
Yep. My mom called me in 2008 and said “You know you’re voting for the Antichrist, right?”
Have not asked her views on the Trump.
Thing is, democracy doesn’t always work out the way we’d like it to. People never seem to think the way we think they should.
And both have significant differences in the platforms they are running on. To say they’re both the same is just not true.
One of them isn’t a sexual predator
One of them isn’t undermining confidence in the election results
One of them isn’t constantly spouting racist dogwhistles and retweeting white supremacists
One of them hasn’t read Russian propaganda at their rallies
One of them isn’t under instigation for both fraud and sexual assaults
One of them doesn’t have any holocaust deniers or people claiming slavery wasn’t a big deal
Literally all politics aside, if you can’t see any difference between the two you have not been paying attention
on the trump thing, Pence is the running mate and he’s also super awful.
yessss got carla again