This week:

• The demise of the Minx imprint gives us a chance to ask, "Who draws the hottest guys?"
• A critical and gay fave comic gets canceled yet again
• Nick Fury heads into unintentional camp-ville
• Gay-inclusive game Fable 2 hits the stores

Check it all out after the break!

Moonlight's totally not-gay vampires (Jason Dohring and Alex O'Laughlin)

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.

• We've been mooning over Moonlight as of late (sexy men biting each other ... what's not to like?!), and it looks like they're on to us. In the recent "Beautiful People You're Not" issue of TV Guide, lead Alex O'Loughlin's co-star Sophia Myles notes, "The young girls love him, the older ladies love him, and the gay guys love him." So ... work well done, men.

• Moviefone is is running a feature on the 25 Sexiest Movie Couples, and were considerate enough to include two same-sex pairings in the bunch. (The Brokeback Mountain fellas are #13, and the ladies from Mulholland Drive make a much-deserved appearance as well.)

• Hey Clive Barker fans: if you're in or around NYC, the Sloan Gallery will be showing some of his latest artwork (including conceptual artwork from the upcoming Midnight Meat Train movie) for another week. Check it out!

• Maybe Neil Patrick Harris should never have clarified those misinterpreted anti-Britney remarks after all ... no good deed goes unpunished, Neil!

• Gay geek alert! Renowned out comics artist Phil Jimenez was at the recent NY Comic Con and this site has a lengthy interview with him regarding what he's up to.

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

With the gay geeks finally getting representation on Beauty and the Geek thanks to Gregg, I've been thinking about openly gay men in pop culture as well as the visibility of gay themes in the realms of science fiction, comics and video games. Overall, these are realms where gay fans frequently feel left out, but things are getting better. Here are six openly gay men working in those areas who have also helped improve visibility for those of us who'd like to have a superhero, space captain, or time-traveling immortal of our own.

Russell T. Davies

Davies became a well-known name when he created the original Queer As Folk, a series that was groundbreaking at the time for prominently featuring gay characters including Doctor Who fanboy Vince Tyler. Davies was a longtime Doctor Who fan himself and was eventually tasked with reviving the franchise. Davies' Who run brought queer characters to the franchise. While most gay characters were a part of the world's background, Davies' first season of Who gave us Captain Jack Harkness, a charming and roguish, time-traveling con artist. Captain Jack was a popular character who got his own spin-off series (we've discussed it occasionally) giving us the first bisexual male heroic lead on a mainstream sci-fi program.

One of the interesting tendencies of Davies is to reuse names, something that Davies says helps him flesh out a character. His Queer as Folk everyman Vince shared a name with the first companion in Davies' Doctor Who run, Rose. (And the Tyler name continued in a show that Davies didn't work on when the creators of Life on Mars named their time-traveling protagonist, Sam Tyler, after Rose.) He's introduced two smart and capable women named Jones (Prime Minister Harriet Jones and medical student Martha Jones) as well as Torchwood's super capable office assistant Ianto Jones. However, the character that has the geekiest lineage is Captain Jack who is named after Agatha Harkness, a popular character among gay Marvel readers. Naming your influential character after the tutor of a d-list comic book diva, that's geek cred.

Phil Jimenez

Jimenez's artwork first hit the comic shops in 1991, his amazingly detailed and realistic style quickly made an impression. Over time, his consistently strong work has built him a following that has made him one of comics' marquee names who publishers court for an exclusive contract (he's currently exclusive to Marvel and is working on the flagship Amazing Spider-Man, with his first issue hitting the shelves earlier this month).

Jimenez became a role model for gay comic fans in 1996 with an editorial that appeared the last issue of the Tempest mini-series that he wrote and pencilled. In the editorial, Jimenez publicly came out and touchingly remembered Neal Pozner the man who first hired him to work for DC Comics who became a mentor to Jimenez, as well as Jimenez' partner. Pozner died in 1994 and the eulogy was powerful not only for increasing gay visibility among comic creators but for bringing a gay relationship into the dialogue.

Clive Barker

Barker quickly made an impression as a horror writer, particularly after Stephen King praised him as "the future of horror". Barker has had a long and varied career that has included film (which includes the horror series Hellraiser as well as producing the film Gods and Monsters), comic books (Barker has an original series comic soon from IDW, who've previously published adaptations of his The Thief of Always and The Great and Secret Show) and video games.