211

Ward
Posted on May 15, 2019 by David M Willis
Saturday!  May 18!  New Slipshine comic!  16 pages!  NSFW!  Get your memberships ready!  Oh dang!

211 thoughts on “Ward”

  1. Doctor_Who

    Tomorrow’s strip: Silent montage of Becky attending church.

    Friday’s strip: Becky returns to the apartment just in time for: “-RCH?!”

    1. Achallenger

      This is Canon now

      1. C.T Phipps

        I wonder if Becky is going to the scary Halloween service with the incense, hats, and staves.

        JACOB CHURCH.

        1. Dean

          At Jacob Church, they worship Jacob’s abs.

        2. Rabid Rabbit

          It’s why they have him on the cross. So you can admire that rugged torso.

    2. Michael

      I know Willis plans these out ages ahead of time and there is like 3 months worth of buffer, but this sounds exactly like what I’d expect the next strip to be and it makes me wonder what Willis would do if a commenter ever somehow divined the next page exactly as is.

  2. Ana Chronistic

    pikaCHUUUUUUUrch

    1. Achallenger

      I can only hear this mispronounced now

    2. Delicious Taffy

      Pikachurch is idolatry. We worship based Arceus.

      1. Tacos

        What about Mudkipz?

        1. Delicious Taffy

          What about Mudkipz?

        2. StClair

          I… heard you like them?

        3. MatthewTheLucky

          You heard right, but their incredible cuteness cannot save them from the Great Devourer.

          Ia! Ia! Necrozma fhtagn!

      2. EvilMidnightLurker

        PRAISE HELIX

        1. Kingmonster

          Question.

          What if I wanted to praise Helix but I also wished to give praise to Arceus?

        2. Chupicron

          Polytheism is an option.

        3. Geneseepaws

          I’d rather praise “Florence, I’m really a Bowman’s wolf.,”. She is a kind and smart goddess.

      3. Freezer

        Pfft! Sheep. #ChurchOfMissingno

        1. Minim

          I’m more church of ‘M.

        2. Kingmonster

          Preeeeeety sure that’s a cult, buddy.

          Though….I did try to summon a dark one to swallow up the world a few days ago out of anger, so I can’t really complain.

        3. Br44n5m

          I’ll have what y’all are havin!

  3. Icalasari

    I am confused why is this such a huge deal to Robin?

    1. Rotunda

      Possibly because it’s not in Robin’s conception of how the day goes. We saw with Leslie that Robin gets a notion of how the other person fits in to Robin’s life. Then Robin clicks her heels to make that the reality. The magic doesn’t actually work, but Robin assumes it does.

      1. C.T Phipps

        It’s possible this version of Robin has no love of church. Perhaps because she like many GOP is not actually interested in the faith beyond what checks the big box corporations write.

        1. Tacos

          I thought maybe she was surprised that Becky goes to church even though she’s lesbian. Probably because of her voter demographic, she might have gotten the idea that gay people don’t go to church or aren’t religious cuz they’re sinnin’ and blah blah blah.

        2. C.T Phipps

          I assume Robin by her attitude assumed that Becky and she would hang out.

          She doesn’t have good employee-employer boundaries.

        3. GoblinScribe

          Yeah, the “living with a teenage girl” and lack of self-awareness/professionalism is almost definitely going to blow up in her face. Robin doesn’t think about how she seems to others.

        4. thejeff

          Yeah, just after the lesbian rumours run rampant, she hires a teenage lesbian with no qualifications and moves her into her apartment.
          That’s not really a good look.

        5. Clif

          I assumed Robin has an aversion to church because her skin burns whenever she approaches consecrated ground.

        6. miz

          Apparently she’s publicly Catholic in this -verse, but that doesn’t really give insight into what her specific problem is here. Any of the possible explanations people have given so far seem equally plausible to me.

    2. Dark

      Robin likely can’t reconcile “Church” and “lesbian”.

      1. C.T Phipps

        It may be simpler that Robin can’t assume anyone would be voluntarily go to church unless they have to.

        1. jmsr7

          This would be my guess too. Athough the whole “christian lesbian” thing may be what’s doing this instead/as well.

      2. BarerMender

        I think Robin expects Becky to work flat out all day. No time for church.

        1. Kalirren

          Yeah that’s what I gathered too. “Whaddaya mean you’re going to church? AI OWN U”

    3. Bagge

      Maybe she just likes to scream Chuuuuurch

      1. Clif

        At any rate. we shouldn’t rule that out. It is Robin.

  4. ValdVin

    Doesn’t Robin have to at least pretend to church-go, once, before the election?

    1. HMH

      Fundamentalists elected a man who cheated on his wife with a pregnant porn star.

      More than once.

      As in, more than one time, to more than one wife.

      They don’t really give a shit as long as you play for the right team, and promise to jam some legislation up a woman’s uterus, and maybe give them an open platform to attack some minorities if they’re really good.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Now, now, it was cheating on his pregnant wife with a porn star.

        He also has bragged about cheating on his wife with MANY women, has been accused of sexual assault, is friends with a human trafficker of children (Epstein), and is a man who literally worships money.

        One may argue Trump is an actual evidentiary example of Satan existing since surely he is the God of Reverse Christianity.

        1. Proxiehunter

          Accused? He’s BRAGGED about sexual assault.

        2. drs

          Willis has spoken: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/blog/antichrist/

        3. Needfuldoer

          Don’t some religious extremists want all that, because of some end times prophecy that’s had countless chances to come true over the last two millennia?

        4. jmsr7

          TECHNICALLY, the abrahamic religions (judaism, christianity and islam plus offshoots) are death cults that look forward to the end of the world; would view an atomic flash in Jerusalem, or Mecca, or Washington as a Good Thing because it signals the end of the world, at long last. Hitchens has a rant about it here.

          Enthusiasm for the rapture enjoys great popularity with many believers. Not all, thankfully, but too many nonetheless.

          The only good thing about Trump’s election is that now we can finally ignore anything fundagelicals have to say on morality since they shat on their own when it mattered the most. Which raises the question here: Is Robin like Trump?

        5. RacingTurtle

          What is this crap? Could you, just, like, NOT?
          Not every “Abrahamic religion” is “technically” the same as End-Times Christianity. Don’t invent nonsense about Judaism. If the video you linked says what you say it does, then Hitchens knew jack-all about Judaism, too.
          I can’t speak for Islam, but I can’t imagine Muslims appreciate the conflation, either.
          I blame any and all typos on my current anger.

        6. C.T Phipps

          Yeah dude, no. That’s some pretty bold faced errors and libel.

        7. Needfuldoer

          I’m stealing “fundagelicals”, though. That’s a good one.

        8. hof1991

          Technically, Christians believe such a wide range of things that any blanket statement is useless. I am not arguing No True Scotman, but that you can believe just about anything and find other Christians who also believe it. The rapture nonsense is a recent US-based thing that most of the Christian world doesn’t even know about. Christianity is a grandfaloon, not a true karass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon

          And read Kurt Vonnegut.

        9. jmsr7

          Hm, ok it looks like i was mistaken about Judaism. I could have sworn there was at least one Jewish sect that looked forward to a violent end of the world but i can’t find one. And i just spoke with a Rabbi who confirms it. It seems that the Jewish expectation for the end of the world is just a golden age, either with or without a decline before it. My bad, sorry people.

        10. jmsr7

          Incidentally, one of the things i appreciate about this community is peoples’ willingness to disagree. I post a lot on reddit, but like many online communities, it can turn into an echo chamber. By discussing stuff with outsiders, one can get an idea as to how extreme one’s views are. You *might* be a thought leader, but you’re more likely to be a crazy person. >:D

        11. Xenocide

          He’s a white male though, if he was a Hispanic female he’d never have been elected with all that history.

        12. C.T Phipps

          You forgot the most important part. He’s a RICH white male.

        13. Khno

          Regarding some old catholics judgement, when you wife was pregnant was the time where it was *allowed* to have non-impregnating-your-wife sex. In many ways. Because you know, man-things *have* to have sex. Like permanently. Funnily, it was also the ground for contraceptives use (also to be too poor to raise your kids properly, but, y’know, poors… not really those who would quarrel with religious scholars).

        14. JBento

          That’s, uh, not who Satan is. Satan is god’s employee, whose job is to make the case that you don’t deserve to go to paradise when you die. Satan (or, more accurately, Ha-Satan) means “the adversary”, but he’s not GOD’s adversary, he’s YOURS. Dude is literally God’s district attorney.

        15. thejeff

          Depends on whose theology you’re working with.

        16. JBento

          The Jewish one, where Satan comes from. Lucifer is a completely different dude and comes from Christian mythology (it couldn’t be otherwise, seeing as Judaism has no hell).

        17. thejeff

          Well, yeah, but in Christian* theology they’re the same person and not really the adversary anymore. At least not in the same sense.

          So, depending on what theology you’re working with, that is who Satan is.

          *Saying “Christian theology” is in itself incredibly broad and vague. There are certainly other interpretations, but Satan=Devil=Lucifer is a common enough one.

      2. not someone else

        Even Trump has had to pretend to have read the Bible and give a shit about religion, though. He’s just exceptionally bad at it. (The example that immediately jumps to mindnis the “Two Corinthians” incident.)

    2. Cattleprod

      Pretending to be Christian is a main pillar of her party, yeah.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Prosperity Gospel Jesus
        God of Guns, Misogyny, and Wealth.

    3. Keulen

      These days fundie Christians don’t actually care if the politicians they vote for go to church, as long as those politicians pander to fundie Christian beliefs a little and promise to support conservative policies when elected.

      1. thejeff

        You just have to hate the right people.
        That’s all that matters.

  5. BBCC

    Yeah, your new base might not be the biggest church crowd. I mean, there’s definitely churchgoers on the American left, but not as many as Robin’s old base, I’d wager.

    I’m only hoping things go back and forth on appealing to the different bases and Robin’s campaign burns.

    1. C.T Phipps

      It’s one of the oddities that evangelicals are by far not the largest group of Christians in America. They’re just the loudest and the most in the pocket of the GOP (or is the reverse).

      1. BBCC

        Yes, but non-Christians in the US tend to skew to the Democrats.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Which just reinforces the xenophobic propaganda. Control the narrative by leveraging baseless fear of the ‘other’ and the base is yours.

        2. Zero

          That’s, uh, probably because the other ones openly hate them and want to violate their rights. That doesn’t leave them many options.

        3. BBCC

          I don’t dispute that but there’s this weird narrative that Catholics, unlike evangelicals, don’t tend to vote to the right and, in the most recent election anyways, this was not true.

        4. thejeff

          They don’t vote nearly so far to the right as white evangelicals. White Catholics tend to track pretty closely with white voters in general. Catholics overall lean slightly right, but much less so than white Catholics due to the large Democratic leaning Hispanic Catholic population.

          Here’s one data set that breaks it down by faith and race.

        5. thejeff

          Screwed up the link:
          https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/

      2. regina phalange

        Yeah, but throw Catholics in there (who are not overly different vis-a-vis homosexuality, and have much more substantial numbers) and particularly intolerant Protestants, and you start getting to largest-group levels.

        1. C.T Phipps

          Actually, living in the Bible Belt and having gone to Catholic School as a fundamentalist — I noticed substantial differences in the treatment of homosexuality and its “existential threat to society”-ness. Specifically that Catholics aren’t approving but don’t have it as a major political agenda.

          Which is yes, “stabbing vs. kicked in the shin.” But it IS a difference.

        2. BBCC

          Does it matter when Catholics still skew to the same political party as evangelicals?

        3. SillyGoose

          It did matter here in France for the gay marriage law (we won! yay!), but I guess in a two-party system it doesn’t as much (politically).

        4. BBCC

          What I mean is, if the majority of Catholics in country vote for the same party as the ‘stabbing’ Christians, the political outcome isn’t really different. You still support a homophobic party that wants homophobic laws.

        5. SillyGoose

          Thanks for the clarification. Yes, good intentions (or.. not actively harmful intentions?) don’t matter if you still vote for a party that will happily kill/harm/disenfrenchise minorities. I guess what makes it better in shitload-of-parties-systems is that you don’t have the same stupid dichotomy that says “if you’re a Christian, you HAVE to vote AxisOfEvil.” Since you can choose your brand of Christian and it’s even socially perfectly fine to be an “active” Christian (churchgoer, maybe even against adoption by gay couples) who votes for the socialist party or a pro-gay-adoption party, or actually whatever you like.
          Of course I’m seeing this from the outside so I’m probably off, but it feels like US politics are very polarized and often more like a fandom system where you can’t approve of anything “they” do and have to support everything “we” do, regardless of the actual content.

        6. Deathjavu

          US politics are indeed polarized to the point where people support their party regardless of circumstance or position- there are polls where people will have different positions on an issue based on which party is presenting it, or will support all the pieces of a bill but not the overall bill (as it is being attacked on the news).

          Basically people treat politics like sports – root for your team no matter what, and anything your team does to win is fine.

        7. thejeff

          To some extent there’s justification for it. I may respond differently to often generic poll questions based on party because I know enough to know how the parties approach things.
          Republicans saying “save Social Security” mean something different from Democrats saying the same. Trump’s “infrastructure building” isn’t something I’d touch with a 10′ pole, despite thinking we need much more investment in infrastructure.

          OTOH, you had people protesting government interference in Medicare.

        8. SillyGoose

          Fair enough. I guess in theory everyone is in favour of things like justice, freedom, food, security and fairness, although people/parties may have vastly different ideas about how to get there and which takes precedence when two clash.
          Although lately I have started wondering whether there might actually be some people who get up in the morning thinking “So who am I gonna make miserable today?”. So far I had assumed they were just misguided, but I might have been overly generous.

        9. TemperaryObsessor

          There are some people who do just that, I proberly haven’t met them I don’t know who they are. But in there are over 5 Billion people in the world and we already know bullies and trolls exist.

        10. John Biles

          In the US, more Catholics voted Democratic than Republican in 5 of the last six Presidential elections and in most 20th century Presidential Elections. In the US, that is. Catholics are closer to the average vote than they used to be, though.

        11. BBCC

          That is untrue. Catholic voters skewed right in 2004 and 2016. They did vote for Obama both times, but I’ll note that it was a 50% vs 48% in 2012 (though, in fairness, the majority for Trump was small as well).

        12. not someone else

          I would say so in that same vein, because the skew is significantly, though not greatly, less. You can find liberal theology (and by extension politics) in some Catholic parishes and among many culturally Catholic people despite the leanings of the Mother Church. Evangelicals meanwhile seem to nigh-universally compete over who can be the scariest violence-advocating reactionary.

          Of course the rise of fascism has made a lot of the tradcath/Opus Dei/”natural fascism” types come out of the woodwork, but even that can be argued might not have happened (or not as quickly or in the same way) were it not for the political marriage of evangelical figures with right wing politicians.

        13. BBCC

          It’s not just a mother church problem though – in the US, the majority of Catholics vote to the right. Having more people who aren’t homophobic is good, but when the majority still skews to homophobic parties, the practical outcome is the same.

        14. thejeff

          Catholics are complicated because Hispanic Catholics are a large minority of US Catholics and they swing strongly Democratic. White Catholics do vote majority Republican, but not nearly so strongly as white evangelicals do.
          Many Hispanic Catholics do have similar cultural conservative leanings and would probably vote much more Republican if not for Republican racism.

          In a way it parallels the white and black divide among Evangelicals, though that’s much stronger and the black Evangelical churches bear almost no relationship to the modern white Evangelical movement.

        15. BBCC

          This is true – while Catholics as a demographic tend to skew right, Hispanic people as a demographic tend to skew left (because racist politicians also tend to skew right). So far as I can find in exit polls, religious demographics don’t get split by race, but it doesn’t surprise me.

        16. TemperaryObsessor

          The difference between Catholics and Evangelicans matters because it effects what republican candidates think they can get away with in both directions. It also means Catholics are more likely to decide you know what I only agree with the republicans on three issues and they don’t seem to care about those issues anyways.

        17. Rachel McCall

          Must’ve missed that when the Pope was comparing me to a nuclear weapon.

  6. Stephen Bierce

    Today’s strip is sponsored by JCPenney.

  7. oggser

    becky’s secret epilogue story is her making a church for lesbians ONLY

    1. C.T Phipps

      Is it just me or has Robin hired Becky not as a campaign adviser but as her bestie-for-hire?

  8. C.T Phipps

    I think Robin may have some issues with Church.

    “CHUUURCH!?”

  9. Batz

    *inhale*
    CHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU–

  10. ShinyNeen

    Chu

    1. Doctor_Who

      Gesundheit.

      1. ShinyNeen

        *Sniff* Ah, thank you!

    2. Marsh Maryrose

      CHUY! ¿Qué tal?

    3. wwwhhattt

      Chu Rocket

  11. Van Jealous

    Hey Willis! Your flyover beats the length of my favorite gag from Duck man…
    Butler: “Are you the men from AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-1 Plumbing”?
    Duckman “Yes, we’re the men from
    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-1 Plumbing” etc. etc. etc.

  12. Batz

    UUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRCHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. ValdVin

      (Hearty applause for a brick joke in the comments section.)

  13. Nono

    *looks at Slipshine ad*

    Is…. is that bottom!Mike? Not how I expected that to go, actually.

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      He’s whatever you don’t want him to be.

    2. Rabid Rabbit

      Well, we know he’s a masochist and would be into being tied up, but that doesn’t necessarily make him a bottom. (Though he is an ass.) Though there was that strip where we saw that Ethan fell asleep on top on him, so he bottomed in some way. Just not necessarily psychologically.

    3. Needfuldoer

      *Reads Slipshine ad*

      Um… Saturday’s the 18th…

  14. ShinyNeen

    I guess Becky requires butch-er (‘more butch?’) duds before going to church!

    And Robin is still into dispensing lifehacks. Uh, good for her?

    1. Needfuldoer

      No, you were right the first time. Can’t go to church without your white shirt and plastic apron.

  15. Bagge

    I love that little “OK” in the last panel.

    Becky SO MUCH want to be the irresponsible, goofy one, and she keeps being outgoofed like that.

    1. ShinyNeen

      Becky is bearing witness to where a life of goofin’ can lead.

      It’s… it’s not exactly pretty.

    2. Yotomoe

      Teach me, Master. I have much to learn about goofiness.

    3. JBento

      This strip actually reminds me of Endgame, specifically when presentCap meets pastCap, and they go “I can do this all day.” and (exasperated) “I know.”, in the sense of “This is how you sound to other people.” I suppose the When Joyce Met Lucy strip runs on the same vein, but that one came out in the sad past when I had yet to see Endgame.

  16. C.T Phipps

    I wonder if it will occur to Becky that Robin is trying to befriend her. Which is the thing she was trying to do with Leslie before the latter realized Robin was a human dumpster fire.

  17. Rotunda

    “Young ward”. Robin is a pop-culture aficionado, and this is likely a Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson reference. Robin takes poor kid into her rich world, they fight crime or something together, and it’s totally not gay, or maybe it is, depending on what polls better.

  18. Nick Piers

    FAAAAAAAAAACE!

    Wait, no, sorry.

    CHURRRRRRRRRCH!

    1. Inahc

      Beeeeeees?

      1. Delicious Taffy

        “What’s this? A handsome family picnic woefully underpopulated by bees? A large influx of bees ought to put a stop to that!”

  19. NF

    FAAACE!

  20. butts

    take her to church

    1. Yumi

      Nobody asked, but my first exposure to the song “Take Me to Church” was through reading the lyrics while having no idea who Hozier was as part of someone’s project for a class, and when I was reading them, I was like, “Holy shit, is this gay? Is this some gay shit right here? This seems lesbian as Sappho and I am ready for it.”

      Then the person played the music video and Hozier was a man, but also that music video was oof, and it was just a lot of emotions in five minutes.

      NO ONE ASKED

      1. Ohmsford

        I would have asked. You know, if I had any idea what the question had been

      2. Raen

        I always did wonder why they chose to make the singer’s lover explicitly female.

        1. butts

          …because sometimes songs include pronouns? Not every decision is made explicitly.

        2. C.T Phipps

          “Damn, I wish I was your lover” surprised me about being about lesbian love.

          Pleasantly so.

  21. Yumi

    I don’t know if I find Cadbury Creme Eggs less exciting now just because they’re available year round or if it’s because I’m not a kid anymore. I used to really like them, though.

    Anyway. Church.

    1. wwwhhattt

      My wife recently ate one for the first time, and said she didn’t like them because they’re ‘too sweet’. Getting to eat the whole box by myself is a plus, but still…

      And yes. Church.

    2. Dragonfire

      They changed the recipe for both the creme and the chocolate some years ago. (Or, depending on where you live, possibly one and not the other.) They’re not the same eggs you had as a kid, almost certainly.

      1. woobie

        Do they still work as cereal?

  22. Yotomoe

    To be fair I’m the same way. (I just assume everyone’s athiest or agnostic at this point in my life. Sometimes I forget people do it. I can’t imagine not sleeping in on Sundays)

    1. Yumi

      I like the synagogue services I’ve been to more in part because they’re on Friday nights, so I don’t have to drag myself out of bed for them.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Many of my friends were shockd to find I was religious.

    2. Keulen

      When I was in college I knew some of my friends were religious and some were not, but since I didn’t go to church and we rarely talked about religion I never bothered to ask if any of them went to church. I definitely think sleeping in on Sundays is one of the benefits of being an atheist.

    3. Marsh Maryrose

      There are some Christians who believe it’s preferable to sleep in on Sunday.

  23. DailyBrad

    Robin really has no one else to hang out with, does she?

    1. Fart Captor

      Definitely nobody cooler than Becky at least

      1. Schpoonman

        In all fairness Becky is extremely cool.

    2. Bagge

      Of course she does she has…

      …uh…

      Lamp.

      …

      And that’s about it.

  24. Tacos

    CHURCH…’s chicken.

  25. Transgressingwaffle

    Reading the alt text makes Mike seem like he is shouting CHUUUUUUUU

    1. Lingo

      He’s asking Ethan to take HIM to church!

      1. Transgressingwaffle

        Worshipping like a doggy style. Eh it’s bad but it’s all I got.

        1. Lingo

          Of course Ethan would prefer to take him to temple. (…No, I don’t know exactly what that means.)

  26. Ohmsford

    KHAAAAAAAAN! …Wait, wrong fandom

  27. Raen

    Tucker? Caboose?

    1. Emperor Norton II

      Which RvB character are you?

      I’m Grif, as described by Church in the beginning of season four. The smartest of the Reds, but also really lazy.

      1. Doom Shepherd

        Cold, analytical, obsessed with past losses, and ultimately self-destructive.

        I get to be The Director. Yay.

    2. Keulen

      Simmons? Sarge?

  28. C.

    Viewing this page’s source is delightful.

  29. Marsh Maryrose

    Now that I think about it: we know where Robin and Becky are, but —

    1. Do we know, even approximately, where Leslie lives? Presumably it’s close enough to Galasso’s that Becky could walk there.

    2. Where is Becky going to church?

    3. Is it possible that Becky could run into Lucy at church?

    1. JessWitt

      That’s a good question about church. Maybe she’s tagging along with Joyce and Jacob to the Episcopalian church, which is also LGBTQ friendly.

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        Becky was certainly comfortable with the Episcopalian church. But I am assuming that there are other welcoming congregations with services more familiar to her? As in, “electric guitars and drums,” but welcoming?

        1. TerribleName

          I went to a synagogue service with a Jewish friend of mine recently, and was surprised to hear an acoustic guitar with Evangelical style worship songs. It felt extremely out of place. It also triggered a panic attack because I went to an Evangelical church growing up and now I’m terrified of them.

    2. JessWitt

      But wait, why Lucy? Is that a typo?

      1. wwwhhattt

        Lucy has talked about going to church before, I think?

      2. Marsh Maryrose

        Not a typo. We know that Lucy goes to church — it’s why she wasn’t there when Billie moved in (she rushed back as soon as the service was over). But we don’t know what church she goes to.

    3. thejeff

      I would assume it’s all walking distance.

      I’d also assume she’s meeting Joyce for church at whatever church that was they (or at least Joyce) has been seen at a few times.
      I doubt Joyce is going back to Jacob’s. She wants someplace with Welch’s.

  30. JessWitt

    Robin calling Becky her ward is giving me 60s Batman vibes. Where are the firefighter’s poles to their secret lair?

    1. BenRG

      Give Robin time; if Becky suggests it, she will have them installed.

  31. C.T Phipps

    Becky: Robin…I don’t like you.

    Robin: WHAT?!

  32. abysswatcher1993

    Robin hasn’t learned that LGBT people can be religious too, or she just is a dark cultist as part of her campaigns for the Republican party.

  33. SillyGoose

    Robin’s so excited to finally have a church-buddy! …

  34. BenRG

    Yes, Robin, Becky goes to church. I know that your previous advisers told you that this never happens with people of her sexuality but don’t have a mental breakdown confronting the fact.

  35. Bunk

    These two talking like it’s RvB episode 8

    1. Kingmonster

      Huh. Now I want to go back and re-watch the old episodes.

  36. NinjaNick

    I’m now reminded of “Wassup?!”

  37. TerribleName

    Damn you Willis. I did not know I could just order a case of Cadbury Creme Eggs off Amazon, and now I do. I have to live with that temptation in my head now and Easter is almost a whole year away. I hate you so much right now.

  38. TheFlamingonator

    wait which church?? Joyce’s church?? oh SHID

    1. BenRG

      No, there’s a church that Joyce, Becky and Sierra go to near campus. It seems evangelical but it otherwise quite liberal.

      1. TheFlamingonator

        Yeah thats the one I meant, not Joyce’s parents church

      2. Marsh Maryrose

        I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen Becky going to that church. It may have happened, but we haven’t seen it.

        But: it’s the church that Mary recommended. How liberal could it be?

        If you plug “churches near Indiana University, Bloomington, IN” into Google Maps, the first one on the list is near Read Hall and its statement of faith includes the belief that the Scriptures are the inerrant Word of God. So, probably not much different from Joyce’s parents’ church.

        We don’t know if that’s the real-world model for the church in question, but the other churches on the list are Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian (Jacob’s church) and a church where they don’t have musical instruments during the service. I just don’t see Joyce being comfortable in any of those.

        1. thejeff

          We may not have seen it, but we also haven’t seen Joyce go every week and we’re pretty sure she has – other than the Sunday she was home and the one she went to Jacob’s.

          Or maybe not. This is only the 3rd Sunday since Becky showed up. Last weekend was Jacob’s church. The one before was their trip home. They could have gone the Sunday after the party, when she was still in hiding, but I don’t see any mention of it. Though Joyce’s first appearance is relatively late in the day and she’s a bit dressed up and we don’t see Becky until after that.

        2. Marsh Maryrose

          Whoops! Turns out that during the “Walking With Dina” storyline, Willis posted a Patreon preview panel featuring Joyce, Becky, and Sierra in a church that looks a lot like the one Joyce went to before with Mary. (Mary is blessedly absent.)

        3. Marsh Maryrose

          Apropos of today’s strip, Becky says, “Look at me, in church, even though I’m totally into girls!”

        4. thejeff

          Thought I remembered something.
          Yeah, that was Becky’s only missing Sunday on campus.

  39. Shane Wegner

    I can’t imagine why her previous campaign managers respectfully tendered their resignations. This might explain why she’s down to picking rando pizza wait staff for campaign managers.

    1. BenRG

      Technically, Robin isn’t the GOP candidate anymore so she literally has no staff at the moment, apart from Becky.

      1. thejeff

        Technically, she’s still the GOP candidate. The party has withdrawn their endorsement, but she’ll still appear on the ballot on the Republican line. It was too late in the process to change that.
        And while she’s likely lost any further party funding, campaign staff works for her, not for the party. She fired the two staffers we actually knew anything about, but that was after losing the party endorsement.

        She would still have Congressional staff as well, since those come with the office, but they can’t do campaign work.

  40. Vulcanodon

    Wait, Robin thinks Becky is her “ward”? No, Robin.

    1. thejeff

      Yeah, that makes no sense.

      Robin is the ward.

      1. ValdVin

        Do you think there’s a strip already in the buffer where Becky calls Robin “chum”?

        1. JBento

          And then she pushes her into bull shark-infested waters? One can hope.

        2. ValdVin

          I must have missed that episode of the 60s Batman show.

        3. JBento

          Appropriately, a show that either never jumped the shark or did so every episode, depending on how you see it. Schroedinger’s sharkjump, as it were.

        4. He Who Abides

          It never jumped the shark, just sprayed some Bat Shark-Repellent on it and kept on going.

          R.I.P. Adam West.

  41. Jasmijn

    Take it away, Hozier

  42. JBento

    Welp, just read about Alabama. If you’re a woman living there, my condolences. Unless you voted Republican, in which case, congratulations, you piece of shit, I guess.

    As for the rest of you, I hope you weren’t all that fond of RvW.

    1. Yarrr

      It’s terrifying isn’t it?

      1. JBento

        It’s a Xanatos Gambit: either the law sticks, and the Republicans win, or regardless of rulings it gets challenged all the way to SCOTUS, who overturn RvW, and the Republicans win.

        1. BBCC

          Here, have some places to donate or signal boost because I am trying not to lose my mind in a frothing rage.

          https://twitter.com/Celeste_pewter/status/1128675408537313280

        2. JBento

          You’re always on the ball! o/

          How’s Canada coming along? I vaguely heard there’s a shitheel on the horizon, brother to one dude who’s not a shitheel?

          Meanwhile, my country’s running the leftiest government in AT LEAST half a century (when we got rid of a dictatorship because, I kid you not, the dictator tripped on a three-legged stool a few years prior) I’m looking at seemingly EVERYWHERE ELSE wondering if there’s some highly contagious brain disease going around that somehow mostly missed us.

        3. BBCC

          I keep up with Celeste Pewter. She’s a godsend.

          Canada….eek. Right wing slide. Andrew Scheer isn’t the WORST person who could’ve won the Conservative leadership, but he’s been both pro-life and homophobic. He’s said he considers those questions answered and won’t revisit them if he’s elected, but I trust the dude as much as I can spit him, so. And we have another conservative party now – People’s Party iirc? – run by one of the worse guys who lost the conservative leadership. I’m PRAYING for a NDP win but preparing for things to get a lot worse before they get better.

          Meanwhile, BC Liberals are showing more and more pro-life colours so that’s turning me more than a little rabid, yes.

        4. JBento

          Ouch.

          Take heart in that BC anything are half the person you are!

        5. BBCC

          Aw, thank you. Fortunately, I’m not in BC, but I have a lot of love for my friends who are there.

        6. Inahc

          BC Liberals were always a conservative party, at least since I’ve been voting. :/

        7. Inahc

          Unfortunately our NDP is fairly inept; for my first decade of voting, it was like they just took turns causing scandals, and nothing changed because they knew they’d be back after the other party had their turn. Lately I just haven’t been paying attention any more.

          It is funny though, that the BC Liberals line up with the federal conservatives, BC NDP is almost like federal Liberals, and the greens take the place of the federal NDP.

        8. thejeff

          Or SCOTUS still shoots it down and anti-abortion fundraising and outraged voters spike up and Republicans win.

          The first isn’t really a possibility. It will be challenged. Lower courts will shoot it down. It will get to the Supreme Court, though they might decline to hear it, which would leave it dead.

        9. BBCC

          Considering who got the last two supreme court noms, I’m not confident in them shooting it down or declining to hear it.

        10. thejeff

          Didn’t say I was confident. Mostly the point was that even not shooting it down could be seen as a Republican win.

          That’s one of the reasons there’s speculation they might not want to kill it completely rather than just keep restricting it: They lose the fundraising and votes if they win on this issue. Works better for them to keep the scam running.
          But we’ve got more ideologues in position now, so they may not care.

        11. BBCC

          Yeah, it’s possible. There are ways around it.

          This is definitely the bad place.

        12. JBento

          Let’s face it: the only thing that kept RvW standing this long was that Kennedy, while morally bankrupt, was utterly concerned with image and protocol and was unwilling to overturn precedent. From what I gather, this more recent composition just crapped all over precedent, so RvW’s ONLY chance of survival would be to tie it all on the lower courts until you get Heracles as president and he diverts a few rivers to the SCOTUS bench.

    2. Charlotte

      I’m from a country* where abortion is not actually legal, although it is possible in that it is not punishable under certain circumstances. In practice this currently means that you can get a safe abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy without medical indication (you have to have a consultation, but after that consultation you can get the abortion), and later if there is a criminological or medical indication.

      Anyway, I’m shit-scared of the ringwing shitheads in our political sphere coming to power, because they won’t even have to MAKE abortion illegal to stop it, like in the US, because it already IS. They will just have to rescind the exceptional provision about it not being punished which we currently have.

      Today I saw the news about Alabama, and the courageous protests against it, and it made me think that as far as I can tell, the mainstream opinion in my country seems to be that abortion should at the very least be as hard to get as possible. So if it came to blows, I have absolutely no faith that enough people would stand up for women’s rights and protest.

      *The country is Germany. Yes, abortion is still illegal there by law, and the society is also sufficiently conservative to keep it that way.
      (Abortion was legal in East Germany btw. Unfortunately, upon reunification none of the more progressive social policies from the East were kept.)

  43. Yarrr

    Will Robin turn to dust if she walks into a church? Not because she’s evil or anything it just seems like the kind of things that’d happen to her.

  44. PB

    Ah, yes. The “WHAT? You’re a CHRISTIAN?!” face. I know it well.

  45. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

    Robin afraid of Church or something? I get her oafish little mind is blown, but didn’t she hire Becky in a politiciany attempt to smooth things over regarding both the LGBT community and that serial rapist she had on her campaign team? Wouldn’t this help?

  46. Antarctica

    I get where Becky is coming from here! I was raised in the same kind of atmosphere and church became a haven and a once a week connection to people I didn’t see at any other time! I have since grown up and like Joyce gone through the process of finding my own way to God. But I still feel the pull and desire to return to that simple couple of hours connecting with people who only had their belief system in common with me. Oh and the free coffee and donuts afterwards might have been a factor too!

  47. Mokurai

    What? You don’t WANT the church vote?

  48. Yumi

    I had a dream about DoA where Joyce started seeing a therapist, but the therapist was just a second Robin. Not just in personality or something, but that there were two Robins. And one was a therapist.

  49. ValdVin

    The use of the speech bubble “breaking” to off-panel is a hoot here. Nice piece of composition.

    Also Robin couldn’t consider going to the wreck of the Titanic in a bathysphere with any more surprise than she does going to church here.

  50. Jenny Islander

    @Ms. Dumpster Fire up there: People who you did not previously imagine exist! This basic fact of life must shock you on the daily!

  51. James

    BONE? BOOOOOOOOONE?!

  52. FacelessDeviant

    Snake? SNAAAAAAAAKE!

  53. Roborat

    So, church is the new face?

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