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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 10h
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Comics Outta Context 
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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
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Don Cardenas
wait, is that
meJenSue down there3 rooms, 3 people (Jen, Sue, Ana) . . . yep, pretty sure that’s the answer.
2 rooms. One of those is a fire exit.
Jen lives in the fire exit. You need her permission to use it
The other two are the femur collection.
And the access point to Garbage Roof.
Which we do not talk about.
Because Rule #1 of Garbage Roof is, “You do not talk about Garbage Roof.”
On the dorm room map, that area is marked “Here Be Monsters”. xD
Nobody ever sees her come and go, but somehow she’s almost always sitting in class before you get there.
They’re never seen, but weirdly they all have classes with someone called Mrs. Zarves.
pretty sure she doesn’t exist
And there is no nineteenth story.
I haven’t read these books in ages and yet somehow I immediately got that reference. Weird what sticks in your mind.
Just remember if you get trapped in there start yelling about fresh fish, you’ll soon wake up between the 12/14th floors.
who could forget Mrs. Jewls throwing a computer out the window after making Louis Sachar carry it up thirty flights of stairs, those books do not sink into oblivion
That joke was even funnier back in the day. Computers were heavier then.
How else was she gonna show the class how gravity works?
Or when they built elevators, with one being the “down” elevator and only being able to go down; and the other being the “up” elevator and only being able to go up. They both worked perfectly once, and then never again.
Im just shocked that the fever dream that was these books was actually real and not…well…a fever dream. I still can’t get over the Staircase rules….
I tried to like/upvote the post before my brain realized I was on the wrong comic for that. A+ reference. I still have my books.
A+
Woooow omg I’m so happy other people read the books.
THERE’S A NEW ONE DID YOU SEE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayside_School_Beneath_the_Cloud_of_Doom
ok but did you do Sideways Arithmetic
Look, Booster.
Everything the light touches is our kingdom.
“What’s that shadowy place over there?”
“That’s France. We’ll get it one of these days.”
“What about that big building with the broken sign?”
“That is SEMMF, Simba. You must never go there.”
And if you should go over there, on no account should you activate the canister where floats the body that looks complete like you, except for the glasses.
“Okay, but the way ambient light works is that the light that touched this section eventually touches that section over there.”
“Oh, yeah, they’re part of the commonwealth. Just not the kingdom.”
But can you cast light on Brexit?
No, but I can make light of it.
I O U 1 Internet.
Wish I could. /Bitter
One of the best analogies I read was about a group of friends agreeing to eat at a particular restaurant. Then a health inspection report revealed that there were faeces in the food. Do you eat literal
because that’s what you agreed to without having all the facts – or do you make a sensible decision once this comes to light? And our politicians went with option A… 
And have now decided that things like our food standards are fair game because they clearly don’t understand how analogies work.
Me before the referendum: How can people possibly consider voting for an amorphous undefined concept? Also, why on earth would they think that we as an individual country would have more bargaining power than the combined EU?
Me in the aftermath of the result: Protest vote? WTF? Do these people not understand how voting works??
Me as everything unfolded: Why are we continuing to drive towards a train crash at top speed? Also, saying “I told you so” would feel a lot more satisfying if only people who voted Brexit would get hit by the damage…
Also the bit where I *like* Europe and the concepts of free movement and think that things like shared (agreed) standards etc are a good thing
But apparently as we have now left one can no longer be a Bremainer (which is an awful name for a group anyway… *Thinks for 30 seconds* EUnited Kingdomers would have been better).
I like to think of Anglophonic nations catching some sort of Stupid Plague around 2016 (and by Stupid Plague, I don’t mean the plague was stupid). Some of them managed to self-isolate successfully (lucky Enzies), the rest of us are dying of Stupid.
And by ‘Stupid’, I mean ‘Regressive Conservative Isolationist Backlash’.
A report I read about the anti-immigrant side of Brexit polled leavers as believing something like 40% of the nation’s population was immigrants, and remainers as believing it was about 20%, where in fact it’s more like 10%. Pro-Brexiters were apparently highly motivated by false information about droves of job-stealing immigrants. Well, and false information about a lot of other things too, but the racism aspect is common to 2016 America as well.
Additionally, apparently Russia used the Brexit campaign to test and refine a lot of the social manipulation shenanigans they then used in America to get Trump elected.
You’re right, 2016 was not a good year.
As I said, The Plague (by which I mean, The Deliberate Campaign To Mislead And Manipulate) was not itself stupid.
Wasn’t just the Anglophone nations though the US and Britain seemed the worst hit. (Canada also wasn’t nearly so badly affected.)
There was a wave of ‘Regressive Conservative Isolationist Backlash’ sweeping over much of Europe around that time – often tied to resentment of Muslim refugees. There was a big surge in support for far right parties across the board.
Partly, I think the later attempts were harmed by shock at the Trump victory and increased awareness of Russian propaganda attempts.
might have something to do with perceptions. As mentioned in the comments that can’t be replied to; Brexiteers think 40%, Remainers thought 20%, facts say 10%. So what causes the Perception that is so severe even those opposed to the referendum think immigrants are twice as numerous as they actually are? Could it be the impact via laws imposed? because I kind of DOUBT that BBC and other establishments within Britain were pounding the propaganda drum for something they outright stated they oppose and even fired people for advocating. There’s clearly a distortion in civil discourse going on, when both sides are overestimating the impact of a demographic group, and the only difference is how much overestimation they’re believing.
Kind of a weird thing to contemplate, but maybe because both sides have played the false narrative games for so long, that they pad their thinking instead of pursuing objective truths.
On a happier note, Booster is starting to show promise as a shit-stirrer in the positive sense of being free of the usual fears and superstitions. that smartass look it The Booster’s Face in the last panel promises loads of fun, and maybe some actual wacky Hijinks.
Beyond that door is another eclectic cast of quirky characters having drama filled adventures in a college university setting.
Or it’s a mirror universe where everyone has a calm college experience with nurturing parents, a kind RA, and showers with no hair.
They’re normal background characters, living lives free of drama. The light fixture at their end of the hallway is burning out, but they don’t complain because they don’t want to raise a fuss.
Nope, the single rooms is where they’re hiding the Veterans here on the GI bill, who already HAD their wacky hijinks while in uniform and don’t want to be bothered with enduring the chaos-because they already did their time in that. (Please note: there are NO military veterans in the main cast, zero, not a single one…but the GI bill’s been a thing long enough, and I know enough guys (and gals) who went straight from their tour into college because that’s what they enlisted to DO.)
But not too dramatic, nor too adventurous, because Willis wouldn’t tease us by keeping the good shenanigans offscreen.
or maybe, per your avatar, that’s Robot College.
Why would robots need to go to college when they can download directly into their brain/memory?
Because they want the “Whole College Experience”.
Beyond that door ist a branch of McAwesome’s.
oh? new info?
The people down there don’t even show up for floor meetings.
You approach one of the doors at the end of the hallway. You unlock this door with the key of imagination. beyond it is another door. this door is another dimension; a dimension of sound. a dimension of imagination. a dimension of doors. you’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas and substance of both shadow and ideas of things and–… a dimension of sound. a dimension of mouth. a dimension of another dimension… of things and ideas. a land of doors. you just crossed over into mouth dreams.
Do not adjust your TV set.
On the other hand, feel perfectly free to adjust your avitar. What the heck is that from?
1960’s Twilight Zone, I believe.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s a riff on Rod Sterling’s V/O intro to every episode.
Nope, it was “The Outer Limits”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCcdr4O-3gE
mada was twilight zone, rotunda was outer limits
Mada’s avatar id from GoGetARoomie
Thank you.
Twilight zone originally but adapted by Neil Ciceraga in his most recent mashup album “mouth dreams”
“Do not adjust your TV set,” however, is from the intro to The Outer Limits.
You are entering the vicinity of an area adjacent to a location. The kind of place where there might be a monster, or some kind of weird mirror. These are just examples; it could also be something much better. Prepare to enter… The Scary Door.
I love how we just glossed over Roz and Rachel.
Any way my curiosity has now been peaked.
Everyone. Important.
If Roz and Mary are still roommates, they’re in a room diagonally across from Ruth’s. Mary saw Billie leaving Ruth’s room from there.
Piqued.
(sorry to be the spelling snob; I just got piqued by this one, I guess)
We have achieved peak pique.
But absolutely no peeking.
And no Beijing either.
LOL!
Piquant.
Or possibly their curiosity has peaked.
Rachel and Other Rachel were out.
They died durring the time skip.
Piqued.
Joyce said Rachel and Other Rachel were out.
Walky did.
The Lawgiver is BLEEDING!
I thought it was Romeo bleeding. Bleeding protagonists.
“If we meet them, Willis will have to draw them.”
“Who’s Willis? Is he on this floor?”
“…I’ve said too much.”
Brilliant!
Willis does exist in-universe, I’ve been told!
…as the reclusive-yet-wealthy creator of Dexter and Monkey Master, or so I hear.
“So, the single rooms are the buttholes?”
Yeah, I remember the sort of people who lived in singles when I was there age… I was one of them.
I had a single room when I lived in the dorms. None of my floor mates ever saw me – presumably they knew my name, since I had it on the door. But talking to them? I wouldn’t do that, no.
I went into the common room and ended up watching Arrow with some others my last semester! Don’t remember what had prompted me to go in there in the first place. Probably either my family or therapist suggesting I go there so I don’t enter the early stages of agoraphobia again.
And that was about it. Social anxiety is a powerful force indeed. Also my school had undergrad thesis projects for seniors, so I had thirty pages about Muppets to write.
I lived in single rooms for my junior and senior years of college. I got tired of having roommates who were slobs. And it was nice to have an entire dorm room to myself.
Eh, nothing weird about that side of the hall, that’s just where Minkus and Mr. Turner live.
1) Accurate to college life.
2) NEW CHARACTERS?????????
New character, singular. Still one silhouette to go…
(Yes, I know it’s Billie, but lemme have fun.)
Willis is going to stand the entire identity discussion on its head. He’ll introduce 2 new bodies, that stay in separate singles rooms, but jointly identify as a single person. The only pronouns recognized for the entity are Hey-you (heyou) and it.
Their name is Yay and they’re endearingly intimidating.
And they love cats.
I understand that reference.gif
Whaaaaaat
Well, NOW I’m curious.
So who are they?
Well, I’m not sure. But it’s possible I’ll be forced to forgive Willis for skipping over Halloween.
If we knew, we could not leave the Forbidden Zone alive.
Some things are not for mortal minds to know.
(Real talk, probably medical singles or the like. Allergies, physical disability requiring room accommodations, things that fuck with your sleep schedule so much you can’t be randomly assigned a roommate, that sort of thing.)
Oh wow. Where I’m from, it just means your parents give you a lot of money.
What if the people living there are cute? And live in single rooms? You could be missing out on some prime dating opportunities by not going there.
“A college dorm where apes evolved from men?! There’s GOT to be an answer!”
“Don’t look for it, Booster! You may not like what you’ll find!”
*applauds this ref*
Leela: Uh, Professor, are we even allowed in the Forbidden Zone?
Farnsworth: Why, of course! It’s just a name! Like the Death Zone or the Zone of No Return. All the zones have names like that in the Galaxy of Terror!
https://youtu.be/CH_xisvc16g
It’s basic stellar cartography. Whenever you’ve got a zone of avoidance, something in our psychology senses a great attractor behind it.
It is forbidden! FORBIDDEN!
That’s Shorthpacked! territory. We don’t go there.
Meeting our doppelganger would tear the fabric of the Universe.
My residence hall my freshman year had a forbidden zone. A kid got murdered there back in the 60s (yes, this is true) and it’s completely locked off and reportedly haunted. My freshman class was so large that they had to put 4 people in some of the 3-person rooms, yet they still didn’t open this wing.
Yikes.
Nothing so serious, but my high school had a big unused area. When my mom was attending it in the 80s, the cafeteria was on the 3rd floor. Some point between her graduating and my older sibling starting school there, the school moved the cafeteria to the 1st floor. But the one on the 3rd floor never got used for anything else. As far as I know, students didn’t even know that’s what was there. It just didn’t register. I think I found out in my senior year when my mom was talking about her high school days. I know I passed on the knowledge to some friends, but no one seemed to already know that.
empty, haunted, inhabited by older students, all of the above?
Inhabited by haunted older students who are empty inside
Grad students then.
Dear gods, is that where Jorge hid Mike Slackenerny? It’s been so long I nearly forgot his name ;D
kane-clap.gif
It’s where a three headeddog guards a trap door.
I read that as “three hedgehogs”…I might need a nap
So Doug and Dinsdale live there then.
I love the way the pupils got small.
…and the blue with shock, too.
i just realized that walky & joyce are basically wearing the same outfit???
Walky’s sleeves are blue, not pink. On account of he has just one pair of shoes.
Joyce has a zip up hoodie, Walky’s is pullover. Joyce has sweatpants with a stripe down the side, Walky presumably has jeans but definitely has no stripe down the side. And as noted, different shoes. I assume their outfits are the same in the way that everyone in Sarah’s law class had the same outfit if anything.
I have bets here:
* 5 dollars on Ethan has gone Goth.
We’ll never know.
On account of … You know.
Darkness comes, shrouded in extra darkness, shoved in even more darkness.
He’s a darkness turducken.
The drama and suspense and humor are right on, but I have to say that the color scheme in this strip is stunning. The visual treat really enhances the drama. Well done, Willis.
Chekhov’s dorm rooms. They’ve not only been drawn, but talked about by main characters. So they’ll show up again by the climax of this storyline.
Sulu is the other roommate. They switch rooms every night.
Wrong Chekhov.
Nu Jen Chekhov?
Naaah. Unless we meet someone new tomorrow, I think this is just a joke about singles in dorms.
Ooooh, is The Faz in one of them single rooms?
Pretty sure Faz is in highschool. And I think a couple years younger (at least) than Amber.
Faz is almost 16, and wouldn’t be assigned a dorm in their wing anyway.
GHOST STORYLINE
GHOSTS FOR HALLOWEEN
The tension will slowly build, with hints dropped here, the mystery and unease ratcheting up until the shocking reveal on Halloween
of 2038.
One of those doors leads to the Library of Babel. At least that’s what Father Jorge’s friend told me.
Woah, this is an awesome development.
Booster, when you see a shadowy hallway like that with rooms shrouded by mystery and your local guides tell you it’s forbidden…
…. you’re assuming a great deal when you describe the occupants as LIVING in there.
Happy haunts materialize
And begin to vocalize
Grim grinning ghosts
Come out to socialize!
When the night wind howls
In the chimney cowls
And the bat in the moonlight flies
When inky clouds
Like funeral shrouds
Sail over the midnight skies
When footpads quail at the night-bird’s wail
And black dogs bay at the moon
Then is the specter’s holiday
Then is the ghost’s high-noon!
Booster hasn’t realized yet that he’s the only one alive. The rest of them actually died during the great kidnapping.
I see dead freshmen….
That’s where Guns lives.
She took over all the singles and hollowed the walls between them.
Guns and Sydney.
They haven’t met Mary yet, have they?
They did.
Mary is (was?) roommates with Roz in a double room.
What? Does eldritch abominations live in those rooms? Are those students from Night Vale? From Silent Hill? From Hawkins? From Cardiff? From Innsmouth? From New Jersey?
Hey! New Jersey isn’t a real place.
And I’m not sure about Cardiff.
Cardiff definitely ain’t where the eldritch abominations come from – I can speak from personal experience!
Llanelli, on the other hand… hoo boy.
“Where does a thing like that even come from?”
“Now that’s a silly question. Where does any dark, slimy, tentacled demigod come from?”
“Manchester?”
“That’d be my guess as well.”
Cecil wishes them well in their studies at the University of In-Diana
o h ?
All hail Dab.
must be…. Upperclassmen
We may never know
That end of the hallway is the domain of Lovecraftian horrors disguised as students. If you choose to go there you might not come back with your sanity intact, if you come back at all.
Doesnt Clara live in a single room?
*Carla. Dont crucify me.
But she’s and her room’s whereabouts are mentioned in this comic….
Read the text in today’s comic.
The characters where not introduced? i gues
Chekhov’s forbidden zone?
Someone needs to throw a lampshade on Booster’s head and whisk them out of there.
“We don’t go to Ravenholm”
what ?
All I can imagine is horror stories being spread about the single rooms and how nobody ever goes there, then it’s eventually grandly revealed that it’s just where all the janitorial stuff is kept.
My dorm had the forbidden single rooms. The dorm was shaped like a U and they added an expansion to the ends with 5 single rooms on each side, so 30 extra rooms over the 3 floors.
It was obviously tacked on, even from the inside so we joked it wasn’t part of the dorm proper. The room layouts were totally different, even accounting for being half the size.
Ominous… Wait is this a sneaky halloween strip? Well even if it’s not nice to see something that represents the month.
Booster’s lips weirded me out at first, but I think I’m used to them now.
Is it weird that I hope they have a partner? Having lips like that feels like a waste unless you’re smooching someone.
I’m sort of hoping that we’re going to cut away now to other characters and other things. Then, next week, we’re going to come back to these three, still in exactly the same position and posture as they are in panel 5.
BOOSTER: “So, are we going to be moving again any time soon?”
WALKY: “Hey, she’s the heroically daring one, not me!”
JOYCE: “I was sort of hoping one of you two would move first!”
Oh yeah… They’re gonna go there…
Student librarians live there.
That sounds like a great motivation to go and see what the mystery is.
*Booster opens the left door. The room is empty, except for two identical little girls in floofy dresses, their backs to him*
GIRLS (In unison): One, Two, Skip to my loo, One, Two, skip to my loo…
*Booster shuts door quickly* Okay, that was creepy…
*crosses to other door, opens it*
*Room is identically empty, with two identical girls in it, but both are facing him. Their eyes are covered by long, straight bangs, but their mouths are locked in rictus grins*
GIRLS (In unison): A new study partner! Are you here to study with us?
Booster: EEEG! *slams door shut*
*Booster turns to run back towards the lighted rooms, but the girls now stand in the hallway, directly in front of him*
GIRLS (In unison): YAY!!! Come study with us!! *they seize his hands*
Booster: No! NOOO!!! HELP!! WALKY, JOYCE!!! ANYBODY!!! HEEELLPPP
*girls drag him away into darkness*
*cut to Becky&Dot’s room, where they, Joyce and Walky are huddled together in abject terror*
Joyce: Why? Why did he go there? Why did he-they-
Walky: SILENCE!! We must not speak of The Lost! If we remember The Lost, The Darkness will spread again!! *pulls out Brain Bleach, pours glasses for everyone* We must Forget! *drinks*
Dot: Yes! Forget! *drinks*
Becky: Forget! *drinks*
Joyce: …. Forget. *drinks*
ALL (in unison): Forget… Forget… Forget…
*sigh* I like to think I’m a pretty good proofreader, but I’m too much like Walky – gender always gets me in trouble…
Hollyfeld lives in the one on the left.
While Joyce and Walky are paralyzed with fear, Booster marches over to one of the doors. “Nonsense. There’s nothing here, see?” They says, confidently swinging the door open and revealing film of old black-and-white sci-fi B-movie robots marching toward the screen. Booster slams the door shut as their eyes turn to dots, like Joyce and Walky’s. “We must never speak of this again.”
(Deanatay’s story is better.)
I guess Willis could not think of any more new people to add.
I’m getting the impression that Booster isn’t just tall, they’re an actual adult who started college a bit later than average. That last panel seems to imply “Oh, I just remembered that y’all are still sometimes kids.”
All of the AFAB characters and most of the AMAB characters should be done growing by now (unless one of them gets a random growth spurt during their first pregnancy).
Eh, it’s not completely unheard of for the last growth spurt to hit around age 20, either way – my one side of the family tends to have a last one closer to 21. It’s not common either, but given most of the cast is just now turning 19, one of them still having a couple inches left is plausible.
That said, I think Booster’s just taller than average, plus Walky and Joyce are a bit shorter.
Booster is like 5’10”-ish. They look taller in the final panels of this strip for the same reason the top of Walky’s head is lower than Joyce’s — we’re at a worms-eye angle and the three are staggered down the hallway.
Jeebus! I forget how perfect Joyce and Wally are for each other until a strip like this comes along. They’re even dressed as a couple.
given how they are single rooms and we’ve never seen who lives there I’m guessing they’re antisocial rich a-holes or something.
they could be living in the dorms and taking all online courses? which I suppose doesn’t really contradict you the slightest.
Is this a Boy Meets World finale reference?
Her hair is so beautiful!
Or was it the Twilight Zone?
Reminds me of the Boy Meets World graduation episode when they’re asked about the side of the hallway on the other side of the camera.