A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
This is Not Fiction
Nicole Mannino
What do you do when the person you're in-love with is an anonymous romance novelist? Get your best friend to hire your worst enemy for help!
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
How to be a Werewolf
Shawn Lenore
Malaya Walters was bitten by a werewolf as a child. After being raised by her human family, she faces the chance to learn what being a werewolf is really like as an adult.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Astral Aves
Moon Cabal
A fantasy coming-of-age following the adventures of Astra The Black and friends, as they navigate the mysterious world around them. It's politics, adventure, and the supernatural; oh, and crazy hair.
Scape
Lauren
Sula has always preferred to forge her own path, but before she knows it, she is pulled into the middle of a civil war between man and monster!
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Missing Monday
Elle Skinner
Two girls fall in love through a magic door connecting their worlds. When Monday suddenly goes missing, it's up to Foyle to find her. How she's going to navigate an entirely unfamiliar world is another matter.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Gzhel Guardian
Atla Hrafney, nushanchel
The Railway World is a complex, mysterious network of trains, towns and mechanical monsters. Leo is a Guardian of one of these towns, and although their burn-out and depression has taken hold of them, they have one last job to finish.
The Forgotten Order
Christy
A young witch for whom every spell is a misfire finds solace and friendship in her new companion - a cursed doll.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
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.
Alice and the Nightmare
Misha Krivanek
Alice finally attends University to learn to collect the dreams of humans, meet new friends, and deal with a pesky reflection along the way.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Widdershins
Kate Ashwin
A series of light-hearted Victorian-era adventure stories featuring grumpy bounty hunters, accidental thiefkings, and more, in England's magical capital city Widdershins!
Goodbye to Halos
Valerie Halla
Cuddles, gay flirting, weird feelings, and magic-fueled knife fights - it's an adventure across the queer multiverse!
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
The Last Diplomat
Cat Farris
Samma and Tark didn't ask to be stuck together, but now they're partners on the adventure of a lifetime.
Star Impact
Jack McGee
A young, energetic woman fights her way up in the world of super-powered boxing after discovering the mighty gloves of her missing idol!
Quick$ilver
Crypto
The flirtatious, directionless, and ever disastrous Luci searches for excitement in a life of crime, and finds himself caught in a web of messy romance and bad blood.
Ride or Die
Mars Heyward
Ride or Die is an LGBTQ webcomic about two street racers who team up with a demon-possessed muscle car in the search for a missing woman, while being hunted by a deadly religious cult.
Monsterkind
Taylor C
Wallace Foster, a young, bright-eyed human social worker, has his entire world view rocked when he's suddenly relocated into a city primarily inhabited by monsters.
Cassiopeia Quinn
Gunwild, Psudonym
A cute, pantsless thief is pursued across the stars by a buttoned-up military officer in the spacey, laser-filled future.
The Substitutes
Myisha Haynes
What happens when three roommates accidentally acquire otherworldly and powerful magic weapons destined for someone else?
Love Not Found
Gina Biggs
Abeille is on a quest to find someone who wants to do it the old-fashioned way in a time when touching has become outdated.
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Aquapunk
Lo
In an underwater world of unknown coordinates, inhabited by aliens, ghosts, and robots, a young member of a warrior underclass is framed for a crime and goes on the run. Little does he know he is part of a grand design that only gods and ancestors could choreograph.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
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.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Within
Verena Loisel
A young hitman meanders between a reality that seems to happen without him, and his dreams where he is lost in an endless house. When he makes an accidental friend, his world is shaken up and he realizes there are things he can't remember about himself.
The End
August Brown, Cory Brown
Two aliens crash a sci-fi convention and accidentally take seven nerds on an adventure that spans the galaxy!
Kochab
Sarah Webb
A YA F/F fantasy comic about Sonya, a lost skier trying to survive a snowy wilderness and find her way back to her village; and Kyra - a fire spirit trying to fix the home that she let fall apart around her.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Headless Bliss
Clover
A story about story-telling, and other metaphysical themes such as Nightmares! (Failed) Teamwork! Comedy! And more!
Alexander, The Servant & The Water of Life
Reimena Yee
The 21st century retelling of the life and legends of Alexander the Great.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Trying Human
IntroducingEmy
Two women separated by over half a century are brought together by an alien-filled conspiracy involving murder, mystery and romance!
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
I turn my chin music up
And I’m puffing my chest
I’m getting red in the face
You can call me obsessed
It’s not your fault that they hover
I mean no disrespect
It’s my right to be hellish
I still get jealous
‘Cause you’re too sexy, beautiful
And everybody wants a taste
That’s why (that’s why)
I still get jealous
I actually had a deaf (and maybe non-verbal?) co-worker once who did just this so we could talk with her. Took me a while to figure out, though, because no one actually told us she couldn’t hear or speak =p
The thing about Malaya is that she rations on her caring gestures so sparingly that when she turns around and does something like this, it’s REALLY meaningful.
Really? Great job, Meghan, you’ve sent him off on another tirade. This would be the part where I say “I’m gonna go hide in the broom closet”, but Mike locked me out.
It’ll probably always be a couple scenes behind, because it’s easier to summarize events after they’ve shaken out a little, but, yeah, I intend to keep it reasonably up to date. It wouldn’t be super useful if I didn’t.
I wanna new duck
Not a swan or a goose
One I can dress real cute
Think I’m gonna name him Bruce
I wanna new duck
Not a quail or an owl
One that won’t stick his bill in my mail
One that won’t smell real ‘fowl’
One that won’t beg for bread crumbs
Waddling all around
One that’ll teach me how to swim
And help me not to drown
And teach me how…. to GET DOWN
GE-ET DOWN BABY (GET IT??)
I had to fight IRON MAN yesterday but its all Good I won, Hacked into his Google+ account had complete control of the fight before it really even started.
Nah learning another language ain’t so hard.
You just spend all day studying only to realize the next day you only half rememb-
Okay yeah it’s pretty damn hard.
Once I was texting back and forth with a coworker and he asked if I had a smartphone because my texts were so “punctuate” (bro stop that is not an adjective) and I was like “no I just know how to spell” and he called me a nerd. But considering we’d just spent the last shift arguing about whether I should give up on Runescape so I could play WoW….I thought the “nerd” part was a given, really.
Or because the message was not something particularly common for sign language, and Marcie didn’t particularly want to wait for Malaya to try to search each sign individually.
Most of it is. Moving your eyebrows and the rest of your face is actually a significant part of the grammar structure, ESPECIALLY the eyebrows. I always found it strange that Marcie speaks in a monotone.
Maybe she is moving her eyes and eyebrows and the characters can see it from behind the shades, but we can’t because of the artstyle.
Or maybe she’s just not quite as fluent as we might expect. She was apparently a speaking person as a child, so ASL isn’t her first language, and, depending on when she turned mute, she may have missed the critical period.
I was taught that envy and jealousy are different. Jealousy is when you don’t want others to have what you believe is yours. Envy is wanting something others have that you don’t.
I was about to say “I guess we don’t need to worry about where she [Marcie] fits in the dorms anymore”, but you’ve got a clever idea.
Of course, this isn’t even “friend of a friend”, it’d be asking Marcie, “Hey, can we have the friend of a friend of your friend’s roommate crash with you?” Might be a bit of an ask.
If Marcie’s got an extra room then she’s a nice option for when Becky’s got a job though.
They might be an interesting couple too. Could see Becky learning a new language just to pick up a cute roller derby girl. Not sure if Becky would be her type though. I mean, we don’t really have any info about what Marcie’s type is, but I just have trouble picturing that end of it.
Sounds like a boring shift. Definitely not the sort of thing one can keep up for 15 years. What would it even be like? Absurd to the point of making the all-powerful MacGuffin a branch?
I mean, as long as it doesn’t spin off into a story about a toy store, with stories like a talking car and, say, the employees locking up their boss in a cage, I’d still consider reading it.
A friend of a friend of your brother’s girlfriend would be more accurate. I don’t know that Billie and Joyce count as friends any more than Joyce and Walky.
Marcie seems nice enough, but it seems a waste for her to not be thinking about her own future. Also makes Sal seem less cool and not much of a friend.
I kinda doubt Marcie was college-bound (or at least ready for it right now) if she was willing to be that impulsive, Sal or no. There might be more opportunities for her here than back home anyway.
We don’t even know what she does, she could have a great job. Not everyone is made for college (not that I’m saying she can’t go, of course she can but she obviously doesn’t want to right now) and college isn’t the only option to have a future.
Depends on really what she does ? We still barely know anything about her for all we know she could be filthy stinking Rich or have the most kick ass Job ever or she has really successful Webcomic, ya that sounds about right she the Author of “Kick ass girls with Skate boards” in all honesty its a better read than “Dumbing of Youth”
Good choice going with Soney, Microsoft would just fuck her over and she’ll never make a living.
But on that same topic that gives me an Idea what do you guys think of a Dumbing of age video Game ? You can either have Marcie Pro skate or an AMAZI-GIRL beat em-up where she just fighting crime and you can Sal as a Boss then after with that fight you can have her as a co-op character, either that or a dating Sim I would help Kickstart the shit out of any of these .
Eeh, that adds a bit of weirdness to their relationship dynamic. Sal goes places because of goals, or because her parents are sending her here or whatever, and Marcie just tags along, uprooting her life to be wherever Sal is?
And now Sal’s getting bent out of shape because Marcie has two whole friends. Like Marcie hasn’t already given her enough indication that she’s committed to this relationship. Most significant others don’t even move along with you after you graduate out of highschool.
Marcie has got more than friends. She and Malaya share the roller derby team which is a social context and hobby that Sal is not part of. Still completely disproportionate response from Sal, though.
Before this I’m pretty sure Marcie lived at a catholic boarding school, so I guess she had to go somewhere. Couldn’t very well just stay where she was.
Yeah, but I’m pretty sure Marcie was there with Sal. It doesn’t sound like they’re just now reuniting after being apart for years. It hasn’t specifically been stated where she was before this but “At the catholic boarding school with Sal” makes the most sense.
She coudln’t have just moved into the neighborhood of Sal’s new school. They were kids. She by necessity lived wherever her parents did, unless of course she was sent to a boarding school.
I’m not really surprised that Marcie would follow Sal to Bloomington, but given that she went to all that trouble, I wonder why they aren’t roommates. You’d think Sal would prefer apartment living with her BFF to the dorms.
I went to IU and never lived on campus- I couldn’t afford the housing costs. I had a terrible commute, which was really annoying, but it was perfectly allowed.
It may be that IU used to have that rule, though- and it certainly makes sense here, as it serves the story.
First-year students are required to live on-campus, with some allowances made for those who live with a parent or guardian within 25 miles. Sal’s parents live a couple hours away, and that doesn’t address her living with Marcie anyway.
The college I went to had a similar rule. I had a couple of friends who were a little older than traditional college students, and married with a young daughter, who were still required to live in campus housing their freshman year. There was limited married couple housing, so at least they got to room together, but their daughter had to stay with her grandmother during the school year.
Replying to John: Eh? Married student housing at IU was apartment based. Spouse and I didn’t have kids, but we certainly could have housed them if we did.
I just browsed back through the Malaya tag, and… we haven’t really seen much of her in this universe, and while she’s hot-headed and a little obnoxious, there hasn’t been any real sign that she’s the spite-fueled hate machine that she was in Shortpacked!. I’m thinking that Sal’s pack just needed an omega wolf, and Malaya drew the short straw.
I actually realized recently, somewhat to my horror, that Malaya’s my favorite of the Shortpacked! new generation. Lucy’s too nice to be really interesting, I never managed to relate to Jacob and his too-hot sex-addict drama, and Zangief wobbles between being a completely bland milquetoast and being a douchecanoe without ever stopping at being someone I care about or want to read about. Malaya at least is all-in on that spite-fueled hate machine thing.
Yeah, as someone who hasn’t read Shortpacked, I’m rather in the dark about why Malaya get so much hate in the comics, when in this comic Carla’s just as much of a jerk as she is, but everyone in the comments loves Carla for whatever reason.
Sounds like she must have her living situation looked after somehow, so she’s probably doing alright for herself. Wouldn’t be the first person to get where she’s going without a college diploma.
signingsavvy.com really helped me when I was learning asl, but it definitely doesn’t have everything. But I like it because you can actually see it in action, rather than an illustration.
Hmm. I believe it. Despite Marcie’s general awesomeness, I bet she doesn’t have a lot of friends since whatever happened to make her lose her voice. Sal might well have been the only one to actually learn sign language to keep on speaking with Marcie.
If that hypothetical is so, I can see that earning a lot of loyalty from Marcie. All other things being equal, I would certainly like to go where that friend does.
Which means I very much like seeing Marcie making friends apart from Sal, especially friends who are also willing to learn sign like Malaya apparently is. (True facts, this one fact makes me warm right up to Malaya, and I have warmed to no other Malaya.)
Something like this happened to me. I was visiting an ER because I train nurses and a couple had come in, at least one with non-lifethreatening injuries and both were unable to speak or hear. The staff were looking for a way to contact an interpreter and since I know a few signs and how to finger spell because my wife was born severely hearing impaired I was about to offer to help, when I realized we were all being stupid and said, “If anyone has a note pad and a pen that might be all they need.” We all looked at each other for a second like, ‘Why was that so hard to figure out?’ and that was that.
Wait a minute… Those aren’t blue, they’re silver! She is either: a T-1000 on a mission on campus; or: she is trying to hide the Power Cosmic (and faltering).
Either way, as far as I’m concerned, from now on both of those subplots are canon.
Marcie is good at those little affectionate gestures. Like here when she reaches out to borrow the phone, or earlier when she put her hand on Malaya’s in a ‘shush’ gesture. Note how Malaya isn’t startled at any point. Marcie moves slow enough to silently ask for and be given permission for an intimate gesture.
…this kinda makes me wonder where Marcie lives and what she actually does for a living. I mean, students are pretty much provided for by the school, but.. ?
Perhaps Sal is Marcie’s job. She’s been hired by someone for some reason to keep Sal out of really serious trouble. Being Sal’s friend forever just makes it that much easier to find an excuse to hang around with her.
The title of the strip is maybe what she’s about to sign in the first one? It doesn’t look like classes to me. (I am partially deaf, and so I learned sign!) Possibly a different dialect? Yes–those exist.
I actually have no idea what she’s signing. It doesn’t appear to sync up with the rest of the sentence that she wrote down. *shrugs* Maybe she was about to sign.
It’s seriously only been THREE DAYS since Amazigirl attacked them?! Holy crap, what are the parameters of the Dumbverse??? One day there is half-a-year for us??? Jeeeeeeeezzzz…
… We’ve heard of most of the main character’s parents already, but nothing about Marcie’s. She moves around and follows Sal without a care for anything else. She isn’t in college, though about the same age as Sal.
Sooo…unless it happened and I didn’t notice, are we ever gonna get around to why Marcie opted for sign language instead of speaking (which she did as child)?
Presumably, there was an incident that occurred (Sal’s only word on the subject is that she and Marcie learned ASL together because “stuff happens”) that caused her to lose the ability to speak. Marcie doesn’t choose not to speak, she’s mute.
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“also she’s a great-ass kisser”
[“not to be confused with ‘great ass-kisser'”]
And who can really blame her?
Ya those are a couple of great asses
FINALLY. I’VE BEEN WAITING YEARS.
I posted that like YEARS ago, not my fault you didn’t look at old posts |=p
All characters in everything are bisexual until proven otherwise.
And even after that point, fans will continue to ship them anyways. Because.
No one can ever be proven non-bisexual! Joyce did not return Becky’s kiss, but it only means she’s not Becky-sexual.
‘Twas your avatar for a stretch as well. That’s your work?? Very nice!
Indeed, I’m sure she only kisses great asses, rather than their lesser-ass cousins.
Something something Malaya something something ass something something great?
old joke: what is the difference between ass kissing and brown nosing?
depth perception.
What a nice ass-car.
I turn my chin music up
And I’m puffing my chest
I’m getting red in the face
You can call me obsessed
It’s not your fault that they hover
I mean no disrespect
It’s my right to be hellish
I still get jealous
‘Cause you’re too sexy, beautiful
And everybody wants a taste
That’s why (that’s why)
I still get jealous
Justin Bieber…?
Get off of here with your Jonas brothers shenanigans. We don’t need you ’round these parts. *cocks gun*
*guns cock*
Stop gunning that cock!
My cock shall be unbeatable in combat
I like how it devolved into cock jokes.
Yeah, it was a dick of a thing to do, get all cocky & just drop this line of comments into male genitalia jokes…
Hey! No cockfighting!
Out! OUT!
None of that!
So she is trying to learn sign. Good for her.
I actually had a deaf (and maybe non-verbal?) co-worker once who did just this so we could talk with her. Took me a while to figure out, though, because no one actually told us she couldn’t hear or speak =p
The thing about Malaya is that she rations on her caring gestures so sparingly that when she turns around and does something like this, it’s REALLY meaningful.
also, kinda like Mike, all of her caring gestures conveniently piss someone else off
If your kindness doesn’t piss off someone yer doin it wrong!
Indeed! A very Klingon statement. I just knew those sunglasses were there to hide the bumps.
Also, y’know, she wants to hit that.
Jus’ sayin.
awwwww
Your grav makes it seem like Galasso is screaming in pain rather than swooning :p
ONLY MASTER GALASSO’S ENEMIES SCREAM IN PAIN!!!
Of course!
Please forgive my foolishness Master Galasso D:
Really? Great job, Meghan, you’ve sent him off on another tirade. This would be the part where I say “I’m gonna go hide in the broom closet”, but Mike locked me out.
Again.
… Wow, he really doesn’t want his gay’s closeted does he?
I guess that makes sense – it’s easier to know you don’t want to go into a room than to know that you don’t want to go into a closet.
SERIOUSLY GUYS!!! PICK A ROOM WITH A SOCK HOLDER ON THE OUTSIDE!!!!!!
(Yes, I am fully aware that is not what it means to be in the closet)
Wait was that only 3 days ago in comic time? I thought it was at least a week by now.
It’s Friday afternoon now. The confrontation in the Wal-Mart parking lot was early Tuesday morning. So a bit more than three full days.
How do you keep track? This comic needs a permanent in-universe calendar/clock widget or something.
I did an archive crawl and assembled a detailed timeline with links.
Huh. I went “that address looks familiar”, and then it hit me.
Some of those summaries are pretty perfect
That’s what you get for standing in the street.
Hey, this is pretty great. Bookmarked.
That’s awesome!
Wow, this is extensive! I’m impressed.
I’m also shocked we’re only 4 weeks in. The people I know hardly got this much personal growth in 4 years of college, let alone 4 weeks.
I could have done that too, if I wanted…
Nice work on the timeline. That’s going in the bookmarks. Any chance it’s going to be updated as time rolls on?
It’ll probably always be a couple scenes behind, because it’s easier to summarize events after they’ve shaken out a little, but, yeah, I intend to keep it reasonably up to date. It wouldn’t be super useful if I didn’t.
Cool. That’s going in the bookmarks once it’s working again…
And the conversation that Sal’s mad about that took place earlier this morning was posted about MORE THAN A MONTH AGO.
Comic time, ladies and gentlemen.
That’s dedication. What’s that last sign mean, though?
“Yes”
That or the sign for revving up a bike…
The last panel sign means “yes”
Oh. It appears someone has beat me to it!
Sal thinks fun is too square for a cool babe like herself obviously.
She’s a stone cold betty.
But I thought it was hip to be a square.
Did Huey Lewis lie to me?
Yes… yes he did.
Next you’ll be telling me I DO need money, fame, or a credit card to ride this train.
Well DUHHHH!
You do indeed.
Pretty soon, we’ll all want a new drug.
I’ll settle for the power of love.
I wanna new duck
Not a swan or a goose
One I can dress real cute
Think I’m gonna name him Bruce
I wanna new duck
Not a quail or an owl
One that won’t stick his bill in my mail
One that won’t smell real ‘fowl’
One that won’t beg for bread crumbs
Waddling all around
One that’ll teach me how to swim
And help me not to drown
And teach me how…. to GET DOWN
GE-ET DOWN BABY (GET IT??)
QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK
So good. Have an internet.
Once this thread started, the Weird Al reference was inevitable.
It was quite a while before I found out that wasn’t the original song… i lived a very sheltered life where pop music was concerned
He’s been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.
The only thing Elvis Costello and Huey Lewis have in common is that The News were Elvis Costello’s backing band on his first album, “My Aim Is True”
To the best of my knowledge, the backing band for Elvis Costello on album #1 were the Attractions, not the News.
And I correct myself. Tour yes, album no.
(psst…Lawzlo was quoting “American Psycho”)
Yeah…fun.
Being attacked by a superhero isn’t FUN. It’s exciting, sure, but not really fun.
Didn’t Watchmen feature a “supervillain” who was just really into getting beat up? It creeped everyone out, if I recall.
Until he tried it on Rorschach, and Rorschach threw him down an elevator shaft.
I guess you could say he (removes sunglasses) got off at the ground floor.
…are we still doing this?
…well… okay.
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
We will be doing this, until an entire generation has come to pass, that has not seen the show. Then, we will keep doing it, just to troll them.
“Mom? Why does Grandpa always take his sunglasses off when he makes a really bad play on words?” “I…I don’t really know.”
Noooooooo you’re supposed to put them on, not take them off! Now time will start going backwards!
*beat*
Oh, you’ve already fixed it?
It’s jokes like that that gave me these bumps.
I had to fight IRON MAN yesterday but its all Good I won, Hacked into his Google+ account had complete control of the fight before it really even started.
And yet, you still got beat up… is there something you’d like to share?
Ya Turns Tony Stark is a HUGE masochist, who would have saw that coming ?
Turns out
Typing with a smartphone – because it’s just easier than making Malaya learn.
Sign language is HARD.
Crazy hard. It’s like… another language, dude.
Nah learning another language ain’t so hard.
You just spend all day studying only to realize the next day you only half rememb-
Okay yeah it’s pretty damn hard.
Smart-phones are smart so we don’t have to be.
Meanwhile, years in the future…
You seem to have left out the link. Here you go.
Nice… also a tad freaky…
You forgot the obligatory side link. Here you go
Was that supposed to go to a specific page, or to the latest, cause it’s going to the latest…
Once I was texting back and forth with a coworker and he asked if I had a smartphone because my texts were so “punctuate” (bro stop that is not an adjective) and I was like “no I just know how to spell” and he called me a nerd. But considering we’d just spent the last shift arguing about whether I should give up on Runescape so I could play WoW….I thought the “nerd” part was a given, really.
Malaya is still very new at sign language.
Agreed. Also it’s pretty cool of Malaya to automatically go towards looking up the sign rather than just ask Marcie to type it.
But its funny to make her do such a hard task.
Or because the message was not something particularly common for sign language, and Marcie didn’t particularly want to wait for Malaya to try to search each sign individually.
But Malaya, motorcycle!
Motorcycle, Malaya butt!
How come Marcy’s mouth NEVER moves?
Because she’s not talking or eating?
Of cause it doesn’t, Marcie wouldn’t be any good as a ventriloquist if it did.
She is really Hello Kitty?
Hell O Kitty
Possibly NSFW
You just had to open your mouth & show us that, didn’t you…
Least she put a NSFW sign. YoToMoe didn’t.
But of cause. ψ(｀∇´)ψ
Why would she need to move it? She can’t speak anymore, after all. Hence the sign language.
More people can lip-read than know ASL.
Actually, that’s a pretty good question. A good portion of ASL is based on facial expressions.
Yes, precisely. It would be like skipping half your words in spoken language.
Most of it is. Moving your eyebrows and the rest of your face is actually a significant part of the grammar structure, ESPECIALLY the eyebrows. I always found it strange that Marcie speaks in a monotone.
Maybe she is moving her eyes and eyebrows and the characters can see it from behind the shades, but we can’t because of the artstyle.
Or maybe she’s just not quite as fluent as we might expect. She was apparently a speaking person as a child, so ASL isn’t her first language, and, depending on when she turned mute, she may have missed the critical period.
nice mike impression with the face, malaya
Marcie and Sal are the true OTP of this comic.
The one true OTP?
I realized this immediately after I typed it, I was hoping no one would notice. Damn :p
I was gonna comment on this, but I had to run out to the ATM machine.
Don’t forget your PIN number.
And if you are affected by this winter’s cold it is always good to remember to check your Hot Water Heater.
I lost my CAC card!
You’re probably right, but it is a platonic OTP
And I used the wrong altvatar for that comment.
(in my mind they can be anything, including non-platonic ;-))
But yes, in canon they’re the one true friendship pairing and I love them a lot.
Jealousy. Envy. The green-eyed monster. It comes for them all.
I was taught that envy and jealousy are different. Jealousy is when you don’t want others to have what you believe is yours. Envy is wanting something others have that you don’t.
Aww, Marcie. Aww, Malaya trying.
And thus does Sal/Marcie reach the level of a “Don’t Care If It’s Platonic or Romantic, I Want Them Together” OTP.
You don’t have to worry. They will surely be together 5ever. (dat mo den 4 eva)
I crey evertim
Yes. NOW SNUGGLE.
Ooooh, backstory
Well a bit but more like stating something we already knew.
Now you see the jealousy is unnecessary, everyone that means something to her loves the hell out her and would go to far langths to be around her.
Although I will admit it is cute seeing her jealous.
Oh, Marcie’s not an IU student? She just lives around in the area? What if she hosted Becky in her home?
I was about to say “I guess we don’t need to worry about where she [Marcie] fits in the dorms anymore”, but you’ve got a clever idea.
Of course, this isn’t even “friend of a friend”, it’d be asking Marcie, “Hey, can we have the friend of a friend of your friend’s roommate crash with you?” Might be a bit of an ask.
“Your friend’s roommate already paid her twenty bucks to go away, but I’m sure you’ll like her! I mean, you put up with Malaya.”
If Marcie’s got an extra room then she’s a nice option for when Becky’s got a job though.
They might be an interesting couple too. Could see Becky learning a new language just to pick up a cute roller derby girl. Not sure if Becky would be her type though. I mean, we don’t really have any info about what Marcie’s type is, but I just have trouble picturing that end of it.
Now you’re shipping!
Now you’re thinking with shipping goggles!
Heh, and given how annoying Becky has been for some people in the comments section – just imagine what Sal will think.
It’s a stretch yeah. But it’s also a comic! Anything can happen – within reasonable limits.
Yeah, it’s not like you could have a college story transition into a story about an alien invasion and parallel universes, or anything like that!
Sounds like a boring shift. Definitely not the sort of thing one can keep up for 15 years. What would it even be like? Absurd to the point of making the all-powerful MacGuffin a branch?
I mean, as long as it doesn’t spin off into a story about a toy store, with stories like a talking car and, say, the employees locking up their boss in a cage, I’d still consider reading it.
Sounds good, long as it doesn’t get soggy towards the end tho…
A friend of a friend of your brother’s girlfriend would be more accurate. I don’t know that Billie and Joyce count as friends any more than Joyce and Walky.
So Marcie would wind up hosting a friend of a friend of a hitlfriend of a brother of a friend. That’s only five degrees of separation!
damn
I must know more
Sal’s Marcie’s Peppermint Patty, Malaya.
Except she would never call anyone “sir.” Marcie just doesn’t give a shit about titles.
My god. I never realized just how well Marcie resembles, well, Marcie! The hair, the goggles, even the color scheme!
I do remember Willis saying that Charles Schulz was a huge influence on him.
Original-flavor Marcie has an even stronger resemblance to Marcie from Peanuts. It’s even called out in her Walkypedia bio.
Marcie seems nice enough, but it seems a waste for her to not be thinking about her own future. Also makes Sal seem less cool and not much of a friend.
I kinda doubt Marcie was college-bound (or at least ready for it right now) if she was willing to be that impulsive, Sal or no. There might be more opportunities for her here than back home anyway.
We don’t even know what she does, she could have a great job. Not everyone is made for college (not that I’m saying she can’t go, of course she can but she obviously doesn’t want to right now) and college isn’t the only option to have a future.
Yes, this, thank you. No college does not mean no future, or irresponsible. Fuck.
Depends on really what she does ? We still barely know anything about her for all we know she could be filthy stinking Rich or have the most kick ass Job ever or she has really successful Webcomic, ya that sounds about right she the Author of “Kick ass girls with Skate boards” in all honesty its a better read than “Dumbing of Youth”
She’s just waiting for Marcie Pro Skater 3 to drop so she can get that Playstation money.
Good choice going with Soney, Microsoft would just fuck her over and she’ll never make a living.
But on that same topic that gives me an Idea what do you guys think of a Dumbing of age video Game ? You can either have Marcie Pro skate or an AMAZI-GIRL beat em-up where she just fighting crime and you can Sal as a Boss then after with that fight you can have her as a co-op character, either that or a dating Sim I would help Kickstart the shit out of any of these .
Or a dating simulator. what?! It is a thing, they are really big in Japan.
The dating sim would have a slipshine DLC…
Playstation money? Is that like Internet money? I gotta get me somma dat.
Eeh, that adds a bit of weirdness to their relationship dynamic. Sal goes places because of goals, or because her parents are sending her here or whatever, and Marcie just tags along, uprooting her life to be wherever Sal is?
And now Sal’s getting bent out of shape because Marcie has two whole friends. Like Marcie hasn’t already given her enough indication that she’s committed to this relationship. Most significant others don’t even move along with you after you graduate out of highschool.
Sometimes significant others follow you after high school.
Didn’t go so well for Danny and Dotty though.
Yeah, sometimes. A lot don’t though. Point is it’s pretty far above and beyond what you’d expect of a friend.
I’m not sure whether to think that they just have a really special, loyal, platonic relationship, or whether Marcie is in love with Sal.
Well…if we return to the Danny and Dotty example…>.>
Marcie has got more than friends. She and Malaya share the roller derby team which is a social context and hobby that Sal is not part of. Still completely disproportionate response from Sal, though.
Marcie moved because Sal moved? She was able to pull up roots that easily? Where does she live? Does she have a job?
She gets around.
“Roots” are often pretty shallow, especially right out of high school.
Before this I’m pretty sure Marcie lived at a catholic boarding school, so I guess she had to go somewhere. Couldn’t very well just stay where she was.
That’s Sal.
I presume that Marcie might have moved nearby though. We don’t know her reaction to Sal’s conveience store spree.
Yeah, but I’m pretty sure Marcie was there with Sal. It doesn’t sound like they’re just now reuniting after being apart for years. It hasn’t specifically been stated where she was before this but “At the catholic boarding school with Sal” makes the most sense.
She coudln’t have just moved into the neighborhood of Sal’s new school. They were kids. She by necessity lived wherever her parents did, unless of course she was sent to a boarding school.
I’m not really surprised that Marcie would follow Sal to Bloomington, but given that she went to all that trouble, I wonder why they aren’t roommates. You’d think Sal would prefer apartment living with her BFF to the dorms.
As a freshman, Sal probably has to live on campus.
Besides, this way she can stick it to her mom by by making her spend more money for the dorm residence.
Not always true. I lived off campus during freshmen year.
That’s not allowed at Indiana University. Freshman have to live on-campus.
I went to IU and never lived on campus- I couldn’t afford the housing costs. I had a terrible commute, which was really annoying, but it was perfectly allowed.
It may be that IU used to have that rule, though- and it certainly makes sense here, as it serves the story.
http://www.rps.indiana.edu/resrequire.cfml
First-year students are required to live on-campus, with some allowances made for those who live with a parent or guardian within 25 miles. Sal’s parents live a couple hours away, and that doesn’t address her living with Marcie anyway.
All this time, I had no idea! That certainly explains my circumstances in freshman year. I’m sorry for the confusion!
I’m not saying you’re wrong, because you just linked that, but that’s crazy. I’m so glad none of the schools here have that.
The college I went to had a similar rule. I had a couple of friends who were a little older than traditional college students, and married with a young daughter, who were still required to live in campus housing their freshman year. There was limited married couple housing, so at least they got to room together, but their daughter had to stay with her grandmother during the school year.
Replying to John: Eh? Married student housing at IU was apartment based. Spouse and I didn’t have kids, but we certainly could have housed them if we did.
Oh my, I half expected Marcie to rip Sal a new one behind her back, or at least a criticism.
That’s kind of unnecessarily Spiteful
And just plain unnecessary. If she want so be mean to Sal, hanging out with someone else seems to do the job just fine.
Classic shunning
I wonder what happened to cause Sal to dislike Malaya so much.
She met her.
Did Sal get attacked by Amber before Malaya showed up? I think not…okay she did…but she didn’t have a costume back then >.>
Jealousy, perhaps?
I think it started with “someone else wants to hang out with me when I’m cool”. But now its jealousy.
Remember, the first time you saw Malaya she was complaining about how much beer she was getting. That type of complaining might grate on a person.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/beer-weiser/
I just browsed back through the Malaya tag, and… we haven’t really seen much of her in this universe, and while she’s hot-headed and a little obnoxious, there hasn’t been any real sign that she’s the spite-fueled hate machine that she was in Shortpacked!. I’m thinking that Sal’s pack just needed an omega wolf, and Malaya drew the short straw.
Shortpacked Malaya was a spite-fueled hate machine probably because she was several years older than she is in Dumbing of Age, and employed by a culture she views as beneath her, recruited into it by a dude hoping to Nice Guy his way into her pants.
I actually realized recently, somewhat to my horror, that Malaya’s my favorite of the Shortpacked! new generation. Lucy’s too nice to be really interesting, I never managed to relate to Jacob and his too-hot sex-addict drama, and Zangief wobbles between being a completely bland milquetoast and being a douchecanoe without ever stopping at being someone I care about or want to read about. Malaya at least is all-in on that spite-fueled hate machine thing.
Zangief? Who’s dat?
Yeah, as someone who hasn’t read Shortpacked, I’m rather in the dark about why Malaya get so much hate in the comics, when in this comic Carla’s just as much of a jerk as she is, but everyone in the comments loves Carla for whatever reason.
Campus ain’t big enough for the two of ’em.
I think I kind of like Malaya. She’s feisty.
Aw yeah. Solidarity.
Soon all shall join the Malaya side.
So does Marcie not care about her own future or is she already an established webcomic artist and hence has no need for a degree?
Maybe she just kind of walks the earth, David Carradine style.
You mean she’s a bum.
Residential flexibility has nothing to do with the gluteous maximus, thank you and good day. I SAID GOOD DAY
Her bum is probably pretty excellent though considering her proficiency at roller derby
She has a very competent bum
It is a bum of iron, and a bum of wrath
I wanted to say basically the same thing, but I couldn’t find the exact PF quote quickly enough.
Perhaps she has a sizable trust fund from a legal settlement from whatever incident rendered her mute.
Interesting thought, and quite reasonable.
Sounds like she must have her living situation looked after somehow, so she’s probably doing alright for herself. Wouldn’t be the first person to get where she’s going without a college diploma.
So is there an easy way to look up signs based on the hand movements?
Quite literally, there’s an app for that.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/asl-translator/id421784745?mt=8
Just one of the dozens of apps I found to translate ASL for both iOS and Android.
(Thank you for essentially Googling that for me.) Awesome. The information age is great.
signingsavvy.com really helped me when I was learning asl, but it definitely doesn’t have everything. But I like it because you can actually see it in action, rather than an illustration.
Useful! Thanks.
Malaya’s like a marshmallow coated in porcupine.
Soooo…. A hedgehog?
…AND SHE CANNOT BE BUGGERED AT ALL.
Hmm. I believe it. Despite Marcie’s general awesomeness, I bet she doesn’t have a lot of friends since whatever happened to make her lose her voice. Sal might well have been the only one to actually learn sign language to keep on speaking with Marcie.
If that hypothetical is so, I can see that earning a lot of loyalty from Marcie. All other things being equal, I would certainly like to go where that friend does.
Which means I very much like seeing Marcie making friends apart from Sal, especially friends who are also willing to learn sign like Malaya apparently is. (True facts, this one fact makes me warm right up to Malaya, and I have warmed to no other Malaya.)
Something like this happened to me. I was visiting an ER because I train nurses and a couple had come in, at least one with non-lifethreatening injuries and both were unable to speak or hear. The staff were looking for a way to contact an interpreter and since I know a few signs and how to finger spell because my wife was born severely hearing impaired I was about to offer to help, when I realized we were all being stupid and said, “If anyone has a note pad and a pen that might be all they need.” We all looked at each other for a second like, ‘Why was that so hard to figure out?’ and that was that.
Nice blue arms in panel 2 =p
I know it’s meant to be that way btw, it just looks funny =p
Sorta looks like someone else’s arm is coming in from off panel don’t it.
Wait a minute… Those aren’t blue, they’re silver! She is either: a T-1000 on a mission on campus; or: she is trying to hide the Power Cosmic (and faltering).
Either way, as far as I’m concerned, from now on both of those subplots are canon.
Yay, more Sal, Marcie, Malaya, and Carla content; the comic has been severely lacking these four, especially lacking Sal.
More Sal, please!!!
The last panel should have said, “Well, she is over there sneering at people from a wall….I do enjoy doing that….”
Yesterday: Sal wonders what’s so great about Malaya.
Today: Malaya wonders what’s so great about Sal.
Tomorrow they make out?
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/007/582/tumblr_lmputme3co1qa6q7k_large.png
Huh. What’s-her-name is curvier than I realized.
YOU SHALL NOT RUIN THIS FRIENDSHIP!
SO SPEAKS GALASSO!
I approve this message.
so sayeth emperor galasso!
Emperor galassooooo~
He’s the best elder of all~
His hq is a toy store/pizza place~
But his power’s hardly small~
Ruler, not elder! Please don’t execute me!
YOU DO WELL TO RESPECT THE AUTHORITY OF GALASSO!
Awww. I like the idea that Marcie just goes where Sal goes, but I also like Malaya making such an effort to be her friend. I like both a lot tbh.
Malaya is a darling. I mean I know she had a reputation in Walkyverse, but this ain’t Walkyverse. Go Malaya.
Her gloves went from blue to red to blue again. Damn auto balance.
Marcie is good at those little affectionate gestures. Like here when she reaches out to borrow the phone, or earlier when she put her hand on Malaya’s in a ‘shush’ gesture. Note how Malaya isn’t startled at any point. Marcie moves slow enough to silently ask for and be given permission for an intimate gesture.
Sal may be onto something…
How does someone who’s deaf or mute typically interrupt someone?
Aaand Marcie suddenly became really, really depressing.
…this kinda makes me wonder where Marcie lives and what she actually does for a living. I mean, students are pretty much provided for by the school, but.. ?
You know, you’re actually kinda making me start linking malaya.
IAMUNUSEDTOTHEEMOTIONSIAMCURRENTLYFEELING
What do you suppose is the app she’s using?
Perhaps Sal is Marcie’s job. She’s been hired by someone for some reason to keep Sal out of really serious trouble. Being Sal’s friend forever just makes it that much easier to find an excuse to hang around with her.
Well, fuck you, Malaya.
Sheeeeesh.
So what’s Marcie saying in the last panel? It’s probably not the title of the strip.
That’s just ‘yes’, IIRC. Fist going up and down like a nodding head.
The title of the strip is maybe what she’s about to sign in the first one? It doesn’t look like classes to me. (I am partially deaf, and so I learned sign!) Possibly a different dialect? Yes–those exist.
This is the one I’m used to: https://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/CLASS/75/1
(it’s kinda hard to just explain)
I actually have no idea what she’s signing. It doesn’t appear to sync up with the rest of the sentence that she wrote down. *shrugs* Maybe she was about to sign.
Actually, now that I’m looking more closely, she could be signing “none,” and ending the sentence.
Hmmm that makes more sense with what Malaya said…
“Or you could just pull a Celty. That works too.”
Why have we wasted so many strips on Becky when we could be following these four?! ANY of these four?! Or Dina, but that’s a given.
Also, when can we expect a flashback to Marcie’s story? I wants.
There is always time for more Dina!!!
…but yeah, I also want more Marcie story!
–
Reporting an IAMs video ad that I couldn’t pause. I don’t mind ads but video ads are really annoying, especially when I’m at work.
It’s seriously only been THREE DAYS since Amazigirl attacked them?! Holy crap, what are the parameters of the Dumbverse??? One day there is half-a-year for us??? Jeeeeeeeezzzz…
Welcome to the joys of “comic time”. Just be glad the seasons aren’t cycling in real time.
Get this, it’s only been like four weeks since the comic started. One month.
At least it won’t be hard to have this comic only span freshman year.
It’s been averaging about a Dumbiverse week per real-world year.
I anticipate the characters getting to the semester break in 2020. Maybe.
And that luxurious river of chocolate.
… We’ve heard of most of the main character’s parents already, but nothing about Marcie’s. She moves around and follows Sal without a care for anything else. She isn’t in college, though about the same age as Sal.
Is she an orphan?
Yeah, now I really want to know more about Marcie.
…hopefully this storyline leads to us readers finding out soon.
If she’s able to move to Bloomington without actually taking college courses, solely to follow Sal, I’d say chances are high that Marcie’s an orphan/
Or that her parents are quite wealthy and they’re supporting her.
Would any parent allow their kid to move someplace just to follow a friend? I don’t think even Billie’s folks are that laissez-faire.
They knowingly sent their alcoholic daughter to college. That is, I assume that they know about her alcoholism, or that she’s even in college.
Had a look at the flashback and I think Marcie being an orphan would help to make walkermoms “what kind of parent” line even better/worse/more amusing
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/castlemarcie/
If I had to choose between Sal and Malaya, there’d be no contest.
Soooo… Which one?
Sal, duh!
Between Sal and Malaya is Marcie.
Sooo…unless it happened and I didn’t notice, are we ever gonna get around to why Marcie opted for sign language instead of speaking (which she did as child)?
Presumably, there was an incident that occurred (Sal’s only word on the subject is that she and Marcie learned ASL together because “stuff happens”) that caused her to lose the ability to speak. Marcie doesn’t choose not to speak, she’s mute.
Or deaf and a skilled lip-reader.
No, http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/fun-2/ . Last panel.
I like that Malaya actually goes to look the signs up, it shows that she cares and is willing to put the effort into being Marcies friend
not sure what to think about Marcie following Sal though, could be a little weird depends what her situation is
David Willis, Marcie’s hands still need to be colored.
When her hands aren’t colored, that signifies that they are moving and she is doing sign language.
Okay, I don’t understand why her arms turn blue when she signs… Is that some sort of convention to see her hands better?
movement indications