A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
Monster's Garden
Ash G.
Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Raruurien
Ann Maulina
To maintain a peaceful life without her husband, a witch has to assimilate with the villagers, become a role model for her sons and also keep a low profile by confining her powerful magyx in public.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
Live drawing a naked person, especially as a date sounds awful. Awkward and the added pressure of performance anxiety so you’re date doesn’t think you’re an artless monkey who lacks the basic motor skills to draw simple shapes. At least with Pizza, everyone should have their clothes on and if it goes poorly, Joyce still makes it out with a free meal.
It could be a pretty fun date if you’re both artists tho. You could compare techniques at the end of the night. Have a moment where you’re like “why don’t you keep my sketch and I’ll keep yours”
Or if you’re both chill about being terrible artists. Like bob ross painting nights, there’s no mistakes, only happy little accidents (and laughter over how much your drawing kind of looks like a cat somehow?)
I would absolutely prefer a pizza date IRL, but for the purposes of a scenario in a slice of life comic bringing the guy you have a mutual crush on to a life drawing class is extremely good
I’m team naked people art. I prefer having an activity to occupy my brain/hands over just sitting and staring at each others eye globes. Parallel play for the win
I think I’d rather have pizza as a date, than trying to draw a naked person. Pizza would be way less awkward for me, though I’m already super awkward regardless.
I feel like half the point of a life drawing model is that they aren’t moving. Like, sure, you should learn how to draw motion at some point, but you first need to learn how to draw things that aren’t moving.
(Actually, I’m kind of curious if “sense of motion” as an artistic technique is a relatively new thing. Thinking about, like, Renaissance paintings, I feel like they generally don’t convey motion very well – their figures always have a sort of posed look, indicating motion in the abstract but never actually appearing to be moving. And thinking about it in practical terms, I’m not sure how you would study motion as an artist in an era before photography. I don’t know anything about art history, so I’m sort of posing this as a question in the hope that someone here does.)
You study motion by drawing figures in motion. Simple as that. Life drawing has several stages. Quick poses, 30-second, 1 minute, 2 minute, 5 minute, 30 minute, hour and so on and so on. I’ve life drawn people just walking out in public. The idea is to quickly capture the line of action, the line from their head down to their feet that their body follows and then fill in the blanks from your mind.
Also there are PLENTY of renaissance paintings conveying a BEAUTIFUL sense of motion. It’s just not necessarily the ones that are popular. The more static portraits are just that. Portraits, usually of wealthy people who could afford to commission the artist. Who wanted a static image of themselves looking regal to hang up in their foyer or what have you. It’s more so that that’s just the style of the time. It’s also worth noting the art colleges had very specific Ideas of what is “real” art. And so that’s the art that tends to survive.
I like going out but dislike people so the solution has been going to (punk/metal/art) events and drawing people and motions. Like, often it’s not “drawing people” like some people can, it’s watching people and the way their bodies move and drawing the *movement* when they move and then creating new bodies around them.
No worries about consent cos it’s never a drawing of the actual person, just like a starting sketch of the motion of the arms and core filled in with various details based on whatever I want to practice (eg, I’m practicing male/very muscular bodies cos I’m way more comfy drawing very soft, round bodies but I’ll do multiple sketches off the same motion/pose)
Maybe at a strip club, at least paying for your time there. I sketch at dance clubs (more bc it helps me regulate anxiety/zero in on details and not be bogged down by the all-ness) but it rarely means actually drawing individual people, more like composite drawings based on multiple individual parts/movements.
(Like, take the shadowing from here, the nose/jawline from there, the body motion from over there, some other outfit/fashion inspo and you end up with a totally individual sketch. Or my fave thing is just trying to draw faces I see in x-amount of lines/shapes)
Dorothy didn’t order you to go. You expressed interest when the topic was suggested and then bit Dorothy’s head off for being to up your ass about period pills. Don’t slander your mother Joyce!
There is…really no reason whatsoever to think Joyce means “orders” literally, and not figuratively, to indicate to the audience that Joyce did in fact pick up on how invested Dorothy was, in the life-drawing class she’d arranged for Joyce to sit in on.
While I agree that Joyce certainly didn’t mean it literally, given the context of Joyce yelling at Dorothy et al for being up her butt, making the request to look into life drawing classes for her anyway, then failing to express any sort of appreciation for Dorothy’s prompt follow-through, it is tone-deaf at best to joke about.
Dorothy is not invested in the life-drawing classes. She is invested in helping someone she cares about. By presenting it as something Dorothy is having her do, Joyce is continuing to fail to acknowledge Dorothy’s helpfulness.
It’d be tone deaf to do to Dorothy, though it’s honestly not a big deal to joke about when she’s not around, especially to someone who has known her for years and knows how Dorothy can be very goal-oriented, so I doubt Joe really needs any telling Joyce isn’t being literal.
Joyce does owe Dorothy an apology in the future, I’d say, but for now, this isn’t a very big deal.
Actually I’m pretty sure Joyce means it pretty close to literally, and it’s VERY connected to Joyce blowing up at Dorothy.
Dorothy is, to put it simply, acting as Joyce’s mom, and Joyce was NOT taught how to say no to her mom. Someone arranges an opportunity for you = you are obligated to take it. That’s part of WHY Joyce gets upset at Dorothy – she is not only bad at respecting other people’s boundaries, she’s also bad at setting her own, and Dorothy is obliviously tromping all over where they would have been.
Like, turning “could you look up what life drawing classes are there” to “I talked to the instructor of this specific one and bought you supplies!” is specifically a boundary overstep. Getting more involved than Dorothy was asked to be. Which is exactly Joyce’s problem with “being up her ass”.
It’s not actually a trivial skill to say “no” to favors done to you. Joyce doesn’t know how to just… not go to the class, and then just tell Dorothy “well, I didn’t ask you to arrange all that, did I? I just wanted information, not to go to the first one you found”
Also, as discussed in the comments of the Dorothy-storming-off strip:
Dorothy did not ‘arrange’ for Joyce to be in the class. She asked the instructor if sit-ins are allowed, which is an extremely relevant piece of information, from the most reliable source.
Right. The only thing people have pointed to that I feel like was overstepping was maybe getting her the sketch pad, but I mean, Joyce does want to get better at her art, so it is something she’d want. I don’t think Dorothy was making a big leap.
It’s only relevant if Joyce wants to sit in on this particular class, which JOyce had given no indication of. Unasked for favors are overstepping and can easily engender a feeling of obligation, which is exactly what Joyce is expressing here.
‘Research life drawing classes for me’. Dorothy offered a complete list of all classes that fit the criteria: is a life drawing class, does not directly conflict with Joyce’s other classes, has open seats, allows sit-ins. Because any class that does not fit all those criteria would be useless and irrelevant to Joyce. That complete list was one class.
The ONLY unasked-for favor was buying her art supplies for the class. If that in particular was the only thing Joyce was ungrateful toward, I would be on Joyce’s side entirely (and really probably so would Dorothy). But Joyce is continuing to be a shit about Dorothy doing a favor that Joyce specifically asked for.
Perhaps. If Dorothy did that to me, even the little I know about her would make me think, “oh, well, that’s just the way Dorothy Get-It-Done-Now Keener operates.”
I think it is goddamn fucking wild that it is impossible for any two characters to have an interaction in this strip without being analyzed by the metric of Who’s More Wrong, even when the people interacting *aren’t even in conflict*.
I’ve literally been reading this comic for 10 years at this point and at some point the comment section became a competitive sport of people trying to go out of their way to willingly misinterpret everything every single character does in as bad faith as physically possible.
I think that is an unfortunate side effect of having every minute interaction open for comments and discussion. There’s less of a chance to view the big picture and instead it’s easy to nitpick about small things.
Yeah. Joe is the guy who famously made a “Do List” for a significant portion of the girls on campus. Not exactly a glowing character reference for not being a creep.
Counterpoint: Aerith is a nothingburger who had magical powers and does jacksquat with them. And then dies, because plot even though I have like 50 Phoenix Downs. On the other hand, I found Cloud to be an 11 in the 1-10 scale of insufferability, so at least you’re only ruining one ship.
Also, as someone who has done life drawing and is a known horndog I gotta say. Life drawing a nude woman has literally 0 sexual interest to me. When you’re doing life drawing you’re so focused on the lighting, and rhythms of the human body it’s all too easy to completely disassociate it from any erotic connotation. The human body basically becomes a sequence of shapes and rhythms, shadows and highlights. Just the pure form of life twisted and posed in front of you.
Then why don’t they let them where pants or just draw like a guy in a suit? If they want to explore human anatomy for illustration, we have thousands of preserved corpses – you can even see the musculature and skeleton on a lot of them.
Clothes obscure, meaning you don’t learn as much about the form and how it shifts as you think you do. Also, a living model is a little easier to source and a little more sanitary than a corpse. And yes, having someone present to view personally instead of a picture matters.
All this, and also, pretty sure corpses look fairly different, and are harder to pose (see, for example, Weekend at Bernies’s, though this may not be the most thorough treatise on the subject). So if you learn “life drawing” by only drawing corpses, while you may be pleased with your life hack, I feel like everyone else is going to be greatly unsettled by how all of your characters look like corpses. Even getting around the sourcing and sanitary reasons, there’s some significant reasons why it’s not the same. Plus, hey, someone gets paid to pose, so it’s technically creating jobs.
Basically what Nerrin said.
Also a living human can…move and pose in ways that are natural. And the shapes the skin makes when folding over itself. Where it stretches and squishes.
Also there ARE life drawings with clothes, usual as a way to combine the lessons of anatomy with the lessons of cloth physics. But in the case of just figuring out anatomy a nude figure is absolutely best. And of course the way light interacts with/bounces off of skin.
There’s kind of weird implication in this comment that people who do nude modeling for art classes are being coerced into the nudity, which is definitely not the case, or that there’s something inherently inappropriate about looking at alive human beings who aren’t covered in clothes. Which is also definitely not the case. If you’re worried about stuff like consent and autonomy, *living* people can actually consent to being observed and sketched nude, which corpses cannot.
Ah, The idea that study of corpses will actually result in life like aspects.
If you are familiar with facial reconstruction artists from skulls, then at one point when I was looking into it, they frankly were simply wrong. The reason being they used measurements from corpses. When scientists, specifically biological anthropologists and doctors, looked into it, they found that those measurements changed fairly rapidly following death. Sometimes significantly. This was using things like MRI on people to get living values.
So all facial reconstruction from skulls to about 2005 and much after is a guess. Now, being that in the past corpses were all that people had it was better than nothing. However, It was off by significant amounts. Some of the artists went yeah, whatever, to it too.
So it would not surprise me to learn that other parts of the human body change similarly after death with regard to the whole life drawing.
— Someone who has done some digital facial skeletal reconstruction (that they were not satisfied with) and not life drawing.
Digital and not artists also tend to think about things differently, and the differences can be fascinating. I was talking to one artists who does a lot of visual and clay art about color and just how different it is to do traditional and 3d modeling of something, and color/light.
I agree completely. Only done life drawing once, but I got over how uncomfortable I was feeling about it almost immediately once the time came to actually start drawing. Ended up talking with the model a bit during a break about the work too and found the conversation genuinely interesting. Kinda surprised myself by how completely okay the situation was for me, because my upbringing, while not as sheltered as Joyce’s, was definitely similar in a lot of ways.
Dorothy didn’t “order” you to go anywhere. You asked her about life drawing classes and she found one for you. Whether you go or not is entirely up to you.
She found one, talked to the instructor and bought Joyce supplies. This easily reads as an obligation to someone as bad with boundaries and raised to be obedient as Joyce.
I wonder if she’ll ever be able to do things she wants without “blaming” other people. Hm, I guess I still have Catholic guilt even when I know I shouldn’t (and haven’t been Catholic since 4th grade). These things run deep.
I’m really feeling Joe’s facial expressions in this strip.
For some reason, it makes me think he’s feeling confident in a way that’s not normally expressed, especially since he’s a pretty confident character most of the time.
It’s also a bit flirtatious, even though that shouldn’t be the case as I think he’s still tiptoeing around Joyce.
I’ve been enjoying them too. It seems like he’s just happy with the interaction and not punishing himself for it… Just kinda letting it happen and being fondly amused at the weird direction Joyce is always going to go in
Yeah, there needs to be pizza eventually! As Miss Manners said:
There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.
I have been reading this pic since there were only three strips. I have shipped Joyce and Joe since the start. This comic is everything I have been wanting for a decade.
…I…well, now I hope that actually happens at some point, even if likely only in the most distant future of the comic. It could be very funny and sexy for them!
So…. will Joyce also avert her eyes in case the model is a man, given that she thinks she’s a hetera? …. while getting to stare at a naked woman and thinking to herself that it’s a perfectly hetera thought to think that naturally, women are just looking more pleasing than men?
ROZ: Niles said you’re going on a date with a trans woman.
FRASIER: I suppose you don’t approve.
ROZ: Oh, no, Frasier, I really feel for trans women.
FRASIER: Oh? Do go on.
ROZ: Oh, I can just relate to any woman who has a useless prick they’d like to get rid of
Dear cis people,
It's well past the point where this kind of thing will fix everything, but I want you to take note of how easy this is.
These little freaks are soft-handed little babies that will fold like a napkin in the rain.
Light these fools up.
Ari Drennen@aridrennen.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Texas Republican Keithself storms out of the meeting he's supposed to be running because a Democrat asked him to treat his colleague Sarah McBride with respect. These people would not last one day as a trans person.
onion person @junlper.beer ⋅ 5h
Ari Drennen @aridrennen.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Loading ...
PAX East
wow, this sure is going in a direction.
Underrated comment right here.
Joe, later: “That’s no lady, that’s my wife!”
wait no…?
For those of you bummed about the pizza thing, relax.
The way I see it, minus the food part, this is an upgrade from pizza!
Wait is it? Lemme know what you all think, my brain is melted from a day worth of coding 🫠
Tootles!!!
Live drawing a naked person, especially as a date sounds awful. Awkward and the added pressure of performance anxiety so you’re date doesn’t think you’re an artless monkey who lacks the basic motor skills to draw simple shapes. At least with Pizza, everyone should have their clothes on and if it goes poorly, Joyce still makes it out with a free meal.
It could be a pretty fun date if you’re both artists tho. You could compare techniques at the end of the night. Have a moment where you’re like “why don’t you keep my sketch and I’ll keep yours”
Or if you’re both chill about being terrible artists. Like bob ross painting nights, there’s no mistakes, only happy little accidents (and laughter over how much your drawing kind of looks like a cat somehow?)
I would absolutely prefer a pizza date IRL, but for the purposes of a scenario in a slice of life comic bringing the guy you have a mutual crush on to a life drawing class is extremely good
I’m team naked people art. I prefer having an activity to occupy my brain/hands over just sitting and staring at each others eye globes. Parallel play for the win
🥰 sounds like my kinda date
PS. May you brain freeze once again … wait no that’s bad too. Though an acceptable sacrifice for ice-cream?
I think I’d rather have pizza as a date, than trying to draw a naked person. Pizza would be way less awkward for me, though I’m already super awkward regardless.
I feel that a drawing-naked-people date is high risk, high reward.
The one thing it won’t be is boring.
I’m bummed out Joe isn’t the pee-pee model.
“Gettin lots of PP. Hell yeah baby PP.”
There’s still Jacob.
I’m pretty sure if that happened the story would end up being pretty short because Joyce would just straight up sprint out of there.
Well, hey, there’s always the possibility that the scheduled model ghosts last-minute and they need a replacement…
Joe: “I got it. A place where you can check out the human form, and nobody will mind me being there too.”
(Cut to: a thrilled Joe and humiliated Joyce at a strip club.)
Unironically I have considered doing life drawing in a strip club just because I think you’d get good poses and just a strong sense of motion.
i wouldn’t be surprised if some ppl do that but you’d still have to tip the same amount i’d think
Oh for sure. I mean let’s be fair, it’s also polite to tip models in general.
There are a bunch of life drawing classes that incorporate burlesque dancers for similar reasons!
holy shit my favourite magician reads the same comic as me!
I feel like half the point of a life drawing model is that they aren’t moving. Like, sure, you should learn how to draw motion at some point, but you first need to learn how to draw things that aren’t moving.
(Actually, I’m kind of curious if “sense of motion” as an artistic technique is a relatively new thing. Thinking about, like, Renaissance paintings, I feel like they generally don’t convey motion very well – their figures always have a sort of posed look, indicating motion in the abstract but never actually appearing to be moving. And thinking about it in practical terms, I’m not sure how you would study motion as an artist in an era before photography. I don’t know anything about art history, so I’m sort of posing this as a question in the hope that someone here does.)
You study motion by drawing figures in motion. Simple as that. Life drawing has several stages. Quick poses, 30-second, 1 minute, 2 minute, 5 minute, 30 minute, hour and so on and so on. I’ve life drawn people just walking out in public. The idea is to quickly capture the line of action, the line from their head down to their feet that their body follows and then fill in the blanks from your mind.
Also there are PLENTY of renaissance paintings conveying a BEAUTIFUL sense of motion. It’s just not necessarily the ones that are popular. The more static portraits are just that. Portraits, usually of wealthy people who could afford to commission the artist. Who wanted a static image of themselves looking regal to hang up in their foyer or what have you. It’s more so that that’s just the style of the time. It’s also worth noting the art colleges had very specific Ideas of what is “real” art. And so that’s the art that tends to survive.
I like going out but dislike people so the solution has been going to (punk/metal/art) events and drawing people and motions. Like, often it’s not “drawing people” like some people can, it’s watching people and the way their bodies move and drawing the *movement* when they move and then creating new bodies around them.
No worries about consent cos it’s never a drawing of the actual person, just like a starting sketch of the motion of the arms and core filled in with various details based on whatever I want to practice (eg, I’m practicing male/very muscular bodies cos I’m way more comfy drawing very soft, round bodies but I’ll do multiple sketches off the same motion/pose)
I would think you’d have to be careful to ask permission before doing that.
Maybe at a strip club, at least paying for your time there. I sketch at dance clubs (more bc it helps me regulate anxiety/zero in on details and not be bogged down by the all-ness) but it rarely means actually drawing individual people, more like composite drawings based on multiple individual parts/movements.
(Like, take the shadowing from here, the nose/jawline from there, the body motion from over there, some other outfit/fashion inspo and you end up with a totally individual sketch. Or my fave thing is just trying to draw faces I see in x-amount of lines/shapes)
Toulouse Lautrec did that and became famous for it.
I mean, depending on where you go/unless you pay extra i don’t think the lighting would be very good?
It’s gonna be really hard to draw the naked lady if I am not allowed to look at the naked lady.
Joe has already seen that specific naked lady naked, and will draw from memory.
Model: Hi, Joe! *winks*
Joe: Hi, Celeste!
*instructor clears throat*
Celeste: What? He rated me 9.5 out of 10 – said my breasts were-
Joyce: YES THANK YOU CMON JOE WE’RE LEAVING
I would have thought; “Dumbing Of Age – Book 13 – Creepos Have Accomplices!”
Dumbing of Age Book 13: You Will Avert Your Eyes If the Naked Person Is a Lady!
[Sickos Voice] Yes! Ha Ha Ha! Yes!
Yes! Ha ha ha! YES!
I guess this likely means Joe isn’t the model.
Maybe Jacob?
…oh, this I gotta see.
He’s super chill about it too, and happily waves to and greets them as they come in.
Taking all bets on how this scenario could possibly be more awkward.
Mary.
Peter.
… Jacob and Lucy?
It’s Malaya and they start flirting with Joe and bringing up the two of them having slept together.
I’m not going to get my hopes up but that would be extremely good
I am utterly fascinated by the ways in which Joyce’s mind works.
Dorothy didn’t order you to go. You expressed interest when the topic was suggested and then bit Dorothy’s head off for being to up your ass about period pills. Don’t slander your mother Joyce!
There is…really no reason whatsoever to think Joyce means “orders” literally, and not figuratively, to indicate to the audience that Joyce did in fact pick up on how invested Dorothy was, in the life-drawing class she’d arranged for Joyce to sit in on.
While I agree that Joyce certainly didn’t mean it literally, given the context of Joyce yelling at Dorothy et al for being up her butt, making the request to look into life drawing classes for her anyway, then failing to express any sort of appreciation for Dorothy’s prompt follow-through, it is tone-deaf at best to joke about.
Dorothy is not invested in the life-drawing classes. She is invested in helping someone she cares about. By presenting it as something Dorothy is having her do, Joyce is continuing to fail to acknowledge Dorothy’s helpfulness.
It’d be tone deaf to do to Dorothy, though it’s honestly not a big deal to joke about when she’s not around, especially to someone who has known her for years and knows how Dorothy can be very goal-oriented, so I doubt Joe really needs any telling Joyce isn’t being literal.
Joyce does owe Dorothy an apology in the future, I’d say, but for now, this isn’t a very big deal.
Actually I’m pretty sure Joyce means it pretty close to literally, and it’s VERY connected to Joyce blowing up at Dorothy.
Dorothy is, to put it simply, acting as Joyce’s mom, and Joyce was NOT taught how to say no to her mom. Someone arranges an opportunity for you = you are obligated to take it. That’s part of WHY Joyce gets upset at Dorothy – she is not only bad at respecting other people’s boundaries, she’s also bad at setting her own, and Dorothy is obliviously tromping all over where they would have been.
Like, turning “could you look up what life drawing classes are there” to “I talked to the instructor of this specific one and bought you supplies!” is specifically a boundary overstep. Getting more involved than Dorothy was asked to be. Which is exactly Joyce’s problem with “being up her ass”.
It’s not actually a trivial skill to say “no” to favors done to you. Joyce doesn’t know how to just… not go to the class, and then just tell Dorothy “well, I didn’t ask you to arrange all that, did I? I just wanted information, not to go to the first one you found”
Joyce is griping. Affectionately. People do that.
Also, as discussed in the comments of the Dorothy-storming-off strip:
Dorothy did not ‘arrange’ for Joyce to be in the class. She asked the instructor if sit-ins are allowed, which is an extremely relevant piece of information, from the most reliable source.
Right. The only thing people have pointed to that I feel like was overstepping was maybe getting her the sketch pad, but I mean, Joyce does want to get better at her art, so it is something she’d want. I don’t think Dorothy was making a big leap.
It’s only relevant if Joyce wants to sit in on this particular class, which JOyce had given no indication of. Unasked for favors are overstepping and can easily engender a feeling of obligation, which is exactly what Joyce is expressing here.
‘Research life drawing classes for me’. Dorothy offered a complete list of all classes that fit the criteria: is a life drawing class, does not directly conflict with Joyce’s other classes, has open seats, allows sit-ins. Because any class that does not fit all those criteria would be useless and irrelevant to Joyce. That complete list was one class.
The ONLY unasked-for favor was buying her art supplies for the class. If that in particular was the only thing Joyce was ungrateful toward, I would be on Joyce’s side entirely (and really probably so would Dorothy). But Joyce is continuing to be a shit about Dorothy doing a favor that Joyce specifically asked for.
I think you’re taking the “Dorothy’s orders” comment a bit too seriously
Perhaps. If Dorothy did that to me, even the little I know about her would make me think, “oh, well, that’s just the way Dorothy Get-It-Done-Now Keener operates.”
I think it is goddamn fucking wild that it is impossible for any two characters to have an interaction in this strip without being analyzed by the metric of Who’s More Wrong, even when the people interacting *aren’t even in conflict*.
Sometimes, they don’t even need to be on-panel together.
I’ve literally been reading this comic for 10 years at this point and at some point the comment section became a competitive sport of people trying to go out of their way to willingly misinterpret everything every single character does in as bad faith as physically possible.
I think that is an unfortunate side effect of having every minute interaction open for comments and discussion. There’s less of a chance to view the big picture and instead it’s easy to nitpick about small things.
Joyce really didn’t think that one through. Bringing Joe to seem less creepy.
Joe: “Can I run and get my trenchcoat and shades?”
Joyce: “Of course, it’s winter and there’s always a glare on the snow.”
Joe: “And a tub of Crisco?”
Joyce: “Ooh, are you going to bake? The class will really welcome us if we bring snacks!”
Yeah. Joe is the guy who famously made a “Do List” for a significant portion of the girls on campus. Not exactly a glowing character reference for not being a creep.
He did publicly apologize. With doughnuts.
I hope we don’t skip over this class because this promises to be hilarious.
I don’t think you set a premise this good up and then don’t follow through
Willis posted a preview panel of Joyce in the life drawing class a while back.
Weird sounds of knuckles being cracked in anticipation, coming from Mike’s grave.
“Look, I’m not a creep. I’m here with the guy who made himself famous for currating a list that rated women on their datability to prove it.”
Well he might take some of the shade off of you if everyone focuses on him
He was also in a sex tape with a congresswoman’s sister.
That’s not creepy. That’s just really cool.
Ever since the Italian parliament spent time watching Tifa get railed in-house, porn is officially a political activity.
The thing I’m most mad about from that whole incident is that it wasn’t AERITH getting railed by Cloud in the video.
#TEAMCLERITH
I gotta back up Clerith just out of necessity. Can’t be takin’ people seriously when their ship name is “Cloti”. Clotty? Come on, now.
Counterpoint: Aerith is a nothingburger who had magical powers and does jacksquat with them. And then dies, because plot even though I have like 50 Phoenix Downs. On the other hand, I found Cloud to be an 11 in the 1-10 scale of insufferability, so at least you’re only ruining one ship.
There we go. That anticipation was getting too good, had to kick it in the pants somehow.
Also, as someone who has done life drawing and is a known horndog I gotta say. Life drawing a nude woman has literally 0 sexual interest to me. When you’re doing life drawing you’re so focused on the lighting, and rhythms of the human body it’s all too easy to completely disassociate it from any erotic connotation. The human body basically becomes a sequence of shapes and rhythms, shadows and highlights. Just the pure form of life twisted and posed in front of you.
Then why don’t they let them where pants or just draw like a guy in a suit? If they want to explore human anatomy for illustration, we have thousands of preserved corpses – you can even see the musculature and skeleton on a lot of them.
Clothes obscure, meaning you don’t learn as much about the form and how it shifts as you think you do. Also, a living model is a little easier to source and a little more sanitary than a corpse. And yes, having someone present to view personally instead of a picture matters.
All this, and also, pretty sure corpses look fairly different, and are harder to pose (see, for example, Weekend at Bernies’s, though this may not be the most thorough treatise on the subject). So if you learn “life drawing” by only drawing corpses, while you may be pleased with your life hack, I feel like everyone else is going to be greatly unsettled by how all of your characters look like corpses. Even getting around the sourcing and sanitary reasons, there’s some significant reasons why it’s not the same. Plus, hey, someone gets paid to pose, so it’s technically creating jobs.
Basically what Nerrin said.
Also a living human can…move and pose in ways that are natural. And the shapes the skin makes when folding over itself. Where it stretches and squishes.
Also there ARE life drawings with clothes, usual as a way to combine the lessons of anatomy with the lessons of cloth physics. But in the case of just figuring out anatomy a nude figure is absolutely best. And of course the way light interacts with/bounces off of skin.
There’s kind of weird implication in this comment that people who do nude modeling for art classes are being coerced into the nudity, which is definitely not the case, or that there’s something inherently inappropriate about looking at alive human beings who aren’t covered in clothes. Which is also definitely not the case. If you’re worried about stuff like consent and autonomy, *living* people can actually consent to being observed and sketched nude, which corpses cannot.
Ah, The idea that study of corpses will actually result in life like aspects.
If you are familiar with facial reconstruction artists from skulls, then at one point when I was looking into it, they frankly were simply wrong. The reason being they used measurements from corpses. When scientists, specifically biological anthropologists and doctors, looked into it, they found that those measurements changed fairly rapidly following death. Sometimes significantly. This was using things like MRI on people to get living values.
So all facial reconstruction from skulls to about 2005 and much after is a guess. Now, being that in the past corpses were all that people had it was better than nothing. However, It was off by significant amounts. Some of the artists went yeah, whatever, to it too.
So it would not surprise me to learn that other parts of the human body change similarly after death with regard to the whole life drawing.
— Someone who has done some digital facial skeletal reconstruction (that they were not satisfied with) and not life drawing.
Digital and not artists also tend to think about things differently, and the differences can be fascinating. I was talking to one artists who does a lot of visual and clay art about color and just how different it is to do traditional and 3d modeling of something, and color/light.
I agree completely. Only done life drawing once, but I got over how uncomfortable I was feeling about it almost immediately once the time came to actually start drawing. Ended up talking with the model a bit during a break about the work too and found the conversation genuinely interesting. Kinda surprised myself by how completely okay the situation was for me, because my upbringing, while not as sheltered as Joyce’s, was definitely similar in a lot of ways.
That was exactly my own experience.
Gonna confess it was hard to concentrate when I joined a life draw session, where the model was a ballet person. ‘:/
Dorothy didn’t “order” you to go anywhere. You asked her about life drawing classes and she found one for you. Whether you go or not is entirely up to you.
It’s almost like Joyce didn’t mean it in the weird fascist way you’re implying she meant it
And they call me literal-minded.
She found one, talked to the instructor and bought Joyce supplies. This easily reads as an obligation to someone as bad with boundaries and raised to be obedient as Joyce.
As if everyone hasn’t rationalized being in that class with that response, Joyce.
*quietly loops the intro of Summer Days by Martin Garrix on the sketchpad*
“Dorothy’s orders”
Excellent point.
I wonder if she’ll ever be able to do things she wants without “blaming” other people. Hm, I guess I still have Catholic guilt even when I know I shouldn’t (and haven’t been Catholic since 4th grade). These things run deep.
Despite snapping at Dorothy, Joyce seems be following “orders” without much complaint.
If they spend time drawing, then there’s still a chance for Becky to be working at Galasso’s when they do go.
I really hope not, honestly. I don’t think Becky would be helpful.
Narrator voice over: “Joe would not, in fact, avert his eyes if the naked person was a lady.”
I giggled
I’m really feeling Joe’s facial expressions in this strip.
For some reason, it makes me think he’s feeling confident in a way that’s not normally expressed, especially since he’s a pretty confident character most of the time.
It’s also a bit flirtatious, even though that shouldn’t be the case as I think he’s still tiptoeing around Joyce.
I’ve been enjoying them too. It seems like he’s just happy with the interaction and not punishing himself for it… Just kinda letting it happen and being fondly amused at the weird direction Joyce is always going to go in
Soooo…. who will the model be?
– Roz?
– Mary?
– Jacob
– Ninja Rick??
Mary’s boyfriend.
This still sounds like a date to me!
But pizza afterwards, right?
I’m not much for dating myself, but if a date often involves both pizza and nudity, does it really matter what order they come in?
This is true. Long as you get both at some point, it’s a good date. Even a Lunchable and comparing NSFW artists you follow would work.
That sounds like such a nice, low energy date. I’m all out of spell slots today, and that sounds so comforting lol.
Yeah, there needs to be pizza eventually! As Miss Manners said:
I have been reading this pic since there were only three strips. I have shipped Joyce and Joe since the start. This comic is everything I have been wanting for a decade.
Thank you. T_T <3
She wants to be escorted by her waifu and husbando, to show she doesn’t need more nakeds. She has nakeds at home.
Let’s just cut to the chase, and Joyce draws nekkid pictures of Joe.
…I…well, now I hope that actually happens at some point, even if likely only in the most distant future of the comic. It could be very funny and sexy for them!
I kinda hope Joyce remembers to apologize to Dorothy at some point for making her mad.
Sure, as long as everyone else apologizes to Joyce for upsetting her as well.
Dorothy made herself mad, and she’ll get over it.
Actually no, Joyce has no reason to apologize for existing the public while immersed in her own thoughts.
It’s not really Joyce’s fault that Dorothy got mad about Joyce not noticing her for a few seconds.
Yes how dare Joyce
*checks notes*
Not immediately notice Dorothy while obviously distracted by something else
Oh this is going to blow up in Joyce’s face
All over Joyce’s Face. She’s getting the B.
or maybe model doesn’t show, they need somebody to fill in and, “hey what about you?”
That alt text, damn you willis. I give you all my hearty boos for that wonderful pun
“So, does that mean if the model’s a dude, you’re going to…”
“No, because I am there for Legitimate Purposes.”
Who wants to bet that her class turns out to be drawing a bowl of fruit?
Creepo doesn’t take art classes anyway. He’s too busy working on his Singularity Engine.
I dunno, “you promised me flesh!” sounds pretty thirsty to me.
Oh god this is cute…
And oh gosh, this is why I was saying it’s kinda messed up that Dorothy went that far over the line of what Joyce had actually asked her.
(Joe and Joyce are trapped naked in an Elevator Together)
Joyce: “Joe, you Perv! Avert your Eyes! A Lady is Naked!”
Joe: “If you punch me again, I’m going to actively stare at you.”
Joyce: “Creep! You will not!”
Joe: “Not only that, but I will be making critiques on your Naked Body spiced with Critical Analysis!”
Joyce: “Oh! You beast!”
Who wants to take bets that it’s Rachel’s boyfriend? With her front and center in the class.
More likely pharmacy lady! Or Galasso! My money is on Galasso if it’s someone we know.
Go with her, Joe, go with her!!!
Joyce has a whole part of her brain that creates scenarios about what other people could be thinking of her
(also nobody I know who’s had a life drawing class found it an arousing experience.)
Doesn’t everybody?
I’m just now realizing the possibility of the nude model being a prominent/supporting character.
For no particular reason I’m thinking Jacob.
Well, Joyce is shouting and making demands, we’re back on track.
Nope, can’t see ANY unexpected side effects or consequences to her plan here, nope, not a one…uh-uh, this is going to go perfectly….(Eeevil laugh)
Well…if nothing else I could totally see Mike being so compelled to kick a naughty minded Joe in the balls that he comes out of his coma.
Well this failed to get off the ground.
I just loved Joyce’s naught face at 4th panel.
Joyce has a sexual reaction to the female models.
Thinks about her as Dorothy.
I’m looking forward to Joyce sublimating her jealousy at Joe being around naked women as concern about him ogling them.
My attempt at meme thing:
*plays “Godzilla Bio Wars” on hacked muzak*
Sorry wrong section please ignore this.
So…. will Joyce also avert her eyes in case the model is a man, given that she thinks she’s a hetera?
…. while getting to stare at a naked woman and thinking to herself that it’s a perfectly hetera thought to think that naturally, women are just looking more pleasing than men? 
>Joyce thinking telling the truth proactively is the correct option
>further evidence of neurodivergence