Sean Penn and his Milk men

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• Above, the first official publicity still released by the studio for Gus Van Sant's Milk, with Sean Penn as the slain gay civic leader. The star power and subject are getting the pic a good deal of mainstream advance press, and it's not of the gay cowboy joke variety.

• Here's a rather funny moment from the UK Friday Night Project show in which David Tennant, after being read some Doctor Who fanfiction, asks if it might not have come from castmate John Barrowman's blog. Heh.

• If you happen to be around the house tonight, you might want to tune into SyFyPortal radio to catch AfterElton.com editor Michael Jensen and Torchwood recapper Steven Frank as they discuss Torchwood!

• Time Out New York is featuring 19 NYC men who are willing to take it all off, and letting their readers vote on which fella will strip for a future issue. Thoughts?

• The troublemaking gay penguin daddies of And Tango Makes Three are public school (and library) enemy #1 for the second year in a row. I think The Daily Show's Samantha Bee pretty much summed up the ridiculousness of the whole gay penguin controversy in the above clip.

• Apparently, gay websites linked so much to the Cayman Free Press's story about the American who was arrested for kissing another man in a Cayman club that it crashed their website. Ya mess with the bull, ya get the horns, kids.

• Martin Freeman, the "Jim" of the original The Office, wonders why more gay men in show business don't come out, noting, "there are more poofs in it than you can have hot dinners thrown at you." I guess that's ... a good thing?

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

In this week's episode of Angry Puppy, Marc and Lee talk about breaking television news, gay sci-fi film fests, Buffy season Eight, the Doctor Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures, and much, much more.

Oh, and they speak Esperanto. Wanna know why? Check it out!

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• Defamer thinks they espied some homoerotic subtext in Daniel Day Lewis' There Will Be Blood. I haven't seen the flick myself (it would take more than a little homoertocism to get me in the theater for this one), but most Defamer readers think someone's glasses are tinted a little too pink.

• The SXSW Film Festival announced their line-up and a quick persual shows a few items of gay interest including Sex Positive about the life of Richard Berkowitz, a hustler turned AIDS activist back in the 80s who helped invent safe sex, but has since been forgotten. Also showing is Neil Patrick Harris' Harold & Kumar: Guantanomo Bay. Okay, he's not exactly headlining it, but still!

• Out journalist Keith Boykin launches The Daily Voice, a news blog for "Black America".

• Tim Gunn dropped by The Daily Show. Need we say more? Check it out:

• The AAA organization in Florida won't extend discounts to gay couples. They say it's because Florida state law defines marriage as between a man and a man which is also known as the Disney Defense. With any luck, they'll follow Disney's footsteps and change their discriminatory policy.

• Out director Stephen Kijak is up for a BAFTA Award Sunday for his documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man.

• Can't get enough John Barrowman? Buy a poster of him here!

Here's an intriguing headline: Monday night's ratings for The Daily Show were down 15 percent from its last original episode while The Colbert Report's ratings were up by 11 percent. Surprising enough as it is, but the story gets even more interesting when you look at the ratings for both shows before the strike: in October, 30% of The Daily Show viewers didn't stick around for The Colbert Report.

That's something I'm having a hard time understanding. I tend to think of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report as one show interrupted by a bonus theme song. I even have the DVR programmed to record an extra half-hour of The Daily Show so that both shows are recorded together. (That way I don't have to worry about the trade-off between Jon and Stephen getting interrupted by the DVR interface.) Apparently, nearly a third of Daily Show viewers don't feel the same way.

Adding to my puzzlement, both my partner and I are bigger fans of Colbert with its more satirical character, not to mention Colbert's ability to deliver very sharp remarks to a guest while phrasing it like a compliment. The format allows the Report to have a stronger voice. And Stephen's fake pundit has been nabbing press with fun little stunts like the metaphor-off with Sean Penn, his anti-Hungarian comments and his presidential run. I'm surprised that so many people can tune in for The Daily Show and not stick around for Stephen's antics afterwards.

Then again, could our preference for Colbert be partly based in his gay humor and for his over the top and - dare I say it - campy persona? Maybe we enjoy the Report a little more because of a gay sensibility? (It's worth noting that Colbert's first guest after a 10-week absence was outspoken gay political writer Andrew Sullivan.)

That has me wondering about how AfterElton.com readers get their nightly dose of fake news. Do you watch both shows or do you tune in for just Jon or Stephen? Then again, maybe you like the unintended comedy of Bill O'Reilly. The hilarity of lines like "Was this a negligee situation?" can be hard to beat for some people...

(Thanks to the No Fact Zone for the pointer.)

Last Friday we posted on the writer's strike and its potential impact on some gay fave TV shows.

The walkout officially began on Monday. It's the first industrywide strike by writers since 1988. That strike lasted five months, and a lot of folks believe the current walkout could last as long or longer. The battle between the writers and the studios boils down to compensation for digital delivery of content. (Just before the strike, the union dropped its other demand for increased compensation for DVD sales - but got no counteroffer/concession from the studios on the digital issue.)

Both sides are digging in their heels and settling in for a long fight. We have some more specific information as to how that will affect some of your favorite shows:

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. These two gems are already in repeats. If the strike drags on into 2008, Comedy Central has hinted that The Daily Show show might come back in a predominantly interview driven format. (There's an important election coming up and the nation will need its fake news!).

Note: on Monday there was a story circulating that, even though his show has been shut down, Jon Stewart would personally be paying his writers their salaries for the next two weeks. Turns out that is not in fact the case. Stewart's reps have denied the rumor.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) contract expired last night, and talks between the studios and the writers have broken off — with no talks rescheduled. Even more ominous, the WGA has asked members to show up at the LA Convention Center tonight at 10:00pm for an "announcement."

It looks almost certain that there will be a writers' strike. The sticking issues? First, the writers want a bigger cut of the increasingly lucrative DVD market. The current formula, set in 1985 to deal with videocassette sales, gives writers about four cents for every DVD sold. The WGA wants a new formula that would essentially double that. Second and possibly more important, the WGA wants a share in the profits for internet broadcasts. The studios say they want to table that discussion until the internet market is "more mature."

Neither side appears willing to give ground, which is making a walkout seem inevitable. And if a similar strike in 1988 is any example, this thing could drag on for months.

So, what would a strike mean to television viewers (and gay television viewers in particular)?

First to be affected would be talk shows. As early as next week there would be no more David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, or Jay Leno.

Regis & Kelly and the ladies of The View might still go "live," but if they do they'll be ad libbing all their own material. (Oh the horror!)

Also immediately impacted: Saturday Night Live. Amy Poehler says the show has no backlog of scripts so, “Boom — our show just shuts down.”

Worse in my mind, we'd also immediately lose The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The Bush administration might be cheering this turn of events, but the rest of us will need to get our daily fix of Stewart and Colbert via Comedy Central's online video archive.

But that's just the beginning.

GLAAD's efforts for LGBT History Month have centered around "Friends & Allies", and it would be harder to find a stronger or more fantastically entertaining ally to gay visibility than The Daily Show's Jon Stewart.

On the occasion of the show opening its staggeringly thorough online video vault (it boasts every bit of video from the show going back to Stewart's taking the anchor chair in 1999), our own Christie Keith has designed a knockout tour of the show's best gay moments ... and its few missteps.

We are of course proud of all of our articles here ... but seriously? This is the berries. I haven't had this much fun reading since my local paper stopped running Marmaduke.

Enjoy!