It’s good that you’ve noticed that he’s clearly not treating himself very well but it would be nice if you could seem a little more concerned about that?
The down side to comics is we only get one facial expression per panel. Maybe that is just her face upon opening the door and it would become more downcast as she truly sees her son? That would likely take too many panels to illustrate however, and break the flow of the comic. I mean, I assume. Mr. Willis is the veteran professional. I’m just some random person on the internet.
I’m guessing she’s the kind of parent who shows “concern” by nagging and lecturing. And then later on insists that she was such a good parent because she always cared.
I don’t think we’ve actually seen Hank since the timeskip, and Dina’s parents haven’t shown up in the comic proper for like an actual real time decade.
Hank was seen in a flashback strip posted in February of this year. So he has been put to ink (to pixel?) after the time skip, but only as a version of himself which existed many years before the period of time skipped.
Could be worse, better than him being complimented b/c it’s ‘better than being too chubby’ unless she doesn’t want him to be ‘lanky’ b/c he should be ‘bulky’/musclely instead but while it’s not /impossible/ i imagine someone ‘nerdy’ like ethan wouldn’t rly focus on that (although it would be interesting/practical to see in a lighthearted gag comic/bonus stuff like , i run 2 hours a day so i can beat ppl to the line/release date of some merch, tho online orders kinda cut out some stuff like that )
It would be a nice change of pace if maybe one or two parents that were bad actively changed for the better. Even if only a little bit. Y’know as a treat for being good readers.
Meh. To me at least Hank and Richard never got to that level and initiated that emotional level of hatred some of the worst parents get in this comic. Don’t get me wrong, Hank has his problems sure, but he’s no Blaine. His ex-wife outclassed him, it’s just hard to get excited that he’s trying to be better. And Richard is kind of similar except I feel like I know even less about him.
Certainly not to the Blaine/Ross level, but we only saw Carol outclass him when he started actively changing for the better. From their early parent’s weekend appearance, they seemed pretty much on the same page. Hank was even the one with the “Hitler was maybe partly Jewish” comment.
When he showed up again after Toedad’s happy fun gun times on campus, there was a lot of concern he was fully in line with Carol’s take and Joyce was being brought home to be “saved” from the lesbians.
He defused that quickly by accepting Becky and that’s when we really saw him differentiate himself from Carol.
I think it’s great that Hank’s trying to be better, find it very easy to be excited about. Agree that I don’t care that much about Richard, though.
It seems extremely unlikely that the worst offenders are going to improve that much because, well… they’re the worst. But to be more descriptive about it, I think it’s a lot more likely that someone who’s kinda bad and struggles with being what their children need might improve than someone who is really bad, blames and faults their children for everything, and believes they’re always right.
There’s been no real conflict with Richard. We can judge him mostly by his effect on Joe’s development, but he hasn’t really caused conflict when he’s come on stage. Wouldn’t surprise me if he got more at some point, tying into Joe’s arc, but we haven’t seen it yet.
I mean, Naomi usually doesn’t rank as the worst mom. Mostly because the competition’s hard to beat, and I think she and Ethan did eventually mend fences on Shortpacked!, so I guess it’s possible?
Hard to get much in the way of parental change in a webcomic that spans less than a year of in-universe time, barring something truly shattering like a death or a divorce. The main cast changes a lot, because they’re all college first years, but their parents are pretty settled in their personalities as middle-aged adults.
Linda’s a better mom than Carol, but that’s a pretty low bar to clear. All that really means was she was appropriately appalled by Carol’s church paying bail money for a man who had been arrested for showing up on campus with a gun to kidnap his daughter.
Naomi freaked out because Ethan looked at during Amber’s party when they were kids, I don’t think she’d have any chill about a hot guy just happening to be hanging out in Ethan’s room.
Naomi is very much paranoid and hateful enough to find that suspicious. Hell, she probably reacts with suspicion any time Ethan is seen alone with a man.
Gonna have one of those conversations that parents try not to have in front of others because Naomi thinks they’re alone, so Asher gets to hear all of that.
Oh yeah, the loser who got second-hand gay panic or whatever because her son looked in the same direction as another boy, from an angle where she couldn’t even see it.
And years later ends up blaming her sons best friend for “turning him gay” by not dating him properly when she knew he was gay from the fucking start! 😡
Oh hey Naomi.
This is gonna be a weirdly healthy visit I predict.
Where she does care and help… yet also pushes Ethan to express negative emotions that shocks him out of the repressive nothing he’s currently in.
Why do I feel Asher is the first character in the comic in a relationship who’s sane enough to see their partner having a bad interaction with a parent and not do something rash?
it’s interesting/mildly hypocritical of parents /concerned saying that when they never rly seem to be fond if you actually start looking chubby or so (unless they’re chubby too but i guess there should be a nuance between “eating well” and “unbalanced diet”/excessive overindulgence), tho other than Jen (and maybe briefly sarah mentioning a ‘freshman 15’ way back), idk how many ppl have change too noticeably for that either
tho given the ‘stress’ of college even without DOA”s drama and such, other than “pure force of ‘youth'”, i’m surprised there arent’ ppl who graduated with a ‘beer gut’ and greying/salt&pepper hair , tho that’s a bit of a tangent
Naomi, Carol and Linda sucked more than any other currently living parent in DoA. But for her I have a special type of disdain for it.
It’s just speculation but I can’t shake the feeling that despite the shit Ethans been going through lately I bet she did not make things better. Of course she’s shows up right when he’s getting back on his feet for what feels like a week in their time.
i imagine once she said she’s glad mike’s dead i’m sure ethan will go off on her and ppl will hate her more (tho is ethan’s dad in the pic? not that it makes it ok, but i wouldn’t be surprised if she’s extra sour about it if it’s like “my husband left me for another man” adding a layer to that kinda thing)
i mean even in a more supportive situation i can imagine some gay ppl would avoid introducing their partners to their parents unless they’re also in the queer community
But while it’d be annoying either way i can see some rom com moments being like “that’s great hun, when’s the wedding?” and still pushing like that (i do remember seeing a tweet? from like someone’s nephew asking why they don’t have a wife and said “actually i’m gay” “…so why don’t you have a husband?”)
You know, much as we’re all going “oh no, Naomi”, objectively she’s not wrong to be concerned about Ethan. Odds are that he is, in fact, not eating. And he’s probably not kept her in the loop re: his mental headspace.
Naomi is my mom’s name! Although she’s absolutely cool with all queer identities. I am obligated to provide this fun fact in case anyone in the audience has it wrong: Naomi is pronounced “Nay-oh-me”, not “Nye-oh-me”. There simply aren’t the letters for the second one.
Oh, somebody made a compromise of “nay-oh-me” and “nah-oh-me” and forgot to look at the letters because in English they’re just vague suggestions anyway.
The weird thing is that homophobic as she may be, she and her husband (who was gay himself I believe) accepted Ethan was gay and had moved on. Then Ethan tried to claim he was straight.
Eh, accepted might be too strong a word considering she outright called Ethan a disappointment to his face, and told Amber that Ethan was confused and just thinks he’s gay. She also blamed Amber for confusing him. I’d say she was in denial and willing to hurt/blame anyone else in order to have her son be straight.
It’s been so long since Naomi appeared, I’d forgotten that she even had, so I checked her previous appearances through the tag. Obviously Willis’ art has changed through the years, but I hadn’t appreciated before how much the lettering has improved.
as we have seen in her past appearances, she’s attempting to justify her homophobia by first establishing a narrative where she’s coming from a place of “concern” (-_-)
I feel like Naomi is a bit less one-note than that. Which is to say she actually can be concerned about Ethan looking like a vampire while being a homophobe.
believe me, she is no stranger to conflating allyship and caring with unsolicited “””helping”””
she’s been invasive as hell about her son ever since her first appearance, she thinks that “helping” her son means that violating boundaries is justified 👀
That’s a good point. I suppose it could be ongoing commentary from her, where she lectured him about needing to eat because he was getting thin over winter break, and now she sees that he clearly hasn’t improved on that. Or maybe they didn’t see each other over break, which would be interesting.
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dammit why Naomi gotta be spoken
them bongo more plastic than the toy packs never open
I don’t think you can see that from this picture. She’s, like, too far away.
This closet metaphor is heavy handed
Just so your gayness don’t get reprimanded
You’re sitting on a pile of toys
Do your best to make no noise
Dear Lord, Ethan is already suffering everything. I forgot he still got Naomi to deal with
She can’t make him toe the line!
His lover gotz them rainbow shine,
They gonna do the sixty-nine!
well he’s got enough will(?) in him to just not burn that bridge at least or so , versus just cutting her off completely
It’s good that you’ve noticed that he’s clearly not treating himself very well but it would be nice if you could seem a little more concerned about that?
If you expected good parenting you came to the wrong webcomic
The down side to comics is we only get one facial expression per panel. Maybe that is just her face upon opening the door and it would become more downcast as she truly sees her son? That would likely take too many panels to illustrate however, and break the flow of the comic. I mean, I assume. Mr. Willis is the veteran professional. I’m just some random person on the internet.
I’m guessing she’s the kind of parent who shows “concern” by nagging and lecturing. And then later on insists that she was such a good parent because she always cared.
how can she be concerned? she has no time or energy, from being so disappointed.
Been too long since a terrible parent showed up said no one ever.
when’s the last time we had a nice parent in this comic
is it pre-timeskip?
Dina’s parents. And Hank has improved since splitting with Joyce’s mother. Pretty sure we’ve seen him since the time skip but I could be wrong.
I don’t think we’ve actually seen Hank since the timeskip, and Dina’s parents haven’t shown up in the comic proper for like an actual real time decade.
Funny enough, neither has Naomi, it’s been about a decade!
Hank was seen in a flashback strip posted in February of this year. So he has been put to ink (to pixel?) after the time skip, but only as a version of himself which existed many years before the period of time skipped.
Time temporarily skipped backwards.
Richard’s being decent right now, he just sucked in the past and there remains the concern he’ll fuck it up again. Amber’s mom is fine, though.
Quite fine. One might say that she, Stacey, a mom, has got it going on.
That’s what Jenny told us, anyway.
Could be worse, better than him being complimented b/c it’s ‘better than being too chubby’ unless she doesn’t want him to be ‘lanky’ b/c he should be ‘bulky’/musclely instead but while it’s not /impossible/ i imagine someone ‘nerdy’ like ethan wouldn’t rly focus on that (although it would be interesting/practical to see in a lighthearted gag comic/bonus stuff like , i run 2 hours a day so i can beat ppl to the line/release date of some merch, tho online orders kinda cut out some stuff like that )
I know those kind of eyes well
And the tension begins
Is Naomi a good mom? Who knows? Lets find out?
You already know the answer to that question.
To be fair, this is the first time she’s shown up since 2018.
It would be a nice change of pace if maybe one or two parents that were bad actively changed for the better. Even if only a little bit. Y’know as a treat for being good readers.
We have Hank. We’ll see about Joe’s dad. Blaine got better via dying.
Meh. To me at least Hank and Richard never got to that level and initiated that emotional level of hatred some of the worst parents get in this comic. Don’t get me wrong, Hank has his problems sure, but he’s no Blaine. His ex-wife outclassed him, it’s just hard to get excited that he’s trying to be better. And Richard is kind of similar except I feel like I know even less about him.
Certainly not to the Blaine/Ross level, but we only saw Carol outclass him when he started actively changing for the better. From their early parent’s weekend appearance, they seemed pretty much on the same page. Hank was even the one with the “Hitler was maybe partly Jewish” comment.
When he showed up again after Toedad’s happy fun gun times on campus, there was a lot of concern he was fully in line with Carol’s take and Joyce was being brought home to be “saved” from the lesbians.
He defused that quickly by accepting Becky and that’s when we really saw him differentiate himself from Carol.
I think it’s great that Hank’s trying to be better, find it very easy to be excited about. Agree that I don’t care that much about Richard, though.
It seems extremely unlikely that the worst offenders are going to improve that much because, well… they’re the worst. But to be more descriptive about it, I think it’s a lot more likely that someone who’s kinda bad and struggles with being what their children need might improve than someone who is really bad, blames and faults their children for everything, and believes they’re always right.
There’s been no real conflict with Richard. We can judge him mostly by his effect on Joe’s development, but he hasn’t really caused conflict when he’s come on stage. Wouldn’t surprise me if he got more at some point, tying into Joe’s arc, but we haven’t seen it yet.
I mean, Naomi usually doesn’t rank as the worst mom. Mostly because the competition’s hard to beat, and I think she and Ethan did eventually mend fences on Shortpacked!, so I guess it’s possible?
I wouldn’t put money on it though.
She doesn’t usually rank that high because we haven’t seen enough of her.
Maybe this is her time to shine.
Yeah, a story about growth and acceptance would be refreshing vs another Bad Guy Parents episode.
Hard to get much in the way of parental change in a webcomic that spans less than a year of in-universe time, barring something truly shattering like a death or a divorce. The main cast changes a lot, because they’re all college first years, but their parents are pretty settled in their personalities as middle-aged adults.
It would contrast her with the likes of Carol and Linda.
(Also sorry i accidentally flagged your comment, its riiight next to the reply button and the UI for the comment system could use improvement.)
Murderer. 😡
Sh! Maybe they won’t notice.
Don’t worry about it. Unless the system’s changed, the threshold for comment removal is high enough to account for a few accidental flaggings.
DAAAHH! IT HURTS USSSS!
Oh, I know!
No.
She is homophobic, so I doubt it.
I’m conflicted. yet another bigot mom would be realistic yet narrative overkill.
Linda’s a better mom, and I say that with zero hesitation. Well, hesitation choosing her, I mean, I do hesitate even giving her faint praise.
Linda’s a better mom than Carol, but that’s a pretty low bar to clear. All that really means was she was appropriately appalled by Carol’s church paying bail money for a man who had been arrested for showing up on campus with a gun to kidnap his daughter.
you’d hope
I’m afraid that’s a solid NOPE
she’s currently still alive, so no, she has not yet reached her maximum parenting potential
He literally shoved his boyfriend back in the closet. My lord
Oh no lmao you’re right 😩
It’s a good thing she isn’t wearing an outer garment because it’s cold.
One which would need to be taken off and hung up.
In the closet.
he gotta throw his love into the black,
cuz the “no homo” bongo’s back
D:<
No sudden movements! The demon has returned!
I understand the panic, but, like, there’s no actual reason to shove Asher in the closet. He’s a friend who’s visiting, that’s all.
Naomi freaked out because Ethan looked at during Amber’s party when they were kids, I don’t think she’d have any chill about a hot guy just happening to be hanging out in Ethan’s room.
But I kind of would love to see Asher glibly replying, “Actually, I’m bisexual.”
Naomi is very much paranoid and hateful enough to find that suspicious. Hell, she probably reacts with suspicion any time Ethan is seen alone with a man.
she forced his love back into the closet
and deserves a damn cold epithet
D:<
Considering he has a ‘hunky’ roommate idk if she’d really care even if asher was straight/single
Naomi has uncommonly powerful gaydar. She’ll know immediately.
Did she dye her hair? I thought she was grey.
Exact same colors as in the link below.
Gonna have one of those conversations that parents try not to have in front of others because Naomi thinks they’re alone, so Asher gets to hear all of that.
To be fair, Ethan probably isn’t eating enough. Also to be fair Naomi is an insufferable bongo.
Oh yeah, the loser who got second-hand gay panic or whatever because her son looked in the same direction as another boy, from an angle where she couldn’t even see it.
And years later ends up blaming her sons best friend for “turning him gay” by not dating him properly when she knew he was gay from the fucking start! 😡
Oh hey Naomi.
This is gonna be a weirdly healthy visit I predict.
Where she does care and help… yet also pushes Ethan to express negative emotions that shocks him out of the repressive nothing he’s currently in.
Sigh I just hope we don’t have to sit through her telling him to fuck ladies again, that will be so damn depressing
“Just fuck the pain away son, that’ll help you forget about Mitch or Mark or whatever his name was.”
“What else is in the tongos of bongooos?
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
I predict she’ll tell him that he ought to be glad Mike is dead because it’s totally Mike’s fault that Ethan ended up gay.
really wish more parents in this comics died in horrible car accidents
I like the updated character design.
“You fuck her, Ethan.” Why doesn’t she just fuck women herself, if she wants it to happen so badly? What a coward. She will not survive the winter.
That won’t get her grandchildren.
(or make Ethan less gay. if you’re a guy and you fuck women you can’t be gay, that’s just a fact.)
Ah shit, here we go again.
Oh yes. this person
She’s handed him the perfect way to cover up Asher. “OK, Mom, let’s GO DOWN TO THE CAFETERIA AND HAVE LUNCH.”
Then close the door *hard*, so Asher knows to wait 2 minutes and then sneak out.
Why do I feel Asher is the first character in the comic in a relationship who’s sane enough to see their partner having a bad interaction with a parent and not do something rash?
I feel like Asher has some good reasons to think through and be very deliberate with engagement in bad interactions with parents. Given his family.
woah parents
i tend to assume everyone is a war orphan until informed otherwise and i know we’ve met naomi before but i completely blocked that unfortunate memory
sorry ethan
good luck
warphan
Hi, Naomi! Give your son a sandwich.
What are they FEEDING you? You’re all skin and bones!
it’s interesting/mildly hypocritical of parents /concerned saying that when they never rly seem to be fond if you actually start looking chubby or so (unless they’re chubby too but i guess there should be a nuance between “eating well” and “unbalanced diet”/excessive overindulgence), tho other than Jen (and maybe briefly sarah mentioning a ‘freshman 15’ way back), idk how many ppl have change too noticeably for that either
tho given the ‘stress’ of college even without DOA”s drama and such, other than “pure force of ‘youth'”, i’m surprised there arent’ ppl who graduated with a ‘beer gut’ and greying/salt&pepper hair , tho that’s a bit of a tangent
Naomi, Carol and Linda sucked more than any other currently living parent in DoA. But for her I have a special type of disdain for it.
It’s just speculation but I can’t shake the feeling that despite the shit Ethans been going through lately I bet she did not make things better. Of course she’s shows up right when he’s getting back on his feet for what feels like a week in their time.
For some reason I thought Naomi had a walker and was partially disabled. Was that not something that happened?
Not as far as I recall.
Aww, avatar twinsies!
No.
That was Kyle.
this mom has homophobia in her eyes <3 (/ref)
I think… I think Ethan’s mom is Carla from Cheers.
…. so where does Naomi rank on the least-popular-mom list, vis-a-vis Carol and Linda? Or is there a fourth unpopular mom that I’m forgetting?
I imagine she’s probably third in the running. After Carol, and then Linda.
And now she gets a chance to up her ranking, let’s see what stuff comes out of her mouth.
i imagine once she said she’s glad mike’s dead i’m sure ethan will go off on her and ppl will hate her more (tho is ethan’s dad in the pic? not that it makes it ok, but i wouldn’t be surprised if she’s extra sour about it if it’s like “my husband left me for another man” adding a layer to that kinda thing)
He was in the picture back during Freshman Family Weekend, when he was very much on the “go back to being straight, son” bandwagon.
“THAT kind of mom”. Poor Asher thought he was going to get to meet the parents.
i mean even in a more supportive situation i can imagine some gay ppl would avoid introducing their partners to their parents unless they’re also in the queer community
But while it’d be annoying either way i can see some rom com moments being like “that’s great hun, when’s the wedding?” and still pushing like that (i do remember seeing a tweet? from like someone’s nephew asking why they don’t have a wife and said “actually i’m gay” “…so why don’t you have a husband?”)
It’s a good thing those doors are apparently a lot more soundproof than any of my doors ever are.
You know, much as we’re all going “oh no, Naomi”, objectively she’s not wrong to be concerned about Ethan. Odds are that he is, in fact, not eating. And he’s probably not kept her in the loop re: his mental headspace.
I would have either, if I were Ethan. She’d only exacerbate the problem(s).
Wouldn’t, I meant.
Done. Just read the whole thing!
Congrats, welcome back to the eternal present. You will now experience time in linear fashion again.
Given Dana W’s avatar today (Charlie) that is a very fitting comment!
Today? Do people change their avatars?
Only those who exist in linear time.
Like, from start to today? How long did that take you? 🙂
Welcome to the main club.
Naomi is my mom’s name! Although she’s absolutely cool with all queer identities. I am obligated to provide this fun fact in case anyone in the audience has it wrong: Naomi is pronounced “Nay-oh-me”, not “Nye-oh-me”. There simply aren’t the letters for the second one.
Oh, somebody made a compromise of “nay-oh-me” and “nah-oh-me” and forgot to look at the letters because in English they’re just vague suggestions anyway.
Looks like the replies aren’t letting me post in Hebrew. I was gonna say, it’s spelled/pronounced nun ayin mem yud.
Nunayinmemyud Watts
The weird thing is that homophobic as she may be, she and her husband (who was gay himself I believe) accepted Ethan was gay and had moved on. Then Ethan tried to claim he was straight.
Was that where she last was?
Note I say “accepted” in the sense that they acknowledged it and hadn’t disowned him.
Which is a terrible terrible low bar to pass.
*Sudden realization* Hey, MY family was like that!
Eh, accepted might be too strong a word considering she outright called Ethan a disappointment to his face, and told Amber that Ethan was confused and just thinks he’s gay. She also blamed Amber for confusing him. I’d say she was in denial and willing to hurt/blame anyone else in order to have her son be straight.
Good point.
There goes the toys’ mint condition
Thats what I thought too, but it sounds like Ethan was planning to open them but just too depressed
It’s been so long since Naomi appeared, I’d forgotten that she even had, so I checked her previous appearances through the tag. Obviously Willis’ art has changed through the years, but I hadn’t appreciated before how much the lettering has improved.
Literally in the closet!
Then again its probably safer that Asher hanging out the window.
Hey, can we make Hanging out the window a metaphor for something?
We’ll run it up the flag pole and see who salutes.
…he look thin ?
I mean yeah, many people made that observation when he showed up post time skip for the first time.
“A surprise for sure, and an unwelcome one.”
I’m not ready for what insue. I can only hope che got better.
But calling her son a dissapointment is pretty damning in my perspective. It’s hard to get back from that.
I fully expected Naomi to neg Ethan in rhyme.
You sure look thin
What kinda trouble you in
If you just ate better
Your life wouldn’t be so meta.
ethan I know you’re a mess and panicking but you could’ve sent him out through the half-bath and your neighbour’s room
Don’t date closeted people, it never ends well.
Ethan’s pretty out, his mom is just terrible
You’re misreading the strip. It’s Asher who’s in the closet.
I understand that, I was just speaking in general.
Ethan’s mum is surprisingly short.
In fairness, I think it’s been objectively established that he’s gotten thinner.
as we have seen in her past appearances, she’s attempting to justify her homophobia by first establishing a narrative where she’s coming from a place of “concern” (-_-)
I feel like Naomi is a bit less one-note than that. Which is to say she actually can be concerned about Ethan looking like a vampire while being a homophobe.
believe me, she is no stranger to conflating allyship and caring with unsolicited “””helping”””
she’s been invasive as hell about her son ever since her first appearance, she thinks that “helping” her son means that violating boundaries is justified 👀
Did she not see him over winter break?
That’s a good point. I suppose it could be ongoing commentary from her, where she lectured him about needing to eat because he was getting thin over winter break, and now she sees that he clearly hasn’t improved on that. Or maybe they didn’t see each other over break, which would be interesting.
it is just a fact that parents in this comic mostly suck. please don’t at me about that one, you know which one… ~<3
we need dina’s parents to show up and have dinner together with her and becky for balance <3
Naomi: You look thin. You’re not eating enough. This is because of the gays, isn’t it? They’ve brainwashed you into having sympathy AIDS.
Ethan: Mom, what a HORRIBLE surprise.