A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Hemlock
Josceline Fenton
A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
All Known Alternatives
Karolina 'Kajotko' Jankiewicz
Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
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Stilts may work. Only the bottom touches the sludge, so she can just cut off a quarter inch of wood a day. May only need to replace them every few months.
‘Ey! Making local references only other New Englanders recognize is my schtick!
At this rate Joyce is just going to end up taking sponge baths in their sink. Is there a Dollar Tree near campus where she can load up on disposable flip-flops? Maybe she can make shower shoes out of gallon-size food storage bags.
Aren’t there en-suite options Joyce could have picked while applying for accommodation? Sure they’re more expensive but if she really couldn’t stand it…
Look, Joyce, here’s what you do. Bring a small gardening shovel and two plastic baggies. Shovel the hair into one of the baggies and toss it in the garbage, never touching it. Rinse shovel in shower water. Store shovel in the other baggie with the handle sticking out. Tomorrow that baggie becomes your new discard baggie and a fresh baggie becomes your shovel-quarantine-baggie.
Buy shower sandals. Attach a small plastic basket to the outside of your door with some temporary mechanism like Command strips. Keep the sandals in the basket so that they don’t come into your room ever.
Gotta agree, although my most disgusting experience did involve the men’s room. I was working at a convenience store one night when a customer helpfully informed me, “Someone shit in your urinal.”
When I made it out to the restroom to check, he was right: there was, indeed, a truly massive turd in the urinal. Seriously, WTF? This is why I hate the public.
Mine was in the women’s bathroom back when I worked fast foos. Suffice to say somebody decided to paint the wall with a used tampon an then stick said used tampon to the wall with shit.
Definitely a case of “OH GOD WHY AND HOW AND WHY?!?!”
Men’s bathrooms need to be constantly cleaned for a certain level of oops-missed-the-bowl.
Women’s bathrooms have a lower baseline of disgusting, but are for some reason more likely to be the scene of the “OH MY GOD WHY AND HOW AND WHY” sort of clean-up.
Women miss the bowl too sometimes though, because some crazy women (like my mum) do this thing called “hovering.” Womens’ bathrooms are equally as gross and so I avoid public bathrooms as much as possible. (Mum will even do this bullshit when the bathroom in question has those seat liner things for some reason. I don’t understand my own gender ^=__=^;; )
I lived at home during college instead of in the dorms (SO much cheaper), so I have to ask: is it really as bad as depicted here, or is this just a) exaggeration for comedic effect, or b) Joyce being neurotic?
Honestly, the ones at my college were never particularly bad. I mean, there would obviously be a bit of hair around the drain, but that was about it. Nothing I’d ever qualify as “sludge”
My dorm showers weren’t that bad, honestly. Still wasn’t going in there without shower shoes, but it was cleaned regularly and was usually fine. I’m sure it varies.
It was a long time ago, but I don’t remember any trauma about it. Either mine or anyone else’s. Some people wore some kind of shower sandals, IIRC, but most didn’t.
I’ve also used gym showers and showers at various campgrounds over the years – with varying levels of cleanliness, but never anything as nasty as some people seem to be talking about.
This all seems very odd to me.
I mean, on the one hand this is Joyce’s neurosis – no one else seems to be reacting on the same level she it.
OTOH, especially in earlier strips, while it’s been played for laughs, every one else seems to agree that it really is that gross. And a good chunk of the commentariat seems to be with them, to the level of worrying about the health hazard.
I would say it is a bit of both. Shared showers will never be SPOTLESS, but unless you are living with MONKEYS, it shouldn’t be as bad as Joyce makes it out to be unless cleaners don’t exist.
Are girls’ showers that much worse? I mean, I never saw significant hair or anything other than tile in any of the public dude-showers I’ve been in. I wore shower sandals as a safety measure, but if I couldn’t for some reason, it wouldn’t have bothered me to any real degree.
In the four years I used the showers in college, I never had that much trouble with shower hair gunk. I wore sandals, but even then it wasn’t that bad.
Oh the weather outside’s delightful
And the shower stalls are so frightful
But since we can’t let stink show
Stay off the flo, off the flo, off the flo
There once was a young man from Wheeling
Who had such a sensitive feeling.
When he read on the door,
“Please don’t spit on the floor”,
He jumped up and spat on the ceiling.
Panel One: Well, at least Joyce is trying to come up with strategies for solving this problem. That’s good!
And aww, Sarah – she wants to support Joyce but also knows her solutions can be just as far down the rabbit hole as her problems.
Panel Two: Thaat doesn’t actually seem like a reliable strategy to me – I’d think you’d notice when you wash your feet or leave or…anything. But if that works for Joyce more power to her. Again, I’m glad she’s trying tricks for it.
Panel Three: Oh no, beat panel. Nothing good will go here. A beat panel never means good things for plans.
Panel Four: Yuuuuuuuuuup. Poor Joyce.
Panel Five: Reasonable assumption, Sarah. Also, good job checking on Joyce.
Awww, Joyce, honey, have you never looked at the ceilings? Honey. It’ll be okay – just look straight ahead at all times. It can’t hurt you that way.
Also, again, I am so happy that DoA is on what seems to be a more comedic storyline lately. I love the drama, but too much weighs a story down. Some tension breaking to breathe is a good thing.
When I went to college, I never once saw communal showers that were -that- gross; and I never wear shower shoes. Are women’s dorms that disgusting? It is a mystery to me.
Our building was built in the seventies and it was never renovated since. There was rust, some of the shower heads missing, and no curtains. Some freshmen brought their own curtains, we’d rather waited to find the bathroom somewhat empty. Oh, and the kitchen was two stoves standing in an empty, grimy, dim room
http://imgur.com/a/Y36vh
Murray Christmilk everyone. I may not always be on board with the goings on of this comic but I still hope you have a great holiday ‘n junk.
I sure am glad that I’ve only had to deal with communal showers freshman year, and then moved on to apartment-style living. I mean, it was still kind of nasty since none of us were good at keeping the bathroom clean, but it was nonetheless much, much, much less nasty
When I was in college, during my freshmen year, someone knocked down the communal shower door and shat on it.
Later that year, the dorm was given a free case of Axe shaving cream. My floor took the opportunity to have a shaving cream fight, getting it all over the floors, doors, walls and ceiling. One person decided to cover himself head to toe in it while otherwise naked. I didn’t stick around to see what he intended to do; I just knew I wouldn’t enjoy it.
reminds me of the first art school I went to, where I had to live in a dorm with some other girls. One of them dyed her hair herself, and she never, EVER cleaned up after herself. Not even when it was wednesday and everyone had to work together to clean up everything. I don’t know how, but I was the only one who actually wanted to clean up the showers, and even when I called out the girl, she just outright denied it being her =/ frustrating as hell, I can tell you that.
Just tape plastic shopping bags or garbage bags to your feet. Easy disposal. I have done this when I was staying at the homeless shelter and didn’t have my cheap flip-flops.
Is it that no one cleans them or that whoever cleans them doesn’t do it often? Because of it were done daily, I’d think Joyce would make sure to shower immediately after they were cleaned.
I didn’t live in a dorm, but I did live in a converted frat house with 14 other guys. I have a lot of memories of living there, but none showering. Did I shower somewhere else? Bathe in the ocean? I did get mistaken as a homeless man by my other long-time homeless people, so the answer may be “none of the above.”
ah yes i remember as a freshman cleaning up the shower stalls and sinks for my own use while girls like joyce literally stood there watching me, asking why i wouldn’t clean one for them too. the boys’ dorm bathrooms were, by comparison, freakishly clean. every girl in the dorm was outraged and disgusted by the mess they made themselves in the bathroom and refused to clean up. ??????????
Does anyone else see this kind of germ phobia as an example of patriarchy, such that women are socialized to prefer extreme cleanliness, perhaps so that they can be more easily made to clean for men?
There are certainly aspects of that. May have to do with the traditional roles of women as housekeepers. For a man, grossness is something to confront and forget. For a woman it’s a sign of personal failure.
It may also have aspects of how girls are less allowed to be dirty than boys, and how a higher emphasis is put on girls having to be pretty than boys.
It’s not ONLY gender roles, of course, but they play a part.
In every marina I have been too, there is a squeegee in the showers. You shower – you clean up behind you. No water, no mess for the next in line. No problem.
Loading ...
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=460
oh this is a different version
weird, cleared the cache and it’s the ceiling version again
I got the no-ceiling-mention version first and then the ceiling version. What the hell?
Not the mental image I needed on Boxing Day/ still Christmas for me. :/
I was chewing my sandvich while reading that. Now I’m not hungry anymore.
Hmm… stilts? Get a dowel at Aubuchon, it’ll be wicked cheap…
Not all that cheap, because the nearest Aubuchon is 653 miles away.
…dammit. I actually Googled to make sure that Aubuchon was actually a chain. Apparently I should have zoomed out more.
Stilts may work. Only the bottom touches the sludge, so she can just cut off a quarter inch of wood a day. May only need to replace them every few months.
‘Ey! Making local references only other New Englanders recognize is my schtick!
At this rate Joyce is just going to end up taking sponge baths in their sink. Is there a Dollar Tree near campus where she can load up on disposable flip-flops? Maybe she can make shower shoes out of gallon-size food storage bags.
I can’t believe Joyce is dead.
RIP – gone too soon
*reads Alt Text*
Damn you Willis.
Aren’t there en-suite options Joyce could have picked while applying for accommodation? Sure they’re more expensive but if she really couldn’t stand it…
Nope. Not on this floor anyways – the only ones here have half baths (i.e. a toilet and sink), even for singles.
tbh even private showers in dorms were gross
well, I guess ours were semi-private–we only shared with the adjoining room (like their shared bathroom but we had showers in there)
It’s spreading…
Not one of their better-advertised varieties.
Look, Joyce, here’s what you do. Bring a small gardening shovel and two plastic baggies. Shovel the hair into one of the baggies and toss it in the garbage, never touching it. Rinse shovel in shower water. Store shovel in the other baggie with the handle sticking out. Tomorrow that baggie becomes your new discard baggie and a fresh baggie becomes your shovel-quarantine-baggie.
Alternate solution:
Buy shower sandals. Attach a small plastic basket to the outside of your door with some temporary mechanism like Command strips. Keep the sandals in the basket so that they don’t come into your room ever.
Alternate Solution:
Don’t shower in college.
She’ll need some place to keep the pallet of moist towelettes…
…or just bring a step stool in, and avoid the floor entirely? o.O;
It’s bad enough that there’s hair in there. Please don’t raise the thought of there being stool in there as well.
*EXTREMELY reluctant slow clap*
What, getting CLOSER to the ceiling???!!!
Exactly – Joyce confirms, ceiling just as bad. Stool no workie.
Hairy Christmas to one and all.
I thought Harry was a Krishna.
They don’t bathe so they never have to worry about pubic plugholes.
she’s speaking in black text bubbles this is joyce’s start of darkness isn’t it
That, or she’s just picked up an alien symbiote and is going to end up fighting Spider-Man
Pfff,easy, Spider-Man just needs an intense sound to beat her. So anyone got a giant bell? Or at least lots of jingle bells?
Or it seems he could just team up with Medusa
AlienSymbiote!Joyce: “I TOLD YOU THE SHOWER WAS GROSS”
It’s not the first time.
Okay, so we know hair triggers it.. the context apparently doesn’t matter past that..
Nor the second time.
That’s… still on a hair-trigger?
Nor the third time.
glad to know college girls are just as gross as the boys, i nnever got to use thier showers as much
As someone who has cleaned the bathrooms of both genders over the years, I can tell you they both can have their own flavours of foulness.
Gotta agree, although my most disgusting experience did involve the men’s room. I was working at a convenience store one night when a customer helpfully informed me, “Someone shit in your urinal.”
When I made it out to the restroom to check, he was right: there was, indeed, a truly massive turd in the urinal. Seriously, WTF? This is why I hate the public.
…but…. presumably there were toilets in the same bathroom… that didn’t require you to put your butt close to a urinal…
WHYYYYYYYYYYY?
Mine was in the women’s bathroom back when I worked fast foos. Suffice to say somebody decided to paint the wall with a used tampon an then stick said used tampon to the wall with shit.
Definitely a case of “OH GOD WHY AND HOW AND WHY?!?!”
…….
…. FLAVOR?
….
I don’t want to know how you were comparing the flavors of their foulness. Never speak of this again.
To wildly generalize:
Men’s bathrooms need to be constantly cleaned for a certain level of oops-missed-the-bowl.
Women’s bathrooms have a lower baseline of disgusting, but are for some reason more likely to be the scene of the “OH MY GOD WHY AND HOW AND WHY” sort of clean-up.
Women miss the bowl too sometimes though, because some crazy women (like my mum) do this thing called “hovering.” Womens’ bathrooms are equally as gross and so I avoid public bathrooms as much as possible. (Mum will even do this bullshit when the bathroom in question has those seat liner things for some reason. I don’t understand my own gender ^=__=^;; )
rip joyce youll be remembered
That last panel is amazing
Incidentally, couldn’t Joyce have done the ‘wear those plastic bags’ option? They’re not nearly as expensive.
Supermarket plastic bags cost practically nothing.
Unless you’re from an area that bans them (like mine).
The only option is to invest in a foot spa Joyce.
I lived at home during college instead of in the dorms (SO much cheaper), so I have to ask: is it really as bad as depicted here, or is this just a) exaggeration for comedic effect, or b) Joyce being neurotic?
Bathrooms can always be nasty, it all depends on how gross the people using it are and how well and how often it’s cleaned.
I assume you’ve used a public bathroom? Fix that in your mind. The graffiti, the weird smells, the lack of privacy.
Now, imagine having to shower in one.
You can get used to it, but for freshmen, it takes a bit of mental adjustment.
Honestly, the ones at my college were never particularly bad. I mean, there would obviously be a bit of hair around the drain, but that was about it. Nothing I’d ever qualify as “sludge”
My dorm showers weren’t that bad, honestly. Still wasn’t going in there without shower shoes, but it was cleaned regularly and was usually fine. I’m sure it varies.
Mine never seemed that bad, but I generally showered late at night and not during what was probably a more crowded situation in the mornings.
It was a long time ago, but I don’t remember any trauma about it. Either mine or anyone else’s. Some people wore some kind of shower sandals, IIRC, but most didn’t.
I’ve also used gym showers and showers at various campgrounds over the years – with varying levels of cleanliness, but never anything as nasty as some people seem to be talking about.
This all seems very odd to me.
I mean, on the one hand this is Joyce’s neurosis – no one else seems to be reacting on the same level she it.
OTOH, especially in earlier strips, while it’s been played for laughs, every one else seems to agree that it really is that gross. And a good chunk of the commentariat seems to be with them, to the level of worrying about the health hazard.
I would say it is a bit of both. Shared showers will never be SPOTLESS, but unless you are living with MONKEYS, it shouldn’t be as bad as Joyce makes it out to be unless cleaners don’t exist.
Maybe the true shower gunk is the friends you’ve made along the way.
The shower gunk was inside you all along….probably literally…..ew
Don’t look at me, it’s not my chunky cream-of-human-hair soup!
(This is funnier if you happen to remember my full name.)
You don’t happen to be a Campbell, do you?
(I now possess the mental image of canned creamy hair. Yaaaaaay)
Are girls’ showers that much worse? I mean, I never saw significant hair or anything other than tile in any of the public dude-showers I’ve been in. I wore shower sandals as a safety measure, but if I couldn’t for some reason, it wouldn’t have bothered me to any real degree.
On average, if dudes and dudettes lose the same number of hairs per shower, women’s showers wind up with a whole lot more hair on the floor.
Yeah; my hair is slightly longer than my arm, so even one lost hair is gonna cause some issues, heh.
In the four years I used the showers in college, I never had that much trouble with shower hair gunk. I wore sandals, but even then it wasn’t that bad.
Oh the weather outside’s delightful
And the shower stalls are so frightful
But since we can’t let stink show
Stay off the flo, off the flo, off the flo
There once was a young man from Wheeling
Who had such a sensitive feeling.
When he read on the door,
“Please don’t spit on the floor”,
He jumped up and spat on the ceiling.
Jingle Bells, shower smells, Dina laid an egg.
Grime and moss, the wall is gross, but the floor is wo-orse!
WHYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
just put a godamn plastic blag at your feet and throw it away when you are done!
not enough, you can still feel through a bag! (in fact, it maybe feels grosser)
On the *ceiling*??
And on the door, but never mind that now.
Remember, man, that thou are dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.
Does shower gunk count?
NO! Jesus hates shower gunk
Yeah, it’s ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’. No ‘shower gunk to shower gunk’.
Panel One: Well, at least Joyce is trying to come up with strategies for solving this problem. That’s good!
And aww, Sarah – she wants to support Joyce but also knows her solutions can be just as far down the rabbit hole as her problems.
Panel Two: Thaat doesn’t actually seem like a reliable strategy to me – I’d think you’d notice when you wash your feet or leave or…anything. But if that works for Joyce more power to her. Again, I’m glad she’s trying tricks for it.
Panel Three: Oh no, beat panel. Nothing good will go here. A beat panel never means good things for plans.
Panel Four: Yuuuuuuuuuup. Poor Joyce.
Panel Five: Reasonable assumption, Sarah. Also, good job checking on Joyce.
Awww, Joyce, honey, have you never looked at the ceilings? Honey. It’ll be okay – just look straight ahead at all times. It can’t hurt you that way.
Also, again, I am so happy that DoA is on what seems to be a more comedic storyline lately. I love the drama, but too much weighs a story down. Some tension breaking to breathe is a good thing.
Overdramatic as she is, Joyce actually tries to take control over the situation. I’m sure she will get there.
I just love Sarah’s guarded expression. “The other shoe will drop, I know it.”
Yuuuuup, Sarah saw something like this coming. Sorry, Joyce, you are predictable. XD
You assume that gunk wouldn’t stick on the walls. No surface is safe.
Well in that case, the only thing she can do is shut her eyes the entire shower. Sorry, Joyce.
When I went to college, I never once saw communal showers that were -that- gross; and I never wear shower shoes. Are women’s dorms that disgusting? It is a mystery to me.
it’s gross if you’re a germaphobe/hairaphobe
Our building was built in the seventies and it was never renovated since. There was rust, some of the shower heads missing, and no curtains. Some freshmen brought their own curtains, we’d rather waited to find the bathroom somewhat empty. Oh, and the kitchen was two stoves standing in an empty, grimy, dim room
Wow. I hope they didn’t charge extra for the tetanus shots.
I’ve never dealt with college dorm showers, but I have dealt with the communal showers at a homeless shelter.
Two words: menstrual cycles.
Blood in the showers and on the toilets, pad and tampons not disposed of properly…nasty.
http://imgur.com/a/Y36vh
Murray Christmilk everyone. I may not always be on board with the goings on of this comic but I still hope you have a great holiday ‘n junk.
From the department of “making Joyce even more adorable than she already is”
Merry Christmas, and thanks for a great card.
Father Christmas’ brother Murray, the insurance salesman. They don’t talk much.
I sure am glad that I’ve only had to deal with communal showers freshman year, and then moved on to apartment-style living. I mean, it was still kind of nasty since none of us were good at keeping the bathroom clean, but it was nonetheless much, much, much less nasty
I don’t want to know how it got onto he ceiling!
It jumped
I’m not comfortable with it having that sort of autonomy
Well, you’re just going to have to handle it – Cousin Itt is his own person, and he has the right to an education, damn you.
But does he have the right to go into the women’s showers?
I dunno, maybe he was invited for shower sex?
It depends.
As a largely amorphous hair-based lifeform, it’s possible everyone has just been assuming Cousin Itt’s gender.
Merry holidays fuckers
I don’t fuck holidays. Especially Easter, because she’s opposed to protection and contraception as a matter of principle.
NASTY
Story time!
When I was in college, during my freshmen year, someone knocked down the communal shower door and shat on it.
Later that year, the dorm was given a free case of Axe shaving cream. My floor took the opportunity to have a shaving cream fight, getting it all over the floors, doors, walls and ceiling. One person decided to cover himself head to toe in it while otherwise naked. I didn’t stick around to see what he intended to do; I just knew I wouldn’t enjoy it.
…but…. why the poop?
I get everything else, but why the poop?
Good question!
reminds me of the first art school I went to, where I had to live in a dorm with some other girls. One of them dyed her hair herself, and she never, EVER cleaned up after herself. Not even when it was wednesday and everyone had to work together to clean up everything. I don’t know how, but I was the only one who actually wanted to clean up the showers, and even when I called out the girl, she just outright denied it being her =/ frustrating as hell, I can tell you that.
Plastic bags.
Just tape plastic shopping bags or garbage bags to your feet. Easy disposal. I have done this when I was staying at the homeless shelter and didn’t have my cheap flip-flops.
Just noticed that the title of this storyline is “Everything you’ve ever wanted floats above.” Who is it that wants shower sludge?
And if everything anyone could ever need is down below, again and slightly more disturbing: who needs shower sludge?
Is it that no one cleans them or that whoever cleans them doesn’t do it often? Because of it were done daily, I’d think Joyce would make sure to shower immediately after they were cleaned.
I didn’t live in a dorm, but I did live in a converted frat house with 14 other guys. I have a lot of memories of living there, but none showering. Did I shower somewhere else? Bathe in the ocean? I did get mistaken as a homeless man by my other long-time homeless people, so the answer may be “none of the above.”
I am suitably intrigued of this line of questioning.
I am not sure what answer would mortify/scandalize/intrigue me more.
ah yes i remember as a freshman cleaning up the shower stalls and sinks for my own use while girls like joyce literally stood there watching me, asking why i wouldn’t clean one for them too. the boys’ dorm bathrooms were, by comparison, freakishly clean. every girl in the dorm was outraged and disgusted by the mess they made themselves in the bathroom and refused to clean up. ??????????
Does anyone else see this kind of germ phobia as an example of patriarchy, such that women are socialized to prefer extreme cleanliness, perhaps so that they can be more easily made to clean for men?
I don’t think it works that way–see Hannelore Ellicott-Chatham =p
There are certainly aspects of that. May have to do with the traditional roles of women as housekeepers. For a man, grossness is something to confront and forget. For a woman it’s a sign of personal failure.
It may also have aspects of how girls are less allowed to be dirty than boys, and how a higher emphasis is put on girls having to be pretty than boys.
It’s not ONLY gender roles, of course, but they play a part.
Wait, if it’s on the ceiling, why climb closer to it? And isn’t it touching that much of the door bad too?
“Shrek, I’m lookin’ down!”
Too bad nobody cleans up there.
In every marina I have been too, there is a squeegee in the showers. You shower – you clean up behind you. No water, no mess for the next in line. No problem.
The Lord likes dirt. According to Joyce’s mythology, the big guy presumably made human beings out ot it. So that’s why.
Don’t you just hate it when it’s on the ceiling? I mean, seriously. That happens all the time.