151

Launched
Posted on March 30, 2022 by David M Willis

151 thoughts on “Launched”

  1. Stephen Bierce

    Did somebody ask for some Natalie Merchant on the hacked Muzak?

  2. True Survivor

    Teen Titans, GO!

    1. ThunderNight

      nice callback to Lucy’s first appearance in Shortpacked

      1. True Survivor

        I never read that comic, but I looked it up. That is a cool callback.

        Also great memory, that page is dated September 26, 2011. Suspiciously great. Are you the singularity?

  3. The Wellerman

    OK Walky, just…. ?

    One thing’s for sure, it’d be better if he just asked the readers directly what specific merchandise they wanted. Speaking of which…

    If I made a DOA game, what characters would you most like to be included? ??

    https://strawpoll.com/polls/PKglzlYKEyp

    1. RassilonTDavros

      It was tough not to pick basically every single character who isn’t one of the Terrible Parents Club, hopefully I narrowed my answer down enough to be somewhat useful.

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Looking at things 13 minutes in, my money’s on Dina and Sal being the top two.

        1. RassilonTDavros

          As of now Carol is the only character who hasn’t gotten a single vote. Even Ryan is doing better than her

        2. Just Karen

          She has one now!

          I want a game where the evil parents are the bosses/enemies.

        3. King Daniel

          I just can’t believe Asher’s currently losing in the strawpoll to friggin’ Faz

        4. RassilonTDavros

          Fifteen hours in, Ryan is now dead last, and Carol is tied with Toedad and ahead of both Hank and… Grace? What an eclectic bottom five.

          Top five is currently Dina at 90, Amazi-Girl and Sal tied at 78, Joyce at 75, and Carla at 73, out of a total of 118 voters.

        5. King Daniel

          Also mildly surprised to see that Monkey Master has 2x the votes of Dexter, considering they’re so often a unit

          But seriously now, with 135 voters Faz now has three times the number of voters for him as for Asher, seriously I’d like to know from some of these Faz-but-not-Asher voters as to what they think Faz has going for him that Asher doesn’t (as a video game character, specifically) 😛

        6. Clif

          Charts.

        7. Pebble

          I voted for Faz-but-not-Asher because I love an annoying game villain. Asher is cool but Faz in a game would tickle my funny bone.

        8. The Wellerman

          Oh yes! Don’t stop giving me ideas!!!

          Who knows, I might just make Faz a practice dummy for when I give Dina and Becky superpowers! ? ?

      2. BBCC

        I voted for everyone, either to beat them up (the villains and jackasses) or to play them (everyone else).

    2. Bicycle Bill

      I went with everyone on the Joyce’s Nine poster (couldn’t find Billie but then remembered she’d been ret-conned as Jennifer), and then added a few extras as appropriate.  And now that I think of it, I might have missed one or two.

    3. Lars

      Dexter, Monkey Master and Mike seem like a natural fit.

    4. Carl Muckenhoupt

      Blaine and Mike obvs.

    5. Amós Batista

      Depends on the he genre: A fight game, of course Amazi girl. A strategy, of course Dina. A hentai game, of course Joyce.

      1. Juanoku

        Speaking of Joyce
        Go to church

        1. Amós Batista

          Ok, I’ll wait until next sunday.

      2. Delicious Taffy

        Funny you should mention Joyce in that specific context. I have an abandoned project that rhymed pretty closely with just that.

    6. Juanoku

      Amazi-girl duh
      I want to FEEL like a teenager with a split personality disorder

  4. Doctor_Who

    I would dearly love to see how Walky got 30 designs out of his comic in which the same thing happens every strip.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Maybe each of the designs has Mike kicking a different person? Like maybe there’s one where he kicks Blaine, one with Toedad, one with… Carol? Dunno if Walky’d know who she is, but she’s pretty damn complicit in Mike’s death so it’d be apropos. Possibly not Linda, though.

      1. Yumi

        I don’t think that’s what it’s going to be, but I’d love it if, in-universe, other cast members clicked on Walky’s shop and saw his depiction of their dead acquaintance/friend kicking their parents…

        1. Needfuldoer

          The last thing Amber needs right now is a t-shirt featuring her dead friend kicking her dead sperm donor.

          … Which means she’ll be Walky’s first customer.

        2. Rabid Rabbit

          Amber will be outraged, explain in great detail why it should be her rather than Mike, and then demand a portion of the profits for copyright infringement.

        3. DailyBrad

          Honestly, Amber’d probably be okay with it. Ethan would be the one I’d be more concerned about having a negative reaction to it.

        4. Gigafreak

          Knowing the way this story works… there’s a nonzero chance (actually I suspect the probability to be rather high, really) that Amber will buy a shirt, then wear it, then FORGET she’s wearing it, and then encounter Ethan that day.

          Whoopsy-doodle!

    2. Segnosaur

      Well it could be a combination of different characters (e.g. one design with a full comic, one just with laughing guy, one with flying Mike, etc) combined with different layouts on the shirt (e.g. complete comic on front, one with just a character over the chest, one with the comic name, one with just images, etc).

      If walky were a big business we would call it a “corporate cash grab”

      1. Blue

        I would so buy a t-shirt with flying Mike.

  5. BBCC

    Hey, there’s a zillion websites that’ll print designs on stuff like that for ‘pay to print’ aka low or no cost for the author. Might as well set it up and maybe make a buck on the comic.

    But maybe also post the comic, Walky. XD

  6. Spencer

    dang walky get yourself a work ethic

    *hastily hides away the four months of procrastination I’ve had while writing where most of it was just coming up with some cool new idea I’d definitely get around to eventually for real*

    1. Dean

      Hey, thirty T-shirt designs is a lot!

    2. PirateTawnee

      Hey, don’t be hard on yourself, cool ideas you’ll eventually get around to for real are the best kind of ideas.

      1. Spencer

        It was kind of a double-edged sword.

        It kept me away from making progress, but even if I never get around to those exact ideas they still intimately shaped what I want this universe to be about. But now that I’m writing with some actual consistently (roughly two pages a day on average) it’s easy to see all of that and feel burdened by the expectations of my inattentive ass and his sicknasty ideas, and I’m having this bizarre sensation where I’m so into what’s gonna be in X installment that it’s mucking up writing it now. I figure that’s a common sensation for all new writers, though, and hell, that’s what the first draft is for.

        You know how Joyce has a sprawling space opera she wants to get to after she introduced the cast in college? S’kinda what I did to myself.

        1. BBCC

          Dude, that’s what sequels, side stories and reader’s guides are for.

        2. Spencer

          I’m not nearly as down on it as I may be coming off as, so much that I think that trying to dream up the whole universe all at once, and what would happen afterward, ended up making writing it now harder on me.

          It’s kinda like, because I already know most of what I want to write, the characters don’t feel like they’re just starting out, but more like writing them is just kinda dragging them along to who I want to be. It’s a weird sensation.

          I kinda think I gotta plan in advance though. I tried some of that Stephen King ‘write by the seat of your pants’ thing, and I just cannot for the life of me do it.

        3. Clif

          Do an sketchy outline. Then write by the seat of your pants, pulling from the outline as needed. There’ll be problems, but that’s what the second draft is for.

        4. Spencer

          That’s actually been the best bet for me so far, yeah.

          Ideally I want to know what’s the point. Then I can think of how it starts, how it ends, and if there’s anything in particular I really want to be there.

          Everything else is on the fly.

  7. Joe Moose

    Sound legit.

    1. True Survivor

      Not as legit as your Avatar.
      PS. Are you a posh squirrel, a wealthy weasel, or classy stoat?

      1. PirateTawnee

        Are we ruling out pompous pine marten already?

        1. Bicycle Bill

          Or maybe a fastidious ferret?

      2. Deanatay

        Um, excuse me, that is CLEARLY a Cool Cat!

        1. Clif

          Hey, I thought all Joe Mooses looked like that.

      3. Joe Moose

        This is supposed to be a cat in a top hat. It only looks like a classy stoat. 😀

  8. Ana Chronistic

    I mean, sales have definitely been made on less content

    /insert LITERALLY ANY MEME, get same-day merch

    [sry, fell asleep, anyone who cares]

    1. True Survivor

      Hey what’s the point of being queen of the DoA comment boards if you can’t take a nap?

      Also, that art seems like a bad long term investment. Will Smith slapping Chris Rock will not be what people remember from 2022 (I hope – it’s humans so who knows).

      1. Clif

        Now I want a Will Smith slapping Chris Rock t-shirt.

  9. DailyBrad

    On one hand, Walky’s getting ahead of himself, but I’m honestly kinda surprised he’s considering merch. That’s mighty proactive of him, just, cart in front of the horse.

    1. JMcMillen

      It used to be a thing, long ago, in web comics to find ones that had a store with merch and possibly even a page with character bios, but few to zero comics (with none being recent).

      I guess the creators were hoping that people who had a positive initial reaction and poor impulse control would immediately buy a bunch of stuff before finding out the comic was pretty much dead.

  10. woobie

    Priorities.

  11. Sirksome

    I feel really optimistic about Walky’s webcomic venture. He’ll be drawing porn of it for his overly horny fanbase in no time!

    1. PirateTawnee

      Instead of kicking them, Mike runs out there naked and jumps at their face crotch first?

  12. C.T. Phipps

    I unironically would read the spin-off adventures of Walky as an internet cartoonist every bit as much as the rest of Dumbing of Age.

    1. Thag Simmons

      Kinda think we’re going to be getting a lot of webcomic stuff for both Walky and Joyce. It’s a semi-autobiographical story and I’m given to understand the author has written a couple webcomics in their day

      1. Spencer

        I fondly wish for a Patreon goal where we get Captain Julia Gray bonus strips on a weekly/monthly basis because “meta throwback comic to yourself” is ripe for comedy.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          To be fair, a lot of us want to see Walky mature as an artist. I remember when Willis did a poll to see which cartoonist we wanted to see win and that Walky won rather handily.

  13. Mano308gts

    This I find kind of interesting, because to my knowledge, Dumbing of Age is the only webcomic that I follow that actually runs a buffer. Most of the other authors sometimes publish their regular webcomic late ‘because it wasn’t finished yet’, and frequently publish comics responding to developing events in the field of topic. Of course, I primarily follow gaming comics, so that may be a part of it.

    1. The Wellerman

      Do you by any chance happen to be a fan of Nerf Now? ?

    2. C.T. Phipps

      Its unfortunately affecting Order of the Stick.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Order of the Stick just flat out doesn’t have an update schedule at this point. It updates when it’s ready.

        1. King Daniel

          I don’t think it’s had a regular update schedule since Azure City, at least

        2. Amelie Wikström

          I think that’s about when Burlew hurt his drawing hand yeah.

        3. King Daniel

          Nah, it was years before that. 😛 The Book 3 Azure City arc ended in 2007, and the hand injury was in 2012 (shortly after I started reading, as a matter of fact). The first post-injury comic even had Elan state that bold Sir Thumb’s injury deserved a 500-stanza epic poem. XD

          Though speaking of Order of the Stick, there’s actually a new strip today!

        4. Clif

          But to answer the original question, not all web comics maintain a buffer, but almost all successful web comics at least approximate a regular schedule, one way or another.

        5. RowenMorland

          And not to rag on the quality of the story but it is painful when the comics themselves cover very little ground. Like the currently stalled conversation with Sereni, and the airship ambush in the mountain pass (which reads so much better (to me) now I can go back and read it in a chunk).

          Picking an OOTS book up off the shelf is a pretty nice experience too.

        6. Arian

          I acknowledge no flaws in Order of the Stick. (Recognise, sometimes; acknowledge, never.) It’s my top favourite webcomic. DoA is second.

        7. JBento

          Belkar Bitterleaf might have the best character development of any character in history.

        8. C.T. Phipps

          Its really only DoA, OotS, and Penny arcade for me.

    3. True Survivor

      I think a few have a buffer, like ‘Alice and the Nightmare’ (though it is not a gaming comic by an stretch of the imagination). Still, making comics without a buffer is better than just suddenly stopping the comic all together (that’s happened to me a lot) or comics like the otherwise incredible ‘Ava’s Demon’ that don’t update for like two years and then suddenly have twenty-million new pages all at once before once again returning to hibernation for an unpredictable period of time.

    4. Yumi

      I only follow one comic that I know for sure doesn’t have a buffer, though I don’t know how big the buffer is for the other comics I follow. I like the consistency a buffer gives, and that can contribute to how likely I am to financially support a webcomic.

    5. brute

      i read years ago that gunnerkrigg court had a buffer like doa, and the updates have been consistent enough that i assume it still does

      1. Wizard

        About thirty pages, or so I’ve heard. I don’t remember exactly when I started reading, but the chapters were still in single digits. I can’t remember a missed update ever. This is even more impressive when you consider how often Tom experiments with his art style.

    6. hazel

      I think it is the webcomics you follow. I tried to come up with a number, but I don’t think I follow *any* webcomics *without* a buffer. I was startled by your comment, actually, but “webcomics” are so varied these days that I can imagine how different circles could operate differently. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

      1. hazel

        I do have to say that DoA’s is the most intense buffer amongst the comics I follow. Mindboggling for a comic that updates every day to have this amount of buffer. Kudos to Willis! No idea how they do it.

    7. Thag Simmons

      Dumbing of Age has like a proper newspaper comics buffer. Like it’s not quite at the level of something like the Funkyverse comics which have like a year worth of buffer, but it’s really impressive actually.

      1. Daibhid C

        The downside of that kind of buffer is that, unless your strip is explicitly timeless (like DoA is, and the Funkyverse isn’t) you run the risk of spending two years saying “Hey, remember when there was a pandemic? It was about a year ago now?”

        1. Daibhid C

          Sorry, one year (so far); I was thinking “the pandemic’s been going for about two years”, and forgetting that my point was that he spent the first year writing the second year’s comics.

        2. Bruceski

          Crankshaft has been doing “wow, glad THAT’S over” strips since six months after things started.

    8. drs

      DoA is the only webcomic I know of where the artist *talks* about having a deep buffer, but I’ve followed many comics with extremely regular updates. Schlock Mercenary, Questionable Content, Freefall, I think Inverloch/Phoenix Requiem (two comics by the same woman, and high production ones at that), Gunnerkrigg Court, xkcd…

      1. DailyBrad

        Frequent updates doesn’t necessarily mean they have a buffer, though, like I am pretty sure Jeph only rarely has much of a buffer with QC unless he’s changed things up over the years. He definitely used to kinda fly by the seat of his pants with that.

        1. Schpoonman

          I could be completely wrong, but I want to say around the time he got sober he started implementing, if not a full-tilt buffer, a slightly more rigorous schedule.

    9. Keulen

      I follow about 15-20 webcomics. Some of them might have a buffer but they don’t usually talk about it if they do. Many of them stick to a regular update schedule, though there’s a few that don’t seem to have any update schedule and just update whenever they’re done with a new strip.

    10. Bruceski

      Many years ago a bunch of small webcomics (not that there were many other kinds) did a competition to keep updating regularly. Some small stakes, mainly a way to keep each other motivated. This was caught and signal boosted by some of the big ones; I think Willis was in there, I know Schlock Mercenary was, and a couple of other never-miss-a-day people. It was fun and got attention and I know some of the small folks were inspired by having people who had “made it” involved, but at some point as things went on the big folks realized that they’d kinda taken over and had to figure out how to bow out as gracefully as possible.

      I think the hardest part of a buffer is keeping it updated. That’s something Willis has been very good at.

  14. C.T. Phipps

    I wonder how long it’s going to take Joyce to find out Walky has 20,000 or so readers and her comic has like 15.

    1. True Survivor

      July 3rd, 2023. (PS. If this is right I will be shocked).

    2. Spencer

      Implying that the IU student body will not be swept up in Space Force Captain Julia Gray’s whirlwind love triangle with Lord Jakkar, Space Vampire and Jonah Rosethorn, Prince of the Werewolves.

      1. Roborat

        What, he isn’t a prince of the space werewolves.

        1. Clif

          You have to maintain character differences.

      2. C.T. Phipps

        I fully expect a random comic to be pulled out of the book every day and Joyce to have a mental collapse about that.

        Editor: I just draw the ones with the most sexual tension.

  15. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    My skin is crawling at Lucy’s implication that tweeting multiple strips per day is expected or normal.

    1. Nathan

      I mean, I follow the SMBC account on Facebook and it posts links to old comics multiple times a day, as well as the actual daily update.

    2. Thag Simmons

      I think she just means a single comic being posted every day.

      Although with how reusable the assets are Walky probably could swing a multiple comics every day update schedule.

      1. Daibhid C

        Yeah, not “how many strips are you going to automatically tweet in a single day?” but “how far ahead do you have daily strips set up to tweet automatically?”

        1. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

          Ah. This makes more sense. Thank you.

  16. Piotr W

    Oh dear, Lucy. Just dump this idiot.

    (sorry for the harsh words, but I positively hate Walky)

  17. newlland(Henryvolt)

    So I’m guessing we’re doing confessions of a webcomic author with this?

    I wouldn’t know how selling memorabilia for a comic story that’s not published yet works well for an advertisement gimmick but I guess it works for some people.

  18. Francoinblanco

    So Walky have some agrement with tshirt factory or sell web comic t shirt is easier than i thought?

    1. Needfuldoer

      He probably used some CafePress-like print-on-demand service. They’ll print just about anything you upload as long as it’s not too obscene.

      (But if your design looks too ‘professional’ they might flag it for review and not sell it on anything until you prove it’s original. I know a graphic designer who used them for some low-volume side projects, and they kept getting their designs flagged because the CafePress bots thought it was all ripped off commercial art.)

  19. Anon A Mouse

    I mean, there are plenty of places that just sell shirt designs. If the designs are good enough he doesn’t really NEED the webcomic. It would legit be kinda funny if his merch store takes off without the webcomic attached.

  20. Dinajoyce

    I had been waffling, but I officially love this relationship as of today. They make a good team

  21. Rabisch

    This is kinda sad.

  22. Needfuldoer

    I bet eventually we’ll see a background extra wearing one of Walky’s shirt designs. He’ll notice, and the extra will get their brief moment in the spotlight as he drags them around showing off.

    (And at least one design will become a real piece of merch in the DoA store.)

  23. GUIGUI

    *using twitter to host your webcomics*
    Does Lucy have something against the archive readers?

  24. Tadpole7

    I remember similar conversation with some people over the years. A bit of the cart before the horse,

    Merchandise has always been a bit of a fraught subject in the Indy comic circles I have frequented.

    1. DailyBrad

      You also sometimes run into the opposite, where someone’s running themselves ragged and basically has to be dragged kicking and screaming towards making any income off of her their work. I guess you could call it the ascetic vs the mercenary.

    2. Amós Batista

      What do you mean? An indie artist using capitalism to gain some money from they work?
      Kappa

    3. Bruceski

      Step 1: make webpage.
      Step 2: design merch store
      Step 3: complain that you’re not as successful as Penny Arcade yet.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        What the hell is Penny Arcade*?

        *[Disclaimer: Taffy knows what Penny Arcade is]**
        **[It’s where big video game boxes lived pre-PS3]

  25. drs

    You wanted him Lucy, now you’ve got him. Enjoy!

  26. Sombrero

    Walky: Business Genius. First he’ll take the Rutten Empire and then he will aim for Galasso’s.

  27. Darkoneko

    I would laugh if I didn’t remember a french webcomics basically stopping publishing anything for months to prepare for merch for a conv. haha..ha
    (some 20 years ago)

  28. someone

    So according to Lucy, webcomics are hosted on Twitter and they have several updates per day.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      I wanna know what webcomics she’s reading, because I wanna make fun of those webcomics.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Wait, isn’t that Homestuck actually? Aside from the pauses?

        1. Blue

          Dear lord homestuck isn’t finished? I recall it being popular roughly ten years ago.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          The motherfucker made a Homestuck 2 like last year.

  29. Jay

    Lucy…Lucy this is Wally we’re talking about here

    1. True Survivor

      Very true – how else is he supposed afford a Dinosaur? Also, sweet Ava’s Demon avatar.

  30. Amós Batista

    I was in this strip and I don’t like it. I had a webcomic and I was proud to have a 1 day buffer.

    1. Blue

      Honestly though you should be proud that you followed through.

      1. Clif

        The trouble with flying without a reasonably significant buffer is that the universe is always going to smack you one and at the worse possible time.

  31. SlothfulCobra

    Dang, Walky has a more solid business model than most webcomics.

  32. moriarty70

    Merch but no comics, don’t know when he’ll update, quick simple jokes with no growth?

    I feel like I’ve seen this before online, but cat’s got my tongue.

  33. Keulen

    Having an actual comic for the merch to be based on? Nah, just having the merch alone is more important. /s

  34. thumb

    This is the first act of Willis’ origin story. If Walky learns his lesson, at least.

  35. Cris

    I DEEPLY hope that Walky’s merch line is highly successful, and it turns out his absurdism humor is better suited for passive income from print-on-demand T-Shirts and tote bags than for a webcomic he never updates.

    1. Blue

      I would not read his webcomic but I might buy a t-shirt of it.

    2. zee

      I’m dying for this

  36. alongcameaspider

    Wait til Walky learns he actually has to get the merch made

    1. BBCC

      Pay to print t-shirt websites. All you gotta do is upload designs.

      1. Clif

        Yeah. I get ads from people that want me to do an on demand clothing line from my art with shirts, blouses and skirts and masks, etc. They’re overpriced for what they are, so if you get a few of your friends and family to buy, they’re ahead of the game.

  37. Amelie Wikström

    Come on Walky you should launch with ten strips at once and a buffer of at least twenty more. Probably hold off a year or so to establish a reader base and an update schedule (not to mention teach yourself some work ethic) before you try cashing in. Has How to Not Run a Webcomic taught you nothing?

    1. True Survivor

      What is “How to Not Run a Webcomic?”

      1. Amelie Wikström

        It is the name of a clsssic didactic webcomic fromm Kenspot, Albeit, from my google searches right now, it might not actually be online at the moment, which sucks

  38. Arianod

    …and his own NFT project! 😀

    1. Delicious Taffy

      If Walky gets into NFTs, that’s the day I can no longer enjoy him as a character.

      1. Clif

        If someone gets a sucker to buy an NFT, it’s no skin off of my back. If it supports something worthwhile, that’s great.

        1. Spencer

          They consume ruinous amounts of energy, there is no “worthwhile” here.

      2. Spencer

        What if Walky gets into NFTs but doesn’t really get it, so he just starts marketing a sale of art he made and when someone complains that they gave him $6000 for it he goes “… but you said you wanted this jpeg?”

    2. Darkoneko

      NO.

    3. Bagge

      “Walky-coin is currently trending favorably in the financial market Walky also created”
      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/cocktail/

      1. Arianod

        We’re all gonna make it, guys! 😀

  39. Bagge

    It’s all about branding

  40. BlackScarabFilmZ

    Has anyone made the obvious Spaceballs reference yet? If you want something done right…

    “Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real money from the webcomic is made!”

  41. The Wellerman

    Oh. Jennifer. ?

    If she wasn’t such a bourgeois prick, I might just call her hot.

    I’m almost willing to send my parasite spores to rescue that beautiful body from that repugnant brain. ? ? ?

    Too bad I’m busy.

  42. Katherine

    well that’s accurate for WAY too many webcomics…

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