Reminds me of how Leslie tried to seduce Robin by wearing a giant Snickers in SP. If Ruth wants to hook up with Billie, she just needs to fill the bathtub with beer and hop in.
It should be non-alcoholic beer, naturally. But Billie doesn’t need to be told that.
Think about it this way: you wouldn’t be able to go back to beat the crap outta your past self if your future self came back and killed you, wouldn’t make sense.
If you went back and beat yourself up, then you (the person doing the beating) wouldn’t exist anymore because the circumstances that created you are different.
What if a person only went back in order to create a logical chain of events after being beaten up by their future self?
Also what happens after ya kick your past ass? Stay in the past and set up a new identity to make bank offa future info?
It’s the “butterfly effect”, albeit on a lesser scale. Just like killing Hitler before he had been able to rise to power would likely prevent WWII and the Holocaust, the principle of unintended consequences comes into play. No WWII means (possibly) no space program; no atomic program; a different world map; and the role of women in the workforce comes much later in the 20th century, if it comes about at all. See Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” (from which we get the term ‘butterfly effect’); see Heinlein’s “By His Bootstraps”; see Martin Caidin’s “Final Countdown”; heck, they even flirted with the premise in the “Back to the Future” franchise.
But everything you’ve done (or not done) up to this point is the reason that *YOU* are the specific person that you are right now, Monday AM, 12/30/2013. So any change, even if it is something as simple as dating a different girl or guy in high school, will have far-reaching effects down the line. That’s why, if we ever do find ways to travel in time, I hope we become merely a presence — an “eye in the sky”, so to speak — so that we can see the past but not be able to alter it.
WWII would have likely happened, although differently, without Hitler, the pent up frustration and economic hardship in Germany caused by the treaty of Versailles was a time bomb. The persecution of Jews made a lot of sense economically, and as a scapegoat, on top of that there is a long history of it in Europe (it’s not anything new).
Additionally this analogy falls apart when considering Martin Luther and the Catholic Churches previous ability to crush dissent. Luther was not the first, and many before him were executed or imprisoned. The Holy Roman Empire princes were looking for an excuse to get out from under the churches thumb, especially when considering the previous 30 year war which devastated the princes domains.
Every time I hear someone say that, I always think of how it would be the most masochistic paradox ever, don’t know why.
Also, I would so beat the crap outta Past Me.
Oh, man, if I could go back in time to punch past me in the face, I’d be at it for YEARS. Seriously, 1st-10th grade me needed an ass-kicking bi-weekly.
Yeah, I’m stuck sick at my parents’ house, so not even having DoA comments to entertain me made me sad.
Of course, the comments themselves, day-before-yesterday, were making me both sad and angry, so. But at least I got to rant at folk who were aggressively avoiding the fucking point.
Yeah, in case you ever look back….
Random is the name o f a character in the Hitchhiker’s guide universe. She actually seems pretty flat as acharacter, mostly the author’s view of angst made reasonable, but i really do love her because right near the end you get a strong sense of empathy for this teenaged girl, who LITERALLY had to kidnap a super guide threaten her parents, and take a planet to the brink of destruction, before she could even get anybody to understand,
She has nowhere to call home.
Not even metaphorically.
She has no friends.
Her parents more or less abandoned her.
And people have tried to kill her for some pretty bad reasons.
And in one single line, i understood just how messed up she’d become.
Just one.
I want a home! I want to fit somewhere!
In the next book she aims to become president of the universe.
But that’s another story.
It’s a good thing I don’t have access to a time machine, because I would just constantly use it to punch my past self in the face. And then lecture him on how he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.
See, the inevitable problem is that eventually you’d come back from the future future and smack yourself before you went back.
Plus, as much as I love to think about “doing it again but without the fuckups this time”, I’d feel way too obligated to do something about more important matters.
And then I end up on wikipedia trying to memorize huge disasters of various kinds and crafting plans to prevent them if I ever do end up going back in time.
I’d try to manipulate things behind the scenes to help my past self advance better on his own merits, making obvious mistakes look a bit more obvious, creating scenarios to make my past self go different directions than he originally would go, add 10 dollars in his pants pocket every once in a while; just little things that have the potential to make big changes.
Also, I’m hoping this little exchange leads to Billie fessing up to Ruth about cheating on the drinking. Or anything, really. Billie and Ruth strips are great.
Nope, purely bi tears out of both. We only cry in the colours of the bisexual flag. Wealthy collectors pay handsomely for these unique droplets. Watch out for fake tears made of salt water and blue and pink food colouring.
Wally starts out kinda angry, goes into neutral and ends up without anything to say. Doesn’t even get a mouth. Good job Billie. He needs to think a little more and talk less. Dorothy likes him best when he says nothing at all.
Just wait till you do both. Quarters let you do more classes in one year, so you get more done; semesters give you more time to study each subject, so you’re more likely to remember it.
I’m (fingers crossed) going to grad school next year, so it’s unlikely I’ll ever experience the quarters system… All my life, I will only have known semesters!
Just curious re: yesterday’s strip — had we been told before that Billie is of mixed racial heritage? I ask this because in the first panel, when Billie says that they both are mixed race, Walky appears to be shocked to learn this.
If only I could just give this speech to everyone. I’m getting so sick of people citing simplicity as a reason to let things go to shit for someone else.
Walky is obviously a commie. It shows through in his wish for boobie-touching. Only a true commie would want to touch boobies rather than further capitalism and invest in a steel mill. But of course none of this comment makes sense, and no i am not high.
Nah. A true communist would create an organized system so the proletariat masses would all be able to touch boobies equally. Gays and straight women included.
I am thinking that judging from his comment yesterday, perhaps the years of separation from his sister were a very bad idea. And if they’d been kept together instead of shipping her off, Walky’d probably be able to communicate with her better.
Is it me or Billie want to try something new. And that something new is already in relationship with someone else. Oh Billie, you just passed up a good opportunity huh.
In my experience, it makes things much simpler. For a time, there is only pain. What could be simpler? As the pain recedes, the complexities return, but for that time, life is as simple as possible: nothing but pain.
I don’t know that complexity is better. Many philosophies are geared toward the goal of simplification, and that resonates with me. The simpler, the better.
Let’s face it: the more complex things are, the more ways they can go wrong. Like a rat after cheese: give him a straight path, happy rat. Stick him in the minotaur maze, he may starve to death before he even smells dinner. Complexity may more fully engage your mind, as you try to weigh all the variables, but it can also lead to indecision and moderate to extreme screw-ups. Course, it also lends itself well to Drama, and since the tag is pre-pulled…
For myself, I prefer a non-complicated Walky. What you see is what you get and you don’t have to play guessing games about what he wants. That’s the major part of his charm.
Almost all philosophies are, as you say, geared towards attractive simplification. But they are comforting lies. Reality is much, much more complicated than we can ever conceive.
Being aware of the existence and experiences of others doesn’t make us unhappy, it allows us to keep others from being unhappy because we’re not being unholy dicks to them.
I believe the word you are looking for is sclera. It loosely translates from technobabble into English as “the whites of one’s eyes.” Corneas are the layer on top of every other part of the eye. Let me make this simple (for me): the sclera of one’s eyes are approximately white. The irises of one’s eyes are coloured. The pupils of one’s eyes are literal holes, allowing light to get to one’s retinas. The retinas of one’s eyes are the parts that process light into neural information. The corneas of one’s eyes are the parts that keep all the other parts from being touchable. They are so thin that one would need special equipment to be able to see them. They vary in width, and when they are too thick in ratio to the rest of the eye, they focus light too soon, causing myopia (nearsightedness). Hyperopia (farsightedness) is when the corneas are too thin. In case you haven’t noticed, I tend to go on tangents. Fortunately, they are informative.
Farewell, good person, and fare well.
I don’t really care whatever agenda a writer’s pushing but forcibly silencing everyone when people start disagreeing with you isn’t really a classy move. -_-
I wonder how many comments Willis already banned/deleted that we don’t see in a fit. :/
I agree completely. Sal to me isn’t the most credible character; she’s angry, violent and pretty much has no respect for anyone who isn’t her and she’s got this massive excuse that justifies it and the only thing we’ve got is word of god. It’s not like we see a lot of their parents, hell with this rotating cast we don’t necessarily see that much of them, to really explore it
What a deliberate misreading of a character… I’d say I think you should go back and read her strips, like all her interactions with Billie or Joyce, but I know nothing will change your mind if you’re that set on keeping your preconceived notions.
She seems to be one of those jerk with a heart of gold type characters, to me at least. While they occasionally do nice things, they’re not worth it for the jerk part.
When is she a jerk? She hasn’t really been since the semester started. She’s been consistently angry at Walky, but I can’t blame her for that. Sibling tensions aside, she’s been pretty civil to everyone, at least initially. She tries to help Joyce through the post-party trauma even though she doesn’t know her. She sides with Billie against tyrannical Ruth. She’s put in the effort to learn ASL to communicate with Marcie. She’s much more even-tempered than a lot of the characters, including Billie. She tries in vain to please her parents. Like, what’s your problem with her? Just because she presents as a “rebel” with her motorcycle and smoking doesn’t mean she’s bad.
She might have done a better job pleasing her parents if she wasn’t so transparently phony. I mean I suppose I have the benefit of reading about her but that came across to me more as an insult to their intelligence than anything.
She seems more even-tempered because she just kind of rolls her eyes/or shakes her and walks away from things she doesn’t care about or thinks are ridiculous, Joyce and her motorcycle. I don’t think I’ve seen anything that she cares about not involve a ton of anger
You were never silenced. This is his website. His platform. A magazine isn’t “Silencing” you when they don’t publish your letter to the editor. You’re still free to voice your opinion wherever you choose, Willis just doesn’t have to actively publish your opinions.
websites are a little different than print publications. Online it takes more effort from the author to stop the talk. Print you just don’t have to publish, online you have actively delete
No, pretty sure this comment section didn’t just spawn out of the ether. Somebody put it there. Somebody maintains it. First time you enter a comment there’s some human being who takes a look at it before letting it through.
That certain parts of the comment section are automated does not mean that now somebody has to publish, nor does it make deletion anything but the rescinding of publication services.
For the record, Willis can delete your comment as “spam” and this effectively will block any further material from your email or ISP address (I know, it happened to me). However, he is not totally unreasonable; if it was done in error he will reverse the action (again, it happened to me).
Also, refer to the FAQs — Willis makes no secret of the fact that commenting on certain things, or certain types of comments are going to be off-limits and will be deleted. If you needed a warning, there it was.
For the record, it’s not like he keeps it a secret that he deletes racist/ extremely ignorant (because I’m assuming from the current storyline most offensive comments were of that nature) off the comments section. If you browse his Twitter feed or Tumblr, he’ll talk about removing offensive material.
Also, he’s a decent guy. He doesn’t want maddeningly offensive stuff floating around his website to piss off other readers. If you want unhindered free speech, make your own website/blog.
You’re always free to say what you want on your site, as Willis has been known to say.
(The unspoken message is “and you don’t get to ride the coattails of someone else’s sixteen years of work to build up a readership to automatically have an audience for any bullshit you want to talk about.”)
Now, if it was up to me, I’d gladly let the racists post away and make fools of themselves and maybe try to help them understand just how wrong they are. But that’s not the point. Think of a website as someone’s house. They’ve built it, they’ve bought and paid for it, and in a sense they live in it.
You are a visitor. Where I come from, when you visit someone’s house, you behave yourself. You follow their rules. You don’t have sex with their wife in front of them, you don’t shit on the floor, you don’t steal their stuff, and some other rules that may vary depending on the owner. To take a popular and relevant example, they may tell you not to swear. It happens! I have an uncle who will throw you the fuck out if you use the word “fuck” in his house.
And when that happens, do you organize a protest on their lawn to complain about freedom of speech? No. You realize it would be ridiculous, and people would laugh at you for trying. That’s not what censorship is. A homeowner is not your government, and their house is not your country – there are other places you can go.
And that works the exact same way on the Internet, except you are less likely to get punched in the face for breaking the rules. You don’t like the way this site does its business? You can always start a bongoing thread on Reddit; maybe someone will care.
I… I’m honestly surprised Walky decided to man up and talk to Billie about this. Since she was already walking away, it would have been so easy to kick the can down the road like he’s done countless times, just like his and Sal’s parents. Also cool to see Billie and Walky in a serious context.
But yeah, just to touch on the earlier craziness, intra-familial racism is a thing that happens, and people shouldn’t need to link articles and studies to prove it. It is understandable, depending on one’s environment and upbringing, to not have known it existed before now, but it’s a very different animal to continue squinting one’s eyes and going “Ehhh, I don’t know. Can you give me more proof?”
P.S. Good to see you’re still holding down the fort, man in black.
I just wish I could have discussed the comment Walky made in the last panel of the previous comment. :< Just some simple, "Oh Walky, you suck horribly at wording things like that"
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YOU’RE THINKING OF RUTH.
AND ALCOHOL!
Together!
Reminds me of how Leslie tried to seduce Robin by wearing a giant Snickers in SP. If Ruth wants to hook up with Billie, she just needs to fill the bathtub with beer and hop in.
It should be non-alcoholic beer, naturally. But Billie doesn’t need to be told that.
Billie can smell the difference.
I’m sure Billie would be too distracted by a nude Ruth in a bathtub to care about the smell of non-alcoholic beer in said bathtub.
we can all smell the difference
Oh, fake beer is nasty. It’s all the horror without the semblance of a payoff.
Right down there with decaff tea.
You fill it with virgin strawberry daiquiri, because symbolism.
But the yeast…
Ruthihol.
Ruthahol!
Don’t drink that! It has a Ruthie in it!
YES
THIS IS GOOD
No comment.
“…”
…………………………
…[…].
(…)
OH CRAP IT’S DUKE TOGO
· · · – – – · · ·
THE TIGER TOOK MY FAMILY
I am so ashamed to understand that reference.
I am so understanding to reference that shame.
I’m not. I loved that song.
But…why not?
I always wanted to beat up a past self.
Me too. But the opportunity only presents itself on anniversaries.
All the +1s
Very nice.
God that made my day
Me too
Hey I’ll join you 😀
*People get in line to hit him like in Airplane.*
That’s almost worth it to get slapped by Leslie Nielsen.
Twice.
Now, is my past self being forced into a handicap match, or is this some kind of present vs self tag team thing?
I’ve been tempted to do that, but what if that makes Present Me stupider? =<
[then again, stupidity seems to be its own "special" kind of haven…]
That’s why you don’t aim for your head (it’s really hard, anyways). Go for a gut punch.
Past self needs a bongo slap
I’ve always wanted a future self to come back to beat me up, but then I beat her up. To prove I’m the toughest me there is.
Also proving that you have already hit the pinnacle of your life and will only proceed to decay from that point on.
Sure…if you like wiping yourself from existence.
You wouldn’t be erasing yourself, just getting a couple new scars and maybe a metal plate in yer head.
You sure about that?
Think about it this way: you wouldn’t be able to go back to beat the crap outta your past self if your future self came back and killed you, wouldn’t make sense.
If you work on a non split timeline theory or paradoxical constant timeline, or maybe it simply wasn’t you.
…
You’d be surprised at how many types have been created.
If you went back and beat yourself up, then you (the person doing the beating) wouldn’t exist anymore because the circumstances that created you are different.
What if a person only went back in order to create a logical chain of events after being beaten up by their future self?
Also what happens after ya kick your past ass? Stay in the past and set up a new identity to make bank offa future info?
Predestination paradox. We hate those.
It’s the “butterfly effect”, albeit on a lesser scale. Just like killing Hitler before he had been able to rise to power would likely prevent WWII and the Holocaust, the principle of unintended consequences comes into play. No WWII means (possibly) no space program; no atomic program; a different world map; and the role of women in the workforce comes much later in the 20th century, if it comes about at all. See Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” (from which we get the term ‘butterfly effect’); see Heinlein’s “By His Bootstraps”; see Martin Caidin’s “Final Countdown”; heck, they even flirted with the premise in the “Back to the Future” franchise.
But everything you’ve done (or not done) up to this point is the reason that *YOU* are the specific person that you are right now, Monday AM, 12/30/2013. So any change, even if it is something as simple as dating a different girl or guy in high school, will have far-reaching effects down the line. That’s why, if we ever do find ways to travel in time, I hope we become merely a presence — an “eye in the sky”, so to speak — so that we can see the past but not be able to alter it.
WWII would have likely happened, although differently, without Hitler, the pent up frustration and economic hardship in Germany caused by the treaty of Versailles was a time bomb. The persecution of Jews made a lot of sense economically, and as a scapegoat, on top of that there is a long history of it in Europe (it’s not anything new).
Additionally this analogy falls apart when considering Martin Luther and the Catholic Churches previous ability to crush dissent. Luther was not the first, and many before him were executed or imprisoned. The Holy Roman Empire princes were looking for an excuse to get out from under the churches thumb, especially when considering the previous 30 year war which devastated the princes domains.
I think it was more “beat up” and less “savagely murder.”
You might have mistaken knocking some sense into a past self with flat out murder.
Well…the current you gets wiped from existence…
I could always pick a time when I stagnated socially.
I don’t know anymore, I kind of checked out of this conversation mentally after the “Airplane!” reference above.
Every time I hear someone say that, I always think of how it would be the most masochistic paradox ever, don’t know why.
Also, I would so beat the crap outta Past Me.
Sorry, I tried to reply to this, and ended up checking Google to see if someone named their band “Masochistic Paradox” instead.
Why am I not surprised that exists?
Yeah, my past self annoys the hell out of me…
I know, you’re just the worst, waiting for the next update instead of doing something more productive on the internet.
C’mon, comments just came back on, no need to lash out man. Let’s revel in the beers, Ruth and Billie fun times ahead.
Your mom revels…
FOR A NICKEL!
I get it. Its just not funny.
Oh, man, if I could go back in time to punch past me in the face, I’d be at it for YEARS. Seriously, 1st-10th grade me needed an ass-kicking bi-weekly.
I’d rather give my past self hugs.
It could use them
Comments back? Is this a good idea? =<
Shut-up…don’t ruin it for the rest of us 🙁
I was sad I couldn’t lurk the comment section yesterday, so I am at least moderately gladdened.
I know. I so wanted to talk about Wallie’s hidden Twincest urges and that he is porjecting them on Dorothy.
but no!!!
Yeah, I’m stuck sick at my parents’ house, so not even having DoA comments to entertain me made me sad.
Of course, the comments themselves, day-before-yesterday, were making me both sad and angry, so. But at least I got to rant at folk who were aggressively avoiding the fucking point.
Well, we’ve moved on somewhat.
Seems to be running smoothly so far… we’ll see.
Comments are complicated.
Comment sections would never happen this way in the real world.
Were the comments disabled yesterday as a precaution or were they on for a time and things got out of control?
I think it was for precaution.
Precaution. The day before he said he was pre-emptively turning them off.
Oh…you might want to not punch past you in the face..Unless you want the universe to implode.
Hey! Time paradoxes can be fun!
I don’t know how fun time paradox can be.
Depends on whether or not you remember to bring a mop and a fez.
I have a fez but no candy for my fez. Is this acceptable?
Only if you want Bille Piper to set in Judement of you.
Don’t worry, we’ve all known the shame of an empty fez dispenser.
Why would you want to bring a Faz?
Probably not. We may say something rude.
Do it! Do it for the shippers! Do it for yourself!
But mostly for the shippers!
Do it….because of peer pressure.
THOU ART THEE ART THOU STICK YOUR HAND IN THE TV DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!
Oh Walky, that little rascal.
See, Billie, self-reflection is awesome! +10 points for you! (Walky, learn by her example.)
Somehow, the avatar picture just makes that comment that much better.
Agreed. Not only would there be megafeels but Ruth and Billie have the potential to be good for each other.
Megafeels probably wouldn’t happen until the second date.
The first date would just be sloppy makeouts. Maybe a quick grope or two.
Thinking is fun. You should try it sometime.
YOU’VE BEEN BILLIE’D.
AND BILLIE GOT WALKY’D!
NOW TO MAYBE GO AND GET RUTHED!
And Joed……
Just as long as you don’t get Miked.
Everyone gets Miked…….. eventually.
For a nickel.
I don’t think punching yourself is very healthy.
Both on yourself and the time stream.
Well what’d the timestream ever do for me?
…Giving you visions of the past…and the future?
I AM THE FUTURE!
You’re not Kane….unless Nod actually exists.
I am not Kane. I AM RANDOM, PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSE!
WOW SO RANDOM. Duck! Orange! Taco! tangs
This wasn’t as random as you think.
Search the internet, you will find this to be true.
…and another thing.
Look through that……..
Yeah, in case you ever look back….
Random is the name o f a character in the Hitchhiker’s guide universe. She actually seems pretty flat as acharacter, mostly the author’s view of angst made reasonable, but i really do love her because right near the end you get a strong sense of empathy for this teenaged girl, who LITERALLY had to kidnap a super guide threaten her parents, and take a planet to the brink of destruction, before she could even get anybody to understand,
She has nowhere to call home.
Not even metaphorically.
She has no friends.
Her parents more or less abandoned her.
And people have tried to kill her for some pretty bad reasons.
And in one single line, i understood just how messed up she’d become.
Just one.
I want a home! I want to fit somewhere!
In the next book she aims to become president of the universe.
But that’s another story.
While you were throwing the punch would you be remembering how much it hurt?
Also, if you ever decide you need to be punched there will be Mike ready for the job.
Except when he’s doing your mom.
“Probably not. We may say something rude” comment to Jen Aside’s comment. Got reshuffled.
Just because they’re mixed signals… doesn’t mean they’re bad signals.
It’s a good thing I don’t have access to a time machine, because I would just constantly use it to punch my past self in the face. And then lecture him on how he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.
I wouldn’t bother to tell him anything. Just randomly go back, smack him, and say “WRONG!”.
If I had to correct every mistake individually, it would take too long. Best to just generally call him a dumbass.
But if I just call past me a dumbass, how will he know what he’s doing wrong?
No seriously, this would be a problem with me.
See, the inevitable problem is that eventually you’d come back from the future future and smack yourself before you went back.
Plus, as much as I love to think about “doing it again but without the fuckups this time”, I’d feel way too obligated to do something about more important matters.
And then I end up on wikipedia trying to memorize huge disasters of various kinds and crafting plans to prevent them if I ever do end up going back in time.
So what would you do if future you comes by, punches you in the face and tells you that you’re not nearly as smart as you think you are?
Probably think that future me is a jerk. And that past me is an idiot. Present me is naturally perfect in every way.
I’d try to manipulate things behind the scenes to help my past self advance better on his own merits, making obvious mistakes look a bit more obvious, creating scenarios to make my past self go different directions than he originally would go, add 10 dollars in his pants pocket every once in a while; just little things that have the potential to make big changes.
But then the you that’s doing it wouldn’t exist to do all those things. Probably….
Billie is growing on me, I must say.
Same here.
There’s a topical cream available for that.
Like a tumor? <3 Oh yes.
Billie makes things grow (OK, you were all thinking it)
Oh hey, comments! Comments are good.
Also, I’m hoping this little exchange leads to Billie fessing up to Ruth about cheating on the drinking. Or anything, really. Billie and Ruth strips are great.
+ 1 million
Strips? Yeah…that’s not putting any ideas on the shippers’ head or anything.
…..did you think they weren’t there already?
I take / deny credit for this, depending on whoever asks.
Looks like Walky’s not the only one who wants to punch a girl-hating past self.
Billie was never girl-hating, just Ruth-hating.
Well hey, bongo shouldn’t have shoved her.
Maybe Billie is growing up.
she’s becoming self aware
I swear, each comic in the past two weeks or so has just made the universe so much more complicated.
I love it.
I’m kind of just glad that there are plenty of strips without Danny or Blaine.
This will end in lesbians.
Best kind of ending.
Or at least in the top 5.
Or tears….I prefer the latter. Any tears would do.
What about lesbian tears?
We can only hope.
I thought Willis had made it pretty clear that Billie is bi?
Very clear, but some people like using lesbian as a catch all term for any woman who is attracted to women 😛
Wait he said that canonically? that makes it even better! as long as this ends in some lady lovin’ everything is good!
Ruth and Billie are both confirmed bisexual (or pansexual). Billie (Walkyverse Billie) featured in the Bisexuality Awareness Day/Week image.
So lesbian tears out of one eye, and straight tears out of the other?
Nope, purely bi tears out of both. We only cry in the colours of the bisexual flag. Wealthy collectors pay handsomely for these unique droplets. Watch out for fake tears made of salt water and blue and pink food colouring.
Good to know. Accept no substitutes then.
It’s almost like you can have false preconceptions, or at least see things completely differently if you give the other side a chance.
MAYBE APPLY THIS TO OTHER PARTS OF YOUR LIFE, WALKERTON.
Y’know, just saying…
Like we all been told, there’s no turning back from the drama that has now spread across this comic strip like a plauge
Less of a plague and more of a pre-existing condition:
“Dumbing of Age, the comic about college and making bad decisions.”
Drama tag was prepulled.
Wouldn’t that just make it “the comic about double college” or something? There’s a bit of redundancy there, is what I’m saying.
Wally starts out kinda angry, goes into neutral and ends up without anything to say. Doesn’t even get a mouth. Good job Billie. He needs to think a little more and talk less. Dorothy likes him best when he says nothing at all.
4 weeks? At this rate they’ll finish their first semester in… 2026.
Here’s to 12 more years of Dumbing of Age!
If tomorrow’s strip timeskips to graduation, this will be the comment to blame.
I don’t see how, since tomorrow’s strip was written and drawn weeks ago.
I have never really been able to understand how semester systems work. It just seems like they are way too long.
I went to a college with a quarter system instead of semesters, so I agree.
I’ve been going to a college with a quarter system for over 3 years now, and I wish we had a semester system.
How is 12 weeks (plus a few exam weeks) too long for a semester? Half the time I feel like we didn’t cover enough material.
Just wait till you do both. Quarters let you do more classes in one year, so you get more done; semesters give you more time to study each subject, so you’re more likely to remember it.
I’m (fingers crossed) going to grad school next year, so it’s unlikely I’ll ever experience the quarters system… All my life, I will only have known semesters!
I AM ANGRY BECAUSE I HAVE not previously noticed that some backgrounds are transparent nice touch
We all need a little complication
(wink, wink)
Seems like Billie is considering a complicated relationship. Squee!
I think Walky should go back in time one strip and punch himself for implying he’d like to sex up his sister if not for the social stigma. CREEPY!
There, I did it – I commented on yesterday’s strip. HA!
In his defense, have you -seen- Sal?
She is somewhat desirable.
“Hey Dorothy, I’ve decided to leave you. Sal gives better head.”
Ehn. I’m down with Walkyverse Sal, but DoA Sal does nothing for me. I think it’s the cigarette.
Just curious re: yesterday’s strip — had we been told before that Billie is of mixed racial heritage? I ask this because in the first panel, when Billie says that they both are mixed race, Walky appears to be shocked to learn this.
It’s mentioned somewhere. Given that I binge-read the strip in one sitting a couple of weeks ago, I’ll be darned if I can remember which one, though.
I don’t think he looks shocked, I think his face goes with his statement: annoyed and defensive
Billie mentions it to Joyce… sometime back. Her dad’s British, her mom’s Chinese. Or the other way around, I can’t recall too clearly.
In the first year, I believe…
Ah, here we go: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/mixed/
That is the one I was thinking of, there may have been a passing reference to it earlier…?
Much appreciated, Kelly.
Considering Walky and Billie have known each other all their lives and are neighbours – unlikely like Walky didn’t know.
She could be colorblind. Why do you think she thinks Sal is Amazi-Girl.
I don’t see how her vision has anything to do with Walky’s knowledge?
If only I could just give this speech to everyone. I’m getting so sick of people citing simplicity as a reason to let things go to shit for someone else.
You should make a gift card out of that speech and give copies out to your friends.
The lovely thing about the Alt text is that Billie and Walky could believably play both parts.
(Panel 4)
Me: Walky and I finally have something in common!
…so something happened to make you do a 180 on the subject of girls in the past month?
WHOOT! Comments are back again!
Walky is obviously a commie. It shows through in his wish for boobie-touching. Only a true commie would want to touch boobies rather than further capitalism and invest in a steel mill. But of course none of this comment makes sense, and no i am not high.
No wonder he’s a red if he grew up with Dexter and Monkey Master. That show was oozing with communist propaganda, every single episode of it.
Nah. A true communist would create an organized system so the proletariat masses would all be able to touch boobies equally. Gays and straight women included.
But it would end up “… all have to touch boobies equally”.
I am thinking that judging from his comment yesterday, perhaps the years of separation from his sister were a very bad idea. And if they’d been kept together instead of shipping her off, Walky’d probably be able to communicate with her better.
I’m sure his parents were very happy she couldn’t be a ‘bad influence’ on him.
Probably.
Sal seemed so nervous and little during her convenience store robbery. I want more of that backstory to know what the heck made her do that.
Is it me or Billie want to try something new. And that something new is already in relationship with someone else. Oh Billie, you just passed up a good opportunity huh.
Not sure who you’re referring to?
I don’t think she’s thinking about anything anywhere close to “disguised as sibling rivalry”.
More complexity isn’t necessarily a good thing, Billie. Getting kicked in the balls makes your life more complex, but I wouldn’t call it better.
In my experience, it makes things much simpler. For a time, there is only pain. What could be simpler? As the pain recedes, the complexities return, but for that time, life is as simple as possible: nothing but pain.
It’s like Samuel Johnson said about the prospect of being hanged…it concentrates the mind wonderfully.
I don’t know that complexity is better. Many philosophies are geared toward the goal of simplification, and that resonates with me. The simpler, the better.
Let’s face it: the more complex things are, the more ways they can go wrong. Like a rat after cheese: give him a straight path, happy rat. Stick him in the minotaur maze, he may starve to death before he even smells dinner. Complexity may more fully engage your mind, as you try to weigh all the variables, but it can also lead to indecision and moderate to extreme screw-ups. Course, it also lends itself well to Drama, and since the tag is pre-pulled…
For myself, I prefer a non-complicated Walky. What you see is what you get and you don’t have to play guessing games about what he wants. That’s the major part of his charm.
Almost all philosophies are, as you say, geared towards attractive simplification. But they are comforting lies. Reality is much, much more complicated than we can ever conceive.
Alexander the Great had the right idea. Screw complex problems, I have a sword!
Being aware of the existence and experiences of others doesn’t make us unhappy, it allows us to keep others from being unhappy because we’re not being unholy dicks to them.
Now there’s an idea.
Yep.
Also most good things require work – relationships included.
Wow, Walky has corneas in panel 1!
I believe the word you are looking for is sclera. It loosely translates from technobabble into English as “the whites of one’s eyes.” Corneas are the layer on top of every other part of the eye. Let me make this simple (for me): the sclera of one’s eyes are approximately white. The irises of one’s eyes are coloured. The pupils of one’s eyes are literal holes, allowing light to get to one’s retinas. The retinas of one’s eyes are the parts that process light into neural information. The corneas of one’s eyes are the parts that keep all the other parts from being touchable. They are so thin that one would need special equipment to be able to see them. They vary in width, and when they are too thick in ratio to the rest of the eye, they focus light too soon, causing myopia (nearsightedness). Hyperopia (farsightedness) is when the corneas are too thin. In case you haven’t noticed, I tend to go on tangents. Fortunately, they are informative.
Farewell, good person, and fare well.
Metaphor!
That moment when you realize that this comic has covered less than one semester in three years of running time.
I’ll have my doctorate by the time these guys aren’t freshman anymore.
Grrl Power has been running three years, and they are still on the same DAY.
Only once a week, not 5 or 7, but still…
Better than that; GP’s single day is a flashback, so it’s actually made negative progress in-comic time.
Move-in day here was three weeks ago today.
Billie keeps impressing with her latent sense of being for others.
My lesbian senses are tingling!
Since no one has seemed to have said it: Billie, go tap that freckled ass!
What makes you so sure that the freckles aren’t confined to the face?
We’ve seen her in nothing but a towel.
Most relevant hover-text yet.
Wait? Prissy? That’s hardly fair.
I hope that Amber is not taking the Prodigy’s most controversial song seriously with Sal.
Are you satisfied Willis? did we does goods today master?!
I don’t really care whatever agenda a writer’s pushing but forcibly silencing everyone when people start disagreeing with you isn’t really a classy move. -_-
I wonder how many comments Willis already banned/deleted that we don’t see in a fit. :/
I agree completely. Sal to me isn’t the most credible character; she’s angry, violent and pretty much has no respect for anyone who isn’t her and she’s got this massive excuse that justifies it and the only thing we’ve got is word of god. It’s not like we see a lot of their parents, hell with this rotating cast we don’t necessarily see that much of them, to really explore it
What a deliberate misreading of a character… I’d say I think you should go back and read her strips, like all her interactions with Billie or Joyce, but I know nothing will change your mind if you’re that set on keeping your preconceived notions.
no, explain to me what’s wrong.
She seems to be one of those jerk with a heart of gold type characters, to me at least. While they occasionally do nice things, they’re not worth it for the jerk part.
When is she a jerk? She hasn’t really been since the semester started. She’s been consistently angry at Walky, but I can’t blame her for that. Sibling tensions aside, she’s been pretty civil to everyone, at least initially. She tries to help Joyce through the post-party trauma even though she doesn’t know her. She sides with Billie against tyrannical Ruth. She’s put in the effort to learn ASL to communicate with Marcie. She’s much more even-tempered than a lot of the characters, including Billie. She tries in vain to please her parents. Like, what’s your problem with her? Just because she presents as a “rebel” with her motorcycle and smoking doesn’t mean she’s bad.
I don’t even recall this Marcie character.
She might have done a better job pleasing her parents if she wasn’t so transparently phony. I mean I suppose I have the benefit of reading about her but that came across to me more as an insult to their intelligence than anything.
She seems more even-tempered because she just kind of rolls her eyes/or shakes her and walks away from things she doesn’t care about or thinks are ridiculous, Joyce and her motorcycle. I don’t think I’ve seen anything that she cares about not involve a ton of anger
You were never silenced. This is his website. His platform. A magazine isn’t “Silencing” you when they don’t publish your letter to the editor. You’re still free to voice your opinion wherever you choose, Willis just doesn’t have to actively publish your opinions.
websites are a little different than print publications. Online it takes more effort from the author to stop the talk. Print you just don’t have to publish, online you have actively delete
No, pretty sure this comment section didn’t just spawn out of the ether. Somebody put it there. Somebody maintains it. First time you enter a comment there’s some human being who takes a look at it before letting it through.
That certain parts of the comment section are automated does not mean that now somebody has to publish, nor does it make deletion anything but the rescinding of publication services.
For the record, Willis can delete your comment as “spam” and this effectively will block any further material from your email or ISP address (I know, it happened to me). However, he is not totally unreasonable; if it was done in error he will reverse the action (again, it happened to me).
Also, refer to the FAQs — Willis makes no secret of the fact that commenting on certain things, or certain types of comments are going to be off-limits and will be deleted. If you needed a warning, there it was.
For the record, it’s not like he keeps it a secret that he deletes racist/ extremely ignorant (because I’m assuming from the current storyline most offensive comments were of that nature) off the comments section. If you browse his Twitter feed or Tumblr, he’ll talk about removing offensive material.
Also, he’s a decent guy. He doesn’t want maddeningly offensive stuff floating around his website to piss off other readers. If you want unhindered free speech, make your own website/blog.
You’re always free to say what you want on your site, as Willis has been known to say.
(The unspoken message is “and you don’t get to ride the coattails of someone else’s sixteen years of work to build up a readership to automatically have an audience for any bullshit you want to talk about.”)
Now, if it was up to me, I’d gladly let the racists post away and make fools of themselves and maybe try to help them understand just how wrong they are. But that’s not the point. Think of a website as someone’s house. They’ve built it, they’ve bought and paid for it, and in a sense they live in it.
You are a visitor. Where I come from, when you visit someone’s house, you behave yourself. You follow their rules. You don’t have sex with their wife in front of them, you don’t shit on the floor, you don’t steal their stuff, and some other rules that may vary depending on the owner. To take a popular and relevant example, they may tell you not to swear. It happens! I have an uncle who will throw you the fuck out if you use the word “fuck” in his house.
And when that happens, do you organize a protest on their lawn to complain about freedom of speech? No. You realize it would be ridiculous, and people would laugh at you for trying. That’s not what censorship is. A homeowner is not your government, and their house is not your country – there are other places you can go.
And that works the exact same way on the Internet, except you are less likely to get punched in the face for breaking the rules. You don’t like the way this site does its business? You can always start a bongoing thread on Reddit; maybe someone will care.
It seems as though the comments section has died down in terms of insanity today. I myself have no strong feelings one way or the other.
Maybe telling Ruth she wants to hook up will soften the blow of having started drinking again.
great page
I JUST BINGE READ THIS ENTIRE THING IT’S AMAZING AND PERFECT. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
I… I’m honestly surprised Walky decided to man up and talk to Billie about this. Since she was already walking away, it would have been so easy to kick the can down the road like he’s done countless times, just like his and Sal’s parents. Also cool to see Billie and Walky in a serious context.
But yeah, just to touch on the earlier craziness, intra-familial racism is a thing that happens, and people shouldn’t need to link articles and studies to prove it. It is understandable, depending on one’s environment and upbringing, to not have known it existed before now, but it’s a very different animal to continue squinting one’s eyes and going “Ehhh, I don’t know. Can you give me more proof?”
P.S. Good to see you’re still holding down the fort, man in black.
I just wish I could have discussed the comment Walky made in the last panel of the previous comment. :< Just some simple, "Oh Walky, you suck horribly at wording things like that"
Previous comic. Wow, I typo’d hard there