Yet more Buffy comic thoughts
Jul. 3rd, 2009 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightI know, I know. It's silly to make yet another post when I still haven't answered all the comments from the last two, let alone responded to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
peasant_ and yourlibrarian on peasant_'s very interesting post about dark fic. In truth, since M came home, I'm finding it quite difficult to snatch LJ time in the evenings.
Even so, this web comic thing is still on my mind and I can't help wittering on.
I will do a review of the latest Buffy comic later on, if I can. I went down the comic shop yesterday and came back with a fair amount of stuff, including that, the latest Lynch/Urru AtS book (which happily totally ignores events in the execrable Aftermath), two copies of The Sword (pretty much non-stop ultra-violence, as it turned out), and the latest Authority. This last, of course, contains one genuine example of a gay male relationship in mainstream comics not treated as a joke, in the Midnighter and Apollo. They're not always well written. Warren Ellis was good at it, Garth Ennis less so, because by his own admission he thinks Apollo's boring. Even so, in his short-lived run on the defunct Midnighter series, he did manage to include one issue that was actually a rather beautiful gay love story. Okay, the end was a bit of a cliche, but even so...Even Comic Shop Boy liked that one.
Anyway, Apollo and the Midnighter are currently going through a very bad patch indeed, but somehow or other their relationship is still kind of romantic in the midst of all the frightfulness. So it can be done.
I didn't get to chat with Comic Shop Boy much, as he was deep in conversation with another customer (Batman and Wolverine were the subjects, or was it Batman vs Wolverine? Can't remember). Comic Shop Bloke was there too, though, so I asked him if he knew what the content has to be for a comic to be slapped with the 'adult content' label. Had some idea that, whereas lipstick lesbianism is probably thought to be something the more 'delicate' fanboys can cope with, comics companies may feel they have to slap anything with overt male homosexual content with a warning, hence the off-screen kissing in the Whedon/Chen web comic. Comic Shop Bloke had no idea. He said that his only criterion was that nothing with an adult content label would be sold to anyone under 16 in his shop. Over 16, they can read 'whatever filth they want' (my words as part of a jokey conversation, not his).
So, that's not an avenue worth exploring as to why no onscreen kissage, and I suppose Joss's thought processes have been revealed by Scott Allie in the Q&A he's currently doing on Slayalive anyway. The Spangel stuff was 'fan service' to a particular 'shipper group (that's us, fellow Spangels), Scott Allie 'laughed his ass off' when he saw it, and thought it worked better (as a joke) to have the kissing off screen with the just the sound effects and Buffy's reactions. In response to someone asking if there would ever be m/m on screen kissing in the Buffy comic, he responded that he didn't know but it was a 'valid question.'
So, Joss was doing us slash fans a favour, by his own lights. Fair enough. Thanks, Joss. And I would be a lot more appreciative if it weren't that, as others have pointed out, he has a very poor track record when it comes to dealing with male homosexuality, along the lines of it's either a joke (Andrew, Scott Hope turning out to be gay, this Spangel scene in Buffy's nightmare, Joss saying in one of his DVD commentaries that the 'that one time' Spangel scene in his head is 'hilarious'), or the person ends up dead (Larry). Plus, as pointed out above, it is possible to include gay male characters in mainstream comics without making them a joke.
Oh well. Maybe next time, Joss?
peasant_ and yourlibrarian on peasant_'s very interesting post about dark fic. In truth, since M came home, I'm finding it quite difficult to snatch LJ time in the evenings. Even so, this web comic thing is still on my mind and I can't help wittering on.
I will do a review of the latest Buffy comic later on, if I can. I went down the comic shop yesterday and came back with a fair amount of stuff, including that, the latest Lynch/Urru AtS book (which happily totally ignores events in the execrable Aftermath), two copies of The Sword (pretty much non-stop ultra-violence, as it turned out), and the latest Authority. This last, of course, contains one genuine example of a gay male relationship in mainstream comics not treated as a joke, in the Midnighter and Apollo. They're not always well written. Warren Ellis was good at it, Garth Ennis less so, because by his own admission he thinks Apollo's boring. Even so, in his short-lived run on the defunct Midnighter series, he did manage to include one issue that was actually a rather beautiful gay love story. Okay, the end was a bit of a cliche, but even so...Even Comic Shop Boy liked that one.
Anyway, Apollo and the Midnighter are currently going through a very bad patch indeed, but somehow or other their relationship is still kind of romantic in the midst of all the frightfulness. So it can be done.
I didn't get to chat with Comic Shop Boy much, as he was deep in conversation with another customer (Batman and Wolverine were the subjects, or was it Batman vs Wolverine? Can't remember). Comic Shop Bloke was there too, though, so I asked him if he knew what the content has to be for a comic to be slapped with the 'adult content' label. Had some idea that, whereas lipstick lesbianism is probably thought to be something the more 'delicate' fanboys can cope with, comics companies may feel they have to slap anything with overt male homosexual content with a warning, hence the off-screen kissing in the Whedon/Chen web comic. Comic Shop Bloke had no idea. He said that his only criterion was that nothing with an adult content label would be sold to anyone under 16 in his shop. Over 16, they can read 'whatever filth they want' (my words as part of a jokey conversation, not his).
So, that's not an avenue worth exploring as to why no onscreen kissage, and I suppose Joss's thought processes have been revealed by Scott Allie in the Q&A he's currently doing on Slayalive anyway. The Spangel stuff was 'fan service' to a particular 'shipper group (that's us, fellow Spangels), Scott Allie 'laughed his ass off' when he saw it, and thought it worked better (as a joke) to have the kissing off screen with the just the sound effects and Buffy's reactions. In response to someone asking if there would ever be m/m on screen kissing in the Buffy comic, he responded that he didn't know but it was a 'valid question.'
So, Joss was doing us slash fans a favour, by his own lights. Fair enough. Thanks, Joss. And I would be a lot more appreciative if it weren't that, as others have pointed out, he has a very poor track record when it comes to dealing with male homosexuality, along the lines of it's either a joke (Andrew, Scott Hope turning out to be gay, this Spangel scene in Buffy's nightmare, Joss saying in one of his DVD commentaries that the 'that one time' Spangel scene in his head is 'hilarious'), or the person ends up dead (Larry). Plus, as pointed out above, it is possible to include gay male characters in mainstream comics without making them a joke.
Oh well. Maybe next time, Joss?