A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
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.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
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.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
Monster's Garden
Ash G.
Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
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!
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
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:
All these bad dads suffering deaths FROM ABOVE!!!
Sorry, your Accurate Alliterative Appeal Added Ambivalence, I thought we were referencing Dominic Deegan for a second there.
You forgot to put “Delusional” in front of “Dire.”
Mobster One couldn’t face reality anymore because his daughter could now take him in a fight. Short One probably never fully dealt with reality in his life…
I dunno, I use-ta look forward to learning new tunes, and remembering old ones. I mean I can get used to the new sourdough, everyone does that, but I miss the Wry.
We do NOT bathe ourselves with our tongues, however. Nor leave headless prey where we are certain you will step on and appreciate them. That’s all cats!
Although Toedead wasn’t a good parenti thinkbecky was closer with her father than Amber was with hers. Toedead at least tried to have a few good experiences with his daughter, like taking her to 6flags, even if he restricted what prizes she would be able to get. Blaine seemed to barely tolerate Amber;s presence
I am a little skeptical Blaine would’ve actually told anyone he was found out by a 13 year old kid. Like the mob would’ve killed him way before he had a chance to kidnap anyone if he’d revealed that shit.
Yeah, I think the only way he could’ve possibly gotten away with it is ‘that kid must have done some investigating in the last year or two, it wouldn’t be the first time he stuck his nose where he has no business’ or something, and if he did convince someone Mike needed to die, Mike would already be dead.
But they were just kidnapped by him yesterday, so I don’t expect them to be taking a huge step back and going ‘y’know, he was an impulsive dumbass but he also cared more about saving face than anything else’. And, well, it only takes one person Blaine can convince to kill the kid in a coma.
Little known fact. After he finally graduated college he started using his middle name and ran away to become a deck hand, working on a tiny ship that set sail on a three hour tour, but was somehow lost at sea.
Actually, a very little known fact was that in the show once someone asked him what the G. stood for, and the answer was Walter. And trivia experts are still arguing over whether Gilligan was a first or last name.
Doh! That’s right. Bob Denver played Maynard. It was Dwayne Hickman that played Dobie. But the show was called “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” so that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw Denver’s face up there.
He’s sarcastically agreeing with Dorothy, then throwing in the bit about punching her because Amber’s subconscious is trying to keep him in (unsympathetic) character… Also Amber may be aware at least subconsciously that Walky still has feelings for Dorothy (or at least some level of discomfort about the fact that her two college relationships to date have both been rebounding from dating Dorothy).
It depends on what Willis thinks presents better story opportunities, I think. Ross and Blaine dying offered more than them living – the only things Ross could do were stay in jail (and eventually a probable trial storyline) or try to kidnap Becky again. Blaine was always going to keep coming up with schemes against Amber until he was incapacitated – and his mob ties meant he was never going to just stay in jail, because if they thought he was still an asset they’d get him out and we’ve seen what they’d do once he’s not. By contrast, if they die? Sweet, sweet, angst. Ross in particular gives us a LOT of story options with Joyce as well as Becky (hey Carol, we still haven’t addressed how you trusted a guy who murdered your own!)
So we had this grand arc where they got to escalate shit, Blaine got to go full supervillain like he always wanted to, and at the end of it they’re cleared from the field for good so they can’t escalate further because there’s no up to go. Joyce gets to tell Ross off, point blank, and make him feel a moment of ‘just maybe, this plan I hitched myself to is terrible, has me associating with terrible people, and will backfire on me’ before the end (even though he rejects it because Ross was ultimately a piece of shit.) Becky gets to have a huge Twitter rallying speech about how she refuses to be terrified back into the closet by her dad or anyone else, and how she’s not letting him force her to run away again. AG gets a kickass fight sequence with her true nemesis, and she and Amber get to recognize that they’re not Blaine, they’re not destined to become him, and they are ultimately the ones who choose how they go forward. (And Amber gets to scare Blaine utterly shitless, reject him, and see the look on his face when she does so. Will I ever stop linking this Shortpacked strip? Not when Blaine is a topic of conversation still, I don’t think. https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/last-respects ) Plus, bonus Faz character development! Faz character development that includes telling Amber that he struggles with the exact same fears about Blaine fucking him up, and she is his role model and inspiration. Nothing more Blaine or Ross’s continued presences can really add to anyone’s character arcs, and their deaths each establish a bigger threat (Blaine for Ross’s death, Asher for Blaine’s.)
By comparison, Mike is a supporting character, but he’s one with enough internality to sustain an arc of his own. There is, in fact, a clear route forward for his arc if he remains in the strip. The question is whether Willis is interested enough in that arc for the investment it would require, and whether they think it’s got more options than removing Mike from play permanently and letting that play out among the remaining cast – there’s a huge difference between ‘shitbag parents died’ and someone in their peer group, even if Mike was a shitbag himself. I could see it either way, even as I’d prefer Mike to get an actual redemption arc rather than a redemption equals death.
The Mike that lives in Amber’s hallucinations is kind of funny, in an odd way. Like he’s almost a cardboard cutout of Mike, the most shallow aspects of his personality for the most part. I guess because Amber herself cannot quite wrap her head around the idea that Mike genuinely cares about her. (This being Amber though, that tracks)
Seriously though, this girl needs a doctor. And much as I would love for Amber to stay in school just out of spite towards Linda, she probably needs a long stay in a hospital. Hallucinations and frequent dissociative incidents are very bad things.
Well, but if you look at what imaginary Mike is actually saying, he’s making the sarcastic point that of course he would ask her to sacrifice herself seeing as how it would make his sacrifice in vain. So he wouldn’t really.
So you see, imaginary Mike is actually nicer than real Mike.
My concern is honestly that a hospitalization stay might well make things WORSE – inpatient can be traumatic, and it’d almost certainly cut her off from even healthy coping mechanisms (like, the internet.) They definitely need a LOT of sleep, though, and support for establishing healthy body cohabitation strategies, and help for their massive self-esteem/self-sacrifice issues. (And probably some antidepressants.) They need therapy and probably a medical leave of absence, I just wouldn’t recommend inpatient to anyone who can avoid it and the therapy has to be competent.
If I remember correctly, the Mafia takes care of the families of fallen members. However this is the Korean mob, so they may function differently, and Blaine was not a member anyway, just a mob adjacent. With Yuri being mob family, maybe???
Brain damage can cause major personality shifts. I have a friend that I met as an adult who I would describe as outspoken and EXTREMELY blunt. I’ve met some of his other friends that knew him before a serious car accident in his early adulthood, and they say that before the accident, he was very timid and hardly spoke.
My money is still on Mike waking up and perpetually having the demeanor that he had while drunk in the walkyverse (alcohol made him really nice)
How weird is it that my first thought was, “Really? You ran the whole way there Becky?” Granted, that was before it occurred to me that her/Robin’s apartment is at most 5 blocks from the hospital. Granted, that run would kill me as I have a mild form of muscular dystrophy and the straightest path would involve running up a couple of small hills, but a normal person can handle that just fine.
A few years ago I had a recently-graduated nurse staying with me for a couple of weeks while she had a training placement at the local hospital. She asked me whether I could recommend any good routes for a run, and I suggested one that involved cross both the bridges across the river and running up Reservoir Hill and Commandant Hill, and down five flights of stairs. About a five-kilometre circuit. When she got back I asked whether she for it good, and she answered that it was the best run she’d been on, and that she had enjoyed it so much that she had gone around twice.
Young people are crazy, but they can run without it hurting.
I’m sorry Becky, you’ll have to wait till someone with the same coping mechanism as you has the same experience. Maybe see if either of Walky’s parents are at deaths door.
Yeah, I don’t know what real!Mike would think of being the voice of Amber’s self-loathing and sense of inadequacy and failure. I suspected that ‘red memory’ Amber would evolve into her own distinct psyche in time but I was never expecting it to be as Mike!
I read Becky’s donkey doo comment as being about at the whole situation, rather than amber’s reaction. Like, she wanted to be there to talk to amber about have dead dad’s, but it all just kinda sucks balls full stop.
… It hadn’t occurred to me that she might be referring to anything *other* than being a member of the Dead Dreadful Dads Club until I read your comment…
The fact is that, on a certain level, Becky did still crave Ross’s love and acceptance. Amber long ago learned that there was nothing she wanted from Blaine and, not a few hours ago, she realised that his approval was the single worst thing that he could possibly give her. So, frankly, if she needs help at the moment, it’s to deal with the fact that she desperately wants to dance on Blaine’s grave and feels like a monster for having that desire.
Yeah, AmbG’s had years to figure out Blaine was just complete, total shit. Will probably still have messy emotions about how he fucked them up and how they can’t divorce who they are now – or hell, their existence as a system – from the trauma of growing up with Blaine, but the closest thing to paternal we’ve ever seen from Blaine was showing up late to Amber’s birthday party and calling her a potato. And they knew he was a mobster and tried not to think about how he maybe cheated on Stacy with a teenager for years, and had plenty of distance to realize how fucked up things were. Any grief they have is likely more on the lines of ‘why did we have to get this shitty excuse for a sperm donor?’ or ‘why can’t we feel sad about this like a normal parent-child relationship?’ than ‘why couldn’t we have had more times like that family trip to Six Flags?’ (Note that Becky and Joyce seem to have relatively happy day trip memories with Ross, and the only known equivalent for Amber is the Field Trip Of Doom where he berated her in the car all day and then the traumatic convenience store incident happened. I suspect there’s a reason for that.)
By contrast, Ross showed Becky affection sometimes, and she’s only recently had time to start recognizing how messed up her entire upbringing was. (Becky also doesn’t have the same frame of reference for parents who aren’t controlling nightmares, since Ross was basically in line with the church community. Not having a cell phone was unusual, but ‘children should obey their elders without question’ is the party line. Ethan’s parents aren’t GOOD, but they’re still markedly different from Blaine, and Mike’s parents seem perfectly nice.) It seems like Ross and Becky’s relationship also took a turn for the worse after Bonnie’s death, though I think that was less ‘Ross got more controlling’ and more ‘Bonnie was a mediator’ and ‘Becky seems to recognize and acknowledge that Bonnie’s suicide attempt wasn’t a sudden act of Satan.’ The rift’s much more recent and there are good memories to be had that are tainted by Ross’s later actions.
I do think there will be some eventual common ground of ‘man my dad’s sudden death after a day of rapidly-escalating trauma was something I was not remotely prepared to handle’ or ‘god, why did our dads suck so damn much?’ but it’s not the same baseline.
Yes, it’s gone all…sorts of not good when you can’t even cuss. I shant’ mention cussing is entirely different from cursing and I’m tired of the blasphemous bums who get that wrong.
There is a weird comfort in having an acquaintance share a horror like this with you. It’s how I got one of my closest friends. No one else can udnerstand our special brand of f*cked up.
I am wondering, what is the procedure for a shooting in a hospital, if it is evacuation, wouldn’t they evac the patients as well? Or would they lock the hospital down so nobody can leave?
Don’t claim to know the definitive answer, but in many cases the patients CAN’T leave. I would that first, the floor or wing/ward where the shooting occurred would be sealed tight — absolutely NO ONE comes or goes; although since Amber is on the outside, I’m obviously wrong on that part. Secondly, I assume each floor or wing has lock-down procedures so only designated essential staff remains, no one else enters, and everybody else gets the bum’s rush out the doors.
But remember — this was an “assisted suicide by cop” and the cop himself (Lester) is there to assume control of the situation and spin the story, so the “normal’ lockdown procedures in case of an active shooter situation never got past the first step of “evacuate all non-essential persons” (and how fucked up is our country that I can write a sentence like that with barely a second thought?) Now we readers and the regular cast know Lester is as bent as a corkscrew, but the hospital staff — not so much, so they take him at his word and DEFCON 5 or Condition Red or whatever gets downgraded to ‘cleanup on aisle 6’.
“I’m just going to say it, shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus for thinking they’re going to get elected. That child deserves our support. Don’t worry about the pollsters calling it distractions, because we need to be the party of human dignity.”
Minnesota Star Tribune@startribune.com ⋅ 19h
Gov. Tim Walz is doubling down on trans rights — and criticizing members of his party who are retreating — at a time when the issue has become a political lightning rod nationally and back home in Minnesota.
they managed to get the arms and thighs to be different grays, which I wasn't sure they'd be able to do, the way the mold's set up
though maybe they're just producing a lot of extra thighs and/or arms in the wrong colors and throwing those away, i dunno
Cops are overgrown children cosplaying War, with all the rest of us forced into their stupid, childish game without our consent, consuming vast funds from the public treasury and ruining lives by the hundreds of thousands.
unknown@collie.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
I cannot get over these cops wearing night vision to arrest a dude on a Southwest Airlines flight in broad daylight.
Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com ⋅ 19h
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 19h
unknown @collie.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Loading ...
Dire Daddies Die Deservedly
Becky Bombastically Brings Bereavement
Amazi-Amber Amasses Ambivalence
How much doo would a doo donkey do if a doo donkey did do doo.
All y’all are amazing xD
Not me. I forgot the question mark at the end.
My life is a failure.
That’s okay. I plan to demand a do-over.
A doo-over?
How much doo would a doo donkey do if a doo donkey did do doo a doo-over over Dover?
Baby shark doodoo doodoo doodooo. Baby Shark.
A re-doo-doo, if you will.
All these bad dads suffering deaths FROM ABOVE!!!
Sorry, your Accurate Alliterative Appeal Added Ambivalence, I thought we were referencing Dominic Deegan for a second there.
It’s like everyone woke up and wanted to be Walter Winchell today.
Highly entertaining.
You forgot to put “Delusional” in front of “Dire.”
Mobster One couldn’t face reality anymore because his daughter could now take him in a fight. Short One probably never fully dealt with reality in his life…
“like, for one thin’, Amber has this SUPER ADORBS POUTY POUT and I have this weird freakazoid face”
The little tears in her eyes in panel one D:
“Blaze of Glory” plays on the hacked muzak?
(Are they still hacking the muzak ’round these parts?)
Better you than me, pal.
I dunno, I use-ta look forward to learning new tunes, and remembering old ones. I mean I can get used to the new sourdough, everyone does that, but I miss the Wry.
*cues up Wild Band of Indians’ “Fry Bread”*
Whether It’s Good For You I Can’t Judge.
Which version of “Blaze of Glory”?
Some of the techno covers were pretty bad.
“SOME”?
I want a plot twist to be that Dina sees “Mike” too, and just hasn’t bothered to mention it.
Don’t ask me why, or what the implications would be, I just really want it to happen for some reason.
Perhaps Dina reminds you of a cat?
There are many similarities between cats and auts.
We do NOT bathe ourselves with our tongues, however. Nor leave headless prey where we are certain you will step on and appreciate them. That’s all cats!
… I take the Fifth.
Sssh! We’re lulling them into a sense of security.
They’re both Stand Users.
Dina, of course, has inherited Scary Monsters.
Language, you lady!
To paraphrase Bess Truman (even if apocryphal):
“It took us fifteen years to get her to say doo“
Although Toedead wasn’t a good parenti thinkbecky was closer with her father than Amber was with hers. Toedead at least tried to have a few good experiences with his daughter, like taking her to 6flags, even if he restricted what prizes she would be able to get. Blaine seemed to barely tolerate Amber;s presence
Is that Mike talking, or Walky?
Mike is tagged and Walky is not, so probably it’s Amber’s inner Walky.
I am a little skeptical Blaine would’ve actually told anyone he was found out by a 13 year old kid. Like the mob would’ve killed him way before he had a chance to kidnap anyone if he’d revealed that shit.
This.
And he was a lying SOS, who’d say a anything to get what he wanted.
Yeah, I think the only way he could’ve possibly gotten away with it is ‘that kid must have done some investigating in the last year or two, it wouldn’t be the first time he stuck his nose where he has no business’ or something, and if he did convince someone Mike needed to die, Mike would already be dead.
But they were just kidnapped by him yesterday, so I don’t expect them to be taking a huge step back and going ‘y’know, he was an impulsive dumbass but he also cared more about saving face than anything else’. And, well, it only takes one person Blaine can convince to kill the kid in a coma.
Welcome to the Terrible Dead Dads Club, we got… cookies I guess?
Polite of Dina to let her girlfriend tag along with her in the Behind Open Door Transit System.
Actual footage of how Dina gets around.
Crap. Let me try that again.
That was Dina’s punk stage, it didn’t last very long as it made her very self-conscious.
I prefer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zUnINuvcRI
Thank you for bringing this into my life.
Dobie Gillis avatar! NOICE.
Pretty sure that’s our man, Manard G. Krebs.
You rang?
Little known fact. After he finally graduated college he started using his middle name and ran away to become a deck hand, working on a tiny ship that set sail on a three hour tour, but was somehow lost at sea.
Actually, a very little known fact was that in the show once someone asked him what the G. stood for, and the answer was Walter. And trivia experts are still arguing over whether Gilligan was a first or last name.
Gilligan was his last name. Willie was his first name as per word of God (Sherwood Schwartz). His first name never came up in the series.
Doh! That’s right. Bob Denver played Maynard. It was Dwayne Hickman that played Dobie. But the show was called “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” so that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw Denver’s face up there.
Dobie was a real Danny with the girls; cute in a really awkward way.
Who was it that played Zelda? (I think that was her name?)
Sheila Kuehl under the stage name “Sheila James”.
Thank you.
Well, Becky normally travels via exploding closets, but she didn’t want to do that in a hospital, so she tagged along with Dina.
Depending on how far away Becky’s new place is, she must have a lot of stamina to not be gasping for air.
(Running is lame y’all)
Becky’s place is 1.1 km from the hospital entrance. Many 18-year-olds have no particular difficulty running this far.
1.1 kilometers is about 2/3rds of a mile
Yes it is, Becky, yes it is.
Talking about feelings isn’t donkey’s doo, but your expectations about people’s reactions are a bit off, Becky.
I’m glad to see that Imagi-Mike is just as much of an ass as real Mike. If he does die, at least his replacement has the necessary qualifications.
I know Willis had the rule about not killing people(who would be mourned) but how likely are the odds that something does happen to Mike?
I honestly expect Mike’s Coma to last until the fandom decides he isn’t waking up, and then he WILL wake up, just to spite US.
What’s the likelihood that Mike will stay in the coma until we get a brief timeskip for second decade DOA and then he will just be awake again.
He’s sarcastically agreeing with Dorothy, then throwing in the bit about punching her because Amber’s subconscious is trying to keep him in (unsympathetic) character… Also Amber may be aware at least subconsciously that Walky still has feelings for Dorothy (or at least some level of discomfort about the fact that her two college relationships to date have both been rebounding from dating Dorothy).
I’m unawake enough that I thought you wrote “Imagic-Mike”, like a pun on the movie.
It depends on what Willis thinks presents better story opportunities, I think. Ross and Blaine dying offered more than them living – the only things Ross could do were stay in jail (and eventually a probable trial storyline) or try to kidnap Becky again. Blaine was always going to keep coming up with schemes against Amber until he was incapacitated – and his mob ties meant he was never going to just stay in jail, because if they thought he was still an asset they’d get him out and we’ve seen what they’d do once he’s not. By contrast, if they die? Sweet, sweet, angst. Ross in particular gives us a LOT of story options with Joyce as well as Becky (hey Carol, we still haven’t addressed how you trusted a guy who murdered your own!)
So we had this grand arc where they got to escalate shit, Blaine got to go full supervillain like he always wanted to, and at the end of it they’re cleared from the field for good so they can’t escalate further because there’s no up to go. Joyce gets to tell Ross off, point blank, and make him feel a moment of ‘just maybe, this plan I hitched myself to is terrible, has me associating with terrible people, and will backfire on me’ before the end (even though he rejects it because Ross was ultimately a piece of shit.) Becky gets to have a huge Twitter rallying speech about how she refuses to be terrified back into the closet by her dad or anyone else, and how she’s not letting him force her to run away again. AG gets a kickass fight sequence with her true nemesis, and she and Amber get to recognize that they’re not Blaine, they’re not destined to become him, and they are ultimately the ones who choose how they go forward. (And Amber gets to scare Blaine utterly shitless, reject him, and see the look on his face when she does so. Will I ever stop linking this Shortpacked strip? Not when Blaine is a topic of conversation still, I don’t think. https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/last-respects ) Plus, bonus Faz character development! Faz character development that includes telling Amber that he struggles with the exact same fears about Blaine fucking him up, and she is his role model and inspiration. Nothing more Blaine or Ross’s continued presences can really add to anyone’s character arcs, and their deaths each establish a bigger threat (Blaine for Ross’s death, Asher for Blaine’s.)
By comparison, Mike is a supporting character, but he’s one with enough internality to sustain an arc of his own. There is, in fact, a clear route forward for his arc if he remains in the strip. The question is whether Willis is interested enough in that arc for the investment it would require, and whether they think it’s got more options than removing Mike from play permanently and letting that play out among the remaining cast – there’s a huge difference between ‘shitbag parents died’ and someone in their peer group, even if Mike was a shitbag himself. I could see it either way, even as I’d prefer Mike to get an actual redemption arc rather than a redemption equals death.
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Just a Big Pile of Donkey Doo
The Mike that lives in Amber’s hallucinations is kind of funny, in an odd way. Like he’s almost a cardboard cutout of Mike, the most shallow aspects of his personality for the most part. I guess because Amber herself cannot quite wrap her head around the idea that Mike genuinely cares about her. (This being Amber though, that tracks)
Seriously though, this girl needs a doctor. And much as I would love for Amber to stay in school just out of spite towards Linda, she probably needs a long stay in a hospital. Hallucinations and frequent dissociative incidents are very bad things.
Well, but if you look at what imaginary Mike is actually saying, he’s making the sarcastic point that of course he would ask her to sacrifice herself seeing as how it would make his sacrifice in vain. So he wouldn’t really.
So you see, imaginary Mike is actually nicer than real Mike.
Imaginary Mike says nice things in a dickish way that totally undercuts the niceness, so pretty much like real Mike.
My concern is honestly that a hospitalization stay might well make things WORSE – inpatient can be traumatic, and it’d almost certainly cut her off from even healthy coping mechanisms (like, the internet.) They definitely need a LOT of sleep, though, and support for establishing healthy body cohabitation strategies, and help for their massive self-esteem/self-sacrifice issues. (And probably some antidepressants.) They need therapy and probably a medical leave of absence, I just wouldn’t recommend inpatient to anyone who can avoid it and the therapy has to be competent.
I wonder if the mob will pay for Amber’s tuition.
I wonder if someone has already come up with this idea.
Even the mob knows what a shitty person Blaine was and were like “We gotta do this girl a solid.”
Because the mob is widely known for their generosity and fair play. Bound to happen.
I could see it.
Mob Boss: Amber, we’d like you to get your computer degree. So you can do credit fraud for us.
a small prize to keep an actual factual super hero off their back
Amber isn’t bulletproof.
Neither is antman
If I remember correctly, the Mafia takes care of the families of fallen members. However this is the Korean mob, so they may function differently, and Blaine was not a member anyway, just a mob adjacent. With Yuri being mob family, maybe???
Dumbing of Age Book 10: But Honestly It’s All Just a Big Pile of Donkey Doo
It looks like Becky’s grief has finally caught up with her.
Aaand here…we…go!
Give her a hug, Becky.
did becky think of that nickname on her way there
Yes.
Nah, she’s called her “Amber the hamster” or some variation before.
Pretty much since they met.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/splitsville/
Oof, Dorothy in here with the past tense in regards to Mike.
Ooh, I didn’t even catch that. Ouch.
It’s imperfect past tense — […] even he would ask that […]. Can very well be said about someone who is alive and kicking.
Now, if it would have read “even he would have asked that”, ze plot, she would thicken.
But “he was a jerk”
He still is, but he also used to be.
Perhaps she mistakenly thinks that his sacrifice means he is no longer a jerk?
Plot twist: he wakes up, only he’s really nice now, and it freaks everybody out and they’re practically begging him to be a jerk again
Brain damage can cause major personality shifts. I have a friend that I met as an adult who I would describe as outspoken and EXTREMELY blunt. I’ve met some of his other friends that knew him before a serious car accident in his early adulthood, and they say that before the accident, he was very timid and hardly spoke.
My money is still on Mike waking up and perpetually having the demeanor that he had while drunk in the walkyverse (alcohol made him really nice)
Becky has it all planned out. amber will be there, sitting alone, maybe crying, she will take her hand and tell her “it’s okay…”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/morebecky/
Aw. Amber’s so pretty. Poor girl, what a fucked up situation.
I knowwwww, she’s such a cutie. I hope we get to see her heal.
How weird is it that my first thought was, “Really? You ran the whole way there Becky?” Granted, that was before it occurred to me that her/Robin’s apartment is at most 5 blocks from the hospital. Granted, that run would kill me as I have a mild form of muscular dystrophy and the straightest path would involve running up a couple of small hills, but a normal person can handle that just fine.
A few years ago I had a recently-graduated nurse staying with me for a couple of weeks while she had a training placement at the local hospital. She asked me whether I could recommend any good routes for a run, and I suggested one that involved cross both the bridges across the river and running up Reservoir Hill and Commandant Hill, and down five flights of stairs. About a five-kilometre circuit. When she got back I asked whether she for it good, and she answered that it was the best run she’d been on, and that she had enjoyed it so much that she had gone around twice.
Young people are crazy, but they can run without it hurting.
that and their non-cauterized faculties for feeling joy, god they’re just the WORST. we hates them, we hates them forever.
I’m sorry Becky, you’ll have to wait till someone with the same coping mechanism as you has the same experience. Maybe see if either of Walky’s parents are at deaths door.
Linda might die once Walky inform her he is flunking math, so there’s always that possibility
Heart attack fuelled by shock, rage, and my hate. Darn shame. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer shitheel.
And she was so young, too. *Dabs a completely dry handkerchief at a completely dry cheek*
Yeah, I’m sure we’re all deep in mourning.
I have these balloons for a completely unrelated party.
Yeah, I don’t know what real!Mike would think of being the voice of Amber’s self-loathing and sense of inadequacy and failure. I suspected that ‘red memory’ Amber would evolve into her own distinct psyche in time but I was never expecting it to be as Mike!
I read Becky’s donkey doo comment as being about at the whole situation, rather than amber’s reaction. Like, she wanted to be there to talk to amber about have dead dad’s, but it all just kinda sucks balls full stop.
… It hadn’t occurred to me that she might be referring to anything *other* than being a member of the Dead Dreadful Dads Club until I read your comment…
Mike’s dad is still nearby in frames 2 and 3, possibly listening.
Indeed. Talking about Mike in past tense when he’s still alive and maybe in danger? Way too harsh, Dorothy!
Is this the real Dorothy talking or a figment of Amber’s imagination?
The fact is that, on a certain level, Becky did still crave Ross’s love and acceptance. Amber long ago learned that there was nothing she wanted from Blaine and, not a few hours ago, she realised that his approval was the single worst thing that he could possibly give her. So, frankly, if she needs help at the moment, it’s to deal with the fact that she desperately wants to dance on Blaine’s grave and feels like a monster for having that desire.
Yeah, AmbG’s had years to figure out Blaine was just complete, total shit. Will probably still have messy emotions about how he fucked them up and how they can’t divorce who they are now – or hell, their existence as a system – from the trauma of growing up with Blaine, but the closest thing to paternal we’ve ever seen from Blaine was showing up late to Amber’s birthday party and calling her a potato. And they knew he was a mobster and tried not to think about how he maybe cheated on Stacy with a teenager for years, and had plenty of distance to realize how fucked up things were. Any grief they have is likely more on the lines of ‘why did we have to get this shitty excuse for a sperm donor?’ or ‘why can’t we feel sad about this like a normal parent-child relationship?’ than ‘why couldn’t we have had more times like that family trip to Six Flags?’ (Note that Becky and Joyce seem to have relatively happy day trip memories with Ross, and the only known equivalent for Amber is the Field Trip Of Doom where he berated her in the car all day and then the traumatic convenience store incident happened. I suspect there’s a reason for that.)
By contrast, Ross showed Becky affection sometimes, and she’s only recently had time to start recognizing how messed up her entire upbringing was. (Becky also doesn’t have the same frame of reference for parents who aren’t controlling nightmares, since Ross was basically in line with the church community. Not having a cell phone was unusual, but ‘children should obey their elders without question’ is the party line. Ethan’s parents aren’t GOOD, but they’re still markedly different from Blaine, and Mike’s parents seem perfectly nice.) It seems like Ross and Becky’s relationship also took a turn for the worse after Bonnie’s death, though I think that was less ‘Ross got more controlling’ and more ‘Bonnie was a mediator’ and ‘Becky seems to recognize and acknowledge that Bonnie’s suicide attempt wasn’t a sudden act of Satan.’ The rift’s much more recent and there are good memories to be had that are tainted by Ross’s later actions.
I do think there will be some eventual common ground of ‘man my dad’s sudden death after a day of rapidly-escalating trauma was something I was not remotely prepared to handle’ or ‘god, why did our dads suck so damn much?’ but it’s not the same baseline.
Yeah. She got Blaine’s aprovel at one point (sort of). It wasn’t super great.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/proved/
Oh no, I hope Brain Blaine isn’t still in there, or using the Mike avatar…
He seems to be a one-off Brain Ghost. Mike’s been noticeable because we’ve seen him several times over a period of days, compared to the one.
Becky has the same philosophy I had at that age. “When in doubt, be blunt”. On the other hand, she manages to do it without being a dick.
worth a try
Becky caring about her might be the thing that breaks Amber.
Yes, it’s gone all…sorts of not good when you can’t even cuss. I shant’ mention cussing is entirely different from cursing and I’m tired of the blasphemous bums who get that wrong.
There is a weird comfort in having an acquaintance share a horror like this with you. It’s how I got one of my closest friends. No one else can udnerstand our special brand of f*cked up.
This really made me love Becky. I was just starting to like her, and this tipped the scales all the way.
I am wondering, what is the procedure for a shooting in a hospital, if it is evacuation, wouldn’t they evac the patients as well? Or would they lock the hospital down so nobody can leave?
Don’t claim to know the definitive answer, but in many cases the patients CAN’T leave. I would that first, the floor or wing/ward where the shooting occurred would be sealed tight — absolutely NO ONE comes or goes; although since Amber is on the outside, I’m obviously wrong on that part. Secondly, I assume each floor or wing has lock-down procedures so only designated essential staff remains, no one else enters, and everybody else gets the bum’s rush out the doors.
But remember — this was an “assisted suicide by cop” and the cop himself (Lester) is there to assume control of the situation and spin the story, so the “normal’ lockdown procedures in case of an active shooter situation never got past the first step of “evacuate all non-essential persons” (and how fucked up is our country that I can write a sentence like that with barely a second thought?) Now we readers and the regular cast know Lester is as bent as a corkscrew, but the hospital staff — not so much, so they take him at his word and DEFCON 5 or Condition Red or whatever gets downgraded to ‘cleanup on aisle 6’.
Wait, Becky saves the day with raw anger and sympathy!? Honestly, it’s not the hero we want, but the hero we need right now.
Oh, and good luck, Mike. You were a dick, but I’ll miss you if something worse happens and takes you out of this comic.
big pile of donkey doo should be the title of the next volume