#david willis

The webcomic Dumbing of Age has a character named Asma. She has always been drawn wearing a head-covering. (I think a hijab, but I don’t know the different varieties well enough to be sure.) In the latest comic, we see her getting into bed. Obviously, she’s not sleeping with the head-cover so we see her hair.

And that feels… weirdly intrusive to me. The author has never drawn any of his other female characters topless (outside some special for-pay comics) and Asma wouldn’t go out in public uncovered any more than Sarah would run across campus topless.

Obviously, this is a weird thing to get hung up on for many reasons. One, in-universe no one is seeing her like that. Two, she’s fictional and can’t get offended by anyone “seeing” her. Three, I’m not Muslim and don’t really know the rules for appropriate dress. So what am I even going in about?!

This arc feels the most like Willis grabbing the audience by the shoulders and being like “But no, you don’t get it, there are some people who do SERIOUS harm to people cause of these bad beliefs and WILL NOT change their mind no matter how much you wish they would, and it fucking suuuuucks cause I knew people like this”

Like… real real serious dark shit.

And there’s also a car chase.