Batman: Buttman More Like

There’s always been something more than a little camp* about a superhero who sports tights and rubber nipples and enjoys the company of his Boy Wonder sidekick.
Now Batman has been “outed” as an ageing homosexual who picks up young men for one-night stands and sits next to Sir Elton John at New York charity dinners – at least for the purposes of a new novel.

The whispers about Gotham City’s masked crime-fighter are confirmed in Erotic Lives of the Superheroes, which depicts Batman and Robin as a bickering gay couple whose sex life has gone flat.
Written by the Italian author Marco Mancassola, the novel imagines the erotic obsessions of Superman, Mister Fantastic and Mystique as their heroic abilities are dulled by the ageing process. Acclaimed upon its publication in Italy, the book, which centres on a murder mystery, arrives in the UK this week...

The Independent.
Erm, I think Batman and Robin have been "outed" about a zillion times before - it's even got a Wikipedia page.
Here's the Mail's take - sadly no mad readers' comments at the time of typing.
Might add 'gay men and comic books' to my list of gay stories only the straight press think are interesting.

* I'm not sure the writer knows what "camp" means - was he scared of saying Batman had always seemed more than a little gay? But then that's The Independent for you...

Comics: Superhero To See You!

I'm sure there must be a phrase to describe the media phenomenon whereby the amount of coverage a subject gets stands in inverse proportion to how (dis) interested most people are in it.
Whatever, "gay comic book characters" has to be the queenly king of this.
Though precisely no-one cares beyond the handful of geeks who still bother to buy these things, a new gay comics character will be practically front page news.
So the Daily Mail shouts out in a headline yesterday; 'Marvel Comics announces plans to have gay superhero marry on their pages... just one day after rival publication house promises to 'out' a famous character'.
And just one day before they were wondering aloud; 'Is Batman gay? Major DC Comics character to come out of the closet'.
Both are quite matter-of-fact non-hysterical pieces, but you wonder if their inclusion is because someone at the Mail thinks this is like having buttfucking in the Beano.
Many of the Mail's readers clearly do;

"It has nothing to do with orientation, but the fact sex is even part of comics for kids. You would think that would be the ONE place we could go to see sex free entertainment. I agree with some posters, its politics and appeasment. No wonder kids have babies at 14. What next, Wonder Woman had an abortion? Or Nancy and Sluggo involved in a hate crime? God must be sick at the choices his creations make."

Again, these comics are now aimed at and bought by adults.
Though I'm not sure why kids being reminded that some dudes dig dudes etc would be a bad thing.
There's an interesting blogpost on Guardian online by comics fan, David Barnett, looking at why "the Daily Mail got its knickers - worn outside of its trousers, presumably - in a twist."
(That the story is thought worth repeating in another feature in the Guardian's print edition seems to bear out my original contention).
But what's noticeable is how unphased and unbothered the Mail's coverage has been, though it would have been easy to spin it into one of their make-believe manufactured "scandals";
"Outrage over gay marriage propaganda in kiddies' comics" anyone?

PS A little twitter gag of mine got picked up by a Marvel comics spambot yesterday...

Batman: Very, Very Gay - Official

"He’s very plutonian in the sense that he’s wealthy and also in the sense that he’s sexually deviant. Gayness is built into Batman. I’m not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There’s just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he’s intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay.
"I think that’s why people like it. All these women fancy him and they all wear fetish clothes and jump around rooftops to get to him. He doesn’t care - he’s more interested in hanging out with the old guy and the kid."

Grant Morrison, who "rebooted" Batman in 2006 (apparently, I'm reading this), in a Playboy interview. 
According to Playboy, he's "the most important comic book writer working today".
According to Morrison; “The creators of superheroes were all freaks. People forget that—they were all outcasts, on the margins of society... We’re people who don’t fit into normal society.”
Fagburn has absolutely no idea if Mr Morrison is also very, very gay. 
Mainly cause I've only just heard of him, and I'm very, very tired.