351

Split
Posted on October 23, 2021 by David M Willis

351 thoughts on “Split”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    yeah Walky, and that well-loved baby is Joyce’s comic, while yours is the baby left on the airport luggage carousel while you’re looking for fifty McNuggets

    1. Lumino

      That DOES sound like something Walky would do.

    2. Decidedly Orthogonal

      The abrahamic kings be pretty savage though. For reasons.

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        And see, here I was thinking that Daisy resembled Solomon because she is cheerfully work-avoidant. Next, she’ll be eating snacks in someone else’s dorm room to avoid an awkward work meeting.

        ….

        Was that too esoteric? Is anyone going to get it? I don’t know…
        Perhaps it’s fate?

        1. Allan Houston

          Well as long as he’s not sitting in my room on my first day of my new job where I got sent after falling asleep in said meeting.

    3. Doctor_Who

      I mean, if I were a kid, riding the luggage carousel sounds like a dream come true, so maybe Walky actually gets Cool Dad points for that, especially if he comes back with McNuggets.

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        When else will you get to violate federal law without consrquences. ??

      2. Deanatay

        Ah, the ridiculously fine line between Cool Dad and Dangerously Neglectful Dad.

        1. milu

          fine line? you mean massive overlap?

  2. Doctor_Who

    The Thirst Monster sinks beneath the waves of Daisy’s consciousness, like the kraken of legend, biding its time until it can rise once more and terrorize the surface. Sanity takes hold…for now.

    (Seriously, Joyce, if you want to thank her maybe introduce her to the Sierra/Grace/Mandy business. Girl needs to get lucky soon, she’s becoming a danger to herself and others.)

    1. A Red Balloon

      Sierra does seem pretty nice.

      I sure hope Daisy’s into feet!

      1. Yotomoe

        I know I am haha.
        I said “haha” so it seems like a joke even though I just said a factual statement.

      2. mrnoidea

        And polyamory!

        1. A Red Balloon

          Wait is Sierra already with someone, or am I missing something?

        2. Nono

          Grace and Mandy, sometimes.

        3. A Red Balloon

          Source?

          I mean SAUCE?

          I mean source?

        4. Thag Simmons

          Unraveling! Everything’s Unraveling!

        5. A Red Balloon

          Ah, sweet anarchy. That’s the SAUCE.

    2. Thag Simmons

      I think they may be a little out of her league.

      1. Doctor_Who

        Eh, I dunno, it can be hard to tell from the art style, but Daisy strikes me as pretty attractive in-universe. Ruth made some sort of comment that she considers Daisy out of her league.

        And if it’s down to eccentricity, I think Sierra might have her beat in that department.

        1. Thag Simmons

          It’s more that Daisy is not a smooth enough operator to get in with that band

  3. Nono

    Daisy confuses me. She swings from thirst incarnate to nihilistic realist to ‘haha, you fell into my ruse!’ in five panels.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Daisy contains multitudes. And most of them are horny.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Daisy isn’t the only character who sometimes does cartoonishly extreme things for the sake of a joke.

  4. RassilonTDavros

    Huh, wasn’t expecting to read two comics about Joyce, Walky, and a baby tonight.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      …and then Joyce proceeded to not appear in tonight’s It’s Pregnancy! rerun, making me look like an idiot. Oh well, you win some you lose some!

      1. bejouled

        I read It’s Walky start to finish. I know I did. So how is it that I don’t remember any of these plots AT ALL? I don’t even remember Joyce and Walky having a kid and the Joyce/Walky pairing is mostly why I read it (and also why I started reading Dumbing of Age, because the last strip implied they would get together again here eventually). What a weird feeling

        1. King Daniel

          Hoo boy, you’ve missed on a lot of Joyce and Walky! then. That strip you’re referring to wasn’t even the last of the Joyce and Walky! strips, let alone It’s Pregnancy!.

        2. King Daniel

          (Though in fairness, a lot of what you’ve missed was probably in the paying-viewers-only category until Willis started rerunning them.)

        3. Carla's #2 Fan

          Would you happen to know where I can read his past stuff from the start? I’ve only read Dumbing of Age, but I want to read more.

        4. Spencer

          There are two good starting points: the first strip of Roomies, and the (redrawn!) first storyline of It’s Walky!

          Roomies was the first comic in the Walkyverse and was about Danny, Joe, and Joyce. It’s… pretty rough to read nowadays, the entire run of the commentary is essentially Willis going “oh god why”, but that’s what your very first professional work of art does to you in time. It’s a story about Danny being self-righteous all the time until life kicks him in the face enough that he gets over himself.

          http://www.itswalky.com/comic/and-now/

          It’s Walky! is where things actually get going, there’s a reason it’s called the Walkyverse after all, and the reason it’s a toss-up on whether to read the whole thing or start here is that Roomies does set up It’s Walky! by introducing the aliens, SEMME, and having Joyce get abducted so she’s out of Roomies for the remainder of that and ends up as the secondary protagonist of this one.

          http://www.itswalky.com/comic/plagued-with-a-sense-of-normalcy/

          I’d still start with It’s Walky! anyway since I don’t think there’s anything about Roomies’ characters interacting with It’s Walky!’s cast that can’t be easily understood in the context of the series itself, basically just character relationships like Danny and Sal (oh yeah, that’s where their current relationship here came from!), Joyce and Joe reuniting (ditto) and Billie and Danny’s relationship from Roomies carrying forward as Billie starts interacting again with Walky and Beef.

          Oh yeah you probably don’t know Beef yet. You’re gonna love that guy, total scene stealer, has all the best lines.

          And then after It’s Walky! is Joyce & Walky! which starts as a domestic romcom of two genetically altered alien-empowered super soldiers, and then starts delving into its own sci-fi plot.

        5. King Daniel

          For what it’s worth, Walkyverse!Ruth is a Roomies!-era-exclusive character. So someone reading for her and Billie’s pre-It’s Walky! relationship would be missing out if they skipped Roomies!.

        6. Carla's #2 Fan

          You’re both wonderful! Thank you! This will keep me busy for a while! 😀

        7. Paul Grant

          And then there’s shortpacked 🙂

        8. bejouled

          That wasn’t the last Joyce and Walky?? How do I read the rest of it?? Just wait for Willis to repost them?

        9. King Daniel

          I’d recommend starting from the beginning of the post-It’s Walky! reruns; the comic you’re referring to was reran back in July, but there’s oodles of formerly-pay-only-but-now-available Joyce and Walky strips before then (including like 90% of the Head Alien II plotline), and everything after it until It’s Pregnancy! also being in that formerly-paying-readers-only category of reruns

        10. King Daniel

          The rerun site is specifically rerunning the entire Walkyverse—minus Shortpacked!, except for two specific chapters that tie into the greater Walkyverse—all the way from the Roomies! era onward in chronological order, so finding your way from the beginning of the $100-Theater reruns (which quickly segue into Joyce and Walky! proper after a few strips) would be the best way to catch up IMO.

        11. BBCC

          Joyce/Walky’s kid only shows up in a couple Shortpacked! strips. You didn’t miss it in Joyce & Walky. The It’s Pregnancy thing was a comic Willis wrote while his wife was pregnant IRL showing her pregnancy with the kiddo.

        12. Ana Chronistic

          Also it was only on the It’s Pregnancy Tumblr

  5. A Red Balloon

    Solomon?

    The only Solomon I know of is from the Solomon’s Mines slot machines!

    Too bad you can’t increase the payout by showing lady-licked shirts….

    1. Stephen Bierce

      Solomon was a space station in Mobile Suit Gundam. The Feddie Fleet (SPOILER REMOVED) in 0083.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      For reference:

      16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, “Pardon me, my lord. This woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.

      19 “During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”

      22 The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”

      But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.

      23 The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”

      24 Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

      26 The woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”

      But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”

      27 Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”

      28 When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

      1 Kings 3:16-28, NIV

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Just realized he’s never actually named in this excerpt– Solomon is the king mentioned here

        1. Amós Batista

          Ah, yes, King Solomon, the wisest one.
          But I rather King David. More war, adultery, homosexualism and those other things.

        2. Sombrero

          No one beats Queen Jezabel.

        3. Amós Batista

          For sure. She put a prophet like Elijah on his knees, and controled the kingdom of Acab.

        4. King Daniel

          You mean Ahab?

        5. Amós Batista

          Yes, Ahab. In my translation, he’s called Acabe.

        6. hof1991

          More kill a husband and take his wife because it’s good to be king. Solomon is the son of a sexual situation more like prolonged rape than anything else. As David’s son, no wonder Solomon wanted wisdom.

        7. Amós Batista

          Not worked so well in Somolon life, in te end. Let’s agree wit it.
          But I laughed in your last phrase, because I never thought about it..

      2. Doctor_Who

        There was a Batman comic during the No Man’s Land storyline that takes a shot at how stupid that tale is. Two women are fighting over a baby (neither of them is the mother I think). The first was left in charge of the baby, but had to go scavenge for food and stashed it somewhere she thought was safe. The second woman found it and insists the first was being negligent. They appeal to Batman.

        He suggests the Solomon solution…and BOTH women say “hell no” because neither of them is a frigging maniac. He forces them to compromise and look after the baby together.

        So the moral is that Batman is wiser than Solomon. Nobody tell Shazam.

        1. Clif

          Solomon gave the child to the prostitute he favored. Batman was gambling on neither being a frigging maniac, and in Batman’s world, those are not good odds.

        2. Daibhid C

          There was a John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme sketch with the same idea, only it happened to actual Solomon. “No, we both like the baby. That’s the point.”

      3. RacingTurtle

        Oddly, it doesn’t tell you which woman was the living baby’s mother—at least not in this translation, anyway. Did one of them steal a baby in the night and get caught, or did one of them lie to try to steal a baby via the legal system?

        1. Loki

          It doesn’t matter.

          When you have the choice between giving a baby to its legal mother who is willing to let it die, or to an adoptive mother who is not, the choice is pretty clear.

        2. Devin

          I don’t think that’s an accident. The point of the story is that he uses his wisdom to determine who is the True Mother because she cares most for the baby. The implication is that the outcome was correct.

        3. Paul Grant

          It’s slightly opaque here, but he does say ““Give the living baby to the first woman.”

      4. Daibhid C

        A fun thing I read somewhere, and have absolutely no idea of the accuracy of, is that this is a Metaphor. What Solomon is actually saying is that the False King is prepared to put the country to the sword to cement his rule, and the True King won’t want to see that happen.

        And the really fun part is that Solomon himself is meant to be the False King in this scenario; he’s actually telling Adonijah to back off, or else.

    3. Thag Simmons

      wasn’t that dude born on a monday?

      1. Khyrin

        I’m given to understand that is the case. Furthermore, he was christened on Tuesday, married on Wednesday, fell ill on Thursday, worsened on Friday, died on Saturday, and was buried Sunday.

    4. Diane

      I can’t read any of this stuff without thinking of Fate/Grand Order, and how Solomon got reborn as a perverted doctor (though his heart was in a good place), King David was a massive flirt that hit on anything that moved, and Solomon’s 72 demons tried to destroy the world.

      Great shit really.

  6. Yotomoe

    This is probably a better use of Solomon than the original Solomon because, to Walky’s point, who ever was ok with cutting a baby in half is losing from a moral perspective rather than it being an example of the person not wanting enough which I think is the point of the story.

    1. Yotomoe

      Still I feel bad for Walky. I know his comic wasn’t as good but it was something he was motivated to do of his own accord that Joyce kinda just…swooped in and took from under him. Let that be a lesson to you, don’t tell your friends about your goals. They will always steal them from you.

      1. A Red Balloon

        As sad as that lesson may seem, I think you might be right.

        1. Yotomoe

          Fun fact, my cousin’s name is the name my mom said she’d name me if I was a girl. She told her sister in confidence and that’s what she named her son. Trust no one.

        2. Ana Chronistic

          The son has your girl name?

        3. Ana Chronistic

          Meanwhile I was the opposite

          Mom wanted to name me Michelle

          Then ALL HER FRIENDS named THEIR daughters Michelle

          So… (not Michelle) it is!

        4. Jason

          America has a weird thing with making quite a few names unisex. I kind of started having to assume any name could be considered so until told otherwise around the point I heard that Kim was considered a somewhat uncommon hit acceptable boy’s name.

        5. Uly

          Kim has always been a boy’s name, just ask Kipling.

        6. Yotomoe

          Yeah. I guess I’ll just say my mom would have named me Erin, while my cousin is named Aaron.

        7. Ana Chronistic

          I mean, I kinda get it? But also, those are VERY DIFFERENT NAMES

          but even then, if someone took my desires baby names, UNLESS LITERALLY EVERY OTHER BABY had the same name, I would still use the names I chose

          No one has a name trademark (except, like, actual trademarks, but idk how they’d apply to babies)

        8. Ana Chronistic

          My phone autocorrect doesn’t believe in past tense I see ?

        9. Yotomoe

          I mean erin was what she would named me if I was a girl but I was a boy so it was [redacted]. Who knows if she woulda named me Erin though cuz that would’ve gotten confusing at get togethers. They’d probably have to call us E and A for short.

        10. Ana Chronistic

          you should look up the story of the two Tracy Hickmans who went out together

          (I think it’s Hickman)

        11. milu

          reminds me of that scene in that 50% awful 50% awesome early 2000’s queer romcom, what was it called, Better Than Chocolate? where this character is telling her mom about her relationship with a woman named Frances, and the mom is determined to hear that as Francis.

      2. Thag Simmons

        it isn’t over yet, Walky still has objections

        1. Nono

          Yeah, I doubt it’s going to end as cleanly as this strip assumes. Walky’s savvy enough that he could probably exploit Daisy’s weakness, and after months of Joyce’s singular focus being her comic, she’s due for some universal whiplash.

        2. Thag Simmons

          Maybe Joyce can work something out with another one of the cartoonists? They run like four comics and I assume all of them are student made. One of them might be willing to split a slot with Walky while Joyce gets a full slot

        3. Loki

          They run four comics??? How?!

          I used to be part of a student paper back in the day (granted, not in the US). We had trouble getting even 1 comic artist, let alone four.

          This comic is entirely unrealistic, smh.

        4. Thag Simmons

          I’m not sure if they’re all student made, they may run syndicated strips. They’ve mentioned Heathcliff and Zippy the Pinhead, but I’m not sure if they actually run those or if those mentions were jokes

        5. thejeff

          I wasn’t on the student paper back in my day, but I vaguely recall more than 4 most semesters. Most of them were pretty awful of course. Probably varies from paper to paper – and over time. Size of the school likely plays a big role. More students, more who might be interested. IU has 10s of thousands of students.

        6. Scoops!

          I did comics for the university paper, which managed to reliably fill one page of comics from student submissions only, but it was a weekly paper.

          I’m wondering now about the logistics of having a daily student paper. It’s being run by students, weekly seemed like the right amount of work for people who were also full-time students.

        7. BBCC

          This semester there’s only one slot. Four was last semester.

        8. Thag Simmons

          They have an open slot because a cartoonist graduated, I assume they didn’t reduce the number of comics they were running

        9. BBCC

          Daisy said if they didn’t get any applicants, they were gonna use it for ad space. I assume that’s what happened with the others.

        10. Thag Simmons

          What makes you think they’re only running one comic now, rather than just only having one opening available?

        11. BBCC

          It’s just what I assumed when Daisy told Walky they’d run more ads if they didn’t get any applicants.

        12. Reltzik

          Will those objections suffice to overcome him framing this job as something he HAS to do, and would prefer to do less of, in the same moment that Joyce framed it as something she wants to do and wants to do more of? Because employers kinda take notice of that in a job interview.

      3. Keulen

        Yeah, it kinda bugs me as well that Walky was actually motivated to do something with the college newspaper comic strip and it’s probably gonna go to Joyce now. Even though Joyce’s comic would almost certainly be better quality, she wouldn’t have even known about this if Walky hadn’t mentioned it near her.

        1. Spencer

          Walky was not at all motivated and I think it’s pretty clear if he was he’d get bored eventually.

          Putting effort into things is not Walky’s forte.

        2. alongcameaspider

          I mean she was interested when she heard about the opportunity, what is she supposed to not try for something she wants because someone else wants it?

          And it’s not like she kept her interest a secret from him to yank it out from under him, she expressed interest to him as soon as he told her about it. It’s not her fault the paper is run by an unprofessional thirst monster

  7. Cmasta1992

    Joyce gets the comic strip but loses her oldest friend.

    I accept these terms.

    1. King Daniel

      In the last panel, however, she contracts FazFace. So did we really win?

      1. Reltzik

        It’s only like half a faz-face. The other half is Joyce’s normally-huge eyes magnified by her glasses.

    2. Clif

      Sarah is older than Becky.

      1. JBento

        I’m like 99% certain they mean “oldest” in the sense of “for longer”.

        1. Yumi

          I’m like 99% certain that was meant to be a joke, I mean c’mon, this is Clif we’re talking about.

        2. Clif

          I’m like 99% certain that I’m Clif.

  8. Yotomoe

    Y’know I’m gonna take Joyce’s words and spit them back at her. Daisy HASN’T looked at Walky’s comic. At all. She hasn’t heard his pitch, his idea or seen his dedication. Now we the reader know it’s kind of an uninspired strip with the same punchline every day, but Daisy does not and she’s just completely written him off as someone who doesn’t have enough of a drive to deserve his comic in the paper. I guess it’s a testament to how little she cares but nobody likes having their work go up in smoke on a whim.

    1. emeraldbeacon

      Daisy also knows (via the sauce incident) that Walky has, presumably, removed one possibly eligible female from the dating pool, which is, frankly, an inexcusable offense.

      1. Nono

        Daisy seems to be less ‘I need a date’ and more ‘I need sexy sights’.

        1. Yotomoe

          Walky should include a buxom lady in his comic who stands there looking sexy while the monkey drop kicks a guy. Or make the Dinosaur into a sexy lady. Clever girl.

        2. A Red Balloon

          This is purely theoretical, but what would happen if the Dinosaur were a lady and then Daisy just happened to see more of Dina?

        3. Yotomoe

          Not all dinosaurs look the same, obviously. Walky’s dinosaur is clearly a Jurassic park dinosaur that doesn’t have feathers because it’s cloned with frog dna or something.

        4. Thag Simmons

          Most dinosaurs can be acceptably reconstructed without feathers. It’s really just the coelurosaurs that you need to feather, and even then there are exceptions (T. rexindicates that large coelurosaurus may have had sparse to nonexistent feathering)

        5. eh, whatever

          Counterpoints: Tianyulong, Kulindadromeus. And at least Sciurumimus the megalosauroid.

        6. Thag Simmons

          Knew I forgot something. Should correct that to “at the moment it’s mostly just the coelurosaurs”, there is evidence pointing to feathering potentially being much more widespread

        7. milu

          love Yoto’s explanation tho XD

          …anyway, Walky’s dino is wrong because it’s upright, if nothing else

    2. Reltzik

      Daisy saw his dedication when he responded to sharing the spot as “less I need to draw”.

  9. newlland(Henryvolt)

    Daisy clearly doesn’t give a flying fuck about this.

    1. Agemegos

      But she would really like to get one from it.

      1. milu

        flying fuck expertise is why she’s so determined to track down Amazi-Girl.

  10. Cmasta1992

    And I repeat my statement from yesterday: Joyce has become incredibly unlikable lately.

    1. Yotomoe

      I’ll be honest, Joyce has always rode the line of being insufferable. It was only a matter of time before she teetered over it. I can accept she’s going through shit but I also needn’t pretend she isn’t being a bit of a pill.

      1. RacingTurtle

        Agreed, Yotomoe

      2. Nono

        My general stance has been that Joyce is great in arcs of crisis (Toedad, Kidnapping, etc), but day to day Joyce is… yeah. Pretty nasty.

    2. Amós Batista

      Oh, really? She seems so adorable here, mainly in her smile in the last.

      1. A Red Balloon

        Eh, I find Daisy’s face in panel 2 strangely more attractive, but that’s just me.

        I think.

      2. Cmasta1992

        Really because I see her sabotage Walky before he gets a chance to do his pitch and then when a compromise is offered she is rewarded for throwing a tantrum. Not adorable in the slightest, she has been a prick as of late.

        1. A Red Balloon

          Well just to be fair, Daisy didn’t know what was going on with Joyce prior to this, and she only incidentally awarded Joyce because she wanted to try her chances at eventually hooking up with the woman who licked Walky’s shirt, as slim as they might have been.

          Thirst is a very powerful force to be reckoned with.

        2. Yotomoe

          “Have you ever been to a birthday party for children and one of the children won’t stop screaming because he’s just a little attention attracter. When he grows up to be a comic or actor he’ll be rewarded for never maturing, never understanding or learning, that every day can’t be about him. There’s other people you selfish asshole.”
          -Bo Burnham, Art is dead.

        3. Notmuch

          I mean… she’s pissed because she made her pitch, on time, was offered the spot, and had that spot yanked away because she knew someone licked a t-shirt.

          Being pissed is at -best- reasonable.

        4. Shade

          There was no appointment, so there was no “on time” it was just the last day to pitch.

        5. Cmasta1992

          It wasn’t yanked away. At worst she was going to have to share a slot at this point. And if Daisy had decided she wanted Walky’s comic instead after yknow actually doing her goddamn job and reading the pitch then that also isn’t yanking away: that’s losing a contest.

          She isn’t close to be justified.

        6. Spencer

          Except she wasn’t doing her job?

          Because Walky’s submission was based on getting roped into his polyamorous relationship with his bisexual girlfriend who licked his shirt.

          And then Daisy, who like everyone else on Earth does not care about the newspaper comic section, can see she’s actually deeply passionate about her work while Walky was as clear as day that splitting it sounded good because he’d have to do less work.

          So like

          Maybe Daisy just liked the cut of her jib.

        7. Yotomoe

          “Because Walky’s submission was based on getting roped into his polyamorous relationship with his bisexual girlfriend who licked his shirt.”
          That was just a “Daisy is Horny” joke. She hasn’t LOOKED at Walky’s art. Walky didn’t say “Hey look at my spit covered shirt, there’s plenty more where that came from, baby”. That wasn’t Walky’s submission. Don’t say that. Walky has yet to submit. Daisy has yet to read what he’s written, look at what he’s drawn or give him any of the courtesy you would give someone who is applying for a position. WE the audience know that Walky doesn’t give a shit and might not deserve the job. I understand that. But Daisy the CHARACTER has no way of knowing that. She hasn’t looked at his work. She hasn’t TALKED to him. She hasn’t done him the BASELINE courtesy of even considering him as a possible choice.

          I mean we do all remember these are college students right? You do realize that “less work” might not mean “I’m lazy” and more “I only have so much time because I got projects and assignments and grades and shit to worry about” I didn’t have time to start a webcomic when I was in college either. I was pulling all nighters just to get my shit DONE.

        8. Spencer

          I mean, I think the part where we the audience know Walky doesn’t give a shit is an important factor, and then Walky made it clear he doesn’t care because his line wasn’t just splitting the work to do Joyce a solid, it was so he could be less involved.

          Daisy doesn’t care about this thing nobody on campus cares about other than Joyce, including Walky. In any real world setting Joyce and Walky would innately deserve the same consideration for the job even if Joyce wants it a whole bunch more.

          So to get the story moving, the clockwork automaton that is Daisy computes a question to convey in about three panels:

          – why Walky would be bad for this.

          – why Joyce is getting it over him.

          – that nobody actually cares.

          That’s why it boiled down to Daisy going “eh, Joyce wants it more.” That’s how little any of it matters.

        9. Yotomoe

          That’s fine but I can object to that. In storytelling the easiest way isn’t always the best way and if you skip crucial steps of the storytelling process people might be put off by how much the story is being pushed into a specific direction at the risk of portraying a fair result. So I have to look at this at face value and in this world, Walky has yet to show his work or be considered for the position. I’m going to sympathize with him, even if I know he wasn’t great for the job because I can see that imbalance. My feelings of disappointment in the system, be it narrative or characterwise, are valid.

        10. Spencer

          I mean that’s fine too, and while I’m less sympathetic to Walky’s motivations because of what we’ve seen so far, for all we know it could just come down to “hey drawing cartoons is neat” and then that can spiral into a whole thing (like say trying to draw on his own time and then never doing it because he’s waiting for the Motivation that doesn’t exist, except that Motivation is how he’s done anything important), I think it’s important to consider all the story developments because a story can’t just account for every possibility all at once, which is why I think Walky’s own lack of care about his job matters even if Daisy only learned he didn’t care in this strip.

          I kiiiiinda wanna write a bit about some really good storytelling advice I read once that’s shaped how I’ve processed storytelling and, in turn, how I’ve started to write for myself, but I feel like if I just drop it here I’ll come off as talking down to you and trying to assert why My Reading is the best one, so if it’s something you would like to hear about let me know.

        11. Agemegos

          Walky had already received the job offer, on sole condition of delivering samples by Friday. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/strip/

          There was no contest. There was no open call for applications. There was no deadline for submissions (except for Walky, and he met it.) Joyce heard that Walky had a job offer, and she gazumped his job.

          And Daisy’s conduct is, as usual, capricious.

        12. Cmasta1992

          Damn this makes Joyce even less justified. No redeeming qualities

        13. Agemegos

          To be fair to Joyce, Walky told her there was a contest, and it was not her fault that she believed him.

    3. thumb

      Nah, she’s just become moderately unlikable. She’s just been a brat for a few strips. That’s allowed. And this is an infuriating situation to be in.

      1. Thag Simmons

        let they who has not been kind of a brat cast the first stone

  11. Yotomoe

    Walky should make his own newspaper comic. With blackjack and hookers! Or maybe he’ll take his comic to the interwebs. I’ve heard that there’s a couple of comics on there.

    1. adam Black

      Nobody reads comics on the web

      1. Keulen

        Comics on the Internet? What is this nonsense?

        1. milu

          pie in the sky. get a real job with a real future, like newspaper comic artist.

        2. adam Black

          Videostore Newspaper advertisement Illustrator,

          that and Newspaper personal Classified ad copywriter

          Huge growth industries.

        3. adam Black

          its newspapers all the way.

          but if people HAVE to dialup to see your so called comic on the way to looking at sportscores, ( porn ) at least use
          >>>SHOCKWAVE<<<

          Static Digital pictures are obsolete. and have no future.

    2. C.T. Phipps

      I mean putting it online has worked for SOME cartoonists.

      1. adam Black

        did they put it on ne of these “online malls” i keep hearing about ?

  12. DailyBrad

    I kinda figure that she’s still going to look at Walky’s.

    I remember forever ago there being some speculation Joyce may write while Walky draws, since I think we’ve been given indication that Walky’s the more competent artist, but not an ideas guy.

    1. Yotomoe

      I think what little we’ve seen of Joyce’s art looks better than what little we’ve seen of Walky’s art.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Between Walky and Joyce, I’m gonna say Joyce is the better writer

      1. Thag Simmons

        *artist.

        brain not work good

        1. Clif

          We know for a fact she draws a ean ding-dong.

  13. Amós Batista

    One thing I learn is never take anything as no valuable, as Walky did here. Worst choice of words, David…

    1. Yotomoe

      One of my first animation jobs I applied to the guy asked if I would be able to do what he needed me to do and I admitted that I wasn’t experienced in it but I was willing to learn. That was apparently the wrong answer and I should’ve just said yes.
      Reminder don’t ever talk yourself down, not even if it is accurate. Lie your way to employment if you must. Artists need to be greedy.

      1. Amós Batista

        ugh, took me almost a year uneployed to won a job in IT

        1. Yotomoe

          It took me 5 to get one in animation but to be fair I kinda stopped trying after the first 2. And the one I just got was more due to nepotism than anything else.

        2. woobie

          Remember, it isn’t nepotism, it’s networking!

        3. Clif

          YAY nepotism!

          Don’t knock it if it gets your foot in the door.

        4. Needfuldoer

          Especially in a niche field.

        5. ktbear

          Only a year? Amateur!

        6. A Red Balloon

          Ah, gotta LOVE the savagery of capitalism.

          *plays “Marx” by BB Panzu on Hacked Muzak*

      2. Chris Phoenix

        Not always. True story: My friend applied for a welding job. Interviewer says “Can you cut two-piece armor plate?” My friend says “Sure.” Interviewer says “Here’s a torch.” My friend fails. Interviewer says “You should have admitted you didn’t know. I’d have taught you. Next!”

        1. Needfuldoer

          I applied for an IT job at an ad agency many moons ago. When I got there, they asked me to “whip something up” in InDesign, a page layout program I hadn’t even touched before. Turns out the job was actually 90% graphic design, 10% IT, they just didn’t mention that in the listing so they’d get more IT people to show up. They were unimpressed with my “barely not blammed out of the Newgrounds portal” quality Flash dabbling. Philistines.

        2. Buli-Buli

          It depends on how immediately necessary the skill is.
          And on how many telated skills you DO have.

        3. Yotomoe

          I probably should’ve emphasized that my advice was specifically for art related jobs. Not jobs were you have to do dangerous physical labor where you could horribly injure yourself or others.

      3. Ana Chronistic

        Naw, I had a boss ask if I could operate a thing, and I said no, but I was willing to learn how, and he was impressed and wanted to give me a raise for that

        … didn’t get it, but it was better than lying and injuring myself like my other boss who worked like forty days in a row over Giftmas season and backed the forklift into himself (the kind one walks behind, not the drivable one)

        1. Yotomoe

          I probably should’ve emphasized that my advice was specifically for art related jobs. Not jobs were you have to do dangerous physical labor.

        2. Thag Simmons

          Don’t shake hands with danger

        3. Needfuldoer

          ♫ He tried to kill me with a forklift! ♫ Huzzah!

      4. voidsiren

        I tried lying my way into employment and it gave me cake-decorating trauma. I do not recommend that.

  14. StClair

    There’s Joyce the absolutist again.

  15. BBCC

    Well, what did you learn from THAT, Walky?

    1. Yotomoe

      The only way to win is to never try ever again! Failure can only be experienced by people who put in an effort.

      1. Clif

        Nobody appreciates high concept art.

      2. BBCC

        I was thinking ‘Don’t be nice to Joyce’ tbh. If only because that’d be funny.

      3. Keulen

        Can’t fail if you never try in the first place. Guy-tapping-his-head.jpg

    2. Francoinblanco

      I feel Walky “resignation” arc in the future, bad math grades did’t learn him anything and he Come back to status quo . I can imagine his Total tranformation into potato couch because of this failure. I Wonder if he lie to Lucy to postpone FAIL because he cant FAIL.

  16. Yotomoe

    Also I apologize if I’m overpopulating the comment section. Let’s just say talk about failing to get a job in the art field is quite a sore spot for me. That and I just am really fond of Walky.

    1. A Red Balloon

      Don’t feel too bad.

      Besides, I think your art makes it worth the while!

    2. Amós Batista

      As you opened one off-topic, is it you on twitter?

      1. Yotomoe

        It is indeed. I don’t post there super often though cuz I’m lazy. And when I do it’s usually a doodle I farted out in a minute. The irony being that some of my best art is fanart I’ve done for the walkyverse but I have literally 0 desire to post that anywhere but here.

  17. Tan

    Tbh Joyce should get Mon – Fri and Walky should get Saturday

    1. RacingTurtle

      That would’ve been perfect

    2. RassilonTDavros

      I hope we get web-exclusive Sunday Julia Gray strips with really bad airbrushing and lens flares.

      1. Thag Simmons

        i am not clicking those links

        i know what evil is lurking there

        1. RassilonTDavros

          …It’s not TVTropes or Rick Astley, if that’s what you’re worried about.

        2. milu

          i worried about it being 9CL strips, but thankfully it’s not.

        3. Thag Simmons

          Well I guess I didn’t know what was in those links after all.

      2. Delicious Taffy

        You play with power you cannot control.

  18. Black

    The fuck was Daisy’s gambit here? As Joyce pointed out, she didn’t even LOOK at Walky’s comic, so why would she suddenly feel the need to test them both for the spot?

    1. Thag Simmons

      I think the gambit is just laziness

    2. Yotomoe

      Daisy couldn’t be bothered to pretend to give half a fuck.

      1. A Red Balloon

        Unless of course it offered a slim but non-zero chance at hooking up with a woman!

    3. Spencer

      The gambit was that she prints one of them and it’s whoever actually cares about it.

      Joyce cares, Walky doesn’t. He only wanted this job because no one applied for it.

  19. goki

    Joyce would make a good Sith, especially now.

  20. Sirksome

    I would’ve been so pissed if they’d actually split this gig like that. It’s already a pathetic amount of money for the work, splitting the take would be criminal.

    1. Thag Simmons

      It’s the same pay for the same amount of work, it’s just less work

      1. mrnoidea

        Like when an employer promises you 40 hours a week, but you actually get 10 to 20 hours?

        1. Reltzik

          Nah, neither of them would be getting full-time perks for a full run of the comic strip.

  21. AbacusWizard

    Brilliant!

  22. Zach

    Joyce is getting a lot of heat in the comments for going after what she wants.

    1. Yotomoe

      Can’t break through without breaking a few hearts.

      1. A Red Balloon

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oRENXezqCqA

    2. Nono

      Eh, in some businesses her ‘give me everything or give me nothing!’ would, in fact, get her nothing.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Basically every business, really.

  23. Beau Kirin Maysey

    Walky, Circa Panel Six: “I was trying to be NICE!!!”

    Walky, Circa Panel Four: “It gives me less I gotta draw”

    1. Yotomoe

      To be fair it could be fox and the grape “I best they didn’t taste that good anyway” sorta thing. Like “that sucks but on the bright side…”

      1. thejeff

        Or it could be snarkily covering up trying to be nice with self-deprecating humor.

  24. Kravis

    Ah, yes, Solomon.
    How could we forget him.

    Solomon Grundy,
    Born on a Monday,
    Christened on Tuesday,
    Married on Wednesday,
    Took ill on Thursday,
    Grew worse on Friday,
    Died on Saturday,
    Buried on Sunday.
    That was the end,
    Of Solomon Grundy.

    1. Nayann Martinelli

      He died saving our planet from Eldritch Abominations, that’s a good way of dying, if you ask me.

      1. Spencer

        Grundy: Do you think Grundy’s soul is waiting for him?

        Joyce: Nope! There is no God! Good thing you can die a smart person!

        1. Amós Batista

          OMG, I remembered this JL episode, it was so sad to watch this episode.

      2. Tan

        Also he wants pants

    2. Eldritchy

      Also Solomon David who is currently punching a World Breaker in the dick!

    3. thumb

      Solomon Grundy was organised. That’s a man you want in your organisation oh no he’s dead.

  25. Thag Simmons

    So the Aliens in Joyce’s comic are definitely going to be the Head Alien & co, right?

    1. alongcameaspider

      Isn’t Head Alien a cartoon in universe, might not want to run afoul of copyright this early in her career

      1. Thag Simmons

        “Sinister the Alien Commander” is not based on any existing copyrighted characters, what are you alleging.

      2. Needfuldoer

        “I’m not Dexter, I’m my own original character, Blexter!

    2. powerpowerpow

      Nah, can’t overtly rip off Dexter and Monkey Master. But I will say, aliens make more sense with Julia Gray being a future Space Force pilot.

  26. ADLegend21

    And Joyce gets rewarded for throwing a tantrum cuz she wanted something Walky wanted first. Great. She didn’t even care about this until Walky mentioned he was gonna get it. Joyce is gonna end up friendless at this rate and she’ll have no one to blame but herself.

    1. Kitschensyngk

      “Wow! I got the job! I can’t wait to tell Becky about–oh…”

    2. alongcameaspider

      Ehh I doubt Walky will hold a grudge over it, he might be annoyed for a bit but it’s hardly on the same level as Joyce and Becky’s fight from earlier

    3. Sombrero

      On the other hand, Joyce is gonna end banging both Joe and Dorothy at this rate and she’ll have many people to blame for that.

      1. Clif

        to thank for that.

        Fixed that for you.

        1. Sombrero

          That was nice, thanks!

    4. Notmuch

      Joyce pitches comic after pouring a metric ton of time into it.
      Successfully gets offered the spot.

      Spot gets yanked because someone runs in and the Interviewer notices someone licked a t-shirt.

      Please, tell me what IS the appropriate response here? Because “Oh that’s fine” isn’t it.

      1. Yotomoe

        Stop saying yanked as if the act of interviewing a second person is the same as stealing an opportunity. She hasn’t so much as glanced at Walky’s work, gave him no advice and has now denied him the opportunity to pitch. Joyce is the one “yanking” the opportunity from Walky. I don’t think she deserves a job purely on the merit of getting there first because she chose to skip class.

      2. thejeff

        Note that Daisy still hasn’t actually looked at Walky’s strip. He hasn’t had the chance to make a pitch.

        Basically it seems to have come down to Joyce was here first, so she was going to get it. I’m not sure the shirt-licking really played a role, other than distracting Daisy.

      3. Jason

        “Excuse me, what the fuck, are you trying to pressure someone over who you have some small but still there position of power into letting you have sex with their girlfriend?!” Probably not a bad start imo.
        “You haven’t even seen his comic” is, to be fair, another. Pushing for Daisy to actually look at it and judge them both fairly would have been a genuinely very classy move and would honestly have likely paid off well for Joyce and likely earned Joyce a lot of respect both and in and out universe.

        Pulling a “I reject your compromise not with logic but an ultimatum” doesn’t look classy, and even if that wasn’t the issue readers are seeing a bigger picture. Walky actually cares here, and readers are rooting for that; and Joyce has not recently been shown as being respectful of other people’s feelings at all and that chafes.

        There’s a lot of Daisy’s behaviour in the last couple of strips worthy of being called out, but Joyce isn’t actually doing that. She has a valid complaint in Daisy splitting the space with no knowledge of what she’d be giving it to, but so far Joyce’s argument is just “wannit” and it’s worked.

        Honestly as soon as Daisy did… what she did I didn’t walk Walky to be subjected to that environment. It was gross and made me extremely uncomfortable. And to be honest, as much as I love that Walky wanted to do something I also know what ADHD is like and he’d probably burn out on it fast, AND Joyce’s comic is better planned and has more effort and drive behind it. But instead of seeing that addressed it’s gone to Joyce by dint of her refusing to compromise. Again.

        Okay I just woke up and my brain is frazzled so I’m going to stop rambling now and apologise for the amount of rambling I’ve already done.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Yeah, everyone involved here sucks to some degree.

          Joyce: Giving an ultimatum when something she wants isn’t just handed to her

          Walky: Still not taking this seriously, kind of belittling the effort Joyce is putting in

          Daisy: All but asking if she can bang Walky’s lady friend, then not even listening to his pitch

          Lucy: The stain out of Walky’s shirt

        2. Yotomoe

          Alright you got me there hahahaha

        3. A Red Balloon

          *claps hands and laughs a lot*

          10/10

  27. Kitschensyngk

    At least no babies died in this version.

    1. Fist_of_Life

      Nor did they in the original. There was threat of it, but no actual follow through.

      1. thejeff

        A baby dying was the set up in the original. Two mothers, two babies, one of them dies. One claims the other switched the dead baby for her live one.

        1. Fist_of_Life

          This is correct. When I was younger, no one ever started the story from that point. Instead they just said to women were fighting over a baby. It has gotten to the point that, even though I’ve heard the full story, I always forget about it. My bad.

        2. thejeff

          To be fair, I only remembered because someone quoted it above. 🙂

  28. woobie

    This appears to contain a slam on Zippy the Pinhead. Is there beef b/t Willis and Griffith?

  29. Clif

    Solomon does not work this way?
    He kind of does.

    1. milu

      yeah, it looks like textbook Solomon to me.

  30. TheMirai

    “It would take too long to get to the aliens!!”

    DOA getting more autobiographical by the strip.

  31. Bryy

    No, she just AZDAK’d their asses.

  32. TlalocW

    I was introduced to Zippy the Pinhead my freshmen year of college, which also had me reading, “Siddartha,” a book about spiritual self-discovery in the time of the Buddha in India. Zippy had a weird zen philosophy so the two characters merged, and every scene I read of Siddartha, the image in my head had Zippy in it. It made both the strip and the book better.

  33. alongcameaspider

    In Daisy’s defense it’s pretty clear that Walky would likely give up on the comic after a couple weeks, while Joyce seems more likely to stick with it long term

    1. Rabisch

      If Walky was alone in this, probably. But he was with Lucy in this.

      1. Jason

        ADHD does not work that way, unfortunately. It’s not been confirmed that he has it but not only do the signs point to it but it’s been acknowledged as likely in-universe.
        If it tied into a long-term passion for Walky he could have sustained interest, but unfortunately people with ADHD tend to burn out on things they love and fall out of them for a while. And someone cheering them on doesn’t help, because it’s to do with brain wiring. People with ADHD literally can’t set their minds to doing something. It doesn’t work. We can’t decide what we’re going to focus on. I’ve had my brain react to stop me from doing something I actively enjoyed because it had decided it’d have enough- one time I had a near breakdown over it and another I was literally incapable of keeping my head up and my eyes open.

        1. Spencer

          Y’all ever see a paragraph of text that sums up the last decade of your life

        2. Jason

          I’m… glad it helped? If it helped? I’m not sure if you’re recognising stuff you already knew and are just acknowledging that or recognising stuff you’d not seen clearly before. Anyway ADHD is a hell of a thing to live with and recognition and understanding is sorely lacking in our society (I mean, it’s literally named after the bits that will annoy parents and teachers in kids with it) so if it’s something you live with I hope you find positive ways to manage it.

        3. Spencer

          Oh yeah I’m diagnosed and medicated now. My brain’s all glued together.

          The actual joke here is that I only got diagnosed because on another forum I asked about working with a developmental disability (autism in my case), described my tendency for the world to totally melt away for hours, and then someone went “bro that’s actually hyperfocus.”

          So I waited a few months, got assessed, started medication, that medication fucked me up real bad and then so did the next two, and now I’m on adderall, which is doing wonders for me.

          It’s great because I have that manic hyperfocus energy but whenever I want it. I got Ultra Instinct ADHD, baby.

        4. Jason

          Funnily enough I went the other way, finding out a lot more about ADHD in general and my experience with it specifically, and completely writing off any autism traits as definitely being ADHD, no question, definitely not autistic.

          Yeah, I’m pretty frucking autistic too.

          Anyway, I’m so glad you found medication that works for you. I’ve been trying for a couple of years now to re-try medication but between covid and our government trying to decimate our healthcare system… yeah, I hope I have results like yours. But I’d be happy with just an improvement.

        5. Spencer

          God, that is exactly why it was so hard for me to accept I had ADHD. I already have autism! I can’t have two things!

        6. Yotomoe

          😛 It wasn’t until last year that someone mentioned I might have ADHD and that could explain a lot. Still, despite my lack of focus I still can get stuff done from time to time as long as I have a deadline forcing me forward.

        7. Jason

          The deadline thing is actually quite common in ADHD. It’s basically relying on adrenaline to force the brain to function. It can also completely mess up the brain and body though because it’s relying on a stress response in order to function, and stress is, well… it’s not supposed to be used that way. But unfortunately a lot of ADHD folk don’t have other tools and have to.

          Not to say that’s your situation! Just… stuff that I know that was relevant.

        8. Needfuldoer

          I was diagnosed with ADHD over 20 years ago, but I’ve never really considered myself “hyperactive”. Instead, I tend to go all-in on something for a while, burn out on it, move on to something else, and lather rinse repeat. This results in a lot of half-started projects sitting around the house, lemme tell ya.

        9. Jason

          Don’t know if you’ll see this now but “hyperactive” is not necessarily the physical stereotypical manifestation. Hyperactive can be mental, it can manifest in need for stimulation, or in impatience. Going all in 200% on something for a brief time… can be mental hyperactivity.

          ADHD also can manifest as primarily hyperactive, primarily inattentive, or combined- and it’s a manifestation and can change in a person day to day, minute to minute.

  34. Ereb

    People in the comments are blaming Joyce for not taking the compromise, but to be fair she is saying in panel one: “You were going to give it to me. You haven’t even looked at his.”

    Walky is asking for the same thing.
    I’m sure she’d still object to Walky getting the job, but to lose to him when Daisy hasn’t even looked at his properly, after she actually acted professional for a sec with hers, would be infuriating.

    1. BBCC

      Joyce isn’t saying ‘Look at his and make a decision’ though. She’s saying ‘Don’t even look at his, just give it to me!’ That wouldn’t be a fair decision either.

      1. Ereb

        No, she isn’t saying either. (I mean, how do you interprete the fat line?)

        She started by saying Daisy made her choice (last strip) now she objects to losing the job to a competitor whose comic Daisy hasn’t even looked at.

        1. Daibhid C

          And so Joyce wins by getting her strip in the school newspaper which nobody cares about, and Walky will just have to put his on the internet or something.

        2. Daibhid C

          That was not meant ot be a reply to this comment.

        3. BBCC

          Okay, I must be tired and missing something because I have no idea what you mean by the fat line.

          She isn’t losing the spot though. Walky is asking for his strip to be seen. He made the deadline, that’s only fair. Joyce is objecting to THAT on the grounds that Daisy already offered it to her on the grounds of ‘nobody else will probably show up’. Someone else showed up. Joyce should not object to other candidates who made it before the deadline being seen.

      2. Reaver

        “Look this other guy showed up late for the group interview, right as I was about to hire you for this solo spot, I haven’t even looked at his credentials but I am about to hire him for the sheer fact some chick licked his shirt, what if I hire you both?”

        Absolutely not.

        1. Swissaboo

          He didn’t actually show up late though. Daisy was in the process of making a decision early because “what are the chances anyone else is gonna submit anything on the last day?”

        2. Yotomoe

          Walky went to class and grabbed lunch with his GF. Joyce skipped to play mario kart. He’s not late. Joyce is early.

        3. Needfuldoer

          Daisy shouldn’t have said anything about how many applicants she’s gotten. If the deadline is “end of business day Friday”, the decision should be made at least on Monday, even if just one person showed up and got the job by default.

          But that doesn’t make a fun comic that boosts reader engagement, so here we are.

        4. thejeff

          In that first panel Joyce is objecting to Walky even being given the chance, not to Daisy being about to hire him.

          Nor, as Swissaboo says did he show up late. From where this originally started “Yeah, yeah, sure. Just get me some samples by Friday.” It’s Friday. You could also read this as Walky had an implicit offer on the table and Daisy was about to hand it over to someone else just because she walked in the door earlier.

        5. alongcameaspider

          “Implicit offer”

          He was told about a contest, its just as likely Mary or Malaya or some unknown character could have found out about it independently and he’d have competition he didn’t even know about until he walked in the door

        6. Yotomoe

          And if they showed up right now I’d hope Daisy wouldn’t just say “eh you guys probably didn’t want the job all that much anyway. Sorry Joyce gets the job no need to look at your work”

        7. Agemegos

          Walky was not told about a contest. Daisy did not tell him there was a contest, rather, she made him a conditional job offer. (And he met the condition: “just bring me samples by Friday”.)

          Walky then told Joyce that there was a contest when he tried to beg blank paper from her. I don’t know why he did that.

          Then Joyce showed up in Daisy’s office with a proposal for a epic comic series. Daisy then gave Joyce the job that she had already given to Walky, sexually harassed Walky, cancelled Walky’s job offer without looking at his samples or listening to his pitch, and got all smug about it.

        8. thejeff

          No, she did tell him about a contest. I’d forgotten and missed it when I went back to check.

          He assumed he’d get it because she was worried about no one answering by the end of the week, but there was no conditional or implied offer. He’s still got a right to be annoyed she didn’t even look at his strip, but that should be aimed at Daisy, not Joyce.

  35. NinjaNick

    Daisy has chosen well.

  36. Rabisch

    Daisy was totally unlikeable here. Why test Joyce? There was no need to test her! And she has not even the decency to look at Walky’s strip!? SHE’S THE WORST! But it’s very nice to see Joyce stand up for her comic ♡. GO JOYCE! CONQUER YOUR SPACE IN THE WORLD!

    1. Heavensrun

      I mean, she’s framing it as a test, but I think honestly she’s really just giving it to Joyce because Joyce wants it more. And also possibly because she’s hoping Julia and Doris might end up kissing. And also possibly because Joyce is cute and Daisy is thirsty as fuck.

      And, I mean, honestly it’s kinda fair. She *was* about to give it to Joyce, she *did* like Joyce’s pitch, and Walky *was* late.

      1. Swissaboo

        Walky’s not late, the deadline (in comic of course) today and he is submitting it today. Daisy was in the process of making the decision early because she (not unreasonably) didn’t think it was likely anyone else was going to make a last day submission but “okay if someone else is also making a submission i really should actually judge both instead of just handing it off to the person who submitted 15 minutes earlier” is way more fair than handing it off to the person who submitted 15 minutes earlier.

    2. Lone Duck

      To be fair, saying “Splitting is great, this way I can work less” is a bad look in front of your prospective boss Walky. If Walky is like that on the first day, who’s to say how he’ll be with deadlines, in the middle of the school year? Also, “If you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late.” C’mon, Walky needed his girlfriend to get him dressed and out the door on time. (I don’t think Daisy knows this, but her girl spit senses are uncannily sharp?) Joyce is the better choice, even if a serial comic is not the best fit for a newspaper

      1. Spencer

        Yeah but that gets in the way of Joyce being annoying and stupid and a jerk and an angry atheist and wrong and actually her smile was never that triangular

        1. J. Gawain

          I know right! Who actually wants curved lines in their polygonal geometry?

  37. Suet

    Zippy the Pinhead… maybe not Garfield… don’t forget Doog and Blair tho… and then this.

  38. Dr. T

    Fun fact: in the real IDS (Indiana Daily Student, paper in question), there is no split to be had. They only publish once a week now. It’s been that way since the pandemic started, though to be honest the were reducing their circulation before then anyway (either 2-3X a week at that time). I also don’t think any student comics are part of the paper. It’s pretty much just two strips of Brewster Rockit and a couple single panel comics.

  39. GUIGUI

    Walky might think this is unfair, but Joke is on Joyce, she just condemned herself to carpal tunnel syndrome.

  40. CianM1301

    That really could’ve backfired in Joyce’s face spectacularly if Daisy had decided to give Walky all the days instead.

    1. milu

      i’m now imagining Willis stopping at this line and flipping a coin to emulate how little Daisy cares either way.

  41. Spencer

    One time in No Man’s Land Batman came across two women fighting over a baby they both claimed was theirs, so he tried the Solomon thing and then they started fighting even harder and he felt like a right boob about it.

  42. Spencer

    Y’all’re seriously caping for Walky on a job he wanted because there’d be no effort, huh. Like, in a strip where he explicitly states he’s fine with sharing the spot because it means less work drawing his comic that has the same art every single time and no alteration to the dialogue.

    Look I try not to be one of those “you’re being mean to my favourites >:(” guys. It’s a work of fiction and I don’t get to decide what that means to you, also I’m right about everything all the time without fail and take solace in that fact ergo my character reads are true (pay no attention to my current gravatar and its testament to my hubris), but this thing where Joyce is now a wildly unlikable insufferable asshole is just the same shit we put Danny and Amber through back when we hated them.

    Danny was a dweeb at the start and we hate everything he does, which is pretty easy because he’s actually kind of a fuck-up and not a particularly endearing one, then a hunky lad falls on top of him and he’s suddenly an adorable sweetheart who’s trying his best and needs to free himself from his toxic relationship that five minutes ago was something he didn’t deserve. God forbid Danny ever crosses Sal, that is a thing that can happen, regardless of his ascension into a pure and wholesome sandwich making ukulele man in a dapper hat, Danny is still capable of failing, but the minute he makes her sad about something it’ll be right back to “lmoa Danning it up.”

    Amber’s a tragic victim of constant traumatic abuse that eventually got so big it became self-propelling, but she yelled at Danny twice and therefore she’s an abusive monster, exactly like her dad, and the constant mistakes she makes in trying to correct herself the way an alcoholic goes “well this time I’ll definitely stop!” is just “unsympathetic writing.”

    Joyce’s entire worldview shattered to the point where she doesn’t even know what Joyce herself actually is anymore, she gets to say that out loud in an angry way for the first time, and then Becky overheard it while stalking her and it led to the dissolution of their lifelong friendship that was akin to an overinflated balloon in a needle factory.

    But all of that came at the cost of someone else being inconvenienced, ergo she is Problematic.

    Like, how do y’all engage with fiction where morally judging the characters’ immediate, surface level actions and behaviours without thinking about where they’re coming from, that thing we can do because unlike normal people we can just peer into these clowns’ noggins whenever we want?

    1. Alex

      Probably every individual reader has one or two characters they don’t like, but because hundreds of readers are all commenting on the comic at once every character is going to be hated at some point.

      Personally I like all the main characters but I find Becky’s frenemies routine to be annoying. Other people have no issue with it, but hate Danny’s co-dependent blundering. I love Booster and think they’re a well-meaning but flawed individual, and some people think they’re unquestionably an asshole. Every character has attractors and detractors, and if you take the detractors too seriously you’re going to have a bad time.

      1. Spencer

        I mean yeah hating characters is totes mcgotes okay. I fucking hate Walky and Dorothy, and Becky’s only redeeming feature is dating Dina.

        I just don’t get hating a character so much in the immediate aftermath of some big dramatic moment and suddenly everything they’ve ever done is retroactively bad and all their future actions are deliberately malicious.

        Like Becky got this too! She was a cute sad victim of her evil dad, got a haircut after being handed an entire 20 dollars, and instantly became an overbearing mooch taking advantage of poor Joyce and her insistence on affirming that she was, in fact, a lesbian, which means she likes girls and not boys, was actually super annoying and awful and not Becky affirming her pride in the only part of her life that wasn’t just stolen from her.

        I don’t understand hating a character so much that you just become incapable of getting in their heads. An actual human being yeah sure, but if I ever want to write “Dorothy is stinky” that’s getting filtered through hundreds of strips told over a decade of Dorothy’s characterization and relationships which all inform why I think she is stinky.

        1. Yotomoe

          Because even if you have a tragic backstory to explain your actions that doesn’t mean that I have to enjoy your characterization? I’ve got a lotta empathy, I might even argue too much but an annoying person is an annoying person. And if they WEREN’T fictional I’d obviously never say this to their face or maybe even aloud. But since I’m separated from their plane of reality by the 4th wall I’m allowed to discuss and discect their actions and what I like and don’t like. Like for sure it’s lame when your favorite gets shit on but as long as they’re not being dicks about it, I think people are welcome to share their dissatisfaction with someone’s characterization.

        2. Spencer

          I feel like the “tragic backstory’s don’t redeem!” thing got so out of hand that a tragic backstory motivating constant pain just became completely irrelevant to why someone could do a wrong thing to begin with. Which is sensible, in that tragic backstories at their worst get used to go “and that’s why this character is totally, immediately redeemed!” which would naturally lead to that opposite extreme reaction.

          And, again, this isn’t about the grievous sin of not liking the character I like a whole bunch, I’m saying I’m totally perplexed at how a character being unlikable means it’s completely impossible to analyze their actions when those actions matter more to the story than whether or not an individual action is Nice or Problematic.

          Everything I said can be true and you can also think Joyce is a stupid asshole. It’s actually coo.

        3. Yotomoe

          Yeah what I’m saying is you’re accusing people of not analyzing that when I feel like people ARE capable of analyzing that and they feel like “ok, now that I’ve done the math…hmm…hmmm… yeah no I still hate them” Like it doesn’t matter if their actions have some greater role in the story or if their characterization and drama is used to push the story in that direction. People can still dislike a character in spite of knowing why they’re doing it or what their motivations are.

          Now I can understand people trying to hold people to a moral highground that’s not befitting of actual human beings that people often do with fiction (or based on twitter actual human beings in this day and age). And on that I’ll always say “hey remember that these are people and they’re flawed” etc etc. but I don’t think people are being unreasonable in this specific case (which is the case you brought up as a thesis) because while we narrative know that Joyce probably deserves the job more, we are frustrated by the bias towards her we’ve seen. And as of this strip we can’t tell if it’s the Bias of Daisy or the bias of the narrative, neither of which Id be a huge fan of.

          It’s like in robin hood where you shoot a bow and arrow right? And then Robin hood goes behind you and fires a bow and arrow at the exact same spot splitting your arrow in half. An amazing feat, to be sure. But should Robin hood WIN that competition because of that? After all….you went first. You COULDN’T have split that arrow. The narrative wants Robin Hood to win but the guy who went first at least deserves the chance to show that he could split that arrow too, right? He doesn’t just lose for going first, right?

        4. Spencer

          I don’t particularly agree that I’m accusing anyone of not analyzing a story enough, in that a story not being worth analyzing is also a fine reaction, I could actually tie someone to a chair and tell them why I like Sonic the Hedgehog’s writing and I think that makes me the weird one when they object to both the word pile and the hostage taking, because I don’t think I’m talking about a lack of engagement, I’m talking about being engaged in a way where a character doing wrong in the moment defines their character in that exact twitter moral highground way you mentioned, and in a way chunks of the cast has seen when they do what Joyce is doing now.

          But, at this point I think I’m speaking too vaguely if I’m roping in folks who do have their reads of the story and then go “and here’s why I’m not feeling X.”

          Like with you specifically and how you’re talking to me, you’ve made it clear you’ve thought this through however much you wanted and then went “eh, she’s still being a prick”, that’s fine. Not only do I not want to take that from you, it’s the kind of thing where if I thought I could take it from someone I’d probably be the biggest nob in the room.

          That level of nuance isn’t what I’m targeting, but you’re right that if I individually talked to any one person I’d more likely get something deeper out of it than “Joyce is problematic.”

    2. thejeff

      How? The exact way you’re judging Walky’s surface level actions here.

      Walky, who is far more hated among the commentariat than Joyce, despite Joyce not being completely supported during the recent thing with Becky. And Becky still took far more abuse during that, from my point of view.

      Mind you, I like all these characters, even when I think they’re in the wrong.

      1. Spencer

        Aight bet

        How am I misreading Walky?

        And this ain’t a Commentariat Suffering Olympics where Character A is being Unfairly Hated more than Character B, I’m talking about this roulette we constantly go through where a character doing something objectionable leads to them just being bad terrible stink goblin people with no redeeming features.

        Because if you “I like all these characters, even when I think they’re in the wrong”, you’re not really who I wrote that about.

        1. thejeff

          You’re taking his “It’ll give me less I gotta draw” as his whole motivation and ignoring his “I was trying to be nice” moments later.

          Both actually fit his character, along with disguising the second as the first.

        2. Spencer

          A. I’m focusing on “it’ll give me less to draw” because that’s actually how Walky approaches doing anything.

          B. Walky is never nice to Joyce.

    3. Yotomoe

      Maybe some of us don’t like Joyce all that much and it just wasn’t significant enough to constantly complain about her until she did something that a lot of us openly disliked. No offense but it does kinda come off as you taking some of us not liking Joyce’s action as of late a bit personally. And what am I supposed to….not discuss what’s happening in the comic because my opinion is about finding a character annoying? It doesn’t even mean I hate her. But I definitely don’t like how she’s been acting.

      1. Spencer

        Yeah see “no offense but” doesn’t really work here because if you’re trying to decide how and why I feel about something, that’s actually kind of offensive to me personally.

        Anyway, and I hate needing to write shit to go “I didn’t say X” but that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes, it’s fine if you don’t like A Character, I don’t care nor do you need me to care about that, I’m talking about a completely different phenomenon I’ve observed here where a character doing something objectionable just immediately leads to this “ugh they’re so terrible” reaction.

        1. Yotomoe

          I think that’s an overreaction. A lot of people are even defending Joyce. Or Daisy, or Becky or whomever is the Hated character of the day. I don’t know what to say. If you object to how a character is behaving I feel like it’s par for a course to say “ugh they’re so terrible” cuz well…they’re doing stuff you don’t like! I hate Vegeta from dragonball and I will say to a Vegeta fans face that I think he sucks. I don’t think my opinion holds more value than theirs but I’m not gonna pretend to like Vegeta just cuz everyone else does. I think he sucks and whenever he does a sucky thing I will let it be known that he sucks.

          Though it is kinda funny when he’s Goku’s straight man.

        2. Spencer

          Okay but you think he sucks because the character he is sucks and that whatever is motivating that sucking it’s something you think is deep in the character. Like if you were to hate him for the being a bad guy thing, it’s because the story didn’t sufficiently carry him through his redemptive arc even if that’s a thing I totally believe and very much adore Goofy Sitcom Dad Vegeta who tells Goku he can’t go train because his wife could give birth any day and that he has no idea how Goku has stayed married.

          At least that is how I am reading that, please correct me if I’ve got you wrong.

          Like I said I hate Walky/Dorothy/Becky, and that’s because I find them painfully one-note characters with exactly one reaction to every scenario, and then, like, Walky’s transparently fucked up by Mike’s death and his thing with Lucy is both cute and possibly indicative of some darker and more complicated feelings in his noggin, so now I’m invested.

          Becky I pretty much only ever tolerated when she was with Dina because that’s where the “not being Joyce’s obsessed friend” stuff happened, and then that stuff happened again only it was played for painful drama and the completely unexpected development where we learn Becky and Joyce for all they love each other have never once actually communicated about their religion, and that their entire friendship was just one argument away from collapsing because they never learned how to argue and then had the worst argument possible. So now I’m invested in her too.

          Dotty’s still there but she’ll get the hang of it.

        3. Yotomoe

          “At least that is how I am reading that, please correct me if I’ve got you wrong.”
          Alright I apologize because I’m about to write an absolute wall.

          Vegeta was a fantastic character in his first few arcs. He was this small little elite gremlin guy who was so far and away stronger than anyone they’d fought to that point that he changed the game. He constantly pulled out cool technique after cool technique. The Garlic Gun, Just blowing people up from the inside, all sorts of amazing fight choreography and being the first Great Ape we see that is AWARE of its actions and even speaks. In the frieza arc though he really proves that he’s not just a strong fighter but also a clever one. He’s smart enough to destroy all of the scouters on namek, throws the dragonballs out of Frieza’s ship, with such precision that he can find them all later and then instead of flying away he swims away so that he can’t be tracked. He purposely gets himself hurt to near death so that he can reap the benefits of his Zenkai boost and while still evil at this time he makes use of all of his assets to take down Frieza. And once he’s finally outmatched he dies, realizing that goku was the one meant to be the super saiyan that kills Frieza.

          And then he comes back. Yes you see, Vegeta was quite popular so why not just bring him back! And y’know what? That super cool 1 in a million transformation that Goku just got that we spent a whole arc building up to? Yeah let’s let him do that too. What about all that pragmatism, that cleverness. That knowledge when he’s outgunned and willingness to work with others to defeat a strong opponent? Nope! I don’t know what you’re talking about! Now Vegeta will insist on fighting alone and even allow his enemies to power up to their most powerful state just to Jerk off how strong he is? Making smart pragmatic decisions? That’s not the Vegeta I know! And look at his cool new attacks. Like Big Bang attack, a one-handed ki blast that’s really big. Or final flash. A two handed beam that’s really big. Or how about his signature move, SPAMMING A LOTTA KI BLASTS. Ah I can’t wait to see him fight, he’s such an interesting and inventive fighter. (ok, I will backtrack and say, both Big Bang attack and Final Flash ARE cool, not because of the attacks themselves but because of the moments surrounding them, big bang attack being the move he uses to kill 19 and christen his debut as a super saiyan, and Final flash being to show the devastating regenerative powers of Cell, that even after pouring literally everything he had into killing Cell, he couldn’t do any lasting damage. Narratively those attacks are fine, I just hate when shows like Super treat them like a video game moveset)

          And now let’s talk about Vegeta and Bulma. People might forget but Bulma…was dating someone. What’s his name? Yamchump or something. Yeah so when the Cell arc begins Trunks comes from the future and tells Goku that bulma dumped Yamcha because he’s a cheater. A reveal so shocking that Yamcha’s original voice actor allegedly called Toriyama to be like “Yo, dude, what the fuck”. So now bulma slides into Vegeta’s DMs. Except at the time Vegeta is still an evil psycho murderer who just got done murdering Namekians and still threatens to kill the earthlings on a regular basis. And I’m supposed to just buy this relationship cuz at least he’s not a cheater like Yamcha…I suppose. And as someone who REALLY likes Yamcha…that kinda sucks. But what sucks worst is that I feel like, with almost 100% certainty, the ONLY reason Vegeta and Bulma get together is to create Trunks. And the only reason for that is so we can get that shocking reveal that he is ALSO a Super Saiyan. Because Super Saiyans were the hot new thing and Toriyama was MILKING that cash cow for all it was worth. Which is great too because the Cell arc is what CEMENTED the idea that anybody who doesn’t have Saiyan blood is just not gonna matter. Sorry humans. And sorry Piccolo. We’ll give you one little fight with 17 as your parting gift. Hope it’s a satisfying conclusion to your long arc about the inevitability of fusing with Kami and the fear of losing your individuality. Vegeta actively makes every single thing in the Cell arc go as wrong as it can and nobody can call him on it cuz he’s the strongest guy around when goku’s not there and Goku’s not gonna do that.
          No let’s just take a little journey down to the Buu saga where Vegeta is going through a midlife crisis and mass murdering participants of the Tenkaichi budokai so that he can fight goku again. But it’s ok cuz he’s sorry. Vegeta then blows himself up after, what he admits himself, is the first time he’s ever hugged his 8 year old son. And then he dies. A mother fucker to the end. But naw let’s bring him back so he can fuse with Goku. Now I’ll be fair, Vegeta once he’s brought back this time, starts to become fun. I enjoy his banter with Goku and he really does settle down into his dad role more. But after all the shit we went through to get there? I still can’t get behind the guy. And keep in mind they’ve still barely fixed the problem that, as a fighter Vegeta has just slowly been getting less and less interesting, and this is the most true in the Buu arc. Oh my god what a snorefest. I can’t speak on how his fight choreography in Super is because Super is ALSO really boring and a lot of the fight choreography is kinda bad so I can’t just blame Vegeta.

          And that is my long long dissertation on why I like Vegeta less and less the older I get.
          Now let’s trek to the Buu saga.

        4. Spencer

          I need to be as clear as possible that you never have to apologize about writing an absolute fucking unit of text on Dragon Ball because that is my exact jam.

          For what it’s worth I do think you lay out how bad Vegeta got with the Cell Saga, but to me that’s more because the Cell Saga is the absolute nadir of Dragon Ball as a story and it was the chaotic exuberant mess that was the Buu Saga for it to be righted, and then we went into Super where, for the first time in history, Dragon Ball gets some character writing.

          Cell Saga Vegeta is exactly that kind of “heh let me see your power level, pitiful weakling!” character that immediately comes to mind when thinking of Dragon Ball, but he really never was that guy. He was a ruthlessly pragmatic killer and while you can totally contrive a plot reason for his newfound ego, if this fucking jobber had been Vegeta the whole time he sure as hell would never get popular.

          Buu Saga built on that, he’s still a raging egotist, but I thought it worked better since being a raging egotist had plot relevance other than “Vegeta makes things worse and no one cares”, because now Vegeta himself cares a whole bunch about how being a huge motherfucker ruined everyone’s day, said day ruining was for naught because Goku was already stronger than him, and then he can’t even die the right way to fix it.

          So now he’s a Good Guy, an actual moral alignment in Dragon Ball because Vegeta wishes on the Dragon Balls to revive everyone who had died “except the evil people” and he gets to stay, therefore he’s got the divine thumbs up. That shouldn’t really hold up but Dragon Ball as a series is of such little consequence that Freeza is now the wacky sitcom office arch nemesis who is collecting the Dragon Balls with his old nanny and barely restored army on the grounds of using it to make himself a few centimeters at a time, and I say that with full admission that I love it and think it’s the purest essence of Dragon Ball possible.

          Like all I can think of with those dead Namekians is that you live in a universe with two magic wish granting dragons, why the hell did no one think to revive them? It’s barely even Vegeta’s fault at that point!

          And now we’ve got Super which I pretty much immediately processed as the absolute best of all of Dragon Ball, because now there’s character motivations and downtime and Vegeta carries on that growth from Buu Saga and just stops being a stoic asshole and does actually work well as Goku’s foil better than anyone else. Then the final boss of the Tournament of Power isn’t beaten by getting real mad, Goku’s overpowered new form actually makes things worse and all his blood just explodes out of his body taking him out of the fight for a while and it falls on two of his former villains to make it right, and then two people who hate each other’s guts trust in each other long enough to beat Jiren not really for the narrative purpose of saving the entire multiverse, but to prove him wrong. That shouldn’t be as big a deal as I’m making it sound like but Dragon Ball has been so toothless for so long it just hit as hard as possible for me.

          Like it took me a while to twig onto this, but that part where Freeza has Jiren on his knees about to finish him off and Toppo screams a motivating speech that he’ll never lose faith in Jiren’s ultimate power? That’s just an actual shonen anime friendship except it inconveniences the guys we’re rooting for and that’s hilarious.

          You’re actually right about the dissolution of Yamcha and Bulma’s relationship by the way. Trunks showed up and a plot reason was contrived to make him a Super Saiyan, and because he was so ridiculously popular (it’s been noted that female readership of Dragon Ball went way up with his introduction) Vegeta and Bulma got paired to make it happen. Toriyama does not plan more than like three panels ahead.

        5. Yotomoe

          Ok I apologize because this isn’t even in response to the talk about Vegeta but “And now we’ve got Super which I pretty much immediately processed as the absolute best of all of Dragon Ball” because I disagree with this statement something fierce.

          Ok, don’t get me wrong they do a decent job at characterizing Vegeta. For me it’s a bit too little to late and I still don’t find him all that interesting. Honestly I feel like Vegeta was more fun in the movies like Battle of Gods and RoF than in the actual show proper. But beyond that I feel like that comes at the expense of character assassinating Goku. It’s easy to forget because Buu saga is chaotic and silly but in the Buu saga Goku was the most mature he’d ever been. He’s very pragmatic, thoughtful and has this deep desire to start passing on what he knows and even responsibility on to the younger generation. More than anything else in the Buu saga that is the constant recurring theme. Teaching the kids the Fusion dance, being there for Gohan as he unlocks his potential and going off to train Uub at the very end. Goku’s no longer just a student, he’s ready to pass on what he’s learned. He’s eager for it even. But in super he’s reverted back to practically being a kid. Hell probably even moreso than when he was LITERALLY turned into a kid in GT. He’s very self serving and he’s gone from charmingly innocent and dumb to a borderline sociopath at not understanding people’s emotions. That complaint can be extended to other characters too but Goku is the worst victim. I really wish Gohan was written better but it’s clear that NOBODY knows what to do with him anymore. Just let him be a happy scholar with a loving wife and kid if you’re not gonna have him fight. Or at least if he’s gonna fight give him some decent fight choreography that feels personal to him cuz right now he feels like the blankest of blank slates. Also fix his hair. It looks so terrible in every shot and I don’t know why they insist on giving him the buu saga hairstyle if they can’t make it look good.
          I’ve already shared my gripe about the fight choreography in Super being bad and I stand by it, but I’ll also go to say that I don’t think the super writers really…gets what makes dragonball fights interesting a lot of the time. Like it tends to be all flash and no substance. Granted if you hired me when I was like…22 I might’ve agreed, but as someone who’s had time to proccess what makes these fight scenes memorable and what makes them stick out, I definitely feel like that is something that Super is missing. And I mentioned the videogame-ification of the attacks but really, Vegeta out here using Garlic Gun, a move he hasn’t done ONCE since his initial plan to blow up the earth. If there was one thing consistent about Vegeta it was that he rarely reused attacks. But now he’s using Garlic gun and priding it as some attack that’s important to his saiyan heritage because that move is iconic to US the audience. But you’d think if it was really that important to Vegeta we woulda seen him do it more times than literally once prior to super. Same goes for “Final Flash”. I aplauded that Final Flash as a move is kinda lame but the scene AROUND final flash is what makes it so significant. But now we just have Vegeta firing it off like it’s just…one of his regular moves. Vegeta shouldn’t do final flash and then do other stuff. Final Flash should literally be him pouring everything he’s got into one last ditch attack. After he did it to Cell he literally gave up cuz that was all he had.
          Also you really feel the “kid friendliness” of it coming through. Almost completely bloodless and superficial and the characters move through the world like they have regenerating health like a video game. Super feels like a video game is my takeaway.
          I feel like Super is at it’s best when it is just doing filler and I literally would’ve prefered it had been nothing but filler.
          Also Jiren is a bad character. He’s a brick wall of a character. I want to like Jiren I really do but he’s just so flat. Love Ribrianne though. Put her in Fighterz already.
          But I’m gonna end on one final point. I think the Goku Black arc is the worst arc in all of dragonball. Yes counting GT. It starts by bringing back future trunks, a piece of pandering fanservice that was almost painful for me. But not only that, they TOOK AWAY HIS HAPPY ENDING. After the catharsis of the long and hard fought battles of the Cell saga, it’s nice to know all of it amounted to nothing and the future is still in just as much turmoil. Oh and future bulma’s dead now too. Hope you weren’t too attached to her. And that’s when we find out the villain is…evil goku. Which you could argue we’ve had at least one but more likely 2 or 3 of those already. Evil good guy is already such a tired idea. It reeks of “we’re out of ideas” Then go back and forth through time so much it begins to lose all meaning. Then we meet the arc’s hidden villain, Zamasu and the worst thing about Zamasu is…he works. He really does. Goku and Vegeta have gotten so strong, they’ve beaten Lord Frieza…twice, a biomechanical being made specifically to kill Goku, and an eldrich abomination created to do nothing but destroy. Where do you go from there? God. Having a God be their next opponent is so SMART. And like it makes sense. You have goku and vegeta mastering a technique that allows them to tap in to the ethereal power of the gods. They’re trespassing into a world that should be beyond them and they are Exhibit A of Zamasu’s growing fear of Mortals someday being a threat to gods. Great idea for a character.
          So why. Oh god why, was there idea to turn him into GOKU and then send him to future Trunks’ future. It’s like they picked the setting out of a GODDAMN hat. And then also Zamasu is also in the future alongside himself? Why. Why is that even necessary? AND WHY CAN’T ZAMASU JUST BE THE VILLAIN!? The entire entire idea of an immortal god that you can’t just defeat by punching him really hard is so smart WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IS EVIL GOKU A PART OF THIS STORY? And then Trunks defeats Zamasu by pulling out a “spirit sword” technique which involves him taking all the Genki from the souls of the people around the world cheering for him. Which like…why can he do this? No seriously why can he do this? I’ve heard people say that it’s similar to the spirit bomb but like…Trunks has never seen Goku do the spirit bomb. And the spirit bomb isn’t just something Goku knows how to do. He was EXPLICITLY trained and taught how to do that by King Kai. Like I dunno maybe a scene where Trunks is having a heart to heart with Goku and Goku is like “oh yeah I have a technique where I can take energy from people and use it as an attack” or something. Y’know something that at least implies to me that Trunks would be AWARE of that being a thing he can do. But he just pulls it out of his ass. Randomly. And I’m supposed to be hype because it’s a cool glowing sword as if all that matters to a cool finale is the aesthetics. And even then the arc ends with the wet fart of “oh we had to destroy this universe so we’ll just go back in time before any of this ever happened” Oh and we gotta get that Trunks and Mai ship up and running even though they have no chemistry and Mai is a cardboard cutout of what makes her an enjoyable character. I’m sorry but the black arc lowers my opinion of super so much. I legitimately hate it.

        6. Spencer

          Well, when I say Super’s the best thing to happen to Dragon Ball, I mean it that Dragon Ball has pretty much always sucked in the character writing department and a show that lets the characters breathe enough that for the first time I care that Piccolo is in a fight because aw lookit him being Pan’s doting granddad is a huge improvement for me. Beerus is there with the biggest power level Goku’s ever seen but Super Beerus is just kind of an annoying childish dickhead who slowly comes to accept the responsibilities of his job instead of indulging in hedonism, though I do like BoG Beerus as a knowing trickster, I don’t think that take would have lasted a whole show.

          (I also liked Goku Black well enough even if the ending is a downer in that “why did you even bother?” kind of way. I think they intended the whole bit where Whis makes a new timeline where Goku Black never happened was meant to be happier than it actually is)

          Otherwiiiiise I kinda wanna focus on Jiren because I think he’s the best villain the series has had since Freeza. I like all of the Super villains way more than Cell, who sucks, but maybe not as much as Buu, but Jiren’s the only one who gets that far and it’s mostly because he’s not strictly a villain.

          He’s basically just OG Broly, a dude who’s nothing but pure strength and power levels and no actual depth, except Jiren’s thing is that he’s all those things because he’s an emotionally dead jerkface who became a superhero because other people started hanging around him for being the universe’s greatest asskicker so he shrugged and went on with his day, walking into the Tournament completely assured he’d win because his Number is bigger and therefore, the way Dragon Ball has worked for like 30 years, he’s automatically destined to win, and is constantly proven correct when his loser teammates who say things like justice and friendship get knocked out.

          Then Goku gets a bigger Number through Ultra Instinct, and Jiren totally snaps because Goku can’t have a bigger Number, Goku hasn’t suffered as much and he has friends, and Jiren didn’t just suffer tragedy to earn his worldview, he lionizes his tragedy as what made him so strong. Everything Jiren went through, everything he’s done since, has retroactively justified the deaths of his family and friends, and then this one jackass with friends and a wife and kids and who can smile punks him so hard that he’s not going “grr this cannot be” like a proper Shonen villain because the hero now has a bigger Number (hi Gohan, in your only accomplishment in history), he’s freaking the hell out because everything he believes in is a lie and actually he suffered due to random chaos and malice and there’s no great moral behind it.

          Then all of Goku’s blood explodes out of his body now that his power-up ran out so Jiren faces off against 17, a reformed villain who just keeps to himself these days, and Freeza, the only actual evil guy in the whole tournament. Freeza punks his ass and, being a Shonen villain, stops to gloat, so then Jiren gets the big speech from Toppo that reconstructs his shattered belief: Yeah, Jiren got this strong for himself and that was meaningless, but right now that ultimate power is the only thing Toppo and the Pride Troopers have to believe in. They all know Jiren hates their guts, but he’s their last hope and they all implicitly trust him because his continued fighting keeps them alive.

          Or: Don’t believe in yourself, believe in the me that believes in you.

          Then y’get the final battle, sworn enemies fight side by side, and Jiren learns to open up to his teammates because even with the multiverse at stake Dragon Ball is so completely bereft of consequence that Jiren getting the stick out of his ass is the actual emotional climax of the tournament. They beat him not because if they don’t the world will blow up, they beat him to prove him wrong.

          And I think that’s tight.

        7. Yotomoe

          I feel like I could get behind that if it felt AT ALL intentional. I could definitely see how you could read that from what is presented but honestly the series doesn’t do enough to make me feel that. it’s not like super strong sure of themselves characters getting assblasted by a new powerup is new to the series.

          It happened to Vegeta when Goku overtook him with Kaioken, It happened to Frieza after he got hit by the spirit bomb AND after Goku’s super saiyan transformation. It happened to Vegeta after Cell transformed. It happened to Cell after Gohan transformed. It’s kind of a staple of the show. Now Jiren getting a pep talk when he’s down is kind of a good moment because of all the characters I mentioned, Jiren is the only one who’s not dagnasty evil. He’s a good boy (an edgy good boy but still a good boy) so he gets to have the shonen hero pep talk power up. It’s why, for as bad as his character is for the entirety of the Tournament of Power he’s actually enjoyable during the last 2. I think his backstory is…really lame though. I wish they didn’t go into it. Like brought up some of things but kept it simple. Like “oh yeah his family and all the people who fought alongside him died too” (Which now that I think about it is Zed’s backstory from One Piece film Z. Yeah it’d be cool if Jiren was written more like Z.) I think people underestimate how good the storytelling in dragonball for characters and that causes them to applaud mild shakeups to the formula. But I think a lot of the villains have very intersting stories, characterizations and goals…except Cell. Jiren just doesn’t really stand out much amongst them.

          Pilaf is a little guy who can’t take a dirty joke and is as much of a threat as he is a cute comedy character.
          Commander red is a ruthless head honcho who wants to use wish granting dragonballs to gain a few feet in height
          Tao is a mercenary who spares nobody and the first character from a rival school we meet.
          Tenshinhan is a young assassin who’s being trained by the crane to kill but he wants to take confidence in his own abilities rather than using any means necessary to kill.
          Piccolo is split from God’s other half, The physical embodiment of all of his bad impulses and he’s an old guy that’s stronger than Goku. Not only does he use his wish to regain youth but he also KILLS SHENRON. He gets a bit one note after that but what an introduction.
          Then there’s Vegeta, a little guy who is so powerful that literally everyone in instantly afraid of him. And he doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks that walk and he’s every bit as ruthless and maniacal as he looks.
          I can’t skip Frieza who, while also being an egotistical maniac is the EXTREME version of that. Frieza has never once struggled in his entire life and it shows. While Vegeta is a scrappy chap, Frieza is calm, collected, polite and terrifying. The guy is barely any taller than Krillin and yet he’s just very intimidating. His banter with Goku, his insistence to play around by not using his hands, and his frustration as he’s slowly being overtaken is iconic. Sure it has echos of Vegeta but Frieza’s definitely got a very unique characterization.
          Cell is the worst parts of frieza
          Buu is interesting because he’s like…the embodiment of Dragonball’s return to comedy. He’s a big fat silly genie. He changes people into candy. He runs around like Arale and befriends mr. Satan. Then he turns evil…and he’s still silly! He’s still goofing around with gotenks or just being a big pink weirdo. Granted he’s very simple and once he starts absorbing people he turns into Frieza again but I think that his little storyline with Mr. Satan, with him slowly learning to appreciate the life of a dog, with him agreeing not to hurt people, that entire storyline is better than Jiren’s backstory. Because we see how all of that good will can be destroyed by a cruel act of man. And it’s not gone either. Even as an evil Super Buu, buu cannot bring himself to harm Satan. Or even Satan’s daughter. Thanks Satan!

          And even then I’d argue a lot of them do have a lot of good emotional pulls in their finale.
          Vegeta is beaten not just by a lower class saiyan but also his half breed son (something Vegeta himself was mocking the idea of having at the begining of the arc) and 2 ordinary humans.
          Frieza is killed by his own Hubris. He did everything to prevent the eventuality of a saiyan killing him only for that to be what ultimately does him in. And the sadness of his death isn’t for him, it’s felt for goku who, with a very sobering look of remorse on his face is forced to murder Frieza because he REFUSED to change.
          Buu is defeated not by a huge powerup. But by goku gathering energy from everyone on earth. And not just a little ALL the energy they can provide. It’s the perfect way to cap off the series. Everyone Goku has saved is now saving him too. The moment when the spirit bomb is complete and Goku feels it is so amazing to me because you see his shock. Even he didn’t expect the weight of all those lives to feel like this. It’s an amazing finale.

          Compared to that I feel like Jiren is…I dunno par for the course. I think the people who think all Dragonball villains are shallow should reread those parts of the manga cuz, other than cell, I think a lot of them do actually have a depth to them that makes their stories more satisfying to play out. I honestly think a better version of the Jiren story is, to your point, the Super Broly movie story. Cuz I also didn’t like Broly going in to the movie. I thought his movies were just big screaming wrestling matches with no real personality. But this movie, man. It made me care about Broly. At the end when he’s about to be blasted by Super Gogeta I legitimately thought “NO, DON’T KILL HIM!” which is not something I often think about Dragonball villains. Not even Jiren. Hell not even Vegeta. (ok maybe the androids but they hadn’t really done anything yet.) I think the pieces are there for a good Jiren but the series definitely didn’t do a good job capitalizing on it. To the point that I find it hard to believe any merits aren’t just an accident.

        8. Yotomoe

          I realize now that you said “since frieza” meaning I spent a lot of my argument bringing up other villains for no real reason oops.

        9. Robert Thompson

          I have to say, scrolling through comments and seeing this series of huuuuge posts had me worried, but I’m absolutely here to spectate DBZ arguments XD

    4. BBCC

      I think it’s dickish of Joyce to ask she be given the spot instead of both of them being given a fair shake, but mostly I’m not really judging her too much here.

      I’m judging Daisy. 😛

    5. Tadertots

      God I love your takes. Honestly I agree 1000%. Danny for all intents and purposes is a pretty sweet guy but he does mess up!!! A FEW TIMES!! But as soon as he does he’s immediately typecast as being this absolute insufferable monster who is terrible and the worst person in the comic! Despite being one of the most compelling characters in the comic because he’s finding himself and trying new things AND comfortable with those things. (But that’s just my opinion so.)

      1. Yotomoe

        I used to say mean stuff about Danny but most of it was tongue in cheek. But then Danny bullying became to commonplace so I stopped doing it.

  43. thumb

    Walky had the right idea, but Daisy made the right judgement. In the end.
    Joyce was there.

  44. Prime_pm

    This is exactly the moment from that episode if ER where two British rugby players fight over the winning play just for a wheel of cheese. They’re about to split it in half to share when the one played by Simon Templeman goes “NO! Give it to him. The cheese should not be divided. Better to be absconded by a cheater than to be split in half.” Coming from him just made it sound SO awesome.

  45. Diane

    I’m honestly glad Walky didn’t get it, not from hate of him, but just his comic is just so damn boring. Joyce, while having 20k “this plot has happened but better” is eh, but at least she really cares about wanting to do the comic. Walky’s reason for wanting to do the comic is so he gets paid. Joyce wants to tell a story. I’d rather read Joyce’s than Walky’s.

    1. Alan in DC

      I get the feeling that Joyce’s dormmates wont be as enthusiastic when they see themselves boiled down to cartoon cliche characters. Egos are fragile enough at age 19 to have to deal with seeing “themselves” for another 3-1/2 years in print.
      Not every college comic strip becomes a “Doonesbury”.

    2. Deviant

      I’m thinking more about the medium. A comic strip in a paper would actually benefit from being somewhat formulaic, since it has a pretty small space in which to play out. And with the extensive plotline(s?) that Joyce is planning, that would mean that one would need to cut out and save all the comic strips in order to be able to go back and reference why a character said or did something.

      If the school paper is an e-paper, then it gets easier of course, but still.

      I mean, look at Snoopy and Marmaduke. They are quite simple and self contained, cuz they are newspaper-comics. And while I think they are pretty boring, they obviously worked.

      I think Joyce should look into starting a webcomic. Maybe she could have a comment section where people trade strong opinions about her comic 🙂

      1. Yotomoe

        “Yo, when are these two girls gonna make out? It’s been like 130 strips”

        1. C.T. Phipps

          There’s also the fact that the kind of story Joyce WANTS to tell is made for online.

  46. Figureaddict

    The moral of the story…….there are no morals!

    1. milu

      the moral of the story is: suck it!

  47. Deviant

    Not rewarding willingness to share. Thats an interesting value to champion with people, but okay.

    1. Deviant

      I’m sure the bronze age way of justice works better, I mean its not like there were any problems back then.

      Maybe if it doesn’t pan out, they can fight eachother with donkey jawbones 😛

    2. Yotomoe

      Turns out Sharing isn’t caring. Sharing is equal to or less than caring.

      1. Deviant

        Yep. Being considerate isn’t worth it.

    3. Throwatron

      More like “not rewarding 50% of the work to the person who is displaying all the warning signs of not consistently doing their fucking work, when the other person is already 2-3 entire years ahead of schedule and clearly enthusiastic to work more…”

      1. Yotomoe

        True. You definitely shouldn’t sit down with him or talk with him or ask him his ideas or opinions or anything. Definitely make a split second decision because he showed up. Sure maybe he is showing warning signs of not doing his work. AFTER she gave him an ultimatum. I don’t even think she got his name yet. Again I feel like people are using OUR prior knowledge about Walky as a way to make this decision seem obvious even though that’s knowledge that Daisy wouldn’t have until literally JUST NOW.

  48. mrnoidea

    Approps of nothing, today marks one year of unemployment for me. I quit my civil engineering job and have been living at my Grandma’s nearly* ever since. Part of it’s because I had a lot to mentally unpack after 2020—like how useless I felt at my old job, and the fear coming with it that I am useless for many other things.

    Turns out I *am* useful at taking care of an elderly woman with her shoulder surgery and other health issues. And since we get along, it doesn’t (always) feel like work. I’m in the process of becoming her official provider so I can get paid for many of the things I’m already doing for free.

    *some people might remember a comment I made last year about going to Portland. I stayed in my hotel room for a week, then left :/

    1. Wendy

      I was about to ask if you’d considered applying to be a paid caregiver, and then I read on and saw you’re already taking care of that – good for you. Taking care of someone is deeply important and you deserve to be able to support yourself while doing it. Wishing you and your grandma all the best!

      1. mrnoidea

        Thanks Wendy! Yeah, I’ve always gone with the idea that it’s better to have a big impact on one person than a small impact on many people.

    2. milu

      hey! congratulations on finding something that works for you, man.

    3. TheScreenJockey

      Apropos of your nonsequitur, and maybe a bit inspirational:

      I have an uncle who quit hic very lucrative mechanical engineering job with a big corporation you’ve definitely heard of and moved back in with his mom for about a year and a half (this was all when I was an infant). Then he decided to go to medical school (despite already having a Master’s and years of experience as an engineer), and has been very happy as an orthopedic surgeon ever since.

      Wishing you the best.

  49. Wendy

    Good for Joyce. Joyce’s heart is more in this, and I doubt Walky will be too upset about not having to do more work, anyway. Not that I don’t like Walky. I really appreciate that his character has grown and developed a lot while still retaining his trademark gooberishness.

    1. TheScreenJockey

      Yeah . . . Walk will be upset about this for approximately 30 minutes and then stop caring it ever happened.

  50. Bagge

    Daisy is going to get so much free work out of Joyce

    1. Needfuldoer

      Not free! $5 per strip! (Plus however much Joyce eventually charges for “exclusive content” on Patreonfanshine.)

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/strip/

  51. ziggy78eog

    I would have believed Walky’s, “I was trying to be nice”, thing, if the first words out of his mouth were not laziness. He was not agreeing to this to be nice, he was agreeing to it because it meant less work for him. He is only playing the, “nice”, card to sulk.

    1. Throwatron

      I also think it’s neat because, like…I felt like Daisy was a dickhole, but it lasted about 3 seconds, until I remembered she was vetting two sophomores for positions on the school paper, and therefore dumping someone at the first sign of chronic laziness is honestly a fair game plan.

  52. Heather

    People being angry with Joyce but like she went ‘all or nothing’. She was willing in a sense to go with *nothing* after all because otherwise it’d be like a show which got cancelled half way through its second season and there’s no point in her eyes. She’s got a vision. Sure they might change eventually but eh. She overall put nothing on the table as preferable and Daisy could have gone with that.

    And like Walky clearly does not really care half as much. Granted it’d be difficult for most people to reach 10% of Joyce’s passion for this uh, esteemed, position.

    1. SuperZero

      Walky’s right that Daisy’s wrong, but that doesn’t make Joyce wrong.

  53. Dark

    So we’re just gonna skip over the last comic then? Not gonna address that at all?

    1. StClair

      What hump comic?

    2. Agemegos

      Maybe the last three panels of yesterday’s comic are supposed not to have actually happened in consensus reality. But they don’t seem to be any specific character’s hallucination, either. Walky’s imagination, perhaps?

    3. Needfuldoer

      That was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone.

  54. alongcameaspider

    I dont get people acting like Joyce is stealing an opportunity from Walky

    Look at it from her perspective, Daisey had already decided that she’d get it, then Walky barges in and suddenly Daisey is trying to walk back what, again, she had already decided with a half assed compromise. Of course Joyce is gonna be annoyed

    The problem here isn’t with Joyce or Walky, the problem is Daisey is bad at her job. What she should have done was gotten Joyce’s contact info and told her that while it looks like no one else is gonna apply she’ll give it til the end of the day and contact her if she gets the spot later

    1. Agemegos

      Walky didn’t barge in.

      In a previous strip, Daisy told him the he would have a job if he “just get me samples by Friday.” https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/strip/

      He got Daisy samples by Friday. She didn’t even look at them.

      1. alongcameaspider

        Honestly that strip still shows that the fundamental problem is Daisy is bad at her job

        She said that on the assumption that no one else would show up, she prematurely chose Joyce again on the assumption that no one else would show up

        1. Agemegos

          Everyone at this university is bad at their job and neglectful of their responsibilities, except for Asma and Leslie.

  55. Eyebrow

    Knowing that Joyce is autobiographical, now I really want to hear how close this comes to David Willis ‘s big break story.

    1. Spencer

      Well first Joyce has to do a spinoff featuring a mostly new cast with some Julia Gray holdovers, and once that gets popular she’ll do a big continuity reboot where all the sci-fi stuff is gone and now they’re all just college kids.

  56. Sombrero

    Anyone else here felt the urge to search for “Solomon my ass” in the Urban Dictionary?

  57. C.T. Phipps

    L. Frank Baum wrote a children’s novel (not the Wizard of Oz) where a parody of Solomon tried to decide who was a cow’s rightful owner by how the cow reacted to them. It turned out the cow went with the more experienced rancher rather than the actual owner.

  58. C.T. Phipps

    Joyce is the big loser here.

    If she’d NOT gotten the paper, Dorothy would have suggested putting it online and she would have a massive following that would follow it through three incarnations across multiple decades.

    1. King Daniel

      Well, Roomies! – which Joyce’s Grayverse is an out-of-universe parody of – did start off as a newspaper comic in real life. In the very same newspaper that Joyce has just won her slot in, as a matter of fact.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I stand corrected.

      2. StClair

        Mind you, that was back in ’97. Things were… rather different then, even when talking about college newspapers.

        (And that was a decade after I attended university. I literally got to see the web come into being while I was there…)

  59. Kitschensyngk

    It just now occurs to me…

    Joyce won the comic strip job through something akin to a story from the very book she recently renounced.

    1. milu

      well, faithful or atheist, there is one advantage to having been raised christian in a christian-dominated culture: you get a lot of the highbrow cultural references.

  60. DaveM

    Some of you might find “God Knows” by Joseph Heller (of Catch 22 fame) worth a look. It’s King David’s unreliable autobiography of his life (in which he appears at times to be prescient, as he finds it quite ironic that the big famous statue of him is uncircumcised). He notes that the decision by his stepson Soliman (or “Sol” as he refers to him) to chop a baby in half wasn’t because he was wise, he honestly thought it was the best way to solve the issue. Everything past that was PR and crisis management. 🙂

Leave a Reply to Cmasta1992 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.