ALSO debuting in our app today is the ENTIRE 2,000+ strip run – panel-by-panel as always – of Shortpacked by @damnyouwillis! pic.twitter.com/KMghXYAriw
— Comic Chameleon (@comicchameleon) July 21, 2017
Shortpacked! is now available on the Comic Chameleon app! For you younger folks, Shortpacked! is a webcomic I drew once.
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“How many boxes is it for scoring with Richard?”
“…do that many EXIST???”
About as many boxes as Richard has scored.
I’ll buy you the whole factory, Sweetheart–no worries!–“Friends of Mister Cairo” by Jon and Vangelis
So is Joe in one of those, “I don’t like how my dad acts, partially because I act just like him and see myself when he does.” relationships with his dad?
Sort of. He seems to be embarrassed by his dad, but can’t seem to see himself acting in a way different from him.
Twenty donut boxes, of course.
It just occurred to me that there’s no way Richard’s name is a coincidence.
Is he that wealthy?
A common nickname for Richard is “Dick”.
Again, is he that wealthy?
And, of course, he entered Stacy’s rosy valley.
Is he that into Mediterranean cooking?
Richard Rosenthal also has a nice ring to it, Willis tends to go for that kinda thing too.
She DID score with Richard. Joe could tell that from just the hesitation before the word “met”… and massive precedent.
The established price is still 1 box.
Richard to Amber: “I fucked your mom for 1 box of doughnuts (paid by Joe)”
Mike is writing that note in forged handwriting as we speak.
Aw, look at Joe, recognizing his dad’s behavior as problematic. Gives me faith for his development.
Yeah, he shows a few points of maybe having redeeming qualities, such as his friendship with Joyce that I am still not sure if their mutual friends are aware of, or his affection for Danny, even if he’s kind of crummy at that much of the time.
Joe does seem to try to hide his better qualities as much as he can.
Since his dad is toxically-masculine, I think its safe to say that exhibiting “effeminate” traits like, say, emotions would have been frowned on and led to mockery, at the least, in his household. So he’s probably learned to surpress them so far down that he has trouble accessing them. It wouldn’t surprise me if the only acceptable ways of handling frustration, fear, etc. in his household were lust, anger, or pretending the emotions didn’t exist. Given that background, its surprising he’s as redeemable as he is.
This is not news, though.
Yeah, he’s always viewed his dad’s behavior as… problematic.
All he has to do is realize he doesn’t have to imitate his dad’s behavior. Come on, Joe. You can do it.
YES!!!!!
I love Amber’s mom.
She’s friggin’ adorable
I love how she obviously doesn’t care about the do list
It’s hard to worry too much about the ills of the world with donut in your cake hole.
I think given what we’ve seen of her personality you can interpret her “that’s cute” comment in one of two ways: either “aw look at the widdle kid trying to be a man in all the wrong ways” or “cute isn’t the word you should be hearing but I’m not going to be the one to say it”
“Cute ain’t the word I want to use but it’s the one I’m going to use in front of this four-year-old with delusions of grandeur”
Considering the shit she no doubt experienced when married to Blaine, some teen with a rating system for girls is probably no big deal.
As an Irish friend told me, “cute” in its original meaning isn’t “adorable” as “clever in a sort of negative connotation, maybe ironically.” With her last name, this meaning could be closer to her intention.
If he gets that his Dad is kinda deplorable, why exactly is he emulating him?!
Lack of self-awareness?
People tend to become what they see as a child at home unless they take steps and have learned the right skills to be different. As the saying goes, “you do what you know.”
If Joe had stuck to that rule he’d have pissed off fewer women.
It’s coming. This is probably the first time where his learned habits have come back to bite him harder than he could shake off.
Joe seems to see two options 1) act like his dad and at least he gets laid even if he’s not personally happy or 2) act like Danny and he’s still unhappy.
I’m definitely oversimplifying it, but it seems like Joe completely lacks a good role model.
Maybe this is me having too much faith in the character, but I kind of interpret it as this storyline has sort of started to make Joe aware of the… problems with his and his father’s behavior.
His apparent discomfort with his father’s actions when Richard was hitting on Sarah during Parents’ weekend suggest that this may be something he’s had at at least a low level for some time.
Good point, especially as I forgot that bit.
He sees Richard as someone that is supposed to be a ‘responsible adult with a family’ that shouldn’t act like that versus seeing himself as a young dude that doesn’t yet have the responsibilities of a father. (I think Richard also cheated while married to Joe’s mom, while Joe sleeps around but doesn’t have a committed sigbificant other, which in Joe’s mind may completely change how he sees his dad’s actions compared to his own).
I’m not sure about whether Joe sees Richard as a ‘responsible adult with a family’, but I absolutely want to second that parenthetical, especially the part about how Joe perceives his actions as being different from his father’s. It’s super common for kids to grow up uncomfortable with a damaging thing that their parent did, decide they’re going to definitely not be like that, and then completely repeat their parent’s dynamic minus that one thing that their child-mind identified as the core of the problem. So you might have a kid who had an alcoholic, abusive parent who completely abstains from alcohol as an adult, but still berates their kids because they’ve absorbed a lot of terrible ideas about what it means to be a parent. Or in this case, you might have a kid who had a dishonest, womanizing father who decides that the core of the problem is his father’s dishonesty because he’s absorbed a lot of terrible ideas about what it means to be a heterosexual man.
:O
What is that amazing avatar you have?
I think it might be one of Shoomlah’s historically accurate disney princesses? If you google that, you should find her tumblr or deviantart I forget where she originally posted them, but they’re the best.
Socks has already said how to find this using the normal google search, but you can also copy the link to the gravatar and use it in a google reverse-image search (go to google image search, click on the camera icon and paste the link). Hope it helps with other images or for other people, too. Cheers!
Socks has it! It’s from an April Fools thing Shoomlah did years ago after people complained nonstop about how all the historically accurate princesses had their eyes closed.
P.S. I found it again for you! Click here!
Well, I did say he thought Richard should be that, not that he actually thinks Richard is, and I think that’s the main issue he has with his dad.
Yeah. Joe doesn’t *pretend* to love anyone, which is more honest. I see Joe as not really thinking love is real, because his parents wasn’t.
Well, there was that time he pretended to be interested in a relationship to go on a date with Joyce
For a certain value of “pretended”. In the end, he kind of gave Joyce exactly what she actually wanted (though not what she thought she wanted, I guess) and just became her friend without any sexual overtones. She’s pretty much the only female “relationship” he’s had, at least on-screen.
That’s actually pretty much what dating is for. Two people get together, share what they want from the potential relationship with each other, and then proceed from the points of commonality. Joe is… actually quite good with relationships, it turns out, he just doesn’t have many because he doesn’t really want one (which… is perfectly fine, it’s not like he’s hiding that from anyone he approaches, or really pursuing anyone who doesn’t want basically the same things he wants).
Honestly I’ve never really gotten the “history’s greatest monster” thing the comments have going on with Joe. This is a comic where one of the main characters is quite literally a violent psychopath struggling against her very real homicidal impulses, and the guy that gets pages of text devoted to how horrible he is is… the one guy who is 100% honest about his lifestyle, basically spends all of his on-screen time looking for people who share his interests, and whose main problem is that he lacks a proper filter between brain and mouth?
I don’t get it.
No, Joe is quite clearly exclusively interested in casual sex, not any sort of relationship, while Joyce could not have been broadcasting that she was looking for a long-term commitment more obvious if she’d been wearing a sandwich board.
And there was the whole plan “fix her” with his penis, which made it very clear that he was going to attempt to convince Joyce to have sex regardless.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/corrupt/
It also took weeks before Joe even tried to not make lewd sexual comments around Joyce, despite her making it painfully clear that it upset her. Which, even when he (sort-of) got there is not at all what Joyce had been looking for. She had been looking for an actual, romantic, committed relationship.
Joe isn’t history’s greatest monster, but he acts like a creepy douche, and makes women around him feel unsafe. Those who don’t feel unsafe, nevertheless feel disrespected. Because he makes unwelcome advances on almost every woman he meets, with no thought about if the time, place, or situation is AT ALL appropriate for him to do so.
And please stuff the “Amber is homicidal” crap up yourself somewhere uncomfortable. The shit she did to Ryan was self-defense, and he 100% deserved it.
“In the end”? Long after the date, during (and before) which he was clear to us (and even to Sarah) that he just wanted sex, not a relationship. He was certainly pretending during the date – until it went all punchy. (Don’t get me wrong, Joyce’s behavior there was much worse, but Joe’s wasn’t good either.)
And it’s not at all clear he’s anything like her friend – they bonded somewhat over text messages during her weekend home, but he pretty much reverted to normal when they’ve interacted in person since.
He’s far from “history’s greatest monster”. In addition to the adult villains, he ranks well below Mary and Mike and certainly far below Ryan. His problems go far beyond “lacking a proper filter”. His “looking for people who share his interests” involves wandering the girl’s floor, propositioning women who have to yell at him to get him to leave them alone – and even then it rarely sticks.
Because he can do things better than his Dad did.
Having awareness — even self-awareness — of a bad personality trait doesn’t instantly make the trait vanish. Those traits that we get from our parents are especially difficult to vanquish even with concerted effort. Such traits often don’t manifest until you’re an adult and appear gradually enough that you don’t notice until you take a really hard look at yourself. And even then self-awareness is step 0 in a long road to changing the way you think. Good luck Joe.
It is complicated.
When your parent does a whole bunch of bad behaviours, it can subconsciously drive them into the depths of your brain and cause you to emulate them with others even if you don’t want to or intend to or it could cause you to accept those behaviours from other people (abuse victims of all kinds tend to be victimized again frequently because of this).
But if you hate their behaviours enough, you may reject the parents ways entirely and end up nothing like them or you may only reject the ones you see as the worst (Joe’s Dad’s cheating) or the core of the problem but still accept their other behaviours.
It also depends on what other influences you have, who you spend time with, what their families are like and I suspect he spent most of his time with Danny’s family which themselves have some toxic ideas about relationships i.e. that Danny is worthless outside of one that may have further played into Joe’s insecurity and led him into emulating his father’s behaviour as he at least seemed confident.
It basically isn’t very simple and even if emulating his dad a lot, he may give himself excuses to do so and declare himself different from his father because his intentions and reasons and circumstances are different even if they are similar.
I think you’re spot on. I’m pretty sure Joe spent most of his time with either his father or with Danny (and his family), and so his view of relationships and his own development have been stunted.
I’m guessing his father is not the most responsible adult (he hit on Sarah, for one) and parent, and possibly wasn’t a too faithful husband, but I’m going out on a limb here.
The short version is that low-level emotional abuse because his dad is the embodiment of toxic masculinity leads to suppressing his emotions and emulating the person he lives with out of emotional self-defense and/or a desire to have any connection with his family.
I’ve been wondering more and more whether this is a way that Richard has attempted to connect with Joe, too. Like, my mom is by all accounts not a creep, but even she attempted to bond with me over our (assumed) shared attraction to men and would try to engage me in checking out guys with her. (Thankfully, she gave that up pretty fast.)
I often get the sense that as gross as Richard’s behavior is (and as gross as Joe recognizes that it is), being heterosexual men and checking out/rating/hitting on women is something they probably used to do together — something they bonded over in the past. That would explain a lot of the emotional dissonance and conflicting views Joe seems to hold about both his dad’s behavior and his own behavior (and also why in the comic I just linked Joe does a complete 180 between panel 2 and panel 4).
Also appropriate for the next day’s strip
Something tells me Joe is really uncomfortable with the way his father acts, despite having picked up parts of that persona. I’d gotten a bit of this sense earlier on in the comic as well.
He’s explicitly said as much in the parent weekend arc a while back. Something to the tune of it being one thing to be all sexually liberated when you’re a kid but his dad was supposed to be a responsible adult.
hopefully theres maple glazed in there
Fuckin’ love maple glazed
maple glazed is the end all be all of donuts!
Glazing is messy and an abomination unto Nugan.
In a minor league baseball clubhouse, three glazed donuts were exchanged for one maple frosted, which I think affirms this perspective.
I’d take that deal in a heartbeat.
Friggin’ love plain glazed!
*rubs bridge of nose tiredly*
Stacey, girl, you have got really terrible taste in men. No, I don’t think she’s macking on Joe here, but something about the way she referred to his dad by first name makes me wonder if they’re still in contact.
It’s interesting how Joe seems to regard his father as a bad person, yet doesn’t seem to notice how his own bad habits relate. I bet if someone pointed out to him, look, you’re going down your dad’s road in how you treat women, he’d be horrified.
It depends on the nature of the relationship between Stacy and Joe’s dad. If she’s looking for a relationship-relationship, then… yeah, terrible taste in men. If it’s a mutual no strings attached, friends-with-benefits sort of thing, then it’s less terrible, since that would show she’s not attracted to not-so-great men anymore and/or she realizes the trouble getting into a relationship with one would cause. 🙂
Ehh. There are still dudes out there looking for NSA fuckbuddies that respect women. Like, it’s totally cool if that’s what Stacey is looking for, but her taste in men is still highly questionable imo. Joe’s dad is Not A Good Person.
Perhaps, but he’s an amazing lover.
This is possible, but frankly, his dick could shoot the cure for cancer and he’d still be a massive creep.
Like Zevran, only he’s killed less people.
…by “less,” I mean “no one at all that we know of.”
Hence why I could only romance Zevran with a male character. With a male character it feels like them building a bond. With a female character it feels sleazy and gross and just eurgh. Did not like it.
Y’know, if she’s just lookin’ for someone to bang, I imagine her taste is just fine.
Joe’s dad probably knows what he’s doing in that area.
It’s possible, but you would not believe how many dudes out there get laid constantly and yet never learn what makes for a good lover. Only care about getting themselves off.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Stacy doesn’t seem dissatisfied.
Jussayin’ in general, those two ideas are not always one and the same. There’s a truly ridiculous number of dudes out there who think their female partners don’t need an orgasm. I’ve even seen some saying the female orgasm is a myth entirely.
I understand and acknowledge that fact in the abstract. I’m talking about Stacy and Joe’s Dad, though.
Yeah, but then Stacy probably wouldn’t get aroused when she saw a guy who reminded her of him…
…I mean totally separate from the discussion of Joe’s dad’s bedroom skills, I did not get arousal from any of that? It’d be super sketchy if Stacey were to be macking on a teenager her daughter’s age.
Did you read Shortpacked!? (unintentional Interrobang ftw)
I did, but macking on a twentysomething is way less sketch than macking on someone who was in high school a few short months ago.
To be fair, what else would she call him? Her calling him by his first name doesn’t have to mean they’re still in contact if that’s just what she called him by the last time they met.
I think they just banged on that one occasion, and Joe looks a lot like his father, just younger, so she remembered.
I would bet that Joe’s main issue with his father isn’t the sleeping around itself, it’s the sleeping around while married to Joe’s mother and concealing it, which is most likely what killed the marriage.
In defense of Joe, he _is_ actually taking steps to correct that problem: he actively avoids committed relationships so he can’t betray them, and is if anything way the hell too open about his interests and intentions… combined, those pretty much negate any possibility of him replicating what he likely sees as his father’s big flaw/mistake.
What is up with “probably” qualifier Joe adds to whether someone deserves a doughnut or not?
Idk, maybe he thinks the ones who were rated highly have no reason to be mad? Joe still doesn’t seem to really grasp what he should be apologizing for.
He may have missed a girl or two when making his list.
Maybe he didn’t rate every single girl in the building yet? It’s only what, like October?
Presumably he’s only rated most of the ladies on campus, not all of them.
I figured he only added girls who attend the same college as him. So if so someone lives on campus, and they’re female and the doughnuts are intended for people he put on his list, it stands to reason (somehow) that he assumes it’s going to be someone on his list that he owes a doughnut.
mary deserves no donuts
I read the probably as sheepishness tbh.
I’m actually curious if Richard doesn’t have some of the boundaries that Joe has when it comes to hitting on attached women. That might explain why Joe’s careful insistence on backing off from women who tells him ‘no’ to his face.
Probably the best way to study this in comic would be to compare-contrast Joe and his dad’s actions towards Sarah, since they were both shown hitting on her at different points.
Joe refers to his dad being gross even before breaking up with Joe’s mom, so I imagine he’s not much of one for worrying about if someone’s attached. That also might have something to do with why Joe cares about fidelity; he’s not exactly comfortable with their divorce.
Seems that way. Joe doesn’t cheat, but he also doesn’t commit in the first place, leaving cheating sorta difficult. Does seem to have some boundaries, albeit not many.
Looks familiar doesn’t begin to cover it. 😛
The joke in the parents’ weekend art was that they’re literally the same character model with a beard drawn on for the father. They even used the same eyebrow expressions in the same panel.
I mean…
Maybe that’s a bit of an over-correction.
She seems like she enjoyed it as just a fling.
And it seems like they were clear that’s all it was, right?
Well, I decided yesterday I would ask this question, so even though you can’t really see it in this strip, I’m going to go ahead and ask, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about you’ll just have to go back to the past three strips or so and look:
Does Stacey have a scar on her lip or something? There’s a little black mark there that keeps showing up.
I’m sorry if this question has already been asked, or if it’s considered rude (is it a rude question?), mostly I just want to make sure I’m not seeing things.
…Also, it looks like today’s strip will not help endear Stacey to the commenters.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think she’s a love! Just…an easily distracted one.
I don’t think it’s a scar. On this page http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/sweeten/ , it appears on both sides, but not both at the same time. It’s probably just meant to show where her lower lip ends.
It could be that, but Stacey’s the only person that I’ve noticed has that. Plus in the strip you linked to, she’s turning her head; it looks to me that the mark is in the same place. I could be wrong though.
She’s also one of the few characters likely in their mid-40s or older.
IIRC Willis said she was 40.
Crumbs?
Maybe I’m just not seeing what you’re seeing, but the only black mark I can see on her lip looks more like doughnut crumbs.
Look at the strips from the past few days, before she started eating donuts. She didn’t have it during her very first appearance (back when everything was a bit less detailed).
I get what you mean, I saw it when she came in the door and it was a little distracting.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/beside/
(on the lower right side of her mouth – left, as we see it – just that little tick, possibly an unerased/accidentally inked pencil mark.)
The outline’s there on her character model on the Tumblr.
No one likes getting hit on by someone who had sex with their father.
Wait, she’s hitting on Joe? Completely missed that implication.
Doesn’t look to me that she’s hitting on him.
Yeah, I’m not convinced she’s hitting on Joe either. Seems to me like she’s more interested in the free donuts than in him.
I think so.
Joe knows how much he looks like his dad. Maybe this has happened before
Nah, pretty sure she’s being vaguely dismissive of his little donut stand–“oh, you kids and the ideas you have”
Stacy is a horn dog, I can dig it.
Wait, so Joe’s dad is literally named “Dick”?
Yep. I think it was Willis’s default name for dads in the Walkyverse. Like half the ones we actually learned the names of were “Dick”. (Including Ruth’s father, Dick Lesse. Because you can take Willis’s life, but you can’t take his pun names!) Most of them have been changed in DoA, and I think actually retconned in the Walkyverse reruns, but Dr. Dick remains Dr. Dick.
Am I the only one who feels that Joe’s “Yeah… He tends to” is more about feeling disappointed that he doesn’t live up to his dad’s hypermasculine and super-sexual persona? I mean, yes, he seems to recognize that his dad is not exactly the best guy, but I also feel like Joe tries to differentiate himself from the worst of his dad’s behavior while also emulating it.
Maybe, but I think some of that is a bit bitter. I recall him not being happy about his dad stepping out on his mom, if I remember it right. Joe is a lot of things, many negative, but I guess he isn’t a cheater, since he is not big on committing in the first place to where one could cheat.
I think it’s kinda amusing that Stacey seemingly isn’t that put off by the list, or Richard for that matter, but that also is probably a sardonic “cute”. That, and after BLAINE, that probably seems a bit quaint in comparison.
Still, I know Joe seems to have mixed feelings about his dad, but I hope he doesn’t view turning into him to be an inevitability. Your parents are a part of you, but you form the rest, and your choices are a big part of that.
Yeah, I definitely read that as a heavily sarcastic “that’s cute,” although it’s also possibly a “bless your heart” kind of reaction to a teenager holding a “sorry I reduced you down to your fuckability number” donut apology booth. Like oh, the shenanigans these youths get up to.
I read it as “You’re cute”
Seriously?
Funny, given the look on her face as she said it, I read it as “that’s sad and pathetic”
I read it as being similar to “Oh, honey…” but your way works too.
maybe she hasn’t read the list and this is the first she’s heard of it
or idk maybe she’s just read similar lists for most of her life and has accepted this as part of the background sexism of being a woman
Or she genuinely doesn’t care and did similar things herself when she was similarly young and stupid.
Remember, this is the woman who skipped out on meeting her daughter last time to hook up with another divorced parent. Literally left the kid looking around the room blankly going “mom?” while she was off banging Joe’s dad in a closet somewhere. She probably understands Joe’s teenager priorities pretty well.
She didn’t “skip out”. She still showed up, just after a short delay, which she called Amber about to let er know she’d be a little late.
Nor would that seem particularly relevant to whether someone would care about something like Joe’s list. The fact that she’s down for casual sex (or at least she was in Richard’s case) really doesn’t imply she would be okay with Joe’s list.
Daily Bread, this is kind of a respo se to thia comment and kind of a reason be toa few you made above. There a musician called Frank Turner who wrote a so g called Redemption that seems oddly appropriate- “I tried do hard to boot turn into my father, but if I only skip out on his choices will I ever choose better.” I’ll leave the link here. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved=0ahUKEwjyqMO0lJ3VAhVl4oMKHUUpAfsQ8TUILDAB&usg=AFQjCNF1sHlk2z9QIx28jtvfnGP_UlkifA
ah nifty, thanks for the link
Joe, remember, you’re trying to be honest here and acknowledge your errors, so don’t minimize what you’ve done.
….. the list was from zero-minus to eleven.
I’m starting to think that maybe Mike is the one who leaked the list.
It would fit with his Dumbiverse “Be an asshole in pursuit of character growth” MO…
That definitely sounds like something he’d do.
I don’t think this is the case, but it would actually be adorable if that last panel was Joe offering Stacey a “congrats you got laid” treat.
Like, context very much does not support that, but in a happier comic AU.
She Wants him….
Couger’s on the prowl…
( NO, Im not shaming her. But I hope its not too awkward for Amber and Danny )
Thaaaaaaat would be super creepy.
You shamin’?
I feel pretty comfortable shaming grownass adults for pursuing 18-year-olds, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s occurring here.
Reminds me of that online countdown for the Olsen twins’ 18th birthday.
…..eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww
Is it Creepy though?
Joe isnt a sexual innocent. ( Far from it. )
An older women might be just what he needs, to let go of negative immature attitudes toward women.
Yeah no, he may not be “innocent” but he’s still incredibly immature – more than immature enough to be taken advantage of by someone that much older.
I don’t think that is in any way what is happening. She’s just being friendly.
Maybe, maybe not
What comic are you reading?
OK., I’m on a larger screen, and the facial expressions no longer seem to support that interpretation.
But I was also expecting this encounter, and thinking Joe with a bead might spark something.
( His attitude here is also very nonthreatening, and apologetic.
I can see why that might be a lot more charming to an older women , than his usual douchery. )
I dont CARE. I still SHIP IT.
Is Joe’s grandpa’s name Harry?
They’ve “met” in the Old Testament sense of the word.
“Ew, I can’t believe my dad bangs older chicks.”
I think Joe knows his dad bangs ____ chicks in general. Fill in the blank, he certainly did! hiyooo
Stacy’s priorities are my priorities.
I was hoping nobody would take Stacey’s “that cute” line seriously but…alas! From the facial expression and the fact that she is an adult woman, I think she does find the list kinda gross but in a “this young boy who could be my son is trying to be some sort of ladies’ man and he thinks rating people on a list is gonna help him do that, laughable” sort of way. Like…I get the feeling she doesn’t approve. Cute isn’t literal. She means it because he’s trying to act like suave and to her…he’s still a kid. He’s not, he’s eighteen, but to her that’s a kid.
WAT. Look at his FACE. Like, what, does Joe recognise that his dad treats women poorly, but doesn’t apply that to himself?
Like idk Joe seems to think that as long as he’s not actively a dick to the women he objectifies he’s in the clear- and certainly that’s preferable to RapeFace. But your brain thinks have a way of leaking into your people treatment. And he recognises that with his Dad, but not with himself.
Cognitive dissonance?
He recognizes it with himself to degrees, but I think he has largely missed the point in the past, whereas the list thing biting him in the ass has shown him some of the ramifications of it. Like, there’s not really anything wrong with stuff like when he and Roz did their thing, but there’s a difference between that and well, this jazz.
He probably does think his dad does, but the “rules” that Joe “holds himself to” mean that he’s not like that.
What does it say about Joe’s relationship with his father that he’s THAT disturbed and put off by the mere mention of him?
Looks like Joe still hasn’t learnt anything from the past 10 or so strips. He doesn’t seem sorry at all in panel three, and his view of women still hasnt changed
I’ve, uh, known your father. (in the biblical sense.)
-Padme to Leia in some AU fanfic, probably
“Galaxy has proper OBGYN care” AU
That birth scene was fucking STUPID. Even as a wee boy, I knew it was bullshit.
The part where Leia apparently has memories of her birth was an interesting twist that could have been developed more
Shit like this is why Han going “The Force doesn’t work like that!” and everyone quoting it since makes me laugh, because the Force pretty much does whatever the hell it damn well wants, and can be used as an explanation for pretty much anything. Including that.
This is adorable, but don’t think we’ve forgotten that we haven’t been given definitive answers on Amber’s recent trauma ye- Oh, doughnuts!
Stacy is a mom thats got it going on.
a section from the generational continuation of the song, “Stacy’s mom”
…
Hoho now I am the funny one… Yes.
Staz-iness aside, how much money does this guy have to spend on donuts??? I was literally starving a few times in college.
Every time that song comes on, my husband is careful to tell our son what an idiot the singer is being, ha ha. “Look, Stacy is a cute kid his age who is gonna grow up to look just like her! Her mom is way too old for him and that is super creepy. Don’t do that!”
Can’t wait to see how they’re both being absolutely despicable, here.
…see, this is why I have hope for Joe. Meeting one of his father’s “conquests” (in Richard’s words), he has two options.
1: Pride in his father’s accomplishments
2: Knowing that, uh, yeah, his father was probably kinda a douche about shit.
He acts with Option 2 in mind.
Look, a lot of 30 year old staunch feminists were 18 year old douchebags of some severity. Joe needs to stop being a douchebag, and he needs smacks to get him to stop being a douchebag.
But the carrot works too, every now and then…
Sorry, but how Joe acts fresh out of high school is how he’s locked for life. It’s the law.
Only if you ask Rachel how these things work
Stacy has earned those doughnuts.
What I like is that she nipped off to get a doughnut for Amber as well, and while Amber is not as anxious as she was in , Stacy is almost certainly aware that she would have problems asking for one herself. It’s a nice callback.
*in middle school, HTML is not my strong point
“I made a do list rating the bangworthiness of women. And then a hacker leaked it online so now everybody knows.” There, Joe, fixed your explanation for you.
That’s actually what he said.
Yeah, but not in that exact order, so it doesn’t count.
That’s actually not what he said. In Badgermole’s comment, what he’s apologising for is that he made a list, and then let it get leaked – that’s two apologies. In the comic, Joe’s words suggest that what he’s apologising for is JUST the leaking. It may be just Joe messing up the wording, but what he’s saying is basically “I’m sorry I got caught,” whereas in Badgermole’s is “I’m sorry I did something shitty, and I’m sorry that shitty thing is now affecting people even more.”
The sign is definitely “I’m sorry I did something shitty AND that I made it easy to leak”, so I think it’s fair to assume that’s also what he means by his verbal apology. He’s not eloquent.
I think that’s his PR helping out.
By which I mean Danny.
Poor Joe! If an attractive older woman tells him that she ‘knows’ his father, he knows what that means all too well! I wonder if, in some ways, this is his problem. His father is such a successful Casanova and, in the end, Joe doesn’t quite have the same touch and the same ability to flatter and find partners willing and eager to do things his way. I think it really messed Joe up the way he fails to have his father’s level (and nature) of ‘success’.
The solution? Stop trying to be dad; something that any son finds incredibly difficult.
…How successful IS his dad with women? I mean… you make it sound like he’s really good at judging which women are open to his advances and at being charming with them. But the only two women we’ve seen him interact with are Stacy and Sarah- an eighteen year old (so that’s incredibly sleazy anyway) who was extremely and openly uninterested and he hit on her regardless, and in a gross way.
But yeah, Joe is who he learned to be, as indeed we all are. But letting go of what our parents mounded us into (usually unintentionally) is difficult for us all, I absolutely agree there.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Richard is actually more respectful of women than his son who just holds the breakup of his marriage against him.
I think his father’s been strongly implied, if not outright stated, to have been cheating, pretty much throughout his marriage (and thus Joe’s life). That pretty much kills the “more respectful” part.
It was definitely stated earlier in the comic (I’ve been re-reading them).
Joe stated when Richard first showed up that he was still like that even BEFORE the divorce, implying heavily that he was a regular cheater.
I can imagine him behaving more respectful than Joe, but only as a strategy to appear as attractive as possible to women around him.
Both of them hit on Sarah. IMO, at least, Dick comes off as skeezier, and not just because of the age gap.
Exactly what I was going to point out. Richard’s “line” was gross. Joe’s was pretty literally “heyyy” followed by “hey, you’re hot but if you’re uninterested consider me backing off”. He’s done a lot that’s more unpleasant than that, but with Richard we only have two examples to go by. One of them was fucking gross. And with Stacy, well, he was pretty quickly digging to find out if she was single and then being very… forward. His interaction with her was better than with Sarah but if she wasn’t as eager as she was it would also feel skeezy and gross.
What I love about this comment is that it’s visible, the EXACT MOMENT that Joe realizes, “Oh, shit . . . this lady banged my dad. And I rated her daughter.” And he doesn’t know how to handle that information, so DONUTS!
why this
…she’s so goddamn stupid.
I doubted this, but no… she’s really dense.
Joe’s dad is a Dick, amirite? (wink, nudge)
…heh, “Dick”.
According to myheritage.com there are over a thousand people with the surname “Penis” in the world.
A friend of mine lives in Penistone.
There’s a town in Newfoundland called “Dildo”.
My point being that Willis deliberately named him Richard to make a statement about his character. That we haven’t seen much of, so far, btw.
Willis even sets up the reader to infer this. Two strips ago, Stacy addressed Mike as Michael, so apparently she prefers to use the long version of people’s first names. It gave me a moments pause.
I had to switch back from Michael to Mike, to realize that “hey yeah, Amber’s mom knows Mike from when they were kids”. Reading the strips in succession, the reader will certainly try to convert “Richard” to see if it reveals a new meaning.
Heyooooo
These arcs crossing over make me feel bad for constantly thinking Amber’s mom is hot. Now I have to wonder if her character arc is fully realized or buy shame gift donuts…
Hey, he got it from his Daddy. Apparently.
Now that’s interesting; Joe apparently recognises that his dad’s behaviour is toxic, and is embarrassed on Richard’s behalf. And this isn’t a sudden realisation by extrapolating from his current situation, he’s resigned to being embarrassed about his dad’s ways, suggesting he’s always felt that way. He’s just never applied it to himself before.
(I feel like I’m using way too many italics here, but I can’t see any I’m prepared to remove.)
Per some comments above, I’m fairly sure that Joe has constructed some arbitrary code for himself, and as long as he follows those rules, he’s so much better than his father, completely unlike him.
… yeah.
He probably just mentally translates “I’m not as bad as my dad about this” as “I’m not bad about this”.
If anything I think it’s an insight to his attitude towards all this in the previous strips. It’s easy to feel like you haven’t done anything wrong when your baseline for comparison is so much worse.
Like the vast amounts of people who don’t understand how they can be guilty of racism when racism in their eyes means Holocaust, Apartheid or KKK lynchmobs.
Be careful. That’s a dangerous road you’re going down.
How the flaming hell Willis continually hits such psychologically sound notes in his characters’ personalities when he hasn’t (as far as I know) studied such baffles me. My point being that that is very common. Picking up behaviour from our parents- even behaviour that bothers us in them- is so far from unusual and requires a lot of self awareness and personal development to cast aside. And those are things few eighteen year olds are overburdened with.
finally, someone who didn’t lose their marbles upon hearing about the list, hah.
Well I’m guessing that its something like in the narrow confines of university life the list is big deal but to Stacy, especially compared to what shes already gone through, the list is probably very minor “oh you rated her a three? Well my ex-husband used to violently assault me and my daughter”
Exactly. The list is a shitty thing to do, but not Rachel screaming in the computer science hallway bad.
Mmm, though being directly confronted by an unapologetic dick with it IS different in context.
I guess I’m reacting more to other commenters here. Like hes a dick but hes not toedad yet by a long shot, but some seem to see him similarly?
That kind of sounds like you’re saying that people can only dislike the actions of the most extreme dislikeable character in the comic.
The thing is, while the Carols and the Rosses and the Blaines of the world absolutely exist, the Joes are so much more common. And their behaviour is still problematic and still distresses people and still does harm. And it’s completely legitimate to take issue with that- even in this comic, where we’ve seen Carol and Ross and Blaine.
And also, because the Joes of the world ARE more common, his behaviour is so much more likely to feel familiar to readers (particularly female ones) and is more likely to hit a nerve because of that.
Rachel was completely justified that time, especially given the creepy-as-fuck way he approached her the first time they met. Even more so given how the news of a violent rapist being caught just outside a dorm is likely to put the women living there on edge, particularly about dudes who’ve made a habit of hitting on women and making sexual comments while showing zero concern for the discomfort it causes and the disrespect it shows.
Stacy, on the other hand:
– is not on the list herself
– has not read any of the entries, particularly the one on her daughter
– has never been subjected to Joe’s unwelcome advances
– has an abusive ex-husband whose disrespect for women FAR exceeds Joe’s
The different reaction isn’t because Stacy’s is “correct”, but because she’s looking at the situation from a very different perspective
Also, last time she was at this college she found a random hot dad and abandoned her daughter to go hook up with him instead. Probably just a “seems legit” + “man I’m glad the internet wasn’t a thing when I was 17” thing with her.
Honestly I’m kind of liking her dynamic, where her problems with Amber aren’t that she’s a terrible parent, it’s that personality-wise she’s basically distaff Joe in a lot of ways and has no fucking clue how to help a kid that’s not even using college to get laid with her problems. A lot of the parents have a lot of generation xerox going on… which is fine, but seeing a complete mismatch between a kid and parent’s personality breaks up the trend nicely.
We haven’t seen enough of Stacy to really say what she’s like as a person, beyond that she’s willing to sleep with a stranger who made her feel sexy- and frankly, after the relationship she came out of, that doesn’t seem at all surprising. I wouldn’t say that she comes across as being at all like Joe in personality.
I do agree that she’s got a different dynamic with Amber than we’ve seen so far (from what little of it we’ve seen) and that that’s interesting. But given the unusual situation Amber is now in it’s difficult to judge what they’re normally like together.
This genuinely made me laugh. It isn’t easy to make me laugh.
Oh man! This is so cringy! X-D
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Yup, comfort food and attempt to support her daughter. Her intentions are A+ solid and she’s trying to mom as best as she possibly can and that matters a lot.
Also, good on Joe for starting to see through to how messed up his list was and how extensive it got in creating harm. It’ll be a long process, but this is a good introspective start.
Panel 2: Heh, Stacey is on point here.
Panel 3: I like this. Yes, he opens with trying to distance himself from responsibility (I password protected it, a hacker got into it, etc…), but the end part is him coldly owning what he did without defending it even if there’s touches of his misogyny in it. And that’s big.
Because that’s been one of his major hurdles in the way of growth, owning that this obsession of his isn’t actually that impressive or necessary or moral and by describing it without frills, he can also see it as it was without the accompanying mythology. And well, stripped down to its basics, yeah, it sounds about as awful as it was.
But the fact that Joe is now seeing that is everything. I’m so proud of him here and I look forward to him continuing to evolve out of this pit of toxic masculinity he fell in.
Panel 4: Heh, maybe it’s me reading into it too much, but with the eyes, I can’t help reading some A+ mom judgment into those first lines. Cause there’s a way of deadpanning that communicates heavily that “I’m disappointed in you and your choices”.
Panels 5-6: These panels really seem to underscore one of the bigger tragedies about Joe. He clearly recognizes that his sleazy PUA of a dad is a scummy person that one should be ashamed of and is clearly deeply uncomfortable with his dad’s antics as has been shown multiple times.
But he’s been trapped in a cycle of emulating and becoming his dad despite that. Like, how tragic is that? To know that what you are becoming is something you loathe but being unwilling to stop it because you fear vulnerability too much?
It breaks my damn heart and I’m holding on to hope that this is the day he starts to slowly turn it around and break with that path that has him becoming something he recognizes as immoral and unwanted. Strips like this give fuel to that hope.
Honestly this strip is just heartwarming.
Didn’t see the deadpan in ‘That’s cute’ at first but yeah, that works. Her eyes are deadpan level.
Love Joe’s face in panel 6.
Panels 5-6: You know, I think that there was this story in a book about some Joshua guy who spoke something about how it’s easier to recognize the splint in another person’s eyes than the beam in your own. I think that on this, at least, he was very on point. This is something pretty much all of us know something about.
And it’s really sad and weird that, as you mentioned, Joe is actually trying really hard to -not- be his dad. He really is. His complete “never get emotionally attached to anyone” M.O. is because he hopes to not become his dad. By not becoming emotionally attached and putting himself in a vulnerable position, he hopes that he will never have to deal with the messy end of a true relationship by being a cheater and making someone cry their heart out and/or rage against him because of him doing something that hurt them badly…
…But the “solution” in trying to not put anyone into that position by deliberately shutting down the empathy that we know he is capable of is -also- hurting people, as well as pretty much turning him into his father after all. That is indeed so very sad.
And while it won’t be instantaneous because of all the defense mechanisms he’s put up around himself, and while he will certainly have some “one step forward, two steps back” moments coming forth; he does seem to slowly realise that this is what’s happening. And once he’s getting past all of his own defenses… Well, he’ll probably find another way to be stupid, because this is Dumbing of Age, after all. But you know, hopefully it will be a different and less harmful stupid thing.
So my reading of panel 4 is entiiiiiiiirely different. For the eyes, I take that to be sort of thoughtful squinting trying to figure out why the face looks familiar, entirely unrelated to the ‘That’s cute’. The ‘That’s cute’ reads to me as taking the list as an abstract ‘boys will be boys, he’s just a kid, he’ll grow out of it, it’s harmless, the boy pulling your hair just means he likes you’ without any particular second thought. Maybe I’m giving Stacy insufficient credit.
Agree on Joe, though. Some sparks of good egg are starting to rub off, even if he’s not fully aboard the good egg train yet. Hopefully he does not backslide (again).
She’s learning about the list in the context of him handing out free donuts as an apology for it. What would you expect a well-adjusted person to say? “I shun your attempt at apologizing”?
There is a massive, massive gulf between shrugging approval of the original behavior (as I think is happening here) vs condemnation of the apology (as you seem to think I am looking for). A random example of something that would be perfectly reasonable for a ‘well-adjusted’ person to say might be: “Well, glad you learned your lesson. Thank you for the donuts.”
I agree, that was my reading as well.
You put my read of the list in better words than I could. The only interpretations I’d been seeing in the comments were disapproval and ‘she’s attracted to Joe’. I knew I didn’t really get either of those from my own reading of the strip, but I couldn’t figure out how to say what exactly my own impression was. Thank you.
Of the line, not the list, oops
Aside from her eyes, there’s the slight italics on the word “That’s” which, to me, makes the line read as sarcastic:
*That’s* cute
vs
That’s *cute*
Also that it’s “Really.” with a period instead of “Really?” like it’s a genuine question.
Yeah, like I might be completely wrong on this, but it’s definitely how it comes off to me.
The slight italicization isn’t intentional to the word, methinks. That’s just how Willis’ font is. You can look back at other strips and it’s the same, regardless of the context of the sentence.
I read the line in a ‘your list was stupid, but well, you’re just a kid. Good to see you’re learning from your mistakes’ kind of way.
Ah, yeah you’re right about the font.
That’s not italics. Willis always slants his T’s.
(or rather I should say his font has slanted T’s)
Yay! Someone gets it!
Better Joe than Mike.
I read this differently than most posters. I find this to be a major failure by Stacy.
In yesterday’s strip Amber had to do one of the hardest things she has ever done in her life. Amber literally returned to the scene of the crime. Amber’s coping mechanisms are curl up in her shell (sometimes literally), run away, or violence. Going through those doors allowed for none of those options. She is a hairsbreadth from full blown panic. Stacy is her anchor. This one of those times as a parent where Stacy has to protect her daughter. She has to be MOM. She has to be there. Right beside her.
So soon as they entered, Stacy walked away from Amber to get donuts. Getting a donut for her daughter is a good tactic, but only if Amber joins her. Instead Stacy left Amber standing in the entrance alone. By herself. If Stacy had grabbed a couple of donuts and went right back, that would be acceptable. Instead she is chatting with Joe while eating her donut. She is not hurrying back. In Amber’s moment of need, she has been abandoned. Echos of Family Weekend.
It has only been a minute or so, but to Amber that probably feels like a lifetime. A potential healing moment has just turned into years of future therapy.
One caveat: If Amber has been standing near Stacy just off panel, then my analysis is wrong and Stacy has done good.
So much this. Saying she’s a good parent because she’s not outright abusing Amber is setting a ridiculously low bar for what being a parent means.
And if we’re intended to see Stacy as lovably goofy here, then the fault lies with Willis’ writing. But I’m really doubting that.
I’m pretty sure that her being genuinely out of her depth and having no real idea how to help Amber through her problems is an intentional character point, not an accident.
And in fairness, come on. If you were an easygoing woman who basically remembered college as a four-year french sex comedy, and whose current concerns mostly involve hooking up with other divorcees and being glad you’re done with the marriage thing, how would YOU deal with it when your kid’s college problems were less “my boyfriend broke up with me” and more “I’m clearly a budding serial killer and twice already I’ve failed to keep my homicidal impulses in check, it’s only a matter of time before I kill someone, probably someone relatively innocent”?
“Way the hell out of her comfort zone and struggling to fake it” seems like an appropriate way to play this one. I’d have no clue what to do with that one either.
You can fuck right off with that “budding serial killer” garbage.
I dunno. I mean, both times involve Amber being threatened (in different ways) and reacting to violence in a moment of extremely heightened emotion.
BUT. Ivanka’s line sounds pretty close- I’m guessing- to how AMBER sees the situation, which is the point.
Along with the “remembered college as a four-year french sex comedy”, since there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
She does hook up with Joe’s Dad, but that’s about all we know. She’s glad to be out of the marriage, but that’s because Blaine was an abusive monster, not whatever you’re trying to imply.
Yeah, I’ve seen a couple of comments about Stacy being pretty damn interested in pursuing casual sex but absolutely no sign of it in comic. I agree that a one-off with someone who made her feel sexy after an abusive relationship is no evidence of her actively pursuing casual sex.
I feel like I should point out that even if Stacy was the most amazing mom on the planet, Amber would still need years of therapy. There is absolutely no level of good parenting that would be a sufficient substitute for a professional therapist. Hell, if not for interference from her walking staph infection of a father, she would have been in therapy years ago.
I dunno. Although I read her as being at least a C+ or B- as a mom, I can’t deny that there’s room for the few actions we’ve seen to be interpreted as inconsiderate, inattentive, or even slightly neglectful.
It still seems to me like Stacy cares and is trying to do her best, and the worst interpretation that seems likely is that she simply isn’t well equipped to help her daughter deal with the traumas she’s experienced, maybe she’s not even good at fully recognizing the depth of the emotional pain Amber has been dealing with. After all, Amber had significant issues with social anxieties even before the robbery. She was always shy, quiet, and reclusive, and I feel like that with that as the baseline, a lot of parents would struggle to both identify and properly gauge a good response to what few signs of distress might be showing on top of that.
I mean you’re right that I’m convicting her based on scant evidence. Emotional reaction I suppose.
She gets B+ for effort I guess. Maybe she’ll figure things out.
Hell yes to all of that, but especially to your first two sentences.
Didn’t Roomies Joe…Joe Amber’s Mom?
Huh, Joe seems to be accepting the challenging nature of his and his dad’s toxic behavior. Well, that it was challenging and not good.