Where I'm blogging now

OK, Q-Bomb is pretty much defunct at this point. I'm keeping it around because I sometimes refer to old things I posted here and I need something to link to, but that's about it.

But my Site Meter tells me I still have quite a few people visiting this site. If you're looking for fresh content, I've pretty much moved my blogging to three other sites.

First, I'm mostly posting at Bilerico on queer politics and culture. So if you were interested in what I have to say about that, you can check it out over there.

Second, I've moved the Qomics for Queers archives and started to post more often about comics-outing here. I'm going to keep on posting a weekly post on that at Bilerico, but there's some other stuff that won't make it to the Sunday QFQ post.

Third, I've started a completely different blogging venture at Street Economics. I'm kind of fed up with the way laissez-faire economic theory is accepted uncritically considering how ridiculous some of its tenets are, so I'm posting news stories there that show that Econ 101 doesn't quite describe the way that the world works. I'm trying to get some other people involved with that project to make it more comprehensive, and I'm sure that'll be fun.

So I don't know what's going to become of Q-Bomb. It'll sit here as archives until the bug to start some new blogging project that could involve this content springs up.

Qomics for Queers, providing 24-hour coverage of Dennis the Homosexual Menace

OK, folks, sorry about not having a Qomics for Queers last week. I didn't have anything from that week that really jumped out at me, and then I was going to do a few re-writes, and I never got around to it, and it became one of those things, and before I knew it it's today.


First is Monday's Dennis the Menace:

The question on everyone's mind is: Where are Dennis' parents right now? They apparently got him all ready for bed. I don't think that if he asked "Can I go bother our elderly neighbor now that I'm supposed to be asleep and it's all dark?" that they would say yes.

One of them should be supervising him....

One possible explanation is that both Alice and Henry are simultaneously having affairs (I just watched Desperate Housewives). Think about it, neither would leave Dennis at home if they thought the other wasn't, so there would have to be a situation where each of them is away for something secret. Since this is supposed to be outing the comics, let's make them gay affairs. Hot, sexy woman- or man-loving affairs. And neither made an excuse, Alice and Henry each snuck out of the house so well that the other thought that it was safe to sneak out as well. That leaves Dennis, all alone. I suppose he woke up and asked for a glass of water, only to find no one there. Where a normal 5-year-old would start crying, Dennis is a true professional menace, so he takes this opportunity to do his thing.

And really, I can't see anything else that's gay in this comic.


Sunday's Dennis the Menace throwaway panels:

Oh, kindergarten. Where candy is sweeter, life is simpler, and kids sit around talking like the characters in Queer as Folk.


The throwaway panels from last Sunday's Beetle Bailey:

You know, from what I know about the army, it's not really common for a Sergeant 1st Class to be hanging out with a private when they have some time off. But not only is Sarge going out with Beetle here, Otto implies that this happens quite often. Their smiles indicate that they're happy, really happy, going-to-get-some-head level happy.

Now, I may not be the first person to say that Beetle and Sarge are gay, but I am probably the person who says it the most often. I think its particularly apropos right now in light of Pace's comments this week (I know, I know, this one was drawn weeks before his comments, but hear me out). Wouldn't it be great if they're setting Beetle Bailey up for a huge publicity stunt involving Beetle and Sarge coming out to everyone when DADT is repealed? It'd be great, and all the characters could be there in one big coming out party (do people do those ever or was that just Ellen?) that would be one big panel on a color, large-format Sunday feature, with doves holding up pink banner that could say, "We're here, we're queer, and you did get used to it!"

Uhhhhhhhhh..... That revealed a little too much of my personal Beetle Bailey fantasies. Maybe I should stop now.

Qomics for Queers - For the record, I blame King Media Features

Well, my fears from last week were misplaced; there's absolutely no shortage of gayness in this week's comics. It did, however, take me all of two days to actually put this together. It definitely couldn't have been caused by a lack of motivation. This Wednesday's Slylock Fox (after the jump) was, for a comics-outer, like looking into the face of God and having Him whisper back, "I love you". I was reminded why I got into this business: immature penis jokes. Because, even with all its bells and perks and whistles, isn't that what being a comics-outer is really all about?


Let's start with Saturday's 9 Chickweed Lane:

Wow! An actual gay reference in a real comic! Inclusive! Well-drawn! Wonderful! Well... except for that tiny, tiny detail: it makes no sense. Here are some possible explanations:
1. Cartoonist McEldowney thinks that "Oh, sweetie, if only" is some kind of universally known gay pick-up line, like "Lookin??"
2. The first two panels have nothing to do with the joke; Seth just really doesn't like Mark's goatee.
3. For the length of time that is panel 2, Seth thought that Mark was a carnivorous lion, making him envy the quick instincts of real gazelles.
4. I joined the boat way too late on 9 Chickweed Lane, and the strip has developed its own alphabet and language that only looks like English, and the above conversation is really a mother-in-law joke.


Friday's Family Circus:

This pretty much explains itself, I guess. One little gay boy drew a Village People moustache on his infantile brother. Seriously, people, nothing to look at here.


This Friday's Dennis the Menace:

Considering the outfit you're wearing, cowboy, I don't think it was your room she wanted you to straighten.


Wednesday's Rex Morgan, M.D.:

It's funny because it's true! It happens like this every time when I have to pull away from my vapid, self-absorbed life and boyfriend to show some sort of affection towards my wife after she talks me into mentoring a teenage near-orphan with flattery, and I'm closing in and closing my eyes like someone would plug their nose to take bad medicine, and it's always like, BANG!, saved by the gunshot!


This Wednesday's Slyock Fox:

Any more? Let's see.... Banana? No, that has seven letters. Penis? No, five. Johnson... no, no no, that has seven letters. Hmmm, these puzzles are really hard!

Qomics for Queers - Belated Presidents' Day Edition

I begin every week with a sense of dread about the upcoming QfQ post, rooted in a fear that there might not be any queer comics the entire week. What if every one of the comics' artists are completely aware of what they're doing? What if my usual suspects stay away from anything remotely related to sexuality? What if I'm stuck doing a re-write of The Family Circus and photoshopping the word "cock" into an Archie and calling it a day?

What happens when your work is completely dependent on the silliness of others is you live in constant fear of other people wising up.

Fortunately, this week there are oh-so-many comics to look at. I wanted to save some of them for next week in a special place (my underwear drawer?) just in case there are slim pickin's. Alas, I cannot; they'll grow stale and become useless. This week we have everything from gay dead presidents to gay high school athletics hijinks.


Let's start with this Friday's La Cucaracha:


There is plenty of evidence to suggest that President Lincoln was gay. So when he showed up at The Barrio Bugle earlier this week looking to place a personal, my ears were all a-twitter. After appearing a little uneasy about doing what it takes to impress straight women on Thursday, though, we see his actual personal ad.

What's that? 100% gender neutral "running mate" instead of Single Professional Woman? "No fatties"? "Splitting logs"? Do I need to spell it out?

Now, the question on everyone's mind is undoubtedly "What has become of Lincoln's lover Joshua Speed?" Well, the answer is quite simple. It's 2007. The dude's long dead. That may make one question why Lincoln's still alive, but it's La Cucaracha, and it doesn't have to explain nothing to no one.


Here's Thursday's Gil Thorp:


I'm sorry to take everyone's attention away from the Tyler-got-attacked-and-Brynna-is-framing-RJ drama unfolding at Gil Thorp, but is RJ grabbing his teammate's cock in panel one? Is this part of some desperate and elaborate scheme to prove his innocence?

Also, Coach Thorp's advice in panel two seems to be walking the fine line between Yoda-like wisdom and Nifty-like dialogue.


Wednesday's Family Circus:


If Jeffy's going to be the comics' token gay kid, then does he have to be dumb as a brick? Where's GLAAD on this one? And just what is Jeff Keane trying to say here? I demand answers!


Friday's Beetle Bailey:


The comics censor foul language in a way unlike any other medium. TV bleeps out the middle part of a word, letting one know exactly what was said, print media use dashes or asterisks corresponding to the exact number of letters of the word in question and leaving enough of it there to let anyone over the age of 8 know what word it was, and movies have a ratings system so they can just say the word to anyone able to sneak in. The comics, though, use old-school wingdings to get the point across.

Of course, no one can actually know what's really being said. In this example, @-squiggly-star can mean anything.

So I'm going to read @-squiggly-star to mean "cocksucking".

So, yowza, Beetle! Not only is he insulting his superior officer, he's making fun of his lover for being gay. That hurts! I'd know!

Now, this might make it seem like a pretty unhealthy relationship, but Beetle and Sarge have always had a relationship that was like a violent version of The Lockhorns' love/hate-but-mostly-hate relationship. Wait, no, their rhetorical deathgrip on one another is just about as unhealthy as a relationship can get. Oh Beetle, just end it gracefully.


This Friday's Bizarro:


Yep, just giving a foot rub to get the job. Totally a foot rub.


Last, but not least, Monday's Slylock Fox:


Alex: Did you see that one Slylock Fox with that massive and muscular bull who was almost naked and pretending to take a bath?
Friend: Yeah....
Alex: Were you turned on by that?
Friend: No, that's stupid.
Alex: Uhhh, yeah! It's totally dumb. Just, uhh, making sure you thought so too.

Qomics for Queers - The Office Closet Case

While it's easy for the rest of us (or maybe just me) to judge the comics as not quite queer enough, when you think about them as being stuck in a time-warp, you realise you have to look a little closer at the closet cases involved in order to pick them out. Television might have its L-Word's and Will and Grace's and lesbian sisters of Jamie on Mad About You, and the silver screen can have its fancy pants Jack and Ennis and Kissing Jessica Stein, but the comics are just fine without all the bells and whistles. No, they don't need your pity; all they want is your respect and your time as you kids look more deeply into them for their queer folk. Yeah, it might not be as easy as calling someone on your cell phone or whatever it is the kids are doing these days, but if you read between the lines, reinterpret the artwork, and just make things up, you can find the representation you're looking for.


First, check out this Friday's They'll Do It Every Time:


Don't let the fashion fool you; this is supposed to be now. This single panel is about a guy who calls the women in his office "sweetheart" and "m'love". And he's somehow singing at the same time. Now there's really only one sort of guy who can get smiles for that sort of behavior - the office "glad" (maybe Scaduto means that he's just happy?).

I just reread Richard Isay's Becoming Gay, and I must say that even though it was written in 1991, there is a cultural difference between the gays of his time and mine, so much so that I can't wrap my mind around a statement like this: "[I] was concerned about the effect coming out would have on my marriage" (37). The clothes tell me that Buttbrain here might be a part of that generation.

So TDIET, like an anachronistic Seinfeld, is supposed to poke fun at different types. This type, with whom those two guys in the Bronx are so familiar, is a great guy deep down inside. Buttbrain is that type of person who has just come out to himself, later in life, and has come out to some of his women friends far from home and has become a sort of desexualized confidant and office mascot because of it. But being partly in the closet, especially to one's close family, is only going to help build his self-esteem about this one part of his identity and create resentment towards compulsory heterosexuality, which ultimately will be transfered on the most visible representative of The Opposite Sex in his life - Helgar. I've seen this misdirected anger a lot among partly out queer people; in fact it seems that's the fuel of the Catholic hierarchy.

So what's Buttbrain to do? Well, he has to take that final step. No, it won't help his relationship with Helgar, but maybe he can become a better role model for his son who can't stop wearing the same blue-vest-striped-shirt outfit.


This Friday's Blondie:


Aversion therapy for heterosexuals.


And your Judith Butler rewrite of The Family Circus:

Qomics for Queers: Beating around the Bush

Did you ever notice that Comic strips fall far behind every other medium out there when it comes to any representation of queer people? Sure, the political cartoons seem to realise we exist, but the joke-a-days and soaps printed in mainstream papers do everything to can to pretend like there are no queer people.

Which is why I started Qomics for Queers over at Q-Bomb, where I read between the lines, reinterpret artwork, and completely make junk up to get some representation.


Here's this Friday's Apartment 3-G:


For those of you who don't follow the travails of Tommie Thomson, LuAnn Powers, and Margo Magee at Apartment 3-G, then you've missed most of the Friday that Never Ends. LuAnn and Margo are both away from the apartment that evening working, and Tommie is left to her own devices. Of course, without the women she lives with, her life is meaningless until her neighbor Gina whisks her away to her play and the ensuing cast party. At that party, Tommie makes out with the director, only to be pawned of on our friend Gary, seen above.

Now you're all caught up on the greatest telenovela to ever grace the funny pages!

While people have been following the closeted lesbianism of Tommie Thomson for years, I don't think we've ever seen her definitively express herself one way or the other. Sure she's kissed a few men drunk, made a few sly looks at women, and generally tried to be the non-sexual one of the bunch.

Now, dressed as a character from a Lynne Cheney novel, Tommie is face-to-face with a man who's hitting on her, who by all accounts is sweet, but something's missing, a spark, a certain je ne sais vagina. When this party is all said and done (maybe four weeks from now?), Tommie's going to be thinking about why she subconsciously thwarts chances at heterosexual love every time they come her way. And then, and only then, can we celebrate Tommie and Gina's new romance.


This Wednesday's Hagar the Horrible:


Not particularly gay, except that have you noticed that most of the Hagar-at-the-restaurant-making-fun-of-food-and/or-pop-culture strips involve Lucky Eddie instead of Helga? One can only wonder why Lucky Eddie prefers to dine with his boss instead of his family or friends or why Hagar doesn't go out with Helga.

I know, I know, he travels a lot for work, but I don't think that in between raiding the English and pillaging the French that he would have time to stop at a restaurant without anyone else from his army. Nor would a blood-thirsty viking be welcome in those just pillaged countries' restaurants. No, this has to be near home. And that's the same waiter who serves Helga and him.

I can only imagine what life would be like as a closeted viking, constantly escaping home life as resentment towards heteronormativity builds, all the while finding my only relief in a member of my own army. Of course, in my imagination, we wouldn't sit around at restaurants and make jokes that fit easily into a two panel setup, one panel punchline format.

Alas, I'm not a student of viking history.


Here's this Tuesday's Family Circus:


Jeffy doesn't stop! He continues to attempt to defend himself from castration! Good work, Mom, because you know that snowball is destined for the back of your head.

Qomics for Queers moved

Over to my new pad at Bilerico.

Qomics for Queers - Hillbillies can l'arn to love too

Here's this week's Qomics for Queers, where I turn my expectations of fair representation in the comics into innuendo. All I can do is read between the lines, reinterpret artwork, and completely make shit up about the past week's comics.

This week, we have some music to set the mood for the first comic:


And here are the top panels of last Sunday's Snuffy Smith:


Post-Brokeback, there have been a whole lot of fun made regarding men going off into the woods, being manly, going "fishing", etc. All it is, really, is silliness. There's an older idea of what it means to be masculine, and it includes a whole lot of things that Jerry Seinfeld wouldn't do.

That being said, I have to say that this is the first time that I've seen John Rose draw a man who could be interpreted as attractive. In fact, all we know about this guy is that he's big, comics-world attractive, and he enjoys singing. Snuffy and Lukey seem pretty attached to the privacy of their "fishing spot" when they don't have full picture of this guy, so attached to their privacy that Snuffy is already undressing before he gets there. Once they see him, the mood changes, and all Snuffy can think about is l'arning to share. Share what? Well, I'll let you fill in that blank. But whatever it is, the gulp!!, wavy lines, and eyebrows tell me that they're afraid of the consequences should their plan to share not work out.

This Friday's Hi and Lois:


These girls to whom Chip is talking, who don't have names, remind me of a teenage version of Peppermint Patty and Marcy. In fact, the Glasses Girl on the right in panel two has the same no-eyeballs-thick-glasses-straight-hair look that Marcy sported back in the day. But the similarities to the funny pages' most famous Sapphic story are a bit deeper.

First, we know that GG is sending romantic emails to Curly Hair Girl. That's right, one female character in Hi and Lois is sending romantic emails to another. Chip may think this is a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerec situation, but CHG betrays GG in saying "those" while he said "email", singular. There are a lot of other emails that CHG didn't send off to Chip, that she's printing out and keeping for herself in a shoebox under her bed. I really wish that she lived in a world where she didn't have to hide her true feelings, but she lives in Hi and Lois World, where no one is allowed to express their true feelings.

Second, GG seems to be following CHG at school. CHG's talking to a boy that she "likes", and GG is right there behind her. If only we could look beyond those thick lenses at her teenage despair as the object of her affection "hits on" a Flagston with an email that she wrote, but all we get is a wide-eyed sadness the size of a beached whale.

Thursday's and Saturday's Speedbump had a few references to queer people:



These don't need explanation, but is the peacock one an erection joke?

Oh, and about Kudzu's weeklong "same-self marriage" storyline (this is Thursday's):


HAW HAW! You let dem gays marry and what's next? Marrying dogs and box turtles? What about marrying ourselves? HAW HAW! And those Episcopalians! They bishopped a GAY? You only do that if you don't love God! YUK YUK! What about domestic violence? HAW HAW!

Qomics for Queers

Every week, like a good little gay boy, I turn my expectations of fair representation in the comics into innuendo for the weekly feature Qomics for Queers. I'll do my best to read between the lines, reinterpret artwork, and completely make shit up about the past week's comics.

We start the week with the Family Circus, h/t to the Comics Curmudgeon, because I don't usually read the Family Circus. These are from Sunday and Monday:

Well, well, well, Jeffy. I don't know many 4-year-old straight boys who want to hurt their mothers as much as Jeffy apparently does. That's probably because they're sexually attracted to them and act out against their fathers out of fear of castration in retaliation. Of course, Freud thought that all people were constitutionally bisexual and that resolution of the Oedipal conflict led to heterosexual sexual expression; a failure to properly resolve the oedipal complex because of a distant father or an overbearing mother inhibits a boy from identifying with his father and makes him identify with his mother as a role model, making him express homosexuality.

Uhhhh, yeah, advanced for the 1800's, I guess. Dr. Richard Isay returns to the psychoanalytic subject of male homosexuality in the mid-90's in Becoming Gay, starting from the idea that some men are constitutionally homosexual. He says:

I had found that, like the population of heterosexual men who recalled opposite-sex attraction from an early age, many homosexual men could remember experiencing same-sex attraction when they were as young as four, five, or six years. For gay men, this earliest attraction is to the father or father surrogate.

Isay goes on to say that the boy's non-traditionally-masculine behavior causes rejection from the father and for the gay boy to seek protection from his mother.

But what if a father were totally OK with a non-masc boy? (I think that, since the Family Circus is all things wholesome, Jeffy's father is probably unconditionally loving.) It would follow that the boy would expect his mother to retaliate against him through castration, so he would act out against her. In Jeffy's case, he's using snowballs to protect his own balls. (Yuk yuk yuk)

This Wednesday's Beetle Bailey:

The incredible gayness of Beetle and Sarge continues. Beetle is all too willing to get his beard hitched because he knows that this farce cannot continue forever. Dumping a woman who is totally out of his league isn't an option for him, but he's right there ready to pass her on to the next guy who shows any interest in her at all. All I can say is that Beetle should either come out or give up on sexuality altogether, because acting as Miss Buxley's boyfriend/pimp is not becoming.

Here are my improvements to this Wednesday's Archie:

Qomics for Queers

While in the 70's, 80's, and 90's television has been catching up with the reality that GLBT people actually exist, film about queers has been around for a century, and theater and literature with prominant gay characters has been around since who knows when, the comics have pretty much ignored the fact that gays exist at all. The only ones we know have that have mentioned gays are Mallard Fillmore saying how homophobia is A-O-K, Doonesbury's liberal/conservative talk-radio couple, and that one old boss of Elizabeth on For Better or For Worse. For a medium of this size, one would expect more.

So, like a good little gay boy, I turn those expectations into innuendo in the weekly feature Qomics for Queers. I'll do my best to read between the lines, reinterpret artwork, and completely make shit up about the past week's comics in order to feel like we're represented in this medium.

This week is all about Beetle Bailey. The first one is from Wednesday:

I've been following the gayness of Camp Swampy for the past month. (Click on "BEETLE BAILEY" on the topics list below to catch up.) What we see here is that the only person in Camp Swampy in whom Beetle can confide his feelings for Sarge is the only civilian who works there. She, being a modern, young career woman, is completely supportive, but also confused. Like, he's 20 years older than Beetle, is a whole lot heavier, is losing his hair, and isn't particularly nice to Beetle. Like a devoted and delusional lover, Beetle defends his affection pretty poorly.

Then again, he's probably not completely out and doesn't think that there's anyone else out there for him. The only way to make a joke out of that kind of sadness is some good old punctuation-mark-and-squiggly-line swearing.

From Thursday:

Well, he's singing a song in which he calls himself "divine". Notice that Beetle pulled right up next to him in the circle around the campfire. I don't think that the army goes camping like this anymore, but it's better to think of the army like that than to think about all those dead Iraqis. And to show that this is a little more than one man's conjecture and is more like two men's conjecture, The Comics Curmudgeon also picked up on it.

And then Friday:

I mean, why not just have a bareback orgy right in the middle of the showers for the whole world to watch? Let's see here, we know from Killer's comment that Sarge spends a long time in the shower. Like a really long time in the shower. I can't think of any other explanation than that Sarge is waiting in the showers to check out other guys. Sure, Beetle's a good little sport and covers for him, but he knows that the only reason Sarge would hang out in a nudey zone for what would have had to have been over half an hour would be to get his jollies.

Beetle, not to be outdone, is sporting the towel around the neck. Fun for the local bathhouse, but he's letting it all hang out in the army. I watched Philadelphia, Beetle! I know what they do to your type in the military!

Would he please just come out already?

Sarge just keeps on getting closer and closer to the day he announces to the whole world that he's a big mary.

Yes, Killer, Sarge's love life depends on "meat" and "potatoes". Since that would be too subtle even for me, I'll rephrase: he needs "penis" and "testicles". It's a little immature to refer to male genetalia in that way, but Beetle Bailey is not known for maturity.

While you may be thinking that that's a bit of a stretch to interpret the comic that way, at least we find out that Sarge requires food as a bribe to spend any time at all with his "girlfriend".

Of course, this wasn't enough to justify a post until I saw today's Beetle Bailey.

'Nuf said.

Sarge is coming out

We always knew that the day would come when the mainstream comics would have to recognize the fact that gays exist (outside of that one lame gay guy who was Elizabeth's old boss on For Better or For Worse), but we really didn't think that it would happen with Beetle Bailey calling out Don't Ask/Don't Tell. Here's yesterday's installment:


Sarge has a dream about a topless "buff" Beetle, and then is nice to him all day, looking at him nervously from afar, as the solitary sweat drop tells us, but also confused by how strong his feelings are, as upwards pointing eyebrows tell us.

Mm-hmm, we know the feeling.

We would have let it go, if the very next day, this didn't happen:


Yes, Sarge, nervously stack those papers while avoiding the marriage question from your beard.

Oh, we hope that tomorrow Sarge starts to come out. That, of course, would make his constant violence towards Beetle far less funny.