Hooray! The Dumbing of Age Book 5 Kickstarter reached $50k, meaning everybody who pledges for a paper book (versus a PDF) will get a free Amber magnet. That’s pretty sweet.
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Hooray! The Dumbing of Age Book 5 Kickstarter reached $50k, meaning everybody who pledges for a paper book (versus a PDF) will get a free Amber magnet. That’s pretty sweet.
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NO ONE EXPECTS
THE SPANISH INQUISITIONSAL(or Carla, for that matter)
((unless you know what I’m doing with my Gravatar and were waiting for today, I guess))
The Spanish Inquisitionsal was not a good time for Amber..
To be fair, there haven’t been many good times for Amber.
And this one balances on a knife edge.
I knew you were hiding something… Parkour Champion 2016!
The payoff was worth the wait.
The Sal-ish Inquisition?
Fight!!!
Or flight???
Or say thanks.
Or ask Walky why he’s in drag…y’know, cause her glasses are busted.
I’m holding on to a dim hope that make-outs will result.
You know, Fight-or-Flight is really a false dichotomy, as there’s at least one other option displayed in nature, which Amber seems to be demonstrating, and coincidentally also starts with “F”: Freeze. (See Also: Possums and/or Fainting Goats)
Yeah, my confrontation instincts seem to be Feint or Faint. Or Fbe completely insufferable. (The F is silent on that last one.)
Yup, I think we’re about to see Amber in freeze mode for the duration of this encounter, which, depending on the strength and noise of her flashback, might mean we get another round of Sal tries to connect, Amber is too triggered to really listen.
I prefer the other “f” alternative.
…look my dick got me into this mess, it’s only fair if it gets me back out of it too!
Comment: 7/10. Comment w/ Oglaf fox: 11/10. Well played!
Or kiss and make up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TUeUL7EW9M
God Damn Willis can’t we get an off season from all this drama?
My future seeing laser-eyes see that the answer is no.
Do the laser eyes shoot in the present or future? Like are you going to be chillin, reading the comic when sudden your computer explodes and you’re gonna be like “oh right, I was divining the future of the comic like two years ago.
No, see, the two powers are distinct and separate. The lasers can’t go into the future any more than the future sight can hurt anybody.
The power up sequence is exactly the same though, so I sometimes activate the other power by mistake. I’ve destroyed several computers that way. Not to mention the number of times I’ve foreseen my own hilarious butt-kicking.
Pokemon begs to differ about the damage Future Sight can do
OK fine, emotional distress maybe, but physically, future sight can’t cause much damage.
Poor Steven…
Parkour is fucking intense.
What Parkour and Intense do with each other is their business, unless it’s non-consensual and/or in public and frightening the horses.
Nay.
yeahWHAT’S IN THE BOX
(the OTHER boxes)
A dick.
He’ll give you an all Faz comic.
It’ll just be Faz pointing to a line chart, with the arrow marked “Drama” pointing down. The arrow marked “Great Faz’s Penis” on the other hand…
…will have a magnifying glass attached to it?
tunneling electron microscope.
Do we WANT an off-season?
What would an off-season even entail? Non-stop dick jokes?
Non-stop butt jokes.
Butts disease – There is no cure, butt there is hope, through research.
Define “season”.
I predict a three-strip series of general non-drama silliness before the end of the next book. Does that count?
This *is* the off-season. We’re being softened up for the worse bits.
You’ve been reading Wilis comics for awhile, haven’t you?
I’ve got ‘damn you willis’ permanently on stand-by in a system copy buffer.
Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
–iiiipping is likely to happen whenever multiple people are in one comic strip
Three-way!
Specifically, given the parkour, the window exits, and the grappling hooks, a three-way halfway up the side of a six-story building.
I like your way of thinking
So, a one-way three-way halfway up?
Carla confirmed for next movie Spider-Man.
Look, she’s even shouting her character’s name, though she hasn’t got the pronunciation down yet.
oh boy, here we go
Spider-Car
Spider-Car
She is just like a spider… are?
Can she swing from a web?
If that web is structurally sound enough to support her weight and she has a proper grip, then I suppose so.
Watch out! Here comes the Spider-Car.
The hat takes over
In Dumbiverse, it’s Spider-Carla.
I love the idea of Spider-Man bouncing around shouting “Parker! Parker!” like some weird Pokeman
Though it would cause him to have even more trouble than usual holding on to his secret identity
People start shouting “IT’S PRONOUNCED PARKOUR YOU DUMBASS”
P. Ponah Pokemon.
PETER PARKOUR
Maybe they should make out?
…:-)
Hatefucks solve all the problems!(not really)
PARKOUR PARKOUR!
I thought only Harry Dresden shouted “Parkour!”. Everyone else just does it.
We were thinking the exact same thing!
Dresden!!!
I wonder if he just does it to annoy his… house guests.
Well, also Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute.
Your Harry Dresden post inspired me to reread the books again, this time in audiobook format. James Marsders reads them!!
Ooooh, look, Amber and Carla can parkour together and have fun and be friends and… no, wait, Amber doesn’t parkour. Amaziegirl has hogged that one too
Amber won’t let Amber be anything but a meek introvert. Anything positive goes to Amazi-Girl.
Including good eyesight? How does Amazi-Girl see? And why can’t Amber use whatever AG uses?
I think she was practicing back-flips as Amber one evening? Danny was watching IIRC.
Anyhows, I’m betting there’s a sweaty superhero costume in the pile of laundry.
How does one clean spandex anyway?
Caring for Spandex. To retain maximum shape and flexibility, spandex should be hand washed only, using lukewarm water and mild detergent, such as Woolite or Deft. Never twist or wring Spandex when washing, but gently knead the garment and rinse thoroughly with cool, clear water.
You’re welcome
Do not taunt happy Spandex.
How much do I love sugar-high Parkour Carla? All the much.
Many much. The most much.
Many much… Moosen?
idk if anyone got that joke but that’s fucking hilarious
Amen
Yea, I have seen Brian Regan doing standup.
Such parkour. Much wow. Doge.
Oh that explains her upside-down state.
Yes. So much. 😀
Parkour!
Save some of the much for me! I want to love Carla the much.
I hope the costume’s not in the laundry.
She hardly looks any different with it on, Sal was pretty close to her last time, and Sal’s not blind. She probably knows already.
Amber seems pretty good with misdirection. Amazigirl oozes confidence, Amber presents as shy and demure. That kind of compartmentalized presentation can go a long way, honestly.
Seriously, even if I was 99% sure I recognized the girl I’d probably think I got it wrong by reason of personality alone.
It’s basically Superman and Clark Kent. I mean, many people thinks that the only difference is the glasses*, but that’s not all. It’s also the clothes, the hair, and above all, the composure. Superman just oozes self-control out of every single pore in his body; a body that he’s showing off as the perfect Michelangelo sculpture that it is.
Clark Kent, on the other hand, shrinks himself. He’s a bit hunched in his demeanor, his clothes completely hides the muscle tone, he walks and talks nervously all the time, and by and large is someone that tries to not bring attention to himself in any way. You would never look at him twice on the street. In fact, you wouldn’t look at him even once; and judging from the way many people bump into him on the street, they don’t. (If it’s not obvious to everyone, I’m using Cristopher Reeves’ depiction from the first Superman movie.)
Really, the only mistake Superman does is that he and Clark Kent stays in the same city, and even worse, talk to the same people. People that sooner or later will pay closer attention (especially since several of them are journalists). If Superman’s main protection route had been any city but Metropolis, it would’ve been so much more effective.
And sure, that’ll also be Amber/AG’s downfall too, but since she lacks superpowers and can’t just go from one city to another like that, it’s more understandable.
*Which can be more effective than you might think, especially with the thick, distorting lenses that are usually depicted. Bob Burnquist (the skater) is an especially good example of someone who looks completely different as soon as he takes off his glasses.
To be fair, Superman also has the advantage that because he doesn’t wear a mask, most people don’t even realize that he HAS a secret identity– they think he just fights crime and lives in the Fortress of Solitude.
Also, simply looking the same isn’t really enough. If you had a co-worker who looked like Tom Cruise, would you assume that they WERE Tom Cruise in disguise, or just someone who looked similar?
Didn’t we go through this with Danny, back before it got revealed to him? Whatever it looks like to us, it’s not obvious to the characters. No one has just figured it out by looking at her with and without costume. No one is going to. That’s not how the superhero costume trope works.
There’s Dina, but that’s the trouble with being a superhero with a dinosaur ninja roommate. She was probably behind the door when Amber changed. 🙂
Doesn’t look like it is. It’s pretty bulky, and that’s a small hamper.
Fear, meet Trigger. Trigger, meet Fear.
Just how many cookies did you eat, Carla?
ALL THE COOKIES
…half the cookies, but you know what I mean
If I did that after that many cookies, I would lose my cookies. ALL OF THEM.
Half the bag, duh.
Her half was on the bottom. She had to get through the top half to get to it.
*plays Spin Doctors’ “Cleopatra’s Cat” on the hacked Muzak*
Meanwhile…
You thought I was going to go with Lionel Richie or The Cars, didn’t you?
Crunchyroll pummeled me with that commercial a while ago, so now I hate that hotel chain with a deep and eternal hatred.
Hey, the FUNDED tag in the latest Kickstarter update is pointed at the $55,000 tier, not $50,000.
Just hope Sal doesn’t find the costume, Amber.
Spandex is hand wash only.
Quick Amber! Chase after Carla and see if she’s willing to do a team up! (Those parkour skills are pretty close to on par with Amazi Girl)
Amazi-Girl and The SkateMaster?
Together they will engineer revenge against Mary!
They cant, they are in the wrong major.
Carla how are you doing that
I want to know how to do that
Just the right kind of glue applied to the floor imparts the perfect launch and spin. Thanks for the idea, Mary!
Start with a sugar rush.
I could tell you, but then you’d have to kill yourself.
And I don’t want the liability.
From a friend of mine who used to do shit like that, it’s all about speed and momentum, use that and shoes with good grips to run up the walls and then continue forward with a flip to spin upside down.
Speed, momentum, shoes with good grip, and a fanatical devotion to the pope!
My first guess would be a short wallrun to get a little height and then kicking off the wall into a side flip, but I’m sure dedicated practitioners would know better than I.
The screen should freeze, and that tense music from Sailor Moon when Tuxedo Mask and Nephrite ran into each other should play in the background!
I love this idea so much…..<3 ^.^
Wow, mention Sailor Moon and she appears. Just like Candlej . . .
Awwkwarrd…
I hereby vote that all further interactions that need to happen for plot reasons should be instigated via Carla ex machina.
Second.
Over in La Porte, Joyce and Becky run into Jocelyn in drag because Carla literally bumps into them.
Then back to Bloomington, where Carla shimmying up the prison-house wall causes a distraction, leading to Blaine and Ross meeting.
Side effect of ginger snaps: You can travel at the speed of plot even when that breaks the sound barrier.
Robin did this in the other universe, in this universe it’s Carla.
Jocelyn is a woman. If she were “in drag”, she’d be wearing clothing typically associated with men, which wouldn’t register with Joyce and Becky at all because she’s closeted and they still think of her as a man.
Correction accepted. Sigh. I never can seem to get the language right.
I only take issue with the phrasing. It should be “deus ex Carla” because Carla *is* the machine.
Is she the machine or the ghost in the
shellmachine?I vote for Carla ex Carla.
ALL HAIL CARLA!
WILLIS IS GOD! ALL HAIL THE WILLIS!
Every time Sal and Amber share a frame I get so dang excited like “WILL THIS BE IT???” and so I am super excited for this because MAYBE IT WILL BE IT but then again maybe next strip Amber jams everything in the hamper and runs away and it won’t be it.
Maybe Amber doesn’t recognise Sal without her glasses.
“Hey, Walky, your hair is kinda long today”.
I think she heard the voice (remembering it from the parking lot scene) and then looked up to make sure of it.
Also the Becky-rescuing scene and its aftermath.
Like many superheroes, Amber’s real power is the ability to prevent people seeing through her flimsy superhero disguise, which in her case consists of an eyemask and messing up her hair.
Well at least it’s a better disguise than Superman’s >.>
Superman’s disguise is less physical than psychological. I mean who’d expect an all-around badass like that to be an everyday, awkward, introverted dweeb like….
….. okay, yeah, it’s a better disguise than Superman’s.
Considering the amount of stupid and utterly ridiculous plots he’s gone through, I think Superman might be more of an awkward dweeb than his disguise.
Superman’s disguise is also wearing bulky outfits and slouching so that he looks hefty and out of shape when in Clark mode and wearing his tight outfit with good posture in Superman mode.
This means that even if someone notices he looks superficially similar to Superman (which they probably won’t, the other things in his favor is he looks fairly generic white man, with somewhat handsome features, and people do often look completely different with and without glasses).
Amber has similar posture and confidence differences between her alter which serve a similar function.
And don’t forget different hair-dos, and -completely- different composure. As I went into detail about further up in a different comment tree.
Oh, and as for AG/Amber, most of the time (with exceptions, I know) AG does her job in the dark. It’s hard to get a good look in the dark, especially if you’re on your face in the asphalt with your arm being wrenched out of your socket.
Oh, you did mention composure (as in posture). Stupid me.
Lois and Clark (the TV series) addressed the ‘kinda looks like him’ thing in an episode. Jimmy looks at Clark, realizes, hey, he kinda resembles Superman. Perry rolls his eyes. ‘And people say I look like Elvis. It doesn’t make me the King.’
The ‘totally looks like’ meme is all about ‘these two unrelated people (or not always people) totally look alike’, yet it’s never people who are ever actually confused with each other. Because, as you say, there’s more to recognizing a person than facial features.
Lois and Clark is also the source of the obnoxious ‘glasses on glasses off’ Lex scene that people always quote when denying the fact that Superman’s disguise is the sort of thing that would actually work.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y8iRvQdSGA
Time to get through that dirty laundry!
Is Carla a Harry Dresden fan?
She convinces Dina to help her raise a dinosaur from the dead. It then eats Mary.
If I remember correctly, Harry was called out for shouting Parkour while doing Parkour. You are not supposed to shout it out.
Someone needs to tell that to Carla, quick.
Carla is trans. Maybe Carla IS an alternate universe Harry Dresden!
Did’ja think of that!?
Lets see…. A huge smart ass, somewhat obnoxious to other characters but entertaining to the audience, hates bully’s…. differences that could be explained by different backgrounds…..huh, I could actually kind of buy this.
Either that or she is Deadpool.
She hasn’t specifically addressed us yet, so I’d have trouble accepting this particular headcanon.
Not possible. I don’t perpetually want to punch Carla.
I scrolled through the comments specifically to see if anyone had made this comment yet 🙂
Hey! another Dresden phile. Neat!
I’m reminded that I need to catch up on some more Dresden. I’m only finished with Proven Guilty.
You’ve got some awesome times coming ahead. Jump back in 🙂
So do we have any idea if Sal knows that Amber’s the girl who stabbed her?
I’d say obviously not considering there isn’t a bloodbath in the hallways.
She doesn’t appear to.
But Amber sure knows her. Oh boy.
The big stabbing strip isn’t until Tuesday, duh!
I don’t know if Sal got a good look at Amber way back when. Amber sort of shrank during the hold-up, so Sal probably didn’t even notice her. Before the stabbing itself, she was facing away from everyone else with her hands on a police car’s hood, so she wouldn’t have noticed Amber then either. The stabbing itself would only have been a few seconds, and I suspect Sal was a little distracted immediately afterwards, what with the knife in her hand. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sal had no idea she and Amber had run into each other before.
Probably not. But it will be interesting to see what happens if/when Sal finds out.
The assumption might be a big fight between the 2 of them. But, Sal is a different person now than she was back then. Its possible that she recognizes that, while Amber shouldn’t have stabbed her, she was partly to blame for engaging in the robbery to begin with. Maybe it was some sort of turning point for her.
GOD DAMMIT WILLIS
To quote Cuba Goodin Jr from What Dreams May Come:
“I bet you’re thinking ‘oh shit!’ now!”
And you’d be right.
Carla seems like one of those people you would love to see as a character, but you would be utterly unable to stand as an actual person.
Those tend to be my favorite characters.
She’s kind of like my kid on a sugar rush. Oh goddess….
Idk, speak for yourself. I’m kinda in love with Carla and would totally also be in love with an irl version of Carla.
Your Gravatar makes me seriously doubt that.
lol I always get these replies. I did not choose Mary? She was randomly assigned to me? I honestly don’t understand these comments.
… it’s because I love Carla so much, isn’t it? Goddamit, Mary, even ruining my irl life in this comment section lol.
Consider the facts: Mary is homophobic. Mary wants to think of herself as perfect. Mary is being transphobic towards Carla.
1+1+1=3, right?
= if Mary can view Carla as a boy she doesn’t have to be conflicted about having the hots for her?…
Exactly.
sounds about right.
Exactly.
To clarify (I keep forgetting the possibility of intervening comments by the time I actually type 10 characters): no IRL Carlas for me, thanks.
Agree.
Carla is obnoxious, it’s true. I, personally, wouldn’t be able to stand her as a person. However, I do wonder what scars she’s trying to hide with that attitude and what manner of a person she’d be if you caught her without her armour plate. I think that we got a very slight hint of that frightened and haunted young woman a couple of strips back.
Ayup. Honestly, in contrast to most, I have met people very similar to Carla (using a fuck the world persona to take power back from continued victimization from oppression) and honestly, she’s probably the best sort of people to know personally and hang out with… in about a year or two when she’s settled down a bit more in her reflexive anti-authoritarianism.
Which makes sense. She’s a kid trying to make her way in the world and establish her adult identity. There’s always going to be growing pains with that.
Carla’s redeeming virtue is her exuberance.
Yeah. Good point. Nearly everything cited as Carla being obnoxious is her enjoying herself in ways that might bother those around her. Skating in the hall. Parkour! Even “Gimme cookies”.
None of it’s based on attacking others. If you’re upset by her, that’s your problem and not her concern, but it’s also not the source of her pleasure. She might not be considerate, but she’s also not taking pleasure in screwing other people over.
And as we saw with Amber, if you’re really hurting, she’ll help out.
She’s really not very good at being an asshole.
I meant to add: Unlike Ultra Car, who was all about deliberately pranking people.
I feel like I’m the only person who doesn’t like Carla…as a character anyway. Maybe real life would be different, but I find her character to be obnoxious. If she was on my floor in college, I would probably want to strangle her on a regular basis.
I don’t like Carla either. I would be utterly unable to stand her as a real person and don’t much like her as a character either. I did like the car version of her, because she was funny back then, at least sometimes. But that was a long time ago.
See, THIS is why skating in the halls is banned. It can cause serious drama to people.
Screw your rules, we have cookies!
throws cookies
….Awwww.
No, that’s why it’s allowed. It gives drama causers a non-parcour outlet.
Exactly. If her skates weren’t broken, she’d just be skating by, and even without her glasses, Amber would have seen her. Instead, she’s all “PARKOUR!” because she needs some other outlet for that energy.
Is she even skating? I thought her skates are out of commission again.
I question the physics of panel 2.
Same physics that allows catching a caped hero in with 1 arm while riding a motorcycle in midair with a passenger, of course. “If we start to question this it all falls apart.”
It’s just a comic, you should really just relax.
CROWWWWWW
“I’m different!”
No one gets me, I am the wind.
And to think I was debating on going with the Bellisario Maxim.
Physically possible, but extremely difficult given the dimensions of the halls.
It helps that Amber’s short.
Please think of the catgirls!
Always!
FINALLY
IT’S HAPPENING
Also, fuck yeah Carla
Holy shit Carla your skates are glued stiff and you can still ride on the ceiling how the fuck
Different skates. These ones are glued to the ceiling
Duh, PARKOUR. She was pretty clear on that.
PARKOOOOOOOH NO
welp
Uh… well crap. That’ll be awkward.
On a different note, sugar-rush Carla is best Carla.
She’s the new Robin from Shortpacked! in a good way!
Yeah, ’cause you know what’ll happen if Sal gets her hands on it:
This summer, evil has no where to run.
Sal Walkerton is:
The New
AMAZI-GIRL
SAL: “Why’d y’all make this costume so baggy?”
AMBER: “Because it’s not for YOU!!“
Dadburnit!
This was supposed to be a reply to this comment
meh, Im still waiting for Sal to make a contract with a demon that isn’t technically Satan, and get a skull thats on fire for a head.
as long as it’s not with some albino cat-rabbit-thing. *shudder*
Skull on fire? Like this?
…I apologize in advance…
Thought it was going to be a Ghost Rider reference(I guess that’s close enough? Also WTF!?)
I was making a Ghost Rider reference
I choose to believe that Carla was actually hiding inside-or-on the ceiling, waiting for an unsuspecting passerby to jump onto, rather than hitting the admittedly-pretty sick flip seen here.
I have no reason to, but still.
Read doesn’t have drop ceilings (at least not in real life), though the ceilings are higher than I assumed they were when forming my initial mental image of the scene. Looks like 2-3 feet from the top of the door.
You made me look at the background closer and to different doors are shown, which bothers me because they are either the same door, or way to close together.
Don’t you just hate it when you run into your arch nemesis while you’re trying to do your laundry?
Odds are that it’s because my arch-nemesis is also doing laundry. I use the opportunity to sneak lots of starch into it.
Tights that chafe, the ultimate revenge?
Tried dyeing his clothes pink? Or is that too old school for nowadays?
Nah, it’s just that pink is fucking awesome.
Laundry day, See you there, Underthings, Tumbling
Want to say, Love your hair, Here I go, Mumbling
Not all heroes wear capes.
Sal’s hair often gets mistaken for one in the dark, though.
Well that was a rollercoaster of emotion in 6 panels, hot damn. You can almost here the creaky suspense music in the last panel. Jaws theme or or something similar lol.
Sal continues to be the most beautiful cinnamon roll.
…..
…..
….
… uh…..
….
…. what does that even MEAN?
lol it’s tumblr-speak for a very nice person/character.
They should start teaching the internet “language” in school. You know, for better communication.
Which dialect? If you talk on tumblr and 4chan with the wrong jargon, you’re going to get flamed.
And other sites too, but nobody cares about them.
You can’t learn this in school, it must be picked up on the virtual streets.
Things like this make me wish that courses like Linguistics, Sociology, etc… were more required in high school or middle school. Teaching a supposed unified “one manner of communication” ignores all the cool little evolutions in how we’re communicating that are happening all around us.
Seriously, I think the modern evolution of our language is fascinating. Things get added to our vernacular on a daily basis now. I’m all for proper speech and grammar, but I agree that language is an incredibly fluid, constantly-changing thing! And it’s wild!
It also supports a lot of racist and classist bullshit.
Unfortunately, it kinda sounds racist. I mean, the first thing I thought was that cinnamon rolls are brown.
I’m kinda surprised that sort of thing flies on Tumblr of all places. Sure, they may not mean anything racist, but aren’t they all about trying to avoid even looking slightly racist?
Racist, seriously? I just use the term “cinnamon roll” towards people I love, both fictional or IRL. I thought it was a widely-known term on the internet.
But christ, I’m sorry I even brought it up. I won’t say it anymore here.
Also, it’s been used in THIS COMIC before.
Referring to Dorothy, no less.
Yeah…that’s really pushing it. Cinnamon rolls are brown, seriously?
They’re mostly red and white, really… (Well, I suppose that depends on how much icing and cinnamon are used…)
I thought it was a filter correct at first.
Too good for this world.
Too pure.
Too tasty.
And good with coffee.
This brings up the question of how high the ceiling is in the dorm halls.
I believe its height changes based on the needs of the plot.
HARDCORE PARKOUR
ALSO SWEET MERCY, LET THE CHAOS BEGIN
Yeah, the main thing I’m taking away from all of this is that Carla is fit as fuck and has crazy good balance and control of her body. And that’s extra impressive given she’s trans.
Most of us transfolk tend to be awful at that sort of thing because having that level of awareness of our bodies in physical space tends to be dysphoric as fuck. So one more in the column for “Carla doesn’t afraid of anything”.
Would getting hormone therapy in her early teens or so help with that, maybe? (I’m assuming she’s on hormones, not wearing a padded bra.)
ok before i saw the potential severity of the last panel i swear i saw shoujo bubbles and amber blushing because she just met the new love of her life, sal
Is this finally it? Or yet another Willis tease?
You mean Amber realises that Sal ain’t just a criminal and starts liking her? Nah, it will probably be another couple of months before that happens( for us that’s going to take a couple of years till we see it happening)
That too. But I mean when Amber brings up that incident with Sal. Clearly the latter’s in the dark about that, but she isn’t one for trauma I think.
oh shi-
Also, even ignoring the physics of Carla jumping that high, I’m not convinced the dorm’s ceilings are high enough for her to have done so indoors even if it were otherwise physically possible.
Amber’s obviously using acid.
But we saw it too. That mean we are …
We also phantom Joyce and the Ryan clones. The little boxes are hardly windows into reality.
Maybe they have one of them new-fangled variable height ceilings I heard so much about.
To answer both problems, it might be possible for Carla’s body to be relatively horizontal even as her head’s pointed down, similar to the way high jump athletes do their thing. It allows a lower center of mass (making the physics tamer) and requires less clearance.
Even if she tucks her legs?
I don’t think she’s jumping. She’s running so fast that she was able to run up a wall and across the ceiling with momentum keeping her in contact with the surface for just long enough to appear to be defying gravity. Of such subtle physical magic is Parkour made.
*Gets out a comics tape-measure*
Yep, enough room for a circus and Wiley Coyote.
Aw man, I was super hoping for a strong Amber/Carla friendship after Carla helped her head wound. Maybe not though 🙁
Hey, maybe jumping around them in hyper happy mode is how Carla does friendship?
Yes please!
I was too but Carla is someone with a lot of emotional scars and I doubt that she’d be willing to open up too easily to anyone. Maybe it will happen at a later date but I think that Willis has decided to address some of Amber’s many scars first.
That and Carla has just received a major blow and so is probably of the mind to avoid any potentially emotionally vulnerable moments (like say commiserating with the person she last met doing what she’s probably done too many times).
It’s the “too cool for school” version of Wacky Becky.
Parkour… bringing enemies together.
Alternatively, the more I’m looking at the last panel, the more I’m hearing Ten Duel Commandments from Hamilton in the background. Because you KNOW this can’t end well.
~pick a place to die where it’s high and dry~
Funny, I’m hearing Heavy Day. Probably has something to do with my expectation that they’ll eventually team up in combat.
God, Carla’s an asshole. She’s surprisingly acrobatic though.
Panel 2: How?!?!?
Final Panel: Well shit, this isn’t good. Or is it?
Panel 2: Just like a kid who ate too much sugar.
Final Panel: They will probably start talking, Sal will notice Amber seems scared then Amber will run to the laundry room.(that’s one possibility, I hope Amber disscusses with Sal and sees actually a good person)
My pedantic sense(I’m working on it, allright?) made me look up the definition of parkour. According to wikipedia “Practitioners aim to get from one point to another in a complex environment, without assistive equipment and in the fastest and most efficient way possible.”
Overhead flips confirmed as the fastest and most efficient way to navigate the complex environment of a hallway. I’d better get with the program.
*vaults away*
Well, if you can do a flip in a safe hallway you can do it on a high rooftop. Best to practice where the costs of failure are lower.
That said, the term is abused a lot more now that people are more familiar with it.
I belive ‘Freerunning’ is the term for ‘dicking about and making mockery of physics’ – similar principles and techniques, different aims.
Or I could be completely off, because it all sounds WAY too much like effort to me either way…
Technically I think you’re right, but since parkour is more famous, people tend to call the mucking about with physics using wall jumps and the like “parkour” a lot (which will change its definition thanks to the rule of common usage).
I imagine Carla watches the dicking around with physics “parkour” videos online, so “parkour” it is.
I sense a learning moment coming…
What did you already forget your were in the same dorm?
Amber doesn’t leave her room much.
And Sal is rarely in the hall.
The exact words that went through my head upon seeing the new strip:
“Oh, so that’s what that preview panel was about. I thought Ruth was judo tossing people in the halls agai- … oh boy, wasn’t prepared for that last panel.”
quick Amber, use the Poltergust 3000 on Carla!
Amber knows Sal is the teenage robber that scared the crap out of her.
Sal doesn’t know or doesn’t care.
She did tell Amber, A-G, at the kidnapping wreak that AG needed to get over what ever happened to her in her past. Sal did it, so can she. And Sal rode away. So if Amber ever does tell her – Sal most likely will push it away, guess we’d have to see when it happens.
As for the present day, maybe Sal has part of AG’s costume in her hands?
That’s not part of the costume. It’s not a one-piece with a zippered back, for starters. The cape could hypothetically be in there somewhere, I suppose.
Okay. This is the perfect time for Sal and Amber to have a rational, grown-up conversation, for Amber to say that she was Sal’s hostage at the convenience store robbery, for Sal to apologize for that, for Amber to apologize for the stabbening, and for everything to be resolved maturely, politely, and without any angst at all.
….
…. Yup. This would be the perfect time for that.
As a more serious prediction, Amber’s going to do a panic and a backwards rump-scramble, and hit her head again. Sal’s going to make the connection and realize she’s Amazi-Girl (or some flavor thereof) and also realize that Amber’s scared of her, Sal, in particular.
I’m hoping for the rational approach, but I doubt that’s going to happen.
What is interesting (and what we haven’s seen yet) is how Sal might react to this. At first, she’s going to talk to Amber as if she was talking to Amazi-Girl but I’m wondering if she’s going to realise that she’s dealing with a subtly different persona and start to get a handle on what exactly is the secret behind IU’s very own superhero.
I’m also wondering how she’ll react to Amber, in tears sobbing out: “Please don’t hurt me! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to stab you!“
Does Sal even know that Amber is Amazi-girl? Cause all of their interactions so far have been in the Amazi-girl outfit, except for this one, where Amber runs away at first sight of her and Sal just thinks she’s a weirdo:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/weirdo/
Which makes me wonder what even will be their interaction. Cause Sal won’t be assuming the bad things she does with the Amazi-girl costume and so there’s the best chance for a genuine heart-to-heart or even a moment of small kindness (even though Amber’s traumas and panic responses will make that quite impossible).
Look at the post to which I was replying – The assumption going in is that Sal will realise Amber is Amazi-Girl (for a certain value of ‘is’) by her subconscious reactions, body language and the like.
Carla is a fruitcake. A dangerous one.
Eh, she’s just a hyperactive adrenaline-junkie. Knock off the “hyperactive” part and you’re basically describing all three people in today’s comic.
Consider what would happen if somebody, seeing another person launching at them, panicked and moved the wrong way. Both Carla and that person could get seriously hurt. Parkor is for inanimate objects, not people.
Fruitcake is a common slur towards gay people. And, yes, it can be extended to trans or ace people. Please don’t use it.
“Nutty as a fruitcake” goes back a long way. Before I was born, which makes it practically medieval.
“Fruits” is a derogatory term for gay people as I recall. Don’t know the history.
Interesting, I have never heard it used that way.
When I was an adolescent, way back in the Dark Ages, the two most common slurs for an insufficiently muscled male were “fruit” and “pansy”. I can hope from Roborat’s comment that at least one of them has been retired in disgrace.
Look up Polari.
Also, it’s worth listening to “Round the Horn” – a radio comedy program on the BBC in the 50s/60s. Dated, it can be hilarious in small doses.
Why do I get the feeling that Sal will immediately piece together that Amber is Amazi-Girl?
Before or after she figures out that Amber crippled her hand?
Scarred perhaps, but not crippled as far as we’ve seen. There’s been no hint the function of Sal’s stabbed hand has been impaired. And we have no idea what the back of Sal’s hand actually looks like under her glove.
Aww, someone’s building bridges!
Or, uh, un-burning them?
Sal doesn’t recognize Amber as either Amazigirl or Stabbygeek. Those are one-sided bridges at best.
Wow, Carla has hops.
Her calves are gonna be great.
Sal is once again reaching out to Amber (though doesn’t realize this is an “again” thing) with a nice gesture. Will Amber go Amazi-girl and antagonize her, even without the costume? Will she just go into blind panic run-away mode? Or will the Amber alter start moving even further away from Amazi-girl by making peace with this piece of her past and actually see the nice adult person Sal is rather than the symbol she’s trying to make her?
What I’m really curious about is how Sal will react when she learns Amber is the person who stabbed her hand, and how the fallout of that realization will play out. Before that happens any progress Amber makes seems tenous at best.
I wonder if she’ll react much at all. Yeah, it’s a traumatic moment, but Sal seems pretty invested in breaking away from her past and the sort of easy anger that fueled it. Like, I don’t imagine she’ll be happy per se to meet the person who permanently scarred her again and then walked away scot free, but I don’t see her holding a permanent grudge about it either.
I love Sal as much as anyone else but if Sal is focused on the fact she got stabbed versus the fact the other girl had her best friend threatened with having his throat slit, that would be pretty damn insane. It’s like Ruthless and the femurs thing. “No, you didn’t hurt anyone physically. You just terrified them and left lasting emotional scars.”
I’m sure Sal would be the first person to admit that what she did was very wrong. That doesn’t mean she should be ok with receiving a post-arrest revenge stabbing. That would also be pretty insane.
The reason I’m curious as to how she will react is because I don’t know how/if she’s dealt with that. The only thing I do know is that she still sleeps with gloves on because of it. That could either mean very much or very little.
She also hid her right hand behind her back when her parents came to visit, so she definitely still has the scar.
And agreed on the first part, which I think is a consistent theme in Sal’s character arc. She committed a crime and paid for it. She can’t tell Amber not to hate her or descend into PTSD flashbacks over her, but Sal is also entitled to not having Amber try to kick the shit out of her, and receiving love and caring from her family is still something she should be entitled to.
Officially, anyway, how did Amber get away with it (since, y’know, we tend to dehumanize criminals as is let alone a young black girl who committed a violent crime on two white children)? Like, Sal was released into her parents’ custody and sent to a boarding school instead of juvie (which, can that happen? Was Sal “officially” punished for the robberies, or was it just her parents?), but Amber apparently wasn’t forced into any kind of court mandated therapy, or there were no repercussions, or anything. Could Amber have had charges put against her and then dropped? Did she have any charges put forward at all?
I’m pretty sure Sal would apologize since she was most definatnely in the wrong
And she was a messed up kid who held two people hostage.
I think she’ll try to set things right, but I don’t think she’s going to, like, put herself in the wrong there. Amber stabbed her in the hand and left a seemingly permanent scar.
Which, I mean, it doesn’t excuse threatening Ethan at knife point, but at the same time Amber not only violently assaulted her when she was already detained, she hunted her down and tried to beat the hell out of her in a parking lot.
Basically it’s just a really complex situation, both of them are people who have made terrible mistakes due to extraneous circumstances, and they’re both trying to live with them. Sal’s got her head straight, and Amber needs to learn the same thing.
Uh. Both kids made mistakes. Sal threatened people. Amber ACTUALLY ASSAULTED her.
Let’s be clear here. Sal committed Armed Robbery and Assault with a deadly weapon. Likely Battery as well, depending on what they want to throw at her. She did it premeditated and unprovoked.
Amber did commit the same Assault with a deadly weapon, but she had far more obvious extenuating circumstances – traumatized in the aftermath of Sal’s crime.
Now, we know more of both kids and can see that Sal was acting out from her parents neglect and that Amber had her long term issues and father’s abuse in addition to the immediate trauma. Both of them need help, not punishment.
darkness, my old friend.
The vision that was planted in her brain, still remains.
She walks alone over narrow pathways of cobblestone.
This thread is disturbing.
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue.
I’ve heard it’s a war zone there.
Go home, Carla, you’re drunk.
(At least, I think that’s what this is a reference to…)
…
Dude, what did Linda lace those cookies with?
Sugar is enough.
Well, well! What an interesting situation for Amber: Confronted with Sal in a scenario where she can’t just run away!
Meanwhile, Carla kindly teaches us the hidden downside of eating too many cookies too fast – the sugar rush is… disruptive. She’ll probably have a heck of a hangover after too!
“Uh… Why are you doing this? You’re a robber.”
Is this our first glimpse of DoA-verse’s SchtickShift?
Holy shit, Carla, how are you walking on the roof? Are you an abnormal being powered by the sugar?
My best friend’s prospective fuckbuddy’s victims are my … wait, I confused Carla with Malaya. Never mind.
What I am currently imagining is inside Amber’s head: Traumatraumatraumatraumatrauma. *INTERNAL SCREAMING*
What I am currently encountering in my own head: *INTERNAL SCREAMING* AMBER, NO. DID SHE NEED TO SUFFER MORE. WHY. WHY YOU DO THIS. I CAN FEEL THE PAIN ALREADY AND IT HASN’T STARTED YET.
She’s going to go full fight-flight. However, only Amazi-Girl can fight and Amber isn’t in a situation where she can easily run away. So, some kind of breakdown is quite possible with Sal suddenly being the position of trying to interpret Amber’s tidal-wave of trauma all coming flooding out at once in a verbal torrent.
“The beginning of a beautiful friendship”
Awww great, she dropped her clothes, AND another shoe
That still does not give her spandex amazicleavage.
Meanwhile, ominous thunder rumbles in the distance…
Oh noes.
“hello”
“Is it me you’re looking for?”
Dang, I am 3.5 hours too late.
oh boy
here we go
When both sides of Amber’s personality meet, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much drama will there be?
All the way to 11.
I’ll wager there’s a very sweaty superhero costume in that laundry.
I’ll also wager that there’s a smidgin of blood on it too.
Da-da-daaaaan.
Female Caucasian, admitted to local hospital for bruised hypothalamus. Patient is described by witnesses as suffering, “an attack of fighting flight denial.”
There´s a situation for Amber in which she can put in practice those q-qui-quick thinking, maybe! xD Hope she doesn´t fling into Amazigirl mode by shock.
*Amber runs away screaming*
“Weirdo”.
Does Amber *know* Sal lives on the same floor? Has this somehow escaped her attention? Sal being frequently absent & entering through the window & all that. It seems possible.
She’s aware, there was a strip sometime back where she told Ethan the person who took him hostage lived on their floor
I don’t think I can deal with the inevitable confrontation about to happen, because Carla is the best. Parkour, indeed, Carla. Parkour indeed.
Poor Amber. For all the shit he goes through, Batman never has to stand by in awkward silence while the joker helps him with his things.
Today’s interesting fact about sugar rush: It doesn’t really exist. Lots of sugar will not, in itself, make you hyperactive at all.
http://uamshealth.com/healthlibrary2/medicalmyths/willfeedingachildalotofcandyorfoodwithalotofsugarinitmakechildrenhyperactive2/
Ah so that’s why whenever I ate entire bowls of sugar as a little kid, nothing happened.
Don’t confuse science with truth.
Uh, Mr. Willis?
I noticed an art mistake.
You forgot to draw a tumbleweed.
”Music starts playing in the background”
Amber: Is that Western Music playing in the background?
Showdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0BrdMi-oyc
Sheesh, how much more until Sal finally defeats AmaziGirl like Bane? It’s kind of sad she hasn’t had her Amazifall moment yet. Only after she bottoms can she crawl back up to defeat Carlzrael after they defeat Sal, preventing a proper rematch.
Carla is a Dresden fan? 😀
Not every loud wiseass who defies physics is Harry Dresden.
But they’re all the same under the hood.
And we’re at number 2! Sal has a voice in my head. I actually heard her voice when she said what she said to Amber, even before we saw it was her. It’s low and smoky, and of course has that accent.
So that nakes to with Dina being Raven doing a genuine Starfire impression.
Eventually they’ll all have voices, and then there will be a TV cartoon, and then they’ll be all wrong.
I think Carla would be fun as a friend. We wouldn’t hang out often enough for her to become annoying. The fact that she distances people makes it easier. Granted, it would be hard to become friends. But it could work.
The one that I think would annoy me the most would be Becky, actually. She’s just so chipper all the time, and she clings to people, so I wouldn’t be able to take breaks. And then I’d feel horrible for it given her circumstances, and the fact that I do like her.
So, when are we going to have the Tobacco Kryptonite fight between Amazi-Girl and Amber where Amazi-Girl finally defeats Amber and she becomes sane?
I hope it’s okay if I don’t like Carla, because I’m starting to dislike Carla. “Gimme your cookies! Haha, made you drop your laundry!” The “I’m a dick for attention” shtick is getting kind of old.
Eh yeah, but Carla’s been like that ever since she was a sentient mini-van with infinite creme pies.
Woops, hit Send to quick. Was also going to say, being so attention-seeky is just part of who she is, I’m personally used to it by now.
Damn, doing that flip in roller skates must be a trick and a half. /clap/
Omg, Dave is here! 😀
Hi! 😀
She’s not doing it in skates. This is probably the day after her skates were ruined again. And it took her several days to replace the first set.
Oh, I thought she was still wearing the broken set out of stubbornness. Like very heavy boots.
How did she even.. I don’t understand.. Damnit, Carla, you’re not allowed to abuse the laws physics in a relatively realistic universe!
Amazi-Girl exudes a field that cancels out the laws of physics in her immediate vicinity. That’s how she was able to pull off the stunts with Ross’ car. This field is still present in a much weaker form around Amber, allowing Carla to violate various laws of physics.
Or perhaps Cara has her own anti-physics field one that allows rollerskates to function on carpet for example.
Panel two: what the fuck
Panel six: What the FUCK?!
It’s all fun and games until gravity is switched back on and the drama explodes.
I think you mean implodes. Gravity is strictly attractive, after all.
And yet stars, some of the biggest gravity generators around, once their energy is mostly expended, explode.
Fair point. But they still start with an implosion and bounce into an explosion when they get too dense too quickly.
Carla continues to be an unlikable bongo, no surprises here.
Popcorn, anyone?
*starts setting up lawnchairs
Ironically enough here, Mary has a point about Carla and her hallway behavior being inappropriate. Skating around in the halls is bad enough, but flipping over people and scaring the crap out of them? No, Carla. This is college, not gymnastics school.
That was kind of the big issue with the Mary and Carla glue thing. Willis wrote it as Carla being cute and Mary being her usual unlikable self but plenty of readers really-really hated their loud neighbors in college. The TV trope “Unintentionally Unsympathetic” came into play.
Which then turned into a whole big thing that basically came down to one thing: if you don’t agree 100% that Carla did nothing wrong then you’re trans phobic and you agree with Mary
Hell no. The actual point was “thinking Carla is annoying in this sequence is okay but being at worst a bit of a pest doesn’t warrant hate speech.”
I agree, I had some sympathy for Mary in that situation right up until she brought out the hate speech
Then I had none for her
Which was the point. Carla can be an annoying jerk and still not deserve hate speech. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
I was more referring to the reactions of the posters, there really did seem to be over reactions on both sides
Those people, of course, are 100% wrong, since Carla was not, in any, way, shape, or form, making excessive noise.
Calling Carla the noisy neighbour is less connected to reality than anything that Amber has done as Amazigirl.
She was actually
Can we not revive this argument?
Keeping up that “normal person” disguise, I see.
Cunning.
Last fictional being I caught screaming “PARKOUR!” while doing parkour was Harry Dresden. When he did it, it was funnier, but appropriate.
In fairness, without the “Parkour!”, it would be really hard to tell what was happening there, at least without spending more panels/dialogue setting it up. With it, it works fine.
Also, I want to see Carla and Amazi-girl racing on the rooftops.
I don’t even like Amber, but daaamn is that a cute face she’s pulling in panel 2.
Irrational freak-out in 3…2…
Oh, good! We interrupt your regularly scheduled trauma to bring you…one panel of chuckles!
Now back to the trauma!
So, Carla is basically Dumbing of Age’s Pinkie Pie.
Amber is basically Kitty Pryde to Sal’s Emma Frost. Sal is the face of evil.
https://girlsreadcomics.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/astonishingx-men200901.jpg
It’s more like Amber is convinced Sal is her Joe Chill, and that means she’s allowed to wreak vengeance upon her for causing her origin story.
Unlike Joe Chill, who usually dies or in Grant Morrison’s case had Batman drive him to suicide, Sal’s an actual person. She’s not the Violent Criminal Scum that Amber wants her to be.
Except she’s not allowed to wreak vengeance on her. By her own rules. Even in the parking lot confrontation, she tried to provoke Sal to attack, she didn’t attack her. Sal not playing the role is part of what’s stressing Amber now.
Well, she was definitely trying to pick a fight with her. She even said that Sal breaking the law by drinking underage meant she made this “so much easier.”
I think that’s the point. Amber needs to see Sal as The Criminal in order to justify to herself that she’s doing the right thing, and moments like this, where Sal tries to ignore her or actually save her or help pick up her laundry, pokes holes in Amber’s view of her as The Criminal.
Absolutely agreed. I was just quibbling with the “allowed to wreak vengeance” part. She’s not allowed to because Sal keeps not acting like the criminal she’s supposed to be.
Batman doesn’t bother people after they’ve Paid Their Debt to Society, unless and until they break the law again. And if they do, he goes after them; he doesn’t try to goad them into starting the confrontation.
TIME TO PULL OUT THE KNIFE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOy6hqzfsAs
You know, I’m curious Willis, this series has been goin’ on for five and a half years now, and in-universe time has gone, what, 2 months? Do you have an outline of the overall story? I’m mostly curious if this is something you intend to run through until you finally don’t feel like it anymore or if there is a planned ending (I’d have said graduation, but I feel the story may extend to beyond your remaining lifespan :D).
I mostly ask ’cause while I don’t want to see this end, it’d be interesting to know whether this is already fully planned out or if it’s gradually expanded on as you wrap up a given plot.
Interesting… I assume we can expect Spider-Carla to make an appearance in the near future.