A brief editorial note to open:

There are two pages of ads for party decorations in Previews this month. Now, I know making fun of Previews for selling stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with comics is an easy, even lazy, joke. But they sell this stuff only because they think they can make money on it.
Diamond thinks you will happily buy party banners because they have the Avengers on them. And they’re probably right.

That “Death Clock” for the comics industry just moved up to 11:58.

Marc Andreyko has a run on DC Universe Presents starting with #13, that brings back Black Lightning and Blue Devil as a duo.

There was much wangsting online over this, but frankly, that’s what the internet does with all comic news. Personally, I kind of want to see what the man who finally outed Obsidian does with a blank slate.

Rule 63 is apparently the new zombies…

Sina Grace has an original graphic novel coming from Image that promises to give me nightmares of my retail days…

Archie is offering another Kevin Keller trade:

Seriously, I know I’ve said this before but it bears repeating; it is 2012 and Archie of all companies is one of the more progressive comics publishers.

I’m honestly surprised it took twenty years for this to come out in trade paper-back.

I bought it when it was coming out. My memory of it is that it was heavily photo-referenced.
Still no word on when the Shock Treatment comic is coming out…

This might not seem that remarkable, except that it’s part of a trio of shirts that includes “Team Betty” and “Team Veronica” shirts…

I hope there’s a good in-story reason why the cover of Dark Horse Presents #16 appears to show a murdered transsexual, because that’s a particularly loaded image for a community that’s already at heightened risk for violent assault.

And, once again, the “retro” variant for the Kevin Keller comic invites interesting discussions about the semiotics of gay representation in comics.
But since I’m not a grad student, you’ll, again, have to look elsewhere for that.

On a related note, the solicitation text for Life with Archie #23 is teasing the death of Future Timeline Kevin’s husband, and, yeah…

Given that shipping “nude” has been standard for “military style” action figures for a while, I’m now wondering what, if anything, prompted the addition of the disclaimer and photos…

DC is releasing a collection of Alan Davis Batman comics, which is generally good stuff, even if it does contain that story where Batman threatened a gay man with prison rape.

Two Archie items. First, a gender-swap issue, sure to be filed under the “fetish for somebody” category…

Next, there’s Life With Archie #22, which enters some potentially cringe-inducing areas:

Archie has, generally, handled their gay characters well while still staying within kid-friendly areas, but suggestions of (potentially) anti-gay violence are new to comics, and even film and television still don’t handle the subject well, so…we’ll see.

And this would be the month that Diamond straight-up solicited zentai fetish outfits…

So, given how pandery this project looks to be, and given how any nuance at all in the question of whether or not Ozymandias is meant to be gay has been handled by, well…everyone, post initial publication, I have zero expectations that this won’t be problematic at best.

Meanwhile, in the “why” category at DC…

Even though He-Man made lots of little boys in the 80s gay, I’m utterly baffled as to what a James Robinson scripted version will be like.
Other than gratuitously violent with the deaths of several supporting characters, I mean.

As Marvel continues to be needlessly coy over this whole Northstar marriage thing, the cynical part of me wonders if there’s some sort of internal conflict over the people who want to milk the “gay superhero wedding” publicity for all its worth and the people who desperately want to avoid the “comics corrupting our nation’s youth” publicity.

If I had the temperament to write a more scholarly-style blog, I’d unpack the signifiers contained in a cover featuring a retro-superhero design for a gay character.
But I don’t, so I won’t.

I admit, I am morbidly curious to see how Bluewater handles a contemporary adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s gayest novel.

So, you may have heard about this Before Watchmen thing DC has coming out:

I honestly have no strong opinions about this project, to be honest. Yes, it all seems very unnecessary, but it’s only Watchmen, a good book, yes, but not a great book, and one that, in my opinion, hasn’t aged very well or lived up to its supposed legacy. What I am sort of curious about is how these new creators plan to handle, if at all, the “blink and you miss them” gay characters from the original series. Given the “who” of the new creators, you can mark me down as “cautious.”
But I’m sure the series will get nominated for a GLAAD media award anyway.

Safe money seems to be that this is the “wedding of Northstar” issue, because it’s not like Marvel to pass up an opportunity for free publicity, and “gay superhero wedding” is the sort of slow news day, easy to parse for the media story they seem to enjoy courting these days.

That’s…that’s certainly Martin in drag on the cover of Bart Simpson #72…

I wouldn’t mind a Herc shirt. I’m pretty much over the “faux distressed” look for t-shirts.

Six Million Dollar Man is slightly ahead of my time, but I have it on good authority that this episode is partially responsible for the rise of Bear culture twenty years later.

Dark Horse has a collected edition of the Dragon Age digital comic. If they know their fan-base, there should be plenty of Varric on Alistair action here.
(Yes, I’m still smarting from having my romantic choices in Dragon Age 2 limited to emo mage and emo elf.)

Boom’s collection of Howard Cruse’s non-gay work is due, and it looks like they’re including a healthy dose of his underground era work as well.

Seeing a solicitation for a Howard Cruse collection on the same page as ads for Garfield comics is one of those cognitive dissonance inducing moments you have to get used to when reading Previews…

Not gay, but…

I’m as big a fan of Special Agent Pendergast as the next guy, but a model of the creature from the 1997 film of a 1995 novel might be of pretty limited appeal…

Now that Superboy isn’t in his rough trade outfit anymore, it seems awfully fitting that he’s now fighting Grunge, the previous holder of the “superhero who looks most like a male prostitute” belt.

Fantagraphics is releasing a Justin Hall edited anthology of gay and lesbian comics, No Straight Lines:

This is pretty much going to be a must buy, even if I hate that pun.

A sampler of work by one of the premier gay comics creators as part of the Free Comic Book Day efforts is the kind of “best foot forward” material we need, instead of, well…most of the offerings this year.

May has the next volume of Empowered releasing, the best equal-opportunity fan service comic on the market.

Archie continues to impress me with their Kevin Keller series. The second issue brings up the issue of gay teens dating, a subject still stupidly controversial. Given that the last issue of the mini did address homophobia and anti-gay harassment (albeit in a family-friendly Archive-verse manner) I’m curious to see what they do here.

I have no idea why any gay men might be interested in an illustrated history of Tarzan films…*cough*

Deliberate co-opting of gay rights slogan to exploit an oft-noted bit of subtext? Or is that giving too much credit to the same audience that buys “Big Bang Theory” and “Bronies” t-shirts?

Marvel gives us some…interesting beefcake covers with The Twelve #9 and something more traditional with Wolverine #justmakingissuenumbersupsnowapparently:

Meanwhile, at Dynamite…

Y’know, I try really hard to stay on topic with these posts, but sometimes something comes along that I just have to comment on:

If you are even briefly thinking of spending $100 on this, stop, and just for a second think about what people who are not desperate nerds are going to think when they see this on your desk.

Okay, to cleanse your palate, here’s a shirtless Ricardo Montalban statue:

The final issue of The Children’s Crusade is finally coming out.

For a book that was sold as promising major status quo changes for both the Avengers and the X-Men franchises, it certainly feels like this has quietly fizzled out. Of course, the series started at least three cross-overs ago, so who can say what the original plan actually was…
I’m just hoping that the end result is a regular title with Wiccan and Hulkling, so I can say that there’s at least one Marvel title I enjoy.

I didn’t think the “gay guy narrates honey badger clip” video was all that funny, but it certainly wasn’t anything worth being bent out of shape about. Even when opportunistic t-shirts started showing up in stores. But when Antarctic Press gets in on it?

Yeah, now it’s hate-worthy.

Meanwhile at Archie, they’re releasing a trade paperback collection of all the previous Kevin Keller appearances, just in time for the first issue of the Kevin Keller ongoing to launch, with this ginchy variant cover:

The first issue is dedicated to Kevin’s first date. And yes, we live in a world where Archie is doing comics about gay teens dating. Which is sort of fantastic.

I haven’t followed the Kirby: Genesis comics from Dynamite at all. They’re just not my thing. But Rob Rodi writing “not-Thor”?

Okay, that at least gets a look.

Eaglemoss is releasing a Northstar/Aurora pack in their Marvel figurine collection.

No collection is complete without a little lead figure of a gay French-Canadian Olympic skier/reformed terrorist.

I have absolutely no idea how I feel about Diamond carrying bishie body pillows like this Black Butler one here: