Thursday, April 26, 2012

Grant Morrison & Gay Batman

(Batman Art by Alex Ross.  All rights reserved by Alex Ross)

There has been recent buzz around a Playboy article with Grant Morrison, comic writer, about Batman & his sexuality.  Here's the quote that started the buzz:


"Gayness is built into Batman. I'm not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There's just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he's intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay. I think that's why people like it. All these women fancy him and they all wear fetish clothes and jump around rooftops to get to him. He doesn't care -- he's more interested in hanging out with the old guy and the kid."

As a reader of Batman for more than 30 years, I understand what Grant is saying, but don't entirely agree. Batman is very complicated.

Many people are calling for Batman to be outed or for DC Comics to just admit it already.
Here are my thoughts.

It isn't like they [DC COMICS] are purposefully ignoring that Batman is gay as much as the character himself is ignoring it. Part of the reason Batman has so many issues is because he witnessed his parents death AND he's gay & in denial. Part of his anger is from that denial.

IF you were ever to out Batman or have Bruce Wayne come to terns with his denial, then you would lose much of the character. Batman is so popular because so many in society today hide from what is really causing their anger & woes & try to pin it instead on other people, politicians, etc. Politicians that are so deep in the closet are the homosexuals worst enemy. They do things to hurt their own because they hate themselves.
Batman chooses NOT to look at himself, just like most Americans do. He has overtaken Superman in popularity because Batman teaches us that if we are violent or cruel, yet we can blame it on some past trauma, rather than our inability to to do the hard work to free ourselves from our own personal demons, then it's okay. It's socially acceptable to beat the holy hell out of someone because WE have been so abused.
Batman had his parent's taken from him, so he gets to do this. We're okay with it. He suffered, so he gets to deal out punishment. Of course the writer's of Batman are always constantly addressing whether or not this is right. Whether or not this doesn't just make him a glorified rich thug.

They always leave it up to us to decide.

I love Batman because of the complexity of the character.The grays. The inner struggle within Bruce Wayne.

Is he gay? Probably. His gayness does indeed have a huge affect on who he is, but it is something that MUST stay closeted or you destroy the complexity of the character forever. He must struggle with it or you have to end the comic. He cannot ever be an out character & survive.

That doesn't mean that he can't teach us the harms of staying closeted. That gay issues can't be addressed within Batman. They just can't be main text. They must remain eloquently subtextual as they have for years now. That way kids like me can identify with this character & see what the denial does. Batman is always hiding. Hiding from himself & hiding from others. If Batman taught me anything, it was that hiding who you are has terrible consequences.

In the future, when homosexuality is no longer an issue, Batman can survive.  He can subtextually struggle with anything.  Anything that we, ourselves, as a society are struggling with.  That's really what we, the readers, love about Batman.  He is us.  Individually but also as a whole.  Good and bad, right and wrong, but ultimately in the end, simply human.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

My Flickr

Hey, if you want to see a whole bunch of old sketches I scanned this weekend out of my old sketch books, head over to my Flickr page & check them out.  There's things like Princess Leia, the Beast from Beauty & the Beast the TV series, The Crow & all kinds of weird stuff I used to come up with.

My flicker page can be located by scrolling down & finding the badge on this blog.  It'll be on the right.  You can also click the highlighted text above.

Thanks!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

New Art by Dan May


Here is a painting for sale by an Artist named Dan May.  Check out his site here: Dan May
He has a FaceBook page here: Dan's FB
and Twitter here: Dan's Twitter



Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Mahna Mahna

Oh, these are cute!
The Mahna, Mahna guy and...

do,do, do, do...the Snowth!

You can find theses all over the place for around $9.99.



Thor, God of Heavy Metal Thunder

Epic Awesome here.  
$19.99 - $24.99

Monday, April 16, 2012

Aliens

Hello & Happy Monday kids!  I've got an assortment of Alien type collectibles for you today!  Not just Alien aliens either.  First up, a saucer man.  These aliens are both freaky scary & laughable at the same time.  At first, you're all like Ha, ha...then, the more you look at them, you get creeped out.  Or is that just me?  Well, if you enjoy staring at the Saucer Men, you're in luck!  Executive Replicas has created a Saucer Men bust just for you!  3:5 scale or 16 inches tall and extremely limited at only 200 pieces which are hand numbered.  Where can you find this fabulously creepy collectible?  Well, Entertainment Earth has a few for pre-order right now for   $249.99.  

Next up, we have an alien that everyone loves.  Some love him so much, especially this version, that they refuse to accept that he regenerated.  It's a 10th Doctor Vinyl Maquette Statue from Dynamix. This Doctor figure is a cartoonish interpretation of the 10th Doctor as portrayed by David Tennet standing at 9 inches & limited to 3,000 pieces.  If you are one of the Tennet lovers, grab this one & that way you really can hold on to him forever.  I'll wait for the Matt Smith version myself.  You can pre-order from Entertainment Earth or pay import prices & get it here at Big Chief.


Lastly, a plushy little Alien.  So cute & cuddly it's hard to resist.  That's right, it's a plush chest burster from the Alien movie.  Available for $19.99 & in stock now at Entertainment Earth.





Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Lucy Lawless Court Update


Lucy Lawless & the other Greenpeace New Zealand protesters who were arrested after protesting aboard a Shell Oil ship back in March appeared in a New Plymouth District Court on April 5 to face their charges of Burglary, but the court pushed it back again until April 18.  This is the third time their court date has been moved.  

I'll let you know what happens.  In related news, Shell Oil filed for a restraining order against Greenpeace & pretty much every other environmental organization on earth with the United States court system.  They were awarded the restraining order.  I'm not sure how that works when the US government has no authority in International waters or in other countries.

If you want to add your name to the list of peeps who want Big Oil to have a real plan in place in case of a system failure, blow-out, or spill, or you just think Polar Bears are cute & don't think their habitat should be destroyed just so you can cruise around in your automobile all day, head on over to the Greenpeace page & sign up: 
http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/take-action/Take-action-online/Save-the-Arctic/ 

Creature Feature

This post is for you Creature From the Black Lagoon fans!  I'm one myself.  Julie Adams, who played the damsel in the original Creature movie has written a book.  There's an entire chapter dedicated to the making of that movie & all that went on behind the scenes.  You can get an autographed copy here: http://www.julieadams.biz/store/store.html  You can also head over to Amazon & pick up an non-autographed copy.

That's not all!  There's also a very cool 8 inch tall Creature bank coming out in September!



That's a great sculpt, isn't it!?  The arms are movable.  
You can head over to Entertainment Earth & put that in your cart.  
It's listed at $19.99.


There's also a new model kit from Moebius Models.  The sculpt on this one looks pretty bad though.  Even for a plastic model kit.  Pretty sure I'll be skipping this one.


However, if you aren't as picky as me, you can find it over at Entertainment Earth as well.  It'll set you back about $25.00.