To be fair, the fallout ultimately happened because Danny decided to say something incredibly insensitive to Ethan right outside the room a comatose Mike was in.
Danny didn’t say that. He didn’t say “would it be so bad if Mike never woke up again” either, which is another thing I’ve seen said.
Spencer
Danny’s such a good lad that we gotta invent reasons to hate him these days.
The commentariat is really Dannying up their character reads lately.
Thag Simmons
Look it’s easy to misremember things, and Danny did say “would it be so bad if Mike didn’t wake up for a while” which is the sort of thing that ages extremely poorly when Mike never wakes up at all.
Spencer
On one hand I can sympathize that not everyone here is a tryhard In Too Deep nerdlinger like myself.
On the other hand, stop it. You can search by character tags, it’s super easy!
I’ve been permanently traumatized from citing individual strips because one time I wrote an essay on Joyce’s character motivations with 15 of them at the start of the Faith-Off and the final entry was proven wrong the next day.
C.T. Phipps
May I ask what proved you wrong? I am very interested in your takes on things even if I disagree sometimes.
Spencer
The last part was about how I read Joyce as still deeply respecting Becky’s religious beliefs and that she, personally, viewed her newfound atheism as a failure state. That she still wanted to be Christian but couldn’t anymore, but thought well of Becky for keeping it going.
I still feel pretty firmly that Joyce’s word choices were self-directed, in that she was criticizing herself for believing all the horrible chaos she had endured was part of a divine plan and not random bullshit from people who were supposed to protect and love her, but they were self-directed in that she was blaming the worldview, culture and life that led her to that horrible chaos to begin with.
The commentariat seems to be overlooking the inconvenient reality that Danny is also hooking up with the girl who held Ethan hostage with a knife at his throat during her botched convenience store robbery.
Ever see the Sound of Music? Danny has become Rolf as far as Ethan is concerned. Amber got her catharsis by stabbing Sal but Ethan has every reason to fear and hate her.
Last I remember, Ethan really wasn’t fussed about Sal after she approached him. I can crack open my copy of whichever book that was in, to double check.
Delicious Taffy
Aye, there it is. Unless his Bully Maguire act has changed things between them, they appears to be fine.
Ethan and Sal squared things forever ago, and even earlier when he just knew that she was at the college he told Amber that the three of them were just kids and she had probably changed. Just in this story he told Amber that Sal could do better than Danny.
I think it’s distinctly possible Ethan will take that back, like hypothetically he starts resenting Sal because he forgave her for Amber’s sake and never really got to deal with it for himself, but Sal’s pretty pointedly not a reason he’s mad at Danny.
Thag Simmons
Sal also doesn’t have any direct connection to Mike’s death, which is the root of Ethan’s current issues
Needfuldoer
As long as he doesn’t go deep down a selectively considered “what if” butterfly effect tangent.
Mike went splat because of something to do with Amazi-Girl. The gas station robbery catalyzed Amazi-Girl’s existence as part of Amber’s trauma processing mechanism. Sal was the perpetrator in the gas station robbery.
“Therefore, if Sal hadn’t robbed the convenience store, Mike wouldn’t have gone splat.”
I really hope he doesn’t process it that way, because it’s irrational, but his train of thought could go there…
Spencer
I do actually think this’d be a pretty easy thing for Ethan to go through, but that’s because I think of Ethan right now as someone who’s reevalated his existing relations and found them wanting, which’ll make it a drama bomb if he ever finds out Blaine only drove him and Amber that night because Mike thought it’d be funny. Less something he’d do as an objective fact and more out of grief and the constant drama he gets pulled into.
This isn’t meant to sound like a condemnation, but if Amber/Danny/Sal/Mike were going through what Ethan is now, I think he’d be poking and prodding at them to be supportive, because being a wall to lean against has been his thing. What I wonder now, though, is if he’d perceive his withdrawal from the rest of the cast as something they allowed; like if they really cared, they’d keep trying like he did for Amber.
I remember this moment, where Ethan sees Sal’s doubt and uncertainty, and seemingly the moment where she surrendered and let him go. I think once the actual robbery was over he mostly felt bad for her, he’s always seemed aware that she was a kid too.
RedCat
I think he was seeing the knife.
Thag Simmons
You can see those emotions in the way she’s handling the knife! And again, she seems to have let him go and surrendered, which is hard to miss from his perspective.
They outwardly hated each other but ironically could have been the kind of friend the other needed. Danny is is usually passive, but was one of the only characters to call out Mike’s shitty behaviour to his face, and call his friends out for tolerating it. Mike in turn seemed to respect Danny for this, and the few times he subtly hinted at his own feelings happened while talking to or about Danny.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that all the character arcs (except maybe Ethan’s) are resolving? If Amber takes Joe’s advice and Joe takes Amber’s, he tries again with his newfound perspective to date Joyce. She might well be interested at this point. Amber hates herself less each day, Sal finds romance with Danny, Ruth with Jason. Dina and Becky find a physical point they can both deal with, Becky and Joyce get along despite their deep difference in religion, which does not change. Dorothy sees she is needle more at Yale and changes schools, and Ethan meets someone who cheers him up. Storyline ends.
Well, they’re “resolving” in that DoA isn’t “supposed” to go past freshman year and we’re now in the second semester. We’re in the second half of the total story, basically.
I wouldn’t say they’re resolving so much as the cast is now slowly moving towards the characters they’ll be at the end of the strip, in that “Joe taking Amber’s advice” and “Joe asks Joyce out” would be separate plots that each have their own runtime. Sal’s dating Danny now, that’s something that’s happened after seven years of first befriending Danny and very gradually opening up to him to the point of calling them friends and then opening up some more when she realized that she wanted to be with him, but it’s still going to have its own ups and downs and the question there is “if they’re dating now, will they by the end?”
Dorothy getting the letter to Yale is the most pointed indicator of the series being on a timer now, except that timer can last for as long as it likes; we skipped all of November and December to get to January and who knows how long this semester will last, we just know it’s most likely going to end with Dorothy leaving and the series ending.
Regalli
I don’t anticipate ‘we won’t move past freshman year’ being an ironclad rule by now so much as a realistic assessment of the time scale. It took us TEN YEARS to get through the first semester. Maybe in another ten years Willis will want to do something new again, but this was designed to be a comic he could make forever even if young kids meant not staying up to date on Nerd Discourse or the latest toy drama that were ultimately key parts of Shortpacked, not just ‘wanting to play with the characters in a new setting’. (This has not proven to be the case, but it was still the concept.) If Willis still wants to keep writing Dumbing of Age in another 10-15 years, even if we are moving to the end of the spring semester by then, the series is designed so he can do so. (I believe the original FAQ question was questioning the idea of leaving the fall semester.) There are plenty of ways to either keep Dorothy on the cast (concluding that she can go to Yale for law school, for instance, because she’s better served in undergrad building connections with her friends and professors than getting a marginally more prestigious undergrad degree, or doing occasional cuts to Yale where she goes through her own storylines including some payoff about Leland being there,) or tweak the cast to accommodate her absence (Howie and Faz could both be at college sophomore year without fudging established ages TOO much, introducing a new character who’s order-oriented and everyone immediately goes ‘what the hell it’s a smaller Dorothy’, giving background characters more screentime.)
If Willis does want to move on, he can start moving things into endgame whenever… but I do think planning that move ten years in advance might be unlikely, especially since by that point the twins would be fifteen-sixteen. (In other words, thinking about college themselves.) Ten years ago we were still operating under ‘no one important will die because the grieving will take forever’ and ‘Amazi-Girl will never be shown unmasked… well, yeah, Amber might still be around but we won’t see it confirmed and Amber’s still in Shortpacked so she probably won’t have a major role.’ (This was originally a thing! It hasn’t been a thing for longer than it was ever a thing, it’s been broken and subverted and technically accurate in complicated ways in every possible iteration, and I don’t blame people who don’t remember it was ever a thing because it was SO long ago, but like, it WAS originally a thing.) Ten years ago the idea of exploring Sal/Danny again was pretty much unthinkable. Blaine hadn’t actually been reintroduced yet ten years ago and wouldn’t for a while yet, but when he was introduced Willis said ‘Amber’s Blaine’s only kid, Faz is his stepson’ and later admitted they forgot ever saying that when Faz came back years down the line. Plans are malleable as the plot develops.
I think it’s amazing that this is a strip where the Creator comes to the comments section to hang out and is greeted as just “one of the folks”. Makes me grateful for what a welcoming and kind space this is here. I mean that with all sincerity — I am genuinely grateful to meet youse all.
Rose by Any Other Name
Agreed.
And I will check out that playlist tomorrow at some point. Very curious to see what all it contains and what all I’ve missed/not recognized.
(Even though I can’t sing any of their songs properly because Steve Perry’s a countertenor and I sound more like Brad Roberts from Crash Test Dummies with a head cold.)
WanderingLynx
Willis, I adore you and your work. This has been my nightly teleserie since you started it. Thank you so much for the playlist – Impeccable taste!
I think I might have made this one up. I don’t remember it from any local stores and there’s no hint of it in my search histories. It’s just a puffer hoodie vest with a striped sleeve shirt.
171 thoughts on “Carry on”
nobodybasically
I forget, did Danny have any connection with Mike?
Nono
I mean, Mike was the whole reason he and Ethan had the whole fallout.
For their first interaction, Mike straight up lied to Danny that he and Dorothy had hooked up.
DrunkenNordmann
To be fair, the fallout ultimately happened because Danny decided to say something incredibly insensitive to Ethan right outside the room a comatose Mike was in.
John Smith
Less “decided” and more “Danny’d”
AntJ
His last words to Mike were “goodbye forever, Mike”
Sambo
I never noticed that; that’s amazing
DailyBrad
I think literally every single encounter they had was a negative one, so, not especially.
Thag Simmons
Genuinely curious how Mike trying to seduce Danny would have gone, because I think Danny’s always considered him an asshole.
Clif
Well, but Ethan KNEW Mike was an asshole and yet here we are.
Thag Simmons
Ethan knew Mike was an asshole but still considered him a friend*, Danny didn’t know him as anything other than an asshole.
Johan
“would it be so bad if he (you’re best friend from HS) died?”
And then Mike fucking died. So there’s for real no way to save the Ethan/Danny friendship/ship
King Daniel
Danny didn’t say that. He didn’t say “would it be so bad if Mike never woke up again” either, which is another thing I’ve seen said.
Spencer
Danny’s such a good lad that we gotta invent reasons to hate him these days.
The commentariat is really Dannying up their character reads lately.
Thag Simmons
Look it’s easy to misremember things, and Danny did say “would it be so bad if Mike didn’t wake up for a while” which is the sort of thing that ages extremely poorly when Mike never wakes up at all.
Spencer
On one hand I can sympathize that not everyone here is a tryhard In Too Deep nerdlinger like myself.
On the other hand, stop it. You can search by character tags, it’s super easy!
Needfuldoer
Almost as easy as copy/pasting a link!
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/alonetime/
Spencer
I’ve been permanently traumatized from citing individual strips because one time I wrote an essay on Joyce’s character motivations with 15 of them at the start of the Faith-Off and the final entry was proven wrong the next day.
C.T. Phipps
May I ask what proved you wrong? I am very interested in your takes on things even if I disagree sometimes.
Spencer
The last part was about how I read Joyce as still deeply respecting Becky’s religious beliefs and that she, personally, viewed her newfound atheism as a failure state. That she still wanted to be Christian but couldn’t anymore, but thought well of Becky for keeping it going.
I still feel pretty firmly that Joyce’s word choices were self-directed, in that she was criticizing herself for believing all the horrible chaos she had endured was part of a divine plan and not random bullshit from people who were supposed to protect and love her, but they were self-directed in that she was blaming the worldview, culture and life that led her to that horrible chaos to begin with.
Thag Simmons
Danny knew Mike enough to dislike him and have no patience for him.
Pilgrim
The commentariat seems to be overlooking the inconvenient reality that Danny is also hooking up with the girl who held Ethan hostage with a knife at his throat during her botched convenience store robbery.
Ever see the Sound of Music? Danny has become Rolf as far as Ethan is concerned. Amber got her catharsis by stabbing Sal but Ethan has every reason to fear and hate her.
Delicious Taffy
Last I remember, Ethan really wasn’t fussed about Sal after she approached him. I can crack open my copy of whichever book that was in, to double check.
Delicious Taffy
Aye, there it is. Unless his Bully Maguire act has changed things between them, they appears to be fine.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/sorted/
Thag Simmons
He says she can do better than Danny, so he seems to have a better opinion of Sal than he does of Danny right now.
Spencer
Ethan and Sal squared things forever ago, and even earlier when he just knew that she was at the college he told Amber that the three of them were just kids and she had probably changed. Just in this story he told Amber that Sal could do better than Danny.
I think it’s distinctly possible Ethan will take that back, like hypothetically he starts resenting Sal because he forgave her for Amber’s sake and never really got to deal with it for himself, but Sal’s pretty pointedly not a reason he’s mad at Danny.
Thag Simmons
Sal also doesn’t have any direct connection to Mike’s death, which is the root of Ethan’s current issues
Needfuldoer
As long as he doesn’t go deep down a selectively considered “what if” butterfly effect tangent.
Mike went splat because of something to do with Amazi-Girl. The gas station robbery catalyzed Amazi-Girl’s existence as part of Amber’s trauma processing mechanism. Sal was the perpetrator in the gas station robbery.
“Therefore, if Sal hadn’t robbed the convenience store, Mike wouldn’t have gone splat.”
I really hope he doesn’t process it that way, because it’s irrational, but his train of thought could go there…
Spencer
I do actually think this’d be a pretty easy thing for Ethan to go through, but that’s because I think of Ethan right now as someone who’s reevalated his existing relations and found them wanting, which’ll make it a drama bomb if he ever finds out Blaine only drove him and Amber that night because Mike thought it’d be funny. Less something he’d do as an objective fact and more out of grief and the constant drama he gets pulled into.
This isn’t meant to sound like a condemnation, but if Amber/Danny/Sal/Mike were going through what Ethan is now, I think he’d be poking and prodding at them to be supportive, because being a wall to lean against has been his thing. What I wonder now, though, is if he’d perceive his withdrawal from the rest of the cast as something they allowed; like if they really cared, they’d keep trying like he did for Amber.
Thag Simmons
I remember this moment, where Ethan sees Sal’s doubt and uncertainty, and seemingly the moment where she surrendered and let him go. I think once the actual robbery was over he mostly felt bad for her, he’s always seemed aware that she was a kid too.
RedCat
I think he was seeing the knife.
Thag Simmons
You can see those emotions in the way she’s handling the knife! And again, she seems to have let him go and surrendered, which is hard to miss from his perspective.
Keulen
I’m pretty sure every time they interacted, Mike was a jerk to Danny.
Chris
https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/danny+mike/
Colineo
They outwardly hated each other but ironically could have been the kind of friend the other needed. Danny is is usually passive, but was one of the only characters to call out Mike’s shitty behaviour to his face, and call his friends out for tolerating it. Mike in turn seemed to respect Danny for this, and the few times he subtly hinted at his own feelings happened while talking to or about Danny.
Kyrik Michalowski
Brilliant, and I have no doubt that Sal is carrying the song. Either way, it is nice to see them hanging out and enjoying each other’s presence.
So what is going tomgo wrong next?
Deathjavu
Whatever trainwreck-in-motion brought Liz to campus. She keeps not leaving and it’s getting weird.
Andrusi
She’ll carry the song, she’ll carry the song…
Eyebrow
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that all the character arcs (except maybe Ethan’s) are resolving? If Amber takes Joe’s advice and Joe takes Amber’s, he tries again with his newfound perspective to date Joyce. She might well be interested at this point. Amber hates herself less each day, Sal finds romance with Danny, Ruth with Jason. Dina and Becky find a physical point they can both deal with, Becky and Joyce get along despite their deep difference in religion, which does not change. Dorothy sees she is needle more at Yale and changes schools, and Ethan meets someone who cheers him up. Storyline ends.
Spencer
Well, they’re “resolving” in that DoA isn’t “supposed” to go past freshman year and we’re now in the second semester. We’re in the second half of the total story, basically.
I wouldn’t say they’re resolving so much as the cast is now slowly moving towards the characters they’ll be at the end of the strip, in that “Joe taking Amber’s advice” and “Joe asks Joyce out” would be separate plots that each have their own runtime. Sal’s dating Danny now, that’s something that’s happened after seven years of first befriending Danny and very gradually opening up to him to the point of calling them friends and then opening up some more when she realized that she wanted to be with him, but it’s still going to have its own ups and downs and the question there is “if they’re dating now, will they by the end?”
Dorothy getting the letter to Yale is the most pointed indicator of the series being on a timer now, except that timer can last for as long as it likes; we skipped all of November and December to get to January and who knows how long this semester will last, we just know it’s most likely going to end with Dorothy leaving and the series ending.
Regalli
I don’t anticipate ‘we won’t move past freshman year’ being an ironclad rule by now so much as a realistic assessment of the time scale. It took us TEN YEARS to get through the first semester. Maybe in another ten years Willis will want to do something new again, but this was designed to be a comic he could make forever even if young kids meant not staying up to date on Nerd Discourse or the latest toy drama that were ultimately key parts of Shortpacked, not just ‘wanting to play with the characters in a new setting’. (This has not proven to be the case, but it was still the concept.) If Willis still wants to keep writing Dumbing of Age in another 10-15 years, even if we are moving to the end of the spring semester by then, the series is designed so he can do so. (I believe the original FAQ question was questioning the idea of leaving the fall semester.) There are plenty of ways to either keep Dorothy on the cast (concluding that she can go to Yale for law school, for instance, because she’s better served in undergrad building connections with her friends and professors than getting a marginally more prestigious undergrad degree, or doing occasional cuts to Yale where she goes through her own storylines including some payoff about Leland being there,) or tweak the cast to accommodate her absence (Howie and Faz could both be at college sophomore year without fudging established ages TOO much, introducing a new character who’s order-oriented and everyone immediately goes ‘what the hell it’s a smaller Dorothy’, giving background characters more screentime.)
If Willis does want to move on, he can start moving things into endgame whenever… but I do think planning that move ten years in advance might be unlikely, especially since by that point the twins would be fifteen-sixteen. (In other words, thinking about college themselves.) Ten years ago we were still operating under ‘no one important will die because the grieving will take forever’ and ‘Amazi-Girl will never be shown unmasked… well, yeah, Amber might still be around but we won’t see it confirmed and Amber’s still in Shortpacked so she probably won’t have a major role.’ (This was originally a thing! It hasn’t been a thing for longer than it was ever a thing, it’s been broken and subverted and technically accurate in complicated ways in every possible iteration, and I don’t blame people who don’t remember it was ever a thing because it was SO long ago, but like, it WAS originally a thing.) Ten years ago the idea of exploring Sal/Danny again was pretty much unthinkable. Blaine hadn’t actually been reintroduced yet ten years ago and wouldn’t for a while yet, but when he was introduced Willis said ‘Amber’s Blaine’s only kid, Faz is his stepson’ and later admitted they forgot ever saying that when Faz came back years down the line. Plans are malleable as the plot develops.
thejeff
Much of that isn’t even “arcs are resolving” so much as “some arcs that will need to be resolved have been introduced”.
Sombrero
I wouldn’t call “resolution” anything based on characters dating each other, as most college dates tend to be short-lived.
Spencer
okay but consider the following:
i’ll actually die in real life if sal and danny break up
Sombrero
Please don’t, aren’t you aware about the author’s Twitter handle?
Regalli
Seriously, Willis will take that as a bet.
The Wellerman
AMAZING song, wrong instrument LOL ?
And oh yeah, another panel where Amber looks like a Pikachu!!! ?
The Wellerman
You drew her like that on purpose, didn’t you Willis?
Mr D
The Black Parade (the whole album) actually sounds pretty nice on Ukelele, a lot more cheerful than intended maybe.
Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6X_hcnv6wU
Mr D
Hmmm. Spin spin, wheel of Grav!
Mr D
Oh hell no. Last Draw of the night!
The Wellerman
Yeah, upon letting the flavor unfold, now it reminds me of Adventure Time ?
RassilonTDavros
That settles it, I’m making a DoA storyline title song playlist.
David M Willis
I actually have one, though it’s a little out of date.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL70lMOaD7WKpQn1YWAuKe8OQokzcT7Dic
David M Willis
okay i think i updated it
Laura
I think it’s amazing that this is a strip where the Creator comes to the comments section to hang out and is greeted as just “one of the folks”. Makes me grateful for what a welcoming and kind space this is here. I mean that with all sincerity — I am genuinely grateful to meet youse all.
Rose by Any Other Name
Agreed.
And I will check out that playlist tomorrow at some point. Very curious to see what all it contains and what all I’ve missed/not recognized.
Queen Anthai
F!#$%ING JOURNEY
Needfuldoer
F!#$ YEAH JOURNEY
(Even though I can’t sing any of their songs properly because Steve Perry’s a countertenor and I sound more like Brad Roberts from Crash Test Dummies with a head cold.)
WanderingLynx
Willis, I adore you and your work. This has been my nightly teleserie since you started it. Thank you so much for the playlist – Impeccable taste!
ValdVin
Another vote for boffo.
Stephen Bierce
Glad somebody volunteers for that. 🙂
Icalasari
May be hard to find this song being played on ukelele, however
Doctor_Who
Found lots, actually.
alongcameaspider
Honestly I’d be more surprised if there weren’t ukulele covers, its probably their most popular song
Icalasari
Huh, now I can hear what it sounds like in the comic
The Wellerman
Too bad I never found out where Amber’s shirt is from…
The Wellerman
Not sure it’ll do any good, but I’m still offering a free pixel art commission for anyone who can point me to it.
David M Willis
I think I might have made this one up. I don’t remember it from any local stores and there’s no hint of it in my search histories. It’s just a puffer hoodie vest with a striped sleeve shirt.
The Wellerman
I have closure now.
Thank you, Emperor Willis. ?
The Wellerman
Also you still get that commission, if you want it.
EpochFlame
closest thing I could find is “ Augusta 360 Sleeve Stripe Jersey – Gold White”
(but that’s short-sleeved)