Alt text references an event where then-President Bush posed for a very rah-rah military photo op with a banner declaring “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”, referring to war in Iraq, around the time people were beginning to become disillusioned with the war.
Drunken Nordmann
Wasn’t the “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” banner originally referring to something else – the end of the carrier’s mission or something like that?
TSB
I seem to recall something like that. I wasn’t trying to exhaustively or precisely explain the situation, just write enough that someone who was like… born in 1998 or something could get the basic joke and look up the details themselves. I’m not even sure if the photo op was about the war in Iraq. It might have been Afghanistan still.
Dean
People born in 1998 are old enough to read this strip?
(mental calculation)
Oh God, I’m old.
David M Willis
Hell, most of the characters in this strip’ll have been born in 1998 in two years.
nekobawt
for some reason i have a hard time parsing that.
David M Willis
My characters don’t really age, so as time passes for us, their birth year increases by one every year. In two years’ time, that birth year for most of them will be 1998, as it is currently 1996.
I look forward to the day when the characters turn out to have been born in 2010.
thatindianguy
Wait… that means they’re already younger than I am.
And I started reading this thing in 2011 when I was 15-16.
I started it in high school and now I know more about college life than they do.
Damn Willis at this rate if I eat right and the cost of healthcare drops I might be able to see they’re midterms. Assuming your children want to carry on the family webcomic.
gwalla
So you’re using the Marvel sliding timescale?
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
i was born in 1998! 😀
Ivan
YOU ARE HERE ILLEGALLY. PREPARE FOR PATRIOT ACT SEQUESTER AT GUANTÁNAMO BAY FOR RE-EDUCATION.
(apparently, based on the other prisoners, you’ll be re-educated a a Muslim!)
Good for you. When I was your age teachers would tell me that the stuff I read would rot my brains. Um, they may have been right.
JWLM
The Bush administration was celebrating the fact that we’d won the war — public opinion hadn’t started to sour, yet — and they were…well, wrong. So they changed what the whole debacle meant.
As an Australian born in 1992, I feel that one Cory Bernardi is enough for anyone’s sanity.
John
Roughly half of our politicians in America are Cory Bernardi’s (yes I just googled that name). Most of them are Republicans, but there’s a couple wackjob Dems too.
Anyone in search of wackjob politicians needs to read the history of Louisiana. The current crop worldwide are strictly amateurs.
Ivan
How can you not follow THAT political blunder? YOU WERE PART OF IT – Coalition of the Willing, etc.
Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from 19 March to 9 April 2003. These were the United States (148,000), United Kingdom (45,000), Australia (2,000), and Poland (194). 36 other countries were involved in its aftermath.
Except is wasn’t, that was the post-rationalisation after the shitstorm went down. US presidents don’t fly out to aircraft carriers and hold massive press conferences every time it’s their time to cycle out of theatre.
NobodySpecial
Well, if you remember all the drooling the press did over Bush’s flightsuited ‘package’, it’s a wonder they don’t do ops like that more often.
Milosh
It referred to victory against the war on Saddam Hussein and his regime. People didn’t know yet that that would be the easy part.
BalRog gets a "D"...and PASSES!!!
Actually, just about everybody who had a smidgen of common sense knew it, but apparently there were no people with this trait in the Bush administration. Including (most especially) Bush.
ProfessorZoot
That was a LIE concocted by Bush apologists long after the fact in an attempt to explain away the hubris and stupidity. A bald-faced LIE meant to sow doubt about the reality of Bush’s blunder; easily checked and discovered to be false, but useful as an alternative story for those too azy or ideologically blinded to bother checking.
Given the snail pace of this comic, the fact that we even have a storyline where they speak to each other within a month instead of in like 2025 is unexpected enough.
Yeah, no kidding. This little exchange already is working against a lot of the most toxic stuff from their big argument. I know I’m making a terrible mistake but part of me feels a little more optimistic about their prospects than before that big blowup. My heart flutters with hope for a mutually supportive relationship, rather than codependency.
155 thoughts on “Okayish”
An Average Loser
Hehe, Smothering.
Plasma Mongoose
Smothering leads to motorboating.
Yotomoe
And Billie is an optimal vessel.
Plasma Mongoose
She does run on ethanol. 😀
c28B
I thought Joyce ran on Ethanol. … No wait, she runs on Diesel. Vin Diesel.
An Average Loser
I heard Billies get get great mileage too!
AgentKeen
I heard Billies were kinda high-maintenance.
Opus the Poet
Lots of PM involved, but so long as the PM gets done in timely manner repair jobs are few, so it balances out.
qka
Ethanol damages motorboat engines.
Plasma Mongoose
Billie seems pretty damaged to me, so the metaphor fits.
thatindianguy
I have no idea what this metaphor is supposed to be.
Disloyal Subject
The metaphor is that too much booze will fuck you up.
DSL
And a motorboat is a kind of ship.
Dante
Wouldn’t that be the other way around?
Doctor_Who
Panel 5 Billie: “So you’ve got booze you don’t need, then?”
Ivan
WAIT A MINUTE!
If the alt text is right… this semester has at least 5 years to go!!
Tacdud2
Billie does care.
An Average Loser
1/64 of a care, but it’s a care.
Kodra
I think Billie’s problem is that she cares a bit too much. She wouldn’t be on this downward spiral if she didn’t care about Ruth.
EvergreenFir
Audience might be too young for that reference…
liahansen
ohmygoshIhateitwhenpeopledothis WHAT REFERENCE
liahansen
oh wait no the alt text okay
Plasma Mongoose
I wouldn’t have pictured Ruth as a Bush support, well maybe a ‘bush’ supporter…
Hyperstar96
“I love it when people say there’s a reference and don’t tell anyone what the reference is.”
– Absolutely No One, 2014
TSB
Alt text references an event where then-President Bush posed for a very rah-rah military photo op with a banner declaring “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”, referring to war in Iraq, around the time people were beginning to become disillusioned with the war.
Drunken Nordmann
Wasn’t the “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” banner originally referring to something else – the end of the carrier’s mission or something like that?
TSB
I seem to recall something like that. I wasn’t trying to exhaustively or precisely explain the situation, just write enough that someone who was like… born in 1998 or something could get the basic joke and look up the details themselves. I’m not even sure if the photo op was about the war in Iraq. It might have been Afghanistan still.
Dean
People born in 1998 are old enough to read this strip?
(mental calculation)
Oh God, I’m old.
David M Willis
Hell, most of the characters in this strip’ll have been born in 1998 in two years.
nekobawt
for some reason i have a hard time parsing that.
David M Willis
My characters don’t really age, so as time passes for us, their birth year increases by one every year. In two years’ time, that birth year for most of them will be 1998, as it is currently 1996.
Plasma Mongoose
I look forward to the day when the characters turn out to have been born in 2010.
thatindianguy
Wait… that means they’re already younger than I am.
And I started reading this thing in 2011 when I was 15-16.
I started it in high school and now I know more about college life than they do.
Damn Willis at this rate if I eat right and the cost of healthcare drops I might be able to see they’re midterms. Assuming your children want to carry on the family webcomic.
gwalla
So you’re using the Marvel sliding timescale?
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
i was born in 1998! 😀
Ivan
YOU ARE HERE ILLEGALLY. PREPARE FOR PATRIOT ACT SEQUESTER AT GUANTÁNAMO BAY FOR RE-EDUCATION.
(apparently, based on the other prisoners, you’ll be re-educated a a Muslim!)
Deanatay
An extremist Muslim, no less.
isitsevenyet
Yup.
Yup, I’m old, too.
Oh man. -_-
Plasma Mongoose
I was born in 1961 and the weirdest thing is that I’m not even the oldest person who follows Willis’ webcomics.
Opus the Poet
1958 here, I’m one of the oldest, but AFAIK not THE oldest.
Clif
1949 but in 65 years I’ll have been born in 2014.
Ashley
I’m born in 2001 and I read this comic. >.>
Clif
Good for you. When I was your age teachers would tell me that the stuff I read would rot my brains. Um, they may have been right.
JWLM
The Bush administration was celebrating the fact that we’d won the war — public opinion hadn’t started to sour, yet — and they were…well, wrong. So they changed what the whole debacle meant.
I think we call that a “retcon”, yes?
pumacatrun2
not just people born 1998+, don’t forget us people who don’t really care about american polictics
*australian born in 1997*
smashman42
How can you not follow American Politics, they have heaps more Cory Bernadis to laugh at. 😛
*Australian old enough to be most of these people’s dad, apparently. Eek*
Camachri
As an Australian born in 1992, I feel that one Cory Bernardi is enough for anyone’s sanity.
John
Roughly half of our politicians in America are Cory Bernardi’s (yes I just googled that name). Most of them are Republicans, but there’s a couple wackjob Dems too.
Opus the Poet
Because they have Rupert Murdoch controlling 90% of Aussie media too. Have you seen the batshit coming out of Sydney?
Clif
Anyone in search of wackjob politicians needs to read the history of Louisiana. The current crop worldwide are strictly amateurs.
Ivan
How can you not follow THAT political blunder? YOU WERE PART OF IT – Coalition of the Willing, etc.
Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from 19 March to 9 April 2003. These were the United States (148,000), United Kingdom (45,000), Australia (2,000), and Poland (194). 36 other countries were involved in its aftermath.
gwalla
You didn’t forget Poland!
Clif
But he did forget Iraq who was kind of involved.
gwalla
They weren’t really among the “willing” per se.
WaytoomanyUIDs
Except is wasn’t, that was the post-rationalisation after the shitstorm went down. US presidents don’t fly out to aircraft carriers and hold massive press conferences every time it’s their time to cycle out of theatre.
NobodySpecial
Well, if you remember all the drooling the press did over Bush’s flightsuited ‘package’, it’s a wonder they don’t do ops like that more often.
Milosh
It referred to victory against the war on Saddam Hussein and his regime. People didn’t know yet that that would be the easy part.
BalRog gets a "D"...and PASSES!!!
Actually, just about everybody who had a smidgen of common sense knew it, but apparently there were no people with this trait in the Bush administration. Including (most especially) Bush.
ProfessorZoot
That was a LIE concocted by Bush apologists long after the fact in an attempt to explain away the hubris and stupidity. A bald-faced LIE meant to sow doubt about the reality of Bush’s blunder; easily checked and discovered to be false, but useful as an alternative story for those too azy or ideologically blinded to bother checking.
Rossalupus
Dawwww billies smile is sooo cute
Yotomoe
I wish I got paid in smiles…
no wait…
newllend
Well there goes your muney for any art commissions you were going to do in the future.
Yotomoe
I’m doing one now! So HAH!
Clif
That was before they knew they could pay you in smiles.
Plasma Mongoose
I still prefer credit.
begbert2
I prefer cash on the barrelhead. Also, I want a barrelhead.
Opus the Poet
Easily done. How big a barrelhead you interested in? http://www.barrelsonline.com/default.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
Carriethedragon
I almost want to cry from how much better this is going than what I expected.
Yotomoe
Did you expect ruth to come in here and kick Billie’s ass for 10 comics straight?
sps48
Well, who would’ve been surprised?
Carriethedragon
Given the snail pace of this comic, the fact that we even have a storyline where they speak to each other within a month instead of in like 2025 is unexpected enough.
TSB
Yeah, no kidding. This little exchange already is working against a lot of the most toxic stuff from their big argument. I know I’m making a terrible mistake but part of me feels a little more optimistic about their prospects than before that big blowup. My heart flutters with hope for a mutually supportive relationship, rather than codependency.
Kodra
If life has taught me anything, the correct answer to awkwardness and angst is hiding beneath the covers and pretending it doesn’t exist.
Yotomoe
That’s also the sure fire way to protect yourself from monsters.