I kind of think that Willis has consistently drawn many characters cuter in the last few years, I assume as their style/skills continue to evolve? Joyce especially, but I can see what you mean here….
I think we haven’t seen her in a while so the art evolution hit her particularly hard.
Decidedly Orthogonal
It’s clear what you mean, it’s just funmy how it sounds. “art evolution hit them pretty hard” sounds like the “hit every branch in the ugly tree on the way down” of the art world.
Physically she’s always been this cute but here her expressions are engaging & intriguing, and this conversation doesn’t bring out the more annoying parts of her personality.
George
Yeah, it’s 100% her expressions. Nobody was saying it yesterday, and then she started smiling.
I think its clear Joe /WANTS/ to talk to Joyce about it, but doesn’t know how to bring it up & is genuinely scared to mention it to her for the exact reason he said above.
Nothing Joe has done recently, & honestly for awhile, would make me believe he’s being malicious about it & despite the other person being YOUR PARTNER, sometimes its just hard to talk in general.
It is funny Roz has ended up being probably the best person to talk to about this, considering she
– knows the friend group
– is very sexually active herself
– isn’t a BAD person, perse… more-so self-serving.
Psychie
It also helps that while she KNOWS the friend group, she isn’t directly PART of it, which allows for a bit more objectivity than if he went to, say, Dorothy. It also helps that these are the sort of issues that Roz is specifically interested in, like relationship dynamics involving issues of sex, commitment, consent, interest, etc. She’s probably not an “expert” per se, but she’s probably the closest that Joe has available to him, especially as someone with an established rapport built.
A lot might depend on how many details she got, and how it was phrased. Joe did a hard full stop as soon as she started showing signs of unsureness. That absolutely would likely surprise Sarah.
justin8448
“Late at night she threw herself at me and honestly I was into it but before much of anything happened she changed her mind and we stopped immediately and she left.”
Sarah might not be happy about it, but I don’t see her spending the energy on getting truly mad at Joe.
Needfuldoer
She might just maim him a little, instead of burying him in the woods. Just a little life-altering injury as a reminder.
Joe: “What if that’s ALL THERE IS between us? What if that’s the END of it?”
Professor Broc: “It is, and it is. Sex is a primitive biological instinct there solely to force us into fulfilling our functions as genetic machines, and love is a lie papered over that to make it sound meaningful. If you don’t like that, I suggest you try abstinence.”
Gary died, Zii went to prison for cattle theft, Didi got hooked on hallucinogens, Matt and Yuki moved to Peru, Dillon opened a lesbian bar, Kiley works at Nintendo, Peggy stole Fizzy Lifting Drinks, and Sonya kills people now.
I really think that chicken would be the one meat that I would agree to if I had to limit my variety to only one kind of meat. I feel like I would get tired of the others really fast, but that might be due to most beef products being more expensive than I can afford.
It also helps that chicken offers more variety in the kind of dishes and ways it can be prepared, with the exception of steak pretty much everything you can do with beef, you can also do with chicken, and in my opinion chicken is usually rather more flavorful. On the other hand, while I’d bet “beef nuggets” would be good, I sincerely doubt they’d ever be as good as chicken nuggets. I also feel it’s better in sandwich form and can be done in more varieties of ways, like beef is pretty much only sandwiched as a burger, but chicken can be a deli meat, have breaded patties, parmesian sandwiches, etc. Chicken is just generally more versatile and IMO usually better tasting, so it’s harder to get bored with.
Kimi
I do wonder how much of that is price. There is roast beef as deli meat, but most of the better cuts of meat you wouldn’t waste grinding up into a nugget. There are chicken fried steaks out there too. Most people aren’t going to waste money to try something more “experimental” with an expensive steak compared to a cheaper chicken breast. I also remember when we used to be able to select a piece of beef in the grocery store and ask them them to grind it into hamburger for us (so you would know what you were getting). They stopped doing that due to having to clean it after each time (possible spread of bacteria joys).
I do think that chicken can me more versatile with different spices due to its more mild flavor. It is also a lot less fickle than fish, which I have heard that people commonly overcook from a daughter of a chef. I also can’t recall chicken being tough too often, in comparison to beef. The most common complaint for all meat is normally that they are too dry (fyi I have found that searing pork chops on a skillet makes them VERY juicy, and using an injector on turkeys to pump liquid in while cooking). We are also rather limited in our meat options in the US, as for the most part the main choices are beef, pork, chicken, many types of fish or a variety of seafood (both fish and seafood are often frozen I have found). You do find some mutton, buffalo, or other unique meats in certain locations or during certain times of the year. I do sometimes wish that we had more variety, especially with buffalo, since it is native and I have heard that it can be easier for some people to digest.
morleuca
The only real complaint I’ve ever had with chicken has been getting a sandwich or tenders where the piece had woody breast, which will put me off eating entirely for the day.
I’m curious what “woody breast” is, but I don’t need Toy Story porn in my search results today.
Morleuca
spots in the chicken’s breasts where, due to all the selective breeding we’ve done, there isn’t enough proper blood flow. the tissue changes what it is, so you get these spots in the meat that are harder, chewier, a different texture, a different bite.
Decidedly Orthogonal
You are correct that chicken has a variety of preparations, but you’re also grossly underselling the variety of beef preparations, even in sandwich form.
As well, our neighbors to the south have Philadelphia which is world famous for many things including their Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches.
There is of course also the Reuben, and the traditional roast beef sandwich, which can also be done on a hoagie roll, paired au jus, and you have a beef-dip.
There is a whole world of cow cuisine for the curious carnivore.
Yeah, I feel Joe falls into the general trap of equating having bedded lots of women with skill at sex. I like to use the analogy of arcade machines, who’s probably better at arcade games, the guy who goes to the arcade monthly and plays every machine once or twice, or the guy who goes to the arcade weekly and plays the same machine over and over and over again until he’s run the leader board five times? Sure, the guy who plays every machine is probably not bad as there are surely transferable skills, and he might even have a high score or two, but he’s not likely to approach mastery any time soon.
Joe has played on a lot of arcade machines, but he probably hasn’t gotten a lot of high scores because he’s never taken the time to get any good at any one game in particular. Now that he’s chosen a favorite game to focus on, I’d bet he’ll be surprised at the scope of what he still has left to learn. Sure, picking up the game will be easier for him than somebody who’s never used a joystick, likely by a considerable margin, but he still has a long way to go to truly master the game.
Different women are like different arcade machines, there’s a lot of similarities to the general mechanics and transferable skills for using the inputs most effectively, but if you don’t know the combos or have the maps and patterns memorized for this game in particular you aren’t likely to get very far until you put in the work to learn that stuff and knowing a couple combos from street fighter, a couple combos from tekken, a couple patterns from frogger and cubert, etc. won’t help you very much to run the leader board on galaga.
Are you seriously equating women to arcade machines? Damn that’s so dehumanizing. Women are not objects, bro. /s
morleuca
Equating human relationships (and really any complex higher level concept) to various activities is a very common practice. It helps people relate to the topic better.
Daibhid C
I’d say the “/sarcasm” tag has stopped working, but I’m honestly not sure it ever did.
That guy who plays one game is really good at that one game. So he guy who comes in once a month and plays a couple different games is likely better than the specialist at the games that are not like the specialists favorite despite only coming in once a month.
I would liken Joe more to a chef. He’s fairly good at making the food look appealing, but how many of his customers are repeat customers?
Psychie
Even if one is only good at one game because that’s all they play, I will generally consider the world champion at one game in particular to be a better gamer than someone who is kinda okay at a lot of different games. Besides, as noted there are a lot of transferable skills, and having the dedication to master one game means you’re more likely to be able to master another if you are so inclined. I’d rather be the best at one game than mediocre at a lot.
Also, while this is taking the metaphor a bit too far because now I’m just talking about games and not a metaphor for sex, but I used to play yugioh competitively, and later Legend of the Five Rings, and the skills I picked up in general deck building, resource management, and cost curves meant that the first time I ever picked up a magic the gathering deck I borrowed from a friend to fill in for a game of five headed dragon I was able to tell him how to improve the deck (it was truly poorly built), and when he didn’t listen because he had been playing for 15 years and I “didn’t know magic” I built a better version of the deck myself, researching ONLY the cards that could fit into the deck itself and not any other colors or archetypes or anything, and proceeded to destroy every last one of his decks. In order to master a game you need to understand the underlying mechanics and how to use them to your advantage, and other games that use the same basic mechanics will be easier to reach basic proficiency at because the basic mechanics are the same, as far as CCGs go yugioh and magic are about as different as they come, but nine years of sitting on top of the local competitive scene in one leads to the other being fairly intuitive to pick up.
Discussion (239) - “Unstudent”
Ana Chronistic
“what if I break the cutie?!”
BarerMender
Speaking of cuties, has Roz always been this cute? Or is Willis drawing her cuter?
Nymph
Personally I think she’s always been a cutie
BarerMender
I never noticed. Maybe looking like Robin put me off.
Thag Simmons
unfortunately Robin is also kind of cute
ktbear
A new alpha cutie arises.
Steelbright
I kind of think that Willis has consistently drawn many characters cuter in the last few years, I assume as their style/skills continue to evolve? Joyce especially, but I can see what you mean here….
Needfuldoer
I think art evolution has been steering everyone that way, a little bit.
(Or maybe my brain just likes the “crop top under unzipped hoodie” bit.)
Da Boy
I think we haven’t seen her in a while so the art evolution hit her particularly hard.
Decidedly Orthogonal
It’s clear what you mean, it’s just funmy how it sounds. “art evolution hit them pretty hard” sounds like the “hit every branch in the ugly tree on the way down” of the art world.
Da Boy
Lol yeah XD An unfortunate choice of words
ValdVin
Physically she’s always been this cute but here her expressions are engaging & intriguing, and this conversation doesn’t bring out the more annoying parts of her personality.
George
Yeah, it’s 100% her expressions. Nobody was saying it yesterday, and then she started smiling.
raultsi
funny you should mention that, the last panel gives me the happy butterflies
Pergola
‘happy butterflies in my pants’ sounds like something Dina might say.
Dday
Always, but this outfit reallllly brings it out. <3 <3
Animedingo
God forbid you talk to her about it
Rose by Any other Name
I know, right?
Nymph
God forbid he talk to someone else about it first to get his actual problem straight and sort his feelings out before he takes it to Joyce.
Every single issue doesn’t need to be immediately brought to your partner. It’s okay to lean on friends too.
VolticEXE
Yeah, exactly this.
I think its clear Joe /WANTS/ to talk to Joyce about it, but doesn’t know how to bring it up & is genuinely scared to mention it to her for the exact reason he said above.
Nothing Joe has done recently, & honestly for awhile, would make me believe he’s being malicious about it & despite the other person being YOUR PARTNER, sometimes its just hard to talk in general.
It is funny Roz has ended up being probably the best person to talk to about this, considering she
– knows the friend group
– is very sexually active herself
– isn’t a BAD person, perse… more-so self-serving.
Psychie
It also helps that while she KNOWS the friend group, she isn’t directly PART of it, which allows for a bit more objectivity than if he went to, say, Dorothy. It also helps that these are the sort of issues that Roz is specifically interested in, like relationship dynamics involving issues of sex, commitment, consent, interest, etc. She’s probably not an “expert” per se, but she’s probably the closest that Joe has available to him, especially as someone with an established rapport built.
Charles Phipps
“I had a traumatizing experience with Sarah’s sister.”
“What?”
anon
imagine how quick sarah’s…friendly? demeanor would drop if she found out about that lol
Freemage
A lot might depend on how many details she got, and how it was phrased. Joe did a hard full stop as soon as she started showing signs of unsureness. That absolutely would likely surprise Sarah.
justin8448
“Late at night she threw herself at me and honestly I was into it but before much of anything happened she changed her mind and we stopped immediately and she left.”
Sarah might not be happy about it, but I don’t see her spending the energy on getting truly mad at Joe.
Needfuldoer
She might just maim him a little, instead of burying him in the woods. Just a little life-altering injury as a reminder.
Samniel
He might get a bat to the arm, not the head.
Xronium
does iu really over sexual arts as a major? /j
Xronium
offer* im cooked
Doctor_Who
Weirdly, that’s the other course Professor Broc teaches.
Xronium
that sounds very threatening
Nymph
An old, cranky, nihilistic man teaching sexual arts? Where would I sign up, that sounds amazing.
Decidedly Orthogonal
Honestly? Same.
Mturtle7
Joe: “What if that’s ALL THERE IS between us? What if that’s the END of it?”
Professor Broc: “It is, and it is. Sex is a primitive biological instinct there solely to force us into fulfilling our functions as genetic machines, and love is a lie papered over that to make it sound meaningful. If you don’t like that, I suggest you try abstinence.”
HueSatLight
maybe not a major for undergrads, but it is where the Kinsey Institute is.
Michael Steamweed
Dang, I didn’t know that. TIL!
anon
For those familiar with meanagea3, it just makes me think of kiley’s ‘sex therapist’ phase XD
Opus the Poet
(; 😀
Decidedly Orthogonal
Now there’s a comic I haven’t read in a long time. A long time.
I wonder how Kiley, Gary, and the gang are doing.
Michael Steamweed
They’re doing fine. They’re semi-retired; there’s a whole new gang taking up the spotlight now.
anon
right now it’s ‘pixie trix comix’ with a new storyline tho occasional cameos from the og gang lol
Taffy
Gary died, Zii went to prison for cattle theft, Didi got hooked on hallucinogens, Matt and Yuki moved to Peru, Dillon opened a lesbian bar, Kiley works at Nintendo, Peggy stole Fizzy Lifting Drinks, and Sonya kills people now.
Dday
The IU Department of Sex has a statue out front of Dr Ruth holding a pair of Shake Weights.
Sirksome
Hit it and quit it Joyce Brown! Let’s ride!
anon
lol makes me think of ruth’s comment of her ‘banging half the town’
Decidedly Orthogonal
Does “banging the same half of the town by proxy of her boyfriend” count?
Mr. Random
I mean…
If it’s real chicken, that’s honestly hard to beat.
Kimi
I really think that chicken would be the one meat that I would agree to if I had to limit my variety to only one kind of meat. I feel like I would get tired of the others really fast, but that might be due to most beef products being more expensive than I can afford.
clif
Hey, I’ve been happily reading the same comic strip since (consults calendar)
Psychie
It also helps that chicken offers more variety in the kind of dishes and ways it can be prepared, with the exception of steak pretty much everything you can do with beef, you can also do with chicken, and in my opinion chicken is usually rather more flavorful. On the other hand, while I’d bet “beef nuggets” would be good, I sincerely doubt they’d ever be as good as chicken nuggets. I also feel it’s better in sandwich form and can be done in more varieties of ways, like beef is pretty much only sandwiched as a burger, but chicken can be a deli meat, have breaded patties, parmesian sandwiches, etc. Chicken is just generally more versatile and IMO usually better tasting, so it’s harder to get bored with.
Kimi
I do wonder how much of that is price. There is roast beef as deli meat, but most of the better cuts of meat you wouldn’t waste grinding up into a nugget. There are chicken fried steaks out there too. Most people aren’t going to waste money to try something more “experimental” with an expensive steak compared to a cheaper chicken breast. I also remember when we used to be able to select a piece of beef in the grocery store and ask them them to grind it into hamburger for us (so you would know what you were getting). They stopped doing that due to having to clean it after each time (possible spread of bacteria joys).
I do think that chicken can me more versatile with different spices due to its more mild flavor. It is also a lot less fickle than fish, which I have heard that people commonly overcook from a daughter of a chef. I also can’t recall chicken being tough too often, in comparison to beef. The most common complaint for all meat is normally that they are too dry (fyi I have found that searing pork chops on a skillet makes them VERY juicy, and using an injector on turkeys to pump liquid in while cooking). We are also rather limited in our meat options in the US, as for the most part the main choices are beef, pork, chicken, many types of fish or a variety of seafood (both fish and seafood are often frozen I have found). You do find some mutton, buffalo, or other unique meats in certain locations or during certain times of the year. I do sometimes wish that we had more variety, especially with buffalo, since it is native and I have heard that it can be easier for some people to digest.
morleuca
The only real complaint I’ve ever had with chicken has been getting a sandwich or tenders where the piece had woody breast, which will put me off eating entirely for the day.
Taffy
I’m curious what “woody breast” is, but I don’t need Toy Story porn in my search results today.
Morleuca
spots in the chicken’s breasts where, due to all the selective breeding we’ve done, there isn’t enough proper blood flow. the tissue changes what it is, so you get these spots in the meat that are harder, chewier, a different texture, a different bite.
Decidedly Orthogonal
You are correct that chicken has a variety of preparations, but you’re also grossly underselling the variety of beef preparations, even in sandwich form.
As a canuck I’m obliged to inform you of Montreal smoked meat (sandwiches) and direct you to The World Famous Schwartz’s Deli.
As well, our neighbors to the south have Philadelphia which is world famous for many things including their Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches.
There is of course also the Reuben, and the traditional roast beef sandwich, which can also be done on a hoagie roll, paired au jus, and you have a beef-dip.
There is a whole world of cow cuisine for the curious carnivore.
JA
No Joe, don’t unstudent yourself. You don’t need to go into this as a blank slate, use your knowledge to find out what Joyce likes.
Psychie
Yeah, I feel Joe falls into the general trap of equating having bedded lots of women with skill at sex. I like to use the analogy of arcade machines, who’s probably better at arcade games, the guy who goes to the arcade monthly and plays every machine once or twice, or the guy who goes to the arcade weekly and plays the same machine over and over and over again until he’s run the leader board five times? Sure, the guy who plays every machine is probably not bad as there are surely transferable skills, and he might even have a high score or two, but he’s not likely to approach mastery any time soon.
Joe has played on a lot of arcade machines, but he probably hasn’t gotten a lot of high scores because he’s never taken the time to get any good at any one game in particular. Now that he’s chosen a favorite game to focus on, I’d bet he’ll be surprised at the scope of what he still has left to learn. Sure, picking up the game will be easier for him than somebody who’s never used a joystick, likely by a considerable margin, but he still has a long way to go to truly master the game.
Different women are like different arcade machines, there’s a lot of similarities to the general mechanics and transferable skills for using the inputs most effectively, but if you don’t know the combos or have the maps and patterns memorized for this game in particular you aren’t likely to get very far until you put in the work to learn that stuff and knowing a couple combos from street fighter, a couple combos from tekken, a couple patterns from frogger and cubert, etc. won’t help you very much to run the leader board on galaga.
Woop de doop
Are you seriously equating women to arcade machines? Damn that’s so dehumanizing. Women are not objects, bro. /s
morleuca
Equating human relationships (and really any complex higher level concept) to various activities is a very common practice. It helps people relate to the topic better.
Daibhid C
I’d say the “/sarcasm” tag has stopped working, but I’m honestly not sure it ever did.
Mark
Now I’m hearing “Pinball Wizard” in my brain….
temporaryobsessor
That guy who plays one game is really good at that one game. So he guy who comes in once a month and plays a couple different games is likely better than the specialist at the games that are not like the specialists favorite despite only coming in once a month.
I would liken Joe more to a chef. He’s fairly good at making the food look appealing, but how many of his customers are repeat customers?
Psychie
Even if one is only good at one game because that’s all they play, I will generally consider the world champion at one game in particular to be a better gamer than someone who is kinda okay at a lot of different games. Besides, as noted there are a lot of transferable skills, and having the dedication to master one game means you’re more likely to be able to master another if you are so inclined. I’d rather be the best at one game than mediocre at a lot.
Also, while this is taking the metaphor a bit too far because now I’m just talking about games and not a metaphor for sex, but I used to play yugioh competitively, and later Legend of the Five Rings, and the skills I picked up in general deck building, resource management, and cost curves meant that the first time I ever picked up a magic the gathering deck I borrowed from a friend to fill in for a game of five headed dragon I was able to tell him how to improve the deck (it was truly poorly built), and when he didn’t listen because he had been playing for 15 years and I “didn’t know magic” I built a better version of the deck myself, researching ONLY the cards that could fit into the deck itself and not any other colors or archetypes or anything, and proceeded to destroy every last one of his decks. In order to master a game you need to understand the underlying mechanics and how to use them to your advantage, and other games that use the same basic mechanics will be easier to reach basic proficiency at because the basic mechanics are the same, as far as CCGs go yugioh and magic are about as different as they come, but nine years of sitting on top of the local competitive scene in one leads to the other being fairly intuitive to pick up.
Chaucer59
There you go, Joseph. Bone her.
crys
I forgot that Roz follows joyce’s food reviews
AGV/Ruby
I forgot that Joyce did food reviews
HueSatLight
oh dang that’s right
Ray Radlein
“I’m scared of being my dad” is probably the best way he could put it, tbh
Bryy
Joe has lost his Joementum.
NGPZ