(would be nice if the cast wore their costumes anyway in “present” time, just bc they paid so much/put so much effort into it and realised, no one can stop them from costuming WHENEVER THEY WANT)
it was mid-to-late October ( per the wiki), which is about normal time for midterms. My suspicion is that we’re going to start in proper around the start of Winter term in January or around end of Fall term so we can witness A Joyce Brown Christmas Carol (I’ll see myself off now after that joke).
They’re on a semester system and just started mid-terms before the time jump so I think they should have already been in October. I tried to confirm this on IW’s web site but their academic calendar doesn’t list when midterms is. I checked the site for another college on the semester system and they have it on October 13th this year. I think the October panel was to tell us the current month so the time skip in this comic had context.
According to the Dumbing of Age Timeline in the Walkypedia, the chapter “When It Crumbles” (which begins with a flashback to Amber and Ethan, then segues into the 4 AM fire alarm, the kidnappings, Ross’s death, the gang’s escape, the flight in the minivan, Blaine’s eventual capture, and ends with Becky and Big Sister Sarah back in the dorm) is listed as taking place on October 20th.
The current chapter, “Is A Song Forever?”, is dated October 22 and begins with a flashback to Amber and an injured Mike outside Kirkwood Hall, then continues with everyone in the hospital checking on Mike, Blaine’s “suicide”, mid-terms, the parents’ arrival, the group’s retreat to the roof of Read Hall, Robin’s withdrawal/concession, and ended with the group shot on Garbage Roof following by the two-page time ‘October turns into November’ time skip.
So we’re looking at a 10-day time skip here, minimum; maybe more, depending on when Willis rejoins the story with the start of Book 11/Chapter 1, “This Bright Millennium”.
Is A Song Forever? is dated to the 21st, not the 22nd – both on the timeline page, and explicitly stated earlier in this chapter to have been the day after the kidnapping – but otherwise, year.
Think of all the wacky and/or drama filled adventures we’re skipping over right now. Ryan returns as a cyborg, the Blaine Zombie conspiracy! Jesus! Who knows?!
What if, when the comic resumes, the characters began referencing events that happened during the time-skip that make absolutely no sense without proper context.
Joyce: I can’t believe Mary sacrificed herself to save the world from that demon invasion!
Sarah: Joyce, you have to admit that the death of Ryan’s twin brother, Bryan, wasn’t your fault!
Clearly Linda got tired of waiting for Hank to show up. He wouldn’t answer his phone, so in a fit of pique, she left him there high and dry, to walk home. In the dark. With a hole in one shoe.
I always wonder what midwesterners think when they encounter nautical expressions left over from the days of wooden ships? I guess they google them just like everybody else.
Just seems that without knowing how the boats worked, a wiki article wouldn’t be very satisfying…
Speaking as one Midwesterner, a great many of us are familiar with boats and various expressions associated with them.
It probably has something to do with the Lakes. They’re pretty Great. Much boating and shipping is also done on a few rather large rivers that flow through.
Though I’m also going to guess that the colloquial meaning of “high and dry” is apparent in context, whether the reader or listener is nautical or (k)not.
Next strip: Blue car in spot formerly occupied by beige car, dark brown car across the way one more spot over, half-off-panel. The tree has shed its remaining leaves and has a light dusting of snow.
Strip after: Blue car in the half-off-panel spot across the way formerly occupied by dark brown car. No other cars seen. The tree is now a snow-covered stump.
Strip after: Little can be seen of the background, only a close-up of the blue car’s front end pointed directly toward the viewer. The headlights are blinding. You can hear its engine revving. You know deep inside that there is no escape. It’s over.
It’s a 2005-2007 Honda Accord. There’s a good chance the transmission’s pooched so it can’t move.
Source: had a V6 Accord of that era. That 5 speed automatic is made of glass. They failed even more spectacularly in the Odyssey minivan and Saturn Vue SUV.
Which Odyssey minivan? The original, smaller ones with manual doors, or the huge later ones with electric doors? I had one of the originals as my first car (it was my mother’s) and it ran great from 1997ish to 2008 or so.
The same year range as the affected USDM Accords, roughly 2002-2004.
The problem is one of the clutch packs didn’t get enough fluid, so it wore faster and got the fluid dirty enough to wreck other parts. At least on the Accord, Honda replaced an inspection/fill plug with an extra injector under recall, and shortened the fluid change interval to around 30,000 miles.
I don’t know how to feel about that. 10 years of the same colors was oddly comforting. We’ll have to save the CSS from a cached copy off the Internet Archive.
Of course, cascading style sheets gonna cascade, and now things are kinda broken because one change was made. I blame the extra V in ‘November’.
I’m not gonna lie, it bugs me that the archives also change, like how the old Roomies strips now have the Joyce and Walky branding. I’m sure keeping it separate would be really difficult if it’s even possible, but it just feels weird aesthetically.
And the summer became the fall
I was not ready for the winter
It makes no difference at all
‘Cause I wear boots all summer long–“Nightbird”, Stevie Nicks
A year passed: winter changed into spring, spring changed into summer, summer changed back into winter, and winter gave spring and summer a miss and went straight on into autumn… until one day…
Halloween Costumes*
Joyce – Starfire
Dorothy – Wasp
Roz – Party City Slutty Nun
Walky – The Rock, specifically from Jumanji
Amber – Velma Dinkley
Sarah – Phoenix Wright
Malaya – Sans
Ruth – The Stanley Cup
Billy – Patrick Kane
What could have happened? Maybe Joyce is dating Dorothy? Walky makes illegal alcohol? Sal come out as a transgender man? Danny had a one night stand with Jacob? Mike woke up and wrote a novel? Carol got ran over by reindeer? Linda joined the KKK and was arrested? Malaya became satanist? Jason makes money doing puppet porn like Bro Strider? Joe married Rachel by accident during a drunken adventure? Becky and Dina became detectives? Ethan ruined a Transformers panel from Hasbro at comic con? Faz became an isekai protagonist? Billie loses an eye and an arm and now looks like a human Vriska Serket? Amber got therapy but began taking an experimental drug that allows her to see other planes of existence, including ours? Ruth’s integrivact failed and she went on a rampage destroying all of Walky’s and Joyce’s collections of Dexter and Monkey Master? Stacy gets pregnant of Richard with triplets? Sierra awakens her Persona?
Joyce dating Dorothy is too obvious, Walky only makes moonshine by accident, Sal is cis but comes out as pan, Danny’s sworn a vow of celibacy and picked up a martial arts class, Mike is Dead, Dave, Carol will in fact get run over by a Reindeer but that’s technically a future spoiler, Linda actually finds the KKK to be too lefty, Malaya picks up D&D because of that one movie, Jason literally is Bro Strider, Rachel killed Joe by accident and is currently on the run, Becky and Dina being detectives is definitely happening, Ethan writes the new Transformer show, I don’t know who Faz is, you’re too right, Amber is Doctor Manhattan but cool, Ruth is ghost-managing the Leafs now, Stacy is actually pregnant with Richard, and Sierra is clearly the Priestess Arcana.
This could be a really dark christmas fic. Carol begins feeling guilty about all her crimes and goes to Joyce and Dorothy’s house to seek back her daughter, but she is run over by reindeer (probably the one from the fairy in Questionable Content), but before she dies she crawls towards her daughter’s new home until she passes out and dies because of the cold of that wintery night. Joyce would hate her mom more because of her corpse appearing in her front yard and traumatizing hers and Dorothy’s daughter.
So I do wonder what will change after the time skip. I don’t think anything really significant will happen otherwise why not show it right? But how do you think the characters will change? New looks? New couples? Maybe Becky will be officially attending classes and have a dorm instead of shadowing Dina or whatever she was doing. I think that one’s a pretty safe assumption. Maybe Mike either woke up or died. It would have to be one right? Any ideas?
Personally as far as new looks or something I’d really dig Sal moving past needing to straighten her hair and embrace some cool natural hair styles. Maybe Joe goes full Richard clone with some facial hair.
Depends on how many time skip comics there’s going to be. If we pick up again in November or before Spring semester starts, it’ll be too soon for Becky to actually be in classes. She may already know her transfer to IU has been accepted though.
I’m guessing Mike’s coma is one reason for the time-skip; he doesn’t want to spend years with Mike effectively out of the comic because it will take a few days/weeks for him to get out the hospital.
I shall make a risky prediction and say that (assuming we start in a new semester) Jacob will have decided he’s no longer pre-law. Also going to predict Walky still didn’t pass that math class.
If Walky passes he still won’t do well enough to make his parents happy. (I know that they don’t legally have a right to see their grades but they’ll definitely insist on it.) Sal doing better than him will probably cause some bizarre fight where their mom gets angry Sal didn’t help Walky.
The great & powerful Willis doesn’t want to spend years drawing Halloween costumes, T-day decorations, Xmas decorations, nor New Years & Valetines Day stuff.
We’re Fast Forwarding straight to March, so he can get busy on the St, Patrick’s Day festivities!
That’s Roz’s costume. Joe of course goes for some perverted costume that happens to be complimentary to it like “discount gynecologist”. Everyone assumes they’re doing a couple’s costume thing, despite Roz’s increasingly exasperated denial. Hijinks will ensue.
Next strip will likely be “December”, I’m betting. Winter doesn’t begin until the solstice at the end of that month after all, and Willis has promised us winter.
Plus, we know this chapter doesn’t end until around the 10th.
Speaking as someone who lives even further north than Bloomington, I’m here to tell that the date of the ‘Winter Solstice’ is just that — a date on a calendar. Up here, WE know that winter has effectively begun as soon as there is snow on the ground, usually by Thanksgiving or shortly thereafter.
Do you also get a striked out Convention Announcement for 2019 with the „not anywhere for a while…“ text in the Convention Appearances Box? This might have been the case for ages and I only noticed because of the new design, but right now it’s confusing me.
A year passed: Winter changed into spring, spring changed into summer, summer changed back into winter, and winter gave spring and summer a miss and went straight on into autumn.
I really hope Billie and Ruth are still together and happy after the time skip. Whenever a time skip happens in anything I’m worried couples I like will be broken up.
According to the wiki, Book 1 started on August 29th, and Book 10 ended on October 21st. So, 53 days passed in the first 3363 strips- that’s an average rate of 0.0158 in-universe days per strip, or about 63 strips per day.
We’ll assume each of these “month” strips progress the timeline by exactly one month, so this strip accounts for 31 days.
Therefore, in this one strip, the passage of time suddenly accelerated to 1,967 (31 ÷ 0.0158) times the average. If time had continued to pass at its normal rate, we’d be reaching this strip in early 2026.
Quite a while ago, I did a back-of-the-napkin calculation (accounting for previous time skips and the brief period where there were no weekend updates), and came to about 66.67:1.
DECEMBER – University has been reduced to flaming ruins. Killer cyborgs toting plasma rifles hunt down anything that moves. Somehow, Blowjob Cat is still standing.
A decade. We’ve waited a decade for Halloween. And now Willis just skips it.
DAMN YOU WILLIS!!!!!!!!!
(This comic can be maddeningly slow sometimes, and have infuriating cliffhangers that don’t resolve for ages. But skipping Halloween? Yeah, I’m genuinely not happy about this.)
I wouldn’t be sad about Halloween if Sarah hadn’t been getting hype for it. I found her love of spoopy season to be an adorable character trait, and doubly adorable that Joyce supported her by giving her plausible deniability for liking a thing.
time to throw out the Trumpkin
Hahaha. That’s awesome!
T-t-t-timeskip ?! \o\
…this was supposed to be a standalone message, why did it post here ? ^^;
This thing needs upvotes.
i laughed very hard at this
Can we pretty please have bonus strip with halloween costumes?
I SECOND THIS. FLASHBACK PLZ!
Please and thank you. We’ve been waiting for ten years for halloween ;.;
Voting same!
I would have loved to see Joyce work though Halloween.
Agreed, I’ve been dying to see Halloween with this group for literally the entirety of the strip.
Relax. There’s always next year.
Willis wouldn’t time-skip two Halloweens in a row would he?
Um…
Damn You, Willis!
what is this “nekst yeer” you speak of
Something set to come out in 3079 AD
We did tho!
…it was a flashback, but we did!
(would be nice if the cast wore their costumes anyway in “present” time, just bc they paid so much/put so much effort into it and realised, no one can stop them from costuming WHENEVER THEY WANT)
This. Much thisness.
Oh man, I didn’t realize how much I love seeing fictional characters in Halloween costumes until this exact moment; I am absolutely on this train.
One less car. Obviously something important happened.
ROAD TRIP!
I’m gonna go with “bad parking job by grey car person”.
The Gray SUV ate the White SUV obviously.
Oh snap
Time really do be flyin tho
How much time has passed? I don’t recall what month it was for them one page ago.
im assuming its 2-3 weeks a page
Yesterdays strip said October, todays says November… I’d say a month has passed.
I say two months. Last month’s strip saying that it is now October when it was probably September before. This month passing through November.
it was mid-to-late October ( per the wiki), which is about normal time for midterms. My suspicion is that we’re going to start in proper around the start of Winter term in January or around end of Fall term so we can witness A Joyce Brown Christmas Carol (I’ll see myself off now after that joke).
They’re on a semester system and just started mid-terms before the time jump so I think they should have already been in October. I tried to confirm this on IW’s web site but their academic calendar doesn’t list when midterms is. I checked the site for another college on the semester system and they have it on October 13th this year. I think the October panel was to tell us the current month so the time skip in this comic had context.
According to the Dumbing of Age Timeline in the Walkypedia, the chapter “When It Crumbles” (which begins with a flashback to Amber and Ethan, then segues into the 4 AM fire alarm, the kidnappings, Ross’s death, the gang’s escape, the flight in the minivan, Blaine’s eventual capture, and ends with Becky and Big Sister Sarah back in the dorm) is listed as taking place on October 20th.
The current chapter, “Is A Song Forever?”, is dated October 22 and begins with a flashback to Amber and an injured Mike outside Kirkwood Hall, then continues with everyone in the hospital checking on Mike, Blaine’s “suicide”, mid-terms, the parents’ arrival, the group’s retreat to the roof of Read Hall, Robin’s withdrawal/concession, and ended with the group shot on Garbage Roof following by the two-page time ‘October turns into November’ time skip.
So we’re looking at a 10-day time skip here, minimum; maybe more, depending on when Willis rejoins the story with the start of Book 11/Chapter 1, “This Bright Millennium”.
Is A Song Forever? is dated to the 21st, not the 22nd – both on the timeline page, and explicitly stated earlier in this chapter to have been the day after the kidnapping – but otherwise, year.
this is freaking me out but playing the forrest gump theme is helping
holy shit
So long, white car. You have been an important part of this comic.
…and he swore he wasn’t going to kill off a major character, too
Dark Grey Car is trying to slowly creep off-panel.
next comic: [DECEMBER]. there is only the dark grey car. it has consumed its bretheren and is now the highwaylander.
Think of all the wacky and/or drama filled adventures we’re skipping over right now. Ryan returns as a cyborg, the Blaine Zombie conspiracy! Jesus! Who knows?!
What if, when the comic resumes, the characters began referencing events that happened during the time-skip that make absolutely no sense without proper context.
Joyce: I can’t believe Mary sacrificed herself to save the world from that demon invasion!
Sarah: Joyce, you have to admit that the death of Ryan’s twin brother, Bryan, wasn’t your fault!
Walky: The truth is, I am your father…Sal!
Carla: I just invented a time machine. It can only jump as far back as October though. Who wants to crash our own Halloween party?
Pity it won’t quite take us back far enough to save Mike’s life.
Clearly Linda got tired of waiting for Hank to show up. He wouldn’t answer his phone, so in a fit of pique, she left him there high and dry, to walk home. In the dark. With a hole in one shoe.
I always wonder what midwesterners think when they encounter nautical expressions left over from the days of wooden ships? I guess they google them just like everybody else.
Just seems that without knowing how the boats worked, a wiki article wouldn’t be very satisfying…
Speaking as one Midwesterner, a great many of us are familiar with boats and various expressions associated with them.
It probably has something to do with the Lakes. They’re pretty Great. Much boating and shipping is also done on a few rather large rivers that flow through.
Though I’m also going to guess that the colloquial meaning of “high and dry” is apparent in context, whether the reader or listener is nautical or (k)not.
For the record, as of the first DoA strip and not accounting for any events thereafter,
Linda Walkerton is married to Charles.
Carol Brown is married to Hank.
Well, no wonder Hank didn’t show up.
Their car isn’t white.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/get/
Beige car has not moved. It is paralyzed with fear.
You would be too if you saw blue car eat white car.
White Car was shifty to begin with. I’m not surprised they got vored.
Meanwhile, in the parking spots across the way, black car just watches.
And the tree was so afraid it dropped most its leaves.
It’s moved over a space – it’s trying to creep off-panel.
Next strip: Blue car in spot formerly occupied by beige car, dark brown car across the way one more spot over, half-off-panel. The tree has shed its remaining leaves and has a light dusting of snow.
Strip after: Blue car in the half-off-panel spot across the way formerly occupied by dark brown car. No other cars seen. The tree is now a snow-covered stump.
Strip after: Little can be seen of the background, only a close-up of the blue car’s front end pointed directly toward the viewer. The headlights are blinding. You can hear its engine revving. You know deep inside that there is no escape. It’s over.
It’s a 2005-2007 Honda Accord. There’s a good chance the transmission’s pooched so it can’t move.
Source: had a V6 Accord of that era. That 5 speed automatic is made of glass. They failed even more spectacularly in the Odyssey minivan and Saturn Vue SUV.
Which Odyssey minivan? The original, smaller ones with manual doors, or the huge later ones with electric doors? I had one of the originals as my first car (it was my mother’s) and it ran great from 1997ish to 2008 or so.
The same year range as the affected USDM Accords, roughly 2002-2004.
The problem is one of the clutch packs didn’t get enough fluid, so it wore faster and got the fluid dirty enough to wreck other parts. At least on the Accord, Honda replaced an inspection/fill plug with an extra injector under recall, and shortened the fluid change interval to around 30,000 miles.
Needfuldoer provides insightful automotive history. Clif hears “Honda violated the USDM Accords.”
Oh jeez the site’s colors changed.
I don’t know how to feel about that. 10 years of the same colors was oddly comforting. We’ll have to save the CSS from a cached copy off the Internet Archive.
Of course, cascading style sheets gonna cascade, and now things are kinda broken because one change was made. I blame the extra V in ‘November’.
I told them they should spell Novvember with a triple V in case one got lost.
I amend that it be called “Nowvember” but only during that month, for accuracy’s sake and to curb peak use of lowercase Vs.
I’m not gonna lie, it bugs me that the archives also change, like how the old Roomies strips now have the Joyce and Walky branding. I’m sure keeping it separate would be really difficult if it’s even possible, but it just feels weird aesthetically.
Weird, it still looks the same for me
ditto
Same.
Yeah, the pink is a bit unnerving.
What’s this?! Did someone have a bit of a Mind Flip?! Are we into The Time Slip?!! (Will nothing ever be the same?!)
It’s a startling sensation.
Mike you’re under sedation.
What? This again?
Damn it, brown car, stay in your assigned parking space.
You ain’t the boss o’me!
That’s racist!
It’s a very slow race though.
How now, Brown Car?
Ok but I wanted to see Halloween costumes!! Please Halloween bonus strip??
“Nobody gets the Monkey for free!”–Jerry Lewis
Probably for patreon
Honestly I’d feel a just a little upset if Halloween costumes became a patreon exclusive.
You’re permitted to feel upset.
I really wanted a Halloween episode, but I suppose we’ll have to be happy with what we got.
https://baggebythesea.tumblr.com/post/128934812416/people-often-ask-you-about-how-long-youll-go-on
And the summer became the fall
I was not ready for the winter
It makes no difference at all
‘Cause I wear boots all summer long–“Nightbird”, Stevie Nicks
Ooh, semi-deep cut, good choice.
A year passed: winter changed into spring, spring changed into summer, summer changed back into winter, and winter gave spring and summer a miss and went straight on into autumn… until one day…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7rU2l9WiYo
I knew what the clip was even before I clicked the link.
It was from my favorite movie for quotes. “I’m not dead yet” is my favorite.
During the Time Skip, the Forum was forced to eat Robin’s Minstrels. And there was much rejoicing.
Yaaay.
*strums stevie nicks’ landslide*
At this rate, by Tuesday it will be Thursday, by Wednesday it will be August, and by Thursday it will be the end of existence as we know it!
We’re working off different data because *I* heard that yesterday was Tuesday, but today is Tuesday too.
Ah I remember these pages of Twilight.
the fact that this is still the same storyline is freaking me out more than the timeskip actually
I’m also kinda “Wait, there’s more?!” here.
act now and get four traumas for the price of three
Yeah, this feels like it’s going to segue into the next story, like Sarah and Joyce will walk into frame dressed in their winter gear on the tenth.
Speaking of segues, how about this segue to our sponsor, Glasswire!
(Sorry, been binge watching Linus Tech Tips lately.)
Halloween Costumes*
Joyce – Starfire
Dorothy – Wasp
Roz – Party City Slutty Nun
Walky – The Rock, specifically from Jumanji
Amber – Velma Dinkley
Sarah – Phoenix Wright
Malaya – Sans
Ruth – The Stanley Cup
Billy – Patrick Kane
*less canon and more dreams
Party City for lyfe.
Dina as a Rule-63 Rex Raptor.
Ruth knows that Halloween can be for indulging in unattainable fantasy.
One way to gain some buffer space.
Our ships canna take the stress of transit through Buffer Space!
Mildly sad about the time skip but I love the new site colours, Willis!
What could have happened? Maybe Joyce is dating Dorothy? Walky makes illegal alcohol? Sal come out as a transgender man? Danny had a one night stand with Jacob? Mike woke up and wrote a novel? Carol got ran over by reindeer? Linda joined the KKK and was arrested? Malaya became satanist? Jason makes money doing puppet porn like Bro Strider? Joe married Rachel by accident during a drunken adventure? Becky and Dina became detectives? Ethan ruined a Transformers panel from Hasbro at comic con? Faz became an isekai protagonist? Billie loses an eye and an arm and now looks like a human Vriska Serket? Amber got therapy but began taking an experimental drug that allows her to see other planes of existence, including ours? Ruth’s integrivact failed and she went on a rampage destroying all of Walky’s and Joyce’s collections of Dexter and Monkey Master? Stacy gets pregnant of Richard with triplets? Sierra awakens her Persona?
And … what about Naomi?
What about Naomi?
Joyce dating Dorothy is too obvious, Walky only makes moonshine by accident, Sal is cis but comes out as pan, Danny’s sworn a vow of celibacy and picked up a martial arts class, Mike is Dead, Dave, Carol will in fact get run over by a Reindeer but that’s technically a future spoiler, Linda actually finds the KKK to be too lefty, Malaya picks up D&D because of that one movie, Jason literally is Bro Strider, Rachel killed Joe by accident and is currently on the run, Becky and Dina being detectives is definitely happening, Ethan writes the new Transformer show, I don’t know who Faz is, you’re too right, Amber is Doctor Manhattan but cool, Ruth is ghost-managing the Leafs now, Stacy is actually pregnant with Richard, and Sierra is clearly the Priestess Arcana.
Carol can’t get run over by a reindeer until she’s a grandma.
And she has to be heading home from Joyce’s house on Christmas Eve.
This could be a really dark christmas fic. Carol begins feeling guilty about all her crimes and goes to Joyce and Dorothy’s house to seek back her daughter, but she is run over by reindeer (probably the one from the fairy in Questionable Content), but before she dies she crawls towards her daughter’s new home until she passes out and dies because of the cold of that wintery night. Joyce would hate her mom more because of her corpse appearing in her front yard and traumatizing hers and Dorothy’s daughter.
“Faz became an isekai protagonist”
@u@
Willis, can you make “Faz: Most Beloved of Another World” a stretch goal in the next Kickstarter, pretty pretty please?
122 more of these and we’ll be caught up to real-time.
Props to you for counting the months. Did you include the current months that would take up the time to show each one?
So I do wonder what will change after the time skip. I don’t think anything really significant will happen otherwise why not show it right? But how do you think the characters will change? New looks? New couples? Maybe Becky will be officially attending classes and have a dorm instead of shadowing Dina or whatever she was doing. I think that one’s a pretty safe assumption. Maybe Mike either woke up or died. It would have to be one right? Any ideas?
Personally as far as new looks or something I’d really dig Sal moving past needing to straighten her hair and embrace some cool natural hair styles. Maybe Joe goes full Richard clone with some facial hair.
Yeah I’m hoping Mike is up and less abrasive. Good point about Becky finally being a student here.
Danny’s gonna get a new college look I bet. And there will be breakups and new couples.
Depends on how many time skip comics there’s going to be. If we pick up again in November or before Spring semester starts, it’ll be too soon for Becky to actually be in classes. She may already know her transfer to IU has been accepted though.
I’m guessing Mike’s coma is one reason for the time-skip; he doesn’t want to spend years with Mike effectively out of the comic because it will take a few days/weeks for him to get out the hospital.
I shall make a risky prediction and say that (assuming we start in a new semester) Jacob will have decided he’s no longer pre-law. Also going to predict Walky still didn’t pass that math class.
If Walky passes he still won’t do well enough to make his parents happy. (I know that they don’t legally have a right to see their grades but they’ll definitely insist on it.) Sal doing better than him will probably cause some bizarre fight where their mom gets angry Sal didn’t help Walky.
The great & powerful Willis doesn’t want to spend years drawing Halloween costumes, T-day decorations, Xmas decorations, nor New Years & Valetines Day stuff.
We’re Fast Forwarding straight to March, so he can get busy on the St, Patrick’s Day festivities!
Becky can no longer hide in the tree.
Wait, we don’t get to see Halloween? What the hoo-ha?
That’s Roz’s costume. Joe of course goes for some perverted costume that happens to be complimentary to it like “discount gynecologist”. Everyone assumes they’re doing a couple’s costume thing, despite Roz’s increasingly exasperated denial. Hijinks will ensue.
I mean, they were preparing for Halloween and Election day in the lead-up to the whole previous arc.
If I had to guess, only a few days at most have actually passed. End of October to start of November.
The trees just like to be very dramatic in how quickly they drop their leaves.
Next strip will likely be “December”, I’m betting. Winter doesn’t begin until the solstice at the end of that month after all, and Willis has promised us winter.
Plus, we know this chapter doesn’t end until around the 10th.
Speaking as someone who lives even further north than Bloomington, I’m here to tell that the date of the ‘Winter Solstice’ is just that — a date on a calendar. Up here, WE know that winter has effectively begun as soon as there is snow on the ground, usually by Thanksgiving or shortly thereafter.
Three days to end the chapter, three cars in the parking… Welcome to March, ladies and gentlemen!!
Next strip:
JUNE
“Meteorological winter” starts December 1.
> wait
Time passes.
Time was
Time is
Time will
too short for those who wait
too *slow for those who wait
(we need edit buttons…)
Time when
Space where
Gamora why
+1
If college passes by fast like this, I’d be comfortable…then panic…then wait for the next Spring Term to panic.
That brown car is also gonna need some witness protection, won’t it?
It has moved. So probably is wasn’t there to watch the deed.
I really hope someone is discovering the comic for the first time, and is confused about the community’s genuine concern over a missing car.
So… Who won the november election?
Monday strip: November. There’s one less car.
Tuesday strip: December. There’s no cars at all. The traffic sign is broken.
Wednesday strip: January. The building is a burned-out ruin…
Needs more Martian tripods.
That’s the Thursday strip, February.
Yeah. The Tripods. With Joyce-Martian hybrids riding them.
Or people with four glowing eyes (discovered the Resistance trilogy was a thing yesterday).
So I’m assuming the grey-ish car ate all the other cars, and then when there were no more cars to eat, it ate the building.
Not gonna lie, took me a lot longer than I care to admit that this was a different strip to yesterdays
?Sunriiiise….
?Sunset…
Do you also get a striked out Convention Announcement for 2019 with the „not anywhere for a while…“ text in the Convention Appearances Box? This might have been the case for ages and I only noticed because of the new design, but right now it’s confusing me.
It’s been like that for a while – dunno exactly when but sometime this spring.
JOYCE: “Come on Dorothy! Sal! Amber! Let’s frolic in the leaves!”
SAL: “‘Frolic’?”
*CARLA starts frolicking in the leaves*
CARLA: “Oh fuck yeah!”
Did Willis seriously skip Halloween? That’s like the best college-student holiday and now that I moved to Europe I miss it pretty badly.
You could always do it as a noodle incident.
DOROTHY: “Remember what happened when you drunk Carla’s ‘fruit punch’ at Halloween?”
Oh God, Willis can troll us SO hard with all the stuff we wanted to see, but he now doesn’t have to show.
(Joyce: “and wasn’t it crazy how me and Dorothy finally hooked up.” Dorothy: “Sure was”)
But he wouldn’t do that. Would he?
HE. WOULD.
Absolutely the trolling.
But hey maybe we can hope for a flashback, too?
A year passed: Winter changed into spring, spring changed into summer, summer changed back into winter, and winter gave spring and summer a miss and went straight on into autumn.
Until one day…
And there was much rejoicing.
“… Yyyaaayyy…”
I really hope Billie and Ruth are still together and happy after the time skip. Whenever a time skip happens in anything I’m worried couples I like will be broken up.
Let’s do some quick math.
According to https://www.dumbingofage.com/category/comic/ there were 3364 comics as of today.
According to the wiki, Book 1 started on August 29th, and Book 10 ended on October 21st. So, 53 days passed in the first 3363 strips- that’s an average rate of 0.0158 in-universe days per strip, or about 63 strips per day.
We’ll assume each of these “month” strips progress the timeline by exactly one month, so this strip accounts for 31 days.
Therefore, in this one strip, the passage of time suddenly accelerated to 1,967 (31 ÷ 0.0158) times the average. If time had continued to pass at its normal rate, we’d be reaching this strip in early 2026.
Quite a while ago, I did a back-of-the-napkin calculation (accounting for previous time skips and the brief period where there were no weekend updates), and came to about 66.67:1.
SIGH…. There are no more middle seasons.
DECEMBER – University has been reduced to flaming ruins. Killer cyborgs toting plasma rifles hunt down anything that moves. Somehow, Blowjob Cat is still standing.
Blowjob Cat is in control of the killer cyborgs, of course.
“BLOOD AND SOULS FOR MY LORD BLOWJOB CAT!”
*weeps at the loss of Halloween*
Even my rage drowns in my grief.
ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
A decade. We’ve waited a decade for Halloween. And now Willis just skips it.
DAMN YOU WILLIS!!!!!!!!!
(This comic can be maddeningly slow sometimes, and have infuriating cliffhangers that don’t resolve for ages. But skipping Halloween? Yeah, I’m genuinely not happy about this.)
same.
i think he grossly underestimated our love of costumed spookytimes.
what if it just keeps going until the timeline’s caught up
A commenter, ChibiJon, kept count of how long that would take.
Plot twist: the rest of 2020 is just daily time skips.
The comic first started on the 10th of September in 2010.
And today is the 7th, ten years later. If each panel continues to depict a month, the storyline may take place in February.
Well, almost ten years later.
The comic isn’t set in 2010, though, but 2020 (well, a 2020 sans COVID, that is).
I didn’t mean when the comic was sent but when the author started writing it.
Oh, you’re saying that the time skip will finish on the actual anniversary, the 10th. Guess we’ll find out in 40 minutes.
This is a crushing blow in the war against Halloween
Everything is pink?
Neat
It does make it easier to see where someone has created a link now.
RIP Halloween story arc. Killed before it had a chance.
The URL for this one is “novvember”. Just FYI
It’s actually a ‘w’ — which, in German, is pronounced like a ‘v’.
I wouldn’t be sad about Halloween if Sarah hadn’t been getting hype for it. I found her love of spoopy season to be an adorable character trait, and doubly adorable that Joyce supported her by giving her plausible deniability for liking a thing.
Willis missed a chance to make another Monty Python reference here.