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.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
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.
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.
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.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
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.
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
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.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
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...
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
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.
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.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
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.
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.
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Anyone here work at a Pizzeria? Is it true that you need to specify “No anchovies” if you don’t want them? This seems to be important in a lot of movies/comics/TV shows.
Isnt she offering the 20 for Becky to open up? Rather than listen? I guess it sounds like she’s giving out money purely for the privilege of spouting context-less platitudes but even if she’s a clown that just really makes no sense does it. She cares about Becky and wants to get her to talk about what’s on her mind, and trying to get a smile out of her is not a bad strategy
Doing it in class, the class that she is supposed to be teaching, that’s a bit more questionable I guess
this is actually a dark stain against her in my eyes: she’s more interested in a relative stranger who has never expressed any interest in bonding with her than her OWN SISTER
Roz doesn’t like Robin because Robin has been a selfish, manipulative, two-faced monster for a long time. Robin should work in fixing the behaviour that made Roz sour to her rather than look for a shiny new person who doesn’t know all her faults intimately
[Horshak]Ohh! Ohh! Ohh![/Horshak]
And if you’re old enough to figure that one out you’re probably close to getting Social Security by now if you aren’t already.
Nah, Leslie is very firmly atheist, I don’t think she’d be well equipped to balance this issue either. She’d do better than Robin, admittedly, but this kind of problem is something that’s hard for Becky to get an unbiased opinion on.
Wasn’t Lesli briefly married to some guy that was part of the church? Like a deacon or something, plus her parents are highly religious which caused a rift when she realized her sexuality and divorced the guy. Isn’t that why she identifies so much with Becks? I mean I could be misremembering some or all of that but I think she could relate to this at lsast more than Robin. Unless I’m totally wrong on Leslie’s origin. It’s been awhile since that was brought up.
(There’s also the earlier comic titled “faithbased” in the DoA archives, where Leslie puts a slightly-less-detailed version of the above story to her Gender Studies classroom; not linking, since any post with two links gets automodded and needs approval by Willis)
In Shortpacked her whole thing was her family was highly religious and so was her husband but she was a lesbian actually so they rejected her. It isn’t really mentioned here much so it is assumed to be similar. She would likely relate more to Joyce’s position than Becky’s though regarding religion. Which might be helpful for explaining Joyce’s side?
As of July 1, 2019, in 13 states there was no statutory minimum age when all exemptions were taken into account. These states were California, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
As of July 2021, six states have banned underage marriages, with no exception: New Jersey (2018), Delaware (2018), Pennsylvania (2020), Minnesota (2020) Rhode Island (2021) and New York (2021). American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands, United States territories, have also ended child marriage in that time. Several other U.S. states have similar legislation pending.
Between 2000 and 2015, over 200,000 minors were legally married in the United States…
Per wikipedia, she would’ve needed court approval. I’m not sure how she got it – it’s my understanding that most judges won’t grant it these days unless the minor in question is pregnant and Leslie was probably not.
That Indiana law was passed in 2020 though, so it wouldn’t have applied when Leslie got married. I’m not entirely sure what it was before, but it looks like it probably required parental consent, which was likely easy for her to get/
Yeah, fair enough. That would make sense. Eventually it’d hit the sliding time scale but maybe Leslie’s dad is friends with a judge if he’s still loaded like he was in shortpacked.
“Trust me, I learned all about this in politics. People will despise you when all they see ’bout you is a demographic. So you gotta be a real peep with them, make friends, go to parties together… just focus on making friends and ignoring your demographics. That way they’ll still hate your demographic but you’ll be one of the GOOD ones of those types of people and that means they’ll be sorta okay with you anyway.”
… Robin MIGHT actually be qualified to handle this problem.
…. I mean it’s creepy and it feels wrong, but she might be.
Leslie: Maybe we shouldn’t broadcast that we have a personal relationship Becky, I don’t want anyone to think I’m showing favoritism towards you.
Robin: Becky you look sad about something, I am going to put this entire class on hold to try and help you out however I can.
…holy shit what if Bonnie was like Robin? Like she was goofy and funny and gregarious and did silly things to make Becky laugh all the while dealing with her gradually worsening mental health?
Like I know this is putting the cart far in front of the horse, we’ve never seen Bonnie talk, but I just thought of the party from last chapter where Becky bragged about how Bonnie was a slob and while that might be in reference to a worsening mental state, but now I wonder if she was just like that all the time and Becky thought it was cool.
I thought the “Bonnie was a slob” line was just Becky continuing to try to get a rise out of Dorothy, considering she immediately continued with “that’s right, you can’t be angry at ME for being a slob, I’m doing this to honor my DEAD MOTHER.”
Is this just in general or based on this strip cuz she’s not being all that shitty to her. Unless you’re saying that because she didn’t say anything to defend her?
I think Roz is 100% aware that Robin wasn’t offering 20 bucks to anyone other than Becky. I really don’t get how, specifically, disqualifying her sister from getting the banknote she’s pulled out to get Becky to crack a smile makes Robin shitty. (And notice how I stressed “specifically”)
Yeah, I feel bad for Roz given how thoroughly and openly Robin prefers Becky. Guess Roz is less interesting as she is neither a homeless lesbian orphan who Robin can take under her glorious wings nor tied closely to Leslie who Robin clearly has some kind of Complicated Feelings about.
In Roz’s defense she regularly used both her younger sisters as political props and slut shamed Roz in front of a classroom of people. That’s putting aside her incredibly damaging political actions so even Becky was ashamed her aide actually would’ve gotten Robin re-elected. So I think they kind of break even on that.
Also, Becky did it transparently as a transactional thing – she needed tuition and stable housing, Robin was willing to provide it in exchange for a service. Robin seems to think this gives her Wacky Lesbian Mom vibes, which is why she gets all upset and hurt when Becky’s willing to use her for, say, ‘hey do I get an easy A here’ but doesn’t trust Robin or go to her for mentoring. (To be clear: I do not judge Becky for this. Milk this connection for all it’s worth. Becky’s not even lying to Robin about what she thinks of her – there’s a reason why Becky’s demands included ‘actually follow through on those policies I’m promoting,’ even if that was apparently the one out of three Becky caved on, and she clearly DIDN’T think Robin could win.) Robin thinks Becky’s her fun wacky adoptive daughter to go with her fun wacky facade. Becky does not think or want this. Robin’s clearly done a lot of the damage to hers and Roz’s relationship in using her as a prop, and has no apparent interest in even TRYING to fix things with Roz. It’s just… kinda sad.
Um… What about Dorothy’s parents? Or Dina’s? Like yeah there are a lot of shitty adults in the comic but that doesn’t make Robin “the good one” to the detriment of actual good people who dont have screentime
It’s more personal preference but over time I’ve really started to prefer Robin to Leslie. Like Leslie really does mean well but I think Robin gets Becky, less from a “gay runaway” perspective and more from the perspective of someone who’s mind works similarly hers. Like I definitely think they’re both necessary moms for Becky to have.
In the immediate a parent who “gets you” definitely feels preferable, but long term one who is actively trying to be a good parent figure and address their mistakes absolutely makes more positive impact. Robin just… comes across as incredibly selfish. Like, it feels less to me like she cares about how Becky is feeling and more about how she feels about Becky’s feelings, if that makes sense. Maybe my read of her is off, it wouldn’t be the first time (thanks Joyce) but I get a lot less selfishness off Leslie. Not none (that would be highly unusual, and in her case I think it’s wanting to make things better for Becky in a way she didn’t have the power to do for herself) but I feel like she’s able to put Becky’s feelings before her own. The fact that Robin is trying to bribe Becky to open up in front of her peers says a lot.
Also I’m not sure Robin is so much on Becky’s wavelength as she’s on the wavelength Becky somewhat pretends to be. I’m thinking of a scene where Leslie and Joyce were talking and Joyce said that Becky says what she’s thinking all the time- except, actually, she only acts like she does. Leslie points ou that that’s a coping mechanism she’s familiar with.
I feel like Leslie is better in tune with who Becky actually is, whereas Robin is closer to who Becky pretends to be as a coping mechanism, which is why Becky was so able to manipulate and mimic Robin.
But this is all my read on the characters and I might be way off!
I think Robin wouldn’t have quit her job due to Becky were that not the case. I do think she cares about Becky- I just think she cares more about how Becky’s feelings make her feel than about Becky or her feelings separate from herself, if that makes sense.
You go to the supermarket, head to the snacks section, pick out a package from a brand of your choice, bring it to the cashier, and give them the twenty-dollar bill. This seals the unholy pact of equivalent exchange which legally authorizes you as the owner of the many peanuts contained within the container, which you can then consume at your leisure.
You have to borrow blood money and gain interest on it. Or maybe borrow money from a telescammer… or a corporate executive… look, there’s a lot of specific places you can get the seed money, but the general rule is that you have to be lentil-gotten gains.
Yeah, you’d probably get dyed horseradish for that sort of cost. And can I eat it with something? Because I’d do that for £/$20. Yum. Very poor tolerance for chilli but horseradish is great.
Sing, Goddess, Becky’s rage,
Black and murderous, that cost commenterz
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades’ flames,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Willis’ will was done.
Begin with the clash between Becky MacIntyre–
The Greek (specifically, Lesbian) warlord–and godlikegodless Joyce Brown.
I still don’t understand what the heck that backlash was all about. Even poor people (Hi, speaking!) know that you can only spread that amount of cash so far.
I get why they were upset and they’re still wrong.
Becky got a haircut to affirm herself, but she’s homeless and dependent on Joyce so she needs to slavishly devote herself to and praise Joyce and never ever think of herself in any capacity until she’s earned not being homeless.
ESPECIALLY poor people. I think people who’ve had to live off that sort of money know that you can only make it stretch if you have other stuff- like, say, access to a kitchen and a good food store. (Bag of rice and bag of beans, that’s food for a couple of weeks- but Becky had no ability to prepare that. And possibly no way of getting to a big store. Also please don’t do that if you can avoid it, because it’ll stave off starvation but you’ll be malnourished.)
But people who’ve never been unfortunate enough to be that poor don’t get that… well, if you have nothing, nowhere to prepare or store food, $20 MIGHT get you a couple of meals. It won’t get you a bed, safety, security, etc. And even if you have full facilities it won’t get you anything like a healthy diet.
Look, it’s HARD to crawl out of a ‘do whatever the party around you is doing to fit in and forget about the consequences’ hell pit and be a semi-responsible person. Give Robin a minute. XD
No, that’s Mindy, whowe date told her she was off to Bulmeria (ok she wasn’t but I think she was lying to herself as much as to Anna when she told her that).
A mentee is the currency of Mongolia.
oh right the Mongolian tögrög, aka MNT! *slaps forehead* anyway you were thinking of mini-me, whereas a mentee is that which, when full, warrants an R-rating.
IIRC Willis does very loose sketching as an early stage- I would guess (and it’s just a guess) that he copies some sketches to really get across “this character isn’t doing much scene to scene” and then, from a relatively basic sketch finishes each panel separately. That gets across a good sense of stillness in a character but also a sense of organic life, because it’s extremely rare for someone to be extremely still even when they’re not really moving.
Again, that’s just my theory on how he does different panels that are almost identical. Might be wrong!
her eyebrow contracted a wee bit? i think she’s slightly frowning now?
thanks for getting me to pay attention, because it’s so perfect, it’s the tiniest detail but it still manages to convey that Becky went from absent-minded brooding to active sulking.
Leslie was going in calmly explaining terminology Becky probably doesn’t understand (and this dips into personal interpretation, but I think Leslie’s advice was tinged in how Becky wasn’t really vocalizing her problems and selling it as “my girlfriend doesn’t want to bang me”, and therefore not as authentic or useful as it could have been) and then Robin went “yo just screw things up it’s coo” and, like, that’s actually good advice. Becky’s 19, she could actually totally tank things with Dina as hard as possible and still deserve to wake up in the morning.
But introducing the concept of asexuality and what it means isn’t a bad thing either. A better understanding of where Dina’s coming from would be a good thing too.
Letting yourself screw up isn’t bad advice – though it’s easy to take it too far. Sure, she’d still deserve to wake up in the morning, but screwing up her relationship with Dina would still hurt like hell.
Well she screwed up super hard being a glad-handing sleaze with barely any scruples, decided to turn away from it at the cost of her career, and then it got her a job teaching Political Science.
I didn’t say it was bad, I said it was Words. Becky needs to understand that Dina not being constantly, viscerally horny for her isn’t a failing on either of them, but does Becky even get the words Leslie used? If that’s all it needed, would Becky say “what if we stick together till we’re married and then the problem goes away”? Does knowing Dina is wired like that solve the problem that:
– Becky wants Dina to be horny for her, otherwise she feels unfulfilled and undesirable.
– Becky screwing this up with Dina means the second woman she loved didn’t love her back the way she wanted, and she’s doomed to be alone forever.
I don’t think Becky’s a U-Haul Lesbian but she has a lot of emotional dependency on her relationship with Dina, it’s really important to her that she makes it work. “It’s okay to make mistakes” is actually really good advice for Becky because Becky, I think anyway, is processing her relationship with Dina as something she needs to succeed at to prove her worth as a person and be wanted by the love of her life.
Like now that I think about it, remember how Becky acted with Dina after talking with Leslie? She blamed herself for her Sinful Horniness and begged Dina to teach her not to tempted by the cragged shame pit of the lustwolves.
Becky learned it wasn’t Dina’s fault or responsibility, she was told, specifically, that Dina just doesn’t process sexual attraction that way, and she turned it on herself.
Joyce may learn more (or more useful stuff) if she spent time talking to Daisy during class, but she still has to pass the class, and that means being able to learn and/or regurgitate whatever robin teaches in her class (even if it is less valuable and/or flawed).
No, they’re all in this one.
Joyce, Becky, Roz, Sarah, Dorothy. There was a whole thing at the start about Roz gatekeeping the political science class taught by the famous Professor Nicholson.
Gotta give credit where it’s due, Robin’s not the greatest mentor ever, but she did notice that Becky was down. That’s growth cause I don’t know if she’d have been that observant a year ago.
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 20h
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
It's #webcomicday? We have a special day???
Well, my name is Pat McHoarney and I draw 69 Mouse-Ear Blvd, a multigenerational story about women who all have sexy legs and probably other features. There was a grandmother, but she wasn't hot and so she died off-panel.
Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. Her partner, Billy Evans, is now trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics.” nyti.ms/3FbtZm9
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 20h
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
The New York Times @nytimes.com ⋅ 5d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 3d
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no subtlety whatsoever?
you don’t need subtlety when you got 20 bucks
if Robin’s professionalism mattered to her employers she never would have been hired in the first place.
Hey Robin, maybe, just _maaaaybe_ not *everyone* follows your families model of airing out their laundry as a public spectacle.
damn, roz, how much money did you say your onlyfans was making?
still twenty bucks though
Yeah. No shame to Roz on this one. I’d take the 20 too.
As they say in the great philosophy textbooks: “Forgiveness is divine, but twenty bucks is twenty bucks.”
“And never screw over the pizza delivery person, even if they’re late.”
Look, if they can’t deliver to a sewer grate in friggin’ New York City, that’s on them.
Maybe it’s time to stop eating pizza, and start eating the rich.
New pizza topping idea?
Soylent Greenbacks
Anyone here work at a Pizzeria? Is it true that you need to specify “No anchovies” if you don’t want them? This seems to be important in a lot of movies/comics/TV shows.
I thought this said “never screw the pizza delivery person” and was excited for some additional OnlyFans content…
Well, that would cancel the plot of about half the port movies ever made.
Here we see why Roz is a future politician and Dorothy is not.
Willingness to go for a joke that people think is funny in a way that boosts her popularity? Or willingness to take money from a shady source?
Obviously, yes.
Better yet, do both simultaneously
Isnt she offering the 20 for Becky to open up? Rather than listen? I guess it sounds like she’s giving out money purely for the privilege of spouting context-less platitudes but even if she’s a clown that just really makes no sense does it. She cares about Becky and wants to get her to talk about what’s on her mind, and trying to get a smile out of her is not a bad strategy
Doing it in class, the class that she is supposed to be teaching, that’s a bit more questionable I guess
Aaaand that was meant as a reply to A Red Balloon’s thread two down from this one. Oopsies
Yeah, she’s trying to bribe Becky into opening up. Problem is, they’re in the public lecture hall instead of her office or the teacher’s lounge.
Behold, DoA!Robin’s one redeeming quality
I’d say she has a handfull, but this is definitely the best of them.
She’d say she has TWO handfuls o3o
I really wanted to go there but I couldn’t find a way to phrase it that didn’t sound TOO horny.
This time you got to play the straight man. That one needed the setup.
and i got to be the horndog heheeee
this is actually a dark stain against her in my eyes: she’s more interested in a relative stranger who has never expressed any interest in bonding with her than her OWN SISTER
Well yeah … she likes the stranger. She’s never really seemed to like her sister. And the feeling seems pretty mutual. So why would she bother?
Roz doesn’t like Robin because Robin has been a selfish, manipulative, two-faced monster for a long time. Robin should work in fixing the behaviour that made Roz sour to her rather than look for a shiny new person who doesn’t know all her faults intimately
Just curious, how many of you would listen just for that twenty?
All of us.
I think so, yes, within reason. Our attention span is limited, 20 bucks or no 20 bucks.
The class is probably 45 minutes, there’s a *lot* I can handle in that time.
Poverty is a hell of a motivator, so yes.
[Horshak]Ohh! Ohh! Ohh![/Horshak]
And if you’re old enough to figure that one out you’re probably close to getting Social Security by now if you aren’t already.
[Placdholder for the reply that I meant to post here, see above]
I regret getting that reference, not just because it means I’m old.
I’ve pretended to listen for less than $20.
I’ll at least pretend to listen for that 20 bucks.
15 minutes and no guarantees that I follow any advice.
Robin’s probably not qualified to handle Becky’s latest brand of problem. 20 bucks would be nice though.
Yeah maybe this is a better suited topic for Leslie.
Nah, Leslie is very firmly atheist, I don’t think she’d be well equipped to balance this issue either. She’d do better than Robin, admittedly, but this kind of problem is something that’s hard for Becky to get an unbiased opinion on.
Wasn’t Lesli briefly married to some guy that was part of the church? Like a deacon or something, plus her parents are highly religious which caused a rift when she realized her sexuality and divorced the guy. Isn’t that why she identifies so much with Becks? I mean I could be misremembering some or all of that but I think she could relate to this at lsast more than Robin. Unless I’m totally wrong on Leslie’s origin. It’s been awhile since that was brought up.
That is accurate as far as I know. Not sure how much is in-text canon for DoA and how much is SP!Leslie.
I can’t recall Leslie’s past being that focused upon in DoA, so I’m guessing a lot of that is former-universe material.
“I was married at seventeen. I didn’t want to be, but I thought ‘the deed’ would fix everything broken. It didn’t. I am a lesbian. By eighteen I was divorced. My parents disowned me. My church wouldn’t have me…”
(There’s also the earlier comic titled “faithbased” in the DoA archives, where Leslie puts a slightly-less-detailed version of the above story to her Gender Studies classroom; not linking, since any post with two links gets automodded and needs approval by Willis)
Ah what the heck, since I see someone below me also linked the one I just linked: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/faithbased/
Thank you for your service good sir *tips imaginary hat*
In Shortpacked her whole thing was her family was highly religious and so was her husband but she was a lesbian actually so they rejected her. It isn’t really mentioned here much so it is assumed to be similar. She would likely relate more to Joyce’s position than Becky’s though regarding religion. Which might be helpful for explaining Joyce’s side?
I haven’t read Shortpacked but apparently Leslie’s backstory is the sa me almost beat for beat based on the rundown she told Robin of all people
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/deed/
Except it’s possible it happened even earlier for Leslie since she was only 17-18 years old when it happened?! Don’t ask me how that’s legal.
As of July 1, 2019, in 13 states there was no statutory minimum age when all exemptions were taken into account. These states were California, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
As of July 2021, six states have banned underage marriages, with no exception: New Jersey (2018), Delaware (2018), Pennsylvania (2020), Minnesota (2020) Rhode Island (2021) and New York (2021). American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands, United States territories, have also ended child marriage in that time. Several other U.S. states have similar legislation pending.
Between 2000 and 2015, over 200,000 minors were legally married in the United States…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States
Per wikipedia, she would’ve needed court approval. I’m not sure how she got it – it’s my understanding that most judges won’t grant it these days unless the minor in question is pregnant and Leslie was probably not.
Not all states require court approval, I believe; in some, simply parental consent is required.
Indiana does though. I dunno if Leslie is from Indiana but barring evidence she’s from elsewhere, that’s what I’m going with.
That Indiana law was passed in 2020 though, so it wouldn’t have applied when Leslie got married. I’m not entirely sure what it was before, but it looks like it probably required parental consent, which was likely easy for her to get/
Yeah, fair enough. That would make sense. Eventually it’d hit the sliding time scale but maybe Leslie’s dad is friends with a judge if he’s still loaded like he was in shortpacked.
Eventually, but it’ll be a long time from now.
Yeah, I was thinking out loud.
I mean, learning from a politician how to manage religion and politics could be an actually interesting topic.
But y’know, not for a Robin Q and A.
Like that ever stopped her
Sometimes you just gotta lend an ear.
But not literally, because ewww. I mean, that would be disgusting. And messy. And since you’d just be lending it, we’d have to figure out how to reattach it, and that would be a lot of work.
“Trust me, I learned all about this in politics. People will despise you when all they see ’bout you is a demographic. So you gotta be a real peep with them, make friends, go to parties together… just focus on making friends and ignoring your demographics. That way they’ll still hate your demographic but you’ll be one of the GOOD ones of those types of people and that means they’ll be sorta okay with you anyway.”
… Robin MIGHT actually be qualified to handle this problem.
…. I mean it’s creepy and it feels wrong, but she might be.
A Penny for your thoughts
A Nickel for a kiss
A Dime if you tell me that you love me…
make it 21 bucks and you’ve got a deal
Leslie: Maybe we shouldn’t broadcast that we have a personal relationship Becky, I don’t want anyone to think I’m showing favoritism towards you.
Robin: Becky you look sad about something, I am going to put this entire class on hold to try and help you out however I can.
Sounds like parents to me
Leslie is Strict Mom and Robin is Fun Mom so Becky naturally gravitates towards the latter.
…holy shit what if Bonnie was like Robin? Like she was goofy and funny and gregarious and did silly things to make Becky laugh all the while dealing with her gradually worsening mental health?
Like I know this is putting the cart far in front of the horse, we’ve never seen Bonnie talk, but I just thought of the party from last chapter where Becky bragged about how Bonnie was a slob and while that might be in reference to a worsening mental state, but now I wonder if she was just like that all the time and Becky thought it was cool.
I thought the “Bonnie was a slob” line was just Becky continuing to try to get a rise out of Dorothy, considering she immediately continued with “that’s right, you can’t be angry at ME for being a slob, I’m doing this to honor my DEAD MOTHER.”
We actually have seen Bonnie talk, a grand total of one time. Still not much to go on, though.
I know it’s a joke but it still kinda bothers me how objectively shitty Robin is to Roz. Family really is what you make it I guess.
Is this just in general or based on this strip cuz she’s not being all that shitty to her. Unless you’re saying that because she didn’t say anything to defend her?
In general, I believe.
In general but also she made an open offer of 20 bucks and Roz spoke up first but gets disqualified because fuck her I guess.
I think Roz is 100% aware that Robin wasn’t offering 20 bucks to anyone other than Becky. I really don’t get how, specifically, disqualifying her sister from getting the banknote she’s pulled out to get Becky to crack a smile makes Robin shitty. (And notice how I stressed “specifically”)
Siblings.
History.
Yeah, I feel bad for Roz given how thoroughly and openly Robin prefers Becky. Guess Roz is less interesting as she is neither a homeless lesbian orphan who Robin can take under her glorious wings nor tied closely to Leslie who Robin clearly has some kind of Complicated Feelings about.
In Robin’s defence, becky did work on helping Robin’s political career, while Roz was doing everything she could to see her defeated.
In Roz’s defense she regularly used both her younger sisters as political props and slut shamed Roz in front of a classroom of people. That’s putting aside her incredibly damaging political actions so even Becky was ashamed her aide actually would’ve gotten Robin re-elected. So I think they kind of break even on that.
Also, Becky did it transparently as a transactional thing – she needed tuition and stable housing, Robin was willing to provide it in exchange for a service. Robin seems to think this gives her Wacky Lesbian Mom vibes, which is why she gets all upset and hurt when Becky’s willing to use her for, say, ‘hey do I get an easy A here’ but doesn’t trust Robin or go to her for mentoring. (To be clear: I do not judge Becky for this. Milk this connection for all it’s worth. Becky’s not even lying to Robin about what she thinks of her – there’s a reason why Becky’s demands included ‘actually follow through on those policies I’m promoting,’ even if that was apparently the one out of three Becky caved on, and she clearly DIDN’T think Robin could win.) Robin thinks Becky’s her fun wacky adoptive daughter to go with her fun wacky facade. Becky does not think or want this. Robin’s clearly done a lot of the damage to hers and Roz’s relationship in using her as a prop, and has no apparent interest in even TRYING to fix things with Roz. It’s just… kinda sad.
Nobody is shitty with you like family. That’s universal truth.
Robin is the best mom in this comic.
Yet again sad but true.
By the way, I don’t have a Twitter account, so I’ll just tell you right here with all honesty that your art is so frickin cool!
The jokes in them are real ticklers too LOL
Keep up the good work!
Yep.
I mean, she’s not actually good at it or anything, but still.
Um… What about Dorothy’s parents? Or Dina’s? Like yeah there are a lot of shitty adults in the comic but that doesn’t make Robin “the good one” to the detriment of actual good people who dont have screentime
I wouldn’t really count Amber’s mom as bad, or worse than Robin, to speak of one who had actual screen time.
She’s not even Becky’s best “mom”. Leslie’s better.
It’s more personal preference but over time I’ve really started to prefer Robin to Leslie. Like Leslie really does mean well but I think Robin gets Becky, less from a “gay runaway” perspective and more from the perspective of someone who’s mind works similarly hers. Like I definitely think they’re both necessary moms for Becky to have.
nod nod
In the immediate a parent who “gets you” definitely feels preferable, but long term one who is actively trying to be a good parent figure and address their mistakes absolutely makes more positive impact. Robin just… comes across as incredibly selfish. Like, it feels less to me like she cares about how Becky is feeling and more about how she feels about Becky’s feelings, if that makes sense. Maybe my read of her is off, it wouldn’t be the first time (thanks Joyce) but I get a lot less selfishness off Leslie. Not none (that would be highly unusual, and in her case I think it’s wanting to make things better for Becky in a way she didn’t have the power to do for herself) but I feel like she’s able to put Becky’s feelings before her own. The fact that Robin is trying to bribe Becky to open up in front of her peers says a lot.
Also I’m not sure Robin is so much on Becky’s wavelength as she’s on the wavelength Becky somewhat pretends to be. I’m thinking of a scene where Leslie and Joyce were talking and Joyce said that Becky says what she’s thinking all the time- except, actually, she only acts like she does. Leslie points ou that that’s a coping mechanism she’s familiar with.
I feel like Leslie is better in tune with who Becky actually is, whereas Robin is closer to who Becky pretends to be as a coping mechanism, which is why Becky was so able to manipulate and mimic Robin.
But this is all my read on the characters and I might be way off!
I agree with a lot of that. Though I do think Robin actually cares – she’s just bad at knowing how to go about that.
I think Robin wouldn’t have quit her job due to Becky were that not the case. I do think she cares about Becky- I just think she cares more about how Becky’s feelings make her feel than about Becky or her feelings separate from herself, if that makes sense.
Twenty dollars! Aw, I wanted a peanut!
(The only Simpsons reference I ever make)
Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!
Explain how.
You go to the supermarket, head to the snacks section, pick out a package from a brand of your choice, bring it to the cashier, and give them the twenty-dollar bill. This seals the unholy pact of equivalent exchange which legally authorizes you as the owner of the many peanuts contained within the container, which you can then consume at your leisure.
Anybody want a peanut?
You have to borrow blood money and gain interest on it. Or maybe borrow money from a telescammer… or a corporate executive… look, there’s a lot of specific places you can get the seed money, but the general rule is that you have to be lentil-gotten gains.
… wait.
…. they’re legumes, aren’t they?
GRAH! PUN FAIL!
Today is nut your day.
Yeah, I know. I’m just going to crawl back into my shell for the next 24 hours.
Oh please don’t, your puns are as crunchy as peanut butter. I’m so jelly
I guess they’re feeling like they’re in a jam right now. Maybe what they need is a good old-fashioned pinto something.
Sorry I didn’t come back with a pun sooner, I’m kinda spread thin at the moment.
Just be happy you weren’t mashed.
Well, i wish you to find your peas of mind, since we already respect your mung-ous work on puns.
Eventually twenty dollars won’t buy a peanut.
I have comic books I paid 12 cents for. They are beat up and not worth anything, but I have them.
20 dollars is still 20 dollars.
20 bucks to eat a quarter pound of raw wasabi paste?
Considering real wasabi is about $250 a kilo, it would be smarter to take the wasabi and sell it.
Yeah, you’d probably get dyed horseradish for that sort of cost. And can I eat it with something? Because I’d do that for £/$20. Yum. Very poor tolerance for chilli but horseradish is great.
Oh, right, I’d forgotten that today was still the same in-universe day of the Great Becko-Joycean War that began three weeks ago for us readers.
It’s been 84 years…
So, just in time for the nostalgia cycle to bring it back for a third time?
Sing, Goddess, Becky’s rage,
Black and murderous, that cost commenterz
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades’ flames,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Willis’ will was done.
Begin with the clash between Becky MacIntyre–
The Greek (specifically, Lesbian) warlord–and
godlikegodless Joyce Brown.Come on, Becky! You can use it to get a new haircut and see how badly the comments section blows up this time!
Dang it! Obviously I was not first with that joke.
I still don’t understand what the heck that backlash was all about. Even poor people (Hi, speaking!) know that you can only spread that amount of cash so far.
She was obviously supposed to invest it in Faz’s new cryptocurrency, FazCoin. She might have had the value of $20.01 by now!
I get why they were upset but they shouldn’t have been THAT mad over $20
I get why they were upset and they’re still wrong.
Becky got a haircut to affirm herself, but she’s homeless and dependent on Joyce so she needs to slavishly devote herself to and praise Joyce and never ever think of herself in any capacity until she’s earned not being homeless.
ESPECIALLY poor people. I think people who’ve had to live off that sort of money know that you can only make it stretch if you have other stuff- like, say, access to a kitchen and a good food store. (Bag of rice and bag of beans, that’s food for a couple of weeks- but Becky had no ability to prepare that. And possibly no way of getting to a big store. Also please don’t do that if you can avoid it, because it’ll stave off starvation but you’ll be malnourished.)
But people who’ve never been unfortunate enough to be that poor don’t get that… well, if you have nothing, nowhere to prepare or store food, $20 MIGHT get you a couple of meals. It won’t get you a bed, safety, security, etc. And even if you have full facilities it won’t get you anything like a healthy diet.
Time for another haircut for Becky already, huh?
Look, it’s HARD to crawl out of a ‘do whatever the party around you is doing to fit in and forget about the consequences’ hell pit and be a semi-responsible person. Give Robin a minute. XD
“Mentee”? Isn’t that a sea cow?
You’re thinking of a manatee. A mentee is a mint-flavored candy.
That’s a mento, I think. A mentee is a shirt.
That’s a place that legally produces coins for a government. A mentee is a piece of golfing equipment.
you mean mini-tee, used (obviously) in mini-golf. A mentee is a canadian cop on a horse.
You’re confusing it with Mountie. A mentee is a type of herbal beverage using a sprig of mint in a cup of hot water.
Sounds like mint tee.
I’m pretty sure a man tea is when you take a human male bipedal flesh being and condense it down in water until it becomes liquid then ingest it.
Mmmmmmmm The taste of flesh in my morning mantee.
That’s called hiding the evidence.
Mentee is is an active volcano in Hokkaido.
I love it when they play this game on Reddit.
You’re thinking of mintees. A mentee is a feature of something – often real property – that increases attractiveness, comfort, or value.
Do you mean an amenity? A ‘mentee’ is an online survey thing hosted on the website of the same name.
(Use link above if you want to cheat ~_^ )
That’s an amenity. Mentee is a diminutive name for Amanda.
Are you thinking of Mandy? A mentee is someone who’s been lied to.
No, that’s Mindy, whowe date told her she was off to Bulmeria (ok she wasn’t but I think she was lying to herself as much as to Anna when she told her that).
A mentee is the currency of Mongolia.
You’re thinking of the tögrög. A mentee is a diminutive duplicate of a villain.
oh right the Mongolian tögrög, aka MNT! *slaps forehead* anyway you were thinking of mini-me, whereas a mentee is that which, when full, warrants an R-rating.
No, no, that’s Monty. Alamein and all that bosh. A mentee is short for Emergency Medical Technician.
Anybody that uses “mentee” should be slapped with the Salmon of Correctness.
You may slap with the Salmon, but do not eat the Salmon.
Slap Solomon with the Salmon. While reading psalms.
The cut the salmon in half with a red herring
Both obtained with Chekhov’s Fishing Pole.
Only if her name is Barbara.
Omg, get a room
She has a room. It’s filled with students. Most of them are unimportant.
Oh wait. That’s what the alt-text said.
Well then.
Okay, Becky. You know there is no-one like Robin to engage in wacky hijinks with to win Joyce back to Jesus.
Pretty cool how becky was actually drawn from scratch in both panels
Was she? Re-inked and coloured though, which does look cool
she absolutely was, check it out: https://i.imgur.com/LqypKhd.gif
ooh nicely done you! and Willis!
IIRC Willis does very loose sketching as an early stage- I would guess (and it’s just a guess) that he copies some sketches to really get across “this character isn’t doing much scene to scene” and then, from a relatively basic sketch finishes each panel separately. That gets across a good sense of stillness in a character but also a sense of organic life, because it’s extremely rare for someone to be extremely still even when they’re not really moving.
Again, that’s just my theory on how he does different panels that are almost identical. Might be wrong!
That makes it look like she’s panting. lol
I could swear I saw Becky smirking a bit in the 4th panel but on 2nd look it was just my imagination ? =_=
her eyebrow contracted a wee bit? i think she’s slightly frowning now?
thanks for getting me to pay attention, because it’s so perfect, it’s the tiniest detail but it still manages to convey that Becky went from absent-minded brooding to active sulking.
Kinda sad Becky don’t want to ask Robin for advices. Maybe Robin will ask her what’s going on after her class end?
Why would literally anyone want to ask Robin for advice on literally anything?
Me. I wanna hear what she’d have to say.
She was pretty helpful to Becky last time, maybe.
Leslie was going in calmly explaining terminology Becky probably doesn’t understand (and this dips into personal interpretation, but I think Leslie’s advice was tinged in how Becky wasn’t really vocalizing her problems and selling it as “my girlfriend doesn’t want to bang me”, and therefore not as authentic or useful as it could have been) and then Robin went “yo just screw things up it’s coo” and, like, that’s actually good advice. Becky’s 19, she could actually totally tank things with Dina as hard as possible and still deserve to wake up in the morning.
Or: Leslie said Words, Robin said Feels.
But introducing the concept of asexuality and what it means isn’t a bad thing either. A better understanding of where Dina’s coming from would be a good thing too.
Letting yourself screw up isn’t bad advice – though it’s easy to take it too far. Sure, she’d still deserve to wake up in the morning, but screwing up her relationship with Dina would still hurt like hell.
I think we should consider where the advice “it’s okay to screw up” came from, and how well it’s worked for that person so far.
Robin?
Well she screwed up super hard being a glad-handing sleaze with barely any scruples, decided to turn away from it at the cost of her career, and then it got her a job teaching Political Science.
I didn’t say it was bad, I said it was Words. Becky needs to understand that Dina not being constantly, viscerally horny for her isn’t a failing on either of them, but does Becky even get the words Leslie used? If that’s all it needed, would Becky say “what if we stick together till we’re married and then the problem goes away”? Does knowing Dina is wired like that solve the problem that:
– Becky wants Dina to be horny for her, otherwise she feels unfulfilled and undesirable.
– Becky screwing this up with Dina means the second woman she loved didn’t love her back the way she wanted, and she’s doomed to be alone forever.
I don’t think Becky’s a U-Haul Lesbian but she has a lot of emotional dependency on her relationship with Dina, it’s really important to her that she makes it work. “It’s okay to make mistakes” is actually really good advice for Becky because Becky, I think anyway, is processing her relationship with Dina as something she needs to succeed at to prove her worth as a person and be wanted by the love of her life.
Like now that I think about it, remember how Becky acted with Dina after talking with Leslie? She blamed herself for her Sinful Horniness and begged Dina to teach her not to tempted by the cragged shame pit of the lustwolves.
Becky learned it wasn’t Dina’s fault or responsibility, she was told, specifically, that Dina just doesn’t process sexual attraction that way, and she turned it on herself.
Dumbing of Age Book 12: Cuz Yer Sad an’ Starin’ Off Into the Middle Distance or Somethin’
Dumbing of Age Book 12: Twenty Bucks
Dumbing of Age Book 12: I’ll take it!
Dumbing of Age Book 12: Not You, Roz!
If that includes shipping, I will take it.
no, the shipping is not included in the book. you have to go to the comment section for that.
+1 Internet
Looks more like Becky’s angry and staring into the middle distance, not sad, to me.
Joyce would be better off if she skipped every session of this class to just talk to Daisy about the school newspaper.
Unfortunately that’s not the way school works.
Joyce may learn more (or more useful stuff) if she spent time talking to Daisy during class, but she still has to pass the class, and that means being able to learn and/or regurgitate whatever robin teaches in her class (even if it is less valuable and/or flawed).
I don’t think Joyce is in this class. I think it’s biology that she shares with Becky.
No, they’re all in this one.
Joyce, Becky, Roz, Sarah, Dorothy. There was a whole thing at the start about Roz gatekeeping the political science class taught by the famous Professor Nicholson.
Are they actually learning anything?
Gotta give credit where it’s due, Robin’s not the greatest mentor ever, but she did notice that Becky was down. That’s growth cause I don’t know if she’d have been that observant a year ago.
Robin is a mess and a disaster, but I do appreciate how much she cares about Becky.
Logically, this strip implies that there is a marine mammal called a manator.
Testing.