Eight years just flew by, huh
April 2, 2018
3:07 am
It’s funny ’cause when I started making this comic I was only a couple years older than Jared, but eight years later and I’m just a couple years younger than Commander.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Updated Mondays or whenever I feel like it
Is he counting all the time travelling?
Indeed. How many times has he been thirty-two?
If he wasn’t he’d be negative several hundred and/or thousand years old.
That’s actually a point that I’ve been wondering about for a while now. How far into the future IS The Commander’s time? Not asking for specifics, but just a general frame of reference.
Generic space-far.
So when he celebrates his birthday… is he celebrating the calendar day of his birth or is he celebrating the 12,000-and change days its been since he was born?
I think he picked a date and said “This is the day I get to have cake for having lived through all this crazy crap so far”. I would.
Shit, Jones is only 3 years older than me D:
Plus side, guess I have 6 years to get my shit as together as the Commander does
Half as together as the Commander is impressive when you consider the work he does with the guys on top of time-space shenanigans.
I’ve got 4 days…
Happy Birthday
Wait… if Commander is 32 right now….And Jones and him met in 2010…then his age during when they met was 26 years old…Hmmm… but if you include the fact that he is a time traveler and was born about 18 to 21 years old when he was created by the space/time marines…He should be in his early fifties, late forties at most…give or take a few years. However, he is likely talking about how long he has lived, so 32 may be more accurate.
he was already 32 when they meet, this comic work on comic-book time and the character never really age. like how the guy in doraemon is still a kid after something like fifty years of diffusion.
Don’t Feel bad. I’ll be 16 years older than the Commander in a few days and I don’t have my shit even an iota as together.
Heh. According to this strip, I missed that deadline to get my shit together by 18 years. Could have had the time to grew myself an adult daughter to tell me that, too. Dunno, if it’s a plus to still behave like a teenager because mentally I’m stuck in the 80s. XD
Except he had it together 8 years ago ;)
“When did you fall under the impression that I’m almost a Grandpa”
Don’t worry Jones, different people mature differently and hey you can field strip a chimera and climb a sheer wall to villain’s castle, I’d say you have your shit pretty together as well.
I think the problem here is Jones is actually your typical action heroine, but never got her call to action, and lives a normal life instead. Commander, on the other hand, was given his call to action heroism from birth, but kinda rejected it. So he became a responsible, semi normal person who was raised to be a action hero. But Jones was raised to be normal when she really would have done better off saving the world by the seat of her pants.
Quite. Commander is basically a responsible adult out of Spite towards his superiors. The more they pushed him into reckless heroism the more responsible and “boring” he became.
This is the most beautiful thing I’ve read in months, at least.
I always felt the commander was older than I was. That’s largely because he DOES have all his shit together! For the record, I’m 42, and generally considered responsible, although I don’t feel it. So, how responsible does one have to be…?
Older then you currently are, regardless of your age.
Fake it till you make it just means other people see you as having your shit together, while you look at the people ahead of you doing the same.
probably confidence or you just have higher goals then they do.
As someone who is about to turn 36 in just over a week, this hurt.
Same. And yet I still get gruff guff from the 50+ folks for being “so young and naive”. It’s like there is no acceptable level of adulting.
Oh man, it doesn’t end, I caption octogenarians saying 60 year olds are ‘so young!’
My 92 year old great-aunt said just that about my 60 year old father.
I’ve been around kids who adulted better than quite a few 50+ folks. I take that as a rule that being an adult is not the be-all and end-all to life. You can be responsible without having to adult. Enjoy life, there is no set date to the end of the lease.
“Sometimes being old just means you’ve been stupid for a long time.” G-d rest Terry Pratchett.
Heehehehe hee
I feel you. I’m turning 35 in three weeks.
It’s a good thing; if he were mid-forties or older you’d be passing the creepiness threshold and have to not date. [n/2+7 years] says a 29 year old should never be with somebody younger than 21 or older than 44.
Assuming normal human maturation rates; elves and goblins and shit throw the scale way off.
Somehow I doubt either Rock or Jonesey would be particularly fussed over that guideline.
Especially since it looks like this is probably the first time in their relationship the topic of age has actually come up.
Well, as Rock’s bisexual, the scale means shit to him. Turns out LGBT people give far less fucks about age gaps.
Have to be… LGBT are about 5-10% of the population depending on the area. You still can’t be creepy age-gapping… but you just can’t be as picky either.
Fortunately, the age-gap thing is a bogus notion, and what really matters is if all the people involved are consenting adults.
Shit the commander – and the author – are both younger than I am. Dang.
I know right? How can Jones have her shit together more than me?
As a 33 year old this stung.
As a 34 year old, same.
As a 35 year old, I want to keep this going.
As a 37-year-old, I’m disappointed no 36-year-olds chimed in.
As a 52 year old….
I would not have put the Commander at 40 but upper 30s is what I was expecting (though when you look at his kids ages 32 makes more sense). Nice to know his-and her-age though.
And given the timescale used in this comic (AKA “always the same age”), they’ll always be 32 and 29 unless it’s a flashback or a time-travel to their personal pasts or futures.
WOW!!! O_O
Commander is my age!
(Well in 2 weeks I’m year older than him)
Technically he’s about to be officially 33, so you’re still the same age
Great. I have minus eight years to get my shit together.
comander needs to teach me how to be one….. also how to work out *squeezes muffin top* ….you are what you eat
Commander is 1 year older than me (as of last month) huh.
Fucking LOL
Also, I feel ya Jones.
well, I can ship it. CommanderJones is the otp.
Oh, hey, I’m almost as old as Jones. That’s interesting.
Anyway, it must be the broken nose and he beard. It gives you about 5 extra years.
I really do enjoy their interactions.
Speaking of Jared, how is he and his Gyarados doing?
Swimmingly
Well, Jared is the King of Everything and Mr. Fish is his majestic steed, so i’d say pretty good.
Jones, the secret is that NO ONE has their shit together. We just all pretend we do to get by.
(For the record I’ve got two years on the Commander and my life, while stable, is still kind of a wreck!)
As someone who just hit the age of feakin’ social security eligibility, a big AMEN to that.
It’s all about “fake it till you make it.”
You accept that no one really has their shit together. You pretend you have your shit together. Eventually pretending you have your shit together becomes a habit, and at that point you realize that that IS actually having your shit together.
Wait how old is Jared? I think I started reading this around the end of high school, so like 7 years ago. If I’m 25 now I’m closer to Jones’s age?
Wait, hell, I’m 24
I assumed he was at LEAST in his fourties, myself. And possibly thanks to future medical tech, he could be in his sixties. Not for life togetherness, but life experience. How long was he in TAILS, occasionally spending months deployed while only being away for a weekend?
I think part of my assumption was that he didn’t have kids until he managed a… discharge with pay? Whatever situatuon he has arranged with he future army right now. That, and the psychiatric help after being told his siblings were not killed in action. Just seemed he’s been through a hell of a lot in his life, and I assumed he didn’t start a family until he settled down.
Commander not being settled is probably one of the reasons they got divorced.
Proof:
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/commander-doesnt-really-know-exactly-how-old-he-is-thanks-to-this-kinda-thing
I guess the Commander has technically had more time to get his shit together, if you consider all the time travel.
Nah, 32 is accommodating the time travel, it’s technically just him ball parking how old his body is.
He’s probably went; “Well, I spent 5 months as a Viking slave, and 6 months overall in slave camps, plus that one time I fought in Vietnam twice, (etc.) so add that to the 26 years I can account to in the future or the present, I’m probably about to turn 32 or 33.”
I honestly never thought about the Commander’s age, what with all his time-traveling, but to think that he’s actually younger than me…damn. I’m thirty-five this year, and he’s got his shit more together than I do. :(
One have to admit the Commander is a very well-adjusted person. And it’s good, because you’re going to need a well-adjusted person to run a place full of guys like Kratos, Duke Nukem or Lobo.
My brother reading behind my back: “What? i’m one year younger than Jones and i got my shit less together than Jared!”
Jared has his shit pretty well together, he has a nice cave, he has a job, he has a beloved pet laserfish, he has friends, he’s trusted enough by his pseudo father figure to babysit the kids, he’s apparently decent at driving, since commander trusted him to drive his kids around(lending Jared his car wasn’t a big show of trust because Jared might total it, it was a big show of trust, because commander trusted Jared to drive with the kids in the car, which show that commander consider Jared a responsible driver.)
So all in all I wouldn’t say having your shit less together than Jared is that bad, Jared has come a real long way in having his shit together.
Don’t forget Jared’s not only an intern here at the office, but he’s also got a PhD making him a Pokemon Professor. Not to mention later on Jared became a Gym Leader.
Also there is no better pet trainer/lover than Jared. So Jared’s actually pretty well off if you think about it.
Yeah, it only came to my mind a few hour after i posted that comment, but honestly the only thing in which jared is lacking would be self-confidence. (http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/someone-figured-he-could-use-an-office-assistant-with-healing-buffs)
Though in a way, what my bro said is still true. he got his shit pretty well together all things considered.
Huh, I’m the same age as Commander and I look like a teenager still. Really goes to show that you can’t judge a person’s age by their looks. lol
I used Brock-Lesnar-as-of-age-32 as the model for his physique when the comic started, so the age was grounded in reality haha
Haha! I can definitely see it now that you mention it.
“It’s not the years kid, it’s the miles.”
Honestly, Commander has a multiple-broken nose, a decent number of scars, and has lived a fairly stressful life. Jonesy probably was reasonable in her assumptions.
Ha! As a fellow out-of-her-depth just-thirty, I was also under the impression that Commander was “fortyyyyyyyy…. umm….”
I just turned 27 and have my shit more or less together! Personally, I blame luck.
Wwwwwwwelp! My ability to guess ages is all kinds of messed up then. He looks a little bit younger than my dad, so I thought commander was about 50.
So is The Commander laughing or despairing in the third panel?
I’m one year older than him I don’t know how to cope with this. O_O
Reminds me of the first couple of times I got “daddy”ed at the gay bar.
I think my exact response the first time was, “HAHAHAHAAaaaa.aaa.aaa…aaaa… you’re serious? Oh… shit.”
Twice, people have assumed my husband was my *son*. He is short, and has a very young looking face, people often think he’s a good ten years years younger than he actually is. While people guess my age anywhere from ten years younger to ten years older than I actually am, depending on how tired or stressed I am. So I can see how the day I was stressed and having mild heat stroke I could have looked a lot older than he did. But it was still an “Oh. … crap” kind of moment on top of a rather not good day.
… I would’ve guessed negative a thousand n somethin-
I’m way older than him and will never reach his level of responsible adultness!
I kind of figured him to be in his 40’s too. :)
oh my gods I’m the same age as Jonesy what
So Commander was in his 20s when the comic started? Never would have guessed.
Th characters don’t age in this comic.
Ah, I see.
Still, only 32… He’s only 1 year older than me, that feels… weird. ^_^ I always thought he was in his 40s, judging by his looks.
Age and maturity don’t coincide.
Wow, he’s my age? Then again, it makes a lot of sense. What about the rest of his squad? I’m guessing within a few months of each other?
They were all grown in the same pod but they’re probably not exactly the same age when they’re together anymore thanks to time travel shenanigans.
That’s probably the most satisfying answer I’ve ever gotten about any webcomic I read. Thank you! I’m still guessing they’re still fairly close in age even with time travel nonsense involved, but the gaps keep shifting back and forth.
I’m 5 years older than Commander. I’m not a responsible adult.
I’m surprised he keeps a good track of his actual age, what with all the time traveling and whatnot.
Then again, I suppose in the super-future, he’s got some calendar that tracks his existing time, as opposed or parallel to “current” time.
You tell him, Jonesy.
No one is a responsible adult at 32.
No one.
I am. …Mostly.
Of course you are, Your Grace…lol
I could be a responsible adult too if I was emotionally and physically tortured by a future military!
I gotta wonder how much deodorant commander goes through on a daily basis to keep the sweat stink away enough for someone to be so comfortable on him
He probably has some advanced future deodorant he uses. Or else, he was genetically altered to not stink, so as to make him a more marketable figure.
I could see it.
Time travel: where you can get all your past selves together for one last big birthday bash and annihilate the timeline to the point it can’t even collapse. At least, that’s an option.
Holy Jeebus, I can’t believe I’ve been stalking this for 8 years. I can’t believe I was in college at the time! But as long as The Commander never ages, neither will I!
Wait no fuck that, I don’t want to imagine I’m back in college. I’m still amazed I have been following this for almost a third of my life. Damn.
Commander is younger than me? What? As a deliberately irresponsible adult (think what happens when a Jared matures into higher-level crazy) I am totally freakin’ impressed.
Also, I stopped celebrating birthdays when I was Jones’ age, is that too soon?
Well I never celebrated birthdays, so no worries, I think you’re good.
I’m sure being a genetic experiment by a future space military helped too.
With my 33rd birthday coming up and no control over my life whatsoever, I take small solace in the fact that people assume I’m only 23.
Happy artificial gestation day!
I’m going to assume the spacefuture military decants them just before high school.
That’s when all the good stories start: before that they’re just kids, and a kid doing something badass isn’t badass, it’s oh my god you monsters why would you put a kid in that situation?
So Commander’s counting from there. Which puts him about mid-forties as we’d reckon it. Time enough for his pretty extensive backstory to take place without him careening between major events with no down time in between.
I just assumed the Commander was several hundred years old and just had slowed aging due to being a genetically engineered super soldier.
Same.
Haha! I win young foolish ones. I have reached the grand age of the answer to life, the universe, and everything! Awe crap… Why do we have to adult?
Was Jones hoping for a silver fox look soon?
It’s official. I am Jonesy. Irresponsibility, age, and all.
Have you ever washed your bras or dishes in the bathtub WHILE taking a shower?
Beards add age to the face, I’m told.
Honestly, with the crazies he manages I figured he was a very well-preserved fifty.
damnit he is younger than me…thats not fair XD
I… I am…. I am a year older then the commander. I don’t know how to feel about this.
Wasn’t he born as an adult super soldier? So he’s had 32 years of being an adult as opposed to the rest of us who spend at least 18 of those years with our thumbs up our noses?
Now I feel old *again*. You and Raven Perez must be conspiring, Coelasquid.
Now I feel old *again*. You and Raven Perez must be conspiring, Coelasquid.
Fuck me I’m the same age as the Commander give or take a month
I. I don’t have my life together. I am not a responsible adult. I have to go away and reassess my entire life.
It looks like Jones is holding an ambiguous smartphone and/or game device.
Doesn’t the time travel and the healing factor mean he’s like a hundred or something? Besides, how do you fit all the adventuring he’s done into that short a time span?
I turned 28 two days ago and my shit isnt halfway together.
Actually i think its still at the starting line.
How much time has passed in universe?
It works on comic book time, so apparently none. Or a few months at most.
It’s a bit embarrassing that the commander has his act together better than me despite being years younger. Than again when i first started reading this comic I was about 30 myself
I keep hearing Commander’s voice as Ron Perlman, and he’s 67.
I like that better than the typical Patrick Warburton posts. But ‘Squid said he sounds like Michael Keeton. I can’t not hear Beetlejuice anymore.
I feel concerned that I’m 4 years older than the Commander
To be fair to Jones, the Commander’s military background undoubtedly leverages a far greater level of both maturity and premature aging.
I mean… how much would being stationed on a planet infested with giant, sometimes Matryoshka styled millipedes age any one of us? And that’s possibly one of the more tame assignments he’s gotten. Between that and all the manipulative garbage his superiors have pulled, the Commander’s level of existential maturity is far less surprising than his stability, sanity, and … just overall nice-guy-ness.
Point is, a bio-engineered, cyborg, time traveling, veteran super soldier has to have a level of accomplished responsibility far, far beyond the norm.
… That said, with all the time bending nonsense, I for one couldn’t blame the Commander if he just put down an ‘X’ on any form asking for his age…
Okay, I’m the same age as Jones, and she seems to have her shit slightly more together than me… I should probably feel a bit concerned about that.
On the one hand, Comics like this specific page, talking about maturity and having your shit together, always make me feel a bit like a mild failure who hasn’t achieved anything in life.
I feel like I’ve missed a lot of the early/mid 20s benchmarks of adulthood. Which is something I think a lot of millennials are grappling with.
But then I remember the meta narrative of Manly Guys which is that the superficial adult shit is much less important than the actually important parts of getting your shit together.
The superficial stuff is choice in taste at best, or at worst, a distraction masking serious dysfunction and deeper problems.
32…
I’m a couple years older than the Commander, and I don’t think I’m near as together as Jared.
Remember, this was a guy who said a half-blind, fully deaf Palico that screeches like a pterodactyl when you pick him up is more qualified to be an intern than him.
To be fair to Jonesy, he’s genetically engineered to be a responsible adult. And also to fight raptor, laser pirates, and carnivorous alien wildlife. When you take his credentials into account, he’s more responsible than many of us could hope to be. Even the more unstable soldiers in his unit at least have day jobs, a stable income, a place to sleep, food, and seek therapy to close the gap on their hangups.
Uh. I though the punchline was that they WEREN’T engineered to be responsible adults. They were engineered to be action stars.
Okay, I was in the same boat as Jones, I really thought he was in his forties.
I wouldn’t have guessed that he was under 36 at the least. Probably would have guessed at least 40.
THIRTY TWO?!! Bull. He’s in his 40s. Now I think he’s up against 50. Rock Lobster is lying and he’s not good at it.
Hi body type was modeled on then-32-year-old Brock Lesnar.
It’s just the gruff action guy look, broken nose n’ shit, and his overall air of maturity that make him look older.
Any adult that tries to tell you they have their shit together is either lying or far more privileged than any adult I have ever met. My 72 year old father, who starts and has successfully run his own business for 30 years, still does not have ‘his shit together’. Because there is no checklist for ‘shit is together’
He has a house, he has a job, cars, family, kids, grandkid etc…. But he depends on my mom to help support him in everyday life. He has no pension so he still goes to work everyday. He had a heart attack 2 years ago.
Life is messy, that’s the WHOLE POINT. It’s how you adapt to it that people call ‘having your shit together’.
And age has absolutely nothing to do with that.
Life was so much easier then all you needed to do was chase down mastodons. Which was surprisingly recent.
This. Yes.
…mfw commander is younger than me (T_T)
I relate to Jonesy so hard right now. Same age as me, my shit is not even close to together.
I’m 38. I cannot relate to this comic. Except by hissing.
gdi i didn’t need even more shit in common with B52.
…He’s only two years older than me?
“Has meltdown.”
I could Say that muy responsable adult thing began when saying “no thanks, i’ll pass” when in college Simeone offered me a beer. It’s there little things….
So… Are you saying Jones is basically you?
No, I’m an extremely driven and focused workaholic who can’t let go of a project. As evidenced by this eighth year anniversary strip you’re commenting on.
By the time I was her age I was married with a nearly decade-long career.
Huh, I’d have guessed longer than that, what with stuff like time spent in slave galleys and his rank. Lesse… 36 maybe? That’s what I’d eyeball.
As a 23 year old struggling to get their shit together, thanks for giving me that 9 year buffer.
The Responsible Adult is a myth!
NOOOOoooooo I’m older than Commander, how did this happen?
Huh. My respect for him just plummeted. Weird.
So when is this old enough to know better supposed to kick in anyway?
I love it. But also shit, I’m 32 lol. At least I have some of my shit together…
I thought of Jones who hates doing laundry and just wears her jeans until they break when I learned of this water-saving trick: Freeze your pants. Just a tour in the freezer will kill the stank bacteria and make them as good as new, barring any buildup of dirt.
So the important question is: Does Jones know this?
COMMANDER IS ALMOST FOUR YEARS YOUNGER THAN ME.
SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE UNIVERSE.
To be fair, it’s probably hard to tell when a year has technically passed for you and your body when you time travel a lot. I mean, if you went back in time for two weeks, and then came back to where you left off from, wouldn’t your birthday technically be two weeks earlier than it was, due to the time you spent in the past?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Commander didn’t actually KNOW how old he is due to this sort of thing.
I am saving this image
It is wonderful
I have so much empathy for her
I’m 32 too Commander, woo~!
So Jones is the same age as me. I also do not have my shit together. That’s actually kinda comforting in a weird way.
My kinship with Jonesy grows ever stronger