The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
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!
2 Slices
RJ Morel
After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Fantomestein
Beka Duke
Desperate for companionship, Frankenstein's Monster pretends to be the Opera Ghost. A grave mistake.
Slightly Damned
Chu
Rhea Snaketail returns from the dead, befriending a Demon who falls in love with an Angel. The afterlife ain't what it used to be!
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.
Countdown to Countdown
Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
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.
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
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I dunno is Sir over 60? Still 2-0-1 in death matches against pickup trucks, but I think I might have added a car or two to the win column since 2001. Sucks being an unkillable badass but still subject to long term injuries, or immortal but not invulnerable. I’m getting so tired to people hitting me while I cross the street with the light…
Opus the Poet: Wait, what? You cross with the light? Next you’ll tell me you stop at stop signs. That is almost unheard of behavior for cyclists around here.
I did today on my bike, and it confused a motorist. They stopped dead 50 feet down the road and waited, so I went. They were probably afraid I would ride out right in front of them. It was their right of way, so I was going to wait at the stop sign, but I guess they’d never seen anybody do that on a bike.
Maybe you should leave Texas if you’re going to ride those things. Driving culture varies by location.
Leslie you speak the truth, as someone whose 26th birthday is rapidly approaching and is scared for the future, i feel you. Joyce, call your fucking dad back, seriously. How is this a hard concept?
I’m 32 and I see no sign of stopping being a scared mess. I’m inclined to think it never happens, you either get used to it or you learn how to pretend.
Some people DO believe that they’ve figured it all out. Unfortunately, they tend to be those cranky, unbearable people who think everybody else is doing it wrong.
i mean, you can figure out many things, better yourself in every way, continue learning how to hone your skills and deal with problems in the most helpful way possible, balance yours and others needs. Idk, i used to agree a lot but seems a bit defeatist and counter productive to keep thinking on that instead of thinking the next way you can improve yourself.
Dont get me wrong, “scared mess” when loved ones are in danger? That’s me. But i got a lot better at being a scared mess with practice, and take effort to improve on all other things too.
It does NOT explain how she’s teaching a college course though, unless she’s still a PhD candidate and the Gender Studies department lets you run as instructor of record during the year. But it’s usually only English departments who do that, most places you can’t get a gig running a class unless you’ve finished your PhD. Especially since the market is glutted with grads who’ll adjunct.
There were at least a couple people in the comment section suggesting something along these lines in a way that makes Leslie’s current statement ironic. Basically the idea is Joyce’s dad is calling to tell her that ToeDad is out of jail on bail but because of her other concerns she isn’t picking it up. This is exactly the kind of situation Leslie is describing and it’s actively happening.
Then, I mean, at least maybe, I DUNNO, send a TEXT or something?!
[Hi, love, listen, are you able to contact Becky? I didn’t want to tell you like this but you both need to know that TOEDAD IS OUT OF JAIL. REPEAT: TOEDAD IS OUT OF JAIL ON BAIL, I have called your RN to let her know to get you two to safety and I am on my way! DO NOT] 1/9
[go to your room or Becky’s or anywhere a guy with a gun can see you! He’s apparently been out for at least [xx] hours so he could be there ANY MINUTE. Go and barricade yourself in] 2/9
[one of the administration offices and I’ll text you when I’m there! And if he shows up before I do CALL 911 AND DO NOT ENGAGE!!] 3/9
…etc. Or does he somehow not have even a flip phone?! Even my dad has one, and he’s ninety!
Leslie is 26?
Really? She’s tenure track at age 26? In present day?
Yeah, I think that might be the most unrealistic thing I’ve read in a comic, any comic, today.
Even with a doctorate, Leslie wouldn’t have a position like that until well into her 30s.
Or am I forgetting some line that indicates that she’s a part time adjunct lecturer rather than a professor? And this being her first year teaching? Because yeah, no way.
Sharing an office, or not, has very little to do with whether she’s adjunct or full time and much more to do with the office availability where she works.
I’m an adjunct with a private office… and there are empty private offices on either side of mine. Low enrollment means fewer people teaching means everyone gets a private office… and hardly any classes.
There is a huge difference between tenured (already has tenure) and tenure-track (full time, has the potential to get tenure in a decade or two). She says she’s not tenured – nothing else. Although it’s true that she does have a small shitty apartment. Tiny apartments do tend to indicate adjunct.
She’s teaching a class that is full of freshmen. No tenure-track faculty is doing that unless it’s one of those lecture-hall classes with TAs to do the actual work.
I’ve lost basic intro classes to the head of the department or other tenure-ish faculty when enrollment is low. So yeah, depending on the department and class availability, tenure-track faculty will certainly teach intro classes – particularly at state colleges like the one here.
That is kinda my point. Gender Studies is a very, very competitive academic field – much like art history – where adjuncts rarely get even intro classes since there aren’t many classes to go around.
English is different – if she was an English teacher, I’d still think 26 was too young (at 26, she would barely have time to get a Masters much less a PhD), but I was at least teaching intro classes immediately after graduating from grad school, so it would be tight but possible. But Gender studies? At a major University? Unlikely.
To Clarify:
At bare minimum, assuming Leslie started college at age 17 (and turning 18 during the school year), she would have her Bachelors in Gender Studies by 21. Assuming that she took the GRE during her senior year and got accepted directly into grad school (again, tight but possible), then she would have a Masters by age 24 and, if she really hurried, a PhD by age 25.
However, most teaching positions require several years of experience, even for adjuncts. That’s easy for English people, since there are always comp classes, but not so much for specialized fields like Gender Studies.
Plus, Leslie never came off as a “new hire” – she has that laid back, I’ve been doing this for years vibe.
Anyway, I wrote out another several paragraphs using the experiences of myself and others in the academic sphere that i know as examples, but those are just anecdotal, so I removed them as technically irrelevant. The point being that I work at a university very similar to the one presented here and I know people in specialized fields like Gender Studies and it is SUPER HARD to get positions like Leslie has – even intro level ones – right after graduation. It can take upwards of a decade to get to where Leslie is, and she’s only had a year at most.
She’s also had some highly distracting life stuff happen, like being married young, coming out, and getting divorced. Didn’t she also face really unsupportive family?
She must’ve had tremendous focus, to not get derailed by all this at any point. Maybe she deals with emotions by throwing herself into her work, and in doing so, impressed the hell out of everyone.
Here’s the timeline as I currently picture it…
@14: Leslie comes out to her parents. They are as we’ve seen them in SP! and she pulls a teen runaway bit while continuing to study so she can GED at 18.
@15: Leslie’s parents track her down and make her an offer, submit to an arranged marriage (cf. here for the age) and they’ll sign the waiver for her to GED at 16 and pay for her college. She accepts.
@16: Leslie starts her undergrad pushing herself to finish as quickly as possible. Doing this, in her mind, is a coping mechanism for her stress and an excuse to not engage any more than she has to with her husband. Very late in undergrad she starts getting published, building as much from her experiences as from her education.
@19: Leslie just finishes her undergrad, passes her GRE and gets accepted into her Masters program. Getting her second publication around this point.
@20: Leslie falls into a poor choice relationship with a woman collapsing her marriage and losing the money her parents are paying for her education in the fallout from it even as she continues pushing through her program and trying to find financing to continue.
@21: Leslie finished her Masters and starts her Doctorate amid mounting debt and a completely lost support network. Her situation is probably an open secret in the department at this point.
@23: Leslie finishes her PhD and, due to a solid academic record, publication history and probably making good impressions on the department head at some juncture all in spite of her situation, gets hired in and fast tracked in an exceptionally unusual manner.
@26: Here we are today.
It’s exceptionally implausible, but still technically possible, if only barely. Twenty some years ago someone in Leslie’s position at her age was much easier to explain. One of my friends during college was teaching this type of intro class while finishing his MS. I opted out of his class for a different one when it came up on my schedule just to avoid a potential conflict of interest. That was admittedly in a requisite field however.
She may have been teaching with a Masters degree. Many universities allow that for 100-level classes. For example, a friend was a professor at a Big Ten university when he was 24 and a doctoral student. She may have only recently earned her PhD. For that matter, do we know she has earned her PhD? I don’t recall anyone calling her “Doctor”, though my memory could be faulty.
I used to text on a candybar phone. It took me ages to figure out what text prediction was doing, and I texted some complete gibberish while I was doing it.
Toedad will shoot Robin after she throws herself in front of Becky, sweeping Robin into office and then she will order all of the liberals on campus to be put in cereal factories as unpaid labor.
From what I have seen of Robin’s diet, I just can’t picture her endorsing the idea of making cereal out of protein rather than just making it MORE sugar.
Yeah, Ross is stupid enough to walk up to a political campaign stall, likely in front of most of the Press Corps, brandish a gun and demand that Becky come with him. He’d get his martyrdom and wouldn’t care less about the impact on everyone else of having him shot full of holes by the USSS in front of them.
This is why he needs Blaine around as his Thinking-Brain Hoodlum.
Congressional representatives don’t have secret service protection, from my limited Canadian understanding – they have local or state police and sometimes hire their own personal security.
I was gonna say That Racist Orange Fucker and others of his ilk aren’t, but I think we’re finally on track to beating some of them so they’re afraid as well.
Am I the only one who wouldn’t describe herself as a scared mess? I mean, I was, but I got most of the messy part sorted out around 30, which kind of made the scared part go away. I thought that was normal, albeit a bit late at 30..
Strongly depends on your generation. For example: Millennials, as a whole, are WAY less likely to be married with kids and a steady job and a mortgage at 30. Our parents had some serious benchmarks, but, we’re unmoored in time.
No, I think it was: “… but the Ross is in jail, right? The authorities wouldn’t release a person accused of kidnap and assault with a deadly weapon without warning his alleged victim, right?”
There must be someone out there who started reading DoA when they were seven, and who is now Leslie’s age. Time for that person to post and make Willis feel old!
Unless another decade has slipped by without my perfectly registering what I did with it, someone who started reading DoA aged seven when the first strip was published (10 September 2010) would now be 16, not 26.
Well, they could have been on the elite, ultra, super secret Patreon level, that gives you ten year advanced access. You know, right as Sir Willis draws them.
I had always figured she’s around 32 or 33, considering she’s teaching her own classes and is in a relatively stable position after being disowned and homeless.
Basically, Leslie is reminding the girls that, when one is dealing with adversaries with violent and/or obsessive personalities, there is no such thing as being too paranoid.
Except there is, of course.
Justified in this case because we know Ross is out and Blaine is after them, but they’ve got no reason to know that, so they’d just have to spend their entire lives being incredibly even when there was no active threat. Which is self-destructive.
I think the key point is still ‘parent, not known for calling repeatedly, has done so three times today.’ (And based off Leslie thinking he might want to give Becky information, she knows he’s relatively safe.) That usually means something important’s going on, and I can see Leslie jumping straight to the worst case scenario.
Spoiler: Around the time when you think maybe you are not a scared mess anymore, you go and have a baby and A BRAND NEW WORLD OF FRESH HORRORS AND ANXIETY swallows you whole.
I just realized I started reading this comic just before I started being a Student and by the end of the year I will have out-aged Leslie. That’s… A thing.
DOA started just before I started university. It was a comfort to see these re-imagined characters I had known through Shortpacked! start something I was just about to.
I mean, I still failed the fuck out of my course but hey. Damn good comics.
Unrelated to the strip, but I just now realized that what’s below Dorothy’s head in the patreon banner is Joyce’s arm. Until today, I saw it as Dorothy’s body wearing a teal tube-top, facing stage left and doing some kind of weird deltoid stretch with her right arm.
Born in 60, I may be technically a boomer, but based on a old Time or Newsweek article I figured out I was really a scout X’er, unlike my older siblings.
26? Ah hah hah ha HEE HEE HEE HOOO HAH HAH HAH!!! TWENTY SIX! HOLY SHIT THAT’S FUNNY WOO! I flaked out of grad school at 26… mmm… lol wow so there’s essentially no point in even trying to be a functioning adult you will always be a scared failure and getting older actually only makes your worth as a human go down. Your potential was limitless and therefore you can never reach it. I feel like Bukowski with none of the talent and zero ambition. A bottle of vodka a day won’t see my life end soon enough.
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OH NO QUICK UNFRIEND EVERYBODY
Classic Mike.
Plot twist: Hank just forgot the wifi password.
“For the last time, Dad, it’s on the back of the router. …. no, Dad, I’m not talking about your shop tools.”
Plot twist: It was on the -bottom- of the router.
(Mine certainly is)
Oh no, I’m older than Leslie. What is my life.
I’m pretty sure I’m older than several of the parents, so… >_>
I don’t think I’m older than Sir.
I dunno is Sir over 60? Still 2-0-1 in death matches against pickup trucks, but I think I might have added a car or two to the win column since 2001. Sucks being an unkillable badass but still subject to long term injuries, or immortal but not invulnerable. I’m getting so tired to people hitting me while I cross the street with the light…
Opus the Poet: Wait, what? You cross with the light? Next you’ll tell me you stop at stop signs. That is almost unheard of behavior for cyclists around here.
I did today on my bike, and it confused a motorist. They stopped dead 50 feet down the road and waited, so I went. They were probably afraid I would ride out right in front of them. It was their right of way, so I was going to wait at the stop sign, but I guess they’d never seen anybody do that on a bike.
Maybe you should leave Texas if you’re going to ride those things. Driving culture varies by location.
I was younger for the first few days of the strip’s life, then the same for a year!
Now it is but a distant memory.
it’s ok, I was already older than her when the comic started.
Same. Oh, and BTW,
STILL A SCARED MESS
I was older than Leslie when the comic started. I’m STILL older than Leslie.
What’s wrong with me?
You’re not getting any younger?
None of my children are as young as Leslie.
Those were my thoughts too
Leslie you speak the truth, as someone whose 26th birthday is rapidly approaching and is scared for the future, i feel you. Joyce, call your fucking dad back, seriously. How is this a hard concept?
I agree with Leslie on both accounts that you never stop being afraid and JOYCE SHOULD FUCKING TALK TO HER DAD!
I’m 32 and I see no sign of stopping being a scared mess. I’m inclined to think it never happens, you either get used to it or you learn how to pretend.
No, I’d say about 68, two years ago, that changed. I’m still just as much of a mess, but for the most part, no longer scared.
“Like, okay, spoilers, but I’m 26”
Oh, you sweet summer child…
No, the spoiler is that you never figure it all out.
And then you die.
Unless you’re a vampire.
Some people DO believe that they’ve figured it all out. Unfortunately, they tend to be those cranky, unbearable people who think everybody else is doing it wrong.
For some reason I feel called out.
i mean, you can figure out many things, better yourself in every way, continue learning how to hone your skills and deal with problems in the most helpful way possible, balance yours and others needs. Idk, i used to agree a lot but seems a bit defeatist and counter productive to keep thinking on that instead of thinking the next way you can improve yourself.
Dont get me wrong, “scared mess” when loved ones are in danger? That’s me. But i got a lot better at being a scared mess with practice, and take effort to improve on all other things too.
Leslie being only 26 explains an awful lot of other things, TBH.
It does NOT explain how she’s teaching a college course though, unless she’s still a PhD candidate and the Gender Studies department lets you run as instructor of record during the year. But it’s usually only English departments who do that, most places you can’t get a gig running a class unless you’ve finished your PhD. Especially since the market is glutted with grads who’ll adjunct.
Why is she a tiny baby? I thought she was supposed to be a grown-up.
Huh. That was an angle that the comment section seemed to have missed yesterday.
Good thinking of Leslie though.
There were at least a couple people in the comment section suggesting something along these lines in a way that makes Leslie’s current statement ironic. Basically the idea is Joyce’s dad is calling to tell her that ToeDad is out of jail on bail but because of her other concerns she isn’t picking it up. This is exactly the kind of situation Leslie is describing and it’s actively happening.
We assume. Or I assume. But Willis will play against reader expectations. See Amber and Sal at Joyce’s party.
Then, I mean, at least maybe, I DUNNO, send a TEXT or something?!
[Hi, love, listen, are you able to contact Becky? I didn’t want to tell you like this but you both need to know that TOEDAD IS OUT OF JAIL. REPEAT: TOEDAD IS OUT OF JAIL ON BAIL, I have called your RN to let her know to get you two to safety and I am on my way! DO NOT] 1/9
[go to your room or Becky’s or anywhere a guy with a gun can see you! He’s apparently been out for at least [xx] hours so he could be there ANY MINUTE. Go and barricade yourself in] 2/9
[one of the administration offices and I’ll text you when I’m there! And if he shows up before I do CALL 911 AND DO NOT ENGAGE!!] 3/9
…etc. Or does he somehow not have even a flip phone?! Even my dad has one, and he’s ninety!
it bears repeating:
bearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbearsbears
also, as has been stated, this bodes poorly
Support The Right To Arm BEARS
Please vote to provide bears with bump stocks.
“Hey baby bear, let’s you and me bump stocks!”
Bear population plummets.
Can’t I just support the right to repeat bearsbearsbearsbears
Everyone should have a sbear bear.
BEARS!!
Wel…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-PYqUHfTMA
Huh. I’m Leslie’s age. Next year, I’ll be older than Leslie.
This scares me, I’ve been reading this since I was a college freshman.
Also, GOOD EVERYONE REALIZES THIS now time to panic.
Leslie is a mature scared mess who is doing so much better here than I would at 26. Or 36, etc.
Leslie started out older than I am and ended up younger, and it’s a scary world knowing this.
Leslie started out as exactly my age, but now I’m close to a decade older than her.
No fair, how do I move to a universe with comic book time? Did Gwenpool ever write any instructional manuals?
Huh, a time lord struggle with the vagaries of time. How quaint.
THANK YOU LESLIE
Leslie is 26?
Really? She’s tenure track at age 26? In present day?
Yeah, I think that might be the most unrealistic thing I’ve read in a comic, any comic, today.
Even with a doctorate, Leslie wouldn’t have a position like that until well into her 30s.
Or am I forgetting some line that indicates that she’s a part time adjunct lecturer rather than a professor? And this being her first year teaching? Because yeah, no way.
When she fights with Robin in the kitchen she says that she doesn’t so it’s fair to assume that she is in fact not tenured.
I seem to recall (though maybe it was a Patreon strip) that she shares office space, too? Which definitely says adjunct to me.
Yes, doesn’t she share an office with someone named Vivian?
Sharing an office, or not, has very little to do with whether she’s adjunct or full time and much more to do with the office availability where she works.
I’m an adjunct with a private office… and there are empty private offices on either side of mine. Low enrollment means fewer people teaching means everyone gets a private office… and hardly any classes.
There is a huge difference between tenured (already has tenure) and tenure-track (full time, has the potential to get tenure in a decade or two). She says she’s not tenured – nothing else. Although it’s true that she does have a small shitty apartment. Tiny apartments do tend to indicate adjunct.
She’s teaching a class that is full of freshmen. No tenure-track faculty is doing that unless it’s one of those lecture-hall classes with TAs to do the actual work.
I’ve lost basic intro classes to the head of the department or other tenure-ish faculty when enrollment is low. So yeah, depending on the department and class availability, tenure-track faculty will certainly teach intro classes – particularly at state colleges like the one here.
I mean, to be fair, she’s teaching Gender Studies.
That is kinda my point. Gender Studies is a very, very competitive academic field – much like art history – where adjuncts rarely get even intro classes since there aren’t many classes to go around.
English is different – if she was an English teacher, I’d still think 26 was too young (at 26, she would barely have time to get a Masters much less a PhD), but I was at least teaching intro classes immediately after graduating from grad school, so it would be tight but possible. But Gender studies? At a major University? Unlikely.
I previously assumed that Leslie was 36, minimum.
My experience is that while there’s a bias towards quality, accedemic employment is pretty random, particularly at the lower levels.
To Clarify:
At bare minimum, assuming Leslie started college at age 17 (and turning 18 during the school year), she would have her Bachelors in Gender Studies by 21. Assuming that she took the GRE during her senior year and got accepted directly into grad school (again, tight but possible), then she would have a Masters by age 24 and, if she really hurried, a PhD by age 25.
However, most teaching positions require several years of experience, even for adjuncts. That’s easy for English people, since there are always comp classes, but not so much for specialized fields like Gender Studies.
Plus, Leslie never came off as a “new hire” – she has that laid back, I’ve been doing this for years vibe.
Anyway, I wrote out another several paragraphs using the experiences of myself and others in the academic sphere that i know as examples, but those are just anecdotal, so I removed them as technically irrelevant. The point being that I work at a university very similar to the one presented here and I know people in specialized fields like Gender Studies and it is SUPER HARD to get positions like Leslie has – even intro level ones – right after graduation. It can take upwards of a decade to get to where Leslie is, and she’s only had a year at most.
She’s also had some highly distracting life stuff happen, like being married young, coming out, and getting divorced. Didn’t she also face really unsupportive family?
She must’ve had tremendous focus, to not get derailed by all this at any point. Maybe she deals with emotions by throwing herself into her work, and in doing so, impressed the hell out of everyone.
Moreover, hasn’t she also been homeless..? When was that, was she getting her Master’s degree from a pal’s couch?
Leslie is a force of nature.
Yeah it seems like the takeaway from all this speculation and math is that Leslie is a badass.
Not that we didn’t already know that.
Here’s the timeline as I currently picture it…
@14: Leslie comes out to her parents. They are as we’ve seen them in SP! and she pulls a teen runaway bit while continuing to study so she can GED at 18.
@15: Leslie’s parents track her down and make her an offer, submit to an arranged marriage (cf. here for the age) and they’ll sign the waiver for her to GED at 16 and pay for her college. She accepts.
@16: Leslie starts her undergrad pushing herself to finish as quickly as possible. Doing this, in her mind, is a coping mechanism for her stress and an excuse to not engage any more than she has to with her husband. Very late in undergrad she starts getting published, building as much from her experiences as from her education.
@19: Leslie just finishes her undergrad, passes her GRE and gets accepted into her Masters program. Getting her second publication around this point.
@20: Leslie falls into a poor choice relationship with a woman collapsing her marriage and losing the money her parents are paying for her education in the fallout from it even as she continues pushing through her program and trying to find financing to continue.
@21: Leslie finished her Masters and starts her Doctorate amid mounting debt and a completely lost support network. Her situation is probably an open secret in the department at this point.
@23: Leslie finishes her PhD and, due to a solid academic record, publication history and probably making good impressions on the department head at some juncture all in spite of her situation, gets hired in and fast tracked in an exceptionally unusual manner.
@26: Here we are today.
It’s exceptionally implausible, but still technically possible, if only barely. Twenty some years ago someone in Leslie’s position at her age was much easier to explain. One of my friends during college was teaching this type of intro class while finishing his MS. I opted out of his class for a different one when it came up on my schedule just to avoid a potential conflict of interest. That was admittedly in a requisite field however.
I still have teachers who are working on their PhDs. Mostly intros or electives but still.
Black market time-turner is my theory.
I dunno, I had a gender and sexuality professor who was clearly in their mid-20s. I think it was a special course though.
She may have been teaching with a Masters degree. Many universities allow that for 100-level classes. For example, a friend was a professor at a Big Ten university when he was 24 and a doctoral student. She may have only recently earned her PhD. For that matter, do we know she has earned her PhD? I don’t recall anyone calling her “Doctor”, though my memory could be faulty.
Willis has said she has a PhD but bear in mind that Word of Willis is not immutable and unchanging.
Cues up Telephone Line on the hijacked Muzak.
Oh, snap. ELO, and it ain’t even Christmas yet.
I cannot believe I’m the same age as Leslie
Leslie, you are too good of a mom for your own good.
Whoops, I meant host.
ITT: multiple people realise that they’re old, oh no, what have we been doing with our 20s
DoA Book 10: You Never Stop Being A Scared Mess
I’m just going to leave this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y5SAM91oG4
*cough*
Damn it I’m older than Leslie.
I’m more than twice as old as Leslie.
When this started I was twice as old as Leslie plus one year. Now I’m Leslie’s age in reverse.
Yeah, the news that Toe Dad has been bailed out probably would have come in handy earlier.
Too bad Joyce’s Dad didn’t also text that information, if that’s indeed what it is. Joyce probably would have at least seen that.
I wouldn’t be surprised if her dad has a flipphone.
Flip phones have had the capability to send text messages since before smartphones were a thing.
I used to text on a candybar phone. It took me ages to figure out what text prediction was doing, and I texted some complete gibberish while I was doing it.
Well, luckily Becky hasn’t been made into a high-profile political figure whose presence is easy to… track… oh no.
Toedad will shoot Robin after she throws herself in front of Becky, sweeping Robin into office and then she will order all of the liberals on campus to be put in cereal factories as unpaid labor.
To be turned into Cereal ?
SOYLENT ROBIN IS PEOPLE! PEOPLE!
Well, I guess Robin is kind of people. She’s not very soylent tho.
From what I have seen of Robin’s diet, I just can’t picture her endorsing the idea of making cereal out of protein rather than just making it MORE sugar.
I am having a movie flashback here, but can’t if it is “The Manchurian Candidate” or “The Dead Zone”.
What, Dragon Ball Z: The Dead Zone?
Riley as Secretary of Cereal?
Yeah, Ross is stupid enough to walk up to a political campaign stall, likely in front of most of the Press Corps, brandish a gun and demand that Becky come with him. He’d get his martyrdom and wouldn’t care less about the impact on everyone else of having him shot full of holes by the USSS in front of them.
This is why he needs Blaine around as his Thinking-Brain Hoodlum.
Congressional representatives don’t have secret service protection, from my limited Canadian understanding – they have local or state police and sometimes hire their own personal security.
He’s still dead though.
*realizes that we were all right*
Awwww, ass-sandals.
….. please don’t specify whether or not these “ass-sandals” you mention have straps.
Good question. Let’s not think about it too hard.
And I was referencing Code MENT.
“Ass-sandals”
That’s a thong. A thong is what you’ve described. Fantastic swear, though.
Thong? Isn’t thong the past tense of thing?
Or maybe a thong is what you thing. One of those.
You will admit that both sound much more plausible than an ass-sandal.
Who would put a sandal on a donkey?
When I started reading, I was the same age as or younger than most of the main cast. Now I’m the same age as one of their professors.
Here’s hoping I’ll get my life together before I’m older than most of their parents.
I am, and I haven’t.
I started reading this comic when I was in 11th grade. Now I’m in my 4th year of college…
When I started reading this comic I didn’t have grandchildren, now he’s in 2nd grade.
Hey, hey, Leslie! No Spoilers!
I’m going to be older than Leslie in like 3 weeks.
It was at that moment that Joyce knew… SHE FUCKED UP.
Wait wait wait since when am I the same age as Leslie?!
Man I’m getting old already.
I’m 45. Can confirm.
In two weeks, my 26th birthday will have been 33 years ago.
Woopie!
It’s 2019.
Everyone’s a scared mess.
Ain’t that the truth.
Boy howdy!
I was gonna say That Racist Orange Fucker and others of his ilk aren’t, but I think we’re finally on track to beating some of them so they’re afraid as well.
fucking right.
Dang, Leslie’s on top of it
Am I the only one who wouldn’t describe herself as a scared mess? I mean, I was, but I got most of the messy part sorted out around 30, which kind of made the scared part go away. I thought that was normal, albeit a bit late at 30..
I’ve heard it’s not unusual for things to stabilize out at least somewhat around 30? That would be nice.
By then it’s pretty common to have a long-term plan for a job and housing, or at least to fall into a routine.
A steady job and a mortgage tend to make things predictable.
Strongly depends on your generation. For example: Millennials, as a whole, are WAY less likely to be married with kids and a steady job and a mortgage at 30. Our parents had some serious benchmarks, but, we’re unmoored in time.
Jeez yeah. I’m a late-for-the-party Xennial and I’m painfully aware that I’m the exception.
Yes, stability leads to security, but you develop a whole new pile of things to worry about. Mostly bills.
Yeah, but it’s hard to not fall into the habit again when thinking about politics.
You win
Aw darn that was supposed to be a response to Cerberus
Joyce, you have to finish the sentence. “Ý-yeah , but what could go wrong? “
No, I think it was: “… but the Ross is in jail, right? The authorities wouldn’t release a person accused of kidnap and assault with a deadly weapon without warning his alleged victim, right?”
There must be someone out there who started reading DoA when they were seven, and who is now Leslie’s age. Time for that person to post and make Willis feel old!
Unless another decade has slipped by without my perfectly registering what I did with it, someone who started reading DoA aged seven when the first strip was published (10 September 2010) would now be 16, not 26.
Well, they could have been on the elite, ultra, super secret Patreon level, that gives you ten year advanced access. You know, right as Sir Willis draws them.
Oh, Joyce, you beautiful, naive little nugget, I’m begging you, call him back. Hank, please, my KINGDOM if you learn to text.
Somehow Leslie seems older to me.
I think it’s the hair.
She has old-lady hair.
I had always figured she’s around 32 or 33, considering she’s teaching her own classes and is in a relatively stable position after being disowned and homeless.
Right! How is she a full-blown professor at age 26??
She’s only a year older than me? God I’ve wasted my life.
Eh, we’re all basically wasting our lives. What’s important is that we fill them with stuff, in the process.
Stuff and Imposter Syndrome.
And you may ask yourself, ‘well, how did I get here?”
Basically, Leslie is reminding the girls that, when one is dealing with adversaries with violent and/or obsessive personalities, there is no such thing as being too paranoid.
Except there is, of course.
Justified in this case because we know Ross is out and Blaine is after them, but they’ve got no reason to know that, so they’d just have to spend their entire lives being incredibly even when there was no active threat. Which is self-destructive.
I think the key point is still ‘parent, not known for calling repeatedly, has done so three times today.’ (And based off Leslie thinking he might want to give Becky information, she knows he’s relatively safe.) That usually means something important’s going on, and I can see Leslie jumping straight to the worst case scenario.
Oh absolutely. In this case, even without meta knowledge, it’s reasonable to think it’s probably important.
It’s just the “no such thing as being too paranoid” part I was objecting too. Paranoia is bad for you.
Leslie is… only two years older than me? But I’m still in college! This can’t be happening.
I’m the same age as her, and I haven’t even gone to college, yet. It’s happening all over the place.
I’m the same age as Leslie… and I’m still in college. Yikes.
When one scared mess meets another scared mess they bump heads until greater mess is left standing sheepishly
When one scared mess meets another scared mess they bump heads and … No wait, that’s Minecraft.
Spoiler: Around the time when you think maybe you are not a scared mess anymore, you go and have a baby and A BRAND NEW WORLD OF FRESH HORRORS AND ANXIETY swallows you whole.
Welp, that’s future me’s problem
Oh God she’s my age. And she’s right.
As something who’s been there and wjo’s now 34 let me tell you: there are ways out. For me, that way was meditation.
SomeONE JFC
Both are technically accurate I guess.
50 here. Scared mess. It never ends.
I just realized I started reading this comic just before I started being a Student and by the end of the year I will have out-aged Leslie. That’s… A thing.
DOA started just before I started university. It was a comfort to see these re-imagined characters I had known through Shortpacked! start something I was just about to.
I mean, I still failed the fuck out of my course but hey. Damn good comics.
62 here, absolutely a scared mess
GO SCARED MESS! And Joyce, talk with your father!!!
Unrelated to the strip, but I just now realized that what’s below Dorothy’s head in the patreon banner is Joyce’s arm. Until today, I saw it as Dorothy’s body wearing a teal tube-top, facing stage left and doing some kind of weird deltoid stretch with her right arm.
Dear God, I turn 25 in less than a week. Yeah, Leslie’s not wrong — we don’t stop being scared messes.
Learning at least four people in the comments section are older than me makes me feel so young.
“OK Boomer”
*Sigh*
Born in 60, I may be technically a boomer, but based on a old Time or Newsweek article I figured out I was really a scout X’er, unlike my older siblings.
SHE’S ONLY 26?
I hate when I find out an “adult” character is older than me
I’m not even anywhere near a Boomer
Also yeah when is this comic taking place because professor at 26 HAHA NOT IN THIS ECONOMY
It scares me that we have another potential recession coming soon, as well.
awwww, Leslie bought Becky her phone *heartmealt*
26? Ah hah hah ha HEE HEE HEE HOOO HAH HAH HAH!!! TWENTY SIX! HOLY SHIT THAT’S FUNNY WOO! I flaked out of grad school at 26… mmm… lol wow so there’s essentially no point in even trying to be a functioning adult you will always be a scared failure and getting older actually only makes your worth as a human go down. Your potential was limitless and therefore you can never reach it. I feel like Bukowski with none of the talent and zero ambition. A bottle of vodka a day won’t see my life end soon enough.