A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Shaderunners
Alex Assan, Lin Darrow
A ragtag band of bootleggers open a speakeasy for bottled colour in the greyscale city of Ironwell.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Hemlock
Josceline Fenton
A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
All Known Alternatives
Karolina 'Kajotko' Jankiewicz
Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
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Better image of the statue itself: Ernie Pyle statue at IU, Ernie is seated on a (presumably) empty ammo box, table and typewriter in front of him, with a second box on which his subject/interviewee could park.
Interesting fact — it might be noted that just before it was installed, someone noticed that Ernie is dressed in military fatigues with a ‘correspondent’ patch on the left shoulder; however, the word had been misspelled with only one ‘R’. It was corrected by the artist before the statue was formally dedicated.
And this wasn’t the first time someone messed up with Ernie. When toymaker Hasbro released a 12-inch ‘Ernie Pyle’ figure in 2001 as a part of a special “D-Day Collection” to go along with its “G.I. Joe” products, the biographical info on the box said he went to Indiana State University. Oops!!
Well kind of. But that’s a link to their telecommunications service, not their telecommunications department. Let’s see. Hmm. I expected it to be part of a technology department, but it seems to be part of their media school. Try https://jkmedia.sitehost.iu.edu/about/faq.shtml .
I was gonna make a joke about how they said it was in the media building right there in the comic, but if we’re being honest, I’d already forgotten it by the time I got down to the comments too
Yeah, Midwesterners tend to favor more conservative styles, and men having longer, “unkempt” hair is frowned upon by the general population. I’m in the middle of the East Coast though, and here, he’d be made fun of for not taking care of his hair too. It wouldn’t be the length though, it would be that it isn’t braided, combed, etc.
People ’round these parts mostly only care if your hair is in that semi-awkward median stage, when it’s not quite long or short enough to do anything with. Once you get it nice and long, they tend to shut their fucking mouths and stop butting into business nobody asked them about.
I mean, yeah, to Billy. I only wear pants when I’m at work, and that’s because that’s the uniform. Anytime else, I wear leggings and a skirt/dress/cut-offs. Some good fleece or wool leggings/tights are just as warm as pants. Hell, they’re warmer than my uniform pants. I usually wear a silk camisole too, and that keeps my core body heat up enough I can get away with not wearing much up top either. (I like being covered, but heavy/cumbersome clothing messes with my senses in an unpleasant way)
Say what you will about Walky. He sure takes his duties as an annoying little brother who refuses to let yet another sis slip away without a fight seriously.
Thought the guy in the red jacket was wearing a mask at first and my thought was “well at least someone in this universe cares about the virus.” (Timelines be damned.)
Also yeah uh…Walky? No one believes that ‘this is the media building” “I’m in telecom and you’re in journalism” excuse. You were sitting there waiting for Jenny to walk up cause you’re stalking her. Stop criticizing her appearance because you’re fishing for banter like the butt hurt dweeb, sad your friend wants to (justifiably if you ask me) distance herself from you. You twick! Get dumpstered!
Yeah, how dare Walky still want to hang out with his childhood friend who’s trying to avoid all her friends because she thinks she’s too cool for them now. Seems like her behavior isn’t justified at all to me.
Well since Jennifer is an adult human with free will she’s under no obligation to hangout with her friends and needs no justification for her choice even if we all find it a little sus. Walky specifically though immediately got 10x more annoying at just the hint of rejection from Jen so yeah I’d totally get distancing a bit from him just for personal sanity.
This “under no obligation” bullshit is tedious and worthless. Nobody cares if she’s not legally required by the state to interact with or explain herself to anyone. She’s still being shitty by randomly shunning everyone out of the blue, and that’s all anyone is saying against her.
Well she’s not really shunning anyone. The last thing Jennifer said on the subject was that they weren’t enemies and that she was just “happy and busy” and that’s why they hadn’t seen each other. Walky just took the news badly. Worse than anyone else in the group. Except maybe Sal who had a whole panel where she had a sort of questioning expression toward Asher that might lead to something.
I’m real suspicious of what’s going on with Jennifer too but it’s also not fair to just disrespect her wishes or try to force interactions with someone because you miss them. Which is what Walky’s doing here. He’s even implying that he’ll just keep pestering her. Like, c’mon? How is that okay?
But this is really only his first time doing this and he’s just really annoying by default so maybe he’ll respect Jennifer if she gives him more pushback. Or Jennifer will come around more without this being a whole thing with Walky constantly pestering her.
In fact, I’m not sure that all Jennifer’s relationships can’t be sorted into just two bins, Complicated and Shallow. Which bin Asher goes in is yet to be determined.
Especially if your friend has depression, which includes social isolation.
Ruth has figured out that Jennifer pushes people away whenever her depression is worsening. After knowing each other their whole lives, Walky may have noticed this symptom, too.
Yes, you should normally get consent to hang out. But you also need to not let your very-depressed friends isolate themselves, so that’s a tricky balance.
In this case, Walky/Billie have traditionally had the comfortable pattern that he pesters her like a little brother. It’s legit that he’s leaning into their pattern when he suspects she is Not Okay.
Also, Jen, yes he’s stalking you. Everyone else has developed so much immunity to him that he’s having to look further afield to find someone to annoy.
Do today’s telecom majors still learn about dial-up modems, T1 circuits, and ISDN lines, like I had to back in 2005? (They were old news even then, but at least the core principles like time-division multiplexing and frequency-division multiplexing are still relevant. Your fancypants DOCSIS 3 cable modem uses both! Fun fact: current DOCSIS standards use interference-prone low frequencies for their upload links. That’s why you can get 300 megs down but only 12 up from the cable company. The next revision of the standard should fix that, and with the widespread adoption of video conferencing and live streaming that’s well overdue if you ask me.)
I wouldn’t be surprised if Billie was advised by her therapist to cut toxic people out of her life like Walky [who has no direction in life and enables her habits] and Ruth [because Billie can’t be in a co-dependent suicide pact right now]. Thus, she’s actually in a healthier happier place.
We just assume she’s worse off because she’s not with the protagonists.
Her romance with Ruth was hella toxic but I don’t think any therapist worth their salt would tell someone to abandon all their previous friendships and hook up with a guy who called the police on his friend for the lulz.
The guy has also been painted as being the one who asked a crooked cop to take care of Blaine. And it seems fairly clear he knew what that would entail.
I guess we forgot Blaine tried to kill no fewer than half the named cast. Surprise surprise people with mob ties end up waxed after something like that. And we don’t know the full extent of Asher’s role in that. Just that when it was done he was told. Very easily could’ve been just told about the hit being suggested and when he didn’t stop it with the higher ups he was told when the hit was finished.
I ask because I was basically the same person at thirteen. I might have been a little smarter then and my body wasn’t starting to fall apart, but I would recognize me anywhere.
I’m rounding the bases to 31. 13 year old me may as well be a completely different person. Even if I were to compare myself at 13 to myself starting 2nd semester in college I was massively different. I think that’s true for a bunch of people.
It’s possible she knows about Asher’s past (like Walky does) because she was there, or maybe she just knows he’s “one of Sal’s old friends”, or maybe she had no idea they were connected until they hooked up.
I’m sure we’ll get that exposition in due time.
As for Jennifer giving Walky the cold shoulder, maybe she’s just reverting to her haughty high school ways and doesn’t want to be seen with him. That sucks, but shallow’s gonna shallow.
1. Therapists don’t do that
2. Why do we expect an 18 year old to know what he’s doing with this life again? And why is not having direction a toxic trait? And when did Walky enable billies habits?
Once you’re 18, you’re officially All Grown Up and it’s time to know exactly what you’re going to be for the rest of your life. There’s absolutely no room for personal inspection or trying anything out. Once that meter ticks over, you have to be out your parents’ door with a full-time job that pays well, a brand-new vehicle, a house you bought yourself, a kid at least on the way, $40k in the bank, and you better be balancing all of that with an education you also paid for by yourself. Those are the rules.
“Many a man lives a burden to the earth, but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.” — John Milton
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wtf Walky, you’re like my Animal Crossing neighbours, whining at my non-winter outfits bc I don’t have fur
Tell them you could always obtain some and pull out your measuring tape.
These leggings are wool. Your hairstyle is invalid.
Becky’s middle name is Nostradamus.
Yay, another college kid with a beard! Too bad he, too, is relegated to being a nameless background character
honestly that may be a teacher
What? You don’t recognize Ernie Pyle
Nah, Ernie’s the bronze dude
Better image of the statue itself: Ernie Pyle statue at IU, Ernie is seated on a (presumably) empty ammo box, table and typewriter in front of him, with a second box on which his subject/interviewee could park.
Interesting fact — it might be noted that just before it was installed, someone noticed that Ernie is dressed in military fatigues with a ‘correspondent’ patch on the left shoulder; however, the word had been misspelled with only one ‘R’. It was corrected by the artist before the statue was formally dedicated.
And this wasn’t the first time someone messed up with Ernie. When toymaker Hasbro released a 12-inch ‘Ernie Pyle’ figure in 2001 as a part of a special “D-Day Collection” to go along with its “G.I. Joe” products, the biographical info on the box said he went to Indiana State University. Oops!!
I wondered what he was doing. Just sitting there being bronze, huh?
Ernie Pyle is the subject of the statue in Panel 1.
They’re both Ernie. You just didn’t recognize him because of the beard.
Yes, tag Ernie Pyle!
Twice.
And tag John Milton.
Ok but what the heck is telecom, did Willis just make up a major?
It’s short for telecommunications.
And he only picked it because it sounds like television.
Telecommunications. The science and the art, I’m sure.
It is this: https://telecom.iu.edu/
That looks like the school IT department, not an educational program.
They’re just preparing their prospective students for the lifetime of “hey you know computers, fix my [gadget]” that awaits them.
Well kind of. But that’s a link to their telecommunications service, not their telecommunications department. Let’s see. Hmm. I expected it to be part of a technology department, but it seems to be part of their media school. Try https://jkmedia.sitehost.iu.edu/about/faq.shtml .
Semi-ninjad by Catt.
I was gonna make a joke about how they said it was in the media building right there in the comic, but if we’re being honest, I’d already forgotten it by the time I got down to the comments too
so it’s basically their attempt to not sound like what they really are: computer networking.
Per Willis’s Twitter, you’ve won
I’m assuming it must be their Cinema & Digital Media department. Aka the department where the film directors, editors, cameramen, etc go to.
at first I thought you meant after they die.
for some reason Walky looks extra douchey with that shaggy haircut
I think it’s more the smirk. The hair is cute. Shaggy waves 4ever
“Do you have anything non-punchable?”
Really? I think it just makes him look like even more of a doofus. Which makes it pretty much perfect for him.
The slang “douchebag” usually refers to someone who’s a jerk or a pretentious asshole. Neither of which describe our slacker Walky.
There are probably ninety-nine names you can call Walky, but “a douche” ain’t one.
On the other hand, my explaining the word to you might be a mildly “douche” move.
Your play.
Thank you for your explanation/perspective!
This information makes me feel washed out, like a clean vagina!
… in a sack.
Your move next. ^_^
The only way to win is not to play.
I certainly wasn’t saying walky acts that way. I was just saying he has that look
It’s really a thing:
https://bulletins.iu.edu/iub/college/2011-2012/departments/telecommunications/major.shtml
There’s the classic attitude we’ve all become accustomed to. All is right as rain.
*All is right as the rain.
(You got the saying right, but missed an opportunity for a Walkyverse reference.)
We hate it
Oh wait, I’m jumping ahead.
It’s the storm
I love these two.
Haha, awesome new gravity! Won’t lie, I hoped it’d be Sal but I don’t even know if she got a gravity so fair play.
*Gravitar
That a midwestern thing? His hair is well within “never even notice it” parameters for this Californian
Yeah, Midwesterners tend to favor more conservative styles, and men having longer, “unkempt” hair is frowned upon by the general population. I’m in the middle of the East Coast though, and here, he’d be made fun of for not taking care of his hair too. It wouldn’t be the length though, it would be that it isn’t braided, combed, etc.
The disorganized look is gaining ground in my part of the Midwest.
Wait. Walky has hair?
I never noticed.
People ’round these parts mostly only care if your hair is in that semi-awkward median stage, when it’s not quite long or short enough to do anything with. Once you get it nice and long, they tend to shut their fucking mouths and stop butting into business nobody asked them about.
I’m really digging your new gravatar.
From Here to There to Where?
Panel 2 Walky is making a Faz face.
You tagged Hank the Giraffe, so probably
I mean, yeah, to Billy. I only wear pants when I’m at work, and that’s because that’s the uniform. Anytime else, I wear leggings and a skirt/dress/cut-offs. Some good fleece or wool leggings/tights are just as warm as pants. Hell, they’re warmer than my uniform pants. I usually wear a silk camisole too, and that keeps my core body heat up enough I can get away with not wearing much up top either. (I like being covered, but heavy/cumbersome clothing messes with my senses in an unpleasant way)
Say what you will about Walky. He sure takes his duties as an annoying little brother who refuses to let yet another sis slip away without a fight seriously.
… i like long hair walky
Bead Guy needs to shush!
Ernie is into beads, confirmed.
When did Ms. Billingsworth start getting tagged as Jennifer instead of Billie?
*checks archive*
Oh. November 22.
After the comic where she asks to be called Jennifer instead of Billie
I prefer Walky’s shaggy look, thank you.
[Norville glares at him for cramping his style.]
Thought the guy in the red jacket was wearing a mask at first and my thought was “well at least someone in this universe cares about the virus.” (Timelines be damned.)
I’ll do Jennifer one better: “Has Walky heard of thermals?”
Sure, but around here we call them updrafts.
Now I want an image of Jenn floating along on her thermals.
“YoU nEeD a HaIrCuT” shut the fuck up.
Oh hey Jennifer’s tag has been updated.
This Jen seems a bit more like the one last semester then when she first shiwed up.
Also yeah uh…Walky? No one believes that ‘this is the media building” “I’m in telecom and you’re in journalism” excuse. You were sitting there waiting for Jenny to walk up cause you’re stalking her. Stop criticizing her appearance because you’re fishing for banter like the butt hurt dweeb, sad your friend wants to (justifiably if you ask me) distance herself from you. You twick! Get dumpstered!
Yeah, how dare Walky still want to hang out with his childhood friend who’s trying to avoid all her friends because she thinks she’s too cool for them now. Seems like her behavior isn’t justified at all to me.
Well since Jennifer is an adult human with free will she’s under no obligation to hangout with her friends and needs no justification for her choice even if we all find it a little sus. Walky specifically though immediately got 10x more annoying at just the hint of rejection from Jen so yeah I’d totally get distancing a bit from him just for personal sanity.
This “under no obligation” bullshit is tedious and worthless. Nobody cares if she’s not legally required by the state to interact with or explain herself to anyone. She’s still being shitty by randomly shunning everyone out of the blue, and that’s all anyone is saying against her.
Well she’s not really shunning anyone. The last thing Jennifer said on the subject was that they weren’t enemies and that she was just “happy and busy” and that’s why they hadn’t seen each other. Walky just took the news badly. Worse than anyone else in the group. Except maybe Sal who had a whole panel where she had a sort of questioning expression toward Asher that might lead to something.
I’m real suspicious of what’s going on with Jennifer too but it’s also not fair to just disrespect her wishes or try to force interactions with someone because you miss them. Which is what Walky’s doing here. He’s even implying that he’ll just keep pestering her. Like, c’mon? How is that okay?
But this is really only his first time doing this and he’s just really annoying by default so maybe he’ll respect Jennifer if she gives him more pushback. Or Jennifer will come around more without this being a whole thing with Walky constantly pestering her.
How is it okay? — Sometimes friendship is complicated.
In fact, I’m not sure that all Jennifer’s relationships can’t be sorted into just two bins, Complicated and Shallow. Which bin Asher goes in is yet to be determined.
It’s a little brother’s job.
And sometimes it’s important not to take a friend at face value. You just have to be right about when that is.
Especially if your friend has depression, which includes social isolation.
Ruth has figured out that Jennifer pushes people away whenever her depression is worsening. After knowing each other their whole lives, Walky may have noticed this symptom, too.
Yes, you should normally get consent to hang out. But you also need to not let your very-depressed friends isolate themselves, so that’s a tricky balance.
In this case, Walky/Billie have traditionally had the comfortable pattern that he pesters her like a little brother. It’s legit that he’s leaning into their pattern when he suspects she is Not Okay.
Well, if the only reason she hasn’t seen Walky is because she’s busy, then it should be no problem for Walky to talk to her when he runs into her.
Or you know, Walky is legitimately worried about his near sister.
What with her dating a junior mafioso thug and all. Who we, the readers, know was an accessory to at least one murder.
Sirksome, will you relax your Walky shaped hateboner?
Every time he appears, you start whining.
Also, Jen, yes he’s stalking you. Everyone else has developed so much immunity to him that he’s having to look further afield to find someone to annoy.
Do today’s telecom majors still learn about dial-up modems, T1 circuits, and ISDN lines, like I had to back in 2005? (They were old news even then, but at least the core principles like time-division multiplexing and frequency-division multiplexing are still relevant. Your fancypants DOCSIS 3 cable modem uses both! Fun fact: current DOCSIS standards use interference-prone low frequencies for their upload links. That’s why you can get 300 megs down but only 12 up from the cable company. The next revision of the standard should fix that, and with the widespread adoption of video conferencing and live streaming that’s well overdue if you ask me.)
I think Walky looks better with longer hair.
“Wool”…. Billy wouldn’t wear plain wool… she’s wearing a mohair/cashmere/silk blend and making fun of Walky by calling it mere “wool”
Who’s this “Billy” you speak of?
Her name is Jennifer, and I met her on Tinder :v
Hey! Another Brazilian!
I must sing the song of my people!
Fish heads, fish heads.
Roley-poley fish heads…
oh wait. Wrong.people.
Eat them up, yum!
You sing the song of my people.
Cue “Garota de Ipanema”
I was thinking on “Blue like the sea” aka. Azul da cor domar, but this fits
Such sibling
Many annoy
WOW
Is Ernie wearing a mask?
Also, what is the deal with that bazar bronze statue in panel 1?
He has been wearing one lately.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Billie was advised by her therapist to cut toxic people out of her life like Walky [who has no direction in life and enables her habits] and Ruth [because Billie can’t be in a co-dependent suicide pact right now]. Thus, she’s actually in a healthier happier place.
We just assume she’s worse off because she’s not with the protagonists.
Her romance with Ruth was hella toxic but I don’t think any therapist worth their salt would tell someone to abandon all their previous friendships and hook up with a guy who called the police on his friend for the lulz.
Yeah because who people are at like 13 is who they are forever. Get outta here with that nonsense.
The guy has also been painted as being the one who asked a crooked cop to take care of Blaine. And it seems fairly clear he knew what that would entail.
Indeed, he changed from his 13-year-old self…
I guess we forgot Blaine tried to kill no fewer than half the named cast. Surprise surprise people with mob ties end up waxed after something like that. And we don’t know the full extent of Asher’s role in that. Just that when it was done he was told. Very easily could’ve been just told about the hit being suggested and when he didn’t stop it with the higher ups he was told when the hit was finished.
Who were you at thirteen?
I ask because I was basically the same person at thirteen. I might have been a little smarter then and my body wasn’t starting to fall apart, but I would recognize me anywhere.
I…definitely wasn’t the same person I am now when I was thirteen.
(And yes, I recognize the irony of posting this with my new gravatar)
I’m rounding the bases to 31. 13 year old me may as well be a completely different person. Even if I were to compare myself at 13 to myself starting 2nd semester in college I was massively different. I think that’s true for a bunch of people.
Well, it’s unlikely the therapist (or Jennifer for that matter) would know about Asher’s past.
OTOH, one common abusive partner sign is that they get you to break off existing friendships.
It’s possible she knows about Asher’s past (like Walky does) because she was there, or maybe she just knows he’s “one of Sal’s old friends”, or maybe she had no idea they were connected until they hooked up.
I’m sure we’ll get that exposition in due time.
As for Jennifer giving Walky the cold shoulder, maybe she’s just reverting to her haughty high school ways and doesn’t want to be seen with him. That sucks, but shallow’s gonna shallow.
1. Therapists don’t do that
2. Why do we expect an 18 year old to know what he’s doing with this life again? And why is not having direction a toxic trait? And when did Walky enable billies habits?
Once you’re 18, you’re officially All Grown Up and it’s time to know exactly what you’re going to be for the rest of your life. There’s absolutely no room for personal inspection or trying anything out. Once that meter ticks over, you have to be out your parents’ door with a full-time job that pays well, a brand-new vehicle, a house you bought yourself, a kid at least on the way, $40k in the bank, and you better be balancing all of that with an education you also paid for by yourself. Those are the rules.
And is with a literal criminal instead. Though to be fair, she might not know that yet.
After that. I hope Walky decides to let grow his hair even longer than Sal’s. We are in 2020 and still people can’t accept a guy with long hair?!
With such top class banter, how could he stay away?
“Many a man lives a burden to the earth, but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.” — John Milton
Ernie Pyle said some good stuff too.
There’s nothing wrong with Walky’s hair.
Walky’s hair is great! (Actually I heard the icons changed and I want to see who I get.)
with your icon I declare you officially Biased regarding Walky’s hair !
Same and same. (I was the old Billie/Jennifer icon and now I am…)
Yeah, I don’t really notice Walky’s hair change unless I’m thinking about it! It’s not long enough to play with yet.
So let’s see if I’m changed from Danny…
Dina! Definitely a good one.
Congrats!
oh no
i miss amber lol
Who’m I know, I wonder?
*Now, not know. Eedjet.
And let’s spin this wheel again, I want Dina.
NO.
Sara, what capitalization sequence did you use to get Dina?
Won’t help you. Capitalization just changes how your email address is hashed.
I dunno, it seems to work for me. Just can’t figure out the proper combination.
Definitely not that one. Worse than Danny.
Y’know what, sold. Fuckface I be.
Certainly changes it up, but you can’t just use the same capitalization sequence to get the same result as some one else.
. . . is that the “I have Opinions, change my mind !!” dude in the first panel ? hahahahaha
The gravatars have been changed! I was wondering why there seemed to be a sudden preponderance of Season 2!Becky in the comments section.
I seem to have gotten Asher, which…sure, I’ll take it I suppose.
I’m debating whether to stay Professor DeSanto or be obstinate and set the old av_dina.png as a custom gravatar…
Hell with it, Robin stays for now. She’s my algorithmically-assigned gravatar over in the It’s Walky! comments too.
Can anyone tell what the Unown on the building say?
It’s a quote from John Milton: “A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit”
It’s the inscription over the main entrance of Franklin Hall, the home of IU’s journalism department
There’s that point between having short hair and long hair where you just look like a shaggy dog, that is where Walky is at this moment.
Well shaggy dogs are pretty cute (if often a bit smelly) much like Walky.
Walky needs longer hair, hair long enough to put in a lazy pony tail. It’s not long enough to lightly tug in an “attention me” manner.
Man I wonder what my gravatar is gonna be now
Good question!
Maybe Megatron?
Let’s see.
Am I goth Billie?
Looks like regular Jennifer to me.