ComicBookResources' "Homosexuality in Comics"

CBR's Homosexuality in Comics Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

i just skimmed through most of this. all three parts have a lot of little coming-out stories. if you've been gay for long enough, they all start to sound the same. mine is so generic i don't bother telling people anymore ("i always knew i was different, i just didn't know what kind of different...i came out to my parents in a letter in my second year of college...").

first, interesting choice with the title. "homosexuality" has a clinical feel to it, to me. i guess using "gay" or "queer" would bring up the negative connotations people (cavepeople, maybe) associate with those words.

i also thought lillian diaz-przbyl's comments on yaoi versus "gay comics" in japan were interesting. i'd really like to get my hands on these "gay comics" that are different from yaoi & yuri. i've never seen them. unless she's referring to shonen-ai or shoujo-ai comics? she specifically talks about how they're for different audiences in japan (yaoi for straight girls/women, "gay comics" for gay people). curious. the list of titles she's worked on for blu comics are kind of yucky to me--"loveless," with its NAMBLA overtones, not cool.

i guess the thing is that while i enjoy sex in comics, i generally balk at the formula in yaoi (i've had almost no luck finding yuri in america, unless "chirality" counts) with the older/younger, dominant/passive, seme/uke characters, and the rape-y sexual encounters and the invisible-penis thing, and nobody ever using lube!

anyway, back the the comicbookresources.com article on homosexuality in comics. pretty interesting sort of round-up of authors and titles that have dealt with gay characters.

i think they tried really hard to have stuff about both gay men and lesbians as represented in comics, but they only had two lesbians to talk about. it's also interesting that many of the gay men comic characters they talked about were in couples where both of them were superheroes.

i'm waiting to read part IV.

an article about trans characters would be interesting too.