Dumbing of Age/Headscratchers


 * Why did Dumbing of Age turn Joyce into an unlikeable Fundamentalist? Supposedly, D.O.A. is supposed to take all the Walkyverse characters pre-character development, put them back in college, and see what happens. But Joyce was nothing like... this in the original continuity. I mean, they didn't even mention her religion until the It's Walky! era, and even then she was merely shown as being a strong believer in god, no more or less fanatical that any other Christian. But now, she's literally completely obsessed with God and religion, and constantly preaches sermons to anyone who is nearby. Willis has basically turned her into one giant Take That against religion, which causes some Unfortunate Implications.
 * Joyce comes off as much more naive than unlikeable to me, and I don't believe I'm alone. She may be very conservative in her beliefs, but she can also come across as very innocent and cute. What bugs me is that Joyce is getting hated on for it so much. Granted, she puts her foot in it a lot, but this can be chalked up to her naivety, and will most likely be resolved via character development. Keep in mind, it appears that she's been around people who are more conservative for her entire life up until this point. It's like people think that Joyce has experienced both the "being anything other than Christian is bad" life and the "accept people with different beliefs and lifestyles than yours" life and has actively chosen the former.
 * Joyce had been mindwiped in the IW story, as I understand it, and rediscovered her religion later.
 * Willis was a conservative Christian when he wrote Joyce's character in Roomies! the first time around. Now he's... um... not anymore. So there you go.
 * In the comment section of this strip he answered a question similar to this one by saying (and I quote) "Joyce is autobiographical". Most fans reacted in the same way as Joyce in the last panel of that day's strip.
 * Joyce pre-mind-wipe was pretty much just a sickeningly sweet Stalker with a Crush on Danny. Given that Willis doesn't want to redo plot lines, the Stalker with a Crush aspect is out, which leaves just the sickening sweetness. That makes for a pretty flat character. Post-mind-wipe Joyce rediscovered her religion, so there's that. Any other personality aspects from that era flesh her out too much to leave room for evolution, because she becomes fairly well-rounded. Basically, Willis didn't have many options, so he took the two most viable and cranked them Up to Eleven.
 * And Willis has given us a legit answer, seen here. In short--everyone was a fundie back in Roomies! because Willis was, but he didn't have the characters discuss it much because, since being a fundie was the default setting, the characters weren't going to argue about stuff they agreed on (that, and Willis didn't have the balls to write something that might piss off his pastors.) Between the mind-wipe and whatnot, Joyce grew and evolved and by the time she rediscovered her beliefs she became a lot more well-rounded. DOA!Joyce is Roomies!Joyce, the difference is that Willis now has the balls to tackle the implications of that.
 * Was it ever mentioned if any of the students have off-campus housing? Like, their parents live close enough to the school that they don't have to rent out the dorms, or maybe some of the older students have their own places.
 * Not that I recall. Seems that all the major players live on campus.
 * Not that unusual. Most of the cast consists of Freshmen. Many universities require first-year students to live on campus.
 * Indiana University happens to be one such school. How about that.