Boys Don't Cry and Wyrmeweald: Returners Wealth

A couple of books I have read recently.

Boys Don't Cry by Malorie Blackman
This was a good story about a 17 year old suddenly having fatherhood thrust upon him.  There were some inaccuracies about baby feeding which annoyed me. Fair enough to have them in the book but please please include a footnote giving correct information.

There was a coming out subplot which I take umbrage at. The character concerned gets beaten nearly to death by his closeted boyfriend. Coming out stories are important and they do have a place, but I am sick of reading ones that portray being queer as danferous, depressing, miserable, full of struggles and fighting the system/your parents/your peers. I would like to read ones written as a coming of age story like straight people get. Being queer isn't always horrible, and it won't get less horrible if people only read stories that paint queerness as difficult.

I think Blackman is straight and I imagine she thought she was being really sensitive and writing a thoughtful book. It's just that as a queer teen in the 90s all we bloody had were painful coming out stories. That's all anyone ever knew. I'd hope we had moved on by now.

Wrymeweald by Stewart and Riddle
This was better.  It's frontier fantasy woth dragons but the dragons come in all shapes and sizes and comprise most of the fauna in the area where the story is based.  They are hunted for pelts and meat and only one type bonds with humans. It was a different sort of fantasy read and I'm glad i read it but I'm not too fussed about reading anymore.

I am currently in the middle of reading Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu. An American high school girl gets really pissed off with the sexist shit at her school and anonymously starts a zine called Moxie. She is inspired by the Riot Grrl movement. It's pretty good so far.

Riots not Diets folks. 

Books and comics

Recently I have read a few more books - the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and two Tiffany Aching Discworld books (spoilers for the final Discworld book - A Shepherd's Crown).  I have also read a few comics.

Ash by Malinda Lo

I accidentally found this really good book 2 weeks ago.  I like it when that happens.  It is called Ash, by Malinda Lo. It's a young adult book and I picked it because it had an LGBT sticker on the spine, and it said it was about fairies (the magical sort, not the gay sort).

It turns out to be a fairy tale, about fairy tales, a version of Cinderalla, about love and what it can do for us, and about the fairy world and human world interwtining.  It's a young adult book, which when I'm feeling run down is my favourite sort of book.  It was really really enjoyable.  It's been months and months since I last read, enjoyed and had the patience to read a book and it feels good.

Next up is Dhalgreen by Samuel R Delany.  Also chosen for it's LGBT sticker.  Let's hope it's as easy a read.  if it's not, I just won't finish it.

They had stickers on because they are library books. Support your local libraries people.

Malta passes law to ban normalisation surgery on intersex infants

Hey guys, this is really good.

Full story here: http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/04/03/malta-just-became-the-first-country-to-ban-normalization-surgery-on-intersex-infants/

Highlights:

"Malta’s parliament just passed new legislation that allows self-determination of gender (with a simple process to legally change gender), and outlaws unnecessary surgery on intersex babies. This bill makes Malta the first country to ban unnecessary surgery on intersex infants.

In 2013, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture announced it condemns unnecessary surgery on intersex babies. “The Special Rapporteur calls upon all States to repeal any law allowing intrusive and irreversible treatments,” the UN statement reads, “including forced genital-normalizing surgery, involuntary sterilization, unethical experimentation, medical display, ‘reparative therapies’ or ‘conversion therapies,’ when enforced or administered without the free and informed consent of the person concerned.”

Maltese officials and medical professionals are now working to come up with guidelines to make sure all surgeries done on infants are medically necessary and not “driven by social factors without the consent of the minor.”

Excellent!

Super Sexy Saturday

Isn't this the hottest thing you ever saw ?


That's Renee Montoya, aka The Question, depicted as the Queen of the Hunt.  I'm not sure who created this but I know I first saw it a few years ago.  It's amazing and I'd love it as a print.



EDIT 08/02/2014 - The original image can be seen here. It is by Shley77 and it is titled Artemis and the Nymphs, so it's not Renee at all, except for in my head.

Coming out in comics: Thundra

This is from She-Hulk 34.  I'd not come across Thundra before, but I gather she's from a nation where men and women are at war with each other and she doesn't like men very much.

Whatever her story, it's always nice to see women in comics crushing on other women.

Coming out in comics - Psylocke

I recently read Uncanny X-Force v3, issue 7.  I have no idea how I got hold of this or why I was tempted to read it, but I'm glad I did.

The premise is that Psylocke is living with a guy named Fantomex, who was recently split into 3 different bodies through a cloning process I think.  We now have Fantomex, Weapon XIII and Cluster (the only female clone) - each version got different parts of the original Fantomex's personality.  Psylocke was in a relationship with Fantomex before he got split into 3, and she continued her relationship with this Fantomex's body, believing him to be the same personality as he was before the split.


However, it turns out this Fantomex is a bit of a dick, which leads to these 2 scenes from issue 7:

I have no idea what Psylocke regards her sexuality as.  I have no idea if she has had relationships with women before.  What I like about these pages is that once she realises which personality she loves, she doesn't hesitate to act on her feelings.  There are no negative thoughts around Cluster being female, it's just Psylocke and Cluster, acting on their feelings.  They love each other, they've realised and acknowledged it, that's all there is to it.  Beautiful.

Link time!

I keep seeing cool things I want to talk about but not finding the time to do a proper post.  So here comes another link list:

 

Lesbians in Archie comics discussing the stress of a closeted relationship:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/11/20/and-now-americas-typical-teenage-girl-is-a-lesbian-thanks-to-archie-comics/

 

Advert advocating engineering toys for girls!

http://www.upworthy.com/if-3-little-girls-did-this-to-my-house-id-do-everything-i-could-to-get-them-full-rides-to-stanford?g=2&c=ufb1

Or rather, trying to sell engineering toys for girls.  It’s an ace advert, go watch.

 

How to submit writing samples to comic publishers:

http://www.comicsvanguard.com/2013/11/how-do-i-submit-writing-work-to-comic.html?

 

Steampunk variant covers for DC:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=49023

 

Fantagraphics kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fantagraphicsbooks/fantagraphics-2014-spring-season-39-graphic-novels

Loki meets some school kids and pushes one of them off her seat:

http://metro.co.uk/2013/11/05/watch-loki-push-a-kid-over-after-she-says-thor-is-better-than-him-4174587/

 

New Ms Marvel:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/11/05/ms-marvel-the-muslim-teenage-jersey-girl/

I’m dead excited about this.

 

DC moves to the west coast:

http://www.newsarama.com/19425-dc-comics-moving-to-burbank-to-join-dc-entertainment.html

I feel sorry for the staff who now have to choose to relocate or lose their jobs.

 

Marvel animal variants:

http://marvel.com/news/story/21532/take_an_exclusive_first_look_at_marvel_animal_variants

A write up of the kid book group comics discussion from last week:

http://didyoueverstoptothink.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/comics-kidbkgrp/

 

Comics reviews for week starting 17th April

Discussion and spoilers ahead for Thor: God of Thunder 7, Hawkeye 9, Danger Club 5, Supergirl 19, Wonder Woman 19 and The Pride Adventures.

Something to make you happy

New Zealand legalised equal marriage today.  When the vote was announced the House of Representatives burst into applause and the spectators burst into song.

Read more here.

Now can we get the same thing happening in the UK please?

I wonder what song we'd sing.

The gym, the gay best friend, and performative sexuality

So. I'm still going to the gym.  I'm enjoying it again and I'm going regularly.  Tonight I went to a new class, Sh'bam.  It is described on the Les Mills website thusly:

Featuring simple but seriously hot dance moves, SH'BAM™ is the perfect way to shape up and let out your inner star - even if you're dance challenged.
Set to a soundtrack of chart-topping popular hits, dance music that is heard in the hottest nightclubs around the world, familiar classics remixed and modernized Latin beats, SH'BAM™ is the ultimate fun and sociable way to exercise. Each 45-minute SH'BAM™ class is vibrant, unique and varied - and like all the LES MILLS™ programs, a new SH'BAM™ release is produced every three months with new music and choreography.

I thought it might be fun.  It was on at a time that suited so I went.  Now it probably isn't for me, although it was a decent workout, but there were a couple of things that really stood out for me during the class, that aren't what people would associate with a gym class.

The instructor we had is either gay or straight and camp.  For this discussion it doesn't matter whether he is gay or straight, what is relevant is how people read him.  Now, I've had a few male gay friends over the years.  I've read women's magazines, I've seen the films and the TV shows and I've seen how people react to men who read as gay or camp.  There's this concept of the 'gay best friend'.  In popular media the gay best friend is usually a supporting character, who helps the straight woman out with her romance problems, is flamboyant, a great dancer and dresses well. Often they are seen as non-threatening and just like a woman, but better because they are a man.

Then I see straight women in real life around gay men.  And the gay man is perceived in a certain way, they are perceived to be the same as the fictional characters on the telly or in the books.  And it strikes me that the women are treating the gay man as a commodity.  As an idea, not as an individual.  They all want a gay best friend, and they want them to act in a certain way.  They don't care about the individual.  They want the concept.  And sometimes it seems like they are fawning over the gay man, and vying with each other for his attention.  And I wonder why is a gay man afforded more (temporary, assumed) status than a straight man, or a straight woman, or a gay woman?  Or a bisexual woman or man.  What is it about the gender relationships and power balances that drives some women to want a gay best friend as opposed to a friend?

The whole thing is insulting it commodifies gay men and reduces them to their sexuality and an idea, a package.

And I see the women in the gym acting in this way with this instructor.  And it frustrates and saddens me.  Now this is not to say that the instructor is displeased with these women.  It's not to say that they aren't genuinely friends.  But it still saddens me because I think the relationship is riddled with subtle homophobia.

As for the performative sexuality part.  Well, the class was opened with the sentence, 'what happens in sh'bam, stays in sh'bam'.  I wasn't aware that I was signing up to a secret soriety, but that sentence seems to put forward an idea that the class is an exclusive club.  Then throughout the class there were women posing and strutting and checking themselves out in the mirror.  Now, the class is meant to be fun, and silly, and it is based on 'the hottest dance moves', but what I didn't anticipate was something which was encouraging us to shake our arse, our boobs and act like we were the sexiest things on the planet.

And that's what I mean by performative sexuality - I don't want to do that in the gym.  I'm there to work out and to get fitter.  I'm OK doing all that in a club (especially if I'm drunk), but at the gym I don't want it.  I'm not comfortable in an atmosphere that encourages you to perform sexuality, unless it's in a club, and even then sometimes I just want to cut loose and not give a fuck about being hot.  I don't want to have sex and sexuality creep into every area of my life.  I'm not a prude for saying that, I just think that there is a time and a place, and it is not in a gym.

A few months ago I was waiting to go into a CX Worx class.  It's to strengthen your core and improve your abs.  It's good, but it is bloody hard work.  Anyway, before this class there was this 40 something dude and his mate also waiting.  And 3 women in our 20s/30s.  The 40 something dude started the conversation by commenting about the Les Mills name - he doesn't know how to pronounce it. But he was leering, and insinuating that pronouncing it 'Lez' (not 'Lay') would be funny, and why would anyone have a name pronounced 'Lez'.  Which is incredibly childish.  He seemed to want us to join in with him.  We didn't.

One of the women explained how the class worked, what it did and why it is good.  Then he started saying that all of us lovely women didn't need to to work out, and he doesn't think any of the women here need to exercise hard.

I'm sure he thought he was complimenting us, but what he was actually doing was commenting and judging our bodies.  I don't want my body judged at a gym.  I don't want it judged by a  stranger.  I don't want it's attractiveness measured up.  The only possible way I want my body measured at a gym is to discuss how to get bigger muscles.  The other women were either giving nervous titters by this point or just doing half smiles.  I was probably glaring.

The thing is, he asked about the class, but really wanted to talk about our bodies.  he wasn't interested in what the women were saying, just in his own views.  Prick.  I was very pleased to see that he didn't cope very well with the class.

And that's my gym update.

Writing up comics

In the last week I have got a lot of comics.  I promised that I'd write up everything I read, so I am going to do so, but as the pile looks like this...

...and is four and a half inches high I can't promise I'll be writing anything substantial.  I also have a lot of comixology purchases to mention too...

On the plus side all this spending will give me lots of blog fodder!

So, to start, let's have a look at a few odd bits and pieces:

Spandex is about a group of gay superheroes living in Brighton. In this first issue they confront a 50 foot lesbian who is destroying Brighton Pier.  For those of you not aware of Brighton, it's the gay capital of the UK and the pier seems ot get burnt down with alarming regularity.  In fact I do believe they now have two piers.
The art isn't great, but something about the story shines through.  It's a tongue in cheek, campy repsentation of gay culture, and I suspect that is why I liked it.  I'm now quite gutted I didn't buy all seven issues at the con.
You can visit the website and buy copies here: http://spandexcomic.wordpress.com/

The two books at the bottom of the above picture are sketchbooks by Mahmud Asrar.  From Fallout Weekly (on the right) this beuatiful picture is included, which I hadn't seen before:

 From Blowing off Steam this Cloak and Dagger picture is included, which reminded me I must try his X-Men title:

 If you like his art do try and find his sketchbooks.  They are well worth the money.

I also got a copy of MarineMan, by Ian Churchill.  It was written and drawn by him and is very different from his work on Supergirl.  It's far more cartoony than his Supergirl - more of the classic superhero jaw on the hero and more curves on the women.  I am intrigued by it and would like to check out more, mostly because the art interests me.  It's such a big change from his Supergirl work.  Looking on Churchill's blog (and from meeting him at LSCC - he was asking fans to sign a petition for shark protection) he does seem to be very passionate about the marine environment and conservation.  For which I respect him even more.

A brilliant, articulate, moving, well said open letter to Andrew Turner MP

Obviously I am not referring to anything I wrote.

Last week the House of Commons voted on whether or not to legalise same sex marriage.  They said yes.  About bloody time.  I felt very mixed during the whole run up to this.  On the one hand I wasn't too worried about the Commons voting against it because I was thinking it's 2013, who on earth can possibly still be against gay people getting married?  After all I thought, there's some opposition but that's from old stuck in their ways dinosaurs with no relevance and no real influence.  And anyway, there's only a few of them.

Then I was reading the live tweets about the Parliamentary debate and my blood was boiling.  Turns out there are a lot of ignorant, bigoted, hateful fucks in the Commons who were spewing some right awful bile.  The result was 400 for same sex marriage and 175 against.

175 of our elected officials view people wanting to commit to a same sex marriage (I won't say gay couple because that excludes same sex bisexual couples) as somehow second class.  As worth less.  As not allowed the same dignity, rights and privileges as opposite sex couples.

I am privileged to live in Norwich.  It is an open minded progressive city and I see very little homophobia.   What biphobia I see is unintentional from people who think they are paying you a compliment.  Maybe there are problems with homophobia here, but I don't see it as I am privileged to have a male partner.  Although I would argue that being bisexual and having a long term partner of the opposite sex isn't all glory and kittens, at least not when you are attempting to assert your bisexual identity.

I was genuinely shocked at the shit being spilled from our MPs mouths.  Then I got angry.  The news that the vote came in for same sex marriage made my night and made the day after much better.

Which is where this open letter comes in.  It's written by Howard Hardiman, creator of The Lengths and The Peckham House for Invalids.  I think Howard is about my age and everything he writes (apart from experiencing homophobic violence) applies to me.  Swap the bits about male gay role models for female gay role models and that was my life too.  I will re-blog it in it's entirety because it's important.

The Dangermouse art that goes with this post is also by Howard, and you can contact him if you would like something similar.

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Dear Andrew Turner,

In light of the vote yesterday to afford equal marriage rights to all, I thought it might be a good moment to reflect on the social changes that have happened during my lifetime.

When I was growing up, the only representations of gay men I’d encountered were on Are You Being Served (I was a little too late to catch Round the Horne). Gay men were seen as either weakly inoffensive or paedophiles. Growing up as a young man aware that I wasn’t heterosexual, this was quite confusing as I knew I was neither. I came out the same year as the Don’t Die of Ignorance campaign and immediately was confronted by prejudice that said people like me deserved to die of a horrific wasting disease. 

Moreover, many of the partners of those dying from AIDS were not allowed to visit them at the bedside because they “weren’t family”. It was a cruel, frightening and depressing time. Surrounded by a hostile rhetoric that said I was pathetic, immoral or deserved to die, I became depressed to the point of being suicidal. That’s the lesson that young people were being taught at the time. If you’re not heterosexual you deserve to suffer and have so little place in society that many would be happier rid of you.

I was not taught about relationships in school in a way that was at all meaningful to me, even though some teachers were kind enough to try to talk to me about being gay, even if it could have cost them their jobs. It built a conspiracy of fear and danger around something as simple and normal as love.
You’ve consistently supported Section 28.

The age of consent was lowered, first from 21 to 18, then eventually down to 16. I became eighteen shortly before the law was changed. Where other boys my age were able to have relationships, if I slept with someone around my own age, I was a paedophile in the eyes of the law, and if I slept with someone over the age of consent, then I was a de facto victim of child abuse, even though I was old enough to vote. It’s not a situation that exactly encouraged the formation of healthy relationships. This was the age where I should have been able to learn about relationships and to be able to talk about my experiences with other people to be able to understand them. Instead, if I dated a young woman (which I’ve done on and off), it was socially acceptable and seen as normal, if I dated a young man, I was a criminal. Equalising the age of consent was a powerful message to people my age that perhaps I deserved the same chance at a decent life as others.

You voted against this.

Still frightened by early relationships, and caught up in the need to stamp one’s identity on the world, I took all of the hatred and turned it into a game. I was a little rebel, a young man who’d defend himself by provoking people who were scared of my sexuality. I got called names on the street, I was spat at, a few times I was physically threatened by strangers. I felt the gulf between me and the rest of society at a time when other men my age are learning their places within it. I was reaching an age where my school-friends were starting families, but I was not allowed to even consider being a father because of the enduring stigma that gay men are paedophiles. Were I in a relationship with a woman, suddenly I’d be allowed to adopt. In 2002, Parliament finally voted to allow people like me to adopt. Once I was able to adopt, I still could not formalise a relationship with someone. The Civil Partnership Act changed that and meant that should I die, a male partner would not lose the home we lived in and should I be ill, he would be able to make decisions about my care.

You voted against all of this.

I faced discrimination at work and continued abuse in public should I dare to hold hands with a partner or to not be ashamed of what I am. The introduction of the Human Rights Act offered a ray of hope to many people that we would secure further civil liberties and be safe from discrimination.

You voted against this.

I had to be selective about where I chose to work, knowing I had no protection against discrimination. I eventually became a freelancer in part because I could not feel secure in a workplace where I could lose my job with no protection on the grounds of whether my partner was male or female at the time. Were I to be in a Civil Partnership, I was required to out myself on every encounter with a form which asked marital status. There was no protection against someone refusing me employment when they saw that. I did not enter a civil partnership because it felt like capitulating with a system that enforced the idea that some relationships were worth less than others. In 2007, finally, this was no longer the case, as the Sexual Orientation Regulations came into force.

You voted against this.

People could still legally slander gay people with impunity until the following year, when the government introduced laws to protect me from incitement to hatred.

You voted against this.

Still, I was separate but equal, as David Lammy described it yesterday and you repeated today. I was not normal in the eyes of the law, I would still remain short-changed in the social contract that exists between an individual and the state. Yesterday, an overwhelming majority of MPs moved to end that distinction and ensure that young men growing up and realising now that they are not heterosexual should not feel in any way lesser to their peers. It calls for an end to mandatory disclosure of sexual orientation in official paperwork. It calls for all loving, committed relationships to be treated as not just equitable or equivalent but equal in the eyes of the law. It marks a point where it’s closing the last few wounds inflicted on a group who in the last century have faced genocide at the hands of Nazis, would be hounded to death or prison should they not hide their romances, who were denied access to healthcare during a plague, who were subject to ridicule and, as Mr Lammy inferred yesterday, apartheid when it came to basic rights like family or privacy.

You voted against this.

I’m absolutely delighted that you have been consistently overturned on this. No thanks to you, young men, women and transgendered people will no longer grow up being denied education, healthcare, employment rights, freedom from discrimination or the right to family. No thanks to you, that inflicted shame will slowly fade away to the point where differentiation on the grounds of sexuality seems as irrational as denying women the right to vote does now. No thanks to you, LGBT people’s lives have been saved by this sequence of advances towards a fairer society.

Britain should be very proud of what happened in parliament yesterday. I’m just deeply saddened that no islander can say that they had a hand in it.

I will not vote for you, because you think I am worth less as a person than you. No-one who believes I am as entitled to civil rights as anyone else will vote for you. Yesterday was not an attack on religious freedom, but a doorway to it for so many people who’ve been denied a full spiritual and civil engagement in society. If your vote yesterday were a matter of conscience, I suggest you consider the lives you have wished on young LGBT people under your care, because they are so much better off today than when I was growing up and you’ve done everything in your power, which is the power entrusted to you by the people of the island, to oppose that.

I’m proud to be British, but your words have made many ashamed of being Islanders.

Yours sincerely,
Howard Hardiman


--------------------------------------


I know it's wrong but when I hear speech and viewpoints like those spoken by Andrew Turner I just wish the person concerned would fuck off and die.  I am not proud of myself for saying or feeling this.  Viewpoints like his, actions like his, made it very difficult for me growing up, as a young bisexual woman trying to work out what she was.  Laws that he voted for, or against, contributed to an atmosphere where I was fucking terrified to tell any of my friends I liked women.  Where I internalised a fear and a worry that I could never truly be truthful to those closest to me.  Hopefully in 15 years time bisexual and gay teenagers will have the confidence, self assurance and pride in themselves to be able to come out to their families, friends and workplaces without fear of reprisal.

I have never formally come out to work colleagues, present or past (of course some may be reading this...) and I have always hated that continual checking of myself, making sure I don't let anything slip.  I am slightly more talkative now about mental health issues, but even then I do not talk freely.  I think it is fair to say that my mental health issues and my sexuality are linked.  Not because being bisexual makes me crazy, or is a symptom or cause of being crazy, but because it's really fucking difficult to live in the closet, whether it's by choice or by being put in there.  We wouldn't need a fucking closet if our leaders and politicians and fellow citizens weren't such huge bastards and didn't treat us so badly.

Comic reviews for week commencing 6/2/2013

Today's comics are these beauties:

That's Fearless Defenders 1, Ultimate Spider-Man 20 and Animal Man 17.  I also got a Marvel Now sampler but I only had one reaction to that which is this.  Honestly Marvel, not good.

I couldn't pick up Supergirl 16 as they'd ran out, so I'll get that next week.  My pull list is all sorted out now so that's good.

As for the comics.... well...spoilers ahead!!
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Animal Man 17.
It's the Rotworld finale part 1.  I'm really glad this is coming to a close.  It's been so long winded and slow I have lost all interest in it.  It just doesn't have the hook that the previous issues had.  The horror is gone.  It's all guest stars and Armageddon, again.  Since DC rebooted their universe and introduced these new versions of the characters to us, it would make sense for us to get know them before they start saving the world, otherwise we just don't care about them.
I did like the Plant Green Lantern, so it's a shame he died.  It's Interesting that Frankenstein got the ring.  I'm mildly intrigued to see the 'batgirl' that was with Swamp Thing.  I'm guessing she's the daughter of Manbat.
When this arc has finished I reckon I'll sell the run on ebay.

Ultimate Spider-Man 20
Oh this was good!  Venom is huge!  A real honest-to-gods monster!  And now Miles' Dad is critically ill. :(  I felt for sure that Jefferson would recognise Miles under the mask and that was why he went back into the fight, but I guess we won't discover if I'm correct for a while yet.  Oh boy this is good.  I hope the sales figures for this series are good, because it's one of the better ones on sale at the moment.

Fearless Defenders 1
The comic shop suggested I get this as I asked for the first X-lady title to be put aside for me.  It has lesbians in it.  I will add it to my pull list and see how I get on with it,

Comic review - Smallville and Ame-Comi Girls (and a bit of coming out in comics)

Spoilers ahead for Smallville 26 & 27

Coming out in comics: Black Cat

This probably isn't news to anyone else but as I don't read much Marvel I don't know a whole lot about the Black Cat.  I have heard rumours that she's bisexual but I only got proof of this when I read the MC2 Spider-Girl series.  In it, Felicia Henderson is now 40 something and has a teenage daughter called Felicity.  They don't have a great relationship.  Before this particular issue, we had hints that Felicity was unimpressed with her mother's love life, but we didn't know for sure who her partner was until this page, from Spider-Girl 53:

Ok, so it's not explicit, and I guess that if you were particularly blinkered and maybe naive you wouldn't see it, but it's fairly clear that Felicia and the woman in the top right hand panel have just moved apart from a romantic clinch.  And that Felicity isn't too happy about it.  Nothing more has been said about this, and seeing as I'm now at issue 73 ish I don't hold out much hope for this being looked at again.  We shall see.

Coming out in Comics - Renee Montoya and Maggie

This is from Gotham Central, #34:

This issue has a guest appearance by the Teen Titans, I can't remember the rationale now, but it was obviously written as a tie-in to bump up the reader numbers.  Anyway, at this page Starfire walks in to the police station and asks if she can help with the investigation.

As far as I'm concerned this issue outs Maggie Sawyer.  If you look at the column of panels, you see the expressions on the male cops faces when they see Starfire.  The bottom panel shows Renee Montoya (previously outed) and Maggie Sawyer.  Maggie's face mirrors Renee's.  The top panel in the column establishes that the men are lustful for Starfire, the middle one points out Renee's and Maggie's reactions, and as Maggie's expression perfectly mirrors Renee's, I'd say that this page outs Maggie, in a non verbal manner.

Never in this series was it confirmed, verbally, that Maggie is gay.  There was a hint in the early issues when Renee has just been outed, and then this.  But this is plenty good enough for me.

As with the last post I did in this series, this scan was kindly provided to me by DAJB of Broken Voice Comics.  As I read this on Comixology I can't take a scan.  For argument's sake, and for a different POV, I will give you DAJB's take on this.  He felt that by this point the series:

"lost its authenticity and strayed into the murky waters of mainstream titillation.  Whereas Batman's brief appearances in GC made sense in the context of the story, Starfire's little cameo just seemed completely gratuitous; inserted purely to allow Rucka to make a cheap joke.  I'm not convinced this "outs" Maggie Sawyer, but we all take something different from these things, I guess.

That's the glory of literature!"

When I read the series, I didn't feel that this titillation, or done for a cheap joke.  Mind you, I felt the series became a little looser and little bit more fun, mayhap for a darker definition of fun that most people use.  At any rate, this series is canon (or was, pre new 52), so to my mind it still outs Maggie within the parameters of the story.  Whether the writer or artist intended it as a joke or not, it still stands as is, real within the story.

So I'll celebrate it.

Coming out in Comics: Renee Montoya

I recently bought the Gotham Central series from Comixology (don't ask how much it cost, eep), and am pleased to discover it's the series that outs Renee Montoya, then a cop in the GCPD, later The Question.

Gotham Central is about the GCPD, the people working for it and the cases they investigate.  On issue 6, Greg Rucka takes over writing duties for the Half of a Life arc, outs Renee and wins an Eisner award.  A well deserved trophy I reckon.

So, Renee is being sued by a criminal who got off from a rape charge.  She comes into the GCPD HQ one day to find her colleagues crowded around the notice board.

The photograph was taken by the criminal who is suing her and has sent the copies to her workplace and her parents.  Neither of whom she was out to.

The next 4 issues has Renee dealing with her work colleagues, being set up on a murder charge and dealing with her parents, who cut her out of their lives.

I recommend this arc to all fans of Renee Montoya, Gotham City, Batman's supporting characters, and LGBT comics fans (and potential fans) everywhere.  It's seriously good.

I think it's been traded but you can also buy the issues digitally from Comixology.

Many thanks to DAJB of Broken Voice Comics for sending me the scans.

That pesky slippery slope of marriage equality!

Found on this f word post.

Coming out in comics: Catman

Gail Simone confirms that Catman is bisexual and in the new DCU he will be witten as bisexual when she next writes him.

She also describes the make up of Secret Six. Who is who do you reckon?

Anyway, aww yeah!!