154

Brush
Posted on April 7, 2021 by David M Willis
March's second Dumbing of Age Patreon bonus strip is about Getting Up, Killing, And Eating! All patrons can go check out this bonus strip and the hundred others!   And remember, you can pledge up to read tomorrow's strip today!

154 thoughts on “Brush”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “hotness is an assault weapon that requires appropriate training”

    1. Ana Chronistic

      hmm, butt taco AND Dexter

      1. Regalli

        Also Dinobot, I think an octopus? And Dab.

        Because apparently Dab Nightmares transcend dimensions. (https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/hes-the-reason-for-the-season … Which is creepy but by far the LESS fucked-up Dab strip, seriously Willis that April Fool’s one still freaks me out.)

        1. Lingo

          I don’t see Dinobot, but I do see Fuckface.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Proper safety protocols must be enforced in order to prevent uncontrolled release or dispersal of weapons grade hotness.

    3. Reltzik

      Does getting your hand burnt count as training?

    4. Deanatay

      Not in America. In some states, you don’t even need a ten-day waiting period!

  2. Sirksome

    With great hotness comes great responsibility! I’m sure our good boy Walky is ready for it.

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      I don’t think Walky is ready actually, maybe once he matures a bit. I don’t mean to shit on Walky(gods know how many people love to shit on him) but I do think he has some issues he could work on first.

      1. Sirksome

        People don’t give Walky enough credit. He’s not Joe. He doesn’t have the nature to capitalize on being hot. Hell a girl has been very obviously into him for potentially weeks now and he hasn’t noticed yet. Sal says he’s improved and he was okay before the timeskip. I think she’s just being pessimistic.

        1. Mr D

          Who are you and what did you do with the real Sirksome?

          (/s)

    2. Wizard

      Then there’s the Ocelotina take: with great hotness comes no responsibility whatsoever.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        No responsibility, but often a lot of kidnapping and/or bondage.

    3. Nayann Martinelli

      But in order to learn this lesson, Walky will have to enter a beauty contest, win it, find out the prize money was a bogus, let a criminal get away after stealing the Beauty King crown, find his uncle Ben surrogate dying on the dorm stairs due to said criminal getting away and become some sort of masked hero… Hey, wait a minute!

      1. Clif

        Why he’s almost there already.

    4. Reltzik

      … I’m sorry, but I’m having trouble mixing “Walky” and “responsibility” into a coherent concept without emulsifying it with a negation.

      Wait, I’ve got it. “Walky once dated someone who valued responsibility.” There, done.

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        Here’s the garnish: they broke up because of her sense of responsibility.

        Bon appétit!

        1. thejeff

          Here’s another little tidbit that doesn’t really match up: He had already realized he was probably going to need to break up with her so he didn’t hold her back. (That was forestalled by the pause suggestion.)

          He handled that whole situation more responsibly and with more maturity than I could have at that age, I suspect. More than a lot of college breakups I saw.

  3. Kyrik Michalowski

    I wish I was hot enough to get a free drink, but on the bright side I’m ugly enough to get a pity drink. That’s a bright side, right…? …guys?

    1. Doctor_Who

      Does it count if the drink is thrown in your face? If your mouth is open, that’s still a lot of drink you might get.

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        It would count but generally it all hits me in the eye so I miss out.

    2. Nayann Martinelli

      Bright side, you say? Here, have a drink on the house to cheer you up.

    3. Keulen

      I’m not sure if I’m hot or ugly enough to get free drinks. I’ve never gone to bars all that often anyway, even before the pandemic started.

  4. DarkoNeko

    No you too, Sal, seriously, you’re gonna catch a cold

    1. Reltzik

      She’s too hot to be worried about cold.

      …. okay, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t play in thermodynamic terms, but it sounds halfway pithy and that’s what’s important.

    2. Demoted Oblivious

      She’s also so cool that the cold never bothered her anyway.

  5. Reed

    i feel like i’m missing something is walky actually hot now and i’ blind or??? i feel like walky is not noticeably hotter or less hot.

    1. Sirksome

      You’re not blind. His design hasn’t actually changed. His hair did change as part of a small redesign along with Sal’s but no one actually commented on that despite interacting with him multiple times until today. Joyce as least has the excuse of being blind for the first few days.

      1. Regalli

        I’m reading it until proven otherwise as partly being a ‘he woke up and instead of having the usual bedhead his hair actually looks pretty good today’ that isn’t reflected in the simplified artstyle. (No way he styles it any more actively than a haphazard brushing, and honestly I wouldn’t be certain of that even.) As a bonus, that would let the story end with him waking up tomorrow and the spell is once more broken. Or from a nap, depending.

        1. Sirksome

          Perhaps it’s the same magic that made Sarah happy for a day? So here me out here, it’s the spirit of Mike. He’s travelling from person to person mystically changing the status quo for established characters. Yesterday it was Sarah, today it’s Walky, maybe tomorrow it will be someone else.

        2. Regalli

          Eh, admittedly I don’t style my hair more than brush it (though I will do a fair bit of brushing) and sometimes it does randomly turn out really well. Doesn’t strike me as particularly weird.

          Mike’s residual Ghost Energy making Joyce’s nose itch from the glasses, on the other hand, I’d totally buy. Not like he’d ever do something nice for Walky. Could also have a mundane explanation, but it’s supernatural and dickish which I guess is my line.

        3. Thag Simmons

          Who says he’s doing it to be nice?

        4. I am Nothing

          Making Walky hot for a day only to teach him some kind of lesson is totally something I’d believe Mike would do.

        5. Demoted Oblivious

          Maybe not nice, but Mike often had an angle that was about someone seeing truth or becoming a better person. He also chose to be a dick in his implementation.

        6. He Who Abides

          He really never had those angles. At least, not in the real world. In his head, maybe.

        7. Needfuldoer

          My theory is his bedhead just happens to ‘work’ today. Maybe tomorrow the magic will be gone, and he won’t be able to recapture it despite trying desperately.

          And balance will be restored.

        8. Regalli

          Exactly! Sometimes it just does that.

        9. Demoted Oblivious

          Does Walky do anything desperately? … (Hmmm.. Dorothy’s attention, avoiding maths, seeking chicken nugs…. ) Ok so he does, but desperately engaging in self care seems anathema to him.

        10. Demoted Oblivious

          Should’ve used *Hygiene instead of self care.

    2. Reltzik

      Maybe they realized that Lucy sees him as physically desirable, and that’s three women they know (Lucy, Amber, and Dorothy) that see him that way, so their brains reevaluate him through consensus bias.

      1. Fist_of_Life

        I feel like that leaves all the random people starting at him though. Surely they haven’t picked up on the feelings of 3 girls they’ve likely never met.

  6. RassilonTDavros

    Joyce’s comment in Panel 4 makes me think we may be about to get an actual exploration of Joyce’s long-hinted repressed bisexuality.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      And by “long-hinted,” I mean “a physical manifestation of Walkyverse Joyce’s repressed sexuality attempted to get Walky and Sal to have a threesome with her all the way back in 2001.”

    2. Regalli

      It’s her line in panel four after the ‘he’s only now attractive enough for Dorothy’ and ‘who aren’t attracted to each other’ lines this last week or so that really makes me think it. It’s been a while since we’ve had such steady hints.

      Alas, Sal is likely also straight. But Joyce has also DEFINITELY expressed attraction to Jennifer, whose relationship blowing up is totally inevitable, so…

      1. Devin

        I’m holding the Unsure line on Sal for the time being. I don’t feel like we’ve been presented with any reason to rule out any attractions on her part, aside from individuals (unless I’m forgetting something of course).

        1. Regalli

          This is true!

        2. Thag Simmons

          “Alas, Sal is extremely straight”

        3. Sirksome

          Does this prove Sal is straight cause to me it just proves Carla is a huge sub…or maybe a voyeur.

        4. Sirksome

          Oh, I guess there’s alt text. Sneaky sneaky alt text.

        5. Reltzik

          And we all know that the alt-text can always be trusted and is never ever sarcastic.

        6. Clif

          Good to know.

        7. Devin

          Maybe both? Could be both.

          (and by both I mean Carla is a sub and a voyeur)

        8. Sombrero

          Sal rejecting Marcie’s advances is an unbreakable proof of her straightness.

        9. Devin

          Yeah, my interpretation of this is geared towards individuals (specifically Marcie and Malaya), but it’s pretty vague. I certainly wouldn’t call it conclusive though.

        10. Devin

          Oh whoops, didn’t realize you were citing the alt text. Well, that’s Word of Willis right there.

        11. RassilonTDavros

          I think that may be the only time in history that Willis has given Word of Straight for one of their characters.

  7. Thag Simmons

    Y’know, we don’t know all that much about Sal’s time in Tennessee come to think about it

    1. Devin

      Truly, it remains a potentially rich source of flashback material.

  8. Antonio Tyler

    *looks in the mirror*

    So true Sal. So true

  9. Shitbird

    Joyce really said “No homo”

  10. Wagstaff

    Now just how can anything be the hottest and the coolest?

    Now I know why so many around the world loath the English language.

    1. Ray Radlein

      tbf, it’s also why so many around the world love the English language

      1. milu

        nah, this is only your average weirdness. every language has this sort of quirks.
        people hate the english language for much less entertaining reasons, like cultural imperialism :/
        (and maybe spelling.)

    2. Reltzik

      Actually, it kind of works.

      “Cool”, in this sense, refers to a low-emotion steadiness, usually born of confidence, self-assuredness, independence, and self-reliance. The guy who can shrug off an insult, dress any way he wants and own it, deal with adversity with a level head and without panic, etc, is cool. The key here is the emotional steadiness, not getting pushed into emotional highs by trivial things. Granted, it’s pushed its way into being a broader sense of “clever trick” or “I want to emulate that” or “that thing is held in high-social esteem”, but that’s how the word “cool” was originally applied to “cool” people.

      “Hot”, in this sense, means that it raises a strong emotion (desire) in OTHERS. This is in the same way that, say, a microwave emitter is hot. It isn’t actually hot, it just feels hot because it heats you up. (Yes, this is a thing that microwave emitters are getting designed for. I’ve seen it called an Active Denial System, a Heat Ray, or, my personal favorite, a Pain Ray Cannon. It’s a weapon designed for use in crowd control by police and prison guards. Fuuuunnnnnnn…)

      So Walky remains cool, by transferring all his heat to his surrounding admirers. It might break the second law of thermodynamics, but makes sense as a metaphor.

      1. milu

        +1 for metaphor parsing =)
        also, Pain Ray Cannons???!! first i hear about that, sounds terrifying
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System

    3. Needfuldoer

      English is rife with homophones and multiple context-based definitions. I guess that’s what happens when you patchwork a language together from bits and pieces of various Old World languages.

      1. milu

        wrong link ):

        1. Needfuldoer

          That happens sometimes. Dangit.

          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl3K63Rbygw

        2. milu

          that was a lot of fun =) didn’t know that channel! thanks!

          It should be noted that English is very much not alone in having had a massive influx of vocabulary from one or more other languages due to historical stuff. Persian and Turkish have many redundant Arabic loanwords because of their long Muslim history. Most colonized languages have massively “borrowed” words from their colonizers. Languages spoken by ethnic minorities within nation-states will often remain oral and informal, while all the words for stuff that gets taught at school and written about in books will come from the State language.

  11. Stephen Bierce

    Just like me
    They long to be
    Close To You!

  12. Proto_Eevee

    So many girls want to touch my hair. It’s super annoying

    1. Clif

      Don’t be selfish. It’s nice to share.

    2. Reltzik

      In middle school, I was a guy with long, full-bodied red hair down to below my shoulder-blades, right around when half the girls in my age cohort started awakening to such things.

      In retrospect, I should have just happily accepted and enjoyed when they asked to run their hands through my hair rather than cringing in awkward and being overcome with a million “okay but what does this REALLY mean” doubts and questions. Middle-school me was an idiot.

    3. Jhon

      Compromise. Let’s all play with Sal’s hair.

  13. Sporky

    I love “person (girl category)”

    1. RassilonTDavros

      She’s really bad at hiding it.

  14. woobie

    Sal is yum.
    Except for the cigs.

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      My first serious girlfriend smoked. While the actual smoking bothered me, the effect on how she smelled and tasted was more nuanced. For years after we broke up, I found myself aroused by the scent of tobacco due to the association.

      My wife, meanwhile, grew up in a smoking household and hates the smell – even a faint whiff of second hand smoke sends her into coughing fits.

      We are both, however, fond of “tobacco notes” in perfume. Which are not produced with real tobacco.

      1. StClair

        The latter is me – only non-smoker/tobacco user in a smoking household. It doesn’t make me cough, but I hate the smell, and refuse to touch ashes, butts/spent filters etc with bare hands; might as well be poop to me.

      2. Needfuldoer

        Nobody in my immediate family smokes, but all four grandparents did. Mom remembers when grandpa’s buddies would come over, and she’d put a damp towel in front of her bedroom door to stop the hazy cigar smoke from getting in. Dad says his dad would light up for almost anything from answering the phone to getting the mail, like a Pavlovian response.

        Nobody in my immediate family smokes, but the lingering smell afterward doesn’t bother me. I still don’t want to be near someone when they’re smoking, though.

  15. Suet

    While Walky never really has a rabbit’s foot up his bum, I also am in favor of not stroking his ego even further.

  16. BBCC

    I wanna disagree that he’d be an asshole, but lbr, Walky will never let them live it down.

    Mentor him, Sal.

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      I dob’t think he’d be as bad as Joe, at least but yeah Sal mentoring him would help. That is if Walky listens, and if(and that’s a big if) Sal wants to help.

  17. Bagge

    Teach him your hot ways, Sal. Teach him to use his hotness responsibly.

    I can’t imagine that conversation being anything but hilarious.

    1. darkgloomie

      Nooo I dont want Sal to pull an Uncle Ben to inspire Walky to use hit hotness for good

    2. Mr D

      No, please, that’s way too close to yesterday’s incest jokes.

      1. Bagge

        …I’m kinda glad I didn’t read those

        1. Bagge

          I was thinking more of ‘the talk’ kinda way

    3. Keulen

      I’m assuming that conversation would be very awkward, so yeah probably hilarious.

  18. Newllend(henryvolt)

    If it’s that much of a distraction just sneak into his room at night and cut of a lock of his hair so it be less effective.

    Also Sal’s kind right Walky has to much unearned confidence already he does not need this ego boost.

    1. milu

      biblical

  19. Savail

    Weird. In that first panel, Walky reminds me a lot of Asher? I think I’d already have attributed Sal’s responses in the last few panels to experiences with Asher, but with that first panel, even more so.

    1. Regalli

      It’s something about that particular Vaguely Smiling facial expression, for one thing. It’s one of Asher’s character art expressions.

      1. Rotunda

        Dorothy has shown that wavy smile at times lately, too.

      2. Savail

        YES! THANK YOU! That’s exactly what it was.

        1. Regalli

          *Thumbs up* Happy to help make brain associations clearer!

  20. Mordecai

    Just to clarify my comment on Sal being reigning champion, she won ‘DOA Hottest Lady’ in 2011 and 2013-2016, the only years the poll was up.

    I wonder how that would go now? I think her curly hair would defend her title.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      I’m guessing those polls were dropped for being… entirely too close to Joe’s “do list” for comfort.

      …but yeah, she’d likely still win.

      1. Mordecai

        There were Hottest Dude polls each time as well, I should probably mention. Mike won the first 3, Ethan won the last 2.

      2. Spencer

        There are official porn comics of the series made by David Willis themself.

        1. RassilonTDavros

          …I’m not sure I quite get how that relates? Like, I know about the Slipshines. Drawing characters having sex isn’t inherently objectifying them. But asking people to vote on which lady is the hottest and creating a ranking from that? I’m honestly struggling to see the difference between that and Joe creating a huge spreadsheet ranking them on a scale of one to ten. Beyond the fact that DoA’s cast is fictional relative to us but not relative to Joe, anyway– I suppose that could be a factor.

  21. StClair

    Sal speaks great wisdom here.

  22. Jane

    Joyce, conversations like this are why so many people around you think you’re bisexual.

    1. Devin

      Not to mention so many readers

      1. milu

        not to mention the writer

  23. Rose by Any Other Name

    Alt Text: The Rumors are True
    Me, reading: “The Rumor Come Out: Does Joyce Brown is Bisexual?”

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      If it isn’t obvious, I tend to free-associate. A lot.
      Also, if the comment posts twice, apologies. Had a website malfunction.

    2. Victor

      So, my understanding is that Joyce is sort of autobiographical Willis. And I don’t think Willis considers himself bi.

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        **flat affect**
        … really?

        I make a sick ‘Does Bruno Mars is gay’ reference, and the only response is someone Mansplaining to me information on the fricken wiki? And, somehow worse yet, only doing so to my comment and not the thread on the actual subject of Joyce’s bisexuality directly above mine?

        Seriously, what the actual fuck?

        1. milu

          i’d like to extend my heartfelt condolences on your joke.

          but seriously. hate it when that happens. or worse still, when i’m the one writing the dumbass tone-deaf comment that walks all over someone else’s brilliant witticism. i murdered a joke like that, was it yesterday or the day before? i was mortified.

          Anyway shame on you, Victor. booooo

        2. Rose by Any Other Name

          … can’t tell if serious or sarcastic, but smiled either way, so I’m calling it a win. ^^

        3. milu

          I was serious! Who was it said that humour is too serious a business to be left to clowns?
          anyway glad I made you smile 🙂

        4. Needfuldoer

          ? ManSPLAAAIN
          ALL my problems back to me
          Save MEEEEE
          ALL of your “um, actually”s ?

      2. Aviana

        Pretty sure that only aspects of Joyce are autobiographical, so there’s room for flexibility on this.

  24. nobilis

    So Joyce is St. Peter now?
    (in the panel from the bonus strip)

    1. BenRG

      Willis comes from a Christian background and you need to consider that when interpreting the scene. The context here is that Joyce is having her own version of a dream that Peter had where God told him not to continue to feel that he has to reject non-Jewish things as ‘unclean’. I haven’t seen that strip but I’m assuming that Willis is explaining in metaphorical terms how, in her head, Joyce started to question her parents’ standards of what is ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’.

      1. C.T Phipps

        I took as the much less esoteric, “Joyce will not eat meat that touches itself.”

        Because she’s got a very un-diagnosed mild autism similar to my diagnosed one.

    2. Amos Batista

      I’ve to check the Bible. Wow, that was nice.

  25. ADdude

    Willis is just talking about personal experience through Sal at the end.

  26. Beau Kirin Maysey

    the yearning really coming in waves for Joyce now, huh?

  27. Bogeywoman

    I have done the hotness for drinks schtick sorta accidentally. It was the funniest interaction with straight men I have ever had.

  28. JessWitt

    Sal’s life lessons on properly harnessing being hot could land her a columnist position in the school paper.

    1. BenRG

      “Sex and the Campus” by Sal Walters

      I’m thinking that she’d use her Walkyverse adoptive name just because she can’t be bothered to deal with the headache of Linda’s back-seat commentary and attempts to ‘punish’ her for having opinions and ideas of her own.

      1. JessWitt

        Yeah a pseudonym would be handy. I’d substitute ”Marcella” for the first name, an homage to Marcy.

  29. Josh Spicer

    Okay we really don’t have to have this be a thing.

  30. BenRG

    So, in essence, what Sal is saying is that Walky is entering a dangerous time when he will be tempted by the Dark Side of the Hotness.

    1. Clif

      That is what I understood.

    2. Needfuldoer

      Just like Darth Plagueis the Hot.

      It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you.

  31. Romanticide

    You don’t brush curly hair unless you wet it first… you just don’t D: No Joyce, don’t D:

  32. Sam

    People talkin’ about panel 4 as if that’s what pegs people onto Joyce’s bisexuality, when she explicitly said in the last comic that Walky is only just now hot enough for Dorothy, suggesting that she herself thinks Dorothy is hot a.f.w

  33. Keulen

    DoA Book 11: Considering Your Upbringing, I’m Flabbergasted You’re Not More Weird

  34. milu

    oooh that’s good

    1. milu

      I meant that as a reply to Keulen

  35. wilddeath

    I…. don’t see it. What has changed if anything? No seriously, is he hot? I find him as bland and generic as I ever did. which is bad enough with my Prosopagnosia. It is already really hard to appreciate comics when you can’t recognize faces, but its supremely annoying when you cant recognize faces and a major plot point depends on being able to do so. So legit i ask, does he actually look any different?

    1. milu

      No, he looks exactly the same as the day before. (Some claim his hair was a bit different after the timeskip, but not shockingly so, and that was like 3 days ago anyway)

      1. wilddeath

        thank you. much appreciated.

  36. Wishwater

    Joyce not doing anything to dispel those bi suspicions!

  37. Sombrero

    Panel 1 Walky = Caramel Asher

    1. Sombrero

      (plus brushable hair)

      1. Needfuldoer

        With borrowed Nintendo accessory and real Nachitos stains! Says seven different phrases! Batteries not included!

  38. Alan in DC

    Not to change the subject, but today’s syndicated Mark Trail comic strip in the Washington Post has Mark in the back of a vehicle with an iguana sitting on his head.

    See you in court, Mark.

  39. Rabisch

    Sal has a point. Still, I want to see Dorothy’s reaction.

  40. Proto

    “Hotness is a doorway to many abilities to some would consider… unnatural.”

  41. Arianod

    Walky is starting to look like Asher, and that in itself is worrying.

    1. hof1991

      Now he just needs a cigarette and a motorcycle and he would look like Asher….and like Sal.

  42. BenRG

    I’m sort of wondering if Sarah noticed that the doe-eyed look Joyce gives Sal is the same as the one Lucy gives Walky?

  43. Apollo

    This reminds me of when I was in college and people started thinking I was hot. Wish I had this support system

  44. Smooti

    C’mon, Joyce, look, I also used to think I just admired girls that were super hot and definitely wanted to brush their hair and wear their clothes for totally just friendship reasons

    and now I’m gay. I give Joyce like, one more semester their time.

    1. Bunivasal

      Looki by forward to Joyce’s coming out in 2032

    2. He Who Abides

      Did you want to bury yourself in their bosoms for warmth as well?

      That thing she said to Jennifer, many moons ago when she was still Billie.

  45. Jem

    Just girl category? Is anyone hotter than Sal!?!

  46. Owlmirror

    It’s mentioned above, but I just thought I’d point out that there’s a WikiP page for the NT scene that the Patreon panel is referencing:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter%27s_vision_of_a_sheet_with_animals

    Acts 10:11-16,28 and Acts 11:4-9

  47. Mister Gray

    With great hotness, comes great responsibility.

  48. Avian Maria

    Ok, they’re officially the Wonder Twins now. I want them to fight crime together and for Walky to occasionally turn into water in the form of crying or pissing himself in fear while Sal gets all “Form of Eagle Style” and kicks someone from above.

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