222

Formidable
Posted on February 16, 2021 by David M Willis

222 thoughts on “Formidable”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Shades of “What would you know about the transmission of a deadly plague??? Have you even *read* The Stand??” — said to Stephen King

    1. Clif

      Everytime Willis says something about one of the characters I’m tempted to ask, “how would you know?”

  2. Spencer

    If Lucy were a *real* comic fan she’d know that liking Teen Titans Go! is equivalent to at least two of the seven deadly sins.

    1. Doctor_Who

      It makes sense for her age, though.

      SP!Lucy was a fan of the Teen Titans cartoon, then disappointed when the comics version of Starfire was going through her…problematic phase.

      This Lucy was probably born around 2002-2003. That means she would have been 3-4 when that show ended, so it makes sense she grew up with Go instead.

      1. Tan

        I look forward to a couple more years when the sliding timescale can have her growing up as a DC Super Hero Girls fan (available on Netflix, strong recommend)

        1. Tan

          Okay, I should add a disclaimer: Strong recommend unless you are a purist. If you are a purist, you are likely to hate what they’ve done with a number of the characters. BUT. There is a genuine underlying love for the roots of the characters as well. Proceed at your own discretion.

        2. Kim

          It’s -so- good!
          The animation is superb, and the takes on many of the characters are great (Lois Lane, Pam Isley, and Dexter the cat are all just perfect ^^)

        3. showler

          Honestly? My definitive version of Hal Jordan now.

        4. Tan

          I just saw the episode with Dexter the other night! I was like “Wait is that..?” and then it -was- and it was amazing.

          Also it’s sometimes a little shocking to me just how much I love Babs (especially when it comes to Harley) considering I really like For Realsies Comics Babs, and this… Is not. So incredibly not. But is also amazing.

        5. Kim

          OOOH! Babs is amAzing! I love her so much! Such an energeyic, joyful, problem-solver. And the voice acting is So on point for her! (As are many!)

        6. Psychie

          I agree, it’s great! My only complaint is that Wonder Woman is the same age as the others, like Batgirl, Supergirl, Zatanna, Jessica Cruz (man, there really needs to be a way to distinguish the green lanterns besides their civilian identities and physical descriptions), and bumblebee all fall into the same generation of heroes, but Wonder Woman is in the previous generation.

          If I had my druthers she’d be a teacher at the school, and possibly, like, a faculty advisor for a club that all the others are in, so they have a built in excuse when someone like Lois Lane gets a bit too close to the truth. It isn’t a huge issue, and the rest of the series is great enough to live with, but it always sucks when one comes up with an idea that they think would have worked better than what the creators did.

        7. thejeff

          Conceptually that’s true kind of true, but given that Batgirl, Supergirl and Zatanna all date back to the 60s, it’s really hard to put them in a different “generation” than Wonder Woman but the same one as Jessica Cruz.

        8. Showler

          Diana’s kind of hard to categorize. She’s probably hundreds of years old in any incarnation, so the difference seems to be how much experience with “man’s world” she has.

    2. Sterling Axel

      actually no teen titans go is fine actually

      1. George W Harris

        Once you see the episode where Starfire becomes Robin’s nemesis and blows up the moon, how can you not love it?

    3. Alongcameaspider

      Teen Titans Go isn’t that bad, like 90% of the hate is cause its not the original Teen Titans

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        I have to admit I wasn’t excited about TTG because of my love for the original Titans show. However I did try to give it a fair chance, and I just found it lacking, not awful but not really enjoyable either.

        1. Doctor_Who

          I’ve only seen a few clips of it, but any show that made this casting decision for Darkseid can’t be all bad.

        2. Demoted Oblivious

          That was spectacular! Thank you for sharing.

      2. Nono

        Yes and no? It definitely played a part, but while I agree that TTG had some genuinely smart and subversive writing, it also leaned too much into the ‘wacky zany adventures’ for me. I didn’t care about Beast Boy calling Raven ‘mama’ for over half the episodes, but replace both with OC characters and I probably wouldn’t care for it either.

        I’m fine with a not-Teen Titans series, but the style of the show wasn’t my plate anyway.

        1. He Who Abides

          And that last sentence sums up my feelings about the Winx Club live-action series. Well, the first half, at any rate.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          The what, now?

        3. He Who Abides

          Live-action Winx Club series, made in the vein of Riverdale, on Netflix. I only made it through one episode, because it’s the Winx equivalent of those god-awful Michael Bay Transformers movies AT BEST.

      3. Mr D

        I have a nine year old brother, I can see his TV from my room.
        The hate is completely deserved.
        (And while I did chuckle at the oregon trail parody episode, it was a complete miss for my brother because that shit is Oooooooooold)

        1. Yotomoe

          TTG makes a LOT of references that’d go over kids heads. Oregon trail, A-team, The Golden Girls, Star Trek, Giligan’s island and that’s just off the top of my head. I know cartoons always had deep cut jokes for older audiences but Teen Titans Go is full to the brim with them.

      4. a/snow/mous/e

        i don’t understand why they made them chibi but i’ve never seen Go, so i’ll withhold judgment.
        actually i read a little bit about it on wikipedia or something and it seems okay probably. it’s still got raven being tsundere so that’s something.

      5. Spencer

        I don’t really engage with it or the discourse surrounding it, Teen Titans was just a show I watched as a kid so eh, not to mention the 03 show itself was derided by the old school diehards for not looking like the Wolfman/Perez comics which, like, yeah of course. Perez made his Teen Titans look like they were 35. Superheroes like a lot of long running media are more of a likeness than hard coded characters and can get changed and adapted with time, and right now the new hotness the last few years is high speed comedy shows.

        My only real takeaway is that every time I ever seem to hear a thing it’s doing another episode lampooning its critics which, like, I think there comes a point where doing it enough just makes your work come off as insecure and I’ve never been a fan of an author going off at their critics in-story, plus I haven’t actively gone out of my way to look this up for myself since the Young Justice episode.

        1. BBCC

          I don’t mind TTG, but I refuse to watch it’s critic episodes. It’s one thing to write for young children, it’s another to behave like them at work.

        2. Spencer

          Yeah like, the show is mad popular and been running since 2013. If there was any war to be had between the creative team and the hordes of angry TT03 boomers, I think the dust has settled and the victor crowned.

      6. Jenn

        I think 90% of the hate is because Teen Titans Go! targets a very different audience from ots predecessor. The previous Teen Titans was silly a lot, but it was also fairly serious and sometimes pretty dark. It had meaningful plots and storylines. I’d argue it was aimed at a more teenage, high school or older audience.

        Teen Titans Go! on the other hand seems squarely aimed at elementary school kids. It’s almost exclusively exaggerated silliness/randomness of the sort very young children enjoy, with little in the way of substantial plot, and that kind of entertainment is pretty grinding on the kinds of people who were fans of its predecessor. Hence the hate and lamentation that Go! “ruined the series.”

        1. He Who Abides

          At least TTG is a separate series from its predecessor. Nothing worse than a series dumbing itself down in the middle of said series.

        2. Needfuldoer

          Didn’t they try to capture lightning in a bottle twice by throwing the same strategy at Thundercats/i> (of all things)?

        3. Twitcher

          Some of the writers of TTGo tried to make magic happen again with Thundercats Roar, but it’s been long enough from the reboot and the original series that no one was going to care about these characters without a buildup of backstory that the writers immediately glossed over in favor of banking on the slim hope that 40 to 45 year olds would be wearing nostalgia goggles.

        4. Needfuldoer

          It was probably an attempt to get kids to watch it by targeting their Gen X parents. Because as we all know, nothing is cooler to kids than the things their parents tell them are cool.

          They should’ve just stuck it out with the much better reboot they came up with a few years earlier.

        5. Josie

          Gen x parents are too old for the original. I’m an older millennial and I was applying to college when this series started. IMDb says the original aired from 2003-2006 and the newer one came out in 2013. 10 years difference is definitely not intergenerational

        6. Needfuldoer

          [ThunderCats Roar] was probably an attempt to get kids to watch [a cheap hastily thrown together cash-in] by targeting their Gen X parents [who watched the original ThunderCats (1985) as children in the 80s].

          Sorry, should’ve been clearer.

      7. Reaver

        Most of the hate is due to the creators being whiney little babies and making whiney episodes whining about how people dont get that their show is now for babies.

      8. Vukodlak

        I’d have been fine with Go! if they didn’t exactly copy the roaster from TT animated series. Lots of heroes have been members of the Titans they only copied the original cartoon’s line up to try and attract its audience.

      9. Josh Spicer

        There are episodes here and there that are actually solid episodes. The movie is also great and stands really well on it’s own.

        That’s the extent of the praise I choose to give the show.

      10. Kavonde

        I dunno about 90% of the hate; some of us hate it because it replaced Young Justice. Even though YJ eventually came back, the pain lingers.

      11. Needfuldoer

        I thought the early 2000s Teen Titans was okay, but I was already on the older end of its target demo by then and I never read the comics.

        TTG was nowhere near my radar until I heard about how angry it was making hardcore fans of its predecessor. I watched a few clips, and it’s not my thing. It’s a gatling gun of “omg lol wacky so random” humor that doesn’t give any of its jokes enough time to land before firing the next one. That’s never been my thing anyway, and early 2000s Newgrounds gave me more than my fill of it.

        I’m also not a huge fan of the jellybean-head blob art style that’s become so prevalent, so take that as you may.

    4. Yotomoe

      TTG had a fine first season. But the issue is at some point they became aware of all the negative reception they were getting and like…doubled down on it. Like there’s an episode where Control Freak criticizes them for laziness and their potty humor but at that point TTG did not really have much in the way of potty humor. But now TTG makes those kinds of jokes nonstop. It almost feels like it is DEFIANTLY trying to lean into all of the negative shit people said about it. And that makes it really frustrating because every now and again they have a fun episode.

      1. Andy

        Body humor is definitely my least favorite type (well, maybe that and the type where someone just keeps putting their foot in their mouth for laughs…secondhand embarrassment is strong with me), and I don’t like how TTG has so much of it. The same is true of the Total Drama shows. I don’t know if the newest one does as well, but I’d imagine so. It really is a shame, because both shows can be fairly funny without that.

        1. Yotomoe

          Total Drama Rama is another can of worms. They had finally had another good reality show season before they decided to abandon that gimmick forever. But to go from that direction into a Total Drama babies type show is an annoying direction. Why not a Total Drama high school? Total Drama College. Can we stop making baby versions of shows? 9/10 they’re not good and people don’t care for them.

        2. He Who Abides

          I’d’ve gone for a superhero version of TDI over Drama Rama.

    5. Stifyn Baker

      I hated TTG, mainly because (a) I was a fan of the original TT, and (b) I was born in 1970, and I am SO not the target audience for TTG. But my children enjoyed it, so I did continue to watch.
      Then ‘TTG to the Movies’ came out, and with it the best cameo Stan Lee ever did in any movie…

    6. JediMB

      To me it’s kinda funny to see Teen Titans fans complaining about TTG because I, personally, tried to get into the former show back in… 2012?

      I just couldn’t, because it felt like the show was packed with the most annoying kids’ anime tropes.

      I dropped it almost immediately and gave Avatar: The Last C Airbender a try instead. Loved it, finished it, jumped straight into Korra, and caught up just in time for the season 1 finale.

    7. Anon A Mouse

      I’ve seen a couple episodes but one stuck out. Everyone was “pranking” each other, and it was escalating into physical, if cartoony, violence very quickly. Then they had a joke where come up to Robin and say “Hey, we found your parents, they’re in that room!” and they had stuck tape all over the room. When they shout April Fools Robin comments it’s a good prank while crying. I decided to stop watching any more of that show.

    8. Cyntalan

      That, and it spent way too much time on going “neener, neener, we’re not Teen Titans, nerds!” That sure added to the ire.

      Real talk, though, if you take the Teen Titans veneer off it, it just reeks of stereotypical ADD-riddled horseshit cartoon that pervades today’s market. Something that you slap your kid in front of to shut them up for half an hour as they slowly lose brain cells to it. Ignoring the TT franchise on it, it’s still proof of cartoons dying after Tartakovsky gave it one last go. A shame, really.

      1. Nono

        It’s a late response, but I don’t think that it’s indicative of cartoons now.

        There was a lot of that style of cartoons in that era, like TTG, Clarence, etc. But the last several years have been more exemplified by things like Steven Universe or She-Ra.

    9. Roborat

      Really, I like it. I find it very funny.

  3. Suet

    Formidable? Formi-nah-ble.

    Now I wonder if the motive behind all the cartoonists (including Willis) to draw is coz of Walky’s last line

  4. Thag Simmons

    Okay but liking comics doesn’t mean you know how to make comics, although one does tend to follow the other

    1. SuperZero

      Especially since newspaper strips and comic books are very different anyway.

      1. Needfuldoer

        A comic book version of Newspaper Spider-Man could be a fun hate-read.

  5. TemplarKnight

    But, I thought she wasn’t a comics fan, just a cartoon fan?

    1. Spencer

      Eh, if you know a superhero comic character these days it’s because of another medium.

      All the fun of X-Men without having to spend $5 so Fabian Nicieza can return after 26 to write his origin story for Adam X the X-Treme, the third Summers brother.

      1. Jeff K!

        I would be absolutely giddy to pay $5 for Fabian Nicieza to return and write his origin story for Adam X the X-Treme, the third Summers brother!

        I picked up Nicieza’s “Adam is trapped in a blizzard with Scott’s grandfather” issue in a quarter bin, and it’s such a deep and heartwarming story about a guy who can set your blood on fire that I really wish he’d had more time to explore the character.

        Adam X gets a lot of flak, but for the roughly five issues he was taken seriously, he was a pretty good character.

        1. Spencer

          Congratulations, Jeff, I now pronounce you the world’s biggest fan of Adam X the X-Treme, and you will be pleased to know I didn’t make that up: it comes out this Wednesday.

        2. Dark

          I was legit hoping you were joking about that character…

          My gods, he looks like such a fuckin’ nobhead.

        3. Spencer

          Knives on his shoulders, baby!

          He does it because if he cuts you then his powers let him set your blood on fire!

        4. Regalli

          I love him, the way one loves your baby cousin going through their Tweenage Hot Topic Phase. He’s so hilariously over the top edgelord it ends up being adorable.

          Also because the first panel I ever saw of him was the one from Fear Itself where Cyclops is throwing everything at supernaturally-empowered Juggernaut and Adam’s just standing there cursing out a giant, unstoppable, NOW BURNING Juggernaut as a caption box reads ‘result: worse than ineffective.’ That’s a fun sequence.

        5. Spencer

          He’s such a perfect encapsulation of how comics were at the time.

          A design that aged like milk in like two years. You could put him into Kingdom Come instead of Magog and get the exact same result.

          Mysterious Past that makes him incredibly important to one of the central figures of X-Men, like this isn’t literally Cable’s thing, that then went completely forgotten.

          Stupidly over the top power. Sorry, grandpa, I don’t have teleportation or can turn into metal, I can set your blood on fire if I expose it! And that’s why I wear knives all over my body!

          The name. X-Men was always doomed to this when “extreme” became synonymous with “cool”, but they didn’t have to go so hard. You could unironically call him Bloodfire, because he set your blood on fire, and it would achieve a more sensible result.

          Adam X the X-Treme is a beautiful little time capsule of a much more outrageous period in comics history, and I cherish him like my own son.

        6. Thag Simmons

          X-men can be delightfully silly sometimes

        7. Pivitor

          Then you should pick up X-Men Legends 1, in store this Wednesday the 17th, cause it sure as hell looks like “Fabian Nicieza returning and writing his origin story for Adam X the X-Treme, the third Summers brother!” is EXACTLY what this series is going to be

      2. BBCC

        Speak for yourself. 😛

      3. thejeff

        I’d ask how he could be the third Summers brother when there’s already a third Summers brother, but that family tree already has knots in it, so I won’t bother.

        1. Spencer

          Adam X was intended to be the third Summers brother by Nicieza in 1993 but never got around to it before leaving the X-books in 1995. Later in 2006 Ed Brubaker introduced Vulcan and *breathes in* he’s the biological brother of Cyclops and Havok that their mom was pregnant with at the time they were abducted by aliens, raised in a container, then broke free and got to Earth where he joined Xavier for the mission to Krakoa that ended up with everyone dead, so Xavier mindwiped all the knowledge of Vulcan and his team from everyone and made the now famous X-Men team with Wolverine and Storm to save the O5 X-Men from Krakoa. Years later Vulcan gets revived and then becomes the ruler of the Shi’Ar Empire.

          Technically speaking, Adam X is still a Summers brother because his mom couldn’t be anyone but Cyclops’ mom. He’s the son of Emperor D’Ken and he’s half human, and Katherine Summers was the only human in Shi’Ar space at the time.

        2. thejeff

          “known human”. Always possible to retcon in someone else. After all, all the Summers relatives are retcons – even Havok.

          But yeah, that’s the theory. Relatively simple as that family tree goes.

        3. He Who Abides

          “Known human woman”. Corsair (Cyclops’ dad) was also there.

        4. thejeff

          Right. Though as far as we know he didn’t have sex with D’ken.

          Wasn’t raped by, more accurately. At least according to the early versions. Damned if I know the details of the retcon that might lead to Adam X. Katherine Summers must have survived longer than was implied way back when.

  6. Kyrik Michalowski

    Walky your obliviousness will one day kill you, and if I am wrong may god/the devil/flying spaghetti monster/willis/etc. strike me with lightning.

    Also for the first time I am excited about Lucy being involves because I want to see how their comic tuens out. What are the odds this ends in tears?

    1. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

      Their comic together is about a guy who is completely oblivious that a girl likes him. Walky starts making comments about how absurd the punchlines are, but he remains oblivious to Lucy’s much-more-obvious advances.

      1. Opus the Poet

        That sounds like a comic I would read.

      2. Keulen

        Now I want this to actually happen.

    2. Jhon

      I want their comic to be about NightGirl. And Daisy will insist on a chest window.

  7. King Daniel

    Lucy is just not letting up, huh

    1. King Daniel

      Today’s grav gives my comment an entirely different – and unintended – tone.

  8. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    Lucy’s going to end up pulling all the weight when Walky loses focus, isn’t she.

    1. Jane

      I can’t help but feel like that would be the best (or at least, most amusing) outcome. Particularly if Lucy ends up becoming surprisingly successful and makes a real career out of it, after Walky drifts away from the project only a week in.

      …Though, I guess the payoff there wouldn’t be for several real-life years, so… By that point, it’d be kind of a brick joke, wouldn’t it.

      1. Jane

        Three years later…

        Walky: (To Lucy) So what are you you going to do after graduation?

        Lucy: Well, the movie should be releasing that year, so I guess I’ll be working on merchandising?

        Walky: …Merchandising?

        Lucy: Yeah, for A Girl And Her Crush.

        Walky: (confused) …That comic I made when we were freshman?

        Lucy: That comic that we made, which became a viral hit that lead to a hit TV series and a movie deal? It’s huge. The only reason that I’m still a student here is because the university owns the IP.

        Walky: (bewildered) It did what?

        Lucy: Do you not, like, look around at all? It’s all over the school! You get a check for royalties every month!

        Walky: I thought that was from my parents…

        1. milu

          Walky: “hey wait up, wanna have a pizza?”
          Lucy: “depends, you got a DeLorean?”

  9. Mikey

    Okay, but to be fair, those posters are of TV cartoons. Dexter & Monkey Master and Teen Titans are not comics, possible comic book spinoffs notwithstanding. (That’s clearly the TV version and not the comics version of Starfire.)

    And yeah, obviously comics and TV cartoons require a lot of similar skills, but they’re still different media and are created differently. And being a fan of one doesn’t mean you’re a fan of the other. Once, I bought a graphic novel for a friend of mine who’s super into TV cartoons, and she said that it was her first graphic novel ever.

    (The GN in question was Rat Queens 1, for those who wonder.)

    1. BBCC

      Dexter and Monkey Master originated as a comic book and there doesn’t seem to be much visual difference between the two, so I dunno why we’re assuming that’s a tv poster. Teen Titans and Star Wars both have comics as well. It’s true that being a fan of those things doesn’t necessarily equal comics fan but all three together at poster owning level? It’s a safe bet.

      1. Mikey

        I did not know that Dexter and Monkey Master was a comic book first. If so, yeah, that might be a comics poster.

        I’d disagree about Star Wars, though. That’s mainly a movie franchise, and AFAIK most people who’ve watched all the movies have never read a Star Wars comic book. Partly because it’s so much easier to get your hands on the movies.

        1. BBCC

          Yeah, I’d agree, but in conjunction with Teen Titans and Dexter and Monkey Master, it’s more likely she’s a comics fan.

    2. egg egg

      Okay, I’m going to pop a lot of people’s bubbles here:

      Teen Titans GO was a comic before the cartoon of TTG on CN ever came out. The first one was released in 2004. It had 55 issues. These were pretty easy to get your hands on.

      Please stop perpetuating the false narrative that Teen Titans GO is only a cartoon when the name itself literally came from the comic it was based on.

      Today’s comment would be perfect with a Ethan gravatar.

      1. BBCC

        The TTG comic is based on the 2003 cartoon. I know, I own several issues. It was not a precursor to the cartoon TTG.

  10. Leorale

    Fan (m): I like this thing
    Fan (f): Me too
    Fan (m): First you must answer me these trivia questions

    (I know Walky isn’t this guy. It just tangentially reminded me of it.)

    1. Boh No

      “Before I let you enjoy this thing,

      You must answer my riddles three”

      1. He Who Abides

        “What is the air-flow velocity of an unladen swallow?”

        1. Needfuldoer

          Is that the comic book, TV cartoon, campy 60s live-action TV, first cinematic reboot, second cinematic reboot, third cinematic reboot, or cinematic universe reboot swallow?

    2. Rabid Rabbit

      That was how Walky and Dorothy bonded, yes.

    3. ESM

      Walky’s kind IS that guy since the time skip, really. He’s become a jerk generally, but he’s been EXCEPTIONALLY jerky to women in the last few months, way past the standard “Everyone is DoA is obnoxious because it’s a comedy don’t overthink it” level and into bullying with Joyce and straight-up street harassment with Jennifer

    4. Amelie Wikström

      Oh, you just know Walky was about one trip to the Trilby store away from being The Gatekeeper instead of Night Guy.

  11. Stephen Bierce

    *plays The Rolling Stones’ “Almost Hear You Sigh” on the hacked Muzak*

  12. Endplanets

    I dunno. Classic Lucy read one, unt only vun, comic book. Ever.
    New Lucy… likes remake of a remake of a comic book. That’s all the evidence I got.

  13. Kravis

    No, Lucy, he clearly DOESN’T.

    If he did he would notice you being all THIRSTY and shit.

    1. Mydnyt

      I’m of the belief that he has 100% noticed and ignoring it completely is the closest he can figure out to polite refusal

    2. Keulen

      If Walky were any more dense, he’d become a black hole.

      1. AGV

        So he’s at the neutron star fase

  14. Rani

    Hot take: this is like the “Danny not knowing Amber was Amazi-Girl” arc from season 1, but the power dynamic is totally reversed. Which is likely why Walky is so much more insufferable.

    Before, he was somewhat ditzy and combative, but meant well. There was some sign he gave a shit. Perhaps it’s his way of processing Mike’s death, but this season it just seems like he switched off the emotional tap. There’s no one home. It’s just been strip after strip of back-to-back idiocy and abrasiveness.

    If this is Willis’ grand plan to get Lucy-critics such as myself on her side by creating a situation where she is undeniably the more sympathetic and vindictive party, it worked.

    That magnificent bastard.

    1. Rani

      *victimized

    2. Nono

      I’m less on Lucy’s side and more ‘Danny got a clue faster than you did that the other person wasn’t interested, you crushing fool’.

      1. Rani

        I forget, was Lucy crushing on Walky before the timeskip? Because if so, that’s one of the saddest things to come out of the jump.

        Yes, that includes the resident psychopath dying from the most badly timed and hero-sabotaging face-turn in the entire strip.

        1. Nono

          Yeah, she blushed as soon as Jennifer went ‘Walky you could date literally anyone else, even Lucy’ after he broke up with Dorothy.

        2. Jhon

          Lucy crushed on Walky the first time they met. Tag search is your friend.
          (I reread all the Lucy strips as a salute to Valentine’s Day.)

      2. a/snow/mous/e

        roomies!joyce might have even given up by this point

        1. Clif

          Wouldn’t take bets on it though. Odds are that original-joyce would have escalated by now.

    3. MrSmith

      I was always on her side. Shes one of the few characters on here I’d consider dating.

      I’m wondering if this is about showing why Walky and Lucy doesn’t work

    4. Spencer

      I’m going with the take of “whether or not Walky can actually process what Lucy is saying, he’s busy processing Mike’s death by ramping up his usual behaviour.”

    5. AntJ

      Interesting point, especially because Walky’s emotional intelligence and ability to help a partner destress is why he was so tantalizing to Dorothy and Amber. Lucy, on the other hand, isn’t overburdened or traumatized (that we know of) so she hasn’t been turned off by his cluelessness.

      Then again, her main criterion for crushing on Walky seems to be “I was told this one was attainable” and I can say from experience that it’s a really bad idea to get feelings based solely on the possibility of reciprocation

      1. Rani

        I don’t know if previous strips have gone into her inner life, but I suspect she has awful self-esteem, and this is why she’s easily awed by emotional steamrollers like Jennifer and Walky. The ‘lighter’ explanation is she’s too immature, plucky and forgiving to realize when she’s being bullied and exploited.

        The darker, and less likely one, (although knowing Willis I may eat my words) is that she is also processing her own demons, and contempt serves as the closest thing to a love language she’s ever known.

        1. Nono

          What we know was that she wasn’t popular in high school, so when she got into college, she figured it would be her fresh start.

          And then Jennifer comes in, does it effortlessly, and all her ‘hard work’ into carefully cataloguing every dorm interaction and scheduling movie nights goes wasted as everyone fawned over the hot cheerleader instead.

        2. MrSmith

          I’m thinking something else (instead of awful self-esteem) because they way she talked here: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/rush-2/ shows that, at least in certain situations, her confidence is pretty good

        3. Geneseepaws

          Every time I think I know something about the characters, I always get the salt and pepper out, to have ready at my elbow. When I type something about a character, my second thought is, “Do I want fries with that?”

  15. TheKelliestKelly

    Walky sees the poster but sees the Teen Titans Go! Starfire rather than another iteration of Starfire and assumes Lucy isn’t a REAL comic books fan (I joke)

    1. Spencer

      “Psh I bet you like Steampunk Gender Swapped Joker in a Willy Wonka Hat, that character that’s never actually been in a comic before.” – Walky, definitely, completely right with no chance of ever being proven wrong

    2. Dark

      I mean, it’s Teen Titans Go. That’s not an unreasonable assumption.

      1. thejeff

        It’s not an unreasonable assumption with basically any movie, tv or cartoon property. The audience for those is much higher than for the original. The odds are most fans haven’t read the source material.

        That’s true for books as well as comics.

  16. BBCC

    I dunno, guys, do you think Lucy likes comics?

    1. woobie

      Cartoons are not comics.

      1. BBCC

        When all three posters on your wall comes with a massive comic franchise, I think it’s a safe bet.

        1. thejeff

          It’s certainly possible and Lucy definitely implies it, but it’s not at all a safe bet. All three have far larger non-comics fanbases than comics ones (at least implied to be true for D&MM). There’s also something of a rift between TTG fans and TT comics fans – they definitely don’t appeal to the same audience.

        2. BBCC

          When all three have huge, fairly popular comic franchises (and D&MM is implied to be pretty big) then yeah, I do think it’s a safe bet.

      2. Alaric

        “Cartoons are not comics”. And yet, the two words used to mean the same thing.

    2. SuperZero

      That’s not at all the same as a newspaper comic strip, though.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Maybe she has newspaper strips and a huge Beetle Bailey poster on the fourth wall.

  17. Yotomoe

    To be fair, as far as I’m aware, both of those things on her wall are cartoons, not comics. And as someone who has a degree in animation let me tell you. Those are two different beasts.

    1. Spencer

      I don’t know about you Yoto but I’m an expert and cartoons and comics are defined as such:

      Comics are still drawings.

      Cartoons are still drawings but you draw so many at once they look like they’re moving.

      So basically they’re the exact same thing.

      1. Yotomoe

        Well first things first, not all cartoons are drawings 😛 But I’m being pedantic. The difference lies in the difference approaches to consecutive art. The way you organize panels and use the medium to tell a story is very different. You have to consider things about reading order, how to make the action flow so that the viewers eyes are led from one panel to the next. The composition of the panels themselves can be pretty important too, you need to pay attention to how you organize them, how much space you use and how you imply actions, unlike animation where you don’t have to “imply” action because you’re showing the action. They’ve got a lotta similarities I won’t lie but tackling a comic, especially one you’re gonna work on week to week to week and tackling a tv show or movie are two entirely different beasts. Luckily Walky is going into newspaper comics where most of those things don’t matter except for typeface and readibility since nobody actually cares about the composition of garfield.

        1. Spencer

          I believe I clearly said I was an expert, Yoto. I know everything there is to know about *checks notes* paneling?

          Man what do putting up windows have to do with drawing? This is whack.

        2. milu

          And after all, whatsit they say, 10,000 hours and/or saying so makes you an expert?

      2. Clif

        You’re confusing defaults with meanings.

        https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-cartoon-and-vs-comic/

        1. Clif

          Massively ninjad.

        2. Spencer

          *posh laugh*

          Um, actually, I know a thing or two about photo reference.

          That’s why every time I apply for a job at Marvel I attach a picture of my beautiful face to my resume, but they’re clearly afraid of me because they haven’t called back in eight years.

    2. He Who Abides

      This is the Internet, your expertise means nothing here!

  18. plasticwrap

    Obliviousness confirmed.

    1. MrSmith

      Looks less like obliviousness and more that if it doesn’t directly affect him then he doesn’t care about it

    2. Clif

      Some of us normally live in a simplified world with all the unessential confusing mostly irrelevant details abstracted away. I mean we can stop and actually see the world as it is in all its complexity, but we can’t actually do things that way.

  19. cmd1095

    Alright, Walky’s obliviousness is starting to bug me. He was becoming more aware of his shortcomings and the feelings of those around him, and growing up… and now he’s not only relapsed but if anything he seems even worse… Which I could understand a relapse as a response to trauma maybe… but this… this is a level of obliviousness that ist just too much.

    1. Thag Simmons

      Yeah but it’s also an entirely credible amount of obliviousness

      1. cmd1095

        Is it though? Is it really? Cause I have ADD and autism (so unable to focus, and also not exactly socially adept) and even I wouldn’t be THIS dense… like maaaaaaybe I wouldn’t pick up on Lucy’s crush… but not noticing her basic interests when we’ve been friends for a bit and her room is plastered with posters like it is? I can’t fathom being that dense.

  20. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Looking forward to the Nightguy versus Captain Julia Gray Limited Series.

    So is Lucy going to be his “guy in chair with a headset”?

  21. milu

    Give her a second to see how Wally being incapable to focus on her garishly decorated fandom walls allows for benefit of the doubt on the failure of her no more subtle seduction campaign

    1. milu

      Dangit! Walky. Also unable not incapable. Because grammar

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Walkyvision shifts focus to the posters on the wall and he spins 360 degrees taking them all in. And when he gets back to Lucy she is naked.

      1. deliverything

        (And he still doesn’t take the hint.)

  22. Josh Spicer

    *throws popcorn at Walky*

    Go back to biology class!

  23. Lingo

    So why did Walky even come to Lucy if not to ask for help on this? I mean, did he actually have to go to someone in AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT DORM just for unlined paper?

    1. King Daniel

      He puts a lot of effort into not putting effort into things.

    2. Yotomoe

      I don’t think he really has any other friends. Billie’s giving him the cold shoulder, Booster is doing his own thing (and I think he already asked), Amber is more introverted than ever, Sarah’s in lala land, Dina’s mad, Joyce betrayed him, Sal probably doesn’t care and I don’t think Becky likes Walky very much. Lucy’s literally the best non-Joyce option he has at this point.

      1. MrSmith

        Danny and Joe certainly have no reasons to want to spend time with him either

        1. Yotomoe

          I mean I could probably count Walky’s interactions with either of them on one hand so I didn’t even feel it was worth mentioning.

        2. MrSmith

          You mean borrowing Dannys shoes isn’t enough for a friendship? (Sarcasm)

          He might want to consider looking for some male friends though, for some balance in his life

          Jacob would certainly be a pretty good friend/mentor for him

        3. Yotomoe

          I get this feeling Walky’s not looking for friends. He’s just aimlessly wandering through life and letting the pieces fall where they may.

        4. MrSmith

          He might get lucky and have the pieces fall for him or, more likely, life will stick a large boot right up his rear end

      2. Nono

        Billie’s called Jennifer now, and Booster is a they.

        1. Yotomoe

          Yeah I figured I was gonna mess that up.

  24. Rabid Rabbit

    Lucy slowly begins to realize that it is possible her crush has flaws.

    1. Diner Kinetic

      Personally I don’t consider “oblivious” a flaw, if they mean well- honestly I think I find this kind of stuff sort of endearing, in a weird way???

      (and of course my Gravitar would be Danny to make this comment, I can’t remember for sure but if it is then goshdarnit)

    2. milu

      *has creeping suspicion the dreamboat may not be 100% dreamy*
      *begins to question whether he even is a boat*

  25. TrueVCU

    The longer this storyline goes on the more I’m convinced Dorothy made a good call

    1. Spencer

      I mean she dumped Walky and not only did she seem to correct her grades she got into her dream university by the start of her freshman year’s second semester.

  26. goki

    To be fair, there is a different mindset (in most cases) when making art for a comic, vs making art for animation, but yeah, Walky really should have noticed the big fricken posters.

    1. SuperZero

      It’s also not the same kind of comic.

      1. Yotomoe

        Garfield and Batman are the same thing. We have to accept that.

        1. Clif

          Garfield: I’m Batman!

          Batman: (Says nothing because of scarfing a lasagna.)

        2. Needfuldoer

          Has Jon ever thrown Batman out a window?

          Does Batman exist on a flat plane that is somehow both kitchen counter AND floor height simultaneously?

          Does Batman hate Mondays?

          Is Batman secretly an eldritch horror, the likes of which even Lovecraft wouldn’t dare to imagine?

        3. egg egg

          I mean, Batman isn’t an eldritch horror, but Gotham itself sure is.

        4. thejeff

          Garfield and Star Wars are the same thing.

  27. Delicious Taffy

    Lucy just take your shirt off at this point. He’s not gonna notice anything more subtle.

    1. Agemegos

      Or, you know, actually say something explicit like “You wanna make out?”. This double standard about initiating courtship/romance/sex is doing no-one any good.

      1. Amelie Wikström

        Speaking for everyone on the Autism spectrum, using your words is an invaluable tool for communicating what you want.

      2. milu

        Also yo, flashing someone who’s shown zero interest is Not Cool. Kinda assault-y in fact

    2. Yotomoe

      “Yes those are lovely, but I don’t know how that’s gonna help us with the comic.”

      1. Geneseepaws

        Yeah, we’ll need boobs for fan service, good idea. /s

        1. Yotomoe

          I mean I’d certainly read a newspaper strip with the balls to have fanservice in it.

        2. He Who Abides

          Wouldn’t you likely be the artist for such a strip, though?

        3. Yotomoe

          Maybe! Emphasis on strip. But unfortunately western comics don’t have as much space for the HORNY that manga does.

        4. thejeff

          There’s always 9 Chickweed Lane, as Willis keeps tweeting at us all.

    3. Keulen

      Hopefully that would work, but I’ve read stories of guys being so oblivious to a girl’s advances that even the girl taking off her clothes in front on the guy wasn’t enough. I hope Walky isn’t that oblivious.

      1. Sunny

        I don’t think I’d be quite that oblivious, but I’ve often been told afterwards that someone was flirting with me and I was all “Really? I didn’t notice.”

        1. Anon A Mouse

          I’ve had that happen my entire life. The thing is, if someone is being polite and conversational with me I reciprocate with no ulterior motive. I’m also particularly helpful. This, I have been told, can be equated to flirting.

        2. Yotomoe

          People telling me after the fact that they had a crush on me is the bane of my existence…

  28. Amelie Wikström

    That is legitimately cool. Lucy letting her decor make her argument for her comics cred.

    It’s been such a strange transuniversal journey since Lucy’s appearance in Shortpacked as the representation of what happens when a Starfire cartoon fan finds out about the comic book industry.

  29. Lone Duck

    I dunno. Next thing you know, Mary’s gonna bring out the big, anime guns.

  30. Michael L

    I really don’t understand what she, or anyone, sees in Walky. Totally self absorbed and oblivious, not very attractive traits.

    1. Spencer

      It’s the hair.

    2. Jane

      Well, he is cute, and he generally doesn’t cause trouble. He’s “safe” – he’s goofy enough to be interesting, but there’s nothing about him that’s a real red flag for risky behavior or problematic relationships.

      It’s not until you get fairly close to him that you realize just how checked out of life he is, and it’s not necessarily that he’s “chill” so much as he just doesn’t notice things.

    3. Smooti

      Lucy also strikes me as someone who likes the idea of helping / “fixing” her partner. And Walky definitely needs help, though maybe not from someone he’s pursuing romantically.

      1. milu

        Good point!

    4. Yotomoe

      I see a lot of myself in Walky and I want him to succeed.

    5. Sam

      Many of his positive traits are attractive for a short-term relationship or a date, it is in the long-term that his negative traits impede everything. He is cute, funny, supportive of your goals, if banter is your thing he is good at it, he’s laidback, he’s non-threatening. He is literally the perfect date partner who has no major abuse red flags or hateful views.

      Meanwhile, his negative traits are mostly uncontrolled ADHD symptoms which more would get on your nerves over time. Like yeah, in the long term, him not noticing obvious things could get on your nerves. But that won’t bother you at first when you can guarantee the guy will make you laugh, help you destress, and will be kind and respectful to you and your boundaries.

      You don’t have to be willing to date him yourself to be able to see that he’s a pretty safe laidback person who does care for his partners and that has an appeal.

      I also expect him to struggle with long-term relationships though because ADHD symptoms do make you seem very uncaring when uncontrolled as you forget things, can’t always listen well, can’t switch your focus at all when you need to, time management is hard, can’t always start tasks you need to, take a lot of time with basic tasks when focus is scattered and you try to do it anyway, might say things you don’t mean because extreme emotions or impulsivity or no filter or all three together.

      But like, Lucy has a crush, she’s not planning long-term, she’s just having fun in the moment and time with Walky for her has so far been mostly pleasant.

  31. Kitsune

    So I have Aspergers and ADHD, does that make me part Walky part Dina?

    1. Spencer

      Oh hey I’m trying to get assessed for ADHD today, figure out if i have it.

      Between my ASD and that I was fidgety about the idea of having Two Things to deal with, but they gonna get treated on their own.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Are you both me 20 years ago?

        Putting in manual effort to deal with Things all the time sucks, but it does get better. “Fake it ’till you make it” and all that.

        1. Spencer

          Yeah some current events have put it into perspective that I ignored actually dealing with my ASD after diagnosis, and all I had to do was muscle my way through a return to college that ended up in tears because I didn’t muscle hard enough and not, like, crippling fear of the future or anxiety that prevented me from physically stepping in classes for more than a few minutes or even my inability to remember information as it is told to me.

          There are things people can do that I can’t, that’s what it means to live with a disability, but there are still things I can do to live a rewarding life.

        2. Needfuldoer

          Ooh, yeah. Crippling social anxiety sucks ass. I’ll admit I was a loner through school (ostracized by my peers for being “the weird kid”) and most of college (didn’t want to deal), and I only mostly got over it once I got the deep end of immersion therapy by entering the workforce.

          I can only speak to my own experience here. I’m not sure if you’re still dealing with college or if your comment is in retrospect, but for you or anyone else dealing with this situation:

          Don’t feel like the only thing you can do is “muscle harder” and brute force your way through that anxiety. That’s load of bullshit invented by neurotypical therapists out to sell glorified masking tutorials. As you said, you can only stick your finger in a leaky dam for so long before it bursts. That’s not to say working through anxiety doesn’t take effort (that’s absurd), but you can’t just “push harder” to “get over it” any more than you can move a mountain by “pushing harder”.

          As trite as it is to hear for probably the billionth time, nobody’s going to give a shit about what you did in class once it’s over, as long as you’re not being disruptive and interfering with them. There’s only one person who’s hyper-aware of and nitpicking every little thing you’re doing, and that’s you. In college, everyone wants to be there, so they’re all too busy with their own lives to care about whatever it is you’re doing. (Contrast that with high school, where the “I don’t want to be here” types will latch onto “the weird kid” stimming in the corner as an escape from their boredom.) I know that’s easy to accept at a logical level, but once you believe it on an emotional level you can start chipping away at that anxiety. You can’t build any confidence when you’re constantly tearing yourself down. (I know, I spent far too many years doing it.)

          As for organization, write shit down as it comes. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s a “right” way to take notes, because the only right way is the one that works for you. Your notes could look completely scatterbrained to everyone else, but all that matters is they make sense to you. I know I can never use tools like Evernote or OneNote, because their forced structure gets in the way. I had spiral-bound notebooks that were basically full-page brain dumps; I never followed any special “note taking method” they try to force you to use. (Why do I have to format it like it’s getting published? I know what’s written down!)

          High school sucks ass and college is tough. But find some group therapy, don’t be an asshole, and don’t second-guess every little thing you do. I promise it gets better.

    2. Delicious Taffy

      Hey, same! Killer combo, innit?

  32. Needfuldoer

    Aaaaaand Lucy’s idea of a perfect Walky gets dinged a little bit.

  33. sharkfin bangs

    Lucy has to come to terms with the fact she’s a certified morosexual.

  34. Smooti

    Yeah, so the fact that Walky hasn’t been diagnosed with ADHD is…

    …actually perfectly in character for the Walkertons, they would never want to admit their good kid had anything wrong with him and probably ignored any doctor that tried to tell them otherwise. Carry on.

    1. Smooti

      Hmm. Joe. Let’s see what I get here.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Welcome aboard the USS Joece.

    2. Yotomoe

      I mean I haven’t been tested for ADHD either, but I’ve got friends that are pretty sure I have it. Some people just fall through the cracks.

      1. Smooti

        Also entirely possible! Especially since Walky has shown to not at all struggle with school until college.

        I feel you, it turns out I have autism and when I told my mother about it she said she’d always suspected, but never did anything about it because I “seemed fine”

        1. RowenMorland

          That sounds like a frustrating response.

        2. Yotomoe

          Eh, my mom said something similar. I mean I don’t know what I’d do if I was a parent either. Especially if I had much more pressing matters like my asthma, and my shitty teeth.

  35. Reltzik

    …. so what exactly would Walky be contributing to this team? I can’t see how Lucy thinks his participation score would be anything other than a D+.

  36. DarkoNeko

    …. I’d like to assume that his helicopter mom would make sure, but when’s the last time Walky had HIS eyes checked ?

    1. Yotomoe

      He doesn’t need them checked, they’re right there on his face!

  37. NotPiffany

    Walky, please say that thing about doodling because you lose focus in front of Dorothy so she can tell you to get evaluated for ADHD.

    1. NotPiffany

      Test to see if this new Gravatar is working.

  38. Samantha

    SO is this confirmation that Walky is just real dense after his trauma because this feel like confirmation that he’s just real stupidly dense right now

  39. Brighter Side

    I love me some Walky as a character, but I’m starting to wonder what Lucy still sees in the dude. Maybe he’s extra hot if you’re inside comic-land.

  40. Chester

    A couple of weeks ago I was sad ’cause I was gonna make mac and cheese but realized I didn’t have a colander. A couple of hours later I put a selfie in a discord because I’m vain. A couple hours after that I was talking to people in that discord and went back to look at my selfie (vain) and lo and behold. A colander was hanging on the wall in the background. The wall of the apartment that I’ve lived in for months. Directly above the stove.

    I also do not look around at all, Walky. But I ate mac and cheese that night.

    Probably eat some tonight, too

    1. milu

      Next time youre looking for something, take selfies un front of all the shelves and open cupboards!

  41. JA

    Look around at one’s surroundings? What nonsense!

  42. Rocketboy1313

    Walky’s obliviousness to Lucy like this is frustrating.

    1. Bagge

      Or possibly Lucy’s obliviousness to Walky’s hints that he isn’t that into her.

  43. Bagge

    No, Lucy, honey. Don’t start a common project as a cute little scheme to be close to him. Just tell him how you feel and take the rejection as a big girl – and THEN do a comic together if you want to.

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