Again Willis. I am fully expecting Toedad getting into a bloody shoot out with the police, a very swift, decisive, one-sided shoot out. during which his gun jams.
And Gore.
I will vastly disappointed if I do not see some 80’s hammer horror levels of it.
If that is in fact the Ruger Varminter that people in yesterday’s comments identified it as, it’s got a falling-block action, which is dead simple and highly unlikely to jam. On the bright side, it’s a single-shot weapon that needs a round manually inserted into the chamber between shots, so rate of fire will be slow.
As much as Mike is a pro-level troll, he has no real reason to confront someone else’s parent, especially without a point to make about it. He has doubly no reason to confront someone with a gun.
John
I feel like DOA Mike is a person best used when words are exchanged but has little use once the chase is on, or in the shootout in more extreme circumstances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0jq8p6Sjjs
fogel
Mike may have no reason to get involved. If he did, we know that he will through punches. Though either he was pulling his punches or he punches like a boy (it’s a dumbyverse thing), because Joe was not messed up at all considering how many times Mike hit him in the head.
motorfirebox
I’m not sure Joe is the best standard for “not messed up”.
yes, but to be fair an undesirable person on campus is enough reason to give warning, whether or not it’s immediately actionable–after all, there’s significant reason these days to ban people who have no business being on the premises
JetstreamGW
Maybe. But keep in mind that Becky is on that list too. She doesn’t go to school there.
Rosicrucian
I don’t think Joyce has the presence of mind to call the cops on an obvious authority figure at this point in her life.
Let alone one she doesn’t know if they’re doing anything wrong or illegal.
Syl
It’s been discussed, but in the previous strip, one of the people in the background noticed the gun..
I’m really hoping one of them will make the call, and that ToeDad isn’t agile enough to dart around the trees as well as Becky and Dina.
“My adult friend’s abusive dad is here and trying to kidnap her” would likely get better results. Hell, even just “her abusive dad has found her! Help!” would likely get a response, although I don’t think it would occur to Joyce the police could help.
Pretty sure Amazigirl told her that Dorothy always knows how to contact her. Since Joyce doesn’t know about the gun (because even rushing that’s too slow to be the best plan with immediate threats even if Amazigirl could face a gun), this would sort of make sense as a ‘I have to bite the bullet and face Dorothy’ moment.
I’m assuming now that even Becky didn’t notice the gun (this isn’t exactly the time to shelter Joyce’s sensibilities, and that’s a pretty relevant detail for the phone call)
It looked like he was reaching into his car in yesterday’s fourth panel while stating that Dina ALSO will be struck down by the hand of God. I think they might have seen it and Becky is just too panicked to think to mention the gun to Joyce.
Pat
She did get spooked suddenly.
Defiant and standing her ground – “Hand of God” – “RUN!”
Blue
Someone on yesterday’s strip (Boomwolf?) suggested that he might call his gun the ‘Hand of God’, and Becky’s reaction made me wonder if she might know as much.
Good point. While that would negate it being in reference to his gun specifically, the way Becky’s response to the situation changes right after he says it still suggests to me that she has a preexisting association of that phrase with violence.
That seems almost easier to misdial than 911 (which is irritating because our office has that stupid “dial 9 to get to an outside line” plus “011” is the bulk of our international prefixes…)
Because of the sheer number of American shows which mentioned 911, so many Australians have called 911 instead of 000 over the years that any 911 calls will be diverted to 000.
Wiz
In Europe they have 311 or 211 or something. In some US areas the phone companies re-route all of those calls to 911. Probably for tourists who are panicking or something.
Cholma
Actually, in the USA, “311” is the non-emergency police line. Like if you come home and find that someone threw a rock through a window, that would be a 311 instead of 911 call, since immediate police response is not needed.
Freemage
In Chicago, 311 gets you to the pothole hotline.
Cholma
It’s far more than just potholes (although I wouldn’t doubt that during the winter, it’s the highest volume of calls)
Chicago residents can now call 311 – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – to report service needs, check the status of previous service requests, obtain information regarding City programs or events and file police reports. http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/311.html
KHNO
Actually in European Union (plus some other europeans country which aren’t in the EU, plus other countries out of Europe), it’s 112. But some countries still have other numbers in service, like in France where you dial (from a french phone) 17 for the police, 18 for the firemen, and 15 for a medical emergency… so not many people know the 112 number… 20% of the people in Europe only… it’s kinda sad taht more people know the number to vote for real-TV series….
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Yeah, we (in the UK) traditionally use 999 for emergency services, however we also have the ability to call 112 to get through to the services – not that many people know about that. Apparently 999 will only go through to local services, but if they’re all busy, it’ll put the caller on hold, whereas 112 would patch them through to another less busy area immediately. (Not sure how that helps, but still…)
The UK also has 111 for non-emergency calls for an ambulance brigade, and 101 for non-emergency calls for the police force. (There’s no non-emergency number for the fire brigade though, as far as I know).
Kryss LaBryn
I wonder if there’s a number like that for non-emergency police services in Canada? As far as I and the phone book know, it’s just whatever the local number is.
Years ago, one evening, I was in a drive-through, idly watching a guy walking through a parking lot in my side-view mirror while I waited for my burger, when I saw him reach under a bush, pull out a pistol, and keep walking. In those days I only had a pager, not a cell phone (which dates this story considerably), so I said to the cashier in shock, “That guy back there has a gun! I don’t have a phone! Can you call the police?”
She replied something along the lines of, “Are you sure? Oh my god! Yes, of course!” and disappeared to tell her supervisor. When I got my burger I pulled over to the side to wait for the police while trying to keep an eye on him. No cops. No cops. He disappeared into the night. No cops.
So I went back to the cashier and asked how long ago they called them. “Oh, we haven’t yet,” she said, looking embarrassed. It’s been busy and we don’t have time to look up the number in the back.”
“HE HAS A GUN! THE NUMBER YOU CALL IS 911!”
“Oh.”
I went to the pay phone at the corner of the parking lot and called the cops my own damned self, which I could have done immediately if they had just told me straight off they were too busy to call. The cops showed up with alacrity, but of course the guy was long gone. All I could do was give a description and point them in the right direction.
–But if someone has a gun? THE NUMBER IS 911, IDIOT.
and 211 is reserved for a social services hotline. Where to find food support, emergency housing, and other things that Becky needs, but not as much as she needs police.
Aninhumer
These days I think most phone networks redirect as many foreign emergency numbers as possible to the appropriate service. It’s easy enough to do, and potentially saves lives.
Kinoko
The same problem happened in the UK (younger generation remembers 911 from American media). It’s 999 over there.
Luris
Now it’s
Anonymous
I thought it was 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3.
KHNO
or an e-mail
Kryss LaBryn
I know it’s 999 (and am Canadian); but I only know that from the book where Paddington Bear tries to dial a number beginning with 9 but gets his paw stuck and ends up dialing it three times before he can get it out. The police show up.
Yay for popular media as an education system?
Batmang
Anonymous, I love you.
random832
Supposedly 112 works everywhere now on GSM phones (AT&T and T-Mobile in the US), though an emergency is not a time you would want to test the theory.
Clif
In an emergency call Mike at 666.
James
Back in the days of rotary phones “0” was the hardest digit to dial, which is probably why they picked “000”. Double tapping a key on the phone wasn’t a problem back then.
The call prefix to make international calls from Australia is “0011”, which I guess has the potential to make accidental emergency calls but I don’t know how common that is in practice.
Becky reaches Joyce at the fountain. They manage to exchange a few words before suddenly; they hear the CRACK of a gunshot. Horrible realization plays across Becky’s face as she looks over her shoulder and says some variant of ‘Dina,’ before dashing back into the woods to confront gun-toting toedad.
Let me tell you a story that might put things into context. I grew up in a quite conservative-religious community, as it appears Willis did also. Assembly of God elementary school, homeschooled for middle school, and a Christian high school. There was a certain nearby large university that, when it came time to look at colleges, I was forbidden to look at. The reason? A friend of my parents had a kid who came out of the closet while he was at that university. Now, I knew this kid in high school; not too well, but well enough to know that he was *obviously gay* already, even back in high school. But university was when he told his dad about it, and thus that particular university “turned him gay.” And thus my siblings and I were not allowed to even *think* about going there, for fear of catching the gay ourselves. Fundies think homosexuality is like a virus, that you can catch just from being around it too much.
Now, these people in this story were relatively well-educated, stable people, so badmouthing the university to anyone and everyone was as far as it went. Add a little crazy, though, and a lot of desperation (these people think that their children are *literally going to burn forever*, and if you accept that as a premise it’s not really that unreasonable to be really freaked out), and you could easily get extreme measures like this.
What I’m saying is that Toedad is going to go after Dina. He probably thinks she’s the one that “turned” Becky gay, and he may well consider going to prison to be an acceptable sacrifice toward the end of “saving” Becky from the gayness.
Someone had better freakin’ call the cops, is what I’m saying.
Durandal_1707
In addition to all this, consider a few other things:
1) We just had a great big chapter about Dina and how awesome she is. This is almost always a really bad sign in fiction.
2) Dina was the martyr character in the old universe.
3) We know there’s going to be a hospital scene sometime in the near future.
I’d say the one hope here is that Willis could be putting all these pieces into place to cause us to feel dread, as a misdirection. Because right now, it looks bad.
Ana Chronistic
or that’s what we get for looking at preview images
388 thoughts on “Hi-vis”
Ana Chronistic
“Who should I call? Dorothy? Sal? Amazi-Girl? If only there was some easy-to-remember three-digit number I could call in an emergency!!”
(okay to be fair she doesn’t know he’s armed but AUGH)
Inkblot
So THIS is your avatar
Justin
Again Willis. I am fully expecting Toedad getting into a bloody shoot out with the police, a very swift, decisive, one-sided shoot out. during which his gun jams.
And Gore.
I will vastly disappointed if I do not see some 80’s hammer horror levels of it.
John
If that is in fact the Ruger Varminter that people in yesterday’s comments identified it as, it’s got a falling-block action, which is dead simple and highly unlikely to jam. On the bright side, it’s a single-shot weapon that needs a round manually inserted into the chamber between shots, so rate of fire will be slow.
And what would Al Gore be doing there?
Heavensrun
Dumbing of Age: BUCKETS OF BLOOD
extremist343
THIS. This is what I want to see.
Nightsbridge
How does it feel to finally have the context for your grav image?
Ana Chronistic
legit sad it wasn’t more this even though I knew better
Idon'tcarenomore
Nice one 🙂
inqntrol
She should call Mike,maybe he can exchange some words with Ross.
Sean Franco
As much as Mike is a pro-level troll, he has no real reason to confront someone else’s parent, especially without a point to make about it. He has doubly no reason to confront someone with a gun.
John
I feel like DOA Mike is a person best used when words are exchanged but has little use once the chase is on, or in the shootout in more extreme circumstances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0jq8p6Sjjs
fogel
Mike may have no reason to get involved. If he did, we know that he will through punches. Though either he was pulling his punches or he punches like a boy (it’s a dumbyverse thing), because Joe was not messed up at all considering how many times Mike hit him in the head.
motorfirebox
I’m not sure Joe is the best standard for “not messed up”.
gkheyf
yup, i was gonna say that the gun is a crucial detail, but i guess no one other than the bystander saw that, huh?
Screwball
Mr Willis has said Toedad pulled the gun AFTER Becky & Dina ran, so they don’t know about it. Hopefully Random Passerby 1 is calling the Cops, while Random Passerby 2 is taking pics/recording video to help identify Toedad to the Cops…
JetstreamGW
Er, I don’t think Joyce has in-character reason to call 911. Becky and Dina didn’t know about the gun, so Joyce doesn’t know about the gun.
If you say “My friend’s dad is here and she doesn’t want to see him and is running away for… reasons…” the cops aren’t really gonna give it priority.
Ana Chronistic
yes, but to be fair an undesirable person on campus is enough reason to give warning, whether or not it’s immediately actionable–after all, there’s significant reason these days to ban people who have no business being on the premises
JetstreamGW
Maybe. But keep in mind that Becky is on that list too. She doesn’t go to school there.
Rosicrucian
I don’t think Joyce has the presence of mind to call the cops on an obvious authority figure at this point in her life.
Let alone one she doesn’t know if they’re doing anything wrong or illegal.
Syl
It’s been discussed, but in the previous strip, one of the people in the background noticed the gun..
I’m really hoping one of them will make the call, and that ToeDad isn’t agile enough to dart around the trees as well as Becky and Dina.
Kryss LaBryn
“My adult friend’s abusive dad is here and trying to kidnap her” would likely get better results. Hell, even just “her abusive dad has found her! Help!” would likely get a response, although I don’t think it would occur to Joyce the police could help.
No Name
Or to consider Ross Babies MacIntyre “abusive”.
Nono
Honestly I think that if she doesn’t know he’s armed, her best option would be to call Ruth. If she has her number.
In her current state of mind… I’m not sure who she’d beeline for. Sarah? Ethan? Dorothy?
Marie
Pretty sure Amazigirl told her that Dorothy always knows how to contact her. Since Joyce doesn’t know about the gun (because even rushing that’s too slow to be the best plan with immediate threats even if Amazigirl could face a gun), this would sort of make sense as a ‘I have to bite the bullet and face Dorothy’ moment.
I’m assuming now that even Becky didn’t notice the gun (this isn’t exactly the time to shelter Joyce’s sensibilities, and that’s a pretty relevant detail for the phone call)
Doc T
It looked like he was reaching into his car in yesterday’s fourth panel while stating that Dina ALSO will be struck down by the hand of God. I think they might have seen it and Becky is just too panicked to think to mention the gun to Joyce.
Pat
She did get spooked suddenly.
Defiant and standing her ground – “Hand of God” – “RUN!”
Blue
Someone on yesterday’s strip (Boomwolf?) suggested that he might call his gun the ‘Hand of God’, and Becky’s reaction made me wonder if she might know as much.
SDGlyph
(Although I don’t buy the ‘Hand of God’ theory)
I’ll post this a few times in the comments for info, as I think it’s confused a lot of folks:
Word of God says he pulled the gun after they ran.
Blue
Good point. While that would negate it being in reference to his gun specifically, the way Becky’s response to the situation changes right after he says it still suggests to me that she has a preexisting association of that phrase with violence.
Pat
I saw that. It did seem plausible.
Plasma Mongoose
In Australia the emergency number to call is 000(Triple Zero).
Ana Chronistic
That seems almost easier to misdial than 911 (which is irritating because our office has that stupid “dial 9 to get to an outside line” plus “011” is the bulk of our international prefixes…)
Plasma Mongoose
Because of the sheer number of American shows which mentioned 911, so many Australians have called 911 instead of 000 over the years that any 911 calls will be diverted to 000.
Wiz
In Europe they have 311 or 211 or something. In some US areas the phone companies re-route all of those calls to 911. Probably for tourists who are panicking or something.
Cholma
Actually, in the USA, “311” is the non-emergency police line. Like if you come home and find that someone threw a rock through a window, that would be a 311 instead of 911 call, since immediate police response is not needed.
Freemage
In Chicago, 311 gets you to the pothole hotline.
Cholma
It’s far more than just potholes (although I wouldn’t doubt that during the winter, it’s the highest volume of calls)
Chicago residents can now call 311 – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – to report service needs, check the status of previous service requests, obtain information regarding City programs or events and file police reports.
http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/311.html
KHNO
Actually in European Union (plus some other europeans country which aren’t in the EU, plus other countries out of Europe), it’s 112. But some countries still have other numbers in service, like in France where you dial (from a french phone) 17 for the police, 18 for the firemen, and 15 for a medical emergency… so not many people know the 112 number… 20% of the people in Europe only… it’s kinda sad taht more people know the number to vote for real-TV series….
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Yeah, we (in the UK) traditionally use 999 for emergency services, however we also have the ability to call 112 to get through to the services – not that many people know about that. Apparently 999 will only go through to local services, but if they’re all busy, it’ll put the caller on hold, whereas 112 would patch them through to another less busy area immediately. (Not sure how that helps, but still…)
The UK also has 111 for non-emergency calls for an ambulance brigade, and 101 for non-emergency calls for the police force. (There’s no non-emergency number for the fire brigade though, as far as I know).
Kryss LaBryn
I wonder if there’s a number like that for non-emergency police services in Canada? As far as I and the phone book know, it’s just whatever the local number is.
Years ago, one evening, I was in a drive-through, idly watching a guy walking through a parking lot in my side-view mirror while I waited for my burger, when I saw him reach under a bush, pull out a pistol, and keep walking. In those days I only had a pager, not a cell phone (which dates this story considerably), so I said to the cashier in shock, “That guy back there has a gun! I don’t have a phone! Can you call the police?”
She replied something along the lines of, “Are you sure? Oh my god! Yes, of course!” and disappeared to tell her supervisor. When I got my burger I pulled over to the side to wait for the police while trying to keep an eye on him. No cops. No cops. He disappeared into the night. No cops.
So I went back to the cashier and asked how long ago they called them. “Oh, we haven’t yet,” she said, looking embarrassed. It’s been busy and we don’t have time to look up the number in the back.”
“HE HAS A GUN! THE NUMBER YOU CALL IS 911!”
“Oh.”
I went to the pay phone at the corner of the parking lot and called the cops my own damned self, which I could have done immediately if they had just told me straight off they were too busy to call. The cops showed up with alacrity, but of course the guy was long gone. All I could do was give a description and point them in the right direction.
–But if someone has a gun? THE NUMBER IS 911, IDIOT.
biggo
In Switzerland we’d dial 117.
No idea why they chose this number. I can’t seem to remember it at all (I had to *google it* right now).
It gets funnier: I’m the “voice” of the emergency announces on the national radio .-D
http://www.rsi.ch/temp/intrattenimento/pillole-info/Pillole-informative-2573314.html
hof1991
and 211 is reserved for a social services hotline. Where to find food support, emergency housing, and other things that Becky needs, but not as much as she needs police.
Aninhumer
These days I think most phone networks redirect as many foreign emergency numbers as possible to the appropriate service. It’s easy enough to do, and potentially saves lives.
Kinoko
The same problem happened in the UK (younger generation remembers 911 from American media). It’s 999 over there.
Luris
Now it’s
Anonymous
I thought it was 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3.
KHNO
or an e-mail
Kryss LaBryn
I know it’s 999 (and am Canadian); but I only know that from the book where Paddington Bear tries to dial a number beginning with 9 but gets his paw stuck and ends up dialing it three times before he can get it out. The police show up.
Yay for popular media as an education system?
Batmang
Anonymous, I love you.
random832
Supposedly 112 works everywhere now on GSM phones (AT&T and T-Mobile in the US), though an emergency is not a time you would want to test the theory.
Clif
In an emergency call Mike at 666.
James
Back in the days of rotary phones “0” was the hardest digit to dial, which is probably why they picked “000”. Double tapping a key on the phone wasn’t a problem back then.
The call prefix to make international calls from Australia is “0011”, which I guess has the potential to make accidental emergency calls but I don’t know how common that is in practice.
Lasenna
How about the police? Let’s call 911! I mean, this isn’t that hard. Even if she didn’t see the gun, this should be a no-brainer.
Nightsbridge
I have a horrible thought . . .
Becky reaches Joyce at the fountain. They manage to exchange a few words before suddenly; they hear the CRACK of a gunshot. Horrible realization plays across Becky’s face as she looks over her shoulder and says some variant of ‘Dina,’ before dashing back into the woods to confront gun-toting toedad.
Durandal_1707
Dina is almost certainly the knee he’s going to go after.
Durandal_1707
*the one
Icalasari
At least she isn’t the femur?
detective boomwolf
I dunno, I feel in some strange way, knee works.
Durandal_1707
That’s what I get for writing on a smartphone. Stupid autocorrect
MichaelHaneline
I have a feeling autocorrect might end up being prophetic on this one.
Clif
We kneed to know.
Ben
I’d prefer the knee to whatever else he might shoot!!
Ana Chronistic
Dina was the perfect girlfriend… then she’ll take a bullet to the knee.
inqntrol
,,Dina is the perfect girlfriend…she managed to get my father to shoot himself in the knee.”
Cholma
Dina was a world-renown paleontologist until she took an arrow to the knee.
Clif
Armed with imaginary weapons, as we used to chant on the playground:
RAH RAH REE
SHOOT HER IN THE KNEE.
RAH RAH RAZR
…
SHOOT HER IN THE OTHER KNEE.
The Other Mike
The only kneecap-shooting religious guy I want to see is Shepherd Book.
Cholma
+1
Wiz
What?
Becky used to be adventurous until Dina got shot?
TrueVCU
No you son of a bongo don’t even fucking joke
Durandal_1707
Let me tell you a story that might put things into context. I grew up in a quite conservative-religious community, as it appears Willis did also. Assembly of God elementary school, homeschooled for middle school, and a Christian high school. There was a certain nearby large university that, when it came time to look at colleges, I was forbidden to look at. The reason? A friend of my parents had a kid who came out of the closet while he was at that university. Now, I knew this kid in high school; not too well, but well enough to know that he was *obviously gay* already, even back in high school. But university was when he told his dad about it, and thus that particular university “turned him gay.” And thus my siblings and I were not allowed to even *think* about going there, for fear of catching the gay ourselves. Fundies think homosexuality is like a virus, that you can catch just from being around it too much.
Now, these people in this story were relatively well-educated, stable people, so badmouthing the university to anyone and everyone was as far as it went. Add a little crazy, though, and a lot of desperation (these people think that their children are *literally going to burn forever*, and if you accept that as a premise it’s not really that unreasonable to be really freaked out), and you could easily get extreme measures like this.
What I’m saying is that Toedad is going to go after Dina. He probably thinks she’s the one that “turned” Becky gay, and he may well consider going to prison to be an acceptable sacrifice toward the end of “saving” Becky from the gayness.
Someone had better freakin’ call the cops, is what I’m saying.
Durandal_1707
In addition to all this, consider a few other things:
1) We just had a great big chapter about Dina and how awesome she is. This is almost always a really bad sign in fiction.
2) Dina was the martyr character in the old universe.
3) We know there’s going to be a hospital scene sometime in the near future.
I’d say the one hope here is that Willis could be putting all these pieces into place to cause us to feel dread, as a misdirection. Because right now, it looks bad.
Ana Chronistic
or that’s what we get for looking at preview images