Good lord you have no idea. It got so bad i had to buy all 6 TP’s so i can find out what happens.
Doctor_Who
I’ve only read the first three, but yes, Saga is incredible.
Don’t know how to describe it, maybe Game of Thrones meets Star Wars meets Transmetropolitan, meets Romeo and Juliet, but it’s not really like any of those things, it’s like Saga.
Also, would anyone in the comments with access to a genetics lab please create a Lying Cat for me?
Disloyal Subject
I loved Worm, so now I’m only even more intrigued.
zathael
How are we having a thread about Saga without mentioning Lying Cat?
Actually, I’m pretty sure you do have to be a nice person to become CIA director. Selectively. As in, nice to people with the authority to promote you. And ruthlessly not-nice to…other people.
Carla is an asshole in part because she doesn’t want to get entangled in other people’s drama and in part because she doesn’t care, not because she wants to actively hurt others. Mike, on the other hand, seems to actually desire to hurt others.
I could make a long reply about why Carla’s acting like she does… But just search for the phrase “Comic Reactions:” and you’ll see Cerberus making a pretty detailed case for much of Carla’s behaviour.
I’ll just add what I said some dozen comics ago, that Carla does in fact care quite a lot about other people when they’re in real trouble, but she fights it every step of the way. And it’s a defense mechanism. Because starting to show her tendency to care outwardly is likely to put her in a vulnerable place. And certain people will use her show of caring against her somehow.* So she cannot allow herself to be shown as a caring person!
*I first wrote “might”, but then I realised how hopelessly naíve that was. There is no “might” about it, -of course- people like Mary will try and take advantage of that!
Mike usually helps through hurting, but he also never admits to it.
After some binge reading, it’s clear Willis has planned his every scheme so-far to correspond with something significant. When he tanked Joyce’s date with joe, it wasn’t for the face-punching, but to break a little of her naivety, tempt her into committing violence, which has served her well these last several months. Joyce probably never hit a person in anger, or even fathomed doing such a thing until her anger at Joe, cultivated intentionally by mike, let the genie out of the bottle. Fast forward to the party, she smashed a glass over Ryan’s face before something really bad could happen, on instinct. Since, she’s slugged toedad and kicked in a window frame. Clearly she’s becoming either a danger to society or a superhero, depending on weather on not she chooses to don a costume or not, and it’s all Mikes doing.
The pajama jeans presented t an inconvenient but not insurmountable dilemma in between Walky and Dorothy, planned days(read:forever in this comic) in advance. If they couldn’t resolve a fight over pants etiquette, they would have been proven terrible for each other there and then, saving the both the time that would have been wasted if things has turned out different. He also exposed their respective internalized issues in the same stroke, Dorothy’s internalized shame over the perceived social divide between the two of them, and Walky’s shaken faith in the dream-land he imagined his future to be. Girls weren’t yucky any more, which for Walky, was a huge hurdle to jump.
When he told Danny he was banging Dorothy before pulling the bat-and-switch with walky, it wasn’t just to humiliate him, it was to demonstrate, with Walky as an example, for fact and truth, that Dorothy didn’t choose her future over him, she just didn’t want him. Period. Without that galvanization, he would have remained hung up on her well into his thirties, knowing Danny. Once again, massive personal progress made possible by Mike being a dick. He’s an antihero’s antihero.
I kind of knew this already, in a generalized intuitive way, but you spelling it all out has crystallized it for me.
Mike is actually the mortal incarnation of Lucifer. And I mean more the post-modern, free-will iconoclast interpretation of the character, rather than the “avatar of all evil” traditional version. He makes those around him stronger and better people by putting them into painful and difficult situations from which they learn valuable lessons about themselves and the world around them which they could not learn any other way.
It is actually his floor. Not his wing, though. He’s across the hall in Beck Wing. There’s no doors or anything between the wings though – all he has to do to get to Clark wing is walk down the hall.
trlkly
That seems really weird to me. I went to college in a conservative area, and the girls’ wings always had locks, and they had to use their key get in. I always assumed that, if someone complained about unequal treatment, they’d force the guys doors to have locks, too.
I remember it was totally different from the version I saw on TV, where there were all these coed showers and coed floors (and even some coed rooms). Heck, you had to be married to get a coed room, and only visitors of the same sex could be signed in to stay past curfew.
And, yes, this was a public college.
thejeff
I don’t know about coed showers or rooms, that seems a bit much to me, but we had a similar arrangement to IU – girls floors and boys floors. Not sure about different wings of the same building. No locks for the floors – locks for your room obviously and locks for the building, though those were usually propped open.
No such thing as signing in visitors or even anyone being more than vaguely aware of visitors. And nothing like a curfew. How did the engineering students pass if they couldn’t pull all-nighters?
BBCC
The boy’s wing is on one side, the girl’s wing is on the other. Different bathrooms, no coed rooms. Just also no door separating the wings. TBF, they also have shared half baths between two rooms where they only lock from the inside, basically guaranteeing the kids from the other room can walk in whenever they want, unless all four of you are cool with not getting to pee all year.
Roborat
I went to uni and lived on an integrated floor, had three wings, with a washroom/shower facility in each wing. It was an older building, and was originally the male residence. We were supposed to use separate washrooms, but by the third week, we had decided the hell with it, we would just use the washrooms in our wings. Most of the guys wouldn’t use the urinals, however some did. Took a while before I got used to a girl singing in the shower stall beside me.
oic. Should’ve actually opened the strip up full size instead of just looking at it from tag results
TheAnonymousGuy
Hey willis, do you have any plans to do a chapter (kinda like walking with dina) focusing on roz and mary sharing a room? i’m actually really interested in seeing how that dynamic works and the lengths they go to stay civil toward echother.
Andy
I figure every day they don’t kill each other is a minor miracle.
Deanatay
Carla has rich, and apparently fairly attentive, parents. If she needed new skates, she’d get them.
BBCC
Forget new skates! Word of Willis is that if Carla asked for a real life version of Johnny Five, it’d show up in the mail a few weeks later. Carla’s parents are rich, attentive, and spoil her rotten. XD
Wait, are you sure? It looks to me like these have blue where the old ones had red, unless those are holes or something.
BBCC
I think those are her leggings poking through. The actual skates slip on over her sock/legging/shoe/whatever and she straps the red part around her shin.
Or those could be the blue, yes. Either way, new skates.
306 thoughts on “Brand”
Doctor_Who
I didn’t know Mike knew The Stalk. Does that mean he’s a Freelancer?
Bet anyone who hears The Mike is on their trail wets themselves.
Disloyal Subject
Interesting image.
motorfirebox
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan. If you start reading it, prepare to have feels. And then have those feels kicked in the feely bits, over and over. And over.
L33tmaster
Good lord you have no idea. It got so bad i had to buy all 6 TP’s so i can find out what happens.
Doctor_Who
I’ve only read the first three, but yes, Saga is incredible.
Don’t know how to describe it, maybe Game of Thrones meets Star Wars meets Transmetropolitan, meets Romeo and Juliet, but it’s not really like any of those things, it’s like Saga.
Also, would anyone in the comments with access to a genetics lab please create a Lying Cat for me?
Disloyal Subject
I loved Worm, so now I’m only even more intrigued.
zathael
How are we having a thread about Saga without mentioning Lying Cat?
Hi
Yay Saga!
AnvilPro
Mike and Dorothy is the friendship this comic has been missing
butts
Good twin, Evil twin
(((Mkvenner)))
Vice president, CIA Director.
motorfirebox
Perfect cinnamon bun, Taco Bell.
L33tmaster
Arby’s, the bathroom 🙂
EvolutionistX
I met the director of the CIA, once. He was much more like Dorothy.
BLACKOUT
Who says Mike isn’t the VP?
DSL
Well, we have a VP-elect from Indiana named Mike.
Schpoonman
Oh goddammit.
Solenoid
goddamnit in all possible ways.
Neeks
Well, arguably Mike pence IS whatever we don’t want him to be.
Gamaran Sepudomyn
No, that’s Trump.
Freemage
I’d rather have DoA Mike, even if he picked me personally for the periodic crotch-kicks, honestly.
Clif
One does not get to be head of the CIA by being a nice person. Just saying.
Taellosse
Actually, I’m pretty sure you do have to be a nice person to become CIA director. Selectively. As in, nice to people with the authority to promote you. And ruthlessly not-nice to…other people.
Roborat
So that is what you named your buttocks.
TrueVCU
Branding is all about consistency.
On that note, I’m surprised Carla hasn’t tried to get Mike to be her asshole Sensei
Shiro
Wouldn’t work. Mike likes to be genuinely hurtful, which also runs counter to Carla’s personal brand.
Emperor Norton II
Mostly because I really, really, really doubt that Carla actually wants to be a real asshole, much less the kind that Mike is.
Disloyal Subject
Even if she did, I doubt shedbe willing to acknowledge another as superior.
Emily
Carla wants to be perceived as an asshole without having to actually do anything terribly assholish to people.
Deanatay
Unless they’re sweet pranks. She’d totally be down with doing those.
EvolutionistX
Carla is an asshole in part because she doesn’t want to get entangled in other people’s drama and in part because she doesn’t care, not because she wants to actively hurt others. Mike, on the other hand, seems to actually desire to hurt others.
Emily
She’s actually a lot like Sarah in that regard.
Tunasammich
I still want Sarah and Carla to become bffs
Pablo360
More like bpwteof: best people who tolerate each other forever
Emperor Norton II
I could make a long reply about why Carla’s acting like she does… But just search for the phrase “Comic Reactions:” and you’ll see Cerberus making a pretty detailed case for much of Carla’s behaviour.
I’ll just add what I said some dozen comics ago, that Carla does in fact care quite a lot about other people when they’re in real trouble, but she fights it every step of the way. And it’s a defense mechanism. Because starting to show her tendency to care outwardly is likely to put her in a vulnerable place. And certain people will use her show of caring against her somehow.* So she cannot allow herself to be shown as a caring person!
*I first wrote “might”, but then I realised how hopelessly naíve that was. There is no “might” about it, -of course- people like Mary will try and take advantage of that!
Unusually Angry Hippie
Mike usually helps through hurting, but he also never admits to it.
After some binge reading, it’s clear Willis has planned his every scheme so-far to correspond with something significant. When he tanked Joyce’s date with joe, it wasn’t for the face-punching, but to break a little of her naivety, tempt her into committing violence, which has served her well these last several months. Joyce probably never hit a person in anger, or even fathomed doing such a thing until her anger at Joe, cultivated intentionally by mike, let the genie out of the bottle. Fast forward to the party, she smashed a glass over Ryan’s face before something really bad could happen, on instinct. Since, she’s slugged toedad and kicked in a window frame. Clearly she’s becoming either a danger to society or a superhero, depending on weather on not she chooses to don a costume or not, and it’s all Mikes doing.
The pajama jeans presented t an inconvenient but not insurmountable dilemma in between Walky and Dorothy, planned days(read:forever in this comic) in advance. If they couldn’t resolve a fight over pants etiquette, they would have been proven terrible for each other there and then, saving the both the time that would have been wasted if things has turned out different. He also exposed their respective internalized issues in the same stroke, Dorothy’s internalized shame over the perceived social divide between the two of them, and Walky’s shaken faith in the dream-land he imagined his future to be. Girls weren’t yucky any more, which for Walky, was a huge hurdle to jump.
When he told Danny he was banging Dorothy before pulling the bat-and-switch with walky, it wasn’t just to humiliate him, it was to demonstrate, with Walky as an example, for fact and truth, that Dorothy didn’t choose her future over him, she just didn’t want him. Period. Without that galvanization, he would have remained hung up on her well into his thirties, knowing Danny. Once again, massive personal progress made possible by Mike being a dick. He’s an antihero’s antihero.
Clif
This.
Taellosse
I kind of knew this already, in a generalized intuitive way, but you spelling it all out has crystallized it for me.
Mike is actually the mortal incarnation of Lucifer. And I mean more the post-modern, free-will iconoclast interpretation of the character, rather than the “avatar of all evil” traditional version. He makes those around him stronger and better people by putting them into painful and difficult situations from which they learn valuable lessons about themselves and the world around them which they could not learn any other way.
Dean
It’s also about getting the iron hot enough before you apply it.
wheelpath
Mike fluff also good fluff, whew.
Ana Chronistic
“a friend named Doc Ock”
Reltzik
…. so Mike’s not siccing a spider on an arachnophobe.
Instead, Mike’s inflicting upon an arachnophobe something that requires a spider to get rid of.
….. that’s evil.
Disloyal Subject
Brilliant, though.
Wizard
Of course. “Brilliantly evil” is pretty much Mike’s gimmick.
Magdalana
Okay but that is a LITTLE creepy
Doctor_Who
He just sort of materializes when needed. This isn’t even his floor.
TheAnonymousGuy
then where was he when mary started getting snotty about ruth being in the hospital, could have used him then?
Fart Captor
Billie had that situation on lockdown. Mike was not needed.
BBCC
It is actually his floor. Not his wing, though. He’s across the hall in Beck Wing. There’s no doors or anything between the wings though – all he has to do to get to Clark wing is walk down the hall.
trlkly
That seems really weird to me. I went to college in a conservative area, and the girls’ wings always had locks, and they had to use their key get in. I always assumed that, if someone complained about unequal treatment, they’d force the guys doors to have locks, too.
I remember it was totally different from the version I saw on TV, where there were all these coed showers and coed floors (and even some coed rooms). Heck, you had to be married to get a coed room, and only visitors of the same sex could be signed in to stay past curfew.
And, yes, this was a public college.
thejeff
I don’t know about coed showers or rooms, that seems a bit much to me, but we had a similar arrangement to IU – girls floors and boys floors. Not sure about different wings of the same building. No locks for the floors – locks for your room obviously and locks for the building, though those were usually propped open.
No such thing as signing in visitors or even anyone being more than vaguely aware of visitors. And nothing like a curfew. How did the engineering students pass if they couldn’t pull all-nighters?
BBCC
The boy’s wing is on one side, the girl’s wing is on the other. Different bathrooms, no coed rooms. Just also no door separating the wings. TBF, they also have shared half baths between two rooms where they only lock from the inside, basically guaranteeing the kids from the other room can walk in whenever they want, unless all four of you are cool with not getting to pee all year.
Roborat
I went to uni and lived on an integrated floor, had three wings, with a washroom/shower facility in each wing. It was an older building, and was originally the male residence. We were supposed to use separate washrooms, but by the third week, we had decided the hell with it, we would just use the washrooms in our wings. Most of the guys wouldn’t use the urinals, however some did. Took a while before I got used to a girl singing in the shower stall beside me.
Shiro
Great spreadsheet great responsibility etc
Shiro
…oooooh, also, are those new skates or the old glued-up ones?
Fart Captor
If they’re new, they’re identical to the old ones
ety
aaah, geez. I do not like that strip.
David M Willis
Examine your vision! These skates, though portions of them share the color pink, are not the same design of skates!
Shiro
😮 Hooray! Christmas came early!
Fart Captor
oic. Should’ve actually opened the strip up full size instead of just looking at it from tag results
TheAnonymousGuy
Hey willis, do you have any plans to do a chapter (kinda like walking with dina) focusing on roz and mary sharing a room? i’m actually really interested in seeing how that dynamic works and the lengths they go to stay civil toward echother.
Andy
I figure every day they don’t kill each other is a minor miracle.
Deanatay
Carla has rich, and apparently fairly attentive, parents. If she needed new skates, she’d get them.
BBCC
Forget new skates! Word of Willis is that if Carla asked for a real life version of Johnny Five, it’d show up in the mail a few weeks later. Carla’s parents are rich, attentive, and spoil her rotten. XD
Shiro
Wait, are you sure? It looks to me like these have blue where the old ones had red, unless those are holes or something.
BBCC
I think those are her leggings poking through. The actual skates slip on over her sock/legging/shoe/whatever and she straps the red part around her shin.
Or those could be the blue, yes. Either way, new skates.
AngelBadman
Yep, this is do-goofing control freak at the boss level.
Stephen R. Bierce
*seems to recall a song from The Who about this matter*
Stephen R. Bierce
THIS is why they invented…
*sunglass pose*
…the WEB.
Disloyal Subject
https://youtu.be/6YMPAH67f4o
Deanatay
YEEEEAAAAAaaaah?
Keulan