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fondue
Jul 14, 2002

B Kliban




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How Wonderful!
Jul 18, 2006


I only have excellent ideas
Dykes to Watch Out #66 (1989)



Here's the start of another pretty substantial arc that builds up over time but is largely missing from the Essential. I really like it. Mo's been high strung and even paranoid all along, and I know Bechdel received numerous letters calling her "whiny," but at the same time somebody like Mo certainly did have plenty to legitimately worry about. I think as the strip moved towards more of a commitment to drama and continuity it became increasingly important to address that Mo's stretched pretty thin and is at this point on a trajectory to either have a total breakdown or to totally alienate everybody around her. This is a pretty cool move for a long-running strip-- without spoiling too much, Mo suffers the reasonable consequences of her broadest personality traits, has a crisis, and then gets help from her friends and support system. Along the way we get some fun moments from seeing her normal personality inverted-- the apathetic, blase Mo we'll see in a bit is sad but gives us some good gags.

Saturn return is an astrology thing, it's when Saturn returns to where it was at the moment of one's birth. This usually takes about 29.5 years and if you're into that kind of thing you might attribute a lot of the shakeups and crises that accompany your early 30s to this catastrophic homecoming. It's often glossed as a threshold into maturity, representing confronting and overcoming the follies of youth and moving into adulthood. Trust me, I live in West Philly.

As mentioned before, Olivia Records was a super important feminist record label and collective which by the late 80s had suffered a number of economic setbacks and failed to keep up with trends and general growth in women's music. Their death rattle occurred when they stopped releasing new music and pivoted entirely to gimmicky cruise packages.

Huzzah!
Sep 14, 2007

Malnutrition is scarier than any beastie.
https://twitter.com/KenJennings/status/1266811857601359872

catlord
Mar 22, 2009

What's on your mind, Axa?
Conan the Barbarian Jan. 22nd, 1979- Jan. 28th, 1979









Also, man, gently caress Brad.

Haifisch
Nov 12, 2010

Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!



Taco Defender

Julet Esqu posted:



This seems like a weird conversation to be having AFTER they get married. Like, obviously even married couples disagree about the number of kids they want and have conversations or arguments about it, but that's not the same as what I'm seeing here. Neither of these people should be at all surprised about what the other one is saying, and yet...

Did they discuss kids at all before tying the knot?
I've read enough /r/relationships posts to know that there's a shocking number of people who either don't have this conversation before getting married, or know they don't agree but think that the other person will change their mind, or think that an 'idk maybe?' is as good as a yes. A sadly realistic comic.

(It's probably not a coincidence people like that are the ones who go to reddit for advice when their relationships start circling the drain)

PetraCore
Jul 20, 2017

👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

sweeperbravo posted:

This is a dumb question, I'm sure.

I've seen this very, very often in media aimed at teens/preteens, where the middle school/high school hierarchy is like *officially* and explicitly set, like a caste system, and students knowingly oblige by it and are hyper aware of their place in the hierarchy and relative "rank" to other cliques.

In my experience, there were absolutely cliques, but they were mostly based on interests and socioeconomic poo poo, I don't think our popular group called themselves "the popular group." It was more like they were just the rich privileged kids whose parents let them drink alcohol. There was definitely bullying, but it wasn't based on your social rank as a label, more just if you looked funny or seemed gay or poor or fat or any other myriad things kids pick on each other for. (For those outside the group anyway; there was definitely a lot of funny looking/gay/fat rich kids). And yeah, I woudln't go sit with "the popular girls," and would have got made fun of for trying, but it was more just because we were like- so clearly different, and also not friends, than anything to do with my social caste level or something.

It all definitely mattered way more in middle school than in high school, as well.

Granted I also had a small-ish class/school (150 in my graduating class and ~600 in the school, extrapolating), so maybe that "need" for stratification wasn't there.

Does the explicit stratification ring true to any of you all or was it something outcasts self-generated as a way to rationalize our exclusion? Like i just don't remember "popular" people actually caring how popular they were. Like, Mean Girls was the only movie I remember feeling actually realistic about the way the clique system worked.

I apologize in advance if this leads toa huge loving derail
Not exactly the stratification, but it existed WITHIN sub-cliques. Heart's a theatre kid, it makes sense she wants to popular to theatre kids, so I'm taking the actor >>>>> techie thing as being something specifically within the theatre kid group at her school. Dana's said to be super popular, but the implication I got wasn't that that's bc she's an actress, exactly, just that she's charismatic and a lot of people like her across the different groups.

I definitely remember lunch table anxiety, though it was more about having a solid friend group than anything else. In middle school I was in an experimental gifted and talented track for the first two years, we were separated from all the mainstream classes so we only knew each other. When I started to get bullied by the other girls I was stuck still trying to sit with them at lunch because there was nobody else, and they were stuck trying to pile bags on the empty seat to try to stop me. It was extremely awkward and tense all around and I started failing all my classes.

I've never been a 'theatre kid' so I have no idea if the techie bias is a thing or not. I was in choir and vaguely remember doing backstage work was considered less prestigious than being on stage, but there were a whole group of kids that did tech work and set building so it's not like there was, like, a single isolated lighting tech. That said, I imagine the new author doesn't want to flood us with characters and is massively simplifying.

curtadams
Mar 24, 2019

How Wonderful! posted:

Dykes to Watch Out #66 (1989)



Here's the start of another pretty substantial arc that builds up over time but is largely missing from the Essential. I really like it. Mo's been high strung and even paranoid all along, and I know Bechdel received numerous letters calling her "whiny," but at the same time somebody like Mo certainly did have plenty to legitimately worry about. I think as the strip moved towards more of a commitment to drama and continuity it became increasingly important to address that Mo's stretched pretty thin and is at this point on a trajectory to either have a total breakdown or to totally alienate everybody around her. This is a pretty cool move for a long-running strip-- without spoiling too much, Mo suffers the reasonable consequences of her broadest personality traits, has a crisis, and then gets help from her friends and support system. Along the way we get some fun moments from seeing her normal personality inverted-- the apathetic, blase Mo we'll see in a bit is sad but gives us some good gags.

Saturn return is an astrology thing, it's when Saturn returns to where it was at the moment of one's birth. This usually takes about 29.5 years and if you're into that kind of thing you might attribute a lot of the shakeups and crises that accompany your early 30s to this catastrophic homecoming. It's often glossed as a threshold into maturity, representing confronting and overcoming the follies of youth and moving into adulthood. Trust me, I live in West Philly.

As mentioned before, Olivia Records was a super important feminist record label and collective which by the late 80s had suffered a number of economic setbacks and failed to keep up with trends and general growth in women's music. Their death rattle occurred when they stopped releasing new music and pivoted entirely to gimmicky cruise packages.
I think the Saturn Return arc is less funny than average for Bechdel, although not remotely enough to drop it. Astrology is also less known to the public now because of the decline of newspapers. Everybody used to know about astrology signs from a column with vapid predictions by sign on a page very close to the funnies (facing it in my childhood newspaper). Now you don't find out about it unless you look for it. But like voluntary communes, people still know enough to understand the jokes. I didn't actually know what a "Saturn Return" was at the time it came out and I didn't feel I needed to learn it. (I note Harriet doesn't seem to know what it is either).

29.5 years is almost exactly Bechdel's age when she wrote this. So maybe there's a bit of autobiographical leakage she feels embarrassed about.

Cowslips Warren
Oct 29, 2005

What use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?

Grimey Drawer
I was in theatre in high school and there was definitely a difference between the people on the stage and the people behind it. You became a techie if you wanted to be in the theatre but couldn't act/sing/look the part. I mean there were techies I remember who only did it because their friends were already there, or they needed some activity to put on a transcript and there were plenty of places to wait out and get high.

I also remember the best advice I ever got was from a techie who was a year or two older than me, and ended up getting suspended/sent off to one of those 'accelerated' schools for dropouts/soon to be. He was painting a backdrop and watched me bust my rear end to finish one before starting on another, and he, skaterboy to a tee to my idiot overachieving freshman, told me to stop busting it. If I gave 100% my first day, they'd expect it from me every time. So slack off, paint half a backdrop and take a break. I remember laughing to myself because I was clearly not going to listen to a slacker idiot. I ended up painting a dozen or more backdrops that year and never got a drat thank you from anyone.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

Live, laugh, kupo!

Alhazred posted:

Intet Nytt Fra Hjemmefronten


I learned all my curse words from people who were told them in church for this same reason.

Parahexavoctal
Oct 10, 2004

I AM NOT BEING PAID TO CORRECT OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS! DONKEY!!

In today's installment of Keeping Up With the Joneses, another double-perspective punchline: either Aloysius is too uncultured to appreciate good reproduction Jacobean furniture, or Jacobean furniture is silly-looking rubbish.

Parahexavoctal
Oct 10, 2004

I AM NOT BEING PAID TO CORRECT OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS! DONKEY!!

Parahexavoctal posted:

In today's installment of Keeping Up With the Joneses, another double-perspective punchline: either Aloysius is too uncultured to appreciate good reproduction Jacobean furniture, or Jacobean furniture is silly-looking rubbish.

bah

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Pigsfeet on Rye
Oct 22, 2008

No thanks to Lizzo..

Medenmath posted:

Vintage Valiant (Jul. 02, 1939)



Not like this. :smith: Not like this.

Bingo Bango
Jan 7, 2020

curtadams posted:

I think the Saturn Return arc is less funny than average for Bechdel, although not remotely enough to drop it. Astrology is also less known to the public now because of the decline of newspapers. Everybody used to know about astrology signs from a column with vapid predictions by sign on a page very close to the funnies (facing it in my childhood newspaper). Now you don't find out about it unless you look for it. But like voluntary communes, people still know enough to understand the jokes. I didn't actually know what a "Saturn Return" was at the time it came out and I didn't feel I needed to learn it. (I note Harriet doesn't seem to know what it is either).

29.5 years is almost exactly Bechdel's age when she wrote this. So maybe there's a bit of autobiographical leakage she feels embarrassed about.

That's some pretty fair logic, but I think people still extremely into astrology. Coworkers at my last office job, all late-20s to mid-30s absolutely loved talking about their horoscopes on a daily basis. I think social media has had a major part in keeping the tradition alive. I'd argue that maybe (hopefully) people take them less seriously but who knows.

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

Medenmath posted:

Vintage Valiant (Jul. 02, 1939)



I guess Val joined a cult.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

Live, laugh, kupo!

PetraCore posted:

I've never been a 'theatre kid' so I have no idea if the techie bias is a thing or not. I was in choir and vaguely remember doing backstage work was considered less prestigious than being on stage, but there were a whole group of kids that did tech work and set building so it's not like there was, like, a single isolated lighting tech. That said, I imagine the new author doesn't want to flood us with characters and is massively simplifying.

I had some choir and limited theatre experience (was shanghai'd into doing Fiddler on the Roof because my mom and brother were already involved and they needed more men who could sing for the chorus), in my experience the tech folks didn't interact too much with the performers just because of where they needed to be/downtime overlaps, but were viewed with mild amounts of awe. "Oh wow, they trust him in the lighting booth!" "Leigh choreographed this routine herself? I can barely walk across the stage without a script." Small town though so it was folks we already knew, and the culture of the place definitely appreciated technical knowledge. Also I'm a massive nerd, so I personally apprewciated technical knowledge even above typical for the town.

Doomykins
Jun 28, 2008

Didn't you mean to ask about flowers?
Prince Valiant: No Longer the Fun Kind of Murder

Kennel
May 1, 2008

BAWWW-UNH!

Green Intern posted:

I guess Val joined a cult.

When your favorite pastime is killing your enemies, there isn't a lot of options when you pick your friends.

Julet Esqu
May 6, 2007




Bingo Bango posted:

That's some pretty fair logic, but I think people still extremely into astrology. Coworkers at my last office job, all late-20s to mid-30s absolutely loved talking about their horoscopes on a daily basis. I think social media has had a major part in keeping the tradition alive. I'd argue that maybe (hopefully) people take them less seriously but who knows.

I work in a town with a higher than average New Age population and astrology kind of rubbed off on me because so many of the people around me were into it. Not to say that I'm in super deep, but I know both my regular sign and my moon sign and I've been known to look up a horoscope and if poo poo's weird and the moon isn't full I'll check to see what Mercury is up to. It's fun to do and it can give you a starting point to think about yourself and how things are going in your life. I don't actually believe any of it though. I suspect that's how a lot of people are, but maybe they're not and I'm just more analytical about it because I'm a Virgo.

Resident Idiot
May 11, 2007

Maxine13
Grimey Drawer

Pastry of the Year posted:


Arlo and Janis Classic (October 18, 1998)




Ouch.

Arlo and Janis does not pull punches sometimes.

Ghostlight
Sep 25, 2009

maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me



Some Guy TT posted:

Cheer Up Boss Dharma
It initially read to me like all of these were soundbites from the coronavirus story, not sequential headlines unrelated to each other, so uh one of these was quite surprising in that context.

Howard Beale
Feb 22, 2001

It's like this, Peanut
Very much in approval of the new thread title.

Ponsonby Britt
Mar 13, 2006
I think you mean, why is there silverware in the pancake drawer? Wassup?

Julet Esqu posted:

I work in a town with a higher than average New Age population and astrology kind of rubbed off on me because so many of the people around me were into it. Not to say that I'm in super deep, but I know both my regular sign and my moon sign and I've been known to look up a horoscope and if poo poo's weird and the moon isn't full I'll check to see what Mercury is up to. It's fun to do and it can give you a starting point to think about yourself and how things are going in your life. I don't actually believe any of it though. I suspect that's how a lot of people are, but maybe they're not and I'm just more analytical about it because I'm a Virgo.

"[i posted:

Mostly Harmless[/i] by Douglas Adams"]
"I know that astrology isn't a science,' said Gail. "Of course it isn't. It's just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or, what's that strange thing you British play?'

"Er, cricket? Self-loathing?"

"Parliamentary democracy. The rules just kind of got there. They don't make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. But when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It's just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not important. It's just the means of revealing their indentations. So you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. It's just to do with people thinking about people.

Fighting Trousers
May 17, 2011

Does this excite you, girl?

Doomykins posted:

Prince Valiant: No Longer the Fun Kind of Murder

Of course Val would hate this. His whole deal is making sure it's the other guy who dies.

curtadams
Mar 24, 2019

Bingo Bango posted:

That's some pretty fair logic, but I think people still extremely into astrology. Coworkers at my last office job, all late-20s to mid-30s absolutely loved talking about their horoscopes on a daily basis. I think social media has had a major part in keeping the tradition alive. I'd argue that maybe (hopefully) people take them less seriously but who knows.
The ones still into astrology are probably even more so, because it's so easy to look things up these days. But those *not* into astrology know less. Typical cultural atomization from the internet. My son was recently lured into it, and I don't bash it much to him because it's probably the least nutty belief he's picked up over the past few years. Seriously.

Julet Esqu posted:

I work in a town with a higher than average New Age population and astrology kind of rubbed off on me because so many of the people around me were into it. Not to say that I'm in super deep, but I know both my regular sign and my moon sign and I've been known to look up a horoscope and if poo poo's weird and the moon isn't full I'll check to see what Mercury is up to. It's fun to do and it can give you a starting point to think about yourself and how things are going in your life. I don't actually believe any of it though. I suspect that's how a lot of people are, but maybe they're not and I'm just more analytical about it because I'm a Virgo.
I love doing tarot readings, and I don't believe that either. I do think it's kind of a good brainstorming technique - for example, a simplified Rider-Waite interpretation of the six of pentacles is "Generosity, giving and receiving support, charity, donation of resources.", possibly inverted or weakened if the card is reversed. Well, that should fit into an interpretation of almost *any* situation if you think about it. I assume astrology is similar if you're really into it and trying to figure out what Mercury trining Jupiter means for a reading (not those vapid astrology columns, tho).

curtadams fucked around with this message at 01:27 on May 31, 2020

FrumpleOrz
Feb 12, 2014

Perhaps you have not been to the *Playground*.
The *Playground* is for Taalo and for Orz, but *Campers* can go.
It more fun than several.
You can go there for too much fun.

BigDave posted:

Sorry for the delay, I'm up in Minnesota and thing have been a little...riot-y lately.

Stay safe. My brother's up in Minneapolis right now and I'm trying to not worry all night.

The Lockhorns


Brewster Rockit Space Guy


On The Fastrack


Safe Havens


Kevin & Kell


Mother Goose & Grimm


Hagar The Horrible


Sherman's Lagoon


Ella Cinders

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

That upside-down kid boils my blood more than pretty much anything else Holbrook does.

curtadams
Mar 24, 2019

Medenmath posted:

Vintage Valiant (Jul. 02, 1939)



Powered Descent had Camoron's number almost from the start (2nd strip of the series):

Powered Descent posted:

Two reactions:

1. Those drawings are amazing.
2. Camoran's people are coming across as completely psychotic here. :stare:

Murdstone
Jun 14, 2005



Howard Beale posted:

Very much in approval of the new thread title.

I like it, but I was kind of hoping for one involving the dudelsack, the sackbut, and the fagot.

Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!

Vargo posted:

Wallace


I feel like the running joke of Wallace's dad forgetting who Spud is can probably retired at this point - considering how much time they spend together and how few people Wallace really hangs out with it's almost cruel now.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

The classical Freudian anal sadistic character in its purest form.
Can I get an isolated version of the huns in this recent valiant, like the previous shot of the huns that I got? There's potential for a "my plans"/"2020" here, among other things.

BigDave posted:

It kinda does, but it's not as explicit. I blame the whole 'high school is a caste system with clearly defined groups of specific 'types'' on lazy screenwriters in the 80's. It's really hard to explain all the socioeconomical nuances of high school social groupings in a 90 minute movie, but its really easy to use groups like jocks, nerds, popular rich girl, etc.

To be fair, it's also easier in most other media. Having characters in, say, a comic strip, explain and follow these strict, stated categories is way more straightforward to communicate, especially when you're trying to explain what's wrong with the real, underlying behavioral stuff.

FrumpleOrz posted:

Ella Cinders


I love the constant flow of...are they similies? metaphors? in this strip.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 02:59 on May 31, 2020

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003



Evil Mastermind posted:

That upside-down kid boils my blood more than pretty much anything else Holbrook does.

don't forget he inherited that trait from his father

Medenmath
Jan 18, 2003

Discendo Vox posted:

Can I get an isolated version of the huns in this recent valiant, like the previous shot of the huns that I got? There's potential for a "my plans"/"2020" here, among other things.

Here's my quick effort to edit out the stuff at the bottom:


And here's a big scan if you want to try to clean it up yourself.

Discendo Vox posted:

To be fair, it's also easier in most other media. Having characters in, say, a comic strip, explain and follow these strict, stated categories is way more straightforward to communicate, especially when you're trying to explain what's wrong with the real, underlying behavioral stuff.

I remember a few years ago I saw one of those "kids react" type videos on YouTube where some high schoolers watched a home video of a lunch hour at a high school in the 80s and they all commented how things seemed much more cliquey than they were used to, so maybe these tropes used to be more true to life and haven't caught up with the modern day yet. As a kid I remember thinking shows set in schools seemed to be set in the past, and since most people making TV shows, comics, etc. are adults, it makes sense that things would lag by a few decades.

curtadams posted:

Powered Descent had Camoron's number almost from the start (2nd strip of the series):

Yeah, I considered commenting on that post at the time. Camoran's intent from the beginning was to party until they couldn't party any more, and then die pretty. Val has no problem killing people or risking his own life, but he prefers there at least to be a point to it.

Medenmath fucked around with this message at 03:56 on May 31, 2020

Samovar
Jun 4, 2011

When I want to relax, I read an essay by Engels. When I want something more serious, I read Corto Maltese.


In today's Corto Maltese: Vasily gets over his life quickly, or Rasputin rolls a one on his stealth check, or Cpt. Suto has an incredible grasp of real politik



Transmodiar
Jul 9, 2005

You're a terrible person, Mildred.
Modesty Blaise



Medenmath
Jan 18, 2003
Prince Valiant

Strontium
Aug 28, 2009

Dexter didn't much care for the party.
Daddy Daze


Take It From the Tinkersons


Dark Side of the Horse


Fort Knox

Some Guy TT
Aug 30, 2011

At my high school stagecraft was basically just shop class, except in an environment where you couldn't have shop class anymore because of the safety risks. There were few enough students between Drama 2, 3, and Stagecraft that it was all the same class. And the teacher kind of just let the drama students fend for themselves after a certain point because the wrestling coach / math teacher who used to do shop came down one day and just said dude you can't let these teenagers be messing around with power tools without adult supervision.

It was a very strange bedfellows kind of class because while some Stagecraft kids were just treating it like Drama 4 there were a bunch of guys and gals who just really liked the idea of playing with power tools during school hours and didn't especially give a poo poo if that meant having to take orders from the drama teacher and hang out with drama kids. The scariest motherfucker in the whole school was in that class my sophomore year. Chatted with him a few times. Easy to see why he was scary. No social graces, not very smart, built like a tank, but not terribly mean-spirited.

Anyway that's my needlessly specific story for why I find this Heart story really dumb. It's not that high school cliques don't exist it's that teenagers don't really overthink them like they're in a John Hughes movie and most will jump around between at least a couple of different groups depending on their interests and not think this is particularly significant or noteworthy. Full disclosure- my anecdote dates to the early 2000's.

Ghostlight posted:

It initially read to me like all of these were soundbites from the coronavirus story, not sequential headlines unrelated to each other, so uh one of these was quite surprising in that context.

Short version of the comfort woman story is that comfort women have been getting mad at House of Sharing, the main well-known Korean charity connected with comfort women, because they've been huge cheapskates when it comes to providing elder care for the few surviving comfort women. Medium version is that this all came out because someone noticed that House of Sharing has been buying a lot of real estate, and also building and maintaining educational facilities in weird places no one uses while hiring a bunch of phantom staff with no obvious function except to soak up a lot of benefits. Long version is uh, just read this article.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Zelda

LazyQ
Feb 22, 2011

Mämmilä

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

LazyQ posted:

Mämmilä



This is great, I love everything about this

...except what are those ladies doing? I don't recognize that contraption.

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