A week from Monday, on September 10, I will have been doing webcomics for fifteen years. Dumbing of Age will also be celebrating its second birthday! To celebrate this milestone, I have put together a limited poster! Suffice to say, it’s the busiest thing I have ever drawn in my life.
A while ago, Joel Watson was all, hey, you should do a parody of Superboy Prime punching the universe and all the pieces scattering into the Walkyverse and the Dumbiverse. That’d be a poster you can do. And it was a fine idea, but it wasn’t “all-encompassing work of horror” enough for me. I needed something that would take me a month to complete. And so I’ve parodied a different, better crisis instead.
CLICK THIS FOR ANIMATED GIFNESS (creacted by MiracleIsYou on Tumblr)
As a result, every character who’s ever appeared in one of my webcomics is in this thing. I poured through my own archives day by day, grabbing folks to squeeze in here. Some of them are pretty in your face. Some may be less obvious, but still pretty easy to find. Some may be essentially unrecognizable mostly-obscured heads in the background. But they’re all here. There’s the Ball State girl Joe introduced to Danny in 1997. There’s every member of SEMME. There’s every employee Shortpacked! ever had, including Scrubs cast doppelgangers. There’s a floating, pooping butt. There’s a legion of alternate universe kids from the future. There’s crossover characters from Fans! and Melonpool and others. And there’s both Walkyverse and Dumbiverse versions of everybody. (You can probably tell where the split in the composition takes place.)
It’s an 11″x17″ slab of cardstock gloss craziness, and there’s only 50 100 of them. I’ll number and autograph them all. If you want one, here it is in the store.
UPDATE: I woke up this morning to find I’d sold seventy of my fifty posters, so, uh, I just ordered a second 50.
UPDATE AGAIN: They’re gone! Sold out in 23.5 hours. Woof!
I don’t see Spider-Car on this image. Did you get him confused with Ultra Car?
*facepalm*
does Willis’s facepalm mean he’s just an alter-ego? If so, why would there be two Ambers? Whisky Tango Foxtrox, WHY did you open open up this can of worms? This is almost as bad as wondering if Dr.Pym was a skrull before he started abusing his wife.
That is amazing.
No, the upper-right-hand corner is Amazing.
I love the fact that there’s five Head Aliens here, and four of them are on the same side of the poster.
There are many copies, and he has a plan.
Well, okay, one copy and some AU doppelgangers.
I think the Cylon plan turned out to be “let’s not piss off Caville and just go along with whatever he says so he doesn’t kill us all”.
Other stuff I love about this poster (besides the actual inks and shading):
* The way characters on the left and foreground are arranged roughly in order of appearence from left to right
* Walky’s dad is holding Mr. Monkey
* The X-TREEM mug, drama tag, McNuggets, and Cyclops’ floating butt are all in the background
* Dargon’s face is right over Penny’s shoulder
* The Dumbiverse has a Cheese, apparently (perhaps a supporting character on Dexter & Monkey Master, which might explain the less detail?)
* Dab (does pregnancy give you weirder dreams?) is right next to Amber
* Sun God is in proximity to two dead characters
* Bart O’Ryan is right next to Reagan
* SG!Ravage is right next to Joe
* Malaya appears to be kicking Ken in the head while copping a feel of Leslie’s butt
* Galasso is elbowing Amber’s old Internet boyfriend in the groin
* Beef is trying to grab Billie’s boobs
* Joe is trying to grab Billie’s waist
The second The Cheese is actually Dargon’s universe’s. There wasn’t really anybody from the Dumbiverse who is The Cheese’s opposing force, and so I grabbed somebody else.
Huh. Forgot how different he looked there.
Kinda wish his character design had more, well, detail. It doesn’t scale well to art of that size! Oh well.
Huh. I was kind of assuming the second one was Robo-Vac.
Also: why oh why do I not have any money to throw at you?
Kinda like that look, actually. He looks a little like if The Cheese were a DC comic book character, and this was his Bruce Timm version for an animated adaptation. It’s the Batman eyes.
I could totally see him as a character in Dexter’s cartoon, as well.
…so DoA takes place in Dargon’s universe?
Slowly disintegrating all around them…
(Wait, no, Dargon’s universe wouldn’t have a Jason, would it? Nevermind.)
…hmm? It looks like God is next to Faz and… the person whose ass Faz’s head was shoved up that one time? (I do vaguely remember that, just don’t remember what was going on…)
And this page reveals once and for all, that Jesus is the son of Dab, by the not-virgin Amber. (Not sure about the still-probably-not-”white”-but-paler Jesus from Robin’s daydream, or Jesus Potter.)
I’m not sure what you’re presuming to be God, but he’s not anywhere near the Faz/Sarah Palin pic. He’s the sun behind the cloud on the bottom-leftish, underneath the two Big Bosses and Tony. (The two in suits and the guy in the blue-with-yellow stripe shirt if you’ve never read It’s Walky).
And I am now one of the 50. Mwa ha ha! My plans are coming to fruition.
But seriously dude, the composition and re-composition efforts it must have taken just to be able to confirm you had everyone down… the fact that you did that in a month is amazing since you probably had to do repeated layouts as you figured out ‘Crap, now where does Howard go’ or so on.
On a side note, can I just say you’ve come very far as a storyteller in 15 years? I haven’t read everything everything, and as you might expect even in the couple years I’ve been following I’ve stepped away and come back at intervals, but the fact that as a storyteller you managed to bring into alignment events so that ‘tell me what you think of my boots’ and ‘I don’t think I should give fashion advice right now’ line up in a pre-meditated way without being obviously and bluntly alluded to in advance. I guess what I mean is the ability to plan and weave multiple ‘unrelated’ story threads to have links and comment on each other and the like, and to do it without infodumping it… as a writer myself that’s definitely the mark of someone who has grown experienced with storytelling, and I’ve been meaning to salute you for it in recent days. (Granted, I used the very latest example, but the fact that the Sarah’s ‘flashback story’ was neither painting the college students involved too idyllically nor was it just treating them as talking heads that are obviously bad is another example. To be honest, I think I still veer characters I write one way or the other though I’m giving myself storytelling challenges to hit closer to the middle.
Anyway, long story short, cheers on 15 f’in years.
me too
considering i have missed out on the last 2 books
is that walky or the son from an alternate timeline and if that is walky when did walky lose an arm?
Walky lost an arm shortly before dying at the hands of a Martian and becoming the Cheese in the final It’s Walky arc.
And that is Walky, yes.
does this take place in the subscription section or before joyce and walky?
None of It’s Walky! is in the subscription section. The subscription section is Joyce and Walky! only.
Maybe this could be the main cover for a large format, hardback “best of Willis” collection? (All the title graphics and UPC coding and whosis could be on a transparent overcover.)
Holy cheese. This is awesome. Congratulations on oodles of years!
Foreshadowing a horrible, horrible dimensional collapse?
Definitely not!
I just bought one. I love your work Willis, FOUR MORE YEARS! (and hopefully a few more after)
I don’t see the Multiplex crossover characters. Did you forget them, or am I just missing them?
Jason is in the bottom row next to Drew.
Ordered and paid for. I actually collect 11×17 inch movie posters, so this will go well with my collection. (I chose those dimensions because it’s easy to find protective sleeves in that size, and cheap to have the posters printed if I can’t find something).
Love the Crisis motif, and the sheer variety of characters. The only similar thing I have is an Order of the Stick art print that has all the characters from that comic.
this makes me want to do an archive binge for like the 4th time since i discovered your work 5 or 6 years ago, but i refuse, willis!
on a more serious note, do you remember all the assorted 15 years of stories you have told over the years, or do you have to go back and look things up yourself?
Man, I don’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning.
My epicometer just exploded!
Wow. That is an impressive piece of work, Mr. Willis.
Time to play “Where’s Waldo” with it. I’m lookin’ for the butt.
Taken directly from IM:
vlademir1: oh sweet jesus….
vlademir1: he’s literally right behiind Joyce…
vlademir1: SYMBOLISM /filmbrain
lordasteroth: Heh, didn’t notice that.
I really wish I could drop the $25 plus shipping for this jsut now, it’d make a great framed artpiece for my wall.
I can’t seem to find Shortpacked Ethan.
Me neither. Whew, I was worried I’d be the only one!
He’s in one of the panels at the top, so he doesn’t need to be in the actual image. See also: Danny, Dina, and Faz on the ! side and Sarah and Sal on the DoA side.
One thing remains constant. Walky needs to learn how to tie his shoes.
Also: Wooot! Willis drew Guns again! It’s only a matter of time before she finds herself strolling across campus with her head held high.
O_O
This is…
.O_O.
It’s just…
.O~O.
I WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH THIS PICTURE!!!!!
(No, I don’t intend to buy the poster and have sex with that. I want to have non-corporeal sex with the essence of the image. I will make it un-impossible.)
Whence the calculator on the bottom left?
It’s the Sensitive Scanner from IW.
http://itswalky.com/d/19970915.html
…Is the Sensitive Scanner there, though? I can’t seem to find it.
Holy crap. Seriously.
Took me a while to find some of the ones I’d been thinking of. (Still haven’t found Aslan, but I bet he’s there somewhere.)
Spent a couple minutes just to make sure you hadn’t snuck Jenny Everywhere in there as an additional gag, but then I realized if you did you’d have to use the disclaimer which would spoil the joke.
Anyway, wow. Seriously.
Aha! Found Aslan!
Where?! I’ve been looking for him and can’t find em!
His head is between Daisy’s elbow and the red-antennaed Teletubbie Alien.
Awesome poster is awesome.
Am I the only one noticing ninja rick with TWO swords? (If that’s not new I apologize)
I love Ralph.
Who is that blond girl in the SP uniform, left of honey bun? Not conquest, she’s in the bottom row?
Maybe you’re mistaking Grace for Conquest. Conquest isn’t in the bottom row on the left-hand side.
Conquest is on the bottom row, right hand side, right? But who is the girl by ronnie’s head?
DoA Conquest is on the bottom row, right hand side. SP! Conquest is by Ronald Reagan.
Three questions Mr. Willis:
1) [actual question] will you EVER be selling them later, maybe non-autographed at a slightly cheaper price?(or is that the price made so you you can actually make a profit margin that was worth the time of making it and having it printed?[sub question] Would you consider a reprint, maybe without the autograph so as not to piss of the collectors, I know how collectors feel, and so do do since we are both one of them
2) I love Shortpacked, I got linked to it by another comic, “Between Failures.”, so I got introduced to the “walky-verse” rather late. Would there be too many spoilers from what I’ve read in Shortpacked, or has your art improved so much that I’d be disappointed.
I other words: straight from the artist’s mouth, should I read all or any of your comics from the beginning?) since I love this so much.
3) Do I see three Robins in a row, or is it a combination of you having to shrink this to post it, and me not having read any of your other comics(as of yet).
1) Nope! That wouldn’t be fair to those who bought this now for this price, would it.
2) That’s up to you, I guess. I can’t really predict that.
3) There are many Robins there, yes. She is running fast.
1) true. maybe an autograph-lacking, higher price reprint? I like it so much. but I’m disabled (but not on SSI yet) so I get about $40 from friends, family, and fiance. Then again, you do you do do you do have a point.
2) I’ll give them a try. I even liked Neo Tokyo until Largo Left. You’re a wonderful storyteller, and if your art is even half as good as as it is now, I’m sure I’ll add it to my “must read list”
3) ah.. fast running Robins coming to a halt at Roz. I love it.
PS: I wasn’t asking fpr a personal exception. I’m sure there are are many Walky/ Roomies!/ Dumbing of age/Shortpacked fans who (like ,myself) dearly want it but can’t afford it at the moment(especially at this time of the month/ week/ between paychecks). I’m not begging(ok, I am), but as you pointed out you’d sold 75 of the original 50 before you woke up. There is certainly a market for it.
3)Would it be possible for you to sell to a couple sized wallpapers?(I’d just use the preview pic, but that would would be a be a horrible thing to do to such a talented person.)
4) Is there any chance in the near or far future that you’d do the same, but for each specific comic?(but announce the collector’s edition a week or so ahead?
PS: You rock, You’re hella talented and oh so patient with your readers, when a normal person would do something horrible. I’d guess you worked in retail for many years, and not having to deal with with us face to face is a benefit.
Awh crap, I’m in the middle of reading it’s walky! right now, and I think I see spoilers. ;-;
Damn you willis.
So wait, who’s that dude opposite the Cheese? Robo-Vac?
JFOverse Cheese.
I Love This. I’m a huge fan of the Crisis Cover and this a great homage to it. On the Flip side though I do not envy you having to do this for a few months.
I can safely say I wouldn’t have had the attention span to work on something like this. Or the artistic skill.
Actually, Willis, I had the Superboy idea too long time ago, just never expressed it.
I remember it was after Les and Robin broke, and Les was kinda depressed.
In my idea, Robin saw Les once again in that state and said something like “I have to remedy this, but I have to ask some favors to be paid”. Then it cuts to to Superboy, Scarlet Witch, Franklin Richards and other characters from the “Reality Warper” page on TVTropes punching Unicron at the same time (one of them hitting him with that glowing tree branch from It’s Walky!). Then a frame of reality warp-ish effects and then cutting again to Leslie’s class in Dumbing of Age. Leslie says something like “do any of you feel like something is different now?”, and the students just look confused, and one of them makes some meta comment for the punchline (A sex joke by Joe, maybe?).
But I decided it was all too much work so I would not do it.
I see Batman XD
Who’s the funny looking one in the Hawaiian shirt?
Holy shit I have now read everything. Except for Joyce and Walky! due to not wanting to read something I’ll only see snippets of.
Damn it Willis, why’d it all have to be so long.
WHY.
Wow! Very impressive! I only really know Shortpacked, but I still appreciate this. How can you not. You’re like a cartoony George Perez.
My first exposure to the artwork this was based on, oddly enough, was a Transformers version I saw at Botcon around a decade ago. Anyway, great job, Walky!
God damn, that sold out fast. And before I could get one, shit.
I other words: straight from the artist’s mouth, should I read all or any of your comics from the beginning?) since I love this so much.
3) Do I see three Robins in a row, or is it a combination of you having to shrink this to post it, and me not having read any of your other comics(as of yet).http://www.dakdurieux.be/platte.php