419

Daddy
Posted on January 27, 2016 by David M Willis

419 thoughts on “Daddy”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    yeah, some of them are Microsoft stores

    I bet that lobby is the point of origin of a space-time vortex that constantly changes the current year

    1. Stephen R. Bierce

      Peculiar how you can’t find monitors or TV sets at RadioShack, though.

      1. MichaelHaneline

        Peculiar how you can’t find a RadioShack, though.

      2. Tabitha Desanto

        People actually go into those places?
        The few times ive seen one they are deserted.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          I went into one two years ago to get a soldering iron–it was kinda cool how they had “the Braid soundtrack”* and Anamanaguchi playing

          *Jami Sieber, licensed to use in Braid

        2. Potatamoto

          I went to one about six months ago and they sold, I kid you not, blank VHS tapes. I was so charmed, I almost considered buying one, for the sheer nostalgia of it.

        3. Vouksh

          I work in a walmart in the middle of nowhere, and we still sell blank VHS tapes. I know they sell, because I stock them. And we usually get at least one case (6 sets of 3 per case) a week.

        4. Potatamoto

          And if any of those buying those tapes are kids taping anime off Toonami as I did some fifteen years ago, I wish them only the best, and a decent amount of shelf space on which to store it. And now I’m wishing I had a VCR to play the .Hack//sign and Witch Hunter Robin I’ve got in storage bins under my bed.

        5. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          I know my local branch of Argos still sells blank VHS tapes, even though they’ve not been listed in the company’s catalogue for several years now; they kept all their remaining stock of VHS tapes when the item was permanently pulled from the catalogue, and sell them to customers who specifically ask store staff for blank VHS tapes. I know, because a couple of times I’ve gone in and asked if they still sell them, and they’ve actually sold me a 3x4hr pack. xD

        6. trlkly

          I know ti’s not technically legal, but, if I’ve recorded it or otherwise have a VHS/DVD/whatever of it, I go ahead and get it online. without feeling even the slightest bit guilty.

          Heck, something appropriate to this comic: I just found my old VeggieTales VHS. And I’m totally going to try and find it online rather than try to find equipment to watch it.

        7. Hoop

          That’s because they went out of business last year.

        8. Hamstadini

          Really? I work at one and nobody told me!

          (Seriously, 3000 stores closed, 2000 remain. It’s a restructuring bankruptcy, not a liquidation.)

      3. Needfuldoer

        Why would CellPhoneShack sell monitors or TVs?

        1. Deanatay

          Because they’re struggling to cling to relevance?

    2. Captain Button

      It is that paint they got cheap because it was contaminated with exotic matter.

    3. Shade

      Wait there’s Microsoft stores? I’m aware there’s stores that happen to sell Microsoft products, but nothing dedicated solely to it like Apple does.

      1. Betsumei

        It is very much a real thing and kind of weird.

        1. Shade

          Seems odd since Microsoft doesn’t do the dedicated hardware exclusively for their stuff like Apple.

        2. Kryss LaBryn

          Well, that was their strength back on the late Eighties/early Nineties, and why they captured so much of the market share.

          Everyone was producing their own products and hardware, like Apple does now, and that was it. You wanted something that would run IBM software, you bought a PC. You wanted a new hard drive, or to upgrade your motherboard, you went got it from the same guys who made the PC (don’t remember offhand which company it was), same as Apple now.

          BUUUUT then the PC guys released the standards and started allowing just anyone to make PC-compatible hardware and software! It was awesome! Suddenly, you could get SO MUCH cheap stuff for them! Sure it wasn’t always 100% compatible, and you often had to fiddle a bit to get things to work completely; but China flooded the market with cheap parts for like 20% of what we used to pay. It also brought in a flood of stuff, hardware and software, that PC had never even thought of. All sorts of products, from all sorts of minds, not just the brain of one person, whether that was Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak or Linus Torvalds or whoever.

          And that, children, is why PC won the battle with Apple, and Windows came out on top, despite the Apple stuff clicking together so much more nicely.

          Well, that, and you can mess around with the back end of Windows stuff, because they made it accessible. Apple doesn’t trust its users to actually change things, or do very much altering of configurations; it keeps it as a series of products that it’s hard to mess up very much; but also a series of products that aren’t really user-serviceable. Hell, their email program refuses to even give error messages saying why the set-up failed. Ridiculously frustrating. You don’t even want to know what you have to do to set up an email account as a POP account; and once it’s set up as an IMAP (which is the default), in order to change it to a POP3 account, you have to, literally and I am not even kidding, uninstall and reinstall Mac Mail. You can’t even just delete the account; when you try to set it up again it remembers that it used to be IMAP and tries to set up as that again.

          In Windows Mail it’s a danged drop-down. *shakes cane* Damned Apple! Get off my lawn!

        3. WaytoomanyUIDs

          That’s not quite what happened. It was a combination of the PC being designed to be expandable, it’s BIOS being easier to clone in a white room implementation (which was legal back then) and MS copying CP/M for DOS and also reserving the right to sell DOS by themselves, which resulted in the PC’s success.

        4. Random832

          Most of what you said made sense, but I don’t understand the part about wanting POP when your email provider is capable of IMAP.

        5. Random832

          Anyway there’s probably a hidden directory you can delete from your home folder. I’m actually somewhat surprised that uninstalling and reinstalling the app works, normally user-specific settings aren’t affected by that.

        6. Jimi

          Hello to you, expression of love for Windows that can only be made by someone who’s never heard of Linux or gotten a full Computer Science education. I don’t see you around often anymore.

        7. Nerd Patrol

          Hi there, Linux snob, I’m the guy who brings a Surface tablet to his college’s Linux classes. (Although that particular choice was more due to “it’s a full x86-64 PC, and I’m pretty sure it weighs less than any of my textbooks do”.)

        8. Sunmaster57

          Yes there are Microsoft stores, They even had store employees sing a Christmas carol to the NYC Apple store. Advertisement video on Youtube

        9. Ana Chronistic

          I originally was gonna mention Sony stores and laugh, but that’s apparently even more “obscure” than Microsoft stores (both of which WERE in Tysons Corner–think Sony is long gone because who the fuck would go in one, all they had of note was $4000 TVs)

        10. Whitetigerkaz

          One corner is dedicated to all things Xbox, one corner their windows phones, one corner and usually front table is for all the Surface products. Last corner is various surface and other Windows accessories/laptop cases/Windows Fitbit thingy. Then there’s usually a tiny table with 4 other laptops that run Windows. Usually employees are dancing to the Xbox overlords.

      2. AngryBamboo

        https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/07/20

    4. Reltzik

      Nope! The point of origin is Joyce and Sarah’s dorm room!

      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/home/

      1. Yet_One_More_Idiot

        Why not have the point of origin as Joyce herself? That could be interesting, a moving origin! xD

        1. Captain Button

          Joyce is the DoA Barrier Maiden?

      2. trlkly

        I’m having trouble figuring out who you’re responding to, Reltzik, but no matter.

        Because I have to point this out from a few comics later: absence sure makes the heart grow fonder. Look at Becky back then, telling Joyce how great it will be when they are apart. It seems she only realized her crush once she was away.

        And before that there was Joyce’s dad, still whining about change. Same guy, yet Joyce didn’t break her smile back then.

        1. a snow ʍousɐ

          Reltzik was responding to AnaChronistic’s original post.

        2. Captain Button

          Other people want “like” buttons here, I want a “collapse subthread” button.

      3. a snow ʍousɐ

        Yes, I suppose that is the origin… in a different sense than Ana originally intended, but certainly a valid interpretation.

  2. butts

    Is it just me or does her dad look a lot like Mike with big blue eyes

    1. Dreadhawk177

      Same thought.

      1. butts

        I think it’s maybe the hair?

    2. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

      Obviously Mike traveled through time and banged Joyce’s mom for a nickel.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Clearly.

      2. Doctor_Who

        Or he banged Joyce’s Grandma and Hank is Mike’s son.

        1. Yossarianduck

          A nickel went a lot further in those days.
          Correspondingly, so did they…

        2. motorfirebox

          orson_welles_clap.gif

        3. Reltzik

          …. this would be an Inclusive Or, correct?

      3. Steampunkette

        Win.

      4. Adept Arcanist

        So he knew that Joyce’s life would be an endless parade of suffering and so decided he had to be responsible for it? 😛

        1. Uniqueantique

          Endless suffering? Right.
          Her parents love her. Her best friend really loves her.
          She had a near rape experience but her friends have been there for her through out her endless recovery.
          She has had her world view shaken, and needs to come to terms with it.

          Yup she has surely been living a life of suffering. Not at all fun and games like her friend Becky whose feelings she’s managed to pretty much put behind her.

        2. Dandi Andi

          In her first month at college, someone attempted to rape her, someone she has known and loved all her life threatened her and her best friend’s life, her mother as much as said she would have done the same when she said “I would die for you” (not what she meant, but probably what Joyce heard, given the context), and the core beliefs that shape everything she believes about the world and herself have been shaken HARD. I don’t know if you grew up in a fundamentalist household, but it can be traumatic.

          But she has nice friends. So there’s that.

          It’s fair to say her college experience has been mostly unpleasant.

        3. Jason

          That’s one month of suffering in eighteen months. The point was that her life certainly hasn’t been one of “endless suffering”.
          Yes, she has had a LOT to handle over the past month, but before that? Imperfect, sure, but since she was blind to many of her upbringing’s issues she was pretty happy about her lot until now.

        4. Jason

          Er, one month of suffering in eighteen YEARS. I shouldn’t comment to distract myself from insomnia I guess.

          I agree about Hank looking like Mike though. It’s the last panel for me.

        5. Shiro

          To be fair, we’ve only seen one month of her life, and growing up as a girl in a near-cult fundie atmosphere is often not very nice.

        6. Palamdrone

          Love isn’t the opposite of suffering, its often a cause of it.

    3. Spencer

      There was one patreon strip with a young Hank and Carol (and adorable toddler Jocelyne) that had tons of comments to that effect.

      Mike actually did it. He fucked Joyce’s mom.

      1. Spencer

        MeghanTheDreamCrusher cruses my dream of being the person to make that joke.

        1. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

          Jus doin my job

        2. butts

          Mike did his job when he banged Joyce’s mom for a nickel

        3. Reltzik

          Oh. Wow. We’re not even special enough to have our dreams specially-crushed. It’s just routine.

        4. Deanatay

          Erh derd mer jerb

    4. Atomix26

      mike and joyce confirmed half-siblings.

      1. Dana

        I’ll have to process this before I reevaluate shipping them.

        1. Captain Button

          There may have been some settling.

    5. Jay Eff

      TWIST:
      Mike is her dad!

      He’s been waiting 18 years to tell Joyce that he did it with her mom.

      1. tim gueguen

        Whatever his beliefs I can’t imagine Mike being able to pretend to be that sort of Christian for more than about 30 seconds.

        1. podian

          You underestimate the lengths Mike will go for a single act of jerkassery.

        2. Needfuldoer

          If he’s anything like he was in Shortpacked, he’s the nicest guy in the universe after he’s had a few.

    6. Captain Button

      I don’t like the Blaineish turn this thread is taking…

  3. DarkoNeko

    Yeah, some are also PC stores.

    1. DarkoNeko

      Damnit Ana.

  4. Tabitha Desanto

    Hmm I wonder if her parents have cursed yet.

    1. CoffeeBurps

      “gaddanged” is basically cursing. “gad” would sound like he said “god” just in a southern accent. And dang is just southern, watered down damn. Is this family from Texas or Alabama?

      1. JonRich

        Indiana.

      2. Skilltagz

        Indiana

      3. Tabitha Desanto

        I was thinking first real curse instead of polite substitutions like gad=god danged=damned .

      4. Jason

        I… I gotta say, the idea of “goddamn” being a curse word is a weird one to me.
        I mean, unless you want to get literal and point out that saying “God damn this thing” is kind of like saying “curse this thing” but I’m talking about swears.

        1. Reltzik

          So, “this thing’s a piece of shit” is a curse but “goddamn this thing” is not?

          ….

          LOGIC!

        2. Toad

          It definitely is. A mild one by most people’s standards, but Joyce definitely wouldn’t say it earlier. “Damn” is a low-level curse by itself, and adding “God” is taking the Lord’s name in vain, which makes it a big deal for certain flavors of Christian.

        3. Reltzik

          But…

          … but…

          … “shit” is an obscenity, not a curse…

        4. Annie

          It took years after I became atheist to bring myself to say “goddamn.” Growing up I was told that saying “god damn” meant that you were cursing God himself. It was the ultimate curse/swear. Considering that I didn’t even say things like “oh my God”, it was a big, big deal.

          Old habits die hard and to me goddamn is still reserved for feelings of rage or people that are the worst of the worst.
          “Goddamn” being a mild curse is a very odd concept to me.

        5. Chronos

          Honestly, swapping out a curse word with another, often nonsensical word seems bizarre to me. The intent to speak a particular curse word almost always appears to be there, even if said specific word isn’t. For me, it just tends to come off that the person *wants* to use it but is trying to get around using the specific word through some sort of loophole. It always felt like an insult to my (and likely everyone else’s) intelligence, and I can’t imagine any deity *not* being so stupid as to not understand what they’re trying to get away with.

        6. Chronos

          remove the *not*…

        7. squanchy

          Yeah!

        8. thejeff

          It always seemed weird to me too, but that’s how people work. It’s the specific words that are bad, synonyms are just fine.

          It’s also kind of neat that Joyce apparently gets it from her dad. He’s doing the same kind of swearing she does and just as casually. Looking back though, he only does it when mom’s not around. At least, he drops a “Holy Lord” and a “My God” in one of the first appearances – moving in day, in a panel without Carol. And now this one.
          Nothing similar in any scene with her in it.

        9. kelticat

          My sister would use bugger until her sons and I told her that it means sodimization, at which point she dropped it like a lead weight. She calls her ex a son-of-a-frog, and uses shoot a lot.

        10. trlkly

          Jason: where do you think the concept of it being a “curse word” comes from? Literally cursing someone. Obscenities like “fuck” and “shit” just got folded in. (And the R got dropped to “cuss word” thanks to those non-rhotic UK accents)

          I actually had a Joyce epiphany when I started using fuck and shit, which are not actually forbidden in the Bible, unlike cursing people. To this day, I pretty much avoid “damn” and never use “God” or “Jesus” or anything. But you’ll see me use “fuck” and “shit” all over the place, to my mom’s chagrin.

          Then again, I am still a Christian, if not a fundamentalist one.

      5. Amanduh

        In college, I knew a guy who was born and raised in Indiana who said more than once, “Indiana is a Southern state.” And I have some friends who’ve moved to small-town Indiana who’ve said pretty much the same thing. So a southern-sounding expression for Joyce’s dad is not necessarily out of place.

        1. not someone else

          Indiana is basically a Southern state, despite being in the Midwest. Kentucky is basically a Midwestern state, despite being closer to the south… but above the Mason-Dixon and halfway into the Appalachians…

          (Well, Eastern Kentucky may well be Northern Appalachians like the western parts of the Carolinas and Pennsylvania but that’s getting into way too much detail for a joke. Also, I’ve never been to East Kentucky.)

        2. Loolwut

          KY is most assuredly south of the actual Mason-Dison line, though the actual line doesn’t go that far west. Indiana would be split in half by the line if it went that far.

          The line is the southern border of Pennsylvania.

        3. JQuire

          I’m missing something. The Mason Dixon line is Maryland’s hat, Kentucky is definitely south of that…

        4. not someone else

          Nah, all you’re missing is that I’m misremembering the definition of “Mason-Dixon”. Kentucky was Union, is probably what I was referring to, and that’s part of the cultural definition of South.

        5. Betty Anne

          The cultural demarcation was limited almost exclusively to the Pennsylvania border. It later became a descriptor for the boundary between North and South.

          The Mason-Dixon line and slavery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason%E2%80%93Dixon_line#Symbolism

      6. squanchy

        A question: why would god be angry at “god damned” in general conversation and smile indulgently at “gaddanged”?

        Does an infinite being care what phonemes a human uses in its little talky mouth language? If they mean the same thing, they mean the same thing.

        “Oh, fudge you, you… icehole!”

        1. squanchy

          or, y’know, what chronos said.

        2. Betty Anne

          Same reason a Christian got offended at me using “JESUS CHRIST!” as a swear, but had no quibble with it when I switched to using “JEEBAS CRACKERS!” around her.

          True story, unfortunately.

  5. Steampunkette

    Yeah! Sometimes things with more than two monitors are a Best Buy.

  6. Disloyal Subject

    Has he ever actually seen an Apple Store?

    …say, what DOES one of those look like?

    1. Dreadhawk177

      I hear there’s an entry-fee. To actually buy one, you have to trade in your soul.

      1. Reltzik

        I think the deal is called iPawned.

    2. Doctor_Who

      Fewer monitors than I expected, actually.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Now THAT is an Apple store I would shop at.

        1. inqntrol

          And apparently in some slavic countries, fruits are souvenirs. When I visited Ukraine like 5 years ago, I came back with souvenirs…a couple of Vodka bottles heh heh.

        2. Reltzik

          Nonono. Souvenirs are supposed to help you remember, not wipe your brain.

        3. inqntrol

          Don’t worry, I can hold my liquor.. my mom on the other hand…She’s the only one that gets tipsy from a half glass of wine. Good think that me and my big sister take after our father when it comes to drinking.

      2. Bicycle Bill

        Actually, those are not the “real” apples but cheap Russian copies.  Come up to Minnesota or Wisconsin to get the genuine article.

    3. Skizz

      White. Sooooooooooooo very white.

      1. Doctor_Who

        And that’s just the clientele.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          #ApplesSoWhite

    4. Cephalo the Pod

      White. Very open.

    5. Mandy

      If they’re all anything like the one that’s at my local mall, it doesn’t even matter what the store actually looks like, because you cannot EVER see it through the horrible crush of like 300 people all in the store at once. I avoid it like the plague.

  7. AHR

    Hank looks… really different for some reason.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      His hair seems paler than I remember, but the lobby is much brighter than outside at night.

      1. DarkoNeko

        He’s getting old.

      2. kelticat

        Maybe his hair went white when Ross held a gun on Joyce. And its possible Jocelyn came out to her dad.
        True story, when I was five we went on a camping trip and I had a relapse of chicken pox. No mirrors and my mom kept her hair under a bandana so nobody knew until we were on our way home that the stress had made her prematurely gray.

    2. Jones

      Wow, you’re right. Comparing this page to his first appearance, he’s somehow gotten both older and younger.

    3. Daniel

      He looks thinner than his previous appearances. Or at least his face looks thinner. His hair is also longer as well.
      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/loft/
      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/perfectest/

      1. Jason

        Yup, definitely looks thinner. It could be artistic evolution or it could have been a conscious choice to show how certain events have affected him.
        Strangely, it felt to me like he cared more about his offspring as people rather than just as a role to fulfill, compared to his wife. (Not saying he’s perfect about it, FAR from that!)

      2. Reltzik

        Everyone’s head is smaller compared to their bodies now.

        1. Kryss LaBryn

          Mine certainly is. 🙁

      3. Mandy

        Yeah, I think his hair definitely looks longer than it did on parents’ weekend.
        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/areligious/

  8. Doctor_Who

    Never heard anyone say “Gaddanged” before. Makes me feel like he’s about five years away from “Consarn it!” and “Fiddlesticks!”

    1. Dreadhawk177

      Indeedidly.

    2. Jay Eff

      Dadburn it!

      Jiminy Crickets!

    3. Dana

      Wait, that’s where my friend’s expression “fucksticks” comes from!

    4. Ghostforge

      actually now that i think about it, “Fiddlesticks” is likely supposed to evoke thoughts of the story about a fiddle contest with the devil where the prize is that you get to keep your soul.

    5. Ash Ketchup

      I say, I say, it gives me some, I say it gives me some Foghorn Leghorn vibes!

  9. Mr. Mendo

    Things were better in his day, by cracky!

    1. Doctor_Who

      Darn tootin’ they were.

      1. Mr. Mendo

        These modern conveniences are a loada banana oil!

        1. Dean

          Well, tarnation, in my day we didn’t have any fancy-pants apple store, we picked ’em off the tree, going uphill both ways! And we were glad to have ’em, dadgummit!

        2. Mr. Mendo

          Now, you’re on the trolley! 😉

  10. Spidergirl

    Well, so far Hank’s avoiding joining the “Asshole Dad” club.
    I give him a week.

    1. butts

      Eh, he hasn’t done anything horrible so far, but he totally would if Jocelyn came out. He’s on probation.

      1. JetstreamGW

        Don’t know that. He might be the cool one. “I don’t get it but, alrighty, Good Lord said love thy neighbor ‘n gaddangit I’m not gonna be a hypocrite.”

      2. Cerberus

        Well… there was the time he tried to argue that Hitler was partly Jewish and tried to brow-beat her into dropping Dorothy as a friend because without God, clearly Dorothy could never hope to be more than a moral-less monster.

        So yeah… not so much not horrible as just less frequently awful than her mom.

        1. Bagge

          “Daddy pulls a Godwin” sounds like a really crappy childrens book

        2. Reltzik

          Or a really weird pornographique.

        3. Needfuldoer

          On the other hand, he was the one who ultimately trusted Joyce’s judgement.

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/takeafter/

          Joyce is autobiographical, so (judging from her creator’s Twitter and Tumblr posts) it’s more than likely Hank will be fairly moderate and Carol will be the religious extremist.

        4. Rukduk

          I remember that. The I think he also said something along the lines of “People like her (atheists) caused the holocaust.” The only reason I wasn’t in the comments on that strip talking about how a lot of the Germans who voted for the Nazis and formed the initial coalition government with them in 1933 were members of the Christian Right was because I found out about this comic years after that point.

        5. ischemgeek

          Yeeeah. When I came out as an atheist (word choice intentional, and I’m bi so don’t accuse me of appropriating shit. Trust me, in a fundie-heavy area, “coming out” is appropriate phrasing. In the city, nobody cares nowadays, but in the country where people literally care not only what denomination of Christian you are but care whether you get preached to by the right person and some of them double- or triple-dip sermons from different denominations just to be safe? Yeah. Being openly atheist get the shit kicked out of you on a regular basis and a lot of the, “Don’t talk to her, she’s a bad influence” type talk and being harrassed about how you’re going to hell and the teachers shrugging and saying, “Well, if the shoe fits… I mean, if you don’t like it, you know what you need to do.” and so on. I actually got more blowback for being an atheist than I did for being bi in high school – not in the city where people care a hell of a lot more about me being bi than me being atheist, but in the country, people haaate atheists), my mother started pulling the, “Hitler was an atheist” crap. That was fun. */sarcasm*

        6. Kryss LaBryn

          Hitler also drank milk as a baby.

          Bloody milk-drinking babies, the bastards…

        7. Captain Button

          If there is blood in your milk you should see a doctor or change brands.

        8. JetstreamGW

          It has been a while since I went on an archive trawl. I only vaguely remember the fam’s last visit, really.

    2. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

      I give him eleven minutes.

      1. Skizz

        I give him until next strip.

        1. butts

          Good bet.

        2. MichaelHaneline

          Yeah, that’s what I’m figuring.

        3. Reltzik

          Naaaah, Joyce needs to be lulled into a false sense of security and be trapped either in the car with home or at home.

        4. Reltzik

          *with him or at home

        5. Trolldrool

          Agreed. Willis doesn’t destroy all his readers’ hopes and naive expectations before he’s convinced even the most sceptical among us that maybe, just maybe, things will turn out not completely horrible.

        6. Emily

          I am never convinced of that.

        7. Trolldrool

          Fair enough. In all honesty, I don’t think any of his long time readers do at this point, but that’s because we’ve learned the hard way to not get our hopes up. Give him time. He’ll find a way to trick us yet.

        8. Emily

          I’ve been conditioned to never expect good things to happen if queer people have a major role in the story by years of media where we’re exclusively a source of tragedy porn for straight people to derive pathos from.

        9. Spencer

          @Emily

          I don’t think it’s possible to have a realistic, grounded narrative involving queer characters and not have occasional focus on struggles with prejudice. For sure it should never be the only thing they ever go through, and should always be about them as people and how they deal with it, but I feel like if we didn’t get sequences like Becky rebelling against her dad’s rule, or Ethan chafing under the pressures of how people treat him, then we wouldn’t have an authentic queer reading experience.

        10. Emily

          I get that but sometimes I don’t want an authentic queer reading experience because I’m trying to escape from living an authentic queer life and it’s just kind of demoralizing that even in fiction I can’t get away from queer prejudice and struggles.

        11. Spencer

          Yeah, the problem is that we’re only now starting to see any significant (as in, more than one character who only exists to be sad for straight viewers, and then disappear once their moral of the day has played out) representation in media.

          All the major queer characters in the comic other than Dina have some form of internal or external conflict with their sexualities, but for the kind of series DoA is, I wouldn’t want it not to be the case. The real answer is that there needs to be all kinds of queer stories so we aren’t boxed into just reading about how miserable and trying it is to be us.

        12. Leorale

          I know she’s not a main character at all, buthe I do like to imagine Professor Leslie Bean’s day. Right now, she’s having a lovely afternoon walk and admiring the leaves.

        13. Spencer

          Leslie filled out her angst quota years ago, so she’s set for life.

    3. Spencer

      He has a silver membership card for the Jerkface Dad club for trying to ruin his daughter’s friendship. He may upgrade in the near future.

    4. Viktoria

      He joined it way back with his treatment of Dorothy and the whole passive-aggressive group prayer BS.

      Or did you mean for this trip?

      1. Spidergirl

        Oh, right, that happened. So I guess that means pretty much all the dads in this strip are pretty asshole-ish.
        Except Dorothy’s dad. And Dina’s dad. And Sierra’s dad.

        1. Leorale

          Sierra’s dad is the best.

        2. Cerberus

          Sierra’s dad is best dad.

        3. Spencer

          Charles Walkerton is less terrible than his wife.

          He acknowledged his daughter’s presence! That’s like a Dad Participation Award.

        4. Lord Stoneheart

          And immediately followed it up with a backhanded compliment. Uh, points for trying? Maybe? Probably not.

        5. Spencer

          I occasionally see the argument that Charles sincerely thinking of it as a compliment means it’s okay. Dudes, that’s why it was so bad.

        6. Jason

          Him thinking it was a compliment is highly problematic- but the topic was about parenting. He tried to compliment Sal (admittedly, poorly) and seemed genuinely disappointed that she was leaving so soon.
          Perfect, no, but no parent is perfect either as a person or as a parent. What little we’ve seen of him is better than most RL parents I’ve met.

        7. Spencer

          I mean, I know he meant well, that’s why it was so bad. His compliment for Sal was to say how prettier her hair was when it’s whiter.

          He absolutely doesn’t understand that what he said harmed his daughter and almost certainly genuinely cares about her, we’ve seen so little of him we can hardly get a grasp on his character, but ultimately he’s contributing to the same climate that’s worn Sal down for over a decade.

        8. Leorale

          I feel like an African American man raising biracial kids really ought to know about microaggressions. Hasn’t he been there?

        9. segnosaur

          When I first read that comic, my interpretation was not that he thought Sal looked better with straight hair because its “whiter”.

          I thought it was a case where he thought Sal preferred straight hair herself, and it was a way of saying “you should be yourself”.

        10. Leorale

          Or is that part of it, that it comes from within? I hope I’m not being a jerk — I guess I don’t know enough about the hair thing.
          (I do have natural Sal-hair, but it’s def not the same experience when it frames a white face.)

        11. Leorale

          @stegnosaur That’s how it would’ve hit me if somebody preferred my hair one way or the other, but only because I haven’t already faced lots of pressure to be whiter. It’s problematic in the context of Sal’s life.

        12. thejeff

          I’m white and male and obviously don’t know their prior interactions over this, but racial implications aside, I know damn well you don’t ever compliment a girl by telling them their previous hairstyle was nicer.
          You tell them it looks good on them. If they complain about how they liked it better the other way, you can agree at that point.
          If they actually ask and you’re sure they want to know the truth, give an honest opinion, but don’t pretend “You looked nicer before” is a compliment.

          The black hair thing complicates it, since there really are strong racial implications there. By itself, in the real world, I wouldn’t consider it damning. In fiction, where there other indications and where the author definitely has an interest in such issues and a penchant for dropping subtle clues: Yeah, it’s definitely a sign.

        13. Viktoria

          You forgot Mike’s dad. And Galasso.

        14. Psychotic Mantis

          Galasso has spawn?

          Good GOD no.

        15. Shiro

          Yeah, Connie’s in this universe too

        16. Captain Button

          Yes, though he is still confused about the process.

        17. Kamino Neko

          Yes, Connie, the hot waitress.

          (Is she still named Conquest in this continuity?)

        18. Kamino Neko

          (Finding the strips in question and checking the tags…she sure is.)

        19. Shiro

          I originally thought badly of Galasso for naming her that, because the whole “please impregnate my daughter” thing made me think he’d labelled her a conquest, and I felt that was quite rude. But somewhere along the line, I realized no, her name is Conquest like GLORIOUS VICTORY, which I’m much more okay with.

        20. Disloyal Subject

          He may not be the kindest or most competent of men, but as for names to give a kid, naming them after victory is a pretty awesome pick.

        21. Kryss LaBryn

          So, “Victor,” “Vincent,” “Victoria”… 😉

        22. Viktoria

          XD

        23. Wublub

          I haven’t seen much of his parenting in DoA, but he was a HORRIBLE father in Shortpacked.

      2. butts

        I’d argue that we need two tiers. There’s the Jerkface tier, for people who are just kinda shitty in a particular way (Linda and Joyce’s parents, probably also Billie’s), and the Asshole tier for parents who are just the worst. Like Blaine. And Toedad. And if you include Walkyverse stuff in here, then also Linda, and Robin’s dad, and… hmm. You think Willis maybe has a thing about parents?

        1. Spencer

          The Wilcoxen belong on the “unintentionally terrible but still causing great harm to their child” list.

          The Siegals actually mean well, it’s just that their definition of ‘well’ needs to be fired into the sun.

        2. Dana

          Or nuked from orbit.

        3. Leorale

          I thought the Wilcoxen were just mediocre, until Danny revealed that he was accustomed to verbal abuse: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/piece-of-shit/

        4. Spencer

          Oh right, for some reason I hadn’t considered that the Wilcoxen contributed to Danny’s abuse even though we’ve seen it on panel.

          Yeah, they’re way worse than just “unintentionally terrible”. They’re ripping into their son for failing to live up to some arbitrary standard they’ve vet.

        5. Jonathan S.

          Dina’s parents are pretty cool – their reaction to finding out their daughter had a girlfriend was to deposit $200 in her account so she could take Becky somewhere nice.

        6. Tan

          Dina’s parents also let in/persuaded Dina to let in Blaine. So. The search for perfect parents continues.

        7. Dragon_Nataku

          To be fair, 1) neither they nor Dina really knew at that point WHY Amber didn’t want Blaine around, 2) I don’t know which generation of the Sarazus immigrated to America but culturally Asians feel respect for parents/elders is very important so without knowing that Blaine is an abusive monster why wouldn’t they be like “He is her father why are you not letting him in?”

        8. Random832

          Saruyama. (Sarazu was her Walkyverse name, which I assume was changed because it’s not a real name.)

        9. Mandy

          You really can’t hold that against them. They had no idea that he was such a piece of shit. Her mother even said when she apologized that she hadn’t understood the situation.

        10. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          What, exactly, the apology was for, remains unseen.

        11. Spencer

          Ms. Saruyama apologized when, in an attempt to be polite, she brought her daughter’s roommate’s abusive father into her dorm, against Dina’s wishes.

        12. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          Whoops, that’s what I get for posting when late. Jeezus, I’m tired and forgetting shit.

      3. Reltzik

        Eh. He’s second-tier at most. There has to be at least SOME level of gradation between “tried to screw things up but eventually backed off” and “Toedad/Dickdad”.

        ((Dickdad = Blaine.))

    5. John

      He joined the asshole dad club way back when he was passive-aggressively praying at Joyce because she had an atheist friend.

      1. DaveM

        Yeah, but when Joyce called him on it and backed up her argument with the appropriate biblical verses he backed off. That alone makes him a million times better than Toedad or Blaine. Yes I know we’ve all scraped things off the bottom of our shoes that were morally better than Toedad or Blaine, but it still counts goshdarnnit!

        1. trlkly

          Exactly. He started off saying jerkish things, like Joyce, but he listened and backed off.

          I mean, you have to realize that Joyce is a rarity. I’ve never seen anyone make the changeover as quickly as she has. While other people were flipping out over her quoting 1 Corinthians, I was marveling at how far she’d gotten–and completely believably. I mean, it was fast in real time, not just comic time.

          And I even came from a family that goes out of their way to make my gay “uncle-in-law” feel like part of the family, even though my parents still think they’re living in sin. Their argument is just that they don’t treat unwed mothers poorly, and at least my uncles did get married.

          I wish my fundie friends were like Joyce. I wouldn’t be the one trying to convince them of what Joyce found out about the original Greek. Because, ultimately, the Greek wasn’t what convinced her.

  11. Peduncle

    Gaddanged?

  12. Shanunu

    What….did…..he……expect it to look like…..?

    1. Airyu

      Idk, but he was here like a month ago…

      1. JessWitt

        Comic strip time, sir.

        1. Carriethedragon

          I think Airyu meant in comic strip time? Like he saw it a month ago in the comic.

        2. Emily

          Yeah cuz he saw it like 15 years ago in real world time.

    2. JessWitt

      Perfectly preserved like a mammoth carcass.

      1. Reltzik

        So it’s got butterflies in its stomach?

    3. Peduncle

      After all, this was the place where Hank invented the internet.

      1. thejeff

        I have a soft spot in my heart for Hank just for that line.

    4. Spencer

      If DoA lasts long enough, Hank will have been a student when the building looked like this.

    5. Viktoria

      It’s a reference to the fact that the IRL Reed Hall lobby has been redesigned since Hank was last in the comic, so Willis has had to redesign it in-universe too.

      1. Bicycle Bill

        What is Willis going to do about the fact that IU has combined the School of Journalism, which was formerly housed in Ernie Pyle Hall, with the departments of telecommunications, emergent media arts, cinema and media studies, and communication and public culture to form a combined School of Communication, Media, and Journalism?  The new department is being housed now in Franklin Hall (near the Sample Gates) and starting in the summer of 2016 Ernie Pyle Hall will be completely vacated and undergo renovations to convert it for “student services function” usage.

        Normally he could probably overlook this, except for the fact that Dorothy is a journalism major and will likely need to be drawn (eventually) at one or another of the locations.

        1. David M Willis

          It is not a fact that Dorothy is a journalism major. It is actually an untruth.

        2. Cerberus

          Wait. Isn’t Billie a Journalism major though? And isn’t Walky a Communications major?

        3. Emily

          Telecommunications, actually.

        4. Amazi-Stool

          Yep, Billie’s in Journalism, Walky’s in telecommunications.
          Dorothy majors in law.

        5. David M Willis

          I don’t see any of this as a problem. So the schools are “combined,” but Billie can still call herself a journalism major without being a liar. I mean, what I tell people my major in college was has very little to do with the actual long-winded name for that major the school used officially.

        6. Cerberus

          Oh, very much agreed on that. Plus, the fact that majors can change, sometimes rather quickly.

        7. Bicycle Bill

          I stand corrected.  I guess I thought she was a journalism major because of the way she was trying to solve the “Amazi-Girl” mystery for the campus newspaper.

        8. Betty Anne

          You can work at the campus newspaper without being a Journalism major. I served as Editor-in-Chief on two campus newspapers, and Proofreader, then Webmaster, then Managing Editor at the second of them before the EiC abdicated left me de facto Editor-in-Chief. I acted as reporter for both of them when were were short and/or the usual reporters were slacking.

          I was a Humanities major at the first campus and an Art major at the second one.

  13. newllend(henryvolt)

    Huh so her mother really isn’t here, damn I was ready for Joyce and everyone to tear her a new one if she tried to defend Ross again.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      No, that won’t happen until Joyce is cut off from support.
      I kinda hope she’s got Sal on speed dial, just in case.

      1. Cerberus

        That does seem to be where things are heading.

        1. Captain Button

          Now I am picturing some rescue action scene of Sal crashing through the picture window to snatch up Joyce before going out through the sliding door to jump over the pool.

        2. Bagge

          Aren’t we tired of Sal doing cool motorcycle rescue stunts by now… what am I saying, of course we aren’t.

    2. Captain Button

      Mom is home cooking up all of Joyce’s favorite foods as an aid to guilting her back into Jesus’s intolerant arms.

      1. timemonkey

        Jesus was tolerant, his followers who misinterpret and ignore his teachings are intolerant as hell.

        1. Spencer

          Yeah, Jesus was way cool.

        2. Psychotic Mantis

          Yep. I saw this awesome fridge magnet that I love. It said: “Obama isn’t a brown-skinned Socialist handing out free healthcare. You’re thinking of Jesus.”

          People misinterpret Jesus’ teachings and (oddly, but not surprisingly) Jesus himself way too often and with too much vigor.

        3. Rukduk

          Haha, that’s a good one! Reminds me of what my parish priest would always say, “I don’t hate Marx because of communism, I hate him because he plagiarized Jesus. That’s just not cool man.”

        4. segnosaur

          Yes, Jesus was way tolerant. He limited the amount of beatings you could give to slaves.

          Of course, his tolerance didn’t extend to fig trees… he cursed one because it didn’t have any fruit. (Of course, it was out of season.)

        5. Betty Anne

          And money changers at a temple. But who likes bankers, AMIRITE?

          (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

  14. Stephen R. Bierce

    *plays Iron Butterfly’s “In A Gadda Da Vida” on the hacked Muzak*

    1. Psychotic Mantis

      How did you escape the Chinese laundry?

      1. Stephen R. Bierce

        Hid in an empty barrel of Calgon.

        1. inqntrol

          Should have used a box, metal gearing your way out would have been cooler.

        2. Kryss LaBryn

          But would it have had a sexy sticker of a lady?

        3. Stephen R. Bierce

          Anyway I guess everybody missed my attempted reference to a Looney Tunes short that starred Daffy Duck as a detective in the Far East and Porky Pig as a character Daffy assumed was a cop but who in fact was a proprietor of a laundry.

  15. John

    Sometimes things with more than two monitors are my living room.

    (I can see twelve from where I’m sitting.)

    1. Doctor_Who

      Do you live in the New York Stock Exchange?

    2. Captain Button

      But do you have an Asma?

    3. Ana Chronistic

      seven, here

    4. Reltzik

      Nonono. You’re supposed to have a single set of glasses which network with your home systems and display a HUD that overlay “virtual monitors” over black pieces of cardboard where the real monitors normally WOULD be. Really, at this point it’s the cheaper option, even counting R&D.

    5. Kryss LaBryn

      I’ve only got six. :/ But I also have six fish tanks (with three more currently unoccupied), if that helps?

  16. saltchocolate

    At first, I thought the hovertext meant white people. 😀

    1. miados

      I never realized there was hover text! How did I not know this?!?!……. sigh

      1. Doctor_Who

        The earliest strips didn’t have it, but he added it pretty early on. Think of it as a bonus for your next Archive Binge.

      2. Disloyal Subject

        There isn’t at first. It kicks in around… Uh, somewhere. The first alt text is something along the lines of, “WHAT I can add ALT TEXT?!”

      3. John

        The start of regular hovertext was way back here.

      4. Cephalo the Pod

        It started early 2014.

        1. Znayx

          Nope, early 2013. What John just above you said (with the exact link). That’s the beginning of the regular hovertext, but before that he did it a few times. Oddly enough though it says “what i can add HOVERTEXT???” as if he hadn’t done it before.

        2. No Name

          He probably hadn’t. He probably went back and added it in later.

        3. Amazi-Stool

          And that is practically confirmed by the hovertext in that one occassion i know of.

  17. invisiblemoose

    Mr Brown’s hair turned white very quickly, it would seem…

    1. John

      Hank’s hair is the one thing in the Dumbiverse that works in real time.

    2. Carriethedragon

      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/loft/

      It might be a little lighter now(?), but it never had any color in it.

    3. Captain Button

      ALGERNON: I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief

      LADY BRACKNELL: It certainly has changed color. From what cause I, of course, cannot say.

      1. Clif

        Without Joyce around, he can’t drink her blood at night to stay young.

        1. Amazi-Stool

          The resemblance of fundies and vampires is indicated in the hovertext of this strip.

        2. trlkly

          Mary is pretty much the worst fundie I’ve ever seen. Even the worst fundies I’ve met are nice and loving to somebody, even if it’s just the people inside their group. Mary just seems like a shitty person who happens to pay some lip service to fundie principles, and use their worst characteristics as an excuse to hurt people.

          I mean, even Toedad had basically snapped after being some seemingly decent guy. (They even mention his divorce as a catalyst.) Mary seems evil, period.

          And, no, I’m not defending fundamentalism. I’m saying Mary is a special type.

        3. Captain Button

          I don’t think it was a divorce. His wife died of cancer.

        4. trlkly

          Ah. Yes. Even worse. Because that’s God not looking out for him and his family. That’s Satan winning in an even more obvious sense.

  18. miados

    sounds a little like my grandpa. I think he has an amish mindset except with a different tech level of life.

    “technology was perfect and should have ended at the point I liked best”

    1. Doctor_Who

      I read a fantastic article by the late great Douglas Adams once where he articulated this well.

      He said that anything invented by the time you are ten is just part of how the universe is supposed to work, and how did anyone ever live without it?

      Anything invented between age ten and thirty is amazing and exciting and with any luck you can get a career out of it.

      Anything invented after age thirty is against the natural order.

      1. Uniqueantique

        Irrefutable logic my dear Watson, …er Dr.

  19. Skizz

    Calm sort of strip, very before stormish

    1. saltchocolate

      Though Joyce already has a nervous smile.

      1. Leorale

        I read it as nervous, but also taking some genuine and unexpected comfort from seeing her dad. It’s mixed.

  20. Kimberly

    Yay, smiling Joyce! I’m sure some of it’s to reassure her dad, but hopefully it’s somewhat genuine, too. Hopefully he maintains his track record of being more reasonable than Joyce’s mom.

    1. trlkly

      She seems genuinely happy to see her dad–though I wonder if that’s because it’s her mom who she’s dreading.

  21. Chengrel

    I’m just waiting for her to swear in front of her family. I’m betting it’ll happen in 4 strips.

    1. Jonathan S.

      You’d be amazed how quickly one can adapt. My wife has a mouth like a really adorable sailor, but when her (born-again) parents call, not a single foul syllable slips out.

      1. trlkly

        True, but, at the same time, you’d be surprised at how easily things can slip through when you aren’t even trying. A phone call is easier to manage than living with someone.

  22. Shana

    Are you alluding here to the fact that they’ve completely remodeled the Read lobby in the past two years?

    1. Amazi-Stool

      This is the lobby as Hank knows it.
      It’s one of the through strips not named after a word spoken by a character in the strip.

      1. Shana

        I realize. There wasn’t a very good view of the background in this strip, but the one following confirms that Willis has updated the look of Read lobby as they did irl recently

  23. Rukduk

    Oh god, he sounds like my grandpa. “Why do they keep changing the mall?” “Grandpa, you where here just a month ago, nothing changed since then.” “Well I didn’t say anything cause I didn’t want to be rude.”

  24. J.A.J.

    Oh my God, I thought for about two minutes that Joyce said “minorities” and not “monitors,” and I was like, “Oh frick, right out of the gate, Joyce’s dad!? You couldn’t wait two strips without making an openly-racist comment?” Then again, what having more than one minority had anything to do with Apple Stores was beyond me.

    …Maybe I should go to sleep now.

  25. vonniesaur

    Oh, Joyce’s dad.
    Never change.
    (Your adorable old-man hatred for computers, that is. You can change other things if necessary)

  26. Darwin

    Aww… it’s cheerful. That means horribleness is coming.

    1. Peduncle

      Yes. Mr. Willis gives us hope. Then he sends in Meghan.

      1. Someone

        I am convinced that one of the commenters is Maggie in disguise. I’m sure of it.

    2. Emperor Norton

      Of course horribleness is coming.

      See, to truly reach the highest level of despair, one must first make you believe that there is hope. Without hope, without that spark that makes us all think that not everything will be intensely sad and hopeless, without first giving us the illusion that we are cared for… Without all that, the impact of the universe kicking us straight in the gut will not be anywhere near as agonizing. It will not feel like betrayal. It will not rip said illusions apart like a child rips apart the wrapping paper of a birthday present.

      And that agony is, I believe, what creators like Willis really craves. Him and his like are emotion vampires, sustaining themselves on our highs and our lows. But it is our lows that has the most complete palate to his refined tongue, and so he sets up these stories. With the added advantage that there will be days of delightful anticipation before he can then devour a mental meal fit for a king.

      He also makes a mean Something Positive drink with our tears.

      1. Captain Button

        Have an Internet.

      2. Reltzik

        So… what does it say about us that we keep coming back?

        1. Clif

          Some questions are best unanswered.

      3. Kryss LaBryn

        There was one episode of the TV series “Monk” where these guys tried to make him think his wife hadn’t been killed after all, and had just gone into hiding. His assistant said to him something along the lines of, “But hey, at least they gave you hope, right? That’s something.” and he replied something to the effect of, “Oh, that’s right. You’re still young. You haven’t yet learned how terrible hope is.”

        Terrible things happening? Are terrible. Terrible things happening after you had reason to hope they wouldn’t? Infinitely worse.

      4. Amazi-Stool

        “What power would hell have if those imprisoned here would not be able to dream of heaven?”
        Neil Gaiman, The Sandman

  27. Psychotic Mantis

    I don’t know why, but the fact that Mr. Brown has such a GEEWUN-ish feel towards technology makes me hate the fact that he’s (not so much as Mrs. Brown, of course) such a stout Fundie.

    The more human characters I hate seem, the more pissed I get that they’re hated characters. Oy.

    1. Reltzik

      That doesn’t seem like a fundie-complaint, though. That seems like a “dammit world, hold still, every time I get close to understanding you you change on me” complaint.

      1. Trolldrool

        Yeah, that’s something that’s repeated with every generation. Sure, there will be individual people who are exceptions to the rule, but most of us will get there eventually, or might already have been there in various degrees.

  28. Raen

    Looks like he got a weave.

    Lost weight, too, and may have gotten a facelift.

  29. Megatron

    I like Apple Stores.

    1. Psychotic Mantis

      Have you actually ever been to one, Megatron?

      The smoking remains of one do not count, for the record.

      1. Reltzik

        What if he went to one shortly before it was reduced to smoking remains?

        1. Psychotic Mantis

          Fair play, I suppose.

  30. Architex

    By that logic I guess my desk is an Apple Store.

    1. Reltzik

      Do any of your computers have a browser with a link to the iTunes?

      *gets to minimum safe mindsplosion distance*

  31. River

    *slams fists on table*
    JOCELYN JOCELYN JOCELYN JOCELYN JOCELYN
    WILL WE SEE JOCELYN

    1. Spencer

      Jocelyne is showing up in the next few months.

      1. Lord Stoneheart

        Specifically sometime in March. Next storyline.

        1. Spencer

          Oh right, she only has the one character model.

          Gosh darn it, Willis, stop keeping your best characters under lock and key.

        2. Cerberus

          So excited for Jocelyne. So not excited* for how badly Joyce is going to be put through the meat shredder of emotions this trip.

          *well, okay, excited and interested, but not so much looking forward in the sense that they’ll probably be wonderfully brutal to read.

        3. Emily

          This is probably gonna be Joyce’s “Trans people exist” arc now that we’ve largely capped off her “Non-straight people exist” arc.

        4. Cerberus

          Carla will be her “non-straight trans people exist” arc.

        5. Emily

          So has Willis confirmed Carla as ace? I believe he said that sexualities carried over but I’m not certain.

        6. Spencer

          That is indeed the case.

        7. Captain Button

          But when will Joyce realize the logical extensions to “There’s Dude Smut?

          When she looks into the browser history on her phone?

        8. Reltzik

          Probably safest for them that way.

        9. BenRG

          Almost certainly in the next chapter, which I suspect will be Willis’s artistic exorcism of the emotional effects of his estrangement from his parents.

  32. gonegirl

    awwwwwwwwwww

  33. Plume

    That’s right, apple stores are made entirely our of glass as well

    1. Plume

      *out of

    2. Reltzik

      Nonono. That’s Google Glass, and it’s not so much for sale as a collector’s item.

  34. Makkabee

    But Daddy, these are PCs…

    1. That One Guy

      “Back in my day, you had to go downstairs and INVENT THE PC!”

  35. Bagge

    Worried-faces-family reunion time.

  36. Fuddrucker's

    Where’s Becky?

  37. Uniqueantique

    I’m not at all on the Fundamentalists side in any case whatsoever.

    However, I don’t think Joyce’s dad should be on the shit-list of horrible Dad’s because he prayed ‘at Dorothy, when finding out she was an atheist’. Rude yes, horrible no, because his kind do not know any better.

    Not so much a way to embarrass Dorothy, because he doesn’t care about Dorothy, more a sort of primitive ritual of protection against her kind. Imo.

    1. Spencer

      I’d argue that treating people different than you as horrible abominations kind of puts you in the running for being a shit heel regardless of the reasoning.

      Hank is in 50s and has lived a long life filled with all kinds of people, but Joyce is just now leaving the bubble and faces up to the truth.

    2. Cerberus

      Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be adding to the awful before the weekend is through.

      1. ischemgeek

        Joyce’s dad strikes me as being similar to my dad: Likes to act all nice and friendly and put on a show of being “the fun parent,” buuuut enables the other parent’s shitty behavior and definitely has his own issues, he’s just better at covering them up.

        Literally everyone who meets my parents gets the vibe off my mother that she hates me. Like, even people who I’ve never talked about my family shit to (I’m way more open about it online than I am in meatspace for reasons that basically amount to “Nobody cares how your folks treated you, but god help you if you breathe a whiff of criticism in their general direction”) will say something like, “Soooo. Your mom, eh? Yeeeesh. I see why you don’t go home much” or, “Is she… in a bad mood or something? She just seems like she really doesn’t want to be here.” or whatever after they meet her. Nobody gets the vibe off my father that he’s emotionally and physically abusive whenever he loses his temper and his favorite tactic was to threaten to abandon me whenever I annoyed him too much. At least in my experience, the “nice” parent in an abusive dynamic is the one you need to be most wary of. The “nasty” one is at least predictable in their nastiness so you can plan for it and take steps to neutralize it.

        1. Kryss LaBryn

          That is a sucky realization to have to have made. I’m sorry. 🙁 Internet hugs if you want them.

        2. Emily

          Nothing infuriates me more than people ignorantly spouting off about how much your parent’s love you and how much they deserve your respect when you mention anything remotely negative about them. Not everyone has GOOD parents please stop condemning the children of bad ones for not appreciating them.

        3. ischemgeek

          Yeahthis.

          Cuz fact is, especially if someone is a friend you made in adulthood, they have a good 20 years in relationship knowledge and experience on you when dealing with the parent in question. Person might seem like a nice guy. Might even be a nice guy now (my dad has mellowed a lot in the past 5 years and my relationship with him has improved substantially as a result), but you have no idea what they’re like behind closed doors, or what they were like 10 or 20 years ago.

        4. Emily

          Like I get the impulse to like try to “fix” things and make you one big happy family again because they don’t come from a dysfunctional family so they can’t really grasp any other dynamic but that just isn’t an option sometimes. Sometimes a bridge needs to stay burned because the person on the other end is a toxic abuser.

        5. Cerberus

          Yeah. And the enabler, even when not abusive in their own right is so good at making you feel completely abandoned and alone.

        6. Emily

          Which is in fact abuse in its own right. Neglect is just a passive form of abuse.

    3. Shiro

      Treating someone in a negative way because of their religion, or lack thereof, makes you a pretty unpleasant person.

      (Exception: unless that religious conviction is causing them to treat you negatively first, then they started it.)

      (I hope that makes sense, cold making me loopy.)

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Makes sense to me, grammatically and conceptually.
        I strongly agree.

      2. Reltzik

        A negative for a negative makes the entire world….

        …. uh…

        … negated?

        *paraphrase fail*

        1. Spencer

          A negative for a negative makes the whole word positive.

          wait no

        2. Harvey Janus

          A negative for a negative makes the whole world asshole parents?

        3. Cephalo the Pod

          Only if you were to multiply. But negative actions don’t, they just add down.

    4. Jason

      I’m sorry, but not knowing any better doesn’t make a person’s actions horrible. It means they deserve sympathy and we should understand (but we should try to understand most of our fellow humans.)
      A person who does great damage through ignorance is still doing great damage. And- speaking very much from experience- a parent who does great damage to their offspring, or deprives them of the tools to live healthy lives, is a BAD parent. Intent and understanding affect how bad they are as a person, but not so much how bad they are as a parent.

      1. Jason

        “not knowing any better doesn’t make a person’s actions NOT horrible”.

        Insommmmniaaaa.

      2. Psychotic Mantis

        This is the same point I tried to make a few strips back, but under different circumstances. Even if someone is doing bad things or has malicious intent, I think we should at least try to understand why they’re like that. Understanding and sympathy, even in small doses, are the best ways to solve conflicts and disagreements. Not through anger and hate.

    5. thejeff

      He didn’t “pray at Dorothy”. He told Joyce she should stay away from Dorothy. Then they prayed over the question.
      Not an attempt to embarrass Dorothy. Not a “primitive ritual of protection against her kind”. An attempt to influence Joyce to stay away from her.

      1. Emily

        Yeah it was a super passive-aggressive attempt to manipulate and guilt her into doing what he wanted.

        1. thejeff

          I’d thought so to, but he was also the one to back down and accept it later.
          Her mother actually says very little in either of those confrontations, though she reacts a little more badly to Dorothy both times.
          I suspect we’re going to see a lot more of Brown family dynamics and get some surprises in this storyline.

          After rereading those, I want to learn more about Jordan: “You take more after your brother Jordan than I thought. He and your mother and I don’t always see eye to eye, but he’s still a good kid.”
          Very curious what that was about. Are any of the Brown kids actually the good little god-fearing Christians their parents wanted?

        2. Spencer

          Maybe Johnathan, their oldest, but then I doubt it. Living in that environment can easily cause you to chafe under it and start asking questions. Jocelyne’s line about how she’s the favourite because they know the least about her implies that Johnathan has also rebelled at some point, but to a lesser degree.

        3. BenRG

          It also implies a family where the children are expected to be obedient and conforming cardboard cut-outs that don’t have any desires, interests or thoughts that are not those demanded of them by their parents. Since that’s impossible, one after the other, the Browns have fallen out with their children.

        4. zoelogical

          my guess is that jordan’s the one who’s acceptably rebellious.

        5. Spencer

          The implication I got was that Jordan harshly rebelled against his parents, but they at least try to see it as him still being a good kid, just “too Jordan”, much like how Joyce rebelled against her parents to protect Dorothy.

        6. Leorale

          At the moment, they think Jocelyn is their good little god-fearing Christian child, precisely because they know the least about her. Also they think that about Joyce. I’d like them to be corrected.

  38. Arianod

    “What do students even need computers for? Seriously!”

    1. Reltzik

      How else are they going to download term papers?

  39. Uniqueantique

    What do we even need Apples for?

    1. Captain Button

      Without them we’d be stuck naked in the Garden of Eden, duh!

      1. Uniqueantique

        lol. yeah.

    2. Willoughby Chase

      Polar bears

    3. BenRG

      To let people who hate Microsoft feel superior without needing to learn the technical skills to make Linux remotely accessible to them.

  40. LimeSheep

    god dang old people

  41. Uniqueantique

    Buy the best non Apple anything computer you can afford, with space for expansion. Then run it for 10 years.

    I’m an online gamer, mine is 8 years old and running beta mmolrpg’s. I’ve upped the ram, rupgraded the video card twice, and several keyboards and mouses -mice? (I’m rough on kybds and mice) I get excited when raiding :).

    Buy an Apple and replace it every year to keep up with the color scheme.
    Along with your Ipod, Ipad, and IPhone. Not to mention 3k download apps at $1.99 apiece.

    Then wonder why you can’t afford to eat 🙂

    1. Disloyal Subject

      Eating well on no budget is a valuable college skill. Lots of bakeries are happy to give away their leftover bread every week rather than throw it out, and getting nutritional food to round out the diet cheaply is doable.

      1. Rukduk

        One word: potatoes. A person can subsist entirely on potatoes. My people did it for a century and half before that damn potatoe blight caused a mass famine. Still, completely possible, and decently cheap.

        1. Kryss LaBryn

          I lived solely on rice with salt, pepper, and soya sauce for months at a time in my first year of college, with only re-used (up to five times, carefully dried out between) tea bags with a little powdered milk and a very little sugar to supplement, my first year of college.

          Don’t ever do that. The long-term health effects are decidedly negative.

        2. zoelogical

          that is horrifying. wow. speaks to your endurance, though.

        3. Harvey Janus

          Milk is needed with potatoes to get a couple things potatoes don’t have, also you have to eat the skin of the potato to get most of the nutrients

        4. Uncertainty Moth

          I can see you, Dan Quayle.

        5. Disloyal Subject

          They’re my people too. I could gladly live on potatoes and milk indefinitely, but hey, free bread. Carrots and broccoli are fantastic steamed in ramen, cheddar melted into rice is good, and the things one can do with a little beef, flour, milk, and a pile of free bread…

    2. Commodore Jeep-Eep

      That’s been my method – help by the fact that until recently, the old gen of console slowed advancement down.

    3. ninja_jesus

      Yeah, my parents have an old Apple laptop and they think it can still run perfectly fine despite the OS being completely out of date for the latest flash player and security updates. They’re just planning to run that laptop until it doesn’t run anymore. Meanwhile, I’ve only got two replacements over the last 10 years, for cheaper than what it would cost to replace their laptop.

      1. Willoughby Chase

        It’s a way of dealing with technology.

        I like to think I get the most usage out of kit. All my cars have been repaired until they’re no longer worthwhile and they end up at the scrappy. To me it makes more sense than buying a new one every year.

    4. Willoughby Chase

      Gamers are just as bad – if not worse – than Apple freaks when it comes to buying games, in-app purchases, special screens, gaming rigs, head-sets etc etc.

      There’s a good reason that Games make more money than movies these days.

      MacBook Pros always had good specs – mine burnt-out after 10 years and I only updated the hard-drive once. My girlfriend otoh went through 3 lap-tops.

      I now own a Toshiba Satellite retooled for Linux. It does the job.

      1. JQuire

        I bought my MacBook Pro in 2009 after I had to put in my third $400-$500 repair on a PC. Because I was in law school I got Apple’s student discount. It’s running strong, and the only cash I’ve *had* to put in was a result of my own negligence (cracked the screen). It still runs as well as it did at the outset AND got the free upgrade to El Capitan, so my color scheme is on point 😉

        1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          You shouldn’t be seeing that kind of costs on a PC if you’re buying from the decent companies. Although, to be fair, they swap around occasionally.

        2. JQuire

          This was a company that had a fine reputation, but was later served with a class action suit for the *exact* problem I was having.

  42. A5PECT

    Mr. Brown is graying awfully fast. (Pun not intended, but I regret nothing.) Compare his hair color here to its color in the second strip.

    1. Chronos

      Grey, nothing. He was practically grey at the start of the comic. Six weeks later and his hair’s gone completely white. I’ve heard of stress fading the color in your hair, but that’s extraordinary.

      1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

        I suspect he dyes it, but forgot this time.

      2. Russian In Disguise

        Stress can really fade color of your hair. My friend became little bit grey in hair color after his father’s death. But it can be also natural hair color, my uncles are grey from birth, it’s look very unusual (especially in 20 years, lol)
        BTW, maybe he graying after that whole incident with Toedad and gun?

        1. Captain Button

          Or maybe it is just being alone with his wife, who no longer has kids to hassle?

        2. Spencer

          IF WV!Carol is any indication, she’s moved onto bugging her oldest for grandkids.

          *sigh*

          I miss when those two were just kinky weirdos.

  43. motorfirebox

    My workdesk is an Apple store! Weird, you’d think I’d own some Apple products…

    1. IRL Name TBD

      Weird. I guess I live in an Apple store…

      Wait… why do they all run Windows?

      1. Wizard

        Bootcamp?

  44. IRL Name TBD

    And so begins what I expect will be another uncomfortable arc! Woo!

    But no seriously, I’m really worried about Joyce.

  45. BenRG

    HANK: “I remember when we used to actually sign our names in a book when entering and leaving rather than use a four-digit PIN code!”

  46. Snowmon89

    Wow, four panels in and he’s already now my favorite character…

    1. Lord Stoneheart

      Click the Hank tag. He’s been around before. He may not remain your favorite character when you see some of the stuff he’s said and done.

      1. Snowmon89

        Yeah, Christianity in their universe is real messed up. But I can see where he’s coming from, sort of. I mean I don’t have kids myself, but my mother was the same way for a little while. (Look up empty next syndrome.) And from what I remember he’s better than his wife, but that’s only because of the poor choice of words mix in with very recent event involving the Crazy Man with a Shotgun. Don’t let stereotypes (especially in a comic strip) influence your feelings and distort your judgment of others.

        Point was those Goshdanged Apple Stores anyway.

        1. Emily

          Willis has made it pretty clear that the religious views he’s portraying here are from his own background in a fundamentalist community and not comical exaggeration.

        2. Amazi-Stool

          Wait, what religious views is he portraying here?

          Oh, you mean the hatred for Apple products!
          Yes, there is a pretty much fundamentalist group sharing that feels!

        3. whygrainnewhy

          its a lot like christianity in our universe in that respect

        4. Lord Stoneheart

          Uh, okay then. We have very different interpretations on what empty nest syndrome entails. And what Willis means when he says that Joyce’s background is based on his own. (I think he might have an idea of the kind of Christianity the Brown’s practice). And exactly what point Joyce’s mom was making in her last phone call to her.

  47. Lordess of Madness

    Joyce’s dad, sounds kinda anti-apple

    1. Trolldrool

      It does promote blind obedience in a product that isn’t the Bible.

    2. That One Guy

      Well his dream is to probably see the Garden of Eden, but Adam and Eve JUST HAD TO EAT THAT APPLE!

  48. Tenzhi

    Does Joyce’s expression seem less brooding than it’s been for awhile to anyone else?

  49. That One Guy

    Enjoy the calm before the matterscrewing storm, you gaddanged piece of poops!

    1. squanchy

      I know a guy who climbed the Matterscrewing. He went on a sunny day, though.

  50. thejeff

    So I guess that answers the question. No Becky. Not going home with Joyce.

    Probably reduces the fireworks, but also leaves Joyce more isolated. And the fireworks will come anyway.

    1. Emily

      Does it? It seems pretty OOC for her to let Joyce walk into the viper’s nest that is her family home without backup.

      1. BenRG

        A lot depends if there has been an ‘off-camera’ discussion between the characters in this matter. They may have agreed that Becky’s presence would make things worse or Becky may have declined because she wouldn’t feel safe in the hometown (a place full of her father’s associates who might wish to carry on his ‘good work’)

        1. Emily

          Earlier Becky expressed a desire to accompany Joyce and made it pretty clear she’s 100% willing to. Unless Joyce refused off-panel there’s not really a reason for her not to come.

        2. Random832

          Also a place where there’s a house with her social security card hidden somewhere inside.

    2. showler

      Pretty sure Becky is going home with Joyce. I think this strip indicates that Joyce hasn’t told her dad that Becky is coming home with them yet.

      1. thejeff

        I’d expected it, but she’s walking down there alone. And she’s got her bag, so she’s not going back up to the room.
        It could be a fake-out, for her dad and us, but I’m not betting on it. That said, if her dad doesn’t ask about Becky, that’s a really bad sign.

    3. Cephalo the Pod

      But why did Becky put a bunch of her clothes in a bag?

      1. Will

        Pretty sure those were Joyce’s clothes.

      2. Trolldrool

        It’s based on the idea that if your parents washed your clothes when you lived with them, they’ll still wash them if you ‘accidentally’ leave them on the bathroom floor. For people too lazy to learn how to wash their own clothes.

        1. Kitty

          No it isn’t. Becky said Joyce should wash her clothes at home because it doesn’t cost money, unlike the dorm washing machines.

  51. Bawkbagawk

    Her dad seems like a perfectly charming… time traveler from the 1850’s.

  52. Crumplepunch

    I feel old, I thought they were selling fruit.

  53. Renee J

    I hope Joyce doesn’t get trapped at home.

  54. zmm

    She didn’t hug back.

    1. thejeff

      No, but she does look happy there. It won’t last, but it’s a nice feeling for the moment.

  55. Willoughby Chase

    “Still my little girl.”

    “Y-Yeah.”

    Ach, with the lying already? The mother of all shit-storms is a-brewing.

    1. Rheios

      Well its not really a lie. She still IS his daughter which automatically assigns her “his little girl” status. That being said the ‘haven’t changed a bit’ here, while seeming a bit heavy handed, does get her to respond (if even non-committedly) with a lie.

  56. Sabrina

    Holy shit, it looks like Hank lost weight and his hair turned totally white… hope he is okay?

    1. Spencer

      Probably just art evolution. We haven’t seen Hank since 2013.

      1. Sabrina

        I feel like this is conscious design rather than art inconsistency, since Willis is such a great, consistent cartoonist.

        1. chris73

          You’re not thinking cancer are you? That would make things…interesting from a crisis of faith point of view

  57. Gareth

    One day I hope to embarrass my future children enough to make them say things like that. I shall consider it my right as a father.

  58. Edupoet81

    Heh, he thinks she hasn’t changed. Let’s see how long he gets to believe that.

  59. Just Me

    Just nice to see a father who isn’t trying to kill, enslave or destroy his children for once.

    1. Captain Button

      “All the better to brainwash you with, my dear.”

    2. Shiro

      Well…depending on your definition of destroy…

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