Aaahhh.
on October 9, 2018 at 12:01 amI believe I’ve seen this sort of moment termed gender euphoria.
This is where the storyline basically ends. There’s a week, I think, of random stuff that follows, before we get to The Big Long Finish, but this is it.
I overanalyze this storyline superhard. Should I? Am I sometimes finding problems that aren’t there? I’m not even sure I’m in a place of credibility to say. It does remain one of my better-crafted Walkyverse stories, I think, and it’s definitely my wife’s favorite, as well as several fans’. I think part of that is there’s just a limited number of stories out there that focus on Gender Feels. Even if a story is tactless, sometimes it hits upon things you hadn’t known you needed to think about.
I’m reminded of my first year at college, and South Park was a new thing, and … jesus christ, Big Gay Al was probably my first introduction to a non-villified gay person character. I mean, Big Gay Al is… probably not the best representation, but he was definitely a character that first opened my mind to “oh these folks we hate at church can be okay.” God, I hope this storyline wasn’t, like, the Big Gay Al of storylines, but hopefully you get what I mean. We take what we need.
Why even do a gender swap story in It’s Walky!? I’m still poking my brain at that, to this day. It seems like a very specific swerve, and I tried so very hard at doing it well with the skillset I had at the time. I remember thinking, oh, sure, all these other webcomics doing gender stuff, they’re definitely “working stuff out.” For them it’s a personal interest. But not me! I was doing this as an objective second-hand observer.
I also write an awful lot of stories about being in denial, which is pretty weird, in aggregate.
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I’m curious about something. At what point in your de-churchiness were you at this point, and what was your own reaction to the hints about secretly closeted Robin at the time you were writing them?
This is like the Plato’s Cave of comic commentary.
❤️
Agreed.
oh dang Topato
I really enjoy your superhard over-analysis! But then, over-analysis is one of my favorite things.
…Wow, I only just got that this strip had anything to do with the previous arc. I mean, I got that it was a gender joke of the “Men And Women Are Different” variety, but for some reason that never translated in my mind to it being an endcap on the gender-swap storyline. I feel a little silly that I’m just noticing this now.
This strip may actually be the best payoff for the storyline. The weird thing is, it could also have been a great strip to run just before the storyline. One of the things that makes the story work, I think, is that Joyce and Walky aren’t just fairly stereotypically feminine and masculine types — they are committed to being feminine and masculine types. (DoA Walky is fascinating in this regard, as he’s devoted to the stereotypes while also being secure enough to score gay pizza.) So them being the main ones getting switched is sort of a big deal. It’s why focusing on them works. Sure, more could have been done with Joe, but there are so many other ways to deal with Joe’s issues that it would actually probably have felt a lot cheaper to do a gender-swap story centered on him.
So basically, I think it probably doesn’t count as the Big Gay Al of storylines, on the grounds that the way it works depends on these two characters.
Willis, you’re the best! If only everyone were so thoughtful and introspective about their creations…
I don’t think this is my favorite storyline in the entire Walkyverse (including Shortpacked), but this one is definitely my favorite storyline of It’s Walky.
Curious about the cameos in this strip. I recognise Topato, and Pikachu, but are any of the others from elsewhere? The duck and sheep look like they should be.
I’m pretty sure the former is Plucky Duck from Tiny Toons.
There’s a Cindersaur next to the duck. The black thing on the other side seems so very familiar, but I can’t place it.
It’s Walky’s soul cat from CRFH!
That would explain why it pinged, but I couldn’t really identify it…I have read CRFH, but not consistently.
That’s okay, it doesn’t update consistently either.
Oh, wait, by the tags, it’s Sparkstalker… I can never keep the Firecons straight.
Ah, nice identifications, thanks all.
Willis, sometimes a comic storyline is nothing more than something that you thought would be interesting and funny at the point it was written, nothing more and nothing less. No deeper politics and no insight into your state of mind at the time. Don’t over-analyse your work into something it isn’t.
Normally, this would be valid advice… but haaaaaave you met Willis? He clearly worked through several issues and thoughts in his head through this and all his other comics.
Considering Willis has come out as non-binary since these comments were made, I think this probably had at least something to do with their state of mind at the time.
Gender swap story lines are always the most confusing things to me. They so often are used to cement binary gender Identities, a very Pink Blue/ Black white idea of gender.
BUT GUESS HOW I FOUND OUT I WAS QUEER.
Like for DECADES in the closet they were like, the only way I could see aspects of myself on screen. But they, and cross dressing in general, was always played for laughs and shit on.
But, Willis. Gender euphoria is REAL, dude. I started to experience it since coming out and your characters helped with that journey.
I LOVE DOA, and I think it stands out as your most interesting and complete work. It ties so many things together but explores them deeper than your other stuff.
BUT I DO miss short pack’s arch with Malaya and Carla because, even though she was a trans… car? We got to see her Journey more?
I HATE on one hand that trans folks lives are so made for cis consumption in stories, or “Trans trauma porn” is a thing… BUT. As sheltered as I was, I wasn’t as much as you were, I feel? Or it was different? But like. Seeing someone question those things in real time. Seeing transition NOT be “a gender swap.” But a process. One where there are things you cannot change, and that’s as okay as the euphoria you feel over the things you CAN control! That hit hard. It helped me question myself on a level I never had. Realize how repressed I was. How I still perpetuate bs as I try to leave stuff behind.
To me, it’s not that I think the gender swap arch is bad. It’s just an actual “hey I’m fucking trans” arc is a much more deep, complete, intimate, and nuanced dive into similar themes. It’s an improvement on the genre because it’s less a bit and ACTUAL dive into the topics.
I know you aren’t always happy when we compare universes, but when you said sexuality carries over between universes, I was happy. But that has translated more into feeling more restored over seeing Danny come out, and Alex’s coming out… but I get less of what I got from Carla and her coming out story.
So I secretly hoped, too, that elements of this arc would carry over into DOA in some way. Because here, the Euphoria comes more from the return to the familiar. But seeing Walky be a girl, and especially how so much of DOA him feels like me in both in the closet, and in ways, after coming out too, is that I want him to ask those questions. MY sinking into perpetual “boy hood” when I was younger had elements of the closet, so I project that a lot onto walky, as much as I did onto Danny.
I’m not saying Walky has to be an out trans girl. I think many Cis fans, or even others, might not ask that. But to see someone assigned male (especially someone who’s like “girls. Cooties” for so long like walky) would be SUPER interesting. Amber, being a slash fic nerd, exposing him to ideas of things being okay he never would have thought to be okay would be super neat! Even if they were both cis, seeing Joyce slowly getting more okay with the LGBTQ+ folks in her life that she does DRAG or something. Or just her learning about Jocelyn.
This arc gave me a taste. It opened me up, and other arcs went further. I know you do strips so much in advance… but rather than walk away from this, I’d rather you do what you do best. Unpack, unlayer, dig deeper, and listen to these characters you’ve made as they interact with each other, and really have that pull and push your preconceived notions of who and what they were when you first made them. It’s what I want to do when I try to get my drawings back up and consistent, as much as it’s how YOU helped ME figure out MY queer Identity.
If this isn’t wholesome and gay enough, if it’s too “Big gay al,” THEN MAKE IT FUCKING GAYER. Don’t step back! Step TOWARDS. That gave us Carla in Shortpacked AND Doa! It gave us ALEX! It gave us Bi Danny! It gave us BECKY AND DINA. DINO SAUR GAYS.
Go the Jeph route and fucking make it just gayer and gayer over time! I LOVE Billie and Ruth, and they are slowly working towards having a healthy relationship, but I love me some Fay and Bubs! Even if it’s not garunteed for forever, or it had a long build up, they just get to BE together. Like a straight couple would be. Like Joyce an Walky do after It’s walky! you get to seem them just be who they are both separately and together and it’s wholesome.
Idk I’m ranting but yeah, don’t beat yourself up. Just GIVE US MORE OF GAY. DEEPER DIVES. MORE QUESTIONING. MORE OPENING UP.
Please thank you.
Long story short, there’s a REASON I had made a wakly sketch that one time that was not SAL. That was GIRL. WALKY. Because, outside of being white, if walky was trans she’d be me. It’d almost be scary how close it would be on some level.
Even if he’s cis as heck in DOA I’d just LOVE more exploration of Gender in terms of growth as we see sexuality. Because seeing it in baby (and possibly wonky) steps here and Carla in shortpacked, helped me come out. Seeing it more “on screen” in DoA would just be. IDK swell as fuck.
Hey, lots of characters in DoA are getting flashbacks to fully flesh ’em out, including people that are very closed about their past, like Mike and Sal. So Carla will probably have a storyline of her own before you know it! And Jocelyne too, eventually.
I’ve always had a soft spot for this storyline as like…the only ‘sci-fi of the week’ plotline. Basically all the other sci-fi is there for solid plot or premise reasons, but the genderswap timestop just. Sure happened.
Maybe it was just that genderswap and bodyswap episode stories were a Thing around the time you were doing this arc? I seem to remember that being a phase in shows a while back.
Who wouldn’t be interested in gender change? It’s taking one of the things we assume to be most fundamental about a person’s being and flipping it. It immediately repositions people in every social relationship they’re in. And then you realize gender matters but it *shouldn’t* matter so much.
If you’re a sheltered lad with a penchant for creating fiction, I would say it serves very well as an introductory class to What Truly Is Gender Anyway.