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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net ⋅ 18h
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social ⋅ 2dDavid M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social ⋅ 22d
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and he likes to snack on faces in his fist at high speeds
I believe it’s called tenderizing and it makes the despair so soft it falls off the bone.
Fried in actual tears.
That’s our Mike.
Sounds like Mike works as a Dementor, but with more flair and personality.
AS much as I liked the Harry Potter series, it’s pretty easy to have more flair and personality than any Harry Potter villain.
are you kidding? have you seen how much impractical flair Hermione has?
harry potter only has maybe 3 villans. i still dont see how harry got enough power to fight voldemort on equal footing even with all the micro rules he was only a good wizard for maybe 2 years but good enough to beat the dark lord whos very name sends a chill down the spine of every knowledgeable wizard in the world. Thomas Malovo Riddle (im guessing the middle name and i dont want to spell check it)
Harry got enough power to defeat the Dark Lord because he had love, friendship, family, and loyalty on his side; things the Dark Lord could never have because he was conceived under the influence of magic. His followers only followed him (save Bellatrix perhaps) because they feared him. And all of Harry’s followers were his friends and family. Call it cheezy, but these things are very powerful when it comes to magic, because magic (in the HP universe) is all about the will of the mind and of the heart.
They were never equal, Voldemort was far stringer and experienced. He just fought Harry stupid because he was too stuborn to accept his limitations.
Technically Voldeomort had strong will in his heart to kill his enemies and reach his goals (which i cant compeltely remember at the moment) and a greater mind than harry
Ha-ha, I just happened to catch the start of the HP comments, and had to read them all. I love HP
He feasts on the tears of unfathomable sadness
So he just walks ’round kickin’ puppies and hitting dudes in the sacks?
yeah, haven’t you been paying attention?
I meant for a reason.
Lunch is a reason.
he probly will geth foggy and fade away if he doesnt geth other sadness for a extendet while
I can’t decide if you are having trouble with your keyboard, or are intentionally trying to type with a lisp.
“Let me taste your tears, Walky!
MMmm, they’re so warm and yummy!”
He’s going to get love handles if he’s around here for long.
After being in an elevator with Ruth for 2 minutes, he’d be 300 pounds.
He’d be astonished to find someone filled with more sadness than Amber. He’d have to recalibrate his standards.
Well, Amber seems relatively happy right now. She beat up her dad, and found a cute blonde friend.
You do remember what happened to her mental state after beating the shit out of her dad, right? The other point stands, though.
Actually those would be hate handles. No part of Mike’s body will allow love. Except for his love of misery.
mike must be a big dumbing of age fan
I’ve said it before, but a good portion of the internet is Mike. Another good portion is Faz.
When you combine the two, you get 4chan.
Oh good lord I hate that you’re right xP
This is the reason this site needs an upvote system. Just go ahead and pretend I gave you one.
Tumblr:
2 parts Walky
1 parts each Mike and Mary
A little more than a dash of Faz.
Shake and serve in a glass over Joyce’s crushed childhood.
A little more than a dash of Faz.
A handful of Faz.
I’ll show myself out.
You forgot the Roz.
Too strong; anything with Roz invariably ends up tasting like YouPorn.
Clearly you haven’t been too far into the depths of tumblr.
I’d… like to refute that. We have our Dorothies too – it’s pretty damned diverse – but in a lot of cases, that’s horrifyingly accurate.
In case you all haven’t noticed… a vast number of us are Dinas… they don’t speak up much, but they do vote. If you haven’t noticed us, it’s because you’re forgetting to check behind the doors.
Closets or otherwise. No, wait, that’s Ethan.
Then what about the portion of the internet that’s cat videos?
Joyces, the lot of them.
Dina’s from other universes where dinosaurs were cats instead of birds.
Is that not where saber-toothed tigers come from?
“Don’th make fun of my thpeath impediment! I don’th wear brathes, I’m a thaber-thooth thiger in dithguithe!”
Sabertoothed otherkin
so true! here, have all my internets…. although now you’ve explained what they are, I’m not sure you want them anymore :-/
Mystery solved! Oh wait most people knew that.
But does sadness provide enough roughage?
He gets his home cooking from…
…for a nickel.
Well, there goes Walky brushing off the person best suited to help him with his grade problem.
As for Mike, did we ever think otherwise?
That’s a good point. She’d also be the most understanding / not make fun of his low grade.
On the other hand this was the person to whom he practicaly bragged that he doesn’t need to study, when he was previosly offered the opportunity to study together. So he might also irationaly not want to show Dorothy ,that in the ned he is not that good.
Or he simply doesn’t want to blurt it out in the cafeteria in front of a bully like Mike who would use it against him in the worst way possible.
Mike already knows. He was sitting next to him in class, when he got the grade. And we all know Mike never misses these kind of things.
Ohhh… Is that why Mike was tagged even though he was barely in those strips?
But as far as Walky knows, Mike doesn’t know. Besides, If he says something now, Mike will respond, and he certainly doesn’t want that.
If you underestimate Mike’s power to detect and exploit negative vibes, active and potential, you clearly have never met Mike.
Walky knows.
oof, I know that feeling, Walky
Dorothy, turn your ass around and cheer your friend up.
Cheer him up with your ass.
I was meaning turn around and cheer Joyce up. Throw a chicken nugget at Walky and he’ll be fine.
Dorothy doesn’t know enough about the Becky situation to know how to cheer Joyce up right now.
Okay then, cheer *her* up with your ass. It’s not like Joyce wouldn’t be interested.
How can you be sad with a lady booty shaking right in front of you. (It’s literally impossible if it’s an Amber sized one but a Dottie sized one is fine as well)
So sadism is the solution to world hunger?
No, just to Mike’s.
Mike’s world hunger.
It “wounds my heart with a monotonous languor”.
Are we predicting an invasion now?
A Feelings invasion !
We shall fight them on the strips, We shall fight on the comments, We shall fight on our Ships; We shall never “Damn Willis” again !
Oh, to be young and confident again…there will always be another occassion to “Damn Willis”. It’s sad, really.
But at least Mike’s well-fed.
Not predicting; alerting the resistance of it’s imminence.
That is a terrible translation.
But I admit that offhand I can’t think of how to do better. Hmm.
‘The long sobs of autumn violins/wound my heart with…’ Yeah, you’re right, ‘monotonous languor’ is pretty much all that’s possible. Still better in the original, though.
You mean langur. The grey ones are particularly nasty.
To say nothing of the monotonous lemurs. We don’t talk about the monotonous lemurs. Not after The Incident.
Don’t Worry Walky.
“You’ve failed a test, but not a semester.”
Mike gets hungry and the world weeps. This explains everything!
Because there is always suffering somewhere in the world, Mike is effectively immortal. The only way to kill Mike is to make everyone, everywhere happy. Mike would immediately starve to death.
Pinky & the Brain’s Christmas special was the biggest threat to his life.
Pinky & the Brain is no longer on the air.
Make of that what you will.
Now I’m trying to figure out roughly how old Mike was when Pinky and the Brain went off the air. (Give or take comic book time.)
I wonder how Dorothy will react to learning Joyce’s roommate is gay.
The best answer is threesomes but I’m been too optimistic.
Sarah is gay, since when?
I know, I know. I’m being facetious, sorry. But I don’t think Becky qualifies as an official rommate yet lol.
Last Tuesday.
Well, you might be assuming that since last ep, where Sarah effectively kicked her relationship with Jacob in the nads, that she’s given up on men. She may be open to experimentation right about now, I’ll give you that. But, she always has Little Jacob.
Well, Mike’s in the right place to never starve to death
Although he might overdose during final exam time.
Dude must be havin a feast right now.
Time for Dorothy’s world to fall apart in front of her!
Next time on DoA: Yale says “no”.
I hope not. The drama caused by that will take years to settle…
She’d just go to Harvard, duh!
I hear that Harvard’s better, anyway
I could see that happening. If Walky started giving a shit, there’s a chance he could go with her. He’s a smart cookie.
Why would he want to? That’s an enormous pain in the ass.
He’s lazy and immature, but he cares about his grades. Up until now he’s been able to coast through life with no real effort. That one bad grade hit him hard.I think it may actually get him to study.
He also cares about Dorothy. Some of her ambition might rub off on him.
Yeah but that doesn’t mean he’s gonna go to Harvard. That’s a fucking lifetime commitment right there. Walky’s not gonna do all that.
yeah, there’s a world between “I don’t want to have bad grades” and “I wanna go to Harvard”!
Yes, but from his point of view, cookies are more fun to eat.
She will just cross over to QC and attend Smif…
Followed by a split between Walky and Dorothy, as Walky and Joyce starts to form a more intimate relationship.
Mike confirms everything I’ve ever suspected about him.
Except for whether he is in fact a flock of ducks in a human suit.
Mike makes me laugh a lot. I mean, he’s the worst, but he’s also kinda the best. You know what I mean?
He’s the best of the worst.
He’s the worst of the best.
He’s the best of the best of the worst!
Sir!
With honors!
…I don’t know what’s worse. That reference, or the fact that I got it. +1
He’s whatever you don’t want him to be.
No, that’s his sexuality
I think that’s Mike’s everything, myself.
It’s what he does.
He /is/ contradiction. And phone has no angle brackrts.
Awww, poor Walky having his first taste of his self-worth as “the smart one” crumble to bits.
Thank you for reminding me why Walky’s eating humble pie right now. I honestly lost track XD
Man, had to scroll back fifteen friggin’ comics just to figure out why he was fine, everythin’s fine, and I could have just read the friggin’ comments!
O what an onerous burden it is to bear, having to read through the archives of this webcomic that I read
Yeah, I went back about seven and gave up, myself.
Doesn’t help that I’m binging the comic over again…
Ever since Shortpacked! ended I’ve been meaning to go through it again, but my homework’s almost due as it is…
It might also be a piece of “Shit, I made big sister mad at me again.” and maybe even “I was mean to an already traumatized Joyce. But I’m supposed to be the funny one, not the mean one”
Poor Dorothy, sucks when your life is fine but everyone you know is in the pits. Its a very wierd sort of guilty feeling.
So today’s special is a bit of bad grade trauma seasoned with denial and that’s paired with a light bottle of best friend abandoning you. Delicious!
I see you’ve adopted Mike’s diet
Poor fool must be starving without these guys around.
He’s in a college. That man is fuckin’ full.
Hes around to feed then gone to bang mothers for nickels
Yay Dorothy! It’s too bad everyone’s feeling down but whatevs.
Wow, is Walky ACTUALLY feeling bad for being a huge asshole to Joyce? Shocker.
Wait, no, he’s just sulking about his grade, isn’t he.
Yeah, I made that mistake briefly, too.
Mike! LOL!
I feel like I missed something here?
What do you mean?
Re-read the last two weeks. You’ll find the reasons for Walky and Joyce being miserable there.
So Mike isn’t aware of his ability to create introspection and change in others due to his assholery. That’s actually a good thing, or else he’d never be an asshole to anyone.
Feeding on the tears of his enemies (i.e. everybody)
We always suspected, but now we know for sure.
That panel 3 comment from Dorothy just makes me all kinds of sad. Dammit, Dottie, you’re the mature, reasonable member of the cast. Talk to him!
True, but he just went through a big thing a day or so ago (comic-time) where there was something he didn’t want to talk about, with Dorothy pretty much nagging him into revealing, with the upshot that she agreed to take him at his word next time he said he didn’t want to talk about something.
So she’s deliberately doing exactly what he asked.
(sorry if the grammar is poor; very late here and I can’t be arsed)
The mature, reasonable one got informed that he wants her to butt out, they are just a “fling” and to take what he says at face value, the mature reasonable one confessed she loved him only to have the whole thing turned into a joke from Walky.
I give the Mature, reasonable one huge props for just respecting Walky’s wishes and leaving well enough alone D8
Fools, Dorothy-the-mature-reasonnable-one can only ever express irrationality through her legs! More seriously, I’m sure that if Walky eventually tells about his issue with “buah why should I need to work like most people?”, she’ll be understanding and supportive… I’ve gotta say, I wish all partners were more like her
Is Mike ever going to grow as a character? He hasn’t changed since his first appearance, and he doesn’t seem to be doing anything. Everyone else acts like someone who exists in the real world. They may have magical eyebrows, but they still feel like real people. Mike acts like a sitcom character.
Agreed. Dina kinda does, too, IMO.
Actually, I think Dina is deliberately trying to improve her social skills after realising some of how others perceive her. She just isn’t being focused on at the moment.
Hey, she’s had plenty of character development!
As an Aspie, I can argue that it’s quite possible she’ll go a long time without development at first, but then start developing really quickly. It’s like a switch.
He will when there’s something focused around him, right now he’s just a side character really
I haven’t read anything outside of dumbing of age. I have read a few articles on walkypedia, but nothing about Mike. Does he play a major role in short-packed? I know that’s coming to a close. I plan on buying every volume once I get the cash. It would be cool to see character development in Mike.
Mike grew a little bit over the course of Shortpacked’s predecessor, It’s Walky. It was fairly subtle, though.
Yes, Mike plays a larger role in Shortpacked and he does develop somewhat. Willis has also mentioned that Mike became overused and plans not to do that with Dumbing Mike.
<— Waiting for the return of Mike's finest hour, "Lawesome. "
Mike is and has always been, through his various iterations, mainly a gag character (although a beautifully crafted one) and a sort of plot catalyst. In Shortpacked he was retooled into a real character with an arc. I personally prefer the first kind of Mike.
Mike is a very static character in DoA, but that is actually pretty realistic for people like him. If you knew a guy like him in real life, he’d make a valid observation as to why you are not as nice a person as you pretend you are and you’d get mad at him but he’d keep bloody showing up and doing it and you’d freakin’ hate him for nosing his way into your business just to keep calling you out on every wrong thing you do.
He wouldn’t grow as a person or change his ways because he knows exactly the way he is and enjoys being that person.
He actually has SOME character development in Shortpacked, but he is also more of a ‘mean to be mean’ character there rather than the ‘mean to actually cause people to think and change’ character he is here, so some was actually expected there.
And not every person who goes to college does grow and change as a person, some stay the exact same as they were before, like Mike and Marcie who we all know was always awesome and should always stay that way.
Agreed, and well said.
This is basically a more elaborate version of what I was going to say. I have a feeling that, in Mike’s mind, Mike doesn’t need to grow. He’s perfectly confident and comfortable as the person he’s chosen to be.
To be honest, I think we all need a Mike in our lives to call us on our BS sometimes. haha
Hahaha I love Mike.
I like to think of Mike as a Jem’hadar, except instead of Tetracel White, he has a tubule of pure spite constantly injected into his bloodstream.
“Misery is life”
How much of a nerd am I if I A) Completely got this and B) Literally burst out laughing at 1:30 in the morning?
Given that DS9 fans are a nerdy minority in the already very nerdy minority that is trek fans, I’d say pretty damn nerdy. Let’s not forget that one would need to read DoA to get the joke, either.
My people! <3
Mike is goint to be overweight by the end of the year.
Mike is like a vulture, waiting for someone to die of their misery so he can eat their flesh. Metaphorically speaking.
Well any ecosystem needs something to clean up the road kill, so you could argue that Mike is doing the whole University a favor by just being himself…
Even though his vulturyness has metaphorical poisonous poops?
He’s on vacation and “Buffered” until May. No point in begging to know what’s happening with Billie and Ruth. Still…
Dotty’s mouth in panel three reminds me of Salvador Dali somehow.
You should move Mike to the Funkyverse. He’d never go hungry again!
I dunno what the funkyverse iss, but I imagine everyone with afros and bell bottoms
Funky Winkerbean is a newspaper comic where everyone wears forced sardonic smirks to mask their eternal unrelenting despair.
No, Khrene’s thinking of Funkytown.
I’m thinking of Bartertown.
I’m not sure where the afros and bell-bottoms come in, though.
Two men enter.. the disco hall.
Mike is watching…. Mike is waiting…. Mike is ready….
Dorothy has been in this kind of situation before.
Awwww. She has learnt to respects Walky’s boundaries. And Walky has learnt not to tease Joyce for fear of big sister (otherwise he would have blurted out something about Joyce kissing girls by now). All that is left is start working at the last few hours’ worth of trauma, one piece at the time.
Hope you didn’t have any other plans for afternoon, Dorothy, you are needed.
I hope Mike get his ass beaten. I hate people like him.
If Mike gets his ass beaten, it will only happen in a way that makes you feel horrible about yourself. That’s how he operates, after all. (Hell, it’s what happened in the other universe.)
I used to feed on happyness and sadness in equal measure and some times influence things to fit my diet. some of my friends ran to the other side of the supply bridge and blew it sky high as high school was ending others i prevented the explosion but never went after my supplies. while i text just enough for meager supplies to not either explode and take the dimensional universe with me or just blow this planet and move to Barsoom
With the way things jump around, I sometimes have to go dig to figure out what the heck someone is upset or happy about.
Walky is still “shellshocked” because his sister told him off for bugging Joyce? Um… OK. Huh.
No. His grades.
OK, thank you. I’d completely forgotten about that.
As had I.
Makes sense. Afterall, the entire last chapter, which spanned 3 months of real time, covered only 24 hours of comic time.
I can imagine him being left alone after this, and thinking; I’m so hungry.
Yeah, this is why I voted for Mike.
what the hell, what is this setting sail in my mind
a… a dorothy x mike ship?
wHat the heLl is this???!!!
No!
That’s… inconceivable!
Nooooooo, you beat me to it. I mean, it was just a joke, but still…
lead up until he meets her mother. (Then records someone else doing her…)
Wait, Mike is Willis?
Nooooo… Joyce is Willis.
Joyce is autobiographical, but you can be sure many of the characters have some part of Willis in them.
Everybody’s talking about how he’s shell-shocked from his grade, but are we gonna ignore how his sister threatened him? He was doing fine when he was teasing Joyce. It was his sister who put the fear in him.
Except immediately after that he was cheerful and waving at Marcie.
Sal may be intimidating, but “When a girl says leave ‘er alone, ya leave ‘er alone” is still an admonishment not a threat.
Sal pulled him aside and tells him “when a girl says leave ‘er alone, ya leave ‘er alone”. She has a lot of physical presence, but that’s still an admonishment not a threat, and like Spencer says that seems to be how he took it.
people who dont feel threatened go right back to what they were doing as soon as the other person who looks down upon it leaves. you learn lessons:
1)because you want to
a)out of respect
b)out of fear
Yeah, you know, Sal is like his *sister*, ya know? She’s somebody who is close enough to him to reasonably deliver that kind of reprimand. His behavior would have been unacceptable in the first place, and Sal would have called him out for that, but given the Joyce was sexually assaulted just a few weeks ago, Sal was right to call him out aggressively.
Is anyone thinking this might eventually lead to Walky and Dorothy breaking up? I know they’ve been drama free and are confident in the relationship just being for fun (which is why I’m pretty sure Dorothy was able to tell Walky she loved him, since she knows that it’s not going to get catastrophic like with Danny), but I can see Walky’s inability to talk about his issues eventually driving a wedge between them.
Ahhh sarcasm
The kind of wit that you want to high five the proponent
In the head
With a steel chair.
Dorothy has learned not to pursue the ‘you don’ want to know, because in DoA, you really don’t want to know.
Dorothy is part of the reason Walky’s grades are down, she really can’t give him a lot of flak about it…and can help him study. Of course, he did brush her offer off so may not want to now.
Joyce is clearly jealous of Becky, as she is of all friends who dare go off and not include her.
Mike is not a bully as someone called him. He doesn’t beat up on people and he doesn’t bother people who have half a clue. Dorothy is pretty squared away compared to the rest of them.
And Mike has for some strange reason always seemed to have a soft spot for Joyce. Check the back strips.
Dumb asses are Mikes specialty, he loves to pound their face in it. He see’s it coming, so he is usually around to point it out, in neon letters 3 feet high.
Sorry, ‘loving to pound [someone’s] face in it’ is bullying. It’s a textbook example, as a matter of fact.
More than that, your response is also a textbook example of why bullies get away with it — you don’t sympathize with the victim, so you excuse the violator.
But it’s also why we get away with war, sanctions, prisons, and punishments. No, those things aren’t great, but you have to note that Mike’s actions are not as bad as some of the other things we do, and he doesn’t seem to do these things purely maliciously. Every time he does something like that, it curbs a larger problem or brings it into full view.
Again, not saying the behavior is right, just that Mike seems to use his assholitude for decent ends, so he can receive a small level of leeway as long as he continues to use it for good and continues to avoid hurting people in ways not meant to heal (think surgeon here – they cut into people and cause blood-loss, but do so with the intention of aiding the healing process.)
Except for maybe the genitalia. That was just weird. Then there’s Walky’s CDs. I’m hoping he was making it up.
I’m going to use one of Willis’ most hated words…and I’m going to use it correctly. Those things you list? They’re ‘strawmen,’ in which you refute an argument by attacking something the other party didn’t say. I didn’t say that Mike was the only bully in the world; I just said that he is a bully.
My point was not that Mike was the only bully, but that there are bullies we as society support because we need them. In my opinion, that’s kid of what mike is, most of the time). He acts as a bully, but he does so for the good of the people around him. When you think about it, even when he made Walky feel bad, he got him together with Dorothy, and when he comments on Amber’s life, he brings her from sadness, which can be all consuming, to rage, which can be understood, compartmentalized, and handled, as well as reassure her that she isn’t falling back into the patterns she is afraid of falling into.
Mikes a realist with an attitude.
IU has their library and cafeteria in the same building? God that would be useful for finals.
I. DRINK. YOUR. SADNESS. ::GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULP:: I DRINK IT UP!