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Except there are implications that Westphal imagined not just St. Elsewhere, but everything that had a crossover with that show. DoA doesn’t have those kinds of batshit insane connections* with other works.
* The last season of Breaking Bad established a connection with St. Elsewhere via X-Files and Homicide: Life on the Street.
That’s how she was originally created, yeah. Both her parents are English immigrants. Though we never see her parents nor is the subject ever brought up, so it’d be an easy retcon if I wanted to make it.
A 12beer case of whatever NOT-Bud is on special is $13-14 at our local supermarket or CVS (not that a a cold Bud tall-boy isn’t a fine thing to drink on a hot day).
My supermarket sells a slab of 20 beers for £15. Is that a lot? (I don’t drink alcohol ever, so I wouldn’t know)
Also when I was at school (and more so in Scouts), some of the other kids would ask me to buy beer for them, ‘cos I looked 18 when I was about 11. I just told them to piss off.
If they’re 18-19, they went to Walmart because Walmart barely gives a shit about checking IDs. If they went to the liquor store, there’d likely be more scrutiny.
I mean, if you want cheap-ass beer on the CHEAP, Walgreens has their in-house “Simpler Times” that’s seriously like $3 for a six-pack.
I’ve had the exact opposite experience. Every time I’ve bought alcohol or the like at a super market, I got carded because their systems require it. (Seriously I worked at a grocery store once and was required by management to card even 60+ year old people. If a manager from another store came through the line and I didn’t ask, I’d be fired within the hour). On the other hand, I’ve never been asked for an ID at a liquor store.
This. As a former (thank Glob) Walmart employee, I agree that we were hammered pretty hard to check IDs for every sale. Senior citizens included. I doubt that means that every cashier followed the policy- but the consequences for getting caught were pretty severe.
Then, I’ve always been carded at liquor stores, too. And accused of using a fake ID an absurd number of times. I don’t look my age.
and Carla has to make a little on the side for paying for her ID, and school, and hey, I know engineering students that paid for the last two years of college with beer money… that they got from business students.
I don’t like her, but I like that she’s there. Mixes things up.
Also, presuming the sexual-orientations-haven’t-changed rule still holds, I feel a little sorry for her. I mean, it’s probably tough being a robosexual in an abducteeless world.
Pretty sure SP!Malaya only became robosexual after she realized it was a thing.
Or, I *suppose* people can have a certain sexual preference and never realize it until they’re specifically told, like missionaries going around and telling “uncivilized natives” about their religion.
Shit, if it’s the latter, then yeah. She’d better get on Joe and Rachel to start making AIs.
Sal is clearly the leader (Leonardo), Malaya’s attitude would definitely cause much worry for the Master Splinter of the group. Marcie for me at least is Mike just by default.
And with Michelangelo’s name shortened to that, I’m now picturing this:
Raphael: “Mikey, where did you go after we beat Shredder? We’ve been
looking all over for you!”
Michelangelo: “I was doing your mom for a nickel.”
That’s how I interpreted the square speech bubbles, anyway. And she kept them in humanoid form (as mentioned by the alt-text), so I just figured she didn’t sound quite human.
I only ever thought UC of having a robotic voice when in the Car body in Shortpacked. Because at no point prior was UC ever indicated what gender the voice was. (Because Text-To-Speech software tends to default to male, the MacInTalk voice is the same one used for the SAINT robots in the original Short Circuit film as well.)
Carla I imagine as having an intimidating loud voice.
I never imagined UC as having a robotic voice, but then I don’t imagine voices at all. Comes of reading too many books as a youth, I suppose, but I imagine I ‘hear’ inflection, volume, and emphasis without inserting any particular pitch or tone at all.
My mental voice for UC was never overtly mechanical. As a car I heard it as deep and a little gravely – James Earl Jones with a hint of road noise. As a girlbot, I hear her as mid-range feminine, clear and strong. Usually probably a notch above what most people consider “indoor voice”.
And when I read back into old strips, I don’t hear its old chassis with her new voice. I figure there’s a reason people automatically gendered it as masculine.
But Marcie would instinctively vault over the truck, and Sal would punch it to a halt as Carla stood there unfazed as it hit her, Thing-style. And Malaya would have been standing behind them and would then sarcastically criticize the driver’s social acumen.
She’s looking down at Marcie’s hands as if to read her ASL (or maybe just checking out her rack, I dunno), but because she hasn’t got sclera, it looks like her eye is falling out.
It’s currently on the same level as her nose, whereas it is not in the first panel. That’s why it looks so weird. Probably just a slip of the hand when moving layers around or something.
I didn’t realize that was her eye at first because her hair combined with her eyebrow kid looks like a squinty eye. I was like, “when did she get an oil smudge on her cheek?”
Given that the “extra eye” is dropped down level with her nose, I’d say remove it completely. Without it, Sal looks like she’s deadpan glaring straight ahead with just a pinpoint eye under her eyebrow… oh wait, that’s just the tip of a lock of hair crossing her eyebrow, isn’t it?
Seriously Dave, redraw that face, will you? It looks… mutant-like.
Marcie appears to be mute. She has been shown using AMSLAN with Sal — who seems to be reasonably proficient with it herself — in several strips in the past.
The Willis wrote something about nerve damage making her voice unable to be used for actual speaking, but that was a couple of years ago (last week in comic time).
Coincidentally, the research lab I work in makes synthetic voices for people who have no voices (or who are losing them). But I’m no medical expert, and the only syndrome I’m familiar with that would be similar would be , which doesn’t really seem much like Marcie.
After the above comment thread about this group being the ninja turtles, I’m going with the theory that Marcie doesn’t talk because if he she did horrible eighties cliches would pour out of her mouth and silence is better than that.
Is there a reason this has to take place in a Walmart parking lot specifically? I mean, Sal name-checked the place when describing her kind of party to Billie. Like no other parking lot will do.
Is Target’s lot too posh? Do they have a cover charge and a two drink minimum?
ah, man. why’d everyone from the Kickstarter have to choose the strip that’s coming up in just a few weeks to see early. Also, I really hope Carla is still wearing roller skates in this universe. It looks that way since she’s taller than the rest of the girls there.
That was my first assumption- but skates make more sense, given her outfit and where her knees are (meaning there’s more height than one would expect from the lower leg). Which makes me a little sad, I would have loved for her to be very tall.
Drink at 16 and drive at 21 so you get several years practice getting home without driving after you drink. The other way around just encourages car dependency and drunk driving.
In Oz my nieces and nephews all drank pre-18 at family events. BUT my in-laws all said, drive the least bit DUI, random sobriety checks WILL get you, not worth doing. Stories showing people being tested and busted seemed a staple of weekend TV news. Oz DOES seem to distinguish drinking and driving way more than US.
The problem is people who start drinking at a younger age are more likely to develop alcohol dependency than people who have had time for their brains to fully mature. The law isn’t there just to “punish” youngsters.
Who’s we, mammal? Mike is less annoying in DoA, since he doesn’t have the entire cast wanting to bang him, sure, but he’s meh to me. Malaya is treated basically appropriately by the cast so she’s hilarious in both verses.
Oh yeah, I hadn’t considered that. Although I can’t really imagine either of them with anyone else. I wonder how Carla’s views on sexuality differ from UC’s?
Nobody else’s orientation changed from the previous universe (Ethan’s still gay, Amber’s still straight etc) I don’t see why Carla’s would. She’s (likely) still an asexual homoromantic the only difference would be she’s transgender instead of transchassis.
I don’t think that’s an accurate description of any of them, actually.
Sal’s, as far as we know, straight. We have no indication at all for Marcie, but she was bi in the Walkyverse. Carla’s, Word of God, asexual. And fuck only knows what Malaya’s into in this universe. Maybe she’s going to end up in a Malaya-Sal’s motorcycle-Joyce love triangle.
Sal bangs dudes way too much to be a lesbian. It’s possible, I suppose, that she’s bisexual, but we’ve never gotten any canon indication that she might be into the ladies (Ms. Aside’s gravatar notwithstanding).
Do we know that she’s homoromantic? UC didn’t date around, she only had one relationship. Unless Willis has said something or I missed something else, all we know is that she’s not aromantic. Given her distaste for body parts my guess would have been asexual panromantic, but I don’t think we can assume until confirmed, by her or by Willis.
ait,wait… I know what about to say, but I’m curious where Willis was going to go with this , let’s All just let the author do his job and let nature take its place and see what happens.
Sooo this what she does after school,just stand around in a parking lot drinking beer? Ya thats how a lot of us spend our time but not really eventful.
Now I’m really wanting Amazi-Girl to show up to confront Sal, and the situation to just devolve into them all sitting around in the parking lot drinking beer, with Sal and Amber having one of those slurred drunken best buds arguments, and Malaya bongoing about how they have to split the six-pack five ways now and can’t the fuckin’ superhero buy her own beer.
Well, okay, I’ll grant Carla would rollerskate-to-the-shins anyone who called her “Carly” or “Carissa”. They’re too girly. But Carmen is a decent alternative.
It occurs to me, does Carla’s gender status mean she picked her own name?
The first sentence parsed just fine. The second one made my brain hurt, because now I’m trying to figure out how transwoman applies to a robot who was previously a car.
Trans-robot? Guess not-implies car to robot. Need a matrix of all trans/via permutations and then could refer to the appropriate cell of the matrix, no need for long using long compounds in ordinary speech. IDIC.
Ultracar referred to herself as trans-chassis, going from car to humanoid form. Also, people had previously assumed UC was male, but UC identifies as female. “I’m a car-who’s-now-a-female-robot person,” as Ultracar puts it. (I’m hoping this is an accurate explanation. Tried to find applicable strips but not successful.)
@Valdrax: Every one has a preferred alt-mode. Some of us prefer our robot modes, because we’re lousy drivers, or we have special abilities in robot mode that we lack in our vehicle modes. Some of us prefer our vehicle modes because they’re cooler, more aerodynamic, or just more comfortable. These days most of us don’t judge a ‘Bot by their alt-mode, or whether they were forged or constructed cold, but by the faction symbol they wear!
She’s a transwoman — she was originally identified as male, but was actually female. (Many people say ‘f2m,’ but that’s kind of wrong. Carla has always been female, but the rest of the world was confused before.)
It very, very much depends on the person. Personally, I just prefer “transman” in conversation about my transsexuality. (Which is also a word some transpeople don’t like, but “transsexual” is the only one that I feel fits me.)
Most transsexual people (as opposed to other people under the trans* umbrella) never identified as their birth or designated sex. They may have lived as that gender, without identifying it, which is the reason for transition.
(Note the word “most”.) Just… bothered by your choice of words there.
You’re right; I agree. (Although I know some trans and genderqueer folk who realized that they were mis-self-identifying later in life.) In my own defense, I was very, very careful about the wording I used, and talked about how the world viewed them, not how they themselves identified.
aaaaahhhhhhhh the thing about dumbing of age is it ruins all my pre dumbing of age ships.
shhhould I ship Malaya and Carla?! but Carla isn’t…
a car…
and Malaya is really into the not human part of ultra car…
and I cant say because they work out it shortpacked they will work out here because dumbing of age hasn’t really matched anyone the way pre dumbing of age did right?
will they even ever show up again??
is Carla still have her issue with libido?
is that a bad question to ask?
please don’t ever put Carla and joe in a room together. it would just be too much for me to deal with.
maybe joe and Carla are um. cousins?
I really need to stop thinking about dumbing of age joe and Carla. my brain is going numb.
but then. ultra car wasn’t really *sexually* attracted to Malaya, so maybe now that she’s a human, if she has any sexual attraction, is it to girls? has dumbing of age actually changed anyone’s sexuality from before? I just figured it clued us into a couple of people we didn’t know were bi. but ultra car has NO sexual attraction… right? just -ah- emotional… but that was because she was a car. but she developed all sorts of other features simply by growing into her own person. if she didn’t and doesn’t want to develop sexual attraction, does that mean she developed asexuality? but wouldn’t that be in the book describing human sexuality, so she might have mentioned it if it was like, a possibility, so it probably wasn’t… maybe I should just stop worrying about it and wait and see? but what if they never show up again?!
But still homoromantic. Can still be romantically attracted to other girls, like Malaya. Or Sal. or Billy, Amazi-Girl, Marcie, Dina, Amber, or whoever Willis decides.
XD would willis go that far? I hadn’t thought as far as rachal, I was only shuddering over how wrong it would be for Joe to try to hit on Carla, since he’s more likely to hit on any female then not.
I hadn’t really thought of a romantic attraction to either of her shortpacked parents… so thanks for that. now I have to go die.
1. Repeat relationships can happen (see Sal and Jason).
2. Carla is now on the cast page, so you can expect to see a lot more of her (though Malaya isn’t).
3. See other comments!
Every single time I witness something related to this particular subject I question whether it’s actually beneficial to make US teens think about alcohol as something uber-cool and unattainable. Because at the end of the day, that’s what this whole ‘only above 21′ age restriction does. It’s sometimes really sad to see that supposedly semi-grown ups completely lose their shit when they get some alcohol. “Holyshit we’re 19 and we got alcohol!! let’s drink all of it at once!!11”. I’m not saying underage drinking is in any way preferable, but 21 is just way over the line. It just makes these “kids” frustrated and they learn their limits way too late. Or maybe I’m just some liberal scum that has no clear principles about this because in my country pretty much nobody actually frickin’ cares if their 16 year old kids have been drinking a bottle of beer at a party.
This is really complicated, man. But to me it seems like the message it ultimately delivers is that “alcohol is totes a grown up thing and at 18 we can’t trust you to drink what so ever” and thus they overrate the value of it.
With that said, according to WHO, my country has the highest alcohol consumption rate and we’re the 30th on the list of alcohol-related deaths. I wish this was an easier subject, really.
I am a red-blooded American who grew up in the same general region that Dumbing of Age takes place in (and where all its characters grew up) and… I entirely agree with you. I’m not much of a drinker (I hate being drunk, so I avoid anything over a mild buzz) but I think you’ve nailed the psychology behind the insane sort of binge drinking that happens in America.
I sort of agree with my bf [note: neither of us are drinkers], if children are taught an *appreciation* of alcohol from a young age, it’s less likely this kind of thing will happen to these such “suddenly legal adult” groups. Like how my mother let us use matches under supervision to teach us 1. how and 2. that they aren’t mysterious magical playtoys [though science IS awesome]. I do fiddle with fire when the power goes out, but that’s more boredom, and I’m SUPER cautious when I do.
But then, I don’t [plan to] have kids to try this method myself, so YMMV. I think the law is overall fine, and minors [as relate to alcohol] shouldn’t just be given carte-blanche to buy alcohol without question. It’s a lot more of a “takes a village” approach to do well, something that’s unfortunately been internetted out of the latest self-isolating generations.
Forgot to add that while we can’t trust them at 18 to drink, we can absolutely trust them to drive safely on the roads and they are grown up enough that we can just kick them out of the house and make them live in college.
That’s the weirdest part for me.
Because drinking, driving, voting, and having sex really don’t have THAT much do to with each other, so a catch-all age when they’re all spontaneously okay doesn’t really work.
[that might make it worse, all these, say, 18yos suddenly out of the house somehow doing all four at once]
So…. we have a girl who looks like a girl in an alternate universe, who was actually a car who decided to look like a girl.
I’m going to term this “Reverse Kinetic Uncanny Valley” – she looks human, even though you’re used to seeing her as a robot made to look (almost) like a human!
You know if they wanted Beer they could have just invited Billie- Oh my GOD Billie should be here for this! To see the great Battle of Amazi-girl vs Sal on the greatest stage of them wrestlemania 31- what just a Parking lot, eh its still hype.
Matter of fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Billie just walked out of Walemart with Three crates of beer.
Billie doesn’t seem like she would be a very fun drunk. Drink hard. Pass out. Roll on your side so you don’t choke on your own vomit. Wake up in a pool of your own vomit. Repeat.*
She might bring the alcohol but she might also be a real buzz-kill.
*pooping yourself is optional
Yeah…first the synthoids and then we get VIs. Next thing you know, the VIs would then ask if they have a soul…and then it will all lead to the Morning War, we lost and we have to leave the planet and now live in a huge spaceship flotilla and be wearing containment suits for the rest of our lives and looking like Photoshopped faces.
Eh, Mike’s been around since Roomies!. If we’re counting people who were in Shortpacked! but weren’t introduced there, the infection began in strip #1 with Joyce.
Wisconsin — late 1960s/early 1970s. Legal to get ‘learner’s permit’ to drive at age 15½. Driver’s ed classes — in-class as well as behind-the-wheel — were offered in high school. Could take the test and get issued “probationary” license (the famous “temps”) on your 16th birthday, which after one year of good driving (no accident/no tickets) would be able to be upgraded to a “regular” license.
And we had a two-tier drinking law. Beer was legal at age 18; you had to wait until 21 for the hard stuff (wine and liquor). There were special “beer bars” that only served draft beer which did a huge trade, especially in my part of the state which was on the Minnesota border.
Smoking, if I remember correctly, was always set at 18.
And then with the VietNam war sending 18-year-olds off to southeast Asia and the passing of the 26th Amendment which gave 18-year-olds the right to vote, Wisconsin reduced their “age of majority” to 18, giving 18-year-olds full rights to drink any alcohol, marry, make contracts, sign papers, etc. And we’ve been going backwards from there.
lol, thanks for finishing my thought. I’m not sure why it didn’t finish properly… I was probably up to late and thought i typed it in. (either way i was going for a fake out on our obsessive intentionally wrong guesses about Amazi-girl’s identity)
Random thought that doesn’t really matter what the answer is but I’ve been wondering about anyway; is Marcie deaf, or mute? In previous strips she’s responded to Sal while Sal’s face was obscured by her helmet, I think, which would suggest the latter (assuming I’m not wrong).
I think Malaya’s sexuality was never quite defined. She had sex with men and was attracted to women but Leslie and she didn’t spark. I think ambiguity was a good choice for her.
I’m hoping Malaya begins an illicit affair with Leslie Bean in this universe. I’m eager to see Leslie expand beyond her love of Robin and that was a relationship I felt died in its infancy when it was really working good.
evil deity? nah, this deity is giving and creative. This deity offers hope and laughter. You know, so he can cruelly torture his creations and audience… and give the comments section things to whine about.
Assuming Malaya’s not actually one of Leslie’s students, it’s probably less sketchy than Roz trying to hook Leslie up with her sister, and definitely less sketchy than Sal banging her TA.
When I was in high school, a friend worked out a standard alcohol table, based on one beer equals one unit. For wine and liquor, divided the proof by the volume to get the unit measurement. If it is 60 proof and you buy a fifth, that equals 12 units. Regular beer is about 4/5 per cent or 10 proof and 12 ounces is 1/10 of a gallon. Helps when aiming to buy as much drunk as possible for your limited cash.
Just like with Amber/Mike and Walky/Joyce in DoA, I find myself internally shouting “Oh my god, you two love each other in another universe!!!” with Carla and Malaya here.
Clearly Marcia and Sal are good friends who know each other well. Marcia can transmit her disdain for Malaya to Sal with a single scrunched eyebrow.
Malaya is not a likeable character, but I like her, anyway. She’s the sort who wants to belong and have friends, but her social defenses prevent her from admitting it.
And Carla. Oh, lovely Ultra-Car. No, she’s not a robot in this universe, but she’s probably still abrasive, aloof, and enamored of practical jokes (Will she throw pies? Tell me she throws pies.) And she’s probably still adamantly asexual, which will excite and frustrate Malaya to no end.
It’s a good thing UC and Malaya just finished their huge character development arc in Shortpacked!, otherwise I’d probably go cross-eyed trying to keep the universes apart.
Whoa! I didn’t see all the changed to the cast page. But I remember seeing her pop on Willis’ twitter some weeks ago.
So her and Jacob were added to the page… But Roz and Becky were removed.
Becky makes sense, she doesn’t even go here. And Roz, well, she’s failed to make any significant ties among the main cast so outside Gender Studies we likely won’t be seeing her much. For now at least
Are we sure Carla is actually transgender in this universe? I mean, she wasn’t born a car in this verse. She probably could still be non-binary, but I don’t think it’ll be the same deal as in the Walkyverse.
On the other hand, she’s probably still asexual, so point still stands.
the other 10% are people freaking out about sal’s eye, which i find odd because she’s pretty clearly just glancing down and to the right, in marcie’s direction. but shrug.
Wouldn’t wearing a motorcycle jacket off the shoulders like that be kind of uncomfortable? I mean, they go right up to the back of the neck and they aren’t exactly made of elastic. I wouldn’t think they’d stretch.
If you wanna be in this crowd, you have to hang at least one article of clothing off of your shoulders. This is why no one likes Malaya–lack of shoulder-hanging.
Carla’s carrying a box. There is no way that’s only a 6-pack – that’s a minimum case of 12. Not that Malaya can get buzzed off 3 love-in-a-canoe beers, but apparently no one can do math either.
Unless Carla’s hogging six for herself, which is fair if she coughed up the cash herself.
I know Sal is half-black and half-white, but I cant help thinking she is Mexican. I have been trying to think otherwise but every single time, I can’t help seeing her, and Walky for that matter, talking in spanish at home.
I find it baffling that in the twenty first century Indian is still used as a term for Native Americans at all when it makes no sense. I guess it’s been a hard cultural habit to break out of. But yes, that was my initial inkling as well.
Sorry, I think most people are aware enough to jump to the India conclusion, but a niggling part of me feels that it’s necessary to clarify just in case.
@damnyouwillis: The romance ark for Malaya and UC is resolved in Shortpacked!, they’ve gotten their ambiguous ever after there, and they’re here in DoA. Does that mean they’ve left the toy store and we won’t see them there any more?
DoA and SP! Take place in separate universes, with no ties between them. The characters are the same, but the situations are different. Carla is human in this one, which is why everyone is freaking out about her round speech bubbles.
That’s not exactly what I meant. Mike and Amber spoiler removed and then showed up here. Jacob another spoiler removed and then became a major character over here, for instance. (In fact, the alt text that day called that out.) So it’s not unreasonable to ask if UC and Malaya had been thrown under the bus in SP! or not.
Willis has said no, though, so we can expect to see them again in SP!
Simply showing a Fake ID works in some places still? Hell, I have to get my ID run through the machine to verify the age on it is correct. (28, look older) Magnetic Strips on them exist for reason.
Panel 3 is kinda creepy. I could easily imagine her saying something like “Scream all you want, no one will hear you here” or “I think you’ll find escape is quite impossible.”
A random thought, which may be entirely wrong, wrongheaded, incorrect, ignorant, and/or stupid;
Carla is a sophomore, and apparently transgender and made of meat (rather than trans-chassis robot). So she’s about nineteen or so, I think? (I don’t know the American college system very well). Given all the rigamarole that surrounds transitioning etc, isn’t that kinda young for someone to have transitioned? My (entirely citation-needed) understanding was that most trans* people transition later, when they’re more likely to have the financial stability to be able to afford it. At the very least she must have understanding parents/caregivers/whatnot willing to bankroll the hormonal therapies and such.
Addendum to the above: apologies if I’ve somehow caused offense; it was not my intention. I’m just not entirely sure of the preferred terminology involved, and I know that terminology can be a Big Deal.
Probably depends on if she’s transsexual, having undergone a surgical transition, or transgendered, self-indentifying as a girl while being biologically male.
It’s young, but it’s becoming more common as parents become more educated about trans issues. People transition older out of necessity, but it’s often much more difficult, physically and emotionally. But now that there are more resources for gender non-conforming kids, more parents are supporting their kids if they want to present as their identified gender at school, take hormone blockers to stave off puberty until they’re old enough to decide to medically transition, or take hormones. Carla may well have been presenting as a girl since elementary school, assuming she knew that early. (Some kids do.) She probably hasn’t had surgery, assuming that’s a thing she wants, but I don’t think it’s unrealistic for her to be on hormones at this age.
Dammit, now those two are infesting Dumbing. The only upside here would be if Mayala crosses paths with Mike and he shows her how to be an asshole with style rather than just being bitter about being alive.
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 21h
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 ⋅ 21h
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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ULTRA!
CARLA
Wonder if she’s related to Bumper Carla.
I think Bumper Carla would like Ultra Car better than Carla.
I hear she’s Clown Carla’s cousin, but the family doesn’t talk about her much for some reason.
Where is her chest door?
I’d rather see a chest window.
Sounds like you’d like to see her fist upside your face.
CARLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
CAAAAAAAAAAAAARLA
CARRRRRRRRRRRRRLA
CARLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLA
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCOMBO BREAKER
DONKEY
KHAAAAAAN!
LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWW
punch
Why would you do that, Caaaaaaarla?
YOU CAME AND YOU GAVE WITHOUT TAAAAAAAAKIIIIIING
Clown Carla
yeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Thirded, seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfoR8SbFhy8
MAAAAAAAAAAAYYYBEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Seconded.
Doesn’t mean she wasn’t thinking it. Nowadays, I think sal just reads Marcie’s thoughts rather than her hands
Marcie’s just thinking what we’re all thinking.
Marcie can peer straight through the fourth wall.
Marcie’s eyes ARE the fourth wall.
So everything is in Marcie’s head? WAIT HOLY SHIT
And now we’ve hit Tommy Westfall Syndrome.
Except there are implications that Westphal imagined not just St. Elsewhere, but everything that had a crossover with that show. DoA doesn’t have those kinds of batshit insane connections* with other works.
* The last season of Breaking Bad established a connection with St. Elsewhere via X-Files and Homicide: Life on the Street.
Marcie’s Linkara?
Does she have a magic gun and an awesome hat?
If so…then yes!
Facial expressions are valid methods of communication in ASL. It’s just advanced ASL.
Advanced Scowling Language.
OH HEY, THIS LOOKS KINDA FAMILIAR.
yay kickstarter previews
Damn you and your money… if only more of us had expendable funds.
Why didn’t we choose the LATER comic?? DAMMIT.
Because I kinda like not knowing what’s coming next? And July feels kinda late for, “Oh wait, I saw this one already”?
YMMV tho
I… I am very very confused.
Confused about what?
this is not sarcastic, I genuinely want to help you understand.
Ultra Car is… she’s using round speech bubbles. It isn’t right.
That’s not Ultra Car, that’s Carla. Same model but a completely different character.
Wait until she starts interacting with Joe and Rachel.
AAAAAjoeisprobablygonnahitonherAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAThoughtbubblecannotbeunseenAAAAAAAAAAAA
Based on your gravitar, you post should be:
“mmmmmmmhfmmhfmfmfmmmmfhmmmmm”
Like Billie, Carla has had a race-lift in this universe, in this case going from being an AI American to a White(?) American.
wait … Billie was 100% white in the walkyverse??
That’s how she was originally created, yeah. Both her parents are English immigrants. Though we never see her parents nor is the subject ever brought up, so it’d be an easy retcon if I wanted to make it.
But she still has a 3rd hand growing out of her chest, yes?
No, she had that removed from her soon after birth.
Ultra Kuato
Hes confused about how 4 people couldn’t scrounge up enough cash to buy more beer.
I mean seriously a six pack should only costed like 7 bucks. That less than two bucks a person! Bump it up to a two pack and you spend 13
They would’ve been better off buying some dang brandy and coke for like 13 bucks at their local liquor store and not having to travel to walmart.
Hell its probably less than $10 at a place like walmart!
COme on gals if you’re gonna get drunk, do it smart!
You would think they could scrounge up enough money to buy a slab of beer at least.
You’d think they could buy a slab of beer.
A slate of beer.
A pound of beer.
A hock of beer.
A slice of beer.
A hit of beer.
A desk of cheez-its?
Or perhaps a hammock of cake?
In Australia, a slab equals 24 bottles or cans.
They’re not gonna get drunk, apparently.
Well, maybe Sal is, assuming the Walkerton alcohol tolerance wasn’t alien-gene-linked.
They need Billie as their Booze Yoda.
A six pack is only 7 bucks? Wow.
It’s like three times the price here. Sin taxes FTW!
(I don’t drink, so I don’t really care :P)
Well, a six pack of shitty beer can be 7 bucks. Stupid teenagers getting drunk in a parking lot are hardly springing for the good stuff.
A 12beer case of whatever NOT-Bud is on special is $13-14 at our local supermarket or CVS (not that a a cold Bud tall-boy isn’t a fine thing to drink on a hot day).
My supermarket sells a slab of 20 beers for £15. Is that a lot? (I don’t drink alcohol ever, so I wouldn’t know)
Also when I was at school (and more so in Scouts), some of the other kids would ask me to buy beer for them, ‘cos I looked 18 when I was about 11. I just told them to piss off.
If they’re 18-19, they went to Walmart because Walmart barely gives a shit about checking IDs. If they went to the liquor store, there’d likely be more scrutiny.
I mean, if you want cheap-ass beer on the CHEAP, Walgreens has their in-house “Simpler Times” that’s seriously like $3 for a six-pack.
I’ve had the exact opposite experience. Every time I’ve bought alcohol or the like at a super market, I got carded because their systems require it. (Seriously I worked at a grocery store once and was required by management to card even 60+ year old people. If a manager from another store came through the line and I didn’t ask, I’d be fired within the hour). On the other hand, I’ve never been asked for an ID at a liquor store.
This. As a former (thank Glob) Walmart employee, I agree that we were hammered pretty hard to check IDs for every sale. Senior citizens included. I doubt that means that every cashier followed the policy- but the consequences for getting caught were pretty severe.
Then, I’ve always been carded at liquor stores, too. And accused of using a fake ID an absurd number of times. I don’t look my age.
Plus, the whole attraction for Sal is hanging out in the parking lot. So, atmosphere, I guess.
Actually it sounds like Carla didn’t pay for it, but she bought it because she has a convincing fake ID.
and Carla has to make a little on the side for paying for her ID, and school, and hey, I know engineering students that paid for the last two years of college with beer money… that they got from business students.
Uuuugh.
Seconded. I love the vast majority of characters in both SP and DoA, but Malaya is by far my least favorite of any characters in any comic I read.
I like her bad attitude.
I don’t like her, but I like that she’s there. Mixes things up.
Also, presuming the sexual-orientations-haven’t-changed rule still holds, I feel a little sorry for her. I mean, it’s probably tough being a robosexual in an abducteeless world.
Probably. But, then-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2507186/Would-sex-ROBOT-Japanese-designers-create-virtual-reality-experience-lets-men-intimate-Manga-characters.html
http://gizmodo.com/288234/honey-doll-has-touch-sensors-moans-has-fake-orgasms
Technology marches on.
As always, Japan leads the way in this field.
Pretty sure SP!Malaya only became robosexual after she realized it was a thing.
Or, I *suppose* people can have a certain sexual preference and never realize it until they’re specifically told, like missionaries going around and telling “uncivilized natives” about their religion.
Shit, if it’s the latter, then yeah. She’d better get on Joe and Rachel to start making AIs.
And here I always thought that’s what Transformers porn is for.
Yyyyeah. I’m damn glad to see Carla and can’t wait to see her character shown and developed, but uuuugh Malaya.
I wonder if Carla is good with machines…
She’s the Donatello of this group
I can see Sal being like Raf and Marcie as Leo but Malaya as Mike? I don’t see it.
Sal is clearly the leader (Leonardo), Malaya’s attitude would definitely cause much worry for the Master Splinter of the group. Marcie for me at least is Mike just by default.
And with Michelangelo’s name shortened to that, I’m now picturing this:
Raphael: “Mikey, where did you go after we beat Shredder? We’ve been
looking all over for you!”
Michelangelo: “I was doing your mom for a nickel.”
She does machines? For some strange reason that sounds more like something this Malaya girl would be into.
transformed from the norm by the nuclear goop?
I wonder if Malaya is good with machines…
Hot wiring cars? Man that would be Ironic.
+1
Doubleplusgood
+3. Awesome.
Just as prophesied.
So it was written, so it shall be.
[INSERT CLICHE HERE]
It Has Begun!
Everything has happened before, everything will happen again.
Time begins, and then time ends, and then time begins once again.
Oh gods Sal’s eye is falling out.
Augh now that I thought about it I don’t know how to see it logically
No… She is just checking out Marcie’s rack is all.
How can anyone abstain from staring. I’m admiring Sal’s willpower to not just bury herself in them.
Unfortunately, Sal’s right eye has succumbed to the gravity of Marcie’s chest puppies.
But – but – it’s pointed at her face!
The power of misdirection is the secrete skill of the subtle boob check
Is – Is she supposed to be checking marcy out from the glint on her goggles or something? D:
This. How did Sal’s eye end up on her cheek?
Gotta say that eye position / angle is bothering me, too.
For a bonus … that thing you thought is her nose? That’s the other eye.
AAAaaahh Malaya and Carla oh boy oh boy oh boy!
Strip’s even better the second time around.
And I can’t stop picturing Carla with a robotic voice, even though this version is (presumably) fully human.
Huh. I never actually read UC with a robotic voice. I wonder why.
That’s how I interpreted the square speech bubbles, anyway. And she kept them in humanoid form (as mentioned by the alt-text), so I just figured she didn’t sound quite human.
I always just read her as really dry and sarcastic.
I just imagined she talked more angular than we fleshlings.
They can’t actually sound different since nobody recignised UC when she changed bodies into the humanoid one.
Just because they didn’t recognize the voice as the same as the car chassis doesn’t mean that she doesn’t sound different from a normal person.
A completely different body can have a completely different voice and still not be “normal”.
Then they would have noticed she sounded weird, like a robot. Which had only been created by aliens and Joe, so it would have grabbed their attention.
At least I know I’m not alone. :/ I’m trying here, believe me, but she keeps sounding like Coulhan from Wreck-It Ralph.
Willis is as disconcerted as you are according to the alt-text.
Strip’s even better the second time around.
Must be the alt text.
More the realization that I don’t have to wait months to see what happens next!
We didn’t wait months in the first place…? =’ Where did you time-leap from?
I think it was a slight exaggeration, I still understood what was meant.
I only ever thought UC of having a robotic voice when in the Car body in Shortpacked. Because at no point prior was UC ever indicated what gender the voice was. (Because Text-To-Speech software tends to default to male, the MacInTalk voice is the same one used for the SAINT robots in the original Short Circuit film as well.)
Carla I imagine as having an intimidating loud voice.
I never imagined UC as having a robotic voice, but then I don’t imagine voices at all. Comes of reading too many books as a youth, I suppose, but I imagine I ‘hear’ inflection, volume, and emphasis without inserting any particular pitch or tone at all.
i do the same thing!
My mental voice for UC was never overtly mechanical. As a car I heard it as deep and a little gravely – James Earl Jones with a hint of road noise. As a girlbot, I hear her as mid-range feminine, clear and strong. Usually probably a notch above what most people consider “indoor voice”.
And when I read back into old strips, I don’t hear its old chassis with her new voice. I figure there’s a reason people automatically gendered it as masculine.
Seeing Malaya and Carla with Sal and Marcie just thrills me.
Malaya and Carla are the bees knees.
It means it would only take one truck accident to take them all out!
But Marcie would instinctively vault over the truck, and Sal would punch it to a halt as Carla stood there unfazed as it hit her, Thing-style. And Malaya would have been standing behind them and would then sarcastically criticize the driver’s social acumen.
Aaah, Malaya. Cheerful as ever, I see.
A universal constant
*multiversal
I wonder if Fuckface has a present constant
This comic needs an animal mascot.
Hmmm…A pig that’s always frowning like mike.
Mike’s cat =o
I thought that was Dina’s job.
But Dina isn’t an animal, she’s a human being.
But humans are animals. Just smarter and weaker animals…
I dunno, she appears to self-identify as a velociraptor.
Well these are sudden introductions.
You think that’s bad, I was looking at the cast page a few days ago and left extremely confused about how I’d missed Carla being introduced.
What’s wrong with Sal’s eye in that last panel? Seriously what??? I can’t be the only one thinking it looks off.
I think I see it too. Her right eye is really low, which is weird in itself. But then her left eye is still hidden behind her hair, at normal level.
yeah, I saw that too
She’s looking down at Marcie’s hands as if to read her ASL (or maybe just checking out her rack, I dunno), but because she hasn’t got sclera, it looks like her eye is falling out.
It’s currently on the same level as her nose, whereas it is not in the first panel. That’s why it looks so weird. Probably just a slip of the hand when moving layers around or something.
I didn’t realize that was her eye at first because her hair combined with her eyebrow kid looks like a squinty eye. I was like, “when did she get an oil smudge on her cheek?”
Given that the “extra eye” is dropped down level with her nose, I’d say remove it completely. Without it, Sal looks like she’s deadpan glaring straight ahead with just a pinpoint eye under her eyebrow… oh wait, that’s just the tip of a lock of hair crossing her eyebrow, isn’t it?
Seriously Dave, redraw that face, will you? It looks… mutant-like.
+1 for any strip with Marcie in it though. ^_^
I was wonder when these two would show up.
Ha! Malaya is still a bongo. But holy crap, Amazi-Girl is after Sal.
New storyline!
Things!
Excitement!
Amazi-Girl vs. the Roller Derby Chicks. Oh, boy. This could get epic.
I think you mean “will”
“Beer=Weiser” does</em seem like something you'd find at Walmart…
they FINALY make their debuts, and man they are assholes.
Can’t have a brouhaha without a BREW. Or a HA-HA.
Someone help me out here, is Marcie deaf-mute or just mute? I don’t recall exactly, and I’m not too keen to plug through the archive to find out.
Marcie appears to be mute. She has been shown using AMSLAN with Sal — who seems to be reasonably proficient with it herself — in several strips in the past.
Prerry sure she’s not deaf–she seems to respond to voice pretty well.
The Willis wrote something about nerve damage making her voice unable to be used for actual speaking, but that was a couple of years ago (last week in comic time).
Coincidentally, the research lab I work in makes synthetic voices for people who have no voices (or who are losing them). But I’m no medical expert, and the only syndrome I’m familiar with that would be similar would be , which doesn’t really seem much like Marcie.
Honestly, I prefer to think that Marcie CAN talk but just chooses not to. She’s just that bad-ass.
Oops, that didn’t quite work.
After the above comment thread about this group being the ninja turtles, I’m going with the theory that Marcie doesn’t talk because if he she did horrible eighties cliches would pour out of her mouth and silence is better than that.
It’s those future-goggles Marcie’s wearing. They transmit brainwaaaaaaaaaves.
Is there a reason this has to take place in a Walmart parking lot specifically? I mean, Sal name-checked the place when describing her kind of party to Billie. Like no other parking lot will do.
Is Target’s lot too posh? Do they have a cover charge and a two drink minimum?
Hardly any Targets sell beer. Around here any way. Most of the Walmarts sell Beer & WIne at least.
Target only has, like, margarita mix as far as alcoholics. Because all the CLASSY stuff like beer and guns are at Walmart.
Super Target locations sell beer.
I have seen beer brewing kits sold in Target.
For when you want to get your drunk on in, oh, three to six weeks maybe.
In Sal’s case this would be further complicated by the fact that the RA keeps breaking into her room to tsundere her roommate.
My closest Target sells hard liquor. Which is good if I pick up one of their mixers on a whim, and need something to put in it.
In Tennessee, even wine is sold only in liquor stores*. Any of the usual stores can sell beer, though, including SuperTarget & Walmart.
*This could change after November, though, per-county with petition/referendum.
Hey, could be worse. When I was in high school, the preferred hangout spot for the kids was the Food Lion parking lot.
ah, man. why’d everyone from the Kickstarter have to choose the strip that’s coming up in just a few weeks to see early. Also, I really hope Carla is still wearing roller skates in this universe. It looks that way since she’s taller than the rest of the girls there.
If not, then she must be really cautious about her knee health.
I feel like there’s an oral sex joke to be made about kneepads, but I can’t seem to make ir come together.
Guess I really blew it.
There could be more personal reasons why she’s taller than most girls.
That was my first assumption- but skates make more sense, given her outfit and where her knees are (meaning there’s more height than one would expect from the lower leg). Which makes me a little sad, I would have loved for her to be very tall.
Love Sal’s outfit. Now where’s our masked avenger lurking?
If you get the random DoA title graphic with Amazi-Girl in it, it looks like she is standing on the walmart roof, watching the group.
Heh, underage drinking.
Oh hell yes, that chapter title.
Sal, your eye is kinda…droopin’.
I thought there was kind of a Forest Whitaker thing going on there.
I should have phrase that better if I’m going to be using a David Mitchell picture for a gravatar.
I’ve always thought the age should be 18. 21 is such bullshit.
Like it is here in Oz. ^_^
Nah, make the drinking age 16, but people can’t drive until they’re 18.
Drink at 16 and drive at 21 so you get several years practice getting home without driving after you drink. The other way around just encourages car dependency and drunk driving.
C-SPAN would get higher ratings if they could promise deliberation of this nature.
In Oz my nieces and nephews all drank pre-18 at family events. BUT my in-laws all said, drive the least bit DUI, random sobriety checks WILL get you, not worth doing. Stories showing people being tested and busted seemed a staple of weekend TV news. Oz DOES seem to distinguish drinking and driving way more than US.
The problem is people who start drinking at a younger age are more likely to develop alcohol dependency than people who have had time for their brains to fully mature. The law isn’t there just to “punish” youngsters.
Yup it’s a simple rule. If you are old enough to die for your country, then you are olsd enough to drink to your country.
Oh hai ultacar. What are you doing in this universe?
Starting a beautiful relationship with the one who is meant for her.
And scoring beer for the gang
For a second, I thought you meant she was going to have a beautiful relationship with the beer.
Not Malaya’s first strip, she is tagged in the one from March 15th of this year…totally missed that.
Malaya’s a horrible person in this world too. Good to know
Remember all the fighting when Malaya was new in Shortpacked, where one faction believed she was perfect and wonderful and beautiful?
See, we tolerate Mike because he is meme-worthy, but even he gets annoying when used too much.
The only person in that faction was Malaya. I don’t remember this faction otherwise.
Who’s we, mammal? Mike is less annoying in DoA, since he doesn’t have the entire cast wanting to bang him, sure, but he’s meh to me. Malaya is treated basically appropriately by the cast so she’s hilarious in both verses.
(unintelligible excited shrieking for carla)
woot. kinda hoping these two would show up. glad to see carla XD
though malaya, I was just starting to like you in SP, and this stip already has mary. we don’t need to hateful bongoes…
holy fuck i’m so excited
(i know willis wants to mix up the couples and all that but…please. plEASE god let malaya and uc happen once again.)
Oh yeah, I hadn’t considered that. Although I can’t really imagine either of them with anyone else. I wonder how Carla’s views on sexuality differ from UC’s?
Nobody else’s orientation changed from the previous universe (Ethan’s still gay, Amber’s still straight etc) I don’t see why Carla’s would. She’s (likely) still an asexual homoromantic the only difference would be she’s transgender instead of transchassis.
So she’s likely still sex repulsed.
Everyone in the parking lot is lesbian, right?
I don’t think that’s an accurate description of any of them, actually.
Sal’s, as far as we know, straight. We have no indication at all for Marcie, but she was bi in the Walkyverse. Carla’s, Word of God, asexual. And fuck only knows what Malaya’s into in this universe. Maybe she’s going to end up in a Malaya-Sal’s motorcycle-Joyce love triangle.
In the Walky-Multplex-verse Malaya did get it on with Jason in the broom closet before she swung female-auto-sexual
Never assume heterosexuality in the Walkyverse.
Sal bangs dudes way too much to be a lesbian. It’s possible, I suppose, that she’s bisexual, but we’ve never gotten any canon indication that she might be into the ladies (Ms. Aside’s gravatar notwithstanding).
Do we know that she’s homoromantic? UC didn’t date around, she only had one relationship. Unless Willis has said something or I missed something else, all we know is that she’s not aromantic. Given her distaste for body parts my guess would have been asexual panromantic, but I don’t think we can assume until confirmed, by her or by Willis.
WAIT never mind Willis indeed confirmed that she’s homoromantic.
And so did UC, so wow was I out of that loop. Whoops.
ait,wait… I know what about to say, but I’m curious where Willis was going to go with this , let’s All just let the author do his job and let nature take its place and see what happens.
Sooo this what she does after school,just stand around in a parking lot drinking beer? Ya thats how a lot of us spend our time but not really eventful.
I love Carla already. First real appearance and I’m completely sold
Beer and walmart parking lot… I love how this was foreshadowed in this strip: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/walmart/. Probably super obvious, but I just wanted to look up and link the specific strip anyways.
In DoA EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
For three years Willis has been planning for five college students to drink a case of beer in a Walmart parking lot.
To be fair, they must plan that for every week.
Oops. In that strip she said “five folks.” Now Amazi-Girl _has_ to show up.
Called it.
but will amazi-girl drink?
and sal doesn’t know she’s coming.. so will someone else show up to join the Wal-Mart drinking party??
Now I’m really wanting Amazi-Girl to show up to confront Sal, and the situation to just devolve into them all sitting around in the parking lot drinking beer, with Sal and Amber having one of those slurred drunken best buds arguments, and Malaya bongoing about how they have to split the six-pack five ways now and can’t the fuckin’ superhero buy her own beer.
I would have called her “Carrie” or “Carol” rather than “Carla”.
But that’s probably just me
Cara
As far as I’m concerned, Carla’s birth name was “Otto.”
I would have gone with Benz.
Carol is Joyce’s mom. Plus “Carol” and “Carrie” don’t sound like “Car,” which was the point. Wrong vowel sound.
Carmen? Carissa? Carly?
Well, okay, I’ll grant Carla would rollerskate-to-the-shins anyone who called her “Carly” or “Carissa”. They’re too girly. But Carmen is a decent alternative.
It occurs to me, does Carla’s gender status mean she picked her own name?
If you want to give her a name that says ‘evil animated car’, go with ‘Christine’. Classic Stephen King FTW.
I wonder if Carla is asexual in this timeline…
Why wouldn’t she be?
Other gripping questions: Is Ethan Gay?
Also: Is water wet?
Carla is a homoromantic asexual transwoman. Like Ultra Car, but fleshy.
The first sentence parsed just fine. The second one made my brain hurt, because now I’m trying to figure out how transwoman applies to a robot who was previously a car.
Trans-robot? Guess not-implies car to robot. Need a matrix of all trans/via permutations and then could refer to the appropriate cell of the matrix, no need for long using long compounds in ordinary speech. IDIC.
Ultracar referred to herself as trans-chassis, going from car to humanoid form. Also, people had previously assumed UC was male, but UC identifies as female. “I’m a car-who’s-now-a-female-robot person,” as Ultracar puts it. (I’m hoping this is an accurate explanation. Tried to find applicable strips but not successful.)
Well Ultracar said it herself:
“Homoromantic asexual trans-chassis woman”
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1994
This shortpacked comic is still the background on my tablet.
@Valdrax: Every one has a preferred alt-mode. Some of us prefer our robot modes, because we’re lousy drivers, or we have special abilities in robot mode that we lack in our vehicle modes. Some of us prefer our vehicle modes because they’re cooler, more aerodynamic, or just more comfortable. These days most of us don’t judge a ‘Bot by their alt-mode, or whether they were forged or constructed cold, but by the faction symbol they wear!
Trans… To what?
Nevermind.
She’s a transwoman — she was originally identified as male, but was actually female. (Many people say ‘f2m,’ but that’s kind of wrong. Carla has always been female, but the rest of the world was confused before.)
Fooey. The should read “Many people say m2f” — the rest of the comment is right, but I typed the acronym incorrectly.
‘Designated male at birth’ (or dmab for short) is the preferred nomenclature, if I’m not mistaken.
It very, very much depends on the person. Personally, I just prefer “transman” in conversation about my transsexuality. (Which is also a word some transpeople don’t like, but “transsexual” is the only one that I feel fits me.)
Most transsexual people (as opposed to other people under the trans* umbrella) never identified as their birth or designated sex. They may have lived as that gender, without identifying it, which is the reason for transition.
(Note the word “most”.) Just… bothered by your choice of words there.
You’re right; I agree. (Although I know some trans and genderqueer folk who realized that they were mis-self-identifying later in life.) In my own defense, I was very, very careful about the wording I used, and talked about how the world viewed them, not how they themselves identified.
I want Carla and Malaya to kiss soon or otherwise engage romantically if kissing ain’t her bag. One universe just isn’t enough.
aaaaahhhhhhhh the thing about dumbing of age is it ruins all my pre dumbing of age ships.
shhhould I ship Malaya and Carla?! but Carla isn’t…
a car…
and Malaya is really into the not human part of ultra car…
and I cant say because they work out it shortpacked they will work out here because dumbing of age hasn’t really matched anyone the way pre dumbing of age did right?
will they even ever show up again??
is Carla still have her issue with libido?
is that a bad question to ask?
please don’t ever put Carla and joe in a room together. it would just be too much for me to deal with.
maybe joe and Carla are um. cousins?
I really need to stop thinking about dumbing of age joe and Carla. my brain is going numb.
but then. ultra car wasn’t really *sexually* attracted to Malaya, so maybe now that she’s a human, if she has any sexual attraction, is it to girls? has dumbing of age actually changed anyone’s sexuality from before? I just figured it clued us into a couple of people we didn’t know were bi. but ultra car has NO sexual attraction… right? just -ah- emotional… but that was because she was a car. but she developed all sorts of other features simply by growing into her own person. if she didn’t and doesn’t want to develop sexual attraction, does that mean she developed asexuality? but wouldn’t that be in the book describing human sexuality, so she might have mentioned it if it was like, a possibility, so it probably wasn’t… maybe I should just stop worrying about it and wait and see? but what if they never show up again?!
Isn’t that Willis’ point/game of the multiple universes? Turn the kaleidoscope just a little and the patterns are similar but different?
Word of God: Carla is Asexual.
So, y’know. Not interested in sex.
But still homoromantic. Can still be romantically attracted to other girls, like Malaya. Or Sal. or Billy, Amazi-Girl, Marcie, Dina, Amber, or whoever Willis decides.
Except Rachel. Please, not Rachel, Willis.
At this point you’re just feeding the shippers.
XD would willis go that far? I hadn’t thought as far as rachal, I was only shuddering over how wrong it would be for Joe to try to hit on Carla, since he’s more likely to hit on any female then not.
I hadn’t really thought of a romantic attraction to either of her shortpacked parents… so thanks for that.
now I have to go die.
1. Repeat relationships can happen (see Sal and Jason).
2. Carla is now on the cast page, so you can expect to see a lot more of her (though Malaya isn’t).
3. See other comments!
Ugh. Malaya. My least favorite character.
Oh well. At least we get Marcie.
Finally, Almost all my favorite characters in one place. If Sierra and maybe Billie showed up I wouldn’t be able to take it.
IKR!?
Are we (non-Shortpacked readers) supposed to know who Malaya is?
This is her first speaking appearance.
This strip pretty much sums it up.
No, you’re not. Except that if you’ve picked up from this strip that she’s entitled and cranky, you’ve pretty much got what you need to know.
She’s the sexiest woman alive is who she is.
You’re making Sierra sad. You don’t want to make Sierra sad, do you?
Eh, Sierra will be OK. Just as long as she doesn’t have to wear shoes…
My love for Sierra Transcends her body.
Sexiest woman alive? I doubt that but hey, sexiness is subjective.
If he’s a coprophiliac, who are we to judge?
Every single time I witness something related to this particular subject I question whether it’s actually beneficial to make US teens think about alcohol as something uber-cool and unattainable. Because at the end of the day, that’s what this whole ‘only above 21′ age restriction does. It’s sometimes really sad to see that supposedly semi-grown ups completely lose their shit when they get some alcohol. “Holyshit we’re 19 and we got alcohol!! let’s drink all of it at once!!11”. I’m not saying underage drinking is in any way preferable, but 21 is just way over the line. It just makes these “kids” frustrated and they learn their limits way too late. Or maybe I’m just some liberal scum that has no clear principles about this because in my country pretty much nobody actually frickin’ cares if their 16 year old kids have been drinking a bottle of beer at a party.
This is really complicated, man. But to me it seems like the message it ultimately delivers is that “alcohol is totes a grown up thing and at 18 we can’t trust you to drink what so ever” and thus they overrate the value of it.
With that said, according to WHO, my country has the highest alcohol consumption rate and we’re the 30th on the list of alcohol-related deaths. I wish this was an easier subject, really.
I am a red-blooded American who grew up in the same general region that Dumbing of Age takes place in (and where all its characters grew up) and… I entirely agree with you. I’m not much of a drinker (I hate being drunk, so I avoid anything over a mild buzz) but I think you’ve nailed the psychology behind the insane sort of binge drinking that happens in America.
Linked elsewhere, too: underage drinkers are more likely to form alcohol dependencies
I sort of agree with my bf [note: neither of us are drinkers], if children are taught an *appreciation* of alcohol from a young age, it’s less likely this kind of thing will happen to these such “suddenly legal adult” groups. Like how my mother let us use matches under supervision to teach us 1. how and 2. that they aren’t mysterious magical playtoys [though science IS awesome]. I do fiddle with fire when the power goes out, but that’s more boredom, and I’m SUPER cautious when I do.
But then, I don’t [plan to] have kids to try this method myself, so YMMV. I think the law is overall fine, and minors [as relate to alcohol] shouldn’t just be given carte-blanche to buy alcohol without question. It’s a lot more of a “takes a village” approach to do well, something that’s unfortunately been internetted out of the latest self-isolating generations.
Yes, very much about alcohol, what to do with it, how to react to it, is cultural, it’s learned.
Forgot to add that while we can’t trust them at 18 to drink, we can absolutely trust them to drive safely on the roads and they are grown up enough that we can just kick them out of the house and make them live in college.
That’s the weirdest part for me.
Because drinking, driving, voting, and having sex really don’t have THAT much do to with each other, so a catch-all age when they’re all spontaneously okay doesn’t really work.
[that might make it worse, all these, say, 18yos suddenly out of the house somehow doing all four at once]
I would like to strongly agree with the opinion Marcie in fact did not express.
Marcie’s face on the other hand is quite telling…
I hope a roller derby team with this girls happen.
So…. we have a girl who looks like a girl in an alternate universe, who was actually a car who decided to look like a girl.
I’m going to term this “Reverse Kinetic Uncanny Valley” – she looks human, even though you’re used to seeing her as a robot made to look (almost) like a human!
What is Sal’s face doing in that last panel?
She’s mutating into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size ad strength.
Or merging with a Sal from the future just like Timecop teaches you to avoid.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Is it just me, or is the end of her nose at the same level as her eyeball?
Either I’m looking at it wrong or something is just not right here (possibly both).
You know if they wanted Beer they could have just invited Billie- Oh my GOD Billie should be here for this! To see the great Battle of Amazi-girl vs Sal on the greatest stage of them wrestlemania 31- what just a Parking lot, eh its still hype.
Matter of fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Billie just walked out of Walemart with Three crates of beer.
Three crates? More like two kegs and that’s just for herself.
Kegs? Try stolen beer trailer.
Stolen beer trailer? Try the entire brewery.
Billie was one of the few backers for the dog-powered beer cart
Billie, Neeeeeeeeds, To be in this storyline.
I think Billie is trying to go cold turkey right now.
So she’s got a lot of booze she’s not using, right?
Billie doesn’t seem like she would be a very fun drunk. Drink hard. Pass out. Roll on your side so you don’t choke on your own vomit. Wake up in a pool of your own vomit. Repeat.*
She might bring the alcohol but she might also be a real buzz-kill.
*pooping yourself is optional
Oh God, DoA has been infected.
With juices!
With justice??
Yeah…first the synthoids and then we get VIs. Next thing you know, the VIs would then ask if they have a soul…and then it will all lead to the Morning War, we lost and we have to leave the planet and now live in a huge spaceship flotilla and be wearing containment suits for the rest of our lives and looking like Photoshopped faces.
I’m less concerned with the synthoid than I am with the humanoid virus that is Malaya.
*Technically* that started with Ethan, Amber, and Mike.
’cause Amber HAD to bring Blaine and Faz, huh
Eh, Mike’s been around since Roomies!. If we’re counting people who were in Shortpacked! but weren’t introduced there, the infection began in strip #1 with Joyce.
I love ‘abso-freakin’ right’. I mean, who needs ‘lutely’ anyway xD
I gotta ask, is Beer-weiser a real knockoff brand?
I had kinda hoped for a sentient SUV to come into being in this universe, but oh well, I guess I’ll take what I can get.
Does Carla’s shirt say “Fuck humans”?
yup
she definitely does not mean it literally
Man, now I’ve gotta figure out whether to count that as an F-bomb or not.
How is Malaya not on the scoreboard yet?
Oh, she will be soon enough.
I would pay so much for that shirt if t was real.
This is not helping my extant Sal/Marcie ship. Of course, if Jen keeps speaking it may never go away.
I…. I never noticed the word balloons.
What does Carla shirt say? All I can make out is “Fuck”.
ALL HUMENS
Humans
Literally or figuratively? Or how the the one percent or some secret cabal’s been doing to us lately?
According to Willis, it’s figuratively.
I like Marcie shes so gonna be the best rebel yet. Hopes
I know why Carla doesn’t like Malaya right off the bat… It I because she doesn’t have her shoulders exposed.
CARLA! Yessss. It’s so surreal seeing her like this.
I wonder if Carla will be asexual homoromantic (I think that’s right… don’t read Shortpacked much)
scroll up a ways
I dunno, Sal’s eye looks weird in that last panel.
I really thought that I was reading Shortpacked for a while there.
That doesn’t look like a 6 pack to me. Its a 12 case at least!
I was about to write up a huge diatribe condemning everybody for thinking that racism exists in the world when CARLA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Sal’s eye Is weird in that last panel.
Carla, yeah, wtg!
Marcie, fantastic.
Malaya, why?
Billie, where?
Well hello there Carla…fancy seeing you here as a human. Nice to know she’s human in at least one timeline!
I hit my DoA in NY state when the legal drinking age there was 18.
Got my full drivers license at 17, and drunk license at 18.
Worked out pretty well, I had a year of driving before I could drink and drive.
My generation didn’t wear helmets either.
We worry too much.
When I was seventeen,
I drank some very good beer,
I drank some very good beer
I purchased with a fake ID.
My name was Brian McGee,
I stayed up listenin’ to Queen
When I was seventeen.
Wisconsin — late 1960s/early 1970s. Legal to get ‘learner’s permit’ to drive at age 15½. Driver’s ed classes — in-class as well as behind-the-wheel — were offered in high school. Could take the test and get issued “probationary” license (the famous “temps”) on your 16th birthday, which after one year of good driving (no accident/no tickets) would be able to be upgraded to a “regular” license.
And we had a two-tier drinking law. Beer was legal at age 18; you had to wait until 21 for the hard stuff (wine and liquor). There were special “beer bars” that only served draft beer which did a huge trade, especially in my part of the state which was on the Minnesota border.
Smoking, if I remember correctly, was always set at 18.
And then with the VietNam war sending 18-year-olds off to southeast Asia and the passing of the 26th Amendment which gave 18-year-olds the right to vote, Wisconsin reduced their “age of majority” to 18, giving 18-year-olds full rights to drink any alcohol, marry, make contracts, sign papers, etc. And we’ve been going backwards from there.
oooooo digging the title of the new book
Well hello Carla. I see your chassis is as delightful as ever. tell me, do you moonlight as the masked vigilante known as the Amaz…..ing spider car?
Spider-Carla!
lol, thanks for finishing my thought. I’m not sure why it didn’t finish properly… I was probably up to late and thought i typed it in. (either way i was going for a fake out on our obsessive intentionally wrong guesses about Amazi-girl’s identity)
Why do these college kids need fake IDs to get alcohol?
Oh right, because America some a crazy ass drinking age.
We all do, Sal.
We all do.
Random thought that doesn’t really matter what the answer is but I’ve been wondering about anyway; is Marcie deaf, or mute? In previous strips she’s responded to Sal while Sal’s face was obscured by her helmet, I think, which would suggest the latter (assuming I’m not wrong).
Marcie is mute but not deaf.
She has exactly two words in her, and she’s saving them.
Another random thought that doesn’t really matter and might be entirely wrong because I can’t remember whether Malaya is gay or bisexual;
Malaya and Mike. Tell me that’s not a match made in … um, “Heaven” would be inappropriate. They’d get along like a house on fire!
I think Malaya’s sexuality was never quite defined. She had sex with men and was attracted to women but Leslie and she didn’t spark. I think ambiguity was a good choice for her.
I’m hoping Malaya begins an illicit affair with Leslie Bean in this universe. I’m eager to see Leslie expand beyond her love of Robin and that was a relationship I felt died in its infancy when it was really working good.
Leslie made a bargain with the evil deity who runs her multiverse to make that relationship never happen.
evil deity? nah, this deity is giving and creative. This deity offers hope and laughter. You know, so he can cruelly torture his creations and audience… and give the comments section things to whine about.
So just like God, then?
Yup. Although she didn’t have to sign away her soul for that — she just had to
insert alt text hereI gotta say I really hope not because that would be so sketchy. She’s a teacher!
Assuming Malaya’s not actually one of Leslie’s students, it’s probably less sketchy than Roz trying to hook Leslie up with her sister, and definitely less sketchy than Sal banging her TA.
Woohoo!! New entries
Also, according to the title, this storyline will be set only in this specific night eh?
I loooove that!
So many things will happen.
I can’t believe Carla is huuumahn!
is it just me or does sal look really weird in the last panel?
And suddenly the redheaded Billie enters the scene.
Not really excited about the direction this appears to be going.
Is that Sal’s eye? WTF is with Sal’s eye?
What, she couldn’t get a 12-pak? or 2 6-paks?
What happened to Sal’s eye in the last panel?? A stroke?
When I was in high school, a friend worked out a standard alcohol table, based on one beer equals one unit. For wine and liquor, divided the proof by the volume to get the unit measurement. If it is 60 proof and you buy a fifth, that equals 12 units. Regular beer is about 4/5 per cent or 10 proof and 12 ounces is 1/10 of a gallon. Helps when aiming to buy as much drunk as possible for your limited cash.
Wasn’t expecting this. Need to wash away the hype with some o’ dat BEER-WEISER!
I thought this Carla girl was really Amber in disguise until I read the comments. I’m not wrong in thinking that they look extremely similar, am I?
Um. Yes?
I guess they both wear glasses.
Just like with Amber/Mike and Walky/Joyce in DoA, I find myself internally shouting “Oh my god, you two love each other in another universe!!!” with Carla and Malaya here.
So, is there still a word filter on Ultra-Car?
It went away sometime between 00:04 and 00:11 on April 6th, when Ultra Car became a canon character in the Dumbiverse.
So much to say, here…
Clearly Marcia and Sal are good friends who know each other well. Marcia can transmit her disdain for Malaya to Sal with a single scrunched eyebrow.
Malaya is not a likeable character, but I like her, anyway. She’s the sort who wants to belong and have friends, but her social defenses prevent her from admitting it.
And Carla. Oh, lovely Ultra-Car. No, she’s not a robot in this universe, but she’s probably still abrasive, aloof, and enamored of practical jokes (Will she throw pies? Tell me she throws pies.) And she’s probably still adamantly asexual, which will excite and frustrate Malaya to no end.
Marcie
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa just two hands aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
This makes up for yesterday’s comments.
It’s a good thing UC and Malaya just finished their huge character development arc in Shortpacked!, otherwise I’d probably go cross-eyed trying to keep the universes apart.
I’m with Malaya. Who buys a single six pack for 4 people? At least grab two so it divides evenly!
It’s college. If you’re not broke and pooling pocket change to buy a pizza for five people, you aren’t doing it right.
WTF Happened to Sal’s eye in that last panel!?!
Yay! I just love Marcie so much.
And that new red haired girl is quite cute! Is she gonna be recurring? =D
She’s been on the cast page since before this comic ever came up, so you can be nigh certain she will.
Whoa! I didn’t see all the changed to the cast page. But I remember seeing her pop on Willis’ twitter some weeks ago.
So her and Jacob were added to the page… But Roz and Becky were removed.
Becky makes sense, she doesn’t even go here. And Roz, well, she’s failed to make any significant ties among the main cast so outside Gender Studies we likely won’t be seeing her much. For now at least
301 comments- this might be a record for a DoA thread that’s not a huge flamewar about sexism!
This comic features an Asian person, a differently abled (mute) person, a person of mixed race, and a transgender asexual. And they are ALL girls.
The “Tokenism!” crowd took one look and died of a collective stroke.
Are we sure Carla is actually transgender in this universe? I mean, she wasn’t born a car in this verse. She probably could still be non-binary, but I don’t think it’ll be the same deal as in the Walkyverse.
On the other hand, she’s probably still asexual, so point still stands.
Yeah, 90% of them are just “CARLA” and questions about robosexuality
the other 10% are people freaking out about sal’s eye, which i find odd because she’s pretty clearly just glancing down and to the right, in marcie’s direction. but shrug.
Wouldn’t wearing a motorcycle jacket off the shoulders like that be kind of uncomfortable? I mean, they go right up to the back of the neck and they aren’t exactly made of elastic. I wouldn’t think they’d stretch.
If you wanna be in this crowd, you have to hang at least one article of clothing off of your shoulders. This is why no one likes Malaya–lack of shoulder-hanging.
That’s kinda Sal’s thing. She has great shoulders, and likes to show them off.
She had one custom made to accommodate hot shoulder reveals
Round human pupils!!
Carla’s carrying a box. There is no way that’s only a 6-pack – that’s a minimum case of 12. Not that Malaya can get buzzed off 3 love-in-a-canoe beers, but apparently no one can do math either.
Unless Carla’s hogging six for herself, which is fair if she coughed up the cash herself.
If they’re going to sell you beer already, why would you by the smallest box possible?
I know Sal is half-black and half-white, but I cant help thinking she is Mexican. I have been trying to think otherwise but every single time, I can’t help seeing her, and Walky for that matter, talking in spanish at home.
That’s fine… I keep seeing her and Walky as Indian. :p
(id est India, not Native American)
I find it baffling that in the twenty first century Indian is still used as a term for Native Americans at all when it makes no sense. I guess it’s been a hard cultural habit to break out of. But yes, that was my initial inkling as well.
Sorry, I think most people are aware enough to jump to the India conclusion, but a niggling part of me feels that it’s necessary to clarify just in case.
Nice to know that Malaya is an asshole in this universe, too. Some things never change.
ha ha, Carla, good one
OMG, I just realized – this group is Amazi-Girl’s Legion of Doom.
Okay, we’ve got:
their leader, The Black Bandit,
her minion, The Mute Menace,
the loose cannon, SkHater Girl,
and of course, Spider-Carla!
@damnyouwillis: The romance ark for Malaya and UC is resolved in Shortpacked!, they’ve gotten their ambiguous ever after there, and they’re here in DoA. Does that mean they’ve left the toy store and we won’t see them there any more?
what, no
DoA and SP! Take place in separate universes, with no ties between them. The characters are the same, but the situations are different. Carla is human in this one, which is why everyone is freaking out about her round speech bubbles.
That’s not exactly what I meant. Mike and Amber spoiler removed and then showed up here. Jacob another spoiler removed and then became a major character over here, for instance. (In fact, the alt text that day called that out.) So it’s not unreasonable to ask if UC and Malaya had been thrown under the bus in SP! or not.
Willis has said no, though, so we can expect to see them again in SP!
I like the idea of Carla driving the Car version of herself from Shortpacked!
She did that in Shortpacked!
Really?…damn must have forgotten that!
Hmm, good to see ultra Car again. Also…Carla? Clever XP
Simply showing a Fake ID works in some places still? Hell, I have to get my ID run through the machine to verify the age on it is correct. (28, look older) Magnetic Strips on them exist for reason.
Um, does Carla look like Ruth to anyone else (non-Walkyverse reader here)? Is that intentional?
She’s SUPPOSED to look like a talking SUV.
…
I think you should read the rest of the Walkyverse, though SPOILERS now.
Panel 3 is kinda creepy. I could easily imagine her saying something like “Scream all you want, no one will hear you here” or “I think you’ll find escape is quite impossible.”
A random thought, which may be entirely wrong, wrongheaded, incorrect, ignorant, and/or stupid;
Carla is a sophomore, and apparently transgender and made of meat (rather than trans-chassis robot). So she’s about nineteen or so, I think? (I don’t know the American college system very well). Given all the rigamarole that surrounds transitioning etc, isn’t that kinda young for someone to have transitioned? My (entirely citation-needed) understanding was that most trans* people transition later, when they’re more likely to have the financial stability to be able to afford it. At the very least she must have understanding parents/caregivers/whatnot willing to bankroll the hormonal therapies and such.
Addendum to the above: apologies if I’ve somehow caused offense; it was not my intention. I’m just not entirely sure of the preferred terminology involved, and I know that terminology can be a Big Deal.
Probably depends on if she’s transsexual, having undergone a surgical transition, or transgendered, self-indentifying as a girl while being biologically male.
It’s young, but it’s becoming more common as parents become more educated about trans issues. People transition older out of necessity, but it’s often much more difficult, physically and emotionally. But now that there are more resources for gender non-conforming kids, more parents are supporting their kids if they want to present as their identified gender at school, take hormone blockers to stave off puberty until they’re old enough to decide to medically transition, or take hormones. Carla may well have been presenting as a girl since elementary school, assuming she knew that early. (Some kids do.) She probably hasn’t had surgery, assuming that’s a thing she wants, but I don’t think it’s unrealistic for her to be on hormones at this age.
Wait, did I miss the memo that said she was trans? D:
Where does it say that?
You didn’t miss anything in the comic! We just know because of outside information.
You didn’t miss anything in the comic! We just know because of outside information.
Dammit, now those two are infesting Dumbing. The only upside here would be if Mayala crosses paths with Mike and he shows her how to be an asshole with style rather than just being bitter about being alive.
How did they even end up friends? She doesn’t even have friends in the Walkyverse except Ultra Car.
Who wants to drink more than 1 warm beer any way? Blah!
Am I the only one who totally ships Sal and Malaya?
YAY!! I know who these people are now!!
I think I now understand better why Carla has a good fake ID!