There seems to be a pretty strong consensus that David Malki is referring to me. I personally wouldn’t have thought so, but half a dozen e-mails Friday morning insist otherwise.
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Comics I Don't Understand 
If it’s not about you, it does seem to be about someone who’s familiar with IBB.
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Teacher to new kid:
“What’s your name?”
“William Shakespeare.”
“You know, there’s a very famous William Shakespeare.”
“Really? What grade is he in?”
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If the initial syllables of the guy’s names aren’t enough, panel 4 seems to make this a lock. Malki must be a lurker here.
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While it’s certainly not conclusive that the first syllables of the character’s name match yours, the rant in the fourth panel is what really makes me think he’s heard of your IBB story (which has been mentioned in places like the Straight Dope message board and MetaFilter).
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Actually, it’s a burn on me; my real name happens to be John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith (without the hyphen, which the cartoonist probably included for plausible deniability — my relatives and I have a lot of arguments about hyphens, and about those snooty Jingleheimer-Smythes who went with a variant spelling. Wankers.).
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And here I just wondered whether the NFL player Michael Jackson got teased in the locker room for his name.
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Regarding the dinosaur comments – Winter Wallaby, you are absolutely correct. Similar to those folks on talk radio shows who speak ad nauseum without seemingly ever taking a breath
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I don’t see a comment from Wallaby here to reply to? Is our favorite marsupial engaging in camouflage coloration?
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Bill, I think you wrote this comic yourself. Of course, I can’t tell by the artwork.
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A guy named Bill* Bick* getting emails for the wrong Bill* Bick*? Yeah. He’s talking about your situation.
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I assure you, Chak, if I’d drawn it myself you wouldn’t be referring to it as “artwork.”
I really don’t think I could even be a guest artist for xkcd (though I guess it would be cool to be asked)
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I always wondered if “our” Kamino Neko was the same person at the Straightdope. I guess so. Small world. Any other Dopers hang out here?
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I have to agree that the names definitely sound like you. The “how do you not know your own e-mail” is hardly a unique problem, but an unusual name, that sounds like that, in a comic? Yeah, it’s a reference.
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That’s an awful lot of text there in that comic.
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Grawlix, Wondermark is a very text-heavy strip.
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It’s not about you. It’s about Idiot Bilden J. Bickworm.
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@Christine: It’s not just the wrong address, but having people send sensitive personal information to the wrong address that clinches it for me.
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Charter Member of the SDMB here.
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Bill, he can’t tell by the artwork because Wondermark isn’t drawn by the author; it’s repurposed old out-of-copyright artwork. I was a little surprised–I haven’t looked at it recently, but Malki used to use the same picture in each panel, only changing the talk-balloons.
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Charter member, wow! I just lurk, but I’ve been lurking for a looong time.
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Wondermark isn’t drawn by the author; it’s repurposed old out-of-copyright artwork
Oh, something suitable for my artistic skills.
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Art Linkletter: “What’s your name?”
Little girl: “Shelley.”
Art Linkletter: “Do you know you are named after a famous poet?”
Little girl: “Shelley Temple was a poet?”
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Just wondering, has anyone (but preferably not our Bill) sent a copy of this to Idiot Bill? Perhaps we should ALL send him a separate copy?
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Kilby, maybe some of the people who sent it to me thought they WERE sending it to him.
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And Malki has been informed of this post now. Maybe he might come on by for a visit?
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Hi everyone. Very interested to see this lively conversation. This is, however, a coincidence. I think I may have visited this site in the past once or twice, but I’m afraid before today I’d never heard the name Bill Bickel (and would have chosen a different name in the comic if I had). As for the email bit, that happens to lots of people. There’s a David Malki in Sweden who keeps sending me his gym schedule.
I’m sorry. It would be a better story if it were a reference. But for the last couple years I’ve tried to make a game out of making up really bizarre names anytime anyone in Wondermark is referred to by name. Bilden Bickworm is one of those. (In an earlier draft of the comic, it was Buckwort. That probably wouldn’t have gotten Bill quite so many emails.)
Cheers,
Malki !
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I don’t know… Montel Williams once called me Bill Buckle on a live broadcast.
This is all a shame, though: I was all ready to name a character in my next short story “Malki.”
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I mean, you still can, I’ll just owe you one.
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Wow, that’s quite the coincidence. I was virtually certain that this had to be a reference to IBB.
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Fair enough!
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tl; dr
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