riderchop posted:

Overboard, yet another appearance of the gay sharks

Hwurmp posted:

Comic Strips and Shark Misgendering 2021

Some Guy TT posted:

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Batman's Scrappy Sidekick > Comic Strips 2021: different, presumably gayer sharks

SubNat posted:

Give me the gayest sharks ya got.

riderchop posted:

Garfield

Tiggum posted:

Yep. Nothing to see here.

Johnny Walker posted:

SubNat posted:

Give me the gayest sharks ya got.

Some Guy TT posted:

Gonna go ahead and spoil this since at the rate of two Retails a day it could easily be years before we get to this plot beat which I distinctly remember as signifying the period where Retail was among the thread's top hate reads.

Josh starts to realize he's kind of a little poo poo and tries to get along better with his co-workers but Cooper sabotages him with intentionally terrible advice that just pisses off Marla, who is by this point the store manager. Note that by "terrible advice" I mean it was the worst possible advice for dealing with Marla but not necessarily bad advice in general, and threadheads actually thought this might be a turning point for their relationship until the prank was exposed. Josh's relationship with his co-workers gets worse, and his leaving Grumbel's for the new Delman's next door is touted as a real possibility. Josh threatens to accept a Delman's job offer unless he gets a raise to match what they're offering. Marla finds out, through the word of the inherently untrustworthy Delman's boss, that Josh did not receive an offer, finally sabotaging Josh's relationship even with Stuart, who is now district manager. While Marla and Stuart work to find a replacement so they can fire Josh he finds a new job somewhere else and puts in his two weeks notice. When he calls off Marla for being an rear end in a top hat she has a temper tantrum and fires him- much more a problem for her than Josh, since this relieves him of the two weeks notice responsibility and she has to work double shifts until they finish their search for a replacement.

In summary this is all oddly appropriate. I immediately noticed that Josh's comment in the strip is actually pretty unironically good advice given how in the finale that's what all the characters do and they immediately get much better jobs. But having recalled the finale of the Josh backstory it's very fitting that in his ultimately sympathetic moments, Josh actually follows his own advice and doesn't even think about it. If his work environment sucks he's just going to try and leave it, which catches Marla totally off guard because it had never even occurred to her that Josh really was unhappy with his job and fully prepared to accept the consequences of losing it if his raise bluff hadn't worked.

Doomykins posted:

I'm impressed that the Retail author actually works in good twists and drama for a strip that could coast for decades on ripping off and looping the same Customer Is Always Wrong jokes. Yeah, I thought Josh was ironically 100% correct in telling Cooper to look for new work. The retail profession is a grim beast.

manero posted:

Nancy 1946

Crab Dad posted:

Not sure why you are trying to attach that to them but if you must know male sharks have a pair of claspers that kind look like dongs in front of their anus so I suppose butch lesbian sharks at best.

However I like to think sharks are above such general descriptions and would all appreciate being seen as killing machines.

coronatae posted:

FOOB is giving me the creeps but I never had a brother so what do I know about their opinions on training bras

amigolupus posted:

Ray's fate is sadder than Holbrook intended. He figured his feelings would only hurt Lindesfarne and cause unwanted tension in her relationship, so he's like one of the very, very few people in Hellworld to have any empathy. He pretty much destroyed his sense of identity, his "friends" still see him as a dimwit to fondly look down upon and he's stuck in a relationship with a shallow moth who only likes him for his body.

tiercel posted:

Or he could have used his intelligence to figure out that he needed to move on and find someone else to love.

The underlying assumption in the comic is that his feelings for Lindesfarne would have caused an issue in her relationship. Why? All he would have to do is refrain from confessing his feelings to someone who he knows isn't interested. That doesn't mean "pine from afar" either; it means grieve the fact that the person you love doesn't return those feelings and move on.

Sorry, this particular strip really pissed me off with the "oh he's so noble to sacrifice his happiness for hers" because again, it assumes that he would have no choice but to interfere in her relationship and she wouldn't have the option of saying, "No thank you" and have that be respected. I say this as someone who was in a relationship in high school where someone had feelings for my boyfriend; she didn't make an issue of it and moved on, and none of us felt bad about it.

His actions aren't empathetic and they aren't noble; they're just dumb.

Johnny Walker posted:

Andertoons

Johnny Walker posted:

Mark Trail

davidspackage posted:

Gotta admit my first reaction was a snort of laughter

davidspackage posted:

Gotta admit my first reaction was a snort of laughter

FrumpleOrz posted:

Kevin & Kell

Drakyn posted:

I have done the mandatory.

Drakyn posted:

I have done the mandatory.

BigglesSWE posted:

Now that I look at her...she kinda looks like Loss.jpg but from the opposite side of the room.