242

Mark of the Beast
Posted on August 1, 2022 by David M Willis

242 thoughts on “Mark of the Beast”

  1. AY

    Mary never gets any less worse

    1. Clif

      It’s a real talent.

  2. BBCC

    If Mary weren’t a gigantic shithead I might actually feel bad about how she’s totally incapable of doing anything right.

    As is, it’s funny as fuck.

    1. Thag Simmons

      She’s too pathetic to be a credible danger but too vile to be sympathetic, which isn’t a bad thing for a recurring heel

    2. Amelie Wikström

      But the things that she can never ever get right are all things that makes her hurt other people. It’d be like, I dunno, feeling sorry for carbon emissions because they make the weather worse.

      1. Ellegos

        Or that one Cells At Work episode about cancer cells.

        1. Fnord

          I feel sorry for the cancer cells that had to suffer through Rush Limbaugh.

        2. The Wellerman

          I wish there were an upvote button, because this comment NEEDS one.

          Wouldn’t it be interesting if this comment led to that feature happening? Unlikely yes, but still, one can dream…

        3. S.R.

          I mean, the cancer cells in that episode aren’t actually /trying/ to hurt anyone. It’s kinda like if there was a dude who was just horribly radioactive for no reason; it’s not his fault that he’s hurting people by being near them, but someone needs to get him to not stand near anyone.

      2. bcb

        I feel like Mary isn’t going to hurt as much as Carol, despite having similar beliefs, though.

    3. Opus the Poet

      Mary is the Alex Jones of Clark Wing, doubling down on wrong until they lose everything.

  3. Doctor_Who

    In Hell, Mary’s punishment will be to watch a ewcording of her entire life, but this time she’s self-aware.

    Also there’s a laugh track.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Interesting misspelling of recording I have there.

      1. Koms

        With Mary it’s definitely ew

        1. Clif

          So definitely appropriate.

    2. Some Ed

      Fun fact: that’s what Mary’s doing *right now*. In fact, she does this *every* cycle.

      Oh, wait, that’s right, we’re in hell already. Never mind me.

    3. Mturtle7

      I mean, to be fair, that would probably be a pretty devastating punishment to almost any of the main cast.

  4. Blibdoolpoolp

    Only my rage is righteous! Now shut up and witness my persecution first hand, sinners!

  5. Sunday

    “I have been cancelled by Twitter!! My right to free speech is being revoked! tickets to my “Silenced and Defamed” comedy show are now sold out!”

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Remember that businesses have a right to discriminate against anyone unless its bigots.

      Then it’s outrageous.

      1. Clif

        I’m pretty sure it goes, businesses have a right to discriminate against anyone unless they have a shot of controlling Congress.

    2. Needfuldoer

      *Bleats about being canceled on the cable news and talk radio circuits*

      *Publishes third book about being canceled*

      I’ve even heard radio ads for those shitty pillows that complain about how “big box stores” “cAnCeLlEd” them.

  6. Sirksome

    I kinda like Becks’ interpretation of the shirt. Mary should roll with that. Could even make a bit of scratch off it.

    1. Concolor44

      Yeah. “Down with Satan” was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the shirt.

    2. Romanticide

      Me too… but honestly it would be hilarious if more people get that shirt and take exactly that interpretation and go all :\ when Mary says it’s about cancel culture.

  7. The Wellerman

    Actually, Dina’s 6 different kinds of marginalized — she’s Japanese, a woman, a person of low vertical stature, grey ace, atheist and autistic.

    Also, obligatory fuck you Mary! ??

    1. True Survivor

      What is a grey ace?

      1. The Wellerman

        It’s an umbrella term for the grey area between sexuality and asexuality. People who are grey ace only occasionally experience sexual attraction, or only experience it when certain conditions are met.

        1. Daniel M Ball

          so, wait, it means you’re selective and actually have standards instead of being ready to bone (or be boned) at the drop of a hat just because it’s there and available?

          we need a special TERM for that?

        2. Leishycat

          No, that’s not what it means. Here, maybe this will help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_asexuality

        3. C.T. Phipps

          Yes, because it’s a thing.

          And it’s not being picky, it’s a status.

        4. Doopyboop

          It’s not about being selective, being asexual/grey ace is not ‘just being selective’. It is literally either being unable to experience sexual attraction, or only in certain circumstances. With Dina, we saw that she became aroused when Becky called her her lab partner, AKA because of the emotional intimacy. She wasn’t aroused by the naked body of her girlfriend. That isn’t just being ‘selective’.

        5. Clif

          She wasn’t aroused by the naked body of her girlfriend as such. She was aroused by Science.

        6. Opus the Poet

          Another example of why the comments section needs an upvote button, even if nobody but DYW and the person upvoted can see it. And I’m also aroused by Science, especially Naked Science.

        7. Anaheim

          That’s… really not what it means. It means that, generally, you do not experience attraction, but occassionally you might do so, under particular circumstances. It’s got nothing to do with “standards” or being “selective”.

          Like, I’m ace. I’ll never experience the desire to bone another person. Nobody and nothing does something for me. A grey ace person will be like that most of the time, but sometimes the planets will align and they’ll be like “oh dang”. Someone who’s allosexual will have those feelings of attraction/desire but opt not to act on it.

        8. Arian

          As another example, I’m demisexual, which is a type of grey-ace where you only feel sexual attraction when there is a strong emotional bond. Not just desire – attraction.

          So by default, I think nobody is hot. If you pointed at someone in the street and said, “Wow, they’re hot, don’t you think?” I’d say no without even looking round, because I don’t know them. It wouldn’t matter if they’d been voted World’s Hottest Person, I still wouldn’t think so.

          So there have been fewer than twenty people in my life that I’ve had a deep enough relationship with to be able to consider them possible partners

          I believe most people, if a particularly physically attractive person was pointed out to them, and they were asked “Would you consider a relationship with that person?” would reply “Well, sure, if they were interested!” Maybe they’d afterwards find out that they didn’t like the person very much, and decide not to after all.

          But again, I’d say no without even looking at them. I have to be extremely close to a person before they’re someone it doesn’t make me think “Ugh, no!” to consider sex with.

        9. Uly

          Wow, what a rude response.

    2. Nono

      I will make a clarification though: Dina is American. Her ancestry is Japanese, but she’s at least third-generation American.

      1. Laura

        Likely more like 4th or 5th-gen, if my theory is correct. Not a lot of immigration from Japan to the States during the time when Dina’s grandparents would have been born. Of course, you never know.

        1. The Wellerman

          Correct. The National Origins Act prohibited immigration from Japan and MANY other countries until 1965.

        2. Laura

          Huh. OK, so if Dina is 19 and her parents are in their 40s, they could have easily been born in the States in the 70s to 1st-gen. grandparents who arrived after 1965. I was thinking Gosei on the assumption her great-grandparents would have been of the internment generations (1st or 2nd-gen). Was there a lot of Japanese immigration after 1965? That might lend more credence to the 3rd-gen. hypothesis.

        3. JBento

          Haha, there’s literally nothing I can possibly learn about American politics that doesn’t make me more disgusted, is there?

        4. EerieErika

          Honestly, if Willis ever decided to expand family background beyond parents, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some of Dina’s ancestors were interred at one of the camps in the Midwest in WW2.

        5. Jon

          Or the West Coast. It was about ten years back that the Puyallup Fairgrounds began including an exhibit on the camp that had been there when they host the annual state fair…

    3. Laura

      Hey, good job finding them all! I was stuck at 4.

      I was also thinking of her apparent affectational orientation (possibly demi or homoromantic, or possibly bi-curious, given her comment about how she might have sex with Joe as a science experiment and how her love of women was a hypothesis that needed rigorous experimentation to confirm).

      But then, I don’t actually know what labels she prefers, if any, and I do know better than to assume anyone’s sexual or emotional orientations toward particular genders of lacks thereof.

      1. The Wellerman

        Very good of you not to make assumptions, I like that. ?

        Re: Dina, she wore a Grey Ace flag shirt some years IRL back; seeing that Grey Ace is supposed to be an umbrella term, she most likely feels comfortable identifying like that, regardless of any more specific labels.

        1. Laura

          Oh, I didn’t see that. Do you know the strip? I don’t even know what that flag looks like.

          Also, sorry, I meant to say, “affectional,” not “affectational”. Typo!

          Sapiosexuality seems to have a little flavor in the tea, too.

          I wouldn’t have considered her stature to be particularly short, in comparison with other female Japanese American folks, but perhaps that’s just me stereotyping again. 🙁

          Huh. Kind of feels like I’m breaking her identity down into little pieces like a bug under a microscope. I wonder if that’s what objectification feels like.

          It’s funny — walking the line between literary analysis (what we used to call “deconstruction”) and possibly giving offense to people who identify with a particular character. It’s a fine line to walk, and I get it wrong and make mistakes sometimes. Sometimes, it’s tempting to want to say nothing at all, online, for fear that any approach to sensitive topics like these might cause inadvertent offense.

        2. Laura

          I love the way Joyce explains it here:

          “I have questions and concerns, but I also know that I am usually wrong, so I will accept what you tell me at face value and later do some private research.”

          That’s me, yo’.

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

        3. The Wellerman

          I understand very much, Laura. Lots of times I feel like I’m walking on eggshells in this new day and age where the bar for offense has been lowered quite considerably. Still tho, I definitely want to make effort to correct myself when I find out I’m doing wrong, as is necessary on a multicultural frontier where you can only expect misunderstanding, and admire you very much for doing the same.

          Re: identity and objectification, I very much know how that feels too. It’s the reason why for the longest time I refrained from calling myself autistic — I was mortally afraid that others and myself would attribute more and more of my identity to my autism and I would eventually wind up as nothing more than a walking talking label.

          Re: Dina’s identity, while I acknowledge she’s autistic, that’s definitely not the first thing I see her as. She’s autistic, but she’s definitely not an Autistic Character™, much like how Mike was allowed to be gay without being another Gay Character™. Like, in my eyes, like Mike, she has a personality that’s her own that has nothing to do with her intersectionality, and is a real, believable character that’s not just there to make representation.

        4. Yumi

          Mike wasn’t gay? Unless you’re using “gay” as an umbrella term, like queer.

        5. The Wellerman

          yeah that’s what I meant. Ethan too. The point being that both of them can be queer without winding up as tired stereotypes.

        6. Laura

          “Labels are for soup cans,” was a slogan we used to use when I used to work in the mental health C/S/X movement.

          It strikes me how many “symptoms” described in the DSM might have been described as “personality traits,” or “quirks” in years prior. Or how many characters I see in old TV shows might today be considered portrayals of psychological or neurodevelopmental disability. But at the time, they were just considered “characters”.

          Diagnoses and labels can help, certainly, in certain social contexts: building community, pride in identity, obtaining benefits and accommodations, learning more about oneself, possible treatments and adaptations, learning coping skills, etc. But they don’t have to define how we perceive ourselves and each other, nor how we relate to each other. We can just BE, sometimes.

        7. The Wellerman

          “We can just be, sometimes”. Totally with you on that one.

          As for the DSM, it actually reminds me of something I realized that helped me cope with my struggles.

          Autistics face a lot of the same problems and persecution gays and lesbians faced for decades — being labeled as “disordered” because of what long standing social institutions value, only being able to really be yourself in select communities. There’s also that “gay means stupid” part that really only went away in recent years, and I hope it becomes majorly common sense one day to not treat autistics that way either. ?

          Much like how Becky and Ethan were subject to invasive and even violent attempts to “correct” the perfectly OK way they were, autistics are subject to much of the same invasive encroachment where parents and teachers and professionals try to “fix” us for things like stimming, not liking hugs and traits that aren’t really problems at all.

          It was the start of something very good when homosexuality was finally taken out of the DSM, and I sure hope the same happens with autism too.

          DOA broke new grounds by showing that being gay / lesbian isn’t all sunshine and happiness with non-stereotypical
          characters who faced encroachment and persecution that impacted them in deep and even devastating ways. It is my biggest hope that this comic explores autistic experiences just as seriously.

    4. MisterJinKC

      Since when is being atheist being marginalized?

      1. Nathan

        Kinda forever? Defintiely less now than most of U.S. history, but we have never had an atheist US president, and the US government grants special tax benefits to religions. We have an official, government recognized “pledge of allegiance” that includes the words “under God” and our money has “in God we trust” printed on it.

        1. MisterJinKC

          We just had one. Trump is without question an atheist regardless of what he said on the incredibly few times it came up.

        2. a/snow/mous/e

          so closet atheists can become president; guess that means atheism must not be marginalized(!)

        3. eh, whatever

          Oh no. No. Trump is an autotheist.

          Like a cat, only worse.

        4. Ed Callahan

          Trump thinks the universe isn’t big enough for both God and him, so God had to go.

        5. Uly

          …the fact that he has no morals means he’s an atheist?

        6. Nathan

          Yeah, the same person who says atheists aren’t marginalized says that Trump is an atheist because he’s an asshole.

          I hate how Christians always “no true scotsman” their worst coreligionists, but this is excessive.

        7. Uly

          It sure is.

        8. thejeff

          Let’s be honest here, that’s not the reason, but Trump is almost certainly not a believer in anything but himself. He faked it (poorly) for political purposes, but other than that has given no signs of believing or taking part in any religion in his entire life.

        9. Uly

          Sure, maybe, but he’s not perceived that way by the people who voted for him.

        10. Arian

          I agree. He once notably said he didn’t think he’d ever done anything he needed to repent of. That’s a very unlikely thing for a Christian to *say*, even if they did happen to believe it.

        11. Twitcher

          I’m pretty sure Trump believes he is God. It’s funny, even my Atheist sister, when I posed a question about Trump’s Antichrist status, said, “I believe that, according to certain specifications within the Bible, Trump fits the description of an Antichrist”, before beginning to rant that another point in her assertion’s favor was that Trump held a fucking Bible upside down. At various points lately, she’s criticized reality as being patently parodic.

        12. thejeff

          I’ll admit to having gone off on a few rants about the author has obviously jumped the shark and isn’t putting any effort into maintaining the audience’s suspension of disbelief anymore.

        13. Mikey

          Funny thing is, my catchphrase is “Could reality PLEASE stop being a parody of itself?” I use it about once a year or so, though more often if there is an opportunity.

        14. Roborat

          I always figured Kenneth Copland was the antichrist. He definitely looks evil.

      2. PirateTawnee

        Since a religious minority imposes it will on you against your consent.

        1. MisterJinKC

          That’s inaccurate. They are imposing their will on anyone who doesn’t agree with them, whether its an atheist or a believer. By your statement, a Christian who doesn’t agree with fundamentalism is a marginalized group.

        2. Opus the Poet

          That’s not the minority getting imposed on…

        3. Laura

          It actually kind of is. Say, an AFAB Christian who doesn’t agree that the government should dictate peoples’ health care decisions — currently, that Christian is still being forced to let Alito’s brand of Christianity decide that Christian’s pregnancy outcomes, despite the fact that Christian believes something different.

        4. thejeff

          We’re kind of at the point of the majority being imposed on.

        5. Jamie

          So, this is a weird case of subtle redefinition. You’re talking about a numerical majority, but the sociological usage of the word is specifically about being disadvantaged (Wikipedia).

          In other words, you can do things like saying the helots in Sparta were a minority, even though they were present in greater numbers. It’s a little weird, but it’s a well-accepted convention.

        6. thejeff

          True. It’s not quite so clear cut in this case, where neither the “majority” or the “minority” in question are clear cut demographics, but more3 of an opinion that’s gotten a hopefully temporary grasp on political power.

        7. Laura

          As the graffiti slogan says:

          “¡No somos minoría!”
          (We are not a minority.)

        8. Uly

          Buddy, atheists are the least likely religious group to be elected to office. People outright *admit* that they trust us less than they trust anybody else. You can look up these stats for yourself.

      3. Emmy

        As a UK reader this threw me as well. But I guess being an atheist is more marginal in the US. 53% of UK is atheist so I would consider it the majority.

        1. Arian

          In Australia, and I believe in the UK as well, it’s polite to assume someone *doesn’t* have a religion until they specifically inform you otherwise. The US is a really unrepresentative Western country.

      4. egg egg

        In specific American states, you can’t hold a political office if you’re atheist. Don’t get much more marginalized than official laws saying you can’t have certain jobs.

        1. Emmy

          That’s crazy, I did not know that! Thanks for filling me in 🙂

        2. thejeff

          That’s only sort of true. 7 or 8 states do have such bans, many of them in state constitutions. The Supreme Court has however blocked such tests as unconstitutional. The bans are still on the books, but can’t be enforced.

        3. JBento

          …until they are enforced and it falls to THIS Supreme Court to re-rule.

        4. thejeff

          That’s always a possibility of course, but it’s still not currently the case that atheists can’t hold political office.
          It’s like saying that same-sex couples can’t get married in some states. It’s just not true. It could change with a court ruling, but lots of things could.

    5. Emmy

      Wait, atheism is marginal?

    6. Reaver

      I really wouldn’t consider being short marginalized… and I’m 5’1 with shorter than average arms

      1. Leorale

        I’m 5’0″. It depends where you are. If you’re a preschool teacher, it’s no problem whatsoever, we’re all short, that just puts us closer to the kids and all their stuff on the ground. In business or politics, where very tall people stand upright and literally have conversations with each other over your head, it’s actually a problem. That goes double if you’re trying to be taken seriously, and triple if you’re a man who is trying to date women.

        When we’re all standing together, tall people really do feel like they’re an adult looking at a child. (Stand on a chair sometime, so that you’re looking down for once, and feel the instant difference in all your social interactions. Child/adult dynamics go really deep in our psyches, and the difference is stunning.)

        Short women/enbies get really tired of being “cute”, but at least our cuteness is seen as positive! Short men don’t even get social advantages for being cute.

        At least for women, there’s a cultural story of the tiny spitfire who punches above her weight and is just so friggin rad that she demands respect (such as Dr Ruth). Who do short men have: Napoleon? Nobody wants a laughable Napoleon Complex. Nobody wants to be a chihuahua.

        After we tackle fatphobia (which is way worse), I’d like body positivity and whatnot to take a gander at height.

        1. Reaver

          I’m a woman that works in retail, people make jokes but nobody treats me like a child because I’m shorter than them..

          They treat me like a child cause I still physically look 24 despite being 32 lol

          Weird getting a talk about how women feel when I am one lol

        2. Leorale

          Haha, I don’t mean to give you a talk!
          These are super broad brush strokes for sure. I’m glad our height doesn’t make you in particular feel marginalized.

    7. Amós Batista

      Don’t forget the dinosaur clothes.

    8. FlamestAndLight

      I’m not sure being atheist is marginalized in most places, definitely some, but not in most.

      1. Victor

        What? No. Bullshit. Being an atheist is marginalized in most of the world.
        The only place it sort of isn’t is western Europe.

    9. Byron Orpheus

      Dina is grey ace? I beg to differ. Dina’s not ace, she’s quiet, gay, and socially awkward. The most recent story arc about Dina has been about she and Becky bangin’. The Patron strip for this month features Dina and Becky doing just that. Getting with Becky wasn’t a big “OMG I’m gay” moment for Dina. Good lord, she called her parents first thing and told them she had a girlfriend. The implication is that she’d been out to her parents for some time.

      1. King Daniel

        Dina is literally canonically grey-ace. Besides her wearing an ace flag in the comic (which Willis confirmed was in reference to Dina’s status), you seem to have missed the entire point of the prelude to the “Becky and Dina get it on” part—Dina does not experience sexual attraction or desire, except in very specific circumstances.

        Also, Dina is either bi or panromantic. While I’m aware that “gay” can and often is used as a catch-all for queer folks, in light of the asexual erasure here I wanted to re-emphasize that aspect of Dina’s being.

        1. Fidalgo

          Yup. Sexuality usually remains the same as it was in the Walkyverse, so she’s definitely bi/pan romantic

      2. zee

        Oh come on Willis literally confirmed her as grey ace. You can be both dude, split attraction model

        1. The Wellerman

          Eh, not quite split attraction. Grey Ace, like neurodivergent, is an umbrella term. Grey ace incorporates many different kinds of orientations, and that’s kind of the point.

        2. zee

          Bro i AM grey ace i know. I meant you can be a flavor of ace AND gay at the same time. Split attraction

        3. The Wellerman

          Ah, yes. Sorry for the confusion. :/

    10. Joy

      High vertical stature is also a form of marginalization. people who are 6’2″ have more in common with people who are 5’2″ than people who are 5’8″, in terms of life experiences.

      1. Nathan

        Being tall often sucks.

        1. Joy

          Concussions from hitting my head on the ceilings of stairwells, hip and back pain from car rides, not being able to use the scooter things, most pens, pencils, keyboards, phones etc not being designed for me, difficulty finding clothing that fits me in stores…

          i have to crane my neck down to look at average heighted people more, at least short people have the courtesy to take a step back and look up, but middle-heighted people tend to be really entitled in my experience.

          Also being seen as a threat and being stereotyped as stupid and violent.

    11. zee

      Yo i don’t think being short is a marginalized status. definitely not in a way comparable to any of her others

  8. Schpoonman

    I don’t read the comments much anymore, has there been any discussion on Dina’s “eyes” in her costume’s neck and the fact they look like her hat’s eyes? Is it her hat’s eyes? Is she affecting the eyes for a joke? Is it the fact she’s in Mary’s Hell House?

    1. Nathan

      They’ve been mentioned a bit in here. My favorite theory is that while wearing the costume, her hat is in charge, not Dina.

      1. The Wellerman

        Hey that’s interesting… what if her hat’s eyes actually glow in the dark? ?

    2. Needfuldoer

      The eyes we see through the window on her costume line up with her eye level, not her hat. She’s not that much shorter than Becky, unless she’s hunching over.

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/04-dont-stop-billie-ving/archnemesis/

  9. RassilonTDavros

    Mary’s tactics failing miserably will never cease to bring me joy.

  10. True Survivor

    I was really shocked by yesterday’s strip. I thought Mary had just painted a junkless picture of her naked boyfriend to stand in for Adam. I didn’t think she was having him do some sort of nude performance art. (Its creepy but I guess her really loves her if is willing to do that so its sorta sweet???)

    1. Dean

      If Mary had posted a warning that her Hell House included nudity, she would probably have gotten a lot more interest.

      1. Nono

        But it’s not nudity, it’s ART.

        I just got an intense flashback to ‘it’s not smut, it’s LITERATURE’.

        Man Joyce veered really close to Mary at times.

    2. C.T. Phipps

      I mean, it means that Mary is indeed having people exposed to her boyfriend whipping it out for strangers.

      So….pretty ducking awful.

      1. Opus the Poet

        Autocorrect: it’s never “duck”. It’s almost always the other word that’s one letter off to the right from “duck”.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          So, pretty sucking awful.

    3. Thag Simmons

      It’s clear he’s uncomfortable with it and it’s also a pretty serious crime, so not really seeing the positive

      1. Andy

        By college-evangelical standards, sex with Mary is probably hot and wild as hell.
        (Now I’m picturing it and I need to go pickle my brain.)

      2. Ladymissfit

        I got the feeling he’s in on it cause he WANTS people to see his willie

    4. Jamie

      If Mary had painted it, it’d be a lot more anime.

  11. Reltzik

    I count neurodivergent… non-white… demi… lesbian and/or bi and/or pan… what’s the fifth one?

    1. DailyBrad

      Woman, I’d presume.

      1. The Wellerman

        Yeah that.

        Also, people of low vertical stature don’t exactly have the highest social status in the world. ? (No pun intended.)

        1. Reltzik

          Yeah, they’re easy to overloo— ARGH WHY AM I CHANNELING WALKY?

        2. The Wellerman

          I’m jealous. I could use some of his ADHDemon energy right about now…

        3. The Oracle

          I’d say that the pun was top-shelf, but that might put it out of reach.

      2. Reltzik

        Duh, how did I overlook that? And also atheist, how did I overlook that?

    2. True Survivor

      Dinosaur. Their time is over! The age of the mammal is at hand!

      1. Nathan

        Birds aren’t real!

    3. jeffepp

      An actual twelve year old thought she was also twelve.

    4. The Wellerman

      BTW, if Becky already knows Dina is specifically autistic or at least knows she’s neurodivergent, that actually gets me kind of concerned for the way autism is gonna be explored in the comic.

  12. Nathan

    Dina never breaking character throughout any of this is how you know she’s a PROFESSIONAL.

  13. Viktoria

    Wait. Wait. Did Willis name Mary’s bf Peter because it’s slang for penis? Was this planned for that long?

    1. sanvi

      Prolly not; Peter existed in the walkyverse, Willis’s first welcoming, and thus has been named and around for years. Willis is really good but i would be surprised if they’d managed to see this far into a continuity that I don’t think even existed yet 😛

    2. John Campbell

      Nah, he’s been around since the Walkyverse. His full name is Peter Paul. Because Peter Paul and Mary.

      1. thejeff

        Yeah, the joke is older and more painful.

    3. woobie

      Ultimate brick joke?

      1. Laura

        Until it Petered out.

  14. Switchchris24

    I hate her so much, HOW DARE she say Dina isnt important, nobody talks down to Dina or else they become Dino Food for the Velociraptors, we shall rejoice as her corpse is ripped apart by the small chicken like dinos.

    1. Geneseepaws

      I’ll make some popcorn!

  15. Dark_T_Zeratul

    Boy, does this feel really prescient today…

    1. Nathan

      Oh no, what current events did I miss today?

      1. Dark_T_Zeratul

        Someone doxxed a disabled trans writer, and it turns out he’s a part-time administrative employee of Lockheed Martin (he manages software licenses). And everyone basically decided that working for a defense contractor in any capacity means he is the absolute devil and evil incarnate, and therefore it is okay to completely shit on him.

        That a bunch of people were completely shitting on him already makes it clear that this is, frankly, little more than a post-hoc justification for continuing to shit on him.

        1. Amós Batista

          Ana Mardoll, right?

        2. The Wellerman

          Re: Lockheed Martin, do people do the same kinds of shitting on physicists who work for organizations like Berkeley national labs and 3M ?

  16. C.T. Phipps

    Is Dina not mattering because Dina is female, neuroatypical, or Asian?

    Because we haven’t gotten much sign Mary is racist yet but I ABSOLUTELY believe she’s probably racist as buck.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Should have gone with duck.

      Darnit.

    2. The Wellerman

      She is definitely racist, and this has been established pretty well since her first appearance post timeskip:

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/operating-2/

    3. JBento

      The answer to your first question is “yes”.

    4. Buli-buli

      Dina doesn’t matter because she’s not famous.
      (Keeping in mind that the difference between famous and infamous is presumed voting record).

  17. AbacusWizard

    whoops saying the quiet part out loud again

  18. newlland(Henryvolt)

    So you do need a Dick to matter enough to be canceled. Thanks for clarifying Marry.

    1. The Wellerman

      Yeah imma still sticking with my hypothesis that her whole hell house is secondary to the purpose of justifying premarital sex with Peter to her personal Jesus.

      “This isn’t sex! This is theater for Jesus! It’s totally 100% Holy™”

      1. Andy

        The only question is: will she fuck Peter in front of Dina and Becky? I am thinking yes.

        1. The Wellerman

          Hopefully she’ll have a blanket or at least something like it to cover them both. It can be hard to have enjoyable sex if either of the partners are too cold.

  19. Amelie Wikström

    “Important people shouldn’t have to face consequences for their crimes, like being told they don’t matter.”

    “So like you just told Dina.”

    “No, she’s not important. Unimportant people shouldn’t get ideas above their station, like thinking they matter.”

    “So like Peter, the guy who was so unsuccessful at open mic night he had to resort to pulling his dick out?”

    “No, he’s an important man, there are people who care about his opinions.”

    “So like Dina who like, single-handedly taught me scientific literacy?”

    “No! She believes in evolution, she’s wrong, so she should face the consequence of being told she’s unimportant. And wrong.”

    “So showing your dick to people isn’t wrong?”

    “Yes it is, if you don’t look you just don’t get it.”

    1. Amelie Wikström

      Hmm the last line really needed an “ugh” or a comma or something.

      1. eh, whatever

        “Yes, it is, if you – look, you just don’t get it.”

        The n dash is Alt+0150 on the numeric block. 🙂

        1. Jamie

          It’s just Option+- on the Mac.

          Option+Shfit+- if you want an emdash.

  20. General Tekno

    The depressing part is that Mary’s well on her way to being a prominent voice as an elected Republican official.

    If you’re right wing enough you become immune to criticism because then you have a built-in contingent that will cheer you on the worse you are, so long as you hate the same people they do/worship the same golden calves.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Like passing a bill with a technicality that makes it technically illegal, then rejecting the exact same bill with one sentence removed by the House (to solve the technicality), and high-fiving each other on the Senate floor because you “successfully” played the other side as chumps and fucked over combat veterans?

  21. cmd1095

    I firmly believe Becky is just trolling Mary at this point.

    1. Lady Duffman

      It adds up. Even Dina would have broken character by now, otherwise.

  22. Geneseepaws

    So as Mary sees it, it’s 999 upvotes? Ugh, she’s just, … imma shut up now.

  23. Dana

    Becky is enjoying every second of this that doesn’t involve exposed wenuses

  24. Dr. Gonzo

    I hate Mary because she makes me hate Dumbing Of Age as a whole.

  25. Kyrik Michalowski

    Watching Becky deconstruct everything Mary is trying to say is truly wonderful. This can only get worse for Mary, and I’m glad that is the case.

    Anyone want smores for the show? I splurged and got jumbo marshmallows, extra large graham crackers and Godiva chocolate.

    1. Buli-buli

      The best part is HOW things are going down.

      Mary says something absurd.
      Becky agrees and vocally reinterprets the message into something something sensible.
      Mary is embarrassed and has to further explain her intent.

      I’ve repeatedly read that one way to defuse racists/sexists etc is to feign confusion and make them explain their horrible underlining assumptions. Because their entire worldview relies on the belief their prejudices are self-evident.
      Becky is doing that to Mary.

  26. Mr. Random

    So who in Mary’s family/Parasocial network got cancelled?

    1. Opus the Poet

      Near as I can tell, it was either Lewis CK or Andy Dick, both of whom were arrested/indicted for indecent exposure with Dick getting arrested around the right time for Mary to get all hyper about it in 2011.

      1. King Daniel

        Mary would have been ten or eleven years old when their arrests/indictments took place, so unlikely it’s them (in-universe, out of universe it’s likely at least a partial allusion by Willis to them).

  27. Fay

    God, Mary is just so… pathetic. Like on one hand a part of me feels sad for her because the only thing she has in her life is hate, but on the other hand she also pushes that hate on everyone around her so ultimately I just wanna punt her like a football.

    She’s a person you can just look at and be like, “Yeah, she is never going to be happy in her life.”

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Never feel bad for hate addicts. It is a addiction you have to cultivate and tend with great care.

  28. FaerwenOfValenwood

    Mary sure likes to YELL SUDDENLY A LOT

  29. Juanoku

    Becky, professional national treasure and general ray of sunshine

  30. a/snow/mous/e

    I also thought it was thumbs down to Satan, tbh

  31. Robbie

    I don’t have the bandwidth to sustain my anger at a comic character tonight but UGH

    1. The Wellerman

      Welp I had it and wasted it all on tonight’s episode of Tuca and Berty ?

      Do you watch that show BTW? If not you should, it’s REALLY good

  32. Stifyn Baker

    I love it when Fundies aren’t even reading their own bible. ‘666’ has nothing to do with Satan or the Devil (who are biblically not necessarily the same being). Revelation chapter 13, verse 18, clearly states that χξϛ, the ‘number of the beast’ (transliterated into Arabic numerals as 666), is the number of a HUMAN PERSON (traditionally believed to be a coded reference to the Emperor Nero, although it’s possible that’s also a fudge by Edwardian-era protestants who were vehemently anti-Catholic).
    In any case,  Papyrus 115 (which is currently the oldest preserved manuscript of the Revelation that we have discovered), as well as other ancient sources like ‘Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus’, give the ‘number of the beast’ as χιϛ or χιϲ, transliterable in Arabic numerals as 616, not 666… so it’s not even the right number anyway.

    1. The Wellerman

      666 was the original coded sum of all the numerical values of the letters in Neron Ceasar, the Hebrew pronunciation of Emperor Nero’s name.

      It changed to 616 upon removing the last “n” from “Neron”, accounting for the difference of 50 in both versions.

      Also, “mark” as in “mark of the beast” is translated from the Greek charagma, most commonly used to refer to coinage. Hence, the Emperor’s name on Roman coins.

      1. eh, whatever

        616 would work out to another emperor, Domitian.

    2. The Oracle

      So this fictional “beast” is actually the primary Marvel Comics universe?

      1. Daibhid C

        Interestingly (at least to me) there are conflicting stories as to how intentional that is.

        According to Alan Moore, it was just a random number he made up in Captain Britian to contrast the DC idea that universe we’re following is Earth-One. According to Alan Davis, it was actually coined by Moore’s predecessor, Dave Thorp, who used the Number of the Beast to express his loathing of superheroes. Thorp denies this, saying he has no loathing of superheroes.

    3. Amós Batista

      Wait: the Revelation book is, in part, older than the rest?

      1. thejeff

        No, that’s just the oldest manuscript copy of (parts of) Revelation that we still have. And it’s still 100 years or more after Revelation is believed to be have been written.

      2. Cybersnark

        Most biblical (or for that matter, historical) texts are copies of copies of copies, most of which have been “edited” for reasons both legitimate and revisionist. That’s why it’s important in historical research to always look for the oldest possible version of a text.

        1. thejeff

          The most common reason for “editing” is simple copying errors (or bad translation), though there are some apparent larger changes early on in the Biblical texts.
          There’s a fairly common misconception that the text of the Bible has been commonly revised for political/theological reasons much later than is really true. The vast majority of significant apparently intentional changes are in the first couple hundred years. Once widely copied and spread, it was much harder for any such changes to be accepted.

          As you say, it’s important to track the oldest versions to be as sure as possible of the original text, but I didn’t want to leave that giving the wrong impression.

    4. Geneseepaws

      I thought the ‘Beast’s’ number was 45? Ugh, wrong again.

  33. chuckroast

    Imagine if Mary was a real character.

    1. Dr. T

      Sadly, she’s pretty spot on in matching far too many real-life people.

    2. The Oracle

      Yeah, it’s always a little weird when real-life people are just transplanted 1:1 into a work of fiction. I think Willis is still making it pretty funny, though.

  34. OnyxIdol

    I continue to love to hate Mary

  35. Rabisch

    Everyone in the college will come to see Mary’s absurd show and laugh at her and her beliefs.

    1. Daibhid C

      Exactly! It’s cancel culture coming for the important people who matter!

  36. Marrow

    I love you Willis, I though it meant “thumbs down to Satan” too lol

  37. Amós Batista

    Just give the hell room to Becky, Mary. She’s N times more christian than you.

    1. The Wellerman

      Is that a reference to the number 50 in the sum of the number of the beast? ?

  38. Zaxares

    What I find most interesting in this strip though is that apparently Becky is on board with thinking cancel culture is a bad thing. Yes, the scenario she’s envisioning where people are forbidden to make mistakes and your entire life can get torn apart on the altar of public approval IS scary (but it’s never really permanent in real life. Public interest is fickle and moves on quite quickly), if you think about it, but in reality the term has mostly been derailed and used to mean “I can’t be mean to/oppress the minorities anymore because of cancel culture!”

    1. Needfuldoer

      According to Mary, it’s “consequences for your own actions”. Just your garden variety right wing “cAnCeL cUlTuRe” whining.

      According to Becky, it’s “any slip-up, no matter how minor, will be used as an excuse to exercise hateful biases against you”, which Mary helpfully demonstrates immediately afterward.

    2. Regina phalange

      I think she’s got a good point. Yes, “cancel culture” as a term is pretty much exclusively used by right-wingers to whine about the “sensitive” leftists keep “ruining” things. And right NOW the emergent targets of the propensity to write people off for mistakes are people of power, and the it doesn’t tend to stick long-term.

      But the targets can’t be exclusively privileged forever. They already aren’t. I mean the campaign against JK Rowling was SUPER effective; I don’t think anyone who uses the internet can look at her the same way. The same definitely can’t be said for Louis CK; he’s found a new niche, he just can’t be on TV for awhile. One is a domestic violence survivor who hates a group of people; the other committed literal sex crimes.

      (I’m not saying harsh backlash is undeserved. Though I do think it’s worth examining that the backlash is definitely harsher if the person who did the terrible thing is a women or POC or disabled than if the person is not any of those things. Probably because you get right-wingers hopping on the backlash train just because they want to see a marginalized person get taken down.)

      1. JBento

        Yeah, the campaign against Rowling was so effective that she’s filthy rich and going to make another bazillion dollars from IP rights with a Harry Potter MMO. Super-effective!

        1. The Oracle

          In fact, one of her movies came out THIS YEAR, even if it’s a pile of steamig dogshit. Rowling and her kids are never going to want for anything again, so it’s clear to me that she’s been permanently removed from the network and her life is ruined by all those meany-heads on Twitter.

      2. thejeff

        I mean, Rowling is nearly the perfect example of how cancel culture fails. Like so many on the right, she’s take the attempt to cancel her and weaponized it. Not so much for money in her case, but to further her of attacking trans people. It’s been wildly successful. Especially in the UK, but with spillover on this side of the pond.

        1. Leorale

          There actually are canceled lefty-people, who are canceled by leftists, and it really sucks for them! They aren’t rich and famous though. Utterly destroying somebody online can be very serious, and should probably only be used as a last resort and/or against the Very Powerful (like JKR).

          A friend-of-a-friend was a liberal figure: he helped start an organization against domestic violence, for helping survivors, etc. Cool. An ex-girlfriend, also big in the scene, publically accused him of serious wrongdoing, which was a surprise to him. He immediately apologized, said he didn’t know, he was very sorry, etc. He was kicked out of his community, his anti-DV career, etc., he got years of constant death threats from all these DV survivors who now saw him as a fraud and menace and a stand-in for their abusers — they sided with the ex-girlfriend and promised to utterly destroy his life.

          Years of constant verbal abuse and death-threats. He attempted suicide at least once. The death-threateners cheered, and the messages kept coming — as far as I know, to this day.

          You can’t Google his name without finding the scandal, so he’s unemployable and undateable. He tried to change his name but was doxxed, and his doxxers assured him that he will always find him til he’s dead. It’s not like he’d want to take his experience public, get even more of this attention, and go work for the republican party or something. He’s still a liberal, he’s just penniless and traumatized, a broken shell of a man.

          Did he do it? I don’t know. I don’t know the guy at all (my friend knew him in highschool). But I do know that at least one canceled person didn’t get out of cancel-culture unscathed.

        2. Leorale

          …JKR is doing fine though. She certainly would’ve been *even richer* if she’d chosen not to attack trans people (imagine a world in which, every few years, she tweeted “happy Sorting Day!” instead of being a big ol’ TERF. We would’ve loved her forever). But she’s not financially or socially ruined in any way.

        3. C.T. Phipps

          Weirdly, the worst cancel culture I’ve found as an author on the Left side of thing is of Young Adult writers.

          https://www.vulture.com/2017/08/the-toxic-drama-of-ya-twitter.html

          This poor Harry Potter knock off that I read got treated like Mein Kampf. The weird thing being that the book is about its Not-Slytherin girl learning that racism against magical people is wrong.

        4. Eldritchy

          It would probably help if Potterheads were capable of Freeing themselves of Everything-Potter… but nope. They even change dthe name of Quidditch but they Keep Paying.

  39. darkoneko

    Well the mask sure fell fast. Then again, it was pretty hastily and sloppily put on

  40. RedCat

    There was a time where I thought Mary was unrealistic and over the top, but I also didn’t really have social media then, so.

    1. Alex

      This is my favorite comment today.

  41. Buli-buli

    Another thing, what’s with Mary’s t-shirt?

    It’s just arbitrarily mashing two things she thinks are bad together.

    What if you get 666 downvotes? Well, what if you get 777 downvotes? That’s a holy number, right?

    1. Needfuldoer

      “It’s just arbitrarily mashing two things she thinks are bad together.”

      Yeah, that tracks.

    2. The Oracle

      777 is a good number to get on slot machines, which are gambling, which is Wrong if it’s not being done by a fundie, which means Mary probably hates that one too.

    3. Nathan

      She explains it in the first panel.

  42. Ryan

    Does Mary have any positive traits?

    1. Schpoonman

      She undercharges for art commissions

      1. alongcameaspider

        I’d argue that’s a negative trait because it normalizes underpaying for commissions

    2. Romanticide

      She delivers art commissions on time and the way they were asked?

    3. the jighole man

      Mary is a caricature of of a religious person.
      the writer basically took a west-borough baptist and said “now lets make this even worse”.

      most Christians (assuming they aren’t A holes in genera) will just look at you disapprovingly before moving on, and that’s it. they don’t make giant shows, they don’t talk about autistic people like they don’t matter, and they don’t run around insulting people for being different.

      Mary is a christian as written by someone who has never met a christian and only heard about them from a liberal arts professor.

      1. Eldritchy

        You do know that this comic is autobiographical to an extent? With Joyce representing the author?

        1. thejeff

          It’s always so funny.

      2. Bryy

        Willis literally escaped a cult.

      3. The Oracle

        This is the one at whom we point and laugh, yes?

      4. Kaeto

        Okay so like I highly suspect this is bait, but as someone who grew up much the same as Willis except even MORE conservative, I can’t help but point out that the only unrealistic thing about Mary is that she says so much of it out loud, in public. Which makes sense given this is a webcomic that doesn’t do thought bubbles. But the things she says are right in line with what people do very much believe. Down to fetishizing Ronald Reagan! One of my private religious school teachers literally named his daughter “Reagan” after him.

        1. Bryy

          It’s also important to point out that this is a Hell House, designed specifically to be hyperbolic as hell in order to indoctrinate kids.

  43. pyrock_mania

    man, if 666 dislikes make you the devil, there are some videos out there that must be, like, the super-hyper-devil 😛

  44. Just another fun

    First, Mary is either a natural asshole or incredibly misled and this is an a priori like the fact that joyce has a crush on Dorothy. I can’t even think about a scenario where Mary is good.

    Second, have you ever thought for how many reasons Dina is marginalized ? There are loads ! She :
    1)Is gay(or bi anyway)
    2)Is probably autistic
    3)Has Asian origins
    4)Is a girl (Yes, gender inequality is still a thing)
    5)Is a nerd (admit it, whoever knows so many dinosaur facts is a nerd)
    6)Is short (height discrimination exists and I’m saying that as a 6’2″ dude)
    I wonder how many of this reasons Becky knows…

    1. Alex

      It also seems that she is on the asexuality spectrum. I think “five different kinds” is just an expression and not an exact tally.

  45. Keulen

    Like Becky, I assumed Mary’s shirt was “thumbs down to Satan” too. Her hell house is gonna be this pathetic nonsense the whole time and not actually scary at all, isn’t it?

  46. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    Mary, are you really going to say Dina is not an important person who matters? In front of Dina? To Dina’s girlfriend? Like, Mary, you are talking to two people right now, and your spooky “it could happen to you” spiel falls especially flat if you also think your ideas don’t need to apply to them.

    1. Bryy

      We’ve already established that Mary literally does not view anyone that’s non-Christian as a person.

  47. Alan in DC

    You know those internet artists that do the 3D human-like renderings of cartoon characters like Homer Simpson, Popeye et al?

    Have any of them done any DoA characters? I’d love to see how they would render out, and Google is no damn help.

  48. ADLegend21

    God I want Mary to get hurt so badly.

    1. Bryy

      I’m super unsure of how Mary will be resolved, since she’s had TWO (three if you count the lurking as foreshadowing of past events) moments in the comic where she has been specifically shown to be shaken.

      So her options are either redemption through self-reflection or another religious assault.

      I wonder if she made Hell House SPECIFICALLY because of Peter’s incident.
      Oh, and also it totally tracks that Peter is a sexual predator.

      1. The Oracle

        I uh, I think the “showing his penis” thing was a bit and not an actual representation of facts. Acting, so to speak. I don’t think there was an actual incident, so she probably wouldn’t have created all this for specifically that reason.

        Y’know, aside from the fact that he did absolutely show his penis, but that was part of a different bit and not directly related to the bit referencing his penis being shown. Mary’s slightly stupid, really.

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