186

Billing
Posted on February 12, 2025 by David M Willis

186 thoughts on “Billing”

  1. brionl

    Oh, snap!

    1. Clif

      And thus Jennifer breathed her last.

  2. Animedingo

    Lol

    And I cannot emphasize this enough

    Lmao

    1. Lumino

      Right? I always love watching Jennifer get smacked down a little more.

      Especially since she’s deserved the humbling lately.

      1. Bryy

        I love it when people ACKNOWLEDGE in this strip that they’ve been smacked down.

        Too bad it takes 4 years for any real character development.

  3. Karla Jean

    Gotta start somewhere.

    1. Clif

      I’m just hoping she turns the page so that we can read Joyce’s comic.

      1. Archieve

        Maybe if she angrily gose to Dorothy to confront her about “stealing” the story and accidentally has it on the wrong page.

      2. Kammon

        And finds Joyce’s comic is also credited to Dorothy, appearing in ‘Keener’s Spot’.

        1. Dave the Inverted

          I see what you did there….

        2. Bryy

          oh fuck

      3. Needfuldoer

        Today’s strip introduces Julia’s new friend Bobbi Jennings, who’s well-meaning but self-centered. She tries to do the right thing, but goes about it the wrong way which leads her into trouble.

        1. PedanticJerkass

          Bilbo Jennins

        2. Needfuldoer

          Greatest little hobbit of them all!

    2. Decidedly Orthogonal

      It’s gotta start somehow.

  4. Sirksome

    This Keener girl needs to be dealt with.

    1. Davus

      Maybe Jennifer will ask Dorothy out. (And get rejected obviously)

      1. Effie

        “Dorothy beat me for the byline?!?

        … feel vaguely turned on.”

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-13/01-bring-me-to-life-drawing/sudden/

        1. Smallmoon

          Alternatively:
          Jennifer: I can’t understand how some yokel from Mishawaka is suddenly getting every hot story in town.
          Dorothy: “Well, Jennifer, the truth is I’m actually Amazi-Girl and I only pretend to be a journalist in order to hear about disasters as they happen and then squeeze you out of the by-line.”
          Jennifer: “You’re a sick woman, Keener.”
          Dorothy: “you asked!”

        2. Lokitsu

          (Dorothy turns to the fourth wall and winks)

        3. Steamweed

          Sudden Dorothy!

  5. mindbleach

    Come on, you’re both equally qualified for the biline.

    … wait, it’s spelled how?

    1. Davus

      byline

    2. Amy

      Byline, literally the line of who the article was written by.

    3. Uly

      Byline. It’s the line that says who it’s by.

    4. Devin

      Oh no, people’s desire to explain things once again trips over a pun

      1. Yumi

        Right?
        @mindbleach: I thought the joke was funny.

      2. mindbleach

        Hyphenation may have prevented this disaster – and countless others.

    5. Sirksome

      Should be called the “bi”-line. Am I right?

      1. Jamie

        Tbh, I think it’s more of a biplane.

        Because she’s two-dimensional.

    6. Aura

      I know explaining jokes is uncool, but this one seems to be going over a lot of heads.

      Look at how mindbleach has misspelled byline as ‘biline’ the relationships the 2 characters being referred to have to their sexuality 😉

      1. Aura

        oops the joke has already been pointed out in the time it took me to type that so this was entirely unnecessary ><

        1. Vanessa Pinter

          Very nice

    7. Taffy

      The WLWline

    8. Needfuldoer

      In this case it’s “byeline”, because it’s not for her.

    9. Opus the Poet

      I see your little pun on Jennifer’s and Dorothy’s sexualities…

    10. Steamweed

      You mean ‘Billie-line’?

    11. Adept

      I liked biline 🙂

  6. Alongcameaspider

    Psh, Dorothy doesn’t even know that Amazigirl is Sal, why does she get the bigger byline

    1. Freezer

      like.png

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        ?

  7. Thag Simmons

    Look considering the quality of her work I’m surprised enough was used for her to get any credit at all

    1. HueSatLight

      I expect there was something to it. Something billing’s worth.

      1. Steamweed

        *slow applause

        *whispers into walkietalkie: “The hit is a go.”

        1. Casi

          “the mcnuggets are on their way. repeat, the mcnuggets are on their way”

    2. Archieve

      Yeah even Jennifer briefly acknowledged that Daisy should kill her for missing everything so it shouldn’t be a shock to Jennifer that she didn’t have enough to get primary credit.

    3. Needfuldoer

      She got one incidental detail right, just by chance.

      1. Rolf of Many Doors

        Yes – that Sal is Amazigirl

  8. Charles Phipps

    I’m confused how she has any headline attribution given she didn’t see anything and didn’t interview anyone.

    1. Thag Simmons

      Dorothy is a generous soul

    2. Sirksome

      She was their at the very end and also is the one who modified AG’s outfit and also knows Amber is AG and probably did ask her friends what happened and is also such a neurotic overachiever and better writer than Jennifer that this is very likely.

      1. Daibhid C

        Are you … talking about Dorothy? Because I’m not sure Charles is talking about Dorothy.

        1. Sirksome

          I was talking about Dorothy but it’s hard to know who Charles meant considering their statement applies to both Dorothy and Jennifer. In fact Jennifer did interview at least one person. Sal. We didn’t see Dorothy interview anyone.

          But yeah, Charles was probably talking about Jen in context of their other comments in this thread.

    3. CrazyJ

      You’d think that would be enough to end a career and yet Tim Pool proves otherwise.

      1. Thag Simmons

        I hate to say it but at her current trajectory “failed journalism major turned internet reactionary” is a pretty plausible lifestyle path for Jennifer

        1. Jeremiah

          Yeah you don’t actually have to worry about “facts” or “sources” or “logic” you just say whatever you think it’s truth or lie when is convenient and many people will eat it up as long as you say what they wanna hear.

        2. Aquila

          I hate to say it, but so is becoming POTUS.
          (“You steal my dreams? I steal yours!”)
          (Also, Jeremiah’s comment fits this possible career path just as well, if recent election results are any indication.)

        3. Tan

          “What inspired me to become president… Well there was this one bongo in college… Can I say bongo? …They’ll censor it automatically? Okay, so there was this one bongo in college…”

        4. PedanticJerkass

          Yeah, considering who the current POTUS is, it’s certainly within her qualifications. And I don’t doubt for a second that she’d still manage to do a better job at it, regardless.

          (I mean, even taking into account that she’s just a fictional character. I’d rather have a cardboard cutout of a picture of Jennifer Billingsworth as the POTUS instead of what we’ve been shackled with now.)

        5. Aquila

          More fun to look at, certainly.

        6. Steamweed

          A terrible path for Jennifer, and I’m afraid it’s plausible for her. 🙁

        7. Kelibath

          Oh, I don’t know. Seems the USA will do ANYTHING other than elect a non-white woman to the White House.

        8. PedanticJerkass

          Seems the USA will do ANYTHING other than elect a non-white woman to the White House.

      2. Charles Phipps

        I’m now imagining Dorothy in the Robbie Robertson role.

        Daisy: AMAZI-GIRL IS A LESBIAN!

        Dorothy: I’m pretty sure she’s straight.

        Daisy: Bah, she’s got everyone fooled! I’m going to get the pictures that prove it!

        1. Charles Phipps

          In obvious JJ Jameson voice, of course.

        2. Deanatay

          GET ME LESBIAN AMAZI-GIRL PICTURES!!

          … I mean, get me Amazi-Girl pictures.

      3. Jeremiah

        Being the world worst guesser is hard work you know.

    4. Nono

      Daisy probably wants to keep any reasonably attractive female staff somewhat happy (for reasons).

      1. Thag Simmons

        Honestly Daisy doesn’t seem like she’s trying that hard to keep Jennifer happy.

        1. Taffy

          I mean, she’s got two hands. It wouldn’t be difficult.

        2. Steamweed

          Appropriate joyce-face-gravatar is appropriate.

    5. Jeremiah

      Well neither did Jennifer so.

      1. Daibhid C

        Does Jennifer have different pronouns and I missed it? I’m confused as to why people seem so sure that “she” in Charles’s comment is Dorothy.

  9. Queezle

    So Jennifers day is going great.

    1. Bryy

      It’s times like these that I’m reminded of how much actual shit these characters go through in 24 hours.

  10. Reltzik

    Now Jennifer, remember that second billing’s worth something.

    …

    … maybe that would be easier if there was some sort of mnemonic that you could tie it to?

    1. Aquila

      She’d be keener to get top billing. (see what I did there?)

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        Maybe they could switch by taking turns.

      2. Steamweed

        Some keener billing’s worth something.

  11. King_Salty

    “Protests escalate” well let’s just hope that doesn’t mean anything bad.

    1. Sirksome

      Please tell me Jocey isn’t gettin arrested. I’m worried.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Maybe, as part of a group.

        At least it would give us a reason to see Hank again?

    2. Charles Phipps

      I’d make jokes about exaggerated police response to peaceful protests but there’s no such thing in America.

      1. Steamweed

        I made a comment about this, but it got scrubbed by the newly formed Department of Internet Censorship of Knowledge.

    3. Taffy

      Rubber nuclear weapons had to be deployed to disperse the crowd.

      1. Rectilinear Propagation

        Your avatar is changing the tone of your comment.

    4. Queen Anthai

      Yeahhhhhhhh Jocelyne better be okay or SO HELP ME–

  12. Dean

    Look on the bright side, Jennifer – newspapers are dying!

  13. Shaith86

    To paraphrase an old Spoony/Dr. Insano bit, “This is where Jennifer’s soul snaps like a Twix bar.”

    1. StClair

      or an even older bit,
      “Here’s where Cameron Jennifer goes berserk.”

    2. M!a

      Except when you snap a Twix bar, you see multiple layers.

      *waggles eyebrows in anticipation of Beeg Laffs*

      1. Steamweed

        Lay-ers? Well, ya got A-G, Amber, Becky, Danny, Dina, Dorothy, Jennifer, Joe, Sal, Sarah, Walky, and several others.

    3. NGPZ

      ngl that sounds like it go really good with coffee :9

  14. Puppeteer Nessus

    Is Tony Amazi-girl?

    1. Steamweed

      Probably not. We saw them both in the same place at the same time. A-G might be just that good at quick in-between panel costume changes, but probably not.

      1. Casi

        Actually The tony we saw there was a LMD used to keep his identity secret. He already didn’t like hanging out with his football “friends” so he left the social stuff to his LMD, he just didn’t expect the Incellerator to instigate a fight with Danny that night.

  15. RassilonTDavros

    I hadn’t really considered it, but Dorothy dedicating herself to journalism over a political career is honestly really heartening to see after seeing her so defeated inside.

    1. Coatl

      At Karaoke night, I said that maybe music is Dorothy’s true place, I mean, she really put her effort into singing, but seeing that she continues in journalism is also good.

      I know it’s too soon to speak, but I think this is Dorothy’s place.

    2. Shakes

      Investigative journalist is for sure a way to be an irritant and do good for society. It’d suit the person Dorothy is becoming very well.

      Jennifer can always switch her career path to… Uh…

      1. Coatl

        I think you mean…uh

      2. Taffy

        If nothing else, there are thousands of people who’d pay her to get half-naked and insult them.

        1. Clif

          And that’s just in the comment section.

        2. Steamweed

          Billifer the Domme is a possibility. Maybe Veronica Reed can mentor her.

    3. Bash

      It might be a good fit for her. She’s relentless and has a good moral compass.

      1. Archieve

        and lying to advance her career woulnt be a given on this career path.

        1. Proxiehunter

          Well, not to the audience of her reports anyway. Feels like good odds an investigative journalist might need to tell a few whoppers to get access to the information they need to get the truth published.

    4. DashWallkick

      Joyce DID say she has a “commitment to the truth, even if it’s painful.” Sounds like a journalist to me.

    5. thejeff

      Is she really doing that though? The journalism isn’t new. She’d started that early 1st semester, as part of her path to the Presidency.

      I’m not sure she’s treating it as a alternate career path at this point.

  16. jeffepp

    Dorothy is Jen’s rival. Joe is Dorothy’s rival. Joyce is inches away from having a “good morning” with Joe.

    1. M!a

      Inches, and the whole Rich Mullins discography.

      1. Opus the Poet

        (snicker)

    2. Steamweed

      Joyce is very tempted to enjoy a cuppa Joe.

      1. jeffepp

        The best part of waking up…

  17. M!a

    Jennifer is the Christopher Columbus of reporting.

    She wasn’t where she meant to be, didn’t know where she actually was, murdered or enslaved the entire native population and still got remembered as a hero.

    …okay so the metaphor was pretty weak. Lemme try again–

    *gets yoink’ed offstage by a giant hook*

    1. M!a

      So Jennifer is the Edison to Dorothy’s Tesla–

      *stage hook yoink’d again*

      1. Charles Phipps

        Jennifer’s reporting efforts is less read than an ad for meeting Bulmerian girls in your area.

        1. Opus the Poet

          I don’t know about that, I heard Bulmerian girls are really skinny, almost emaciated.

        2. Schpoonman

          Oh, finally, someone else said it.

      2. Steamweed

        Jennifer is the Tommaso Caccini to Dorothy’s Galileo Galilei.

        *gets blank looks from giant hook crew

    2. Chubseus

      Dorothy is Jimmy Olsen, and Jennifer is either Lois Lane or Steve Lombard depending on how generous you want to be.

  18. HueSatLight

    I wonder if this made the story.

  19. Pocky

    seems about right

  20. Charles Phipps

    I wonder if Jocelyn is unhappy that she’s been upstaged by a superhero fight.

    1. DailyBrad

      I think she likely expected it, she’d probably be pleasantly surprised it made the front page at all, given the university being unlikely to want to acknowledge it.

      1. Charles Phipps

        Yeah, those murderous Antifa psychopathic peace protestors needed an article about how they had to be stopped.

  21. DailyBrad

    I wonder if Jennifer even managed to turn in anything substantial, or if Dorothy or Daisy felt like throwing her a bone with the “additional reporting” mention.

    1. Coatl

      Daisy sounds more likely.

    2. Archieve

      Yeah from what we saw Jennifer went from shocked that AG was actually there to failed flirting with the deans son. Being given credit for additional reporting on something she didbt actually see or investigate is very generous of Daisy.

  22. IntangibleMatter

    Jennifer, maybe if you actually did your work well instead of trying to get into people’s pants and harass people who are totally unrelated you’d do better.

    1. Archieve

      But that would mean she needs to improve! and worse, that she hasn’t been the keeper of secret identities this whole time!!

  23. staszu13

    Oh oh. I smell drinky fall off the wagon time

  24. Coatl

    Yes Jennifer, we already saw you, it is unfortunate that you do not have more recognition.

  25. Newlland(Henryvolt)

    still think Jennifer can go rogue to be a independent journalist, I’m talking something along the lines of kyle kulinski from secular talk not Joe Rogan to be more specific.

    Maybe even go as far as convince some programmer friends to start up an entire sight for it. Maybe then she doesn’t haft to cover Amazi-Girl stories to appease Daisy’s touch starved antics any longer.

    1. Charles Phipps

      Jennifer isn’t being silenced. She’s just terrible at her job and barely puts any effort into it.

      1. Newlland(Henryvolt)

        But she doesn’t even want to do the Amazi-Girl story anyway, that’s just what Daisy is Lazer focused on.

        1. GholaHalleck

          It’s her job, not her hobby.

          Do you think Peter Parker wants to go out in his skin tight spandex outfit every day and sell his boss his poses? He does not. But that’s his job.

        2. DashWallkick

          Jennifer is not a good journalist. You’ll notice a pattern of things where she declares that she is something — head cheerleader, problem solver, good with people, ace reporter — and lacks the introspection to come to terms that she is just flattering herself.

      2. Sirksome

        I don’t actually think Jennifer is bad at journalism in general but this very specific scenario involving Daisy forcing her to pursue Amazi-Girl stories she’s not good at investigating because of her own biases. It would be like asking Dorothy to write an article on how to slack off or be a bisexual washout.

        1. Shakes

          Jennifer wanted the sports beat at the start of the comic purely because she was a cheerleader. She also admitted to not actually doing anything for the school newspaper despite being named editor.
          Early on you don’t get to pick a beat and get work assigned to you, which Jennifer has failed at massively. Her intuition sucks, she’s never in the right place and has been overshadowed by Dorothy who was just writing for extra credit.
          Jennifer might have an academic knack for English but if I was Daisy I’d be gently nudging Jennifer to find a new major.

        2. Sirksome

          Jennifer actually has decent intuition. She might even be onto something with Incelerator’s origin. She just never checks her own biases and assumes she’s right. She thinks Amazi-Girl is Sal. Nothing can convince her she’s wrong so she will forever fail at her task. Dorothy is better at this yes, but Jennifer hasn’t really put the effort in to see if she is good at it. Journalism probably isn’t the right fit for Jennifer though, yeah.

        3. Amelie Wikström

          Like Jennifer says, she has a deep intuitive understanding of people. It’s her whole thing and she was mad at Booster for stealing it. It’s just that her intuitions are typically completely wrong.

        4. DashWallkick

          If anything, some introspection and awareness of her delusional confidence and frequency of mistakes would make her a pretty dynamite therapist. But instead she keeps running from the idea that she was ever wrong or needs guidance because when would Billie need to take other people’s advice on things? And so we get the car crash who instead of introspecting, runs from herself.

        5. Jeremiah

          You just described all the reason she has a bad intuition.

        6. Tesset

          Idk, “bisexual washout” is kind of the direction Dorothy’s character is going. Having some external rewards for exploring that might be a good thing for her

        7. Tesset

          “Hey Joyce, let’s skip class & makeout, I need to do research for an article Daisy asked me to write.”

          “Of course Dorothy, anything for my platonic bestie!”

      3. Bryy

        So is Joe Rogan.

  26. Archieve

    Looks like Dorothy has unintentially upstaged Jennifer in journalism just like Becky unintentionally upstaged her in politics.

  27. Amelie Wikström

    Was not expecting Jennifer to turn into Elliot Reed of all things

    1. Taffy

      She’s not writing an incel manifesto and shooting up a building, good golly.

      1. Amelie Wikström

        No, Elliot Reed, the character from Bill Lawrence’s Scrubs.

        1. Schpoonman

          I’m assuming Taffy is Taffying about the Scrubs character’s name being spelled “Reid”. I’m only being this nitpicky twerp because Google threw me a “Did you mean…?”

        2. Taffy

          Oh fuck, I was thinking of Elliot Rodger. I only know of two Elliot’s (the other being Page), so I saw the surname starting with R and I guess my brain said “close enough”. I’ve never seen Scrubs.

        3. HueSatLight

          There’s also Elliot, Pete’s dragon. And T. Eliot, of: "T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad." I'd assign it a name: Gnat Dirt Upset On Drab Pot Toilet

        4. PedanticJerkass

          There’s also this guy.

        5. Amelie Wikström

          Dangit, and I used to know the show forwards and backwards. (Indeed, my brother and I once watched the whole thing in reverse episode order just to make that joke.) But it was a few years and hundreds of Marvel comics ago.

          I guess everyone was confused today.

        6. Bryy

          Yeah, but you could have specified when talking about someone who shares the names a high profile murderer.

        7. Yumi

          Turns out that wasn’t the case at all, though… and you commented this after the previous discussion that the person Taffy was thinking of was Elliot Rodger. So it’s a weird thing to put on them.

        8. Amelie Wikström

          My dad has the same first name as Anders Breivik, that doesn’t usually cause any confusion. . .

  28. George

    Oooooh. The jimmies… they have been rustled!

  29. TheFlamingonator

    Even WITH my glasses I would need a magnifying glass to read Jennifers name. What is that font size, 2??

    1. Lingo

      I was about to say! More like zero-point-two. The difference in font sizes between Dorothy’s and Jennifer’s bylines is comically ridiculous. No way Dorothy’s name is as large in a newspaper as it appears on our screen, so if those proportions are correct, you’d probably need a microscope to read Jennifer’s 😆

  30. Alan in DC

    Then she turns the page and sees Walky’s “Ha ha haaa” strip and her head explodes like a confetti cannon.

  31. Deanatay

    “I deserve top billing, goddammit! It’s IN MY NAME!!”

    1. thejeff

      She gets the billing she’s worth.

  32. ValdVin

    The IDS looks to be bigger than my local Alden Capital fishwrap. Yes, it’s a venture capital firm.

  33. Thomaskattus

    Oh Damn!

  34. Kyulen

    I’m more curious about the “protests escalate” story. I wonder if we’ll hear more about that soon.

    1. Amós Batista

      Oh noes, Willis is doing the Foreshadowing again ?

    2. Bryy

      In comics time, “this weekend” should be the next arc.

  35. Suet

    It’s
    Dorothy’s
    Scoop
    Additional scoop by Jennifer Billingsworth

    Something will boil over from this. Something will boil over.

  36. Oli

    Wait.. protest escalates? Is big sis ok?

    1. Pseudowolf

      I noticed that too. I’m wondering if someone decided to start breaking/throwing things.

      1. Serendipity

        That’s not what “protest escalates” usually means.

        It usually means that the cops had enough of peaceful protesters’ presence and began the state sponsored violence.

  37. Charles Phipps

    As a THE DIVISION fan, it’s always funny remembering Dorothy’s last name is Keener. That’s the name of the insane manipulative psychopath who is waging war against the United States.

  38. HueSatLight

    Jennifer is right to be frustrated. Unless Dorothy is acknowledging her part in AG’s return, she’s doing journalistic malpractice. And if she is acknowledging her part, Daisy’s doing malpractice by running Dorothy’s piece as reporting. I don’t think Dorothy pressured AG into getting back into it so that she’d get the scoop. I do think Dorothy pressured AG to get back into it, and also she’s getting the scoop.

    For whatever Jennifer’s flaw are as a journalist with little experience, she’s not lying. I saw some criticisms of Jennifer not being good at investigative journalism. Ok, but she’s trying to, and possibly learning how. Dorothy is not doing investigative journalism at all. Is that how she’s presenting herself?

    1. Bryy

      Jennifer has no knowledge of those things, though. She can’t be in the right for stuff only the reader has seen.

      1. HueSatLight

        no.

        1. HueSatLight

          like. just no. you can only be frustrated if you know all the details? wtf. no absolutely not.

        2. Jeremiah

          I mean, if by all the details you mean any of the details. Also journalistic malpractice? It is a college newspaper article a about a superhero I doubt anyone would care.

        3. HueSatLight

          you’re tedious.

        4. Jeremiah

          Right back at ya.

        5. Taffy

          Journalistic malpractice at least won’t cause a patient to die on the operating table, so we’ve got that going for us.

        6. HueSatLight

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/newspaperassignment/
          Dorothy lied to her, poorly, when Jennifer was investigating on assignment, and then Dorothy scooped her.

  39. morhek

    So is Jennifer the Eddie Brock to Dorothy’s Peter Parker? I’m not sure who would be Venom in this analogy, but I’m excited to find out.

  40. Zamperla

    ….yeah but see. Sal is COOL and Amazigirl is cool, and if someone says Amazigirl is white people have a lot of racial bias, which is, admittedly, true.

    1. Charles Phipps

      “I don’t live hereTM!”

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