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...
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