177

Sculptor
Posted on June 21, 2013 by David M Willis

177 thoughts on “Sculptor”

  1. Jen Aside

    Or a sculpture of a truck!

    1. Khrene Cleaver

      Or a truck of age old sculptures!

      1. Raoullefere

        Or a truck driven by an old sculptor. Running over you on his way to carve more truth.

        1. Neospector

          Or a sculpture of a truck carrying a sculpture, being driven by an old sculpter thinking of making a sculpture of a truck.
          And with this, “sculpture” stops looking like a word to me.

        2. justcallmesoul

          Sculptception

        3. Jenny Creed

          And then Xzibit shows up. . .

      2. Usayasha

        Trucking of Age

  2. Kernanator

    A truck that is also a robot!

    1. Yusaku777

      Monkey, not truck!

      1. Doctor_Who

        She’s gonna get hit by Monkey Master? Oh no!

        1. GoldStarz

          Worse! She’s going to get hit by the limited edition Monkey Master Transformer!

        2. TurtlyLooker

          Or the subsequent Monkey Master Transformers Beast Wars Transformer!

        3. Kernanator

          And Walky will be the culprit.

        4. Raoullefere

          I don’t know; a tragedy like that might be Ethan’s fault.

        5. Kernanator

          But HE GIVES IT TO HER.

        6. Aydr

          Now I’m picturing abductee Walky with dumbingverse brain.

          “YOU LIKE CAR? I GIVE IT TO YOU!” *throws car*

  3. saltchocolate

    I love Leslie! That’s all. : )

    1. rachel

      I AGREEEEEEE big time

  4. Reboot

    And what if you scrape off too much, as with sculpture’s left shoulder, hmm?

    1. Pyr05

      That’s a flesh-wound. It’s a sculpture of someone who’s been in battle. Obviously.

    2. Chronos

      That is what silly putty is for.

  5. addude

    Or get stabbed in the chest with a sword.

    1. dranorter

      Sabotaged in the chest with a sword.

      1. Joe

        Stabotaged in the chest with a sword.

        1. Usayasha

          Now repeat after me.

        2. Jeff K!

          Now repeat after me.

        3. DSL

          After me.

        4. Andiemus

          Ok then, you go first.

        5. Volkai

          First.

        6. xKiv

          What an appropriate place for a “first” post.

        7. Icalasari

          11 (binary)

          This is fun! 8D

  6. Plasma Mongoose

    So according to this theory, many girls started off as boys until they scraped off a bit too much between the legs. 😀

    1. GoldStarz

      Nobody ever said the shape of the truth was uniform. 😛

    2. Aras Pabedinskas

      As my sister never forgets to bring up in discussions of gender, all people start of women in the womb. Then come d***s.

      1. Alex Stritar

        Not only am I well aware of that, but it also makes me wonder when men are seen as the default human. (and this is a guy wondering that. though I tend to nearly exclusively play female characters in rpgs, so might not be typical of my gender)

        1. Xalticus

          Upwards of 80% of “female” characters in MMOs are men.

        2. Li

          Nope. Lots of women play MMOs. WoW is pretty darned even. But women are so wary of negative responses that we often pretend to be guys.

          So you may literally be playing with a girl pretending to be a guy playing as a female Night Elf.

        3. Kayjayoh

          You know, a lot of female gamers purposely use gender neutral or male names and play with male characters, in order to avoid the bullshit that can come with being perceived as female. Which is to say, yes, a lot of women play video games *and* a lot of female characters are played by dudes.

        4. Li

          All true! But definitely not 80% of the female characters. 😉

          Besides, if his point wasn’t “women don’t play MMOs”, I will eat my hat. And that will be sad for me, because I like my hat.

        5. Li

          Well, let’s be fair, his point was “no, you’re typical of your gender, because most of the female characters in MMOs are men, which incidentally is because women don’t play MMOs.”

          But I meant, if that’s not what he thinks, not if that’s not his main point.

        6. Andiemus

          Probably because reproductive biology and pseudo-philosophical rambling a about the nature of gender have as much to do with each other as Tony Stark and Archimedes.

        7. Plasma Mongoose

          Archimedes was an alcoholic inventor with awesome facial hair, so he’s ‘nothing’ like Tony Stark. 😛

        8. andiemus

          Well, if Stark wanted to light a boat on fire, he’d succeed…

        9. Aras Pabedinskas

          Just saying, it probably wasn’t until very recently in the human history that this would have been discovered. By that time, men had already made there claim as dominant for millenium, and when it is something is sitting on the carpet for that long, it ain’t coming off with Spot-Shot alone.

      2. Anonymous

        That’s actually a common misconception. What actually happens is that the parts of the body that will eventually develop into sexual features start off the same for both men and women, as a sort of biological scaffolding for the gender-specific stuff to be built. The claim “We all start as women in the womb” comes from the fact that in this pre-gender state there is no penis, and generally when most people think about males and gender, they think of penises. However, the differences between male and female are more than just one has a dangly bit and the other doesn’t, unless you think that the genderless proto-person is still a women, despite not having breasts, ovaries, or a vagina.

        1. Icalasari

          So the default state is Ken Doll?

        2. Li

          Uh, definitely despite not having breasts. Infants aren’t really known for their secondary sexual traits. Also, lots of adult cis women are still flat.

          And this isn’t even getting into nonstandard chromosomal assignments or non binary genders.

    3. Yotomoe

      Ironically the opposite is sure.

    4. davidbreslin101

      Another way of looking at that? “The cock is a lie!”

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        But penises are a lot more truthful than their owners.

  7. C.

    This is derailing the scheduled lecture for today, isn’t it?

    1. leor613

      In Dr. Bean’s class that’s a feature, not a bug.

  8. Count Dracula

    The more Willis denies it, the more convinced I become that Ruth is going to get hit by a truck.

    1. Kernanator

      Maybe she gets hit by a truck, but doesn’t die.

      1. JBO

        Maybe Ruth hits a truck and it tragically dies, teaching its Porsche friend a valuable lesson about drinking!

        1. Raoullefere

          Since the only purpose of a truck is to run over someone, that would be tragic. It would die a failure.

    2. JBO

      So what would your reaction if Willis denies being the Messiah?

      1. Count Dracula

        I would worry that he would hit Ruth with a truck.

      2. Totz the Plaid

        “Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.”

      3. Kernanator

        “Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.”

        1. Wack'd

          “What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!”

        2. Totz the Plaid

          “He is! He is the Messiah!”

    3. Aras Pabedinskas

      You’re all missing the point! No one dies by a truck, BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL DOOMED TO DYING OF AGE!

    4. Yotomoe

      No. Ruth is going to hit a truck. and it’ll blow to smitherines.

      1. Raoullefere

        Maybe the truck will be happier in Smitherines. It used to have a good band.

    5. Plasma Mongoose

      She won’t be hit by a truck but with a big-rig which is not exactly a truck.

    6. Volkai

      Ruth is going to be hit by a truck, but probably not on this web domain.

    7. Zakrael

      In this universe, Ruth hits the truck.

      1. Notebooked

        It swerves off the road and hits Danny instead. Nobody minds.

  9. Parismio

    Screw that truck!

    1. Raoullefere

      There’s probably a law against having sex with a truck in Indiana.

      1. Groove

        Not in my fan-faction.

        1. Volkai

          I really don’t want to know about your Kup fan-faction.

      2. Plasma Mongoose

        Hot tail-pipe action!

        1. begbert2

          Dear god, that’s a painful mental image.

        2. NightmareWarden

          Rope burn is for the weak; skid marks on the other hand…

      3. Jen Aside

        It’s AUTOEROTIC

  10. DanMan9820

    Willis, why the hell hasn’t a Billie/Ruth comic been uploaded in three days? That’s like a month and a half in Internet time!

    1. Alex

      And nearly five seconds in DoA time!

    2. David

      A Billie/Ruth comic HAS been uploaded in the past three days.

      I work ahead.

      1. TurtlyLooker

        Well, if we’re counting late August future-posts, you’ve probably got a good dozen or so Billie+Ruth comics.

        I shudder at the possibilities.

        1. Yotomoe

          I shudder because it’s strangely cold in my house.

        2. begbert2

          I shutter to keep the cold out of my house.

      2. DanMan9820

        Allow me to amend my statement: Past TWO days. I was including today.

        1. David

          That doesn’t really change anything. My point stands.

        2. AsimovSideburns

          He did upload strips, but they won’t get shown until later, because he uploaded through… *checks buffer watch* August 9th.

          So, it’s possible that we won’t get back to Billie/Ruth until August 9th, but definitely no later than that. That’s only a couple of months.

        3. Raoullefere

          To you, sure. What if I’m a cat? That’s almost a year of my life.

        4. Kai Gon

          So what?

          If you’re a cat, you’ve got like 9 lifes or so? 😉

        5. DapperAnarchist

          I misread that as “what if I’m a car?”. Which still worked, actually.

  11. piemanpie24

    Thank god for that alt text. But I bet some people won’t read it.

    1. BlueRam

      I refuse to believe him on the grounds that someone could still be hit by a truck post-buffer.

    2. ShadowWing Tronix

      I keep forgetting he uses it now.

  12. NerdHerder

    SO MUCH LESLIE. This is a good week.

  13. LS

    Given Ruth’s original fate, the alt text spoilers are actually pretty significant.

  14. OkamiKing

    You can get abducted by aliens when you were a kid to be granted abilities and then ironically use said abilities to beat up said aliens who abducted you.

    1. JBO

      But the only truth you will learn in the end is this one:

      Its the rain.

      1. Yotomoe

        It was the best I could do.

        1. John

          If you wanna live, don’t be the deer in the headlights.

  15. Pyr05

    My love for Leslie is like a truck.

    1. Aras Pabedinskas

      It runs over Ruth?

      1. Kernanator

        It’s big and noisy?

        1. Plasma Mongoose

          It makes you want to grab your ‘stick-shift’ and crank it into gear?

        2. Raoullefere

          It takes you places and has a rack in the back window for your rifles and shotguns?

        3. Andiemus

          You can pack more rednecks in it than a Larry the Cable Guy TV special?

    2. AJBulldis

      Odd, my love for her is ticking clock.

    3. Yotomoe

      BERSERKEEEEEEEEEEEER.

    4. Wack'd

      BERSERKER

    5. StClair

      “Good. What is a truck?”

    6. Chronos

      BERSERKER…

      1. Aras Pabedinskas

        WHAT IS THIS?!? I DON’T UNDERSTAND!?!

        1. Dr.Paul

          Skelnick!

        2. Chronos

          Watch Clerks. It’s in that. Oddly enough, that’s the second time in a few hours I had to clarify that very reference.

  16. Wonder Wig

    Spongebob could find the truth in marble with one good whack.

    1. Ragnal

      No he wouldn’t.

      The statue would end up never having a Squidward nose, and thus would never be the whole truth.

    2. Aras Pabedinskas

      Ya, unfortunately Spongebob is also a horrible person.

      Sorry, I meant sponge.

      1. begbert2

        I dunno, from what I vaguely recall of the tiny bit I’ve seen of the show, he’s reasonably absorbent. That’s about all you can expect of a sponge.

      2. Makkabee

        Aras, you’re my new hero.

  17. ArkhamTexan

    Looking at that sculpture image reminds makes me want to make a player character. Which reminds me I’ve already made a player character in the new Animal Crossing. This comic makes me want to play Animal Cros–::turns on 3DS::

    1. N0083rP00F

      Reading your post reminded me that I wanted to build a character for Fellowship. Then I got to thinking on what the damage, notice and encumbrance modifiers would be for various kitchen implements.
      I think I can get an adamantium fry pan or maybe a soup ladle since that would be more historically and character appropriate.
      (pulls out 3.5 books)

  18. Rex Hondo

    Rule #1: The Hovertext lies.

  19. AgentKeen

    I think Walky has the right idea. Just get hit by a truck, and that should chip off a ton of rock, right?

    1. Raoullefere

      According to Joyce, pretty much, since you’re going to suddenly get see a whole lot of truth.

  20. Yotomoe

    Walky is the teacher’s new favorate.

  21. Ancestral Hamster

    Wait, can someone be hit by a toy truck?

    1. John

      *throws Optimus Prime (trukk not munky) at Leslie’s head*

      1. Optimus Prime

        I’d like to see you try.

        1. Kai Gon

          I’m not that big fan of Chuck Norris jokes, but now I have to cite this one:

          “Once upon a time, Chuck Norris had sex with a robot. The result is nowadays known as Optimus Prime.”

          So perhaps we should let Chuck Norris try to throw you at someones head? 😀

        2. Optimus Prime

          Chuck Norris seems to me a noble, if somewhat misguided warrior, but i don’t know if I will ever understand your culture’s fixation with him.

        3. begbert2

          It’s mostly a fear thing. I mean, he hasn’t done anything particularly evil, so we also respect and admire him, but it’s hard not to pay attention to a man who can crush your head between his thighs without moving his thighs or even being near you.

        4. Notebooked

          He can crush his own head between his thighs. Not the one on his neck, either.

        5. Makkabee

          When I was teaching 6th grade, one of the kids came up to me and in a particularly smarmy voice asked “do you know who Chuck Norris is?”

          “The guy who got his butt kicked by Bruce Lee?” I replied.

          The look on the kid’s face was priceless. Like you get on elderly Southern Baptist women when you tell them that Jesus was a hippie socialist Jew-Boy, and probably gay.

  22. Ed

    This is Bruce Lee’s philosophy, Jeet Kune Do, and how he approached Martial Arts. Glad to see it mentioned here applied to personal truths (another one of Bruce’s focuses).

    1. Kamino Neko

      You’ll find that this predates Lee by about 500 years.

      1. Ed

        Haha, I’m sure it does! Bruce didn’t discover this way of thinking, but he was one of the pioneers when it comes to applying to martial arts.

  23. Spammy McSpamster

    This was a boring and bad analogy.
    Phoned in punchline, too.

    1. begbert2

      But there’s a lesbian, which is most of what the audience is here for.

  24. slicedtoad

    heh, are we going to get a women’s studies (or whatever it’s called now) class taught to us via webcomic? Pretty sneaky there willis. Not that I mind; taught by a good teacher, this topic can be fairly thought provoking.
    And that’s from a conservative (sorta) male.

  25. Sporky

    Or you could get hit by a monkey.

  26. Raoullefere

    So people who refuse to learn more are kind of like a sculptor who sets up a big block of stone and then leaves? Oh, and names the piece Good Enough.

  27. HiEv

    I’m not particularly digging this metaphor here, but I’m hoping the next comic better fleshes it out so it makes more sense.

    One could interpret it as saying that we all already know the truth, but may have to scrape away the BS to find it. I don’t believe that we have some innate knowledge of all truths though, so that interpretation doesn’t work for me.

    As I said before, hopefully the next comic will clarify or correct the interpretation of what we’re supposed to get here, as I don’t believe that this is what David/Leslie is trying to say, though I’m unclear on what it is that they do want to say.

    1. Aardvark

      Think of it this way: If you were wrong fundamentally to begin with, then you never really knew what you actually wanted the sculpture to look like. Maybe you were going for a vulture and ended up with a flamingo! In that case, you could say that you didn’t know the truth of the sculpture until you got pretty far into it.

      Also, it’s not about scraping away the bs. It’s about sculpting ideas. Maybe you knew that Dumbing of Age was drawn by the same author as Shortpacked, but only just now noticed they shared some characters. You haven’t scraped away any bs, you’ve really just noticed some flaw in your perception of reality and fixed it. Leslie is saying that you will continue to find flaws like this as long as you live if you look. there is no such thing as a perfect truth. Even once you’ve been hit by a truck.

    2. Kai Gon

      I think this is the way Willis is working his way through this comic.

    3. Ten

      It’s not about innately knowing the truth, but a description of the pursuit of knowledge. The sculpture is your general aim (“I want to learn physics!”) or the ideal state you conjure up. Now, as you actually do the work of making this sculpture manifest (removing the ignorance, learning, etc.) you’ll find that the ideal is pretty much impossible to achieve. There’s no way to learn everything about physics. You can get pretty damn close to the general form of the ideal, and with a ton of practice and hard work you can make it seem perfect to almost anyone who isn’t versed in sculpture, but the more you learn the more glaring the minor flaws seem.

      There’s a infamous sentiment that “art isn’t finished, only abandoned”. This is basically paralleling that to the pursuit of knowledge. You can never achieve that ideal of “I’m going to learn physics” because there’s always more to learn and the statement is just a broad and ideal form of a goal that can never be realistically achieved.

      1. Ten

        I know that all is super repetitive but it’s 2 AM on a Thursday night and I’m a talkative drunk. Please bear with me.

        1. AndromedaRage

          how do I bear? should I take out my claws and catch a fish? or are we going for the bear that eats honey? (sorry I’m not sorry, half drunk here myself)

        2. Ten

          It was actually a call for the comment section to transform into a group of rugged gay men with me. It’s a common mistake though.

      2. HiEv

        I think it’s the “removing ignorance” bit that’s bugging me. Ignorance is something that is filled in or replaced with knowledge.

        If you want to stick with a sculpting metaphor, I’d say that reality is the model and you add clay (knowledge) to try to make your sculpture match reality. The more knowledge you have (and I mean accurate information here) the more closely your representation matches reality, until it’s just minor details that you need to work out. Adding inaccurate knowledge is like adding clay of the wrong colors and shapes. The problem is that some people don’t spend enough time studying reality, or they just plain care more about how they want reality to be than what it really looks like, so they end up with a statue covered in a patchwork of mismatched clay that looks nothing like what it’s supposed to represent.

        1. xKiv

          The process of learning isn’t just about adding correct knowledge, but also about removing incorrect “knowledge”.

  28. AndromedaRage

    yea I see that mistake happen all the time when I go to a gay bar, you can always spot them stealing picnic baskets or trying to prevent forest fires. I just can’t believe I made the mistake this time

    1. AndromedaRage

      oops, I meant to reply to Ten, oh well . 3am, time to finally sleep lol

  29. Kennerly

    Um…this is a lecture for day one, not a month into the semester….

    1. gangler

      It actually seems less like a lecture and more like an ad hoc response to the concerns of one of the students, which is totally appropriate all semester round.

      Truthfully one of my most hated things is walking in on day one to some kind of “Prepare to learn/ let’s mold some young minds” lecture that spans the entire class. Sweet shit, prof. Spent an hour on the bus just to get here, give me something for my time.

      I don’t think I’d have anything against quickly addressing one of the additudinally challenged students in the middle of an other-wise themed lecture. Classroom can be a relatively fluid thing depending on the professor. Nothing wrong with dealing with a problem as it presents itself so long as when somebody asks “How was class?” I don’t get to respond “Got to learn about how class is for learning”.

    2. Reepicheep-chan

      Is it a month into the semester? I thought this was like their 3rd cday of class?

      1. Blue

        They’re technically maybe 2-3 weeks in? They had over a week, and there was the week skipped, but I’m a little iffy on what day it is now.

  30. Doc

    Every teacher has a student like Walky. You want to say “You’re not technically wrong, and there are no stupid questions… but please shut up for a minute.”

    1. Kernanator

      “There are no stupid questions. Except for, ‘Hey man, can I borrow 20 dollars?'”

    2. Avenger_Reloaded

      There are no stupid questions. However, there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.

  31. Jimmy

    I was really hoping someone would get hit by a truck. We could have a “Final Destination” themed week! Who’d die first? I’d guess Danny, but then again Amazi-Girl would be there to save him and she might get hit by a truck instead.

  32. Shazammm

    Did she just draw Head Alien in a poorly lit doorway? Or is it just me?

    1. Chris

      Well, it’s at least two of us.

      1. Rock And Roll Martian

        Same here. For a second I thought this diagram was going to demonstrate how Walky was wrong about the best episode of Dexter & Monkey Master.

    2. Steven Fisher

      That’s head alien, absolutely. Though I think his neck is a big large.

  33. Morgauxo

    So we get to shape our own realities then?

  34. Thomas

    I like the metaphor, but if the sculptor removes or scrapes off material to get at the sculpture, that material ought to be stone (rock, marble) rather than clay, because clay is molded, not carved.

    1. N0083rP00F

      That depends on the technique used.
      I am guessing here that you meant that with clay you can add bits back on if you take too much off.
      Clay is forgiving and ever malleable [before you fire it] but wood and stone is just one cut away from disaster.

    2. TheKelliestKelly

      That’s the normal method but there is a technique called subtraction where you just take away from what you start with.

  35. Timothy

    My main read on this is Leslie is just trying to justify her job.

    Although, the students should just shut up and take the damn class. This started from Roz’s attitude problem two days ago. If she thinks she doesn’t need this class than why the hell is she there? Even if it’s a gen ed requirement class there are always options on those.

    This isn’t a math, science, or engineering course where stuff works the same no matter where you go. The content of the exams will be heavily dependent on the personal quirks of the professor. So Roz damn well does need to pay attention to her class materials. Even if she knows a lot she may not know the things that Leslie deems important.

  36. Kitty

    It’s a good theory, truth, like art, is very VERY subjective. Gotta love Walky being that one damn kid who always has to add something

  37. Johnny Z

    Come on, there’s a difference between things like the truth (water is a liquid, blood is red) and opinions (Episode A is better than episode B).

    1. The Lurker

      Except when it is a gas or solid, and human. Lobster blood is green….

  38. Totz the Plaid

    Update on the “Dexter and Monkey Master” synopses:

    I’m still working on them. They’ll be pretty short. Longer than the episode descriptions on a wikipedia article for a season of a show (example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time_%28season_4%29 ) but very few will be more than just a few sentences.

    I should be done in the next day or two!

  39. John Biles

    So now we know the truth– Walky is Minky Momo, back from the grave.

  40. Daniel

    I used to be a teacher, and the comment yesterday about “women should be treated as equals” touched a cord that we had drilled into us. Equality and Equitability are two different things, and Equality is on the losing side. To give an example:
    Assume you’re giving out 500 pairs of shoes. If you’re treating everyone equally, they all get the same shoe, regardless of gender and shoe size. How disappointing to the majority who don’t have that shoe size!
    If you treat everyone equitably, then they all get appropriate shoes that are sized to them.
    A lesson the teacher could bring to a Gender Studies class. Don’t treat people equally. Treat them equitably!

  41. ShadowMaskPrime

    The oddest part I find about this metaphor, is that whenever I’ve worked with clay, that isn’t how I work with it… I tend to Mold with clay, squishing it into shape rather than scraping away to get the right shape, the scrapping is what I’d use for fine detail. I tend to think of using something more solid, like a form of stone, when it comes to sculpting like this. I wonder if the omission of Molding the clay is intentional here? Well, we’ll probably find out in 25 minutes…

  42. Xakthul

    I know how late this comment is, but did Leslie draw somebody frozen in carbonite?

    1. TheGrammarLegionary

      Hello, fellow browser of Comics Past. Congratulations on the brilliant comment. It’s truly a shame so few people will read it.

  43. firefiend265

    “Spoiler alert: nobody gets hit by a truck.”
    Heh heh heh…

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