GETTING CLOSE TO CAPRICA:
I usually end up totally geeking out at this time of the year, as the Television Critics Association is a time when some interesting TV news and discussions starts coming out. Here’s one rumor that has me particularly excited – the Sci-Fi Channel has reportedly ordered two scripts for the Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica.

That’s encouraging news since I long had the impression that Caprica’s pilot would air as a mini-series before the network would decide to make it a series or not, as it did with Galactica. This probably means that The Sci-Fi Channel thinks Caprica is good enough to please us Galactica fans. Hopefully there’ll be some official news when the Sci-Fi Channel has its TCA session next week.

EMBRACING TRACING PAPER:
Scandal apparently broke out last week amongst the YAOI community in Japan when Embracing Love creator Youka Nitta admitted to having traced images from various fashion ads. You can check out a collection of side-by-side comparisons at this Japanese web page. As Brigid Alverson notes, I find it interesting how Nitta frequently took images of opposite-sex couples and changed them into male couples:

The page that got Nitta in trouble and the ad that inspired it.

Nitta’s faced a few consequences as her work seems to been dropped from an upcoming issue of Be-Boy Gold magazine and she’s also canceled her planned appearance at YAOI-Con. I wonder if this will further affect the availability of Nitta’s work in the United States. Embracing Love is hard to find due to financial trouble at Be Beautiful, the publisher who licensed the title, a situation that became even more complicated when the Japanese publisher Biblos went into bankruptcy and put Be Beautiful’s licenses in limbo. DMP just published one of her titles earlier this year and has another title coming out in December.

If it's up to American audiences, I doubt this will hurt Nitta’s presence here. While her tracing is a big scandal in Japan, I’ve seen a few American artists whose tendency to copy and alter images became a running gag (like Greg Land and Rob Liefeld) and it didn’t seem to hurt them. Then again, maybe manga audiences will react differently.

I know Nitta has a few fans here (and I probably would be one of them if I ever could find myself a copy of the second volume of Embracing Love); does this change your impression of her work in any way?

After the break: Gays in games and comics ... and what's Stephen Fry doing in this column?

GAMERPALOOZA:

This week is also the week of the E3, where gaming companies drop details about their biggest upcoming games. With several games with gay followings coming soon, it’s been one to watch.

Monday night, G4 had demonstrations of various games including a look at Fallout 3 that had my partner giddy with anticipation. It really looks like a combination of the best parts of Oblivion and the earlier Fallout games (and if Fallout 3 includes the possibility of same-sex romances like Fallout 2 did, it’d be perfect). I guess I’d better start forming a support group for Fallout 3 widows. I have a feeling I'm gonna need to find more people to talk to once that game comes out.

Here’s a teaser trailer for the game that just has me grinning, as well. I’m not sure why the cynical retro voice of the series doesn’t feel a bit dated and clichéd by now, but they still got it working.

Also making its debut is the trailer for the you-got-your-bacon-in-my-chocolate sounding (it doesn't sound like it but that's a nice combination) Mortal Kombat versus the DC Universe, which teases at the possibility of fatalities being in the game.

Overall, it’s certainly looking pretty intriguing, though I really, really hate the current look for Sonya Blade. I know she’s been doing the bare midriff thing since the beginning but the last few versions of Sonya just haven’t looked like the tough military woman she’s supposed to be.

On the other hand, hooray for the return of Sonya’s signature scissor kick ... and I hope I can use Wonder Woman's lasso like Scorpion's spear.

STEVEN FRY GETS FABLE-ULOUS :
However, that’s not all of the interesting video game news to come out. Last week, there were two news bits about gay elements in upcoming games … and not just fabulous pixilated characters, but flesh-and-blood gay icons.

First off there’s the news that gay-inclusive RPG Fable 2 will feature the voice of Stephen Fry, though there’s no word on what he’ll be doing in the game. I wonder if being called “Chicken Chaser” is any less annoying when he’s providing the voice.

The Village People's cowboy, Randy Jones

And then there’s the news that Randy Jones will play the leader of a gay biker gang in Postal III. Jones was the original cowboy in The Village People and now he’ll be adding a bit to gay video game representation.

ADD ONE MORE TO THE LYLE NORG CLUB FOR GAY SUPERHEROES WHOSE WRITERS NEVER GOT AROUND TO WRITING THEIR COMING OUT:
I don’t know if you follow the Comics Should Be Good blog but Brian Cronin's Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed feature is one of my favorite things on the Internet. This week’s entry had an interesting revelation, confirming rumors that the lead character in Harbinger was meant to be gay.

I’m not too familiar with Harbinger. It came out at a time when I had stopped reading comics and any attempt to get back into that hobby would be foiled by a friend who would push me to spend all my money on multi-packs of X-Force #1 instead of on comics that I’d actually read (not to mention the confusion caused by trying to figure out the difference between The Legion of Super-Heroes and Legionnaires). A long time ago, I found a collection of the first few issues and while there were some interesting ideas, they didn’t compel me to hunt down the later issues.

At the start of Harbinger, we meet Pete Stanchek, aka Sting, a psionic who forms a team after running from the Harbinger foundation. According to CSBG, Pete had a girlfriend it eventually turned out that she was only dating him because he was subconsciously using his powers to force her (he and Saturn Girl should totally to discuss this problem) into a relationship. That, according to Harbinger creator Jim Shooter, would have eventually led to Pete coming to terms with his sexual orientation.

Harbinger's Pete Stanchek

Now, for me, an additional twist to this revelation is that I’ve long heard that Shooter had issues with gay people. After all, didn’t he write that cringe-inducing issue of The Incredible Hulk where Bruce Banner almost gets gang raped in a gym shower (at a time when there were no positive representations of gays at Marvel)? Does this revelation change that perception of Shooter at all? I think I’d need to read more Harbinger to be sure.

Bruce Banner and Marvel's shameful gay moment

There’s an even more interesting wrinkle here, however. Looking to refresh my memories of Harbinger, I checked out the title’s Wikipedia page and saw that Paramount Pictures is looking to turn Harbinger into a live-action movie. While he was never outed in the comics, if the project moves forward it’ll be interesting to see if that side of the character is explored.