That’s not a bad thing, despite what he may think of it at times. It could lead to a stable relationship down the road that lasts and that he’s glad for having a foundation of friendship to build on.
It happened for me and my boyfriend, so I’m speaking from experience.
Look, Thanksgiving is meant to be an awkward a miserable experience. It’s meant to help you be thankful the next day, when you can eat leftovers but not be around people.
Thanksgiving starts with stuffing a dead bird’s body cavity with seasoned chunks of stale bread at the crack of dawn, and it’s just downhill from there.
At least the parade on TV gives you an escape during the cooking marathon.
It kind of fits him though doesn’t it. He’s that guy who mostly seems decent…until he says that one last thing that makes you think “god damn it, you were so close”
Oh yeah, absolutely. I think Joe’s more aware of it is all- and I wouldn’t have thought he was aware of it at all until recently. We are who we learn to be.
Interesting how Joe has, inadvertently, helped Amber so much. Yeah he wasn’t listening but sometimes when you want to open up its easier to open up to someone you don’t really know and Joe “let” Amber talk as much as she wanted on her favorite subject
Hes got Joyces support and friendship, hes got an in with Amber so if he can just repair bridges with Dorothy (Joyce will help with that) he’ll be well on his way to being a decent guy and probably quicker then he expected
I personally hear his lines in John H. Benjamin’s voice, but I can definitely see Patrick Walburton. On a somewhat related note, I can’t help but assign Danny’s lines a weird James Franco and Mark Wahlberg hybrid voice.
Mixed up, ill at ease, but beyond that hard to be sure what exactly he’s feeling in that panel. Sad? Concerned? Considering how much his dad seems to actually mean what he said in the cafeteria? Just plain uncomfortable? Probably, he’s feeling quite a lot, and not fully aware of half of it.
I suspect he’s used to his dad by now. He’s not used to sweet, somewhat anxious women who are desperately concerned about their troubled daughter who recently stabbed a rapist asking him to keep an eye (however low-key) on said vulnerable young woman. Stacy has trusted him with a real responsibility. She sees something worth trusting in him. And she sees the same in his dad who is not only A dick but The Dick… So does that mean she has terrible judgement and they’re both destined to let down both women? Or does that mean it is also his responsibility to somehow keep his dad being a faithful, decent partner when he couldn’t do that for him with his mum? (Does that mean it was his fault that his dad hurt his mum? Or is this a second chance to fix things because now he’s an adult with awareness and can?)
This. This is why Joe acts like a 2D caricature, right here… do you know how hard it is to interact with others respectfully, and recognise the limits of your own abilities and what is and is not feasibly your responsibility?? (Yes, learning this stuff is hard and part of growing up, but Joe doesn’t know where to start…)
I know he looks older (he looks like a non-bearded duplicate of his 55 yo father) – but he is just a kid of 18 still…
I’m pretty sure ‘last-panel Richard’ which in real life would be ‘tack-on half-joke’ Richard, is more a coping mechanism than anything else. He’s not ready to entirely let go of his former flippant, promiscuous self, and so he feels the need to reinforce that identity every so often in order to avoid raising the bar for his behavior past a point he finds acceptable.
It’s not all that different from me following up every few nice/thoughtful statements I make with something kinda rude or just painfully honest, and every intelligent/perceptive statement I make with something crass and less-than-insightful. It prevents people from expecting a standard of behavior from me that I don’t think I can live up to, because the expectations of others are my biggest fear.
When people call me up coz they’re upset it’s not unusual for me to establish the facts then lovingly mock them/the situation until they feel better. (Not *every* situation coz some of them have nowt funny about them – but probably a good 3/4s of the time… People continue to contact me again after this happens – of course, at my daughter’s birthday party last month, my best friend and cousin both asked me explicitly to shout at them about their problems and help kick them into gear after my sister mentioned I’d done this to her because she was beating herself up about things beyond her sphere of control, so this may say more about the people I know?- and laughing down the phone feels like an improvement on crying down it, and sometimes a sense of perspective is useful… I suspect there are probably times I haven’t got the balance between loving non-judgemental support and mocking quite right though…)
Literally every one of Richard’s speech bubbled could be replaced with “I am an asshole and deserve to be shat upon by bears” and nothing would really change.
So one small (technical) thing about yesterday’s comic, which I know has already been a headache: it currently doesn’t link to today’s strip, with the “next” button not being clickable like you’re at the most recent strip and clicking on the strip itself just refreshing the page.
I think that Joe kinda needs to stay unattached for a while – figure himself out first, ya know?
And Amber, I dunno, she’s kind of got a lot of things going on right now, too.
I’d be all “Team Salmber”, but I’m pretty sure that after the Prom Night flashbacks, Amber is probably a zero on the Kinsey Scale. Honestly, Danny was probably the only male cast member sensitive enough and caring enough to really be involved there, and he’s got Eef.
… anyone think we could see a return of Mike and Amber a la Shortpacked!? If anyone is going to give her hard truth, it’s Mike.
Honestly, right now, Amber proooobably shouldn’t be “seeing” anyone but a therapist. The state of her, she should be building positive friendships rather than romantic relationships where she starts to feel more like she can (or should?) have a say in their behaviour.
As for her/Mike… she’s a very different person here and they have a different relationship. I don’t think so. It would need a lot of work first. And frankly, I don’t think he would be a healthy fit for this version of Amber.
Agreed, comic-Amber should definitely not be with anyone right now.
Maybe when she’s in a better state of mind and Joe is in a better place I will feel less awful about shipping them haha. Can I ship myself with Joe, then? lol
I still kind of like him with Joyce, but I also really like the idea of him having a friend that is female that won’t take his crap and that he cares about platonically.
I’ve always liked Joe and Joyce together because they have obvious chemistry together (not sure if romantic, platonic or brother-sister) and they’re at stages where they both need to learn about, well a lot of things, and I think Joyce would be very good at setting boundaries which Joe, now, would be respectful of but also Joyce has shown that she listens to Joe so it’d be very good for both of them
…. okay, so if Thanksgiving’s going to be awkward ANYWAY, any hypothetical Joe/Amber shenanigans couldn’t be identified as the thing that made it awkward.
I don’t think Stacy is passive at all. Blaine has probably terrorized her for a decade or two, trying to make her shrink completely into passivity… and yet, she got herself and Amber out of that domestic violence situation, likely at tremendous personal risk/cost, and is making a new life for herself, while supporting her daughter in every way she can think of.
Emotionally speaking, Stacy’s hard core.
People seem to feel that people are weak if they stay with abusers. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head- those people aren’t weak, but getting out? That takes incredible strength.
This is what it means to be friends with a girl, Joe. You have to occasionally pretend to care what’s happening in their lives every once in a while. Once you’ve mastered that, maybe you can move on to actually dating a girl. Maybe.
Maybe, kind of, Joyce, though he was pretty awkward about it, especially face to face after their online conversations. And that was a large part of his change.
The message to Joe today seems to be: “Well, Amber isn’t officially your step-sister or anything but be a dear and treat her as if she was your step-sister. Kthxbai.”
To be fair, that WOULD have been good advice to Joe up until a few days ago.
Speaking of, something that makes me sad is that Joe just had a life-changing experience, something that shook his identity to the core and has made him change a lot of previous assumptions, but he has NO inclination of sharing it with his father – or indeed any reason to assume that it would help. He might be right.
While it might say something about their relationship (and probably does) I think that it’s also been completely pushed out of Joe’s head for the moment.
With Richard’s uh…’propensities’ I imagine there are probably a few half siblings Joe may not be aware of/haven’t met/at least doesn’t spend Thanksgiving with. I like Stepsibs Amber and Joe though!
Condoms are what, 99% effective if used perfectly? Unless Richard got the snip, given how many different partners it’s suggested he has had, it’s not that unlikely. Some of them would be on the pill or implant or IUD etc, but a lot wouldn’t.
It could easily go either way, is my point. Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if Joe was unplanned and he got the snip after that, but that might be based on my own cheating fuckheaded father.
Joe only recently began to deal with the realization that women are people. Lots of implications he hasn’t thought out yet, and from which he will be years disentangling. Not surprising he isn’t sure what to say here.
You know, I get that Richard was a horrible father figure for Joe, but I don’t get why people are hating him for what he’s doing *right now*. Richard is actively acknowledging his weaknesses and combating them while staying true to a romantic attachment that he also meta knows he’s super lucky to get.
He’s not acknowledging his weaknesses. He’s still making creepy comments. He’s joking about how he barely notices the barely legal teens around because the sex with the younger women he’s with is so good. That’s not dealing with his weaknesses, that’s at best, “I’ve met the special woman who’s turned my life around without even trying.”
It’s crappy romance fiction. It’s bullshit. It’s not a story Willis is going to write. Richard isn’t just going to blunder into a complete character turn around while his son struggles with his problems.
We know from the start that Richard’s a dick. He’s not going to change into the perfect boyfriend/husband material overnight. It’s kind of funny watching readers fall for his act, but kind of scary too, because that’s how people fall for creeps like that in real life too and how they charm and schmooze their way into being trusted.
I hate it that the answer is always “because Willis wouldn’t write a morally ambiguous character that isn’t totally scummy deep down”.
(Similar to this is the fact that knowing Willis does far more to help predict the comic than reading the comic does)
“His act”? You think that he’s not serious, even if he’s not being realistic with himself? (The fact that he’s not allowed to change as a person without major trauma aside)
And while Richard is 100% serious, he’s still got the underlying-attitude problems that make him a piece of shit, and being currently serious about this one relationship doesn’t make him not a creep.
We are not ‘hating him for what he’s doing right now’ we ‘distrust what he’s doing right now and are reluctant to rejoice’. He’s a shithead, he creeps on young girls and outright admits it. I don’t see why people should limit their reaction to a rarely-appearing side character to just what’s happening on the current panel. Joe’s dad is here, so we’re discussing him, period, the whole of his character, not just what he’s doing right now.
Not sure if Stacey realises it but what she said to Joe and show she said it is probably the best way to approach Joe
To look out for someone else works on his ideas of being a man and doing it for Stacey (the mom) not Amber (the peer) also ties into his feelings for moms (not many guys can refuse a moms request)
WOW, all of this is making Joe grow up fast, finally… BTW, how long into the semester is it, i cant tell how long anythings been. How long has amazing Girl been around???
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don’t do what I do
or who I do
or anyone directly related to who I do
Pretty good advice, for non-Joes and for other major family gatherings beside Thanksgiving.
If it takes longer to connect them to Kevin Bacon than it does to me, just ask first.
…now I really want to know the cast’s Bacon numbers.
Joe is slowly becoming emotional support for the gals in his dorm, hope it sticks 😀
That’s not a bad thing, despite what he may think of it at times. It could lead to a stable relationship down the road that lasts and that he’s glad for having a foundation of friendship to build on.
It happened for me and my boyfriend, so I’m speaking from experience.
So…. one…. so far…. who doesn’t accept or want that support….
…. oh, and Joyce too, so that makes the number….
…. well, one.
One more than none. That’s something. Literally.
Yay, progress?
A Quantum Leap if you will.
He has passed the Joe-Del test with Joyce, and now Amber.
Whether or not Amber talks to him for a month, Joe is thinking of Amber and stacy.
Joe-Del:
Talking with a named female cast member about something not sex related?
It wsa first that.
Now, since the recent strips with Danny, I’m thinking it should include conversing with anyone about feels, either Joe’s or the other person’s.
Look, Thanksgiving is meant to be an awkward a miserable experience. It’s meant to help you be thankful the next day, when you can eat leftovers but not be around people.
The key is to keep your mouth so full of stuffing that your foot won’t fit.
Wait, it’s not keeping the mouth full of foot that the stuffing won’t fit?
Man, no wonder why Thanksgiving would be so entertaining for Mike!
Wise man say: “A closed mouth gathers no foot.”
Thanksgiving starts with stuffing a dead bird’s body cavity with seasoned chunks of stale bread at the crack of dawn, and it’s just downhill from there.
At least the parade on TV gives you an escape during the cooking marathon.
I actually enjoy Thanksgiving with my family. What am I doing wrong?
Have you tried taking advantage of an indigenous people? /sarcasm
Better question: what are you doing right? *Gets a notepad and pen.*
Well in my household the solution is “Being Canadian eh?”
This was so lovely and wholesome until that goddamn last panel. I am really starting to hate Richard last panels.
Are we sure he goes by Richard and not Dick though? The latter would be far more fitting.
Do what I do and pretend those panels aren’t there.
It kind of fits him though doesn’t it. He’s that guy who mostly seems decent…until he says that one last thing that makes you think “god damn it, you were so close”
I wonder if he does that on purpose to keep people at a distance, but that seems more like a Joe thing to try.
And where might Joe have learned to behave like that?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I think Joe’s more aware of it is all- and I wouldn’t have thought he was aware of it at all until recently. We are who we learn to be.
Chris Phoenix: Very true.
Jason: Also true. I think we’ll keep watching Joe choose to learn a new way to be.
Interesting how Joe has, inadvertently, helped Amber so much. Yeah he wasn’t listening but sometimes when you want to open up its easier to open up to someone you don’t really know and Joe “let” Amber talk as much as she wanted on her favorite subject
Hes got Joyces support and friendship, hes got an in with Amber so if he can just repair bridges with Dorothy (Joyce will help with that) he’ll be well on his way to being a decent guy and probably quicker then he expected
So is it pretty normal that I hear all Joe’s lines in Patrick Warburton’s.voice?
An obvious choice.
I personally hear his lines in John H. Benjamin’s voice, but I can definitely see Patrick Walburton. On a somewhat related note, I can’t help but assign Danny’s lines a weird James Franco and Mark Wahlberg hybrid voice.
Ok so I had to go to YouTube and have a listen because it’s been a while since I’ve watched Archer… but now I don’t think I can unhear it.
The Archer voice, I figure?
I read once that HJB gets into Bob Belcher by stooping his shoulders and dropping his head a bit. I can believe it.
I love Joe’s perpetual look of mild bewilderment and exasperation here.
Panel 2 is cute, I think Stacy’s face is what sells it.
Agreed.
And Joe’s perplexed look is just the icing on the cake.
That looks less perplexed than worried, to me.
Mixed up, ill at ease, but beyond that hard to be sure what exactly he’s feeling in that panel. Sad? Concerned? Considering how much his dad seems to actually mean what he said in the cafeteria? Just plain uncomfortable? Probably, he’s feeling quite a lot, and not fully aware of half of it.
Uh . . . The thing that his dad just said to him was the creepiest thing in the world?
Okay not the creepiest but close
I suspect he’s used to his dad by now. He’s not used to sweet, somewhat anxious women who are desperately concerned about their troubled daughter who recently stabbed a rapist asking him to keep an eye (however low-key) on said vulnerable young woman. Stacy has trusted him with a real responsibility. She sees something worth trusting in him. And she sees the same in his dad who is not only A dick but The Dick… So does that mean she has terrible judgement and they’re both destined to let down both women? Or does that mean it is also his responsibility to somehow keep his dad being a faithful, decent partner when he couldn’t do that for him with his mum? (Does that mean it was his fault that his dad hurt his mum? Or is this a second chance to fix things because now he’s an adult with awareness and can?)
This. This is why Joe acts like a 2D caricature, right here… do you know how hard it is to interact with others respectfully, and recognise the limits of your own abilities and what is and is not feasibly your responsibility?? (Yes, learning this stuff is hard and part of growing up, but Joe doesn’t know where to start…)
I know he looks older (he looks like a non-bearded duplicate of his 55 yo father) – but he is just a kid of 18 still…
MUCH too late, Richard.
The path to humanity is hard eh, Joe.
stacy/richard looks more like it’ll work, so yay!
and everyone’s being pretty reassuring (except for last panel richard, but let’s not talk about that). <3
I’m pretty sure ‘last-panel Richard’ which in real life would be ‘tack-on half-joke’ Richard, is more a coping mechanism than anything else. He’s not ready to entirely let go of his former flippant, promiscuous self, and so he feels the need to reinforce that identity every so often in order to avoid raising the bar for his behavior past a point he finds acceptable.
It’s not all that different from me following up every few nice/thoughtful statements I make with something kinda rude or just painfully honest, and every intelligent/perceptive statement I make with something crass and less-than-insightful. It prevents people from expecting a standard of behavior from me that I don’t think I can live up to, because the expectations of others are my biggest fear.
When people call me up coz they’re upset it’s not unusual for me to establish the facts then lovingly mock them/the situation until they feel better. (Not *every* situation coz some of them have nowt funny about them – but probably a good 3/4s of the time… People continue to contact me again after this happens – of course, at my daughter’s birthday party last month, my best friend and cousin both asked me explicitly to shout at them about their problems and help kick them into gear after my sister mentioned I’d done this to her because she was beating herself up about things beyond her sphere of control, so this may say more about the people I know?- and laughing down the phone feels like an improvement on crying down it, and sometimes a sense of perspective is useful… I suspect there are probably times I haven’t got the balance between loving non-judgemental support and mocking quite right though…)
“As God is my witness I thought turkeys could fly.”–WKRP IN CINCINNATI
Anyone else think WKRP just might be an old TV series Joyce’s parents would let her watch? Despite Johnny Fever.
They can.
…. so long as you get natural turkeys, rather than ones bred and raised for dinner platters.
Literally every one of Richard’s speech bubbled could be replaced with “I am an asshole and deserve to be shat upon by bears” and nothing would really change.
Nah, he’s had at least three relevant bombshells that force you to pay attention to the rest of the things he says.
Maybe not every one, but at least a solid 50%. In fact that’d make him waaaaaaay more self-aware.
So he doesn’t always say something that is deserving of being shat upon by bears? Would that make those comments unbearable?
Why did the marsupial refrain from adding his own bear-based puns?
–He lacked the koala-fications.
Thank you!
It’s still kinda weird to me seeing this side of Joe.
So one small (technical) thing about yesterday’s comic, which I know has already been a headache: it currently doesn’t link to today’s strip, with the “next” button not being clickable like you’re at the most recent strip and clicking on the strip itself just refreshing the page.
I’ve noticed this happening on a couple of sites. I assume the web gods are demanding more sacrifices or something.
You’re looking at a cached version of the site from before the update.
Oh, okay. Never happened before, so I didn’t know.
You’re a Rosenthal not a Lannister.
It’s more a Targaryen thing than a Lannister thing. Only a handful of Lannister cases, where it’s the Targaryens’ whole deal.
Besides, it wouldn’t be a blood relative thing.
….
…. also, Amber’s very much not interested and, oddly, Joe isn’t interested either.
Richard I swear to fucking God…..
Whoah wait, that might be an exaggeration there, I don’t believe you
I ship it (Joe/Amber)
If only because I like Joe and my name is Amber lol
I dunno if I can get on Team Jamber just yet.
I think that Joe kinda needs to stay unattached for a while – figure himself out first, ya know?
And Amber, I dunno, she’s kind of got a lot of things going on right now, too.
I’d be all “Team Salmber”, but I’m pretty sure that after the Prom Night flashbacks, Amber is probably a zero on the Kinsey Scale. Honestly, Danny was probably the only male cast member sensitive enough and caring enough to really be involved there, and he’s got Eef.
… anyone think we could see a return of Mike and Amber a la Shortpacked!? If anyone is going to give her hard truth, it’s Mike.
Honestly, right now, Amber proooobably shouldn’t be “seeing” anyone but a therapist. The state of her, she should be building positive friendships rather than romantic relationships where she starts to feel more like she can (or should?) have a say in their behaviour.
As for her/Mike… she’s a very different person here and they have a different relationship. I don’t think so. It would need a lot of work first. And frankly, I don’t think he would be a healthy fit for this version of Amber.
Agreed, comic-Amber should definitely not be with anyone right now.
Maybe when she’s in a better state of mind and Joe is in a better place I will feel less awful about shipping them haha. Can I ship myself with Joe, then? lol
I still kind of like him with Joyce, but I also really like the idea of him having a friend that is female that won’t take his crap and that he cares about platonically.
I’ve always liked Joe and Joyce together because they have obvious chemistry together (not sure if romantic, platonic or brother-sister) and they’re at stages where they both need to learn about, well a lot of things, and I think Joyce would be very good at setting boundaries which Joe, now, would be respectful of but also Joyce has shown that she listens to Joe so it’d be very good for both of them
honestly, I think that at this point, Amber could use Joe in brother mode, just like he could use a sister.
^^^ this. I sibling-ship Joe/Amber very hard.
Rosenmalley? O’senthal?
…..
…. okay, so if Thanksgiving’s going to be awkward ANYWAY, any hypothetical Joe/Amber shenanigans couldn’t be identified as the thing that made it awkward.
(I’m sorry, I’ve got a rules-lawyer’s brain.)
Richard knows a good place for dinner.
Guess who else is coming to Galasso’s, by any chance?
Guess Who’s Coming to Galasso’s is the name of the spin-off sitcom, isn’t it?
I demand that this happen!
Hang on *ahem*
I DEMAND this happen!
More Sayid? Yes, please.
Uh, step-sibling get?
Okay high key, that was pretty fucking adorable. I hope Richard is serious about this
i have a feeling things won’t last long with stacy and richard
I have a feeling that sometime around new years things will turn into Drama and Cheating and Bad Flames that Burn for Five In-Comic Months.
Haha, like this series will ever make it to New Year’s. I mean, Willis only has another 50-60 years to live. We’ll be lucky to get to Thanksgiving.
I’m not worried about Willis’ life expectancy, as much as my own.
Stacy’s way too passive to actually do anything about it (I’m surprised she even had the courage to divorce Blaine).
Guessing it had more to do with Amber than with their relationship, but I’m basing that partly off SP!, which isn’t really fair to her.
I don’t think Stacy is passive at all. Blaine has probably terrorized her for a decade or two, trying to make her shrink completely into passivity… and yet, she got herself and Amber out of that domestic violence situation, likely at tremendous personal risk/cost, and is making a new life for herself, while supporting her daughter in every way she can think of.
Emotionally speaking, Stacy’s hard core.
People seem to feel that people are weak if they stay with abusers. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head- those people aren’t weak, but getting out? That takes incredible strength.
This is what it means to be friends with a girl, Joe. You have to occasionally pretend to care what’s happening in their lives every once in a while. Once you’ve mastered that, maybe you can move on to actually dating a girl. Maybe.
Ideally you actually care rather than pretend, mind…
Baby steps.
You…know he’s been friends with girls before,right?
He has?
Maybe, kind of, Joyce, though he was pretty awkward about it, especially face to face after their online conversations. And that was a large part of his change.
Dorothy. Ish.
very “ish”.
Only because of Danny. He put her on the “do list” as soon as they broke up. They’ve barely interacted since.
You had to ruin the nice moment, Dick.
It’ll already be awkward, don’t worry Dick
The message to Joe today seems to be: “Well, Amber isn’t officially your step-sister or anything but be a dear and treat her as if she was your step-sister. Kthxbai.”
To be fair, that WOULD have been good advice to Joe up until a few days ago.
Speaking of, something that makes me sad is that Joe just had a life-changing experience, something that shook his identity to the core and has made him change a lot of previous assumptions, but he has NO inclination of sharing it with his father – or indeed any reason to assume that it would help. He might be right.
While it might say something about their relationship (and probably does) I think that it’s also been completely pushed out of Joe’s head for the moment.
Through strange providence, their fates entwined.
Joe in the final panel: Oh god now I have to go like up that lunch I just ate. Why would you say that even as a joke?
Is Joe an only child? I guess not so much anymore.
With Richard’s uh…’propensities’ I imagine there are probably a few half siblings Joe may not be aware of/haven’t met/at least doesn’t spend Thanksgiving with. I like Stepsibs Amber and Joe though!
I mean, birth control is a thing. Cheating does not automatically mean unsafe sex.
Er, birth control stops babies, not necessarily STDs. And even condoms don’t fully protect against herpes.
Condoms are what, 99% effective if used perfectly? Unless Richard got the snip, given how many different partners it’s suggested he has had, it’s not that unlikely. Some of them would be on the pill or implant or IUD etc, but a lot wouldn’t.
It could easily go either way, is my point. Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if Joe was unplanned and he got the snip after that, but that might be based on my own cheating fuckheaded father.
From a quick Google I see 98-99% effective against babies and HIV. Iirc it’s only 50% effective against herpes. The best info I found was https://www.cdc.gov/condomeffectiveness/brief.html
Joe is obviously thinking “you don’t have to that happening between Amber & I but you’ve already made things awkward for Thanksgiving.”
Joe only recently began to deal with the realization that women are people. Lots of implications he hasn’t thought out yet, and from which he will be years disentangling. Not surprising he isn’t sure what to say here.
Geez, Richard.
You know, I get that Richard was a horrible father figure for Joe, but I don’t get why people are hating him for what he’s doing *right now*. Richard is actively acknowledging his weaknesses and combating them while staying true to a romantic attachment that he also meta knows he’s super lucky to get.
Because he’s lying to himself, and to the woman he’s in love with. He’ll hurt her, most likely.
I think when he met Sarah is when we first met him? And that was a BAD first impression, and has probably stuck with a lot of people.
And we know what Joe has said about him and we can see what effect he’s had on Joe’s attitudes.
He’s not acknowledging his weaknesses. He’s still making creepy comments. He’s joking about how he barely notices the barely legal teens around because the sex with the younger women he’s with is so good. That’s not dealing with his weaknesses, that’s at best, “I’ve met the special woman who’s turned my life around without even trying.”
It’s crappy romance fiction. It’s bullshit. It’s not a story Willis is going to write. Richard isn’t just going to blunder into a complete character turn around while his son struggles with his problems.
We know from the start that Richard’s a dick. He’s not going to change into the perfect boyfriend/husband material overnight. It’s kind of funny watching readers fall for his act, but kind of scary too, because that’s how people fall for creeps like that in real life too and how they charm and schmooze their way into being trusted.
I hate it that the answer is always “because Willis wouldn’t write a morally ambiguous character that isn’t totally scummy deep down”.
(Similar to this is the fact that knowing Willis does far more to help predict the comic than reading the comic does)
“His act”? You think that he’s not serious, even if he’s not being realistic with himself? (The fact that he’s not allowed to change as a person without major trauma aside)
uh…
Ruth? Amber? Billie? Hank?
And while Richard is 100% serious, he’s still got the underlying-attitude problems that make him a piece of shit, and being currently serious about this one relationship doesn’t make him not a creep.
We are not ‘hating him for what he’s doing right now’ we ‘distrust what he’s doing right now and are reluctant to rejoice’. He’s a shithead, he creeps on young girls and outright admits it. I don’t see why people should limit their reaction to a rarely-appearing side character to just what’s happening on the current panel. Joe’s dad is here, so we’re discussing him, period, the whole of his character, not just what he’s doing right now.
Not sure if Stacey realises it but what she said to Joe and show she said it is probably the best way to approach Joe
To look out for someone else works on his ideas of being a man and doing it for Stacey (the mom) not Amber (the peer) also ties into his feelings for moms (not many guys can refuse a moms request)
Thanks Dad, as if Thanksgiving would be awkward enough already…
“..would NOT be awkward…”
WOW, all of this is making Joe grow up fast, finally… BTW, how long into the semester is it, i cant tell how long anythings been. How long has amazing Girl been around???