See yesterday’s comments re: Honda’s glass 5-speed automatic transmission.
I have owned two hondas, one with a manual and one with an automatic transmission. Both have been trouble-free transmission wise.
The late 90s to early 2000s 5-speed automatic wasn’t strong enough to hold up behind the J30 V6 for very long under moderate to heavy load. Second or third gear didn’t get enough fluid, so it got too hot and cooked the friction plates and surrounding housing. It was a problem in the Accord and especially the bigger, heavier Odyssey minivan.
They partially addressed this with a recall and additional oil injector, but the long term ‘fix’ was to dramatically reduce the transmission fluid change interval.
My family’s had three V6 Accords. Both early ones got the extra injector and frequent changes, and held up with extra care. The last was a later one that supposedly didn’t have the issue, but it came from one of Honda’s senioritis years and the engine wiring harness started falling apart when it was 11 years old.
The current Acura TLX with the 3.7 V6 and DCT is amazing, though.
But snow and sport bikes don’t mix! Hopefully she’ll figure something out. Maybe store it and get a dual-sport with studded knobby tires as a winter beater.
I’m pretty sure the grey car is eating one car every month. First the white car, now it’s eaten the brown car that was parked on the other side of the tree.
With today’s strip, I believe we have now officially spent more time on this single timeskip than has passed outside of timeskips in the entire rest of the comic to date.
And for dessert, consider the fact that there is a timeskip between panel of each strip, so that the amount of time spent in-comic is actually very very small.
If it actually did, though, the tagline would have to be changed. That 1st month took 10 years to tell, and by now almost every student character should not only have completed (or abandoned) their BA/BS, but likely also have finished any graduate or doctoral degrees they’d be likely to pursue.
Maybe wifey is an atheist or some non-Christian religion who refused to play nice (like a Jewish person who refused to ignore the Browns antisemitism or a Muslim girl and Islamophobia or something along those lines).
Dashing through the halls
We hope we won’t be late
Scrolling down we go
Laughing all the way
Alerts our cell phones ring
Type on screens so bright
What fun it is to laugh and post
This parody tonight!
Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh! what fun it is to stop
At Galasso’s today, hey
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh! what fun it is to stop
By Galasso’s today
In order to keep with the meter of the song, that means that the name ‘Galasso’ has to be pronounced something like ‘GAL-lass-so’. And all this time when I’ve been reading the name, the voice in my mind keeps pronouncing it as ‘gal-LASS-so’.
Winter brought with it the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground, while the skies filled with snow
And all that I ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air, glowing red
Silhouetting the snow on the breeze–Al Stewart
I tip my hat to you.
I found it on the ground outside Reid hall, it fits perfectly.
Well, I washed it first, on the ground makes that necessary.
Five second rule and all.
Yeah, Willis can’t do the floating timeframe with coronavirus, because it would interrupt his timeline, send everyone home, and also only last for, like, three weeks?
So it’s a 2020 without 2020’s defining characteristic, which mostly makes me wish I lived in DoA.
Tomorrow’s strip is likely to be “January”, right? But the strip will still be published in 2020…which means that our characters will be ‘ported right over to January 2020. They’ll have to experience the year all over again.
That would be in violation of the Geneva convention and the Universal declaration of human rights, art. 18: “No one shall be made to relive 2020, ever, not even Hitler after being captured by Chronoguards”.
Damn it, is anyone else frustrated waiting 24 hours for a new comic and it’s just this? And it’s been the past 3 days now. Argh. Give me some actual story.
Cars are mysteriously disappearing. Leaves are dying. (Present leaf excepted.) We still haven’t seen Blaine’s dead body. And yet, with all the drama, people are complaining.
So tomorrow will be January. The 10th will likely start with characters again, but will it be February or just late January, when they come back from winter break?
The first time the October strip loaded I said “what ye FUCK is this” quite loudly, though no one else was present. Like, these cannot have been drama free holidays.
Taking all bets! whose grown a beard or a goatee! Or at least will have profess to have grown one. I’m betting Danny or Wallky will profess to having grown a goatee but have only a few tuffs of hair.
While Joe will have grown a beard for winter.
I am all out of tears. Halloween has been left in the dust bin, and Willis streaks by even the gluttonous Jabba-The-Hutt holiday that consumes all people’s money and still makes them feel worthless. By January, I will be a blank slate, ready for Willis to draw whatever he wishes on me.
Bwoy, Joyce must have had an… INTERESTING… Thanksgiving dinner. The Thanksgiving dinner with extremely racist, horrible relatives is the constant that unites most Americans.
I am sad to have missed that. Lots of nice tension. And a chance to see Jocelyne again.
And where did Becky go for Thanksgiving? Or is the split between Hank and Carol more open and the good Browns had their own thing while Carol and John were alone?
Time sure is *flying*, huh? I wonder if Walky passed math.
After the timeskip: Walky dropped out of school, Amber can’t afford tuition, and Joe decided he needs some time away from campus (and is not enrolled, with intent to return to school in a later semester). Stacy has moved in with Richard, and the comic now revolves around the five of them and their pseudo-family antics!
And they all (except maybe Mike?) lived happily ever after. And we, the readers, were stuck watching the months change until the end of time Willis didn’t want to pay for the site anymore.
Maybe if it’s on a right-hand page? Or if we are going another month ahead (I suppose just skipping finals and jumping into the new semester makes sense), the next page could be a splash page?
I’d love to read the transcript of all the ‘phone calls Christmas Morning between the various charactersj,both those who were at home and those (for various reasons) who had decided to stay at the dorms over the break.
I think the idea id either either to convey Joyce got her wish and these ‘times’ are ‘uneducational’, and by extension rather mundane, or, to build suspense for the end of the sequence where everything during it is revealed to be an absolute clownshow, and we are getting an in medias res reveal of the key points over time.
There is a lot of stuff that seems pending, even if nothing else dramatic happens. Seems unlikely Joyce’s family stuff will stay stable through Thanksgiving and then an entire month at home over Christmas. We’re missing Joyce’s first meeting with Carol since the kidnapping – or her equally fraught refusal to come home.
Request for bonus strip: The “Exiles-only Year End Party” at Robin and Becky’s place. Other attendees: Joyce, Ruth, Howard, Sal, Marcie, Amber and Faz.
Opening page: the tree of No Leaves. Joyce is in the park with her baby, for play date with kid that Ethan and Danny adopted. Mike rolls up en chaise and waves at her.
Joyce says, “Oh, I had coffee with Carla, Sunday. She says your Rut’Frame will come off the assembly line this week for sure. She says it has two skins: (gestures up and down) Iron man and Business Suit.
(Mike nods)
She Said you’d really like it.
Mike nods.
Becky was over for J.J.’s birthday, she said the physics are killer good and the battery life will go a day and a half with out recharging.
Mike smiles.
Random middle aged woman walks past Mike’s wheelchair, shows a nickel and grins evilly, and then spits on the sidewalk in front of Mike. Drops the nickel in the spit and walks off.
Joyce shouts “Hey”. Belatedly throws a rock at her, but misses.
Two girls walk into a dorm room. AMARA is an African-American girl with hair in tied back rainbow dreadlocks. DAWN is a sad-looking thin blonde girl with brown eyes.
PANEL ONE
AMARA: “So, I guess we’re room-mates for the next year!”
PANEL TWO
AMARA: “Mama Dee and Mama Jay both told me stories about Reed Hall! It’s going to be so much fun! So, what’s your name?”
PANEL THREE
DAWN is silent, looking uncomfortable. AMARA is giving her a challenging raised-brown look.
AMARA: “Girl, are you okay?”
PANEL FOUR
DAWN (grimacing): “I… I don’t… Are… You have two mothers?!?”
PANEL FIVE
DAWN (suddenly clutching her face): “No! Sorry, sorry! That’s Mother talking and I’m trying so hard not to be like her!””
PANEL SIX
AMARA (Laughing): “Wow! That sounds like how Mama Dee say’s Mama Jay’s mother talked about them when they got together! The name’s Amara Keener!
I’m trying to figure out if this is to indicate a time skip or just how fast the leaves fall in Indianan? I went to college in Indiana so I remember the Winters there.
Wind chill of 35-40 below zero wind 40 kph, brutal, nasty and awful.
Oh, and cold Chill, chill to the bones, a chill that would leave you about April?
That college in Indiana?
I guess one consolation, if we aren’t seeing anything, it might mean that things are “normal” for the school and it’s students and nothing weird is happening or worth seeing.
Of course that also means that once we see things again, Shenanigans and Wacky nonsense will ensue, but that could also mean actual trouble.
Okay, well then. So much for my theory yesterday that it was meant to look like a big time skip when only a couple days from end of October to start of November had actually passed.
This is at least one whole month gone. And since that amount’s now in play, there’s no telling how much he might be willing to skip ahead to get to another major story beat.
As others have commented – Seems so strange for them to have such an eventful September and October to have such an un-noteworthy November + [however many other months] that they can just be glossed over and skipped entirely.
On the other hand, it will be hilarious seeing what I’m sure are going to be radical changes in some characters personalities, and Willis slowly teasing out/trolling with breadcrumbs as to how exactly they got there from where they were.
Who knows, maybe we skipped over like 8 Fast and Furious storylines, 14 breakups, a purely-platonic orgy and then a wedding that got broken off at the last minute
Next strip we flash back to the roof. Everyone is still there on the roof, exactly where we left them. No one says anything for two frames, then on the third frame someone says “We’ll, it’s been three months. Shouldn’t we be going back to class or something?”
Storyline then continues like there’s been no timeskip.
Do the placement of the cars mean something?? In November there was one less: someone left. Then December they are spread apart: the group isn’t close anymore.
Now it will be post exams… I guess this is a faster way to progress the stories though. Can’t be watching as they change after something like that. Just the end result.
I’m asking which hall/dorm This parking lot is for. Cause if this is the hospital and we’re seeing the hospital’s parking lot, we’ve all missed the point of the time skips.
If this is the arc focusing on Mike’s “I’m not dead, yet” Recovery, we’re missing the point/clues/info, mah peoples.
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has that left car moved at ALL
I guess we know who’s taking the lockdown SERIOUSLY
Will it still be there after it’s covered in snow and it melts!
Snow doesn’t melt cars, what are you talking about?
Clearly you haven’t seen the car I had as a student.
Your car might’ve been a Wicked Witch, dude.
Haven’t you ever heard of adobe motors?
oh you’re one of those car truthers are you
The Bluesmobile was a controlled demolition! I have all the proof!
You got set photos!?
I have the sense that the tires oughta be going flattish by now
See yesterday’s comments re: Honda’s glass 5-speed automatic transmission.
See yesterday’s comments re: Honda’s glass 5-speed automatic transmission.
I have owned two hondas, one with a manual and one with an automatic transmission. Both have been trouble-free transmission wise.
The late 90s to early 2000s 5-speed automatic wasn’t strong enough to hold up behind the J30 V6 for very long under moderate to heavy load. Second or third gear didn’t get enough fluid, so it got too hot and cooked the friction plates and surrounding housing. It was a problem in the Accord and especially the bigger, heavier Odyssey minivan.
They partially addressed this with a recall and additional oil injector, but the long term ‘fix’ was to dramatically reduce the transmission fluid change interval.
My family’s had three V6 Accords. Both early ones got the extra injector and frequent changes, and held up with extra care. The last was a later one that supposedly didn’t have the issue, but it came from one of Honda’s senioritis years and the engine wiring harness started falling apart when it was 11 years old.
The current Acura TLX with the 3.7 V6 and DCT is amazing, though.
It’s Mike’s car.
The dark grey car on the right has managed to escape the shot entirely. Good on it!
Hey, if you get the closest parking spot to the door, you do NOT let that go easily.
…is it going to reveal there’s a motorcycle parked in the space in front of the leftmost car
The neighbours pull that shit here and I hate it
Okay, but YAY Snow!
We’re all aging a month everyday! AAAAAAAH!
All the time the characters didn’t age due to time movie so slow is catching up at once.
Eventually this will average out to the comic is running in real time
So… no change since I turned 30, then.
[glances around at 2020]
Yes. Yes, we are.
Take your pretend +1 upvote.
It has been a long decade…
I look forward to see Sal looking cool in winter gear.
But snow and sport bikes don’t mix! Hopefully she’ll figure something out. Maybe store it and get a dual-sport with studded knobby tires as a winter beater.
All I want for Christmas is Hank getting a divorce…
The cars keep disappearing. Something’s definitely up.
People just can’t pay the parking cost because they had to increase it ten fold after Linda sued the college?
She now owns the university. Welcome to Lindiana U.
Surely you mean “Lindiana Me”?
Linda. Spelled k-a-r-e-n.
Winter break; only those resident at the university will still be using the parking lot.
I’m pretty sure the grey car is eating one car every month. First the white car, now it’s eaten the brown car that was parked on the other side of the tree.
whoa, new color scheme for the new decade
With today’s strip, I believe we have now officially spent more time on this single timeskip than has passed outside of timeskips in the entire rest of the comic to date.
Thought for food.
And for dessert, consider the fact that there is a timeskip between panel of each strip, so that the amount of time spent in-comic is actually very very small.
I heard it was Work for Food….
We’ll hit the 10-year anniversary this week. One week of the comic taking longer than nearly a full decade prior.
Reminds me of when El Goonish Shive spent weeks of updates on a 5-second period, and then did a 6-month timeskip in one update.
So that’s, uh … one way to get these kids through the first semester 😛
Oh so this is REALLY a time-skip then.
The comic is trying it’s best to catch up with the rest of us.
If it actually did, though, the tagline would have to be changed. That 1st month took 10 years to tell, and by now almost every student character should not only have completed (or abandoned) their BA/BS, but likely also have finished any graduate or doctoral degrees they’d be likely to pursue.
Carol got run over by a reindeer!
I hope Carol got run over by a divorce lawyer.
Take my invisible like.
The reindeer was a divorce lawyer. You know, like that elf who was a dentist.
You have to be a grandma for that! Them’s the rules!
And that won’t happen for at least another seven months.
At best, Jordan might be a father and she has no access to his kids so it’s irrelevant.
My new fanon is that The Jordan Incident was that he knocked up a good Christian girl and then refused to marry her.
(Alternatively, he knocked up some very unsuitable girl and *did* marry her.)
Maybe wifey is an atheist or some non-Christian religion who refused to play nice (like a Jewish person who refused to ignore the Browns antisemitism or a Muslim girl and Islamophobia or something along those lines).
Maybe she’s a *gasp* Catholic!
Jingle bells, jingle bells…
Too early to say it? Okay, I’ll stop.
Dashing through the halls
We hope we won’t be late
Scrolling down we go
Laughing all the way
Alerts our cell phones ring
Type on screens so bright
What fun it is to laugh and post
This parody tonight!
Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh! what fun it is to stop
At Galasso’s today, hey
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh! what fun it is to stop
By Galasso’s today
In order to keep with the meter of the song, that means that the name ‘Galasso’ has to be pronounced something like ‘GAL-lass-so’. And all this time when I’ve been reading the name, the voice in my mind keeps pronouncing it as ‘gal-LASS-so’.
Pizzas! (And subs)!
Winter brought with it the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground, while the skies filled with snow
And all that I ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air, glowing red
Silhouetting the snow on the breeze–Al Stewart
Nnnnooooo!!!!
Brown Car! You’re gone!
Our time was too short.
Escape is not his plan.
I must face him, alone.
Which car will survive the purge? Find out tomorrow!
Should be obvious, there’s only one car that hasn’t moved at all. I wonder whether it was owned by one of the dead guys.
I’m betting the grey car will be the last one there, but I could be wrong.
Why does DoA get to be done with 2020 but we aren’t.
You mean 2010.
No, 2020. DOA always takes place THIS year.
Then, logically, tomorrow will ALSO be 2020.
October Sunday’s comic
November Monday’s comic
December Today’s comic
tomorrow’s comic. January 2021
But DOA is always in This year.
Today’s comic today – December 2020
Tomorrow’s comic today – January 2021
Today’s comic tomorrow – December 2019
Tomorrow’s comic tomorrow – January 2020
Let’s Do the Time Warp Again.
I tip my hat to you.
I found it on the ground outside Reid hall, it fits perfectly.
Well, I washed it first, on the ground makes that necessary.
Five second rule and all.
Because DoA never reeeeeally engaged with 2020. That’s the beauty of the floating comic timeframe.
Yeah, Willis can’t do the floating timeframe with coronavirus, because it would interrupt his timeline, send everyone home, and also only last for, like, three weeks?
So it’s a 2020 without 2020’s defining characteristic, which mostly makes me wish I lived in DoA.
No, no, that’s the horror of it, see
Tomorrow’s strip is likely to be “January”, right? But the strip will still be published in 2020…which means that our characters will be ‘ported right over to January 2020. They’ll have to experience the year all over again.
Oh you beat me to it.
**The horror.**
That would be in violation of the Geneva convention and the Universal declaration of human rights, art. 18: “No one shall be made to relive 2020, ever, not even Hitler after being captured by Chronoguards”.
I dunno. Things actually still seemed OK back in January. If Willis keeps the comic there long enough, they could escape the suffering altogether.
Wasn’t like half the internet panicking about WWIII back in January?
(sure, it wasn’t particularly well-grounded panic, but still)
Nevermind the Australian wildfires which were still going on then…
2020 started with WW3 memes, yes. I distinctly remember waking up to some scary memes in early January XD
Holy shit, Willis.
Oh
oh it’s the same cars but there’s less of them every month
oh no people leaving
Now we’ve gone too far. Damn you Willis, what are you planning?!?
No matter how interesting the life, most of it is still boring to an outsider.
Damn it, is anyone else frustrated waiting 24 hours for a new comic and it’s just this? And it’s been the past 3 days now. Argh. Give me some actual story.
How could you say something so controversial yet so brave
Cars are mysteriously disappearing. Leaves are dying. (Present leaf excepted.) We still haven’t seen Blaine’s dead body. And yet, with all the drama, people are complaining.
September 10th is the 10th anniversary of this webcomic. I’m certain that until then, you’re gonna see this. So maybe don’t check back until then.
So tomorrow will be January. The 10th will likely start with characters again, but will it be February or just late January, when they come back from winter break?
If you were a patron, you’d be an entire month ahead.
You haven’t noticed the building tension as the cars disappear one by one,,
An interesting storytelling device to be sure.
And pretty sassy to do in a webcomic. I can respect it.
The first time the October strip loaded I said “what ye FUCK is this” quite loudly, though no one else was present. Like, these cannot have been drama free holidays.
Taking all bets! whose grown a beard or a goatee! Or at least will have profess to have grown one. I’m betting Danny or Wallky will profess to having grown a goatee but have only a few tuffs of hair.
While Joe will have grown a beard for winter.
Hat guy will be gone, but at what cost.
About 20£ from Kangol.
Joyce will have grown a goatee.
Joe will appear to have grown a beard, but in reality will have been replaced by Richard.
Will her toenail be back?
Everyone, because we are now in the Evil Parallel Universe version of DoA.
Dorothy is a religious fanatic working to convert atheist Joyce.
Roz and Joe loudly promote the Anti-Sex League.
Walky is a dumb workaholic student. Sal is a moralistic prig reporting people for pirating music.
Marcie never stops chattering.
Danny is Mr. Cool.
etc.
oh damn
…awwe, we’re missing fun holiday shenanigans.
Yes, but a month of Halloween costumes would have been fanservice, and DYW feeds on our tears, not our joy.
If you don’t think DYW can turn Halloween costume fanservice into tragedy, I don’t know what comic you’ve been reading.
Not on Slipshine
Halloween comics for Patreon or bust!
I am all out of tears. Halloween has been left in the dust bin, and Willis streaks by even the gluttonous Jabba-The-Hutt holiday that consumes all people’s money and still makes them feel worthless. By January, I will be a blank slate, ready for Willis to draw whatever he wishes on me.
is this because we’re gonna see people go home for Christmas break?
I think JessWitt was right and the comic is going to pick up again in February on the comic’s anniversary.
I *love* drawing branches. I find it soothing.
Bwoy, Joyce must have had an… INTERESTING… Thanksgiving dinner. The Thanksgiving dinner with extremely racist, horrible relatives is the constant that unites most Americans.
Seen on a T-shirt: “Racism is so American, when you protest it, people think you’re protesting America.”
Real problem is: how can you protest geography? I mean beside protesting at Vautrin-Lud’s country house with a few torches, how would you do?
IKR? I was thinking Thanksgiving would be a huge meltdown between Joyce and Carol.
I’m really hoping we see it in flashbacks.
Or maybe flashbacks showing that Thanksgiving went fine despite Joyce’s worries. As is we’ve got no idea whether things have gotten better or worse.
I am sad to have missed that. Lots of nice tension. And a chance to see Jocelyne again.
And where did Becky go for Thanksgiving? Or is the split between Hank and Carol more open and the good Browns had their own thing while Carol and John were alone?
Time sure is *flying*, huh? I wonder if Walky passed math.
After the timeskip: Walky dropped out of school, Amber can’t afford tuition, and Joe decided he needs some time away from campus (and is not enrolled, with intent to return to school in a later semester). Stacy has moved in with Richard, and the comic now revolves around the five of them and their pseudo-family antics!
Who is the wacky neighbor then?
Becky.
Robin. Who in theory is looking for work.
Okay. Robin on one side. Becky and Dana on the other. Mike is the landlord.
Ok Willis, time to double down.
Next comic: 20X1
Nah, we’re probably just switching the comic from being set “in the last quarter of This Year” over to “in the first quarter of This Year” tomorrow
Whoosh
Can’t wait for tomorrow’s comic
And they all (except maybe Mike?) lived happily ever after. And we, the readers, were stuck watching the months change until
the end of timeWillis didn’t want to pay for the site anymore.Bleak.
Okay, that beige car probably needs to be towed. $100 USD says there narcotics or a corpes in it.
January arrives. In the next strip the trunk opens, Blaine looks around cautiously, and then crawls out.
I laughed out loud.
That or the person who owns it is really determined to always get that particular parking space.
“I hate drawing branches!”
You… You don’t draw them first then the leaves on top?
Becky can no longer hide in the tree
That’s okay. Her girlfriend can.
As you will see when she finally moves.
I wonder why she wasn’t tagged. Maybe Willis missed seeing her and forgot.
Time is past.
It was.
Okay, so…. if this is in the book, I’m assuming it’s not just going to be one page.
I think we’re getting a full 6 month time skip.
Like from we’re going to be in March at the end of this.
But Willis promised us winter, and winter’s all we’ve seen in the preview panels
(plus, by March the weather is generally no longer freezing in Bloomington, averaging about six degrees Celsius above)
A time skip that long would also probably mean we’d eventually get leaves back. Willis has said that’s probably not gonna happen.
Maybe if it’s on a right-hand page? Or if we are going another month ahead (I suppose just skipping finals and jumping into the new semester makes sense), the next page could be a splash page?
Less of a splash page and more of a frozen icycle page.
At this rate we might actually see sophomore year before the 22nd century.
Kinda hoping that two years are gonna pass thusly
then 2020 started and we had 12 more months of this XD
I am SO disappointed. I was really looking forward to the Browns’ Thanksgiving fraught
Maybe we’re timeskipping all the way to the NEXT fall ?
It’s just going to be the months until graduation from now right?
The brown car on the far right doesn’t seem to have moved either!
The white van and the grey van aren’t always parked in the picture; but when they are, they’re each parked in the same spaces each time!
“Hey, I paid for that parking space and I’m going to use it!”
No, alt-text, you fool, now the trees will never have leaves!!
What did leave however is the brown car that left too soon since the blue car got suspicious<abbr title="Ah, the only time of sanity. On to January?".
YOU WHAT
I’d love to read the transcript of all the ‘phone calls Christmas Morning between the various charactersj,both those who were at home and those (for various reasons) who had decided to stay at the dorms over the break.
i don’t like this
it’s giving me the anxious feeling i get when i miss updates for awhile and have to make myself catch up, but i’ve been here every day
what have i missed, these kids go through so much every day and now we’re missing weeks at a time and they’ll all be totally different people aaaaa
I think the idea id either either to convey Joyce got her wish and these ‘times’ are ‘uneducational’, and by extension rather mundane, or, to build suspense for the end of the sequence where everything during it is revealed to be an absolute clownshow, and we are getting an in medias res reveal of the key points over time.
There is a lot of stuff that seems pending, even if nothing else dramatic happens. Seems unlikely Joyce’s family stuff will stay stable through Thanksgiving and then an entire month at home over Christmas. We’re missing Joyce’s first meeting with Carol since the kidnapping – or her equally fraught refusal to come home.
And Willis has taken up Bob Ross landscape painting on Youtube.
“Now for some little trees!”
Next strip, the cars will be on fire and the doors will be painted with “STAY OUT | DEAD INSIDE”.
So, will we be reunited with our loved ones once Christmas break is over?
Maybe it won’t take 80 years for them to graduate after all.
Responding seriously, my gut feeling is that DoA will be the freshman year only and then an epilogue book set at graduation.
Willis has always said it’d be freshman year only.
The flashbacks are going to be wild
SAL: “Y’know, Polyanna, I’m still trying to work out how you ended up getting Roz’s sister’s old job! I mean, you’re barely nineteen!”
Request for bonus strip: The “Exiles-only Year End Party” at Robin and Becky’s place. Other attendees: Joyce, Ruth, Howard, Sal, Marcie, Amber and Faz.
Twist: by January, then entire cast has crashed out of college. Time for DoA: The Next Generation.
Opening page: the tree of No Leaves. Joyce is in the park with her baby, for play date with kid that Ethan and Danny adopted. Mike rolls up en chaise and waves at her.
Joyce says, “Oh, I had coffee with Carla, Sunday. She says your Rut’Frame will come off the assembly line this week for sure. She says it has two skins: (gestures up and down) Iron man and Business Suit.
(Mike nods)
She Said you’d really like it.
Mike nods.
Becky was over for J.J.’s birthday, she said the physics are killer good and the battery life will go a day and a half with out recharging.
Mike smiles.
Random middle aged woman walks past Mike’s wheelchair, shows a nickel and grins evilly, and then spits on the sidewalk in front of Mike. Drops the nickel in the spit and walks off.
Joyce shouts “Hey”. Belatedly throws a rock at her, but misses.
Two girls walk into a dorm room. AMARA is an African-American girl with hair in tied back rainbow dreadlocks. DAWN is a sad-looking thin blonde girl with brown eyes.
PANEL ONE
AMARA: “So, I guess we’re room-mates for the next year!”
PANEL TWO
AMARA: “Mama Dee and Mama Jay both told me stories about Reed Hall! It’s going to be so much fun! So, what’s your name?”
PANEL THREE
DAWN is silent, looking uncomfortable. AMARA is giving her a challenging raised-brown look.
AMARA: “Girl, are you okay?”
PANEL FOUR
DAWN (grimacing): “I… I don’t… Are… You have two mothers?!?”
PANEL FIVE
DAWN (suddenly clutching her face): “No! Sorry, sorry! That’s Mother talking and I’m trying so hard not to be like her!””
PANEL SIX
AMARA (Laughing): “Wow! That sounds like how Mama Dee say’s Mama Jay’s mother talked about them when they got together! The name’s Amara Keener!
DAWN: “I’m… Dawn. Dawn Bradford.”
^… I love both of these scenarios.
It’s gonna be a long December, and there’s no reason to believe that the pace is gonna be faster than the last.
I’m trying to figure out if this is to indicate a time skip or just how fast the leaves fall in Indianan? I went to college in Indiana so I remember the Winters there.
Never mind, just noticed the words November and December.
Wind chill of 35-40 below zero wind 40 kph, brutal, nasty and awful.
Oh, and cold Chill, chill to the bones, a chill that would leave you about April?
That college in Indiana?
No, that’s the college in Minnesota.
It’s like the old Zork / Infocom games.
Time passes…
Time passes…
Time passes…
Oooooow, a jeweled egg, help I’ve been eaten by a grue.
Say “Hello Sailor”
The comic is just going to be pictures of this parking lot from now on.
So much for not skipping Halloween.
I guess one consolation, if we aren’t seeing anything, it might mean that things are “normal” for the school and it’s students and nothing weird is happening or worth seeing.
Of course that also means that once we see things again, Shenanigans and Wacky nonsense will ensue, but that could also mean actual trouble.
Okay, well then. So much for my theory yesterday that it was meant to look like a big time skip when only a couple days from end of October to start of November had actually passed.
This is at least one whole month gone. And since that amount’s now in play, there’s no telling how much he might be willing to skip ahead to get to another major story beat.
As others have commented – Seems so strange for them to have such an eventful September and October to have such an un-noteworthy November + [however many other months] that they can just be glossed over and skipped entirely.
On the other hand, it will be hilarious seeing what I’m sure are going to be radical changes in some characters personalities, and Willis slowly teasing out/trolling with breadcrumbs as to how exactly they got there from where they were.
Who knows, maybe we skipped over like 8 Fast and Furious storylines, 14 breakups, a purely-platonic orgy and then a wedding that got broken off at the last minute
plus at least one late period/pregnancy scare.
Danny has a new hat.
lol this is the strip now. Just a rotating month placeholder.
Next strip we flash back to the roof. Everyone is still there on the roof, exactly where we left them. No one says anything for two frames, then on the third frame someone says “We’ll, it’s been three months. Shouldn’t we be going back to class or something?”
Storyline then continues like there’s been no timeskip.
Do the placement of the cars mean something?? In November there was one less: someone left. Then December they are spread apart: the group isn’t close anymore.
Y’know maybe he’s just gonna skip right on ahead to NEXT year’s halloween costumes
Aw, would’ve loved to see IU in the snow.
Bright side is some of the cast skipped awkward holidays with their families.
Well, if the comic stops in January or February, there will hopefully still be snowy days.
oh nooo the other car died /o\
No, it just realized that the cold and distant beige car would never return its feelings, so it has moved on.
Now it will be post exams… I guess this is a faster way to progress the stories though. Can’t be watching as they change after something like that. Just the end result.
It’s OK, Willis. Next comic will be January, and all the branches will be covered in happy snow. Nice, easy-to-draw snow…
Next week: Oh my goodness, Frog! Is it really Spring already? I guess the calendar says it, it must be so!
And here I thought this comic was going to run for the rest of my life, possibly even outlasting the creator with a buffer lasting several more years.
Flurries.
Maybe it’ll stick in January?
I’m asking which hall/dorm This parking lot is for. Cause if this is the hospital and we’re seeing the hospital’s parking lot, we’ve all missed the point of the time skips.
If this is the arc focusing on Mike’s “I’m not dead, yet” Recovery, we’re missing the point/clues/info, mah peoples.
I think it’s the round driveway on the south side of Read Hall.
Hopefully this link takes you to Street View at approximately where the comic’s “camera” is.
Yeah, those steps are the ones Amber gutted Ryan on.
It probably is, though there are some differences.
So. I’ll be honest. I’m confused. Did Willis say we are doings a literal MONTHS time skip or is this just a little artistic interlude?
*taps the sign*
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/blog/not-a-metaphor/
I assume the “time passes” month comics will seamlessly segue into that panel?
They are the same cars.
Wow, you posted that over a year ago….
i plan ahead
*flails out of chair*
Did not expect the man himself to answer 0_O
Awsome
We were told that the preceding arc culminating in the kidnapping and its aftermath was meant to be taken as a “season finale” for DoA.
DoA Season 2: All You Need is Flashbacks
Every time I see the title abbreviated I think it means dead on arrival. Maybe I need to think less morbid thoughts.
So, do I gather this is now a monthly comic?
BADUM, TSH!