Thursday, April 22, 2010

Coming Out of the Closet in Comics


So you know it is endemic in our society when Archie Comics decides to introduce their first gay character in an upcoming issue. Often companies will do this to catch the eye of the media, who will overhype the importance of this event. (It happened several years back when DC introduced Batwoman as a lesbian.) The circulation of most Archie Comics is painfully low (less than 20,000 copies per issue), so any media is good media.

Still, you can't but feel like something is lost when you read:

In the words of Archie Co-CEO Jon Goldwater, “The introduction of Kevin is just about keeping the world of Archie Comics current and inclusive. Archie’s hometown of Riverdale has always been a safe world for everyone. It just makes sense to have an openly gay character in Archie comic books.”

The answer, besides prayer for revival in our society, is to create better stories with more interesting characters.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All these posts about coming out of the closet makes me think someone from Collideoscope is feeling rather claustrophobic in their "I'm gay but can't be gay 'cause my homophobic church would clobber me" closet.

;o) lol I'm joking, btw.... maybe....