At GalleyCat, Ron Hogan follows up on word of the homoerotic subtext (text?) of Devin Grayson’s Inheritance novel — in which Aquaman and Green Arrow dwell on Tempest’s good looks, and Nightwing feels Batman’s hot breath — and asks Grayson, well, How the hell did that happen?
So I shot off an email to Grayson and asked her how this all happened. She reminded me that as one of the comic book industry’s few openly bisexual women creators, she’s enjoyed working queer material into her stories throughout her career. “That said, I am also a contract worker when at DC crafting stories with licensed characters,” she explained, “and my job at that time is to stick pretty close to previously established interpretations and guidelines, which is a necessary and satisfying aspect of this kind of work. In the licensed publication novels, we have more room, permission, and need than we usually do in the comics to explore character back story and culture.” Despite that additional freedom, she’s careful to point out that Inheritance is about father/son dynamics, not gay culture. “But are the characters in Inheritance aware of gay culture?” she asks rhetorically. “Sure. And they get to joke about it, just like I, as the narrator, get to joke about it. I’m joking with the reader, the characters are joking with each other.”
You can read a few excerpts here and here.
August 9th, 2006 at 9:50 am
Yeah, but is it a good read?
August 9th, 2006 at 10:57 am
Whatever, Cousin Larry.
August 9th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Please god make her stop.
August 9th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Just joking with jokes! Jokey jokes to be joked jokingly! Jokes!
The lady doth protest too much.
August 9th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
I read the book and I thought it was a little too heavy handed with the innuendo. It was an ok book by adventure book standards, but I was a little put off by some of the little “in jokes”
August 9th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
I think that anything Devin Grayson does to piss off fanboys just cements her place in heaven. Good show, Devin!
August 9th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
I don’t think this pissed off fanboys so much as confused the living fuck out of them.
August 10th, 2006 at 6:56 am
Fanboys really aren’t that hard to confuse.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:19 am
And as we all know, I’m living proof of that adage.
August 10th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
I read the book and thought it was very well done. There is no doubt however that an erotic theme waves through the book. Although Ollie jokes about the good looking “boys” under the “Mentors” care, I never had the feeling he was doing anything but commenting about why everyone believes otherwise. For Arthur, his relationship with Garth was so bitter, it wasn’t even an issue for him.
Batman on the other hand, had a definate Alpha Male thing going on with all the younger heroes. His physical presense and emotional relationship bound him tightly to Nightwing.
The story was good, although the younger guys were written a little too young then what is portrayed in the current books. I felt with all of the especially Garth, they should have been more portrayed as men, instead of still in the shadows of the older guys.
If you really, really can’t handle homoerotic subtext, DON’T READ THE BOOK! For everyone else, it’s no big deal. There is no chapter with Bruce and Grayson in bed for instance, so relax. It really deals with how each kid was treated and trained by their respective mentors to become what they are today. It was heavy with Nightwing/Batman and the others had shorter stories, so it seemed to me.
Of all the DC novels, I though this one was written the best and it was by far the easiest to get through in one sitting.
N
August 10th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Uh…thats not an answer…She should get into politics…