Galactus itself is concerned about Joyce’s jaws and the unholy expressions they contain. Galactus reads this very webcomic in order to study her mouth. Sometimes the eater of worlds gets so worked up, it eats a planet that wasn’t on the diet plan. Billions meet their end , each one screaming “DAMN YOU WILLIS!”
I am so far behind on Squirrel Girl comics and I really need to catch up. I love how her ultimate superpower is just the power of Friendship, but it works even on someone like Galactus because SG is just so damn awesome.
What about a tripwire across the top of the ladder that starts a chain reaction to send a message to Joyce while allowing Sarah time to get out of bed?
Some people have shrines to a single object of devotion in their closet.
Joyce could have one of those classy surveillance walls, though she’d need some way of making sure not to accidentally witness premarital hanky-panky.
Not the point. Joyce is there because she wants to excitedly and bouncily hug Sarah. Platonically, but happy-cheerful-morning-platonically.
Hmmm. Middle ground: Hit the cafeteria or vending machine before Sarah wakes up, and have her favorite coffee ready for her to go with that grin. After a week of that, she’ll actually start to like it.
I mean, hey, if she’s wide awake anyway, she can go fetch stuff while you sleep in. Little sisters are like little gofers.
I’m suspecting that either you haven’t actually experienced a little sister or it’s been long enough that you’re memory is making stuff up to fill in the gaps.
I think we can all agree that all the faces are great now. Except for Jessica’s since we haven’t seen her’s yet. But I think it’ll be safe to assume that it’s good too.
Instead of looming over her with the mask on, for the first few days just leave the mask off and have it next to her in bed when she wakes up. That way she’ll get to acclimate to it.
I love the colors of this one. So warm and homey and early-morning. Also I just generally like those shades of purple and orange together. Such a soothing strip.
“But then I wouldn’t be able to tell the EXACT MOMENT she wakes up and be able to tell her ‘GOOD MORNING!’ as the VERY FIRST thing she hears that morning, ’cause it’s SUCH a GOOD MORNING!!”
The worst part? She’s SMILING. She’s smiling, first thing in the morning. Sarah is right to be freaked out. Anyone super-perky and aware before breakfast is a dangerous one, likely a pod person.
There really isn’t anything quite as disturbing — especially to a misanthrope like Sarah — as an unreasonably cheery morning person. It shouldn’t be possible to be so happy that early. The only way it makes since is if she has already committed several gruesome murders. That also explains why they’re up so early. Gotta hide the bodies while everyone except other serial killers is still sleeping.
Dorothy is the one to watch out for, imo. She gets up early and works out. I don’t even think she gets coffee first. No part of that makes any sense.
As a lifelong morning person (usually up and perky, on my brain’s alarm clock, by 5am, and don’t need caffeine until the afternoon) I don’t understand this hatred. Mornings are SO COOL and there’s SO MUCH TO BE DONE! Those early morning hours when the day holds so much possibility are almost holy.
You be a vamp, but when I first wake up, I’m a zombie— and I WILL eat your brains or at least gnaw at your skull if prevented from a cereal breakfast rather than a serial one.
For me, based off of angles and such, Joyce’s butt would have been resting to the side of Sarah’s right arm when she’s laying down. Like Joyce was happily sitting on the side of Sarah’s bunk, waiting for her to wake up, glancing back occasionally.
“Sarah wakes up to an odd sensation on her right arm. It’s as if the warm softeness of Joyce’s plush posterior were… She opens her eyes and quickly shouts, embarrassed of her true feelings.”
-Narrator in some Joyce/Sarah fanfic
Not actually shipping them, but there seems to be a ton of fodder for this joke lying around, so…
Man, with two fairly large archive binges in half as many days, I’ve spoiled myself and the fact that it’s been twenty four hours since the last strip is suddenly and illogically ridiculous to me.
I suppose I have ety to thank for that.
…well, at least it’ll feel normal again in a day or two.
Careful, you don’t want to be come ‘Lipke the DoA Junkie’. Top tier Pateron, buying all the DoA books, then Shortpacked! on eBay, Keenspot comics at conventions…Well, at least those last two, Willis won’t get anything from those.
…. but what makes you think that Joyce WANTS marriage with a random man who just came out of nowhere out of attraction to her sunny disposition and cuteness?
….. oh, wait, that’s pretty much her entire goal in life.
Ah, the way my youth went, she probably would’ve never noticed me…
Of course, now I just want to give her a hug and talk out her problems. I’ve been wrestling with my faith for many years now. I don’t know how much I could help, but I could listen.
The First Rule for survival outside of the safe areas: If you come across a Joyce, a Dina or a Ruthless, do not run or call for help but stand still and stay silent. It might go away.
I wonder if the alt-text was inspired by yesterday’s comments. I seem to recall that Willis might change them on the spot based on whatever is currently on his mind.
That is, sitting nearby while you sleep not understanding how creepy that is, and scaring you half to death as you awake is played for comedic effect. Bonus points if they have a highly stylized scythe or something.
Or, in Western entertainment, a genie. Put her in a harem girl costume, have her call Sarah ‘mistress’ all the time and the match-up with the trope is nearly perfect.
She might as well be a space alien to me. Unlike nearly every other character Joyce is someone who I don’t have much personal resonance for, folks Amber, Walky, Ruth and Sarah are characters I can look at and go “yes this is me”, but everything about her is so fantastically realized. She feels alive.
If THAT makes you feel dirty never look at anything related to American politics on twitter, because the actual pro-Trump rhetoric out there is so much more toxic.
What is interesting is that Sarah is so used to Joyce leaning over her when she wakes up that she’s actually slightly worried if it isn’t happening. That’s my interpretation of panel 2, at least. “Where’s Joyce?” The answer, sitting at the top of your bunk, watching you with a demented grin.
The horrible part of this is that I can’t think of any character less likely to be a psycho slasher stalker than her, yet she plays the part so well!
Oh, good, a light-hearted strip that coincides with more of my befuddling by the US government, so I can ask for explanation without detracting from a discussion on an important issue:
So, uh, US Congress has told the families of Twin Towers attack victims that they can sue Saudi Arabia for it. I, uh, how does that work? This was a political please-re-elect-me thing, right? No-one thinks this is actually enforceable, do they? I mean, how? Does this mean Iraq, Syria, Vietnam et al can now sue the US? How? I mean, uh… what?
APPARENTLY, and if I understood the news I read correctly, in return for Democrats helping to pass that bill, Republicans pinky-promised that, come next year, they’ll totally vote “yea” on allocating funds so that Flint people stop being poisoned by tap water (the wtf levels are ridiculous on this). Does anyone expect them to actually do this? A cursory internet search tells me the whole thing started in 2014, but after two years of blocking help, they’re totally changing their minds next year? Do people believe this? Should I start a betting pool on what excuse they’ll give next year to not pass it, ranging from “Budgetary needs have changed” to the classic “”We never said that” turning into “Oh, we had our fingers crossed” when actual footage is presented?”
I mean, Congress is… elected, yes? It’s not a lottery? USAmericans VOTE for these people, based, one would hope, on their competence rather than entertainment value? OUR politicians do a lot of fucked up stuff, but I never heard any of them go “their tap water is poisoned? So? It’s not MY tap water, let the fuckers die.”
Usually, they are elected on the basis of tribal loyalty to the party, something that has built up over generations and is largely regardless of any facts about platforms, policies and ethics. In some areas, a political seat is so inviolable to any challenge (simply because the majority will reflexively vote for that party) that it is a job-for-life and an open door to unlimited access to the public sector gravy train/pig trough.
Out of despair at this was the Donald Trump phenomenon born.
The US is just… or, rather, “just” the same situation as anywhere else, taken to a massive extreme due to the polarized politics. US citizens do everything big – the elections themselves last far longer than they sanely should and cost even more, just to give an example – and more to the point, they LIKE it big, in general. The need for extremes means they elect more extreme officials, who then encourage extreme behavior, so the next is election cycle is even worse, and so on. And that’s only in a vacuum – the extreme behavior makes the differences between the two parties more pronounced and visible, which makes them more hostile to each other.
This process continued for hundreds of years to get as bad as it is now, even as the parties sort of switched roles in the early 20th century.
Hence why, both of the parties ended up with presidential nominees who are ridiculous caricatures of their respective party. Hillary Clinton is detached, beholden to her focus groups to appeal to the ridiculously diverse voter base Democrats fostered, and jollily decieves, cheats or just simply withholds important information to get her way(“For your own benefit”, of course), while Donald Trump is a xenophobic, inveterate liar, to both himself and others, terrified of everything outside his narrow comfort zone, who doesn’t even respect his voters enough to cover up his nonsense.
For their credit though, these people are so extreme that many more reasonable Americans stopped in their tracks and asked each other how did they get there. It’s like seeing yourself in a broken, distorting circus mirror.
With the above demonstrated, it’s easy to see why conservative politicians in the US are perfectly comfortable in being upfront and obvious in their disrespect for their voter base. They spent decades upon decades to appeal to the people who do not inform themselves, and they fostered and encouraged that attitude to be able to keep going. They know that jack all of their voters will call them out on their bullshit. Within a certain threshold of outrage, they can do whatever they please, and that threshold widens every year.
The internet and 24-hour cable news have made it possible for people to completely avoid ever being exposed to ideas they don’t already agree with, and since people generally prefer having their opinions reaffirmed rather than challenged, even previously reputable news outlets are afraid to actually call anyone out for being batshit insane or clearly bigoted because they can’t afford to lose what audience they’ve held onto.
To make matters worse, the competition for viewers has also lead news outlets to try and make stories ”more interesting”, which is really harmful because that means they’re looking for a narrative rather than the truth, and focusing on gossip rather than what people really need to know.
Trump himself is the inevitable result of over a decade of the far right and outlets like Fox News selling their agendas almost exclusively through fear and hate-mongering. It was no longer enough to say their political opponents were wrong, they were corrupt, unpatriotic, idiotic degenerate criminals who want to kidnap your children and destroy everything ”Real Americans” stand for. Anyone telling you otherwise is either foolishly naive, or in their pocket.
Many conservatives are realizing too late the monster this has created. The Tea Party was simply the logical result of people actually believing what right-wing politicians have been telling them, and noticing how their actions were not proportional their rhetoric.
That’s what frightens me most about this election cycle. So many of Trump’s supporters can’t see Trump for what he is, because they’ve been stuck in an echo chamber that has convinced them the alternative is even more terrible, and they’ve been instilled with a mindset that will defend itself even against reason and reality.
I’ve absolutely no idea how to get through all that to walk these people back from the precipice. With the way Trump has not-so-subltly been suggesting that the election might get rigged against him, and that maybe violence would resolve that, I am scared as hell about what will happen in November, no matter which way the election goes.
And before anyone takes that last sentence as an endorsement for their alarmingly foolish plans to vote third party our not at all, this is not the election for protest votes. Even if you see it as picking the lesser of two evils, only one of those evils has been endorsed by the KKK, and was then reluctant to call them ”deplorable”, or any other adjective that would have been suitable for a major white-supremacist hate group. Even if every bad thing said amour Hilary were true, we’ve had presidents who were guilty of far worse and still left the country on reasonable shape. Hold your nose and do it. If you want to fix how presidents are elected, start paying attention to senate and house races, because a long-term solution is going to take legislation.
The advice I see on news sites on how to help fix the issue is: “stop believing elections only happen every 4 years; vote down”… ticket? ballot? which I’ve sorta deduced is US slang for “vote for the incumbents of regional positions, you dimwits, because those are the people who set policy.”
The POTUS elections, as far as I can tell, are mostly for rah-rah purposes, because Congress can sort of hold most of presidents’ ridiculous crap at bay… except, as luck would have it, this year, because the next person in the Oval Office is going to pick 1-4 SCOTUS justices, which are ALSO people who decide policy. One of them is Scalia’s replacement (the bastard died half a year ago and Congress is STILL not voting on the nominee; do those people work?), and… I assume 3 of the remainder are so old they’re expected to kick the bucket in the next 4 years?
Also, you typo’d “amour Hillary,” and that made me chuckle. Here’s a cookie.
Its more that we don’t pay attention to the smaller races, and almost always vote either based solely on party, or for the incumbent. And turnout for midterm elections is abysmal.
Almost nobody pays attention to state and local elections which is pretty terrible, as those have a far greater effect on our lives.
And I have no idea why my phone’s dictionary has all these non-English words I never use in it when I keep finding much more commonly used English ones I have to add myself -_-
It’s not just that turnout for non-presidential election years is lower, but it’s not evenly lower. Demographics that tend to vote Democratic tend to vote less reliably. They’re less likely to turn out in off-years than Republican voters are. So off year elections tend to skew Republican.
So pushing people to vote down ballot and turn out for off years changes the balance.
The Presidency isn’t quite just Rah-Rah, though not so dominant as the media might portray it. They have a lot of direct influence on foreign policy & diplomacy, most obviously. They can veto any legislation, which is hard to override. They tend to set policy direction and priorities. And they oversee most of the bureaucracy. Competence there matters alot, even if it’s just appointing competent people.
The Court is also important, as it is in every election. And it’s not so much that Congress doesn’t work, it’s that the Republicans in control are deliberately stalling in hopes of a Trump victory and a chance for another conservative Justice. Since he’d be replacing Scalia, even the fairly moderate Garland would be a drastic shift in the balance of the court. Likely the first liberal dominated court since the early 70s.
I… I can’t tell if that’s disturbing or hilarious. On the other hand, I reflexively hit things that aren’t supposed to be there when I wake up, so I’m going to go with “disturbing, and only hilarious because it didn’t happen to me.”
Imagine a pointy hat on her head, and Joyce sorta looks like “The Elf on the Shelf” perched there. Too bad this didn’t come out a couple of months later, in late November/early December.
Definitely another one of the funny in a comic situation but highly inappropriate in real life…
With Joyce you have to let her know, at the time, that her actions are unwanted because she’ll just forget about it later, bit like my dog come to think of it…
Learning to respect other people’s boundaries, even when they’re so different from your own that they don’t even make sense to you is something a lot of people are still learning at that age. I would guess just assumed Sarah was just crabby, and didn’t consider that it might make her uncomfortable.
I think now that she sees that, she’s making an effort to adjust her behavior. She’s just underestimated how different Sarah’s boundaries are from her own.
I can empathize with poor Joyce. There was this person I cared about so much in college, I came into their room and watched over them while they slept all night. I made sure to never even blink!
My thoughtfulness did not seem appreciated for some reason.
New bonus strip over at the Dumbing of Age Patreon! That’s… that’s all.
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Back to happy-Joyce. I can dig it
I dunno, that smile of hers always makes me think of Galactus right before he’s about to consume a particularly tasty planet…
Hey, any friend of Squirrel Girl’s is alright with me
Galactus itself is concerned about Joyce’s jaws and the unholy expressions they contain. Galactus reads this very webcomic in order to study her mouth. Sometimes the eater of worlds gets so worked up, it eats a planet that wasn’t on the diet plan. Billions meet their end , each one screaming “DAMN YOU WILLIS!”
Pff, the only thing creepy about her is that she’s able to be so cheerful so early in the morning.
Her smile is adorable and for some reason it makes me want to bake cookies. 😛
I baked pear spice cakes earlier today if you want a symbolic piece. I was testing a variation in a recipe for Sunday.
That sounds nice. I’ve made a ‘Harvest Soda’ bread, with Ginger Ale, Apples, Pears, and Plums.
What does that symbolize?
YOUR IMMINENT DEMISE.
I am so far behind on Squirrel Girl comics and I really need to catch up. I love how her ultimate superpower is just the power of Friendship, but it works even on someone like Galactus because SG is just so damn awesome.
Happy happy Joyce Joyce
Happy happy Joyce Joyce
Happy happy Joyce Joyce
Happy happy Joyce Joyce
Happy happy Joyce Joyce
Happy happy Joyce Joyce
Happy happy Joyce Joyce Joyce!
Hey, kids! I don’t think you’re happy enough!
let’s enjoy it while it lasts.
Ack! The filter ate my comment! Bad filter, BAD! *sprays with water*
Creepy Joyce
The Triangle Smile Returns!
(Somebody artistic: imagine the Batman logo, but with Joyce’s creepy smile instead of the bat.)
Wouldn’t that literally just be shining a triangle shape into the sky….
erg, now put Batman logo as Joyce smile.
Bedside Joyce is watching you sleep.
How long does she sit there, just silently waiting for Sarah to wake up on her own?
As long as it takes.
She never sleeps.
at least now you aren’t worried i might kiss you.
or was that never a worry?
“Well it is now!”
“More of a hope…”
-Sarah in some Joyce/Sarah fanfic
“AND THEN THEY ALL FUCKED!”
-Yelling Bird, in everything.
There’s gotta be a middleground here.
stare at her while sitting in a chair after attaching a mirror to the ceiling?
Still creepy.
What about a tripwire across the top of the ladder that starts a chain reaction to send a message to Joyce while allowing Sarah time to get out of bed?
Creepy…?
Cut a hole in the ceiling, and then perch in it, looking down at her.
Ceiling Cat style!
Set up a webcam pointed at her bed so you can stare while far away from her?
Maybe a tiny remote drone with a camera on it?…Or multiple drones since she likes staring at Sal too!
Some people have shrines to a single object of devotion in their closet.
Joyce could have one of those classy surveillance walls, though she’d need some way of making sure not to accidentally witness premarital hanky-panky.
3 Minute delay with Mike watching it live?
What’ll incentivize Mike to actually warn her, though?
Sarah’s face as Joyce greets her all cheerful-like.
Or, considering her veiwee of choice, electronic hanky-panky.
Not the point. Joyce is there because she wants to excitedly and bouncily hug Sarah. Platonically, but happy-cheerful-morning-platonically.
Hmmm. Middle ground: Hit the cafeteria or vending machine before Sarah wakes up, and have her favorite coffee ready for her to go with that grin. After a week of that, she’ll actually start to like it.
I mean, hey, if she’s wide awake anyway, she can go fetch stuff while you sleep in. Little sisters are like little gofers.
I’m suspecting that either you haven’t actually experienced a little sister or it’s been long enough that you’re memory is making stuff up to fill in the gaps.
Or Reltzik was a single child, and the “little sister” was an actual gopher.
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
About the only thing I can think of is “stay in bed, and talk without looking at each other.”
Remember how that turned out for Becky and Katlin…
I didn’t mean the same bed!
They didn’t start in the same bed 😛
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/definitely/
*tests out the repaired Muzak-hacking equipment with The Mamas & The Papas’ “Monday Monday”*
The way things have been, I’m figuring it’ll be a bit more manic.
Man, Sarah makes some EXCELLENT faces in this strip.
I think we can all agree that all the faces are great now. Except for Jessica’s since we haven’t seen her’s yet. But I think it’ll be safe to assume that it’s good too.
I’m sure the congress woman agrees with you
Are you imagining Robin and Jessica smooching right now?
…maybe…
…Are you imagining them doing more than smooching?
Like, smooching -and- looking at pictures of dinosaurs between smooches?
…mayyyyyyybe…
OOH! OOH! You’re imagining them HOLDING HANDS, aren’t you?
AREN’T YOU.
…mayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyybe…
*monocle shatters*
Are you imagining them being nekkid while smooching, holding hands, and looking at pictures of dinosaurs?
…mayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyybe…
Holding hands is “Second Base”, right?
[/Dina]
In panels 3 and 4, Sarah’s eyes have retracted inside her head for safety.
Is Joyce wearing a flesh-colored pencil skirt? Spanx? A classic girdle?
I suspect she’s in undies.
I wonder if Willis is dreading another request for only that.
Too late.
SO MANY
This is about as close as we’re going to get.
Oversized sleep shirt?
I’m pretty sure she usually wears light orange shorts.
Yep – these already featured under her dress in her date with Joe chaperoned by Mike.
Nooo. not the horse mask. NOPE.
YUP.
Instead of looming over her with the mask on, for the first few days just leave the mask off and have it next to her in bed when she wakes up. That way she’ll get to acclimate to it.
I love the colors of this one. So warm and homey and early-morning. Also I just generally like those shades of purple and orange together. Such a soothing strip.
Perhaps if it was shown to Sarah, she’d feel better.
More likely she’d feel spied upon.
Something I think we can all agree we desperately needed!
I agree! I really like the look of it, and also how Willis is always using the colour palette to show what time it is.
As well as movement!
How about sitting in a chair on the floor while waiting for you to wake up? Would that be better Sarah?
More like sitting in a chair in someone else’s room, far away. That would be better.
“But then I wouldn’t be able to tell the EXACT MOMENT she wakes up and be able to tell her ‘GOOD MORNING!’ as the VERY FIRST thing she hears that morning, ’cause it’s SUCH a GOOD MORNING!!”
Well, it could have been worse: she could have suggested to Sarah that they should be “shower buddies”.
Becky: *Internal Screaming*
Or she could be holding Other Jacob.
“But this way I’m not close enough for you to try to immediatey strangle me like Sal does.”
“EXACTLY!”
Well that’s terrifying. I don’t think this is something with a middle ground.
Joyce happily waiting for Sarah to wake up, just for that, will most likely always annoy her. Until Joyce isn’t there to do it.
That sums up a lot of Sarah
It does, doesn’t it?
The worst part? She’s SMILING. She’s smiling, first thing in the morning. Sarah is right to be freaked out. Anyone super-perky and aware before breakfast is a dangerous one, likely a pod person.
Or a reptilian.
or an ape.
apes smile to show aggression.
Our Lady of the Triangle Grin makes silverback gorillas nervous.
Or a Stepford Wife.
Or the Joker.
When the Joker frowns and says, “Ok, THAT’S creepy”, you know you’re dealing with Triangle Joyce.
There really isn’t anything quite as disturbing — especially to a misanthrope like Sarah — as an unreasonably cheery morning person. It shouldn’t be possible to be so happy that early. The only way it makes since is if she has already committed several gruesome murders. That also explains why they’re up so early. Gotta hide the bodies while everyone except other serial killers is still sleeping.
Dorothy is the one to watch out for, imo. She gets up early and works out. I don’t even think she gets coffee first. No part of that makes any sense.
“Take an 8 am weight-lifting class” they said… “It’ll be fun” they said…
As a lifelong morning person (usually up and perky, on my brain’s alarm clock, by 5am, and don’t need caffeine until the afternoon) I don’t understand this hatred. Mornings are SO COOL and there’s SO MUCH TO BE DONE! Those early morning hours when the day holds so much possibility are almost holy.
Well…it’s a step a start in right direction and it’s just a bit more cute then it is creepy
Still fucking creepy though
That sums up A LOT of Joyce
It does, doesn’t it?
Thank you Emperor, thank you so much for running with the gag. That’s half the fun around here!
The other half is blowing things up.
“Blow things up, he says what we all are thinking”
Don’t say that. Now I’m co-thinking of Emperor Norton II and Donald Trump. Emperor Trump? The Second??
*whimpers, curls up in corner*
If she tries this with Sal, she’ll still grab her neck no matter where she’s standing.
“I was in the next room! How?”
Anyone else reminded of Lonely Island’s Jack Sparrow?
Literal laugh out loud strip.
Boundaries!!
That smile is shooting beams of light. Most people are some kind of vampire when they wake.
*groan* “is it morn..
WELL GOOD MONRING!!! *smile*
Noo AaaaAhhhhh *Ash death*
It buuuuuuurns
with the fury of a thousand suns!
You be a vamp, but when I first wake up, I’m a zombie— and I WILL eat your brains or at least gnaw at your skull if prevented from a cereal breakfast rather than a serial one.
I, for one, welcome our new raptor zombie overlords.
I imagine that no matter what direction Sarah looks in, Joyce will somehow always be sitting there, smiling.
Forever and ever and EVER
Her unceasing smile follows you around the room.
She’s like the Mona Ogg. Her teeth follow you around the room.
+2 for the Pratchett reference.
She’s taking lessons from Creepy Dr. Watson.
Is Joyce just sitting on top of the bunk bed ladder or is there something more substantial under her that I’m not seeing?
She floats on a cloud of happy thoughts
…yes, of course… “thoughts”
NOT HARD ENOUGH!
Well she’s already partially levitating, so any harder and she’ll need to throw out those shorts :/
True. Just a fan of posting that, seemed like the best place.
Oh my god I just realized that Sarah’s expressions are AMAZING if you imagine that Joyce is farting the entire time.
You really live up to your name don’t you? 😛
-_-;;
They are.
Looks like she’s sitting balanced on the railing, with most of her butt hanging in the air.
Much comfier than leaving any of the pelvis in direct contact with the railing for prolonged periods of time, even with a plush posterior.
For me, based off of angles and such, Joyce’s butt would have been resting to the side of Sarah’s right arm when she’s laying down. Like Joyce was happily sitting on the side of Sarah’s bunk, waiting for her to wake up, glancing back occasionally.
“Sarah wakes up to an odd sensation on her right arm. It’s as if the warm softeness of Joyce’s plush posterior were… She opens her eyes and quickly shouts, embarrassed of her true feelings.”
-Narrator in some Joyce/Sarah fanfic
Not actually shipping them, but there seems to be a ton of fodder for this joke lying around, so…
Like a good video game protagonist, Joyce is on a rail.
So… Edge from the first Panzer Dragoon?
omg somebody else has played panzer dragoon
I played(and loved, obviously) the first three, but I never got my hands on Orta. It seemed silly to buy an Xbox just for one game.
Orta is the best rail shooter of all time though!
I’ve never played Zwei and Saga because Saga is like 600 friggin’ dollars!
I am glad joyce is starting to feel better.
She smiles again!!!
Me too! Guess that trip home was reaffirming after all (if only because her dad was cool and then it ended).
RETURN OF DUMBING OF TRIANGLE
Little sis is back!!!!
And you couldn’t be happier if you had the world’s best smørrebrød in front of you right now.
Is smørrebrød a Norwegian thing to, or is it only the Danes?
Only Danish, but I know a few things about Danes.
Mostly by reading Scandinavia and the World.
Seems a legit source to me.
…I mean, it’s not like I trust my own preconceptions as a Swede more.
All I know about Swedes, I learned from watching Season 1 of “Broen”.
She scared the scarf out of Sarah… or off of at least. Even came untied as it flew off her head. O_O
Beat me to it by 4 minutes…
But you beat me in commenter replies 😉
Bluebirds are going to start landing in her hair.
Better than rats sewing her outfits. The make terrible tailors.
I think the mice sewed the outfit…. not that this is a whole lot better. The rats became the horses.
Man, with two fairly large archive binges in half as many days, I’ve spoiled myself and the fact that it’s been twenty four hours since the last strip is suddenly and illogically ridiculous to me.
I suppose I have ety to thank for that.
…well, at least it’ll feel normal again in a day or two.
Careful, you don’t want to be come ‘Lipke the DoA Junkie’. Top tier Pateron, buying all the DoA books, then Shortpacked! on eBay, Keenspot comics at conventions…Well, at least those last two, Willis won’t get anything from those.
If I had the money it would have already happened -.-‘
Sarah was so startled, a double-knot (I presume) undid itself spontaneously. That’s impressive.
It’s kinda like when Sal’s hair goes FOOMF. The shock cannot be contained!
This is funny, but I don’t think anything can match Sal’s hair when she saw her report card.
Wonderful.
I think Walky’s hair came close. What it lacked in volume it made up in irony.
Sal’s probably in the next room wondering where that scarf came from.
*FWEEP*
Now that’s funny. Laughed out loud at Sarah in 3rd panel, flying hair scarfs and all.
A bit not good, yeah.
Just a smidgen, really.
Agree. Creepy yes. But Joyce has that ability. Still funny.
Ninja Rick would be jealous. Only the true master of stealth can jump-scare a headscarf.
Cerberus (and others)! It’s safe!
Well, for today at least.
OH MY GOD PANEL3 IS THE CUTEST JOYCE EVERAARRGHPBLEBLHGHTL
The cutest Joyce ever UP TO THAT POINT, yes. Then panel 4 happened…
And if Joyce had made an even cuter face in panel five, Bagge’s head would have exploded from overload of cuteness.
That’s a real risk
In fact, Panel 5 is darn cute. All sisterly concern and innocence far to early in the morni… ACK, MY HEAD
CLEANUP ON PANEL 5!
If I had known Joyce when I was 18 or 19 I would be married to her today.
If I could find a Joyce in real life I would marry her tomorrow.
…. but what makes you think that Joyce WANTS marriage with a random man who just came out of nowhere out of attraction to her sunny disposition and cuteness?
….. oh, wait, that’s pretty much her entire goal in life.
Except he’s gotta be christian, supportive of her gay friends, and not a rapist douchebag. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.
Check, check, and double-check.
Christian is negotiable. I mean, we all know she’s gonna end up married to Dotty anyway.
Not her -entire- goal. She also wants to be a fighter pilot with her own cartoon show.
But will her fighter transform?
Not if I wasn’t married to her first.
Ah, the way my youth went, she probably would’ve never noticed me…
Of course, now I just want to give her a hug and talk out her problems. I’ve been wrestling with my faith for many years now. I don’t know how much I could help, but I could listen.
Try again tomorrow with clown face paint.
Better yet, the pony mask AND the clown face paint.
this is honestly one of Joyce’s worst traits, I do not find it endearing it honestly pisses me off viscerally every time she does it
To me, it’s a reminder that Joyce is actually very young in emotional and behavioural terms. In some ways, she’s still only twelve years old!
Does she separate out her lucky charms cereal?
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live…
That’s racist.
“… but you said we were going to make things better…” *puppy eyes, lip quiver*
“NOT BETTER!”
Does Sarah sleep with her makeup on?
http://imgur.com/20Qs5sg
That art.
My sister sleeps with her makeup on a lot. One of her many fine healthy habits.
I think that everything Joyce says and does is just too Uncanny Valley for Sarah’s peace of mind!
The First Rule for survival outside of the safe areas: If you come across a Joyce, a Dina or a Ruthless, do not run or call for help but stand still and stay silent. It might go away.
You do not come across a Dina. A Dina will come across you, and you will not even see her before it’s too late. Because she is a smart woman.
And if you try to stand still, she will remind you that she are capable of spotting humans even when they are not moving.
On the other hand, if you just stay silent, you will be her new (second) favourite.
9/10, could have said “Clever girl,” but didn’t.
That was the whole point.
I wonder if the alt-text was inspired by yesterday’s comments. I seem to recall that Willis might change them on the spot based on whatever is currently on his mind.
From what I recall, he adds the alt-text at the last minute, so it tends to me more ‘current’ than the comics themselves.
The bunks in our dorms didn’t have railings…
How did you ride people out of town, then?
Bridles, stirrups, whips. You know, the usual.
Is that not what everyone else does?
Don’t worry Joyce, even if naked Ethan with angel wings appeared before her and asked her to marry him she’d still be unhappy.
I believe you meant Naked Jacob, right?
Oh yeah. I really shouldn’t trust my brain to write my posts in the morning.
Cute, Joyce.
She acts like how Japanese spirits do in lighthearted anime.
That is, sitting nearby while you sleep not understanding how creepy that is, and scaring you half to death as you awake is played for comedic effect. Bonus points if they have a highly stylized scythe or something.
Someone should draw a scythe into Joyce’s hands in Panel 3.
Or, in Western entertainment, a genie. Put her in a harem girl costume, have her call Sarah ‘mistress’ all the time and the match-up with the trope is nearly perfect.
D-don’t tempt me to PSL with Joyce as subject like that!
Joyce invented PSL.
Now imagining the DoA remake of Ah! My Goddess!:
Joyce as Belldandy
Danny as Keiichi
Billie as Urd
Riley as Skuld
…this would work. Almost a little too well. Oh My Goddess was my jam.
That…does seem like it’d work surprisingly well…
also, Slartibeast Button, BIA I’m not sure why I didn’t recognize that gravatar at first, but I just did now.
Too bad it’s not the ghost in Monster Musume.
Oops, wrong anime, I meant To Love Ru.
Joyce has mastered the art of creeping people out when they wake up.
She has Dina’s stealth power, but with the limitation “only sleeping people”.
HEY BART DO YOU LIKE MY CHAINSAW AND HOCKEY MASK!?
And with this strip, the only thing standing between my cat turning into Joyce is a conversion to Christianity.
That hurdle may be insurmountable, though, as cats recognize no Higher Power than themselves.
Try hanging from the ceiling.
Or ask Dina for unnoticability lessons.
You’ll have to find her first.
Bait a trap with unpublished dinosaur articles.
Or Becky.
I’d have to clear that with the Legal Department first.
Yes, that is a VERY GOOD idea.
There is NO RISK of anything going wrong.
https://youtu.be/9CcDXRwqtF8?t=20
Love the colours in this one
Joyce continues to the best character.
She might as well be a space alien to me. Unlike nearly every other character Joyce is someone who I don’t have much personal resonance for, folks Amber, Walky, Ruth and Sarah are characters I can look at and go “yes this is me”, but everything about her is so fantastically realized. She feels alive.
If THAT makes you feel dirty never look at anything related to American politics on twitter, because the actual pro-Trump rhetoric out there is so much more toxic.
Whoops that was supposed to be a reply to JBento’s comment much further below.
No idea how the heck that happened. :I
Yay, she’s healing!
If you make that face while you’re healing, it’ll get stuck like that!
-said Joyce’s Mom, in fifth grade
What is interesting is that Sarah is so used to Joyce leaning over her when she wakes up that she’s actually slightly worried if it isn’t happening. That’s my interpretation of panel 2, at least. “Where’s Joyce?” The answer, sitting at the top of your bunk, watching you with a demented grin.
The horrible part of this is that I can’t think of any character less likely to be a psycho slasher stalker than her, yet she plays the part so well!
Joyce is TRYING HER BEST. She sees that she’s making Sarah uncomfortable and she TRIES TO FIX IT.
…she’ll get it right sooner or later
Oh, good, a light-hearted strip that coincides with more of my befuddling by the US government, so I can ask for explanation without detracting from a discussion on an important issue:
So, uh, US Congress has told the families of Twin Towers attack victims that they can sue Saudi Arabia for it. I, uh, how does that work? This was a political please-re-elect-me thing, right? No-one thinks this is actually enforceable, do they? I mean, how? Does this mean Iraq, Syria, Vietnam et al can now sue the US? How? I mean, uh… what?
APPARENTLY, and if I understood the news I read correctly, in return for Democrats helping to pass that bill, Republicans pinky-promised that, come next year, they’ll totally vote “yea” on allocating funds so that Flint people stop being poisoned by tap water (the wtf levels are ridiculous on this). Does anyone expect them to actually do this? A cursory internet search tells me the whole thing started in 2014, but after two years of blocking help, they’re totally changing their minds next year? Do people believe this? Should I start a betting pool on what excuse they’ll give next year to not pass it, ranging from “Budgetary needs have changed” to the classic “”We never said that” turning into “Oh, we had our fingers crossed” when actual footage is presented?”
I mean, Congress is… elected, yes? It’s not a lottery? USAmericans VOTE for these people, based, one would hope, on their competence rather than entertainment value? OUR politicians do a lot of fucked up stuff, but I never heard any of them go “their tap water is poisoned? So? It’s not MY tap water, let the fuckers die.”
Usually, they are elected on the basis of tribal loyalty to the party, something that has built up over generations and is largely regardless of any facts about platforms, policies and ethics. In some areas, a political seat is so inviolable to any challenge (simply because the majority will reflexively vote for that party) that it is a job-for-life and an open door to unlimited access to the public sector gravy train/pig trough.
Out of despair at this was the Donald Trump phenomenon born.
The US is just… or, rather, “just” the same situation as anywhere else, taken to a massive extreme due to the polarized politics. US citizens do everything big – the elections themselves last far longer than they sanely should and cost even more, just to give an example – and more to the point, they LIKE it big, in general. The need for extremes means they elect more extreme officials, who then encourage extreme behavior, so the next is election cycle is even worse, and so on. And that’s only in a vacuum – the extreme behavior makes the differences between the two parties more pronounced and visible, which makes them more hostile to each other.
This process continued for hundreds of years to get as bad as it is now, even as the parties sort of switched roles in the early 20th century.
Hence why, both of the parties ended up with presidential nominees who are ridiculous caricatures of their respective party. Hillary Clinton is detached, beholden to her focus groups to appeal to the ridiculously diverse voter base Democrats fostered, and jollily decieves, cheats or just simply withholds important information to get her way(“For your own benefit”, of course), while Donald Trump is a xenophobic, inveterate liar, to both himself and others, terrified of everything outside his narrow comfort zone, who doesn’t even respect his voters enough to cover up his nonsense.
For their credit though, these people are so extreme that many more reasonable Americans stopped in their tracks and asked each other how did they get there. It’s like seeing yourself in a broken, distorting circus mirror.
With the above demonstrated, it’s easy to see why conservative politicians in the US are perfectly comfortable in being upfront and obvious in their disrespect for their voter base. They spent decades upon decades to appeal to the people who do not inform themselves, and they fostered and encouraged that attitude to be able to keep going. They know that jack all of their voters will call them out on their bullshit. Within a certain threshold of outrage, they can do whatever they please, and that threshold widens every year.
The internet and 24-hour cable news have made it possible for people to completely avoid ever being exposed to ideas they don’t already agree with, and since people generally prefer having their opinions reaffirmed rather than challenged, even previously reputable news outlets are afraid to actually call anyone out for being batshit insane or clearly bigoted because they can’t afford to lose what audience they’ve held onto.
To make matters worse, the competition for viewers has also lead news outlets to try and make stories ”more interesting”, which is really harmful because that means they’re looking for a narrative rather than the truth, and focusing on gossip rather than what people really need to know.
Trump himself is the inevitable result of over a decade of the far right and outlets like Fox News selling their agendas almost exclusively through fear and hate-mongering. It was no longer enough to say their political opponents were wrong, they were corrupt, unpatriotic, idiotic degenerate criminals who want to kidnap your children and destroy everything ”Real Americans” stand for. Anyone telling you otherwise is either foolishly naive, or in their pocket.
Many conservatives are realizing too late the monster this has created. The Tea Party was simply the logical result of people actually believing what right-wing politicians have been telling them, and noticing how their actions were not proportional their rhetoric.
That’s what frightens me most about this election cycle. So many of Trump’s supporters can’t see Trump for what he is, because they’ve been stuck in an echo chamber that has convinced them the alternative is even more terrible, and they’ve been instilled with a mindset that will defend itself even against reason and reality.
I’ve absolutely no idea how to get through all that to walk these people back from the precipice. With the way Trump has not-so-subltly been suggesting that the election might get rigged against him, and that maybe violence would resolve that, I am scared as hell about what will happen in November, no matter which way the election goes.
And before anyone takes that last sentence as an endorsement for their alarmingly foolish plans to vote third party our not at all, this is not the election for protest votes. Even if you see it as picking the lesser of two evils, only one of those evils has been endorsed by the KKK, and was then reluctant to call them ”deplorable”, or any other adjective that would have been suitable for a major white-supremacist hate group. Even if every bad thing said amour Hilary were true, we’ve had presidents who were guilty of far worse and still left the country on reasonable shape. Hold your nose and do it. If you want to fix how presidents are elected, start paying attention to senate and house races, because a long-term solution is going to take legislation.
The advice I see on news sites on how to help fix the issue is: “stop believing elections only happen every 4 years; vote down”… ticket? ballot? which I’ve sorta deduced is US slang for “vote for the incumbents of regional positions, you dimwits, because those are the people who set policy.”
The POTUS elections, as far as I can tell, are mostly for rah-rah purposes, because Congress can sort of hold most of presidents’ ridiculous crap at bay… except, as luck would have it, this year, because the next person in the Oval Office is going to pick 1-4 SCOTUS justices, which are ALSO people who decide policy. One of them is Scalia’s replacement (the bastard died half a year ago and Congress is STILL not voting on the nominee; do those people work?), and… I assume 3 of the remainder are so old they’re expected to kick the bucket in the next 4 years?
Also, you typo’d “amour Hillary,” and that made me chuckle. Here’s a cookie.
Its more that we don’t pay attention to the smaller races, and almost always vote either based solely on party, or for the incumbent. And turnout for midterm elections is abysmal.
Almost nobody pays attention to state and local elections which is pretty terrible, as those have a far greater effect on our lives.
And I have no idea why my phone’s dictionary has all these non-English words I never use in it when I keep finding much more commonly used English ones I have to add myself -_-
Clearly, it’s the evil foreigners invading ‘Murican phones! Vote Trump to keep dirty for’ners out of ‘Murican phones!
…
Excuse me, while I go and bleach my fingers.
It’s not just that turnout for non-presidential election years is lower, but it’s not evenly lower. Demographics that tend to vote Democratic tend to vote less reliably. They’re less likely to turn out in off-years than Republican voters are. So off year elections tend to skew Republican.
So pushing people to vote down ballot and turn out for off years changes the balance.
The Presidency isn’t quite just Rah-Rah, though not so dominant as the media might portray it. They have a lot of direct influence on foreign policy & diplomacy, most obviously. They can veto any legislation, which is hard to override. They tend to set policy direction and priorities. And they oversee most of the bureaucracy. Competence there matters alot, even if it’s just appointing competent people.
The Court is also important, as it is in every election. And it’s not so much that Congress doesn’t work, it’s that the Republicans in control are deliberately stalling in hopes of a Trump victory and a chance for another conservative Justice. Since he’d be replacing Scalia, even the fairly moderate Garland would be a drastic shift in the balance of the court. Likely the first liberal dominated court since the early 70s.
I remember when my roommate would materialize in his underwear on my bed as I was waking up.
Honestly, it was kind of preferable to him whispering across the room, unseen: “I’m naked.”
I… I can’t tell if that’s disturbing or hilarious. On the other hand, I reflexively hit things that aren’t supposed to be there when I wake up, so I’m going to go with “disturbing, and only hilarious because it didn’t happen to me.”
… A Little better.
Honestly I think that one might be even worse.
What the hell are you doing over there?!
Me? Nothing. I was just uh…well, you know how I always say…um, I just uh…I like to watch you sleep sometimes. And by sometimes I mean often.
And by watch you sleep I mean do your hair and makeup.
WAKEY WAKEY CHICKEN BAKEY!
+1
Imagine a pointy hat on her head, and Joyce sorta looks like “The Elf on the Shelf” perched there. Too bad this didn’t come out a couple of months later, in late November/early December.
Well, baby steps and all that. At least Joyce is making an effort.
Definitely another one of the funny in a comic situation but highly inappropriate in real life…
With Joyce you have to let her know, at the time, that her actions are unwanted because she’ll just forget about it later, bit like my dog come to think of it…
So, squirt her with water every time until she stops?
That would probably work better then what I normally do which usually involves letting them on the bed and playing with them…
Learning to respect other people’s boundaries, even when they’re so different from your own that they don’t even make sense to you is something a lot of people are still learning at that age. I would guess just assumed Sarah was just crabby, and didn’t consider that it might make her uncomfortable.
I think now that she sees that, she’s making an effort to adjust her behavior. She’s just underestimated how different Sarah’s boundaries are from her own.
Yeah hopefully because she is good at learning boundaries…well most of the time
It’s been almost a month since we’ve seen Joyce. Is that a record?
“Hnrgh.”
“Joy–”
“Joy Division… reunited? But how is that poss–”
Galasso: “I brought back Ian Curtis (and subs).”
PJ Joyce is adorable. Holy butttttttttssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
I’m trying to imagine the scene if it was Joe in bed instead of Sarah
so am i
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I can empathize with poor Joyce. There was this person I cared about so much in college, I came into their room and watched over them while they slept all night. I made sure to never even blink!
My thoughtfulness did not seem appreciated for some reason.
WAKE ME UP INSIDE
Joyce: *sings* “I hear the secrets that you keep/when you’re talking in your sleep!”
Sarah: What did you just say?!
Joyce: I was only seeing a song Sarah! *smirks mischievously