And then Jared became a man
July 4, 2011
12:00 am
I wanted to challenge myself and do a “cake is a lie” type joke in a way that hasn’t been done to death yet. It was a life goal of mine.
Inspired by the true story of Brett eating all the cake perimeter my roommates and I had picked clean and abandoned on the counter.
…But the outside with all the frosting is the BEST part.
Also I have to say those boots of chels kind of make Jared look like he’s wearing high heels. It’s not a bad look for him.
Hilarious comic, and even without color the art is great.
It… really isn’t!
I didn’t expect Jared to be able to look good in the long-fall boots. I didn’t expect anyone to look good in the long-fall boots outside of Chell.
I have been proven wrong, and am humbled.
What are you talking about? Everyone, and I mean everyone, looks good in .
Dangit, messed up the html link. It would’ve said “these” with the link to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX9Sc88qreg
You can have mine, & I’ll eat all that pesky, moist delicious inner cake so you won’t have to!
Yeah, I’ve gotta agree with Jared – the delicious moist cake itself far surpasses the icing.
Mind you, even as a child I got nauseous if I ate too much icing.
Wow. You had a sad childhood.
Yeah he really did the icing crust is the best part
As someone who grew up in a bakery and one ate a 2-pound tub of icing, I still get brownies instead of cake for my birthday, and I’m turning 21 this month.
In fact, forget the cake. Let’s get a bucket of icing in here pronto.
I agree with this. I always thought that the icing was the whole point of cake.
Bleeeugh. Maybe GOOD icing. But the icing my family used was made primarily of sugar and spite.
And everything trite?
Can I manly-marry you?
I think my wife might get annoyed at me confusing my kids.
The icing blows but that crusty perimiter is the only good thing about cakes.
Jared’s face in the last two panels is magnificent.
Happy 4th of July *I always thought you were Canadian*
That, my friend, is the face of adulthood – crush dreams and painful acceptance of the fact. At leasy i think it is. its what i look like most mornings.
She is, but she’s living in the US now. California, I think.
yeah.
A salute to the multinational!
She could sing “O Canada” only replace Canada with California.
Although saying California is “my home and native land” might be a little too distressing for ol’ Squid.
This feels pretty authentically Portalish. Which makes it fantastic. Added to the MGDMT fantastically. It’s double-tastic. Like looking through a Portal to see two fantastic sides of the same thing.
I’ve worn out a word today.
Agreed, I can totally read those as true GlaDOS-isms.
You managed, bravo.
Is Jared being “awesome” in the first panel?
In the last two panels his expressions remind me of what Kate Beaton would draw. Which is not a bad thing! :)
They do! Yes, any resemblance to Kate Beaton’s work is generally a good thing.
It’s more or less inspired by a pretty common emoticon. that frowny one that I don’t know how to make.
This guy, I assume: ಠ_ಠ
I don’t know the code either, I just keep the emotes on a sticky note on my desktop for easy copy-pasta :3.
yeah, that’s the one.
Okay…
A. The part with the too-much icing is the best part, especially on cakes with whipped cream icing! :P
B. Are you one of those people who gets migraines trying to watch 3-D movies?
C. This was hilarious, especially the last panel, where Jared was determinedly eating the cake, even though he didn’t like it. ^_^
This is the first time I’ve ever gotten a headache from a 3D movie.
Is it because it was 3D or because the movie was _that_ bad?
Haven’t seen it yet myself (I don’t think it’s even out yet over here), but seeing as how the first was horribly disappointing and the second a crime against filmmaking, I could see the third being literally migraine-inducing.
Oh, I’m quite sure if anything it was the horrible cinematography. Three of us watched the movie together, three of us are seasoned theatre veterans who have seen tons of 3D films, three of us went home with headaches.
Oh…well, sorry to hear that. :( That must make it even more disappointing, then.
read GLaDOS’s parts in her voice… also i concur with him being awesome both in the look on his face and the fact that he’s crawling up the incinerator tube… Happy 4th!
I totally read them in GLaDOS’s voice too haha.
This comic is made of win. It may not be Oddyssian win, but it is win nonetheless (I DIDN”T SAY THE WORD DON”T SHOOT MEEEEE)
I kinda did absent mindedly, GLaDOS kinda has a seat in my head, just like Vader and Morgan Freeman.
… I didn’t know that “Glogious” was a word.
((Catching typos is practically my only applicable life skill, so… sorry about that. XD ))
Not trying to insult the comic – loved it, and have for ages – but when you colour it you may want to change ‘glogious’ to ‘glorious’.
This scene could have been writen by Valve. It is so perfectly GLADoS-esque.
OH, P.S Jared is waring high heels, the commander is going to kill him.
Does that last panel say “glogious passage?”
I always love your expressions, by the way.
I’ve had a pretty crappy 4th. This made it a lot better. Thank you.
Team Fortress 3? Did they add the rumored 10th class?
This is fantastic my friend- and thanks to those boots I can’t get the thought of Jared wearing high heels out of my head.
Real men make high heels manly.
Whats his arm doing in panel 3? o.O
It is obviously trying to shield him from the disappointing truth of the non-delicious, ring cake thing by attempting to drag him back down the incinerator chute.
JARED!!!
Now we just need a Jared with a companion cube’s comic :D
Ah… it seems fitting that Jared’s glorious passage into adulthood is in black and white.
BTW, you spelled it ‘glogious.’
I have similar trouble when I letter. For some reason words become extra confusing when they’re put into pictures.
Like the word ‘access.’ It took me twenty minutes to figure out that it had two ‘cs.’
Yeah, at least it’ll be fixed in the colour one :P
This is the BEST juxtaposition of Portal and cake, hands down. I am touched, deeply touched indeed!
You said TF3. You got me all excited for a new Team Fortress which would explain why TF2 went free.
But then a Dark Side of the Moon trailer played behind me.
I thought you wanted to encourage us to print it out and color it in our selves.
I am very tempted to do that now. I have to go search for my crayons now.
That’s probably the best idea I’ve heard all day. But I have been listening to drunk people talk about combining several dozen fireworks, so it’s not hard to beat.
Coming soon The Manly Man’s Coloring Book! No wimpy unicorns or teddy bears to color here!
That is an awesome idea for a store item.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things Coloring Book.
“Only attempt if you own a box of 64 or more crayons. None of that 16 crayon funny business.”
Or two. Black and Red. What does a Manly Man need to color in that needs other than those two colors? (’cause ‘flesh’ is never ANYbody’s skin color)
Not even the piggy-ones ? Now I’m disappointed…
You can never have enough shades of red or black. I’d assume you’d want some brown in there, too. And maybe some blue (for the eyes or something).
Also, bloom. Which isn’t really a color per se, but …
Manly Guys Coloring Manly Things
I would buy that for long road trips and for small children to learn how to REALLY color something worth while.
…man thats depressing.
…Im gonna go hurt myself now.
The true pleasure in life thus becomes finding the people responsible for eating the inside of the cake and giving them a thorough ass-kicking.
…and what a wonderful job you did of it!
Hey I just wanted to say I adore your comics and I’m always surprised you manage to do something funny and original each week :)
lol thats just mean about eating the inside of the cake. its like eating the inside of a reeses cup, just cruel for the rest of us to see
My favorite version ever. He sure showed her though.
Damn, that Portal Gun’s lookin’ like one evil gnarly robot claw in the first panel.
This is how cake jokes should have been done. 4 years later and somebody does it in a way that doesn’t make me want to claw my grey matter out.
Happy Canadian 4th, Coela!
For her, that would’ve been 3 days earlier, as Canada day is the 1st of July…
whoa ! then jared really was all this time inside Glados Laboratory !!!
He missed Chest Hair contests , commander and jones drunk , Canadian guy morning habits , and Rainbow Lantern reunions , just to gain an cake , an freaking stuffingless cake !!
That’s our Man !!! . . . .
Man, Jared is rocking those long fall boots. I’m also amused beyond all reason that he popped out of the Aperture Emergency Intelligence Incinerator. Instead of you know…the door
Oh Jared.
The door would be too obvious. People use doors. Jareds use alternative means.
Welcome to the world of adults Jared. Welcome…
His face… it’s so… unsatisfied.
Technically — since it seems like there’s actual cake in that weird dessert reminiscent of a donut gone wrong — Jared could just scrape off the gross icing and eat the almost-as-delicious-as-the-middle cake parts left.
It’s the choice we all have to face.
I feel like there’s a deeper meaning in this… but then I see Jared’s face in the third panel, and I loose it between laughs.
This ‘glogious’ what does it mean?
It means I shouldn’t do text when I’m drunk.
At first I read that as “I shouldn’t text when I’m drunk,” and I was going to say, “Agreed. I hate it when people drunk text me.”
But then I realized you said “do text” and I was like, “I’ve put text in a comic strip before and it was wrong, and I wasn’t drunk. So it’s not that big of a deal. I actually thought the misspelling was funny, yo.”
But… that part is the best part of the cake, it’s delicious.
And for some reason, I lol’d at the part with the parents and tears.
The truth in this is stunning and Jared accepting adulthood for what it is, is equally stunning.
I sort of like this comic in black and white. Somehow it really fits this one comic
Gotta love the conclusion with Jared’s reaction.
Otherwise, hope you feel better. I’ve heard nightmare stories about severe eye pain in regards to your manly theater adventure. I’m luckily in a decent part of the 3D tollerance median. But it raises a question?
Have you seen a full blown 3d movie prior to TF3D?
Ya know, a non-converted flick?
I’m at the theatre nearly every week or so, especially in the thick of movie launch seasons. I’ve seen dozens of 3D movies, this is the only one that gave me a headache. I would guess largely due to the piss poor cinematography full of constant motion with no real focal points, or contrasting colours, shapes, or textures.
I’d say it was likely an overuse of the effect then.
There literally isn’t any scene where they say “Let’s turn it down a notch”.
Add in the fact that its over two and and goddamn half hours long and viola instant issues,
They at least crank up the brightness?
TF3? …Team… Fortress… 3?
Transformers.
Hey! That’s not fair! Transformers is only one word! Adding the F threw me off! You diabolical acronymist you!
If I were trapped in the Enrichment Center and got to GLaDOS, I’d tell her to shove it.
I really don’t like cake.
*insert praise of the page here*
Since when can there ever be too much icing?
I want to know what course of action Jared chose to take which led to him crawling OUT of the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator.
You sir, have just made my whole morning. Also, i agree with everyone above, it totally looks like the poor kid’s wearing heels in the first panel ::totally would wear those boots if they sold them in stores:: <3
*cough* ma’am *cough*
Ohhh, nice dodge on the “Too much white in Portal” coloring issue.
so….is she gonna let him out or gas him?
Probably let him out since hes buddies with the commander…
Huh. GLaDOS was shockingly nice there. If it weren’t for the deadly neurotoxin I wouldn’t mind getting a drink with her all of the sudden.
… and the deadly lasers.
… and the deadly military androids.
My brain immeidately went to “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED”
And then he finished that cake “LIKE A BOSS”
-shot-
Gotta say that I love how subtley cruel GLaDOS is in this comic, and seeing Jared make Portal jokes is always fun.
GRAH! Too much Portal times, I can hear GLaDOS when I read the text!
And then Jared makes a “This is a triump” joke and GLaDOS tosses him back into the incinerator …
It’s unfulfilling.
In that it is not full of filling.
Oh well, at least he didn’t get what some friends did for a roommate’s birthday – they built a cardboard cake-shape and covered it with frosting.
Inside the frosted cardboard was a pie.
Achieving a state of manhood requires running around in high heels while a macheavelan machine taunts me?
I always learn everything too late
I once read a pretty good feminist analysis of Portal 1 that made the point that GLaDOS is essentially the negative-image of a powerful mother: overbearing, protective, condescending, selfish, inappropriately sexy. When looked at through that lens, Portal can be viewed as a struggle between daughter trying to grow up (escape the lab) and the mother ever more drastically impeding that in order to continue getting ego-validation from the daughter (conducting tests and gathering data, which is GLaDOS’ stated goal).
But, yeah, you mean your mother didn’t make you run around in heels while taunting you? You had a fucked up childhood, dood.
Where is Mr. Fish? Is he hiding with shame because he ate the cake? Will Jared as an adult forgive him…..
That’s right, Jared! You eat that cake perimeter!
Soo… The cake is half a lie?
So, by eating the “lie” cake, is he accepting neither the truth nor the lie? Or am I just over-thinking this?
He’s accepting that the truth is unfulfilling. As in it’s not exactly a lie, but it’s not exactly the whole truth. A few things may have been omitted.
Exactly like growing up.
I think he is just shoving it down and trying to make the best of his cake he earned. Moist inner cake or not, he’s going to eat it and like it!
Finally, an original cake joke after all these years.
Jared is wearing a Weighted Companion Cube shirt, how appropiate.
lol Jared’s face in the second to last panel
“Yup, I am disappoint.”
XD lmao This is my new favorite page of the comic. You captured Glados perfectly. I feel bad for Jared though… I would be upset too if I got only the icing.. Too much icing ruins the cake. The crust though ain’t too bad.
I had a dream last night that people were making cakes and removing the inner-cake parts.
Your goal is completed with gusto! Props to making A “the cake is a lie” joke not feel stale.
cute boots O,O where can i buy a pair?xD
When I see Jared in the jump boots I get the idea of Gene Simmonds’ s son.
Or Weird Al Yankovic.
The best cake joke/ metaphor ever.
EVER.
My not-yet-inlaws did EXACTLY the same thing, just with Neapolitan ice cream, eating all of the tasty chocolate and strawberry, yet leaving a strip of untouched vanilla down the center of the box.Oh, such a cruel prank!
…I prefer vanilla.
Any chance of the uncolored version getting uploaded to the extra’s section? I missed it and king of want to see it now after all the comments. Also somewhat fitting to see this comic on my birthday. :(
So wait…holy crap! has jared been inside the enrichment center all this time?!? how is he still alive?
He’s Jared. You can’t kill someone like Jared easily.
This was the most brilliant “the cake is a lie” joke ever! Just had to tell you.
I just love Jared’s face of slight indignation on the 5th pannel. I think it’s the most serious face I’ve seen him make so far, and also the most manly. Fitting for his coming into adulthood.
Hyena would eat the perimeter quite joyfully. I likes the perimeter.
My 35 birthday was on the 3rd.
I got no cake.
But a friend shared some mini doughnuts at the music festival.
That friend is a professional cake baker and decorator.
Have I had my passage to adulthood yet? Help.
The cake actually exists as promised and is therefore true. Yet, when the cake was promised to you, they willingly let a false idea motivate you. They knew you would imagine the cake was something that it is not, and used it against you. Therefore the cake is false. The cake both is and is not a lie. At the same time.
Coalesquid, you just broke the universe.
Schrodinger’s Cake.
We’re looking at the half-life of icing here.
“Unfulfilling” is not a word, according to dictionary.com
I love the comic nevertheless.
I would really love a display picture of Jared from the bottom middle panel. That face fills me with a sense of awesome.
Too much? Not enough icing, I say!
NeedGod.com
Is this going to be something that sticks or is this just a good joke? It’s a ridiculously good one, I like it. Could get Jared to – barely – straighten up a bit, lol.
As always, amazing comic.
“Cake Perimeter” would make an excellent name for an indie rock group.
Also, kudos to Jared.
I’d have loved to see Mr Fish trailing Jared through the Aperture Science emergency intelligence incinerator.
XD…I never played the first one, but I really want to…Second was awesome, though. And I agree; the cake exterior is definately nasty.
Also, you need to have Biorr from Demon’s Souls in here. He’s manly enough to just sit in dragon flames for half an hour.
Jared ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) like the outside
What does this mean and how did you do it? ._.
I just wanted to congratulate you on achieving one of your life goals. . . it was a flying success! XD
I tried to re-create the face Jared made in the 2nd to last panel. I feel 20% manlier.
I tried and BECAME 21% LESS manlier, beat that!!!
…please?
GLaDOS is a bitch. Simply put.
Hilarious comic though, you really do capture the way things are with the characters.
XD Cake Perimeter. Doesn’t seem physically possible/
So ceola, since you seem to be a big dragon age kinda person, and you’ve had plenty of comics with Sten, did you ever find his “cake is a lie” type joke?
If you haven’t, or for those who play the games and haven’t I guess, after beating the archdemon and if your Warden is still around, you get the chance to talk to all of your people and then some in the landsmeet chamber. For each person you can talk to them and get an actual dialogue, and then you can talk to them again and they just do they little speech bubble thing. If you do that with Sten he says: “Where is the cake? I was told there would be cake. The cake is a lie.”
Idk, pardon the super-explanation lol, I just thought it was pretty awesome of them to put that in there. (:
What is his hand doing INSIDE the Portal Gun!?
You’re actually supposed to put your hand inside it, I think. :/
Pfft, screw that! I’m turning GLaDOS into an oven and making my own cake!
I spent more time downloading this game from Steam than I did playing the game, so this part of Portal was one of the saddest parts of the game (in many ways).
And the cake didn’t even look good. They said it was delicious! Those dishonest beehives!
I remember when you died at the end of Portal…
You didn’t die. There’s a sequel.
Why’s he climbing out of the incinerator?
the fourth panel and those last two panels are priceless! well done!
More important than the cake..how did Jared SURVIVE the Apeture Science Enrichment Center under the watchful (and sadistic) eye(s) of GLaDOS?
But the crusty over frosted outside is my favorite part.
This is very good. I enjoyed it.
Well, looks like Jared had his cake…
And ate it too.
‘Cake Perimeter’ would be a great name for one of those short-lived garage bands every famous musician seemed to be in before all the individual members broke up and hit it big as parts of other bands.
Me and my buds use cake as a euphemism for sex which makes this comic that much funnier to me.
So I finally got around to finishing Portal and then Portal 2 lately and came back for these Portal comics.
This one in particular has stuck with me for literal years. Really aced it.
If it’s buttercream frosting I would be totally okay with the crust.