I feel like Mary gleefully imagining and rendering her dorm mates burning in the fires of hell is the one, single instance where “you do this for fun anyways” is 100% valid.
Roborat
Oh come on, who are we kidding? She has probably already drawn this, all she has to do is change Sarah’s expression from sad to unrepentant.
The good news is that I know a wholesale grocer that sells stadium pretzels in the frozen section. The bad news is that they’re only available in cases of fifty, and a case is bigger than my freezer. First World Problem, I know.
Way back in the Bible
Temptations always come along
There’s always somebody temptin’ somebody inta
Doing something they know is wrong–Bruce Springsteen
No, she likes the idea of her being represented as a cool witch surrounded by “cool” flames. That Mary likes the idea for different reasons is fine, as long as it gets the job done. Whatever else D.Y.Willis intended, this is a depiction of an almost-ideal artist-client collaboration.
IS racist goth metal a thing? I am kind of a goth, and if it is, I am very upsetted. ?
merbrat
We have a Punk Gospel group in Austin. “The Stitches”
Marsh Maryrose
I’m afraid that this is kind of an analog to rule 34. If X exists, then racist X also exists.
HeySo
Having experienced homosexuals who can’t stand asexuals [presumably due to the significant weight that typically* gets put on sexuality within homosexual cultural circles], I can at least attest that being aware of and opposed to an issue doesn’t necessarily make the individual any less likely to engage in furthering such an outlook themselves.
Comparative to adopting negative behaviors and outlooks, fashion and style statements seem a rather minor thing to mimick
*Per my experiences, typical online or public presentation, and popular conception.
My wife is also a Goth and informed me that, unfortunately, yes it exists and really irritates her since she came into it for her love of nonconformity.
Arioch
So, Jaime, I hate to break this to you, but yes, there are racist goth assholes. One even got her recent 15 minutes of fame on the internet after spouting racist bullshit against A Fabulous As Fuck black goth and saying that goth is a “white thing”. People roasted her endlessly and it was beautiful. But, sadly, it showed that even in the goth and punk communities we have this bullshit now. Those of us who remember a time when skinheads would show up at punk shows and get their asses kicked and when goths were a welcoming bunch to all the “misfit toys” on the fringes of the crowd are irate and heartbroken over these people who do not understand that you can not be counterculture when you are exclusionary.
Racism is based in a lot of strains of a certain kind of fundamentalist Christianity. Dark skin is the mark of Cain, don’t you know? Or possible the curse of Ham.
*Baked in a lot of strands. What I wouldn’t give for the patreon comment section’s edit button.
Otl1999
Racism /exists/ in a lot of strands of a certain kind of fundamental Christianity, but it isn’t /based/ on that – it also exists in other religions (and other races besides “white” and other parts of the world besides “the West” and…). It is based on tribalism (us vs them) and majority populations vs minorities, regardless of what those particular groups happen to be composed of.
BBCC
Based in was a typo. It was supposed to say ‘baked in’ – as in, some strains of Christianity have racism baked into some of their doctrines. Like ‘dark skin = mark of Cain and/or curse of Ham’.
Otl1999
That seems silly to me, as all of the biblical figures (including any actual Jesus) would have been dark skinned – at least by the standards of white American racists. But you may well be correct – I’m not a Christian of any variety, so I’m not really in a position to judge any particular branch’s doctrines.
BBCC
Oh, it is incredibly awful and incredibly racist, but I’d imagine a lot of these particular Christians don’t imagine Jesus as brown – or if they do, they’d use that as their ‘I CAN’T be racist’ get-out-of-scorn free card.
But yes, there are doctrines that say the reason, say, black people are black is because their skin is ‘stained’ with sin.
As an African Americans studies teacher said, “Slavery was not a thing that was a continous practice. Europe had gotten over it. So, reintroducing it, they scrambled for every possible justification for their greed from human misery. Racism grew from a need to say it had a reason.”
Felian
growing up with christianity, most of the depictions of Jesus were very white.
Even though it was always clear that Jesus is a Jew and the main setting of his life is Israel, it didn’t get questioned that Jesus must be white in most images.
Still, it got seen as a very mindboggling idea when my mum saw a picture of a black Jesus. THAT, of course, was just “people imagining Jesus to look more like them“ but WHITE Jesus was just standard Jesus, i guess.
Except one picture bible i had. Kees de Kort (illustrator) drew most of the characters brown (although it seems Jesus’ skin color varies in different stories, if you look at google images…).
I think as a kid i just didn’t question about the topic at all though.
Mary is the most interesting and complex DoA villain (admittedly a bit of a low bar) because she has two powerful conflicting desires: She wants to be cool and have lots of friends, but she also wants to feel superior to everyone, so she’s a massive asshole to anyone she thinks she can get away with being a massive asshole to. Because she was raised fundie Christian, that’s mostly LGBT people, but if she was raised in a more progressive social circle she’d just harass Danny or something instead, or maybe become a TERF. If she were atheist, she’d be Bill Maher. She desperately craves validation, but the only way she knows to build herself up is to find someone else to tear down.
Most DoA villains are evil *because* they’re fundamentalists, but Mary is an evil person who just happens to be a fundamentalist. And it’s possible the stick of getting punched in the face and the carrot of possibly being able to draw her way back into the dorm’s good graces might get her to start emulating a good person, but she’ll never actually be one because her problems are more fundamental than fundamentalism
Also if Mary loses the whole fundamentalist thing, she might become like a hedonist or something. This here is a good example of how you can’t tell the difference between zealotry or satire.
LOL it’s funny when someone takes 1 path to try and discourage someone else, only to make things better for the other person…
“Your stomach is a graveyard where the corpses of chickens are sent to rot…”
“I know you are trying to stop me eating this chicken burger, but that is the most awesomely METAL thing I have ever heard…”
Yes, that line of reasoning just makes me feel powerful.
Artistic expression might be where Mary is most flexible. She wants to draw the picture because she wants to art and be appreciated for it, so she has to justify to herself why it is alright for her to draw it.
The link failed for me, but I did find this description on the Muppets Wikipedia entry:
During the third season’s Halloween episode, Sam confronts Alice Cooper. Railing against the audience and “indecency” and “low brow” humor, Sam calls Cooper a “demented, sick, degenerate, barbaric, naughty, Freako!” Rather than being insulted by these comments as Sam was intending, Cooper takes it as a compliment and thanks Sam, to which Sam despairingly retorts, “Freakos one, civilization zero.”
Thanks, OwlMirror; I totally forgot how to make these links work on desktop vs. phone.
FairyGothMama
This episode is why I had a 4 year old asking to play Alice Cooper’s greatest hits collection while we decorated the Christmas tree. Dang, that’s over 10 years ago now…
Owlmirror
The Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention that at the end, after Sam turns away, Cooper silently turns to the camera, grins maniacally, and mimes drawing a score mark in the air.
180 thoughts on “Discretionary”
Ana Chronistic
Win/Win!
foamy
Everybody else in the commments section can go home, this here says everything that needed to be said.
Durandal_1707
I dunno, I just need to say that this has got to be my favorite strip in ages. LOL, who’d ever thought these two would bond like this.
Doctor_Who
Sarah: That’s me covered, how about Joyce?
Mary: I’ll draw her signing away her idolatrous soul to Satan in return for a Dexter and Monkey Master scrunchie.
Sarah: Three pretzels.
Bryan Langley
Oooo, three pretzels! Yes!
Rosicrucian
Two pretzels is about as thankful as Sarah gets.
Elliot
I like that Sarah knows how to treat an artist you commission.
C.T Phipps
Pay them.
🙂
ANeM
I feel like Mary gleefully imagining and rendering her dorm mates burning in the fires of hell is the one, single instance where “you do this for fun anyways” is 100% valid.
Roborat
Oh come on, who are we kidding? She has probably already drawn this, all she has to do is change Sarah’s expression from sad to unrepentant.
LeslieBean4shizzle
@C.T Phipps: E-fucking-xactly. Thank you.
ValdVin
Love the Sarah face in the last panel.
Schpoonman
Her eyes get shinier by the panel until she looks a little in love, it’s great.
AnvilPro
All Mary needs is a friend lol
Well_Played
With extra salt
Stephen Bierce
Don’t spare the brown mustard either.
Stephen Bierce
(Extra points if the mustard is–gnurf!–LUSTY MONK!)
Stephen Bierce
The good news is that I know a wholesale grocer that sells stadium pretzels in the frozen section. The bad news is that they’re only available in cases of fifty, and a case is bigger than my freezer. First World Problem, I know.
Stephen Bierce
Way back in the Bible
Temptations always come along
There’s always somebody temptin’ somebody inta
Doing something they know is wrong–Bruce Springsteen
StClair
Find someone who’s willing to go in with you on a case (and has their own freezer).
Jess
Buy ’em, bake and consume at least 10% immediately, and then shove the rest into little nooks and crannies all over your freezer?
butts
Mary’s ideas are… surprisingly metal?
Lily
Metal? Metal! \m/
timemonkey
Ah, so the system of art commission payment is based on quality. That’s why she got nothing for the original works.
Lily
Somehow I love this
Deanatay
I don’t understand this comic. That look on Sarah’s face in Panel 6 makes no sense. It’s almost like… she… DOESN’T… hate Mary?
No sense whatsoever.
DSL
No, she likes the idea of her being represented as a cool witch surrounded by “cool” flames. That Mary likes the idea for different reasons is fine, as long as it gets the job done. Whatever else D.Y.Willis intended, this is a depiction of an almost-ideal artist-client collaboration.
C.T Phipps
I feel like if Mary had discovered Goth and metal she wouldn’t be nearly as racist or evil.
Unless she discovered racist Goth metal.
Dara
Seriously.
Jaime
IS racist goth metal a thing? I am kind of a goth, and if it is, I am very upsetted. ?
merbrat
We have a Punk Gospel group in Austin. “The Stitches”
Marsh Maryrose
I’m afraid that this is kind of an analog to rule 34. If X exists, then racist X also exists.
HeySo
Having experienced homosexuals who can’t stand asexuals [presumably due to the significant weight that typically* gets put on sexuality within homosexual cultural circles], I can at least attest that being aware of and opposed to an issue doesn’t necessarily make the individual any less likely to engage in furthering such an outlook themselves.
Comparative to adopting negative behaviors and outlooks, fashion and style statements seem a rather minor thing to mimick
*Per my experiences, typical online or public presentation, and popular conception.
C.T Phipps
My wife is also a Goth and informed me that, unfortunately, yes it exists and really irritates her since she came into it for her love of nonconformity.
Arioch
So, Jaime, I hate to break this to you, but yes, there are racist goth assholes. One even got her recent 15 minutes of fame on the internet after spouting racist bullshit against A Fabulous As Fuck black goth and saying that goth is a “white thing”. People roasted her endlessly and it was beautiful. But, sadly, it showed that even in the goth and punk communities we have this bullshit now. Those of us who remember a time when skinheads would show up at punk shows and get their asses kicked and when goths were a welcoming bunch to all the “misfit toys” on the fringes of the crowd are irate and heartbroken over these people who do not understand that you can not be counterculture when you are exclusionary.
C.T Phipps
Thanks for that info, @Arioch. Beautifully said.
insomniac
Unfortunately, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” was written in 1981 because it needed saying then, and it still needs saying now.
And while racist Goths are a thing, racist or Nazi Metal is, like, a Whole Thing.
Roborat
And on a lighter note, Baby Metal is also a thing, go check it out.
BBCC
Racism is based in a lot of strains of a certain kind of fundamentalist Christianity. Dark skin is the mark of Cain, don’t you know? Or possible the curse of Ham.
BBCC
*Baked in a lot of strands. What I wouldn’t give for the patreon comment section’s edit button.
Otl1999
Racism /exists/ in a lot of strands of a certain kind of fundamental Christianity, but it isn’t /based/ on that – it also exists in other religions (and other races besides “white” and other parts of the world besides “the West” and…). It is based on tribalism (us vs them) and majority populations vs minorities, regardless of what those particular groups happen to be composed of.
BBCC
Based in was a typo. It was supposed to say ‘baked in’ – as in, some strains of Christianity have racism baked into some of their doctrines. Like ‘dark skin = mark of Cain and/or curse of Ham’.
Otl1999
That seems silly to me, as all of the biblical figures (including any actual Jesus) would have been dark skinned – at least by the standards of white American racists. But you may well be correct – I’m not a Christian of any variety, so I’m not really in a position to judge any particular branch’s doctrines.
BBCC
Oh, it is incredibly awful and incredibly racist, but I’d imagine a lot of these particular Christians don’t imagine Jesus as brown – or if they do, they’d use that as their ‘I CAN’T be racist’ get-out-of-scorn free card.
But yes, there are doctrines that say the reason, say, black people are black is because their skin is ‘stained’ with sin.
These people are awful.
C.T Phipps
As an African Americans studies teacher said, “Slavery was not a thing that was a continous practice. Europe had gotten over it. So, reintroducing it, they scrambled for every possible justification for their greed from human misery. Racism grew from a need to say it had a reason.”
Felian
growing up with christianity, most of the depictions of Jesus were very white.
Even though it was always clear that Jesus is a Jew and the main setting of his life is Israel, it didn’t get questioned that Jesus must be white in most images.
Still, it got seen as a very mindboggling idea when my mum saw a picture of a black Jesus. THAT, of course, was just “people imagining Jesus to look more like them“ but WHITE Jesus was just standard Jesus, i guess.
Except one picture bible i had. Kees de Kort (illustrator) drew most of the characters brown (although it seems Jesus’ skin color varies in different stories, if you look at google images…).
I think as a kid i just didn’t question about the topic at all though.
Foxhack
But ham is delicious. 🙁
nothri
I dunno man…I feel like that line about Christian rock would apply here in a hurry.
“You aren’t making christianity better! You are making rock worse!!”
ValdVin
Did you purposefully drop the Hank Hill quote, or has that pithy line achieved meme status?
(I mean, I say it to myself about Pureflix movies constantly.)
Opus the Poet
I’m going to go with meme, because I have been hearing that so long without attribution I never knew it was a King of the Hill quote.
ValdVin
Well I can’t say when it was uttered, but the KotH episode is from 2003. And it’s a pretty good one, full of KotH little twists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TsL0DO-c1E
ESM
Mary is the most interesting and complex DoA villain (admittedly a bit of a low bar) because she has two powerful conflicting desires: She wants to be cool and have lots of friends, but she also wants to feel superior to everyone, so she’s a massive asshole to anyone she thinks she can get away with being a massive asshole to. Because she was raised fundie Christian, that’s mostly LGBT people, but if she was raised in a more progressive social circle she’d just harass Danny or something instead, or maybe become a TERF. If she were atheist, she’d be Bill Maher. She desperately craves validation, but the only way she knows to build herself up is to find someone else to tear down.
Most DoA villains are evil *because* they’re fundamentalists, but Mary is an evil person who just happens to be a fundamentalist. And it’s possible the stick of getting punched in the face and the carrot of possibly being able to draw her way back into the dorm’s good graces might get her to start emulating a good person, but she’ll never actually be one because her problems are more fundamental than fundamentalism
PB
“She desperately craves validation, but the only way she knows to build herself up is to find someone else to tear down.”
Well put!
Yumi
Now I need to go buy another 24 pack of big pretzels from Gordon Foods.
I could get a smaller pack, if I were a fool.
Meagan
I hope Willis delivers on the Sarah-riding-a-pegasus-skeleton tease.
Meagan
Also if Mary loses the whole fundamentalist thing, she might become like a hedonist or something. This here is a good example of how you can’t tell the difference between zealotry or satire.
Screwball
LOL it’s funny when someone takes 1 path to try and discourage someone else, only to make things better for the other person…
“Your stomach is a graveyard where the corpses of chickens are sent to rot…”
“I know you are trying to stop me eating this chicken burger, but that is the most awesomely METAL thing I have ever heard…”
Rowen Morland
Yes, that line of reasoning just makes me feel powerful.
Artistic expression might be where Mary is most flexible. She wants to draw the picture because she wants to art and be appreciated for it, so she has to justify to herself why it is alright for her to draw it.
PB
Just gonna leave this old Muppets cliphere, don’t mind me:
”Freakos: 1, Civilization: 0.”
Deanatay
The link failed for me, but I did find this description on the Muppets Wikipedia entry:
During the third season’s Halloween episode, Sam confronts Alice Cooper. Railing against the audience and “indecency” and “low brow” humor, Sam calls Cooper a “demented, sick, degenerate, barbaric, naughty, Freako!” Rather than being insulted by these comments as Sam was intending, Cooper takes it as a compliment and thanks Sam, to which Sam despairingly retorts, “Freakos one, civilization zero.”
Owlmirror
This should work:
http://youtu.be/SQZooJhBG_E
PB
Thanks, OwlMirror; I totally forgot how to make these links work on desktop vs. phone.
FairyGothMama
This episode is why I had a 4 year old asking to play Alice Cooper’s greatest hits collection while we decorated the Christmas tree. Dang, that’s over 10 years ago now…
Owlmirror
The Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention that at the end, after Sam turns away, Cooper silently turns to the camera, grins maniacally, and mimes drawing a score mark in the air.
Artschoolrage
Mary is weird and mean and yet oddly metal af
Nono
I’m trying to imagine that in Mary’s anime style and I can’t wait for the results.
ValdVin
She’s had about 8 weeks of classes. We’ll see if art class has (in Joyce’s? words) beaten the anime drawing style out of her.
Bysmerian
If memory serves she’s clinging to her style last we saw.
abysswatcher1993
Contrary to what Joyce believes, in may art classes everyone draws like in anime. Suck it up art hipsters!
ValdVin
Hey, no shade from me about anyone’s art style, or art class.
(Translation: I’ve been watching cartoons since before cable TV or VCRs, and I would draw if I could.)
Roborat
I have always believed that anyone can draw, it just needs practice, and possibly lessons to learn the basics.