135

Sample
Posted on November 1, 2019 by David M Willis

135 thoughts on “Sample”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    oh there we go

    thanks Willis, I thought I had just sated my craving for shitty food with that ramen I had, now I want shitty pizza to wash it down

    1. JetstreamGW

      Heh, yeah, I was really confused for a minute there.

    2. FacelessDeviant

      …what about ramen ON pizza?

      1. Juanoku

        You fucking genius

        1. Br44n5m

          Once met a person who made ramen in the same pot as Mac n cheese, drained the water after, and mixed in both seasonings. It was strangely good in a terrible choice way!

      2. merbrat

        Yesterday, saw a post bricks of ramen used instead of pizza dough. Layed-out on baking sheet and water ladled over it. baked/browned. Ladel pizza sauce, then add toppings, cheese, etc. Baked. Gooey pizza.

  2. Deadjolras

    I want to say something relevant and insightful but all I can say is: Wow, I love Joe’s hair.

    1. Emperor Norton II

      I like that Joe’s got a more mature shirt on than usual.

      1. Beef

        That’s post-coital-wear fersure

        1. ValdVin

          I first misread your comment as “post-coital hair” (it’s late for me) and I think both interpretations are valid.

        2. Doctor_Who

          I firmly believe that Joe has special clothes for exactly that.

          The man is prepared.

        3. Clif

          Heck, I’ll believe he has special hair for that.

      2. Kaidah

        But still hasn’t shaved.

    2. BrokenEye, the True False Prophet

      Not sure it really goes that well with the perpetual five o clock shadow, but that might just be an art style thing

  3. Foxhack

    Oh, phew.

    For a minute there I thought Willis didn’t want us to fight over the ethics of scamming free pizza slices off a political campaign.

    1. Emperor Norton II

      Let’s start a fight over the ethics of scamming free pizza slices off a political campaign.

      On one hand, you get free pizza!

      On the other…. I got nothing. I mean, you get free pizza!

      1. Beef

        On one hand, you get free pizza. On the other hand, they now have less pizza to give to people who’d vote for them on the basis of free pizza. 2 very good hands

        1. Emperor Norton II

          In “Superman” (1978), Superman told Lois this (verbatim quote):

          “I’m here to fight for truth, justice, and the right to scam free pizza from political campaigns.”

          And who of us can argue with Superman?

        2. Clif

          He may have called it the American way, but we knew what he meant .

        3. a/snow/mous/e

          Nothing’s more American than pizza! (Or, uh, Italian… but nothing’s more American than crappy pizza so)

      2. Delicious Taffy

        That’s less pizza for the Republicans.

      3. Sirksome

        Ah! But what if said free pizza was actually laced with radical mind influencing chemicals that come election time forced you to vote toward that party’s candidates?! Are you prepared to have that grease and burnt cheese on your hands?!

        1. Emperor Norton II

          In that case, by me scamming as much goddamn pizza as I possibly can, that’s a hell of a lot less mind control to exert over others, minimising the damage they can do.

          I am thus sacrificing myself for the sake of humankind.

          Feel free to raise a statue of me for my extreme bravery and valor!

        2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          It just counteracts the free gay pizza he got back in strip [mumble].

        3. Emperor Norton II

          You mean the strip officially named “Free Gay Pizza”?

    2. BrokenEye, the True False Prophet

      As far as I’m concerned, you can scam anything you want off a political campaign as long as you don’t work for one and it’ll have a pretty safe bet of being a net positive, ethics wise. Keep a fire burning in the fireplace all winter with yard signs. Get yourself a side hustle melting down campaign buttons and selling the raw aluminum. Wallpaper your house with voter registration forms. Use the adhesive harvested from thousands of bumper stickers to literally stick it (whatever “it” is) to the Man. Technically you’re making the world, if not better than at least un-worse.

  4. Cholma

    The Walky speaks Truthery.

  5. Tisroero

    Oh, so Robin’s the one they call ol’ Whatsername.

    1. sdrainbow

      she’s a rebel

      1. FaerwenOfValenwood

        And she’s dangerous.

        1. Arianod

          She’s not dreaming what you’re thinking, though.

      2. Kamino Neko

        And she’ll never ever be any good.

        (Fuck, I’m old.)

    2. NemesisDancer

      From Chicago to Toronto?

  6. Plasma Mongoose

    Is this the real Pizza gate?

    1. Solenoid

      A cane appears on the stage for a half second, disappearing immediately after with Plasma Mongoose.

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      No. The real one has pineapple.

    3. He Who Abides

      Go home, Plaz, you’re drunk.

    4. Tan

      The real pizza gate was inside us all along.

      It is the pharynx.

  7. Cyntalan

    I really wish Reginald, Duke of Thingley got his own tag. ;_;

    1. King Daniel

      He did, briefly. (though Reginald probably wouldn’t be tagged in this strip, as he was only present off-screen).

      1. Ana Chronistic

        ISUE got a tag for one line spoken from offscreen

        I feel like there’s at least one other example where the character didn’t actually appear but got a tag anyway… like, a name-drop only

  8. 3oranges

    Finally! I have never been so happy for a character to return.

  9. ThresherK

    Come election day, Walky will be stripped of his stickers at a certain distance from the polling place*. Will he recognize Robin’s name on the ballot when he sees it?

    (*75 feet from the entry door in my state.)

    1. ValdVin

      Ugh. Not that it makes a difference but I used my wrong nym.

      1. Felix

        self-dox? Classic!

        1. ValdVin

          If either were of any important, I’d be worried!

          I’ve thrown out more nyms than I can count.

  10. DailyBrad

    Oh hey, pizza.

    Joe continuing to look like Bruce Wayne.

    1. Proto

      This comic will end when Joe finds an awful mustard colored suit for a Halloween party, triggering his amnesia to wear off and for him to return to his life in Gotham.

  11. Sirksome

    Comments!…..too bad I really don’t have much to say. Uhhh….Walky a dumdum!

    1. Sunny

      He got several slices of free pizza! Walky’s obviously smart.

      1. Willow-Wisp

        “Like, scores free gay DeSanto pizza smart!”

  12. BBCC

    Oh, huh, i thought maybe Willis killed the comments for the day so we wouldn’t fight over the political storyline.

    Neat!

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      Regression to the mean. Between the Joyce/Jacob mini-arc and the Sal/Asher mini-arc, I’d imagine vast quantities of spoons have been collectively and individually used up in the comments section, and it’s a collective relief to have a little time for recuperation. (Especially since the Axis of Evil Dads is looming in the distance and we’ll need a spoon reserve then.)

      (It just struck me that “Regression to the mean” has the same structure as “Power to the people.” Put that duo in the Semantic Ambiguity Museum along with “time flies like an arrow/fruit flies like a banana.”)

    2. JBento

      Dollars to donuts this isn’t going to be a political storyline as much as it is about Leslie’s hypocrisy how even attending Robin’s rallies was totally ok when she wanted to bang Robin, but getting free pizza is horrible now that she’s getting her jollies from someone else.

      1. thejeff

        It’s not really hypocrisy as much as change, since she’s been brought face to face with the scary reality of what Robin is since then.

        1. JBento

          It is if her opening move is yelling at a student for getting free pizza from someone she provided a platform to because she wanted to get in her pants.

        2. thejeff

          You missed the point that her attitude towards Robin has changed since she gave her that platform.

        3. JBento

          Here’s the problem, though: Robin hasn’t changed from then. Leslie was far more supportive of Robin that Walky’s being. She doesn’t get to go “well, now that *I* have changed my mind, you all better follow suit”.

  13. Marsh Maryrose

    I know the Sample Gates is a real place on campus, but I can’t help thinking that they must be somewhere near the Tannhäuser Gate, where I once watched C-beams glitter in the dark.

    1. Dean

      All those moments will be lost in time, like Rutger Hauer.

      1. Clif

        I never knew Rutgers Hauer played the Doctor.

        1. Willow-Wisp

          Nah, he played HG Wells.

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Fan ships on fire, off the shoulder of the Lyin’

    3. Arianod

      I googled them up and was disappointed to find that they are not a place where you can get free samples :c

      1. Ana Chronistic

        They’re just temporary gates to give a feel for the real ones

        (j/k I know a Ken Sample so it’s p obvious where the name came from)

  14. woobie

    At least Walky appears to be going to class.

  15. Jess

    Is shitty pizza really worth it though? Even if it is free? (And that pizza looks really shitty, to the tune of drastically underdone.)

    1. abysswatcher1993

      Shitty pizza isnt worth your vote. I prefer to buy my own quality pizza, or get free pizza in an event I agree with because of my beliefs.

    2. Marsh Maryrose

      To paraphrase the late, great Jesse Unruh: if you can’t take their shitty pizza and still vote against them in the morning, you have no business voting.

      1. Nymphie

        Doesnt the american voting system have you being registered to a party to be allowed to vote in some states? I saw posts about that on tumblr a while back, so they might have sign walkys name up.

        The Moderate party did that at my school once. Half the class had cans of soda, “for free”. That is that when signing their names on a paper to get the soda, they became members of the moderate party. And since swedish parties get funding based on the amount of registred members, they just made sure that they had more campain money.

        1. Opus the Poet

          That’s only in primaries, where you have to be registered as a member of the party to select the party candidate for the general election.

          Except in Texas where you just need a pulse and the ability to fog a mirror, and accepted State ID, to cast a ballot in a primary.

        2. Huehuetotl

          For general election, you can vote for whomever you want. For primaries, there’s at least 3 ways its done. Closed (you can only vote for the party you’re registered as), Open (you choose which party’s primary you want to vote in on election day), and jungle primary (non-partisan ballot, top two vote receivers move on to general, regardless of party). Indiana has open primaries.

        3. Clif

          In open primaries you can trust your own party to select a reasonably acceptable candidate and vote in the primary for the least electable of the other party. (That’s how you get Trump vs. Clinton; not that I’m bitter or anything.) In jungle primaries it locks out the minority party in the general election so eventually either the candidates catch on and run under the majority party regardless of their actual beliefs, or the big donors fund a lot of different candidates in the party they don’t support in an attempt to split the vote. This hasn’t happened so much yet, but it’s early days.

        4. Needfuldoer

          Side note about party registration: be very careful if you want to register to vote without joining a party, especially if your state has closed primaries.

          For example, Massachusetts recognizes a party named “Independent”, and puts it on the form along with Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, and Unenrolled. The box you’d want to tick in this case is “Unenrolled”. This is important because of the closed primaries. If you’re Unenrolled, you can vote once in one primary of your choosing. If you’re Independent, you’re only able to vote in their effectively irrelevant primary.

        5. CJ

          Wait, so it’s possible for people who are not members of a party to vote for which candidates that party sends to the general election (thus making trying to get an opposing party saddled with a unsuitable candidate possible?) This is a part of the US election system I hadn’t realized before. The mind boggles.
          That’s like allowing followers of the Coca Cola way to influence the flavor of Pepsi.

        6. TemperaryObsessor

          I mean yea sounds like it but if another party can pull that off your party was not going to win anyways.

        7. thejeff

          Not necessarily: They can’t generally overwhelm a popular primary candidate with a ringer, but even a relatively small number might swing a close contest.

          Most likely to be a concern when one party has an incumbent with no serious challengers. It’s mostly a theoretical thing though.

        8. Needfuldoer

          It depends on the state. If it’s a state with open primaries, everyone gets to vote once in whichever primary they want. If they’re closed primaries, then you can only vote in the primary for the party to which you’ve enrolled. (Unless you’re unenrolled, in which case for you it’s functionally an open primary.)

          This doesn’t even cover caucuses, where you literally take sides in a room.

        9. thejeff

          Some closed primary states don’t allow you to vote unless you’re already registered with one party. You can change your registration to be a member, but sometimes there’s a deadline that can be months before the election.
          There were a lot complaints about that in the 2016 NY primary – a surge in enthusiasm for Sanders brought out people who wanted to support him, but weren’t registered Democrats in time.

          And yeah, caucuses – which I love conceptually, but accept are basically exclusionary and undemocratic.

        10. bhtooefr

          And then you have states that call themselves closed but are in practice open (like Ohio).

          In an open primary state, you are requesting a party’s ballot, but that is all you are doing. Only your eligibility to vote can be challenged, not your selection of ballot.

          In a closed primary state, you are declaring a party affiliation, even if it’s a same-day declaration (Ohio only allows you to declare immediately before voting, in fact). The reason it’s considered closed is, anyone who believes that the party affiliation declaration is being made fraudulently can challenge the affiliation. In practice, that does not happen (and IIRC in Ohio’s implementation, if you are challenged on your affiliation, you simply are required to file an affidavit stating that you are honestly declaring that affiliation, and then it’s accepted), and it functions identically to an open primary state.

    3. Keulen

      Even shitty free pizza is still better than no pizza at all.

    4. foamy

      I remember my university days. Somebody’s offering free food, *you take it*.

      Free shitty pizza is still free, which leaves more cash for important things, like good pizza.

      1. Ana Chronistic

        Hell, I’d buy shitty pizza, too, sometimes the greasy crust and not-pepperoni is fabulous

    5. Zee

      Listen, to quote Night in the Woods:
      Bad pizza is still pizza
      And food tastes 10x better when it’s free

  16. abysswatcher1993

    Walky and Dina are easy to buy into voting for horrible people. Becky is a pragmatist that does what is convenient to her (but shows hints being in favor of progressive ideas), Dorothy, Roz, Rachel and Radiah are liberals, Joyce can be considered a conservative but she is against homophobic and racist policies, Sal doesn’t believe in legal justice and authorities, and Mike will vote for whoever you don’t want him to vote.

    1. Zatar

      Walky voting at all seems like a stretch.

      1. Bagge

        Well, he still needs to vote democrat

        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/hail/

    2. JBento

      Walky and Dinaare the smart ones – take the campaigns for every bribe they throw your way, and then vote however the fuck you were going to anyway.

      1. abysswatcher1993

        That is something a scumbag like Varrick from TLOK would do.

  17. Shane Wegner

    Becky presumably set this up, she is taking her role seriously (although did she set them up all around the state/district too by contacting various College Republicans groups and wiring them some pizza cash? Maybe!) all that on Dina’s birthday with a party to plan no less. Formidable!

    1. Needfuldoer

      There’s probably a couple extra pizzas on that order, earmarked for a certain party invitation-only event this evening…

      1. Shane Wegner

        That’s good thinking! As long as she puts a few Vote deSanto stickers on the party pizza boxes, now it’s a campaign awareness event prove it isn’t.

    2. Roborat

      I know where the left over pizza is going.

  18. Kyrik Michalowski

    Well I’m late to the comment show but oh well. I see Leslie is not pleased with Robin’s campaigning though to what end I’m not sure. Maybe she thought she would stop with politics after all that happened?

    1. Norah

      Or it could just be that she disapproves of Robin’s politics.

      1. King Daniel

        Leslie did make a point of saying in an early strip that despite looking up to Robin as a Hispanic woman in office for Indiana’s 9th congressional district – a first on both counts – she nevertheless voted for the straight white guy Robin had been running against.

      2. ValdVin

        Aren’t Robin’s political views possibly not-so-well-defined since Becky assigned herself as Robin’s twitterer?

        (And I mean genuinely likely to change, not Susan Collins’ disappointed frowns resulting in her usual crap.)

  19. Keulen

    Walky is good at getting free pizza. Kinda wonder how they didn’t notice the stickers on his hoodie after the first time though.

  20. CJ

    That’s what his buzzing mobile was about. Becky?
    I wonder what Dorothy thought, seeing him go after pizza instead of the next lecture.

  21. BenRG

    Look, Leslie, the likelihood of Walky understanding or even caring about any of Robin’s platforms (either Original or New Becky) is effectively zero. Besides, you can’t victimise a student for his political beliefs, even if said political beliefs are: “I don’t care about the noises coming out of your mouth; give me free stuff!”

    1. He Who Abides

      If she’s “New Becky”, does that mean we’ll be getting Becky Classic at some point?

      1. BenRG

        “New Becky” is the flavour of Robin. Becky herself is and will always remain a timeless original.

    2. FacelessDeviant

      You are absolutely right. Teachers should not get in students faces over what political party they take their pizza and stickers from.

      Well, unless its parties that encourage violence and such.

      And unless its pineapple pizza.

  22. Bagge

    THE DUKE OF THINGLEY IS BACK!!!

    1. Clif

      THE DUKE OF THINGLEY NEVER LEFT US. THE DUKE OF THINGLEY WAS WITH US THE ENTIRE TIME.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        The Duke starved for your sins.

        1. Bagge

          Well, no, he had pizza

      2. David M Willis

        We were always at war with the Duke of Thingley.

        1. Bagge

          The only thing we have to fear is the Duke of Thingley

        2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          I must not Thingley. Thingley is the mind-killer …

    2. JBento

      The real Duke of Thingley was the pizza-scamming we did along the way.

    3. BenRG

      I’ve got this mental image of Becky looking at the revised contributor lists and wondering why this ‘THINGLEY, T D O’ seems so familiar to her.

      1. Bagge

        Very likeley. She is in this for her new and strange situation where she is not the most silly person in the room.

  23. SpaceshipPilot

    “I have brought Pizza. Free Just Eat pizza. Just don’t eat my piece.”

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      I came here to kick ass and eat pizza. Mmmmm…. pizza.

  24. Lone Duck

    Looks like the Becky-Leslie showdown at the OK Corral is about to go down. Was wondering when this would come around.

  25. Chris Phoenix

    Possible Asher/Sal ship name:

    Slasher.

    …Didn’t say it was funny. Please don’t punch me too hard.

    1. Diane

      I like it!

  26. BenRG

    Is it me or is Joe not himself in today’s strip. He looks a bit ragged and worn out. Mid-term trauma?

    1. Delicious Taffy

      You’d look a little ragged too, if you’d recently started using coitus as your sole source of human interaction, entertainment, education, hydration, nutrition, and transportation.

  27. Piotr W

    Yes! Robin is back!

    (I hope so?)

    1. BenRG

      Quite frankly, Leslie should be kept away from her. As cute as they can be together, Robin is pretty toxic for Leslie and, FWIW, this is also the case reciprocally.

      1. Norah

        I think Leslie is with Anna now. Sadly, she’s toxic for Leslie too.

  28. Rabisch

    Robin looking at the public With Bugs Bunny tone of voice “Of course you realize, this means war!”

  29. Rabisch

    Leslie looking at the public With Bugs Bunny tone of voice “Of course you realize, this means war!”

  30. hof1991

    Leslie doing ROBIN DESANTO reminds me of the Three Stooges doing Niagara Falls. I expect her to gran Walky and start slapping him.

    1. BenRG

      Either that or John Williams Duel of the Fates to start playing as the background music.

  31. Josh Spicer

    Joe you need to fucking shave bro.

    1. Madock345

      Nah

      His stubble is sexy

      1. Roborat

        Any girl getting oral from him would probably think otherwise.

        1. Madock345

          I appreciate the scritches. Very satisfying. Like having someone else scratch your head or back, but instead of your back it’s your thighs, and instead of their hands it’s their face.

  32. Happilychaotic

    I see Walky has been taking lessons from Amber. (I wonder If Amazigirl gets free pizza?)

    1. Zee

      Nah, trust me. Every boarding college student is proficient in getting free food

  33. nightshade

    i think shes annoyed at walky for being walky..ie not paying attention/caring for anything but the pizza… Also doesn’t Becky still work at the pizza place? she might have gotten a discount or even free ….

  34. Aggrax

    Did anyone else assume those were stains from previously eaten pizza until Leslie said he was wearing stickers?

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