This strip, weirdly enough, is refreshingly funny. After the last two episodes, the laughs are welcome.
Having recently uploaded a digital story on YouTube (type in colorado nuclear to see it), I found this strip incredibly realistic and timely. Of course, I learned about YouTube from this blog. And the strip within a strip concept. What did one of your readers term this experience–very meta?
LOLOLOLOL OMG! That is soooooooooooo funny and exactly like something a kid that age would do in this age of high tech! Gawd, I’m glad YouTube was not around when my boys were that age! Great strip…….one week Alison has us all bawling and the next we are laughing our asses off. I love it!
In case anyone needs a refresher on when we saw Raffi filming his moms’ conversation, it was way back in episode 485. It’s great to compare the two versions of the scene, to see how the “camera angles” alter the reader’s perspective: back in 485 we see the scene from Toni and Clarice’s point of view, with Raffi’s recording serving mainly as a proxy for the strip’s political content. Now we see it from his point of view, as he and Stella try to make sense of the uncertainties in their respective family lives. Lovely — and, as Ellen says, very funny as well!
Back in the day, my brothers would make a casette tape my mother yelling or going off on one of her rants and then re-play it for her. She would get so mad but would eventually laugh at how ridiculous she sounded. This is the modern day version, me thinks.
Oh, Alison, you are a YouTube wizard. For those of you who might not know, there are three wonderful Alison videos up at YouTube right now — Phranc and Alison doing paper play at the current Pine Street Art Works exhibit in Burlington at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oyHVtc7GgI, a slideshow of Alison’s “Monumental Drawings” at this exhibit at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKac6jkZOrY, and, an older but still beloved little B&W short of lines from a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem set to a recording of thrush song by Alison at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzk_mnTCDEM. Lovely.
Another nice touch is the adolescents getting into questionable behavior online. If you have any children of this age anywhere near your life, I can guarantee you that you have _no_clue_ what they are up to on the computer.
Wow, the continuity fairy exists! How brilliant to use that from Episode 485, as Josiah says above (I, too, recognized it).
I’m sure Sydney could go on about the power of image and-image within-image and metacomic-ity and narrators and new media and….but I haven’t got the chops. But wow!
I also like the way the kids lying together on Stella’s bed, being awfully quiet, alludes to what their parents could really be worried about. They won’t have a clue until the grapevine eventually spreads, if it spreads, from middle school to the older people’s universe.
You know — episode #500 is coming up. I wonder if anything special is in store for that anniversary. Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead come by with flowers and bubbly? They had a cross-comic anniversary party about a year ago.
The impending arrival of episode 500 reminds me that we can show our appreciation to Alison by donating to cover the cost of this website. Even if you don’t use PayPal, you can click on the PayPal button on the blog’s home page and donate by credit card. Wouldn’t it be nice to raise $500 for “Dykes” by the 500th episode?
Another great way to support Alison is to buy her art. Think of it as an investment that gives three ways. Alison gets paid, you get to enjoy original art, and you will have a piece of work that will only go up in value. Not a bad deal.
I, too, wondered where “they’re awfully quiet” mixed with upstairs on the bed would/could go. Particularly with middle schoolers. In perspective, maybe a little YouTube embarassment isn’t so bad….
I read this and thought Raffi and Stella were… reading DTWOF online. And has anyone actually looked for the video on Youtube? I darent- in case it’s there. Too good.
Please forgive this being off-subject. Below is a link to a video of Steve Martin interviewing Roz Chast from the New Yorker Festival, that I thought you all might appreciate.
I thought the other side of the video of the conversation is pure genius! And to let it sit for a bit before bringing it out is great. It just goes to show, you think the kids aren’t paying attention, but oh my, yes they are.
I love Clarice and Toni, but its not like they didn’t have it coming. I know, this opinion isn’t popular, but being on both sides of this fence, unfaithfullness sucks both ways. You screw around, keep secrets and try to “protect” people, you end up getting it in the end…
I think the people this will really hurt are Raffi and Stella-right now they think they’ve really stuck it to their parents, but just wait ’til the kids at school see this!Can’t you see what Taylor and his co-horts will do with this kind of info? Stuff like this always comes back to bite you in the butt…
Are you familiar with the title nine women’s clothing catalog? thought is was just a swirly too but, could be title nine.
Also, that interview with Steve Martin and Roz Chast is worth watching. I really enjoyed it.
Is it really emotionally plausible that a seventh grader who has just gotten a strong hint about her parent’s infidelity would immediately think to put the evidence online? What could the chain of reasoning be?
I trust and praise Alison’s keen observation and insight, so the emerging net-centric psyche must be slightly creepier than I thought.
Chain of reasoning? Isn’t that an oxymoron for tweens?
Stella is 12 years old, probably scared and angry over her parents’ divorce and acting out. She might also be trying to “out-cool” Raffi, who, after all, just called her diptard.
I like the “buy art” idea. I never saw the link before.
Speaking of web design, I’d really have a big usability wish, which would be to set the middle strip that has content to be defined not in px (which it seems to be) but in percent. The way it is now, if someone doesn’t look at the browser on the entire screen, but has for example two browser windows next to each other filling half the screen, it’s necessary to scroll left-right, which is a real bummer. Also, someone who has a high resolution monitor will have only a v narrow strip of the screen filled by text, and the rest of the monitor space wasted. That’s ironic, because people with bad eyesight are among those who often buy high res screens, and they could really profit from using all of the screen, for example when using large font sizes.
Hm. Maybe that’s not a good strip comment, but more an e-mail to the web design person.
Altogether, it’s nice and not cluttered, and the huge strip scans are of course awesome.
So people actually watch YouTube for purposes other than seeing lost tv shows of childhood, Dr. Tran, or Harry Potter clips spliced to music?:)
I watch YouTube for my weekly Takarazuka fix. (Yes, this is a transparent attempt to expand the fandom by dropping a cryptic name and letting the geeky go search it.)
Regarding “me”s comment, I disagree about setting it to percent. I do not find scrolling to be a problem. I’d rather see it in the exact way it was drawn in than trust the browser to scale it with fidelity. Similarly, I also don’t like it when newspapers stretch the comics (tall thin Dilberts, etc — yeesh) and have written to such newspapers complaining (but no change from them, sigh).
I have YouTube in my favorites. It’s quite interesting to see what others find amusing and there’s some really cool stuff there too, though you have to sift through alot of junk.
Sorry about that, “me”. For myself, on Firefox, 800X600, full sized window, no history bar or anything, I just scroll a little over and there is no more scrolling problem for the remainder of my reading.
On [i]another[/i] matter, Clarice will be able to tell Raf, if/when she finds out about the YouTube video, that uploading that conversation was illegal. In some states, it’s not even legal for him to have recorded their conversation. In “one party record” states, you can record anything you would have been able to hear, as long as you use the recording only for your personal use (unless someone confesses to a crime in the recording, then it can be evidence in court). Clarice and Toni knew Raf could be right around the corner, that he might hear.
(I am not a lawyer, that’s my understanding of the law.)
for the record, a few states have “single party intercept” laws which allow anyone for any reason to record a conversation as long as one party to the conversation consents. it doesn’t matter what the recording is for, as long as one party consents to its release it is no longer protected as private. (logic — answering machines)
Idaho is one, and New Hampshire allows it provided the officer gets authorization within 72 hours from the AGs office or designated official.
Here is the url for title nine clothing company http://www.titlenine.com/jump.jsp?itemID=0&itemType=HOME_PAGE
I’m not certain that little swirly is a title nine reference…but, I really like their catalog.
Don’t spend all your money on clothing, save some for art.
Can’t resist saying that this strip takes me back to the mousepad I mentioned (‘I think it’s cat fur in your floppy drive’ or something like that) in the comments to the last strip with the cats. It’s Mac/Apple updated ten years later. ¡Que viva! And, interesting that the Apple logo hasn’t morphed into something else. (A Mac user for ever)
Ginger or Sydney doing on-line research for academia?
Lois, perhaps? Lois always sniffs out interesting gossip.
A question comes up about Ginger: will Ginger and Clarice get back together? If things are on Haitus/confusion with Samia, could they * BOTH * be available at the same time?
Would Ginger and Clarice find each other attractive is each as available?
Why are things with Ginger confusing…first with Jasmin, now with Samia.
Stay tuned for more next week. I want to know what happens to the characters (whine). The political cartoons make us have to wait a WHOLE MONTH before getting the next installment (I can whine, my usename is Mo’s Me).
Yo diptards! (in the most loving way possible)
Remember having girls over and your parents noticing things getting quiet? (!)Raffi and Stella just might have a burgeoning passion in their near future. Oh quiet times, quiet times. How I miss them. Plus, I suspect some sort of grand upheval of might be on the rise, unless episode 500 turns out to be mainly celebratory. Which would be completely wonderful and appropriate too. Having very recently discovered DTWOF via a 1983 book called “Dyke Strippers” (one year older than myself!) it is amazing and inspiring to be able to immerse myself into Alison’s skillfully humorous and poignant world, which is really just another window onto our own world.
a different Emma….my point exactly!!!!! I’m a mom. Quiet unrelated teens leads directly to Mom checking in casually to see if you need some snacks for your study break :).
Devious??? Me???? Never….just in no hurry to be a grandmother.
Why are things with Ginger confusing…first with Jasmin, now with Samia.
Because Ginger likes the idea of a relationship; she doesn’t atually like relationships. If she were more relaxed she’d probably be poly, with her lovers living in different cities and lots of hot ‘phone calls.
Nope, Julie, Toni and Clarice’s response to Raffi’s camera work will be just like our national response to terrorist attacks–locking the corral *after* the horses have bolted.
I think that this will be used by marriage foes to destroy Freedom to Marry efforts in DTWOF land. I believe that it will be all over the news… can you see it too?
“If she were more relaxed she’d probably be poly, with her lovers living in different cities and lots of hot ‘phone calls.” — But that would require such a thing as open discussion of polyamory in DTWOF………
65 Responses to “DTWOF episode 497”
OMG…that is CLASSIC! I tend to forget that Raffi is at an age where he would be a total brat!
This strip, weirdly enough, is refreshingly funny. After the last two episodes, the laughs are welcome.
Having recently uploaded a digital story on YouTube (type in colorado nuclear to see it), I found this strip incredibly realistic and timely. Of course, I learned about YouTube from this blog. And the strip within a strip concept. What did one of your readers term this experience–very meta?
Thanks.
LOLOLOLOL OMG! That is soooooooooooo funny and exactly like something a kid that age would do in this age of high tech! Gawd, I’m glad YouTube was not around when my boys were that age! Great strip…….one week Alison has us all bawling and the next we are laughing our asses off. I love it!
The first time in a long time I’ve made my *breath-sucked-in*-hhooo-ho-ho-hoooo! noise of impending doom. This ought to be GOOD.
In case anyone needs a refresher on when we saw Raffi filming his moms’ conversation, it was way back in episode 485. It’s great to compare the two versions of the scene, to see how the “camera angles” alter the reader’s perspective: back in 485 we see the scene from Toni and Clarice’s point of view, with Raffi’s recording serving mainly as a proxy for the strip’s political content. Now we see it from his point of view, as he and Stella try to make sense of the uncertainties in their respective family lives. Lovely — and, as Ellen says, very funny as well!
This is eight kinds of hilarious. I’m particularly a fan of the word “diptard.”
I love the detail of the ‘pirates of the caribbean’ poster. classic.
and ‘shoont’
and ‘fresh fortnightly’
bravo, again.
Back in the day, my brothers would make a casette tape my mother yelling or going off on one of her rants and then re-play it for her. She would get so mad but would eventually laugh at how ridiculous she sounded. This is the modern day version, me thinks.
Awesome! And especially, since Youtube is now owned by Google…
Oh, Alison, you are a YouTube wizard. For those of you who might not know, there are three wonderful Alison videos up at YouTube right now — Phranc and Alison doing paper play at the current Pine Street Art Works exhibit in Burlington at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oyHVtc7GgI, a slideshow of Alison’s “Monumental Drawings” at this exhibit at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKac6jkZOrY, and, an older but still beloved little B&W short of lines from a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem set to a recording of thrush song by Alison at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzk_mnTCDEM. Lovely.
Stella’s answer to “Are you hungry?” is spot-on.
Another nice touch is the adolescents getting into questionable behavior online. If you have any children of this age anywhere near your life, I can guarantee you that you have _no_clue_ what they are up to on the computer.
Let that just rock you to sleep at night.
The little squint that Stella makes as she says “You know what we should do?” — brilliance.
Wow, the continuity fairy exists! How brilliant to use that from Episode 485, as Josiah says above (I, too, recognized it).
I’m sure Sydney could go on about the power of image and-image within-image and metacomic-ity and narrators and new media and….but I haven’t got the chops. But wow!
i think my favorite, among the many punchlines in this strip, is “see, i try to open the freedom to marry database and it says ‘file corrupt'”
brilliant.
Yikes! Can’t wait to see how this plays out…and things like THIS are why my teen doesn’t have unsupervised access to the internet (at least at home…)
Oh, Clarice is going to go absolutely freakin’ crazy when she sees this. I hope Raffi enjoys Amish-style living…
*facepalm*
And now the most ‘Net-savvy dykes in our crew will find it. That means… Sydney. And maaaaaybe Lois.
Heads are going to explode.
I needed this laugh. Great comic! 🙂
Actually, for a brief moment, I expected some sort of Parent Trap-esque plot to be hatched…But this is much better!
i think Stuart’s more net-savvy than Lois
Actually, I think Ginger’s even more net-savvy than Stuart 😀
Heh. Even with teenagers, “They’re awfully quiet” is a dead giveaway….
I also like the way the kids lying together on Stella’s bed, being awfully quiet, alludes to what their parents could really be worried about. They won’t have a clue until the grapevine eventually spreads, if it spreads, from middle school to the older people’s universe.
You know — episode #500 is coming up. I wonder if anything special is in store for that anniversary. Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead come by with flowers and bubbly? They had a cross-comic anniversary party about a year ago.
The impending arrival of episode 500 reminds me that we can show our appreciation to Alison by donating to cover the cost of this website. Even if you don’t use PayPal, you can click on the PayPal button on the blog’s home page and donate by credit card. Wouldn’t it be nice to raise $500 for “Dykes” by the 500th episode?
500 episodes = 1000 weeks = close to 20 years. Incredible. Bubbly all around, I’d say!
Another great way to support Alison is to buy her art. Think of it as an investment that gives three ways. Alison gets paid, you get to enjoy original art, and you will have a piece of work that will only go up in value. Not a bad deal.
Suz,
I, too, wondered where “they’re awfully quiet” mixed with upstairs on the bed would/could go. Particularly with middle schoolers. In perspective, maybe a little YouTube embarassment isn’t so bad….
i alison, i wanted to tell you thanks for recommending the tender land. i’m reading it right now and it’s just beautiful.
I really, really like the donation idea!
wasn’t george w. in that blondie anniversary?
i can’t tell you how happy this strip makes me. all the time.
I read this and thought Raffi and Stella were… reading DTWOF online. And has anyone actually looked for the video on Youtube? I darent- in case it’s there. Too good.
There *should* be a video on youtube. That’s beyond meta. Nice plug from Liza of Pine Street, great way to make the meta work for you.
Uh-oh…can’t wait to see where it goes from here!
OK, perhaps I’m betraying my ignorance of commercial logos
or some such here….
… but why is there (what appears to be) a “6” on Gloria’s
right hip in the first panel?
(Also, as mentioned above, I thought the “Shoont” was
a great touch.)
Please forgive this being off-subject. Below is a link to a video of Steve Martin interviewing Roz Chast from the New Yorker Festival, that I thought you all might appreciate.
http://www.newyorker.com/festival/videos/fevi_video2a
I thought the other side of the video of the conversation is pure genius! And to let it sit for a bit before bringing it out is great. It just goes to show, you think the kids aren’t paying attention, but oh my, yes they are.
I love Clarice and Toni, but its not like they didn’t have it coming. I know, this opinion isn’t popular, but being on both sides of this fence, unfaithfullness sucks both ways. You screw around, keep secrets and try to “protect” people, you end up getting it in the end…
I think the people this will really hurt are Raffi and Stella-right now they think they’ve really stuck it to their parents, but just wait ’til the kids at school see this!Can’t you see what Taylor and his co-horts will do with this kind of info? Stuff like this always comes back to bite you in the butt…
“… but why is there (what appears to be) a “6? on Gloria’s
right hip in the first panel?”
Far as I can tell it’s just a swirly type stiching on the jeans.
So people actually watch YouTube for purposes other than seeing lost tv shows of childhood, Dr. Tran, or Harry Potter clips spliced to music?:)
Emma,
I was a geek enough to look. Sorry, no dice…at least that I could find.
Hi Alison,
I too want to thank you for recommending ‘the tender land’, which is a very special book.
And you and your work are very special as well.
this was great, it made me laugh quite a bit.
Are you familiar with the title nine women’s clothing catalog? thought is was just a swirly too but, could be title nine.
Also, that interview with Steve Martin and Roz Chast is worth watching. I really enjoyed it.
Hey……………I was a geek too. Couldn’t find it either.
Not to spoil the fun, but:
Is it really emotionally plausible that a seventh grader who has just gotten a strong hint about her parent’s infidelity would immediately think to put the evidence online? What could the chain of reasoning be?
I trust and praise Alison’s keen observation and insight, so the emerging net-centric psyche must be slightly creepier than I thought.
Chain of reasoning? Isn’t that an oxymoron for tweens?
Stella is 12 years old, probably scared and angry over her parents’ divorce and acting out. She might also be trying to “out-cool” Raffi, who, after all, just called her diptard.
I like the “buy art” idea. I never saw the link before.
Speaking of web design, I’d really have a big usability wish, which would be to set the middle strip that has content to be defined not in px (which it seems to be) but in percent. The way it is now, if someone doesn’t look at the browser on the entire screen, but has for example two browser windows next to each other filling half the screen, it’s necessary to scroll left-right, which is a real bummer. Also, someone who has a high resolution monitor will have only a v narrow strip of the screen filled by text, and the rest of the monitor space wasted. That’s ironic, because people with bad eyesight are among those who often buy high res screens, and they could really profit from using all of the screen, for example when using large font sizes.
Hm. Maybe that’s not a good strip comment, but more an e-mail to the web design person.
Altogether, it’s nice and not cluttered, and the huge strip scans are of course awesome.
ya know, I thought 485 was really funny, but couldn’t fathom why Raffi was filming his moms. others may have guessed, but I didn’t . . .
Alison knew, and shared it w/us at just the right moment! I love the way this story line is evolving — it’s still open to any of a number of outcomes.
So people actually watch YouTube for purposes other than seeing lost tv shows of childhood, Dr. Tran, or Harry Potter clips spliced to music?:)
I watch YouTube for my weekly Takarazuka fix. (Yes, this is a transparent attempt to expand the fandom by dropping a cryptic name and letting the geeky go search it.)
Regarding “me”s comment, I disagree about setting it to percent. I do not find scrolling to be a problem. I’d rather see it in the exact way it was drawn in than trust the browser to scale it with fidelity. Similarly, I also don’t like it when newspapers stretch the comics (tall thin Dilberts, etc — yeesh) and have written to such newspapers complaining (but no change from them, sigh).
I have YouTube in my favorites. It’s quite interesting to see what others find amusing and there’s some really cool stuff there too, though you have to sift through alot of junk.
@Susanymous: I didn’t mean scaling the strip jpg. I meant setting the *text column* width. I’m sure the jpg could be handled separately.
Hana: there are Takarazuka vids on YouTube? Um, gotta go ..
Sorry about that, “me”. For myself, on Firefox, 800X600, full sized window, no history bar or anything, I just scroll a little over and there is no more scrolling problem for the remainder of my reading.
On [i]another[/i] matter, Clarice will be able to tell Raf, if/when she finds out about the YouTube video, that uploading that conversation was illegal. In some states, it’s not even legal for him to have recorded their conversation. In “one party record” states, you can record anything you would have been able to hear, as long as you use the recording only for your personal use (unless someone confesses to a crime in the recording, then it can be evidence in court). Clarice and Toni knew Raf could be right around the corner, that he might hear.
(I am not a lawyer, that’s my understanding of the law.)
for the record, a few states have “single party intercept” laws which allow anyone for any reason to record a conversation as long as one party to the conversation consents. it doesn’t matter what the recording is for, as long as one party consents to its release it is no longer protected as private. (logic — answering machines)
Idaho is one, and New Hampshire allows it provided the officer gets authorization within 72 hours from the AGs office or designated official.
Here is the url for title nine clothing company
http://www.titlenine.com/jump.jsp?itemID=0&itemType=HOME_PAGE
I’m not certain that little swirly is a title nine reference…but, I really like their catalog.
Don’t spend all your money on clothing, save some for art.
Can’t resist saying that this strip takes me back to the mousepad I mentioned (‘I think it’s cat fur in your floppy drive’ or something like that) in the comments to the last strip with the cats. It’s Mac/Apple updated ten years later. ¡Que viva! And, interesting that the Apple logo hasn’t morphed into something else. (A Mac user for ever)
Who will be the first to see the clip?
Ginger or Sydney doing on-line research for academia?
Lois, perhaps? Lois always sniffs out interesting gossip.
A question comes up about Ginger: will Ginger and Clarice get back together? If things are on Haitus/confusion with Samia, could they * BOTH * be available at the same time?
Would Ginger and Clarice find each other attractive is each as available?
Why are things with Ginger confusing…first with Jasmin, now with Samia.
Stay tuned for more next week. I want to know what happens to the characters (whine). The political cartoons make us have to wait a WHOLE MONTH before getting the next installment (I can whine, my usename is Mo’s Me).
Yo diptards! (in the most loving way possible)
Remember having girls over and your parents noticing things getting quiet? (!)Raffi and Stella just might have a burgeoning passion in their near future. Oh quiet times, quiet times. How I miss them. Plus, I suspect some sort of grand upheval of might be on the rise, unless episode 500 turns out to be mainly celebratory. Which would be completely wonderful and appropriate too. Having very recently discovered DTWOF via a 1983 book called “Dyke Strippers” (one year older than myself!) it is amazing and inspiring to be able to immerse myself into Alison’s skillfully humorous and poignant world, which is really just another window onto our own world.
Bravo!
a different Emma….my point exactly!!!!! I’m a mom. Quiet unrelated teens leads directly to Mom checking in casually to see if you need some snacks for your study break :).
Devious??? Me???? Never….just in no hurry to be a grandmother.
Why are things with Ginger confusing…first with Jasmin, now with Samia.
Because Ginger likes the idea of a relationship; she doesn’t atually like relationships. If she were more relaxed she’d probably be poly, with her lovers living in different cities and lots of hot ‘phone calls.
yikes – danger. but i can’t help wondering – wouldn’t toni and clarice have confiscated the camera when they caught Raffi taping them?
Nope, Julie, Toni and Clarice’s response to Raffi’s camera work will be just like our national response to terrorist attacks–locking the corral *after* the horses have bolted.
I think that this will be used by marriage foes to destroy Freedom to Marry efforts in DTWOF land. I believe that it will be all over the news… can you see it too?
“If she were more relaxed she’d probably be poly, with her lovers living in different cities and lots of hot ‘phone calls.” — But that would require such a thing as open discussion of polyamory in DTWOF………