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Unforeseen
Posted on March 31, 2021 by David M Willis
The Dumbing of Age Book 10 Kickstarter is plugging along!  This morning we added a character magnet of Jacob's brother Harrison and his nephew Jaime!  As of this writing, we're about $800 from unlocking character magnets for Agatha and Meredith.  I might have to come back before midnight and add them into this newspost.  We'll see.

133 thoughts on “Unforeseen”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    well now I have MORE questions

    like did you two make the mistake of going as a horse

    1. Ana Chronistic

      *cue demands for HALLOWEEEEEEEN FLASHBACKS in 3… 2…*

      1. Bryy

        *breathes heavily*
        HALLOWEEN FLASHBACK ARC!

        1. uze

          Problem is, it could easily last two years!

    2. Sirksome

      Oh that’s bad. No matter whose takes what, someone’s always farting into the face of someone else! Total relationship killer!

      1. Despite Rage

        Better or worse if somebody realizes a new kink?

    3. RassilonTDavros

      Can’t be worse than going as a Jason.

    4. Yotomoe

      They both showed up as the back half.

      1. ValdVin

        I always wondered what the Bizarro version of Dr. Doolittle’s Push-me-Pull-you would look like.

    5. C.T Phipps

      Dina discovered magic exists and quantum mechanics means empiricism is inherently flawed.

      1. Clif

        Empiricism is inherently flawed. I mean, it’s the best tool we’ve got, but it’s not where we live.

    6. Deanatay

      He’s revisiting Halloween NOW??!?!!? Just when my rage had cooled to a simmer… time to stoke it back up to a roiling boil again…

  2. Sirksome

    Halloween? That just increases the chances it was something minor and stupid.

    1. tim gueguen

      Walky dressed up as Amazi-girl.

      1. Sirksome

        Wait, that’s actually plausible. Maybe not Amazi-girl specifically but that Night Guy outfit had to come from somewhere.

        1. RassilonTDavros

          He went as the one thing that scares him more than anything else… Mike.

          …who, unbeknownst to Walky, had just succumbed to his injuries earlier that day.

    2. Mariah Hardnett

      Prediction walky thought it would be funny to dress up as mike for halloween and thats why amber dumped him. Its makes since because walky has had a very uncaring attitude toward mikes death i honestly wouldnt put it past him to do something insensitive.

      1. Merbrat

        Amber started talking to “Ghost Mike” as usual, and it got weird, since it was actually Walky.

      2. Madock345

        I don’t think uncaring is the right word. It’s been basically directly stated that he’s been using humor to process his trauma over Mike’s death.

        1. Needfuldoer

          He’s been using humor to process his trauma over Mike’s death everything.

      3. Alex

        I… actually think this might be right on the money.

        Mike was pretty shitty to Walky, I don’t blame him for his ambivalence.

        1. thejeff

          I think ambivalence closer than uncaring. On the one hand, Mike was a complete asshole to him and Walky’s life has to be vastly better not living with him. On the other, Mike died and that’s definitely going to twist anyone up inside. To make it worse, he died heroically saving Amber, which means Walky certainly feels grateful to the abusive asshole for that.
          But also relieved for not having to deal with him. And guilty for feeling relieved.

    3. Fist_of_Life

      Minor and stupid, probably, but it also raises the chances that it happened in some sort of interesting way.

  3. Kyrik Michalowski

    Of course Willis would torture us with referring to things that happened during the time skip.

    1. SadnessWithASmile

      I mean, this isn’t the first case… he’s also got Ruth and Jennifer split up and I for one desperately want them both (and also Dorothy, and a couple others if possible) to spill the tea. (I am terrible for wanting to hear the latest gossip; watching the drama in fiction is how I avoid being a terrible person to my friends.)

      1. BarerMender

        I wonder if Halloween is what got Ruth & Billie.

        1. He Who Abides

          I suspect that one of them fell off the wagon hard.

    2. Andy

      It’s the catch-22 of this comic. Either we have to wait another 30 years to get to this point, or Willis timeskips and we don’t know what happened.

    3. butts

      the timeskip was just a smokescreen for him to refill his stock of secret character backstory that will be slowly revealed over the course of the next decade

  4. RassilonTDavros

    “Halloween” is the new “Convenience Store Hold-Up.”

    1. Newllend(henryvolt)

      No, Halloween to Walky is what promnight was to Ethan.

  5. Reed

    so your costume choice was that bad walky?

  6. Sam

    This guarantees flashbacks of Halloween.

    1. Bryy

      I, for one, welcome our new 90 strips of Halloween.

    2. Keulen

      I hope so, because I’m still annoyed that we skipped over Halloween and a bunch of other stuff as well.

    3. Deanatay

      WE’D BETTER SEE COSTUMES, DAMMIT

  7. Cattleprod

    Oh wow, Halloween flashback arc?

    1. Bryy

      If there is a future Halloween Only book, I will kickstart it so fucking hard.

  8. Stephen Bierce

    *plays The Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Running” on the hacked Muzak*

    1. Needfuldoer

      I saw them live a couple years ago, they’ve still got it. (Though I guess a mellow-paced dad rock band would get plenty of mileage out of their “it”…)

      They were supposed to do a 50th anniversary tour with Michael Macdonald and Tom Johnston last year. Maybe they bumped it out to a 51st?

      1. Opus the Poet

        They can still celebrate 50 years on the 51st.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Looks like they’re doing exactly that!

          And they made a quarantine music video with Peter Frampton last fall, so that’s cool too.

  9. ubertenorman

    “there’s always more halloweens” could almost be a deepity

    1. Sirksome

      I doubt it’s gonna happen but if this first storyline is just a preamble to an extended book long Halloween flashback. “There’s always more Halloweens.” would be the perfect title for it. But I personally can’t justify why you’d do a time skip just to immediately start an extended flashback so it probably won’t happen anytime soon.

  10. Pizzawiz

    He pulled a Mike and went as… Mike

    1. RassilonTDavros

      That’s my gut feeling as well.

  11. Proto_Eevee

    I have MANY questions, and one of them I’d “halloween!?”

  12. AntJ

    … did Mike die on Halloween?

    1. Yotomoe

      No he died on October 13th. He HAUNTED them on Halloween. He’d boo them when they made out, make all sorts of quips about their lovey dovey names, revealed embarrassing things about Walky. Really wrecked the mood.

    2. brumagem

      We have no idea. I was curious and checked when the last time skip started, and Mike was technically still alive during the end of Book 10 on October 21st. Amber makes a comment to Ethan about their goodbyes to Mike but I’m not sure whether that’s him dying or Amber catastrophizing.

      1. AntJ

        He was injured on October 19, and is shown comatose on October 21 but still alive. He wasn’t confirmed to have died until right before we met Booster.

  13. Beau Kirin Maysey

    So I guess every couple just broke up on Hallow’s Eve then?????

  14. Wagstaff

    Halloween in March!

    The one and only competitor to Christmas in July!

    1. MK15

      “We’ll have Halloween on Christmas / And in the night we’ll wish this never ends”

      1. milu

        Dont waste! Your time! On me! You’re al! ready! A voice inside my ‘ead (i miss you)

        GREAT SONG

    2. Deanatay

      Really, it’s March 31st, so it’s gonna be April.

  15. Yotomoe

    Not the holiday. The movie. She hated the reboot. But I correctly saw it as the breath of fresh air that the franchise has needed.

    1. He Who Abides

      If you’re talking about Rob Zombie’s version, then I must (regretfully) agree with AmbG.

      1. Yotomoe

        naw 2018

        1. He Who Abides

          Oh, John Carpenter’s latest version? Yeah, great film, totally agree.

    2. Deanatay

      BTW, Yotomoe, you are clearly being called out in the last panel of this comic. Just thought you’d like to know.

      1. Yotomoe

        Naw, can’t be me. I’ve only drawn sex like…5 times. Pinups and fanservice are my bag 😛

      2. He Who Abides

        I’m loving that arc.

  16. C.T Phipps

    Walky was revealed as an agent of Hydra.

    It was the twist in the Winter Soldier tie-in we never saw coming.

    1. RacingTurtle

      Did Amber scratch the revelation on a mirror to warn the others?

  17. iain

    I hope that Walky dressed up as Evil Dad or Mike or something, possibly in a dreadful way of dealing with his own trauma from that day.

    1. FGarber

      I hope Walky dressed up as a “tough guy” and borrowed Sal’s jacket. There’s no way Amber handled THAT well (see Sal’s hair in the flashback)

      Although I think it’s more likely he dressed up as someone from the Monkey Master franchise, and Amber was just kind of meh about it.

      1. Needfuldoer

        There are a couple of Sal and Walky character models that swapped their personalities. (Walky the aloof tough-guy and Sal the adorkable goofball.) I can’t find it for the life of me because of Tumblr’s transient nature, but it’s in the back of one of the books.

        1. BBCC

          I got you: https://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/88122665597/yay-that-was-a-fun-trivia-challenge-thing-have-an#notes

        2. Needfuldoer

          Danke!

  18. Massey

    Was that alt-text a Community reference? <3

  19. Nono

    I’m not really fond of that top on Walky. Like blue and green, sure. But then you throw in that bright red and he just looks like a confused candy store explosion. Which, I guess, is fittingly Walky.

  20. Bagge

    Don’t twist the knife. First we don’t get to see them in costumes, now we learn that Halloween was important…

    …hey, maybe important enough for a flashback?

  21. crow

    Did Walky not uphold his end of their couple’s costume?

    1. Bagge

      Walky being the ass of an ass should be the perfect part for him

      1. crow

        Damn, I don’t think he’s *that* bad

        1. MrSmith

          I agree, he’s worse.

        2. Bagge

          I don’t think he’s bad per se.

          But I do think ‘ass of an ass’ is an apt description.

  22. BBCC

    TELL ME.

  23. EvilMidnightLurker

    THIS IS HALLOWEEN THIS IS HALLOWEEN I ran over my neighbor

    THIS IS HALLOWEEN THIS IS HALLOWEEN it’s in all the papers

  24. Clif

    Halloween???!!!!

    DAMN YOU, WILLIS!!!

    1. Deanatay

      RIGHT???

  25. Devin

    Tiem for flashback? First of many mayhaps?

  26. cbwroses

    Hmm. That Becky says she and Dina survived Halloween may imply that something big happened on Halloween that the four of them (and maybe the others) were apart of.
    That could explain why she doesn’t ask what happened on Halloween, as I don’t think it’s typically a hard day for couples to survive.
    It sounds like something that she already knows about and what actually sunk the ss garbage skowl was something that stemmed from that event.
    Or I’m reading too much into it.

    1. milu

      i think you are probably reading too much into it. They’re just bantering

      1. thumb

        I thought it was banter at first too, but there’s also Walky saying that it’s the same thing that happens to any couple. I’d bet there was more than one breakup that day.

  27. Huehuetotl

    Going to listen to Theme to Spirit Halloween tomorrow before reading, just in case it is Halloween flashbacks.

  28. AGV

    Maybe they broke up because of a petty discussion on nerd stuff when deciding what to cosplay as

  29. BenRG

    Okay, so, from that, I’m assuming a blue- and red-panel prolonged Halloween flash-back arc is indicated. At least I’m hoping so. If Willis tries to make a Noodle Incident of it, I will be very disappointed.

  30. 0phidiophile

    I’m guessing Halloween is a special day for Walky. Large amounts of candy, dressing crazy, and ignoring inhibitions and boundaries. The one day of the year you don’t want to be around Walky. And there are going to be more Halloweens.

    1. Loki

      I am genuinely uncertain if this was sarcasm, well done!

  31. jeffepp

    Couples costumes.

  32. Varangian

    *looks at this plot seed*

    *looks at the comments section, and the frothing mob that already loves to project the sins of all mankind onto Walky every other strip*

    *takes a deep drag off my cigarette*

    Willis, you sumbongo, I hope you know what you’re doing.

    1. Opus the Poet

      “sumbongo” is perfect, even if it’s the female dog word trap in action.
      And of course he knows what he’s doing, he’s @damnyouwillis.

  33. acher4

    Now you are just toying with us.
    ROFL

  34. Juanoku

    Can’t help but feel like I’m missing some context here…

    1. Clif

      Many of us were looking forward to Halloween. The time skip happened just before Halloween. Now apparently a major plot point happened over Halloween. Which raises the possibility that other plot points such as Ruth and Yunru’s breakup, Mike’s death or nondeath, and the incident with the forbidden rooms at the end of the hall may all have happened over Halloween.

  35. Mister Gray

    We need more booster to question things like this.

  36. Skelig

    All Saints Daaaaaayyyyy Month

  37. Ray Radlein

    DON’T YOU DARE NOODLE-INCIDENT US, WILLIS

  38. Keulen

    Well now I really want to know what happened on Halloween that we skipped over.

  39. Wishwater

    If we don’t get a Halloween flashback I will be sorely disappointed now, and not just because I wanted to see everyone’s costumes.

    1. Heather

      My hope/bet is on us finally getting a few flashback comics related to it at some point in autumn this year.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Maybe sometime in mid- to late-October.

  40. Rabisch

    WHAT? Now I’m really REALLY confused!

    1. BenRG

      Lots of scabs were probably knocked off of a lot of unhealed wounds by ill-though-out costume choices and many friendships and relationships didn’t survive as a result.

  41. Heather

    Like I know people are saying maybe Walky did something specifically terrible like dress up as Mike himself but… maybe it’s more other people or even strangers did something instead and Walky waved it off? (Walky’s kind of like Becky sometimes pretending everything is fine which can be in an obnoxious way which can rub people up wrong) while Amber was rightfully angry and hurt. Idk, it feels like Becky was witness to whatever happened at Halloween herself but it’s more they were (all four)… witnesses to something which potentially caused a disagreement.

    And like college or uni students are like barely into adulthood anyway and it’s really possible after a shooting and a kidnapping some nameless group just did something really tasteless and stupid for Halloween and those kidnapped had different reactions causing a schism.

    1. Wishwater

      Agreed, I don’t think the answer would be something so simple. when I was at college there were a number of parties so infamous for their combination of alcohol and personal drama that they would only be referred to the same way Walky and Becky talk about Halloween. Given Billie and Ruth’s relationship might have broken down around the same time I wouldn’t be surprise if it was just a true spiralling of events by everyone present.

  42. Billifer Jenningsworth

    My guesses:
    Walky said something insensitive about Mike to/around Amber

    Walky dressed as mike for halloween

    Walky defended Sal one too many times

  43. LazyReader

    “That’s It walky, I’m Tying your shoes”
    LIKE HELL!

  44. Newllend(henryvolt)

    Damn you Willis, you trolling mother fu-

  45. Fist_of_Life

    So…The Walky-Amber breakup just jumped up my list of things I’m intensely curious about.

  46. milu

    I interject with a link to yesterday’s comment section— Hof1991 made a really interesting point which i think is at least worth considering, i quote selectively:

    “DYW seems to be constantly reminding us that the last comic pre-skip was a goodbye to one strip and the start of a new one. There was so much trauma and death. It affected every cast member permanently (…)
    Full marks for growth and change, for honoring the trauma of the last book.”

    In other words (or maybe this is just me riffing off)— the timeskip functions as a metaphor of trauma.

    A healthy psyche is sort of like a story that flows seamlessly from our early childhood to our present age, with causes and consequences neatly connected to each other, a narrative order imposed on the chaos of reality that gives each of us a sense of self. (“The psyche as story” is a foundational metaphor of psychoanalysis.)

    a traumatic experience is a break in that continuity, a rip in the fabric of a person’s story which severs the tidy threads of intelligibility. Traumatized people may refuse to integrate the traumatic experience in their story. And they often don’t understand their own behaviour at times.

    As readers accustomed to experiencing the lives of these characters moment to moment, to the extent that their moods and actions can seem as transparent to us as our own, for the first time we regularly find ourselves confused and frustrated by what people say or do, and that looming sense of unexplainability is kind of interesting in its own right— and not merely as a gimmicky slow-reveal process.

    OK imma stop myself here but i love this idea so much, i could go on masticating it for pages.

    1. Brumagem

      I dunno, I don’t really go in for that because what most authors would do is end one comic with satisfying character arcs and start a new one with fresh characters. If Willis was going for the trauma thing I don’t know why he made the last few strips of book 10 as hopeful as they are. In fact, I still have no idea why he did that because the relationships of the four characters I care about most were in shambles.

      1. milu

        ??? i honestly can’t tell what you’re disagreeing with.

        The end of Book 10 was seriously disturbing for several characters, yes?
        Four months later they’re probably still dealing with the emotional damage, yes?

        I’m saying the timeskip works as a metaphor of that, in some small measure it emulates for us readers the discomfort and loss of continuity and bearings that traumatized persons often experience.

        And I mean, that’s just like, one reading that i stumbled upon and i find interesting, but you’re welcome to shrug it off, and i think many readings are simultaneously valid anyway.

        1. thejeff

          The thing that I find annoying about this, as opposed to the start of a new comic, is that there’s so much that’s apparently only hidden from the readers. Like at the start of DoA, there were all these big secrets, but they were generally things that one or two characters knew and were keeping secret from everyone else.
          Now, there’s a lot of stuff that it seems many or most characters likely know and there’s little reason for them not to talk openly about it, but we’re in the dark.

        2. Jhon

          Take that smug omniscient readership!

        3. milu

          @Jhon: What you said, but less sarcastic ^^

          @thejeff: ok so i haven’t been following Willis for decades like some of you here, and i’m not as emotionally invested in my fictional fare as a lot of commenters of webcomics, so while i see what you’re saying, i don’t really experience that irritation, or i guess to the extent that i do, i find it easy to metabolize it into a worthwile experience— in this case, as something like the narrative equivalent of a trauma.

          soooo sorry about your feelings i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

        4. Bysmerian

          Agreed. I’m honestly reaching a critical mass of frustrated with it and the idea that this is new chapter’s story is in some ways a new strip both makes sense and makes me feel less beholden to continuing.

        5. Sirksome

          Timeskips like this don’t bother me so much since the whole point is to shake up the status quo and tell new stories. The catch is the new stories have to be worth the time we missed. This is a problem since DoA runs at such a slow pace. So right now nothing happening is more interesting than the time we missed. Would you rather read about this newspaper contest or know why established relationships broke up? Most would choose the latter which I think is why frustration sets in. We’re probably building to another big story arc but building is boring and takes time when we had all these other interesting things we just kind of missed.

  47. thejeff

    Everyone’s suggesting Walky dressed as Mike, but I think Amber’s new Mike alter came out dressed as Mike.

  48. thumb

    Halloween is going to become Dumbing of Age’s “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey”.

    Side note, I discovered today that some turd published a “book” by that name and claims it has no relation to Calvin & Hobbes.

    1. milu

      So weird!? It was published in 2004 apparently, so Watterson definitely wasn’t referencing it. I can’t see how it’s remotely possible for someone unacquainted with Calvin & Hobbes to land on this specific title by accident, and yet, the Amazon summary for the book has a “Publisher’s note” that says:

      “We make no claim (and never have) that this book tells the same story that is Calvin’s favorite in the much-beloved comic strip Calvin and Hobbs. Ms Barr says that to her knowledge, she has never met Bill Watterson and offers no explanation as to why the title of her story is the same title that Calvin enjoys.”

      She offers no explanation! Wow, Ms Barr. Classy.

      1. Victor Riley

        Wow… I’m curious why she wasn’t sued to high-heaven. There’s no way she stumbled on that herself. Especially interesting because her name is “Mabel Barr”, and the author in Calvin & Hobbes was “Mabel Syrup”.

        Also funny how this “reknowned story-teller” has no other published books on there.

        1. milu

          also, the completely irrelevant and bizarrely-phrased “(the author) says that to her knowledge she has never met Bill Watterson”

          Like who’s saying she has and why should anyone care?! Adding this nonsense detail just makes them sound that much more sus.

    2. Dan

      Seems like someone is relying on the fact that titles cannot be copyrighted?

  49. Victor Riley

    Dang it! I knew there were Halloween Shenanigans!!!

  50. Rani

    There was an episode of Spongebob Squarepants where at one point they were depicting what Patrick’s mind was like, and the visual metaphor they used was someone knocking over a carton of milk and spilling it on the table.

    I don’t know why that comes to mind.

  51. Jhon

    This is not Willis introducing a Halloween flashback. This is Willis. Who is about to show us how he intends to dodge future Halloweens.

    1. Clif

      To reach another Halloween, we’d have to go though a summer semester time skip and I’m not sure any of us could survive that.

  52. DarkoNeko

    ….halloween ?
    halloween.

  53. Jhon

    Did you jokers forget to wind your calendars? Tomorrow is Willis’ Very Special Dab. I mean, “Day”.

    1. Needfuldoer

      I hope we’ve been good enough to earn a bonus Shortpacked! this year…

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