There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
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.
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...
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.
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.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
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.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
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.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
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Might have worked out better for her if it had been a Snow Crash reference – a retractable MagnaPoon would be better for dealing with corners and obstacles.
Also, a ‘HALT, EVILDOER’ window sticker would be full of win.
It’s for Willis’s DoA-related Slipshines. They take place in-continuity, but you don’t miss out important plot points if you don’t read them. But you have to pay for them, hence the ads (although you can see the first I think three pages as a free preview on the site). And all the “next Slipshine!” references in the comments, because we know that, sooner or later, he will put up another one.
Maybe her skills will include the whip-around-the-pole momentum sending her even faster, to catch up to the car! (after letting go of the rope, of course) Untried, new skill! Level-up!
I thought it was a nice dodge around a difficult visual transition. How do you imply that the car stops and starts going again in such limited space? Your solution was simple and elegant.
Yeah, and I’m starting to worry that she will get hurt doing something ineffectual rather than climactic. Amber ends up in a gutter with a broken arm or leg, Big Toe Daddy motors on, not aware that she was ever there.
And the police still haven’t been told about Dina’s phone and BTD’s suicidal talk.
No. But maybe if she gets herself hospitalized with this idiocy, she’ll finally get the help that she is so desperately in need of. Whether she wants it or not.
… except for my comments about my other comments being blocked, apparently.
Anyway, to answer your question, December 1st is when Just Cause 3 will be released in the USA according to Amazon.
Imagine if that’s actually what it is, and the new meta of the comic becomes damning Willis for setting up expectations in the preview panels as well as for what he actually publishes.
also hopefully ross doesn’t have any more guns. Tough to use a rifle in close quarters, where I am assuming amazi-girl will whack him ten ways to sunday.
I have to admit, for a minute I couldn’t figure out it was the broken bumper she’d hooked and while trying to figure it out I was all, “Does Toedad’s car have–have a moustache? On its–oh, it’s the bumper!” for a minute. Lol.
It looks like she’s going to end up wrapped around the stop sign, and while I doubt the rope is strong enough to stop the car, it could easily tear off the bumper…
For what it’s worth, Indiana only requires the back license plate, and treating that off along with the bumper will catch the eyes of any cop, local or not. I the bumper ends up dragging, still partially on, so much the better as far as attracting attention to the car.
That’s always seemed weird to me. In Canada, it’s the police who decide if charges should be pressed, and that’s largely based off of whether or not there’s a reasonable likelihood of conviction if it goes to court.
You can’t just have people deciding whether or not they want to press charges, because if you do that, the perpetrators have the opportunity to force them to drop the charges, one way or another (which if Hollywood hasn’t lied to me happens all the time).
Whether or not the victim wants to continue after police are involved is kind of irrelevant to whether or not a crime was committed, and the police have a responsibility to act when they are aware a crime was committed. Weird to me that they should know about a crime but then agree to back off on it.
As far as I know, it’s like that in the US, too, at least in my state. I’m no legal expert, though, so I could be wrong. I only say this because there was a woman I met once in court, who was there because her ex-husband had assaulted her, and the police had been involved. She had dropped all charges, but the police were still pressing charges, so she had been subpoenaed to court to testify, even though she just wanted to forget about the whole thing.
Again, I’m no legal expert, so I’m not sure if this differs by state, or if it applies to the situation in the comic. But it seems to me that if the cops are called and they charge him with a crime, the charge will still stand even if the victim doesn’t want to be involved.
In fact, while I Am Not A Lawyer, it does work like that in the US.
In this case, we have some other witnesses that the prosecutor could call (Dina, Startled Person/ Ducking for Cover Person, Joyce) even if Becky is not cooperative. A DA’s office will rarely press charges if they think they’ll lose. They don’t have the time or the budget to go to court for the concept of Justice, only for the real thing.
Once Becky gets free, there may not be any legal repercussions. Ross seems to have a religious community’s support, so IDK if the local prosecutor wants to drag Jesus/LGBT issues into the courtroom (remember the political map that DeSanto had?) Likely, all charges will be dropped, and Becky gets dropped off at the local Women’s Shelter and/or LGBT nonprofit, while Ross gets dropped off at his home.
Unless somebody overreacts. And how much of a chance is THAT? I mean, Amazi-Girl, Becky, Dina, Amber, Ross, and Joyce are all level-headed adults who never react wildly and emotionally to their problems.
Nah. If she was quick enough to loop the rope around that stop sign a few times, she may be able to belay the car.
At least until the line snaps.
Or the bumper comes off.
Or the car pulls the stop sign out of the concrete.
AG gets Amazi-Skates, joins roller derby to get practice, becomes #1 roller derby player, Marcie falls in love with her, Sal and Malaya team up to destroy her.
And there we go. Becky has a chance to escape, and recognizes that doing so will only escalate things. So here comes Amber on her way to escalate things.
“I get more of the same bullshit abuse I’ve been taking my whole life” vs “He potentially kills many people, including himself and possibly me, and if I don’t die, I still get to deal with the fact that he killed a bunch of people” – Becky’s thinking about other people before herself, compounded by the fact that she’s been abused long enough she no longer sees a positive outcome for herself no matter which course of action is taken; there’s no reason to fault her for that.
Agreed. For weeks people have been faulting Becky for being selfish or inconsiderate, but when push comes to shove, she’s putting other people before herself. Brave.
I’m not sure how Joyce feels about calling the police at this point. It was discussed and rather firmly decided that the police would not be called after she was attacked at the party. Yes, this is a very different situation, but if Amazi-Girl had time to suit up and run over, the police could have been on scene now if she’d called them next.
She didn’t call the cops when she was attacked so that her parents wouldn’t pull her out of school; what are the odds she thinks her parents wouldn’t pull her out of school if they found out she was sheltering a lesbian non-student in her room and hiding said student from Toedad, then trying to interfere when Toedad arrived on the scene? Especially since all parents in question apparently know each other very well?
I’m guessing Joyce turned to Amazi-girl-via-Dorothy first because she’s learned to trust her friends before authority figures.
She didn’t call the cops in a situation where the bad thing was over and she was now safe. In this situation, her oldest friend is being kidnapped at gunpoint, present tense. Yes, Joyce might be in trouble when her parents find out what she’s been doing (though I think the shotgun is likely to give them pause about whether she should have trusted Ross), but I really don’t think she’s going to prioritize that over Becky’s safety.
(And honestly, it’s not like Amazi-Girl did her a blind bit of good last time, so I’m not sure why Joyce would assume she can fix this.)
Oof, that panel 1 Becky is haunting. She’s completely given up any hope that she can return to her friends, her girlfriend, and a life where she can be herself and has fully internalized that any attempt to save herself will just be summarily undone by her terrorist of a father’s full willingness to put those she cares about in grave danger. And she’s unwilling to do that again, even to save that part of herself that is her. That is heartbreaking. And its extra heartbreaking that she has to beg her dad simply to obey the law (from here on out). But beyond that, she’s already made peace with the fact that this is the end of the her that matters (until hopefully the police intervene or hopefully not when Amazi-Girl gets shot trying to help her).
Also, it’s clear that Amber’s college physics courses haven’t started yet.
Becky said she doesn’t want a repeat of what happened. Don’t blame her, but still…actually, I’m having seco9nd thoughts about this. Maybe Becky can handle her Dad on her own. Maybe she can talk some sense into him, as soon as he puts the gun away.
If he gets shot “good” enough, he won’t get out of the hospital until the comic has ended, thereby removing him from the comic without violating Wills’ “no kill” policy.
Wasn’t trying for Optimism, maybe realism. All other options are
going to be hardest on Becky. Becky doesn’t want to see her father
injured or dead, she also doesn’t want to see him in jail. As soon as Amazi-girl get’s involved, one of those options is almost inevitable.
If Becky can find a way to reason with her father, convince him that this is not the right thing to do, then no one get’s hurt.
All other options may land someone in the hospital. My guess? I think Becky is the one who is going to end up in the hospital. Maybe that is what it will take to convince her father that he’s an idiot.
And in her grief, Becky can’t shake the strange sense of guilt and horror that her actions lead to the death of her father, and it ruins her relationship and drives her back into the closet.
Or what, she throws a party cause her dad is dead?
If Becky as a character is happier with her dad dead, then I will be surprised at the writing – not that I think he will die.
Will she? I can think of several ways that assumption is incorrect. Becky is an adult. If she wants to bide her time and escape her dad under other circumstances, she can. Her father pretty clearly doesn’t want to hurt his daughter physically if he can avoid it. He doesn’t actually want to hurt anyone physically. He wants to return things to the status quo – a status quo that Becky herself endorsed just a handful of weeks ago.
Obviously he is an irrational person. And he may yet act irrationally. But throwing a violent psychopath into what is already a volatile situation?
Impossible to say what direction this will be written. But given the way things have been structured, Tragedy is more likely than Triumph. It is a story after all – a soap opera. And a truly happy ending in this scenario would be a pretty dull one.
Ross, a little parenting tip. It helps if you think of your daughter in terms of a HUMAN rather than a CAPTIVE… of course, that kinda assumes that you haven’t forced her into the car at gun point to begin with.
Anyway, PLEASE stop acting like you want to turn this into a joint suicide.
Unfortunately, he really does. In his awful viewpoint, if they die now, in this brief window where she’s “saved from her dark path” then they both go to Heaven and reunite with his wife. To him, it’s win-win.
Honestly, while she really didn’t have much choice with regards to what to do, she’s in a really dangerous place right now. Her dad is practically waiting for an excuse to off her and martyr himself and now she’s having to walk a very narrow tightrope to defuse that… and Amazi-Girl is in her less effective “I must act” mode… oh dear.
Yes, this. The things that Big Toe Daddy was saying at the fountain are of extreme concern, and I hope that the police dealing with this kidnapping get told about them real soon now. Also about the fact that Becky has Dina’s phone.
Yes, unfortunately this is developing to the worst kind of hostage situation where the hostage taker doesn’t want anything else than killing the hostage and is working himself up to it.
Yeah, he doesn’t change gears quickly (after all, changing one’s mind is moral relativism and Satan) and definitely built himself up to be ready to take a life (specifically hers) and part of him probably knows he’s not going to be getting away with this long-term.
Looking at it again, his statement is part hope. Like, yeah, jump out of the car, so I have an excuse. And that’s the worst thing about abusers like him. They are so dangerous and so quick to escalate that there really isn’t an easy way to survive them. Giving them what they want only lasts until the next escalation excuse and running away gives them the excuse to hunt you down like an animal.
Animal: specifically, varmint/vermin, a type of animal which “threaten human society by spreading diseases”? Would that be how BTD would see an unredeemed lesbian? Because, Willis chose to give him a varminter (varmint-hunting rifle)
While being kidnapped, or while committing kidnapping and attempting to flee the scene, seatbelts may be forgotten.
As Ross notes, purposely avoiding her seatbelt is an expected tactic for the victim here. And he doesn’t want his movement restricted to hinder his attacking.
What if the next few strips are like Wile E Coyote chasing the Roadrunner, only instead it’s Amazi-Girl trying and failing to catch Toedad (open manhole, speed bump, large pane of glass being delivered, etc), and instead of being funny it just gets increasingly more sad?
-Dina leaps out of bushes, into road in front of Ross
-Ross narrows his eyes, makes to ram Dina
-Becky cries, “Stop, Dad!”, grabs wheel, pushes
-Car swerves off road, hits manure truck
-Becky leaps out as car fills with manure
You know, if Amazi-girl shows some Amazi-reflexes, I could actually see this working for her. Possibly even better than if she’d just tried to follow the path of the car.
Amazi-Girl… your alternate identity is a computer science major. Despite the fact that it is in no way needed for her major, I highly doubt Amber (and thus you) are entirely ignorant of physics. Skitching is a bad idea if you’re holding onto the bumper by hand, and even worse when using a grappling hook.
Bumpers can be bolted on pretty poorly, or just made of plastic. Maybe she just rips it off and Toedad gets pulled over for not having a license plate?
Well he first got spotted with his gun when he was going after Becky+Dina, and after beating up Dina he ran back to his car, then drove to the fountain. So by now I’d suspect the people noticing him already gave the cops his looks and described his car.
But if he hits the open road, he’ll be just one car in a sea of many. Hopefully they’d be on the lookout, but minus his plates or whatever he’d independently draw the attention of traffic cops, which is important because they might not pull over ever brown car with a smashed bumper (and, alternatively, if someone calling 911 reports that they just saw his plates fall off, that makes his car even more identifiable).
I’d kind of love to see him get stopped in traffic (not that it couldn’t also be for speeding or running lights) and have the cops notice Becky freaking out, although I’m thinking/expecting that either a targeted pulling-over or a chase is more likely.
I’m not exactly sure what option I’m picturing for next strip. There’s her avoiding obstacles and continuing to follow as is, or she could hit the stop sign, or even just lose footing and fall (and please let go and not have a following car hit her (also, following car, call 911 about the kidnapping)). If she hits the sign, it could comic magic so that tomorrow she’s using it like a waterskiing handle, or she could lose her grip on the rope, or the rope could tie to the sign and either pull the license plate (and possibly bumper) off or uproot the stop sign. All options are pretty good for attracting attention to his car, though. The grappling hook stayed on in that corner despite the slack, so even if she loses it it’ll probably drag behind the car.
Of course all could fail and this could be irrelevant to the capture of Ross, but you know.
Also, Ross is more aware than I expected of the fact that he has not cowed Becky into obeying him, which also makes it a little more unfortunate that this isn’t all somehow being recorded because that quote would be great evidence for the kidnapping.
IU has an enrollment of approximately Forty Six Thousand (46,000 ) and covers almost 2,000 acres of ground. In that 2000 acre foot print there are MANY multi-story buildings, making the square footage that the campus PD has to patrol much greater.
It is basicly a city in it’s own right. But it doesn’t have a city’s worth of law enforcement. The IU Police Department in Bloomington employs 44 full time sworn police officers as well as several part time police officers and student cadets. Divide that into three shifts and realistically we have something Like TWENTY sworn officers on duty during this time of day.
Fair enough, and so they’d be quite scattered over a large area. Surely, however, if they get calls about a gunman and shots fired at the fountain, would they not ALL turn on sirent and flashers and roll that direction?
The shot, singular, was a few seconds ago. Only the people who saw it would have paid it much mind. A single loud noise, even a bang, is an attention getter sure But all it does is get the attention. The average human’s experience that noise would hit the hind brain as a car backfire, or perhaps the screen door up the bock from where they grew up that bangs in the wind. I believe that even among combat veterans who would recognize the particular crack of a .223 round being discharged, a single crack would most likely be dismissed with a thought of ” Don’t be all ptsdie, you’re back in the world, don’t spazz out.”
Additionally we have “The bystander effect” which is that humans are pack animals and we have the weird assumption that when something goes wrong someone else will have already addressed it so we don’t do anything about it.
It’s why someone being assaulted in a small store is more likely to receive immediate aid than someone being assaulted in the parking lot of a housing complex.
I don’t think we’ve seen any of the people in frame calling the police it may well be that no one has.
Of course this is looking at humans at the Bownian level. There are always people at the ends of the bell curves. And mot of our named characters are indeed at the flat end of more than one behavior curve.
The best interpretation of the lack of police in frame is that someone we know is currently less than a minute into a call to dispatch, and he dispatcher is still at the ” Ma’am (or sir) I need you to calm down and repeat that.” stage.
Though if someone was setting up a pool my money would be split between two scenarios.
1) Dispatch knows something is up but does not realize that the calls about the old man screaming at a couple of girls and then chasing them, and the calls about a noise that may have been a gunshot and the calls about a reckless driver are all related. After all it’s only been a minute or three.
2) Ross has excellent timing and there is some disruptive activity, such as free speech or a NCAA sports event, across campus that has police and/or traffic tied up.
IU’s football and both basketball teams are both in the top classification tier of college sports teams. The regularly have most if not all of their games picked up by international sports stations like ESPN, and are heavily recruited by pro-teams. Right now it’s Football season and the exposition game preseason for Basketball.
All you say is reasonable and might well be true. I’m mostly reacting to the many posters who’ve said the police are on their way but haven’t arrived. To me it seems that if police are on their way in response to a call about a gunman/shooter on campus, then their sirens will be heard approaching well before they arrive. Is it possible that you are correct that they haven’t been dispatched yet — or perhaps not even been called? So far as I know, yes, but I have no independent view on that OR on the critical question of how much time has elapsed.
Hm. Just had a thought about the red hair. So Amber gets involved. Things escalate. Becky’s dad is killed. Even though Amber probably saved Becky and had good intentions, Becky blames Amber (and self) for Dad’s death.
My take on this little trick is based on her ‘aha’ in the last panel.
I think she is planning on looping around the stop sign post, letting go of the rope, and intercepting the side of the car, so she can grab onto a door or window or whatever she can grab.
I’m hoping she figures right, and doesn’t end up in front of the car where Toedad will run over her – intentionally or not.
I don’t think Becky is in a stupor. She’s very aware of what she’s doing and what her Toedad is doing, imo. She just didn’t have a choice and still doesn’t – she doesn’t want him waving the damn gun around – so is doing what he wants, for now.
I think so too. If the grappler is only attached to the fender, it won’t be a secure hold-down; if Ross were to gun the engine enough, the fender would tear loose. However, it is much more likely that his first instinct will be to get out of the car to see what the problem is. Face, meet Amazi-Girl’s boot.
I’ve lived in America all my life and I’ve never heard those two terms used for the same thing. The bumpers are on the front and back, the fenders are on the side.
Antique Southern American here (Texan actually) and bumpers and fenders are two different things. Bumpers are across the front and rear of the car. Fenders cover the tires.
Possibly with a potshot by toe first though. And depending on where she’s hit (if it connects) she might be so high on adrenaline that she just keeps coming, not even noticing it. There’s a reason why soldiers check manually for wounds after a fight – you get keyed up enough, first way you know you’re hit is you find a damp spot.
I’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated by nerd culture to expect callbacks and shoutouts everywhere, so I’m now wondering what PVB X11 might be a reference to.
Regardless if Amazi-girl manages to pull off some sort of ninja move to catch up with the car, if she and Toedad go toe to toe (heh), it won’t end well. Everyone in the area is calling the police, probably giving them a description of the vehicle. They’ll see her and remember the incident from the previous week (or so) ago, where Blaine was beaten to pulp outside the McDonald’s. Her Heroics are going to either get her arrested or seriously injured or both.
The characters I would actually like to see more of is Riley and Jocelyne. Everyone else I like gets sufficient… panel time? Screen time maybe, since I am reading this on a computer? Hm.
I get why I will not see them much, and therefore why they are not in that poll, but I answered honestly anyway because I sort of have a thing about how many damn text documents I have to lie in on a regular basis.
I want to see more of Raidah. Not because I like her (I don’t), but because if we’re seeing her then we’re probably getting closer to a resolution with her and Sarah. I mean, they both have reasons to be upset. Raidah is being a bullying jerk, but she’s doing it because she really does think that Sarah got that other chick kicked out for selfish reasons. I’m sure the two will never be friends, but it would be nice to see them both mature a little bit and maybe stop wanting to kill each other a little bit.
“If I slow down you’ll jump out.” Meanwhile most cops tend to pull over a car running stop signs. If he thinks that won’t cause some problems then it’s only because he’s gotten away with as much as he has already.
Oddly enough, I think that Ross would welcome death at this point. It would certainly save him several difficult choices that have come his way due to his failure to think this caper through well in advance.
I mean, sure, he stopped, but her catching up to him…it’s like Xeno’s paradox in reverse, with the tortoise catching up to Achilles after he’s had the head-start.
I thought she knew since she was able to push, because honestly that was the hardest part of learning to skate for me. Standing on the board (in a normal stance, not like water skiing) and steering is relatively easy.
I can honestly see Amazi-Girl giving Ross a Blaine-level pounding with her father’s voice ringing in her ears and Becky having to stop her. Cue considerable Ambangst. I wonder who keeps her grounded?
I can see AG failing at this. She’s immune to criticism, not failure. But Becky must be saved or it will ruin Joyce’s life for years of comic time. My money is on Joyce playing a key role in saving Becky. With Sal and her motorcycle.
AG failing would be very bad on two fronts. Firstly, this situation is analogous to her ‘origin story’, and failing would imply she was still “weak and powerless”. Secondly, it would be the second time she had directly failed Joyce. This would probably tip both Amber and Joyce into further angst and despair and self destructive behaviour.
First, it was foretold by Sarah that in the end, it would come down to Joyce. Willis does not idly put such foreshadowing in.
Second, Willis has already bypassed the easy storyline. Dina had a chance to save Becky and failed. New love failed and now the resident designated hero will fail too. The third time is the charm – its a rule of fiction.
Finally (since three reasons are more persuasive than two and four is right out), Joyce needs to recover her agency and acting here will accomplish that. Joyce is the main character, not Amber. Amber needs to fail and seek serious help, not succeed and be reinforced in her behavior.
It might not be what we want, but I think it is what the existing narrative demands.
You may very well be right, however, I want Becky to play an equal role with Joyce, because she needs agency every bit as Joyce, PLUS tagteaming Toedad to free Becky would be a great way for them to reboot their friendship. Imo
Honestly, it could go either way – the jury is out on who gets her out, but I will wager that AG plays a pivotal role. Again, a sucess by AG would make a good setup for an even greater fall.
The angle of the rope makes it appear that AG has tied the rope to the stop sign, and that the rope is tightening. It’ll be interesting to see where the tension of the rope sends the rear bumper. They aren’t that well attached on modern cars. Losing the bumper will have one of two effects. Fundie will either increase speed, or stop to survey the damage. My guess is that he’ll just keep driving, he doesn’t want to chase down his stray a second time and Becky’s reassurance that she won’t run won’t keep him calm for long. If he loses the bumper, that will be one more thing to attract the police. Hopefully the girl on the phone was calling them and not her “BFF” with a conversation consisting of several “OMG”‘s. If she did contact the police, they might be able to catch him before he hits the highway.
… so was the grappling hook, like, just shoved up her butt the whole time like a secret agent or what? It doesn’t seem small enough to have been in her not-Batman pouches.
I don’t know it’s kind of jarring to go from dramatic possible school shooting to this particular degree of wackiness in such quick succession but I guess what’s important is how it ends. Like maybe the point is to show Amber’s in over her head or something.
I think that’s how we’re supposed to take Amber as Amazi-Girl. She’s a visual metaphor for Amber’s coping mechanisms and building a fantasy where she’s powerful and confident and can do anything.
Come to think of it, this is the first time Amber’s ever tried to do something superhero-like beyond occasionally beating up dudes harassing people. She’s done some crazy parkour stuff before when she was escaping Dorothy, but otherwise she usually just sticks to fistfights.
So the endpoint of this is almost definitely going to be Amber ruining everything.
Yeah, Amazi-girl really does seem to be pretty close to low-end superhero level, but with some issues because this isn’t that kind of story.
She’s impressive, particularly on the parkour front.
But this isn’t a wacky hi-jinks super-hero story. This isn’t “Amazi-girl swoops in to save the day.” (Or Sal. Or anyone else who’s been suggested.)
Even when the superhero is in the story, it’s far more about her psychological issues than about heroic deeds. Her main adventure so far involved losing control and beating her dad to a pulp and that left her even more screwed up than when she started.
If she’s successful here, we can expect much the same. Loss of control. Too much violence. Emotional trauma. For her and Becky.
Or she could fail, letting them get away. Which again, leaves her traumatized having failed Joyce again.
Either way, it’s not going to be clean wacky finish. Today’s damage isn’t over yet, even if we’re currently in a tension-relieving bit of the arc. We’ll be dealing with the repercussions of this day for years of real time. And that’s assuming Ross doesn’t get away with Becky.
This REALLY is a “Wait and see” thing for me because the strip where Joyce yelled “DAMN IT” seemed like the absolute perfect place for the arc to end, but now it’s… still going, because of superhero shenanigans that plays jumprope with my suspension of disbelief?
It’s just weird for me but I can wait patiently and see where it’s going.
For me, at least, I don’t think the tension needed to deescalate so much. It feels weird going from an incredibly serious campus shooting moment to Amazi-Girl being summoned like Jim Gordon lighting up the Bat Signal and pulling a McFly, with Sayid just calmly giving her his skateboard instead of a whole bunch of mass panic and police officers swarming the campus. Without spoiling anything, the new patreon comic Willis posted did a great job of setting how I think the mood of this storyline should consistently be more like.
And I mean, you’re right, this is just a brief pause before things become serious again. It’s still shaping up to be a fun story, and I think it’s going to prove vital in Amber’s future character development, but I think the wind’s been taken out of the sails a bit.
Police sirens: where are they? Does anyone know if cops would run silent on a shooter/hostage on campus call? Otherwise, there would be audible sirens by now, IRL, wouldn’t there?
“I’m just going to say it, shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus for thinking they’re going to get elected. That child deserves our support. Don’t worry about the pollsters calling it distractions, because we need to be the party of human dignity.”
Minnesota Star Tribune@startribune.com ⋅ 17h
Gov. Tim Walz is doubling down on trans rights — and criticizing members of his party who are retreating — at a time when the issue has become a political lightning rod nationally and back home in Minnesota.
they managed to get the arms and thighs to be different grays, which I wasn't sure they'd be able to do, the way the mold's set up
though maybe they're just producing a lot of extra thighs and/or arms in the wrong colors and throwing those away, i dunno
Cops are overgrown children cosplaying War, with all the rest of us forced into their stupid, childish game without our consent, consuming vast funds from the public treasury and ruining lives by the hundreds of thousands.
unknown@collie.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
I cannot get over these cops wearing night vision to arrest a dude on a Southwest Airlines flight in broad daylight.
Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com ⋅ 17h
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 18h
unknown @collie.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
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Amazi-Girl: The Ride
It’s like another Back to the Future reference
Might have worked out better for her if it had been a Snow Crash reference – a retractable MagnaPoon would be better for dealing with corners and obstacles.
Also, a ‘HALT, EVILDOER’ window sticker would be full of win.
I actually understand this reference!
But COMPLETELY DISAGREE
Back to the future references forever
This is completely unrelated, but why is there always a porn comic ad on this site?
It’s by the same artist and about characters from this comic.
It’s for Willis’s DoA-related Slipshines. They take place in-continuity, but you don’t miss out important plot points if you don’t read them. But you have to pay for them, hence the ads (although you can see the first I think three pages as a free preview on the site). And all the “next Slipshine!” references in the comments, because we know that, sooner or later, he will put up another one.
you miss ALL the important plot points if you don’t read them!
I assume
I haven’t read them
Oh so its the uncensored version of…naughty parts that happen during dumbing of age?
And sticky roller-skates.
The AmaziPoon is only allowed in the Slipshines.
Guess you guys aren’t ready for Amazi-Girl The Ride… But your kids are going to love it.
Becky to the Future
+1!
Mask on… or off?
Just what I was thinking (well, at least the same way I interpreted it)
That’s not a nice thing to call her.
You didn’t.
Amazi-girl: the t-shirt, Amazi-girl: the coloring book, Amazi-girl: the lunchbox, Amazi-girl: the breakfast cereal, Amazi-girl: the stool!!
Physics, darlin’. Physics. Momentum. C’mon. You’re a nerd
ya, but she’s a cs major. those physics only exist if you import them
If the last panel was wider, you’d see that she’s clipping right through a building.
Ouch.
Don’t worry, the wall has no hit box.
I think the ouch was from the huge error code that just generated
…or headed straight for a manure truck
You win the thread.
to be fair, greenish could prolly be grass, so she’ll just loop around the stop sign
Uh, like a tetherball.
Skateboards can steer, though (although of course she’ll have to work with the momentum).
….tangling the line round the pole and pulling the car to a stop. Completely deliberate, honest!
Maybe her skills will include the whip-around-the-pole momentum sending her even faster, to catch up to the car! (after letting go of the rope, of course) Untried, new skill! Level-up!
The one where Amazi-Girl glimpsed beneath the walkmesh and saw infinity.
What I’d like to know is how she caught up to a car that’s not stopping at stop signs, with a skateboard.
you don’t have to stop when going 25mph in a residentialish area
Wait… what?
Ummmm… Yes, you absolutely do. Who told you that?
(see below ’cause I also don’t know where replies are supposed to go apparently)
Found the Rhode Islander.
I thought it was a Minnesotan. XD
Surprised no one said New Jersey! =p
(D.C. Metro, close enough)
I’m terrified that you not only thought this was correct but felt sure enough about it to try to correct other people on it.
“don’t have to” as in “it is physically possible not to”
OF COURSE IT IS ILLEGAL NOT TO DUHHHHHHH
He stopped.
Which gives AG time to catch up.
You know, I thought putting a “BRAKE!” sound effect over the panel with lit brakelights was a little too obvious, but apparently not!
I thought it was a nice dodge around a difficult visual transition. How do you imply that the car stops and starts going again in such limited space? Your solution was simple and elegant.
…Uhm.
Is amazigirl gonna die.
I seem to recall Willis stating quite a while back that Wilis said nobody in this comic would die.
Of course not.
Amber might, though. Someone else will take up the mantle.
“Lucyyyyy… you must avenge meeeeee… it is your destiny…”
*Lucy pretends not to hear and continues reading*
*Malaya rolls eyes* Worst roommate evar
No but she’ll probably break something.
At this point, she’s the one who will end up in a hospital simply trying to be an actual comic-book character rather than just being inspired by them.
Yeah, and I’m starting to worry that she will get hurt doing something ineffectual rather than climactic. Amber ends up in a gutter with a broken arm or leg, Big Toe Daddy motors on, not aware that she was ever there.
And the police still haven’t been told about Dina’s phone and BTD’s suicidal talk.
BTD?
Big Toe Daddy. The parent comment was talking about Ross.
BTD – Big Toe Daddy
No. But maybe if she gets herself hospitalized with this idiocy, she’ll finally get the help that she is so desperately in need of. Whether she wants it or not.
Or a smackdown with Blain
She’s already done that. A few times.
On-panel…
That reminds me, when does the new Just Cause come out?
Not soon enough.
… why is my comment that Just Cause 3 can’t come out soon enough (because I loved Just Cause 2 and want MOAR) awaiting moderation?
Okay, seriously, WTF? Why are my comments being blocked awaiting moderation?
… except for my comments about my other comments being blocked, apparently.
Anyway, to answer your question, December 1st is when Just Cause 3 will be released in the USA according to Amazon.
that feels like me trying to post any Youtube links anymore, despite everyone else clearly getting to post multiples =(
I’m not sure that complaining your comment is in moderation is a good way to get it out of moderation.
Moderation in all things.
Mine are getting blocked awaiting moderation when I put more than one link in them, just like always.
BTW – thanks for reminding me. Just added it to my wishlist.
And to answer your question, December 1st.
If she can hang on this should be great.
And if not, that explains the hospital panel…
I’m sure it’s gonna be that
Imagine if that’s actually what it is, and the new meta of the comic becomes damning Willis for setting up expectations in the preview panels as well as for what he actually publishes.
Opus, Does your work cover skate boards vs cars, as well as bikes?
“aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaa” *bonk*
WE NEED TO GO BACK
> and have amber try that again.
This never happened to Marty
whoa where’d she get a grappling hook come from
also hopefully ross doesn’t have any more guns. Tough to use a rifle in close quarters, where I am assuming amazi-girl will whack him ten ways to sunday.
She got it from her Grunkle Stan’s gift shop. Yes, DoA was a sequel to Gravity Falls all this time.
She’s had the grappling hook for a while.
Had to get it back from Dina and Ruth. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/return/
Who says she only has one?
She must have gotten it back from Faz.
And risk a car crash?
Amazi-girl is prepared for everything.
Except for momentum.
New sport invented:Street skiing
“New.”
(People do this. It’s not the safest pastime, but that tends to be the case with skateboarding and rollerblading.)
You know how it is said:”No pain,no gain.”(By ”gain” I mean getting a couple of broken bones or even worse.)
AMAZI-GIRL IS IMMUNE TO PHYSICS
She needs those to run. And hit things.
Amazi-girl is has selective physics. (Like selective hearing, but physics.)
…I think that power is called “omnipotence.”
Not omni, just extra.
Extrapotence?
She has proved that before.
I was half expecting a panel where Amazi-Girl’s grappling hook pulls the bumper off.
It might yet snaffle the rear licence plate.
Which causes him to get noted for lacking one and the cops get him.
Oh that would be great. And then they see his gun and oh wait it ends there because it’s registered.
I have to admit, for a minute I couldn’t figure out it was the broken bumper she’d hooked and while trying to figure it out I was all, “Does Toedad’s car have–have a moustache? On its–oh, it’s the bumper!” for a minute. Lol.
thats the powa of love
Dem pouches.
Pouch shmouch…at this point I have to assume she has a backpack hidden under that cape.
+1 Sack of Holding.
It looks like she’s going to end up wrapped around the stop sign, and while I doubt the rope is strong enough to stop the car, it could easily tear off the bumper…
For what it’s worth, Indiana only requires the back license plate, and treating that off along with the bumper will catch the eyes of any cop, local or not. I the bumper ends up dragging, still partially on, so much the better as far as attracting attention to the car.
Now THIS is podracing.
In hindsight, skipping physics to chase after Toedad was not Amazi-Girl’s greatest idea.
cue benny hill theme
Ross if I slow down you’ll jump out…and the cops will catch up to me and beat my ass up and down the street.
If he doesn’t stop at stop signs, someone‘s gonna catch up to him.
From the side.
Missing -> :
And back to comic again. I think I’m getting mood whiplash.
Becky has a very good point, tho.
“saving her from her dad”, it won’t work unless he’s either reasoned with for good, or sent to jail. He’d just come back else.
Well, he did fire a shotgun(?) into the air in the middle of a college campus.
Not to mention a number of other felonies including kidnapping and assault.
It’s not kidnapping unless Becky presses charges, which seems unlikely.
That’s always seemed weird to me. In Canada, it’s the police who decide if charges should be pressed, and that’s largely based off of whether or not there’s a reasonable likelihood of conviction if it goes to court.
You can’t just have people deciding whether or not they want to press charges, because if you do that, the perpetrators have the opportunity to force them to drop the charges, one way or another (which if Hollywood hasn’t lied to me happens all the time).
Whether or not the victim wants to continue after police are involved is kind of irrelevant to whether or not a crime was committed, and the police have a responsibility to act when they are aware a crime was committed. Weird to me that they should know about a crime but then agree to back off on it.
As far as I know, it’s like that in the US, too, at least in my state. I’m no legal expert, though, so I could be wrong. I only say this because there was a woman I met once in court, who was there because her ex-husband had assaulted her, and the police had been involved. She had dropped all charges, but the police were still pressing charges, so she had been subpoenaed to court to testify, even though she just wanted to forget about the whole thing.
Again, I’m no legal expert, so I’m not sure if this differs by state, or if it applies to the situation in the comic. But it seems to me that if the cops are called and they charge him with a crime, the charge will still stand even if the victim doesn’t want to be involved.
In fact, while I Am Not A Lawyer, it does work like that in the US.
In this case, we have some other witnesses that the prosecutor could call (Dina, Startled Person/ Ducking for Cover Person, Joyce) even if Becky is not cooperative. A DA’s office will rarely press charges if they think they’ll lose. They don’t have the time or the budget to go to court for the concept of Justice, only for the real thing.
Once Becky gets free, there may not be any legal repercussions. Ross seems to have a religious community’s support, so IDK if the local prosecutor wants to drag Jesus/LGBT issues into the courtroom (remember the political map that DeSanto had?) Likely, all charges will be dropped, and Becky gets dropped off at the local Women’s Shelter and/or LGBT nonprofit, while Ross gets dropped off at his home.
Unless somebody overreacts. And how much of a chance is THAT? I mean, Amazi-Girl, Becky, Dina, Amber, Ross, and Joyce are all level-headed adults who never react wildly and emotionally to their problems.
And frankly, I suspect a sit where Ross got off with no charges would mean he wouldn’t be deterred.
It depends on the crime. But if Becky told the cops she wasn’t kidnapped, the police cannot press charges. They could never prove them in court.
yes they could. there are many witnesses to the kidnapping.
They never would. Not if she is claiming it did not happen.
Forcible confinement.
Yeah, his ass is grass, legally speaking. The bit now is making sure he faces the mower and his victim is spared.
Nice extended metaphor.
Not shotgun. Varmint rifle. The specific model has been plausibly identified.
I think he reserved a set of cuffs when he discharged that firearm on the school campus.
well im pretty sure amazi-girl plans to beat him up. so that would probably provide time for those other things to happen
Shoulda used a shorter rope…
Nah. If she was quick enough to loop the rope around that stop sign a few times, she may be able to belay the car.
At least until the line snaps.
Or the bumper comes off.
Or the car pulls the stop sign out of the concrete.
or she loses her grip on the rope and the car just kind of drives away
Becky, honey, swivel in your seat and kick him in the fucking head.
hahaha, I needed a good chuckle today, thanks. (no I don’t know why it made me laugh that hard but thanks anyway)
*gives cookies*
Of COURSE Amber is a Snow Crash fan.
AG gets Amazi-Skates, joins roller derby to get practice, becomes #1 roller derby player, Marcie falls in love with her, Sal and Malaya team up to destroy her.
VILLAIN CANON ESTABLISHED
With his current mindset, things can’t turnout well.
Good thing this comic doesn’t take place in a town with more than one car on the road.
Am I wrong, or is Becky wearing her seat belt while Ross isn’t? Oh dear…
I don’t see a seat belt on Becky, but I could just be missing it.
don’t know the model, but it might be a shitty enough old one not to have shoulder straps
or maybe Becky feels dying in a car wreck is preferable to reprogramming, either or
She may very well be in a state where she’d be happy with being the only casualty.
Seat belts might be one of the many crazy things their interpretation of Christianity forbids.
“Belief first,safety second.”
JEEZUS IS MAH SEATBELT
I don’t think that’s a seatbelt, I think that’s the tank top she’s wearing under a button-up shirt.
Yeah, I don’t see a seatbelt on either of them.
And there we go. Becky has a chance to escape, and recognizes that doing so will only escalate things. So here comes Amber on her way to escalate things.
Bad idea.
OTOH, Becky may not be right here.
Letting Toedad drag her off to conversion therapy camp in the name of not escalating isn’t a good idea either.
“I get more of the same bullshit abuse I’ve been taking my whole life” vs “He potentially kills many people, including himself and possibly me, and if I don’t die, I still get to deal with the fact that he killed a bunch of people” – Becky’s thinking about other people before herself, compounded by the fact that she’s been abused long enough she no longer sees a positive outcome for herself no matter which course of action is taken; there’s no reason to fault her for that.
Agreed. For weeks people have been faulting Becky for being selfish or inconsiderate, but when push comes to shove, she’s putting other people before herself. Brave.
*plays “Draggin’ A Line” on the stereo of a nearby car*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skydln4BhDI <- Oops. It's been a while since this was a hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xXIHPUmv3k <- Followed by THIS.
man i hope she snaps back around somehow and the chase doesnt just end here
Holy shit yes. Please, Willis
Meanwhile, back on campus, Joyce is pulling her Joyce-phone out of her Joyce-pocket and CALLING THE POLICE.
Meanwhile, back in the woods, Dina is bleeding her Dina-blood out of her Dina-veins and KICKING THE BUCKET.
The Dina-bucket!
But wait, she can’t die until she takes off her hat and apologizes for not doing a better job.
And wondering if this is how dinosaurs bleed.
Dude’s running stop signs after firing a weapon on campus. The cops are probably sick of hearing about him by now.
He didn’t run the stop sign.
Well not anymore he isn’t. But he was. Though having a masked vigilante skateboarding behind his car would probably bring more attention.
What cops?
I’m not sure how Joyce feels about calling the police at this point. It was discussed and rather firmly decided that the police would not be called after she was attacked at the party. Yes, this is a very different situation, but if Amazi-Girl had time to suit up and run over, the police could have been on scene now if she’d called them next.
Damnfool girl.
She called Amazi-Girl before things devolved into “kidnapped at gunpoint”, so that’s not reflective of whether she’s going to call the cops now.
She didn’t call the cops when she was attacked so that her parents wouldn’t pull her out of school; what are the odds she thinks her parents wouldn’t pull her out of school if they found out she was sheltering a lesbian non-student in her room and hiding said student from Toedad, then trying to interfere when Toedad arrived on the scene? Especially since all parents in question apparently know each other very well?
I’m guessing Joyce turned to Amazi-girl-via-Dorothy first because she’s learned to trust her friends before authority figures.
She didn’t call the cops in a situation where the bad thing was over and she was now safe. In this situation, her oldest friend is being kidnapped at gunpoint, present tense. Yes, Joyce might be in trouble when her parents find out what she’s been doing (though I think the shotgun is likely to give them pause about whether she should have trusted Ross), but I really don’t think she’s going to prioritize that over Becky’s safety.
(And honestly, it’s not like Amazi-Girl did her a blind bit of good last time, so I’m not sure why Joyce would assume she can fix this.)
She’s no longer “sheltering a lesbian student in her room” – Becky lives with Sal now!
Oof, that panel 1 Becky is haunting. She’s completely given up any hope that she can return to her friends, her girlfriend, and a life where she can be herself and has fully internalized that any attempt to save herself will just be summarily undone by her terrorist of a father’s full willingness to put those she cares about in grave danger. And she’s unwilling to do that again, even to save that part of herself that is her. That is heartbreaking. And its extra heartbreaking that she has to beg her dad simply to obey the law (from here on out). But beyond that, she’s already made peace with the fact that this is the end of the her that matters (until hopefully the police intervene or hopefully not when Amazi-Girl gets shot trying to help her).
Also, it’s clear that Amber’s college physics courses haven’t started yet.
Amazie-girl is immune to criticiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii….
It’s a damn shame we can’t vote posts up anymore, as this one deserves it.
But not necessarily to the laws of physics, it appears.
… but not mockery.
how to get the attention of the police:
step 1: wave a gun around in a public area and fire it
step 2: flee via car and skip all red lights and stop signs.
step 3: ????
step 4: SHOOTOUT!
You forgot the step where the police notice a masked vigilante skateboarding behind the car.
Perhaps in this sequence of strips we’ll get to see if the cops actually know Amazi-girl is running around campus.
And get to see of there are actually cops on campus.
It’s a college campus. Will anyone even think twice when they see someone running around in a strange costume in the middle of October?
It depends on what the team mascot or mascots look like.
It’s almost Halloween. Strange things are seen this month.
She’s a marsupial?
Amazi-Possum!
Becky said she doesn’t want a repeat of what happened. Don’t blame her, but still…actually, I’m having seco9nd thoughts about this. Maybe Becky can handle her Dad on her own. Maybe she can talk some sense into him, as soon as he puts the gun away.
Not sure what Amazi-Girl can do now.
The only way this can end well is if Becky manages to convince her father to leave her alone and let he make her own choices in life.
Otherwise, he’s either going to keep her like a prisoner or keep chasing after her.
Or if he gets jailed or shot by the cops.
I vote for this option.
Or both.
I honestly prefer just plain shot. Means he’s out of circulation for good.
If he gets shot “good” enough, he won’t get out of the hospital until the comic has ended, thereby removing him from the comic without violating Wills’ “no kill” policy.
I prefer Just Me’s take on ending well, though I don’t share her optimism that it’s likely
Wasn’t trying for Optimism, maybe realism. All other options are
going to be hardest on Becky. Becky doesn’t want to see her father
injured or dead, she also doesn’t want to see him in jail. As soon as Amazi-girl get’s involved, one of those options is almost inevitable.
If Becky can find a way to reason with her father, convince him that this is not the right thing to do, then no one get’s hurt.
All other options may land someone in the hospital. My guess? I think Becky is the one who is going to end up in the hospital. Maybe that is what it will take to convince her father that he’s an idiot.
And in her grief, Becky can’t shake the strange sense of guilt and horror that her actions lead to the death of her father, and it ruins her relationship and drives her back into the closet.
Or what, she throws a party cause her dad is dead?
If Becky as a character is happier with her dad dead, then I will be surprised at the writing – not that I think he will die.
May not be happier, but she’ll be safer and better off.
Will she? I can think of several ways that assumption is incorrect. Becky is an adult. If she wants to bide her time and escape her dad under other circumstances, she can. Her father pretty clearly doesn’t want to hurt his daughter physically if he can avoid it. He doesn’t actually want to hurt anyone physically. He wants to return things to the status quo – a status quo that Becky herself endorsed just a handful of weeks ago.
Obviously he is an irrational person. And he may yet act irrationally. But throwing a violent psychopath into what is already a volatile situation?
Impossible to say what direction this will be written. But given the way things have been structured, Tragedy is more likely than Triumph. It is a story after all – a soap opera. And a truly happy ending in this scenario would be a pretty dull one.
Cops? Would the cops come without sirens for a shooter on campus?
Amazi-Girl just got toed!
Tow-Dad?
Yup. Toed by toedad!
Ross, a little parenting tip. It helps if you think of your daughter in terms of a HUMAN rather than a CAPTIVE… of course, that kinda assumes that you haven’t forced her into the car at gun point to begin with.
Anyway, PLEASE stop acting like you want to turn this into a joint suicide.
Don’t be silly! Daughters aren’t humans. Daughters are property. That’s why the father gives away the bride. It’s a transfer of property.
Kids these days that don’t know what’s what!
Unfortunately, he really does. In his awful viewpoint, if they die now, in this brief window where she’s “saved from her dark path” then they both go to Heaven and reunite with his wife. To him, it’s win-win.
Honestly, while she really didn’t have much choice with regards to what to do, she’s in a really dangerous place right now. Her dad is practically waiting for an excuse to off her and martyr himself and now she’s having to walk a very narrow tightrope to defuse that… and Amazi-Girl is in her less effective “I must act” mode… oh dear.
Yes, this. The things that Big Toe Daddy was saying at the fountain are of extreme concern, and I hope that the police dealing with this kidnapping get told about them real soon now. Also about the fact that Becky has Dina’s phone.
Yes, unfortunately this is developing to the worst kind of hostage situation where the hostage taker doesn’t want anything else than killing the hostage and is working himself up to it.
Yeah, he doesn’t change gears quickly (after all, changing one’s mind is moral relativism and Satan) and definitely built himself up to be ready to take a life (specifically hers) and part of him probably knows he’s not going to be getting away with this long-term.
Looking at it again, his statement is part hope. Like, yeah, jump out of the car, so I have an excuse. And that’s the worst thing about abusers like him. They are so dangerous and so quick to escalate that there really isn’t an easy way to survive them. Giving them what they want only lasts until the next escalation excuse and running away gives them the excuse to hunt you down like an animal.
Animal: specifically, varmint/vermin, a type of animal which “threaten human society by spreading diseases”? Would that be how BTD would see an unredeemed lesbian? Because, Willis chose to give him a varminter (varmint-hunting rifle)
Brrr. Yep, absolutely on the wanting an excuse to stomp. My dad was a lot like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_blOQEu9ws
Physics is a bongo.
Does that mean we can play it?
*plays, plays, plays plays the bon-go*
George, George, George of the Jungle
Friend to you and me
*trumpet*
So, am I the only one with the Back to the Future theme stuck in their head due to this strip?
Bring that yesterday was Back to the Future Day, it seems an appropriate homage.
Yes, but not due to this strip…it’s more due to the past 24 hours.
Half expecting this to end how it did when Ryan North’s brother tried to pull this stunt: with horrible road rash and a severed nipple.
Cool, I wasn’t the only one who wound up there from twitter yesterday. North wasn’t wearing a shirt, Amazi-Girl should be fine.
I pray that rope has excellent tensile strength.
You forgot to lean into the turn! Check if your trucks are loose enough!
amazigirl isnt going to stop him, his consistent failure to obey traffic rules is gonna stop him
ALSO WHY ARE NEITHER OF THEM WEARING THEIR SEAT BELTS
While being kidnapped, or while committing kidnapping and attempting to flee the scene, seatbelts may be forgotten.
As Ross notes, purposely avoiding her seatbelt is an expected tactic for the victim here. And he doesn’t want his movement restricted to hinder his attacking.
sure, but im pretty sure she doesnt actually plan to escape right now
He has no reason to expect that, though
thats not really the point
she knows shes not planning to jump out, and should therefore be wearing her seat belt
Would Jesus Christ wear a seat-belt?
Most likely, yes.
doesnt look like it
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=2153
What if the next few strips are like Wile E Coyote chasing the Roadrunner, only instead it’s Amazi-Girl trying and failing to catch Toedad (open manhole, speed bump, large pane of glass being delivered, etc), and instead of being funny it just gets increasingly more sad?
Please no.
Personally, I think that would wrap back around to funny if it were kept up long enough.
No, it wouldn’t.
Humor is subjective.
You can not confuse your amusement, or lack there of, with something not being amusing.
you are you, you are not Everybody.
The chase ends with Big Toe Daddy’s car sliding into a manure truck.
I would be OK with this outcome
I call… bullshit.
… I’ll see myself out.
I get it!
“Big Toe Daddy”
http://img.pandawhale.com/53467-Seinfeld-Elaine-cringe-gif-k0H9.jpeg
-Dina leaps out of bushes, into road in front of Ross
-Ross narrows his eyes, makes to ram Dina
-Becky cries, “Stop, Dad!”, grabs wheel, pushes
-Car swerves off road, hits manure truck
-Becky leaps out as car fills with manure
*Amazi-Girl screeches to halt behind car*
Huh.
*tips up skateboard, grabs it, walks away*
*police pull up a few minutes later, fish ToeDad out of manure, arrest him*
Hey Shen? Do you think we could spare a suit of Skeleton Armor, now that we’re switching to Titan armor?
Another Back to the Future reference. Here’s hoping Ross will hit a manure truck by the end of the week.
You know, if Amazi-girl shows some Amazi-reflexes, I could actually see this working for her. Possibly even better than if she’d just tried to follow the path of the car.
And she has before.
“That’s the power of
lovemomentum”.Amazi-Girl… your alternate identity is a computer science major. Despite the fact that it is in no way needed for her major, I highly doubt Amber (and thus you) are entirely ignorant of physics. Skitching is a bad idea if you’re holding onto the bumper by hand, and even worse when using a grappling hook.
especially when you’re riding the way she is in panel 6
I can just imagine Amazi-Girl grumbling, “Stupid Newton and his stupid first law of motion…”
Bumpers can be bolted on pretty poorly, or just made of plastic. Maybe she just rips it off and Toedad gets pulled over for not having a license plate?
What say he gets pulled over for assault, kidnapping, and reckless discharge of a firearm?
But that’s less obvious from a cop car with police that haven’t received the description or for whatever reason weren’t actively trying to spot him.
Well he first got spotted with his gun when he was going after Becky+Dina, and after beating up Dina he ran back to his car, then drove to the fountain. So by now I’d suspect the people noticing him already gave the cops his looks and described his car.
But if he hits the open road, he’ll be just one car in a sea of many. Hopefully they’d be on the lookout, but minus his plates or whatever he’d independently draw the attention of traffic cops, which is important because they might not pull over ever brown car with a smashed bumper (and, alternatively, if someone calling 911 reports that they just saw his plates fall off, that makes his car even more identifiable).
I’d kind of love to see him get stopped in traffic (not that it couldn’t also be for speeding or running lights) and have the cops notice Becky freaking out, although I’m thinking/expecting that either a targeted pulling-over or a chase is more likely.
Couldn’t help but notice we’ve been having a few posts of Amazi-Girl but no posts of Sal…
#SalIsAmaziGirl
#thegovermentisreptiles
#thetruthisoutthere
You forgot #themoonlandingwasfaked
This would work better with a Billie-gravatar!
Hmm. Big Toe Daddy didn’t even scold Becky for saying “Jeez”. His morale is crumbling already.
Or he’s too concerned with other things to note.
That’s how the rot sets in. Be alert! Keep your laser handy.
I’m not exactly sure what option I’m picturing for next strip. There’s her avoiding obstacles and continuing to follow as is, or she could hit the stop sign, or even just lose footing and fall (and please let go and not have a following car hit her (also, following car, call 911 about the kidnapping)). If she hits the sign, it could comic magic so that tomorrow she’s using it like a waterskiing handle, or she could lose her grip on the rope, or the rope could tie to the sign and either pull the license plate (and possibly bumper) off or uproot the stop sign. All options are pretty good for attracting attention to his car, though. The grappling hook stayed on in that corner despite the slack, so even if she loses it it’ll probably drag behind the car.
Of course all could fail and this could be irrelevant to the capture of Ross, but you know.
Also, Ross is more aware than I expected of the fact that he has not cowed Becky into obeying him, which also makes it a little more unfortunate that this isn’t all somehow being recorded because that quote would be great evidence for the kidnapping.
Sometimes, I wonder how many cops are on patrol at this time of day.
Hey! Give them a break! They’re still half-way through their third round of coffee and donuts!
None?
IU has an enrollment of approximately Forty Six Thousand (46,000 ) and covers almost 2,000 acres of ground. In that 2000 acre foot print there are MANY multi-story buildings, making the square footage that the campus PD has to patrol much greater.
It is basicly a city in it’s own right. But it doesn’t have a city’s worth of law enforcement. The IU Police Department in Bloomington employs 44 full time sworn police officers as well as several part time police officers and student cadets. Divide that into three shifts and realistically we have something Like TWENTY sworn officers on duty during this time of day.
Fair enough, and so they’d be quite scattered over a large area. Surely, however, if they get calls about a gunman and shots fired at the fountain, would they not ALL turn on sirent and flashers and roll that direction?
The shot, singular, was a few seconds ago. Only the people who saw it would have paid it much mind. A single loud noise, even a bang, is an attention getter sure But all it does is get the attention. The average human’s experience that noise would hit the hind brain as a car backfire, or perhaps the screen door up the bock from where they grew up that bangs in the wind. I believe that even among combat veterans who would recognize the particular crack of a .223 round being discharged, a single crack would most likely be dismissed with a thought of ” Don’t be all ptsdie, you’re back in the world, don’t spazz out.”
Additionally we have “The bystander effect” which is that humans are pack animals and we have the weird assumption that when something goes wrong someone else will have already addressed it so we don’t do anything about it.
It’s why someone being assaulted in a small store is more likely to receive immediate aid than someone being assaulted in the parking lot of a housing complex.
I don’t think we’ve seen any of the people in frame calling the police it may well be that no one has.
Of course this is looking at humans at the Bownian level. There are always people at the ends of the bell curves. And mot of our named characters are indeed at the flat end of more than one behavior curve.
The best interpretation of the lack of police in frame is that someone we know is currently less than a minute into a call to dispatch, and he dispatcher is still at the ” Ma’am (or sir) I need you to calm down and repeat that.” stage.
Though if someone was setting up a pool my money would be split between two scenarios.
1) Dispatch knows something is up but does not realize that the calls about the old man screaming at a couple of girls and then chasing them, and the calls about a noise that may have been a gunshot and the calls about a reckless driver are all related. After all it’s only been a minute or three.
2) Ross has excellent timing and there is some disruptive activity, such as free speech or a NCAA sports event, across campus that has police and/or traffic tied up.
IU’s football and both basketball teams are both in the top classification tier of college sports teams. The regularly have most if not all of their games picked up by international sports stations like ESPN, and are heavily recruited by pro-teams. Right now it’s Football season and the exposition game preseason for Basketball.
All you say is reasonable and might well be true. I’m mostly reacting to the many posters who’ve said the police are on their way but haven’t arrived. To me it seems that if police are on their way in response to a call about a gunman/shooter on campus, then their sirens will be heard approaching well before they arrive. Is it possible that you are correct that they haven’t been dispatched yet — or perhaps not even been called? So far as I know, yes, but I have no independent view on that OR on the critical question of how much time has elapsed.
Hm. Just had a thought about the red hair. So Amber gets involved. Things escalate. Becky’s dad is killed. Even though Amber probably saved Becky and had good intentions, Becky blames Amber (and self) for Dad’s death.
A super villain is born.
“Aha” what? “Aha, that looks like a nice place to secure this rope” or “Aha, I seem to have just run into a wall”?
Aha, i may be immune to criticism, but i’m not immune to physics!
My take on this little trick is based on her ‘aha’ in the last panel.
I think she is planning on looping around the stop sign post, letting go of the rope, and intercepting the side of the car, so she can grab onto a door or window or whatever she can grab.
I’m hoping she figures right, and doesn’t end up in front of the car where Toedad will run over her – intentionally or not.
But the threat of running someone down might shock Becky out of her stupor.
I don’t think Becky is in a stupor. She’s very aware of what she’s doing and what her Toedad is doing, imo. She just didn’t have a choice and still doesn’t – she doesn’t want him waving the damn gun around – so is doing what he wants, for now.
Okay, state.
I think so too. If the grappler is only attached to the fender, it won’t be a secure hold-down; if Ross were to gun the engine enough, the fender would tear loose. However, it is much more likely that his first instinct will be to get out of the car to see what the problem is. Face, meet Amazi-Girl’s boot.
What’s a fender? Is it a bumper? I thought it was the kind of arched structure over a wheel, a mudguard.
On newer car models, the bumper and fender are often in one piece and Americans tend to use the words interchangeably.
I’ve lived in America all my life and I’ve never heard those two terms used for the same thing. The bumpers are on the front and back, the fenders are on the side.
I’m genuinely surprised to read this. I’m a Brit myself and I actually thought that ‘fender’ was US English for ‘bumper’. That’s why I used it!
“Fender” is “wing”, I think.
Also American. Bumpers and fenders are the same thing.
This.
Antique Southern American here (Texan actually) and bumpers and fenders are two different things. Bumpers are across the front and rear of the car. Fenders cover the tires.
Cause Bumpers are for bumping into & fenders for fending off, eh?
I live less than two hours from Bloomington. I can tell you that regionally, bumper and fender are used interchangeably here in the ORV.
This
Possibly with a potshot by toe first though. And depending on where she’s hit (if it connects) she might be so high on adrenaline that she just keeps coming, not even noticing it. There’s a reason why soldiers check manually for wounds after a fight – you get keyed up enough, first way you know you’re hit is you find a damp spot.
PHYSICS! Amber’s true nemesis.
oh boy
I’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated by nerd culture to expect callbacks and shoutouts everywhere, so I’m now wondering what PVB X11 might be a reference to.
…other than a linux distribution, obvs.
The real name of May from Questionable Content? After all it was Dale who called her May, much to her initial annoyance.
Regardless if Amazi-girl manages to pull off some sort of ninja move to catch up with the car, if she and Toedad go toe to toe (heh), it won’t end well. Everyone in the area is calling the police, probably giving them a description of the vehicle. They’ll see her and remember the incident from the previous week (or so) ago, where Blaine was beaten to pulp outside the McDonald’s. Her Heroics are going to either get her arrested or seriously injured or both.
The characters I would actually like to see more of is Riley and Jocelyne. Everyone else I like gets sufficient… panel time? Screen time maybe, since I am reading this on a computer? Hm.
I get why I will not see them much, and therefore why they are not in that poll, but I answered honestly anyway because I sort of have a thing about how many damn text documents I have to lie in on a regular basis.
I want to see some Carla Development. Maybe ‘caus she’s a fellow transgirl, buuut.
I want to see more of Raidah. Not because I like her (I don’t), but because if we’re seeing her then we’re probably getting closer to a resolution with her and Sarah. I mean, they both have reasons to be upset. Raidah is being a bullying jerk, but she’s doing it because she really does think that Sarah got that other chick kicked out for selfish reasons. I’m sure the two will never be friends, but it would be nice to see them both mature a little bit and maybe stop wanting to kill each other a little bit.
I want to see the backstory of Mary.
Even Ross has a backstory, a motivation for doing the evil things he does, but Mary is just a cartoonish villain!
And she’s plotting.
I’m still harboring the theory that the wristbands that Mary wears all the time are to cover up scars from cutting or a suicide attempt.
“So that is how physics”
Reminding me an awful lot of an old Batman computer game I had on my Amstrad!
This strip is *how* grounded in reality, again…?
No aliens, ut on the other hand realistic cop-appearance-times.
but not ut!
Grounded? Hm? But it is IN TOUCH with reality, mostly, though not entirely
“If I slow down you’ll jump out.” Meanwhile most cops tend to pull over a car running stop signs. If he thinks that won’t cause some problems then it’s only because he’s gotten away with as much as he has already.
Oddly enough, I think that Ross would welcome death at this point. It would certainly save him several difficult choices that have come his way due to his failure to think this caper through well in advance.
I think you’re right, sad to say.
I mean, sure, he stopped, but her catching up to him…it’s like Xeno’s paradox in reverse, with the tortoise catching up to Achilles after he’s had the head-start.
And then the tortoise snaps his tendon to hobble his so he can’t escape again?
Zeno’s Paradox. Well, he had several. Very paradoxical chap, Zeno.
Ah, I knew it was a W.
At least a pair a parodoxes, eh?
I can remember two: the Paradox of the Arrow and the Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. I have an impression that there are more.
That is not the stance of a person who knows how to ride a skateboard.
I thought she knew since she was able to push, because honestly that was the hardest part of learning to skate for me. Standing on the board (in a normal stance, not like water skiing) and steering is relatively easy.
I can honestly see Amazi-Girl giving Ross a Blaine-level pounding with her father’s voice ringing in her ears and Becky having to stop her. Cue considerable Ambangst. I wonder who keeps her grounded?
It was not Amazi-Girl who gave Blaine his last pounding!
I can see AG failing at this. She’s immune to criticism, not failure. But Becky must be saved or it will ruin Joyce’s life for years of comic time. My money is on Joyce playing a key role in saving Becky. With Sal and her motorcycle.
AG failing would be very bad on two fronts. Firstly, this situation is analogous to her ‘origin story’, and failing would imply she was still “weak and powerless”. Secondly, it would be the second time she had directly failed Joyce. This would probably tip both Amber and Joyce into further angst and despair and self destructive behaviour.
Let me explain why Joyce will save Becky.
First, it was foretold by Sarah that in the end, it would come down to Joyce. Willis does not idly put such foreshadowing in.
Second, Willis has already bypassed the easy storyline. Dina had a chance to save Becky and failed. New love failed and now the resident designated hero will fail too. The third time is the charm – its a rule of fiction.
Finally (since three reasons are more persuasive than two and four is right out), Joyce needs to recover her agency and acting here will accomplish that. Joyce is the main character, not Amber. Amber needs to fail and seek serious help, not succeed and be reinforced in her behavior.
It might not be what we want, but I think it is what the existing narrative demands.
We do have a preview panel of Joyce running that has yet to appear…
You may very well be right, however, I want Becky to play an equal role with Joyce, because she needs agency every bit as Joyce, PLUS tagteaming Toedad to free Becky would be a great way for them to reboot their friendship. Imo
Oh fuck. Joyce is the one who ends in the hospital.
Cripes, this is frelling terrifying.
We have seen preview panels of joyce. Not possible.
Honestly, it could go either way – the jury is out on who gets her out, but I will wager that AG plays a pivotal role. Again, a sucess by AG would make a good setup for an even greater fall.
Pouches, of course it’s a Amazi-Utility Belt.
time for an Amazi-Turn.
The angle of the rope makes it appear that AG has tied the rope to the stop sign, and that the rope is tightening. It’ll be interesting to see where the tension of the rope sends the rear bumper. They aren’t that well attached on modern cars. Losing the bumper will have one of two effects. Fundie will either increase speed, or stop to survey the damage. My guess is that he’ll just keep driving, he doesn’t want to chase down his stray a second time and Becky’s reassurance that she won’t run won’t keep him calm for long. If he loses the bumper, that will be one more thing to attract the police. Hopefully the girl on the phone was calling them and not her “BFF” with a conversation consisting of several “OMG”‘s. If she did contact the police, they might be able to catch him before he hits the highway.
YOU CHANGED THE LICENSE PLATE
Oh shit.
Did the artist goof, or did Fundie snag a spare at the impound lot?
Could be either.
Ah physics you are a cruel and temperamental mistress
… so was the grappling hook, like, just shoved up her butt the whole time like a secret agent or what? It doesn’t seem small enough to have been in her not-Batman pouches.
I don’t know it’s kind of jarring to go from dramatic possible school shooting to this particular degree of wackiness in such quick succession but I guess what’s important is how it ends. Like maybe the point is to show Amber’s in over her head or something.
I think that’s how we’re supposed to take Amber as Amazi-Girl. She’s a visual metaphor for Amber’s coping mechanisms and building a fantasy where she’s powerful and confident and can do anything.
Come to think of it, this is the first time Amber’s ever tried to do something superhero-like beyond occasionally beating up dudes harassing people. She’s done some crazy parkour stuff before when she was escaping Dorothy, but otherwise she usually just sticks to fistfights.
So the endpoint of this is almost definitely going to be Amber ruining everything.
Yeah, Amazi-girl really does seem to be pretty close to low-end superhero level, but with some issues because this isn’t that kind of story.
She’s impressive, particularly on the parkour front.
But this isn’t a wacky hi-jinks super-hero story. This isn’t “Amazi-girl swoops in to save the day.” (Or Sal. Or anyone else who’s been suggested.)
Even when the superhero is in the story, it’s far more about her psychological issues than about heroic deeds. Her main adventure so far involved losing control and beating her dad to a pulp and that left her even more screwed up than when she started.
If she’s successful here, we can expect much the same. Loss of control. Too much violence. Emotional trauma. For her and Becky.
Or she could fail, letting them get away. Which again, leaves her traumatized having failed Joyce again.
Either way, it’s not going to be clean wacky finish. Today’s damage isn’t over yet, even if we’re currently in a tension-relieving bit of the arc. We’ll be dealing with the repercussions of this day for years of real time. And that’s assuming Ross doesn’t get away with Becky.
This REALLY is a “Wait and see” thing for me because the strip where Joyce yelled “DAMN IT” seemed like the absolute perfect place for the arc to end, but now it’s… still going, because of superhero shenanigans that plays jumprope with my suspension of disbelief?
It’s just weird for me but I can wait patiently and see where it’s going.
Release tension. Ramp tension back up again.
This isn’t going to end with shenanigans. Superhero or otherwise.
For me, at least, I don’t think the tension needed to deescalate so much. It feels weird going from an incredibly serious campus shooting moment to Amazi-Girl being summoned like Jim Gordon lighting up the Bat Signal and pulling a McFly, with Sayid just calmly giving her his skateboard instead of a whole bunch of mass panic and police officers swarming the campus. Without spoiling anything, the new patreon comic Willis posted did a great job of setting how I think the mood of this storyline should consistently be more like.
And I mean, you’re right, this is just a brief pause before things become serious again. It’s still shaping up to be a fun story, and I think it’s going to prove vital in Amber’s future character development, but I think the wind’s been taken out of the sails a bit.
I understand the concept I’m just skeptical of the execution.
Read the hovertext. She has t in a pouch.
Is the pouch a Tardis?
Well okay I’m just nitpicking at this point I guess I can buy it.
How long before that bumper comes off?
Ooooh right physics.
Please tell me the skateboard on the back of the car was a back to the future reference because of the BttF2 date thing.
And now Amazi-Girl gets dragged behind a car for a mile
Maybe that’s how she gets sent to the hospital.
LOL Physics can be a bongo.
OH MY GOD ARE YOU RICHARD FEYNMAN
I do luvs me some grappling hook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acDGHBumvIA
What she needs is a Big Fucking 90s Pouch-Sword!
So, wouldn’t Toedick hear a grappling hook impacting into the back of his car?
Probably will be addressed in the next comic.
Police sirens: where are they? Does anyone know if cops would run silent on a shooter/hostage on campus call? Otherwise, there would be audible sirens by now, IRL, wouldn’t there?
No mo.
Jump out, Becky! JUMP OUT AND TAKE HIS GUN WITH YOU!
Amazi-Girl’s latest nemesis appears!
“The Centrifugal Force”
I think its actually centripetal.
Trust xkcd to set things straight.
IT’S OFFICIAL —
Becky gets out of this just fine.
Bad URL in the link — try this one:
Becky gets out of this just fine.