It’s hard to miss the overall tone of the comments. But just because a character is unpopular doesn’t mean he should write her any differently. He obviously created a character to get under people’s skin, and he’s succeeding.
I kind of see the new We Hate Roz fanclub as vindication for the cartoonist here. After all,he has managed to make a cartoon character with such a genuine people personality that his readers have an emotional reaction.
Perhaps David Willis is secretly a time traveller from the future who used to work for the marketing division of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation! =p
But also, I Gotta say dude, I think you’re actually missing the tone of the comments. No-one here is saying “We hate Roz – how dare you Willis! Please write her differently!” It’s more “We Hate Roz – What will happen next? Will she get her comeuppance? I can’t wait to read more!”
I think you are confusing opinions of a character within a work with opinions of the work itself.
Jeez. Comeuppance was SO an inappropriate word to use in this context…
The biggest reward for any cartoonist, author, writer, whatever is to generate reaction to a character. Hate, love, whatever, as long as theyre strong enough to be noticed, we’ve done our jobs.
I’m pretty sure he actively encourages them. Her first appearance seemed to imply that Robin was crazy for disliking her and Roz was a saner, cooler Robin, but every appearance since, her character flaws have become more and more evident. It’s kind of deliberate writing.
“Seinfeld” ran for so long, and covered so many topics, that the likelyhood of a comedian accidentally ripping off jokes from it steadily approaches 1:1 if the comedian has a shelf life worth mentioning.
Man, Roz. That’s like handing a drunk alcoholic a sack filled with vodka bottles and saying “Here, since you’re already off the wagon, have more vodka” just because you get some sick perversion from watching them sink further away from their goals. Only in this case, Roz wants sex with him and doesn’t care how much he’s actually hurting himself in the process. This is a serious addiction. She doesn’t care about people but herself, does she?
lol, downer comment is a downer. But that’s what my reaction was when seeing her actions. Maybe I’m overstating it a bit. I actually probably am. But daaaang, that is such a dick move (no pun intended).
It’s not so much that she doesn’t care if she hurts him, as that she doesn’t believe that it would hurt him. She’s already established that she doesn’t think sex addiction is a real problem, just an excuse.
I’m not defending Roz here. She’s a self-centered douche.
I think Roz is on the cusp of learning a valuable lesson here. Sure, she’ll get her wish and bang Jacob, but once it’s over and he still looks like a miserable sack of crap, maybe she’ll actually start to take the idea of sex addiction seriously. Right now she thinks it’s just a lie and that sex is awesome no matter how it’s done, but that doesn’t look like a man who’s feeling very awesome. does it?
“So, you don’t believe in Asperger’s, but you believe in Autism.”
“Yes.”
“So then according to you, I just have plain old Autism.”
“No.”
“But you just said you don’t believe in Asperger’s, but you believe in Autism, and Asperger’s is defined as part of the Autistic Spectrum. So I just have Autism.”
“No you don’t. You told me you had Asperger’s.”
I genuinely don’t believe in “Asperger’s” — the way it’s currently defined is way, way, wayyyyy too vague for real psychological classification. People may have something going on, but I’d be more tempted to call it acute social anxiety than to name it after some guy as if it were a dread disease. Of course, I also think that people who self-diagnose themselves with Asperger’s are unaware that there is no magic bullet: everyone feels awkward around other people, especially NEW other people, especially ATTRACTIVE new other people, and since the only way to help any kind of phobia is through careful but repeated exposure, I personally worry that telling people they have an illness is going to instead convince them that they shouldn’t even try.
Additionally: while we’re quoting real conversations that have annoyed us? I’ve had people with “Asperger’s” tell me that it’s wrong to try and find a cure for autism because there’s nothing wrong with it! I should respect and admire people with all forms of autism because it’s liberating. It makes them deep, because they don’t have to worry about communicating with other people.
I can only imagine that these “Asperger’s” sufferers (who, by the way, resent being told they “suffer” from anything — another reason not to call this a DISEASE, even people who think they have it think it’s awesome and instead want to march in an Aspie Pride Parade) have never, EVER seen real autism, which does range in severity but can be extremely crippling.
So, no. You do not have autism. You are not like the girl in my eighth grade class who was literally incapable of speech and had to communicate through an interpreter who had to help her press the buttons on a keyboard that spelled out letters in a Stephen-Hawkingish voice. That girl needed assistance using the bathroom, stared up at the ceiling at a fixed angle, occasionally made guttural sounds or a sort of giggle but was otherwise completely cut off from the world, including her own family. She was smart, which Asperger’s “sufferers” love to claim, but it would have done her no good at all without that interpreter, and you know what? It was really hard to tell whether she was ever talking at all; maybe it was all the interpreter.
You are not like that girl. You do not want to be like that girl. You have social anxiety and could maybe use some therapy but mostly you need practice with dealing with other people face to face. You don’t need an interpreter in the classroom or caretakers at home or assistance getting dressed and using the bathroom. Compared to someone with autism, you have no problems at all.
So. There you go. Some food for your thinking process. Whether you want to call Asperger’s a disease or not — and again, it’ll need a much better classification, medically, in the DSM, to be a useful diagnosis for anyone — you do NOT have autism. Don’t equate yourself with autistic people. I don’t care if you think there’s “some” relationship, that relationship is NOT x = y.
Yes, some people really like to say they have Asperger’s because it excuses them from having to learn and interact and it’s an easy cop out, but don’t let those kinds of folks blind you to the people who actually have a problem.
I can’t say I’m surprised when people say that Asperger’s is not a type of Autism, especially if their interactions with Asperger’s is limited to adults who have more or less adjusted to life with the condition.
As a ninth grade teacher who has dealt with Autistic students who are diagnosed as high-functioning Autistics with Asperger’s and those on the opposite end of the Autistic Spectrum, I can safely say that it definitely is a form of Autism, at least from the teaching perspective.
It’s ninth grade English – I have socially anxious and awkward kids in spades. There is a HUGE difference between Asperger’s kids and those that are suffering from mild social anxiety. Sure, as a teacher I can get the end result of their work to be indistinguishable from other students, but you have to take a whole different method to get them there. They might not need an aide 24/7, but that’s the whole reason they are on the “high-end” of the Autism Spectrum. To disregard them as people who suffer from Autism would be like saying someone who has had both legs amputated but runs in the Paralympics “not disabled”. They might be able to compete at the same level as everyone else (maybe higher) but that doesn’t change the fact that they still have had to overcome a challenge that the average person has not had to face.
and then there are those who do have asbergers and don’t tell anyone because everyone considers it an excuse that people make up.
I don’t relish the fact that I have an autistic spectrum disorder but it does give me confidence when I do feel awkward and I overcome it.
I KNOW I hate her more than Faz. Faz is endearing in a way that reminds us that while men are from Mars and women are from Venus, some people are just plain from that planet that turned into the asteroid belt; fragmented beyond recognition, applying the rules of existance very differently, and not even in the same demographic or classification as the others.
Roz is just Robin with the adorableness turned off. And a worse haircut. And glasses for old ladies that mack on cub scouts running charity bingo.
I… don’t see the similarities going that far. And it’s pretty easy to compare them since Robin had a storyline like this in Its!Walky, except replace sex with romance and Jacob with Joe. To a certain point, they share a reaction, but I think that saying they’re almost exactly alike is *really* pushing it.
Am I the only one who thought that Roz was wearing some kind of weird hat for the longest time before finally realizing that it was just her hair all along?
Hell, it still kind of looks like a weird hat to me, even now. It’s difficult to unsee it as a weird hat.
I’m going to move away from the Roz-bashing–though she does deserve it–and use this opportunity to say that I LOVE her facial expression in panel two. She’s clearly putting two and two together and coming up with fnarg.
I’m going to laugh so hard if Jacob turns down Roz, despite being off the wagon.
I swear though, Roz… aside from making me dislike her more than ever, she’s coming off as REALLY desperate too. I guess perhaps Jacob’s previous rejection note was too much for her fragile ego to handle.
I think I hate Roz less after this comic. Why I have no clue, although I din’t really hate her in the first place. More like I was slightly annoyed with her. Now though I just really don’t care. Maybe I hate Jacob and don’t know it. O.o
Before this strip, most of my Roz dislike was from mere irritation and the knowledge if I had a sister like her I’d hate her. Plus laughing at Jacob etc was bad.
The kitty thing while irreponsible… seemed sort of nice. Sort of.
Now she has a chance of messing Jacob around even further has pushed me into full blown hating.
He thought it might be Amber again.
Incidentally, my new theory is that Robin was a virgin pre-Leslie because every time she tried to have a relationship Roz fucked Robin’s object of affection.
Oh if only Amber knew… the wagon is what takes you to be hanged for your crimes. Barkeepers would offer the condemned a drink, but the men accompanying him would say he’s “on the wagon” so he wasn’t allowed a drink.
Actually, that’s a fairly common misconception. The phrase actually originated from men who had signed the “Temperance Pledge” saying that they would rather take a drink from the ‘water-wagon’ that cleaned the streets than take another drink of alcohol again.
Umm… correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t she the one who was trying to get him OFF the wagon to begin with… And then laughed in his face when he told her no because of his addiction?
It just seems that considering how completely insensitive she was to him, and didn’t seem to give a damn about how he felt, and the fact the only time she seems to do something nice for someone else, is only if she gets something out of it return (i.e. the cat for Leslie so she doesn’t get thrown out of the house)… well, it just seems like a stretch to me.
I mean, he made it clear to her at the time how he felt, and she mocked him for it.
But hey, as unlikely as it sounds to me, I can’t say Willis wouldn’t pull a twist like that to throw us off balance. So, we’ll see.
Oh wow, a character with a personality flaw? How dare you Willis? How dare you create believable characters with more than one dimension? We, as your readers, demand that everyone be either absolutely perfect, open-minded and morally upright individuals or seedy douchebags for whom every action is actually an attempt to deliberately destroy the lives of everyone around them.
That’s what the commentors sound like.
Seriously, so Roz has trouble believing in sex addiction. When we know her father slept around and broke his wife’s heart repeatedly. We already know this. Sure, what Roz is doing is wrong, but maybe she’ll learn from it? We already know she is aware of the effects her actions have on others. It’s called character development.
Disliking/hating a character isn’t a sign that the character is written poorly or that people want their characters to be one-dimensional. And knowing where a character is coming from also doesn’t make the character likable. All of the Shortpacked! characters have personality flaws. People who follow it are clearly not the ‘black and white or nothing!’ types. What’s bothering you so much that you need to cast the *commentors* in black and white in defense of a character that’s not well-liked? Like her or not. Why does it matter?
Except she doesn’t seem to go through any character development. This doesn’t make her less well written, because many people are ignorant like that in real life. It’s just actually hard to pull off in a story. But just like in real life, we don’t have to like it.
Do a role reversal. There’s a woman who can’t stop having sex no matter how hard she tries. A guy tries to make a move on her, she’s attracted but says no. He won’t back down and mocks her addiction. Later, she falls off the wagon and is at a low point after she has been gang banged. The first guy decides this is his turn, taking advantage of her weakened, shamed state. We’d all hate him and call him an asshole, right?
I think what he’s getting at is that Roz’s actions, as much as we hate her for them, are being played for humor, and that we’d be even more pissed at Roz if she was a guy and decide there was no possibility she was even a somewhat decent person somewhere deep down inside. Moreover, we’d hate Willis if it played out the same way because he expects us to laugh at such an atrocious action.
I for one agree with his point, but personally wouldn’t react as he fears many people might.
I’m of the opinion that there is no such thing as “sex addiction.” Remember when that debate raged on these very forums? Being addicted to sex is like saying you’re addicted to air or water or protein.
“wah wah, I like sex too much, I’m a monster…wah wah wah…..seeeecccckkkkksss!”
While I would be the first to deride the way sex addiction has been talked about in the news (the South Park episode was pretty much spot-on), there is such a thing as psychological addiction, and it can tie to any of a number of stimuli, including sex, gambling and ye olde interenete.
It’s a twofold syndrome; in addition to the compulsion aspect, you also usually suffer from depression and other psychological symptoms as soon as you ‘come down’ off the most recent high. This, in turn, drives you to go back to the behavior as quickly as possible.
I think they’re in Amber’s apartment across the hall from Jacob’s. No superpowers involved (except for said reverse cowgirl style… someone get on that fanart by the way pleeze k thx bai)
Everything else i wanted to say has been said, but surely the cam whore sneaking off after hearing about Jacob being a sex addict? They know Roz is slimy, and at least Robin and Amber know that Roz has expressed interest in Jacob.
That combination of events should have the alarm bells ringing.
I’m a little surprised no one has brought this up (at least not in THIS thread) but it looks more like Roz has some real self-esteem issues coming through on this. I know most everyone sees her as a smiling female version of Mike, but consider this: maybe she just wants the sex. Maybe she’s turned people off so much that she has to turn to a sex addict to make out with her. She might have so little faith in her own sex appeal or even the ability to be liked that this is her chance to score something for herself.
I think she’s pretty much in denial of her own sex addiction. I’ve never hated her as much as everyone else, but this is the first time I’ve seen something like character development out of her.
I kind of doubt that Roz has much issue with believing she has sex appeal – she earns her living pretty much by having sex appeal, after all – but I could certainly believe that she has doubts about being likable. Because she’s a cam whore, her self-confidence seems to be very… mercenary, I guess. She doesn’t really know how to go about building a real emotional connection because she’s so used to building fake connections to get what she wants.
I love Roz’s face in the second panel. I don’t hate her either – sure, she’s a complete brat, but she’s at least up front about it. I hate Faz because he’s a slimy creep. I don’t hate Roz. (Jacob looks completely unsurprised that she’s there…)
You know, it looks like Jacob did have sex with Amber’s mom…Its ganna be inevitable that Amber finds out. As Mike so loves to say, will Jacob say, “I fucked your mom” for real?
And how would Mike respond? Punch, high five or laugh?
Because she knows about his sex addiction and is going after him anyway, and her fight over him with Conquest is probably the main thing that pushed him off the wagon in the first place. The girls from yesterday probably didn’t know anything except that he’s a hot guy who wants to have sex with them; sure, they were slutty, but they weren’t *malicious*.
Yeah, its kinda hard to like someone who doesn’t seem to take the feelings of another person into account when it comes to pursuing a sexual relationship with them. Roz didn’t take “no” for an answer when Jacob originally turned her down for sex after all. Its not like the Gen-13 girls had forced themselves on Jacob, like Roz had tried to do.
Once again, Willis, you’ve done a great job of making a nice complex character who were love to hate.
The only thing that would make this more messed up, is if Mike showed up and rescued Jacob from Roz. Of course that could segue into Mike fucking Amber’s Mom, who I predict is still in Jacob’s room somewhere.
Well, I was thinking what would be more messed up is if Mike rescued Jacob from Roz, only to have sex with Jacob himself after its revealed Mike ALREADY fucked Amber’s mom, while Jacob was with the trio of girls.
What would be the point of storytelling, if we never have characters who we hate and who provoke the main characters by being complete jerks and tools? Roz is a somewhat necessary evil, because she caused mischief and controversy in the story. She’s not a character I want to see all the time, but when she does, it can have some interesting results.
Seeing this Leslie & Professor Leslie in the same day is kind of a strange feeling.
For some reason it never occurred to me we’d see the same people in different universes on the same day. It’ll only get stranger as we meet more Shortpacked! peeps in college too. Unless Mr. David deliberately avoids having the focus on the same person. Hm.
I’ve been to certain sites that are about that stuff. Sometimes they girls are just on for a talk with their fans (for lack of better term), awaiting tips for a quick flash or something.
I find it interesting that Jacob opened the door for Roz but not Amber. Looks like he has more self control then he thought. Although, I guess he was bangin the first time.
Aaaaaaaaaaand this is why the fandom shall forever hate Roz.
Love. Forever love.
Nah, definitely hate
Be apathetic towards, perhaps?
Despise. Beyond all logical reason.
Fuck that, Roz is hilarious.
God damn it, Roz.
Maybe she’ll wear him out to the point he has a miraculous recovery or something.
Oh sex with Jacob will wear her out and ruins also ruin sex for Roz, FOREVER.
… allowing them both the opportunity to go gay. WILLIS YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD, I READ YOUR BOOK(S)!
Leave it to Roz to seize an opportunity. o_O
Seizing the opportunity with both hands, no less…
“An opportunity”, huh? That’s what the kids are callin’ it these days…
Wonder how aware Willis is about fans’ opinion of Roz…
Well, she’s not as bad as Faz. Somethign about 3 letter names.
OHEY another Rangerboard guy! =D
…Ummm….Hi?
We are everywhere. This is internet.
It’s hard to miss the overall tone of the comments. But just because a character is unpopular doesn’t mean he should write her any differently. He obviously created a character to get under people’s skin, and he’s succeeding.
I kind of see the new We Hate Roz fanclub as vindication for the cartoonist here. After all,he has managed to make a cartoon character with such a genuine people personality that his readers have an emotional reaction.
Perhaps David Willis is secretly a time traveller from the future who used to work for the marketing division of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation! =p
you gotta love doug adams!
Or, rather, be not entirely unfond of him.
Yeah, what Rurl said.
But also, I Gotta say dude, I think you’re actually missing the tone of the comments. No-one here is saying “We hate Roz – how dare you Willis! Please write her differently!” It’s more “We Hate Roz – What will happen next? Will she get her comeuppance? I can’t wait to read more!”
I think you are confusing opinions of a character within a work with opinions of the work itself.
Jeez. Comeuppance was SO an inappropriate word to use in this context…
In my experience there’s a little of both.
The biggest reward for any cartoonist, author, writer, whatever is to generate reaction to a character. Hate, love, whatever, as long as theyre strong enough to be noticed, we’ve done our jobs.
Are you kidding? He’s gotta be loving every minute of it. As much as I hate Roz, I gotta give Willis props for being so good at making me hate her.
I’m pretty sure he actively encourages them. Her first appearance seemed to imply that Robin was crazy for disliking her and Roz was a saner, cooler Robin, but every appearance since, her character flaws have become more and more evident. It’s kind of deliberate writing.
falling back on Seinfeld jokes
Supprised no-one else brought this up! It wasn’t even that great of a Seinfeld joke to begin with.
Oh well, i supposed every comedian will eventually get to the ‘ripping off Seinfeld stage’ at least once in their life
“Seinfeld” ran for so long, and covered so many topics, that the likelyhood of a comedian accidentally ripping off jokes from it steadily approaches 1:1 if the comedian has a shelf life worth mentioning.
You ripped this post off from an episode of South Park!
I officially do not like herl.
Man, Roz. That’s like handing a drunk alcoholic a sack filled with vodka bottles and saying “Here, since you’re already off the wagon, have more vodka” just because you get some sick perversion from watching them sink further away from their goals. Only in this case, Roz wants sex with him and doesn’t care how much he’s actually hurting himself in the process. This is a serious addiction. She doesn’t care about people but herself, does she?
lol, downer comment is a downer. But that’s what my reaction was when seeing her actions. Maybe I’m overstating it a bit. I actually probably am. But daaaang, that is such a dick move (no pun intended).
It’s not so much that she doesn’t care if she hurts him, as that she doesn’t believe that it would hurt him. She’s already established that she doesn’t think sex addiction is a real problem, just an excuse.
I’m not defending Roz here. She’s a self-centered douche.
Do I smell a potential Pregnancy scare? .o.
Oh, I hope so. That would be delicious.
Well, they do say you have to hit Roz bottom before you can recover.
*Gives Dave a high-five*
Just as soon as she finishes climbing Jacob’s Ladder.
Am I the only one who has the sneaking suspicion that Jacob is going to ultimately be responsible for curing Roz of her own unhealthy addiction?
Nope! I was going to make a similar comment but I decided to agree with yours instead.
Roz? The kitty is NOT cute enough to make up for this….. especially if she’s taking after her
…did I do that link right? >.> http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/archive.php?comic=1032 <-text version if I didn't….
Nope, you broke it.
MAN do I hate Roz.
I think Roz is on the cusp of learning a valuable lesson here. Sure, she’ll get her wish and bang Jacob, but once it’s over and he still looks like a miserable sack of crap, maybe she’ll actually start to take the idea of sex addiction seriously. Right now she thinks it’s just a lie and that sex is awesome no matter how it’s done, but that doesn’t look like a man who’s feeling very awesome. does it?
Roz reminds me of those people that say Asperger’s isn’t real, but autism is and it’s FUCKING SACRED.
Geez, Bryy! Are there really people who say that? That’s f*cked up!
Trying to talk to those types is insane.
“So, you don’t believe in Asperger’s, but you believe in Autism.”
“Yes.”
“So then according to you, I just have plain old Autism.”
“No.”
“But you just said you don’t believe in Asperger’s, but you believe in Autism, and Asperger’s is defined as part of the Autistic Spectrum. So I just have Autism.”
“No you don’t. You told me you had Asperger’s.”
This conversation actually happened.
I genuinely don’t believe in “Asperger’s” — the way it’s currently defined is way, way, wayyyyy too vague for real psychological classification. People may have something going on, but I’d be more tempted to call it acute social anxiety than to name it after some guy as if it were a dread disease. Of course, I also think that people who self-diagnose themselves with Asperger’s are unaware that there is no magic bullet: everyone feels awkward around other people, especially NEW other people, especially ATTRACTIVE new other people, and since the only way to help any kind of phobia is through careful but repeated exposure, I personally worry that telling people they have an illness is going to instead convince them that they shouldn’t even try.
Additionally: while we’re quoting real conversations that have annoyed us? I’ve had people with “Asperger’s” tell me that it’s wrong to try and find a cure for autism because there’s nothing wrong with it! I should respect and admire people with all forms of autism because it’s liberating. It makes them deep, because they don’t have to worry about communicating with other people.
I can only imagine that these “Asperger’s” sufferers (who, by the way, resent being told they “suffer” from anything — another reason not to call this a DISEASE, even people who think they have it think it’s awesome and instead want to march in an Aspie Pride Parade) have never, EVER seen real autism, which does range in severity but can be extremely crippling.
So, no. You do not have autism. You are not like the girl in my eighth grade class who was literally incapable of speech and had to communicate through an interpreter who had to help her press the buttons on a keyboard that spelled out letters in a Stephen-Hawkingish voice. That girl needed assistance using the bathroom, stared up at the ceiling at a fixed angle, occasionally made guttural sounds or a sort of giggle but was otherwise completely cut off from the world, including her own family. She was smart, which Asperger’s “sufferers” love to claim, but it would have done her no good at all without that interpreter, and you know what? It was really hard to tell whether she was ever talking at all; maybe it was all the interpreter.
You are not like that girl. You do not want to be like that girl. You have social anxiety and could maybe use some therapy but mostly you need practice with dealing with other people face to face. You don’t need an interpreter in the classroom or caretakers at home or assistance getting dressed and using the bathroom. Compared to someone with autism, you have no problems at all.
So. There you go. Some food for your thinking process. Whether you want to call Asperger’s a disease or not — and again, it’ll need a much better classification, medically, in the DSM, to be a useful diagnosis for anyone — you do NOT have autism. Don’t equate yourself with autistic people. I don’t care if you think there’s “some” relationship, that relationship is NOT x = y.
Li, I strongly recommend you read “Look Me in the Eye”: http://amzn.com/0307396185
Yes, some people really like to say they have Asperger’s because it excuses them from having to learn and interact and it’s an easy cop out, but don’t let those kinds of folks blind you to the people who actually have a problem.
I can’t say I’m surprised when people say that Asperger’s is not a type of Autism, especially if their interactions with Asperger’s is limited to adults who have more or less adjusted to life with the condition.
As a ninth grade teacher who has dealt with Autistic students who are diagnosed as high-functioning Autistics with Asperger’s and those on the opposite end of the Autistic Spectrum, I can safely say that it definitely is a form of Autism, at least from the teaching perspective.
It’s ninth grade English – I have socially anxious and awkward kids in spades. There is a HUGE difference between Asperger’s kids and those that are suffering from mild social anxiety. Sure, as a teacher I can get the end result of their work to be indistinguishable from other students, but you have to take a whole different method to get them there. They might not need an aide 24/7, but that’s the whole reason they are on the “high-end” of the Autism Spectrum. To disregard them as people who suffer from Autism would be like saying someone who has had both legs amputated but runs in the Paralympics “not disabled”. They might be able to compete at the same level as everyone else (maybe higher) but that doesn’t change the fact that they still have had to overcome a challenge that the average person has not had to face.
and then there are those who do have asbergers and don’t tell anyone because everyone considers it an excuse that people make up.
I don’t relish the fact that I have an autistic spectrum disorder but it does give me confidence when I do feel awkward and I overcome it.
If so, it’ll be the first time anybody in Shortpacked! learned a valuable lesson.
I think I hate her even more than Faz.
I KNOW I hate her more than Faz. Faz is endearing in a way that reminds us that while men are from Mars and women are from Venus, some people are just plain from that planet that turned into the asteroid belt; fragmented beyond recognition, applying the rules of existance very differently, and not even in the same demographic or classification as the others.
Roz is just Robin with the adorableness turned off. And a worse haircut. And glasses for old ladies that mack on cub scouts running charity bingo.
I… don’t see the similarities going that far. And it’s pretty easy to compare them since Robin had a storyline like this in Its!Walky, except replace sex with romance and Jacob with Joe. To a certain point, they share a reaction, but I think that saying they’re almost exactly alike is *really* pushing it.
And a worse haircut.
Am I the only one who thought that Roz was wearing some kind of weird hat for the longest time before finally realizing that it was just her hair all along?
Hell, it still kind of looks like a weird hat to me, even now. It’s difficult to unsee it as a weird hat.
I’m going to move away from the Roz-bashing–though she does deserve it–and use this opportunity to say that I LOVE her facial expression in panel two. She’s clearly putting two and two together and coming up with fnarg.
And Jacob’s reaction in panel four is priceless.
I did like Roz a little bit… but now I fucking hate her. Good job Willis.
I’m actually kind of curious what Willis’s personal experience with people who have sex addiction is.
I’m going to laugh so hard if Jacob turns down Roz, despite being off the wagon.
I swear though, Roz… aside from making me dislike her more than ever, she’s coming off as REALLY desperate too. I guess perhaps Jacob’s previous rejection note was too much for her fragile ego to handle.
“I’m going to laugh so hard if Jacob turns down Roz, despite being off the wagon.”
That would be AWESOME.
I think I hate Roz less after this comic. Why I have no clue, although I din’t really hate her in the first place. More like I was slightly annoyed with her. Now though I just really don’t care. Maybe I hate Jacob and don’t know it. O.o
Same here.
Before this strip, most of my Roz dislike was from mere irritation and the knowledge if I had a sister like her I’d hate her. Plus laughing at Jacob etc was bad.
The kitty thing while irreponsible… seemed sort of nice. Sort of.
Now she has a chance of messing Jacob around even further has pushed me into full blown hating.
See, but I’m not hating on Roz even after this comic. I think I hate her LESS now…
-facepalm-
I can’t believe I failed so hard at reading. Doh.
Thats is way low… even for Roz
Why did he open the door?
He thought it might be Amber again.
Incidentally, my new theory is that Robin was a virgin pre-Leslie because every time she tried to have a relationship Roz fucked Robin’s object of affection.
Except we already know she was distracted by donuts on prom night, lost Joe to Rachel, and simply couldn’t find Greg Killmaster.
So she’s alive after all. And about to start another flamewar between armchair psychiatrists.
I feed off of the flamewar posts in Willis’ forums.
I initially read “wagon” to mean “Amber’s mom”. Hilarious!
Oh if only Amber knew… the wagon is what takes you to be hanged for your crimes. Barkeepers would offer the condemned a drink, but the men accompanying him would say he’s “on the wagon” so he wasn’t allowed a drink.
So if he fell off the wagon could he have a drink then? XD
Actually, that’s a fairly common misconception. The phrase actually originated from men who had signed the “Temperance Pledge” saying that they would rather take a drink from the ‘water-wagon’ that cleaned the streets than take another drink of alcohol again.
More info can be found here: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/on-the-wagon.html
Hey! Now the door opens inwards! What’s going on here?
Perhaps Jacob’s door swings both ways? ::laugh::
I see what you did thar.
Does no one else want to give Roz a bit of credit? Maybe she has a plan to, y’know, get Jacob back _on_ the wagon?
Seriously, that was my first thought. I’ve never seen her as heartless.
Umm… correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t she the one who was trying to get him OFF the wagon to begin with… And then laughed in his face when he told her no because of his addiction?
Yeah, but if Roz has realised how much it means to the rest of the gang, she may take measures…
There’s a good chance she’ll try something stupid like tie him up, so he can’t have sex.
I’ll be very surprised if your right.
It just seems that considering how completely insensitive she was to him, and didn’t seem to give a damn about how he felt, and the fact the only time she seems to do something nice for someone else, is only if she gets something out of it return (i.e. the cat for Leslie so she doesn’t get thrown out of the house)… well, it just seems like a stretch to me.
I mean, he made it clear to her at the time how he felt, and she mocked him for it.
But hey, as unlikely as it sounds to me, I can’t say Willis wouldn’t pull a twist like that to throw us off balance. So, we’ll see.
Oh wow, a character with a personality flaw? How dare you Willis? How dare you create believable characters with more than one dimension? We, as your readers, demand that everyone be either absolutely perfect, open-minded and morally upright individuals or seedy douchebags for whom every action is actually an attempt to deliberately destroy the lives of everyone around them.
That’s what the commentors sound like.
Seriously, so Roz has trouble believing in sex addiction. When we know her father slept around and broke his wife’s heart repeatedly. We already know this. Sure, what Roz is doing is wrong, but maybe she’ll learn from it? We already know she is aware of the effects her actions have on others. It’s called character development.
Disliking/hating a character isn’t a sign that the character is written poorly or that people want their characters to be one-dimensional. And knowing where a character is coming from also doesn’t make the character likable. All of the Shortpacked! characters have personality flaws. People who follow it are clearly not the ‘black and white or nothing!’ types. What’s bothering you so much that you need to cast the *commentors* in black and white in defense of a character that’s not well-liked? Like her or not. Why does it matter?
Except she doesn’t seem to go through any character development. This doesn’t make her less well written, because many people are ignorant like that in real life. It’s just actually hard to pull off in a story. But just like in real life, we don’t have to like it.
…and how long has she been an actual recurring character? Come on now.
Like I said, I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing.
If you ask me, Amber has the wagon before the horse
God. Damn it.
…Yeah, there goes THAT sense of sympathy.
Where are you off to, Senator DeSato?
Do a role reversal. There’s a woman who can’t stop having sex no matter how hard she tries. A guy tries to make a move on her, she’s attracted but says no. He won’t back down and mocks her addiction. Later, she falls off the wagon and is at a low point after she has been gang banged. The first guy decides this is his turn, taking advantage of her weakened, shamed state. We’d all hate him and call him an asshole, right?
Isn’t that what everyone’s doing here?
…so, we’re in exactly the same situation as we would be in after the role reversal?
Awesome! Gender equality woo!
I think what he’s getting at is that Roz’s actions, as much as we hate her for them, are being played for humor, and that we’d be even more pissed at Roz if she was a guy and decide there was no possibility she was even a somewhat decent person somewhere deep down inside. Moreover, we’d hate Willis if it played out the same way because he expects us to laugh at such an atrocious action.
I for one agree with his point, but personally wouldn’t react as he fears many people might.
“Fears” is a strong word. “Thinks” is better.
I’m of the opinion that there is no such thing as “sex addiction.” Remember when that debate raged on these very forums? Being addicted to sex is like saying you’re addicted to air or water or protein.
“wah wah, I like sex too much, I’m a monster…wah wah wah…..seeeecccckkkkksss!”
Gimme a break.
It becomes an addiction when it prevents you from doing other things that life requires, like work.
Your username is far too apt for this not to be a joke.
…an addiction of any kind doesn’t necessarily think you’re a monster. And if this is a joke, it’s a poor one.
While I would be the first to deride the way sex addiction has been talked about in the news (the South Park episode was pretty much spot-on), there is such a thing as psychological addiction, and it can tie to any of a number of stimuli, including sex, gambling and ye olde interenete.
It’s a twofold syndrome; in addition to the compulsion aspect, you also usually suffer from depression and other psychological symptoms as soon as you ‘come down’ off the most recent high. This, in turn, drives you to go back to the behavior as quickly as possible.
Please be joking. Do we really need another round of this debate?
Short version: You’re kind of an ass. Also wrong.
Sex releases chemicals. You get addicted to said chemicals. You get addicted to sex.
Oh Roz, you amoral monster, you’ll die alone, unmourned, and unloved.
Does Roz have super speed too? How did she get from the house to the apartment so fast?
@hectoruno
I’m assuming it was just a hard cut, as film/TV would use for this same joke.
I’m pretty sure Roz doesn’t have any superpowers.
Unless you count Reverse Cowgirl as a superpower.
…which some might.
I think they’re in Amber’s apartment across the hall from Jacob’s. No superpowers involved (except for said reverse cowgirl style… someone get on that fanart by the way pleeze k thx bai)
I totally get the metaphor for this storyline now. Jacob is YOUR MOM! Cuz eventually everybody gets a ride.
Everything else i wanted to say has been said, but surely the cam whore sneaking off after hearing about Jacob being a sex addict? They know Roz is slimy, and at least Robin and Amber know that Roz has expressed interest in Jacob.
That combination of events should have the alarm bells ringing.
When I first loaded the comments, there were 69 of them. Apt number.
I’m a little surprised no one has brought this up (at least not in THIS thread) but it looks more like Roz has some real self-esteem issues coming through on this. I know most everyone sees her as a smiling female version of Mike, but consider this: maybe she just wants the sex. Maybe she’s turned people off so much that she has to turn to a sex addict to make out with her. She might have so little faith in her own sex appeal or even the ability to be liked that this is her chance to score something for herself.
I think she’s pretty much in denial of her own sex addiction. I’ve never hated her as much as everyone else, but this is the first time I’ve seen something like character development out of her.
I kind of doubt that Roz has much issue with believing she has sex appeal – she earns her living pretty much by having sex appeal, after all – but I could certainly believe that she has doubts about being likable. Because she’s a cam whore, her self-confidence seems to be very… mercenary, I guess. She doesn’t really know how to go about building a real emotional connection because she’s so used to building fake connections to get what she wants.
I love Roz’s face in the second panel. I don’t hate her either – sure, she’s a complete brat, but she’s at least up front about it. I hate Faz because he’s a slimy creep. I don’t hate Roz. (Jacob looks completely unsurprised that she’s there…)
Be fair; Faz is pretty up-front about it. Or at least doesn’t try to hide it. Or at least is to stupid to know he should try to hide it.
Okay, never mind.
You know, it looks like Jacob did have sex with Amber’s mom…Its ganna be inevitable that Amber finds out. As Mike so loves to say, will Jacob say, “I fucked your mom” for real?
And how would Mike respond? Punch, high five or laugh?
CaRnaGe wrote: “And how would Mike respond? Punch, high five or laugh?”
Man, now I can’t wait to see that!
-airfox
Can’t he do both?
I think he can do all three if he wants to. I mean, it is Mike.
Except laugh. That doesn’t seem likely.
If he’s coming down from being drunk, he might.
Well, he could snort. But Mike has smiled before, so you never know… His laugh will probably be as creepy as his smile.
Or perhaps all three?
I think Roz has officially become the character that people love to hate.
Not sure why anyone would hate Roz instead of the nameless Gen-13 clones from yesterday.
Because she knows about his sex addiction and is going after him anyway, and her fight over him with Conquest is probably the main thing that pushed him off the wagon in the first place. The girls from yesterday probably didn’t know anything except that he’s a hot guy who wants to have sex with them; sure, they were slutty, but they weren’t *malicious*.
Yeah, its kinda hard to like someone who doesn’t seem to take the feelings of another person into account when it comes to pursuing a sexual relationship with them. Roz didn’t take “no” for an answer when Jacob originally turned her down for sex after all. Its not like the Gen-13 girls had forced themselves on Jacob, like Roz had tried to do.
Once again, Willis, you’ve done a great job of making a nice complex character who were love to hate.
Wow! As soon as the phrase “sex addict” came up, Roz TELEPORTED!
My kinda gal!
oh, god damn it
The only thing that would make this more messed up, is if Mike showed up and rescued Jacob from Roz. Of course that could segue into Mike fucking Amber’s Mom, who I predict is still in Jacob’s room somewhere.
Well, I was thinking what would be more messed up is if Mike rescued Jacob from Roz, only to have sex with Jacob himself after its revealed Mike ALREADY fucked Amber’s mom, while Jacob was with the trio of girls.
Yes, but “Mike doesn’t f*ck Amber’s Mom”
“Mike doesn’t f*ck Amber’s Mom” was the name of the previous storyline. I believe the current storyline is “Minorities Report”.
Mike can fuck anyone he wants now.
Dammit, Roz ain’t dead
Do you think someone should just tell Willis that Roz isn’t funny?
I don’t comment often, but it seems like any strip where she’s a factor makes me want to stop reading the comic, and I love this comic like a cousin.
Roz is great. She’s so f*cked up.
I also love Faz. He is victorious.
Oh, so comics & stories should only have characters everyone likes.
Right, I’d somehow missed that lesson in my decades of reading & viewing.
huh.
(& for the record, I like Roz a bunch. Shameless antagonists are fun. See: Mike. & hundreds of other examples.)
*cough*Wolverine*cough*
Do I like Roz? Hell no.
Do I want her removed from the comic? Hell no.
What would be the point of storytelling, if we never have characters who we hate and who provoke the main characters by being complete jerks and tools? Roz is a somewhat necessary evil, because she caused mischief and controversy in the story. She’s not a character I want to see all the time, but when she does, it can have some interesting results.
Seeing this Leslie & Professor Leslie in the same day is kind of a strange feeling.
For some reason it never occurred to me we’d see the same people in different universes on the same day. It’ll only get stranger as we meet more Shortpacked! peeps in college too. Unless Mr. David deliberately avoids having the focus on the same person. Hm.
Rarr! This fictional character is completely insensitive to the feelings and problems of another fictional character! Someone should arrest her!
It occurs to me that despite her profession, we’ve never seen Roz in a state of undress.
…come to think of it, how did she do shows while she was hiding from Robin?
I’ve been to certain sites that are about that stuff. Sometimes they girls are just on for a talk with their fans (for lack of better term), awaiting tips for a quick flash or something.
Or, she was in an unoccupied room, so who knows.
If Jacob’s sex addiction is bad enough then he’ll have the sex with or without condoms, possibly exposing Roz to some STIs.
Here’s hoping Roz gets a heaping helping of the clap.
I find it interesting that Jacob opened the door for Roz but not Amber. Looks like he has more self control then he thought. Although, I guess he was bangin the first time.