The first Dumbing of Age Patreon bonus strip for 2021 is about the EYE DOCTOR LADY! Because hindsight is 2020 i guess nyuk nyuk also dina’s there
All Patrons can go read it right the heck now!
Remember you can pledge up to read TOMORROW’S strip TODAY!
Loading ...
Those….do count but oh hon.
Daisy: Okay, I like your energy, but why did you submit 30 different strips about Obama’s tan suits?
Joyce: Well, obviously because Peanuts is under copyright!
also, Chick tracts I guess?
Somewhere in the depths of his tumblr blog (which I don’t even now if he has anymore), Willis drew a picture of himself making this face.
It belongs in a museum!
Well, I don’t have a museum, but I do follow him on tumblr, and I found it for you!
A true hero!
Saved to my “misc pictures” folder, planning on forgetting the whole thing and going “WTF?” when I see it again in a few years. As is tradition.
From what I understand Chick Tracts are technically the highest selling comic of all time, even though they’re never included in lists of comic book best sellers.
Obviously they’re using an entirely different business model though. When every customer buys several hundred chick tracts to pass out to random strangers who don’t want them that kind of skews the results.
There’s simply no way. Action Comics is sitting at 600 million, Detective Comics at 484, and One Piece at 380. Weekly Shonen Jump has moved 1.2 billion issues.
These numbers are just not touchable by some fundamentalists printing home comics, no matter what.
Wikipedia claims chick tracts have printed over 800 million comics, so Shonen Jump is the only one of the listed options that actually have them beat.
You underestimate the power of fundy-spam
Hey, it worked for AOL…
Every Sunday morning when I would stop by my local convenience store for a cup of coffee, I’d swing by the men’s room. and there’d always be a couple of Chick tracts sitting on the urinals. I’d immediately chuck them in the trash before “doing my business”.
She’s more qualified than you Walky.
Honestly if Walky wants her out of the contest all he needs to say is that they’re paying 5 bucks a strip! Then watch her life as she moves on to kickstarter crowd funding the third volume of her Julia Grey graphic novel while drawing dinosaurs for pocket change!
This is just baseless Walky hate. This is a great job for Walky, he’s funny, artistic, and loves comics.
We have actually seen Walky draw, yeah.
Then again, I would totally read Joyce Brown’s Julia Gray drawn as XKCD stick figures.
Well we know she can draw ding dongs! And with some degree of accuracy with a reference!
I’m not sure it’s that kind of newspaper though.
It’s run by Daisy, so no.
Now, if she drew boobies…
(If it helps, I found this helpful guide to drawing boobies.)
To further this, a guide to drawing tits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSgK74Th5oo&ab_channel=HovrahAnimation
Huh. Always thought I’d have to ask Yotomoe about that topic, honestly.
I see a side gig for Joyce with rotoscoping dingdongs and other anatomy for a certain audience.
I didn’t say he wasn’t fit for the job. In fact I think he’s being taken for a ride on this whole thing and should strike out independent if he’s serious about doing a comic. But Joyce has one thing on Walky as of this strip and that’s comic strip reading experience. Walky’s been shown as more of a movies and cartoon guy. If he claims next strip he’s read a bunch of comics I’ll believe him because it’s pretty believable for his character but Joyce did site more experience here. Despite Walky basically insulting her to her face about it.
Walky reads at least Dexter and Monkey Master. He also said the newspaper was worthless to him without more comics, because last semester there were only a couple.
Yeah fair enough. Honestly they’re probably about even. Walky maybe has an artistic edge, and Joyce has a passion for writing even if it’s self indulgent wish fulfilment. I just don’t want to be called out for hating on Walky when I’m honestly not trying to. I really do think if he just told Joyce how much this newspaper strip was paying she’d drop out and he’d get what he wants.
That’s fair.
What makes you think he’s serious about doing a comic? This feels very much like this is a thing that caught his attention and is amusing him to put some energy towards, and he’ll probably stop if he gets bored.
He seemed legitimately interested in it, practically brought the subject up himself and was excited at the idea of being published. Maybe it’s just about the money but 5 bucks a day doesn’t seem like that big a motivator to me. It’s more like incentive for something he already wanted to do.
I mean he never brought it up that I recall before that opportunity, and his original broaching the topic was to read the comics in advance. The fact that more comics were needed and that they had an open contest to fill that opening was brought up entirely by Daisy. And excitement about being published is a pretty neat thing to be able to show around even if you’re just screwing around. And getting paid for it? That sounds pretty awesome, but the evidence that he’s serious enough about it that it makes literally any sense for him to pursue outside of the campus newspaper is pretty flimsy.
Then why is he so defensive about Joyce getting in on this gig he supposedly only has a passing interest in? To me that betrays him having more passion in this newspaper comic than maybe even he realizes. You’re very correct in your explaination but I think there’s more it than that. Especially after that rather solemn conversatiin with Booster ended with him being uncharacteristically serious right before his next appearance here trying to start this comic.
First, because it’s Joyce, and second, because it seemed like he had basically a clear shot with no competition, and if he’s got to compete it means more effort has to be put in and it’s going to feel more like work. I think the conversation with Booster is unrelated to the idea of drawing a comic. And maybe he’s got something else on his mind that could also be elevating his emotions past what his normal level of investment would be.
@Devin Perhaps I’ve overestimated Walky’s awareness for exactly how much effort this comic strip is actually going to take. Cause regardless of whether Joyce is competition or not this was going to feel like work. I assumed Walky would know that considering he took the opportunity at all. Unless Daisy has absolutely no standards (which might be the case with her track record) she needs something at least competent which will require more effort than the job’s really worth. It’s not gonna be some easy get…well not rich.. but I guess uh..get 5 dollars to cover my fast food nuggets budget quick scheme?
You’ve made your point though. I can admit that but I still wanna see how much time Walky actually puts into this before I assume he’s has no interest in comics.
I don’t know, Walky seems to be pretty good at drawing doodles on his notes. If he can translate that into drawing a comic strip, he might be as good or better at drawing comics than Joyce.
I think it says a lot about Carol that she considers one of the highlights of her life was the time decades ago she decided to bash a fictional gay kid.
V A L U E S
In one of the most wholesome comic strip ever??
Y’know, as Carol becomes more cartoon villain, I wonder why it took so long for Hank to grow a conscience. Was it ‘for the kids’? Since he kept quiet about hating Toedad for so long…
Probably to keep from conflicting with Carol. Carol seems like one of those partners who’s emotionally abusive at the very least. Joyce rarely talks about her mother, and she trusts her dad completely and talks about him more frequently.
Joyce definitely doesn’t completely trust her dad, and it was only recently that she stopped thinking of them as a monolithic unit. More than Carol, but that’s a Low bar.
Nor does Jocelyne, who’s had time to come to terms with both ‘our parents aren’t perfect’ and ‘our parents are people, and therefore can’t be a complete monolithic unit.’ She was even surprised when Joyce brought it up. (Even now, note that Joce is not out, though I can just as easily see that being ‘Joyce can’t keep secrets and Jocelyne wants to be sure Carol doesn’t have a boat or something when it’s time to detonate that bridge.’)
Just gonna pop in with a +1 to “definitely doesn’t completely trust her dad”. That just ain’t anything close to what “complete trust” looks like. :S
Strongly ingrained Christian values? My guessing is even the idea of divorce is a taboo to them. Plus I don’t think Carol was as bad as she seems now. Nobody starts out so awful it takes years of that behavior being reinforced and never challenged. Plus we honestly just don’t get to see the other sides of most of the parents in this comic. Not that we’d really want to. I don’t mind not sympathizing with Carol.
Because he grew up steeped in that ideology too, and he didn’t have an atheist and a lesbian as his best friends
Yep. Remember, even as recently as Family Weekend Hank was bringing up ‘well Hitler was an atheist too.’ He wasn’t ever as entrenched as Carol but that doesn’t mean he didn’t believe in it all.
“You know who ELSE was maybe partly Jewish?”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/moral/
God right I was hoping that wasn’t what he had said but suspected.
Yeah uh. That’s a pretty clear case in point that Hank wasn’t BETTER than Carol so much as he was ultimately more willing to reassess.
Being willing to reassess is part of becoming better. Carol won’t.
But that’s the thing. Carol is very much very real.
I’m not sure where you’re going with this, because your question is about Hank growing a conscience, not Hank growing a backbone. Before Joyce confronted him at the fountain on parents’ weekend, I don’t think Hank was just keeping quiet while Carol was bigoted. Hank was bigoted, too, and passive-aggressively prayed over Joyce to not associate with non-believers.
Hank values Joyce, and Hank values Becky, and I think a lot of Hank’s recent growth and evaluation of his beliefs stems from his church becoming a (more obvious) threat to his loved ones.
Hank is no hero and is more than responsible for a lot of the same toxic behavior Carol has shown. The difference and this is a big difference is his willingness to try and change when truly confronted with the implications of his beliefs. That is not easy to do for anyone in his position but especially not for a highly religious, middle aged, white dude, who in more ways than one directly benefits from his past behavior. I don’t know if he’ll ever reach the level where he can be fully trusted, but he has more hope than most.
Agreed to all that!
THANK YOU. It’s kinda annoying how the comment section acts like Hank never really believed in any bad stuff and must have just gone along with it to make Carol happy.
Joyce was Hank and Carol’s youngest, and when she moved out to go to college, they suddenly found themselves with a lot of time alone with each other. It wouldn’t be the first marriage to fall apart once the child-rearing business is done.
There’s a lot I could say on this but it can pretty much be summed up as ‘Hank and Carol likely married young, got used to the comfort of their squabbles and compromised and sacrificed for the kids and their marriage and without differing outside points of view, Hank stagnated for years and years for the sake of his family unit and fear of breaking it then Joyce challenged him and it became kids vs wife where he had to choose some of his loved ones over others’.
I don’t feel like Hank was someone who ever chose to be bad. But became complicit and stagnant due to marrying in and being stuck in a culture that supported his worst views. He didn’t have anyone to challenge him to be better or reassess or to tell him that he probably wasn’t very compatible with Carol. While Carol’s views likely got stronger and stricter due to being reinforced by the community which Hank wasn’t as entrenched in. It’s not so much that he grew a conscience so much as he needed to hear differing voices actually going ‘WTF Hank’ rather than it just seeming like personal quibbles and spats that he could let go for the sake of his family unit. You can’t grow to be or do better if you are living in an echo chamber.
Oh Joyce, honey… we need to get you some different comics.
Panel 4 Joyce is adorable.
Every panel Joyce is adorable.
Are they allowed to be this self-aware?
I’m sure everybody got there before me but I’m only just now realizing that due to the sliding timescale most of the cast of Dumbing of Age was 5 years old when Obama was originally elected and… uhhhhhh, I think I need to sit down for a bit.
While obviously there’s some drift depending on birthdays and such, we can make some fun assumptions about these characters ages to make ourselves feel ancient!
They are:
* Younger than 2/3 of the Star Wars Prequels (Clones was 2002)
* Do not remember a time before YouTube (Feb 2005)
* Likely had some of their toddlerhoods documented on FaceBook (public got access in early 2004)
* Don’t have any idea why MTV is called that
* Were born into houses that had Gamecubes and XBoxes.
* May have been conceived when their parents went on a date to see a Harry Potter movie.
*Listening to radio stations (well, if they do) and wondering “Why do so many of them play that song my parents were conceived to–the one about Mrs whatshername and that old ballplayer Joe somebody my great-grandfather remembers?”
I doubt Carol’s car radio ever left the Christian talk AM stations.
Hank probably had a couple disco and/or hard rock mixtapes hidden away, for when he had the car to himself. At this point he would’ve been Joyce’s age in the late 70s to early 80s.
I don’t want to think about how close I’d be to Hank’s age. Curse you, sliding comic timescale!
Someone needs to bring in Amber so they can adapt her classic Batman/Superman crossover fics.
The title “McJeez & Me” should be lampooned, but not as much as that newsnpaper clipping.
*rolls up a newspaper for that hindsight line* of course dinosaurs need eye tests
I think it is a lampoon—there was a show called McGee & Me for families like Joyce’s.
Description checks out… a lot.
Ty wasn’t sure anyone else had seen these.
I want to know how much of this page is autobiographical.
Well it sure can’t be the Obama’s tan suits cartoons! By the time he was elected, Shortpacked had been running for three years.
No clue about the rest, though.
The National Review part may well be autobiographic, just replacing Clinton cartoons with Obama’s.
With Clinton, I remember a popular political cartoon that showed Clinton finding one of Reagan’s Teflon suits in a White House closet (to explain how scandals didn’t affect his popularity).
I know this isn’t the point of the comic but I am **really** digging Joyce in these new glasses of hers. I’m not sure why but it just looks great.
I’ve found that girls who are already cute look even cuter wearing glasses. Joyce is no exception to this.
They say “Huys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.” I say, that depends on their frames.
I see what you did there.
I feel like Joyce could realistically just do comics about her own life, with art by Walky, and the two of them would actually have a pretty good thing going? Then again, 5$ a strip, that is really not enough money especially split between two people.
*plays Serge Gainsbourg’s “Comic Strip” on the hacked Muzak*
If only Bardot wasn’t racist…
I remember McGee and name! Who else!
I remember that Davy & Goliath episode where Davy gets trapped in a box car, only to be freed at the end. One of the train drivers goes “wow, that must have been scary, being all alone”, to which the other driver replies “he wasn’t alone”.
It took me 37 years to realize how fucked up that was.
I don’t remember McGee and me, but have been introduced to it via Youtube reviewers.
Davey and Goliath I do remember, and that primed me to be a huge fan of Moral Orel. I mean “Peridot flowcharts of Percy and Pierre” level.
I remember them. Used to quite enjoy them.
Christians didn’t do more comics?! They had cartoons, puppet shows, video games even but not comic strips??
Wasn’t there Johnny Hart, at least?
Remember that The Browns were somewhat discerning in their church selection. They may have been equally discerning in their media consumption.
Catholics had Treasure Chest, which was very popular in Catholic schools. No where near as heavy handed as Chick Tracts. And the Boy Scouts run comics in their magazine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Chest_(comics)
I’m surprised the Brown household didn’t have a collection of BC comics.
I wonder if the eye doctor in that bonus strip will ask about the T-rex
Also, she has experience refining a figure’s design.
I really love the dynamic between these two sometimes. Obviously, it can turn nasty, but this kind of goofiness is fun, and I do think they get a kick out of keeping each other on their toes sometimes.
Same. It’s a lot of fun 🙂
I am suddenly reminded that Joyce is the autobiographical character in the Dumbiverse.
She’s not the only one.
I love Joyce’s teal glasses <3
I see panel 4 and all I can think is “Now Kiss!!!” And I can’t get the thought out of my head
Reading this concurrently with Joyce and Walky reruns only amplifies this effect.
If you can’t beat them, kiss them?
walky you should know there’s no end to that rabbit hole XD
Sadly, that’s still a far more impressive comics résumé than I have.
“… Right. Boot up your laptop. I’ll show you what we’re ACTUALLY competing for and then we can talk again about whether you know enough to do it!”
They are going to end up doing it together.
The comic…I mean.
Possibly other things too.
“Plus, there’s Ben Garris–“
NOPE THAT THOUGHT IS TOO HORRIBLE
Obama’s tan suits? What?
Is that a euphemism or something?
(One google search later)
. . .okay, 2014 really had too much time on its hands.
Good that youstopped at tan suits and didn’t search for “Obama Dijon mustard”.
Also, watch how Republicans go back to having too much time on their hands now that a Democrat is president again.
What are you talking about? They’re going to be plenty busy sweeping the last 6 months under the rug while blowing every minor misstep up to colossal proportions.
I think the whole dijon mustard thing shows they don’t need actual missteps.
I think you’re overestimating their ability to willingly talk to each other at this point, JBento. The GOP is divided, the main-line ones (including most of the Fundies and Falwellites) are doing their best ‘surrender to biden’ impersonations and fretting over the Wallstreetbets thing, the younger ones are all-in and finding common cause with the Occupy/former Bernie wing of the Democrats because the Hedge Fund guys were heavily into backing Biden, and still haven’t paid any penalty for joyriding the country in 2008 (*Something the Fundies and the Establishment RINOs DEFENDED, thus why so many conservatives voted for the joke candidate in 2008, but not in 2016.) I doubt you’ll see the GOP able to have any message INCLUDING opposition in a unified manner for another couple decades. People are starting to wake up to the reality that both main-stream parties have colluded with Wall Street to fuck the rest of us since at LEAST the early 2000’s.
Hank Brown reminds me of a lot of people I know who are finally seeing past the blinders after a lifetime of repeating what they have been told to believe. Joyce just got there a bit earlier.
You’re seeing a completely different picture than I am. The so-called divided GOP is nearly united in bowing to Trump and in protecting those in Congress that abetted or encouraged the storming of the Capitol. The Senate GOP is uniting behind blocking any legislation from the Democratic side.
They’ve doubled down on calling any investigation into right wing domestic terrorism an attack on all conservatives and regular rural Christian Americans. No idea who you think is doing “surrender to biden” impersonations. They’re still barely willing to acknowledge he won the election.
If the Occupy/Bernie wing joins with the anti-Wall Street wing of the Republican base, they’re idiots, because that wing’s antipathy to Wall Street is shot through with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. They’re poison.
Leave it to Republicans to turn an inconsequential gaffe into a kaiju through incredulous outrage.
Godzilla? King Kong? They’re nothing compared to Rolexdijontansuit!
Y’all should look up Fox “News” reaction to the two Obama daughters smiling during the turkey pardon. It’s not surprising, but is goddamn sad.
I am interested to see which of them is actually better at drawing comics. And if they’re both equally good, maybe the school newspaper could have two comic strips going at the same time.
FWIW, I’m not expecting Joyce to show any art skill at all. She’s the one who is going to create the stories that Walky draws. Because his ideas are generally stupid and don’t make any sense even to him.
… and this, kids, is how Joyce Brown got to spend the last years of her life making cameos in Julia Gray movies.
Team up.
Team Up.
TEAM UP.
TEAM UP!
Gah, I forgot it only pays $5 a strip.
🙁
Also, she’s probably gonna pic some 9CL knock off so she can stare at inexplicable lady legs every day.
Who’s to say Walky won’t get some tips off Jennifer and cater to Daisy’s interests to get picked? Julia Grey’s flight suit might lend itself to such things. 😉
Plus “Exposure”!
I love it when Walky admits defeat to the madness that is Joyce’s life. His bullshit can’t top her reality. He can just as well follow it and see where it leads.
In some ways, it’s a relief that he, Sal and Jen aren’t the only one whose parents are busy stunting or outright undermining their kids development into mentally and emotionally healthy adults.
Just to put it out there: Walky appears to be TRYING to be less of a pain in the ass here. He is couching his impulse to mock in what comes across to me as a less-hurtful way.
This has been the plight of every fiction writer trying to write an evil politician in the last four years.
Reality can get away with all sort of things that fiction can’t.
God it’s like looking into a mirror. Most of my extended family was fine, but I remember occassions where my stepdad would confiscate my ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ books, because it was making me “rebellious”. “Rebellious” being an introverted kid who would occasionally leave a cabinet door open.
That’s a valid concern, though. If you leave a cabinet open, your house gets infested by politicians trying to be in it and then you have to fumigate.
Gospel according to peanuts was pretty good, though.
Yes, don’t insult Charles Schultz.
Thanks to “Say Movienight Kevin” I know who McJeez & Me is (supposed to refer to).
Actually, between Willis, Kevin, and Cinema Snob, this older coastal elite is getting a pretty good dose of media crit about RealMerka Christian stuff.
The most overtly Christian children’s media I knew about was VeggieTales, because they hit the secular mainstream. I only learned about the source material for Psalty and McJeez (and the rest) from Willis, after they were referenced in DoA or Shortpacked!.
But his references to Short Circuit also introduced me to that franchise, so I think I can forgive.
Thanks to Willis I can count myself for Jonathan Coulton, Steven Universe, and Persepolis.
I can feel that sliding time scale.
Is Dina using a contraction in the Bonus Strip preview? Has she started doing that?
Send this to Lynn Johnston, I’m sure she could use the support — I remember the reaction to the “gay kid” in her strip.
In a perfect world, the last panel would have a thought bubble of Joyce’s childhood kitchen, with the specific FBOFW strip taped to the fridge, and in the tags would be the names Lawrence and Michael.
And the FBOFW characters would be blinking in an animated .gif.
(Remember when they thought doing that to the official uploads was a good idea? Something Awful remembers.)
Oh gawd no…..
I liked Shultz’ Gospel According To Peanuts. And absolutely loved FBFW gay kid narrative. We did have some angry letters in the paper. It was right about then that I went from live/let-live “Gay people can live their lives without interference” to “This is some bullshit, stand with gay people”.
Well, Gospel According to Peanuts wasn’t by Shultz. It was written by Robert Short. (Though the comic strips in it were by Shultz, of course.)
I really buy their dynamic as close friends. Maybe not necessarily good friends, but close regardless. Where you can shout in each other’s faces over silly stuff and then still make plans to have lunch together. Where you’ll probably shout at each other over some other silly thing.
What is McJizz and me?