254

Doing
Posted on November 8, 2017 by David M Willis

254 thoughts on “Doing”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “also, I totes have this bridge in Brooklyn for sale”

    1. Ana Chronistic

      it’s still a pair of Joes talking to each other tho? kinda?

      1. Pablo360

        The only difference is one of them is older, and the other is more mature.

        1. Grethelwveir

          Shots fired!

        2. Conuly

          Joe at least is starting to recognize maturity as something to aim for – and I somehow doubt he would’ve ever done exactly as his dad did. He had his problems, but it looks clear that he was never going to promise monogamy and then cheat cheat cheat.

        3. Iceburgh69

          Joe did strike me as having a bit more depth to him over his dad. I think Joe got more of an education than he bargained for.

        4. thebombzen

          Nah Joe’s dad’s the one who’s deeper amirite

        5. Circeus

          deeper voice, maybe?

        6. Conuly

          Oh, nevermind. For some reason I thought you said “neither is mature”. Which is what I responded to.

        7. PlainMarie

          Bu-dum-Tsish!

  2. Yumi

    Accidentally got a Patreon email with tomorrow’s update again.

    1. Clif

      How do you accidentally get a Patreon email?

      1. Jordan

        Dunno, but normally I only get the $1 Patreon emails from Willis, so I’m a bit confused as well.

      2. Yumi

        Well, I’m a $1 Patreon, so I’m on the Patreon list, but last night I received an email with tomorrow’s comic update, which should only go to $5+ Patreons. This has also happened at least once previously. I assume it’s some error on Patreon’s end where it includes groups it’s not supposed to in an posting email. So, that’s how. Seems pretty simple, really.

        1. thejeff

          I got one too. Same situation.

    2. Leadsynth

      Same here. Not mad about it tho.

  3. Durandal_1707

    Agh, there’s an obnoxious audio ad on the page today.

    1. Stephen Bierce

      I swear I had nothing to do with it.

    2. Leorale

      Mine are all advertising platform boots. It’s like they know me.

      1. Pablo360

        They probably do.

        1. Leorale

          Yep, boots and hardware, they have my online activity down.
          Sometimes I click on pictures of doggos, just in the hopes that my ads will show me even more of them.

        2. autogatos

          Well I’m getting ads for dog food and I have 2 cats, so….maybe you’ll get some cat ads soon?

        3. Leorale

          Hooray! Moar cats pls.

        4. davidbreslin101

          I call that game “decorating the Internet.” Fond memories of the week when all my ads were for stick-on googly eyes…

      2. Durandal_1707

        Are you calling me an obnoxious audio?

        1. SgtWadeyWilson

          More like implying that the ads are calling you that.

          …are you an obnoxious audio?

    3. Pablo360

      If you can get more specific information, that will help Willis and/or Hiveworks pinpoint the malicious code for extermination. At the very least, if you’re on Chrome you can use the Inspect Element tooltip to analyze the destination URL and thus determine a likely source for the popup script.

      1. Durandal_1707

        Yeah, unfortunately I reflexively closed the tab as soon as it started screaming at me, so that opportunity has passed.

  4. Blender

    If only they were drinking coffee. Then the penciling stage would have two Joes talking while drinking two cups of Joe.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Can GI Joe be on in the background?

      1. Stephen Bierce

        Along with Viewtiful Joe, Tomorrow’s Joe, Injun Joe, Killer Joe and Dynamo Joe? 😉

        1. Stephen Bierce

          HERE’s The Story About Killer Joe…

        2. Opus the Poet

          You left off Monkey Joe (RIP) from UBSG.

        3. Ntrovert

          Not to mention Bazooka Joe…

        4. Geneseepaws

          Well, that gave me something to chew on today.

        5. Clif

          Careful. Don’t let it gum up your mental processes.

        6. Haven

          Sounds like quite the bizarre adventure.

        7. Blender

          All while listening to Cotton-Eye Joe?

        8. Durandal_1707

          And eating a box of Jolly Joes.

        9. Mr. Bulbmin

          Joes chewing Joe while drinking Joe, to the strains of Joe in the background.

          We can go deeper

        10. Deanatay

          Where’d ya come from, where’d ya go

        11. Jhon

          Also ‘Crusher Joe’.

    2. Gojira

      Two Joes one cup

  5. AnvilPro

    Rich looks like he’s really forcing that smile in the last panel. I think he’s serious about trying to go steady, but he can’t deny that Joe isn’t right to suspect him

  6. Scoops

    I got a pair of Joes right here.

    1. Jess

      Sadly, only one of them is a doc.

    2. Scoops

      Avatar/comment match worked pretty well today.

      And I got your avatar/comment match right here!

  7. Enya

    Well Joe’s dad just got a lot creepier.

    1. Yumi

      Well, his creep levels have been varying for me, but this certainly isn’t new territory for him.

  8. Achallenger

    This is like the perverse, extra selff aware version of that time I discover “oh hey I’m poly, find a better way to make this work Dumbass”a’s

  9. Kernanator

    I read that last panel and literally said “Whoof” out loud.

  10. RandomRedMage

    I actually have to give this one to Joe. As much of an ads as he’s always been… he always looked out for Danny in his own way, and well right now he’s actually concerned for ambers mom.

  11. Cattleprod

    Oh, is this the point in the redemption arc with the character that has a more extreme version of whatever the first character needs to improve about themselves, to make them look better in comparison?

    1. Pablo360

      Or to reflect their own faults back at them, magnified. The literal manifestation of the pole in their eye, that they must remove to complete their pole-based journey.

      That metaphor got away from me there.

      1. Dean

        Heheh, ‘pole’.

    2. TemporalShrew

      I mean, I think it’s less to “make him look better” and more to galvanize him into more determined self-improvement due to exposure to what he could easily interpret as his own future.

    3. ESM

      Yeah, but Joe’s hangup is about the one thing he DOESN’T have in common with his dad. Joe’s dad lies about himself to women and pretends to be something he’s not, so Joe’s takeaway is that he should be as open as possible about what kind of person he is so that there’s no confusion or heartbreak. And he does this to the point where it’s a character flaw in and of itself.

      No one who’s sexually attracted to women is equally attracted to all women (or attracted to men, or whatever). Everyone who’s not asexual’s got a list. But Joe, who’s upset that his dad pretends to be monogamous when he sleeps around, thinks the solution is to be really obvious about this aspect of himself and make an actual literal list that he keeps regularly updated. This is kind of why he has trouble when pushed back against on that kind of thing. He sees “don’t make a list of women ranked by hotness” as “don’t tell anyone you find some women hotter than others”, and thinks that’s acting like his dad.

      1. Katrika

        Yes, exactly this. I don’t think there’s any problem with Joe sleeping around, especially at this stage in his life, if he’s honest with potential partners about not getting into a relationship. The problem comes from him taking that and, like, making it his entire personality in regards to interactions with other people. Which seems to be rooted in deeper issues that don’t necessarily have to do with his dad, but calling his dad a more extreme form of Joe is missing the nuance going on in this conversation.

        Joe’s an asshole and I wouldn’t particularly want to be anywhere around him if he were real, but in this conversation, he’s right.

        1. ESM

          >The problem comes from him taking that and, like, making it his entire personality in regards to interactions with other people. Which seems to be rooted in deeper issues that don’t necessarily have to do with his dad

          We’ll see how this storyline goes, but the impression that I’m getting is that Dad hides his horny nature and Joe, not wanting to be scummy like his dad, overshoots and makes his horny nature the only public-facing aspect of his personality.

        2. Katrika

          Yeah. The problem is that we don’t really see Dad hiding his horny nature, but he’s got to have more of a filter, right?

      2. bejouled

        Ooh, this is a really good explanation. Thank you! I never hated Joe as much as most of the other commenters, and I think you’ve just explained why.

      3. Liliet

        “Considering some people hotter than others” =/= keep an actual list in your head with people sorted/rated by hotness. Because, you know, for most people hotness is NOT the first characteristic that comes to mind when they’re thinking about someone they’re not violently attracted to. Like, if you’re not attracted to someone, you just file them in a different part of your brain registry than ones you’re attracted to, and that’s that. No numbers attached.

        That’s why Joe’s list is gross. He files ALL women under ‘attractive’, even if he’s not actually attracted to them, disregarding everything else about them as secondary to even non-existence ‘hotness’.
        That’s the gross part.

        1. thejeff

          Still, I think the point that it’s all a reaction to his dad is on target. He’s pushing women away emotionally and treating as mere sexual objects at least partly to avoid hurting them with the same kind of betrayal Richard put his mother through. It’s gross and fucked up, but can be seen as the lesser evil.

          Also probably explains why his “game” didn’t have much success. He wasn’t willing to fake an emotional connection.

        2. Liliet

          yeah, that part is 100% true

    4. Katrika

      Weirdly I think this serves to help explain WHY Joe is the way he is. If his dad is a chronic cheater, and it sure seems like he is, it could explain why Joe is scared of commitment. He’s seen what cheating does to people, so he’s decided to not do that, but he’s decided to not do that by being very clear to people that he’s not going to be exclusive.

      Obviously that also is influenced by his wider issues with being scared to connect to other people on a serious level, but it seems pretty clear to me that Joe’s own sexual morals are pretty heavily influenced by his dad, and not in a ‘following in dad’s footsteps’ way. I wouldn’t consider Joe Sr. a more extreme version of Joe, because there’s a pretty huge difference between promising exclusivity and then cheating, and making it clear to sexual partners that you’re not looking or planning to be exclusive before they decide if they want to have a relationship on those terms. One is not a more extreme version of the other.

      1. Chris McIntyre

        I like your comment but your avatar gave me the sads. It was such a bummer to have Prologue get milkshake ducked…

        1. Chris McIntyre

          Oh god my avatar is perhaps worse. Damn you, Willis!

        2. StClair

          uh oh. what’s happened?
          (I know the expression, and the comic, but lack the third piece… and am probably going to be sad I asked.)

        3. dethtolldotmid

          I’ve got to know, too.

        4. Liliet

          I’m not sure what the expression means, but you do know it’s updating, right?

        5. StClair

          “milkshake duck” – when someone turns out to be awful, resulting in a swift reversal of popular opinion and retroactively tainting things they were involved with. See also “fall from grace”.

          (Named for a fictional example created to illustrate the phenomenon, a milkshake-loving duck who becomes an internet sensation before it’s revealed that the duck is racist.)

        6. Sarda

          Given that he can’t even get the name of the comic right, I think it’s safe to say there’s nothing going on that would deserve the term. Closest I can think is the extreme amount of time it took to update, and that’s because the author ran a crowdfunding campaign and underestimated how long it would take for him to personally ship out all the rewards (they all made it as far as I know) and then he decided the next update should be a full on flash adventure instead of a set of comic panels.

        7. Liliet

          Thank you!
          And yeah, same as Sarda, I have no idea what this might be referring to 0.o

    5. Tori

      +1 to both Pablo360 and TemporalShrew. But also, even if we ignore the meta level of “here’s what needs to happen for Joe to change as a character”, this is a confrontation long in the making within the narrative for Joe as a person. It’s been pretty clear that Joe’s behavior is at least partially a reaction to his parents’ messy divorce and especially to his father’s rampant cheating — that is, Joe seems to think that if he never enters a “real” relationship, no one can get “really” hurt (like his mom was). But it’s also clear that he’s internalized a lot of garbage about what it means to be a heterosexual man from dear old dad, and even his own disgust at his father’s behavior hasn’t been enough to dislodge it all.

      IMO this is about Joe confronting the roots of his awful beliefs about relationships between men and women as much as it is about Joe being forced to recognize himself in Richard.

    6. IllogicalBobcat

      Good to see people will keep hating Joe regardless of any behaviors he changes.

      1. Gwen

        I don’t think most people are arguing that, seeing as how everyone here is talking about a redemption arc. There’s an arc rather than a Cinderella transportation because there’s all sorts of intermediate states. So here, he’s calling his father out on his BS, and he’s starting to call out his own, but he’s not totally redeemed yet.

        And remember, while it’s been forever since this story started here in the comments section, it’s been what, a day? since his “Do list” was leaked. Change doesn’t happen literally overnight.

      2. thejeff

        It’s also good to see there will always be people defending his previous behavior, despite the story clear laying out why it was wrong and why he changed.
        Not necessarily you, but they’re around today.

  12. Smiling Cat

    It was creepy in Age of Extinction, it’s still creepy here when a guy explains that it’s not technically statutory rape.

    1. Regalli

      Thank you for reminding me of that creepshow. Laminated card. Augh. (It would’ve taken so little effort to mitigate the creep there and instead they AMPLIFIED it. Shudder)

    2. Tacos

      Why’d you have to remind me of that scene? Like sure, let’s spend 10 minutes explaining how dating -and most likely having sex with- a 17 year old is perfectly legal and not creepy at all.

      1. Smiling Cat

        It’s somehow worse that all he had to say was “the age of consent in texas is 17”. Instead he carries around a laminated card explaining a law that doesn’t even work like that (Romeo and Juliet laws are based on the age gap between the pair, not on some bullshit nonsense about dating in school). That’s something a guy does if he’s making this a habit and needs to bullshit concerned people constantly. That’s predatory behavior.

  13. Solenoid

    the more i see of richard, the more i think he’s a dick

    1. PB

      Ha ha! Nicknames and dangly parts!

  14. Dean

    You have to wonder how many times Joe has been down this road with his dad before. And how long it took him to learn that it would always end in the same way.

  15. foamy

    Jesus Christ.

  16. Passchendaele

    Richard has determination right now, but Joe makes some good points (especially in the uber-creepy-on-Richard’s-part last panel), so I dunno who to agree with? *shrugs* Guess I’ll have to wait and see, but I have a feeling Stacy won’t be happy by the end of this. ».»

    1. Conuly

      Agree with Joe. Definitely. Richard is gonna act one way, but talk another – that’s not cool. If you want to have an open relationship, just say it upfront like a grownup.

  17. Some Random Name

    This is a weird vicarious living kind of thing going on.

  18. Conuly

    I understand Joe so much better now.

  19. DailyBrad

    I hope Richard’s true to his word, but I mean, at this stage in the webcomic, how long ago was the whole parent visiting thing? It’s been at most a couple of months, right?

    So, even giving Richard the benefit of the doubt, it still hasn’t been that long, so I don’t blame Joe for having his doubts.

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      A couple of months?

      Try a couple of weeks.

      1. DailyBrad

        I figured, but wasn’t positive, so I overshot. Even more reason for Joe to be slow to trust on this, especially because he looks rather angry. Guessing Richard doing that to his mom along with maybe other women to come into Joe’s life had to be quite painful for him.

    2. OBBWG

      If one book = one week, it has been four weeks.

  20. Sionyx

    Looks like Richard’s a decent person, but not someone who’s ideal relationship material. I wonder how many times he’s tried monogamy before now, given Joe’s reaction of “Yeah, right.”

  21. Socks

    Can I just say how much I love how Willis is writing Richard? Not, like, in that he is a good person, but just how much his dialogue quickly and clearly conveys his personality, and, also that he has one beyond just being scummy, but without the narrative excusing him for being scummy! Like, Willis is just doing so great at giving us scum but with flavor, instead of having him twirl his moustache and tie damsels to railroad tracks and then hit on them while they’re there.

    Like, I don’t know, I think another writer could make this character really boring, because he’s a pretty minor character with one pretty prominent character trait (being gross). Instead, we also get to see a middle school sense of humor and a horribly inappropriate parenting style!

    I’m doing nanowrimo and have been way overanalyzing the webcomics I read so that I can feel bad about how little work I am putting into my own minor characters.

    1. 3oranges

      “Scum but with flavor” is an intriguing turn of phrase, like an incredibly ill-conceived marketing campaign for seaweed snacks.

    2. ESM

      >Willis is just doing so great at giving us scum but with flavor, instead of having him twirl his moustache and tie damsels to railroad tracks and then hit on them while they’re there.

      This is probably worth highlighting and emphasizing. One of the biggest complaints about Willis’ writing, especially in DoA, is that his villains are all transphobic Skeletors with no depth. Richard, while clearly an unlikeable jerk, has a bit more going on with him that makes him more interesting than, say, Ruth’s grandpa, and that’s nice. Richard also kind of explains why Joe is the way he is, very similar to his dad, aware his dad is bad, but mis-attributing the problem to just his dad not being honest.

      1. Frederic Garber

        I look at Toedad, Blaine, and Grandpa (for example) and I realize that they describe worst versions of ME, and so it’s easier to critically pick out their differences. if a reader’s primary perspective on older white male authority figures is looking up at them from Under The Boot, then we all look pretty similar when we’re being assholes about sexuality, power, and identity.

      2. Gwen

        It’s true. And for Richard, specifically, we need to see some redeeming qualities, at least right now to explain why Stacey is falling for him. Terrible people don’t draw people into relationships with them by being completely terrible from day one. The terribleness tends to escalate over time, either because the asshole has their partner in their power and drops the mask, or because they are someone like Richard who seems to have genuinely good intentions but no self-awareness, making him bound to break Stacey’s heart eventually, but in a way she can delude herself about right now.

  22. Porto

    I….did not expecte Joe’s reaction to be so thoughtful.

    …huh.

    1. Rowen Morland

      I think he’s sore on cheating breaking people up because of his parent’s marriage breaking up.

      1. Leorale

        He clearly had a front row seat to Richard’s cheating, how this hurt his mom and destroyed their marriage.

        1. Rowen Morland

          Maybe this time around he was the one who found out the way Ruth did in It’s Walky, and was pressured into keeping quiet. Maybe young Joe did not act with ‘integrity’.

  23. Tacos

    Jeez, Richard is a real creep.

  24. CapedLuigisYoshi

    In a turn of events sure to surprise absolutely everyone, Richard is kind of a Dick.

  25. Leorale

    EAUGH.

  26. 3oranges

    Congratulations to Richard, whose commitment to this relationship has now cleared the not-actively-hitting-on-other-girls-much-too-young-for-him bar. He has gained 0.000016 XP.

    1. Gaia

      As long as everyone involved can give informed consent, I really don’t see the problem, care to explain it to me? (No sarcasm)

      1. Shiro

        It’s really fucking creepy for an established, experienced adult to go out of his way to try to have sex with someone who was legally a kid last year and knows nothing of the world. It’s almost exactly the same amount of creepy for the same guy to blatantly go “look at how I’m not having sex with these extremely young women even though I could”.

        1. ArcaneDarkness

          First, I think people forgot how they were with 18 years old, “knows nothing of the world” is an exaggeration.
          Second, how you define “go out of his way”, and if he was not “going out of his way” it would be ok?

        2. Trolldrool

          It really isn’t that much of an exaggeration. Sure I knew lots of things when I was 18, but I really hadn’t developed the ability to properly reflect on my own thoughts about those things yet. I had information, but I didn’t understand any of it to the degree I thought I did.

        3. thejeff

          If somehow a man of his age developed an actual relationship with an 18 year, there’s a chance that it would be okay. If a man presumably in his forties is going out of his way to seduce 18 year olds, he’s a creep.

        4. Gwen

          Young people sometimes feel flattered when an older person is interested in them, because the older person will often tell them how mature they are, which is something people want to have validated at that age. However, the reason there isn’t a big maturity gap between the younger and older partner is usually because the older partner is immature and has trouble relating to people their own age, who would call them on their bullshit.

      2. Hannah

        Dating a person half your age who is barely an adult is inherently going to have a major power imbalance, similar to how dating an employee would be unethical. Young adults would be used to viewing older adults as authority figures, making it harder for them to stand up for themselves in the relationship. There is also the issue that an 18 year old isn’t going to know that much about sex and relationships. When two 18 year olds embark on a relationship together, they are both relatively in the dark and on the same level, but an adult Richards age would be able to exploit the lack of experience to normalise behaviours which to an older person would be serious red flags. It is important to understand that just because a person technically said yes to sex does not mean they cannot have been heavily coerced.
        I would strongly recommend you do some of your own research into this as it can be difficult to explain properly when put on the spot and it is an important issue that many people don’t properly understand, which leads to many young adults in these kind of relationships being victim blamed.

        1. Hannah

          Oops, someone already replied. My fault for not refreshing the page.

        2. ValdVin

          No oops. You added good bits not in the other reply. And the subject warrants multiple (polite, engaging) responses to demonstrate what folks think, especially on a message board about a comic that gets NSFNP often.

          (Not safe for newsprint.)

      3. thejeff

        It’s not necessarily always a bad thing. I’m sure there have been relationships with that kind of age gap that have worked.
        However, Richard is clearly not the kind of person to trust with one. He’s a creep and a cheater, very likely a manipulative liar. All the age and maturity imbalance stuff just gets worse when the older one is a creep.
        Which pretty much anyone looking to pick up “barely legal teens” is.

        Of course, last time he was here, he was quite aware of all the legal age girls. He hit on Sarah.

        By the way, age of consent in Indiana is 16. Since all that matters is legal age and informed consent, you wouldn’t find anything at all troubling about guys in their mid 40s (at least) cruising the high schools trying to pick up girls? As long as they made sure they were past their 16th birthday.

      4. Liliet

        I have been hit on by a TA in my unil. I tried to give him the ‘it’s awkward because you’re teaching me’ excuse, he brushed it off. I ended up resorting to ‘sorry, I’m really busy that day, and the other day, I AM JUST IN GENERAL A VERY BUSY PERSON’. Later, he contacted me by email. I had not given him my email address, but it was listed in my public social media profile which he found… and instead of contacting me through it like a normal person, went with the more intimate option. I didn’t like it, but, well, I DID put the email there, right? And he showed interest in my interests, and was generally respectful and sweet… and was not actively asking me out anymore. So I replied. I was 17, and someone 10 years older than me talking to me respectfully like that just overrode all the heebie jeebies he gave me (and I hadn’t consciously known about red flags and power imbalance yet, everything was on subconscious level).

        At some point he asked me to switch from using the formal you (in Russian) to informal you. That would have been a huge familiarity leap, and like half the reason I was okay with our interactions was that he was addressing me with the formal ‘you’, putting some respectful distance between us.
        So I answered that I couldn’t, because he was my teacher and I can’t address my teachers with informal you, just the kind of person I am.

        A couple of months of this kind of escalating interaction and ‘friendship’ later, he asked if HE could call me by ‘informal you’.
        I did not know a way to say ‘no’ politely, so I said ‘yes’, even though it instantly nuked the rest of my investment in the relationship.

        Then, he similarly weaseled his way (by me not knowing how to say no) into a concert I wanted to go to, I was supposed to go with friends but they couldn’t make it, so I ended up enlisting my little brother as a chaperone. He had also offered to buy tickets, and when I came, refused to take my money for it, saying it’s a ‘gift’. Once again, I SHOULD have just said ‘nope’ and given him the money… but I was 17 and didn’t have that much money, and having money to buy CDs and snacks instead was tempting. Oh, and then he insisted on paying for my food, too. I felt gross the entire time, like I was allowing him way more intimacy than I was comfortable with, way more control, like I owed him money now… but I WANTED those CDs…

        After the disastrous (to my emotional balance) not-date at the concert, I ended up just abandoning that social media profile. We’d stopped communicating by email by then, so first I just ghosted him, replying to his messages once a week, then once a month. Then I ended up just not going on that social network ever, because it made me feel scared his messages would be there. I avoided him in the uni too, which wasn’t easy because he was from the same faculty…

        To elaborate, that social media site (vkontakte, the russian-speaking facebook equivalent) was not just an entertainment venue. Literally everything, from work to uni, used it as the main way of communication. The reason I usually went on vkontakte was to check what was up in my group, if there were tests or test questions or test results posted, or any news, etc etc. I actually ended up relying on my friend for keeping me informed of stuff for the rest of my uni career.

        It’s barely been 2 years since I managed to get over this not-exactly-fear-just-creeped-out-as-fuck and start using vkontakte for professional purposes again. I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable using it for recreation, and my profile is locked down, and I basically stopped adding friends, ever. It’s been nearly 7 years since That Guy.

        He wasn’t even trying to get in my pants, and he was polite and gentlemany and…
        and he barreled all over all my boundaries just by being older and more confident, and I ended up crippling my ability to use internet just to get rid of him, like a wolf chewing off his own leg.

        Adults creeping on teenagers is fucking terrifying.
        (Sure, there might be adults out there who are actually genuinely respectful of boundaries and will not use the power they have to keep the other person off-balance. As we’ve seen from his interaction with Amber in the previous strip, Richard is not that person.)

        And “informed consent” isolated from context means fuckall. Technically, I gave that guy informed consent to talk to me by email (by replying the first time without telling him to go fuck himself), to address me informally and to pay for my concert tickets. I mean, I knew what he was doing and I said ‘okay’, so that’s informed consent, right?
        Yeah…

  27. Chris Phoenix

    She won!!! Danica Roem Won!!! Woo-hoo!

    1. Pablo360

      Indeed! There have been a lot of electoral victories this time around, in fact. (And unfortunately, one particularly worrisome constitutional amendment in Texas.)

      1. thejeff

        Which amendment? I hadn’t been following that.

        1. Pablo360

          Basically it’s an amendment that says that there’s a 45-day grace period before anything can be ruled unconstitutional.

          Yeah. It’s that bad.

        2. Clif

          Giving the state notice so that they can contest it if they want to sounds reasonable to me, but I voted against it on the theory that anything over a couple of weeks could be excessive and a foot in the door for first extending it to 90 days and then a couple of years. Justice delayed is justice denied, to coin a phrase.

        3. thejeff

          Also sets up things like changing election rules 40 days before an election and preventing any challenges until after the election. (Though anything that fell under federal constitutional law would actually be unaffected.)

          Oh so full of possible abuse. And what’s the point in it. The vast majority of time, legal challenges take longer than that anyway. What’s the point of this other than to push something through you know is unconstitutional, but will let you get something bad done quickly.

    2. Fart Captor

      There’s been a bunch of amazing upsets against hateful far-right assholes tonight, but that one’s my favorite. Fuck that bigot she unseated.

      1. BBCC

        RIGHT?

        Proud of you in America tonight.

    3. Shiro

      I just woke up from like a five hour nap and I’m so proud of my state 😀 Now…to check on the rest of the races and see if that feeling persists…

      1. thejeff

        I think it will.:)
        Last I checked control of the virginia House was waiting on recounts in a couple races. No one thought that was a realistic hope.

    4. Cerberus

      So happy and excited about that!!! And she beat infamous bigot Bob Marshall to do it too!

      1. Felgraf

        Even better that she didn’t just win. SHE STOMPED THAT ASSHOLE! 9% margin of victory! =D
        (And was super-gracious about her victory, to boot.)

  28. butting

    Off-topic but: HELLS YES VIRGINIA

  29. Goki

    Baby steps, for Richard this is sadly progress…… Not really liking the guy still, nor do I approve of how he talks about certain things and women, but let’s face it, he’s not gonna change overnight or even in a couple months, this is something that’s going to take probably years for him to probably become a fully functional respectable human being, and I am probably lowballing it .

    1. Leorale

      So far Richard hasn’t given any indication that he even wants to treat his partners better, though. Or women. Or college students half his age.

      1. Goki

        At this point he had to drive his partner a long distance and violated cafeteria school rules because his partner’s was worried about her daughter. Also Amber’s mom seems to think that Richard will help in a legal battle against the parents of someone far worse than him. These are things that person would not do for a booty call but for someone they care about . (if it was just a booty call, he would left the moment things got even the slightest bit complicated)

        Once again I must stress I am not a fan of this person at all, but sadly this is mind blowing progress (for him) to the point his own son doesn’t believe it and time will tell if he actually tries to become better person or if he “pulls a Richard”.

        1. thejeff

          Is it?
          It’s quite possible he’s always been nice and helpful and still a cheater. He may even intend at this point to be faithful – as he may have intended it with his ex-wife and possibly others over the years.

        2. Goki

          That’s fair, as a character (In this universe anyway) we only know him by how he acts during his screen time and how Joe and Amber’s Mom talk about him, and the information being limited and really not flattering. I am basing my words on a combination of the earlier and how most people (not all) would be like with a booty call. Those were my thoughts on the matter, though I fully admit I could be wrong ^_^U, time will tell what happens and if he changes for a person he cares about or if he “pulls a Richard”. (yep I made him a verb)

          Also, hey thejeff ^_^ thanks for responding.

  30. Keulen

    I think Richard is actually trying to be monogamous, but based on Joe’s reaction I’m guessing he’s tried that and cheated on the woman he was with several times before.

    1. James

      Yeah, I get the impression that while Richard possibly does believe what he’s saying, he’s probably believed it multiple times before this for multiple past relationships, including his marriage to Joe’s mother.

  31. Griffin Raynor

    god Richard that is creepy

  32. Bagge

    Huh, I can see how Joe got the idea that what he is doing is benign and non-creepy.

    In comparison to his dad, he’s right.

    1. Regalli

      When your bar is set THAT low, anything’ll clear it.

      1. Pablo360

        Don’t tempt fate.

    2. Cerberus

      Yup, I feel like this is a thing that happens a lot to faux-feminist creepers as well. They get celebrated because they recognize things like rape culture and they meet a minimum not shitty standard but that means they get to assume they’ll get a free pass on sexual harassment and the like.

  33. Emperor Norton II

    And here we have it. Here we get it laid out plainer than ever before, what I’ve been saying many times about Joe and his problems with not wanting emotional connections: That they stem from his father’s betrayal on his mother. Last time I touched upon this aspect of Joe, I said this:

    He saw in his father someone who would betray someone they loved. And yes, I believe Joe’s father did love, or at least care for, his wife. But he still betrayed the relationship he had with her.

    And from that, Joe took the following lessons: That if you don’t have feelings for someone, you can’t betray them. If it’s only physical, it can’t be emotional. And perhaps worst of all: That if it’s never serious, it can never harm someone.

    Needless to say, those were not the right lessons.

    Adding to this, I will now also say that Joe’s decision to never let it become emotional is very likely also the source of his problems with boundaries. Because in order to manage to refuse to connect* with other people emotionally, you have to refuse to see them as full human beings. And if you don’t see them as full human beings, then it’s much, much easier to ignore the boundaries they are trying to set.

    And -that- is why I believe in the philosophy of Granny Weatherwax, who believes that the worst sin is to think of other humans as things. That there are certainly worse crimes, but most of those crimes stems from that one sin.

    But at the same time… Let us not forget that Joe’s refusal of seeing other humans as things is in fact a defense mechanism against being emotionally hurt like his mother was. I mean, make no mistake, his “solution” is pretty damn shitty, but I see the anger in Joe’s eyes whenever he meets his father (who is a really super-big douchebag) and I can’t help but pity him; and hope he’ll one day meet someone who will truly “teach” him the joys of emotional connection.

    No, not Joyce. She’s there to teach him about boundaries and starting with seeing other people as people.

    *This sentence might be grammatically correct (not really sure yet); but even if it is, it still feels so wrong. Which is why I’m keeping it as it is. Sometimes it feels good to be bad.

    1. Regalli

      Great insight, oh Emperor.

    2. Poofdepoof

      I don’t think Joe is scared of being hurt. I think he is scared of hurting someone else.

      1. Emperor Norton II

        I think that if he’d really been scared of hurting other people, he would pay a lot more attention to them to ensure that he didn’t end up hurting them.

        1. adjudicus

          I think that he really was scared of hurting others, just that he decided to have no emotional ties to people in reaction to his father’s shittiness to avoid hurting them, and it never occurred to him that his way of severing emotional ties (not seeing people as human beings) wound up hurting so many people until Joyce pointed it out. (or he was being wilfully ignorant to avoid the upending of his worldview.) If he really didn’t care about other people, he wouldn’t have bothered listening to Joyce and trying to change

    3. ArcaneDarkness

      And from that, Joe took the following lessons: That if you don’t have feelings for someone, you can’t betray them. If it’s only physical, it can’t be emotional. And perhaps worst of all: That if it’s never serious, it can never harm someone.

      Needless to say, those were not the right lessons.

      I think you are extrapolating Joe values a little while mostly correct.

      For me, Joe is the guy who saw his mother and other woman be hurt by his father who promised something he could not follow.
      Being his father’s son, he did not want to illude humself he could promise what his father promised and failed, and he did not want to commit the same mistakes than his father, mistakes that had hurt him (with the divorce) and others he cared (I do not remember if he says explicity, but the way he is against this behaviour shows to me he cared for his mother, and see she only as a victim).
      He then nurtured a personal philosophy that would make impossible to him to do the exact same mistakes his father did, but does not avoid having mistakes of his own.
      Joe has his flaws, but seems to me that many people attack him on something that I do not consider a flaw: knowing exactly what he wants and pursuing that while respecting consent and do not leading on people.
      When we had Roz show herself as a girl who did casual sex and even used it to attack her sister by filming and posting it, I do not remember (what can be my memory’s fault) of everyone pointing how Roz was creepy. And, except for the “sex as an way of attack her sister” nor they should. Is not creepy to known you are only interested in casual sex (or being polyamorous, for example) and do this responsibly, and force of will is needed to avoid doing you do not want because society pressure you in some specific way of life.

      1. thejeff

        Only wanting casual sex is not creepy.

        Propositioning nearly every woman you talk to – including jumping in to talk to total strangers to do so – is. He’s shown himself, at least before his recent change, to be practically incapable of talking to a woman without somehow bringing up sex or how hot he thinks she is or something. Even, as in Sarah’s case, when she’s made it absolutely clear she’s not interested.

        Do not twist this into “people claiming Joe is creepy are just against casual sex”. Or polyamory – where the hell did that come from, anyway?
        Joe wasn’t casual, he was predatory. There’s a big difference.

        1. ArcaneDarkness

          I do not see the problem with he “propositioning nearly every woman he to” if after a no he stops pursuing.

          “He’s shown himself, at least before his recent change, to be practically incapable of talking to a woman without somehow bringing up sex or how hot he thinks she is or something. Even, as in Sarah’s case, when she’s made it absolutely clear she’s not interested.”

          He left Sarah alone after she showed no interest, unless my memory is betraying me. Again, I do not see a problem with it bringing sex up or how hot they were if he does not harass, in other words, if people show they do not like his presence (for him being as he is) he stops engaging them and talking about topics he knows makes them unconfortable.

          I doubt if some woman said her do not want him at her table, he would not get up and get out.

        2. thejeff

          He clearly said something “message understood, consider it tried and dropped”. And then brought up his sex swing and how hot he thought her uncomfortableness was.

          The point is, he only and always interacts with women only in relation to their use as sex objects. With the exception of Joyce – for various reasons.

          To quote Rachel “So I, a human being in the middle of going outside to smell the autumn leaves, wanted to know how much a stranger wanted to fuck her.”

          He’s predatory. Or he was.
          He has his reasons for doing that, but don’t pretend he’s just a perfectly harmless guy who likes casual sex and we’re all prudes for not liking him.

        3. ArcaneDarkness

          o quote Rachel “So I, a human being in the middle of going outside to smell the autumn leaves, wanted to know how much a stranger wanted to fuck her.”

          Some human beings would want to know (I would like to know if I was attracted to the stranger), you can not know before you talked to them, or you do have just assumed, and that was their first interaction. He did not avoid mentioning the sex swing thing until Joyce forced it out of him?

          Nobody is “perfectly harmless” not even Joyce, but I fail to see him in a much worse light than any other characters.

        4. thejeff

          I know you don’t.

          He does. Now that he’s starting to realize what he was like. I’m sorry you don’t.

        5. Fart Captor

          The problem with propositioning everyone you meet – especially the way Joe went about it – is that in the vast majority of situations it can make people feel unsafe. If the first thing you say to someone you’ve just met is basically an announcement that your only interest I them is sex, that’s almost always gonna be the result.

          And no, Joe didn’t just give up the first time he got shot down. She’d literally told him to fuck off, and he nevertheless tried again later. That’s why she told him to never speak to her again when he recently tried to rope her into talking about his feelings.

          Your classmates are not there for you to fuck. Your dorm mates are not there for you to fuck. Your co-workers are not there for you to fuck. Nobody is obligated to give you a chance to convince them to have sex with you. They are not obligated to stand there and politely listen to your advances if they aren’t welcome. The fact that they happened to be nearby and you don’t want to “miss an opportunity” doesn’t change that.

          If you want to casually bang random strangers, there are ways to accomplish that without being a disrespectful creep.

      2. Trolldrool

        Joe respects consent as far as he understands it. The problem with Joe is that he has shown several times that he has a flawed understanding of what consent is, which makes him liable to ignore it when he doesn’t see it.

        1. Cerberus

          Yup, he has the bare bones of consent, but hasn’t fully grasped how things like coercion negate consent.

        2. ArcaneDarkness

          When has Joe coerced some girl in having sex with him?

        3. Cerberus

          I believe Willis canon is he’s never succeeded in doing so, but he’s tried multiple times in comic including in his “seduction attempt” on Joyce, his “heavy pressure” “game” with Sarah, and his general ignoring of boundaries until someone explodes.

        4. thejeff

          I think Willis canon is that he’s not as bad as he pretended to be. Some people here are translating that as “We’re horrible people for believing he was as bad as he pretended to be.”

        5. Liliet

          The canon is that he is not as -successful at being bad- as he pretended to be. Attempted murder is not quite murder. Attempted sexual coercion is not quite sexual assault (but it is sexual harrassment).

        6. thejeff

          Like he actually used alcohol to help get a threesome, that was just talk. That kind of thing.

          I suppose it’s possible he tried to get a couple girls drunk enough to go along with it, but there’s no evidence for it.

        7. ArcaneDarkness

          “seduction attempt” on Joyce

          You mean when he called her for a unchaperoned date?

        8. Cerberus

          No, I’m talking about when he tried to manipulate his way around important boundaries for her and manipulate her into a sexual situation against her stated opposition to that as well as the time he implied that alcohol would “work around” stated boundaries.

          Like, he’s never succeeded in his darker actions, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t given it a solid try or pretended like those were his typical actions when he thought that made him look manlier.

        9. ArcaneDarkness

          What I have seen Joe do is to have trouble understanding because woman would not have interest in him (what, yes, is comically arrogant of him). However, he does not tried to press clearly unwilling woman in having sex with him, if someone did not show interest, he would be left confused for a moment, and then go search for another girl.

        10. Trolldrool

          He has never gone as far as to actually pressuring someone into sex, but when someone turns him down, he almost never gets the point the first time and when he does it’s only when they threaten him with violence if he tries a second time. And nobody should have to put that much effort into rejecting another person’s advances the way women have to with Joe. Again, he does get the point eventually. But there shouldn’t have to be an ‘eventually’. And that’s something every woman he’s flirted with have had to deal with. Except the ones who have threatened to use violence of course.

    4. Cerberus

      All of this. And that’s why I’m really excited for Joe’s redemption arc. That he’s growing to see all people as people rather than getting trapped in his dad’s worldview where nearly half the human population are objects of sexual gratification and nothing else.

  34. Tyler

    I just really love that Joe didn’t even approach the matter awkwardly or nervous, he just outright expressed his disapproval of his dad’s general hoping from one woman to the next. Which sounds like the kind of thing Joe would thumbs up back at the beginning of Dumbing of Age. It feels abit sudden, but I really like this Joe, recognizing the wrong.

    1. Gaia

      How is it wrong? (I assume everyone is consenting)

      1. Reltzik

        If all those women knew from the start that it was meant to be one-time or casual, or if the ones for whom it was serious knew and agreed that the relationship was open, then it’d be okay. (Okayish. There’s also the question of how Richy-Rich propositioned them, which… I’m guessing was not in the most nurturing way.)

        But understand also that this is likely how Richard’s marriage with Joe’s mom ended in a messy divorce, one which scarred Joe to the point of pathological and proud emotional detachment from everyone. Joe’s perfectly entitled to hard feelings and pessimism on the subject of his father’s faithfulness.

      2. thejeff

        Richard was a cheater – hitting on and sleeping with other women throughout his marriage. While we can assume those other women consented, his wife did not. It was not an open relationship. It was a betrayal of trust and almost certainly accompanied by all the lies and gaslighting and manipulation that go along with keeping the cheating secret.

        Joe rightly sees that his dad is headed right down that road again, whatever his protests about being a changed man.

    2. Fart Captor

      I think Joe disapproves of his dad’s lack of honesty about it. He obviously sees nothing wrong with casual sex, it’s the claiming to be exclusive and then cheating that Joe objects to.

    3. Sam

      No, his issue is with the fact that his dad says he will be exclusive then ends up cheating on his partners as he did to his mother which Joe has clear resentment for him doing. While he is in many ways like his father, he resents his father’s cheating – Joe himself has never been shown to be unfaithful or accepting of cheating, and it is likely because in particular he cannot forget how much it hurt his mother, and so finds it unacceptable that his father could possibly do the same thing to someone else.

      Joe would be fine with him hopping from partner to partner as long as he was honest about it but he expects the worst where his dad cheats, ultimately hurts Stacy and ruins his relationship, like he did with Joe’s mother.

      1. Gwen

        It’s notable here that he’s seeing *Stacey* as a human being. But it probably helps that she’s out of the age group he considers sexually attractive.

        1. Sam

          You can objectify women and still recognise hurting them in certain ways is wrong and terrible.

    4. thejeff

      Look way back to Richard’s first appearance – creeping on Sarah.
      Joe’s attitude towards him is about the same. Joe may mirror his father in many ways, but he’s never approved.

  35. Hescotti

    Heehee! Joe frownglare panel 3!

  36. Rukdug

    Never thought I would be on Joe’s side in an argument. And honestly? Joe looks so angry in those last two panels, I have the feeling Amber won’t end up killing Richard if he hurts her mom because Joe will be burying him in a shallow grave in an orchard.

    1. Emperor Norton II

      Well, as soon as Joe’s dad was coming back into the comic, it was only going to be a matter of time before Joe would be right in an argument.

  37. Josh Spicer

    Good job Joe. Good on ya. Keep this up.

  38. MiaKitty

    It’s super great to have my theories about Joe’s philandering ways proven riiiiiiiiiight.

    He’s a slut, but he’s an honest slut. Not enough faith in relationships (or maybe just himself, sometimes people think this behavior is inescapable) to commit, so he’s honest with the girls he’s with that it’s just sex. There’s something honorable about that.

  39. Tarmaniel

    Oh man, I remember when I was 18 and could still muster outrage at stuff like this. Don’t worry Joe, you’ll get used to it eventually. 10 years from now, when Dad calls you and asks for your advice on how to set up an untraceable burner cell phone because he doesn’t want Mom to know about the sheer number of college 20-somethings he fucked on various business trips and now has to inform of his recent Hepatitis C diagnosis, you’ll have been reduced to mild exasperation. Not that I’d know anything about that.

  40. BenRG

    So, the question is: Is Richard lying to Stacey (if so, why) or is he lying to himself? The second option appeals to me because one of the easiest traps you can fall into is wanting to have a different outcome without changing yourself in any way. Sometime,s your own subconscious desires can really screw up something that you insist to yourself that you want!

    1. Bagge

      My guess is that he believes that he is going to be faithful and that he’s lying to himself. Also, that he will turn out to have a very flexible definition of “faithful” (including an ever expanding list of acceptable “exceptions”.)

    2. Eldritch Gentleman

      My guess is that he is lying to himself. It kinda reminds me my own attempt at dropping caffeine. “Just one glass of Pepsi, just a bit of chocolate, it won’t hurt!”. And then I’m a week into consuming a litre of Pepsi every day… You try but your bad habits and desires get better of you…

    3. OnyxIdol

      He may not be lying at all.

    4. Trolldrool

      Lying kind of implies that he has no genuine intention of keeping his promise. That Richard is completely self-aware that he IS going to cheat on Stacy and is just telling himself otherwise. Which is certainly possible. Another possibility is that he is completely serious. That he believes he can be faithful, and cares about Stacy so that he genuinely don’t want to see her hurt. In which case it’s less a question of sincerety and more one of how able he is to live up to that belief.

      I suppose the devil is in the details on whether both are lying or not. Personally though, going by his behaviour, I feel he’s most probably self-aware enough about his infidelity that he knows it’s a problem which kind of tips the scales in direction of lying.

      1. BenRG

        One possibility is that this is a purely business arrangement: Stacey will be Richard’s lover and housekeeper in exchange for him footing her legal bills. It just that it has gone beyond that for both of them.

        1. OnyxIdol

          Others have pointed out that they started seeing each other long before this business started. They met on family weekend after all.

    5. Sam

      He might not be lying at all in this moment, but whether he is able to actually uphold what he is saying is a different matter, which may transform his words now into a lie over time. Which is what Joe is afraid of. That even if he means it now, he doesn’t have the will to follow through so that even if he is not lying to himself or others right now, he will be later on willingly.

  41. Plasma Mongoose

    Once a fuck-boy, always a fuck-boy.

  42. Eldritch Gentleman

    Makes you wonder how many times Joe had this conversation with his father… And it explains a lot about Joe’s attitude towards women and sex “If I keep it casual and without emotional attachment no one will get hurt”. It’s kinda sad that he assumes his dad’s behaviour is the expected norm.

  43. Nobody

    I was hoping Dick had turned over a new leaf but I’m starting to have doubts

    1. No Name

      If any thing, he’s turned over an old leaf.

  44. Shiro

    I want this to be good for Stacy. This is not filling me with confidence.

    Seriously, why do so many people who clearly cannot do closed relationships insist on trying it and hurting their partners?

    1. missilentmurmur

      Lack of self-awareness? Why do I insist on trying to write my thesis, although I could not finish it by either deadline since 2015?

  45. Cmd1095

    Joe is winning so many points with me right now, his reaction here is too perfect

  46. JessWitt

    Ah so Joe may be sleazy but he’s no cheat like his dad.

  47. Liliet

    sooo yeah this is Joe’s baseline for ‘creepster creep who creepily creeps’. No wonder his own behavior doesn’t even beep the radar without someone else cluing him in.

    “Sexually mature as-defined-by-the-state”. Fucking god.

  48. Morleuca

    In the movie adaptation, they better have the same actor play both Joe and Richards, or iImma be mad.

    1. OnyxIdol

      Come to think of it, who *would* play them? Channing Tatum?

  49. CJ

    OT: The German Supreme Court just changed the rules for intersex people’s sex determination. Since a few years ago, it has been legal to leave the male/female boxes both unchecked. Now, following a motion for a 27 year old intersexual person assigned female at birth, they decided that this was discrimination. The law should be changed to either allow for an actual third option or leave out the box entirely.
    (In Germany, births have to be registered within days to the registrars office and for any person above age 16, having a Personalausweis (an ID card with photo, your names, birthday, location of birth, gender, and current address) is mandatory).
    I’m not sure if this will apply to physically intersex persons only or if this will make life easier for transgender persons as well.
    As the Germans language lacks a distinction between gender and sex in everyday speech, it’s hard to tell if they were clear what they were talking about.

    1. OnyxIdol

      The way I understood it, it was about sex, as the person could not be clearly defined as male or female by their chromosomes, whatever that means.

      1. BenRG

        As I understand it chromosomes DO assign biological gender. It’s just that we have a very weak (bordering on fatally flawed) idea of WHAT gender they are assigning, preferring to take the simpler (but even more flawed) route of assuming it has something to do with macroanatomical presentation.

        1. OnyxIdol

          Isn’t “biological gender” the same as sex?

      2. Trolldrool

        In the most barebones understanding of how chromosomes work in relation to a person’s sex, two X chromosomes and no Y chromosomes means it’s female sex. Any inclusion of Y chromosomes means it’s male sex. People with XY are male sex. People with XXY are effectively male sex, but also sterile from birth. People with XYY are male sex and depending on the source, supermen or psychotic criminals.

        As in, when it was originally discovered, I think in the early 1900s, people interpreted it as something positive, namely that people were extra masculine, which by contemporary standards made them stronger, virile and dominant. Around the 70s-80s, people interpreted it as something negative, namely that people were extra masculine and therefore biologically compelled to acts of violence and sexual assault.

      3. Cerberus

        Sex assigned at birth is based on doctor’s best guess at genital configuration not chromosomes. Most people have no idea what their chromosomes look like unless they specifically do a karyotype test.

      4. CJ

        I think that intersex refers not only to different chromosome configuration but also to anatomical and hormonal configuration which lead to a body configuration that shows male and female anatomical characteristics.
        You can have xx chromosomes and genitals that are perceived as a penis.

        1. BBCC

          Yep! I’ve been told that it was genital, gonadal, hormonal, and/or chromosomal differences that were outside the accepted parameters for male and female – basically being congenital (and things that made you fall outside those parameters but weren’t genital, gonadal, hormonal or chromosomal were called ‘sex divergencies’).

  50. Guest42

    Joe, your dad is allowed to try. Especially if he’s been up front about having trouble and failure at faithfulness in past relationships.

    Don’t doom him to a self fulfilling prophecy.

    1. thejeff

      And do we have any reason to think he’s been up front?

      Joe’s allowed to see the disaster coming and maybe do something to prevent it?
      It’s also not for nothing this was set up with Stacy, who to quote Amber “thought Blaine was charming.” Her taste in men and ability to see through manipulation and lies is not exactly inspiring confidence.

  51. Dutchtica

    Holy shit
    Good guy Joe

  52. altalemur

    this conversation is giving a lot of insight into Joe’s motivations. if his dad is his main role model, then of course he thinks the only way to avoid hurting women is by being super casual. he never really learned how to be close to a woman, even as a friend, and treat them like humans.

    1. Cerberus

      And what he’s never learned is his dad still hurts women all the time being sexually harassing, being “casual”, but since it looks different to how his mom got hurt he assumes it was all good.

  53. Trolldrool

    Have we ever seen Joe’s mom or been given any indication of what she might look like? After seeing Joe and Richard together in so many panels, whenever I try to imagine what she’d look like, all I’m getting is this creepy image in my head that she looks almost identical to Joe too, just without the stubble.

    1. Gwen

      That’s hilarious! Maybe less creepily, lots of recessive traits? (Red hair, green eyes, etc)

  54. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Panel 1: Even with a person he is stating he is developing a romantic relationship with, he can’t stop openly objectifying her. She’s the woman he’s banging. Even when he’s making sure to bring her changes of clothes and getting involved in her personal life, he has to make a big show out of performing how she’s just a piece of meat he’s getting off with.

    And he’s doing it to an audience of his son and previously to the daughter of the person he’s dating, because that is how terrified he is of looking like someone who sees women as full human beings, of admitting that he has desires for romantic connections as well as sexual ones.

    Like, it’s gross, but it’s also just pathetic.

    Panel 2: Oi. As a poly person, I’m always frustrated by the way people assume that an open relationship is just sanctioned cheating. Like, in an open relationship, you still talk about new partners and negotiate a dynamic about them and it is still possible to cheat.

    Like, someone not telling a romantic partner about a connection, deceiving them about it and doing it on the down-low is still as much a violation of trust in an open relationship as it is in a monogamous one.

    And it’s why the weird belief that cheaters should do open relationships doesn’t work. Because what cheaters often get off on is the sneaking around and lying. On pushing against boundaries and keeping secrets and the “thrill” of knowing they are doing something their partner wouldn’t approve of.

    An open relationship on the other hand requires open communication, deep honesty, and a strong foundation of trust, similar to most any other successful relationship and that’s not something that interests or excites a cheater.

    And it’s part of what Joe and his dad fail to grasp and why they fail in any relationship model. That relationships in general require emotional honesty and a willingness to let bare their feelings in a vulnerable way.

    And that there is no cheat code for getting away from that and not having to put in the work of actually respecting your partner as a human being.

    1. thejeff

      Poly is hard.
      Cheating is easy.

    2. JBento

      I thought poly relationships and open relationships were different things? Like, that the poly ones could involve other partners, provided they followed an agreed-upon procedure, and open relationships just meant “you’re allowed to fuck other people”?

      1. Gwen

        This. And yes, some people are cheaters because they get off on the secrecy, but some people end up being cheaters because they’ve been lead to believe that pursuing what they actually want would make them a bad person. If they’re willing to let go of that, some of them can actually make the transition.

        That said, Richard seems to communicate too much (to his son) and too little (to his partners), so that would definitely have to change.

      2. Liliet

        Polyamourous relationships have a wide variety, including open relationships as one fairly well known subset.

      3. BBCC

        An open relationship is a subset of a polyamorous one. And an open relationship still requires communication (“I’m doing this”) and honesty (“I had sex with Y last night, so I need to get tested before we do anything again”) and trust (“I trust this person will be honest if I ask if they’ve had sex with anyone else lately and keep up with their STI tests and be honest with the results.”)

      4. JBento

        Thanks.

  55. Cerberus

    Panel 4: It says a lot that Joe only seems to recognize “cheat on her” as the main or only way a man can end up hurting a woman in a relationship. Cause that’s the essence of the mask he’s been wearing. No emotions, no entanglements, put down the person you’re dating so it won’t become serious enough to become a relationship and thus be hurt when “cheating happens”.

    And it’s just so tragic, because it completely missed the point of what is objectionable about Joe’s dad’s behavior. Like, cheating sucks, a lot. It’s the open deception of a partner, often involving gaslighting as they start to put together the pieces, and shows an open disrespect for them with regards to being honest. Often it is also weaponized against partners, blamed on them for “failing to fulfill me” in some nebulous way.

    But, it’s often the disrespect and the lies that hurt the most, not the sleeping around. And Joe has gotten so caught up on that one detail, “sleeping around if not casual = bad” that he missed the point entirely of what so hurt his mom in his parents’ romantic collapse.

    And as such, has made the exact same mistakes Joe’s dad still does in this comic. Which is not respecting the people he’s in a relationship with as full people and avoiding treating them as idiots and objects. Like, Joe’s dad is talking about Stacey here like she’s an exciting new sex toaster rather than a person he’s romantically connecting with in the same way that Joe felt the need to denigrate Roz in public.

    And I think him recognizing that hurt goes beyond cheating. That it encompasses sexual harassment, deception, objectification, and so on will make Joe’s redemption arc much easier for him.

    His dad isn’t shit because he cheats. His dad is shit because he harasses everyone and everything and reduces all women to their sexual utility to him personally.

    1. amanda

      Yes to all of this.

      1. StClair

        Seconded.

  56. Cerberus

    Panel 5: I love Willis’s gift for taking the creepy “normalized” bullshit of society and putting it into focus rather than letting it go uncommented upon.

    Because yes, this attitude is fucking rife in way too many communities and is part and parcel of a whole fucking shitton of objectification and entitled rape culture.

    Like, we’ve utterly normalized the idea of creepy old men obsessing about the bodies of the youngest of women and playing shitty games surrounding their “legality” and otherwise fetishizing inexperience and virginity entirely because it means said women usually have less defenses against creepy predators.

    And it leads to shitty creepy old men frequently circling like buzzards in many communities around the youngest and most vulnerable members of the community and the kids having to learn too fast how to defend against objectification, public assault, and so on and so forth.

    And it really shouldn’t be that way. It shouldn’t be normalized that some gross old rapist like Weinstein or Trump is going to attempt to paw his way through the young actresses or models that are unfortunate enough to end up in their sphere. It shouldn’t be normalized to see the gross “old hands” in any community openly prey on the young during their first time out to “show them the ropes”.

    Hugh Hefner should never once have been celebrated for being a creepy rapist/abuser with a “harem” of late teens, early twenty somethings.

    Like, we normalize it so much in society and give such a high platform to the worst abusers and then act surprised that we’ve ended up with a system where we have to train middle schoolers on how to best try and protect themselves from creepers on the bus, where we have a serial child molester in the white house.

    And the way Joe’s dad relates that common societal shitpoint here puts into sharp relief how twisted it is. These are kids as old as his child, who are here to learn, and all he sees is the porn fantasy sold to old guys like him, “barely legal” teenagers who can serve as a trophy for his masculinity and virility that he’s only deigning from pursuing because he’s already got a fuck piece.

    Cause that whole attitude, that whole practice of treating young women and young gay men as objects for the old to destroy needs to die yesterday, especially as too often it is allowed to trail into straight up child molestation as we see with instances like Kevin Spacey or Donald Trump.

    1. JBento

      I get super-skeevy-feelings from the “sexually mature women as-defined-by-the-state”, because I can’t help read it as “well, I wouldn’t fuck them BEFORE, but now that there’s no chance of me getting in jail, hehehehehehe.”

      Ew, dude. Ew.

  57. hof1991

    Love how Dr. Dick says EXCLUSIVE and FAITHFUL, like they’re words he just learned and is trying out for the first time. Baby steps. The direction of change is more important than its speed.

    1. JBento

      His homework was to use them in a sentence.

  58. TemperaryObsessor

    I actually wonder if Richard has some romanticized idea that finding the right woman will make him a grown up and his impulse to have sex with other women will just disappear. Its generally how it happens in movies where his type is the protagonist.

    1. Gwen

      And those movies always end on the wedding day, not decades of marriage later.

      1. TemperaryObsessor

        I think TV shows sometimes take place decades later. I mean I think its sometimes alluded to as the parents backstory.
        Actually maturity being treated as a STD instead of a struggle is not something I really thought about until now. But Richard believing it is the best explanation I can come up with for what’s going on though.

  59. Indy

    A vote of Joe confidence

  60. JBento

    Those 3rd panel faces are giving me chuckle attacks.

    1. ValdVin

      A little breather panel with each of their most extreme facial expressions.

      Richard’s smile reminds me of the unconvincing Darcy Duck getting caught out.

      And no border. The 3rd panel is just sitting there, separating what could be a wall of text into two.disntinct segments, letting the reader rest on it for a few seconds.

      I know nuttin about drawing, but this is a great composition.

  61. Isyldrin

    Huh. She’s gonna need more knives…

  62. Smooti

    i’m guessing DOA Joe doesnt find divorce as awesome as Roomies! Joe

  63. Roborat

    I am beginning to suspect that the good doctor is sincere in his statement that he is in a committed relationship. And that he is very confused by how the heck this happened.

    1. thejeff

      He may be sincere, but Joe doubts his ability at least. It’s easy to get swept up in temporary emotion – New Relationship Energy, and much harder to sustain it.
      Maybe he won’t cheat today or even tomorrow, but it’s harder to keep those old habits from taking over. Especially since he doesn’t seem to acknowledge that as a possible threat.
      Nor does the language he uses really sell it to me “I’m not even noticing the hot barely legal teens” “I’m banging your mom on the regs”, etc. All the disrespect is still there.

  64. Bicycle Bill

    Blaine — certified asshole.
    Toedad — certified asshole.
    Faz — asshole-in-training.
    And now Richard, who is not exactly an exemplary specimen of manhood either.

    To quote the Bonnie Tyler song, “Where have all the good men gone?”

    1. StClair

      This keeps getting asked, and people keep giving the same answers (Hank, et al).
      Maybe it needs to be in the FAQ list.

    2. Trolldrool

      Decent people don’t move the plot along as effectively as scumbags.

      1. Jhon

        ‘Richard, move the plot along-‘
        (Sung to the tune of “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore”.)

  65. WarDragon

    Yep, still predicting Joe’s fist meeting his dad’s face.

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