Only a few days ago I posted an essay on how every time I think that the mainstream comic book publishers could not possibly sink any lower, someone finds a new shovel and starts digging.
Welp.
The people who pass for editors, artists, and writers at the creative black hole that is Marvel Comics found some new shovels, and man, have they been putting them to use. Over the past few weeks they have announced the first all-trans superhero team, a female Captain America, and a new, effeminate, gay Spider-Man.
Someone, please, make it stop.
Look, I don’t care what you do in your bedroom. I don’t particularly care what clothes or underwear you wear. I don’t even care that much if you self identify as a gay, Asian, trans-gender gerbil. But at some point, someone has to say that to pander to the .00001% of people who identify as gay, Asian, trans-gender gerbils is to disregard the rest of the people who aren’t. Such pandering is frequently followed by accusations of homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and gerbil-phobia if those who are not gay Asian trans-gender gerbils object actively, or even passively by not celebrating gay Asian trans-gender gerbils and buying comic books about them.
This strikes me as more than a little foolish and counter-productive. The Marvel and DC comics lines, not the movie divisions, but the companies that write, print, and publish the comic books, have been hemorrhaging money for years. Comic book shops are closing left and right because no one wants to read comic books about gay Asian trans-gender gerbil superheroes, and the good people (that was sarcasm) at Marvel and DC don’t want to wite anything else.
Which is why we here at BAM! Comix are commited to producing high-quality, propaganda-free comic books. Are any of the characters gay Asian trans-gender gerbils? I don’t know, I haven’t asked them, and I don’t intend to. It’s none of my business if they are. I’m more interested in finding out how the hero is going to find the bad guy and bring him to justice. Or her, as the case may be.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy what’s coming. We have concept art for the first few pages of Terror at 35,000 Feet, and hope to start posting pages for that in the next few weeks. Keep your eyes peeled.