144

LAWsome
Posted on May 10, 2021 by David M Willis

144 thoughts on “LAWsome”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    ART THEFT

    where’s YOUR MOM’S credit

    1. Demoted Oblivious

      Technically it’s copyright infringement, although the music and movie industries would have you believe that is theft.

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        But at that, can a comic character break the fourth wall to infringe on work created by the author? Let’s watch and see what Bart has to say.

        1. Doctor_Who

          Bart: HA HA HA HA HA HA

          I think that means it’s a legal gray area.

        2. Clif

          I think that means Bart is planning to sue for the unauthorized use of his image,

    2. Kaidah

      I’m starting to suspect that Ana is secretly David Willis’ alter ego. How else could she not only consistently be the first poster but always have a link to an appropriate comic seemingly ready to go?

      I’m onto your ruse, Mr. Willis.

      1. K Wiley

        IIRC, Patreon backers get early access to the comics, so they have time to prepare for the public posting.

        1. King Daniel

          Also it’s rare, but she’s not always first. Even I’ve managed it a few times. 😛

        2. Magnor Criol

          I’m pretty certain I’ve seen exactly this conversation at least once before. Ana is Dave, Patrons get early access, Ana’s not always first. Or maybe I’m just having deja vu.

        3. King Daniel

          You’re saying this conversation is looking…anachronistic?

  2. Doctor_Who

    Bart O’Ryan, a toddler version of Leslie, and some guy with weird hair.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Come to think of it, has Bart O’Ryan actually been mentioned yet in this universe? Like, I had it in my head somewhere that he was a cable news commentator in this universe, too, but I guess not. Law professor makes more sense if Willis is planning on featuring him at some point.

      1. Cattleprod

        The Bart tag just leads to this comic, so probably not? The Mike tag leads to comics with actual Mike so it’s not like real and LAWsome versions are split out.

        1. RassilonTDavros

          Yeah, but he wouldn’t be tagged in a comic he was only mentioned in.

        2. RacingTurtle

          I don’t recall him being mentioned yet. I’m hoping he turns out to be important

      2. Thag Simmons

        Not in comic at least.

    2. Sirksome

      I though that was a toddler version of himself honestly.

      1. Huehuetotl

        I’d guess child walky too.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          Could be child Carla, although I wouldn’t expect him to survive kicking her
          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/opportunity/

  3. RassilonTDavros

    DAMN YOU WILLIS

    1. RassilonTDavros

      I was not prepared to… see? Mike again. This is definitely becoming an arc.

      1. NotThatDrew

        Now I’m wondering if Amber still has ghost Mike floating around in her head…

        1. Doctor_Who

          Kinda, she watched Ratatouille over break, and some mental wires got crossed.

          Mike is still appearing to her, but he’s put on a ton of weight and keeps trying to get her to switch majors to culinary arts.

        2. NotThatDrew

          I mean, we all know Amber’s not the best when it comes to dealing with mental stress, and survivor’s guilt is one hell of a thing to deal with

        3. Sirksome

          Ghost Mike will probably reappear the next time Amber is really stressed, which thankfully hasn’t happened yet. It might be awhile too since these recent stories have been rather light on the drama and stakes.

        4. Aviana

          I think it’s more that we haven’t spent a lot of time with Amber since the timeskip. She’s yet to be a viewpoint…

    2. Clif

      The comic has now reached its zenith. From here on, it’s all downhill.

  4. Sirksome

    Ah! Pure comedy genius. Walky’s got ghis comic contest locked!

  5. Wagstaff

    “Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.”

    – Uncle Joe

    1. Cholma

      “Uncle Joe”? From Petticoat Junction? 😀
      (many readers are now scratching their heads in confusion)

      1. Clif

        Uncle Joe, the lesser of two evils. Be careful what you wish for.

        1. Cholma

          Nah, I think he meant: “And there’s Uncle Joe, he’s a movin’ kinda slow, at the junction – – Petticoat Junction.” 😀

          (although, I’ll admit I’ve never heard of the lesser of two evils being called Uncle Joe)

        2. Jhon

          Uncle Joe Stalin.

    2. Wagstaff

      No, I meant Uncle Joe from Time Warp Trio.

      Man, I’m old….

      1. zee

        Who?

      2. RassilonTDavros

        Holy shit, someone else remembers that!

        Though you wouldn’t have to be all that old to remember TWT in some form, since there was also a cartoon in the mid-2000s. I wanna say it was on Discovery Kids?

  6. Proto_Eevee

    LAWsome Mike’s jump kick is so powerful that he transcends reality.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Earth Prime Mike is gonna kick his way back into this universe.

  7. Suet

    And thus, the…. *checks calendar* 10.5 year calendar loops again.

    Not even Ruth can save from Walky being kicked by [REDACTED]

    1. Wagstaff

      Hmmm…. 10.5 years. That’s the length of time of another cycle that I can’t quite remember… I think it involved explosions, or a BOOM of some kind.

      Oh well. After this Pandemic is over, it’s Mars or BUST!

      1. Clif

        Sure. https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/community/topic/1775-new-research-suggests-solar-cycle-25-could-be-strongest-in-50-years/

  8. Reed

    the return of the king. (of law)

  9. Joe Moose

    Well then.

  10. BBCC

    …Sure, Walky, that’s what’s obvious.

  11. Regalli

    It’s so unhappy he looks like while laughing at a toddler who’s about to get dropkicked that really makes the scene.

    Oh and also some other guy. There is that.

    1. drs

      Toddler Leslie.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Kind of looks like lil’ Carla from the Ultra Car toy flashback bonus strip a few years ago.

        1. RassilonTDavros

          It looks a lot like Lil’ Carla, though how Walky would know what she looked like back then is anyone’s guess.

  12. Alex Boston

    So Mike has now descended, David Lynch/Inception style, into a deeper fictional layer of reality. And is still mean.

    1. Keulen

      Mike didn’t die, he just went into a deeper level of fiction.

      1. I am Nothing

        Forever trapped in a purgatory of kicking some random guy over and over again, for all eternity.

        Honestly, Mike would probably be okay with this.

  13. y3k

    Wait.

    Was Dumbing of Age just a long, drawn out pilot for the LAWsome reboot?

    1. I am Nothing

      I’d be down for that.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      Pfft, don’t be ridiculous!

      Everything since Roomies! has just been a long, drawn out pilot for the LAWsome reboot. Including the original LAWsome, somehow.

  14. Alex Boston

    At least the kick wasn’t to the crotch.

  15. Victor Riley

    Okay, so Walky is going to be dealing with some stuff this semester, too…

    1. NotThatDrew

      Honestly, it’d be shorter to list characters that don’t have some sort of mental trauma they need to process

      1. Thag Simmons

        Eh, tha cat’s prob’ly fine.

        1. King Daniel

          Well, if a near-death experience or ten don’t count. Seriously, the amount of times Mister Scruffy’s been in mortal danger by now…

  16. Wonderboy

    Now that I think about it, this could really backfire for Walky. Portraying Mike , a recently dead student, as a guy who regularly commits assault as a gag in a school newspaper could land him in serious trouble. This teeters on the line between satire/absurdist humor and libel since it’s depicting a specific person.

    1. Demoted Oblivious

      Apparently, a dead person no longer has a reputation to protect and thus cannot be defamed, slandered, or libeled.
      IANAL: I’d anally nail all lawyers.

      1. Wonderboy

        So maybe not legal trouble, but I bet Mike’s parents would be pretty upset. Some of his friends as well, I assume. Mike was mean, but joking that he’d jumpkick children is pretty cruel. Even if Walky is processing feelings, it seems really mean-spirited.

        1. King Daniel

          I mean, Mike did deliberately stomp on at least one toddler in the Walkyverse. (It was at an anti-Iraq War protest as I recall, and his stated goal was to “prove that the pacifist protestors were hypocrites” by provoking them to attack him in retaliation.)

        2. RassilonTDavros

          Here ya go.

          Granted, I think that Dumbiverse Mike probably wouldn’t have quite stooped to that. He was more of an emotional manipulator who broke people by talking.

      2. Anon A Mouse

        I’m curious if “the estate” would have legal standing if it also defamed the company made in the dead person name (i.e. Disney, etc)? Also, this doesn’t actually stop people from disassociating with you.

    2. cbwroses

      It’s not libel as long as it’s understood and/or stated to be fictional, too absurd to be credible, and/or humorous.
      At least that’s my understanding after that particular episode of Last Week Tonight.

    3. BBCC

      Might not be legal trouble but could still get him in shit with the university. They can still have conduct standards.

      1. Regalli

        Yeah. I think the odds of the Warner parents seeing this are slim, and Amber at least may well recognize Walky’s processing things (not 100% about Ethan, but I think whether or not he’d recognize Walky as Mike’s roommate would change the context a lot. Both of them recognized Mike was not to be trusted, and while it’s hard to say how much the immediacy of his death vs the fact that he’s gone is affecting their thoughts of him, I suspect it’s at least a bit less raw than in the hospital.) But the school would probably still pull the plug on this as soon as someone realized in case word does spread. They probably wouldn’t be thrilled about one of the professors being portrayed as someone who laughs at toddlers as they get drop-kicked, either.

        1. RassilonTDavros

          What do you wanna bet that that’s how Ethan re-enters the plot– confronting Walky over the strip?

        2. Regalli

          Possible! Assumes Daisy picks the strip (and doesn’t recognize the dead kid, which is entirely possible but I wouldn’t be shocked if the school paper ran a piece on a student who was murdered by two people who proceeded to kidnap half a dozen students, in an incident involving the campus superheroine. Higher odds she doesn’t recognize him, but I wouldn’t be shocked if she did.) Could be he takes it up with Daisy as generally tasteless to run, but if he realizes/recognizes David Walkerton is Walky, Mike’s former roommate (and the nickname provides an extra level of recognition first,) he might soften a bit on Walky drawing it. That also depends heavily on how rose-tinted the glasses Ethan’s wearing re: Mike are now that he’s ‘died’ and not ‘maybe dying’. Even right after he and Mike had sex, Ethan and Amber had a talk that was essentially ‘oh yeah, nothing good can come of letting myself be emotionally vulnerable with him, he’ll exploit it ruthlessly, but casual sex seems safe enough so long as I’m careful,’ so he was never totally overlooking Mike’s awfulness.

        3. Regalli

          * Recognition required, with the nickname. Not TOO hard to put together, but it’s still an extra step to connect them together.

  17. Bagge

    Now that’s sure a way to deal with trauma…

  18. Thag Simmons

    Jeez, first Professor Brock and now Bart.

    I’m not going to have to swap out my avatar any time soon am I?

    1. Needfuldoer

      It depends on how inflexible the “NO GUNS EVER” rule is. She could very well have been one of the cranky unseen roommates who switched rooms this semester, or one of the residents of the single rooms at the dark end of the hall nobody dares approach. IIRC her most obnoxious trait from the Walkyverse was her hipster music snobbery, back when you needed to know somebody who knows somebody at the music store to find independent stuff. Even if services like SoundCloud and Spotify feed into that, she might not be as bad as Mary…

      After all, Barb (the bartender at Galasso’s) was a background detail from an IW! poster who was completely obscured by primary characters, and she made the jump to the Dumbiverse. No character from the old continuity is safe from college drama!

  19. Stephen Bierce

    *plays “I Fought The Law And The Law Won” again on the hacked Muzak*

  20. TheKelliestKelly

    Lucy was right. This IS funnier with humans

  21. Nayann Martinelli

    Mike might not be alive, but he is still kicking :p

    1. NotThatDrew

      And for a nickel it won’t be the only thing he’s doing

      1. King Daniel

        Don’t, that’s necrophilia

        1. Delicious Taffy

          Is it still necrophilia if they’re a zombie?

        2. HeySo

          That one is obvious [ie, yes, of course]. Necrophilia is a “love” of the dead. Death is associable to a lack of cognitive or brain functions, cessation of heart activities, a cessation of [vital] biological processes, or the removal of one state so it can be replaced by another. Zombies are, in every canon I’m aware of (as a diehard zombie fan) dead in some way or another and, most often, in every single way possible. [Rather, in “zombie” canons where such is not true, they’re instead referred to as “mutants”.]

          Ergo, it’ll always be necrophilia to bang a zombie [aka, “a walking corpse” Again, this should have been obvious :P]. However, some vampire variants actively change state [biological transformation] without full destruction of the previous state, while retaining cognitive and biological functions of some sort. However, even there, heart-death is usually still part of the canon.

          In short, zombies usually qualify as being “dead” in every single possible way, the same as a corpse does, while some zombie and vampire variants only have limited forms of “death”. But all are dead in some way, meaning..

          Look, I get it. You wanna bang a corpse without being called a necrophiliac. Sorry, but that just isn’t going to happen- all of us know the truth of the matter. :S

        3. HeySo

          Though, as a counter-argument, coma patients may be “brain-dead” without any other aspect of death, so you may be able to push out an argument for fucking a vampire under that premise. Then again, pretty sure people frown heavily on having sex with coma patients, as well, so.. again, we’re back to “let’s just not, this just isn’t okay”.

        4. Nayann Martinelli

          But if they are drop dead gorgeous, would it be bad to wanna bang them?
          This is purely an academic question, I swear! I’d never f*** a zombie or a coma patient.

        5. Demoted Oblivious

          Are we talking about a gorgeous zombie, or coma patient?

          Or do you mean a zombie Gorgeous George from Snatch in a 28 days later cross-over?

        6. Needfuldoer

          Last dance with Mary-Jane
          One more time to kill the pain

        7. Demoted Oblivious

          This argument is solid, but it only carries for those zombies that are based on some kind of undeath. Zombie plagues that feature an, “it can be cured,” element aren’t undeath, since y’know “cured.”

          “Only mostly dead. Mostly dead means a little bit alive.”

        8. Anon A Mouse

          Well, in that case they are more “frenzied cannibal”. I understand why it’s easier to just refer to that as “zombiefication” since it carries most of the attributes but they are still technically “alive”. Presumably. at some point. they would turn on each other and eventually starve. Most Zombies don’t starve.

    2. Yotomoe

      +1

  22. Bryy

    THE RETURN OF LAWSOME OMG

  23. Pizzawiz

    Based on tags mike and Lucy never met so makes sense I guess

  24. cbwroses

    So is Hot Walky gone?
    It might just be that his mouth is just a line, but I feel like his uncanny charisma is less than it was before.

    1. Lone Duck

      It was always just a trick of the light and an absence of sound.

    2. Spencer

      Walky’s hair is his only redeeming feature.

  25. Kitschensyngk

    Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  26. Sporky

    This is… one way to process grief, I guess.

  27. PB

    Apropos of nothing, I miss Jacob and Ethan.

  28. Carla's #2 Fan

    Great, now my face is wet

  29. RacingTurtle

    oh no i was not prepared

  30. Blind Beholder

    How is this the second strip named “Lawsome”?

  31. Reltzik

    … you know, Bart pointing and laughing at a kid just prior to a coordinated assault and battery felt a lot more absurdist a decade ago.

    1. BenRG

      Yeah, these days it’s considered legitimate political protest.

      1. JBento

        Only if the kid is black, though.

  32. foducool

    take that, Dennis the Menace

  33. Sombrero

    I declare myself knocked out. You won, DYW!

  34. BenRG

    Walky really isn’t over losing Mike, is he?

    He wouldn’t be the first artist to use his art in a subconscious desire to confront and categorise his own mixed feelings. I doubt that he liked Mike a lot and even saw him as a bully, as we see here. However, you can’t live with someone for months and then just walk away from their violent death without unresolved issues.

  35. Keulen

    LAWsome is still the best comic ever.

  36. BarerMender

    I’m afraid I don’t see the humor.

    1. BenRG

      It’s not meant to be funny; it’s meant to be a bit of pathos about Walky’s mixed feelings about Mike.

    2. Jammy

      I got you on this one.
      There’s over-the-top violence (slapstick) and a subversion of expectations (the method of violence and the recipient).

      1. BarerMender

        I never cared for slapstick.

        1. Clif

          It’s not required that you do.

  37. SilentSooYun

    No one is going to mention Ninja Rick?

    1. Needfuldoer

      He’ll probably never appear in-comic, because he was based on somebody Willis knew. (Alex seems to be the exception that proves the rule.)

      I like to think he’s a groundskeeper at IU, we just never see him because he’s a ninja.

      1. Clif

        Who do you think taught Dina her ninja skills?

  38. Rabisch

    Very interesting way to process a lost. Making him the evil main character of your strip.

    1. Clif

      Evil? How can you call the smiting hand of the author-god evil? Can’t you tell the kid deserved it?

  39. darkoneko

    Lucy and Walky, together on the bed
    t a l k i n g

  40. Sombrero

    It took me some time to realize that Mike’s kick is the inverted version of Starfire’s and now my head is a mess. Is Starfire’s kick TTG canon or Willis’ fanfic? If it’s canon, what came before, LAWsome or TTG? Is there any common inspiration for both? How many years will take me to find answers to all these questions? Will they ever stop bringing new ones to mind?

    1. Jhon

      Just wait ’til NightGirl appears.

      1. Sombrero

        Jennifer knows for sure NightGirl is Malaya.

      2. Thag Simmons

        I mean in Shortpacked Lucy did take over as Amazi-Girl after Amber moved away

  41. Josh Spicer

    I suppose everybody copes in their own way.

  42. Zee

    It just took me to today to realize that “It’s Walky” is going to be an in-universe collaboration between Joyce and Walky for the school paper.

    1. zee

      IMPOSTER /jk

  43. Jammy

    But usually these strips are written months in advance. There’s almost no chance this was made on April first.

  44. Mravac Kid

    I’m thinking Carla is going to get the job with her comic about a ultra car that fights aliens.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Ultra-Car already exists as a nearly forgotten cartoon in the Dumbiverse, but you know Carla would license the IP just to make her comic. It can’t possibly be that expensive, just like licensing some other dead, obscure cartoon series like Time Squad or Galaxy High.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I think Ultracar was meant to be YOUNG JUSTICE, which means it was a lot bigger deal than it seems since even Dorothy had seen it and liked it. It’s just Young Justice got a second life in RL due to DC Universe.

        1. Needfuldoer

          It did? I hadn’t paid attention to cartoons coming and going for a few years by then, but the DCAU ones were all pretty good. According to a January 2016 interview cited by Wikipedia, it was canceled because it wasn’t selling enough toys, which tracks with one of the reasons Carla says UC was canceled in this July 2016 strip:

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/shits/

          My take was that UC and D&MM premiered at the same time, but D&MM’s lowbrow humor propelled it to instant success that UC could never attain. The network didn’t see an immediate return on their investment in UC, so they canned it.

          This was all before shows like Steven Universe too, so maybe you could argue that UC was ahead of its time.

  45. horsevoirace

    so booster is mike after all?

    1. Clif

      So is Jennifer.

    2. Needfuldoer

      We’re all a little Mike on the inside.

      Especially the moms.

  46. C.T. Phipps

    I wonder if this means that Walky will be the author of the equivalent of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac except its Mike, the Groin Kicker.

    He could have a huge future ahead if he channels Mike’s sociopathy.

  47. bcb

    Wait, is that Bart O’Ryan?

  48. RassilonTDavros

    Ya know, I’ve been rooting for Joyce to win the newspaper strip job…

    …but if Walky is willing to take requests for people to get beaten up, then I might just be persuaded to change my mind. Imagine a LAWsome strip where Mike kicks Clint! Or Mary! Maybe an extra-long special edition where Druggo McStabbed finally gets out of the hospital and Mike sends him straight back in!

    And then watch as it gets really dark when peoples’ vendettas begin to creep Walky out, or are so self-hating that they request themselves getting beaten up, and he finds the whole thing so extremely uncomfortable that he has to quit drawing it. I think there’s story potential there.

  49. Paul

    I lost track of the convoluted plot before the break. Why exactly did corrupt cops kill Mike? Even corrupt cops need a motivation to kill a guy, if he’s white and has surviving family that knows how to hire a lawyer.

    1. Yumi

      Well, corrupt cops didn’t kill Mike (as far as we know), so that’s one thing. Mike tried to take out Blaine by tackling him off a fire escape, and Mike got severely injured in the process. Then he was taken to the hospital where he was in a coma (was there during the kidnapping), and then he died during the timeskip.

    2. Spencer

      You’re thinking of Blaine, who was murdered by a cop in with the mob on Asher’s command. Mike fell into a coma after tackling Blaine off the fire escape and died during the timeskip.

    3. Thag Simmons

      Mike might have just died of his injuries. That said the reason Amber was worried about corrupt cops was that Mike knew details about Blaine and the Mob’s illicit activities

  50. StClair

    For some time, I’ve been wavering on whether to say anything, but…
    I’ve never liked LAWsome. For me, it’s not “so dumb it’s cool/funny”, it’s just dumb.
    *shrug*

    1. Rotunda

      You are not alone.

      1. King Daniel

        I was always under the impression that the meta-joke in LAWsome was how unfunny it was (and that the reason it didn’t last long was because there’s only a few times you can play that out before it becomes…well, played-out).

        1. IndyX

          Yeah, I remember how Willis set up fans to think he was announcing the successor to “It’s Walky!” after that saga ended, and then we got THIS. For multiple days. It was a very good trolling.

  51. IndyX

    OH NO.
    Well, this sure hits different now. You monster.

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