No. I really think the whole “Make America Great Again” slogan was a direct rebuke of Obama’s less than cheerleader attitude toward the state of the nation.
If you are really great, you don’t need to keep telling people that – they know. And you can afford to point out the times you were less than great, with the promise you’ll be better in the future – rather than insisting all was perfect in the past (against all evidence to the contrary), so your goal is to return to that past.
It’s very clear to me that “Make America Great Again” means, explicitly, one of two things:
1) Remember how people used to be able to support a family one one job, which was pretty secure? And how that was mostly because unions and a high marginal tax rate kept income inequality down, social support high, and worker compensation reasonable? We’re certainly not going to bring those things back, and instead we’re going to lie and tell you that the whole reason you’re poor and broke now is because Mexicans somehow took your jobs! Go racism!
2) Meh, forget those complicated reasons – remember how you used to be able to get away with being racist as hell? Go racism!
Seriously – MAGA stands for Make America Racist Again. Period. It’s incredibly blatant in how the slogan and associated red-hat symbolism is used in practice.
Red hat, red shirt, brown shirt,…meh – it’s all symbolism. “Let’s oppress somebody (or a bunch of bodies)” is not a platform that makes me comfortable.
IIRC, during the 2016 campaign they did some studies that showed that the only strong correlation for when people thought America used to be great was when they were young. Nostalgia for their lost youth.
You may have felt that way internally, but as a non-American a lot of us felt Obama to be a great president.
We know you have a powerful and strong country. Obama being a little more humble didn’t come across as apologetic, it came across as being more human and relatable. The ‘USA #1’ attitude can sometimes get a little tiring and is undoubtedly the cause of a lot of the American based jokes online.
Seeing someone being more humble about the US made lots of us think more of you, rather than less. It definitely didn’t make us view you as any weaker than a president whose insistence on how great America is, which comes over more like overcompensation than believable reality.
Obama also followed a President who’d trashed America’s reputation in the world – hard as that is to remember in our current shit-show.
I do think SeanR’s right. There was a segment of the population that reacted badly to the more humble approach and wanted the full on “rah rah! America is the greatest!”. They formed much of the Tea Party and now the MAGAs.
That this attitude appeals to some people and that they were upset at Obama’s “apology tour” doesn’t mean there actually was an apology tour or that their attitude is right. But it could well be tied into the grievances they feel.
In 2009 we got a president who pretended to care about the people during the election but really mostly helped the rich and the big corporations once he was in office.
In 2017 we got a president who pretended to care about the people during the election but really mostly helped the rich and the big corporations once he was in office.
In 2021, I’m expecting we’re gonna get more of the same.
Can we not draw false equivalencies between Obama/Biden and T****, of all people? Obama and Biden had/have their flaws, but they’re nowhere near equivalent to the current resident of the White House.
Yes, But trump is a LITERALFUCKINGFASCIST. Obama wasn’t perfect, and I’ll never forgive him for the amount of drone strikes he did, but he didn’t say WHITE SUPREMACIST SLOGANS when asked if he would disavow white supremacists. What Obama mostly did was keep the rather shitty status quo the same beCause the republicans had a lot of power at the time so they could vetoe pretty much any improvements he wanted to make, though he did manage some good things like freeing most of Guantanamo’s prisoners. And Obama care, which saved a ton of lives. What trump did was ACTIVELY WORK TO MAKE THE STATUS QUO WORSE. He tried to ban Muslim immigration into the us. He fired people who tried to investigate him. He PUT CHILDREN IN CAGES.
This. I expect very little from Biden (especially if the Senate races in Georgia don’t end in a double Democrat win,) but ‘treats a deadly pandemic as something worth taking seriously’ was not a standard I considered it necessary to have four years ago. Biden can be pressured to be less shitty. (We know this, because he was the LAST candidate to put out a planned policy set for disability and his interactions with disabled people asking about his policies tended to be… awful. People called him on that. A LOT. His released plan? Actually pretty good once it existed, and clearly made with consultation from our community.) I intend to do so when I feel even remotely safe enough to attend a protest. Trump is a literal fucking fascist who’s threatening a coup. Not even losing the election has made him even remotely less shitty.
That’s a really reductive way to frame it. One of the two actively worked to make things worse for everyone who’s not a cishet white guy. I don’t need to say which one.
I think you mean the early 40’s. You know, before Trump was born…and we were in the middle of WW2. Um, Ok, the 30’s…when we had the great depression. Er…the 20’s? Yeah. The roaring 20’s where the worst thing we had was classic style gangsters…until the stock market crash. When exactly were the good ol’ days again?
Ours were never really big enough to shove someone inside unless they were very short and very skinny. Even then you might only get someone halfway in, they weren’t very deep.
My high school had a smaller student body, and we had lockers large enough to fit an average-sized teenager.
I don’t regret locking my friend in hers, she’s the one who decided to tell us that she was going to hide in there instead of participating in gym class.
High school locker in the 60’s. Most of us could have forced fit inside, but it wouldn’t have been at all comfortable and you’d sure better not suffer from claustrophobia.
Maybe Billy was a master of Tetris and managed to make him fit. To be fair Walky’s not all that big so you’d only have to Feng Shui him in there a little bit.
The last time I had a full-length locker in the hallway was in middle school. My high school was big, and we had narrow lockers stacked two high.
However, two of the sizes of lockers in the band hall would fit a person…the baritone/euphonium/mellophone size, and the ones meant for tubas (which might fit *several* people standing up). One day when some of us were hanging out in the band hall while the directors were hiding in their offices, one of the freshmen asked me if I’d let him crawl into my locker (I had the euphonium size then). It was big enough that a smaller adult could sit in it and stretch a bit, although way too short for anyone to stand up. He then asked me to shut the door and put the lock on it, then happily sat in my locked locker for several minutes. I bet that guy is into some seriously freaky stuff as an adult.
I’m convinced American schools in pop culture are stuck in the idealized 1950s worlds of Archie, Grease, and American Graffiti. Sure, the trappings may change, fashions come and go, and computers appear, but they’re all cut from the same cloth. Giant lockers, homecoming, letterman jackets, jocks vs nerds, seemingly unlimited time between classes, malts at the local diner named after the guy who sold it to the guy who runs it now…
On the one hand, he did help deal with Blaine to a degree, on the other hand he helped Blaine. So I think given that and his past actions, it is fair not to trust him.
In fairness, I can see why he felt like he didn’t have a good option.
Option 1 – he helps Blaine and most likely worst case scenario, he goes to jail. Absolute worst case scenario, Grandpa decides he’s a liability too and has him shot as well.
Option 2 – he refuses to help Blaine. Either he reports Blaine or he doesn’t. Regardless, Blaine outs him as having stolen his grandpa’s money (to Lester if nobody else). A couple days later, the police find Asher’s body in a ditch.
I’m not sure on option 2. Not knowing anything about Asher’s family dynamic or their criminal activities I find it really hard to think Asher would get killed for stealing some money. There’s just a lot we don’t know about that. Such as Asher’s parents. Are they still in the picture? I assume one of them would be his grandpa’s child. Would that parent be okay with Grandpa mob boss killing their son?
I think the threat would be more that Asher would be back into association with his grandpa’s business which he wanted to escape but it also seems like that happened anyway since he was contacted for the hit on Blaine.
My personal theory is that Asher’s life was never in danger but he didn’t much like Blaine’s threat and decided to go to his grandpa on his own terms and control the narrative instead of risking Blaine putting him in a compromised bargaining position. Probably from a change of heart after selling some students out in the first place.
This is just a theory though. I have no idea what’s going on with the whole Asher/mob subplot.
His grandpa is a mobster and Asher stole a significant amount of money if he stole enough to cover tuition. Grandkid or no, there’s only one way that story goes.
My heart really wants to say it’s a reach, but also Blaine existed in this world and he’s more than proven people are willing to kill over tuition money so I guess we’ll have to see how this shakes out. Fair point though.
Domestic but non local tuition at their school is $36, 512 currently. Multiply that by at least four, plus whatever he needs for supplies, and Asher did not steal an insignificant amount of money that could be brushed off or solved by making him come back.
Okay, apparently local means Indiana. So more like $22,426 just for tuition and room and board. That times four, plus whatever else is needed. Still ‘dead in a ditch’ money.
I don’t recall anything from the comic that states that Asher stole money for tuition. My impression is that his grandfather doesn’t like his retreat from the family business, not that he’s going to college.
The threat was very likely real. And that very likely ties in to his involvement in getting Blaine killed. Removes the threat of Blaine carrying through with his blackmail.
She lied about quitting drinking once very early on. After that she never even pretended.
Until the last Ruth/Billie arc, where she was quite clearly quitting since she was shown going through withdrawal. That’s when she said she was going to go to therapy. Since that was only a day or two before the timeskip, I’m not sure if she went before the skip or not. It makes no sense in terms of character development for her to have been lying about it then, while she was clearly serious about stopping the drinking.
Which doesn’t mean she hasn’t relapsed since, of course.
Hey, BBCC, you think if we both went on Patreon and yelled loud enough we’d get some timeskip comics concerning Sal and Asher? Because right about now I’d like some timeskip comics concerning Sal and Asher.
I never remember I can vote in those things. I get the email that they’re open, and make a mental note to go there and do so later.
And then as soon as I turn my metaphorical back, a gust of hypothetical wind blows the mental note off the refrigerator of consciousness, and underneath it where it resides forever with the dust bunnies of memory and the lost spoon of childhood innocence.
In other non “Billie is dating Asher and that’s probably a mistake” observations, we got a few interesting background character designs. Tall dude next to Walky, some guy that looks a lot like Danny from behind but most probably isn’t Danny, and a rando platinum blonde! What are their stories!?!?!?
The tall guy next to Walky is heading out to the University Center to register a new campus organization whose purpose is to organize extreme ecology events on campus. The student going up the steps is Danny’s third cousin twice removed, although neither is aware of the fact. The blond whose hair we see is Walky’s future second wife. All is proceeding in accordance with Booster’s master plan.
Does anyone else think that Ruth’s outburst wasn’t so random?
That Rachel actually had something to do with Billie and Ruth breaking up? That maybe we’ll get Mary going “you’re no different from me”?
Mary wouldn’t go “you’re no different than me” because Mary thinks she’s perfect and that everyone else is horrible sinners. If she ever said those words, she would mean them as the highest compliment.
You’re talking about “I didn’t ‘lose’ Billie–“? To me, that sounded like Billie relapsed and Ruth broke up with her. It wasn’t Ruth’s fault, she didn’t lose Billie, Billie failed to keep her end of the no-longer-suicide-pact bargain. Seeing her with Asher kinda-sorta-not-really feels like her giving into worse impulses, but only time will tell.
We don’t know what happened to that unwanted hooch. My guess is Ruth confronted her on this and things went bad. Billie probably doesn’t even think she has a problem. Or maybe none of that happened. Maybe Asher’s just a really hot, really nice guy, who is better than Ruth in every way. He does have a motorcycle.
I often wonder who’s the one tolerating who when it comes to Billie and Walkys dynamic. That aside I feel sorry for poor Sal, longing the old days when she had her wheels.
Ah, yes, shutting out literally all of your friends or potential friends and isolating yourself with your morally-questionable-at-best new boyfriend who basically killed a guy, if indirectly – such a decision can only turn out well.
I mean, I guess pretending she’s too cool for the people around her is technically on-brand for Billie, but still.
To be frank, given Ruth and Billie’s history as well as her memories of them involving violence as well as kidnapping–Billie shutting them out to get healthy isn’t necessarily unhealthy.
I mean, ignoring the fact that Asher is pretty high up there on the worst possible new attachments she could make (since she probably doesn’t know that), is there any reason to believe that Billie would be, independently, attempting to get healthy, based on her past actions?
And beyond that, why actively ignore Joyce and Walky, who, memories or no, have done absolutely nothing to her, without even making any attempt to explain why?
It all just seems like a bad idea, and pretty callous at best.
She ignored and bullied Walky in high school because She Was a Cheerleader and That’s What Cheerleaders Do. Can’t risk alienating ourselves from the dominant social clique we’ve worked our way into!
Then for the first semester of college, she was no longer a cheerleader. She was just Billie, ex-cheerleader, alpha bongo, problem causer, relapsing alcoholic. Rejected by The Cheerleaders, she fell back on her old friend Walky because she had nobody else.
Now that she’s with Asher, she’s got her foot in the door with the cool rebels with questionable morality. She doesn’t need Walky and the nerds anymore, so she can keep them at arm’s length to maintain appearances.
Quick question. Who did he kill? Even indirectly? Mike was already in a coma and dying by the time the fire drill happened.
Or are you talking about Mr. McEntire? That one would hold water.
Asher probably dropped the dime that persuades his Gramps to order the hit on Blaine. And that would be knowingly and willingly. Blaine tried to blackmail Asher, and Asher pushed him into a meat grinder.
That hit the news when the campaign manager of a sitting congresswoman publicized the kidnapping on Twitter. Asher didn’t have to lift a finger. Blaine was already WAY too hot to keep around even WITHOUT the added crime of blackmail, and inexcusable crime of blackmail of a Family member.
That Asher was an accessory to kidnapping, a felony, and that felony led to the death of ANYONE, even a co-conspirator, in this case Ross McEntire, does mean he’s guilty of murder, but then so is every one of those “bros” that Blaine rounded up to “have a shot at Amazigirl”.
Asher got a text after Blaine “went for the gun”, telling him it was done. I’m actually eager to see the fallout from that devil’s deal, because anyone with the power to order a hit is far less expendable than Blaine, and they own Asher now.
I think that Asher is smart and thoughtful enough, and that the Blaine was dumb enough and doing enough damage to Gramps’ org, that Asher could have framed it as their problem and not his.
“Blaine O’Malley is threatening to tell you that I stole your money; please kill him for me” is a stupid thing to say. The smart approach is “Blaine O’Malley told me to help him kidnap half a dozen college kids so that he can force Amazi-Girl to reveal herself. Is that really what you want me to do?”
That text was just a confirmation that Asher’s pre-order for a PS5 went through. Asher is in no way associated with the death of Blaine which was most likely ruled as justified self defense. Blaine was reaching for the gun after all.
Yes, Willis’s borderless frames are often key, since they occupy a background plane in front of which the action of other frames takes place. What Sal is thinking will probably outlast the action between Walky and Billie.
Like not the OLD days. Like the…Middle Ages days. The Mid-life Crisis days, where they’re not quite the old days, but their best years are behind them days.
Oh boy, I can’t wait for Billie to actually be completely normal tomorrow and then Willis will be rubbing in glee at the two days of rage he generated from the last couple of strips.
Thing is, it kinda IS romantic if you listen to it from a 40ties US gender roles perspective. Then it’s about two people flirting in a fashion that is acceptable by their social norms OR about a creepy dude trying to isolate and (at best) sexually harrass someone, because those things are very similar from a 40ties US gender role perspective because gender roles kinda sucked in the US* in the 40ties (they still do, but at least we call out bullshit like this specific song now adays)
*) and the rest of the world, but since the song was written in the US this one is on you
Yeah I read about the creator of the song saying the woman was just playing hard to get because that’s how it was back then. Still kind of creepy in a modern context
When Tom Jones recorded it for his 1999 “reload” album, he said they tried recording it with him doing the “male” part, and Cerys Matthews doing the “female” part, but they couldn’t make it work. No matter how lighthearted and flirty they tried to make it, it still sounded creepy and stalkerish. They almost dropped the track till they got the idea to swap roles, she sang the “male” part and he sang the “female” part. The resulting track is a lot of fun and way less creepy than most versions. YMMV of course.
Oh (and I’m someone who should have been in therapy while in college), and I’m not saying she’s healthy, but I think she’s headed in vaguely the proper direction.
And she has, from her HS days, a bit of a basis to hang onto.
Billie is actually completely justified ignoring people who care about her and also dating a piece of shit, actually. See, I have this whole list of bullshit excuses right here in my pocket to explain why.
For one thing, Asher’s hot, which justifies literally anything. For another, Billie isn’t legally bound by the law to even acknowledge anyone else’s existence. Oh, and Ruth probably just backslid and became a violently abusive super-drunk the second everyone got back inside from that group shot, so clearly Billie had to dump her. And ya know somethin’ else, Walky being sort of annoying is actually the worse behavior because Billie might experience mild discomfort temporarily.
Man, these comments have been a fucking joy the last few days.
Asher’s almost certainly bad news.
Walky’s being annoying, but that’s allowed (practically required) under the standard sibling contract.
Billie’s definitely being a jerk, but I do suspect there’s something more going on than the obvious “Billie broke up with Ruth because she wanted to keep drinking and get back to her old cheerleader mojo.” Ruth being the one at fault in the break up would be a twist and I expect at least one twist in this arc.
There’s been a huge rush to blame all everything on Billie – often ignoring her own character development and focusing just on her superficial presentation. Absolving her of any guilt and blaming Ruth for everything is the flip side and seemed much less common to me.
Remember we still know absolutely nothing about how the breakup happened.
I predict that when we see Billie break up with Ruth via flashback, Billie will jump on the back of a moving truck and give Ruth two one-fingered salutes like Amazi-Girl.
New poll: who will be the next to die?
Sir
Billie
Asher
Sal
Amber
AmaziGirl™️
Mary
Ethan
Danny
Sarah’s plastic ‘Me-Time Buddy’
Who will it be now,
Who will it be now?
Can I point out Billy says she shoved Walky into lockers, which does not necessarily mean that she shoved him inside lockers. A fine distinction but an important one, potentially.
Yeah, and Sal will try to warn her but Billie will think she’s jealous of her popularity and such. I can’t imagine how it’ll all crash down around Billie.
I hate to say this but I think we just nailed what’s going to happen. I don’t want that to happen. I like Billie and I want her to get BETTER, not worse.
This makes me really, really sad. I wish she wouldn’t date him, he’s not good for her.
Asher is looking to have a legit appearance, while still being mob adjacent. Sal can see the train wreck that will be Billie’s life. Asher was at a crossroads and went the wrong way. Predictable but something that gives Sal pause. She could have been in Billie’s shoes (and asher’s bed). But I think Sal is ok with her choices.
But Billie is from the same school as Sal. She should know about Asher’s family connections. She made choices here and it will end badly. She does have a history of looking for love in all the wrong places. Plus dropping or ignoring those who care about her. The kind of traits you develop when Linda is the best adult in your life.
My prediction: Billie has mastered the lesson “The way you were living was messed up, okay,” but not the one that goes “And here are the mental patterns that put you in that situation, and here’s how to detect somebody who’s exploiting them.” It’s a process.
There was a poem in my workbook years ago when I took a course in Getting Over It, about somebody who walks down the street, falls in a sinkhole, it takes forever to get out…so they walk down the street, fall in a sinkhole, get out quicker, feel really stupid…so they walk down the street, fall in the sinkhole, grab the edge and flip themselves out, power-walk away from there…so they pick a different street. I think she’s on about Verse 2.
Also, are her hands just painfully warming up, or is that a stress reaction?
Probably. 30 MPH wind chill in the winter is no joke, and unlike Asher she doesn’t have the option of heated grips. (Yes, she had her arms around him, but if she’s getting warmth through his jacket, it’s a bad jacket.)
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sounds like the old days when America was “great again”
you know, the 1950s
Clearly we need to bring back everything from the 50’s, it’ll go great./s
Well I mean it was worth bringing *some* things back. Where would we be if Marty never came back? Hell, it was so good we brought him back twice!
When Segregation was a thing and being gay could get you things like Stonewall without enough people being pissed off about it to riot.
SUCH GREATNESS!
You mean like a 90% top tax rate? Or are we just going for the “When women and blacks couldn’t vote” angle?
Irony?
No. I really think the whole “Make America Great Again” slogan was a direct rebuke of Obama’s less than cheerleader attitude toward the state of the nation.
“Yes We Can” is literally what cheerleaders say.
^^^
Point, but I still remember him as the president who apologized for America. Who quibbled on America being great.
If you are really great, you don’t need to keep telling people that – they know. And you can afford to point out the times you were less than great, with the promise you’ll be better in the future – rather than insisting all was perfect in the past (against all evidence to the contrary), so your goal is to return to that past.
And “Make America Great AGAIN” wasn’t an implication that America wasn’t great at that moment?
Its use as a re-election slogan would imply “I did a shit job, let me do it some more!”, wouldn’t it?
It’s very clear to me that “Make America Great Again” means, explicitly, one of two things:
1) Remember how people used to be able to support a family one one job, which was pretty secure? And how that was mostly because unions and a high marginal tax rate kept income inequality down, social support high, and worker compensation reasonable? We’re certainly not going to bring those things back, and instead we’re going to lie and tell you that the whole reason you’re poor and broke now is because Mexicans somehow took your jobs! Go racism!
2) Meh, forget those complicated reasons – remember how you used to be able to get away with being racist as hell? Go racism!
Seriously – MAGA stands for Make America Racist Again. Period. It’s incredibly blatant in how the slogan and associated red-hat symbolism is used in practice.
Red hat, red shirt, brown shirt,…meh – it’s all symbolism. “Let’s oppress somebody (or a bunch of bodies)” is not a platform that makes me comfortable.
IIRC, during the 2016 campaign they did some studies that showed that the only strong correlation for when people thought America used to be great was when they were young. Nostalgia for their lost youth.
You may have felt that way internally, but as a non-American a lot of us felt Obama to be a great president.
We know you have a powerful and strong country. Obama being a little more humble didn’t come across as apologetic, it came across as being more human and relatable. The ‘USA #1’ attitude can sometimes get a little tiring and is undoubtedly the cause of a lot of the American based jokes online.
Seeing someone being more humble about the US made lots of us think more of you, rather than less. It definitely didn’t make us view you as any weaker than a president whose insistence on how great America is, which comes over more like overcompensation than believable reality.
This. All of it.
Obama also followed a President who’d trashed America’s reputation in the world – hard as that is to remember in our current shit-show.
I do think SeanR’s right. There was a segment of the population that reacted badly to the more humble approach and wanted the full on “rah rah! America is the greatest!”. They formed much of the Tea Party and now the MAGAs.
That this attitude appeals to some people and that they were upset at Obama’s “apology tour” doesn’t mean there actually was an apology tour or that their attitude is right. But it could well be tied into the grievances they feel.
In 2009 we got a president who pretended to care about the people during the election but really mostly helped the rich and the big corporations once he was in office.
In 2017 we got a president who pretended to care about the people during the election but really mostly helped the rich and the big corporations once he was in office.
In 2021, I’m expecting we’re gonna get more of the same.
Can we not draw false equivalencies between Obama/Biden and T****, of all people? Obama and Biden had/have their flaws, but they’re nowhere near equivalent to the current resident of the White House.
All of them have done way more to help the rich and the big corporations than anyone else in this country. It’s not a false equivalency to say that.
Yes, But trump is a LITERALFUCKINGFASCIST. Obama wasn’t perfect, and I’ll never forgive him for the amount of drone strikes he did, but he didn’t say WHITE SUPREMACIST SLOGANS when asked if he would disavow white supremacists. What Obama mostly did was keep the rather shitty status quo the same beCause the republicans had a lot of power at the time so they could vetoe pretty much any improvements he wanted to make, though he did manage some good things like freeing most of Guantanamo’s prisoners. And Obama care, which saved a ton of lives. What trump did was ACTIVELY WORK TO MAKE THE STATUS QUO WORSE. He tried to ban Muslim immigration into the us. He fired people who tried to investigate him. He PUT CHILDREN IN CAGES.
But muh both sides!
This. I expect very little from Biden (especially if the Senate races in Georgia don’t end in a double Democrat win,) but ‘treats a deadly pandemic as something worth taking seriously’ was not a standard I considered it necessary to have four years ago. Biden can be pressured to be less shitty. (We know this, because he was the LAST candidate to put out a planned policy set for disability and his interactions with disabled people asking about his policies tended to be… awful. People called him on that. A LOT. His released plan? Actually pretty good once it existed, and clearly made with consultation from our community.) I intend to do so when I feel even remotely safe enough to attend a protest. Trump is a literal fucking fascist who’s threatening a coup. Not even losing the election has made him even remotely less shitty.
That’s a really reductive way to frame it. One of the two actively worked to make things worse for everyone who’s not a cishet white guy. I don’t need to say which one.
A specifically curated subset of things from the ’50s would be nice.
-The price of gas. The price of everything, really.
-The tax rates on the wealthy.
-The makeup of the Supreme Court (I think?).
Yeah we basically just need to bring back everything that made life awesome for white men, and extend it to everyone else.
Those sort are specifically in thrall to the version of America telecast in the ’50s.
I think you mean the early 40’s. You know, before Trump was born…and we were in the middle of WW2. Um, Ok, the 30’s…when we had the great depression. Er…the 20’s? Yeah. The roaring 20’s where the worst thing we had was classic style gangsters…until the stock market crash. When exactly were the good ol’ days again?
Specifically curated good old days.
you mean when ‘great’ was spelled ‘w-h-i-t-e’
That’s not America, that’s a shark.
And a Batman villain.
I remember the good old days! Both of them: that one Tuesday and that Saturday 23 years later. Good times!
Did people actually have lockers roomy enough to do this? Ours were like 8 inches wide, tops.
I used to sit in my locker because it was comfortable and people left me alone
Ours were never really big enough to shove someone inside unless they were very short and very skinny. Even then you might only get someone halfway in, they weren’t very deep.
Same. Tiny skinny lockers far too small for a human body to fit in.
My locker was a cube. Only fit books.
My high school had a smaller student body, and we had lockers large enough to fit an average-sized teenager.
I don’t regret locking my friend in hers, she’s the one who decided to tell us that she was going to hide in there instead of participating in gym class.
High school locker in the 60’s. Most of us could have forced fit inside, but it wouldn’t have been at all comfortable and you’d sure better not suffer from claustrophobia.
At my high school, the lockers were only large enough to fit a pet; maybe a hobbit, if they curled up into a ball.
Maybe Billy was a master of Tetris and managed to make him fit. To be fair Walky’s not all that big so you’d only have to Feng Shui him in there a little bit.
The last time I had a full-length locker in the hallway was in middle school. My high school was big, and we had narrow lockers stacked two high.
However, two of the sizes of lockers in the band hall would fit a person…the baritone/euphonium/mellophone size, and the ones meant for tubas (which might fit *several* people standing up). One day when some of us were hanging out in the band hall while the directors were hiding in their offices, one of the freshmen asked me if I’d let him crawl into my locker (I had the euphonium size then). It was big enough that a smaller adult could sit in it and stretch a bit, although way too short for anyone to stand up. He then asked me to shut the door and put the lock on it, then happily sat in my locked locker for several minutes. I bet that guy is into some seriously freaky stuff as an adult.
🔒
I’m convinced American schools in pop culture are stuck in the idealized 1950s worlds of Archie, Grease, and American Graffiti. Sure, the trappings may change, fashions come and go, and computers appear, but they’re all cut from the same cloth. Giant lockers, homecoming, letterman jackets, jocks vs nerds, seemingly unlimited time between classes, malts at the local diner named after the guy who sold it to the guy who runs it now…
Don’t forget the kids that all looked they were in there mid-twenties.
I guess I was the only one who interpreted this sentence as “shoved you and you bounced off a row of closed lockers.”
I don’t trust Asher. That is all.
On the one hand, he did help deal with Blaine to a degree, on the other hand he helped Blaine. So I think given that and his past actions, it is fair not to trust him.
Interesting how making a deal with Blaine and dealing with Blaine have very different meanings. Language is fun.
The way you can tell he made a deal with Blaine is that he no longer has a shadow. Or Pupils.
In fairness, I can see why he felt like he didn’t have a good option.
Option 1 – he helps Blaine and most likely worst case scenario, he goes to jail. Absolute worst case scenario, Grandpa decides he’s a liability too and has him shot as well.
Option 2 – he refuses to help Blaine. Either he reports Blaine or he doesn’t. Regardless, Blaine outs him as having stolen his grandpa’s money (to Lester if nobody else). A couple days later, the police find Asher’s body in a ditch.
I’m not sure on option 2. Not knowing anything about Asher’s family dynamic or their criminal activities I find it really hard to think Asher would get killed for stealing some money. There’s just a lot we don’t know about that. Such as Asher’s parents. Are they still in the picture? I assume one of them would be his grandpa’s child. Would that parent be okay with Grandpa mob boss killing their son?
I think the threat would be more that Asher would be back into association with his grandpa’s business which he wanted to escape but it also seems like that happened anyway since he was contacted for the hit on Blaine.
My personal theory is that Asher’s life was never in danger but he didn’t much like Blaine’s threat and decided to go to his grandpa on his own terms and control the narrative instead of risking Blaine putting him in a compromised bargaining position. Probably from a change of heart after selling some students out in the first place.
This is just a theory though. I have no idea what’s going on with the whole Asher/mob subplot.
His grandpa is a mobster and Asher stole a significant amount of money if he stole enough to cover tuition. Grandkid or no, there’s only one way that story goes.
My heart really wants to say it’s a reach, but also Blaine existed in this world and he’s more than proven people are willing to kill over tuition money so I guess we’ll have to see how this shakes out. Fair point though.
Domestic but non local tuition at their school is $36, 512 currently. Multiply that by at least four, plus whatever he needs for supplies, and Asher did not steal an insignificant amount of money that could be brushed off or solved by making him come back.
Okay, apparently local means Indiana. So more like $22,426 just for tuition and room and board. That times four, plus whatever else is needed. Still ‘dead in a ditch’ money.
I don’t recall anything from the comic that states that Asher stole money for tuition. My impression is that his grandfather doesn’t like his retreat from the family business, not that he’s going to college.
I do: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/wiggly/
The threat was very likely real. And that very likely ties in to his involvement in getting Blaine killed. Removes the threat of Blaine carrying through with his blackmail.
Well at least Billie isn’t totally ignoring Walky, she’s just being Billie.
Now the question is, is “being Billie” a good thing or not?
*shakes Magic 8-Ball*
“Signs point to No.”
Given that what we know and have SEEN of Old Billie, plus what we have seen of New Billie….
no.
I honestly hope Billie is still going to therapy. But she probably ditched that the minute she broke up with Ruth.
I wonder if she EVER went to therapy. She lied about quitting drinking, why not lie about that as well?
She lied about quitting drinking once very early on. After that she never even pretended.
Until the last Ruth/Billie arc, where she was quite clearly quitting since she was shown going through withdrawal. That’s when she said she was going to go to therapy. Since that was only a day or two before the timeskip, I’m not sure if she went before the skip or not. It makes no sense in terms of character development for her to have been lying about it then, while she was clearly serious about stopping the drinking.
Which doesn’t mean she hasn’t relapsed since, of course.
I mean I wouldn’t mind being billy. It’d be a market upgrade from being yoto.
Plus she’s hotShe’s being the Billie that pretends to not know Walky around most people because he’s not “cool”. So not really a good thing.
Hey, BBCC, you think if we both went on Patreon and yelled loud enough we’d get some timeskip comics concerning Sal and Asher? Because right about now I’d like some timeskip comics concerning Sal and Asher.
We might have to wait for next month’s vote, but I would vote with you on that!
*gasp* VOTER COLLUSION!
Which is totally legit. It’s called lobbying and/or campaigning.
Unless Democrats do it.
When it gets me Sal strips?
You’re damn skippy!
If I could afford Patreon I would be demanding it with you.
I never remember I can vote in those things. I get the email that they’re open, and make a mental note to go there and do so later.
And then as soon as I turn my metaphorical back, a gust of hypothetical wind blows the mental note off the refrigerator of consciousness, and underneath it where it resides forever with the dust bunnies of memory and the lost spoon of childhood innocence.
I too lost my childhood innocence while spooning.
Fine! Have yer damn upvote. Let’s not wake the whole hose up, n’K?
What’cha thinking about, Sal?
And Billie, for that matter.
Ah yes, the good old days… the times he was getting taken out of lockers rather than being shoved in them.
Ahh, selective memory.
Selective memory is a blessing. Can you imagine the horror of continually remembering everything constantly?
The old days that aren’t THAT old, the “middle-aged” days.
Walky still hasn’t learned to tie his shoelaces.
Hasn’t learned or refuses to do?
Learning how and choosing not to do it is visibly indistinguishable.
It’s a fashion choice.
“we all make choices in life, Miles”
I’m pretty sure he knows how to tie them, he just doesn’t bother to for some reason.
I’m in my 40’s, and my shoelaces STILL come untied.
Old Days
Good times I remember
Fun days
Filled with simple pleasures…–Chicago
Songs usually don’t get to me, but this one does.
Then I switch it to Free Form Guitar and bury the sads again.
Dumbing of Age Book 11: A Specific, Curated Subset of Old Days
Sounds like a good title for the DoA Semester/Season 1 compilation box set.
In other non “Billie is dating Asher and that’s probably a mistake” observations, we got a few interesting background character designs. Tall dude next to Walky, some guy that looks a lot like Danny from behind but most probably isn’t Danny, and a rando platinum blonde! What are their stories!?!?!?
The tall guy next to Walky is heading out to the University Center to register a new campus organization whose purpose is to organize extreme ecology events on campus. The student going up the steps is Danny’s third cousin twice removed, although neither is aware of the fact. The blond whose hair we see is Walky’s future second wife. All is proceeding in accordance with Booster’s master plan.
That’s Bloodrose. She got tired of her old look and got a new one during the timeskip.
….. question:
Does anyone else think that Ruth’s outburst wasn’t so random?
That Rachel actually had something to do with Billie and Ruth breaking up? That maybe we’ll get Mary going “you’re no different from me”?
Mary wouldn’t go “you’re no different than me” because Mary thinks she’s perfect and that everyone else is horrible sinners. If she ever said those words, she would mean them as the highest compliment.
You’re talking about “I didn’t ‘lose’ Billie–“? To me, that sounded like Billie relapsed and Ruth broke up with her. It wasn’t Ruth’s fault, she didn’t lose Billie, Billie failed to keep her end of the no-longer-suicide-pact bargain. Seeing her with Asher kinda-sorta-not-really feels like her giving into worse impulses, but only time will tell.
Yeah. I really feel like Billie couldn’t break her alcohol addiction and that was a bad environment for Ruth. Billie lied about going sober in the past and there’s this comic.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/birthdays/
We don’t know what happened to that unwanted hooch. My guess is Ruth confronted her on this and things went bad. Billie probably doesn’t even think she has a problem. Or maybe none of that happened. Maybe Asher’s just a really hot, really nice guy, who is better than Ruth in every way. He does have a motorcycle.
I often wonder who’s the one tolerating who when it comes to Billie and Walkys dynamic. That aside I feel sorry for poor Sal, longing the old days when she had her wheels.
In this strip she might be longing for the days when she might seriously have considered doing something really bad to Asher to protect Billie.
Or having mixed feelings about previously imagining herself with Asher.
You know, before the throwing-under-the-bus, stabby-stabby, boarding school part.
I would be interested in Billie and Asher turning out to be a healthy, happy, functional couple.
Why?
Because then the sword of, “Oh and he’s a MURDERER” can be dropped.
Ah, yes, shutting out literally all of your friends or potential friends and isolating yourself with your morally-questionable-at-best new boyfriend who basically killed a guy, if indirectly – such a decision can only turn out well.
I mean, I guess pretending she’s too cool for the people around her is technically on-brand for Billie, but still.
To be frank, given Ruth and Billie’s history as well as her memories of them involving violence as well as kidnapping–Billie shutting them out to get healthy isn’t necessarily unhealthy.
End old attachments to build new ones.
I mean, ignoring the fact that Asher is pretty high up there on the worst possible new attachments she could make (since she probably doesn’t know that), is there any reason to believe that Billie would be, independently, attempting to get healthy, based on her past actions?
And beyond that, why actively ignore Joyce and Walky, who, memories or no, have done absolutely nothing to her, without even making any attempt to explain why?
It all just seems like a bad idea, and pretty callous at best.
Clean break as I said.
Walky and Joyce come with everyone else.
She ignored and bullied Walky in high school because She Was a Cheerleader and That’s What Cheerleaders Do. Can’t risk alienating ourselves from the dominant social clique we’ve worked our way into!
Then for the first semester of college, she was no longer a cheerleader. She was just Billie, ex-cheerleader, alpha bongo, problem causer, relapsing alcoholic. Rejected by The Cheerleaders, she fell back on her old friend Walky because she had nobody else.
Now that she’s with Asher, she’s got her foot in the door with the cool rebels with questionable morality. She doesn’t need Walky and the nerds anymore, so she can keep them at arm’s length to maintain appearances.
No one except the mob knows what Asher did
Quick question. Who did he kill? Even indirectly? Mike was already in a coma and dying by the time the fire drill happened.
Or are you talking about Mr. McEntire? That one would hold water.
Asher probably dropped the dime that persuades his Gramps to order the hit on Blaine. And that would be knowingly and willingly. Blaine tried to blackmail Asher, and Asher pushed him into a meat grinder.
That hit the news when the campaign manager of a sitting congresswoman publicized the kidnapping on Twitter. Asher didn’t have to lift a finger. Blaine was already WAY too hot to keep around even WITHOUT the added crime of blackmail, and inexcusable crime of blackmail of a Family member.
That Asher was an accessory to kidnapping, a felony, and that felony led to the death of ANYONE, even a co-conspirator, in this case Ross McEntire, does mean he’s guilty of murder, but then so is every one of those “bros” that Blaine rounded up to “have a shot at Amazigirl”.
Asher got a text after Blaine “went for the gun”, telling him it was done. I’m actually eager to see the fallout from that devil’s deal, because anyone with the power to order a hit is far less expendable than Blaine, and they own Asher now.
I think that Asher is smart and thoughtful enough, and that the Blaine was dumb enough and doing enough damage to Gramps’ org, that Asher could have framed it as their problem and not his.
“Blaine O’Malley is threatening to tell you that I stole your money; please kill him for me” is a stupid thing to say. The smart approach is “Blaine O’Malley told me to help him kidnap half a dozen college kids so that he can force Amazi-Girl to reveal herself. Is that really what you want me to do?”
I believe it was a wood chipper. …Oh! You mean a different movie….
That reference led to the random thought that maybe the Cohen Bros. would be the ones to make a live action DOA…
Keep up the film references, and you’ll go far.
Blaine. He texted some third — fourth? — party that it was done.
That text was just a confirmation that Asher’s pre-order for a PS5 went through. Asher is in no way associated with the death of Blaine which was most likely ruled as justified self defense. Blaine was reaching for the gun after all.
If that piece of shit gets a PS5 and I don’t, there’s gonna be WORDS.
Panel 2 is a killer. Not because of anything it shows, but from the implications of it being there.
Yes, Willis’s borderless frames are often key, since they occupy a background plane in front of which the action of other frames takes place. What Sal is thinking will probably outlast the action between Walky and Billie.
billie? spending all her time with her romantic partner? who woulda thunk it
I see what you did there.
Like not the OLD days. Like the…Middle Ages days. The Mid-life Crisis days, where they’re not quite the old days, but their best years are behind them days.
Oh boy, I can’t wait for Billie to actually be completely normal tomorrow and then Willis will be rubbing in glee at the two days of rage he generated from the last couple of strips.
No, simple rage won’t do it. Willis feeds on our tears.
Wait for it.
Baby it’s cold outside
Yeah, that’s one set of lyrics time has not been kind to.
Yuuuuuuuuuuuuup
Sounds like it took on a different connotation as cultural norms changed? But yeah, father time really took a bat to this one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby,_It's_Cold_Outside
That song sounds romantic until you listen to the lyrics and realize it’s actually creepy as fuck.
Thing is, it kinda IS romantic if you listen to it from a 40ties US gender roles perspective. Then it’s about two people flirting in a fashion that is acceptable by their social norms OR about a creepy dude trying to isolate and (at best) sexually harrass someone, because those things are very similar from a 40ties US gender role perspective because gender roles kinda sucked in the US* in the 40ties (they still do, but at least we call out bullshit like this specific song now adays)
*) and the rest of the world, but since the song was written in the US this one is on you
also, it’s written for a romantic comedy movie, which as we all know tend to be a red flag in itself.
Frank Loesser wrote it to perform at parties as a duet with his wife. He sold it for use in a film after they had been doing it for five years or so.
ah, thanks. Not intented for a romantic comedy but applicable for one.
Not a critique, i just find it fun reading out the way you wrote “40ties” as “fourtities”
Happy to entertain 🙂
Even Total Recall only went as far threetities.
Hmm, wonder how long before the Southpark meme hits?
Yeah I read about the creator of the song saying the woman was just playing hard to get because that’s how it was back then. Still kind of creepy in a modern context
When Tom Jones recorded it for his 1999 “reload” album, he said they tried recording it with him doing the “male” part, and Cerys Matthews doing the “female” part, but they couldn’t make it work. No matter how lighthearted and flirty they tried to make it, it still sounded creepy and stalkerish. They almost dropped the track till they got the idea to swap roles, she sang the “male” part and he sang the “female” part. The resulting track is a lot of fun and way less creepy than most versions. YMMV of course.
I miss the good ol’ days of Billie and Ruth.
Yeah… that whole “alcoholism fueld lesbian suicide pact”.
I get what you are saying, but with Billie you need an hour-by-hour calender to find the ‘good o’ days’
A specifically curated subset of “good ol’ days” wherein Billie was a healthy supportive person.
I think you need to go down to individual panels of individual strips
I was not in the circle of Alpha bongoes in high school, and didn’t know that that could entail (as in Billie’s case) being such a problem solver:
-Scoping parties for roofies
-Sneaking friends into abortion clinics
-Taking down abusive boyfriends.
She had power and recognized responsibility, along with all the other problems in her makeup.
(My observational ability for real world social interplay hasn’t increased much since then, either, which is why I’m fascinated with it in fiction.)
That’s true. Billie has always been supportive, in her own very… Billie way.
But healthy…. not so much.
Eh, my headcanon is that she’s stopped drinking and asher makes her eat a lot of vegetables. I’ll stick to it until proven otherwise.
Oh (and I’m someone who should have been in therapy while in college), and I’m not saying she’s healthy, but I think she’s headed in vaguely the proper direction.
And she has, from her HS days, a bit of a basis to hang onto.
Yeah… but a lot of that vaugly proper direction hinged on her relationship with Ruth.
with asher…. I’m worried.
Billie is actually completely justified ignoring people who care about her and also dating a piece of shit, actually. See, I have this whole list of bullshit excuses right here in my pocket to explain why.
For one thing, Asher’s hot, which justifies literally anything. For another, Billie isn’t legally bound by the law to even acknowledge anyone else’s existence. Oh, and Ruth probably just backslid and became a violently abusive super-drunk the second everyone got back inside from that group shot, so clearly Billie had to dump her. And ya know somethin’ else, Walky being sort of annoying is actually the worse behavior because Billie might experience mild discomfort temporarily.
Man, these comments have been a fucking joy the last few days.
Ther saracasm here is so Professor’s Frink sarcasm machine exploded.
Sarcastic? Me? What an absolutely wild accusation. Why, I could simply faint.
I dunno, maybe Billie doesn’t want to spend time with Walky and Joyce. There’s that crazy possibility as well.
There are ways to not spend time with people that aren’t unnecessarily rude. That’s all I’m saying about it.
Asher’s almost certainly bad news.
Walky’s being annoying, but that’s allowed (practically required) under the standard sibling contract.
Billie’s definitely being a jerk, but I do suspect there’s something more going on than the obvious “Billie broke up with Ruth because she wanted to keep drinking and get back to her old cheerleader mojo.” Ruth being the one at fault in the break up would be a twist and I expect at least one twist in this arc.
There’s been a huge rush to blame all everything on Billie – often ignoring her own character development and focusing just on her superficial presentation. Absolving her of any guilt and blaming Ruth for everything is the flip side and seemed much less common to me.
Remember we still know absolutely nothing about how the breakup happened.
I predict that when we see Billie break up with Ruth via flashback, Billie will jump on the back of a moving truck and give Ruth two one-fingered salutes like Amazi-Girl.
Then fall off and land on a passing Asher.
Billie is that you?
I am beginning to think Billie is like BoJack Horseman. The liottle good moments she has are lost in a sea of bad things she has done.
Go leafs
Panel 2: Impending doom.
Panels 4 & 5: Take that, Billie haters!
Also: DoA Book 11: A Specific, Curated, Subset of Old Days
New poll: who will be the next to die?
Sir
Billie
Asher
Sal
Amber
AmaziGirl™️
Mary
Ethan
Danny
Sarah’s plastic ‘Me-Time Buddy’
Who will it be now,
Who will it be now?
Hey, he has a name, and it’s Other Jacob.
And if Sarah needs enough Me-Time, Other Jacob’s gonna race up this chart.
“Sarah’s plastic ‘Me-Time Buddy” has a name – Other Jacob. I sus it’ll be next to die.
Carla.
She’s going to be working with metal casting this semester, and there will be a lot of die-cutting and die-casting involved.
Mike.
on a motorcycle on a cold day without gloves, no wonder she’s cold.
But, pfff, a wannabee journalist dating the son of the local mafia mob, hahahaha. That’s gonna end well.
With her observation and deduction skills, it’s a perfect fit.
She’s undercover for the Bloomington Herald, collecting info for a scathing article on gangs and police corruption in the area.
“A specific, curated set of old days” is a great book title candidate
Can I point out Billy says she shoved Walky into lockers, which does not necessarily mean that she shoved him inside lockers. A fine distinction but an important one, potentially.
Sal knows Asher is nothing but trouble, and is going to get Billie into trouble. Look at her face, she can feel it coming like a storm on the horizon.
Yeah, and Sal will try to warn her but Billie will think she’s jealous of her popularity and such. I can’t imagine how it’ll all crash down around Billie.
I hate to say this but I think we just nailed what’s going to happen. I don’t want that to happen. I like Billie and I want her to get BETTER, not worse.
This makes me really, really sad. I wish she wouldn’t date him, he’s not good for her.
Walky needs to bind his shoelaces.
Walky will not bind his shoelaces
Binding your shoelaces is so 20th century.
Binding your shoelaces is so 20th century.
Asher is looking to have a legit appearance, while still being mob adjacent. Sal can see the train wreck that will be Billie’s life. Asher was at a crossroads and went the wrong way. Predictable but something that gives Sal pause. She could have been in Billie’s shoes (and asher’s bed). But I think Sal is ok with her choices.
But Billie is from the same school as Sal. She should know about Asher’s family connections. She made choices here and it will end badly. She does have a history of looking for love in all the wrong places. Plus dropping or ignoring those who care about her. The kind of traits you develop when Linda is the best adult in your life.
Does Sal have any reason to think Asher went the wrong way? Last time they talked, she seemed to buy into him breaking family ties.
you know i wonder if billie knows something and is trying to get a story out of it
My prediction: Billie has mastered the lesson “The way you were living was messed up, okay,” but not the one that goes “And here are the mental patterns that put you in that situation, and here’s how to detect somebody who’s exploiting them.” It’s a process.
There was a poem in my workbook years ago when I took a course in Getting Over It, about somebody who walks down the street, falls in a sinkhole, it takes forever to get out…so they walk down the street, fall in a sinkhole, get out quicker, feel really stupid…so they walk down the street, fall in the sinkhole, grab the edge and flip themselves out, power-walk away from there…so they pick a different street. I think she’s on about Verse 2.
Also, are her hands just painfully warming up, or is that a stress reaction?
Probably. 30 MPH wind chill in the winter is no joke, and unlike Asher she doesn’t have the option of heated grips. (Yes, she had her arms around him, but if she’s getting warmth through his jacket, it’s a bad jacket.)
Helmet, gloves, jacket, pants, boots. ATGATT.
Hrrm, it seems like this isn’t the first time Walky has been nostalgic for some intermediate “Old Days:”
http://www.itswalky.com/comic/dina-left-you-walky/