Well, Now What?

A few thoughts as I approach the end of the sixth year of my project. I know I've been away a lot the last few years - honestly, it's been a pretty bad time. But we're all going through a bad time right now, and if you're reading this, like me you're at least fortunate enough to have access to the Internet to help you through what feels to me like the most stressful few years I've ever experienced. Well, on a communal level, perhaps.

I think that in stressful times we're driven by two equal but opposing forces. The one is to shutter ourselves in and ride out the storm, keeping our heads down. The other is to reach out and help each other up, keep one another from stumbling through the dark times we navigate. One of the great critiques of Capitalism, from day one, is the way in which it separates us, dehumanizes us, and makes us look out for number one. I keep seeing glimmers of the the better ways we could be. Like the poet says, "War is over, if you want it." Enough of us just have to want it. That's how change works. That's how Trump got a presidency.

Which has what, exactly, to do with a terminally-late blog about comics?

Everything, really. As writers, we take in and synthesize everything around us and then, in our work, present that synthesis publicly. Be it a 6-novel fantasy series or a three panel web comic, whatever is around us, whatever surrounds us in the Infosphere, is reflected and refracted in the work we produce. I think this is true of all work that humans do, though it may be easier to assess in artistic/creative outputs. But as far as the idea of the author goes, smarter guys than I have held forth about it. I find them pretty convincing.

And have you checked out our Infosphere recently?

(BTW, read about the Infosphere here, and about the informational entities called "Inforgs" that live in it. *sigh* I miss this kind of stuff.)

I'll add to this that I've been struggling to write due also to chronic pain. Fuck chronic pain. It sucks.

But I want to. I want to write, more than just my daily comic reviews, but so many other things, because where, oh where, if not on my own personal and maybe read by, like, 10 other people, blog, else can I write about these things? Or even talk about them?

It's more than that, though, really. It's taken me some time to crawl out from beneath the wreckage of my time in the PhD program at U of C. One of the things that's really helped me to put my head back together is realizing all of the good that came out of my time there, despite everything else. I love the language and the knowledge I have been given, the perspectives they've granted me on the world. I think that they make me a better person, in that I am so much happier with who I am now than I was, in retrospect, in the past. In it's own gross way, grad school also teaches you to have firmness of convictions that I never used to have, and definitely, definitely teaches you how to express those convictions in clear, though not always concise, terms. Witness this rambling blog post 🙄 So good came out of a time that I have for many years characterized as one of the greatest failures of my life.

And what was good that came out of that time are things that I think are worth sharing. That was why I briefly taught college, worked for the museum. The things I learned in university are things that I think have enriched my existence, and I feel like I ought to share them with anyone and everyone who hasn't had the chance, desire, or privilege, of going to university themselves. I don't think that they're ideas that ought to be confined to the forum of the university. And, to finally get to the point, I honestly think the best way for me to share these ideas is through writing about comics.

Fuck the Infosphere. Fuck what it's telling us about the shit state of the world. We make the world. We do. And if enough of us want a thing, it'll happen. I think that, perhaps, as writers it is incumbent on us to be painfully aware of the Infosphere and to write despite its contents, rather than as a result of them.

Okay. If you've sat through all that, thank you, you're a trooper. I promise that whenever I hold forth like this, I will finish off with some comics-related stuff. That's what you're here for, after all.

READ THE ORLANDO/ACO/PETRUS/BLANCO run of Midnighter and Midnighter and Apollo, now and for always some of the greatest, gayest comics I've ever read. If you've been reading my erstwhile blog, you know I love the series, the former running 12 issues, and its 6-issue follow-up. The solo series is part action movie and part queer rom-com. It's fucking great and real and sexy and so, so well written and rendered. If you're on the lookout for a queer writer of comics, Steve Orlando is worth checking out. His run on Supergirl for "Rebirth" is excellent, and he cemented himself in my heart when he co-wrote the Milk Wars crossover with Gerard Way and the Doom Patrol. The follow-up, Midnighter and Apollo is, simply put, a great romantic quest story. Just great. The series has caught enough of my attention that I'm putting together a list of Mr. Orlando's previous stuff to check out. He's a very, very good writer, and he knows how to write queer stories.

Okay. The 40 Years Project will get somewhat more on track, but not daily, for sure. But other stuff, too. More stuff. I have so many ideas and if I get them out of my head then there's space for the others.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1951 - 1956

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 My apologies. I'm feeling thoroughly burned out, so we're just going to have to have a catch-up post. Each of these comics was really excellent in it's own right, even the early days 90s X-Men annual. Both Omaha and Junkwaffel are worth tracking down, particularly Bode's comic. There really has been very little like him in comics, before or since, excepting, of course, his son. I'll endeavour to get back to posting more regularly. Habits are, sometimes, so easy to break out of.

Just as a reminder, these comics are rounding out my reading of works by queer creators and works by Black creators. And regardless of how I may feel about the particular story, or genre, or era, each of these works is expertly rendered and is a vital part of the larger conversation that is comics.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1950: Calibrations #1, June 1996

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Today's featured creator, Marc Andreyko, takes on in today's comic a fascinating character in queer literary history: Peter Pan. Since its earliest appearances on stage, the character has been played by a woman, including the very first stage performance in 1904. I'm not 100% certain what to make of a character who refuses to grow up who is always played on stage by a woman (though not in film?) - I can see the choice being a logistical one, in that a woman has the maturity to play the role and the voice to carry off a pre-pubescent boy. But there's also something to be said for a character that has been so significant in English literature, and in English Children's Literature, a specifically-male character, having such strong ties to women. Optimistically, I think it offers a way of parsing, in a century vehemently opposed to any kind of  questioning of the gender binary, the breakdown of traditional gender roles. Even the fact of the character being a "role" that a woman inhabits offers a place to start an interesting conversation about gender roles.

All that said, the Peter Pan that we encounter in today's story, a sneak peek at a longer series, does not seem particularly happy with the actress playing him on stage. Indeed, he becomes quite murderous about it, it's hinted in the final few panels, even screaming out his fury over girls playing him on stage. Is this Peter the toxically masculine, come to take what he thinks is revenge for his emasculation? Sadly, I've no idea. I may well see about tracking the series down, especially if Jill Thompson, who illustrates today's short story, continues to be involved.

More to follow.

Caliber is such an interesting publisher. Generally pretty high quality stuff.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1949: Vertigo Visions: The Geek - Corruption of the Innocent, 1993

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I've written of today's featured creator, the fantastic Ms. Rachel Pollack. I've always said her run on Doom Patrol is severely underrated, and the fact of her being a major creator during the early Vertigo years and also being a trans woman working in comics at that time is one of the more significant moments, to me, in the history of our beloved medium.

That said, and as I noted when I read Ms. Pollack's other entry into the Vertigo Visions series, I wasn't a huge fan of this story. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. I enjoyed the story - it's a hallucinatory and twisting tale of Brother Power and his corruption by ever more brutal media, and is perhaps slightly dated in that it was written before the explosion of new media in our culture. Though in some ways that also serves the story of Brother Power, who was created as a weird hippy superhero in 1968, and who was virtually absent from the DCU in the intervening 30ish years. What I think is the problem is that it's a difficult story, as is Tomahawk, and difficult stories need to be re-read. Mike Allred is a master of metaphorical storytelling, as evidenced in his adaptation of The Golden Plates, and Ms. Pollack's deep understanding of Tarot and the way images can shape our futures combines with her expression of transness in her work to produce something remarkable. But definitely not something easy.

Vertigo, more and more, is proving itself an imprint to which one needs to come back, over and over. There was really some very sophisticated storytelling going on, especially in the somewhat heady early days. These are very weird comics, and very important.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Links

Vertigo Comics were one of the reason I got back into comics. I think their early period is really some of the absolute best comics gets.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1948: Troll Halloween Special #1, 1994

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(Sorry, dropped the ball a bit. Last day of Pride Month, figure I should finish this up ;D)

 

 

 

 

 It betrays in me a prejudice that I was surprised to see a comic from early Extreme Studios that was written by a gay man. Then I really thought about the kind of spandex-clad hypermasculinity on display in a lot of these titles' art, and I thought about that time that Riptide scandalously posed for a porn magazine, and how similar, if not in execution then in stylization, a lot of this work is to Tom of Finland. (Definitely, absolutely 100% NSFW)

So there's that. Today's featured creator is Andy Mangels who, in his Wikipedia picture, has the most epic of mustaches. A quick poke about my collection reveals that he's the writer one of The Maxx's other appearances outside of his own title, which is an interesting niche for someone to inhabit. That story was in Gay Comics #24, which I reviewed a while back. Perhaps Maxx is one of those characters I'm going to have to track down a bit more. Anyway, a surreal little tale, as one might expect from a crossover of The Maxx with Extreme Studios' Wolverine clone. I'll admit, I come to like Troll later in his history. Alan Moore's re-writing, and then Brandon Graham's look at his future, all make these zany adventures from early Image slightly more sinister, and slightly more poignant.

That said, there's always going to be something sinister in a story that involves The Maxx and his cohorts. The Maxx, the series, is very dark, as was the super-awesome cartoon that used to air on MTV.

For Mr. Mangels, I am actually surprised that I haven't got more of his stuff in the collection - he seems much more familiar than just 2 issues in all these comics. I'm certain I'll run across more stuff as I fill in the gaps in my database information.

 

(Oh, and it's inked by Pedi, who did one of the best issues of the old Supreme series!)

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Links

If you like Troll, here's one of his few other solo comics, another seasonal outing!

And if you want to get an idea of what this character actually is, read the masterful future saga that is Prophet.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1947: Clive Barker's Hellraiser #9, 1991

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 As I sat to write today's post, I cast my mind back over the various Hellraiser films that I've seen, and I couldn't for the life of me think of any queer characters in any of them. Not that I've watched all of them (but they're on the list, I love the setting), but I'm pretty sure that the sex that is linked to pain in these films is all hetero. And given the links between the BDSM community that inspired the looks of the films and the queer community, you'd think it would be a no-brainer. Except, sadly, it would also likely alienate a large portion of the audience for these films.

Setting that depressing fact aside, today's featured creator is someone that I think will go down in history as one of the great queer creators of our time, Lana Wachowski. Honestly, The Matrix and Sense8 have to rank up there as some of the best pieces of media we've seen in the new millennium (I know The Matrix is 1999, but I think it presciently grabbed hold of our current zeitgeist). Sense8 is perhaps the best metaphorical articulation yet of how we ought to be reshaping our social systems, and The Matrix, no matter how many times I watch it, fills me with the fires of revolution. Ms. Wachowski got started, however, writing for the various Clive Barker properties that were under the aegis of Epic Comics in the early 90s. Indeed, it's somewhat fitting that the story that she writes here is called "Closets." The tale, of an abusive mother and her child, uses one form of violence to articulate an other - the damage done to the child in the story, his being locked in a closet, ends up corrupting him despite his escape from the Cenobites and Hell. Those of us who grew up in closets can perhaps see what the story is trying to say. In an interview with The Mary Sue, Lana's sister Lilly acknowledges that re-watching The Matrix from the point of view of the two creators' transness shows how the film is addressing that part of their lives, and of the lives of closeted queer people. I think in future we're going to have a lot of pieces of media that have to be read this way. Just as we might go back and read George Eliot from the perspective of a woman hiding in a man's world, we'll see stories told that must be considered from the point of view of the hidden queerness of the creators.

Who else was in this issue, though? The Hellraiser books are anthologies, brimming with talent, really. Two of my featured creators from the recent past, Denys Cowan and Dwayne McDuffie grace these pages, and Miran Kim, who illustrates Ms. Wachowski's story, is of Korean descent. Add to this some bloody (literally) brilliant painted artwork, and one can see how this series lasted as long as it did. If you're a fan of the franchise, this is one of the few times that I've seen an adaptation be almost as effective as the source material.

One last note, as I'm celebrating queer creators right now, is that Clive Barker is also queer, having come out in the mid-90s. I remember the furor over it, but I wish I could remember how I, personally, felt about it.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

I've read a bit more from Epic Comics for the project, including the very queer-sounding Steelgrip Starkey and the All-Purpose Power Tool.

And since Ms. Wachowski and her sister are, primarily, filmmakers, here's some thoughts I've had on movies.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1946: Captain America #7, May 1997

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Another shout-out today to Joe Phillips - if you didn't have a look at his website when I spoke about him last week, you really ought to. Just frickin' glorious art, and so fabulously gay!

I am dying to see a gay Captain America. Can you imagine the ruckus from the fanboys? There's an interesting moment in this comic, one that has played out in numerous Captain America stories from the past, in which Cap questions whether his allegiance is to a government or to a country. I wonder if the choice has to be muddied a bit with a third option: an ideal. It has always seemed to me that Captain America stands for the ideal of America, not the brutal, racist state that currently exists. But once we go back and interrogate the Founding Fathers and their notions a bit, can we even begin to talk about an "ideal" America? If disparity and inequality are baked in at the most fundamental, original levels, how does one go about dismantling that system? More likely, and more what we're seeing now, is the tearing the system down as unrecoverable, and starting again.

I am dying to see what happens, even more so than I am for a gay Captain America. But that's the thing, right? If Cap is to stand for the ideal of America, then he ought to be queer. And of mixed descent. Child of immigrants. The blond haired, blue eyed ubermensch is a bit Nazi ideal, really. In fact, were I to have my way, I think I'd rewrite Captain America as a team of individuals, or have it as an identity that floats from person to person, always where it is needed to right one of the injustices that have become the fabric of daily American life.

But seriously, go have a look at Mr. Phillips' work. It's so great.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

Here's a few more things that I've written about Captain America.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1945: Batman #13, January 2013

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I am notoriously anti-Batman. While I'll admit that there are some amazing runs on the character out there, Peter Milligan's amongst the best. But there's such an overabundance of the character in comics and other media. I feel the same way about Wolverine. I think that it's the fact that these are characters who skirt the edges of anti-heroism so closely that they fulfill the inner belief that we all have a badass inside us who is willing to do whatever it takes to save the day. To me, mediocre stories of these characters, of which there are many, are similar to action films - lots of kicking and punching and little substance.

Which is why it's nice to get writers on a project who care more about telling a story than they do about satisfying a weirdly-strangled bloodlust in so many comics fans. Scott Snyder tells the main story in this issue, a nice return of the Joker piece (there must be a number of them - perhaps I'll try a comparison some time). I've heard nothing but great things about Mr. Snyder's run on this character. Perhaps when, or if, work picks up again, I'll have to invest in the trades. But today's featured writer is Mr. Snyder's co-conspirator on some of the Batman stuff, James Tynion IV. This comic is only one of two pieces I have by Mr. Tynion, which actually highlights an interesting disparity in my collection. Much as I have with music, I find I've stuck myself in an era with comics. I don't buy nearly as many, nor do I know the writers and artists who are popular now. Gah. That makes me sound old. That said, Mr. Tynion's tale of Harley in this issue is lovely. Her relationship with the Joker has always mystified me - it can only work if Harley is truly, completely insane, but more often than not she's portrayed that way. In Harley I actually see something of the fan of Batman who simply buys everything to do with Batman because he's BATMAN!!! - there's no critical interrogation, just adulation. But Harley sees past that, eventually, thank goodness.

Anyway, Mr. Tynion is another of my peeps, a bi dude, and it's so, so nice to see more and more representation - I find these days that I ruminate a lot on my early life, and the way I had to hide, and in a lot of ways fully deny, a whole side of my self. I'm not hidden about it anymore, though there are still times when I feel I have to be careful - starting a new job is always a stressful time. But as more and more people in the spotlight are open about being bisexual, I feel like I regain a little bit of what I lost as a kid.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

For another truly amazing Batman run, have a look at John Ostrander's tale of Simon Petrarch, the Batman!

And, of course, there's Grant Morrison's epic run on the character.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1944: Amazing Adventures #31, July 1975

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I feel like if you're a comics fan and you don't know the art of P. Craig Russell, then you need to do yourself a favour and educate yourself. Today's featured creator is one of the most dynamic and innovative comics artists out there. No one lays out a page like Mr. Russell, and no one tells a story in the way he can. And, according to his wiki entry, he was the first comics creator to openly come out as gay. I can't access the article in which this is stated, but I'll give the wiki the benefit of the doubt.

I'll say this: even if you didn't know he was gay, you'd have an inkling after reading this comic. There's so much more attention lavished on the male bodies than on the female ones here. That's not to say that the women aren't present in the story, just that the men are prominent in the story. This is an early series for Mr. Russell, and as he moves through the 80s and 90s I find his work becomes slightly more stylized, but also more confident. His adaptation of Wagner's entire Ring cycle is a beauty to behold, though it's sometimes a bit of a slog. Maybe I'm just not an opera fan.

While there isn't any explicit homosexuality in this comic, given it's a mainstream comic from teh mid-70s, there is a remarkable amount of homosociality. Mr. Russell's art illustrates the story and words of Don McGregor, whose work I've spoken highly of in the past. Mr. McGregor, to me, demonstrates an interesting precursor to ally-ship in a very specific forum. His comics celebrate diversity in ways that I don't think any other comics were at the time. Both of these creators really bear some attention, more than they have been given, I think.

One other thing came of my reading this comic - I think I'm going to have to track down all the issues. I've only ever read the entirety of the Killraven saga in the Marvel Essential series, which reprints in black and white. While you still get the story, it's hard to really appreciate the beauty of the setting and the characters without some colour. That's my feeling, anyway. So Amazing Adventures joins the original run of Man-Thing on my list of old comics that I just need to get.

More to follow.

 Further Reading and Related Posts

I've read a few other bits of Mr. Russell's work in the project. He always brings a remarkable beauty to whatever publication he's involved in. 

And Don McGregor is really a great writer. I think he's worth checking out.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1943: Head #2, September 2002

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Been a while since I needed a jump...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1942: The Age of the Sentry #3, January 2009

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Today's featured creator, Colleen Coover, won my heart with her amazing, amazing girlie porno series Small Favors. As I was looking for comics to read to celebrate my LGBTQ+ family, I was delighted to come upon her name and this excellent faux-history romp with the Sentry.

For a moment when I was reading the second story, illustrated by Ms. Coover and written by her partner Paul Tobin, I was a little mystified as to why the story was so, so straight. On the one hand, it's definitely because it's a mainstream superhero comic from about 10 years ago, when they weren't quite ready to have so much queerness on display. But then I also thought about the fact that Ms. Coover, according to her wiki, identifies as Bisexual. We're a mysterious breed, we bis, sometimes accused of greed, sometimes of not existing at all. But we exist, and persist, and as a bisexual creator, Ms. Coover is going to create some art that, sometimes, doesn't look very queer at all. I think in these cases, we have to read a little more deeply into both art and words, to see if there is a different inflection to the heterosexual stories that are told by bisexual creators. How do we identify them as bisexual stories?

And, really, do we need to?

More to follow. 

Further Reading and Related Posts

I've got a couple of other posts about Ms. Coover's work here.

And there's some other stuff about The Sentry here.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1941: Afterlife with Archie #1, December 2013

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Let's just put it out there, shall we? I'm no fan of Riverdale. I thought the first season was a touching tribute and melding of Twin Peaks and Archie Comics, two giants in the establishment of American media. I do not like the direction the show went with Jughead, though creator Roberto Aguiree-Sacasa, today's featured writer, has a history of making Juggie's story a strange one. Witness Afterlife with Archie.

Now, I should also say that I have emotions surrounding this series as Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa left us, mid-story, to go and work on the aforementioned Riverdale and it's increasingly dubious seasons. Mid-story. That's a tough one to forgive, especially given it's the success of this comic that helped him to secure the position of Chief Creative Officer at Archie Comics. It gives me the same feeling as when Neil Gaiman all but abandoned comics after Sandman. Now, it is possible that, in Gaiman's case at least, he had told the story he wanted to in comics, and good enough. Admittedly, his occasional returns to comics haven't ever quite had the same magic as The Sandman. But it's the mid-story bit that really gets me with this series.

And let me be clear: this is easily one of the best series I've ever read. It proves that the Archie characters can translate believably to any genre, as far as I'm concerned, and Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa and his artistic partner-in-crime Francesco Francavilla pull it off beautifully. There's just enough Cthulhu stuff, blended nicely, with a great premise that, despite what I said earlier about Jughead stories, is really perfect. Who else but Jughead, with an appetite to shame the gods, is better suited to be a flesh-craving zombie? It's a truly creepy and inspired piece of writing, though I have been told by people from other countries that it didn't impact them as much as it might those of us who grew up reading Archie. In a lot of ways, it's a comics readers' comic.

So where do I end up standing? Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa, who brings his talents as a playwright to these comics we love dearly,  writes great comics. He's been involved in some projects I've enjoyed, amongst them my beloved Man-Thing, but I'd really like to know how the truncated storyline, "Betty, R.I.P." turns out. Understandably.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

If you're interested in more of Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa's work, have a look at these posts.

And if you're an Archie fan, here's all the stuff I've had to say about that venerable gentleman and his publishing empire.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1940: The Abominations #1, December 1996

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 I'm going to use yesterday's post about Joe Phillips to springboard into a couple of weeks of queer creators in comics, just so I feel like I've done my bit for Pride, as we definitely won't be having our parade and celebration, not in the same way, this September. I've spent the last couple of weeks pouring through the collection, so once I'm done this little hiatus into the gay world, I've decided to get back to featuring POC creators in comics from as broad a spectrum as I can. We're at a turning point, I think, if we can just be brave enough to actually make the turn. My job, as I see it, is to show other people why that turn is worth making.

Today's featured creator is Ivan Velez, Jr., a gay Latinx man who has spent a large amount of his time in comics pushing for diversity. According to his wiki entry, his first comics were about queer kids in the Bronx, back in the 80s, and his devotion to demonstrating both gendered and heritage-based diversity in comics hasn't disappeared. I wondered, as I opened this comic that I have absolutely no context for, aside from Mr. Velez's identification, whether there would be coded queer language, and how that would present itself. I needn't have worried. The language isn't coded - it's clear. Not even 10 pages in, Sleek, one of the main characters, is in conversation with Po, about how cool Po (who is male-identified) can be under pressure, to which Sleek (also a male-identifying character) adds, through thought bubble, "That's why I love you so much." As I say, I have no in-universe context for this comic or the characters, so this might simply be a familial or brotherly bond, but given the context of Mr. Velez, I'm going straight (see what I did there?) to the gay.

I really enjoy talking about queerness in mainstream comics. It's something that I am pretty sure went right over my head as a kid, but there really is a lot of representation, and a lot of subversive representation, in the mainstream. I like to think it's because the heterosexual censors at the top simply had no idea of the kind of language that queer people used to communicate with one another, a lesson that the original Danny the Street from Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol makes plain. Coded language has always been used by oppressed minorities. I probably shouldn't, but I find such joy in noticing it, and then noticing that it must have flown right past the hawkish, straight eyes of the Comics Code.

That is all to say that the queer characters in this comic are not hidden. At least, not from us. They may be hiding things from themselves, but that's a fundamental part of the queer story. Mr. Velez Jr. will definitely be showing up again in coming days. I'll have to keep an eye out for rainbows in his work.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

I just linked to this the other day, but here's my writing on queerness in comics. It's probably a part of the blog, and project, of which I'm most proud.

And since The Abominations hails from stories of the Hulk, here's the Hulk stuff I've written on the blog.

Doom Patrol: The Case of Kate Godwin and Rachel Pollack

Every year, around the end of August, Calgary prepares for the long, grey Winter by sprouting rainbows. The city's annual Pride March takes place on the Labour Day Weekend, and, speaking as a Calgarian, it really is the last hurrah before the leaves turn, fall, and, to quote a recent Autumn hashtag, cronch beneath our feet. During this festive season, I've had the privilege the last few years to give a talk at the Memorial library about queerness in mainstream comics. I look forward to it every year.

This year, I had some wonderful conversations with some wonderful people and ended up promising to expand on some of the topics I introduced in a series of blog posts. But 2019 turned out to be a difficult year for me, and some things, sadly, fell by the wayside.

But no longer, I say!

Welcome to the first in a series that will cover some of the topics I touch on in the talk, and will (hopefully) spark some new ideas and conversations. One of the things I was constantly told while pursuing my PhD at the U of C is that mainstream comics aren't important. They're not worth the time and rigour of academic inquiry. I tried very hard to fight that attitude, but was ultimately unsuccessful. This is where I will prove those voices wrong. Don't worry, this won't become hardcore academic criticism (though I do love some of that), but I'll demonstrate some of the ways that I see that mainstream comics are deeply and profoundly connected to our culture.

Enough of that. On to Ms. Pollack and Ms. Godwin.

Rachel Pollack, a novelist and tarot expert, took over scripting of the DC Comics series Doom Patrol with Issue #64 in April 1993*, replacing outgoing writer Grant Morrison, and inaugurating the title into DC's highly-successful Vertigo imprint. Morrison's run was, and still is, lauded for its complexity and maturity, and has gone on to be the paragon by which all subsquent, and antecedant, runs have been measured. By many, anyway. Regardless, this was a huge pair of shoes to fill, and Ms. Pollack, as the legend goes, won the job through a tireless process of letter-writing to the editorial staff. She obviously had a story she wanted to tell.

Her run, until the series' end with #87 is not the most popular of the team's incarnations, though there are subtle references to her stories in the new DC Universe Doom Patrol television series. Who is the fox indeed, Cliff? The conclusion I find myself coming to about the run is that it is a series of stories that are too far ahead of their time. Ms. Pollack and company are telling stories in these 20-ish issues that are charting waters only now being dipped into by mainstream comics.

I should, perhaps, mention that Rachel Pollack is a transwoman.

Writing mainstream superhero comics.

In the early 90s.

Her stories delve into sexuality and femininity, moving Dorothy Spinner into the foreground, but most importantly, to me, they introduce a character who is, as far as I'm aware, the first transgender superhero in a mainstream superhero universe. And I mean without all of the retcons to historical stories. I mean from a creative point of view, the first. That's a big deal. And Kate Godwin, a.k.a. Coagula, is just the best. Her origin ties intimately (in two senses) to the Doom Patrol, Kate gaining her powers after a sexual liaison with Rebis, the intersex negative being from the Patrol's previous incarnation. She has the power to fuse or to dissolve anything, and her first foray with the Doom Patrol involves a paragon of toxic masculinity in super villain form, the Codpiece. I recently read an article calling for the Codpiece to be introduced into the television series, and if they can make Beard Hunter work, they can make anything work as far as I'm concerned.

So just to recap, we've got a trans writer creating the first trans superhero in the oldest continuous mainstream superhero universe.

Kate's relationship with Cliff continues an arc for his character coming to terms with what exactly gender is, in that he has no secondary sexual characteristics, just the memory of them. These sorts of issues of gender and sexuality might be becoming commonplace in superhero comics these days, but  27 years ago, that was certainly not the case. Later story arcs delve into Tarot and the Kabbalah, preceding Alan Moore's mainstream treatment of those topics early in Promethea in the 21st century. It is, perhaps, her affinity for the Tarot that gave her run on Doom Patrol a kind of comic book prescience. And if you want to know where your queer superheroes come from, you can't forget Kate Godwin.

 

Kate's story does not, however, have a particularly spectacular end. In a later incarnation of the title by writer John Arcudi, it is revealed that Kate was killed during a camping trip by Dorothy Spinner's out of control powers. She has never, as far as I know, been brought back in any of the subsequent DC universal reboots. Fingers crossed for next time.

The Pollack run has never been collected, but, honestly, it's not hard to find and usually quite cheap. There was supposed to be a compilation of it in 2018, but it was cancelled without any excuse. With the TV show's success, that might not be the case any longer, but I honestly can't imagine them delving into that era anytime soon. Then again, I never expected them to actually do the De-Creator and Danny the Street stories either, but they did, and they did them spectacularly. Perhaps some bandage ghosts, ice box Niles, and even Kate herself could be on the way.

Ms. Pollack continues to write in comics, recently with Ahoy Comics, and wrote some other mainstream titles for DC, including a run on The New Gods with co-writer Tom Peyer, another favourite of mine. That one's proving a bit more difficult to track down, but that's what collecting is all about!

Some further reading and links:

Rachel Pollack’s Influence on DC Comics is Still Being Felt Today

DOOM PATROL, New Gods, Old Gods, & A FISSURE KING: The RACHEL POLLACK Interview

Rachel Pollack at the Grand Comics Database

 

*comic publication dates are often 3 months ahead of the actual publication date, harkening back as far as I know to the date on the comic actually being when a news agent was supposed to remove the issue from the racks.

The irony has not escaped me.

Our boyfriend came for a visit this week, and there's been very little extra time. Catching up now.

Here.

Have some articles I've written for CBR lately:

Archie Comics Celebrates National Coming Out Day with It Gets Better Project

AMC Theaters Bans Man for Life Over Joker Prank

Valiant's Quantum & Woody Return With New Creative Team in 2020

Serpent War Introduces An Obscure Robert E Howard Hero to the Marvel U

Tom Talks about Comics

After my talk on queer comics last weekend, I was interviewed by Kristen Fong for City. Here's the story:

https://www.660citynews.com/video/2019/08/24/a-closer-look-at-queer-representation-in-comics/

Some suggestions for queer comics to read...

I gave a talk at the Memorial Library in Calgary this weekend as part of the kick-off celebrations for Pride this year. I love doing this event. When else is a comic-geek like me given 2 FULL HOURS to talk to a captive audience about comics?

It's a really great chance to meet other readers and collectors, people dipping their toes back into comics after years absent, creators, and the merely curious. I like to think we have a good time and get a chance to talk about comics from a perspective that's interesting to all of us.

I promised a list to this year's audience of titles that I mentioned in the presentation, and some others, that I think are interesting parts of the history of queerness in comics. I welcome any suggestions, for sure. This is a history that is fascinating to uncover.

The earliest stuff I mentioned was Marston's original Wonder Woman stuff. There's lots of reprint volumes, depending on how high quality a reproduction you're looking for. Very cool, and much more readable than I find many Golden Age comics.

A recent discovery, for me at least, is David Anthony Kraft's Defenders #48-50 arc featuring Scorpio - I recently read an interview with Kraft where he says he was trying to subtly suggest that Scorpio was gay. To be honest, from a contemporary perspective, it's not that subtle.

Must mention Northstar in Alpha Flight, of course.

The next section dealt with Vertigo. I'll just list the titles. It's hard to go wrong with early Vertigo in general, though be warned that it's often dark and quite violent.

Sandman Mystery Theatre (specifically #13-16, "The Vamp") - Seagle, Wagner, Davis
Enigma #1-8 - Milligan and Fegredo
2020 Visions (specifically #4-6, "La Tormenta") - Delano and Pleece
Doom Patrol (specifically #64-88) - Rachel Pollack and others

I didn't mention quite a lot of Vertigo titles. There's The Sandman, The Invisibles, Lucifer, lots of really great stuff.

21st Century starts to get copious.

Kevin Keller #1, I still think, is one of the most important queer comics. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, all-American Kevin Keller is gay, out, and headlining his own comic in Riverdale for goodness' sake! I've always thought Archie Comics were a pretty great publisher. They're not afraid to change and shift with the times. That's the secret of their success.

Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams' Batwoman in Detective Comics is a beautiful piece of art, a challenging and tense narrative, and a queer woman headlining one of the most revered superhero comics titles in the history of the medium. You can't go wrong, honestly. Can't wait to see the television series this Fall.

Other stuff: The Infinite Loop from IDW publishing, Small Favors by Colleen Coover.

I'd recommend anything from the Young Animal imprint at DC. Though I haven't read Bug yet, the first wave of titles is highly recommended, with Doom Patrol and Shade, the Changing Girl being particular favourites for me. Eternity Girl is amazing too. I just pick this stuff up on principle now. I've never been disappointed.

And I think that's it. I'll see if I can upload the presentation for those who might be interested. And I'll be back to updating in the next couple of days. Gotta recover from the vacation ;D

An Extra Mile: Mile High Comics and Drag

The link between comics and queerness has always been there, all the way back to the early days of the superhero. One of the execrable Wertham's contentions was that Batman and Robin promoted homosexuality, though he saw that as a bad thing, rather than the positive representation it really is. The idea of the secret identity has also always been a huge point of identification for queer people, as this New Yorker article about the venerable Stonewall Inn asserts.

But we're moving beyond the realm of secret identities these days. You'll notice that the majority of MCU characters have public identities. I've an inkling that this links, partially, to the cultural acceptance (not universal, I know) of different affectional orientations. We don't need to hide ourselves to protect those we love, and, of course, ourselves.

I wrote an article a little while ago for CBR on a break-in at Mile High Comics in Denver, easily one of the great comic shops on the planet, and while doing research for the article, came across something else, something amazing. Mile High Comics founder Chuck Rozanski has decided to open his warehouse up as an all-ages drag venue to support kings and queens who are barred from the bar scene in the city:

https://www.westword.com/arts/mile-high-comics-founder-chuck-rozanski-opens-a-new-chapter-as-bettie-pages-11241962

https://www.westword.com/arts/mile-high-comics-kicks-off-monthly-all-ages-drag-show-in-style-11255134

This is phenomenal on a number of levels. First, simply the fact of proclaiming this into an industry that's suffering some real diversity backlash of late (looking squarely at you, Comicsgaters) takes superhero-level courage. Mr. Rozanski, or rather, Ms. Pages, donning their secret identity out in public is a rallying cry for all of us who still feel the weight of silence on our shoulders. Second, this kind of support for queer youth, especially in as divided a place as the United States, is vital beyond vital. One of the foci for the Outliers exhibit (this is it's last weekend at Lougheed House, so get out and see it!) was on the connection to queer youth - only by creating these connections can we strengthen the voice of the community. The All-Ages Drag Show is a brilliant, beautiful, and thoroughly fabulous way of making this connection.

Bob Rozanski, Ms. Bettie Pages, comics hero and queer icon!

Giant Box of Television: The Doom Patrol

SPOILER ALERT for Doom Patrol, y'know, in general. (Seriously, if you've ever read my blog you should know that I'll talk about Doom Patrol and I just don't care. It came out in the 80s and it's on you if you haven't read it yet.)

(Saucy sometimes, aint' I?)

First things first. No, the first season isn't done yet. Yes, I'm watching it illegally, because it's not available in Canada, and it's the fucking Doom Patrol so I'm not going to not watch it.

The latest episode, "Danny Patrol," had me weeping.

I'm doing a project right now with the Calgary Queer Arts Society, one that draws heavily on a remarkable archive of material that the Society has received over the years. It's quite a privilege, I think, to be able to sift through something like this, and I hope our eventual exhibit (the dates of which I'll post here when I can remember them ;D) gives people an idea of not only the history of Calgary's queer communities, but also what an archive like this can do. The idea of deploying this group of objects into a physical space takes what is often a very cerebral experience and makes it tactile. I'm excited to hear peoples' reactions to it.

Here's the thing: a lot of this stuff is really wonderful and fabulous. Calgary's queer culture is amazing, this chaotic collision of fashion, action, and love. But a lot of it is hard to read. Really hard to read.

There is so much death. And so many people who wished death upon us. As much as this archive is an archive of joy, it's also an archive of despair. Of desperate howls into the void, begging only to be allowed to love free of persecution.

It is also an archive of hate, in a literal sense. There is writing in there that can only be called hate literature. I honestly am not sure what to write about that. How people can hate like that is beyond me, well and truly. And I am so grateful that that's the case. It's an important thing to keep close to the rest of the material, though. It offers something that history can often lack: context.

What, you might ask, does this have to do with The Doom Patrol?

I supposed I should put a SPOILER ALERT for both the show and the comic here.

Today's episode showed a place where everyone who ever felt like they didn't belong, or were made to feel like they didn't belong, had a place, a home, a warm embrace, an acceptance. And you know what? It reminded me of the drag shows I go to. It reminded me of the parties and the parades, and the festival at the end of Pride. It reminded me of my chosen family, the people here who I love so much.

And that's when it struck me, when I started crying. I first read of Danny the Street in 1996, as I tracked down Grant Morrison's run on the comic. Danny is genderqueer, uses they/them pronouns, and is, literally, a street. I can only imagine what the comic store on Danny the Street would be like. I knew from the first that that was where I belonged. When Danny became...well, what they become which I won't say just in case there's someone looking for clues, I knew that was where I belonged. 23 years later, I'm so happy to find glimpses of Danny the Street, be it in a bar or a backyard.

End SPOILER, if you want to join us again!

How this also all comes together is that the archive I'm working with is, fundamentally, an archive of resistance, of perseverance in the face of overwhelming adversity. In this way, it is also a living archive, one that expands through time and geography. Today's Doom Patrol episode is also about resistance, about standing up and being proud of who you are, and of never letting anyone else tell you what you can and cannot be. There was even a nice big musical number!

(Honestly, DC television, between Doom Patrol, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl, is kinda killing it with the queer representation. It's honestly one of the best things in my life that we have good, queer superhero shows.)

One other thing occurs to me in the wake of this series: what must Grant Morrison be thinking? To see his work treated so reverently? To see that the world appears to finally be, 30 years after he first told us about being human in The Doom Patrol, catching up. Like the people who wrote in the magazines I've been reading, in the newspapers and comics, and in the letters and coronation guides and zines, I think he'd be happy, proud even, to see how far we've come, but disappointed, too, at how far we still have to go.

I used to end my 40 Years of Comics Project columns with the word "Onward." It seems more appropriate here.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1278: All Canadian Beaver Comix, 1973

As I delve back into the underground, we'll have to hide this particular cover.