106

Pyle
Posted on April 1, 2011 by David M Willis

106 thoughts on “Pyle”

  1. Kurai_Seraphim

    Well, if Ruth happens to be one of those writers, the murder is double convenient!

  2. Coppermouth

    Anybody else kind of disappointed that the character from the poll that would appear today isn’t Robin?

    1. Bunny Suction

      Not me. I voted for Daisy.

      1. R

        Me too!

        1. Ancestral Hamster

          *waves* And me!

          Very cool! And despite only getting 4% of the vote!

        2. David Herbert

          Same, though I would like to see some Robin.

        3. R

          Agreed. And if we could put off seeing Faz forever, that’d be awesome.

    2. arjay2813

      i don’t like people who cheat and robin did that in SP!, faz is..to Faz for DoA, Jacob will show up soon enough, and i never liked howard, so when i voted for Daisy, it made me super happy to actually see her, although i thought she died at the end of Its Walky! I admit I may be wrong about that

      1. Viktoria

        Robin was broken up with Leslie when she slept with the congressman. Now, that did torpedo any chance of them getting back together, but I don’t think it was cheating.

      2. Viktoria

        Also, she was drugged out of her skull when she slept with him. Just saying, that should afford a bit of slack.

        1. Someone

          Except she’s been hyped up on that same exact drug before and knows exactly how unpredictable the results can be. That she shrugged off what it could do again just to try and achieve a goal doesn’t let the addict/user off the hook.

        2. gangler

          Yes. She’s the only person ever to get hideously drunk after a breakup and screw someone. That’s not something a lot of people can understand at all.

          (all terribly sarcastic)

        3. Sgt_Hatred

          Drunk apologist.

        4. XLR

          It’s more like nothing BAD happened last time she used it. So she assumed nothing bad would happen if she used it again. Just this time she ended her relationship with Leslie.

      3. John

        You can’t cheat if you’re not in a relationship, man.

      4. Valkeer1

        First of all, there is no such thing as “too Faz”, & second of all, this is a different universe, so Daisy never died here. Got it memorized?

    3. linkman0596

      how is ninja rick not a choice!?!? course, in college he might’ve gone through a pirate phase….

      1. JK9000

        Ninja Rick is Amazi-Girl.

        1. Tristan J

          No, Ninja Rick is Howard.

        2. James

          Silly people, Ninja Rick has been in every panel of DoA so far.
          In this ‘verse, he’s COMPETENT.

        3. ZC

          James? You just made my day.

        4. Animaniac

          Willis should go back and tag every comic before now with “Ninja Rick” just to mess with us

        5. Anderhail

          I started reading the comments only after reading all the way through current material. Even though it is over 2 years later, this comment made me laugh to the point that I am now looking sadly at a broken pen.

    4. TPmanW

      Not really. I can still get my tri-weekly dose of Robin at Shortpacked!
      I’ll admit Daisy wasn’t the most exciting option but that’s more because she never really got to show off in the spotlight than any problem I have with her character.
      So am I dissapointed she was the one who showed up? Meh.

  3. Digidestined of Trust (Tim)

    Ah, good to see Billie’s still in the journalism role in this Universe.

  4. cappadocius

    Billie could write about binge drinking among the freshman population!

    1. The Sound Defense

      They say to write what you know.

  5. The Sound Defense

    Man you can really see Billie crashing hard.

  6. Trae Dorn

    Wow, I totally forgot about Daisy until just now. I should really re-read It’s Walky…

  7. brasca1

    Seeing as how she is one of the few eye witnesses who talked to mysterious vigilante Amazi-Girl I think she’s got her in with the newspaper. And conversely Amazi-Girl like every caped crusader has a dogged reporter to chronicle her exploits. I was hoping Robin would be an editor akin to J Jonah Jameson trying to expose the identity of Amazi-Girl.

    1. MM

      Can you imagine a Robin-edited paper? All the articles would devolve into Pixy Stix-fueled gibberish after just a few lines.

    2. Digidestined of Trust (Tim)

      Ah good one. That gives me an idea for my Digital and Dino-Thunder Power Rangers and DOA crossover fic. (Just for the record I already have Willis excited that this has reached Power Ranger fanfic material)

  8. Ridureyu

    And so, Willis injects God of War-levels of violence into Dumbing of Age.

    And the Fandom Rejoiced.

  9. arjay2813

    i imagined Billie screaming “There can be only one!!!” as she does that, and then she starts writing about it

    1. Ridureyu

      Dumbing of Age: Buckets of Blood

  10. Wackd

    You have to admire that level of enthusiasm, if only to distract her while one of the other desk workers calls the police.

  11. Dahlia

    Meh. Maybe if Billie was nicer and had actual talent she wouldn’t be so sh*t-out-of-luck.

    1. dchorror

      Who says she doesn’t have talent? Supposing she isn’t lying, she was the editor for her school paper and a cheerleader.

      Being nicer would do her some good, though.

      1. Dahlia

        Eh, I respect cheer-leading (risking their lives for the sports team) as much as the next Joe should…but I don’t think actual jumping around for joy and lifting three people above you is “talent” so much as its “physical strength”…

        Yeah, being writer does take talent, but this is writing about sporting events here: not news, entertainment, novels. etc. but I was only part of the newspaper in high school for one semester and it was just working on the satire issues, I could totally be wrong here.

        1. dchorror

          Except, we don’t know what she did as a cheerleader. While she may have been someone on the bottom of a pyramid, she may have also been a lot more agile previously before going on break before college. Supposing she wasn’t lying.

          Writing about sporting events in an interesting manner is a talent, just like any other piece of news or entertainment. I’ll give that it’s easier cause people who are reading sports articles are already interested, which would also contribute to why there are already a dozen people working on them.

        2. Dahlia

          Yeah, you make a good point s:

          That’s true, I’d imagine since she was a cheerleader she was already AT sporting events, and constantly being there her description/ translation of the events to writing would have gotten better over time…Hmmm s:

        3. gangler

          I would point out that having an already interested audience isn’t always a benefit. If you know what you’re talking about and have a connect with the readers that’s fantastic. If you don’t then you’re worse off for it. That kind of field has absolutely no leeway for screw-ups or or even insignificant and irrelevant misinformation.

        4. Dahlia

          o:! Yeah, now that I think about it, it took a whole lot of editing and stuff for even SATIRE articles! I can’t imagine official articles on a college newspaper.

          I wonder how Billie put up with it/ dealt with it?

        5. Naz

          Gymnasts aren’t talented? Most cheerleaders do some gymnastics in one form or another these days (gone are the days of pompoms) So I think its unfair to state that cheerleaders aren’t talented even if their sole purpose is to perform for male athletic teams.

        6. Chupi

          I went to high school in Bucksport, Maine. And, ah… Honestly, the majority of our cheerleaders were in no shape to be doing gymnastics. Though I guess this was 5 – 9 years ago. Funny when ya think about it. With our girls, the cheerleaders were, ah… Broader… While most of the thinner girls were the feminists, the activists, the nerds, and the generally socially reclusive.

        7. BeccaD

          The cheerleading team from the high school I graduated from in Lewiston, Maine, just got second place in New Englands, finishing their routine despite the fact that one of the girls got an elbow to the eye that caused an injury needing 19 stitches and gave her a concussion…that might be not be talent, but it’s definitely dedication…

        8. Dahlia

          s: When you put it that way, what I said does seem biased and unfair…

  12. Dean

    In that third panel, Billie has already worked out how to kill a sportswriter and make a suit from his skin.

  13. dchorror

    I keep looking at this poll, and the first thing that pops into my mind is which Jacob.

    She was way too quick to say okay to that.

    1. wnderjif

      the black one

      1. wnderjif

        im sorry, that was rude of me. i just figured it would have been easier to point out the major differences between them that are easier to understand not, “the one not from an alternate dimension that was born just to satisfy his father’s lust for power”

        so the non-caucasion one, from SHortpacked! fame, slept with Roz…

        1. wnderjif

          shutting up now.

        2. Rochi

          Gee wllikires, that’s such a great post!

        3. zuche

          The alternate dimension one was Jason. The other Jacob is a senator who has a few things in common with Robin.

        4. dchorror

          And slept with her. And now that I’m going over the character histories in my head, how is Jason here since he was from an alternate universe?

  14. Wackd

    Oh, and just because no one else has brought it up yet…

    Hi, she’s Daisy!

    1. Alechsa

      Wrong Comic Referenced. Demerit. Go to Ruth’s room for Detention.

      1. Cha

        I’m not sure a lot of people would mind going to Ruth’s room for detention. ;D

        1. dchorror

          Depends what detention entailed.

  15. Undrave

    Maybe she could get Walky to ghost-write about McNuggets.

    1. Joe

      This needs to happen

  16. Gianni

    Yay, Daisy! I really liked her It’s Walky! run, so I’m looking forward to see what happens with her here.

  17. John

    I’m not sure why I like Daisy so much. Maybe because she actually stands out, tall skinny blondes actually being a unique thing in Willis’ art.

    1. John

      Her design, I mean. Wording hard. I like all the other designs too, I hasten to add.

  18. Robert in San Diego

    I predict Billie’s going to get crushed when she does some of her best writing ever, only to see the story spiked because there was sudden real news.

    My best writing on the college paper: Fitting a story about an earthquake on campus into the two column inches we had left on the front page. Took hours of adjective killing.

  19. Robert in San Diego

    Oh yeah, and I wasn’t an editor on the High School paper — because our faculty advisor took that function for herself. The result was the sort of spellcheck-derived homonym mixups (“reign” and “rein” for example) long before any of us had spellcheck.

  20. Carl-E

    Wow, Ernie Pyle Hall…. I went to IU (88 – 95 for my Ph.D.), and passed that building every day. I love the realism – these students are just like the bozos I teach!

  21. gangler

    So… Ruth is still wearing Dragon’s gear? Goddamn, the whole deal with the uniform I got, but who on earth goes and wears their old school’s memorabilia in their new school? Let alone during the secondary to post-secondary shift. It’s beyond thinking that her awesomeness in highschool transfers. It’s like she hasn’t actually noticed that she’s graduated yet. It’s over Billie. You can leave it behind you now. Highschool will never be relevant again.

    Ooh, ooh. Just because I’m feeling mean-spirited now, let me point out that your entire self-identity will come crashing down around you the moment you graduate college and realize that you now have a solid sixty years ahead of you in which everything that you think makes you special is completely unimportant and uncared about. Cheerleading, journalism, the fact that you were part of the “Cool Crowd”, the bullies you stood up to. All of it. Neither your employers, coworkers, friends or family will ever care about it for more than five minutes after graduation. So… now might be a good time to start working on becoming an interesting person, or at least making your company tolerable.

    1. Dahlia

      AMEN!!! 😀

    2. coobee

      They should really just lock kids up somewhere until they hit thirty and become interesting. Then people like you wouldn’t have to be annoyed by them thinking things in their life are actually important.

      1. gangler

        Plenty of people her age are capable of having a personality beyond what’s the insignificant trappings of the school system.

        Walky has no identity crisis awaiting him after graduation. Neither does Joyce, or Joe, or Dan, or Dina, Or Amber. I’m not some old fogey shaking my fist at the young’uns. I’m a college student ridiculing someone with absolutely no greater perspective. This isn’t a problem all young people have. This is a problem Billie has.

        Heck, even Ruth has already discovered she enjoys authority. She’ll just keep doing what she does now when she graduates. Find a job that let’s her throw her weight around and go to town.

        Unless Billie pursues a career in journalism, none of the things that she’s been shown to derive fulfillment from are available outside of a school setting. It’s early in the morning right now, I’m overworked and haven’t managed to get myself on some fucking caffeine yet (Why the fuck are my cupboards filled with decaf!?). I’m bitter and I’m taking petty delight in the hypothetical potential downfall of a fictional character. So sue me.

        1. begbert2

          The only reason Joyce isn’t going to have an identity crisis after college is because she’s not going to last that long. Of course, neither will Billie.

          And yes it’s comparable, since her home-schooled high school days were tightly hitched to the religion she’s going to crisis over.

        2. gangler

          Not so much. Joyce defines herself by her religion. This is something that can follow her throughout life far beyond college. Joyce is having trouble coping in a new environment, but that doesn’t mean her self identity is in danger. She’ll have to learn some new things, and her worldview will have to change, but nothing about how she views herself has to change because of this.

          There’s a difference between being forced to question your values and being faced with the knowledge that everything you thought you were up to this point is insignificant. One is a perfectly natural part of growth, the other is the very harmful collapse of one’s sense of self.

    3. Naz

      I always thought that was a symptom of high school. My understanding was that people who were popular or what have you in college, suddenly became uninteresting in college because the value system is more academic/merit based. However, since college is now considered the “new high school”, I can imagine this process being repeated if you are on a campus dominated mostly by the 17-24 age group. Universities are full of older students who aren’t full time , may have families or already have a degree in the hole. That diversity alone ,makes such high school variables like superficial popularity insignificant. If anything the party lifestyle of university students is really only accessible by a privileged few. I simply didn’t have the time or affordability to skip class because I was hung over so I didn’t bother to party at all.

    4. Stikibunn

      As much as I wish I could agree with you I’ve suddenly learned that that isn’t the case at all. I was the geeky one in high school and the cool one in uni. Now in the workforce the original “Cool people” are popular again and get the promotions and the friends and the contacts.
      Although intelligence and so on get you places in acedemia they are completely useless in the adult world, all the degrees you have are useless unless you go to a specific occupational course like a trade or IT or law or somesuch. Getting your BA or worse, in my case a Batchelor of Writing, throws you back into the pool of cool people vs nerdom, and this time it’s worse because you’ve had the brief but sparkling moment in the sun where you had friends and were awesome….
      Or maybe ah’m just bitter because ah’m 25 and feel like my life is over

    5. Loki

      She’s an exaggeration of a real type I saw in college, the frosh who wouldn’t stop talking about high school.

    6. Ridureyu

      But don’t you understand?

      Billie: “There’s a pecking order here, and I’m at the top of-“*gets punched by Ruth*

    7. Andy

      I never wore clothes with my high school’s mascot/name on them when I was in college, but I did wear stuff from the multi-school marching band I was in. It wasn’t because I was the best in my section (I definitely wasn’t) or because I wanted college to continue being like high school or anything like that. It was because I had good memories of that marching band, I had enjoyed being in it, and those clothes were momentos from that time.

      Now, that’s obviously not the case for Billie. However, this is still her first week of college. She just got out of four years of being the best and most beloved (or is trying to rewrite her past so that’s the case). Cut her some goddamn slack. If she’s still acting like this in a year, or even a month, then bongo about it all you like. In the meantime, though, she’s adjusting as much as everyone else is. I doubt that anyone here changed as drastically from their high school selves as you’re demanding of Bille.

  22. Zem

    And so begins Billie’s investigation of Amazi-girl.

    Prove me wrong. :p

  23. Ryanwoofs

    Woohoo Ernie Pyle Hall! I was the IT director for Journalism for 4 years, I know that building very well. Excellent work on the front door!

  24. SQRT(-2)

    Is Billie supposed to make me this sad?

    1. Loki

      I’d be more sad if she was nicer, but, yeah, it’s pretty sad.

  25. Kelsey

    Harsh. Poor, poor Billie.

  26. goatman95111

    This kind of attitude always irritates me. How can someone assume another person doesn’t have the ability when they simply have no experience at “the right level”?

    1. Joebo

      She’s not saying that Billie doesn’t have the skills required to work for the paper, she’s just saying that her being the editor for her high school newspaper isn’t all that rare, since I can guarantee that all the other journalism majors in that college can probably claim the same thing.

    2. dchorror

      It sounded more like you’re going to have to earn the job, not you’re not qualified in the right way.

  27. Animal

    Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do.
    I’m half crazy all for the love of you.
    It won’t be a stylish marriage,
    I can’t afford a carriage.
    But you’ll look sweet,
    Upon the seat,
    Of a bicycle made for two.

    Michael, Micheal, here is your answer true.
    I’m not crazy all for the love of you.
    There won’t be any marriage,
    if you can’t afford a carriage.
    ‘Cause I’ll be switched,
    if I get hitched,
    on a bicycle built for two!

    1. zuche

      Thank you. I haven’t heard the full version of that since Mr. Dressup in the seventies.

      1. Kamino Neko

        Mr Dressup?

        O. M. G. It’s a Canadian! Get it! <_<

  28. James Rye

    So, first comment to DoA or to Walkyverse in particular. 🙂
    First off:
    You did amazing comics and are still top with your newest one, David! So thank you very much for that. 😀
    I´ve read through Roomies!, It´s Walky!, Shortpacked! and what i could find of Joyce and Walky without paying 2 $ per month. And ofc also DoA. All read and done in around 14 hours and a few minutes; it was damm fuckin` worth it. One of the best read i had considering Webcomics and i had read alot of them by now.^^
    Second is about todays strip:
    I have somehow the feeling that Billie will either fail at writing an incredicle sport article or find out something embarrassing considering Ruth(less) and does a story about that, getting the job. I hope for the latter cause that would include more butt-whopping and FAAAACCCEEEEE!!! then the former. XD
    Third:
    Can someone please please explain me how i can pay David the money needed to read the Joyce and Walky! strips considering their civilian lives and their marriage (or did the marriage already happend? o.O)?
    Or do i have to send him a email regarding that? ?.?

    1. David

      Wooooooooo! I’m excited you dig my stuff. Thank you for the compliments.

      As for J&W!, check the store link up above the strip.

      1. James Rye

        Yay! Thanks for explaining, David! \(*3*)/
        Gonna send you the money for the Complete J&W! next week. 😎
        Keep up that good work = do never ever stop drawing! ;D

      2. taekwondogirl

        I second these comments. I’ve been reading Shortpacked! for years but I only started reading through all the previous continuity this past week. Just damn. And now I’m in the process of re-reading Shortpacked! and it’s amazing how much I missed out on while still loving the comic. Good show, ol chap.

  29. aaron_bourque

    And now Billie as Lois Lane/Vicki Vale and Amazi-Girl as Superman/Batman: I WILL FIND YOUR SECRET IDENTITY! (And force you to marry me!) will not get out of my head . . .

  30. Kitsuki Noriyuki

    I find the lack of ninjas disturbing

    1. Roborat

      What are you talking about? The place is crawling with ninjas. However, they are very good ninjas.

  31. agentksilver

    You know what…Billie is trying. And I respect her for that.

  32. Darastrix

    Or Billie could write an exposé on RAs who abuse their power and bully students in the dorms.

  33. Shift

    FAIL.

    1. Shift

      And by “FAIL” I mean Billie, not the comic.

  34. Coppermouth

    Happy birthday Willis!

  35. Mkvenner

    ….99…..100.

  36. Kernanator

    Ah, the Klingon Promotion method: You Killed It, You Bought It.

  37. Mars

    Totally just realized that this comic is set at my school. AWESOME! XD

  38. RandomPerson12

    Assuming this version of Daisy is also a lesbian, I can think of some other ways Billie could get to write a sports story…

  39. Nezumi

    Oh, hey, Ernie Pyle was born in Indiana and went to IU. I only really knew about his New Mexico associations. I used to work at the library that used to be his house.

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