THANKS! I been following EGS ever since I read about it in TVTropes several years ago.
Raen
I actually found it from someone bringing it up in the comments of one of Willis’s comics… *wince* ten years ago now.
tahrey
Bizarrely, my own journey is almost the complete opposite.
And don’t you go wincing at 10 years, I just tabbed here from Freefall, which has been a tri-weekly staple of mine since at least 2001.
Well OK, tell a lie, I tabbed here from EGS itself (the sketchbook in fact, which made seeing Mandy again so soon, and in even more arbitrary colour, a bit weird), but it was FF immediately before that…
Marika Oniki
I can’t remember now, when exactly I started reading EGS. Sometime around the Sister arc, maybe. I think I followed a link from the ads on ClanBOB’s Life of Riley, which I started reading after an ad THEY had up on Penny Arcade.
Darchangel
Wow, Life of Riley. Sucks that they just sort of abandoned that one. Amazing how many of us end up reading the same stuff. EGS: yep. Penny Arcade: yep (since, like forever). Freefall: yep. As far as longevity? How about Sluggy Freelance. I’ve been reading that since I discovered webcomics and fast internet access in 2000, and it’s older than that.
tahrey
Oh hai, new Avatar. And I’m not even 100% who this one is. TO THE CASTLIST.
tahrey
…fail.
I mean, I sort of recognise her, which is the annoying thing, but not enough to immediately apply a name.
azukar
You appear to be Mary, the oh-so-slightly self-righteous young lass who lives in the same dorm as Joyce and her lot.
Bickendan
Why are you wincing at 10 years of Willis’ comics? I’ve been following Sluggy Freelance since 2000!
John
I’ve been following Willis’s comics since 2000. Sluggy since ’99… it wasn’t my first webcomic, either, though I think it was the first one I read that’s still active, and definitely the first one that I still read. My first was Chris Baldwin’s Bruno, ’round about ’96-’97…
Cholma
Ah! I loved the adventures of Bruno! I have a T-shirt with him and Fiona on it. I was also a big fan of Dr. Lobster back then.
John
Wrong Bruno. I read Bruno the Bandit for a bit, too, but its pop culture parody schtick got really old pretty quickly, so I quit. I was not amused when it took over Sluggy weekends with basically the same schtick.
I began reading PA on October 26 2009. Since then my collection of webcomic bookmarks has grown. Second was Xkcd, then a smaller LFG, followed by TG, and after that it gets a little fuzzy. Needless to say, TvTropes had a lot to do with them all. Check their webcomics:long runners page.
Roborat
Wow, I thought I was one of the few webcomic oldtimers around here. I first started with User Friendly in 1998, and some others before that, that I have forgotten and never redicovered (my computer crashed and I lost the links), also found Megatokyo in 2001, lost it, then rediscovered it years later. Been reading EGS since 2004. Strangely enough, just recently discovered Sluggy Freelance. The oldest still updating webcomic I know of is Sabrina Online, which started in 1996. My current webcomics favourites list is over 400 entries.
GoldStarz
They’d try, but when I try to see them as murderers, all I can do is picture them putting on silly costumes to ‘hide their identity’ and then tripping over said costumes.
Where is Ethan? He was right beside Joyce in godless, but he seems to have backed a bit away from everything. I kind of expected more from him, even if their relationship is not one of boyfriend/girlfriend he should still support her as a friend.
He should, but it would be totally out of character. He has consistently and shamelessly dodged trouble in every storyline he’s been in. In fact, he’s only dating Joyce at all to try to avoid flak from his mum.
That’s incorrect. He is dating Joyce because he wants to get to have what’s deemed as a normal life. He distinctly wants to have a partner, he just feels like his search for someone like him is doomed.
Logician
Incorrect? He’s made no attempt to search for someone like himself, nor ever expressed any desire to find someone. He said he wants to be “an internet-addicted, robot-collecting geek” but why does he need a romantic partner for that?
He made Amber take most of the flak when he came out (perhaps accidentally) at home, and now he’s hiding behind Joyce because he’s expecting just as much trouble here. The contrast between Joyce’s moral bravery and honesty, and Ethan’s moral cowardice is stark.
I agree that he hasn’t tried, and I’m not saying that Ethan shirks away from trouble. I’m just saying that he isn’t doing it solely to make his mom “love him again” or anything like that (I am also not saying that this isn’t a factor at all), but you were saying he is ONLY dating Joyce because of that.
Logician
Looking back over the strips where he discusses it with Joyce, he doesn’t talk about wanting a partner, he talks about everyone else having it easy. He says he wishes he could “ignore the annoying stuff going on in his pants”, not redirect it in a more normal direction. I really think the only reason he’s dating her at all is as a beard to hide behind. His mom is (from what we have seen) the most important person to hide from.
vsophi
Woah there, taekwondogirl is right. In fact, there are three different instances where he talks about the reasons he’d like to go back into the closet:
1) In the conversation with Mike, he complains about how he won’t be able to find anybody like him. Mike sarcastically points out that he wouldn’t have to be alone if he was willing to settle for a girl. (basic gist of what he’s saying, I don’t remember exactly how the scene goes)
2) In the conversation with Amber, he’s bothered by how his sexuality is basically his defining feature. Instead of being the toy geek, he’s the gay guy. If he’s straight, he can go back to being who he was in high school.
3) In the conversation with Joyce, he doesn’t actually give a reason – not one that’s consistent with his character anyway. In fact, seeing as Ethan’s not homophobic, and wouldn’t actually have a problem with being gay if not for the above reasons, the only way that particular convo makes sense is if you draw on what he’s told Amber and Mike. Far as I can tell, being able to appease his parents is kind of just a perk.
Of course, it could have affected him more than we’ve been shown. It doesn’t really seem that way to me, though.
Logician
Bullshit. I just looked up your point 1, and Ethan is complaining that finding a jewish geek is hard enough, without having to find a gay jewish geek. Mike sarcastically suggests pretending to be straight, and Ethan then starts chatting up Joyce. But she’s neither jewish nor a geek. If he’s prepared to compromise on those points, his whole problem goes away: finding other gays isn’t hard.
Your point 2 I agree with, but what does it have to do with dating Joyce? If he really wants to be an archetypal toy geek, he should be alone and unloved, not dating an attractive girl.
In your third point I think you’re making totally unjustified assumptions about Ethan’s character. He hasn’t shown any signs of homophobia towards others, but he’s showing clear signs of homophobia towards himself: he really really doesn’t want to accept this fact about himself.
I don’t think he’s thought through this at all. I don’t think his reasons are rational. He just doesn’t want it to be true: he wishes it would go away, and he hopes Joyce can make it go away.
vsophi
1) Finding girls is even easier.
2) He’s not trying to be an archetype*: he’s trying to be himself, and him being gay keeps getting in the way. He’s seen it happen in high school, with his parents, and with Amber. He’s determined to make sure it doesn’t happen again, so he takes it too far the other direction.
3) I’m not really making any assumptions – my conclusions are based on the evidence that has been presented in the comic. To extrapolate it further than that is speculation. I’m not saying it’s bad to do so, just that I’m not doing it.
I agree with you though, it’s not rational. I’m not actually defending Ethan’s actions here.
Note: having a defining feature does not make you an archetype.
John
We haven’t seen much of what Ethan’s been up to, but given that he’d been at a major university for all of a week before he abandoned orientation, religion, and nerdery to volunteer himself for a church-date with Joyce, I can’t imagine he’s been searching very hard.
A school the size of IU – 42,000 students – certainly has LGBT organizations, Jewish organizations, nerd organizations… I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a club for gay Jewish nerds specifically. Ethan has plenty of avenues for looking for a partner that fits, but we’ve seen no evidence that he has been. He’s just been hanging out with the two people he knows from high school, wangsting, and grabbing at the first girl who walks by in an effort to de-gay himself.
(It occurs to me that, other than Dorothy and Billie at the paper, we haven’t seen anyone get involved in extracurriculars. Does IU have a Club Day or the like?)
Logician
It was probably Ruth’s responsibility to persuade everyone to go to the club fair, but she was too drunk to bother.
Have we even seen the men’s side RA?
John
Not in this universe, though Ethan dropped some hints that it might be the Trekkie RA from Roomies!
We didn’t actually see it, but one character mentioned that they had a floor meeting, he made one rule, and then said that he was going to go play League of Legends more, so have fun kthnxbye.
I kinda forgot that Ethan and his folks were here, too. I was just thinking this would be the perfect time for Joshua and Ethan to start making goo-goo eyes at each other again. I think Naomi might pick up on that a bit better than Carol did.
376 thoughts on “Hangtime”
EvergreenFir
But he was too eager to see Ethan again
Cholma
He should tackle hug Ethan just so Joyce can add one more thing: “Oh, and by the way, mom & dad, Joshua is gay.” THAT’ll put some life in this party!
Plasma Mongoose
If by life, you mean that they will get LIFE for murdering everyone around them from shock-overload then yeah, this party will be full of life.
Tunaro
Somehow I can’t help but think that the two of them going into a murderous rage would actually make them A LOT more likable than they are right now.
Jetstream
It’d be a talking point!
Khrene
OMG AMANDA FROM EGS!
You just made my 8 years of following that comic that much more worthwhile.
Plasma Mongoose
THANKS! I been following EGS ever since I read about it in TVTropes several years ago.
Raen
I actually found it from someone bringing it up in the comments of one of Willis’s comics… *wince* ten years ago now.
tahrey
Bizarrely, my own journey is almost the complete opposite.
And don’t you go wincing at 10 years, I just tabbed here from Freefall, which has been a tri-weekly staple of mine since at least 2001.
Well OK, tell a lie, I tabbed here from EGS itself (the sketchbook in fact, which made seeing Mandy again so soon, and in even more arbitrary colour, a bit weird), but it was FF immediately before that…
Marika Oniki
I can’t remember now, when exactly I started reading EGS. Sometime around the Sister arc, maybe. I think I followed a link from the ads on ClanBOB’s Life of Riley, which I started reading after an ad THEY had up on Penny Arcade.
Darchangel
Wow, Life of Riley. Sucks that they just sort of abandoned that one. Amazing how many of us end up reading the same stuff. EGS: yep. Penny Arcade: yep (since, like forever). Freefall: yep. As far as longevity? How about Sluggy Freelance. I’ve been reading that since I discovered webcomics and fast internet access in 2000, and it’s older than that.
tahrey
Oh hai, new Avatar. And I’m not even 100% who this one is. TO THE CASTLIST.
tahrey
…fail.
I mean, I sort of recognise her, which is the annoying thing, but not enough to immediately apply a name.
azukar
You appear to be Mary, the oh-so-slightly self-righteous young lass who lives in the same dorm as Joyce and her lot.
Bickendan
Why are you wincing at 10 years of Willis’ comics? I’ve been following Sluggy Freelance since 2000!
John
I’ve been following Willis’s comics since 2000. Sluggy since ’99… it wasn’t my first webcomic, either, though I think it was the first one I read that’s still active, and definitely the first one that I still read. My first was Chris Baldwin’s Bruno, ’round about ’96-’97…
Cholma
Ah! I loved the adventures of Bruno! I have a T-shirt with him and Fiona on it. I was also a big fan of Dr. Lobster back then.
John
Wrong Bruno. I read Bruno the Bandit for a bit, too, but its pop culture parody schtick got really old pretty quickly, so I quit. I was not amused when it took over Sluggy weekends with basically the same schtick.
Mr. Random
I began reading PA on October 26 2009. Since then my collection of webcomic bookmarks has grown. Second was Xkcd, then a smaller LFG, followed by TG, and after that it gets a little fuzzy. Needless to say, TvTropes had a lot to do with them all. Check their webcomics:long runners page.
Roborat
Wow, I thought I was one of the few webcomic oldtimers around here. I first started with User Friendly in 1998, and some others before that, that I have forgotten and never redicovered (my computer crashed and I lost the links), also found Megatokyo in 2001, lost it, then rediscovered it years later. Been reading EGS since 2004. Strangely enough, just recently discovered Sluggy Freelance. The oldest still updating webcomic I know of is Sabrina Online, which started in 1996. My current webcomics favourites list is over 400 entries.
GoldStarz
They’d try, but when I try to see them as murderers, all I can do is picture them putting on silly costumes to ‘hide their identity’ and then tripping over said costumes.
GoldStarz
huh, new avatar
Bilfred
He’s also an anti-theist stalinist!
Pier
Fantasy restored 🙂
http://www.picfront.org/d/91tc
Plasma Mongoose
OH MY OH MY!
vsophi
+1
(side note: you’re ruth! meaning everything you say is going to come out as sarcastic now)
Pier
I just did. Scroll down 🙂
Rani
What the good and giving hell is that?
Pier
Just made the best out of Zedd’s Clarity music video message, 2 cute people forcing themselves to be close would mean disaster.
And since I’m Ruth now, it’s always been my best interest on submitting myself to answer your question. /s
tahrey
Does this mean one of them’s made out of antimatter?
Pier
I didn’t over thought it that deep though. I’m just after the irony of balls.
rachel
that is AWESOME and NUTS!
tahrey
I wish I understood.
BTW, that would probably be about a quarter the size as an actual video yknow.
Pier
Please, PLEASE, be dragged by Ethan and hide somewhere.
EvergreenFir
I can see the 34 art that would spawn from that now…
Fen_Star
Where is Ethan? He was right beside Joyce in godless, but he seems to have backed a bit away from everything. I kind of expected more from him, even if their relationship is not one of boyfriend/girlfriend he should still support her as a friend.
Logician
He should, but it would be totally out of character. He has consistently and shamelessly dodged trouble in every storyline he’s been in. In fact, he’s only dating Joyce at all to try to avoid flak from his mum.
taekwondogirl
That’s incorrect. He is dating Joyce because he wants to get to have what’s deemed as a normal life. He distinctly wants to have a partner, he just feels like his search for someone like him is doomed.
Logician
Incorrect? He’s made no attempt to search for someone like himself, nor ever expressed any desire to find someone. He said he wants to be “an internet-addicted, robot-collecting geek” but why does he need a romantic partner for that?
He made Amber take most of the flak when he came out (perhaps accidentally) at home, and now he’s hiding behind Joyce because he’s expecting just as much trouble here. The contrast between Joyce’s moral bravery and honesty, and Ethan’s moral cowardice is stark.
taekwondogirl
I agree that he hasn’t tried, and I’m not saying that Ethan shirks away from trouble. I’m just saying that he isn’t doing it solely to make his mom “love him again” or anything like that (I am also not saying that this isn’t a factor at all), but you were saying he is ONLY dating Joyce because of that.
Logician
Looking back over the strips where he discusses it with Joyce, he doesn’t talk about wanting a partner, he talks about everyone else having it easy. He says he wishes he could “ignore the annoying stuff going on in his pants”, not redirect it in a more normal direction. I really think the only reason he’s dating her at all is as a beard to hide behind. His mom is (from what we have seen) the most important person to hide from.
vsophi
Woah there, taekwondogirl is right. In fact, there are three different instances where he talks about the reasons he’d like to go back into the closet:
1) In the conversation with Mike, he complains about how he won’t be able to find anybody like him. Mike sarcastically points out that he wouldn’t have to be alone if he was willing to settle for a girl. (basic gist of what he’s saying, I don’t remember exactly how the scene goes)
2) In the conversation with Amber, he’s bothered by how his sexuality is basically his defining feature. Instead of being the toy geek, he’s the gay guy. If he’s straight, he can go back to being who he was in high school.
3) In the conversation with Joyce, he doesn’t actually give a reason – not one that’s consistent with his character anyway. In fact, seeing as Ethan’s not homophobic, and wouldn’t actually have a problem with being gay if not for the above reasons, the only way that particular convo makes sense is if you draw on what he’s told Amber and Mike. Far as I can tell, being able to appease his parents is kind of just a perk.
Of course, it could have affected him more than we’ve been shown. It doesn’t really seem that way to me, though.
Logician
Bullshit. I just looked up your point 1, and Ethan is complaining that finding a jewish geek is hard enough, without having to find a gay jewish geek. Mike sarcastically suggests pretending to be straight, and Ethan then starts chatting up Joyce. But she’s neither jewish nor a geek. If he’s prepared to compromise on those points, his whole problem goes away: finding other gays isn’t hard.
Your point 2 I agree with, but what does it have to do with dating Joyce? If he really wants to be an archetypal toy geek, he should be alone and unloved, not dating an attractive girl.
In your third point I think you’re making totally unjustified assumptions about Ethan’s character. He hasn’t shown any signs of homophobia towards others, but he’s showing clear signs of homophobia towards himself: he really really doesn’t want to accept this fact about himself.
I don’t think he’s thought through this at all. I don’t think his reasons are rational. He just doesn’t want it to be true: he wishes it would go away, and he hopes Joyce can make it go away.
vsophi
1) Finding girls is even easier.
2) He’s not trying to be an archetype*: he’s trying to be himself, and him being gay keeps getting in the way. He’s seen it happen in high school, with his parents, and with Amber. He’s determined to make sure it doesn’t happen again, so he takes it too far the other direction.
3) I’m not really making any assumptions – my conclusions are based on the evidence that has been presented in the comic. To extrapolate it further than that is speculation. I’m not saying it’s bad to do so, just that I’m not doing it.
I agree with you though, it’s not rational. I’m not actually defending Ethan’s actions here.
Note: having a defining feature does not make you an archetype.
John
We haven’t seen much of what Ethan’s been up to, but given that he’d been at a major university for all of a week before he abandoned orientation, religion, and nerdery to volunteer himself for a church-date with Joyce, I can’t imagine he’s been searching very hard.
A school the size of IU – 42,000 students – certainly has LGBT organizations, Jewish organizations, nerd organizations… I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a club for gay Jewish nerds specifically. Ethan has plenty of avenues for looking for a partner that fits, but we’ve seen no evidence that he has been. He’s just been hanging out with the two people he knows from high school, wangsting, and grabbing at the first girl who walks by in an effort to de-gay himself.
(It occurs to me that, other than Dorothy and Billie at the paper, we haven’t seen anyone get involved in extracurriculars. Does IU have a Club Day or the like?)
Logician
It was probably Ruth’s responsibility to persuade everyone to go to the club fair, but she was too drunk to bother.
Have we even seen the men’s side RA?
John
Not in this universe, though Ethan dropped some hints that it might be the Trekkie RA from Roomies!
taekwondogirl
We didn’t actually see it, but one character mentioned that they had a floor meeting, he made one rule, and then said that he was going to go play League of Legends more, so have fun kthnxbye.
John
It was, “Drunkenness is not consent, yadda yadda yadda, Trek marathon’s on, lates.” With the theory that it’s Howard shot down, the Roomies! Trekkie RA theory seems pretty likely.
AgentKeen
I kinda forgot that Ethan and his folks were here, too. I was just thinking this would be the perfect time for Joshua and Ethan to start making goo-goo eyes at each other again. I think Naomi might pick up on that a bit better than Carol did.
Ourorboros
You would have thought that Joshua’s gay orgy (or whatever he was doing with his friends) would have taken his mind off of Ethan.
Tunaro
Just walk away, Joshua. Just walk. Away.
Jen Aside
“Dangit, now that Joyce is out of the closet, ME coming out will be like a one-two punch!”
=B
Mr. Random
And now we wait for the reaction again…
newllend
Uuuuh, RESTARTE the clock!
CthulhuPanda36
Does this mean that there will be a doubling event soon?
NPSage
Or ran faster. One of the two.
Yotomoe
He should’ve crawled there.
norj
Don’t hide Joshua we haven’t outed you yet.
Foxhack
He can detect drama and chooses to avoid it!
Yotomoe
Smart Boy.
Raoullefere
True. On the other hand, it’s faintly possible if he came out now, it’d actually be sort of anticlimactic.
Or at least entertaining for us, which is, of course, even more important.
Arkadi
Dramadar!
Vivvav
This was not the satisfying follow-up I wanted.
Gosei
Are they ever
Tunaro
They have pills for that now, I think.
Yotomoe
If you can’t find any, I’ve seen lots of pop-ups that advertise such.
KingMabel
Never enter a war zone. Especially if religion and family are mixed in.
Yotomoe
Cuz family and Religion are like baking soda and vinager.
Khrene
Yeah the only thing that could make this fight worse is an argument over politics and land ownership
KingMabel
What? Who would fight over something so stupid as land?
Lokitsu
*Ahem* You’re standing in my spot KingMabel.
Kintrex
She’s got large tracts of land!
Cybersnark
In Asia.
(or with a Sicillian).