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More Faye and Bubbles as they explore the varying definitions of "raccoon"

Just how many hijinks can Spookybot get into when they have seven bodies and more brewing in the tubes?

Just how many arms can Jeremy support before he topples over like a top-heavy pile of dishes?

Corpse Witch's adventures in custody whilst awaiting arraignment

Maybe we can learn more about that blonde who does the tea!

Just who are Faye's roommates anyway? Do they have a story too?

Other major characters? There are other characters?

[JoeCovenant]

What did

(click to show/hide)

[The guy who eats diapers.]

do? I mean, yes, he's had some mediocre story arcs, but I don't think any of them (at least, any of them in Dumbing of Age, his older stuff is very hit-and-miss,) have been as bad or pointless as the Creepybot arc.

I'm with Mikmaxs here...
What's with the downer on Willis?

(I thought the link name was a "good natured joke" between fellow artists... Am I (are we?) missing something?)

[pwhodges]

Hence also: "Damn you, Willis", which was adopted as our thread title for discussing Dumbing of Age.

[BenRG]

Just a thought that occurred to me: Whilst Elliott is definitely in Brun's 'friend' category, he's going to have to face up to the fact that Hannelore seems to be rapidly turning into Brun's best friend. They clearly have a lot in common in terms of mindset, likes and dislikes. So, yeah, if he's talking to Brun when Hanners' walks in, he's going to have to get used to being left standing!

[brasca]

Just a thought that occurred to me: Whilst Elliott is definitely in Brun's 'friend' category, he's going to have to face up to the fact that Hannelore seems to be rapidly turning into Brun's best friend. They clearly have a lot in common in terms of mindset, likes and dislikes. So, yeah, if he's talking to Brun when Hanners' walks in, he's going to have to get used to being left standing!

I thought Marigold was Hannelore's best friend or has that position become part time since she's been spending most of her time with Dale. 

[Method of Madness]

I think Hannelore would find the idea of ranking her friends distasteful.

[jwhouk]

I have reasons that I can't type up on my tablet very well. Suffice to say that the reasons are similar to why I don't care for certain authors.

Sent from my Nextbook on Tapatalk

---

And now that I'm on a proper laptop:

There are just some means of his storytelling that I don't particularly like. Similar to why I'm not a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien or George R.R. Martin. And his political/religious views aren't in my ballpark, either.

[osaka]

Meanwhile... Yeah, this seems to be something about the more recent female Coffee of Doom employees: Magical powers of one sort of another. Emily has them too!

Then what's Cosette's power? Complete, brutal and unrelenting clumsiness? "I am become Cosette, destroyer of mugs"?

[BenRG]

Cossette isn't 'recent'; it's limited to Hannelore (Space Pixie), Emily (Summoner of Old Coding Gods) and Dale (He Who Reaches Out to the Unreachable).

[Thrudd]

So many things ... so many...
On DYW ... The pet names we have for him are varied and colourful and some have stuck like burrs on a cheap sweater, deserved on not.
I had met him at a few conventions in his early days and have followed his work on and off over they years.
He had jumped the shark with his writing in the past and kept doubling down till even he saw the darkness and closed the story lines.
I don't mind him rehashing characters [writer stick to their strengths after all] as long as he can write a decent story.
I haven't seen any sharks as of yet, though the waters are a bit choppy at times.
As jwhouk pointed out, the injection of his personal politics does tend to annoy some more than others.
I try and keep a writers personal diatribes separate from the stories as long as they do the same.
He also has a tendency for breaking the "Law of Wheaton", which is why you won't see me in his comment unless you have a way-back machine. 
Now on the topic of this particular story arc that has pretty much reached its completion, I would say it was a purposeful bit of stink with a misstep at the end.
Like some of the other controversial arcs and topics in the past our esteemed writer has done this with the purpose of shining a light on a topic to explore aspects of it.
Overall it was a decent story with good character development. Could some bits have been done differently?
Maybe, but I think that closing the story was a better decision than going down that particular rabbit hole.
As for Spooky, maybe omnipotent is stretching things just a tad.
On a similar level to station but with different strengths and resources, I can wrap my head around more.
There was the way they spoke to others as well the actions they took in front of and behind the scenes.
Most of it was intimidation based and we really don't know how much was truth and how much was an act for each of the characters involved.
How much out and out bluff and how much cold hard steel truth? Who knows? Well besides our favorite writer.
Hey, they have dogs so we know they are more social than they put forward.
I look forward to maybe seeing them pop in socially in the future if the stories so permit but like that bruised government agent from the early days I won't miss seeing them again if they are not needed for the story.
As we are going forward, I am wondering who else is still in the active cast.

[Kugai]

So now we know, Brun and Hanners are Magical Pixie Girls - Who knew??

Just so long as no-one hounds them, they should be able to live normal lives among the pack.

[Perfectly Reasonable]

... a tendency for breaking the "Law of Wheaton" ...

I know not this "Law of Wheaton". Google is confused as well. Is it like 'BNBR'? A plea for internet civility?

[Tova]

Google didn't seem all that confused, assuming it was meant to refer to Wheaton's Law.

TLDR Yes, a plea for internet civility.

[blt]

I hate the way everybody's bagging on this story.  It was a good story, damnit.

I know three or four combat vets, and they ALL liked the way Bubbles was portrayed.  Jeph showed real understanding, in an understated way.

I guess my disagreement here is that this story wasn't about Bubbles' combat experience.  It was a magic hand-wave solution to her missing memories, basically taking them out of play.  Those memories could essentially have been of anything at this point.

I could be wrong and it will be revisited, or the idea of her vet status will continue to inform her character but I'm a little disappointed with how it went down.

[foolsguinea]

Ass Swordsman Tetsuo

Why can't we have this instead of Alice Grove?

[SomeCanadianWeirdo]

What, you want something that apparently has the same level of story progress as Dragonball Z?

[Random Wanderer]

It could simultaneously be a brilliant deconstruction of shounen anime tropes and be garbage. But I probably would have dropped it after episode 2.

[explicit]

We're all just here for the ecchi anyways.

[jheartney]

I like that Momo is apparently dozing with her recharge cord plugged in. She's like a cat - she can doze anywhere, but she choses to do it in the same room with the hoomins.

[St.Clair]

Ass Swordsman Tetsuo

お尻 剣士 鉄男

Now appearing on Crunchyroll.

[brasca]

I hate the way everybody's bagging on this story.  It was a good story, damnit.

I know three or four combat vets, and they ALL liked the way Bubbles was portrayed.  Jeph showed real understanding, in an understated way.

I guess my disagreement here is that this story wasn't about Bubbles' combat experience.  It was a magic hand-wave solution to her missing memories, basically taking them out of play.  Those memories could essentially have been of anything at this point.

I could be wrong and it will be revisited, or the idea of her vet status will continue to inform her character but I'm a little disappointed with how it went down.

I recall Jeph Jacques being disturbed researching gruesome imagery of war for Alice's flashbacks so perhaps delving into what Bubbles experienced was too dark to handle.  I don't like that most of this was resolved by a walking talking deus ex machina, but at least it wasn't Hannelore using her vast resources to save the day.  That would be too easy.  In this instance Bubbles is fortunate that Spookybot overheard Station and the AI elders chatting about this. 

I think the most amusing thing about tonight's strip is Momo fell asleep watching Ass Swordsman Tetsuo.

[Skewbrow]

Today's strip shows many things JJ is very good at. The intensity that Marigold and Dale watch the episodes comes thru IMHO quite convincingly. The detail of a dozing Momo - not forgetting the recharger cord - is just perfect.

The dialogue? That kind of silliness is just icing on this cake. The strip might have also worked well even without any dialogue whatsoever. Leaving it to the reader to fill in what intrigued May initially, and seconds later made her turn on her heels.

[BenRG]

Yeah, I'm getting flashbacks to season 1 of RWBY. Don't get me wrong, I liked that show (at least at first) but the production team took three seasons to start the main meta-plot after a two seasons of seemingly-pointless explorations of the issues of secondary characters and the plots of a second-string baddie who, or so it turned out, they were going to kill off at the end of season 3 anyway. The titular character of the show is still being treated as a background character (and a deus ex machina dispenser) more often than not with more focus being given to secondary characters. Frankly, I'm not sure if I can take it much longer.

The point? The gulf between "cool idea dude" and "cool end product dude" is a vast one and sometimes the execution can get a bit dodgy, especially if the creative team has too much freedom and are those sorts of creative minds who tend to go chasing off after every whim that comes into their heads.

I'm just wondering how late this is all happening. Momo is in recharge mode and we all know that Dale and Marigold have only limited healthy living instincts. It's possible that May has come home from the graveyard shift to find that Dale and Marigold have decided to forego sleep! Again!

[pwhodges]

Ass Swordsman Tetsuo

Why can't we have this instead of Alice Grove?

The first episode (they're all double-length) of Katanamonogatari has a swordsman pulling a sword out of his throat - but not much else matches (the protagonist is a swordsman who doesn't use a sword, and the last of the historic "swords" he's recovering is a gun).

We're all just here for the ecchi anyways.

Actually, not all of us.

[mikmaxs]

Hence also: "Damn you, Willis", which was adopted as our thread title for discussing Dumbing of Age.

From what I've seen, "Damn you, Willis" is mostly used in a positive way - A plot twist that readers didn't see coming, but which reframes many previous events and leaves tons of new unanswered questions and possibilities?
Damn you, Willis!

@thrudd, I agree that Willis can be a bit of a dick, but the original comments about him were very much in the 'criticizing his writing/story arcs' category, which I firmly disagree with unless we're talking about his really old stuff.

[JoeCovenant]

Yeah...
I'm no clearer as to why there seems to be so much vitriol being flung at all.

Oh well...

[normanstresskopf]

Ass Swordsman Tetsuo
お尻 剣士 鉄男

I know where Jeph drew inspiration from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsuo:_The_Iron_Man

[bhtooefr]

I think Hannelore would find the idea of ranking her friends distasteful.

I agree, but at the same time, she's probably done it anyway.

Ranked lists are a whole thing that she does.

[Thrudd]

@thrudd, I agree that Willis can be a bit of a dick, but the original comments about him were very much in the 'criticizing his writing/story arcs' category, which I firmly disagree with unless we're talking about his really old stuff.

Definitely his old stuff.
His latest foray in story writing seems to have a bit more forethought and planning involved.
Maybe it has to do with developing that huge buffer giving him more time to think his story arcs through and having them reviewed before going live.

[shanejayell]

I like that Momo is apparently dozing with her recharge cord plugged in. She's like a cat - she can doze anywhere, but she choses to do it in the same room with the hoomins.

I was actually wondering if they weren't using her like a PC to stream the anime...

But her sleeping probably makes more sense. 

[Mad Cat]

When he farts, do shuriken fly out? That would be Hell on the wardrobe. Kinda hafta take to wearing kilts if that were the case.

[Kugai]

It sounds like an Educational Sneaker - teaching you importans Science whild keeping you waiting for him to draw a sword outta his ass.

[mikmaxs]

I like that Momo is apparently dozing with her recharge cord plugged in. She's like a cat - she can doze anywhere, but she choses to do it in the same room with the hoomins.

I was actually wondering if they weren't using her like a PC to stream the anime...

But her sleeping probably makes more sense. 

That doesn't look like a charging cable, it looks like an HDMI. Sure looks like she's streaming to me.

[jwhouk]

@thrudd, I agree that Willis can be a bit of a dick, but the original comments about him were very much in the 'criticizing his writing/story arcs' category, which I firmly disagree with unless we're talking about his really old stuff.

See, that was the other thing - his story writing is occasionally from the "Hu Flung Poo" writer's guild. The politics/religious/social stuff is just an annoying topping to it all.

He is just not my flavor.

[Perfectly Reasonable]

Did Jeremy recommend this? "meeting a demon and convincing it to be nice using logic" sounds like Unbeatable Squirrel Girl to me.

[BenRG]

Official Poll Results Post!

"So, what next in this gripping tale?"

1. Just how many arms can Jeremy support before he topples over like a top-heavy pile of dishes? - 13 (31%)
2. Other major characters? There are other characters? - 12 (28.6%)
=3. Maybe we can learn more about that blonde who does the tea! - 5 (11.9%)
=3. Just who are Faye's roommates anyway? Do they have a story too? - 5 (11.9%)
5. Just how many hijinks can Spookybot get into when they have seven bodies and more brewing in the tubes? - 3 (7.1%)
=6. More Faye and Bubbles as they explore the varying definitions of "raccoon" - 2 (4.8%)
=6. Corpse Witch's adventures in custody whilst awaiting arraignment - 2 (4.8%)

Definitely a lot of Jeremy fans... and possibly Tredwell Utility Droid fans too... on the forum these days! There also seem to be an awful lot of users with a cynical view of what has happened to the former primary characters of the strip!

An interesting collision for third place too; There is definitely a significant minority of people who are interested in more Apartment-based adventures including Marten, Claire and Hannelore.

Just a note: I won't be doing next week's WCDT; please someone else be my guest.