warning comic shouldn’t be read by people that have their heads up their ass

or something

C’mon, Kross, it’s Flash Thompson who clearly shares that Lois/Clark dynamic with Peter Parker. The guy was clearly over compensating.

Then why is it okay for Marvel to cave into the interests of a political group like Focus on the Family or the Traditional Values Coalition and support only the heterosexual lifestyle? I don’t really think creating characters or writing stories should be dictated by what’s going to win or loose you political points, but if a writer wants to create a new character or write a story involving a homosexual, I don’t see why that story should be treated any differently than any other.

“As for the ’10% estimated homosexuals’, that’s the homosexual lobby number…there’s been about 3 20 year studies that puts the number closer to 3%. Not that this matters, but lets avoid the propaganda.”

You’re right, it doesn’t really matter, the point still remains that they are a minority group, but everyone deserves their heroes, so I don’t see anything wrong with having some number of homosexual heroes.

“I say clean it up…”

Nobody is saying that want to write gay porn for Marvel, but this policy is (at least in theory if not in practice) suppose to affect any character who simply is gay, regardless of the graphic content or density of sexuality in the story. Basically, if you were to replace to “good old days” stories of Superman and Lois Lane or Spider-Man and Mary Jane with stories about Superman and Jimmy Olsen or Spider-Man and…I don’t know, Steve, without ever increasing the sexual content of the book, it deserves to be marginalized as an “adults only” read simply for the presence of a same-sex love interest. Having a homosexual in a comic doesn’t suddenly make it “dirty”.

“yeh..FRANCE…that’s where everybody wants to go….plenty of time to read with 70% of the work force living off of the state. The French think Jerry Lewis is funny…gimme a break.”

I think France is a fine country…

2) To Shadowrogue: you say you don’t want your daughter exposed to homosexuality in comic books. But then why is it okay for her to be exposed to heterosexuality in comics? After all, she is, as you said, an underaged minor. And if innocuous homosexual relationships are bad for her, then innocuous heterosexual relationships should be as well. Why do you make the distinction?

As for the “10% estimated homosexuals”, that’s the homosexual lobby number…there’s been about 3 20 year studies that puts the number closer to 3%. Not that this matters, but lets avoid the propaganda.

The question is should Marvel promote a certain sexual lifestyle just because of political pressure…I say no.

Francois makes a good point…America seems to be the only country I’ve heard of that has a real problem with being so sensitive to homosexuality, as well as other things, appearing in media. Francois gave a nice picture of the industry in France, Japan has plenty of Yaoi manga, more and more of which seems to be making it to the manga shelf of my local Books-A-Million, yet neither countries have experienced a sudden outbreak of homosexuality or moral decay, so why are Americans so paranoid?

Why does everything have to be about sex…can’t the industry just write good stories with out kissing the ass of political interest groups?

Was Lois and Clark’s relationship a well of bad stories all about sex? Scott and Jean? Ollie and Dinah? Vision and Wanda?

This isn’t necessarily true. Focus on the Family and such other groups have been on the video game industry’s case for years, and yet their most controversial games, such as Grand Theft Auto, still tend to be some of their best selling, and the industry itself is still enjoying great success.

Granted, the type of content warranting this controversy (sex, violence, and bad language) is a little different from sensitive hot topic moral issues such as homosexuality, however the success of movies such as Brokeback Mountain show that such controversy is not necessarily going to damage your net profit.

Even within the comic book industry, there is precedent to say that the controversial titles can do just as well if not better than others. As far as I know, V for Vendetta has sold pretty well over the years, and it can be seen as pretty controversial (though not nearly as much as it may have been if it were originally released post-9/11), and has been made into a major motion picture. Y: The Last Man is an adult oriented title that has also been successful and optioned off for a motion picture version, and DMZ is a potentially politically controversial title that has seen a decent ammount of positive media coverage.

Maybe its time for the comic book industry to grow a spine and start being more willing to address social issues, you know, like real literature is supposed to. It might be taken a little more seriously then and maybe even gain a few new readers. Homosexuality is largely accepted by the youth of America and youth culture, those against it are generally a minority. This should really be a softball for the comic book industry, but instead they’re taking it like a fast ball to the head.

And there’s a difference between a character in some unknown subline, and someone who teams up with Spider-Man.

When DC says they’re going to publish a Batwoman series, then you can compare it to a Marvel U series.

When the Northstar comic came out, there was such a press focus on it, Marvel freaked and zapped all potentialy controversial stories. Ask Peter David about his X-Factor abortion storyline some time.

Marvel and DC are not in the business of promoting social issues. They’re in the business of pleasing their stockholders. And if Focus on the Family decides to start burning Spider-Man comics, that’ll cause problems for all those folks who’ve invested big dollars in next summer’s Spider-Man 3 and so on.

Not to mention that first FotF would be getting your local DA to shut down the comic store where the comics could be bought.

JoeQ didn’t say he wouldn’t publish a series about a gay character. He said it’d have to be labeled as mature. Don’t blame him for being a responsible industry leader who has to look out not only for his company, but also all of the comic stores who are far more vulnerable to those with agendas.

And on DC, don’t look at them as this bastion of gay rights. The new Batwoman is as much a postivie representation of lesbians as it is when WWE has it’s Divas make out on RAW. She’s a Penthouse version of a lesbian. (Even down to earth Renee Montoya is now apparantly sporting a Bat Wonder Bra).

if a character’s sexuality (straight or gay) is the sole focus of a story or mini-series, it SHOULD be labeled with a warning

I’d agree with that ideal, but JQ didn’t specify characters where sexuality is the sole focus of the story, just any series starring a gay character, which leaves one wondering if Marvel realizes that a gay character can star in a comic without it turning into panel after panel of raunch, especially after Rawhide Kid.

DC slapped a Mature Readers tag on the Authority before you even so much as saw A & M kiss on panel, much less lie in bed together

The Authority was viewed by audiences as a mature title from the beginning due to violence (which seems tame compared to Infinite Crisis) and language. There was good reason for that book to have a mature rating and no one at DC never made any official statements (like JQ did) that said the book was MR primarity because of the gay couple

How many times do you think it’ll need to be pointed out that Marvel DOES HAVE gay characters in their non-mature reader comics before people stop bashing them for this failing?

The controversial statement wasn’t about gay characters as part of a series’ ensemble or supporting cast, it was an overall edict that no comic starring a gay character could be anything but a Max title.

If the statement were contradicted by Marvel’s output, it makes JQ look out-of-touch and unaware of what’s going on in Marvel’s titles (unless he were trying to subvert the policy).

The point is, I think, that even if someone had a great Northstar, Hulkling, Wiccan, or Ultimate Colossus, Marvel would slap a MAX label on the book (if they published it at all) for the sole reason being that the character is gay.

If DC had the same policy, it might not mean the same thing because they have two imprints (WS and Vertigo) that produce Mature Readers titles with much, MUCH more support than Marvel gives to the vast majority of their MAX books.

Exactly, Garth.

http://www.gayleague.com/forums/display.php?id=413

Thanks again!

Joe Palmer

that of a retailer (because I manage a comic shop), as well as that of a comics fan, who has been reading comics faithfully for almost 20 years now….

In the article, Joe Q. states that Marvel recieved negative media attention due to the rawhide kid mini-series.

As someone who actually read the mini as it came out, I can tell you that the mini-series did not focus solely on Rawhide Kid’s sexuality. INstead, it was a hilarious satire on the old west conventions that cowboys were so macho in a time where ‘men were men’.

Breaking that stereotype in fun and hilarious ways, was the rawhide kid, in brightly colored garb and perfectly shined and polished accessories.

The story revolved around a young boy who was ashamed of his father, who was a coward. It was the gay old rawhide kid who showed this boy that macho doesn’t mean you have to fight, and he also taught the boy to accept his father for who he was.

Was the story over the top? Yup. Was it funny? Yup. Was it illustrated by industry legend John Severin? Yup.

It got the MAX label, purely due to the fact that it was to be marketed solely as a ‘gay book’, and I think that is why Marvel got the negative press. Because, to be honest, as loud as people got on message boards about how ‘wrong’ the story was going to be and how horrible it was to have homosexual characters in comics–not very many people bothered to actually READ the mini.

Funnily enough, there was a mini series by Mark Millar being published about that time. It was called ‘Trouble’, and was published under Marvel’s very short lived EPIC Line they tried to restart up.

The story was based on characters from Spider-Man…and showed a young Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and Richard and Mary, I belive. IT was all about how they discovered sex while at summer camp, and the abundantly drawn women (courtesy of the Dodsons). Due to the rampant and unprotected underage sex going on (resulting in teen pregnancy) I wonder why this book was not given the MAX label, but the fairly innocuous double entendres in Rawhide Kid WERE.

Guess that’s a question for a future Joe Q column.

–Ron Thibodeau
Manager, Comicopia

Anyway, a couple of things:

1) I agree with those who say it doesn’t sound like this is Joe’s policy, but a Marvel policy he is forced to live with. One of the reasons why I posted this was because he publicly said he thought it was “ridiculous.” The fact that Marvel had such a policy has been reported before; to me Joe’s public reaction to it was the news.

2) Apologies to Michael Fitzgerald, who wrote the original article on this that the Advocate article was based on. I’ll add an update to the post to give you credit.

3) Shadowrogue and beetle1million … I think you both have something worthwhile to say, but it’s starting to get personal. Please cool down a bit before posting again, or continue your game of one-upmanship over email, or just back off before it degenerates any further. Thanks.

4) Re: The upcoming Midnighter series … if it doesn’t have a warning label, I’m not sure it’ll be worth getting. And that has nothing to do with his sexual orientation.

Hello, I reported these facts, the Advocate merely paraphased and quoted information I researched and wrote. Please click the above link for the original article!

And, no nerve touched… Sorry you can’t respond to anything I asked you. Hope you have better answers when your kids ask.

To everyone else, sorry this talkback degenerated into what it did. I’m out.

Your statement in the original post points out that you’re thankful for a ratings system because it alerts you that there’s inappropriate, homosexual conduct in a comic. But now you say it’s this article that did that, and not the ratings system, and that THAT is what you meant… Which means the content of what you said is even more nonsensical.

But yours was a predictable and laugh out loud kneejerk reaction (two of them!) and I thank you for that.

And actually, I didn’t outright say you were a plant. I was pointing out a statement in YOUR post that made zero sense, and suggested that you were commenting on a subject you were entirely uninformed of, and then I suggested reasons for it. If you found that offensive, sorry, but this is how you paint yourself.

I really don’t care how you raise your family. I was asking questions because, logically, what you’re saying makes no sense. Sure you should be able to guide your children into and out of what you find appropriate. But I can’t imagine that letting your daughter see a comic with a gay kid in it is going to scar her psyche, especially if she’s aware that this alleged uncle of hers likes guys. Unless what you’re saying is that homosexuality shouldn’t be represented or acknowledged in any medium that isn’t aimed at someone over eighteen? Again… I can’t help the lack of clarity in your posts. That’s on you.

Speaking of, if you’re just supporting a ratings system, you’re still missing the point of the discussion. Nobody here was arguing against a ratings system. The point of disagreement is that many don’t think it’s fair that there’s a policy in place to say ‘a gay character can’t star in a Marvel comic unless it’s under the MAX banner’. And re-read your post, where your main point is this:

“As a father, I’m tired of every time I turn around having gay issues presented in material that my kid is exposed to. Yeah, I know that she’ll be exposed to gay people in her life, but while she’s an underaged minor, sexuality issues aren’t really something that she should have to deal with. Marvel isn’t saying ‘NO GAY CHARACTERS’, they’re just putting some info out there for parents with underage kids that help us keep our kids from reading something that they really don’t need to be dealing with before their teens. Stuff that’s going to do nothing but confuse them. I applaud comics for providing a ratings system, simply for information purposes. ”

Not sure what sort of material your not even a teen daughter is exposed to that’s filled with “homosexual issues”… Spongebob? Harry Potter?

There are no “homosexual issues” in Young Avengers. There are two guys in a loving relationship together. That’s not a homosexual issue any more than Kitty Pryde loving Pete Rasputin is a heterosexual issue. It’s people who love each other. And just like the characters in Young Avengers, any comic featuring a homosexual character won’t necessarily revolve around “homosexual issues” Except, y’know, for the people who think gays are a problem or, at the very least, shouldn’t be able to see themselves recognized in an unsegregated media.

The ratings system doesn’t tell parents what’s in a book… which I suspect you can probably figure out. It suggests an age guideline. It doesn’t differentiate between ‘over eighteen because Punisher feeds people to sharks’ and ‘over eighteen because the main character is a chick who dates other chicks’. So, again, another of the fallacies riddling every inch of your post.

How would a kid being around homosexuals, fictional or real, ‘confuse’ them? Isn’t it rather more confusing to introduce the notion to them later? And what if that kid -is- gay? Heck, it’s even more confusing! And this isn’t me trying to impose a lifestyle on you; it’s me saying ‘hey, this is a group that exists, and pretending they’re not out there or somehow more CONFUSING than heterosexuals’ doesn’t make any sense from my perspective, nor do you express how it’s confusing in the least. Ironically, you’re the most confusing part of this entire thread. At least the one poster who was an outright homophobe clearly identified what he was trying to say.

C’mon, admit it. You just wanted to play the ‘I have a gay brother’ card. Heh.

And, by the way, what does it matter if I have kids or not? Other than mine might grow up with open minds and hearts to differences in people because I don’t lead by the example that people are more or less scary based on who they date?

Why are you trying to impose your way of thinking or your lifestyle or the lifestyles of others onto me and my family? I have the right to raise my family as I see fit, which, btw, is all about tolerance towards others and not hating those who are different (did you miss the part where I said I had a gay brother?). If you’ll note in my original post, I didn’t make any mention of trying to impose MY lifestyle or beliefs on others; I don’t want the content of books or any other media to adhere to what I believe is right or wrong. The purpose of my post was state my support of a rating system that lets me know at a glance the content of a comic, so that I can determine whether or not it’s appropriate for my child, according to MY FAMILY’S belief’s, not yours (and what I intended to say in my original post was that I would not have known that Young Avengers had gay characters in it if I hadn’t read this article). A rating system SHOULD NOT be used to control content. Ever. I firmly believe that if there’s a market for it, print it. Just let me know what I’m getting beforehand.

BTW, thanks for the namecalling, beetle. I respect your opinions, but then what do I know? My viewpoints are silly and naive, and even with a gay brother that I’m close to, I obviously can’t grasp what homosexuality is. Oh, yeah, and I’m a plant who is dishonest and totally misinformed.

But cool, I’m a plant. I always wanted to get into the business! :0

Hey, Beetle, you got kids?