"Better than Prozac"

I have thought comic/film critic Frank DeCaro was hot (and hilarious) from the first time I saw him on The Daily Show, years and years ago. So imagine my delight to learn (here) that he is a fellow Batfan:



Love what DeCaro has to say about B's double life, "the fact that people speculate about his relationship with Robin," the outfit ("he looks great in lycra and leather--what more can you ask for in a character?"), "stalking Toys R Us," and especially the observation that "anyone who collects anything should never point a finger at anybody else, because ... it's all nuts." And perhaps the admonition that "you have to display it properly, because otherwise it's just a lot of crap" will inspire me to pull more of my own crap out of the basement and find a more fitting home for it in Stately Wayne Bruce Manor.

Stretching out

I've never heard of Kosmix (which is described as "Beta-ish" in its logo at the moment), but they've heard of me, and presumably you, too. That is to say, they've got a page devoted to Spandex Fetishism. Kind of handy, I guess, since it includes Wikipedia entries, Google searches, videos, and lots of other web resources of interest to underwear perverts the world over. Check it out!

Here's a sample: a portion of an amateur video that is so completely abstract you may even have trouble figuring out the gender of the star. Now that's what I call a fetish!



(Consider the above my gift to the various het and bi males and lesbians I've befriended via this blog and our mutual fondness for stretchy synthetic fibers, no matter who happens to be wearing them.)

As a bonus, the video above led me to two more you might enjoy, starting with this homemade montage of ... well, it's pretty clear right away:



And here's an appealing little tease from an Eye of the Cyclone DVD:



I'm happy to see that "eyeofthecyclone" has a YouTube channel, since the main website is now subscription-based. I'm all for helping a fellow pervert earn an honest buck in these tough times, but it seems like the lion's share of Cyclone stuff is wrestling-related, and while there's nothing wrong with that in my book, it doesn't exactly float my boat, either (if you'll permit me to mix metaphors).

Men in tights, then and now

Two video treats for you:

1. From TowleRoad, a music video by tights-clad Brit pop singer Will Young:



2. From BatBlog, a very brief early-80s interview with Adam West. (Note that nice shot of an ungloved Batman at the beginning.)



And, oh, what the hell, I'm feeling generous tonight, so here's a bonus #3:

This explains so very much

As this recent item on BoingBoing confirms, it seems Superman co-creator Joe Shuster led a bit of a double life himself--by day, architect of one of the most powerful emblems of, er, traditional American values (i.e., truth, justice, and the Am-Way), while by night (during rough economic times, at least) he earned a bit of extra coin depicting kinky fantasies.



Granted, the illustrations in Craig Yoe's forthcoming book probably won't float my boat; I'm assuming they'll be all het, all the time. But as the cover clearly indicates, Supermannish men will be bound within its pages, so all I have to do is change the gender of those doing the binding and all will be well. (As a side note, I see that the new volume is the followup to a similar, though broader, project.)

This really does feel like the missing link between the realms of playful childhood hero-worship and darker, arguably more adult, desires. Much attention has already been devoted to the psychology of Wonder Woman's creator, and the Shuster saga only furthers the notion that caped crusaders are a bit less vanilla than we have been led to believe.

(I was about to say "less all-American," but maybe it's really the case that "America" has always been a more complicated ideal than some folks would like to admit. Who knows how many pipe-smoking, slipper-wearing Dads throughout the suburbs of the Eisenhauer years hid copies of these strips from their Superman-loving sons and daughters? Seduction of the innocent, indeed.

One man's trash ...

Both Warren Ellis and, before him, Dirk Deppey seem to find this admittedly NSFW video so outrageous that they dare their presumably hetero, non-fetish-driven readers to watch it.

Something tells me you are not in that camp. Go ahead. Make your day.

Dead again

No, I haven't read it yet, and as noted earlier, I probably won't get around to it for awhile. As should be quite clear to even the most casual reader of this blog (and what other kind could there be?), I seriously don't read comics unless they contain images of a hunky man tied up or unshaven or in some sort of deathtrap or with his chest hair exposed--preferably all of the above. If this latest death-of-Batman installment contains enough of that, I'll read it, eventually. Lord knows the dude on the cover up there looks might-tee fine.

I don't really have anything to add to the conversations currently taking place in several hundred blogs, most of it pretty incoherent, misspelled, badly punctuated, and so on. For the record, I only know these conversations are taking place because, after stumbling upon this brief mention, I did a bit of googling to find out how many of my must-haves are included. I gather there is some torture. That's a plus.

Best thing I found was this interview with Grant Morrison about what he's up to. A few lines that struck me as interesting:

"I wanted this story to be mythical. It's on that scale. It's not meant to be about realism. It's not meant to be about politics and about stuff that's happening on the streets. It's the story about what happens when gods start interfering with life and life becomes mythical."

Nice comic timing here:
" The finale is pretty insane. Parallel universes. It's the end of the universe. Everything breaks down. I wanted to do something causality based. I don't think any of us have seen anything like this. It takes it to the point of real, nihilistic hopelessness.

I'm so pleased with it".

And, while I'm not always crazy about Morrison's aesthetic, I admit he's got a point here:
"Once you've seen [the films] Iron Man and The Dark Knight,why bother doing realistic superheroes because now the movies can do them better than anyone. I kind of feel that what it does is free up comics to be a little bit wilder. ... We shouldn't be following the storytelling techniques of Hollywood because they can do it really well. Comics can do all kinds of other things. They can be really crazy and wild and can really stretch the imagination and be really progressive."

Oh, and this recap/think piece seems to make the most sense to a non-comics-follower like me.

Finally, in my travels through cyberspace, I came across this very nice meditation from Ultrasparky on the appeal of superheroes to some of us. It was written well before any of this dead-Batman business, but these lines resonated with me as I read one outraged fan rant after another about Morrison: "A love of comics is just so personal. They've been part of our culture for so long now, pushed and pulled and reinvented in so many ways that they can be something different to everyone." (The Ultrasparky post is really a plug for this outstanding Michael Chabon essay in The New Yorker that I've been meaning to write about here for months. I really should still do that sometime, I guess.)

Hail and farewell

I learned, mere moments ago, of the death of Patrick "Secret Agent Man"/"Prisoner" MacGoohan from this obit by Johnny Bacardi.

And that one reminds me that I have not yet paid my last respects to two bat-villains who died in recent weeks, namely a certain Catwoman and the only Minstrel I know of. The latter I always found one of the hottest (if silliest) bad guys in the tv show's lineup, and this little bit of gossip suggests he may have batted for my team after all. This isn't the best photo of His Minstrelness (that would by necessity include Batman and Robin rotating and revolving on his fiendish barbecue spit), but it'll do in a pinch:

The ecstasy of Saint Adam

A quick tip o' the cowl to my new buddy Daredevil for tipping me off to Helpless Heroes, a Japanese site devoted to images of the Bat, Spider-Man, Ultraman, and miscellaneous other tights-clad crimefighters in various states of distress.

I don't know the language, but I get the basic idea, and I particularly appreciate this recent collection of stills of an open-mouthed Adam West, which for some reason takes me back to my grad school days and an essay by Jacques Lacan about the true nature of the, wink wink, nudge nudge, "ecstasy" of St. Theresa. Even if you're not particularly versed in French post-modern psychoanalysis, I have a feeling you'll get the idea from just two images:




Open wide and say, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh."

"Superhero or Sidekick: Which one are you?"

Needless to say, that teaser on the cover of the Hub's copy of the August Instinct caught my eye, so I had to turn to page 56 right away. I'm not a particularly big fan of the magazine (and there goes my shot at a plug in its pages!)--the models, Photoshopped pictures of which constitute the bulk of the "content," are almost all twinks, the articles are generally glib if not mindless, and would it kill them to hire a proofreader? Even so, I was hooked, and it seemed a good sign that the story was written by a psychologist rather than a staff writer.

The page-and-a-half article itself is basically a Reader's Digest-style paraphrase of Dr. Keith Swain's theory (expressed at greater length in his book Dynamic Duos: The Alpha/Beta Key to Unlocking Success in Gay Relationships) that long-lasting gay couples tend to unite alpha males with beta counterparts. One tends to lead, the other to follow; one takes care of the finances, the other nurtures the emotional bond ... not unlike an idealized 1950s style heterosexual marriage, in fact.

It's hard not to chuckle when Swain begins a sentence, "If we think about this idea on a gut level, it makes sense, like Batman and Robin seem natural" -- one can hear old Doc Wertham spinning in his grave -- but he continues "If we put Superman with Captain America, less so." And it's true, I have never been that interested in the whole Clash of the Titans dynamic, often seen in comic book crossovers, like the one pitting Batman against Captain America or the Punisher. Even the banter and clashing egos among Justice League members (and all other superhero teamups) bores me.

For Swain, this comic book metaphor has its parallels in other "variations in masculinity among gay men--we have even developed our own terminology for this: daddy and son, bear and cub, even, to a degree, top and bottom." To a degree?! That last one seems to me the ultimate example of the dynamic, taken almost to the point of parody.

A natural-born skeptic, I don't want to buy into the theory, or any formulaic approach to human behavior for that matter, but Swain's premise does seem to make sense--not as a surefire recipe for happiness or "key to success," but at least as a potentially useful way to deal with male/male interactions. (Butch/femme archetypes aside, I don't see this operating as blatantly in lesbian relationships, nor does Swain bring up women in the article, but then maybe an actual biological female might want to weigh in here. You reading, Teresa?)

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that, taking the 5-obvious-question quiz in the sidebar ("A or B ... Or Somewhere In Between?: Test Your Inner Superhero!"), I was a 5-for-5 Sidekick and the Hub is a 5-for-5 Superhero. Well, maybe not 5-for-5: a true Sidekick, I suppose, I took the test for him, and thus I don't know for sure whether his second and fourth fingers are the same size or not. That question was kinda wacky anyway, given the others, which were easier to guess the "correct" answers to. ("Which is more attractive to you, a man with a rugged, masculine face or one with a fresh, youthful face?" Well, duh! But hey, I know my answer and I'm stickin' to it.)

The reason that's embarrassing is that I prefer to think of myself, in bat-land, as a lone Batman, with no sidekick myself and no use for one, and 90% of my roleplay adventures pit me against a villain, mano a mano, and it's a bit of a blow to my ego to be revealed as the underdog. I have no interest in playing Robin to someone else's Bat. That said, I should point out:

1. When the '66 tv series was first airing and subtly creating the pervert that I am today, I totally identified as the Boy Wonder. I was 6 and my older brother, 10 years my senior, was clearly Batman. (More on that relationship--one of the most important in my life--in future posts, the kind I keep meaning to write here but have never quite gotten around to.)

2. There is a Robin in my own personal mythology (or rather was, for years ago he hung up the yellow cape in a favor of his own batsuit). Ironically enough, while I was working on this entry we had a bit of a scene together, during which he totally topped me for the first time. Didn't see that coming, but totally enjoyed it--way more exciting to me than the standard mentor/mentee dynamic, though Doc Freud might point out that this latest twist is entirely within that "standard."

No matter what, real life, even real fantasy-life, is a lot more complicated, and therefore more interesting, than any theory. But bring capes and cowls into your theory and I'm bound to pay attention.

Cave-ing in

A friend just passed along "When Batman Was Gay," a post/essay about my favorite character's oft-discussed sexuality on The Bilerico Project: Daily Experiments in LGBTQ. Not a whole lot of new stuff there, if you've spent the last few decades reading and thinking about this issue, but author Tyrion Lannister does a fine job bringing together the familiar touchstones (Wertham, the changing role of Alfred, introduction of Batwoman and Batgirl, etc.), and the illustrations are those "Subtext? What subtext?" innuendo-loaded images we all know and love.

When I read that Lannister first climbed on board the batmobile in the Dark Knight Returns era, I suddenly felt old, or saw him as a youngun, or something. But he makes a provocative point: that, while Boomers take the campy Batman of the Silver Age comics and the '66 tv show for granted, readers his age have always known a darker, butcher Knight. I was also intrigued by his assertion that Silver Age Batman's partisans miss the central reason why Batman is a compelling and fascinating figure in the first place. Batman's most important relationships have always been with criminals. What drives him to pursue them? How does he distinguish himself from his queries? How is vigilantism anything but criminal? Indeed, Batman's most provocative implications have centered around the distinction between law and justice - Batman's dedication to the latter, often at the expense of the former.

Indeed, 98% of my bat-fantasies are hero/villain, not hero/sidekick or hero/fellow hero. (Probably because there's just not much narrative tension in two guys on the same side of a conflict going at it.) Still, for me, the most eye-opening part of the Bilerico piece was not Lannister's own remarks but this comment from a reader named Brian:

As a queer kid growing up in the sixties and seventies, before I even knew what queer meant, Batman represented the ultimate in cool. He drove a cool car, wore a cool costume and lived in a cool house with a secret cave underneath it. And my secret was safe as long as his was. It didn't matter if he was gay or not. What mattered was how well he kept his secret identity. Batman helped keep millions of us in the closet (i.e. "Batcave") long after we should have taken off our masks.

Fascinating! And it's true, in my case, that the core of the Batman myth is the high premium it places on disguise, on secrecy, on masking. I'm not sure I would blame the comic for keeping me in the closet/cave, though; coming out was my own responsibility. But damn, Batman made having a double life sexy, and the requisite costuming even sexier.

Holy homophobia!

These fine gentlemen were the stars this past summer of A Vida Secreta de Batman e Robin, a Sao Paolo play about the Secret Lives of Batman and Robin. I learned about it here, and you can find more info and an extra photo here. (Don't read Portuguese? Not to worry--Babelfish to the rescue, although you'll encounter translations like this: "The home-bat discloses in the part that wanted exactly was to be the man-butterfly.")

Apparently Bat-actor Renato Pope received at least one death threat for daring to besmirch the sterling reputation (and assumed heterosexuality) of the caped crusader. I am of course intrigued, almost enough to consider booking a flight for Brazil, although I must say the whole premise seems awfully close to a notorious movie about another legendary detective and his live-in companion.

But hey: works for me.

Batbeef, Spider-Meat, and more

1. Thanks, [P-Mod Barney], for tipping me off to this hunky bit of bat-beefcake (er, make that butt-cake):



2. Thanks, Man's Adventure, for tipping me off to Antebellum Gallery's upcoming ToonFetish exhibition. Antebellum bills itself as "the only fetish art gallery in america!" (but didn't the artist Hudson do something like this in NYC in the early 90s?) and I certainly want to revisit the site--and ideally the brick-and-mortar gallery--as often as possible.

3. The Hub and I saw Spider-Man III last weekend. I was kind of dreading it, since I am apparently one of the minority who found the second installment unbearably slow, and one of my coworkers had warned me Part III was even longer and more soap-operaish and featured Spidey even less than that one. Glad I lowered my expectations, because I ended up pleasantly surprised. Yes, it was long and no, I really, truly would not give a shit about Peter Parker, Bruce Waye, Clark Kent, or the rest of their ilk if they didn't also lead double lives as sexily costumed crimefighters. But I was pleasantly surprised by the new movie, which is to say I found the black spidersuit really hot (especially when wet!) and the wee bits of spider-bondage titillating, and so on. The Hub, whose taste in men is roughly the exact opposite of mine, was sufficiently pleased by the presence of young Toby, Topher, and especially pouty-lipped Mr. Franco.

I will spare you the rest of my thoughts on the film, except to say that I think the whole megabudget superhero epic is pretty much played out by this point. Wouldn't it be refreshing if someone would make a simple, cheap, little indie movie about a guy who puts on weird clothes and fights bad guys? And, since I'm clearly delusional here, wouldn't it be lovely if said film were not an origin story but rather a tale that takes for granted the hero's backstory and simply follows his latest adventure, much as the average comic book and/or graphic novel does?

Anybody with me on this?

Superfag?

I feel so out of it.

I had no idea before checking in on the last week's worth of PostModern Barney that America is busy talking about Superman being gay. Apparently it all stems from this recent cover story in The Advocate.



Having just read the story, I want to point out two things:
1. Alonso Duralde's original article barely mentions the new movie; it's really about a gay reader's affection for comics, and the reasons behind it. (Two of his three theories are patently obvious: alter egos=metaphors for the double life of a closeted teen, and men in tights are sexy. The third--that long-running comics function like soap operas--is less trite; at first I was gonna say that I never really got into soaps that much, but I admit I do appreciate them as a form of storytelling, and I get Duralde's point about the rewards of obsessive reading being the ability to appreciate the footnotes in comics.)

2. Superman remains one of the least "gay" comics heroes out there, at least in my book. Plenty of gay guys (like the Hub) find him hot, but he's ... well, he's no Masked Manhunter, my friends. Love the muscles and the tights, but I miss the angst.

First Batwoman, now this. It's been a busy month for op-ed writers.

Homophobes are a cowardly and superstitious lot

I feel obliged to acknowledge the recent Batwoman-is-a-lesbian media/blogosphere frenzy, but I just don't have the energy to say anything about it beyond pointing out that this BBC story about "the rise of multi-culturalism in the comics" is incredibly simplistic and just plain wrong on so many levels I can't even begin to count. (Learned about the dumbass story from this short item posted by an ailing BeaucoupKevin.)

I've got a sneaking suspicion the people who write stories like this in mainstream newspapers are confusing Batgirl with Batwoman, for starters. As with Pluto/Goofy and Donald/Daffy, I'm sure it happens all the time. It's just that BatGIRL is surely waaaaaaaaay more well known among noncomicsgeeks than her adult counterpart.

Oh, and Dorian/postmodernbarney has posted these hilarious scans from a comic explaining "the real reason there aren't more gay or lesbian superheroes." A laff riot.

Moving right along.

Cleaning out my closet

Today's one of those days to sort through stuff I've bookmarked to write about here and have forgotten for months, sometimes years:

This AlterNet story on gays and comics dates back to 2003, but if you haven't seen it, it's still worth checking out.

An insanely detailed guide to the '66 TV show and accompanying movie, listing clues, gizmos, Robin's "holy" expressions, trivia, and so much more for every single episode. (And people call me obsessive...)

The Land of Nod is a site devoted entirely to images of characters who have been chloroformed or gassed by members of the opposite sex. (Of course there are Batman shots! Need you ask?) Hasn't been updated since 1999, but if you go for this sort of thing, you won't leave disappointed.

Beauty in Darkness is a blog on the history of BDSM, in conjunction with a work-in-progress book on that subject. I found it, oddly enough, through a Google search long ago for "Batman + Midnighter" (the Batman-esque leatherman hero of The Authority), and that reference does indeed appear, but I think I will be exploring the rest of the site in more detail, so I'm adding it to the links list on the right.

More to come, but surely at least one of the above will float yer boat in the meantime.

Oh, and you'll be happy, if not shocked, to learn that I've actually updated my "Secret Room" website for the first time in over a year. It's mostly just adding the above, and I certainly have much more to add and subtact, but at least it's a start.

Odds 'n' ends

1. This interview at COMICON.com with Paul Pope about his BATMAN YEAR 100 project makes the book look mighty interesting. Batman looks pretty hot, and I am intrigued by Pope's comments, some of which sound just as fetishistic as stuff I would probably say:

To me, the classic Batman is the most visually interesting and the most believable - the little gloves, the gray jersey, the mask with the severe 'V' shaped design cut across his cheekbones - the strange, scary slits for eyes - that kind of thing from his original appearances... He has real boots on. There's no generic foot shape on my guy. a Ken doll foot, you know. Generic superhero foot. ... I don't know how others draw Batman's boots, but mine look like actual boots.

My other pet peeve has always been his utility belt. It seems like it's often portrayed as kind of this Deus Ex Machina thing with everything in it. I want to wipe that campy Batman shit off the board. There's no Bat Shark Repellant in here. He just has a few essentials in this utility belt. Since it's the future there are some tricky weapons like this sonic dog whistle thing, a machine that confuses people, rope, a torch cutter, lights, and a few other simple devices.



2. I've been TRYING to remember which comics blog did a tribute to Dorian's semi-regular "Subtext? What Subtext?" feature (which I dearly love) sometime last month, but I can't find it. In the process of trying to track it down from Dorian's own site, I came across this brilliant and hilarious entry about "How To Get Your Boyfriend To Read Comics." It's great, although I don't think I'm ever gonna try it with the Hub. I've already got him dressing up like comics characters and doing various kinky things with me in costume, which is way more fun, so why put him through actually reading real live, ahem, "monthly comics periodicals"?

3. To make up for not finding the item I was looking for in #2, here are two of the pics in that entry I was gonna link to. I won't even bother to come up with smirking text to accompany them, since that's been done by minds far wittier than mine. (I just can't tell you where.) Me, I just want to enjoy the pix. Click on 'em to make them--and maybe yourself--get bigger:



and



4. I still have more to say on that SuperDickery treasuretrove, but it will have to wait. Ah, how I tease...

My Son Calls Another Man "Daddy"

(Somehow, I don't think this is what Hank Williams had in mind with that song title.)

Dorian at PostModernBarney.com has a nice appreciation of Tom of Finland on his blog, as part of a mini-series on "Objectifying Men." Not only is the writing interesting, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen Tom's--er, Mr. Finland's--work discussed by someone I associate with comics (gay or otherwise). Here, allow me to post a JPEG from my own collection that we may all enjoy:



Given my interest in cops, real and otherwise, I keep meaning to write more about Tom's stuff here, but I never quite get around to it. I've read portions of Micha Ramakers' book Dirty Pictures: Tom of Finland, Masculinity, and Homosexuality, a fairly academic tome peppered with, well, dirty pictures, and many years ago I saw the documentary Daddy and the Muscle Academy, both of which I'd recommend to fans of the artist who are interested in the deeper implications of his work.

Oddly enough, I first heard about Tom from a heterosexual woman artist/curator (with lots of gay friends), around the time of one of his first gallery shows in NYC in the mid-80s, just as the post-modernists were starting to discover him. So, hey, let's hear it for universal appeal!

--Wayne of Gotham

I'm getting TENSE just thinking about it...

Hooray for the new Google Blog Search, which reveals almost 232,000 blog entries containing the word "Batman." The first of these that caught my eye was this one, consisting largely of scans from a bat-book I'd never heard of: Joe Casey's 2003 two-parter, Tenses. I also found a review of it here. At first I thought it was some sort of fan-generated thing, since it's evidently got graphic violence, S/M references, and gay subtext up the, uh, yin-yang.

Wait, did I say "subtext"? One of the supporting characters is a nosy reporter who is clearly, unmistakably queer, and assumes Bruce Wayne is, too. (BTW, I would clearly, unmistakably want to have sex with the journalist if I encountered him in real life.)



In one of the bitchy queen's later encounters with Our Hero, the flirtation becomes overt, and Bruce doesn't exactly handle it too well.



Looks like textbook homophobia, if you ask me, Bruce--and if you do, I'll say this whole School-of-George-Sanders-style 'mo subplot reeks of something out of some 60s/70s crime film of the sort chronicled at length in The Celluloid Closet. But hey, I'm totally intrigued by what I've read about this book. Anybody out there read it and care to comment?

Bat-links, get your bat-links (and one Cap'n America)

These are all odds and ends I've found over the last few days during occasional breaks from unending immersion in the unending horrors currently unfolding in New Orleans (more on that in a later entry). They're all kinda random and kinda interconnected at the same time.

1. I found this extremely handy collection of reviews of Batman (and related) graphic novels, trade paperbacks, etc. while doing one of my characteristically kinky Google searches. (I forget the keywords in question this time, but seeing what emerges from combinations like "Batman+bondage+deathtrap" has long been one of my favorite uses of the world's greatest search engine.) There's nothing even remotely R-rated about this particular page, it just looks like a potentially valuable tool for sorting through the vast array of bat-books on the shelves these days.

2. The same Google search, whatever it was, also yielded this exhaustive Wikipedia entry on slash and fan fiction which should be of interest and use to all who share my close and personal connection to certain masked manhunters.

3. Speaking of which, the world always has room for another Seduction of the Innocent joke...

4.and for another gender-transgressive kid-related Batman reference in another indie comic. A Beaucoup Kevin find. Merci beaucoup, Kevin, indeed!

5. Shifting from sex to politics, here's an interesting collection of links to several reviews and think-pieces arguing that Batman Begins (and/or the title character) has an essentially conservative agenda. (BTW, a neighbor I had a crush on during the Dark Knight Returns era was on the cutting edge of this Batman-as-right-winger notion; as he saw it, the bat mythos glorifies the fabulously wealthy individual who vows to rid his city of crime. I hate to read it that way myself, but then as we know, I do have a soft spot in my heart--or a hard spot somewhere else--for sexy Republican dudes, even though, like Claire Fisher, I detest their politics.)

6. Perhaps I will remember to devote more attention to this one in that upcoming New Orleans post, but in case I forget or it doesn't fit, here's another fruit of that same Google expedition: a student term paper on Batman and postmodernism.The bulk of the essay is a fairly detailed history of the character as he has evolved over time and across genres. The postmodern part is iffy in the way most student term papers tend to be when juxtaposing fun pop culture and dreary critical theory, but I also found a lot of eye-opening stuff I may quote in future entries on various bat-subjects.



Finally, as promised, the non-Bat-related link:
7. I also have Beaucoup Kevin to thank for my discovery of this cartoon that proposes a government-sponsored Captain America clone used to create low-budget patriotic cartoons in the Vietnam era. If you liked Team America as much as I did, you'll dig this, too.

The love that dare not show its face

Shhhhhhh: Don't tell anyone, but the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder just might be an item. This tidbit in THE BEAT describes the saga of a Chelsea art dealer slapped with a cease-and-desist from DC over artist Mark Chamberlain's homoerotic watercolors of the dynamic duo. Touchy, touchy. Wouldn't want anybody thinking dirty thoughts about those two, you know.

Wanna see more? Some lovely samples of Chamberlain's work are posted here, at least for the time being. Better look fast: another cease-and-desist has already gone out to shut the page down.

Turns out I'm several months late to pick up on this one (as is my wont--I am not one of those bloggers who insists on breaking news). Here's a lengthy thread of comments at Stay Free's blog, starting with one particularly homophobic rant and then veering off in various directions. And, just in case you want it, here's the rabid rght wing take.

(Special bonus link, just for the hell of it: this collection of Ambiguously Gay Duo-dads. Oh, and while we're at it, here's a raunchy little slash comic DC will hate even more than those watercolors. Collect 'em all, till the comics police crack down on copyright infringement yet again.)