244

Seeing
Posted on December 29, 2020 by David M Willis

244 thoughts on “Seeing”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Joyce: not seeing something won’t make it not your problem (see: 45… or not)

    Hank: dang

    1. Pablo360

      Hank: I’ll stand over here

      Carol: I can’t see you any more

      (ripple fade + xylophone run)

      Joyce: And that’s how it happened

      Dotty: How is this an argument against getting your eyes checked?

      Joyce: I dunno, I was just looking for a way to rationalize my parents’ divorce.

  2. Chris

    She used the D word!

    1. King Daniel

      Don’t? Different? Dead?

    2. Lieutenant Dan

      Different? Don’t? Do?

      1. Lieutenant Dan

        Ninja’d by 5 seconds.
        Also, I appear to be Sal now.

    3. Jezzeh!

      I had been refusing to believe it all this time, but I guess I can’t anymore. 🙁

  3. Kyrik Michalowski

    As someone who has terrible vision, I can’t imagine not wanting to see clearly. Without my contacts I might as well be blind, I can make out shapes and colors but that’s about all. I refuse to take my contacts out unless I absolutely have to because of how much I hate not being able to see.

    1. Sirksome

      Yeah but what if you’re vision was also a metaphor for all the changes in your life?

      1. Kernanator

        Whaaaat, you mean the events and choices in a story should be interpreted in a way other than how they would work if the characters were real life people?

      2. Reaver

        Well me not seeing them just makes them blindside me, it doesnt make them go away

    2. crow

      Joyce has yet to realize what trees and clouds are supposed to look like.

      1. Rabid Rabbit

        She’s going to get glasses, look over at Dorothy, and blurt out “Wait a minute, you’re not nearly as hot as I thought you were! Um, I mean…”

        Or possibly “Wow, you’re even hotter than I thought! Um, I mean…”

        1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          Worse, she looks at Becky and sees her true hotness after all.

        2. Deanatay

          So you’re hoping she gets LesboLenses?

        3. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          Yes. 500 gp and saves wasting a feat.

        4. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          The second one. Definitely the second one. 😀

    3. Cholma

      I got my first pair of eyeglasses in High School, when my father noticed me squinting at distant objects. 1979, I think. They felt *so* heavy on my nose, I wondered how the hell anyone wore these things all the time.

      But the thing I remember most is going to our local Discount Movie Theater a few blocks from home. They were showing the original Star Wars. Remember the opening scene where a Star Destroyer slowly moves down from the top of the screen? I was watching that when I remembered I didn’t have my glasses on, so I put them on and was immediately dumbstruck by the amount of detail on that ship. I spent the next several moments putting the glasses on and off to compare the difference.

      1. Andy

        Glasses are similar for me. Without them everything is in 480p at best. With them it’s full HD

        1. woobie

          My eyes were 20/10 and 20/15 until several years ago. Now I keep having to update the prescription.
          Or get longer arms.
          Or get brighter lights.

        2. Cholma

          Same same. Originally I only really needed glasses for driving/movies. Watching TV, reading books, or using the computer, no need. But in the last few years my near vision has started failing, so now I wear Progressive lenses, otherwise I can’t read a book or even see my phone screen. Magazines are the worst though; tiny fonts on multi-colored backgrounds. I finally gave in and bought a Kindle a few years ago. Adjustable fonts; Huzzah!

        3. Ray Radlein

          Exact same here. 20/15 and 20/10. Now I’m going back to the eye doctor in [checks clock] six hours to get yet another new prescription.

          I can try to sneak Joyce in on our appointment if she wants

        4. Jinx

          Similar. I’ve always been farsighted. When I was young, I actually had 20/15 vision at a distance, though something like 20/30 at a reading distance. As I’ve aged, it has slowly gotten worse both near and far. Lately, it seemed to be getting worse faster.

          Went to the eye doctor Saturday, just days after my 55th birthday and learned I have cataracts.

        5. Leorale

          Ohhh my mom was an Art History major back in the day, and she got her cataracts removed more recently. She said it was like when they restore a painting, all the brown and grey film that you didn’t even realize was there is just gone, and there are suddenly all these beautiful colours and details, the world got so bright and wonderful. I hope you get to remove your cateracts because apparently it can be a really cool experience.

        6. Needfuldoer

          Same. I’m nearsighted, but lately it’s been getting easier to force-focus my eyes to read something more than 18″ away using my distance lenses instead of the bifocal reading lenses that don’t actually do anything. The car dashboard’s always fuzzy unless I look down at it with my distance lenses, but thankfully the numbers are nice and big so I can still make them out with the readers. Can’t read distant signs to save my life, though…

          Of course it doesn’t help that the distance lenses are probably two or three steps weaker than they really should be, since they’re a few years old.

        7. Andrusi

          Man, I would stab a dude to get my natural vision up to 480p quality. I’m somewhere on the level of a Game Boy Color.

      2. crow

        I used to think plays and musicals were the worst things, because my family went to a performance of White Christmas and I spent the whole time making a tiny diamond with my fingertips and trying to squint through it cuz I couldn’t see shit, and I didn’t understand how anyone else was enjoying this.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Irving Berlin knew climate change was coming. No snow before Christmas at a ski resort in Vermont?

        2. Deanatay

          It does happen. Have relatives in VT, can confirm.

      3. JaneDoe

        Oh man, I’ve had glasses since I was a kid, and I’m now in my 30s. Still though, a few years ago I hadn’t gotten new glasses in a few years, and so I went to get my eyes checked. Turns out I needed a new prescription, only slightly stronger, didn’t think it would make much difference. Then I picked up my new glasses and on the drive home got so transfixed by watching a plane fly across a cloud in perfect clarity I’m happy I didn’t get in a car accident lol

      4. hof1991

        At some point you’ll get cataracts. After surgery your vision will be better than ever. But you’ll be old.

        1. clif

          Truth.

        2. Leorale

          It’s OK, you were gonna be old anyway.

    4. ischemgeek

      Same.

      Though my vision is so bad without glasses I can’t see how far away anything is because it’s all too blurry and then I fall down stairs because I misjudged where they start.

      I literally sleep with my glasses next to my bed and if I am wearing contacts I bring my glasses with me in a case just in case something happens.

      (I also bring a spare pair of contacts. Can’t be too careful.)

  4. BigDogLittleCat

    There it is!
    Good job, Hank! It hurts, but you gotta do what’s right.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Who can we ship him with as a rebound? Stacey’s taken, unless Dr. Rosenthal is really open minded.

      1. Clif

        Dr. R. and Stacy broke up during the time skip.

        What?

        1. King Daniel

          Wasn’t our first sighting of them after the timeskip them being married?

      2. RacingTurtle

        Stacy is also too young for him. If she’s 15 years younger than Richard, she’s gotta be, like, 25 years younger than Hank.

        1. thejeff

          How about Joe’s (unseen?) mom?

          She’s still single, as far as we know. And the effects on Joe and Joyce would be amusing.

      3. Nono

        Wasn’t there a joke picture around of HankxSierra’s dad?

  5. Yumi

    Wow, the casual bomb dropping this timeskip brings…

    1. Jezzeh!

      EXPOSITION BOMB!!!!

      1. Morleuca

        your gravitar is perfect

  6. Johan

    No magic come back for Mike… 🙁

    Damn it Willis give me some more Mike, Amber, Donna shortpacked!

    1. Clif

      Mike is a force of nature and cannot be destroyed. He’ll just show up again at the worse possible time.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Like Randy or The Winslow?

    2. Anon A Mouse

      Haven’t you heard? We have a new Mike. They are just as much of an asshole but with no actual connections to the characters. Fun.

      1. Jezzeh!

        I definitely understand the widespread objection to Booster, but dammit, I love them.

  7. tlalocw

    Ah, a new hero has arisen… Captain Exposition! 🙂

    1. Commodore Counterintuitive

      There’s a total of five words of exposition in this strip tbh. I see it as more of — oh, dang, poor word choice

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Lieutenant Exposition?

  8. MK15

    I see how Ana does it; they have a Time Turner!
    Shows they posted at 12:05 and it’s only 12:01.

    If Dorothy has one too (she’s this story’s Hermione) Joyce is fucked. Better get used to the glasses!

    1. ktbear

      Ana is secretly Willis confirmed?

  9. Sirksome

    Divorce? Oof. Not really though cause Carol’s been consistently awful.

    1. Sirksome

      The real question now it though with the Browns divorcing and shit, will Joyce get two birthdays and two Christmases like Sarah proposed?…….No. I think no. I don’t think Carol would be down with that. I think she’d make her kids pick sides and if you didn’t pick hers you were out.

      1. Diane

        Hope she enjoys having her oldest son only. And hope he enjoys hearing her bongo every holiday about how the entire family deserted them. (They deserve each other)

        1. Diane

          Aaaargh…I forgot to caps lock. Or was it change to other email. Either way no, I’m stuck with Walky, be gone annoying Becky. Come back when you get over Joyce!

        2. Diane

          …Or I can caps lock the entire thing and get awesomeness of Carla. Okay, I’m done, sorry Willis.

          And to note: You ain’t getting outta this Joyce, my eye doctor was usually open until 8, I think the main thing that’s unbelievable is that Dorothy managed a same day appointment.

        3. Sirksome

          In my experience if it’s just any doctor at the office you can possibly get a same day if you call early enough or go to the er but you’d probably end up waiting at least a few hours either way. But I think it really depends on variables like your doctor, insurance, how the practice operates. Do they accept walk ins? I think Dorothy’s flexing a bit of privilege on this one though to have an doctor basically on call.

        4. drs

          You can get eye exams at glasses places in some states. And a very basic 20/20 test just needs a poster.

        5. Diane

          This sounds odd to me, there’s places that sell glasses that don’t do exams? Must be who I looked for specifically, cause I always got my exam and glasses at the same place. I mean, online retailers for glasses, that makes sense. But I guess places that just do the exam would have faster turn around…Don’t need people around to help you pick out your new glasses.

        6. Needfuldoer

          I hope Joyce, Jocelyne, and (probably) Jordan go either LC or full NC from their Nmom.

          (Maybe if word gets to him about it, this will finally bring Jordan back into the story…)

        7. Azhrei Vep

          Lawful Chaotic and Neutral Chaotic? Whaaa? That’s crazy talk!

        8. Geneseepaw

          NC I get, LC I’m not sure of.

        9. thejeff

          “No Contact”/”Low Contact”?

        10. Needfuldoer

          Low Contact / No Contact / Narcissistic mother.

        11. Diane

          I figured the low contact, no contact. But I thought nmom was either a typo or Narc Mom.

        12. Jhon

          North Carolina, Lower California.

        13. Regalli

          I mean, pretty sure Jordan already went there. The divorce might actually produce a net positive of family member contact.

          (I have no doubt in my mind Jocelyne’s going to go NC with Carol once she’s out. There’s nothing good that can come from her knowing.)

        14. Diane

          I worry for Jocelyne, is she going to stay in hiding with her family because there’s going to be drama with the divorce, she doesn’t want to add more? Since I’m guessing she didn’t say anything over the 3 month skip since Joyce said “my brothers” when talking about glasses wearers.

        15. Sirksome

          Note that Joyce said “getting divorced” and not “divorced” as in the process is happening right now and excuse the pun but I’m sure there’s a lot of transitioning involved. Legal counceling, who gets what, who gets the house and thus realistically where the kids are gonna “live”…ect. Probably a whole semesters worth of drama honestly! So I would not blame Jocelyn for waiting until there’s more certainty before coming out to her family if she decides to. Imagine her coming out and still potentially living with Carol even temporarily? No thank you! Although I do kind of expect this to come up soonish and maybe Jocelyn will even get a storyline.

        16. Needfuldoer

          I’m fairly sure she has her own apartment, though it may still be in La Porte (or a nearby town).

        17. Sirksome

          @Needfuldoer Does she? I’m not subscribed to the patreon and haven’t read the bonus contenr. I assumed Jocelyn was in a dorm like Joyce but still technically lived at the Brown household.

        18. Regalli

          Jocelyne’s graduated, which is why she appears so infrequently. Patreon strips show that she lives on her own (with a cat,) but also show her with the parents reasonably frequently so she probably lives close to them.

          That said, I suspect she’s waiting on a few things still to come out besides the divorce finalizing. She probably has all the legal documentation she needs now, which is good, and has a good opportunity to take anything she still had at the Brown home and couldn’t store at her apartment or the like. (I still fully believe the childhood home’s going to get sold in a futile attempt to save the church.) Medical records if she has any big stuff, too.

          But she still doesn’t know how Hank will react, and neither do we – daughter’s lesbian best friend/surrogate daughter is a very different matter from ‘your kid is trans’, and there are faaaar too many people who are fine with The Gays but not The Transes, or who are okay in the abstract but THEIR kids have to be straight. I suspect that’s actually the biggest thing keeping her from trying. Additionally, given the whole ‘this divorce is happening because Mom bailed out a kidnapper who then kidnapped Joyce and she doesn’t have a problem with what he did, their only mistake was choosing the wrong person who spontaneously offered to help bail a random stranger kidnapper out because whoops he’s a mobster’ thing, I would want to make very very sure, were I in Jocelyne’s shoes, that Carol had no possible way in on my finances and did not know where I lived any longer. I’m pretty sure given the visit home arc that she doesn’t have her own car (though it could be she just hitched a ride with John anyway,) so at least that’d mean Carol’s not on that lease, but I could see there being other things to double-check – bank accounts or the like. But hey, if she moves, say, to Bloomington, that gives more opportunities for her to appear! I suspect the divorce has sped up her timeline on things like cutting ties and coming out to Hank and Joyce, but there were some definite hints before that Jocelyne was getting her affairs in order to not be screwed when she eventually came out. I could see her holding her tongue just a bit longer while the end is in sight.

        19. Needfuldoer

          Maybe Hank’s crashing at Jocelyne’s place, if only to get away from Carol. (John’s too much like her, and Jordan’s too Jordan.)

          That would get both of them some more screen time!

  10. Kyrik Michalowski

    Also her parents are getting a divorce? I kind of expected something like that but didn’t think it would immediately get to divorce. I also didn’t expect Joyce to mention it, I would have figured she would be in denial about it.

    1. Pablo360

      I don’t think that this is actually all too sudden from their perspective — based on how Hank talks about the first incident at the fountain, the fallout from that in their household probably had some disagreement about Joyce’s status that was the beginning of the end, and based on the way they talk about Jordan, that was really just an exacerbation of even older tensions. What happened at the end of the last storyline was really just the last straw.

    2. Dr. T

      No, it was almost inevitable. She helped bail out Ross and probably did so using money that the family could ill afford to lose (though would they actually lose it all if he misses his court date on account of coming down with a severe case of teh deads?) Carol wanted to toss Becky out when she had no one to turn to after Ross was arrested to begin with and set about to undermine her husband’s will (a HUGE no no in the evangelical world) by bailing out Ross in the first place, especially so when lying about it.

      1. Regalli

        Yeah, all of that was damning enough (and I agree that the fountain incident and Joyce’s support of Becky were probably what started the beginning of the end, when Hank realized he might lose another kid if he didn’t change course.) I’m not sure they could have come back from it even without Carol continuing to defend Ross after he kidnapped Joyce, but the complete unrepentantness made it clear there was no hope of ever reaching common ground again.

      2. Clif

        The O’Malley estate should get the bond back. Depending on whether there was a binding agreement to reimburse the church group, they might or might not get back their share of the bail.

        1. Clif

          Well, the bond less fees.

        2. Khyrin

          I somehow doubt the bond will be returned since Ross was killed while committing the same crime he was remanded to custody for in the first place.

        3. Reltzik

          The release on bail almost certainly came with conditions like “don’t go committing major crimes” and almost certainly “don’t go trying to kidnap your alleged victim who is also one of the major witnesses against you in your upcoming trial”. (Maybe not spelled out like that, but some general heading where that’s included.) Ross’s willful violation of those conditions, even when he died in the process, would result in forfeiture of bail money.

          This led me down a rabbit hole figuring out how bail bonds work in Indiana. Ross committed a lot of crimes the first go around, but the biggest one was kidnapping (level 3 felony). If the judge followed Monroe County’s bail schedule, that would have meant $500 cash and $15,000 surety. A bondsman would have charged 10% for the bond, meaning Ross would have needed to pony up $2000. In that case, I THINK the bond money would have been returned to the bondsman once it turned out Ross was dead, but I’m not sure.

          On the other hand, Indiana has this interesting take on bond in which sometimes a judge might say you can’t use a bondsman, and instead friends and family must provide the surety. In theory, the idea is to put those people in a position where they have a strong incentive to force the accused to show up in court. I suspect it’s could be used in practice to make it harder to get bail if the judge wants to deny bail but can’t quite do it legally. If this was the case, the church is out a whole lot more money, and unlike a bondsman they won’t be getting it back.

          Either way, neither church nor the estates of Ross and Blaine are getting any of that money back, however much those heirs may have deserved some compensation. Either it’s in the bail bondsman’s bank account, or it became revenue for the government.

        4. Needfuldoer

          IIRC, bail must be set for every crime short of murder in Indiana. The judge was probably heavy-handed in setting bail and disallowed use of a bondsman, after they saw what a flight and re-offense risk an unrepentant Toedead was. Powers says the bail was “ridiculously high”, and the entire congregation couldn’t get enough together without Blaine’s dirty money.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/bond/

        5. Azhrei Vep

          Wait … powers? Youth pastor Powers?

          We’ve found a relative of Booster’s!

        6. Reltzik

          The judge may well have been a Pence appointee who looked at the allegations of the case, saw a god-loving family man just trying to rescue his daughter from the evils of queer recruitment through understandable though regrettably illegal means, thought that Ross just raising his hand and swearing to God that he’d be on good behavior would be bond enough, but that would be so grievous a departure from the guidelines that it would raise eyebrows, so he just slashed the bail in half.

          The churchgoers then pitched a fit anyway because ANY bail was obviously too much for what poor, hurt, family-man Ross did (it’s not like anyone actually got hurt, after all) and clearly this is a sign of how true, God-loving Christians like themselves are persecuted in the black pit of Christian-hating satanists that is American governance.

        7. thejeff

          Ah, that makes sense. I hadn’t realized there was an option to ban the use of bondsmen. That would explain why they had trouble raising it.

          Still, I suspect the Judge went well over that $20,000 you cite. I can’t imagine the relatively wealthy church community wouldn’t have been able to raise $20K without turning to the mob.

          And I agree there’s no getting that money back since he went off on another kidnapping spree. A bondsman wouldn’t have gotten it back either.

          [Insert standard rant against cash bail and especially against bondsmen here.]

      3. Sirksome

        I really wanna believe there was something going on between Carol and Ross because there is no logical justification for her to be that down to support Toedad after the shit he pulled that endangered her own child. It still baffles me!

        1. Bryy

          They were in the same cult. People really are that evil.

        2. Heavensrun

          What Bryy said, but also, any other response to that situation would require her to acknowledge that she was wrong, and like many fundamentalists, she is violently averse to admitting fault. After all, she is one of the chosen special followers of the One True God! She can’t be wrong, that would mean that her judgement isn’t always perfect, and THAT would mean she could be wrong about her closed-minded dogmatic beliefs.

        3. Sirksome

          See it’s hard for me to buy that argument. To me it kind of flanderizes her and all fundamental Christians into these Jesus freak stereotypes. Carol was a person right? At least in universe she was a person with real motivations beyond just doubling down on the most toxic interpretations of her religion. Why would Hank even be into a person like Carol if there wasn’t more to her? (Although to answer my own question here on a tangent I do think there’s some credence to Hank and Carol hooking up a few times then she got pregnant and they did the good Christian thing of getting hitched young)….But still!

        4. Heavensrun

          Fundamentalists are, by definition, the most extreme believers. They hold that the flood is real, evolution is fake, the entirety of the world’s scientists are wrong about everything, as are all other religious people.

          Yeah, they’re human beings, but they’re also -literally cultists-. Carol, specifically, seems to have become more invested in her religion as she got older. She’s gotten more entrenched, more stubborn, and less flexible.

          Do you have any idea how many people I know who have watched formerly reasonable loved ones go through this exact transformation? I live in OKLAHOMA.

          I’m not trying to Flanderize anybody. Lots of fundamentalists break free of these patterns. Willis is an example. One of my closest friends broke out of it. They tend to stop being fundamentalists, though, because the fundamentalist worldview is incompatible with reason.

        5. Regalli

          Very much this. Further, Ross is really only saying out loud the threat of violence all the queer (and otherwise non-conforming to a lesser extent, but particularly queer) kids in that environment were dealing with. Conversion camps actually exist, and they’re not really a thing one goes to willingly. Carol was echoing his rhetoric exactly all along (‘I would die for you, Joyce,’) and Willis has been pretty up front that her development echoes his own mother’s. She never backed a guy who kidnapped him, of course, but you only have to look at the evangelical and fundie positions on Trump to see them backing the play of someone who TRANSPARENTLY goes against their supposed values and best interests provided they say the right things about hating outsiders. ‘Incompatible with reason’ sums them up.

          Hell, Carol’s been estranged from one of her children, long enough Joyce isn’t really sure what happened there, suggesting she was pretty young. (Compare to Walky. I’m not sure he knows about the stolen money, and I’m certain he doesn’t recognize it as abuse or that Linda was emotionally abusive to him as well, but he knows the barebones parents’ side version of Linda’s conflict with Sal going in.) And her takeaway was that they were too lax as parents. We know that Jocelyne not conforming enough to Proper Boydom was noticed, and that both parents went along with attempts to enforce proper gender roles. The reason Jocelyne knew so much about not just what legal paperwork Becky would need but also how to acquire new copies if she couldn’t find the others hasn’t been spelled out yet, but it’s pretty likely Jocelyne did that research for herself at some point. If she’d come out while still dependent on her parents, I have no doubt Carol would have tried to ‘fix things’ the way Ross intended. A pre-character development Hank may well would have gone along with it. Carol still defends Ross because she genuinely would do the same thing in his position, albeit probably with less gun. (But uh… I know we all considered the ‘I’ve been telling Hank we need a gun to scare off the wildlife’ thing bad timing, but I don’t think we can rule that one out if she still suspected issues from Joyce or Jocelyne.) Ross and Carol are the exact same kind of abusive parent, with the exact same rhetoric and rationale.

          Unfortunately, those parents do actually exist.

    3. Daniel M Ball

      Check the archives, this was brewing for a while. At least as early as the first Parental visit strips, when some of us in the audience recognized signs that Joyce’s dad was extremely henpecked. It DOES get tiring being the only voice of reason in a relationship, and it is exhausting to compromise yourself constantly to support the illusions of someone who seems to only see you in materialistic terms. (aka sees you as an accessory or lifestyle enhancement instead of as a person, or whose love is conditional on your agreeing with their point of view.)
      The stresses were visible, if anything, I kinda suspect Joyce’s dad waited as long as he did so that there wouldn’t be the punitive custody battle-but that may be hoping too much strategy into the mix.

      1. thejeff

        Some might have, but at the same time, back in those strips, Hank seemed pretty much on board with all the prejudice. He seemed to take the lead in dragging them away from Dorothy at first and it was Hank with the “Hitler was maybe partly Jewish” bit.
        He did listen to Joyce at the end, which I think is best read as the start of the change in his attitude. Which he explicitly confirms while taking Joyce and Becky home after the first Toedad incident.

        I think putting all the blame on Carol hides Hank’s actual character growth.
        And even with all Carol’s faults, I don’t see the “only in materialistic terms”. She’s awful, but she’s sincere in her awful beliefs. Conditional perhaps, but conditional on you not being an open sinner, not just on agreeing with her.

        The vast majority of people’s love is conditional to that extent – it breaks if the other person is evil enough. As it should. It’s only what Carol defines as evil that’s the problem.

    4. hof1991

      Key concept here is Escalation of Commitment. Booster could tell you all about it.

    5. Johan

      Idk dude she at no point with Joyce in harm’s way thought she did any wrong and still thinks it’s because Becky is lesbian.

      1. thejeff

        And because Becky didn’t properly show respect for her parent. If she’d just listened to him and obeyed him, he wouldn’t have had to do that.

        It’s just the government trying to keep Christians from raising their children right.

        1. Needfuldoer

          And she said as much, with almost those exact words.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/bond/

  11. Newllend(henryvolt)

    That’s the second person to confirm Mikes death by putting it into words, fuck.

    Also I guess it’s also confirm Hank has decided on the divorce, can’t blame him though on the chance that his wife’s action probably contributed to a random teens death that could have easily been his daughters as well given the failed kidnapping.

    1. thejeff

      And that she’s unrepentant about it.

  12. Stephen Bierce

    Laugh if you want to
    Or say you don’t care
    If you cannot see it
    You think it’s not there
    It doesn’t work that way
    Peek-a-boo
    I can see you
    And I know what you do…

    1. bibulb

      I just wanted to give a “heck, yeah!” to this one here.

      1. Stephen Bierce

        I can’t believe 40 years later nobody’s done a cover of it.

      2. Geneseepaw

        Ditto.

  13. Sporky

    ? ? ? ? JOYCE’S PARENTS ARE GETTING DIVORCED ? ? ? ?

    1. Newllend(henryvolt)

      Are the crabs suppose to represent that crab dance gift meme?

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        Crap, I’m too late.
        I was gonna reply with nothing but this:

        |
        ^

        1. Newllend(henryvolt)

          I guess I’m obligated now: https://media.tenor.com/images/27ca212af87a34c6df90f6a9edc9fead/tenor.gif

        2. SmartAlec105

          It’s Crab Rave and it’s a whole video, not just one gif.
          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LDU_Txk06tM

      2. Needfuldoer

        Oh no, not even DoA comments are safe from Carcinization!

    2. drs

      Ding dong, the witch is divorced

    3. Anna

      ?????

  14. Switchchris

    I just wanna give her a hug.

  15. Sirksome

    I have to wonder if Joyce actually misses Mike or if she feels bad because she’s naturally a more empathic character and is sad because it’s a bad thing that happened to people she cares about? To me it’s even a little weird that Walky misses Mike because I wouldn’t consider them friends and they were roommates. I have to wonder if Joyce thought Mike was a friend?

    1. Jade

      In my experience, you can miss people you didn’t like when they were around.

    2. Newllend(henryvolt)

      I think on some levels yeah but not a super close one out of most of the cast. But also there’s a bit of guilt to be had sense a member of her family and her former home church where partly involved in the events that lead to his death.

      1. thejeff

        And then more guilt when they’re dead and you don’t miss them. Because you’re supposed to.

        Especially when they died heroically and your emotion reaction to coming back to the empty room is still relief that you don’t have to deal with his shit. (Thinking Walky here, obviously.) Which is basically Mike still doing Mike stuff from beyond the grave.

    3. Dr. Gonzo

      A bit of both. Remember Joyce appointed Mike as her chaperone on her first date with Joe. Mike always always cared more about his friends than he would ever admit to.

      1. Segnosaur

        Joyce also invited Mike to the house party she had. (Although Mike turned down the invitation.)

        1. thejeff

          On the specific condition that he could come if he’d be nice.

    4. Regalli

      I’m pretty sure Mike was the first death of a peer any of the cast really experienced. Joyce had encountered death before, of course, but it tends to hit differently when it’s another kid, even compared to a middle-aged-at-most adult like Bonnie Macintyre. (We don’t really know how old Bonnie and Ross were compared to the Browns – though since Becky’s their only child, I guess younger – or how long in the past Bonnie’s death was. It’s possible she was only in her thirties.) The cancer lie also probably let Joyce prepare herself for that in a way I’m not certain you can for everything that happened to Mike.

      1. Needfuldoer

        I think Bonnie only passed within the last couple years in DoA’s timeline. Maybe not the summer immediately preceding Book 1 Chapter 1, but the summer before that.

        1. Regalli

          Yeah, I do think it was pretty recent. (There’s a Patreon strip of Ross and Becky immediately post-Bonnie’s death where he mentions Becky’s classwork and that she ‘would have wanted to see Becky graduate,’ which seems to suggest it was sometime in Becky’s last year or so of schooling. But that’s about the only information we really have, IIRC?)

    5. Blindness

      She’s using him as an excuse to justify not going. She just doesn’t like change, her entire life was obliterated in the past six months thanks to all of the events of the previous semester: best friend being gay and her dad being murdered, her mother being exposed as a monster, her father taking a stand and trying to excise the bad influence in his life…the list goes on an on from there

      1. crow

        This is actually a pretty problematic way to bring up someone’s death, are we cancelling Joyce? Let’s cancel Joyce.

        1. Spookyfox

          hey we’re cancelling everybody else in this comic! Let’s see we’ll say she’s being manipulative and guilt tripping

        2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          In the end, the comic will only be Blowjob Cat musing on an empty and desolate world?

        3. Needfuldoer

          While Riley eats the boxes of cereal she finds floating in the debris field.

        4. Blindness

          Not canceling, just not buying her use of everything else to hide the truth. She has a legitimate psychological reason for not wanting to go, but is using other events to justify it in a bad way.

          Honesty is better than BSing IMHO

    6. hof1991

      It’s not just mikes death, but that he was murdered. Mike dying in a car accident is sad but him being murdered as part of a chain of events that traumatized you is much worse.

  16. Bruceski

    …
    *takes off glasses*
    just for a little while…

  17. plasticwrap

    “When do their hours end?” Boy that’s a funny way of asking when do they close.

    1. Rectilinear Propagation

      I’ve heard it before…maybe it’s a regional expression then?

      1. Edwin I Callahan

        You do hear it in the Midwest at least. I think it’s more common in connection with professional services like doctors; in contract, people usually talk about retail outlets having a specific closing time, such as 9 pm.

    2. thumb

      A deep philosophical question regarding grief and the end of a person’s life poetically articulated.

      Yes, deep.

  18. Robbie

    Aw, bb

    1. Azhrei Vep

      no no no… it’s JB.

  19. goki

    I don’t know if we will see it (as it might be seen as unimportant to the main story), but it would be interesting to see how Joyces parents met, fell in love, and maybe the little to big things that made Joyce’s father fall out of love with Joyce’s mother. I would like to think this has been a long time coming with recent events being the last straw, but then again, when the woman you love tries to defend the man who held a gun to your daughter and her friends, that tends to sour things really fast.

    1. Newllend(henryvolt)

      Fuck it I’ll just say it, there’s a bonus strip in the Patreon feed showing how it happened actually. If you want to the exact details I suggest maybe paying for a months subscription going through the archives. I’d say it’s worth it.

      1. drs

        Well, there’s one strip of them first meeting.

      2. Transgressingwaffle

        This is awesome to know! I need to do this and read through the archives.

      3. Needfuldoer

        When did it run? I’ve got the books.

  20. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    She can see clearly now, the rain is gone…

  21. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Dorothy, she should not get her eyes checked!

    The blue and white scheme is just fine!

  22. DiDi

    And here I thought she was gonna lead towards something about wanting just ONE thing to stay exactly the same because everything in her life has altered so drastically. And getting glasses would just be the one little detail that might send her over the edge.

  23. BBCC

    Oh, sweetie. Not seeing it won’t make it not happen.

    1. BBCC

      Okay, gravitar roulette.

      1. BBCC

        BAH. I love Becky but come on. 😛

      2. Blindness

        you won…a rare upgrade x10

        1. BBCC

          I’m on a Sal hunt right now. XD

        2. Blindness

          You can’t top smirking Becky: she’s too powerful!

  24. tim gueguen

    If Joyce gets glasses that means she’ll have to take a road trip to Montreal so she can cameo in Frivolesque.
    frivolesque.com

  25. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    If she gets glasses could they be Julia Gray™ mirrorshades?

  26. Transgressingwaffle

    Can anyone tell me how to change my avatar picture back to my original Jocelyn Pic?

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      I think the only way is to get a Gravatar account and set it there. Which will require having a copy of the original image.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Yup.

        You can get a copy of the picture from the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive.

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Note that changing the capitalization of your email changes the avatar you get. Me@foobar.com.example will be different than me@foobar.com.example as long as there isn’t a gravatar set.

  27. Newllend(henryvolt)

    Wait is that Mary in the first panel…I’m getting a bad vibe because of that but I don’t know why.

    1. Diane

      Naw, Willis will tag anyone in the cast if they show up. That, and she has a brown winter hat, not red.

  28. Rick Robin Cagnaan

    Wha? Divorced? How did that happen?

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Well, when a man and a woman don’t love each other VERY MUCH …

  29. Bagge

    It is a nice metaphor, though.

  30. Varangian

    Oh my fucking God that’s the book title’s relevance isn’t it

    God DAMN you, Willis

    1. Varangian

      alright grav roulette, I’ll play your game, you rogue

      1. Varangian

        Hey, not bad!

  31. Axel

    I’m just happy about the divorce

    1. Varangian

      It is a good divorce.

  32. Bryy

    All of Joyce’s issues that she listed all stem from her mom’s doing.

    That’s fucking impressive.

    Mike is dead cause Ross was bailed out.
    Hank is divorcing her because she literally chose killing people over her daughters safety.
    Amazi-Girl is gone because Blaine’s evil scheme was funded by the church.

    1. Heavensrun

      Billie being different isn’t Carol’s fault, as far as we know.

      1. Newllend(henryvolt)

        I was about to say that. That’s just Billie going through her own shit.

      2. Sirksome

        Imagine we find out Carol is Jennifer’s therapist!

  33. Hmrc4evr

    This timeskip is turning brutal!

    (No, it’s Bruticus!)

  34. Chris Phoenix

    The only thing not on her list is that there’s no such thing as God. Maybe that’s what she doesn’t want to see.

    (I wonder who my gravatar will be?)

    1. Chris Phoenix

      Sweeeeet!

    2. Needfuldoer

      Hasn’t she only confided her change in beliefs with Sarah so far?

  35. RacingTurtle

    Get your eyes checked Joyce! Then find an evergreen tree to look at, because actually being able to see leaves is the best.

    1. clif

      Are their evergreen trees with leaves?

      1. Rectilinear Propagation

        There are evergreen trees with scale leaves: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/trees/tgen/scale-leaf-evergreen-varieties.htm

      2. RacingTurtle

        Needles are a form of leaf! Possibly the only form available to view right now; I don’t know Indiana flora.

  36. Airyu

    So many people in her life have glasses though… Does she look down on them?

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Maybe she thinks glasses will make her ugly?

      1. Zaxares

        It could be that, yeah. I think attitudes are different nowadays, but when I was a kid getting glasses, I remember a few other girls in my class who were adamant that they were NEVER getting glasses because that would make them ugly.

        1. Zaxares

          Addendum: This was from a time when it was still possible to mock/tease people for wearing glasses. I think nowadays so many people have glasses though that it stopped being a viable target, or you’d have to mock literally half the population.

        2. clif

          Literally not a problem, four eyes. 😉

        3. Airyu

          I can totally see Joyce thinking that, but I wonder where she got the idea from since she was homeschooled and basically her whole family wears them?

    2. Heavensrun

      I think it’s more an aversion to yet another change to her lifestyle.

    3. RedCat

      Where are you getting that idea from?

    4. Keulen

      I’m pretty sure she’s just afraid of more changes to her life.

  37. Orangey

    Dorothy isn’t taking no for an answer Joyce

  38. Keulen

    I’m gonna have to agree with Dorothy here. Just get your eyes checked, Joyce.

    1. brute

      oh now i get Joyce’s taste in men. Jacob, Ethan, and Joe are all large enough to see from far away.

      1. brute

        this wasn’t intended as a reply. sorry, Keulen, i messed up.

        1. Rectilinear Propagation

          Still pretty funny though (your comment, not that you accidentally replied).

  39. BenRG

    I don’t think that Dorothy is fooled by Joyce trying to frame this as a ‘dealing with personal trauma’ issue.

  40. Amelie Wikström

    My best friend needs glasses but doesn’t want them because she doesn’t like how they make her look. I’m following this storyline with my eyes glued. (So to speak.)

    1. ischemgeek

      She… Knows contact lenses exist, right? Vision correction without cosmetic impact! 🙂

      (Seriously tho as someone who took 6mo after having irrefutable hearing loss symptoms onset gradually to finally make an appointment which I am now waiting for “I don’t wanna cuz appearance” might just be a smokescreen for “I don’t wanna admit a sense isn’t what it should be because it’s scary to think about.”

      1. thejeff

        Contact lenses? She’d have to touch her eyes. Not happening.

  41. Needfuldoer

    Wow, Joyce just dropped “divorced” in there like nothing. Big contrast from a few chapters ago, where she shushed Sarah for using the word.

    1. Daibhid C

      “We don’t give that word power”, but evidently it’s too late now.

      1. Nevermaker

        Can’t “give” a word power when it very demonstrably HAS the power.

  42. Reltzik

    Wait, so are they ACTUALLY getting divorced (which would make sense) or is this just Joyce being anxious and afraid and certain that they’re going to get divorced?

    1. Wizard

      I doubt Joyce would use the word if there were any possibility it wouldn’t happen. So I’m fairly sure it’s official, and the legal wheels are in motion.

  43. Needfuldoer

    It’s probably just because “tall pale brunette” is a common random character roll, but I swear the background extra in panel 1 has been in the strip before. Headcanon: she aspires to the level of “Prof. DeSanto’s class extra”, maybe someday even getting a line and her very own tag like Norville, Sue, Buckets of Blood Guy, and Barb.

  44. Ereb

    Oof. Seems like I’m the only one who was in denial about Mike being double d dead?

    I thought he might survive in a coma or with a disability, and Walky would be crude enough to call it dead either way.

    I wonder why he was killed off, in the end. There are plenty of assholes in the comic, and he had a moment of self-reflection that could’ve turned his life around if he had survived. The run up to his death made him way more sympathetic and interesting to me, but that was probably just a way to honour his character before sending him off. Maybe Mike was just not interesting to write for anymore, same as Ethan.

    1. Regalli

      We still don’t know for certain Ethan’s left the cast (and note that Joyce doesn’t mention his absence – I still have hope,) but Mike… who knows. Too much focus would be required to rehabilitate him, a desire to add extra trauma on the main cast, difficulty distinguishing Mike beyond ‘asshole’ from other characters whose occasional jerkdom was more productive… maybe we’ll get an answer in the Book Ten notes, maybe not.

      1. Ereb

        I agree that Ethan is still part of the cast, just not part of the main cast anymore. I think it’s no coincidence that this character corner, basically Amber’s old friend circle, has been checked off except for Danny.

        I don’t think Mike’s rehabilitation would’ve taken too long with a few tweaks. If he had been able to play the hero and survive, some of his acquaintances might have seen him differently – Amber/Amazigirl heroic behaviour did net her a lot of sympathy from Dina, Betty, Dorothy and Joyce even if they don’t agree with her sometimes violent behaviour.

        But it’s true that his role seems to have been too restrictive. Otherwise we wouldn’t be getting Booster. Mike was written as more self-aware than many people in the cast, and we have people who are more disliked than him and still have successful relationships with others. But Booster gets to be the monkey paw truth sayer without being outright dismissed, and that’s something Mike couldn’t pull off as his old self.

        But that was the tragic dignity or irony of Mike’s death, that Mike did something truly selfless he believed in, without getting the recognition of his peers.

        In the end it really comes down to the preference of the author. Some storylines get dropped and new ones brought up, like a sitcom. So far I’m hoping Walky’s comics will be fun, and don’t quite look forward to Robin. I’m also interested what will be said in the Book 10 notes, if there’s something to say.

        1. Anon A Mouse

          My question is, why does there have to be a “monkey paw truth sayer” as you put it? And why do they have to be an asshole? As much as I disliked Mike and am glad he is dead, at the VERY least he actually had connections to these characters. He had spent time with them and it was at least believable that he could identify and pick at their weaknesses. Booster has done this while spending less than five minutes with these characters.

        2. clif

          Which becomes perfectly reasonable if you assume that Booster is well disguised Mike.

        3. Rectilinear Propagation

          Most of Booster doing that was the result of Walky’s introductions or the characters otherwise making it obvious though.

    2. Zee

      Yeah, i feel there was potential for a great redemption arc there, fuyuhiko kuzuriyu style or something. It makes me a little sad to think about

      1. Needfuldoer

        To me, Mike’s potential redemption arc seems more like a Kobayashi Maru for Willis. Either we’d only ever see hints of Mike trying to be better and nobody believing him (which would get old fast), or he would need almost as much screen time as Joyce for his redemption to play out (slowing the comic’s passage of time even further).

        Instead, he hacked the system and gave Mike his heroic moment, leaving “what could have been” up to the readers’ (and other characters’) imagination.

        1. thejeff

          Some level of “What to do with Mike when he doesn’t do Mike stuff?” Redemption would strip his essential Mikeness away.

      2. Ereb

        I remember liking Fuyuhiko Kuzuriyu a lot, actually. Although I guess Amber is the Fuyuhiko Kurzuriyu to Mike’s Peko Pekoyama through his sacrifice.

        1. a/snow/mous/e

          Yeah, good point. Next order of business: which characters form the Kazuichi/Sonia/Gundham love triangle?

    3. thumb

      Because this is the story that Willis want to tell? Things change, people die, your closest friends become strangers, new people end up meaning way more than you’d have ever guessed. I know it’s been going on a long time, but there is an end to this comic. Whether the character is interesting to write or not doesn’t mean they have to stay. And there’s more reasons to kill off a character than “not liking them” or “not knowing what to do with them”.

      1. thejeff

        Yeah, it’s just that the immediate pre-sacrifice revelation Mike had was the first time I’ve really been interested in his character. I would have liked to have seen how he’d deal with knowing he’d basically been abusing Amber all along.

        1. Regalli

          Same. I was tired of people rationalizing his cartoonish asshattery, but that could’ve been done by Mike making actual amends and admitting how unjustifiably awful he was to Amber, Ethan, and Walky.

          I still have hope Booster’s going to kickstart their arc (and show off other character traits) soon and be less of a Mike analogue, but they could have existed and Mike still be in the strip in some form or other. (Bloomington’s got better options for PT? Something could’ve been done.)

  45. Rabisch

    Divorce? FINALLY A GOOD NEWS!!!!

  46. Mr D

    Spin spin spin, grav roulette GO

  47. ValdVin

    So, they’re getting divorced.

    Perhaps Joyce is suffering from a very low-grade case of hysterical blindness.

    Is hysterical myopia a thing?

    1. CJ

      Hm, she is short-sighted, i.e. can’t clearly see things farther away. When you are short sighted, the eyeball is longer than it ought to be. If she is stressed, she could be constantly have the muscles around the eyes contracted, thus putting pressure on the structure of the eyeball. Might be.
      Because you automatically try to get a clear image, stress levels rise and so does the pressure on your eyeballs. So, yes, glasses first, relaxation exercises for the eyes second.

  48. Ronnie

    But can she choose to see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?

  49. hof1991

    Joyce’s brand of Christianity does see therapists. They take things to Jesus. My current gravitar is from that strip.

  50. Rick Robin Cagnaan

    So why exactly did Hank divorce Carol, and why did Joyce want nothing to do with her mom?

    1. thejeff

      Because Carol helped bail out Ross.

      1. Mae

        And shunned Becky, and tried to take Joyce out of school, and most likely caused the estrangement of Jordan…

        Joyce is another story, but I’m pretty sure that Ross was just the nail in the coffin for Hank and Carol’s marriage.

        1. thejeff

          Maybe, but it’s a hell of a nail. They could have continued much longer without that nail.

        2. Rick Robin Cagnaan

          And perhaps when Amber wanted her deadbear dad out of her life, she got her wish. Amber mourned Mike’s death, but not Blaine’s, because Blaine was already dead to her. As for Joyce, she got her mom out of her life, didn’t she?

  51. Pat

    Well, it’s mid-morning, and they close at 5, so you have a couple months.

  52. JessWitt

    Hank may be the obvious person to ask for a divorce but I think it might be Carol. She might view him as corrupted or whatever, and he didn’t have her back against Linda, which might be the final straw after many other similar instances.

    1. Anon A Mouse

      Yeah, I could see Carol doing something scummy like that and serving Hank the papers, like SHE’S the one who was wronged.

    2. Rick Robin Cagnaan

      Hank being cornered by Walky’s parents blaming the church for what happened backed out in disgust because of Carol’s callous actions. Maybe he decided Carol was in the wrong and might have owed them an apology.

  53. Victor Riley

    We finally have confirmation… I’m surprised it wasn’t built up more.

    But since it was said kind of casually… I’m assuming this drama blowup happened last semester during the time jump, and not just over the holiday break.

    Still… kind of inevitable, especially on hindsight. When her daughter is kidnapped, and she still sides with the kidnapper… then yeah, if the other party is even a little less BS than that, it’s not going to last.

  54. PB

    Someone please get Joyce some counseling 🙁

  55. Mae

    Slightly off topic, but I’m curious- does a divorce mean that Carol is going to be ostracized in her church? I would imagine that the woman is always blamed for divorce in the evangelical world…

    1. BenRG

      A lot depends on who the community thinks is ‘in the wrong’. Hank is more likely to be ostracised as he instigated the divorce and is apparently not seeking to enforce strict morality on his children.

      1. Regalli

        Yeah, Hank’s going against the proper order and being supportive of a lesbian when she’s CLEARLY been led astray by Satan. Ross only wanted to protect Becky’s soul! Sure, he went a bit too far, but his heart was in the right place, just like their hearts were in the right place when they trusted that mysterious stranger offering to help with bail was a gift from God! (And oh, do I ever expect that they’re rationalizing a lot of the second kidnapping as being Blaine’s fault exclusively, and Ross would never have endangered Joyce! He only intended to save her from the corrupting influence of college, or something.)

        And I mean, I can’t imagine him returning to that congregation after the bailout and second kidnapping any more than I could imagine that marriage continuing. The divorce doesn’t reflect badly on Carol because clearly it’s Hank and Joyce in the wrong.

  56. Nenja

    The Brown’s are getting a divorse? Seems like a good idea, seeing how horrible Carol is.

  57. Needfuldoer

    I’ve been on a recent-archive binge, and found Joyce commenting on how far back the couch Dorothy picked out was for the floor meeting. Are there even earlier signs that Joyce needs glasses?

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/bonuspeople/

    1. a/snow/mous/e

      Can’t say I’m terribly surprised. It’s not particularly far back, all things considered.

  58. nightshade

    hey Joyce there’s such a thing as contact lenses…..

    1. Yumi

      She’d have to touch her eye for that, which could be a problem, but more than that, she doesn’t say anything about glasses specifically in this strip, so…

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