A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
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.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Monster's Garden
Ash G.
Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
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!
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
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Eh, the top could stand to be a little shorter. IRL it’d probably be fine since you can see textures etc, but here the blue blends with her daisy dukes and makes it look like a onsie. If we could see more of the shorts that probably wouldn’t happen as much.
I’ve never found that whole ‘pockets sticking out of the bottom of the shorts’ look attractive. Yes, by all means wear REALLY short shorts if you’ve got good legs, but lose the pockets, please.
The pockets thing actually has a lot of semiotics and culture-war bound up in it. The most obvious is that we are seeing something traditionally hidden. The inside part of pants pockets is classically private, invisible, only to be seen when pants are coming off. By allowing that part to show, she is crossing a barrier, and tweaking the mundane, but without, y’know, having her ass hanging out of the back of her pants or whatnot.
Further, there’s the whole fashion war over women’s clothing having pockets. Most women’s clothing has no pockets, decorative pockets, or very shallow pockets (as Walky & Dorothy discussed a while back). Carla here is demonstrating that she has *real* pockets, consarnit, and she refuses to hide them just because the fashion industry says she shouldn’t have pockets. Asking her to hide them can thus be seen as a form of “correction”, as discussed by Leslie way back re: The Muppets.
…Or am I bluffing?
You’re totally bluffing. I can tell because you talk like social scientists talk when they want people to think they’re scientists. “Semiotics” is a code word for “here comes bullshit”.
I’ve found that being aware of how we talk and think about things clarifies the apprehension of our environment greatly— and by “clarifies” I mean “increases the effectiveness,” and by “the apprehension of our environment” I mean “our grant proposals.”
As for the actual topic, I think it’s a signal that “I cut these off for comfort, not sex,” although it’s probably more likely that the jeans had a tear in them and cutting the legs off was faster than mending them in a way that didn’t look like spider vomit and cheaper than buying a new pair of shorts.
I think Sal’s jealous that Marcie, with whom she previously had a pretty exclusive superclose friendship, is now also friends with Malaya. Rather than expand the circle and skate with them, she’d rather ignore anything involving Malaya. I can understand this, seeing as I was the Sal figure in a very similar situation in fourth grade, but… I mean, c’mon. That was fourth grade.
Maybe Marcie has romantic feelings for Malaya…? And Sal don’t like it? Or it could really just be replace “romantic” with “friendly” in above comment. I have no clue.
Roller derby involves a lot of close physical contact. It’s not uncommon to end up in a heap together. If you’re not as blind to your own feelings as, say, Danny, but are also not comfortable with them, you will make sure you avoid situations where Joe is likely to jump out of the bushes and shout, “Now KISS!”
Sal is jealous/miffed over any activities that involve Marcie hanging out with people who aren’t Sal.
Must suck to finally get back from psudo-prison/private-school in another state and have your childhood best friend hanging out with other people over you.
I thought Sal stuff consisted of Riding A motorcycle up and down a street just for the sake of it, doing her Math Teacher but not her Math Homework, playing Mario Kart and verbally tearing her brother a new one.
No wonder she’s voiceless in this universe: Mister Torgue can’t not explode things while he speaks– if not with actual explosives, then by the sheer volume of his words.
I think Sal liked that Marcie primarily pays attention to her and doesn’t like sharing their time together. She won’t derby because then she’s sharing Marcie with the teama nd she doesn’t like Malaya hanging out with them either.
I confess, I’m troubled by the fact Ethan and Danny is the biggest opposition to Danny/Sal. Admittedly, Sal is more likely to approve of it than Amber.
Or maybe not. I keep confusing Sal’s persona for her real personality when it’s actually just a construct to try to deal with the fact she’s very very insecure.
You’re terrible. I will ship that only if it is shipped to the surface of the sun, where it and any shipping containers it came in contact with van be burned by pure, cleansing solar radiation and plasmic fire. Shut up, Chrome, plasmic is so too a word.
Nobody seems to have guessed the backstory: Sal used to skate with Marcie but some past skating accident caused by Sal destroyed Marcie’s vocal chords. Hence, Sal refuses to skate and sees in Malaya all the reckless stupid attitudes and behaviors that Sal has tried to shake off.
I was hit by a car while I was crossing the street once.
I wasn’t afraid of crosswalks before and I didn’t gain a new fear of them afterward. Crosswalks are totally cool and I will continue to use them. A random disaster need not turn you off from doing things!
So what might be happening is that a random disaster turned Sal off from skating but not Marcie. Or maybe Sal was the cause of the disaster and hasn’t forgiven herself for it, while Marcie either already has forgiven Sal or is unaware of Sal’s involvement.
Considering Sal’s skates still fit, it might have been fairly recent– within the previous couple of years.
Whatever happened to make Marcie lose her voice and cause she and Sal to learn sign happened “when [they] were kids”. I dunno exactly what Sal’s definition of “kids” is, but I don’t think she means within the last couple years.
Also relevant: Sal’s been in exile in Tennessee for the last five years. I don’t know if Marcie followed her there or not, but it’s a lot easier for an 18-year-old to follow her friend to the local college than for a 13-year-old to follow her friend to a boarding school in another state. It’s possible that Marcie was also exiled there, but I can almost hear Linda talking about getting Sal away from that bad influence. (I really want to see Marcie in Avalon uniform now, though.)
And Billie and Walky seem casually familiar with Marcie, and don’t show any notable reaction to her signing, but they’ve had little to no contact with Sal since her exile, so I’m thinking whatever happened to cause Marcie to lose her voice must have happened before then.
Dude I had a guy try to kill me with a car, two different guys on two separate occasions. For riding a bicycle in the street no less. As soon as I get the last bike that was stolen from me back from the cops, I’m going to ride my bike in the street again, because otherwise the terrorists win.
I don’t think it has anything to do with skating. I think that Sal just doesn’t want to skate with them because she hates Malaya, and hates having Marcie’s attention be on someone other than herself.
Sal has proved that she can skate, better than was thought.
I have 3 ideas why Sal is upset.
My thoughts are that she doesn’t skate as well as Malaya and, being Sal she is not about to put herself in second place to anyone.
Besides which, I don’t think she really likes Malaya all that well.
And I think that she is upset that Marcie, her dearest childhood friend, is not picking up on this.
One last thought, Marcie is sharp as Hell, I think she know exactly what Sal is bugged about, but being Marcie and not spineless: she is doing what she wants to do. She won’t give up other friends to be exclusive to Sal, after all she moved here to be with Sal. I think she knows Sal will realize that, hopefully.
She came over to say goodnight and calmly went home, which means she’s sending Sal a message. It’s up to Sal to figure it out.
I don’t think romance has anything to do with this whole arch.
I think.
I agree. I tried to put a spin on it and try it with a “typical romantic couple” (aka male female) and it didn’t seem inherently romantic to me in that situation either.
I don’t think Sal has a thing for Marcie. I think that Sal has very few people she considers friends, and is annoyed that her friend is not being friend monogamous with her, especially with someone she already dislikes.
Or we’re seeing who Sal has been all along: a girl who so desperately wants what her brother effortlessly manages – to belong. And the “awesomesauce” is actually armor.
“Nobody loves me
Everybody hates me
I’m going out in the garden
and eat worms.”
C’mon Sal, the world doesn’t revolve around you. That ‘I’m a rebel’ crap only goes so far, then it gets old. People move on, have other interests, other friends, other places to hang out. Face it, kid, they’re outgrowing you.
Really? How bothered has Walky been by Dorothy’s interests and relationships that aren’t him? Cuz he seems pretty ok with not being the center of Dorothy’s universe. More time with her would be rad, sure but he’s not throwing a tantrum about it or anything, nor does he discount any of her non-Walky time activities as invalid.
Hell, Walky has on multiple occasions valued other things more highly than his relationship with Dorothy. Walky’s not all that needy! (I mean, he does have needs, and those needs are strange! But not in the same way or the same degree as Sal is showing here.)
But that would be because Walky’s needs have been consistently met throughout his life. Sal’s clearly haven’t. He doesn’t have to ask for things, or jealously guard the people in his life, because they’ve consistently been there. When Sal got to be “too much to handle,” her parents got rid of her(at least, from her perspective). Her twin brother apparently just ignored her after she went away.
Marcie appears to be the only person who ever gave Sal undivided attention (Jason doesn’t count). And now Sal’s losing that. Meaning she’s being passed over for someone else again (from her POV). Hence: cranky.
I assume “Home” is only between quotation marks because Sal’s repeating Marcie’s answer back at her, but for a moment it got me wondering if there was something more to it. We don’t know where Marcie lives, but it’s not at campus, since she’s not a student at IU.
There is no way for the reader to know what Carla means in this comic. It is epic trolling for comments. But Ima go with: Carla is staring at Marcie’s butt in the second last panel and realizing Sal alienates the derby girls because she wants to watch them skate away. As do we all.
Shorts with the pockets sticking out the legs like that… well, let’s put it this way — they’re either just silly and trashy looking if you cut them off yourself, or silly and trashy and also foolish if you paid $100+ for them to come that way at the store.
Marcie has already done ALL the stuff, including stuff nobody thought it was possible to do, like making Sal and Carla look even more adorable than usual. Really, 3rd panel Sal and 4th panel Carla are just phenomenal.
She still hasn’t managed to beat Jen to first comment, though.
Actually, Marcie used to be in Jen Aside’s gravatar, so there was a while when she was appearing before every one of Jen’s comments. While making out with Sal.
Fffff the tiny change of expression of Carla’s face between panels three and four is AMAZING. I had to do a double take to make sure there actually was a change. My brain noticed the change in emotion before it actually registered the change in her expression.
She may be ace, but she could still have romantic feelings. So she could be emotionally/intellectually attracted, or even a version of physically attracted. Asexual just means you don’t want to have sex; many people express that differently.
If we’re going off of her Shortpacked version, she’s asexual and no has interest in sex, but is not aromantic (though her DoA version may not be the same). So she could have a bit of a crush on Sal, though I doubt it.
“Asexuality (or nonsexuality) is the lack of sexual attraction to anyone, or low or absent interest in sexual activity. It may be considered the lack of a sexual orientation, or one of the four variations thereof”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we’ve all had sex without sexual attraction at least once, but that’s not quit how that works. “Not attracted to anyone” is a matter of sexual dimorphism, not sexuality.
The joy of pestering it is then. (Carla’s book on the subject, appropriately titled The Joy of Pestering, will be released by Simon and Schuster in June of 2019.)
You can have super strong feelings for someone that are completely platonic. You can feel really possesive, especially when your hold on the “best friend” title seems in question.
People get jealous of others for doing things with the people they like, especially if it’s something they can’t do.
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sorry Sal, she has done ALL THE THINGS
There are no things left to do. Therefore… *mind enters horrible tangents theorizing what she’s done*
Ah, but has she done… THE MIKE?!?!
Okay, this is bad and I admit it – she’s not even a mother yet.
Grumpy Sal and Mike… I could uh, get into that. (I don’t normally ship folks but I think tumblr is wearing off on me) >.>
I suspect Sal is too much of a lightweight in the misanthropy department to appeal to Mike.
Wait, IU has a misanthropy department?
Yes, they call it Indiana University.
Marcie not only did the mike, she dropped it.
*thump* *feedback*
Is this thing turned on?
mike could arrange that for a nickel
And then some?
WE HAVE LEARNED ALL THE KNOWLEDGE.
Grumpy Sal is adorable.
I know right !?
True
Is Sal being what you call ‘tsundere’? Cuz I’m thinkin’, tsundere.
Never realised Sal was such a party-pooper.
Apropos of nothing, Carla looks quite nice in this outfit.
So does Sal. But it is Sal. <3 Sal.
Sal looks nice in any outfit. Or even in NO OUTFIT AT ALL.
dun dunn dunnn
Eh, the top could stand to be a little shorter. IRL it’d probably be fine since you can see textures etc, but here the blue blends with her daisy dukes and makes it look like a onsie. If we could see more of the shorts that probably wouldn’t happen as much.
I’ve never found that whole ‘pockets sticking out of the bottom of the shorts’ look attractive. Yes, by all means wear REALLY short shorts if you’ve got good legs, but lose the pockets, please.
The pockets thing actually has a lot of semiotics and culture-war bound up in it. The most obvious is that we are seeing something traditionally hidden. The inside part of pants pockets is classically private, invisible, only to be seen when pants are coming off. By allowing that part to show, she is crossing a barrier, and tweaking the mundane, but without, y’know, having her ass hanging out of the back of her pants or whatnot.
Further, there’s the whole fashion war over women’s clothing having pockets. Most women’s clothing has no pockets, decorative pockets, or very shallow pockets (as Walky & Dorothy discussed a while back). Carla here is demonstrating that she has *real* pockets, consarnit, and she refuses to hide them just because the fashion industry says she shouldn’t have pockets. Asking her to hide them can thus be seen as a form of “correction”, as discussed by Leslie way back re: The Muppets.
…Or am I bluffing?
You’re totally bluffing. I can tell because you talk like social scientists talk when they want people to think they’re scientists. “Semiotics” is a code word for “here comes bullshit”.
I’ve found that being aware of how we talk and think about things clarifies the apprehension of our environment greatly— and by “clarifies” I mean “increases the effectiveness,” and by “the apprehension of our environment” I mean “our grant proposals.”
As for the actual topic, I think it’s a signal that “I cut these off for comfort, not sex,” although it’s probably more likely that the jeans had a tear in them and cutting the legs off was faster than mending them in a way that didn’t look like spider vomit and cheaper than buying a new pair of shorts.
Oh, good grief, they’re just Daisy Dukes.
John, they’re only Daisies.
She really, really does.
Carla going back on her word? Heaven forbid.
HOW CAN THIS BE???
Wait, I know I must be super dumb or something, but I don’t get it.
I think Sal’s jealous that Marcie, with whom she previously had a pretty exclusive superclose friendship, is now also friends with Malaya. Rather than expand the circle and skate with them, she’d rather ignore anything involving Malaya. I can understand this, seeing as I was the Sal figure in a very similar situation in fourth grade, but… I mean, c’mon. That was fourth grade.
Oh… I thought maybe Sal had romantic feelings for Marcie.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive…
Also an option. I’m a fan of that option.
But how would that explain why she doesn’t roller-derby?
She doesn’t like sharing Marcie with other people.
Maybe Marcie has romantic feelings for Malaya…? And Sal don’t like it? Or it could really just be replace “romantic” with “friendly” in above comment. I have no clue.
Roller derby involves a lot of close physical contact. It’s not uncommon to end up in a heap together. If you’re not as blind to your own feelings as, say, Danny, but are also not comfortable with them, you will make sure you avoid situations where Joe is likely to jump out of the bushes and shout, “Now KISS!”
Who’s to say we all aren’t still in fourth grade? Isn’t life just boiled down to the cruel dog eat dog world of the afternoon blacktop?
A few minutes reading the comments section on any mainstream site makes it seem that AT LEAST 90% of the population seems to be stuck at that age.
And this is Dumbing of Age, where we work through issues from elementary school.
Me neither…
Sal is jealous/miffed over any activities that involve Marcie hanging out with people who aren’t Sal.
Must suck to finally get back from psudo-prison/private-school in another state and have your childhood best friend hanging out with other people over you.
Sal stuffs.
I thought Sal stuff consisted of Riding A motorcycle up and down a street just for the sake of it, doing her Math Teacher but not her Math Homework, playing Mario Kart and verbally tearing her brother a new one.
Also public drinking/smoking and jet skiing.
Baked a ham? Yes.
Assembled a particle accelerator from chewing gum and twine? Yes.
Wrestled a shark wearing a bolo tie? Yes.
Which one of them was wearing the bolo tie, Marcie or the shark? Yes.
Marcie has done all the things.
Marcie’s last name is MacGyver?
WHOA!
Has she patted her head while simultaneously rubbing her tummy?
And wearing a bolo tie.
Marcie was Mister Torgue in a previous life?
No wonder she’s voiceless in this universe: Mister Torgue can’t not explode things while he speaks– if not with actual explosives, then by the sheer volume of his words.
Last panel Carla is extra cute. ^_^
Seriously, she’s adorable but if we said that to her face she would kill us both.
That’s the perils of the tsundere/yandere.
The perils are worth the payoff sometimes!
Agreed to all of the above.
Me, I get it from the new default gravatar of her too. Dat smirk.
Not kill us, but she would definitely fall over laughing due to the sheer number of insults overloading her brain.
If you weren’t being so sour on Malaya all three of you could have done all the things together Sal. Malaya might actually be dare I say….fun.
Oh, I get it! It’s because… because…
Okay, I have no idea.
Me neither.
Oh thank zeus i thought i was the only one who has not figured it out.
Carla hasn’t actually figured it out either she just wants to appear superior.
I think Sal liked that Marcie primarily pays attention to her and doesn’t like sharing their time together. She won’t derby because then she’s sharing Marcie with the teama nd she doesn’t like Malaya hanging out with them either.
Apparently Sal doesn’t like it when Marcie hangs out with other people.
Sorry Sal, Malaya has satisfied all or Marcie’s needs. Now she must sleep before round two begins.
That’s actually how skaters breed is prolonged rollerblading.
All of Marcie’s needs. All of them.
I never realised that Malaya was soooo talented.
There’s a reason she’s the best.
“See ya tomorrow! Maybe!”
Oh Groundhog Day, you’re the gift that keeps on giving… and giving…
Is it because of Malaya? Is Sal suffering a kind of Malayaese?
boooooooooooooo
GET OFF THE STAGE !
*grabs the shepherd’s crook*
Willis, your gravatar send a mixed message in this case.
I’d congratulate you on the pun, but the Willis hath spoken…
Wait are we not allowed to congratulate puns we find interesting?
Just realized willis commented. I’m am idiot
A groan or boo is the proper method of pun congratulations, though!
Pungratulations?
Throwing tomatoes is also acceptable.
*toss* *splat*
First rule of punnery- outbursts of laughter, groans of pain, or fits of rage all count as a victory.
That was incredible.
I love that Carla’s pockets descend below the bottoms of her shorts, Wet Hot American Summer-style.
http://carboncostume.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/victorpulak.jpg
Sal being so jealous that she is also being petty is actually kind of fun to see…
Time to vent her Anger with MARIO KART !!!
On Second SMASH BROS instead, hope Danny traded up to That because its the better Game.
Sal, she wasn’t a part of that conversation. She doesn’t understand the reference.
Does Sal just enjoy having a ciggy in her mouth or is she a chain smoker?
I think it’s both. She told Danny she just likes the feeling of a cig in her mouth.
I think that feeling alone is calming to an addict.
Wait, why would she be orally fixated she had such a happy childhood …
How often her cigarettes seem to be actually lit? I’m too lazy to crawl the archives to check.
I apparently was also too lazy to put a do between the often and her. Poor, neglected do.
Often enough for her to have that distinctive smell, at least.
Wasn’t she smoking a couple of strips back?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/wall/
Yeah. Her cigarette doesn’t look like it’s lit, but the smoke had to come from somewhere. (Maybe she’s using an e-cig?)
E-cigs bear no physical resemblance to paper-and-tobacco cigarettes.
Except for the ones that do.
She did just have one in her mouth the first time she met Danny, if I recall correctly.
Wait she didn’t do all the things because she neglected Sal. Is it even possible to not want to hang out with Sal?!?!
Willis! The people demand a grumpy Sal plush, complete with tiny cigarette and motorcycle.
We need a kickstarter! Like yesterday!
I’m in
And an Amazi-girl plush, complete with fake 3DS and Amazi-condom in belt pockets?
OF COURSE
Don’t forget the removable mask and cheek stickers, and the Beat-up-Blaine doll. Squeeze him and his eyes pop out!
Is Carla even constitutionally capable of not being insufferable?
Why would she want to stop?
I find it hilarious Sal’s problems are the most banal and normal.
I wouldn’t count on that. After all we haven’t gotten much detail on what happened during Sal’s boarding school days.
I think she’s a little ticked at Sal, and is being passive aggressive.
Uh. This was *supposed* to be a reply to MelanieWaffle.
I wonder what Sal is implying by “home”? The mysteries keep piling up…
The place where Marcie lives?
Which may not be an actual home from those quotation marks.
Nah, I read that more as a “whaddya mean, ‘Home’?”, in reply to an unseen sign.
Marcie is giving her simple, one-sign (word) answers, as if it’s a perfectly ordinary and casual thing that she’s blowing Sal – SAL! – off. The cheek!
Hmmm, I s’pose you’re right. I might have been getting too interested in Marcie’s new status as a non-IU cast mate.
Also, one word replies in ASL are hella rude. Which, if Sal and Marcie had studied Deaf culture at all while learning, they would know.
I like to think that they did and they know. If so, Marcie answering Sal without complete sentences could be a sign of her frustration with Sal.
If Marcie replied with a full sentence, like “I’m going home,” Sal would still reply with “‘Home?!'” Because that’s the part she’s angry with.
I confess, I’m troubled by the fact Ethan and Danny is the biggest opposition to Danny/Sal. Admittedly, Sal is more likely to approve of it than Amber.
Or maybe not. I keep confusing Sal’s persona for her real personality when it’s actually just a construct to try to deal with the fact she’s very very insecure.
OH WOE!
Since neither Sal nor Danny have actually shown an interest in each other in this universe I’d say that’s the biggest opposition to them happening.
The fact that Ethan has already halfway seduced Danny entirely by accident is simply icing on the Not Gonna Happen cake.
Agree with timemonkey, but also, are we just gonna ignore the fact that Danny is totes dating Amazi-Girl?
Not for much longer if Ethan keeps bein all sexy like he has.
My thoughts exactly.
Because that’s already set to crash and burn, it’s kind of like Ethan/Joyce, a mistake that will destroy itself in time.
Not Gonna Happen cake: A variety of cake that never was or will be. Often served at Unbirthday parties. Or Birthday parties if nobody loves you.
Or Valentine’s day…if nobody loves you.
…So the Not Gonna Happen cake is a lie, then?
I’m so glad you said it so that I didn’t have to.
Just spitballin’ here, but… could there be romancin’s budding between Marcie/Malaya that Sal doesn’t approve of? (Hints the angers and jealousy…)
Just a thought.
I think we can ship it.
Can we ship it?
YES, WE CAN!
Of course we can ship it, we ship character pairs who have never even MET.
For example, I’m shipping Ryan x Blaine.
Wouldn’t they make a great villain duo?
You’re terrible. I will ship that only if it is shipped to the surface of the sun, where it and any shipping containers it came in contact with van be burned by pure, cleansing solar radiation and plasmic fire. Shut up, Chrome, plasmic is so too a word.
Nobody seems to have guessed the backstory: Sal used to skate with Marcie but some past skating accident caused by Sal destroyed Marcie’s vocal chords. Hence, Sal refuses to skate and sees in Malaya all the reckless stupid attitudes and behaviors that Sal has tried to shake off.
Yet Marcie misses skating with Sal, despite what it cost her? Interesting hypothesis there.
Sometimes people who cause accidents carry more guilt than their victims.
I was hit by a car while I was crossing the street once.
I wasn’t afraid of crosswalks before and I didn’t gain a new fear of them afterward. Crosswalks are totally cool and I will continue to use them. A random disaster need not turn you off from doing things!
So what might be happening is that a random disaster turned Sal off from skating but not Marcie. Or maybe Sal was the cause of the disaster and hasn’t forgiven herself for it, while Marcie either already has forgiven Sal or is unaware of Sal’s involvement.
Considering Sal’s skates still fit, it might have been fairly recent– within the previous couple of years.
Whatever happened to make Marcie lose her voice and cause she and Sal to learn sign happened “when [they] were kids”. I dunno exactly what Sal’s definition of “kids” is, but I don’t think she means within the last couple years.
Also relevant: Sal’s been in exile in Tennessee for the last five years. I don’t know if Marcie followed her there or not, but it’s a lot easier for an 18-year-old to follow her friend to the local college than for a 13-year-old to follow her friend to a boarding school in another state. It’s possible that Marcie was also exiled there, but I can almost hear Linda talking about getting Sal away from that bad influence. (I really want to see Marcie in Avalon uniform now, though.)
And Billie and Walky seem casually familiar with Marcie, and don’t show any notable reaction to her signing, but they’ve had little to no contact with Sal since her exile, so I’m thinking whatever happened to cause Marcie to lose her voice must have happened before then.
Dude I had a guy try to kill me with a car, two different guys on two separate occasions. For riding a bicycle in the street no less. As soon as I get the last bike that was stolen from me back from the cops, I’m going to ride my bike in the street again, because otherwise the terrorists win.
Huh. Where I live, bikes are considered vehicles and you have to ride them on the street, they’re not allowed on the sidewalks.
Actually I think it’s more likely that she got sick. My running theory is vocal cord paralysis. Here’s some info on it: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/vocal-cord-paralysis/basics/causes/con-20026357
Sometime people can lose their voices due to PTSD, which is known as selective mutism. (found a basic over view here: http://www.depressionforums.org/forums/topic/15718-selective-mutism/)
I don’t think it has anything to do with skating. I think that Sal just doesn’t want to skate with them because she hates Malaya, and hates having Marcie’s attention be on someone other than herself.
Poor sal, I’d spend time with her.
I’d gladly suffer through any amount of Carla. Color me charmed!
Sal has proved that she can skate, better than was thought.
I have 3 ideas why Sal is upset.
My thoughts are that she doesn’t skate as well as Malaya and, being Sal she is not about to put herself in second place to anyone.
Besides which, I don’t think she really likes Malaya all that well.
And I think that she is upset that Marcie, her dearest childhood friend, is not picking up on this.
One last thought, Marcie is sharp as Hell, I think she know exactly what Sal is bugged about, but being Marcie and not spineless: she is doing what she wants to do. She won’t give up other friends to be exclusive to Sal, after all she moved here to be with Sal. I think she knows Sal will realize that, hopefully.
She came over to say goodnight and calmly went home, which means she’s sending Sal a message. It’s up to Sal to figure it out.
I don’t think romance has anything to do with this whole arch.
I think.
I agree. I tried to put a spin on it and try it with a “typical romantic couple” (aka male female) and it didn’t seem inherently romantic to me in that situation either.
I don’t think Sal has a thing for Marcie. I think that Sal has very few people she considers friends, and is annoyed that her friend is not being friend monogamous with her, especially with someone she already dislikes.
Sal is rapidly plummeting from “awesomesauce” to “whiny child”.
Or possibly just to “complex person with multiple facets and flaws”. One of those things.
Not mutually exclusive. I stick to my guns.
Or we’re seeing who Sal has been all along: a girl who so desperately wants what her brother effortlessly manages – to belong. And the “awesomesauce” is actually armor.
Actually I think this makes Sal interesting again.
Same here. I like that Sal has some internal problems to deal with, since up until now everything that went wrong for her was caused by another party.
“Nobody loves me
Everybody hates me
I’m going out in the garden
and eat worms.”
C’mon Sal, the world doesn’t revolve around you. That ‘I’m a rebel’ crap only goes so far, then it gets old. People move on, have other interests, other friends, other places to hang out. Face it, kid, they’re outgrowing you.
Honestly, I think she’s showing a side that’s a lot like her brother…
Really? How bothered has Walky been by Dorothy’s interests and relationships that aren’t him? Cuz he seems pretty ok with not being the center of Dorothy’s universe. More time with her would be rad, sure but he’s not throwing a tantrum about it or anything, nor does he discount any of her non-Walky time activities as invalid.
Hell, Walky has on multiple occasions valued other things more highly than his relationship with Dorothy. Walky’s not all that needy! (I mean, he does have needs, and those needs are strange! But not in the same way or the same degree as Sal is showing here.)
But that would be because Walky’s needs have been consistently met throughout his life. Sal’s clearly haven’t. He doesn’t have to ask for things, or jealously guard the people in his life, because they’ve consistently been there. When Sal got to be “too much to handle,” her parents got rid of her(at least, from her perspective). Her twin brother apparently just ignored her after she went away.
Fair enough; I was thinking of the immaturity, mostly.
Marcie appears to be the only person who ever gave Sal undivided attention (Jason doesn’t count). And now Sal’s losing that. Meaning she’s being passed over for someone else again (from her POV). Hence: cranky.
Malaya is another Walky, in her eyes – someone who is stealing the attention she so desperately needs.
And what’s “worse” is Malaya is actually putting effort into it, so it’s not like she isn’t “earning” it instead of just being self-entitled about it.
Smiling Carla, my kryptonite <3
I assume “Home” is only between quotation marks because Sal’s repeating Marcie’s answer back at her, but for a moment it got me wondering if there was something more to it. We don’t know where Marcie lives, but it’s not at campus, since she’s not a student at IU.
Carla’s not being insufferable, she’s being fantastic!
There is no way for the reader to know what Carla means in this comic. It is epic trolling for comments. But Ima go with: Carla is staring at Marcie’s butt in the second last panel and realizing Sal alienates the derby girls because she wants to watch them skate away. As do we all.
As do we all, Carla. *dreamy sigh*
This strip represents the only time I have ever liked Carla. Ever. Across all incarnations.
DAMN YOU WILLIS! (she’s so cute in the last panel…gah!)
Shorts with the pockets sticking out the legs like that… well, let’s put it this way — they’re either just silly and trashy looking if you cut them off yourself, or silly and trashy and also foolish if you paid $100+ for them to come that way at the store.
The alternative is either being unable to wear short shorts, or being unable to have functional pockets on your girlclothes.
Fuck fashion in its fabulous face.
Yeah! At least she HAS pockets.
Solution — don’t wear short-shorts.
I cut all my shorts like that. I look fabulous. Argument invalid.
Quick Sal, offer her to do shit instead. Stuff just doesn’t cut it these days. She has already done all the stuff.
Marcie has already done ALL the stuff, including stuff nobody thought it was possible to do, like making Sal and Carla look even more adorable than usual. Really, 3rd panel Sal and 4th panel Carla are just phenomenal.
She still hasn’t managed to beat Jen to first comment, though.
Actually, Marcie used to be in Jen Aside’s gravatar, so there was a while when she was appearing before every one of Jen’s comments. While making out with Sal.
She truly has done all the stuff, then. No wonder she just has fun and then goes home, there are no goals left for her to achieve.
Fffff the tiny change of expression of Carla’s face between panels three and four is AMAZING. I had to do a double take to make sure there actually was a change. My brain noticed the change in emotion before it actually registered the change in her expression.
So, does Carla simply enjoying pestering Sal for its own sake, or does she enjoy pestering Sal because she’s attracted to her?
Carla’s ace.
She may be ace, but she could still have romantic feelings. So she could be emotionally/intellectually attracted, or even a version of physically attracted. Asexual just means you don’t want to have sex; many people express that differently.
If we’re going off of her Shortpacked version, she’s asexual and no has interest in sex, but is not aromantic (though her DoA version may not be the same). So she could have a bit of a crush on Sal, though I doubt it.
Asexual doesn’t mean you don’t want sex. It means you aren’t attracted to anyone. Plenty of asexuals have and enjoy sex.
-Says the asexual woman dating an asexual man
“Asexuality (or nonsexuality) is the lack of sexual attraction to anyone, or low or absent interest in sexual activity. It may be considered the lack of a sexual orientation, or one of the four variations thereof”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we’ve all had sex without sexual attraction at least once, but that’s not quit how that works. “Not attracted to anyone” is a matter of sexual dimorphism, not sexuality.
I don’t think sexual dimorphism is the right term, either – that has more to do with physical traits like height, shoulder width, and pelvis size.
Wait a minute – are we talking about the same phenomenon here?
The joy of pestering it is then. (Carla’s book on the subject, appropriately titled The Joy of Pestering, will be released by Simon and Schuster in June of 2019.)
That sounds like a book from Dwarf Fortress.
You can have super strong feelings for someone that are completely platonic. You can feel really possesive, especially when your hold on the “best friend” title seems in question.
People get jealous of others for doing things with the people they like, especially if it’s something they can’t do.
Carla in the last panel is the cutest thing. Actually Carla in every panel in this strip is the cutest thing.
That grin in the last panel is saying “I am judging you so much right now and the verdict is ‘hilarious’.” I love it.
Now I really want to see Mike and Carla interract.
Team them up with Joe and they’d probably cause a Hellmouth or other portal of evil to open.
Or switch Joe with Sarah, and you’ll have a critical mass of misanthropy.
Man, this is a hell of a problem. The only way to spend time with her best friend since she was in pre-K is to also spend time with Malaya.
Technically, she implied she’d stop when Sal TOLD her.