Focused Linkblogging

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

• Johanna does a good roundup of the Chuck Dixon Midnighter situation. I commented there, and now am paralyzed with fear that I can't write well enough to make my point and will become a target of WeboComicsBlogoNet derision. It goes a little something like this: I still find myself thinking of Midnighter as "the gay Batman", and it seems I'm not the only one. I don't think anything long-term is achieved by keeping all gay characters as one-note representations of an entire demographic, and if a few issues go by that focus on some other aspect of the character it can only help to flesh Midnighter out. Apollo and Midnighter still feel like gaysploitation, played for shock and edge. I want to get to the point where their sexuality is one trait amongst many.


• Dirk Deppey deconstructs Howard Chaykin's current work. This is as excellent a piece of comics writing as I've read in a while, and puts a historical perspective on Chaykin that's too easily forgotten. Those late Eighties are my personal Golden Age, and Chaykin was one of its luminaries. Deppey understands that and asks what's happened since?


• Something magical is happening with Punks. Please report back, because it's behind the MySpace Curtain, and as much as I love Punks ... I don't love it that much.


• ... And since I have resisted MySpace so far, I sincerely doubt my interest in signing up for ComicSpace. I know I'm alone here ... y'all have fun.


• Resplendent Beard goes off. Read it, it's a treat.


• Waaaaaay too late to write about Minx, isn't it? I just would say - on the name itself - that I regularly have to explain to my two girls that we will not be buying them Bratz. "Bratz" and "Minx" seem to flow along a similar continuum that while not empowering, is certainly successful. I suspect DC is more interested in making money by selling these books to tweeners by hook or by crook than they are in Advancing The Cause Of Womanhood. "Minx" is a name that - for good or bad - will sell. As for the creators' genitalia? I'd need to see the submissions pile to really make a judgement there - I'd hope that it was simply the strongest proposals available.


• If the Update-A-Tron 3000 is permanently down, how will we survive?