Hey, dudes! A reminder that Connecticon is this weekend, and both me and my wife will be there! Also, Joel “Hijinks Ensue” Watson, R “Diesel Sweeties” Stevens, the Least I Could Do crew, the Cyanide & Happiness guys, and so many more! And this year I’m a GUEST OF HONOR or something! I think that means I get free bacon. Or at least I hope it means that.
Bacon!
Willis you are amazing and I adore you.
Didn’t you do this joke before?
Almost.
(Funnily enough, that part doesn’t bug me about Cars, but it sure does for Transformers!)
Same picture (except for the added 2 next to the CARS) and some change in the dialogue.
I thought I recall this comic before.
Similar art, but it is actually better.
I direct you here, http://io9.com/5815444/sweet-edsel-jesus-theres-a-pope-car-in-cars-2 , specifically to #2
Hey, it’s still a good joke.
The two avatars above mine are girls. So for this theory to be true, the next 39 need to be guys.
Or male-identified brains encased in the belly of a mechanical suit, presumably.
Is the gender of the avatar more important or the person using said avatar?
Given Willis’s avatar set and users you may see a reverse of that trend.
I am massively creeped out by the direct stare. I feel RESPONSIBLE. It wasn’t me! I know there are girls! Goddammit, stop staring!
*Now suspects BritNinja of possible robo-genderide*
Seriously…
If it were up to me, there’d be a LOT more femme Cybertronians! Don’t look at me like that!!!
STOP LOOKING AT MEEEEE!!!
Those are stares of shame that say don’t look at us.
Unless it turns out that it is the Transformer males that carry the baby Transformers like seahorses.
I’m sure the mpreg fans would like that to be the case.
After been on the internets for so long, the idea that there are Transformer Mpreg fanfics out there seems quite feasible.
I find it entirely unsurprising. I’m sure Rule 34 has an mpreg collorary.
There are.
Let us never speak of this again.
Now I’m just assuming you wrote it
But YOU SPOKE OF IT!!!!!!
Oh, they definitely exist… there is a veritable plethora of Transformers mpreg fanfics and fanart.
And the girls appear to have more non-organic content than the boys!
ahahhahahahahha thank you Willis
See, when I first read it, I didn’t notice the ‘Cars 2′ in the first panel, so I just naturally assumed they were walking out of DOTM, and then further assumed that they were pontificating on the sexual variety of the human cast in the live-action TF movies, in which case the joke still worked perfectly.
I don’t think the joke works for the human cast in the current TF movie franchise. I mean, look at how many of the characters are military or government officials… there really are relatively few females in those positions in real life. You see a lot more females in the “screaming civilian extras” roles.
I’m sure arguments about the lopsided m/f ratio in Cybertronians have already been argued to death over the last 25 or so years.
“there really are relatively few females in those positions in real life.”
I call shenanigans
“there really are relatively few females in those positions in real life.”
You lie!
LOL take a look at your local business sector or military base sometime soon, and not the movies for that kind of knowledge.
I had the same reaction, except I thought it was referring to Hollywood films in general.
Lol their thinking about their race of 20 male autobots/decepticons to 1 female autobot ratio and this ticks me off but why is it there are hardly any female decepticons. Bet you can’t name 10.
Yes, but not ten in one continuity.
What even happened to her? We got the NEW offensive racist stereotype bot and also some wacky science bot, but Arcee’s gone? Weren’t there, like, three of her?
Two of them got killed on-camera in Revenge of the Fallen in very sudden ways that got no attention called to them by the characters. (Though we did see one get shot dead the instant she yelled to Sam. So I guess that did get a reaction, in that Sam ran.) The third Bay said just got killed off-screen, to my understanding she also got killed in the prequel comics occurring post-RotF.
So ironic yet so true in both cases.
There’s only one reasonable explanation. Every car on Earth is female(this is fact, they’re like ships, so lets move on). Obviously, Henry Ford wanted a mechanical harem, so he exiled all male cars to space, leaving only females on earth and making all the cars on other planets male. But, especially with outsourcing, quality control isn’t what it once was and the occasional female is exiled as well.
Welcome to Pixar, Jazz.
There were plenty of females in Cars 2….they uh just happen to mostly live in Italy and Radiator Springs (and the lone female British car). And speaking of the cities….I kept on wondering how these vehicles BUILT not only the cities but the elaborate statues built in the cliffs….
Technically there were at least two female British cars, counting the Queen.
As for your questions, the car-worshipping precursor race that created the population also textured the landscape, while the cities rest on the labor of millions of enslaved forklifts, cranes, and other construction equipment. The cheerful pit crew (and, uh, sushi chef) forklifts we see are only happy because their privileged position spares them from the metal-bending drudgery that is their birthright.
Actually, the thing about Cars 2 that bothered me most in a logic sense was when Mater was talking about the terrible engine and, IIRC, talked about how few cars were /built/ with it. From the rest of everything I was assuming that the vehicles of the Cars world were the product of some sort of birthing process, but that one line seems to explicitly identify them as a constructed race, which somehow bugs me more, given their degree of anthropomorphism.
it’s easier if you just think of the cars movies as the most kid-friendly post-apocalyptic movies created.
humans built sentient, anthropomorphised vehicles, but they became self-aware and destroyed the entire civilization. now the cars rule the earth, and create more of their kind in the human constructed factories. that’s made BY humans, not made FROM humans.
The thing that bugs me the most is the age of each car. Lizzy is well over 100 wile Lighting is 5.
There were a lot of Japanese girl cars. In Italy the cars had parents. We even saw two different Mothers.
I’m left wondering, vaguely, how they fit in the theatre….
I’m wondering too. Couldn’t they just go to a drive-in? Bumblebee could fit but Jazz is way too tall.
Well played, Willis.
I can’t tell, did you re-draw this or is it just the same comic with new text and a 2 added to the first panel?
It’s clearly redrawn – there’s a lot less detailing on Bumblebee, and he lacks his autobrand. Jazz’s pose in the third panel is different – slightly different facial expression, different hand position – and the lines are, in general, smoother. (Also, coloured slightly differently, which I can’t imagine he’d do if he were reusing the old art.)
And the background art in panel 1 is more detailed, in keeping with Willis’s current style.
Compare with the original joke. Today’s is slightly the same, yet much crisper and brighter. Then again, it’s been five years, so I should -think- his style’s going to have changed a lot since…
I’m reminded of that one scene from Donnie Darko where two of his friends keep talking on about Smurfette and what the one female in a male dominated society must do… but!!
I like to think about this bit from The Venture Bros. instead! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9A0YCUCZbI
Transformers don’t lay eggs!!!
For the last time Smurf babies are delivered by STORKS! Delivered every blue moon night! Smurfettes are magical constructs that don’t naturally exist!
Godammnit people! Know your canon! Do I have to start a frikin’ Smurf wiki and start linking to it in blog posts?
And yet the Smurfs were all instantly sexually attracted to Smurfette the minute she showed up on the scene. Which is actually the main point of the whole female Cars/Transformers conundrum. Not that there ARE apparently female Cars and Transformers.
That could after all be explained away as mere appearances, as Furman did Arcee and other female Transformers back in the old UK Marvel comics. They may LOOK and SOUND female, but they’re not, they’re actually gender-less alien robots. As are the “male” transformers.
No, the problem is that these “gender-less” Transformers/Cars clearly have what amounts to boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, complete with sexual tension. And we never see this kind of thing between two “male” Transformers/Cars. It’s always a “male”/”female” pairing.
So fine, we assume that for some mysterious reason there ARE genders, and therefore sexual relationships of some sort among both the Transformers and the Cars. Then were left with the question Jazz asks here about why there are so few females, verses males?
Obviously gender is one of the primal forces of the universe, having echoes even in technically asexual races.
Speaking of transformers not laying eggs, didn’t the last movie have ‘hatchlings’??
Smurfette and Sassette were both created by magic yes but was Grandma (who is either Grandpa Smurf’s wife or sister) also created by magic?? Supposadly there’s also a Mama Smurf and Nanny Smurf.
Given that the Smurf’s were all transformed to be Smurf’s by Papa Smurf, she may just have been one of the original human experiments.
Grandma Smurf is not in the original Peyo canon, she’s just one of those random things from the cartoon series. Like the time travel crystal.
Though if the Smurfette spell existed prior to Gargamel using it then it must have been used at some point in the past.
I’m just wondering how the hell they reproduce I meen it’s not like they have any reproductive organs sooo how do they do it.
They have mens and women’s restrooms so they MUST have reproductive organs of SOME sort! Seriously that scene with Mater on the Japanese toilet was weird…
There’s nothing saying that they need to dual-purpose their waste disposal system as their reproductive system. Seriously, that’s moronic design.
Gas hoses into gasholes…? That’s all I’ve got
Maybe they reproduce like in robots where parents order a kit.
Let’s see… They reproduce by building, the building seems to be done by a male and female are the species. I suspect that somewhere on their undersides, both genders have a large robot arm used for making babies.
OT Who wants to see my new webcomic?It’s a reboot of the old one. aleinlife.thecomicstrip.com
There were plenty of females in Cars 2, taking into account that the movie revolved around a bunch of racers, their pit crews, spies, and criminals. These are not traditionally female-heavy professions, folks.
Actually that explanation kind of covers female transformers too – soldiering is in many cultures a fairly male-dominated profession.
Not is a society that has been gripped by war for it’s entire existence.
Somebody has to lay all those robot eggs and somebody has to fertilize them. Uh….right?
so true! we need more fembots!
Like from Austin Powers?
When the Autobots lookpointedly at the reader in the last panel, am I crazy in thinking that’s a shot at the geek community itself? Seeing as how it’s heavily weighted towards men? (or at least stereotyped that way)
The comic that dares to stare
Have you read ‘Transformers spotlight Arcee’ by IDW comics. In some continuities transformer females don’t occur naturally, they’re the result of evil experiments. Arcee and smurfette have this in common.
Hold on a second… Optimus just rolled up with a whole shipment of lampshades in the trailer. Weird.
I feel I should mention this now, while it’s still in recent memory. Your crossover/swap/whatever with Multiplex actually got me interested in reading it, and a few days ago I read the archives straight through. Thankyou, Walky (Willis? David?) It’s a really good work, I enjoyed it a lot, and it’s one of my regular reads now.
tl;dr Multiplex is awesome!
I love porn. Your strip today seems to touch on that subject. I love Transformers. Your strip today certainly touches on that.
I’m touched twice. I shall call this a kind-hearted DP. Thanks Davey.
hmm according to a pop up fact i saw while flipping channels the other day … during an old school episode of the original transformers … apparently female transformers only account for about 1/13th of the total population … interesting/weird tidbit of information i discovered … lol
All these comments are great, but I find it kinda funny how everyone is vehemently arguing the point made in the comic with the story’s canon and NOT the fact that there is a huge lack of female characters in most shows and movies and only get included when there is a cry to add more? I mean that’s why Arcee was added (don’t know about Smurfette though…). Ya know, not just comparing the two franchises with their similarities, but that the lack of females is obviously ridiculous yet we get that all the time?
Looking at ways to explain it away in the story is fun, but there’s also the sad reality side of the situation. Just sayin’.
…Damn you Willis.
I WAS JUST IN CONNECTICUT. I managed to miss you AND TeamFourStar. This is sooo Decade’s fault.
The female cars are probably in the “factories”
Also Damn You David Willis.