That’s not a bad thing, despite what he may think of it at times. It could lead to a stable relationship down the road that lasts and that he’s glad for having a foundation of friendship to build on.
It happened for me and my boyfriend, so I’m speaking from experience.
Look, Thanksgiving is meant to be an awkward a miserable experience. It’s meant to help you be thankful the next day, when you can eat leftovers but not be around people.
Thanksgiving starts with stuffing a dead bird’s body cavity with seasoned chunks of stale bread at the crack of dawn, and it’s just downhill from there.
At least the parade on TV gives you an escape during the cooking marathon.
It kind of fits him though doesn’t it. He’s that guy who mostly seems decent…until he says that one last thing that makes you think “god damn it, you were so close”
I wonder if he does that on purpose to keep people at a distance, but that seems more like a Joe thing to try.
Chris Phoenix
And where might Joe have learned to behave like that?
Jason
Oh yeah, absolutely. I think Joe’s more aware of it is all- and I wouldn’t have thought he was aware of it at all until recently. We are who we learn to be.
Leorale
Chris Phoenix: Very true.
Jason: Also true. I think we’ll keep watching Joe choose to learn a new way to be.
Interesting how Joe has, inadvertently, helped Amber so much. Yeah he wasn’t listening but sometimes when you want to open up its easier to open up to someone you don’t really know and Joe “let” Amber talk as much as she wanted on her favorite subject
Hes got Joyces support and friendship, hes got an in with Amber so if he can just repair bridges with Dorothy (Joyce will help with that) he’ll be well on his way to being a decent guy and probably quicker then he expected
I personally hear his lines in John H. Benjamin’s voice, but I can definitely see Patrick Walburton. On a somewhat related note, I can’t help but assign Danny’s lines a weird James Franco and Mark Wahlberg hybrid voice.
Mixed up, ill at ease, but beyond that hard to be sure what exactly he’s feeling in that panel. Sad? Concerned? Considering how much his dad seems to actually mean what he said in the cafeteria? Just plain uncomfortable? Probably, he’s feeling quite a lot, and not fully aware of half of it.
nightsbridge
Uh . . . The thing that his dad just said to him was the creepiest thing in the world?
Okay not the creepiest but close
Miri
I suspect he’s used to his dad by now. He’s not used to sweet, somewhat anxious women who are desperately concerned about their troubled daughter who recently stabbed a rapist asking him to keep an eye (however low-key) on said vulnerable young woman. Stacy has trusted him with a real responsibility. She sees something worth trusting in him. And she sees the same in his dad who is not only A dick but The Dick… So does that mean she has terrible judgement and they’re both destined to let down both women? Or does that mean it is also his responsibility to somehow keep his dad being a faithful, decent partner when he couldn’t do that for him with his mum? (Does that mean it was his fault that his dad hurt his mum? Or is this a second chance to fix things because now he’s an adult with awareness and can?)
This. This is why Joe acts like a 2D caricature, right here… do you know how hard it is to interact with others respectfully, and recognise the limits of your own abilities and what is and is not feasibly your responsibility?? (Yes, learning this stuff is hard and part of growing up, but Joe doesn’t know where to start…)
I know he looks older (he looks like a non-bearded duplicate of his 55 yo father) – but he is just a kid of 18 still…
I’m pretty sure ‘last-panel Richard’ which in real life would be ‘tack-on half-joke’ Richard, is more a coping mechanism than anything else. He’s not ready to entirely let go of his former flippant, promiscuous self, and so he feels the need to reinforce that identity every so often in order to avoid raising the bar for his behavior past a point he finds acceptable.
It’s not all that different from me following up every few nice/thoughtful statements I make with something kinda rude or just painfully honest, and every intelligent/perceptive statement I make with something crass and less-than-insightful. It prevents people from expecting a standard of behavior from me that I don’t think I can live up to, because the expectations of others are my biggest fear.
Miri
When people call me up coz they’re upset it’s not unusual for me to establish the facts then lovingly mock them/the situation until they feel better. (Not *every* situation coz some of them have nowt funny about them – but probably a good 3/4s of the time… People continue to contact me again after this happens – of course, at my daughter’s birthday party last month, my best friend and cousin both asked me explicitly to shout at them about their problems and help kick them into gear after my sister mentioned I’d done this to her because she was beating herself up about things beyond her sphere of control, so this may say more about the people I know?- and laughing down the phone feels like an improvement on crying down it, and sometimes a sense of perspective is useful… I suspect there are probably times I haven’t got the balance between loving non-judgemental support and mocking quite right though…)
Literally every one of Richard’s speech bubbled could be replaced with “I am an asshole and deserve to be shat upon by bears” and nothing would really change.
So one small (technical) thing about yesterday’s comic, which I know has already been a headache: it currently doesn’t link to today’s strip, with the “next” button not being clickable like you’re at the most recent strip and clicking on the strip itself just refreshing the page.
I think that Joe kinda needs to stay unattached for a while – figure himself out first, ya know?
And Amber, I dunno, she’s kind of got a lot of things going on right now, too.
I’d be all “Team Salmber”, but I’m pretty sure that after the Prom Night flashbacks, Amber is probably a zero on the Kinsey Scale. Honestly, Danny was probably the only male cast member sensitive enough and caring enough to really be involved there, and he’s got Eef.
… anyone think we could see a return of Mike and Amber a la Shortpacked!? If anyone is going to give her hard truth, it’s Mike.
124 thoughts on “Check”
Ana Chronistic
don’t do what I do
or who I do
or anyone directly related to who I do
Antonio
Pretty good advice, for non-Joes and for other major family gatherings beside Thanksgiving.
Aeron
If it takes longer to connect them to Kevin Bacon than it does to me, just ask first.
Pablo360
…now I really want to know the cast’s Bacon numbers.
UltraKyrie
Joe is slowly becoming emotional support for the gals in his dorm, hope it sticks 😀
AutobotDen
That’s not a bad thing, despite what he may think of it at times. It could lead to a stable relationship down the road that lasts and that he’s glad for having a foundation of friendship to build on.
It happened for me and my boyfriend, so I’m speaking from experience.
Reltzik
So…. one…. so far…. who doesn’t accept or want that support….
…. oh, and Joyce too, so that makes the number….
…. well, one.
Unusually Angry Hippie
One more than none. That’s something. Literally.
Needfuldoer
Yay, progress?
N0083rp00F
A Quantum Leap if you will.
ValdVin
He has passed the Joe-Del test with Joyce, and now Amber.
Whether or not Amber talks to him for a month, Joe is thinking of Amber and stacy.
Jhon
Joe-Del:
Talking with a named female cast member about something not sex related?
ValdVin
It wsa first that.
Now, since the recent strips with Danny, I’m thinking it should include conversing with anyone about feels, either Joe’s or the other person’s.
Yumi
Look, Thanksgiving is meant to be an awkward a miserable experience. It’s meant to help you be thankful the next day, when you can eat leftovers but not be around people.
Reltzik
The key is to keep your mouth so full of stuffing that your foot won’t fit.
Bickendan
Wait, it’s not keeping the mouth full of foot that the stuffing won’t fit?
Man, no wonder why Thanksgiving would be so entertaining for Mike!
Wizard
Wise man say: “A closed mouth gathers no foot.”
Needfuldoer
Thanksgiving starts with stuffing a dead bird’s body cavity with seasoned chunks of stale bread at the crack of dawn, and it’s just downhill from there.
At least the parade on TV gives you an escape during the cooking marathon.
DSL
I actually enjoy Thanksgiving with my family. What am I doing wrong?
SgtWadeyWilson
Have you tried taking advantage of an indigenous people? /sarcasm
Better question: what are you doing right? *Gets a notepad and pen.*
N0083rp00F
Well in my household the solution is “Being Canadian eh?”
Shiro
This was so lovely and wholesome until that goddamn last panel. I am really starting to hate Richard last panels.
Stu
Are we sure he goes by Richard and not Dick though? The latter would be far more fitting.
JessWitt
Do what I do and pretend those panels aren’t there.
Greylurker
It kind of fits him though doesn’t it. He’s that guy who mostly seems decent…until he says that one last thing that makes you think “god damn it, you were so close”
Leorale
I wonder if he does that on purpose to keep people at a distance, but that seems more like a Joe thing to try.
Chris Phoenix
And where might Joe have learned to behave like that?
Jason
Oh yeah, absolutely. I think Joe’s more aware of it is all- and I wouldn’t have thought he was aware of it at all until recently. We are who we learn to be.
Leorale
Chris Phoenix: Very true.
Jason: Also true. I think we’ll keep watching Joe choose to learn a new way to be.
chris73
Interesting how Joe has, inadvertently, helped Amber so much. Yeah he wasn’t listening but sometimes when you want to open up its easier to open up to someone you don’t really know and Joe “let” Amber talk as much as she wanted on her favorite subject
Hes got Joyces support and friendship, hes got an in with Amber so if he can just repair bridges with Dorothy (Joyce will help with that) he’ll be well on his way to being a decent guy and probably quicker then he expected
Parkrndl
So is it pretty normal that I hear all Joe’s lines in Patrick Warburton’s.voice?
tim gueguen
An obvious choice.
Rukdug
I personally hear his lines in John H. Benjamin’s voice, but I can definitely see Patrick Walburton. On a somewhat related note, I can’t help but assign Danny’s lines a weird James Franco and Mark Wahlberg hybrid voice.
Parkrndl
Ok so I had to go to YouTube and have a listen because it’s been a while since I’ve watched Archer… but now I don’t think I can unhear it.
ValdVin
The Archer voice, I figure?
I read once that HJB gets into Bob Belcher by stooping his shoulders and dropping his head a bit. I can believe it.
TemporalShrew
I love Joe’s perpetual look of mild bewilderment and exasperation here.
DailyBrad
Panel 2 is cute, I think Stacy’s face is what sells it.
Lokitsu
Agreed.
And Joe’s perplexed look is just the icing on the cake.
Kamino Neko
That looks less perplexed than worried, to me.
Jason
Mixed up, ill at ease, but beyond that hard to be sure what exactly he’s feeling in that panel. Sad? Concerned? Considering how much his dad seems to actually mean what he said in the cafeteria? Just plain uncomfortable? Probably, he’s feeling quite a lot, and not fully aware of half of it.
nightsbridge
Uh . . . The thing that his dad just said to him was the creepiest thing in the world?
Okay not the creepiest but close
Miri
I suspect he’s used to his dad by now. He’s not used to sweet, somewhat anxious women who are desperately concerned about their troubled daughter who recently stabbed a rapist asking him to keep an eye (however low-key) on said vulnerable young woman. Stacy has trusted him with a real responsibility. She sees something worth trusting in him. And she sees the same in his dad who is not only A dick but The Dick… So does that mean she has terrible judgement and they’re both destined to let down both women? Or does that mean it is also his responsibility to somehow keep his dad being a faithful, decent partner when he couldn’t do that for him with his mum? (Does that mean it was his fault that his dad hurt his mum? Or is this a second chance to fix things because now he’s an adult with awareness and can?)
This. This is why Joe acts like a 2D caricature, right here… do you know how hard it is to interact with others respectfully, and recognise the limits of your own abilities and what is and is not feasibly your responsibility?? (Yes, learning this stuff is hard and part of growing up, but Joe doesn’t know where to start…)
I know he looks older (he looks like a non-bearded duplicate of his 55 yo father) – but he is just a kid of 18 still…
Raen
MUCH too late, Richard.
DarkoNeko
The path to humanity is hard eh, Joe.
Passchendaele
stacy/richard looks more like it’ll work, so yay!
Passchendaele
and everyone’s being pretty reassuring (except for last panel richard, but let’s not talk about that). <3
Unusually Angry Hippie
I’m pretty sure ‘last-panel Richard’ which in real life would be ‘tack-on half-joke’ Richard, is more a coping mechanism than anything else. He’s not ready to entirely let go of his former flippant, promiscuous self, and so he feels the need to reinforce that identity every so often in order to avoid raising the bar for his behavior past a point he finds acceptable.
It’s not all that different from me following up every few nice/thoughtful statements I make with something kinda rude or just painfully honest, and every intelligent/perceptive statement I make with something crass and less-than-insightful. It prevents people from expecting a standard of behavior from me that I don’t think I can live up to, because the expectations of others are my biggest fear.
Miri
When people call me up coz they’re upset it’s not unusual for me to establish the facts then lovingly mock them/the situation until they feel better. (Not *every* situation coz some of them have nowt funny about them – but probably a good 3/4s of the time… People continue to contact me again after this happens – of course, at my daughter’s birthday party last month, my best friend and cousin both asked me explicitly to shout at them about their problems and help kick them into gear after my sister mentioned I’d done this to her because she was beating herself up about things beyond her sphere of control, so this may say more about the people I know?- and laughing down the phone feels like an improvement on crying down it, and sometimes a sense of perspective is useful… I suspect there are probably times I haven’t got the balance between loving non-judgemental support and mocking quite right though…)
Stephen Bierce
“As God is my witness I thought turkeys could fly.”–WKRP IN CINCINNATI
tim gueguen
Anyone else think WKRP just might be an old TV series Joyce’s parents would let her watch? Despite Johnny Fever.
Reltzik
They can.
…. so long as you get natural turkeys, rather than ones bred and raised for dinner platters.
Aggrax
Literally every one of Richard’s speech bubbled could be replaced with “I am an asshole and deserve to be shat upon by bears” and nothing would really change.
Reltzik
Nah, he’s had at least three relevant bombshells that force you to pay attention to the rest of the things he says.
Shiro
Maybe not every one, but at least a solid 50%. In fact that’d make him waaaaaaay more self-aware.
nothri
So he doesn’t always say something that is deserving of being shat upon by bears? Would that make those comments unbearable?
Leorale
Why did the marsupial refrain from adding his own bear-based puns?
–He lacked the koala-fications.
Arian
Thank you!
Keulen
It’s still kinda weird to me seeing this side of Joe.
Yumi
So one small (technical) thing about yesterday’s comic, which I know has already been a headache: it currently doesn’t link to today’s strip, with the “next” button not being clickable like you’re at the most recent strip and clicking on the strip itself just refreshing the page.
wwwhhattt
I’ve noticed this happening on a couple of sites. I assume the web gods are demanding more sacrifices or something.
David M Willis
You’re looking at a cached version of the site from before the update.
Yumi
Oh, okay. Never happened before, so I didn’t know.
brasca1
You’re a Rosenthal not a Lannister.
Kamino Neko
It’s more a Targaryen thing than a Lannister thing. Only a handful of Lannister cases, where it’s the Targaryens’ whole deal.
Reltzik
Besides, it wouldn’t be a blood relative thing.
….
…. also, Amber’s very much not interested and, oddly, Joe isn’t interested either.
Josh Spicer
Richard I swear to fucking God…..
missilentmurmur
Whoah wait, that might be an exaggeration there, I don’t believe you
MapleAmber
I ship it (Joe/Amber)
If only because I like Joe and my name is Amber lol
Wright
I dunno if I can get on Team Jamber just yet.
I think that Joe kinda needs to stay unattached for a while – figure himself out first, ya know?
And Amber, I dunno, she’s kind of got a lot of things going on right now, too.
I’d be all “Team Salmber”, but I’m pretty sure that after the Prom Night flashbacks, Amber is probably a zero on the Kinsey Scale. Honestly, Danny was probably the only male cast member sensitive enough and caring enough to really be involved there, and he’s got Eef.
… anyone think we could see a return of Mike and Amber a la Shortpacked!? If anyone is going to give her hard truth, it’s Mike.
Jason