190

Self
Posted on March 29, 2019 by David M Willis
The Dumbing of Age Book 8 Kickstarter has hit $45K!  WALKY is unlocked!  Go find the WALKY MAGNET tier if you want just him, or consider him for your PICK THREE or PICK FIVE MAGNETS tiers!  And, of course, if you got COMPLETE MAGNET POWER, he is added to your pile. I’ve also added a WALKY AND JASON MAGNET tier, in case you want both of them together in an easily-selectable package. Up next is EVERYBODY* GETS A DOROTHY MAGNET at $50K. *does not apply if you pledged only for a PDF and nothing else, but there’s DIGITAL PLUS MAGNET tiers now, if you wanna fix that)

190 thoughts on “Self”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    tbh it’s about the same amount of exposure either way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  2. Cholma

    “Mary, Mary, why you buggin’?”

    1. Doctor_Who

      Anyone else hear a sort of screecy musical sting when Mary appears? Sorta like this?

      1. LookingIn

        I thought it was crows squawking or horses neighing…

        1. Abel Undercity

          I tend to see Mary’s presence heralded by signs: Dogs running in packs, blood dripping from the walls, spiders spinning their webs widdershins, that sort of thing.

        2. Annonymouse

          Would that not be more like horses screeching – cue Frau Blücher

        3. Stephen Bierce

          “Was that an ‘aye’ or a ‘neigh’?”
          “It was a ‘neigh’, Your Lordship–but I DON’T BELIEVE HIM!” (from Black Adder)

      2. RobinReneeW

        I heard it as a riff from the Monkees song . But then again, I’m old.

        1. RobinReneeW

          Wow, so old I’ve forgotten how to write html. Anyway, the song is “Mary Mary”, and the link goes the song’s audio on to YouTube.

        2. Stephen Bierce

          Since Run-DMC sampled Mickey Dolenz for their cut, you are not wrong.

  3. DarkoNeko

    Paid in exposure, ha.

    1. van Ryswyk

      People die of exposure.

      And that is how Joyce is doing the will of the fan base.

    2. Thursday Violist

      the thing about “paid in exposure” is that it’s not the art that’s being exposed to more people, it’s the artist that’s exposed to the fact that there’s people who are willing to rip them off in exchange for art.

  4. ian livs

    I completely agree with the alt-text, haha

    1. LookingIn

      “oh, it was Mary who made that sugary, over the top, eye gouging art on our door”

      I’m not sure if that’s evil, or giving us what we want- a reason to beat the crap out of Mary 😀

      1. Deanatay

        Hrm. IIRC, Mary’s anime-style is only her style “until art school beats it out of her”. So, I guess that’s the ‘crap’?

    2. Kinoko

      Same. I dislike Mary, but I REALLY don’t like how some folks decide she deserves to have horrible things happen to her as “punishment” at times when she’s actually done nothing wrong.

      Ostracized for being a bigot? Fair. Taken advantage of for being willing to draw for free, and maligned for drawing in a lowbrow style? Not cool.

      I really like this detail about Mary because it’s humanizing, at least to me. I drew anime art style through high school (and still do!) My college’s Fine Arts program didn’t beat it out of me, it just gave me better techniques and better reference. And that’s what I wanted! I hope she’s able to appreciate that breadth of skill doesn’t mean compromising your choices in your personal work.

      1. Dana

        Well said. I feel like she would be too locked into her existing prejudices to appreciate art school’s opportunities, but the only evidence we have for that is interactions between her and Malaya, so it’s hardly representative. Many good people would come off bongo-y interacting with Malaya, after all. Not everything is Jesus, even for Mary. We just only see her passionate about Jesus’ wrath, so our expectations of her on anything else are warped.

        1. Kinoko

          That’s true, I assume she is very much set in her ways. Also, it would be so difficult to have a conversation about a topic you care about with someone like Malaya.

          I still prefer Malaya over Mary for a lot of reasons, but I sympathize with Mary on this one point, at least.

  5. Rex Vivat

    Holy crap, Joyce. I get that Mary’s evil, but not even she deserves that.
    I mean, maybe.

    1. JetstreamGW

      Nah, she does.

      1. Tacos

        She totally does.

        1. taekwondogirl

          Nah. If she deserves it, her art shouldn’t have been posted.

    2. LeslieBean4shizzle

      No artist, no matter how evil or dickish, deserves to be “paid” with “exposure”.

      Remember folks – you pay for art with “money”. Anything that is not money is not a payment.

      1. LeslieBean4shizzle

        #fuckexposure

      2. Dean

        I disagree, goods and services are also a valid form of payment.

        1. ditrysia

          Depends on the good or service.in general money is preferred as it can be exchanged by the holder for goods or services of appropriate value.

          I’m starting as a makeup artist. The other day I did my mum’s makeup and she gave me a handbag, it was a pretty nice deal i thought (as I didn’t even expect anything, she’s my mum). Then I did makeup for two girls and got paid with breakfast, and some pics I can use for my Instagram (exposure essentially)… That wasn’t really appropriate payment.

          So yeah pay your artists people.

        2. Marsh Maryrose

          (Context: Vancouver artist, 2016 Winter Olympics) “Never before has my ability to draw a maple leaf with lip liner earned me so many beers from complete strangers.”

        3. Khno

          But aren’t Olympic games precisely a thing that is paying the cities and countries expenses in exposure?

        4. Delicious Taffy

          Yeah, exposure to displaced citizens, poverty, and a huge fucking arena with no purpose after the games end.

        5. Mr. Bulmbin

          I’d accept being paid in breakfast for an early-morning job.

        6. Dana

          Ass, grass, or anime. No one rides for free.

        7. Kinoko

          Goods and services are only a valid form of payment if everyone really is on board with it. Nine times out of ten, money is better, purely because it has the most utility.

          A friend of mine was once gifted a single piece of fruit in lieu of a cash tip for a delivery. Can’t pay the rent with fruit.

      3. WonderRabbit

        That’s completely untrue; bartering is a perfectly valid method of economics.
        ‘Exposure’ has no monetary value so should not be bartered though.

        1. Garrulous

          I disagree. Exposure can have value. Though the ‘exposure’ that many folks eem to want folks to work for isn’t actually exposing anything.

          Basically for exposure to be worth a damn it has to actually expose you. I.E. someone who sees the work also has to be informed of who made it, this way they know whom to contact in order to get their own work done.

          Actual exposure can be valuable. But calculating that value is something that is far more difficult than an average person is probably capable of doing in their head, making it easy to exploit. Basically exposure is a form of advertising. And calculating its worth is tough as sin. That said if you look at online advertisers the average is something like 1 dollar for every 1000 views. So a work you would normally charge 100 bucks for should expose your name/brand to at least 100,000 people for it to be worth it. Given that adverts are a lot more driving than the passiveness of exposure that is almost certainly an absolute low ball.

          Basically unless you run the numbers exposure is almost certainly a bad deal and the person offering it almost certainly knows that fact. As such working for exposure is often a joke. But that doesn’t mean that exposure has no monetary value. Just that it gets abused to no friggin end.

      4. thejeff

        I think it’s kind of different when it’s completely non-commercial. It’s not like Joyce is making money off Mary’s art. Or even using it for something she otherwise would have paid for – no one hires a professional artist to put pictures up on their dorm room door.

        1. Kinoko

          Mary could be making a joke at her own expense here, but that seems very out of character. I’d assumed the drawings were a gift in a goodwill sort of way? Like “oh, the only other overtly religious girl in my dorm? Sure, I’ll draw you a thing”.

          And you’d be surprised. My dorm-mates and I actually did a few commissions for dorm room door art in our freshman year, because people saw what we’d put on our doors and wanted their own. We definitely undercharged, but we were young. Also, my own art got stolen off of my dorm door fairly frequently…

        2. Dana

          I’m too lazy to look it up right now, but it was made clear Mary charged. Joyce said something about her rates being surprisingly reasonable.

        3. thejeff

          That was actually a alt-text comment, not something a character said.

      5. HeySo

        “Remember folks – you pay for art with “money”. Anything that is not money is not a payment.”

        Well, I was considering paying you by way of $300 single malt scotch, a full course meal at a classy restaurant, a $50,000 car, a homemade cake, a hug, and at least one of the secrets of the universe- but since you value money more highly than any of those, here’s $2. Now draw me an entire graphic novel, k?

        😛

        More seriously, exposure is just marketing, and well-done marketing pays itself off. Of course, for it to properly function as marketing, you need to display your art in a way that properly directs attention to you. Hence why webcomic authors guest-drawing strips for other webcomic authors works, since you can easily make a direct association to your own product by way of demonstration.

        In short, the concept of “exposure” isn’t the issue, but the manipulative utilization of it, along with [an artist’s] poor consideration on the matter, are the issue. And with that, we’re basically just talking “the framework of any scam ever”, rather than anything specific to the concept of “exposure”.

        1. Dana

          Willis makes twelve bucks a year off me on Patreon plus profits on various books and merch over time. Considering the size of Jeph Jacques’ readership, anything he’s been paid for in exposure that’s gone up on QC has more that paid off. They’re friends, obviously, but I don’t think that changes the numbers, even if it is the real reason for their choice to let each other use their IP from time to time.

        2. Dana

          (It is probably obvious, but I found Willis via his exposure on QC.)

        3. HeySo

          Yep. Or to put that more straightforwardly:
          High profile website servicing a similar consumer base > dorm room door. 😛

          Every promise of exposure needs to be accompanied by a question of “Who will this actually get exposed to?”

        4. thejeff

          OTOH, if you’re hoping to make a few bucks doing art for other floormates doors, then this is exposure to your consumer base.

        5. HeySo

          You’ve only got a small, static number of dormmates, and there are easier ways to show your art off to them. The real exposure would be to visitors, and they typically wouldn’t pay door art any mind.

          For a quick sketch, it may be worth the cost-benefit of such minimal exposure, but it really wouldn’t be worth any kind of meaningful effort.

          But, y’know what, it seems to have gotten her a second comission, so it’s not like I can argue that it didn’t work out for Mary. I mean, assuming she appreciates payment in food as much as the typical college student does. 😛

      6. timemonkey

        Remember artists, ask for money.

        Like, seriously, why are people blaming Joyce for this?

    3. Keulen

      For most artists I would agree with you. But this is Mary, she definitely deserves it.

    4. Averien

      If Mary deserved it, it wouldn’t be evil– it would be justice. So even Dave agrees that even Mary doesn’t deserve it.

  6. ValdVin

    I feel Sarah here. Any conversation beginning with “Stop being overly self-conscious, self” doesn’t work.

    (Don’t ask me how I know.)

  7. AnvilPro

    Damn, that’s the best villain backstory I’ve seen in ages

    1. Danielle

      ms. paint

      1. Yotomoe

        They paid me in Exposure so I’ll expose them. TO THE SUN.

        1. Tacos

          They’re not vampires. The sun won’t do anything <.<

        2. Yotomoe

          Naw she’s firing them into it.

        3. Marsh Maryrose

          Before I retired, I spent a lot of my vacation time in the deserts of the American southwest, and now I live there full time.

          Trust me, if you’re human, that sun will really fuck you up if you’re not careful.

        4. Bruceski

          Growing up outside Santa Fe I always enjoyed watching new buildings go up. They’d be painted bright pink and emerald green so the sun would fade them to adobe and turquoise in a year or so.

        5. Dean

          Does the sun not cause skin cancer where you live?

        6. Marisa Mockery

          I see we’re playing the long game

        7. HeySo

          You’ll never be anything more than a henchman if all you focus on is the short game. A true evil mastermind must make their plans as elaborate as possible.

          Sure, that leaves more room for it to be countered along the way, and you may face criticisms for showing off rather than being expedient.. but damn if that “Gotcha!” moment at the end isn’t totally worth all the trouble.

        8. Deanatay

          UNLESS you destroy the Earth’s ozone layer! THEN the Sun will do… EVERYTHING!!! Mwaahahahahahaha!

        9. Sunny

          You don’t even have to see the sun get fucked up by it. I got early symptoms of heatstroke twice last summer while being in the shade and had to take cold showers to make sure it wouldn’t get worse.

    2. Doctor_Who

      Flashback: Move in day at the dorm, Mary is all smiles, looking forward to making so many friends. Joyce walks by, sees some of her art, offers to pay her in exposure, and the Mary we know is instantly born.

      1. Danielle

        she is now ms. paint

      2. Matthew Davis

        You forgot the ray of light that struck her in her darkest hour, convincing her that she was chosen by God and that all others, especially Joyce, were damned.

  8. ShinyNeen

    Pfft, step aside, Mary. We’re all here for Sarah being vulnerable enough to actually express a passion about something for once.

    I mean yeah, someone should tell Joyce to never do that again, but… c’mon, it’s Mary. She’s done worse to others! Way worse!

  9. Lone Duck

    Man, if Sal really wants to bother Malaya, she should get Mary to put art on their door.

    1. BBCC

      Not worth it. She’d have to interact with Mary. 😛

    2. ShinyNeen

      That could backfire though, because if Malaya catches on she’d just laugh at Sal for blatantly trying to rile her up.

  10. Yotomoe

    As a person, I think Mary is wrong. As an artist GET YOUR FUCKING STICKERS OFF OF HER ARTWORK SHE WORKED HARD OR HARDISH ON THAT.

    1. Khno

      As the person who has to live there and didn’t got in the choice of having any art representing her, she still got any right to even scrape a Picasso. And let’s be honest, this is not a Picasso, even if from far it’s got some angle.

    2. Kinoko

      I agree, Yotomoe.

      But on the other hand, best to learn the lesson early that non-artists will devalue your work. I’ve seen decorations stuck over artwork IRL. In a professional setting, no less!

  11. Kravis

    Oh, is that a thing now?

    HEY, I wanna start paying for things through “exposure”!

    1. ninja_jesus

      Exposure comes in many forms. Exposure to radiation, exposure to the vacuum of space. exposure to bofa, etc.

      1. MatthewTheLucky

        Pretty sure Joyce doesn’t have bofa.

      2. Sunny

        Bank of America?

        1. ninja_jesus

          No, bofa. BOFA DEEZ NUTS

          (thank you for letting me complete this horrendous joke, I’ll be here all night folks)

  12. Nono

    Sarah caring about other people’s opinions is the gift I never knew I wanted.

  13. ninja_jesus

    Pay artists for their commissioned work, even if they’re shitty people like Mary!

  14. TemplarKnight

    And Mary is retroactively absolved of any wrong thing she has done up to this point.

    1. Ursla Davina

      No? No! No…

    2. BBCC

      …Tell you what, I’ll let her be salty to Joyce for a bit. About this specific thing.

      Definitely not absolving her of her bs with Carla or Ruth.

      I’m pretty sure you’re joking too, but yeah, Carla and Ruth shouldn’t suffer because Joyce is a lousy client.

      1. Bagge

        Tell you what, let Mary have the ‘Lukewarm’ comment for free. That makes them even

        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/plottwist/

        1. BBCC

          I’m still conflicted about that strip – on one hand, Mary’s being a shithead. On the other, I LOVE the pun ‘Peter Paul and Mary’.

  15. DailyBrad

    Hehe, I forget sometimes Mary draws all that stuff.

    Given how long it’s been there, though, Joyce was still something of a shitlord. Wonder if she’d still have that attitude about it.

  16. Mr D phone posting

    Ohhhhh shit, I had completely forgotten that Mary had drawn those cutesy anime faces for the girls.

    That really doesn’t fit Mary’s personality. Like, at all.

    1. Fart Captor

      It doesn’t fit with how she treats other people at all, but it fits how she sees herself just fine.

    2. dethtolldotmid

      Honestly, you’d be surprised. Some of the most aggressively fundie people I’ve ever known (my own age anyway) were also incredibly talented artists and anime fans who struggled mightily to reconcile their love for Japanese cartoons (as we know, the Japanese are into Eastern Religion™) with their fundamentalism.

  17. Dean

    I’m confused, at what point did Joyce abandon Mary in the wilderness with no shelter or warm clothing?

    1. Corey

      Yea I dont get why Mary apparently gets a free pass for something now, Joyce didnt beat her up for the art or force her. Mary clearly has no problem standing up for herself.

    2. HeySo

      Willis decided to finally cater to more subtle forms of gratification, and put that side-story up on Slipshine. Right alongside the one where Blake is chased through the streets by an angry Blowjob Cat.

  18. MatthewTheLucky

    Wow, I can’t believe Joyce was the main antagonist all along.

  19. Pablo360

    You know, if this leads to Mary being involved in a story for a reason other than her bigotry making her a good villain and/or foil for the main cast, I’d be down for that.

  20. fluddlesnoot

    Oh, dorm door decor.

    Girls’ floors = elaborate decorations, cutouts, multicolor, layered, impressive.

    Boys’ floors = post-it notes and white boards with pictures of dicks.

    1. mrnoidea

      Or pictures of crazy-eyed Nicholas Cage on April Fool’s Day, in my case.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Ooh, I need to dig that up for Monday…

    2. Keulen

      I stopped putting whiteboards on my dorm door in college because all people did was draw dicks and other silly stuff on it.

      1. Kinoko

        In my dorm, my friends next door and I used to draw anime characters waving at each other on our whiteboards. Next morning: characters all had dicks in their mouths, from some rando who wandered by in the night. *sigh*

        This was the art major’s dorm, so generally people who lived there were pretty respectful of drawings, but that doesn’t keep the drunken friends-of-dorm-mates out.

    3. thejeff

      As far as we know in this dorm, it’s been the girl’s floor with pictures of dicks.

      1. Amazi-Stool

        And we know who is responsible for both kinds of decors!

  21. BBCC

    Joyce, don’t be a lousy client.

    Mary, suck an egg. 😛

    1. Yotomoe

      Maybe Joyce could pay her in eggs. Best of both worlds.

  22. BigDogLittleCat

    People would stop “paying” with exposure if artists would stop accepting it.
    The person who is effing up the market for artists is Mary, not Joyce.

    1. Fart Captor

      Even if that were true it’s still the people not paying that are the assholes

      There will always be naive new artists who don’t know any better than to think working for free might be worth it, or who lack the confidence in their skill to demand payment

    2. Krys Brynhildr

      Especially as Exposure as a payment method…doesn’t really seem like something Joyce would have offered up as a payment herself at that point in the comic, at least not with that specific phrasing.

      Its easier to assume that Mary’s “surprisingly reasonable” rates were her doing it for “exposure” without that being the starting offer.

      …Alternatively that its just Willis using “paying in exposure” as a punchline for punchline sake.

      1. thejeff

        Yeah, this kind of falls flat for me other than as a punchline for punchline’s sake.
        I just can’t really see how this really makes sense character wise as “scammer Joyce taking advantage of naive artist Mary.”

        If anything, I’d see Mary doing it for free so Joyce would think better of her and be more likely to support her in making the hall pure or whatever Mary thought she was up to. Even with the old alt-text about surprisingly reasonable rates, I never actually thought of it as an actual commercial transaction. Is that something that actually happens in dorms – paying other kids for caricatures to post on dorm doors?

        1. Kryss LaBryn

          One time in high school a girl paid me like $20 to draw her a picture of her boyfriend, so

        2. Kinoko

          Said this above in another thread, but yes. It’s not super common, but it did happen to me and my friends when folks saw our doors and wanted their own. Though far more often, people would just steal the art we’d posted for ourselves. :<

    3. 3oranges

      And there wouldn’t be scammers without people who fall for scams, but I hope you still object to the former.

  23. Delicious Taffy

    This is unforgivable. Joyce is a Xehanort.

    1. MatthewTheLucky

      Yoxcey

      1. moon

        Xasra

      2. moon

        Lexeli… Maxer. Just having a little fun here. Xanyd

        1. Delicious Taffy

          You just add an X and shuffle the letters around, you don’t replace anything.

    2. Griffin Raynor

      Yeah, but that makes her my new favorite Xehanort by default so she still wins.

      1. abysswatcher1993

        Joyce has embraced darkness, atheism, secularism and not paying for art! She is a lich! Speaking of Kingdom Hearts, why hasn’t Maleficent or Xehanort recruited the horned king? That lich was scary!

    3. ninja_jesus

      I dub her… Jexyco.

  24. Piotr W

    Wait, Mary draws stuff?

    1. King Daniel

      It’s been mentioned before, and we’ve seen her in art class a time or two.

      1. Piotr W

        So she’s not completely evil! 🙂

        1. Marsh Maryrose

          At the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law: you know who else drew stuff?

        2. 3oranges

          The Regina Five!

        3. Wizard

          John Wayne Gacey? Okay, more painted, but the principle holds.

        4. Wizard

          Judging by the historical record, it’s entirely possible to be a great artist and a total asshole simultaneously.

    2. Marsh Maryrose

      Mary’s drawings all look like pokemons

  25. mrnoidea

    Oatmeal for a midnight snack, anyone?

  26. newllend(henryvolt)

    Dumbing of age vol 9: “Your stupid God has no jurisdiction over me.”

    1. abysswatcher1993

      Cue for any of the DeSantos pointing at a plate that says “Read Hall: god free since 1965”.

    2. Keulen

      DoA Book 9: This Isn’t About God

  27. Griffin Raynor

    Mary: This isn’t about God!
    Me: (surprised pikachu face)

    I didn’t realize she was capable of emotions other than ‘Fundie JesusTM’ or ‘Spite’.

    1. MatthewTheLucky

      I think this falls under spite.

  28. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    No, she just left her in the developer solution too long.

    The fixer solution didn’t help, you can’t fix Mary.

  29. Bagge

    “But Malaya drew these pumpkins for me and she is so much more talented than you in any way.”

  30. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Is Walky being a “her” now just a typo, or some deeper meaningful event?

    1. Needfuldoer

      That’s just concept art. The final magnet design adds a seaweed wig and some sulking.

    2. Dean

      Regina, Duchess of Thingley

    3. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Since it has been quietly fixed, it was just a typo. *sigh*

      [Discards intricate complex speculation*.]

      [* Involving time travel, because my speculations always do, after all.]

      1. Tacos

        Who’s to say time travel wasn’t involved in fixing it?

  31. Bagge

    I love how Sarah completely misjudge all these fundie girls and their reactions to her halloween decorations.

    Heh, I’m calling it. This arc will end with one of the super-nice Christians, like Agatha or Sierra being huffy about Halloween not being enough Jesusy.

    1. JessWitt

      Is Sierra considered fundie? What was her denomination again?

      1. Bagge

        Not fundie as far as I know, that’s why I think it would be funny if SHE were to judge Sarah for the Halloween things.

        She attended the Church of God
        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/nondenominational/

        1. Emperor Norton II

          She’s also prayed for the dissolution of gender roles, so “fundie” is probably the least appropriate description of her:

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/cashin/

      2. Marsh Maryrose

        tl;dr: we don’t have enough information to answer the first question, nor to answer the second question to a useful degree of specificity.

        Sierra says that she attended Church of God. There are several different churches that call themselves “Church of God,” with wildly varying theologies, and we do not yet know which one she attended.

        Also, she says that she “attended” that church, past tense, which opens the possibility that she no longer identifies as a member of that church.

        But seeing as she is completely unashamed of making out with other girls, she definitely is not currently “fundie,” as that term is generally understood

        1. Marsh Maryrose

          I should note that although we don’t know Sierra’s hometown, there is a Church of God centered in Anderson, Indiana, that Joyce would probably categorize as a “weirdo church.”

        2. Bagge

          Wait, churches are dived as lunch tables in a stereotypical high school?

          The weirdo church, the cool church, the nerd church…

          It explains so much

        3. MatthewTheLucky

          Except they’re all the weirdo church, except yours, which was divinely inspired to schism from another, heretical, church in 1954.

        4. Needfuldoer

          The jock church prays for the sick gains every Sunday.

        5. Bagge

          So, what church is this?

          https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/93/Buddy_christ.jpg/300px-Buddy_christ.jpg

        6. Tacos

          Clearly the Buddy of Christ Church >.>

  32. abysswatcher1993

    Mary has a point. Soing free work is annoying, and people complaining that artists make content for money are assholes! Artists need money to buy food and pay the rent!

    1. thejeff

      I mean yeah in theory.
      But Mary doesn’t at this point. Mary’s a freshman college kid. She’s not currently trying to make a living as an artist.

      And plenty of people do free work all the time. Not “for exposure”, but for lots of reasons.

  33. Zatar

    I can’t believe there’s a situation were I’m siding with Mary over Joyce.

    I feel unclean.

    1. abysswatcher1993

      Marys have layers like Shrek. It’s just a shame most of her layers are rotten.

  34. Marisa Mockery

    Is THAT why she thinks Joyce will go to hell?

    1. Zatar

      She might actually be right for a change.

  35. Emperor Norton II

    “Mary getting paid in exposure” is one of those moral situations that you just don’t know where you should land on. I mean, yes, on principle, being paid in exposure is a shitty thing to do.

    But on the other hand, it’s bloody hilarious that it’s happening to Mary. And if that’s not a morally good thing, I don’t know what is.

    (Cue Chidi Anagonye popping in to tell me it’s not moral; proving once again why everyone hates moral philosophy professors.)

    In other news, I wrote a song about certain current entertainment news.

    1. abysswatcher1993

      Has Chidi learned yet that morality is something you develop through empathy and socializing instead of just theories and cold logic?

      Also, I haven’t watched the movie Us and I am not such a fan of horror, but I will point and laugh at all the macnchildren white dudes complaining about Peele not making movies about them. There’s already “Them” and “It”, and maybe “Those” in Fallout 3. Can we associate racists with insects and clowns?

    2. Sam

      It isn’t a morally good thing (saying no artists deserve to work for exposure means accepting that is true even for the ones you don’t like, that do things you disagree with and believe things you don’t agree with, because art is a job and if someone does a job, they deserve payment, regardless of their character).

      It is a form of totally deserved comeuppance though – if Mary was a nicer person, then someone might have told her that exposure from some random blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white girl, with absolutely no audience outside the dorm hall is pretty much worthless as payment. If you’re a demon disguised as a person, people are, as you have just shown, less likely to care if you’re ripped off.

    3. BBCC

      Chidi (where I’m at in season 2) thinks lying is always wrong – I reject his morality. 😛

  36. BenRG

    Something tells me that there is a long and strange story behind this one!

  37. Megan

    I love Sarah’s green jacket, that’s so cute! I want one.

  38. Reltzik

    Huh. Panel-2 Sarah tells her self to stop being self-conscious, implying that self is conscious of self-consciousness, and does so in a way just ironic enough to be self-conscious of her self-conscious self-consciousness.

    …. but is she self-consciously-self-consciously-self-consciously-self-conscious?

    1. Poofdepoof

      I happily followed until the last sentence. Anyone wanna dissect for me?

  39. Icalasari

    …As an artist?

    Frick you, Joyce >:(

    1. timemonkey

      You realise Mary would have been the one to set the prices right?

  40. Khyrin

    Sarah: I’ll do you one better.
    *Slides Mary a twenty* You have two hours to draw spooky versions of these. if it takes 3, there’s a tenner in it for you.

  41. BenRG

    I’ll laugh my butt off if Mary goes storming over to Joyce to demand payment and, with a blank look, Joyce responds: “Okay, how much?”

  42. Martin Smith

    And no-one wants to see Mary exposed.

    No, I’m not checking if anyone’s already done that joke in the comments.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      [Glances over at Slipshine, decides not to say anything.]

      1. HeySo

        That’s a rather extreme perversion to cater to. o.O

  43. Nenja

    It’s so nice to see that Sarah likes Halloween and wants to decorate.

  44. Eldritch Gentleman

    What kind of bizarro world are we in that Mary is right and Joyce is wrong?

    1. Lore Krajsman

      agreed, It’s utterly wrong to have a situation where for one rare moment, Mary is actually in the right.

  45. Vulcanodon

    The art has been up for a while. Hey Mary, if you wanna set higher prices, do so. But a dorm-room door doesn’t really count as exposure.

    Joyce, don’t pay artists in ‘exposure’.

  46. JBento

    People DIE from exposure.

    …

    Don’t cover it up, Sarah, let’s get Mary aaaaaaall the exposure…

  47. ValdVin

    I really enjoy the startled look on Sarah in panel three. I’m a bit of a curmudgeon and introvert (not unlike her) and will react like her when I get attention that I’m not really looking for.

  48. ziggy78eog

    I have to agree with Mary, with this one (bleh, that left a rather unpleasant taste, in my mouth). Exposure Dollars are more useless than Bison Dollars. Even if you kidnap the Queen of England.

    1. Makkabee

      Exposure dollars are useless (I’ve done a couple of short films for IMDB credit, and you can guess how much good it’s done my acting career), but I’m okay with paying Mary that way. If she doesn’t like it she can stop opposing unions.

      1. BBCC

        Has Mary ever opposed unions on page?

        I mean, I don’t doubt it, but still.

        1. Emperor Norton II

          I’d say her wholeheartedly supporting Reagan counts.

        2. BBCC

          I mean, fair.

    2. Amazi-Stool

      I have to agree with Mary, with this one
      But Mary does not complain about being paid in exposure (and probably offered it in the first place).

      Mary complains about Sarah reducing her exposure!

  49. Jenny Islander

    Wait, she’s an artist? She has produced something besides bile and stress?

    1. Sazazezer

      I actually think she was sort of introduced under her being an artist before anything else. I seem to recall passing conversation about her being someone whose always drawing manga.

      Can’t find it under the tags so i think it was in a comic not directly featuring her. Saying that it’s weird reading early Mary. She’s more eye-rolling sarcastic than bitter christian in her earliest scenes.

      1. Sazazezer

        Scratch that. It’s hiding in plain sight. Her first real talk scene (besides Billie sneaking into her room when she’s nude) has her wearing a shirt with the word ‘Starving’ emblazoned upon it.
        So yes. Her first real talk scene in the Dumbiverse references her being an artist.

        1. thejeff

          There was the scene where Joyce was putting up the pictures and talked about Mary drawing anime-style. There was a sequence with Malaya and Mary in art class.

  50. LazyReader

    Did her toenail fall off yet?

    1. Emperor Norton II

      It will once she gives it… exposure.

  51. BarerMender

    Mary. Never take payment in “exposure.” It’s always a lie.

  52. Dracke

    Never do anything for exposure…

  53. Mr D

    I wonder if Mary’s artstyle has changed since she started college

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