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Really though, it’s amazing how much hope I get from looking at just this strip, even though no real progress is made to fixing the problem. I expected her to break down completely. Instead, I’m seeing a defiance that makes me think she’s actually regaining her footing. Break those personal barriers, Joyce. Save your best friend.
If Joyce swore, I’m sure that Sal would immediately pull her onto the bike and start driving immediately and use her awesomeness to instantly know where to go
And Amazi-girl pulls up next to her on the amazi-cycle with dina in the sidecar in full predator gear (the dinosaur kind, natch+obv, but the other kind is an amusing image at least) and they all mutually sorta nod at each other and accelerate towards the horizon.
Fade to black, cut to danny doing danny things, probably wondering where everyone went
No. No no no.
All of you guys are making 2 serious mistakes.
1. You all are disregarding the hero here. Becky. Becky basically saved the day. She instantly defused an explosive situation that was about to go FUBAR, and if her dad is not lying, it ended without anyone getting hurt physically. Becky is the hero here, who saved the day. Saying that Becky is the helpless damsel in distress who needs rescuing from others is not recognizing Becky’s sacrifice and heroism and level thinking.
2. This was a TACTICAL RETREAT not a SURRENDER. There’s actually no way for Becky’s dad to “win” in this situation. He won’t be allowed to brainwash attempt Becky, he won’t even be allowed to retain custody. In fact, when Becky gets him to lay down his gun, you can see that he’s starting to deflate, and Becky is in fact gaining leverage and control over HIM instead. His expression as he drives away shows he realizes he messed up. At this point, Becky might even convince himself to turn himself in, at the rate she is taking control of the situation.
Seriously. Reread the last few panels. Becky is NOT “I surrender, I will do whatever you want now!”… Becky is “OK, I’ll get in the car, and YOU will do these things, and this is how it’s gonna go… am I right?” And Becky’s dad stutters back “Y-yes”.
I agree with the way you see Becky, her dad, and the balance of power in the last strip, he does look weak and sad. Considering that (I choose to believe that) he didn’t shot Dina or anyone, I feel sorry for him now.
About the title of this strip… is this the first one NOT coming from the dialogue in the actual strip itself? Just curious, I usually look back at the title after reading the strip and it’s always been there, maybe in sign language but still there – unless I missed some.
Also, damn it, Willis… and thanks. Like Nightsbridge, I do see that strength in Joyce that give me hope, or some other warm feeling inside.
(And since I realized my tone was vague: this is an impressed ‘DAMN, you go Joyce, I love you.’ She’s probably going to do something impulsive and dangerous, but still I am so proud of her for being able to go from shock to righteous fury right here.)
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: when Joyce snaps she reacts with rage and violence. Joyce is not going to take this lieing down, she’s going to try and save Becky, either herself or through others more capable. Ross status as a known and trusted authority figure who was also wielding a weapon broke her brain, taking Becky snapped her back to reality. Shit’s going to go down.
That is very true. While her PTSD reaction is very much freeze, her traumatic response seems to be fight and she’s consistently responded to horrible things in the moment with intense rage.
I won’t be surprised if this is the cataclysm of Joyce’s fundamentalist upbringing. This may actually be the point in her life where she questions her religion, the people who follow it, and so much more.
Shit, I did that as far back as high school, and I still keep some of its ideals in me as atheistic as I remain. Hopefully Willis isn’t going to smear religion in its entirety, but maybe this opens Joyce’s eyes up just enough to see not everything godly is candy and ice cream.
Neither. She hasn’t even committed a sin. Damn it isn’t a religious trespass it’s just a social rule that she has violated.
While it is a landmark, lets not go overboard with attaching inappropriate subcontext.
In contrast to most other words you American consider “swearing”, “damn” IS actually a swear, as it means to call upon God to smite whatever you “damn”. But then again, in this situation, she probably MEANS it, which removes it from the swearing list again. A “true” swear is either blasphemous, or invokes a god/demons name or calling in vain. So “fuck” is not a swear word, but “Bedevilled” IS.
I remember the first time I said “damn it” in earshot of my mother. I was maybe ten or eleven and had been taking out the trash; I slipped on some ice and fell and uttered the curse, not knowing she was close enough to hear me. After the obligatory mouth-washed-out-with-soap routine, I was parked in a chair and it was explained to me just why what I had said was so horrible; to wit, what ‘damning’ someone or something actually meant. From there the lesson expanded to show why “God damn it” was even worse — you were calling upon the Deity to punish this person or thing — and “God damn it to hell!” was quite literally off the scale entirely.
As for words like “fuck”, “shit”, and the rest of the more earthy euphemisms for bodily parts and functions, they weren’t necessarily “cursing” or “swear words”, but they were “vulgar”. I was constantly reminded that I had been raised better than to use words like those.
Incidents like that, while true from a technical perspective (your mother was right about the meaning of the swear), begs the question: is it so terrible to damn a puddle of ice to Hell? Or to ask God to do it? And if so, would it stay there? Does it go to the lowest level of Dante’s Hell, where all feelings die in a frozen lake? Or does it go to a higher level, melt, and escape?
This is why such discussions rarely go over well with me. .___. No one ever wants to discuss the intricacies of sending ice to Hell.
The trouble is invoking God’s name “in vain,” that is, “in vanity,” or for selfish or petty reasons. Slipping on ice and wanting it to go to Hell is a really petty reason to call upon the Creator of Everything. So the problem isn’t what happens to the ice. God wouldn’t grant such a petty request anyway.
Although the Biblical Hell is just “a lake of fire.” Dante is basically an elaborate fanfiction. So the ice would steam pretty quick, I think.
While obviously nicer, isn’t it just as vain, petty or selfish to demand that God bless someone or something?
If that’s the reason, shouldn’t it work both ways?
Are all those nice little old ladies saying God bless you all the time, really taking God’s name in vain?
Why ask? It’s literally the work of 30 to 50 seconds to do that yourself using The GIMP (ok a couple caveats: 1. it took me 15 seconds, but I’m making allowances if you’re not familiar with the software in question and 2. I’m not allowing for the time to download the software in question). It’d be something else if you were asking Willis for a wallpaper scale version of that final panel.
Ok… wow. A LOT happened in the past few strips. Frankly, I feel that police involvement should have happened sooner, however the delay wasn’t unreasonable given that Toe Dad moved from his original spot to the spot by the fountain and the spot by the fountain likely took less than two minutes. This arc seriously changed things.
I imagine that Amber might feel that Amazi-girl failed at the moment she was most needed, at the time when a hero was most necessary. Joyce will potentially remain traumatized long after this strip, even if she doesn’t show it openly, and she may begin to question her faith and her upbringing. Becky was Dina’s first relationship… I’m not even sure what long term Toe Dad’s rampage this will have on Dina or on Becky.
A few long-term predictions: Joyce will have to face her parents at some point in the future, potentially in a confrontation-type system. Becky will end up enrolling an Indiana University (please let it be true!) Toe Dad will… urgh. I don’t want to think about him. Dina may have to go to the hospital for a concussion or other injuries. The Dean will likely get involved. And Amber will either take on the role of Amazi-girl even more fervently, or will give it up entirely.
All in all, as much as we damn Willis, he did an excellent job with both the writing and the execution of the arc… Toe Dad’s actions were on the extreme end, but they weren’t unreasonable based on what we know of his character. The strip exposed the raw, human side of everyone involved… I love to hate Toe Dad, but the beliefs promoted by Toe Dad’s strain of fundamentalist Christianity are just as much to blame as Toe Dad himself. Religion can convert reasonable, good, people into monsters.
Just… ARGH! Too many feels!
I imagine that there are about a billion cellphone pics of Toedad’s license plate, car, and face around there now (not even going into any campus security cameras), so the police will have no lack of leads in tracking him down once they do get there even if Joyce chases after them so they don’t have a name.
The impact on Dina and Becky’s relationship will be interesting even if Becky is rescued from the Toejam. Becky will be full of guilt for “putting her lovely Dinosaur Girl in danger” even if it wasn’t directly her fault that she had an abusive doucheweasel of a Dad. And Dina will likely be beating herself up that she wasn’t able to stop Toe Dad from taking Becky away (especially if Becky gets injured later by Toe Dad either trying to take her out before the “cops can take her away from him” or from jumping out of the vehicle or a car crash). Plus, they’ll both have PTSD from their near scrapes with an armed a-hole. And Becky will especially be haunted by the fact that her dad has demonstrated he will never stop and will happily hurt her loved ones to make her do what he wants.
Not to mention that I know from personal experience that “you and me against the world” type relationships are often really straining on that bond even when it is as healthy as Dina and Becky’s relationship.
Which to me is a huge potential cost. I was liking Dina and Becky’s romancing as much as anything that Willis has done. And it was SO obviously good for both of them. I have no analysis of the path or odds of it, but I do hope that they can get back on something like the path they were on, AFTER Becky escapes from Toebag — before he can really get to work on her. And I hope that she gets to rescue herself: Agency!
Exactly, PTSD is a tricky and complicated thing. Essentially, when a traumatic event happens the brain kicks into overdrive and can suddenly track a lot more of what’s going on around you. This is so that quick life saving/protecting decisions can be made in as little reaction time as possible. Since the brain is working at beyond peak performance it’s creating the memories of the event at a higher intensity and much stronger neuron connections than normal memories are made. Hence, when later those memories are triggered they feel like the event is happening again with all the same intensity.
Now, it takes a lot of stress to bring the brain to that level of performance and while everyone’s threshold for that kind of stress is different based on genetic, environmental, and familiarity variables, true PTSD comes from truly terrifying and mind breaking events.
Did you know in the original version it was just fuck? The American publisher didn’t want to print fuck, so he made it Belgium and added the bit where Arthur was all confused about it.
No, no, we can’t. To “swear” means either being blasphemous, or taking a god/demons name in vain. The other words you are thinking of, are RUDE words, but they are definitively not SWEAR words.
British English would also agree. “Swear words” (we don’t say “curse words”) would be everything you can’t say on children’s TV, like “shit”, “fuck”, “bastard” etc. “Rude words” would be things like “bum” or “willy”.
But it’s joyce’s mindset that is relevant, not YOUR projection of what the “Ordinary American” has for a mindset in regards to the difference between blasphemy, cursing, swearing and naughty words.
What? I’m not talking about Joyce’s mindset. Or her language. I was addressing the discussion about broad and common linguistic patterns which existed in the past, but perhaps not now But if I were talking about Joyce’s language, then I do know that as regards [blasphemy /cursing/swearing/vulgarity/scatology/watev] she does not speak colloquial/ordinary contemporary American. So
I wouldn’t say so.
If it was, then every substitute for an obscenity would be an obscenity.
We all know what you mean when you yell ” Gosh Darned shoot!” when you pound your thumb with a hammer.
Also it’s calling on God that makes it falsely swearing in god’s name ( the origin of the misapplication of “swearing” for “using obscene language”) that would be the sin of taking god’s name in vain. And if you aren’t using it in vain, then you are committing the sin of trying to tell JHVW what to do.
I’m actually of the opinion that a substitute for an obscenity is in fact an obscenity to be, much like substitutes for unacceptable racist words in the end become racist because they’ll start being used in racist way.
The exceptions to that are the ‘cute’ substitutes like chips for shit and fudge for fuck. That’s because it simply sounds ridiculous in mainstream culture.
“And if you aren’t using it in vain, then you are committing the sin of trying to tell JHVW what to do.”
That’s not a sin, though, or praying would be a sin as well.
That’s why I’m kinda leaning towards that Joyce is not really swearing here, she really MEANS God to damn this situation to Hell.
Um? My understanding of “prayer” IS that its asking, perhaps beseeching God. I can’t recall “prayer” being used to mean telling God what to do. I don’t even get that: a human TELLING God what to do; does not compute. I get turning away from God and ceasing to pray, but not telling God. I do also get talking to God without asking for anything, but I wouldn’t call that prayer, either. But that’s just my understanding of these things and of the word prayer. I now need to go look it up in Websters or the OED. I would have before posting but I felt like working out what I believe, both about attempted communication with God and the word prayer BEFORE looking up what the pros say about use of that term in the language at large, beyond my own individual wozname.
If Joyce’s Pentecostal upbringing was anything like mine, substitutes were worse because you wanted to convey the meaning of the original so bad you came up with a work around…
Having grown up in an environment nearly identical to Joyce’s (and Willis’), I can tell you that probably she WOULD consider “God damn it” and “Damn it” to be pretty much the same, because just leaving God’s name out of it doesn’t mean that’s not what you MEANT by “damn it”.
Also that she probably doesn’t mean it “literally”. That’s just my take but I never once heard anyone say “damn it” and it be considered not a swear just because they “meant it literally”. Even if theoretically it would be more-or-less how they feel.
Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how much MORE torturous this sequence would be if DoA were still only updating 5 days a week? Ross pulled up onto the sidewalk 11 strips ago. That means 2 weekend breaks somewhere along the way (possibly going into a third if the sequence started on a friday). Could our hearts take that? I think not.
I was offline, camping, all weekend. Worse than having to wait two days for the next strip, there were two strips posted and I couldn’t read them for two days. So I died of the stress, and have only now been reanimated to an unholy undeath by the sheer blasphemous power of everyone up to and including Joyce herself damning Willis.
Mr and Mrs Brown had better not have known about and supported Ross’ decision to try and force Becky to return, or if they did, they may want to keep mum about it.
Happened in reverse to me. I high school I would try to sound cool by cursing like a sailor around my friends. In college I became a lot more likely to say things like “Curses!” and “Drat!”.
And occasionally “What sorcery is this?!” when I was really incensed.
She is just one yellow stripe away from her alien-fighting outfit here.
It would be really nice to see Joyce fly in pursuit, pull a giant pulsating cannon from… behind her… somewhere… and vaporize butthole dad’s engine block with one shot.
When the hurly-burly’s done, I actually expect that to happen exactly. And in my head, it’s accompanied by Joe finding a new level of respect for Joyce’s usual cleanliness of diction (though I’ll be the first to acknowledge how unlikely that is).
I would point out that Ross brandished and discharged a firearm on a school campus in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses. He committed at least three firearm related felonies. If a prosocuter wanted to go full bore and throw the book at him, Toedad could be spending up to thirty years in prison. There is likely going to be a detailed description of him, his car and Becky. Come to think of it, taking Becky almost literally at gunpoint adds another couple of decades to a possible sentence for kid napping.
Ross is pretty well screwed if Indiana has halfway decent law enforcement.
To clarify. Bringing a firearm into a gun free campus. Felony of up to ten years. Brandishing (waving a gun around like an idiot) Nother felony. Discharging a firearm in said gun free zone. Felony. If Becky’s abduction is considered a kidnapping, use of a firearm in commission of a crime. Felony. And the kidnapping itself. Felony.
In Indiana pointing a firearm at another human being, even in a jest understood and condoned by both parties, is a crime. We have three counts of that crime alone, once each for Becky, Joyce and Dina.
He definitely battered Dina. While in possession of a firearm, which could very well make it assault with a deadly weapon. I’m not sure about Assault and Battery, but I know other crimes, such as robbery or burglary you get the ” While in possession of a firearm” modifier even if you don’t actually use the gun, or even if it’s not really a functioning firearm.
And I believe his actions also count for several counts of making a “terroristic threat”
And if we are book throwing, there are several counts of reckless driving. Probably some charges related to improperly transporting a firearm, and improperly transporting ammunition.
“The defendant then pursued his daughter, who had run away from him, by car. When Ms. Macintyre refused to step into the car he pulled out Exhibit A, a Ruger No. 1 rifle, and repeated that she should get in the car. Upon questioning wether he had hurt anybody, he answered ‘no, and I hope I won’t have to’. Upon further discussion he fired a shot into the air that sent 5 student bystanders and Ms Brown ducking to the ground, afraid for their lives and safety, which he then reloaded – clearly a conscious action intent on once again firing the rifle. At this point there was a very real and imminent threat of the defendant using lethal violoence against a person. Upon this Ms Macintyre relucatantly agreed to get into the car. There are several witness statements that verify this chain of events, ladies and gentlemen. You can come to no other conclusion that the Defendant, Ross Macintyre, is guilty of all that the prosecution has charged him with.”
What exactly do they need to know that they wouldn’t?
Would the prosecutor forget to mention the threats of force, the threats of hurting other people to control her, the fact that she literally fled from him and he chased her down, or the fact that she initially refused to go with him not once but twice (and also “escaped” from him in the first place, to use Ross’s word)?
Because they’d have to forget to mention all of them, and Ross would probably helpfully bring up a few, what with his bluntly obvious method of describing his crimes while not understanding why being evil and violent are wrong.
Mc, Pat: Guilty! Guilty as charged!! GUILTY AS SIN!!!! (I am convinced! I was worrying that the commenters who hedged whether it was kidnapping represented potential jurors.)
I know it was a pretty obvious kidnapping at gunpoint, but it may come down to how Becky eventually describes it to law enforcement. They can get him on brandishing, discharge, and bringing the gun onto campus. And Humboldt brings up the battery of Dina and pointing the gun at people.
If Becky claims she went with him willingly, it may negate a kidnapping charge. Or maybe not, if a prosecutor can aurgue she was forced under duress and is claiming otherwise to protect him.
As Becky would be unlikely to lie about very well. As Ross would probably not realize he should lie about, since he seems to think his behavior is acceptable and has been openly describing it all along without hint of remorse. As all of the witnesses know, because they witnessed it.
Oh, and even if Becky tried to lie, they’d probably pick up on the facts that she “escaped” from him in the first place, that she literally fled from him and was chased, and that after he caught her the second time he had to fire the weapon to get her to go with him (and if they know about the discharge, they know that).
The prosecutor can throw whatever he wants at ToeDad. ToeDad gets an even mildly competent lawyer, goes to court, and over the course of three months or so pleads everything down to disorderly conduct and illegal parking, and winds up sentenced to counseling and, at the worst, three months of house arrest under electronic monitoring.
Sorry, pal, but 10+ eyewitnesses, three victim impact statements and a quick glance through Title 18, chapters 7, 55, and 44 § 922, subsection (q), paragraphs 2 & 3, subparagraphs A of the United States Code > mildly competent lawyer.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, she’s in the front passenger seat.
Fortunately because it’s a two-door car and this improves her chances of escape. Unfortunately because she probably can’t do anything with Dina’s phone without Toedad noticing.
Yeah I started worrying just after saying that that she’ll start texting visibly and he’ll huck the phone out the window. On the other hand, she’s not allowed a phone and he doesn’t know about the phone, so if she looks like she’s hunched over sadly and looking out her window, and he’s busy driving, he might not notice.
Comedy option: she’s already used Dina’s number on a job application offscreen. Galasso phones her, senses danger, begins pursuit.
“How dare you kidnap a potential future employee of mine?! She may be the key to my taking over the world! If you will not return her then I, Galasso, will have to retrieve her myself! And then conquer the world!”
Oh, I think ‘demons’ still works for this one. Make no mistake, Ross MacIntyre is not the angel of salvation he thinks he is. He is the personification of things that go bump in the nights of a million desperate insomniacs. Demons are very real, Cyber. They’ve just learned how best to disguise themselves to get close.
“You’re pretty uppity about how only girls who can swear can ride your bike, like your some edgy, tough girl just waiting for some stuffy english guy to tame you.”
“Well hey, Becky’s been kidnapped! Yeah! And I’d love to bring a war to the people holding her, but I don’t have a ride. Am I making myself clear?”
(imagine the raptor in the following comic is a motorcycle)
The only way this could be better is if instead of replacing the raptor with a motorcycle, you just replaced McNinja with Dina. I bet she would love to ride off on a raptor to save her girlfriend. .
(a) Becky Macintyre has been kidnapped, at gunpoint, by her father.
(b) Ross Macintyre has a rifle and has been talking about dying to save his daughter from Satanism because she is lesbian, and about getting everyone killed.
(c) Becky has a mobile phone, belonging to her lover Dina Saruyama, .
(d) Dina is unaccounted for.
It is very important that the police learn these things promptly, and Joyce is the only person who knows them.
(e) His car is of this type, and is damaged at the back right side (judging from yesterday’s strip)
(f) Said was towed yesterday, so if she doesn’t know it, tracing the licence plate shouldn’t be too hard.
Swearing, in the modern definition, isn’t a sin. JVHW wouldn’t care a bit.
Blasphemy is a sin. And that’s why Joyce could say Damn It, but not God Damn It.
In the phrase “Damn it!” the “God” is implied. “Damn it!” is imperative, which means you are issuing a command to someone. And who can damn something? Joe? Dorothy? No, only (in Joyce’s worldview) God has the power to damn someone or something. It’s implied blasphemy, and any attempt by Joyce to try to explain it away as not being blasphemy-blasphemy would be so much sophistry, and she knows it.
No it isn’t. Leaving off God specifically avoids calling on his name in vain.
By your logic any obscenity substitution is still an obscenity because fu(k is implied by fudge and bongo is implied by bongo, etc etc etc.
your experience with people who avoid obscenity and blasphemy appears to not be very extensive, and your conclusions show it.
This is not a substitution, though. While I consider damn super mild I have had some religious people stare me down and lecture me after hearing me say it. Not goddammit, just damn.
Exactly. “Bless you” is “May God bless you,” which is a wish, not a directive. And similarly, “Damn it” is “May God damn it.”
I wasn’t brought up in a religious household, so no-one ever told me not to say “damn”. But I’d have thought the sin was more in wishing that a person or thing should *be* damned than anything to do with giving God orders. The writers of the Psalms certainly did a lot of calling upon God to smite their enemies.
The moment when you realize you failed, the moment when one of the closest people you cared about needed your help desperately and when the time came you couldn’t do a single damn thing. At that moment you just stand there and feel weaker than you ever have before….what else is there to say.
That’s really the fallout cost of these crimes of power. That theft of autonomy or self-actualization. That feeling of total impotence to stop what is happening to you or to those you love. That notion that there might not have been anything you could have done knowing what you did at the time to stop great harm from befalling you or those you care about. That it might have even been the safest option of all to let someone do said harm to prevent greater harm.
This is the point of terrorism like Toedad’s. To not only get the target to do what you want, but to make those surrounding them afraid to act, to fully participate in their lives without implicit threat. Toedad went up and threatened her life and her emotional security to steal her best friend and take her to an abuse camp at best. That’s a scar on the Bob-damned soul.
Oh, for crying out loud, Joyce. You know his name, his address, his daughter’s name, both their appearances, their phone numbers, their general heading, and the make of his car. You may even know his license plate.
Eh, depends on how it played out. I mean, Becky just sacrificed herself to prevent her dad from both hurting people and committing suicide via police. She might be miffed then if Joyce sends the police after them and Ross gets shot anyways.
I think Becky knows that this will not prevent suicide-by-police. She told her father that there is no way this ends without him getting the back of his head blown off by staties, and he accepted that. She didn’t go with him to save him, and she likely didn’t go with him to save herself. She went to save Joyce.
I’m OK with suicide-by-cop, but the biggest problem is that Becky will end up as collateral damage — if not physically then most definitely in a psychological sense.
Look, I know that by our point of view, Becky got in that car 24 hours ago, but for Joyce, it’s been about FIVE SECONDS. She’s not the Flash, give her a break.
Yeah, seriously, why don’t they all have prophets on staff yet??? And also TARDIS just to cover all bases
it’s so annoying when ppl get all up in arms about realistic shock/trauma reaction/response time/religious fundamentalist behavior
like hello reality called
Yes, but probably not anyone who knows that Becky has Dina’s phone, or that the kidnapper expects to be dead by the end of the day and is planning to die and/or get everyone killed to save his lesbian daughter from Satan. Or that Dina is unaccounted for.
Yes. Info that defines the situation and should determine which scenario from their training/play book the police should implement. At the least, even with regular patrol officers, that info should inform how they approach Ross.
Seriously… it’s great the Joyce has taken yet another Stride of Personal Development, but I’m more interested in seeing Joyce call the cops than in seeing her say a mild curse word.
I’d argue that that’s actually a good place to put things next too. I mean, if I were an emperor, I’d be putting decent security around the throne room. So that structural weakness suddenly looks like a pretty good place to consolidate your forces.
Methinks the last Fundie chain on Joyce’s gentle heart just snapped. Hell hath no fury like a woman who’s best friend has been stolen away. Cue Sal and her motorcycle!
Motorcyclists who tangle with motorists do poorly. Unarmed people who tangle with riflemen do poorly. This is a job for helicopters, squad cars, sharpshooters, and a hostage negotiator who has been told about Big Toe Daddy’s behaviour and about Dina’s mobile phone.
He doesn’t, effectively, have a firearm. He has a blunt object.
It’s a magazineless bolt action rifle. It has one shot and he fired it. He’s had no opportunity to retrieve another round, much less chamber it.
As for Motorcycle versus car: Becky has already shown her willingness to face death if it keeps that death from looking at her friends. If she thought her dad was going to sideswipe Joyce and Sal on her bike, Becky would most likely grab the wheel and yank the other direction, ie risk getting herself killed in a crash rather than risking her dad killing Joyce.
It’s not even a bolt action; it’s a falling-block action, which is one of the earliest forms of breech-loader. But he reloaded it almost immediately after firing it. He’s probably carrying more rounds in his pocket.
It would be a difficult gun to operate while driving a car, though.
Sorry John, it was late and my brain pulled the wrong breach action words out.
Even if he did reload, as John points out, there’s no way to easily use a rifle in a car compartment. Especially in that tiny car. And definately not while driving.
@ Age: you’re still ignoring the fact that Joyce can easily crash the car, even easier if he’s looking out his window, driving left handed while trying to maneuver three feet of rifle in a tiny car past all the obstructions, possible while rolling down the window. Also the fact that she has shown her willingness to risk her life to save others.
So you are wrong about the thret curve between the motorcyclists and the car driver.
THE PHONE. I didn’t think about that… it probably has a GPS! And even if it’s not used that way, Becky can probably use it later to save herself if Toedad needs gas or something.
Poor Joyce,after all the things she went through to help her friend she has reasons to be angry.So please,may the police be at the campus exit waiting for him!
In tomorrow’s strip, Toe Dad hears Joyce cussing and turns the car right around to ground her. As soon as he’s stepped out of the car to inform her that her television privileges have been taken away, the police conveniently arrive and arrest him. Then everybody goes home and eats ice cream and they all live happily ever after.
This arc has been hard to read in the immediate wake of so many campus shootings–including one where I worked until a few weeks ago. Hard to read, but on point about a lot of things. Hoping for some Amazi-girl heroics here so that the story doesn’t turn really tragic.
As was pointed out when the gun first came out, this was not only written months in advance, but also there is no time that is not “in the immediate wake of many campus shootings.”
I hate to go here, and potentially wreck such a dramatic moment… but for some reason I’d really love to see Joyce in the last panel here Photoshopped into the ending of Planet of the Apes.
And in other news… just to cover this whole sequence of events, please allow me to say an obligatory, “Damn you, Willis.”
Can’t buy a new, American made 2-door in the US that’s not a sports/muscle car.
Non-sports 2-door, you can get a Scion, Mini, Miata, otherwise, you’d be hard pressed to find a 2-door.
“hey was that a gunshot? Should we check it out?”
” Nah, it’s nothing to worry about…”
” HOLY BALLS was that Joyce saying something that was very close to being something that my granny might consider rude language?!?”
” Crap, we should go check that out!”
Seriously I can’t picture ANYONE having that conversation.
If DoA wasn’t supposed to be realistic, this would be the point where joyce’s scream rips a whole in the universe and the “It’s Walky” team falls through to beat the crap out of toedad.
I’ve never been so glad to be wrong. I was certain Joyce would break apart after this and take a while to recover, but she seems to be switching from “emotionally wrecked” to “really pissed off”, which takes a strength I didn’t think she had. Things are going to be interesting from here on.
By the way, well done Willis. I fully expected Joyce’s first swear to be something closer to “fuck”, but this is actually way more powerful and relevant to her character. Props to you, good sir.
Okay Joyce, you’ve accepted your anger and have decided upon channeling it to help your friend in mortal peril. Good. Now, go call the police. Let them go kill-crazy on someone who actually deserves it for once. Or better yet, talk to your friend Amber, she seems to know how to get in touch with a vigilante who won’t flinch at danger or lawyers.
You know what I want to see? I want to see what happens when one of Joyce’s parents tries to “be reasonable” about this, by which I mean frame this in any way that does not completely condemn Ross for his actions. Any kind of compassion for him trying to protect Becky or caring about her soul is going to be met with incandescent rage from Joyce. And frankly, I am really enjoying Joyce’s incandescent rage.
As annoying as Joyce’s parents can be, I can’t really see them defending Ross for this. They’re pretty close-minded, sure, but neither of them threatened Joyce with a gun when they found out she was friends with an atheist. I think they’d be more supportive of Joyce during this traumatic time, even if they decide Becky is now a bad influence or something.
Joyce is almost as vulnerable to faith-based intervention as Becky is. Depending on how big a piece of her tuition they cover, they can easily pull Joyce out of college.
Unless Willis made it interesting and ensured Joyce got a full ride at IU, meaning all those motherfuckers had as leverage was Joyce’s own good will, and that’s been put paid to.
It’s possible. Though in the other universe her parents actually thought she was a lesbian for a while and seemed okay with it. Joyce’s reaction to homosexuality seemed to come soley from the bible with no first hand experience or information so her parents may be more accepting and simply not of discussed the topic with her before due to lack of perceived necessity.
“Damn it” is possibly swearing depending on the church/congregation/social sphere with evangelicals.
“God Damn It” is Blasphemy.
Swearing is not a sin it’s just not what “good people do”. So it’s probably a failure of manners and decorum to Joyce and her family.
Whereas Blasphemy is a sin, plain and simple. It’s using the Lord’s name in vain.
So, while this is indeed a moment for Joyce, I don’t think it indicates that she has turned her back on JHVW.
Disclaimer, this is extrapolating from my Grandparents who are Kentucky baptists from the old school when Southern Baptists were, in social matters, quite liberal, ie. charity, equality of man anti-death penelty, while still being religiously conservative, ie, no booze, cigarettes, or premarital hanky panky. ( to the extent that my granny told her son that she would report him for statutory if my parents went through with their plans to move in together when my mom graduated high school without at least being engaged, rather than see him damn himself to hell for living in sin.) Done completely from love.
i freely admit Willis’s/Joyce’s beliefs COULD be different, but I strongly suspect that Joyce knows the difference between the two and that this is an example of a social not a religious event for her.
Awesome transition from shocked and grieving to angry. Joyce’s posture changes so very little. Also, I feel so bad for poor Dina, who literally came out of her shell. (Where can I get a Tricera-Top(R)?)
“Today” started on August 31st, and ends before November 26th (guessing from a wardrobe change in the preview panels.) “Tomorrow” seems to run through at least early February.
Since we see Leslie’s class, though, there is at least a one day time skip between. My theory is we skip to Friday, and Joyce’s dad shows up to take her home for the weekend. You know there is going to be serious fallout in their church community because of this.
I am also guessing that being around her family and home church isn’t going to result in as much healing as her family may hope.
So what’s the standard police procedure when someone reports a kidnapping but the alleged victim denies they’re being kidnapped?
(which Becky may do to keep her loved ones safe)
I’ve read horror stories of police being contacted and doing absolutely nothing (Warren v. District of Columbia) and others of police dismissing cases of domestic violence and/or sexual abuse (including rape of children) because the victim recanted their story and it often turned out they changed their statement because their abuser found out and threatened them.
So here’s the gist of my question: what are Becky’s chances of being helped by the police?
The key factor here is the fact that her father brought a firearm onto a campus and discharged it. She didn’t agree to go with him: she was compelled to do so against her will. It’s pretty much a gimme case, provided that they can get witness testimonials and Becky agreeing to testify.
The problem in that case, however, is how much legwork the police agency in question wants to do. Even an open and shut case requires a lot of paperwork and actual work to get done, and some police officers are frankly just lazy: they’ll look at the situation, say, “She agreed to go with him, no one was hurt, we have no witnesses, blaaaaaaah,” and write the whole thing off. It sucks, but it happens.
That being said, considering the fact that college campuses and firearms are hot button topics, I would like to think the local authorities, if they weren’t compelled to action themselves, might be forced to it if something public occurred, like someone posting a video of the crazy guy running around the quad with a rifle.
The police don’t need Becky’s cooperation to make a case. And given the public nature of his crime and the media frenzy associated with a shooting on school grounds (and it is a shooting, he discharged his weapon), they can’t afford to back down.
Becky doesn’t actually have any say about what happens to him right now, unless she convinces him to surrender peacefully. The instant the gun came out, he was a threat to public safety. He will be hunted down.
Going to say pretty much the same thing. I hope we never become so complacent to these school atrocities that we begin to shrug them off as inevitable or commonplace, or start to categorize them as we do tornadoes and hurricanes on a Fujita-like scale (“Nobody died and the intruder only showed a gun but didn’t fire it? That’s not even a C-1 on the Columbine scale.”)
If contacted by the police and not in a situation where her father is waving a gun around and threatening to kill her or her friends or get himself killed, Becky won’t have the motivation to deny the kidnapping to protect her loved ones because they won’t be in danger. If her father is waving the gun around, the police won’t care what she denies.
I think Becky’s already shown the strength to get away and her father has blatantly broken enough laws that she’ll be able to get him put away long enough to be safe.
Looks like it’s time for Joyce to call up Amazi-Girl for an assist on getting some good old “revenge with a side of vengeance” and get her Becky back!!!
Well, holy shit, Joyce cursed, I didn’t see THAT coming, and I see everything coming. I usually predict how books will go after being 3-4 chapters in, with near perfect accuracy… and in no way was I expecting Joyce to not only recover from being shell-shocked but also to curse, loudly and without any regard to who might hear.
Okay, so, Joyce has broken the swear barrier in a way that empowers her so much. These words have meaning. You understand how upset she is. Her refusal to swear can’t be broken with chump change, or as a dumb party trick. Anyone who knows her and knows her taboo on swearing will automatically assume the worst has happened and take her seriously. Good on you, Joyce.
Jesus wasn’t enough this time, Joyce. You can’t quote the Bible at someone who never worshiped the same God, and never followed the same Word you did. Now, your best friend is gone, after having tried to comfort her and give her a home at the college. What will you do?
Last strip I hated the outcome because I thought this event would’ve pushed Joyce further into her faith. I made a terrible mistake. This is Joyce, the person who defended her atheist friend and did the right thing by her gay friend after realizing what damage she was contributing to. Her faith is malleable to her morals, it changes when given new information. She will endure this.
That would be an effective storytelling tactic. The best deaths are ones of characters that are very built up, that the readers care deeply about. The more emotional investment in a character, the more dramatic their death will be. I’d say becky is just about ripe. Time to pick the fruit and eat it.
And then Joyce would grieve for quite a while because Becky was her friend for years. And that period of grief in our time would calculate to… A date that appears to be past the heat death of the universe. Hmmm, maybe Becky won’t die.
Willis stated that no one dies in this comic. I thought he said it in the “About” link, but that’s apparently not it… Does anyone remember where he said it?
“Don’t make me angry Mr McGee. You won’t like me when I’m angry.”
Seriously, I strongly expect Joyce to tell Sal to give her the keys to her bike. Now. Or else. She has a pursuit and a fight waiting for her. We’re about to find out just how much of the warrior we knew in the Walkyverse lives on in her other-dimensional counterpart.
We’ll see. It’s much more likely that Sal will offer to drive but I suspect that that will only be after Joyce proves that she’s willing to guess her way through motorcycle driving.
A nice Babylon 5 quote for Joyce to use (with a few modifications) in a a few strips time:
“Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you will ever see. God sent me. “
So that’s how you learned that a conviction to not swear was so much trivial nothingness compared to the bullshit the world could throw at you.
I was annoyed by Joyce’s attitude on cursing before, but now I wish she could have kept it. Joyce isn’t such a bad kid. Maybe letting people have their ignorant self-righteousness isn’t so bad if it means they haven’t had to live through feeling this powerless.
No, wait. That’s not quite how that works. Uuuuugh.
“There are three things all wise men fear; the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”
– Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear
Honestly, I hope there’s a future scene with Becky, Dina, and Joyce sitting and having coffee (or hot chocolate) together, and reflecting on how much stronger their relationship has gotten because of the BS of ToeDad.
What nobody seems to realize is that Joyce isn’t mad about Toe Dad and Becky so much as she’s mad that she’s all by herself again. Hopefully she screamed loudly enough that someone will hear her and escort her back to the safety of her dorm…
I don’t think she’s that self-centered. Sure, she is alone again, but I think her empathy and frustration at not being able to stop Becky from leaving overrides that. But that is something to consider. She no longer has a crutch to help her back to her dorm. What will she do now?
I agree with n_j on this one. In fact, I doubt that Joyce will be able to feel fear again until she’s taken some kind of action. Probably a rash action but action nonetheless.
I expect this is a situation where Joyce is too in shock to be affected by her agoraphobia. Furthermore, she was content to wait at the fountain before, that wouldn’t change now.
THE CHEESE: “They are a great people, Joyce Brown… at least they wish to be. All they lack is a light to show them the way. And it is for this reason above all others, their capacity for good, that I have given them the greatest gift that is mine to give. I have given them you… My only child.”
So where do we think this goes in the short term? Where does today end?
Is the action over for now, with Toedad escaping with Becky or is there another scene to play out? Possibly leading to the hospital visit.
I really can’t see Becky just disappearing and everyone trying to carry on while the police work on tracking him down. But I also can’t see these characters pulling a rescue attempt. This isn’t a wacky hijinks adventure strip.
I think it’s not over yet. I don’t think Ross makes it off-campus. Seems to work better dramatically to me, but then Willis is a better writer and he may have a way to make it work.
It’s not overwhelmingly likely but I wonder if Joyce is going to do something foolish and heroic. In the face of this, we will find out just how weak Ross really is when confronted by real faith and love in action.
Joyce MUST be the person who saves Becky. Unsure just how at this point since she has no transport, but it can’t be the police or any of her friends. It must be Joyce who saves Becky and restores balance to the universe.
Dina gave it her all, but the power of Joyce’s love is what will win the day. OK, sal can help. That motorcycle has been a plot device waiting to be activated for too long.
We can assume from the fact that her dad put the gun down that he is in a reasonable frame of mind, same as Becky. She’s upset for having to leave, but she’s in no danger.
Add to that the fact that she was technically trespassing on the school grounds anyway, seeing as how she wasn’t a student there. The police may investigate the single shotgun shot, but since there were no injuries, I don’t think they can or will do anything. I’m sure that Toe Dad is licensed to carry his shotgun, being a God-fearing Christian, so he is not doing anything illegal by having it. Threatening someone with it is illegal, yes, so the police might be able to do something from that, but I’m putting money on Joyce saying she wants to handle this, because she is now seeing the hypocrisy of a Christian being faced with something that 1) isn’t wrong and 2) they don’t agree with.
This is going to be a “Hell’s Angels” story. It’s going to be Joyce, Sal, Dina, and Amber going after Becky. Amber may or may not be Amazi-girl. This might be her “breaking out” point, if she realizes that Amazi-girl wasn’t there when she was needed.
Becky absolutely has been kidnapped. She “agreed” to go under duress. With her best friend and her being threatened by a man with a gun.
That he put it down may indicate he thinks she’s with him willingly, but that’s just because he’s delusional. It does reduce the threat to Becky and increases the chance she’ll be able to make a break for it. She’s still in danger though. If she tries to leave or otherwise breaks the illusion she’s willing, the gun comes back out again.
Even if she doesn’t, she’s still facing some attempt to “fix” her from being lesbian, which is likely to hugely traumatic.
The police won’t let this go. They’re also not going to let a teenage girl handle this on her own, even if she wants to. The only way that happens is if she avoids the police and moves on this before they find her. Probably if Dina avoids them as well, since she’ll tell them Joyce’s name.
It’s possible Willis will go there and do a rescue mission story, but it doesn’t feel like it fits to me.
A public place of business still has the right to declare people to be trespassing. Just because the word “public” is in the title does not mean that the property owners do not have rights.
There are several different legal definitions of “public” and all of them differ from the common , non-specific usage of the word public.
Yeah, but it certainly isn’t trespassing just to be on campus. Not when people are freely admitted and there’s no notification.
Nor does “She was trespassing when someone kidnapped her” change anything legal about the kidnapping.
Here’s what you have to do to trespass on OSU. You have to attract enough attention such that student safety or the campus police don’t want you there, and then you have to be asked to leave, and not leave. If people throwing mocked up aborted fetuses at people in the middle of the day don’t get kicked off campus, trespass is not a real thing, regardless of the theoretical possibility of someone being guilty of it.
I wouldn’t bet that Toedad will avoid kidnapping charges. The police are going to be involved. There are multiple people who’ll tell them that a young woman got into his car after he fired a shot into the air as a threat. When the police learn that the young woman was his daughter, worries about domestic violence will be added to worries about crazy-man-with-gun-at-school.
I don’t care if Toedad is white and Becky technically chose to get in his car of her own free will. There is most certainly hysteria spreading across that campus because there’s a gunman, and students are likely beginning to spread the hysteria off-campus by texting friends and family about it. This is going to be plastered across the local news. Angry parents are going to demand assurance that their college kids are safe. The authorities are not going to let this go. They’re going to throw every charge they can think of at Toedad, so that they won’t be accused of failing to take a potential shooting seriously.
Kidnapping is only one of at least a dozen crimes he has committed. He has committed crimes against Joyce and Dina and against laws that don’t need a person to press charges on.
These have been enumerated in early threads in today’s comment section as well as in previous day’s comments.
Unfortunately, he might yet kill someone. Bullets fired up into the air come back down, with just as much lethal force as when they were fired. If it happens to land on a person, injury is the least it will do; both cases I know of this happening resulted in fatalities.
We the audience know it’s a kidnapping, but this explanation is definitely how the police would see it. People crying for the police are being really naieve. At most Toedad would end up with a restraining order from campus
Was she nearly unconscious? She jumped on his back first, he flipped her off (can be seen as self-defense) and then pushes her down before leaving. There are no witnesses to this except the two of them. This would be a damn nightmare to prosecute or press charges because as it played out, there’s reasonable doubt everywhere. The only thing no one can dispute is setting off his gun, which he isn’t brandishing at anyone anymore, so not legally a threat.
Well, if I understand that tradition properly, it does have a religious element to it, no matter how dumb it looks to the untutored outsider.
FWIW, I can’t see a masked vigilante version of DoA Joyce being anything other than a parody but, in the very unlikely event Willis intends to take the character in that direction, I could see her being very similar to Stephanie Brown/Spoiler in the 1990s Batman comics.
Aside from Joyce & co not being Catholic, it is also worth noting that the Catholic Church does not condemn alcohol. They in fact view alcohol as a gift from God, though one that should be enjoyed in moderation.
Yeah frankly I don’t really give a frickly frack about Joyce’s character development. Which is like half the comic. I’m more interested in Becky because this must be a hell of a lot for traumatizing for her, plus she’s more likable and interesting, and she’s also the one GETTING KIDNAPPED. And where the hell is Dina???
I think a lot of this will be less frustrating read later in bulk. This page is a nice beat, a necessary piece of character for Joyce (not just the curse, but showing her shift from broken and paralyzed yesterday to enraged), but it’ll be better as a single beat before moving on rather than a full day’s delay.
Yeah – webcomic pacing is never easy, since the author has to balance two radically different ways people consume it. When something seems to be going at a reasonable rate for daily readers, it’s almost guaranteed to be “blink and you missed it” for people catching up later.
“Yeah frankly I don’t really give a frickly frack about Joyce’s character development.”
————————
I don’t know what you thought you were getting into, but that’s what this comic is about.
Ha, I know, right? I agree with him in that I don’t really care much about Joyce- I think of her more as a ridiculous character that exists for other, more interesting people to react to.
That said, I know that Joyce is one of the main characters, so I can deal with it until we get to someone more interesting.
Joyce is THE main character. And she is heavily based on myself and my life and what I was like as a young adult. I don’t mind when you say she’s uninteresting, but when you say she’s “ridiculous,” you’re kind of being an asshole to me.
Hm, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insulting- by ridiculous, I meant more “she has extreme personality traits that other characters react to.” As in, she’s not boring.
As for her being the main character… I mean, I realize you’re the writer, but you have a lot of subplots going on that barely involve Joyce at ALL.
I’m actually kind of surprised that you consider her that strongly a main character. I generally think of her as Micheal Bluth, first among equals in an ensemble.
Man, it’s weird to me how this should be a bad strip, but instead it all works.
The scene of a character so angry that they howl into the sky, shaking their fists is so cliche that Joyce might as well be shouting “Noooo!!” while Toedad escapes in a helicopter or something.
Instead, it all feels like a perfectly natural reaction to all the bullshit she’s been going through. That her efforts to protect Becky have all crumbled, how she was helpless to stop Toedad and Becky had to sacrifice her own safety to save Joyce and the people her father as threatening, that Becky is now speeding away and there’s nothing she can do. And in that moment, Joyce is so angered that she just completely loses it.
Seeing Joyce like this brings to mind a scene with Vivien Leigh standing, hand raised to the sky, as she vows “As God is my witness they’re not going to lick me….I’m going to live through this…” in “Gone With The Wind” (1939).
If you’re going to borrow inspiration, Willis, you’re at least borrowing from the great ones.
I’m hoping one of the characters realize they can go to the campus police and give name, address, etc. of the man who brought a gun on campus, fired it, and then left with a young female. It’s be less dramatic storytelling and my least favorite character would be saved but I’d be theoretically okay with it…
I hope they can’t get away THAT easily. Not after someone certainly alerted police to a crazed gunman firing shots on campus and abducting a legal-age adult.
In my mind’s eye, I picture Joyce chasing after the car like the T-1000 in Terminator 2. Complete with feats of superhuman physical prowess and shape-shifting her arms into metal hook things to latch on to the car with.
“….And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself.
As gold in the furnace hath he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering.
And in the time of their visitation they shall shine, and run to and fro like sparks among the stubble.
They shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the people, and their Lord shall reign for ever.” …….Wisdom 3: 5-8 (KJV)
Stop saying dammit and call the cops HE JUST BROKE THE LAW KIDNAPPED SOMEONE AND IF YOU CALL THE COPS WILL FIND HIMSELF IN A CAR CHASE YOU FUCKING IDIOT
Yeah, what kind of idiot has an emotional reaction to trauma. How dare she not be perfectly calm, collected and rational within seconds of someone she’d known and respected her whole life threatens her with a gun and abducts her best friend. I’m surprised she’s not still curled up in a ball whimpering.
You’re right that it would be better if she did. Or does a car chase put Becky more at risk and negate why she went with her dad in the first place? Seconds to decide, while you’re in shock.
And of course, this strip is the transition scene before she takes action. I don’t know what she’s going to do yet, but that’s what’s happening here.
Now I’m just wondering how likely Joyce is to realize on her own that _actual_law_ is on her side.
I doubt her parents&community ever treated 18+ children as suddenly outside of their parents’ authority, and if Toedad is any indication, they probably didn’t put too much stress on gun safety and how wrong using them against people is, either.
Of course, literally anyone she describes the situation to WILL tell her this, but – this is a question of timing, now.
What are the chances that we’ve seen the last of Becky. The strip centers around Joyce and her growth. She’s seen the underbelly of her faith, and must now do a lot of soul searching to see what she really believes. She might receive a letter from Becky: “I’m doing well, Satan has been cast from me and my mission trip starts soon. I’m filled with the holy spirit. God Bless You.” The story on campus will continue with all its local drama. As for Fundie, he may blend in with the crowd leaving campus. His fellow fundies will vouch for him, Becky will be “away”, and if there are no cameras, Dina’s testimony will fall apart under cross examination based on her dinosaur role play.
Slim to none.
For all the Damning of the Willis, he’s never gone in a direction like that. There’s no drama, no tension and no resolution. Not going to happen.
(Silly touchpad and badly placed mouse pointer) As I was saying, there’s plenty of evidence, but it can be disputed in court for years. Becky’s testimony after brainwashing will end the proceedings. There could be sad endings all the way around.
That assumes he has time to brainwash her, which already leaves the plotline dangling for a year or two of real time.
Again, not going to happen.
Real world, at least theoretically possible, though I honestly doubt Toedad is properly prepared to whisk her away and vanish off the face of the earth long enough to pull it off. His kidnapping certainly didn’t show any trace of deep planning.
Dramatically speaking: Not a chance.
He doesn’t need a well thought out plan, just a call to his fundamentalist preacher. The preacher will have it all planned out by now. Fundie’s next phone call will tell him the address, and after that it’s in the deprogrammers hands. Fundie just has to hand her over “For the good of her immortal soul.”
His fundy preacher, who is also the Brown’s fundy preacher. It’s possible their whole church really is that scary and the Browns somehow managed to avoid the worst of the influence. It’s also possible, I suppose, that Joyce’s parents are completely on board with violently kidnapping and brainwashing Becky, in which case Hank’s upcoming appearance is really terrifying.
But it clashes with their previous characterization.
It’s one thing for Toedad to know of a place he can send Becky for conversion therapy and to assume that since she’s his daughter she’ll go and another entirely for him to be connected into black fundy sites that help spirit away kids kidnapped in broad daylight. Not all fundies are that wacko. Not even all the gay conversion types are cool with blatantly hiding idiots on the run from the law. If nothing else, at this point he’d be a huge risk to the whole operation. And you’d think if he was plugged into this kind of network, he’d have their support and advice for the actual kidnapping as well.
Again, it’s possible, just not likely.
And, more importantly, not going to happen for dramatic reasons.
COPS. CALL THEM. Seriously, even if you can’t get him on a kidnapping charge (which I doubt he’ll be able to competently argue against) you can STILL get him thrown in jail for years just for all the firearms violations, including but not limited to bringing one onto school grounds, brandishing it, DISCHARGING it in a public space, and threatening violence on SEVERAL of the students.
It doesn’t matter, he is still going to get locked up. How many witnesses were there for that little scene? He shot a gun off on public grounds, and that bullet still has to come back down and can still do damage.
Y’know, I was kinda expecting Joyce to actually swear along this storyline, as this situation really seems to be the kind of situation were Joyce would build up so much anger that only a “damn” would be the acceptable way to express how she feels.
There’s always a slim chance that Becky will attempt to somehow get out/escape and accidentally end up shooting the day in the process.
Or worse still, think of herself as a failure to Joyce, herself and her faith and use the same gun to kill herself. I mean, she was happy and everything sort of like a last hurrah before making a decision like that. She might think that eliminating her from the equation will make everyone happy.
I really do hope that’s not what happens, but it’s a possibility.
Also, where is Dina?! OMG WHERE IS SHE?! IS SHE OKAY?!
Except that Willis said he’s not killing off major characters? (And Dina is probably all right. She’s still in the comic in January 2016 according to the preview panels)
And now any who know Joyce and hear her now, thus will get their attention, and know without doubt she is angry. When someone swears that normally doesn’t it really gets people’s attention.
If she were a military commander, with her history of not swearing, any order she issued after this outburst would have people jumping to carry them out. I know, I’ve seen it.
I always thought the comic featuring Joyce’s First Swear would have a quadruple digit number of comments. Maybe if it had been an F-bomb? Ah, well, it stands to reason that she’d start off with a word that’s allowed on Prime Time TV. She’ll graduate to f-bombs eventually, I’m sure.
I’m torn between being devastated by recent events, and also excited from a story perspective regarding potential character development for Joyce.
Well, that sure was a run-on sentence. It’s been a long day.
It’s finally occurring to me to wonder just how hard all of this is going to come down on Joyce for keeping Becky secret. Not that I’m blaming anyone but Ross for how this has turned out, but from an administration standpoint, I have a horrible feeling they’ll look at WHY Becky was there in the first place. If they decide Joyce is partly at fault for this (terrible but believable), she could end up in serious shit.
Because, hey, life isn’t shitting on her enough already this year.
*clears throat* I actually believe that there’s a LOT of anger in that curse. I mean, she did kind of start believing that homosexuality is fine, and that god is good, watches their back, so this’ll be a clash of faith for her. Either she was wrong, or that god doesn’t actually care. Or at least it might feel like that. She very well might feel betrayed because of this, so it’ll be interesting to watch this play out. (oh dear let everyone be alright pleaseee)
This… THIS is why swearing should not be used as everyday language. Only using it when your friend is taken away by her psycho dad (or when you back up into a tree a the state park where you work… in a truck owned by the park.) should it be used. It gives curses meaning, and it lets others around you know that either your about to have a meltdown or your about to punch them in the face.
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 19h
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
It's #webcomicday? We have a special day???
Well, my name is Pat McHoarney and I draw 69 Mouse-Ear Blvd, a multigenerational story about women who all have sexy legs and probably other features. There was a grandmother, but she wasn't hot and so she died off-panel.
Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. Her partner, Billy Evans, is now trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics.” nyti.ms/3FbtZm9
www.ebay.com/itm/23609767...
selling my netflix war for cybertron megatron -- the walmart exclusive one that came with pinpointer and lionizer (but being sold here without pinpointer and lionizer)
Gran... IS ALIVE?
okay, juliette still has brown hair, so this is probably definitely a flashback
i'm just surprised that the comic has remembered her, at all
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 19h
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
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preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 3d
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Really though, it’s amazing how much hope I get from looking at just this strip, even though no real progress is made to fixing the problem. I expected her to break down completely. Instead, I’m seeing a defiance that makes me think she’s actually regaining her footing. Break those personal barriers, Joyce. Save your best friend.
“We need to go here RIGHT NOW.”
‘Ah told ya’, I ain’t gonna be no regular chauffe—“
“Becky’s in trouble, GIVE ME THE FUCKING HELMET!”
‘. . . Ah told ya that too, didn’t ah . . . ’
If Joyce swore, I’m sure that Sal would immediately pull her onto the bike and start driving immediately and use her awesomeness to instantly know where to go
And Amazi-girl pulls up next to her on the amazi-cycle with dina in the sidecar in full predator gear (the dinosaur kind, natch+obv, but the other kind is an amusing image at least) and they all mutually sorta nod at each other and accelerate towards the horizon.
Fade to black, cut to danny doing danny things, probably wondering where everyone went
No. No no no.
All of you guys are making 2 serious mistakes.
1. You all are disregarding the hero here. Becky. Becky basically saved the day. She instantly defused an explosive situation that was about to go FUBAR, and if her dad is not lying, it ended without anyone getting hurt physically. Becky is the hero here, who saved the day. Saying that Becky is the helpless damsel in distress who needs rescuing from others is not recognizing Becky’s sacrifice and heroism and level thinking.
2. This was a TACTICAL RETREAT not a SURRENDER. There’s actually no way for Becky’s dad to “win” in this situation. He won’t be allowed to brainwash attempt Becky, he won’t even be allowed to retain custody. In fact, when Becky gets him to lay down his gun, you can see that he’s starting to deflate, and Becky is in fact gaining leverage and control over HIM instead. His expression as he drives away shows he realizes he messed up. At this point, Becky might even convince himself to turn himself in, at the rate she is taking control of the situation.
Seriously. Reread the last few panels. Becky is NOT “I surrender, I will do whatever you want now!”… Becky is “OK, I’ll get in the car, and YOU will do these things, and this is how it’s gonna go… am I right?” And Becky’s dad stutters back “Y-yes”.
I agree with the way you see Becky, her dad, and the balance of power in the last strip, he does look weak and sad. Considering that (I choose to believe that) he didn’t shot Dina or anyone, I feel sorry for him now.
About the title of this strip… is this the first one NOT coming from the dialogue in the actual strip itself? Just curious, I usually look back at the title after reading the strip and it’s always been there, maybe in sign language but still there – unless I missed some.
Also, damn it, Willis… and thanks. Like Nightsbridge, I do see that strength in Joyce that give me hope, or some other warm feeling inside.
No, there’s a handful of strips with titles that don’t directly originate from the dialogue, perhaps a dozen.
But that’s not the important thing here. This strip has power, like… did you feel that chill run through you? Fuck yeah you did.
Motorcycle chase: Yes please right now.
Yessss….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWcASV2sey0
That seems like the right narrative decision.
But in real life, kids, call the cops. Ross just committed like ten felonies, including kidnapping, enough to put him in prison for decades.
Yeah, before I was thinking ‘welp, she’s out of commission’, but now? DAMN, Joyce. Go save your best friend.
(And since I realized my tone was vague: this is an impressed ‘DAMN, you go Joyce, I love you.’ She’s probably going to do something impulsive and dangerous, but still I am so proud of her for being able to go from shock to righteous fury right here.)
Heav’n has no rage like love to hatred turn’d
Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: when Joyce snaps she reacts with rage and violence. Joyce is not going to take this lieing down, she’s going to try and save Becky, either herself or through others more capable. Ross status as a known and trusted authority figure who was also wielding a weapon broke her brain, taking Becky snapped her back to reality. Shit’s going to go down.
That is very true. While her PTSD reaction is very much freeze, her traumatic response seems to be fight and she’s consistently responded to horrible things in the moment with intense rage.
This.
And this isn’t even her final form!
May I just say that I thoroughly appreciate your gravatar.
I won’t be surprised if this is the cataclysm of Joyce’s fundamentalist upbringing. This may actually be the point in her life where she questions her religion, the people who follow it, and so much more.
Shit, I did that as far back as high school, and I still keep some of its ideals in me as atheistic as I remain. Hopefully Willis isn’t going to smear religion in its entirety, but maybe this opens Joyce’s eyes up just enough to see not everything godly is candy and ice cream.
This’ll probably put a dent in her automatic deference to authority at the least.
“….maybe this opens Joyce’s eyes up just enough to see not everything godly is candy and ice cream.”
———————
Agreed, Clayton, and very well put.
Go Joyce!
She don’t wear those DBZ boots for nothin’.
This should have been a friday comic lol
fixed that for you
It would be funny if it weren’t so true
(it’s actually still funny though)
[good job]
Ditto! [great with avatar, too]
turning her back on her god once and for all
Either that or calling upon his “divine” favor to smite her oppressors, well, her best friend’s oppressor.
Neither. She hasn’t even committed a sin. Damn it isn’t a religious trespass it’s just a social rule that she has violated.
While it is a landmark, lets not go overboard with attaching inappropriate subcontext.
In contrast to most other words you American consider “swearing”, “damn” IS actually a swear, as it means to call upon God to smite whatever you “damn”. But then again, in this situation, she probably MEANS it, which removes it from the swearing list again. A “true” swear is either blasphemous, or invokes a god/demons name or calling in vain. So “fuck” is not a swear word, but “Bedevilled” IS.
“Swear” vs “obsenity” ?
Yah that’s the one.
Which means even more for someone as heavily religious as Joyce
Wouldn’t that be “Willis damn it!” ?
Mr Willis, could we please get your input here?
I remember the first time I said “damn it” in earshot of my mother. I was maybe ten or eleven and had been taking out the trash; I slipped on some ice and fell and uttered the curse, not knowing she was close enough to hear me. After the obligatory mouth-washed-out-with-soap routine, I was parked in a chair and it was explained to me just why what I had said was so horrible; to wit, what ‘damning’ someone or something actually meant. From there the lesson expanded to show why “God damn it” was even worse — you were calling upon the Deity to punish this person or thing — and “God damn it to hell!” was quite literally off the scale entirely.
As for words like “fuck”, “shit”, and the rest of the more earthy euphemisms for bodily parts and functions, they weren’t necessarily “cursing” or “swear words”, but they were “vulgar”. I was constantly reminded that I had been raised better than to use words like those.
Incidents like that, while true from a technical perspective (your mother was right about the meaning of the swear), begs the question: is it so terrible to damn a puddle of ice to Hell? Or to ask God to do it? And if so, would it stay there? Does it go to the lowest level of Dante’s Hell, where all feelings die in a frozen lake? Or does it go to a higher level, melt, and escape?
This is why such discussions rarely go over well with me. .___. No one ever wants to discuss the intricacies of sending ice to Hell.
And yes, “raises the question,” not “begs the question.” This forum doesn’t let me edit out habits from 35 years of hick American upbringing. :p
The trouble is invoking God’s name “in vain,” that is, “in vanity,” or for selfish or petty reasons. Slipping on ice and wanting it to go to Hell is a really petty reason to call upon the Creator of Everything. So the problem isn’t what happens to the ice. God wouldn’t grant such a petty request anyway.
Although the Biblical Hell is just “a lake of fire.” Dante is basically an elaborate fanfiction. So the ice would steam pretty quick, I think.
While obviously nicer, isn’t it just as vain, petty or selfish to demand that God bless someone or something?
If that’s the reason, shouldn’t it work both ways?
Are all those nice little old ladies saying God bless you all the time, really taking God’s name in vain?
I had actually looked this up prior to my post
The schism over just that question led to the creation of several new sects of Protestant Christianity.
This raises an interesting point about HOW angry Joyce is, given her Christian roots.
thank you. now joyce’s emotions are productively focused
I know the ground is tiled, but I love the idea that she’s yelling with such force that it shattered the earth beneath her feet.
That “damn it” was strong enough to emit kirby crackle…
+1
JOYCE SMASH
I don’t comment on here often, but I’m beginning to sense that the phrase: “Damn you Willis” is a term of endearment and not one of hate.
It’s a complicated relationship.
Hey, everyone, he’s catching on. Quick, hide all the other catchphrases somewhere where he won’t be able to find and interpret them!
Or to put it another way, “Hide the femurs and faces! Stuff ’em in here with your mom!”
And that bag of nickels
I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of “Willis, you magnificent bastard”
(Or am I mistaken? (I may be))
He wouldn’t be damned if people didn’t get so invested in what he writes. It’s a compliment so long as people don’t cross the line with it.
Or use it as an automatic response to everything. That’s what FAAAAAACE is for.
This is so beautiful. Bravissima!
…Well played.
We are soooo going to reuse that. A lot. in the oncoming months.
Hé, je viens de réaliser que t’es francophone. Salut!
Moi aussi!
Moi aussi!
Enchanté! T’as un nom de gâteau, tu sais?
You win everything.
+ everything else
I’ll have fifty, please.
Can we get this as a wallpaper?
Why ask? It’s literally the work of 30 to 50 seconds to do that yourself using The GIMP (ok a couple caveats: 1. it took me 15 seconds, but I’m making allowances if you’re not familiar with the software in question and 2. I’m not allowing for the time to download the software in question). It’d be something else if you were asking Willis for a wallpaper scale version of that final panel.
I was gonna say, I’m p sure they’re asking for a hq wallpaper of the last panel
Because the picture is Willis’s intellectual property….
More acurate would be an edit where she turns into a Super Saiyan.
She’s saying what we all are thinking
clap
clap
clap
That’s exactly how I read it.
You win an internet. Heck, have two! Have all of them!!
Ok… wow. A LOT happened in the past few strips. Frankly, I feel that police involvement should have happened sooner, however the delay wasn’t unreasonable given that Toe Dad moved from his original spot to the spot by the fountain and the spot by the fountain likely took less than two minutes. This arc seriously changed things.
I imagine that Amber might feel that Amazi-girl failed at the moment she was most needed, at the time when a hero was most necessary. Joyce will potentially remain traumatized long after this strip, even if she doesn’t show it openly, and she may begin to question her faith and her upbringing. Becky was Dina’s first relationship… I’m not even sure what long term Toe Dad’s rampage this will have on Dina or on Becky.
A few long-term predictions: Joyce will have to face her parents at some point in the future, potentially in a confrontation-type system. Becky will end up enrolling an Indiana University (please let it be true!) Toe Dad will… urgh. I don’t want to think about him. Dina may have to go to the hospital for a concussion or other injuries. The Dean will likely get involved. And Amber will either take on the role of Amazi-girl even more fervently, or will give it up entirely.
All in all, as much as we damn Willis, he did an excellent job with both the writing and the execution of the arc… Toe Dad’s actions were on the extreme end, but they weren’t unreasonable based on what we know of his character. The strip exposed the raw, human side of everyone involved… I love to hate Toe Dad, but the beliefs promoted by Toe Dad’s strain of fundamentalist Christianity are just as much to blame as Toe Dad himself. Religion can convert reasonable, good, people into monsters.
Just… ARGH! Too many feels!
Also, wow, Joyce, wow.
Thanks for putting the arc into perspective, I’ve had a hard time doin’ that seeing as things keep happenin’
I imagine that there are about a billion cellphone pics of Toedad’s license plate, car, and face around there now (not even going into any campus security cameras), so the police will have no lack of leads in tracking him down once they do get there even if Joyce chases after them so they don’t have a name.
The impact on Dina and Becky’s relationship will be interesting even if Becky is rescued from the Toejam. Becky will be full of guilt for “putting her lovely Dinosaur Girl in danger” even if it wasn’t directly her fault that she had an abusive doucheweasel of a Dad. And Dina will likely be beating herself up that she wasn’t able to stop Toe Dad from taking Becky away (especially if Becky gets injured later by Toe Dad either trying to take her out before the “cops can take her away from him” or from jumping out of the vehicle or a car crash). Plus, they’ll both have PTSD from their near scrapes with an armed a-hole. And Becky will especially be haunted by the fact that her dad has demonstrated he will never stop and will happily hurt her loved ones to make her do what he wants.
Not to mention that I know from personal experience that “you and me against the world” type relationships are often really straining on that bond even when it is as healthy as Dina and Becky’s relationship.
Which to me is a huge potential cost. I was liking Dina and Becky’s romancing as much as anything that Willis has done. And it was SO obviously good for both of them. I have no analysis of the path or odds of it, but I do hope that they can get back on something like the path they were on, AFTER Becky escapes from Toebag — before he can really get to work on her. And I hope that she gets to rescue herself: Agency!
Not everyone who encounters a potentially traumatizing experience gets PTSD…..
And not everyone who gets it from one trauma get sit from every other trauma, sometimes even no other…
Exactly, PTSD is a tricky and complicated thing. Essentially, when a traumatic event happens the brain kicks into overdrive and can suddenly track a lot more of what’s going on around you. This is so that quick life saving/protecting decisions can be made in as little reaction time as possible. Since the brain is working at beyond peak performance it’s creating the memories of the event at a higher intensity and much stronger neuron connections than normal memories are made. Hence, when later those memories are triggered they feel like the event is happening again with all the same intensity.
Now, it takes a lot of stress to bring the brain to that level of performance and while everyone’s threshold for that kind of stress is different based on genetic, environmental, and familiarity variables, true PTSD comes from truly terrifying and mind breaking events.
OH FLIP
TOEDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD
Someone call Amazigirl and Sal(even if they may be the same person) because someone was evil enough to make Joyce curse.
Oh SNAP.
I think somebody called the Joyce swear in this storyline
Is it a swear if it doesn’t mention a deity?
The seven words you can’t say on TV don’t invoke deities, and I think we can all agree those are swears.
Smeg, Scrap, Gorram, Frack, Poodoo, Shazbot, and Belgium.
I’d substitute “Frell” for “Belgium”. Otherwise, how would I order my favorite waffles?
You! Gimme some fucking waffles!
I know we don’t really seem to carethat much about swears, but, I think b!lg@#m is crossing a very important line!
Did you know in the original version it was just fuck? The American publisher didn’t want to print fuck, so he made it Belgium and added the bit where Arthur was all confused about it.
My cousins in the UK recorded the original version off the radio, and mailed me the cassettes. It was “Belgium” then.
Yep. Best radio ever–well, as good as I’ve heard. The theme is now playing in my head.
Okay, I guess “original” is relative. It was “fuck” in the original UK book version.
Um, that passage isn’t in the books.
But not bongo¿
Depends on context. You’re allowed to use it if you’re referring to an actual small drum.
What about zark? That invokes a deity.
Smegging smeg, Rimmer
or the worst of all swears
tabernacle
*GASP*
Ah, good old Carlin
No, no, we can’t. To “swear” means either being blasphemous, or taking a god/demons name in vain. The other words you are thinking of, are RUDE words, but they are definitively not SWEAR words.
I think that in ordinary/colloquial American the two have pretty much merged into synonyms.
British English would also agree. “Swear words” (we don’t say “curse words”) would be everything you can’t say on children’s TV, like “shit”, “fuck”, “bastard” etc. “Rude words” would be things like “bum” or “willy”.
But it’s joyce’s mindset that is relevant, not YOUR projection of what the “Ordinary American” has for a mindset in regards to the difference between blasphemy, cursing, swearing and naughty words.
What? I’m not talking about Joyce’s mindset. Or her language. I was addressing the discussion about broad and common linguistic patterns which existed in the past, but perhaps not now But if I were talking about Joyce’s language, then I do know that as regards [blasphemy /cursing/swearing/vulgarity/scatology/watev] she does not speak colloquial/ordinary contemporary American. So
Isn’t damn it a short for God damn it? I always figured that counts as a swear because the God part is implied.
I wouldn’t say so.
If it was, then every substitute for an obscenity would be an obscenity.
We all know what you mean when you yell ” Gosh Darned shoot!” when you pound your thumb with a hammer.
Also it’s calling on God that makes it falsely swearing in god’s name ( the origin of the misapplication of “swearing” for “using obscene language”) that would be the sin of taking god’s name in vain. And if you aren’t using it in vain, then you are committing the sin of trying to tell JHVW what to do.
I’m actually of the opinion that a substitute for an obscenity is in fact an obscenity to be, much like substitutes for unacceptable racist words in the end become racist because they’ll start being used in racist way.
The exceptions to that are the ‘cute’ substitutes like chips for shit and fudge for fuck. That’s because it simply sounds ridiculous in mainstream culture.
“And if you aren’t using it in vain, then you are committing the sin of trying to tell JHVW what to do.”
That’s not a sin, though, or praying would be a sin as well.
That’s why I’m kinda leaning towards that Joyce is not really swearing here, she really MEANS God to damn this situation to Hell.
Isn’t prayer asking God, not telling God?
Depends on wither you are asking your deity for something or telling it what to do.
Um? My understanding of “prayer” IS that its asking, perhaps beseeching God. I can’t recall “prayer” being used to mean telling God what to do. I don’t even get that: a human TELLING God what to do; does not compute. I get turning away from God and ceasing to pray, but not telling God. I do also get talking to God without asking for anything, but I wouldn’t call that prayer, either. But that’s just my understanding of these things and of the word prayer. I now need to go look it up in Websters or the OED. I would have before posting but I felt like working out what I believe, both about attempted communication with God and the word prayer BEFORE looking up what the pros say about use of that term in the language at large, beyond my own individual wozname.
SHORT VERSION: are there really people who TELL God what to do and, if there are, do they call that “prayer”?
Damn it, or damn them/you, can be a question as well
So by your logic saying “poop” or other synonyms for that function that the person is in fact saying ” Eat poop”
If Joyce’s Pentecostal upbringing was anything like mine, substitutes were worse because you wanted to convey the meaning of the original so bad you came up with a work around…
Having grown up in an environment nearly identical to Joyce’s (and Willis’), I can tell you that probably she WOULD consider “God damn it” and “Damn it” to be pretty much the same, because just leaving God’s name out of it doesn’t mean that’s not what you MEANT by “damn it”.
Also that she probably doesn’t mean it “literally”. That’s just my take but I never once heard anyone say “damn it” and it be considered not a swear just because they “meant it literally”. Even if theoretically it would be more-or-less how they feel.
I think Charlton Heston meant it, at the end of Planet of the Apes, at least it sounds like it in his delivery.
It counts for Joyce, who always switches off to ‘dang’
That would be me. Though I thought it would be “fuck”instead. There might have been a few others who also called it.
Nah, that word is only used if Joyce desperately wants a motorcycle ride.
Um, did you mean to imply Joyce straddling a throbbing engine, her arms around Sal’s waist, her chest pushed up against Sal’s leather-covered back …
If any situation would have been appropriate for Joyce to drop her first f-bomb, this certainly seems to fit the bill.
Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how much MORE torturous this sequence would be if DoA were still only updating 5 days a week? Ross pulled up onto the sidewalk 11 strips ago. That means 2 weekend breaks somewhere along the way (possibly going into a third if the sequence started on a friday). Could our hearts take that? I think not.
I was offline, camping, all weekend. Worse than having to wait two days for the next strip, there were two strips posted and I couldn’t read them for two days. So I died of the stress, and have only now been reanimated to an unholy undeath by the sheer blasphemous power of everyone up to and including Joyce herself damning Willis.
And none of the others will believe this ever happened.
Hey, at least Joyce understands how we feel
WWWWWWWWWWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…Uh-oh. Joyce might have just broken. God help her mother when she inevitably calls her about this whole mess. God help EVERYONE, actually.
Mr and Mrs Brown had better not have known about and supported Ross’ decision to try and force Becky to return, or if they did, they may want to keep mum about it.
MENDOZAAAA!!!!
Yeah I learned to swear in college, too.
Happened in reverse to me. I high school I would try to sound cool by cursing like a sailor around my friends. In college I became a lot more likely to say things like “Curses!” and “Drat!”.
And occasionally “What sorcery is this?!” when I was really incensed.
I need to say “What sorcery is this!?” more often.
I often say “What ass-hattery is this?!”
Ass-hats are far more common than sorcerers.
I usual shorten it to “sorcery!” or “dark sorcery!”
For me, I never bothered to be cool or bow to peer pressure in high school.
As for college swearing, well I peaked in HS grade-wise and not because of any unfortunate events.
You rebel, you.
you know where they live! call the police! DO IT MEOW!
No, no, Joyce. It’s “DAMN YOU, WILLIS.” But good first try.
She’s screaming her defiance towards the heavens. I dare say she’s close enough.
See Ana Chronistic’s first comment above. Fixed.
and then joyce went super saiyan
NO! Willis said no alien stuff in this series!
That being said, Toedad really is fortunate that this Joyce isn’t a superpowered jetpacking woman like Joyce Classic.
She is just one yellow stripe away from her alien-fighting outfit here.
It would be really nice to see Joyce fly in pursuit, pull a giant pulsating cannon from… behind her… somewhere… and vaporize butthole dad’s engine block with one shot.
Finally, after ten thousand years, I swore! It’s time to conquer Earth!
Imagining Joyce having Barbara Goodson’s Rita Repulsa voice is surprisingly amusing.
Ahem, it’s “Ahhh! After ten thousand years, I’m free! It’s time to conquer Earth!”
Aaaand, I just realized what you were doing… IGNORE ME
Now I am trying to figure out who would be which ranger
Joyce is pink. I would nominate Amber for yellow, but she’s already got a superhero alter ego. Which leaves Dorothy for yellow.
Jacob is the black ranger, because in the 90s that totally wasn’t racist.
I’m kind of feeling Ethan as blue?
Joe can be red. Or Danny. I have no preference. But Danny is more likely to be a pawn of the other side.
Dina is obviously the Green Ranger, commander of the Dinozord.
If we make the White Ranger as a separate Ranger… Who’s left? Sal? Really?
So, we’re gonna need some teenagers with attitude?
Considering the amount of “attitude” the MMPR actually showed, I’d say Danny is a shoe-in for pretty much every Ranger.
Well, she did say that she wanted it to have meaning if/when she ever said that… If ever there was an appropriate moment, it’s now.
and in the next strip Joe comes over and gives her a twenty
Yeees
I know that this is supposed to be a super dramatic storyline, but if that actually happened, I will burst out laughing for real.
If Joe is close enough to do that, he witnessed the kidnapping and the man threatening Joyce with a gun.
That is not an appropriate response.
Yes, we all know that, thusly the usage of the modifying clause in Kern’s post.
I did not respond to that post.
Has anyone ever explained absurdist humor to you? because you don’t seem to recognize it right here and now.
I believe my own post was an attempt at humorous understatement.
…it was ?
When the hurly-burly’s done, I actually expect that to happen exactly. And in my head, it’s accompanied by Joe finding a new level of respect for Joyce’s usual cleanliness of diction (though I’ll be the first to acknowledge how unlikely that is).
* and in the next strip Joe comes over and gives her a twenty
With his penis.
Oh damn! Toe dad is toetally screwed!
There’s trouble afoot. Toedad’s in a jam. He’s about to get stubbed. Joyce is gonna nail him. Stinks to be him.
…Phalanges! I got nothing.
I wouldn’t really call that nothing!
Your post on Toedad is on pointe.
Don’t be such a heel, taking all of the good puns.
The door shall stub him on the way out
I would point out that Ross brandished and discharged a firearm on a school campus in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses. He committed at least three firearm related felonies. If a prosocuter wanted to go full bore and throw the book at him, Toedad could be spending up to thirty years in prison. There is likely going to be a detailed description of him, his car and Becky. Come to think of it, taking Becky almost literally at gunpoint adds another couple of decades to a possible sentence for kid napping.
Ross is pretty well screwed if Indiana has halfway decent law enforcement.
To clarify. Bringing a firearm into a gun free campus. Felony of up to ten years. Brandishing (waving a gun around like an idiot) Nother felony. Discharging a firearm in said gun free zone. Felony. If Becky’s abduction is considered a kidnapping, use of a firearm in commission of a crime. Felony. And the kidnapping itself. Felony.
In Indiana pointing a firearm at another human being, even in a jest understood and condoned by both parties, is a crime. We have three counts of that crime alone, once each for Becky, Joyce and Dina.
He definitely battered Dina. While in possession of a firearm, which could very well make it assault with a deadly weapon. I’m not sure about Assault and Battery, but I know other crimes, such as robbery or burglary you get the ” While in possession of a firearm” modifier even if you don’t actually use the gun, or even if it’s not really a functioning firearm.
And I believe his actions also count for several counts of making a “terroristic threat”
And if we are book throwing, there are several counts of reckless driving. Probably some charges related to improperly transporting a firearm, and improperly transporting ammunition.
And he’s probably broken any number of hygiene-related laws by looking like a toe.
A possible charge for kidnapping? How many times does he have to yell “I am kidnapping you at gunpoint right now!” while doing it before it’s certain?
True, but also a prosecute might have a hard time getting that across to a jury who don’t know the characters and haven’t seen the events.
“The defendant then pursued his daughter, who had run away from him, by car. When Ms. Macintyre refused to step into the car he pulled out Exhibit A, a Ruger No. 1 rifle, and repeated that she should get in the car. Upon questioning wether he had hurt anybody, he answered ‘no, and I hope I won’t have to’. Upon further discussion he fired a shot into the air that sent 5 student bystanders and Ms Brown ducking to the ground, afraid for their lives and safety, which he then reloaded – clearly a conscious action intent on once again firing the rifle. At this point there was a very real and imminent threat of the defendant using lethal violoence against a person. Upon this Ms Macintyre relucatantly agreed to get into the car. There are several witness statements that verify this chain of events, ladies and gentlemen. You can come to no other conclusion that the Defendant, Ross Macintyre, is guilty of all that the prosecution has charged him with.”
What exactly do they need to know that they wouldn’t?
Would the prosecutor forget to mention the threats of force, the threats of hurting other people to control her, the fact that she literally fled from him and he chased her down, or the fact that she initially refused to go with him not once but twice (and also “escaped” from him in the first place, to use Ross’s word)?
Because they’d have to forget to mention all of them, and Ross would probably helpfully bring up a few, what with his bluntly obvious method of describing his crimes while not understanding why being evil and violent are wrong.
Mc, Pat: Guilty! Guilty as charged!! GUILTY AS SIN!!!! (I am convinced! I was worrying that the commenters who hedged whether it was kidnapping represented potential jurors.)
I know it was a pretty obvious kidnapping at gunpoint, but it may come down to how Becky eventually describes it to law enforcement. They can get him on brandishing, discharge, and bringing the gun onto campus. And Humboldt brings up the battery of Dina and pointing the gun at people.
If Becky claims she went with him willingly, it may negate a kidnapping charge. Or maybe not, if a prosecutor can aurgue she was forced under duress and is claiming otherwise to protect him.
Well said.
Which she was, since that’s what happened.
As Becky would be unlikely to lie about very well. As Ross would probably not realize he should lie about, since he seems to think his behavior is acceptable and has been openly describing it all along without hint of remorse. As all of the witnesses know, because they witnessed it.
Oh, and even if Becky tried to lie, they’d probably pick up on the facts that she “escaped” from him in the first place, that she literally fled from him and was chased, and that after he caught her the second time he had to fire the weapon to get her to go with him (and if they know about the discharge, they know that).
The prosecutor can throw whatever he wants at ToeDad. ToeDad gets an even mildly competent lawyer, goes to court, and over the course of three months or so pleads everything down to disorderly conduct and illegal parking, and winds up sentenced to counseling and, at the worst, three months of house arrest under electronic monitoring.
What do you think mildly competent lawyers do?
Sorry, pal, but 10+ eyewitnesses, three victim impact statements and a quick glance through Title 18, chapters 7, 55, and 44 § 922, subsection (q), paragraphs 2 & 3, subparagraphs A of the United States Code > mildly competent lawyer.
+1
Yes, Lordess needs to learn when to toe the line.
I parked right on it, but they toed me away.
EXACTLY MY REACTION BECAUSE I NEEEEED TO SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING
need
now
please
Joyce has snapped….I say again, Joyce has snapped.
And good for her that she finally snapped. Now she can be put back together (preferably by a councilor ).
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” –Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell to Femurs.” …I mean arms.
I just realized something: Becky probably still has Dina’s phone.
With any luckluck, the police might be able to trace the GPS signal before Ross gets far.
I hope she’s texting like mad, to Joyce or anyone (others may be better at involving police but Joyce might be more comfortable for her)
Both fortunately and unfortunately, she’s in the front passenger seat.
Fortunately because it’s a two-door car and this improves her chances of escape. Unfortunately because she probably can’t do anything with Dina’s phone without Toedad noticing.
Yeah I started worrying just after saying that that she’ll start texting visibly and he’ll huck the phone out the window. On the other hand, she’s not allowed a phone and he doesn’t know about the phone, so if she looks like she’s hunched over sadly and looking out her window, and he’s busy driving, he might not notice.
Comedy option: she’s already used Dina’s number on a job application offscreen. Galasso phones her, senses danger, begins pursuit.
“How dare you kidnap a potential future employee of mine?! She may be the key to my taking over the world! If you will not return her then I, Galasso, will have to retrieve her myself! And then conquer the world!”
What other reason would someone kidnap her for, right?
My fridge just exploded that only means one thing, did Joyce finally curse?
She was right. Her swearing would have power.
This is going to be either a great or terrible advancement in Joyce as a character…I have yet to decide which…
So is joyce going super saiyan on us?
More like Liam Neeson
What are Joyce’s special set of skills?
Mathematics.
A large amount of biblical knowledge
Drawing dingdongs without being noticed.
“A pure heart awakened by rage”.
Yeah I can see it.
Someone get on this. She needs those turquoise eyes and golden spiky hair.
“Beware a good man driven to anger.” Or a Joyce driven to rage.
“Angels run when a good (wo)man goes to war.”
Oh, I think ‘demons’ still works for this one. Make no mistake, Ross MacIntyre is not the angel of salvation he thinks he is. He is the personification of things that go bump in the nights of a million desperate insomniacs. Demons are very real, Cyber. They’ve just learned how best to disguise themselves to get close.
‘Toedads run/When a good Joyce goes to war.’
And also, ‘Toedads run, but count the cost/The shooting’s over, but the Becky’s lost.’
I love both your commentary and the Gravatar. Just thought you should know.
http://chickenforyou.tumblr.com/post/131471011822/super-saiyan-joyce
here you go
oh my dear sweet fandom heart this is so painful
*looks at clock* *24hrs till the next strip* well can someone beat me up with a bag of socks
SOCKS
I doubt it. That’s not a terribly effective weapon.
Now, a sock filled with something else, perhaps…
A sock filled with toys and candy?
That might enable beating up. Depends on the kind, really.
LEGOs and rock candy.
That, or toyguns and jawbreakers.
Not one mention of the butter sock. I am disappoint.
If you had ever played Dwarf Fortress, you would not dismiss the power of the sock so casually.
A sock filled with rolled up socks
Yes, that sounds very dangerous.
a tube sock??
Oh shit you guys, you know what this means?!
She cursed!
JOYCE FINALLY GETS TO RIDE ON SAL’S MOTORCYCLE!
Not quite, Sal said it was for people who could say “fuck”. So we’re close!
Pretty sure Sal’d make an exception in this case.
Or if she didn’t Joyce would snap further and say something along the lines of “just gimme the fucking keys”.
“You’re pretty uppity about how only girls who can swear can ride your bike, like your some edgy, tough girl just waiting for some stuffy english guy to tame you.”
“Well hey, Becky’s been kidnapped! Yeah! And I’d love to bring a war to the people holding her, but I don’t have a ride. Am I making myself clear?”
(imagine the raptor in the following comic is a motorcycle)
http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/5p12/
The only way this could be better is if instead of replacing the raptor with a motorcycle, you just replaced McNinja with Dina. I bet she would love to ride off on a raptor to save her girlfriend. .
If she could stop berating it for not being scientifically accurate long enough?
Completely justified, hon.
I.. I honestly don’t know what your next steps from here are, though.
Call the police and tell them that
(a) Becky Macintyre has been kidnapped, at gunpoint, by her father.
(b) Ross Macintyre has a rifle and has been talking about dying to save his daughter from Satanism because she is lesbian, and about getting everyone killed.
(c) Becky has a mobile phone, belonging to her lover Dina Saruyama, .
(d) Dina is unaccounted for.
It is very important that the police learn these things promptly, and Joyce is the only person who knows them.
(e) His car is of this type, and is damaged at the back right side (judging from yesterday’s strip)
(f) Said was towed yesterday, so if she doesn’t know it, tracing the licence plate shouldn’t be too hard.
Oh damn. Shit is about to get fucking real
She shouldn’t have sworn, now God is sending angelic death icicles at her from every direction.
And one’s gonna land on Toedad’s car.
Nah man… God realizes that Joyce is right and does as she requests.
Swearing, in the modern definition, isn’t a sin. JVHW wouldn’t care a bit.
Blasphemy is a sin. And that’s why Joyce could say Damn It, but not God Damn It.
In the phrase “Damn it!” the “God” is implied. “Damn it!” is imperative, which means you are issuing a command to someone. And who can damn something? Joe? Dorothy? No, only (in Joyce’s worldview) God has the power to damn someone or something. It’s implied blasphemy, and any attempt by Joyce to try to explain it away as not being blasphemy-blasphemy would be so much sophistry, and she knows it.
No it isn’t. Leaving off God specifically avoids calling on his name in vain.
By your logic any obscenity substitution is still an obscenity because fu(k is implied by fudge and bongo is implied by bongo, etc etc etc.
your experience with people who avoid obscenity and blasphemy appears to not be very extensive, and your conclusions show it.
This is not a substitution, though. While I consider damn super mild I have had some religious people stare me down and lecture me after hearing me say it. Not goddammit, just damn.
Not an imperative, I think: it’s usually parsed as a mandative subjunctive with jussive force.
Exactly. “Bless you” is “May God bless you,” which is a wish, not a directive. And similarly, “Damn it” is “May God damn it.”
I wasn’t brought up in a religious household, so no-one ever told me not to say “damn”. But I’d have thought the sin was more in wishing that a person or thing should *be* damned than anything to do with giving God orders. The writers of the Psalms certainly did a lot of calling upon God to smite their enemies.
Whoa… first the Walking Dead and now we got Joyce hitting a new level of angry. Tonight just keeps getting more interested.
As a side note, someone tell Joe he owes Joyce some money. What was it, 20 bucks?
This is the iron core I was talking about a couple of days ago. She started to break down, but it won’t let her snap.
go find dina go find dina go find dina
Absolutely. Go find Dina. NOW!!
And don’t worry, Joyce — I’ve got your six.
Same, Joyce.
Does anyone realise that the car is floating?
Thank Willis, I wasn’t the only one! Unfortunately, a floating car will make ToeDad more difficult to catch :/
Unless there is a floating motorcycle or floating superhero
Joyce says what we’re all thinking.
…well that was unexpected.
The moment when you realize you failed, the moment when one of the closest people you cared about needed your help desperately and when the time came you couldn’t do a single damn thing. At that moment you just stand there and feel weaker than you ever have before….what else is there to say.
That’s really the fallout cost of these crimes of power. That theft of autonomy or self-actualization. That feeling of total impotence to stop what is happening to you or to those you love. That notion that there might not have been anything you could have done knowing what you did at the time to stop great harm from befalling you or those you care about. That it might have even been the safest option of all to let someone do said harm to prevent greater harm.
This is the point of terrorism like Toedad’s. To not only get the target to do what you want, but to make those surrounding them afraid to act, to fully participate in their lives without implicit threat. Toedad went up and threatened her life and her emotional security to steal her best friend and take her to an abuse camp at best. That’s a scar on the Bob-damned soul.
This
Damn DAMN DAAAAAAAAMN!!!
(Good Times reference)
I like how the fountain in the back makes it look like her eyes are squirting tears, adds really good effect to the mood
And then, Joyce went Super Saiyan…
Entirely fitting as Goku’s line right before he transformed for the first time was “You won’t get away with this. I won’t let you!”
How dare you, Toedad? How dare you?! https://youtu.be/3kkMO4yjjXE?t=2m47s
I am the hope of the willisverse!
Ally to God! Nightmare to you!
Oh, for crying out loud, Joyce. You know his name, his address, his daughter’s name, both their appearances, their phone numbers, their general heading, and the make of his car. You may even know his license plate.
Just call the cops already.
Do you think Becky would thank her for that?
Yes.
Eh, depends on how it played out. I mean, Becky just sacrificed herself to prevent her dad from both hurting people and committing suicide via police. She might be miffed then if Joyce sends the police after them and Ross gets shot anyways.
Uh-oh, that’s an aspect I didn’t think about…
I think Becky knows that this will not prevent suicide-by-police. She told her father that there is no way this ends without him getting the back of his head blown off by staties, and he accepted that. She didn’t go with him to save him, and she likely didn’t go with him to save herself. She went to save Joyce.
I’m OK with suicide-by-cop, but the biggest problem is that Becky will end up as collateral damage — if not physically then most definitely in a psychological sense.
Becky went with him to protect Joyce.
Why? What is the benefit in exacerbating the situation?
Look, I know that by our point of view, Becky got in that car 24 hours ago, but for Joyce, it’s been about FIVE SECONDS. She’s not the Flash, give her a break.
Seriously
But the police should have been on the scene 20 minutes before he showed up!
Yeah, seriously, why don’t they all have prophets on staff yet??? And also TARDIS just to cover all bases
it’s so annoying when ppl get all up in arms about realistic shock/trauma reaction/response time/religious fundamentalist behavior
like hello reality called
I’m sure someone already has, and Joyce will probably do it soon too
Yes, but probably not anyone who knows that Becky has Dina’s phone, or that the kidnapper expects to be dead by the end of the day and is planning to die and/or get everyone killed to save his lesbian daughter from Satan. Or that Dina is unaccounted for.
Joyce has vital, need-to-know information.
Yes. Info that defines the situation and should determine which scenario from their training/play book the police should implement. At the least, even with regular patrol officers, that info should inform how they approach Ross.
Seriously… it’s great the Joyce has taken yet another Stride of Personal Development, but I’m more interested in seeing Joyce call the cops than in seeing her say a mild curse word.
Still wish it was an F-bomb at Toe Dad.
That is the greatest rage face I have ever seen! (In panel 3)
Joyce found the power to fire a hadouken the size of Toedad’s belief in anything dumb like his camo pants and shatter reality as we know it this day.
So Joyce killed the dinosaurs (http://www.nuklearpower.com/2004/06/17/episode-430-very-long-range/)? Dina won’t be happy about that.
No, that was Adric.
Yes Joyce, let the anger flow through you. Let it give you power!
Mom is discount Emperor Palpatine
*Ding*
“You know, it’s probably not wise to have a shaft that goes directly to the reactor right next to your throne…”
I’d argue that that’s actually a good place to put things next too. I mean, if I were an emperor, I’d be putting decent security around the throne room. So that structural weakness suddenly looks like a pretty good place to consolidate your forces.
The emperor did away with the republic and with the republic, so went R-OSHA.
Hence, no one was doling fines for missing guard rails and…
Join the dark side joyce, we have cookies.
Aw you guys are so sweet
Something in Joyce just snapped. We’re looking at a new, much stronger, Joyce. “That which does not kill me had better start running.”
Best quote revision! Yours or from somewhere else?
+1
Not mine. Here’s one of my favorite images that illustrates the quote. http://imgur.com/64uz2K7
Maxims for maximally effective mercenaries?
Joyce may be about to go One-Winged Angel. Everyone watch out.
Tchun tchun tchun tchuuunnnn
Methinks the last Fundie chain on Joyce’s gentle heart just snapped. Hell hath no fury like a woman who’s best friend has been stolen away. Cue Sal and her motorcycle!
I really really really hope this leads to a rescue mission.
Sal has a motorcycle.
Motorcyclists who tangle with motorists do poorly. Unarmed people who tangle with riflemen do poorly. This is a job for helicopters, squad cars, sharpshooters, and a hostage negotiator who has been told about Big Toe Daddy’s behaviour and about Dina’s mobile phone.
The motorist has to stop eventually.
Yes, and it’ll be better to have police and a helicopter on hand when he does than a brace of unarmed young women on a motorcycle.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
That kind of depends on which unarmed women on a motorcycle.
Though in this case, yes.
He doesn’t, effectively, have a firearm. He has a blunt object.
It’s a magazineless bolt action rifle. It has one shot and he fired it. He’s had no opportunity to retrieve another round, much less chamber it.
As for Motorcycle versus car: Becky has already shown her willingness to face death if it keeps that death from looking at her friends. If she thought her dad was going to sideswipe Joyce and Sal on her bike, Becky would most likely grab the wheel and yank the other direction, ie risk getting herself killed in a crash rather than risking her dad killing Joyce.
It looks to me as though he has already re-loaded it.
AFAIK the consensus is that he reloaded in the third panel Saturday.
It’s not even a bolt action; it’s a falling-block action, which is one of the earliest forms of breech-loader. But he reloaded it almost immediately after firing it. He’s probably carrying more rounds in his pocket.
It would be a difficult gun to operate while driving a car, though.
Sorry John, it was late and my brain pulled the wrong breach action words out.
Even if he did reload, as John points out, there’s no way to easily use a rifle in a car compartment. Especially in that tiny car. And definately not while driving.
@ Age: you’re still ignoring the fact that Joyce can easily crash the car, even easier if he’s looking out his window, driving left handed while trying to maneuver three feet of rifle in a tiny car past all the obstructions, possible while rolling down the window. Also the fact that she has shown her willingness to risk her life to save others.
So you are wrong about the thret curve between the motorcyclists and the car driver.
THE PHONE. I didn’t think about that… it probably has a GPS! And even if it’s not used that way, Becky can probably use it later to save herself if Toedad needs gas or something.
Becky should get to play the pivotal role in freeing/saving herself, even IF she gets an assist from others.
*pulls fuse on otherwise out-of-control P.A. system*
*does some “meatball engineering” on the core systems*
*gets the P.A./Muzak back online*
—And I’m not a man who likes to swear/But I never cared for the sound of being alone!
1337 h4rdw4r3 5k1i11z m8!
Poor Joyce,after all the things she went through to help her friend she has reasons to be angry.So please,may the police be at the campus exit waiting for him!
In tomorrow’s strip, Toe Dad hears Joyce cussing and turns the car right around to ground her. As soon as he’s stepped out of the car to inform her that her television privileges have been taken away, the police conveniently arrive and arrest him. Then everybody goes home and eats ice cream and they all live happily ever after.
Oh, except Toe Dad. He goes to jail forever.
“Then everybody human goes home and eats ice cream and they all live happily ever after”. Now toedad is excluded.
“Nobody we cared about was seriously hurt.”
I like your version…
Head for the bunkers! This is not a drill!
WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!!!!!
I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE TO FILL YOUR DARK SOUL WITH LIIIIIIGHT!!!
I don’t know the reference but there’s no way that’s not an innuendo right?
Weirdly enough, I actually know this one, even though I’ve never actually played it. It’s a Devil May Cry reference.
Yeah, no, even a Joyce “damn it” won’t get you out of another “fuck this.”
Oh shit poor Joyce…fuck poor Becky oh poor dina… GOD POOR EVERYONE JEEZ
Here’s hoping Joyce goes full Sarah for a bit.
Sarah is smart.
Smart and mean.
This arc has been hard to read in the immediate wake of so many campus shootings–including one where I worked until a few weeks ago. Hard to read, but on point about a lot of things. Hoping for some Amazi-girl heroics here so that the story doesn’t turn really tragic.
As was pointed out when the gun first came out, this was not only written months in advance, but also there is no time that is not “in the immediate wake of many campus shootings.”
Damn, you go girl! Now channel that righteous anger and do something about it. Your friend needs you.
Atta girl. Let it out.
I hate to go here, and potentially wreck such a dramatic moment… but for some reason I’d really love to see Joyce in the last panel here Photoshopped into the ending of Planet of the Apes.
And in other news… just to cover this whole sequence of events, please allow me to say an obligatory, “Damn you, Willis.”
Ah, what the heck. It is crude, because I don’t have extensive image manipulation skills myself, but here’s my go at it.
http://i.imgur.com/Hv9L6UV.png
Damn it! Damn it all to heck!
That would make a very good wallpaper. Very nice.
Swearing is caring.
She’s gonna get Sal and there’s going to be a Tom Cruise/Mission Impossible rescue scene!
Time to smash a glass in someone’s face.
I think this situation calls for an orbital strike of at least 9*10^(9^9) glasses!
That’s nine with 387420489 zeros after it.
I’d settle for her and Dina riding after him on Sal’s motorcycle.
(Or would that make the motorcycle Chekov’s?)
That’d be fine too…
But the glasses would be more powerful!
I don’t believe that many glasses exist.
She’s gone full Raphael!
Shit’s about to get real. Toedad’s about to get the book thrown at him, and that book may well be Joyce’s bible as she BEATS HIM TO DEATH WITH IT.
Toe-dad drives a Mondeo.. That makes it so much worse.
Hmm, Scion tC?
He is a fundy, it would be an American made car.
Can’t buy a new, American made 2-door in the US that’s not a sports/muscle car.
Non-sports 2-door, you can get a Scion, Mini, Miata, otherwise, you’d be hard pressed to find a 2-door.
Try it.
Does the Ford Fiat count as a sports/muscle car? Cause it comes in two-door. Or did couple years ago.
Just the first name that came to mind
You mean a Fiesta?
4-doors, sedan or hatch.
it begins~!
Joyce crush puny Toedad!! Joyce is strongest there is!!!
and just like that people in Hell got ice-water. If Joyce ever says Fuck it will freeze over and we know that the world is about to end.
also cool effects with the tiles and rage.
It’s just a grade four pseudo swear, not a blasphemy.
She’s gotta start somewhere, and if not now, then when?
Quest for vengeance with Amazi Girl plz
reading this strip makes me think of the song Can’t Trust Anybody Now from Red vs Blue~
On a practical level, this means that anyone who knows Joyce and is within hearing range is going to know something is up.
“hey was that a gunshot? Should we check it out?”
” Nah, it’s nothing to worry about…”
” HOLY BALLS was that Joyce saying something that was very close to being something that my granny might consider rude language?!?”
” Crap, we should go check that out!”
Seriously I can’t picture ANYONE having that conversation.
DAMN IT! If only I had a jetpack and huge laser gun!
Wrong universe buddy.
That’s the joke
Whoah Joyce! You kiss your mother with that mouth?
Waiting for a tense David Willis storyline to conclude gives me the exact same feeling as waiting for a .gif to load in 1992.
Somedays it feels like the feeling of waiting for the BBS’s line to be open.
Oh! So THAT’S what this feeling was all this time.
Good ol’ times where we had to be patient. I had lost the habit but this is training me back into shape.
If DoA wasn’t supposed to be realistic, this would be the point where joyce’s scream rips a whole in the universe and the “It’s Walky” team falls through to beat the crap out of toedad.
I’ve never been so glad to be wrong. I was certain Joyce would break apart after this and take a while to recover, but she seems to be switching from “emotionally wrecked” to “really pissed off”, which takes a strength I didn’t think she had. Things are going to be interesting from here on.
By the way, well done Willis. I fully expected Joyce’s first swear to be something closer to “fuck”, but this is actually way more powerful and relevant to her character. Props to you, good sir.
Okay Joyce, you’ve accepted your anger and have decided upon channeling it to help your friend in mortal peril. Good. Now, go call the police. Let them go kill-crazy on someone who actually deserves it for once. Or better yet, talk to your friend Amber, she seems to know how to get in touch with a vigilante who won’t flinch at danger or lawyers.
For some reason, I feel that the police won’t occur to her as a solution soon enough.
Not sure a rock band from the 1980s would be much help in this case…
If they have songs which fit for car chases,then it would inspire them to keep going after Becky and her ughh..sorry excuse for a father.
Becky sings to Dad: “Don’t stand so, don’t stand so, don’t stand so close to me …” you Homophobic Nutbag. ?maybe?
Anti-joke chicken sez: Proper names are capitalized.
K, now I need to draw Super Saiyan Joyce
that is something that would be both amazing and terrifying and hilarious all at once
When I read this strip, I couldn’t help but score it to Evidently Chickentown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KgB-sI2H-c
You know what I want to see? I want to see what happens when one of Joyce’s parents tries to “be reasonable” about this, by which I mean frame this in any way that does not completely condemn Ross for his actions. Any kind of compassion for him trying to protect Becky or caring about her soul is going to be met with incandescent rage from Joyce. And frankly, I am really enjoying Joyce’s incandescent rage.
As annoying as Joyce’s parents can be, I can’t really see them defending Ross for this. They’re pretty close-minded, sure, but neither of them threatened Joyce with a gun when they found out she was friends with an atheist. I think they’d be more supportive of Joyce during this traumatic time, even if they decide Becky is now a bad influence or something.
Maybe not the ‘kidnap at gunpoint’ bit, but they will not take kindly to boycott ‘s best friends being a lesbian AND an atheist.
Even if they are horrible about it, there’s still her “brother” (sister, but she doesn’t know it yet).
Joyce is almost as vulnerable to faith-based intervention as Becky is. Depending on how big a piece of her tuition they cover, they can easily pull Joyce out of college.
Unless Willis made it interesting and ensured Joyce got a full ride at IU, meaning all those motherfuckers had as leverage was Joyce’s own good will, and that’s been put paid to.
It’s possible. Though in the other universe her parents actually thought she was a lesbian for a while and seemed okay with it. Joyce’s reaction to homosexuality seemed to come soley from the bible with no first hand experience or information so her parents may be more accepting and simply not of discussed the topic with her before due to lack of perceived necessity.
Joyce needs a ninja-hug.
This reminds me of the very end of Erfworld Book I. Joyce finally broke the boop filter.
“Damn it” is possibly swearing depending on the church/congregation/social sphere with evangelicals.
“God Damn It” is Blasphemy.
Swearing is not a sin it’s just not what “good people do”. So it’s probably a failure of manners and decorum to Joyce and her family.
Whereas Blasphemy is a sin, plain and simple. It’s using the Lord’s name in vain.
So, while this is indeed a moment for Joyce, I don’t think it indicates that she has turned her back on JHVW.
Disclaimer, this is extrapolating from my Grandparents who are Kentucky baptists from the old school when Southern Baptists were, in social matters, quite liberal, ie. charity, equality of man anti-death penelty, while still being religiously conservative, ie, no booze, cigarettes, or premarital hanky panky. ( to the extent that my granny told her son that she would report him for statutory if my parents went through with their plans to move in together when my mom graduated high school without at least being engaged, rather than see him damn himself to hell for living in sin.) Done completely from love.
i freely admit Willis’s/Joyce’s beliefs COULD be different, but I strongly suspect that Joyce knows the difference between the two and that this is an example of a social not a religious event for her.
In this case, Joyce could use “damn it” or any variation thereof and intend it quite literally.
Joyce has very stringent swearing rules. Recall Walky’s explanation of “butt opening”. Also, she has always used “darn” instead of “damn.”
She doesn’t J-walk but that doesn’t mean she thinks it’s a sin.
Just two words uttered by Joyce and suddenly I’m feeling that things might start looking up soon.
I had a feeling Joyce was going to swear. I was actually expecting a quiet and subdued “Shit…” muttered under her breath, but I kinda like this more.
I was expecting “FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…”
Awesome transition from shocked and grieving to angry. Joyce’s posture changes so very little. Also, I feel so bad for poor Dina, who literally came out of her shell. (Where can I get a Tricera-Top(R)?)
DAMN YOU WILLIS!!!!!
Damn straight!
He is NOT taking your Becky.
DAMN IT, TOEDAD!!!!
Indeed!
Or, alternatively, NOT straight
This… this is going to have ‘immediate’ repercussions that will take MONTHS of strips to bring forth. Isn’t it.
I think so.
“Today” started on August 31st, and ends before November 26th (guessing from a wardrobe change in the preview panels.) “Tomorrow” seems to run through at least early February.
Since we see Leslie’s class, though, there is at least a one day time skip between. My theory is we skip to Friday, and Joyce’s dad shows up to take her home for the weekend. You know there is going to be serious fallout in their church community because of this.
I am also guessing that being around her family and home church isn’t going to result in as much healing as her family may hope.
And so Joyce is now Darth Jesus
GO Joyce!
More freaking, turning my emotions inside out all week. And still going strong.
she mad
“When I swear I want it to have meaning”
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
So what’s the standard police procedure when someone reports a kidnapping but the alleged victim denies they’re being kidnapped?
(which Becky may do to keep her loved ones safe)
I’ve read horror stories of police being contacted and doing absolutely nothing (Warren v. District of Columbia) and others of police dismissing cases of domestic violence and/or sexual abuse (including rape of children) because the victim recanted their story and it often turned out they changed their statement because their abuser found out and threatened them.
So here’s the gist of my question: what are Becky’s chances of being helped by the police?
The key factor here is the fact that her father brought a firearm onto a campus and discharged it. She didn’t agree to go with him: she was compelled to do so against her will. It’s pretty much a gimme case, provided that they can get witness testimonials and Becky agreeing to testify.
The problem in that case, however, is how much legwork the police agency in question wants to do. Even an open and shut case requires a lot of paperwork and actual work to get done, and some police officers are frankly just lazy: they’ll look at the situation, say, “She agreed to go with him, no one was hurt, we have no witnesses, blaaaaaaah,” and write the whole thing off. It sucks, but it happens.
That being said, considering the fact that college campuses and firearms are hot button topics, I would like to think the local authorities, if they weren’t compelled to action themselves, might be forced to it if something public occurred, like someone posting a video of the crazy guy running around the quad with a rifle.
The police don’t need Becky’s cooperation to make a case. And given the public nature of his crime and the media frenzy associated with a shooting on school grounds (and it is a shooting, he discharged his weapon), they can’t afford to back down.
Becky doesn’t actually have any say about what happens to him right now, unless she convinces him to surrender peacefully. The instant the gun came out, he was a threat to public safety. He will be hunted down.
You can’t have a media frenzy for every campus shooting.
And nobody actually got shot at this one, yet.
^ this is what worries me
Ross DID discharge his weapon, but as far as we know, no one was hurt and no one was killed, so I’m worried the police would not take this seriously.
This one has a father abducting his gay daughter while waving a weapon around and ranting about satan.
The press live for this shit.
Exactly!
Side bar: if it had traction as a media case, the circus would swarm the Brown/MacIntyre hometown.
“You can’t have a media frenzy for every campus shooting.”
…This is possibly the most massively depressing statement I have ever heard.
Going to say pretty much the same thing. I hope we never become so complacent to these school atrocities that we begin to shrug them off as inevitable or commonplace, or start to categorize them as we do tornadoes and hurricanes on a Fujita-like scale (“Nobody died and the intruder only showed a gun but didn’t fire it? That’s not even a C-1 on the Columbine scale.”)
I can’t decide if I was being sarcastic or not.
If contacted by the police and not in a situation where her father is waving a gun around and threatening to kill her or her friends or get himself killed, Becky won’t have the motivation to deny the kidnapping to protect her loved ones because they won’t be in danger. If her father is waving the gun around, the police won’t care what she denies.
I think Becky’s already shown the strength to get away and her father has blatantly broken enough laws that she’ll be able to get him put away long enough to be safe.
And thus, the origin of the New Amazi-girl is revealed.
WHAAAAAAA JOYCE SAID DAMN!!!!!!
Im telling god…..
Feces were just actualized.
And then Joe walks by, hears Joyce swear, and gives her that 20 he said he’d give her a while back.
I’M GETTING SOME SOFT-SERVE
Looks like it’s time for Joyce to call up Amazi-Girl for an assist on getting some good old “revenge with a side of vengeance” and get her Becky back!!!
Joyce does not need Amazi-Girl.
Joyce has become ‘V’.
Well, holy shit, Joyce cursed, I didn’t see THAT coming, and I see everything coming. I usually predict how books will go after being 3-4 chapters in, with near perfect accuracy… and in no way was I expecting Joyce to not only recover from being shell-shocked but also to curse, loudly and without any regard to who might hear.
So yeah… wow… that happened… k then
My exact words were ‘holy sh*t’
My response was, “Oh my holy sh*t”, so I am very much with you there!
Well she did say if she ever swore it would be for good reason.
That was great. Really great. I love how character development in this strip is done.
So we’ve got Joyce hellbent on revenge, Sal is (still) badass and has a motorcycle, and Dorothy is the intelligent but kinda quirky one.
Shit, now all we need is to get Danny some metal legs and we might have something going here!
Willis’ Angels
So, Toedad made Joyce angry.
Um, link didn’t work…
Oh, come on… Last try, then I’m dropping URL in plain text
You can say that again, Joyce.
Cathartic shouting!
Okay, so, Joyce has broken the swear barrier in a way that empowers her so much. These words have meaning. You understand how upset she is. Her refusal to swear can’t be broken with chump change, or as a dumb party trick. Anyone who knows her and knows her taboo on swearing will automatically assume the worst has happened and take her seriously. Good on you, Joyce.
Jesus wasn’t enough this time, Joyce. You can’t quote the Bible at someone who never worshiped the same God, and never followed the same Word you did. Now, your best friend is gone, after having tried to comfort her and give her a home at the college. What will you do?
Last strip I hated the outcome because I thought this event would’ve pushed Joyce further into her faith. I made a terrible mistake. This is Joyce, the person who defended her atheist friend and did the right thing by her gay friend after realizing what damage she was contributing to. Her faith is malleable to her morals, it changes when given new information. She will endure this.
O.O
welp, we always knew it would have to be big.
this is not big.
this is bigger.
biggest.
Biblical.
Damn you Willis.
You’re going to kill Becky, Willis, aren’t you?
That would be an effective storytelling tactic. The best deaths are ones of characters that are very built up, that the readers care deeply about. The more emotional investment in a character, the more dramatic their death will be. I’d say becky is just about ripe. Time to pick the fruit and eat it.
And then Joyce would grieve for quite a while because Becky was her friend for years. And that period of grief in our time would calculate to… A date that appears to be past the heat death of the universe. Hmmm, maybe Becky won’t die.
Willis stated that no one dies in this comic. I thought he said it in the “About” link, but that’s apparently not it… Does anyone remember where he said it?
I remember him saying it in a strip comments section, and maybe on his Tumblr.
The vest will come off and all heck will break loose.
The vest will stay, but the shirt will go and all Anti-Joyce will break loose.
No, she’s just going to run into someone doing some dying and somehow get a yellow stripe painted on that shirt across her chest.
Er, ‘dyeing’.
“Hey, what are you up to today?”
“Oh, just some dying. *gerk*”
You wanted it to have meaning, Joyce.
Looks like you got your wish.
Not the way she intented,unfortunately.
Willis isn’t a ‘Magnificent Bastard’, he’s a ‘Fancy Bastard’!!
KHAAAAAAAAANN!!!!!
…and then she turned Super Saiyan…
Even Joyce is damning you, Willis.
Now she will hulk out and go on a holy rampage to save her friend!
Joyce SMASH!
“Let it go, let it go…”
“Don’t make me angry Mr McGee. You won’t like me when I’m angry.”
Seriously, I strongly expect Joyce to tell Sal to give her the keys to her bike. Now. Or else. She has a pursuit and a fight waiting for her. We’re about to find out just how much of the warrior we knew in the Walkyverse lives on in her other-dimensional counterpart.
How will crashing Sal’s motorcycle help? She doesn’t know how to drive it.
We’ll see. It’s much more likely that Sal will offer to drive but I suspect that that will only be after Joyce proves that she’s willing to guess her way through motorcycle driving.
I really did think that this would be the storyline to bring this out. I just hoped that when it happened it would be to Ross’s face.
This is relevant.
to quote a dr who line:
“Demons run when a good man goes to war”
in this case it’s a woman
You beat me to it!
A nice Babylon 5 quote for Joyce to use (with a few modifications) in a a few strips time:
“Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you will ever see. God sent me. “
So that’s how you learned that a conviction to not swear was so much trivial nothingness compared to the bullshit the world could throw at you.
I was annoyed by Joyce’s attitude on cursing before, but now I wish she could have kept it. Joyce isn’t such a bad kid. Maybe letting people have their ignorant self-righteousness isn’t so bad if it means they haven’t had to live through feeling this powerless.
No, wait. That’s not quite how that works. Uuuuugh.
There is no hope for Toedad, for he hath made the meek enraged
“There are three things all wise men fear; the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”
– Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear
“You MANIAC! You took her away!
Oh, DAMN YOU!
God DAMN YOU TO HELL!”
Honestly, I hope there’s a future scene with Becky, Dina, and Joyce sitting and having coffee (or hot chocolate) together, and reflecting on how much stronger their relationship has gotten because of the BS of ToeDad.
Welp. Looks like we finally have an answer to that question…
It’s time for Joyce to try defyyyyyyyyying graaaaaaaaavity!
Starring Punished “Venom” Joyce
Guest starring: the “SKULLS” parasite unit.
KHAAAAAAAAAAN!
You know what they say… when life gives you lemons, make lemonades. When life takes your Becky…
GET MAD!!!
Listen, God. If I were you I would either start answering some lesbian prayers NOW or start running. Joyce is NOT taking any of your shit any longer.
If God was like Bruce Almighty,he could answer to prayers faster via e-mail.
BULLSHIT, Willis! BULLSHIT.
And just like Joyce herself said, this would be a VERY appropriate time to swear. Well done, Willis. Well done.
What nobody seems to realize is that Joyce isn’t mad about Toe Dad and Becky so much as she’s mad that she’s all by herself again. Hopefully she screamed loudly enough that someone will hear her and escort her back to the safety of her dorm…
I don’t think she’s that self-centered. Sure, she is alone again, but I think her empathy and frustration at not being able to stop Becky from leaving overrides that. But that is something to consider. She no longer has a crutch to help her back to her dorm. What will she do now?
I agree with n_j on this one. In fact, I doubt that Joyce will be able to feel fear again until she’s taken some kind of action. Probably a rash action but action nonetheless.
Probably a bit more worried about her best friend possibly being tortured by a psycho for who she is.
No, that is not the fear of ” I don’t have a protector”, but rather the pure rage of “I COULDN’T STOP THIS”.
Just, that third panel.
I expect this is a situation where Joyce is too in shock to be affected by her agoraphobia. Furthermore, she was content to wait at the fountain before, that wouldn’t change now.
And this begins the arc where Joyce discovers her super powers.
THE CHEESE: “They are a great people, Joyce Brown… at least they wish to be. All they lack is a light to show them the way. And it is for this reason above all others, their capacity for good, that I have given them the greatest gift that is mine to give. I have given them you… My only child.”
Unfortunately, it turns out Joyce’s only superpower is extremely loud swearing.
So where do we think this goes in the short term? Where does today end?
Is the action over for now, with Toedad escaping with Becky or is there another scene to play out? Possibly leading to the hospital visit.
I really can’t see Becky just disappearing and everyone trying to carry on while the police work on tracking him down. But I also can’t see these characters pulling a rescue attempt. This isn’t a wacky hijinks adventure strip.
I think it’s not over yet. I don’t think Ross makes it off-campus. Seems to work better dramatically to me, but then Willis is a better writer and he may have a way to make it work.
It’s not overwhelmingly likely but I wonder if Joyce is going to do something foolish and heroic. In the face of this, we will find out just how weak Ross really is when confronted by real faith and love in action.
Now that Becky has been kidnapped, will Joyce be able to save her in time…find out on the next exciting episode of Dumbing of Age!
Joyce MUST be the person who saves Becky. Unsure just how at this point since she has no transport, but it can’t be the police or any of her friends. It must be Joyce who saves Becky and restores balance to the universe.
Dina gave it her all, but the power of Joyce’s love is what will win the day. OK, sal can help. That motorcycle has been a plot device waiting to be activated for too long.
Unfortunately, Becky hasn’t been kidnapped.
We can assume from the fact that her dad put the gun down that he is in a reasonable frame of mind, same as Becky. She’s upset for having to leave, but she’s in no danger.
Add to that the fact that she was technically trespassing on the school grounds anyway, seeing as how she wasn’t a student there. The police may investigate the single shotgun shot, but since there were no injuries, I don’t think they can or will do anything. I’m sure that Toe Dad is licensed to carry his shotgun, being a God-fearing Christian, so he is not doing anything illegal by having it. Threatening someone with it is illegal, yes, so the police might be able to do something from that, but I’m putting money on Joyce saying she wants to handle this, because she is now seeing the hypocrisy of a Christian being faced with something that 1) isn’t wrong and 2) they don’t agree with.
This is going to be a “Hell’s Angels” story. It’s going to be Joyce, Sal, Dina, and Amber going after Becky. Amber may or may not be Amazi-girl. This might be her “breaking out” point, if she realizes that Amazi-girl wasn’t there when she was needed.
Becky absolutely has been kidnapped. She “agreed” to go under duress. With her best friend and her being threatened by a man with a gun.
That he put it down may indicate he thinks she’s with him willingly, but that’s just because he’s delusional. It does reduce the threat to Becky and increases the chance she’ll be able to make a break for it. She’s still in danger though. If she tries to leave or otherwise breaks the illusion she’s willing, the gun comes back out again.
Even if she doesn’t, she’s still facing some attempt to “fix” her from being lesbian, which is likely to hugely traumatic.
The police won’t let this go. They’re also not going to let a teenage girl handle this on her own, even if she wants to. The only way that happens is if she avoids the police and moves on this before they find her. Probably if Dina avoids them as well, since she’ll tell them Joyce’s name.
It’s possible Willis will go there and do a rescue mission story, but it doesn’t feel like it fits to me.
It is a public university. The concept of trespassing does not exist.
A public place of business still has the right to declare people to be trespassing. Just because the word “public” is in the title does not mean that the property owners do not have rights.
There are several different legal definitions of “public” and all of them differ from the common , non-specific usage of the word public.
Yeah, but it certainly isn’t trespassing just to be on campus. Not when people are freely admitted and there’s no notification.
Nor does “She was trespassing when someone kidnapped her” change anything legal about the kidnapping.
Here’s what you have to do to trespass on OSU. You have to attract enough attention such that student safety or the campus police don’t want you there, and then you have to be asked to leave, and not leave. If people throwing mocked up aborted fetuses at people in the middle of the day don’t get kicked off campus, trespass is not a real thing, regardless of the theoretical possibility of someone being guilty of it.
I wouldn’t bet that Toedad will avoid kidnapping charges. The police are going to be involved. There are multiple people who’ll tell them that a young woman got into his car after he fired a shot into the air as a threat. When the police learn that the young woman was his daughter, worries about domestic violence will be added to worries about crazy-man-with-gun-at-school.
I don’t care if Toedad is white and Becky technically chose to get in his car of her own free will. There is most certainly hysteria spreading across that campus because there’s a gunman, and students are likely beginning to spread the hysteria off-campus by texting friends and family about it. This is going to be plastered across the local news. Angry parents are going to demand assurance that their college kids are safe. The authorities are not going to let this go. They’re going to throw every charge they can think of at Toedad, so that they won’t be accused of failing to take a potential shooting seriously.
Kidnapping is only one of at least a dozen crimes he has committed. He has committed crimes against Joyce and Dina and against laws that don’t need a person to press charges on.
These have been enumerated in early threads in today’s comment section as well as in previous day’s comments.
Unfortunately, he might yet kill someone. Bullets fired up into the air come back down, with just as much lethal force as when they were fired. If it happens to land on a person, injury is the least it will do; both cases I know of this happening resulted in fatalities.
Really, she was forced into the car against her will, how is it not kidnapping.
We the audience know it’s a kidnapping, but this explanation is definitely how the police would see it. People crying for the police are being really naieve. At most Toedad would end up with a restraining order from campus
Because beating Dina unconscious isn’t a crime?
Was she nearly unconscious? She jumped on his back first, he flipped her off (can be seen as self-defense) and then pushes her down before leaving. There are no witnesses to this except the two of them. This would be a damn nightmare to prosecute or press charges because as it played out, there’s reasonable doubt everywhere. The only thing no one can dispute is setting off his gun, which he isn’t brandishing at anyone anymore, so not legally a threat.
Does Ross have a hovercar? Did he hit a ramp (unseen in the panel)? Or does Willis not know how to draw cars driving away normally?
Drawing a car lifting up off the ground is a long-standing visual shorthand in comic and cartoons for a car leaving at high speed.
Yes, I know that already. I just think it’s poorly drawn. Maybe some little exhaust clouds behind the car would have worked better?
I think YOU’RE poorly drawn!
there are little exhaust clouds though…
He hit a speedbump.
Come on Joyce get just a bit more angry, you’re so close to going super sayian! Heck she looks like she’s powering up in the 3rd panel.
JOYCE: “I just… I miss Becky so much!”
AMAZI-GIRL: “Your sister in all-but-blood has been taken. You cannot change that for now. Set it aside.”
JOYCE: “But how can I do that? How can I function when all I feel is… hate?”
AMAZI-GIRL: “You hide it away from the world.” ((AMAZI-GIRL offers JOYCE a canary yellow mask)) “With this.”
“And together we shall join the Lucha Libre movement” ?
Well, if I understand that tradition properly, it does have a religious element to it, no matter how dumb it looks to the untutored outsider.
FWIW, I can’t see a masked vigilante version of DoA Joyce being anything other than a parody but, in the very unlikely event Willis intends to take the character in that direction, I could see her being very similar to Stephanie Brown/Spoiler in the 1990s Batman comics.
meanwhile IRL @ IU…
http://wgntv.com/2015/10/19/indiana-university-student-strangled-muslim-woman-bit-officer-police/
Rescue mission in catholic county, go!
Just spread porn mags and evil booze and we are done with that.
Am I missing something here? because Joyce, Becky, and their families aren’t Catholic. SO what is the ” Catholic County” referencing?
Americans (especially in the south) are prejudiced against Catholics and don’t think that it’s an unpopular-enough prejudice to hide.
Aside from Joyce & co not being Catholic, it is also worth noting that the Catholic Church does not condemn alcohol. They in fact view alcohol as a gift from God, though one that should be enjoyed in moderation.
Once again, I’m just kind of bored by yet another step on Joyce’s Path to Being a Somewhat Normal Person.
Like… it’s great that she decided this situation warrants a “curse word,” but I’m more interested in seeing her call the cops.
Yeah frankly I don’t really give a frickly frack about Joyce’s character development. Which is like half the comic. I’m more interested in Becky because this must be a hell of a lot for traumatizing for her, plus she’s more likable and interesting, and she’s also the one GETTING KIDNAPPED. And where the hell is Dina???
I think a lot of this will be less frustrating read later in bulk. This page is a nice beat, a necessary piece of character for Joyce (not just the curse, but showing her shift from broken and paralyzed yesterday to enraged), but it’ll be better as a single beat before moving on rather than a full day’s delay.
Yeah – webcomic pacing is never easy, since the author has to balance two radically different ways people consume it. When something seems to be going at a reasonable rate for daily readers, it’s almost guaranteed to be “blink and you missed it” for people catching up later.
“Yeah frankly I don’t really give a frickly frack about Joyce’s character development.”
————————
I don’t know what you thought you were getting into, but that’s what this comic is about.
Ha, I know, right? I agree with him in that I don’t really care much about Joyce- I think of her more as a ridiculous character that exists for other, more interesting people to react to.
That said, I know that Joyce is one of the main characters, so I can deal with it until we get to someone more interesting.
Joyce is THE main character. And she is heavily based on myself and my life and what I was like as a young adult. I don’t mind when you say she’s uninteresting, but when you say she’s “ridiculous,” you’re kind of being an asshole to me.
So, like, heads up.
Hm, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insulting- by ridiculous, I meant more “she has extreme personality traits that other characters react to.” As in, she’s not boring.
As for her being the main character… I mean, I realize you’re the writer, but you have a lot of subplots going on that barely involve Joyce at ALL.
I’m actually kind of surprised that you consider her that strongly a main character. I generally think of her as Micheal Bluth, first among equals in an ensemble.
*somewhere across campus*
Joe: Did I just hear Joyce swear?
Danny: Joyce? That’s impossible…
I don’t think Danny knows Joyce well enough to say that. I could see a variant of that exchange between Walky and Dorothy. Or Walky and Joe.
Joe and Jacob
Now, it´s the moment that Joyse release all her anger, and become in Super Saiyan.
Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZVJq_6_aP4
Becky still has Dina’s cell phone, right?
Until it rings and Toedad takes it away from her.
Man, it’s weird to me how this should be a bad strip, but instead it all works.
The scene of a character so angry that they howl into the sky, shaking their fists is so cliche that Joyce might as well be shouting “Noooo!!” while Toedad escapes in a helicopter or something.
Instead, it all feels like a perfectly natural reaction to all the bullshit she’s been going through. That her efforts to protect Becky have all crumbled, how she was helpless to stop Toedad and Becky had to sacrifice her own safety to save Joyce and the people her father as threatening, that Becky is now speeding away and there’s nothing she can do. And in that moment, Joyce is so angered that she just completely loses it.
Kudos, Willis.
Seeing Joyce like this brings to mind a scene with Vivien Leigh standing, hand raised to the sky, as she vows “As God is my witness they’re not going to lick me….I’m going to live through this…” in “Gone With The Wind” (1939).
If you’re going to borrow inspiration, Willis, you’re at least borrowing from the great ones.
I’m hoping one of the characters realize they can go to the campus police and give name, address, etc. of the man who brought a gun on campus, fired it, and then left with a young female. It’s be less dramatic storytelling and my least favorite character would be saved but I’d be theoretically okay with it…
I so want to hug Joyce and Becky right now.
I hope they can’t get away THAT easily. Not after someone certainly alerted police to a crazed gunman firing shots on campus and abducting a legal-age adult.
In my mind’s eye, I picture Joyce chasing after the car like the T-1000 in Terminator 2. Complete with feats of superhuman physical prowess and shape-shifting her arms into metal hook things to latch on to the car with.
Joyce’s epiphany.
“….And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself.
As gold in the furnace hath he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering.
And in the time of their visitation they shall shine, and run to and fro like sparks among the stubble.
They shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the people, and their Lord shall reign for ever.”
…….Wisdom 3: 5-8 (KJV)
Wisdom is deuterocanonical. Joyce’s epiphanies need to derive from Protestant canon.
Stop saying dammit and call the cops HE JUST BROKE THE LAW KIDNAPPED SOMEONE AND IF YOU CALL THE COPS WILL FIND HIMSELF IN A CAR CHASE YOU FUCKING IDIOT
Yeah, what kind of idiot has an emotional reaction to trauma. How dare she not be perfectly calm, collected and rational within seconds of someone she’d known and respected her whole life threatens her with a gun and abducts her best friend. I’m surprised she’s not still curled up in a ball whimpering.
You’re right that it would be better if she did. Or does a car chase put Becky more at risk and negate why she went with her dad in the first place? Seconds to decide, while you’re in shock.
And of course, this strip is the transition scene before she takes action. I don’t know what she’s going to do yet, but that’s what’s happening here.
Now I’m just wondering how likely Joyce is to realize on her own that _actual_law_ is on her side.
I doubt her parents&community ever treated 18+ children as suddenly outside of their parents’ authority, and if Toedad is any indication, they probably didn’t put too much stress on gun safety and how wrong using them against people is, either.
Of course, literally anyone she describes the situation to WILL tell her this, but – this is a question of timing, now.
Well that Shuttlecock is going to jail… and that’s his best case scenario
He should get together with Amber’s dad and go bowling
What are the chances that we’ve seen the last of Becky. The strip centers around Joyce and her growth. She’s seen the underbelly of her faith, and must now do a lot of soul searching to see what she really believes. She might receive a letter from Becky: “I’m doing well, Satan has been cast from me and my mission trip starts soon. I’m filled with the holy spirit. God Bless You.” The story on campus will continue with all its local drama. As for Fundie, he may blend in with the crowd leaving campus. His fellow fundies will vouch for him, Becky will be “away”, and if there are no cameras, Dina’s testimony will fall apart under cross examination based on her dinosaur role play.
Literally no chance.
Slim to none.
For all the Damning of the Willis, he’s never gone in a direction like that. There’s no drama, no tension and no resolution. Not going to happen.
(Silly touchpad and badly placed mouse pointer) As I was saying, there’s plenty of evidence, but it can be disputed in court for years. Becky’s testimony after brainwashing will end the proceedings. There could be sad endings all the way around.
That assumes he has time to brainwash her, which already leaves the plotline dangling for a year or two of real time.
Again, not going to happen.
Real world, at least theoretically possible, though I honestly doubt Toedad is properly prepared to whisk her away and vanish off the face of the earth long enough to pull it off. His kidnapping certainly didn’t show any trace of deep planning.
Dramatically speaking: Not a chance.
He doesn’t need a well thought out plan, just a call to his fundamentalist preacher. The preacher will have it all planned out by now. Fundie’s next phone call will tell him the address, and after that it’s in the deprogrammers hands. Fundie just has to hand her over “For the good of her immortal soul.”
His fundy preacher, who is also the Brown’s fundy preacher. It’s possible their whole church really is that scary and the Browns somehow managed to avoid the worst of the influence. It’s also possible, I suppose, that Joyce’s parents are completely on board with violently kidnapping and brainwashing Becky, in which case Hank’s upcoming appearance is really terrifying.
But it clashes with their previous characterization.
It’s one thing for Toedad to know of a place he can send Becky for conversion therapy and to assume that since she’s his daughter she’ll go and another entirely for him to be connected into black fundy sites that help spirit away kids kidnapped in broad daylight. Not all fundies are that wacko. Not even all the gay conversion types are cool with blatantly hiding idiots on the run from the law. If nothing else, at this point he’d be a huge risk to the whole operation. And you’d think if he was plugged into this kind of network, he’d have their support and advice for the actual kidnapping as well.
Again, it’s possible, just not likely.
And, more importantly, not going to happen for dramatic reasons.
COPS. CALL THEM. Seriously, even if you can’t get him on a kidnapping charge (which I doubt he’ll be able to competently argue against) you can STILL get him thrown in jail for years just for all the firearms violations, including but not limited to bringing one onto school grounds, brandishing it, DISCHARGING it in a public space, and threatening violence on SEVERAL of the students.
The realistic anti-Joyce
It doesn’t matter, he is still going to get locked up. How many witnesses were there for that little scene? He shot a gun off on public grounds, and that bullet still has to come back down and can still do damage.
Y’know, I was kinda expecting Joyce to actually swear along this storyline, as this situation really seems to be the kind of situation were Joyce would build up so much anger that only a “damn” would be the acceptable way to express how she feels.
Glad to be right about this.
And knowing Willis, we’re about to shift perspectives to someone else outside the situation, and this is going to be a cliffhanger.
Preemptive DYW.
“Give in to your feelings my young apprentice and your journey towards the dark side will be complete.”
There’s always a slim chance that Becky will attempt to somehow get out/escape and accidentally end up shooting the day in the process.
Or worse still, think of herself as a failure to Joyce, herself and her faith and use the same gun to kill herself. I mean, she was happy and everything sort of like a last hurrah before making a decision like that. She might think that eliminating her from the equation will make everyone happy.
I really do hope that’s not what happens, but it’s a possibility.
Also, where is Dina?! OMG WHERE IS SHE?! IS SHE OKAY?!
Except that Willis said he’s not killing off major characters? (And Dina is probably all right. She’s still in the comic in January 2016 according to the preview panels)
Anyone else notice she’s wearing almost the exact outfit from It’s Walky?
Just needs a yellow stripe.
And a jet pack and giant gun. Then Toedad’s in trouble.
Yes. It’s a deliberate throwback.
Called It.
And now any who know Joyce and hear her now, thus will get their attention, and know without doubt she is angry. When someone swears that normally doesn’t it really gets people’s attention.
If she were a military commander, with her history of not swearing, any order she issued after this outburst would have people jumping to carry them out. I know, I’ve seen it.
Good thing she’s on a campus with enrollment of over 10,000, and not one person in earshot will care.
I always thought the comic featuring Joyce’s First Swear would have a quadruple digit number of comments. Maybe if it had been an F-bomb? Ah, well, it stands to reason that she’d start off with a word that’s allowed on Prime Time TV. She’ll graduate to f-bombs eventually, I’m sure.
I’m torn between being devastated by recent events, and also excited from a story perspective regarding potential character development for Joyce.
Well, that sure was a run-on sentence. It’s been a long day.
ok, this is freaky. i read this comic this morning but now joyce literally sums up how i feel about my life right now. (is willis psychic?)
Looks like Joyce hit her limit break. I wonder what her ultimate looks like.
as long as it’s not something useless like healing the entire party
I mean, I guess that’s not USELESS but it’s not as satisfying as a 1,000-hit combo
I’d imagine her limit is not only a party-wide heal, but also buffs their attack and defense.
She was right, her first time swearing did hold meaning
It’s finally occurring to me to wonder just how hard all of this is going to come down on Joyce for keeping Becky secret. Not that I’m blaming anyone but Ross for how this has turned out, but from an administration standpoint, I have a horrible feeling they’ll look at WHY Becky was there in the first place. If they decide Joyce is partly at fault for this (terrible but believable), she could end up in serious shit.
Because, hey, life isn’t shitting on her enough already this year.
She was there for what, two or three days? Depending on campus rules, they may be fine with an overnight visitor. I know my school was okay with it.
Bummer.
Well, Toedad is screwed.
The next strip is when we’re going to switch to someone else, isn’t it? This is our cliffhanger.
I’ve never been happier to be wrong. Woo.
*clears throat* I actually believe that there’s a LOT of anger in that curse. I mean, she did kind of start believing that homosexuality is fine, and that god is good, watches their back, so this’ll be a clash of faith for her. Either she was wrong, or that god doesn’t actually care. Or at least it might feel like that. She very well might feel betrayed because of this, so it’ll be interesting to watch this play out. (oh dear let everyone be alright pleaseee)
This… THIS is why swearing should not be used as everyday language. Only using it when your friend is taken away by her psycho dad (or when you back up into a tree a the state park where you work… in a truck owned by the park.) should it be used. It gives curses meaning, and it lets others around you know that either your about to have a meltdown or your about to punch them in the face.
Wow.
I like to think she just broke the fourth wall and we just didn’t see “WILLIS” at the end.
DAMN IT WILLIS