178

Handle
Posted on March 7, 2018 by David M Willis

178 thoughts on “Handle”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    panel 6 by itself fills me with about 10000000% ICK

    1. Jackson

      I assume from the punchline he means he’s trying to get Danny laid, not Faz.

      1. Dr T

        That would be take as well since he told them to go have fun.

      2. Kraazivaan

        I totally thought he was referring to Faz until you specified that alternate possibility.

        1. invisiblemoose

          I thought that too, it wasn’t until I rewatched it I’ve found out I was wrong.

        2. LookingIn

          I thought it was another person with Joe trying to show he’s a good person and not a shallow jerk like the ladies believe…I guess Dave really went the extra mile there in making us think about every possible angle!

        3. GoblinScribe

          OH GOD THANK YOU I WAS CRINGEING SO HARD

      3. Plasma Mongoose

        Danny and Faz, not the pairing I was hoping for.

        1. Clif

          Oh well. There’s always Ethan and Mike.

      4. LeslieBean4Shizzle

        Oh thank the gods!
        I too initially read that as trying to get Faz laid, which filled me with horror. Getting Danny and Amber laid, on the other hand, is something I can get behind.

      5. Danielle

        I literally thought he was going to get Faz laid until you said this and I was like ‘oh, that…makes more sense.’ and also makes the punchline make more sense too.

  2. meanderling

    NO JOE NO

    1. StClair

      DO NOT WAAAANT

    2. DarkoNeko

      …joooe ? 😐

    3. notYash

      Pretty sure he meant get Danny laid lol

      1. Arawn

        I’m 100% Behind what your interpretation. I don’t think Joe is going to go farm out an underage kid to college students. He’s not that skeevy. Now, how he’s going to control Faz is a good question…

        1. WarDragon

          I’m guessing he’ll start out with appeals to his better nature and attempts to find common ground. Then, when he realizes Faz doesn’t have a better nature, he’ll resort to brute force, same as Amber.

        2. Khyrin

          I’m guessing this is how he’ll find his love of engineering, trying to make a shock collar from first principles.

        3. Krys Brynhildr

          On the plus side, he can probably lift Faz over his head for easy carrying?

        4. MessyPaint

          I don’t know. Honestly, I wonder if Joe maybe sees a little of the worst parts of himself in Faz, and saw a chance to do some good and nudge him on a better path. Joe comes in for a lot of hate in the comments section, but I think he’s basically a good person.

        5. Mountain King

          Yeah, I agree. Joe honestly didn’t understand what was wrong about how he used to be, and he’s making an honest effort to change now that he has some idea.

        6. geno

          Yeah I think so too, that and the possibility of helping Danny with Amber is just bonus for Joe.

  3. Doctor_Who

    Best thing about college was definitely the naps. They never should have done away with naptime after kindergarten. Think how much more pleasant everyone would have been in middle and high school if they got a nap in the middle of each day.

    1. nooB

      Only if it’s optional
      I was not a day sleeper in kindergarten.

      1. Khyrin

        I imagine it’d still be pretty relaxing to get some time to just… lay down, digest the morning’s learnings, and then go eat. AND that’d neatly side-step an issue my school had with cafeteria fullness. They split the school into A B and C lunches. if you had A, you ate before fourth period. C ate AFTER fourth period. B lunch… had Fourth Period before and AFTER lunch.

  4. shadowcell

    is this perhaps the advent of Wen

    1. Needfuldoer

      Watch, it turns out Wen goes to the rival high school the next town over.

      1. shadowcell

        “Faz and Wen Attempt to Perform a Sex” was one of the great missed opportunities of the Shortpacked Slipshine days

  5. AnvilPro

    Wha… is Joe about to try and get a 14 year old laid? Is the end of this story arc going to be someone getting arrested for statutory?

    1. Fallingivy

      I think he’s trying to set up Danny and Amber.

      1. Fallingivy

        Wow, what a choice of avatar. Holy shit.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Change how your email address is capitalized,, that should re-roll the algorithm and get you a new one.

          Fair warning: there are worse Gravatars to get than Howard.

        2. cbwroses

          How do you get an avatar?

        3. Kryss LaBryn

          Just don’t have one on your account and this site will assign you a random one. 🙂

        4. Deanatay

          Pseudo-random – it’s based on a hash of your email address. If you change your email address (even just the capitalization of various letters in it will do), it will generate a different avatar.

        5. cbwroses

          Thanks. Both of you.

        6. Cass

          For example!

      2. meanderling

        OH shit you’re right. Ok that was almost terrible.

      3. Keulen

        You know, I think you’re right. Joe did tell Amber and Danny to have fun together. Coming from Joe that probably means sex.

      4. AnvilPro

        Oh thank gosh. You’re probably right, the last panel is a punchline of them not doing anything together.

      5. 3oranges

        Joe is definitely trying to get Danny not Faz laid, since Faz is just a kid. My only question is will Faz understand it that way, when he has all the people skills and understanding of appropriateness of an oversexed Elmo?

    2. Some1

      The way he sends Danny off makes me think he’s trying to get Danny laid.

      1. Masumi

        …ok, that would be way better. I wanna read it like that now.

    3. thejeff

      “This is why Faz carries a printout of Indiana’s Romeo & Juliet law.”

  6. Passchendaele

    Solution: Joe should…

    wait, no. No. NO. NOOOOOOO

    1. David DeLaney

      yesssss, my preciousssss!

      –Dave, what has it got in its pocketses? is it happy to see us?

  7. King Daniel

    “Keep Faz away from everyone in Civilization”

    I dunno, maybe introduce Faz to the Civ series? He’d be too busy to do anything else then. 😛

    1. Keulen

      Just make sure he starts out the game on an island far away from every other civ. That way he’ll be away from everyone in Civilization.

      1. Deanatay

        Faz would have a custom Civ – Sextopia. Cities: NewSexCity, Sexyville, HotChicksRoom, FazsPenis…
        Government Type: Absolute Monarchy.

    2. Deathstalker

      Heh. I think Civilization still holds the record for amount of time played by a lot.

      Civ.exe No bloody 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6.

      (I’m pretty sure Civ2 is second.)

      1. thejeff

        I played a lot of Civ back in the day, but I think Alpha Centauri holds the record. I still drag that out and play it now and then.

        1. Reltzik

          Is it really a time-waster if it introduced teenage-me to both Aristotle and Nietzsche?

        2. Kalirren

          Alpha Centauri introduced a whole generation of us to the classics. I feel that video games now don’t really do as much of that – they’re more concerned about saying new things, not as much about relating them to the old.

          My English teacher in 11th grade once pulled out a big chunk of Plato’s Republic as an unidentified text for a final exam and expected none of us to recognize it. She was shocked when I said I could identify the text; I did, but only because of one sentence way at the end: “If you can find for your rulers a life better than rulership, then you will have a well-ordered State.”

          Thanks, Sid Meier.

        3. thejeff

          To be fair, it was a stand out at the time too. It’s not like that was super common back then.

        4. Bathymetheus

          Now there’s an idea . . . Trump absorbed in a fully immersive virtual reality that will keep him too busy to screw things up for the rest of us. He can run in unarmed and punch as many school shooters as he likes, and the civil servants out in the real world can run the government. If he wants to nuke North Korea, we’ll let him think he has.

        5. Inahc

          and Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong 🙂

        6. Bathymetheus

          Haha! “Princess Celestia will satisfy your values through friendship and ponies, and it will be completely consensual”

          — even if you don’t want her to.

          Love it.

    3. Needfuldoer

      Every AI civilization teams up against his, and exiles them to a tiny desert island in the middle of the ocean.

      1. Reltzik

        …. wait, so he’s playing Napoleon?

  8. Keulen

    I don’t think getting Faz laid will make him less awful. It certainly didn’t make the Walkyverse version of him any better.

  9. Regalli

    Joe. NO.

  10. Stephen Bierce

    Why does “I’m gonna go take a nap” sound like a THREAT now? 🙂

    1. Deanatay

      From what I understand, it’s the natural response of any adult who’s forced to care for a child, when their responsibility for the child is shifted temporarily to someone else.

      1. Stephen Bierce

        I fear the havoc that you wreak
        You Vigilante In Your Sleep        –Apologies to The Romantics

    2. No Name

      In this case? Probably because “naptime” now means “Amazi-Girl playtime”.

  11. newllend(henryvolt)

    Wella Joe your only option now is to get Faz laid but that will probably take a good 1k years.

  12. Badeyes

    Handling Faz just sounds WRONG.

    1. Badeyes

      And hecka icky.

  13. Masumi

    …There is no possible way this could go wrong.

  14. guavajagular

    Oh, duh, took me a while, but he’s trying to get Danny with Amber, and the last panel is the punchline, of course. Why do we constantly assume the worst of Joe?

    1. tirachokko

      because unfortunately up until recently (walkyverse time kind of recently) Joe was characterized as like this walking, talking d-bag of more than one kind and would generally vaguely live up to that rep of his own volition (going so far as to actively tell himself to scoot back thataway)

    2. Sunny

      Because you’ve all got your minds in the gutter!

  15. Beef

    Joe…

    JOE

    he’s FOURTEEN

    1. tirachokko

      he’s talking about Danny, not Faz (heaven forbid faz ever evolve to his next level of disturbingness)

      1. Beef

        Ohhhhh. That’s a little better. Just a little

  16. BBCC

    I was up until 6 in the morning working on a paper. I feel Amber on this nap thing.

  17. Derek

    Joe calling Faz a child makes me think that he is indeed 13 years old, but the implication that he will help Faz get a sexy would mean Faz is closer to 17??
    help

    1. Some1

      1. According to Willis he’s 15.

      2. Also according to Willis he’s shipping Danny and Amber.

      1. Derek

        Then Willis contradicted himself with this comic. Faz specifically says that he will be “legal” under that law in two weeks’ time, which means he’s currently still 13.

        And ugh, I hope not. Danny and Amber were a cute, dysfunctional little couple, and they helped each other through a bit . . . but their romantic relationship has served its purpose story-wise. They were codependent and somewhat abusive if you think about it too hard. Learn from that mess and leave it behind, I say.

        1. David M Willis

          *pinches bridge of nose*

          Faz says in that comic that he will reach the Age of Consent in two weeks time.

          Age of Consent is 16.

          Being 14 or 15 is BELOW the Age of Consent, which is WHY there exists a Romeo and Juliet law.

        2. David DeLaney

          So these are Number of God? Good to have confirmed.

          –Dave, thank you willis

        3. Joe Covenant

          Faz reaches “Age of Consent” in two weeks…

          Hmmm…
          I see “A Very Special DoA Christmas” coming on… 🙂

        4. Marsh Maryrose

          Per Needfuldoer’s very helpful calculations, 1 DoA day takes 66.76 real world days. So unless there’s a major time skip coming up, we’ll have to wait a little over two-and-a-half years for Faz’s Special Day.

        5. Victor

          While I’m not going to do the math on this, and it’s not completely doable, there’s a pretty serious complication there.

          It’s obvious at this point that Faz is on a different timeline, since he was 17 at the beginning of DoA, and is 15 now. Faz is regressing to infancy as time progresses forward for the rest of the characters. Now, we don’t know how far into being 17 he was back in 2010, so we can’t really accurately calculate the rate of age regression. But in a few weeks in comic time, we can be reasonably sure that he will be closer to 14, not 16.

          It’s kind of like the timelines of the Doctor and River Song.

        6. begbert2

          To be fair to us, while that comic was rather amazingly clear and unambiguous with the expedition it was delivering about his age, I think most of us readers were too appalled to process it correctly.

        7. begbert2

          *exposition. (sigh.)

        8. Derek

          I’d disagree, I honestly could not tell if he was saying he’s 13, 15 or 17

        9. Inahc

          I was confused too, but my math skills are not what they used to be. (and next week it’s withdrawal time again, so I might have trouble telling the difference between 1 and 2. yes, that happened.)

        10. Derek

          thanks for clarifying, because from the wording of that comic I was totally mystified

        11. Doopyboop

          Regarding Danny and Amber, you aren’t wrong that they were dysfunctional. But Joe doesn’t know all of that. All he knows about Danny’s ‘mysterious’ ex is that they had a cape, and that things presumably didn’t end well. Danny never identified Amber as his girlfriend because he was dating Amazi-girl so he thinks Danny could TOTALLY rebound fine off of Amber.

  18. Larkle

    But is she really going to nap or is she going to Amazi-girl.

    1. King Daniel

      Amber is planning to nap, but Amazi-Girl may have other ideas.

      1. Some1

        What if Amazi-Girl is partly the reason Faz is here?

        1. Needfuldoer

          Surely a real punching bag would last longer.

        2. cesium133

          “Faz can last as long as the ladies want.” — Faz

    2. Khyrin

      Alternate theory:
      Amber tries to nap, Amazi tries to go somewhere… and Danny is there to talk Amazi into just… giving it a rest for a while.

      It can’t be good for Amber/Amazi’s meat-ship to go without rest, even if they, individually, are getting mental rest while the other is at the helm.

      1. thejeff

        Amazi-Girl isn’t going to “give it a rest for awhile”. The meat-ship may need sleep, but AG isn’t going to give up all her active time for it. If they’re no longer talking and Amber won’t let her out while she’s awake, this is the inevitable consequence.

        But yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised by an Amazi-Girl appearance during Amber’s nap.

  19. Tacos

    Goddammit Joe.

    Doesn’t matter if he’s referring to Faz or Danny and Amber.

  20. Some1

    My friends, I must consult you, is it it okay if I insult you?

    For lunacy abounds, across these inane grounds.

    For Joe does not wish to unify Faz.

    Unless perhaps with Alcatraz.

    It’s Danny who he wishes.

    Would reach the heart of some sweet britches.

    1. Inahc

      I feel like this deserves some applause.

      1. Coma

        I agree! *clapclapclap* (You know, I just imagine them entering a very big hall with all us commenters in it, calling for silence, taking out a scroll and citing this)

        I may still be a bit sleepy and tired, don’t mind me (over here it’s still morning)

        1. Coma

          Okay, I’m not good with time zones, I’m just trying to oriente myself with the time stamps on the comments – so for me it’s morning, like sun-up morning, not 3 or 4 am)

    2. JessWitt

      Bravo, that’s some fine versing.

  21. Reltzik

    …..

    Absolutely nothing can go wrong with this plan, and I unreservedly endorse it.

    1. Stellar

      You need a stamp. Or a seal. Or a seal stamping.

      Sorry, been watching a lot of Marx Brothers.

  22. BigDogLittleCat

    If Faz is Amber’s stepbrother, then Blaine must have married Faz’s mother, in spite of Amber’s comment that they “shacked up,” right?
    And presumably they’re still married, or Blaine would not have brought Faz with him on Freshman Family Weekend.

    Otherwise, Amber could brush him off as “father’s girlfriend’s son”, not her problem. Her wrangling him must come from her superhero aspect or maybe to keep him from making her look worse by association (as others suggested the other day), because “faaaaaaamily” doesn’t work on her.

    The only silver lining that could be in this is self-improvement for Joe if he sees how obnoxious and disgusting this is. Otherwise it’s just torture.
    Gah! Sorry, I really dislike this character. Gives me the creeps.

    1. Stellar

      Sounds likely. Although my experiences with familial interrelationships says they can often be somewhat more complex than you would expect.

    2. monkyvirus

      You can’t really assume that much about marriage. Most people seem to have personal reasons for referring to a parent’s new partner as step-whatever.

      I say step-mum but my boyfriend never refer’s to his mum’s partner as step-dad eventhough we have very similar situations (didn’t grow up with the new partner as a parental figure). Also my dad has never been married so I personally find it weird to use marriage as a criteria.

    3. No Name

      “Shacking up” and marriage aren’t mutually exclusive. Heck, in most cases one follows the other.

  23. Stellar

    Daaaaaaaanny! Geez, first the ukulele, now not even walking a girl you like to her door? Life choice ability 0

    1. neeks

      The way I see it, he’s respecting her personal boundaries, which is behavior that should be encouraged imo.

    2. Reltzik

      Especially following the awkward break-up-except-not-because-alters-but-still-kinda.

    3. Emperor Norton II

      Learning the ukulele. AKA starting to practice an instrument and (for now) being disciplined enough to stick with it and improve. All on his own, without a teacher or anyone else that’ll give him lessons, nor other forms of positive reinforcement or constructive criticism.

      What exactly is a 0 about this in terms of life choices?

      1. Hellespont

        Because it’s a ukulele. The stringed equivalent of the recorder.

        1. hallucigenia

          Hey, you got a problem with the recorder?

        2. Emperor Norton II

          Jake Shimabukuro would like a word with you…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0ypW7gvH8E

  24. DashingDeinonychus

    Holy shit I can’t remember the first time Faz didn’t speak in the third person.

    Also I might be focusing on the wrong thing.

    1. 3oranges

      Faz spoke in the first person in his second comic, and most of the rest of that appearance. He just uses the third person to accentuate the legend of Faz – which is a lot of the time, but not when claiming a sexile.

  25. Bagge

    Good you are getting some sleep, Amber.

    Amazi-girl, you better sleep too. No stalking Faz.

  26. Mojo

    I thought Joe only went BOINKers…

  27. Ivy

    Thought for a second Joe was saying he’d help the child get laid

    1. Axel

      What is he saying? I can’t read it any other way and I feel kind of sick.

      1. Meta

        He’s talking about Danny I think, trying to get him with Amber (again)

        1. Axel

          Thank you.

  28. David DeLaney

    One does not talk rationally about bonkers club!

    –Dave, also, picallilli kumquat skedaddle eek!

  29. ESM

    If Joe’s seriously going to try to get a 15-year-old laid, it’s the worst thing he’s ever done by a fairly massive margin, and takes him from “Less evil Mark Zuckerberg” to “Less evil Roy Moore”

    1. Deadjolras

      He’s talking about getting Danny and Amber laid, hence the emphasis on “fun” when he was greeting them goodbye.

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        Oh I sure hope so.

    2. thejeff

      For all the creepiness of getting Faz laid, 15 year kids do have sex fairly often. Joe probably did. Or at least wanted to and pretended that he was.

  30. J. A. J.

    I know that having a white voice actor voice POC character is a problematic issue, but I can easily imagine Faz being voiced by Rob Paulsen doing his “alien/surfer” voice he uses for Mark Chang in The Fairly OddParents.

  31. BenRG

    Ah! Joe is going to try to teach Apprentice Faz his ways. These tend only to work on people with a modicum of self-awareness so I’ve got a feeling that Joe’s going to be naming his first ulcer ‘Faz’.

    1. Bagge

      But really, I can’t think of any more fitting punishment for his earlier behaviour than having to deal with this little creep for a while.

    2. Benjamin

      I’m not quite sure of that – as folks have been pointing out, “get[ting] someone laid” is referring to his sending Danny and Amber off alone, not what he plans to do with Faz!

      1. BenRG

        Something tells me that Amber isn’t in the mood… Amazi-Girl however…? As she seems to come out when Amber is asleep?

        1. BBCC

          That would be rape, I’m pretty sure. It’s not cool to use Amber’s body in a way Amber wouldn’t want, even if AG does want it.

        2. Inahc

          having alters makes consent *hard*. 🙁 and in that case it’d be tragic because Danny would have no idea there’s a consent issue… but also I think AG is still mad at him, so it wouldn’t be too likely to.. uh… actually given the current state of the elevator maybe I should just stop now 🙂

  32. NinjaNick

    But first, a shower and a change of clothes to wash all the creepy away.

  33. Clif

    The point to realize is that Joe, so far, hasn’t listened to a word that Faz said.

  34. Eldritch Gentleman

    Welp, I rest my case. I was giving Joe the benefit of doubt but nope. He deserves everything coming his way from now on.

    1. Joe Covenant

      You’ve read the rest of the comments, yeah?
      🙂

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        Only after writing this one. I’m relieved now. And have regained my faith in Joe!

  35. JessWitt

    Joe’s intentions for Danny is nicer considering his sexile will be lengthened by being with Faz.

  36. Zaxares

    I like to imagine Panel 8 as Joe watching Danny and Amber walk off in separate directions and going “FFFFFUUUUUUUUUU-“

  37. Doopyboop

    I’m surprised at how many people assume Joe’s trying to get Faz laid. Joe’s been pervy, sure, but he’s always respected the age of consent and judging by his reaction to his dad, is actually squicked out by behavior to the contrary. Whereas he’s Danny’s best friend and intentionally pushed Danny and Amber into spending time together. Guh-doy…

    1. cbwroses

      I second this remark. It never crossed my mind that he meant Faz.
      Now I’m having to restrain myself from giving the side eye to our fellow commenters since that was where their minds went.

      1. Inahc

        “Now I’m having to restrain myself from giving the side eye to our fellow commenters since that was where their minds went.”

        I blame Anime. Only a few days ago, I was watching what I *thought* was a nice lighthearted anime, when suddenly, pedophilia! :/ it’s really creepy how they just casually sexualise kids like that, and this isn’t the first anime that’s surprised me this way. :/ (and I’m not talking teens, this was elementary school kids this time!)

        1. Doopyboop

          I hate when that happens, sorry your anime experience was suddenly curtailed into creepo town!

        2. thejeff

          I blame Faz. You know, wandering around wanting to peep at women and propositioning them for sex. So weird how we casually sexualize kids like that.
          Unless you actually remember your high school years. Faz is almost 16. A significant percentage of kids his age are having sex and most of the rest are thinking about it. A lot. And have been since long before anime.

          I can’t think of any anime with actual pedophilia, but I haven’t watched all that much. Some sexualizing of junior high kids, though usually without explicit indication they were having sex, just hints.

        3. Inahc

          oh, it’s never “actual” pedophilia. there’s always an excuse. 😛 I’m sure they’d argue it doesn’t count when they’re both kids (elementary school kids what the fucking fuck), it doesn’t count when the adult is a woman, it doesn’t count when the older guy’s age is unclear due to being frozen in time… >.<

        4. thejeff

          Well, I meant “actual elementary school kids having sex”, with whoever or whatever.

    2. Axel

      I thought it was a weird, gross story choice and way worse than anything Joe has done, but I didn’t know how else to read his comment

    3. thejeff

      As Faz himself explained earlier, it’s legal for him to have sex with most of the cast – the younger half of the college age crowd. It’s creepy mostly because it’s Faz and because deliberately setting out get someone laid is creepy, though the age certainly doesn’t help. Not a legal issue though.

      As for not seeing Joe’s true intent at once, Faz has been talking about getting laid and creeping on girls since he showed up, while we as readers know damn well Danny and Amber aren’t going to have sex. The idea that Joe thought so didn’t even occur to me until afterwards.

      1. Doopyboop

        It’s legal for Joe’s dad to have sex with a woman thirty years younger than himself and for him to check out young women who are of a legal age, but Joe still rolled his eyes at both. Granted in the latter half, his dad was proudly proclaiming his brave aversion to checking out the sexy young ladies, but still. It’s legal, but Joe was still uncomfortable. The legality isn’t even really the point, Joe doesn’t know this kid. Why would he wanna help him get laid? Just because Faz echoes some vaguely similar rhetoric that Joe’s used to?

        Compare that to Joe’s behavior of taking responsibility of Faz, for DANNY. His best friend who is still adjusting after a bad break up. He made it pretty clear here that it was for Danny, since Danny initially assumed he and Joe were gonna babysit, only for Joe to insist he do it alone. Plus, Joe’s seen Amber and Danny get a little nerd-flirty in the past. He doesn’t know their history, so for all he knows? Amber is Danny’s dreamgirl that he just needs a bit of alone-time to finally make the leap into dating her.

        I’ve been trying to be understanding about this, cause I know I’ve made assumptions and leaps of logic too, but this just feels like such a weird leap.

        1. thejeff

          It doesn’t really make sense in character or in narrative – the joke doesn’t work.
          The reason I and others went there first, I suspect, is that pretty much everything we’ve seen Faz say or do is about getting laid and we know Amber and Danny aren’t going to have sex, so we’re primed to think of Faz, not Danny/Amber in the “help someone get laid” context.
          I know that was my reaction. Started with “Ew, c’mon Joe”, then at about the second comment went “Huh?”, read the strip again and got “Oh, that’s what he meant. Whew.”

        2. Heavensrun

          (shrug) He’s standing behind Faz, with his hands on Faz’s shoulders, after accepting responsibility for Faz and his actions, (after actively pushing for the responsibility, in fact) and as soon as it’s the two of them alone, he says that. I thought it was freaking weird, and a step too far for Joe, but my first reading of it was that he was talking to and about the person directly in front of him. Same thing as other people have said, it didn’t even occur to me until after that he was trying to get Amber and Danny together in that sense.

  38. Karishi

    Second sign you may be going bonkers: You watch “Bonkers.”

    1. cbwroses

      First sign you’re going goofy: you watch “Goof Troop”.

  39. cbwroses

    I don’t think it’s a bad idea to leave Faz with Joe, but I do think it’s irresponsible to leave Faz with Joe.
    As I said the other day, they have no connection to each other and don’t know each other. Joe is a stranger to him

    1. thejeff

      It’s still not clear to me how much connection Amber and Faz have. They’re step-siblings, but I’d gotten the impression that Amber had had little contact with Blaine since the divorce – there was a comment about not seeing him in years at his first appearance. That would imply even less contact with Faz and not in years as well.

  40. Badgermole

    Panel 6 is the setup for the punchline in the next panel.

    Are people poor readers or just too ready to assume the criminally creepy of Joe and/or poor taste on the part of Willis or what.

    1. BenRG

      I suspect that Faz has no idea what Joe is talking about, other than it has the word ‘sex’ in it which is what he wants.

    2. Eldritch Gentleman

      I guess the “You see what you want to see” is true here so we just assume the worst of him.

      1. dralou

        I like Joe, and I don’t assume the worst of him just because of how he was not that long ago. Yet, I still read his comment as him aknowledging he’d help Faz. The reason: the only one talking about wanting sex was Faz, and Joe’s sentence looked like a direct answer to that.

        Granted, now that I’ve reread the whole scene, it occurs to me that Faz never said anything directly in the line of “I want to have sex” while in the presence of Joe before: he merely talked about his kinks. His line about the sexile in this strip is his first in front of Joe.

        So, actually, it’s not that I thought the worst of Joe, it’s that I thought the worst of Faz and didn’t realize Joe wasn’t aware of Faz’s…”antics”.

  41. Vulcanodon

    OK Joe sent two people with at least theoretical sex potential off with the admonition “You kids have some fun together” and people think he’s trying to get Faz laid? Ugh. Not only gross but it doesn’t fit the narrative of the strip. I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t read today’s comment thread.

    1. thejeff

      In my case, the idea of Danny and Amber having sex didn’t even cross my mind. I know they’re not going to, so even the “have fun together” from Joe didn’t make me think of it. So when I hit the “don’t get someone laid” line in the next panel, there was a bit of confusion, settling on “he must mean Faz”, probably because Faz has been talking it up and there weren’t any other alternatives.

  42. Deanatay

    Panel 7: Sorry, Danny. Pretty sure she means ALONE.

    1. Emperor Norton II

      Since they appear to wave goodbye to one another, it seems like he’s aware of this already.

      1. thejeff

        Pretty sure it never even crossed his mind.

        1. Emperor Norton II

          Good point. Danny is, at this point, far more concerned with Amber’s mental health than he is with his own desires of physical intimacy.

  43. Zee

    The commenters today I swear…
    First off, read the other comments before you write your own, stops you from being repetitive and making points that have already been resolved.
    Second…you see what you want to see people. You want Joe to be terrible because of past hangups, so you see the absolute worst in everything he says

    1. Derek

      consider that sometimes the comments don’t appear until after one has posted theirs and that sometimes the dialogue is not exactly clear

  44. MAX

    Hey now, according to this alt text I’ve been bonkers for years.

  45. Cmd1095

    Goddamnit Joe not being a creep but helping someone else be a creep is not better, you have just made a lateral creepiness movement

    1. No Name

      As countless others (well, two) have said before, read the comments, then post – Joe is talking about Danny and Amber, not Faz.

  46. Moose

    Bonkers? I loved that game! The best part was when you set up the board so it was impossible for anyone to win.

  47. Hari

    Faz is a little fucker

  48. Falcon

    I bet Willis regrets not wording this strip more clearly by now.

  49. PB

    It took me a while to realize he meant Danny, not Faz. Thank groodness for that, I almost hated Joe again.

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