Heck yeah an agenda is being pushed: The GAY AGENDA!! It's back, in pog form

@damnyouwillis.bsky.social in pog form lol go team gay pogs :D

@damnyouwillis.bsky.social [goes back and catches up on comments] holy shit uh willis don't take this the wrong way but do any of your straight readers actually read your comic? because at this point i am not convinced. xD

@damnyouwillis.bsky.social actually i should clarify: your straight _commenters_.

@damnyouwillis.bsky.social i mean you literally had an _editor_ tell your _self-representational character_ that you couldn't do all this gaybaiting without some kind of payoff and i was all like "oh, they're endgame, how cute!" and how many memos they gonna miss?

Daisy, Daisy, give me the answer do.

I was like “oh, when was that?” and went “Random”-ing to see if I could get near it. Didn’t, but *very* quickly ran into this instead. Real “Mr. Policeman, I gave you all the clues” hours lmao 🤦🏻‍♀️

Straight commenter (and reader), here and yes, I have read the comic. I guess I should apologise for those morons. You see many straight people get really confused when heterosexuals aren't the center of attention.

You realize that there are a lot of non-straight people that are against what's been happening...right? Being LGBT doesn't mean you have to be in favor of every non-straight pairing.

Don't tell the others, but I haven't read even one panel of Dumbing of Age since it started.

I’ve been really behind in keeping up Dumbing of Age, and had kind of forgotten where I’d last been reading it regularly, so I went back to start a re-read, and. Like. Joyce and Dorothy have been so so so weird about one another since literally the first day they met.

Apparently (according to Willis on Tumblr) very early on it was, indeed, still mostly unintentional or a joke. But 7-10 years ago (so, at least half of the comic length so far), they decided that, yeah, this is happening. I honestly can't comprehend people who say it came out of nowhere.

Yeah, I'm aware! But even when Willis decided to start building it deliberately, it wasn't like it was being built on a foundation of nothing. It's been there since the beginning, and it being a joke and not something done deliberately doesn't make it any less of a foundation.

Yes, that is what I was saying! We are agreeing.

Ah, I also thought we were agreeing, so sorry if my tone came across as combative! I was trying to “yes, and” there.

Lol, all good!

So no, I don’t think most of the straight readership has been picking up what Willis has been putting down, like, from the beginning of the strip. It would have been weirder if Joyce and Dorothy HADN’T eventually kissed.

me when two cartoon women kiss

I mean, to be a bit fair, I think some people are just worried about how Joe and Walky are gonna be hurt by this. I don't think it's entirely anti-queer sentiment, as they probably would've bailed on the strip a long time ago if that was the case.

okay yeah but there's been a weird amount of actual explicit anti-queer sentiment last couple comics, this is not that, that is irrelevant

Maybe I'm simply being naive then, I guess. I confess, I don't usually read the comments for the strips. I just know that I hate seeing characters I'm attached to get hurt, and I have grown quite fond of Joe and it sucks knowing he's about to have his heart broken. I'm happy for Joyrothy fans.

yeah. there's a whole valid discussion about Joe, and I hope he finds happiness, but this thread is about people who really are being homophobic in the comments section. good luck

time for "joe" and "walky" to "go" and "walk" up to each other and kiss i guess

But when will we get two cartoon men kissing?

Every time Ethan and Asher are on-panel!

Very good

(I will say, bi people not being allowed to be in het-appearing relationships is an actual problem irl, like, bi folks with different gender partners really shouldn't be portrayed as "less queer" than ones with same gender ones)

a nefarious plan to make two cartoon women kiss, a thing that real women never do at all ever in the history of the multiverse because they are always just roommates or cousins or something

my favorite part is all the people acting like all the LGBTQ stuff in the comic is new or something. ~<3

I forever love seeing just how many comic artists out here use hetero annoyance as a reason to make comics even gayer!

Examining the gender of every fictional work I brush up against while mumbling "there are no coincidences".

Gay harder Willis, they can't hear you in the nosebleeds!!!

You just need to make more girls smoochin in the background of other strips

like at the end of rise of skywalker

I think what we really need is a 1 month hiatus from anything Joyce/Dorothy related, but they're in the background of each comic making out when they think no one is watching.

people are finding any and every reason to be angry at you because the gays are gaying "wrong" in a comic you write and have been writing for 15 years, as if they own it and you are some intruder. its so funny (derogatory) to watch happen every new strip devolve into petty accusations

I swear people don't know what the word 'agenda' even means.

I love the energy of Malaya saying they feel like there's an agenda being pushed when it's just something they personally don't like that was very obvious but they weren't paying attention. It's not the phrasing they'd use, perhaps, but the energy is spot on.

Dumbing of Age Gay Pogs when?

that's redundant, all pogs are gay

Well yeah, but when

Why the fuck are people like this even reading your comic?

The Gay Agenda… what is this, a Doctor Who Forum in 2005?

Please keep pushing the gay agenda™, I would love that

it has been absolutely hilarious to watch people claim this comes out of nowhere, as if we're not talking about the same character who responded to "you'd be gay for Sal, right" with "GOD i wish".

Haha, I used to say I wish I was gay when I was that age. Came out as bi at 35.

i got the other flavor of that, just a tiny baby four year old, wishing i could become a girl. turns out, i *could*! after, like, a few decades of self loathing, but still.

Oh, I did that too.

yo, basically the same, I was 8, it's been like 36 years... but I'm getting there. ~<3

A lot of people used this precise panel to argue that Joyce is clearly hetero because she was only attracted to Sal's head. Which, like, is a valid interpretation. But it is equally valid to remember Joyce is massively repressed and would say stuff like that regardless.

I would love to know the context for that excerpt.

Hell yeah

I need to know what this bit was and who Jimmy was interviewing. He’s such a little turd.