That's My Shark

I'm still reeling from this week's episode of Six Feet Under (#44, "That's My Dog"). TV shows don't usually hit me on this visceral a level, but I felt physically ill watching the uninterrupted/relentless second half hour. (Can't see how to continue without a few possible SPOILERS, so show fans who haven't seen the ep yet, beware.) I was even afraid to go to sleep because of potential nightmares.

That doesn't mean I loved the episode at all: far from it. My hubby/SO/whatever left the room in outrage, and I came close to turning the channel myself. (That used to happen all the time when we watched the horrendously written and performed QUEER AS FOLK, but never during 6FU before.) The show's plunge into soap operadom has been building for the last couple of seasons, and there have been many complaints from critics about the decline in the current season, but the previous episode (#43) was one of the best ever (if I may use that phrase without sounding like The Comic Book Store Guy from another Sunday show). I particularly appreciate the way the writers have handled the kink/BDSM element with Brenda's new boyfriend, for instance -- which has so far been respectful while still maintaining a healthy sense of humor.

But this business with David and the sociopath went way too far. My hub's theory is that I reacted so severely both because the episode was intense, AND because it was so badly done. Hub (how 'bout I call him that for a while?), a LEO not unlike David's on-again/off-again partner Keith, couldn't believe David never fought back, that he walked into the whole situation like a fool, and so on.

I didn't really have a problem with David's behavior, because I could see myself doing many of the same things he did (assuming I was naive enough to pick up a hitchhiker in LA in the first place, which is a miiiiiiighty big suspension of disbelief). No, that was where the sinking feeling in my stomach came from: I could identify all too easily with his reactions.

And that (in case you're wondering what this rant has to do with batsex) is where my superhero fantasies differ sharply from my Bruce Wayne existence. When I'm playing Batman, I may choose to walk into a trap, but I do so with the understanding that I have the training, the focus, and the equipment to free myself (and the knowledge that it's all make-believe, of course). In "real life," I don't have any of that, and so things that might make me hard in a play scenario would simply scare the shit out of me if they ever really happened to me.

The 6FU encounter included bondage, gunplay, physical abuse, and psychological terrorism, each of which I've employed in bat-scenes in the past at one time or another, but I couldn't get off on any of it in this context. It's like my problem with the show Oz: it looks so much like a porn video I might jerk off to, but it's placed in a different, more realistic world (well, if you consider the hellhole prison of the title to be realistic, and I simply don't) where there's nothing sexy at all about forced rape, torture, murder, and the other horrors onscreen.

While I recognized the quality of writing and performing in Oz (and found some of the actors, like Chris Meloni, absolutely fuckalicious), I didn't stick with the series past one full episode. It was just too dark too much of the time. I know I'll give 6FU another chance, maybe two, but I can't help thinking the program has, yes, jumped the shark.

[Any of youse got any opinons on the matter? Post 'em in the comments below...]

Our little Boy Wonder, all growed up

Just watched the new fan film Nightwing: A Knight in Bludhaven. The acting isn't very good, the effects are unconvincing ... but damn, you get to watch a cute guy in a skintight outfit getting captured and bound (twice!), soaking wet, and in various other states of sexy disrepair. Plus, there are a couple of cameos by a hunky/chunky Batman himself.

Elsewhere in fandomland, cleverly named "Project Blue Tights" (even the URL is hot: www.bluetights.net) seems to be the Superman-fan equivalent of the invaluable BatmanFanFilms site. Both will lead you to a page on an upcoming project, Batman: Madness. From the trailer, we intuit that Batman falls under the spell of Poison Ivy, then fights both Nightwing and Superman. Chains are involved, along with some tantalizing groping of the batsuit. Can't wait!

So this is what happens when fellow grownups pursue their interest in comic book characters and storylines. God, if only TV was like this every day of the week, I'd never leave the house.

Wild in the Streets

Look hard and you just might spot me at the Folsom Fair North this weekend. Actually, you probably won't spot me, since you don't know what I look like in my Bruce Wayne guise (and as a good masked vigilante I intend to keep it that way), but I'll be there, booted and gloved, scoping out leather fun in the streets. Will you?

Kind of an odd concept, this notion of taking an institution so totally identified with one city (San Fran, of course) and recreating it in another (Toronto). Then again, that's what Mardi Gras is all about, isn't it?

Seems my partner and I have become gay tourists. Yes, it's true: for all my railing against the commodification of queer culture, I do enjoy a good road trip, rainbow-themed or otherwise. For the last several summers we've been travelling to various cities far and wide to check out how they celebrate Gay(/Les/Bi/Trans/Leather/Bear/etc) Pride--including Atlanta, NYC, San Francisco, Toronto, and New Orleans, and a handful of smaller towns. (Ah, Southern Decadence--how we miss your sticky, blow-job-in-the-streets-y glory days of old, before the fundamentalist crazies forced you to clean up your act.)

If I were smart, I'd turn out this field investigation into some sort of book, or at least an article. I could talk about the unique characteristics of each city's festivities (obnoxious SuperSoaker squirt guns in Toronto, drunken rowdies in SF, unbridled corporate sponsorship in Atlanta, etc). Instead, I just walk around taking pictures of straight cops for my own personal amusement. To each his own, I suppose.

Higher Ground

The conditions were finally right for a nice round of solo batplay this past weekend--my first truly fulfilling one in months. Through much practice, I learned that I have to be...
•alone
•wide awake
•in good health
•completely relaxed
•not up against some kind of real-world time restraints
and, last but not least, I need to do something to jostle me out of my rational brain a bit. If all the other conditions have met, this one may not be necessary, but I've found that it helps to ingest one of several mind-altering substances (often even a candy placebo will do--I just set up a scenario in which Batman is drugged, and take it from there). Tried a little codeine this time (very little since I'm kind of scared of this sort of thing, though the recipe on the site I've just given you looks intriguing). The response was very mild, but that's all it takes--my imagination can do the rest.

I like to set the scene with different kinds of music or other sound in different rooms of the house--perhaps some electronic dance stuff in one room, industrial noise in another, and a radio station in a third. (I vary the lighting in each space, too.) One of my favorite radio broadcasts to use during these middle-of-the-night sessions is the latest incarnation of conspiracy theorist/black ops tracker Art Bell's long-running show, currently called Coast to Coast. (Art is only a guest host these days.)

On this particular night, the guest was Daniel Pinchback, author of a new book called Breaking Open the Head, a study of the role of psychedelics in the shamanistic traditions of various religions around the world. While many of Bell's guests strike me as wacky if not outright scary cases, Pinchback made an awful lot of sense--I suspect he's investigating some of the same things I am, only via drugs instead of costumed play. It's clear that he's not just trying to get high or escape reality; he wants to reach an alternate reality. I know, I know: very 60s. But everything that goes around comes around, and maybe it's time to revisit that impossible dream for a new day and time. I haven't tracked down the book yet, but I plan to. (I'd also like to spend more time checking out a site he recommends, "The Vaults of Erowid," a remarkably detailed guide to psychoactive drugs of all sorts.)

For the last two or three years, the line between the sexual dimensions of my nocturnal activities and the spiritual dimensions has been very thin indeed. I'm interested in hearing from other batmen (and women) out there who are exploring similar territory in their own way, so drop me a line or comment below if you have stories or techniques to share.

Bats in the news

Two amusing bat-links I owe to Teresa at the always-delightful In Sequence:

1) This item about artist Mark Newport's embroidered superhero costumes, including a lovely acrylic batsuit.

2) This picture of Bush and cabinet dressed as Batman's archenemies.

Does whatever a spider can...

I'm still surprised how let down I feel about the new SPIDER-MAN movie. The trailers and stills I'd seen certainly whetted my appetite, to put it mildly: images of our hero in the clutches of Doc Ock, chained up, about to be unmasked, his outfit torn so badly there was barely anything left of it. (Stop me now before I shoot my spidey-webs on the keyboard!)

That's all there, and I'm sure the folks at the GaySpidermanFans Yahoo group will be posting plenty of pix in the weeks to come. But the movie itself was a tremendous disappointment: awful (yet not convincingly campy) dialogue, sloppy direction, one cliché after another. The first film still feels like one of the best comic-book movies thus far, even though I found most of the Peter-and-Mary-Jane business in that one really tedious. I've never been a fan of origin stories in any case, so I was really looking forward to the second installment, when we'd all be free to dive into interactions with villains without much set-up. (I think I developed my boredom with origins from the "Batman" tv show, in which we're plunged straight into the action from the very first episode--which, by the way, is also the only one in which Bruce Wayne's murdered parents and his subsequent vow to avenge them ever comes up, as far as I can remember. Who really cares WHY these hot guys suit up to do their business? Let's just see them in those outfits... and those deathtraps!)

No such luck with SPIDER-MAN 2. (Only minor spoilers in the rest of this paragraph.) First we have to deal with learning how the new bad guy comes into being, then Peter has to lose his powers and re-invent himself, which means MORE scenes of him training himself, blah blah blah. And that fucking Mary Jane! They're apart, they're together, they're apart, they're together, and so on and so on and SO on. Gimme a break. Leave the chick at home and go get yourself into the clutches of some supervillain bent on your destruction, Spidey hon. THAT's what we're paying the big bucks to see. Plus, by the end of the film--following a trend established by the BATMAN movies-- everyone and his brother knows who's under that mask.

A friend of mine said, "Come on, it's a comic book movie!" Pre-cisely. Comic books, for me--an old-school DC-er by birthright--are about the larger-than-life (and hotter-than-vanilla) interactions of heroes and villains fated to lock horns for years and years, not the mundane concerns of everyday people. If I wanted the latter, I'd watch "The O.C." This whole trend toward paying more attention to the Bruce Wayne side of a character than the Bat-self (see "Smallville," "Lois and Clark," "Daredevil," and, I fear, the forthcoming "Batman Begins") is for the birds, if you ask me. The problem with S-M 2 (oh, if only those initials were more descriptive of the actual film) is that it's NOT a comic-book movie at all, it's a fucking soap opera.

***

Okay, now if you've been keeping up with my OWN version of an origin story in the "Beginnings" serial/blog, you may be thinking to yourself, what's HE going on about? That thing is about as soap-opera as you can get without a cameo from Susan Lucci!

And maybe I am guilty as charged, after all. But all the Dick Grayson stuff early on is there for a reason. I'm really trying to retell a story we all know by heart, from scratch, with some serious revisions. I freely admit I'm fucking with some essential parts of the legend--all because I've been thinking about what conditions might lead to the appearance of a Batman in the, er, "real" world we all inhabit. ("We" being people -- like you, I assume -- who harbor fetishes about characters most everyone else discards after adolescence.) At the same time, I want to make it as sexy as the comic-book fantasies that have always gotten me hard. As of chapter 20 or so, I should have most of the basic framework laid out, and I have some major nastiness planned for our heroes, believe me.

But I'm eager to find out whether anyone cares. I've gotten a couple of encouraging and/or encouragingly horny e-mails so far, but I really want feedback--either via e-mail or the comments option below. I love plotting and writing "Beginnings" so much right now that I'll probably keep going for my own amusement/arousal for the next few weeks at least, but your response would be a great incentive to continue after that. So spill your guts -- or any gushy fluid of your choice.

Not-So-Dark Knight

Things are calming down a bit in my Bruce Wayne life for at least a couple of weeks, so I spent a lot of time last night updating the "Cop-Links" section of my SECRET ROOM site.

In the process, I remembered that National Night Out! is coming up again--it's the first Tuesday of August every year--so I'll put in a plug for it now, a mere month in advance while it's fresh on my mind. Events vary from city to city, but there's a good chance you can tour your local precinct house or, at the very least, get up close and personal with your favorite local boys in blue.

I'm starting to suspect the cops are onto us; check out the new NNO mascot, the "Night Out Knight," on their site. Not since the glory days of Joe Camel has a cartoon character looked so much like a walking phallus. (Either that, or his cleft chin is a plump pair of buttocks.) Turns out you can order your own version of the costume--perfect for the next Theme Night down at the Eagle!

Another openin', another show...

Just learned about a new animated Batman series coming to the WB. Could be good, could be bad. I certainly agree with the general consensus that the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini animated series was the best translation/adaptation yet of the Caped Crusader, capable of entertaining kids and grownups alike without the (lovely) campiness of the 1966 series. Its second incarnation, with Robin along for the ride, was a little more kiddie-fied, and I never quite got into "Batman Beyond" (though both of those later series had their deathtrap moments now and then). I admit to watching the current "Justice League" once in a blue moon, and the few times I've caught "Teen Titans," I've enjoyed it--mostly for the Shonen Knife theme song and the cool anime-style graphic design. So I'm up for a new series, even if I have my doubts. (FYI, I also learned tonight that a 4-disc DVD of the aforementioned Timm/Dini version is coming out soon, apparently with a few bonus features.)

Speaking of animation, my latest passion is the (vaguely) superhero-themed series that are part of the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, namely "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" and "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." The "heroes" of the latter are a milkshake, a bag of french fries, and a wad of meat from a hamburger (whose "superpower" is the ability to turn himself into an igloo and a hot dog; nothing else, just an igloo and a hot dog). I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that BirdMan and Space Ghost caused a stirring in my pubescent loins when they were first on the air in the (correct me if I'm wrong here) early 70s, so it's weird to see them turned into the stuff of stoner comedy three decades later. All these series remind me, in a weird way, of what DC's Vertigo line does with third-rate comic book heroes of my youth, throwing out everything but the name and using the character as a post-modern meditation on the non-heroic details of everyday life.

Oops, is that too highfalutin' for ya? Look, they're just fucking funny.

Now it begins...

I've gone and done it: started a new blog to tell an ongoing bat-story that picks up where my story "Bystander" left off. Been mapping this out in my head for the last few days, and now the first words are out there. Hope you'll check it out and let me know what you think.

BYSTANDER: One Piece at a Time

I've been gradually posting new chapters of a story called "Bystander" on the Perils of Batman Yahoo group for the last couple of days, despite (more likely because of) the huge pile of paying work staring me in the face right now. This is my first bat-tale in a long, long time; I actually finished the rough draft a few months ago and finally decided it was time to get it out there.

I love the serial form: post a little bit here, then wait, then a little bit more. Cliffhangers aplenty. (Not much happens in the new story for the first five or six chapters; it's all about building suspense--what WILL happen, when something finally does?)

Obviously I trace my fondness for the format to the "Batman" TV show and those interminable waits from one night to the next to find out how -- or if!-- our heroes were going to escape their latest deathtrap. In a more high-minded state, I think about how Dickens used to serialize his novels, which naturally shaped their form and style, and I remember how a friend and I used to say that soap operas had so much potential as a storytelling device with their gradual unveiling of character development and texture... but let's pretend I didn't just say that. Basically, I fetishize the phrase "tune in tomorrow--same bat-time, same bat-channel" as much as the batsuit. To me, the sexiest part of these stories is the wait between "to be continued" and "in our last episode..." In a way I wish I could draw it out even longer.

Anyway, the new story is an attempt to do something new, at least new for me: tell a slash story from the point of view of an everyday citizen who is wrapped up in one of these wild comic-book plots. Kind of a sex-friendly version of the graphic novel MARVELS. (BTW, the end of the story has given me an idea for a new one, but lemme get through this one first.)

The other thing I love, in addition to keeping readers waiting for the next installment, is the chance to refine and revise: first I write the rough draft, then I sit on it for a while, then I rethink and tweak the language (and whatever plot inconsistencies I happen to catch) before I post it to a Yahoo group, then I come back to it again before posting it on my "Secret Room" site. Probably doesn't sound very sexy, but I love the process. In its own way, it's as erotic to me as the original scenario in my head.

Now, THAT's a kink.

Spam of the Week

I hate spam as much as the next caped crusader fetishist. But I must admit the following little scam brought a twinkle to my eye for its sheer absurdity. (To truly appreciate this, you need to know that my "real name," according to my Yahoo profile, is "Dark Knight.")

Dear   Dark Knight ,
I am Barrister Adara Monday, a solicitor at law, personal attorney to Mr. K. C . Knight, a national Of your country,who used to work as a contractor in Lome Togo. Here in after shall be referred to as my client. On the 30th of April 2000, my client, and their only daughter were involved in a car accident along Kpalime express Road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost there lives. Since then I have made several enquiries here to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.
After these several unsuccessful attempts,I decided to searchthrough with his name which motivated me to contact you, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.I havecontacted you to assist in repartrating the fund valued at US$20.5 million left behind by my client before it gets confisicated or declared unserviceable by the Security Finance Firm(bank) where this huge amount were deposited. The said Security Finance Company has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have his account confisicated within the next twenty one official working days.
 Since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the relatives for over 2years now, I seek the consent to present you as the next of kin to the deceased since you have the same last names, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you.Therefore, on receipt of your positive response, we shall then discuss the sharing ratio and modalities for transfer. I have all necessary information and legal documents needed to back you up for claim.
All I require from you is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through. I guarantee that this will be executed under legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.

Best regards.
Adara Monday esq.

Yippee! Now I get to be a millionaire just like my hero, and I can invest my inheritance in crimefighting equipment! Funny, I thought my only relatives were Wayne Knight, Phil Knight, and Doctor Mid-Nite (his ancestors had their surname changed at Ellis Island). Give my regards to the citizens of Lome Togo, Barrister Monday.

My Life in Bubblegum

Wow, thanks to the Topps Flashback section of the Topps/Bazooka Joe website, I can revisit all the touchstones of my lifelong fetish in one convenient location: not just Batman but THE GREEN HORNET, MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., the original PLANET OF THE APES. Alas, no cards of shirtless, caged Charlton Heston; no bound-and-doomed Napoleon Solo; no Green Hornet in peril; the Batman set displayed is the kink-free tie-in to the 1966 movie, not the glorious S&M-crazed packs drawn by Bob Powell and Norm Saunders. But still. All this site is lacking is THE WILD, WILD WEST to complete my childhood introduction to masculine heroism... and since the site seems to be updated now and then, there's always a chance.

Plenty of other artifacts of my youth are there, too, like LAUGH-IN, the moon landing, the Beatles, Evel Knievel, and more (plus some fascinating pop-culture icons from earlier and later eras). But those images trigger a completely different part of my brain than the aforementioned. For me, batfascination is not a nostalgic exercise; it's still very current. "Flashbacks" are about looking back on the innocence of childhood (specifically your own) from a distanced perspective, generally encouraging you to feel superior to the past (Look at those crazy hairstyles! Those wacky sofas!), which I think is simply a way of encouraging all of us happy consumers to perpetuate commodity culture's relentless insistence on newness. But Batman is still very much with me, a myth from my past that constantly informs my present and, I assume, my future.

What Fanboys Talk About When They Talk About Love

Stumbled upon this page of bitter debate while doing one of my beloved Google searches for bat-keywords (in this case, "Batman tights/ripped/shredded," I think). It's a 2003 thread on Ain't It Cool News regarding the fanfilm "Dead End," and if you have some time to kill, wade through the verbiage for some revealing discussion from (presumably) hetero batgeeks re how best to depict Our Hero, loaded with subtext about the beauty of the male body, in particular the bodybuilder who plays him in "Dead End." (Maybe I shouldn't assume they're all repressed, because at least one brave soul here outs himself as a gay man who is therefore better qualified to critique the bat-actor's abs than everyone else.) Basically the old tights vs. rubber suit argument, with the obligatory reference to Schumaker's nipplesuit. Call me a peacemaker, but I'll be happy to fetishize either option.

Another fan film coming...

Here is a trailer and sneak peek at a new bat-fan film, "Batman: In the Flesh." (Most tantalizing part of the site for me is the line on the page just before the one I'm directing you to, which reads "Click here to enter Batman in the flesh." Now THAT's something I'd be happy to do anyday.)

Looks promising on many fronts--interesting premise, lots of telling details which will resonate with readers of the comics, AND the possibility for some deathtrap action and/or beefcake--and I just hope the full film gets made eventually. I'm all for the phenomenon of fan films, though obviously they cost a lot more money and take a lot more time to create than their prose equivalents, so the risk of getting shut down by the copyright-owning studios must quite daunting to the makers. What I'd really like to see, of course, is a film version of a slash story, but I'm not holding my breath.

Throughout the 70s and 80s I fantasized about making a big-budget batfilm of my own, though in retrospect I now acknowledge that the plot was secondary to convincing hot guys to suit up and act out my s/m/b/d dreams. Guess that's why Tim Burton got the call from Warner Bros and not me.

RJ McCaffery- Superheroes and the Social Eye

My introduction into the world of "Blog This!" may just lead to more entries like this one:

Just stumbled across this essay while avoiding work (is there any other way to discover things in this world?); a little too English-major-y for my taste, but one of the poems discussed, "The Superhero's Shrunken Tights," is pretty enjoyable on its own. For all the wrong reasons, I mean.

BATMAN BEGINS begins

BATMAN BEGINS

First glimpse at the new Christopher Nolan movie with Christian Bale as Our Hero. Too soon to say whether it will avoid the pitfalls of the earlier movies (or create some new ones), but at least the outfit (and the guy wearing it) looks nice.

The Skin I'm In

Okay, so yes, I've been away awhile. Again. But upon my return, I discover that Blogger has radically revamped (and almost even idiot-proofed) itself, and the changes look mighty appealing to me, given that they've streamlined a lot of the little stuff that used to prevent me from writing more often. I've just spent, oh, a couple of hours changing the look -- I believe the term is "skin" -- of my blog and I'm still not totally happy with it, but I'm getting there. I enjoy learning as I go with this stuff. And I beg all of you who know HTML to bear with me.


Speaking of skin, my latest excuse for not writing here is an unpleasant and very painful rash-y sort of thing, which has me not wanting to move around much at all. And donning a batsuit or any other sort of costume/uniform is the farthest thing from my mind these days.


Which has me thinking about those few situations in life when the erotic impulse is on hold: illness, grief, looming work deadlines. Come to think of it, I've faced all three of those for the last several months, so I guess it's no surprise that my bat-duties have taken a back seat lately. I can't tell you how frustrating it was to finally have my schedule (and my psyche) freed up enough to resume batplay, and then have a chunk of my body covered with miserable little bumps...


Actually, I wasn't intending to write so much about myself in that last paragraph; I wanted to make a point about how the body -- any body -- tends to shut itself down now and then. And that was going to lead into some thought-provoking discourse on ... uh, I forgot what the discourse was going to be about. See?! I'm hurtin' here, people.


Oh, one more thing: in the new, improved version of this blog, you, dear reader, can now at long last leave comments of your own. And I encourage you to! I've never liked the feeling of jabbering into the abyss here; from my very first entry I had hoped to make this more of a dialogue than a monologue. I get great e-mail every now and then from people who stumble across this site, which always makes my day, but since there seem to be so many of us out there who share similar fetishes (and the stigmas and logistical problems surrounding them) I think it would be great to see some other voices represented here, too.

I'd been trying to think of some sort of celebration to mark the 10,000th visitor to my "Heroes and Villains" site, and now it looks like it's gonna happen tonight (last time I checked I was at 9998), and I'm empty handed. In reality, at least 400 of those "visitors"--which are really just individual hits--are me checking the count, so maybe I should wait for the counter to hit 10,401. Anyway, if you've made your way here from there for the first time, hello. I'd offer you some cake and a party hat, but they're in storage at the moment. So perhaps you'd best amuse yourself with the kinkiness below for the time being.

I hadn't looked at the Edge's blog in a long time, and I was intrigued to learn he's been posting despairing messages similar to my recent entries here (too much going on on too many fronts, not enough time for the deeper pleasures of life, like play). I don't know the guy except through his marvellous writing, but I do know the feeling he expresses.

Things have calmed down ever so slightly lately on my own front(s), which means I've been able to slip into the old batsuit a few times over the past few days for the first time in ages. And last night, while avoiding "real" work in any way I could think of, I started revamping my "Secret Room" website. (Go there, now, I beseech you, ye nonbelievers, and behold it in all its obsessive-compulsive glory.)

At long last, my stories are better organized, making it easier for me to add new ones in the future, and the links page actually exists (two of them, even, divided by my two primary fetishes), rather than being a line or two of Angelfire boilerplate. I'm definitely no techie, so it's pretty rough, but I'm using this project to learn as I go.

Speaking of which, can anybody reading this who knows a damn thing about HTML tell me why pages like this one -- or,hell, any of the other main sub-pages for that matter -- contain those little rectangles all along the left side? Until I fix the problem, I'm telling myself they represent sprockets on a film strip and it's all an ingenious tribute to celluloid. Yeah, that's the ticket... Anyway, if you know what I'm doing wrong, please drop me a line and let me know so I can make it all better. Any other comments on the actual content are more than welcome, too. For now I'm just so damn happy to be working on this thing decked out in my most comfortable stretchy clothes instead of occupying my time with more mundane matters.

Judging from the promo pix I've seen so far, it looks like the forthcoming movie version of THE PUNISHER will be the latest in a long line of film adaptations of comic books to dispense with the hero's skintight costume. (Yes, I'm talking about you, DAREDEVIL.) I've never been a huge fan of the Punisher (too much machismo, too direct a ripoff of DEATH WISH), but I must say his body-hugging lycra outfit (and occasional tendency to stumble into b&d situations) has inspired me to buy an issue or two of his comic over the years, and even to rent the earlier, awful (and equally spandex-free) movie version starring Dolph Lundgren.

I know I'm not the first comics fan to bitch about this, but what's the big problem with portraying characters the way they were originally drawn? Guess we could trace the trouble back to the baggy trunks of the Superman TV show (and, before that, to various movie serials), then to the way that presumably absurd image was playfully satirized by the costumers of the 1966 Batman series. Of course, as this blog has surely made abundantly clear by now, the sight of Adam West in gray long johns might have been intended as a joke, but it had quite a different effect on the likes of me and many other future perverts around the world.

Ever since then--even though we now possess a whole bunch of miracle synthetic fabrics straight out of Jack Kirby's imagination--movie moguls have felt compelled to shy away from tight-fitting fantasy outfits for fear that modern-day hipster audiences wouldn't take them seriously. (As if anybody takes action heroes seriously, in or out of costume. I mean, it's not like we'd want them as elected officials, for god's sake!) Meanwhile, the world of championship wrestling has been packed with well-built men stuffed into lycra for decades now, and that doesn't seem to have hurt ratings one whit.

There have been a few promising exceptions to moviedom's rampant lycrophobia: The Phantom, the TV version of The Flash, and, of course, Tobey McGuire as Spider-Man--that last one being proof positive that you can hire an actor with some emotional depth who still looks good in lycra.

As for my beloved Caped Crusader, I've recently discovered a Yahoo group devoted exclusively to the black rubber batsuit of the recent movies over the Adam West version. Truth be told, by this point in my life I've come to prefer the rubber outfit to the version that first floated my boat--but either is preferable to the kind of leather-jacket compromise the Punisher now finds himself encased in.