Dumbing of age. Doa

Tonight's strip.

>Joe being internally challenged by attempting to hold conversation without appearing like a skeeve
>Sarah being externally challenged by somebody trying to talk to her when she would rather be left alone
See, this is a conflicting dynamic that can make for a good story, especially if for some reason these two are recruited to work together to figure out a problem external to both of them.

But I bet we're just going to get them talking through their feelings, because there's no room in this comic for anything developmental to happen. At least, developmental in a way that doesn't involve mocking religion, sex, or domestic abuse.

She got the derp eyes

Sarah isn't a misanthrope, it's all a ruse to hide the fact she's afraid that if people talk to her they'll make eye contact and realize she's got the derp eyes.

Has Joe ever done pickup artist shit? Most of the time he's an aggressive flirt.

You really need the problem external to both to come first as otherwise they don't have much of a reason to interact without a third-party connection such as Joyce or Jacob.

>Most of the time he's an aggressive flirt
Any sort of come-on is pickup artist shit to an autist shut-in like Willis.

Willis is really leaning hard into old stuff nowadays. Joyce is more sheltered and alarmed than ever before and Sarah hates Joe seemingly more than she did last time they interacted.

The problem is probably more that their interaction at the lunch was almost nonexistent.

>wants to fuck women
>women want to fuck him
>EEEEEVIL SCUUUUUM

Is it just me, or is Willis actually trying to make their eyes looks less like shapeless beetles? He's not gotten the hang of it, but it's definitely better than what we've been getting.

...

What kind of relationship did Sarah and Joe have in the past? I can't even imagine them together. I haven't read much of Willis's work from before Shortpacked.

Maybe that's why no one is afraid of her.

Willis seems to operate on concept alone, ignoring motivation and past behavior. He just wanted to test out how the two would interact, not as a thing that helps the narrative or makes sense.

This is not how humans talk. This is how someone who's main interaction with how 'kids these days' speak comes from the internet thinks humans talk.

>What kind of relationship did Sarah and Joe have in the past? I can't even imagine them together. I haven't read much of Willis's work from before Shortpacked.

In this, Joe asked Joyce out for a date, and Sarah sniffed out him being who he was and tried asking him to not go to far with her. He refused so she walked away angry. Then when he directly tried to flirt with Sarah, she reacted really angrily and he committed to not pursuing her, though he is still turned on by her.

Then they were at lunch together with Joyce and Jacob and didn't interact outside of .


I can't remember that stuff in Roomies, but I think Sarah was basically the same character in that as Joyce's roommate. They probably both quipped about how extra Joyce is.

To be fair, the last time Sarah and Joe interacted was before his "list" got leaked.

That's a good point. We hadn't seen her take on that stuff, we didn't even see her score when Joyce read off a few. So this is probably building up to Sarah knowing exactly how hot Joe thinks she is.

Wow. He managed to misplace Sal's eyes in every panel.

Looks like DoA's bad webcomics wiki entry needs updating.

I'm fairly certain that she's aware of how attractive Joe finds her. The only new factor she could take away is that Joe's attraction to her rests heavily on her personality rather than her physical appearance.

Is Patricia actually that common of a name in the US? I never met one.

If you've ever met a Pat, Patty, Patsy, Tricia, or Trish then you've probably met a Patricia.

>I'm fairly certain that she's aware of how attractive Joe finds her.
Yeah, what I should've said is it's building up to Sarah commenting on it. I'm sure she knows both from interactions and the list. Her asking the name is probably a specific reference to him not using names often on the list.