Archive for September 1st, 2010

A Gay Day In Riverdale

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Today was my first time ever buying an Archie comic. Back up! It was my first time reading one, too. A long time ago when my fascination with comics began, my judgmental youthful self decided that Archie, Harvey, Gold Key, Charlton, and Dell comics were all beneath me. Oh, I probably looked through one as a last resort when I’d read all the others during the trips to the barbershop my father made sure my brother and I made. This kid certainly wasn’t going to read a copy of a months old Field & Stream. So maybe a look through, but never would I have read one. If it hadn’t been for a decision on Archie Comics part to include its first ever gay character (sidestepping all the rumors and jokes about Jughead) the blue eyed, blond haired new kid in town Kevin Keller it’s doubtful I’d ever read one in my lifetime.

After picking up comics today I drove a few miles to pick one of my nephews up from school. He’s just shy of turning 12 and reading Veronica #202 sitting in my car in the middle school parking lot seemed appropriate. I didn’t share it with him because his parents haven’t yet decided to have that conversation with him. Maybe I should let them read this?

Writer (and artist) Dan Parent’s plot is straightforward. New kid moves to town, makes friends, and shares on a one by one basis the news he’s gay. Veronica falls in love with him while Jughead sense an opportunity to humiliate Veronica and convinces Kevin to let her down easy at a time that seems best for her. Hijinks ensue, mostly at Veronica’s expense until the plan backfires on Jughead. Kevin and Veronica realize they’ve been used and go to the mall to celebrate their newfound friendship.

As for Kevin…he’s likeable, friendly, outgoing, low maintenance, and has an appetite matching Jughead’s. Kevin also reads comics as we find out from Jughead. There were several scenes in which Kevin texted a friend named William from his old home town, raising my hope that Kevin has a boyfriend, even if he’s off panel. That hope came down several notches when Keller’s two BFFs William and Wendy are mentioned in the text piece. It’s too soon to tell if Keller will be given a boyfriend or Archie will introduce another character who happens to be gay to act as a friend. Not only would those be important images for kids to see, one or the other will keep Kevin from becoming the token gay best friend.

Even so, Dan Parent and Archie should be proud of introducing a gay character who’s just as normal as the rest of the Riverdale cast. Thanks for all the kids who’ll see Kevin and understand the affirming message that it’s okay to be different and to the other kids who’ll realize difference doesn’t matter.

And thanks for scenes like this that I thought I’d never see in an Archie comic!

Art by Dan Parent

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Heavy Artillery

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Art by Adam Warren

Contributed by Mike McDermott

Heavy Artillery is a member of the Super-Homies, an elite superhero team (the Empowered-universe’s version of the Avengers).  He has a large cannon in place of his head.  He appears to be a reserve member of the team, or at least not one of their more prominent members–so far he has appeared mostly as a background character in large group meetings or social functions, and we have yet to see him in action in a field mission.

Heavy Artillery outed himself to the audience when the Super Homies were examining some YAOI slash fan-fiction comics about the team, commenting that the stories were definately written by women *for* women: “‘Cause speaking as a gay male, this yaoi crap does nothing for me”.  Although Emp was surprised by Heavy Artillery’s sexuality, none of the other Super Homies made any comment–so presumably none of them have any issue with him (despite several of the male Super-Homies being sexist jerks, so it would not be a surprise for them to be homophobic too).

Heavy Artillery is one of the few Super Homies not shown to treat Emp poorly for being relatively ineffective as a superhero. However they have barely interacted at all on-panel, so it is unclear if he actually treats her better than most of her other teammates, or if we simply haven’t seen any examples of him treating her badly.

Heavy Artillery first appeared in Empowered vol 1 and is outed in Empowered vol 3.

Heavy Artillery is © Adam Warren. All rights reserved.

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Cooke Controversy

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

“…I don’t want to see characters who’ve been straight for 60 years become lesbians overnight because the writer was too stupid or uncreative to come up with something decent…”

Seems like the makings of another controversy, this time from Darwyn Cooke (New Frontier, The Spirit, Parker – The Hunter). The comment came to my attention this morning following a link while reading through my Google reader.Whoever it was, they pointed to this Youtube video that was posted on 4th Letter. Apologies for not giving appropriate credit though Valerie D’Orazio has blogged about the incident. You can read her comments here. I might agree with some of Cooke’s sentiment if, as D’Orazio posits, part of what he was referring to involved the publicity that resulted from Batwoman’s sexuality.

Oops! Credit where it’s due. Postmodernbarney is the blog where I first read about Cooke’s comment. Dorian makes a valid point when he says he finds Cooke’s attitude disappointing given how much of Cooke’s work is backward looking.

I don’t believe that Greg Rucka, who’s implied here, was either too stupid or uncreative when the decision was made to revive and recast Batwoman into a superhero who happens to be a lesbian. That decision was made when Devin Grayson was given the character to develop, but that’s another story. It’s a shame that we’ll probably never know what Grayson’s plans for Batwoman were, but Rucka gave his best to write memorable stories.

Now it’d be easy to think from that quick comment Cooke is being homophobic. He wasn’t. And isn’t, as he clarified in the comments section:

“My comment about making a character a lesbian has outraged some so I thought the following clarification might help-

Consider this- After sixty years of being a lesbian, a beloved character is made straight for sales or creative purposes- wouldn’t that be wrong as well?

I think gay characters are an important and welcome part of any contemporary expression. What I want is to see creators and publishers creating new characters that are gay and lesbian, and spend the decades needed creating and supporting stories about these characters. It strikes me as opportunistic and somewhat wrongheaded to take someone else’s creation and afterdecades of established character action make that drastic a change.”

Up to a point I agree. The hypothetical question of turning a 60 year old lesbian character precludes the fact that gay and lesbian characters don’t have such a lengthy history. Off the top of my head, Maggie Sawyer has 22 years of history which is actually remarkable.

Art by Cooke and J. Bone

I’m all for new LGBT characters! The reality is that for any number of reasons new characters of any kind face significant hurdles to survive and thrive in comics today, touching on a lot of other related issues.

But Darwyn Cooke isn’t homophobic. If he were, he wouldn’t have created Argo Bones and Kimball Richards, a little known couple seen during his run on The Spirit. It’s just too bad they’ll never be seen again because they were quite interesting. So much for that long running history.

A couple of updates. G. I. Jolie wrote to let me know the video originated from the folks at Comic Book Syndicate. There, if you scroll down just a bit, you’ll find a note from artist J Bone, colleague and Spirit collaborator, setting the record, um, straight, as it were, about this tempest in a teapot. In case you don’t know, Bone is also gay and you should check out his NSFW Man’s Adventures blog. Bone also alludes to the character in question as being The Question and not Batwoman. Personally, I prefer Renee Montoya in her former detective days, but I also hate it when LGBT characters languish in limbo.

Here’s a surprise in the morning! In going through my routine of reading comics news sites first thing I find Rich Johnston from Bleeding Cool has linked to this article. Said link being coded in “however measured” in the following sentence:

“But in light of criticism, however measured, from certain people spying potential homophobia in Darwyn’s comments, certain creators rallied round.” Just to be clear… I don’t think Darwyn Cooke is homophobic. Certainly not based on comments in this video and his association with J Bone.

Around the blogosphere -

David Brothers shares thoughts on 4th Letter and lots of comments follow. Michael May of Robot 6 weighs in. Liana from Nerd Girl Pinups FTW!

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November Sneak Peek

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Tying in to “Chaos War,” Marvel’s next crossover event is the one shot Alpha Flight special from Jim McCann and artist Salva Espin. It’s been years since anything Alpha Flight related got me excited so it was a surprise to learn some of the classic members had died in New Avengers #16. And I could probably pass on this special too if it weren’t for two things. The first is Jim McCann involved as writer. His Hawkeye and Mockingbird series is a fun and engaging update on old school superheroics with the right dashes of tension and drama, especially for the two stars. The second reason ties in with the first – Northstar. Matt Fraction gave him a boyfriend and made him fun and cocky instead of pissy and insufferable, but the promise didn’t follow through. Indy cartoonist Tim Fish, known for his Cavalcade of Boys and Young Bottoms in Love anthology, gave us a short slice of story focusing on the personal side of Northstar and his boyfriend’s relationship. Then nothing until now. I’m psyched to read what McCann has come up with and how he handles Northstar.

What’s up at DC? Oh, there’s a one shot with Batman and Catwoman going up against the Z list Cavalier. Who? This guy. He likes to play with swords. Yeah, so. DC’s blog “The Source” had this about the book: “This November, writer/artist Howard Chaykin presents a one-shot tale of the Cavalier. You remember him, right? The Z-lister with the swords? How’d someone like that manage to frame the femme fatale known as Catwoman for a string of burglaries? Doubly impressive? Framing rich playboy Bruce Wayne for cleaning out the Wayne Enterprises vault.

Impressive, indeed. But once Catwoman and Batman are on his tail, the Cavalier will learn that frame-ups like that cut both ways, as both Catwoman and Batman begin to track the rogue in this unique one-shot, written and drawn by the legendary Chaykin.”

Well, maybe it’ll be a fun comic.

Then there’s a little something else from DC, a zero issue of Batwoman to get people excited and ready for the January ongoing!

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