207

Earlier
Posted on April 17, 2018 by David M Willis
Sal’s back!  In magnet form! You can pledge for the Dumbing of Age Book 7 Kickstarter at the SUDDENLY SAL MAGNET tier if you want Sal to come along with your book, or you can choose her as part of the PICK THREE or PICK FIVE tiers!  And, of course, if you put down for COMPLETE MAGNET POWER, she’s been added to your pile.

207 thoughts on “Earlier”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    I wouldn’t think the “flesh” crayon would be the issue?

    (unless you’re Oliver)

    1. Ana Chronistic

      Dumbing of Age Book 8: The Best Joke Is That The Title For The Book Is So Long It Takes Up The Entire Cover Such That There Is No Room For Anything Else On The Front Because It Would Be Hilarious To Do And Also Still Have All The Fans Be Able To Recognize It Immediately Nonetheless, What Do You Think

      1. Pablo360

        Followed by Dumbing of Age Book 9: The Best Joke Is That The Title For The Book Is So Long It Takes Up The Entire Cover Such That There Is No Room For Anything Else On The Front Because It Would Be Hilarious To Do And Also Still Have All The Fans Be Able To Recognize It Immediately Nonetheless, What Do You Think 2: Electric Boogaloo.

        1. Adam

          Next Title::
          Book 10: Nonetheless, Wild Geese3

        2. Chris Phoenix

          DoA book 10: The best joke is knowing your readership well enough to create for them an appropriate lie.

        3. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          DoA book 11: This is what happens when you let your readership select the title for the next book.

          DoA book 12: Booky McBookface

        4. Annonymouse

          DoA Book 13: They all died ….. and entered the civil service.

          But I’m not dead yet. You will be. Soon enough you will be.

        5. Pablo360

          DoA Book 14: Hey Guess What I’m A Book Title

        6. Goshii

          DoA Book 15: MY GOD WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME IT WOULD BE THIS EXPENSIVE TO PUT MY KIDS THROUGH SCHOOL. THIS BOOK IS $10,000!

        7. Pablo360

          DoA Book 16: Christmas Break has Finally Arrived, Also Peak Oil So This Will Never Be Distributed Non-Digitally

        8. Ana Chronistic

          DoA Book 17: Holy Shit, the Author’s Kids Are In College Now

        9. Knuf Wons

          DoA Book 18: Holy Crap Joyce Has Parents!?

  2. C.T Phipps

    This will end with Joyce exposing Billie to the world as an imperfect being.

    1. CJ

      And they will still be “aw, great”

  3. Doctor_Who

    Nash would make a good therapist, apparently.

  4. Ivy

    Zaph looks like Faz

    1. C.T Phipps

      Yet will Faz try to hit on her?

      1. Yumi

        Him

        1. poofdepoof

          Zaph is male BTW!

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/02-this-is-the-way-that-we-love/zaph/

        2. Yumi

          Was that to me or just adding on to my comment?

        3. C.T Phipps

          Of course, Faz is bisexual.

        4. Yumi

          The overall message of the comments in the thread make sense to me, but the reply structure is making me feel like I’m missing something.

        5. Dana

          I imagine this doesn’t clear anything up, but I’m more concerned about characters mutually annihilating when they touch their McAwesome’s counterparts. Um, except Mike. I guess in his case annihilation is a euphemism.

        6. DarkoNeko

          Faz is fazsexual

      2. Freemage

        The couple-portmanteau would be Zaz. Or Faph.

    2. Sylvestrus

      Phaz

    3. Needfuldoer

      Zaph and Rose were Faz and Amber’s counterparts at an equal-but-opposite-to-Galasso’s toy store in Shortpacked!. (They were also both Amber’s half-siblings through Blaine, an attribute that thankfully stayed behind.)

      Maybe they work at McAwesome’s Arcade (and subs!) over here?

      1. Ivy

        Whoaaa

    4. Falcon

      For a moment I thought Faz opened his eyes.

  5. Plasma Mongoose

    What colour is flesh?

    1. Ana Chronistic

      if we’re only counting subdermally, like red meat?

    2. Doctor_Who

      Green if you wait long enough.

    3. Psyme

      I think it is pretty close to lime green.

    4. AutobotDen

      Whatever color crayon you grab first.

    5. Stephen Bierce

      There was a very famous Bloom County strip about this exact subject.

      1. Bagge

        Good thing crayola’s lawyers were so understanding.

        1. Stephen Bierce

          All of a sudden I feel sorry for Joyce having to use JFK Administration-age wax implements of color application.

      2. Amazi-Stool

        And there already is a link to it in the very first comment on this page.
        So your comment seems a bit anachronistic!

    6. Hoodiecrow

      In Joyce’s family, flesh color has no ambiguity.

      1. Yumi

        Yeah, flesh is sin-colored.

    7. Yumi

      “Flesh” is such a weird name for a crayon color, too. Like, calling it “skin” colored and having that mean a specific color would still have the same racist issues, but it wouldn’t be creepy to me in the same way.

      1. Bagge

        “HAND ME THE FLESH-PAINT” does sound like something an unhinged black magician would say

        1. Chris Phoenix

          Phrasing…

        2. Bagge

          Oh dear…

      2. JessWitt

        Hence why that crayon was renamed “peach”.

        https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/22/crayola-crayon-color-history_n_7345924.html

        1. Yumi

          But not in Joyce’s crayon box, apparently.

        2. Mollyscribbles

          That always confused me because peaches aren’t that color. Just say beige and we’re fine.

        3. autogatos

          Peach is a bit warmer, a little more saturated, while beige is more desaturated/cooler.

        4. autogatos

          I’m kind of baffled Copic hasn’t renamed their Flesh and Skin White markers yet…

      3. Mr D

        In my country the color is still called skin.

        That’s what happens when you don’t get racial diversity until the ’00s, people.

    8. Needfuldoer

      All this crayon talk makes me kind of want a DoA themed coloring and activity book. “Grade Walky’s trig worksheet!” “Find all the hidden characters in this crowd scene!” “Help Dina fix the errors in this Apatosaurus diagram!”

      It could even get meta with the comments. ”Quick! Put in the first comment before Ana does!” “What’s playing on the hacked Muzak today?”

      1. DannyUniverse

        This would be amazing

    9. NelC

      Various shades of ochre, with hints of white, red, blue, and purple. Vary proportions according to taste.

  6. C.T Phipps

    Faz will hook up with this entire cast. Because he is irresistibly sexy here. Just, you know, he has to wait a few months until he’s legal.

    1. thejeff

      “Faz has a printout of the relevant section of law explaining that it’s legal now.”
      “Faz could also come back in a couple weeks.”

  7. TheStranger

    I suddenly wonder if Zaph is supposed to be an inverted Faz.

    Because Zaph and Faz are inverse pronunciations, you see.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I assumed that was the case.

    2. 3oranges

      Zaph and Faz need to stay further apart
      This whole thing could explode at any moment

      1. JessWitt

        The real explosive risk is when Joyce and Lucy meet.

      2. Needfuldoer

        If they say each other’s names, they’ll be banished to the fifth dimension.

    3. Viktoria

      In Shortpacked!, there’s a rival toy store where everyone is an inverted version of a Shortpacked employee. That’s where Zaph and Amber worked, as well as a handful of others I don’t think we’ve met. So yes, Zaph is mirror universe Faz, and lives in the non-main dorm.

      1. Viktoria

        (This is additional information relevant only to SP!, included here purely for completeness.)

        In SP!, Amber is the legitimate child of Blaine, who has had numerous affairs. Notably, Faz, Zaph, and Rose all were implied to be Blaine’s illegitimate children. Faz and Rose were dating in that universe and I do not believe anyone ever warned them. I don’t think any of those relationships carried over to this universe, but I don’t think it’s been indicated one way or another.

        1. Khyrin

          as I recall, Willis is on record of Amber being DoA!Blaine’s only child. they could still be related, but not through Amber.

        2. Kamino Neko

          Yes, he is. (<- Link, since links don’t display obviously.)

      2. Viktoria

        Dammit, I meant that Zaph and ROSE worked at the rival toy store, Amber and Faz worked at Shortpacked! We need an edit button.

        1. MatthewTheLucky

          Also you wrote that Faz dated Rose.

  8. Passchendaele

    could you even fit that title on the cover

    1. DarkoNeko

      Right, that’s be too long

    2. AutobotDen

      It would be 99% title and 1% artwork.

      1. Passchendaele

        and the artwork, for good measure, is the illustration of David. 😛

        1. Tacos

          What, and not a butt instead?

        2. NelC

          David’s got a butt.

    3. Pablo360

      Not with that atti— *shot for making over— *shot for making overused metajoke**

  9. DailyBrad

    I didn’t *eat* it, but Joyce’s “quick, destroy this titillating drawing!” moment is damn relatable.

    1. Deanatay

      She and Walky are developing a taste for failure-flavored paper.

  10. Rukdug

    Panel 4: Oh no. Joyce is realizing she’s talking to side characters. She’s gaining medium experience! She needs a memory wipe now! Now dammit!!

  11. kitty

    so i assume you did this as well willis

    1. Needfuldoer

      Exactly what I was thinking, “this must be drawing from experience, it’s too specific to just come out of nowhere.”

      Coloring that Barbarella was just first step to Internet Pornlord-dom!

    2. DailyBrad

      As per Twitter, he didn’t eat it, but he did color in a nude drawing he found in a book, panicked, and destroyed it.

  12. Stephen Bierce

    I could never drink that blood and call it “wine”
    I could never take your love and call you mine    –Bob Dylan

  13. Robbie

    Joyce had an illustration of David? My mom censored that kind of thing from our art book made by a Catholic nun…there was a lot of censoring. Art history, man. Lots of naked humans.

    Actually I’m surprised my mom bought a book written by a Catholic nun, she got rid of the picture bible my granny gave me because it was Catholic – ie she said it might release demons into the house.

    1. Robbie

      Actually though + come to think of it, she may have only sensored the female nudes. Besides, dad had a thing for Michaelangelo’s David… It was a bit strange TBH, for this homohobic man to wax eloquent over this statue… *Shrug*

      1. Ako

        Man, the people in the doa comments always have such interesting stories to tell.

    2. Amazi-Stool

      Art history?
      Relevant Roomies!-chapter starts here!
      Seems like classic art was not-so-censored in Joyce’s (Willis’) case!

  14. lilyliv

    The longer I read this comic, the more convinced I am that Joyce and teenage me were actually the same person. I didn’t do this *exactly*, but the first time I drew something even vaguely NSFW (by that I mean barely even PG-13 material) I ate it so my mom wouldn’t freak out and take away my already heavily monitored laptop forever.

    1. lilyliv

      (Unfortunately for my mother, I also took a Latin class when I was 12 where the teacher… didn’t preview the Roman empire videos before she showed ’em to us. That was one of tiny me’s first exposures to… um… artistic naked peeps. I was traumatized. So was the teacher, actually. She was like 19. Don’t ask.)

      1. inspector Whatevsman

        did she not look over the video before showing it? that’s a good way to get angry calls from parents.

        1. Felgraf

          A friend of mind, when teaching elementary school, was told by a fellow teacher “Oh! I just started showing my class an animated movie based off that book you were reading!”

          My friend, who knows her own reading habbits, grows suspicious. “What.. what movie?”

          “It had a lot of rabbits on the cover!”

          “WATERSHIP DOWN?”

          “Yeah, that was it!”

          Cue friend *sprinting down the hallway* and into the other classroom to rip the VHS from the player…

          (These are not, of course, the exact words of the exchange, for I was not present, but this is the gist of it.)

        2. CJ

          What is it about water ship down she thought inappropriate?
          (Never seen it, but the Wikipedia articles sound like it’s more violent than I expected).

        3. Deanatay

          Hoho, YES.

        4. Deanatay

          It’s nominally about rabbits in the English countryside, but it was written as an allegory to WWI.

          Cute little bunnies… ripping each other’s throats out.. yeah.

        5. LordHaw

          First time I watched Watership Down was in elementary school…and the teachers knew full well what they were showing us too. Watched it more than once actually in school

        6. BBCC

          Might depend on the age of the kids they taught too.

        7. Tarmaniel

          I was working for AMC Theaters when Pan’s Labyrinth was in theaters, that was the absolute worst month. We had to deal with furious parents that had just brought their five year olds to see this movie on almost an hourly basis.

        8. Schpoonman

          Did you ask them if they had checked the movie’s rating?

        9. Tarmaniel

          Disney has a lot of people convinced that “fairy tale” means “kids movie” and they were angry it was being marketed as a fairy tale.

        10. Yumi

          It also starred a kid, which a lot of people will take as “for kids.” I actually remember wanting to see it when it came out, possibly in part because my kid self had the same idea. My parents weren’t letting me see R-rated things yet, though, so I never did.

        11. CJ

          Pan’s labyrinth was the one with David Bowie?
          Definitely not stuff for 5-year-olds. I think it was marketed for teens over here.

        12. Kat

          No, that’s just “Labyrinth”.
          Pan’s Labyrinth is… very dark, from what I remember about it (I never actually saw it though).

        13. CJ

          Right, I remember reading about it and deciding I didn’t want to watch it.
          It was rated FSK 16 (a movie theater in Germany wouldn’t have let 5-year olds in).

        14. Kensou

          I was in 3rd grade when Watership Down was released here in the States, and our grade was taken to see it as a field trip. I wish the teachers had pulled us out, I’m still disturbed by it.

          (Also, moments like these are why I love Joyce.)

        15. lilyliv

          Oh gosh, my mom accidentally did something similar. She just saw “oh, bunnies!!” on the cover and decided to put it in the VCR for her 9-year-old to watch while she went to take a phone call. She returned to find a very freaked out child. I don’t actually remember the movie anymore, I think I blocked it out.

        16. Inahc

          I did something similar to myself as a child – I saw a cover I liked, and didn’t notice the rating, and my parents somehow thought it was a good idea to just let me rent it and find out the hard way that it was not a kids’ movie. :/

        17. Inahc

          …and it only occurred to me today that it wasn’t somehow “my fault”… I felt so ashamed and embarrassed over that mistake for so long, but really, why the hell didn’t my parents *talk* to me about what that movie really was!?

        18. lilyliv

          Nope. Nope, she did not. ^_^’

      2. Needfuldoer

        In middle school art class one day, the teacher played us some documentary she taped from somewhere. Evidently she didn’t check the tape before playing it for us, because suddenly halfway into the video there was an extended black-and-white scene of topless burlesque dancers. Never saw her lunge for the power cord so fast.

  15. Yumi

    Don’t trust them, Joyce; that’s how they lure you in. They’ll learn all your secrets and then you’ll be trapped.

    1. Bagge

      That’s terrible. Joyce would be replaced with a stepford clone-drone. Always sunny, always smiling… um… how would we know if it happens?

      1. Khyrin

        the Stepford Clone-Drone would experience 25% less panic when her personal morality clashes with her religion.

  16. Ashley

    As a gay tween, I felt SO guilty looking at naked Greek statues. I feel like Joyce will at some point have to come out of the closet to her parents as having any kind of sexuality.

    1. Bagge

      So when you cried “You don’t understand – it’s and aaaaaaaart book”, you had a bit more going for you than the fantasy nerds with Boris Vallejo in their bookshelf…

      1. Brainstorm

        DoA Book 8: You Don’t Understand — It’s An Aaaaaaaaart Book

      2. Roborat

        I got those, and Frazetta too.

    2. thejeff

      And that will go perfectly fine. As long as it’s after she’s safely married.

  17. Tan

    Re Hovertext:

    I DARE you, Willis. I double-dog dare you.

  18. Johan

    Haven’t we all

  19. Bagge

    Because it’s SO HARD to make Joyce talk.

    It’s the strange feeling that comes of not constantly being surrounded by people who sarcastically belittle you and make fun of you.

    Also known as the not-Sarah-and-Walky-effect.

  20. Marsh Maryrose

    The alt-text has gone far beyond mere trolling.

  21. lia47

    i know its a joke but i bet a book with that title would sell really well

  22. Victor Riley

    Hmmm… Joyce has found a receptive audience. Maybe she’ll request a transfer of rooms… leading Sarah to transfer so she’s not alone, and Dorothy as well… and then Walky follows…

    Then, everyone is over in the opposite dorm…

  23. Arianod

    Critical mass in 10, 9, 8, 7…

  24. cbwroses

    I got it. This dorm is where Joyce should have been in the first place.
    Malaya was inadvertently given her spot.
    Luckily, Malaya has achieved her rightful dorm placement before a dimensional collapse was imminent, but Billie isn’t cheery enough to make up for the imbalance.
    However, as long as Joyce visits regularly, the center should continue to hold.

  25. Bagge

    Joyce has more in common with Walky than either of them likes to admit
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/badscore/

  26. pjeseb

    So Rose is giving Zaph googly eyes in this strip and suddenly the last strip he was in makes a bit more sense.

    1. Fart Captor

      The look she’s giving him in panel 2 is the sweetest thing :3

    2. Keulen

      Yeah I’m definitely shipping those two now.

    3. ValdVin

      I’m also in their corner; the crush blush won me over.

  27. brasca1

    I wonder if Faz and Zaph are related in this universe. There doesn’t seem to be any recognition.

  28. BBCC

    So, what, should she have coloured him green or something?

    1. No Name

      Marble grey, like the statue.

    2. hof1991

      The Greeks colored their statues. Their marble wasn’t very white either. It’s the Roman who used white marble. It the Renaissance that decided that old Roman statues that the color had worn off of were the ideal.

      So the Greeks did use flesh color on their statues, but it wasn’t white.

      1. 3oranges

        Michelangelo’s David is pretty definitively not a Greek statue, though.

  29. Lingo

    Maybe you guys already covered this, but I feel like maybe Nash is supposed to be the McAwesome’s mirror-image of Ruth? I know she’s not the RA, but her height and glasses remind me of Ruth, while her personality feels completely the opposite. Then again, her name doesn’t seem to be a play on Ruth’s, so I guess it’s a stretch.

    Meanwhile, with that “Hello new friend!” line, is Willis intentionally trying to connect Zaph to Fluffmodeus from Something Positive?! (Probably not, but that’s where my mind went….)

    1. JessWitt

      Spencer is the Forest Hall RA so she seems like the fitting doppelganger to Ruth. Maybe Nash and Sarah are counterparts to each other? Would the same also go for Billie and Malaya?

      1. Yumi

        Yeah, I think Nash would pair with Sarah. I don’t really think Billie in Malaya fit the same pattern, but it did occur to me that Billie has a chest that other characters comment on, while Malaya has a butt that receives attention.

  30. C.

    Faz is actually staying mum, as advised. Huh.

  31. TrekNoid

    Amazon appears prepared…

    “No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain’t Never Coming Home Again” – by Edgardo Vega Yunqué

  32. AgentKeen

    I feel like this is one of those semi-autobiographical things that someone would say no one has experienced, ever.

    I’m of course talking about the smooshed toe while exercising with no shoes.

  33. Keulen

    Rose is blushing in the first 2 panels. I’m assuming it’s because she has a crush on Zaph and now I’m shipping them.

    1. Yumi

      Past mention of Rose’s thing for him: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/02-this-is-the-way-that-we-love/sitch/

      I have trouble shipping them in part because, while I never even read SP!, I know they were half-siblings in that universe thanks to the comments, and it’s hard to not think about that when shipping comes up

      1. CJ

        Why does their genetic relationship matter? As long as they didn’t grow up together I can’t see the problem.
        (There is a Detective Conan story where a women commits suicid when she finds out her bethrothed is actually her twin and they where separated as babies after their parents died when a hotel burned down. And I don’t get it.)

        1. geno

          A whole lot of people have a problem with it. Partially just because biologically it means your kids could have problems. Also it’s creepy to meet your SO’s parents, and find out their yours too.

        2. CJ

          One generation of incest will not create great genetic troubles, as long as both parents already have a problematic gene defect. It usually takes several generations of inbreeding to create biological problems. ( And not all couples want children anyway).
          Incest is a social taboo and in its context (to avoid relationships between first degree relations living under the same roof) I’m all for it. We’d have even more sexual abuse within families if it didn’t exist. But for people who happen to be related but don’t know about it? there’s no win for society in it and no win for the individuals concerned.
          This somehow reminds me: when the original Star Wars movies launched and it turned out Leila and Luke were twins, no one around ( small town in northern Germany) had any hangup about their kiss. it was an accepted reason for Luke to not get the girl, but no one questioned the moral of the kiss. In the meantime I’ve heard rumors mordern cuts of the movie have shortened the kiss because it bother so many people?

        3. CJ

          There should be a *don’t * in the second part of the first sentence.

        4. Yumi

          Well, for one, I’m talking about shipping with fictional characters, and incest just doesn’t really do it for me, even though that wouldn’t be the case in this universe. There’s a significant squick factor in it for a lot of people.

      2. Pablo360

        Rose and Zaph weren’t half-siblings. Amber and Zaph were half-siblings.

        1. Yumi

          …It seems strange to me that you know that Zaph was one of Blaine’s bio kids but not that Rose was ALSO one of Blaine’s bio kids.

  34. nothri

    Too bad she doesn’t still have the arm brace, eh? That’d be a hell of a thing.

  35. BenRG

    It really is like a bizarro-world version of Read Hall, isn’t it?

    1. cbwroses

      Maybe these three are the bizarro Walky, Dorothy, and Sarah? And Lucy is Bizarro Sal?

      1. JessWitt

        Nah, Lucy is Bizarro Joyce. Malaya confirms it.

        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/newfriends/

        1. cbwroses

          You forget that Bizarro world people are the opposite counterparts of regular people. So Lucy can’t be bizarro Joyce because they’re too much alike.

        2. thejeff

          Lucy am Bizarro Bizarro Joyce

        3. cbwroses

          Bizarro Anti-Joyce!

  36. stoodmuffin

    Joyce, you might be repressed a little

  37. acher4

    Ok, this title has to happen!
    :DDD

  38. BenRG

    Here’s a prediction. Billie’s going to come back from visiting Ruth to find Joyce and all the Forest girls in her room with Lucy having a weird mutual confession party. Some of the things they admit to doing are hardly shameful but the overall feel is one of ‘things you would be happier not knowing your peers feel guilty about’.

  39. Rabid Rabbit

    Zaph, please. Choose a different way on meeting new people. You do not want to be associated with that phrase.

    http://somethingpositive.net/sp01132007.shtml

    1. Dave

      This is literally the first thing I thought of.

    2. FireAtWilliam

      Something Positive is still going?!?!

  40. ValdVin

    Nash has a nosy question quotient? Progress!

  41. Eldritch Gentleman

    Ah I think I finally realized what’s been bothering me about those girls. They have this feel of fanatical fans with low self-esteem. Thinking themselves boring and mediocre they try to get close to “celebrities” so they can reflect some of their light since they believe they don’t have any of their own.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Well Billie was a cheerleader…in HIGH SCHOOL. She is too cool to ever be around them but is!

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        They need more communism, DOWN WITH THE PRIVILEGED CLASS! Claim their uniforms and pompoms!

  42. BenRG

    Looking at Joyce’s eyes in panels 4 and 5, I find myself wondering if there is an incipient breakdown happening here.

    1. Bagge

      That’s exactly what Sarah has wondered for most of this comic.

  43. Acebender

    For a moment I thought Zaph was Faz pretending to be human

  44. Tacos

    Looks like Joyce has found her people.

    1. Callid13

      Her people will always be drunk people playing board games:

      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/queen/

      1. Bagge

        They started a game of Axis and Allies and have been playing even since that strip

        1. ValdVin

          Good thing they’re not playing The Hundred Years War board game.

  45. RaulTsi

    Joyce, yer such a perv

    Hmm, dunno about that book title, mr wills, it seems a bit … verbose? – the publisher

  46. Dutchtica

    Why do I feel the David thing is autobiographical

    1. BenRG

      Check out Willis’s Twitter feed; this really happened to him only it was actually a colouring-in book page featuring sci-fi sex symbol Barbarella.

      1. Daibhid C

        When I was a kid, I had a huge black and white hardback of DC Comics stories; what we mean in the UK when we say “comic annual”, only this one was something like four times the length. And I decided to colour in all the pictures with felt tips. And rather than go back and forth with the blue and green and so on, I decided that first of all I would colour in everyone’s faces and hands.

        And then I stopped, because I was uncomfortable with running the pen along all Wonder Woman’s exposed skin. I didn’t eat it, but I might have done.

  47. Sibre

    “Yesterday” she hurt her toe? “Yesterday”!?

    1. King Daniel

      Yep. The comic passes time at the rate of One Chapter = One Day, always, unless explicitly stated otherwise (such as the timeskip after Toedad brought a gun onto campus), and Joyce injured herself at the beginning of the previous chapter, “This Is The Way That We Love”.

  48. abysswatcher1993

    Time passes weirdly in this story. Also, Joyce is thirsty…

  49. Robin Lionheart

    Billie’s gonna be out another $20 soon.

  50. Dex

    I’m just imagining Sarah’s reaction when Joyce shows up trailed by her new gang of best friends, all brimming with enthusiasm and true-friendship and acceptance. And then she will be assimilated. THERE CAN BE NO ESCAPE.

  51. nlips

    I remember racist crayons! I mean seriously, what are the odds that this crayon was brown?

    1. Jago

      Why does Zaph live in the girl’s dorm? I mean, Carla lives in the girls dorm, and they’re both trans, if I remember correctly.

      1. Jago

        whoops wrong place to post. Sorry. The site cheated me.

  52. Jago

    (Respost)
    Why does Zaph live in the girl’s dorm? I mean, Carla lives in the girls dorm, and they’re both trans, if I remember correctly.

    1. BBCC

      Maybe he’s only recently come out and hasn’t had a chance to switch to the boys dorm yet? Or maybe he was visiting Rose? Or maybe the school wouldn’t let him (bear in mind, Carla’s parents are zillionaires – it’s a lot harder for a school to tell them no than it might be for them to tell Zaph’s parents no).

    2. CJ

      There was a comic where Zaph mentioned using the men’s showers and Rose either offered to accompany him or said something supportive, don’t quite remember which. This suggests to me that Zaph coming out as trans was fairly recent. As there is no one making a fuss about Zaph still living there, the school hasn’t much of an incentive to act (especially as it would be prudent to give him a single room in the men’s dorms and getting one of those free after the semester started is probably quite difficult.).

    3. SpaceshipPilot

      I get the sense he just prefers it there, because that’s where his friends are.

    4. Pablo360

      From what I can piece together, he’s been out for, what, half a week at most? And Malaya was waiting a couple months for a room transfer.

      1. Pablo360

        Five days, not half a week, but my point still stands.

  53. Adj

    I finally figured out what they remind me of: It’s like a combination of the Borg and “Up With People.”

  54. Pablo360

    Joyce, where did you even get a “flesh-colored” crayon? Those have been called peach since 1963.

    1. thejeff

      Now I want a box of crayons of various shades, all labeled “flesh”.

      1. autogatos

        All I can think of now when I hear “flesh colored crayons” is something the color of uncooked chicken and it makes me queasy.

    2. Chronos

      I can totally see her getting some set of antique crayons, “free from ‘political correctness'”, from her parents.

      I swear that stupid term makes me retch.

    3. autogatos

      I’m pretty sure some still existed in the late 80s or early 90s because I think my giant box of crayons as a kid had one. (granted Joyce is still too young for that to be relevant)

      More importantly it also had a color called Macaroni and Cheese.

  55. @zombieundergrnd

    Is this dorm a Hellmouth? It feels like it is either a Hellmouth or an entry ramp into the Twilight Zone.

    1. thejeff

      I was kind of thinking there must be something in the water. Or the air, more likely – spread by that suspicious air conditioning they’ve got.

  56. Valerie

    So why does Zaph live in the girls’ dorm if he’s out as a guy? Wouldn’t he rather live in the boys’ dorm, like how Carla lives in the girls’ dorm?

    1. Valerie

      Oh man, having a Mary avatar makes this sound way gross somehow. PLEASE IGNORE MY UNFORTUNATE GRAVATAR WHEN ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS.

    2. Valerie

      Also I’m a dummy because after scrolling up
      a little I can see that someone else asked this already.

      1. Inahc

        well, you’re not the only one. 🙂

    3. Inahc

      iirc, he only came out recently, so either they haven’t got around to reassigning him yet or he doesn’t know it’s an option. (or maybe it’s only an option when your parents have as much influence as carla’s?)

  57. Chronos

    Is there some reference to the old Walkyverse I’m not getting? Did these characters interact with Joyce a lot in the old universe?

    1. laladoria

      Nope, I think it’s just a big change from how things are in her own dorm.

  58. Jim

    This is the first time I realized that Joyce falling off the exercise equipment was only yesterday in DOA time…

    1. Jim

      RRRRRGH! I hate that I always get to the comic after so many people have replied. There is no way I have the time to read all 100+ comments each day, even though odds are that someone has posted a sentiment somewhat related to what I want to say. But, alas, I am not a night owl.

  59. Moose

    It’s really only been a day in comic time since Joyce ruined her foot and needed it amputated?

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