Writing my last entry here (re gay superheroes) led me to François Peneaud's site The Gay Comics List, which is a wonderful resource for (primarily) indie comics with gay content. My fellow batfans should also check out his experiment with politically conscious fanfic, "Batman & Robin: Dual Lives," which is posted in the story section of Gay League, another gay-themed comics fan site worth exploring.

Skimming the links page of GCL refreshes my memory of lots of comics I've loved over the years, the first and foremost of which is Dykes to Watch Out For. It's got absolutely nothing to do with what I usually write about here (like bondage fantasies about beefy male bodies in tight-fitting outfits), but the epic scope of this ongoing serial is just stunning. I really wish somebody would film this thing! The Mostly Unfabulous Life of Ethan Green is the closest thing to a male equivalent I know of, and while I don't like it as much as DTWOF (and I honestly don't keep up with either on a regular basis), the storyline is still fun and some of the characters are pretty hot in my book. Then there's Meatmen, which I remember fondly (along with the classic Gay Comix of the late 70s and early 80s) as one of the first places where my taste in comics and my taste in sex were explicitly (sometimes very explicitly) linked--ie, where I could have a laugh and get my rocks off at the same time.

It occurs to me as I write this that, as with most other forms of art and pop culture, I'm not inherently drawn (pardon the pun) to a comic strip or book simply because its characters and/or creators are gay. I've seen some pretty badly drawn, unfunny strips over the years, and I'd rather spend my time reading something like The Boondocks, which on the surface has little to do with my own daily life, or some conventional (heterosexual/asexual) superhero fare, where I'm free to sexualize the characters as I please. Even so, I'm delighted that sites like GCL and Gay League offer the service they do, and I truly wish they'd been around 20 years ago, when I was feeling pretty much alone in my interests. With any luck, at this very minute some queer adolescent is discovering through them things which will change his or her world.