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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 10h
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Don Cardenas
ANOTHER YEAR CLOSER TO THE GRAVE
Sorry, another awful birthday comic for you. Still, you have the 2016 one.
Ouch, this comment…and my birthday is only 2 days away, too.
Another year over; a new one just begun.
Hey, chin up! At least this one ended up Ruth being alive and not on Blaine’s creepy as all hell face that gives puppies nightmares while causing babies to scream in terror
Could be worse, this could have been another Blaine and Asher comic.
You have the same birthday as my girlfriend. Clearly it’s a day that produces awesome people.
also a significantly less terrible president than the current one
God speed, Ana Chronistic. God speed.
Oh, wait.
God Slow, Anna. God slow.
FIFY
I like Dr. Beverly’s complete refusal to take Ruth’s longing for the grave seriously. The lady gets when it’s just rhetorical.
Yeah, “frankly I’d rather have died” and “I long for the peace of the grave” are somewhat worrisome but far less scary than the stuff she was saying before Carla turned her in. At least her eyes are more than dots now.
Oh right, the other train we were watching was also in the middle of a crash.
…is there anyone we can check in on right now that isn’t a friggen trainwreck??
Dina sleeping on her new plush, maybe?
probably turns up in the end-of-book bedtime montage strip
You mean, the plush that could cause all kinds of trouble for becky?
Could it really, though? Can we actually break down #RaptorGate so even a legally-illiterate individual is able to understand exactly why purchasing a gigantic plush dinosaur can result in Bad Consequences and specifically which ones?
To quote becky, it’s “baby’s first campaign finance violation”. Basically, she stole money from her employer to buy her girlfriend a gift.
I’d at least be fired for that.
But it has “vote for Robin” embroidered somewhere on it, so technically you could justify it as very specific lobbying to the almost-19-year-old-aspiring-paleontologist demographic.
Campaign finance laws are so loosely interpreted and poorly enforced in the US…
They can totally spin it as being nice to the autistic community.
Using campaign money to buy a gift for one specific voter is stop a violation, even if the gift is campaign merch. That said, it won’t be obvious from the paper trail that that’s why the item was purchased, so she might get away with it.
*still a violation
Doubtful the purchase of a plushie would be an issue even if discovered, unless there were sufficient political points to be made and it was perceived the race was _that_ close. And then Robin pulls out the sympathy stops as others in this thread have detailed or alluded to, and if she’s savvy enough (or, more likely if Becky is), The Hon. Ms. DeSanto makes the dino-plushie equivalent of Nixon’s “Checkers” speech. It works.
Only to find out that Becky went full science hog and what she thought was a plushie was a Jurassic Park style mosquito blood clone bred using ostrich eggs.
Amber and Walkie are… oh, yeah, they’re train-wrecking each other right now. On the roof.
Is that what the kids are calling it now?
Ethan. Is he still courting Danny, or have they both moved on?
Let them fuck!
They’re undoubtedly still attracted to each other. Whether or not they will ever *court* each other — I wouldn’t take that bet at any odds. But I would take a bet on whether or not they ever have sex.
That first line was supposed to start with (left angle bracket Jeph) and end with (slash Jeph right angle bracket).
I’m tired of having to remember so many fucking different standards for marking up text. We have fucking regressed on that front even more than we have fucking regressed in — so many fucking areas.
HTML is the OG, Markup and BBCode are just pale imitations.
[fake] Brackets should work. [/fake]
I know a philologist who was marking up text in SGML years before HTML was a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye.
However, I fucking see that the fucking use of the f-bomb as a fucking catch-0all adjective and as a fucking random fucking punctuation substitute fucking proceeds with all possible fucking speed.
Sorry, I meant “fucking f-bomb.”
You’re missing the true beauty of the f-word by reducing to the adjective. Proper usage covers nearly every part of speech.
Fuck it! The fucking fuckers fucking fucked.
See, that kind of comprehensive creativity I can appreciate.
Fucked fucking fuckers fucked fucking fucking fuckers
I can’t be the only person who’s ever wondered if the Love Boat cruised on the Fucking Sea.
Dumbing of Age Book 9: It’s Excruciating, and I Long For the Peace of the Grave
Dumbing of Age Book IX: It’s a Step on the Way to Success
Dumbing of Age Book 9: Frankly I Think I’d Rather Have Died.
**reads shadowcells’ post**
**FUCKING DIES**
Oh shit. These are usually pretty good, but they don’t normally put me on the fucking floor. I have literal tears in my eyes from laughing and I think I might have peed a little.
Bravo, shadowcell. You have officially made my evening.
Is the best title so far.
Well, this is gonna be a needed conversation.
I’ll keep the broom right here just in case.
Agreed, Ruth. Platitudes may be a leading cause of suicide.
I gotta say, as someone that is currently going through therapy, and has come waaay too close to killing himself, I really understand what Ruth means in her hatred of platitudes.
Platitudes are those things you say that you know wont make people feel better, but you feel like you need to say them because the alternative is being quiet.
Your ___ love(s) you
____ needs you
you are wanted
you are special
It’s just another step on the road to recovery.
Those movie/comic lines that make the listener tear up from the knowledge that he/she is loved or cared for. but they don’t work that way in real life.
The listener hears those lines and thinks “Oh, so you’re out of ideas…” because it sounds like it’s coming from a prompter, or it’s being read off a cue card.
they gave me meds that made me feel angry, sad, unable to eat, and suicidal. i told them i didn’t want anymore, but they told me “there are so many meds out there! One of them is bound to work”
I know this was meant to be inspirational, to say “there’s still hope” but all i heard was “we’re gonna keep chucking random pills at you and maybe one of them will work.”
all these goddamn platitudes….. they all have a hint of selfishness or uncaring in them
Your family loves you: dont die, they will be sad.
they need you: you can’t die, you have to live for their sake. suffer so they don’t have to go through your death
you are wanted: other people need you
suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem: we don’t know if its temporary or not, but you should still keep living anyway, even though each day is painful and worse than death.
If there was a like button, I’d click it.
@zombycow: I am so sorry.
I REALLY hope I’m not being offensive or disrespecting anyone’s experience by posting this. I am clinically depressed and have been suicidal in the past. Sometimes I *need* to hear those “platitudes.”
When I “backslide” and self-sabotage in one way or another, I tend to immediately start metaphorically beating myself up and thinking I’m a complete and total failure. It sometimes helps to hear that back-sliding can be part of the process of working on mental wellness and I don’t have to start all over, crawling up from the bottom of the pit, again.
While I know that I have people in my life that would be hurt and miss me if I checked out in one way or another, my traitorous brain sometimes insists on telling me that I don’t matter to anyone and that everyone in my life would be better off if I just wasn’t around anymore. At those times I really do need to be told that people care about and value me.
I know that not everyone feels that way and, again, I hope I’m not dismissing or disrespecting anyone’s experience. I apologize if I am.
Alt text: Yes. So, when will you two have a date that isn’t like this?
I mean, to be fair, Billie technically tried to have a second date that wasn’t like this. …on the other hand, since there was drinking, she apparently succeeded.
Got an attitude about platitudes
When a monotreme has attitude is it a platy-tude?
*plays the Bee Gees/Peter Frampton version of “Getting Better” on the hacked Muzak*
Ruth: I think I would have preferred to die. Me: Yeah that’s the fucking problem
Nah, it’s pretty normal. If you’re suicidal long enough, it stops being a serious thought and more just an idle “no coffee this morning? Why don’t I just die?”
Yeah that’s the fucking problem
Do you guys not get powerful, sincere urges to lie down in front of a lorry whenever a situation becomes sufficiently inconvenient? Or like, slap your head in the fryers at work because hey, it’s right there and in a few seconds none of it could be your problem anymore?
Uh, me neither. >.>
I don’t know. No coffee is pretty serious.
For real, though. If I don’t get that extra reserve of energy before work, my spoons are gone halfway through the shift. A body and mind can only run on empty for so long before the whole operation shuts down.
I think a more useful way to put it might be “when someone is able to joke about their depression, chances are good they are actually feeling slightly less terrible that second”. It’s when someone gets quiet about it and acts like it’s not there that it’s a problem, because that means they’re no longer seeking help and reassurance.
A suicidal person’s brain gets really good at being suicidal thanks to neuroplasticity… that’s friggin scary.
Any time Billie looks at Ruth like that my heart melts even though it really shouldn’t
Love. Twu Love.
Yeah, me too.
Well, this is fucking depressing.
Your Gravatar couldn’t be more opposite to your comment.
I’m not sure I want to see the version of the gravatar that isn’t.
That’s a pretty common problem with my gravatar.
how did I just notice that Willis puts serifs on the letter I only if it’s the word “I” itself or a derived contraction, and I’s in words like “it” are sans serif
Whoa I didn’t catch that either til you pointed it out. That’s interesting.
Perhaps it’s one of the subtleties of good fonts in comics.
Yup. I’ve been involved in the creation of a few professional manga translations, and capital I (the one that’s printed with serifs) is only used for the pronoun. All other i’s are lowercase (printed sans serif), even at the start of a sentence.
…alongside the reason why Marvel are never going to take up my comic idea “Flicking Clint.”
That’s standard comic convention, actually.
And one Willis is quite vocal about. I never ever actually noticed it until I saw him ranting about some comic that wasn’t following the convention.
Wow; I did not notice. And when I was a kid, back before the internets (and before newspaper comics were postage-stamp sized) I took all the books of old comics out of the library.
Honestly, this isn’t Comics Fonts 101. This is more like Comics Fonts for Non-Comic Makers. Tomorrow’s lesson: Why Are Comics Lettered in All-Caps, Anyway? The day after that: When To Use Bold, When To Use Italics, When To Use All Caps, and Why It Matters.
(Actually, the last one is like a week-long seminar.)
Wait. You mean all this time all the comic characters haven’t been yelling at each other?
I always liked this Leftover Soup as an example of how and when to escalate comics lettering.
http://www.leftoversoup.com/archive.php?num=876
Billie, Ruth… just do the right thing and seek help… but knowing Willis and his current writing of and Injustice League I doubt that will happen soon.
Doctor Beverly may be the perkiest, most alert human being in this fictive universe. Her wide-eyed intensity is very nearly frightening.
Hi Robert! Have you met Lucy?
Hopefully there aren’t any sentient zombie outbreaks in the future.
Ruth, it’s JUST an allergic reaction. No need to do anything rash.
Bah dum tss
She’s got a histamy of bad decisions.
You were just itching to say that, weren’t you.
This comment chain is too short and isn’t up to scratch.
If everyone on this chain be-hives themselves, it’ll be OK, just don’t let it get too swollen.
Everyone’s trying to think of antihistamine puns, but there really aren’t a loratadine.
[crickets]
Her eyes are still green, it’s okay…
Also BILLIE. THERAPY. GO. DO IT FOR YOUR LADY.
Ruth has antihistamine depression–it’s not to be sneezed at!
Doctor Beverly is adorable and I hope we see more of her in the future. Hopefully in a non-medical emergency context at some point.
Should we start shipping her with Leslie?
It’s never too early.
I still wonder if Beverly is her first name or her last name.
If it’s her first name, I wonder if her last name is Crusher.
clearly her first name is doctor
In panel 5, Billie seems to be saying: “Can you please not die. I’d vastly prefer you to be alive, even if I am not.”
“I do want to drink and you to drink with me and not improve myself in any way so far either though”. Maybe she will change.
Ex-cheerleader. Alpha bongo. Problem
solvercauser.Billie, the cause of, and solution to,
allmany of Ruth’s problems.“Now, focus on the good times, like when you beat the snot out of Amber’s abusive shitweasle of a father. That will cheer you up.”
“True… But what are the odds of running into him again? Even he is not stupid enough to creep around campus again.”
I’m glad that’s settled.
Urgh, platitudes.
In my day we had platitudes from breakfast.
And liked it.
In my day we had spell correctors that would substitute words at random.
We didn’t like it.
One of those situations where silence hurts more than screams.
Ruth, if you die, Howard will be all alone with his abusive grandfather, and Bille will blame herself and probably drink herself to death.<- Too fucken dark.Ruth, if you die, you will never, ever, ever, be able to put together a team consisting of your girlfriend and current hall residents to pull off a heist with bribes, sweet pranks, and a little applied mayhem and humiliation for the deserving that will transfer custody of Howard to someone who isn’t an abusive shit, and as an unrelated side benefit, engineer things such that the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Cup.
The last panel. Ruth’s is the most grim face, the worst case of cement-set stubborn grim resolve I’ve seen in this –or any comic. The Awe on Billingsworth’s face, is the just jarring in it’s??surprise?? It’s what?
She’s just working u the nerve to ask Ruth on a third date.
I don’t think Billie has ever looked more Asian than in the last panel.
It must be those inscrutable genes.
Billie realising she gotta step up
I love the comic, but I’ve never commented before. I’ve been on an antidepressant for a while now. I recently got a sinus infection that was making me feel like total crap. I went to urgent care and, along with antibiotics, the doctor said to get an antihistamine. I bought the extra strength due to how bad I was feeling. Little did I know, one of the interactions of my antidepressant was to make your body absorb a higher percentage of antihistamines than normal. After a couple of days of the antihistamine, I was super drowsy and had trouble walking due to how dizzy I was. I had basically overdosed on antihistamines. Moral of the story, always check your meds for interactions.
Fun fact: some antidepressants interact with ADHD stimulant meds to cause extreme anger, insomnia, even paranoia. More fun: these people often then get misdiagnosed as bipolar. Funnest of all: Since ADHD and depression often coexist (constantly failing while trying your best and being told to “try harder” is pretty fucking depressing), misprecribing drugs to produce toxic interactions is pretty common.
Personally I’m not on any meds, not because I couldn’t use the help, but because they never work for me. My body chemistry is weird somehow.
Alas it’s true – the road to recovery has obstacles along the way. Ruth just hit her first pothole but it and the other obstructions will not be the end-all of a better life.
Platitudes make it harder to trust. I have written several paragraphs after that sentence, several times today, and each time erased them.
Character I really relate to these days…
Rockhoof: “Twilight, please understand. I want to be remembered as the hero I was, not the disappointment I’ve become.”
Meanwhile Billie is like: “I can’t see a single thing. I only know I’m in the right place as I can just sense Ruth’s grumpiness.”
Relapse = Success
Well, time to start drinking!
i dont think the way the doctor left was a good thing although theres usually wither a eyeroll or a “sadly shaking her head ” type of thing ……