No. You need one fuck for a motorcycle ride. Two for a rollercoaster. Nine for the space shuttle. Four for your grandma’s scooter. Seven for those little lunch trays you use for beer sledding. And a grand total of eighteen fucks to ride Sal. Really only achievable if you’re a TA.
Yeah, sort of. I actually don’t think Tintin would have been considered normal if he was real. He was a strange mix of child and adult that somehow never caused any of the problems it should have.
It’s an excellent comic but ultimately it was designed for kids and Tintin was kind of an impossible person in order to make the stories work.
I think Dina’s reaction to that would be more like, “Excuse me. I would like to notify you that your display is incorrect. T. rex was extinct millions of years before H. sapiens evolved, so this depiction of them coexisting is inaccurate.”
If pressed, she’d move on to saying “RARR!” and hamstringing folks with the hooked claw on her foot, using her feathered wings to stabilize herself despite their struggles as she devoured them alive.
What’s the big deal it’s not hurting anyone.
How would you like to go to the principle’s office?
“How would you like to suck my balls.”
WHAT DID YOU SAY?
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I SAID, HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUCK MY BALLS, A-Mr. GARRISON.
If Ethan’s sexuality wasn’t already obvious to all, I should think the fact that Sal just walked past in her underwear and he’s not even watching her go seals the deal.
I really don’t think either of you got it, but such are the limits of typography. To replicate the human bellow that is Brian Blessed, we really need something beyond caps.
You could go the extradialogical route of Terry Pratchett’s Death. Viz.
“It’s very good of you to come in, Brian”, said John, the host.
NO BIG DEAL, JOHN.
“Let me just check some things and then you’re good to go”, said John, and tuned the pickup down as low as it could go. At less than 1%, maybe the recording equipment would survive, he thought, as he handed over the microphone with a small shiver.
HELLO! I’M BRIAN BLESSED!
The gauges reading volume level rocketed into the red, and then started spinning, accompanied by a low whining sound.
“Just a little loud, Brian”, said John, in what he hoped was a breathless whisper. He couldn’t seem to hear his own voice.
I’M DOING THIS WEEK’S BBC RADIO FOUR APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE DEAD.
“The deaf, Brian, please”, said John.
SORRY, THE DEAF.
Across the nation, radio receivers shivered and jumped. Some dusty machines that had not been turned on in years came to life, and several of their owners died in the ensuing chaos.
The F-word is only third-place by modern standards, the C-word is somewhat more offensive at second-place and of cause the most offensive word of all by today’s standards is the infamous N-word.
There’s also the T-word, the K-word, the F-word (the other F-word)and the G-word depending on which oppressed minority you’re talking to, but I always had a special place in my hate heart for “sand n—–” as the most repulsive, ignorant, pure distilled bullshit conceived by the human speech processes.
There’s a big difference between words that put down entire generalized population segments and swear words though.
It took me a couple of hours, and I only learned 2/4 of them recently because no one says that stuff in Canada. I still don’t know what the K-word is supposed to be. The F-word was the easiest for me to figure out and the one that doesn’t fit the pattern.
Well her advice is basically “Don’t become me” which is pretty easy to tell you how to not do that.
Just think of things you do.
Tell her to not do that.
Agreed. Funny how, of the three people in that strip, Joyce is the person who LEAST needs that advice. She’s usually quite cheerful to be herself and own the person she is; she just needs to figure out a few conflicts between her upbringing and the influx of new information, and wants to ride a friggin’ motorcycle. But Ethan and Sal? Urf.
To be fair though, Joyce just came in and started spamming ‘needs that specific advice’ all over the room, so you can’t fault Sal for giving it to her.
And also Joyce is as mired in denying herself as Ethan is. The main difference is that Ethan knows what he is and climbed back into the closet anyway, and she’s yet to embrace her lust-driven, sex-loving, possibly bisexual self.
begbert, Joyce is not denying herself because she doesn’t know for certain what “her self” really is. She is operating under 18 years of a certain style of behavior, and is not about to throw that over at a moment’s notice. I have no idea where you are getting this “lust-driven, sex-loving, possibly bisexual” BS unless it is merely wishful thinking on your part.
Oh, I’m certainly not faulting Sal for giving it- it’s lovely advice, and I think it’s important for any character to remember.
Joyce is NOT lust-driven. She’s a human who experiences lust, that is a long LONG way from being driven by it. A huge part of her character is, in fact, that she ISN’T driven by her lust, that she actively controls it. And controlling impulses that you do not want to act on isn’t denying your personality, it’s being a person with the ability to consciously decide on your actions. It’s kinda of one of the benchmarks of even HAVING a personality.
She doesn’t love sex, because she has literally no idea how it works. That’s like saying someone is ‘chocolate loving’ even though they’ve never had chocolate because someone told them it tastes good once and they’ve kinda wanted to try it since. Again, she’s a sexual animal and therefore she has desires, and she doesn’t deny that. But she wants to control them because at this point in time she isn’t ready to have sex- partially because she wants to wait for marriage with the person she believes she’s destined for, and partially because let’s face it- she’s Joyce, she would have no clue what she’s even getting into going to bed with someone. And so she controls those desires. Because that is who she is.
Possibly bisexual is the only one you’ve got there. And she doesn’t deny that either, although she really hopes it isn’t true. I mean, she goes from casually acknowledging a woman is pretty to panicking that she might be gay in half a second- she’d rather be heterosexual and is living like a heterosexual, but honestly, that’s how most bisexual people do for a while until fairly secure in our sexuality and find ourselves with a member of our own gender that appeals. At least, it’s how it went in my experience.
(And of course, it’s totally possible that she’s straight as an arrow and just capable of thinking other girls are pretty/attractive without wanting to have sex with them. We won’t know till she does~)
-In other news: a local college student, in an attempt to swear, instead blurted out a pop culture reference that predates her own birth by several years..
“Owned”? One never truly stops owning.. We rent them to other people.. How do you think they stay so easy to maintain? Feed them the blood of the blind…
Unless times have changed, you usually have to bring a towel and your toiletries to the shower. So not so much. Not washroom either, because she has access to that in her room, unless Sarah or Billie is using it.
Since Sal’s situationally-variable accent was pointed out a few strips ago, I can’t stop noticing it. Adds an extra little bite of irony to the first panel – well played, Willis.
I have to thank you for that link. I honestly have never encountered this before. Now I know what I’m e-mailing my friends if they complain about another song stuck in their head.
“Motorcycles are for people who can say fuck”
Great, Sal, now I got a twisted Alec Baldwin earworm. “Put. That. Leather. Jacket. Down! A.S.F.: Always, Say, Fuck!”
Joyce, your next goal in becoming a badbutt is walking down the hall with no pants on and not giving a fudge about it.
I never used to swear at all. My friends always tried to get me to swear. I treated swears like Joyce does. Apparently what started me down the path to swearing was hurtling towards a rockcut in my dad’s truck. The guys with me told me I said “Oh Fuck!”.
I can confirm that Sal’s last comment is 100% true.
Otherwise when things go wrong you’re going to end up shouting a lot of words that are going to make you look entirely silly. Especially if you attempt your own maintenance.
A man once lived when skydiving with a faulty parachute, somehow. My theory is it’s because his chosen last words (recorded on video) were “Oh f*ck, I’m going to die.”
I’ve been wondering: Is Ethan jaundiced, does gay have its own skin color in this universe, or is he Asian? Meeting his parents doesn’t preclude the third. He could have been adopted or ‘Dad’ had to use a stunt double to handle the she-cow. If it took Ethan seventeen years to realize he was gay it might take longer to realize he isn’t the same race as his parents…
Maybe? But why would you, like, type those kinds of thoughts were other folks can see them? Wouldn’t you stop yourself first and think, hey, that was kind of a troubling train of thought, maybe I should evaluate my biases? Instead of, well, you know, vomiting that all over the Internet.
“This video only plays in the United States” … well, fooey. I mean fuck.
Anyway, it’s time for another exciting installment of Dumbing Of Age Character Skin Tone Analysis! Hi, I’m your host, Tahrey Estée, and today I’ll be taking you through an in-depth comparison of Ethan Siegal’s apparent ethnicity and how it compares to that of his supposed parents, Naomi and Saul. According to some viewers, Ethan is “jaundiced”, and may even have a “gay skin colo(u)r”, suggesting he may be a homosexual asian relative of Ken from Shortpacked!, who was trans-universally adopted by the Siegals and fostered as if he were their own child, to the point where Naomi’s own nards are getting fussy that he hasn’t flooded some girl’s uterus with his seed yet.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s compare. Taking our cues from the September 3rd strip, “Vicariously”, which features the whole family together, we can see the following values for the skin tones of the different family members – presented, of course, in our customary R/G/B – H/S/V – C/M/Y/K sequence.
The early evidence of which suggests that Ethan’s skin tone matches that of his mother, and isn’t even that much different from his dad (whose hair he has inherited).
For further confirmation, we also sampled their “shadow” skintones:
Shadow!Ethan: 184/144/117 – 24/36/72 – 0/22/36/28
Shadow!Naomi: 184/144/117 – 24/36/72 – 0/22/36/28
Shadow!Saul: 189/153/131 – 23/31/74 – 0/19/31/26
Hypothesis confirmed!
Also, with a cursory exam, we can also see some shared heritage between both parents in the nose, ears, and most especially the eyes.
Now, apparently his skin tone is a “gay” one. For this, we will have to identify some other gay characters, or at least, characters of alternative sexuality and gender presentation (my apologies for lumping you all together, LGBT folks … but then again, that IS an acronym that exists, I hope you don’t mind me co-opting it for convenience and ease of analytical categorisation).
Ken is suggested as gay, though he doesn’t even appear here, and seems to have some sort of minor crush on Lucy and thus may at least be bi:
Ethan is similar in tone to Ken, but he’s not the same. However, they are somewhat closer than Ethan and Saul are. I’m not sure this proves anything though. If anything, it’s more accurate to say Saul and Ken are much closer in tone than Ethan and Ken…
So Ethan (and Naomi!) have the “gay skintone”, whilst Ken and Saul have the “bisexual skintone”? Hmm.
Other notable Willis-Multiverse gays:
Shortpacked Ethan: 236/207/168… i.e. no change from DoA
Drew: approx 242/218/202.5 – 23.5/16/95 – 00/10/16/05 (he changed slightly between the strips I sampled; most characters either have a constant tone in “normal lighting”, or only change by one RGB level here and there, which may be a photoshop output artefact as that’s less than one level in both HSV and CMYK, and thus I don’t bother mentioning it, but Drew changed by a whole two levels (wow! he might even have looked slightly different on a 16-bit display!) so I took the average)
This is rather lighter and pinker than Ethan, but he’s easily as gay.
Manny: 240/205/180 – 25/25/94 – 00/15/25/06 … sort of in-between the two, and about as different as Ethan is from Ken or Saul.
Now some Lesbians. There’s a few more of them.
Billie: 248/237/205 – 45/17/97 – 00/04/17/03 (the most “jaundiced” of all)
Ruth: 239/203/188 – 18/21/94 – 00/15/21/06 (pretty pink)
Robin: 249/185/142 – 24/43/98 – 00/26/43/02 (ok, she’s bi, shut up)
Leslie: 255/220/189 – 28/26/100 – 00/14/26/00 (pretty pale)
Malaya: 189/164/125 – 37/34/74 – 00/13/34/26 (admittedly more Robosexual than anything … maybe darker toned characters have a thing for droids?)
Ultracar: 241/218/207 – 19/14/95 – 00/10/14/05 (arguably running a convincing simulation of a Malayasexual)
Good luck finding any kind of homogeneity within THAT homo rainbow*.
(* with apologies to Ween)
Let’s round off with a couple of Trans characters, see if they share a colour:
Jocelyn (aka Josh): 238/216/190 – 32/20/93 – 00/09/20/07
Claire (from QC): 251/203/180 – 19/28/98 – 00/19/28/02 (cameoing in SP!)
I think that’s a resounding “no”.
For reference, a pretty much asexual character:
Arnold: 247/228/197 – 37/20/97 – 00/08/20/03 … even HE’S paler and more yellow than Ethan.
And Willis himself, in self portrait…
…ah, what? Actually it turns out DW never seems to pick a consistent colour for his own skin tone when he cameos in SP. I only found the same colour appearing twice out of at least eight samples. In one case, he changed colour slightly between different frames of the same strip. In one case he was almost the same colour as Ken. In others, nudging much closer to Leslie. The average RGB is 247/225/197, but the range on any one value can be as much as 29 levels (and averages at about 20 across all three), which encompasses the spread of almost all of the fairer-skinned characters.
So yeah. The idea that Ethan either has a “gay skin colour”, or is somehow widely divergent from his parents, is absolute horseshit. As is that of any unrelated character trait somehow being signified by said character’s ethnicity… except maybe that the agoraphobic neckbeards tend to be a bit paler, which is truth in cartooning really. I have a mostly indoor job, and after a bad winter my skin resembles paper (and can be paler than the pages in a cheap paperback). With even moderate sun exposure that turns to a slightly more healthy pinkish-olive tone, and managed an almost Walky-like “generic beige” during the longer and more active mediterranean vacations of my youth.
well, shit. I should have posted that in a rather less nested reply so that the numbers didn’t get all cramped and the text didn’t take up too many column inches. It looked OK when I put it together in notepad with relatively wide text lines.
But seriously, if Willis doesn’t post this on the Tumblr, I will be saddened. As someone who once wrote a two thousand word essay in a youtube comment section on why all the main Disney movies must take place in the same universe, I can appreciate the effort that went into this.
I think you need to get a new computer, so you can indulge in this newfandangled 24-bit colour depth the rest of us have been enjoying since the late 90s. Even on a 16-bit display they’d look at least slightly different, even if the more subtle variations would get posterised out.
Ken in 18-bit VGA palette: 57/51/41. Ethan: 58/51/42…
In typical 16-bit 5-6-5 representation, upsampled to 18-bit 6-6-6: 56/51/40 and 58/51/40
In rough old Macintosh 15-bit (5-5-5): 28/25/20 and 29/25/20
However, although that’s only one step (on the medium-sensitivity red scale, too), it’s quite a big one thanks to the 15-bit representation. It’s equal to roughly 8 steps of tru-color after all. You should be able to tell them apart if they’re put side by side – which they actually are in some SP strips. And I can tell you now, they don’t look the same in 24-bit, that’s for certain.
Maybe you’re using an 8-bit display without any kind of dithering (which, if turned on, would be an even bigger telltale)?
Most people focused on the skin color part, so I won’t rehash their rebuttals to your post, Steve. What I’m going to address is the terrible use of the term “she-cow” to refer to Ethan’s mom. That was a terrible and jerky thing to say about her or any woman.
Particularly if you have to take the Mod-1 swerve test in the rain. Anyone who gets through it without turning the inside of their helmet blue is automatically failed on the basis of being “a cold hearted fucking psychopath who won’t flinch for anything“.
….Joyce advocates the forced change in ownership of sweets?
Granted, fudge is a pretty sweet thing to own… pun accidental, but accurate…
And now I want to see Joyce robbing babies of candy. Possibly while wearing some form of mask.
This post on Slacktivist made me think of this comic so I’ll cross-post the links in the comment – it seems to me the two complement each other, in a concise summation/exhaustive analysis kind of way…
Money quote : “Cool” is, among other things, the name we give to those whose actions align with their own core beliefs and identities, without regard for the opinions of others.
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Well, That’s a start. I honestly don’t give an uck.
I couldn’t give an intercourse.
I don’t give a chainsaw.
I have no frags to give over this.
Who the duck cares?
I don’t give a firetruck.
No fricks were given.
If you see Kay – a – y -o – I = fuseek
See= c
•°• and =
Not a fork was given that day
FUCK!!
Can I ride now?
And you got joyce as an avatar nice.
Perfect Gravatar is perfect
No. You need one fuck for a motorcycle ride. Two for a rollercoaster. Nine for the space shuttle. Four for your grandma’s scooter. Seven for those little lunch trays you use for beer sledding. And a grand total of eighteen fucks to ride Sal. Really only achievable if you’re a TA.
As a dearly departed friend of mine used to say: “If ya can’t take a fuck, joke ’em.”
I see stand up comedy in Joyce’s future.
But all the TA’s I know have zero fucks to give… ;-;
I have 30, what does that get me?
No.
OH COME ON!!! BUT I’M COOL!!
aren’t I?
no
Fuck
Looking at your avatar, I now dearly want to see Dina curse. I just can’t really picture it. Best I can imagine is a sort of Takei-like “Oh my.”
I can’t even imagine Dina going that suggestive. It’d have to be closer to “holy smokes” or “great snakes.”
…actually, now that I think of it, “great snakes” is also kinda suggestive.
…
…and Hergé wonders why folks thought Tintin was gay.
Tintin seemed more asexual to me. No sexual cues at all.
Yeah, sort of. I actually don’t think Tintin would have been considered normal if he was real. He was a strange mix of child and adult that somehow never caused any of the problems it should have.
It’s an excellent comic but ultimately it was designed for kids and Tintin was kind of an impossible person in order to make the stories work.
Dammit, I just wanted to make a joke about “great snakes” being a euphemism for penises! I didn’t actually want to have this argument!
Great Scott!
Gad-zooks!
Franklin Delano!
I’m just listing stuff my grandfathers yell when they stub a toe or whatever.
I could see Faz or Joyce pushing her to curse
Wait, Joyce pushing Joyce to curse?
Joyception?
Maybe a very flat one after she sees the Creationist Museum.
“Bullshit.”
Yeah, that sort of works.
I think Dina’s reaction to that would be more like, “Excuse me. I would like to notify you that your display is incorrect. T. rex was extinct millions of years before H. sapiens evolved, so this depiction of them coexisting is inaccurate.”
If pressed, she’d move on to saying “RARR!” and hamstringing folks with the hooked claw on her foot, using her feathered wings to stabilize herself despite their struggles as she devoured them alive.
Either that or rope traps.
I get a sort of “But why would I curse when the best response is to leap upon you and disembowel you with scythe-like toe claws?”
Tomorrow strip: fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu …
Friday’s cliffhanger:
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccc
Like Joyce is going to make it that far in a week. I’ll be surprised if she has the vowel going a month from now.
Next week:
…cccchsia!
I can’t be the only one thinking a photoshop between Joyce and “FUUUUUU” guy would be a good idea.
Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck!
How would you like to see the school principal!!?
Ninja!
How would u like to suck my balls mr yotomoe
Just rolling with the script
*notes the Ethan ava* SURE it was just playing around… 😛
What’s the big deal it’s not hurting anyone.
How would you like to go to the principle’s office?
“How would you like to suck my balls.”
WHAT DID YOU SAY?
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I SAID, HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUCK MY BALLS, A-Mr. GARRISON.
And then Kyle gets to ride the motorcycle.
Boys, I sincerely doubt that Mr. Garrison said, “Eat penguin shit, you ass-spelunker.”
I just realized that I am so corrupt and decadent, I can recognize individual strings of fucks. That one is from South Park: Bigger Longer Uncut.
Some people can instantly identify fine wines or classical music pieces. I can identify memorable profanity.
You have a gift. Use it for evil.
I was thinking the same thing.
Sal, you’re forgetting something. Sal wait! SAL NO!
Oh god I didn’t even notice what is wrong with me.
Nothing is wrong with you.
You don’t casually stroll around in your underwear?!?
If not, I daresay you are restricting your enjoyment of life.
The second worst thing about not living alone anymore is not being to do that. The worst thing is, y’know, living with people.
Be happy those people possibly wear underwear.
THAT was an awkward morning at the apartment, let me tell you! Well, you and one Mr. Jack Daniels, my boon companion in this pantsless adventure!
o.O
Ok. Did not notice that…
Why is Sal walking around half naked?
Because she doesn’t give a shit and is OWNING THAT LIKE A BOSS
My thoughts exactly!
She just woke up, she’s probably headed to the bathroom, like most of us, first thing in the morning!
Nah, she’s got a halfbath.
I think that makes perfect sense, then I notice Ethan, and then I remember it’s just Ethan. He probably gets a special pass to allow it.
The real question is, why are the rest of them not walking around half naked?
The real question is why none of the girls are clothed only in their own beauty. “I am beautiful! Clothing is for the ugly!”
She’s really owning that Mickey Mouse look.
Girls wing of the dorm! She’s probably just going to the bathroom across the hall.
Except her room shares a half-bathroom.
Straight to the shower!
That went surprisingly well.
If Ethan’s sexuality wasn’t already obvious to all, I should think the fact that Sal just walked past in her underwear and he’s not even watching her go seals the deal.
But what will happen if she walks in the vicinity of Joe?
Hopefully he’ll keep his mouth shut
He’s hopefully not a moron.
But then how will his tongue cartoonishly unroll like a firehose while he makes “Awooga” noises?
How will he make a wolf whistle and bash his head with a hammer several time?
And how will his eyes pop out of their sockets before he runs after her and hits a wall?
It’s difficult to see when your eyes have turned into cartoon hearts.
Those aren’t hearts, Leorale. For one thing, they’re upside down. For another, there’s that tube going sideways out the
top…
______
/ ____)
/ \
\_^_/
OH JOE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR EYES
So apparently huge quantities of spaces all in a row are not allowed. Good to know.
Oh, you KNOW what happens.
Then again, Sal’s hair is legendarily long and covering up her booty most effectively.
The booty likes hide and go seek.
No Joyce! I’m relying on the trajectory of the speech bubble to pull through.
… That actually seemed like pretty good advice from Sal.
It is excellent advice from Sal. Everyone listen to Sal.
That’s true! I came to the comments section just to make sure that somebody had pointed this out. Rock yo’self!
Joyce, you need lessons from BRIAN BLESSED, now that’s a guy who knows how to fucking swear.
You could also get some help from Louis CK.
“HELLO! I’M BRIAN BLESSED! AND I’M DOING THIS WEEK’S BBC RADIO FOUR APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE DEAF!!!!”
“HELLO! I’M BRIAN BLESSED! AND I’M DOING THIS BLOODY WEEK’S BBC RADIO FOUR APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE FUCKING DEAF!!!!”
Fixed!
I really don’t think either of you got it, but such are the limits of typography. To replicate the human bellow that is Brian Blessed, we really need something beyond caps.
You could go the extradialogical route of Terry Pratchett’s Death. Viz.
“It’s very good of you to come in, Brian”, said John, the host.
NO BIG DEAL, JOHN.
“Let me just check some things and then you’re good to go”, said John, and tuned the pickup down as low as it could go. At less than 1%, maybe the recording equipment would survive, he thought, as he handed over the microphone with a small shiver.
HELLO! I’M BRIAN BLESSED!
The gauges reading volume level rocketed into the red, and then started spinning, accompanied by a low whining sound.
“Just a little loud, Brian”, said John, in what he hoped was a breathless whisper. He couldn’t seem to hear his own voice.
I’M DOING THIS WEEK’S BBC RADIO FOUR APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE DEAD.
“The deaf, Brian, please”, said John.
SORRY, THE DEAF.
Across the nation, radio receivers shivered and jumped. Some dusty machines that had not been turned on in years came to life, and several of their owners died in the ensuing chaos.
yes
Wow! You’re a writer!
Man, if I had a nickel for every time I wished someone would say that to me. . .
… you would score enough mums to rival Mike?
Joyce in the last panel needs to become the new Classic Rage Face used in rage comics.
Well hey, as long as we’re dealing in hypotheticals, why don’t we just say those stupid comics “need” to stop existing.
Aww, ffffffffffffffuuuuuuuudge.
Only I didn’t say fudge….
Who told you that word?!
The MUFFIN MAN!
“I Learned It By Watching You”
Oh, well played.
^_^ I’m in the zone today, fuck yeah!
It was probably his father.
Some guy at school. I hear he likes soap.
SCHWARTZ!
I said the word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the “F-dash-dash-dash” word!
(I may have watched this movie way too many times)
No such thing as too many times!
The F-word is only third-place by modern standards, the C-word is somewhat more offensive at second-place and of cause the most offensive word of all by today’s standards is the infamous N-word.
… Nutella?
GASP!!
There’s also the T-word, the K-word, the F-word (the other F-word)and the G-word depending on which oppressed minority you’re talking to, but I always had a special place in my hate heart for “sand n—–” as the most repulsive, ignorant, pure distilled bullshit conceived by the human speech processes.
There’s a big difference between words that put down entire generalized population segments and swear words though.
I can’t even figure out what the other words you’re talking about are. I’m not sure how to feel about that.
It took me a couple of hours, and I only learned 2/4 of them recently because no one says that stuff in Canada. I still don’t know what the K-word is supposed to be. The F-word was the easiest for me to figure out and the one that doesn’t fit the pattern.
They are for trans people, jewish people, homosexual people and Roma respectively.
I thought the G-word was for Italians, and now I feel bad for thinking of racist words.
Belgium.
Now that’s just going toooo far! 😛
Joyce gets to ride a Scooty-Puff Jr.
SAL RIDES A SCOOTY-PUFF SR.
So Danny rides a Scooty-puff III?
Danny rides one of those stick-ponies for pre-schoolers.
Well Sal rode Jason’s stick-pony, so…
Scooty Puff Junior SUUUUUUuuuuucks…!
And Joyce loses this round…
How many rounds has Joyce won?
Well, she won the round against her parents, for one.
But apparently pants aren’t required.
Pants are never required, at least they won’t be if I ever get elected into office.
Have you ever rode a motorcycle without pants? Better than sex.
The same could be said of a washing machine during the spin-cycle.
But you have much less control over the washing machine. And the washing machine doesn’t go at 70 mph.
Then you need a new washing machine.
In the movie “The world’s fastest Indian”, the protagonist rips off some asbestos pant parts for his ultimate race because they don’t fit.
His legs don’t look pretty at the end…
I guess you’re into heat blisters.
Don’t ride a scrambler that way, you will scorch your calf.
Glad to see the Both Sal and I share the No Pants Sunday rule.
Jesus didn’t wear pants and look how he turned out.
Yeah, they crucified him.
They were jealous of his swagger.
Now to think about it speachless girl can hand sign fuck… no wait thats wat the middle finger is for
Or the thumbs down in japan.
THE MORE YOU KNOW *
Oh Joyce, you are annoying and adorable at the same time.
Annorable.
Adornoying.
Addorying.
True that!
Andoyable.
Roflmao. Excellent advice. And a good try on Joyce’s part to live it.
Sal got the last word, not surprising.
Love the look on Ethan’s face.
I don’t see that Sal got the last word. Joyce hasn’t finished yet.
That’s why Billie got to ride. Fuck might be one of her favorate things to do, let alone say!
I’m pretty sure that Billie has said “fuck” more than everyone else in the comic put together.
You’d know, wouldn’t you Billie.
I like how Sal’s advice is basically the complete fucking opposite of how she lives her life.
Elaborate? Are you referring to the hair straightening and the presenting as staright-laced to her parents?
Also there’s the whole learn from your mistakes. Passing on what she’s learned minus all the crap that came along with learning?
Yes, I am talking about that thing.
Well her advice is basically “Don’t become me” which is pretty easy to tell you how to not do that.
Just think of things you do.
Tell her to not do that.
Agreed. Funny how, of the three people in that strip, Joyce is the person who LEAST needs that advice. She’s usually quite cheerful to be herself and own the person she is; she just needs to figure out a few conflicts between her upbringing and the influx of new information, and wants to ride a friggin’ motorcycle. But Ethan and Sal? Urf.
To be fair though, Joyce just came in and started spamming ‘needs that specific advice’ all over the room, so you can’t fault Sal for giving it to her.
And also Joyce is as mired in denying herself as Ethan is. The main difference is that Ethan knows what he is and climbed back into the closet anyway, and she’s yet to embrace her lust-driven, sex-loving, possibly bisexual self.
Speaking of Joyce embracing her lust-driven, sex-loving, possibly bisexual self, I think I’m shipping Joyce/Anti-Joyce now.
Can we have an anti-Joyce? Not as a clone, but just someone who just so happens to look a lot like Joyce.
Ppppppppllllleeeeaaaassseeee?
Someone uploaded a drawing of “anti-Joyce” on the Paheal Rule 34 site.
begbert, Joyce is not denying herself because she doesn’t know for certain what “her self” really is. She is operating under 18 years of a certain style of behavior, and is not about to throw that over at a moment’s notice. I have no idea where you are getting this “lust-driven, sex-loving, possibly bisexual” BS unless it is merely wishful thinking on your part.
Oh, I’m certainly not faulting Sal for giving it- it’s lovely advice, and I think it’s important for any character to remember.
Joyce is NOT lust-driven. She’s a human who experiences lust, that is a long LONG way from being driven by it. A huge part of her character is, in fact, that she ISN’T driven by her lust, that she actively controls it. And controlling impulses that you do not want to act on isn’t denying your personality, it’s being a person with the ability to consciously decide on your actions. It’s kinda of one of the benchmarks of even HAVING a personality.
She doesn’t love sex, because she has literally no idea how it works. That’s like saying someone is ‘chocolate loving’ even though they’ve never had chocolate because someone told them it tastes good once and they’ve kinda wanted to try it since. Again, she’s a sexual animal and therefore she has desires, and she doesn’t deny that. But she wants to control them because at this point in time she isn’t ready to have sex- partially because she wants to wait for marriage with the person she believes she’s destined for, and partially because let’s face it- she’s Joyce, she would have no clue what she’s even getting into going to bed with someone. And so she controls those desires. Because that is who she is.
Possibly bisexual is the only one you’ve got there. And she doesn’t deny that either, although she really hopes it isn’t true. I mean, she goes from casually acknowledging a woman is pretty to panicking that she might be gay in half a second- she’d rather be heterosexual and is living like a heterosexual, but honestly, that’s how most bisexual people do for a while until fairly secure in our sexuality and find ourselves with a member of our own gender that appeals. At least, it’s how it went in my experience.
(And of course, it’s totally possible that she’s straight as an arrow and just capable of thinking other girls are pretty/attractive without wanting to have sex with them. We won’t know till she does~)
Sal’s advice is the advice you give when you’re a motorcycle-wearing badass who wishes she could be a hyper-white sweatervest museum
Only the truest of badasses wear motorcycles.
You only have to be a half-true badass to wear only one motorcycle.
She’s walking into the hall in just undies and a shirt
good 4 u sal I’m way too self-concious
Humm. Just had it brought to my attention.
Sal got the last word, and forgot her pants.
Easier to give advice than take it nothri. Espcially when it pertains to yourself.
On the contrary I think it is extremely, believably, painfully human to offer advice knowingly or not that you are not adhering to yourself.
Ethan’s face in the last panel is cracking me up. He’s like wtf is even going on? I love it.
“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFahrvergnügen!”
-In other news: a local college student, in an attempt to swear, instead blurted out a pop culture reference that predates her own birth by several years..
Finally decided to google that. Huh. That explains why people always said it to me. I owned a VW bug for my first car.
“Owned”? One never truly stops owning.. We rent them to other people.. How do you think they stay so easy to maintain? Feed them the blood of the blind…
What?
The lol… A solid minute so far…
May lose my lungs….
Tell my children…. to totally read this…
Walkin’ sweater vest museum!!! Best line in recent memory!
“Fartsticks” cracked me up! XD I might have to start using that.
I’d like to note here that Sal is so eager to get away from Joyce that she is walking into the hall with only a t-shirt and underwear on.
FFFFFFFFFFFFffffffff-falafel!
Genuine good advice from Sal. With Mike, they are the BAMF Problem Solvers!
She’s probably headed for the shower, so I can see where she doesn’t give a fuck about pants.
Joyce, don’t change too much.
Unless times have changed, you usually have to bring a towel and your toiletries to the shower. So not so much. Not washroom either, because she has access to that in her room, unless Sarah or Billie is using it.
Okay, maybe Marcie lives across the hall? She can’t be going far.
Marcie lives in a different dorm. Sal just doesn’t give a fuck.
Warm water goes a long way, and for toweling she has a T-shirt.
Ethan is undismayed and unphased by Sal’s panty flash.
That’s actually really good advice from Sal, and Joyce’s response to it is adorkable. 🙂
This is appropriate. Today I said “son of a BEACHBALL” in front of my mom.
ffffffffffffiddlesticks
time to get a moped
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFffffliberty-gibbet!… eh, a vespa is better…
Since Sal’s situationally-variable accent was pointed out a few strips ago, I can’t stop noticing it. Adds an extra little bite of irony to the first panel – well played, Willis.
FFfffffffridge.
To quote a shirt I overpayed for at a.. Well, day-long show..
FUCK THE FUCKING FUCKERS!
Alright, I didn’t overpay. I admit it. I had to buy my motto for whenever I risk grocery shopping.
Fucking fuck the motherfucker!
It’s outdated now, but that’s the first thing I thought of.
I have to thank you for that link. I honestly have never encountered this before. Now I know what I’m e-mailing my friends if they complain about another song stuck in their head.
So glad to know this exisits.
*exists
Yeah, Tim Minchin is pretty much the funniest blasphemous Aussie g**ger I know of. 🙂
(Only a g**ger can call another g**ger “g**ger”.)
I thought the canonical reference was some army repair guy with
“Fuckin’ fucker’s fuckin’ fucked. Fuck!” on some mechanical item.
Really? Nobody yet?
*ahem*
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE
~fin~
I fucking love this response from Sals.
dammit, from Sal.
Sorry Joyce, “Fudge” only gets you a ride on a moped.
Fiddlesticks gets you a vespa.
Frig gets you on a scooter, but the kind without an engine where you have to use your leg like a paraplegic Flintstone.
Foot going slap, slap, slap across the ground.
This strip needs Rick as the Asian Studies teacher with Malaya as the girl he constantly calls on.
I’m expecting Malaya to appear once we finally get to Sophomore year.
So sometime around 2021 I’m guessing. :p
If we’re lucky. I’m thinking there’s a chance that this webcomic won’t end, it will just be passed down, generation to generation..
Maybe, if man is alive in 2525…
.. i woman can survive
….
(great song)
Fuck. No way in hell am I riding bongo.
You’ll get there Joyce.
By the end of this storyline, you WILL utter the Word of F.
I believe in you.
The fudge is strong in this one.
Only after she’s had a burrito.
I see why people call you Walky, Willis.
You can say words, Joyce.
The power was in you all along.
Awwwww, great advice.
“Motorcycles are for people who can say fuck”
Great, Sal, now I got a twisted Alec Baldwin earworm. “Put. That. Leather. Jacket. Down! A.S.F.: Always, Say, Fuck!”
Joyce, your next goal in becoming a badbutt is walking down the hall with no pants on and not giving a fudge about it.
I believe the proper term is “badtush”.
Badbooty.
Joyce did call Walky a “smartbutt” at one point.
Indeed, “fuck” is the last word of many a motorcyclist.
Especially when they realize they’ve forgotten their pants.
Who needs pants when you’re wearing gloves?
I have no trouble admitting that I occasionally use fudge instead of fuck.
Half hour later: “FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF”
I never used to swear at all. My friends always tried to get me to swear. I treated swears like Joyce does. Apparently what started me down the path to swearing was hurtling towards a rockcut in my dad’s truck. The guys with me told me I said “Oh Fuck!”.
Obviously, we survived 🙂
So, Sal should give Joyce a motorcycle ride…a nasty, scary one. She’ll be saying “Fuck!” in no time flat 😉
Unless your a G-G-G-GHOST!
Zoinks!
I can confirm that Sal’s last comment is 100% true.
Otherwise when things go wrong you’re going to end up shouting a lot of words that are going to make you look entirely silly. Especially if you attempt your own maintenance.
I can say fuck! I can haz motorcycle ride naow?
This strip is kind of perfect for the “Christ, what an asshole” treatment. (Google it)
A man once lived when skydiving with a faulty parachute, somehow. My theory is it’s because his chosen last words (recorded on video) were “Oh f*ck, I’m going to die.”
Heh… death insurance = do something really embarrassing on camera, on purpose, just before you’re about to (apparently) snuff it.
Then survive, and have to live with it the rest of your remaining lifespan. Swings & roundabouts.
Sweatervest museum…yeah, Joyce really is the whitest person in the comic.
Given Ethan’s presence, two to one odds she’ll be able to say “fuck” by the end of the week.
She’s gonna blow! Hit the deck!
You can do it Joyce.
I’ve been wondering: Is Ethan jaundiced, does gay have its own skin color in this universe, or is he Asian? Meeting his parents doesn’t preclude the third. He could have been adopted or ‘Dad’ had to use a stunt double to handle the she-cow. If it took Ethan seventeen years to realize he was gay it might take longer to realize he isn’t the same race as his parents…
what
Ethan has the gay skin color. Which may or may not look Asian. That’s simple and easy to understand, right?
Maybe? But why would you, like, type those kinds of thoughts were other folks can see them? Wouldn’t you stop yourself first and think, hey, that was kind of a troubling train of thought, maybe I should evaluate my biases? Instead of, well, you know, vomiting that all over the Internet.
“You DO know we can hear you, right?”
“This video only plays in the United States” … well, fooey. I mean fuck.
Anyway, it’s time for another exciting installment of Dumbing Of Age Character Skin Tone Analysis! Hi, I’m your host, Tahrey Estée, and today I’ll be taking you through an in-depth comparison of Ethan Siegal’s apparent ethnicity and how it compares to that of his supposed parents, Naomi and Saul. According to some viewers, Ethan is “jaundiced”, and may even have a “gay skin colo(u)r”, suggesting he may be a homosexual asian relative of Ken from Shortpacked!, who was trans-universally adopted by the Siegals and fostered as if he were their own child, to the point where Naomi’s own nards are getting fussy that he hasn’t flooded some girl’s uterus with his seed yet.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s compare. Taking our cues from the September 3rd strip, “Vicariously”, which features the whole family together, we can see the following values for the skin tones of the different family members – presented, of course, in our customary R/G/B – H/S/V – C/M/Y/K sequence.
Ethan: 236/207/168 – 34/29/93 – 00/12/29/07
Saul: 244/220/188 – 34/23/96 – 00/10/23/04
Naomi: 236/207/168 – 34/29/93 – 0/12/29/7
The early evidence of which suggests that Ethan’s skin tone matches that of his mother, and isn’t even that much different from his dad (whose hair he has inherited).
For further confirmation, we also sampled their “shadow” skintones:
Shadow!Ethan: 184/144/117 – 24/36/72 – 0/22/36/28
Shadow!Naomi: 184/144/117 – 24/36/72 – 0/22/36/28
Shadow!Saul: 189/153/131 – 23/31/74 – 0/19/31/26
Hypothesis confirmed!
Also, with a cursory exam, we can also see some shared heritage between both parents in the nose, ears, and most especially the eyes.
Now, apparently his skin tone is a “gay” one. For this, we will have to identify some other gay characters, or at least, characters of alternative sexuality and gender presentation (my apologies for lumping you all together, LGBT folks … but then again, that IS an acronym that exists, I hope you don’t mind me co-opting it for convenience and ease of analytical categorisation).
Ken is suggested as gay, though he doesn’t even appear here, and seems to have some sort of minor crush on Lucy and thus may at least be bi:
Ken: 229/205/166 – 37/28/90 – 00/10/27/10
Ethan: 236/207/168 – 34/29/93 – 00/12/29/07
Saul: 224/220/188 – 34/23/96 – 00/10/23/04
Ethan is similar in tone to Ken, but he’s not the same. However, they are somewhat closer than Ethan and Saul are. I’m not sure this proves anything though. If anything, it’s more accurate to say Saul and Ken are much closer in tone than Ethan and Ken…
So Ethan (and Naomi!) have the “gay skintone”, whilst Ken and Saul have the “bisexual skintone”? Hmm.
Other notable Willis-Multiverse gays:
Shortpacked Ethan: 236/207/168… i.e. no change from DoA
Drew: approx 242/218/202.5 – 23.5/16/95 – 00/10/16/05 (he changed slightly between the strips I sampled; most characters either have a constant tone in “normal lighting”, or only change by one RGB level here and there, which may be a photoshop output artefact as that’s less than one level in both HSV and CMYK, and thus I don’t bother mentioning it, but Drew changed by a whole two levels (wow! he might even have looked slightly different on a 16-bit display!) so I took the average)
This is rather lighter and pinker than Ethan, but he’s easily as gay.
Manny: 240/205/180 – 25/25/94 – 00/15/25/06 … sort of in-between the two, and about as different as Ethan is from Ken or Saul.
Now some Lesbians. There’s a few more of them.
Billie: 248/237/205 – 45/17/97 – 00/04/17/03 (the most “jaundiced” of all)
Ruth: 239/203/188 – 18/21/94 – 00/15/21/06 (pretty pink)
Robin: 249/185/142 – 24/43/98 – 00/26/43/02 (ok, she’s bi, shut up)
Leslie: 255/220/189 – 28/26/100 – 00/14/26/00 (pretty pale)
Malaya: 189/164/125 – 37/34/74 – 00/13/34/26 (admittedly more Robosexual than anything … maybe darker toned characters have a thing for droids?)
Ultracar: 241/218/207 – 19/14/95 – 00/10/14/05 (arguably running a convincing simulation of a Malayasexual)
Good luck finding any kind of homogeneity within THAT homo rainbow*.
(* with apologies to Ween)
Let’s round off with a couple of Trans characters, see if they share a colour:
Jocelyn (aka Josh): 238/216/190 – 32/20/93 – 00/09/20/07
Claire (from QC): 251/203/180 – 19/28/98 – 00/19/28/02 (cameoing in SP!)
I think that’s a resounding “no”.
For reference, a pretty much asexual character:
Arnold: 247/228/197 – 37/20/97 – 00/08/20/03 … even HE’S paler and more yellow than Ethan.
And Willis himself, in self portrait…
…ah, what? Actually it turns out DW never seems to pick a consistent colour for his own skin tone when he cameos in SP. I only found the same colour appearing twice out of at least eight samples. In one case, he changed colour slightly between different frames of the same strip. In one case he was almost the same colour as Ken. In others, nudging much closer to Leslie. The average RGB is 247/225/197, but the range on any one value can be as much as 29 levels (and averages at about 20 across all three), which encompasses the spread of almost all of the fairer-skinned characters.
So yeah. The idea that Ethan either has a “gay skin colour”, or is somehow widely divergent from his parents, is absolute horseshit. As is that of any unrelated character trait somehow being signified by said character’s ethnicity… except maybe that the agoraphobic neckbeards tend to be a bit paler, which is truth in cartooning really. I have a mostly indoor job, and after a bad winter my skin resembles paper (and can be paler than the pages in a cheap paperback). With even moderate sun exposure that turns to a slightly more healthy pinkish-olive tone, and managed an almost Walky-like “generic beige” during the longer and more active mediterranean vacations of my youth.
:p
well, shit. I should have posted that in a rather less nested reply so that the numbers didn’t get all cramped and the text didn’t take up too many column inches. It looked OK when I put it together in notepad with relatively wide text lines.
TLNTR (too long not to read)
But seriously, if Willis doesn’t post this on the Tumblr, I will be saddened. As someone who once wrote a two thousand word essay in a youtube comment section on why all the main Disney movies must take place in the same universe, I can appreciate the effort that went into this.
thank you please
Ethan’s skin color always seems to be the same as what you use for Ken…
I think you need to get a new computer, so you can indulge in this newfandangled 24-bit colour depth the rest of us have been enjoying since the late 90s. Even on a 16-bit display they’d look at least slightly different, even if the more subtle variations would get posterised out.
Ken in 18-bit VGA palette: 57/51/41. Ethan: 58/51/42…
In typical 16-bit 5-6-5 representation, upsampled to 18-bit 6-6-6: 56/51/40 and 58/51/40
In rough old Macintosh 15-bit (5-5-5): 28/25/20 and 29/25/20
However, although that’s only one step (on the medium-sensitivity red scale, too), it’s quite a big one thanks to the 15-bit representation. It’s equal to roughly 8 steps of tru-color after all. You should be able to tell them apart if they’re put side by side – which they actually are in some SP strips. And I can tell you now, they don’t look the same in 24-bit, that’s for certain.
Maybe you’re using an 8-bit display without any kind of dithering (which, if turned on, would be an even bigger telltale)?
Some day Steve will learn that there are more than three skin tones, and that across the various races they can often overlap.
Until then, he’s going to sound kind of racist and/or stupid, but definitely unobservant.
Most people focused on the skin color part, so I won’t rehash their rebuttals to your post, Steve. What I’m going to address is the terrible use of the term “she-cow” to refer to Ethan’s mom. That was a terrible and jerky thing to say about her or any woman.
Plus cows are ALL shes! It’s like saying man-rooster!
Heh. Man-rooster. Cock-a-doodle-doo.
A dude’ll do indeed.
LOL
FFFFfffffffffffffffffffff,….
…FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFffinalword.
Hmm. Maybe Joyce was talking to Ethan before, but he vacated the premises upon realizing that Sal was rocking the Mickey Mouse look?
It’s gonna go onto the next page isn’t it?
test
[SEXY test]
It’s universal? Huh. I thought it was maybe per-post.
It is attached to your email address.
I thought I’d seen it where it didn’t change, before. Maybe I was mistaken…
testing
*adds another megaphone* TESTING
*adds several more megaphones* OH HEY HOW ABOUT THAT
daw, I saw it work but then it got teh deleteds.
Joyce start with Fart and work your way from there.
fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffiddlesticks
Fiddlesticks is one of the strongest swears I have ever heard my mom use. Considering the kind of kid I was, that is astonishing.
I want to see Joyce on a motorcycle just to see the look on her face when that thing revs between her thighs. XD
“Epiphany” is probably the word needed for that. It may well produce a minor AntiJoyce reprise.
Sal’s right. It’s actually part of the road test.
Particularly if you have to take the Mod-1 swerve test in the rain. Anyone who gets through it without turning the inside of their helmet blue is automatically failed on the basis of being “a cold hearted fucking psychopath who won’t flinch for anything“.
Next five comments are Joyce saying “ffffff……….” Next week she’ll say “-uck” and pass out from shock.
That’s next five fucking comics for fuck’s sake. God, I fuck up so much when I type too fucking fast.
Someone should try to get her to repeat the word “kewpha”.
We were always fond of “Kirwan”, double-especially as it happened to be the name of a particularly unfortunate teacher of ours…
….Joyce advocates the forced change in ownership of sweets?
Granted, fudge is a pretty sweet thing to own… pun accidental, but accurate…
And now I want to see Joyce robbing babies of candy. Possibly while wearing some form of mask.
This post on Slacktivist made me think of this comic so I’ll cross-post the links in the comment – it seems to me the two complement each other, in a concise summation/exhaustive analysis kind of way…
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/11/04/lose-your-cool-backpacks-bowties-blue-hair-and-youth-ministers/
Money quote : “Cool” is, among other things, the name we give to those whose actions align with their own core beliefs and identities, without regard for the opinions of others.
It’s honestly adorable that she tried
I *so* want a T-shirt of Sal saying that last speach bubble of hers …
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF–
DUCK!