Wack’d’s Best Dumbing Of Age Character poll has finished, what, Round 1?
Y’know, whatever the first column of brackets is. That’s round 1, right? Before we pair the winners versus the other winners, and that’s Round 2? Look, I don’t understand the terminology behind these things.
I believe the survivors so far are Dina, Jocelyne, Walky, Mike, Amber, Ruth, Leslie, Joyce, Becky, Jacob, Sierra, Carla, Billie, Dorothy, Sarah, and Sal. Click through above to vote on the second round!
UPDATE: YES, ROUND 2
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this is on point for current events tho
all dads are bastards
Hey, I resemble that remark!
I disagree: there’s Sojiro Sakura, Mando, the Golem that protects Somali, Simon Petrikov, Dad Egbert, etc.
There’s also Papa Nurgle, but he loves every living being equally. EVERY ONE OF THEM. EVERYONE!
Sojiro and Golem are best dads.
God Golem is such a good dad.
Somali. Not to be confused with Somalia.
Dang — Somalia could -use- a golem protector.
Sojiro took things in amazing stride, A++ great dad
I like Joyce’s dad okay. Dina’s too.
Billy’s is a bit distant I guess but speaking as one who had an absentee and an abusive parent, little care is better than power plays camouflaged as lots of it.
Apparently the astronaut dads are pretty cool.
Curse you Chris I am now tearing up thinking about Byakuya.
… Frick I want Season 2 of Dr. Stone. Now.
Byakuya BEST DADDEST
Not such a great scientist, but an awesome dad. RIP Byakuya.
Just realized he and Sojiro, that means adoptive dads are best??
man, what is this, like the third time Amber’s almost fallen off a speeding vehicle?
23rd if you count all the times just now Sal briefly considered throwing her off the bike because it took a while to catch up to the van, and Amber spent that time comparing their relationship to Cyclonus and Whirl, and also explaining who Cyclonus and Whirl are.
Ironically, Sal’s thoughts just made Amber’s observations truer.
…i don’t know who cyclus and wirble are
Transformers who are also frenemies. Amber is definitely the Whirl in this equation.
Of course! It’s Sal’s Cycle.
Impressive catch, Joyce.
…although realistically, at that angle, i’m pretty sure amber would hit the pavement before she made it into the van
Possibly pulling Joyce with her.
Joyce amazing-ness confirmed.
Not if Blaine was accelerating!
How fast is that car going? He’s probably speeding, is it fast enough to survive a tuck and roll?
If it’s a typical murder van (second hand from a service vehicle fleet) the drivetrain probably ISN’T 100% when it comes to performance. Just a datum.
I think the odds are in their favor that they’d survive but not without significant damage. Landing on hard concrete at high speed will peel the skin off your bones if it didn’t shatter some of them as well.
Although even though he’s speeding I don’t know how fast Blaine would risk driving a van in a residential area without also risking losing control and killing himself in the process. It’s a toss up I guess.
Amber could likely take it, I’d imagine her suit is designed to at least not make that require a long stay in hospital. Joyce though… Not so much
I think it’s just a regular cotton coverall boiler suit. That stuff’s absolutely useless in a motorcycle crash type situation, she would have road rash almost immediately.
Real riding textiles only give you a few seconds, but that’s usually all you need until you’re stopped, rolling, or in the relatively soft dirt.
To get what Amber’s body is doing, I think it needs to either be so fast that wind is blowing her — and I’m not sure real ground vehicles go that fast — or be *accelerating*, so there’s “gravity” toward the back. How long can a van accelerate for?
If they have the base engine not that long before gravity takes over.
An empty Transit with the Ecoboost can scoot pretty well though. It’s like the old E350s with the V10 vs the 4.6 V8.
Nothing can hustle quite like an empty work truck. They’re not as quick off the line as a sporty small car, or something like a V6 Camry, but they’ve got torque for days and will keep pulling until they’re limited by electronics, gearing, or aerodynamics.
“Nothing can hustle quite like an empty work truck.”
Especially at quitting time when you’re on your way home.
Judging by the cape, it isn’t the wind.
Actually wtf is the cape doing?
…best guess is that Amber is affected by vehicular acceleration, whether linear or centrifugal (Blaine doing circles), but there happens to be a wind from the back that’s blowing the cape forward.
Large vehicles create a vortex behind them, so even at 70 mph, the cape would still be blowing that way, though with significantly more flapping of all fabric/hair/loose skin. My bet is about 25 mph and rapidly accelerating, since the swerve maneuver which threw Fax would have bled off most of his speed, and it’s the rapid acceleration that has caused Amazi-girl to lose her grip. She will probably put her feet down and hop once or twice before Joyce hulks out and pulls her in on adrenaline, and then Joyce will be sore for a week.
Yup, it’s the relatively square back that does it. That’s why pickup trucks are generally more efficient with the tailgate latched instead of down or missing.
Yes, I have lost track of how many times I have told idiots driving their truck with no tailgate or with the tailgate down that they are making their mileage worse doing that, not to mention it has not effect until about 80 mph. There is a reason high performance cars have blunt rear ends, not tapered.
Blaine’s just noticed that the rear door was open and took, I think, a hard left turn onto a side street. That would probably involve slowing a bit from the turn and then slamming on the accelerator, so, yes, it makes sense for the van to be accelerating hard. Also, centrifugal force might be a factor.
…. I have absolutely no idea WHY Blaine doesn’t want Joyce to escape. He wanted her as a hostage to avoid getting a beatdown from the other escapees, but now that he’s out of their immediate vicinity having Joyce along is just a liability. Let her go and there’s like 70% less reason for them to chase you. I suppose it’s remotely possible that he hasn’t thought this thing through.
He’s killed a person, with witnesses. Thanks to Becky, the police know his identity. He needs a hostage for when the cops show up.
As someone who has actually jumped out of moving vehicles at various speeds (up to 50kmph. I had an oddly permissive/religious childhood), it’s not exactly the speed, its the overall risk that is the problem.
Ie if you decide to abandon concern for your skin, tuck and roll, hold the right degree of loose core and tight limbs, then you will lose a lot of skin decelerating on asphalt. But really if you did roll (and not hit your head), ten its not a question of internal damage, but annoyance at the damage skin damage thaat is concentrated on the pointy bit of you (shoulders, knees, elbows). If this is the worst you are worried about, then don’t jump out on gravel. Seriously, this sucks.
But if you are worried about overall risk, what happens when your trajactory takes you into a solid object like a curb? or another vehicle? or you DON’T hold your rolling position right (cause you knocked yourself out) and in rolling you smack your head into the road?
Rolling out is technically survivable at any speed. But at anything above 45 kmph, I’d rather get into a fight with someone who really hates me and see how I do.
Goddamn, this is a nail biter.
Nice strip to read on my birthday, though, to see Sal and Faz are alright at the very least. (Well, it’ll be my birthday in like an hour.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday!!!
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday!
Happy anniversary of your first escape!
Happy birthday!
Bappy Hirthday!
Happy Birthday!
Many more.
Happy Birhday.
NO ONE can defeat DailyBrad’s birthday!
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday!
I have a bad feeling Blaine will get away. Like I think Joyce and Ambmazi will make it but I don’t see them chasing after Blaine after that.
Becky and Joyce are badass.
*plays “Angel And Devil’s Kiss” from the BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: REVENGE ROAD soundtrack on the phone’s speaker*
Well there’s a track I haven’t thought of in a while
What is the World coming to…with a Devil kissing an Angel?
Willis still playing with that time machine
for a while now I’ve been torn between “this is stupid” and “this is fucking stupid, I love it” and I think this strip just pushed me into camp 2
I love this so much <3
*Scrubs narration cefs koss*
(Chef’s kiss. Misspelled!)
Oh good, Faz is okay.
. . . which is a weird sentence to type, come to think of it.
And yet, here we are.
His smile is gone. I don’t think he’s unFazed.
Faz has been curbed. His part in this arc is over.
Gotta say, these are some great Joyce shots, too.
Not that I don’t appreciate a good superhero showdown or getting people in narrative place for upcoming superhero showdowns, but….
Why’s Amber there?
Why’s Amber on the roof of the van? She jumped there to clear room for Faz on the motorcycle. Why did she go with Sal in the first place, considering a rescue attempt of Joyce would mean her needing to get out of the way? To…ID the van, I guess?
To be fair, Sal thought she was Amazi-Girl. Bit different, makes a bit more sense.
They were going into a situation with a lot of unknowns. (A bunch of goons were beat up at the house, but its possible that Blaine may have had other allies. Plus, they don’t know what type of situation they might be in if they had to enact a rescue.)
Better to have Amber there and not need her than for Sal to be in a situation where she needs help and non is available.
Come on Joyce…
FASTBALL SPECIAL into the front of the van!
The narration juxtaposed with the chase scene is spectacular. While I enjoyed the chase in book 6, chapter 1, Becky’s tweets make this give a whole new level of emotion.
I agree 108%
I hope all of you are listening to the scrubs podcast with Zach Braff and Donald Faison.
Magnificent.
Didn’t care too much for this storyline, but this action sequence with Becky’s “narration” over it? I can dig.
Follow Khorne’s dogma: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!
I hope Joyce’s wrist is up to this… Catching a toddler tumbling off a sofa has sprained mine before!
It’s only been a few weeks since her last wrist injury.
Heal me, doctor, for I have reinjured myself.
I think that Faz is going to start running and he’ll be running for a very long time. Amber will probably run into him again when he finally stops running and needs to talk to someone about what happened this day because something tells me his mother won’t be available or even a sensible choice.
We fight for our right…to party! 11/?
Or, as I prefer to put it: “If we can’t save the world, we will avenge it.”
“I have an army.”
“We have a Joyce.”
Willis, seriously, this is hardly something specific to Scrubs. (My evidence for this statement is that I find nothing unusual about this sort of narration, and all I know about Scrubs is that it exists.)
Yeah, the Becky tweets are giving me a “penultimate scenes from an 80s teen ensemble coming-of-age movie right before a freeze-frame and credit roll” vibe, like it’s The Breakfast Club or St. Elmo’s Fire or something. (I haven’t watched either movie in years and don’t remember if either actually does this, but it has that “reflect on how far we’ve come together” feel.)
All we need to complete the set is a mid tempo pop ballad full of synthesizers and reverb.
One of the largely bad faith critiques I’ve read about Becky’s first arc was that people disliked Becky because she didn’t “save herself”, like all good bootstrappin’ minorities should, apparently, do. Was this arc a response to that, do you think?
…
Seriously? At which point did she not save herself? When she didn’t run away to her best friend for refuge? When she didn’t start looking for a job? When she didn’t surreptitiously call 911? Or is it because she got into her father’s car to save the lives of other people?
I don’t know, people are dumb. I’ve wondered a bit myself why we are reprising a Ross kidnapping story. We need to get to a Carol/Joyce confrontation, but does Carol really need to be indirectly responsible for (presumably at this point) the deaths of at least three people? I reiterate: What in the hell did Willis’s Mom do? How bad did she fuck up?
I did the same thing, I started hearing the closing monolog from Breakfast Club as I read this page.
[John Parr intensifies]
♫ Play the game you know you can’t quit until it’s won
Soldier of only you can do what must be done
You know, in some ways you’re a lot like me
You’re just a prisoner, and you’re tryin’ to break free
I can see a new horizon underneath the blazing sky
I’ll be where the eagle’s flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion
All I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where the future’s lying St. Elmo’s fire ♫
At least amazi’s costume will protect from some of the abrasions, i guess.
If you slide very far, very fast on pavement, you’re gonna have some road rash, even if you’re wearing full racing leathers. Proper gear will reduce it, but only so much. At least they won’t have to pick dirt, gravel, twigs, etc. out of the abraded skin, so there’s that.
That’s why you tuck and roll.
Denim doesn’t do shit against 40 MPH asphalt.
There was an idea… To gather a group of remarkable individuals in the hope that, together, they could be more… So that they could fight the battles others never could.
https://youtu.be/cVq4zJ1WbaQ
Calling it here … Sal comes back on the motorcycle and rescues Joyce; Amber waves off the rescue and stays in the van.
Blaine reaches his destination and comes around back to retrieve Joyce, only to open the doors to find a thoroughly and completed pissed-off Amber, while the “Ironside”/”Kill Bill” sirens blare.
We are then treated to a beat-down the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Apollo Creed/Ivan Drago fight in “Rocky 4”.
I’m not very familiar with Scrubs narration since I have seen almost nothing of that show, but Becky’s twitter narration over these last few strips has been pretty good.
I really enjoy the Becky-tweets servings as narration for this part of the story.
You and your friends sure fight for each other Becky. You sure do.
Why do I get the sinking feeling that “We fight for each other.” is gonna become Robins new election slogan, she’s gonna come into power off of this entire event, and then she’s gonna enact some pretty terrible policies that most of the cast would loathe.
That would require a much larger passage of time than we’re likely to see.
We’re about three DoA weeks from the election. Assuming no time skips, I think that puts it around summer 2024 our time.
More like November 2024.
But much longer before Robin starts her next term and could help enact any new policies. She could of course do things in the lame duck session, but she could have anyway.
I suspect we’re far more likely to see character development for Robin than her just reverting to the GOP puppet that she was.
Exactly. Robin will likely be re-elected but it’ll be a loooong time before she can take any actions that will affect anyone and by then she’ll likely have grown as a person.
That’s one redemption story I’d like to see, even if I won’t live long enough for it to happen. DeSanto is reelected, secretly intending to sacrifice her seat for one term of voting for equality. Other representatives on her side of the aisle are inspired by it and realize they, too, have a spine, and what it is for.
Robin is going to move from being Trump to Ocasio-Cortez and good for her.
I wonder if AG will be able to came out of this situation.
[Freeze frame of the last panel]
Waylon Jennings: “Looks like the girls got themselves in a jam. If they don’t get out of it soon, they’re toast.”
[Fade to black, roll commercial break]
YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAW!
Come back to scene of the General Lee jumping over a creek/railway flatcar/empire state building.
You see the whole front of the car start to buckle upward as it lands in a hard nosedive, then we jump cut to Roscoe approaching the same jump, then jump cut back to a perfectly intact General Lee fishtailing away.
That show singlehandedly created a significant shortage of 68/69 Chargers, they destroyed so many.
Pretty sure when Blaine comes to a stop and opens the back door of the van, his field of view will fill up with fist.
Unless AmbiGirl has added levitation to her skillset, or gravity is particularly light in that part of town, her legs are in for a bruisin’ when she hits ground and starts dragging.
She might even lose a toe, Dad.
Summon the strength, Joyce, to prevent Amber from getting road rash, the worst kind of rash.
Thinking about the commenter last week who insisted to be called a corrections officer instead of a prison guard, as the BoP is being turned into a secret police on the streets of DC.
I saw some of that on Reddit, and am beginning to wonder if I am seeing the start of a coup in the US.
I don’t think its unreasonable to want to be called a CO when the job title is CO, when you work for the Department of Corrections, when your boss is the Minister of Corrections and when you work under the official corrections act
PC gone amok when a prison guard insists it’s unreasonable to call them a prison guard.
In NZ the term CO replaced the term prison guard because we, as a society, are trying to bring down our prison population because we recognize its not good to incarcerate so many people
Part of that was renaming Prison Guards as Corrections Officers because what we’re trying to do is correct prisoners behavior because there’s no point in just guarding prisoners because at some point they’ll be let out and we want them to stop offending
There are also negative connotations attached to the term Prison Guard which doesn’t help when running the literacy, drug, employment prograns etc that run but hey I’m sure I dont need to tell anyone from the USA how to run their prison system because its run so well (sarc)
Do you also still use the term secretary?
“Corrections officer” is what the prison guards in the US rebranded themselves too. And now corrections officers are in our capital as part of AG Barr’s secret police. Seems very cynical to insist on a rebranded name. They’re prisoners, in a prison, and if you’re keeping them from leaving whenever they want, that’s a guard. I’d be easier to believe a prison guard saying there was an attempt at prison reform if they weren’t pretending not to be a guard.
Guards pretending to be social workers… that raises flags about abusing trust.
As you’re, probably, American I’ll cut you some slack because Americans are known for being ignorant of how other countries operate
I’ll just say that only a complete and utter idiot, an arrogant, naive fool would even think that NZ Corrections can be compared to USA Corrections
When my title was “shipping and receiving clerk”, I didn’t object to “warehouse guy”.
For as much flask as I’ve given this comic lately, I am really enjoying the Scrubs narration.
Ironically, when I read yesterday’s page and tried to guess how today was going to go, I thought that Sal was probably going to drop Faz off and that Joyce was going to pull Amber into the van. I am curious, in this van design, is the interior walled off from the driving area, and is it a solid wall, or mesh. I am wondering why Blaine hasn’t looked back and seen what was going on in the back already.
Interior layout can vary greatly between cargo vans. In this one, there appears to be a solid wall between the driver and the rear compartment.
Consider: Sal probably has a cell phone, not being a kidnapee. The van will never be able to outrun/lose the motorcycle. Authorities have already been alerted, as well as the biggest “Amber Alert” of all time. Why the incredibly dangerous escape attempt? Keep following the van and updating the location.
Sal’s not exactly fond of the police.
Maybe Sal puts aside her prejudices and does the right thing and not the thing that if it happened in real life would lead to injury and possible death
TBH if I were in their universe, and I saw a congresswoman’s campaign manager tweeting on their account about someone named Amazigirl and “me and my friends, we fight. for each other, we fight.” I would think it was like a lonleygirl15 hoax.
I have a feeling Amazigirl is a known local figure by now. Not a household word, but probably many people have heard the name, particularly after the last dad kidnapping event. And Becky’s tweets are probably highly followed and recognized for their style.
Locally, I expect so.
Nationally (and this is DEEEEEFINITELY making at least fifteen minutes’ worth of national news because “Congresswoman’s campaign manager Tweets Amber Alert for her own, SECOND kidnapping attempt by evil father, car chase between a mobster and the nearby campus superhero ensues” is one of those things that goes up on the “Didn’t have THAT on my 2020 bingo” threads, while also being the relatively feel-good story everyone can get behind,) AG is gonna get a LOT more attention all of a sudden.
As someone who has fallen out of the back of a speeding truck before . . . it’s actually not that bad. You’ll probably be fine, so long as there’s no tailing vehicle to run you down.
It’s still very scary, so totally get why they’re not doing it, but they’d probably be fine if they just jumped.