And here’s the last page of Joyce and Walky!. I was done, I was finally done. Probably no more Walkyverse outta me, ever. Probably!!!! Unless we were expecting children or something and needed an outlet for all that material, i dunno
Check out Joe’s stubble! He’s bridging his cleanshaven Joyce and Walky! look to his full-bearded Shortpacked! look.
Check out Sal and Jason exchanging meaningful glances! They’re not together or anything. The meaningful glances are your closure on these two.
I always had this Future Kids Martian Return thing purposefully hanging out there in case I ever wanted to go back to writing this stuff if, like, all my other projects failed. Y’know, twenty years in the future. But Dumbing of Age pulled me out of poverty, and eleven years later it’s still going! And so I’m not sure that’s a story I’ll be likely to tell. I did make sure to chuck some fun folks out there to use if I ever felt like it — Dorothy, Machete, Donna Warner… these folks would be a great core cast to start out with. Especially with Dorothy being a ticking Head Alien bomb. But! Nah.
Tomorrow: It’s gonna be totally babies.
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ahahha and then are you gonna bridge totally babies to anything?
“Unless we were expecting children or something and needed an outlet for all that material, i dunno”
Does that mean we’re getting It’s Pregnancy! in here?
Yeah I think it’s that and the one Shortpacked arc before the curtains close.
And the last Roomies story ever, Willis promises.
So I guess this is the first time I’ve ever been here for the final update of one of David Willis’ comics! Albeit one that originally ran six years ago for people who were paying for it. And that is going to be followed up tomorrow by another comic. But still.
I’m so glad I got into these comics when I did. About a year ago, I was home from college with my family, because Fuck This Pandemic, and I was going nuts. I desperately needed to find something to occupy my time, just to feel like I was doing something. And that something… was Dumbing of Age, not this, but I’m the kind of person who upon getting into something subsequently tries to get into all of it. Though I used Shortpacked! as my Walkyverse intro point, since Roomies! just wasn’t doing it for me. I made it through that eventually, though, and it was worth it for It’s Walky!, and for this.
I wanna say something about how much your stuff has come to mean to me over this last year, though the words are kind of failing me right now. I’m kinda realizing as I say this that the most meaningful stuff has been DoA, seeing parallels between my own relationship with my family and… well, to say whose would be telling. It certainly helped me realize some things about myself. But as much as the original Walkyverse comics could be a hot mess, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I loved the journey, and if I said that I didn’t cry a few times. Even Roomies! gives me hope, in a way– in comparison with Dumbing of Age, just seeing how much a person can change.
I guess the best thing I can say is: Thank You, Willis.
The end of J&W is here! I’ve been following these reruns for years— so long that I still use the bringbackroomies.com domain to get here— and it’s surreal to realize that they’re almost done. It’s going to leave a hole in my midnight routine :b
Joyce & Walky has always had a special place in my heart. It’s like a victory lap for these characters: we already saw all of their struggles and tribulations throughout It’s Walky, and J&W lets us see them reap the rewards of that struggle. They’ve succeeded in saving the world, and now they can just be happy and be a couple together. Because it’s intrinsically kind of an epilogue, there’s only so many mediums that could pull this kind of story off— a comic is probably one of the only ones— but it’s the type of thing I wish I saw more often. A great feel-good read, every time.
Well said
Honestly, if I hadn’t changed every device I use to access the internet at some point in the intervening years (and primarily use my phone, which needs periodic cache-clearing,) I’d be the same. I still think of it as Bring Back Roomies, even if I type It’s Walky.
My bookmark is also to Bring Back Roomies!
I know it’s not the end quite yet, but since we’re discussing it – much as I love DoA, a little piece of my heart will always belong to the Walkyverse and Shortpacked. I’ve made no secret that I love the action scenes of these comics – the way you tie a big fight to characterization is one of my favorite things about them – so I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to seeing the Martian Return in a decade or so… though I suppose it would have to clarify, one way or another, whether or not Soggies Rule. (And really, that ‘may’ is all the fun of it.)
Of course, as you point out here, it would also be a way to eventually write more HA without bringing him to the Dumbingverse. Even if I do REALLY WANT to see him show up and immediately get bodied by AmbG.
I appreciate that Dumbing of Age is very successful and has given Willis the chance to “fix” some of the stuff that didn’t work the first time around (and I should be clear: I’m a big fan of Dumbing of Age!) but I started reading It’s Walky in high school and have been following the Walkyverse ever since and… I don’t think I can easily articulate how’s much it has meant to me.
The fact the comics tended to flip flop back and forth between big storylines and real time updates (especially when it came to Shortpacked) made me equally happy to check in at midnight and see either a dramatic reveal or just what the characters were doing for the latest holiday.
It might be flawed and dated and for some folks it’s easy to let Dumbing of Age replace it in their heads, but these comics are always going to have a special place in my heart. It’s been real nice getting to (kind of) relive the experience of watching the story unfold in real time. I’m gonna miss this a bunch, and due to the fact that I’ve known this is coming and it’s the final final end of any kind of Walkyverse anything* it kinda gets to me even more than when it ended last time.
*I’m hoping we’ll still keep getting annual April Fool’s comics over at Shortpacked with occasional appearances by the cast
Anyway, getting older doesn’t always suck but sometimes seeing a beloved story from earlier in your life come to an end again but this time with a confirmation that it’s basically never going to see another update or celebration can get you a bit into your feelings (especially when your sleep deprived from taking care of a newborn.)
Agreed
Same.
Yep. Anyway, Willis ends with “Nah” but just before he said, “Not sure I’ll be likely to tell” which is very definitely not a “no”! [insert Dumb&Dumber meme]
Also, because inter-dimensional time travel has been established as a possibility, I will be expecting anytime now a crossover with DoA.
I think there might be a few leftover Joyce & Walky standalones that haven’t appeared on this rerun site yet, and I wonder if they’ll make it here. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I thought I remember a strip that seemed like a spoof on “Garfield Minus Garfield”, in that it was a copy of an earlier strip (maybe the first one) but with Walky and his lines removed, leaving just Joyce talking to herself nonsensically. I really hope I didn’t just imagine that!
I followed IW for years (starting somewhere around “it’s the rain”, I think), and SP and DoA since the beginning, but this is the first time I’ve seen all of this stuff that was formerly just for subscribers. So thank you for putting it up now.
Welp, this is more or less the end.
I first read It’s Walky from, I dunno, just before The Sorceror’s Apprentince, and have been following all the other projects that followed since. While the storytelling and characterisations have been getting better and better, I have to say I kinda miss the big-stakes scifi that was in the Walkyverse.
I know Willis is in no obligation to tell any more stories set in this ‘verse, but I still hope to get some glimpses every now and then. I know there were parts he didn’t like (especially in the earlier comics), but it’s the foundation of what made his work such a stand out today. It’ll be a treasured part of my comics (yes, not just webcomics) memory.
Agreed, DoA is really great and I enjoy it, but I feel that Willis really has in him a knack for telling a good big stakes story even if he doesn’t feel that way.
Maybe in 2056 or so when DoA ends.
Here’s a question: What’s the music for this finale credits sequence on the Walkyverse? What’s the outro music as we step into the future and out of the show?
My first, inevitable impulse:
“So what? Beeg deal.”
That is probably my favorite end credits scene ever. I’ll happily just sit there and watch it anytime. And it’s so simple.
I’m glad I finally could read these last strips of Joyce and Walky. I never was able to read them back when they were in paid subscription. I’m enjoying DoA, but I wouldn’t mind more Walkyverse strips in the future if you decide to do that, especially since you left plenty of hanging plot threads to use.
….SO! How much patreon money would it take for you to start writing that future children Sci fi action willis?
I discovered It’s Walky! and Dumbing of Age two years ago and got hooked. Through he commentary I discovered Evangelion and thus I improbably survived the COVID lockdown submerged in webcomics and anime, two media that I had ignored until my mid-fifties.
I consider DoA the best of Willis’ works, but from time to time I feel the itch to binge-read all of It’s Walky! (well, except some parts where the art is kinda cringey). I believe that when the time comes (25 years after the original ending of It’s Walky!) Willis won’t resist the temptation to tell the story of the Martian Return, but I really don’t mind if he resists it or not, I’m entirely satisfied with DoA. The only thing I really miss is the Head Alien. Of course, DoA has its fair share of manipulative bastards, but they are too realistic to be truly enjoyable.
Maybe one of the twins will pick the Martian return arc up wen its time comes. Who knows!
I mean, I’m pretty sure the Martians’ return was supposed to happen in 2029, i.e. twenty-five years after the end of It’s Walky! Which would make the twins… like, thirteen years old.
So, probably not.
I mean, how old was Willis when he started comic-ing?
I only started on Willis’ work ~5 years ago. Really good to see this wrap-up.
That was my first time reading Joyce and Walky. I started with Dumbing of Age, and I still consider it the best of David Willis’ comics (like they got better as they kept doing comics). I still found the Walkyverse very enjoyable in it’s own right.
In any case, I am excited for any additional commentary that gets added to the Shortpacked arc coming next.
y’know, i don’t think i ever saw this part before.
neat.
that was a good run. pretty cool that you get to have multiple good runs, man.