Yeah, I was making a rather loose play on the name of Ramses (I thought it was spelt Rameses, but Google and Wiki corrected me). 🙂
I did know there was a Nemesis in ancient Greek Mythology though. I think there were plans to name a supposed brown dwarf star at the edge of our solar system after it, back in the 80s and 90s, that’s where I first heard the name in my childhood (they never found such a body in the solar system though). 🙂
They didn’t find any planetary body out there, yet.
But there are reports that they have found a gap in the planetesimals orbiting out beyond Neptune. Like the gaps formed by moons in Saturn’s rings. Just big enough to be made by a substantial sized object.
Sty tuned.
Yeah, but sometimes gay is used in a way not prohibiting a gay person to be bi. As in, you’re bi if you’re gay and straight. In this sense, Danny is, among other things, gay. Some people use gay only for primary or exclusive homosexuals. In this sense he wouldn’t be gay.
But from the first POV your comment would boil down to: “Dachshunds and dogs were not the same thing, last I checked.” Correct, but if someone would claim a dachshund to be a dog, it wouldn’t be wrong.
I…I don’t think it’s the case, given what we know of Joyce’s character, but…I can’t help but feel that, in some small way, that last panel was Joyce just messing with Roz…
Yep, and in the second-to-last panel, Roz still seems to be fine with Joyce’ explanation. Of course she’s leaving anyway, because Jacob is taken and has left, but till the last panel it’s not running away.
the reason shes running away is because she thinks Joyce has the hots for her for being MEAN to her… aka S&M fetish so shes weirded out and is leaving to avoid the awkwardness. I thought it was obvious lol…
Not giants in a way that helps. The capacitance of a capacitor is proportional to the area of the plates and inversely proportional to their separation distance, all times the permittivity of the dielectric between them. Standard electrolytic capacitors have effective plate areas of a few square metres and effective plate separations equal to the thickness of the oxide layer on the surface of aluminium, i.e. nanometres. That’s probably about several million times the capacitance of the Ark of the Covenant, even though such a capacitor might be only a few centimetres long.
I’ve heard the “bow your head to wrath” BS in too many negative contexts for it to be truly funny. Awful lot of the time it’s used as justification for human wrath, not divine.
If it’s an actual Biblical quote I don’t know what version or book it’s from. I’ve run into several vehement religious types who used it to imply that a given behavior was inherently deserving of punishment and you should simply accept it for being dirty rotten sinner. Since those behaviors included “getting an abortion” “drinking any alcohol at all” and “being gay” the phrase is linked to some pretty offensive mindsets for me.
Oh, and my google search turns up someplace called “Spiritual Forces Ministry” as the first hit. To quote:
“It may be a lot easier to bow and bend now then it will be when you are facing an angry God. I know, because I have upset Him with lesser things and have felt a lesser wrath. It was not the head bowing and knee bending wrath, but it was terrible. The only way to not be a receiving part of His wrath is to not cause it. Bowing your head and bending your knees now, while He is giving you the chance to do it His way will be a lot less painful. It will be done His way whether you like it or not. His command will prevail…”
Typical “grovel before our god because he’ll get you in the end one way or the other” thing, really. The problem I have with it is when people decide that they’re the ones to enact the his wrath, rather than letting him do it.
For reference… II Samuel 6:6-8 (NRSV translation):
“When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.
David was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah; so that place is called Perez-uzzah, to this day.”
Wow. I had forgotten about that. MAN, does it suck to be that guy. Not only did he drop the Ark of the Covenant, but his butt got smote for trying to catch it so it didn’t fall.
The point is kind of that the guy had massively disrespected the Ark already, and putting it in a situation where it could be dropped was the last straw. It wasn’t really that he tried to “save” it.
so… Uzzah disrespected the ark and somehow end up dead.
Otherwise anybody would think that touching the ark was nothing.
What is a godstrike? a snake bite? a thunderstrike? a knife in the ribs? the hands of the sacred priests? a knife in the hands of sacred priests?
this is a god that send his faithful to kill men, women and children… just saying.
Don’t forget when he takes away from the faithful just to show Satan (who at the time was his follower still and was genuinely concerned that the faithful just followed because he gave them good things) that the faithful still have faith even when you completely destroy their lives!
Or when he personally murders the entire town of Sodom (wasn’t one of the commandments ‘Thou shalt not kill’? Not setting a good example there) just because he doesn’t like how the people were greedy and uncharitable (wasn’t he supposed to love everyone regardless because they were all his children in his mind?).
If they’d just put the bars through the rings and carried it on their shoulders, like they were supposed to, there wouldn’t have been a cart for the ark to fall off of, and no smiting would have taken place. The lesson? RTFM!
Roz, take a clue from Sarah, and embrace your status as someone sent by the Old Testament God. (Side note, I don’t know every story in the Old Testament. Do I want to know the story the hover text is referring to? I just know that God liked striking people dead over that thing).
I don’t remember the details, but I remember that some shmuck grabbed the Ark because he thought it was going to fall. But because it was too Holy for humans, or because God said people weren’t supposed to touch it (like I said, I don’t remember the details), that poor shmuck got struck dead.
That would be Uzzah, whose name is probably also an onomatopoeia for his last words as OT God electrocuted him. Someone quoted the relevant text in the comments above.
Hey Dave! I haven’t seen you comment over here before (though I don’t usually read through all of them… your icon jumped out at me though). Side note, I tried to open up Selkie and the site doesn’t seem to be working?
I’m not sure if that’s a last-minute fumble on Joyce’s part or if she is actually trying to be self-aware and even playful with how crazy her belief system is.
I mean, it’s a pretty big blow when you find out your best friend and boyfriend are both gay and nothing’s wrong with them. Maybe there are other holes the boat, like how fond god seems to be of just straight-up killing people in order to solve problems!
To be fair, straight up killing people can be a super efficient way to solve certain problems if you have all the absolute facts *cough*KimJongUn*cough*.
Seems pretty arbitrary whenever God does it in the Bible though.
Outright slaughter is easier to justify when you’re defined as omniscient, but you run into problems when that’s a self-definition and people disagree with you. It’s also easier to carry out when you’re omnipotent, of course. At that point disagreement becomes irrelevant except in terms of giving you more opportunities for smiting.
Agreed. Billie getting drunk and possibly laid at an off-campus party would be a drama nightmare for the relationship with Ruth. Rather not see the Sexy Lesbian Suicide Pact derail.
The rails are called depression and alcoholism. If there’s a quick and reliable way to get off them that doesn’t involve a fatal crash, let me know. I’ve got friends who haven’t managed it in 40 years of trying.
Ah yes, ark care, that holy thing that’s been missing for 2000 years, and is probably in a church in Ethiopia, but nobody wants to check it out because then we’ll all know its just a stupid old box and not a big deal.
re hover-text: also a good policy for dropping something while driving. Maybe the laws of physics will make the Wrath of God unnecessary if you try to catch it. This was actually discussed at a recent company meeting I was at. Seems obvious, but it takes some forethought to control the reflex.
“You need me, you wouldn’t be much of a hero without a villain, and you love been a hero don’t you? The cheering children, the swooning women; you love it so much it’s made you my most reliable accomplice.” ~If Joyce were secretly evil.
Now I’m imagining Joyce sitting with her hands crossed over her mouth. Resting the bottom of her nose on her fingers. Really hope people get what I mean here.
Thoughtfully stroking a white cat, then chasing the cat all around the room trying to pick it back up. Kinda ruins the effect, but to be expected from Joyce (at least Walkyverse Joyce).
I understand almost nothing about today’s strip past the fifth panel. (And I’m not entirely certain about the fourth.) I don’t understand Joyce’s ark-care reference, if the “bow your head to wrath” thing is yet another bible reference, the alt-text, or the bible quote in the comments. I think I’m simply missing too much basic Christianity 201 to follow this one.
If I’m understanding correctly, she’s referencing the fact that God killed all but like 5 human beings in a massive flood, just cause he wanted to. This story is known as “Noah’s Ark” and some dude named Noah built a boat to save all the animals because God didn’t want EVERYTHING to die, just most things.
Yes. God ends up a loving father and vengeful destroyer and everything in between. That happens when you have two different origin stories and go through a bunch of different writers. The individual story arcs make sense, but they get real inconsistent.
Jesus has it even worse, since he has four origin stories and people are always retroconning strange things into their fanfic and personal head canons.
You have to approach the Bible like a long running comic series. Sometimes the writers just screwed the main character up.
Hardly. Pre-Christian mythology is chock full of “back from the dead” stories. Cyclical resurrection is a theme for some deities, and mythic heroes often return from death or bring others back as a part of their stories.
That, and all the pieces were assembled long after they were written. It’s more like raiding the attics of various comic artists throughout history, and attempting to make a coherent story out of their combined work.
Personally, I was holding out hope that Herbie Popnecker would show up in a crossover and fix the whole mess. Wouldn’t be the first time he beat the Devil. That kid makes the Saint of Killers look like a wimp.
So I hope I’m wrong in my interpretation of this strip, but I hate the idea that Roz was right to flip out on Joyce, and it was something she needed to grow as a person. I agree with Roz’s politics but I sure don’t approve of acting like a total jackass to people like that, let alone Joyce and her unique circumstances.
Personally I’d say that if you take everything together, Roz has gotten the right reaction. A thanks from Joyce, who cares that she grew as a person because of Roz; and a censure from Leslie, who cares that it was not at all an appropriate way for Roz to treat someone.
Me too, but Leslie said she was over the line more meaningfully than Joyce could; it would be too easy to ignore from a presumed nemesis. The message she needs and might be able to from Joyce is that they aren’t opposed forces of nature, but people who can learn and change.
This strip may confirm that Joyce has learned from Roz, but it doesn’t mean the outburst was okay. If Joyce excuses it, well, that’s who she is; I doubt Roz will really take comparison to a murdering god as real vindication.
I’m not sure I’d say “never” there. Certainly been in situations where all the options were going to hurt. The best you can do there is choose the one that gets the best ratio between help and harm.
I think Job would have been a better example, and Roz is just another test of Joyce’s faith. Either that or Joyce is either crazy or brilliant or both. Take your pick.
You mean Billie, I’m guessing? Ruth sent her to keep an eye Joyce’s party. She’d rather not be there, but if/when she does manage to make an exit without raising suspicion, she’ll probably wind up back at Ruth’s, not at a random party.
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Joyce loves everyone!
some folks she loves to avoid, some folks she loves to punch in the face, some folks she loves to
crucifyuse as a bad exampleNemeses…wasn’t he, like, an Egyptian Pharoah? 😛 😛 😛
I realize you were making a joke based on a deliberate mis-spelling of the name, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28mythology%29
Yeah, I was making a rather loose play on the name of Ramses (I thought it was spelt Rameses, but Google and Wiki corrected me). 🙂
I did know there was a Nemesis in ancient Greek Mythology though. I think there were plans to name a supposed brown dwarf star at the edge of our solar system after it, back in the 80s and 90s, that’s where I first heard the name in my childhood (they never found such a body in the solar system though). 🙂
They didn’t find any planetary body out there, yet.
But there are reports that they have found a gap in the planetesimals orbiting out beyond Neptune. Like the gaps formed by moons in Saturn’s rings. Just big enough to be made by a substantial sized object.
Sty tuned.
Actually, “nemeses” is the plural of “nemesis”
Close. A Nemes is a kind of hat worn by (some) Pharaohs. Nemeses sounds like an english plural of that.
When somebody loves thinking of you as somebody who will be brutally murdered, the person who “loves” you is a psychopath.
Roz when someone respects your harsh truths you LOVE THEM you do not PUSH THEM AWAY
Roz refuses to be part of any party that would have her as a guest.
That and without Jacob, this party has become a clambake.
I haven’t heard that one. Just “sausage fest.” I guess I live under a rock.
A number of months ago, the DoA commenters discussed what the female equivalent to sausage-fest is and clambake was a popular choice.
I keep reading it like it’s supposed to be pronounced ‘clam-ba-ke’, which is kind of like bukkake.
Kind of fitting, I guess?
no.
Woah now, the ratio is still currently 3 men to 5 women. Although a clam bake is ideal for Becky.
Yeah, but those men are all gay, taken, or both.
I don’t think any are both.
One is taken and bi.
I’d like to introduce you to Danny. Both taken and bi. 🙂
Bi and gay were not the same thing, last time I checked.
Yeah, but sometimes gay is used in a way not prohibiting a gay person to be bi. As in, you’re bi if you’re gay and straight. In this sense, Danny is, among other things, gay. Some people use gay only for primary or exclusive homosexuals. In this sense he wouldn’t be gay.
But from the first POV your comment would boil down to: “Dachshunds and dogs were not the same thing, last I checked.” Correct, but if someone would claim a dachshund to be a dog, it wouldn’t be wrong.
Gay is also used as an umbrella term. Source: Bi girl who calls herself gay on occasion.
Clambake with sausage on the side?
Thats Danny’s favorite dish!
Cocktail weenies seems more apt in this case.
Actually with the kinda talk Joyce is doing in the last panel, standard procedure isn’t pushing away, it’s running away.
…I kinda have to agree there.
Run
ForestRoz, run!See Roz
See Roz run
Run Roz run
I…I don’t think it’s the case, given what we know of Joyce’s character, but…I can’t help but feel that, in some small way, that last panel was Joyce just messing with Roz…
Yep, and in the second-to-last panel, Roz still seems to be fine with Joyce’ explanation. Of course she’s leaving anyway, because Jacob is taken and has left, but till the last panel it’s not running away.
Hey, Roz not snapping at Joyce for using the Bible on her is a drastic improvement!
the reason shes running away is because she thinks Joyce has the hots for her for being MEAN to her… aka S&M fetish so shes weirded out and is leaving to avoid the awkwardness. I thought it was obvious lol…
That would be more the “oh” than the “yeah, i’m outta here”
Well tried, Billie, but No.
Joyce wants someone in her life who she can later point to as a cautionary example.
She’s got plenty of choices.
You’re the other side of the coin Roz.
The Arc was more or less a giant capacitor, so…
wait was this the “of the Covenant” or Noah’s?
The first, if it was the latter, all the animals would have being electrocuted.
It was the Arc Reactor of the Covenant. King David was Iron Man.
He built it in the desert WITH A BOX OF IDOL SCRAPS
This may be my new favourite thing.
Ark, not arc. This is Christianity, not Scientology.
The Theta is strong in you.
I am detecting KRC off the graph
Kentucky Roasted Chicken? I see a great need.
Not giants in a way that helps. The capacitance of a capacitor is proportional to the area of the plates and inversely proportional to their separation distance, all times the permittivity of the dielectric between them. Standard electrolytic capacitors have effective plate areas of a few square metres and effective plate separations equal to the thickness of the oxide layer on the surface of aluminium, i.e. nanometres. That’s probably about several million times the capacitance of the Ark of the Covenant, even though such a capacitor might be only a few centimetres long.
Joyce managed to disturb Roz… that was interesting.
And lightning struck once! And lightning struck twice! And I seen the wrath of God and sure ain’t nice!–The Rainmakers
God used lightning strike! It was super effective!
Not since Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod – although Tesla’s design works better.
Anyone can improve on a design with 100 years of development. Tesla was badass for many other reasons though.
True, even if you disallow giving Tesla credit for Atomic Robo on the grounds of him being fictional and all.
Tesla is fictional?
This was so genuinely sweet and then lololol last panel is so funny, I love it.
I’ve heard the “bow your head to wrath” BS in too many negative contexts for it to be truly funny. Awful lot of the time it’s used as justification for human wrath, not divine.
Is that an actual phrase? What’s the context in which it’s used? Google turns up only this comment thread.
If it’s an actual Biblical quote I don’t know what version or book it’s from. I’ve run into several vehement religious types who used it to imply that a given behavior was inherently deserving of punishment and you should simply accept it for being dirty rotten sinner. Since those behaviors included “getting an abortion” “drinking any alcohol at all” and “being gay” the phrase is linked to some pretty offensive mindsets for me.
Oh, and my google search turns up someplace called “Spiritual Forces Ministry” as the first hit. To quote:
“It may be a lot easier to bow and bend now then it will be when you are facing an angry God. I know, because I have upset Him with lesser things and have felt a lesser wrath. It was not the head bowing and knee bending wrath, but it was terrible. The only way to not be a receiving part of His wrath is to not cause it. Bowing your head and bending your knees now, while He is giving you the chance to do it His way will be a lot less painful. It will be done His way whether you like it or not. His command will prevail…”
Typical “grovel before our god because he’ll get you in the end one way or the other” thing, really. The problem I have with it is when people decide that they’re the ones to enact the his wrath, rather than letting him do it.
Great intentions Joyce and then you just have to push it that little bit too far…
Omigod, Joyce . . . just when I’d forgotten that truly frightening things could come out of your mouth . . .
A good predator lulls you into dropping your guard before striking!
I expect no less from Joyce.
Contrariwise, I was starting to expect more from her, but she’s obviously not there yet.
She’s learning bit by bit what non-fundie people dislike.
Honestly, I probably would have said the same thing as Joyce in the last panel.
But I’m kinda a troll in those situations.
For reference… II Samuel 6:6-8 (NRSV translation):
“When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.
David was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah; so that place is called Perez-uzzah, to this day.”
further reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZpsbGr7s8
An awesome and classic moment in cinematic history to be sure, but I’d be willing to bet Joyce hasn’t seen that. 🙂
Wow. I had forgotten about that. MAN, does it suck to be that guy. Not only did he drop the Ark of the Covenant, but his butt got smote for trying to catch it so it didn’t fall.
The point is kind of that the guy had massively disrespected the Ark already, and putting it in a situation where it could be dropped was the last straw. It wasn’t really that he tried to “save” it.
I thought God didn’t like idols anyway, what is the point of…
you know what, n/m I should just hit up Google if I wanna know so bad (not really)
so… Uzzah disrespected the ark and somehow end up dead.
Otherwise anybody would think that touching the ark was nothing.
What is a godstrike? a snake bite? a thunderstrike? a knife in the ribs? the hands of the sacred priests? a knife in the hands of sacred priests?
this is a god that send his faithful to kill men, women and children… just saying.
Don’t forget when he takes away from the faithful just to show Satan (who at the time was his follower still and was genuinely concerned that the faithful just followed because he gave them good things) that the faithful still have faith even when you completely destroy their lives!
Or when he personally murders the entire town of Sodom (wasn’t one of the commandments ‘Thou shalt not kill’? Not setting a good example there) just because he doesn’t like how the people were greedy and uncharitable (wasn’t he supposed to love everyone regardless because they were all his children in his mind?).
One of my favourite biblical WTF moments.
Well if you wanted your worshipers to build you a gold covered box to hold your rules in, would you want them leaving hand prints all over your bling?
If they’d just put the bars through the rings and carried it on their shoulders, like they were supposed to, there wouldn’t have been a cart for the ark to fall off of, and no smiting would have taken place. The lesson? RTFM!
You have failed me for the last time, Uzzah.
I hope there’s a universe out there where Joyce has divinely given smiting powers. It’d be funny.
I wonder if EGS’ Suzan (or Ted) could arrange something about this.
More likely Pandora or one of her relatives. Closest things the setting has shown us to godlike power so far.
Tedd’s good, but not quite in that league yet.
I’m sure he’d love a good Challenge 🙂
He’s currently obsessed with shrinking people, at least according to EGS: NP. I blame Nanase’s fairy dolls for getting the idea stuck in his head.
Well there is the cheese, although Joyce never becomes the cheese.
That is probably for the best all around.
Everybody couldn’t stop smiling. By the end of the first day, their faces hurt like hell, and yet they were still smiling.
HAMMERTIME!
In Walkyverse! she has a jetpack and a gun bigger than herself, isn’t that enough?
Hmm. I wonder what domain she’d use as a cleric in 5th Edition. Light, or Life?
Roz, take a clue from Sarah, and embrace your status as someone sent by the Old Testament God. (Side note, I don’t know every story in the Old Testament. Do I want to know the story the hover text is referring to? I just know that God liked striking people dead over that thing).
I thiiiiink it may be a reference to the facemeltings in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
The face meltings were in Raiders of the Lost Ark. And it’s because the Nazis opened the thing. (What exactly were they expecting to do with it?)
They clearly didn’t do their homework in any case.
Typical Nazi’s and their wacky hijinx!
I don’t remember the details, but I remember that some shmuck grabbed the Ark because he thought it was going to fall. But because it was too Holy for humans, or because God said people weren’t supposed to touch it (like I said, I don’t remember the details), that poor shmuck got struck dead.
That would be Uzzah, whose name is probably also an onomatopoeia for his last words as OT God electrocuted him. Someone quoted the relevant text in the comments above.
I wonder if nobody knew what his name was, and so they referred to him by the last sound he made.
In the Old Testament, God had a bit of a hair trigger. Make one little mistake, and BOOM! What a flattering comparison for Roz.
I can’t tell if Joyce is being serious or having a little fun at Roz’s expense. XD
Hey Dave! I haven’t seen you comment over here before (though I don’t usually read through all of them… your icon jumped out at me though). Side note, I tried to open up Selkie and the site doesn’t seem to be working?
it’s working, albeit pretyt slowly, for me.
this party’s draw did not last long at all
You know leading your nemesis into a false sense of security by saying you’re not their nemesis is exactly what a nemesis would do……Well played Joyce.
Joyce Wins.
BIBLE-ITY!
Wow…. she totally just went there.
“But sometimes maybe I need someone to be mean.”
Yes! YES! She finally admits it! Oh, Willis, you have no idea how happy this makes me! 😀
Somewhere, Mike sneezes.
This is definitely Mikes cue to walk in
That she’s into S&M ?
I’m not sure if that’s a last-minute fumble on Joyce’s part or if she is actually trying to be self-aware and even playful with how crazy her belief system is.
I mean, it’s a pretty big blow when you find out your best friend and boyfriend are both gay and nothing’s wrong with them. Maybe there are other holes the boat, like how fond god seems to be of just straight-up killing people in order to solve problems!
To be fair, straight up killing people can be a super efficient way to solve certain problems if you have all the absolute facts *cough*KimJongUn*cough*.
Seems pretty arbitrary whenever God does it in the Bible though.
Outright slaughter is easier to justify when you’re defined as omniscient, but you run into problems when that’s a self-definition and people disagree with you. It’s also easier to carry out when you’re omnipotent, of course. At that point disagreement becomes irrelevant except in terms of giving you more opportunities for smiting.
Give this Amazi-girl a deathnote.
what could possibly go wrong?
Nah, give it to Dorothy instead. She’ll use it appropriately.
Now we need a week’s worth of strips focused on Walky eating chips in as epic a fashion as possible.
He will take a potato chip…
AND EAT IT!
Pretty sure the only way to use a Death Note appropriately is to burn it.
Hey, God can send you to eternal paradise, who dares what he does with your flesh?
No Billie you’re here to narc, not to nip off somewhere else.
Agreed. Billie getting drunk and possibly laid at an off-campus party would be a drama nightmare for the relationship with Ruth. Rather not see the Sexy Lesbian Suicide Pact derail.
It was on rails to begin with?
Well, yeah. They lead directly to a washed-out bridge over a bottomless ravine, but they’re still rails.
Then let’s go off the rails NOW!
The rails are called depression and alcoholism. If there’s a quick and reliable way to get off them that doesn’t involve a fatal crash, let me know. I’ve got friends who haven’t managed it in 40 years of trying.
“Bow your head to wrath, Roz. Bow your head to wrath” is what I’d expect Joyce to say as she exacts terrible vengeance on her
It her wrath since Joyce has removed her power over her!
Lesson of the day: Opposites don’t really attract, but they can co-mingle together in each other’s company.
Briefly at best. And more often, it leads to conflict.
Welp, third panel seems to have Billie’s request of the second panel answered with a spot of damn fast rapturing. POOF.
That, or Roz has a teleporter.
God loves Him some GTFOing?
If you thought she was talking to Roz, you are mistaken. She was literally talking to god.
Wow, you’re right, Billie’s just…gone.
That wasn’t god that was Ruth dragging her away to make out
Joyce then proceeds to freak out, because she hasn’t been raptured too.
I’m with roz – humble, apologizing Joyce is terrifying
She’s evangelical, outward statements of humility are the source of her power
But since they are completely sincere, it’s terrifying.
This is Joyce saying “This isn’t even my final form!”
What.
Ah yes, ark care, that holy thing that’s been missing for 2000 years, and is probably in a church in Ethiopia, but nobody wants to check it out because then we’ll all know its just a stupid old box and not a big deal.
The Israelites didn’t pay extra for Ark Care, if they had they would have been able to use their Ark cloud account to locate it remotely.
Wow… joyce got really creapy there…
Funniest hover-text I’ve seen yet.
Tone it down Joyce …way down.
re hover-text: also a good policy for dropping something while driving. Maybe the laws of physics will make the Wrath of God unnecessary if you try to catch it. This was actually discussed at a recent company meeting I was at. Seems obvious, but it takes some forethought to control the reflex.
“Nemeses,” Roz? Seriously? Someone seems to see a bit more epic-ness in her like than is actually there….Unsurprisingly.
Yeah, the only nemeses in that room are Becky and Dorothy. 🙂
I’m pretty sure she’s trying to channel what she perceives as Joyce’s view of their relationship.
She thinks that Joyce thinks they’re “nemeses”.
“You need me, you wouldn’t be much of a hero without a villain, and you love been a hero don’t you? The cheering children, the swooning women; you love it so much it’s made you my most reliable accomplice.” ~If Joyce were secretly evil.
How do we know she isn’t evil? I mean, it’s secretly evil so…..
Now I’m imagining Joyce sitting with her hands crossed over her mouth. Resting the bottom of her nose on her fingers. Really hope people get what I mean here.
I think most people who’d read a Willis comic will get that reference. It’s not exactly obscure.
Well
Yep, that’s the one
Thoughtfully stroking a white cat, then chasing the cat all around the room trying to pick it back up. Kinda ruins the effect, but to be expected from Joyce (at least Walkyverse Joyce).
White longhair cat + sweater vest = fashion disaster
Oh man, I want to watch that story again! Mmmmm Justice Lords.
I understand almost nothing about today’s strip past the fifth panel. (And I’m not entirely certain about the fourth.) I don’t understand Joyce’s ark-care reference, if the “bow your head to wrath” thing is yet another bible reference, the alt-text, or the bible quote in the comments. I think I’m simply missing too much basic Christianity 201 to follow this one.
If I’m understanding correctly, she’s referencing the fact that God killed all but like 5 human beings in a massive flood, just cause he wanted to. This story is known as “Noah’s Ark” and some dude named Noah built a boat to save all the animals because God didn’t want EVERYTHING to die, just most things.
Or it’s a reference to the ark of the covenant, which ISN’T a boat and also was in Indiana Jones?
I think its a reference to a guy dropping the Ark of the Covenant and getting struck dead for it.
Just scroll up through the comments. Guy’s name was Uzzah, OT God killed him for touching the ark of the covenant, ie that box in Raiders.
Even more, he was killed for touching the Ark while TRYING to keep it from CRASHING TO THE GROUND.
Having acquaintances who are nothing but yes men are the worst.
Yes, you are completely right.
#ImSoClever
Depends on what they’re saying “yes” to.
… Joyce, I’m pretty sure that Roz is now under the assumption that you’re a secret submissive who has a fetish for humiliation. XD
Yep. Who wouldn’t be?
And now I’m waiting for Joyce to make a guest appearance in Sunstone…
…is Joyce deliberately trolling Roz here? I’m getting a distinct flash of self-parody in that last panel.
Wait, when did someone drop a huge wooden ship? How did they lift it in the first place?
My thoughts entirely.
Yes. God ends up a loving father and vengeful destroyer and everything in between. That happens when you have two different origin stories and go through a bunch of different writers. The individual story arcs make sense, but they get real inconsistent.
Jesus has it even worse, since he has four origin stories and people are always retroconning strange things into their fanfic and personal head canons.
You have to approach the Bible like a long running comic series. Sometimes the writers just screwed the main character up.
You forgot to mention them using the hackneyed trope of killing a main character and him not staying dead.
Well, to be fair, when this particular piece was written, it hadn’t really become a trope. People hadn’t gotten tired of it yet.
At least Jesus’ family history didn’t get as complicated as the Summers-Grey family lines.
Hardly. Pre-Christian mythology is chock full of “back from the dead” stories. Cyclical resurrection is a theme for some deities, and mythic heroes often return from death or bring others back as a part of their stories.
Like I said, hackneyed and derivative.
That, and all the pieces were assembled long after they were written. It’s more like raiding the attics of various comic artists throughout history, and attempting to make a coherent story out of their combined work.
Or making Robotech out of three different unrelated anime series.
One more reboot and Spider-Man will be tied with Jesus. (I know that the next movie isn’t an origin story.)
Pete didn’t do quite as well with the whole “temptation by the Devil” thing, though. Stupid Mephisto.
Jesus greatest miracle was undoing One More Day.
Personally, I was holding out hope that Herbie Popnecker would show up in a crossover and fix the whole mess. Wouldn’t be the first time he beat the Devil. That kid makes the Saint of Killers look like a wimp.
I think Joyce might be trolling.
When she said ark care, I thought she meant ropes, caulking, oiling, sea shanties, that kind of stuff.
They weren’t big on the whole arc of whatsitname when I went to sunday school. Or maybe I never paid attention.
I get it. It’s the wrath of Khan! YEah!
That sounds like the name of a decent action movie. “THIS SUMMER… BATMAN IS IS BOW YOUR HEAD TO WRATH!”
Blast, I thought this was going to be one of the very rare strips where I actually liked Joyce, but nope – last panel denial!
I’m a little confused about what “ark care” refers to? The ark of the covenant? Noah’s ark?
Scroll up through the comments, it’s already been covered. Covenenant, dead guy named Uzzah, OT God being a dick.
The ark reactor. It was built in a cave
I choose to believe that Joyce is deliberately using such an extreme example just to antagonize Roz. 😉
So I hope I’m wrong in my interpretation of this strip, but I hate the idea that Roz was right to flip out on Joyce, and it was something she needed to grow as a person. I agree with Roz’s politics but I sure don’t approve of acting like a total jackass to people like that, let alone Joyce and her unique circumstances.
Personally I’d say that if you take everything together, Roz has gotten the right reaction. A thanks from Joyce, who cares that she grew as a person because of Roz; and a censure from Leslie, who cares that it was not at all an appropriate way for Roz to treat someone.
I suppose.
Like, I’m glad Joyce learned, but I hate the idea of “I’m right, you’re wrong, therefore I get to say anything I want to you and it’s perfectly okay!”
Me too, but Leslie said she was over the line more meaningfully than Joyce could; it would be too easy to ignore from a presumed nemesis. The message she needs and might be able to from Joyce is that they aren’t opposed forces of nature, but people who can learn and change.
This strip may confirm that Joyce has learned from Roz, but it doesn’t mean the outburst was okay. If Joyce excuses it, well, that’s who she is; I doubt Roz will really take comparison to a murdering god as real vindication.
It’s in Joyce’s nature to focus on the best of what someone was doing, even if they did it wrong. Unless it involves sex.
It’s never right for someone to hurt you. But sometimes being hurt can coincidentally be something valuable for you.
I’m not sure I’d say “never” there. Certainly been in situations where all the options were going to hurt. The best you can do there is choose the one that gets the best ratio between help and harm.
I think Job would have been a better example, and Roz is just another test of Joyce’s faith. Either that or Joyce is either crazy or brilliant or both. Take your pick.
Bow your head to wrath. David Lee Wrath:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKWiKNMKhgQ
I can see Joyce wearing sensible shoes:)
Well, it is important to know and socialise with folks who have views different from your own. Keeps the brain healthy.
Just what I think, I know of no science tae back this up.
As you read this words, I may or may not be sneaking up behind you.
I–I think Joyce is fucking with Roz?…
Only in Becky’s headcanon
Becky and Roz – united in their inability to get their nemesis to recognize their feud.
“You are my nemesis”
“we are nemeses”
…it gotta be right, but I can’t shake that feeling 😐
Why doesn’t Bobby just leave? Parties aren’t hard to find in college.
You mean Billie, I’m guessing? Ruth sent her to keep an eye Joyce’s party. She’d rather not be there, but if/when she does manage to make an exit without raising suspicion, she’ll probably wind up back at Ruth’s, not at a random party.
“Bow your head to Wrath” is something I’ve had a campaign villain say before. He was speaking in third person but definitely villain monologuing