144

Formally
Posted on October 18, 2021 by David M Willis

144 thoughts on “Formally”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Defying Gravity still applicable

    1. King Daniel

      She’s flyin’ high~

  2. John Smith

    That’s fair.

    1. Clif

      And accurate.

    2. Decidedly Orthogonal

      To be fair Joe set that one up for Sal to let him walk into it. He’s really off his game ain’t he?

      1. Clif

        He’s had a very confusing day, first with Dan and then with Joyce.

        1. Zee

          I hope we get a comic at the end of this day where Joe just lays down in bed like “Nah, today didn’t happen.”

      2. MacareuxMoine

        Yeah, I don’t think it’s normal for him to consider himself to be addressed as ‘it’.

  3. Yotomoe

    https://imgur.com/a/3AHMug5
    I promised I would if you were good and you were good.

    1. A Red Balloon

      This looks delicious!

      Thank you!

      1. Clif

        You are a public servant.

    2. Josh Spicer

      https://i.imgur.com/pQP5dCG.jpg

      1. Schpoonman

        Bingo.

    3. newlland(Henryvolt)

      ?

    4. Rose by Any Other Name

      Licky style indeed.

    5. Yotomoe

      Confidentially part of me wanted to go even further,mostly cuz I’ve got a bit of an oral fixation 😛

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        I mean, I’m not gonna complain.
        Is anyone else here gonna complain if Yotomoe goes further?

        1. A Red Balloon

          I won’t complain!

          Art’s like a gas man — like a helium balloon free and released to go all kinds of places!

        2. Yotomoe

          Oh yeah it was mostly laziness, plus I have that animation thing to work on. Also I’m bad at posing people for the sexy stuff 😛

        3. Rose by Any Other Name

          Fair.
          Just sayin… if you ever did… I don’t think anyone would mind.

        4. The Wellerman

          Looking at your art, you don’t seem too bad at posing!

          Also, and I speak from experience, there’s nothing wrong with using references when you need to!

          Hirohiko Araki sure as hell uses them!

        5. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Dude what? First off, I doubt that’s true, but will allow a “practice makes perfect.” But even then, I’ve gotta correct you, even though you’re the expert:

          I’m bad at posing people for the [sexier] stuff

          Your work is already damn sexy, so must only be refering to stuff that is more so.

      2. carcinoGeneticist

        Love your pics, Yoto. Do you have an archive somewhere that I could follow, rather than hoping I notice you post something on whatever days I happen to thoroughly read comments?

        1. Yotomoe

          Literally click on my name 😀

        2. carcinoGeneticist

          Oh sweet thanks. Didn’t realize that was even a thing you could do.

        3. Yotomoe

          Happy to help!

    6. Wizard

      Always good to be thorough.

    7. acher4

      wow, that’s…

      that’s amazing!
      Thanks 🙂

    8. Schpoonman

      Sweet merciful Neptune.

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        Neptune? God of the seas was, I thought, hardly percieved as merciful. At best mercenary, and at worst pure malevolence.

        1. Schpoonman

          Good thing it’s a Spongebob reference, then.

        2. Spencer

          Did they ever square why there were two of them?

        3. Yotomoe

          I think there’s 3 of them.

        4. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Spongebob? That’s likely having to be a cuboid or at least a rectanglar situation. He’s not really square himself, nor are his pants, despite the name.

          Yoto’s point of there being 3 of them supports this being a cubical scenario.

    9. Amós Batista

      yes

    10. Keulen

      Glorious.

    11. Roborat

      As always, excellent work.

  4. RassilonTDavros

    D’awww

    1. Clif

      Yeah. Here we were all set to see Daisy’s reaction to Walky’s comic. How could Willis do this to us?

      1. Thag Simmons

        Walky and Lucy were in a taco bell, having lunch before the meeting with Daisy. With this cutaway they will presumably make their way to the meeting, and we’ll cut back to them when they arrive

        1. thejeff

          Meeting Joyce there of course.

        2. a/snow/mous/e

          and then Daisy will be like “I was just gonna take the first submission but if you’re here at the same time I guess we’ll run TWO comics”

  5. Sirksome

    Joes may appear more impressive then they really are.

  6. newlland(Henryvolt)

    A+ banter I mean that genuinely this is some good stuff.

  7. Jon

    Well heck, there goes my “Joe & Joyce talk it out” theory

    1. Spencer

      Pff why would Joe ever talk it out with Joyce?

      He’s Shallow Friend! Oh sure he can step up to the plate if no one’s available like he did that one time totally begrudgingly and really accidentally when you think about it, but Dorothy is right there, so she’ll take care of it since she’s the Better, perhaps Best Friend and thus clearly able to give way better and more helpful advice to Joyce than Joe ever could.

      It’s a good thing Dorothy was one of the first to learn Joyce is an atheist, the violent trauma response that motivated her becoming one, her visible confusion on what it means to be an atheist when a lack of faith doesn’t suddenly automatically fill all the space left by the religious indoctrination with the 100% accurate true facts that Joyce is capable of parsing through using terms she can easily grasp, and how that lack of belief has crawled so deeply into Joyce that she’s begun to question what point there is in acting as the person she actually is when that person was raised by religious fundamentalists and Joyce perceives herself as just something else they made her believe existed.

      Simple, right?

    2. Segnosaur

      Last time we saw joyce she was leaving the room and nobody was following her. She and joe may talk about recent events but it won’t be for a while.

    3. Scoops!

      Maybe now Joe will put a sock on the doorknob and hang out in the hallway.

    4. alongcameaspider

      I wonder if Joe is gonna tell Danny and Sal about his day and Sal will be the one to talk to Joyce about it

      Thinking about it she’s probably a decent choice, she can sympathize with rebelling against one’s upbringing but is still willing to call out shitty attitudes that Joyce is starting to show.

      Plus Joyce idolized her so if someone can get through to her right now she can

      1. Agemegos

        I don’t think Sal came back with Danny to his room in order to talk to Joe.

        1. JBento

          I don’t think anybody ever comes to their room to TALK to JOE.

        2. Agemegos

          And Joe likes it that way!

        3. Reltzik

          Well, Joyce might. Or Danny. But no, not a common occurrence.

    5. justin8448

      I still think Joe will play some role it talking Joyce down from her new perch. It’s gonna be a while though.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Yup. The plot brought the conflict to him for a reason!

  8. JepMZ

    Oh man, I completely forgot she only uses windows. I wonder if her power cancels out in proximity with Dina’s door teleportation powers

    1. Reltzik

      Sal uses doors, and will do so for at least as long as the half-bath is lacking a window.

    2. Thag Simmons

      It’s less a power and more of a skill

    3. thejeff

      I don’t really recall her using windows much since the early days of the strip. It was focused on in early conflict with Jennifer and she’d at least somewhat stopped doing it. She’s probably reverting due to stress over this new relationship thing.

      And for the Sly Sirs soft reboot of course.

  9. Spencer

    I kindaaaaa feel I’m looking for the most positive interpretation of this strip instead of it definitely being there, but I like the idea that Sal not being willing to just go through his door to see him yet and so she much more sensibly climbs the window is something Danny’s fine with letting her work through on her own, and then Sal just did something weird in front of someone else and she doesn’t care enough to get defensive, she’s just laughing it off (though I imagine it helps when that someone is Joe).

    1. Viktoria

      Danny has an established history of being willing to go along with what his GF wants, in both good and bad ways. Since this is harmless and fun, it’s definitely good that he’s going along with it.
      Sal, meanwhile, actively works at ignoring what people think. Again, can be either good or bad, but if going through windows is easier for her, then doing it and ignoring anyone who shames her is a positive IMO.

      1. Miri

        I saw it as a sweet “yeah, she finds some stuff difficult but she’s working on it and I both accept her as she is and support her efforts in becoming a happier, more confident person, and feel honoured she’s comfortable being herself around me” too <3 Also, it's Listbro. Sal doesn't care about Listbro's opinion of her! I can see her outright questioning why they're friends…

        1. Miri

          (“they” being Joe and Danny, not Joe and Sal. I think she may consider Joe “grudgingly acquantied via proximity and connections to Danny” rather than friendship (and Joe, “would like to connect, hur hur, errr – no – wait – BAD BRAIN”)

      2. Keulen

        It’s harmless and fun as long as Sal doesn’t fall and hurt herself while trying to climb through a window. But I’m assuming Sal has a lot of experience climbing windows by now.

      3. HeatherJean

        “Sal, meanwhile, actively works at ignoring what people think.”

        Despite climbing up a building to avoid being seen going into notorious Joe’s notorious room.

        1. thejeff

          I don’t think she’s even hinted that’s her motivation.

          More that she’s struggling with doing something normal like dating Danny and is overcompensating by reverting to her old window climbing ways.

  10. Tan

    Solid burn

  11. Thag Simmons

    Red Jacket Sal is one fancy hat away from a decent Carmen Sandiego cosplay.

    1. Spencer

      I’m much more into Green Jacket Sal since Sal III: Castle of Cagliostro is my favourite.

    2. Keulen

      If she ever does an actual Carmen Sandiego cosplay, Danny should cosplay as Waldo.

  12. Axel

    so first he gets a crush on a dorothy lookalike, then he gets a crush on someone who enters through windows like amazigirl

    1. Axel

      /dates

    2. King Daniel

      Wait, Sal isn’t Amazi-Girl?

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Of course not, Amazi-Girl is Spider-Caaaaaaaagh

        (the commenter was found dead shortly after writing this. the cause was believed to be strangulation)

        1. Jamie

          Is that not how you pronounce “Car”?

        2. King Daniel

          No, you pronounce it “Koughre”.

        3. Axel

          Kyogre?

        4. Delicious Taffy

          It is if you’re a bird in a huff.

        5. Roborat

          In Boston, yes.

    3. Yotomoe

      Man, you’ve kinda made me realize that Danny’s actually had a lot of love interests. Like sure he hasn’t actually been banging all that much but he’s had more “dates” in a semester than I’ve had in my whole life. Joe should be proud.

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        You know… I didn’t go on many dates either.
        I had a tendency to move quickly past the “date” part of dating to the “in a relationship” phase which had lots of spending time together but not a lot of actual ‘dates’.

        1. Yotomoe

          I’ve only had one Girlfriend and that was in high school over 10 years ago. I’m just bad at putting myself out there. Also I’m kind of a weirdo so I need to find other weirdos.

        2. newlland(Henryvolt)

          Fellow member of the lonely hearts club.

        3. Deanatay

          Your Own Personal Weirdo is out there, Yoto. Don’t give up hope!

        4. marcus erronius

          ? Your own personal weirdo ?
          ? Someone to love your quirks, forget all the jerks ?
          REACH OUT AND BE STRANGE

        5. Steamweed

          What mode did I hear this in?

          Depeche Mode.

      2. Spencer

        No Need For Danny

      3. drs

        Dorothy, Billie trying to bed him, Amazi-girl, Ethan, Sal…

        1. Yotomoe

          Here I am making the WALKY harem when really Danny is the true Harem protagonist.

        2. Schpoonman

          Oh, god, he even started out DoA as a borderline featureless protagonist-type, too.

        3. Thag Simmons

          Danny had five love interests over half of a year, two of which barely count.

          Walky had like half the campus thirsting over him for a day.

        4. Yotomoe

          I guess it depends on what kinda harem anime you’re watching cuz a lot of them do have the MC slowly amass more and more love interests as the series goes on.

      4. Sombrero

        Dan has the most varied (on-screen) love life of all the cast. You can add Ethan to the crush list, and remember he almost banged Billie without the need of dating first and without even having a crush on her.

        1. thejeff

          Thinking about it, it’s kind of weird in retrospect that there was literally no fallout from that Danny/Billie incident. I don’t think it’s even been alluded to past the immediate aftermath with Joe and Amber. They’ve rarely interacted, but there’s also been no indication either of them is awkward around the other or even remembers it.

        2. Spencer

          Well yeah because they’ve spoken exactly once since.

          He hit on her like a dweeb and then when Danny apologized he rambled that he was in a weird place after Dorothy and that Billie was obviously way out of his league because she had to be a cheerleader or something, and for fairly obvious reasons that provoked a reaction in her but it was still just “almost had sex with this guy and then did not actually have sex.”

          Then like two years later he saw her again and she told him he wasn’t getting another shot, and that’s when Danny rambled about being Amazi-Girl’s boyfriend and how worried he was not being in contact with her (apropos of nothing to Billie, of course) so she pointed him in the direction of Amazi-Girl’s secret identity: Sal.

          It’d be weird if she remembered him at all after that, though it might end up kinda funny when she finds out Sal has hooked up with that one dork who turned her down and then came crawling back for the goods, and obviously Sal is only dating him because she’s jealous of her being with Asher.

          And then Danny just goes “oh was that you? I’m sorry, I totally forgot about you” but without a single hint of malice and then every blood cell on Jennifer’s face explodes at once killing her instantly.

        3. thejeff

          Oh, I didn’t remember that scene with him looking for AG. I withdraw the complaint. That’s exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of.

      5. Heatth

        Danny seems the kind of person who doesn’t know how to not be dating someone at any given time.

        1. Spencer

          He’d been single for five years before this chapter.

          It was a whole thing where he found value in himself through his dapper hat and ukulele that culminated in him standing up for himself and speaking his mind in front of Ethan at the hospital, which isn’t as, like, clear-cut heroic as I may be making it sound like, more so that it was the moment Danny was in front of someone he had the hots for and the script is supposed to be that Danny slavishly submits himself and keeps his mouth shut of any potential problem hoping it’ll all work out, and instead he stood by the fact that Mike being in a coma sucks and it sucked that he made a crack about it, but it’s not something he wouldn’t have felt had Mike not been a horrible bastard person all the time and to Ethan and Amber in particular, and once Ethan outright said (almost certainly irrationally in anger, to be fair, and all of this has been made worse because Mike’s dead and that fight they had is never gonna get better) that he’d let Mike laugh at Danny for being in a coma because Mike just matters more, that was it, Danny got it that he didn’t need to put up with shit like that from anyone ever again.

        2. Jamie

          Five years out-of-universe. In-universe, it’s been about two months: basically the whole timeskip plus the bit you mentioned.

        3. Spencer

          I’m saying Danny got dumped, spent time on himself he never has, and when it came time for him to fall into his pattern he valued himself enough for him and Ethan to mutually tell the other to take a hike.

          I’m saying Danny is now a person who know not to date someone at any given time/

        4. Alex

          People love to refer to that incident as Danning things up, but I thought it was a positive development for him. He could have just gone along with the tide of refusing to speak ill of the dead but instead he spoke up about the kind of person Mike was.

        5. Spencer

          It is the single most pivotal moment in Danny’s character development, yeah.

          It’s nice to go the distance for someone you care about, but you gotta learn how to do it for your own sake too.

  13. Andy

    And once again, Sal enters Danny’s room for the first time via window. Now the circle is complete.

  14. Bicycle Bill

    Plays “Defying Gravity” (from Wicked) on the hacked Muzak.

  15. Cattleprod

    Searching sal+joe gets… 8 results? And their first interaction was in March 2018, 7.5 years into the strip? Mind blown.

    1. A Red Balloon

      I didn’t know you could search more than one at a time!

      Well, live and learn, I guess.

      1. Cattleprod

        Vitally important when I’m trying to remember what sort of relationship two characters have.

    2. Thag Simmons

      They interacted all of one time prior to this chapter

  16. Regalli

    Doors are for people who CAN’T climb in through the windows.

    Those people aren’t nearly as fun as Sal.

  17. ADLegend21

    [TFS Vegeta voice] OH MY GOD SHE’S SO GOD DAMN COOL!

    1. Schpoonman

      This is not a intersection of references I was expecting but I am here for it.

    2. Spencer

      I have found the perfect metaphor.

      Roomies Danny is 1992 Broly.

      DoA!Danny is In-Canon Super Broly

      1. RassilonTDavros

        …Oh my Super Kami Dende, you’re absolutely right.

        Geez, I can still remember what a shock it was to find myself actually caring about Broly as a character.

  18. BBCC

    Sal defies all, gravity included.

  19. brionl

    At least she didn’t come in through the bathroom window.

    1. Opus the Poet

      She wasn’t protected by a silver spoon.

      1. OBBWG

        She doesn’t suck her thumb.

  20. drs

    She looks so happy responding to Joe’s straight line.

    1. Jamie

      Joe already got his Good Quip in. It’s Sal’s turn, and she did okay.

  21. CJ

    Chiming in just to mention that the poll question is the wrong question. It’s not about who is right in the Joyce/Becky. If they can’t get past that question, they won‘t find a solution.

    1. Sombrero

      So your answer is “neither of them”, not even the poll.

    2. Jamie

      But it’s better for engagement if there’s a Team Joyce and Team Becky, because rabid fandoms are engaged fandoms.

      Ignoring Twilight, see the marketing for Captain America: Civil War.

    3. Spencer

      That’s why half the options are rejecting that one of them is innately right in how they acted and the other fell short.

  22. acher4

    It feels really nostalgic seeing those three in this room.

    1. King Daniel

      This is actually the first time Dumbing of Age has had all three in the same room!

      1. Delicious Taffy

        *checks Joe+Sal tags* Huh. Whaddya know? Apparently Sal and Joe hadn’t even appeared in the same strip until Faz’s infiltration. Unless the combined tag search is faulty?

        1. King Daniel

          The hover text for the first Joe+Sal+Faz strip mentions how it’s DoA’s first time having Joe and Sal together, so I would assume it’s correct.

  23. Rabisch

    Nice to see how Danny and Sal are totally fine having different way to enter in his room♡. Joe, on the other hand, seems to have doubts and be weirded out by Sal. That’s a new thing! Joe may ends up admiring and respect Sal very much and be really happy for Danny! Or just being a spectator of another weird situation he see around him.

  24. Mr.Morningstar

    Sal and Gravity have an understanding

    It doesnt mess with her, and she mostly plays by its rules.

    Mostly

    1. MacareuxMoine

      I went through all the comic to find a proof that Sal is affected by Gravity, and the only thing I could find was this childhood memory where it stopped her from climbing higher up on Casa de Marcie.

      1. thejeff

        She learned to ignore Gravity from Marcie.

  25. Keulen

    Now I’m imagining Sal gets up to Danny’s window like this.

  26. ValdVin

    Is that the biggest smile we’ve ever seen out of Sal?

  27. Deanatay

    Joe’s Nice Guy t-shirt is STILL inaccurate.

    Sal’s skeptical look in panel 4 is her thinking, “Wrong.”

  28. Alex

    She’s so cute in that last panel. I love seeing her happy.

  29. Icalasari

    God I hope this is one relationship that stays stable and healthy (not drama free, few relationships are entirely drama free, but stable and healthy) as a balance to every other relationship in this comic

    1. Spencer

      *nervous sweating*

    2. Segnosaur

      Hopefully if there is Drama, its drama that brings them closer together.

      (Maybe Danny’s family is upset he’s dating a “criminal” while Sal’s family is happy he’s dating a nice white boy, as opposed to whom Walky is dating.)

    3. Thag Simmons

      Not likely

  30. zee

    That’s the fun thing about black girls, we don’t have to care out gravity. Our hair naturally defies it :3

  31. Bagge

    Sal’s smug smile is the best

  32. Disastroid

    Sal’s heart hasn’t known gravity for the last couple of days

  33. darkoneko

    …I love Today’s Sal

  34. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Slartibeast puts “Gravity Storm” on hacked Muzack.

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