Lesson learned

Pride month is winding down. In case you missed out on some of the awesomeness ontd_political has a couple of post collecting some very beautiful images of pride parades from around the world. Check 'em out!

Sadly, this month was also plagued with a few mishaps in the land of comics. Lets begin with Apple's infamous crusade against porn. In the middle of the month two comics, The Importance of Being Earnest and Ulysses Seen, were rejected by the Apple app store only to be approved when resubmitted with black bars blocking out any nudity. Later Apple backtracked and allowed the creators to submit unedited versions of their work to the app store.

Here is a montage of some of the censored images from The Importance of Being Earnest complied by Prism Comics:

And here are the images uncensored:

I believe the sad Keanu pic below parallels my feelings of this situation quite well.

Moving onto DC and their never ending problems with presenting characters that aren't white/male/cis-gendered. Gail Simone's Bird's of Prey was released this month and fans were shocked to discover she used a tired, sad, overused trope. In this most recent issue a homosexual male commits suicide after the death of a straight male he had been pining over died. Many fans saw this as ironic since Gail Simone became known for her Women in Refrigerators website, which chronicled the demeaning deaths of women in superhero comics. There was a big blowout on scans_daily with some back and forth between Gail and the fans that led to some hurt feelings but also to some awesome articles on homosexuals in comics, such as this one by neo_prodigy on noscans_daily. He gives an extensive writeup on the tropes comics tend to fall back on when it comes to writing homosexuals and explains why they shouldn't be used. I love the part on "the mythical straight boy unicorn". Here's a little taste:

Stop me if you recognize this plot device or some variation thereof. Miserable gay boy who has given up on love falls in love with the mythical straight boy. Gay boy in desperate need of being rescued falls in love with the mythical straight boy. Gay boy is persecuted by life and homophobes, who shall ever save him, the mythical straight boy. The gay boy is miserable and has no confidence in himself. Who teaches him to be cool, self confident and self reliant? The mythical straight boy. The gay boy is looking to recruit and win over that white knight. So who does he convert? The mythical straight boy. The gay boy needs saving? Who shall save him? I know, how about the mythical straight boy.

Gail Simone also read this article and posted about it in her blog in a response to the craziness which unfolded at scans_daily. Gail is human and is prone to make mistakes, but it seems she's taking the high road and learning from them. Hopefully we won't see so much fail in any of her upcoming releases.

We are nerds and the small little blips of fail in our community won't put a dent in the month long celebration of being yourself.

 Party hard, people!