Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Fantomestein
Beka Duke
Desperate for companionship, Frankenstein's Monster pretends to be the Opera Ghost. A grave mistake.
Slightly Damned
Chu
Rhea Snaketail returns from the dead, befriending a Demon who falls in love with an Angel. The afterlife ain't what it used to be!
2 Slices
RJ Morel
After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Countdown to Countdown
Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Mac Hall
Matt Boyd
The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
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I tried to make that point to someone once, that Bert and Ernie aren’t “gay,” their just a version of “The Odd Couple.” As he’d never SEEN “The Odd Couple,” he couldn’t grasp it.
Just for fun, here’s some Sesame Street milestones these kids would’ve seen as 3-5 year olds (this’ll be outdated next year obvs): the introduction of Chris Robinson, Leela [surname not found], and Abby Cadabby; Miles Robinson and Gabi Rodriguez graduating high school; and Gina Jefferson adopting baby Marco. The weirdest one, though, is that at age four they would’ve seen the show completely reformat itself around Murray Monster as the show’s “host”, wandering around actual NYC between segments. I’ve often wondered what the toddlers who lived through that made of it.
Huh, I’m currently only 5-ish (I think?) years older than these kids and I remember almost none of that apart from Abby and Murray (who my siblings would be more familiar with). And I was a huge fan as a kid. I hope this doesn’t mean my memory loss affected things that happened before my depression…
Of course, I tended to watch a lot of VHS and DVD compilations that tended to be more Muppet-focused, so that might also explain some things.
Generally people just don’t remember being a really young kid that well
I know for a fact that kid!Me was a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, but I would struggle to name more than half-a-dozen trains from it, and one of those would be only because a troublesome pet wound up named after them.
I can still name all of the engines that had numbers on ‘em in ascending order and could tell you what color each one was. Or at least all the ones up to #7, anyway— was there a #8? I feel like there was, but I couldn’t tell you.
I quit watching after they switched to CGI, the magic was gone for me. And then to add insult to injury they George-Lucased CGI faces onto older episodes and oh, dear, it seems that in Ethan’s absence I have become Ethan. The Third Eaton, if you will
Yeah, the real answer here is that if you’re five years older, you were also watching five years earlier, and aged out of the show before most of this stuff happened.
For what it’s worth my toddler has watched an unbelievable amount of Sesame Street reruns on HBO and we keep coming back to the Murray episodes. They’re fun!
I think the main reason these episodes work so well in our household is because my kid LOVES the Abby’s Flying Fairy School segments. Until recently he would run over to me while flapping his hands like wings wherever they would come on.
Is that time spread just from now, or does it cover what anyone, 4-5 year olds in the full decade prior, might recall? What about now? When will then be now?
But they were also mostly 18 in 2011 cuz sliding time. So.. did they get childhood references from then, then, but then they have since forgot them and then they now know children’s reference from now’s then then?
Those references will now be from before their time but they’ve still seen it. Streaming, the internet, DVDs/Blu-ray, reruns, etc. have made seeing things from before you easy.
Yrp. Really I think it’s mostly dudes who like to imagine women are not platonic girlfriends. I’m in that camp and even on analysis am not really sure why. Probably am just hornt. But then I also like to imagine they’re just made of platonic solids too.
When a chick walks in with a cuboid waist and a double-dodecahedral derriere in my face
I was wondering about that. It appears Becky is breaking the fourth wall, without it being OUR wall. does that mean she’s breaking the 4th and a quarter wall? or that OUR wall is a fifth dimension, or…. ouch, that hurt…. does anyone else smell smoke?
Oh thank you. I thought I might’ve been the only one. I can’t quite tell if she’s looking at our fourth wall, or mugging to an imaginary camera just off to the side of ‘us’. It’s like someone talking to you and looking at your left ear instead of your eyes. Her posture and head position say she’s looking to our left, but the light relections in her eyes somewhat indicate fourth wall, and well, the whole thing made me read it weird.
Dumpsterfire what? Did someone say my name? Oh, Becky and Dotty. Yeah they’ll be all right if Becky can work out her feelings and stop trying to abuse Dorothy or if Dot can call out Becky and assert boundaries.
And there’s nothing wrong with calling it out (the expected comments) in advance. Inviting disaster, murphy’s law, etc… are really just blame shifting. If people start flinging toxic crap at each other following Rassilon’s post, it’s because they’re being jerks, not because Rassilon said it was ok (which they did not).
Same here. Lots of children’s programming had call-backs to live action television back then. Probably still does.
The Flintsones was the Honeymooners, for instance.
I stand (mostly) corrected, according to Wikipedia.
While the shows themselves are nothing alike, it says the four main human characters were based off the four main teenagers from Dobie Gillis, so not JUST Shaggy like I said at first.
Citation found, though “they’re based on a gay couple” is slightly misleading. Bert and Ernie existed before Mark Saltzman wrote them, but he put a lot of himself and his husband into them while he was on staff.
And before that, they were Frank Oz and Jim Henson basically doing an exaggerated version of their own friendship.
Of course, to my knowledge Jim Henson never, say, hired combination dancers/movers to haul Oz’s bed out of his own room or anything. (Dance Myself To Sleep isn’t my FAVORITE Ernie number, but it’s up there.)
Well, kinda. Mark Saltzman based them on him and his husband when he was writing them in the 80s, but they predate him by a decade or two. Not that this makes them less gay.
Saltzman also thinks Mr. Snuffleupagus is gay, for the record.
Becky needs to rein in her “fake” bad roommate antics. I don’t know if this is part of her “Annoy Dorothy” scheme or what, but if so, that whole scheme needs to die too.
I hope this is a “fake” antic and Becky isn’t actually the type of roommate to leave their clothes and other stuff all over the floor. I had roommates who were slobs like that the first two years I was in college. I went for single rooms the last two years because I didn’t want to deal with piles of roommate’s clothes and stuff anymore.
That’s A LOT of clothes to go through in four days so it probably fake. I’m not sure that makes it better, though – I mean, isn’t it worse if your roomie wouldn’t normally leave clothes on the floor but they go out of their way to do it just to annoy you?
Look, Becky, you already gave Dorothy the role of Bert (who I assume is the one who stared at the camera – I dunno, I didn’t watch it), it’s too late for backsies.
Actually, they both looked at the camera. Bert looked exasperated and face-palmed while Ernie usually just looked at the camera to laugh after he made Bert flip out with his antics.
Wonderful! But what else would I expect from the same artist behind “Close to You”?
By the way, sorry if you or other people thought I was trying to “take your job” or something.
I’m actually gonna refrain from playing a song for every strip. I realized a while ago that, at the rate at which this comic proceeds, if I did one for every strip I may very well run out of songs to play!
Since I gave voice to that theory, I’d like to point out that it wasn’t unwelcome, and in fact both of your (meaning you’s two’s, not both of Wag’s) contributions are valued and looked forward to.
I try to be scrupulous about the business. After all, I have a real-life FCC license (the same types radio DJs have to carry).
My conventions on the hacked Muzak:
1) I’m mindful of the strips’ settings; it’s mainly used on campus and inside other buildings and businesses. When inside Galasso’s, the jukebox is used instead. Out of doors, I have to find other options.
2) My musical tastes are admittedly weird, and I feel that my main era (when I felt like pop included me) was 1974 to 1994 (or the second generation of the Rock Era, if you will). That’s my main source for minining, though I try to be deeper than that.
3) I’m not into Gospel or Christian music, and I guess that could be seen as a weak spot. I certainly don’t know the Hymnals well enough to draw from them!
4) Don’t parody a parody!
5) Sometimes the obvious choice isn’t the right one.
That particular song was written for Sesame Street but the pop music culture latched onto it in that moment because it was the early Seventies and it was an instance of “if it feels good–DO IT!”
I consider that cut to be the least malignant pop hit to incorporate a child chorus.
Pink Floyd is malignant? Or just predates your db? Hmmm… though on researching the Wall, I found out the children were neither credited nor reimbursed until after a law was enacted in 1996, and that’s quite the quagmire.
I’m definitely gentle playful singalong Ernie, but the pigeon dance remains objectively awesome.
As a kid, I thought Ernie and Bert were brothers. Why else would they sleep in two separate beds in the same room, and spend their time enjoyably annoying each other? It was just like my two brothers, I was sure.
I love the pigeon dance! Dang, now I wanna scour my house for a working audio cassette player and listen to some of the old Sesame Street tapes I had as a kid.
Bert did have a brother though, who looked exactly like him. He would introduce him as “my brother”, not “our brother”, so no relation between him and Ernie.
Theory: People don’t conventionally worry over the detail of saying “our /relative/”. i.e. Introducing my family I wouldn’t say, “this is my sister x, and our father y”. More typically I’d introduce my dad first, but even if not I wouldn’t say “our father” unless I was catholic, which I’m not, so I don’t. Also Larry. (3:00 for the relevant quote, but it’s really worth watching through)
According to the shockingly-detailed Muppet Wiki, Bert’s brother has only been in a few sketches. He’s also the father of Bert’s nephew, who has also appeared.
Given how wound up Becky is, and her reluctance to engage in pre-marital hanky’s-panky, I suspect she is also avoiding hairy palms, what with the typical religious angle that feeling good is wrong (unless it’s sanctioned by the church, which *that* most certainly isn’t).
But on actual baiting, you have the right, she certainly seems to have mastered baiting in general, but I don’t think this demonstrates her master baiting Dorothy.
I admit, I’m getting more and more into this dynamic. I think it is a lot funnier now that Dorothy is taking the bait more and also getting her own fun in, albeit not so much here.
(besides, this wikipedia article says, “According to these legends, the Roman Kingdom began with the city’s founding c. 753 BC”) (still doesn’t make Sicily roman, but it does seem that Rome-the-city had in fact been founded by Sappho’s time??) (am i missing something, i really know almost nothing about this whole chunk of history)
A lot of that is legendary, as records of the Roman Kingdom were lost in a fire somewhere around 600 BC (Rome was sacked), but I’ll give it to you. Sicily had nothing to do with Rome at the time, though – probably was a Phoenician colony at the time, although the Romans would colonize it later (disputed ownership of Sicily was one of the cited causes of the first Punic War).
So, if you need a pun, I can say that claims of Sappho living in Roman territory are entirely Phoeny.
Could be. I tend to take people at face value. In fact, pretty much nothing is know about Sappho. Most of what we think we know was made up centuries later.
Last strip you told me that you are “no biologist”. However, I note that your knowledge on genetics and biology are QUITE extensive!!! What is your major, anyway?
Fascinating! I tend to dabble in all subjects with profound interest, especially the sciences (my curiosity knows no bounds). Of that, I chose to focus on physics!
Very nice.
I’m not generally a fan of leggings personally, preferring as I do a looser waist-down option with better airflow such as a skirt or dress. Still, when one wants to flaunt the booty, there is no better option than leggings.
Have to agree with skirts and dresses, but respectfully disagree on leggings. Maybe it’s just that a drowning man does not thirst for water, but I find the hint of curves given by looser clothing more alluring than painted on clothes. Like I said though, maybe it’s just that leggings are such a universal go-to for women these days, that they’re over done, or maybe it’s just me having had an ex that is both a horrible person and loved leggings that ruined it for me.
Of course, looser clothing is also better for allowing air down there, which is better for people in general.
Given the challenges of the world today and all the problems men have caused, I should add that this is just my aesthetic preference, and is not to imply women should be obliged to dress in a particular fashion. The heart of freedom is that we are all free to do as we please so long as it not harm others.
This wasn’t funny to begin with and it hasn’t gotten any better since. This behaviour of Becky sort of reminds me of the characters Chelsea Peretti (Brooklyn 911) or April Ludgate (Parks and Rec) in that the characters are mean, nasty and verbally abusive and yet its supposed to be “funnee”
Yeah, I thought when we ended a storyline with Becky looking to make some sort of amends because she was going too far we’d maybe see this get reined in a little, but it seems to be escalating.
On a character development level I kind of get it, but as a reader I’m just kind of over it.
Bert and Ernie were my favorite segments, and I definitely related to Ernie more, despite being profoundly boring. Nowadays I find Bert too much of a loose cannon for my tastes.
Maybe they know what they’re saying, and they actually found Ernie’s antics boring. Now having grown and matured to the very adult age of 9, they also find Bert’s antics to be too much, ergo Bert too has become a loose cannon. Mayhaps uh.. Cattleprod, is a librarian in training. Yeah, that’s it Cattleprod the Librarian
Singing songs about pigeons is a huge red flag of madness. Ernie was definitely the relatable one. Nice to see Becky fond new and effective way to annoying Dorothy.
Ernie is clearly the relatable one. Though if Dorothy wishes to contest this point with a 27 panel roommate spanking, [extensively redacted horny] and who could object ronthat?
Okay, Becky is mastering the political art of controlling the conversation. Instead of arguing about the current mess and roommate expectations, she pivoted to a characterization of the opponent, tied to a pop culture reference. Dorothy fell for it hook line and sinker. Instead of saying “Nope, this mess in our shared space needs resolving.” Dorothy is on record defending Bert, alienating herself from the support she legitimately had. Why is Becky acting out? I imagine it stems from trouble with authority figures, and she sees Dorothy as a “rule maker” instead of an equal to cooperate with.
however, i don’t think Becky is actually “acting out”, i think she’s being petty to Dorothy for kicks & lolz. it’s a bit they’ve got going between them and I think Dorothy enjoys it
I don’t think Dorothy enjoys it. I think she started out tolerating it and understanding it, and it looks to me like it’s starting to get less tolerable for her. It definitely seems to me like the enjoyment is solidly one-sided here.
Since whitespace in html doesn’t matter, I typically break my tags across lines (in posts like this) so that I can clearly see the markup. Example (subbing 《 for angle brackets):
Lorem ipsum 《a
href=”http://example.com”
》sit amet《/a》.
This is a mark of changing times and fashions isn’t it? It USED to be that the straight-man was the protagonist, the long-suffering relatable normal guy dealing with the antics of dumbasses or “wild” people. But it is been quite a long time since the straight-man is the butt of the joke, the stick-in-the-mud drone who is unable to understand the freedom and fun of the protagonists.
hmmm
there’s at least a distinction to be made between protagonists and not being the butt of the joke. i watched Bringing up Baby by Howard Hawks recently, it’s a 1938 screwball comedy, the boring conformist character is the protagonist, but he is also: “the butt of the joke, the stick-in-the-mud drone who is unable to understand the freedom and fun of” Katharine Hepburn.
Dorothy will be eating a ham sandwich and Becky will say “yo I’m hungry take the ham out of the sandwich and let me eat it” and instead of saying no Dorothy will launch into a tirade about the structural integrity of the sandwich and how taking the ham out makes it no longer a sandwich.
Sure, but at least part of the point of this is to deliberately annoy Dorothy. Which it seems she’s starting to see more success with.
To be clear, I agree with you entirely from the same position. But I don’t think this is a matter of not being able or willing to be clean, this is Becky being intentionally antagonistic towards Dorothy.
When I was Sesame Street age (by which I mean “up until Channel 4 stopped showing it when I was 15”), my defining characteristics were a) quiet kid, who mostly wanted to be left to read and b) when not reading, thought being annoying was the same thing as being funny. So…
In classes and television, I only got typical and commons american things, like Mickey Mouse, McDonalds, White House investing in South American dictatorships and Jimmy Swaggart.
I think the whole point of Bert and Ernie is they’re a duo. Arguing who’s the protagonist is a futile exercise. Ernie’s relatable to the kids who are the intended audience, Bert is relatable for the parents who’re watching with their kids who deserve to have a few jokes they get too.
Of course, I was a weird kid who related to Bert, especially him having very specific interests that he loved to talk about.
fwiw, the joke here is that Becky is pretending to break an imaginary 4th wall, which is a thing a real person might actually do. actually breaking the 4th wall is a choice that has to signify something (especially for so deliberate a writer as Willis and so nitpicky and audience as us nerds) and in this context it would be hard not to read it as Willis somehow validating Becky’s claim to be “more of a protagonist” than Dorothy.
Yes, but in my understanding, the fourth wall Becky is imagining and then breaking is not the same as ours. In this way Willis does not make any indication on whether Becky is more of a protagonist, only that she understands herself as one (don’t we all?) and wants to tease Dorothy about being a side character because of her need to continue the pseudo battle for Joyce that only exists in her mind.
A forum I frequent has suggest the idea of a live action Dumbing of Age where Joyce is CGI in order to facilitate her giant dinner plate eyes and triangle mouth.
Me if I ever see Tony Hawk: Hey you’re Tony Hawk the famous skateboarder. That’s right I recognise you. Won’t be able to get any content out of this will you, you piece of shit
How to read all 28 issues of my Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run on Marvel Unlimited:
1: The first four issues were published as the miniseries "Mary Jane."
www.marvel.com/comics/serie...
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
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preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 2d
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Does mean Dorky is canon
Technically it is since that could ALSO be an abbreviation for Dorothy/Walky
Docky then
Dorothy can’t see the fourth wall? Is she not a main character?
I mean, she can’t be a main character. The President is, like, never the protagonist. That’s storytelling 102.
Air Force One.
The American President
Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Dave?
Dave? Dave’s not here.
I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Well done. +1
C’mon man! Let me in! The cops are coming!
[reads alt text]
An odd couple, indeed.
“Can they share a room, without driving each other crazy?”
I tried to make that point to someone once, that Bert and Ernie aren’t “gay,” their just a version of “The Odd Couple.” As he’d never SEEN “The Odd Couple,” he couldn’t grasp it.
Wait, you think that The Odd Couple can’t be read with a serious queer subtext?
Considering that Felix was neurotic and obsessive, and Oscar was depressed and had rage issues, we can definitively say, no, they could not.
Just for fun, here’s some Sesame Street milestones these kids would’ve seen as 3-5 year olds (this’ll be outdated next year obvs): the introduction of Chris Robinson, Leela [surname not found], and Abby Cadabby; Miles Robinson and Gabi Rodriguez graduating high school; and Gina Jefferson adopting baby Marco. The weirdest one, though, is that at age four they would’ve seen the show completely reformat itself around Murray Monster as the show’s “host”, wandering around actual NYC between segments. I’ve often wondered what the toddlers who lived through that made of it.
Huh, I’m currently only 5-ish (I think?) years older than these kids and I remember almost none of that apart from Abby and Murray (who my siblings would be more familiar with). And I was a huge fan as a kid. I hope this doesn’t mean my memory loss affected things that happened before my depression…
Of course, I tended to watch a lot of VHS and DVD compilations that tended to be more Muppet-focused, so that might also explain some things.
Early childhood memories tend to be spotty to begin with, if it helps.
Memories tend to be spotty to begin with. Period.
Check out this other comic for a pretty good overview of how unreliable memory really is. https://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=3032
The whole thing is over 100 pages long, so plan accordingly.
Generally people just don’t remember being a really young kid that well
I know for a fact that kid!Me was a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, but I would struggle to name more than half-a-dozen trains from it, and one of those would be only because a troublesome pet wound up named after them.
I can still name all of the engines that had numbers on ‘em in ascending order and could tell you what color each one was. Or at least all the ones up to #7, anyway— was there a #8? I feel like there was, but I couldn’t tell you.
I quit watching after they switched to CGI, the magic was gone for me. And then to add insult to injury they George-Lucased CGI faces onto older episodes and oh, dear, it seems that in Ethan’s absence I have become Ethan.
The Third Eaton, if you willThe Third Eaton! All Hail!
5 years is also a long time for a children’s television show. That’s enough time for a toddler to turn school-age/
Yeah, the real answer here is that if you’re five years older, you were also watching five years earlier, and aged out of the show before most of this stuff happened.
For what it’s worth my toddler has watched an unbelievable amount of Sesame Street reruns on HBO and we keep coming back to the Murray episodes. They’re fun!
I think the main reason these episodes work so well in our household is because my kid LOVES the Abby’s Flying Fairy School segments. Until recently he would run over to me while flapping his hands like wings wherever they would come on.
Is that time spread just from now, or does it cover what anyone, 4-5 year olds in the full decade prior, might recall? What about now? When will then be now?
That covers 2006-2008, which are the years our cast presumably would’ve been watching if they’re 18 in 2021, which they currently are.
But they were also mostly 18 in 2011 cuz sliding time. So.. did they get childhood references from then, then, but then they have since forgot them and then they now know children’s reference from now’s then then?
I wouldn’t think about it too hard.
Those references will now be from before their time but they’ve still seen it. Streaming, the internet, DVDs/Blu-ray, reruns, etc. have made seeing things from before you easy.
The 3DS consoles that Amber, Sal and Danny no longer use weren’t even out when the comic first started.
Jesus Christ, I’m old.
Becky is our new Deadpooling of Age.
I for one look forward to seeing more Beckpool in the future.
They’re both supposed to be relatable you dinguses.
I mean they were both pretty relatable. Sesame Street was pretty next level honestly.
Uh… considering the popular perception of their relationship, are you really sure you want to make THAT comparison, Becky?
Maybe it’s on perfect. She wants to date her best friend’s girlfriend.
Are you sure Joyce and Dorothy are really on that level?
Girlfriends can be platonic
Yrp. Really I think it’s mostly dudes who like to imagine women are not platonic girlfriends. I’m in that camp and even on analysis am not really sure why. Probably am just hornt. But then I also like to imagine they’re just made of platonic solids too.
When a chick walks in with a cuboid waist and a double-dodecahedral derriere in my face
I’m not sure she wants to ‘date’ Dorothy.
I’m thinking this is more “the most epic of all hatefucks” territory.
(and yes, I know that comic was about a married couple who loved one another – I’m just using the direct meaning of the title)
It’s not that the camera is imaginary, it’s just that Becky’s sense of direction is a little bit off.
I was wondering about that. It appears Becky is breaking the fourth wall, without it being OUR wall. does that mean she’s breaking the 4th and a quarter wall? or that OUR wall is a fifth dimension, or…. ouch, that hurt…. does anyone else smell smoke?
she’s breaking the 4th corner, when she gets to the 8th we’ll have issues.
what makes you think we’re the only audience?!
She’s mugging for the Slightly To Our Left universe.
Oh thank you. I thought I might’ve been the only one. I can’t quite tell if she’s looking at our fourth wall, or mugging to an imaginary camera just off to the side of ‘us’. It’s like someone talking to you and looking at your left ear instead of your eyes. Her posture and head position say she’s looking to our left, but the light relections in her eyes somewhat indicate fourth wall, and well, the whole thing made me read it weird.
Well, I’m sure the comments section for this one won’t be a massive dumpster fire. (Puts on hazmat suit)
Look it’s not a Roz comic, it ain’t gonna be that bad.
It’s a Becky-and-Dorothy-interacting comic. Those can get very ugly very quickly.
Eh, Roz & Anyone comics tend to be worse on the scale of “how ugly is the comment section”
But we all agree that Roz would be a Bert, right?
Oh, definitely.
I mean, by calling out the toxic behavior before it has even shown itself you’re kind of inviting the topic anyways?
Dumpsterfire what? Did someone say my name? Oh, Becky and Dotty. Yeah they’ll be all right if Becky can work out her feelings and stop trying to abuse Dorothy or if Dot can call out Becky and assert boundaries.
And there’s nothing wrong with calling it out (the expected comments) in advance. Inviting disaster, murphy’s law, etc… are really just blame shifting. If people start flinging toxic crap at each other following Rassilon’s post, it’s because they’re being jerks, not because Rassilon said it was ok (which they did not).
Thus, Dorothy gives away that she is a Replicant…
As Ernie and Bert are based on a real gay couple, it makes sense that they are both the relatable one.
Remember what happened last time people thought they were gay?
Citation needed. I always thought they were based on The Odd Couple.
Same here. Lots of children’s programming had call-backs to live action television back then. Probably still does.
The Flintsones was the Honeymooners, for instance.
I’m pretty sure Scooby Doo was Dobie Gillis.
I don’t think that’s exactly the case, but Shaggy was definitely inspired by Maynard G. Krebbs from that show.
I stand (mostly) corrected, according to Wikipedia.
While the shows themselves are nothing alike, it says the four main human characters were based off the four main teenagers from Dobie Gillis, so not JUST Shaggy like I said at first.
Fred literally does a version of Ralph’s “To the moon, Alice!” routine in an early Flintstones episode.
Citation found, though “they’re based on a gay couple” is slightly misleading. Bert and Ernie existed before Mark Saltzman wrote them, but he put a lot of himself and his husband into them while he was on staff.
Thanks, Wack’d!
And before that, they were Frank Oz and Jim Henson basically doing an exaggerated version of their own friendship.
Of course, to my knowledge Jim Henson never, say, hired combination dancers/movers to haul Oz’s bed out of his own room or anything. (Dance Myself To Sleep isn’t my FAVORITE Ernie number, but it’s up there.)
Good thing they have loft beds?
After seeing “Avenue Q”, I’ll never think of Bert and Ernie in the same way again.
Ever.
Apropos of nothing, my wife and I watched Avenue Q live in London during on honeymoon. It was amazing.
Well, kinda. Mark Saltzman based them on him and his husband when he was writing them in the 80s, but they predate him by a decade or two. Not that this makes them less gay.
Saltzman also thinks Mr. Snuffleupagus is gay, for the record.
So much for gay visibility
Mr. Snuffleupagus has been visible to all since 1985! That bit only lasted for fourteen of the fifty years he’s been around.
OMG! Fifty years…. that means I’m…. OMG!
Becky needs to rein in her “fake” bad roommate antics. I don’t know if this is part of her “Annoy Dorothy” scheme or what, but if so, that whole scheme needs to die too.
I hope this is a “fake” antic and Becky isn’t actually the type of roommate to leave their clothes and other stuff all over the floor. I had roommates who were slobs like that the first two years I was in college. I went for single rooms the last two years because I didn’t want to deal with piles of roommate’s clothes and stuff anymore.
Given the established timescale and the fact that we know it didn’t start out like this I would think it would almost have to be a fake antic.
That’s A LOT of clothes to go through in four days so it probably fake. I’m not sure that makes it better, though – I mean, isn’t it worse if your roomie wouldn’t normally leave clothes on the floor but they go out of their way to do it just to annoy you?
Oh I definitely think it’s worse. Succumbing to bad habits is annoying but understandable, but putting deliberate effort into it is next-level.
That would be Becky imitating the wrong Oscar.
I watch Hoarders and read /r/neckbeardnests, I’ve seen A LOT worse than just A pile of clothes.
Why? It’s a bit and Dorothy knows it’s a bit and isn’t hurt by it. Why should Becky stop a thing that doesn’t bother Dorothy?
Why am I both of them
Look, Becky, you already gave Dorothy the role of Bert (who I assume is the one who stared at the camera – I dunno, I didn’t watch it), it’s too late for backsies.
Actually, they both looked at the camera. Bert looked exasperated and face-palmed while Ernie usually just looked at the camera to laugh after he made Bert flip out with his antics.
Ah, fair, although Becky’s trying to do the exasperated one so I maintain no backsies stands.
*plays “Sing” by The Carpenters on the hacked Muzak*
Wonderful! But what else would I expect from the same artist behind “Close to You”?
By the way, sorry if you or other people thought I was trying to “take your job” or something.
I’m actually gonna refrain from playing a song for every strip. I realized a while ago that, at the rate at which this comic proceeds, if I did one for every strip I may very well run out of songs to play!
Since I gave voice to that theory, I’d like to point out that it wasn’t unwelcome, and in fact both of your (meaning you’s two’s, not both of Wag’s) contributions are valued and looked forward to.
I try to be scrupulous about the business. After all, I have a real-life FCC license (the same types radio DJs have to carry).
My conventions on the hacked Muzak:
1) I’m mindful of the strips’ settings; it’s mainly used on campus and inside other buildings and businesses. When inside Galasso’s, the jukebox is used instead. Out of doors, I have to find other options.
2) My musical tastes are admittedly weird, and I feel that my main era (when I felt like pop included me) was 1974 to 1994 (or the second generation of the Rock Era, if you will). That’s my main source for minining, though I try to be deeper than that.
3) I’m not into Gospel or Christian music, and I guess that could be seen as a weak spot. I certainly don’t know the Hymnals well enough to draw from them!
4) Don’t parody a parody!
5) Sometimes the obvious choice isn’t the right one.
*mining*, not “minining”.
Thanks for the tips!
What do you mean by “don’t parody a parody”?
Well the first rule of parody is that any sufficiently advanced form of parody is indistinguishable from the real thing.
Maybe Mr. Bierce just doesn’t like recursion.
Also: Sing, sing a song.
That particular song was written for Sesame Street but the pop music culture latched onto it in that moment because it was the early Seventies and it was an instance of “if it feels good–DO IT!”
I consider that cut to be the least malignant pop hit to incorporate a child chorus.
Pink Floyd is malignant? Or just predates your db? Hmmm… though on researching the Wall, I found out the children were neither credited nor reimbursed until after a law was enacted in 1996, and that’s quite the quagmire.
According to Wikipedia, the addition of the school chorus wasn’t even the band’s idea.
I’m definitely gentle playful singalong Ernie, but the pigeon dance remains objectively awesome.
As a kid, I thought Ernie and Bert were brothers. Why else would they sleep in two separate beds in the same room, and spend their time enjoyably annoying each other? It was just like my two brothers, I was sure.
I love the pigeon dance! Dang, now I wanna scour my house for a working audio cassette player and listen to some of the old Sesame Street tapes I had as a kid.
Honestly all I can remember besides Ernie’s rubber duck is Bert
Gummerinspiring me to make art with my oatmeal.I can still sing ‘Rubber Ducky’.
Your the one.
You make bathtime so much fun!
Because New York apartments are expensive, and don’t always have two bedrooms? I wouldn’t know, having never been there, but that’s what I’ve heard.
Bert did have a brother though, who looked exactly like him. He would introduce him as “my brother”, not “our brother”, so no relation between him and Ernie.
Theory: People don’t conventionally worry over the detail of saying “our /relative/”. i.e. Introducing my family I wouldn’t say, “this is my sister x, and our father y”. More typically I’d introduce my dad first, but even if not I wouldn’t say “our father” unless I was catholic, which I’m not, so I don’t. Also Larry. (3:00 for the relevant quote, but it’s really worth watching through)
Additional query: did we see Bert introduce his brother to Ernie, or just to others?
According to the shockingly-detailed Muppet Wiki, Bert’s brother has only been in a few sketches. He’s also the father of Bert’s nephew, who has also appeared.
https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Bart
Jeeze Becky, you’re mugging to the 3rd wall, not the 4th wall.
3.5th wall, maybe. 3.5th.
Willis lives to deny food to those who seek 4th wall breakage.
In October, Becky Macintyre was forced to remove herself from her place of residence. That request came from her father.
Deep down, she knew she was right, and she also knew that she would never return to him.
With nowhere else to go, she enrolled at Indiana University and appeared at the dorm of her frenemy Dorothy Keener.
Can two of Joyce’s best friends share a dorm room without driving each other crazy?
*doo-doo doo-doo doo-DOOOOOOOO*
…i feel like i should know this reference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af1h4ibpKJA
They’re both the relatable one, come on you two
I am guessing Becky is looking for novel ways to bait Dorothy into anger… sighs
Dorothy is pretty in control of herself. Becky may really need to master baiting Dorothy if she’s to get on Dorothy’s nerves.
I doubt that Becky needs any help master baiting.
Given how wound up Becky is, and her reluctance to engage in pre-marital hanky’s-panky, I suspect she is also avoiding hairy palms, what with the typical religious angle that feeling good is wrong (unless it’s sanctioned by the church, which *that* most certainly isn’t).
But on actual baiting, you have the right, she certainly seems to have mastered baiting in general, but I don’t think this demonstrates her master baiting Dorothy.
I admit, I’m getting more and more into this dynamic. I think it is a lot funnier now that Dorothy is taking the bait more and also getting her own fun in, albeit not so much here.
Ah, the classic ‘Getta’ load of dis guy’ cam
Beat me to it.
On September 22nd, Becky MacIntyre was asked to remove herself from her place of residence…
“Pile of Lesbos,” hee hee hee.
I really don’t know what Becky was even saying there. It sounded Greek to me.
Reference to the Isle of Lesbos, home of Sappho and origin of the word “lesbian.”
Her family may’ve been exiled to Sicily, but does just one long voyage really qualify to say that she was Roman’ around the Mediterranean?
Sappho lived WAY before Rome was even founded, so no.
no! bad Deanatay!
one responds to a terrible pun with a worse pun. like so:
“King Daniel, there were no romans at the time! don’t be a lyre”
(besides, this wikipedia article says, “According to these legends, the Roman Kingdom began with the city’s founding c. 753 BC”) (still doesn’t make Sicily roman, but it does seem that Rome-the-city had in fact been founded by Sappho’s time??) (am i missing something, i really know almost nothing about this whole chunk of history)
A lot of that is legendary, as records of the Roman Kingdom were lost in a fire somewhere around 600 BC (Rome was sacked), but I’ll give it to you. Sicily had nothing to do with Rome at the time, though – probably was a Phoenician colony at the time, although the Romans would colonize it later (disputed ownership of Sicily was one of the cited causes of the first Punic War).
So, if you need a pun, I can say that claims of Sappho living in Roman territory are entirely Phoeny.
atrocious. loved it.
..and thanks for the history =)
Yes, I think it was clear that King Daniel got the joke by the fact that he said “It sounded Greek to me”.
Could be. I tend to take people at face value. In fact, pretty much nothing is know about Sappho. Most of what we think we know was made up centuries later.
it is pretty uncontroversial that she was from Lesbos though.
…what’s less certain is if she actually was a #LezBoss
Like that Lesbos was an “isle” so that it’s not just a hot mess lying on the floor.
*is
With roughly 150k Lesb(os)ians on board.
Don’t knock singing about pigeons where your girlfriend can hear you, Becky. She’s a big fan of songs about dinosaurs.
To be fair, that also means she’d be a fan of songs about ducks, even if said ducks are made out of rubber.
Probably less fond of songs about how you sometimes have to put down said rubber duck to play a musical instrument, though.
https://imgur.com/a/HxzHbgf
I kinda fucked up the walk but I wanted to draw butts after yesterday’s strip.
I am such a tender ass,
if my hair do
but tickle me I must scratch.
– William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Like Joe needs permission.
although staring is rude
Butts disease wins again.
Just curious, did you have recent dreams involving butts?
I don’t believe I have.
Thus far, it is inconclusive if you actually have “Butts Disease”. But what would I know? I’m no butt doctor…
buuuuuuttts
A decade from now, it’s Mars or BUTTS!!!!
Great to see you milu!
Last strip you told me that you are “no biologist”. However, I note that your knowledge on genetics and biology are QUITE extensive!!! What is your major, anyway?
why thanks!
um, my formal education is pretty chaotic. i started studying poli sci but dropped out in the 2nd year for mental health reasons.
then later i studied linguistics for almost 3 years, then dropped out for laziness reasons.
the one degree i hold today is as a sound technician, i’ve never used it professionally though. smh
i barely studied any biology, i’m almost entirely self-taught on that one. i did take one ~20h intro course when i was 18.
what did you major in, then?
Fascinating! I tend to dabble in all subjects with profound interest, especially the sciences (my curiosity knows no bounds). Of that, I chose to focus on physics!
Very nice.
I’m not generally a fan of leggings personally, preferring as I do a looser waist-down option with better airflow such as a skirt or dress. Still, when one wants to flaunt the booty, there is no better option than leggings.
Have to agree with skirts and dresses, but respectfully disagree on leggings. Maybe it’s just that a drowning man does not thirst for water, but I find the hint of curves given by looser clothing more alluring than painted on clothes. Like I said though, maybe it’s just that leggings are such a universal go-to for women these days, that they’re over done, or maybe it’s just me having had an ex that is both a horrible person and loved leggings that ruined it for me.
Of course, looser clothing is also better for allowing air down there, which is better for people in general.
Given the challenges of the world today and all the problems men have caused, I should add that this is just my aesthetic preference, and is not to imply women should be obliged to dress in a particular fashion. The heart of freedom is that we are all free to do as we please so long as it not harm others.
Genius!
aaaaa thicc and animated <3
Why are you complaining Dorothy? That seems like a great pile of clothes to jump in.
Seems like a great pile to kick into the hall. And then lock the door when Becky goes out after them.
They don’t look like life jackets to me, though.
This wasn’t funny to begin with and it hasn’t gotten any better since. This behaviour of Becky sort of reminds me of the characters Chelsea Peretti (Brooklyn 911) or April Ludgate (Parks and Rec) in that the characters are mean, nasty and verbally abusive and yet its supposed to be “funnee”
I’ve found it funny sometimes, but at this point I thought we were past this shit already.
Yeah, I thought when we ended a storyline with Becky looking to make some sort of amends because she was going too far we’d maybe see this get reined in a little, but it seems to be escalating.
On a character development level I kind of get it, but as a reader I’m just kind of over it.
Chelsea Peretti is the actor, not the character
Good point. I’m sure Chelsea isn’t mean but Gina certainly is.
Come on, Becky, don’t do that kind thing.
The camera is more to the right. You are trying to break the 4th wall, not the 3rd one.
Bert and Ernie were my favorite segments, and I definitely related to Ernie more, despite being profoundly boring. Nowadays I find Bert too much of a loose cannon for my tastes.
er… Ernie is the orange one and Bert is the yellow one.
Maybe they know what they’re saying, and they actually found Ernie’s antics boring. Now having grown and matured to the very adult age of 9, they also find Bert’s antics to be too much, ergo Bert too has become a loose cannon. Mayhaps uh.. Cattleprod, is a librarian in training. Yeah, that’s it Cattleprod the Librarian
[Not that far away, Dorothy’s Spotify croons] Take me baby, or leave me
Becky, please admit this to yourself.
“Don’t ‘Jim’ the camera!”
Only these two could argue about which of Bert and Ernie were the straight man and comedian!
They’re not arguing about who’s the straight man vs comedian.
They’re arguing about who’s the front man and who’s the sidekick.
Singing songs about pigeons is a huge red flag of madness. Ernie was definitely the relatable one. Nice to see Becky fond new and effective way to annoying Dorothy.
“I’m the protagonist.” “No I’m the protagonist.”
Ladies, please. Joyce is the protagonist*. You’re here flunkies.
(according to me)
Nah, they’re auditioning for a remake of ‘The Odd Couple’.
Obviously I come to doa everyday for its consistent high quality, but even against that high standard, this one is REALLY FUNNY. top tier shit Willis.
I agree AF!!!
If it makes Dorothy feel better, the Count agrees with her.
The Count’s impression of Ernie: “I’m here to annoy you!”
https://youtu.be/m743lkWMcFY?t=123
Nice!
Ernie is clearly the relatable one. Though if Dorothy wishes to contest this point with a 27 panel roommate spanking, [extensively redacted horny] and who could object ronthat?
To quote my favourite comedian right now
“That shit ain’t cute, Becky.”
Okay, Becky is mastering the political art of controlling the conversation. Instead of arguing about the current mess and roommate expectations, she pivoted to a characterization of the opponent, tied to a pop culture reference. Dorothy fell for it hook line and sinker. Instead of saying “Nope, this mess in our shared space needs resolving.” Dorothy is on record defending Bert, alienating herself from the support she legitimately had. Why is Becky acting out? I imagine it stems from trouble with authority figures, and she sees Dorothy as a “rule maker” instead of an equal to cooperate with.
nice retorical analysis!
however, i don’t think Becky is actually “acting out”, i think she’s being petty to Dorothy for kicks & lolz. it’s a bit they’ve got going between them and I think Dorothy enjoys it
I don’t think Dorothy enjoys it. I think she started out tolerating it and understanding it, and it looks to me like it’s starting to get less tolerable for her. It definitely seems to me like the enjoyment is solidly one-sided here.
Well, it’s true that virtually all the commenters here seems to think Becky is being an insensitive jerk to Dorothy, so I guess it makes sense to draw the conclusion that literally everyone other than me is out of their freaking mind
I’m gonna have to agree with Dorothy. I always found Bert more relatable than Ernie. Especially here. Poor guy just wanted to read his book.
Ah, I screwed up the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_Uv6vD4v1A
Since whitespace in html doesn’t matter, I typically break my tags across lines (in posts like this) so that I can clearly see the markup. Example (subbing 《 for angle brackets):
Lorem ipsum 《a
href=”http://example.com”
》sit amet《/a》.
Which would still render as:
Lorem ipsum sit amet.
The counter is that I managed to screw up my content since dolor was forgot.
The rage! It Burns!
I’m just surprised that Toedad let Becky watch Sesame Street, what with the OBVIOUS thing going on between Bert and Ernie.
This is a mark of changing times and fashions isn’t it? It USED to be that the straight-man was the protagonist, the long-suffering relatable normal guy dealing with the antics of dumbasses or “wild” people. But it is been quite a long time since the straight-man is the butt of the joke, the stick-in-the-mud drone who is unable to understand the freedom and fun of the protagonists.
hmmm
there’s at least a distinction to be made between protagonists and not being the butt of the joke. i watched Bringing up Baby by Howard Hawks recently, it’s a 1938 screwball comedy, the boring conformist character is the protagonist, but he is also: “the butt of the joke, the stick-in-the-mud drone who is unable to understand the freedom and fun of” Katharine Hepburn.
Becky is just a more ginger version of PeachSaliva.
Dorothy will be eating a ham sandwich and Becky will say “yo I’m hungry take the ham out of the sandwich and let me eat it” and instead of saying no Dorothy will launch into a tirade about the structural integrity of the sandwich and how taking the ham out makes it no longer a sandwich.
As someone who is chronically and horrifically messy:
Clean up your fucking clothes Becky, this is a shared space. You can be a slob when you have a place of your own.
Sure, but at least part of the point of this is to deliberately annoy Dorothy. Which it seems she’s starting to see more success with.
To be clear, I agree with you entirely from the same position. But I don’t think this is a matter of not being able or willing to be clean, this is Becky being intentionally antagonistic towards Dorothy.
she kinda set herself up for that one.
urgh, messy roommates
When I was Sesame Street age (by which I mean “up until Channel 4 stopped showing it when I was 15”), my defining characteristics were a) quiet kid, who mostly wanted to be left to read and b) when not reading, thought being annoying was the same thing as being funny. So…
We’re over here, Becky! No, a little to the right! The OTHER right!
I am Oscar! [Said in the manner of Antoninus in Spartacus.]
I’m Oscar, and so’s my wife!
Bert and Ernie is one more piece of american culture I didn’t get in school…
In classes and television, I only got typical and commons american things, like Mickey Mouse, McDonalds, White House investing in South American dictatorships and Jimmy Swaggart.
I think the whole point of Bert and Ernie is they’re a duo. Arguing who’s the protagonist is a futile exercise. Ernie’s relatable to the kids who are the intended audience, Bert is relatable for the parents who’re watching with their kids who deserve to have a few jokes they get too.
Of course, I was a weird kid who related to Bert, especially him having very specific interests that he loved to talk about.
I like that you have Becky looking at a different fourth wall. A webcomic 15 years ago would have had her facing the readers.
hm. how do you figure?
fwiw, the joke here is that Becky is pretending to break an imaginary 4th wall, which is a thing a real person might actually do. actually breaking the 4th wall is a choice that has to signify something (especially for so deliberate a writer as Willis and so nitpicky and audience as us nerds) and in this context it would be hard not to read it as Willis somehow validating Becky’s claim to be “more of a protagonist” than Dorothy.
…at best it would just be kinda meaningless
Yes, but in my understanding, the fourth wall Becky is imagining and then breaking is not the same as ours. In this way Willis does not make any indication on whether Becky is more of a protagonist, only that she understands herself as one (don’t we all?) and wants to tease Dorothy about being a side character because of her need to continue the pseudo battle for Joyce that only exists in her mind.
I like the “Get a load of this guy” cam action goin on too.
Your nose is still loose, Dorothy.
Bert and Ernie are a litmus test
Dorothy, you live in a comic, the camera is not imaginary, just invisible.
So, that peace-offer salad thing we spent a couple of strips on, that was what? Lulling Dorothy into a false sense of security?
I both love Dorothy and would love an epic reality check for her.
Dear David M. Willis,
A forum I frequent has suggest the idea of a live action Dumbing of Age where Joyce is CGI in order to facilitate her giant dinner plate eyes and triangle mouth.
Is this a great idea, or the greatest idea?
I find singing songs about pigeons extremely relatable.
Whether Ernie or Bert is the relatable one, Dorothy is definitely the Bert to Becky’s Ernie. Honestly, they were both nuts in their own ways.
theyre adorable ;u;