The Gay Geek (June 19, 2008)

Make that Sir Queer as Folk Creator:
As his final Doctor Who season heads towards its end, Torchwood creator Russel T. Davies continues to make news. The writer/producer has now been given a royal honor, being named an officer to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the highest honor available to a British civilian. Davies ranks as only the second Who producer honored with a OBE, along with Verity Lambert, a founding producer on the series.

Meanwhile, the International Herald Tribune, declares that Davies is changing the face of British TV, praising his Who for pushing "the envelope the whole time, not in terms of taste and decency but in terms of ideas and emotional intelligence", noting the "playful", "sophisticated" and "emotionally resonant" tone Davies has given the franchise.

"Playful" is my favorite bit, there, since I'm constantly praising the show for managing to make smart commentary about human nature while maintaining a fun, adventurous tone. He's got the chops for it, but the next Who producer, Steven Moffat, certainly has big shoes to fill.

Close the Closet door:
Manga fans are probably a little aware of Netcomics, a publisher that sells print comics and lets users rent a webcomic for 48 hours. When they debuted, their line was initially heavy on Korean titles, including some YAOI. Apparently they’ve been expanding while I wasn’t paying attention. Their catalogue now includes titles from YAOI Press, a Western publisher that publishes YAOI exclusively and they recently added American indie comics into the mix. Their first offering is the highly acclaimed miniseries from out creator Ivan Vellez Jr., Tales of the Closet.

The 1987 series follows eight gay high school students in Queens who form a bond over their sexualities and help each other deal with the struggles of self-acceptance, coming out and facing homophobic classmates. It was a solid drama, only disappointing readers when the final issue failed to come out. We were supposed to finally see the series’ conclusion when the series was collected into volume-form, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that second volume and can’t find any mention of it online. Maybe we’ve finally found a medium that will complete the series? (Which, I should add, is well worth reading even without that final installment.)

Tokyopop Temors Continue:
One question I (and plenty of others) have been wondering about is whether comic publisher Tokyopop would deal with its titles from western creators, a category that includes gay-inclusive works like Rivkah Greulich’s Steady Beat. Right now the picture is rather mixed, as Rivkah reported on her livejournal: 

Just got off the phone with my editor, and it looks like not-so-good news for Steady Beat. In fact, it looks like not-so-good news for anybody who's working with TP right now. I'm not sure how much I should say for fear of causing an outright panic with other creators, but essentially, nearly all of Tokyopop's future books will be going straight to web. This wasn't a case-by-case scenario. Neither I nor any other single creators were singled out. It looks like the whole line of non-licensed material will cease printing and be promoted online only. 

Contrary to what Rivkah posts, a small number of titles will be getting printed.

However, there is a bit of silver lining to be found. As Rich Johnston reports, Tokyopop is currently working to give creators their full copyright back, something that will allow creators ike Greulich to self-publish their work (Johnston predicts many titles will get published by Image Comics) so fans of Steady Beat or Off*Beat can still hope they will see their series wrap up.