165

October
Posted on September 6, 2020 by David M Willis
*Forrest Gump theme* The FINAL bonus strip of the FIRST TEN YEARS is about the further adventures of Danny's escaped hat! All patrons can check it out over here at the Dumbing of Age Patreon. and remember you can pledge up to always read TOMORROW's strip TODAY

165 thoughts on “October”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    and the pandemic is still going

    …

    oh, October in the COMIC

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      … I mean, with the sliding time scale thingy, yeah. Technically.

    2. Thrabalen

      Let’s be honest, though… it feels like it took us as long as it did to get to this point in 2020 as it did to get to this point in the story.

      1. Needfuldoer

        2020’s been a hell of a long decade.

        1. clif

          Can we concentrate on what’s important? It’s still October and we haven’t missed Halloween yet.

        2. Charles Spencer

          Why not? Retailers started concentrating on Halloween a week ago.

        3. ValdVin

          I’m in the Northeastern US. My sister’s b’day is mid-August and Halloween is her favorite holiday.

          For many years now, the appearance of Halloween-baggged candy and decorations have been popping up in the major-brand stores the first week of August.

          She loves getting three months of her favorite holiday, and I like the fact that seeing those plastic pumpkins in the store in early August reminds me to send her a b’day card.

        4. Supersonic92

          Halloween? I was at a Costco today and the Christmas stuff was already out!

        5. thejeff

          But tomorrow is likely to be November.

        6. FacelessDeviant

          I bet November is going to be the crown jewel of the crap that has been 2020.

        7. Toes14

          I’m wearing a Plague Mask for Halloween this year!

    3. Captain Oblivious

      Bow-wow-chicki-chicka-wow-ow! If this frame holds over the timeskip into the winter, we’re gonna get some non-Patreon tree-NUDITY!

  2. The Coolest Child

    Does this mean five months will pass if there’s a five day break?
    SPRINGING OF AGE LET’S GO

    1. Needfuldoer

      I think we’ll at least skip ahead into January. That gets us past the congressional inauguration, freeing up Robin as a side character. It’s more than enough time for Blaine and Toedead’s estates to be settled (at least the “clean” above-board matters in the former’s case). Mike might be on the cusp of coming out of his coma, or be in physical therapy by then.

      1. lightsabermario

        Generally speaking, that’s not quite how comas work. The longer they stay in the coma, the smaller a chance they have of coming out of it. Four months into a coma, the chance they have of ever coming out is less than 15%, and the chance they have of a full recovery is extremely low. If Mike is still in a coma around January, unless Willis plays it very unrealistically, we will never see Mike back to normal in the duration of the comic.

        1. Needfuldoer

          You’re right, longer than a couple weeks would be bad news, if it’s not exaggerated for soap opera plot dramatics. Barely 48 hours had passed since we checked in last, and there’s a substantial time skip coming. He could be out of it by Halloween for all we know. Point is, we’re not stuck with real-world years of Mike being stuck on the bus, serving as not much more than a Macguffin for Amber and Ethan’s character arcs. We get to jump ahead to a point where his fate is less ambiguous.

          There’s a Mike-ish silhouette In the ’coming soon’ preview on Twitter. He’ll probably be back in some form eventually, but not at 100%. I bet there’s going to be some cartoon healing factor in play for storytelling purposes.

        2. Needfuldoer

          *Barely 48 hours passed between his fall and when we last checked in on him.

          Bloody mobile commenting…

        3. Lingo

          That may be Imaginary Mike….

  3. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Happy Trees because they have broken ties with their leaves?

    1. Captain Oblivious

      Cuz they’re gonna git nekid!

    2. Jim

      Silly me, I thought this was a Bob Ross allusion…

  4. Doctor_Who

    I can’t find the hidden Michael Myers.

    Oh crap, does that mean he’s behind me?

    1. Juanoku

      I’d run

      1. He Who Abides

        And for God’s sake, don’t just start having sex, whatever you do.

        1. woobie

          or singing Bohemian Rhapsody.

        2. Sunny

          What if you have sex with Michael Myers? Would he have to kill himself then?

        3. He Who Abides

          According to VHS (literally the only movie I can think of with this situation in it), the monster still kills you once it gets off.

        4. Deanatay

          Happened in Species, too.

        5. He Who Abides

          Haven’t seen that one yet. Need to.

        6. Toes14

          His penis is a machete that impales you, slicing you open from the inside!

    2. FacelessDeviant

      Well, did you build it?

      Because then he’ll come.

  5. ADLegend21

    Happy trees made by a happy accident.

  6. General Tekno

    oh god, this was all in SEPTEMBER up until now?

    1. King Daniel

      No, we made it about halfway through October before yesterday’s strip came by.

      Looking at this, my guess is tomorrow’s strip is “November”, then “December”, then “January” is where we pick up again.

      1. danielle

        that sounds pretty reasonable

      2. Mra

        So nothing of significance happens to our main cast for the next quarter?
        I find that hard to believe since we still have the likely up and coming divorce of Joyce’s parents, Mike is still in the hospital, and if Amber doesn’t leave campus, Walky’s mom will throw a fit.

        1. King Daniel

          Divorces take a fair while even if they’re uncontested (and a Hank-Carol split almost certainly won’t), Mike was in a coma when last we saw him (and those also aren’t often the sort of thing that come to a quick end), and Linda can throw as many fits as she wants but from a meta perspective nothing’ll come of it unless Willis writes Amber out of the comic entirely.

        2. RowenMorland

          They will be your new, red flashback panels.

        3. Arianod

          “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

          -V. I. Lenin.

        4. Needfuldoer

          Linda thinks the matter with Amber is settled, because Blaine paid her tuition and now he’s dead.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/marketplace/

      3. JetstreamGW

        But the “changes” are coming on the 10th.

        There aren’t enough months for that to happen and it still be winter.

        1. King Daniel

          7th = November
          8th = December
          9th = January
          10th = January/February, still winter either way.

        2. clif

          February and Ethan still hasn’t left Mike’s hospital bedside.

      4. Bicycle Bill

        Didn’t Willis, at one time or another, say we would probably never see the end of this semester?  Of course, he also said that no one would die in the comic either … then gave himself some wiggle-room by saying that ‘no major character would die’ and killed off both Ross and Blaine in quick succession.  So maybe they weren’t ‘major’ characters on the same level as Joyce, Walky, Amber, or Dina, but they were at least major plot drivers.

        Who knows what we can believe any more?

        1. Jamie

          That is also my recollection, but what do we know, we who merely read and are not the author.

        2. Stanistani

          “The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”

        3. Sporky

          Technically, we won’t be seeing the ending of this semester because we’re skipping past it!

        4. Needfuldoer

          Yes! Off on a technicality!

          +1 pretend upvote.

        5. woobie

          Blaine isn’t dead until we see the body.

        6. King Daniel

          After the timeskip: characters talking about Blaine’s funeral in the past-tense.

          Some commenters: “He isn’t confirmed dead yet!”

        7. clif

          If the mob faked his death, they could certainly conduct a fake funeral.

        8. woobie

          It’s like Blaine is your first supervillain….

        9. King Daniel

          Oh, Blaine was a villain, sure. But not a super one.

      5. Rabid Rabbit

        I hope not. That would be almost as bad as the blank pages in the Twilight books.

        Well, except that those empty pages were actually the best written in the whole series.

        (Note: I haven’t actually read those books. I tried once, but couldn’t get past the first page. I have, however, read several reviews/readthroughs of them. Including all the comments about the blank pages.)

        1. Lawzlo

          Is that anything like the black page in ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman’?

        2. Ana Chronistic

          I once thought I was being unfair, found the first book in the bookstore, and flipped it open randomly… EXACTLY to the sparkling part

          Threw it down and never looked back

    2. Dara

      Do you remember?

      1. Cattleprod

        Well, time for bed, I spent a moment confused about not remembering posting that.

        1. clif

          It’s an easy error to make.

      2. Bicycle Bill

        I tried to remember….

  7. Rani

    Wait what happened with Joyce’s family? Or her mom getting rock bottomed by Ruth?

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      Asking the real questions here, I hope she got hurt by Ruth.

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      They are on a quest to exotic archeological sites full of ancient deathtraps to retrieve the mystic artifact that will save their misguided daughter(s) from Hell.

  8. AbelUndercity

    There’s a “Wake Me Up When September Ends” joke in here somewhere, but I’m too tired to tease it out.

    1. Victor

      The Eternal September actually only lasted until January 25, 2005. But hey, they’ve added a COVID mode to sdate now. https://github.com/df7cb/sdate

      1. Otl1973

        Not really. AOL dropped Usenet then, but the damage was already done. Between what happened earlier and the impact of the Web, Usenet never recovered. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s still that terrible September…

        1. thejeff

          Today is September 9868, 1993.

  9. Cattleprod

    If the timeskip goes past Halloween, I’m going to assume that not spending literal years drawing everyone in costumes was at least a secondary reason.

    1. Mra

      The lower left says ‘october’ since halloween is the las day of october we know it at least isn’t over yet.

      1. Cattleprod

        Right, but we know ‘winter is coming’, it’s pretty likely tomorrow’s strip is going to be ‘November’, aside from the possibility of a short interlude, which will then be followed by ‘November’ anyway.

  10. Illjwamh

    Dang, this is probably the heaviest strip so far. I can’t think of another one that even comes close to this one in terms of paradigm shifts and emotional resonance.

    1. Mra

      I can’t tell if that is a joke or not
      It is a single panel where nothing is happening, but when reading it consecutively with all the others it is the pause that lets the weight of everything has happened sink in,

    2. Leorale

      Yeah, I love how Joyce’s feelings of transition are represented in the leaves here. Will she keep fully in touch (through the leaves) with Dorothy (the godless cars)? Or will their friendship be blown away by the wind?? No, they are BFFs. Tree/Cars OTP.

      1. clif

        A university graduate of freshman literature I see.

  11. BarerMender

    It’s a nice drawing.

    1. clif

      With happy little trees, how could it not be?

  12. Kyrik Michalowski

    I know this timeskip is probably going to pass by the holidays but I really want to see whether Joyce goes home for Christmas or not. Fingers crossed that the timeskip isn’t to far into the future.

    Anyone wants to place bets on how big the timeskip is?

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      I’m betting on the comic resuming in December or January at the latest.

    2. King Daniel

      Already placed my bet above, I’m guessing we’re going to pick up in January.

    3. abacuswizard

      Senior year.

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        The comic only covers freshman year.

        1. Jon

          So we jump to senior year. Nobody’s attended classes for three years, so they all fail out and have to get jobs at a new toy store in town – a place called Shortpacked…

    4. thejeff

      Or going home for Thanksgiving. Getting through that without major family trauma wasn’t going to be easy.

      Christmas would kind of need to be mostly skipped though. The Christmas break would be years of real time at the normal pace, with our characters away from school and each other.

  13. Brasca1

    I thought we were in October already. Sara was putting up Halloween decorations albeit in secret.

    1. Chris

      We were. Next strip will almost certainly name a different month.

    2. BBCC

      We were. We were about 10 days off from Halloween.

      1. bryy

        A mere ten storylines from Halloween. We were robbed.

        1. Keulen

          I was hoping we’d get to see Halloween in DoA. I’m gonna be disappointed if that’s not the case.

        2. Ron again

          Me too, esppecially since Joyce and Sarah had a moment about it..

  14. BBCC

    Let’s do the time warp again~

    1. Keulen

      It’s just a jump to the left!

      1. Douglas

        and then a step to the right.

        1. PB

          You put your hands on your hips!

        2. SonicHowling

          And bring your knees in tiiiiight….

        3. Opus the Poet

          But it’s the pelvic thrust,

        4. Blob

          That drives you insane

        5. clif

          Not this again.

  15. Some1

    I was thinking and I think I’ve come up with some new Patreon tiers.

    $100 per month: You get access to the entirety of Willis’ backlog.

    $1000 per month: You get one opportunity to say whatever you want in the comment section, no matter how terrible.

    $5000 per month: You can select one commenter to ban, no questions asked.

    $10,000 per month: You can write a comic, which will become canon and Willis will readjust his entire story to fit it. For example you could have Dorothy reject Atheism and join the Amish.

    $100,000 per month: You may take one of Willis’ children.

    1. Stanistani

      ▲
      ▲
      BRAVO

    2. Deanatay

      I never joined Patreon.

      I always knew it would end in tiers.

  16. Delicious Taffy

    So, who’s the worst-behaved person in this strip? Let’s dogpile the beige sedan, I say.

    1. King Daniel

      It’s clearly the leafs.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        The leaves are in a difficult place, what with their parent having suddenly cut them off from water and nutrients. Do they know what they did to bring this on?

      2. Dara

        The Leafs are, always, the worst.

        1. He Who Abides

          Dammit, I wanted to say that.

          ?

        2. clif

          What’s stopping you?

    2. Geneseepaws

      What are you trying to say about that car by calling it “beige”?
      Is that some kind of code word for something?
      I had jury duty once on an autonomous car that monoed its driver so it could be free. It was beige.

    3. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      The car on the right looks shifty. Probably a standard. Why is it all alone? What is it hiding?

      1. Captain Oblivious

        It’s probably sticking around for a reason. Maybe gearing up for shenanigans. Or perhaps clutching to the hope that we’ll still get halloween.

        1. Geneseepaws

          Braking news: most of the puns get lost in transmission. Something about carrying some rings from Tudor to Fourdoor? Sorry, I was bored.

  17. Mr. Random

    Next strip is going to be a time jump to December, isn’t it?

    1. clif

      Either that or it will be labeled September to mess with our minds.

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Nah, extended to Hank and Carol’s days here, and the real truth of what happened.

  18. Kravis

    Notoriously, the Best Month.

  19. Geneseepaws

    why is that sign screaming in the background? What has it seen that Willis hasn’t shown us yet?

  20. abysswatcher1993

    After everything that has happened in this story, it’s surprising people continue to study in that college. Seriously, there was an armed assult, a kidnapping, a police chase, another kidnapping of many more students, the arrest of local frat boys, a fight during a political event, etc.

    After everything is said and done, and after the wrapping up from yesterday, I can say Joyce was wrong: educational times are ahead, and the lesson is that you have to always learn. Learn the many abd things will happen over and over, and all you have to do is stand firm, be kind, respect others and fight for what you believe is right.

    Also, goddbye Danny’s hat. *Forrest Gump soundtrack is heard in the distance.*

    1. Bicycle Bill

      A quick Google search shows that 2016 enrollment at IU-Bloomington was approximately 48,500.  To put that in perspective, if the entire student population was a city it would be the 15th largest city in the state.

      With that many people, I feel it is safe to assume that there are countless thousands who are blissfully unaware of what has been going on, and even among those who do (but did not have a personal stake in the matter), it would be quickly forgotten as continuing current events would push it out of their consciousness.

    2. Eve

      Normal year at Hogwarts!

    3. thejeff

      Colleges have had mass shootings with many casualties and still get students to come there.
      This kidnapping is really the only thing that goes well outside the norm – some rapes, some fights, a domestic kidnapping. It’s all basically background noise in any big city.

      That it’s all happening to the people on this one floor is a bit extreme.

  21. JessWitt

    I wonder what, if any, will be the major changes in relationships.

    Who have broken up? Who are now dating? Who else will know Amber is Amazi-Girl?

  22. Ray Radlein

    In honor of Mike, this strip takes place during the Fall

  23. SuperFroakie82

    So, about the patreon bonus strips. If I sign up do I get to see all the old ones too or just new ones?

    1. Bagge

      all the old ones are still there

      1. SuperFroakie82

        cool, thanks

      2. Some1

        Curse you Bagge!

        *shakes fists angrily into air*

        1. Bagge

          🙂

    2. Some1

      You get all the old ones as well.

  24. Bagge

    Becky is hiding in the tree

    1. FacelessDeviant

      With Dina. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

  25. Regalli

    Do the kids at Blowjob Cat’s elementary school dress it up for Halloween? Because that’d be both adorable and terrifying.

    1. Needfuldoer

      It’s just dressed up the morning of Halloween. Nobody knows why or how.

      1. Bagge

        There are so many bonus strips we need to vote for now.

  26. Lingo

    Aw, nuts, I guess we won’t be celebrating in 2020. 🙁

    1. Lingo

      Let’s try this again:

      (cough)

      Aw, nuts, I guess we won’t be celebrating Dumbing Day in 2020. 🙁

      1. King Daniel

        Just the latest thing 2020 has taken from us.

        1. Lingo

          Our revenge in 2021 will be swift and brutal.

        2. Chris

          And completely ridiculous?

  27. Huehuetotl

    I guess if we want halloween strips, we have to nominate them on patreon. I wonder if anyone will have dropped out during the timeskip. I hope there’s a happy spot in between a lot of “as you know” dialogue, and constant suspense for readers about stuff the cast all would be aware of.

  28. Keulen

    This strip is gonna be hard to find using the tags.

  29. BenRG

    Time passes in the classical comic book style…

  30. SpaceshipPilot

    Is this the first DoA comic to not have any tags?

    1. ziggy78eog

      I suppose you could tag, “car”. Or maybe, “tree”? Leaves?

    2. King Daniel

      Second, I believe. The opening strip of The Whiteboard Dingdong Bandit was the first.

  31. PiotrW

    Yes! October! New era, new storyline, new creative team!

    … what? In Marvel, when a scene like yesterday’s happens, it usually signals an end of one creative team’s run and the start of another’s 🙂

    Can’t wait to see what Mark Millar and Rob Liefeld are going to do with DoA! I’m sure it will be great 😉

    1. Liam

      Are you sure this season isn’t being directed by Alex Kurtzman?

  32. Eve

    “Wow, Gramma, you sure had a wild Freshman year.”
    “Year? Ha! That was one month! Sit yourself back down, child, I have far more tale to tell.”

  33. Alan in DC

    Hey earth science majors and amateur detectives: given the shadow angles and the amount of remaining foliage, care to take a stab at an estimated date and time-of-day this image represents?

  34. Douglas

    Here’s a Google Street Maps view of almost the exact same angle, but a different time of year.
    https://www.google.com/maps/@39.165423,-86.5152447,3a,25.1y,30.17h,89.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sQDi6IKXBxOPWCFZxqcvtdA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&authuser=0

  35. Deanatay

    WHEW He didn’t skip Halloween.

    But, where’s the punchline? Every strip has a punchline, right?

    Unless…

    UNLESS THAT IS THE PUNCHLINE DAMN YOU WILLIS

  36. ziggy78eog

    This is the next story arc, in the series, just four cars, in a parking lot. Occasionally a squirrel will run by, some students will walk past in the background, or some leaves will fall onto on the the cars, but that is it. After a few weeks of these strips, a couple of people will get into their car, and drive off, ending the the arc.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      No, we just see the cars starting to rust, get covered in leaves,etc., while “I Will Wait For You” plays.

      1. Opus the Poet

        I rate that one mili-seymour, a little sad, but not much.

  37. bcb

    Oh, I get it: we’re going to get timeskips each day until September 10, the 10th anniversary of DoA. Then the next arc will begin.

  38. buddy

    every single thing that happened before this page happened within roughly one month. can you fucking imagine if your freshman september was this fucking nuts? my freshman september had like, a rainstorm. i mean, it was a bad rainstorm, but like…not that exciting.

    1. Lingo

      Two months. The last storyline was on approximately October 20.

  39. DarkoNeko

    …friends

  40. Jhon

    Next strip will be Blaine O’Malley’s wake.
    Then we get Halloween.

  41. Willoughby chase

    The Paper Chase continues …

  42. KJ

    I’m confused because midterms happen in October. I literally went to IU. My midterms were in October

    1. King Daniel

      They’ve been talking about taking midterms for the last three chapters/days. Where’s the confusion there?

      1. KJ

        That this was obviously framed like a timeskip?

  43. Romanticide

    Time is.

  44. CJ

    Why is there a link to a deviantart where nothing happened since 2012?
    I don’t remember where Willis used to post the preview panels, probably Instagram and maybe he left them? Are there still preview panels posted somewhere?

  45. Roborat

    I am sad, I was looking forward to Halloween hijinks, but this timeskip is going to just jump right over it.

Leave a Reply to Keulen Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.