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A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Saint for Rent
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Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Nerf Now!!
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A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Missing Monday
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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.
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Dumbing of Age
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Hey, it can’t possibly be the worst Sarah…. you just haven’t heard some of my other ideas…
check this out: Joyce goes by herself! wearing that dress she wore for Joe (the yellow number with the “chest window”) that makes her look like a hippie!
AND we tell her EATING the apples in the puchbowl will make all the guys like her!
change “make all guys like her” to “make all the guys think she is marriage material with strong Christian values” and she’d be all over them Apples like white on rice.
Roz would probably take it as an opportunity to get Joyce to set aside her conservative views. Probably by throwing her head-first into a hot tub of naked dudes. She’s never been one to worry about personal boundaries.
No, no. We’re supposed to claim it happened in that other universe. There’s 14 years of continuity that not everyone has read, so we can say anything we wanted happened and get away with it.
Remember when Joyce and Sarah became lesbian vampire slayers and destroyed Hitler’s battle-zeppelin? I loved that story.
But see, now you’ve broken it. Now, everytime they see us making crazy claims, they’re going to question it.
They’re never going to believe that there was a zombie apocalypse or a gender bender story or about the time that Ronald Reagon and Theodore Roosevelt fought over the fate of the universe, much less that Joe went to an alternate future timeline to fight martian robot samurai or the time Walky and Sal explored Atlantis.
It’s happened! I’m actually starting to lose track of what is and isn’t trolling. I can’t read through It’s Walky again to find out. I JUST CAN”T! so much archive binging… so much… (Sucks thumb)
Please. We still get people in denial about Ethan being gay, and Joe being asked permission about the sex video. You overestimate the memories of some of our commenters.
Stop with the out there stuff! You need to be plausible here! It’s not like the author ever addressed those things!
We all know Ethan gets off on heterosexual exploitation, and thus his favorite video is that time that Joe was tricked into having an internet sex video without his consent.
Get stuffed Sarah, or rather, get un-stuffed.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s absolutely right, but she’s dealing with teenagers, if you tell them no so vehemently they will do it anyway just to prove to you that they know better.
I don’t think Dorothy is the kind to rebel. And Joyce WOULD rebel, but it would make her parents upset. Sarah just doesn’t want her stable roommate broken already. She wants to live up the normalcy as long as she can.
I think she is concerned. She only ever knows how to express her ability to care for others through sarcasm and by being a hard case. Tough-love and all that.
Also, she doesn’t want to admit it, but Joyce is breaking through her think candy shell, and getting her to care about other people again. she does kinda feel responsible for and protective of this innocent little thing…
Awww, Joyce, you’re such a good person, no matter what anyone says. Willing to go so far out of your comfort zone in order to support someone else who’s personal beliefs were also out of your comfort zone is the mark of a true friend.
I think Dorothy and Joyce need to team up and make their own super-hero duo. Like, Biblegirl and Secularwoman.
I’m not sure where would be an appropriate place to comment on this, but I figured you may like to know about this. Whenever I go to the Shortpacked website, my CPU shoots up to 100% usage (and stays there) followed eventually by something saying a script is having problems. This started up earlier this week. Dumbing of Age also shoots up to 100% for about 15-30 seconds, but it then comes back down.
I just figured you would like to know, in case you were not already aware of the issue.
I was encountering this issue with the Shortpacked! site at work earlier today. In that case the browser was IE7.
I didn’t monitor processor load but it was making the computer unresponsive for a bit, then telling me the scripts were taking too long and I should cancel them. Even when I agreed to cancel them it would freeze and then ask again. I thought one browser window was just being weird on me but a second browser window did the same thing. Eventually I viewed the comic on my phone.
Also a pretty common problem for me. IE8 on windows 7. Mobile browsing seems to strip away whatever is doing it, and firefox seems to be immune (Picture bad scripts bouncing off it’s chest as it gives a speech about crime)
As much as I hate to be the cliched asshole nerd here, your problem is likely IE. There’s a reason it’s the butt of jokes in a lot of nerd circles; it’s fickle a lot of times on how well it wants to work.
I can’t really propose a resolution for this problem (other than “get another browser”) because I’m not terribly familiar with the problem. Plus, I don’t have control over the servers, site, or anything else like that like Willis may/may not have.
Some people don’t have the ability to choose their browser. For example, at work we’re not allowed to install any software. So it’s either what’s already there (IE7) or nothing.
David, not sure if you’re getting this message, but the Monday 9/12/2011 Shortpacked (where Amber’s having, uh, stomach issues) is causing this problem for me as of typing this post.
I suspect, since it’s so intermittent even on that page which I managed to see one time normally, that it’s one of the ads in your ad rotation that has some code that’s freaking out certain browsers. Not sure which one, though, since I can’t really get at the page when it’s happening.
Sarah, back off. Right now. If Joyce wants to go to a goddamn party, it’s no business of yours. Especially since you know that she’s a billion times more likely to leave as soon as she sees someone drinking and/or a couple making out than she is to get wasted and become a druggie. But I guess you can’t see past your paranoia, can you?
Not for the first time, I wonder what drugs Sarah’s old roommate did, and how often.
This is…actually quite nice of Joyce. She knows that Dorothy isn’t comfortable with being at the party, so she’s offering to go along even though she knows she won’t like it either, just so that Dorothy can have a familiar face there.
Joyce is basically a nice person. She’s been sheltered from a lot of things growing up, but some of that includes the things that harden people into selfish cynics.
And even after all the disillusionment and tough times of Roomies & It’s Walky, the original Joyce remained selfless at heart. I doubt DoA Joyce has lost or will lose that aspect of her character; it’s a huge part of her charm.
i think making it appear in the first place was the power. unless she brings apples to apples to every class in case shes invited to a slumber party… which seems incredibly possible
One year anniversary? Bravo! You’ve done very well to keep it up this long! Still holding my interest- in fact, the comic has gotten a lot more interesting since its beginning.
Congratulations on 14 years of comics. You’re one of the most prolific webcomic writers, and you’ve maintained a high standard of storytelling over all that time. Congratulations, from the bottom of my heart.
Is it wrong that I really, really, really think that Sarah needs to shut the fuck up? I mean, this is probably the first real sign we’ve got that Joyce isn’t quite as terminally naive, and is willing to go and do something she won’t enjoy for the sake of helping someone else, and then Sarah has to yell all over it.
Also, this story arc is silly. I have never met any teenager ever that is scared of a party.
To be fair, whatever the party is, it isn’t Sprite and Apples to Apples.
Roz seems to think it’s something that will specifically pull her out of her comfort zone. I don’t know about you, but billing that as the most important thing to know about a party doesn’t exactly sell me on it.
Eh, you’d be surprised. I’ve skipped on a couple in my lifetime, though that might be less “scared” and more “extremely uncomfortable/bored.” Watching people get drunk generally isn’t that much fun unless you participate yourself.
Uh… I was terrified of parties as a teenager, and only marginally scared of them now I’m in my twenties. Granted, that was mostly social anxiety issues, but part of it was feeling too ‘sheltered’ to fit in with the cool kids. And all the horror stories about drugs and alcohol.
Heh. I was in a fraternity, and I still found parties like that to be a bit offputting. I usually warmed up to them after a couple drinks, but still preferred to hang out somewhere away from the people and the noise (though I did try to stay close to the alcohol).
From Dorothy’s perspective, she will most likely feel very awkward and/or uncomfortable for 3-6 hours. Maybe vomited on. Being scared of that is an overreaction, which I was mocking.
These are kids who are brand new to college and don’t know what to expect at all from going to a college party, let alone a standard party.
As someone who is not the best in large social situations and crowds actually give me anxiety, I don’t think being “scared” is an over-reaction. Being so scared that she doesn’t go would be, though.
Oh come on, guys. Sarah isn’t forbidding them to go, or to tell the dean on them and get them expelled (like her last roomie), or even saying that they are idiots.
She’s saying this is a dumb idea.
Which we all ALREADY agreed that it was. Why the hate?
Because she isn’t saying “I dunno, guys, I don’t think this is a good idea.” She is looming over them and staring them down saying “This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard.” That’s about as close to forbidding as a roommate can get, short of threatening to lock Joyce out of the room (which wouldn’t be effective anyways).
Also, she IS calling them idiots, unless you have a completely different notion of what “worst idea I’ve ever heard” means. I mean, to me it says “Dear God, why have you inflicted these morons on me, who come in and lower my IQ with their ideas and stupidity?”
Finally, we don’t know that she won’t go to the dean. All we know about Sarah’s ex-roommate was that she was a stoner, did “illegal drugs,” regularly came in at 4AM (Sarah says “every night,” but I’m inclined to take that as a bit of hyperbole), and she was well-liked enough enough that Sarah became a bit of an outcast for turning her in. It sounds to me like the roomie just did some marijuana (if a bit more regularly than what was good for her study habits) and was inconsiderate about how she came back at night. If that’s what it takes before Sarah thinks she’s been burned, I wonder how quickly she’ll run to report a couple of underage students drinking so that they don’t become a problem.
Congrats on a year! It blew my mind a little that this is still the first week. Do you enjoy this more than real time? I’d guess there’s advantages to both styles but I’m not an expert!
Happy Birthday, Dumbing of Age! Here’s looking forward to the next year
Personally, I think going to this party would be good for Joyce. College is a time for experimenting with values and boundaries and lord knows she hasn’t had the chance to do that yet.
Yeah, Sarah needs to back off a little. I can appreciate where she’s coming from but Joyce needs to not get (s)mothered by her roomie.
But how else would we make the three layer cake? Layer one is cake, the second layer is your mom, the third layer is the cream filling in your mom. The Filling is Jizz.
So, it took Willis one year to almost get through one week in Dumbing of Age. Therefore, we can concluded that to get through the entire school year it will take 15 years, based a 15 week schedule. So by the time Joyce graduates, if she is on the four year plan, 60 years will pass. I think I might be dead by then.
Soooo, I’m fairly sure all of you who are yelling about Sarah over-reacting ( which, I will admit she is considering it is Joyce and Dor’thy we’re discussing) have never had a bad roommate in college. As someone who got a stoner+, and two drunks, in a row, let me say that Sarah, since she hasn’t gotten to know Joyce (which is her fault, yes) is having a fairly normal reaction.
And we still have no idea what the party is, causing that to remain the weekend cliffhanger despite the Saturday strip. Well played, Willis, well played.
I think Sarah is blowing this out of proportion too soon. Yeah, taking Joyce of all people to ANY kind of party that isn’t done in a Church Basement, is probably going to end poorly, but it might not necessarily be as evil and sexually driven as everyone is assuming. It might actually be a simple college party where people have fun.
Sarah has a point, sort of. Yes, backup would be good. No, though, it should NOT be Joyce. We’ve all said it. It should be Billie, because she knows parties.
I have a feeling that Joyce will just completely turn the party around so EVERYONE is drinking sprite and playing apples to apples, just completely converting everyone there to her side. O_O
I don’t blame you. I started reading Shortpacked and knew there were other comics but couldn’t get interested in reading them enough to justify the amount of time needed to go through the archive.
I finally did end up reading Roomies, It’s Walky! and Joyce & Walky this year though and it’s definitely worth it.
Sarah has obviously not heard of making Nightcrawler the pope, using twin clones of Hitler to take over the world, or using technology to make yourself the smartest person in the world by keeping others out of college.
Sarah’s right — not that backup isn’t a bad idea, but Joyce is a horrible choice for it. Her reaction to the sorts of things she’ll see at a Roz style party is likely to be destructive, and Dorothy is trying to build some sort of relationship of trust to get an interview.
XD I love all the people talking about how they dislike Sarah because she’s the one looking at this maturely. And, in Robin speak, “Looking at the world more than 15 minutes into the future!”
That, and there’s not likely to be any partying if you can’t hear the sound of Joyce shouting “PREMARITAL HANKY PANKY” at everyone….
The worst idea I’ve ever heard is “Hey, let’s take over the world with a giant army and punish any rebels by cutting off their genitals and/or boobs”, which taught me that my brother needs some friends who don’t belong in a mental institution
it would be funny if they released it but it was just a cinema painted on the side of a cliff
DiscussingFilm@discussingfilm.bsky.social ⋅ 18h
‘COYOTE VS ACME’ has been officially saved by Ketchup Entertainment, who bought the film for $50M
They plan to give the film a worldwide theatrical release in 2026.
do y'all remember when they found all that tf art in Osamu Tezuka's drawer post-mortem because I think about it often
anyway keep chasing your bliss and draw weird shit, god knows we need that right now
Today in #9ChickweedLane I learned that I have to weigh which is worse: the cartoonist already forgetting what this guy looks like one daily strip later, or that, yes, he's actually meant to be an old man, not a victim to an older cartoonist forgetting what young people look like
Like any average American, I’m for universal basic income and abolishing the police. I can’t get on board with these ultra-leftists calling for the universal hive mind, though!
maura quint@mauraquint.bsky.social ⋅ 20h
going to start calling myself a centrist and then listing all my leftist views as proof, just going to start moving the overton window by force
I've spent the past few days reading through the entire archive of @damnyouwillis.bsky.social's Dumbing of Age and this has been stuck in my head for about 90% of that time.
DiscussingFilm @discussingfilm.bsky.social ⋅ 18h
maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social ⋅ 20h
Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
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⚧️🦖
Comms Open
SHE KNOWS
LISTEN TO THE WIZENED SOPHOMORE
SECONDED WITH MUCH GUSTO.
BUT YOU DON’T GET WIZENED TILL JUNIOR
Special cases get it early.
Hey, it can’t possibly be the worst Sarah…. you just haven’t heard some of my other ideas…
check this out: Joyce goes by herself! wearing that dress she wore for Joe (the yellow number with the “chest window”) that makes her look like a hippie!
AND we tell her EATING the apples in the puchbowl will make all the guys like her!
Naw, we just offer her the cups of Jello.
change “make all guys like her” to “make all the guys think she is marriage material with strong Christian values” and she’d be all over them Apples like white on rice.
Sarah has the right idea. Roz probably wouldn’t be too happy with Joyce as Dorothy’s “friend” anyway.
Roz would probably take it as an opportunity to get Joyce to set aside her conservative views. Probably by throwing her head-first into a hot tub of naked dudes. She’s never been one to worry about personal boundaries.
Dorothy could always bring a friend they both know, like Joe!
Wow, Sarah. They didn’t kill your cat or anything. No need to look so angry.
Actually, Joyce did. Remember? She declared that all cats were secret satanist commie witches in disguise, and burned it at a stake.
… When exactly?
It totally happened off-screen. Take our word for it.
No, no. We’re supposed to claim it happened in that other universe. There’s 14 years of continuity that not everyone has read, so we can say anything we wanted happened and get away with it.
Remember when Joyce and Sarah became lesbian vampire slayers and destroyed Hitler’s battle-zeppelin? I loved that story.
that was sarah? i always thought it was daisy… does that make me racist?
only if she’s ever drawn in a car
also, for more reasons than I can mention and be on topic or sound sane, I love your commenting name
You’re a genius!
But see, now you’ve broken it. Now, everytime they see us making crazy claims, they’re going to question it.
They’re never going to believe that there was a zombie apocalypse or a gender bender story or about the time that Ronald Reagon and Theodore Roosevelt fought over the fate of the universe, much less that Joe went to an alternate future timeline to fight martian robot samurai or the time Walky and Sal explored Atlantis.
Don’t forget the time that Sal got a job at a pizza joint with a martian theme that was an evil plot!
Or when Robin had perverse sexual lust for Joyce!
Or the time that Willis made himself into a god and an Alien took over his body and then Walky saved the universe!
And here we are forgetting to mention the time that Joe refused to Joe Joyce.
It’s happened! I’m actually starting to lose track of what is and isn’t trolling. I can’t read through It’s Walky again to find out. I JUST CAN”T! so much archive binging… so much… (Sucks thumb)
Please. We still get people in denial about Ethan being gay, and Joe being asked permission about the sex video. You overestimate the memories of some of our commenters.
Stop with the out there stuff! You need to be plausible here! It’s not like the author ever addressed those things!
We all know Ethan gets off on heterosexual exploitation, and thus his favorite video is that time that Joe was tricked into having an internet sex video without his consent.
aaaah my braaaaaain
Hurray!!!!
Go Sarah!
Glad to see Dorothy said the same thing to Joyce that I did yesterday. It’s good Joyce understands though.
Get stuffed Sarah, or rather, get un-stuffed.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s absolutely right, but she’s dealing with teenagers, if you tell them no so vehemently they will do it anyway just to prove to you that they know better.
I don’t think Dorothy is the kind to rebel. And Joyce WOULD rebel, but it would make her parents upset. Sarah just doesn’t want her stable roommate broken already. She wants to live up the normalcy as long as she can.
That’s what I’m thinking. Last thing Sarah wants is her roomie being converted into party gal and making it hard to live with her.
So she’s a control freak.
Rather than, say, someone who might be genuinely concerned about Joyce’s mental well being?
I think she is concerned. She only ever knows how to express her ability to care for others through sarcasm and by being a hard case. Tough-love and all that.
Also, she doesn’t want to admit it, but Joyce is breaking through her think candy shell, and getting her to care about other people again. she does kinda feel responsible for and protective of this innocent little thing…
So essentially: Big Sis says “NO, you can’t go.”
That doesn’t invalidate the possibility that she’s a bit of a control freak. Even fictional people are complicated.
Control freak when it comes to things that could potentially completely screw her over, yeah.
Ooh, she’s going to be going on a murder spree if they keep this up.
It’s a girl!!! Or some other appropriate exclamation of joy.
Anyway, yeah, that sounds like a terrible idea. Have Joyce get slowly desensitized to stuff and it might be a better idea.
No, bring the powder keg with a lit fuse to the kegger. That’d be fun for us to watch.
Awww, Joyce, you’re such a good person, no matter what anyone says. Willing to go so far out of your comfort zone in order to support someone else who’s personal beliefs were also out of your comfort zone is the mark of a true friend.
I think Dorothy and Joyce need to team up and make their own super-hero duo. Like, Biblegirl and Secularwoman.
I’m not sure where would be an appropriate place to comment on this, but I figured you may like to know about this. Whenever I go to the Shortpacked website, my CPU shoots up to 100% usage (and stays there) followed eventually by something saying a script is having problems. This started up earlier this week. Dumbing of Age also shoots up to 100% for about 15-30 seconds, but it then comes back down.
I just figured you would like to know, in case you were not already aware of the issue.
What browser are you using?
David,
I was encountering this issue with the Shortpacked! site at work earlier today. In that case the browser was IE7.
I didn’t monitor processor load but it was making the computer unresponsive for a bit, then telling me the scripts were taking too long and I should cancel them. Even when I agreed to cancel them it would freeze and then ask again. I thought one browser window was just being weird on me but a second browser window did the same thing. Eventually I viewed the comic on my phone.
Also a pretty common problem for me. IE8 on windows 7. Mobile browsing seems to strip away whatever is doing it, and firefox seems to be immune (Picture bad scripts bouncing off it’s chest as it gives a speech about crime)
As much as I hate to be the cliched asshole nerd here, your problem is likely IE. There’s a reason it’s the butt of jokes in a lot of nerd circles; it’s fickle a lot of times on how well it wants to work.
I can’t really propose a resolution for this problem (other than “get another browser”) because I’m not terribly familiar with the problem. Plus, I don’t have control over the servers, site, or anything else like that like Willis may/may not have.
Some people don’t have the ability to choose their browser. For example, at work we’re not allowed to install any software. So it’s either what’s already there (IE7) or nothing.
David, not sure if you’re getting this message, but the Monday 9/12/2011 Shortpacked (where Amber’s having, uh, stomach issues) is causing this problem for me as of typing this post.
I suspect, since it’s so intermittent even on that page which I managed to see one time normally, that it’s one of the ads in your ad rotation that has some code that’s freaking out certain browsers. Not sure which one, though, since I can’t really get at the page when it’s happening.
Happens to me at work, too. They use IE7. It’s fine at home with Firefox.
Sarah, back off. Right now. If Joyce wants to go to a goddamn party, it’s no business of yours. Especially since you know that she’s a billion times more likely to leave as soon as she sees someone drinking and/or a couple making out than she is to get wasted and become a druggie. But I guess you can’t see past your paranoia, can you?
Not for the first time, I wonder what drugs Sarah’s old roommate did, and how often.
Everyone who’s yelling at Sarah saying there’s a stick up her butt, let me remind them of something?
A. Sarah’s old roommate used to do drugs and party and all that stuff, and she turned her in. She doesn’t want to see Joyce turn into that.
B. She doesn’t want Joyce’s brain to break.
C. She wants to play Apples to Apples.
How did you conclude that last one?
Because everyone wants to play Apples to Apples.
EVERYONE.
Including you. And your mother. And even Joe’s Penis.
For a nickel?
I would pay a nickel to play Apples to Apples.
Sarah is in her usual mood I see.
You mean wanting to be Joe-d? Yes she is.
god, she could use a good joeing. should’ve gotten it earlier though. now theres a line
Joe’s penis can fix anything. Even your cat.
What.
Ooooh, a “pussy” pun. That makes a lot more sense.
Almost, the pun wasn’t about the double meaning of cat but the word fixing.
your avatar is always awesome plasma.
DANKE!
No no no wait! she’s really is in a really good mood! I swear…
Her lower eyelids aren’t nearly as high as they were before! And the her frown has gotten 20% closer to a smile! look, she’s bearing teeth!
Huh? HUH?
Sarah!
Poop on all the Sarah haters, sez I
This is…actually quite nice of Joyce. She knows that Dorothy isn’t comfortable with being at the party, so she’s offering to go along even though she knows she won’t like it either, just so that Dorothy can have a familiar face there.
Joyce is basically a nice person. She’s been sheltered from a lot of things growing up, but some of that includes the things that harden people into selfish cynics.
And even after all the disillusionment and tough times of Roomies & It’s Walky, the original Joyce remained selfless at heart. I doubt DoA Joyce has lost or will lose that aspect of her character; it’s a huge part of her charm.
I know that, I was just expecting a Joyce that means well but says stupid things, like most of what we’ve seen of DoA Joyce.
omg, its the 9th here in cali lol
Sarah’s right. It’s a pretty bad idea.
Dorothy could handle this sort of thing with backup, but Joyce is the wrong backup.
And the Sprite and Apples to Apples magically disappear! This is Joyce’s superpower!
i think making it appear in the first place was the power. unless she brings apples to apples to every class in case shes invited to a slumber party… which seems incredibly possible
Maybe those things weren’t actually there and was just miming bringing stuff and the way it looked was all in our imagination??
so… sarahs NOT encouraging them right? shes being so vague with her opinion
That was really funny, actually. That was a good punchline.
holiday whobie whatie?
One year anniversary? Bravo! You’ve done very well to keep it up this long! Still holding my interest- in fact, the comic has gotten a lot more interesting since its beginning.
Congratulations on 14 years of comics. You’re one of the most prolific webcomic writers, and you’ve maintained a high standard of storytelling over all that time. Congratulations, from the bottom of my heart.
I love your avatar. XD
Kirby’s Avatar: Mrow.
Heh, thanks
Willis, I love you.
Is it wrong that I really, really, really think that Sarah needs to shut the fuck up? I mean, this is probably the first real sign we’ve got that Joyce isn’t quite as terminally naive, and is willing to go and do something she won’t enjoy for the sake of helping someone else, and then Sarah has to yell all over it.
Also, this story arc is silly. I have never met any teenager ever that is scared of a party.
Unless it is a Lemon Party, now those things are scary.
+1 / ^THIS^
To be fair, whatever the party is, it isn’t Sprite and Apples to Apples.
Roz seems to think it’s something that will specifically pull her out of her comfort zone. I don’t know about you, but billing that as the most important thing to know about a party doesn’t exactly sell me on it.
I refer you to my comment immediately below, good sir/madam/person/alien
Eh, you’d be surprised. I’ve skipped on a couple in my lifetime, though that might be less “scared” and more “extremely uncomfortable/bored.” Watching people get drunk generally isn’t that much fun unless you participate yourself.
Bringing Sprite and Apples to Apples to a party that Roz would go to, and not being naive? Does not compute.
Please observe panel 2.
Uh… I was terrified of parties as a teenager, and only marginally scared of them now I’m in my twenties. Granted, that was mostly social anxiety issues, but part of it was feeling too ‘sheltered’ to fit in with the cool kids. And all the horror stories about drugs and alcohol.
*sarcasm* You have to go to a PARTY? Oh poor, poor Dorothy, however will you deal with such a terrible, scary task?
*clears throat* How could this happen to me/ I made my mistakes/ Got nowhere to run/ The night goes on/ as I am fading away…/
To be fair to Dotty, frat parties tend to be loud and boozy, (even if a lot of them are under 21) I for one also find parties like that offputting.
Heh. I was in a fraternity, and I still found parties like that to be a bit offputting. I usually warmed up to them after a couple drinks, but still preferred to hang out somewhere away from the people and the noise (though I did try to stay close to the alcohol).
Heh, heaven forbid you look at the situation from someone else’s perspective.
From Dorothy’s perspective, she will most likely feel very awkward and/or uncomfortable for 3-6 hours. Maybe vomited on. Being scared of that is an overreaction, which I was mocking.
ALostProphet, mocking angst since 2006!
These are kids who are brand new to college and don’t know what to expect at all from going to a college party, let alone a standard party.
As someone who is not the best in large social situations and crowds actually give me anxiety, I don’t think being “scared” is an over-reaction. Being so scared that she doesn’t go would be, though.
Oh come on, guys. Sarah isn’t forbidding them to go, or to tell the dean on them and get them expelled (like her last roomie), or even saying that they are idiots.
She’s saying this is a dumb idea.
Which we all ALREADY agreed that it was. Why the hate?
I think a lot of them just need to hate on somebody, and Roz isn’t in this strip.
Because she isn’t saying “I dunno, guys, I don’t think this is a good idea.” She is looming over them and staring them down saying “This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard.” That’s about as close to forbidding as a roommate can get, short of threatening to lock Joyce out of the room (which wouldn’t be effective anyways).
Also, she IS calling them idiots, unless you have a completely different notion of what “worst idea I’ve ever heard” means. I mean, to me it says “Dear God, why have you inflicted these morons on me, who come in and lower my IQ with their ideas and stupidity?”
Finally, we don’t know that she won’t go to the dean. All we know about Sarah’s ex-roommate was that she was a stoner, did “illegal drugs,” regularly came in at 4AM (Sarah says “every night,” but I’m inclined to take that as a bit of hyperbole), and she was well-liked enough enough that Sarah became a bit of an outcast for turning her in. It sounds to me like the roomie just did some marijuana (if a bit more regularly than what was good for her study habits) and was inconsiderate about how she came back at night. If that’s what it takes before Sarah thinks she’s been burned, I wonder how quickly she’ll run to report a couple of underage students drinking so that they don’t become a problem.
Sarah is wise.
Therefore, she should be the back-up, which would not be wise but would be fun to watch!
Congrats on a year! It blew my mind a little that this is still the first week. Do you enjoy this more than real time? I’d guess there’s advantages to both styles but I’m not an expert!
Happy Birthday, Dumbing of Age! Here’s looking forward to the next year
Personally, I think going to this party would be good for Joyce. College is a time for experimenting with values and boundaries and lord knows she hasn’t had the chance to do that yet.
Yeah, Sarah needs to back off a little. I can appreciate where she’s coming from but Joyce needs to not get (s)mothered by her roomie.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY 2 U!
Happy birthday, I got you a cake, Mike helped, your mom is in that cake, we paid her a nickel to jump out topless, to bad she died.
You’re not supposed to bake the cake with her inside it.
But how else would we make the three layer cake? Layer one is cake, the second layer is your mom, the third layer is the cream filling in your mom. The Filling is Jizz.
And the cake is a bed.
The Candle is my Penis
This cake is sounding less of a lie and more of a metaphor.
So, it took Willis one year to almost get through one week in Dumbing of Age. Therefore, we can concluded that to get through the entire school year it will take 15 years, based a 15 week schedule. So by the time Joyce graduates, if she is on the four year plan, 60 years will pass. I think I might be dead by then.
Soooo, I’m fairly sure all of you who are yelling about Sarah over-reacting ( which, I will admit she is considering it is Joyce and Dor’thy we’re discussing) have never had a bad roommate in college. As someone who got a stoner+, and two drunks, in a row, let me say that Sarah, since she hasn’t gotten to know Joyce (which is her fault, yes) is having a fairly normal reaction.
And we still have no idea what the party is, causing that to remain the weekend cliffhanger despite the Saturday strip. Well played, Willis, well played.
I actually agree with Sarah. Bringing Joyce to a party that Roz is into sounds like a terrible idea.
I still think it would be hilarious if the party turns out to be shockingly downplayed and non-sexual.
I think Sarah is blowing this out of proportion too soon. Yeah, taking Joyce of all people to ANY kind of party that isn’t done in a Church Basement, is probably going to end poorly, but it might not necessarily be as evil and sexually driven as everyone is assuming. It might actually be a simple college party where people have fun.
inb4 Lesbian Party.
Sarah has a point, sort of. Yes, backup would be good. No, though, it should NOT be Joyce. We’ve all said it. It should be Billie, because she knows parties.
But does she really have the self control to be good back up?
I have a feeling that Joyce will just completely turn the party around so EVERYONE is drinking sprite and playing apples to apples, just completely converting everyone there to her side. O_O
oh no! There might be……. BEER! haha
I like how in Roomies it was such a big deal.
Until a few days ago, I never knew there were other universes with these same characters.
Meaning no offense to the obviously-talented artist, but I feel next to no interest in reading the other comics. More power to those that do, though!
also hfs I’ve been reading this for a year
I shake my fist in rage at you! >:(
Now that that’s over with, wanna drink some Sprite and play Apples to Apples? ^__^
I don’t blame you. I started reading Shortpacked and knew there were other comics but couldn’t get interested in reading them enough to justify the amount of time needed to go through the archive.
I finally did end up reading Roomies, It’s Walky! and Joyce & Walky this year though and it’s definitely worth it.
Sarah has obviously not heard of making Nightcrawler the pope, using twin clones of Hitler to take over the world, or using technology to make yourself the smartest person in the world by keeping others out of college.
I find it very hard to like Sarah
I was hoping to see Joyce and Dorothy go wild at the party.
I really dislike Sarah. That is all.
Sarah’s right — not that backup isn’t a bad idea, but Joyce is a horrible choice for it. Her reaction to the sorts of things she’ll see at a Roz style party is likely to be destructive, and Dorothy is trying to build some sort of relationship of trust to get an interview.
Wisdom, that. Truly.
XD I love all the people talking about how they dislike Sarah because she’s the one looking at this maturely. And, in Robin speak, “Looking at the world more than 15 minutes into the future!”
That, and there’s not likely to be any partying if you can’t hear the sound of Joyce shouting “PREMARITAL HANKY PANKY” at everyone….
*can’t hear anything over the sound
The worst idea I’ve ever heard is “Hey, let’s take over the world with a giant army and punish any rebels by cutting off their genitals and/or boobs”, which taught me that my brother needs some friends who don’t belong in a mental institution