Dumbing of Age Book Eleven

Dumbing of Age

A college webcomic by David Willis
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yay my children are adults, time to finally have adult conversations with the-- aw dang
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BUFFER WATCH Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:

September 20, 2023

Evolving

by David M Willis on August 22, 2020 at 12:01 am
  • 04 - Is a Song Forever?

└ Tags: becky, hank, joyce

Discussion (196) ¬

[ Comments RSS ]
  1. Ana Chronistic
    Ana Chronistic
    August 22, 2020 at 12:03 am | #

    WOW that went some places

    At least it’s not an ADULT conversation ifyouknowhutimean I guess???

    • LiterallyJustSomeGuy
      LiterallyJustSomeGuy
      August 22, 2020 at 12:15 am | #

      “What’s your favorite thing to shout as your partner approaches their zenith? What I like to do is–“

      • a/snow/mous/e
        a/snow/mous/e
        August 22, 2020 at 12:24 am | #

        oh god xD

        • clif
          clif
          August 22, 2020 at 2:54 am | #

          Great Caesar’s Ghost!

    • butts
      butts
      August 22, 2020 at 12:15 am | #

      you mean like the one about the bear with the great tits?

      • clif
        clif
        August 22, 2020 at 1:51 am | #

        Is that similar to the beer with the bear tits?

      • Ana Chronistic
        Ana Chronistic
        August 22, 2020 at 4:06 am | #

        And remember how fast Sarah wanted to change the subject!

  2. Chris
    Chris
    August 22, 2020 at 12:04 am | #

    It was almost an adult discussion. Then it became a college discussion.

    • clif
      clif
      August 22, 2020 at 1:47 am | #

      I don’t know. Joyce’s logic sounds impeccable to me.

      • Ray Radlein
        Ray Radlein
        August 22, 2020 at 5:56 am | #

        Certainly there were Crusaders who employed similar logic from time to time

        • Felix
          Felix
          August 22, 2020 at 7:03 am | #

          Crusaders? Do you mean the Inquisition?

          • John Lennerton
            John Lennerton
            August 22, 2020 at 8:47 am | #

            Nobody expects the Inquisition!

            • HoneyThistle
              HoneyThistle
              August 22, 2020 at 1:46 pm | #

              ….shadows fall…and hope has fled…

            • Roborat
              Roborat
              August 24, 2020 at 3:33 pm | #

              What were their weapons again?

  3. Rob S
    Rob S
    August 22, 2020 at 12:08 am | #

    No, Joyce, no! Don’t go there!

    • abysswatcher1993
      abysswatcher1993
      August 22, 2020 at 12:27 am | #

      Joyce just abandoned rleigious fundamentalism and became a social darwinist. She will then appear dressed as Tanya Degurechaff and shoot people that don’t follow her capitalist ideals.

      • NinjaMaid
        NinjaMaid
        August 22, 2020 at 7:21 am | #

        Nah, because if you kill people when they’re at their best then that’s their best chance to get into heaven. Sure you’ll be sinning by committing murder but it’s a martyrdom. In the eternal view, you’d be doing them a favour by keeping them out of hell.

        • thejeff
          thejeff
          August 22, 2020 at 8:41 am | #

          Baptise babies to cleanse them of sin and then murder them to prevent them from sinning themselves. It’s the perfect system.

          Makes for a short lived religion though.

          • StClair
            StClair
            August 22, 2020 at 1:02 pm | #

            A lot of religions – those that last and grow enough to be called that, rather than “cults” – have very specific prohibitions to keep people from taking their other beliefs to the logical conclusion(s). Otherwise, like the aforementioned cults or critters with lethal mutations, they’d die out within a generation.

    • Deanatay
      Deanatay
      August 22, 2020 at 9:23 am | #

      Becky and Joyce drop out of college to create the city in Logan’s Run.

      • Roborat
        Roborat
        August 24, 2020 at 3:36 pm | #

        Yea, but they only did it so they could shout “renew” and zap people with lasers.

  4. Dave
    Dave
    August 22, 2020 at 12:09 am | #

    Countdown to Joyce having a mental shock moment over her father using the word “evolving”

    Probably not NOW but when she’s reflecting on this later

    • butts
      butts
      August 22, 2020 at 12:16 am | #

      …i’m pretty sure fundies know that the word has other meanings?

    • Rectilinear Propagation
      Rectilinear Propagation
      August 22, 2020 at 12:17 am | #

      I think the Pokemon comment means she doesn’t have a problem with the word “evolving” when it just means change in general.

      • SuperZero
        SuperZero
        August 22, 2020 at 2:33 am | #

        Except Pokemon is apparently bad evolution. I.. have no idea what that means.

        • Khyrin
          Khyrin
          August 22, 2020 at 6:58 am | #

          keeping it short: When the phenotype(observable characteristics) of a creature’s species changes over many, many years? that’s Evolution.
          When a SPECIFC creature’s phenotype changes in the course of that individual’s lifetime that’s metamorphosis.

          • Kamino Neko
            Kamino Neko
            August 22, 2020 at 5:28 pm | #

            No, that’s why people who understand science think Pokemon’s ‘evolution’ is wrong.

            Evangelicals think it’s wrong because it’s one type of creature changing into another. Like actual evolution, just on the wrong time scale, but either one is bad to the science deniers.

          • GreyICE
            GreyICE
            August 22, 2020 at 5:50 pm | #

            What if every time a Pokemon evolves, it actually dies and is replaced by its offspring? They only think it’s the old Pokemon, but actually it’s a child, and the old Pokemon died. So trainers are shortening their Pokemon’s lives in a desperate attempt to gain martial power, and their Pokemon comply out of love for their trainers, even though they know they’re racing towards their own death.

            Then it’d be evolution!

            • SuperZero
              SuperZero
              August 24, 2020 at 12:16 am | #

              That was essentially canon in the cartoon, at least briefly. Jessie and James were trying to evolve their Ekans and Koffing so they could keep up with the protagonists, but Meowth did some research on evolution and read that bit out loud to them while they all looked increasingly horrified.

              In tears, they promised Ekans and Koffing they’d never try to get them to evolve again. Then they were happy, so they evolved. And nobody ever mentioned it again, as far as I know.

              • Roborat
                Roborat
                August 24, 2020 at 3:38 pm | #

                I always thought the Nurse Joy clones were creepy.

          • Needfuldoer
            Needfuldoer
            August 22, 2020 at 8:24 pm | #

            Following the “individual Pokemon go through metamorphosis” model, and having never played the games, I will just assume they liquefy themselves inside of the Pokeballs, like caterpillars inside a chrysalis.

        • Devin
          Devin
          August 22, 2020 at 12:16 pm | #

          Maybe I’ve been playing Pokemon for too long, but some evolutions are…not improvements. Of course that’s probably not what Joyce actually meant, but it’s what registered in my mind first, because that’s my context.

          • SuperZero
            SuperZero
            August 24, 2020 at 12:17 am | #

            Don’t all evolutions cause stat boosts?

    • Monarch Bee
      Monarch Bee
      August 22, 2020 at 4:38 pm | #

      Most fundies almost by necessity acknowledge some evolution exists – it’s just typically phrased as “microevolution,” evolution that doesn’t “cross the boundaries between species” (whatever that means). This is contrasted with “macroevolution,” which is generally described as something like “atheists think turn fish into monkeys.”

      • Needfuldoer
        Needfuldoer
        August 22, 2020 at 7:57 pm | #

        It’s a very simplistic view of how the world works. They’d probably tell you cross-breeding different strains of apples to produce new kinds of apples, or breeding only the wooliest sheep in a herd to make generations of even woolier sheep “makes sense” because “they’re still apples and sheep”. One thing drastically evolving into something completely different by gradual change over an immense amount of time time isn’t something they can personally observe, therefore it can’t happen.

      • SuperZero
        SuperZero
        August 24, 2020 at 12:19 am | #

        Okay, but why does that make pokemon evolution–which has nothing to do with either–bad?

        (Also, that came up in the comic before, when Dina was confused that Joyce acknowledged evolution by getting an annual flu shot.)

        • Needfuldoer
          Needfuldoer
          August 25, 2020 at 6:01 am | #

          Maybe it’s the drastic change the Pokemon go through when they evolve?

          Maybe it’s because someone they trust said it’s bad, therefore it must be bad? (Trotting out good old doublethink in the process.)

  5. Sirksome
    Sirksome
    August 22, 2020 at 12:09 am | #

    It’s still a pretty adult conversation to me.

  6. Reltzik
    Reltzik
    August 22, 2020 at 12:10 am | #

    Nah, this is a college-age discussion. Equal parts philosophy and irreverent bullshitting.

    • DSL
      DSL
      August 22, 2020 at 1:06 am | #

      Yes — as the participants age away from the college years, the philosophy diminishes.

      • clif
        clif
        August 22, 2020 at 2:44 am | #

        I cannot argue with this.

      • Agemegos
        Agemegos
        August 22, 2020 at 6:44 am | #

        Too true to be funny.

        When people reach their conversational nadir the irrelevant bullshitting is all about their grandchildren. Bozhe moi!

      • BigDogLittleCat
        BigDogLittleCat
        August 22, 2020 at 11:40 am | #

        Upvote!

  7. LiterallyJustSomeGuy
    LiterallyJustSomeGuy
    August 22, 2020 at 12:11 am | #

    Last-panel Joyce is SO CREEPY!

    Great job, Willis! Keep up the good work!

    • mrnoidea
      mrnoidea
      August 22, 2020 at 12:23 am | #

      Someone totally needs to make that face their profile pic.

      Not me, though. I like my angry deer pic.

      • Kensou
        Kensou
        August 22, 2020 at 1:34 am | #

        I’d trade in my Jason icon for that Joyce, honestly.

        • clif
          clif
          August 22, 2020 at 2:52 am | #

          Hey, I just enjoy the way Hank is looking back at us as he makes his comment in the last panel.

  8. Kyrik Michalowski
    Kyrik Michalowski
    August 22, 2020 at 12:11 am | #

    I started to say that Joyce clearly has issues, what with her sudden desire to murder people. But then it occurred to me that flinging stones inside my glass abode would be unwise.

    Also Hank you should just be happy the conversation was adult for any length of time, I know people who seemingly can’t have an adult conversation without dying.

    • Robbie
      Robbie
      August 22, 2020 at 12:16 am | #

      Like Mike, possibly.

    • drs
      drs
      August 22, 2020 at 1:16 am | #

      Remember the Anti-Joyce.

  9. BBCC
    BBCC
    August 22, 2020 at 12:11 am | #

    I can see no possible downside with this plan, and I unreservedly endorse it.

    • Kyrik Michalowski
      Kyrik Michalowski
      August 22, 2020 at 12:22 am | #

      What is the worst that could happen, right?

    • abysswatcher1993
      abysswatcher1993
      August 22, 2020 at 12:43 am | #

      There’s a problem: you can only punish people after they commit a crime, or when they are going to commit a crime. Killing them before they become evil would make you evil.

      • Some1
        Some1
        August 22, 2020 at 12:51 am | #

        You could kill literally everyone and everything in the universe (including yourself) and leave it as an empty husk. Neither good nor evil. But that’s kinda a wash.

        • clif
          clif
          August 22, 2020 at 2:32 am | #

          You are going to have to explain to me why killing everyone is a wash. There seem to be some assumptions there that I’m not following.

        • SuperZero
          SuperZero
          August 22, 2020 at 2:36 am | #

          That sounds less like “could” and “neither good nor evil” and more like “theoretical most evil possible.”

      • SuperZero
        SuperZero
        August 22, 2020 at 2:35 am | #

        Killing people after they commit a crime is murder. Killing people before they commit a crime is often self-defense.
        So, uh, no.

        • Agemegos
          Agemegos
          August 22, 2020 at 6:30 am | #

          Nice logic!

          • SuperZero
            SuperZero
            August 24, 2020 at 12:20 am | #

            Killing people after they commit a crime can also be “execution,” but that has many other requirements as well.

      • BBCC
        BBCC
        August 22, 2020 at 3:39 am | #

        I mean, sure, if you wanna be all realistic and logical about it.

        Party pooper. 😛

    • Bogeywoman
      Bogeywoman
      August 22, 2020 at 1:41 am | #

      Downside: the plan succeeds, you can pinpoint the exact moment people are at their best selves and start the process of murder, then find your own zenith was the moment before you thought of the plan

      • BBCC
        BBCC
        August 22, 2020 at 2:48 am | #

        That’s only a downside if you’re insufficiently committed. 😛

  10. Kernanator
    Kernanator
    August 22, 2020 at 12:13 am | #

    Having adult conversations uses up too much battery for you to maintain for long.

  11. HeinousActsZX
    HeinousActsZX
    August 22, 2020 at 12:13 am | #

    They actually did have a pokemon song about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3ykA1ZUC1Y

    • Rectilinear Propagation
      Rectilinear Propagation
      August 22, 2020 at 12:18 am | #

      Huh. I was honestly expecting to be rick rolled.

      • Cass
        Cass
        August 22, 2020 at 12:45 am | #

        I thought it was going to be a song about murdering people who’ve hit their peak, and was really looking forward to hearing how a song from Pokemon could be interpreted that way.

  12. timemonkey
    timemonkey
    August 22, 2020 at 12:15 am | #

    It’s funny because Blaine was just murdered

    • clif
      clif
      August 22, 2020 at 2:34 am | #

      It’s fair to say he had reached his zenith.

      • Needfuldoer
        Needfuldoer
        August 22, 2020 at 8:29 pm | #

        He was incapacitated in a hospital bed, unable to harm anyone but himself.

        That was the best he could do.

        • Roborat
          Roborat
          August 24, 2020 at 3:41 pm | #

          Well, as long as it wasn’t the least he could do, because that would make it a completely different comic.

    • Dara
      Dara
      August 22, 2020 at 2:45 am | #

      And Toedad! Double trouble takedown achieved, after all.

  13. Harvey Janus
    Harvey Janus
    August 22, 2020 at 12:15 am | #

    Oh god Joyce why.

    • abysswatcher1993
      abysswatcher1993
      August 22, 2020 at 12:25 am | #

      Because Willis wants Joyce to have jerkass attributes in every iteration of his stories.

      • Harvey Janus
        Harvey Janus
        August 22, 2020 at 1:16 am | #

        …I mean my comment was a facetious statement, but go off I guess.

        She’s not seriously suggesting murdering people, she’s clearly having a bit of breakdown from the dozen or so traumatic events of the past couple days.

        • clif
          clif
          August 22, 2020 at 2:36 am | #

          But see, if you murder them at their zenith, they’ll go out as their best selves.

  14. OniLink
    OniLink
    August 22, 2020 at 12:18 am | #

    Cut them some slack, Hank. They’re 18 and just had two, probably three deaths dropped on them. It’s probably a coping mechanism, and they are making very good observations either way.

    • Jamie
      Jamie
      August 22, 2020 at 2:51 pm | #

      Hank’s fine. Read the comments section.

  15. JessWitt
    JessWitt
    August 22, 2020 at 12:20 am | #

    So Joyce and Becky came up with precogs from the short story, “The Minority Report”.

    • Deanatay
      Deanatay
      August 22, 2020 at 9:28 am | #

      I was thinking they came up with Carousel from Logan’s Run, but your idea works, too.

  16. JetstreamGW
    JetstreamGW
    August 22, 2020 at 12:23 am | #

    That escalated.

  17. Miri
    Miri
    August 22, 2020 at 12:24 am | #

    Book the next: A safe an’ cozy plateau of jackassery

  18. abysswatcher1993
    abysswatcher1993
    August 22, 2020 at 12:24 am | #

    Joyce, that is a fallacy like the one in Logan’s Run. You can’t rob people’s lives just because they could grow into old incompetent people. People become good or evil over time depending on their choices, mental growth and circumstances. Killing people when they reach an hypotethical zenith is social darwinism, and that is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism because like religious fundamentalism is based on extreme moral absolutes that not everyone can follow.

  19. Lunias
    Lunias
    August 22, 2020 at 12:24 am | #

    Time-travelling murderers who kill people at their moral zenith to stop them from becoming worse would make really interesting villains. NGL I’d read that story.

    • abysswatcher1993
      abysswatcher1993
      August 22, 2020 at 12:41 am | #

      In Dr. Who there’s an organization that time travels to punish karma houdinis before their eventual death. The Doctor accidentally stopped them from torturing Hitler.

      • Kensou
        Kensou
        August 22, 2020 at 1:35 am | #

        You will experience a tingling sensation and then death.

  20. Geneseepaws
    Geneseepaws
    August 22, 2020 at 12:25 am | #

    Becky: ‘Course, y’ can always evolve, like, the bad way.
    Hank: Are we not men?

    • Geneseepaws
      Geneseepaws
      August 22, 2020 at 8:29 am | #

      We are D.E.V.O.

      • Opus the Poet
        Opus the Poet
        August 22, 2020 at 9:32 am | #

        I have that CD. I also saw the music video on The Mike Douglas Show back in 1973.

  21. Miri
    Miri
    August 22, 2020 at 12:26 am | #

    Panels 2 and 3: Becky’s mother…

    Really, it going silly was the only way it was gojng to go. Because Becky and coping mechanisms.

    • RacingTurtle
      RacingTurtle
      August 22, 2020 at 1:14 am | #

      Yep. Awww, Becky.

    • Tan
      Tan
      August 22, 2020 at 2:39 am | #

      It’s actually about Rich Mullins. https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/rich-mullins/

      (except it isn’t, but also it is, but then also it isn’t again)

  22. TemporalShrew
    TemporalShrew
    August 22, 2020 at 12:36 am | #

    Oh boy, it’s time for the “Kill Baby Hitler” debate!

    • clif
      clif
      August 22, 2020 at 2:40 am | #

      I want to go on record that “Kill Baby Hitler” is a horrible name for a kid.

      • Roborat
        Roborat
        August 24, 2020 at 3:43 pm | #

        But it is a good band name.

    • Delicious Taffy
      Delicious Taffy
      August 22, 2020 at 2:41 am | #

      That one has two answers:
      1- Kill ‘im. We already know how he turns out, so fuck ‘im.
      2- Kidnap and raise him as your own, just to be sure.
      If 2 fails, you just go back in time and kill both Baby Hitler and the you who’s about to kidnap him. No muss, no fuss.

      • clif
        clif
        August 22, 2020 at 2:49 am | #

        Well, but then you have to kill the Time Patrol to keep them from killing you before you can kill Hitler and alter History.

        • Ron again
          Ron again
          August 22, 2020 at 3:21 am | #

          What’s with all the killing? Incapacitate, disarm, critically mislead… Lots of alternatives!

          • Rabid Rabbit
            Rabid Rabbit
            August 22, 2020 at 6:39 am | #

            Or, even more simply, figure out around when Hitler must have been conceived, travel back to those few weeks, and spend them in wacky hijinks making sure his parents don’t have sex. No murder, still gets rid of him.

            • He Who Abides
              He Who Abides
              August 22, 2020 at 5:16 pm | #

              If sitcoms and 80s movies are any indicator, hijinks never work.

              • clif
                clif
                August 22, 2020 at 9:56 pm | #

                Maybe if they just made them wackier…

          • Slartibeast Button, BIA
            Slartibeast Button, BIA
            August 22, 2020 at 7:52 am | #

            Buy him an art school scholarship.

            • Regalli
              Regalli
              August 22, 2020 at 2:57 pm | #

              Listen I’ve seen his paintings (one of my Humanities classes was just ‘Berlin’, great time), money will not help there.

              That and the rise of fascism in Germany was the result of multiple factors including the massive inflation and economic burden they got saddled with in the wake of World War I, further fuelling dissatisfaction both with the choice to surrender and the Weimar Republic as a whole, and therefore Hitler was only the most visible symptom of a fundamentally unstable society as well as a backlash against the growing progressivism and intellectualism of Berlin in particular. (The LGBT community in particular lost SO MUCH from the destruction of the Institut fur Sexualwissenschaft archives, and that’s far from the only cultural hit.) But *vague handwave* details! (I say this mainly as my weird form of joke based on ‘I know way too much about odd sections of history offhand and it’s always complicated,’ killing Hitler wouldn’t fix everything but it sure would’ve been an improvement.)

              • Solenoid
                Solenoid
                August 22, 2020 at 3:44 pm | #

                So you go back in time to Versailles at the close of The Great War and slap the French and Brits around until they decide that the best revenge is living well instead of demanding tribute.

                • Agemegos
                  Agemegos
                  August 22, 2020 at 10:24 pm | #

                  The bloke who most needed slapping at the Versailles peace conference was Billy Hughes, prime minister of Australia. The other belligerents were resigned to not getting reparations (because of the American position) until Hughes gingered them up. Woodrow Wilson described Hughes as a “pestiferous varmint”, and for once I agree with him.

                • Regalli
                  Regalli
                  August 22, 2020 at 11:44 pm | #

                  Oh, that is ABSOLUTELY my time travel plan to prevent World War II and has been for years! Thank you, Agemegos, for giving me exactly the one who most needs slapping, too!

      • Bicycle Bill
        Bicycle Bill
        August 22, 2020 at 3:28 am | #

        The perfect time machine would be a device that allows one to go back into time to WITNESS an event — such as Pearl Harbor, or Custer’s Last Stand, or one’s own birth — as a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ observer, but not be able to actually interact with the events as they play out.  So it could someday become possible to know with certainty, for example, whether there WAS a second shooter on the grassy knoll in Dallas or whether Oswald was acting alone in killing JFK, but one would not be able to do anything about it, thus avoiding the “Time Paradox” that Doc Brown was so concerned about in the “Back to the Future” trilogy.

        • Bicycle Bill
          Bicycle Bill
          August 22, 2020 at 3:30 am | #

          And yes, I’m working on it. [grin]

          • Agemegos
            Agemegos
            August 22, 2020 at 6:33 am | #

            Have you read Larry Niven’s The Theory and Practice of Time Travel?

          • clif
            clif
            August 22, 2020 at 9:31 pm | #

            Bill,
            Are you using Kurt Godel’s general relativity solution as your approach or something completely different???

            • clif
              clif
              August 22, 2020 at 11:23 pm | #

              https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=kd9BX6ssitKwBfzwn-gJ&q=Kurt+Godel%E2%80%99s+general+relativity+solution&oq=Kurt+Godel%E2%80%99s+general+relativity+solution&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIFCCEQoAEyBQghEKsCMgUIIRCrAlCbHVibHWCMK2gBcAB4AIABR4gBR5IBATGYAQCgAQKgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6sAEA&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjruOmsrrDrAhUKKawKHXz4B50Q4dUDCAk&uact=5

        • Opus the Poet
          Opus the Poet
          August 22, 2020 at 9:38 am | #

          The problem with that is how far back do you have to go to observe an event? A hundred years? A year? A day? A nanosecond? What’s the difference in going back a day or less and spying in real time?

          And why go to the effort of getting evidence and deducing a criminal when you can just stake out the crime scene and watch?

        • Delicious Taffy
          Delicious Taffy
          August 22, 2020 at 5:51 pm | #

          There couldn’t have been a second shooter. There was never a grassy knoll to begin with.

          • clif
            clif
            August 22, 2020 at 10:08 pm | #

            Only because time travelers buried it in concrete in a failed attempt to save Kennedy.

      • Ray Radlein
        Ray Radlein
        August 22, 2020 at 6:00 am | #

        Other possibilities include just getting him that damned art scholarship he wanted, or killing him during World War One when all kinds of folks were dying all over the place anyway and he’s no longer a cute little baby

        • clif
          clif
          August 22, 2020 at 10:22 pm | #

          Consider the difference in cost between setting up and administrating a scholarship and the that of a bullet. After the expense of constructing a working time machine we can’t count on having much a budget left.

          Also during World War I there’s too great a probability of him firing back. As an infant, the probability is much much lower.

          Also a bullet in the head of a baby is a much more of a dramatic statement and example. The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Genecide does not pay. Mike’s shadow knows.

  23. Octopus Ink
    Octopus Ink
    August 22, 2020 at 12:38 am | #

    ‘Murder-Joyce’ is too scary!
    I wish I’d never seen those eyes!
    I won’t be sleeping tonight.

    • abysswatcher1993
      abysswatcher1993
      August 22, 2020 at 12:47 am | #

      Joyce may no longer be a fundie, but she hasn’t learn to ditch her sociopathic tendencies.

  24. Some1
    Some1
    August 22, 2020 at 12:43 am | #

    What if this is foreshadowing and one of the seemingly benign characters is going to end up being the comic’s main antagonist?

    • abysswatcher1993
      abysswatcher1993
      August 22, 2020 at 12:45 am | #

      Sa already was a villain in Walkyverse.

      • abysswatcher1993
        abysswatcher1993
        August 22, 2020 at 12:46 am | #

        Sal*

      • Needfuldoer
        Needfuldoer
        August 22, 2020 at 10:40 am | #

        I think Walkyverse!Sal was more of an antihero. She mostly caused collateral damage in her pursuit of selfish revenge.

    • The Coolest Child
      The Coolest Child
      August 22, 2020 at 12:59 am | #

      Ten years is some time to find a main antagonist.

      • Some1
        Some1
        August 22, 2020 at 1:05 am | #

        It took One Piece about ten years to reveal two possible candidates for main antagonist and another ten to reveal someone who was even more main antagonisty.

  25. General Tekno
    General Tekno
    August 22, 2020 at 12:46 am | #

    “Course, you can always evolve the bad way…”

    Meanwhile across campus, Mary sneezes for some reason.

  26. Tan
    Tan
    August 22, 2020 at 12:46 am | #

    Dumbing of Age Book 10: And Then Murder Them

    Too on-the-nose?

    • Keulen
      Keulen
      August 22, 2020 at 3:19 am | #

      DoA Book 10: This Was An Adult Discussion For Almost Twenty Seconds There

    • Marsh Maryrose
      Marsh Maryrose
      August 22, 2020 at 2:37 pm | #

      Or, following Laidlaw’s Rule:

      Dumbing of Age Book 10: And Then the Murders Began

  27. Stu
    Stu
    August 22, 2020 at 12:50 am | #

    This might be the hardest I’ve laughed at this comic in a LONG while. Just the crazed look combined with the COMPLETELY out-of-nowhere “Let’s MURDER them!” idea is freaking hilarious.

  28. The Coolest Child
    The Coolest Child
    August 22, 2020 at 12:58 am | #

    I think being kidnapped might have had an effect on Joyce

  29. He Who Abides
    He Who Abides
    August 22, 2020 at 1:28 am | #

    Dammit Joyce, you were doing so well.

  30. Jeff K!
    Jeff K!
    August 22, 2020 at 1:43 am | #

    Becky and Joyce have come up with the Brewster Sisters’ plot from Arsenic and Old Lace!

    • Ray Radlein
      Ray Radlein
      August 22, 2020 at 6:01 am | #

      Mike wakes up from his coma convinced he’s Teddy Roosevelt

      • clif
        clif
        August 22, 2020 at 10:28 pm | #

        It’s only after Eleanor takes him home that bits and pieces of strange memories surface.

        • clif
          clif
          August 22, 2020 at 11:39 pm | #

          ((Yes, I know. Don’t explain the joke))

    • Nelly Dreadful
      Nelly Dreadful
      August 22, 2020 at 5:52 pm | #

      I was just thinking she’d accidentally come up with the climax from Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You.

  31. Lexi
    Lexi
    August 22, 2020 at 1:53 am | #

    You know, Joyce has a point, but also, it could be argued that Blaine had MORE room for positive growth potential because he started at such a deficit. It’s like how the bigger you are, the more weight you can lose. Or the lower your math grade, the more it can improve!

    She is not wrong though.

    • SuperZero
      SuperZero
      August 22, 2020 at 2:29 am | #

      “Room for growth” and “growth potential” are really quite different things.

      • Kamino Neko
        Kamino Neko
        August 22, 2020 at 5:39 pm | #

        Mm-hmm. There’s a lot of room for adding more water in the Mojave, but there’s almost zero potential for it becoming a large lake. (And the only reason it’s only ‘almost’ is that humans might be dumb enough to force it. >_>)

        • clif
          clif
          August 22, 2020 at 9:37 pm | #

          No challenge in the Mojave. I want us to take on terraforming Mars.

          • clif
            clif
            August 22, 2020 at 10:39 pm | #

            Eveen Venus might actually be easier. Start with a series of nukes to kick enough dust in the air to start a nuclear winter and allow it to get cool enough the water vapor can precipitate and actually hit the surface before evaporating again and you can see how big a sea you have to work with. Even with a series of lakes, you can ease up on the nukes enough to let enough light through that the blue-green algae can get a start on converting the carbon dioxide into oxygen and hydrocarbons. And Bob’s your uncle.

  32. Brasca1
    Brasca1
    August 22, 2020 at 2:02 am | #

    Nice to see someone else use jackassery as an adjective for stupid and obnoxious actions.

  33. showler
    showler
    August 22, 2020 at 2:19 am | #

    I’m kinda happy that the alt text refers to “children” plural. I hope it’s a deliberate reference to Becky.

  34. Valerie
    Valerie
    August 22, 2020 at 2:27 am | #

    Joyce’s face in the last panel is incredible 😂

  35. Dara
    Dara
    August 22, 2020 at 2:43 am | #

    dang xD

  36. Arch
    Arch
    August 22, 2020 at 2:53 am | #

    I need a cut-out of that Joyce from the last panel as a wallpaper and T-shirt. Like, I NEED it.

    • Keulen
      Keulen
      August 22, 2020 at 3:17 am | #

      Joyce makes the best silly faces in DoA.

  37. Black
    Black
    August 22, 2020 at 3:09 am | #

    I mean, if you kill all the assholes then you don’t have to worry about them doing horrible things!

    It’s logical!

    • Nymphie
      Nymphie
      August 22, 2020 at 4:25 am | #

      Dumbing of age goes boondock saints

    • clif
      clif
      August 22, 2020 at 11:09 pm | #

      What a good idea. Let’s put Mike in charge of deciding who the assholes are. You can’t argue he doesn’t have expert knowledge.

  38. Bagge
    Bagge
    August 22, 2020 at 3:24 am | #

    Joyce, no!

    Despite of how this night has unfolded, murder rarely is a good solution.

  39. Juanoku
    Juanoku
    August 22, 2020 at 3:52 am | #

    Ah, murder, an instafix for most things.
    Not legally, but still

  40. Rikunda
    Rikunda
    August 22, 2020 at 4:02 am | #

    Pokemon are a BAD evolution?!

    • alongcameaspider
      alongcameaspider
      August 22, 2020 at 4:23 am | #

      Consider their upbringing, I wouldn’t be surprised if Carol was one of those “Pokemon is the devil” types back at the height of it’s popularity

      • Azhrei Vep
        Azhrei Vep
        August 22, 2020 at 8:56 am | #

        They also, more often than not, tend to get less cute as they evolve. I think that would probably rub Joyce the wrong way as well.

        • He Who Abides
          He Who Abides
          August 22, 2020 at 5:18 pm | #

          Except for Torchic, which just plain doesn’t evolve.

          Let me keep this delusion, I beg you.

  41. Nymphie
    Nymphie
    August 22, 2020 at 4:24 am | #

    Dang, the start of the conversation is exactly whats been haunting me about the death of my best friend. She was 23, and when i look back at the kind of person she was, the opinions she had, and all the ways i have changed… I often wonder if we would have drifted apart or if she would have changed along with me.

    • Lingo
      Lingo
      August 22, 2020 at 12:31 pm | #

      Shit, I was about to write “I’m sorry for your loss,” and then I remembered the Amber/Becky conversation.

      • Lingo
        Lingo
        August 22, 2020 at 12:31 pm | #

        So:

        🙁

        • Nymphie
          Nymphie
          August 22, 2020 at 6:05 pm | #

          <3

          It was 11 years ago now. But that's sort of the thing, the more you age and change and grow, the more the contrast between who you were when they were alive and who you are now gets stronger and obvious.

  42. KSClaw
    KSClaw
    August 22, 2020 at 4:26 am | #

    Pffftt Joycd’s face in the last panel

  43. TemplarKnight
    TemplarKnight
    August 22, 2020 at 4:28 am | #

    Joyce’s Murder face is more gleeful than I imagined.

    It is concerning. . .

    • BenRG
      BenRG
      August 22, 2020 at 10:01 am | #

      “If you’ve got to go, go with a smile!”

    • Needfuldoer
      Needfuldoer
      August 22, 2020 at 10:35 am | #

      Ruth would be proud.

    • GeekRyuu
      GeekRyuu
      August 23, 2020 at 10:22 pm | #

      She’s going full Dexter, isn’t she?

  44. Taigan
    Taigan
    August 22, 2020 at 5:36 am | #

    Whoops. I think Joyce just zenithed.

  45. thumb
    thumb
    August 22, 2020 at 6:13 am | #

    Becky thinking of her mom, I get that.

    • Needfuldoer
      Needfuldoer
      August 22, 2020 at 10:35 am | #

      Bonnie probably crossed Joyce’s mind, too.

      And Hank’s.

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/deserves/

  46. Agemegos
    Agemegos
    August 22, 2020 at 6:35 am | #

    Do people study The Bridge of San Luis Rey in American colleges?

    • Agemegos
      Agemegos
      August 22, 2020 at 6:36 am | #

      Bah! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_of_San_Luis_Rey

      • clif
        clif
        August 22, 2020 at 10:43 pm | #

        Not in required courses. What the Literature majors get up to, who knows?

    • Lingo
      Lingo
      August 22, 2020 at 12:34 pm | #

      Interesting. I’ve never heard of it, but I was a math/science geek.

  47. Daibhid C
    Daibhid C
    August 22, 2020 at 7:18 am | #

    Hank in the final panel is my mum for the past twenty years.

  48. Oberon
    Oberon
    August 22, 2020 at 8:57 am | #

    Joyce cheerfully contemplating murder is a scary thing.

    • BenRG
      BenRG
      August 22, 2020 at 10:00 am | #

      Occasionally, Willis needs to remind us that Walkyverse!Joyce was a homicidal stalker.

      • clif
        clif
        August 22, 2020 at 10:47 pm | #

        Misleading. While she was both homicidal and a stalker, she was never both at the same time.

  49. AY
    AY
    August 22, 2020 at 9:40 am | #

    re: panel two, I was just thinking about this the other day. In three years I’ll be older than my brother was, and he was an entire decade older than me. It’s hard to know that I’m nearly at the same place he was. Hell, if I make it long enough, someday I’ll be more evolved than my mom was. It’s just… weird. And uncomfortable. I’m glad to see it being tackled here.

    • clif
      clif
      August 22, 2020 at 10:56 pm | #

      Interesting. I feel that essentially I’m the same person I was at 11. I like to think I’ve learned a thing or two and I’ve definitely changed my mind on a few things along the way. A bit more confidence, but basically, my personality and approach to things is the same. I’d think that looking back and having evolved into a different person would be, well, weird.

      But then recognizing I was significantly older than my father was when he died was pretty weird too.

  50. Los
    Los
    August 22, 2020 at 9:50 am | #

    Whatever you do, make sure joyce doesn’t the punisher on Netflix immediately followed by quantum leap

    • BenRG
      BenRG
      August 22, 2020 at 9:59 am | #

      “They call me Zenith. It is my personal mission to travel time and space to ensure that everyone bows out in the most spectacular way at the peak of their fame and power. So long as I live, no-one will ever suffer living through the far end of the bell curve!”

      • clif
        clif
        August 22, 2020 at 11:47 pm | #

        I’ve been expecting you Zenith. What a pity your life will be so short.

        Bwa, ha ha, etc.

  51. BenRG
    BenRG
    August 22, 2020 at 10:02 am | #

    I suspect that Joyce will have her opportunity to answer that question in panel 2 one day. I’ve even written a fan-fiction about it!

  52. Sye
    Sye
    August 22, 2020 at 11:38 am | #

    So, Panel 1 was an unexpected gut-punch.

    It’s pretty much exactly that line of thought broke me when my wife died, and has been my defining stance regarding death since then.

    Didn’t expect to see that just laid bare like that.

    10/10 Willis.

  53. Shariku
    Shariku
    August 22, 2020 at 12:46 pm | #

    This isn’t an adult discussion?

    Which bit? The Pokemon bit? Because adults can totally enjoy pokemon.

    All the other parts seem perfectly adult to me.

  54. Daniel M Ball
    Daniel M Ball
    August 22, 2020 at 2:20 pm | #

    That’s…Joyce, that’s actually chilling. You’ve gone COLD girl.

  55. poofdepoof
    poofdepoof
    August 22, 2020 at 2:22 pm | #

    Who is Joyce thinking of in panel 2?

  56. Icalasari
    Icalasari
    August 22, 2020 at 2:34 pm | #

    Is Joyce ok there? Not only did she say something I’d have expected her to have a breakdown over, but her face when suggestion murder is uh…

    It’s something

    • Spencer
      Spencer
      August 22, 2020 at 2:50 pm | #

      I think it’s because she’s with Becky. Lord knows I say the most fucked up shit with my friends.

  57. Spencer
    Spencer
    August 22, 2020 at 2:49 pm | #

    I don’t have anything funny to say except I really like the first three panels and always appreciate it when Becky’s facade breaks because it really helps contextualize her constant stream of jokes.

    • Regalli
      Regalli
      August 22, 2020 at 2:59 pm | #

      Agreed and agreed.

    • thejeff
      thejeff
      August 22, 2020 at 3:19 pm | #

      Becky is really a fascinating character from a writing point of view. And from a commentariat point of view.
      So much of what we see of her is that facade. The difficulty of sympathetically portraying a character who’s mostly hidden behind a facade with only occasional glimpses behind in a way that lets those paying attention figure out how she’s really feeling even when it isn’t slipping.

      And then how many readers don’t see beyond it.

      • Council
        Council
        August 22, 2020 at 3:38 pm | #

        Commentariat. What a scary yet apt way to describe some comment sections.

  58. Beef
    Beef
    August 22, 2020 at 4:34 pm | #

    I like to read the alt text as Hank canonically thinking of Becky as his daughter

  59. HeySo
    HeySo
    August 22, 2020 at 5:03 pm | #

    That is one hell of a creepy last panel there, Joyce. >.>

  60. beck
    beck
    August 22, 2020 at 8:40 pm | #

    is hank just tall or are becky and joyce just short?

    • Kamino Neko
      Kamino Neko
      August 22, 2020 at 9:17 pm | #

      ‘Camera”s closer to Hank, too, but he’s certainly taller than the girls. Teens are Short (TV Tropes alert), combined with Willis’s tendency to draw women on the short side to begin with, most like.

    • HeySo
      HeySo
      August 23, 2020 at 3:05 am | #

      The Trope and camera angle already mentioned are almost certainly the main reasons for it, but Joyce- along with Dina and Walky- have always been presented on the short end, being noticably shorter than the rest of the main, and most of the secondary cast.

      Then all the rest of the females [other than the taller-than-average Ruth and Carlica, and perhaps Nash] have mostly just been shorter because Willis seems to trend the teenage girls in the cast to the shorter end (as was also already mentioned), and that amplifies the contrast (as there’s already a noticable difference between average adult male and teenage girl, within the comic, so a shorter-than-average teen girl will seem dwarfed by an average adult male).

      We’ve seen Hank alongside other parents before, and I recall that he’s been “average”, in the sense of matching fairly comparably to them (unlike, say, Toedad, who was shorter than the other adults).

      Joe and Ethan, by comparison, are comparable to Joe’s father Richard, who I believe was a bit above the other adults in height. So those (and any others I may be forgetting atm) should be the unusually tall ones in the series, similar to Joyce, Dina, and Walky for the shorter ones.

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