Becky’s sort of a hard character to write, because if you let her turn into a cartoon, she’s a kind of unlikable cartoon, in a way, say, Carla isn’t—mainly because Carla is never *mean*, just “obnoxious”. She’s been veering more cartoonish for a while now. I blame the Dads Arc.
They’re both hard to write, I suspect.
Because they both have very strong defense mechanisms that they wear like armor, only very occasionally giving glimpses underneath. It’s tricky to convey that in a way that keeps the focus on it, but still reminds the reader once in a while that the surface isn’t really what’s going on.
Careful there, Becky. Between teasing Joyce about her eating habits and poking Dorothy because you’re jealous she’s Dorothy, you almost went thirty whole seconds without trolling someone.
I think she’s trying to be a jerk to Dorothy in a funny-haha way to disguise her actually not-funny resentment over Joyce Envy. Which is kind of misguided and doesn’t make sense, for reasons Dorothy’s explicitly pointed out—Dorothy *doesn’t* really have Joyce for long—but that’s my theory.
BTW, the closest Mexican restaurant to where I live failed its inspection by the Tennessee Health Department this week. They scored 58 out of 100 and over 100 pounds of queso sauce had to be dumped because it was too warm.
I live in Texas, so the actual Mexican restaurants are pretty good. The closest is Gringos which is wonderful if overpriced. On the other hand , there are a convenience store which sells warmed over Mexican food, a Mexican meat market that offers lunch, and another convenience store with a Tacarita Cart outside, all of which are closer and all of which I’ve been afraid to try. Taco Bells are an imitation of Mexican food, but for fast food, I’ve had worse.
It feels like Gringos is perfectly named then. Delivers on the goods and uses the opportunity to fleece the customers. So named for the clientelle rather than the proprietor perhaps?
Taco Bell is based on the food Dave Bell found on both sides of the border in SoCal late 1950s, CaliMex as opposed to TexMex. I had some Mexico City style Mexican a few years back and it’s nothing like either.
The only problem I have ever had with Taco Bell is that I always either don’t have enough money or I’m with people who would look at me funny if I had enough food to actually get full at Taco Bell. It’s like other people’s problem with Chinese food.
I am hoping that this Geffory Nicholson is on subatical and Robin is teaching the class as an adjunct. Mostly beacuse I want to see Robin’s face when she receives her first paycheck at an adjuncts salary. Also Dr. William Bianco teaches Intro To American Politics at IU in the spring.
Becky? There’s a fine line between co medically silly passive-aggressiveness and toxic passive aggressiveness, and I can’t help feeling that you’re not so much putting a toe across that line as dancing a merry jig on it just to prove you can.
I for one, support the use of “co-medically silly,” and intend to embrace it with both of my noodly appendages. I believe I have a co-morbid fascination with your new term.
Man, Dorothy is being absolutely horrendous, here. I can’t believe she has the audacity to demand false enthusiasm from her so-called “friends”. How terribly dreadful of this horrid, evil hwoman.
In fairness, over two decades later, I still feel it was unlikely.
Come up with a nonsensical Star Wars program for missile defense, fake the results and let the Soviets bankrupt themselves trying to keep up. I mean, it worked, so I guess it was genius, but jeeze.
Hey, even in 84 we knew Star Wars couldn’t work. I remember doing a presentation on that when I was 16. Whatever made the Soviet Union collapse, it wasn’t that.
But I wonder what that prof‘s doing that they already hate the idea of going. Sounds ominous.
The Soviet Union partially collapsed because the Chernobyl disaster crushed the people’s egos and belief in their secretive government at the same time as a politician was advocating for openness with the people. It brought up a lot of issues that helped start the spiral to its collapse by destroying people’s faith in the government they had.
Mike: caught feelings after manipulating a friend with obvious attraction to him to hurt someone else, got exactly what he deserved, got replaced with a slightly less intolerable version of himself.
So, a statement that adds no meaningful information to a discussion, because everything it says has already been said previously? A tautologous redundancy? Seems superfluous.
Dorothy, I hope that you take good notes for this class because I think Joyce and Becky are either going to be snoozing or playing notepad games for the entire session!
Yeah, there was an embarrassment of workable subtitles this time around.
Real Food has THINGS In It.
I’ve Got Cartoons to Watch.
Fake Some Enthusiasm Better Than That.
Oh No, I Agree with Walky.
My Scholarship Requires Me to Feel Ready.
You Can Talk About How I’m Absolutely Right All the Way to Your Next Class.
Recommended Daily Allowance? Everyone who grew up in a US elementary school in the 80’s or 90’s knows that acronym. A buzzword for nutritionists everywhere.
Thanks for the explanation!! Being an old non-American non-nutritionist I was completely in the dark. Becky’s shuffling of the words didn’t help either.
That’s right, Dorothy. Keep putting up with the baseless, irrational, illogical, pointless hate from the other side of your house. If you want to be a Democratic President, you’ll need the practice.
I’ve seen all the comments about the way Becky treats Dorothy and agree with most. However what I don’t see is any remark about the third person in this BFF-Triangle. I think it’s time Joyce took Becky aside and tells her that she’s out of line.
It’s only a matter of time before that happens. Joyce has been super reluctant to express any negative opinion towards Becky since she showed up and Becky’s been pushing harder and harder at the limits of acceptable behavior. Sooner or later Becky will push too hard and go too far and Joyce will have to finally deal with it.
There is both a regional and socio-economic breakdown that can occur for “American” diet considering the size and population of our country… but a reduced synopsis is most people, even those who like that type of meal, generally concede it isn’t in the same category as “food”.
Note Dina “I live on cereal” isn’t any better, nutritionally speaking.
A friend of mine thinks she started getting scurvy her freshman year. Wasn’t medically diagnosed but started having some of the symptoms, and she says her diet really was that bad. Granted, she probably would have thought it was kind of cool to get scurvy.
I was panicked that my 7-year-old might freak out during the face melting scene in Indiana Jones but she said "I guess he shouldn't have opened that" as seriously as possible and I've been crying laughing for 10 minutes
look i have a lot to say about this beetle bailey strip okay
anyway, nobody's hands reach their own crotches while their arms are fully extended, so plato only has to bend his elbows like 10 degrees to put his hands on his hips
not a lot to say about this mary worth other than i was curious how you make vegan lasagna and i looked it up and received psychic damage from three-to-four different revulsions/phobias
today in #9chickweedlane i learned that despite being ostensibly new yorkers, the characters in this strip sure like to talk about british royalty all the time
For April's second bonus strip, we see ROBIN in an unused strip that would've run April 16! But didn't! Read this bonus strip and hundreds of previous at the Dumbing of Age Patreon: patreon.com/dumbingofage
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CBS on the cardinals: "One thing we know they're not doing is checking Instagram because their devices have all been confiscated. I believe the kids call it rawdogging."
if you want to know my secret to finishing 6 strips in two days, it's -- you know it -- autism and blaring NES Ducktales Moon Theme nonstop for 36 hours, but i repeat myself
WEEKLY WEDNESDAY @tfwiki.net PIC TWOFER!
It's nigh two minutes on two Generation Two toys that are too expensive, the unreleased Laser Cycles SOUNDWAVE and JAZZ! Man I hope we get a Legacy-molded Soundwave bike someday, but I ain't holding my breath.
youtube.com/shorts/v_S44...
Bill Corbett @billcorbett.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 3d
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Taco Bell used to be After Church Food
not surprised I retained my atheism
Taco Bell helped you realize church was bullshit, you should be thankful.
Sermons go in one ear and out the other. Taco Bell doesn’t linger much longer than that.
they look like they don’t got any hands!
Welcome to mittens
And warm fingers!
Sierra would point out they have no toes.
Oh, right, different class schedule, hmm. I wonder when we’ll see Leslie.
There’s comics with her drawn and uploaded, so relatively soon.
Becky hasn’t had her class yet.
Unfortunately, Willis has a three-and-a-half month buffer, so ‘relative’ only compared to the overall length of the comic.
*cough* four months
I mean, that’s good?
(ludicrously impressive, really).
Hey, I happen to like Taco Bell and I think it deserves to be considered “real food,” after all it sustained me through college(before I dropped out).
Also Becky’s “hating Dotty enthusiasm” could use some toning back, like all the way back.
Becky’s sort of a hard character to write, because if you let her turn into a cartoon, she’s a kind of unlikable cartoon, in a way, say, Carla isn’t—mainly because Carla is never *mean*, just “obnoxious”. She’s been veering more cartoonish for a while now. I blame the Dads Arc.
I have bad news for you.
Damnit Earth, stop interrupting, we’re trying to live here.
It’s a fair thing to blame, she might be leaning extra hard into her Dorothy rivalry so she has someone to take it out on.
They’re both hard to write, I suspect.
Because they both have very strong defense mechanisms that they wear like armor, only very occasionally giving glimpses underneath. It’s tricky to convey that in a way that keeps the focus on it, but still reminds the reader once in a while that the surface isn’t really what’s going on.
I think that fake enthusiasm is as good as you’ll get here, Dorothy. XD
Enthusiasm just isn’t right unless it’s a little bit plastic.
Do you mean that it’s artificial, or that it can be reshaped to fit the needed purpose? Both? Or that it’s derived from petrochemicals? Or… or…?
Enthusiasm is like Taco Bell.
Artificial and derived from petrochemicals? That fits.
it’s unsustainable for sure
Careful there, Becky. Between teasing Joyce about her eating habits and poking Dorothy because
you’re jealousshe’s Dorothy, you almost went thirty whole seconds without trolling someone.I’m starting to wonder if Becky isn’t following the “I have a crush on someone, but I don’t want to admit it, so I’ll act like a jerk to them” trope.
I think she’s trying to be a jerk to Dorothy in a funny-haha way to disguise her actually not-funny resentment over Joyce Envy. Which is kind of misguided and doesn’t make sense, for reasons Dorothy’s explicitly pointed out—Dorothy *doesn’t* really have Joyce for long—but that’s my theory.
I think she’s doing a shtick, like she always does a shtick, to entertain herself.
god panel 4 is way too much of a mood
I’m confused. I thought a mood was an emotional state.
Panel is way too much of an emotional state.
Panel 4 is way too much of an emotional state and who stole my 4?
… nobody. You cle4rly misplaced your four all by yourself.
Vep is sus!
(Group proceeds to vote thumb out the airlock)
It isn’t a good idea to stick your thumb out an airlock.
If thy thumb offend thee , stick it out an airlock. Malicia 13:4
Wait, Joyce is taking this class, too? All three of them will be in a class together? *rubs hands together furiously*
In Honor of Thursday’s Strip of 9 Chickweed Lane, and/or other things.
BTW, the closest Mexican restaurant to where I live failed its inspection by the Tennessee Health Department this week. They scored 58 out of 100 and over 100 pounds of queso sauce had to be dumped because it was too warm.
If any of the Mexican places in my area got a visit from the health inspector, they’d get shut down. I’m convinced they’re bribing somebody.
I live in Texas, so the actual Mexican restaurants are pretty good. The closest is Gringos which is wonderful if overpriced. On the other hand , there are a convenience store which sells warmed over Mexican food, a Mexican meat market that offers lunch, and another convenience store with a Tacarita Cart outside, all of which are closer and all of which I’ve been afraid to try. Taco Bells are an imitation of Mexican food, but for fast food, I’ve had worse.
It feels like Gringos is perfectly named then. Delivers on the goods and uses the opportunity to fleece the customers. So named for the clientelle rather than the proprietor perhaps?
Taco Bell is based on the food Dave Bell found on both sides of the border in SoCal late 1950s, CaliMex as opposed to TexMex. I had some Mexico City style Mexican a few years back and it’s nothing like either.
The only problem I have ever had with Taco Bell is that I always either don’t have enough money or I’m with people who would look at me funny if I had enough food to actually get full at Taco Bell. It’s like other people’s problem with Chinese food.
Best friend squad!
I am hoping that this Geffory Nicholson is on subatical and Robin is teaching the class as an adjunct. Mostly beacuse I want to see Robin’s face when she receives her first paycheck at an adjuncts salary. Also Dr. William Bianco teaches Intro To American Politics at IU in the spring.
See, I was thinking Robin changed her name….
It’s just Robin with her hair tucked under a hat, poorly disguising her voice, and wearing Groucho glasses.
Would Willis be that good to us though? Even for Christmas.
Look to Halloween! The expectations have already been foretold.
It’ll do.
Becky? There’s a fine line between co medically silly passive-aggressiveness and toxic passive aggressiveness, and I can’t help feeling that you’re not so much putting a toe across that line as dancing a merry jig on it just to prove you can.
*comically, damn you semi-auto correct!
(I mean, I right-clicked the squiggly line, so it’s not fully automatic, is it?)
I for one, support the use of “co-medically silly,” and intend to embrace it with both of my noodly appendages. I believe I have a co-morbid fascination with your new term.
Man, Dorothy is being absolutely horrendous, here. I can’t believe she has the audacity to demand false enthusiasm from her so-called “friends”. How terribly dreadful of this horrid, evil hwoman.
/s
What are you talking about? Dorothy is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this school.
Just ask Yale.
In my PoliSci course in late ‘89, I predicted that the USSR would break up entirely, into 15 states or more. My Prof wrote “unlikely” on my essay.
I should have gone back a few years later and demanded a grade change.
In fairness, over two decades later, I still feel it was unlikely.
Come up with a nonsensical Star Wars program for missile defense, fake the results and let the Soviets bankrupt themselves trying to keep up. I mean, it worked, so I guess it was genius, but jeeze.
Hey, even in 84 we knew Star Wars couldn’t work. I remember doing a presentation on that when I was 16. Whatever made the Soviet Union collapse, it wasn’t that.
But I wonder what that prof‘s doing that they already hate the idea of going. Sounds ominous.
It was their centrally-controlled command economy.
The Soviet Union partially collapsed because the Chernobyl disaster crushed the people’s egos and belief in their secretive government at the same time as a politician was advocating for openness with the people. It brought up a lot of issues that helped start the spiral to its collapse by destroying people’s faith in the government they had.
The widespread systemic corruption didn’t help either.
Dorothy is a fucking saint.
Feels the timeskip has reduced the interestingness of the characters.
Billie: might be a semi-trash person, but interesting character. Apparently wandered off.
Mike: was getting interesting, then got killed, and replaced by a smarmier version of himself.
Becky: used to have multiple notes, now is just an ungrateful asshole.
Lucy: reduced to Walky-thirst.
Mike: caught feelings after manipulating a friend with obvious attraction to him to hurt someone else, got exactly what he deserved, got replaced with a slightly less intolerable version of himself.
Fixed it.
Amazigirl replaced by Nightguy. Will the horror never end?
yeah that seems like something a teenager deserves to get murdered for
I mean, look at how much trouble we’d save if we just bumped them off once they were teenagers and no longer cute.
(the plot of so many dystopian YA novels)
Also basically the plot of Logan’s Run!
Eh, give it time. If this comic has taught me anything it is that everyone has nuanced and interesting ways to be trash in.
Becky has nuanced methods you say?
Sure! She just doesn’t want to.
I’m ready for the course credit.
I KNOW THESE FEELS.
Joyce looks ultra cute in her mittens
I think that ‘Joyce is cute’ is an oxymoron.
You mean a redundant statement.
A tautology, even.
So, a statement that adds no meaningful information to a discussion, because everything it says has already been said previously? A tautologous redundancy? Seems superfluous.
Superfluous? Superfluous? A superfluous tautologous redundancy is an oxymoron.
I’m sorry for stating the obvious but she looked so cute I couldn’t stop myself from writing.
Maybe BenRG was serious. Maybe Ben *really* finds Joyce unattractive and socially unnaceptable. Repulsive even.
… What is the antonym of cute?
if Dorothy was a person with a shorter fuse, she would have bopped Becky one on the mouth already. Seriously what the hell
Dorothy has impressive amounts of patience. If I were in Dorothy’s place, I probably would’ve snapped at Becky long ago.
Which, probably good if she’s going into politics and has to have discussions with Republicans.
Becky is excellent practice. Becky is so considerate giving Dorothy the experience she needs to deal with difficult people.
I mean, Becky is practically a saint.
Given what horrors so many saints have inflicted upon humanity…
Dorothy, I hope that you take good notes for this class because I think Joyce and Becky are either going to be snoozing or playing notepad games for the entire session!
Dumbing of Age Book 11: Yer Daily Recommended Allowance of Things
Yeah, there was an embarrassment of workable subtitles this time around.
Real Food has THINGS In It.
I’ve Got Cartoons to Watch.
Fake Some Enthusiasm Better Than That.
Oh No, I Agree with Walky.
My Scholarship Requires Me to Feel Ready.
You Can Talk About How I’m Absolutely Right All the Way to Your Next Class.
RDA?
Recommended Daily Allowance? Everyone who grew up in a US elementary school in the 80’s or 90’s knows that acronym. A buzzword for nutritionists everywhere.
Thanks for the explanation!! Being an old non-American non-nutritionist I was completely in the dark. Becky’s shuffling of the words didn’t help either.
That’s right, Dorothy. Keep putting up with the baseless, irrational, illogical, pointless hate from the other side of your house. If you want to be a Democratic President, you’ll need the practice.
To be fair, us liberals (or democrats) have a fair number of assholes on our side of the fence too.
Yeah, but the other side doesn’t feel the need to pretend to play nice with them for some reason.
Why?
Like…why reduce a character to a base feeling or idea?
At some point, Joyce really needs therapy or the attention of a dietician.
Dorothy likes what she likes! She’s actually getting better.
She needs the attention of an optician, though.
I’ve seen all the comments about the way Becky treats Dorothy and agree with most. However what I don’t see is any remark about the third person in this BFF-Triangle. I think it’s time Joyce took Becky aside and tells her that she’s out of line.
It’s only a matter of time before that happens. Joyce has been super reluctant to express any negative opinion towards Becky since she showed up and Becky’s been pushing harder and harder at the limits of acceptable behavior. Sooner or later Becky will push too hard and go too far and Joyce will have to finally deal with it.
It’s just an attention getting device.
As an Italian, I was sure that Joyce and Walky’s idea of food was just the American idea of food.
There is both a regional and socio-economic breakdown that can occur for “American” diet considering the size and population of our country… but a reduced synopsis is most people, even those who like that type of meal, generally concede it isn’t in the same category as “food”.
its somewhat a tradition to survive on barely nutritional trash while in college university etc in the USA
Note Dina “I live on cereal” isn’t any better, nutritionally speaking.
A friend of mine thinks she started getting scurvy her freshman year. Wasn’t medically diagnosed but started having some of the symptoms, and she says her diet really was that bad. Granted, she probably would have thought it was kind of cool to get scurvy.
Becky I love you, really I do, but you seriously need to chill out with Dorothy, she’s literally not your enemy in the slightest.
And Becky will not rest until that’s rectified!
Cartoonists love winter scenes. Know why?
We dont have to draw articulated hands.
Ah… I was wondering why there were so many comics about amputees.
Hiromu Arakawa got the memo but then threw it out the window and set it on fire with a flamethrower.
Thankfully, Dorothy will soon be gone and there will be more room for Becky’s wacky adventures!
Or Becky will fall into a catatonic state because her Arch-Rival is gone and now she has no one to poke.
I’m pretty sure Dorothy is conflicted. I mean, yeah, sure, she would have -prospects- at Yale. But her -friends- are here.