Not technically, since we knew they were coming. But there is no rational explanation to why they are appearing from that angle. For the record: I’m not complaining.
Aaand Amazi-Girl is just going to love being rescued by Our Lady of Up-to-no-goodness.
Possibly? Is there an old rail bed there? (I’m not familiar with the area.) “Not legal” doesn’t necessarily mean “not a shortcut” for people who aren’t super-concerned about the legal aspect.
I feel like Chekhov’s motorcycle would just end up being ridden though. This is more like…Chekhov’s high speed chase? Chekhov’s speeding motorcycle? The motorcycle did appear somewhat suddenly, maybe Deus ex Chekhov or Chekhov ex Machina? There’s got to already be a generic hybrid term. Final proposal: Chekhov ex Motorcyle.
Well, there’s no guarantee anything will be completely resolved by motorcycle.
In its current position, it’s still in the intercept path of the Blue Truck.
Yep. Totally no brakes on the psychopa- Uh… On the truck.
No brakes on the truck.
I’m sure the truck is braking. And has been for the 30 seconds or so since he saw the car spinning.
Luckily the driver is smart enough not to lock up the brakes and risk jack-knifing it and sweeping the whole road clean.
Who’s really dreaming? Tomorrow’s comic starts with Amber sitting on her parents’ living room floor, transfixed by a toy. Blaine and Stacy enter.
Blaine: “I don’t understand this autism. I talk to my girl, but…I’m not even sure if she ever hears me…Amber’s locked inside her own world. Staring at that toy all day long. What does she think about?”
[Amber shakes the object, revealing it to be a snowglobe]
Blaine: Come on, it’s time for dinner.
[Blaine gently takes the snowglobe and places it on the mantle. All three exit. Cut to closeup of snowglobe, revealing a plastic model of the fountain from the IU campus inside as the snow settles.]
Tight shot on JOYCE’s face as she opens her eyes. Camera pulls back to show her lying in bed.
JOYCE: “Honey, I just had the strangest dream. We were back in college and I was riding on the back of your sister’s motorcycle and Amber was dressed in a superhero suit … ”
Camera continues pulling back to reveal, in bed next to JOYCE, WALKY …
*Singing* HERE SHE COMES TO SAVE THE DAY!! OK, so she’d probably kill me for calling her Mighty Mouse, but that’s what started playing in my head when I saw that last panel.
…and because of this experience, Sal was able to ace all of her Classical Physics homework and tests, even though she was confined to a hospital bed with 32 broken bones and the memory of Joyce’s brains spilling out across the asphalt.
Honestly? Taking a look at what she’s doing here, I’m pretty sure that both her and Amber would fail Physics 101. In particular mechanics of solid bodies.
I do have to express my surprise at the ongoing traffic being completely unfazed by all the antics here and just going forward. Usually some stiff life is enough to slow it to a crawl, let alone a dangerous action sequence like this.
What traffic?
The truck driver’s probably been standing on his brakes since he saw the car spin a few seconds back. One other car passed in that lane a few strips back, just in time to see Amazi-girl on the roof. There’s been no one else in their lane except the red car.
I was told that the car WOULD hit me, but in doing so restore the world to the correct timeline. Sort of worked, but we still don’t have the pterodactyls back.
Mine was blue. I think. I don’t know, I got amnesia from that day. All I know is they told me that I went headlong into a semi and the entire passenger’s side caved in to the driver’s side. Surprisingly the worst injury I got was a single broken collar bone.
Dang man I know I remember the time my Sophmore year when I was riding around on the roof of a car fighting a gunman in order to save an innocent girl! It’s like this comic is about me! Dang those were some crazy times though, sure takes me back.
I. .. I guess I just feel like I kinda missed out on that quintessential college experience, yknow? I was kinda quiet in college, spent a lot of time in the dorm, doing schoolwork and research and hacking into international criminal organizations to subvert the dismantling of the most powerful governments of the world and finding weak points in their headquarter security systems to allow myself and a few close friends to break in and destroy any physical records. I just wasn’t much of a party person, I guess.
Weirdly, this does feel college to me. Second panel Amber has a perfect “Suddenly I realize I may not survive superheroing” face. Losing that belief in being young and invincible is a part of growing up, even if this isn’t the usual method.
I was just thinking this. She is going to have to deal with the fact that people can change *GASP* Also that this vigilante stuff is going to get her killed.
The only difference is that there’s no “u” in “leage”.
Because you aren’t cool enough to join it.
(Pretend my gravatar is Mike right now and not Ruth. Although I guess I could see Ruth saying that too.)
I would argue that there seems to be a thin bike lane along the side of the bridge, that she must have been driving against traffic in, but that seems flimsy, even to me. Not sure where she came from.
That wouldn’t be an awful idea, to treat shock and stuff (other than that I guess everyone might end up with medical debt? is that how it works? although on the other hand maybe IU has a student plan).
Damn You Willis alternative, everyone except the characters on screen right now are in the hospital.
“Oh, yeah, they’re all fine. Kind of a miracle, don’t you think? Anyway, flu season is here and 90% of our student body is out of commission. Funny how life sometimes works like that.”
It’s the truck driver. He’s actually a very nice man who drives responsibly and didn’t deserve to have any of this happen to him. He’s not even on the clock, he’s using his own time to deliver a shipment of donated shoes to an orphanage.
Has a heart attack from the stress. Luckily he makes a full recovery. And adopts Becky.
Actually, it’s Willis. Had a heart attack while drawing tomorrow’s comic. His ghost artist has been covering for him while he recuperates. Expect a dramatic change in the art, starting tomorrow.
Several characters haven’t been included in the poll, either because they all die or because they’re essentially main cast and are in plenty of comics already.
Yes, the impossibly flying motorcycle is somehow coming in from the side in time to be broadsided by a semi. That’s what I see. And if they’re not hit, I’d think catching Amazi-Girl would knock them over.
Yeah best case scenario I’m seeing here is they “catch” Amber, tumble forward and crash with Joyce and Sal ending up pretty battered and Amber getting more injured than she already is
I was almost in a bad accident earlier this year when I was trying to merge (the entrance ramp was like half a mile long so you had time to get up to speed) and when I turned to check my blind spot someone in front of me slowed down suddenly. I barely saw it in time and swerved across two lanes, lost control, and somehow got the car going back towards the right lane (at a 90-degree angle to the traffic, no less) in the span of 7 seconds. I have no idea how I did it and I’m almost 100% certain it was dumb luck.
Damn near everything that’s happened since the first strip on the highway hasn’t made much sense physics-wise. If that car was somehow sliding sideways as the art seems to suggest, with a driver whose barely inside (and thus presumably isn’t in contact with the pedals) and a blown out right front tire, it should be rolling by now. It certainly wouldn’t straighten out no matter what Amber did with the wheel without some very skilled throttle input.
That’s what I’ve been saying, glad someone else caught on!
Worst part is, if she’s going to the hospital her identity will definitely be revealed, and last we heard the police were looking for Asshole Dad #1’s assaulter. With Amazigirl unmasked, he’ll know it was her that beat him up. Who knows what he’d do then…
He learns to love and becomes a better person. He finally realizes how creepy he was and how it prevented him from making friends. He gets a job, makes friends, gets a girlfriend, and gets married. The name of the strip will be “That’s Faz”
Alternatively Faz, Howard and Riley will team up and start the league of slightly annoying but not really evil younger siblings. Riley will ultimately be defeated by someone giving her 10 bucks and telling her where the supermarket is.
GOOD SHOW Amazi-girl. You saved two people and thanks to say you are not a permanent mark on that truck. 😀 Now get the car to stop and beat the crap out of toe dad.
Anyone else find it out that the truck is still moving, maybe I just don’t know enough about how trucks work but I feel like he should braked the moment he saw a car go skidding across the road
Well, technically if it just turned onto the road, it probably wouldn’t be travelling the full 55mph (It did seem like a fairly sharp turn in the previous comics.)
That’ll be a painful catch, and a difficult recovery, but Joyce is getting one helluva motorcycle ride. Fundie, on the other hand, may be seriously screwed. With luck, Becky’s unbuckled and in control. Lastly, what happened to Dina?
Now…how in the Hell is Sal going to LAND this?
How is the car going to come to a stop, and will it be right-side up?
How will Ross feel, knowing his miserable life was saved by a “heathen woman”?
Never mind how’s she going to land this. How the hell is she supposed to catch Amber, who outweighs her and is currently falling off of a high-speed vehicle? Even if she actually managed to somehow get a grip on her, the best outcome would be a dislocated arm for her and not dumping the bike onto the pavement.
Much more likely for the bike and all three girls – only one of which is wearing a helmet or any clothing remotely durable enough to deal with the high-speed road rash – to be bleeding all over the pavement where there are multiple vehicles all traveling at high rates of speed to run them over.
Changing camera angles or not, I’m pretty sure in that last panel she’s managed to gain height from the roof of the car. But Amazi-Girl can do these sorts of things.
On a more serious note: Ross no longer has his gun. That… makes things easier. So do the slashed tires on his car – provided it doesn’t crash, Becky can get out soon.
OK now, seriously WTF?!? Also this means Toedad is gonna eat some asphalt because there is now way too much slack in that rope to keep him in the window.
Although I doubt it’s going to lead to him surrendering Becky (and as I said a couple days/weeks ago I hope it doesn’t because I fear less charges would be laid*), I’m curious how Toedad’s going to handle the fact that a person who was going against his divine mission and outrightly defying him and also was a woman just saved his life in a potentially self-sacrificing situation.
Because he’s awful he’ll probably just block it out, but I’d love if it angsted him up while he was in jail.
* I also worry that forgiveness would be weak storywise since it kind of negates this whole long plot (the only significant character growth would be Ross** and he wouldn’t be on screen much after, it’s not Parents of Age). It would also be frustrating because there’s been so much pain reading this arc and I feel like that would just be an empty ending. It would be triply frustrating (not just thirdly, but multiplied triple) because it would downplay the real life similar instances that almost never end that way and fuel the “you should just talk to your parents about it, abused kid” thing.
** (and yes possibly Ambermazigirl but despite bad dad involvement amping it up for her, conflict due to Sal saving her ass could happen in a large number of ways (and even finding out about Sal helping Joyce when she was alone would probably be a leaping point for that which wouldn’t need this arc if Toedad negates it))
It looks to me that Toedad was pulling on the end of the rope that caused Amazigirl to go flying out of the car. I dont think he’s doing anything to help, and is just trying to stay in the car (via rope).
Regardless if it gives him pause or not, Toedad needs a crap-ton of therapy before he should be allowed anywhere near Becky. He needs to realize what he did was wrong, pay his debt to society, and work on his MANY issues before he can potentially move forward with any kind of positive and healthy relationship with his daughter.
And that’s IF Becky is willing to accept any apologies. Even if Ross has a legitimate “My God, what have I done?!” moment, after all he’s done Becky would be well within her rights to permanently sever all ties with him.
… you know therapy only works for people who actually want to change, right? Like they say, the first step to fixing the problem is admitting you have one in the first place. Toedad doesn’t exactly strike me as the “omg I was wrong” type.
Oh yeah, absolutely. The first step towards redemption is admitting you were wrong. It’s a rare thing, especially when coming from a background as fanatical as Ross’s. My earlier post was me musing on a hypothetical scenario where this turn of events gives Ross a wake-up call. In reality, I really doubt he can be made to regret any of his actions.
Well, he’s somehow standing out the side of a speeding car on a freeway. And was doing that initially with a two-handed gun. Not sure how he was staying on at all.
A wild non-redneck appears! Betty Anne uses HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS. It’s about as effective as it sounds. :p
Yes, you can hang out the window of a moving vehicle holding a two-handed gun. No, it’s not safe OR recommended behavior. (Also: Hunting from your vehicle without special disabled permits is illegal regardless of hanging out the window or not, just a heads-up to fellow rednecks.)
I mean, considering that:
– This strip’s events are all happening over the space of like four seconds
– Toedad is only just regaining his balance after yesterday’s strip
– Odds are, he’s straight-up terrified at this point
I think we can give him a pass for not managing to save Amber. He’s still an unmitigated asshole for a whole host of reasons, but I don’t think this is one of them.
You mean the “who do you want to see more of next year?” voting list? Joyce, Becky, Amber, and possibly Sal, I forget, wouldn’t be on that list because Willis doesn’t include the top 5 most-seen characters from the year before. It’s never included main characters; Joyce and co. not being on it wasn’t hinting at anything.
How strong is Sal supposed to be? She was losing a fist fight to Malaya a few nights ago, but now she’s managed to get her bike a good few feet airborne with a passenger and now expects to one-arm catch a falling girl who presumably weighs more than her.
Also, why is AG apparently falling up? That last panel raises SO many physics/perspective-related questions.
Also, I suspect in a few strips time we’ll get the following:
AG: “Alright, I guess we’re even then.”
Sal: “What in the HELL are you talki-”
*AG rips off her mask revealing Amber*
Sal: “You? I don’t even know who y-”
*intense eye contact*
*flashbacks all round*
Sal: “YOU’RE THE bongo WHO STABBED MY HAND!”
Amber: “You’re the bongo who held my friend/boyfriend hostage!”
Joyce: “Wait…Ethan!? YOU HURT MY FRIEND/USED TO BE BOYFRIEND BUT HE WAS GAY?”
Sal: “Wait…hunky guy? That was him? Wait… he’s gay? But he dated both of y-what!?”
*dramatic hilarity ensues*
that’s pretty much the only censored word, because people were overusing it and (I missed the specific incident but) from my understanding using it in shitty/dehumanizing ways.
I had a sudden scene pop into my head, this morning. Everyone is on the side of the road, safe, and Joyce stomps up to Ross. “You son-of-a-Bongo!”
Everyone just looks at her.
The specific incident was roz calling out Joyce for her belated epiphany in their gender studies class about the church being spectacularly unhelpful toward homeless lgbt youth.
It’s not my most favoritest word filter ever, though. Many years ago, on a forum owned by Neil Cicierega, if someone typed “ur” (instead of “your” or “you’re”) the filter would change it to “urethra”.
The fight with Malaya went badly because she was taken off-guard; it was interrupted before she really fought back, so we can’t judge her strength from it.
It has long been assumed that the superpowers possessed by the characters in the Walkyverse were due to genetic tampering. If they weren’t but were inherent do to heredity, then Sal could easily be anything up to five times stronger a women of her size and fitness would normally be expected to be.
Oh, Walky will have problems with that, just like his prior ability to coast through classes fell flat. But on this time-scale, the freshman 15 will take a lot of time to appear. Maybe in 20 years we’ll see that storyline.
Honestly, whether Sal can actually catch and hold on to Amazi-girl doesn’t really matter at this point. If she can break her momentum, even at the cost of crashing the bike, that’s ugly, but far better than the grill of the truck.
Broken bones and road rash all around.
That’s what I was thinking would happen. AG looks to have passed out from the stress/injury (white bubbles around her head), and her current rag-doll situation might actually help her survive the next couple of panels. hmmmm… maybe it would be better if she were aware enough to do her tuck-n-roll landing skill.
Although not quite as much as a truck, I’m pretty sure two people moving as fast as Sal and Joyce seem to be applied to be moving would still feel like hitting a brick wall. For all of them.
Okay super looking forward to the mental fallout for Amber as she realizes the same person that caused one of the most traumatic moment of her life just saved it.
Sal to the rescue at the last possible moment. But, damn that’s some awesome riding.
She’s going to deservedly get all the glory, while AG will get shit for botching up the chase. But omg was AG awesome in her attempt, and she got the car out of the skid from looks of it -a bit of a stretch that is.
Big assumption here, that Sal is going to clear the truck and actually catch AG. AND that Toedad’s car isn’t going to run over them when they land.
AND, Toedad is Toejam.
If Amber had reason to hate Sal before this, got a feeling she won’t love her much when Sal tells her she knew she was gonna screw it up.
I hope Becky is not going to see her rotten excuse for a father squished in front of her, and that she doesn’t flatten Sal and passengers as she tries to stop the car.
I think Joyce’s eyes are closed. Can’t say as I blame her, but this ride of a lifetime is going to be mainly rushes of air and lots of bumping, thumping, and hopefully, not splating.
The (toe) car can’t hit them and Amazigirl pretty much can’t go under the semi (they’re going to bonk into her before she reaches it, unless she’s flying upwards somehow), although that still leaves plenty of room for disaster.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
this is probably the best thing that could happen and im excited for how shes gonna react to sal saving her
assuming shes still conscious and hasnt passed out from stress/being flung around
I’M STILL CONFUSED BY HOW AMBER’S BODY IS MOVING, THIS NEEDS MORE PANELS.
And judging by the last panel erryone gunna die, so I”ll probably never find out
The irony is Amazi-Girl actually did just about everything right. There’s no way in hell they would have caught up with Toedad if not for Amber making his life (no pun intended) hell.
My ability to suspend my disbelief is currently rather suspended, but I think I’ll forgive it for the sake of the epic mindfuck Amber’s going to suffer soon.
Evil Knievel eat your heart out. Comic book physics on parade here. That bike better have some hellacious springs on it to cushion the impact of landing, plus Amber’s going to throw Sal’s balance off. Oh well, road rash is better than being truck pizza.
The same rope that he’s desperately hanging onto just gained a lot of slack from her losing her grip. Doubt he’s capable of grabbing her while also suddenly losing a significant part of his grip.
For everyone commenting on how Sal came from that angle, it’s actually pretty well thought out. Think about it, she had to pass not only the spinning out car, but Red Car Heroine as well. Considering how far behind they were, they likely caught up around now, hanging back to look for opening, and Sal made this move trying to pass/when she realized everything was going wrong.
I think I agree… and in this scenario, Sal must have deliberately accelerated straight toward the oncoming truck to try to reach Ross’s car. Girl’s got some guts.
Also because people enjoy speculating (especially since it’s a serial), and with it being realistic, looking at the physics behind what’s happening helps with that, especially in an action sequence.
Also also, recognizing the physics means recognizing what risks the characters are taking, and as such understanding them more. Sal is getting very close with death to save someone (and someone she wouldn’t be expected to make a ridiculous risk for, like if it was Marcie (and even for her this is a deathly risk we’re talking about, no one would blame Sal for not dying for her friend)), that shows a lot about her character. If that truck was way off, it would be a noble gesture to grab her but not the same. If she didn’t do it, we’d be getting a glimpse at Sal’s fear, as opposed to her usual aloofness.
Part of enjoying comics (or literature, or shows), for me, is thinking about them.
This. Even with more outlandish comics, having the idea of the physics behind everything works makes it more enjoyable. X-Men powers all have some idea of the physics behind them, such as Gambit converting energy types. You still have the silly beams and flying, but beng able to relate that world to our own makes it more relatable.
You don’t always need them (see Street Fighter, where we just accept every fighter has some ability to shoot some form of fire/electric/whatever), but it really depends on the universe. The more similar to it to our own, the more useful a good physics background is.
A thing you got toward and reminded me that I forgot to say it- for the last few days the physics have been weird (although I don’t find them impossible other than some artistic license (Amber has bounced a bit in the air) and margin of error (sometimes the motion lines are weird)), which means that it’s harder to be emotionally involved or interested as I was describing, because suddenly the stakes become lower (although I would argue that it doesn’t stop us from using it to understand characters at least, because they don’t know it- Sal and Amber went into this not knowing that Willis said no one dies).
Also Amanduh said (below) that it requires a suspension of disbelief that wasn’t required before, and the dissonance it causes is jarring. It’s different than watching a show (etc) with physics that aren’t realistic (or are realistic, but not to real-world) and never were, because those still have consistent physics. It’s not just that it shows it isn’t real, but that it’s inconsistent with our perception as much as it would be if Mary was suddenly happy go lucky.
Also ‘stakes’ or ‘gravity of the situation’ probably would be better phrases than ‘risk’ as I used above.
I agree that the physics is likely bothering a lot of people because up till now, this comic universe felt like ours. Even Amzi-Girl’s stunts could pretty much be explained by extensive martial arts and parkour training. So when the expectation is set that “these people could be living down the street from me”, but then they start appearing to defy gravity and physics, it creates cognitive dissonance. Willis probably didn’t expect people to feel that way; I’d say it’s a testament to how realistic his characters are, that it bothers people to see hints that they AREN’T real.
Panel 3: There are movement lines on the truck. There are movement lines on Amazi-girl. THERE ARE NO MOVEMENT LINES on Sal/Joyce’s motorcycle!!!!!! It just appeared!!!!
I agree with you (where were they a second ago and how are the perpendicular to everything when it’s on a bridge?), but I think the speed lines are just on the truck and Amazigirl happens to be in front of them (more seriously, probably because the truck is moving fastest and because it gives a feeling of Sal’s bike and AmaziGirl being suspended in the air, at the top of their arcs).
What if….. the Joker repented before Bruce Wayne became Batman? What if the two greatest adversaries allied and forgave each other? *that* would be a good story.
Even though Ross is awful I don’t get the ‘he didn’t try to save her!’ things, because several things (point for because the first thing was already long)
– this is all happening in seconds, he might not have had the time to even if he had the time to think of it (which I doubt, and he may not have great reflexes even for things he does care about)
– he does look like he’s actually making an effort with the rope, helping her for some reason (not just begrudgingly not dying- remember, he already committed to having his head blown off, it’s unlikely he’s going ‘superherolady save me oh gish please save me’).
– also inertia and balance. he might not be able to shift his weight without falling himself, even if he wanted to (which I doubt but you know)
– we can’t see that he didn’t- it would be between panels 1-2 (she’s already pretty far in panel 2 and we can’t see him, so he might be reaching above camera where her leg used to be)
I mean, he’s a massively awful person (and he’d hardly be less of one for trying to help Amber), but I wouldn’t consider this a reason why he’s awful.
Nope, didn’t see that one coming.
I mean even knowing Sal and Joyce were gonna show up any second, and that Amazi-Girl was likely gonna get tossed by that direction correction that was not the likely next event stack my brain was processing.
Now trying to work out the bike-truck-car positioning to even guess at the next near catastrophe is coming.
Yes (but balder), and also if it was Indiana I would believe it was somehow actually him. It sounds like their community, even if we don’t know if Toedad is sex criminal awful as well as abuse and kidnapping and (fine with) murder awful
Nah, I was thinking more a “Holy fuck! *You’re* amzi-gril?!” Then maybe a flash back where Sal is then like “Wait, shit! You’re the chic who stabbed my hand way back when!”
The last few strips are really sapping my interest. This series had (I thought intentionally) been sticking to human-scale interactions without any comic/cartoon physics-ignoring action. But the past few days have been increasingly feeling like a silly action movie. I’ve already read Willis’ aliens & superpowers comic, and don’t really feel like continuing to read this one if it turns into another iteration of that. A couple weeks ago, I was looking forward to finding out what happened to Dina, seeing Amber forced to accept that Amazi-Girl is a representation of incredibly serious mental issues, and maybe even having some fiction other than television procedurals acknowledge that “let the police handle it” is generally the correct solution. And now I’m just waiting out a ridiculously over the top action movie being told 5 seconds at a time and hoping that this isn’t going to end with a bunch of physics-ignoring twenty-year-old college kids having saved the day without any consequences or any actual police involvement.
At this point, I miss “Walky doesn’t want to acknowledge that he needs to start studying”.
That’s the pain of a 1 strip a day comic. He wants to throw some excitement in every once and a while. It is still character based. Just give it a few days and read through all the action at once. That will make it much less bothersome to you. Years of this comic I’m sure you can endure a week of action. While Amazi-Girl is over the top. Desperate people take action, Toe Dad’s actions aren’t too ridiculous for the story purpose.
Yeah, you’re not alone on that front. At this point I’m basically just waiting for it to be over. The action being forcibly restricted to once-a-day newspaper-style four panel action also really holds it back.
“and maybe even having some fiction other than television procedurals acknowledge that “let the police handle it” is generally the correct solution.”
The literally DOZENS of real life superheroes out there will disagree with you on that one….
And while these events certainly are “amazing”, they are nowhere near IMPOSSIBLE yet.
By real-life superheroes, do you mean the few people who are wandering around their cities in costumes? Because, so far as I’m aware, none of them have been engaging in any action-movie shenanigans involving guns, kidnapping, and high-speed highway chases. And almost everything that’s been happening in the past week has been physically impossible.
Weeeellll, I don’t know if it’s totally impossible so much as highly improbable and likely to turn you into a fine red mist on the side of the highway.
Sal appearing out of a wormhole right in front of a speeding truck to cop an Amazi-feel is sillybuns, though.
Well, then you should probably read up about them, some of them are fairly action-y, getting shot at, etc, while others are more of the neighbour hood watch type. Most of them DO train for these kind of situations, all the same. A few of them join up in “leagues”, and one such league is actually working on a working Iron Man suit, they hired a genius engineer to build it.
I wouldn’t start an argument with “as far as I’m aware”, unless you’ve actually googled it first.
“And almost everything that’s been happening in the past week has been physically impossible.”
The only physically impossible thing we’ve seen so far is the wormhole biking that Spencer mentioned.
I think Amazi-Girl finally passed out! Her little white bubbles around her head were there when she launched, she didn’t finish her sentence and her eyes are now closed. Her injuries and stress have caught-up to her. She will probably wake up after they “land”, so to speak.
yup. definitely not sweat bubbles. what chance is there after this that she can go back to class without a trip to the hospital? if only she had a private doctor like batman.
I think that Sal will be shocked when Amazi-Girl fights her off so she can zip-tie Ross, wrist and foot and make sure Becky is okay. Then she’ll start foaming at the mouth, crash, faint and end up lying unconscious at Sal, Joyce and Becky’s feet.
Then the dilemma: To they violate her privacy by taking off her mask and taking her to the hospital or do they take risk (both personally and with her health) to try to treat her themselves?
The spinning Ford Focus continues to spin. The rope that Amazi-Girl tossed to Ross is suddenly slack. Amazi-Girl floats thru the air to be gathered in by wossername. And a good time was enjoyed by all.
This really isn’t surprising. Hasn’t anyone ever noticed how reality goes on a holiday whenever Amazi-Girl is in the strip? She keeps on doing ever more improbable things! It’s almost as if she twists reality around her, turning a slice-of-life strip into a superhero strip of some kind! The only time when it seems that this doesn’t happen is when Danny is there to witness events.
My concern is that, maybe we’re seeing Amber’s distorted memories. In reality, things were more mundane although the same general outcome is achieved. That would be disturbing because it would mean Amber is further gone than we realised.
Couldn’t find anything in the Indiana motor vehicle code about passengers and helmets. They’re explicitly required for permit holders and those under 18. So… no? Probably?
You know something, to me, being too rigid for realism is as boring as saying “screw physics” all the time. There is a balance between the two. After all, College is supposed to be a time of exploration and growth, so there should be adventures along the way. If you’re going to chronicle adventures, you might as well go to town!
Shouldn’t Toe-dad be falling out of the car too? He’s holding onto the end of the rope that had been around Amazi-girl’s arm which now has lots of slack… If he dies like that how much closure is Becky gonna get?
Prediction: As Joyce and Becky hug emotionally, Sal starts verbally tearing into Amazi-Girl for her antics. Completely to her surprise, Amazi-Girl faints into her arms and her last words are: “I’m sorry for stabbing you… please don’t hurt me!” Her mask chooses that moment to detach.
There are… consequences, by no means all of them for Amber.
Has Amazi-Girl actually helped the situation at all though? I mean… what she’s doing is very brave (and crazy), but none of her actions have helped Becky. Have they?
I think so. She’s got the gun away from Toedad, and got him away from Becky. The risk of a car crash is unfortunate, but growing less likely, and less dangerous over time, as the car slows down now that nobody’s pushing the gas.
Plus, she’s now caused enough of a scene that the police will be able to figure out where they’re actually supposed to be going, and she gave Becky the distraction she needed to get all the evidence on phone record to 911. I think things would be significantly worse if she wasn’t here, Toedad would have had time to really hurt Becky after he noticed the phone.
She’s disarmed Ross and given him such a scare that I don’t think he’s going to be able to put up much of a fight to resist Sal and Joyce’s intervention. She’s also disabled Ross’s car, making it nearly impossible for him to escape with Becky.
Becky called 911, the car has a destroyed tire, Toedad lost his gun. IF everyone survives the next few seconds, the situation will be MUCH better than if Amazigirl hadn’t been there.
Well, one MIGHT be wondering: “Would someone ever put-two-and-two-together if >>AG<< ever ends up in the hospital or Amber, the same hospital as Blaine?"
-Blaine got his ass kicked
-In a public parking lot (cameras?)
-to the point of being hospitalized (coma?)
-As far as the audience knows, Amber hasn't visited Blaine though, he may have been in the news and she schools in the same town.
Rifle still exists, can still be found and dusted for prints, and gunshots were heard on the 911 call that’s still going. He’s got PLENTY of evidence on him. That and also what darkoneko said.
Neither Billie or Ruth are lesbians, but yes, actually. The next arc is a Billie/Ruth focused one.
I’m kind of hoping Danny’s sexuality issues get put on the backburner for a while so he can focus on Amber. At the least, less googly eyes at Ethan-sempai.
Isn’t a shark jumping moment, a moment in something that in hindsight is representative of a general decline in quality of the work due to wackiness? And not something that you can really declare right in the middle of things?
It occurs to me that this timely intervention is only possible if Sal and Joyce have been driving along the tree-line, watching events transpire. I don’t even want to guess what they think about what they’ve seen!
Not sure about her physics grades, but her math understanding was getting better.
She may now be able to calculate the odds on her own:
Sal: How is this even possible? Shouldn’t some extremly odd events have much higher probability?
Joyce: Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!
Not the end, nor even the beginning of the end but, rather, the end of the beginning, the end of the part of the arc where Amber was fighting her demons alone and Sal was drifting and without direction in her life.
I hate to get all physics nerdy (not necessarily true) but… I was wondering if we were going to have a Superman-Lois Lane back-breaking incident in the first frame of the next comic, what with the motorbike going at high speed one way and Amazi-Girl seemingly going another way. So then I was trying work out which way she is moving, and I was darned if I could figure it out.
Like, the car is going down the freeway at high speed, but it’s also spinning around clockwise, so AG should be moving more or less parallel to the road, plus a vector at a tangent to the spin of the car when she loses her grip. Since the car is pointing up the road in the first frame, AG is probably still moving along the road in frame 2, but slightly faster than the car. So she ain’t going to hit the truck unless the car is. But hitting the road at anything above around twenty miles an hour is going to break some bones.
Meanwhile the bike must have been coming up behind the car, overtaking on the inside, and is catching AG in mid-air at a still faster speed than the car or AG. Which might be fairly slow, relative to AG. The only worry is how the bike’s going to keep from spinning out with the sudden added weight of another passenger and the driver trying to catch her with one hand and steer the bike with the other. That’s a superpower, right there.
Let’s leave alone Amazi-Girl’s complicated spin vector (because, really, how does she turn 180° on her long axis from frame 1 to frame 2, without also turning another 90° or more in frame 3? Conservation of angular momentum, it’s the law in this universe). I’d expect her to be belly-up in frame 2 and then facing towards the bike in frame 3.
Anyway, I can only assume that the angle of the bike in frame 3 is artistic licence, and it isn’t really moving at a right angle to the road lanes, it just looks like it, because where would it have come from? Through the bridge supports?
Anyway, enough physics nerdery; I crit because I love. Keep up the good work!
You’received assuming a constant passage of time between panels which has clearly not been the case. Also there are a number of things which are happening sequentially but which have been shown in the same panel because storytelling.
I keep thinking “it can’t get any more cartoony”. Like, at some point I figured we’d reach the part where Amazi-Girl ruins everything and instead it’s just been one more ridiculous action beat after the other.
At the least, Willis obviously had a lot of fun drawing this.
Does anybody else think that just as Amazi-girl lost her grip, the rest of this scene could be played like the opening of Borderlands 2? In slow motion, with Short Change Hero playing.
Comments roughly 50/50 people who are clearly enjoying this whole thing and people saying “GOD who could possibly be enjoying this, it’s empirically not good and Willis should stop.”
I don’t think anyone’s harping on people who are liking it. Some of us don’t, for sure, but I’d actually say it’s a lot less of a 50/50 split; most people here seem to be really into it.
They aren’t *harping* on them, per se… they’re just talking like the other group of people doesn’t exist. There’s been a lot of it every day ever since the, like, strip with Dina in the bushes.
It’s one thing to say you don’t enjoy what’s happening in media you consume, though I think doing so in the creator’s comments (versus on your own blog) is always going to be kind of rude. But it’s a very different thing to, as people keep doing, assume this tone of Scholarly Authority and talk down to the author about “pacing” and how “suspension of disbelief has been shattered”.
(Note the use of passive voice, how it implies that rather than being a given user’s subjective opinion this is empirically true and an objective fault with the writing.)
And there ARE plenty of people who are making these same criticisms while purporting to own their feelings (“in my opinion, the pacing is bad”), but the fact that they’re saying it where Willis must by necessity see it still implies that this is criticism they feel he should take to heart.
I make a big, flashing, neon exception for objections to representation. If Becky were a badly-written stereotype, a lesbian reader feeling uncomfortable would have my full support in saying “sooooo, Mr. Willis, I have some problems with this writing.”
But when it comes to something like “pacing”… that’s always going to be subjective. That’s always going to be a matter of opinion, and something that doesn’t hurt literally anyone reading.
All of this said: I’m not saying anyone needs to LEAVE WILLIS ALONE!!!!!, he’s a grown human being who made a choice to set up these comments and he doesn’t need my defense or protection from criticism.
But I feel like there’s an assumption happening that all critique is valuable, and it’s just… not. If you’re not someone’s editor, don’t just presume they want to treat your opinions on their work as an authority. Don’t be surprised when you saying the current storyline has really lost you as a reader doesn’t change anything about a work that’s written three months in advance.
And not all complaining is meant to change a work. As a fan of Agents of SHIELD, I do a lot of screaming into the void, never expecting anything to change. But I feel like if I were to tweet my screeds directly at the actors, I’d at least have a responsibility to word them differently.
Discuss away, though a lot of the threads I’ve read have not really seemed to welcome dissenting viewpoints as a discussion usually does. Rather they seem to be attempts at persuasive argumentation.
I totally expected the rope wrapped around her arm to tighten when the dad got flung around from the swerving and rip her arm off. I’m also really glad that didn’t happen.
Why is this happening on a bridge? Plot demands that simple swerving doesn’t save the day. Remember to give credit to Joyce too. Otherwise Sal and her motorcycle wouldn’t be involved. Joyce’s connection with Sal, based on her ptsd, is whySal is involved and why we will get a Sal \ Amber storyline.
I mean let’s just make a list, because i’m like that.
-Tire flatted on front right side of car would cause car to slew strongly right. Would also go “whumpWhumpWHUMPWHUMP GRUMBLEGRUMBLEGRIIIIIIIIND” and shoot a fountain of tire shreds into the air and not just hiss out the air.
-Amazigirl throwing Toedad the rope while it is wrapped around her arm would cause loops of rope to constrict very tightly around her arm. The rope would not be able to come off her arm unless Toedad let go, or she spun her arm repeatedly to loose the coils. If she did that, Toedad would lose rope tension and fall.
-Sal, presumably about to catch Amazigirl with motion translational to the direction of travel of her motor cycle with ONE HAND OFF THE BARS would result in dumping the bike instantly.
Overlooking the kvetching, I think that Amazi-girl was incredibly brave and resourceful in all of this – I would never have been able to keep my head clear and think so inventively on every step of this rescue. I also think that the cops chasing down Toedad would have resulted in a murder-suicide or worse.
Agreed; I can’t have seen Ross permitting Becky to go back to a ‘life of sin’, nor could I see him willingly submitting his future to the law of the ‘sinful world’ for his actions.
This choreagraphy keeps bothering me. Tuesday’s nearly has a weird magic leg problem let alone how the car’s change in trajectory affected the characters. But Amazi-Girl (and everyone else) would be less injured bouncing into the side of the truck at that height (hence not going under the wheels) instead of moving Sal’s bike’s center of gravity outside the wheel base. This should wipe out all three of them.
It would even be more ‘realistic’ for Amazi-Girl to land on the truck’s fender after Sal misses and runs over the top of the truck to the now-slowing car. The only (story) good to come of this is the total wipe out and Amber being faced with Sal’s ‘interference’ and Joyce being failed again sends her to the psychiatric hospital after a few tazings.
If we’re ignoring the physics of where did Sal come from and why is she and AG going up, then I hope we can also ignore that they’re all coming to a T intersection in about 1 truck length (panel 3 yesterday) and nobody is braking! Otherwise, everybody’s going to end up crashing off the road and the “Everybody’s going the hospital” comments above are right. Save’em Willis!
If you look at a real-world picture of the actual location(and then click on the ‘back to map link at the bottom left) you will see that the northbound lane is more of an on-ramp/merging lane connecting to the 4-lane version of state highway 37 (they are currently on Walnut Street/Business Route 37). There’s a possibility of missing the turn, but it wouldn’t be as potentially catastrophic as sailing through a stop sign at a T-intersection.
A) Love the detail of Joyce’s eyes scrunched shut…
2) Screw physics or body positions or whatever. It’s only a problem if you thought about it during your initial reading of the installment. If you simply reacted viscerally to Amazi-Girl’s imminent death or Sal’s riding to the rescue then thought about physics, etc, it didn’t get in the way of the story…
I’m sure it is, but it’s probably been less than a minute since he took his foot of the gas. Not to mention they’ve been going sideways for part of it, so I’m sure it’s slowing.
I’m loving this scene, but that old killjoy Dr. Physics thinks at the speeds they would have to be traveling at that Amber would still be dead and Sal would have a broken arm.
Except that Sal is using her left arm to try to catch Amazi-Girl or otherwise break her fall. In the aftermath of the Great Convenience Store Hold-up, Amber stabbed Sal in the *RIGHT* hand.
Nah, it’s difficult to break arms by hitting them with something fairly large and soft unless you get them pinned against something. They tend to just move with the impact otherwise. So I’m thinking more just a dislocated shoulder, at least until Sal hits the pavement after Amber’s momentum peels her (and Joyce, who is not in any way equipped for getting intimate with asphalt!) off the bike and they either slide off the far side of the bridge after the loose bike or get run over by Maggie.
If there’s one positive we can all agree to, it’s that the people who have said variations of “I don’t like this” not being banned forever should finally dispel the cloying falsehood that David Willis is intolerant of criticism.
So true. Turns out David Willis is only intolerant of criticism when it’s blatantly racist, misogynistic, transphobic, and comes from 4chan /co/ lurkers – who knew?!
Also I just noticed Willis removed someone’s reply to a criticism of this storyline; the reply was essentially “SO WHY DON’T YOU GO FIND A BETTER COMIC, HATER”. He did not remove the criticism. Tell me again how Willis just can’t handle being criticized, MRA commenters?
So I’m thinking there is still the potential for disaster here.
1) the Motorcycle doesn’t look like it’s cleared the truck’s lanes fully yet, so potential splat there.
2) Toedad’s car is still possibly out of control ON A BRIDGE, so I could see it going over the side with Becky still inside (and Dina tied up in the trunk)
Mr. Willis, would you please tell us, once and for all, that Dina is not crammed into the trunk of ToeDad’s car?
There’s no way Dina can be in the trunk. Think about it. ToeDad would have had to carry her unconscious body (and the rifle; don’t forget that!) 1) out of the woods; 2) back to his car; and 3) placed her into the trunk — all without arousing suspicion — and still have been able to make it over to Showalter Fountain and arrive in about the same amount of time that it took Becky to get there?
Thinking back on Amber’s flashbacks… she approached Sal from behind, while Sal had her hands on the hood of a police car, being detained. Sal never saw *who* stabbed her hand, since she had her eyes closed, in pain. She wouldn’t recognize Amber or Ethan, since they were just background during the robbery. Ethan was just Sal’s size back then, so she doesn’t equate him with her hostage, either. (Ethan’s niggling memory of her was satisfied with the twin thing) Amber was the only one who got a good look at Sal. (burned into her memory for reasons)
So when Amber/AG has these conflicting emotions about Sal, she (Sal) will continue to wonder what that girl’s problem is.
On the one hand, this comic doesn’t suffer from playing fast and loose with physics, in the same way “Gravity” didn’t suffer from ignoring things like the fact that the Hubble and the ISS are nowhere near being in the same neighborhood. It’s the story that matters, and I like it.
On the other hand, it’s important to remember that playing fast and loose with science is how you get climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, anti-GMO hysteria, homeopathic remedies, and people who think no stars in photographs means “OMG fake soundstage.”
I am really curious to see where Willis is going with the physical laws of this comic. Is it normal reality except for when Amazigirl is in play? Or is it that this world has a general disregard of physics (kinda like the reality of the Marvel/Avengers/SHIELD world)? Or will physics come crashing back shortly to kill them all? (or at least put them in comas? Joyce with no helmet seems a dangerous thing to have here. Is she going to hit her head and become alter-ego Joyce?) O_o So many questions! Can’t wait to see how everything plays out! 🙂
The intrepid BatMan-Woman, and her trusty sidekick, Swear-Girl, arrive just in time to save Amazi-Girl, who just saved the villainous Toe-Head, who has captured the plucky girlfriend of Clever-Girl, after he defeated her in battle, after his mad shooting spree, in retaliation for her thwarting him, by using her powers of clever, to use mind-control to take said plucky girlfriend captive, after she had escaped his clutches, after he had taken her to his lair.
There’s nothing wrong with giving the occasional raspberry to the laws of physics for the sake of a better story. I mean, even in the real world, people can pull off stunts like that without being seriously injured, never mind killed.
Hmm, looking at the rope when Amazi-Girl slips off, and where Toedick is holding onto it, he is likely to end up being dragged along the road behind the car in the next page.
I have this feeling that Billie is going to believe this entire storyline is just something cooked up by Sal to pretend she isn’t Amazi-girl, and Joyce and Becky are naive enough to go along with it.
I feel this may cause some kind of existential crisis for Amber….presented now in the form of a SONG!
Who is this Sal,
What sort of devil is she?
To find me caught in a crash,
And choose to help and save me?
It was her hour at last,
To put a seal on my defeat!
Just not drive quite so fast,
And let me be a stain on the street!
All it would take,
Is for the truck to Jackknife,
Vengeance was hers,
Instead she helped to save my life!
Damn me for living in the debt of a thief.
Damn her for yielding to Joyce’s demand!
I am the Girl totally immune to critique!
I’ll shove her shiv right back in her hand!
There is nothing on Earth we share.
It is either Sall-e or Amber.
And my thoughts fall apart.
Can this Sal be believed?
Should her crimes be forgiven?
Or am I being deceiiiiiiiiiiiiived?
And must I now begin to doubt?
After wearing these clothes this whole year?
My face is masked, my cape it flutters,
The words I have spoke are white on azure.
Is she from heaven or from hell?
And does she know….
That saving me and my life today…
Has just confused me, that damned bongo!
I am standing, but I fall,
My bones can break despite my claim,
As I stare down the street,
At the police that finally came,
I’ll escape now from those cops,
Man, these cops are really lame,
There is a spider that I must kill,
In the silence of my dorm- shit Sal still has my GAMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEE
So one question, going back, am I the only one to notice the rope AG is using has gone from being hooked to the back of the car to suddenly the underneath/side of the car?
It wasn’t “suddenly”. She did it back on Saturday. Panel 3 she has the hook in her hand. Panel 5 she’s got it hooked under the car and is knocking on Becky’s window.
Getting a bike airborne isn’t that difficult. Crotch rockets like the one Sal rides have an abundance of horsepower and torque. Keeping it upright when AG’s weight and inertia are added will be the real trick. I sure hope Sal’s been working out.
Anyone else notice that Joyce is wearing the same gear she wore at SEMME in ‘It’s Walky’? I think she’s going to wind up being the real hero here somehow.
Assuming the dramatis personae (I’m not TOO worried about “Toedad” here) in this segment survive without major hospitalizations, I’m wondering how many are going to get expelled. Joyce has been harboring a guest in a dorm, Sarah ditto, Dorothy knows about it I think, Sal’s been motoring down non-vehicular paths (we’ll skip the stairs issue, I’m in San Diego and we’ve got a BIKE PATH with stairs), Amber’s been skateboarding on campus, Ruth’s been oblivious (officially) to the situation and if the authorities investigate deeper she might be in trouble over RA’s relationship with a residential advisee (Billie) — including buying the bulk of the booze. The overly officious might want to sanction Dina (again, assuming she’s alright) on the grounds the student conduct code doesn’t contemplate imitating extinct predators while assaulting armed kidnappers.
And Math might not be the only class where Walky’s having trouble.
I doubt Joyce or Sarah would be in trouble… I remember a mention quite a while back (can’t remember if it was one of the comments or a comic itself) that students are allowed guests to stay for something like 3-4 nights. While Joyce did have the plan to have Becky stay indefinitely, I’m not sure if enough time has passed to overstay that limit.
And given the fact that Toedad was acting threatening, I doubt she’d be in trouble for defending herself or her friend.
The others have broken various rules, but probably not seriously enough to warrant being expelled. The only one who’s really overstepped the lines is Ruth… not only for having a relationship with an advisee and buying booze, but also for overstepping her authority as an RA. (Breaking into people’s rooms, throwing Joyce’s gloves out the window, threatening people on her floor, etc.)
I can’t stop imagining everything slowing to nearly a freeze-frame in this scene, but the instant Sal catches Amazi-Girl it returns to full speed and music cuts in…”DARE! Dare to believe you can survive…”
Loading ...
HOLY SHIT
HNNNNNGH
LOUD NOISES
Screams of “I CALLED IT!”.
Well kinda. Near the bottom of http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/holdon/ you’ll find a comment near the bottom where I said “You know, I’m still trying to work out whether Amazigirl winds up saving Sal or Sal winds up saving Amazigirl ” I guess I know which way it works now.
Of course that was also the one in which Joyce says “Nothing more can hurt me.”
I kind of figured Sal would save AmaziGirl. It’s like atonement for her heist.
Now AmaziGirl will start having CONFLICTING FEELINGS about Sal.
huh. when sal started interacting with danny, i figured he’d be the one having conflicting feelings about sal. move over ethan, time for a foursome!
but seriously, redemption!…assuming everyone comes out of this ok
Sal/amazigirl slipstream……
Seen a lot of Andromeda lately?
Not to mention, keeps the series thematically grounded in reality without killing Amber. I mean…sorta.
I’m not convinced that Sal catching Amazigirl mid-fall like that is going to “save” her.
motorcycle ex machina
Not technically, since we knew they were coming. But there is no rational explanation to why they are appearing from that angle. For the record: I’m not complaining.
Aaand Amazi-Girl is just going to love being rescued by Our Lady of Up-to-no-goodness.
Sal said she knew some short cuts off the highway. Maybe she just got off one?
A short cut that goes to the middle of a bridge?
I would be completely unsurprised.
Obviously she finds the same sorts of shortcuts that Sans uses. 😛
Remember how she got her time trial in Rainbow Road?
Oh wow, true!
Which ironically she wouldn’t have gotten if not for the help of the man Amazigirl was banging.
Possibly? Is there an old rail bed there? (I’m not familiar with the area.) “Not legal” doesn’t necessarily mean “not a shortcut” for people who aren’t super-concerned about the legal aspect.
Clearly there was a well-placed Car Hauler set up to make a perfect ramp.
Angle can be explained by the fact that Sal told us she was taking a more direct route to the highway.
More like Chekhov’s Motorcycle.
“… … WTF is the ‘Like’ button on th-… …”
I feel like Chekhov’s motorcycle would just end up being ridden though. This is more like…Chekhov’s high speed chase? Chekhov’s speeding motorcycle? The motorcycle did appear somewhat suddenly, maybe Deus ex Chekhov or Chekhov ex Machina? There’s got to already be a generic hybrid term. Final proposal: Chekhov ex Motorcyle.
Well, there’s no guarantee anything will be completely resolved by motorcycle.
In its current position, it’s still in the intercept path of the Blue Truck.
Yep. Totally no brakes on the psychopa- Uh… On the truck.
No brakes on the truck.
I’m sure the truck is braking. And has been for the 30 seconds or so since he saw the car spinning.
Luckily the driver is smart enough not to lock up the brakes and risk jack-knifing it and sweeping the whole road clean.
Well, I see a “HONK-HONK!!!” but, not a “pssh-shqueak-shqueak-shqueak-shqueak!!” anywhere, in sight…
In fact, I think he up-shifted…
Or it could be Chekov’s motorcycle, which is the kind that was inwented in Russia.
I think you meant deus ex motorcycle
Machina ex Machina then? Didn’t know they reproduce…
Deus ex machinehead
next comic:
Sal: *misses* “whoops”
Amazi-Girl: *stain across the road*
Readers: DAMN YOU WILLIS
Also readers: *phew* “It was just a bad dream”
Sal: *misses* “whoops”
I love how every reader happens to have the same bad dream
Nah, only those of you who would have cursed Willis.
nah…. more like, Sall catches her but the trucks hits the bike and the blonde gets to see Heaven sooner than she thought she would see it.
Relax. The blonde says nothing more can hurt her, and if Sal misses, well Amazigirl has dense bones from the lab accident, so it’s all good.
Try Sal catches her, but trucks move fast and they all die.
Who’s really dreaming? Tomorrow’s comic starts with Amber sitting on her parents’ living room floor, transfixed by a toy. Blaine and Stacy enter.
Blaine: “I don’t understand this autism. I talk to my girl, but…I’m not even sure if she ever hears me…Amber’s locked inside her own world. Staring at that toy all day long. What does she think about?”
[Amber shakes the object, revealing it to be a snowglobe]
Blaine: Come on, it’s time for dinner.
[Blaine gently takes the snowglobe and places it on the mantle. All three exit. Cut to closeup of snowglobe, revealing a plastic model of the fountain from the IU campus inside as the snow settles.]
* As Blaine scoops up Amber, a blue and red motorcycle toy falls from Amber’s loosely closed palm
Amber: “Jnnnn-Snnn!!” (Joyce!!, Sal!!)
Blaine: “Come on, Rose-Buddy. Dinner’s getting cold. We’ll come back to play, after…”
Tight shot on JOYCE’s face as she opens her eyes. Camera pulls back to show her lying in bed.
JOYCE: “Honey, I just had the strangest dream. We were back in college and I was riding on the back of your sister’s motorcycle and Amber was dressed in a superhero suit … ”
Camera continues pulling back to reveal, in bed next to JOYCE, WALKY …
But it turns out the entire college was just an autistic kid’s snowglobe.
* Amber sitting on her parents’ living room floor, transfixed by a toy. Blaine and Stacy enter…
Blaine: “I don’t understand this autism. I talk to my girl, but-”
* Blaine gently takes the snowglobe…
Is Sal’s motorcycle named Rosebud?
Ironically, the name of the truck driver is Tommy Westphall.
Holy shit, indeed.
It’s what’s in Ross’s pants.
Looks for the upvote button Damn you, Willis!
Yeah, we need an edit button, an upvote button and a Damn You Willis” button.
Hear, hear!
Wouldn’t the “Damn You Willis” button basically be a visit-counter?
Also, a second holy shit, because I think this is the first time I’ve ever had the first comment on anything my life. XD
And What A Comment it is! 🙂
Enjoy it. For the font of firstness dries quickly.
THAT’S WHAT I SAID!
ME TOO! Verbatim.
ditto
You spoke for all of us.
Exactly my reaction holy shit
*Singing* HERE SHE COMES TO SAVE THE DAY!! OK, so she’d probably kill me for calling her Mighty Mouse, but that’s what started playing in my head when I saw that last panel.
ahhh truck it
mother trucker
son of a truck
holy truck
all of which can be used in this situation
Exactly my response.
Yeah, don’t try this at home kids. For a start, trucks don’t move that slwoly.
Amazi-Sal to the rescue!
…and because of this experience, Sal was able to ace all of her Classical Physics homework and tests, even though she was confined to a hospital bed with 32 broken bones and the memory of Joyce’s brains spilling out across the asphalt.
Honestly? Taking a look at what she’s doing here, I’m pretty sure that both her and Amber would fail Physics 101. In particular mechanics of solid bodies.
I do have to express my surprise at the ongoing traffic being completely unfazed by all the antics here and just going forward. Usually some stiff life is enough to slow it to a crawl, let alone a dangerous action sequence like this.
Never underestimate the human ability to ignore things that do not immediately and overtly concern them, no matter how dramatic and unusual.
What traffic?
The truck driver’s probably been standing on his brakes since he saw the car spin a few seconds back. One other car passed in that lane a few strips back, just in time to see Amazi-girl on the roof. There’s been no one else in their lane except the red car.
Stiff life? Either that’s a typo or a local phrase I’m not familiar with but I’m enjoying it.
SWEEEEEEET
Amazi-Save!
Impressive.
Most impressive.
what
College!
I know! This comic sums up my experience perfectly!
The truck was red in my case, though.
mine was a cab-over-engine
Mine was legit Optimus Prime.
I guess that’s to be expected for a Decepticon?
Optimus Prime?!
Mine was a 4000-class 4-8-8-4 articulated, coal-fired, steam locomotive.
Mine was modified by Doc Brown and traveled through time.
With mine, I was promised that the car would travel back in time before it hit me.
I was told that the car WOULD hit me, but in doing so restore the world to the correct timeline. Sort of worked, but we still don’t have the pterodactyls back.
Never listen to a man in a rabbit suit. It never goes well.
Not enough rampaging Spinosaurus for mine.
Mine was blue. I think. I don’t know, I got amnesia from that day. All I know is they told me that I went headlong into a semi and the entire passenger’s side caved in to the driver’s side. Surprisingly the worst injury I got was a single broken collar bone.
Coast Guard Lockheed HC-130H Hercules search-and-rescue airplane.
Mine was a giant vinegaroon in a top hat.
Dang man I know I remember the time my Sophmore year when I was riding around on the roof of a car fighting a gunman in order to save an innocent girl! It’s like this comic is about me! Dang those were some crazy times though, sure takes me back.
I. .. I guess I just feel like I kinda missed out on that quintessential college experience, yknow? I was kinda quiet in college, spent a lot of time in the dorm, doing schoolwork and research and hacking into international criminal organizations to subvert the dismantling of the most powerful governments of the world and finding weak points in their headquarter security systems to allow myself and a few close friends to break in and destroy any physical records. I just wasn’t much of a party person, I guess.
Weirdly, this does feel college to me. Second panel Amber has a perfect “Suddenly I realize I may not survive superheroing” face. Losing that belief in being young and invincible is a part of growing up, even if this isn’t the usual method.
Sal to the rescue!
Makes sense.
And Sal’s big Han Solo moment in 3, 2, 1!
Sal stabbed first.
Hey, Willis revised it for a reason, and we must respect his artistic vision!
“It’s true. All of it.”
“So Greedo DID shoot first!”
“… Get out.”
Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time! What does that make us?
Big damn heroes sir
BIG DAMN HEROES!
Ain’t we just.
I can feel the slo-mo
Bwooooongn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2jUhnCU9iA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPJ2ZjYlY38
And suitably dramatic background music, synchronised to on-screen events!
Sal to the rescue
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn
Nice catch, Sal.
Hasn’t caught her yet. Heck, Sal’s bike might still get hit from the look of it.
*screams a lot*
Good show
And now AG will be conflicted cuz her arch-nemesis saved her from being road pizza.
I was just thinking this. She is going to have to deal with the fact that people can change *GASP* Also that this vigilante stuff is going to get her killed.
I foresee her going full-Gollum on this…
“Sal realizes it’s the chick who gave her a hand scar and decides not to catch her.
SAL THAT IS A VERY NOBLE IDEA BUT ALSO A TERRIBLE ONE
Don’t you bring your physics into this comic strip, young lady!
It’s okay though. She has no regrets.
And thus the Ultimate Alliance was forged
Justice Leage of Indiana University.
or, you know, “league”. I’m not sure what a “leage” is.
The only difference is that there’s no “u” in “leage”.
Because you aren’t cool enough to join it.
(Pretend my gravatar is Mike right now and not Ruth. Although I guess I could see Ruth saying that too.)
Sorta saw this one coming. It was like Chekov’s motorcycle.
“Ah yes. Motorcycle. It was inwented by Iwan the Terrible.”
Where the heck did she come from?
The shortcut.
I would argue that there seems to be a thin bike lane along the side of the bridge, that she must have been driving against traffic in, but that seems flimsy, even to me. Not sure where she came from.
oh dear, all i can think about right now is the fact that there are now SO MANY CANDIDATES for that hospital scene
The paramedics show up at whatever the end scene of this mayhem is and just say “You know what? Fuck it. EVERYONE is going to the hospital.”
That wouldn’t be an awful idea, to treat shock and stuff (other than that I guess everyone might end up with medical debt? is that how it works? although on the other hand maybe IU has a student plan).
Damn You Willis alternative, everyone except the characters on screen right now are in the hospital.
“Oh, yeah, they’re all fine. Kind of a miracle, don’t you think? Anyway, flu season is here and 90% of our student body is out of commission. Funny how life sometimes works like that.”
Prediction: everyone is in the hospital. It’s a party.
The comic name changes to “Peekaboo, I.C.U.”
*slow clap*
A story about Ms. Picabou Lain, a young I.C.U. attendant who nurses a bunch of dumb college students back to health.
It’s the truck driver. He’s actually a very nice man who drives responsibly and didn’t deserve to have any of this happen to him. He’s not even on the clock, he’s using his own time to deliver a shipment of donated shoes to an orphanage.
Has a heart attack from the stress. Luckily he makes a full recovery. And adopts Becky.
He’s not even supposed to BE here today!
I see what you did there … And I approve.
He was two weeks from retirement.
Oh that’s good I’m glad he made a full recovery and adopted Becky.
I was worried.
Truckload of cabbages.
It will be ME in the hospital for cardiac arrest!
Actually, it’s Willis. Had a heart attack while drawing tomorrow’s comic. His ghost artist has been covering for him while he recuperates. Expect a dramatic change in the art, starting tomorrow.
Why isn’t Joyce in the poll but she is in the back of that motorcycle?
Several characters haven’t been included in the poll, either because they all die or because they’re essentially main cast and are in plenty of comics already.
*plays electric guitar!
Hopefully comic-book physics will prevail, otherwise things are going to get very messy.
I’m pretty sure Amazi-girl just pulled a 270 between those shots, so yeah.
I don’t think that bike was made for 3 people.
wuh? where did Sal even come from? how is she coming in at that angle? was she driving headlong into the truck before turning to catch Amazigirl?
Yeah, I agree. This shot is pretty disorienting.
I would say she took some sort of off-road shortcut, but I doubt she could have forded a river on her motorcycle.
Something something oxen something.
She did tell Joyce she was gonna take some shortcuts so I assume they came out of an alley or side street.
On a bridge?
the shortcuts were to GET to the bridge
hell, the angle could be such that she rode UP the bridge only to drive off a la Darkwing Duck
Oh I hadn’t noticed the bridge railings. Then… Iunno. Ramps?
There… seems to be a bike lane? Maybe she was driving in it? Against traffic?
Yeah, I know, it’s reaching.
because bike lanes are the safest place to be
She and Amber are both James freakin’ Bond, apparently.
Yeah this really stretches my ability to suspend reality….
Obviously you need more practice.
How suspended is my disbelief?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR1EmTKAWIw
THIS suspended!
(WARNING: video will cause vertigo.)
She took a shortcut through Scott Pilgrim’s mind.
Internets. Many Internets.
Is this sort of thing allowed to happen without Vin Diesel present? I’m not up to date on traffic laws.
Sal was cloned from the DNA of Vin Diesel.
Clearly Sal got all of Vin’s ‘awesome action movie’ genes, while Walky got all of Vin’s ‘adorkable nerd’ genes.
The truck probably runs on diesel, so we’re cool.
Half a dozen motorcycle songs are fighting over what’s being played on the Muzak back on campus.
Is nobody else worried that it looks like the truck is about to hit Sal and Joyce? Or am I just looking at it wrong/
I just hope they dodge the 10-ton bullet.
If only it were 10 tons. Try 40 tons.
At some point another ton or two isn’t a meaningful detail.
At some point, sure, but the average weight of an empty truck is 38,000 pounds. 19 tons. Empty trucks can still stop quickly. Loaded ones can’t.
Standard maximum GVR(assuming they don’t have overweight permits) is 80,000 pounds. 40 tons.
Yes, the impossibly flying motorcycle is somehow coming in from the side in time to be broadsided by a semi. That’s what I see. And if they’re not hit, I’d think catching Amazi-Girl would knock them over.
Yeah best case scenario I’m seeing here is they “catch” Amber, tumble forward and crash with Joyce and Sal ending up pretty battered and Amber getting more injured than she already is
Cue: Timely passing vehicle dragging a flatbed trailer full of comfy mattresses.
“OH SHIT. I DIDN’T REALLY THINK THIS THROU-“
rip
Sal ilu but u better not be about to make any derisive comments about amazigirl because in net awesomeness she is still kicking your ass right now
That said, having driven a car that had the front tire blow on the freeway and break into a slide at that speed, not sure how she pulled off a turn.
I was almost in a bad accident earlier this year when I was trying to merge (the entrance ramp was like half a mile long so you had time to get up to speed) and when I turned to check my blind spot someone in front of me slowed down suddenly. I barely saw it in time and swerved across two lanes, lost control, and somehow got the car going back towards the right lane (at a 90-degree angle to the traffic, no less) in the span of 7 seconds. I have no idea how I did it and I’m almost 100% certain it was dumb luck.
Very lucky. It can be done. But without tires? Suddenly a lot less possible. Turning the wheel would be ineffectual, I think.
How many articles of clothing did you soil?
Damn near everything that’s happened since the first strip on the highway hasn’t made much sense physics-wise. If that car was somehow sliding sideways as the art seems to suggest, with a driver whose barely inside (and thus presumably isn’t in contact with the pedals) and a blown out right front tire, it should be rolling by now. It certainly wouldn’t straighten out no matter what Amber did with the wheel without some very skilled throttle input.
BLESS YOU WILLIS
Omg, I get the feeling of suspension of belief now. But somehow I know Willis will make this work!
You know Amber has to end up in the hospital for maximum drama potential.
That’s where her dad is.
That’s what I’ve been saying, glad someone else caught on!
Worst part is, if she’s going to the hospital her identity will definitely be revealed, and last we heard the police were looking for Asshole Dad #1’s assaulter. With Amazigirl unmasked, he’ll know it was her that beat him up. Who knows what he’d do then…
He lost his memory thanks to the beating, hopefully.
well, if she goes on her own, after the fact, or taken by friends, she doesn’t have to be unmasked except to a select few.
While there he tells Amber that while he is dissapointed in her, he respects her standing up to him and decides to leave her alone for now.
He shrinks into his bed, screaming “KEEP HER AWAY FROM ME!” He is carted off to the room with padded wallpaper.
And then they all died. Webcomic over. Let’s go home folks.
The comic will now focus on Danny, who will start a relationship with Mary.
Naw, it’ll focus on Faz and his attempts at getting a girlfriend.
He learns to love and becomes a better person. He finally realizes how creepy he was and how it prevented him from making friends. He gets a job, makes friends, gets a girlfriend, and gets married. The name of the strip will be “That’s Faz”
Alternatively Faz, Howard and Riley will team up and start the league of slightly annoying but not really evil younger siblings. Riley will ultimately be defeated by someone giving her 10 bucks and telling her where the supermarket is.
After all these years I’ve never made a comment but now it is time because THIS IS THE MOST BADASS THING I’VE SEEN IN FOREVER
D-damn you, Willis!
Oh man, cue a crisis for Amber when she actually sees Sal’s face. Prior to this, hating her was easy but now Sal just saved her from becoming roadkill
Did Sal just apparate there? Is… Is Sal Harry Potter in disguise?
Yes.
Nah that would make Sal Hagrid, probably. 😛
I mean on the whole she’s mostlike Sirius black. He was a rebellious teenager with a motorbike after all
…who spent time in lockup, didn’t fit in with rest of family…
I noted a week or two ago that Toedad fits Mr Dursley’s physical description perfectly (“Large and neckless, with an enormous black mustache”).
Yes, I am reading the books for the first time right now.
Logically that would make Becks Harry Potter.
I may have panicked for a few minutes because of DST.
GOOD SHOW Amazi-girl. You saved two people and thanks to say you are not a permanent mark on that truck. 😀 Now get the car to stop and beat the crap out of toe dad.
Anyone else find it out that the truck is still moving, maybe I just don’t know enough about how trucks work but I feel like he should braked the moment he saw a car go skidding across the road
*odd
They take a while to stop cuz of inertia.
In previous comments, someone suggested that the road having a single dotted yellow line means that they are on the highway out of town, probably going 55 MPH, so I think this would apply. http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=93118&d=1441431547
It takes like ten trailer-lengths for something that size going 55 mph to come to a full stop.
AT LEAST
(not to mention, the truck TURNED just before the bridge)
Well, technically if it just turned onto the road, it probably wouldn’t be travelling the full 55mph (It did seem like a fairly sharp turn in the previous comics.)
Still, it will take a while to stop.
surely even of sal isnt hit by the truck she’ll still hit the car like everyone is going so fast but they still occupy the same couple of feet
That’ll be a painful catch, and a difficult recovery, but Joyce is getting one helluva motorcycle ride. Fundie, on the other hand, may be seriously screwed. With luck, Becky’s unbuckled and in control. Lastly, what happened to Dina?
Now…how in the Hell is Sal going to LAND this?
How is the car going to come to a stop, and will it be right-side up?
How will Ross feel, knowing his miserable life was saved by a “heathen woman”?
This is FAR from over, folks.
Never mind how’s she going to land this. How the hell is she supposed to catch Amber, who outweighs her and is currently falling off of a high-speed vehicle? Even if she actually managed to somehow get a grip on her, the best outcome would be a dislocated arm for her and not dumping the bike onto the pavement.
Much more likely for the bike and all three girls – only one of which is wearing a helmet or any clothing remotely durable enough to deal with the high-speed road rash – to be bleeding all over the pavement where there are multiple vehicles all traveling at high rates of speed to run them over.
Uh oh.
Trucks roll everyone dies.
I CAN’T HANDLE THIS ROLLER-COASTER OF ADRENALINE!
I’m concerned by the lack of speed lines on the bike.
that bike has been hanging motionless there for a while waiting for amazi-girl. once she falls, it’ll hit 80 instantaneously
holy fucking shit.
I am like 40% sure this is not how physics work
right like… why is she falling down… then falling up……… what?!
Changing “camera” angles.
Changing camera angles or not, I’m pretty sure in that last panel she’s managed to gain height from the roof of the car. But Amazi-Girl can do these sorts of things.
Due to the name of this story, normal physics no longer apply!
It’s all in the song lyrics, both Amazi-Girl and Sal and Joyce are defying gravity!
why do i feel that the last thing amber will see before losing consciousness is sal’s helmet coming off revealing her face…
Because you have a sense of dramatic timing?
Amber already knows Sal has a motorbike, and may very well recognize her next strip. That is, if she’s even still conscious…
Does anyone else picture Sal catching her and completing that bike leap and have the E.T. theme play in their head?
Dukes of Hazzard theme.
And here I thought this was a comic more mundane than the one about aliens and demigod cheese.
Surprise!
Suddenly, Dumbing of Age turns into Doctor McNinja. Next, Dina appears riding a T-Rex and chases toedad into the sunset.
Gordito and Dina OTP
Nevermind Gordito, Becky X Dina X Doctor Dinosaur OT3.
Dina wouldn’t be able to tolerate Doctor Dinosaur’s inaccuracies and misconceptions about his own species.
Great now I want a cross over
And that’s how Sal and Amazi-girl/Amber became best friends.
WHAT!
WHAT?
What?
Not what….HOW???
WHERE? WHEN? WHY? WHO?
QUE? COMO? QUIEN?
¿Quien está en primero?
Quomodo?
Welp, this has officially jumped the truck. 😛
On a more serious note: Ross no longer has his gun. That… makes things easier. So do the slashed tires on his car – provided it doesn’t crash, Becky can get out soon.
You assume the gun doesn’t land at the same place where the car stops. You assume too much…
It’s back at least a few car-lenths, at least. Once they stop it’s going to take Toedad McTinylegs a while to retrieve it.
After contacting the road the Gun will have lost momentum much faster than the car. It’ll be a ways back.
After contacting the road at that speed, it will be bent and in several pieces.
So they are all Jedis now.
Nothing unusual to see here. Carry-on
Well lookso like Sal isn’t going let her heart the end of all this.
Lol wut.
Man, this was totally my college experience.
Ok, not really.
Yeah. I got hit by the truck. The afterlife is crazy y’all.
apparently they have wi-fi good to know
I have ten thousand follow up questions.
… and an appropriate avatar.
And Sal for the save! Bet that’s gonna mess with Amber’s worldview just a little bit!
Amazi-Girl and KAMEN RIDER SAL
no wait the lady Riders always die
Okay, therapy for everybody after this, right?
OK now, seriously WTF?!? Also this means Toedad is gonna eat some asphalt because there is now way too much slack in that rope to keep him in the window.
Although I doubt it’s going to lead to him surrendering Becky (and as I said a couple days/weeks ago I hope it doesn’t because I fear less charges would be laid*), I’m curious how Toedad’s going to handle the fact that a person who was going against his divine mission and outrightly defying him and also was a woman just saved his life in a potentially self-sacrificing situation.
Because he’s awful he’ll probably just block it out, but I’d love if it angsted him up while he was in jail.
* I also worry that forgiveness would be weak storywise since it kind of negates this whole long plot (the only significant character growth would be Ross** and he wouldn’t be on screen much after, it’s not Parents of Age). It would also be frustrating because there’s been so much pain reading this arc and I feel like that would just be an empty ending. It would be triply frustrating (not just thirdly, but multiplied triple) because it would downplay the real life similar instances that almost never end that way and fuel the “you should just talk to your parents about it, abused kid” thing.
** (and yes possibly Ambermazigirl but despite bad dad involvement amping it up for her, conflict due to Sal saving her ass could happen in a large number of ways (and even finding out about Sal helping Joyce when she was alone would probably be a leaping point for that which wouldn’t need this arc if Toedad negates it))
The cars about to go over a cliff, problem solved.
Remember kids! Cruise control is the Devil’s Pedal.
It looks to me that Toedad was pulling on the end of the rope that caused Amazigirl to go flying out of the car. I dont think he’s doing anything to help, and is just trying to stay in the car (via rope).
I thought she had him holding it (yesterday) so she could get inside, but I could be mistaken.
She tossed him the loose end dangling from her arm. Maybe he pulled himself up, and grabs the suction cup she let go of (on the windshield).
Regardless if it gives him pause or not, Toedad needs a crap-ton of therapy before he should be allowed anywhere near Becky. He needs to realize what he did was wrong, pay his debt to society, and work on his MANY issues before he can potentially move forward with any kind of positive and healthy relationship with his daughter.
And that’s IF Becky is willing to accept any apologies. Even if Ross has a legitimate “My God, what have I done?!” moment, after all he’s done Becky would be well within her rights to permanently sever all ties with him.
… you know therapy only works for people who actually want to change, right? Like they say, the first step to fixing the problem is admitting you have one in the first place. Toedad doesn’t exactly strike me as the “omg I was wrong” type.
Oh yeah, absolutely. The first step towards redemption is admitting you were wrong. It’s a rare thing, especially when coming from a background as fanatical as Ross’s. My earlier post was me musing on a hypothetical scenario where this turn of events gives Ross a wake-up call. In reality, I really doubt he can be made to regret any of his actions.
I TOLD YOU TO WEAR A HELMET.
YOU’LL ALL BE LUCKY TO NOT DIE.
Dang danger-prone teenagers.
yea, joyce is really taking this ‘nothing more can hurt me’ thing a bit too literally
Well, well, look who Amber ended owing her life to.
Seriously, people, enough with pointing out the damned physics in this arc.
What about the physics in this arc?
http://images.tutorvista.com/cms/images/83/projectile-motion-formulas.PNG
He may not have pushed her, but he did not try to save her.
To deepest hell with Toedad.
Go Sal. Hopefully this buries the hatchet between those two.
He just pulled a gun on her. I think “not saving her” is probably the least murderous thing he’s done to her.
Well, he’s somehow standing out the side of a speeding car on a freeway. And was doing that initially with a two-handed gun. Not sure how he was staying on at all.
A wild non-redneck appears! Betty Anne uses HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS. It’s about as effective as it sounds. :p
Yes, you can hang out the window of a moving vehicle holding a two-handed gun. No, it’s not safe OR recommended behavior. (Also: Hunting from your vehicle without special disabled permits is illegal regardless of hanging out the window or not, just a heads-up to fellow rednecks.)
Even though she saved him herself earlier! He can go fuck a thousand shits.
I mean, considering that:
– This strip’s events are all happening over the space of like four seconds
– Toedad is only just regaining his balance after yesterday’s strip
– Odds are, he’s straight-up terrified at this point
I think we can give him a pass for not managing to save Amber. He’s still an unmitigated asshole for a whole host of reasons, but I don’t think this is one of them.
Has anyone thought of the possibility of all of them being hospitalized?
Many of us have thought of the possibility that everyone not on the voting list dies. It’s a Willis comic.
You mean the “who do you want to see more of next year?” voting list? Joyce, Becky, Amber, and possibly Sal, I forget, wouldn’t be on that list because Willis doesn’t include the top 5 most-seen characters from the year before. It’s never included main characters; Joyce and co. not being on it wasn’t hinting at anything.
How strong is Sal supposed to be? She was losing a fist fight to Malaya a few nights ago, but now she’s managed to get her bike a good few feet airborne with a passenger and now expects to one-arm catch a falling girl who presumably weighs more than her.
Also, why is AG apparently falling up? That last panel raises SO many physics/perspective-related questions.
Also, I suspect in a few strips time we’ll get the following:
AG: “Alright, I guess we’re even then.”
Sal: “What in the HELL are you talki-”
*AG rips off her mask revealing Amber*
Sal: “You? I don’t even know who y-”
*intense eye contact*
*flashbacks all round*
Sal: “YOU’RE THE bongo WHO STABBED MY HAND!”
Amber: “You’re the bongo who held my friend/boyfriend hostage!”
Joyce: “Wait…Ethan!? YOU HURT MY FRIEND/USED TO BE BOYFRIEND BUT HE WAS GAY?”
Sal: “Wait…hunky guy? That was him? Wait… he’s gay? But he dated both of y-what!?”
*dramatic hilarity ensues*
…bongo? Really, censorbot?
that’s pretty much the only censored word, because people were overusing it and (I missed the specific incident but) from my understanding using it in shitty/dehumanizing ways.
I had a sudden scene pop into my head, this morning. Everyone is on the side of the road, safe, and Joyce stomps up to Ross. “You son-of-a-Bongo!”
Everyone just looks at her.
The specific incident was roz calling out Joyce for her belated epiphany in their gender studies class about the church being spectacularly unhelpful toward homeless lgbt youth.
It’s not really so much about censoring the other b word as it is increasing the number of bongos. We just really like “bongos .”
Bongo bongo bongo! Can’t get enough!
It’s not my most favoritest word filter ever, though. Many years ago, on a forum owned by Neil Cicierega, if someone typed “ur” (instead of “your” or “you’re”) the filter would change it to “urethra”.
The fight with Malaya went badly because she was taken off-guard; it was interrupted before she really fought back, so we can’t judge her strength from it.
Yup, last thing that happened before Marcie broke it up was Sal getting riled, catching Malaya’s jab and drawing back for a massive punch of her own.
Because that is the will of Willis. The world of DoA is not like ours. The laws of physics are not constant, anything can happen at any time.
It has long been assumed that the superpowers possessed by the characters in the Walkyverse were due to genetic tampering. If they weren’t but were inherent do to heredity, then Sal could easily be anything up to five times stronger a women of her size and fitness would normally be expected to be.
Remember how Walky has a sixpack while eating nothing but chicken nuggets. Maybe they’re just really lucky genetics-wise.
Oh, Walky will have problems with that, just like his prior ability to coast through classes fell flat. But on this time-scale, the freshman 15 will take a lot of time to appear. Maybe in 20 years we’ll see that storyline.
“Fight”.
More like Malayla punched her and Marcie steppe din before Sal can throw a punch.
Marcie tends to do that when Sal and violence are in proximity.
Honestly, whether Sal can actually catch and hold on to Amazi-girl doesn’t really matter at this point. If she can break her momentum, even at the cost of crashing the bike, that’s ugly, but far better than the grill of the truck.
Broken bones and road rash all around.
That’s what I was thinking would happen. AG looks to have passed out from the stress/injury (white bubbles around her head), and her current rag-doll situation might actually help her survive the next couple of panels. hmmmm… maybe it would be better if she were aware enough to do her tuck-n-roll landing skill.
Watch toedad keep driving like an asshole.
Or try.
What happened to definitely that same truck driver dude as in roomies!? He’s not tagged in this one.
He was standing off to the side in the last strip, but now you can’t see where he is because the truck is in the way.
What?
Oh, okay. He’s not in this strip because he’s covered by Amazigirl’s cape. Better?
Although not quite as much as a truck, I’m pretty sure two people moving as fast as Sal and Joyce seem to be applied to be moving would still feel like hitting a brick wall. For all of them.
*clocks gun* we don’t appreciate the logic of physics in these parts here boy, now go back to watching toedad act like an idiot.
Still less so than going under a truck, though.
Okay super looking forward to the mental fallout for Amber as she realizes the same person that caused one of the most traumatic moment of her life just saved it.
Sal to the rescue at the last possible moment. But, damn that’s some awesome riding.
She’s going to deservedly get all the glory, while AG will get shit for botching up the chase. But omg was AG awesome in her attempt, and she got the car out of the skid from looks of it -a bit of a stretch that is.
Big assumption here, that Sal is going to clear the truck and actually catch AG. AND that Toedad’s car isn’t going to run over them when they land.
AND, Toedad is Toejam.
If Amber had reason to hate Sal before this, got a feeling she won’t love her much when Sal tells her she knew she was gonna screw it up.
I hope Becky is not going to see her rotten excuse for a father squished in front of her, and that she doesn’t flatten Sal and passengers as she tries to stop the car.
I think Joyce’s eyes are closed. Can’t say as I blame her, but this ride of a lifetime is going to be mainly rushes of air and lots of bumping, thumping, and hopefully, not splating.
And where is Dina?
DIIINAAAAAAa )’:
In the trunk.
The (toe) car can’t hit them and Amazigirl pretty much can’t go under the semi (they’re going to bonk into her before she reaches it, unless she’s flying upwards somehow), although that still leaves plenty of room for disaster.
Oh my god, the irony of who’s saving her, too. How did I not realize this when Willis set her up in this story?!
No trophs link?
Am I the only one who had “Losing my Religion” from REM start playing in his head seeing the first panel?
Is that you in the corner?
Given how the expression is about losing one’s temper, I had that song in my head starting with Joyce cursing. 🙂
…this is going to end up having been a dream sequence, isn’t it?
Becky is going to wake up in the car having dreamed the whole rescue.
Don’t even think of it.
Well the name of the chapter is clear now, because everyone in this strip is defying gravity .
*Tips hat*
Screw gravity.
Well, got ninja’d with that comment.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
this is probably the best thing that could happen and im excited for how shes gonna react to sal saving her
assuming shes still conscious and hasnt passed out from stress/being flung around
I’M STILL CONFUSED BY HOW AMBER’S BODY IS MOVING, THIS NEEDS MORE PANELS.
And judging by the last panel erryone gunna die, so I”ll probably never find out
Cerulean blue is like a gentle breeze…
The irony is Amazi-Girl actually did just about everything right. There’s no way in hell they would have caught up with Toedad if not for Amber making his life (no pun intended) hell.
THEY MUST WORK TOGETHER!
BATAMBER AND SUPER-SAL!
My ability to suspend my disbelief is currently rather suspended, but I think I’ll forgive it for the sake of the epic mindfuck Amber’s going to suffer soon.
THIS IS EVERYTHING I’VE BEEN HOPING FOR
Evil Knievel eat your heart out. Comic book physics on parade here. That bike better have some hellacious springs on it to cushion the impact of landing, plus Amber’s going to throw Sal’s balance off. Oh well, road rash is better than being truck pizza.
Amber’s impact jars Sal back, which knocks into Joyce and sends her off the bike and under the semi. -.- But somehow she’ll survive.
The Matrix is strong with this one
Anyone notice that Ross didn’t even make an attempt to grab Amazi-girl’s hand?
If they survive, Joyce has no excuse what-so-ever for being a scaredy cat.
The same rope that he’s desperately hanging onto just gained a lot of slack from her losing her grip. Doubt he’s capable of grabbing her while also suddenly losing a significant part of his grip.
The rope just got a lot of slack and now Ross is entangled in the rope and is being drug along the ground.
For everyone commenting on how Sal came from that angle, it’s actually pretty well thought out. Think about it, she had to pass not only the spinning out car, but Red Car Heroine as well. Considering how far behind they were, they likely caught up around now, hanging back to look for opening, and Sal made this move trying to pass/when she realized everything was going wrong.
I think I agree… and in this scenario, Sal must have deliberately accelerated straight toward the oncoming truck to try to reach Ross’s car. Girl’s got some guts.
#&@k realism!
SERIOUSLY ?!
If he so much as clips the end of that bike Joyce is going to be fucked.
Not dead, obviously, but being thrown onto pavement out of midair at a high speed is pretty unfun and painful even if you don’t get hit by a semi.
Why are people getting hung up on physics… It’s a comic. Some of th best comics, like Scott Pilgrim, rely on devices like this.
Yes, but Scott Pilgrim at no point pretends to be realistic, while this comic has generally suggested it was grounded in reality.
HAHAHAHAHA and you believed that why?
Also because people enjoy speculating (especially since it’s a serial), and with it being realistic, looking at the physics behind what’s happening helps with that, especially in an action sequence.
Also also, recognizing the physics means recognizing what risks the characters are taking, and as such understanding them more. Sal is getting very close with death to save someone (and someone she wouldn’t be expected to make a ridiculous risk for, like if it was Marcie (and even for her this is a deathly risk we’re talking about, no one would blame Sal for not dying for her friend)), that shows a lot about her character. If that truck was way off, it would be a noble gesture to grab her but not the same. If she didn’t do it, we’d be getting a glimpse at Sal’s fear, as opposed to her usual aloofness.
Part of enjoying comics (or literature, or shows), for me, is thinking about them.
This. Even with more outlandish comics, having the idea of the physics behind everything works makes it more enjoyable. X-Men powers all have some idea of the physics behind them, such as Gambit converting energy types. You still have the silly beams and flying, but beng able to relate that world to our own makes it more relatable.
You don’t always need them (see Street Fighter, where we just accept every fighter has some ability to shoot some form of fire/electric/whatever), but it really depends on the universe. The more similar to it to our own, the more useful a good physics background is.
A thing you got toward and reminded me that I forgot to say it- for the last few days the physics have been weird (although I don’t find them impossible other than some artistic license (Amber has bounced a bit in the air) and margin of error (sometimes the motion lines are weird)), which means that it’s harder to be emotionally involved or interested as I was describing, because suddenly the stakes become lower (although I would argue that it doesn’t stop us from using it to understand characters at least, because they don’t know it- Sal and Amber went into this not knowing that Willis said no one dies).
Also Amanduh said (below) that it requires a suspension of disbelief that wasn’t required before, and the dissonance it causes is jarring. It’s different than watching a show (etc) with physics that aren’t realistic (or are realistic, but not to real-world) and never were, because those still have consistent physics. It’s not just that it shows it isn’t real, but that it’s inconsistent with our perception as much as it would be if Mary was suddenly happy go lucky.
Also ‘stakes’ or ‘gravity of the situation’ probably would be better phrases than ‘risk’ as I used above.
I agree that the physics is likely bothering a lot of people because up till now, this comic universe felt like ours. Even Amzi-Girl’s stunts could pretty much be explained by extensive martial arts and parkour training. So when the expectation is set that “these people could be living down the street from me”, but then they start appearing to defy gravity and physics, it creates cognitive dissonance. Willis probably didn’t expect people to feel that way; I’d say it’s a testament to how realistic his characters are, that it bothers people to see hints that they AREN’T real.
Welp, the last thread that my disbelief had been suspended by has officially snapped. Looney Tunes physics, here we come!
Panel 3: There are movement lines on the truck. There are movement lines on Amazi-girl. THERE ARE NO MOVEMENT LINES on Sal/Joyce’s motorcycle!!!!!! It just appeared!!!!
Slow Motion…dramatic rescues are often done in slow motion.
THE WORLD!
TOKI O TAMARE!!!!
WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
muda da.
“You made just one mistake. You pissed Sal off.”
I agree with you (where were they a second ago and how are the perpendicular to everything when it’s on a bridge?), but I think the speed lines are just on the truck and Amazigirl happens to be in front of them (more seriously, probably because the truck is moving fastest and because it gives a feeling of Sal’s bike and AmaziGirl being suspended in the air, at the top of their arcs).
The bike and the Truck look like they are inches away from each other. Way too close for comfort.
It may just be me (probably just me) but it didn’t register until just now how much Joyce ‘ s outfit is reminding me of SEMME Joyce.
You’re just now noticing that?
Well, I suppose this bit is very SEMME like, so it would make sense that the recognition would click now.
This story arc is legit the best action movie I’ve seen all year.
You clearly haven’t seen Mad Max: Fury Road yet, then.
I mean, normally I would agree with you (this comic is awesome) but Mad Max *did* come out this year.
Oh, come on. Where the hell did she come from? And how did the bike get airborne?
And when will Becky learn how to operate a seatbelt button?
What if….. the Joker repented before Bruce Wayne became Batman? What if the two greatest adversaries allied and forgave each other? *that* would be a good story.
What if bruce wayne died as a kid which turned his mother, becoming the Joker, and his dad became Batman ? Oh wait.
I don’t get why people like that story.
It’s just Bat-Punisher, and his mom becomes Joker because of course she does.
and suddenly DOA turns into DOA RA RA RA
You.
I like you.
Even though Ross is awful I don’t get the ‘he didn’t try to save her!’ things, because several things (point for because the first thing was already long)
– this is all happening in seconds, he might not have had the time to even if he had the time to think of it (which I doubt, and he may not have great reflexes even for things he does care about)
– he does look like he’s actually making an effort with the rope, helping her for some reason (not just begrudgingly not dying- remember, he already committed to having his head blown off, it’s unlikely he’s going ‘superherolady save me oh gish please save me’).
– also inertia and balance. he might not be able to shift his weight without falling himself, even if he wanted to (which I doubt but you know)
– we can’t see that he didn’t- it would be between panels 1-2 (she’s already pretty far in panel 2 and we can’t see him, so he might be reaching above camera where her leg used to be)
I mean, he’s a massively awful person (and he’d hardly be less of one for trying to help Amber), but I wouldn’t consider this a reason why he’s awful.
Nope, didn’t see that one coming.
I mean even knowing Sal and Joyce were gonna show up any second, and that Amazi-Girl was likely gonna get tossed by that direction correction that was not the likely next event stack my brain was processing.
Now trying to work out the bike-truck-car positioning to even guess at the next near catastrophe is coming.
With Joyce wearing her old SEMME colors, it looks like she’s lifting Sal and the motorcycle with her jetpack.
Kids, if ever a costumed maniac falls onto your car hood on the road and screams at you to follow the car in front, *do not do this.*
This has nothing to do with today’s comic, but I need people who know what I mean to tell me whether or not this man looks weirdly like a real life Toe Dad: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/missouri-townspeople-shun-sex-abuse-victim-as-a-liar-even-after-good-man-admits-to-raping-her/
Yes (but balder), and also if it was Indiana I would believe it was somehow actually him. It sounds like their community, even if we don’t know if Toedad is sex criminal awful as well as abuse and kidnapping and (fine with) murder awful
TIMING MAN. Also poetic as f***.
awesome rebel biker chick, and masked campus vigalante… You know what they say about opposites! They attract!
What’s the bet Amzi-girl’s mask slips a little and Sal sees who’s underneath?
Are you… suggesting… a new slipshine ? 😀
Hm… maybe… Perhaps…
Nah, I was thinking more a “Holy fuck! *You’re* amzi-gril?!” Then maybe a flash back where Sal is then like “Wait, shit! You’re the chic who stabbed my hand way back when!”
I suggest that the name of this strip be changed from “Dumbing of Age” to “Suspension of Belief”.
I understand that that’s probably a typo, but I’m trying to decide if that’s harsher or less harsh than Suspension of Disbelief.
Suspension of Amber [For Being a Campus Vigilante]
Next comic: One red panel followed by three black ones.
Eeeeexelent timing.
Becky: Come on, you guys, I already AM a lesbian, you don’t have to put on a show. Just save me already.
I just realized that I haven’t checked the alt-text on the comic since things started getting ugly.
The original title for this one, if I’m to believe the image name, was “integrity”.
Is there a shark lying on the road that we can’t see?
Amber, Sal? When you get back to campus invest in lottery tickets! Your luck will never be as good as this ever again!
I’ll say this for this comic: this installment is better than that one episode of Transformers where the kids used spare parts to build B.O.T.
“Call sanitation. There’s junk all over the street!”
The last few strips are really sapping my interest. This series had (I thought intentionally) been sticking to human-scale interactions without any comic/cartoon physics-ignoring action. But the past few days have been increasingly feeling like a silly action movie. I’ve already read Willis’ aliens & superpowers comic, and don’t really feel like continuing to read this one if it turns into another iteration of that. A couple weeks ago, I was looking forward to finding out what happened to Dina, seeing Amber forced to accept that Amazi-Girl is a representation of incredibly serious mental issues, and maybe even having some fiction other than television procedurals acknowledge that “let the police handle it” is generally the correct solution. And now I’m just waiting out a ridiculously over the top action movie being told 5 seconds at a time and hoping that this isn’t going to end with a bunch of physics-ignoring twenty-year-old college kids having saved the day without any consequences or any actual police involvement.
At this point, I miss “Walky doesn’t want to acknowledge that he needs to start studying”.
That’s the pain of a 1 strip a day comic. He wants to throw some excitement in every once and a while. It is still character based. Just give it a few days and read through all the action at once. That will make it much less bothersome to you. Years of this comic I’m sure you can endure a week of action. While Amazi-Girl is over the top. Desperate people take action, Toe Dad’s actions aren’t too ridiculous for the story purpose.
Yeah, you’re not alone on that front. At this point I’m basically just waiting for it to be over. The action being forcibly restricted to once-a-day newspaper-style four panel action also really holds it back.
“and maybe even having some fiction other than television procedurals acknowledge that “let the police handle it” is generally the correct solution.”
The literally DOZENS of real life superheroes out there will disagree with you on that one….
And while these events certainly are “amazing”, they are nowhere near IMPOSSIBLE yet.
By real-life superheroes, do you mean the few people who are wandering around their cities in costumes? Because, so far as I’m aware, none of them have been engaging in any action-movie shenanigans involving guns, kidnapping, and high-speed highway chases. And almost everything that’s been happening in the past week has been physically impossible.
Weeeellll, I don’t know if it’s totally impossible so much as highly improbable and likely to turn you into a fine red mist on the side of the highway.
Sal appearing out of a wormhole right in front of a speeding truck to cop an Amazi-feel is sillybuns, though.
Well, then you should probably read up about them, some of them are fairly action-y, getting shot at, etc, while others are more of the neighbour hood watch type. Most of them DO train for these kind of situations, all the same. A few of them join up in “leagues”, and one such league is actually working on a working Iron Man suit, they hired a genius engineer to build it.
I wouldn’t start an argument with “as far as I’m aware”, unless you’ve actually googled it first.
“And almost everything that’s been happening in the past week has been physically impossible.”
The only physically impossible thing we’ve seen so far is the wormhole biking that Spencer mentioned.
no regrets
You, Podian, are a monster.
I think Amazi-Girl finally passed out! Her little white bubbles around her head were there when she launched, she didn’t finish her sentence and her eyes are now closed. Her injuries and stress have caught-up to her. She will probably wake up after they “land”, so to speak.
yup. definitely not sweat bubbles. what chance is there after this that she can go back to class without a trip to the hospital? if only she had a private doctor like batman.
then again, sal is basically batman…
I think that Sal will be shocked when Amazi-Girl fights her off so she can zip-tie Ross, wrist and foot and make sure Becky is okay. Then she’ll start foaming at the mouth, crash, faint and end up lying unconscious at Sal, Joyce and Becky’s feet.
Then the dilemma: To they violate her privacy by taking off her mask and taking her to the hospital or do they take risk (both personally and with her health) to try to treat her themselves?
The spinning Ford Focus continues to spin. The rope that Amazi-Girl tossed to Ross is suddenly slack. Amazi-Girl floats thru the air to be gathered in by wossername. And a good time was enjoyed by all.
You mean you didn’t notice the other oncoming truck?
This really isn’t surprising. Hasn’t anyone ever noticed how reality goes on a holiday whenever Amazi-Girl is in the strip? She keeps on doing ever more improbable things! It’s almost as if she twists reality around her, turning a slice-of-life strip into a superhero strip of some kind! The only time when it seems that this doesn’t happen is when Danny is there to witness events.
My concern is that, maybe we’re seeing Amber’s distorted memories. In reality, things were more mundane although the same general outcome is achieved. That would be disturbing because it would mean Amber is further gone than we realised.
Woah.
Very interesting hypothesis, BenRG. 🙂
Intriguing, I’love give you that.
Nice – I like this idea.
I voted to see more Mike. Next vote would be Sarah. Does that say anything about me?
Yes.
Tomorrow we learn that through the whole rescue, Sal didn’t disobey a single traffic law.
Carrying a passenger on a cycle who has no helmet isn’t a violation of state traffic laws? I’m asking.
Couldn’t find anything in the Indiana motor vehicle code about passengers and helmets. They’re explicitly required for permit holders and those under 18. So… no? Probably?
Plot twist.. after being rescued, Amazi-girl arrests Joyce for being on a motorcycle without a helmet.
Hey, she’s quite strict about following the law…
Amazi-Girl: Motorcycle. No helmet. I checked. Very bad.
Joyce: Wait, so now you’re using a Rorschach voice? Also, how the hell do I know that?
Not sure about the state in comics but in South Carolina no helmet, no problem.
So Joyce finally got to drive a motorcycle.
As Sal makes the catch, Joyce drives it into the ground. Hence the chapter title.
I think we MIIIIIIIIGHT be drifting away from the realism a little bit.
You know something, to me, being too rigid for realism is as boring as saying “screw physics” all the time. There is a balance between the two. After all, College is supposed to be a time of exploration and growth, so there should be adventures along the way. If you’re going to chronicle adventures, you might as well go to town!
No amount of soul searching can casually shatter the laws of physics.
Tell that to Einstein and his girlfriend.
Shouldn’t Toe-dad be falling out of the car too? He’s holding onto the end of the rope that had been around Amazi-girl’s arm which now has lots of slack… If he dies like that how much closure is Becky gonna get?
He’ll lose some grip yes, but he won’t immediately drop out the same way he didn’t before she tossed him the rope.
Woohoo!!!!!!!
With Willis, that’s “WiiGii!!!!”
Prediction: As Joyce and Becky hug emotionally, Sal starts verbally tearing into Amazi-Girl for her antics. Completely to her surprise, Amazi-Girl faints into her arms and her last words are: “I’m sorry for stabbing you… please don’t hurt me!” Her mask chooses that moment to detach.
There are… consequences, by no means all of them for Amber.
Has Amazi-Girl actually helped the situation at all though? I mean… what she’s doing is very brave (and crazy), but none of her actions have helped Becky. Have they?
I think so. She’s got the gun away from Toedad, and got him away from Becky. The risk of a car crash is unfortunate, but growing less likely, and less dangerous over time, as the car slows down now that nobody’s pushing the gas.
Plus, she’s now caused enough of a scene that the police will be able to figure out where they’re actually supposed to be going, and she gave Becky the distraction she needed to get all the evidence on phone record to 911. I think things would be significantly worse if she wasn’t here, Toedad would have had time to really hurt Becky after he noticed the phone.
More closely, she has given Becky the reason to dial 911 (and to use the safety-belt).
Before Amazi-Girl appeared, Becky had given up.
She’s disarmed Ross and given him such a scare that I don’t think he’s going to be able to put up much of a fight to resist Sal and Joyce’s intervention. She’s also disabled Ross’s car, making it nearly impossible for him to escape with Becky.
Becky called 911, the car has a destroyed tire, Toedad lost his gun. IF everyone survives the next few seconds, the situation will be MUCH better than if Amazigirl hadn’t been there.
Ahem…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!
“…OFF THE HOO-”
GAHHHHHHHHD-dammit…
All these comments, and no one’s yet predicted Amber and Sal sharing a hospital room?
Well, one MIGHT be wondering: “Would someone ever put-two-and-two-together if >>AG<< ever ends up in the hospital or Amber, the same hospital as Blaine?"
-Blaine got his ass kicked
-In a public parking lot (cameras?)
-to the point of being hospitalized (coma?)
-As far as the audience knows, Amber hasn't visited Blaine though, he may have been in the news and she schools in the same town.
No coma! Blaine has claimed he was attacked by a large male!
Thanks. You know, in spot in my own memory where that strip should be is completely fill by Daisy’s (and my own) browser history…
Is anybody concerned that, since ToeDad has lost the rifle, there is no evidence of a firearm-related offense?
“Sir, you are under arrest for illegal discharge of a firearm on campus.”
“A gun? What gun? I have no gun. There is no gun here.”
Red driver is an indpendant witness.
Let alone about a dozen students who were standing around the fountain watching Ross threaten Becky and Joyce.
Rifle still exists, can still be found and dusted for prints, and gunshots were heard on the 911 call that’s still going. He’s got PLENTY of evidence on him. That and also what darkoneko said.
Ross will have gunshot residue on his hands, probably.
Gunshot residue is a thing.
Maybe Willis is trying to make up for the Roomies! comic that tore apart our delicate feels?
Good one.
This is all in slow motion right now
Oh, so, the Red Car and the Blue Truck work together?
How does this even work -_-
That poor truck driver.
He’s not tagged anymore. Let’s hope he hasn’t had a heart attack at the wheel and died.
So, I think this comic has no officially jumped the shark… no wait, that’s not right. Jumped the truck?
Eh, once this story arc is over we’ll go right back to awesomeness.
Like depressing alcoholic lesbian codependency? Or awkward discovery of bi-sexuality?
Neither Billie or Ruth are lesbians, but yes, actually. The next arc is a Billie/Ruth focused one.
I’m kind of hoping Danny’s sexuality issues get put on the backburner for a while so he can focus on Amber. At the least, less googly eyes at Ethan-sempai.
Isn’t a shark jumping moment, a moment in something that in hindsight is representative of a general decline in quality of the work due to wackiness? And not something that you can really declare right in the middle of things?
Correct, except in the case of fifth-season Buffy.
and then they all died.
….i mean, look at it! they are so dead.
It occurs to me that this timely intervention is only possible if Sal and Joyce have been driving along the tree-line, watching events transpire. I don’t even want to guess what they think about what they’ve seen!
More trying to catch up.
It is a good thing Sal is failing Maths and Physics or she would know jow impossible that is.
Never tell her the odds.
Not sure about her physics grades, but her math understanding was getting better.
She may now be able to calculate the odds on her own:
Sal: How is this even possible? Shouldn’t some extremly odd events have much higher probability?
Joyce: Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!
Jetpack!Joyce CONFIRMED!
Does anyone else smell the end of a redemption arc?
Not the end, nor even the beginning of the end but, rather, the end of the beginning, the end of the part of the arc where Amber was fighting her demons alone and Sal was drifting and without direction in her life.
Sal confirmed for Amazi-Robin/Nightwing?
I hate to get all physics nerdy (not necessarily true) but… I was wondering if we were going to have a Superman-Lois Lane back-breaking incident in the first frame of the next comic, what with the motorbike going at high speed one way and Amazi-Girl seemingly going another way. So then I was trying work out which way she is moving, and I was darned if I could figure it out.
Like, the car is going down the freeway at high speed, but it’s also spinning around clockwise, so AG should be moving more or less parallel to the road, plus a vector at a tangent to the spin of the car when she loses her grip. Since the car is pointing up the road in the first frame, AG is probably still moving along the road in frame 2, but slightly faster than the car. So she ain’t going to hit the truck unless the car is. But hitting the road at anything above around twenty miles an hour is going to break some bones.
Meanwhile the bike must have been coming up behind the car, overtaking on the inside, and is catching AG in mid-air at a still faster speed than the car or AG. Which might be fairly slow, relative to AG. The only worry is how the bike’s going to keep from spinning out with the sudden added weight of another passenger and the driver trying to catch her with one hand and steer the bike with the other. That’s a superpower, right there.
Let’s leave alone Amazi-Girl’s complicated spin vector (because, really, how does she turn 180° on her long axis from frame 1 to frame 2, without also turning another 90° or more in frame 3? Conservation of angular momentum, it’s the law in this universe). I’d expect her to be belly-up in frame 2 and then facing towards the bike in frame 3.
Anyway, I can only assume that the angle of the bike in frame 3 is artistic licence, and it isn’t really moving at a right angle to the road lanes, it just looks like it, because where would it have come from? Through the bridge supports?
Anyway, enough physics nerdery; I crit because I love. Keep up the good work!
You’received assuming a constant passage of time between panels which has clearly not been the case. Also there are a number of things which are happening sequentially but which have been shown in the same panel because storytelling.
No word about her clearly falling upwards?
I’d written too much as it was.
Momentum
Anyone else hear the opening music of Voltron in the last panel?
this action sequence has ben amazing!
back in the real world: disastrous car crash near the university: 6 people killed, 3 of which were students
7 and 4. Trunk.
6 and 3, 3 on the motorcycle, 2 in the car, 1 in the truck = 6, Becky isn’t student there, so it’s only the 3 on the motorcycle that are students
oh, you meant trunk not truck, totally forgot about Dina, hope she survive.
Sal grabs dat booty, deflecting AmaziGirl’s path enough that she isn’t hit, then parkours up the truck.
I keep thinking “it can’t get any more cartoony”. Like, at some point I figured we’d reach the part where Amazi-Girl ruins everything and instead it’s just been one more ridiculous action beat after the other.
At the least, Willis obviously had a lot of fun drawing this.
Cartoony action sequences FTW.
For some reason in the last panel ‘JOHN CENA’ doo doo doooo started playing in my head.
But seriously, somebody has to jump off that motorcycle and grab AmaziGirl in mid-air.
Does anybody else think that just as Amazi-girl lost her grip, the rest of this scene could be played like the opening of Borderlands 2? In slow motion, with Short Change Hero playing.
Is the Matrix Freeway Chase music still playing for anyone else?
Comments roughly 50/50 people who are clearly enjoying this whole thing and people saying “GOD who could possibly be enjoying this, it’s empirically not good and Willis should stop.”
I don’t think anyone’s harping on people who are liking it. Some of us don’t, for sure, but I’d actually say it’s a lot less of a 50/50 split; most people here seem to be really into it.
They aren’t *harping* on them, per se… they’re just talking like the other group of people doesn’t exist. There’s been a lot of it every day ever since the, like, strip with Dina in the bushes.
It’s one thing to say you don’t enjoy what’s happening in media you consume, though I think doing so in the creator’s comments (versus on your own blog) is always going to be kind of rude. But it’s a very different thing to, as people keep doing, assume this tone of Scholarly Authority and talk down to the author about “pacing” and how “suspension of disbelief has been shattered”.
(Note the use of passive voice, how it implies that rather than being a given user’s subjective opinion this is empirically true and an objective fault with the writing.)
And there ARE plenty of people who are making these same criticisms while purporting to own their feelings (“in my opinion, the pacing is bad”), but the fact that they’re saying it where Willis must by necessity see it still implies that this is criticism they feel he should take to heart.
I make a big, flashing, neon exception for objections to representation. If Becky were a badly-written stereotype, a lesbian reader feeling uncomfortable would have my full support in saying “sooooo, Mr. Willis, I have some problems with this writing.”
But when it comes to something like “pacing”… that’s always going to be subjective. That’s always going to be a matter of opinion, and something that doesn’t hurt literally anyone reading.
All of this said: I’m not saying anyone needs to LEAVE WILLIS ALONE!!!!!, he’s a grown human being who made a choice to set up these comments and he doesn’t need my defense or protection from criticism.
But I feel like there’s an assumption happening that all critique is valuable, and it’s just… not. If you’re not someone’s editor, don’t just presume they want to treat your opinions on their work as an authority. Don’t be surprised when you saying the current storyline has really lost you as a reader doesn’t change anything about a work that’s written three months in advance.
And not all complaining is meant to change a work. As a fan of Agents of SHIELD, I do a lot of screaming into the void, never expecting anything to change. But I feel like if I were to tweet my screeds directly at the actors, I’d at least have a responsibility to word them differently.
I suspect most of us just think of this as discussion.
Discuss away, though a lot of the threads I’ve read have not really seemed to welcome dissenting viewpoints as a discussion usually does. Rather they seem to be attempts at persuasive argumentation.
I’ll never be able to drive down that stretch of highway without thinking of this scene.
Losing… Losing my… PERSPICACITY!!
for some reason that reminds me of the first episode of “the mary tyler moore show”
“you’ve got spunk, kid.”
“aw, thank you!”
“i hate spunk.”
Not sure where you got that from – it was a Simpsons reference for the record…
I totally expected the rope wrapped around her arm to tighten when the dad got flung around from the swerving and rip her arm off. I’m also really glad that didn’t happen.
The last couple strips have gotten increasingly unrealistic to the point we’ve now jumped the shark with orbital boosters strapped to our backs.
Why is this happening on a bridge? Plot demands that simple swerving doesn’t save the day. Remember to give credit to Joyce too. Otherwise Sal and her motorcycle wouldn’t be involved. Joyce’s connection with Sal, based on her ptsd, is whySal is involved and why we will get a Sal \ Amber storyline.
I mean let’s just make a list, because i’m like that.
-Tire flatted on front right side of car would cause car to slew strongly right. Would also go “whumpWhumpWHUMPWHUMP GRUMBLEGRUMBLEGRIIIIIIIIND” and shoot a fountain of tire shreds into the air and not just hiss out the air.
-Amazigirl throwing Toedad the rope while it is wrapped around her arm would cause loops of rope to constrict very tightly around her arm. The rope would not be able to come off her arm unless Toedad let go, or she spun her arm repeatedly to loose the coils. If she did that, Toedad would lose rope tension and fall.
-Sal, presumably about to catch Amazigirl with motion translational to the direction of travel of her motor cycle with ONE HAND OFF THE BARS would result in dumping the bike instantly.
Whoa.
AG shouldn’t have been thrown from the car, she should have slid off the roof and ended up rolling on the pavement.
But it’s more exciting the way it is, so chalk it up to creative license.
NO REGRETS
Sal saves Amazigirl… what happens to Amber’s grudge against Sal?
Go read Les Misérables (or watch it, not everyone has the time for such a great [big] book).
Overlooking the kvetching, I think that Amazi-girl was incredibly brave and resourceful in all of this – I would never have been able to keep my head clear and think so inventively on every step of this rescue. I also think that the cops chasing down Toedad would have resulted in a murder-suicide or worse.
Agreed; I can’t have seen Ross permitting Becky to go back to a ‘life of sin’, nor could I see him willingly submitting his future to the law of the ‘sinful world’ for his actions.
I’m confused. Was Batman just saved… by Batman?
Yes.
It happens.
So this time it’s Sal who’s Valjean and Amazi-girl who’s Javert I LOVE IT.
If this was the early 2000s and a movie, that Creed song woulda kicked in on the last panel.
Holy shit. I think I actually called it. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/restore/
(my response to Just Me)
Also, is anyone else thinking of Kagerou Daze right now?
Amber is so gonna need a change of pants after this.
Everyone is.
Love the action sequence, W!
Wow. There’s so much win in this, if it’d posted before the Mets played in the series they might have won it.
Yeah … I know. Who am I kidding?
This choreagraphy keeps bothering me. Tuesday’s nearly has a weird magic leg problem let alone how the car’s change in trajectory affected the characters. But Amazi-Girl (and everyone else) would be less injured bouncing into the side of the truck at that height (hence not going under the wheels) instead of moving Sal’s bike’s center of gravity outside the wheel base. This should wipe out all three of them.
It would even be more ‘realistic’ for Amazi-Girl to land on the truck’s fender after Sal misses and runs over the top of the truck to the now-slowing car. The only (story) good to come of this is the total wipe out and Amber being faced with Sal’s ‘interference’ and Joyce being failed again sends her to the psychiatric hospital after a few tazings.
If we’re ignoring the physics of where did Sal come from and why is she and AG going up, then I hope we can also ignore that they’re all coming to a T intersection in about 1 truck length (panel 3 yesterday) and nobody is braking! Otherwise, everybody’s going to end up crashing off the road and the “Everybody’s going the hospital” comments above are right. Save’em Willis!
If you look at a real-world picture of the actual location (and then click on the ‘back to map link at the bottom left) you will see that the northbound lane is more of an on-ramp/merging lane connecting to the 4-lane version of state highway 37 (they are currently on Walnut Street/Business Route 37). There’s a possibility of missing the turn, but it wouldn’t be as potentially catastrophic as sailing through a stop sign at a T-intersection.
suddenly, dina appears riding wexter, axe cop’s t rex and saves the day, but axe cop chops off joyce’s head for riding without a helmet.
Not if she does a front kick first.
Kinda not sure how Sal was able to get in there before the truck was able to hit Amazi-Girl.
All I know is part of me wants to play the Kill La Kill fight song “Don’t Lose Your Way” for the remainder of this story.
A) Love the detail of Joyce’s eyes scrunched shut…
2) Screw physics or body positions or whatever. It’s only a problem if you thought about it during your initial reading of the installment. If you simply reacted viscerally to Amazi-Girl’s imminent death or Sal’s riding to the rescue then thought about physics, etc, it didn’t get in the way of the story…
Oh. My. God. Becky, look at that truck!
I can’t not see this in slow motion. Is that normal or is my brain sticky?
NO REGRETS
Is it possible we’ve seen that truck in a movie? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067023/
We have Christine reincarnated as the red car, we have the semi reincarnated, all we need is a 1928 Porter and the trifecta will be complete.
Hypothesis: everyone involved just Exalted, and the pattern spiders are tweaking the laws of physics to make everything cooler.
I understand nobody’s steering, but why is the car simply not slowing down considering nobody’s stepping on the gas either?
Cruise control?
I’m sure it is, but it’s probably been less than a minute since he took his foot of the gas. Not to mention they’ve been going sideways for part of it, so I’m sure it’s slowing.
I’m loving this scene, but that old killjoy Dr. Physics thinks at the speeds they would have to be traveling at that Amber would still be dead and Sal would have a broken arm.
AG has stronger bones due to a lab accident, and Sal has a bionic arm. It was replaced after the infection when Amber stabbed her in the hand.
Except that Sal is using her left arm to try to catch Amazi-Girl or otherwise break her fall. In the aftermath of the Great Convenience Store Hold-up, Amber stabbed Sal in the *RIGHT* hand.
It was a really BAD infection. (Actually, I misremembered which hand was stabbed.)
Nah, it’s difficult to break arms by hitting them with something fairly large and soft unless you get them pinned against something. They tend to just move with the impact otherwise. So I’m thinking more just a dislocated shoulder, at least until Sal hits the pavement after Amber’s momentum peels her (and Joyce, who is not in any way equipped for getting intimate with asphalt!) off the bike and they either slide off the far side of the bridge after the loose bike or get run over by Maggie.
That’s an avatar!
Zoidberg voice
Hooray! A happy ending!
Doctor Willis: Just this once. EVERYBODY LIVES!!
If there’s one positive we can all agree to, it’s that the people who have said variations of “I don’t like this” not being banned forever should finally dispel the cloying falsehood that David Willis is intolerant of criticism.
So true. Turns out David Willis is only intolerant of criticism when it’s blatantly racist, misogynistic, transphobic, and comes from 4chan /co/ lurkers – who knew?!
Also I just noticed Willis removed someone’s reply to a criticism of this storyline; the reply was essentially “SO WHY DON’T YOU GO FIND A BETTER COMIC, HATER”. He did not remove the criticism. Tell me again how Willis just can’t handle being criticized, MRA commenters?
Wasn’t quite what it said, but it probably needed to be removed.
He’s also also intolerant against a specific weekday.
Namely those that appears in an over-used trope.
That trope was censored here and probably still is.
Spencer’s and Spiny Creature’s comments have been Tumblered for truth.
“Tumblred,” even. Because I cannot spell, apparently.
So I’m thinking there is still the potential for disaster here.
1) the Motorcycle doesn’t look like it’s cleared the truck’s lanes fully yet, so potential splat there.
2) Toedad’s car is still possibly out of control ON A BRIDGE, so I could see it going over the side with Becky still inside (and Dina tied up in the trunk)
Mr. Willis, would you please tell us, once and for all, that Dina is not crammed into the trunk of ToeDad’s car?
There’s no way Dina can be in the trunk. Think about it. ToeDad would have had to carry her unconscious body (and the rifle; don’t forget that!) 1) out of the woods; 2) back to his car; and 3) placed her into the trunk — all without arousing suspicion — and still have been able to make it over to Showalter Fountain and arrive in about the same amount of time that it took Becky to get there?
“crammed” is such a loaded word. Nine out of ten ToeDads prefer “securely ensconced.”
what a gripping story
This went surprisingly quickly from psychological thriller to action flick
Now from the boutiques of David M. Willis, a perfume guaranteed to knock you off your feet.
Centrifugal.
For those for whom inertia means nothing.
Pronounced [sen trih FOO gul], of course.
Thinking back on Amber’s flashbacks… she approached Sal from behind, while Sal had her hands on the hood of a police car, being detained. Sal never saw *who* stabbed her hand, since she had her eyes closed, in pain. She wouldn’t recognize Amber or Ethan, since they were just background during the robbery. Ethan was just Sal’s size back then, so she doesn’t equate him with her hostage, either. (Ethan’s niggling memory of her was satisfied with the twin thing) Amber was the only one who got a good look at Sal. (burned into her memory for reasons)
So when Amber/AG has these conflicting emotions about Sal, she (Sal) will continue to wonder what that girl’s problem is.
Indeed. She has seen Amber before and did not recognize her.
Her conclusion: Weirdo.
forgot the link
SO EXCITING omg i cant stand it!!
The wickedest action sequence Indiana has ever seen.
Quite normal, however, for an Indiana Jones movie!
On the one hand, this comic doesn’t suffer from playing fast and loose with physics, in the same way “Gravity” didn’t suffer from ignoring things like the fact that the Hubble and the ISS are nowhere near being in the same neighborhood. It’s the story that matters, and I like it.
On the other hand, it’s important to remember that playing fast and loose with science is how you get climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, anti-GMO hysteria, homeopathic remedies, and people who think no stars in photographs means “OMG fake soundstage.”
Sal does know how to make an entrance…
I am really curious to see where Willis is going with the physical laws of this comic. Is it normal reality except for when Amazigirl is in play? Or is it that this world has a general disregard of physics (kinda like the reality of the Marvel/Avengers/SHIELD world)? Or will physics come crashing back shortly to kill them all? (or at least put them in comas? Joyce with no helmet seems a dangerous thing to have here. Is she going to hit her head and become alter-ego Joyce?) O_o So many questions! Can’t wait to see how everything plays out! 🙂
The intrepid BatMan-Woman, and her trusty sidekick, Swear-Girl, arrive just in time to save Amazi-Girl, who just saved the villainous Toe-Head, who has captured the plucky girlfriend of Clever-Girl, after he defeated her in battle, after his mad shooting spree, in retaliation for her thwarting him, by using her powers of clever, to use mind-control to take said plucky girlfriend captive, after she had escaped his clutches, after he had taken her to his lair.
Tune in again tomorrow! Same Wiigii-time, same Wiigii-channel!!
There’s nothing wrong with giving the occasional raspberry to the laws of physics for the sake of a better story. I mean, even in the real world, people can pull off stunts like that without being seriously injured, never mind killed.
Sal and Amazi-girl discover their shared origin. Filled with conflicted feelings, they hate-bang for premium members.
shared origin = lack of genuine parental support? cuz arguably sal’s downward spiral started long before amber ragestabbed her in the hand.
Hmm, looking at the rope when Amazi-Girl slips off, and where Toedick is holding onto it, he is likely to end up being dragged along the road behind the car in the next page.
My prediction is that Sal catches Amazi-Girl and quickly rides off with her because half the police in Indiana are converging on this bridge.
I feel like this needs to just spin off. Amazi-Girl is too awesome to be contained to a slow moving slice-of-life.
When are we going to find out which strip is Maggie’s favorite?
This is so contrived and silly and I FUCKING LOVE IT! 😀
And Sal’s motorcycle? It totally sounds like this! Soundtrack and all! 😀
*ahem*
I mean, it totally sounds like this.
And then Toedad was crushed by the truck, and everybody was happy. The end.
I like this development.
I have this feeling that Billie is going to believe this entire storyline is just something cooked up by Sal to pretend she isn’t Amazi-girl, and Joyce and Becky are naive enough to go along with it.
*holds his breath*
I feel this may cause some kind of existential crisis for Amber….presented now in the form of a SONG!
Who is this Sal,
What sort of devil is she?
To find me caught in a crash,
And choose to help and save me?
It was her hour at last,
To put a seal on my defeat!
Just not drive quite so fast,
And let me be a stain on the street!
All it would take,
Is for the truck to Jackknife,
Vengeance was hers,
Instead she helped to save my life!
Damn me for living in the debt of a thief.
Damn her for yielding to Joyce’s demand!
I am the Girl totally immune to critique!
I’ll shove her shiv right back in her hand!
There is nothing on Earth we share.
It is either Sall-e or Amber.
And my thoughts fall apart.
Can this Sal be believed?
Should her crimes be forgiven?
Or am I being deceiiiiiiiiiiiiived?
And must I now begin to doubt?
After wearing these clothes this whole year?
My face is masked, my cape it flutters,
The words I have spoke are white on azure.
Is she from heaven or from hell?
And does she know….
That saving me and my life today…
Has just confused me, that damned bongo!
I am standing, but I fall,
My bones can break despite my claim,
As I stare down the street,
At the police that finally came,
I’ll escape now from those cops,
Man, these cops are really lame,
There is a spider that I must kill,
In the silence of my dorm- shit Sal still has my GAMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEE
WILLIS! You need to memorialize this comment somehow!
So one question, going back, am I the only one to notice the rope AG is using has gone from being hooked to the back of the car to suddenly the underneath/side of the car?
It wasn’t “suddenly”. She did it back on Saturday. Panel 3 she has the hook in her hand. Panel 5 she’s got it hooked under the car and is knocking on Becky’s window.
I’m still trying to puzzle out how Sal’s bike has gone airborne. Unicorns and faeries?
Getting a bike airborne isn’t that difficult. Crotch rockets like the one Sal rides have an abundance of horsepower and torque. Keeping it upright when AG’s weight and inertia are added will be the real trick. I sure hope Sal’s been working out.
They are very near the end of the bridge. I think she drove up the embankment at the end of the bridge.
Simple as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7yfaaherDQ
Aw yeah, smooth as Ice
Anyone else notice that Joyce is wearing the same gear she wore at SEMME in ‘It’s Walky’? I think she’s going to wind up being the real hero here somehow.
several others have pointed it out, yes.
Came here to say NO REGRETS, but I see I’ve already been beaten two it thrice.
Assuming the dramatis personae (I’m not TOO worried about “Toedad” here) in this segment survive without major hospitalizations, I’m wondering how many are going to get expelled. Joyce has been harboring a guest in a dorm, Sarah ditto, Dorothy knows about it I think, Sal’s been motoring down non-vehicular paths (we’ll skip the stairs issue, I’m in San Diego and we’ve got a BIKE PATH with stairs), Amber’s been skateboarding on campus, Ruth’s been oblivious (officially) to the situation and if the authorities investigate deeper she might be in trouble over RA’s relationship with a residential advisee (Billie) — including buying the bulk of the booze. The overly officious might want to sanction Dina (again, assuming she’s alright) on the grounds the student conduct code doesn’t contemplate imitating extinct predators while assaulting armed kidnappers.
And Math might not be the only class where Walky’s having trouble.
I doubt Joyce or Sarah would be in trouble… I remember a mention quite a while back (can’t remember if it was one of the comments or a comic itself) that students are allowed guests to stay for something like 3-4 nights. While Joyce did have the plan to have Becky stay indefinitely, I’m not sure if enough time has passed to overstay that limit.
And given the fact that Toedad was acting threatening, I doubt she’d be in trouble for defending herself or her friend.
The others have broken various rules, but probably not seriously enough to warrant being expelled. The only one who’s really overstepped the lines is Ruth… not only for having a relationship with an advisee and buying booze, but also for overstepping her authority as an RA. (Breaking into people’s rooms, throwing Joyce’s gloves out the window, threatening people on her floor, etc.)
This comic has really jumped the
sharktruck.I have been waiting all week for someone to make this comment.
You’re welcome!
I can’t stop imagining everything slowing to nearly a freeze-frame in this scene, but the instant Sal catches Amazi-Girl it returns to full speed and music cuts in…”DARE! Dare to believe you can survive…”
I’m not… quite sure how she got so high in the last panel. Is Sal throwing her upward or…? I’m sorry I’m having trouble following this strip
Mario Kart physics?
Losing my… RELIGION!?
BOOM! Perfect timing!
Act with integrity and have an awesome friend with an awesome friend with a motorcycle, and there will be no regrets.