We were too in the thick of the Book 8 Kickstarter endgame for me to plug it at the time, but the second of March’s Patreon bonus strips went live a few days ago! It’s about Tony and Beef! You may remember them as “barely appearing in this webcomic” and “beating the crap out of each other currently in It’s Walky! reruns.”
Patreon bonus strips are viewable to patrons who pledge at any amount! So if you’re logged in, you can see it or any of the other dozens of bonus strips from months past.
“Robs, it’s called ghostwriting, THAT’S LEGAL“
Beckers would totally call her “Robs.”
If Becky was impersonating (as opposed to satirizing) Robin using her (Becky’s) own Twitter account, it would be a violation of Twitter’s ToS, but might or might not be illegal. (Given that Robin is a Congress critter, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is.)
However, if she was using Robin’s own account (meaning she was accessing it without authorization) it is definitely illegal – the only question is whether it would be a misdemeanor or a felony. Again because of the Congress thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a felony.
If there is little or no money involved, then whether it would be pursued legally or not likely depends in large part on what was said (as the other person) – defamatory or fraudulent statements likely would be pursued. The Congress thing would make it more likely that there would be legal action regardless of what was said.
But regardless, since it is Robin’s account – illegal.
I mean, if we aren’t getting 45 for all the dubious shit HE’S instigating with tweets, what’s the diff
it’s the difference between having being Mcconnell’s constituent, and Pelosi’s.
Didn’t they show Becky guessing Robin’s Twitter password? I seem to remember that.
Robin handed over her phone to play with. Becky tweeted as her openly then and accessed her authentication while she had the phone.
“You are now subscribed to The Clu Gulager fan newsletter.”
“No, I want gulags.”
“Order for one gross of galoshes has been placed.”
“Goo. Log.”
“Top result for Poo Blog: Hi, I’m Walky, and welcome to my-”
“Dammit!”
Your mind is frightening.
Machine intelligence truly is the way of the future. The stupid, stupid future.
Alexa is leading the way
cant stop giggling….
“We meet again. And this time…in pants” would make a great book title
Or the name of one’s sex tape. …Nega-sex tape?
Well, as the start of a Slipshine, it certainly beats “I’m here to deliver your pizza and/or clean your pool”.
“This time I have pants… OR DO I?”
(spoiler: She does not)
You’ve been played Rob, it was all a ruse. You don’t go to college with David Walkerton for three years without knowing what the “Funky Cold Medina” is.
“Representative DeSanto, are you sure you’re wearing pants?”
(looks down)
“…well played”
Yeah, Robin’s statement does sorta assert facts not yet in evidence.
We really can’t be sure until Robin stands up.
She’s wearing a pencil skirt in her character model for this chapter.
So… not pants, then.
Nope. Just one pant, but it’s double-wide.
Point made. But if there’s anyone in the cast who can lose a piece of vital clothing between the “dressing room” and “on set”, it’s our Genki Girl Robin.
. . . .What is Robin’s plan here? Because she is very much RIGHT and she could easily have Becky prosecuted for this. . .buuuut that doesn’t seem to be her goal here.
Put herself in better negotiating position when hiring her new social media manager. Say Becky could be arrested for technically starting the job prior to being hired and she won’t try asking for back pay.
Yeah, i’d say that this is an attempt to hire Becky. Especially since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been saying the stuff that she’s been tweeting, and look how popular she is! So Willis may be doing an arc about that, either with Robin being the comic’s equivalent of her or Robin advocating the same stuff.
In other words, i bet Robin has let Becky tweet for this amount of time as a way of seeing if it will recover her popularity and get another chance at congress since her party has disavowed her. After all, if it failed, she could just claim to have been attacked/hacked by liberal activists in a smear campaign as a way of getting back in the good graces of republicans/christians (i’ma attacked by Satan, y’all!).
So what Robin does with Becky here will depend on what she thinks offers her the best shot at holding her congressional seat in the next election. It’s up to Willis to decide what the effects of Becky’s texting has been. Fingers crossed!
Aye, fits with Becky getting her (very meager) paycheck a few days ago, that seems like a logical place to take this scene :).
Doesn’t Willis have months worth of buffer at least? This storyline was probably conceived way before AOC started making waves
I would consider it possible, though not incredibly likely, that he would have went back to change just the content of becky’s tweet in the last strip to reference recent events.
That said, she’s also not really saying anything particularly new.
The buffer watch stands at 11 weeks right now. I don’t think it’s been longer than three months since the twins arrived.
The AOC dance video went viral Jan. 4, so it would have been a week or two old when he drew this.
But I think the AOC thing is just detail. I think even back when we last saw Robin sitting in the parking lot while Rachel spoke of redemption being a story, even then Willis had the general outline of Robin’s arc in his mind. AOC is a nice framework for that outline, but I’ll bet the same storyline would have happened with or without her.
I have missed Robin so much.
Huh, she actually noticed.
Is familiar with what a gulag is, but has no idea how United States law works. Yup, she’s a republican.
I’m not sure she actually knows what a gulag is, other than a scary sounding word
If she tried enough she could probably… I don’t know accuse Becky of Internet terrorism and send her to Guantanamo?
Wait, that’s Robin? Why does she look like she’s 15?
She moisturizes.
It reflects her mental Age.
She’s like Cyclops, she’s basically only capable of appearing in control of herself with glasses on, otherwise things get crazy.
I think it’s that T-shirt, it deages something fierce.
Also, when she’s appearing politically, she wears glasses and a suit and ties her hair up in a ponytail. She’s going for the “Sarah Palin” look as part of her ‘republican politician’ image. When she’s relaxing she looks more like herself – hair down, jeans and t-shirt.
For a second I thought it was Riley, before I noticed the eyes.
I can see it. Panels 3, 5, and 6 are very much Riley-esque.
Actually, this *is* Riley. Congresswoman DeSanto has vanished. She is on an important committee and her absence will have dire consequences. So Aide has recruited Riley to impersonate her. Elevator shoes, padded bra, makeup experts, dialogue coaches, the works.
Amazing what people will do for a promise of an unlimited lifetime supply of cereal.
her dialogue, while in character, doesn’t help her case
Incidentally, has Ryan been located and/or arrested as-yet? I remember he was part of Robin’s campaign team, but can’t recall much beyond that (and her genuinely being kind of horrified about it).
Pretty sure he’s in the hospital.
Guessing he’s in the hospital or jail, depending on how badly Amber messed him up.
I like to think he’s in a bed right across from Ross.
Ooh, yeah, I kinda forgot about that.
Probably still in hospital, not that much time has passed since Amber shanked him.
RECAP: Ryan managed to survive the tag team of Sal and Amazi-Girl by using the surprisingly effective tactic of running away.
But then Ryan decided to actually go on the offensive with a knife (and not, I repeat, NOT, a cell phone) against Dorothy and Amber. Amber pushed Dorothy inside the building doors so that she was facing Ryan alone. Ryan seemed to think that this gave him some sort of tactical advantage.
Amber severely corrected his misunderstanding.
The way Joyce described him when talking to Joe implied he’ll be in the hospital for quite some time. The more incidental dialogue related to the stabbing also makes it sound like Amber did a real number on him. (I keep thinking but can’t find Walky having a line including the phrase ‘eviscerated’.)
Also he was an intern, so losing him was nothing compared to her firing her staff.
Ryan’s alive, but pretty royally sliced up from the sounds of things. Additionally, several girls came forward after the attack to accuse him of doing exactly what he did to Joyce, so while his family’s trying to sue Amber’s, he’s also got plenty of other problems.
Robin fired her entire staff because they were reluctant to fire him
They weren’t reluctant to FIRE him… they just wanted to quietly let him go and distance The Candidate from ‘Ryan’ because Ryan is date-rapist (bad) who was more popular than Robin as of her Lamp-theft.
She didn’t fire the lamp.
The lamp is all she has left now
But why does she address the lamp as ‘Zoomer’ and not as ‘Alexa’?
The sad thing is, even with three other girls coming forward against him, I doubt he’ll go to prison when he gets out. He’s got a rich/influential father. He might get expelled from the university? Maybe?
It’s been implied that he hasn’t even woken up yet. The question may not come up.
He might get some sympathy for the injuries, but otoh assault with a deadly weapon on camera is a harder rap to beat.
I don’t think I fully appreciated the advantages of seeing facial expressions through hair in a comic before this strip.
You mean that isn’t translucent cellophane on her head? There goes my entire worldview.
what if becky’s hair is just… actually like that, though
I thought Becky was blushing really hard for some reason.
Or I did for the first several panels. I figured it out by the end.
… it still looks like a blush to me.
Yeah, that’s definitely the result of flexing capillum.
Becky has some impressive TransHAIRency…?
Becky’s hair is actually a transparent orange polycarbonate, like some old iMac G3s were made of.
Yeah, and what’s the deal with all the black lines? Real people don’t have lack outlines!
Every single face in every single panel is a Classic ™.
Seeing Becky’s face through her hair reminds me of when you can glitch the camera in Minecraft to see through the ground to find tunnels.
I do that in No Man’s Sky looking for caves.
have
have we ever seen becky’s hair/face from this angle before
I like the flying eyebrow Becky has going on in panel one. There’s a lot of surprise going on here.
Becky is too distressed to make a joke about that whole ‘your pants’ line and that makes me sad. Clearly we need a congresswoman who has an anti-making-Becky-upset platform.
YES. I’M VERY MUCH IN FAVOR OF THAT
Aren’t gulags a Russian thing?
Pretty sure that’s part of the alt text joke.
It’s passed into generic reference now. Probably be getting a stern letter any day now from the trademark and copyright law division of the Main Administration of Camps.
So… is Becky’s hair naturally translucent, or do you think she dyes it that way? 🙂
Neither. You just got hit with gamma radiation and now you have X-Ray vision.
But I thought the only way to have X-Ray vision was if you got exposed to X-Ray radiation…
So what’s gamma vision like? 🙂
THAT you need to be exposed to gamma rays to have.
Look, I don’t know what it’s like. I just know you need to be exposed to that type of photon to actually see that type of photon. Just like we can’t see visible light unless there’s visible light waves for us to see.
Maybe so we could find black holes with the naked eye?
is she gonna offer becky a staff position?
Either that or Galasso is going to offer HER a staff position
DiSanto is the least intimidating person ever
I was worried she had a white cat on her lap under that desk but now I think the worst we can expect is a lethargic hamster.
*plays Madhouse’s “13” on the hacked Muzak*
I love how Robin opens for the possibility that it’s legal to impersonate members of congress if you have enough super-hot mannerisms
Zoomer is an Alexa/Siri/Google voice equivalent, and not an aide, right?
Have we seen Zoomer called upon before?
Yeah, the phones are Ruttech – Carla’s parents’ company. I know Zoomer’s popped up in Patreon strips before and I think Carla’s called on it in strip proper?
Yeah, Zoomer appeared in one strip where Mary was tagging on Carla about her choices in using the common room TV. Carla managed to make her leave by asking Zoomer how to access other students internet searches, which suggests that Mary done searched for smut.
“Over There”, Zoomer was the name Joe gave to production-line Ultra Cars, right? So having it as a product made by Carla’s parents makes sense.
I wonder if Ruttech are working on self-driving cars?
Zoomer directed Billie to Galasso’s 3 storylines ago
The first appearance seems to be http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/todo/ in which it is non-voice but you can clearly see the name at the top of the app on Carla’s phone.
The June 2, 2018, strip is the one AntJ is referring to where Billie uses its voice function (would link, but 2 links in a comment goes to moderation queue. Couldn’t find the one Dr T refers to, so I’ll assume that’s a Patreon bonus strip.
Sure you did, Robin. And yeah, no, not a gulag you couldn’t. 😛
I mean American prisons probably aren’t much better than the gulag.
Well, sure, private prisons especially (plus Guantanamo Bay exists), but they’re not called gulags.
not that i’m defending the US penal system or anything but Stalin’s gulags killed over a million people so i’d like it if we could, like, have at least a bit of a sense of scale here
I think Beef means more along the lines of conditions like labour practices and healthcare than in scale of people killed.
American prisons have a pretty high kill count themselves. But yeah, the gulags were worse.
A few thousand a year, I think, depending on how you count. Not trying to trivialize the conditions of prisons in the U.S., but I’m pretty sure my entire family would appreciate it if we didn’t trivialize Stalinist Russia, either.
(maybe didn’t choose the best name for engaging in discourse)
I think the opposite is at play here. Instead of trivializing the Stalinist Russia people are exaggerating the scale of the US problem to give the people some idea of how Bad it really is.
The ones that are privately run certainly aren’t; you can save money by stuffing more people into the same space and cheaping out on food for example.
Many American prisons are privately run and built where the local politicians are willing to contractually guarantee that they’re filled to a certain level. This means that injustice has been legally built into the american justice system. Social justice warriors actually have a point; this is one of them.
Many countries consider america’s obsession with privatizing as much stuff as possible to be bad, this is one example. Healthcare is another.
Hmm let’s see. Ms. Hashimoto?
Ah, yes?
When and where were you born?
I was born in 1937, in Los Angeles.
Would you say that America has had gulags?
Ah, that means a prison camp where people are sent, without due process and when they have not committed any crime? Well, yes, I would say that.
If that’s what you mean, sure. It depends on how you define the terms. Another common part is the emphasis on forced labor, which doesn’t fit as well. And the death rate in the gulag is thought to be far worse than anything in modern American prisons or camps.
Concentration camp is more commonly used for that experience – though that also has connotations that go far beyond reality, since Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps are often conflated.
None of which should trivialize how bad that was, or how how bad the modern US prison system is for that matter, but Stalin’s gulags were on a whole different level.
Please, at least one of you read or even glance through “One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich,” or “The Gulag Archipelago,” or even “Kolyma Tales,” before you say _anything_ else.
“This time, in pants” seems like a good book title.
Or a tag line, complete with *** and excess !!!
Personally I just hold out for the next slipshine
“This time, not in pants”
“Within a timetable thats not embarrassing”
…How many days has it been?
10 days. Yay floating timeline!
Robin’s going to hire her to be in charge of her social media
We can hope, but if so would Willis have telegraphed it by having Becky disappointed by her paycheck?
And also having her freshly thinking about how desperate for money she is, and also highlighting an emotional need (going all out for Dina’s birthday) she’s desperate to meet?
Noooo… writing doesn’t work anything like that….
Robin’s as clueless as ever and seeing Becky’s face through her hair is just weird and not visually appealing at all.
…so, here’s the funny thing: It actually MIGHT be considered a crime to impersonate a representative of the United States Government on their twitter account. Remember, the Horrific Fucking Asshole In Chief is barred from deleting his tweets because they are considered official statements of his. There’s probably some interpretation of various laws where this would qualify as not only illegal, but quite a serious offense…
…not a lawyer, though. Still, it is an interesting question to pose to a lawyer…
Aside from Robin being a representative, wouldn’t hacking someone’s account qualify as identity theft?
Also, if not, I suspect Robin could sue Becky for damages, at least.
That’s a bit trickier, I think? But I just find the whole “who’s being hacked” more interesting to think about in these terms than “that hacking is happening at all” because… yeah, my twitter account with a couple dozen followers (at best) being hacked is a bit different from a US congressman’s account being compromised.
Given that the first tweets were made from Robin’s phone, with Robin present and with Robin’s knowledge, Becky might be able to make a case that she was just continuing.
Am I the only one really weirded out by the fact that we can see Becky’s entire face through her hair? What is her hair even made of, Jello!?
It’s a bit much here, but while hair isn’t actually transparent, it’s also not a solid blob as it’s normally drawn. Think of Becky’s hair as relatively fine and thin and we’re seeing the face through a veil of hair.
I sometimes see eyes throught haircuts, but whole faces, that’s a new one !
I just remembered that during the previous Robin storyline, one of the punchlines was that Leslie thought she could change Robin with Becky’s sad story, but it turned out Becky wasn’t even considering it. Becky can be surprisingly pragmatic sometimes, because she’s had to be. What I’m getting at here is: I am really interested to see how Becky responds if it turns out this is leading up to a job offer.
(For reference, the strip I was thinking of: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/dishes/
Coincidentally enough, the same strip that reveals Becky has stolen Robin’s Twitter login!)
RT, thanks for replying to my question re: Robin’s age.
That said, if Robin is 27 – 30, then… my, she’s young. She was older in my mind…
Also depicted: Robin without pants
I like how Robin thinks Becky’s been “copying” her mannerisms. She was not copying them, they just happen to talk in a similar way 🙂
Gulags are a Russian communist thing, Robin. They also host musical shows and can be places to detain evil frog thieves.
‘Gulag’ is a general term for a prison camp with inhumane conditions that are a prime destination for political undesirables. Ask those on the alt-right and they’ll claim loudly and with 100% belief that these exist in the US and that the Deep State plan to use them to house citizens that won’t give up their guns and self-determination.
To be honest from what I heard about US’ privatized prison system that stuff could easily pass for a Gulag. Inhuman conditions: check, exploiting the prisoners: check.
See: Guantanamo Bay.
I don’t know about Guantanamo… that’s actually closer to the “secret Deep state facilities” idea BenRG mentioned. A place for political and ideologies undesirables where they are being punished and tormented. What I had in mind was the general privatized US prison system where the owners cut costs as much as they can in servicing the prisoners while making them work to earn money for the owners. A bit of a modern slavery kind of thing.
Yeah, but in the alt-right’s version of the world, Guantanamo is different from the Deep State facilities and it’s where their Glorious Leader is finally going to imprison all the evil Deep State conspirators and pedophiles. It’s where Clinton and Obama will be locked up according to the Plan .
Yeah…slavery continued under the guise of prison labor and forced indentured servitude, kept staffed by entire books filled with minorities arrested for minor, subjective shit like “loitering” and “causing a public disturbance”. It’s not as bad as it was, but this was common up until about WWI.
The prisons were worse than being a slave, because at least as a slave your owner didn’t want you too damaged. In prisons they just worked them to death, then replaced them with someone new. THESE prisons are much closer to being gulags than the (admittedly still awful) modern ones. And again, all very common in the US until about 1920.
To be completely honest, I don’t think slavery was ever properly banned. I think it just got moved overseas and into prisons so we didn’t have to look at it, because it made us uncomfortable.
My understanding is that it was after the 60s Civil Rights movement that the black prison population really exploded. Before then, during the Jim Crow era, the threat of the law (or extra-judicial lynchings and the like) was more used than actual prison labor.
Sorry for second post.
A major distinction here is that Guantanamo seems more like a PoW camp for external enemies rather than a work camp for the country’s population.
Welcome to the Big House…
“I dunno… It ain’t all that big…. Also, this jump suit totally clashes with my hair!”
“Complaints form is available from the Floor Supervisor’s window between 10 and 4.”
In which Robin fails to be threatening. I mean, it isn’t generally in her nature anyway but she was trying to do it this time and failed, big time! Becky’s first likely reaction won’t be to feel fear, it will be to be genuinely worried about whether Robin is safe to be out on her own!
You know, with Robin being as clueless, I genuinely wonder how the heck did she manage to become a representative?
Consider the current state of our executive branch – not just the head of that branch, but the majority of people with any power. In a realistic world, how do we explain how we have so many Secretaries who want to destroy their own departments? Unfortunately, reality isn’t realistic.
The fanon I like the most is that her father is a governor or senator and she was parachuted into a safe seat as a favour to him. Basically, so safe a seat that even she couldn’t flip it in a first election. In an attempt to get re-elected, she’s less of a solid proposition, especially as she’s clearly realising that she’s bisexual.
I don’t think that really fits with the hints we’ve been given.
Partly it’s the changing politics due to the time distortion. 🙂
When she first appeared here, she was elected for the first time in the Tea Party wave of 2010 and that seemed almost plausible. She was a Sarah Palin parody, if that helps.
Token ethnic woman to provide a pretense of diversity.
This is gonna end with her offering Becky a job her as social media manager, isn’t it?
Wait, that’s Beef? But he’s human-sized! He could wear Walkyverse Beef like power armor!
Also his head isn’t full of holes.
My guess is that Robin will try to press-gang Becky into helping set Robin up with Leslie. In my happy head-canon, I like to think that Becky turns Robin into an unwitting AOC.
Given that shirt she’s wearing, I think Robin is turning herself into an unwitting AOC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBvR-lIRwDw
I am loving this orange-tinted spacesuit-helmet hair.
I like how in panel 4, it looks like Robin is looking at us while making her “I’m not stupid!” statement.
“Gulags- a Russian prison…”
“Note to see, make deal with Russians. Nothing bad ever happened to deals with Russians…
What a thrill…
This is the first time I’ve really noticed that Becky’s hair is translucent. You can see her facial expression through her hair. Wild.
I think it’s a redhead characteristic – Red hair tends to be fine so you can see a few details through it.
Ah, yes, the Robin presence continues. This arc is going to do WONDERS for my blood pressure. Bet I can get into Guinness if I hit four digits.
Robin may be bad at threats, but Becky has about zero power now and is very vulnerable. Police are unlikely to be friends to the vagrant teen with the rad hair.
No, no, Becky’s in luck. She’s a tad too old (and white) for the US’s current gulags. But you just give Pence some time, and I’m sure she’ll be qualifying right quick.
is this in b4 robin gets becky to run her social media for her?
Maybe Robin is finding she’s actually got a slight bump in the polls. Lol.
Becky as much as I love and adore you, you’re kind of breaking the law in a major fashion and I would suggest stopping
‘We meet again. And this time… in pants’ definitely deserves to be considered as the name of the next book.
Isn’t Robin a conservative candidate in Indiana? I’m pretty sure they have gay teen gulags in Indiana.
If she wants to have her face broken, sure.
I am finding being able to see Becky’s face through her hair a bit unsettling, not sure why.
Zoomer is a Tandy palm-top computer from 1992, right?