I-I mean my FRIEND! SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!! I mean, she’s a girl, and I’m her friend, but… she… might be attracted to girls… BUT NOT ME!! I’m just… I’m just here for my… *blush* could I just get some pamphlets, please?
New stress about old things! Yes, that’s the place to start; it’s not about the past, it’s about right now. The only time you can do anything is right now.
I really hope they teach him being gay doesnt have to define their life. But maybe it would be interesting for Ethan to meet one of those people who wears rainbows all the time and see how they interract
The problem is that Ethan would prefer that being gay didn’t define his life, but he also feels like that’s not something he can control. From his perspective, it’s everyone else that needs to learn this lesson.
I can see how being defined by being gay would be really freaking annoying to any homosexuals as it basically takes over how people see you. We don’t define straight people by their sexuality, so why do we do that with gay people?
As a transman, this is exactly why I don’t talk about being trans to people who didn’t know me previously. There’s this way of thinking that people often (not always, but too often) slip into- because I’m visually very male, deep voice, beard etc they don’t think of me as female but they often do think of me as “that guy who used to be a girl”. Not only is that inaccurate but it’s suddenly my defining characteristic- the idea that tends to come along is that I’m automatically “less of a man”.
Well, that’s kind of a thing about being queer. Even if you think it’s just an aspect of your life, there often is enough cultural bullshit, underlying bigotry, and negative impact on one’s life that even if you didn’t intend queerness to define you, it still ends up being a huge thing that affects a lot of things.
It’s not so much that people seek to define themselves by their marginalized identities but that they end up having to define themselves by their marginalization entirely because of the impact systemic bigotry and disparities in privilege work.
“Oh, you’re a gay superhero! Thats totes cool!”
“No. I’m a superhero. I’m gay.”
“Are you called Gay Guy? Rainbow Man? What are your gay powers for fighting bad guys? Why are you looking at me like that?”
That’s the point. We define them as gay superheroes, because LGBT people have been so marginalized that minute inclusion suddenly becomes a defining characteristic.
The only exception I know of is Constantine, who, when they started making explicit references to his bisexuality in the recent runs, didn’t cause any outcry of “you’re ruining the character!” possibly because JC’s defining characteristic is that he screws over his friends accidentally while screwing over his antagonists intentionally, and this just made it a little more literal.
“It’s not so much that people seek to define themselves by their marginalized identities but that they end up having to define themselves by their marginalization entirely because of the impact systemic bigotry and disparities in privilege work.”
YES!! THIS!! Thank you for wording it so eloquently and quotably. This is one of the hardest things to get non-marginalized people to understand.
I’m waiting for some gigantic surprise during the meeting, like Joe showing up and everyone assuming he’s gay, when he’s really only there to look at lesbians.
I feel like Joe would find that counter-intuitive. Besides this being a clearly marked “dealing with other folks’ emotional baggage” zone, it’s not like he could actually make it with any of the lesbians. (I mean, he might be one of those “they just need to see how good being with a man is” assholes, but we’ve gotten no indication one way or another.)
He might reason though, this is a meeting for QUESTIONING after all, not for those already certain with themselves, so he might reason that there’s a certain percentages of women questioning their sexuality and discovering that their sexuality actually was straight. (This could apply to both straight women that believed they were suddenly gay, or to gay women that have started questioning if they really ARE gay) Still, it would be rather icky, as I doubt a single meeting like this is enough to instantly find out your sexuality, at least enough that hooking up with them wouldn’t count as emotionally predatory.
Or bi.
There’s lots of people in this strip who are definitely bi.
Still don’t think Joe would go there, because feelings zone, but bi people exist and the number of folks who go “CHOOSE ONE” loudly does sometimes mean longer spent questioning.
Young bloke + woman + sex + alcohol = possible mishap.
holds, and the longer anyone indulges, the higher the chances of a slip up.
It’s up to Willis to see if he lets Joe go down that route. Willis might let Joe find his One True Love and everyone will live happily ever after. Only der Willis knows these things.
There are more than four characters here, and yet the tags list only four. I see a chick with red hair and hat in the back, for example, and two white guys sitting in chairs. Someone is wearing jeans across from them. There are two shadows in the back, as well.
If you need some names before they actually say anything, I would recommend one of the men be named Archibald. There aren’t enough men named Archibald.
Could be named for Archibald Cox. He was a civic hero within the living memory of some people, possibly of the parents of a college student if they had kids not early.
I was wondering “Who the fuck is Bryan” after reading the hidden text, and I see that his last appearance was Danny staring at him in the shower room with those bisexual eyes of his.
Yeah, he and Jim haven’t been much more than occasional scenery before this. They had a slightly larger part in It’s Walky!, as members of Daisy’s squad, who were basically the designated Squad That Actually Does Things But Aren’t The Main Characters.
“Chick” is actually the word my daughter (22) uses to refer to herself and other young women, and men are “dudes”. When I was her age, we’d say, ” Is that a girl or a guy over there?” These days the question is, “Is that a chick or a dude?”
So I didn’t take it that Bryan meant anything derogatory.
What’s wrong with chick? I mean he’s not using it in the leering sense, so it’s no more worse than dude, gal, lad, or whatever other gendered misnomers.
Foot in mouth Joyce is one of my favorite Joyce’s, and I like how she continues to straddle the line between intellectually being totally accepting and that little part of her that still, for example, isn’t comfortable with a stranger thinking she’s not straight. (Willing to invite that for Ethan’s sake! But not comfy with it.)
“Hi. Hey, don’t I know you? I mean, from off the floor somewhere.”
“Yeah, uh… We were both at that, uh, thing yesterday? With the pizza?”
“Oh! Oh, right.”
“Yeah. Um.”
“So, uh… heh. Hey, you know how they have, like, boy bathrooms and girl bathrooms? You know, so you don’t have to, like, whip it out in front of someone you think is hot? Or who thinks you’re hot?”
Ah! Good! I was wondering whether anyone else had noticed that!
So was it deliberate on Dina’s part, or are her friends’ speech patterns rubbing off on her this quickly? Or, as a third possibility, did Mr. Willis momentarily forget whom he was writing dialogue for? (Hey, it happens.)
I believe it’s been discussed in comic that Ryan was likely a fake name so, if in the strange event that Ryan reappears outside of Joyce’s subconscious, people would probably be calling him by a different name. Probably not Jim though because ‘One Steve Limit’ and all.
Bryan is probably used to first-time attendees acting like that! Poor Joyce, meanwhile, is in her own little guilt-stricken space where she can only hear Bryan saying what she imagines that he’s saying!
Y’know, at some point, Joyce or Becky are going to have to explain Becky’s real situation to Dina.
I’m so glad that Joyce and Becky go to church together. For Joyce, she has not been able to share that experience with someone since she got here. Even when Dorothy and Ethan followed her to church they couldn’t relate to her experience and things got awkward.
And for Becky this is awesome. She didn’t let her butthole dad or the homophobes at Anderson’s take the positive aspects of her religious experience from her. And it’s such an important confirmation of their friendship. Despite how they change they can still be Joyce&Becky together.
So what kind of stuff is she attending to now? Last time she was left alone she tried to pester Billie and ended up with a rad haircut. Personally I hope that she’s applying for a job over at Galasso’s pizza (and subs). Either that or she’s at the library, reading up on sweet dinosaur facts.
If someone called me ‘chick’ at an LGBT meeting, I would nope out of there in a heartbeat. Bryan should know better than to make an assumption about Joyce’s gender identity.
Huh, actually hadn’t thought of that. Normally I think it’d be reasonable but at a meeting specifically designed for questioning individuals, you’d think he’d want to be more careful.
CONVENTION APPEARANCES
probably not anywhere for a while 'cuz the world is covered in death
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New ship begins yesterday if not sooner =3
BRYAN + JIM 4 EVA
(forgot to specify which one but I don’t think it matters tbh)
New Guy for Sarah? Jen Aside how are you so damn fast? The new comic didn’t even load for me until 12:03
fix your clock
(12:02 for me actually)
So it wasnt just me! I couldnt see it til 9:02 these last few days as well.
Gost you both beat. It loaded in my inbox at 12:01 yesterday.
It has been 13:02’30” Adelaide Time for me in the last few weeks.
It’s not at the half hour? Dur, confused again by TIME
Woops I meant to say 13:32’30”
Isn’t that how it usually is? I don’t have the best memory of time.
I didn’t get it until 9:27 p.m. PT
Jen can control time.
Eh, I think he’s too skinny for Sarah’s tastes.
“Her school in in Canada.”
Joyce be cool. You know what they say about protesting too much.
“I’m not protesting too much!”
This got a solid chuckle out of me.
Her name is Vancouver, she lives in Alberta– no her name is Alberta she lives in Vancouver, my girlfriend, in Canada!
I-I mean my FRIEND! SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!! I mean, she’s a girl, and I’m her friend, but… she… might be attracted to girls… BUT NOT ME!! I’m just… I’m just here for my… *blush* could I just get some pamphlets, please?
Oh Joyce, life becomes so much less stressful once you stop caring what random people think of you and your passing comments.
As someone who still gets panic attacks about things people said about me, online, when I was 12, it’s not really that easy. <.<
Oh I know, it’s a long and difficult process, but it’s so worth it. It doesn’t retroactively erase stress but it prevents new stress.
New stress about old things! Yes, that’s the place to start; it’s not about the past, it’s about right now. The only time you can do anything is right now.
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Facepalm
Sure it is, Joyce. Suuuuuure it is.
…Wait, it actually is, isn’t it?
It actually is! Plus it’s Becky, so it’s not even that Joyce is a Friend Of Dorothy.
Joyce is so kind to calm Bryan’s nerves, by proving that he’s not the most awkward person in the room. She’s a giver like that.
And Ethan, too – she’s already drawing away the awkward like a magnet.
I really hope they teach him being gay doesnt have to define their life. But maybe it would be interesting for Ethan to meet one of those people who wears rainbows all the time and see how they interract
The problem is that Ethan would prefer that being gay didn’t define his life, but he also feels like that’s not something he can control. From his perspective, it’s everyone else that needs to learn this lesson.
I can see how being defined by being gay would be really freaking annoying to any homosexuals as it basically takes over how people see you. We don’t define straight people by their sexuality, so why do we do that with gay people?
As a transman, this is exactly why I don’t talk about being trans to people who didn’t know me previously. There’s this way of thinking that people often (not always, but too often) slip into- because I’m visually very male, deep voice, beard etc they don’t think of me as female but they often do think of me as “that guy who used to be a girl”. Not only is that inaccurate but it’s suddenly my defining characteristic- the idea that tends to come along is that I’m automatically “less of a man”.
Well, that’s kind of a thing about being queer. Even if you think it’s just an aspect of your life, there often is enough cultural bullshit, underlying bigotry, and negative impact on one’s life that even if you didn’t intend queerness to define you, it still ends up being a huge thing that affects a lot of things.
It’s not so much that people seek to define themselves by their marginalized identities but that they end up having to define themselves by their marginalization entirely because of the impact systemic bigotry and disparities in privilege work.
“Oh, you’re a gay superhero! Thats totes cool!”
“No. I’m a superhero. I’m gay.”
“Are you called Gay Guy? Rainbow Man? What are your gay powers for fighting bad guys? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I can name several homosexual superheroes. Batwoman (Kate Kane), Question (Renee Montoya), Green Arrow (Connor Hawke), Union Jack, etcetera.
That’s the point. We define them as gay superheroes, because LGBT people have been so marginalized that minute inclusion suddenly becomes a defining characteristic.
The only exception I know of is Constantine, who, when they started making explicit references to his bisexuality in the recent runs, didn’t cause any outcry of “you’re ruining the character!” possibly because JC’s defining characteristic is that he screws over his friends accidentally while screwing over his antagonists intentionally, and this just made it a little more literal.
Rainbow Man’s my favorite Robot Master.
“It’s not so much that people seek to define themselves by their marginalized identities but that they end up having to define themselves by their marginalization entirely because of the impact systemic bigotry and disparities in privilege work.”
YES!! THIS!! Thank you for wording it so eloquently and quotably. This is one of the hardest things to get non-marginalized people to understand.
That’s the problem with using the “it’s for a friend” line as a euphemism, it tends not to be treated as a literal fact.
I’m waiting for some gigantic surprise during the meeting, like Joe showing up and everyone assuming he’s gay, when he’s really only there to look at lesbians.
I feel like Joe would find that counter-intuitive. Besides this being a clearly marked “dealing with other folks’ emotional baggage” zone, it’s not like he could actually make it with any of the lesbians. (I mean, he might be one of those “they just need to see how good being with a man is” assholes, but we’ve gotten no indication one way or another.)
Joe prefers to watch lesbians in their “natural” environment; on video.
He doesn’t even have to do anything, he can just watch them make out.
Honestly, Joe would not set foot in the feelings-zone even if he was questioning.
He might reason though, this is a meeting for QUESTIONING after all, not for those already certain with themselves, so he might reason that there’s a certain percentages of women questioning their sexuality and discovering that their sexuality actually was straight. (This could apply to both straight women that believed they were suddenly gay, or to gay women that have started questioning if they really ARE gay) Still, it would be rather icky, as I doubt a single meeting like this is enough to instantly find out your sexuality, at least enough that hooking up with them wouldn’t count as emotionally predatory.
Or bi.
There’s lots of people in this strip who are definitely bi.
Still don’t think Joe would go there, because feelings zone, but bi people exist and the number of folks who go “CHOOSE ONE” loudly does sometimes mean longer spent questioning.
I don’t think Willis is determined to make us hate Joe that much just yet.
As much as Joe isn’t girls, I don’t think even he’d be enough of a jackass to go to a meeting to look and/or leer at lesbians.
*is
*is into
(I must be having an off day.)
I’m waiting for Joe to show up at an STD clinic. Only a matter of time …
How do you know he hasn’t already?
I assume he’s being careful and consistently using protection, though. He may come across as rather single-minded, but he’s not irresponsible.
How do you know he has?
IRL, The equation:
Young bloke + woman + sex + alcohol = possible mishap.
holds, and the longer anyone indulges, the higher the chances of a slip up.
It’s up to Willis to see if he lets Joe go down that route. Willis might let Joe find his One True Love and everyone will live happily ever after. Only der Willis knows these things.
If Joe show’s up, it’ll be for the pizza.
If only Jim had super-speed so he could get Bryan out of this conversation sooner!
This meeting needs Robin. The other universe’s Robin, to be precise.
Or the other universe’s Jim!
(I have now explained the joke)
There are more than four characters here, and yet the tags list only four. I see a chick with red hair and hat in the back, for example, and two white guys sitting in chairs. Someone is wearing jeans across from them. There are two shadows in the back, as well.
If you need some names before they actually say anything, I would recommend one of the men be named Archibald. There aren’t enough men named Archibald.
I am hoping they get retroactively tagged once introduced. I’ve been excited for this plotline since it potentially introduces more queer characters.
Right on!
Let’sbe careful here! We don’t want no soggies invasion!
Could be named for Archibald Cox. He was a civic hero within the living memory of some people, possibly of the parents of a college student if they had kids not early.
I want to see Danny show up!
So much hope.
This is what I used to be like buying Pokemon games.
“Um yeah, I just wanna get this for my little cousin.”
“K, sure that’ll be $39.40.”
“Hey look man, I just said it was for my little cousin.”
“I know, I didn’t say anythi-”
“HEY LOOK BUDDY, I DON’T APPRECIATE YOU JUDGING ME! I SAID IT WAS FOR MY LITTLE COUSIN ALRIGHT?!”
“…There’s a free t-shirts with this one… Will that be a large?”
“…Yes, please…”
*looks around for a Styx album*
You’re looking for a Johnny Cash boom-chicka-boom-chicka type song.
Ring of Fire or I Walk the Line?
Nah, just some Tommy Shaw electric quitar.
Sorry, we’re out of pizza. Some blonde haired guy ate it all and left.
god damnit mike
*Shifts Pretender armour from blonde design to usual dark brown…*
Bryan is giving me some serious Doug vibes. Like he feels like a combination of multiple characters from Doug.
I don’t know about multiple characters, but his outfit is pretty similar to Doug’s.
well, similar in that it’s a greenish vest type thing over a white shirt and absolutely no similarity of the pants.
So many sweater-vests.
It’s what all the cool kids wear these days.
It’s a girl magnet.
I was wondering “Who the fuck is Bryan” after reading the hidden text, and I see that his last appearance was Danny staring at him in the shower room with those bisexual eyes of his.
Yeah, he and Jim haven’t been much more than occasional scenery before this. They had a slightly larger part in It’s Walky!, as members of Daisy’s squad, who were basically the designated Squad That Actually Does Things But Aren’t The Main Characters.
*is wondering now if the whole squad was gay*
I thought Bryan was Lucy’s brother.
Lucy’s brothers name was Lyle. First time I saw Bryan in DoA I thought the same thing so
No judgements and calling a woman a “chick” in the same breath. Beautiful, beautiful irony.
Well Joyce uses Jack Chick tracts, so…
Would “chica” have been okay?
Jim, please bring this Non-Questioning Person some pamphlets for her friend.
“Chick” is actually the word my daughter (22) uses to refer to herself and other young women, and men are “dudes”. When I was her age, we’d say, ” Is that a girl or a guy over there?” These days the question is, “Is that a chick or a dude?”
So I didn’t take it that Bryan meant anything derogatory.
and they all need to get off my damn lawn.
The kids next door loiter on my lawn waiting for their school bus. I’ve tried setting my dog on them, but he just takes them a stick and plays Fetch.
What’s wrong with chick? I mean he’s not using it in the leering sense, so it’s no more worse than dude, gal, lad, or whatever other gendered misnomers.
Girl? Woman? English needs non-gendered pronouns for situations in which non-gendered pronouns would be appropriate.
Clearly the only acceptable term is “likely-bipedal humanoid figure”.
He wasn’t judging her.
At first.
The last two panels kinda earned Joyce some judgements.
Could have been far worse – dame, broad, twist, split or frail spring to mind. Or even the other B-word.
I’ve watched far too much film noir.
Here’s looking at you, blue eyes.
Yeah ‘this chick” and “no judgements”. Yup, nuthin’ wrong here.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much Joyce, so shusssh already.
Dina with the questions we don’t want to hear/answer. Love her.
My initial reaction seeing Bryan: Who’s the cute guy in glasses?
Hey Bryan nice to meet ya! So Bryan and Jim are a thing???
Ooh, Bryan is the leader of the group. Interesting. Now to see who else is hanging around.
Foot in mouth Joyce is one of my favorite Joyce’s, and I like how she continues to straddle the line between intellectually being totally accepting and that little part of her that still, for example, isn’t comfortable with a stranger thinking she’s not straight. (Willing to invite that for Ethan’s sake! But not comfy with it.)
Nice and human 🙂
I remember him! He was in the Showers with danny and Ethan! He was hot!
Now I demand a strip where they all know they’re gay and run into each other in the showers. The delicious awkwardness…
“Hi. Hey, don’t I know you? I mean, from off the floor somewhere.”
“Yeah, uh… We were both at that, uh, thing yesterday? With the pizza?”
“Oh! Oh, right.”
“Yeah. Um.”
“So, uh… heh. Hey, you know how they have, like, boy bathrooms and girl bathrooms? You know, so you don’t have to, like, whip it out in front of someone you think is hot? Or who thinks you’re hot?”
“Heh. Yeah.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t really work, does it? Um.”
“Nnnope.”
YESSSSSSSSS!
But probably we’ve jinxed it now. Watch Bryan be straight and he’s only here to support Jim or something.
See Joyce, that is how you lie!
Just tell the truth in the unconvincing manner possible and no one will believe a word you say.
A contraction. From Dina? Reality is starting to crumble…
Ah! Good! I was wondering whether anyone else had noticed that!
So was it deliberate on Dina’s part, or are her friends’ speech patterns rubbing off on her this quickly? Or, as a third possibility, did Mr. Willis momentarily forget whom he was writing dialogue for? (Hey, it happens.)
Going to go with deliberate on Dina’s part, given that her conversation with Sarah about contractions couldn’t have been more than 20 minutes ago.
Dina has used contractions before. She just uses them a lot less often than other people.
Get it together Jim.
“Damn it Jim, I’m working on a doctorate, not on being a secretary…”
Why do I get the feeling Jim will be that church kid from the party?
Because this is a Willis comic where horrible things are always happening?
No need to worry tho. Jim is just that one dude we’ve seen almost never who hangs out with Bryan. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/03-the-first-step-towards-recovery/darker/
His name is Ryan.
I believe it’s been discussed in comic that Ryan was likely a fake name so, if in the strange event that Ryan reappears outside of Joyce’s subconscious, people would probably be calling him by a different name. Probably not Jim though because ‘One Steve Limit’ and all.
Ryan is his real name.
Ryan has never been named in the comic, only by the tags.
Really? Wow. Guess it’s been too long since I’ve done an archive binge.
It would be really weird then if you changed his name later on and had to go back and retroactively change any alt-texts that mention his name.
Bryan is probably used to first-time attendees acting like that! Poor Joyce, meanwhile, is in her own little guilt-stricken space where she can only hear Bryan saying what she imagines that he’s saying!
Y’know, at some point, Joyce or Becky are going to have to explain Becky’s real situation to Dina.
Far more likely they will reveal it by loose talk while they have forgotten she is present.
Jim, Jiiiiiiiiim, this is getting awkward!
Joyce is the queen of digging herself deeper.
No one does it better.
Dina collecting and collating information. She’s probably figured it out by the third ‘mm’
I want pizza. And an LGBTQ questioning group for the intentional community I belong to. I should start it. Like, now.
Bryan sounds like he just genuinely cares.
hey Willis, any chance we can get a copy of panel 1 without the speech bubbles? I’m curious what quotes those are.
OMG! Joyce is just so freaking adorable.
“Clean up, Aisle 5!”
I’m so glad that Joyce and Becky go to church together. For Joyce, she has not been able to share that experience with someone since she got here. Even when Dorothy and Ethan followed her to church they couldn’t relate to her experience and things got awkward.
And for Becky this is awesome. She didn’t let her butthole dad or the homophobes at Anderson’s take the positive aspects of her religious experience from her. And it’s such an important confirmation of their friendship. Despite how they change they can still be Joyce&Becky together.
So what kind of stuff is she attending to now? Last time she was left alone she tried to pester Billie and ended up with a rad haircut. Personally I hope that she’s applying for a job over at Galasso’s pizza (and subs). Either that or she’s at the library, reading up on sweet dinosaur facts.
I would guess job-hunting.
Dude, she could work at Galazzo’s.
I was thinking she was starting a job hunt or consulting an help association, as well.
I’m pretty sure attending to stuff is code for masturbating. Also, Joyce thinking about that would explain her being flustered in the other panels.
Clothes, I’ll bet.
I’d guess Becky might be either job hunting or maybe trying to enroll at IU.
JIM WE NEED SOME EMERGENCY ICE CREAM, STAT !
“Really it’s for my friend! She kissed a girl last night, my friend did. Dina! Dina tell him how you kissed my friend.”
“I kissed her.”
“My friend, that is, she kissed my friend, who is not me.”
“I only kissed her once myself, and we don’t even share the same bed any longer.”
“I wanted us to keep sleeping together, but she said she needed her space.”
whooo she really needs this
I wonder if anybody’s trans at this meeting. I wonder if Joyce will ever find out that she has a sister!
Damn Joyce you gonna get whiplash doing that.
commenting for the first time in a million years to say IM SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS AND I HOPE BRYAN/JIM HAPPENS
Very nice work on drawing the room in panel 1. 🙂
If someone called me ‘chick’ at an LGBT meeting, I would nope out of there in a heartbeat. Bryan should know better than to make an assumption about Joyce’s gender identity.
Huh, actually hadn’t thought of that. Normally I think it’d be reasonable but at a meeting specifically designed for questioning individuals, you’d think he’d want to be more careful.