Next stretch goal for the Dumbing of Age Book 8 Kickstarter: Unlocking a free Dorothy magnet for everybody who pledged for mailable goods!
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Next stretch goal for the Dumbing of Age Book 8 Kickstarter: Unlocking a free Dorothy magnet for everybody who pledged for mailable goods!
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Win/Win!
Everybody else in the commments section can go home, this here says everything that needed to be said.
I dunno, I just need to say that this has got to be my favorite strip in ages. LOL, who’d ever thought these two would bond like this.
Sarah: That’s me covered, how about Joyce?
Mary: I’ll draw her signing away her idolatrous soul to Satan in return for a Dexter and Monkey Master scrunchie.
Sarah: Three pretzels.
Oooo, three pretzels! Yes!
Two pretzels is about as thankful as Sarah gets.
I like that Sarah knows how to treat an artist you commission.
Pay them.
🙂
I feel like Mary gleefully imagining and rendering her dorm mates burning in the fires of hell is the one, single instance where “you do this for fun anyways” is 100% valid.
Oh come on, who are we kidding? She has probably already drawn this, all she has to do is change Sarah’s expression from sad to unrepentant.
@C.T Phipps: E-fucking-xactly. Thank you.
Love the Sarah face in the last panel.
Her eyes get shinier by the panel until she looks a little in love, it’s great.
All Mary needs is a friend lol
With extra salt
Don’t spare the brown mustard either.
(Extra points if the mustard is–gnurf!–LUSTY MONK!)
The good news is that I know a wholesale grocer that sells stadium pretzels in the frozen section. The bad news is that they’re only available in cases of fifty, and a case is bigger than my freezer. First World Problem, I know.
Way back in the Bible
Temptations always come along
There’s always somebody temptin’ somebody inta
Doing something they know is wrong–Bruce Springsteen
Find someone who’s willing to go in with you on a case (and has their own freezer).
Buy ’em, bake and consume at least 10% immediately, and then shove the rest into little nooks and crannies all over your freezer?
Mary’s ideas are… surprisingly metal?
Metal? Metal! \m/
Ah, so the system of art commission payment is based on quality. That’s why she got nothing for the original works.
Somehow I love this
I don’t understand this comic. That look on Sarah’s face in Panel 6 makes no sense. It’s almost like… she… DOESN’T… hate Mary?
No sense whatsoever.
No, she likes the idea of her being represented as a cool witch surrounded by “cool” flames. That Mary likes the idea for different reasons is fine, as long as it gets the job done. Whatever else D.Y.Willis intended, this is a depiction of an almost-ideal artist-client collaboration.
I feel like if Mary had discovered Goth and metal she wouldn’t be nearly as racist or evil.
Unless she discovered racist Goth metal.
Seriously.
IS racist goth metal a thing? I am kind of a goth, and if it is, I am very upsetted. 😨
We have a Punk Gospel group in Austin. “The Stitches”
I’m afraid that this is kind of an analog to rule 34. If X exists, then racist X also exists.
Having experienced homosexuals who can’t stand asexuals [presumably due to the significant weight that typically* gets put on sexuality within homosexual cultural circles], I can at least attest that being aware of and opposed to an issue doesn’t necessarily make the individual any less likely to engage in furthering such an outlook themselves.
Comparative to adopting negative behaviors and outlooks, fashion and style statements seem a rather minor thing to mimick
*Per my experiences, typical online or public presentation, and popular conception.
My wife is also a Goth and informed me that, unfortunately, yes it exists and really irritates her since she came into it for her love of nonconformity.
So, Jaime, I hate to break this to you, but yes, there are racist goth assholes. One even got her recent 15 minutes of fame on the internet after spouting racist bullshit against A Fabulous As Fuck black goth and saying that goth is a “white thing”. People roasted her endlessly and it was beautiful. But, sadly, it showed that even in the goth and punk communities we have this bullshit now. Those of us who remember a time when skinheads would show up at punk shows and get their asses kicked and when goths were a welcoming bunch to all the “misfit toys” on the fringes of the crowd are irate and heartbroken over these people who do not understand that you can not be counterculture when you are exclusionary.
Thanks for that info, @Arioch. Beautifully said.
Unfortunately, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” was written in 1981 because it needed saying then, and it still needs saying now.
And while racist Goths are a thing, racist or Nazi Metal is, like, a Whole Thing.
And on a lighter note, Baby Metal is also a thing, go check it out.
Racism is based in a lot of strains of a certain kind of fundamentalist Christianity. Dark skin is the mark of Cain, don’t you know? Or possible the curse of Ham.
*Baked in a lot of strands. What I wouldn’t give for the patreon comment section’s edit button.
Racism /exists/ in a lot of strands of a certain kind of fundamental Christianity, but it isn’t /based/ on that – it also exists in other religions (and other races besides “white” and other parts of the world besides “the West” and…). It is based on tribalism (us vs them) and majority populations vs minorities, regardless of what those particular groups happen to be composed of.
Based in was a typo. It was supposed to say ‘baked in’ – as in, some strains of Christianity have racism baked into some of their doctrines. Like ‘dark skin = mark of Cain and/or curse of Ham’.
That seems silly to me, as all of the biblical figures (including any actual Jesus) would have been dark skinned – at least by the standards of white American racists. But you may well be correct – I’m not a Christian of any variety, so I’m not really in a position to judge any particular branch’s doctrines.
Oh, it is incredibly awful and incredibly racist, but I’d imagine a lot of these particular Christians don’t imagine Jesus as brown – or if they do, they’d use that as their ‘I CAN’T be racist’ get-out-of-scorn free card.
But yes, there are doctrines that say the reason, say, black people are black is because their skin is ‘stained’ with sin.
These people are awful.
As an African Americans studies teacher said, “Slavery was not a thing that was a continous practice. Europe had gotten over it. So, reintroducing it, they scrambled for every possible justification for their greed from human misery. Racism grew from a need to say it had a reason.”
growing up with christianity, most of the depictions of Jesus were very white.
Even though it was always clear that Jesus is a Jew and the main setting of his life is Israel, it didn’t get questioned that Jesus must be white in most images.
Still, it got seen as a very mindboggling idea when my mum saw a picture of a black Jesus. THAT, of course, was just “people imagining Jesus to look more like them“ but WHITE Jesus was just standard Jesus, i guess.
Except one picture bible i had. Kees de Kort (illustrator) drew most of the characters brown (although it seems Jesus’ skin color varies in different stories, if you look at google images…).
I think as a kid i just didn’t question about the topic at all though.
But ham is delicious. 🙁
I dunno man…I feel like that line about Christian rock would apply here in a hurry.
“You aren’t making christianity better! You are making rock worse!!”
Did you purposefully drop the Hank Hill quote, or has that pithy line achieved meme status?
(I mean, I say it to myself about Pureflix movies constantly.)
I’m going to go with meme, because I have been hearing that so long without attribution I never knew it was a King of the Hill quote.
Well I can’t say when it was uttered, but the KotH episode is from 2003. And it’s a pretty good one, full of KotH little twists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TsL0DO-c1E
Mary is the most interesting and complex DoA villain (admittedly a bit of a low bar) because she has two powerful conflicting desires: She wants to be cool and have lots of friends, but she also wants to feel superior to everyone, so she’s a massive asshole to anyone she thinks she can get away with being a massive asshole to. Because she was raised fundie Christian, that’s mostly LGBT people, but if she was raised in a more progressive social circle she’d just harass Danny or something instead, or maybe become a TERF. If she were atheist, she’d be Bill Maher. She desperately craves validation, but the only way she knows to build herself up is to find someone else to tear down.
Most DoA villains are evil *because* they’re fundamentalists, but Mary is an evil person who just happens to be a fundamentalist. And it’s possible the stick of getting punched in the face and the carrot of possibly being able to draw her way back into the dorm’s good graces might get her to start emulating a good person, but she’ll never actually be one because her problems are more fundamental than fundamentalism
“She desperately craves validation, but the only way she knows to build herself up is to find someone else to tear down.”
Well put!
Now I need to go buy another 24 pack of big pretzels from Gordon Foods.
I could get a smaller pack, if I were a fool.
I hope Willis delivers on the Sarah-riding-a-pegasus-skeleton tease.
Also if Mary loses the whole fundamentalist thing, she might become like a hedonist or something. This here is a good example of how you can’t tell the difference between zealotry or satire.
LOL it’s funny when someone takes 1 path to try and discourage someone else, only to make things better for the other person…
“Your stomach is a graveyard where the corpses of chickens are sent to rot…”
“I know you are trying to stop me eating this chicken burger, but that is the most awesomely METAL thing I have ever heard…”
Yes, that line of reasoning just makes me feel powerful.
Artistic expression might be where Mary is most flexible. She wants to draw the picture because she wants to art and be appreciated for it, so she has to justify to herself why it is alright for her to draw it.
Just gonna leave this old Muppets cliphere, don’t mind me:
”Freakos: 1, Civilization: 0.”
The link failed for me, but I did find this description on the Muppets Wikipedia entry:
During the third season’s Halloween episode, Sam confronts Alice Cooper. Railing against the audience and “indecency” and “low brow” humor, Sam calls Cooper a “demented, sick, degenerate, barbaric, naughty, Freako!” Rather than being insulted by these comments as Sam was intending, Cooper takes it as a compliment and thanks Sam, to which Sam despairingly retorts, “Freakos one, civilization zero.”
This should work:
http://youtu.be/SQZooJhBG_E
Thanks, OwlMirror; I totally forgot how to make these links work on desktop vs. phone.
This episode is why I had a 4 year old asking to play Alice Cooper’s greatest hits collection while we decorated the Christmas tree. Dang, that’s over 10 years ago now…
The Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention that at the end, after Sam turns away, Cooper silently turns to the camera, grins maniacally, and mimes drawing a score mark in the air.
Mary is weird and mean and yet oddly metal af
I’m trying to imagine that in Mary’s anime style and I can’t wait for the results.
She’s had about 8 weeks of classes. We’ll see if art class has (in Joyce’s? words) beaten the anime drawing style out of her.
If memory serves she’s clinging to her style last we saw.
Contrary to what Joyce believes, in may art classes everyone draws like in anime. Suck it up art hipsters!
Hey, no shade from me about anyone’s art style, or art class.
(Translation: I’ve been watching cartoons since before cable TV or VCRs, and I would draw if I could.)
I have always believed that anyone can draw, it just needs practice, and possibly lessons to learn the basics.
If it were like this (but smiling and with more resemblance to Sarah), that’d be pretty sweet. Or like this?
Anyway, I saw a screencap of the first witch and made this for some reason.
LOL that actually kinda works…
New gravitars in 3,2,1…
I’m guessing there will be traces of Queen Beryl from Sailor Moon.
This is exclusively a good thing.
We’ve reached a mutual understanding.
We’ve reached a metal understanding.
this is a good interaction
With everyone else Mary thinks is going to hell, you’re in good company, Sarah.
And goddamn, is Sarah the best. I love her and you can pry her from my cold, dead hands.
Sarah is definitely one of my favorites, although Sal is still my number 1. I’m disappointed Sarah wasn’t higher up in the poll ranking but I know she isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Still wish she was higher than Mike though.
Sal will probably always be my number one, but Sarah’s the most like me. Crusty, protective, generally tries to be sensible (even if she’s not always successful).
You know, it didn’t even occur to me to vote for Sarah in the poll, and it isn’t because I don’t like her, but rather because she actually strikes me as sort of bland. Or, I take her for granted. She is wholesome in a way, despite her grumpiness, and therefore easy to take for granted. Her story also hasn’t been developed in a while so she has faded into a background character somewhat. I would like more Sarah storyline. She is a good egg, like Danny, but grumpy.
I like Sarah BECAUSE she is grumpy. Most of the time. 😛
I would’ve voted for her, but Sal, Marcie and Carla have a stranglehold on my top three.
I can’t remember where right now, but I remember Willis saying something about how Sarah tends to ‘write herself out of scenes’. Which makes sense and is kind of funny, but yeah we see less of her as a result, and that’s a shame!
I always vote for Sarah in the poll.
I unironically love Sarah and her Halloween love (which I share, Halloween is to me what Christmas is to my boyfriend) is just reinforcing how correct we both are to love her.
oh man, this is escalating quickly <3
It was at this moment I had a better understanding of this version of Mary in which I find to be slightly disturbing. Like I feel like the Buckets of Blood guy could sit down and get turned on from listening to her talk as she continued on from what she was describing in panel 5.
“And I looked, and behold a pegasus skeleton: and her name that sat on her was Misanthropy, and Scorn followed with her.”
Fabulous.
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful mutually beneficial dislike.”
Also DO ME TOO MARY BUT MAKE ME A VAMPIRE WITH BAT WINGS AND BLOODY FANGS 8D
And then do me, but as Solomon Kane.
If Mary’s entire presence from now on was drawing sins in exchange for snacks, I would probably become a Patron.
See, Mary, if it weren’t for that Martin Luther guy, you would know that the damned regret their punishment even if they don’t regret their sin…
How metal…
I’m so glad they found common ground
I had the same thought! Maybe they’ll go out and solve crimes together.
Eh, if you think that’s more likely than them committing them, sure, why not?
It is only Sarah’s dedication to her future career that keeps her from committing crimes. Solving them probably does her future more favors. Probably.
Isn’t she becoming a lawyer? Committing crimes is like, half the job if your any good at it.
Hey, Mary? It’s not snark if the other person is into it.
…and Sarah is SERIOUSLY into it.
Eh, Mary might not care. She can use this to point at and go, “SEE!? SHE IS SO WICKED SHE WANTED TO BE DEPICTED LIKE THIS!” while also getting payment, Sarah gets kick ass art, and everybody is happy
Sarah as a witch? I can dig that.
So the next Slipshine should be Mary drawing/imagining Sarah in Hell getting “tortured” by demons or whatever…
…I’ll be in my bunk
Mary: “I drew you having sex with horny demons and demonesses!”
Sarah: “Okay… can you give me a few minutes in my room with Jacob II?”
Mary: “Jacob 2?”
Joyce *helpful voice*: “It’s a shame-stick”
Mary: “Ooooh, let me add it to the drawing”
Sarah: “I’m less opposed to this than I thought I would be”
I’m totally on-board with your idea that Mary already knows the term “shame stick”.
I see no reason to believe that Joyce didn’t ask Mary if she had one back when she surveyed the dorm.
Don’t you mean:
Sarah: “…with Jacob 6″
Mary: Jacob 6?”
Sarah: “I killed the previous five.”
Well this is the storyline I didn’t know I always wanted.
Behold the power of Halloween! Turning even the most prudish Christian fundies into howling pagans for a night.
I’ve never thought of harnessing Mary’s Mary-ness for… good? satisfaction?
Huh. Mary seems to weirdly kind of enjoying her evil witch characters unrepettness. I’m familiar with the idea of enjoying an evil character, but I’m honestly surprised that Mary is.
Mary is interested in the validation of “evil” people still being “evil” regardless of actually getting punishment, no matter how absolute. Mary’s worldview does not ALLOW for any kind of repentance other than through conversion. There is no gray area. Everything is black and white. They HAVE to be evil or else her world doesn’t make sense.
Her believing in evil isn’t the surprise. Her believing in evil that feels nothing in the face of gods punishment is.
Mary has loved evil from the beginning. As long as she gets to pick her evil.
Mary is not a card carrying villain Mary thinks she’s good. That’s what makes her able to sit in judgment of everyone.
Most villains think they’re good. They think they’re justified in their villainy. They have to, to keep going.
Yup, just look at the perfect archetype. Handsome Jack saw himself as the hero and savior of Pandora.
I now DESPERATELY want to see this irl
Hmmmm I feel the need to haggle….. can i also have dipping cheese?
*giggles* awesome!
Perhaps Mary should draw witch Sarah riding a black unicorn down the side of an erupting volcano while drinking from a chalice filled with the laughter of small children.
I know Mary had some talents as an artist.
I didn’t forsee her future career as a Black Metal cover artist
I remember hearing about a Black Metal band who started out researching Satanism in as much depth as possible, and through that wound up becoming orthodox Roman Catholics. So now that’s what I want Mary’s backstory to be (albeit to fundamentalist Protestantism instead)
I can’t decide if that’s an epic religion FAIL or an epic religion WIN.
And I REALLY want to hear the orthodox roman catholic church comment on it.
Either way, it’s epic.
And now I’m just thinking about Fr. Cesare Bonizzi, aka Fratello Metallo, the Capuchin friar who opened Gods of Metal 2008.
In full habit.
At the age of sixty-two.
Dumbing of Age – the story of flawed people making an unlikely connection that makes both of them better.
I REALLY didn’t expect to see Sarah and Mary as such a pair.
I think Sarah and Mary are having two different conversations.
Mary can draw Hellsing fanarts if she wanted good protestant militants fighting catholics, satanists and pagans. Se would avoid Alucard though.
Also, one setting she could become an artist for is the Warhammer 40k universe, where extreme devotion and murdering in the name of a bigot creed are the law and everything has badass aesthetics.
Also, Mary’s psychotic smile reminds me of that edgy guy that described to Ethan in Shortpacked his idea of a grimdark Transformers movie.
I know the moment has passed, but calling back to the comments yesterday about valid payments for services: I can’t tell from this strip whether Mary thinks that a pretzel is acceptable payment or not. I read the “that’s fine” in the first panel as referring to her making something for Halloween rather than her doing it in exchange for a pretzel. I personally disagree with many of the comments yesterday, that “exposure” is necessarily valuable enough to be payment, or that the buyer gets to decide that what they are offering is enough. Those things /might/ be, but it is the seller that gets to decide the value of what is offered and whether it is acceptable (or conversely, the seller can set a price – and how that price is to be paid – and the buyer can accept it or not) and this is prior to the work, not after. To those saying “it isn’t a commercial transaction, it’s just a dorm room door” – it still takes the same skill and time from the seller, so it is still up to the seller to set a price. Mary might accept the pretzel (or exposure, or whatever), but it shouldn’t be assumed she will, and if she doesn’t, she isn’t the “bad guy”…
A pretzel is solid income.
I think you’re misreading most of yesterday’s comments. The general tone was that “exposure” is always bad as payment for any art. Some argued that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing and that buyers aren’t automatically bad for offering exposure.
I don’t recall anyone saying exposure should always be enough or that a seller would be bad for not accepting it – even from those saying it’s not always bad.
Sarah is my very favourite and Mary is everyone’s least favourite, and I didn’t know they’d go so well together!
Hmmm… they’ve been at floor meetings at the same time and were in the same panel when Billie pulled the fire alarm, and that’s about it before now.
Well, they’re both misanthropes. Why wouldn’t they go good together?
Good heavens you two! You don’t have to get a room, you both have rooms without other occupants (at present)!
I ship it!
I’ve been informed that certain christian sects in europe were of the opinion that if you had supernatural powers, God granted them to you. If someone accused you of being a witch, they were a heretic for believing that anyone could come to power if God did not will it and you were blameless.
Also: The Salem Witch Trials were more about class warfare, allowing others to claim their lands after they were executed. If you plead guilty, you were simply imprisoned. it was denial that got you tortured to death.
“Certain Christian sects in Europe” – sure, that’s one way to put it.
Considering the witch hunts it clearly wasn’t everywhere. It’d be interesting to know when these sects existed (like, at the same time or not).
What I was vaguely alluding to was that one of those sects was the Catholic Church outside of about a decade-long window. The witch craze came in with the Reformation.
Quite.
Contrary to our common impression, the Catholic Inquisition persecuted alleged heretics (e.g. Albigensians in the South of France) and apostates (Moriscos and the descendants of converted Jews in the Iberian peninsula). It did not persecute alleged witches because Catholic orthodoxy was that witchcraft does not exist and that anyone claiming that it does is a heretic. Persecuting alleged witches was mostly a Protestant thing, and where it did occur in Catholic lands it was folk religion without official sanction.
When the Malleus Maleficarum came out, Innocent VIII was taken with it, so he commissioned the Inquisition to hunt witches, but that was abandoned when he died. The Calvinists were especially bad about torturing women as witches.
[citation needed]
Overall, Christianity has been sodding evil to those it othered.
Can’t wait until my country stops the CofE from being the state religion, and the monarchy from being it’s head.
I got your citation, right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum
At the Salem witch trials 19 people were found guilty and were hanged, and five died in prison. The closest to “tortured to death” was Giles Corey, who was slowly crushed to death for refusing to plead. Since he was not convicted his property was not forfeit and his family got to inherit it.
Yep. The whole thing was more if you denied being a witch, you were hung (I mean, how dare you lie about being a witch?) and if you admitted it, you went to jail instead.
Giles Corey knew that if he said one thing one way or the other, his land would be forfeit. His last words or something were akin to ‘add more weight’. I don’t think it was specifically that he was accused of being a witch himself, I can’t remember the exact details, but I know it was a lose-lose situation where death by crushing was somehow the best option.
It seems that Mary knows both her subject and the person who commissioned the work very well! That said, I don’t think that she understands that Sarah really likes that idea!
I think she understands that very well.
Meeting at a common point from opposing ends
This strip is actually surprisingly heartwarming, since this is how negotiations and compromise are supposed to work; two initially opposed parties meeting at a common point that is agreeable to both of them. With the world as polarized as it is today, it saddens me sometimes that people cling to their positions so tightly that they see no room at all for compromise.
thank you for this. you are right: it is heartwarming that it is possible 🙂
agreed 🙂 well said Zaxares
Sarah is me every time the pope says sthg abt trans people (=^vv^=)
*evilly
[Yeah, I know it makes no sense, but that’s English]
You’re suffering in hell
But like it rather well
How do you smile, as heaven you defy?
Evilly
Evilly
Evil L-Y
Slow clap. Well done.
Of course it makes sense. Evil + ly, evilly.
Ohh, I love it when people read out how much someone’s gonna suffer FOR ALL ETERNITY for their sins and so on, and the point is either completely missed or ignored by the recipient because the visual image just sounds freakin’ amazing.
Though it’s interesting that Mary seemingly has no issue with Hallowe’en, but is “Hmmm.” about witches.
If Mary is anything like some of the Christians I knew in high school and during my nearly-12 year stint working at Target, she’s not opposed to the fall festival aspect of Halloween (pumpkins and cuteness and candy), but rather the “spooky ooky” bits of Halloween (witches and demons and monsters, etc).
Oh no, Mary is metal and I’m into that!
In which Mary is the coolest she has ever been in the comic’s entire history.
Which is to say she’s still a jagoff, but she’s much less of a jagoff.
Now this was unexpected!
BTW. Regarding Mary being metal: actually, I’ve long got a metal vibe from her, with her leather wrist bands and so on…
I say: we need more story focus on Mary! Also, on Robin. Please!
BTW 2. So, Mary isn’t against Halloween, either? I wonder if we end up seeing any of the Christians in DoA actually being opposed to it?
My experience is fundies aren’t against Halloween in particular, just any occult-like things related to it, i.e. witches, ghosts, just anything scary.
I suspect that many people are influenced by Jack Chick’s addled history of Halloween into thinking that all fundamentalists Christians think the same way about the holiday.
https://www.chick.com/information/article?id=history-of-halloween
But obviously not everyone is as extreme as Jack Chick was.
…leaving only 1) candy and 2) Casper?
Oh, and 3) the fundie haunted (sic) houses.
Sarah in Brutal Legend, DLC when?
I look forward to Mary “Two Pretzels” Bananafanafoferry meeting her true love, Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson.
LMAO nice connect!!!
omg i love that last panel…. i cannot stop chuckling!!
I… I did not expect to ship this friendship.
*Metal music intensifies*
Ok, wait, how about this: Sarah, as a witch, wreathed in flames, smiling evilly, riding a pegasus skeleton, wielding a guitar crossed with a broad-axe, and has just beheaded Ryan
(*Five pretzels. Or more, even.*)
At that point, a percentage of album sales.
Sarah should test the waters, and see what adding some mustard would do.
This is cute. Sarah is adorable and Mary is not intolerable. Thanks, I love it! <3
Mary tries to be a bongo and instead makes Sarah happy.
Huzzah for failing upwards!