iainpj | Entries tagged with gays in comics

LOGO Online | Alien Boot Camp | Tinseltown

Yes, these are really and truly Muppets. Done by Henson Alternative, which I assume is what the Henson Studios get up to when Disney (or whoever it is that bought them) isn't looking.

No, this is not -- precisely -- worksafe. (Mostly due to slightly strong language and thongs. And harnesses. And canoodling under the covers. You know. That stuff.)

Really. Muppets.

(Actually, it's kind of fun, if very strange. I just keep forgetting that Muppets occasionally get up to hijinks like that. They used to do even racier stuff on the old Saturday Night Live, way back in the mists of prehistory.)

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Shortpacked! -- Tokenism! TOKENISM!: ... Yeah, that about covers it, really.

America Jr.: The sanctity of matrimony!: I have a feeling that may be it on this topic until spring, when the wedding preparations kick into high gear, and we discover just how serious they were about that dress. As it stands, though, America Jr doesn't seem to have any laws regarding who may or may not marry; it's going to be interesting to see how the citizens react when it's not an abstract case, when it's just Ed and Andy from down the street.

The Onion's AV Club: Are Superhero Comics Played Out?: or, this is pretty much why DC's new Confidential titles and the theoretical All-Star line exist. Of course, Batman Confidential doesn't do anything new (although it at least isn't dragging quite so long a continuity tail behind); All Star Batman and Robin is expressly running counter to the original idea of the All-Star line (designed for newer readers, and not meant to force them to read all of Frank Miller's titles so that they could figure out what the hell was going on and why Batman had suddenly become Psychoman from Hell), which is either late (Batman and Superman) or nonexistant (Flash, Batgirl, Wonder Woman).

Sinfest: an excuse not to work: ... and that also about covers it.

Kelly: Fourteen words: and suddenly coming into focus and slightly out of the weird. Very slightly out.

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America Jr. :: Who's the bride now, bitch?

Apparently, they were serious about the dress.

Yes. Well.

And on top of that, we don't get to see the kiss. Which, granted, not the point of the frame, but still... (To be fair, we really don't see affection of that sort in this strip at all; this is as close as it really ever gets.)

That said, if they're really going to go there, I'm hoping for a plunging neckline and a hairy chest.

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And rip-snortin' action adventure it was, too!

( See, you can tell, right here! )

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Wizard Entertainment -- FIVE FOR FRIDAY: THE BEST GAY SUPERHEROES:

This week’s Annihilation: Conquest—Quasar #1 by Christos Gage and Eric Basaldua, starring Captain Marvel’s lesbian daughter Phylla-Vell as the new bearer of the Quantum Bands, is one of the first mainstream titles with a gay headliner in quite some time. It’s just too bad it didn’t hit in time for Pride Month. Regardless, Five for Friday is here to parade out the best LGBT superheroes around....

So, do they mean Monica Rambeau had a daughter? (Seriously, no clue. My entire experience with her was in the awesomeness of Nextwave, and despite being old-line Marvel characters, they might just as well have had no past whatsoever, as much as it mattered.)

I do have one or two ... qualms about this list, although that has more to do with the nature of what's happened with LGBT (there are T superheroes?) superheroes than with the list per se. But note

#5 - Batwoman: vanished from the scene -- Occasional Superheroine, a comics business and DC veteran posits that it may be because DC got twitchy about having a lesbian attached to the "Bat" brand;

#4 - Lucy in the Sky/Wiccan -- I don't disagree, but ... Wiccan gets cited and his boyfriend doesn't? Lucy gets listed and her ... um, friend doesn't? (Well, Xavin is kind of a special case.)

#3 - Midnighter -- As I've mentioned, I have one or two issues with the character himself, and the way his relationship was handled (or rather, expressly shoved to the side) in his series -- and do not get me started on the samurai thing. It would be nice if someone could write his series as though he and Apollo had a partnership of equals -- or even liked each other, really. He somehow tends to get written as, "Yeah, I've got a husband. Don't know what to do with him. Think I'll go out and maim something instead."

#2 - Northstar -- Well ... first he was closeted, and then he was out and proud! This, of course, meant that shortly thereafter, he was clearly and sincerely dead. This, of course, meant that he shortly thereafter got resurrected and became a villain! This, of course, meant that in order to save him, the X-Men (or SHIELD, whichever) brainwashed him to counter his previous brainwashing. All that said ... he was the first out of the closet, so that's something, I suppose.

#1 - Renee Montoya/The Question -- Yeah. Hmm. Well, first of all, except for momentary appearances in Countdown, she pretty much doesn't do bupkis today. Yes, OK, she was important in 52, but frankly, I'd ruther have had the character maybe put on hold and brought back for the alleged Streets of Gotham (although I think plans for the title itself may have been dropped due both to DC deciding that Three Straight Years of Weekly Continuity Porn Is What Readers Want -- and we see how that's working, with Countdown losing something like 2,000 readers per month; I'd also guess that the plans to save Manhunter -- which seems to have vanished into Countdown's backdraft, or something -- meant that DC might have decided that the DC Universe really only needed one low-read prestige title, and Manhunter was to be it). So, yes, first, the invisibility of the character. Second ... it bugs me that they decided to take the face away from the latina lesbian, OK? It just does.

Mind, I'm not sure what changes I would make, other than probably putting both Xavin (who, OK, I guess counts as a Trans character, what with being able to be any sex or species) and Hulkling or whatever he's calling himself up there on line 4 with their partners. There aren't that many out there in the first place, and even fewer LGBT heroic characters are both alive and active. Freedom Ring is dead with malice aforethought, afterthought, duringthought -- really, was it necessary to kill him quite that thoroughly? Obsidian is mired in Manhunter's publication schedule, although I expect him to be well written once the title actually starts publishing again regularly. Then there's the women in Annhilation:Conquest. Then there's ... um ... well, there's ... someone I'm forgetting. I hope.

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gays in comics

From here, there, and everywhere else...

EEEK! Lesbionnage! with occasional vibrators! (...OK, the vibrators thing was just a couple strips -- and it's not like they were used or anything -- and, actually, you need to go back a bit to see lesbionnage -- although the dream sequence was kind of cool. It's there, though, I promise! And worth going through all the strips. Plus, it publishes only twice a week, and it's only been running about three months, so it's not like we're talking years and years and years of strips.)

Oh, my goodness! Gay teenagers! (And gay nonwhite teenagers, at that. And manga-ish, even. Site soon to move to http://www.khaoskomix.com, which is good, because comicgenesis.com goes down more often than [insert lewd, rude and obnoxious sexual joke here; you're on your own for that]) (I want Amber to get a happier ending, dammit!)

A fun gag-a-week strip (The Martha Stewart set: it's a good thing.) (What, you expected me to resist something THAT obvious?)

Yay! It's back! (Now, if only Bay Windows believed in that goshdarned new-fangled RSS stuff...)

...the blonde one is a girl, right? RIGHT?

If that's all it takes, apparently, I've been rampageously promiscuous for years, and never knew.

Well, what good are they if you can't terrify the kinder with them when you get older? (NOTE: LOUD Quicktime cartoon on upper right plays automatically on page load.)

Alas for The Homosexual Agenda; it is no more...

You really need to start this one from the beginning (ADULTS ONLY! ADULTS ONLY! THERE BE SEXIN' IN THEM THERE HILLS!), if you haven't kept up. And even then, the most recent post will not make a lick of sense. Not that I really care, because it probably will, eventually. Plus, after the big reveal (you'll know it when you see it, trust me), I'm pretty much willing to go wherever this one takes me.

Poor Abominabbobbubble...

Really wish he could write more, and faster, and and and... (Yes, yes, I know it's a lot of work, and it's for free, and he has a life, and all that. But I want to know what's going on! I want to know NOOOOOOOW!) (Yes, I'm twelve. And? Your point is...?)

Golly! She sure IS in a pickle!

To sleep, perchance to dream... (Also a strip I wish would join the RSS generation)

La Muse summer reruns

And ... that's it for now.

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Because, even though all the parts of this came out this week, finding these on the CBR site is slightly challenging and just a bit annoying, and partly to get some of these things all in one place (and someday I WILL figure out how to get the tags to appear in the column at the left, if they can do so with a free layout):

Comic Book Resources - CBR News: Homosexuality in Comics, a four part series
- Part I
- Part II
- Part III
- Part IV

Also an article from last year: Gay Comics 101 (afterelton.com) by Joe Palmer

And from slightly earlier this year: Midnighter could use some rescuing (afterelton.com) by François Peneaud, June 26, 2007

Something of a side note: yaoi and its relations get discussed in the last part of the CBR series, if very briefly. I was just wondering; are there actually all that many yaoi superhero series? Most of what I've seen has been pure romance and/or sex. Some of it has had supernatural overtones, but I haven't seen any superhero stuff per se. Then again, given my own predilections, I haven't seen much at all. Nothing against manga as a whole, you understand; it's just that if I'm going to be reading characters that are being sexualized, I kind of prefer them to look a bit older than most yaoi characters do. And if I'm going to be reading something for its smutty aspects, I kind of prefer the smut to be a bit more ... explicit than most yaoi generally is. (Mind, it can be sort of funny, sometimes; there was an anime, called, I think, "My Sexual Harrassment" or something like that, with the most lovingly detailed oral sex I've ever seen. Only, according to the rules in place at the time, you were absolutely positively not allowed to show actual genitalia or public hair. Instead, they resorted to outlining the affected organ, so to speak, in rivers and oceans of saliva. I mean, by the end, you were in no doubt that yes, the man did in fact, have a penis; you were also wondering if sex on a couch might possibly lead to drowning.)

For what it's worth, and in an entirely non-yaoi-ish direction, I'm wondering if the strictures regarding sex and genitalia have been relaxed for Japanese publishers. I tried to read one called MPD Psycho which has been getting generally really good reviews, and one image both stopped me in my tracks and kept me from wanting to go on with it. It's an image of a woman in a small refrigerator -- or possibly a small refrigerator box; it's not clear which from the little I read. Her arms and legs have been cut off, and the rest of her body has been drawn in great detail, including below the waist, which I thought was simply not allowed there. In any event, I ran across that image and decided that This Was Not A Book For Me.

And now that I've gone off on a tangent, everything else will go in part 2, since it's pretty much entirely unrelated.

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gays in comics

NEWSARAMA.COM: WONDER CON '07 - DC NATION PANEL:

Kicking off at 4:00, the DC Nation panel at Wonder Con played to a packed room of DC fans. Joking at the fact that some of the assembled panelists had just done the same panel exactly one week earlier in New York, DCU Executive Editor and moderator Dan Didio joked that they would pretty much repeat themselves, though there was plenty of new information offered up for consumption. [...] Didio then introduced the rest of the panel members: Bob Wayne, Editor Jann Jones, Superman Editor Matt Idelson; and Green Arrow, Outsiders and Trial of Shazam Judd Winick. [...]

Q: The Firestorm series: can it be saved like Manhunter?
Didio: Not right now.

Q: Are lesbians the only ones having sex in the DCU? How about some boy on boy action?
Didio: See those two guys chained together in the Villains Defiant Countdown poster?
Wayne: Cold nights out there on the run…

How ... cute. How very very special of them!

I suppose, given the phrasing of the question, you can only blame them so far for not treating the inquiry seriously. But that would be an interesting question, more reasonably phrased, wouldn't it? Will DC Universe ever show an actual romance in a gay male romantic relationship? Have they ever? (This is the point where, I would imagine, DC management would point to Wildstorm and yell, "Midnighter! Apollo! See! See!" And, yes, in the past, they have shown the occasional passing moment between them ... but Wildstorm isn't the DC Universe, now is it? Moreover, Midnigher spent the entirety of the first arc of his own title not only being forcibly separate from Apollo -- what with having various internal organs removed, being sent into the past, delivering magnificent kicks to the head, and so on -- but seeming to be seriously pissed off about being in a relationship at all when they weren't apart. I mean, clearly he feels that he's not good at this relationship thing, that what he's good at is the blood and the guts (someone else's, of course) and the mayhem, but if you look at the open and close of that first arc, you don't even feel that he likes Apollo, not even a little.

Meh. I'm not one of the people who gets really insistent about being portrayed in DC's superhero titles; after all, I read all of three DC Universe titles, and I can't imagine where you could put something like that in Superman Confidential or All Star Superman. (I get Manhunter only in trade -- and there are four if you count the Rush City mini, which I didn't know was a DC Universe title until Black Canary showed up -- and, really, what is it with her arriving butt-first everywhere?)

But, you know ... Renee Montoya has actually gotten to kiss the occasional gal pal on screen, as it were. Right there on the printed page, Lips Were Locked. Have any of the gay guys gotten the same privilege? It does seem that the guys announce they're gay and then they Never Get Any Action Ever Again.

But, again, talking out my hat. People with more knowledge of DC will have to answer that question.

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dc,
gays in comics

With spoilers a-go-go, no doubt, so let's stick the whole thing behind a cut.

Included: Buffy season 8 #1, Girls 22, Dynamo 5 #1, maybe a few other things.

( Insert Buffy opening theme music ... HERE. )

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Huh. Just ... huh.

WeHo Church: Adam and Steve (via World of Wonder, of all places)

That's certainly a unique approach.

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Very ... interesting.

(postmodernbarney.com): Comics and Raped Men:

One of the things that absolutely infuriates me whenever the topic of violence against women in comic books (and to a larger extent, in entertainment mediums in general) comes up is that there's always someone seriously trying to counter-argue that "well, bad things happen to men, too, so you're just seeing something that's not there." This is utter nonsense, of course, because the argument has never been "nothing bad should ever happen to female characters." Rather, the argument, as I've interpreted it, has been "when violence, particularly sexual violence, is used against women in comics it is either particularly degrading or only dealt with in terms of the impact the violence has had on the men in the victim's life." And this is one of those situations where you can't really make the counter-argument that this happens to male characters to. Because I've been thinking about male characters who have been sexually assaulted in comic books. And the pattern that emerges is quite different.

About the only thing I would quarrel with, in his list of examples, is that having read that story arc (and only that story arc, because the Authority just doesn't interest me at all), I really don't think that Apollo was raped. I know Millar has said, "I don't want Apollo to be seen in therapy because this would mean that A) I've made a firm decision on whatever the horrible thing was that was done to Apollo and B) would become a different story. I want these kind of personal details to be happening off-camera sometimes because it's rarely done in comics. I want the glimpses we have of these people to be similar to the people we know in real life [...] Does this mean Apollo's situation is being glossed over? Not at all. We should see subtle, emotional scenes over the next few issues, but letting it swamp the storyline just makes it a different kind of comic." But, honestly, that sort of thing happening to that sort of character would pretty much swamp his life, at least for the immediate term. Subtle just kind of ... doesn't work for that. Bad writing, yes; subtle, no.

Other than that, rape in mainstream comics really does seem to be used as a variant of the "women in refrigerators" syndrome. As PMB states, it's either used as a defining characteristic for the character -- and, honestly, that doesn't necessarily strike me as invalid, because at least then it's actually about THAT character -- or it's used purely as a trigger for another character. While exploring how it affects the other people in the character's life is also valid, it really shouldn't be used primarily to be about the other characters.

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Cinescape - The Virtues of Vice: The Alan Moore Interview, Part One:

After years of starts and stops, Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s LOST GIRLS will see print in August of this year in a three-volume hardcover set from Top Shelf Productions. The idea is classic Moore -- three of literature’s most famous female protagonists -- Dorothy Gale, Alice Fairchild, and Wendy Darling -- meet in a hotel in Austria in 1913 for an adventure of sorts. Yet, unlike Moore’s past works, LOST GIRLS unrestrainedly addresses and embraces its characters’ sexuality. Make no mistake -- LOST GIRLS is a work of pornography. It is not the dainty erotica you might find in your mother’s nightstand. Moore and Gebbie unflinchingly present all manner of sex acts, both pleasant and, at times, shocking. However, no one can argue that LOST GIRLS belongs on the same shelf as a tattered issue of JUGGS. It is a work of art, as beautiful in its execution as it is defiant in its subject matter. Place it next to the KAMA SUTRA or De Sade’s PHILOSOPHY IN THE BEDROOM on your shelf.

I've been hearing about this title for years now. Nice to know that it's finally going to be gathered together and completed.

And hey! giant phalluses in the porn! so what's not to like? (You have to read the interview to understand that reference. So go. Read.)

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Well, on the up side ... Publisher's Weekly has a weekly dispatch devoted to comics. And it is genuinely interesting and tells me things I didn't know about comics (although they're generally focused on graphic novels from more traditional book and manga publishers.

On the other hand, every once in a while, they come out with clunkers like this paragraph in an otherwise pretty good piece on the Luna Brothers:

Superwomen and the Luna Bros. - 4/4/2006 - Publishers Weekly:

...Though both Ultra and Girls have a certain cheesecake factor —form-fitting spandex costumes in one, stylish nudity in the other—it's intelligent cheesecake. Unlike most superhero comics, Ultra and Girls appeal not only to men but to women and, surprisingly, lesbian, gay and bisexual readers. "We call it 'Sex in the City with Superpowers,'" says Image executive director Eric Stephenson.

Because apparently, gays and lesbians are neither men nor women and we don't generally like comics. Or something. Seriously, that clause beginning "and, surprisingly" either should have just been an "including..." or beter yet, a good editor should have just chopped that sucker right off.

Also, since when did "Sex and the City" and maenads become equivalent archetypes? Since when did either of them become archetypes? What exactly are they all archetypes of? Because, really, if someone is an archetype, shouldn't there be a lot of people like that around? And so far as I can tell, there's a serious lack of either superpowered women sitting around talking about their lack of sex lives and beating up bad guys, and also a (thankfully) equally notable lack of alien women running around tearing up women and boinking any stray man in their path. (According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, an "archetype" is "a typical example of something"; according to the OED, a maenad is "n. A Bacchante; gen. a frenzied woman." The girls in Girls are not really what you would call frenzied, although I suppose you could call some of what they do a bacchanal -- although there's clearly a serious lack of wine and song involved, if easily enough women.)

It is a decent, if overbrief, article about the Luna Brothers. It just needed another pass by an editor or two.

(And hey! Girls 12 is due out today! More maenad mayhem! Huzzah!)

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You know, I never read the Authority or its related titles (except for Planetary, which is only distantly related), but this could get me to change my mind...

NEWSARAMA.COM: WWLA - GARTH ENNIS ON THE MIDNIGHTER:

At today’s Wildstorm/Vertigo joint panel at WizardWorld LA, two Garth Ennis projects set in the Wildstorm Universe were officially announced: The Boys (October) and The Midnighter (November). [...] As for The Midnighter, the new, ongoing series, set in the Wildstorm Universe, is illustrated by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story, and well…is the Midnighter. “He’s utterly lethal and he tells it like it is,” Ennis said when asked about his appreciation for the character. “He’s got a nice dark sense of humor, too.”

[...] Since nearly his first appearance in Stormwatch (v2) #4 alongside the Superman analogue Apollo, Midnighter has been seen as…well…”the gay Batman,” given his similarities to Gotham City’s hero. It’s a definition that Ennis doesn’t mind at all…although… “I always thought Batman was the gay Batman, but there you go,” the writer said. “I think the Midnighter is very much his own man; his sexuality is just one part of that. Never mind the fact that he doesn’t kill people, would Batman do the things we’ve seen the Midnighter do? Batman fights for the status quo, the Midnighter fights to make the world better. Simple as that.”

Speaking of his sexuality, and the fact that this will be the first ongoing comic from either Marvel or DC starring a gay hero in the title role, Ennis isn’t shying away from it at all. “His opening monologue touches on his sexuality, but not in the way people might expect,” Ennis said. “His sexuality is not a complex issue: he likes fucking men. He likes fucking one man in particular - but that doesn’t mean he wants to be around the guy 24/7, hence the solo book. He has no more questions about himself in that regard, so why should we? As for any controversy this may bring, well, if Brokeback Mountain proved anything, it’s this: gay characters piss off all the right people.”

Sounds like this could be a little ... different, as these things go.

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THINGS COMICKAL AND RANDOM

random weirdness, with occasional comics, dinosaurs and sodomy

comickal: tinseltown

comickal: tokens

comickal: that dress, part 2

comickal: recently read, action adventure dream edition, part 1

comickal: captain marvel's WHAT? and an interesting list

comickal: the gay thing, part 2: random web linkage (bonus! not all of it actually gay!)

comickal: the gay thing, part 1

comickal: dc and hot boy-on-boy action!

comickal: recently read, grrr argh edition

comickal: adam and steve

comickal: Men in Refrigerators

comickal: alan moore does porn? finally!

comickal: girls ... they come and they go (but they're not lesbians! or something like that)

comickal: midnighter

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