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Les be honest, if Danny gayve his bi-cycle to Sal she’d find it queer that he trans-fered it 2 her, plus while it may pan out and be an ace ride, a pedal bike is a little too straight, even for Sal, although maybe she could get into furryously riding it. Misreading it as aromatic gesture Sal would incist they still can’t do it together because it can’t hold them both. Dan would say, “no a-poly-gy needed,” and Sal responds, “ahh wasn’t apoligizin’.”
*I know I’m late coming out with this, but y’all are such an accepting community that it felt safe to experiment.
It would be fae-ning ignorance, if I didn’t say I was amused by this. So, instead, I want to demi-nstrate how amused I am, but how is a grey territory…
Replace both the front and back with hub motor wheels, and build a bigger battery, and you’ll be on to something!
(Check your local laws before building an e-bike, you might have to get it classified as a moped. Use a quality battery or else bad things are more likely to happen. Wear your helmet. Remember to drink your Ovaltine.)
maybe, but then, maybe they’re a shorthand method so that you don’t have to worry about the contents of the box as long as you can pronounce the label on the inside of the wrapper with faux sincerity and sufficient false empathy. After all, ‘what’ you are is so much more important to a relationship than ‘who’ you are.
Do you think it’s possible to shoot the moon and become so incredibly dweeby that you swing back around to being charming? That might be Danny’s strategy here.
I don’t think it’s a strategy or a tactic. True dorkiness of this caliber cannot be faked. I think Danny’s just gotten comfortable enough to be his normal self with Sal, which is far more charming than any strategic dorkiness could be. Go with your strengths, Dan!
it’s a “sliding time scale” meaning it always takes place in the present with regards to cultural references and the like, so that if Danny is 18 now and the South Park episode aired in 2009, then he was 6 years old then, as of this strip =)
True story: I knew pretty quickly that I wanted to marry my then-girlfriend, but she wasn’t so quick to recognize/admit that she wanted that too. But fairly early on, she texted a friend that she was looking forward to a lifetime of getting headaches from my bad puns – and then showed me the text. I was pretty thrilled.
I think it was another year or so before we got engaged. Ten years and a couple of kids later, we both know it was a good move. And she still groans at my puns.
There are literally hundreds of frame styles. Heck, so called “girl bikes” used to be called delivery bikes with the idea that anyone doing urban delivery on bicycle in the pre-spandex era would appreciate not having to lift their leg over the top tube.
Thanks for the reference. I guess while the show was running it just never registered with me. For sitting down it seems to make sense if you’re tall enough, but oh man, that getting back up at 0:18 just looks horribly awkward. Probably because on approach you can pick your balance point, but standing up typically has your feet in front, unless there is epic man-spread. Also, on sitting down it reads like, “yeah, cool bro, you’re tall,” but on standing up that way, “jeezus, don’t draw attention to it! NOT subtle dude.”
It was done because Frakes had a back injury that would have been stressed by doing multiple takes of sitting up and down in a more normal way. He leans on stuff a lot on the show too, for the same reason
Just straight up bought her a Bicycle, I don’t know if I see myself as a materialistic person and I don’t know if he knew about her motor cycle situation or if he’s just handing out bikes but for some reason that’s winning me over with how sweet that is.
He (possibly) still tutors her and they are friends who play Mario Kart and such together, so I think he’d probably know about it. It’s funny, I didn’t even consider maybe he outright bought it for her, but that’d make sense.
Depends on when it happened. The part where Walky didn’t seem to know suggests it might have been over winter break, in which case they’ve only had a few days to see each other in person (though it’s possible they were texting each other or something over break) and Sal isn’t really feeling like talking about it.
I mean there’s nothing wrong with these two, it’s a better change of pace than Sal having a fling with an Authority figure or a someone who was bound to drag her into legal trouble from the start.
Wasn’t this the original ship back when Roomies started? Obviously the characters are all different in this universe, but it’s interesting to seem them gravitate toward each other again.
Of course, it’s also possible this is entirely platonic. Not every caring relationship between a guy and a girl has to be romantic or sexual.
Of course they don’t, but if we could only ship things that had canon romance or sexuality involved, it’d get super boring super fast.
I love them as friends and if they become romantic, I’m sure I’ll love them too because they’re already very adorably sweet together and I’d love to see Sal get a good romantic partner if she wants one.
Nope, George was a turn of the 21st century glossy lifestyle magazine centered on politics, sort of a cross between Esquire and Politico. It only lasted six years and unfortunately jumpstarted the careers of a bunch of wingnuts the world would have been better off without.
Also many years after Bicycle Race was written. Unlike Jaws and Star Wars. Interestingly George wasn’t particularly wingnutty when it came out, just a little edgy.
I find it ABSOLUTELY BAFFLING how endearing they are together given their relationship in the Walkyverse was… not nearly so, despite being official canon for a while and intended to be endgame until Billie* waltzed into Willis’s brain and said ‘hey, pair me with the dorky one.’
* I can adjust to DoAverse Jennifer, but Walkyverse one was still going by Billie last we saw her in that universe.
Yes, he does, but I’ve noticed with my own writing that sometimes when you go back to a relationship after it didn’t go great the first time, lightning just strikes. You get better inspiration or can translate what you see in your head better. Some of that comes from skill but even skilled writers sometimes have don’t get that kind of chemistry the next time.
Some of it’s definitely ‘Willis growing as a writer in the intervening decades’ – Danny was always meant to come off as more of an earnest everyman type, but Walkyverse Danny did not. Some of it is, in fact, that we saw the Walkyverse Danny/Sal at the end of the relationship, and Sal was still putting her act of being carefree and spontaneous for Danny even after she’d become Batman. Meeting each other after Sal had become Cool and Angsty means she doesn’t have to put on an act, and that means their actual personalities can bounce off each other. Now that Danny’s personality isn’t a complete sanctimonious prick, this works well instead of awful.
But even still, I was not primed for the two of them to interact so well I’d be game to see this be a Walkyverse canon ship repeating in the Dumbingverse. Their dynamic is so different and so sweet.
This. Some of it is improved skill, some of it is the timing of their relationship and yeah, sometimes lightning just gets captured in a bottle. Kinda like Leslie becoming the awesome character she was. That wasn’t originally intended. I dunno if Sal and Danny being cute was originally intended or not, so it might not be a lightning strikes scenario but it definitely feels like one to me because I did not anticipate it.
Hm. In my dorm (not IU, but comparable school), there was a storage room in each hallway where students could keep bikes, but I don’t know that the larger dorms had them.
On our campus we convinced the residence association to purchase and place bicycle lockers around the dorms (I think there were three at each dorm to start with) that one could rent by the semester to provide a secure and weatherproof storage area for one’s bicycle.
So, I have to ask: what’s the difference between a “girl’s” bike and a “boy’s” bike? My entire peer group from childhood and all of my siblings are female, and I still have no answer to this question.
Back when girls always wore dresses or skirts, a high bar on the bike frame (between the handlebar and the seat) would interfere with the skirt. So a “girl’s” bike frame would have a lower bar that only went partway up the seat tube.
You can still see examples if you do a Google image search for “girl’s bike frame.”
Not in the late 19th century, the first garments made for female cyclists were a tight calf-length pant made by a woman named Bloomer. Yes that’s where bloomers came from until the evolved into a brief for Japanese fetishists.
You made me wisearch ‘Bloomer’ because that sounds like the kind of armchair theory grounded in some facts that I would bake up and serve. My complements chef!
Sadly it seems that Ms Bloomer’s activism (circa mid 19th century) was more about feminism and health (get rid of corsets, floor hems), but that using bloomers for cycling didn’t occur until their resurgence closer to 1890-1900’s. (at least according to what my fuzzy noodle retained between reading and writing).
The fact that that one support bar is higher on men’s bikes makes no sense to me either. It’s like they’re trying to make it easier for a man to accidentally hit himself in the crotch if something causes him to fall off the seat.
My guess is that the first bikes with a modern form factor had a high top bar to make the frame as sturdy as possible, and they were by default men’s bikes (because of The Patriarchy). When a woman mounted/dismounted, she had to lift her leg up high to get over the top bar, and the possibility of thigh-flashing was frowned upon (also because of The Patriarchy), so the “women’s” bike was designed which dropped the top tube a bit, and here we are.
The higher top bar on ‘mens’ frames make the frame a bit stronger, because it’s closer to a triangle. Womens’ bikes intended for non-casual riding (like downhill mountain biking and road racing) where the rider isn’t expected to be wearing a skirt or dress are built with a high top bar for that reason.
(And yes, sliding forward off the seat because the front wheel caught a tree root hurts like a motherfucker.)
That’s the reason why I always have rode girl’s/women’s or unisex bikes for over 30 years now.
Well, the first reason were hand-me-downs from my sister. It became a deliberate decision in 8th grade when I – still on a unisex hand-me-down – crashed into a friend, who suddenly stopped in front of me. While my chest hit the handle rather hard, I had to disappoint my all boy’s-bikes-riding friends’ expectation of crushed balls. When shortly after that I literally grew out of hand-me-downs I went for an unisex bike again.
The middle bar between the handle and seat swoops downward on a girl’s bike (like Danny’s does) and goes straight across on a boy’s bike.
I’ve never understood why it isn’t the opposite, since you’d think people with dicks(/designers buying into pop culture making it out like having a vagina makes you impervious to crotch strikes) would be the ones who’d be more worried about having hard metal bar that close to their junk if they’re ever jarred in a way that makes them slip off the seat. A throwback to days when girls were more likely to be wearing a skirt and lifting their leg that high to get on would risk flashing people, maybe?
Among cycling aficionados, that would be called a ‘mixte’ frame. The classic’ ‘men’s frame’ was a double-triangle design and known as a ‘diamond frame’.
The traditional ‘woman’s frame’ was an acceptable compromise, as Chris Phoenix pointed out, to preserve modesty at the expense of frame stiffness and rigidity … but the prevailing line of thought was, “what woman was ever going to ride hard enough to put enough stress on the frame to notice it, anyway?”
Nowadays, however, with newer (and stronger) materials to work with and newer designs influenced by extreme mountain biking, even traditional ‘diamond frames’ are becoming rarer and rarer as many companies and frame builders have adopted the ‘sloped’ top tube, making them look closer and closer to the ‘mixte’ frame of days gone by.
This is the cutest Danny strip since “Eef”, and this is Danny being cute by his conscious actions rather than his unconscious ones; therefore, this may be the cutest Danny strip ever
I’m a bit self-conscious to be all like flirting in public, it feels like walking into a restaurant in a swimsuit or something^^ though I’m sure no one cares, and it doesn’t seem to bother you much
But OK, here goes: you said at some point that hanging here helped with mental health, do you still feel that way? how does it help?
If that’s too personal/sensitive a question then I’ll settle for you telling me a funny thing that’s happened to you this week. for whatever definition of funny. Or, the last movie you’ve watched that blew your mind, and you have to somehow tell me why without spoilers^^ THATS RIGHT ITS A CHALLENGE NOW
Anyway when i said “a few days” i meant, like, maybe 3 days. you will barely have time to miss my assprostate
Sorry if my last question seemed a little too personal; I just couldn’t find a more subtle way of asking about your particular orientation at the time.
In regard to intellectual wellness, I come here for more or less the same reason you do. I have some rather strong and admittedly unpopular positions on various things, and you can probably see why I couldn’t really share them without a certain degree of anonymity. Considering the very nature of this comic and where these discussions tend to go, this truly seems like a safe place to talk about hard things.
I’m baffled as to what you expected to gather of my orientation by bonding over our prostates X’D or why you felt that was a more gentlemanly thing to ask than”yo, which way you swing?” which is actually kind of complicated, let’s just call me bi though. You?
I’m also not sure what you reckon I’m getting from spending so much time in this comment section, but yeah, i guess i get to hang with the sort of nerds I miss in my life. And, also, like many Extremely Online people, I’m just a socially freaked-out, mentally fucked-up reclusive mess at the mo. I just so happened to plonk down here at some point and find it neat.
I’m not sure i get why anonymity is so important to you?
Anyway, im off to some mountains so, um, bi for now
Sure there is, it’s there so you’re not SeEn RiDiNg A gIrLs BiKe.
I’ve had various mountain bikes over the years, and always used one of those oversized, padded replacement seats. All the “bike sharing” short-term rental bikes have them, so I must have been on to something.
Only in the wallet. (Seriously are there any recumbents that don’t cost as much as a motorcycle? I want to try one but not pay thousands for the opportunity…)
C’mon Sal. It’s a gift, don’t be so hars and be happy. A bike in winter is best. The coold air around you and the effort of pushing on the pedals is one of the best sensations ever. It makes you feel really alive. Danny is a precious friend ♡. I hope he gets another bike and then they start riding together. It would be great!
Why have the comics been so goddamn dadaist as of late?
Why is Jason handcuffed?
Why is Sal angry about Jason?
Where’s her bike?
Why is Danny giving his bike away?
It’s been an entire week of entirely unrelatable bizarro moments.
Why is Jason handcuffed? I dunno, why does Amazi-Girl carry around condoms and print big blue A’s on the wrappers? Why is the local pizza place run by a wannabe supervillain? How can Dina and sometimes Joyce teleport into frame? This is a comedy comic, and sometimes it dips into absurdity for comic effect.
Why is Sal angry about Jason? 1) she doesn’t like him because he was a shitty tutor who blamed her for not being able to get the one method he was teaching and didn’t work for her and considered her a lost cause. When her grades improved due to Danny’s tutoring, he suggested that maybe she finally started listening instead of admitting his approach wasn’t working for her. He made snap judgments on her intellectual capabilities based off her appearance more than once. And while Sal initiated the unethical sex, he brought up that he found her attractive in their first interaction – a fact which she was uncomfortable with at the time, since she only wanted tutoring. Sal is perfectly justified in her dislike of Jason, because even setting the sex aside, he was a bad tutor to her. 2) Despite that fact, she does find him attractive, and at the moment it seems like Sal’d really like to hook up with someone. Thus her earlier ‘I’m TOTALLY NOT JEALOUS’ about Asher and Jennifer. (She is totally jealous.)
Where’s her bike? This is almost certainly a plot point. We don’t know yet because it is intentionally being left vague. The one fact we do know is that it’s a sore spot for Sal, making it likely it wasn’t her choice.
Why is Danny giving his away? Dunno. Could be his friendship/possible crush on Sal. Could be a fit issue. Could be multiple factors. Could be the aforementioned dip back into comedy. We’re almost certainly going to hear more about this tomorrow.
While two of these possibly are Comedy Strip Rules of the Universe, two of these are entirely explained as ‘past character interactions’ and ‘probable plot point that hasn’t been revealed yet.’ That’s not dadaist, that’s just how narratives work.
Sorry for the curt tone, but I’m getting REALLY peeved at the implication Sal has no room to dislike Jason because she initiated the sex. She did, and that does change the uneven power dynamic a bit, but she had plenty of reasons to dislike him already. (Is it hypocritical to bring up the power imbalance? Maybe somewhat, though given the onus was still on him to shut it down, he still doesn’t look good in that one. Shocker, 18-year-olds can be hypocrites. That doesn’t mean her dislike of him can never be justified when the bigger reasons were how he dismissed her.)
Eyyy I get that some (many) points since the timeskip are being left vague, and it does pay off (like today’s strip where Danny explains the bike).
I still think Sal is going absurdly hard on Jason considering she goes to pester him every time she wants to get drunk, and he helped her to her dorms and tried at least a little to understand her.
They fight a lot, sure, but she dishes out as much as she takes. Difference is, I’m sure Jason would get a screwdriver for her in a similar situation. And probably freak the hell out at a girl being handcuffed against her will in some dude’s dorm room.
Seriously I am NOT okay with his handcuffs and REALLY hope there’ll be an AMAZING explanation for them. It’s hovering awfully close to “nonconsent is funny if it happens to dudes” and I’m not on board for it.
And y’know, even looking at it from the perspective of timeskip plot points being danced around, y’gotta admit last week was weirdly dense with comics that’ll only make sense in hindsight.
“considering she goes to pester him every time she wants to get drunk”
Source? I haven’t seen anything to suggest this.
As for “non consent is fun for dudes”, for me a lot’s taken out of that by the fact no actual sex happened or sounds like it’s going to happen. It’s still shitty, worrying and scary but not to the same degree as it would be otherwise.
Probably in storage for winter. I used to ride year-round when I lived in the Southwest U.S., since it seldom got cold enough for water to freeze– which is lethally dangerous when you only have two wheels. When I moved to the Midwest, I learned that even (and especially) the most seasoned riders here store their bikes for the cold weather.
We don’t know. All we know is when Walky asked her where it was recently (so it’s probably a recent thing that wasn’t big news), she didn’t want to talk about it. I’m HOPING I’m wrong but I smell a Linda shaped rat.
I-
I’ve never had this problem? Me and me mum both use the same bike.
Then again, now that I think about it… I’ve never had a bike of my own? Only the bikes passed down to me by my mum-
A “women’s” bike will have that dip in the frame in front of the seat. Presumably so that a skirt wearing person can easily remove their legs.
Obviously it’s all arbitrary and by a vast margin, most bikes are gender neutral. Nothing wrong with owning a bike with a dip if you just like the aesthetic.
Height is going to come into play much more. You may find it extremely painful to ride a bike that isn’t measured to you. You might find that you’re sore after riding or that your back/shoulders ache.
“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 ⋅ 21h
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
Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com ⋅ 21h
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
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going through all the sexualities is definitely a bi-cycle
Gotta know your audience if you want to pan-der to them?
I feel like that joke was gonna be a miss for Sal right out of the gay-t.
In Sal’s case, more like straight out of the gay-t.
I like all these sexuality puns. I think they’re ace!
Yeah and they’re so pithy too! these puns are honest to god, no-nonsense, to-the-point, straight-as-an-aro puns
Les be honest, if Danny gayve his bi-cycle to Sal she’d find it queer that he trans-fered it 2 her, plus while it may pan out and be an ace ride, a pedal bike is a little too straight, even for Sal, although maybe she could get into furryously riding it. Misreading it as aromatic gesture Sal would incist they still can’t do it together because it can’t hold them both. Dan would say, “no a-poly-gy needed,” and Sal responds, “ahh wasn’t apoligizin’.”
*I know I’m late coming out with this, but y’all are such an accepting community that it felt safe to experiment.
Lmaoooo Get
Both* The Internetz*All
*Applause*
It would be fae-ning ignorance, if I didn’t say I was amused by this. So, instead, I want to demi-nstrate how amused I am, but how is a grey territory…
If only she could figure out how to transform it into a motorbike Sal would be all for this.
To get a motorbike, you add a moter. Simplest way is to just replace the front wheel with a Hilltopper. https://hilltopperbikes.com/product-category/electric-bike-kits/
Replace both the front and back with hub motor wheels, and build a bigger battery, and you’ll be on to something!
(Check your local laws before building an e-bike, you might have to get it classified as a moped. Use a quality battery or else bad things are more likely to happen. Wear your helmet. Remember to drink your Ovaltine.)
maybe, but then, maybe they’re a shorthand method so that you don’t have to worry about the contents of the box as long as you can pronounce the label on the inside of the wrapper with faux sincerity and sufficient false empathy. After all, ‘what’ you are is so much more important to a relationship than ‘who’ you are.
Do you think it’s possible to shoot the moon and become so incredibly dweeby that you swing back around to being charming? That might be Danny’s strategy here.
It’s a strong possibility.
What a dork.
Bold of you to assume Danny is capable of “strategy.”
He’s perfectly capable of strategy.
…. good strategy, though? That might be out of his reach.
I mean, Sal did find his silly “foxy mama” joke to be dork + adorable; “adorkable” if you will.
I don’t think it’s his strategy per se, but I think he damn well did it.
It might be more of a tactic
I don’t think it’s a strategy or a tactic. True dorkiness of this caliber cannot be faked. I think Danny’s just gotten comfortable enough to be his normal self with Sal, which is far more charming than any strategic dorkiness could be. Go with your strengths, Dan!
Sorry, Danny. South Park beat you to that gag over a decade ago.
With Willis’s buffer, are we sure South Park did it first?
j/k, I know the buffer is “only” a few months. But he might have written this a decade in advance?
Nah, South Park did it in 2009, in the episode “The F Word”.
“This is 1874! You’ll be able to sue her“
Fun fact, Mel Brooks got sued for that joke.
The episode aired when Danny was 6, and he probably wasn’t allowed to watch it.
Let’s let him have this.
Are you forgetting the Word of Willis that Dumbing of Age does not take place in any particular year?
it’s a “sliding time scale” meaning it always takes place in the present with regards to cultural references and the like, so that if Danny is 18 now and the South Park episode aired in 2009, then he was 6 years old then, as of this strip =)
Kind of reminds me how one of the Ricks from Rick and Morty “invented” the slow clap because he was the first one to do it in a different dimension.
I would say he was simultaneously 6 and every other age between 6 and 18. Unless we know his birthday, then I’ll cap it at 17.
May I break into this thread between people who do and do not understand how comic book time works to point out that reruns exist?
Are we even sure Danny’s gone far enough to gag on anything yet?
Oh come on Sal, you don’t really hate his stupid jokes, puns, etc. At least you don’t seem to hate it, considering you and “wonderbread” hang out.
True story: I knew pretty quickly that I wanted to marry my then-girlfriend, but she wasn’t so quick to recognize/admit that she wanted that too. But fairly early on, she texted a friend that she was looking forward to a lifetime of getting headaches from my bad puns – and then showed me the text. I was pretty thrilled.
I think it was another year or so before we got engaged. Ten years and a couple of kids later, we both know it was a good move. And she still groans at my puns.
This is terribly romantic. ^^
Life goals.
So, your puns haven’t… grown on her?
Or… groan on her?
Always knew marriage was a punishment.
https://despair.com/products/destiny
You were meant for me. Perhaps as a punishment.
Too cute! Am dead.
I don’t think she’s being serious or anything. He’s one of her better friends at the school.
She knows that and she hates it. He’s too adorkable for her own good.
She walked into that one
but if she takes the bike, she won’t walk out of it.
He may be giving it to her, because it doesn’t suit his needs. That, and he has Bi-er’s remorse.
That’s Bi-ker’s Remorse.
I love this fucker.
Okay, this one I’ll give Danny, it’s good.
Are bikes split that way for adults?
Presumed adults, yes.
There are literally hundreds of frame styles. Heck, so called “girl bikes” used to be called delivery bikes with the idea that anyone doing urban delivery on bicycle in the pre-spandex era would appreciate not having to lift their leg over the top tube.
People step through bike frames like that? I always do the Riker Maneuver.
Thanks for the reference. I guess while the show was running it just never registered with me. For sitting down it seems to make sense if you’re tall enough, but oh man, that getting back up at 0:18 just looks horribly awkward. Probably because on approach you can pick your balance point, but standing up typically has your feet in front, unless there is epic man-spread. Also, on sitting down it reads like, “yeah, cool bro, you’re tall,” but on standing up that way, “jeezus, don’t draw attention to it! NOT subtle dude.”
It was done because Frakes had a back injury that would have been stressed by doing multiple takes of sitting up and down in a more normal way. He leans on stuff a lot on the show too, for the same reason
Oh! Thanks for sharing. The more you know. It’s funny cuz it still reads as a dude bro’ing out. Definitely makes sense of the standing up that way.
Danny is the authentic bisexual experience this world needs.
Puns and jokes about signs like “Door goes both ways” are key to the bi experience.
Just straight up bought her a Bicycle, I don’t know if I see myself as a materialistic person and I don’t know if he knew about her motor cycle situation or if he’s just handing out bikes but for some reason that’s winning me over with how sweet that is.
He (possibly) still tutors her and they are friends who play Mario Kart and such together, so I think he’d probably know about it. It’s funny, I didn’t even consider maybe he outright bought it for her, but that’d make sense.
Depends on when it happened. The part where Walky didn’t seem to know suggests it might have been over winter break, in which case they’ve only had a few days to see each other in person (though it’s possible they were texting each other or something over break) and Sal isn’t really feeling like talking about it.
Honestly kinda starting to ship this a lil bit
I am to but I’m not completely sure, but the best pairings I’ve liked so far have been the ones that have made me think “Is it ok to like this?”
I mean there’s nothing wrong with these two, it’s a better change of pace than Sal having a fling with an Authority figure or a someone who was bound to drag her into legal trouble from the start.
Just now?! I’ve been shipping this for at least 5 years
Wasn’t this the original ship back when Roomies started? Obviously the characters are all different in this universe, but it’s interesting to seem them gravitate toward each other again.
Of course, it’s also possible this is entirely platonic. Not every caring relationship between a guy and a girl has to be romantic or sexual.
Yeah, I really like them as a Friend-ship. A relation-ship is fraught with more perils than syllables.
Of course they don’t, but if we could only ship things that had canon romance or sexuality involved, it’d get super boring super fast.
I love them as friends and if they become romantic, I’m sure I’ll love them too because they’re already very adorably sweet together and I’d love to see Sal get a good romantic partner if she wants one.
Dude bought a girl’s bike just so he could “casually” throw that line in conversation.
He’s an amazing dude.
*plays Queen’s “Bicycle Race” on a PA speaker*
Don’t run into any German fraus.
JAWS was never my scene–and I don’t like STAR WARS!
<3 and lmao!!
Oh it’s not “George was never my scene…”
Jaws makes more sense. I figured George was a nudie mag of some sort.
Nope, George was a turn of the 21st century glossy lifestyle magazine centered on politics, sort of a cross between Esquire and Politico. It only lasted six years and unfortunately jumpstarted the careers of a bunch of wingnuts the world would have been better off without.
Also many years after Bicycle Race was written. Unlike Jaws and Star Wars. Interestingly George wasn’t particularly wingnutty when it came out, just a little edgy.
Impossible, Sal, and despite yourself, you know you love it.
I hope they get together, I think they would be a cute and happy couple.
I find it ABSOLUTELY BAFFLING how endearing they are together given their relationship in the Walkyverse was… not nearly so, despite being official canon for a while and intended to be endgame until Billie* waltzed into Willis’s brain and said ‘hey, pair me with the dorky one.’
* I can adjust to DoAverse Jennifer, but Walkyverse one was still going by Billie last we saw her in that universe.
IKR? How tf did they end up so much stinking cuter here and how do we bottle that kinda luck????
…it’s not luck? Willis writes well.
Yes, he does, but I’ve noticed with my own writing that sometimes when you go back to a relationship after it didn’t go great the first time, lightning just strikes. You get better inspiration or can translate what you see in your head better. Some of that comes from skill but even skilled writers sometimes have don’t get that kind of chemistry the next time.
Some of it’s definitely ‘Willis growing as a writer in the intervening decades’ – Danny was always meant to come off as more of an earnest everyman type, but Walkyverse Danny did not. Some of it is, in fact, that we saw the Walkyverse Danny/Sal at the end of the relationship, and Sal was still putting her act of being carefree and spontaneous for Danny even after she’d become Batman. Meeting each other after Sal had become Cool and Angsty means she doesn’t have to put on an act, and that means their actual personalities can bounce off each other. Now that Danny’s personality isn’t a complete sanctimonious prick, this works well instead of awful.
But even still, I was not primed for the two of them to interact so well I’d be game to see this be a Walkyverse canon ship repeating in the Dumbingverse. Their dynamic is so different and so sweet.
Nicely analyzed, IMO.
This. Some of it is improved skill, some of it is the timing of their relationship and yeah, sometimes lightning just gets captured in a bottle. Kinda like Leslie becoming the awesome character she was. That wasn’t originally intended. I dunno if Sal and Danny being cute was originally intended or not, so it might not be a lightning strikes scenario but it definitely feels like one to me because I did not anticipate it.
Probably because we were seeing that one after the end of it, rather than any of the start to it.
Joyce: Oh you’re the guy who broke into Joe’s room!
Dan: YOU KNOW WHO I AM.
This is the funniest joke in this comic in months.
And I definitely don’t say that because I’m bi-ased.
(finger guns) ‘Eyyy.
Maybe you are, just a bi-t?
That’s just bi-cause you find the joke relatable.
Just wondering if they’re allowed to keep bikes in their rooms to prevent theft. I know that used to be a huge problem at Indiana.
Hm. In my dorm (not IU, but comparable school), there was a storage room in each hallway where students could keep bikes, but I don’t know that the larger dorms had them.
On our campus we convinced the residence association to purchase and place bicycle lockers around the dorms (I think there were three at each dorm to start with) that one could rent by the semester to provide a secure and weatherproof storage area for one’s bicycle.
my school had a specific bike room! But it didn’t have cameras and someone kept going through and deflating people’s tires lmao
aww what a funny, funny person
Danny: Teed up.
Sal: Peed off.
Lmao at Danny’s pun, and the puns in the comments! Ty!
He will not.
Pun-tastic, Danny.
So, I have to ask: what’s the difference between a “girl’s” bike and a “boy’s” bike? My entire peer group from childhood and all of my siblings are female, and I still have no answer to this question.
An arbitrary one
Girl bikes have the babies
Back when girls always wore dresses or skirts, a high bar on the bike frame (between the handlebar and the seat) would interfere with the skirt. So a “girl’s” bike frame would have a lower bar that only went partway up the seat tube.
You can still see examples if you do a Google image search for “girl’s bike frame.”
Wait, THAT’s the reason?
And my first thought in response is “but wait – wouldn’t a long skirt or dress like that also get caught in the spokes and/or axel?”
Short skirts and leggings – or just pants – just seems like an easier solution.
Bike shorts are a thing.
Not in the late 19th century, the first garments made for female cyclists were a tight calf-length pant made by a woman named Bloomer. Yes that’s where bloomers came from until the evolved into a brief for Japanese fetishists.
You made me wisearch ‘Bloomer’ because that sounds like the kind of armchair theory grounded in some facts that I would bake up and serve. My complements chef!
Sadly it seems that Ms Bloomer’s activism (circa mid 19th century) was more about feminism and health (get rid of corsets, floor hems), but that using bloomers for cycling didn’t occur until their resurgence closer to 1890-1900’s. (at least according to what my fuzzy noodle retained between reading and writing).
And that’s why Dutch bikes often have a skirt guard, too: https://www.electricbikesla.com/images/stories/virtuemart/product/gazelle-tour-populaire-non-electric-1.jpg
The placement of one of the support struts. It’s higher on men’s bikes.
Why, I have no idea. You’d think the guys would want the lower support strut to reduce the likelihood of testicular injury, but whatever.
It’s far enough below the saddle that that’s not a concern.
Oh no, it definitely happens, but of all the injuries suffered on a bicycle, it does seem to be less common.
The fact that that one support bar is higher on men’s bikes makes no sense to me either. It’s like they’re trying to make it easier for a man to accidentally hit himself in the crotch if something causes him to fall off the seat.
My guess is that the first bikes with a modern form factor had a high top bar to make the frame as sturdy as possible, and they were by default men’s bikes (because of The Patriarchy). When a woman mounted/dismounted, she had to lift her leg up high to get over the top bar, and the possibility of thigh-flashing was frowned upon (also because of The Patriarchy), so the “women’s” bike was designed which dropped the top tube a bit, and here we are.
The higher top bar on ‘mens’ frames make the frame a bit stronger, because it’s closer to a triangle. Womens’ bikes intended for non-casual riding (like downhill mountain biking and road racing) where the rider isn’t expected to be wearing a skirt or dress are built with a high top bar for that reason.
(And yes, sliding forward off the seat because the front wheel caught a tree root hurts like a motherfucker.)
That’s the reason why I always have rode girl’s/women’s or unisex bikes for over 30 years now.
Well, the first reason were hand-me-downs from my sister. It became a deliberate decision in 8th grade when I – still on a unisex hand-me-down – crashed into a friend, who suddenly stopped in front of me. While my chest hit the handle rather hard, I had to disappoint my all boy’s-bikes-riding friends’ expectation of crushed balls. When shortly after that I literally grew out of hand-me-downs I went for an unisex bike again.
The middle bar between the handle and seat swoops downward on a girl’s bike (like Danny’s does) and goes straight across on a boy’s bike.
I’ve never understood why it isn’t the opposite, since you’d think people with dicks(/designers buying into pop culture making it out like having a vagina makes you impervious to crotch strikes) would be the ones who’d be more worried about having hard metal bar that close to their junk if they’re ever jarred in a way that makes them slip off the seat. A throwback to days when girls were more likely to be wearing a skirt and lifting their leg that high to get on would risk flashing people, maybe?
Its about stability and cost.
The men bikes frames require less material and the frame itself is sturdier.
The bike in the strip is a unisex though, not a girls bike. The middle bar is going about halfway to get a compromise of both
Among cycling aficionados, that would be called a ‘mixte’ frame. The classic’ ‘men’s frame’ was a double-triangle design and known as a ‘diamond frame’.
The traditional ‘woman’s frame’ was an acceptable compromise, as Chris Phoenix pointed out, to preserve modesty at the expense of frame stiffness and rigidity … but the prevailing line of thought was, “what woman was ever going to ride hard enough to put enough stress on the frame to notice it, anyway?”
Nowadays, however, with newer (and stronger) materials to work with and newer designs influenced by extreme mountain biking, even traditional ‘diamond frames’ are becoming rarer and rarer as many companies and frame builders have adopted the ‘sloped’ top tube, making them look closer and closer to the ‘mixte’ frame of days gone by.
diamond frame — like in your gravatar.
He will most certainly not.
This is the cutest Danny strip since “Eef”, and this is Danny being cute by his conscious actions rather than his unconscious ones; therefore, this may be the cutest Danny strip ever
Great pun but the concept of girl bikes and boy bikes, even 10 years after learning there’s a difference, is super fuckin stupid to me.
Yeah, the concept of gender division gets that a lot.
Some things still need to be divided by gender. The saddle for example is different depending on if you have a prostate or not
are you saying that we prostate-havers need to agitate to get saddle manufacturers to FINALLY take our specific anatomy into account? XD
Wait, you have a prostate? And before you ask me the same, yes, I have one.
lmao yes i have a prostate you weirdo XD
and i wasn’t going to ask probably, but ok =D
also sure, i do have some (non-anatomical) questions for you but i’m busy now and i’ll probably be offline for a few days starting later today
Ah well. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but please do ask away before then!
I’m a bit self-conscious to be all like flirting in public, it feels like walking into a restaurant in a swimsuit or something^^ though I’m sure no one cares, and it doesn’t seem to bother you much
But OK, here goes: you said at some point that hanging here helped with mental health, do you still feel that way? how does it help?
If that’s too personal/sensitive a question then I’ll settle for you telling me a funny thing that’s happened to you this week. for whatever definition of funny. Or, the last movie you’ve watched that blew your mind, and you have to somehow tell me why without spoilers^^ THATS RIGHT ITS A CHALLENGE NOW
Anyway when i said “a few days” i meant, like, maybe 3 days. you will barely have time to miss my
assprostateSorry if my last question seemed a little too personal; I just couldn’t find a more subtle way of asking about your particular orientation at the time.
In regard to intellectual wellness, I come here for more or less the same reason you do. I have some rather strong and admittedly unpopular positions on various things, and you can probably see why I couldn’t really share them without a certain degree of anonymity. Considering the very nature of this comic and where these discussions tend to go, this truly seems like a safe place to talk about hard things.
I’m baffled as to what you expected to gather of my orientation by bonding over our prostates X’D or why you felt that was a more gentlemanly thing to ask than”yo, which way you swing?” which is actually kind of complicated, let’s just call me bi though. You?
I’m also not sure what you reckon I’m getting from spending so much time in this comment section, but yeah, i guess i get to hang with the sort of nerds I miss in my life. And, also, like many Extremely Online people, I’m just a socially freaked-out, mentally fucked-up reclusive mess at the mo. I just so happened to plonk down here at some point and find it neat.
I’m not sure i get why anonymity is so important to you?
Anyway, im off to some mountains so, um, bi for now
Enjoy the mountains milu. And Wagstaff, you had me laughing out loud at, “safe to talk about hard things.”
We are not afraid of hard things.
Hard candy, hard drives, hardball, hard bargains,
I use a Rido R2 saddle for that reason. But there is no Earthly reason for the top bar in a commuter bicycle.
Sure there is, it’s there so you’re not SeEn RiDiNg A gIrLs BiKe.
I’ve had various mountain bikes over the years, and always used one of those oversized, padded replacement seats. All the “bike sharing” short-term rental bikes have them, so I must have been on to something.
Or you can buy a recumbent like I have in my avatar pic anf not have any pain at all.
Only in the wallet. (Seriously are there any recumbents that don’t cost as much as a motorcycle? I want to try one but not pay thousands for the opportunity…)
That’s dividing things by sex, not by gender.
I feel like with that pun Danny is secretly asking “Will you please take this bike and run me over with it until I stop talking and/or moving?”
No kink shaming
Hey, I got it right. She gets a bicycle.
oh yeah, Danny’s living the bi experience. that effortless pun just proves it.
You get it. You understand.
C’mon Sal. It’s a gift, don’t be so hars and be happy. A bike in winter is best. The coold air around you and the effort of pushing on the pedals is one of the best sensations ever. It makes you feel really alive. Danny is a precious friend ♡. I hope he gets another bike and then they start riding together. It would be great!
You have different winters than I do.
Studded tyres for the win!
Pastis called. He wants his pun back.
Rat and Goat are trying to stop said pun to go back.
To be fair, that’s a pretty good pun. You know it’s a good pun when the responses are groans or insults.
Why have the comics been so goddamn dadaist as of late?
Why is Jason handcuffed?
Why is Sal angry about Jason?
Where’s her bike?
Why is Danny giving his bike away?
It’s been an entire week of entirely unrelatable bizarro moments.
Why is Jason handcuffed? I dunno, why does Amazi-Girl carry around condoms and print big blue A’s on the wrappers? Why is the local pizza place run by a wannabe supervillain? How can Dina and sometimes Joyce teleport into frame? This is a comedy comic, and sometimes it dips into absurdity for comic effect.
Why is Sal angry about Jason? 1) she doesn’t like him because he was a shitty tutor who blamed her for not being able to get the one method he was teaching and didn’t work for her and considered her a lost cause. When her grades improved due to Danny’s tutoring, he suggested that maybe she finally started listening instead of admitting his approach wasn’t working for her. He made snap judgments on her intellectual capabilities based off her appearance more than once. And while Sal initiated the unethical sex, he brought up that he found her attractive in their first interaction – a fact which she was uncomfortable with at the time, since she only wanted tutoring. Sal is perfectly justified in her dislike of Jason, because even setting the sex aside, he was a bad tutor to her. 2) Despite that fact, she does find him attractive, and at the moment it seems like Sal’d really like to hook up with someone. Thus her earlier ‘I’m TOTALLY NOT JEALOUS’ about Asher and Jennifer. (She is totally jealous.)
Where’s her bike? This is almost certainly a plot point. We don’t know yet because it is intentionally being left vague. The one fact we do know is that it’s a sore spot for Sal, making it likely it wasn’t her choice.
Why is Danny giving his away? Dunno. Could be his friendship/possible crush on Sal. Could be a fit issue. Could be multiple factors. Could be the aforementioned dip back into comedy. We’re almost certainly going to hear more about this tomorrow.
While two of these possibly are Comedy Strip Rules of the Universe, two of these are entirely explained as ‘past character interactions’ and ‘probable plot point that hasn’t been revealed yet.’ That’s not dadaist, that’s just how narratives work.
Sorry for the curt tone, but I’m getting REALLY peeved at the implication Sal has no room to dislike Jason because she initiated the sex. She did, and that does change the uneven power dynamic a bit, but she had plenty of reasons to dislike him already. (Is it hypocritical to bring up the power imbalance? Maybe somewhat, though given the onus was still on him to shut it down, he still doesn’t look good in that one. Shocker, 18-year-olds can be hypocrites. That doesn’t mean her dislike of him can never be justified when the bigger reasons were how he dismissed her.)
Eyyy I get that some (many) points since the timeskip are being left vague, and it does pay off (like today’s strip where Danny explains the bike).
I still think Sal is going absurdly hard on Jason considering she goes to pester him every time she wants to get drunk, and he helped her to her dorms and tried at least a little to understand her.
They fight a lot, sure, but she dishes out as much as she takes. Difference is, I’m sure Jason would get a screwdriver for her in a similar situation. And probably freak the hell out at a girl being handcuffed against her will in some dude’s dorm room.
Seriously I am NOT okay with his handcuffs and REALLY hope there’ll be an AMAZING explanation for them. It’s hovering awfully close to “nonconsent is funny if it happens to dudes” and I’m not on board for it.
And y’know, even looking at it from the perspective of timeskip plot points being danced around, y’gotta admit last week was weirdly dense with comics that’ll only make sense in hindsight.
“considering she goes to pester him every time she wants to get drunk”
Source? I haven’t seen anything to suggest this.
As for “non consent is fun for dudes”, for me a lot’s taken out of that by the fact no actual sex happened or sounds like it’s going to happen. It’s still shitty, worrying and scary but not to the same degree as it would be otherwise.
In an absurd universe, DaDa is the only outlook that makes sense.
Ba-dun-pshhh.
Book 11 is Wiliis’ DaDa period, as Book 10 was his futurist one. Now wait for Book 12’s surrealism.
Book 12 is actually the Soggie War crossover event.
Calling this week of strips “dadaist” is hilarious, tbh.
Sal would be awesome on a bicycle. And it might encourage her to quite smoking, which would be the source of considerable drama.
And after it gets stolen even though he put a lock on it, he’ll be bike FURIOUS
Haha I ship these two so much
Sal internally “this isn’t as cool as my motorcycle, but it’ll do for now”
Why not make Dan pedal and she can sketch along on her skates or a board?
Look, we all know Danny only started riding a bike because he’s looking for a replacement hat, and the bike helmet looked silly without one.
I’ve been waiting ages for somebody to ask me how I like Kipling…
How do you like Kipling?
I pity those who have never kippled.
So does Sal miss her motorcycle because she got rid of it, or because it’s just in storage for the Winter?
Probably in storage for winter. I used to ride year-round when I lived in the Southwest U.S., since it seldom got cold enough for water to freeze– which is lethally dangerous when you only have two wheels. When I moved to the Midwest, I learned that even (and especially) the most seasoned riders here store their bikes for the cold weather.
We don’t know. All we know is when Walky asked her where it was recently (so it’s probably a recent thing that wasn’t big news), she didn’t want to talk about it. I’m HOPING I’m wrong but I smell a Linda shaped rat.
I mean, she might end up saving someone again and we couldn’t have that.
I vaguely remember Willis saying that freshmen weren’t allowed to have vehicles, so maybe Linda made a phone call.
I-
I’ve never had this problem? Me and me mum both use the same bike.
Then again, now that I think about it… I’ve never had a bike of my own? Only the bikes passed down to me by my mum-
A “women’s” bike will have that dip in the frame in front of the seat. Presumably so that a skirt wearing person can easily remove their legs.
Obviously it’s all arbitrary and by a vast margin, most bikes are gender neutral. Nothing wrong with owning a bike with a dip if you just like the aesthetic.
Height is going to come into play much more. You may find it extremely painful to ride a bike that isn’t measured to you. You might find that you’re sore after riding or that your back/shoulders ache.
Next Sal will say, “as long as it’s free…..”