[0821] The Divine Comedy, Page 19
└ posted on Thursday, 15 September 2016, by Novil
- Larisa: Anything planned for Saturday, Sandy?
- Sandra: Sorta. I want to go to the mall.
- Larisa: Cool. Mind if I tag along?
- Sandra: Nope.
- Sandra: First, I want to go to the superstore to buy–
- Larisa: … ten bags of charcoal to make a giant bonfire with flames so tall it’ll be visible even in the neighboring town?!
- Sandra: –No– a new drinking bottle for my bike. And after that, I want to go to the multiplex and–
- Larisa: … sneak into Rob Zombie’s new horror movie which is so scary and full of sex, drugs and electronic dance music that it received an NC-17 rating?
- Sandra: –No– reserve tickets for the premiere of Moana. And finally, I want to go to the clothing store to buy–
- Larisa: … lingerie which is so sexy that Cloud’s eyes will pop out when I command you to take off your clothes during a game of “Truth or Dare”?!
- Sandra: –YES! Let’s do just that!!
- Larisa: Oh, Sandra! You have no idea how much fun it is to corrupt the innocent!
![[0821] The Divine Comedy, Page 19](/comics/2016-09-15-0821-the-divine-comedy-page-19.png "[0821] The Divine Comedy, Page 19")
I want to be corrupted! Please Succubus par excellence corrupt me!
‘Innocent’, pfft.
This is still part of the homework, isn’t it?
She’s a natural.
I choose to believe they actually do love in a city so hipster, the mall stores are called ‘The Superstore’, ‘The Multiplex’, and ‘The Clothing Store’.
Should be ‘live’ not ‘love’, but eh.
If the thought made Sandra light up like that, she’s hardly “innocent”. I also don’t think Larisa is “corrupting” her, she’s not turning Sandra into anything she wasn’t already.
The Devil is thinking Larissa’s practicing and doing her homework.
For Lar, this is just a day that ends in ‘y’.
If it’s to turn on her One True Love, is it really corrupt?
These kids are still twelve right?
Succubi should take lessons from Larisa.
If she’s thinking about taking her clothes off in front of Cloud she is FAR from innocent.
…and Cloud is a lucky, lucky man.
And she isn’t even suspicious…The fact that she didn’t even blink at most of those frankly scares me.
This makes me think.. how old are Sandra and Larissa here? Do they stay twelve/thirteen forever or do they age with the comic?
As a side note, the previous comic is lacking a next button to reach this one.
I think you guys are missing the point: Cloud is the innocent one.
@ Jimmy:
…never mind I think it was just a cached version
@ Cinna:
I think it’s been established the characters do age — just not in “real” time.
They’re drawn a bit differently than they were in the earliest strips.
At least 63 days have passed. (Gestation period for raccoons.) ^_^
Setting a timeline for the other sequences is probably as futile as dating the Creation by adding the “begats” of the generations in the Bible.
Oh no not electronic dance music! Anything but that!
Making sure Sandra will be going to the same plane as her in case their little plan fails?
Oh. Oh my. She’s found her calling.
Can we please stop with the creepy sexualization of THIRTEEN YEAR OLDS? I mean seriously, turning a 13 year old into a sex demon? Now a thirteen year old shopping for lingerie? I refuse to believe (for my own sanity) that I’m the only one creeped out by this.
@ Kodyack:
I think they’re thirteen now. Doesn’t make me want to scrub myself in bleach any less though.
*WUB WUB WUB*
I have a feeling that “ten bags of charcoal”- these are the big ones that need a fork truck to lift.
@ Chiggerwood:
As a former 13 year old girl (over a decade ago but my experience still counts), this particular strip is not super unbelievable. 90% of the girls I knew at 13 were some degree of sexually active.
Having a couple of kids teaches you that even thirteen year olds are sexual creatures. Life starts getting interesting the MINUTE those hormones start snappin’ to attention.
That said, I think that we can give Novil a bit of credit that while these certainly aren’t adults, they don’t behave like thirteen year olds. Larisa, for example, is in a much more committed relationship with Landon (and I don’t mean their hormonal cavorting) than you would expect from a 13 year old. The same can be said of Cloud and Sandra. For that matter, Ye Thuza talking about safe sex to Cloud also leads me to believe that they aren’t 13.
That said, I think the maturity age of these characters is much older than the numbers.
Yyyeah, I don’t think Larisa WANTS to get out of this deal with the devil.
Is any anyone else finding “The Divine Comedy” to be off-putting, or is it just me? This whole succubus thing just feels wrong. I don’t know… Maybe it has something to do with my morals and ethics…
Keep in mind also that age/maturity expectations are: 1, individual, and 2, different in different cultures. The societal norm of age of adulthood being set at 18 is a fairly recent and arbitrary development. Even in the 19th century in the USA, many people had jobs, property, independent responsibilities and possibly even families at or before 16.
In many historical cultures (prior to the 17th or 18th centuries in Europe and the Middle East at least) puberty was the mark of independent adulthood. The Bar/Bat mitzvah, the quinceanera, and the sweet sixteen are all remnants of coming of age ceremonies. All in all, the societal norm has only relatively recently shifted to this older adulthood age.
All this in mind, it’s not impossible for young teenagers at 12/13/14 to be mature in their attitudes or lifestyles. Most people set low expectations though, and their children do not mature so readily.
Lingerie on prepubescent girls. Keep it classy, guys.
Just think of yourself as a 13 year old it helps.
AdamNewTA wrote:
They’re not prepubescent, they’re pubescent. [they just not post-pubescent]
roguebfl wrote:
On average, girls begin puberty around ages 10–11; boys around ages 11–12. Girls usually complete puberty around ages 15–17, while boys usually complete puberty around ages 16–17
I just love the comments with these kinda strips.
Kids mature at different rates. It’s a KNOWN fact. I might not have cared about fashion or what is underneath that fashion, but my best friend had a stash of lingerie that her older sister helped her acquire that, looking back, I wish I had. Granted, the only one that I would have been trying to seduce would have been her.
Chiggerwood wrote:
None of them is sexually active. Sexually curious, though? Weren’t you 13 ever? You almost cannot possibly think about anything else and talk big about how much you knew about it. The strip is not sexualising kids, it’s just giving us a window to their thoughts and desires which are often too disturbing to think about as an adult. So yes, you do well in feeling a bit creeped, but the strip is not doing a bad thing per-se.
@ All-Purpose Guru:
Ew, they’re like 12
Hmmm… though I personally wasn’t like that when I was thirteen, I can’t say it feels unrealistic. After all, girls at that age are indeed exploring things like sexuality and stuff – even though the sappy happy cartoons of today make them look like perfect innocent little dolls.
Plus, I think Larisa is quite more “risky” about that and some kind of… I don’t know… more mature? After all, she doesn’t have as much time as other girls to enjoy life…
(Still think this whole arc feels a little “off”. Usually the comics mixes mature themes like this and childish humor very well, the last pages were a little… too much on the ‘mature’ side…)
I honestly would think Cloud would know better than to play Truth or Dare with Larisa.
Not after last time.
This is America. We sexualize everything and then are completely aghast when someone’s affected by it.
Also, we don’t have to worry much about the sexualization of this particular character, as she’s scheduled to be brutally murdered later on.
Meanwhile the devil’s broadcasting this to the angels who hacked his tablet to see who explodes first.
*Eyes other commenters for rocket launchers hidden behind backs.
At 13 I was in 4-H and I tell you the field trips we went to see how animals breeded, making rams into
lambs bulls into steers. The girls were right in the middle making us guy the fool! At 13.
@ RJCSE:
At thirteen in my history class I got to listen to two girls who smoked weed and bounced back and forth on how to service their boyfriends in explicit detail. Assigned seating folks. Friendly girls though. Suffice it to say, nothing in Sandra and Woo is even close to that bad.
I find it hilarious about how many people seem to think our ‘modern’ society has corrupted to the innocent. Innocence ends the moment someone plays Doctor. From there on out, its just socialization and finding new ways to do what adults thinks are taboo.
All-Purpose Guru wrote:
Well. Not talking to your 13 year old kid (who openly shows at least some signs of being romantically attracted to another 13 year old) about safe sex is probably less responsible.
Every kid in school has been warned about playing Truth or Dare with Larisa.
As fir the characters’ ages, they’re 14, given that they were starting 7th grade in September 2011, all four seasons passed, and then Landon had his birthday during the sexting arc.
By the way: saying that modern times are more sexually corrupted in this context is just hillarious.
In most other centuries or societies 13 year olds would have been (almost) old enough to marry. No I am not saying that they should marry at 13.
Bizkit wrote:
I think you should pick up some Dante. 😉
Sandra is about as “innocent” as… well, allow me to paraphrase here a quote I read, which applies equally to girls as it does to boys:
“There exists no boy aged eleven years and up who has not imagined and desired every vice in existence, and the only reason he has not yet committed them is because he does not yet know how, or have the power to obtain them.”
WizardOfIz wrote:
Oh, Dante. How it gave me nightmares when I was young.
@ Bizkit:
Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? After all, it’s the Devil orchestrating this. It’s supposed to be evil!
Mind you all, one who’ll be in heaven in Cloud tho.