The second bonus strip for October is about Jocelyne, who was… extremely close, often tied, with the declared winner, Alex. I figured, y’know, if they’re both gonna get at least 50 votes, maybe I should, like, just do both. Right? Anyway. All Patrons can go check it out at the Dumbing of Age Patreon.
And remember, you can always up your pledge to see tomorrow’s strip right now, every day!
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“bc it’s totes impossible that it’d be about her assbutt DAD getting out of jail or anything and MY boomer dad being unable to figure out voicemail or text, amirite”
…I still want pizza =( why did I make plans to try the ramen + izakaya instead
I mean, voicemail doesn’t really require any figuring out. You just… wait until it tells you to leave a message.
unless you’re the type who talks through the message and hangs up as the thing beeps
or, idk, if you think you’ve set up your voicemail but the system goes out and erases your message so now you effectively have noneTHANKS PHONE
A: Voicemail has been around since the 1970s-80s.
B: He’s… Not a Boomer, at least not if we account for sliding time-scale. He’s most likely a Gen-Xer nowadays.
And if this comic goes on for long enough, he might even sliding time-scale himself right into being a Millennial.
Rereading the comic in 10 years:
Well, of course Hank didn’t leave a voice mail, millennials have terrible phone anxiety.
What will phones even be ten years from now.
They will be a fully integrated Dick Tracy watch.
The large screen will be a scroll like remote screen data linked to the watch for when you actually want a larger image.
[the tech is almost here now]
He might still be a boomer for a few more years. His oldest child is in his thirties, so Hank himself is probably in his late 50s to early 60s.
I’m a Boomer. Voice mail is just a virtual answering machine, a device we invented. We get it.
at the risk of “DontExplainTheJoke.jpg”: I was sarcastically saying Joyce is calling her dad a boomer, not arguing that he is
*still mad my phone somehow deleted all my voicemail settings for NO REASON*
Remember that Joyce is the youngest of 4, and there’s some pretty good gaps between kids. Jonathan is, based on his Walkypedia entry probably 15 or so years older than Joyce, which would put him in his early to mid 30s.
So, let’s guess his birth was currently in 1985 (making him 34, now, which seems reasonable).
Since Carol and Hank both graduated, I think we can assume he was born after that happened, meaning they were probably ~22 when that happened – born in 1963. Right on the edge, but still Boomers.
OTOH, assuming all of these numbers are correct, they will soon be older GenX.
I had pizza for dinner today.
I wish I had pizza for dinner today.
UPDATE: We had pizza
It was Red Baron, tho, and actually not shitty
Vaguely disappointed
1. This guarantees it is not, in fact, fine. (And three calls in one day by early afternoon? Joyce. NO.)
2. … Leslie honey you really need to work on this.
Well as much as Joyce needs to CALL HER DAD BACK, Joe has… a point.
Free pizza is free pizza after all.
I agree with the pretty pink girl.
(This comment is really going to confuse people when Plasma inevitably changes his grav again.)
I’m gonna have to agree with Joe on the free pizza as well.
I mean he really does. Free pizza ain’t nothin to balk at, I don’t even care if it’s Little Caesar’s
Just so long as it’s not Chuck E. Cheese.
IMO LC is _the BEST_ !!
Must be nice wherever you are. Around here LC is definitely trash-tier pizza. The only thing keeping them from being the absolute bottom of the barrel is the continued mysterious existence of Domino’s.
It occurs to me that Joe is not dissimilar to Walky in many ways. Just taller, buffer, cooler, and more charming.
Like, if Walky took the stuff that turns Steve Urkel into Stefan, he might become Joe.
They have similar opinions about FEEEELS
And about pizza
Joe wasn’t there for free gay pizza though. He’s got no problem with LGBT+ but he knows there’s women out there that might assume he’s gay which hurts his odds.
Walky’s got his moments on the charming, and Joe’s obviously got his REAL rough moments, but yeah, they’re both guys who definitely need to do some growing up in order to reach their potential and be way better off.
Walky coasted and didn’t learn to deal with adversity well, and Joe resigned himself to being his dad minus taking the sanctity of relationships quite seriously, since obviously Richard didn’t, and that had a big impact on Joe. Not like fixing those singular things would be an instant “perfect” person solution, but those are their big things. Plus obviously being rather immature.
But caramel.
I think Walky’s afraid of being acknowledged as being of reasonable intelligence. With that comes the expectation of responsibility and adult behavior. Joe, he wants to be acknowledged as an adult (more or less) but afforded the opportunity to make mistakes (like a college student should). Other than that, yep seems accurate af.
They both have issues, but I don’t really think Walky’s issues are much like Joe’s. Joe has shown none of the signs of ADHD that Walky has. Walky has much less of a predatory approach to woman than Joe did.
They both feel that they need to act in certain ways in order to demonstrate their manliness. They just have very different sets of prejudices they adhere to.
Joe is not the more charming of the two. Unless you asked one of them.
Walky has comic timing and a sense of humor to go along with it, which I can only imagine he’s honed to amuse himself (ask me how I know), and it can be very charming.
He can also sing well.
Was “The dumping ground for random personal drama” a working title for this entire webcomic?
More of a mission statement, I think.
If nothing else, it would make a good DoA book title.
*plays “The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks” on the hacked Muzak*
Joe! I’ve missed you
Same, and not just because he looks hot with the mussed hair and scruff.
Good point about the voicemail, if not the texting. If he’s not even leaving a “Hey, hon, call home, it’s important,” then it probably isn’t about Toe-Dad’s bail
(I mean, I assume that Joyce knows about whether her dad would likely leave a voicemail or not in a genuine emergency)
I make no such assumption.
Would she call her dad’s cell back, or call the house? Because if she calls the house, there’s a good chance Carol picks up the phone and starts gushing about the wonderful, good news.
This is definitely a Joyce-Hank conversation, with Hank alone in his parked truck far out of earshot.
Voicemails are bullshit. If shit’s serious, call 20 times
And leave voicemail.
And text.
Shut up, Joe. Interpersonal Drama is what you like best with the class anyway.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/unit/
I mean, yeah, but pizza is a new variable.
It goes Pizza > Drama > Class.
…Did Walky write that chart?
A chart? It had to be Faz, right?
Fortunately, there is no “Penis” in that chart.
Which makes me think it’s not a Joe chart either.
TEXT. YOUR. DAUGHTER. Come on Hank. Or leave a voicemail
* Foot emoji * * Poop emoji * * Three exlamation marks *
Joyce: “HOLY HECK! BECKY’S EVIL DAD IS COMING!!!”
Someone MUST have made the parody “Evil dad”, right?
Call Bruce Campbell.
I want 10. You’re hired. Have the script ready by Monday. 😛
If I can have Ted Raimi I’m on.
Took some contract wrangling but done.
where is the like button?
tho Bruce may be too likable/charming
Won’t work – Bruce has a CHIN.
Heh, yeah. He would be a lousy Toedad
Evil Dad II: Dad by Dawn
Evil Dad III: Army of Dad-ness
Then, the TV series: Joyce vs Evil Dad
Slight correction: Joyce vs the Evil Dad(s)
Yeah, it’s not the most efficient class, is it? When it comes time for midterms and finals, they’re going to be scrambling when they realize they haven’t even touched the course competencies.
Or is that just my school that stresses that?
Eh, the answer the half of the questions is “Slut shamed” anyway.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/slutshame/
Serious answer:
Yeah, that is a big problem, and I have griped about Leslie’s lack of professionality for a while now.
On the other hand, she does more to engage the class than any other teacher we have seen, and that will help them understand a lot of the material far better than Professor Bowtie’s droning in math.
TBF, we haven’t seen most of the gender studies classes. We usually cut away for 99% of the teaching, and only see the juicy stuff.
That said, yeah, Leslie, enough with the personal drama.
TBF, she literally doesn’t know if Becky is alive, still with Robin, or kidnapped. And also to be fair, neither do we, at the moment.
I’m speaking more generally than in this specific instance.
We want to live our own lives, even if ends up being the wrong one.
Independence is the desire of many young people, but when they grow up they realize being too independent bites you in that ass because all the progress of humanity was achieved by working together and trusting others. Sadly, that is also the explanation why organized criminals and religious fanatics survive. Rosseau was right… but that is scary too.
Man, talk about a set up for a terrible fall.
It’s HOT and it’s READY and it’s FREE don’t judge us, Willis
yeeeeeeeah lil Caesar’s ain’t half bad, my knitter
Uh, maybe no, though?
It’s pizza. That’s all you need to know
…I’m gonna get a personal pizza from lil Caesars later
I for one welcome our new meddling overlords.
I am okay with authorities as long as they respect the constitutions protecting our human rights. If they dont respect those documents then they dont deserve respect.
I think Joyce might be talking about herself as well as Becky
But that’s just a theory
ya think?
It’s quite obvious. When you have been betrayed by corrupt authorities, trusting in the ones that are decent or redeeming themselves is hard. It’s like Luigi being afraid of both spiders and powerful ghosts with the same paranoia.
Oh dear. I didn’t think about this yesterday (am a patron) but now I’m sure it’s about Becky’s dad getting bail.
definitely would be, Hank would 100 percent tell Joyce.
Are you talking about Becky or about yourself, Joyce? Also, if Hank really left like 50 voicemails you are going to regret escaping communication, Joyce. I have to check texts every hour for fear of missing something important.
I was bored so I decided to see if I could see what deadly sins fit the characters best. I only used student characters, as being able to use most of the adult characters would make this far too easy.
Pride: Mary, this is the most obvious one and doesn’t take a lot of explanation. Mary views herself as superior to others due to her religion.
Wrath: This one is a bit harder, due to the sheer number of characters who could fit, but I think Amber would work the best. Ruth could also work though.
Gluttony: Joe. This is based around the traditional idea of gluttony representing over indulgence in anything rather than simply food, and Joe being a sex addict would firmly put him in this category.
Sloth: Walky, Walky could also fit with gluttony, but I feel that his wanting to run away from both his and others problems places him in this category.
Greed: This one was difficult, as no one is shown to care about money that much, but I think Dorothy fits this one the best. Its a stretch, but Dorothy’s ambitions could technically be viewed as greed, its a very sympathetic greed though.
Lust: Danny. For Lust I’m using the Dante based idea of lust as obsessed love, rather than obsession with sexuality in general. Most of Danny’s issues are caused by his love life and his need to keep relationships has annoyed his friends.
Envy: Billie’s need to be popular places her firmly within this category. She’s envious of students who are more popular than her.
Okay, we have to call the Phantom Thieves to get rid of so many Palaces. Maybe Joyce can summon her own Persona, either Jane Austen or Julie D’Aubigny.
You’ll never see it COMIIIIIIIN’
You’ll see that my mind is too fast for eyes!
So I no nothing about the Persona series, but am I right in thinking that Personas are essentially a cross between stands from JoJo and servants from Fate?
They are like stands in that they represent your inner self and have a certain degree of autonomy, but instead of rock bands they have appeareances based from heroes, villains, gods, demons and monsters. In Persona 5 the personas of the characters are based from famous thieves, criminals and antiheroes.
Don’t know JoJo stuff (other than the memes – NANI?!), but Servants are more personable than Personas.
Personas only pop up to fight, and only briefly (longer in animated adaptations) when casting a spell or using an ability.
The more relevant point is that the identity of your Persona tends to exemplify some hidden or repressed part of your personality.
Like having a secret hatred towards authorities will give you a revolutionary leader, or desiring to be dominant will give you a dominatrix, or being a repressed pervert will give you Rasputin or Zeus.
Joyce with Julie D’Aubingy as her Persona?
…
….
… I’ll be in my bunk.
I really appreciate someone who actually knows what the Deadly Sins are about. It’s frustratingly uncommon.
Giving her dad the benefit of the doubt; if he just calls instead of leaving a text or voicemail then her mom couldn’t get wind of the warning. (I’m assuming as an overbearing parent she probably has access to Joyce’s voicemail if they’re on the same phone plan. For texts, all she would need to do would be to look at the dad’s text history.) This is certainly assuming too much technical know-how from both the parents, but a straight up call wouldn’t leave as much of a record, and even then if the phone was bugged somehow the mom could be listening!
Hank could always delete the text after sending it.
And I can confirm, having worked for a cell company for almost fifteen years: once a text is deleted, it’s GONE. There’s zero ways to get it back, because the only place an actual sent text is stored is on the phone itself. (‘Texting’ that is actually IMing via an app, using data service, may be a different matter, but the cell company will still tell you to go chase yourself, aka ‘deal with the app provider’.)
Joyce is going to feel just fantastic later, when she finds out why her dad was trying to reach her, and she could have picked up but didn’t.
As Good Omens pointed out, most tragedies aren’t caused by evilness, but by people being people. In other words, being stupid causes more harm than being cruel.
Damn Joyce, are you playing a movie in class? Because you sure seem to be projecting.
I mean, shit, Joe, like…as much as I think you need to participate in a vent session I gotta agree with the free pizza.
Yeah, I know, a terrible councilperson. I can take the free pizza and button and still not support them. There’s a trash for a reason and a button like that is a good place for it just as much as my stomach is a good place for free pizza.
OK, so here’s the thing.
When Hank calls her three times in a short period of time, this probably* means it’s something really serious. Maybe he feels it’s even too serious, in fact, to be left as a voice mail. And definitely too serious to be texting about.
And I get that. Sure, it’s not an optimal communication strategy, but I get that. Leaving a detailed voice mail is something I wouldn’t do in this situation, because I won’t know if and when the person I’m trying to call actually gets it. I want to actually talk to them about it.
And leaving a vague voice mail also isn’t such a good option as it appears either. Not just because I still don’t know if and when they get it; but also because I don’t know if they will then think something much worse has happened than it really has.
Plus, I just hate leaving voice mails in general. Lots of people do.
In any case, if we assume that Hank is calling for a serious reason, then Joyce should definitely pick up the phone and/or call him back as soon as possible to find out what it’s about. I agree with Leslie on this.
HOWEVER
Joyce has only been away from her family for a few months (home-schooled, remember). This means that it’s very unlikely she’s had her dad call her repeatedly the same day ever before. Possibly it’s the first time she’s ever experienced it happening.
(Or maybe he did it a lot in the first couple of weeks, until Joyce eventually told him to stop it. I find this fairly unlikely, but it’s certainly not impossible that it all happened off-panel.)
So yeah, she may indeed not recognize the potential gravity of the situation, because she never learned about it. And sure, it does seem like an obvious thing; in that it really only has to happen once before you know what it means. But if it’s happened -no- times, could it really be so obvious that we all understand it immediately when it finally happens? Is it -that- intuitive?
I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember the first time that happened to me, so I couldn’t tell if I understood it then.
*Note the word “probably”; it might still mean he’s simply telling her that he visited a restaurant in town that his wife would think of as “too ethnic”. And as it turns out, he absolutely loved their food and he hopes that one day, Joyce may be willing to go there with him.
Yeah, what makes this scene so amazing is absent the bird’s eye view we have, Joyce’s response is absolutely rational.
Like, Joyce has had some really raw familial interactions not that long ago and recognizes her state as pretty fragile to all that given that she just skipped church for the first time in ever largely because of all that.
And Becky has earned some space from parental figures owing to the traumas she’s piled on.
So yeah, in Joyce’s context, it all makes sense and is fair.
It’s only from outside that where we know that Leslie’s concern is VERY justified in the context of a serial abuser bailing her father out of jail and him likely coming to hunt her down in her very visible position and where Hank is very likely panic repeat dialing about it.
*tacklehugs Cerberus*
Missed you, you awesome wonderful person!
Missed you too!
Yeah, like this isn’t actually a wrong thing to do.
It’s just making me tear my hair out because of all the miserable rotten timing.
Also, hi, Cerb! <3
As someone said: “Willis hates us all and wants us all to suffer when we want nice things.”
And as someone else said: ” And yet we come back to him. What is wrong with us?”
I’m choosing to let these two people remain anonymous.
Huh, must’ve been two wise, insightful people, their names lost to history…
*waves excitedly*
Hi, Cerberus! Hope everything’s good with you!
In fact, learning to avoid parental authorothy figures – even benevolent ones – is a HUGE step of personal growth for Joyce and something she benefits practicing.
…only perhaps not just now!
I know, it’s such delicious perfect character growth that is also perfectly timed to have the most disastrous effect in comic.
Because Willis hates us all and wants us all to suffer when we want nice things.
And yet we come back to him.
What is wrong with us?
That is the same thing I ask when I read Homestuck’s new content. Jesus, Hussie has channeled his worst aspects in Dirk Strider.
Most likely, she’s never had three calls in quick succession like that because she’s never dared not answer the phone before.
I’m not sure I buy the “Don’t leave a voice mail” argument. I certainly wouldn’t want to try to explain the Toedad thing on voicemail, but he could certainly leave a “Call me as soon as you can, it’s important” message. Even if she thinks it’s something worse, then she’ll call back, which is the point.
Dangit Joyce, answer the call!
OMFG! Little Caesar’s pizza? Robin is a monster and must be stopped!!
Eh, could be worse.
I mean, sure, LC isn’t good pizza by any stretch. But it’s not -bad- bad either. It’s just… there. It’s the neutral option. It’s not made to be loved; merely to be tolerated because it’s cheap.
She used to have a standing order at Papa John’s, but that fit her old public image. At least Little Caesars led to a lot of good philanthropic work.
Papa Gino’s is bettah pizza than both of ’em, ked!
I like Little Caesar’s.
Bad pizza is still pizza
I won’t disclose my geographical pizza snobbery, but I will set it aside for this task.
I’ve never been near there, so: What is the pizza scene like in Bloomington? Where does Little Caesar’s fall on the curve?
Bloomington has Mother Bears Pizza (aka Galasso’s), which is probably the best pizza in the universe.
I’m from Naples, Italy, so… I doubt that. But if I ever set foot in Bloomington, I’m going to check it out.
I kinda want Jocelyne to randomly show up and go, “Dad tried to call, but you weren’t picking up.”
Admit it, you want Jocelyne to randomly show up in almost every situation.
Don’t we all?
I mean, I know *I* do.
There is only so much Noir I can write in a week…
…but I like a challenge!
And Joe… I’m slightly impressed by you (though maybe only because the bar was rather low). It appears you’re taking gender studies more seriously now. I mean, you even called it real; which I’m not sure you’d have done a month ago (comic time, that is. Real time, about four years ago)
I mean, I can’t be fully sure that you didn’t just want any excuse to give in a burn here; but frankly, you’re right. Random interpersonal drama is not fit in any class.
So yeah, pointing out that this is not the time nor place to discuss these things, and that one should actually get on with the class… Even if done in a snarky way, it appears to show that Joe’s actually starting to care some more about the class; or at least show less hostility against it.
And hopefully, Leslie will take the hint.
Wait…
Holy shit, you’re right! I was so distracted by the impending doom that I totally missed that character growth moment of his. Go Joe!
You missed something in a strip?
Who are you and what have you done with Cerberus? 😛
Or, you know, Joe is just dissing relationship drama instead and he’s appealing to the importance of having an actual class entirely as a cold-blooded tool to shut down people talking rather than out of the slightest care for the class itself.
Or to escape the personal issues of other people in a space that he can’t leave if he doesn’t want to visibly skip class.
I dunno about you, but I’m not big on being a witness to that kinda stuff, if I’m not involved, and sometimes not even then.
Wait I thought this was happening in like a hallway walky walked into. I am bad at paying attention.
Still pretty glad Joyces dad is trying to tell them about Toedads release though.
If it’s free Little Caesar’s you get what you pay for.
Wow! I don’t think Joyce could have made Leslie feel lower if she tried!
I mean, I like Little Caesar’s so…
On another note, answer your damn phone Joyce. Does her dad even know how to set up voicemail or send a text?
I’m going to guess Hank does know how to do these things. I’m not sure what his job is, but chances are he has a work cell phone and is expected to learn how to do that.
You’d be surprised how many people over the age of 50 know their way around smartphones!
“Set up” voicemail? You don’t need to set anything up to leave a message. It works basically the same way it’s always worked with answering machines.
Do you know how?
thanks, joe, thats real helpful
I think that it will be effective. Leslie needs to focus on the real reason she’s there and being paid a salary for being there, no matter how worried she is about Becky and how jealous she is of Robin.
Absolutely agree.
She could have this conversation in private outside of class
She really couldn’t. Or at least wouldn’t, since it all just evolved out of Walky coming in with pizza and DeSanto stickers. It’s not like she started asking Joyce about Becky out of the blue.
And class ends an hour away and that hour might be important, if the call really is that urgent.
Leslie is really surprisingly unprofessional.
There is no reason to start a class like this.
In Leslie’s defence, her personal and emotional lives are both train-wrecks right now and she’s never demonstrated any ability to compartmentalise her professional life from this.
Well, the subject she’s teaching can get very personal, especially for a gay woman with a background like hers. I don’t know if it’s possible to keep personal feelings ouf of that. (But I’ve also never been in a class like hers, so that’s just presumptions.)
In her defence, class time hadn’t started yet when this conversation started, I don’t think.
It didn’t seem like it.
Hello, foreshadowing!
Wonder if Hank’s in a car headed toward campus right now.
Yes, I am. As far as I know, my daughter is already in danger.
Free Pizza indeed.
Also, I feel like that’s what you want for you, too, Joyce.
That being said, personally, I wouldn’t take free Pizza from the one party I really dislike if they offered it to me. They know what they did.
Surprise, dad don’t know how to text on the phone machine!
Hank probably works in an office and has a company smartphone. Smartphones have been around for 12 or so years, so that even older people know how to use them now. True, there are always people that are technology-challenged, but that could be true of any generation.
There also those of us who are horrible typist, texting was an unwelcome addition to the phone.
I just hope this will not become a “Last famous words” situation.
What could possibly go wrong?
I think roughly 8% of Bagge’s post history is saying “What could possibly go wrong”.
In about 68% of these incidents, something goes wrong within six relevant strips.
(Also, please don’t do the “X% of all statistics is made up” as a reply to this post. Yes, you were thinking about doing it. Don’t deny it.)
Well, NOW I am.
To be fair, usually something goes wrong even when I don’t say it.
no wonder people who major in this subject can never find work…
Why do I get the feeling Joyce is talking as much about herself as she is about Becky?
thanks Joe.
Don’t be an asshole, Joyce. Neither your father nor Leslie deserve anything remotely resembling “meddling overlords.”
No they don’t. But she’s probably also thinking of Carol and Ross.
Hank finally gets hold of Joyce: “YOUNG LADY, I NEED YOU TO TELL ME HOW TO MAKE THE SUBTITELS ON THE TV SWITCH BACK FROM HUNGARIAN!!!”
you know that’s the phonecall warning Joyce that Becky’s dad is out on bail right?