The ILC Favourite Characters Of All Time

Answer: No, probably.

I seem to remember one of his thrills being drawn by Bellardinelli.

(65 points)

http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/pictures/wedge/uploaded_images/chick-795060.gif

ANTHONY EASTON WRITES!

Some things about homosexuals in Jack Chick Comics (esp. The Gay Blade)

1. In the Gay Blade, from the mid 70s, the cover combines three prominent signifiers of queer desire; two common and one not. (Lambda, Mauve, Sissy Prancing.) To know the Lambda is to spend enough time w. queer texts to get the cult.
2. The first three panels of Gay Blade actually make the married gay couple look as normal as possible; his strange over the top (camp?) phisiognomy is absent here.
3. The fourth panel is the most famous depiction of Chick and Homosexuality, and requires a closer reading.
a. Two Queer Radicals vs. Mother and Child.
b. It was a stated goal for glbtq folx when written to scare children, to antagonistically oppose the mother and child as an example of middle class sentiment
c. The men look like radical faeries, they have the genderfuck costume down pat, one large and bearded, with a brocade vest, a gay revolution t shirt, and be crowned with a v. fine bouffant—which seems to directly quote this foto: http://www.crazyfunnypictures.com/items/1619.jpg (Though it is a
radical queer picture, I find this mostly on funny picture now sites,
and not on places like gay.com or even the more pseudo-academic history sites.) taken about the same time… was it possible, living just north of SF, that he saw this, that he saw what was in the water?
i. The weird thing about the foto, is that it doesn't say faggot, he never actually engages in directed hate speech—it cannot be debated that the text is noxious, but he avoids saying things like faggot, queer, or any of the other more famous ones. His use of the word sodomite is explicitly biblical.
4. He footnotes the Lambda, talking about its presence as one of unity against oppression—which is true, and accurate, but does not note its classical and martial roots. Does he know it, is one of the reasons that jack chick hate fags, is that they are pagan, is that they oppose Christ and Christians, is their sin one of unbiblical decadence.
5. The sixth panel has the authority of the state is behind us, it faces the mob of radical queers, yelling and waving placards for gay revolution and gay power—there is only one cop for dozens of angry fags, they do not look pathetic, or angry, they look almost like they could win.
6. The text of this panel, talks about being defiant, it adds, almost half heartedly discussion of us being pathetic, miserable, etc—but the big thing for chick in the gay blade (and if that isn't a camp title I don't know what is) is that radical queer discourse provides an opposition to the order of both the state and god.
7. He then goes thru the standard, leftist gay is everywhere shit—literally the next three panels could be cribbed from something like Is It a Choice, or any of the don't feel bad about wanting to fuck men manuals that came after the militancy, the third panel in this sequence has two clones holding hands under an American flag, and the next panel has a butch dyke holding court at a school meeting, but she isn't the stone butch prison rapist that is so common in xian shit from this time…these two panels are actually fairly tolerant.
a. Chick is a skillful propagandist, he knows his Market, he has not gone over the top, he verges on journalism and he hasn't said anything that doesn't have correspondence in the queer communities…until about half way thru the comic.
8. Here he inserts the story of Sodom, and here he becomes the most vitriolic, the most revolted…in every anti-gay comic since the publication of the gay blade, chick inserts Sodom, and in Doom Town, his latest on the subject, he includes refutations of leftist hermeneutics about hospitality and social codes; Sodom is the key to this text.
9. The weird thing is that even biblically centered homophobic preachers don't really deal w. Sodom anymore, in many ways it is out of fashion (because of the wrath of YHWH is out of fashion, because we do not want to believe that someone is capable of such destruction (Pat Robertson is the exception here, with his recent comments on Hurricane Katrina.)
10. His Sodom sequence is drawn in the same style as bible illustrations from the 50s, before the good news bible:
a. Two archeologists sees images printed on the sides of caves indicating great and lasting evil, images so grotesque, that one immediately vomits (compare this to Doom Town: with its panel of a giant, yeti of a man, looking over a large eyed innocent child, saying "its that time again"—not saying that pedophiles are homosexuals, but saying allowing one sexual other lets the barn door open for everything else, an impt difference…)
b. It is from now on, biblical reportage: Abraham, Lot, The Two Angels, the great evil in the city, until we get about half way through the tour of Sodom
11. He then uses the line that Homosexuals surrounded the house of Lot, later calling them gay—this is the important part of the whole thing, he has moved between polemic and reportage, between theological point and moral one, between being fairly fair and being an asshole, between conservative but ethically consistent readings and cracked out misreading—the instability of the tract means that no grip can be held on it—there was same sex activity at that time and that place—b/w the Hittites mostly, and mostly related to foreign gods—there was a conflation b/w idolatry and adultery, w. Chick there still is.
12. The rest of the scene, 4 panels (including an oversize one) dealing with the evil of the homosexual men, two dealing with the angels who blinded the men, and one dealing with Lots Daughters a. Lot offered rape and murder as an option against anal penetration, in the most conservative reading of this text, and though Chick alludes to this, the phallocentric violence against women that grounds this story, that really does make it about men's violence against each other and women (Lot and His Daughters, YHWH and Lots Wife, etc)…there is a subtext here, mentioned previously, about order and the state, that the whole city, the government, the state, was corrupt, that corruption oozed into Lot, and Lot was in danger.
13. Then, nearing the end, we see the destruction of Sodom, ranking with Basil Woverton's illustrations of the apocalypse, this fire storm is so apocalyptic, and so modern—the desert, some people, and balls of flame, like Dresden, like Hiroshima, the left of the image looks like airplane fuselage and the right of the image looks like railway tracks.
a. This modernization of the fear of god, in the destruction of the modern world, comes in the this small picture, sandwiched with text, the top being the biblical verse, and the bottom being a footnote from an archeologist named DR MG Kyle, one of the ones who got sick I am assuming, the quote from Kyle (in 1924!) is one of salt plains, sulfur, and a "massively populated city" that is destroyed overnight.
b. The most powerful terror that permeates this entire comic, is that Chick is almost convinced that this slippage of gender and sex will destroy the world again, he is not looking forward to the apocalypse, not one of those rapture optimists—he surely has taken Christ into his heart, but even then, the fear of god is permeable.
14. The last 5 panels tell us that god hates fags, that they are coming to take over good Christians, has a few text panels added post AIDS with the same lying stats that have been bandied about forever, talks about recruiting, its so banal, so bog standard, it reminds us that homosexuality is one of many sins that can send us to hell, and that we have to pray and be forgiven. It rather ruins the enterprise.
15. This comic is the only one that still convinces me that I am going to hell, it is the only one that keeps terror in me, it is such a brilliantly executed piece of polemic, and there is nothing cute, nothing ironic, nothing amusing about it, it is a piece of religious fury, if best can be said to be a synonym for most effective, the homosexuals in Jack Chick Comics are one of the great villains—pathetic, dangerous, deluded, subversive, and able to be turned.

(68 points)

http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/pictures/wedge/uploaded_images/cassidy-709024.jpg

Because we all know someone like that: the asshole with a heart of
gold who actually turns out to be a self-righteous asshole after all. (Douglas Wolk)

I’ll be the first to admit that Garth Ennis’ embrace of old time John Wayne macho culture is altogether too whole-hearted, and that his attempts at contradicting this (Jesse Custer’s read Greer, so he has – not that he’s learned anything from it of course) are painful to say the least. But I also believe that the things Ennis fetishizes have aspects worthy of salvaging, alongside those that should truly be condemned. Drunken revelry, teary-eyed sentimentality and the ability to face any problem with a bemused grin or a comical cry of “feckin’ ‘ell” – none of this should be underestimated. Cassidy’s comedown and the revealing of his “dark side” are as heartbreaking as they are inevitable, and though the character does get sold out in the last few issues, along the way there’s been sufficient crazed hijinks to fill a thousand versions of “On The Road”. (Daniel Rf)

Greatest Moment: Coming to New Orleans, Cassidy finds what turns out to be another vampire. The stranger takes him home and begins a pompous old style vamp speech about children of the night and such. Slowly, it sinks in that this is the first person Cassidy’s ever met that shares his particular situation – “yeh’re a wanker, aren’t ye?” is his saddened reaction. (Daniel Rf)

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0042/0042_01.asp

Here's a pretty hilarious one documenting in harrowing detail how playing Dungeons & Dragons will turn you into a SATANIST:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

http://pc59te.dte.uma.es/cdb/series/oni/bitmaps/tarachace.jpg

(68 points)

Rucka's better works always feature a female lead (which explains why Wolverine and Adventures of Superman were relative failures), and certainly, without Tara Chace, Q&C would just be an amazingly gripping espionage thriller. With her, Q&C gets bite -- permission to become sexy and saucy without being exploitative. (Leee)

Greatest Moment: from Gentleman's Game, where she nearly kills someone with a magazine. (Leeee)

Isn't this part of the conceit of the series, though? I think I wrote in another thread that I thought the themes of ineffable "meaning" in regards to dreaming and the exploration of storytelling and mythmaking across different cultures actually provided a useful tool for Gaiman to cover up any such weaknesses as a writer. Since the end of the series, I think it's hurt his stories to not be able to rely on that anymore, making them more straightforward structurally than they ought to be as myth/fairy stories, too straight-ahead protagonist-focused fiction (but given that he's talking about how myth impinges on the individual in the modern world, this is not entirely a fair cop). I think he comes out of the same zeitgeist as Moore and Morrison in regards to exploring this stuff, but he has that charming "middlebrow" aspect of his work I think I mentioned which makes him more accessible to genre readers, for better and worse-- I think his approach can provide food for thought, but it also runs the risk of being read as mechanical and shallow (or being read mechanically and shallowly).

Oh, and that Chick "Angels?" track is awesome, in a sad way! (Ozzy and KISS want "to destroy country, home, and education"? Rock and roll "removes love and ushers in lawlessness"? I like how Lew Siffer has an organizational flowchart worked out for the "Killer Rock" tho. This paranoid "king of the world" stuff is a shame, but it was almost like reading an episode of The Invisibles gone horribly wrong, especially with the L man in that white suit!)

(69 points)

http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/pictures/wedge/uploaded_images/robotman-757807.jpg

In Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, Robotman first seems like he'll be playing the part of miserable Marvel-type hero, the mind-body problem made flesh metal. Then you realise his second role - to act as the reader's anchor in the weirdness, first sceptical and then grudgingly accepting, making the best of whatever outrageous situation the team's adventures lands him in. Then you find that he's the male lead in one of comics' most touching love stories. It all adds up to a highly sympathetic character - and on top of all that he gets a lot of the best lines!

Greatest Moment: Vic Fluro nominated the appearance of spider-Robotman, and I can't argue with that.

Another Best Moment: Cliff had his own ashes put in a jar to brighten up the room. Also, "Brain Versus Brain".

(73 points)

http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/pictures/wedge/uploaded_images/flash-723513.jpg

It's no secret that the Flash I like pretty much ended his run with #61 of his current comic, with occasional appearances in JLA since. I was new to the DCU, Wally wasn't, but he was new to what being an icon in the DCU meant. And since the DCU in 1986-90 was pretty much synonymous with the 'new comics', mainstream division, that put the character right in the middle of an approach to superheroing - sometimes realistic, sometimes ironic, sometimes gritty, sometimes whimsical - that counts as my personal Golden Age (OK looking at the Baron and Loebs runs NOW I can see some of the influences, 'specially Gerber and Englehart).

The first year of the FLASH series is honestly up there for me with Amazing Spider-Man as a fantastic kid-with-powers series that's grounded in its time and the issues of its time. Wally West grapples with money, sex, drugs, computers, and a fair number of goofy new villains, and pretty much every episode is a joy. Loebs' run is gentler and more playful but the character development continues. The Waid run takes that development on logically - Wally ends up a true hero, unfortunately for my money not a very interesting one.

(& the big setpiece Waid stories are all too much about hammering home that Wally is a REAL HERO NOW - not a sin Waid alone was guilty of in the mid 90s)

Greatest Moment: This is a very personal choice, I've been reading The Flash since I was ten years old, so I grew up with this character. I also liked him when he was with the New Teen Titans. Finest hours -

Loser Wally (Messner Loebs era) - The issue where he goes to Captain Cold's birthday, I think messner loeb's idea of turning the Rogues Gallery into a JLI-esque supporting cast was the best way to deal with their silliness.

Superhero Wally (Waid era) - Coming back from the speed force in "Terminal Velocity"

Alternative timeline Walter (not Wallace) West - Flipping through the pages of the Flash comic book and saying goodbye to Angela in the last issue of the "Flash from the future" arc that came after "Chain Lightning" (Iodine)

Speed Force tho = k-rub (we've had that discussion before).

...then I'd be quite grateful.

*& not an elf.

Does anyone know which run of Flash this was, who was the author etc? And if its available in one of those DC comps?