After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
Countdown to Countdown
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Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
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.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Mac Hall
Matt Boyd
The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
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Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Fantomestein
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Slightly Damned
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Rhea Snaketail returns from the dead, befriending a Demon who falls in love with an Angel. The afterlife ain't what it used to be!
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Oh, you’re going to love me, because I’m going to name all my children with names that begin with W. And for added fun, my last name begins with W as well!
Theme naming is never a specifically good thing.
My half-siblings and I were all given names that, when shortened, were gender neutral:
Eli, Sam, Dani, Micki.
(Ignore My Phones Wierd Capitalization) i always Wanted A boy To GO With My Daughter Azure, So I Could Name Him Cobalt. I Told My Daughter That Would Have Been Get Name As A Boy, And Now She Goes By Coby On The InterWebs.
Oh gods. Pun names. Those are the worst. My dad taught a student named Justin Kase. And Precious Duckworth, which is not a pun, but it is possibly the worst name ever.
I think giving someone a name that’s got a gender-neutral nickname is actually a really good idea, in case that person realizes they aren’t cis-gendered.
I knew a guy who had a lovely name that didn’t seem gender specific. When he got interested in transitioning, he asked to be called by a new name, that was quite gender specific.
Most people who transition (regardless of the degree of it) are honestly going to want a different name. However, it gives them a way to make that transition a bit easier. Also, it’s great for people who are gender-queer.
Though nothing actually came of it, when my mom was pregnant with me they seriously considered giving me a name starting with C. This was due to the fact that between my older sister, my mom and my dad the first name initials in my family at that point were A, B and D. The reason I didn’t get a C name was the only one my parents liked was Charlotte and I already had a cousin named Charlie.
The three brothers of my best friend from college have initials that spell out shortened versions of their first names, so that Benjamin Edward N. becomes B.E.N., Jonathan Oliver N. becomes J.O.N., and Daniel Andrew N. becomes D.A.N.
I would consider this the coolest name idea ever if I didn’t have a friend named Christa with the middle name Lynn: “crystalline”!
We specifically chose names that didn’t make anything with the initials. No leg, rug, jog, bag, hug, etc. for our kids. We did, however, give the boys an English first name and a Spanish middle name. Our daughter got a Spanish first name and an English middle name.
My parents named all their boys with a given name followed by Dad’s name,
Thus: JG (me), CG, IG, and DG. Only our sister was spared… sorta. She got Mom’s name then her own given name (NL).
So far CG and IG have become parents, and neither made the same mist……er, didn’t follow the tradition.
I may have mentioned it in an earlier iteration on this topic – one of my nieces has the initials JFK….. Yeah, bro had a bruised shoulder for a while after wifey realized what happened AFTER the papers were finalized.
Could be worse. I had a cousin who had five children; other than the first who was named “Mary” after her mother, the other four all had names starting with “D” (Daniel, David, Debra, and Dennis), and their middle names — even Deb’s — were all the same (Eugene). Imagine — four kids with the same “DEB” monogram!
Our entire extended family, completely unintentionally, all have two syllable names. Not a single one-syllable or three syllable name. And I think I plan on continuing this tradition. Two-syllable names just sound natural to say to me.
In my mother’s family all us cousins minus one have old Nordic names like Troels, Tue, Nanna, Signe, Gro and Maja – I’m sure they didn’t plan it that way, but I know at least my father wanted me and my sister to have names which aren’t derived from male names (like Laura from Laurentius, Christine from Christian etc.) and then it’s pretty safe to go with an old Nordic name…
You think that’s bad, my mom gave my younger sister and I rhyming names (Beth and Ruth), so when she’d holler for one of us, if we didn’t hear her correctly, she’d end up with both of us. (Or she’d just yell “Beth! Ruth! Whatever I named you!”, hoping she’d get the right kid.)
Chiming in late since Beth’s comment hits so close to home.
My folks gave me a first initial “P” and a middle initial “K” before Dad entered the seminary. It was only after he was ordained that they realized what they had done to me.
As for Beth’s travails, be grateful that she didn’t call you the dog’s name. Mom had the habit of just keep on calling out the men in the house’s name (including dogs that had died years ago) until one of us answered. Especially when some male was in trouble. This would not have been so bad (I just waited for Dad or my little brother to answer first :-D), but she never had that problem with my 3 sisters names. Or the cats.
You will utterly despise my father. His initials are R.A.M., and his favorite football team is the Rams…so he names me after himself so that he can have that damn “S” for his technical initials, and I get stuck being called the very childish form of my first name by my entire family so they can distinguish who is being talked about or called. I’ve asked them not to, they’ve refused because it’s easier for them.
It’s possible to get your family to call you nearly anything, if you’re willing to push it. I recommend a mixture of brownie bribes and a willingness to prank. (However, grandparents may need to be exempt from the rules.)
Koreans have this tradition thing where… even I’m not certain what’s going on here, but our ancestors chose a bunch of Chinese characters and the boys of each generation must have one of those character in their names and with each generation the Chinese character changes and we have to cycle through those generation through generation. My dad’s generation got “hyun”, which isn’t too bad. My generation got “man”, and all the boys names that has “man” in it are really really old fashioned, country bumpkin names. So my mom broke the tradition and named my brother without any “man” in his name. Which is a shame. Because he could have been a Man-Joon. Which would be so similar to man-doo (dumpling).
I dunno. I think while she’s technically aware that her boyfriend is gay, I don’t think she can really fathom him actually being attracted to any individual guy, let alone her own brother.
No, I think Joyce is oblivious at this point. I know when I back when I was still dating my now-ex-husband, my sister and I had conversations about how crazy/freaky/weird it would be that after I got married Andy would be her brother. And she was never attracted to him or anything like that it was just the realization that she would suddenly have new family. Joyce is just young, naive, and first starting to realize some of the implications of how marriage changes family dynamics.
yeah… given the context, timing, and the dynamics of the situation(including the hidden ones in her family), i REALLY doubt it’s simple ‘omg lol so weird you get a new brother lol #yolo #whatevs’ sort of ‘he’ll be your brother too.’
she did that to say ‘back the fuck off my brother, hobag.’
One is not supposed to have one’s brother-in-law for a boyfriend, but that is largely because if one has a brother-in-law one is not supposed to have a boyfriend.
Only on the basis of it being cheating, really. There’s no-one who seriously believes cheating on your spouse with their sibling is in any way equivalent to incest.
*There’s no logical person who seriously believes cheating on your spouse with their sibling is in any way equivalent to incest. There fixed that for you.
After all there are plenty of illogical people in the world.
♫Suddenly, Incest is standing beside you
You don’t need no make-up–don’t have to pretend
Suddenly, Incest is here to provide you
Sweet understandin’, Incest’s your friend♫
Thank you! I don’t know why people make a big deal out of incest when there isn’t going to be any offspring involved! The whole point of the no incest rule was to prevent the birth of offspring with major genetic defects!
As the unofficial expert of Texas Talkers Organized Talks Speakers (Known as T-TOTS), I say that we all speak with the words that hold meaning for each intended word that holds for what we mean to say. If one were to contract using the contractions of shortening for quicker speaking of words then we would spill out the garbage of what Joyce just said. Through talking, of course.
Is it intentional? I assumed it was a typo, because even saying it out loud, I just can’t actually imagine someone talking like that. It would be a weird way of speaking that Joyce hasn’t exhibited so far.
Ahh. I see that occasionally in translations from one language to another, where someone changes their mind about what they want a word to be, but due to a slip of the mind forgets to delete the previous version.
Even if they do, they probably chalk it up to the fact that an ~18 yr old guy who just started seeing someone would generally be scared at the thought of marriage.
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,
For she’s worth a quarter million, afloat and at the dock.
And with every jar that hit the bar, we swore we would remain
And make the Joshua X Ethan rise again!
A new man came into campus today. Who is he? What does he want from us? Why his perfect and beautiful haircut? Why his perfect and beautiful shirt? He says he is a freelance writer. Well, we have all been freelance writers at one point or another in our lives. But why now? Why here?
“…that I take you to a nice restaurant for a personality interview, for research purposes of course.”
“What article are you making?”
” ’10 reasons why the guy your sister dates is more irresistible than you’ ?”
On a side note, I kinda want Joshua to be bi, just because he has the same hair and eye color as the only other bisexual guy (afaik) Willis has created.
(I don’t know how you got Auto-Correct in a web browser, but you should probably turn it off. If you’re using Firefox, ‘British English Dictionary 1.19.1’ is helpful for underlining words which might need manual correction. There might be a version for foreign dialects of English too.)
Oh man way to pop Ethan’s bubble Joyce. Way to ruin the sexy for your man. I mean, unless Ethan’s into that. That expression could go either way. xD (no it can’t I know it can’t I just can’t give up on my new OTP Josh/Ethan foreverrrrrrrr)
On a more serious note, I don’t think this ship is quite sunk yet. It’d be pretty anti-climactic if it just ended like this, and Willis is usually not one to disappoint.
I know it’s too much to ask for, but I’m going to hope that’s his “I’ve suddenly realized that I’m making a horrific mistake” face. If it is, then we can expect a truly impressive breakdown at some point in the near future.
What, like no straight guy has ever slept with his sister-in-law? C’monnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
And Joyce may be ‘ignorant’ but she scored a shot right to the family jewels on that one. And not all that sure it was innocent. She knows what she did.
The face, Ethan’s reaction to the ‘M’ word.
Joyce is gonna loose this quest-no way she will be able to keep him off Josh, literally.
Im not sure Joyce knows what she is doing. That does not mean that it’s random: she does what she figures draws a reaction and relates to what Ethan is interested in. And yes, she does know he’s gay and maybe even thinks that means he’s less bored than others when she brings up her brothers.
Sort of reminds me of an SMBC sketch where a son is coming out to his parents, and they want him to employ his “gay powers” in order to pick out drapes and go shopping and stuff.
So everybody seems to be going through their freshman year hookup but will Joyce and the Walky eventually get together? is that the endgame? that and AMAZIGIRL INCORPORATED.
Joyce is very sharp and she’s as open as hell. She notices when, why, and especially how reality conflicts with her worldview. I’m growing more impressed with her. It’s why I’ve future-shipped her and Joe.
The disturbed face in the last panel is greatly amusing to me, largely because of my extensive familiarity with the ‘relationship with step-sibling’ and ‘relationship with spouse’s sibling’ genres of fiction. His discomfort with the idea of sexual relations with someone you’re not blood-related to in the same family as you (and who you didn’t spend the first six years of your life around, thus not subject to the Westermarck effect) make me want to pat his classy naïve head.
Yeah, Ethan is probably the only person who’s actually gonna be creeped out by that, even Joyce would be having sexy nightmare about it if it was mentioned to her.
Now Joyce/Ethan/Joshua(/accidentally Dina too, in a dinosaur fursuit); THAT’ll get a minority of commenters squicked out.
I can imagine Joshua and Ruth getting along together, especially since Joshua is not in Ruth’s domain, and I’m assuming Joshua does not keep to his parents’ ideals when away from the neighborhood.
Joshua leaves to see friends and goes back to a challenging but apparently happy life and Ethan smiles. Joyce mentions marriage and he goes tight lip neutral. She links her brother, Ethan and the word freaky together – now that’s drama.
1. timemonky: “Nothing kills an arousal quite like the thought of being married to a woman.” So funny. I can’t…
2. Joshua/Ethan is not even close to sunk yet. Willis has barely built the ship yet! (Not like that stops the fans from completing it)
3. I assert that Joyce has no idea what she is doing and never considered her brother might be gay.
4. What I really want to know is: Do Joshua’s parents read his writing, and how open can Joshua really be in it? Also how does Joshua act around his friends when his parents are not around?
I was thinking pen names, but really, these are Joyce’s parents. They are obviously going to want to read all his writings. Maybe he shows them some things and uses a pen name for others? Then again: freelance. It’s not like he’s writing continuously for the same magazine or something.
New theory: he isn’t actually writing freelance, but he says that so his parents will never read his writings or meet his coworkers. Maybe it’s a gay publication, but more likely than not it is something with views different from that of his parents, because normal society is expected to read this.
Which is why I believe he does some Christian stuff on the side, perhaps with some subtle suggestions of a more liberal nature inserted in to try and open his parents’ minds a bit.
I can’t really see Joshua x Ethan rescuing the survivors of Joyce x Ethan. Joyce’s family and everyone around them will be torn asunder if Joshua x Ethan ever became public. Unless you were talking about saving the fans.
Right. Ships. Obviously about fans. But did Joyce x Ethan ever really set sail? We knew he was gay before he was in this relationship, and Joyce is weird about intimacy. I am now afraid to find out what the fandom has been up to while I’ve been blissfully unaware.
What if, by “going to the game”, Joshua means, “Going to Uncle Elizabeth’s” (which, on my last visit to Bloomington, was the last remaining gay bar–it’s in a strip mall!)?
At the very least, I doubt Joshua’s parents would approve of his friends, and I bet Joshua will be changing shirts as soon as he gets where he is going. Unless the friends are a lie, and he is only using them as an excuse to ditch his parents.
Is leaning on one arm with your other hand on your hip (like Ethan in the previous comic) indicative of flirtation? Is this enough to arouse suspicion?
Leaning on a wall while being really close to someone could definitely be called flirtatious. It carries a subtle implication of isolating the object of your affection, in order to ensure they notice you. Or so I’ve come to believe, anyway.
If Ethan’s mom lectures Ethan within earshot of Joyce’s mom, and Joyce’s mom gets both defensive about her son and repulsed by Ethan, and Joyce is yet again pulled away from her friends…
Turns all the Brown siblings are a disappointment to their parents. Joshua is almost certainly gay (and probably a few other things), Joyce is fraternizing with the unrighteous, Jordan is…Jordan, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion Johnathan secretly wants to be a lumberjack.
Me if I ever see Tony Hawk: Hey you’re Tony Hawk the famous skateboarder. That’s right I recognise you. Won’t be able to get any content out of this will you, you piece of shit
How to read all 28 issues of my Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run on Marvel Unlimited:
1: The first four issues were published as the miniseries "Mary Jane."
www.marvel.com/comics/serie...
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
Hot Toys Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 1/6 Scale Darth Vader Deluxe ($495) & Standard ($315) is up for preorder at Sideshow - shrsl.com/4wcx6 #ad
If you preorder make sure to hit the Exclusive versions since they include a commemorative plaque and cost the same.
btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
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 ⋅ 3d
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?"
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 2d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 3d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 12d
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Oh, Joshua. Stupid, stupid, sexy Joshua.
Wait, isn’t that a Jewish name?
….no….of course not….
Technically yes, but it was no doubt chosen by his parents because it’s a Biblical name.
I just realized that Joyce’s parents are those people who name all of their kids with names starting with the same letter.
That means I hate them
Oh, you’re going to love me, because I’m going to name all my children with names that begin with W. And for added fun, my last name begins with W as well!
Going the alliteration route for names then?
Step one of raising super powered kids.
Be careful not to repeat the initials THREE times, though. Superpowers do not lie down that path. I speak from experience, as the bearer of RRR.
at least it’s better than the bearer of the initials KKK!!!!
Your grav makes that comment even better!
So wait, if Kernanator goes with three W, their kids will either be called “The Internet” in school, or possibly Megaman references will be made.
But… but she could make www happen! Internet baby!
…
If an T married a P you could work out http with a hyphenated last name.
KKK? Whats wrong with my little sisters initials?
[okay the last two are hyphenated but yeah] >P
Every male from(starting with) my father’s father down is initialed JDD.
That’s 9 people so far.
You must be fun on ‘talk like a pirate’ day. Arrrrrrrrgh!
If it’s JJJ, you actually end up poisoning them against superpowers.
BRING ME PICTURES OF SPIDER MAN!!!
My dad’s initials are BS
Yup, that’s the plan!
Theme naming is never a specifically good thing.
My half-siblings and I were all given names that, when shortened, were gender neutral:
Eli, Sam, Dani, Micki.
The relatives of one of my friends have three sons, Jade, Forest, and Kelly. Their last name is Green. I shit thee not.
My grandmother was Mary Lamb, a great-aunt was Rosie Bloom (and she married Mr. Buts), and I know a Peter Wolf.
(Ignore My Phones Wierd Capitalization) i always Wanted A boy To GO With My Daughter Azure, So I Could Name Him Cobalt. I Told My Daughter That Would Have Been Get Name As A Boy, And Now She Goes By Coby On The InterWebs.
There are apparently 3 different Wayne Kerr’s in a town near me, my gaming group used to roleplay with one of them.
Oh gods. Pun names. Those are the worst. My dad taught a student named Justin Kase. And Precious Duckworth, which is not a pun, but it is possibly the worst name ever.
I went to school with a guy named Duncan Hines. No shit.
I think giving someone a name that’s got a gender-neutral nickname is actually a really good idea, in case that person realizes they aren’t cis-gendered.
I agree there, though that sadly does leave out some very nice gender-specific names.
Of course, they could always reclaim them in the name of their preferred gender.
I knew a guy who had a lovely name that didn’t seem gender specific. When he got interested in transitioning, he asked to be called by a new name, that was quite gender specific.
Most people who transition (regardless of the degree of it) are honestly going to want a different name. However, it gives them a way to make that transition a bit easier. Also, it’s great for people who are gender-queer.
Though nothing actually came of it, when my mom was pregnant with me they seriously considered giving me a name starting with C. This was due to the fact that between my older sister, my mom and my dad the first name initials in my family at that point were A, B and D. The reason I didn’t get a C name was the only one my parents liked was Charlotte and I already had a cousin named Charlie.
Wil Wheaton is a superhero!?
Give them all an “O” middle name please! Octavio, Oden, Ogden, Olly, Olive, Olga, Oleg, Owen, Omar, Owl, Orion, Orville… There are so many options!
WOW, that is a lot of options.
The three brothers of my best friend from college have initials that spell out shortened versions of their first names, so that Benjamin Edward N. becomes B.E.N., Jonathan Oliver N. becomes J.O.N., and Daniel Andrew N. becomes D.A.N.
I would consider this the coolest name idea ever if I didn’t have a friend named Christa with the middle name Lynn: “crystalline”!
My sister had the extreme misfortune of having her initials spell out PEW. Our dad is a reverend, so this was especially awkward.
We specifically chose names that didn’t make anything with the initials. No leg, rug, jog, bag, hug, etc. for our kids. We did, however, give the boys an English first name and a Spanish middle name. Our daughter got a Spanish first name and an English middle name.
My parents named all their boys with a given name followed by Dad’s name,
Thus: JG (me), CG, IG, and DG. Only our sister was spared… sorta. She got Mom’s name then her own given name (NL).
So far CG and IG have become parents, and neither made the same mist……er, didn’t follow the tradition.
I may have mentioned it in an earlier iteration on this topic – one of my nieces has the initials JFK….. Yeah, bro had a bruised shoulder for a while after wifey realized what happened AFTER the papers were finalized.
I’m one letter away from having the initials R.I.P. Just imagine the gravestone.
My parents named me and my brothers with C names, and my sisters with H names.
I would like to see that with X and Y
Could be worse. I had a cousin who had five children; other than the first who was named “Mary” after her mother, the other four all had names starting with “D” (Daniel, David, Debra, and Dennis), and their middle names — even Deb’s — were all the same (Eugene). Imagine — four kids with the same “DEB” monogram!
Our entire extended family, completely unintentionally, all have two syllable names. Not a single one-syllable or three syllable name. And I think I plan on continuing this tradition. Two-syllable names just sound natural to say to me.
… and more natural to yell for.
Walky Walkerton?
David Walkerton
That’s okay, because Wendy Watson kicks butt. Your children can follow in her double-double u example.
In my mother’s family all us cousins minus one have old Nordic names like Troels, Tue, Nanna, Signe, Gro and Maja – I’m sure they didn’t plan it that way, but I know at least my father wanted me and my sister to have names which aren’t derived from male names (like Laura from Laurentius, Christine from Christian etc.) and then it’s pretty safe to go with an old Nordic name…
My mom named all us kids C names that also almost all sounded nearly alike.
And now you see why I went to court to change my name.
Not only do I and my brother both have names that begin with J, but so do all of my cousins on my dad’s side of the family.
You think that’s bad, my mom gave my younger sister and I rhyming names (Beth and Ruth), so when she’d holler for one of us, if we didn’t hear her correctly, she’d end up with both of us. (Or she’d just yell “Beth! Ruth! Whatever I named you!”, hoping she’d get the right kid.)
Out of curiosity, what accent/dialect do you have that “Beth” rhymes with “Ruth”?
Chiming in late since Beth’s comment hits so close to home.
My folks gave me a first initial “P” and a middle initial “K” before Dad entered the seminary. It was only after he was ordained that they realized what they had done to me.
As for Beth’s travails, be grateful that she didn’t call you the dog’s name. Mom had the habit of just keep on calling out the men in the house’s name (including dogs that had died years ago) until one of us answered. Especially when some male was in trouble. This would not have been so bad (I just waited for Dad or my little brother to answer first :-D), but she never had that problem with my 3 sisters names. Or the cats.
You will utterly despise my father. His initials are R.A.M., and his favorite football team is the Rams…so he names me after himself so that he can have that damn “S” for his technical initials, and I get stuck being called the very childish form of my first name by my entire family so they can distinguish who is being talked about or called. I’ve asked them not to, they’ve refused because it’s easier for them.
Side note: I’m 25 now and they still call me it.
I will hereby assume your name is Richard.
It will never change. My cousin is William J. C***** III, he’s my age (wrong side of fifty) and his mother and sisters still call him “Billy.”
It’s possible to get your family to call you nearly anything, if you’re willing to push it. I recommend a mixture of brownie bribes and a willingness to prank. (However, grandparents may need to be exempt from the rules.)
Been there. I was named after my father and my parents referred to me as “Little Bill” until I got to college.
Koreans have this tradition thing where… even I’m not certain what’s going on here, but our ancestors chose a bunch of Chinese characters and the boys of each generation must have one of those character in their names and with each generation the Chinese character changes and we have to cycle through those generation through generation. My dad’s generation got “hyun”, which isn’t too bad. My generation got “man”, and all the boys names that has “man” in it are really really old fashioned, country bumpkin names. So my mom broke the tradition and named my brother without any “man” in his name. Which is a shame. Because he could have been a Man-Joon. Which would be so similar to man-doo (dumpling).
Yeah, our Korean family did that, too. The boys of our generation are Min-ho, Sung-ho, and Kun-ho.
“It feels like I’m wearing nothing at all..nothing at all….NOTHING AT ALL!”
Only if your name is “John Derek” and this is a scene from “The Ten Commandments”!
That’s probably the best thing she could have said
The vocal equivalent of a cold shower.
Nothing kills an arousal quite like the thought of being married to a woman.
I find Joyce adorable, but I have to admit, the thought of marrying her sends a chill down my spine.
Joyce is adorable and all but…marriage? I’d go with my plan of dying alone at 30, thank you very much.
Joyce is like Amy Rose. Cute kid but I wouldn’t want to be attatched to her.
All the more Joyce for me, then!
Someone in the other universe doesn’t seem to mind.
Not that the name of that person isn’t completely obvious by looking at the names of Willis’ other comics.
I still don’t understand that shipping… even if it is canon!
@Josh: To be honest, as natural as it feels to me, I wouldn’t even be able to comprehend it if I hadn’t read the whole thing.
You’re talking about Joyce/Walky, right?
It’s actually pretty adorable in the Walkyverse. Both Walky and Joyce are a lot more mature, so they make it work.
*Little more mature
FIXED.
Compared to Dumbiverse Joyce and Walky? I’d say they are buckets more mature.
They embrace their quirkieness more in the walkyverse. This hides their maturity a bit… while exemplifying it at the same time.
this made me snort, then chuckle. well done.
Pfffffft. Ha ha ha haa haaaaaaaa!
I wonder if she said that on purpose? Her comments of late have been uncanny.
She knows her man likes dick, and she knows her brother is single and has a dick.
She is a master of addition…
I dunno. I think while she’s technically aware that her boyfriend is gay, I don’t think she can really fathom him actually being attracted to any individual guy, let alone her own brother.
But can she subtract herself from the equation?
It helps that she has a really good calculator.
she’s not blind. nor is she stupid. she’s just ignorant.
Yeah, I can’t figure out what else would make it freaky. She *has* to mean that she noticed Ethan is attracted to Joshua.
No, I think Joyce is oblivious at this point. I know when I back when I was still dating my now-ex-husband, my sister and I had conversations about how crazy/freaky/weird it would be that after I got married Andy would be her brother. And she was never attracted to him or anything like that it was just the realization that she would suddenly have new family. Joyce is just young, naive, and first starting to realize some of the implications of how marriage changes family dynamics.
yeah… given the context, timing, and the dynamics of the situation(including the hidden ones in her family), i REALLY doubt it’s simple ‘omg lol so weird you get a new brother lol #yolo #whatevs’ sort of ‘he’ll be your brother too.’
she did that to say ‘back the fuck off my brother, hobag.’
Since they’re not related it will be ok…
But society will still flip their lid.
One is not supposed to have one’s brother-in-law for a boyfriend, but that is largely because if one has a brother-in-law one is not supposed to have a boyfriend.
Only on the basis of it being cheating, really. There’s no-one who seriously believes cheating on your spouse with their sibling is in any way equivalent to incest.
*There’s no logical person who seriously believes cheating on your spouse with their sibling is in any way equivalent to incest. There fixed that for you.
After all there are plenty of illogical people in the world.
it’s not~ creepy~
:/ I’m not sure I want to admit to getting that reference.
Though the law forbids it, this is kismet
Well he does seem to like Joyce like a sister…
SUDDENLY: INCEST
And that comment I made about an OTT suddenly become more fitting.
If Joyce walked in on it it’d be a totally new variant of SURPRISE BUTTSEX!
♫Suddenly, Incest is standing beside you
You don’t need no make-up–don’t have to pretend
Suddenly, Incest is here to provide you
Sweet understandin’, Incest’s your friend♫
Thank you, I was going to post that last night but couldn’t remember enough of the lyrics.
But it’s GAY incest, which means no inbreeding issues, so it’s okay.
Thank you! I don’t know why people make a big deal out of incest when there isn’t going to be any offspring involved! The whole point of the no incest rule was to prevent the birth of offspring with major genetic defects!
Fantasy = DESTROYED!
New fantasy=BORN
No! I wasted 2 hours for this:
http://i.imgflip.com/3jaje.gif
sad, sad, day
Wasted?
All I see, is time well spent ^^
Good show!
Not a waste at all! I’m sure Willis has it in him to boomerang things around to completely justify the effort. Plus, you did an awesome job!
Thanks. i’ll finish this by today and surprise Willis once he has a new Ethan / Josh strip
That’s what I’m planning on doing with some fan art I’ve drawn (I would’ve done it earlier, but it’s not inked yet).
What… if he secretly likes incest, too? D=
[in that taking Joyce literally way, since you can’t just MARRY into similar bloodlines]
But even as bro-in-laws, they aren’t related, so it will be ok ..
Right, because “Honey, I slept with your sister/brother” is known to go over so well.
Lisa: “They have Simpson DNA; it could have come from any of us! Well, except you, since you’re a Bouvier.”
Marge: “No! No, no. When I took your father’s name I took everything that came with it, including DNA! “
That last sentence is bugging me.
I know, right? It took me a few seconds to recognize it as a way some people talk, but actually seeing it spelled out just makes it so much worse.
I just want to throttle Joyce and scream “YOU ARE USING TWO CONTRACTIONS THAT MEAN THE SAME THING!!!!!”
Wait, do people actually talk like that?
That’d it’d be correct.
…I’m I’ll just weep in the corner.
I’m sorry. In what part of the world is that a way people talk? I said that sentence out loud and it still sounded like English garbage.
I tried to say it out loud, but it sounded like total nonsense.
As the unofficial expert of Texas Talkers Organized Talks Speakers (Known as T-TOTS), I say that we all speak with the words that hold meaning for each intended word that holds for what we mean to say. If one were to contract using the contractions of shortening for quicker speaking of words then we would spill out the garbage of what Joyce just said. Through talking, of course.
Is it intentional? I assumed it was a typo, because even saying it out loud, I just can’t actually imagine someone talking like that. It would be a weird way of speaking that Joyce hasn’t exhibited so far.
It’s how “that would be” ends up sounding when you contract the would.
Did Willis change it cuz it seems pretty normal to me.
Oh he did. It previously said “that’d it’d be”.
Ahh. I see that occasionally in translations from one language to another, where someone changes their mind about what they want a word to be, but due to a slip of the mind forgets to delete the previous version.
Worse than that though, you’d have those icky people as your parents! Although I guess you’d know a lot about having bad parents, eh Ethan?
But now he’d have 2 pairs. Then again he DOES like collecting.
Yeah but there are some things that you don’t want to collect…like chlamydia or fleas for instance.
Don’t knock my flea collection.
This is why you keep your collection wrapped in plastic.
And there goes Ethan’s boner.
You mean he suddenly got one?
Yay, pseudo-incest jokes!
You beat me to the punchline, you foul beast…
Joyce seems to know exactly how to kill a boner, between Ethan and her “date” with Joe.
Then her parents have done well at teaching her poorly.
Joyce is either super naive or a master manipulator.
Only a master of naivety, Norj.
The most powerful ability held by the Master of naivety is the inability to realize you are the master of naivety.
Watch out for the black hole of naivety, it will suck you in!
I wonder if everyone else in the room aside from Joyce sees that expression on Ethan’s face…
Even if they do, they probably chalk it up to the fact that an ~18 yr old guy who just started seeing someone would generally be scared at the thought of marriage.
I’m more concerned with the fact that Joyce’s boob appears to be eyeing Joshua’s ass
I’m more concerned that the speech bubble in panel 5 makes it appear as if her boob is turning to look disappointedly at Ethan.
“You could have touched me, Ethan. You could have touched me.”
You know, when boobs started talking, I’d stop taking whatever it is that I’m taking.
“Maybe sniffing glue wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
Willis, must you both christen and sink our ship?!
USS BROTHERLY LOVE.
This comment, bravo!
Better ships have sunken in the past few weeks of this chapter…
LIKE DINAXFAZ.
That ship sunk? Wigii!
Now that you mention it, has Walky said “Wigii!” yet in this incarnation? Or did I miss it?
Not that I know off.
Nevar forget.
Always forget.
Never learn.
Aggh! It’s Gaston! Back from the dead!
Grammar mistake in panel 5? “That’d it’d be pretty freaky, right?”
“That’d It’d”?
Joyce is getting all her personal pronoun contractions in there.
It just makes me twitch…. >.<
Wow, these comments are piling on so fast.
Ethan might have the weirdest boner right now.
One could say his boner is rather queer.
The likes of it have not been seen since Homo Erectus walked the Earth.
Ship Denied!
R.I.P. Joshua X Ethan
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,
For she’s worth a quarter million, afloat and at the dock.
And with every jar that hit the bar, we swore we would remain
And make the Joshua X Ethan rise again!
Wack’d, you made me Google that.
I’m now forever grateful.
You’re very welcome.
I dunno.
I think he may have just realized the ramifications of Joyce X Ethan.
I’m still not sure if Joyce knows what just happened.
And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t.
Incest threesome! Like what Ruth’s annoying brother likes!
Or threecest for short.
The sad thing is we really do need a word for that here. Ruth/Billie/Howard, Walky/Sal/Billie, now Joyce/Ethan/Joshua, the list goes on.
A new man came into campus today. Who is he? What does he want from us? Why his perfect and beautiful haircut? Why his perfect and beautiful shirt? He says he is a freelance writer. Well, we have all been freelance writers at one point or another in our lives. But why now? Why here?
Why am I asking these questions? Did I leave the iron on? Did I forget something?
The answer to all these questions and more on the next episode of DUMBING OF AGE Z.
Same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel!
I understood that reference.
I tried to think up a coherent response to this, but I couldn’t. So just imagine a bunch of incoherent flailing because NIGHT VALE.
Perfect Joshua?
Gentle, brave Joshua…
Sadly, as we all know, freelance writers are self-reliant. That’s the first thing a freelance writer is.
“So I was thinking…”
‘Yes?’
“I mean, as part of my job. As a freelance writer.”
“…that I take you to a nice restaurant for a personality interview, for research purposes of course.”
“What article are you making?”
” ’10 reasons why the guy your sister dates is more irresistible than you’ ?”
Har!
All hail the glow cloud.
I… I wish I could come up with a clever reference, but I’m just…
…see Aslee’s comment.
Incest for the wincest!
Joyce’s comments are officially disregarded. This ship will float, damn it!
All hope is not lost, but we’d best start bailing out water.
I haz a bukkit!
Sorry to say…
BATTLE-SHIP SUNK!
Well, if Ethan gets one more look of weightlifting Jacob, he’s probably going to give up.
God only knows what would happen if Ethan saw a weight lifting Joshua…
Joshua and Jacob at the gym together, showing off to each other while Ethan can only watch. Watch, and wonder, and dream…
Throw Mike in there and you’ve got something.
Between the two Joshua looks the most weak in the knees right now.
Bad idea written all over this.
THERE ARE PLENTY OF MEN NOT RELATED TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND, ETHAN.
Find one of those.
But none of them have those hypnotic blue eyes.
Grimlock has hypnotic blue eyes…if he is a Pretender.
GRIMLOCK NO PRETENDER. ME GRIMLOCK KING!
He is, after all, matrix compatible.
What about those mini spider demons from Doom 2?
Drew! Assuming he’s not one of Joyce’s other brothers.
But he’s so adorable!
On a side note, I kinda want Joshua to be bi, just because he has the same hair and eye color as the only other bisexual guy (afaik) Willis has created.
Granted, he is from the other ‘verse, but still.
Oh, I thought we’d switch to someone else today.
…In other news, I burst out into high-pitched, barking laughter immediately.
1. Those two have Ben a dating for what? A week now, this is why Joyce gets stunk with really crap guys, no offence to Joe.
2. she not going to see enemy of this coming is she?
An enemy of this? WHERE?
A theater near you.
Coming this October, from director Newl Lend…
ENEMY OF THIS.
Yeah, in Ethan’s defense, most straight guys would probably react the same way to hearing marriage brought up at this point.
It wasn’t the marriage bit that made him siver.
FUCK YOU AUTO CORRECT!
(I don’t know how you got Auto-Correct in a web browser, but you should probably turn it off. If you’re using Firefox, ‘British English Dictionary 1.19.1’ is helpful for underlining words which might need manual correction. There might be a version for foreign dialects of English too.)
Oh man way to pop Ethan’s bubble Joyce. Way to ruin the sexy for your man. I mean, unless Ethan’s into that. That expression could go either way. xD (no it can’t I know it can’t I just can’t give up on my new OTP Josh/Ethan foreverrrrrrrr)
Josh / Ethan forever!
More fanart! 
Panel one and panel four looks intentional.
Panel 3 is so funny to me because they have the exact same facial expression but are surely thinking very different things lol.
My dreams of Ethan x Joshua gone
http://i.imgflip.com/3jaje.gif
oh my god this is wow a+
I was gonna add Ethan’s face to the “Clarity” mix later. Thanks Willis for bursting my bubble
On a more serious note, I don’t think this ship is quite sunk yet. It’d be pretty anti-climactic if it just ended like this, and Willis is usually not one to disappoint.
I know it’s too much to ask for, but I’m going to hope that’s his “I’ve suddenly realized that I’m making a horrific mistake” face. If it is, then we can expect a truly impressive breakdown at some point in the near future.
Welcome to realizing what comes of trying to have your cake and eat it too actually means, Ethan.
What, like no straight guy has ever slept with his sister-in-law? C’monnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
Gay almost-incest for everyone!
Wait, wouldn’t the same apply in reverse? If Ethan married Joshua, Joyce would be his sister too, meaning he wouldn’t be tempted by incestuous acts!
You know what you must do, Ethan. You’ve only got one shot at this: choose the right Brown.
Before you make you choice, Ethan, ask yourself — what can Brown do for you?
You’re terrible, and I like it.
And then Joyce strangles Walky, as per Head Alien’s prediction, just because.
And Joyce may be ‘ignorant’ but she scored a shot right to the family jewels on that one. And not all that sure it was innocent. She knows what she did.
The face, Ethan’s reaction to the ‘M’ word.
Joyce is gonna loose this quest-no way she will be able to keep him off Josh, literally.
Im not sure Joyce knows what she is doing. That does not mean that it’s random: she does what she figures draws a reaction and relates to what Ethan is interested in. And yes, she does know he’s gay and maybe even thinks that means he’s less bored than others when she brings up her brothers.
Sort of reminds me of an SMBC sketch where a son is coming out to his parents, and they want him to employ his “gay powers” in order to pick out drapes and go shopping and stuff.
I hope that I am not the only person who feels the Gay Vibe from Joshua..
You… you don’t actually read the comments section, do you?
Or the strip? Or the hover text?
Ha! But seriously, no, not just you
Ethan face is new best face.
Happy 3 year anniversary!
Joyce, the boner killer, strikes again.
That is the face of a man who is regretting his decisions.
Fuck yeah! Killed a mosquito!
In other news, Joshua dear, you’re dating the wrong member of Joyce’s family.
Naming failure, that should have been Ethan, not Joshua.
Joshua/Jordan OTP?
…
…/deep shame.
I think it says something that I’m not entirely adverse to this ship.
So everybody seems to be going through their freshman year hookup but will Joyce and the Walky eventually get together? is that the endgame? that and AMAZIGIRL INCORPORATED.
Thanks Joyce.
Thoyce.
Somehow I think Joyce is quite aware of what just happened
Joyce is very sharp and she’s as open as hell. She notices when, why, and especially how reality conflicts with her worldview. I’m growing more impressed with her. It’s why I’ve future-shipped her and Joe.
The disturbed face in the last panel is greatly amusing to me, largely because of my extensive familiarity with the ‘relationship with step-sibling’ and ‘relationship with spouse’s sibling’ genres of fiction. His discomfort with the idea of sexual relations with someone you’re not blood-related to in the same family as you (and who you didn’t spend the first six years of your life around, thus not subject to the Westermarck effect) make me want to pat his classy naïve head.
Yeah, Ethan is probably the only person who’s actually gonna be creeped out by that, even Joyce would be having sexy nightmare about it if it was mentioned to her.
Now Joyce/Ethan/Joshua(/accidentally Dina too, in a dinosaur fursuit); THAT’ll get a minority of commenters squicked out.
Don’t you mean “feathersuit”?
…yeah, bad joke.
And then Sam caressed Dean’s clavicle.
“This is wrong,” said Dean.
“Then I don’t want to be right,” replied Sam, in a husky voice.
I can’t believe I got this reference. I don’t even watch the show (I have seen this particular episode, though). orz
OK then, it is clear now: Joyce can’t be so good at acting; the previous two strips just flew over her head. Sad TwT
Oh, subtext, you silly fool, you DO like making things even more uncomfortable, don’tcha?
Also, this is my first ever comment, after many months of lurking. Yay for me.
So Ethan, hows that “In Control” thing working out for you? All good?
Again, we should remember, it’s “Damn You Willis” not “We Like Willis”. So we wait, cringing in the dark (of Ethan’s closet, near Narnia). Cringing.
Are you saying Ethan is so deep in the closet he had an adventure with a magic Jesus-lion?
Joyce will be jelous. she’s the christian afterall, and she didn’t get to ride on and stroke and play with Jesus…
He’s so deep in the closet he’s wondering if that bus will ever get there.
I m sure Joshua’s friends are Robin and/or Ruth.
I can imagine Joshua and Ruth getting along together, especially since Joshua is not in Ruth’s domain, and I’m assuming Joshua does not keep to his parents’ ideals when away from the neighborhood.
Joshua leaves to see friends and goes back to a challenging but apparently happy life and Ethan smiles. Joyce mentions marriage and he goes tight lip neutral. She links her brother, Ethan and the word freaky together – now that’s drama.
1. timemonky: “Nothing kills an arousal quite like the thought of being married to a woman.” So funny. I can’t…
2. Joshua/Ethan is not even close to sunk yet. Willis has barely built the ship yet! (Not like that stops the fans from completing it)
3. I assert that Joyce has no idea what she is doing and never considered her brother might be gay.
4. What I really want to know is: Do Joshua’s parents read his writing, and how open can Joshua really be in it? Also how does Joshua act around his friends when his parents are not around?
1) Amen and amen.
2) Oh, yes, this ship has a long way to sail yet.
3) Amen and amen.
3) Pen names.
I was thinking pen names, but really, these are Joyce’s parents. They are obviously going to want to read all his writings. Maybe he shows them some things and uses a pen name for others? Then again: freelance. It’s not like he’s writing continuously for the same magazine or something.
New theory: he isn’t actually writing freelance, but he says that so his parents will never read his writings or meet his coworkers. Maybe it’s a gay publication, but more likely than not it is something with views different from that of his parents, because normal society is expected to read this.
Which is why I believe he does some Christian stuff on the side, perhaps with some subtle suggestions of a more liberal nature inserted in to try and open his parents’ minds a bit.
2) Joyce x Ethan = Titanic; Joshua x Ethan = Carpathia;
I can’t really see Joshua x Ethan rescuing the survivors of Joyce x Ethan. Joyce’s family and everyone around them will be torn asunder if Joshua x Ethan ever became public. Unless you were talking about saving the fans.
Right. Ships. Obviously about fans. But did Joyce x Ethan ever really set sail? We knew he was gay before he was in this relationship, and Joyce is weird about intimacy. I am now afraid to find out what the fandom has been up to while I’ve been blissfully unaware.
What if, by “going to the game”, Joshua means, “Going to Uncle Elizabeth’s” (which, on my last visit to Bloomington, was the last remaining gay bar–it’s in a strip mall!)?
At the very least, I doubt Joshua’s parents would approve of his friends, and I bet Joshua will be changing shirts as soon as he gets where he is going. Unless the friends are a lie, and he is only using them as an excuse to ditch his parents.
Plot twist: Mrs. Brown forgot to pack a certain thing and goes to a strip mall as Joshua is coming out of a nearby gay bar. Explosions insue!
I am picturing Ethan’s mom in the background of this scene very peeved and suspicious.
At first I thought you meant Joshua’s mom and would rebut with “Joshua and Ethan can’t be gay. They seem so *normal.*”
I can picture Ethan’s mom being like, “Wow, she brought up marriage already. She is so into him and wants all his attention. So. Easy.”
Is leaning on one arm with your other hand on your hip (like Ethan in the previous comic) indicative of flirtation? Is this enough to arouse suspicion?
Leaning on a wall while being really close to someone could definitely be called flirtatious. It carries a subtle implication of isolating the object of your affection, in order to ensure they notice you. Or so I’ve come to believe, anyway.
How…how did I forget Ethan’s mom was there? I got distracted by the whole Ethan and Josh dynamic. I can see some lecturing coming up…
If Ethan’s mom lectures Ethan within earshot of Joyce’s mom, and Joyce’s mom gets both defensive about her son and repulsed by Ethan, and Joyce is yet again pulled away from her friends…
Yeah, if she brings it up at all, she’ll do so far, far away from her son’s alleged salvation.
it took me a while to realize why Ethan made that crazy face.
Joyce used the word “pretty”. That is a scary word.
Don’t worry Ethan, it’s only weird if Joyce joins in. Which she very well might, just to keep things from being too gay.
I… I don’t think she very well might. I think she would run away screaming and rethink everything she knows about her brother.
Joyce- Gay boner killer.
I think she can kill straight boners with similar ease
Joyce is an equal opportunity boner killer. She also kills lady-boners free of charge.
Dammit, Joyce! Let Ethan have this moment!
Turns all the Brown siblings are a disappointment to their parents. Joshua is almost certainly gay (and probably a few other things), Joyce is fraternizing with the unrighteous, Jordan is…Jordan, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion Johnathan secretly wants to be a lumberjack.
Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the rivers of British Columbia. The Redwood, the Larch, the mighty Scotch Pine!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xToPCaNxaow
No, what’s really freaky is that Joshua is basically Joyce with a dick.
At least it’ll make it easier when he has to fuck Joyce to please his mom. He can just close his eyes while Joyce uses the strap-on.
Dammit, i’d give my kidney for an edit option.
It was supposed to have been “At least it’ll make it easier when Ethan has to fuck Joyce…”
Dear god, your comment about Joshua being Joyce with a Dick feels so weird now
And, somehow, even more accurate.
Nice chub shrivel comment there, Joyce. Yowza.