Well, given that *not* rooting for Mike in this situation is basically rooting for him to die, I’m hoping pretty much everyone’s in the same boat, here.
I love mike. He knows the power he has, and he resents using it. BUT HE USES IT. I LOVE Mike! <3. Along the way, even his closest friends learn to hate him, but the fact that they love him despite also hating him allows him to trust their goodness to the deepest core. No fake bullshit like the shit teachers, and shit parents, and shit some other kids try to play. Mike don’t play, he desperately wants to, but he doesn’t. When it looks too close to play is when people think he is actually bad. I am not sure he was ever bad… just….. yeah.
It’s basically the same logic he was using when he pointed a gun at his own daughter. I think the only reason he balked was that he didn’t see Mike as an immediate threat.
It’s established by now that Blaine is an expert and instinctual button-pusher, and that Toedad’s button is bright red, illuminated, and prominently labeled, “PUSH HERE.”
People who get tattoos of a bible verse against homosexuality, when literally 2 verses above that is the one against tattoos.
People who literally don’t care about the bible, but will refuse to accept it. Always deflecting and picking the bits they like at the time and declaring the rest irrelevant.
Jesus would do what they want him to do. What the local preacher tells them Jesus wants. They take their existing opinions and make the bible fit around that.
I could go on about white conservative christians, but I suspect it’s a rather sensitive topic for many people on this list judging by the number of people I’ve seen in the past saying that they’ve managed to escape the cult.
Let’s be honest here, Christianity has never had a adopting all sorts of awful shit into its notions of sin. It’s not like American right-wing churches made up homophobia and attributed to God – it’s been in the religion for centuries at least. What they’ve done at most is refused to let their religion change with modern times.
None of this is unique to Christianity of course. Nor is it only the awful stuff that gets attached to it. This is just what religions do.
Honestly it all traces back to the roman empire. They co-opted the Jewish religion and jesus’s teachings and made it about unquestioning loyalty to God (ie the church and other men in positions of authority), nationalism and expansionism (stuff Romans value) Many euro american christian values stem from that.
Maybe, though most of the sexual hangups go back further to the Jewish roots. Rooted I suspect, in early conflicts with pagan fertility religions in Canaan.
Blaming the rest specifically on the Roman Empire? Perhaps, though something similar was likely to happen anyway if the religion had gained sufficient power through other means. Power corrupts and all that.
Blaine sums the real reason up very nicely here. A lot of people hide behind their faith when really they just don’t want to admit that they were wrong and that they did something terrible. Disagreeing with Blaine here would make Toedad have to own up to his behavior, and that’s not something people like him can easily do.
Most places these days, dialing 911 gets you the nearest centralized dispatch. If you’re using a cell, you might, in some spots, have to give your location to the dispatcher so s/he can connect to the appropriate agency, though some locations are getting better at pinpointing the location of a 911 cell call in a fashion useful to the caller.
And I’d like to think even a landline dire-emergency call to campus security from outside campus would at least prompt the campus cops to touch base with the local law.
And some manipulation to ensure he sides the ‘right’ way. I will give Blaine this, he knows how to work the guy way better than you’d think someone with such thinly-veiled contempt could. Guess it’s easier when your mark’s this bad at seeing through lies and so willing to believe he’s on the right path.
I posit that any amount of respect on one’s part for another person would make it _more_ difficult to manipulate that person. Contempt is an essential component of manipulation.
Not so much contempt as “lack of regard for”. You don’t have contempt for your tools, unless you’re bad at your trade, am I right? And that’s more like self-loathing, speaking from experience – a concept generally foreign to narcissists.
There is a certain component of seeing the target as “lesser”, though. As may be apparent, manipulators tend to be narcissists, and narcissism requires comparison in order to be satisfying; a sense of superiority only emerges that way. It doesn’t have to mean turning it up to contempt, though.
If anything, for them to feel contempt, you first have to defy their worldview in a way they can actually perceive.
It’s the thinly-veiled part that gets me. If Ross realized it the jig would be up, and Blaine is not good at hiding what he thinks of people. (Don’t call your barely-teenage daughter a potato to her peers. Even if it had been an affectionate nickname as a baby, it’s time to retire it once the Ceaseless Body Judgement comes in.)
Oh, you’ve encountered them too, then. (My favorite is when they’re left fallen over in the middle of the sidewalk at night. Not hazardous at all, no siree!)
… Honestly that might be as good a strategy for Mike as the scooter chase. He’s enough of a dick for it and I’d allow a degree of leeway for threats to the public given the Extremely Dangerous Dudes chasing him.
Bird and their competitor, Lime, introduced their scooters to Bloomington in September 2018. Thanks, sliding time scale!
And is there a way to tell how much charge is left on the battery? Since these are not docked, this means they have been used and ‘abandoned’. They may be dead or close to it.
Does Bloomington require them to be docked? Because in most cities, you just park them wherever, and maybe take a picture in the app to show you parked it upright and not in the way.
I wouldn’t count him out yet. Maybe it is denial on my part, but I would think he would 1) try to stop Blaine OR 2) Now go into the party to get his daughter. Stop a murder which is a sin, or try to save his daughter’s soul from the party.
Ross is a fool and an idiot. He claims to believe in morality and all that shit, and also feels fully justified at having brandished a gun at his own daughter and her childhood friend. While on a school campus, no less. His cognitive dissonance is so strong that someone like Blaine, a practiced and experienced manipulator, can make him dance like a marionette almost without even trying.
No cognitive dissonance at all. He is strong and righteous. His daughter has been corrupted by the devil and he must save her soul. The laws of man will not stand in his way.
Considering that Joyce’s mom has already aligned herself with this, being part of the group that bailed out Toe with the help of Blaine, I’m sort of wondering if she too would easily be talked into murdering a guy.
Unlikely, I think. There’s a visceral reaction to the reality of it that I doubt she could get past.
Justify it after the fact and from a distance? Like she did with the initial happy fun gun times on campus? Sure. Quite possible.
Yeah. Particularly a seemingly-random white one, with a hammer. (I think even Ross is balking a bit at that last bit – guns are so much quicker and less personal. Not enough to not do it, but enough to go ‘wait this escalated quickly even for me’.)
I feel that Joyce’s mom has crossed a line to outright terrorism.
Mind you, Christianity Today has called out Trump and the editor of the Christian Post resigned rather than write a pro-Trump article today. So, apparently there’s more Joyce Dads than I thought.
This plot development is alarming and I am very scared for Mike, but can we all take a moment to appreciate the ‘blowjob’ tag is attached to this strip
Blaine has played that Toe like a cheap kazoo from the start but somehow, this was the strip that made me wince at it. Fffff, but those two need to be taken out asap…
I’m too tired for a scooter pun (I tried!) but I gotta say the last panel was such a sharp turn I laughed irl
Possibly because this is the strip where it looks like he was easily persuaded that murdering a bystander is a totally rational outcome of finding out his daughter is at a party and going to glare at an apartment from afar?
I don’t think his plan is gonna work out, judging from the vengeful faces from Joyce, Dorothy and Amber in the new character refs. I’m guessing he either gets kidnapped or severely incapacitated.
jesus christ, I can only assume we’re a couple pages away from Amazi-Girl showing up and saving Mike but I was not prepared for an attempted murder!! in my favorite fun coming of age webcomic!!!
Suicide by cop if she didn’t go, probably with at least a couple bystanders dead (you don’t shoot to wound, it can’t be counted on,) almost certainly conversion therapy and/or a quick marrying off to a ‘good Christian boy’ if she did. (Which he isn’t self-aware enough to realize would absolutely be killing Becky unless she successfully escaped again.)
Blaine has a highly inflated estimation of his own competence. He’s managed to get away with a lot until now, and it’s gone to his head. But sooner or later he’ll pick the wrong person to cross. And I don’t mean Mike.
I dunno. Crossing Mike, especially since he may actually consider Amber worth fighting for given their history (or at least not wanting Ethan to feel bad if something happens to her), still sounds like a really bad move. Especially considering just how much he knows about Blaine and how to play him…
Yeah, of all the non-combat characters, Mike sets the standard for Not to Be Fucked With. He’s probably got contingencies set up for shit like this, and he’s a natural instigator. He might not have thought Blaine would try to murder him, but he definitely considered the possibility of a chase. He’s up to something.
I continue to hold out hope for the day Yuri has enough, kills Blaine, and disposes of the body. Barring that, I will gladly settle for a variant of ‘the mob decides he’s a liability.’
Really, there are so many ways for Blaine to die horribly that are his own damn fault, and relatively few of them even include our main cast.
Not at all. Not at all. Honestly that’s my deepest wish. (Well, I tend to go with mobster’s daughter Yuri who kills him herself, but any variant is fine.)
Possible, but Ross is definitely not the introspective type. He still feels fully justified in having gone onto a school campus and brandishing a gun at his own daughter and her childhood friend. I wouldn’t bet on him seeing through Blaine.
I don’t know what’s dumber, that they think they can catch him given his sizeable lead and age (even if the scooters weren’t there), or that if they did catch him there would be no witness to the murder attempt. The only way this plan possibly could work is if Blaine’s car is just off-screen.
His idea of custody, and the actual concept of custody under US law, many not coincide. Ross seems like the kind of guy who’d fall for some version of Sovereign Citizens claptrap.
okay hear me out… in Disney’s 2008 BOLT movie, there is a song on the soundtrack titled “Scooter Chase” (because, you guessed it, there is a scooter chase.)
What I’m saying is, I’m already hearing it in my head and I hope whatever happens lives up to the first 15 minutes of BOLT.
Any criminal plan where you start unscheduled and unplanned murder of witnesses is a bad plan. I mean Christ Blaine this is basic mob knowledge. First you kill the witness, then you kill the witness who saw you kill the witness, then you kill the witness who saw you kill the witness who saw you kill the witness and the next thing you know you’re soaked in evidence, you’ve left DNA traces throughout the entire neighbourhood, the media and police are making you their top priority and you’re STILL chasing down witnesses.
Yeah, any ‘oh shit he came armed, maybe he’s more involved than I thought’ thoughts when the hammer came out dissipated pretty quick here. He’s a mob stooge with an ego.
I would like to think the last panel of him is his realising he needs to stand up to Blaine because none of this is right, rather than an “OK then, time to murder a random mouthy kid. This is definitely part of what I signed up for” – but somehow I’m not convinced.
If none of the consequences of trying to abduct his daughter at gunpoint made him question his actions, I’m not convinced that this will either.
I forget in which book it was that C.S. Lewis advanced, in all seriousness, the following argument: Given some of the things Jesus said, he was either divine or insane – there’s no possible middle ground. Since Jesus obviously wasn’t insane, he must therefore be divine.
(He was apparently assuming that his readership would not just go “OK, so he was insane then.” And his readership wouldn’t think, “Maybe the more extreme quotes were written in decades or even millennia after the fact.”)
On the one hand, yes it is odd that Lewis would assume people would fall for a strawman/excluded third kind of argument like that.
On the other hand, I don’t know what the state of manuscript scholarship at the time was, but I was taught that the four gospels considered canonical were written somewhere between 60 (Marc) and 100, 110 AD (John). So that means decades to turn theological reflection/speculation into “direct quotes” from Jesus (who probably died some time around 30 CE).
Millennia after the fact would be round about now…
C.S. Lewis put forward the trilemma “lord, liar, or lunatic” in Mere Christianity, aboit 1962. He credited Chesterton, but the argument is much older.
As you say, the trilemma fallaciously omits the alternative that Christ’s claim to be God is a fiction. It also depends on the argumentum from “I take offence at that!” to intimidate the person who answers “probably lunatic, then”.
No, it doesn’t, and you know it. If his claim to be God is false, then he is either a liar or a lunatic. Oh, look, it didn’t get left out. It’s not based on intimidation. All it does is force you to admit (if you are already a Christian) that you’re following either a liar or a lunatic if you disbelieve his claims about being the Son of God.
It also matters how you act in what God defines as evil and good, not whatever modern humans have defined as evil and good.
The first implicit step though is believing that the Bible is a true and accurate account of what Jesus said and did. Which is a bit of a stretch for me, given what we know about the dates of composition of the Gospels and how oral traditions work.
And “if you are already a Christian”, isn’t all of that pretty much a given. Is believing Jesus wasn’t the Son of God a significant heresy in modern Christianity?
I’m hoping in the next strip we see Mike riding off straddling two scooters, so Blaine and Toedad are forced to share the remaining one. It’s just too silly an image to not hope for.
He believes in an all powerful, all seeing, omnipresent invisible man in the sky that he believes will undo his death because he strictly adheres to cherry-picked passages of a book written partially 4000 and 1800 years ago. I’m gonna go with that, yeah.
This arc is pretty intense, and I’m worried for Mike.
That said, can we all take a moment to appreciate how incredibly lame Blaine and TD are that they’ve wasted so much time on trying to dominate college freshmen and failing!
The lies of Blaine keep getting more convoluted and Toedad is stupid enough to believe them. Any smart criminal would ditch Blaine since Mike only has evidence against Blaine.
Say what you will about Ross, but he’s not a career criminal. Just a dumbass who’ll believe anyone who speaks his language. If it wasn’t Blaine it would be Trump.
Blaine is right in the broad concept, Ross, even if the details of what he’s saying are all deliberately topsy-turvey. You have to choose who you are now: Are you a loving father and a Christian man or are you the monster that everyone keeps insisting that you are? Just so you know: This next junction probably has no turning back.
I still don’t feel any sense of danger from either of these two idiots. I expect them to try to chase after Mike on foot while he’s on a scooter. Cue the Benny Hill “Yakkety Sax” music.
Oh I absolutely feel a sense of danger from Blaine. He’s not the smartest criminal, granted. But he’s a thug with ambition. If he manages to catch Mike, he will absolutely kill him by beating Mike with that hammer over and over. He’s not scary because he is intelligent. He’s scary because he ISN’T intelligent enough to moderate his cruelty. Yeah, his impulsiveness will get him caught, but that wouldn’t help Mike if he managed to catch him. And keep in mind, Willis promised no death of the main cast. That still leaves the possibility of Mike being paralyzed if Blaine catches him and shatters the bones in his legs before getting caught and forced to run.
If even one law enforcement or security type observes grown men chasing a college kid in a supremely suspicious fashion, it’s only going to take seconds for them to get involved and start asking for IDs and pulling up any outstanding warrants or active bails.
Even if they “succeed” and kill or injure Mike, they’re just making things ten times worse.
They’ve pretty much already lost control of the situation and lost. So yay for that part.
Their big mistake was leaving the motel. as long as they annoyed each other in a little room and fought over the remote everything went perfect. They should stick to that.
Now watch as, in a shocking twist, Mike kills both his pursuers by UN-fucking their moms (and taking back their nickels), so that they were never born in the first place.
Hacks the muzak to play Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” sung by multiple characters…
Blaine:
You with the sad eyes
Don’t be discouraged
Oh I realize
Its hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Can make you feel so small
Ross:
But I see your true colors
Shining through
Dina and Becky, to each other:
I see your true colors
And that’s why I love you
So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow
Mike, a couple of strips ago:
Show me a smile then
Don’t be unhappy, can’t remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you’ve taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I’ll be there
… Between editorial comment and parody, I hope I’ve got fair use covered…
Of course, the second chorus is for Ethan, sung by Joyce:
I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that’s why I love you
So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow
And the rest of the song (mostly chorus repeats) is for Carla.
Ross has standards. Not good standards, but he’s a different kind of nasty – whereas Blaine does all of this out of meanness and spite, Ross just wants to control his daughter and make her do everything he thinks is “best” for her. He’s not sadistic, just lacking in empathy or respect for the free will of others.
This is what makes both of them vastly inferior to the mighty Mary, who is both self-righteous AND sadistic. Sal’s and Walky’s mom’s place in the hierarchy has yet to be determined, but I believe she is primarily a Toedad-tier foe.
Oh, shit, it’s MIke’s old foes, the boys of the Scooter Ghost Gang! But the question is, will those rascals leave Mike to die, or let bygones be bygones (perhaps owing to their signature disdain for all authorities, particularly immortal ones) and give the lad a lift?
Weird how Willis forgot to tag three such iconic characters of this webcomic.
More like we can’t kill boys only girls. I didn’t think he meant it that way but he already got way to close to killing enough women around Mikes age.
I actually think is because Dina’s friends were more obvious about opposing his ideals specifically, whereas Mikes only threatening to call the cops and Ross fancies himself a martyr who is willing to make that sacrifice for his daughter.
But honestly your right he would have that type of mindset too which might contribute to why he’s treating Mike differently. Honestly if a young woman came up to them and acted like that he might not want to kill her but he would at least be scolding her.
Plus men are supposed to be protectors, and women are supposed to be submissive to the men in their lives in his twisted world view. So if he saw what Mike was doing he would just be a young boy trying to be a man.
Ok. I went back and looked at when we first met (Artisticat) BJ cat. And it showed up during the arc where Joe’s “list” got leaked. Question is….did we ever actually learn who leaked his list?!
Mike has been very crafty so far, saying out loud first and last name, weapon, and physical description of his assailant, plus now a list of crimes. I wonder now if Mike’s thinking that to chase him Blaine will have to use his credit card to get the scooter going.
Yep.. Mikes dead.
but one or both of them will also die.
Gonna meet a truck probably.
still mikes an i diot here. surprisingly idiot. THough perhaps nihilistic self destruction beat him finally.
Still hoping he has the police on the phone on him. Though phones wouldn’t pick up most of what he is saying in ap ocket.
Well, the worst thing that can happen now is that Ross decides everything he has been doing so far is a lie and gives up, forcing every reader to root for him.
How many readers would require counseling for mixed feelings?
That’s not a sensible perspective. Rather, it seems you’re confusing concepts.
Noone roots for someone simply stopping being evil. If a serial killer stops murdering, you don’t root for them, you still view them as someone to be brought to justice, and just appreciate the fact that they’re not currently following through on the impulses of their twisted nature.
So if Ross “gives up”, that’s the same thing. Noone is going to root for him just for that. If an abusive parent “gives up” being abusive and wants a relationship with the child they abused, that’s not a positive. That’s them continuing to act selfishly, putting their own desires ahead of what is best for their child.
What you’re comparing to is a serial killer who stops killing and becomes a dedicated good samaritan, or even who just starts exclusively killing people that the serial killer has personally and carefully confirmed as being evil.
That’s a conflict of interest. So yeah, if Toedad follows “giving up” with “doing charitable work in 3rd world countries” then, sure, maybe we can start viewing him as an actual person rather than just an example of why humanity is constantly disappointing to engage with. Even then, though, “forced” and “mixed feelings” doesn’t really apply. I think most of us would just think his efforts justified by his past behavior, much like with community service assigned for criminal rehabilitation.
Basically: Just, no. Noone reasonable is going to excuse someone’s wicked and irrational behavior just because the person stops doing it, or makes shallow, self-serving efforts at redemption. That’s not only an outlook which is dangerous to one’s self, but also dangerous to others.
I am confused, how does having two sets of conflicting tax returns work? I can see having fake books, but tax returns? Wouldn’t that get spotted pretty quickly?
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major shit goin’ down → scooter chase = WELL OKAY THEN
*Cue Benny Hill theme*
I would have prefered Danny Elfman’s “Hot To Trot”.
This theme is named “Yakkity Sax”.
Although given the speed of comic book time relative to real-time, perhaps “Chariots of Fire” would be more appropriate. 😛
Knowing that refers to the ’81 movie by the same name, with all the slow-motion running shots, I can confirm that you’re OLD.
And, unfortunately, so am I.
I’m trying to imagine toedad on a scooter and I just can’t. Willis will have to do it for me.
Inherently funny image, right there.
Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Toedad was the only one who knew how to do sick tricks on a scooter while Mike and Blaine just flail around like idiots?
Yeah, but Toedad on a scooter gives me a real “How do you do, fellow kids?” vibe.
..damnit this is one of the few times I’m rooting for Mike.
Best way to make an anti-hero likable is piting them against an unambiguously greater evil.
Well, given that *not* rooting for Mike in this situation is basically rooting for him to die, I’m hoping pretty much everyone’s in the same boat, here.
Mike’s been dead before.
He was much more likable after that. Eventually.
I miss Shortpacked.
I was wondering when your Clairevatar would change.
I love mike. He knows the power he has, and he resents using it. BUT HE USES IT. I LOVE Mike! <3. Along the way, even his closest friends learn to hate him, but the fact that they love him despite also hating him allows him to trust their goodness to the deepest core. No fake bullshit like the shit teachers, and shit parents, and shit some other kids try to play. Mike don’t play, he desperately wants to, but he doesn’t. When it looks too close to play is when people think he is actually bad. I am not sure he was ever bad… just….. yeah.
Of course the toe got manipulated that easily
He got stubbed.
It’s basically the same logic he was using when he pointed a gun at his own daughter. I think the only reason he balked was that he didn’t see Mike as an immediate threat.
People like him usually are…
It’s established by now that Blaine is an expert and instinctual button-pusher, and that Toedad’s button is bright red, illuminated, and prominently labeled, “PUSH HERE.”
I like to refer to them as ‘Snake-Tongue’ and ‘Stooge’.
Snakes getting a bad rap again….
Woah, I knew Blaine was a piece of crap but I didnt expect him to be a murderer.
I mean, he’s a mob enforcer as I recall.
Nope. Just a stooge.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stooge#Noun
You think too highly of Blaine.
He’s basically a grown up Ryan.
Come on, Ross, remember at least one word of actual scripture. Jesus ain’t into this shit and you know it.
His White American Jesus, as portrayed in a lot of American right-wing churches, is into all kinds of awful shit.
Are they doing this by quoting stuff from the OT and somehow attributing it to Jesus or by making stuff up from whole cloth?
Little from column A…
People who get tattoos of a bible verse against homosexuality, when literally 2 verses above that is the one against tattoos.
People who literally don’t care about the bible, but will refuse to accept it. Always deflecting and picking the bits they like at the time and declaring the rest irrelevant.
Jesus would do what they want him to do. What the local preacher tells them Jesus wants. They take their existing opinions and make the bible fit around that.
I could go on about white conservative christians, but I suspect it’s a rather sensitive topic for many people on this list judging by the number of people I’ve seen in the past saying that they’ve managed to escape the cult.
Let’s be honest here, Christianity has never had a adopting all sorts of awful shit into its notions of sin. It’s not like American right-wing churches made up homophobia and attributed to God – it’s been in the religion for centuries at least. What they’ve done at most is refused to let their religion change with modern times.
None of this is unique to Christianity of course. Nor is it only the awful stuff that gets attached to it. This is just what religions do.
Honestly it all traces back to the roman empire. They co-opted the Jewish religion and jesus’s teachings and made it about unquestioning loyalty to God (ie the church and other men in positions of authority), nationalism and expansionism (stuff Romans value) Many euro american christian values stem from that.
Maybe, though most of the sexual hangups go back further to the Jewish roots. Rooted I suspect, in early conflicts with pagan fertility religions in Canaan.
Blaming the rest specifically on the Roman Empire? Perhaps, though something similar was likely to happen anyway if the religion had gained sufficient power through other means. Power corrupts and all that.
Blaine sums the real reason up very nicely here. A lot of people hide behind their faith when really they just don’t want to admit that they were wrong and that they did something terrible. Disagreeing with Blaine here would make Toedad have to own up to his behavior, and that’s not something people like him can easily do.
So, the most important question: is Mike doing this to protect Amber, or is he doing it to screw with Blaine?
Knowing Mike, probably “yes.”
Yes
Must he choose?
Pourque no los dos?
Amber left the party. She’s not in immediate danger. Calling the police or campus security would be sufficient.
I think it’s about ethan.
They are about a mile off campus.
Eh, that’s a only 20/30-minute walk, if you don’t drag ass.
Nevertheless, it is not an area where you call campus security.
Most places these days, dialing 911 gets you the nearest centralized dispatch. If you’re using a cell, you might, in some spots, have to give your location to the dispatcher so s/he can connect to the appropriate agency, though some locations are getting better at pinpointing the location of a 911 cell call in a fashion useful to the caller.
And I’d like to think even a landline dire-emergency call to campus security from outside campus would at least prompt the campus cops to touch base with the local law.
Amber left the party. I’m hoping for the timely interference of Amazigirl starting her patrol.
Why isn’t “both” an option?
I don’t think he feels Amber needs protection.
People can have more than one reason for things.
Pffft. Like Mike needs reasons.
Both. Both is good.
I’d say, even though Mike hates everybody (Ethan and Amber sort of excepted) he hates Blaine much more than the rest combined.
Por que no los dos?
….. yeah, it was never gonna be that easy to get the toe to self-question huh
I highly doubt Ross is CAPABLE of that kind of thinking.
He can — but it’s easily overriden by “Jesus says.”
Gosh dang! This is getting intense. Really hoping we keep getting more character growth from Mike.
…Oh. Right. The rationalization instinct.
And some manipulation to ensure he sides the ‘right’ way. I will give Blaine this, he knows how to work the guy way better than you’d think someone with such thinly-veiled contempt could. Guess it’s easier when your mark’s this bad at seeing through lies and so willing to believe he’s on the right path.
I posit that any amount of respect on one’s part for another person would make it _more_ difficult to manipulate that person. Contempt is an essential component of manipulation.
Not so much contempt as “lack of regard for”. You don’t have contempt for your tools, unless you’re bad at your trade, am I right? And that’s more like self-loathing, speaking from experience – a concept generally foreign to narcissists.
There is a certain component of seeing the target as “lesser”, though. As may be apparent, manipulators tend to be narcissists, and narcissism requires comparison in order to be satisfying; a sense of superiority only emerges that way. It doesn’t have to mean turning it up to contempt, though.
If anything, for them to feel contempt, you first have to defy their worldview in a way they can actually perceive.
It’s the thinly-veiled part that gets me. If Ross realized it the jig would be up, and Blaine is not good at hiding what he thinks of people. (Don’t call your barely-teenage daughter a potato to her peers. Even if it had been an affectionate nickname as a baby, it’s time to retire it once the Ceaseless Body Judgement comes in.)
Filicide and stalking are fine, but Blaine draws the line at tax evasion.
…er, Ross, rather.
It’s right there in the Bible: Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Ross can’t disobey God, can he?!?
Well, neither of the first two are crimes if you think daughters are a father’s property and they’re the one doing the stalking or filicide.
Excuse me while I puke, that just FELT so damn wrong.
**holds your hair for you**
To quote the Joker: “I’m crazy enough to take on Batman–but the IRS?! No thank you!”
I think it’s time for Mike to… scoot out of here.
If Blaine and Ross want to keep up they better get their skates on.
Oh wow, that’s a really good rendition of the Xiaomi M365 scooters, which are the ones used by Lyft and Bird. Immediately recognised it!
Can’t be. These scooters are clearly left where they won’t impede traffic rather than directly on a sidewalk or jutting into the road.
Oh, you’ve encountered them too, then. (My favorite is when they’re left fallen over in the middle of the sidewalk at night. Not hazardous at all, no siree!)
… Honestly that might be as good a strategy for Mike as the scooter chase. He’s enough of a dick for it and I’d allow a degree of leeway for threats to the public given the Extremely Dangerous Dudes chasing him.
Bird and their competitor, Lime, introduced their scooters to Bloomington in September 2018. Thanks, sliding time scale!
And is there a way to tell how much charge is left on the battery? Since these are not docked, this means they have been used and ‘abandoned’. They may be dead or close to it.
As long as Mike picks the least-dead one, he’ll be fine.
(I hate those pieces of street litter.)
You can’t kick ’em along after the battery’s dead?
The app should show the battery status.
Does Bloomington require them to be docked? Because in most cities, you just park them wherever, and maybe take a picture in the app to show you parked it upright and not in the way.
Hmm, will he sabotage the other two so they can’t follow, or will there be a dramatic scooter chase?
Like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVIGh2bSsxY
It was remarkably easy for Blaine to turn Ross into his own personal bongo.
Ross is probably the follower type. If he were a soldier he’d get in trouble for following illegal orders from a superior.
I wouldn’t count him out yet. Maybe it is denial on my part, but I would think he would 1) try to stop Blaine OR 2) Now go into the party to get his daughter. Stop a murder which is a sin, or try to save his daughter’s soul from the party.
Ross is a fool and an idiot. He claims to believe in morality and all that shit, and also feels fully justified at having brandished a gun at his own daughter and her childhood friend. While on a school campus, no less. His cognitive dissonance is so strong that someone like Blaine, a practiced and experienced manipulator, can make him dance like a marionette almost without even trying.
No cognitive dissonance at all. He is strong and righteous. His daughter has been corrupted by the devil and he must save her soul. The laws of man will not stand in his way.
Considering that Joyce’s mom has already aligned herself with this, being part of the group that bailed out Toe with the help of Blaine, I’m sort of wondering if she too would easily be talked into murdering a guy.
Unlikely, I think. There’s a visceral reaction to the reality of it that I doubt she could get past.
Justify it after the fact and from a distance? Like she did with the initial happy fun gun times on campus? Sure. Quite possible.
Yeah. Particularly a seemingly-random white one, with a hammer. (I think even Ross is balking a bit at that last bit – guns are so much quicker and less personal. Not enough to not do it, but enough to go ‘wait this escalated quickly even for me’.)
I feel that Joyce’s mom has crossed a line to outright terrorism.
Mind you, Christianity Today has called out Trump and the editor of the Christian Post resigned rather than write a pro-Trump article today. So, apparently there’s more Joyce Dads than I thought.
Come on Amazi-Girl! You are the night!!
This plot development is alarming and I am very scared for Mike, but can we all take a moment to appreciate the ‘blowjob’ tag is attached to this strip
I think you mean “blowjob cat” – a tag which has been attached to all the strips in which blowjob cat appears.
I mean, if we really wanted to appreciate Mike, Willis would add the tags ‘your Mom’ and ‘a nickle’ to the comic.
Blaine has played that Toe like a cheap kazoo from the start but somehow, this was the strip that made me wince at it. Fffff, but those two need to be taken out asap…
I’m too tired for a scooter pun
(I tried!)but I gotta say the last panel was such a sharp turn I laughed irlPossibly because this is the strip where it looks like he was easily persuaded that murdering a bystander is a totally rational outcome of finding out his daughter is at a party and going to glare at an apartment from afar?
I didn’t think scooters were good for sharp turns.
Sometimes the world doesn’t need a hero. Sometimes it needs a bastard who fucked its mom.
For a nickel.
mad respect for Mike right now
I don’t think his plan is gonna work out, judging from the vengeful faces from Joyce, Dorothy and Amber in the new character refs. I’m guessing he either gets kidnapped or severely incapacitated.
cue intense high-speed chase on lime scooters XD
Release the Yackty Sax!
Soundtrack accepted.
jesus christ, I can only assume we’re a couple pages away from Amazi-Girl showing up and saving Mike but I was not prepared for an attempted murder!! in my favorite fun coming of age webcomic!!!
We’ve already had attempted murder, it’s how Ryan got carved up. Plus whatever crazy gun-dependent plan Ross had for him and Becky.
Probably suicide by cop.
Suicide by cop if she didn’t go, probably with at least a couple bystanders dead (you don’t shoot to wound, it can’t be counted on,) almost certainly conversion therapy and/or a quick marrying off to a ‘good Christian boy’ if she did. (Which he isn’t self-aware enough to realize would absolutely be killing Becky unless she successfully escaped again.)
Okay, but does anyone else find it hilarious how casually Blaine mentions murdering a child? (Well, 18 is basically a child.)
I guess we know that as horrible as Ross, Naomi, and some of the other parents are, Blaine seems to handily be the winner for shitbird king.
Blaine has a highly inflated estimation of his own competence. He’s managed to get away with a lot until now, and it’s gone to his head. But sooner or later he’ll pick the wrong person to cross. And I don’t mean Mike.
I dunno. Crossing Mike, especially since he may actually consider Amber worth fighting for given their history (or at least not wanting Ethan to feel bad if something happens to her), still sounds like a really bad move. Especially considering just how much he knows about Blaine and how to play him…
Yeah, of all the non-combat characters, Mike sets the standard for Not to Be Fucked With. He’s probably got contingencies set up for shit like this, and he’s a natural instigator. He might not have thought Blaine would try to murder him, but he definitely considered the possibility of a chase. He’s up to something.
Mike isn’t a killer. Some of the people Blaine regularly deals with probably are.
I continue to hold out hope for the day Yuri has enough, kills Blaine, and disposes of the body. Barring that, I will gladly settle for a variant of ‘the mob decides he’s a liability.’
Really, there are so many ways for Blaine to die horribly that are his own damn fault, and relatively few of them even include our main cast.
If she realizes that Blane spent more on a half baked revenge plan than he was ever going to have to on Amber that might happen.
Is it too much to ask Yuri really is a mobster’s daughter and it’s only a matter of finalizing the grizzly details of what daddy’s going to do to him?
Not at all. Not at all. Honestly that’s my deepest wish. (Well, I tend to go with mobster’s daughter Yuri who kills him herself, but any variant is fine.)
My head canon is she would, but Daddy’s better at not leaving evidence and he has more toys anyways.
I wonder if Ross is going to relent, or at the very least, see Blaine’s been playing him for a fool. Then again, maybe not.
Possible, but Ross is definitely not the introspective type. He still feels fully justified in having gone onto a school campus and brandishing a gun at his own daughter and her childhood friend. I wouldn’t bet on him seeing through Blaine.
I don’t know what’s dumber, that they think they can catch him given his sizeable lead and age (even if the scooters weren’t there), or that if they did catch him there would be no witness to the murder attempt. The only way this plan possibly could work is if Blaine’s car is just off-screen.
I’m rooting for Mike to send Blaine to jail for attempted murder.
[Carrot crunches]
Do you think Ross’ll remember his daughter is an adult, so he can’t “forfeit custody”?
[Carrot crunches]
Nope!
His idea of custody, and the actual concept of custody under US law, many not coincide. Ross seems like the kind of guy who’d fall for some version of Sovereign Citizens claptrap.
Absolutely love the reference. However, what Blaine means is if Ross is in prison, he can’t save his daughter from the clutches of Satan.
In his religion, he has custody until she marries a man. If he’s in prison, he can’t exercise that custody though.
Ross will be lucky if he doesn’t have a massive heart attack by the end of this.
okay hear me out… in Disney’s 2008 BOLT movie, there is a song on the soundtrack titled “Scooter Chase” (because, you guessed it, there is a scooter chase.)
What I’m saying is, I’m already hearing it in my head and I hope whatever happens lives up to the first 15 minutes of BOLT.
Any criminal plan where you start unscheduled and unplanned murder of witnesses is a bad plan. I mean Christ Blaine this is basic mob knowledge. First you kill the witness, then you kill the witness who saw you kill the witness, then you kill the witness who saw you kill the witness who saw you kill the witness and the next thing you know you’re soaked in evidence, you’ve left DNA traces throughout the entire neighbourhood, the media and police are making you their top priority and you’re STILL chasing down witnesses.
“Dis iz turnink into vun of dose plans – hyu know, de kind vere ve keel everybody dot notices dot ve’s killin people?”
“It is?”
“Uh huh. And how do dose alvays end?”
“De dirigible iz in flames, everyboddyz dead an’ I’ve lost my hat.”
Ahh Jagers. Capable of at least a tiny bit of self awareness. Sometimes.
“Dot’s right. Und any plan vere you lose you hat iz…?”
“A bad plan?”
“RIGHT AGAIN!“
But these two have already lost their hats…
They never had them to begin with.
THAT’S where it came from! I had that exact conversation in mind but for the life of me couldn’t remember the source.
It’s not really a plan, though. It’s a complication.
Yeah, any ‘oh shit he came armed, maybe he’s more involved than I thought’ thoughts when the hammer came out dissipated pretty quick here. He’s a mob stooge with an ego.
who just leaves their razor scooters lying around?
People who are very confident the scooters won’t be stolen and used as materials for somebody’s custom Keyblade business on Etsy.
These are probably rental scooters.
If they are rentals, I doubt TD has the app and account required to rent one.
HOW are there razor scooters lying around anyway, too? Feels like the summer of ’07 again…
My new headcanon is that Ross seeing Blaine for the terrible person he is will cause him to start rethinking his own actions and have a redemption arc
I would like to think the last panel of him is his realising he needs to stand up to Blaine because none of this is right, rather than an “OK then, time to murder a random mouthy kid. This is definitely part of what I signed up for” – but somehow I’m not convinced.
If none of the consequences of trying to abduct his daughter at gunpoint made him question his actions, I’m not convinced that this will either.
“[Blaine] is a genius. He has to be. If he isn’t, I’ve given almost two weeks of my life to an idiot. That is unacceptable, therefore [Blaine] is a genius!”
Yeah, sunk costs fallacy is a bongo.
I forget in which book it was that C.S. Lewis advanced, in all seriousness, the following argument: Given some of the things Jesus said, he was either divine or insane – there’s no possible middle ground. Since Jesus obviously wasn’t insane, he must therefore be divine.
(He was apparently assuming that his readership would not just go “OK, so he was insane then.” And his readership wouldn’t think, “Maybe the more extreme quotes were written in decades or even millennia after the fact.”)
On the one hand, yes it is odd that Lewis would assume people would fall for a strawman/excluded third kind of argument like that.
On the other hand, I don’t know what the state of manuscript scholarship at the time was, but I was taught that the four gospels considered canonical were written somewhere between 60 (Marc) and 100, 110 AD (John). So that means decades to turn theological reflection/speculation into “direct quotes” from Jesus (who probably died some time around 30 CE).
Millennia after the fact would be round about now…
C.S. Lewis put forward the trilemma “lord, liar, or lunatic” in Mere Christianity, aboit 1962. He credited Chesterton, but the argument is much older.
As you say, the trilemma fallaciously omits the alternative that Christ’s claim to be God is a fiction. It also depends on the argumentum from “I take offence at that!” to intimidate the person who answers “probably lunatic, then”.
No, it doesn’t, and you know it. If his claim to be God is false, then he is either a liar or a lunatic. Oh, look, it didn’t get left out. It’s not based on intimidation. All it does is force you to admit (if you are already a Christian) that you’re following either a liar or a lunatic if you disbelieve his claims about being the Son of God.
It also matters how you act in what God defines as evil and good, not whatever modern humans have defined as evil and good.
Or he never made such a claim.
The first implicit step though is believing that the Bible is a true and accurate account of what Jesus said and did. Which is a bit of a stretch for me, given what we know about the dates of composition of the Gospels and how oral traditions work.
And “if you are already a Christian”, isn’t all of that pretty much a given. Is believing Jesus wasn’t the Son of God a significant heresy in modern Christianity?
Well, this is based on several assumptions:
A) Jesus was sincere
B) ‘devine’ exists
C) his readers are into religion the same way he is.
I remember I liked his stance on ‘it doesn’t matter which god you swear by but it does matter how you act’ when I read the Narnia novels ages ago.
It is rather opposed to
moderncurrent fundy ideasI’m hoping in the next strip we see Mike riding off straddling two scooters, so Blaine and Toedad are forced to share the remaining one. It’s just too silly an image to not hope for.
Mike has a plan, right? He’s Mike. He must have a plan.
I fear Blaine as an evangelist, or TD is just easily shaped like putty.
A PLEASURE, eh? I just hope it blows more someday
“or TD is just easily shaped like putty.”
He believes in an all powerful, all seeing, omnipresent invisible man in the sky that he believes will undo his death because he strictly adheres to cherry-picked passages of a book written partially 4000 and 1800 years ago. I’m gonna go with that, yeah.
This arc is pretty intense, and I’m worried for Mike.
That said, can we all take a moment to appreciate how incredibly lame Blaine and TD are that they’ve wasted so much time on trying to dominate college freshmen and failing!
The lies of Blaine keep getting more convoluted and Toedad is stupid enough to believe them. Any smart criminal would ditch Blaine since Mike only has evidence against Blaine.
Say what you will about Ross, but he’s not a career criminal. Just a dumbass who’ll believe anyone who speaks his language. If it wasn’t Blaine it would be Trump.
It’s a pretty poor justification for murder but he isn’t really lying.
OK, fine, I was wrong. ToeDad DID object.
For as much as two seconds.
We’ve gone from a Toedad car chase to a Toedad scooter chase
Still more dignity than he deserves.
It this story arc doesn’t give us the amazi-scooter I will be deeply dissapointed.
This is the greatest Christmas Week set of strips.
Scooter chase. Somebody had to.
Blaine is right in the broad concept, Ross, even if the details of what he’s saying are all deliberately topsy-turvey. You have to choose who you are now: Are you a loving father and a Christian man or are you the monster that everyone keeps insisting that you are? Just so you know: This next junction probably has no turning back.
Come on, Ross. You’re bigoted and brainwashed, but you’re not really a murderer, are you?
Not yet, at least. But considering how he landed in prison in the first place, I wouldn’t bet on him not being able to make that leap.
Not for lack of trying
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/defied/
And in the very next strip Ross has his loaded rifle trained on Amazi-Girl, finger on the trigger.
Jup.
The only reason he is not a murderer is that he is shit at everything he tries.
and that God sent Sal and Joyce on a motorcycle to help out.
I still don’t feel any sense of danger from either of these two idiots. I expect them to try to chase after Mike on foot while he’s on a scooter. Cue the Benny Hill “Yakkety Sax” music.
Oh I absolutely feel a sense of danger from Blaine. He’s not the smartest criminal, granted. But he’s a thug with ambition. If he manages to catch Mike, he will absolutely kill him by beating Mike with that hammer over and over. He’s not scary because he is intelligent. He’s scary because he ISN’T intelligent enough to moderate his cruelty. Yeah, his impulsiveness will get him caught, but that wouldn’t help Mike if he managed to catch him. And keep in mind, Willis promised no death of the main cast. That still leaves the possibility of Mike being paralyzed if Blaine catches him and shatters the bones in his legs before getting caught and forced to run.
If even one law enforcement or security type observes grown men chasing a college kid in a supremely suspicious fashion, it’s only going to take seconds for them to get involved and start asking for IDs and pulling up any outstanding warrants or active bails.
Even if they “succeed” and kill or injure Mike, they’re just making things ten times worse.
They’ve pretty much already lost control of the situation and lost. So yay for that part.
Their big mistake was leaving the motel. as long as they annoyed each other in a little room and fought over the remote everything went perfect. They should stick to that.
Now watch as, in a shocking twist, Mike kills both his pursuers by UN-fucking their moms (and taking back their nickels), so that they were never born in the first place.
Damn it Ross, you’re way too easily manipulated.
Yeah, Toedad gonna be able to keep up with a 19 year old in a footrace
Hacks the muzak to play Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” sung by multiple characters…
Blaine:
You with the sad eyes
Don’t be discouraged
Oh I realize
Its hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Can make you feel so small
Ross:
But I see your true colors
Shining through
Dina and Becky, to each other:
I see your true colors
And that’s why I love you
So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow
Mike, a couple of strips ago:
Show me a smile then
Don’t be unhappy, can’t remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you’ve taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I’ll be there
… Between editorial comment and parody, I hope I’ve got fair use covered…
Of course, the second chorus is for Ethan, sung by Joyce:
I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that’s why I love you
So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow
And the rest of the song (mostly chorus repeats) is for Carla.
Everyone, don’t forget to pray to the drama tag for Mike to not die.
Just wait – the next comic is gonna mirror this one,but it’s Blaine and Ross coming across three parked trucks.
Given the pr evious universes and the writing style.
I”m pretty sure 2/3rds of the group here will die.
Oh NOW Ross is against killing teenagers.
Ross has standards. Not good standards, but he’s a different kind of nasty – whereas Blaine does all of this out of meanness and spite, Ross just wants to control his daughter and make her do everything he thinks is “best” for her. He’s not sadistic, just lacking in empathy or respect for the free will of others.
This is what makes both of them vastly inferior to the mighty Mary, who is both self-righteous AND sadistic. Sal’s and Walky’s mom’s place in the hierarchy has yet to be determined, but I believe she is primarily a Toedad-tier foe.
Only male ones.
That was a reply to Rosstifer.
Oh, shit, it’s MIke’s old foes, the boys of the Scooter Ghost Gang! But the question is, will those rascals leave Mike to die, or let bygones be bygones (perhaps owing to their signature disdain for all authorities, particularly immortal ones) and give the lad a lift?
Weird how Willis forgot to tag three such iconic characters of this webcomic.
Happy holidays, all you lot.
Except you. You know who you are.
Wow could Toedad be ANY more easily manipulated? Dude just got convinced to murder a random stranger in 3 panels.
Oh no…. Ross is in killing mood now!
I knew it was circumstances more than anything but part of me read he’s a boy as sort of sexist.
As in – boys will be boys and dont need as much punishment for perceived sins? I got that vibe too.
More like we can’t kill boys only girls. I didn’t think he meant it that way but he already got way to close to killing enough women around Mikes age.
I actually think is because Dina’s friends were more obvious about opposing his ideals specifically, whereas Mikes only threatening to call the cops and Ross fancies himself a martyr who is willing to make that sacrifice for his daughter.
But honestly your right he would have that type of mindset too which might contribute to why he’s treating Mike differently. Honestly if a young woman came up to them and acted like that he might not want to kill her but he would at least be scolding her.
Plus men are supposed to be protectors, and women are supposed to be submissive to the men in their lives in his twisted world view. So if he saw what Mike was doing he would just be a young boy trying to be a man.
Ok. I went back and looked at when we first met (Artisticat) BJ cat. And it showed up during the arc where Joe’s “list” got leaked. Question is….did we ever actually learn who leaked his list?!
Mike has been very crafty so far, saying out loud first and last name, weapon, and physical description of his assailant, plus now a list of crimes. I wonder now if Mike’s thinking that to chase him Blaine will have to use his credit card to get the scooter going.
I hope to God that Mike called 911 before approaching the Dads and that the police have been recording him as he brings out all this information.
Ross, when your objection of murder is the age of the victim, and not, you know, MURDER, you’ve already lost.
Also, could you be any stupider?
I’m seeing Yakity Sax and Chariots of Fire in the comments….
But I’m HEARING William Tell Overture.
Blaine is basically Trump-lite with enough balls to actually commit murder instead of just ordering someone else to do it.
this is going to turn into 2 South Park episodes at the same time…
Yep.. Mikes dead.
but one or both of them will also die.
Gonna meet a truck probably.
still mikes an i diot here. surprisingly idiot. THough perhaps nihilistic self destruction beat him finally.
Still hoping he has the police on the phone on him. Though phones wouldn’t pick up most of what he is saying in ap ocket.
Nah, Mike’s gonna live. What are they going to do, beat him to death in the middle of the street in a residential district?
Don’t tempt the Willis.
A truck? Now you’ve got me thinking of Mike summoned to another world to defeat the Demon King.
He is the hero they needed, but not the hero they deserved.
..I’d read it.
Be interesting if Blaine catches Mike, and Ross stops him. Insight into his moral hierarchy.
Sounds like Ross is using Toedad as his scapegoat.
Well, yeah. Pretty sure that framing Toedad(=Ross, btw. The nasty guy is called Blaine) for an ugly murder was the plan from the start.
Well, the worst thing that can happen now is that Ross decides everything he has been doing so far is a lie and gives up, forcing every reader to root for him.
How many readers would require counseling for mixed feelings?
That’s not a sensible perspective. Rather, it seems you’re confusing concepts.
Noone roots for someone simply stopping being evil. If a serial killer stops murdering, you don’t root for them, you still view them as someone to be brought to justice, and just appreciate the fact that they’re not currently following through on the impulses of their twisted nature.
So if Ross “gives up”, that’s the same thing. Noone is going to root for him just for that. If an abusive parent “gives up” being abusive and wants a relationship with the child they abused, that’s not a positive. That’s them continuing to act selfishly, putting their own desires ahead of what is best for their child.
What you’re comparing to is a serial killer who stops killing and becomes a dedicated good samaritan, or even who just starts exclusively killing people that the serial killer has personally and carefully confirmed as being evil.
That’s a conflict of interest. So yeah, if Toedad follows “giving up” with “doing charitable work in 3rd world countries” then, sure, maybe we can start viewing him as an actual person rather than just an example of why humanity is constantly disappointing to engage with. Even then, though, “forced” and “mixed feelings” doesn’t really apply. I think most of us would just think his efforts justified by his past behavior, much like with community service assigned for criminal rehabilitation.
Basically: Just, no. Noone reasonable is going to excuse someone’s wicked and irrational behavior just because the person stops doing it, or makes shallow, self-serving efforts at redemption. That’s not only an outlook which is dangerous to one’s self, but also dangerous to others.
“That’s a conflict of interest” should read “That’d potentially cause conflicting feelings.” Whoops.
Three scooters. How convenient.
Oh look, transport.
This is a straight up metaphor for the Trump presidency in comic form.
God DAMN, is this still a college comic?!
I am confused, how does having two sets of conflicting tax returns work? I can see having fake books, but tax returns? Wouldn’t that get spotted pretty quickly?