Substitute Gym Teacher Reyes
January 23, 2017
2:31 am
We started calling deadlifts “lifting the dead” and this seemed like the obvious progression.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Updated Mondays or whenever I feel like it
We started calling deadlifts “lifting the dead” and this seemed like the obvious progression.
Training the next generation of manly girls and guys I see.
And sending the remainder to hospital and giving General Badass a headache as he needs to find other jobs for Reyes.
General? Did Commander B get a promotion?
An edgelord gym trainer sounds rather motivating
Edgy Dads(TM) teach the Gym Class from Hell.
I just discovered this comic over the weekend, and I have to say, everything about it is a gift. I’m not a gamer, but I love this take on toxic masculinity and how it affects the media we consume. Also, jokes! They are funny! Thanks for sharing it with the interwebs. :)
Wow, you really know how to ruin a good thing.
I mean, you hadn’t figured out yet what this comic is about?
Hey, don’t pick on Songster for just discovering and gushing about the comic.
Thanks, Steve. <3
Good god, go back to Tumblr. Please.
Tumblr: 99% assholes, 1% good content
…I may be wrong but isn’t the artist a huge fan of the overly macho/masculine style? She literally had a huge arc about how characters being made unmasculine(an starting to look like anime protagonists) was a bad thing.
It’s a comic about how a lot of the qualities lauded for being The Most Badass make it impossible for a person to function in society, and macho action heroes puttering around doing regular person things. I feel like the way the term “toxic masculinity” gets thrown around like a buzzword often enough that a lot of people are under the impression it means “masculinity is bad”, really means that holding a highly performative standard of masculinity as a permanent state of being people need to constantly maintain in to avoid emasculation will make people who buy into that idea feel insecure and unhappy if they ever feel like they can’t uphold it. The point of the bishonen arc wasn’t unmasculine=bad, it was about being strong-armed into a body image and style that feel wrong to you and make you uncomfortable in your own skin. Also a dumping ground for all the JRPG jokes I’d been meaning to draw since I was 15 and played a ton of JRPGs.
In simpler terms, you don’t gotta be running your mouth to prove how macho you are, just be confident and put your all into what you do and people will fill in the rest themselves. That’s not a “Tumblr” interpretation of the comic, it’s literally in a strip from like seven years ago.
: )
Thank you!! <3 <3 <3 And welcome to Songster! ONE OF US ONE OF US WE ACCEPT YOU ONE OF US
Aw, thanks! :D
I really love the way you consistently show the utter absurdity and pure silliness of a lot of “macho” and “manly” stereotypes, without running down and stomping on the parts that are kind of awesome.
Yes, that’s the best part. It’s just so perfect
Yikes, there’s arguing subtext and then there is just not reading the actual text and needing the creator to explain it to you.
Goddamn … I’ve been reading this strip for 7+ years o_0
my thought exactly.
Yup! I’ve never read this as anything other than male-positive, as well as woman-positive, queer-positive, and human-positive. But definitely male positive (with just enough androphilia to sweeten the deal.) Thank you for all you do, Kelly. I recommend this comic to everyone.
I mean, in that same “bishounen” arc there was literally a guy who said he felt more comfortable being bishounen than the way he was before, and Commander Badass didn’t take a long time to think about that, he just went “and that’s okay”. (Paraphrasing.)
Was that Marv? All grayscale?
I thought he came back all confused after meeting Johnny Bravo.
If Reyes is the substitute, who’s the regular gym teacher? Zarya?
I’d but good money on it. Either her or Rheinhart.
*bet* not but. Stupid Samsung auto-correct.
Hey, at least it didn’t burst into flames while you were typing it. Bright sides and all that.
Also, I can imagine Tracer being the track and field coach.
She would be excellent at coaching the leaders and the stragglers at the same time.
and at the same time making everyone feel like they aren’t going fast enough either way.
I think Soldier 76 is the one having them run because one of his abilities is literally to run forever
Samsung isn’t Apple. They don’t make the same mistake twice.
Yeah! They only make it multiple times! *budumm tish*
Reinhardt teaches English
The Regular Gym teacher could always just be a regular teacher, no one special at all, and these two just found jobs as substitute Gym Teachers to be the best way to reintegrate themselves back into society
Reyes and Morrison are the kind of guys that just cannot stand having leisure time and do substitute work just to stay busy.
Ana. You’d be surprised how much a tough grandma with a gun full of needles can motivate a group of sullen teenagers to move.
Although she was banned from using her gun after Nanoboosting the hockey team during a friendly match. Turns out nanoboosts are basically just performance enhancing drugs.
To be fair, 5×5 usually does have dead-lifts on one of the two days.
And so many squats
Not “so many”. Just the right amount.
That is the right amount.
I know this isn’t what anyone is here for, but I can never pass up an opportunity to recommend the Stronglifts 5×5 app. Really excellent, well-designed, easy to use workout app for weightlifting at every experience level.
https://stronglifts.com/5×5/
I’m actually doing this right now, and the app continues to impress me. I had to take a couple weeks off, so I thought I’d manually deload so I didn’t end up hurting myself.
So yesterday I open the app, and it pops up a message stating that since I hadn’t lifted in a while, would I like the app to automatically deload, or should I continue in pain. I chose to deload…
I love how Reaper is portrayed in this. Like, he’s trying to be super edgy but once he’s called out on it he actually explains better while still passive aggressively giving the asker detention. It’s like, “I want to be a good teacher but don’t you dare backsass me dammit!!!”….Maybe it’s a leftover from training McCree.
I always welcome Reaper being edgy while actually being a good dad XD
Gabe is in top form here, but Jack with his one-shot there…goddamn that’s funny.
While Reaper is a Dad, Jack is a grumpy Grandpa with “Back in my days” attitude XD
Which is funny because “back in my days” for him would be a decade or two into our future.
It’s nice to hear that we’ll still have snow then.
Nobody ever said it would be safe snow.
Patrolling the mojave almoat makes you wish for a neuclear winter.
Woo! A whole month’s worth of Overwatch comics! I’m glad we’ve finally moved on from all those lame characters you used to draw. Can’t wait for next week’s! 2017’s the best! :D
Kinda rude, bruh.
Ignore them. Pretty much everyone else thinks those “lame” characters are the best thing that ever happened to the internet. I think I speak for most people when I say your comics are awesome, regardless of the topics. Thanks for making my Mondays a little brighter <3
This was some top tier sarcasm, but don’t worry, I’m a qualified British. They were actually expressing a preference for the ‘lame’ characters. The poster is annoyed that we have had too many Overwatch comics and would like to see more of Rock Lobster et al.
Still rude tho
You’ll never make everyone happy, but remember you make most of us happy most of the time. Ignore the yapping of the disaffected minority.
Hey I just read for fun man. I’d rather not think too much when relaxing..do enough if that without trying ignore him I for one miss Commander. Badass and Jared..though kinda curious now if overwatch will be put in your timeline before ir after the commanders days. Really fits with the whole war is a moneymaking thing so make soldiers mire like toys mentality. Covering poorly but I remember an arc like that.
As a point of anecdata: I don’t play Overwatch either, but you bring your characteristic humor and humanity to the characters, which actually leads me to care about them. So keep on keeping on.
I have a niggling suspicion that there are levels of sarcasm being involved here.
Willing to bet they’re trolling, due to their username.
I apologize for my rudeness, I’m just rather bummed that we haven’t seen the Commander since last year.
Now, I’m not knockin’ ya for being a fan of Overwatch. Lots and lots and lots and /lots/ of people are, and that’s cool, even if I don’t care for it. I just don’t quite appreciate how much it’s taken over this comic. Sure there’s been characters and subjects that have gotten a lot of focus before, but your back to back to back to back Kratos and Ganondorf comics at least had them interacting with your characters or characters of other series. Iirc, the only time that’s been the case here was at the beginning of all these where the skull guy commented on Jared’s beanie.
So yeah, just don’t want this series to turn into having to wait for the next non-Overwatch comic all the time. Sorry for startin’ off (and I guess continuing to be if you see it that way?) so assholish.
I’ve just been feeling kind of like I’m tossing a bucket down a dry well for jokes lately and playing a lot of Overwatch, I miss Commander too, I just need to think of something for him to do hahah.
He could be consoling Shepherd that he’s/she’s not involved in Andromeda.. that or Shepherd’s still shook up over what happened with everyone’s favorite scientist salarian….
God now I need to go do a playthrough of Mass Effect again…
Shepard’s probably happy to have some downtime.
Heck there’s an idea, Shepherd sitting back and relaxing, The Commander makes a comment on “Shouldn’t you be in the Andromeda Galaxy?”
Shep: “Nah I found a replacement, also we needed some extra help, it alright that we borrowed one of your guys?”
It would be pretty funny if the replacement was Jared and you see that he’s flipped the tank.
…or one of the Snakes or Jensen are all stealthing through things confusing the rest of the ME crew.
…. make a Zombie Apocalypse (or some other kind of Apocalypse) story arc caused by Caleb from Monolith’s One Unit Whole Blood and Blood 2 games ditching work out of boredom?
http://blood-wiki.org/index.php/Caleb <– this guy. I mean, you've shown the duke a few times.
I mean, Jokes are good an' all, but too much of anything causes a burnout.
Here’s your half-cookie.
Well, he’s a spacefuture commando, right? He could easily pitch in to help with Overwatch war games as a guest lecturer. Best of both worlds.
“No no no, see the time matrix should be set counterclockwise to the apparent view, look. No wonder you were only squeaking three boosts out of this thing.”
Did we do a comic on Kratos’ thought process when he’s told he’s a dad yet?
… I also miss the guy :( He’s in some of the best parts of this comic.
For Honor is coming soon. I’m sure you’ll find a bunch of ideas there, though probably not many iconic characters
I would absolutely work out with Reaper and Soldier… and Zarya, and Reinhardt… Look, these people are huge and I respect whatever advice they have to give, as people who use their bodies for a living.
Coelasquid. I love your comic, and I’ve been reading it for years. Keep up the amazing work.
Would communications class be something like “Try to figure out when Bastion is actually swearing versus when it’s just happy”?
But Bastion never swears! It just solves 35 problems per second.
Oh, Soldier Dad, never change.
Did Commander send them to sub as gym teachers? Does he regularly place some of the other manly guys as subs?
Also I want Hanzo to sub as a math teacher and refuse to teach anything but geometry.
The thought of Hanzo refusing to teach anything except geometry had me laughing WAY too hard. Well played!
Coelasquid does an amazing job of using side comments and sight gags to illustrate points that both make you laugh AND make you think. Great job so far, please keep up the great work!
Junkrat becomes substitute teacher for Chemistry and Arts and Crafts.
Run for your lives.
Roadhog teaches English Literature. I’m convinced he’s secretly a Jane Austen fan.
“Teacher, everyone is done with the page you asked us to read, like 10 minutes ago, aren’t we going to continue with the class?”
“I’m in no rush!”
What I now cannot get out of my head is the word DEADLIFTS said in that dark-evil-depths-of-hell-with-echoes-of-the-whispers-of-the-damned-in-the-background voice that you managed to draw a perfect speech balloon (splatter?) for. Thank you.
Blizzard needs to add DEADLIFTS as a voiceline for Reaper now
no it needs to be a emote with sound
Heh, I just imagine the sass going on in 76’s class as well.
“but its May, there isn’t any snow for miles.”
“Well that is where your wrong. Meet my assistant, Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou. I called her in to help prep the track for your run. Now remember to keep moving to keep the blood flowing, and if anyone’s extremities are getting numb don’t hesitate to speak up.z”
I was thinking that with a little setup time Symmetra could arrange the slope to keep things perpetually uphill.
Reaper is the best coach since John Mcguirk.
My favorite part is the “throwaway” joke in the background of the final panel. Two punchlines for the price of one!
These are are the gym teachers at my highschool if you talk shit about them
Where am I? Is this /fit/?
Nah, it’s not homoerotic enough for that.
I love your sense of humor so much I wish it was a person so I could date that person.
Reyes is pretty strong for being what, like 40ish and not-dead(?). Squatting 405 while handing out detention is pretty badass. Also the hat on top of the mask inside the hoodie made me lul.
Dude’s probably pushing 60, but just check out those thighs, he’s gotta be the squats master.
He’s definitely activating those glutes, too. GLUTES FOR DAYS!
Beautiful, beautiful glutes. <3
About using the phrase “lifting the dead.” Have you ever tried to lift someone who’s merely unconscious? It can be a real pain in the butt to lift someone acting like a string of cooked spaghetti; Firemen (for one example) have to learn special techniques on how to lift someone like that, just to rescue them. I think it would be easier to lift the dead, as long as they’re still in the rigor mortis stage; it’s easier for using leverage.
I mean, the phrase “dead weight” exists for a reason.
I have to say, you draw some of the most expressive and evocative speech balloons I’ve ever seen. And the hat-mask-hoodie is pretty funny by itself, even without the actual punchlines.
Lovin’ Reaper having a moment to enjoy a little humor. My headcanon for this basically amounts to him flipping through the notes on what he has to do, spots deadlifts, and just spends five minutes trying not to laugh. Then Jeremy has to chime in and Reaper decides to get serious, but still punishes Jeremy for ruining his moment.
TBH, I probably would have enjoyed gym class more (or been inclined to take it at all) in my high school years if those two were the gym teachers. And if e had a rock-climbing wall and free weights like I see there.
We had a rock climbing wall I’m surprised nobody died on. I’m pretty sure the gym teacher and I think my dad built it by raiding the shop and attaching boards to the gym wall from floor to ceiling, plus a couple platforms and overhangs. There was no harness or anything, we’d just climb as high as we could and flop onto the mats, which in retrospect was like jumping off a roof or something.
*sigh* Goddammit, that’s awesome…
We had one at my school that was literally never used, and I don’t know why. I think they just didn’t want to have to deal with the liability. They might not have had any of the pulleys and harnesses either.
My elementary school had ropes that slid out of the walls that we were encouraged(more than once) to climb as high as we could. Now that I think back on it, a bunch of 7 year olds hanging from the ceiling with only a thin gym mat as safety may not have been the best idea.
Which is especially weird as my district disallowed dodgeball because somebody would get hurt and parents would complain and they didnt want to deal with the potential headaches…
How do I share this on facebook? this was great
i dont really know why i write this there – but somewhere in comments ere problems of masculine guys, remembered one coworker in mi summer job, i needed show him some machine that dealed problems, walked through little space, poor Herkules ( i was calling him like that) needed to walk around because he was simply too much masculine and huge to walk through like I:D
Kid “Mr. Morrison, how do we run uphill both ways? Do we run up one hill than another to get to a teleporter or something?”
76 “Nah, symetra just got really drunk last night and started copying M. C. Esher. Which reminds me, try not to fall into the sky.”
I finally went to TV Tropes and read the Overwatch Character page just so I could know wth is going on.
Not sure if that would be more or less informative than just going to the actual Overwatch page and checking out their bios.
… though it would definitely be much more likely to lead to rabbit-holing your day away.
that “running in the snow uphill both ways” is such a thing fathers say on regular basis in Canada…it does not even sound scary to me anymore. :)
Still, with Symmetra and Mei on hand, it’ll happen.
I’m sad now, because I won’t be able to read this comic for three weeks due to Army stuff.
405 for 5 is pretty good. Way to go, Coach Reyes!
(He has the butt to show for all those squats, too.)
That Jeremy on panel 3 looked like Peter parker from Ultimate Spider-Man animation. Is this an accidental shoutout to that episode? The one when Taskmaster infiltrates Midtown High to find out who is Spidey??
Deadlifts? More like DADlifts, am I right?
So what’s the adjusted workout plan? I’ve been meaning to get into weight lifting again.
I remember having to walk to school in the snow uphill both ways!
You don’t believe uphill both ways?
Well you see, our village was at the bottom of a mountain; That our supreme leader (may his radiance shine eternal!) allowed us to live.
The indoctri – err … “education” facility was near the top of this mountain.
Every day we would walk up it.
And every OTHER day (even numbered days), we would take the ziplines down to the other side of the mountain, to the labor camps. Where we would show our love for the supreme leader (may he bless us with his guidance!) by creation and assemblage of his machines of retribu – err… “peace distribution!”
Then we would get to walk up the mountain again, and spend the nights at the educational facility, and sleep with the supreme leader’s (may the world be blessed by his hand!) motivational messages – err … “brain washing…” wait … nevermind that!
But it wasn’t so bad! Every other day (odd days, because the time spent with family and not at the facilities was to always be considered “odd”) we got to walk down the shady side of the mountain (after lessons were over and educational facility was scrubbed from top to bottom) in the late evenings, and to sleep in our own beds. *Mine was straw!* Because our family was favored by the supreme leader!
I know! Lucky right!? :D
My favorite part of this is the implication that Gabe REGULARLY renames exercises to make them sound edgier.
I did not care for the art style of Overwatch or want to play it, and I still don’t, but I do appreciate it more now that I know there’s a cool badass Mexican character in there. ‘Cuz I’m Mexican. I’m not just some white guy saying that, no, I’m actually Mexican American. Okay.
You have dictated 95% of my Overwatch headcannon. Especially with Reyes. Thank you so much. This comic makes my life better.
Can’t help but imagine the entire roster of overwatch as teachers in a school now… Cept McRee… Love the guy but, just cant fit him in there… janitor..maybe?
Ahaha this is amazing!
I can confirm, the 5×5 is the manliest training program of all, and it does involve a lot of squats!
Side note, a guy on youtube dubbed this comic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggsi4zAdFg8
I generally go with a Dragon Age theme for my custom workout journals for ye olde Stronglifts 5×5, but I’m thoroughly tempted to put that “DEADLIFTS!” panel front and center on my next one.
*lifts faster*