Discussion (184) ¬
[ Comments RSS ]
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Comicsbeat @comicsbeat.bsky.social ⋅ 20h
Chris McFeely @chrismcfeely.bsky.social ⋅ 5h
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission @cpsc.gov ⋅ 1d
Loading ...
Harrison: The Ride
(does this officially make Joyce the sidepiece?)
Thank goodness Harrison wore heelies with his nice suit.
Someone must’ve slipped them on him when he wasn’t looking.
Hrrm. Anyone we know in the cast who might be good at that?
Carla, Becky, Sal, AmaziGirl, Joscelyn, Dina.
Also possible, but less certain: Marcie, Billie, Ruth.
Oh, no…Ruth is QUITE certain.
Who doesn’t wear heelies with their nice suits?
OMG, does this mean that EVERY TIME this maneuver has been performed in DoA, the receiving character is wearing heelies?? :O This exciting perspective shift brings an incredibly irrelevant, but still mildly amusing, new take on several previous scenes. Hmmm…
everyone’s always wearing heelies, it just wasn’t relevant to their journeys, except for Carla’s.
Well obviously. They all have feelies they want to escape.
Heelies: For when you need to escape the feelies.
Heelies: When you just can’t roll with it, roll with it.
You say that like Carla isn’t also wearing Heelies. Sure she wears skates anyway, but you should always have a backup plan.
Maybe Rutten Tech also manufactures shoes. Since it’s Rutten Tech, all the shoes contain wheels. Everything they build contains wheels.
Some notable inclusions:
-Their phones, for more verisimilitude with your virtual bowling games, since phones don’t roll as well as bowling balls.
-Their snazzy jackets, for when you need to perform/receive the push-scoot maneuver on the down-low.
HAPPY DUMBING DAY!
Dumbing Day is whatever date in “real life” that happens to correspond to the current in-story date of DoA. This year, that happens to be today, October 18, according to the wiki (https://walkypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Dumbing_of_Age_Timeline). Of course, DoA is now on a Monday, whereas we’re on a Friday, but we ignore that part.
On the unlikely chance no one’s invented this “holiday” before, I’m inventing it now. So there.
Anyway, Happy Dumbing Day 2019!
WILD
Thanks for the edification!!
NICE! Happy Dumbing Day indeed.
Dumbing Day will become a tradition where we get Slipshine exclusivities, Willis will sell Dinosaur hoodies, and there’s a marathon of Beast Wars and Transformers Prime.
What kind of activities are associated with Dumbing Day, would you say?
(I promise, I didn’t plan that rhyme – unlike this time…)
Hmm … kissing your rival’s sibling on Garbage Roof? Pretending to be your friend’s girlfriend in front of their family? Throwing off your pants and shouting “IT’S THE RAPTURE”?
I heartily approve of all of these activities.
That sounds amazing!
Aww, man! I forgot to buy a gift or decorate my place! I’m a failure at holidays.
(Dang, now I’ve been quoted on Twitter. That’s a first.)
Hmm we can make this work.
Happy dumbing day!!!!
Sign me up.
Happy Dumbing Day!
I would ordinarily approve of this holiday.
HOWEVER, occurring this late in October, it threatens to draw attention away from THE BEST HOLIDAY EVAR, so I must refuse to celebrate it.
Perhaps next year, it will occur in mid-November, where it will compete with Thanksgiving, which I do not mind so much.
No, at the rate this comic moves, it would probably be October 28 in the best case. I’d put money on October 24.
Guessing when the next Dumbing Day will be should be part of the celebration of Dumbing Day!
That’s pretty neat.
Imagine if the current day in the comic ended on Dumbing Day. Then the next day would also be Dumbing Day. What joy!
I guess that’s true!
I predict wackiness will ensue when Blaine and Toedad kidnap Raidah because they heard she’s Jacob’s girlfriend!
Or some other horrifying comedy of errors event.
Isn’t that the plot of The ransom of Red Chief?
Blair lives with Faz, so he might be able to manage Red Chief.
Did they even mention Jacob or Raidah? Joyce is the one they had a problem with.
It’s a joke, the logic behind it is the evil dads dislike Joyce, Joyce is the supposed girlfriend of Jacob, and thus they end up kidnapping the (actual) girlfriend of Jacob. It IS a bit far-fetched/obtuse so I thought I’d offer to explain.
Jokes are always funnier after a thorough explanation!
Well, at least Jaime’s having fun. He might be the only one.
His first word might possibly be, “Again!”
I was going to say that. The look of joy on his face.
Wheeeeeee !!!
I LOVE that face!
Jaime seems amazed in the last frame, like his father is a theme park attraction.
Also, Jacob and Joyce are taking too long to reveal the truth. This could have been avoided, but this is Dumbing of Age and Willis wants to make us suffer.
Dang it, I was hoping we would subvert expectations and actually not see Raidah this storyline.
Also Danny is getting so self-aware lately, I love it.
Well, at least Jaime’s having fun.
This is gonna be…something.
At least SOMEONE is.
Dumbing Of Age: The Theme Park Ride
*plays “Boot Scoot Boogie” on the hacked Muzak*
Hooray my favorite plots are colliding with each other, this should be fascinating to watch. More importantly, Jacob, how the hell are you going to do lunch with your real girlfriend when you just ate brunch with Joyce?
Very carefully.
Hey, it’s that thing where two seemingly unrelated story lines interact! Those’re nice.
Okay, Danny is slowly veering into Baby Crankypants territory.
On the other hand, the actual baby in this strip is great. No crankypants there.
But maybe some poopypants later though.
That would be sort of the worst case for an introduction to bisexuality.
It’s a baby. There are ALWAYS poopypants later.
Wait Jacob, you knew you were meeting up with Radiah for lunch, and went to Lunch with Harris and Joyce anyways???
Goshdang you people suck
It might be even worse. Probably Jacob was supposed to go to lunch with his brother and raidah together. This is very not good….
My gosh this is the definition of “Bad boyfriending”
If you open up a dictionary, you would find these comic strips as the definition x.x
Goodness Gracious!
Great balls of fire!
Well yes, Raidah is certainly going to withhold sex for that.
That would throw off her whole schedule though! You have to plan for these things
Gigantic flaming genitals are no reason to withhold intimacy. If anything, I imagine they’d really help heat things up. It’s October, it’s getting cold out.
Call me prude, but I say giagantic flaming genitals is a very good reason to withhold intimacy until adequate extinguishing measurements have been taken.
And appropriate medical practitioners are consulted.
Oh, my stars and garters!
I think he did mention it before that he was there to meet Raidah and introduce her to Harrison before going to lunch.
He went to brunch with his brother and fake girlfriend (which wasn’t his idea, granted, but he could have stopped it from getting to this point at any time), when he was supposed to have lunch with his brother and real girlfriend.
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct!
This is a very cromulent comment.
Not to mention inspecic. I’d even go so far as to say redolfulent.
The solution here is to use a time machine to go back so your later self takes Raidah to lunch.
If there is one thing I have learned from Melonpool, it is that using time travel to fix things is always a bad idea.
Bad ideas are the fundamental foundation of this webcomic.
Unless time travel created the problem, in which case it’s basically necessary.
Oh, look, your web of lies is catching up to you. Who could have predicted this. Besides everyone.
OK Jacob, what the fuck
Raidah is super duper dressed like a lawyer, too. Jacob had better have one heck of an excuse.
“Darn, Harrison had to cancel” should have moderate success.
This is modern day though. 3 to 1 Harrison already took a bunch of photos and put them up on social media to be sleuthed out.
I kind of feel like Jacob would have been the look out for that.
Harrison doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who needs selfies to validate a heart to heart brother experience existed.
DE Santo 100% would by comparison.
I can’t get over what Raidah is wearing. A suit, and heels? It’s lunch, not the Supreme Court.
She needs to make a good first impression. Can you imagine if Jacob showed up with a sweater vest weirdo who ate from teh chidren’s menue?
She’s some kind of career tryhard who is using Jacob as a future status husband candidate with a high powered lawyer brother as a bonus connection. In some ways this is a job interview to her. It’s perfect.
Jacob ain’t innocent, Raidah was at least partially a Brother Approval Checkbox to him. I think it highlights how Joyce and Jacob just enjoy each other’s vibe and being together by comparison, arguably more what relationships are “supposed” to be. It’s small, but I like the Joyce-Jacob instinct to immediately check in with each other and communicate, even if it is partly just to narrate some exposition quick.
But yeah, what IS the plan? Jam another lunch down the hatch? What’s the explanation to Harrison? Ooh, ooh, I know. Do a “ThanksByeBroGottaGo” to Harrison, tell Raidah a last minute, uh, lawyer thing came up. Watch how mad she gets that she can’t meet a famous lawyer, Jacob realizes more he is being used. Or subvert, and she is totally sweet about it confusing Jacob more with doubts.
Honestly she’s always struck me as a social climber with a fixation on her status and perceived superiority to others.
I’d say she’s a social climber since she’s constantly talking about how great Harrison is to Jacob and comparing the two which feeds into Jacob’s own desire for his brother’s approval. It just feels like Raidah thinks of Jacob as a vanity project that will make her look good. Meanwhile she probably also thinks that by dating him, she can have access to his more successful brother where she’d probably think that it’d give her better job opportunities or whatever. As for her fixation on status and perceived superiority, some examples I can think of would be like back when her friends were making fun of Dina, she stepped in to tell them how they shouldn’t call her “retarded” only to immediately talk down to Dina afterwards in a condescending manner as if she were trying to look better than her friends without actually meaning anything she said to preserve her perceived superiority. Or when her friends were telling her to watch out for Joyce being around Jacob, she dismissed it and kept calling Joyce “a child” that wasn’t a threat.
Being a social climber is fine. You’re expected to network. Especially in high-profile gigs like law.
Raidah’s kinda bad in some of her other behaviours, like talking down to Dina and dismissing Joyce’s anxieties and behaviours, but there’s nothing wrong with her dating Jacob.
Jacob’s the worse one right now as far as dating behaviour goes.
I still think it couldn’t happen to a more deserving witch.
Considering how she and Jacob talked about Harrison earlier, I’m not all that surprised that Raidah’s super dressed up to meet him.
Go Jamie go!!!!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
I’m, uh, slightly reminded here all of a sudden of Jacob’s mentioned-in-the-past “fairly storied history of ‘jealous girlfriends'”.
And not in the most favorable light.
Yeah, I’m getting more and more interested in their side of the story.
“I’ve already broken up with you in mind, honestly you’re being kind of clingy”
*my mind
“Of course it all happened in my mind, but why on earth should that mean that it isn’t real?”
They shouldn’t use him as a means to an end.
He said he’s sick of being treated as a sexual object.
Well, there she is, Jacob. Your girlfriend, Jacob. Won’t you introduce your brother to your girlfriend, Jacob?
Plot twist: Harrison isn’t actually Jacob’s brother.
That might not even be a real baby!
Dun-dun-duuuuuun
Robot Baby WOULD partially explain the No Poop Mystery!
It was an oil change!
Robot Baby?
I never knew I wanted a sequel to R.U.R. until now.
I vaguely remember some story where someone gets introduced to his love interest’s parents and when he presses them off-scene, they are actors hired for that purpose and don’t want to get into trouble. The charade then goes on. No idea what else there was or whether it was book or TV.
Ah, I think there was something like that in “True Lies” but that already felt like a rehash to me.
Or maybe Mr. & Mrs. Smith?
Even got dolled up in business attire like a real lawyer.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing…
It is for her since she got all dressed up for a lunch date she pretty much missed the bus for.
Well on the bright side, DoA Drew seems well-meaning.
We haven’t seen much of DoA Drew yet, but so far he seems ok.
This is as much Drew as we need though.
Eh, if Drew is perfectly helpful and helps Danny through a crisis of bisexuality/grumpy over crush, I’m fine with him.
People need to stop fixating on a person’s appearance on another universe to judge them in the current universe.
Why? Nobody has really changed between universes,
Robin’s less sympathetic, Amber’s way more bitter, Ethan’s less confident, Mike’s less omnipotent, Jacob’s not sex obsessed…
A lot of the core stuff is still there, but there’s definitely differences. I don’t think all of Drew’s personality is just ‘terrible human being’.
So close to having actual consequences to their actions.
Yet so far…
as if you could be assertive, danny
danny is a BIG MOOD
I think that panel 1 may be Willis referring to a few conversations that he may have had with his family and in-laws after the twins were born!
Also… I do think that Jacob has made his choice, don’t you?
Yes, he has chosen not to deal with this right this second.
Or, I suspect, at all, given a choice.
…Doesn’t this imply they DIDN’T come clean with Harrison?
Ok, NOW I’m peeved with the two. They clearly had AMPLE time to explain everything and rethink stuff
Either that or just trying to keep it a secret from Raidah…but still kind of doubt Harrison knows.
They did, but it was worded in such a way that it seemed like just part of the playful banter Jacob and Joyce had been running for half an hour at that point.
So it’s a “Technically, we told you, not our fault you didn’t believe us” thing.
Which might hold up if they hadn’t just actively scooted him out of the room…
Does “tone of voice” count as admissible evidence in court?
That’s a very valid question. It should be, but how would you test for validity?
I don’t know. It’s obviously a very real part of communication but how do you prove anything? Considering that most people remembering the same conversation won’t even agree on how things were delivered.
Followup to yesterday’s thread I started: Thanks, Kamino Neko, for giving me useful words: gender presentation, gender role, gender identity. When I said “role” I was trying to describe some mashup of presentation, gender role (which I take to mean the thoughts that lead to presentation actions) and body. In my own experience, those things are all there is to gender identity. Like, if I didn’t have any of those three things, I literally wouldn’t have anything to base my gender identity on.
For other people, I go with their self-described identity – but if they haven’t mentioned their identity, all I have to guess from is their presentation and whatever I can see of their role.
I do recognize that driving trucks and voting don’t have much to do with maleness, and wanting to do those things does not remotely make a woman trans. I meant a lot more by the word “role” than things like that – sorry for miscommunicating.
When you’re avoiding your actual girlfriend to continue pretending you’re dating another girl, maybe it’s time to rethink your relationship with your girlfriend.
It should also be kind of a red flag to the other girl.
It’s less of a red flag and more of a sounding claxon with flashing lights and danger appearing on several monitors in several different languages kind of situation. To everyone involved.
Robot with flailing arms shouting “Danger! Danger [insertnamehere]!” optional.
But only if your the kind of girl who realizes that when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes they retain most of their flaws, including the annoying tendency to fall off.
Well, be fair. What actual options does Jacob have at this point? “I am sorry, Dave Willis, but I am afraid I can’t do that.”? Pull a Jonah?
Maybe he has, but that doesn’t mean he wants to have that conversation right now in front of his brother.
More to the point, your girlfriend should REAAAALLLLLY rethink her relationship with you.
Isn’t the “pretending to date another girl” sufficient?
If wacky shenanigans actually justify that, they probably justify hiding from your real girlfriend too
Hey, Joyce continues to not take any negative consequences for her actions! Who’d have seen that coming?
Even in religions with Karma, it’s not something that comes around and smacks you the minute you do something.
Ya’ll real bloodthirsty sometimes.
Nobody even mentioned Karma. Or blood.
Are there Hindu vampires? If there are, would they be inclined to read and comment on webcomic? Also, would they have a guilty conscience that causes them to drop clues about their existence?
There are indeed Hindu vampires!
https://www.vampires.com/tag/vampires-of-hindu-mythology/#targetText=Pishacha%20of%20Hindu%20Lore,typically%20associated%20with%20being%20feminine.&targetText=They%20are%20said%20to%20haunt,demonic%20beings%20of%20Hindu%20lore.
Instant karma’s gonna get her.
I hate instant karma. Too many empty calories and not enough nutrition.
Give me a proper homemade karma every day.
You can make it taste homemade by adding some fresh shame leaves!
Danny, for fuck sake, just tell the guy you have the hots for Ethan. Then you won’t have to assert yourself.
Man, Danny boy seems to be regressing more and more into some form of man baby.
I do feel for Raidah here…Standing there alone, all dressed up, waiting for her boyfriend to show up. She’s probably more socially confident than me, but being blatantly left hanging in the lobby still adds a layer of impending humiliation to things to come. Even if she doesn’t end up waiting very long…aaaaagh.
Yeah. I don’t exactly like Raidah (though I don’t dislike her, she’s just kinda meh), I wouldn’t actually wish this scenario on my worst enemy. As someone who has had to actively avoid being Jacob in this scenario, it’s one of the more horrible things I feel someone could do to someone else.
Sarah wished this exact scenario on her worst enemy!
AREN’T YOU HAPPY HOW THINGS ARE TURNING OUT, SARAH?
Not yet, but getting closer.
Put in this context, yes, super agree. Sure, I hate Raidah, but it’s pretty shitty. She’s probably texting Jacob going “Hey where are you?” and he’s ghosting her. Not cool, Jacob. They really should of been honest at the restaurant after their private chat. But it wouldn’t be dumbing of age without the dumbing.
I mean, they kinda were honest? But they played it as banter, so he’d have no idea that they were telling the truth.
Shenanigans!
Or, as someone mentioned above, Harrison social media’d some pictures of the lunch already and that’s what she’s staring at on her phone.
A narrow escape!
As someone who read Shortpacked!, it’s weird for me when Drew is the best grown-up in a strip.
(Harrison is mostly cool too, it seems, but I’d like him to find out the truth about this shitshow just to see how he responds)
Drew was around for years before his negative side was made clear.
Drew was in less than a dozen strips before he started asking Ethan to put his toys away.
A problem delayed is a problem denied.
… I should get to work on that job search.
Additionally, I like (“like”) how there’s a bunch of people talking smack about Raidah because of how she dressed for this, but I’m betting that if I go back to Harrison’s appearance I won’t find a single one of them saying how weird it is that Harrison came wearing a full suit and tie.
That’s because he’s an actual lawyer. It’s expected of him. They would of made a big reaction if he came in a Hawaiian t-shirt though. Raidah is not yet, she’s just trying to get more feet into as many doors as possible. Well known fact: Raidah is a horrible person, we just like pointing more facts out about how she is.
Lol, no. It’s expected of him when he’s at WORK, which this is not.
In real life, maybe. In comics? Definitely not, despite how this one actually changes peoples outfits daily, so second thought, maybe also applies here… But with him being a famous lawyer, he’s probably got expectations of himself of showing he’s always business ready. Living in a lawyer infested land, there’s a million commercials stating “Call me, I’ll be right there” so I don’t imagine they’re ever in casual. That, and some people like to always like the business look. Raidah is not constantly in business attire, that’s why it’s so out of place and smells fishy.
I will give Raidah this though: She is a perfect lawyer already. Completely serious, I would love to have her in my court over Sarah, and Sarah’s one of my favorite characters. She reads tells with ease, she knows how to manipulate the truth into a way that only benefits her, and she’s actually rather smart. But she uses her smarts in such mean ways to Sarah that I can’t like her. Upon reading comments and further introspective thinking, Raidah doesn’t deserve what’s happening to her in this storyline. I would much prefer Dana coming back, hugging Sarah, thanking her for reaching out to her father to get her help, and ignoring the hell out of Raidah and her other “friends” who didn’t help her. That’s the comeuppance I want for Raidah, not this terrible treatment she’s getting from someone who at minimum likes her enough to consider a partner.
Jacob may have been planning to dress up more too, but he got intercepted when Harrison showed up early.
The kid is enjoying the hell out of this
Wheeeeeeeeeeee
Jacob is now a full fledged accomplice in these shenanigans. He’s had a couple chances to fix this before it was too late….and now it’s too late.
Yo props to DMW for tying those two plot threads together.
So Jacob makes some cockamamie excuse, bails, and goes to placate Raidah. Leaving Joyce and Harrison together.
I look to Jaime to save the day.
and with “save the day” I assume you mean “baby barf on Joyce.”
We need a gif of Harrison & Son and company, beating feet away from Raidah, with an ever-repeating Hanna-Barbera background (bonus points for bongo-drum soundtrack)
Tag yourself, I’m the baby.
100% Danny almost asserting himself.
Not the baby.
jacob go help danny
help him get rid of drew
Danny is glad that the conversation…
/drew/ to a close
*throws arms up to protect my face*
Harrison’s story reminds me of how my grandma used to nag my parents about baptizing me and they never really got around to it. My grandma would comfort herself, by telling me that because I was below the age of 10, Jesus would ‘give me a pass’ because the soul of a child is innocent and yada yada. Even though…that makes no sense because of original sin or whatever.
But you know how it goes with cafeteria Christians. It always freaked me out because she’d talk about that constantly when I was little, as if she was waiting for me to die or something. “If you die today, you’ll still go to Heaven because you’re innocent! Jesus loves children!”
You know the thing about that obnoxious guy with the blue eyes… is that he kinda looks like a less boyish-cute version of Danny…
which is DEFINITELY not why Ethan would be banging him…
That was a long ass breakfast