After her brother goes missing, Samantha vows to become a Knight and help those around her in the Kingdom of St. Helena.
Star Trip
Gisele Weaver
Jas is a human taken from her home planet on a trip across the galaxy she will never forget.
Lunar Blight
Studio CARTRIDGE, Laura Lee
Lunar Blight is a gothic horror story about an elite knight serving a moon cult who must choose between upholding his honoured duty or condemning everything he’s grown to know.
Come Hell or High Water
Jenny/Star, Mori
Prince Gladimir was never meant to fall for a pirate. Swearing off love for duty, the threat of war propels him back into the Captain’s world of high seas and high stakes. Their relationship could be the thing to save the kingdom of Yvoire - or destroy it.
2 Slices
RJ Morel
After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Lighter Than Heir
Melissa Albino
A young Volant woman joins the military in an effort to upstage her war-hero father.
Girl Genius
Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio
In a time when the Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war, Mad Science rules the World...with mixed success.
Sam & Fuzzy
Sam Logan
Troubled by gangster rodents, lovesick vampire stalkers, or confused ninja assassins? Don't panic! Sam and Fuzzy are here to help. (For a reasonable fee.)
Whomp!
Ronnie
A depressed, portly, hirsute anime fan stumbles through life in the ever-pursuit of chicken nuggets and other life-shortening indulgences.
Wilde Life
Pascalle Lepas
Oscar decided to rent an old haunted house, and that's when things got weird...
Demon Studies
Miyuli
Four students summon and study potentially dangerous demons within the walls of the mysterious Summerland University.
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Countdown to Countdown
Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Awaken
Koti Saavedra/Flipfloppery
Superpowers, monsters and conspiracies. Piras, the spoiled Dameschi heir, fights to recover his identity after becoming a terrorist!
Spinnerette
Krazy Krow, Rocio Zucchi, Pablo Rey
When a lab accident gives Heather Brown spider powers and six arms, she does what any midwest comic geek would do: Become Ohio's #3 superhero!
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Go Get a Roomie
Clover
Experience the queer journey of an upbeat hippie and the friendships she makes along the way! A tale of self-discovery and love of many forms.
Between Failures
Jackie Wohlenhaus
The low stakes adventures of an assorted group of 20 somethings trapped in the declining years of American retail. They are naughty and say lots of swears.
MASKLESS
kickingshoes
In a world where people can wield the magic of elemental Masks, all Ashe wants to do is help. Maskless and useless, with dreams of fire and smoke on the back of his tongue, he finds himself on a strange, dangerous path to uncovering the secrets of these incredible objects, and the source of the monsters plaguing his home.
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.
Real Science Adventures
Brian Clevinger
Spin off stories and other adventures from the world of Atomic Robo!
Knights Errant
J.R. Doyle
Wilfrid's humble quest for revenge becomes bigger and bloodier by the day.
Hazy London
Scotty
A story about messy relationships. From friendly foes to crazy families. Nothing is black and white, just full of color. But, all colors can get a little hazy...
Clockwork
Chikuto
Cog Kleinschmidt is a diligent, quiet worker at the Mercia Fortress, the world power's leading stronghold. His orderly life is thrown into chaos when an enemy kingdom sends a diplomat for peace talks. This diplomat needs something from Cog - whether he agrees to their terms or not!
Goblins
Ellipsis
A fantasy RPG as told through the eyes of the low-level monsters.
Patrik the Vampire
Bree Paulsen
Patrik loves to knit, bake, and help his friends while dealing with his own demons... like his thirst for blood because, oh yeah--he's a vampire.
Atomic Robo
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener
The robot punches monsters and bad robots and one time he was a cowboy.
The Lonely Vincent Bellingham
Diana Huh
Vincent is an unkind man looking to disappear, and finds himself in the care of a vampire and her two wicked children.
Far to the North
Allison Shaw
Kelu turns to the monsters of her remote mountain home when her family is held hostage by outsiders.
Tove
Severin
The end of the world is coming, and Tove doesn't want to be a hero, but SOMEONE has to look after her little brother.
Killjoys
Flatw00ds
When two disgraced ex-feds fall backwards into trouble with the clown mafia, getting out in one piece is gonna be no joke!
Fairmeadow
Kendra P. / KP
A wayward soldier finds herself in a pacifist commune deep in the wilderness of a war-weary land. Living in isolation brings her closer to those she was sworn to kill than she could ever imagine - but also threatens to tear the place apart.
Anacrine Complex
Sae Cotton
A superhuman heist involving probably too many pigeons than entirely necessary.
Folklore
Adam Ma, Colin Tan Wei
A superhuman horror story focused on a small band of survivors trying to navigate a war-torn world in the aftermath of the Federation’s collapse.
El Goonish Shive
Dan Shive
WARNING: This comic often ignores the Laws of Physics
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Demon's Mirror
Harry Bogosian
Based loosely off of "The Snow Queen", a story by Hans Christian Andersen, we see things take a different turn as the demons become central characters, and the side characters stick around. Yup, that's the only differences. Enjoy!
[un]Divine
Ayme
A highschool senior thought giving up his soul for a demon was a good idea. It wasn't.
Sunshine Boy
Moosopp
New-kid Kelly is sweet but naive. Luckily, he's got his outgoing neighbor Grey in his corner.
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.
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Monster Pulse
Magnolia Porter Siddell
Four kids run afoul of a creepy secret organization's experiments, which turn their body parts into fighting monsters. Part sentimental coming-of-age story, part monster-training shonen manga, with just a bit of sci-fi body horror.
Heart of Gold
Eliot Baum, Viv Tanner
A pianist with failing eyesight seeks out a priest with a miraculous healing touch, drawing him deeper into a world of miracles and curses.
Drugs & Wires
Mary Safro, Io Black
Dan used to be a VR operator until his brain got fried by malware. Now he's stuck delivering packages in a post-Soviet hellhole all while trying to adjust to his new life and find some answers.
The Witch Door
Anni K.
Katariina Lehto discovers her neighbor is a witch called Jousia Muotka. Jousia introduces Katariina to the strange people and places beyond the witch door...
Obelisk
Ashley McCammon
In 1908 New York, a young woman struggles to put her life back together in the wake of her father's death - until she discovers a vampire in the shambles of her inheritance.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
How to be a Werewolf
Shawn Lenore
Malaya Walters was bitten by a werewolf as a child. After being raised by her human family, she faces the chance to learn what being a werewolf is really like as an adult.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Wychwood
Varethane
When Tiara's pyrokinesis is finally noticed, she is captured by a magical research organization for study. If she cooperates, she could be helping to save humanity from a dire threat - but can she trust them?
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
He still posts *something* on instagram sometimes. So far it’s all been strips I hadn’t seen before, but I was never great about checking that one super regularly and I didn’t find it on Insta until recently
I always think sometimes what the Its Walky! storyline would look like now with decades of experience and hindsight behind Willis. Like, if he were to rewrite it.
Tomorrow does she point at the poll and say it’s meaningless because she already decided, and that the next 6 months’ worth of strips are already drawn?
Ok, I know She-Hulk can sorta teleport because she has 4th wall awareness and can step out of a comic panel and into another one. Can she pull other people through with her? Is Robin She-Hulk?
I’m always a little surprised when a new character appears and I click on their name to find out they *haven’t* made several crowd shot cameos already.
This comic is already mind-numbingly slow, so sometimes Willis uses Robin to speed through the mind-numbingly boring parts (that he doesn’t want to waste time drawing).
She could’ve approached him at his public-facing job at Galasso’s at some point, off-panel. It wouldn’t be the first time she hired one of their employees.
That’s the perfect vote, even though there are multiple months of Jason comics in the can. Barry is the less sex-pestery choice. And dang you otto Korrect. I did spell sex-pestery properly, you just need to update your dictionary.
Not necessarily true. I’m sure the narrative could come up with many other ways for Jason to re-up his visa and stick around. He is a rich, white, dude. The world is essentially made to cater to him. Even if his dad is evil. That’s likely more of a perk for him realistically.
I’m still voting for Jason because yeah, there are some things worth duking it out with fate over, but this just isn’t one of them.
Also, if Barry did win, I’m afraid fate’s next move would be to, like, drop a piano on them so that Jason gets it anyway. Barry probably doesn’t deserve that.
Vote Jason and watch their existences neing in close proximiry act as a purgatory for one another’s sins. Apologies for any bad writing. I’m wearing stupid nails.
I voted for Barry, mostly because Jason was already a TA and he boned his own student at this specific college and she is currently enrolled in this specific class.
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down. Letting the days go by, water flowing underground. Into the blue again, after the money’s gone. Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground.
Everyone’s noting Robin leaning on the fourth wall, but Jason is showing a lack of situational awareness. It was only yesterday he was in the same building, with Ruth asking someone else in the department if he could have a job as a TA. https://www.dumbingofage.com/trustworthy/
I wonder if this is Robin’s way of discretely asking the students if they have an objection. We’ll see if it’s a secret poll or not, where they could write those down. https://www.dumbingofage.com/sexpest/
Probably not much. But neither does Robin, so it works out.
More seriously… How useful Jason is depends on a lot of factors… Having him answer student questions would be a problem but there are other things he could help with.
What are Robin’s tests like in the class? (even a non-expert could probably grade true/false or short answer questions… Long essay style questions would need a bit more expertise.) what type of classes did Jason take during his undergrad years? (Some colleges might have a broad based curriculum where even someone in mathematics might need to take a civics course or 2) is there any other prep work Robin might need? (Eg getting her lecture materials ready, proof reading her materials or her tests, etc )
And then there’s the likelihood that if he does get roped into this, he’ll make it a priority to fill in whatever gaps in his knowledge he has, because that’s just how he works.
Tbh, I find some international students have a better understanding of our government than the majority of the students in the class. Had one exchange student that could name all of the US presidents off the top of their head.
i would’ve expected a teachers aide to maybe do a little research on the subject but mostly be there to like hand out papers, keep stock of supplies and maybe help grading some stuff but i cant imagine robin’s class being super complicated or ‘traditional’
Unless there are essays, TAs are normally given answer keys by the professor anyway. Essays and papers are more questionable, but a lot of that is just checking that they used good sources, didn’t plagiarize, and write a cohesive and reasonable argument. That is actually more complicated the more TAs you have since everyone has a different opinion (aka one person might let something fly that someone else wouldn’t). Having office hours, answering questions, and doing a tutorial might be more difficult, but I found that office hours were normally answering questions about how something got graded (normally people who weren’t happy about their grade and wanted to argue for a higher grade, so almost like customer service).
I am extremely curious if this storyline will be dragged out long enough to use the results of the site poll, or if democracy is a sham (which is absolutely a Robin’s poli-sci class lesson).
I wonder if Barry is a sort of anti-ringer in on the “let’s hire Jason” scheme. I also wonder if Barry is the name chosen in homage to Barry Allen, who can vibrate through walls (although not the 4th wall as far as I know, Flash Facts excepted).
I like to think Dumbiverse!Robin is Walkyverse!Robin, mid-Cadbury bender. She’s loaded up with enough sugar and laundry detergent to hit just the right quantum harmonic resonance frequency and fall through to the alternate universe.
This is where the Robin that ODs on cereal ends up. She’ll eventually lose her memory as she returns to her own world, but what she does when here will destroy us all!!!
Jason, the gossip chain was 3 people long and you were present for the first half. This should not be hard to put together.
(Unless, of course, he’s asking how he literally got here because Robin somehow has super speed in this universe too and a second ago he was halfway across campus.)
No, she’s saying weird stuff that happens to look like she’s breaking the fourth wall, about something that we actually saw her learn about on panel. She’s Ted Forth, not She-Hulk.
What a delight these past strips have been, the webcomic is in its manic phase and I’m here for it.
In my country, you couldn’t be the equivalent of a TA without a formal education in the tenured professor’s discipline, can Jason really be a political science TA with a mathematics background? Or is it the joke that is going to slap us in the face two weeks from now?
Yeah. TAs are regulated hyperlocally. Grad statudent Unions and Universirty rules.
There might be some with federal regulation, but only if they are funded by a specific federal research grant.
Even in that case i think regulation might go the otherway towards protecting stem and science foundation grantees not social science ( which is in the Humanities ) .
But TAs are often the prerogative of the Professor and comes out of their grant. Robin already has no formal education in PS, she was hired for celebrity status.
I think the bigger issue is Jason evading the kafkaesque disciplinary action.
In the U.S. as well this is unlikely. Teaching assistantships are understood to be for graduate students in the department that teaches the course. In real life, Jason would not be considered, nor would Robin be able to select him on her own initiative. Dumbing of Age is not real life.
not relevant to this strip, but there’s undergrad TAs too. In my major at my school, there were a lot of undergrad TAs, and like one grad TA who was the boss.
Ruth asked Leslie, Leslie said she couldn’t due to ethics, her own morality, and the fact she had no budget. Then, because she felt bad, she went and asked Robin. Who said as much to her, with the exception of the budget part. But then found out what a TA can do for her, and jumped at the chance. The fact that doing a favor for Leslie might infatuated her a little bit is also a motivating factor.
Jason was with Ruth when she asked Leslie.
Leslie kind of turned them down though and Jason has no reason to know that she knows Robin, much less that she asked Robin.
Even if he didn’t watch the news during election season, he knows it’s the same building/department. He was there yesterday. There’s clearly a logical way she could know.
Jason is confidently ignorant of the situation that he finds himself in, he has an English accent, and he’s a sex pest. He’s overqualified, he should be a cable news pundit.
I know this is not a poll that will decide the actual future, but damn it would be sweet, like Robin’s death in DC… (well no sweet, but you know, engaging :P)
Vote for Barry to show that the elections are rigged, gerrymandering is rampant, and that our votes don’t matter when the majority goes for him and Jason wins anyway.
Exactly! Robin’s students get a good lesson in the realities of political science, Jason gets another chance, and everybody’s happy! Except for Barry, but we all know the opinions and feelings of minorities don’t matter, right? ;P
There’s something very funny about Jason being so unpopular that the poll deciding his fate is nearly a tie with a guy we literally just met and know nothing about! At the time of this comment less than 20 votes in Jason’s favor is the difference. Almost any other main character and this would be a blowout.
If you didn’t, you’d still be working in another field. I just wasn’t convinced that many had viewed the comic by the 11:00 hour. Considering, I often stay up until it posts, although I hadn’t this night, I shouldn’t make that assumption.
There is this gag magic item in some game I have been known to play, that gave you, temporarily, a maximum HP that was significant, but it didn’t give you any actual HP to go with it. The way the game graded your health was, so long as you had at least a certain percentage of your maximum, you were “healthy”, but if your total HP was only a tiny fraction of your maximum HP, you were “near death”, as indicated by a red health bar. So, suddenly having your maximum HP jump, leaving your actual HP alone, immediately put you into the red, health-wise. The item was a pretend heavy hit to your HP, that didn’t actually harm your character, just appeared to do so. Again, for gag effect. 99% of your HP GONE, (actually, your total HP limit raised to about 10,000%, or whatever it actually was, for a few seconds).
Or rather, I wasn’t convinced the poll had racked up that many votes by 11 hours after the comic posted, with that being only 3-5 hours of “up-time” for most of your audience.
Speaking as someone in a different timezone, I generally check the strip around 2am-4am strip time on working-from-home days, and I’m always surprised how many comments there already are, so I would believe there’s been 900 votes in that time.
Traffic for me spikes every night around update time, usually with about several thousand simultaneous visitors at midnight. Something’s very wrong if I don’t have the bulk of my traffic by the time folks wake up in the morning.
Jason’s not eligible for the job. He’s not a natural-born Citizen, and he wasn’t a Citizen of the United States at the time the Constitution was adopted.
He, like Schwarzenegger, may be popular, but can’t hold the position.
Ruth, like Cruz, MIGHT be eligible. Both were born in Canada to an American parent. Both are also unpopular with enough people that neither would get it, however. That said, Robin looks like the type of person who would pick Ruth anyway.
You don’t have to be any of those things to be eligible for a job, you just have to have some paperwork that says you can have the job, like a work visa (or whatever the fuck they’re called, I’m not a visologist here). Jason’s visa let him have his other TA job, so unless something expired at some point, I don’t see a reason it wouldn’t work for this one. Getting fired and re-hired in a slightly different position is the backbone of the American workforce.
Really confused as to the implication that Schwarzenegger can’t hold a TA position for constitutional reasons when he was a state governor. I think you might be confusing this with the presidency?
I’m actually kinda hoping that Jason is the one who backs out of this of his own free will. He seemed to be reflecting last time we saw him that maybe he wasn’t cut out for being a teacher and at least looked to be on the path to accepting that.
(May be biased in that I find Robin rather loathsome)
"Calarts Style" is the "woke" of shitty cartoonists
Doesn't really mean anything other than "I don't like it, but I'm going to pretend my objection is moral/cultural to make it feel important"
David M Willis!@damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 7h
i wake up
everything's calarts style
this rug is calarts style
your face is calarts style
the sky is calarts style
the increasing crescendo of calarts style from beneath the floorboards, i can hear its symphony whispering to me its awful refrain:
"get something real to hate"
i wake up
everything's calarts style
this rug is calarts style
your face is calarts style
the sky is calarts style
the increasing crescendo of calarts style from beneath the floorboards, i can hear its symphony whispering to me its awful refrain:
"get something real to hate"
Having left wing beliefs is hard because you have to listen to different types of people and give up saying slurs and read articles all the way through, wouldn’t you rather just watch youtube shorts of bald podcasters and believe any old bullshit
i need money and have a flintstone cel i do not want. if you need a flintsone cel and have money you do not want, please click here, thank you
ebay.us/m/XdPL0q
if you're ever sad alone silently, consider this:
- i hold a copyright on being like that
- you are encroaching on my intellectual property
- i will send you a cease & desist
- i will possibly take you to court
so please make yourself legally distinct by talking to someone about it
Take the fictional character quiz and post the first four you know: openpsychometrics.org/tests/charac...
What this should tell you is that I'm always down to cause chaos and good trouble
Would you like to take a survey? Do you like to eat beans? Do you like George Wendt? Would you like to eat beans with George Wendt? Would you like to watch a movie about George Wendt eating beans?
so i'm thinking, okay, i took some extra photos of this set of doors this year so i could draw some other angles, it's an important set of doors, so let's pull up my new reference photos...
....and do you see a problem, do you see an issue
Well, Lizard is here, and I've been telling myself for... years that I'd take down my Endgame shelf and put up Spider-Man:No Way Home once the final villain was out.
So.
That's a thing I gotta do.
next, on Who Wants to Be a Teacher’s Aide?
If that hasn’t been done on Piled Higher and Deeper, then it damn well should be.
I don’t think Jorge is still making new strips
If he is, he’s posting to a secret URL that I’m not privy to.
We need more Tajel & Cecila in our lives!
He still posts *something* on instagram sometimes. So far it’s all been strips I hadn’t seen before, but I was never great about checking that one super regularly and I didn’t find it on Insta until recently
[Someone plays the Who Wants to be a Millionaire theme music at full blast on their tinny phone speaker]
Strips like these I wonder if Willis misses writing for Shortpacked!
Considering the superhero antics earlier he probably misses writing for the Walkyverse in general.
I always think sometimes what the Its Walky! storyline would look like now with decades of experience and hindsight behind Willis. Like, if he were to rewrite it.
Uh-oh – Robin has Fourth-Wall Awareness!!
It was only a matter of time.
Ok, who pulled the tag in this one?
Only if she eats sufficient quantities of sugar.
So constantly then.
She’s staring right at us…
Tomorrow does she point at the poll and say it’s meaningless because she already decided, and that the next 6 months’ worth of strips are already drawn?
Aaaah, Robin fourth wall awareness. I do love that about her sometimes.
Whatever happened to Robin’s mustard elbows?
even someone like robin would do laundry occasionally lol. unless she’s somehow rich enough to buy a new jacket everytime
She licked the mustard off.
She sent the jacket out to the cleaners a while back.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/sneakinta/
…what
Robin has 4th wall awareness and the ability to teleport people what do you not understand
Perfect Avatar is perfect.
Ok, I know She-Hulk can sorta teleport because she has 4th wall awareness and can step out of a comic panel and into another one. Can she pull other people through with her? Is Robin She-Hulk?
I’m always a little surprised when a new character appears and I click on their name to find out they *haven’t* made several crowd shot cameos already.
He was in Shortpacked!, I think
He appeared in Shortpack a total of six times and got one speaking line.
It’s in the first panel of https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/dinosaurpark
When Walky was cruising for free pizza, I’m pretty sure he made mention of two people, Barry and Hilary, manning one of the voter registration booths.
[Fry] I get it!
https://www.dumbingofage.com/allright/ good memory
The logical part of me’s thinking maybe Ruth mentioned something to Becky who mentioned something to Robin and now we’re here.
But Robin having metaknowledge actually makes more sense.
The middle link in the chain was actually Leslie, not Becky, but otherwise this is essentially correct.
God, that feels like a million years ago now, but yeah, you’re totally right.
Well-remembered Rassilon!
This comic is already mind-numbingly slow, so sometimes Willis uses Robin to speed through the mind-numbingly boring parts (that he doesn’t want to waste time drawing).
She could’ve approached him at his public-facing job at Galasso’s at some point, off-panel. It wouldn’t be the first time she hired one of their employees.
*quietly looks at medieval beekeeper art to recover from whiplash*
Veinspotting? Is that what I heard?
Oh Robin. We’re all voting for Barry anyway.
I look forward to getting to know Barry and their foibles. Did not expect Jason to get the Penny treatment, but it’s a pleasant surprise.
That’s going to be the lesson. She doesn’t care how they vote; she’s going to pick Jason because she’s already decided.
That is also the lesson of the poll here on the site, since willis has already completed the next 6 months of strips.
I wonder if this will be like the poll over whether Joyce or Walky should get the comic strip. Maybe Robin will just have two TAs now.
Why would we want to curse sweet, innocent, Barry with the burden of working for Robin tho?
Because it’s that or we put Jason back in the classroom.
I have a possibly irrational dislike of Jason. Even before his sexpestery. The new design helps, but not enough.
Glad to see Robin still has enough superspeed to vibrate at the right frequency to break nearby walls
I mean, I’m voting for Barry.
That’s the perfect vote, even though there are multiple months of Jason comics in the can. Barry is the less sex-pestery choice. And dang you otto Korrect. I did spell sex-pestery properly, you just need to update your dictionary.
Run, Jason, run like the wind!
Robin with fourth wall awareness feels correct.
Ah, I was hoping this would happen. Jason and Robin are the kind of characters who are bound to really bounce off of each other comedically.
You’re right, this would be hilariously bad.
I don’t know who Barry is but I’m diggin his hair!
It’s a toupee he stole from Becky’s haircut.
… does Jason have ANY qualification in poli-sci?
Per the May Patreon comic, evil supervillain dad?
english accent.
I’ll vote for him.
I’m sure Dorothy is fine.
I’ll vote Barry. Ginger black guys probably gets a lotta shit. Let the man have a cushy job with an animaniac as his boss.
I’m voting Jason, because of the Rule of Narrative Causality.
In other words, it has to be Jason because the plot says it should be Jason.
Not necessarily true. I’m sure the narrative could come up with many other ways for Jason to re-up his visa and stick around. He is a rich, white, dude. The world is essentially made to cater to him. Even if his dad is evil. That’s likely more of a perk for him realistically.
you shouldn’t vote for somebody just because they’re gonna win. You gotta REJECT FATE.
Fate leaning on a stone, resting her head on her arms and weeping silently.
Rapunki, when he joined the Seven.
I’m still voting for Jason because yeah, there are some things worth duking it out with fate over, but this just isn’t one of them.
Also, if Barry did win, I’m afraid fate’s next move would be to, like, drop a piano on them so that Jason gets it anyway. Barry probably doesn’t deserve that.
Vote Jason and watch their existences neing in close proximiry act as a purgatory for one another’s sins. Apologies for any bad writing. I’m wearing stupid nails.
See, I vote for Jason because Barry probably deserves a nicer job.
Jason’s better than he once was, but he should pay further penance.
I’m voting for Barry because it’s obviously *meant* to be Jason, and I don’t want the DM to think he can railroad me
I voted for Barry, mostly because Jason was already a TA and he boned his own student at this specific college and she is currently enrolled in this specific class.
Sal is not in this class.
Huh i could a sworn, ok i stand corrected
Oh yeah, Leslie did try to put in a word for him ages ago. Surprised this is coming back around.
I wonder if Barry even wants this gig. I guess, if nothing else, he’s got a tag now.
I’m voting for Barry
What’s going on? How did I get here? Why do I hear reality shattering around me?
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down. Letting the days go by, water flowing underground. Into the blue again, after the money’s gone. Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground.
Robin’s just the same as she ever was.
There is water at the bottom of the ocean.
Fourth wall looking a little shaky.
Everyone’s noting Robin leaning on the fourth wall, but Jason is showing a lack of situational awareness. It was only yesterday he was in the same building, with Ruth asking someone else in the department if he could have a job as a TA. https://www.dumbingofage.com/trustworthy/
I wonder if this is Robin’s way of discretely asking the students if they have an objection. We’ll see if it’s a secret poll or not, where they could write those down. https://www.dumbingofage.com/sexpest/
What does Jason know about political science?
Probably not much. But neither does Robin, so it works out.
More seriously… How useful Jason is depends on a lot of factors… Having him answer student questions would be a problem but there are other things he could help with.
What are Robin’s tests like in the class? (even a non-expert could probably grade true/false or short answer questions… Long essay style questions would need a bit more expertise.) what type of classes did Jason take during his undergrad years? (Some colleges might have a broad based curriculum where even someone in mathematics might need to take a civics course or 2) is there any other prep work Robin might need? (Eg getting her lecture materials ready, proof reading her materials or her tests, etc )
And then there’s the likelihood that if he does get roped into this, he’ll make it a priority to fill in whatever gaps in his knowledge he has, because that’s just how he works.
Tbh, I find some international students have a better understanding of our government than the majority of the students in the class. Had one exchange student that could name all of the US presidents off the top of their head.
i would’ve expected a teachers aide to maybe do a little research on the subject but mostly be there to like hand out papers, keep stock of supplies and maybe help grading some stuff but i cant imagine robin’s class being super complicated or ‘traditional’
Unless there are essays, TAs are normally given answer keys by the professor anyway. Essays and papers are more questionable, but a lot of that is just checking that they used good sources, didn’t plagiarize, and write a cohesive and reasonable argument. That is actually more complicated the more TAs you have since everyone has a different opinion (aka one person might let something fly that someone else wouldn’t). Having office hours, answering questions, and doing a tutorial might be more difficult, but I found that office hours were normally answering questions about how something got graded (normally people who weren’t happy about their grade and wanted to argue for a higher grade, so almost like customer service).
Of course. But this is still robin we’re talking about. If anything jason might be overqualified since he was al egit prof here before
She knows about us! Everybody, uh…. actually, I don’t know what we should do with this information.
Being Robin’s TA is probably terrible. We should all vote for Jason.
Robin’s kind of a maniac, so this feels right. Even if she’s not aware of the fourth wall, she’d probably act like she was.
I’m a little disappointed there isn’t a new poll on the page to support Robin’s theory.
Annnnd I refreshed and now look like an idiot.
You look fine, I didn’t even think about a poll until I saw your comment.
Thank you stranger <3
It would be amusing if barry somehow won in a landslide despite him never apeparing before
I am extremely curious if this storyline will be dragged out long enough to use the results of the site poll, or if democracy is a sham (which is absolutely a Robin’s poli-sci class lesson).
Robin has a lot of flaws, but gosh darn it, she’s fucking SPOT ON with the “Jonny Lee Miller” bit lmaooo
I wonder if Barry is a sort of anti-ringer in on the “let’s hire Jason” scheme. I also wonder if Barry is the name chosen in homage to Barry Allen, who can vibrate through walls (although not the 4th wall as far as I know, Flash Facts excepted).
I wonder since Barry has been given a tag whether it was done because he was named in comic or might he be a repeating character.
And I was thinking of Barry from Questionable Content.
Man, there’s lamp-shading…
Then there’s this. Robin’s 4th wall break is a major lampshade of off-screen developments. XD
From the look on Barry’s face, the “…what am I doing here?” line could just as easily have been his.
Barry is only here because Mike was no longer available.
I mean, does Robin from the Shortpacked! -verse and her shenanigand give 4th wall powers to all versions of Robin?
I like to think Dumbiverse!Robin is Walkyverse!Robin, mid-Cadbury bender. She’s loaded up with enough sugar and laundry detergent to hit just the right quantum harmonic resonance frequency and fall through to the alternate universe.
This is where the Robin that ODs on cereal ends up. She’ll eventually lose her memory as she returns to her own world, but what she does when here will destroy us all!!!
Jason, the gossip chain was 3 people long and you were present for the first half. This should not be hard to put together.
(Unless, of course, he’s asking how he literally got here because Robin somehow has super speed in this universe too and a second ago he was halfway across campus.)
A second ago he was tending bar at Galasaso’s.
Sorry, Jason, you have to be Robin’s TA. Barry just got here and doesn’t deserve that punishment
is Robin breaking the fourth wall? I’m gonna barf
No, she’s saying weird stuff that happens to look like she’s breaking the fourth wall, about something that we actually saw her learn about on panel. She’s Ted Forth, not She-Hulk.
What a delight these past strips have been, the webcomic is in its manic phase and I’m here for it.
In my country, you couldn’t be the equivalent of a TA without a formal education in the tenured professor’s discipline, can Jason really be a political science TA with a mathematics background? Or is it the joke that is going to slap us in the face two weeks from now?
Either way I’m delighted.
Yeah. TAs are regulated hyperlocally. Grad statudent Unions and Universirty rules.
There might be some with federal regulation, but only if they are funded by a specific federal research grant.
Even in that case i think regulation might go the otherway towards protecting stem and science foundation grantees not social science ( which is in the Humanities ) .
But TAs are often the prerogative of the Professor and comes out of their grant. Robin already has no formal education in PS, she was hired for celebrity status.
I think the bigger issue is Jason evading the kafkaesque disciplinary action.
In the U.S. as well this is unlikely. Teaching assistantships are understood to be for graduate students in the department that teaches the course. In real life, Jason would not be considered, nor would Robin be able to select him on her own initiative. Dumbing of Age is not real life.
In real life, Robin wouldn’t be.
not relevant to this strip, but there’s undergrad TAs too. In my major at my school, there were a lot of undergrad TAs, and like one grad TA who was the boss.
It turns out Barry was a die-hard Robin voter and a toxic dude.
He still gets picked.
The fourth wall has been broken, smashed, shattered, its debris grinded and thoroughly snorted.
A Challenger Approaches!
I think sometimes Robin forgets that she’s in the alternate universe *without* alien superpowers.
I haven’t seen Barry before (1)
I haven’t seen Barry before (2)
Imagine if Barry wins the poll… NO RIGGING!
Didn’t Ruth specifically ask Robin about getting him a TA job with her though?
Ruth asked Leslie, Leslie said she couldn’t due to ethics, her own morality, and the fact she had no budget. Then, because she felt bad, she went and asked Robin. Who said as much to her, with the exception of the budget part. But then found out what a TA can do for her, and jumped at the chance. The fact that doing a favor for Leslie might infatuated her a little bit is also a motivating factor.
Ugh. Infatuated = ingratiate
I mean also that to be fair
AGH right it was Leslie, but Robin does have reason to know about it then
Right, but it seems she didn’t tell Jason.
Jason was with Ruth when she asked Leslie.
Leslie kind of turned them down though and Jason has no reason to know that she knows Robin, much less that she asked Robin.
Even if he didn’t watch the news during election season, he knows it’s the same building/department. He was there yesterday. There’s clearly a logical way she could know.
Jason is confidently ignorant of the situation that he finds himself in, he has an English accent, and he’s a sex pest. He’s overqualified, he should be a cable news pundit.
Lol 50-50 on the poll.
I know this is not a poll that will decide the actual future, but damn it would be sweet, like Robin’s death in DC… (well no sweet, but you know, engaging :P)
For gods sake Jason, Robin is actually trying to be helpful for once and you actually could use that help… save the smartass for when you are hired!
I think Jason agrees with the assessment that he probably shouldn’t be a TA anymore.
Wow it’s actually 50/50 in the poll, that’s nuts
Resist fate! Shake your fist at god! Barry 2023!!
Voted for Jason because he’s obviously the chosen one (by Robin).
Vote for Barry to show that the elections are rigged, gerrymandering is rampant, and that our votes don’t matter when the majority goes for him and Jason wins anyway.
Exactly! Robin’s students get a good lesson in the realities of political science, Jason gets another chance, and everybody’s happy! Except for Barry, but we all know the opinions and feelings of minorities don’t matter, right? ;P
How do you gerrymander a webcomic poll? just for my edification.
Is Robin breaking the fourth wall?
Oh my Grodd, is Robin a She-Hulk?
I need to go lie back down.
Jason really just lets women drag him to places and then complains about it, doesn’t he.
Also Walky, come to think, so maybe he’s just very draggable.
Of course Robin is the Walkyverse’s Deadpool
Perfect gravatar, no notes
There’s something very funny about Jason being so unpopular that the poll deciding his fate is nearly a tie with a guy we literally just met and know nothing about! At the time of this comment less than 20 votes in Jason’s favor is the difference. Almost any other main character and this would be a blowout.
903 votes, in the AM.
Have there BEEN 904 VIEW of the comic, yet?
I smell ballot stuffing.
I wouldn’t put it past Willis to start the poll at 400/400, to get a “close” race.
I assure you I have more than 1000 readers.
If you didn’t, you’d still be working in another field. I just wasn’t convinced that many had viewed the comic by the 11:00 hour. Considering, I often stay up until it posts, although I hadn’t this night, I shouldn’t make that assumption.
There is this gag magic item in some game I have been known to play, that gave you, temporarily, a maximum HP that was significant, but it didn’t give you any actual HP to go with it. The way the game graded your health was, so long as you had at least a certain percentage of your maximum, you were “healthy”, but if your total HP was only a tiny fraction of your maximum HP, you were “near death”, as indicated by a red health bar. So, suddenly having your maximum HP jump, leaving your actual HP alone, immediately put you into the red, health-wise. The item was a pretend heavy hit to your HP, that didn’t actually harm your character, just appeared to do so. Again, for gag effect. 99% of your HP GONE, (actually, your total HP limit raised to about 10,000%, or whatever it actually was, for a few seconds).
Or rather, I wasn’t convinced the poll had racked up that many votes by 11 hours after the comic posted, with that being only 3-5 hours of “up-time” for most of your audience.
Speaking as someone in a different timezone, I generally check the strip around 2am-4am strip time on working-from-home days, and I’m always surprised how many comments there already are, so I would believe there’s been 900 votes in that time.
Traffic for me spikes every night around update time, usually with about several thousand simultaneous visitors at midnight. Something’s very wrong if I don’t have the bulk of my traffic by the time folks wake up in the morning.
We haven’t scared them all off? (Maybe out of the comments; it seems like the same couple dozen regulars are always here…)
Serious Shortpacked vibes on this one
Jason’s not eligible for the job. He’s not a natural-born Citizen, and he wasn’t a Citizen of the United States at the time the Constitution was adopted.
He, like Schwarzenegger, may be popular, but can’t hold the position.
Ruth, like Cruz, MIGHT be eligible. Both were born in Canada to an American parent. Both are also unpopular with enough people that neither would get it, however. That said, Robin looks like the type of person who would pick Ruth anyway.
So, we’re stuck with “Barry”.
You don’t have to be any of those things to be eligible for a job, you just have to have some paperwork that says you can have the job, like a work visa (or whatever the fuck they’re called, I’m not a visologist here). Jason’s visa let him have his other TA job, so unless something expired at some point, I don’t see a reason it wouldn’t work for this one. Getting fired and re-hired in a slightly different position is the backbone of the American workforce.
If anything, getting hired as Robin’s TA would get him back in compliance with his visa.
Really confused as to the implication that Schwarzenegger can’t hold a TA position for constitutional reasons when he was a state governor. I think you might be confusing this with the presidency?
Deliberately.
Oooh, 4th-wall meta humor!
Ok, deadpool.
Knowing Robin and her chaos, I have one piece of advice for the other guy…
Run, Barry. Run!
I am arching my eyebrow at you, and sighing. well done
Barry: (votes for Jason)
Very disappointed in 55% of you.
Dammit. I really, really wanted to vote for Barry. But I found myself voting for Jason.
I’m actually kinda hoping that Jason is the one who backs out of this of his own free will. He seemed to be reflecting last time we saw him that maybe he wasn’t cut out for being a teacher and at least looked to be on the path to accepting that.
(May be biased in that I find Robin rather loathsome)
The story needs Jason to win, but it doesn’t need it to be by much. I voted Barry to keep it close lol
Drama tag!!! (Shortpacked callback)
Robin is always going to be an agent of chaos and pull that tag! XD
I’m voting Barry!
Robin is still depicted as a horrible, horrible person… Yet you can feel Willis loves her, I’m really troubled each time she appears…
I think she’s also starting to break the fourth wall