Dumbing of Age

Last updated
Dumbing of Age
Dumbingofagecomic1.png
Author(s) David Willis
Website dumbingofage.com
Current status/scheduleUpdates daily
Launch dateSeptember 10, 2010
Genre(s)
  • Drama
  • Slice of life
  • Comedy

Dumbing of Age is a webcomic about college life at Indiana University by cartoonist David Willis with themes involving drama or comedy, occasionally with a mixture of both. The series itself is a reboot reusing characters from Willis' previous comics (Roomies!, It's Walky!, Joyce and Walky!, and Shortpacked!). [1] [2] While Willis' previous webcomics shared a science-fiction universe, Dumbing of Age is independent of these, reflecting more slice-of-life than the previous works. [3] The comic is generally set in the present day, yet not set in any particular year due to the glacial pacing (Every in-universe day takes around 1-2 months of daily comics), current technologies are depicted in-comic anachronistically so the comic is not a period piece. [4] Willis has reported Dumbing of Age to be his most popular webcomic, with a readership around three times that of Shortpacked!. [5]

Contents

Plot and themes

The story follows a large ensemble cast, most of which are Indiana University first-years living in the same co-ed dorm. [4] There are themes of parental abuse, depression, attempted suicide, sexual assault, [6] and some instance of homophobia and transphobia.

Characters

Publication

David Willis announced at AnimeFest 2010 that his newest project is titled Dumbing of Age, a return to the setting of the original Roomies! comic, Indiana University, with both old characters from Roomies!, It's Walky!, and Shortpacked! as well as new characters created for Dumbing of Age. [11] [12] Writer and researcher Sean Kleefeld later noted that Willis set the comic in college so he could "work out his personal demons" and to connect with a bigger audience, even though, as Kleefeld puts it, "the characters remained fundamentally the same." [13]

On September 18, 2020, Willis announced that he would be drawing a Patreon-only comic based on the in-universe Dexter and the Monkey Master comics. [14]

Influences

In an interview with The Mary Sue , Willis said that he based Joyce and her family on his own upbringing, with his parents reading the "early 1980s equivalent of Fox News ," removing everything that she thought would "corrupt" him, like Scooby-Doo , Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears , Care Bears, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood , and The Simpsons , with his family attending a "nondenominational fundamentalist Protestant church." [9] Apart from that, he stated that he passively listened to others, following "wonderful people" on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook, hearing what they have to say, and trying to find empathy with others, even if he makes himself "a little uncomfortable" and confronts his white privilege, even revising "false information" at times. [9]

Reception

The comic has been received somewhat positively. Some said that the "sharp changes between humour and seriousness" are a trademark for the comic, [15] while others have called it interesting and enjoyable, even if it is a source of frustration to see "characters in a different setting." [16] Maggie Vicknair of Comics Beat stated while it would not be possible to accurately summarize every plot moment in the comic, each chapter "revolves around one day and jumps between different characters’ adjacent plot lines," with stories range in their subject and tone, even as they are all in the same universe, along with many "interconnected romance plots." [17] Tom Speelman of ComicsAlliance called it one of "the best original ongoing comics being published today," with the characters learning about "life's ups and downs and that adulthood isn't easy," and called it Willis' magnum opus, saying it has "emotionally true storytelling." [18] He further said that the comic has a "crack sense of humor" and said that anyone coming into college, in college, or in high school should read it, along with those who like his previous works or other webcomics like Questionable Content , Girls With Slingshots or R. K. Milholland's Something Positive.

References

  1. Inglis-Arkell, Esther (September 20, 2010). "'Roomies' Webcomic Creator Heads Back to College in 'Dumbing of Age'". ComicsAlliance . Archived from the original on January 24, 2011. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  2. Hanson, Ralph E. (2016). Mass Communication: Living in a Media World (Sixth ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. p. 556. ISBN   9781506358567.
  3. Willis, David (March 18, 2013). "At the beginning of Dumbing of Age I did a very..." Tumblr . Archived from the original on March 13, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  4. 1 2 Willis, David (2020). "About". Official website of Dumbing of Age. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  5. Willis, David (March 17, 2015). "How popular (in terms of pageviews) have each of your webcomics been?". Tumblr . Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Dunstan, Elliott (March 24, 2017). "Review: 'Dumbing of Age' Book One: This Campus Is A Friggin' Escher Print". Monkeys Fighting Robots. Archived from the original on January 5, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Dunstan, Elliott (March 30, 2017). "Review: 'Dumbing of Age' Book Two: The Cragged Shame Pits of the Lustwolves". Monkeys Fighting Robots. Archived from the original on January 5, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  8. 1 2 Sando, Joe (August 12, 2014). "A Deadshirt Webcomics Field Guide to: David Willis' Dumbing of Age". Deadshirt.net. Archived from the original on November 27, 2015. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  9. 1 2 3 Willis, David (November 4, 2015). "Webcomic Spotlight: An Interview with David Willis, Creator of Dumbing of Age and Shortpacked". The Mary Sue (Interview). Interviewed by Alex Townsend. Archived from the original on July 6, 2017. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
  10. "This is totally babies". July 2015.
  11. DeLuna, John (2010). "Shortpacked! Panel - AnimeFest 2010". Vimeo . Archived from the original on September 14, 2010. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  12. Willis, David (2020). "Dumbing of Age - A college webcomic by David Willis". Official website of Dumbing of Age. Archived from the original on January 2, 2021. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  13. Kleefeld, Sean (2020). Webcomics. London, England: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 159–160. ISBN   978-1350028197.
  14. Willis, David (September 18, 2020). "Story". Official website of Dumbing of Age. Archived from the original on November 18, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  15. Dunstan, Elliott (April 28, 2017). "Review: 'Dumbing of Age' Book Four: Amazi-Girl is Always Prepared For Anything". Monkeys Fighting Robots. Archived from the original on January 5, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  16. Baden, Robert J. (November 28, 2012). "World of Webcomics: 'Dumbing of Age'". Fanbase Press. Archived from the original on September 29, 2020. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  17. Vicknair, Maggie (November 30, 2016). "Webcomics in Review: Dumbing of Age – Changing for the Better". Comics Beat . Archived from the original on May 18, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  18. Speelman, Tom (March 10, 2016). "College, Everyone: Should You Be Reading 'Dumbing of Age'?". ComicsAlliance . Archived from the original on September 29, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2021.