“hypocrites kick with their hind feet while licking with their tongues” – Russian proverb

Let’s say you like comics. Let’s also say you’re gay. Let’s go even further and say that you’ve spent some time in front of Xtube participating in your own personal Tubesock Holocaust the likes of which would make Onan himself stop and go, “Wow.” Pushing the “what if’s” past the bounds of good taste, let’s finally say you enjoy the Underworld series. Sean-Z’s MYTH #2, then, is probably for you. However, if you are a savvy politico who keeps abreast of current gay events, MYTH #2 is definitely for you.

Ostensibly a story about the often-naked Zithyran V’riel and his quest to locate and reawaken his world’s gods, MYTH also reflects an important part of the gay cultural dialogue that has long gone unaddressed: namely, the equal and opposite reaction of gay opponents to Marriage Equality. As important as Marriage Equality is as a civil rights issue, there is a faction within the gay community that does not embrace it as step forward, but rather as a white flag to the heterosexual hegemony (say that three times fast!). In essence, gay culture will die under the trappings of “normalcy” – spouses, children, split-level houses, and dogs that do no fit into a shoulder bag – finally losing our sense of “special otherness”. I’m not saying I agree with this, nor do I presume to know Sean-Z’s political leanings; nevertheless, he gives us an alluring, profound, and often exciting look at the Marriage Equality counter-argument.

Sex will always be a part of the gay identity, mostly because we are both self- and other-identified through our sexual behavior. In terms of the heterosexual (i.e., “other”) identification, I would even argue towards “over-identified and bordering on unhealthy obsession” (I’m looking at you, Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera). One only need glance at any number of postings by anti-gay groups to see that their fevered imaginings are far more pornographic and detailed than anything the average gay male has experienced. Why then is it important to have the discussion of “marriage” at this time? Wouldn’t Marriage Equality kill the gay sexual drive, as any number of late night TV wags have said it does to straight marriage? What would become of gay culture as we know it? Obviously with so profound a question mark directly in our path, it makes sense that some people would try to apply the brakes or jump out of the vehicle altogether.

In MYTH, inhabitants of the world Zithyra and their gods are comfortable with their bodies enough to go au naturel (and with their bodies, who wouldn’t be?) and are obviously queer. In choosing to arrange his universe this way, Sean-Z opens up two interesting points: one, that somehow the race propagates, and two, that there is no stigma attached to being queer, so we are left to judge “good” and “evil” by their respective behaviors. The “evil” side, the one that represents Marriage Equality proponents, is populated by vampires, draining the life of others to make it their own. I’ll admit the characterization is on the harsh side, but one can feel the sense of betrayal that V’riel has towards the head vampire, Donjovan Faust. I hope in future issues to see the past of their relationship. The “good” side is seen in V’riel and his mecha servant Koz (which brings to mind the colloquial “cuz”, so I’m left wondering about the implications of man-on-machine sex), who rescue a god (called a “Maker”), Julian, and his friends from a fire at a bar called “The Raunch”. The good guys are sexually liberated and for most of the book are naked and/or on teh cock like a GOP Congressman at an out-of-town convention without his wife. It’s a canny metaphor, and one without clear answers. While we root for the good guys, we can’t help but notice that the bad guys are just as hot and just as motivated to prevail.

Whether you are pro-Marriage Equality or feel that it will be the ruination of “gay”, Sean-Z’s compelling MYTH #2 will force you to take a long hard look at the future as it lays bare before you.

While looking at the cover of my copy of Giants in Those Days, specifically Miss Dawna, my nephew came up with the idea that her light power should evolve into an electricity-based power and her new name would be Static Elektra (which I thought was pretty clever)! And she would be evil because the good guys abandoned her (seems reasonable). Of course, I had to ask the ultra-talented Benjamin Ruth to come up with an appropriately good-stomping costume. And this is she:

Dominic now owns a character, and I hope it gets him to draw more and make up stories. When he becomes famous, he’ll owe Ben a HUGE royalty check.

I can tell already that Robert Kirby’s new series, THREE, is going to get a lot of mileage out of its title. So many good things come in threes – like wishes and bears and the hot soccer triplets down the street whom I fervently know are 18 years old – or multiples of three – like a six pack (a three pack would look weird with a partnerless odd-ab-out) and… no, a six pack is the pinnacle of all things “six”, I’d say. And to begin his latest anthology venture (the sublime Boy Trouble book preceding), Robert and two other cartoonists – Eric Orner and Joey Alison Sayers – each offer up a story of a moment. Filed under “s[tuff] you can’t make up”, I’m tempted to say there is a semi-autobiographical revelation that comes from these moments. Whether by accident or design, there is a theme of “one” in each cartoonist’s work (yeah yeah yeah, it’s also issue number one) that has the ring of verisimilitude which I say can only come from personal experience. Like so:

Weekends Abroad by Eric Orner sets the bar high for every story in every issue including and following this one. Ostensibly a tale of what an American Jew working in Israel does on the weekends (cruise guys on the Internet, go to clubs, get laid), Weekends is a sad story. Not suicide levels of sadness by any means, but I feel for the nameless protagonist. And that is my point in a nutshell: can it get any lonelier for this cartoon stranger in a strange land who doesn’t speak Hebrew and who can’t find a decent guy to schtup than we readers not even knowing his name? I doubt it. There are moments of comfort, but the anonymous hero isn’t part of them – Markot games, Vox, finding the mysterious graffiti poet; he’s an observer. But, as with most things, there is grace in the end.

Joey Alison Sayers’ Number One is an odd piece, but it made me laugh. My six-year old nephew is going through his “bodily noises and functions are funny” stage, and, yes, my brother and I are encouraging it, not only because burps that scare birds out of trees are funny, but also because they’re natural and everyone does them (we’re trying to avoid any kind of shaming issues). Recently, the three of us were at Sara’s, a local beach-front hamburger “stand” which has my favorite ice cream in the world: soft-serve orange sherbet, when my brother belched unexpectedly, like, “Kronos eating his children too fast” belched. We all started laughing then realized a woman and her daughter sitting next to us were chuckling along. Scott was immediately embarrassed and apologized for interrupting their meal, though I have to give him credit for not stopping laughing. The mother said she looked over because she thought her son was nearby as he also doesn’t cover his burps in public. My nephew and I were amused by this, like, groundling amused. This is the charm of Number One: we’ve all been there.

Robert Kirby’s Freedom Flight rounds out the issue with another story about loneliness in the middle of a crowd. Drew has always wondered what it would be like to disappear, so when his boyfriend blows him off to work one afternoon, Drew leaves their apartment to meander around NYC. Kirby’s “one” could be seen as a companion piece to Orner’s, but much darker. In both stories, the protagonists are lost in the Big City, mostly because they’ve never been connected to it. But unlike Orner’s leading man, whose interior monologue connects his past to his present and to his future, Kirby’s Drew cycles around and around in a never-ending present, an existential “Groundhog’s Day”. And finally, there is no grace to save his Drew in the end: “one” simply becomes “none” (worse, “no one”). It’s a sucker punch in the gut, to be sure. It’s also honest and real.

Robert Kirby promises this is the first issue of an on-going series (a promise backed by the art samples for #2 on the final page) with contributions from old and new names in queer comics. It’d be a shame to not get on-board for this sure-to-be spectacular ride now. Order a copy of THREE here as soon as you reach the period at the end of this sentence.

In brief: See it, but pretend that someone else is playing Scott Pilgrim.

Too gay to be straight?

Several weeks ago, there was a minor rhubarb in the gay blogosphere when Ramin Setoodeh of Newsweek suggested that Sean Hayes, co-starring opposite Kristen Chenoweth in Promises, Promises, ruined the play because his gay was sparkling through what was supposed to be a straight character. I’m going to suggest the exact same thing about Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Dude acts like a lady. I’ve seen him in similar movies about disaffected and intensely understated teen love – Juno springs immediately to mind – which end in emotional waterfalls of caring and empathy, but I’ve never actually bought it from him. I’m now convinced it’s because is ways too subtle for the conscious mind to perceive, he was actually projecting his love for J. K. Simmons. (And who wouldn’t?) Never having read the manga-books, I wondered for the first thirty minutes if Cera’s lispy and breathless performance was foreshadowing Scott’s coming out later the film. Even his roommate, uber-slutty manbanger Wallace, in a metafictional moment says of him, “And you think I gay up the place too much?”

Is Cera really gay? Is he really straight? Who knows? Who cares? All I can say is, he needs to butch it up there a little and step out of his “less is more” schtick or he’s going to be typecast in the way of D J Qualls who is mostly famous for being Holocaust-thin. That or, ya know, he can start up a production company with Chad Allen. “Cerallen” or something mish-mashy like that.

Too hip to be square?

And speaking of disaffected. Is the… I dunno, are they still called “hipsters”? What is the generation of Xbox addicts and lonely souls in skinny jeans and pork pie hats called? Someone let me know, but until then I have to ask, is the Hipster Revolution over yet? I’m kinda tired of them. Yeah yeah yeah, my generation had the spotlight held up to our disappointments in The Breakfast Club, but kids these days remind me vaguely of kids from my college days who didn’t have jobs or any visible means of financial support but who still managed to be dropped out of helicopters to snowboard down mountains.

Holy crap. I’m my father…

Scott Pilgrim and his friends are like that (not my father; the previous thing): they don’t do much, but their days are full of activity – playing video games, wearing ironic t-shirts, faking suicides, trying to get signed with a music label, making much ado about trivia, and muddying the waters with their unexpressed emotions in a self-conscious way. Of all the gang, only Kim (Allison Pill) has the facial chops to pull off the seething cauldron of rage and resentment that threatens to bubble over at any moment. Scott himself is dating a high schooler – 17-year old Knives Chau – because he wouldn’t get any play otherwise. Though he wants to hang out with her, and they have a simpatico ninja-ass kicking video game technique, it’s awkwardly apparent that the power dynamic between them is WAY off. In one moment, Scott literally freezes his affections towards Knives until she obsequiously puts more quarters into their arcade game then he continues as if she had done nothing wrong. Yeah, right away, I didn’t like Scott (the character, not Michael Cera), but I’m certain I wasn’t supposed to like him, otherwise how could he grow into a better person by the end? Thinking of it, the ladies of the film were actually far superior to the boys in every way, not only as characters, but also as actresses. Knives (Ellen Wong), Kim, Stacey (Anna Kendrick), and Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) are part of what I’m calling “Hit Girl Syndrome”: “when a secondary female character upstages the male lead in every scene.” (I’ve already submitted it to Urban Dictionary, bitches.)

I think the only current cultural obsession missing from the movie was zombies (seriously, it even had a bacon moment! I don’t think even Twilight had a bacon moment.), but it did have winged Japanese succubi in sailor outfits. Is that almost the same thing? Is Scott Pilgrim too, almost cynically, relevant?

What’s a meta for?

None of this movie is meant to be taken literally, postmodern bitches.

+8 Balls

It may not seem like it, but I enjoyed this film a lot. I could relate to the story and the difficulty of forming relationships in what is now the 128-bit digital age (yeah, the NES graphics are part of the metaphor, too.), and though I wasn’t moved by the characters, I was certainly touched by their woes. Had it been directed by anyone other than Edgar Wright, it would have been forgettable, maybe even terrible. But Wright brought all the charm of the comic book medium to the screen as literally as was possible, and in doing so kept the usual translation problems to a minimum. Perhaps Neil Gaiman should have a sit down with Wright before Anasi Boys goes into pre-production.

A-

cataphysical

from Joe Palmer’s review of Jon Macy’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Teleny and Camille:

Dear God-fearing gentlemen and ladies: It is with indignation burning in my breast that compels me to sound a clarion bell to forewarn the populace of a most horrifying book which has surfaced of late from the foulest recesses of the lowest levels of society. This novel, no this affront of debauchery, this “Teleny and Camille” has the telltale stamp of the once feted degenerate Oscar Wilde. This is no simple manuscript; accompanying the writing are illustrations depicting the lecherous adventures of these two young men as they indulge in unspeakable, lascivious and unnatural acts which are proven as the abhorrence of God and hallowed civilization. One might presume these debased drawings to be produced by Wilde’s occasional associate Aubrey Beardsley. Rather, they are the unholy work of one Jon Macy, and we feel he must be of equal standing to Wilde for so putting into form acts between these two men and others which should never be spoken of by good and righteous people. Never before has this upright person looked upon images of lanquor, of men in cataphysical couplings, declaring love to one another. It is a mockery of the natural order upon which our history rests! Mr. Macy, this one believes, should be sent to the gaol — gentle ladies, please avert your gaze as it is not our wish to offend — for sketching tumescent members and ample buttocks as if to be confused as supplications! Messers Macy and Wilde are denizens of whorish Babylon, as surely as their fetid imaginings!