The Gay Geek (May 13, 2008)

We're pleased to bring you a new AfterElton.com mainpage feature: The Gay Geek, a weekly column assembling the latest gay geek news from the world of gaming, comics, science fiction and more. Enjoy!

The Viz vision.
One of the big news items coming out of the NY Comic Con was that manga publisher Viz was getting into the business of publishing their own original graphic novels. Christopher Butcher had a chance to talk with Viz’ V-P of Original Publishing, Marc Weidenbaum, to get a better idea of what we can expect. Weidenbaum talks about taking inspiration from the structure of the best serialized TV shows and finding a middle ground between the way American and Japanese comic publishers work, though it all has an “I’ll know it when I see it.” tone.

When asked, he wasn't able to name an example of a title he could see Viz putting out, though Oni's (gay inclusive) Scott Pilgrim or Vertigo's Scene of the Crime were close to Weidenbaum's vision. Unlike Tokyopop, Weidenbaum is focused on signing talent who are at least a little established, whether it be in print or webcomics.

I’m guessing it’ll be a little while before we hear what kind of comics we’ll be seeing from the venture, but Butcher points out that Viz has been putting out original material in small amounts, including a recent Shojo Beat from (Scott Pilgrim creator) Bryan Lee O'Malley, which certainly makes things sound promising.

Butcher explores the topic in depth, so be sure to read the whole thing.

We've got a date with The Middleman.
A while back, I mentioned that gay fave hunk Matt Keeslar will be in a new comicbook TV series from the gay-inclusive cable net ABC Family called The Middleman. Set your calendars: Middleman will premiere June 16, which my math tells me should be the week following Greek’s season finale.

Via (Middle Man comic creator) Javier Grillo-Marxuach's Livejournal, here's a pic of Keeslar as the series' "Dirk Squarejaw"-type character:

Which reminds me, have you voted in this year's AfterElton Hot 100 yet?

Grand Media Obsession.
Of course, last week the video game sites were a wee bit focused on a certain game called Grand Theft Auto IV. Even AfterElton.com got into the action when we took a closer look at the game’s gay characters.

Probably my favorite GTA IV-related story is this humorous piece titled “How my wife ruined GTA IV” by a writer credited only as "Jeremy." Jeremy handed the controls over to his wife who decided that it would make for a fun change of pace to play the game as a law abiding driver, obeying all the traffic lights. When she accidentally hit a pedestrian, she got out of her vehicle and tried to figure out if there’s a way to take the victim to the hospital. I would so do the same, and I think I did play a law-abiding runs on The Simpsons: Hit and Run when I got tired of failing the same mission over and over again.

On a similar note, Conan O'Brien got a lot of buzz this week for his clips of a toned-down GTA IV: