3D GBLTs

Michele Helberg has a great piece up on Afterellen.com that takes a look at prominent GLBT figures in comics, including Ex Machina, Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Gotham Central, and Strangers in Paradise (one of my longtime favorites). It's basically for an un-comic savvy audience, but I definitely wasn't aware of the goings on in Runaways and Gotham Central. So it's worth a read for anyone who doesn't read all of these regularly as well as for the perspective in general.

Three-dimensional GBLT characters exist nowhere for a mass audience like they do in the comic genre. While it's not surprising that most "graphic novels" are written by men, what might be surprising is that in a genre populated by a male creative force, the lesbian characters are given as much, if not more, respect then some of their male counterparts.

I guess I'm more hopeful than anything else about what titles like Runaways and Buffy offer a younger audience in the way of role models. There's really not that much in popular entertaiment these days for teens dealing with coming out of the closet to latch onto. Comics have a lot to be proud of, as she points out.