The Four Color Media Monitor

The Long Beach Press-Telegram wrote a fawning article about homosexuality making its way into mainstream:

As a gay, Latino man, Steven H. Garcia never saw himself in comic books growing up.

“I really didn’t identify with many of the characters,” the Long Beach resident said.

But that is changing. As popular television shows and films are successfully working to incorporate more gay characters into their projects, one segment of a rising and popular movement is slowly working to obtain more recognition.

Garcia is part of that revolution; he creates gay comic-based characters and pin-ups, and writes a regular column in Gay Entertainment Director Magazine called “Nerd Invasion.”

Let's see if I have this right: there've been Latino protagonists in mainstream, Bonita Juarez (Firebird) being the most notable character I can think of now, and all he cared about is whether they were LGBT? Sigh. I looked at the pictures the paper provided of the man's work, and they look like some of the most ludicrous, slovenly and self-indulgent ideas I've ever seen, a few which look pretty sexualized.

He said it was difficult growing up with a love of a medium that is so hyper-masculine.

“I mean, it isn’t just an issue for gays. Even women have a problem with it when everything is so masculine and female characters are so sexualized,” he said.

Look who's talking! Somebody whose work includes more than a bit of sexualization from a gay perspective. No less bewildering is why a gay man has issues with "hyper-masculine" when that's what you'd think somebody of his mindset actually likes! What a baffler indeed.

While there have been openly gay heros in Marvel and DC for decades, it isn’t until recent years that there has been more of a spotlight on LGBT characters.

Decades? Seriously? It's only been about 2 or 3, and they make it sound more like 6 or 7.

Maker’s Bent-Con was in its second year when arguably the largest and most recognized company depicted its first same-sex marriage in a comic.

“That was a pretty big deal,” said Garcia.

The marriage of Northstar to his longtime partner Kyle Jinadu, in Astonishing X-Men No. 51, published June 27, 2012, spawned one of the most iconic comic book covers in recent years, with all of the X-Men showing up for their wedding.

In 1979, the character Northstar made his first appearance in Marvel Comics as part of the Canadian government-sponsored team Alpha Flight, who seeks to take Wolverine of the X-Men into custody. He is one of the first openly gay superheroes in American comic books, and the first openly gay character to come out in a book published by Marvel.

Interesting how they fail to mention that Northstar's "outing" couldn't have been more forced and sledgehammered, courtesy of Scott Lobdell, one of comicdom's worst writers, who tried something like that again several years later in the pages of X-Men, prior to Grant Morrison's run. In fact, it was just one reason why Alpha Flight's sales plummeted at the time, as readers came away feeling like their intellects had been insulted. But don't count on these MSM outlets to ever bring that up. The gay marriage in X-Men generated no significant sales, nor is the cover bound to be remembered as "iconic", let alone "classic".

A favorite and lead lesbian character in comics is Batwoman published by DC.

“She is just out there with her sexuality and just how much of a bad-ass she is,” Garcia said. “She is not afraid to do things her own way and that’s a great thing to see. It’s good to see these kinds of characters out there.”

The character Kathy Kane, who served in the United States Army during the era of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” became Batwoman after she was forced to leave the military when she is found to be in a relationship with another woman and is rescued by Batman. She then decides to take up the cowl as a vigilante.

That premise, coming some time after the 52 maxi-series where she first turned up, sounds pretty politicized alright. And again, look who's talking, the same man who says women are being sexualized in comics. That's what DC is doing with the new take on Batwoman too. In fact, this only proves the point of anybody who feels Kate Kane's lesbianism is the only reason for her being. Like many other articles of this sort, it's more concerned with "diversity" than talented writing, which is grossly absent in today's medium.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful artists, indie publishers, marvel comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics