Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Shaderunners
Alex Assan, Lin Darrow
A ragtag band of bootleggers open a speakeasy for bottled colour in the greyscale city of Ironwell.
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.
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.
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.
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
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I mean, if Walky legit shortcuts the comic into making himself the DoAverse’s Ryan North, more power to him, and maybe he’ll start writing for Amazi-Squirrel
It blew my mind every time I remembered that the comic book I was reading was written by North…and at the same time I was reading Gwenpool, by Chris Hastings, the Dr. McNinja guy.
If I had a nickel for every time one of my favorite comedic webcomic creators started writing for Marvel, I’d have two nickels (with which to fuck your mom). Which isn’t a lot (of times to fuck your mom considering her normal schedule), but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Willis, when you gonna get announced as the new writer of The Awesome Slapstick or something?
I wonder what the better gig is now? I used to get excited when a creator I liked went on to writing in comics but the climate nowadays leads me to believe producing your own stuff is the more worthwhile pursuit even if it is harder.
I JUST noticed that myself, to the point that I actually had to go back and see how long his upper lip has been noticeable in the art, and it’s been like that a few months. Surprised I’m only just noticing it with this strip.
I don’t know how much Dina would appreciate dinosaurs as reconstructed by Joyce (whose paleontology education comes from Young Earth Creationists) and Walky (who rejected discoveries that he considered uncool)
I still remember that a certain hack artist-writer transmogrified his anthropomorphic characters into something resembling humans.
If I recall correctly the strip was called Life in Hell.
It always hurts when you talk yourself out of being excited about something, especially when you understand that the reason why doesn’t speak well of you.
Yeah, but usually we’re seeing the consequences of his tendencies, rather than watching him realize that it’s extremely likely that he’s just going to drift out of this like he’s drifted out of so many other things.
The former is irritating to see, but the latter is simply depressing – to see that he knows that it’s an issue, but one that he can’t readily fix because the very nature of it prevents him from addressing it.
The secret is to have a few different things going, so when you get burned out, talk yourself down, or otherwise ADD your way out of something there’s another thing to jump into.
Of course, too MANY things to choose from can lead to decision paralysis and you’re back to not doing anything. If I had the answer yo that dilemma, I’d have a lot fewer unfinished projects kicking around the house.
Walky and Joyce likely have some kind of condition that they should get assistance for (Walky with ADHD, Joyce with OCD). It doesn’t mean that their behaviours can’t be seen as annoying until they get it.
It’s not like seeing either of them constantly ignore boundaries or sensitive topics is fun to watch or be on the receiving end of.
He gives me hard ex-gifted kid vibes where the inherent giftedness in early life develops into a debilitating anxiety of not excelling because he knows he lacks the skills to achieve the same levels of greatness so now he opts to pretend like he doesn’t care or that effort is not worth it because it feels safer than to try and fail and oh god I’ve been putting off quitting my job for weeks and am just not replying to messages because I don’t want to face the idea that I failed at that and then go back to uni without the financial security going into my last placement which is coming up and I’m not ready how can I be responsible for other people’s wellbeing when I haven’t even done the dishes in a week and can’t even put up with a little bit of bullying at work I don’t want to go you can’t make me aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh
I really liked MTMTE, but I’m hesitant to get into the rest of IDW’s stuff. I am perilously close to getting sucked into your awful fandom, and I don’t think my wallet would survive that
Yeah, MTMTE/Lost Light actually got me buying Transformers again (making it the single greatest marketing campaign I’ve ever encountered, thanks James Roberts, never work for the jewelry industry please). I can never embrace hobbies by half, so it got pretty pricey. Two things helped me kick the Trukk-Not-Munky on my back.
1) Generations Rattrap was so godawful frustrating to transform that he’s staying in Beast Mode forever. Any time I think about how fun Transformers are to play with, I try to remember the headache that particular one was.
2) The last one I bought (Titans Return Bumblebee) I deliberately left in the package. I never leave toys in the package, I’m not that guy. But having one packaged Transformer meant that whenever I walked past the TF aisle at the store and got tempted I could think “You have one at home you never even opened, go play with that one first”.
Now that Joyce is officially in this newspaper strip competition I guess I wonder what the criteria for a winning strip idea is. I mean when Walky was the only one it could’ve practically been anything but now we have to wonder who is actually judging the strips. Is it Daisy? Cause I don’t think either of them is going to cover the subject matter that appeals to her. LAWsome might be a good idea but it’s unfortunately lacking in the hot woman in a skin tight outfit with a chest window category.
If I get my speculation hat on, I think Joyce is too busy with all her own things to get a comic job subplot on the side, and Walky’s post-timeskip dickishness seems to be setting him up for a metaphorical boot to the head.
I’m kind of rooting for a surprise “Mary wins because she draws in a fanservicey anime style” ending, because Mary achieving a glimmer of artistic success but realizing she’ll lose it all if she Marys in front of Daisy has a lot of comedy potential (not least because it gives Ruth some revenge blackmail opportunity to dangle). I wouldn’t be opposed to a surprise Malaya win (or a real out-of-nowhere twist like Danny or something), and obviously there’s more than a little bit of meta autobio stuff in this storyline with Willis’ two self-inserts battling to digimerge with him, but Mary’s internal conflict between “I must be popular and beloved” and “I must be a massive irredeemable asshole at all times” makes her a fun villain, and I feel like I’m going from speculating about an outcome to lobbying for one so I’ll stop now
I imagine the collaboration theory is the most viable, mainly because it screws them both over with an unsatisfying outcome that has lots of future comedic potential since they have such conflicting creative preferences. But I do also like the surprise third party win. Any outcome where they both lose seems the most likely.
Walky learned he wasn’t automatically good at everything when he was failing math class.
Not being good at it, and having to face potential disappointment from his mother, is part of what led him to sympathize and thus make headway with Sal.
I don’t think this will stop Walky. I know Joyce is the autobiographical character these days, but Walky has a lot of autobiographical traits as well and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the universe that could stop Willis from drawing comics forever
Eh, she’s very stuck in her habits. Her life drawings are all very similar.
It’s nice when she finds someone that will want her specific style, but I imagine she could easily stagnate and still be pumping out the same things 20 years from now without any effort to improve. Which is fine if she can earn a living wage, but the odds are against her.
Not that the Mary storyline is something I’m really invested in but she did snatch some of Malaya’s artwork that she’d thrown away assumedly to analyze for her own improvement. She’s also asked Malaya the more technically proficient artist of them for tips. I know Mary is objectively and borderline irredeemably awful but she does seem serious about her art. It is her one good quality and the only thing I can relate to in her character. I hope that at least doesn’t get ruined.
Well upon looking it up it seems more like Malaya volunteered the information https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/turkeys
But Mary does seem very aware of her artistic shortcomings. I wish her luck on her journey towards artistic improvement. She has nothing else worth caring about.
There’s also this kind of strange strip where Mary is eyeing Malaya’s old homework but it doesn’t really show whether she took it or not. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/normalize/
I don’t know if there was some story idea here that was dropped but I can’t really find the payoff to this, but it does tell me Mary knows Malaya is better than her at drawing and wants to do something about it.
But I’ve talked enough about the Mary art subplot that I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who cares about it. Mary’s become even more of a horrible caricature of a conservative, hyper religious, bigot so I don’t have much faith in any of her even slightly positive qualities being focused on ever. Even one I personally relate to.
Eh, you never know. Far more awful characters have made turn arounds – not on this strip, yet, but in general. I do think she knows Malaya is better than her, but she doesn’t want to admit it.
In which Walky realises that there is nothing better to ruin a hobby than turning it into your job. Yes, it will be a lot of work. Like anything else that makes a living. You cannot live and be lazy, much to his horror!
It’s good to see Joyce’s smile back, even if it is only the smug version for thinking ahead of Walky!
Is this the first strip with a Joyce drawn closeup in a normal manner we haven’t seen her baby blues in? I know it’s only two panels, but it’s very unusual.
Little-known fact: the Big Bang was caused when a hard-working cartoonist made a self-referential aperture in the fourth wall, causing fictional and actual reality to collapse into a singularity…
(I’m glad you make the effort @damnyouwillis, DOA is my first comic read every morning)
Battle of the Autobiographicals: it’s Oh-No-My-Bowtie vs The Whiteboard Ding-Dong Bandit! Who will take up Willis’s crown and prove themself the true heir?
If anyone has a betting pool go put me in for $100 for “the editor considers the contestants a tie and now the odd couple have to work together on a strip”.
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CongratulationsYouJustPlayedYourself.gif
I mean, if Walky legit shortcuts the comic into making himself the DoAverse’s Ryan North, more power to him, and maybe he’ll start writing for Amazi-Squirrel
It blew my mind every time I remembered that the comic book I was reading was written by North…and at the same time I was reading Gwenpool, by Chris Hastings, the Dr. McNinja guy.
If I had a nickel for every time one of my favorite comedic webcomic creators started writing for Marvel, I’d have two nickels (with which to fuck your mom). Which isn’t a lot (of times to fuck your mom considering her normal schedule), but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Willis, when you gonna get announced as the new writer of The Awesome Slapstick or something?
I was today years old when I learned the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl guy was another webcomic writer who got a job at Marvel.
I wonder what the better gig is now? I used to get excited when a creator I liked went on to writing in comics but the climate nowadays leads me to believe producing your own stuff is the more worthwhile pursuit even if it is harder.
TIL both that the Dinosaur comics guy has written for Squirrel-Girl and named his dog Noam Chompsky
Today, I learned that someone named themself for a Far Side punchline.
back when TES IV Oblivion came out, I named my orc character Thag. Guess what his favorite mace was called.
Windu?
Was the mace made of Stegosaurus tail?
If there’s not a mod for that, there should be.
Also the Adventure Time comics!
he was before that doing the adventure time comics, they were nice.
But think of how far that 5 dollars will go!
*squints at Walky’s upper lip*
Is… is that stubble that’s kinda growing?
I think that’s just his lip? You can see the same shading on Joyce.
I went back a few strips and I think everyone who doesn’t have anything else for their lips has it.
I JUST noticed that myself, to the point that I actually had to go back and see how long his upper lip has been noticeable in the art, and it’s been like that a few months. Surprised I’m only just noticing it with this strip.
Willis has been gradually increasing the amount of characters with lips before giving everyone a lip in the new season
What if they collaborated?
Joyce: Julia Gray is not a tyrannosaurus!
Walky: I’m better at drawing tyrannosauruses than people!
Joyce: No one is gonna buy this!
(Issue sold out thanks to Dina)
I don’t know how much Dina would appreciate dinosaurs as reconstructed by Joyce (whose paleontology education comes from Young Earth Creationists) and Walky (who rejected discoveries that he considered uncool)
I vaguely recall an early strip where Dina saw some of Walky’s notes with dinosaurs scribbled on them and was quite enamored.
I still remember that a certain hack artist-writer transmogrified his anthropomorphic characters into something resembling humans.
If I recall correctly the strip was called Life in Hell.
That seems like the best option.
They would be able to provide help and cover for each other.
Panel 3 to 5 is a burn to anyone and everyone. Yowch.
aaaaaaa smug Joyce
Whaaaa? Hard work? Dedication? You mean I can’t just doodle some cool figs and chicks will dig me forever? Man this sucks, back to my trampoline park.
Damn Dorothy, you work fast
Ohhhhh Walky. Shoulda seen that coming. XD
Huh. I actually feel bad for Walky for once.
It always hurts when you talk yourself out of being excited about something, especially when you understand that the reason why doesn’t speak well of you.
At the same time, Walky going ‘effort = bad!’ is a recurring trend that’s just kinda exasperating to watch.
The only thing he ever put effort into was Dorothy and once that was over his drive just deflated out of him like a balloon landing on a pincushion.
Yeah, but usually we’re seeing the consequences of his tendencies, rather than watching him realize that it’s extremely likely that he’s just going to drift out of this like he’s drifted out of so many other things.
The former is irritating to see, but the latter is simply depressing – to see that he knows that it’s an issue, but one that he can’t readily fix because the very nature of it prevents him from addressing it.
Man I wish the latter was less relatable
[I’m in this picture and I don’t like it dot png]
The secret is to have a few different things going, so when you get burned out, talk yourself down, or otherwise ADD your way out of something there’s another thing to jump into.
Of course, too MANY things to choose from can lead to decision paralysis and you’re back to not doing anything. If I had the answer yo that dilemma, I’d have a lot fewer unfinished projects kicking around the house.
Hmmmm….. it’s almost like he has some kind of undiagnosed ADHD! Nah, that can’t be right. He just sucks and I won’t hear otherwise
That sure is putting words in people’s mouths.
Walky and Joyce likely have some kind of condition that they should get assistance for (Walky with ADHD, Joyce with OCD). It doesn’t mean that their behaviours can’t be seen as annoying until they get it.
It’s not like seeing either of them constantly ignore boundaries or sensitive topics is fun to watch or be on the receiving end of.
He gives me hard ex-gifted kid vibes where the inherent giftedness in early life develops into a debilitating anxiety of not excelling because he knows he lacks the skills to achieve the same levels of greatness so now he opts to pretend like he doesn’t care or that effort is not worth it because it feels safer than to try and fail and oh god I’ve been putting off quitting my job for weeks and am just not replying to messages because I don’t want to face the idea that I failed at that and then go back to uni without the financial security going into my last placement which is coming up and I’m not ready how can I be responsible for other people’s wellbeing when I haven’t even done the dishes in a week and can’t even put up with a little bit of bullying at work I don’t want to go you can’t make me aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh
Walky you dumb dumb
We are now two days away from the release of IDW’s new Beast Wars ongoing.
I really liked MTMTE, but I’m hesitant to get into the rest of IDW’s stuff. I am perilously close to getting sucked into your awful fandom, and I don’t think my wallet would survive that
Yes officer, this post right here.
Yeah, MTMTE/Lost Light actually got me buying Transformers again (making it the single greatest marketing campaign I’ve ever encountered, thanks James Roberts, never work for the jewelry industry please). I can never embrace hobbies by half, so it got pretty pricey. Two things helped me kick the Trukk-Not-Munky on my back.
1) Generations Rattrap was so godawful frustrating to transform that he’s staying in Beast Mode forever. Any time I think about how fun Transformers are to play with, I try to remember the headache that particular one was.
2) The last one I bought (Titans Return Bumblebee) I deliberately left in the package. I never leave toys in the package, I’m not that guy. But having one packaged Transformer meant that whenever I walked past the TF aisle at the store and got tempted I could think “You have one at home you never even opened, go play with that one first”.
The college newspaper comes out every day?
I think mine came out like once a month.
Yeah, I don’t remember how often my college’s newspaper came out, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t every day. Maybe once a week?
Mine came out once a week… but we didn’t have 48 thousand people enrolled there, either. Hell, the population of the entire community was barely 50K.
People took notice when a new one came out, and you’d see people around campus reading it. It wasn’t super rare, but it sure as heck wasn’t every day.
They might also intend to post it on the paper’s site as a daily webcomic.
Now that Joyce is officially in this newspaper strip competition I guess I wonder what the criteria for a winning strip idea is. I mean when Walky was the only one it could’ve practically been anything but now we have to wonder who is actually judging the strips. Is it Daisy? Cause I don’t think either of them is going to cover the subject matter that appeals to her. LAWsome might be a good idea but it’s unfortunately lacking in the hot woman in a skin tight outfit with a chest window category.
If I get my speculation hat on, I think Joyce is too busy with all her own things to get a comic job subplot on the side, and Walky’s post-timeskip dickishness seems to be setting him up for a metaphorical boot to the head.
I’m kind of rooting for a surprise “Mary wins because she draws in a fanservicey anime style” ending, because Mary achieving a glimmer of artistic success but realizing she’ll lose it all if she Marys in front of Daisy has a lot of comedy potential (not least because it gives Ruth some revenge blackmail opportunity to dangle). I wouldn’t be opposed to a surprise Malaya win (or a real out-of-nowhere twist like Danny or something), and obviously there’s more than a little bit of meta autobio stuff in this storyline with Willis’ two self-inserts battling to digimerge with him, but Mary’s internal conflict between “I must be popular and beloved” and “I must be a massive irredeemable asshole at all times” makes her a fun villain, and I feel like I’m going from speculating about an outcome to lobbying for one so I’ll stop now
I imagine the collaboration theory is the most viable, mainly because it screws them both over with an unsatisfying outcome that has lots of future comedic potential since they have such conflicting creative preferences. But I do also like the surprise third party win. Any outcome where they both lose seems the most likely.
If Walky loses the contest and finally realizes he isn’t automatically good at everything…
Sal wins.
Walky learned he wasn’t automatically good at everything when he was failing math class.
Not being good at it, and having to face potential disappointment from his mother, is part of what led him to sympathize and thus make headway with Sal.
Daisy might have a second interest.
*plays L’Trimm’s “Grab It” on the hacked Muzak*
the Muzak that goes Boom?
I remember being 16 and thinking drawing comics would be a breeze. You fool.
Oh no walky did an achilles on himself
Dumbing of Age Book XI: Good Luck, An’ Keep In Mind What A Huge Time Investment This’ll Be
DoA Book 11: It’s Gonna Be Actual Real Hard Work
DoA Book 11: I hope that talked you out of it more than it talked me out of it.
DoA Book 11: This’ d be your life now.
I don’t think this will stop Walky. I know Joyce is the autobiographical character these days, but Walky has a lot of autobiographical traits as well and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the universe that could stop Willis from drawing comics forever
I just noticed Sarah kept the witchified portrait of herself up after Halloween
Mary’s not a bad artist and it feels really weird to give her a genuine compliment.
Eh, she’s very stuck in her habits. Her life drawings are all very similar.
It’s nice when she finds someone that will want her specific style, but I imagine she could easily stagnate and still be pumping out the same things 20 years from now without any effort to improve. Which is fine if she can earn a living wage, but the odds are against her.
Not that the Mary storyline is something I’m really invested in but she did snatch some of Malaya’s artwork that she’d thrown away assumedly to analyze for her own improvement. She’s also asked Malaya the more technically proficient artist of them for tips. I know Mary is objectively and borderline irredeemably awful but she does seem serious about her art. It is her one good quality and the only thing I can relate to in her character. I hope that at least doesn’t get ruined.
When did she do that? I remember her offering Malaya pointers, but not the other way around.
Well upon looking it up it seems more like Malaya volunteered the information
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/turkeys
But Mary does seem very aware of her artistic shortcomings. I wish her luck on her journey towards artistic improvement. She has nothing else worth caring about.
There’s also this kind of strange strip where Mary is eyeing Malaya’s old homework but it doesn’t really show whether she took it or not.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/normalize/
I don’t know if there was some story idea here that was dropped but I can’t really find the payoff to this, but it does tell me Mary knows Malaya is better than her at drawing and wants to do something about it.
But I’ve talked enough about the Mary art subplot that I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who cares about it. Mary’s become even more of a horrible caricature of a conservative, hyper religious, bigot so I don’t have much faith in any of her even slightly positive qualities being focused on ever. Even one I personally relate to.
Eh, you never know. Far more awful characters have made turn arounds – not on this strip, yet, but in general. I do think she knows Malaya is better than her, but she doesn’t want to admit it.
In which Walky realises that there is nothing better to ruin a hobby than turning it into your job. Yes, it will be a lot of work. Like anything else that makes a living. You cannot live and be lazy, much to his horror!
It’s good to see Joyce’s smile back, even if it is only the smug version for thinking ahead of Walky!
I’m not sure if it is the work or the commitment that turns him off.
Effort, Walky’s biggest weakness.
Welp it really talked -me- out of it
Of course Joyce managed to find a way to bring Dorothy in it.
Is this the first strip with a Joyce drawn closeup in a normal manner we haven’t seen her baby blues in? I know it’s only two panels, but it’s very unusual.
Little-known fact: the Big Bang was caused when a hard-working cartoonist made a self-referential aperture in the fourth wall, causing fictional and actual reality to collapse into a singularity…
(I’m glad you make the effort @damnyouwillis, DOA is my first comic read every morning)
. . . Willis, you okay?
He can’t answer you. He’s curled up in a corner, rocking back and forwards with his thumb in his mouth whilst Maggie shouts at him to snap out of it.
Battle of the Autobiographicals: it’s Oh-No-My-Bowtie vs The Whiteboard Ding-Dong Bandit! Who will take up Willis’s crown and prove themself the true heir?
i’m probably really late to the game but given the autobiographical aspects of the story i can’t help wondering if this is willis’ origin story
Dorothy helped me! In your faaaace, Walky! She’s MY girlfriend now!
*classic JoyceFace*
In the sense of a friend who happens to be female!
If anyone has a betting pool go put me in for $100 for “the editor considers the contestants a tie and now the odd couple have to work together on a strip”.