For those unable to understand german: The ambulances have “second Aid” and “Third Aid” written on them, and the guy bleeding asks, if they can’t just start”
Sorry, just remembered this strip while reading the comics
It’s a Game Grumps quote. A take on those overly enthusiastic voice overs for monster truck rally ads. “Ticketspayforthewholeseatbutyou’llonlyneed the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedge!”
Could… could this be the ‘death’ Roomies had, but in a DoA way? I buy that this is the end of Amazi-Girl – but since Amazi-Girl only truly exists in Amber’s head, she can ‘die’ and no-one else has to actually go away or spend the rest of the strip grieving…
Perhaps while she’s in the hospital recovering, she’ll be reading “The Watchmen” graphic novel, thus making her reassess the hero/crime-fighting business. Indeed, the day she stops is the day I say, “Hallelujah!”
Never. Her physical safety isn’t his concern, her spiritual safety is. And that will never be ensured unless he’s watching over her (or she’s dead, if that’s what it takes).
You know, in many stories I appreciate it when the “bad guy” or antagonist gets their moment of redemption, and a chance to make things right…for once, I don’t think I want ToeDad to have that chance. His mind and views are so repugnant on every level I can’t even find merit in the fact he is doing this to “save” his daughter. Because, even though she is a legal adult he still sees her as his possession.
To paraphrase, I WANT THIS FUCKER TO GO DOWN HARD!!
I never think people like this see other people as “possessions”, rather I think they see them as part of themselves, Becky isn’t a thing he owns, Becky is a part of him, an extension if you will.
Not really. He’s got a single-shot rifle with no sights. Given the difficulties involved in shooting that accurately behind him while driving, it’d be way, way safer for Amazi-Girl than what he actually did.
I don’t think so. After she peels herself out of that car she’s still going to try and save Becky, and then bail once the coast is clear. She’ll probably desperately need medical attention, but knowing Amber she’ll still keep up the vigilante work.
Now that I think about it more carefully I realise that Amber is moving forwards as fast as the red car, and will not begin to slow until she hits the pavement, whereas the red car is already braking. She will land further from it than she was when she fell, and going faster than it, and probably not braking as sharply as it. So she won’t be run over. Probably.
My previous post was based on Wile E. Coyote physics.
Hmm, valid, but here’s a counter-argument: The car is not necessarily braking yet (the “SKREEEE” sound may come from squealing tires while swerving, not from brakes), and frankly we don’t know how good its brakes are anyway.
Meanwhile, Amazi-Girl isn’t going to be out of contact with the ground for more than half a second, while the driver may not apply the brakes by then, depending on reaction time.
He’s trying to save her soul. If her mortal body dies here on earth, at least her soul is free of all these devilish heathens and corrupting influences!
Those who said “suction cup” as the contents of A-G’s glove pocket, YOU MADE THE RIGHT CALL! *Monday Night Football Fanfare*
*plays Tears For Fears “Head Over Heels” on the car stereo*
Seems like it backfired already. Can’t blame Amazi-Girl for trying. Ross McHitler is trying to get at least three killed/injured at this rate, including himself.
It’s frankly amazing that she could fit that suction cup in her little wrist pouch. If her other pouches are full of equally useful gadgets, her costume must be pretty heavy.
I don’t think that would work. Sal and Amber are both skilled, but physics still has some authority over the weight of a grown human contacting a mostorcycle in motion.
Well, Amazigirl is currently still moving with the speed of the car. She’d have physics on her side more by contacting another vehicle moving at the same speed than hitting the street.
I can’t really see her pulling it off though :/
Followed by The Rise Of The Amazi-Girls!
– Cyber Amazi-Grrl (The Grrl of Tomorrow!)
– Dark Amazi-Grrl (The Last Daughter of Blaine)
– Amazi-Woman (in her 30’s, married, has a job – obviously the evil one)
– The Sass-Squasher (wears a fur suit, immune to criticism)
Calling it now; that’s Dina in the red car and she’ll speed up to save Amazi-Girl, who will then ride on the hood like the most awesome ornament ever and Dina will pull up close behind and let Amazi-Girl leap onto Toedad’s car where she will cut the seatbelt and pull Becky out of the passenger window before leaping back to the red car.
Sal and Joyce arrive seconds later for a big group hug.
Whoever it is has to have some reason to have been following so close behind while Amazi-Girl was tethered to Ross’ car. Presumably they’re a friendly.
I really hope it isn’t going 80! Toedad’s probably speeding (unless he took Becky’s request to drive casually), but we don’t know how quickly either car is going.
Actually, I think you’re right. I was assuming they were already on the highway, but the car behind them has probably started breaking and slowing down when Toedad started swerving like mad.
On the plus side, maybe this is what lets Sal and Joyce catch up.
She’s very lucky that Becky got him to obey traffic laws around school and they aren’t on the freeway yet. That said, that’s costume fabric and they’re probably at least going 25-35 mph and there’s a decent chance of going right under the wheels of that red car, so yeah, with a lot of luck, she’ll just roll over top of the hood and break a good chunk of bones.
She’s not going to hit head first:
1) Nobody dies. 2) She’s tumbling. Note the rotation between panels.
Also, both cars were going about the same speed, so all of her relative velocity is from the whipping motion at the moment she loses her grip. If she hits the car she’ll be fine(relatively) fine.
If Toedad swerves off the road into a tree, he will not.
Y’know, I’m not sure if it’s tumbling because it seems a bit weird a position. I wonder if she actually launched herself at the car instead, though I guess that’s rather unlikely.
You know, sometimes I just kind of wonder if Willis puts as much thought into all this as we do. I’m positive he reads all this and giggles; but I’m not sure if it’s because we are picking up on obsessive minutiae that he actually put in, or if it’s because he just drew what looked cool, yo, and here we are pulling out all sorts of scientific arguments and what to justify it and predict what happens next, examining angles of trajectory and what when he probably more went, “Okay, so in this panel she’ll just kind of be splayed out, like so, to show her loss of control…”
Either way I’m positive that he reads these comment and giggles. Like, every day. Just follows along with our conversations, giggling away to himself.
Willis promised that nobody dies (becuase the characters would be mourning FOREVER, which is no fun to read or write). Road rash and broken bones are totally possible, though.
While this is a predictable consequence of skateboarding behind a car driven by a lunatic with a gun, it’s still gut-wrenching. Nice visual effect on Amber losing her Amazi-girl gravelly voice as she screams. And that last panel!
I was going to make a statement about how Toedad’s been following the traffic laws, but then I realized that even a charitable interpretation should have been able to see the superhero surfing in the back and recognized it as one pothole away from a nasty situation and given it one hell of a large berth.
I remember when I was doing my L sample tests (not to mention the real one), half the answers were ‘don’t follow so close,’ including on every single question where it was ‘pick the best answer to prevent [safety hazard]’ with speed etc also as options. It’s kind of drilled in for me, but it seems like it should be common sense, especially when you’re watching someone skitching.
Also yeah, ‘nasty situation’ is if anything an understatement. The driver is at best pretty fucked if she hits the windshield, and in the event she goes under that’s… yeah. We know she won’t die but red car (presumably) doesn’t. I mean, pretty much the best they can hope for at this point is that she goes over and the next driver actually has backed off.
Also, red car merged back behind Ross’ car (as indicated by the median), what the hell? I understand the desire not to be in the wrong lane, but there don’t seem to be any oncoming vehicles appearing.
Yeah, they were tailing what is now going to be a bad accident, they really should have taken the spin-out onto the curb and render aid rather than being like “ooh, better swerve back into the proper lane” and resume normal driving.
That was my thought. It looks like there’s a deserted sidewalk they could pull up on, and at worst they’d end up on a tree (which would be bad for their insurance, since they shouldn’t have been following at ‘need to swerve’ range, but unlikely to kill anyone). Even without somewhere to pull up onto, they could get to the far side (left curb, leaving space to pass) and stop.
On one hand, I can see why it would, but on the other hand, it’s feasible that he was panicking at what he saw behind him and driving shittily, and probably more likely to be a reckless driving type charge (although if she died, I think it would be vehicular manslaughter). On the other hand, if he’s being brought up on charges of kidnapping, assault, etc, it probably wouldn’t be as hard to convince a jury he was trying to kill her.
I was wondering that too. I mean, she really shouldn’t have been skateboarding attached to the car, but he’s deliberately trying to hurt her. I’ve actually had one or two motorists try and run me off the road while bicycling. The least frightening scenario there is they’ve just lost track of the fact that a collision between their massive SUV and my unprotected body is likely to be fatal. Best case, Toe Dad is so locked into his obsessive “mission” that the danger he’s putting amazi-girl in isn’t really registering. Worst case, he knows what he’s doing could easily kill her and he doesn’t care.
Probably. I mean, yes she was putting herself in a reckless situation, but he also deliberately made a driving decision with deliberate intention of causing injury and harm to another person, sooo maybe, though he could always plead ignorance and shock and get the DA to drop it to vehicular manslaughter.
He’s committed kidnapping, reckless endangerment, and a few other crimes. If someone dies, it’s automatically murder. Now whether the DA pushes for that is a different question.
By the time this is settled, Fundie’s mind may be gone. At that point, his lawyer will start pushing for an insanity plea. If it all goes to trial, one fundie on the jury will hang things up since Fundie was “following the laws of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
As for AG, the red car has hit the brakes. Her forward momentum will cancel some of the speed of the oncoming car. The impact may not be severe enough to do permanent damage. An injury limited to a temporary limp and a cane isn’t out of the question. Neither is massive head trauma, but we can hope for the best.
Dina and friends could be in the red car, but I hope not. Any injury to AG will weigh heavily on Dina’s mind.
If Becky forces Fundie off the road, Joyce and Sal could arrive just in time to help her take down Fundie.
Felony murder rule. Intent is irrelevant when it happens while committing another felony. In other words, there is no manslaughter when you’ve abducted your adult daughter at gunpoint.
Attempting to shake her off has only a very narrow spectrum of outcomes. Taking an action which you have a reasonable expectation of causing death also qualifies as attempted murder. There may be some room for interpretation of intent, but toedad isn’t going to wrack up any sympathy with the jury over any of his actions. I don’t see the prosecutors having much trouble selling attempted murder.
Too easy to argue that the action was caused due to shock at the unexpected presence of a costumed vigilante attaching themselves to your car on the highway. Amaze-Girl put herself into an incredibly dangerous situation. No murder charge would stick any more than one would if you decided to dance on the freeway and someone swerved in a panic and hit you.
Could be, but even if it is the felony murder rule won’t be relevant. Either it’s an attempted murder on the grounds that he was trying to kill her, or it’s not an attempted murder at all. It can’t be attempted murder on the grounds that he was kidnapping Becky etc.
I’m torn between “OH GOD, AMBER’S GONNA GET HURT REAL BAD, OH NO” and “what if this is a red herring and Amber’ll grab the rope again tomorow” and also “man, look at the awesome art on that last panel, the perspective is just so dynamic, Willis really is a fantastic artist.”
My mind is having a lot of emotions right now and I don’t know how to feel about any of them.
I don’t expect that outcome, but if she does she will come back with a vengeance and I can picture her shimmying on/into the car in a matter of seconds.
Just gonna chime in on the art appreciation. I mean, I really enjoy the art anyway, but it’s kicked up several gears in the current sequence – brilliantly dynamic and still clearly readable. Bravo, Willis.
The last “dressed like a pokeman” person he encountered turned out to be a deceptress. He’s not giving them the benefit of the doubt again. Spawns of Satan, every one.
As Alice Macher pointed out above, Ross is into the ‘mantra’ phase. Stumbling, then repeating his conviction as a point of focus. He hesitated at the fountain when Becky agreed to go with him if it would make him put the gun down, and since then has fallen back on flat, rote statements straight out of the fundie playbook. I doubt he’s really thinking about consequences at all – for him or for anyone else.
Basically, I don’t think he’s really got any conscious processing left beyond his monomania over ‘saving’ Becky. He’s practically on autopilot at this point.
The shadows in panel 3 are slightly red tinged and for a split second I was terrified they were fresh bloodstains from road rash until I noticed amazigirl still isn’t actually injured quite yet.
Also, quick reflexes, Becky, to try to intervene on your dad’s attempted killing of another person. It’s going to get you in ninety flavors of bad news and probably wasn’t in time, but definite points for still trying your damndest to put no one in danger but yourself.
Toedad and Becky fighting for the wheel’s gonna crash that car for sure. They’ll be lucky if they don’t get T-boned by a car coming in the opposite direction. Let’s just hope it’s on Toedad’s side.
Amazi-Girl, I dunno ’bout her. It’s tough to tell the speed at which they’re traveling, but she could very well roll along the red cars hood, up the windshield, over the roof and onto the street. I’ve seen stunt men do exactly that and they walk away. She may have some broken bones and road rash, but probably nothing life threatening.
I was gonna make some sort of comment on the whole “I will keep you safe… even if I have to injur dozens of others”. But I think Ross waving his gun around earlier kinda already made that clear.
ROSS, IF YOU GET AMBER HURT, I SWEAR BY ALL THAT IS SOFT AND SERVEABLE, I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU! …NOT THAT I WAS GONNA FORGIVE YOU EITHER WAY, BUT… My point is, Ross, if Amber gets hurt because of you (and to some extent herself for actually trying this), you will have gone so far over the line, you will actually somehow end up under it.
As a side note, anyone else actually worried Ross’ insane Floridian level of driving (when ypu’ve lived here as long as I hand, you get a nice big taste of it) will get him and Becky all jacked up?
There will be pain, and possibly blood. This will probably galvanize Becky’s resolve to stop things by forcing the car off the road. She has her hands on the wheel, maybe she can get enough leverage to head for the ditch. The driver of the red car is in full panic mode right now. AG is just hoping for a reasonably soft landing. As they say, any landing you can walk away from…..
Me! Tentatively from the time Joyce said she could ‘get help’, with certainty from the moment Amazi-Girl showed up. The open question is how many others get hurt.
(And Willis, throwing a red Amber flashback in there to highlight her state of mind is NOT HELPING.)
Notice that everything he says starts with ‘I’. This is all about him and his fighting off threats to his ‘righteousness’. Paranoid delusions can be elaborate, but this is a doozy!
If her dying was a possibility, I’d be more worried for red car (despite my above claims about them being a bad car), because that’s incredibly traumatic.
i’m not “meh” but i can’t see how this storyline doesn’t lead to the end of the whole Amazi-Girl thing. the cops will be involved, she’ll be a witness that they’re definitely going to talk to so she can’t just hide from them, and her vigilantism is technically illegal so who knows how that will shake out. and that’s all assuming she doesn’t get turned into a vegetable or something by that oncoming car.
i mean willis will do whatever but it doesn’t look like everything will be coming up milhouse here is what i’m getting at
They seem really high and close together for that, but she’s probably pretty off balance so that’s not a problem. I wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be grabbing toedad instead or something though.
I misremembered a comment as something to do with everyone else’s dads wanting to keep them safe too (and needing to from Ross), and I was going to come up with a terrible remark about how Amazigirl/Amber is the only one definitely getting hurt so far, rendering the point moot, but even if that was an appropriate comment, there’s nowhere to reply it.
Sal and Joyce *may* not even see this. Sal said they would take shortcuts to avoid the sirens. “May hurt a bit”… as in thru the woods?
Hopefully, AG can do a rolling landing, *if* the red car can avoid her. I’m afraid it looks more like she will be a hood ornament, though.
Speaking as a cyclist who has found himself unexpectedly on the ground a couple of times himself, a “rolling landing” is her best bet — and her Amazi-Girl coverall will go a long way in protecting her from the most severe instances of road rash. I’d be more worried about potential head injuries (lacerations/concussions); that mask over her eyes may protect her identity but it does nothing to protect her noggin.
Toedad seems to fluctuate from saying just outright horrible things to saying things that almost seem to make him sound like a caring but insane father…
However much we despise Toedad, Willis is doing a damn good job of painting the picture of how fundie brainwashing has made what could have been a caring and great dad who would die to save his daughter into a rampaging lunatic who would instead die to “save” his daughter. Deep down under the insanity, abusive mentality, and many MANY layers of fat, there are some indications that there might be some building blocks of a good person within him… it’s just that those building blocks have been twisted and maliciously molded into this… “person” if we must call him that.
So good on you Willis, the most despised character you’ve written so far, and yet you somehow managed to make him more than just a stereotypical villain who is just an asshole for the sake of it, and actually gave him some depth without changing the fact that the character is an asshole who we are perfectly justified in hating, all in the course of… how many strips has this being going on for since he showed up with the gun? That level of writing skill deserves praise.
This looks bad, but check the overhead view; the red car is in a sideways skid, and judging by where Amber is, she would be flung off at roughly the same angle. The perspective makes it look like it’s comin’ right for her, but really they’d be moving parallel to each other.
That said, trig won’t make the speed less or the asphalt softer when she hits.
I think and hope that the red car’s gonna try to catch Amazi-Girl. A dangerous move, for sure, but so would landing on the road and shredding your skin against the blacktop. If the red car can catch up to Amazi-Girl’s speed, it could be possible (but highly improbable) to give her a platform to land on. At least then there’s a chance to jump to the safety of the grass.
It depends on how weird Willis wants to be; me, I think that the driver of the red car will dodge the person falling off the car in front. I also don’t think that it’s going too fast given that we see it skidding to avoid Ross’s swerves in panel 3.
Oh geez I’ve fallen off a car before that wasn’t even going road speed and it hurt so fuck hard. What’s happening to Amber will feel 1000x worse than it looks. D:
Not that you’re wrong, but falling out of a slow-moving car isn’t particularly weird.
Gather a bunch of people together in one place and there’s naturally gonna be different experiences, though, so I guess weirdness is relative.
I don’t think my case was too unusual. Many teenagers at my school sat on the closed trunks of cars while their friends drove between buildings. I was just the nerd who was the only one to ever fall off – never again.
WORD OF WARNING: Your doofus peers may forget they are carrying people on the car and gun the engines.
I’ve been dragged behind a moving car (long not-fun story) and my boots kept the rest of me from getting chewed up, as long as I kept my body stiff, and my feet turned out. I was hanging on to the bumper directly though, I don’t think it’d work the same with a rope.
Fun fact Willis was originally going to jump out of his car while moving to tell how much it hurts, he then decided it was a stupid idea and shoved out Joel Watson
Hopefully someone here to save the day. Someone suggested that it could be Dorothy and her teacher, which brings the possibility of getting Leslie involved at last.
I expected this twist. Just as soon as he saw her in his mirror….
Not one of them has a great immediate future at this point. I’m thinking that Sal and Joyce will only be able to pick up the pieces when they arrive.
Indeed “Damn you Willis”. Amazing story telling and artistry.
I went back to Joyce and Sal at the Fountain before Sal left her…there is a red car half into the panel. Same car?
Trying to grab a rope thats moving away from you as you move away from it at the same speed, is next to impossible I think. Amber isn’t going to get the rope back.
As to the red car? When it spotted AG skateboarding behind Toedad’s car, they may have speeded up to see if they actually saw what they thought they did. That is if they don’t know what going on.
When the car began whipping around, the red car would logically try to avoid hitting AG, which they did.
I’m thinking that whether or not the people in the red car know or don’t know what’s happening…it looks like they are trying to ‘catch’ AG on their hood maybe? Which may work out better for AG than hitting the pavement, or not – If she goes thru their windshield and causes them to crash also.
This is just too damn intense. So much happening.
Hoping for the best for Amber and Becky but scared for them.
Nothing the red car does outside of pulling a giant net to catch her is going to help her, she would actually be better of hitting the pavement because that way she would be able to slow down gradually as she rolls in the ground (of course, as long as no car rolls over her), if she hits the car she’s stopping all movement in a fraction of a second instead of across a few seconds, and the energy of the impact would be much worst.
I’m holding out hope that Ambers dad shows up, and his equal but opposite brand of horribleness will result in a confrontation with toedad, witch will end with them looking up, shouting: “Save us!” And Becky & Amber will whisper: “No.” And then they all go get icecream
It would be just Amber’s luck that it’s her dad in that red car, intent on running over “that bongo who beat me up!” It would explain why it seems to be following them in this strip.
The characters we see the most aren’t on the list. Besides, I’m pretty confident that some Jackie Chan-esque comedy acrobatics involving either the hood of that red car or Sal’s motorcycle will happen.
Also not listed – Joyce, Walky, Billie, and Dorothy.
Now, look at the tag cloud on the front page. The 5 largest names (and thus 5 most common appearances) – Joyce, Dorothy, Walky, Billie, Amber.
Amber may actually be ahead of Billie in appearances when her two tags combine, but I don’t know how much overlap is between the Amber and Amazi-Girl tags, and I’m too lazy to go through all of them and check. And she’s #5 even without it, so…
As of September 20th, the last time I updated the F-bomb count, Billie had 399 appearances and Amber/Amazi-Girl combined had 288. There were 11 strips with both Amber and A-G tagged (there’s been one more since then) and 4 strips with A-G tagged where she didn’t actually appear in the flesh (newspaper photos and the like).
Amazi-Girl’s had more spotlight since then than Billie (who hasn’t appeared at all since September 6th), but even if she’d been in every strip, it wouldn’t have caught her up to Billie.
Wow! He’s having a panic attack an a half! Seeing him try to hurt someone also seems to have broken Becky’s paralysis!
Here’s an interesting thing – Look at the speech bubble where ‘Amazi-Girl’ is screaming. The blue disappears halfway through! Any remaining doubt that Amazi-Girl is an illusion vanishes here!
Now, I suspect that she’s about to end up on the bonnet of that red car! I also wonder if that red car (or at least it’s driver) is significant but we’ll see.
Unfortunately she is already off her feet, and likely to hit the asphalt in about quarter of a second. I don’t think the red car can get there soon enough for her to roll over the bonnet — and if it does only by going so fast that the crash will be a nasty one.
I think our best hope is that Amber is still going forwards with the speed that Toedad’s car had when she let go (and maybe somewhat to the side), look at which way her cape is trailing. She won’t start slowing until she hits the pavement. Whereas the red car started braking (and weaving, unhelpfully) in panel three and will continue to slow while Amber is falling forwards. So she is going to hit the road going forwards faster than the red car, so with a bit of luck the red car will not hit her or run over her. Whew!
She’s still going to hit the road from a height of about a metre (trivial) with a forward velocity of maybe thirty or forty km/hr. Not good, but if she doesn’t hit her head, and if she slides and doesn’t run into anything, not too bad. Motorcycle racers do that sort of thing all the time, in leathers and helmet.
…
I’d like to apply for my wishful thinking merit badge now please.
A few comics back I said that I had never been worried for a fictional character like I was worried for Dina.
Willis, that wasn’t a challenge to make me MORE WORRIED for another fictional character.
The strip title is interesting. On the surface, it’s just a reference to Ross’s line in panel 1 but I do wonder if it’s about Becky’s sudden realisation that the devil (by his nature and actions) in her family is her father. If she’s learned one thing in her upbringing, it is that you must resist the devil.
I doubt they’ll charge him with attempted vehicular homicide, this looks less intentional and more like a panicked reaction. Also Dina attacked him first, though they could probably rule self-defense on her part since he was chasing them with a gun.
1. My perspective is off
2. Willis’ perspective is off
3. That red car is tailgating toedad’s car, despite just having braked to avoid him and the brightly clad girl hanging on to his rear.
4. The red car is acting vely pursuing Toedad
So my problem here is that Red Car swerves to avoid the skateboard. Why does he immediately return to Asshole Hoosier Driver following distance, despite the human in front of him having lost her particular bit of pavenent barrier and knowing that step two is “hit my windshield”?
It’s strange. Part of me wants to say “Damnit, Willis. That’s really sick you use ‘Defying Gravity’ when writing for Amazi-Girl, now that I’ve seen today’s strip.”
Then again, the first thing I thought of when I read this?
Mad outcome: Amazi-Girl floats in mid air. Cut to Joyce, astride Sal’s bike, holding out a hand as if she’s directing something.
Sal: “… What the…?”
Joyce: “There are lots of things that you don’t know about me, Sal. Things I haven’t told anyone.”
NEXT PANEL (White text on black background): “Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.“
Maybe it’s just me, but if I were driving, and I saw a girl on a skateboard being towed by the car in front of me, I would NOT drive that close to them…
I think it’s the suction cup. Not sure whether it’s landed on the hood (and attached itself as a convenient grabbing point?) or if it just looks that way as it flies in front.
Ugh, how do I clarity. It’s definitely not a picture on the car, as it’s not there in the third panel. The suction cup is the only thing I think it could be, so it’s either a hint as to how AG survives this, or a misleading art mistake. I’m holding out for the first option.
Kind of telling that “Mr. Christian”‘s first response to seeing this is to immediately pull a maneuver that is almost certain to kill his pursuer, his daughter, and himself, while maintaining his hypocrisy score by screaming that he’s trying to keep his daughter safe.
I predict:
1) AG will be able to grab the rope at the last instant, with the red car braking and barely missing running her over.
2) Toedad will swerve again, sending AG towards the sidewalk where she’ll crash in to large cushy bush, losing her grip on the rope.
3) She’ll walk away with only minor bumps & bruises.
4) Then the next strip will show Sal & Joyce closing on Toedad’s car.
I agree up to the bushes part. I suspect she may well get a death grip on that rope and not let for anything short of reaching the car if she reestablishes her grasp.
Grabbing the rope might prevent Willis from running over her. Being dragged behind a car is better than being run over by one, especially if the Amazi-Suit has padding built into it, which is quite possible. In its original incarnation, it was envisioned as pragmatic protective gear, though I’m not sure how far the Amazi-Budget extends towards implementing that kind of design in this universe.
She does have gloves, which means grabbing the rope doesn’t just mean that the palms of her hands get friction-burned off.
I’m guessing this just makes Amber double down on the vigilante streak. Look! She failed to stop Toedad! That means it’s still her fault that Sal took Ethan hostage!
It’s not really ridiculous though, is it ? I mean, there are many real life vigilantes/superheroes out there, and they do a lot of good.
Sure, her motivation isn’t the best, nor is her split personalitying.
It would be a bit ridiculous in real life, but it’s a stroke of genius as a story telling device. What better way could there be to concisely convey Amber’s internal conflict, guilt, and anger.
The way I see it, Amazi-Girl is realistic because she’s ridiculous. If somebody actually tried to do the crazy stunts she pulled, they’d need to do everything perfectly or else they’d eat road like Amber is about to. When Amber was escaping from Dorothy and ziplined onto a moving truck, it was realistic in that Amber was lucky enough for it to work.
The way I see it, Amber isn’t concerned about the consequences of actually doing these things.
Also she’s a clever visual metaphor for Amber’s psychosis and how she’s credited a powerful, invincible identity that can do anything and specifically isn’t a scared, vulnerable little girl scared of someone swinging a knife.
But she isnt invincible. In the end, she is a person just like anyone around her. She may have created a mask and a costume and an identity to hide behind. But she is just a kid who like you said “isnt concerned about consequences”. But there will be consequences whether she cares about them or not. Punishing misdemeanors on campus is one thing. She has been fortunate enough to come across an armed (as in gun) robber or someone really dangerous like that. But this, what she is trying to do here…she doesnt understand that it’s gonna make things worse for her and for the person she is trying to save.
“I will bring you home. I will keep you safe”. What a well-intentioned asshole. Becky was much more at home and much safer with her friends and girlfriend than she ever will be with her father.
I can’t tell for sure, but AG’s suction cup thing may have attached itself to the hood of the red car. Could our plucky heroine grab it on the way by and save herself?
It depends on the speed differential. AG didn’t stop when she let go of the rope, she continued forward and the car is catching her. The difference in her forward momentum, and the red car’s (which is slowing down) forward momentum could bring it down to a survivable level. A sprained, or even dislocated, shoulder might be preferable to tumbling on the pavement.
“amber may assess her love of swerves and tailgates”
amber’s love is pure and deep.
no sideswipe or car crash will change that. even if she gets injured and requires first aid after toedad skids out of control while on his warpath/tantrum. she would be aimless without her love.
metroplex.
Question. Toedad swerved his can, which was in front of the Red Car.
This caused Amazi Girl to imitate a flag, losing her footing on the skateboard.
The Red Car swerved, presumably to avoid the runaway skateboard.
Amazi Girl lost her grip on her rope and is now flying backwards.
The Red Car is now, once again, being Toedad’s car and the flying Amazi-Girl
My question. Red Car Driver: If you know something if flying through the air while you are driving, do you let it hit with the possibility it (AG) will hit your Windshield and cause you to have an accident?
Or do you remain on the other side of the road to avoid the action, perhaps drive around Toedad’s car, even fi it means that the Flying Girl might become Street Pizza?
Sounds harsh, but it might mean that, whomever is driving the red car, might be trying to help AG/Amber.
That could be a clue as to what is going to happen next.
Most drivers are trained to avoid people. Even if they’re flying through the air. If the driver has plans to catch AG on the hood, that would indicate a plan and some pretty serious driving skills.
A few weeks ago, a piece of scrap lumber blew off the back of a trailer I was following. In the fraction of a second it was flipping through the air towards me, I had time to process that: a) I didn’t have the time and space to miss it entirely, b) I didn’t want it coming through the windshield, c) it might have nails in it, so I didn’t want to drive over it, and to perform this little brake-and-jink maneuver to deliberately catch it on the front edge of the hood on the passenger’s side, where it slid harmlessly up across the hood and off onto the shoulder on the passenger’s side.
That said, I don’t think my instant reaction to a girl tumbling through the air towards my car would be to try to catch her with the hood. Though my reaction to a girl being towed on a skateboard behind a car wouldn’t be to follow her closely, either, so.
Amazi-Girl could do the backflip onto the hood of the red car (traveling at the same speed as her body) and there by deflect some of her forward momentum. But, that would take a super hero with keen reflexes.
While the red car is doing the same speed as her body it isn’t going to catch up with her, and therefore it will still be several yards away in 0.4 seconds, when she hits the road. To close the gap before she falls to the pavement it would have to be going faster than her.
The gap looks like at least five metres, and to cover that in 0.4 second would require a speed of 20 m/s faster than Amazi-Girl. 72 km/hr. About 45 mph faster than Amazi-Girl. And that’s just enough to run over her at the exact moment she hits the pavement. To get her before her centre of mass falls below the height of the bumper the car would have to be even faster than that. Are you still keen?
Given the kind of series DoA is, hanging character deaths over our heads doesn’t add tension, since they can’t ever get killed off in the first place without significantly changing the mood of the series.
No, I mean, Amber and Becky aren’t going to die in this story arc, but I disagree that knowing that alleviates all tension.
If, say, Becky were to die here, Joyce would be completely done as a character. There would literally never be any point in time where we’d be able to go back to any sense of levity with any of the cast, because the sliding timescale would dictate that Joyce would have to be dealing with grief for years of story time.
Besides that, character death has a tendency to totally define a character. Does anybody care about Roomies!Ruth beyond her intimate relationship with a truck?
I am always bewildered by those who say that saying this or doing that “deflates tension,” as if deflating tension is automatically a terrible thing. Deflating tension is a purposeful storytelling tool. And yet I see people scoffing at it, as if stories should pound you relentlessly with a mallet without reprieve or any moment of relief. That’s not good storytelling. That’s just annoying. That’s someone who doesn’t know how to set a proper rhythm. And, yeah, I’ve been there. I used to be that guy. Set up sixteen terrible things and ram them at you one by one until you’re feeling raw and numb.
I know better now. Puncture tension? Absolutely! It gives room for feeling. I value people having that trust in me that things will never reach a certain point of awful over my capacity to be sadistic for the lulz.
Your ability to create suspense is unparalleled. In your strip, everyone deals with the consequences of their actions or past-lives, and no one is guaranteed a happy ending. The sections where those consequences hit are some of the most powerfully written stuff I’ve come across on the internet. It’s so compelling that even the sections where everything seems to be going right are incredibly nerve-wracking.
I’m was talking specifically about Amazi-Girl’s life or death feats. And I did not mean to knock your execution of any of the writing or drawing here. What made me say that was the realization that you’re pacing A.G.’s superhero genre storyline at the rate of the rest of the cast’s (and Amber’s) slice-of-life storyline, which is significantly slower than real time, and is so much less compressed than standard super-hero story-telling time (where a hospital stay can occur between strips if need be).
There’s also the fact that a comedic beat, when an audience is anxiously waiting on the next serialized installment, actually adds to the anticipation and builds tension.
And not everyone knows that a character can’t die. I didn’t, until I read it in the comments. Even then, how do I know I can trust that? As a reader I care about what’s given to me in the story. not what a writer might promise.
And even then, comedic beats keep the story human and interesting. I’m not her fro grimdark, I’m not hear for humor. I’m here for all of it, and the tension is working just fine for me as is.
Why do I get the feeling that one of these people is going to be the “new” Ruth. She self sacrificed in the Walkyverse, now the Willis demands tribute from the Dumbverse.
Hollyyy crap Sal catches her mid bike trick — is what I’m expecting. the momentum would probably throw the bike though, I mean females are naturally the heavier gender and amazigirl is like pure muscle
Loading ...
Amazi-Girl’s REALLY gonna wanna be Defying Gravity in a sec here
While assessing her love of swerves and tailgates
After this, I think she’ll appreciate First Aid quite a bit.
She’s gonna need second aid and third aid, too.
As well as aid^aid.
not a good time for Cool aid…. oh no…
Maybe some Live Aid would help? Or how about a Band Aid?
secnd aid is surgery. I think so too.
http://static.nichtlustig.de/comics/full/080703.jpg
For those unable to understand german: The ambulances have “second Aid” and “Third Aid” written on them, and the guy bleeding asks, if they can’t just start”
Sorry, just remembered this strip while reading the comics
Truly, No Good Deed goes unpunished.
I just hope this doesn’t put her down For Good…
Let Her Go!
(What is this Feeling?)
((Something Bad))
One Short Day
(In the Life of an Indiana University student)
Amazi-Girl is in some Dear Old Shiz (not a typo)
This’ll make Toe-dad even less Popular, I think.
Was he ever ?
Dina knew right away not to trust him. I didn’t either.
That’ll teach her to go on Dancing Through Life.
(psst the correct answer to WeirderThanWeird is No One Mourns The Wicked)
Toedad didnt even make it on the poll, I dont think hes particularly popular.
Don’t worry, willis promises no-one will get see the light in DoA, heavy damage is another matter xD
Welp.
Weeellllllp.
Malc.
I paid for the whole seat, BUT I ONLY NEEDED THE EDGE!
i get that reference
Where’s that from?
Matinee comes to mind, though that might be wrong (or merely one of several places that use it)
It’s a Game Grumps quote. A take on those overly enthusiastic voice overs for monster truck rally ads. “Ticketspayforthewholeseatbutyou’llonlyneed the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedge!”
It’s a little older than Game Grumps, I’d say. 😉
They used to say variants of it in drive-in ads back in the day.
I’m sure it is, but this variant in specific was quoted by Dan from the Game Grumps.
If you say so, I’ll believe it. Never seen Game Grumps, myself… 😉
I remember it from The Simpsons.
I remember it from Strong Bad’s description of one of the Dangeresque movies.
“It’s from X, where they were quoting something else!”
So… it’s not, then?
Original version was used in ads for the games at the Roman Coleseum.
I only came here to like this comment.
Welp, Amber is dead.
It’s hard to imagine that she will make it to her afternoon classes.
Will she get an excused absence?
Amber isn’t tagged here, even though she has a third of a speech bubble. I guess the cheeks are what counts.
Amber isn’t there, amazi-girl is.
Could… could this be the ‘death’ Roomies had, but in a DoA way? I buy that this is the end of Amazi-Girl – but since Amazi-Girl only truly exists in Amber’s head, she can ‘die’ and no-one else has to actually go away or spend the rest of the strip grieving…
*boggles*
Well, Willis did say no one would get hit by a truck…does this count?
“This can only end in tears!”
the bubble goes both colours.
I have to agree, regardless of what happens in universe the last panel looks super fatal.
if she survives she’ll be in the amazi-wheelchair
… Too soon?
It’s sure as hell going to leave a mark.
Kid’s got more lives than Glen from the Walking Dead.
Too soon
un-called-for. >-[
*sobs uncontrollably
but i do have to hand it to you for the funny
And it all comes crashing down. Partial pun partially intended. Sorry.
You mean, “It all returns to nothing, it all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down…“?
*plays “down to nothing” on the muzik*
Oh fuck. o_o
oh
Oh no no no no no. 🙁
amazi-girl’s probably not immune to this
Amazi-Girl is immune to criticism, and in this case, gravity has a few critiques to make. Physics has always been a hater.
But.. but physics was on the side of Amber’s ass against her dad! I’m confused.
physics is a fickle mistress
Physics is kinda a dick like that.
I read that as Amber’s fat ass is going to cushion her from the fall. That’s what I’m hoping for anyway.
Oohhhhhh shit. There’s our hospital patient. :c
I ducked in here to say the exact same thing.
Not only that, but the cover will be blown on her viligante alter-ego.
I jus picture Sal (wearing helmet) and Joyce coming in for the save, catching Amazi-girl and tossing her through toe-dad’s rear window.
But what about the drama tag??
I was thinking that, but swinging a person why on something as unstable as a motorocycle at full speed is kinda…
whILE
Perhaps while she’s in the hospital recovering, she’ll be reading “The Watchmen” graphic novel, thus making her reassess the hero/crime-fighting business. Indeed, the day she stops is the day I say, “Hallelujah!”
I keep wondering when Toedad will realize Becky is safer without him than with him.
Probably around half past never.
He is a hateful small minded bigot wrapped in the cloak of religious zealotry.
He will never achieve that level of self awareness.
Never. Her physical safety isn’t his concern, her spiritual safety is. And that will never be ensured unless he’s watching over her (or she’s dead, if that’s what it takes).
This.
Probably around the third prison visit or so.
You know, in many stories I appreciate it when the “bad guy” or antagonist gets their moment of redemption, and a chance to make things right…for once, I don’t think I want ToeDad to have that chance. His mind and views are so repugnant on every level I can’t even find merit in the fact he is doing this to “save” his daughter. Because, even though she is a legal adult he still sees her as his possession.
To paraphrase, I WANT THIS FUCKER TO GO DOWN HARD!!
I never think people like this see other people as “possessions”, rather I think they see them as part of themselves, Becky isn’t a thing he owns, Becky is a part of him, an extension if you will.
So, you’re saying he thinks of her like she’s his femur?
And he needs that to live!
Aw, come on, man.
Then she lands safely on the hood of the other car and jumps off it to perform a matrix move. Easy.
YEAH EASY DO IT AMBER AMBER DO IT PLEASE WHY ISNT SHE DOING IT OH GOD SHES NOT BREATHING
Give her a moment!
It’s okay! Hulk Roar will turn the battery of her heart back on!
Already in progress. Note her physical orientation in the last panel. Becky is in the brown car.
THIS THIS THIS
PLEASE WILLIS MAKE IT HAPPEN
i don’t suppose a white-gloved arm is gonna pop out of that red car and scoop her up is it
Ultra-car, is that you?
Whaaaaat 😀
That does make me wonder if that might not be Carla’s car. She is supposed to be a fan of the cartoon character Ultra-car.
holy shit if carla swooped in to save the day that would be so rad
She doesn’t know Becky and her only interaction with Amazi-girl was AG trying to pick up a fight out of nowhere, tho.
…frankly, she’s lucky he didn’t shoot.
Pretty hard to fire a rifle in a car with one hand while driving it with the other.
If we can call that driving.
Kinda hard to shoot a rifle while also driving a car. Rifle kinda needs two hands and some amount of steadiness.
Not really. He’s got a single-shot rifle with no sights. Given the difficulties involved in shooting that accurately behind him while driving, it’d be way, way safer for Amazi-Girl than what he actually did.
…frankly, this looks about as survivable as if he had.
I think there’s still a chance she could grab her tow line.(Or is that Toe line in this case?)
Even if she did, that still wouldn’t turn out well for her.
After all, that’s the method that those a$#holes in Texas used to lynch that guy back in 1998:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Byrd,_Jr.
Also Hypatia.
I think that’s a bigger risk if Becky’s attempt to stop her dad’s swerving results in the car spinning out to a stop.
Oh.
So this is who’s going to the hospital.
Yup. Now we know that even if there weren’t any preview panels.
oh god why
And that probably means bye-bye secret identity.
Technically, we don’t know 100%
Could also be whoever is in the red car or Becky
Amber IS crazy enough to try dragging herself away to keep her identity secret, after all
I don’t think so. After she peels herself out of that car she’s still going to try and save Becky, and then bail once the coast is clear. She’ll probably desperately need medical attention, but knowing Amber she’ll still keep up the vigilante work.
Well, seeing they’re about to crash into a tree, and then Sal+Joyce will crash into the red car as it frantically breaks… everyone
everyon’s at the hospital. Danny will bring them oranges.
Brakes.
god what is WRONG with my english today.
Frankly, I thought the misspelling intentional – it works well with the ‘…everyone’ at the end.
“What the devil–?”? Haha, okay Stewie Griffin.
Yikes.
Sal will save her from becoming road pizza.
oh yeah!
…is that still possible?
Only if she manages to catch up with Toedad.
Well that’s going to hurt in about a second or two.
I estimate about half a second. It’ll be a close-run thing between hitting the asphalt and getting hit by the red car.
Going under the red car would be bad.
Now that I think about it more carefully I realise that Amber is moving forwards as fast as the red car, and will not begin to slow until she hits the pavement, whereas the red car is already braking. She will land further from it than she was when she fell, and going faster than it, and probably not braking as sharply as it. So she won’t be run over. Probably.
My previous post was based on Wile E. Coyote physics.
Hmm, valid, but here’s a counter-argument: The car is not necessarily braking yet (the “SKREEEE” sound may come from squealing tires while swerving, not from brakes), and frankly we don’t know how good its brakes are anyway.
Meanwhile, Amazi-Girl isn’t going to be out of contact with the ground for more than half a second, while the driver may not apply the brakes by then, depending on reaction time.
F-f-f-f-fuuuck thiiiis.
He seems to have a definition of the word “safe” I was not previously aware of…
He’s trying to save her soul. If her mortal body dies here on earth, at least her soul is free of all these devilish heathens and corrupting influences!
Well, this is not good…
It’s going to be a rough ride for Amazi-Girl. She should have brought an Amazi-Helmet.
Oh jeez oh jeez oh jeez
Interesting. Looks like the dialog shifts from Amaze-Girl voice to Amber voice in the second panel.
I’m amazed she kept the Amazi-Girl voice at all given the circumstances.
Those who said “suction cup” as the contents of A-G’s glove pocket, YOU MADE THE RIGHT CALL! *Monday Night Football Fanfare*
*plays Tears For Fears “Head Over Heels” on the car stereo*
I think that was me. I may not be alone, though.
I guess that means she was planning to climb onto the car? Unless it’s just falling out of her pouches now.
Seems like it backfired already. Can’t blame Amazi-Girl for trying. Ross McHitler is trying to get at least three killed/injured at this rate, including himself.
Look for the sucker in the other panels. There’s hope coming out of Pandora’s Box.
Oh shit, you’re right! Suction cup grab on to the other car.
There were some pepper (?) bombs too, apparently.
It’s frankly amazing that she could fit that suction cup in her little wrist pouch. If her other pouches are full of equally useful gadgets, her costume must be pretty heavy.
The pouches are bigger on the inside.
Or Sal and Joyce motorcycle it in to get her.
I don’t think that would work. Sal and Amber are both skilled, but physics still has some authority over the weight of a grown human contacting a mostorcycle in motion.
Well, Amazigirl is currently still moving with the speed of the car. She’d have physics on her side more by contacting another vehicle moving at the same speed than hitting the street.
I can’t really see her pulling it off though :/
Amazi-Girl Issue #75 : The Death of Amazi-Girl
It’s why the writers created Doomsdad.
Followed by The Rise Of The Amazi-Girls!
– Cyber Amazi-Grrl (The Grrl of Tomorrow!)
– Dark Amazi-Grrl (The Last Daughter of Blaine)
– Amazi-Woman (in her 30’s, married, has a job – obviously the evil one)
– The Sass-Squasher (wears a fur suit, immune to criticism)
Not a hoax! Not a dream!
Not an imaginary story!
Not a dream, not a lie, a happy scene before my eyes.
Calling it now; that’s Dina in the red car and she’ll speed up to save Amazi-Girl, who will then ride on the hood like the most awesome ornament ever and Dina will pull up close behind and let Amazi-Girl leap onto Toedad’s car where she will cut the seatbelt and pull Becky out of the passenger window before leaping back to the red car.
Sal and Joyce arrive seconds later for a big group hug.
Toedad crashes.
SHUT UP I CAN DREAM ;_;
Whoever it is has to have some reason to have been following so close behind while Amazi-Girl was tethered to Ross’ car. Presumably they’re a friendly.
It turns out that Dina had run back to the school and collected a group composing of Danny, Walky, Dorothy Billie and Sarah
Dannys driving
Billies Riding shotgun
Dorothys making battle plans
Walky has a pair of nun chucks
Sarah has her bat
Dina is being Dina (awesome)
So, Danny’s gonna crash, Billie wanted to drive but was sloshed, and Walky has his seatbelt? The rest seems accurate enough…
Wait, maybe that’s Dorothy and her teacher ^^;
GHOOOOOOOOOST RIDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER
And after a few weeks of over the top sometimes hard to believe developments we come crashing back to reality.
This storyline is just too intense
Makes the last episode of The Walking Dead feel like an Animaniacs marathon.
Amazi-Girl, time to fly.
Ross, time to die.
Reverse those and you get what’s actually happening! Oh boy!
Karma will prevail. I’m keeping the faith in Amazi-Girl.
At the controls of a wildly swerving vehicle containing another person is actually a pretty bad time to die.
“I want to die quietly in my sleep, like my grandpa. Not screaming in horror, like the passengers in his car.” — quote from I forget where.
Bob Monkhouse, whoever that was:
http://www.quotery.com/quotes/when-i-die-i-want-to-go-peacefully-like-my/
Uh-oh, Toedad’s going into the mantra phase of madness. Next, the rocking back and forth, which is another thing that isn’t good to do while driving.
That may explain the swerving, though.
You know, a car will ground you pretty effectively if you let it run you over.
Ah, so she was pulling out some sort of suction cup device to climb onto the car, that makes sense (for a given value of “sense”).
Also, oh shit.
Is Amazi-Girl immune to crashing headfirst into an oncoming vehicle going 80?
I really hope it isn’t going 80! Toedad’s probably speeding (unless he took Becky’s request to drive casually), but we don’t know how quickly either car is going.
Actually, I think you’re right. I was assuming they were already on the highway, but the car behind them has probably started breaking and slowing down when Toedad started swerving like mad.
On the plus side, maybe this is what lets Sal and Joyce catch up.
There’s no highway out of Bloomington you can go 80 on.
Not legally, anyway — but somehow I don’t think ToeDad would let something like that get in his way.
Yeah, but 37 (which they haven’t even reached yet, since it is a four-lane road) isn’t even a freeway – the speed limit is 60.
I’ve been clocked going 82 in a 25.
The cop was not happy. At all.
(On the plus side I pretty much never go more than 5 over the speed limit any more.)
She’s very lucky that Becky got him to obey traffic laws around school and they aren’t on the freeway yet. That said, that’s costume fabric and they’re probably at least going 25-35 mph and there’s a decent chance of going right under the wheels of that red car, so yeah, with a lot of luck, she’ll just roll over top of the hood and break a good chunk of bones.
I don’t think they’ve left the campus yet, and if that’s the case I doubt they’re doing more than 30.
And the red car started braking in panel three. Which is Amber’s best hope for not going under it.
80? Heck I doubt she’s immune to one hitting her going 10. Especially at that angle.
She’s not going to hit head first:
1) Nobody dies. 2) She’s tumbling. Note the rotation between panels.
Also, both cars were going about the same speed, so all of her relative velocity is from the whipping motion at the moment she loses her grip. If she hits the car she’ll be fine(relatively) fine.
If Toedad swerves off the road into a tree, he will not.
Y’know, I’m not sure if it’s tumbling because it seems a bit weird a position. I wonder if she actually launched herself at the car instead, though I guess that’s rather unlikely.
You know, sometimes I just kind of wonder if Willis puts as much thought into all this as we do. I’m positive he reads all this and giggles; but I’m not sure if it’s because we are picking up on obsessive minutiae that he actually put in, or if it’s because he just drew what looked cool, yo, and here we are pulling out all sorts of scientific arguments and what to justify it and predict what happens next, examining angles of trajectory and what when he probably more went, “Okay, so in this panel she’ll just kind of be splayed out, like so, to show her loss of control…”
Either way I’m positive that he reads these comment and giggles. Like, every day. Just follows along with our conversations, giggling away to himself.
Only if the vehicle is a Chevrolet Criticism!
Dammit, someone’s dying in this arc. I’m becoming more and more sure of that. 🙁
Willis promised that nobody dies (becuase the characters would be mourning FOREVER, which is no fun to read or write). Road rash and broken bones are totally possible, though.
Oh, I didn’t see that, good to hear. Been having Roomies! Ruth flashbacks ever since the car chase happened.
Just this once, Rose. Everybody lives!
While this is a predictable consequence of skateboarding behind a car driven by a lunatic with a gun, it’s still gut-wrenching. Nice visual effect on Amber losing her Amazi-girl gravelly voice as she screams. And that last panel!
Yes. Amazing work.
People call me single minded.
Well, you built quite a reputation on that…please don’t kill me!
Well, she’s not getting hit by a truck
I’m kind of mad at red car for even getting that close to that mess.
I was going to make a statement about how Toedad’s been following the traffic laws, but then I realized that even a charitable interpretation should have been able to see the superhero surfing in the back and recognized it as one pothole away from a nasty situation and given it one hell of a large berth.
Seriously, red car, what the hell?
I remember when I was doing my L sample tests (not to mention the real one), half the answers were ‘don’t follow so close,’ including on every single question where it was ‘pick the best answer to prevent [safety hazard]’ with speed etc also as options. It’s kind of drilled in for me, but it seems like it should be common sense, especially when you’re watching someone skitching.
Also yeah, ‘nasty situation’ is if anything an understatement. The driver is at best pretty fucked if she hits the windshield, and in the event she goes under that’s… yeah. We know she won’t die but red car (presumably) doesn’t. I mean, pretty much the best they can hope for at this point is that she goes over and the next driver actually has backed off.
This is why I’m thinking that the red car is there for a plot-significant reason. We’ll see what that turns out to be.
Also, red car merged back behind Ross’ car (as indicated by the median), what the hell? I understand the desire not to be in the wrong lane, but there don’t seem to be any oncoming vehicles appearing.
Yeah, they were tailing what is now going to be a bad accident, they really should have taken the spin-out onto the curb and render aid rather than being like “ooh, better swerve back into the proper lane” and resume normal driving.
That was my thought. It looks like there’s a deserted sidewalk they could pull up on, and at worst they’d end up on a tree (which would be bad for their insurance, since they shouldn’t have been following at ‘need to swerve’ range, but unlikely to kill anyone). Even without somewhere to pull up onto, they could get to the far side (left curb, leaving space to pass) and stop.
I’m less mad about that, though, because it’s panic judgement (like people slamming their brakes on ice), the main thing is why they’re so close.
If it’s Tom Cruise in that car, he’d be the only guy who could help with the accident.
TOM CRUISE, USE YOUR WITCHCRAFT TO STOP TOEDAD!
Also, where did red car come from?
It wasn’t visible in the last two strips, where we see Amazi-Girl being towed. Then suddenly, it’s right there.
I wonder if that counts as attempted murder.
On ToeDad’s part? Ehh, I dunno, Amazi-Girl shouldn’t’ve been there. I guess the swerving was unnecessary.
I figure it would be manslaughter at worst (if she were to die). At best, he’s probably just violating a safe driving practice.
but would his church count it as murder? That’s the only question that will affect his actions.
On one hand, I can see why it would, but on the other hand, it’s feasible that he was panicking at what he saw behind him and driving shittily, and probably more likely to be a reckless driving type charge (although if she died, I think it would be vehicular manslaughter). On the other hand, if he’s being brought up on charges of kidnapping, assault, etc, it probably wouldn’t be as hard to convince a jury he was trying to kill her.
I was wondering that too. I mean, she really shouldn’t have been skateboarding attached to the car, but he’s deliberately trying to hurt her. I’ve actually had one or two motorists try and run me off the road while bicycling. The least frightening scenario there is they’ve just lost track of the fact that a collision between their massive SUV and my unprotected body is likely to be fatal. Best case, Toe Dad is so locked into his obsessive “mission” that the danger he’s putting amazi-girl in isn’t really registering. Worst case, he knows what he’s doing could easily kill her and he doesn’t care.
Worst case, the “devil” part of his comment was meant literally, and he might not even consider that she’s a human, mortal, being.
Probably. I mean, yes she was putting herself in a reckless situation, but he also deliberately made a driving decision with deliberate intention of causing injury and harm to another person, sooo maybe, though he could always plead ignorance and shock and get the DA to drop it to vehicular manslaughter.
He’s committed kidnapping, reckless endangerment, and a few other crimes. If someone dies, it’s automatically murder. Now whether the DA pushes for that is a different question.
Ah. They have the felony murder rule in Indiana.
By the time this is settled, Fundie’s mind may be gone. At that point, his lawyer will start pushing for an insanity plea. If it all goes to trial, one fundie on the jury will hang things up since Fundie was “following the laws of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
As for AG, the red car has hit the brakes. Her forward momentum will cancel some of the speed of the oncoming car. The impact may not be severe enough to do permanent damage. An injury limited to a temporary limp and a cane isn’t out of the question. Neither is massive head trauma, but we can hope for the best.
Dina and friends could be in the red car, but I hope not. Any injury to AG will weigh heavily on Dina’s mind.
If Becky forces Fundie off the road, Joyce and Sal could arrive just in time to help her take down Fundie.
lmao what did Amber expect would happen
Ouchers.
Maybe it’s time to bump up my Patreon contribution to see tomorrow’s strip…
“Hopefully we will have the technology to rebuild her”.
I really hope we can avoid using Amazi-cybernetics.
“she tried to chase down a religious zealot but got smushed by a car, so we rebuilt her as ROBO-AMAZI-GIRL”
Da-da-da-da-da Inspector ‘Mazing…
Martian tech?
“act with integrity….”
“…that said, I have a few regrets right about now”
So glad I Ctrl-F’d for that reference before making it myself.
Whelp, that’s attempted murder.
Manslaughter maybe. Not murder.
I was going to disagree based on not knowing if he means to kill her, but I think you’re right, as I definitely wouldn’t call this premeditated.
Maybe not premeditated, but definitely Negligent. He could have slowed down gradually then come to a safe stop. But he didn’t.
Three strikes Toedad, three strikes. You re not getting out of this one.
Amber had better survive this, somehow.
Felony murder rule. Intent is irrelevant when it happens while committing another felony. In other words, there is no manslaughter when you’ve abducted your adult daughter at gunpoint.
Yeah, but the felony murder rule only applies if someone dies. It’s not relevant to a charge of attempted murder.
Attempting to shake her off has only a very narrow spectrum of outcomes. Taking an action which you have a reasonable expectation of causing death also qualifies as attempted murder. There may be some room for interpretation of intent, but toedad isn’t going to wrack up any sympathy with the jury over any of his actions. I don’t see the prosecutors having much trouble selling attempted murder.
Too easy to argue that the action was caused due to shock at the unexpected presence of a costumed vigilante attaching themselves to your car on the highway. Amaze-Girl put herself into an incredibly dangerous situation. No murder charge would stick any more than one would if you decided to dance on the freeway and someone swerved in a panic and hit you.
Could be, but even if it is the felony murder rule won’t be relevant. Either it’s an attempted murder on the grounds that he was trying to kill her, or it’s not an attempted murder at all. It can’t be attempted murder on the grounds that he was kidnapping Becky etc.
yes, I was probably wrong on that point.
Ugg, earlier response was supposed to be up here. I’ll just say “felony murder rule” and point down. \/
Or up. /\
Shit is going down!
I’m torn between “OH GOD, AMBER’S GONNA GET HURT REAL BAD, OH NO” and “what if this is a red herring and Amber’ll grab the rope again tomorow” and also “man, look at the awesome art on that last panel, the perspective is just so dynamic, Willis really is a fantastic artist.”
My mind is having a lot of emotions right now and I don’t know how to feel about any of them.
I don’t expect that outcome, but if she does she will come back with a vengeance and I can picture her shimmying on/into the car in a matter of seconds.
Just gonna chime in on the art appreciation. I mean, I really enjoy the art anyway, but it’s kicked up several gears in the current sequence – brilliantly dynamic and still clearly readable. Bravo, Willis.
And that’s why you don’t skateboard while attached to a speeding car.
I hope the Amazi-Suit has some good roadrash protection built into it.
At least it should be better than a T-shirt and shorts…
…minus the whole secret identity reveal thing.
Willing to die to save your daughter is one thing, willing to sacrifice someone else… how could he possibly not think that’ll send him to hell?
I wouldn’t assume he entirely understands what’s happening.
Maybe he’s willing to go to hell for his daughter.
Either that or he believes he’s in the right no matter what.
The last “dressed like a pokeman” person he encountered turned out to be a deceptress. He’s not giving them the benefit of the doubt again. Spawns of Satan, every one.
It’s another demon dead set on corrupting my daughter and stealing her womanhood. I will not let this one deceive me and take her away from me!
As Alice Macher pointed out above, Ross is into the ‘mantra’ phase. Stumbling, then repeating his conviction as a point of focus. He hesitated at the fountain when Becky agreed to go with him if it would make him put the gun down, and since then has fallen back on flat, rote statements straight out of the fundie playbook. I doubt he’s really thinking about consequences at all – for him or for anyone else.
Basically, I don’t think he’s really got any conscious processing left beyond his monomania over ‘saving’ Becky. He’s practically on autopilot at this point.
The shadows in panel 3 are slightly red tinged and for a split second I was terrified they were fresh bloodstains from road rash until I noticed amazigirl still isn’t actually injured quite yet.
WILLIS STAHP
I thought the same thing.
Dammit, Willis, it’s just one dun-DUN-DUNNN! moment after another. If the tension keeps on increasing like this my brain is going to catch fire.
fwoosh!
Oh, Gods…well, Amber. No regrets now!
Ya nothing says safety like taking her prisoner and forcing her to stay by threatening her life with a gun.
One Batman-style hood landing coming right up. Come one Amazi-Girl!
Toe dad, I get what your motivations are, but what you’re doing right now are kind of counter to either of those things happening.
To some Thatime up :https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
The next book’s title is going to have a traction joke in there, won’t it?
10 to 1 says Sal and Joyce fly in and catch
AmberAmazi-Girl mid-air.I don’t get it. Where’s the pun?
Well, this strip lacks any traction, so I didn’t feel the need for it.
eeeee
Are you the impersonation of a long forgotten Pun God? Your knowledge is ABOVE ours.
Come on you can do this ! Just channel what ever acrobatic skill you used to jump on that truck earlier.
Also, quick reflexes, Becky, to try to intervene on your dad’s attempted killing of another person. It’s going to get you in ninety flavors of bad news and probably wasn’t in time, but definite points for still trying your damndest to put no one in danger but yourself.
Honestly we’re all worrying too much. We already know Amazi-girl’s bones were rendered super dense in a lab accident. It’s the person in that red car who has to worry.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/weigh/
Repeated small fractures over an extended period of time can lead to higher bone density…
ah, so that’s how that guy in Durarara did it.
Yeah! Let’s cause accidents and kill a lot of innocent bystanders!
All because I’m a selfish fuck.
At least the driver in the following car started braking before Amazi-girl came unstuck.
Who the hell was in the red car and why were they following DIRECTLY BEHIND AMBER?
Paparazzi, most like.
“Sweet, this is goin’ on mah TumblAAAGHH!!”
Doofus with a cell phone, which it might be, really doesn’t count as paparazzi.
nope nope nope nope nope
Come on Amazi-Girl! Stick the landing! You can do it!
Toedad and Becky fighting for the wheel’s gonna crash that car for sure. They’ll be lucky if they don’t get T-boned by a car coming in the opposite direction. Let’s just hope it’s on Toedad’s side.
Amazi-Girl, I dunno ’bout her. It’s tough to tell the speed at which they’re traveling, but she could very well roll along the red cars hood, up the windshield, over the roof and onto the street. I’ve seen stunt men do exactly that and they walk away. She may have some broken bones and road rash, but probably nothing life threatening.
I was gonna make some sort of comment on the whole “I will keep you safe… even if I have to injur dozens of others”. But I think Ross waving his gun around earlier kinda already made that clear.
ROSS, IF YOU GET AMBER HURT, I SWEAR BY ALL THAT IS SOFT AND SERVEABLE, I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU! …NOT THAT I WAS GONNA FORGIVE YOU EITHER WAY, BUT… My point is, Ross, if Amber gets hurt because of you (and to some extent herself for actually trying this), you will have gone so far over the line, you will actually somehow end up under it.
As a side note, anyone else actually worried Ross’ insane Floridian level of driving (when ypu’ve lived here as long as I hand, you get a nice big taste of it) will get him and Becky all jacked up?
There will be pain, and possibly blood. This will probably galvanize Becky’s resolve to stop things by forcing the car off the road. She has her hands on the wheel, maybe she can get enough leverage to head for the ditch. The driver of the red car is in full panic mode right now. AG is just hoping for a reasonably soft landing. As they say, any landing you can walk away from…..
So, who had Amber in the ‘ends up in hospital’ office pool?
Don’t call it until Big Toe Daddy is in custody. He and Becky aren’t out of danger.
Me! Tentatively from the time Joyce said she could ‘get help’, with certainty from the moment Amazi-Girl showed up. The open question is how many others get hurt.
(And Willis, throwing a red Amber flashback in there to highlight her state of mind is NOT HELPING.)
Man, Toedad’s words, “I will keep you safe” Seriously? Becky needs to be kept safe from him.
So do all of Becky’s friends. That guy is a menace.
Notice that everything he says starts with ‘I’. This is all about him and his fighting off threats to his ‘righteousness’. Paranoid delusions can be elaborate, but this is a doozy!
Am I the only one who is like meh about Amber possibly dying?
Yes
If her dying was a possibility, I’d be more worried for red car (despite my above claims about them being a bad car), because that’s incredibly traumatic.
i’m not “meh” but i can’t see how this storyline doesn’t lead to the end of the whole Amazi-Girl thing. the cops will be involved, she’ll be a witness that they’re definitely going to talk to so she can’t just hide from them, and her vigilantism is technically illegal so who knows how that will shake out. and that’s all assuming she doesn’t get turned into a vegetable or something by that oncoming car.
i mean willis will do whatever but it doesn’t look like everything will be coming up milhouse here is what i’m getting at
Anyway, what are Becky’s hands doing?
Trying to grab the wheel, I believe.
They seem really high and close together for that, but she’s probably pretty off balance so that’s not a problem. I wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be grabbing toedad instead or something though.
I misremembered a comment as something to do with everyone else’s dads wanting to keep them safe too (and needing to from Ross), and I was going to come up with a terrible remark about how Amazigirl/Amber is the only one definitely getting hurt so far, rendering the point moot, but even if that was an appropriate comment, there’s nowhere to reply it.
Well, I doubt Joyce’s parents are going to be too happy with Ross from Pointing a gun at their daughter.
Blaine, on the other hand…
So, theory time:
Amazi-Girl gets taken out of the picture here. She’s immune to criticism; not internal bleeding.
Becky and Toedad crash or otherwise come to a stop, giving Sal and Joyce enough time to catch up.
Toedad, now realizing that his plan to save his sinning harlot daughter’s soul has failed, shoots Becky, and she’s who ends up in the hospital.
Police show up and take Toedad down.
Becky gets carted off in an ambulance and Amber, now holding herself to together with masking tape and hope, slinks away.
Isn’t it the other timeline where Amazi-Girl is immune to criticism?
Here she’s prepared for anything. This is anything, so I look forward to seeing what she has thought out in her carefully prepared will.
Holy carp what is that other car on the road?
My guess is a 2013+ Mazda3 hatchback, though it could be a 2013+ Mazda6.
Did we ever figure out what the Toedadmobile is?
“I will protect you, even if that means you die a slow painful death!”
Sal and Joyce *may* not even see this. Sal said they would take shortcuts to avoid the sirens. “May hurt a bit”… as in thru the woods?
Hopefully, AG can do a rolling landing, *if* the red car can avoid her. I’m afraid it looks more like she will be a hood ornament, though.
Speaking as a cyclist who has found himself unexpectedly on the ground a couple of times himself, a “rolling landing” is her best bet — and her Amazi-Girl coverall will go a long way in protecting her from the most severe instances of road rash. I’d be more worried about potential head injuries (lacerations/concussions); that mask over her eyes may protect her identity but it does nothing to protect her noggin.
She’s fine, this is fine, I’m not in denial, EVERYTHING IS FINE.
oh boy, do I really want to see Becky’s dad getting killed
I don’t think Becky wants ANYONE dead, even Butthole Dad.
But it might be a mercy. I don’t know if he can be saved.
NO! I really hope Amber survives this….
AMBEEEEEEE– I mean, AMAAAAZIIIGIIIIIIIRLLLLLL T____T
All the speculation about the red car here is wrong. It’s clearly being driven by Avagadro Pompey and is about to claim another victim.
Swerving erratically in your car with your daughter sitting in the passenger seat is not a very good way to keep her safe.
Even if it is to shake the person riding off the back of your car like a water skier.
He litterally saw satan grippling to his car.
Toedad is aware that “safe” does not mean “wrapped inside a metal death burrito” yes?
Only the good die young I guess…. :'(
The rest lives long enough to see themselves becoming the villain.
Too bad Amazi-girl wasn’t wearing Amber’s glasses back at the parking lot incident.
this is why skateboards need smartwheels
And feetbelts.
That sounds unsafe.
Yes. It’a B.C. reference.
Toedad seems to fluctuate from saying just outright horrible things to saying things that almost seem to make him sound like a caring but insane father…
However much we despise Toedad, Willis is doing a damn good job of painting the picture of how fundie brainwashing has made what could have been a caring and great dad who would die to save his daughter into a rampaging lunatic who would instead die to “save” his daughter. Deep down under the insanity, abusive mentality, and many MANY layers of fat, there are some indications that there might be some building blocks of a good person within him… it’s just that those building blocks have been twisted and maliciously molded into this… “person” if we must call him that.
So good on you Willis, the most despised character you’ve written so far, and yet you somehow managed to make him more than just a stereotypical villain who is just an asshole for the sake of it, and actually gave him some depth without changing the fact that the character is an asshole who we are perfectly justified in hating, all in the course of… how many strips has this being going on for since he showed up with the gun? That level of writing skill deserves praise.
But the building blocks were made of 6000 year old parchment.
Agree 100%
Agree 100% – this was supposed to reply to cmd1095
It was a reply to them…
Nice. Who would’ve thought Amazi-Girl had a giant red automated car-themed cushion to catch her in an emergency? This is a huge relief.
Wonder which Amazi-pouch *that* was in?!
First of all, called the swerve! It makes sense that his immediate reaction would be to shake off someone who’s on you.
Dammit, Willis. Why?
T_T
This looks bad, but check the overhead view; the red car is in a sideways skid, and judging by where Amber is, she would be flung off at roughly the same angle. The perspective makes it look like it’s comin’ right for her, but really they’d be moving parallel to each other.
That said, trig won’t make the speed less or the asphalt softer when she hits.
at least I hope it works like that, that mechanic’s coverall she wears might help protect her a bit
Sounds like a prime opportunity for open windows.
I think and hope that the red car’s gonna try to catch Amazi-Girl. A dangerous move, for sure, but so would landing on the road and shredding your skin against the blacktop. If the red car can catch up to Amazi-Girl’s speed, it could be possible (but highly improbable) to give her a platform to land on. At least then there’s a chance to jump to the safety of the grass.
Yeah, the only other way would be if the ‘ACME Pillow, Bubble wrap, and assorted fluffy things’ truck were to overturn at that exact moment
Fortunately, Adam West is holding a foam rubber convention (featuring a large display of ‘foam rubber, in it’s natural state’) nearby. Crisis averted!
She is already too low, and going down, not up.
It depends on how weird Willis wants to be; me, I think that the driver of the red car will dodge the person falling off the car in front. I also don’t think that it’s going too fast given that we see it skidding to avoid Ross’s swerves in panel 3.
I’m impressed that she can maintain the Amazi-girl voice through all of this out of control flopping around.
Oh geez I’ve fallen off a car before that wasn’t even going road speed and it hurt so fuck hard. What’s happening to Amber will feel 1000x worse than it looks. D:
Ok, people in the comment section really have seen some WEIRD shit.
Not that you’re wrong, but falling out of a slow-moving car isn’t particularly weird.
Gather a bunch of people together in one place and there’s naturally gonna be different experiences, though, so I guess weirdness is relative.
I don’t think my case was too unusual. Many teenagers at my school sat on the closed trunks of cars while their friends drove between buildings. I was just the nerd who was the only one to ever fall off – never again.
WORD OF WARNING: Your doofus peers may forget they are carrying people on the car and gun the engines.
Incidentally, I have seen a lot of weird shit. 🙂
Oh god, this is it. This is Amber’s ticket to the hospital XC
Again I’m so impressed by Becky. She doesn’t just sit meek and obedient when her father is about to CRASH THE CAR and KILL someone.
Beginning to think this story arch exists just so David can reduce his cast size to something more manageable.
Dad you keep running into the minor characters!
Rachel: weeeeeee!
Goes flying into the distance
She’s just blasting off. She’ll be fine, just like Team Rocket.
I’ve been dragged behind a moving car (long not-fun story) and my boots kept the rest of me from getting chewed up, as long as I kept my body stiff, and my feet turned out. I was hanging on to the bumper directly though, I don’t think it’d work the same with a rope.
….. After the day I have been having, this is definitely not a twist I wanted to happen tonight.
*halfhearted “Damn you Willis”*
Oh great, who pulled the drama tag?
Fun fact Willis was originally going to jump out of his car while moving to tell how much it hurts, he then decided it was a stupid idea and shoved out Joel Watson
*snrk* Well, with those two, Hijinks *will* Ensue.
Who the hell would be driving that close behind someone with a fricken skateboarder hanging off the back of their car on a rope?
Hopefully someone here to save the day. Someone suggested that it could be Dorothy and her teacher, which brings the possibility of getting Leslie involved at last.
I expected this twist. Just as soon as he saw her in his mirror….
Not one of them has a great immediate future at this point. I’m thinking that Sal and Joyce will only be able to pick up the pieces when they arrive.
Indeed “Damn you Willis”. Amazing story telling and artistry.
I went back to Joyce and Sal at the Fountain before Sal left her…there is a red car half into the panel. Same car?
Trying to grab a rope thats moving away from you as you move away from it at the same speed, is next to impossible I think. Amber isn’t going to get the rope back.
As to the red car? When it spotted AG skateboarding behind Toedad’s car, they may have speeded up to see if they actually saw what they thought they did. That is if they don’t know what going on.
When the car began whipping around, the red car would logically try to avoid hitting AG, which they did.
I’m thinking that whether or not the people in the red car know or don’t know what’s happening…it looks like they are trying to ‘catch’ AG on their hood maybe? Which may work out better for AG than hitting the pavement, or not – If she goes thru their windshield and causes them to crash also.
This is just too damn intense. So much happening.
Hoping for the best for Amber and Becky but scared for them.
Nothing the red car does outside of pulling a giant net to catch her is going to help her, she would actually be better of hitting the pavement because that way she would be able to slow down gradually as she rolls in the ground (of course, as long as no car rolls over her), if she hits the car she’s stopping all movement in a fraction of a second instead of across a few seconds, and the energy of the impact would be much worst.
At least Becky’s buckled in. When her dad crashes, he’ll get a faceful of dashboard, she might be able to escape and get someone’s attention.
Sternum full of steering column followed by a face full of airbags.
Act with integrity, Amazi-Girl. No regrets.
It’s kinda redundant by now, but Toedad’s lines…
“yup, he’s totes delusional”.
Mixed with a bit of bonkers it’s a “good” chemistry.
I’m holding out hope that Ambers dad shows up, and his equal but opposite brand of horribleness will result in a confrontation with toedad, witch will end with them looking up, shouting: “Save us!” And Becky & Amber will whisper: “No.” And then they all go get icecream
It would be just Amber’s luck that it’s her dad in that red car, intent on running over “that bongo who beat me up!” It would explain why it seems to be following them in this strip.
That’s not his car, though.
Notice that Amber’s name is absent from the poll of who you want to see more of? I didn’t until I saw this comic. 😐
The characters we see the most aren’t on the list. Besides, I’m pretty confident that some Jackie Chan-esque comedy acrobatics involving either the hood of that red car or Sal’s motorcycle will happen.
I hope so. I really hope so. <_<
Also not listed – Joyce, Walky, Billie, and Dorothy.
Now, look at the tag cloud on the front page. The 5 largest names (and thus 5 most common appearances) – Joyce, Dorothy, Walky, Billie, Amber.
Amber may actually be ahead of Billie in appearances when her two tags combine, but I don’t know how much overlap is between the Amber and Amazi-Girl tags, and I’m too lazy to go through all of them and check. And she’s #5 even without it, so…
Yeah, the point of the poll is to vote for people who aren’t essentially guaranteed spotlight forever and ever, so the top five folks are left off.
As of September 20th, the last time I updated the F-bomb count, Billie had 399 appearances and Amber/Amazi-Girl combined had 288. There were 11 strips with both Amber and A-G tagged (there’s been one more since then) and 4 strips with A-G tagged where she didn’t actually appear in the flesh (newspaper photos and the like).
Amazi-Girl’s had more spotlight since then than Billie (who hasn’t appeared at all since September 6th), but even if she’d been in every strip, it wouldn’t have caught her up to Billie.
Wow! He’s having a panic attack an a half! Seeing him try to hurt someone also seems to have broken Becky’s paralysis!
Here’s an interesting thing – Look at the speech bubble where ‘Amazi-Girl’ is screaming. The blue disappears halfway through! Any remaining doubt that Amazi-Girl is an illusion vanishes here!
Now, I suspect that she’s about to end up on the bonnet of that red car! I also wonder if that red car (or at least it’s driver) is significant but we’ll see.
Unfortunately she is already off her feet, and likely to hit the asphalt in about quarter of a second. I don’t think the red car can get there soon enough for her to roll over the bonnet — and if it does only by going so fast that the crash will be a nasty one.
I think our best hope is that Amber is still going forwards with the speed that Toedad’s car had when she let go (and maybe somewhat to the side), look at which way her cape is trailing. She won’t start slowing until she hits the pavement. Whereas the red car started braking (and weaving, unhelpfully) in panel three and will continue to slow while Amber is falling forwards. So she is going to hit the road going forwards faster than the red car, so with a bit of luck the red car will not hit her or run over her. Whew!
She’s still going to hit the road from a height of about a metre (trivial) with a forward velocity of maybe thirty or forty km/hr. Not good, but if she doesn’t hit her head, and if she slides and doesn’t run into anything, not too bad. Motorcycle racers do that sort of thing all the time, in leathers and helmet.
…
I’d like to apply for my wishful thinking merit badge now please.
Sorry, more like four tenths of a second.
Let’s see you shriek in a Batman rasp.
Do we know that only one person ends up in hospital?
No, not at all.
A looooooot of them will.
Not with a car pileup you won’t :I
A few comics back I said that I had never been worried for a fictional character like I was worried for Dina.
Willis, that wasn’t a challenge to make me MORE WORRIED for another fictional character.
If the Fast and Furious movies have taught me anything, its that being thrown at a windshield at 60+ mph rarely ends in any injures at all.
So this storyline just keeps getting worse. O.O
The strip title is interesting. On the surface, it’s just a reference to Ross’s line in panel 1 but I do wonder if it’s about Becky’s sudden realisation that the devil (by his nature and actions) in her family is her father. If she’s learned one thing in her upbringing, it is that you must resist the devil.
Ross does seem to be determined to stack the felonies though, doesn’t he?
* Felony kidnap;
* Threatening behaviour with a firearm;
* Attempted vehicular homicide;
* Assault (on Dina).
He’ll be lucky if he sees the outside of an Indiana penitentiary for ten years!
Also: discharging a firearm, terroristic threats, and a lot of erratic driving misdemeanors
Becky will be free from the Toefungus of Death for quite a long while, if she survives this catastrophe bound to occur.
I doubt they’ll charge him with attempted vehicular homicide, this looks less intentional and more like a panicked reaction. Also Dina attacked him first, though they could probably rule self-defense on her part since he was chasing them with a gun.
couldn’t resist when saw reflection from the mirror: imgur.com/pq615e9
Totally irrelevant, but good job on the red car. One can recognize it as a Mazda.
Well now we go who’s going to the hospital.
know*
Okay, one of four thi gs is happening here.
1. My perspective is off
2. Willis’ perspective is off
3. That red car is tailgating toedad’s car, despite just having braked to avoid him and the brightly clad girl hanging on to his rear.
4. The red car is acting vely pursuing Toedad
I really hope it is number 4
Sodding autocorrect phone.
4. The red car is acting vely pursuing Toedad4. The red car is actively pursuing Toedad
Because that’s what this situation needs…MORE untrained civilians getting in each other’s (and the authorities) way.
What authorities?
People get ready, there’s a motorcycle a ‘coming.
I’m fairly certain that this was not the plan…
So my problem here is that Red Car swerves to avoid the skateboard. Why does he immediately return to Asshole Hoosier Driver following distance, despite the human in front of him having lost her particular bit of pavenent barrier and knowing that step two is “hit my windshield”?
Indiana drivers suck.
Total loss of steering control, maybe?
It’s strange. Part of me wants to say “Damnit, Willis. That’s really sick you use ‘Defying Gravity’ when writing for Amazi-Girl, now that I’ve seen today’s strip.”
Then again, the first thing I thought of when I read this?
http://instantrimshot.com/index.php?sound=priceiswrong
Where’s Ruth when you need her?
Though I suppose hitting her with a car to get her out of the way of this car probably wouldn’t do much good.
Went into full panic until I saw the other car was stopping. Now it’s just gone from almost certain death to simply very possible.
Mad outcome: Amazi-Girl floats in mid air. Cut to Joyce, astride Sal’s bike, holding out a hand as if she’s directing something.
Sal: “… What the…?”
Joyce: “There are lots of things that you don’t know about me, Sal. Things I haven’t told anyone.”
NEXT PANEL (White text on black background): “Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.“
Well, she was already carrying the bike a few pages ago.
Is the Alt-text a mario-kart reference?
I suspect Sal’s learning mario-kart storyline , is about to be used.
I believe it’s a Transformers reference.
Yes. Yes it is.
Dumbing of Age now brought to you by Mazda.
Zoom Zoom Shitttt!
I… I’m not gonna lie… this has me really nervous.. I love Amber I don’t want her to die D:
That’s gonna leave a mark.
Maybe it’s just me, but if I were driving, and I saw a girl on a skateboard being towed by the car in front of me, I would NOT drive that close to them…
And then Amber died. Oh, calm down people, she’s got more lives than Glen.
Is that… a kitty drawing on the red car’s front ?
Or maybe a white dog ?
I think it’s the suction cup. Not sure whether it’s landed on the hood (and attached itself as a convenient grabbing point?) or if it just looks that way as it flies in front.
Ugh, how do I clarity. It’s definitely not a picture on the car, as it’s not there in the third panel. The suction cup is the only thing I think it could be, so it’s either a hint as to how AG survives this, or a misleading art mistake. I’m holding out for the first option.
Maybe it was what she was getting out of her wrist pouch. Which is flapping open, now.
And spilling things …
… and the red car swerved exactly enough to catch the suction cup!
Yeah, I finally saw that after my post!
Red car is doing their part to pick up litter!
Hope they can scoop up Amazi-Girl, too!
Why Willis…
Because nobody else, only Willis.
Kind of telling that “Mr. Christian”‘s first response to seeing this is to immediately pull a maneuver that is almost certain to kill his pursuer, his daughter, and himself, while maintaining his hypocrisy score by screaming that he’s trying to keep his daughter safe.
“Turn the other cheek” indeed, the filth.
Upside-down is technically a direction one DOES turn a cheek while flipping a motor vehicle.
Looks more like a panicked reaction than a conscious decision. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a huge asshole, but for other reasons.
I predict:
1) AG will be able to grab the rope at the last instant, with the red car braking and barely missing running her over.
2) Toedad will swerve again, sending AG towards the sidewalk where she’ll crash in to large cushy bush, losing her grip on the rope.
3) She’ll walk away with only minor bumps & bruises.
4) Then the next strip will show Sal & Joyce closing on Toedad’s car.
I agree up to the bushes part. I suspect she may well get a death grip on that rope and not let for anything short of reaching the car if she reestablishes her grasp.
She seems like she’s lost her grip here. Though without the skateboard she probably doesn’t want to be holding onto the rope anymore.
`Reestablish`
At this point, grabbing the rope would be just as bad as not grabbing it, without the skateboard she’d be dragged and bumped around on the road.
Grabbing the rope might prevent Willis from running over her. Being dragged behind a car is better than being run over by one, especially if the Amazi-Suit has padding built into it, which is quite possible. In its original incarnation, it was envisioned as pragmatic protective gear, though I’m not sure how far the Amazi-Budget extends towards implementing that kind of design in this universe.
She does have gloves, which means grabbing the rope doesn’t just mean that the palms of her hands get friction-burned off.
What’s the thing with a handle and inverted cone in panel two near the skateboard?
I think that’s something that fell from Amber’s wrist pocket. Suction cup, maybe?
Suction cup. Presumably what A-G was getting out of her forearm pouch yesterday, though I have no idea how it fit in there.
…are we trading a truck and Ruth in for a sports car and Amazi-Girl?
I’m pretty sure that fighting over the steering wheel is somewhere in the top ten good practices to make driving safe.
Can this *please* be the end of Amazi-Girl? I hope Amber survives with minimal damage.
I’m guessing this just makes Amber double down on the vigilante streak. Look! She failed to stop Toedad! That means it’s still her fault that Sal took Ethan hostage!
I’m sort of expecting she will somehow escape harm, and no lessons will be learnt.
It’s just I agree with Sarah on this. AmaziGril’s existence is ridiculous. Only a matter of time before it backfired.
It’s not really ridiculous though, is it ? I mean, there are many real life vigilantes/superheroes out there, and they do a lot of good.
Sure, her motivation isn’t the best, nor is her split personalitying.
“there are many real life vigilantes/superheroes out there.”
There are?
Oh yes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-life_superhero
It would be a bit ridiculous in real life, but it’s a stroke of genius as a story telling device. What better way could there be to concisely convey Amber’s internal conflict, guilt, and anger.
The way I see it, Amazi-Girl is realistic because she’s ridiculous. If somebody actually tried to do the crazy stunts she pulled, they’d need to do everything perfectly or else they’d eat road like Amber is about to. When Amber was escaping from Dorothy and ziplined onto a moving truck, it was realistic in that Amber was lucky enough for it to work.
The way I see it, Amber isn’t concerned about the consequences of actually doing these things.
Also she’s a clever visual metaphor for Amber’s psychosis and how she’s credited a powerful, invincible identity that can do anything and specifically isn’t a scared, vulnerable little girl scared of someone swinging a knife.
*created a powerful, invincible identity.
But she isnt invincible. In the end, she is a person just like anyone around her. She may have created a mask and a costume and an identity to hide behind. But she is just a kid who like you said “isnt concerned about consequences”. But there will be consequences whether she cares about them or not. Punishing misdemeanors on campus is one thing. She has been fortunate enough to come across an armed (as in gun) robber or someone really dangerous like that. But this, what she is trying to do here…she doesnt understand that it’s gonna make things worse for her and for the person she is trying to save.
WHY DID I HAVE TO CATCH UP TO THE STORY!!!!
This is going to be a beautiful, horrible accident. o__o
“I will bring you home. I will keep you safe”. What a well-intentioned asshole. Becky was much more at home and much safer with her friends and girlfriend than she ever will be with her father.
THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF SAFE!!!
I can’t tell for sure, but AG’s suction cup thing may have attached itself to the hood of the red car. Could our plucky heroine grab it on the way by and save herself?
Possibly, though that would be a good way to get a dislocated shoulder. Or, you know, have your arm torn off.
It depends on the speed differential. AG didn’t stop when she let go of the rope, she continued forward and the car is catching her. The difference in her forward momentum, and the red car’s (which is slowing down) forward momentum could bring it down to a survivable level. A sprained, or even dislocated, shoulder might be preferable to tumbling on the pavement.
And then Joyce and Sal swoop around at the last possible second and yank Amazi-girl out of mid air in a spectacular save! Right? Guys? o_o
“amber may assess her love of swerves and tailgates”
amber’s love is pure and deep.
no sideswipe or car crash will change that. even if she gets injured and requires first aid after toedad skids out of control while on his warpath/tantrum. she would be aimless without her love.
metroplex.
¬_¬
Question. Toedad swerved his can, which was in front of the Red Car.
This caused Amazi Girl to imitate a flag, losing her footing on the skateboard.
The Red Car swerved, presumably to avoid the runaway skateboard.
Amazi Girl lost her grip on her rope and is now flying backwards.
The Red Car is now, once again, being Toedad’s car and the flying Amazi-Girl
My question. Red Car Driver: If you know something if flying through the air while you are driving, do you let it hit with the possibility it (AG) will hit your Windshield and cause you to have an accident?
Or do you remain on the other side of the road to avoid the action, perhaps drive around Toedad’s car, even fi it means that the Flying Girl might become Street Pizza?
Sounds harsh, but it might mean that, whomever is driving the red car, might be trying to help AG/Amber.
That could be a clue as to what is going to happen next.
Most drivers are trained to avoid people. Even if they’re flying through the air. If the driver has plans to catch AG on the hood, that would indicate a plan and some pretty serious driving skills.
A few weeks ago, a piece of scrap lumber blew off the back of a trailer I was following. In the fraction of a second it was flipping through the air towards me, I had time to process that: a) I didn’t have the time and space to miss it entirely, b) I didn’t want it coming through the windshield, c) it might have nails in it, so I didn’t want to drive over it, and to perform this little brake-and-jink maneuver to deliberately catch it on the front edge of the hood on the passenger’s side, where it slid harmlessly up across the hood and off onto the shoulder on the passenger’s side.
That said, I don’t think my instant reaction to a girl tumbling through the air towards my car would be to try to catch her with the hood. Though my reaction to a girl being towed on a skateboard behind a car wouldn’t be to follow her closely, either, so.
Sooo, one probable hospital injury confirmed, details on other two at eleven.
Oh geeze.
Oh geeze oh geeze.
Amber, who fights crime,
But also who has an intense but as-of-yet barely explored relationship with computers and programming, introduced in the earliest years of the comic,
who may be about to experience a tragic car accident,
in a comic that descends from Roomies, a comic with a tragic car accident,
And is in love specifically with Batgirl among all superheroes…
What if he’s been setting her up to be Oracle this whole time.
She’s trying to Marty McFly Toedad’s Biff but she doesn’t have a hoverboard and they aren’t in a tunnel
Oh no… This just went to hell properly.
I just realized that Fundie’s car is at about a 45 degree angle. Is it about to roll?
It doesn’t look like anyone has commented on the “camera angle” in that fourth panel. It looks like the car may flip over!
Well dammit Guairdean’s comment wasn’t there when I wrote mine!
Great minds think alike, and in sync.
What was your plan!?
Remember kids, always wear a helmet when you’re trying to be a hero. See: Sal.
Looks like Amazi-girl is going to have to be renamed Road Rash Girl. Hope she keeps her skalp, nose, and lips.
All The Gear. All The Time.
She is not going to enjoy the ashpalt being wire brushed out of what’s left of her skin. Poor kid. Hard way to learn that lesson.
I pretty much saw something like this coming.
Still…. yikes.
Has nobody noticed that this car is red — and very Tesla-like? Could it be–?
Red eco-friendly Batman?
A possible carry-over/reference to Shortpacked.
Amazi-Girl could do the backflip onto the hood of the red car (traveling at the same speed as her body) and there by deflect some of her forward momentum. But, that would take a super hero with keen reflexes.
While the red car is doing the same speed as her body it isn’t going to catch up with her, and therefore it will still be several yards away in 0.4 seconds, when she hits the road. To close the gap before she falls to the pavement it would have to be going faster than her.
The gap looks like at least five metres, and to cover that in 0.4 second would require a speed of 20 m/s faster than Amazi-Girl. 72 km/hr. About 45 mph faster than Amazi-Girl. And that’s just enough to run over her at the exact moment she hits the pavement. To get her before her centre of mass falls below the height of the bumper the car would have to be even faster than that. Are you still keen?
Gack! That’ll teach me to attempt mental arithmetic without coffee! Five metres in 0.4 second is 12.5 m/s. 28 mph.
God save us from religious zealots.
Wait… That doesn’t make sense.
Just like religion! Ha!
Ahem… Sorry. Carry on.
“Dear God, please protect me from your followers. Amen.”
Thank God I am an atheist!
Oh God! Two days and I’ve already caught up on everything.
Now I have to wait like everyone else!
Whatever injury she gets can’t be fatal, and it can’t involve any injuries that will hospitalize her for more than a couple of weeks (if that).
Telling your audience you won’t kill any of your characters and that time skips won’t be used punctures some of the tension.
Given the kind of series DoA is, hanging character deaths over our heads doesn’t add tension, since they can’t ever get killed off in the first place without significantly changing the mood of the series.
*Given the kind of series DoA is, hanging character deaths over our heads doesn’t add tension*
Not all of us agree with that. *teeth clenched*
No, I mean, Amber and Becky aren’t going to die in this story arc, but I disagree that knowing that alleviates all tension.
If, say, Becky were to die here, Joyce would be completely done as a character. There would literally never be any point in time where we’d be able to go back to any sense of levity with any of the cast, because the sliding timescale would dictate that Joyce would have to be dealing with grief for years of story time.
Besides that, character death has a tendency to totally define a character. Does anybody care about Roomies!Ruth beyond her intimate relationship with a truck?
Sorry I didn’t make myself clearer.
Some read this comic outside that fourth wall, with comforting reassurances about what can’t happen.
Me, I’m beside that road watching in horror.
I am always bewildered by those who say that saying this or doing that “deflates tension,” as if deflating tension is automatically a terrible thing. Deflating tension is a purposeful storytelling tool. And yet I see people scoffing at it, as if stories should pound you relentlessly with a mallet without reprieve or any moment of relief. That’s not good storytelling. That’s just annoying. That’s someone who doesn’t know how to set a proper rhythm. And, yeah, I’ve been there. I used to be that guy. Set up sixteen terrible things and ram them at you one by one until you’re feeling raw and numb.
I know better now. Puncture tension? Absolutely! It gives room for feeling. I value people having that trust in me that things will never reach a certain point of awful over my capacity to be sadistic for the lulz.
There are stories other than death.
Your ability to create suspense is unparalleled. In your strip, everyone deals with the consequences of their actions or past-lives, and no one is guaranteed a happy ending. The sections where those consequences hit are some of the most powerfully written stuff I’ve come across on the internet. It’s so compelling that even the sections where everything seems to be going right are incredibly nerve-wracking.
I’m was talking specifically about Amazi-Girl’s life or death feats. And I did not mean to knock your execution of any of the writing or drawing here. What made me say that was the realization that you’re pacing A.G.’s superhero genre storyline at the rate of the rest of the cast’s (and Amber’s) slice-of-life storyline, which is significantly slower than real time, and is so much less compressed than standard super-hero story-telling time (where a hospital stay can occur between strips if need be).
But I was being too blase, I apologize.
There’s also the fact that a comedic beat, when an audience is anxiously waiting on the next serialized installment, actually adds to the anticipation and builds tension.
And not everyone knows that a character can’t die. I didn’t, until I read it in the comments. Even then, how do I know I can trust that? As a reader I care about what’s given to me in the story. not what a writer might promise.
And even then, comedic beats keep the story human and interesting. I’m not her fro grimdark, I’m not hear for humor. I’m here for all of it, and the tension is working just fine for me as is.
Why do I get the feeling that one of these people is going to be the “new” Ruth. She self sacrificed in the Walkyverse, now the Willis demands tribute from the Dumbverse.
Faz volunteers as tribute!
Who could have ever foreseen attaching yourself to the back of a car secretly going wrong?!
How is that safe?
Hollyyy crap Sal catches her mid bike trick — is what I’m expecting. the momentum would probably throw the bike though, I mean females are naturally the heavier gender and amazigirl is like pure muscle
Just
Sorry, i can’t do html right.
Oh no. That won’t end WELL.