I read that Ben Turpin was the first thrown-pie “victim” and he and Mabel Normand worked together under Mack Sennett. Did Mabel Normand throw that first pie at Ben Turpin?
“The first thrown pie caught on film has been attributed to comedienne Mabel Normand at Keystone. One day in 1913 Mabel Normand, attempting to get the famously cross-eyed Ben Turpin to laugh, picked up a lemon meringue pie which some workmen had brought to lunch with them and suddenly smashed it into Turpin’s face. Turpin laughed good-heartedly and wiped the pie from his face. When Keystone Studios founder Mack Sennett saw the scene in the projection room, pie throwing promptly joined pratfalls and mad chases as staples of Keystone comedies.”
We just finished watching Turpin in a Rin Tin Tin serial — one of the very few (perhaps only) full-length movie *speaking* roles of his career. What a comedic genius!
(I read that he insured his eyes at $100,000 — to compensate him for the “harm” to his career if his strabismus should ever heal. A man with priorities!)
Comedic history is important and all, but I’d be rather cross if I went to have my lunch break and found that someone had stolen and destroyed the pie to which I’d been looking forward.
That’s surprising. I would have thought the first pie thrown by one human being at another was either before or not long after the domestication of the cow.
Honestly though, if I were an evil billionaire (good billionaires only exist in fiction) I would 100% invent a service that lets you call in a Drone Pie Strike on someone.
I’m certain the technology exists. Your typical throwing pie is really just whipped cream on a disposable aluminum plate. A drone could probably carry hundreds of such plates, and keep the whipped cream in aerosolized form until ready to dispense. Combined with modern tracking algorithms and facial recognition software, I’m sure it’s possible.
Do i sense a common theme? Pies delivered via technology? QC developed pizza delivery from space some time ago.
If there is ever a crossover comic from Jeph and Willis, it should begin with a collaboration between Ruttech and Hanners’ dad up in the space station. I got a feeling it would be freekin’ hysterical.
Fun Fact: Dave Willis has actually made no less than seven (7) guest strips for Questionable Content! So honestly a crossover comic, probably as promotional material or something, or just another guest strip, wouldn’t be that unlikely.
Yeah, I feel that would get you in trouble with school security. Especially if you used it to throw pies at other students. How knows, maybe Booster is allergic.
Hear me out though, cause at high enough speed that’s essentially just launching and aluminum disk at someone, not to take all fun out of the joke. I just find it humorous to think of the speed needed to launch a pie in a straight line from far enough away that Booster wouldn’t notice. Like Carla can’t just wheel in a pie catapult, cause even reading Booster would see that. It has to be a machine with some serious power.
I kind of just wanted to have fun maybe talking about what the machine could be but I guess I’ve worded this wrong or miscommunicated my intentions. I would appreciate not being called irrational though with upmost sincerity. I wasn’t trying to upset anyone. I’ll just appreciate the joke more next time, I guess. Kind of wish I could delete my comments now.
I’m up for talking about the machine! And the kind of pie that it could’ve launched. I’d thought catapult at first too but that’s indeed a really straight line? As for the pie – I feel like a dense yet light enough synthetic whipped “cream” pie (with one of those disposable aluminium pans) would suffice to maximum SPLAT and minimal damage.
See now I thought it could be some kind of mounted pie bazooka, a pie-zooka if you will. Thing is it needs to be quiet or small enough to not alert Booster or shoot from far enough away they can’t see it. Maybe just a simple pie sling shot with some bungie cord and a remote activated release switch?
I thought your comments were fine and your intent was evident. Sometimes people get aggressive at you on the internet for no good reason. I also have questions about this machine.
It’s because someone on Patreon was arguing that this was a serious assault and so the hackles are already up for some of the folks on patreon. It’s not your fault, Sirksome. Blame that and the residual lack of trust from when a bunch of TERFs were arguing Carla violently assaulted Mary with a pie way back when.
Well, then, what’s the mass of a disposable aluminum pie plate? Do we really think that’s the main problem? It’s padded with a pie. The pie itself probably masses considerably more, and thus is carrying most of the energy. I’d be more worried about injury to the neck than to the face.
Now, indoor distances don’t vary much, and I wouldn’t think that they would be a large factor in the necessary speed. But look at that flat trajectory — that’s going to take some speed.
So, here’s your challenge, Carla: a looooong multi-jointed arm that can extend at the speed of a striking cobra (for surprise) yet pull its punch at the end to deliver humiliation without injury. Bonus points if it can smoosh the pie around after contact, for extra giggles.
In comics, no. Not unless the story decides to subvert the comedic framework intentionally.
One of my favorite dumb little facts is that West Point, yes, that West Point, the US Military University, did a paper studying the dangers of T-Shirt Cannons being fired at close range. Turns out that, at point-blank range, they have about half the kinetic force of a 9mm bullet. Kinda useful knowledge that those that operate those devices should know, to be honest.
Oh, sure. But it can still do a lot of damage at close range if it strikes someone in the face. Something that has happened, when improperly trained employees have a malfunctioning air cannon and don’t handle it properly.
End of the day, an air cannon is still somewhat resembling a cannon, should not be pointed at faces.
I worked as a cook for a long time, and the answer you seek -if we’re talking an organic creme- lies in Swiss meringue.
It’d stay exactly where you put it, have enough weight/density/surface tension to spin and hold shape in a wide pan while doing it, and yet it’s truly really, really light and soft.
(You know your meringue is ready if you can flip the bowl and it doesn’t even move.)
A round of applause for Cartoon Physics — the same universal force that allows coyotes to run off cliffs and not fall until they look down; and ducks to run down twelve flights of stairs to arrive on the sidewalk before the falling piano does.
Nobody told me that! What the fuck? Are you actually serious right now? No sarcasm or jokes, like that’s actually dangerous? I did that right at my fucking head, from like a few inches away. What??? You’re telling me, in direct terms, I could have died from that??
Yeah, the shockwave is still very powerful. There’s a few stories about actors who weren’t aware of the danger putting blank-loaded guns to their heads and pulling the trigger as a joke, with tragic consequences.
Also anything that might be in the barrel will get propelled with the force of a normal bullet. Brandon Lee died when a prop gun had a bullet retained in the barrel from a defective dummy round.
They can be used very safely but there are absolutely ways to get yourself killed with them, not something to fuck around with.
I would hope that even if they find someone obnoxious nobody here would actually want anyone to get seriously injured and potentially dead over webcomic opinions
Ok, now i kinda wanna know the story, if it’s shareable. Were you making a movie? Playing pretend-russian roulette? Was it a prank? Was it sexual roleplay? Or were you just bored?
Just dickin’ around, really. Was over at a friend’s house, there was (I thought) a realistic fake gun nearby, and I had terrible impulse control issues back then, so I just grabbed it and BAM. We all thought it was just really funny, and I didn’t really get why his dad was so upset. I was really bad at understanding other people’s emotions and the reasons for their reactions to things I did, back then. Now, I’ve got no clue why the fuck the guy had an actual gun with blanks in it just sitting on the coffee table, but I think he sold pot (it was 100% illegal back then), so I guess he used it to scare off rude visitors and forgot it was sitting there?
Or possibly I hallucinated the entire thing, come to think of it. I have a substance abuse problem and have insanely vivid nightmares almost nightly, so there’s a non-zero chance it didn’t actually happen and parts of it got mixed with a real memory. If it’s not a real memory, my brain sure does a good job filling in the smells and sounds, and my ear’s sure good at replicating hearing loss.
Not to nitpick, but if I died I wouldn’t be around to be sorry about it. About four other people’s lives would be directly affected, and then they’d move on, with nobody else ever knowing why I suddenly stopped posting.
The impressive part isn’t the throw power. Give me enough rubber bands, a couple heavy chairs, and a phone-operated trigger, and I could do that.
The impressive part is the accuracy achieved by remote operation. I have some ideas on where to start on doing that, but they all require complex electronics. Which I know Carla has, but it’s what sets it above normal college shenanigans.
Nah, it calibrates the fps velocity by how far the target is and the air temperature and wind, so that when the pie reaches its target, it’s slowed to a manageable 4fps.
Military recruiters on campus keep approaching Carla and babbling about her about some sort of plan to weaponize her device, but she’s just like, “It’s a PIE-THROWING DEVICE, you guys, STOP TRYING TO RUIN MY AWESOME INVENTIONS!”
Carla, look, comedic forms of assault and battery are still forms of assault and battery, what, do you think that you’ll be shielded from arrest and/or prosecution by virtue of being the scion of wealthy industr-
…
Oh, right.
(mostly playing the “she’s rich” card for comedic effect here, I know it’s not meant to be taken seriously 🙂 )
Is there any version of events where Booster would want to press charges here? Like, no part of them thinks they *didn’t* bring this on themselves, they just feel satisfied with the trade.
What is your beef with therapists? Because while there are some bad therapists out there, in general the profession and ready access to therapy is a good thing for a society.
AFAIK, unless the patient is actively endangering other people’s lives, therapists are bound to keep medical secrecy.
And as FartCaptor correctly pointed out, a trans person who correctly hates billonaires who’s chosen to become a therapist… And also, is brown? Yeah, no way they’re cop lovers.
Literally all of those groups have people who would involve the police if they were assaulted by a patient as a psychologist, and the percentage increases the more training they’ve had as psych students.
Right, because nothing helps like a bunch of dudes who will show up hours too late to murder someone who ends up being the person who called them for help with ALARMING frequency
“Yes, hello? A patient raised their voice at me, please come spray bullets into my crowded office and also somehow kill my dog, then harass me for years when I attempt to sue the city for damages”
Maybe if you didn’t beat the shit out of your therapist with a desk lamp, they wouldn’t feel so inclined to call the police on you. That’s your own damn fault.
Teachers and especially doctors are absolutely cops and if you don’t know that it’s because you weren’t trans in high school during the bush administration.
I generally consider it poor strategy to assume that other people won’t pursue legally valid remedies for their situation when planning out my own actions :P.
How do you people manage to go outside? “Oh, I better not say hello to this person as I walk past them, they might get me thrown in jail for harassment.”
“Oh, i better not remote-launch ballistic confectionary into the face of that person who smirked at me today because i could be charged with attempted manslaughter, geez.”
The big difference is that throwing a pie at someone’s face IS actually assault (or depending on jurisdiction battery).
People HAVE in fact gotten jail time for it.
Saying hello on the other hand is not actually harassment.
Now this is just an internet comic where the pie is used as a bit of goofery, rather than a real life situation, and should not be taken seriously. but contrary to widespread belief just because something happens in comedies a lot, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a crime in real life.
I didn’t want to add to this particular discourse, because I’m not saying “you can’t make this joke, it’s about something that happened to a friend of mine in high school.” But the commentary has definitely gotten out of the “making a joke” stage when there’s folks (not Vegetals) saying she should be charged with assault.
Throwing harmless food at someone might be classified as assault depending on jurisdiction, but it’s not assault for real. Someone getting charged with / convicted of assault for something like this is a travesty of justice, and I’m still pissed it about it.
I don’t think you were asking me, but it happened to a friend of mine in highschool, it was a french fry, and they got probation, and an anecdote from a pseudonymous stranger is as much I can offer. And because it’s essential context to their case, the friend convicted was non-white with a heavy accent and the so-called victim was a racist preacher’s kid.
Um, if there is literally one thing an incarnation of Ultra-Car is allowed to do (legally, morally, logistically), then it’s insult humans. If there’s a second thing, then it’s absolutely throwing pies. It’s kind of her whole deal.
Carla being so defensive of her parents makes sense but I also note that Booster is using the kind of logic that people who really don’t understand the situation use. She says, “Oh clearly they don’t pay enough in taxes.” Which is weird to put it into a net good. You’re far more likely to have them pay for bombs than children’s education.
Mind you, to make this suitably Willis-y, it reminds me of the accusations Bruce Wayne could fix all of Gotham’s problems. No, he couldn’t, because they’re systemic. He could pay for everyone’s rent in Gotham for a month but then that money would be gone because the system is designed to steal that money from the people who pay it. Just like Gordon can’t fix the police of Gotham because the laws and systems they enforce are inherently broken.
Federal income taxes go to many thing. Defense is big but so is welfare and a whole slew of little programs. State tax — and Indiana actually does have income tax — goes to schools (and roads and prisons).
There’s also giving the money way to causes, or to people.
> No, he couldn’t, because they’re systemic.
True, he can’t fix things. But it’s also true that the people of Gotham need the money more than he does.
Let’s say he has $1 billion to spread around, and there are 1 million Gothamites. Many people would find an extra $1000 in their life at least somewhat helpful. If nothing else, it’s a buffer in a country where many people supposedly can’t cover an unexpected $400 expense.
If you want to feel like you’re having a bigger impact, pick 100,000 people at random and give them $10,000. Or 10,000 who get $100,000.
I’m always amazed how there’s always someone who thinks ‘If you care so much about the poor, why don’t you live in a barrel?’ is a valid point when discussing societal inequality
You mean the way huge corporations generously line their CEOs and shareholders’ pockets with money that is only legally theirs because of a historical and ongoing system of violent appropriation?? Yeah, I’m with you on that one Clif. Quite
I mean they still should probably pay more in taxes beacuse whether it funds the military industrial complex or education which is underfunded they aren’t paying enough of it. Same with corporations. Yeah alot of the budget in the US goes to the military but if the education budget gets more money that’s fine to. Also most of the budgets allocated to social security and Healthcare and we need more to goto it.
How about we agree that the military budget, which literally is just money going into the hands of companies making new weapons we don’t need that also don’t work very well for ridiculous prices, should stop.
And that we should also tax billionaires 99% of their wealth, leaving them 10 million dollars, to do with what they want, and then give all the rest to building housing that costs no money, paying doctors to take care of people without charge, and paying all schooling someone could want so that we can get more doctors in the field, among many other fields.
As much as i would love that it wouldn’t work. The US budget is over 6 trillion dollars taxation is based on yearly income so taxing billionaries 99% each year( alot of billionaries don lt actually make a billion dollars a year) and those who do wouldnt be able to fund a social program of that magnitude given the US has a population of over 300 million.
Even spending no money on defense wouldn’t cover that gap. The US spends over a trillion on social security healthcare and medicare and these programs are still underfunded for what is needed to eliminate systemic poverty. and if you want broader social spending you kind have to tax everyone more though I do agree that taxation should be on a progressive tax scale.
Also raising corporate tax rates and getting rid of tax loopholes and coordinating with other nations to prevent tax havens from arising would go along way. The OECD introduced a minimum corpratee tax (15%) it’s not the best solution but it’s a start.
Shut down the military budget entirely, you say? I trust that means you would be totally fine with Russia just claiming the entirety of Ukraine and turning it into a charnel house? Because that’s what would have already happened if we had no military budget at all to be able to back the Ukrainian resistance. (And China’s annexation of Taiwan would’ve been next.)
Is said budget bloated and clogged with waste? Of course it is. Cutting that budget would give the US considerable ability to do good in the world and at home alike (which, in fact, would help us to encourage the Global South to participate more fully in the economic sanctions against Russia). But we can’t stop someone like Putin with nothing more than sanctions and diplomacy.
I’m not sure if your talking to me but I by no means said cut the defense budget I said even if you cut the defense budget it wouldn’t be enough to cover the current gaps in social spending let alone the massive increased that was proposed above.
It’s funny because I was composing a somewhat facetious defense of Bruce Wayne’s spending priorities within the fictional Gotham and then realized it’s essentially the same as the argument for the military budget.
Bruce donates the vast majority of his wealth to direct help to the people of Gotham, which raises many of them out of poverty, but then the Joker breaks out of Arkham anyway and without all Batman’s wonderful gadgets, the Joker manages to set of a gas bomb in the middle of the city killing millions.
This wouldn’t happen in reality of course, because neither superheros nor supervillains are real, but you also can’t analyze “what Batman should do” as if he didn’t live in a comic book genre world.
However, and note that i am not a batman scholar, but if we’re going to ponder these sorts of alt-universe questions we might also wonder if the Joker (and assorted supervillains) aren’t precisely tailored to make Batman’s vigilantism indispensable.
Or to put it differently: how do the underlying assumptions needed for a moneyed heir capitalist to be the good guy, also determine the sort of threats (terrorists?) that they are tasked with neutralizing?
I can only ask the questions and hope that they are pertinent because again, i don’t junkie all that much about Batman
I don’t think they’re really any more linked to the assumptions than the idea that Superman creates evil billionaires, super powered monsters and alien conquerors by his mere presence.
Comic book genre settings don’t really support this kind of analysis.
On the meta level, sure. The Joker exists to give Batman someone interesting to oppose, but it’s a lot harder to argue that’s true within the fiction. Maybe with the Joker, but only because writers keep playing with the meta.
Well that’s kinda the point of a supervillain. You pick a societal problem, turn ’em into a character and then have the hero defeat them and put ’em in jail (even if only temporarily).
My read is that Booster isn’t arguing seriously or in good faith. They’re just trying to annoy Carla Bugs Bunny style. Instead of duck season and rabbit season, Booster’s trying to get her to say it’s Charlie season, not Carla season. Or at least say something, anything other than Carla season.
I maintain that the amount of money Bruce has could do something towards fixing systemic issues. No he shouldn’t give everyone money directly, but he can fund programs that would improve the situation.
He does, actually! In comic canon (the comics that aren’t written by Frank Miller and his fans), it’s talked about a lot in several continuities.
I give Bruce and Wayne Industries a pass because as the “No Man’s Land” storyline revealed (and canon kept), Gotham has so little federal resources they might as well have none, and that’s before the mafia drains the rest. No state wants to deal with them. So Bruce puts funds into the city’s schooling, healthcare, and housing programs; and personally gets people jobs in his company to lower recidivism rates.
There’s even one issue where Batman defeats the baddie of the week by playing a video of Bruce Wayne basically saying ‘If you quit henching now, you could have a Wayne Industries job by the end of tomorrow; if you don’t, you’ll have to wait until you get out of jail and recover from being beaten up by Batman without any help from your current employer’ and all the mooks scarper
But he can only fund those programs (and keep them from being corrupted by the usual Gotham corruption) if he retains control, which requires him to stay absurdly rich.
Oh, believe me – I’m… Pretty radically anti-billionaires IRL, and I usually dislike them in fiction too (Tony Stark is a warmonger lmaooo). I make an exception with Batman because it’s Batman,and comic canon keeps actually discussing the ethics of it all instead of going like, “hey aren’t we lucky he’s rich”.
I’m not perfect! “Nobody’s righteous, not even one” and all that ;3
Re: the Ruttens – DOA is way more grounded a world than a superhero universe. And when Booster brought up realistic billionaires, it was like “oh ok, they come with every shitty thing the title implies”; for I have zero reason to believe they’re somehow ~special magical uber-rich~ in a comic where at most the laws of physics had been gracefully bent so Amber survived chasing The Toe and saved Becky.
Paying taxes is a net good, though. The overall economy’s well-being comes from paying taxes. Taxes are what funds regulation, and regulation is what fixes corporate shitlordism.
The trick is making it so that that corporations pay more taxes. Right now, we mostly pay the corporations to build office space and warehouses in our cities. This is extremely bad and wrong, because not only is the money flowing the wrong way, but the promised economic boon doesn’t happen because the corporations aren’t paying their employees fair wages, either.
Now, granted, you do need to make sure that the laws that the taxes are funding enforcement of are also good. But I think that’s probably easier in comparison.
Taxes on the rich are a net good, because they’re a direct way to reduce their outsized power and influence. As well as countering the natural long term trend towards concentration of wealth.
Regulation is also necessary, as is social spending, but those are separate issues. Taxing the rich would still be good even if we just set the money on fire.
This still misunderstands federal taxation and spending. The government doesn’t need to tax to spend, as we should be able to see by a quick glance at the budget. Spending creates money. Taxation destroys it. The difference between the two affects inflation, but not in any simple or direct way – when not taken to extremes.
We can spend more on bombs or education without increasing the Rutten’s taxes. Or we can increase their taxes without buying more bombs or funding more schools.
We should, in my opinion, tax the rich much more heavily. Not because we need the money to spend on education or whatever, but because progressive taxation counters inequality and the otherwise inevitable concentration of wealth. Social welfare spending does too (and even more it boosts the economy), but taxation is a far more direct way to reduce the power and influence of the most powerful.
When there’s tax cuts for the wealthy, public services are on the chopping block, not the military. What’s with all the “billionaires shouldn’t be disincentivized to horde all the money they don’t need and didn’t earn” rationalization going on?
There’s definitely been a lot of defense of billionaires in the comments the last 2-3 days. Reminder that nobody gains that much money without either inheriting it from their rich parents and/or exploiting the workers.
Cheer up, comrade :33 There’s also been a lot of fierce, furious rebuking of the system. I’ve been pretty happy to see many an internet space growing leftier in the last ten years.
I thought the tax comment was referring to the tax breaks they were getting from the charity Carla mentioned. Because that’s the main reason most rich people do carity
If anyone attempts “Carla throwing a pie is ASSAULT” discourse on here for the second time in this comic’s history, you are going to double prison. No parole
No, I don’t care what legal definition you’re about to pull out. I don’t. Learn to dislike people you find aggrevating (yes, EVEN IF they’re trans) like a normal goddamn person instead of a Republican congressman
By any legal definition of the term, it is battery. That’s just a simple factual statement.
We shouldn’t be caring (beyond silly jokes about how Carla’s destined for Custard-y) because its so clearly framed as a silly gag. Its fine to just go “oh, this is meant to be silly, lets just let it be silly unless the narrative decides to make more of it”.
Wrathy I just want you to know I won’t be reading your reply beyond the opening sentence which immediately goes into legal technicalities as if I hadn’t already pointed out that I do not want to hear about anyone’s hard-on for weaponizing the legal system on the flimsiest excuse
I’m going to assume your brain made a bunch of gross poopy sounds as you slumped face-first onto the keyboard from the effort of attempting to process language
@Liara @jflb96 double prison for you two as well. You have been found guilty by the kangaroo court of me of one count each of: literal-mindedness in the face of comedic hyperbole, under section 69 of the Online Silliness Act. Consider yourselves lucky no r/whooshing is performed upon your persons on account of it no longer being cool.
A fascinating history of public pie throwing stunts, including several incidents in which it was prosecuted or investigated under so-called “anti-terrorism” laws.
That’s what I’m saying. Since this was politically motivated, Carla should be tried in federal court for domestic terrorism charges and face the death penalty for this. But she won’t because her parents are rich.
I truly do wish more people in the comments would take this attitude more broadly with the comic in general.
If something might be kinda innapropriate in the real world, and all the present characters are fine with it, we can assume that some level of handwaving is being done for the sake of narrative (or potentially 4 panel comic structure)
I was trying to work out a joke about Carla giving Booster a cream pie but I couldn’t see anyway of finishing it without the strong possibility of offending someone so well done to you
“If anyone wants to apply logic to a comic that regularly uses logic to dismantle dumb arguments and comedy to dismantle my dumb argument or this comedy, you’re wrong.”
This comic used the comedy of a super hero fighting people in the streets and took it seriously enough to acknowledge it was unhealthy assault of others in the end. So saying that we should ignore all situations because ‘comedy’, when there is absolutely still an element of realism in it, is hilariously dumb.
I can read just fine and Fart has been extremely aggressive and rude to anyone pointing out that the entitled rich child is going to get away with assault and trying to pretend that calling the cops on someone for literal assault is somehow weaponizing cops.
Nobody said we should ignore all situations “because comedy”. That wasn’t said by even one single person. Calling the police because somebody put whipped cream on your face is weaponising cops, though. That situation does not remotely warrant that response, and if your first instinct is to go directly to hired thugs over a minor inconvenience (which is what cops are), you’re a fucking moron.
I don’t know how hard you think a plate of whipped cream is to throw in a straight line, but divide that by half and then half again. And then a third time for good measure. This isn’t a problem at all, much less one that requires an armed response.
Hey Fart Captor, maybe go a little easy on the aggro and the ableism? Especially when Wraithy (with an “i”) was actively arguing against weaponizing the legal system? It’s kind of mean and shitty of you for no reason, underneath a comic with a pie-to-the-face gag, no less.
Why not just enjoy seeing an incarnation of Ultra-Car doing what she does best, instead of mocking the mental abilities of someone who agrees with you that holding this event against Carla would be a wrong-headed and silly thing to do? And if you absolutely must use differing cognitive capabilities as a pejorative (a super cool thing to do), maybe don’t specifically go after someone’s ability to process language (wow, cool cool cool) while also displaying an inability to spell that person’s name.
L: “Please show your doctor’s report on your injuries.”
B: “Uh, I wasn’t physically injured.”
L: “Did your reputation suffer?”
B: “Uh, no.”
L: “Did you fear for your life?”
B: “Uh, no.”
Judge: “So you basically have no case to present. Get outta my court.”
Actual real life people have in fact gotten actual real life jail time for throwing pies in other peoples faces.
Not a lot of it, but a few weeks to maybe a month or two.
You can see some prominent examples involving various political figures on wikipedia’s page for “pieing”, but it has also happened in cases that doesn’t involve anyone with any kind of political power. For instance I know of a case a few decades ago where a radio show got a listener to throw a pie in the face of some poor bakery clerk for a contest (without the clerks knowledge or consent obviously). IIRC the thrower got a conditional sentence while the hosts got a few days each in physical jail and the rest as conditional.
Working together with someone you supposedly dislike in order to hatch convoluted plans to get with one of their relatives/friends IS a staple of romantic comedy!
Fine, but can I at least request lemon pie? It’s not my favorite, but if I’m gonna be picking bits of crust and filling off of my face, I’d like to smell fabulous afterward.
Narratively speaking, I love Willis’ writing because he’s got an excellent sense of timing. After several polemical strips, defusing the tension with random but IC silliness is good for the story and the commentariat’s blood pressure :33
Plus, I doubt it’s the last time the topic will get touched upon. What’s been seen cannot be unseen.
it’s not a waste if the baker can use the profits to make more/expand. Be hilarious if it was one local baker was singlehandedly funded by carla the last few years
like parks and rec “No, you’re my favorite customer, last year you spend one thousand dollars one waffles alone”
I choose to take this to mean there’s only one girl in Dumbing of Age, and that’s Carla. Whether that’s what you meant or not is immaterial, Death of the Author is my right as a person who read something for free.
Also, this is a minor quibble in the grand scheme, but whipped cream in a tin is not a fucking pie. It’s whipped cream. Putting pink lemonade in my coffee cup doesn’t make it coffee, pouring pizza sauce on some tortilla chips doesn’t make them pizza, and putting whipped cream in an aluminium disc does not make it a pie. Learn what things are.
All cream pies are assumed to have a crust in between the cream and the pie tin until proven otherwise, per the Three Stooges NES/GBA game and an Archie comic from 1983.
You don’t know what gatekeeping is. If the only way you can “enjoy this comic” is by taking a very tame, normal gag as literal fucking assault you also don’t know what joy is.
I enjoy it for the character interactions and occasional hilarious slapstick. You apparently enjoy it as an outlet for your excess scolding impulses. We don’t seem to be the same.
There’s also no gate to be kept. You’re hallucinating that part in the first place.
They seem almost unflappable, really. The strongest reaction I’ve seen out of them was when Joyce and Becky were talking about shows they couldn’t watch as kids, and “Eastern religion” came up as part of it, and Booster looked really confused and asked what that even meant. Otherwise, they seem to greet every shenanigan with no more than a mild frown and a snarky remark.
I see Carla growing up to create a new division of Ruttech dedicated to creating Acme Corporation-like products, only because she’s a brilliant engineer the products actually work like they’re supposed to.
I am embarrassed to say I didn’t remember until I read the hovertext! ::facepalm:: Best Dumbiverse callback they’ve given us in a long time. Kudos to Willis!
What Carla is doing is assault, comic or no. What is happening in the comic is humorous, whatever may be said about it. This comic has used real-life logic for both humorous and non-humorous effect. This is the comment section where people discuss the goings on of a comic. No one gets to declare what can and can not be discussed except Willis themselves, as far as I know. Anyone who feels they need to declare what can or can not be discussed, or that others need to “calm down” really need to back off for a day or two and decide why they feel the need to gatekeep a comics comment section.
Saying someone cant post something because you disagree with the discussion being posted ia gatekeeping. Nobody is telling Willis to change the comkc so Carla gets arrested, they are accurately pointing out something about the comic and discussing it.
The only one telling anybody they can’t post something is you, telling people not to tell people not to post. You started this ouroboros, it’s your responsibility now
I don’t get why some people here are getting upset over the people in the comments who are pointing out the potential real-world consequences of throwing pies in faces. Sure it’s a comic, but we should be allowed to react to it in more ways than just “funny slapstick haha”. Can we let people enjoy the comic how they want?
I’d say it comes down to how people are perceiving the characters and what they’re “allowed” to do by the commentariat. Mike was by almost every metric a villain who’d spent years working on a campaign of abuse on both Amber and Ethan, and people defend him to this day.
Carla, whose strips are 99% slapstick, 1% “Oh, fuck, mood whiplash, everything is way too real,” engages in some of that slapstick in one of her appearances where she’s not supposed to be taken seriously, and we get “Well, Carla’s only getting out of a definite assault charge because of her billionaire parents.”
I was in jail long ago (pretrial detention) with a young woman who was wracking herself with anguish because she had once thrown an egg at a police officer as part of a theatrical stunt. She was beating herself up, agonizing over whether the stunt had called into question her commitment to political activism through nonviolence. The question was whether launching ANY projectile, even something as relatively harmless as an egg (unless one happens to be allergic or vegan), might be considered to be an act of violence. Then, once prosecutors can prove even a single act of political “violence” in one’s past, one’s personal commitment to nonviolence ceases to be a character defense to much greater charges.
…It’s funny how the convex funhouse mirror of legal sanction and isolation causes us to put our whole lives under the microscope, wracking our brains to re-examine how any detail in our past might be twisted and skewed to use against us.
I mean, not funny ha-ha, but yeah…
Hope your jailmate got off ok.
I’m sure, if you were anything back then like you are today, you did your best to help her with her anxiety. <3
And how did it go for you? Hopefully you weren't in a worse situation than her or it must have been unpleasant having to help de-escalate someone's panic when you have better grounds for worry yourself =/
Thanks, milu. Yeah, it’s all over now. It was long ago. She got off OK. Stayed in theatre. Made a career of it. I’m proud to have known her. Brave lady. Very sincere. Dedicated in her principles.
Me, I was way f***ed up at the time. So I ran lots of laps in the concrete yard outside when I had the opportunity. Smoked cigarettes when I could get them. Took as many hot showers as I could. Sang old prison songs in every language I knew, at the top of my lungs. Wrote compulsively in my diary, then tore the pages up into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet, as there was absolutely NO privacy. Read the Bible in two languages. Read a foreign language dictionary cover to cover. Prayed a lot. Read lots of letters. Tried to write the occasional letter out. Went to chapel every day and talked with the chaplain — such a kind old man. My “good shepherd”.
It was OK, but I was in dire need of medical care at the time, and it simply was not available.
Things are better now. Much better. Thank you!
Time and reformatting of memory and perspective and processing and medication, sunshine and fresh air and exercise and meaningful work to do, occasional sleep … and still, lots of Bible and prayer, keep me sane. I know those tools aren’t for everyone, but for me, it’s good to have an anchor.
Well, one of my favorites is “Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.”
“Paul and Silas were bound in jail. Had no money for to go their bail. Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on. Hold on.
Paul and Silas began to shout. Doors sprang open and they walked out. Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on. Hold on.
Ain’t but one chain we can stand. And that’s the chain of a hand in hand. Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on. Hold on.”
Yeah, I was inside for a bit. I was pretty wrecked when I came out. Took a few years, but I got better. It just takes a while. Long while, sometimes.
‘s why I’m kinda flabbergasted that the DOA youngsters are still in school and aren’t just straight-up dissociating every day. I get Amber still does, but she did that already. Seems like Dorothy is cracking apart a little bit, at least in her dreams. And Joyce split off into “Anti-Joyce” or some such when she suddenly climbed a tall tree. And Ethan’s in a depressive spiral. And Walky’s surfing a giant wave of denial. So, folks aren’t really all “OK”.
…But that kind of split-level vision (one view of the world seeing present reality, the other view seeing past at the same time) is SO common, and SO disruptive to everyday academic life… I’m very surprised not to see it here among the former hostages of Blaine and Ross.
1) Cherry pie for reals. Imma Ms Pac Man for that 😋🥧
2) Carla’s cream pie, given how light it is, my alien hoodie has a clear face shield where it can wipe right off, gonna add like mini windshield wipers too it eventually heehee
Oh, perfect! I have such happy memories of picking apples, then peeling then and making applie pie from scratch with my mom. Such Good Times… (sighs happily)
Best is apple, but I’d rather get hit in the face with cherry because I can shamelessly pick out the cherries and eat them more easily than I could with apple.
1) Blueberry.
2) Imaginary, like, you mime picking up a pie and throwing it at me. The statement has been made but I can afford to laugh along with you.
Chocolate chess, though I make a mean coconut cream and butterscotch cinnamon when I feel like putting the effort in. I made keylime the other day and like, quick whipped cream recipe bc I liked that more than the pie and homemade is better than canned when you can do it.
One part sugar, two parts whipping cream (I used a half cup and a cup), throw that in the stand mixer and add just like a half teaspoon or so depending on what measurements you’re working with, whip that badboy with the whisk attachment till it’s thick. If you’re jacked or patient with stamina you can do it by hand in the absence of various mixing robots. I just have not stopped thinking about this whipped cream for like a week
Banana Cream Pies are my favorite to eat, all the way.
What I’d prefer to be hit in the face with…well, tbh, as funny as it is to watch somebody ELSE get hit in the face with a pie, I think I’d actually react really poorly to having all that mess on my face. So I’d much prefer to be hit in the face with something less funny, but also much lighter and less goopy, like a brownie or cookie or something.
Anyone analyzing the morality of the Three Stooges needs to step back, shave the hair off their neck, burn their fedora, delete their YouTube rant channel, throw away all their energy drinks, sell their katanas, and take a damn shower.
See, I’d call that the to-do list of someone who posts something like ‘*rabid growling and snarling sounds* *guttural howling that activates your primal fight or flight instinct* *ancient Norwegian swear words*’
Carla needs MORE ribbing from Booster if this is her reaction to being messed with. Damn rich kids unable to handle their ego being poked, kinda like Melon of Mars.
Careful, Carla. In some areas that’s actually enough to count as assault. You do not physically put your hands on or throw objects at other people just because you dislike them.
No, you don’t put your hands on or throw objects at other people just because you dislike them. You weren’t born squatchgender, so you have no opinion here. Check your fucking privilege.
I doubt their glasses survive. Probably gonna have a nose bleed if not a broken nose.
Granted this is one of those “rule of comic” strips, where the physical gag is sort of intended just for the laff and not something that actually occurs. So I’m (hypocritically) not actually too upset about this.
It weighs like one pound, is mostly air, and traveled like 10ft, maximum. If Booster’s nose is broken, they have the weakest nose in the history of noses.
I’m an uneducated fuckin’ moron who can barely tell what’s real in my immediate vicinity, most days. Outsmarting me isn’t something to brag about. What, do you gloat when you outrun a chair, too?
Y’know what as a glasses wearer I take back everything I said in defense of the slapstick. There’s no way they’re broken but now they’re covered in cream which is worse. That’s gonna be such a bongo to clean. I think this counts as terrorism and Carla should be sent to the moon mines
Good thing there’s “won’t anyone think of the poor unfortunate billionaires” and “throwing harmless food should get you a criminal record” discourses because otherwise I would have brought up how Freudian the cream pie and that chair design are together, and been mortified there’s no delete button.
Regardless of whether this pie could do any physical damage it’s still a mess someone has to clean up. Truthfully I don’t like either one of these two, but if I have to pick a side it’s Booster. They were minding their business before this insufferable attention seeker showed up.
Sometimes stage pies are made with shaving cream, no? Booster might find, after a little water is applied, that glasses and shirt are cleaner than before.
Listen, I’m not gonna waste time with arguing the ethics of billionaires existing (they shouldn’t) or if booster is right (they are). I’m just going to appreciate some classic banter and vaudeville.
Economy of scale, like, seriously????? A better criticism would be that they had to have been born into privilege in the first place in order to have accomplished that, but that’s not actually a criticism of these people in particular, is it? When you go out of your way to make things hurtful or overly personal, you’re not just being honest, you’re being creepy.
I want booster to meet malaya. I won’t say how it’ll go but I believe that if they crossed paths malaya’s presence in boosters life would induce much needed, uncomfortable growth.
Also booster reflects the worst aspects of who I am as a person but more concentrated and smug about it so it’s just weirdly personal for me. also that’s incredibly shitty and SO typical for this type of leftist. Just… Wow! What a trash fire.
I don’t think the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies would have taken Booster’s answer on an essay or anything but as an off-the-cuff rebuttal it’s not the end of the world.
Doesn’t understand economics? Debatable. I mean, he’s not wrong that concentrations of personal wealth in the billions are only possible via wage theft. Any plausible mechanism of inheritance between Carla’s parents’ wealth and the wage theft is really only wage theft with extra steps when you get right down to it.
Albeit, I am also still curious to see just what chemistry is to happen between Charlie and Carla, if any.
I find it indescribably poignant that today’s strip is literally just one character throwing a pie at another character’s face, and yet numerous people are still getting into extremely heated arguments about the moral and ethical qualities of those characters. Like, I’m pretty sure at least half of those people are are doing this semi-ironically, but that really just makes it all the more awe-inspiring. This little community you’ve created here, Willis, is TRULY an inspiration.
Throwing pies at people is based because it’s both funny and giving out free food, making it an act of kindness to any but the wealthy or allergic. This is a fair trade.
Booster showing significantly less self awareness than I’ve come to expect. Sounds like they didn’t see that conversation as them intentionally pushing her buttons.
(Aside: this is one of those weird grammatical situations where “them” still scans as plural for me and I have to do a double take)
How is “I hope I wasn’t too harsh” anything but self awareness? It’s actually possible for a person to worry they’ve gone too far, after they behave in a certain way. We call it remorse. Something that seems like a foreign concept to a lot of posters here.
If you’re intentionally making someone angry for the lulz, an overreach is not “harsh”, it’s “mean”. “harsh” is how you describe something that you think is actually helping a person, rather than something you do for your own enjoyment (which Booster was doing).
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Carla’s patron saints: Tony Stark and Mabel Normand.
(Normand threw the first ever pie, and according to producer Mack Sennett she invented the gag.)
I read that Ben Turpin was the first thrown-pie “victim” and he and Mabel Normand worked together under Mack Sennett. Did Mabel Normand throw that first pie at Ben Turpin?
Pie Throwing In Comedy: A Brief History suggests yes!
“The first thrown pie caught on film has been attributed to comedienne Mabel Normand at Keystone. One day in 1913 Mabel Normand, attempting to get the famously cross-eyed Ben Turpin to laugh, picked up a lemon meringue pie which some workmen had brought to lunch with them and suddenly smashed it into Turpin’s face. Turpin laughed good-heartedly and wiped the pie from his face. When Keystone Studios founder Mack Sennett saw the scene in the projection room, pie throwing promptly joined pratfalls and mad chases as staples of Keystone comedies.”
Fantastic! I love it!
We just finished watching Turpin in a Rin Tin Tin serial — one of the very few (perhaps only) full-length movie *speaking* roles of his career. What a comedic genius!
(I read that he insured his eyes at $100,000 — to compensate him for the “harm” to his career if his strabismus should ever heal. A man with priorities!)
Did the workmen get a replacement pie?
Comedic history is important and all, but I’d be rather cross if I went to have my lunch break and found that someone had stolen and destroyed the pie to which I’d been looking forward.
I agree, would be very sad to have lost that pie 😛 I guess we probably won’t know that history though…
That’s surprising. I would have thought the first pie thrown by one human being at another was either before or not long after the domestication of the cow.
I’m not sure that throwing cows counts.
But cow pies might!
Utterly, they do..
Shouldn’t that be udder-ly?
I think the precision here is that this was the first FILMED intentional comedic pie throwing, not the first time anyone has ever thrown a pie.
carla i love u
she’s the best
Dina is objectively the best.
Carla is the second best.
How dare you??!!
tell me it’s borne by a red SUV or hybrid car chassis
These days, Carla delivers pies via drone.
Honestly though, if I were an evil billionaire (good billionaires only exist in fiction) I would 100% invent a service that lets you call in a Drone Pie Strike on someone.
I’m certain the technology exists. Your typical throwing pie is really just whipped cream on a disposable aluminum plate. A drone could probably carry hundreds of such plates, and keep the whipped cream in aerosolized form until ready to dispense. Combined with modern tracking algorithms and facial recognition software, I’m sure it’s possible.
What about a drone whose structure itself can rearrange into a catapult?
_Transformer noises_
Do i sense a common theme? Pies delivered via technology? QC developed pizza delivery from space some time ago.
If there is ever a crossover comic from Jeph and Willis, it should begin with a collaboration between Ruttech and Hanners’ dad up in the space station. I got a feeling it would be freekin’ hysterical.
Fun Fact: Dave Willis has actually made no less than seven (7) guest strips for Questionable Content! So honestly a crossover comic, probably as promotional material or something, or just another guest strip, wouldn’t be that unlikely.
https://questionablecontent.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_guest_strips
I feel like a pie launching machine that can send a pie that far would be dangerous.
Yeah, I feel that would get you in trouble with school security. Especially if you used it to throw pies at other students. How knows, maybe Booster is allergic.
I really need to be better at proof-reading. My comment is nearly more error than grammar. Sorry.
All good! We understood!
It’s a goddamn pie, and Carla knows what she’s doing
Hear me out though, cause at high enough speed that’s essentially just launching and aluminum disk at someone, not to take all fun out of the joke. I just find it humorous to think of the speed needed to launch a pie in a straight line from far enough away that Booster wouldn’t notice. Like Carla can’t just wheel in a pie catapult, cause even reading Booster would see that. It has to be a machine with some serious power.
throws a pie at you
Mmm… banana cream and peanut butter! Delish! ;-9
That’s an “Elvis” at the local pie baker. Last I checked they were about $10.
Given that it’s a comic and Booster is completely unharmed, you seem very irrational
Obviously Carla considered the engineering challenges with launching a pie *harmlessly* over a distance and overcame them
UNSAFELY launching a pie is not something that would challenge an engineering student 🙄
Yeah, when have tech scions ever cut corners on safety?
Usually when they’re making canned soup.
I kind of just wanted to have fun maybe talking about what the machine could be but I guess I’ve worded this wrong or miscommunicated my intentions. I would appreciate not being called irrational though with upmost sincerity. I wasn’t trying to upset anyone. I’ll just appreciate the joke more next time, I guess. Kind of wish I could delete my comments now.
Carla cut Booster in half with a well-aimed destructo disc.
I’m up for talking about the machine! And the kind of pie that it could’ve launched. I’d thought catapult at first too but that’s indeed a really straight line? As for the pie – I feel like a dense yet light enough synthetic whipped “cream” pie (with one of those disposable aluminium pans) would suffice to maximum SPLAT and minimal damage.
Ooh, ooh, better yet… how about a BOOMERANG pie?! Then she could toss it in a curve!
Hey, has anyone here besides me ever participated in a pie-toss relay race? The most delicious and messiest of all sports… :-9
I love pie shop talk!
What if the pie built itself mid-flight. Or like unpacked (?)somehow?
See now I thought it could be some kind of mounted pie bazooka, a pie-zooka if you will. Thing is it needs to be quiet or small enough to not alert Booster or shoot from far enough away they can’t see it. Maybe just a simple pie sling shot with some bungie cord and a remote activated release switch?
I thought your comments were fine and your intent was evident. Sometimes people get aggressive at you on the internet for no good reason. I also have questions about this machine.
It’s because someone on Patreon was arguing that this was a serious assault and so the hackles are already up for some of the folks on patreon. It’s not your fault, Sirksome. Blame that and the residual lack of trust from when a bunch of TERFs were arguing Carla violently assaulted Mary with a pie way back when.
I’m sure the machine spin-stabilizes the pie so it flies straighter, even with its largest surface facing into the wind.
Oh, yeah! And don’t get Marty McFly started on the dangers of throwing pie tins!
https://youtu.be/sWfmN6F5SjE?si=cJFTEpm9STg5Z3AU
Well, she is stupidly rich, maybe she has a portal gun.
You guys…come on
I’m not trying to start some weird pie assault discourse here. I just thought the potential mechanics of the machine were worth thinking about.
Oh, definitely! I am all for an exploration of the engineering challenge!
:’D
One can never be too careful with pies. Just ask Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer, J.D., about the horribly stupid stunt (which has led to his untimely death).
https://theyesmen.org/project/salzburg/horriblystupidstunt
(Don’t worry, he didn’t really die!)
Well, then, what’s the mass of a disposable aluminum pie plate? Do we really think that’s the main problem? It’s padded with a pie. The pie itself probably masses considerably more, and thus is carrying most of the energy. I’d be more worried about injury to the neck than to the face.
Now, indoor distances don’t vary much, and I wouldn’t think that they would be a large factor in the necessary speed. But look at that flat trajectory — that’s going to take some speed.
So, here’s your challenge, Carla: a looooong multi-jointed arm that can extend at the speed of a striking cobra (for surprise) yet pull its punch at the end to deliver humiliation without injury. Bonus points if it can smoosh the pie around after contact, for extra giggles.
The world shall be emptied of whimsy!!! Fun and mirth shall fade from memory!!! The comment boards shall know me and despair!!!
Sorry.
Look upon ye, mighty, and despair!
Better call him Ozy-PAN-dias, from all them pie pans lying around!
In reality, yes.
In comics, no. Not unless the story decides to subvert the comedic framework intentionally.
One of my favorite dumb little facts is that West Point, yes, that West Point, the US Military University, did a paper studying the dangers of T-Shirt Cannons being fired at close range. Turns out that, at point-blank range, they have about half the kinetic force of a 9mm bullet. Kinda useful knowledge that those that operate those devices should know, to be honest.
If you’re weirdly curious, you can read the study here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307577201_Risk_Assessment_of_Air_Cannons_at_Sporting_Events
But this is fiction, so we should just treat this as a pie-in-the-face gag. Don’t need to delve more into it than that.
But that kinetic force is spread out over a much wider area.
Oh, sure. But it can still do a lot of damage at close range if it strikes someone in the face. Something that has happened, when improperly trained employees have a malfunctioning air cannon and don’t handle it properly.
End of the day, an air cannon is still somewhat resembling a cannon, should not be pointed at faces.
Poor Maude Flanders, we hardly knew ye…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alone_Again,_Natura-Diddily
to say nothing of the air resistance of a pie and other matters of aerodynamics
now i’m wondering if the pie spins to aid in stability in flight
i’m talking gyroscopic pie wind tunnel testing here
and also how stiff the creme has to be to stay in the pan
and does rutten industries have any eggs in the home-ec-industrial complex basket
there are so many questions, a surprising number of them culinary
I worked as a cook for a long time, and the answer you seek -if we’re talking an organic creme- lies in Swiss meringue.
It’d stay exactly where you put it, have enough weight/density/surface tension to spin and hold shape in a wide pan while doing it, and yet it’s truly really, really light and soft.
(You know your meringue is ready if you can flip the bowl and it doesn’t even move.)
A round of applause for Cartoon Physics — the same universal force that allows coyotes to run off cliffs and not fall until they look down; and ducks to run down twelve flights of stairs to arrive on the sidewalk before the falling piano does.
ReplacementMike getting killed due to trolling a troll until the troll trolled back seems pretty poetic.
A bit like blank rounds then
Okay, but those are safe actually. I’ve tested it on myself.
People have died from getting shot at with blanks
Nobody told me that! What the fuck? Are you actually serious right now? No sarcasm or jokes, like that’s actually dangerous? I did that right at my fucking head, from like a few inches away. What??? You’re telling me, in direct terms, I could have died from that??
The odds were in your favor, but I seriously do not recommend it.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19901805/
Yeah, the shockwave is still very powerful. There’s a few stories about actors who weren’t aware of the danger putting blank-loaded guns to their heads and pulling the trigger as a joke, with tragic consequences.
Also anything that might be in the barrel will get propelled with the force of a normal bullet. Brandon Lee died when a prop gun had a bullet retained in the barrel from a defective dummy round.
They can be used very safely but there are absolutely ways to get yourself killed with them, not something to fuck around with.
Well, fuck. Didn’t realise how close I was cutting it. That must disappoint some of the folks here, knowing I lucked out.
I would hope that even if they find someone obnoxious nobody here would actually want anyone to get seriously injured and potentially dead over webcomic opinions
Yeah, cuz anyone here gives a fuck if you live or die, especially to the point they’d be glad if you successfully committed suicide. 🙄
I actually very much do give a fuck if Taffy lives or dies. I am very much on the side of them living.
I sawed Taffy in half with a lemon cream destructo disc.
Ok, now i kinda wanna know the story, if it’s shareable. Were you making a movie? Playing pretend-russian roulette? Was it a prank? Was it sexual roleplay? Or were you just bored?
Just dickin’ around, really. Was over at a friend’s house, there was (I thought) a realistic fake gun nearby, and I had terrible impulse control issues back then, so I just grabbed it and BAM. We all thought it was just really funny, and I didn’t really get why his dad was so upset. I was really bad at understanding other people’s emotions and the reasons for their reactions to things I did, back then. Now, I’ve got no clue why the fuck the guy had an actual gun with blanks in it just sitting on the coffee table, but I think he sold pot (it was 100% illegal back then), so I guess he used it to scare off rude visitors and forgot it was sitting there?
Or possibly I hallucinated the entire thing, come to think of it. I have a substance abuse problem and have insanely vivid nightmares almost nightly, so there’s a non-zero chance it didn’t actually happen and parts of it got mixed with a real memory. If it’s not a real memory, my brain sure does a good job filling in the smells and sounds, and my ear’s sure good at replicating hearing loss.
I’m very glad you survived Bruno’s destructo disc. The comment section would be less interesting without you.
Long ago I was taught: do not point a firearm at anything you would be sorry to have killed. Period. No exceptions.
Not to nitpick, but if I died I wouldn’t be around to be sorry about it. About four other people’s lives would be directly affected, and then they’d move on, with nobody else ever knowing why I suddenly stopped posting.
that’s what makes it awesome
The impressive part isn’t the throw power. Give me enough rubber bands, a couple heavy chairs, and a phone-operated trigger, and I could do that.
The impressive part is the accuracy achieved by remote operation. I have some ideas on where to start on doing that, but they all require complex electronics. Which I know Carla has, but it’s what sets it above normal college shenanigans.
Nah, it calibrates the fps velocity by how far the target is and the air temperature and wind, so that when the pie reaches its target, it’s slowed to a manageable 4fps.
This is what happens when you get engineers involved in comedy.
Better them than MBAs…
Or worse! JDs!
I choose to believe that JDs are Juvenile Delinquents.
I’m fairness, that would be a terrible degree to seek.
Eh. Same diff. 😆 xD
Yeah, someone’s liable to get creamed.
Military recruiters on campus keep approaching Carla and babbling about her about some sort of plan to weaponize her device, but she’s just like, “It’s a PIE-THROWING DEVICE, you guys, STOP TRYING TO RUIN MY AWESOME INVENTIONS!”
Aaand now I’m thinking of the Mallah/Brain episode of My Adventures With Superman.
Lol the pettiness
And that’s just us in the comment section.
No no, this place isn’t petty, it’s openly hostile. Like, bad for people’s mental well-being type of stuff.
The hell it is! In this essay
Carla, look, comedic forms of assault and battery are still forms of assault and battery, what, do you think that you’ll be shielded from arrest and/or prosecution by virtue of being the scion of wealthy industr-
…
Oh, right.
(mostly playing the “she’s rich” card for comedic effect here, I know it’s not meant to be taken seriously 🙂 )
Is there any version of events where Booster would want to press charges here? Like, no part of them thinks they *didn’t* bring this on themselves, they just feel satisfied with the trade.
Wonder what those charges look like on paper. Victim was assaulted by a high velocity whip cream based projectile.
Suggesting Booster would get cops involved over this is possibly the meanest thing you could say about them
Most therapists would, it’s their job.
I’m not aware of what kind of therapist is out there getting paid to call the cops on people over anything that mildly annoys them
I also can’t imagine a trans person who correctly hates billionaires choosing such a career
Yeah, I’m hoping Booster gets some sense and changes their path.
What is your beef with therapists? Because while there are some bad therapists out there, in general the profession and ready access to therapy is a good thing for a society.
I could write a book on that.
No we definitely need more trans therapists
Call the cops for a pie incident?
This is a campus that all but ignored a rifle discharge last semester
AFAIK, unless the patient is actively endangering other people’s lives, therapists are bound to keep medical secrecy.
And as FartCaptor correctly pointed out, a trans person who correctly hates billonaires who’s chosen to become a therapist… And also, is brown? Yeah, no way they’re cop lovers.
That’s why there are no latino cops, because they’re all a hive mind have the same opinions on stuff.
There’s latino cops because indeed us latinos are not a hivemind. Please do notice there were other categories in the Venn Diagram
– Trans
– Leftist
– Latino
– Young
– Psychology Student
Literally all of those groups have people who would involve the police if they were assaulted by a patient as a psychologist, and the percentage increases the more training they’ve had as psych students.
Right, because nothing helps like a bunch of dudes who will show up hours too late to murder someone who ends up being the person who called them for help with ALARMING frequency
“Yes, hello? A patient raised their voice at me, please come spray bullets into my crowded office and also somehow kill my dog, then harass me for years when I attempt to sue the city for damages”
@Bruno Oh. Ok, your entire point is that this constitutes assault.
[/sigh]
It does to a therapist, which is a mandated reporter position, ie a cop.
Maybe if you didn’t beat the shit out of your therapist with a desk lamp, they wouldn’t feel so inclined to call the police on you. That’s your own damn fault.
The desk lamp had it coming.
Taffy, I sawed them clean in half with a whipped cream destructo disc.
@Bruno, that’s not at all what “mandated reporter” means
I guess teachers and doctors are cops too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Teachers and especially doctors are absolutely cops and if you don’t know that it’s because you weren’t trans in high school during the bush administration.
I generally consider it poor strategy to assume that other people won’t pursue legally valid remedies for their situation when planning out my own actions :P.
How do you people manage to go outside? “Oh, I better not say hello to this person as I walk past them, they might get me thrown in jail for harassment.”
“Oh, i better not remote-launch ballistic confectionary into the face of that person who smirked at me today because i could be charged with attempted manslaughter, geez.”
“She took the house and the kids, so I put a whoopee cushion on her seat, and now I’m doin’ 20 to life.”
The big difference is that throwing a pie at someone’s face IS actually assault (or depending on jurisdiction battery).
People HAVE in fact gotten jail time for it.
Saying hello on the other hand is not actually harassment.
Now this is just an internet comic where the pie is used as a bit of goofery, rather than a real life situation, and should not be taken seriously. but contrary to widespread belief just because something happens in comedies a lot, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a crime in real life.
Okay, and it’s stupid for anyone to get jail time for slapstick. NEXT
I didn’t want to add to this particular discourse, because I’m not saying “you can’t make this joke, it’s about something that happened to a friend of mine in high school.” But the commentary has definitely gotten out of the “making a joke” stage when there’s folks (not Vegetals) saying she should be charged with assault.
Throwing harmless food at someone might be classified as assault depending on jurisdiction, but it’s not assault for real. Someone getting charged with / convicted of assault for something like this is a travesty of justice, and I’m still pissed it about it.
You may not be able to, but I would appreciate a citation or a link to a case where someone was convicted of assault with a cream pie.
I don’t think you were asking me, but it happened to a friend of mine in highschool, it was a french fry, and they got probation, and an anecdote from a pseudonymous stranger is as much I can offer. And because it’s essential context to their case, the friend convicted was non-white with a heavy accent and the so-called victim was a racist preacher’s kid.
Um, if there is literally one thing an incarnation of Ultra-Car is allowed to do (legally, morally, logistically), then it’s insult humans. If there’s a second thing, then it’s absolutely throwing pies. It’s kind of her whole deal.
Booster is becoming a Jesus figure. Persecuted by the rich and powerful for telling the truth.
Due to a translation error a couple thousand years ago, no one remembers that Jesus was CruciPied.
[applause.gif]
Well done
He wore a crown of thrown (pies).
I have nothing to say but,
if you want me to make a game with Carla, Cream Pies, Rube’s Goldberg Machines, and possibly even Mary,
send me some energy ala DBZ
Plays M1020 by Shunsuke Kikuchi* on the hacked Muzak
*AFAIK this one has no official title besides its production code, but if anyone knows one let me know!
[Waits for their turn at the hacked Muzak and plays Dragon Ball Theme (Tapion Remix)]
You’ve got thisssss 8DD
Carla being so defensive of her parents makes sense but I also note that Booster is using the kind of logic that people who really don’t understand the situation use. She says, “Oh clearly they don’t pay enough in taxes.” Which is weird to put it into a net good. You’re far more likely to have them pay for bombs than children’s education.
Mind you, to make this suitably Willis-y, it reminds me of the accusations Bruce Wayne could fix all of Gotham’s problems. No, he couldn’t, because they’re systemic. He could pay for everyone’s rent in Gotham for a month but then that money would be gone because the system is designed to steal that money from the people who pay it. Just like Gordon can’t fix the police of Gotham because the laws and systems they enforce are inherently broken.
Federal income taxes go to many thing. Defense is big but so is welfare and a whole slew of little programs. State tax — and Indiana actually does have income tax — goes to schools (and roads and prisons).
There’s also giving the money way to causes, or to people.
> No, he couldn’t, because they’re systemic.
True, he can’t fix things. But it’s also true that the people of Gotham need the money more than he does.
Let’s say he has $1 billion to spread around, and there are 1 million Gothamites. Many people would find an extra $1000 in their life at least somewhat helpful. If nothing else, it’s a buffer in a country where many people supposedly can’t cover an unexpected $400 expense.
If you want to feel like you’re having a bigger impact, pick 100,000 people at random and give them $10,000. Or 10,000 who get $100,000.
I’m always amazed at how generous people are with other people’s money. And not so much with their own.
I’m always amazed how there’s always someone who thinks ‘If you care so much about the poor, why don’t you live in a barrel?’ is a valid point when discussing societal inequality
That’s my barrel. Stay the fuck away from my barrel.
You mean the way huge corporations generously line their CEOs and shareholders’ pockets with money that is only legally theirs because of a historical and ongoing system of violent appropriation?? Yeah, I’m with you on that one Clif. Quite
“I like taxes. They pay for civilisation.”
Reaganism is dead and buried, George Walker Bush buried it in 2008 and no one’s revived the corpse
We have massive problems and they won’t be solved by tax evasion or a smaller state
poorer people give a higher percent of their money, and definitely a higher percent of their disposable money, to help even poorer people.
“I’m always amazed at how generous Robin Hood is with the Prince John’s money. He works a billion times harder than the miller!”
You’re the worst.
I mean they still should probably pay more in taxes beacuse whether it funds the military industrial complex or education which is underfunded they aren’t paying enough of it. Same with corporations. Yeah alot of the budget in the US goes to the military but if the education budget gets more money that’s fine to. Also most of the budgets allocated to social security and Healthcare and we need more to goto it.
How about we agree that the military budget, which literally is just money going into the hands of companies making new weapons we don’t need that also don’t work very well for ridiculous prices, should stop.
And that we should also tax billionaires 99% of their wealth, leaving them 10 million dollars, to do with what they want, and then give all the rest to building housing that costs no money, paying doctors to take care of people without charge, and paying all schooling someone could want so that we can get more doctors in the field, among many other fields.
As much as i would love that it wouldn’t work. The US budget is over 6 trillion dollars taxation is based on yearly income so taxing billionaries 99% each year( alot of billionaries don lt actually make a billion dollars a year) and those who do wouldnt be able to fund a social program of that magnitude given the US has a population of over 300 million.
Even spending no money on defense wouldn’t cover that gap. The US spends over a trillion on social security healthcare and medicare and these programs are still underfunded for what is needed to eliminate systemic poverty. and if you want broader social spending you kind have to tax everyone more though I do agree that taxation should be on a progressive tax scale.
Also raising corporate tax rates and getting rid of tax loopholes and coordinating with other nations to prevent tax havens from arising would go along way. The OECD introduced a minimum corpratee tax (15%) it’s not the best solution but it’s a start.
Shut down the military budget entirely, you say? I trust that means you would be totally fine with Russia just claiming the entirety of Ukraine and turning it into a charnel house? Because that’s what would have already happened if we had no military budget at all to be able to back the Ukrainian resistance. (And China’s annexation of Taiwan would’ve been next.)
Is said budget bloated and clogged with waste? Of course it is. Cutting that budget would give the US considerable ability to do good in the world and at home alike (which, in fact, would help us to encourage the Global South to participate more fully in the economic sanctions against Russia). But we can’t stop someone like Putin with nothing more than sanctions and diplomacy.
I’m not sure if your talking to me but I by no means said cut the defense budget I said even if you cut the defense budget it wouldn’t be enough to cover the current gaps in social spending let alone the massive increased that was proposed above.
If your not talking to me disregard
Slavi Ukraine!
I should say by no means eliminate the defense budget this is why we need an edit button.
It’s funny because I was composing a somewhat facetious defense of Bruce Wayne’s spending priorities within the fictional Gotham and then realized it’s essentially the same as the argument for the military budget.
Bruce donates the vast majority of his wealth to direct help to the people of Gotham, which raises many of them out of poverty, but then the Joker breaks out of Arkham anyway and without all Batman’s wonderful gadgets, the Joker manages to set of a gas bomb in the middle of the city killing millions.
This wouldn’t happen in reality of course, because neither superheros nor supervillains are real, but you also can’t analyze “what Batman should do” as if he didn’t live in a comic book genre world.
However, and note that i am not a batman scholar, but if we’re going to ponder these sorts of alt-universe questions we might also wonder if the Joker (and assorted supervillains) aren’t precisely tailored to make Batman’s vigilantism indispensable.
Or to put it differently: how do the underlying assumptions needed for a moneyed heir capitalist to be the good guy, also determine the sort of threats (terrorists?) that they are tasked with neutralizing?
I can only ask the questions and hope that they are pertinent because again, i don’t junkie all that much about Batman
I don’t think they’re really any more linked to the assumptions than the idea that Superman creates evil billionaires, super powered monsters and alien conquerors by his mere presence.
Comic book genre settings don’t really support this kind of analysis.
On the meta level, sure. The Joker exists to give Batman someone interesting to oppose, but it’s a lot harder to argue that’s true within the fiction. Maybe with the Joker, but only because writers keep playing with the meta.
Well that’s kinda the point of a supervillain. You pick a societal problem, turn ’em into a character and then have the hero defeat them and put ’em in jail (even if only temporarily).
My read is that Booster isn’t arguing seriously or in good faith. They’re just trying to annoy Carla Bugs Bunny style. Instead of duck season and rabbit season, Booster’s trying to get her to say it’s Charlie season, not Carla season. Or at least say something, anything other than Carla season.
Booster’s been playing the long game of chess, here.
I maintain that the amount of money Bruce has could do something towards fixing systemic issues. No he shouldn’t give everyone money directly, but he can fund programs that would improve the situation.
He does, actually! In comic canon (the comics that aren’t written by Frank Miller and his fans), it’s talked about a lot in several continuities.
I give Bruce and Wayne Industries a pass because as the “No Man’s Land” storyline revealed (and canon kept), Gotham has so little federal resources they might as well have none, and that’s before the mafia drains the rest. No state wants to deal with them. So Bruce puts funds into the city’s schooling, healthcare, and housing programs; and personally gets people jobs in his company to lower recidivism rates.
Good for him honestly. I don’t know a lot about Batman beyond a few of the popular movies, but I support that.
There’s even one issue where Batman defeats the baddie of the week by playing a video of Bruce Wayne basically saying ‘If you quit henching now, you could have a Wayne Industries job by the end of tomorrow; if you don’t, you’ll have to wait until you get out of jail and recover from being beaten up by Batman without any help from your current employer’ and all the mooks scarper
But he can only fund those programs (and keep them from being corrupted by the usual Gotham corruption) if he retains control, which requires him to stay absurdly rich.
Oh, believe me – I’m… Pretty radically anti-billionaires IRL, and I usually dislike them in fiction too (Tony Stark is a warmonger lmaooo). I make an exception with Batman because
it’s Batman,andcomic canon keeps actually discussing the ethics of it all instead of going like, “hey aren’t we lucky he’s rich”.I’m not perfect! “Nobody’s righteous, not even one” and all that ;3
Re: the Ruttens – DOA is way more grounded a world than a superhero universe. And when Booster brought up realistic billionaires, it was like “oh ok, they come with every shitty thing the title implies”; for I have zero reason to believe they’re somehow ~special magical uber-rich~ in a comic where at most the laws of physics had been gracefully bent so Amber survived chasing The Toe and saved Becky.
Paying taxes is a net good, though. The overall economy’s well-being comes from paying taxes. Taxes are what funds regulation, and regulation is what fixes corporate shitlordism.
The trick is making it so that that corporations pay more taxes. Right now, we mostly pay the corporations to build office space and warehouses in our cities. This is extremely bad and wrong, because not only is the money flowing the wrong way, but the promised economic boon doesn’t happen because the corporations aren’t paying their employees fair wages, either.
Now, granted, you do need to make sure that the laws that the taxes are funding enforcement of are also good. But I think that’s probably easier in comparison.
Taxes on the rich are a net good, because they’re a direct way to reduce their outsized power and influence. As well as countering the natural long term trend towards concentration of wealth.
Regulation is also necessary, as is social spending, but those are separate issues. Taxing the rich would still be good even if we just set the money on fire.
Mind you, there’s also a difference between corporate taxes and individual taxes. Neither of which the rich pay.
This still misunderstands federal taxation and spending. The government doesn’t need to tax to spend, as we should be able to see by a quick glance at the budget. Spending creates money. Taxation destroys it. The difference between the two affects inflation, but not in any simple or direct way – when not taken to extremes.
We can spend more on bombs or education without increasing the Rutten’s taxes. Or we can increase their taxes without buying more bombs or funding more schools.
We should, in my opinion, tax the rich much more heavily. Not because we need the money to spend on education or whatever, but because progressive taxation counters inequality and the otherwise inevitable concentration of wealth. Social welfare spending does too (and even more it boosts the economy), but taxation is a far more direct way to reduce the power and influence of the most powerful.
When there’s tax cuts for the wealthy, public services are on the chopping block, not the military. What’s with all the “billionaires shouldn’t be disincentivized to horde all the money they don’t need and didn’t earn” rationalization going on?
There’s definitely been a lot of defense of billionaires in the comments the last 2-3 days. Reminder that nobody gains that much money without either inheriting it from their rich parents and/or exploiting the workers.
Cheer up, comrade :33 There’s also been a lot of fierce, furious rebuking of the system. I’ve been pretty happy to see many an internet space growing leftier in the last ten years.
I thought the tax comment was referring to the tax breaks they were getting from the charity Carla mentioned. Because that’s the main reason most rich people do carity
Honestly surprised Walky hasn’t entered the scene yet demanding Charlie’s Nintendo.
Give it time.
I’m starting to like the Tom and Jerry dynamic these two are developing.
Booster right now.
A reasonable reaction to being analyzed by Booster hehe
That’s quite the shot, Booster!
heyo, that’s assault.
Actually, whipped cream tends to be more sugary in flavor. If it tastes salty, you might have made it incorrectly.
Glad it wasn’t popcorn that was used, which would have been a salt and buttery
While I don’t disagree in principle, this particular pie does seem a bit salty.
More pies!
fire some more
If anyone attempts “Carla throwing a pie is ASSAULT” discourse on here for the second time in this comic’s history, you are going to double prison. No parole
No, I don’t care what legal definition you’re about to pull out. I don’t. Learn to dislike people you find aggrevating (yes, EVEN IF they’re trans) like a normal goddamn person instead of a Republican congressman
Too late on that.
By any legal definition of the term, it is battery. That’s just a simple factual statement.
We shouldn’t be caring (beyond silly jokes about how Carla’s destined for Custard-y) because its so clearly framed as a silly gag. Its fine to just go “oh, this is meant to be silly, lets just let it be silly unless the narrative decides to make more of it”.
Wrathy I just want you to know I won’t be reading your reply beyond the opening sentence which immediately goes into legal technicalities as if I hadn’t already pointed out that I do not want to hear about anyone’s hard-on for weaponizing the legal system on the flimsiest excuse
I’m going to assume your brain made a bunch of gross poopy sounds as you slumped face-first onto the keyboard from the effort of attempting to process language
Entirely your decision, have a good day.
I think it might be worth reading the rest of the comment because they otherwise agree with you.
Jesus you are the most obnoxious combatative asshole in this comment section. They’re agreeing with you FFS
Maybe learn to spell before insulting people on their ability to comprehend language?
No 😤
Well, in that case, may there always be a stone in your shoe and a hair on your tongue
@Liara @jflb96 double prison for you two as well. You have been found guilty by the kangaroo court of me of one count each of: literal-mindedness in the face of comedic hyperbole, under section 69 of the Online Silliness Act. Consider yourselves lucky no r/whooshing is performed upon your persons on account of it no longer being cool.
You can’t say someone was whooshed when there wasn’t a joke, that’s just a more complex version of Schrödinger’s Arsehole
I think we should go even further. I think it’s terrorism.
Whatever you say, Joe Rogan 🙄
Just ask the Biotic Baking Brigade!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_Baking_Brigade
Laura plays “Song For the BBB” on the hacked ice cream truck’s PA speakers:
https://www.davidrovics.com/songbook/song-for-the-bbb/
Awe shit thanks Laura!!!
For both this valuable information treasure trove, and the kinda music I now just HAVE to use for the Carla game!!!
Can’t wait to see it, NG!
A fascinating history of public pie throwing stunts, including several incidents in which it was prosecuted or investigated under so-called “anti-terrorism” laws.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieing
I recall in NYC, years back, when folks really were worried that W. would use the GWOT to surveil and persecute pie-bakers and their networks.
That’s what I’m saying. Since this was politically motivated, Carla should be tried in federal court for domestic terrorism charges and face the death penalty for this. But she won’t because her parents are rich.
Silly goose! 😆
“You can spend your life hoping for pie in the sky but the Baking Brigade delivers”
Fuck the stupid legal system.
I truly do wish more people in the comments would take this attitude more broadly with the comic in general.
If something might be kinda innapropriate in the real world, and all the present characters are fine with it, we can assume that some level of handwaving is being done for the sake of narrative (or potentially 4 panel comic structure)
Yes, I think that’s the right way to look at it.
I mean that’s literally just a cream pie, light and frothy, no crust.
What the hell be goin through their minds bruh 😐
For someone who’s clearly expressed that she’s sex-repulsed, Carla sure does seem to like giving people cream pies.
I was trying to work out a joke about Carla giving Booster a cream pie but I couldn’t see anyway of finishing it without the strong possibility of offending someone so well done to you
“If anyone wants to apply logic to a comic that regularly uses logic to dismantle dumb arguments and comedy to dismantle my dumb argument or this comedy, you’re wrong.”
WHY CAN NOBODY FUCKING READ ON THIS WEBSITE ANYMORE
This comic used the comedy of a super hero fighting people in the streets and took it seriously enough to acknowledge it was unhealthy assault of others in the end. So saying that we should ignore all situations because ‘comedy’, when there is absolutely still an element of realism in it, is hilariously dumb.
I can read just fine and Fart has been extremely aggressive and rude to anyone pointing out that the entitled rich child is going to get away with assault and trying to pretend that calling the cops on someone for literal assault is somehow weaponizing cops.
Nobody said we should ignore all situations “because comedy”. That wasn’t said by even one single person. Calling the police because somebody put whipped cream on your face is weaponising cops, though. That situation does not remotely warrant that response, and if your first instinct is to go directly to hired thugs over a minor inconvenience (which is what cops are), you’re a fucking moron.
“put whipped cream on your face”
“propelled a dish full of whipped cream fast enough to travel in an apparently straight line for at least five feet directly into your face”
tomato tomato
I don’t know how hard you think a plate of whipped cream is to throw in a straight line, but divide that by half and then half again. And then a third time for good measure. This isn’t a problem at all, much less one that requires an armed response.
*gross poopy noises* 🙄
Hey Fart Captor, maybe go a little easy on the aggro and the ableism? Especially when Wraithy (with an “i”) was actively arguing against weaponizing the legal system? It’s kind of mean and shitty of you for no reason, underneath a comic with a pie-to-the-face gag, no less.
Why not just enjoy seeing an incarnation of Ultra-Car doing what she does best, instead of mocking the mental abilities of someone who agrees with you that holding this event against Carla would be a wrong-headed and silly thing to do? And if you absolutely must use differing cognitive capabilities as a pejorative (a super cool thing to do), maybe don’t specifically go after someone’s ability to process language (wow, cool cool cool) while also displaying an inability to spell that person’s name.
Just a thought.
Ableism? I didn’t realise that applied to people who think poopy noises are gross.
It probably had something to do with brain attempting to process language that they initially said
Yeah I mean, i gotz Semantic Pragmatic Language Disorder, and I get that Fart is probably just using hyperbole and over-the-top toilet humor.
I don’t think that’s ableism? more like a hyperbolic Carla-ish way of calling someone a stupid-head, like “neener-neener” and similar earthling speak.
Are you joking?
I’m not reading all of that either sorry
You’re better off. It’s just generic scolding.
If there were two guys on the moon and one killed the other with a pie would that be fucked up or what
Did they drop the r slur when no one else was looking???
🖕🙄
It’s a silly haha loony toons pie joke. Shut up. You sound like a redditor.
Or one of those angry PTA moms compaining about voilence in Roadrunner cartoons 😑
I mean, we all know it would go nowhere because her parents would pull out top lawyers, Like a Rich Person Would [wink wink joke joke]
Wouldn’t need top lawyers for this one.
L: “Please show your doctor’s report on your injuries.”
B: “Uh, I wasn’t physically injured.”
L: “Did your reputation suffer?”
B: “Uh, no.”
L: “Did you fear for your life?”
B: “Uh, no.”
Judge: “So you basically have no case to present. Get outta my court.”
Actual real life people have in fact gotten actual real life jail time for throwing pies in other peoples faces.
Not a lot of it, but a few weeks to maybe a month or two.
You can see some prominent examples involving various political figures on wikipedia’s page for “pieing”, but it has also happened in cases that doesn’t involve anyone with any kind of political power. For instance I know of a case a few decades ago where a radio show got a listener to throw a pie in the face of some poor bakery clerk for a contest (without the clerks knowledge or consent obviously). IIRC the thrower got a conditional sentence while the hosts got a few days each in physical jail and the rest as conditional.
Thank you so, so, much for leading to that Wikipedia article. That made my day, honestly.
Looney Tunes gags in a comic strip? 7 years dungeon, no trials.
Or a double-minor. Four minutes in the box.
Well I suppose that’s settled….probably.
Now I kind of ship Booster and Carla.
………… If this is the start of a ship I won’t know what to think, seriously
Carla DID say her method of romancing someone was first pestering them, then throwing a pie at them.
I mean , she def has problems but probably still not as ‘fucked up’ as amber so idk if booster would find her as appealing to try to romance
If the parents disqualify Carla as a romantic interest for Charlie in Booster’s eyes, that’s a pretty solid no-sale for the Booster/Carla ship.
… so, you know, crack-ship away.
Physical Violence vs Emotional Violence XD
Working together with someone you supposedly dislike in order to hatch convoluted plans to get with one of their relatives/friends IS a staple of romantic comedy!
I hope literally everyone takes a pie to the face before this comic is done for good.
Especially the comments section.
How soon do you think it’ll be before Joe gives Joyce a cream pie to the face?
Sooner than we think, yet not as soon as any of the involved would like (denial or not.)
They’re still working their way up to pranks of that caliber
Carla goes on a spree but the comic ends with her getting pied in the face herself.
Fine, but can I at least request lemon pie? It’s not my favorite, but if I’m gonna be picking bits of crust and filling off of my face, I’d like to smell fabulous afterward.
Would you settle for each of them getting a pie to the face in a DoA game?
i’d put up with it if it was cheesecake lol
How could you advocate for such an irredeemable level of widespread violence?
By using ChatGPT as an creative aid.
Narratively speaking, I love Willis’ writing because he’s got an excellent sense of timing. After several polemical strips, defusing the tension with random but IC silliness is good for the story and the commentariat’s blood pressure :33
Plus, I doubt it’s the last time the topic will get touched upon. What’s been seen cannot be unseen.
It wouldn’t be comic relief without tension.
Aye, and what tension! It was class
Waste of pie, tbh.
Great, now i want pie.
I mean, you can still eat it.
it’s not a waste if the baker can use the profits to make more/expand. Be hilarious if it was one local baker was singlehandedly funded by carla the last few years
like parks and rec “No, you’re my favorite customer, last year you spend one thousand dollars one waffles alone”
you could stand to be harsher, friend, she is an irredeemable brat
Which one?
Well, they used ‘she’, and there’s only one person in this comic that uses that pronoun.
I choose to take this to mean there’s only one girl in Dumbing of Age, and that’s Carla. Whether that’s what you meant or not is immaterial, Death of the Author is my right as a person who read something for free.
🤮
Irredeemable? Jesus
Once the concept of “redemption” gets brought up over something as low-stakes as a college student being annoying, you know the plot has been lost.
For real. Obviously, there can be none. Jail for Carla for one thousand years.
This is fucking funny, and anyone who takes it seriously needs a gallon of Shut The Fuck Up Juice.
yeah i mean y’all making shit outta this just frickin CHILL.
play some video games!
make a bubble bath!
take some weed!
Also, this is a minor quibble in the grand scheme, but whipped cream in a tin is not a fucking pie. It’s whipped cream. Putting pink lemonade in my coffee cup doesn’t make it coffee, pouring pizza sauce on some tortilla chips doesn’t make them pizza, and putting whipped cream in an aluminium disc does not make it a pie. Learn what things are.
All cream pies are assumed to have a crust in between the cream and the pie tin until proven otherwise, per the Three Stooges NES/GBA game and an Archie comic from 1983.
stop gatekeeping pies in a successful attempt at comedy!
Gatekeeping is when I get all the pie and none of you get any of it. Enjoy your inferior cakes, ya bastards.
I’m entertained by your antics, you absolute monster!
Oddly though, any container with wine in it i>is a wine glass.
Seconded
Or we can just accept that people enjoy this comic for different reasons instead of being a gatekeeping troll?
You don’t know what gatekeeping is. If the only way you can “enjoy this comic” is by taking a very tame, normal gag as literal fucking assault you also don’t know what joy is.
Hey, some of us can be disappointed Carla couldn’t manage to wait until there was at least a chance Booster wouldn’t be expecting it.
Technically, it’s battery; assault is acting in a threatening manner
Fuck your batteries.
That doesn’t sound like it would bring joy
I enjoy it for the character interactions and occasional hilarious slapstick. You apparently enjoy it as an outlet for your excess scolding impulses. We don’t seem to be the same.
There’s also no gate to be kept. You’re hallucinating that part in the first place.
Booster is a good egg. They lack self-awareness but I maintain that they do genuinely want to be a good person.
I have never seen anyone take a pie so nonchalantly. I think Boos was expecting it.
They seem almost unflappable, really. The strongest reaction I’ve seen out of them was when Joyce and Becky were talking about shows they couldn’t watch as kids, and “Eastern religion” came up as part of it, and Booster looked really confused and asked what that even meant. Otherwise, they seem to greet every shenanigan with no more than a mild frown and a snarky remark.
not saying it’d be right, but if they’ve had this personality for a while even before being a psych major they’ve probably went through worse
But a rly furious booster would be quite the sight lol.
To be fair we cannot see their face, so its hard to know how they really feel.
They are replacement Mike. … oops, was going to link Carla and Mike’s prank war, but turns out it’s “Second Bonus Strip For December 2019”
‘I’m guessing you got the expensive materials to build your little personal project from your parents stolen money?’
‘… set pie cannon to Mach speed’
‘Still no regrets’
I see Carla growing up to create a new division of Ruttech dedicated to creating Acme Corporation-like products, only because she’s a brilliant engineer the products actually work like they’re supposed to.
Called it!
…. in that I called exactly the opposite, but did so in a tone that I can with a straight face retroactively declare to have been sarcastic.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen Carla launch pies I forgot she did that, and now want many more of them.
SPLAT!
Well, since you asked…
IT’S BEEN TOO LONG
Ultra-Car is probably my favorite Walkyverse character, so it’s a real joy when anything like this happens
I am embarrassed to say I didn’t remember until I read the hovertext! ::facepalm:: Best Dumbiverse callback they’ve given us in a long time. Kudos to Willis!
What Carla is doing is assault, comic or no. What is happening in the comic is humorous, whatever may be said about it. This comic has used real-life logic for both humorous and non-humorous effect. This is the comment section where people discuss the goings on of a comic. No one gets to declare what can and can not be discussed except Willis themselves, as far as I know. Anyone who feels they need to declare what can or can not be discussed, or that others need to “calm down” really need to back off for a day or two and decide why they feel the need to gatekeep a comics comment section.
Nobody’s gatekeeping uwu
Stop gatekeeping people’s reactions to other people’s reaction. Saying someone is being dumb and exhausting isn’t gatekeeping, don’t be fragile.
Saying someone cant post something because you disagree with the discussion being posted ia gatekeeping. Nobody is telling Willis to change the comkc so Carla gets arrested, they are accurately pointing out something about the comic and discussing it.
The only one telling anybody they can’t post something is you, telling people not to tell people not to post. You started this ouroboros, it’s your responsibility now
Stop gatekeeing my irrational annoyance.
This, unironically.
This, ironically squared
Shut up, like actually
I don’t get why some people here are getting upset over the people in the comments who are pointing out the potential real-world consequences of throwing pies in faces. Sure it’s a comic, but we should be allowed to react to it in more ways than just “funny slapstick haha”. Can we let people enjoy the comic how they want?
I’d say it comes down to how people are perceiving the characters and what they’re “allowed” to do by the commentariat. Mike was by almost every metric a villain who’d spent years working on a campaign of abuse on both Amber and Ethan, and people defend him to this day.
Carla, whose strips are 99% slapstick, 1% “Oh, fuck, mood whiplash, everything is way too real,” engages in some of that slapstick in one of her appearances where she’s not supposed to be taken seriously, and we get “Well, Carla’s only getting out of a definite assault charge because of her billionaire parents.”
I was in jail long ago (pretrial detention) with a young woman who was wracking herself with anguish because she had once thrown an egg at a police officer as part of a theatrical stunt. She was beating herself up, agonizing over whether the stunt had called into question her commitment to political activism through nonviolence. The question was whether launching ANY projectile, even something as relatively harmless as an egg (unless one happens to be allergic or vegan), might be considered to be an act of violence. Then, once prosecutors can prove even a single act of political “violence” in one’s past, one’s personal commitment to nonviolence ceases to be a character defense to much greater charges.
…It’s funny how the convex funhouse mirror of legal sanction and isolation causes us to put our whole lives under the microscope, wracking our brains to re-examine how any detail in our past might be twisted and skewed to use against us.
I mean, not funny ha-ha, but yeah…
Hope your jailmate got off ok.
I’m sure, if you were anything back then like you are today, you did your best to help her with her anxiety. <3
And how did it go for you? Hopefully you weren't in a worse situation than her or it must have been unpleasant having to help de-escalate someone's panic when you have better grounds for worry yourself =/
Thanks, milu. Yeah, it’s all over now. It was long ago. She got off OK. Stayed in theatre. Made a career of it. I’m proud to have known her. Brave lady. Very sincere. Dedicated in her principles.
Me, I was way f***ed up at the time. So I ran lots of laps in the concrete yard outside when I had the opportunity. Smoked cigarettes when I could get them. Took as many hot showers as I could. Sang old prison songs in every language I knew, at the top of my lungs. Wrote compulsively in my diary, then tore the pages up into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet, as there was absolutely NO privacy. Read the Bible in two languages. Read a foreign language dictionary cover to cover. Prayed a lot. Read lots of letters. Tried to write the occasional letter out. Went to chapel every day and talked with the chaplain — such a kind old man. My “good shepherd”.
It was OK, but I was in dire need of medical care at the time, and it simply was not available.
Things are better now. Much better. Thank you!
Time and reformatting of memory and perspective and processing and medication, sunshine and fresh air and exercise and meaningful work to do, occasional sleep … and still, lots of Bible and prayer, keep me sane. I know those tools aren’t for everyone, but for me, it’s good to have an anchor.
Oh shit. Sounds lile you were inside a while. Im glad you made it through, and that you’re doing better now.
Thank you for sharing <3
Curious about those prison songs btw!
Thanks, milu.
Well, one of my favorites is “Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.”
“Paul and Silas were bound in jail. Had no money for to go their bail. Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on. Hold on.
Paul and Silas began to shout. Doors sprang open and they walked out. Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on. Hold on.
Ain’t but one chain we can stand. And that’s the chain of a hand in hand. Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on. Hold on.”
Yeah, I was inside for a bit. I was pretty wrecked when I came out. Took a few years, but I got better. It just takes a while. Long while, sometimes.
‘s why I’m kinda flabbergasted that the DOA youngsters are still in school and aren’t just straight-up dissociating every day. I get Amber still does, but she did that already. Seems like Dorothy is cracking apart a little bit, at least in her dreams. And Joyce split off into “Anti-Joyce” or some such when she suddenly climbed a tall tree. And Ethan’s in a depressive spiral. And Walky’s surfing a giant wave of denial. So, folks aren’t really all “OK”.
…But that kind of split-level vision (one view of the world seeing present reality, the other view seeing past at the same time) is SO common, and SO disruptive to everyday academic life… I’m very surprised not to see it here among the former hostages of Blaine and Ross.
…OK, Here’s a silly game for tonight:
1) What is your favorite type of pie (or other dessert, if you can’t stand pie)?
2) What dessert would you most prefer to be hit in the face with?
1) Cherry pie for reals. Imma Ms Pac Man for that 😋🥧
2) Carla’s cream pie, given how light it is, my alien hoodie has a clear face shield where it can wipe right off, gonna add like mini windshield wipers too it eventually heehee
“Can she bake a cherry pie, charming Billie? She can bake a cherry pie, quicker than a cat can wink its eye…”
Sounds yummers, NG! I LOVE that clear face shield — I bet it really helps with safety!
Safety, and dysphoria 😌☺️
My favorite pie is the classic apple pie, with the cinnamon and whatnot. Because I’m a red blooded American who remembers The Good Times.
Oh, perfect! I have such happy memories of picking apples, then peeling then and making applie pie from scratch with my mom. Such Good Times… (sighs happily)
Best is apple, but I’d rather get hit in the face with cherry because I can shamelessly pick out the cherries and eat them more easily than I could with apple.
Nom nom nom… 😋
Because this comment section doesn’t have nearly enough petty arguing yet, is cheesecake a cake or a pie?
Carla’s a clown, so anything that she throws at peoples’ faces is a pie.
It’s a tart, just like your mom.
I choose to believe that cheesecakes are non-binary, existing outside your false cake/pie gender dilemma!
1) Blueberry.
2) Imaginary, like, you mime picking up a pie and throwing it at me. The statement has been made but I can afford to laugh along with you.
Perfect!
Chocolate chess, though I make a mean coconut cream and butterscotch cinnamon when I feel like putting the effort in. I made keylime the other day and like, quick whipped cream recipe bc I liked that more than the pie and homemade is better than canned when you can do it.
One part sugar, two parts whipping cream (I used a half cup and a cup), throw that in the stand mixer and add just like a half teaspoon or so depending on what measurements you’re working with, whip that badboy with the whisk attachment till it’s thick. If you’re jacked or patient with stamina you can do it by hand in the absence of various mixing robots. I just have not stopped thinking about this whipped cream for like a week
Oh, gah — just THINKING about that recipe makes my mouth water! ;-9
Banana Cream Pies are my favorite to eat, all the way.
What I’d prefer to be hit in the face with…well, tbh, as funny as it is to watch somebody ELSE get hit in the face with a pie, I think I’d actually react really poorly to having all that mess on my face. So I’d much prefer to be hit in the face with something less funny, but also much lighter and less goopy, like a brownie or cookie or something.
Brownies forever! Yum, yum, yum… Always and forever, brownies!!!
Keylime. Slightly tart, very creamy.
*rabid growling and snarling sounds* *guttural howling that activates your primal fight or flight instinct* *ancient Norwegian swear words*
Y’all got some wild reactions to slapstick. I laughed for 5 minutes straight.
That seems excessive. Four and three quarters minutes should be the limit.
Slapstick is fun, slapstick from someone you find arrogant, obnoxious and annoying… eh, a bit less so.
Okay, and that’s your opinion. Don’t drag me down with you.
That’s okay, we’ll just wait for someone you don’t like to engage in comedy ^^
You’re gonna be waiting a long time. I like every character.
Good for you then!
ITT the Three Stooges were likable, sympathetic characters.
Anyone analyzing the morality of the Three Stooges needs to step back, shave the hair off their neck, burn their fedora, delete their YouTube rant channel, throw away all their energy drinks, sell their katanas, and take a damn shower.
See, I’d call that the to-do list of someone who posts something like ‘*rabid growling and snarling sounds* *guttural howling that activates your primal fight or flight instinct* *ancient Norwegian swear words*’
Oof. Ouch. You really showed me. 🙄
Yeah, I didn’t expect someone posting that level of cringe to not be immune to shame.
Tell me, what is an ‘ancient Norwegian swear word’, and are any of them known outside of Minnesota?
Cringe is dead, fix your own personality before you worry about mine.
That’s how I feel about Carla.
Carla needs MORE ribbing from Booster if this is her reaction to being messed with. Damn rich kids unable to handle their ego being poked, kinda like Melon of Mars.
But more important, does it taste good
Unbeeeeelievable, Carla
There’s no pie cream that looks like that! Not even shaving cream!
A deeply funny little aside that generated some truly wild disk horse in the comments. Another job well done, Willis
Aaah! I love it! 😆
Some people wouldn’t know comedy if it hit them in the face.
Once the disc horse is out of the barn, it’s hard to put it back in 😗
Nah, I won’t ship Carla and Charlie anymore. For Charlie sake…
No, I didn’t say this because it looked like an assault. Not, it’s not! Chill, people!
But because she looked very spoiled here. Just it.
Careful, Carla. In some areas that’s actually enough to count as assault. You do not physically put your hands on or throw objects at other people just because you dislike them.
This is a really good point. I can’t believe nobody’s brought this up yet.
No, you don’t put your hands on or throw objects at other people just because you dislike them. You weren’t born squatchgender, so you have no opinion here. Check your fucking privilege.
I put my hands on your mom.
I have no response to this that doesn’t either slut-shame my mom or make light of my father’s suicide. Well played.
You’re welcome! Happy to help.
Booster, to someone else, later that day: “It was really weird. A pie just hit me in the face out of nowhere. I have no idea who threw it.”
Carla (listening in): “I did! I threw it! It was me!”
Booster: “I guess it will always be a mystery.”
Carla: “Aaaarrrgghh!!!”
Comment for the win!
a pie launched that far has to be moving fast.
I doubt their glasses survive. Probably gonna have a nose bleed if not a broken nose.
Granted this is one of those “rule of comic” strips, where the physical gag is sort of intended just for the laff and not something that actually occurs. So I’m (hypocritically) not actually too upset about this.
(but Carla sucks.)
It weighs like one pound, is mostly air, and traveled like 10ft, maximum. If Booster’s nose is broken, they have the weakest nose in the history of noses.
Booster’s nose was blown clean off in the butterscotch cream kamehameha.
I mean, if we’re just making declarations of How Things Are With No Evidence, it was lined with ball bearings! ha! outsmarted!
I’m an uneducated fuckin’ moron who can barely tell what’s real in my immediate vicinity, most days. Outsmarting me isn’t something to brag about. What, do you gloat when you outrun a chair, too?
please learn some whimsy, I beg of you
Is whimsy where you nitpick a pie in the face gag?
My whimsy is fine, I just don’t have any social obligation to employ it on demand. I don’t owe you mirth.
You owe yourself mirth.
Y’know what as a glasses wearer I take back everything I said in defense of the slapstick. There’s no way they’re broken but now they’re covered in cream which is worse. That’s gonna be such a bongo to clean. I think this counts as terrorism and Carla should be sent to the moon mines
Nah, nothing dish soap can’t fix.
If I don’t hear the 1812 Overture is it really Carla?
if this is assault then Boosters mentioning tax evasion was defamation
there should be way more pie launches in this comic than there have been. hoping this is the start of a trend.
carla I kinda feel like booster probably just wanted you to admit attraction and is being themself about it
this was unnecessary, albeit hilarious
Good thing there’s “won’t anyone think of the poor unfortunate billionaires” and “throwing harmless food should get you a criminal record” discourses because otherwise I would have brought up how Freudian the cream pie and that chair design are together, and been mortified there’s no delete button.
(not a reply… again)
Okay, this was funny. I still don’t like Carla, but she did get a laugh out of me.
Regardless of whether this pie could do any physical damage it’s still a mess someone has to clean up. Truthfully I don’t like either one of these two, but if I have to pick a side it’s Booster. They were minding their business before this insufferable attention seeker showed up.
Sometimes stage pies are made with shaving cream, no? Booster might find, after a little water is applied, that glasses and shirt are cleaner than before.
Listen, I’m not gonna waste time with arguing the ethics of billionaires existing (they shouldn’t) or if booster is right (they are). I’m just going to appreciate some classic banter and vaudeville.
plot twist: Charlie can’t stop telling Booster how fascinating Carla is.
I have come to the conclusion that Booster is a smarmy asshole who doesn’t understand economics.
Economy of scale, like, seriously????? A better criticism would be that they had to have been born into privilege in the first place in order to have accomplished that, but that’s not actually a criticism of these people in particular, is it? When you go out of your way to make things hurtful or overly personal, you’re not just being honest, you’re being creepy.
I want booster to meet malaya. I won’t say how it’ll go but I believe that if they crossed paths malaya’s presence in boosters life would induce much needed, uncomfortable growth.
Also booster reflects the worst aspects of who I am as a person but more concentrated and smug about it so it’s just weirdly personal for me. also that’s incredibly shitty and SO typical for this type of leftist. Just… Wow! What a trash fire.
Ooo yee, NB x NB <3 =D
I don’t think the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies would have taken Booster’s answer on an essay or anything but as an off-the-cuff rebuttal it’s not the end of the world.
Smarmy asshole? Probably.
Doesn’t understand economics? Debatable. I mean, he’s not wrong that concentrations of personal wealth in the billions are only possible via wage theft. Any plausible mechanism of inheritance between Carla’s parents’ wealth and the wage theft is really only wage theft with extra steps when you get right down to it.
Albeit, I am also still curious to see just what chemistry is to happen between Charlie and Carla, if any.
*THEY are not wrong
I find it indescribably poignant that today’s strip is literally just one character throwing a pie at another character’s face, and yet numerous people are still getting into extremely heated arguments about the moral and ethical qualities of those characters. Like, I’m pretty sure at least half of those people are are doing this semi-ironically, but that really just makes it all the more awe-inspiring. This little community you’ve created here, Willis, is TRULY an inspiration.
alignment chart:
Billionaires are TerribleGreat,
Throwing Pies is Assault Funny Prank
Throwing pies at people is based because it’s both funny and giving out free food, making it an act of kindness to any but the wealthy or allergic. This is a fair trade.
Anyways, gosh, Carla’s my favorite character.
The point is not moot.
>I hope I wasn’t too harsh
Booster showing significantly less self awareness than I’ve come to expect. Sounds like they didn’t see that conversation as them intentionally pushing her buttons.
(Aside: this is one of those weird grammatical situations where “them” still scans as plural for me and I have to do a double take)
How is “I hope I wasn’t too harsh” anything but self awareness? It’s actually possible for a person to worry they’ve gone too far, after they behave in a certain way. We call it remorse. Something that seems like a foreign concept to a lot of posters here.
If you’re intentionally making someone angry for the lulz, an overreach is not “harsh”, it’s “mean”. “harsh” is how you describe something that you think is actually helping a person, rather than something you do for your own enjoyment (which Booster was doing).