He’s offering to share gross-out humor with her. He sees her as an equal! Cool! She should reject his offer with potty humor in retaliation. Best buds forever.
Note that we haven’t seen any panel where Walky’s hand is near his nose. From this we can conclude that he always keeps a booger handy for emergencies.
did I miss something? what indicates that charles has an agenda here? he’s encouraging his kids to be nice to other kids, that’s regular parental behavior
Bah! I wish Chuck was selfish enough to encourage his kids to suck up to the rich kid for social gain! He’s just going through the motions. How expected. Where the eff’s Linda at? She would be all over this opportunity!
Agreed. Although it does leave a bad taste in my mouth that the comment section is both blaming him for wearing sweat pants, and for ~ohhh, social climbing. Billie tagged along with them because she is a child, all by herself, and got foisted on them – and he dares to treat her with kindness and help her socialize with his kids. And Walky might not have done so without encouragement.
Would we be scrutinizing Joyce’s dad like that, if we saw him in a flashback?
Chuck is an enabler to Linda at this point like Joyce’s dad is to her church and Joyce’s mom. For one thing Chuck is Black himself, and how that interacts with Linda’s racism and racism’s respectability politics at large is convenient to forget, because it doesn’t fit a neat abuser narrative.
That is actually a big peeve of mine with people against Charles. I’m not big on Chuck here, but he gets a lot heat for that comment against Sal’s hair and I think people ignore his black experience. Just talking from my own black life experience with black women, my mom, friends, ect. Black women spend a lot of time and money getting their hair straightened and as a black dude that can usually get a good cut for 20 bucks in 20 minutes, you gotta support your women when they have their hair done. So you better say you’re daughters hair is pretty when straightened. She probably spent over a hundred bucks on that! But if you say it’s better natural you get heat anyway by implying she wasted her time and money. You can’t win!
So yeah! I can give Charles a pass on that, because there’s a lot of unfairness in regards to society’s perception of black hair even today in 2022! Especially women’s hair. What the fuck is he supposed to say in that situation?
That rant being said. Charles is still mid as hell! I don’t trust him!
That would make sense if Sal had had her hair straightened before she talked to him. Definitely tell someone their hair looks good! Saying “Too bad” when your daughter’s wearing her natural hair and how pretty she looks when it’s straightened though? Dick move.
Yeah speaking as a black woman who has relaxed her hair in the past, if my dad saw me with my hair fully curly again and said “you look so pretty with it straight” (note the wording, “YOU”, not “it” looks pretty straight, or your hair looks nice straight, intentionally or not he is ascribing her beauty to her hair texture, that’s called texturism) i would at best, write him off as a dumb boomer and walk away, adding more distance to our relationship.
Charles defenders sometimes skip over internalized racism and the intense amount of misogynoir a lot of black men have towards black women. Look at the Tori Lanes defenders/ Meg the Stallion issue, it’s an acknowledged phenomenon that a not inconsiderable chunk of black men, fucking hate black women. I’m not saying Charles would go as far as to defend a woman getting shot for absolutely no reason, but he probably does have an implicit bias there. We also need to keep in mind that Charles is half black, and that can also intersect with his experiences and mindset, especially if his mom was the white one.
So, tl;dr no being black doesn’t give chuck a pass for the hair shit and it wasn’t a compliment because sal’s hair was already curly by then. What the fuck was he supposed to say? “Oh well your hair looks nice either way”, “do what you want with it”, or even the ever present option, fucking nothing.
I don’t think it was a compliment. I just know from experience the mistake made because I’ve made it myself and seen it made many, many times. It’s a pitfall I think a lot if not all black men can fall into and just writing the man off as a dick kind of hurts to see cause black men don’t get a lot of slack in society in general.
It feels like it’s on Charles to be perfect in that moment when he’s most likely absorbed the same internalized racist perspective many black men have. I’m not sure if he’s a misogynist or if I was for that matter. But when you grow up knowing your mom has to spend hours a week in a salon just to keep her job, usually sitting there with her. It’s understandable to me he would say something like that, not intentionally trying to be a dick. Admittedly I wasn’t as old as Charles is, and probably still am not, so maybe he arguably should have known better in that moment.
I used to think when you see a black women in your family straightened there hair, and you say it looks better that way you’re trying to reaffirm the effort they put in. At least that’s what I thought once. I didn’t know Charles is half black though. That adds some context.
But to feels like he’s been judged for what was a honest mistake he probably wasn’t even aware he made. It feels harsh.
But he didn’t see her with it straightened and tell her it looked better. He didn’t even hear her say she was going to get it straightened and tell her it looked better that way.
He saw her with it curly and told her she was so pretty the other way. That’s completely different from complimenting someone when they actually do it.
Also, in the real world – it’s a minor bit. Quite likely insignificant. In this story? It’s an intentional clue dropped by the author to inform us. It’s a significant detail. It matters.
The next time a female acquaintance puts on a few pounds, you should definitely tell them “You looked a lot prettier when you were skinny” so as to be supportive of the money and effort they spend on dieting.
The only mild defense I can wrestle up for Charles is that he may also associate the straight hair with before his daughter went down what he saw as a bad path; it’s clearly not as straight as she and her parents are starting to really clash. So he might also associate it with a sort of innocence.
There may also be internalized racism at any point in this thought process; make no mistake, Sal was put in that position in great part by Linda being an absolute drumset of a human being, and he has been complicit in it even if he doesn’t realize it. He’s still thoughtless *at best*.
Mostly how the first thing that came to mind when he learned her name was the fact she lived in a mansion and then just the whole top of panel 3 (but mostly the smug I brow raise when David starts trying to befriend her). I could be reading into thing though.
Yeah, Fidget may not have been as despicable as Professor Ratigan and they all were Ratigan’s orders, but he’s still an accomplice.
Same for Marge Simpson to anything Homer or Bart did to Society lately.
Same for LaFou to Gaston being a walking pile of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
A jackass’s enabler is a willing part of their jackassery whether they understand it works that way or not. Heartfelt intentions don’t come with the perk of excusing you from the kind of accountability that applies to literally everyone else…
True…But ya gotta admit, his being a good dad here also is a situation that doesn’t interfere with his wife’s climber agenda and also kind of helps to serve it as well.
Best part is, I don’t think this flashback really has anything to do with Mr. Walkerton whatsoever, but rather is about how Billie met Walky…..So not only is Chuckiw Walkerton but a background prop in this situation, but Poor Lil’ Shotgun Sally as well.
In my book Charles would then do a bad job at social climbing:
1- a kid going alone to school is not rich enough to make someone climb by making her acquaintance
2- a kid going alone to school is not cared about enough to make someone climb by making her acquaintance
Yeah, I was thinking that too. XD Her expression doesn’t give the impression she’s actually disgusted, so my guess is that she’s still in that kid phase where they know that something is supposed to be disgusting, but they don’t actually GET why it’s disgusting.
I love the detail of Billie’s wide smile in the last panel, even as she screams “Ewww”. And, of course, baby Sal is ADORABLE.
But, uh, I gotta ask to see if this is just my Walkerton Parent Hatedar colouring things – is anyone else getting Social Climber vibes from Charles here?
That’s not suspicious. I’m sure it’s a coincidence that the 7’3″ reptilians invading Earth right now, they just haaaappen to melt into sand if they so much as touch honey. Not at all worth investigating.
I mean you can do normal things with social climber intentions.
“Oh man this little girl came here by herself? That sucks. I should talk to her, maybe get the twins to befriend her. Oh wait she’s a billingsworth? Damn okay… Okay then if little David becomes her friend that just works out for everyone”
It’s certainly possible, but it’s hard to use that as evidence of those intentions when it’s also the kind of thing a nice, well-meaning guy would do with a little kid sent down to the bus stop alone.
If this were the only thing we’d ever seen of Charles, I’d say this would seem fairly normal. But in the context of his and Linda’s broader characterizations, this absolutely comes off as social-climber-y.
What broader characterizations? I’m interested in knowing, cause I’ve seen little to no evidence of Charles specifically being that motivated. Linda of course is a totally self-interested, “Karen” type. Charles just kind of agrees with her and googles shit maybe? How has he earned this bad faith or is he just guilty by association? Complacency equally tacit approval or whatever.
He’s a parent in this particular comic, the smart money goes on the most pessimistic, dire option available. Not a lot of these parents have really earned that good will, y’know?
I actually think the parents get kind of a raw deal in this comic and are unfairly vilified. Some like the extreme cases of Blaine, and Ross, and sure we can even throw Carol and Linda in there, deserve it, but I also think they’re not really as horrible as portrayed. They’re just people.
It’s easy to overstate, yeah, but it’s definitely a thing. The parents that have the most significance to the story are deeply flawed people who fill an antagonistic role
If they didn’t wanna be vilified, maybe they shoulda sucked less.
Although personally, I don’t really understand what you mean by “just people”, because there’s no real baseline for what “a person” means, in terms of behavior and personality and motivation. If Ross points a gun at his kid, Blaine kills multiple people, Linda neglects and scapegoats Sal while propping up Walky, and Carol is such a zealot that half her family drops her like a rock for helping bail out AND defending Ross, I don’t think we can say it’s still in the realm of whatever “just a person” is.
What I mean by “just people” is that it’s really easy to write characters off in this comic for one or two moments you don’t agree with when in reality they’re probably not as terrible as perceived. They’re just flawed people. This doesn’t really apply to sociopaths like Blaine and Ross, but I think characters like Carol and Linda aren’t as terrible as we would believe. They’re bad parents, yes, but not every parent is capable of being perfect and are just doing the best with their own knowledge and perspective. I personally believe both of those ladies can be redeemed. They probably won’t, but lots of people have later in life perspective changes, epiphanies, realizations ect. Look at Hank who was just as awful as Carol until he had a face turn and now everyone loves him….kind of.
Good parents by default don’t get much screentime, sadly. Even as far as good moms go, the only one with enough screentime to be a recurring cast is Stacey.
Nah not Mr. Wilcox, Charles is a subtle, apathetic kind of suck with the occasional wildly insensitive line. The Wilcoxen actively tied all of Danny’s worth to shacking up with a good girl because he’s worthless on his own, were definitely emotionally abusive and according to Willis are exactly why Danny was the way he was at the start of the comic. And i don’t think there was an implication of split responsibility, they were both equally awful. I’d put them both in the same rank as chuck at least.
Fuck the Wilcox parents, i can’t wait for sal to tell them off one day
Best dad? That’s not really a high bar to clear. The only other one even in the running is Richard probably and he doesn’t really do much but bang Amber’s mom and laugh at sexual inuendo, which is somehow still better than the others. Maybe Jacob’s older brother counts. He’s even a dad too, just not Jacob’s.
I get Dina’s dad, but how is Carla’s father best? Have we ever seen him? Is the bar just so low that you become the best by never being seen? I gonna say it’s Harrison. Mr. Rutten’s still up there, cause Carla’s not fucked up and has confidence, but Harrison has been seen as a positive role model for Jacob and is a father okay carrying his baby around all day in one of those child harnesses while wearing a suit no less.
Hasn’t been on screen, but Carla’s made references. Supporting a trans daughter in the public eye, including a big legal case. Also had an Ultra-Car toy made for her.
It doesn’t matter, because rich parents’ kids are also rich and therefore anything good they do for their kids is just perpetuating the plutocracy. Rutten is rich, so anything good he does is bad. And anything bad he does is also bad.
Richard’s cheating has really screwed up Joe. I’d say that disqualifies him for the “Best Dad” category, even if he’s not an abusive monster like some others. Well-intentioned towards Joe at least, but still left him with trauma.
Hank at least has shown signs of realizing his problems and improving.
Well, him agreeing with Linda (or at least not caring enough to stop her) is already a bad look, but it’s specifically how the first thing he does is go ‘Oh, so you ….live in a big house.’ i.e. have a lot of money. The emphasis on her last name too.
I mean, *I* don’t like Charles because he’s been a shitty dad to Sal (hair comment for starters, Sal comments on her lectures from her parentS plural about how she’s a failure, her saying she envies Amber’s ability to reject her dad’s power over her, etc.) but this is actually new (or new to me). I thought the social climb-y bits were all Linda before this strip.
It’s possible. It’s also possible he’s just placing where Jennifer comes from.
A compassionate dad who wanted nothing to do with the snobby rich people might react the same way, especially with all the red flags Jennifer’s giving about her parents (they don’t come down, she mentions “Nina” instead of them).
Of course, this is Charles and I’m not inclined to think the best of him either.
…have just realized that one of the teachers’ last names was also the last name given to a minor character who never had one originally on the rerun site. And who happens to be relevant to this particular group of characters, backstory-wise.
I seem to recall that when “Ms.” was introduced it was supposed to replace both “Miss” and “Mrs.”, and to relieve women from the intrusive obligation of declaring their marital status in contexts where it ought not to matter.
It varies by individual. Dina is currently a MS, a master of Science. If she ever marries Becky, she will become a MRS, a Mistress of Romantic Science.
Whelp. Now we know how it started. Walky was the son with the rich, white friend. Sal wasn’t.
Then, Sal inadvertently compounds the difference by befriending a poor latina.
So… I’m throwing my hat in the Walkertons are primarily classist ring. Not to say they are not racist.
But, its probably more of the the black people are bad BECAUSE they are poor variety.
Classism and racism are meted out through the same avenues of white supremacy and wealth inequality. An oligarchal power structure like the one in North America
Prejudice is not a set of dipper switches where you’re Not Racist but think The Gays are weird, they filter from the same source of our white supremacist, fiscal overlords who do a lot of work to make sure we divide amongst ourselves.
It’s another one of those timeline altering events. In another universe, Jennifer saves Marcie from the attack, Sal never tries to rob the convenience store, AG doesn’t exist, Mike is still alive, and Walky somehow became a genius because of some butterfly effect shenanigans. Can’t wait to read Smarting of Age in 2071 and see how that pans out .
Billie is at the robbery with Asher instead of Sal. It still plays out the same, but she’s let off thanks to her father’s connections and develops a thirst for crime.
Upon arriving at IU she dons a costumed alter ego for moonlighting as a cat burglar. Asher, feeling responsible but not willing to get the law or campus security involved, dons his own costume as he attempts to thwart her at every turn, his vigilante actions only just barely tolerated by the RA, who is nursing some dark secrets of her own.
Billie insists that it’s not “from something” and even if it were it wouldn’t be a nerd thing because “those movies make like a billion dollars everyone sees them.”
(i’m copying my comment here because it’s stuck in moderation, if the other one ends up going through then oh well lol:)
[looks at the other comments] wait…we’re going with the social climber angle? that’s the read here? because i immediately focused on the fact that he said ‘on’ and then paused. normally you wouldn’t say “you live ON the big house”, you’d say “you live IN the big house.” so, like, my mind went to…i mean…
like, it was surely going to be “plantation”, right?? he was going to say “you live on that big plantation on the hill”. or am i nuts??? why else would he say ON in that sentence? is this a regional phrasing?
it could have been something like “estate”, i guess, but why would he hesitate to say it then? i’m sticking with my first impression.
but he would still have said “you live IN that McMansion”, not “ON”
like, very possibly it’s just how people speak where i’m from (california) but the use of “on” in this context is glaringly unnatural-sounding to me, and i’m amazed no one else has commented on it?
I did a quick googling, and apparently Indiana didn’t have plantation houses?
I do agree that’s a weird place for the pause – I could understand why he’d do an hesitation before the “big”, but as it is I’m not figuring out what he was going to say or why he was in doubt on what to call it.
It could still be a modern plantation, though. Even if it’s not actually from the Civil War or Jim Crow era, the word still has those connotations. (Plus Charles might not know exactly how old it is.)
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aww, Walky’s offering a snack =D
🤮
oh WALKY’S telling, I thought that was Sal snitching
Walky never did figure out restraint
He’s offering to share gross-out humor with her. He sees her as an equal! Cool! She should reject his offer with potty humor in retaliation. Best buds forever.
Note that we haven’t seen any panel where Walky’s hand is near his nose. From this we can conclude that he always keeps a booger handy for emergencies.
never know when you might need one
He also might just be fucking with her, but he might be a little young for those kinds of mind games.
“Based on a true story”??
I’m told the comic is autobiographical.
Which is strange, since so far intelligent automobiles have been strictly confined to in-universe fiction in this comic.
Do we actually know the truck wasn’t intelligent?
Truck-Kun comes for all of us eventually.
Eat at Arby’s.
Well, if I am going to get Isekei’d, I want to be able to chose what world I get sent to.
AWE how cute!!! 🥹
*plays “Simple and Clean (Music Box Version)” on Hacked Muzak*
The booger of fate connects them!
How romantic.But that’s snot how it works.
He nose that. She nose that.
Everybody nose that. 😉
Walky and Billie, right? Na’ Sal?
Billy’s first smile
Kids are not your ticket in with the rick and powerful, Charles. Jesus, what is this the 1830s?
Rich. Not Rick. There’s a ‘Dick’ joke in somewhare.
The Rick and Powerful sounds like a Rick and Morty episode title
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand dick jokes.
I’m told that this is a popular theory among the connoisseurs of dick jokes.
did I miss something? what indicates that charles has an agenda here? he’s encouraging his kids to be nice to other kids, that’s regular parental behavior
We’re already biased against Chuck, so it’s easy to read him encouraging his kid to befriend the rich girl as attempted social climbing.
It might not necessarily be that, but people aren’t inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt
Bah! I wish Chuck was selfish enough to encourage his kids to suck up to the rich kid for social gain! He’s just going through the motions. How expected. Where the eff’s Linda at? She would be all over this opportunity!
Linda already gave birth to that rich kid meeting her husband for the first time. A piece o’ that action already gotten.
God that’d be a funny theory to run with
Sadly we already know billies mom is Chinese. If Linda were the secret mom she’d be 100% mayonaise
How is that possible? She had twins and also a secret baby all in the same year? Without her husband knowing?
Oh, yeah. Linda was Jennifer’s *Godmother* correct?
Also, wasn’t she Korean on her non-Billingsworth side?
Agreed. Although it does leave a bad taste in my mouth that the comment section is both blaming him for wearing sweat pants, and for ~ohhh, social climbing. Billie tagged along with them because she is a child, all by herself, and got foisted on them – and he dares to treat her with kindness and help her socialize with his kids. And Walky might not have done so without encouragement.
Would we be scrutinizing Joyce’s dad like that, if we saw him in a flashback?
Chuck is an enabler to Linda at this point like Joyce’s dad is to her church and Joyce’s mom. For one thing Chuck is Black himself, and how that interacts with Linda’s racism and racism’s respectability politics at large is convenient to forget, because it doesn’t fit a neat abuser narrative.
Yeah I don’t get this negative reaction at all. He’s literally just being polite to this kid that wandered up to his kids.
That is actually a big peeve of mine with people against Charles. I’m not big on Chuck here, but he gets a lot heat for that comment against Sal’s hair and I think people ignore his black experience. Just talking from my own black life experience with black women, my mom, friends, ect. Black women spend a lot of time and money getting their hair straightened and as a black dude that can usually get a good cut for 20 bucks in 20 minutes, you gotta support your women when they have their hair done. So you better say you’re daughters hair is pretty when straightened. She probably spent over a hundred bucks on that! But if you say it’s better natural you get heat anyway by implying she wasted her time and money. You can’t win!
So yeah! I can give Charles a pass on that, because there’s a lot of unfairness in regards to society’s perception of black hair even today in 2022! Especially women’s hair. What the fuck is he supposed to say in that situation?
That rant being said. Charles is still mid as hell! I don’t trust him!
I was almost going to agree with you, and then I went back and looked at that strip, and it comes off worse than I was remembering.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/appointment/
“What the fuck is he supposed to say in that situation?” idk, not that. The “*YOU* look so pretty when…” part isn’t good, imo.
That would make sense if Sal had had her hair straightened before she talked to him. Definitely tell someone their hair looks good! Saying “Too bad” when your daughter’s wearing her natural hair and how pretty she looks when it’s straightened though? Dick move.
Yeah speaking as a black woman who has relaxed her hair in the past, if my dad saw me with my hair fully curly again and said “you look so pretty with it straight” (note the wording, “YOU”, not “it” looks pretty straight, or your hair looks nice straight, intentionally or not he is ascribing her beauty to her hair texture, that’s called texturism) i would at best, write him off as a dumb boomer and walk away, adding more distance to our relationship.
Charles defenders sometimes skip over internalized racism and the intense amount of misogynoir a lot of black men have towards black women. Look at the Tori Lanes defenders/ Meg the Stallion issue, it’s an acknowledged phenomenon that a not inconsiderable chunk of black men, fucking hate black women. I’m not saying Charles would go as far as to defend a woman getting shot for absolutely no reason, but he probably does have an implicit bias there. We also need to keep in mind that Charles is half black, and that can also intersect with his experiences and mindset, especially if his mom was the white one.
So, tl;dr no being black doesn’t give chuck a pass for the hair shit and it wasn’t a compliment because sal’s hair was already curly by then. What the fuck was he supposed to say? “Oh well your hair looks nice either way”, “do what you want with it”, or even the ever present option, fucking nothing.
I don’t think it was a compliment. I just know from experience the mistake made because I’ve made it myself and seen it made many, many times. It’s a pitfall I think a lot if not all black men can fall into and just writing the man off as a dick kind of hurts to see cause black men don’t get a lot of slack in society in general.
It feels like it’s on Charles to be perfect in that moment when he’s most likely absorbed the same internalized racist perspective many black men have. I’m not sure if he’s a misogynist or if I was for that matter. But when you grow up knowing your mom has to spend hours a week in a salon just to keep her job, usually sitting there with her. It’s understandable to me he would say something like that, not intentionally trying to be a dick. Admittedly I wasn’t as old as Charles is, and probably still am not, so maybe he arguably should have known better in that moment.
I used to think when you see a black women in your family straightened there hair, and you say it looks better that way you’re trying to reaffirm the effort they put in. At least that’s what I thought once. I didn’t know Charles is half black though. That adds some context.
But to feels like he’s been judged for what was a honest mistake he probably wasn’t even aware he made. It feels harsh.
I kinda of love this conversation though. My mom and aunt used to help at the churches salon like decades ago now and this reminds me of back then.
But he didn’t see her with it straightened and tell her it looked better. He didn’t even hear her say she was going to get it straightened and tell her it looked better that way.
He saw her with it curly and told her she was so pretty the other way. That’s completely different from complimenting someone when they actually do it.
Also, in the real world – it’s a minor bit. Quite likely insignificant. In this story? It’s an intentional clue dropped by the author to inform us. It’s a significant detail. It matters.
The next time a female acquaintance puts on a few pounds, you should definitely tell them “You looked a lot prettier when you were skinny” so as to be supportive of the money and effort they spend on dieting.
The only mild defense I can wrestle up for Charles is that he may also associate the straight hair with before his daughter went down what he saw as a bad path; it’s clearly not as straight as she and her parents are starting to really clash. So he might also associate it with a sort of innocence.
There may also be internalized racism at any point in this thought process; make no mistake, Sal was put in that position in great part by Linda being an absolute drumset of a human being, and he has been complicit in it even if he doesn’t realize it. He’s still thoughtless *at best*.
I used to have a pet peeve, was a cute little bugger to. But when it got big my dad took it to live on a farm upstate.
I agre with Sirksome, it was a shitty comment to make but I think people get on his case too much.
The DOA comments section has always contained more projection than observation. You get used to it after a while.
Mostly how the first thing that came to mind when he learned her name was the fact she lived in a mansion and then just the whole top of panel 3 (but mostly the smug I brow raise when David starts trying to befriend her). I could be reading into thing though.
My first thought on the house remark was that ‘up on the hill’ gave me the impression he thought that was a long way for a little girl to walk alone.
People are very determined not to like Charles.
I don’t like the Walkertons either, but this is pretty innocent behaviour. And Linda is…. less terrible than Carol.
If Charles would ever act as more than an extension of Linda’s shitfuckery, maybe people wouldn’t be so quick to side-eye him.
Yeah, Fidget may not have been as despicable as Professor Ratigan and they all were Ratigan’s orders, but he’s still an accomplice.
Same for Marge Simpson to anything Homer or Bart did to Society lately.
Same for LaFou to Gaston being a walking pile of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
A jackass’s enabler is a willing part of their jackassery whether they understand it works that way or not. Heartfelt intentions don’t come with the perk of excusing you from the kind of accountability that applies to literally everyone else…
I mean here he is being a good dad in this chapter and people can only focus on the alleged social climbing.
True…But ya gotta admit, his being a good dad here also is a situation that doesn’t interfere with his wife’s climber agenda and also kind of helps to serve it as well.
Best part is, I don’t think this flashback really has anything to do with Mr. Walkerton whatsoever, but rather is about how Billie met Walky…..So not only is Chuckiw Walkerton but a background prop in this situation, but Poor Lil’ Shotgun Sally as well.
“Chuckie Walkerton”
Sometimes I hit the wrong keys…
In my book Charles would then do a bad job at social climbing:
1- a kid going alone to school is not rich enough to make someone climb by making her acquaintance
2- a kid going alone to school is not cared about enough to make someone climb by making her acquaintance
Mostly that second, I think.
Mind you, I’ve never been quite sure why Jennifer was going to the local public school anyway.
is it public?
I don’t remember the former flashback well enough.
she’s ewwwing awfully cheerily 😀
*thinks which version of “Big Love”–Fleetwood Mac’s or Lindsay Buckingham’s solo?*
I’ve always liked the version on The Dance better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9fwmKrfZyo
Nothing wrong with that.
I like how Billie seems to genuinely find the booger hilarious.
Kids.
Yeah, I was thinking that too. XD Her expression doesn’t give the impression she’s actually disgusted, so my guess is that she’s still in that kid phase where they know that something is supposed to be disgusting, but they don’t actually GET why it’s disgusting.
I love the detail of Billie’s wide smile in the last panel, even as she screams “Ewww”. And, of course, baby Sal is ADORABLE.
But, uh, I gotta ask to see if this is just my Walkerton Parent Hatedar colouring things – is anyone else getting Social Climber vibes from Charles here?
He’s definitely working that angle, no doubt about it.
Kinda, but I feel that might be unearned. Lotta this would be normal behaviour for a parent introducing a kid to a classmate
That’s how they get ya.
I mean I have a low opinion of Chuck already, I don’t also need him to be a social climber to dislike him
And I don’t need to add honey to a PB&J, but it sure does add to the enjoyment.
I don’t actually like honey on PBJ
That’s not suspicious. I’m sure it’s a coincidence that the 7’3″ reptilians invading Earth right now, they just haaaappen to melt into sand if they so much as touch honey. Not at all worth investigating.
Honey’s fine it just doesn’t belong on PB&J
>honey’s fine
Please don’t hit on my sandwich, that’s strange.
PB&H on the other hand …
I prefer MY PBH not cross-contaminated by jelly.
I mean you can do normal things with social climber intentions.
“Oh man this little girl came here by herself? That sucks. I should talk to her, maybe get the twins to befriend her. Oh wait she’s a billingsworth? Damn okay… Okay then if little David becomes her friend that just works out for everyone”
It’s certainly possible, but it’s hard to use that as evidence of those intentions when it’s also the kind of thing a nice, well-meaning guy would do with a little kid sent down to the bus stop alone.
Yeah, but we don’t need no stinkin’ evidence.
If this were the only thing we’d ever seen of Charles, I’d say this would seem fairly normal. But in the context of his and Linda’s broader characterizations, this absolutely comes off as social-climber-y.
What broader characterizations? I’m interested in knowing, cause I’ve seen little to no evidence of Charles specifically being that motivated. Linda of course is a totally self-interested, “Karen” type. Charles just kind of agrees with her and googles shit maybe? How has he earned this bad faith or is he just guilty by association? Complacency equally tacit approval or whatever.
He’s a parent in this particular comic, the smart money goes on the most pessimistic, dire option available. Not a lot of these parents have really earned that good will, y’know?
I actually think the parents get kind of a raw deal in this comic and are unfairly vilified. Some like the extreme cases of Blaine, and Ross, and sure we can even throw Carol and Linda in there, deserve it, but I also think they’re not really as horrible as portrayed. They’re just people.
It’s easy to overstate, yeah, but it’s definitely a thing. The parents that have the most significance to the story are deeply flawed people who fill an antagonistic role
If they didn’t wanna be vilified, maybe they shoulda sucked less.
Although personally, I don’t really understand what you mean by “just people”, because there’s no real baseline for what “a person” means, in terms of behavior and personality and motivation. If Ross points a gun at his kid, Blaine kills multiple people, Linda neglects and scapegoats Sal while propping up Walky, and Carol is such a zealot that half her family drops her like a rock for helping bail out AND defending Ross, I don’t think we can say it’s still in the realm of whatever “just a person” is.
What I mean by “just people” is that it’s really easy to write characters off in this comic for one or two moments you don’t agree with when in reality they’re probably not as terrible as perceived. They’re just flawed people. This doesn’t really apply to sociopaths like Blaine and Ross, but I think characters like Carol and Linda aren’t as terrible as we would believe. They’re bad parents, yes, but not every parent is capable of being perfect and are just doing the best with their own knowledge and perspective. I personally believe both of those ladies can be redeemed. They probably won’t, but lots of people have later in life perspective changes, epiphanies, realizations ect. Look at Hank who was just as awful as Carol until he had a face turn and now everyone loves him….kind of.
Anyone can be redeemed. Not everyone will be. A lot of people are horrible, even if they redeem themselves someday.
Carol broke with her family over defending and supporting the man who kidnapped and threatened her daughter. That’s a hell of a flaw.
Linda yes. Carol’s been pretty bad lately.
I’m willing to let this one slide. Hank had WAY worse of a landing and he bounced back to be best dad (of the Dumbiverse).
He definitely loses out to Mr Keener, Mr Rutten and Mr Saruyama, probably to Mr. Wilcox and maybe also to Dr Rosenthal
Good parents by default don’t get much screentime, sadly. Even as far as good moms go, the only one with enough screentime to be a recurring cast is Stacey.
Sierra’s parents also get a plus; her dad tried to stop Blaine when he was chasing after Amber, for one.
Nah not Mr. Wilcox, Charles is a subtle, apathetic kind of suck with the occasional wildly insensitive line. The Wilcoxen actively tied all of Danny’s worth to shacking up with a good girl because he’s worthless on his own, were definitely emotionally abusive and according to Willis are exactly why Danny was the way he was at the start of the comic. And i don’t think there was an implication of split responsibility, they were both equally awful. I’d put them both in the same rank as chuck at least.
Fuck the Wilcox parents, i can’t wait for sal to tell them off one day
I’m not sure if this is genuine or not but this is the kind of thing Sirksome is taking about. The Wilcoxes were on screen for only a few strips.
Does it matter? You don’t actually need screen time to see the effects they had on their kid.
Best dad? That’s not really a high bar to clear. The only other one even in the running is Richard probably and he doesn’t really do much but bang Amber’s mom and laugh at sexual inuendo, which is somehow still better than the others. Maybe Jacob’s older brother counts. He’s even a dad too, just not Jacob’s.
I think Mr. Saruyama (Dina’s dad) and Mr. Rutten (Carla’s dad) are ahead.
No, Carla’s father is very rich, and owns a ride-sharing service. He is therefore a monster of depravity.
Mr. Rutten can score high in Dadness even if he turns out to be shitty in General Personness.
I’d say Rutten, Saruyama, and whatever is Sierra’s last name seems to be pretty great dads, from what we’ve seen.
I get Dina’s dad, but how is Carla’s father best? Have we ever seen him? Is the bar just so low that you become the best by never being seen? I gonna say it’s Harrison. Mr. Rutten’s still up there, cause Carla’s not fucked up and has confidence, but Harrison has been seen as a positive role model for Jacob and is a father okay carrying his baby around all day in one of those child harnesses while wearing a suit no less.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/goals/
Hasn’t been on screen, but Carla’s made references. Supporting a trans daughter in the public eye, including a big legal case. Also had an Ultra-Car toy made for her.
Can you score high in dadness if you score low on general personness?
Since being a role model is part of the dad or mum job?
It doesn’t matter, because rich parents’ kids are also rich and therefore anything good they do for their kids is just perpetuating the plutocracy. Rutten is rich, so anything good he does is bad. And anything bad he does is also bad.
Richard’s cheating has really screwed up Joe. I’d say that disqualifies him for the “Best Dad” category, even if he’s not an abusive monster like some others. Well-intentioned towards Joe at least, but still left him with trauma.
Hank at least has shown signs of realizing his problems and improving.
Well, him agreeing with Linda (or at least not caring enough to stop her) is already a bad look, but it’s specifically how the first thing he does is go ‘Oh, so you ….live in a big house.’ i.e. have a lot of money. The emphasis on her last name too.
I mean, *I* don’t like Charles because he’s been a shitty dad to Sal (hair comment for starters, Sal comments on her lectures from her parentS plural about how she’s a failure, her saying she envies Amber’s ability to reject her dad’s power over her, etc.) but this is actually new (or new to me). I thought the social climb-y bits were all Linda before this strip.
It’s possible. It’s also possible he’s just placing where Jennifer comes from.
A compassionate dad who wanted nothing to do with the snobby rich people might react the same way, especially with all the red flags Jennifer’s giving about her parents (they don’t come down, she mentions “Nina” instead of them).
Of course, this is Charles and I’m not inclined to think the best of him either.
The emphasis on her last name in combo with noting the big house gives me social climbing vibes.
His broader characterization of doing whatever Linda wants, which would include getting one of the twins in with the rich billingsworth child
Doesn’t look like Jennifer’s smiling to me. More like a screamy grimace.
Catching the short end of the stick there, the booger covered short end.
No new friends for Sally
So Jennifer wasn’t exaggerating when she said that the Walkertons were her actual family.
Riding the school bus with somebody’s kid does constitute a legal adoption, yes.
But only in Indiana.
The only thing I know about Indiana law is that they invented being bisexual and added it to the Third Amendment.
I must admit that I never knew bisexuality was invented Indiana.
Indiana invented bisexuality and bisexuality invented Indiana? It’s a regular bisexual ouroboros!
You must have misheard me. I clearly said bisexuality was invented in ‘ndiana.
Don’t blame me; it’s these rented fingers.
Thanks for explaining. I was wondering who Diana was.
Gary’s girlfriend, I believe 😛
And, a disaster lesbians disaster is… averted? Temporary postponed until college?
Considering that none of the characters in today’s strip are lesbian, not sure what that has to do with the strip at hand. 😛
Jennifer is bi and, as is well known, Charles is a lesbian.
😂 Chuck is a lesbian.
He wish he was a lesbian.
Well, he is sexually attracted to females, so that does make him a lesbian.
…have just realized that one of the teachers’ last names was also the last name given to a minor character who never had one originally on the rerun site. And who happens to be relevant to this particular group of characters, backstory-wise.
HMMMM…
How could a character who never had a name have a given last name?
What am I missing?
Alice, Billie’s cheerleader not-girlfriend from high school. Her last name is Chen.
I dunno if Sanderson is anything though.
Thznk you for your service to the speculative community.
I am a wellspring of minor character factoids.
Ah. Thank you.
Indeed it is. We’ll see if that becomes relevant.
Baby Walky must be protected at ALL cost!
On second read, Sally is like “aand David get all the attention, Again”
Poor little Sal is just at the beginning of her three-mile-long list of grievances…
What’s the significance of the characters referring to one teacher using “Mrs.” and the other using “Ms.”?
Married vs. unmarried, at least traditionally-speaking.
I seem to recall that when “Ms.” was introduced it was supposed to replace both “Miss” and “Mrs.”, and to relieve women from the intrusive obligation of declaring their marital status in contexts where it ought not to matter.
It varies by individual. Dina is currently a MS, a master of Science. If she ever marries Becky, she will become a MRS, a Mistress of Romantic Science.
No. Miss, Mrs, and Ms are all, ultimately, short for “Mistress”, and historically they were interchangeable.
At some point Miss became used exclusively for young girls and unmarried women and Mrs for married women, widows, and at least some divorcees.
During the 1960s Ms started creeping back into prominence as an exact equivalent to Mr – used for everybody, regardless of marital status.
Sometime after that Miss declined for everybody except very young girls.
I don’t remember “Ms.” creeping back, but rather being introduced by a prominent and vocal campaign.
Probably through that feminist magazine… I’m blanking on the name.
Preference. Mrs Whoever is married, widowed, or possibly divorced. Ms whoever may be married or unmarried.
Whelp. Now we know how it started. Walky was the son with the rich, white friend. Sal wasn’t.
Then, Sal inadvertently compounds the difference by befriending a poor latina.
So… I’m throwing my hat in the Walkertons are primarily classist ring. Not to say they are not racist.
But, its probably more of the the black people are bad BECAUSE they are poor variety.
*white-passing. Jennifer’s mom is Chinese.
(Jennifer has described herself as white-passing mixed-race at different points in the comic itself, for what it’s worth.)
That was last semester when she was still a child.
Those are the excuses they tell themselves.
And I don’t think it started here.
Classism and racism are meted out through the same avenues of white supremacy and wealth inequality. An oligarchal power structure like the one in North America
Prejudice is not a set of dipper switches where you’re Not Racist but think The Gays are weird, they filter from the same source of our white supremacist, fiscal overlords who do a lot of work to make sure we divide amongst ourselves.
IN an oligarchal power structure like North America.
Wait hold on I think I’m conveying this poorly.
Like classism in practice is an extension of racism, in that our institutions are born from white supremacist/capitalist ideology.
Racism played a large part in why certain groups today are richer than others.
I think classism and racism have a lot of overlap and intersectionality, but are still distinct things.
First impressions, they last a lifetime.
More like Jennifer Bighouseworth, amiright
Boooo get off the stage 🍅
Now was that nice?
Not that I’m disagreeing.
The wordplay? Yeah, it was nice, hence the boooo. The custom is to facetiously heckle the player of words, is it not?
I hope so, because I got the cane to drag ’em off stage with!
Cane? That’s no mere cane, that’s a—*vaudeville hook*
Drum roll.
I mean, it’s better than Jennifer Boogersworth.
i’m sure David could do worse
How would Dumbiverse history have been altered if the school system put her in Mrs. Sanderson’s class instead?
Sal would have wound up getting stuffed into lockers and Walky would have offered the booger to Marcy.
* booger of friendship to Marcy.
It’s another one of those timeline altering events. In another universe, Jennifer saves Marcie from the attack, Sal never tries to rob the convenience store, AG doesn’t exist, Mike is still alive, and Walky somehow became a genius because of some butterfly effect shenanigans. Can’t wait to read Smarting of Age in 2071 and see how that pans out .
Billie is at the robbery with Asher instead of Sal. It still plays out the same, but she’s let off thanks to her father’s connections and develops a thirst for crime.
Upon arriving at IU she dons a costumed alter ego for moonlighting as a cat burglar. Asher, feeling responsible but not willing to get the law or campus security involved, dons his own costume as he attempts to thwart her at every turn, his vigilante actions only just barely tolerated by the RA, who is nursing some dark secrets of her own.
Billie insists that it’s not “from something” and even if it were it wouldn’t be a nerd thing because “those movies make like a billion dollars everyone sees them.”
Oh, I am all FOR an alternative universe where Asher is Nightguy.
I hope more and more this will be the arc about the end of their friendship. Or the return of their friendship, but I prefer the first option.
Walky’s left-handed?
Always has been.
only when there’s a booger on there
Which is to say always. 😀
His Hand looks very strange – with the nearly 90° cut-out.
The expression shift on Charles’ face in the last two panels has me rolling, hahaha
So current Walky isn’t really all that much different than child Walky. He hasn’t matured all that much really.
First meeting of the Walkerton kids and Billie is adorable and a little bit gross. Seems fitting.
A promise of things to come
i switched browsers and now my comments are all stuck in waiting moderation so this is a test comment, ignore me
(i’m copying my comment here because it’s stuck in moderation, if the other one ends up going through then oh well lol:)
[looks at the other comments] wait…we’re going with the social climber angle? that’s the read here? because i immediately focused on the fact that he said ‘on’ and then paused. normally you wouldn’t say “you live ON the big house”, you’d say “you live IN the big house.” so, like, my mind went to…i mean…
like, it was surely going to be “plantation”, right?? he was going to say “you live on that big plantation on the hill”. or am i nuts??? why else would he say ON in that sentence? is this a regional phrasing?
it could have been something like “estate”, i guess, but why would he hesitate to say it then? i’m sticking with my first impression.
Or maybe he was going to say McMansion, or eyesore, or castle, we will never know.
but he would still have said “you live IN that McMansion”, not “ON”
like, very possibly it’s just how people speak where i’m from (california) but the use of “on” in this context is glaringly unnatural-sounding to me, and i’m amazed no one else has commented on it?
So, what do people live on rather than in? Boats? Ships? Farms? Hills? Ranches? Estates? Prairies? The open road? Welfare?
I did a quick googling, and apparently Indiana didn’t have plantation houses?
I do agree that’s a weird place for the pause – I could understand why he’d do an hesitation before the “big”, but as it is I’m not figuring out what he was going to say or why he was in doubt on what to call it.
It could still be a modern plantation, though. Even if it’s not actually from the Civil War or Jim Crow era, the word still has those connotations. (Plus Charles might not know exactly how old it is.)
You know with the title of the strip being Big House you might be on to something. Or it’s a typo. I didn’t notice it until you pointed it out.
This scene is Blue, there’s a Big House, now all we need is a Bear!!! 🤪
You live on the hill … the big house … that big house up on the hill.
Sometimes grammar constructs itself like that while you’re trying to put the words together.