The Dumbing of Age Book 10 Kickstarter is live!
This book will collect “Year Ten,” spanning the four storylines that start on August 18, 2019, and complete on September 9, 2020. This includes new commentary, behind-the-scenes artwork, and new character designs into an 236-page tome with luxurious glossy paper all bound up into a sturdy presentation. Our biggest book yet! And there will be a foreword by Seanan McGuire!
The book is titled Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence, and it’s the culmination of a full decade of Dumbing of Age stories! This is the big one! With kidnappings and van chases! The Ending With A Huge Timeskip one!
14 days to go!
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“sorry, I used alla my brats this morning”
see, alt-text? that fake beef is bad for you!
The old soldiers called it “bully beef”.
Then, there was the bacon equivalent…
Joyce: Dangit, who can I get to say something mean about Dorothy since I can’t? Ooh, Carla, say something mean about Dorothy!
Carla: Eh, being mean on command is boring.
Joyce: Dangit! Malaya, please say something mean to Dorothy!
Malaya: I refuse to remember who that is.
Joyce: Dangit! If only I still believed in a higher power who could answer my prayers!
(The next day, as Dorothy goes on her morning jog, she could swear she hears a faint voice on the wind.)
IIII…fuuucked…yooour…moooom….
Mike died for our… amusement? 🤔
Mike died to bone Blaine’s mom. He said as much.
He did. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/dead/
Or technically, he died so Blaine could watch.
“One could make a religion out of this!”
Ok, best comment ever … 😀
Damn you for making me laugh at that. Damn you to heck.
OK, this looks pretty impressive to come up with on the spot….
…But we all know you kept remaking this joke by going back in time over and over, until you found the best hit.
it might finally be over
we might finally be free
Smug Dotty FTW!
But if they understand each other then where will the commenters get material to endlessly criticize about their relationship? Becky, quick! Say something catty and unprovoked about Dorothy!
Well it looks like Becky might be about to do some major self-sabotage with Dina, which can serve as a viable replacement.
Yeah, but….I like that relationship. The best thing about Dorothy and Becky is that there were no stakes. They were both gonna be Joyce’s friend regardless. Discussing Becky and Dina possibly breaking up is just depressing.
Oh Cheese no.
Those are appropriate gravatars to be sad about Dina and Becky breaking up.
Willis has sunk so many DoA ships that I liked already. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has Becky and Dina break up soon.
Let’s not forget the elephant in their room, Dotty’s acceptance letter to that ivy league school. Becky might not know about it, but she is the one most likely to stumble upon it. That’ll cause some tension.
The bittersweet bond between goes without saying at this point.
Thought at first that the foreground bare tree branches in panel one were cracks starting to form in the very fabric of their universe. (Either that or the building has some very bad infrastructure problems.) The explanation that they’re just tree branches is probably more realistic but less fun.
Perhaps Joyce just burst through the upstairs wall to land outside here, and the open door is simply a coincidence.
Well, that WOULD explain what’s up with Walky today…
*plays Ambrosia’s “How Much I Feel” on the P.A. speaker*
Just try to recall, when we were as one…
Ah yes, being excellent to each other, the solution to every grudge – be them fake or real!
And party on!
DUDE!
Important qualifier: Being excellent to each other is only a universal solution in situations where the involved parties are willing and able.
In situations where one side is being decidedly unexcellent to the other, being excellent to them is can be tragically unsuccessful
I so wish I could point you to reality and say “have a little more faith in people”, but some dumbasses keep proving your point right, just over and over.
long, tired sigh…
Don’t let that stop you from being excellent.
She does, but Dorothy’s too nice to make you say it. 😛
…Not sure if an inability to be mad at the person you love is health- whoops, forgot to take my shipping goggles off.
(removes goggles)
Okay, there we go.
…Not sure if an inability to be mad at the person you love is healthy, Joyce.
I dunno I’d be pretty miffed at her. The worst thing is when someone’s right and they come by and ask you a question to lead you into an “I told you so”. Like isn’t it enough that you’re right? You don’t gotta egg me on about how right you were.
“See, now isn’t that better huh? Isn’t your life better and easier since you did that thing I suggested you to do? I promise I’m not fishing for props. Nor am I gonna get any enjoyment out of you admitting you were wrong. And yet here I am asking rhetorical questions I already know the answer to.”
Dorothy would never say “I told you so”.
She would think it so loudly that the words would actually manifest as a blinking neon sign above her head that’s real enough to cast a shadow, but she wouldn’t say it.
Look at that smug face in panel 3. Thats a non-verbal “I told you so” if I’ve ever seen one.
Meh, Dorothy really has nothing to be smug about. Sure Joyce can see but in return the glasses pinch her nose also there’s like a 50% increase in chance of people calling her a “nerd”. The opportunity cost on this about breaks even.
I know you’re speaking in jest, but it absolutely does not. Does anyone even give a single shit if someone calls them a “nerd” anymore? It’s not 2004 anymore.
By 2004 the nerds had won.
Don’t tell me that I’m crazy, don’t tell me I’m nowhere,
Take it from me… It’s hip to be a square!
Doot, doo doo doo doo…
“Nerd” and “Square” are unrelated, orthogonal concepts. See, for example, your typical Unix nerd, who, aside from the glasses, probably looks more like a refugee from a Grateful Dead concert than like an accountant or salesperson.
For a nerdy song, try “I’m the One That’s Cool” by Felicia Day and the Guild.
“Try to cop my style, but I’m the real thing!
While you played sports, I played Magic the Gathering.
Never earned your part in nerd society–
My Aquaman pajamas prove my pedigree.”
Being able to see heavily outweighs being called a nerd as far as I’m concerned, especially since I know I’m a nerd and I’m not ashamed of it.
If you can see who calls you a nerd, you know whose ass to kick later!
I actually agree. Dorothy unequivocally did the right thing for Joyce, but Joyce’s main struggle for years now has been the clash between her morality and the fundamentalist upbringing and how every time the former wins she loses some of that stability and identity she had in the latter. The glasses are part of that too, where Joyce doesn’t want to wear them because they’re new and different and not what it used to be, only she can’t really complain about wearing them because she *has* to and it *is* better to wear them, but it’s still a change at a time where Joyce resents that she’s made so many changes even if she knows they’re right.
I agree . . . but take a breath, for gosh’ sake!
:3
Y’know Dorothy’s actually seemed very happy today. So far things have been going pretty well. I don’t trust it. Sarah was pretty happy yesterday and she ended up getting Joe’d. Maybe things will be fine, but I’m on edge.
I feel like it’s since Dorothy’s getting to be happy as part of being a little smug and implicitly teasing Joyce and Becky, so she is allowed a victory lap.
Sarah being happy is an unstable isotope. It just isn’t going to last. Half-life normally measured in tens of minutes, and she really beat the odds for it to go an entire day before decaying.
On the other hand, happy is Joyce’s natural state of being, and she’s going to go on being happy so long as her universe isn’t ruled over by a malevolent creator who brought these beans into existence solely to torture them, or maybe also to zoom in on their sex lives to a disturbing degree. And since Joyce no longer believes in such a being, she should be just fine and there’s no risk at all, nope nope nope.
It may have decayed, but we get to choose to believe that the combination of Joe and the baseball bat brought her joy again
Well, at the moment things are calm. The current focus is who gets to make the comic for the school paper, and the next plot seems to be Roller Derby shenanigans.
But there’s some visible potential drama bombs. Becky’s insecurities might do some self sabotage with Dina, Jennifer has a no good very bad plan to set up her ex with her boss, the MIA Ethan & Jacob, Amber isolating herself further, and just everything to do with Asher
She will see the “new and cooler ” Walky and madly fall in love with him.
Then Dotty and Becky kissed.
[Narrator]: That day, Becky was amazed to discover that when Dorothy was saying “I do”, what she meant was, “I love you.” And even more amazing was the day Becky realized she truly loved her back.
I don’t know what’s best – the smug smile in the third panel or the internal smug smile in the fourth panel.
Besides, after a really bizarre conversation with her girlfriend about dinosaurid vocalisation early this morning, I think that Becky is feeling a bit burned out in terms of witticisms.
Hompk!
I feel like Dorothy is ramping up the fake-happy because she’s about to leave to her new school 😐
Ooooooor about to ditch her plans to go to Harward to stay here with her friends.
Time will tell.
I really hope this strip and especially the alt-text means Becky has finally given up on that stupid “enemies” thing with Dorothy.
Given how thoroughly Dorothy won that silly game, I think Becky might want to think up a new one.
This looks like Dorothy’s total victory. GO DOROTHY! Now, let’s hope she will meet the new and cooler Walky.
Yup, Dorothy won that war of attrition by wearing down Becky’s snarky facade.
my new position is that some day thousands of strisps down the line these three will be in some type of polycule situation with dina
In the next Julia Grey story we’ll get the slogan, “Re-elect President Doris: She’s impossible to be mad at!”
Joyce been using Becky to vent at Dorothy?
Becky is her grumpy translator.
Not at all sure what went on during the Time Jump, but Dorothy seems a lot more full of herself since the hostage rescue on Lincoln St.
She has the acceptance letter now right? Either enjoying the last days of being a big fish or settling into it.
HOMPK!