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*Dial tone, answers..* “……Hey Gramps. It’s me. Yeah, doing alright so far I think. Heya, you remember that Blaine guy? Yeah, Blaine ***? Yeah, he’s trying to blackmail me right now, wants me to work for HIM! Yeah I know, right? Oh, he’s standing right in front of me. I think he’s about to cr** himself. Yep, cool, thanks for that. See you during the holidays……………….Well, Blaine……A word of advice- RUN!!”
Depends how much influence Asher’s grandfather actually has. If he’s responsible for Asher’s tuition and living expenses? Blaine can honestly threaten that if he has enough sway with Gramps.
Heck, gramps may then finish off Blaine. He may be disappointed in Asher, but last I checked, you do NOT threaten a mob boss’ kid if you value living. And that’s if gramps feels merciful
You got that right, blood relative of a Korean mob boss would be much higher up in the pecking order than a hired flunky. Doesn’t matter if he has disappointed gramps, he is still family.
Depend on how badly he’s “disappointed” and more importantly on what Blaine’s so subtly threatening to reveal. Some kinds of disappointment get even family offed.
Well, given that it now sounds like they’re involved in organized crime (which would explain the loose connection from yesterday) actually quite a lot.
Eh, since the alternative is to have them in space, where they can drop kinetic missiles on cities, I’m fine with leaving them here. Send ME into space!!
To be fair, he talks like this with people who are younger than him and easier to control. Asher wasn’t even willing to hit someone who punched him in the face, he may have a record to worry about and Blaine may know this.
I don’t think you understand why Asher didn’t punch Walky. It wasn’t about being willing. It was about giving Walky a chance to walk away before Asher killed him.
I was thinking along the same lines. Is “Gramps” going to turn out to be the same “Sir” that seems to be able to pull Ruth’s strings like a master puppeteer?
See, that’s the brilliant twist. All the cops everywhere are looking for the Korean mobsters, but don’t realise that actually, it’s a Korean War Vet mob.
Clint’s local (he’s at least in Indiana anyway). Ruth’s parents, well at least her mom, moved to Canada to be as far from him as possible. Ruth and Howard ended up in his care after their parents died.
His daughter leaving the country to be with him may be one of the reasons Sir hated Ruth’s dad, or it may be a sign of just how much Ruth’s mom wanted to get away from the controlling old fuck. Or both. I’ll go with both.
Both of Ruth’s parents are long dead. That’s why she was being raised by her Grandfather in the first place. She enrolled in an American university to put some distance between them and gain her freedom.
No. I mean, yes they’re long dead, but it was her parents who were in Canada and Clint who lives in Indiana.
As Kamino suggests, it’s not entirely clear why they moved to Canada, but we do know that her grandfather stayed in Indiana and she and Howard moved to live with him when they died.
Ruth’s father is from Canada. Her mother, Clint’s daughter, is presumably from the US. Clint (and Howard) currently live in Carmel, Indiana, or so I am told.
I glean from Google Maps and Wikipedia that Carmel is a very wealthy suburb of Indianapolis.
I’ve been there! That was a couple of decades ago, but my memory is that the downtown main street consisted entirely of fancy art galleries and fancier restaurants.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate their father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, even their own life–such a person cannot be in my comic.” – David Willis
It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs. At any rate, there is no reason why it could not be a movie reference: the original, at least according to current rules, has run out of copyright.
Unless the studio does a limited special edition vault release for select theatres for one day only, then the copyright gets extended or reset.
I am not 100% up on the studio and Disney shenanigans when it come to copyright in the states though I do know it is really messed up.
I don’t think so. Rereleases do not extend copyright, as far as I know. Even back when copyrights needed extension, rereleases weren’t necessary.
With modern works it’s either 95 years from creation if it’s work for hire or life of the author + 70 years.
I’m not sure what the work in question is, but anything published by 1882 is long out of copyright. I think currently anything published before 1925 is out of copyright (along with somethings from after.)
The life of the author part only came in with the 1978 revision, so nothing has ever gone out of copyright due to that, amusingly enough.
Yeah, that’s generally what I figured, it’s the mob connections. Like I said about yesterday, it’s not so much that this particular connection is over-the-top, it’s that it comes after the whole Toedad bail thing, and as part of a kind of goofy trilogy of Nic Fury after-credits scenes.
I’m willing to wait and see if Willis manages to keep this all grounded, I’m just a little bearish right now.
Honestly the Toedad bail makes a degree of sense to me. The whole ‘armed kidnapping + car chase with a FUCKING SUPERHERO’ thing was guaranteed to make news, Blaine knows about AG, obviously whoever she fucked up a highway at midday over has to be important to Amber and therefore, he has leverage.
I still think Toedad is basically being set up to be the patsy for whatever Blaine has planned. If it goes south, he’s sure as hell not going to take the fall.
Have you ever held an actual grappling hook in your hand? Now imagine walking around with one hooked to your belt.
Now imagine also, at the same time, half a dozen 4-inch spiked steel balls also attached to your belt while you’re doing parkour maneuvers . No, Amazi-Girl definitely stores a bunch of stuff in hammerspace, and I am totally fine with that.
Yeah, the moustache-twirling, assembling an evil league part of it feels kind of out of place in a college webcomic, dunnit? That said, I’m intrigued to see where it goes, and I definitely didn’t see it coming!
Just like “Rotten Egg” in Belle Yang’s graphic novel, “Forget Sorrow.” A cartoonish version of an abusive stalking ex-boyfriend, who is (spoiler alert) based on a totally real person in her life.
I remember reading “Bartleby the Scrivener” as a 20-year-old and thinking that Melville had to have a vivid imagination to come up with a character as strange as Bartleby. With a little more experience under my belt, I am certain that “Bartleby” was not only a real person that Melville knew, but that Melville toned down the real story.
I think we as the audience just don’t have all the information yet. We have a page full of connect-the-dots, but they don’t have numbers so we’re not sure what the picture’s going to be. The connections the story has made so far don’t make complete sense because we’ve yet to see how they all fit together.
“My disbelief is not merely suspended, but hung by the neck until dead.”
Different things break it for different people too. Lots of people found the car chase sequence too much. Others find the evil fundamentalists ridiculous (though in that case, unlike the car chase, it’s counter by others saying “this is my life”.) I find Robin too unrealistic to take seriously as a threat.
I’m not sure about this one yet. Honestly I find this part more reasonable than him showing up to pay Ross’s bail – there’s an obvious connection between Asher and Blaine.
But that obvious connection only showed up in today’s strip. Yesterday, the connection wasn’t obvious. It could be that there’s a plausible but as yet unrevealed connection between Blaine and Ross.
I more or less think of DoA as having aspects of magical realism. Objects generally behave realistically, until there’s a car chase scene and cartoon physics take over. Characters are generally believable, but then there’s Galasso and Robin and the over-the-top cartoonish Sydney Yus.
As someone reminded me the last time I was snarking about some detail or other, it’s a comic strip.
It was less obvious, but it the groundwork had still been laid for it. Some people guessed at least part of it before yesterday. And many more as soon as it was established they knew each other.
We knew Asher was part of a youth gang (and was Asian). We knew Blaine was a mob stooge and given the Korean Mob angle from SP! and given Yuri and Faz, it wasn’t a leap to “Asian mob”, which sets up the connection that’s now explicit.
I’m totally down with Blaine assembling a Legion of Doom to take down Amazi-Girl, so him recruiting Toedad makes sense, him knowing Asher seems a smidge contrived, though.
I’m surprised he’s not recruiting Ryan, honestly, since offering Ryan revenge in lieu of cash solves both their problems. I guess there are some tone issues with having a serial rapist on the cartoony super-villain team, though
Maybe a little contrived, but it’s all been set up. We know Asher’s criminal background. We know Blaine’s mobbed up. We’ve got at least hints (Yuri and Faz) that his mob connections are Asian.
How many Asian mobs are there in Indiana?
From my experience with abdominal knife wounds, I’d say it’ll be about a year and a half, real time, before Ryan can even think of getting up to violence.
“Hey Gramps, I was creeping around on a college campus bothering your grandson for no obvious reason. And he wouldn’t do exactly what I want. Doesn’t that make you mad?”
Amber and Faz find a tissue sample left in storage after a gall bladder surgery Blaine had several years ago. They give it a nice, proper funeral, bury it in a nice grave… then dig it up and mutilate it, and throw it in a dumpster fire. Just to make them feel better.
Sadly correct. In most cases it’s because everyone would be in mourning for years of real time.
In Blaine’s case because the celebrations would last that long.
Faz will feel bad, he’s like 15 and desperately wants Blaines approval. Then again Faz was the one of the few who mourned him in his shortpacked funeral, so that’s nothing new.
I call bullshit – Blaine, you’re a stooge. No self respecting mobster gives a shit about the stooges. And it’s a stooge’s word against his grandson. Go on. Try it. I dare you.
See, if it were me, I wouldn’t be all too keen in trying to strongarm the actual blood relative of a Korean mobster, on account of family being super-duper-hyper important in Korea and me actually liking having all my bits attached, plus having a core to have those bits attached TO.
Of course, I lack the intellectual acumen of Blaine, a man who was once utterly owned by an 8-year-old and has yet to have an interaction with his own late-teens daughter that doesn’t result in him needing medical attention, so what do I know.
On the upside, here’s another grandfather for you to seethe at. That’s what we get when people feed shitstains after midnight, or at all instead of letting them starve.
His nose is already hurt. I wonder what another punch to it would do right now. If only Asher had recently been shown the potential for surprise sucker punches…
Is he really trying to bully a mob bosses grandson by threatening him with the mob? Willis if this goes well for Blaine I’m calling utter bullshit on anything that happens.
It’s a standard trope in fiction that gangsters and criminal organizations have some sort of weird sense of ‘honor’. Think of the character ‘Colombo’ in the James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only”, who freely admits to being a smuggler of many things … but not drugs: “I smuggle, yes. I smuggle gold, diamonds, cigarettes, pistachio nuts… but no heroin.” Perhaps Blaine has some info/proof that Asher may have strayed into ‘forbidden territory’ and done something that, were it to come out, would attract unwanted attention to “Gramps” and the rest of the organization or otherwise crossed some sort of clearly-defined line.
That depends on how the mob feels about all the lines Blaine has crossed. If they have any sense of honor, I’m sure it includes “don’t hurt family, unless they really asked for it”, and Stacy and Amber most certainly did not ask for it – and that’s not even getting into what he might be doing to Yuri and Faz.
He talks that way because he IS a creepy villain. He probably doesn’t talk to normal people much anymore, and when he does, creepy villain talk is probably pretty effective in getting them to do what he wants them to.
So, okay. I’m guessing the thing with Amber rattled Asher so much that he decided he wanted out of “the business” very early on. And this also explains why he didn’t get in trouble.
It’s possible his grandfather agreed so he could run a legitimate business in the future. You can’t be too careful.
Ohhh, I see. Before Asher got out of the game, he skimmed a little off the top of Gramps’s earnings or did some other stupid shit that Blaine knows about. Dammit, Asher. Fuck you, Blaine.
Dammit, when I was saying I was sure badness was happening at his house because smoking and robberies and shoplifting, that would have been an EXCELLENT time to be proven wrong.
“trying-to-be-former” sounds right.
Just like the KGB, there’s really no “former” mob. They’ve always got something on you if they want to bring you back in.
There’s no particular reason for Asher to know that calling campus security would have any effect. Students are even less likely than campus security enforcers to know off-hand who has been declared persona non grata.
Furthermore, having Blaine ordered to leave the campus or even escorted off won’t be decisive enough.
I still think Toedad is basically being set up to be the patsy for whatever Blaine has planned. If it goes south, he’s sure as hell not going to take the fall.
Ross and the entire church at La Porte. They’ll provide the manpower and (at least according to Blaine’s plan) take the fall. Even if Blaine’s core plan fails, I’m still sure that they’ll be facing state and federal investigations into racketeering and money laundering.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an epilogue to DoA in which Joyce recalls that her childhood church ended up bankrupt and its membership basically scattered. “You would think that they would have recognised a serpent offering them the forbidden fruit” she will muse in the text-over.
I’m intrigued as to who Asher’s grandfather is. Perhaps another character will be repurposed. Personally, I think Blaine is playing with fire. If Asher comes from a family of criminals and he ultimately goes into that business then by right of inheritance he’d own Blaine.
So Asher legit wants out of the mafia life, but Blaine has some dirt on him? I’d say it’s pretty shitty to threaten someone with things they did as a child they regret but it’s Blaine, shitty is his bread and butter. (Weirdly enough I get the idea that Asher is being threatened with Blaine revealing that he had fucked up crime he did rather than the crimes he did)
Blaine, just consider how little you want Asher’s grandfather to hear this: “Grandpa! Mr O’Malley is meeeaaannn! He won’t leave me alone!” Broken legs, anyone?
Uh, oh.
Did Leland(‘s family) have Asher’s gramps do a big move to set Sal up (his kind of vindictiveness usually doesn’t grow from compassionate parents, and they would be more likely to be underhand).
And Amber was in it because Blaine though it would be enjoyable o see her in fear?
Remember that Blaine, Amber, and Ethan were not at the robbery Asher and his older brother were involved in. They were at the one that Sal performed on the spur of the moment.
Why can’t he just fuck off and stop polluting the lives of kids who are just there to fucking learn? Why does he have to be such a fucking loser? He could just stop hanging out around teenagers and leave people the fuck alone, but instead he decides to be a petty asshole about a bunch of nothing that nobody did to him. He is fucking worthless, except as a substitute for fossil fuels.
Blaine and other adults in Dumbing of Age don’t care about the lives of others. He complains about paying for Amber’s education, but he still visits her as if she were his property. He is just being evil for fun and not for pragmatic reasons.
Also, a lovely artist called IgnorantDaddy spontaneously drew a delightful alien ‘sona of me, based on a quick sketch someone else drew that I colorised.
Because, like a lot of people in the real world, control is central to Blaine’s self-identity. If he isn’t taking control of others’ lives and exerting what little power he can gather to himself, his life would have no meaning to him.
And that day Blaine was found as dismembered pieces of flesh in bag floating in the Mississipi. Blaine is risking a lot in the mafia just because of a temper tantrum.
We might but only as an anonymous and kindly-seeming old man shuffling across a frame. The people we WILL see and have tagged are the bison-shaped barely-sapient goons he sends to do his will.
“Hey Gramps? I know you’re not happy with me… but a guy you own just tried to blackmail me. Yeah, Blaine. He’s not behaving. Not saying I want to get involved again… but you can’t let him run around threatening family.”
Mobs are HUGE on protecting their own. Gramps probably sees Asher as just temporarily leaving crime behind as a brief flick, and assumes one day he’ll come back into the fold.
Besides, mob types are also big on debt. Any ‘favours’ Gramps does for Asher is potential leverage to coerce him to come back into the fold after he graduates.
And dating them, Amber says she doesn’t want to think about Faz’s Mom because she’s pretty sure her dad started dating her in her teens. Blaine straight up interacts mostly with young people cuz they’re all he can threaten and control.
I find it hard to believe that the mob would be okay with some nerd like Blaine using mob resources and coercing the don’s grandson into going after some college student in spandex. In fact I think they’d laugh him out of the room if they didn’t punish him outright for being a moron with weird priorities
I think that he just wants Asher to spy on Amber for him. I wonder how Asher will react when he realises that his target is Sal’s sort-of-sister-in-law.
I’m kind of hoping for Blaine to be the first character to…have an accident…and end up dying in this series. With the amount of shit he’s caused just to be an asshole, it would be fitting.
I know, right? I hardly ever find myself wishing horrific death on fictional characters (definitely not real people ever)…even video game villains. Blaine is a rare exception. I don’t think there’s an ounce of good or “tragic” villain in the man.
I don’t know how this plot will unfold, but I just want to say that Asher is awesome. Its refreshing af to see a character with some level of self-confidence and awareness – even if he ultimately caves to Blaine in the end…
Family is pretty thick most of the time. Even estranged family when they are being threatened. Asher ought to call the bluff. “All right. I’ll pick up the phone right now, give gramps a call. Let’s see what he thinks about you threatening his grandson.”
I love how everyone here is going “Call his bluff. You’re family. Gramps will be on your side.”
I’m like “Are you reading the same comic I’m reading? Family is dangerous round here.” Linda, Carol, Clint, Blaine, Ross. “Why does it have to be dads?”
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*Asher picks up and hurls Blaine into a bottomless pit as Blaine electrocutes him*
ha, dang, wouldn’t that be something
DAMN YOU WILLIS NOW EVERYBODY WILL
(pls don’t I will totes upvote Leslie’s couch if you don’t)
Leslie’s couch and Gramps. What a choice.
How long has the server been close to normal time? I was shocked when I refreshed at x:03 and the new strip came up!
Asher, lighten your Karmic Load by Giving Blaine a second Ass kicking. Please.
*Dial tone, answers..* “……Hey Gramps. It’s me. Yeah, doing alright so far I think. Heya, you remember that Blaine guy? Yeah, Blaine ***? Yeah, he’s trying to blackmail me right now, wants me to work for HIM! Yeah I know, right? Oh, he’s standing right in front of me. I think he’s about to cr** himself. Yep, cool, thanks for that. See you during the holidays……………….Well, Blaine……A word of advice- RUN!!”
Sadly, that’s the wordier version of Panel 5, and about as effective
Don’t underestimate the bullheadedness of assholes tryna get their way
I would joyfully read a new comic where different characters take turns using Blaine as a punching bag, with ‘F-Up Faz Fridays’ for variety.
*Sierra walks up* “What’s this, now?”
“Beat Up Blaine. It’s like a dunk tank.”
“Oh! Ok!” *sidekicks to the face!*
I would pay money to see that.
( stretch goal for nxt kickstarter maybe pls )
LAWsome 2.0
it’s just the same thing but the victim is always Blaine
maybe throw a lil’ toedad and gashface in there too, why not
Come on Asher, stay strong. What’s the worst Blaine can honestly threaten you with?
You heard him. Disappointed gramps.
Depends how much influence Asher’s grandfather actually has. If he’s responsible for Asher’s tuition and living expenses? Blaine can honestly threaten that if he has enough sway with Gramps.
Given what the content of the conversation suggests about Gramp’s work… I’d be worried about a bit more than just money.
I mean, depending on just what Blaine says about Asher, which needn’t be true in the least, things could get pretty serious.
The solution is for Asher to make sure Blaine can’t speak anymore after his thrashing. Breaking his jaw could do the trick.
“Hey Gramps, your underling threatened me so I beat him up. Just FYI.”
Gramps might not be happy his grandson doesn’t want to be involved in crime, but he’s substantially less disappointed.
Heck, gramps may then finish off Blaine. He may be disappointed in Asher, but last I checked, you do NOT threaten a mob boss’ kid if you value living. And that’s if gramps feels merciful
You got that right, blood relative of a Korean mob boss would be much higher up in the pecking order than a hired flunky. Doesn’t matter if he has disappointed gramps, he is still family.
Depend on how badly he’s “disappointed” and more importantly on what Blaine’s so subtly threatening to reveal. Some kinds of disappointment get even family offed.
Esopha-lcon Punch.
Given that Gramps is (presumably) a mobster, I’d be more worried about getting whacked.
Ha-Ha-Ha! Body In A Woodchipper
Doesn’t have to be a DEAD body… not until afterwards, anyway…
I would recommend the CAT Brushcutter so he will have the illusion of being able to run away through the bush.
Yeah, that was my thought. Tuition at a major state university is no joke.
I guess it depends on how willing his grandfather is to have a disappointment in the family.
Well, given that it now sounds like they’re involved in organized crime (which would explain the loose connection from yesterday) actually quite a lot.
Blaine. Is. Satan.
PleasecallahitonBlainePleasecallahitonBlainePleasecallahitonBlaine…
That’s all I want for Christmas.
Cue The Doubleclicks’ “Sexist Bullshit”
“They don’t have to die, and this doesn’t have to hurt,
But by eight on Christmas morning, I want these fuckers off my earth”
Eh, since the alternative is to have them in space, where they can drop kinetic missiles on cities, I’m fine with leaving them here. Send ME into space!!
Panel 1 Blane is actually the scariest he’s ever looked.
That’s probably how he wheedled Stacy in in the first place.
Scary thought: Asher is related to Faz in some way.
I’m guessing he might be Yuri’s (even younger) brother.
https://youtu.be/_MolWhOGhRc
With those people skills, it’s a wonder Blaine doesn’t get beaten up more often.
I think he is working up to it.
To be fair, he talks like this with people who are younger than him and easier to control. Asher wasn’t even willing to hit someone who punched him in the face, he may have a record to worry about and Blaine may know this.
I don’t think you understand why Asher didn’t punch Walky. It wasn’t about being willing. It was about giving Walky a chance to walk away before Asher killed him.
Are Asher and Ruth…COUSINS?
*plays Blue Oyster Cult’s “Godzilla” on the hacked P.A. speakers*
I was thinking along the same lines. Is “Gramps” going to turn out to be the same “Sir” that seems to be able to pull Ruth’s strings like a master puppeteer?
At least in the Walkyverse, Blaine was explicitly a Korean mob stooge, which if that carried over to this ‘verse would likely rule that out.
I think it he’s still a Korean mob stooge, since Blaine is Faz’s stepfather. And the things he asked Faz to do is… pretty blackmailey.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/stepfather/
Plot twist: Its actually a multi-country organization, Clint and Gramps are both subservient to Jason’s father.
See, that’s the brilliant twist. All the cops everywhere are looking for the Korean mobsters, but don’t realise that actually, it’s a Korean War Vet mob.
Wait, wouldn’t the youngest people eligible for service in 1953 be in their eighties by now?
Or do we need to worry about G. W. Bailey and Jamie Farr beating us up?
DoA time>
FWIW, “Sir” is located in Canada, so it’s unlikely.
Clint’s local (he’s at least in Indiana anyway). Ruth’s parents, well at least her mom, moved to Canada to be as far from him as possible. Ruth and Howard ended up in his care after their parents died.
Sir isn’t Canadian, that was Ruth’s dad.
His daughter leaving the country to be with him may be one of the reasons Sir hated Ruth’s dad, or it may be a sign of just how much Ruth’s mom wanted to get away from the controlling old fuck. Or both. I’ll go with both.
Both of Ruth’s parents are long dead. That’s why she was being raised by her Grandfather in the first place. She enrolled in an American university to put some distance between them and gain her freedom.
No. I mean, yes they’re long dead, but it was her parents who were in Canada and Clint who lives in Indiana.
As Kamino suggests, it’s not entirely clear why they moved to Canada, but we do know that her grandfather stayed in Indiana and she and Howard moved to live with him when they died.
She enrolled in an American university, because she had to. Ruth makes it clear, in conversation with Howard, that she wouldn’t have left Canada if she hadn’t had to when their parents died.
Ruth’s father is from Canada. Her mother, Clint’s daughter, is presumably from the US. Clint (and Howard) currently live in Carmel, Indiana, or so I am told.
I glean from Google Maps and Wikipedia that Carmel is a very wealthy suburb of Indianapolis.
Oh hey, we’ve got a town here in California also called Carmel that’s full of rich people.
We have the same thing in Jamaica. Well, it’s more a street than a town but still
I’ve been there! That was a couple of decades ago, but my memory is that the downtown main street consisted entirely of fancy art galleries and fancier restaurants.
No, Sir is located in Indiana. Ruth moved down from Canada to stay with him when her parents died.
Dumbing of Age: All Grandfathers Are Bad
Family ain’t worth shit.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate their father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, even their own life–such a person cannot be in my comic.” – David Willis
I googled this, expecting a movie reference. Wow.
It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs. At any rate, there is no reason why it could not be a movie reference: the original, at least according to current rules, has run out of copyright.
Death of the Author in 1882 plus 95 years?
Unless the studio does a limited special edition vault release for select theatres for one day only, then the copyright gets extended or reset.
I am not 100% up on the studio and Disney shenanigans when it come to copyright in the states though I do know it is really messed up.
I don’t think so. Rereleases do not extend copyright, as far as I know. Even back when copyrights needed extension, rereleases weren’t necessary.
With modern works it’s either 95 years from creation if it’s work for hire or life of the author + 70 years.
I’m not sure what the work in question is, but anything published by 1882 is long out of copyright. I think currently anything published before 1925 is out of copyright (along with somethings from after.)
The life of the author part only came in with the 1978 revision, so nothing has ever gone out of copyright due to that, amusingly enough.
In both of the examples given, authorship is difficult to establish.
A grandfather is, like, a vintage Dad. So, double potency evil.
Evil with a patina.
As a grandfather, I try not to resemble that remark.
Yeah, that’s generally what I figured, it’s the mob connections. Like I said about yesterday, it’s not so much that this particular connection is over-the-top, it’s that it comes after the whole Toedad bail thing, and as part of a kind of goofy trilogy of Nic Fury after-credits scenes.
I’m willing to wait and see if Willis manages to keep this all grounded, I’m just a little bearish right now.
Honestly the Toedad bail makes a degree of sense to me. The whole ‘armed kidnapping + car chase with a FUCKING SUPERHERO’ thing was guaranteed to make news, Blaine knows about AG, obviously whoever she fucked up a highway at midday over has to be important to Amber and therefore, he has leverage.
Also, the congregation was raising money to try to bail him out anyways.
I still think Toedad is basically being set up to be the patsy for whatever Blaine has planned. If it goes south, he’s sure as hell not going to take the fall.
Let me get this straight:
Amazi-Girl pulling a grappling hook AND a set of caltrops out of a close-fitting jumpsuit: totally fine.
An abusive guy going to great lengths to ruin someone’s life: utterly unrealistic.
?
She has pockets on her utilibelt.
Have you ever held an actual grappling hook in your hand? Now imagine walking around with one hooked to your belt.
Now imagine also, at the same time, half a dozen 4-inch spiked steel balls also attached to your belt while you’re doing parkour maneuvers . No, Amazi-Girl definitely stores a bunch of stuff in hammerspace, and I am totally fine with that.
I’m tots fine with hammer space in comics. It’s kinda like a boyscout backpack. It can hold the whole house, with basement.
More like, Amazi-Girl *existing* at all: totally fine.
This: Ungrounded and goofy.
I think it’s that Amazi-Girl has always had a degree of cartoon physics.
Blaine was grounded in uncomfortable realism, this is maybe a bit twirling moustache villain.
Yeah, the moustache-twirling, assembling an evil league part of it feels kind of out of place in a college webcomic, dunnit? That said, I’m intrigued to see where it goes, and I definitely didn’t see it coming!
Speaking of moustache-twirling villains…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJvrUTtnmIM
Just like “Rotten Egg” in Belle Yang’s graphic novel, “Forget Sorrow.” A cartoonish version of an abusive stalking ex-boyfriend, who is (spoiler alert) based on a totally real person in her life.
I remember reading “Bartleby the Scrivener” as a 20-year-old and thinking that Melville had to have a vivid imagination to come up with a character as strange as Bartleby. With a little more experience under my belt, I am certain that “Bartleby” was not only a real person that Melville knew, but that Melville toned down the real story.
Yeah. I know a few people that have been obsessed – absolutely obsessed – with destroying others for literally no reason at all.
When did she have time to go to Acme Looniversity?
I think we as the audience just don’t have all the information yet. We have a page full of connect-the-dots, but they don’t have numbers so we’re not sure what the picture’s going to be. The connections the story has made so far don’t make complete sense because we’ve yet to see how they all fit together.
Everything will fall into place at some point.
The willing suspension of disbelief is not a constant. It comes and goes.
“My disbelief is not merely suspended, but hung by the neck until dead.”
Different things break it for different people too. Lots of people found the car chase sequence too much. Others find the evil fundamentalists ridiculous (though in that case, unlike the car chase, it’s counter by others saying “this is my life”.) I find Robin too unrealistic to take seriously as a threat.
I’m not sure about this one yet. Honestly I find this part more reasonable than him showing up to pay Ross’s bail – there’s an obvious connection between Asher and Blaine.
But that obvious connection only showed up in today’s strip. Yesterday, the connection wasn’t obvious. It could be that there’s a plausible but as yet unrevealed connection between Blaine and Ross.
I more or less think of DoA as having aspects of magical realism. Objects generally behave realistically, until there’s a car chase scene and cartoon physics take over. Characters are generally believable, but then there’s Galasso and Robin and the over-the-top cartoonish Sydney Yus.
As someone reminded me the last time I was snarking about some detail or other, it’s a comic strip.
It was less obvious, but it the groundwork had still been laid for it. Some people guessed at least part of it before yesterday. And many more as soon as it was established they knew each other.
We knew Asher was part of a youth gang (and was Asian). We knew Blaine was a mob stooge and given the Korean Mob angle from SP! and given Yuri and Faz, it wasn’t a leap to “Asian mob”, which sets up the connection that’s now explicit.
They make folding grappling hooks that lie flat, then spring open. The caltrops are clearly in hammerspace.
I’m totally down with Blaine assembling a Legion of Doom to take down Amazi-Girl, so him recruiting Toedad makes sense, him knowing Asher seems a smidge contrived, though.
I’m surprised he’s not recruiting Ryan, honestly, since offering Ryan revenge in lieu of cash solves both their problems. I guess there are some tone issues with having a serial rapist on the cartoony super-villain team, though
I think Ryan’s still down for the count from what Amber did to him.
Maybe a little contrived, but it’s all been set up. We know Asher’s criminal background. We know Blaine’s mobbed up. We’ve got at least hints (Yuri and Faz) that his mob connections are Asian.
How many Asian mobs are there in Indiana?
From my experience with abdominal knife wounds, I’d say it’ll be about a year and a half, real time, before Ryan can even think of getting up to violence.
“Hey Gramps, I was creeping around on a college campus bothering your grandson for no obvious reason. And he wouldn’t do exactly what I want. Doesn’t that make you mad?”
“It does. It makes me furious. At you.”
“Uncle? Blaine O’Malley is leaning on me to rough up his daughter on campis. Do we have business with her?”
Blaine is gonna overplay his hand and get himself killed and no one is gonna feel bad.
Now taking bets for whether or not Amber topples the gravestone.
Now, now. Let’s not assume he gets a proper burial.
Now, now. Let’s not assume
he gets a proper burialthere will be enough identifiable remains left to bury.FTFY
(Also, nice comment/gravatar synergy!)
Amber and Faz find a tissue sample left in storage after a gall bladder surgery Blaine had several years ago. They give it a nice, proper funeral, bury it in a nice grave… then dig it up and mutilate it, and throw it in a dumpster fire. Just to make them feel better.
I mean, Blaine isn’t built like Toedad. I bet he’d fit snugly in an acid-filled drum barrel.
hey, this is dumbing of age. nobody can get killed, right?
i’m pretty sure there’s no official line on permanent comas, though, so that’s what i’m writing to santa about this year.
Sadly correct. In most cases it’s because everyone would be in mourning for years of real time.
In Blaine’s case because the celebrations would last that long.
Faz will feel bad, he’s like 15 and desperately wants Blaines approval. Then again Faz was the one of the few who mourned him in his shortpacked funeral, so that’s nothing new.
I call bullshit – Blaine, you’re a stooge. No self respecting mobster gives a shit about the stooges. And it’s a stooge’s word against his grandson. Go on. Try it. I dare you.
I really hope that’s how this plays out, because I want Asher to maintain his separation from that life as much as possible.
I can dream.
Come on, everybody loves the Stooges! Even Joe Besser has his fans.
See, if it were me, I wouldn’t be all too keen in trying to strongarm the actual blood relative of a Korean mobster, on account of family being super-duper-hyper important in Korea and me actually liking having all my bits attached, plus having a core to have those bits attached TO.
Of course, I lack the intellectual acumen of Blaine, a man who was once utterly owned by an 8-year-old and has yet to have an interaction with his own late-teens daughter that doesn’t result in him needing medical attention, so what do I know.
On the upside, here’s another grandfather for you to seethe at. That’s what we get when people feed shitstains after midnight, or at all instead of letting them starve.
If he actually has something on Asher that the family doesn’t know about, that might be different. Plus how disappointed gramps might already be.
That’s why he’s a stooge and not a Don.
His nose is already hurt. I wonder what another punch to it would do right now. If only Asher had recently been shown the potential for surprise sucker punches…
Blaine, you have *far* too little power to let it go this far to your head.
Is he really trying to bully a mob bosses grandson by threatening him with the mob? Willis if this goes well for Blaine I’m calling utter bullshit on anything that happens.
It’s a standard trope in fiction that gangsters and criminal organizations have some sort of weird sense of ‘honor’. Think of the character ‘Colombo’ in the James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only”, who freely admits to being a smuggler of many things … but not drugs: “I smuggle, yes. I smuggle gold, diamonds, cigarettes, pistachio nuts… but no heroin.” Perhaps Blaine has some info/proof that Asher may have strayed into ‘forbidden territory’ and done something that, were it to come out, would attract unwanted attention to “Gramps” and the rest of the organization or otherwise crossed some sort of clearly-defined line.
That depends on how the mob feels about all the lines Blaine has crossed. If they have any sense of honor, I’m sure it includes “don’t hurt family, unless they really asked for it”, and Stacy and Amber most certainly did not ask for it – and that’s not even getting into what he might be doing to Yuri and Faz.
Blaine really likes talking like a creepy villain, huh.
He talks that way because he IS a creepy villain. He probably doesn’t talk to normal people much anymore, and when he does, creepy villain talk is probably pretty effective in getting them to do what he wants them to.
So, okay. I’m guessing the thing with Amber rattled Asher so much that he decided he wanted out of “the business” very early on. And this also explains why he didn’t get in trouble.
It’s possible his grandfather agreed so he could run a legitimate business in the future. You can’t be too careful.
Blaine could you please go offpanel and… remain there forever ok thanks you’re a doll bye.
Student priorities: MIDTERMS, DUDE. Oh, and also, I have ethics and morals now.
Sounds about right
That’s a whole ass mood
Probably taking a whole course on that.
please, can someone shank that asshole and let him bleed out to death?
. . .Is Asher not as much of an asshole as we have thought?
I was cautiously optimistic about him after he demonstrated a surprising level of understanding over the whole getting punched thing.
He has been controversial, not reviled.
I’ve liked him fairly consistently
Ohhh, I see. Before Asher got out of the game, he skimmed a little off the top of Gramps’s earnings or did some other stupid shit that Blaine knows about. Dammit, Asher. Fuck you, Blaine.
He must want that fractured nose to remain fractured it seems
I’m interested in where this is going, and it’s nice seeing Asher push back.
Ah, welcome to the ‘shits-for-parents’-club, Asher.
Dammit, when I was saying I was sure badness was happening at his house because smoking and robberies and shoplifting, that would have been an EXCELLENT time to be proven wrong.
It would have been AWESOME to have a Blaine-free situation, but here we are.
Heck of a university organization but if truly popular, it would be especially well-funded.
I hear they even have a representative in congress. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/startreks/
So, Asher is formerly Korean mob or trying-to-be-former Korean mob rather than currently Korean mob, but Blaine indeed works for Asher’s grandfather.
Damn the lack of a preview feature for postings with obscure errors in their HTML
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/04-vote-for-robin/walkaway/#comment-1409974
“trying-to-be-former” sounds right.
Just like the KGB, there’s really no “former” mob. They’ve always got something on you if they want to bring you back in.
Or you can just fuck off Blaine.
He should. He really should.
I have a feeling that this is the Final Boss Arc coming into play, so I figure we won’t be dealing with him much longer.
Just, like, you know, 2 – 3 more years.
Well this little factoid about Asher would likely make Walky crap himself if he sucker-punched the grandson of a mob boss.
if he *knew that* he sucker-punched the grandson of a mob boss.
To be fair, I’m pretty sure Walky craped himself anyway
Hey Asher. you’ve been a super controversial character people have been divided on. Want to change that? Punch this motherfucker in the face.
Hey, now. He might be seeking a nonviolent path in life.
Calling campus security will also win you over, Asher.
There’s no particular reason for Asher to know that calling campus security would have any effect. Students are even less likely than campus security enforcers to know off-hand who has been declared persona non grata.
Furthermore, having Blaine ordered to leave the campus or even escorted off won’t be decisive enough.
…except Blaine just admitted he can’t be seen around campus
I have made a running gag of calling Asher a piece of shit.
I hereby declare that I will completely cease doing so if he punches Blaine.
I still think Toedad is basically being set up to be the patsy for whatever Blaine has planned. If it goes south, he’s sure as hell not going to take the fall.
Ross and the entire church at La Porte. They’ll provide the manpower and (at least according to Blaine’s plan) take the fall. Even if Blaine’s core plan fails, I’m still sure that they’ll be facing state and federal investigations into racketeering and money laundering.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an epilogue to DoA in which Joyce recalls that her childhood church ended up bankrupt and its membership basically scattered. “You would think that they would have recognised a serpent offering them the forbidden fruit” she will muse in the text-over.
You know, it’s moments like these that make me realize that maybe breaking Blaine’s nose really WAS Amber expressing her anger in a positive way.
So Asher is – or was – in the Korean mafia?
Also where the heck are the campus police to eject Blaine out of IU?!
Asher’s family is in it. His grandfather is Blaine’s boss.
That’s some big stuff to weave from Shortpacked to DoA but it works.
soooo, is this going to end with that abusive asshole getting stabbed? cuz im feeling oddly ok with that.
I’m intrigued as to who Asher’s grandfather is. Perhaps another character will be repurposed. Personally, I think Blaine is playing with fire. If Asher comes from a family of criminals and he ultimately goes into that business then by right of inheritance he’d own Blaine.
Blaine doesn’t strike me as the kind of schemer whose plans usually work out well for him. He’s cruel and brutal, but not very smart.
So Asher legit wants out of the mafia life, but Blaine has some dirt on him? I’d say it’s pretty shitty to threaten someone with things they did as a child they regret but it’s Blaine, shitty is his bread and butter. (Weirdly enough I get the idea that Asher is being threatened with Blaine revealing that he had fucked up crime he did rather than the crimes he did)
I don’t think we have ever seen Blaine doing something even remotely non-shitty.
That’s unfair. Occasionally, he gets beaten up.
Heh, I do like me some Blaine getting beat up.
Ruth vs Blaine is still a highlight of the comic.
But in at least one of those cases, he’s still damaging Amber’s psyche while it’s happening.
He’s just that much of a shit
Blaine, just consider how little you want Asher’s grandfather to hear this: “Grandpa! Mr O’Malley is meeeaaannn! He won’t leave me alone!” Broken legs, anyone?
Depends on what Blaine has on him. Can he actually make gramps more disappointed?
I’m starting to have the really bad feeling that what he has on Asher is what he has on Amber.
And I’m beginning to suspect the reason Blaine is so bad to Amber is somehow because of Asher’s grandad.
And somehow, that’s led me to worry about Faz, of all people. The heck are you scheming, Willis?
Unlikely on the first two. I don’t see the connection.
Faz? Yeah, Faz is being abused. That’s likely a good part of why he is the way he is.
Uh, oh.
Did Leland(‘s family) have Asher’s gramps do a big move to set Sal up (his kind of vindictiveness usually doesn’t grow from compassionate parents, and they would be more likely to be underhand).
And Amber was in it because Blaine though it would be enjoyable o see her in fear?
Remember that Blaine, Amber, and Ethan were not at the robbery Asher and his older brother were involved in. They were at the one that Sal performed on the spur of the moment.
Asher kind of set that up though, so it’s possible. Definitely stretching it though.
I mean, the robbery was pretty slapped together last minute
Smack his ugly face, Asher!
Why can’t he just fuck off and stop polluting the lives of kids who are just there to fucking learn? Why does he have to be such a fucking loser? He could just stop hanging out around teenagers and leave people the fuck alone, but instead he decides to be a petty asshole about a bunch of nothing that nobody did to him. He is fucking worthless, except as a substitute for fossil fuels.
Blaine and other adults in Dumbing of Age don’t care about the lives of others. He complains about paying for Amber’s education, but he still visits her as if she were his property. He is just being evil for fun and not for pragmatic reasons.
Also, a lovely artist called IgnorantDaddy spontaneously drew a delightful alien ‘sona of me, based on a quick sketch someone else drew that I colorised.
Because, like a lot of people in the real world, control is central to Blaine’s self-identity. If he isn’t taking control of others’ lives and exerting what little power he can gather to himself, his life would have no meaning to him.
And that day Blaine was found as dismembered pieces of flesh in bag floating in the Mississipi. Blaine is risking a lot in the mafia just because of a temper tantrum.
What Indianapolis needs is a crocodile farm.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-31/central-queensland-crocodile-mystery/11367608
Man, just headbutt him is his fucking broken nose. Dude’s already admitted he’s trespassing.
If Blaine is possibly afraid of Asher’s grandpa, I really hope we don’t see “Gramps” in this comic anytime soon.
We might but only as an anonymous and kindly-seeming old man shuffling across a frame. The people we WILL see and have tagged are the bison-shaped barely-sapient goons he sends to do his will.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Amber. How did he pass?”
“Bison stampede.”
I can’t see this working.
“Hey Gramps? I know you’re not happy with me… but a guy you own just tried to blackmail me. Yeah, Blaine. He’s not behaving. Not saying I want to get involved again… but you can’t let him run around threatening family.”
Mobs are HUGE on protecting their own. Gramps probably sees Asher as just temporarily leaving crime behind as a brief flick, and assumes one day he’ll come back into the fold.
Besides, mob types are also big on debt. Any ‘favours’ Gramps does for Asher is potential leverage to coerce him to come back into the fold after he graduates.
yeah this is what I meant to say
He’s such a creep bullying children
It seems to be something core to his nature.
And dating them, Amber says she doesn’t want to think about Faz’s Mom because she’s pretty sure her dad started dating her in her teens. Blaine straight up interacts mostly with young people cuz they’re all he can threaten and control.
I find it hard to believe that the mob would be okay with some nerd like Blaine using mob resources and coercing the don’s grandson into going after some college student in spandex. In fact I think they’d laugh him out of the room if they didn’t punish him outright for being a moron with weird priorities
Can Asher just punch him, like, right now? Not sure if that will un-disappoint his gramps but definitely wont make him more disappointed?
Blaine is a true Evil. I like him as a comics villain, he’s cruel, crazy and dangerous. What will he have in mind?
I think that he just wants Asher to spy on Amber for him. I wonder how Asher will react when he realises that his target is Sal’s sort-of-sister-in-law.
“Really? You can make him more disappointed in me? Hmmm… I could make your neck an internal organ. Your move.”
All right, who pulled the Drama tag?
That happened when Joyce fought off an attempted rape.
Your icon is very fitting!
Came prepulled.
And the plot thickens
is… is asher part of a mob family?
I’m kind of hoping for Blaine to be the first character to…have an accident…and end up dying in this series. With the amount of shit he’s caused just to be an asshole, it would be fitting.
I know, right? I hardly ever find myself wishing horrific death on fictional characters (definitely not real people ever)…even video game villains. Blaine is a rare exception. I don’t think there’s an ounce of good or “tragic” villain in the man.
I wonder if this will set up a “Who shot J.R.?” plot? So many suspects if Blaine ends up dead.
I don’t know how this plot will unfold, but I just want to say that Asher is awesome. Its refreshing af to see a character with some level of self-confidence and awareness – even if he ultimately caves to Blaine in the end…
Asher? Take a punch, pass one on.
Stranger danger stranger danger! (Seriously Blaine back the F off, your giving off way too many creepy vibes)
I’d like to think Gramps would be more pissed off that some white low level stooge is trying to intimidate his grandson.
Family is pretty thick most of the time. Even estranged family when they are being threatened. Asher ought to call the bluff. “All right. I’ll pick up the phone right now, give gramps a call. Let’s see what he thinks about you threatening his grandson.”
Asher’s redemption arc incoming?
I love how everyone here is going “Call his bluff. You’re family. Gramps will be on your side.”
I’m like “Are you reading the same comic I’m reading? Family is dangerous round here.” Linda, Carol, Clint, Blaine, Ross. “Why does it have to be dads?”
Oh, family sucks, I’m mostly thinking along the lines of ‘Blaine, you’re a stooge, you don’t have the pull you think you do’.
Sooooo…. is Asher Korean? Since in the Walkyverse Blaine was in deep with the Korean Mafia… o3o
Damn. Never could I have imagined DoA would have this much frickin’ drama. The Godfather what? Never heard of him.