I think it’s been pretty consistent that he is a genuinely social person who does enjoy the company of women on a non-sexual level, even if he has a tendency toward the sexual himself.
In the Walkyverse he and Rachel originally met on a message board and based on Rachel’s description, Joe can actually be incredibly thoughtful etc – he just usually hides it between his horndog persona.
DrunkenNordmann
Correction, they did meet in meatspace before that, but neither of them knew it was the other when they met online, much to both people’s surprise when they found out.
I might go so far as to suspect that Joe’s hypersexual persona is a defense mechanism.
Sunny
Well, yeah.
He knows what his father is like and how Richard’s behaviour led to a divorce. Joe probably sees a lot of the same in himself, and as a result doesn’t do relationships, only one-night stands. If he doesn’t have a long-term romantic relationship with anyone it means he never will hurt the other person or himself when he (in his mind) inevitably fails and cheats on them with someone else..
He DOES value feminine companionship in a non-sexual way, is evidenced by his texts with Joyce a while back.
He just refuses to admit it, and part of the denial process is desperately trying to turn every encounter with a female into a sexual encounter. Which is… sad? I pity him a bit, but I pity the women he has to put up with more, and I’m kinda pissed off at the cowardice involved.
“Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s Becky, and we should know it.
With each glance and every little movement she shows it . . . ”
I still wonder if a haircut is really the way of signifying your sexual orientation? Like it’s legitimately a cool cut so I’d understand anyone wanting their hair to look like that, gay, straight, male, female, or other.
It’s absolutely a way. Not the only way, and not a slam dunk by any means –aa you said, other people might like to wear it like that too– but it’s definitely more queer-coded than, say, wearing a lot of flannel. It’s less of a clear signal than wearing a rainbow triangle pin with two women-signs on it, but it’s still coded enough that my brain automatically says “ooh she might be into me, let’s take a look”.
Well Mark Trail’s girlfriend has that haircut now so, yeah, definitely not exclusively gay. (Girlfriend? Wife? Fellow member of a polyamourous pod? I still don’t really read that comic.)
Let the new writer have a long and fruitful run, and not get into bizarre Twitter fights with members of Congress or write lengthy storylines about how pathetic People Looking For Attention On The Internet are that end with the hero just… abandoning this guy to die in the Himilayas, not even an attempt to look for him or pay lip service to it being too dangerous. (That was one surreal storyline.)
God, newspaper comics are a WEIRD landscape, even by comic standards.
Rectilinear Propagation
Willis has tweeted about it.
hof1991
I hope that Mark Trail gets as well written as Nancy (yes Nancy and Sluggo) is now.
I’ve been caught out numerous times now for assuming nothing about a person based on their personal aesthetic/sense of style, only for them to be surprised I didn’t realise they were gay/pan/nonbinary based on that exact metric.
cheer up, if you’re not detecting the dog whistles then they’re not for you. (assuming, that is, you actually treat other people decently regardless). Want embarrassing? Having a member of your gaming group sit you down and explain that they’re gay, that everybody else knows they’re gay, and that you’re the only lunkhead they know who has to actually be outright told. I rather suspect there’s something wrong with me that I can’t pick up on obvious flags like everyone else.
Daibhid C
My philosophy has always been that if someone mentions their sexuality, then cool, I’ve learned something about them. If they don’t, then it doesn’t really matter to me anyway, since I wasn’t planning to either hit on them or attempt to hook them up with someone else, neither of which are remotely within my competencies.
Generally, most people seem to pick up that I’m fundementally clueless a lot faster than I pick up literally anything.
There’s a thing in queer communities called ‘signalling’, where certain common presentation choices or affectations are ways to tell other queer people ‘I’m a friend!’ without saying it outright. Butch and femme presentations – exaggerated versions of one stereotypical gender presentation, but in subtly different ways – are one of them, and especially among women, pretty common. Especially in combination. Extremely short hair and undercuts are both things queer women and more fem-aligned people signal with. They’re not exclusively ours or anything, but like, Becky’s presentation at the moment is very much signalling ‘soft butch’ with that haircut and plaid overshirt. (Even moreso, her outfit with the plaid and the vest she wore to Jacob’s church.) Even actively presenting as the stereotype associated with our gender tends to look different on queer people than on straight people when signalling, because it’s a more exaggerated form of that presentation. (For example, see the entire discography of the Village People, or… Actually you know what? I’m just going to link this person’s list of somewhat tongue-in-cheek ranking of outfits in the 90s Sailor Moon anime per character. Compare Usagi’s lists or Minako’s to Michiru’s, which is literally titled ‘Communicating Gayness Through Fashion.’ Michiru, the blue-haired one, is totally femme. https://sailormoonsub.tumblr.com/post/166325279758/can-we-get-like-an-index-of-your-top-10-outfits Also see Haruka’s for some Peak 90s Butch.) They’re never exclusively ‘oh only gay people would ever wear this,’ and not all of us choose to do so in those actively stereotyped ways, but that lends a degree of camouflage that helps keep the straight people who wouldn’t approve from immediately catching on. (Again, see the 1970s.)
Also part of why so many people here in the comments pinged Booster as nonbinary in their first strip – the point about their name and former roommate was a definite narrative sign to the audience, but just seeing their character art would’ve given a lot of people immediate nb vibes. There’s not a standard ‘look’ for any of these necessarily, especially with nonbinary people (who are pretty much definitionally not a single gender in their own right, but a collection of different ones falling outside the traditional gender binary,) but certain things tend to read queer more frequently than others. It’s hard to explain without just showing a bunch of image examples.
It’s not restricted to LGBTQ2+. Signalling has been done for millenia by various groups trying to remain connected in the wash of a more dominant group.
Regalli
Also true! Tried to limit it to the question, but people absolutely do it whenever they need to have a better sense of their community at a glance.
Like any kind of style it’s not an absolute, but it’s definitely a clue.
This applies well beyond sexuality of course – hairstyles can link to any culture or subculture. Traditional ones often have strict standards: see Ross’s comment to Becky in the first kidnapping about “your hair is your womanhood”.
If Becky wants to be a scientist she needs to be more careful about numbers. No one lives long enough to say anything 16 billion times. (A billion seconds is about 30 years.)
It’s the owner, not the hardware. That’s a common theme in the Shadowrun game I’m in with a bunch of “On the Spectrum” people, and that’s several spectrums at once, since I’m on the “neurotypical” spectrum becaause I got hit in the head with a truck and totaled out the truck before breaking the street with my face (FAAAACCCCCE!), we used to have several Enbies, one of whom changed her pronouns like most people change their socks, our current GM is epileptic, our previous GM was bipolar and had SAD so bad that playing the game in my house caused her to go into depression in just a few hours.
Anywho, in game I have a cybernetic penis with 22 levels of vibration that somehow has never come up in a role playing session between combats, for the same reason I have 2 cybernetic legs and a synthetic arm, My legs have ghost flames painted on them…
Look. The way I see it, DoA will eventually end. Willis will get too old or run out of ideas, maybe sell the property to some young upstart web cartoonist that can reboot the characters for a new generation that doesn’t even exist yet and in that uncertain future Becky will still be making this joke.
The last comic that runs will include Becky shouting that she’s a lesbian. For as long as the internet exists, Becky will be perpetually announcing it.
Regalli
Like how Shortpacked ended with an unending tide of Deeply Gross White Male Homogeny brought into their reality to attack a perceived excess of diversity, and the forces of the comic store determinedly fighting them, forever. (The ‘gross’ is not being dismissive or anything, that reality was invaded by the Soggies from the old Cap’n Crunch ad campaigns.)
Or at least until that one flashforward. We’ll never know.
163 thoughts on “Warning”
Ana Chronistic
Surprised Joe even bothers, but maybe he legitimately values feminine companionship in a not-sexual way?
…
*snrk*
…
ok fine, he actually MIGHT legitimately enjoy Joyce’s company, maybe in this universe he’ll actually admit it
Salmo
I think it’s been pretty consistent that he is a genuinely social person who does enjoy the company of women on a non-sexual level, even if he has a tendency toward the sexual himself.
DrunkenNordmann
In the Walkyverse he and Rachel originally met on a message board and based on Rachel’s description, Joe can actually be incredibly thoughtful etc – he just usually hides it between his horndog persona.
DrunkenNordmann
Correction, they did meet in meatspace before that, but neither of them knew it was the other when they met online, much to both people’s surprise when they found out.
motorfirebox
I might go so far as to suspect that Joe’s hypersexual persona is a defense mechanism.
Sunny
Well, yeah.
He knows what his father is like and how Richard’s behaviour led to a divorce. Joe probably sees a lot of the same in himself, and as a result doesn’t do relationships, only one-night stands. If he doesn’t have a long-term romantic relationship with anyone it means he never will hurt the other person or himself when he (in his mind) inevitably fails and cheats on them with someone else..
Reltzik
Worse.
He DOES value feminine companionship in a non-sexual way, is evidenced by his texts with Joyce a while back.
He just refuses to admit it, and part of the denial process is desperately trying to turn every encounter with a female into a sexual encounter. Which is… sad? I pity him a bit, but I pity the women he has to put up with more, and I’m kinda pissed off at the cowardice involved.
Reltzik
*pity the women who have to put up with him more
Does anyone know if they make beano for brains?
Opus the Poet
It’s in the aisle with the Purina Zombie Chow
Demoted Oblivious
No, but too often have I used beano instead of my brains.
Needfuldoer
Take Beano before, there’ll beano proofreading.
Doctor_Who
Joe grudgingly removes Becky from the Do List.
Nah, I’m joshing. We all know he no longer has that thing.
…Because DoList has become a global social networking app that your racist aunt uses to share anti-vaccine memes.
(That’s honestly not far off from how it actually happened, though)
Reltzik
The do-list is about who Joe would do if given a chance, not whether they’ll ever give him a chance. Their opinions of him are irrelevant.
clif
The global social networking DoList app is where Mike met your mom.
thumb
The funny thing is, that’s not the declaration that’s gonna make dinner awkward.
clif
It’s the declaration that dinner will be Glorp.
Opus the Poet
How dare you eat this adorable creature?
https://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2020/10/17
Octopus Ink
Hey! Who’s that redheaded girl walking down 6th Avenue wearing a sandwichboard that says “Sapphic Ad infinitum”?!
Why, It’s BECKY!!
*cue theme song*
Cholma
“Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s Becky, and we should know it.
With each glance and every little movement she shows it . . . ”
(apologies to MTM Show and writer Sonny Curtis)
clif
Wonder Woman theme song or something more traditional?
OBBWG
Who’s peeking out from under her red bangs
Stylin’ that undercut that she wears
Who’s reaching out to cuddle with Dina
Everyone knows it’s Becky
Cholma
And Becky has Stormy Eyes, that flash at the sight of guys…
Sirksome
I still wonder if a haircut is really the way of signifying your sexual orientation? Like it’s legitimately a cool cut so I’d understand anyone wanting their hair to look like that, gay, straight, male, female, or other.
Leorale
It’s absolutely a way. Not the only way, and not a slam dunk by any means –aa you said, other people might like to wear it like that too– but it’s definitely more queer-coded than, say, wearing a lot of flannel. It’s less of a clear signal than wearing a rainbow triangle pin with two women-signs on it, but it’s still coded enough that my brain automatically says “ooh she might be into me, let’s take a look”.
Sirksome
See to me it reads more cyberpunk than specifically lgbtq. Mostly due to depictions in media, mainly video games which is why I it’s cool.
leaf
Yes, but consider:
Cyberpunk is very gay
butts
yup, yup
fridge_logic
When I saw you left a link I was excited for examples.
Lingo
Well Mark Trail’s girlfriend has that haircut now so, yeah, definitely not exclusively gay. (Girlfriend? Wife? Fellow member of a polyamourous pod? I still don’t really read that comic.)
woobie
Mark Trail is still around?!
sultryglebe
Mark Trail just got revamped! I saw an article.
Regalli
Let the new writer have a long and fruitful run, and not get into bizarre Twitter fights with members of Congress or write lengthy storylines about how pathetic People Looking For Attention On The Internet are that end with the hero just… abandoning this guy to die in the Himilayas, not even an attempt to look for him or pay lip service to it being too dangerous. (That was one surreal storyline.)
God, newspaper comics are a WEIRD landscape, even by comic standards.
Rectilinear Propagation
Willis has tweeted about it.
hof1991
I hope that Mark Trail gets as well written as Nancy (yes Nancy and Sluggo) is now.
ValdVin
That new creator (Olivia Jaimes) is cool. It’s been awhile since a legacy comic strip was this interesting.
Roborat
That was my first reaction as well, with a few expletives included.
Needfuldoer
The comments on New Mark Trail are an… experience. So many triggered boomers…
Yotomoe
If hair was an explicit statement about who we are, then people would assume I’m a rasta. But I’m not, I’m a douchebag.
UnfrozenNeanderthal
Those are not mutually exclusive characteristics
Greebs
I’ve been caught out numerous times now for assuming nothing about a person based on their personal aesthetic/sense of style, only for them to be surprised I didn’t realise they were gay/pan/nonbinary based on that exact metric.
Agemegos
Yeah, I get that too.
Daniel M Ball
cheer up, if you’re not detecting the dog whistles then they’re not for you. (assuming, that is, you actually treat other people decently regardless). Want embarrassing? Having a member of your gaming group sit you down and explain that they’re gay, that everybody else knows they’re gay, and that you’re the only lunkhead they know who has to actually be outright told. I rather suspect there’s something wrong with me that I can’t pick up on obvious flags like everyone else.
Daibhid C
My philosophy has always been that if someone mentions their sexuality, then cool, I’ve learned something about them. If they don’t, then it doesn’t really matter to me anyway, since I wasn’t planning to either hit on them or attempt to hook them up with someone else, neither of which are remotely within my competencies.
Generally, most people seem to pick up that I’m fundementally clueless a lot faster than I pick up literally anything.
Regalli
There’s a thing in queer communities called ‘signalling’, where certain common presentation choices or affectations are ways to tell other queer people ‘I’m a friend!’ without saying it outright. Butch and femme presentations – exaggerated versions of one stereotypical gender presentation, but in subtly different ways – are one of them, and especially among women, pretty common. Especially in combination. Extremely short hair and undercuts are both things queer women and more fem-aligned people signal with. They’re not exclusively ours or anything, but like, Becky’s presentation at the moment is very much signalling ‘soft butch’ with that haircut and plaid overshirt. (Even moreso, her outfit with the plaid and the vest she wore to Jacob’s church.) Even actively presenting as the stereotype associated with our gender tends to look different on queer people than on straight people when signalling, because it’s a more exaggerated form of that presentation. (For example, see the entire discography of the Village People, or… Actually you know what? I’m just going to link this person’s list of somewhat tongue-in-cheek ranking of outfits in the 90s Sailor Moon anime per character. Compare Usagi’s lists or Minako’s to Michiru’s, which is literally titled ‘Communicating Gayness Through Fashion.’ Michiru, the blue-haired one, is totally femme. https://sailormoonsub.tumblr.com/post/166325279758/can-we-get-like-an-index-of-your-top-10-outfits Also see Haruka’s for some Peak 90s Butch.) They’re never exclusively ‘oh only gay people would ever wear this,’ and not all of us choose to do so in those actively stereotyped ways, but that lends a degree of camouflage that helps keep the straight people who wouldn’t approve from immediately catching on. (Again, see the 1970s.)
Also part of why so many people here in the comments pinged Booster as nonbinary in their first strip – the point about their name and former roommate was a definite narrative sign to the audience, but just seeing their character art would’ve given a lot of people immediate nb vibes. There’s not a standard ‘look’ for any of these necessarily, especially with nonbinary people (who are pretty much definitionally not a single gender in their own right, but a collection of different ones falling outside the traditional gender binary,) but certain things tend to read queer more frequently than others. It’s hard to explain without just showing a bunch of image examples.
But anyway, short answer, yes, absolutely.
drs
Or the practical wlw signal of having some fully clipped fingernails.
Regalli
Oh yes, DEFINITELY that too. Hell I don’t generally put in the effort to signal but that’s just good sense.
Demoted Oblivious
It’s not restricted to LGBTQ2+. Signalling has been done for millenia by various groups trying to remain connected in the wash of a more dominant group.
Regalli
Also true! Tried to limit it to the question, but people absolutely do it whenever they need to have a better sense of their community at a glance.
He Who Abides
It’s better than assuming a person’s views on race and religion based on their haircut.
I’m not a goddamn Nazi, it’s just easier to take care of a shaved head.
Demoted Oblivious
Indeed. Some of us also shave it all since we started going bald.
The Lurker
It is why I kept a beard for so long after the hair fell out – differentiation from the skinheads….
thejeff
Like any kind of style it’s not an absolute, but it’s definitely a clue.
This applies well beyond sexuality of course – hairstyles can link to any culture or subculture. Traditional ones often have strict standards: see Ross’s comment to Becky in the first kidnapping about “your hair is your womanhood”.
Lenora
As a lesbian who has grown out my hair but kept my undercut, Becky is a mood.
BBCC
Look, she’s been busy today and hasn’t had time to announce it yet. Let her finish her daily 16 billion times!
Slartibeast Button, BIA
If Becky wants to be a scientist she needs to be more careful about numbers. No one lives long enough to say anything 16 billion times. (A billion seconds is about 30 years.)
UnfrozenNeanderthal
All that means is she needs to transcend the limits of the human form to achieve her goals
Council
Do you remain lesbian if your cooch is cyborg’d
Opus the Poet
It’s the owner, not the hardware. That’s a common theme in the Shadowrun game I’m in with a bunch of “On the Spectrum” people, and that’s several spectrums at once, since I’m on the “neurotypical” spectrum becaause I got hit in the head with a truck and totaled out the truck before breaking the street with my face (FAAAACCCCCE!), we used to have several Enbies, one of whom changed her pronouns like most people change their socks, our current GM is epileptic, our previous GM was bipolar and had SAD so bad that playing the game in my house caused her to go into depression in just a few hours.
Anywho, in game I have a cybernetic penis with 22 levels of vibration that somehow has never come up in a role playing session between combats, for the same reason I have 2 cybernetic legs and a synthetic arm, My legs have ghost flames painted on them…
Reltzik
Obviously she needs to go into longevity research.
YES THAT WOULD TOO INVOLVE POLI-SCI.
begbert2
The secret is to say it more than one time at the same time.
You didn’t think that was reverb added in post, did you?
Deanatay
Becky is constantly broadcasting her lesbianness on several psychic wavelengths. She got a billion announcements in before she woke up this morning.
Buli-Buli
How long can Becky keep this joke going?
I’m honestly curious.
clif
Until morale improves.
Kyrik Michalowski
The heat death of the universe can be a safe, if conservative, bet on when the joke will end.
Sirksome
Look. The way I see it, DoA will eventually end. Willis will get too old or run out of ideas, maybe sell the property to some young upstart web cartoonist that can reboot the characters for a new generation that doesn’t even exist yet and in that uncertain future Becky will still be making this joke.
Reltzik
The last comic that runs will include Becky shouting that she’s a lesbian. For as long as the internet exists, Becky will be perpetually announcing it.
Regalli
Like how Shortpacked ended with an unending tide of Deeply Gross White Male Homogeny brought into their reality to attack a perceived excess of diversity, and the forces of the comic store determinedly fighting them, forever. (The ‘gross’ is not being dismissive or anything, that reality was invaded by the Soggies from the old Cap’n Crunch ad campaigns.)
Or at least until that one flashforward. We’ll never know.
Needfuldoer
One of the twins will continue DoA, the other picks the Walkyverse back up. They tag-team the yelling about Transformers online.
That’s why there’s two of them, you know.
clif
Lesbians like Becky improve my morale.
Schpoonman