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Black holes don’t suck! They pull, just like everything else! And they don’t pull that much harder than anything else, they’re just willing to get much more intimate.
There are lots of people with shitty personalities who think they’re great artists. Usually they’re wrong, but occasionally it happens.
I can’t speak to the visual arts, but most of the musicians I’ve ever worked with were pretty good people, and that includes some of the most talented I’ve ever met.
This idea that True Artists need to be assholes, and also the idea that all assholes are really Misunderstood Artists — both of those ideas need to die.
You jest, but honestly, as someone who doesn’t take art classes…how do you grade art? Sure there can be art that is just objectively terrible, or fails to follow the assignment. But what defines A art vs B art?
My life drawing professor based grades more on progress rather than technical skill. How well you grasped the concepts and how much improvement you show over past attempts.
Usually assignments like those focus of specific elements of drawing, and teachers will have a few points they expect you to hit. Stuff like good use of light and shadow to imply form, or variation in line to create texture. Of course, it’s easier with something like life drawing where mostly the goal is to represent a person on paper realistically. It gets weirder and more subjective when you get into stuff like installation art. Then a large part of your grade can depend on how well you defend it in critique and your accompanying write up.
My own experience of being graded in art classes suggests it’s mostly about learning the technical aspects of creating art with the type of class Mary and Malaya are taking,
Had an art teacher in high school who graded entirely on how much I sucked up, completely ignoring quality, volume of output, percentage of finished work versus half-assed scribbles, etc.
Improved an entire letter grade (up to an A) just by switching to saying, “Oh! Yes! I see where I went wrong! Thank you so much for showing me!” instead of arguing my decisions, despite concurrently running out of fucks to give and my vastly lowered and inferior output manifestly demonstrating that.
Sounds like my “drawing” teacher in college. He was all about drawing being “passionate” and “energetic” and “exciting” while poor deluded me was trying to make it look like what I was looking at.
When my neighbor tried to defend him I bet her that he would looove my next piece and say specifically XYZ about it, and then drew something specifically calculated to get that response. Which it did.
After that, the game was to pick a theme and draw something to get him to say that.
Pissed me off because I already understood composition. I took the damn class to learn how to *draw*.
Art (of any sort, from Drawing to Photography) grading is primarily based on comprehension of mathematical concepts- straight lines, angles, strong shaping, good contrast, and a buncha specific concepts like rule of thirds and golden ratio. As such, it’s graded much like anything else mathematical is [ie, by how well you adhere to the formulas provided]. Once you get those basics down (and judging by the artwork thrown in the trash, they’re still working on those), it becomes a matter of how well you can make the art convey what you’re intending it to convey, and how well you grasp (and can evidence grasping) more abstract artistic concepts or specific forms of art. For example, if the aim is comprehension of styles, and you can evidence understanding what defines surrealism and cubism, and can adequately portray both, then that’s a “Pass”, while confusing the two would be a “Fail”. Evidencing special creativity or wit or polish with your artwork is nice, and gives you a stronger portfolio, but typically doesn’t matter for basic art grading. [In much the same way that my coding a fully functioning database and login system and account system for an online forum didn’t give me extra credit in a basic HTML class (stupid school not letting me test out of it..) where the assignment was just to do the HTML part of a forum. As long as you can meet the goal assigned, you get a pass; anything past that is just for your own benefit.]
In short, instructional Art critique is *not* subjective, it’s about the student adhering to mathematical concepts and meeting basic goalpoints. Once it gets into the matter of subjectivity, the student should already have earned a “Pass” (though, as noted above, they may be required to explain their approach, so as to evidence their comprehension of the subject).
With that in mind, art teachers I had typically went with an A-C-F system, matching to “Understands the Concept”, “Attempted the Work”, and “Didn’t turn in the Work”. It’s been a *long* time, but I’m not sure Bs were ever really given out in any of my art classes, other than for Art History and the like.
Coding is really my favorite comparison point for it-
You can make the nicest, prettiest, most efficient code nesting and databasing design and so forth, and put it all to a lovely UI design, but the assignment itself is going to be something much more fundamental, like “Have a database that stores logins and can call up a user’s favorite TV shows”. For Art, that’d be something like “Use shading to give the right impression of depth to match the concept at hand”. Your style is less important than being able to meet the mechanical objective.
So, in summary, Art is like any other scholastic field- they want you to evidence grasping basic concepts of the field, and show basic utility in applying those concepts. You only really start getting graded subjectively once you enter competitive settings.
All artistic fields work off similar principles, from Music to Figure Skating- the amount of complexity within your presentation and the control you have over form.. there are technical elements that can be assessed for all of it. Subjectivity only comes in when skill is on similar tiers, and has passed basic mechanical requirements.
Agree. When I took C programming classes I had already been coding Perl professionally for a decade. I kept running up against an urge to make my code bulletproof and production-ready. If the assignment was to read records in from a flat file I’d think “This won’t scale. I should be using a database.” I’d want to create production-level functions to sanitize inputs to make sure someone didn’t try to make their username “\n\n\n”. I’d also strain on all the assignments that used string parsing, which was about half of them. I’d think “This is all string parsing and manipulation and it doesn’t need to be fast. I wouldn’t do this in C, I’d do it in Perl. And if I did have to do it in C I’d use one of the hundreds of existing string function libraries so I wouldn’t have to code all the weird corner cases.” I had to learn to stifle the urge to show off and just do the assignment. “Damn it, I gotta get this Celsius/Fahrenheit conversion assignment finished so I can get back to work and write that REST API test harness!”
When I graded intro to programming assignments for engeneering classes, we would grade on things that could be considered “subjective”, such as code neatness and readability and documentation. We had grade levels like F-unreadable code, does not compile, C-compiles and attempts to solve the problem, or readable code that dos not compile due to small mistakes, B-runs without errors, A-actually does the thing it was supposed to do, readable code. But we would give small bonuses for creativity and organization. I once had a student write all the output messages in pirate speech. I think it’s worth something.
Nowadays I sometimes grade the R course assignments where students are asked to analyse data and explain what they found, and at the end they pick a problem that interests them and make a function to solve that problem. It’s all highly subjective. We have to grade according to how often the code crashes and how well the function works, but depending on how hard the proposal was and how generic and how cool it was. We have to evaluate how much the student learned and how hard they tried. There’s a technique to it, but I wouldn’t say it’s objective.
All in all I think it must be pretty similar to how art assignments are graded. Even if when I was in art classes I had no idea whatsoever of how to get a good grade.
She might have to fight Sarah for that name. And Malaya seems more like the random bystander who insults the hero when they’re trying to save people than a hero to me.
Heh, putting in ‘theoretically’ might have been overdoing it, but misanthropy seems to be one of Carla’s defining traits so I wasn’t sure if I should be randomly saying she likes someone. But that misanthropy is why it didn’t faze me when I thought she was talking to Sal there. Some people say (word that isn’t actually bongo) as a term of endearment.
First panel does look like she’s interested in Malaya’s artwork. Plus, she’s being WAAAAY too meek and quiet. Agree with Mollyscribbles – she’s definitely planning to swipe it.
Mary seems to have that “will she notice me?” look. She’s following Mal around like a puppy, and blushing. Has she found her -Gasp!- girl-crush, at last???
Yeah, but why? Its not like she could turn in Malaya’s art as her own, given that any art professor worth a damn would figure somethings up pretty much instantly, and its not like she can blackmail Malaya with drawings.
Or maybe Mary actually cares about her art enough to recognize Malaya is better at it, and is thus trying to learn from her old sketches. Sketches Malaya just threw away, and thus obviously doesn’t care about. It would be some nice positive character development, but I’ve been burned before. Money’s on her somehow cheating with old graded homework. But I choose to hope!
Maybe pin it to a corkboard with string and stuff like a crazy conspiracy theorist, figuring that by analyzing aspects that met with approval she’d be able to replicate them and game the system?
No no. Three-dimensional string maze, art assignments folded into paper airplanes and little origami animals that slide along the strings in various directions. Mary in the center plucking her web of deceit and confusion.
–Dave, and then it all collapses around her, one wacky beat panel, after which we get a top-down view showing the string now spells out CARLA! in cursive
Peculiar that to get here I had to click through an ad for a remedy for overactive bladder issues.
*plays the Moody Blues’ “Tuesday Afternoon” on the hacked Muzak*
The poster on the wall behind her is definitely an electric bass. And she doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who is into practicing for the sake of developing technique.
So it’s much more likely to be a magazine than the Carcassi method.
I’ve seen thin books on an instrument (mandolin, if you’re wondering) for beginners that were staple-bound like a magazine. So it might be that. Tunings, chords, a few basic tunes, and so on. Probably includes a few pages of ads for more from the same publisher.
I think the neck is too short to be a guitar (unless it’s supposed to be the perspective of a tilted instrument). The body looks odd for a ukulele, but I would guess that making a nonstandard body for a ukulele is more likely than making such a short-necked guitar.
How would that even work? Wouldn’t the professor notice that Mary’s art
A. Doesn’t look like the art she turned in before.
B. Looks strangely similar to the artwork of the girl who sat right next to her?
Besides, Mary is pretty prideful, so I don’t know if she’d be willing to steal art, simply because that would involve admitting someone is better than her.
…. okay, I’m not saying there wouldn’t be something shady to it, but suppose that Mary:
1) Took the art that Malaya dumped in the trash.
2) Did some tracing to learn that particular art style and improve her own skills.
3) Did not turn in the tracings, but did turn in something based on those copied techniques.
Would that still be wrong? It’s got a kinda underhanded feel to it, but aside from being nominal theft from a garbage can I can’t pin it down.
She’s not going to learn anything by making superficial copies of someone else’s work; she’d have to know how to dissect it and reverse-engineer the techniques Malaya used, and figure out how to apply them. This would require acknowledging that someone else is objectively better than she is, and in Mary Land that just isn’t possible.
Art school is slowly beating the anime out of her drawing hand.
No, it wouldn’t be wrong to trace only to improve (a lot of digital artists I know say it is fine if you trace to learn as long as you don’t upload said tracings) but knowing Mary, she will only seek such improvement so that she can one-up Malaya and she would lie and say she did it without any help.
I’ve frequently wished for an edit button here, and rarely for a delete button, but I think this is the first time I’ve felt the need for an unfriend button.
She’s jealous of Malaya’s art skill and wants to Learn More. Presumably Malaya casually tossing her sketches is just going to make Mary burn more.
I’m actually liking this because a lot of Mary’s, um, passions revolve around her being an ultra-conservative fundamentalist with the self-rightousness of Mother Theresa, and while there’s absolutely people like that, even they tend to have other interests. Mary’s long-standing art and anime interest getting more attention in an arc where it pits her against Malaya of all people is going to be amazing.
My initial assumption was that she was talking to Mary, because – you know- it fits, but maybe she was talking to Sal. Swapping mild insults may be a thing they do now.
I’m trying to work out what Mary is doing hanging around. Either she’s decided that Malaya is her True Nemesis ™ and is spying on her, she’s still determined to make a minion of her or she’s looking to steal Malaya’s carelessly-discarded drawings to present as her own to someone (probably her family).
Panel 1: First up, we see the return of Stalker Mary, doing what she does “best”, following behind Malaya and lurking around her space so as to glean more from her (what that might be can’t possibly be good).
But I think a more interesting aspect is Mary’s jealousy and a slipping of her mask of confidence.
Like on one hand, of course she is jealous. Art is her biggest thing and here is this very talented artist who is receiving much more in-depth praise from the teacher (because her work grows and evolves). That doesn’t sit right with her. Especially with Malaya definitely not being the type of person Mary is comfortable seeing as successful (and certainly not more successful than her).
But I think it ties into a broader social thing and that’s the dangerous reaction dominant groups have when a member of a marginalized identity succeeds (and especially succeeds past their own personal level of success).
When that happens, it brings up a lot of emotions, and for an unfortunately significant of portion of people, those feelings end up getting expressed in rage, violence, and other negative actions designed to “put the person back in their place”.
This relates to the targeting and murdering of black kids who are seen as “not belonging” in a middle-class white neighborhood, the rage anytime a trans athlete is moderately successful, or the intimate violence and anger that can occur sometimes from a man whose wife makes more money than him.
Now, is that Mary’s speed? I don’t necessarily think so. But I think there’s a large part that feels that Malaya doesn’t deserve the success she is having in art and is having some strong complicated emotions about that.
Panel 2: And it probably especially galls her that Malaya doesn’t care about art in the same way she does. Like Malaya immediately tosses her sketches in the trash and that makes sense.
Part of Malaya’s evolution and growth that the teacher was talking about comes from expanding form and being willing to create intermediary work that is not something you are proud of, but challenges you to build on drawing skillsets and practicing them.
To Malaya, those sketches are just means to building her ability. But to Mary, I imagine she sees each sketch as needing to be its own entity, static in a single style and means of expression.
I’m not sure Mary is recognizing that contrast and I’d not be overly shocked if her takeaway is instead “that coarse brown woman is getting praise and she doesn’t even value that or her drawings when I put so much work into mine”.
You know, maybe I should be a little more like Malaya, the way you describe her. I often quit during the creative process because what I’m making just isn’t good, even if I learn a lot from making it. Maybe following through on the less-good stuff could help me grow creatively.
Hey, thanks for the advice, even if you didn’t mean it to be.
proffers story about artist hired to draw a picture of a lion (or cat?) for customer. Artist quotes price, says it’ll be a couple weeks. Customer comes back about that much later, asks about commission; artists says “Oh yes, that was today”, grabs a piece of paper, and tosses off a really beautiful freehand lion drawing, shading and wild mane and everything, in about three minutes.
…customer blinks, and says, “wait, for THAT I’m paying you THIS?” Artist, without a word, reaches over to nearby cupboard and opens it, and about three reams’ worth of lion drawings fall out. … artist gets paid.
–Dave, there is no royal road to creation, though the ideas are free & plentiful
Your point about dominant group members reacting with extreme prejudice to the success of minority group members is extremely well taken. I remember reading a story a few decades ago – I no longer remember the title or author – in which a white cop shoots and kills a black man because “he thought he was better than me”. My first reaction was “no he didn’t!” (because the writer had clearly shown the dead characters basic goodness long before), My second reaction was “OMG! YOU think he was better than you!”. That this was intolerable to the cop, justifying (in his mind) murder, explained to me a lot about racism. I’m not sure if that was why the story was written, but it made a strong impression on me, which remains to this day. It was fiction, but this incident felt very true to life. Which it clearly was and still is, unfortunately.
Panel 3: Heh. I like this for its possibilities on meta-narrative. On the personal level, I feel Malaya has a strong point. What is happening is and it’s better to get used to that because even if this becomes even more toxic, it’s going to be real hard for Malaya to leave anytime soon.
But on a larger meta level, I like to consider it with our fucked up everything. And there’s an important nobility for not normalizing that or normalizing toxic relationships in general. Her situation with Malaya is not at all a thing she is comfortable with and to normalize it to herself isn’t something that’s currently going to sit right with her.
Panel 4: Oh Carla, you wonderful wonderful asshole.
Like, I love the casual way she dismisses a bigot who though somewhat defanged is still quite dangerous. It’s just, yeah, what, fuck off, here’s my two favorite ladies.
And on that note, I love her excitement here because yeah, these are 2 of her best friends and they live in her hall. We already know that Sal is a refreshing person for her (and be someone she might carry a little bit of a torch for), and her and Malaya are hitting it off as well, so this is just a moment of pure joy from her.
And any time Carla is happy, I am too.
Panel 5: I also love how Carla reacts to this. Like I don’t think she’s even mad that her favorite buddy is not as excited by her presence as she is of hers. Instead she takes the ribbing as a type of flattery.
And oh man, as if my ship suspicion of Carla having one-sided interest in Sal wasn’t sailing fast enough, I feel her soft gaze at Sal and light flirtation in her response has definitely unfurled at least one new sail by itself.
I think she might be starting to get it bad for Sal.
Um, I’m waiting for the moment when Malaya realizes it. Though I could be completely wrong in how I’ve read things and Malaya could have been into Marcy the entire time but she treats the relationship with the same nonchalance she did the artwork she worked hard on – because she’s Malaya.
In panel four, Mary is clutching her (tablet? clipboard? textbook?) in a very defensive manner. Also, her stooped posture and unhappy expression in panels one, two and four . . . the word “diffident” comes to mind. Given her normal brash assumption of superiority, she seems to have suffered a blow to her self esteem. Could she be on the verge of an existential crisis? Maybe she will yet become a decent human being.
Waaaaaait o3o *Eyes zoom in all squinty* Is that… a sticker of Malaya giving the finger mid-roller-derby on her door? Willis, are you sneakily premiering new merchandise again?
It’s a shitty thing to say, but some part of always hates it when people like Malaya are so talented at things. Not to say I’d want those skills to go to Mary as obviously she is worse, but some part of psyche wishes people who are jerks wouldn’t have amazing talents.
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no, just the ones with intensely hateful gravity
But what you’re saying is there’s some attraction there. . . I’ll… see myself out.
Yeah, there is. That’s why it sucks so hard.
Black holes don’t suck! They pull, just like everything else! And they don’t pull that much harder than anything else, they’re just willing to get much more intimate.
Wow, Malaya is very good. Just look at how well she drew those letter As.
No, I think those are legit grades. The instructor actually did seem to be impressed with Malaya’s efforts.
Honestly…Malaya’s horrible personality is a dead giveaway that she’s an artist.
There are lots of people with shitty personalities who think they’re great artists. Usually they’re wrong, but occasionally it happens.
I can’t speak to the visual arts, but most of the musicians I’ve ever worked with were pretty good people, and that includes some of the most talented I’ve ever met.
This idea that True Artists need to be assholes, and also the idea that all assholes are really Misunderstood Artists — both of those ideas need to die.
Nah. Professor Fonzarelli gives everyone an “aaaaay”.
You jest, but honestly, as someone who doesn’t take art classes…how do you grade art? Sure there can be art that is just objectively terrible, or fails to follow the assignment. But what defines A art vs B art?
My life drawing professor based grades more on progress rather than technical skill. How well you grasped the concepts and how much improvement you show over past attempts.
Usually assignments like those focus of specific elements of drawing, and teachers will have a few points they expect you to hit. Stuff like good use of light and shadow to imply form, or variation in line to create texture. Of course, it’s easier with something like life drawing where mostly the goal is to represent a person on paper realistically. It gets weirder and more subjective when you get into stuff like installation art. Then a large part of your grade can depend on how well you defend it in critique and your accompanying write up.
My own experience of being graded in art classes suggests it’s mostly about learning the technical aspects of creating art with the type of class Mary and Malaya are taking,
Had an art teacher in high school who graded entirely on how much I sucked up, completely ignoring quality, volume of output, percentage of finished work versus half-assed scribbles, etc.
Improved an entire letter grade (up to an A) just by switching to saying, “Oh! Yes! I see where I went wrong! Thank you so much for showing me!” instead of arguing my decisions, despite concurrently running out of fucks to give and my vastly lowered and inferior output manifestly demonstrating that.
Art is subjective, is what I mean to say. :/
Sounds like my “drawing” teacher in college. He was all about drawing being “passionate” and “energetic” and “exciting” while poor deluded me was trying to make it look like what I was looking at.
When my neighbor tried to defend him I bet her that he would looove my next piece and say specifically XYZ about it, and then drew something specifically calculated to get that response. Which it did.
After that, the game was to pick a theme and draw something to get him to say that.
Pissed me off because I already understood composition. I took the damn class to learn how to *draw*.
Art (of any sort, from Drawing to Photography) grading is primarily based on comprehension of mathematical concepts- straight lines, angles, strong shaping, good contrast, and a buncha specific concepts like rule of thirds and golden ratio. As such, it’s graded much like anything else mathematical is [ie, by how well you adhere to the formulas provided]. Once you get those basics down (and judging by the artwork thrown in the trash, they’re still working on those), it becomes a matter of how well you can make the art convey what you’re intending it to convey, and how well you grasp (and can evidence grasping) more abstract artistic concepts or specific forms of art. For example, if the aim is comprehension of styles, and you can evidence understanding what defines surrealism and cubism, and can adequately portray both, then that’s a “Pass”, while confusing the two would be a “Fail”. Evidencing special creativity or wit or polish with your artwork is nice, and gives you a stronger portfolio, but typically doesn’t matter for basic art grading. [In much the same way that my coding a fully functioning database and login system and account system for an online forum didn’t give me extra credit in a basic HTML class (stupid school not letting me test out of it..) where the assignment was just to do the HTML part of a forum. As long as you can meet the goal assigned, you get a pass; anything past that is just for your own benefit.]
In short, instructional Art critique is *not* subjective, it’s about the student adhering to mathematical concepts and meeting basic goalpoints. Once it gets into the matter of subjectivity, the student should already have earned a “Pass” (though, as noted above, they may be required to explain their approach, so as to evidence their comprehension of the subject).
With that in mind, art teachers I had typically went with an A-C-F system, matching to “Understands the Concept”, “Attempted the Work”, and “Didn’t turn in the Work”. It’s been a *long* time, but I’m not sure Bs were ever really given out in any of my art classes, other than for Art History and the like.
Coding is really my favorite comparison point for it-
You can make the nicest, prettiest, most efficient code nesting and databasing design and so forth, and put it all to a lovely UI design, but the assignment itself is going to be something much more fundamental, like “Have a database that stores logins and can call up a user’s favorite TV shows”. For Art, that’d be something like “Use shading to give the right impression of depth to match the concept at hand”. Your style is less important than being able to meet the mechanical objective.
So, in summary, Art is like any other scholastic field- they want you to evidence grasping basic concepts of the field, and show basic utility in applying those concepts. You only really start getting graded subjectively once you enter competitive settings.
All artistic fields work off similar principles, from Music to Figure Skating- the amount of complexity within your presentation and the control you have over form.. there are technical elements that can be assessed for all of it. Subjectivity only comes in when skill is on similar tiers, and has passed basic mechanical requirements.
Agree. When I took C programming classes I had already been coding Perl professionally for a decade. I kept running up against an urge to make my code bulletproof and production-ready. If the assignment was to read records in from a flat file I’d think “This won’t scale. I should be using a database.” I’d want to create production-level functions to sanitize inputs to make sure someone didn’t try to make their username “\n\n\n”. I’d also strain on all the assignments that used string parsing, which was about half of them. I’d think “This is all string parsing and manipulation and it doesn’t need to be fast. I wouldn’t do this in C, I’d do it in Perl. And if I did have to do it in C I’d use one of the hundreds of existing string function libraries so I wouldn’t have to code all the weird corner cases.” I had to learn to stifle the urge to show off and just do the assignment. “Damn it, I gotta get this Celsius/Fahrenheit conversion assignment finished so I can get back to work and write that REST API test harness!”
When I graded intro to programming assignments for engeneering classes, we would grade on things that could be considered “subjective”, such as code neatness and readability and documentation. We had grade levels like F-unreadable code, does not compile, C-compiles and attempts to solve the problem, or readable code that dos not compile due to small mistakes, B-runs without errors, A-actually does the thing it was supposed to do, readable code. But we would give small bonuses for creativity and organization. I once had a student write all the output messages in pirate speech. I think it’s worth something.
Nowadays I sometimes grade the R course assignments where students are asked to analyse data and explain what they found, and at the end they pick a problem that interests them and make a function to solve that problem. It’s all highly subjective. We have to grade according to how often the code crashes and how well the function works, but depending on how hard the proposal was and how generic and how cool it was. We have to evaluate how much the student learned and how hard they tried. There’s a technique to it, but I wouldn’t say it’s objective.
All in all I think it must be pretty similar to how art assignments are graded. Even if when I was in art classes I had no idea whatsoever of how to get a good grade.
R programmers, of course, write everything in pirate speech, so they all get an extra credit bonus.
Malaya’s superhero name would definitely be “Miss-Anthropic”
Miss Anthrope is already the name of a Captain Underpants character.
Wow…
In all the years of reading Captain Underpants, I never got that joke.
Same here! I always assumed that that was a perfectly normal name
And also a game designer (ok, she’s Anna Anthropy, but close enough)
Whenever Anna gets tired of being ‘Chronistic’, she can switch to ‘Thrope’.
She might have to fight Sarah for that name. And Malaya seems more like the random bystander who insults the hero when they’re trying to save people than a hero to me.
“Outta My Way, You Vaginal Discharge”
yet another great name for this volume of Dumbing of Age!
I legit choked on my water. It was simply perfect.
It is simply the perfect response to “Faz is great”
….. technically accurate? For some meanings of the word “discharge”?
…. I know I shouldn’t be parsing this language, but I CAN’T STOP.
Isn’t that an accurate term for EVERYONE that wasn’t a C-section?
In Dutch you can say “Kutkind”; which is an insult to mean annoying child. But it can also be literally translated to “conga child”.
I read that as “vaginal disgrace” at first
That works too. The vagina that released Mary on the world should be ashamed.
Mary, Malaya, Carla and Sal all within a few feet of each other?
I don’t predict this going well.
The free-for-all to end is all.
I predict it will end with black eyes and missing teeth.
So, VERY well!
Well, this nicely answers the question of what day it is.
And yay, Carla!
It’s Tuesday, October 12.
… but for us, it was Tuesday?
–Dave, for me it actually is, catchin’ up here after a prolonged squawk
I feel like the other characters don’t actually know Mary’s there and she’s always hidden behind something when they glance in her direction.
So Carla’s not speaking to her in panel four?
Was…was there some actual vaginal discharge in her way?
… I don’t think it occurred to me that Carla wouldn’t be referring to Sal, who she theoretically likes, as such.
Since when does Carla not like Sal? Their talk on the steps seemed fairly pleasant.
Dangit, misread “as such” as “as much”. Sorry.
Heh, putting in ‘theoretically’ might have been overdoing it, but misanthropy seems to be one of Carla’s defining traits so I wasn’t sure if I should be randomly saying she likes someone. But that misanthropy is why it didn’t faze me when I thought she was talking to Sal there. Some people say (word that isn’t actually bongo) as a term of endearment.
Nonono, that’s Dina.
Huh, Sal’s shirt is very familiar (I’m not sure if she was wearing it earlier and I didn’t notice, which is probably the case.)
You probably recognize it from either a preview post or character sheet post that Willis did a few months ago.
True! I think I also recognize it from IW!, though I’m not 100% sure.
The misanthropic black hole line is the best simile I’ve read in…possibly in forever. Nice going, Sal, I’m laughing.
is…is Mary ostensibly trying to befriend Malaya ?
Naw, she just wants to slay her and consume her heart, thus absorbing her artistic abilities.
That’s what I’ve been doing wrong! If only I’d known this before the years of practice…
I’m guessing she’s going to try to swipe the discarded artwork from the trash to try and figure out what the hell is so good about it.
First panel does look like she’s interested in Malaya’s artwork. Plus, she’s being WAAAAY too meek and quiet. Agree with Mollyscribbles – she’s definitely planning to swipe it.
Mary seems to have that “will she notice me?” look. She’s following Mal around like a puppy, and blushing. Has she found her -Gasp!- girl-crush, at last???
I honestly think it looks like she’s just stealing her art from the trash bin.
Yeah, but why? Its not like she could turn in Malaya’s art as her own, given that any art professor worth a damn would figure somethings up pretty much instantly, and its not like she can blackmail Malaya with drawings.
I mean, that art is already graded. Seems like Mary can’t believe that Malaya is that good at art while not being particularly enthusiastic about it.
Or maybe Mary actually cares about her art enough to recognize Malaya is better at it, and is thus trying to learn from her old sketches. Sketches Malaya just threw away, and thus obviously doesn’t care about. It would be some nice positive character development, but I’ve been burned before. Money’s on her somehow cheating with old graded homework. But I choose to hope!
Mary acknowledging someone else being better than her at something would be a complete 180° out of nowhere
Exactly why I doubt it will happen. Trying to cheat seems obviously stupid though? Especially tracing already graded homework. Sooo what’s up? *shrug*
Maybe pin it to a corkboard with string and stuff like a crazy conspiracy theorist, figuring that by analyzing aspects that met with approval she’d be able to replicate them and game the system?
No no. Three-dimensional string maze, art assignments folded into paper airplanes and little origami animals that slide along the strings in various directions. Mary in the center plucking her web of deceit and confusion.
–Dave, and then it all collapses around her, one wacky beat panel, after which we get a top-down view showing the string now spells out CARLA! in cursive
Maybe she’d steal it to trace?
Peculiar that to get here I had to click through an ad for a remedy for overactive bladder issues.
*plays the Moody Blues’ “Tuesday Afternoon” on the hacked Muzak*
T͜͝Ų͡E̕͡S͝D̀҉͏A̧Y͡͝ ̵A͝͠͡G̢A͘I̶N
͟N̛O ̛P̵R̀OB̛L͏E̛͠͝Ḿ͠
Are you trying to make Malaya best girl? Cos this is how you make a best girl.
Malaya and best girl do not remotely go together except for a few people with…different tastes in favorite characters.
Sal, considering how many people come up to you randomly, should you really be talking?
Sure, you don’t really like when people do that, but it’s not like Malaya’s going out of her way for it either.
Is that a book about practicing the guitar that Sal is holding? Seems like spending all that time with Danny has had an effect on her.
Looks like a magazine. So…maybe?
The poster on the wall behind her is definitely an electric bass. And she doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who is into practicing for the sake of developing technique.
So it’s much more likely to be a magazine than the Carcassi method.
When Malaya moved in she remarked how empty the walls were. So the bass poster could be hers.
(I am a lefty, as is Sal. Do they even make posters featuring left-handed instruments? The poster is a regular one.)
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/paperthin/
Anything with Jimi Hendrix in it. He was lefty too, played righty guitars upside down.
I’ve seen thin books on an instrument (mandolin, if you’re wondering) for beginners that were staple-bound like a magazine. So it might be that. Tunings, chords, a few basic tunes, and so on. Probably includes a few pages of ads for more from the same publisher.
I think the neck is too short to be a guitar (unless it’s supposed to be the perspective of a tilted instrument). The body looks odd for a ukulele, but I would guess that making a nonstandard body for a ukulele is more likely than making such a short-necked guitar.
Yeah, the instrument on the magazine does look odd. But the poster on the wall very much looks like a Fender Stratocaster.
Uh oh. I smell some Mary drawing theft.
Oh no say it ain’t so, I know almost everyone has a low opinion of Mary but it would be a new low if she traced and became an art Thief.
How would that even work? Wouldn’t the professor notice that Mary’s art
A. Doesn’t look like the art she turned in before.
B. Looks strangely similar to the artwork of the girl who sat right next to her?
Besides, Mary is pretty prideful, so I don’t know if she’d be willing to steal art, simply because that would involve admitting someone is better than her.
…. okay, I’m not saying there wouldn’t be something shady to it, but suppose that Mary:
1) Took the art that Malaya dumped in the trash.
2) Did some tracing to learn that particular art style and improve her own skills.
3) Did not turn in the tracings, but did turn in something based on those copied techniques.
Would that still be wrong? It’s got a kinda underhanded feel to it, but aside from being nominal theft from a garbage can I can’t pin it down.
She’s not going to learn anything by making superficial copies of someone else’s work; she’d have to know how to dissect it and reverse-engineer the techniques Malaya used, and figure out how to apply them. This would require acknowledging that someone else is objectively better than she is, and in Mary Land that just isn’t possible.
Art school is slowly beating the anime out of her drawing hand.
Okay, so it wouldn’t be just tracing. But the way she seems worried about the subject suggests that better-than-her does exist in Mary Land.
She’s definitely showing an interest in the artwork. Maybe she plans to steal it and leave it somewhere incriminating.
No, it wouldn’t be wrong to trace only to improve (a lot of digital artists I know say it is fine if you trace to learn as long as you don’t upload said tracings) but knowing Mary, she will only seek such improvement so that she can one-up Malaya and she would lie and say she did it without any help.
“Nope, I refuse to normalize this” –me, about everything
So, does that mean that you are normalizing the phrase?
I see Carla, my day immediately improves <3
“You Vaginal Discharge” is what I’m calling my friends from now on.
I’ve frequently wished for an edit button here, and rarely for a delete button, but I think this is the first time I’ve felt the need for an unfriend button.
That’s weird, because upon reading Leia’s comment, this is the first* time I’ve felt the need for a friend button.
*OK, probably not really the first. But first time I am saying it out loud.
I almost feel kind of bad for Marry because I know the feeling of being jealous of other people’s skill in the craft…ALMOST.
Looks like a music magazine. The open page we can see looks like a full page ad for a bass or guitar.
Awwww, Happy Carla is adorable Carla.
I love Malaya’s little gesture of being “too-cool-for-grades”
Why is Mary following Malaya around? It can’t be because she wants to be friends with her, that wouldn’t make any sense.
She’s jealous of Malaya’s art skill and wants to Learn More. Presumably Malaya casually tossing her sketches is just going to make Mary burn more.
I’m actually liking this because a lot of Mary’s, um, passions revolve around her being an ultra-conservative fundamentalist with the self-rightousness of Mother Theresa, and while there’s absolutely people like that, even they tend to have other interests. Mary’s long-standing art and anime interest getting more attention in an arc where it pits her against Malaya of all people is going to be amazing.
Technically… aren’t we all a “vaginal discharge”?
So, Mary really has no reason to be insulted.
For some reason your gravatar makes this comment seem very disingenuous.
Winking Eric makes everything sassier.
Yeah, I don’t know how to change it. I can’t even remember who that character is, but he keeps coming up.
Simplest way is to change the capitalization of the email address you enter.
Email isn’t case sensitive, but the random gravatar assignment is.
And it’s Eric, who I believe has only appeared after having sex with Mike as part of Mike’s plan to mess with Ethan and Danny.
Not if you’re a c-section baby.
Fair point.
Like magnets, the hardly-smiles Malaya and usually-cheerful Carla are drawn together. Maybe Malaya is really a friend now after being “kinda, sorta”.
I enjoy how the scowl and the smile flavor their every utterance. “Vaginal discharge” sounds nearly pleasant the way she says it.
My initial assumption was that she was talking to Mary, because – you know- it fits, but maybe she was talking to Sal. Swapping mild insults may be a thing they do now.
Alright! It is Tuesday. The musical reference I struggled to make yesterday paid off
I’m trying to work out what Mary is doing hanging around. Either she’s decided that Malaya is her True Nemesis ™ and is spying on her, she’s still determined to make a minion of her or she’s looking to steal Malaya’s carelessly-discarded drawings to present as her own to someone (probably her family).
We’re left hanging as to what is going on in the elevator with Dorothy and Walky.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: First up, we see the return of Stalker Mary, doing what she does “best”, following behind Malaya and lurking around her space so as to glean more from her (what that might be can’t possibly be good).
But I think a more interesting aspect is Mary’s jealousy and a slipping of her mask of confidence.
Like on one hand, of course she is jealous. Art is her biggest thing and here is this very talented artist who is receiving much more in-depth praise from the teacher (because her work grows and evolves). That doesn’t sit right with her. Especially with Malaya definitely not being the type of person Mary is comfortable seeing as successful (and certainly not more successful than her).
But I think it ties into a broader social thing and that’s the dangerous reaction dominant groups have when a member of a marginalized identity succeeds (and especially succeeds past their own personal level of success).
When that happens, it brings up a lot of emotions, and for an unfortunately significant of portion of people, those feelings end up getting expressed in rage, violence, and other negative actions designed to “put the person back in their place”.
This relates to the targeting and murdering of black kids who are seen as “not belonging” in a middle-class white neighborhood, the rage anytime a trans athlete is moderately successful, or the intimate violence and anger that can occur sometimes from a man whose wife makes more money than him.
Now, is that Mary’s speed? I don’t necessarily think so. But I think there’s a large part that feels that Malaya doesn’t deserve the success she is having in art and is having some strong complicated emotions about that.
Panel 2: And it probably especially galls her that Malaya doesn’t care about art in the same way she does. Like Malaya immediately tosses her sketches in the trash and that makes sense.
Part of Malaya’s evolution and growth that the teacher was talking about comes from expanding form and being willing to create intermediary work that is not something you are proud of, but challenges you to build on drawing skillsets and practicing them.
To Malaya, those sketches are just means to building her ability. But to Mary, I imagine she sees each sketch as needing to be its own entity, static in a single style and means of expression.
I’m not sure Mary is recognizing that contrast and I’d not be overly shocked if her takeaway is instead “that coarse brown woman is getting praise and she doesn’t even value that or her drawings when I put so much work into mine”.
Hi Cerberus,
Nice to see you back.
Seconded!
Thirded.
Yeah, I miss your analysis when you’re not here, and if it’s too long, I worry about you. So fourthed.
Fifthed, but please don’t feel pressured or obligated to post if you’re not feeling it. We worry, but do whatever’s right for you.
And also feel free to just hang out and chill even if you don’t have a big comic analysis you feel like posting.
You know, maybe I should be a little more like Malaya, the way you describe her. I often quit during the creative process because what I’m making just isn’t good, even if I learn a lot from making it. Maybe following through on the less-good stuff could help me grow creatively.
Hey, thanks for the advice, even if you didn’t mean it to be.
proffers story about artist hired to draw a picture of a lion (or cat?) for customer. Artist quotes price, says it’ll be a couple weeks. Customer comes back about that much later, asks about commission; artists says “Oh yes, that was today”, grabs a piece of paper, and tosses off a really beautiful freehand lion drawing, shading and wild mane and everything, in about three minutes.
…customer blinks, and says, “wait, for THAT I’m paying you THIS?” Artist, without a word, reaches over to nearby cupboard and opens it, and about three reams’ worth of lion drawings fall out. … artist gets paid.
–Dave, there is no royal road to creation, though the ideas are free & plentiful
Your point about dominant group members reacting with extreme prejudice to the success of minority group members is extremely well taken. I remember reading a story a few decades ago – I no longer remember the title or author – in which a white cop shoots and kills a black man because “he thought he was better than me”. My first reaction was “no he didn’t!” (because the writer had clearly shown the dead characters basic goodness long before), My second reaction was “OMG! YOU think he was better than you!”. That this was intolerable to the cop, justifying (in his mind) murder, explained to me a lot about racism. I’m not sure if that was why the story was written, but it made a strong impression on me, which remains to this day. It was fiction, but this incident felt very true to life. Which it clearly was and still is, unfortunately.
*character’s
Also, replace the second instance of “cop” with “white character”. It’s not important that he is a police officer. It is important that he’s white.
Cerb is back!
Panel 3: Heh. I like this for its possibilities on meta-narrative. On the personal level, I feel Malaya has a strong point. What is happening is and it’s better to get used to that because even if this becomes even more toxic, it’s going to be real hard for Malaya to leave anytime soon.
But on a larger meta level, I like to consider it with our fucked up everything. And there’s an important nobility for not normalizing that or normalizing toxic relationships in general. Her situation with Malaya is not at all a thing she is comfortable with and to normalize it to herself isn’t something that’s currently going to sit right with her.
Panel 4: Oh Carla, you wonderful wonderful asshole.
Like, I love the casual way she dismisses a bigot who though somewhat defanged is still quite dangerous. It’s just, yeah, what, fuck off, here’s my two favorite ladies.
And on that note, I love her excitement here because yeah, these are 2 of her best friends and they live in her hall. We already know that Sal is a refreshing person for her (and be someone she might carry a little bit of a torch for), and her and Malaya are hitting it off as well, so this is just a moment of pure joy from her.
And any time Carla is happy, I am too.
Panel 5: I also love how Carla reacts to this. Like I don’t think she’s even mad that her favorite buddy is not as excited by her presence as she is of hers. Instead she takes the ribbing as a type of flattery.
And oh man, as if my ship suspicion of Carla having one-sided interest in Sal wasn’t sailing fast enough, I feel her soft gaze at Sal and light flirtation in her response has definitely unfurled at least one new sail by itself.
I think she might be starting to get it bad for Sal.
I’m totally on-board for some any-sided Carla/Sal attraction.
For some reason, I had a feeling that a strip in which Carla gets to be a lovable asshole would grab your attention.
Same. God bless Carla.
I hate Malaya so much
This strip is perfect. We can all go home now.
Leave it to Carla to talk and respond in all the best ways.
Also I still have many of my figure sketches from senior year art class. From seven years ago.
One, agreed. Two, Smart. Part of my biggest challenges in doing art was both not keeping them, or really doing them for that matter
Well, I’m not really pursuing art for a career, or even as a hobby. It’s more like a dust collection of drawings.
But at least they’re there if I feel motivated to draw again.
She says that to all the everyone
Literally always down for more Carla. Trans girl rep, baby.
Oi, Mary. Would you kindly shunt off?
She can’t do that! She has to convince Malaya that she’s her natural ally!
I’m kind of waiting for the moment when Mary realises that Malaya is queer! The explosion will be… dramatic!
Um, I’m waiting for the moment when Malaya realizes it. Though I could be completely wrong in how I’ve read things and Malaya could have been into Marcy the entire time but she treats the relationship with the same nonchalance she did the artwork she worked hard on – because she’s Malaya.
Malaya, this is dumbing of age, expect it to be Tuesday for months.
“Man, this Tuesday feels like it’s been going on for like… 24 days so far!”
“….That’s an…oddly specific number.”
“Your face is an oddly specific number.”
“Wha-”
“FUCK YOU.”
Oh, Guitar book.
In panel four, Mary is clutching her (tablet? clipboard? textbook?) in a very defensive manner. Also, her stooped posture and unhappy expression in panels one, two and four . . . the word “diffident” comes to mind. Given her normal brash assumption of superiority, she seems to have suffered a blow to her self esteem. Could she be on the verge of an existential crisis? Maybe she will yet become a decent human being.
She’s shite at something she thought she was good at.
We all get that feeling sometime.
For me, either you can be taught to draw. But it’s more usual, like all art, it’s somewhere in the genes.
That cannot be taught.
Poor Sal. It’s a cruel world that won’t let an introvert introvert. Who the hell decided that shared quarters in a college situation was a good idea?
For me it was, much as I hated it at the time. Learning how to share space is a good skill.
Of course, I’ve been living on my own since then, so I’m even more withdrawn and introverted. No longer suitable company for living with others.
Waaaaaait o3o *Eyes zoom in all squinty* Is that… a sticker of Malaya giving the finger mid-roller-derby on her door? Willis, are you sneakily premiering new merchandise again?
Ah, she’s put up a single picture of a guitar! Maybe living with Malaya will make Sal change as a person to spite Malaya. That’s the best motivator!
It’s a shitty thing to say, but some part of always hates it when people like Malaya are so talented at things. Not to say I’d want those skills to go to Mary as obviously she is worse, but some part of psyche wishes people who are jerks wouldn’t have amazing talents.
mary what the fuck are you up to
I’m actually really excited to see Malaya and Carla interact. Their relationship in shortpacked was so sweet and I miss it.
Will you two just fuck each other already?