Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates, san diego comic con | Tagged: Brett white, comic con, Comics, entertainment, geek, james tynion iv, Joshua yehl, kris anka, LGBTQ, noelle stevensson, san diego, san diego comic con, sdcc, sdcc16, steve orlando

"It Gets Geekier" – Coming Out As Queer And Geek At San Diego Comic-Con

By Joe Glass

Hosted by IGN's Joshua Yehl, with Kris Anka, CBR's Brett White, Shannon Watters, Noelle Stevensson, Steve Orlando and James Tynion IV, here to tell us how being geeky and queer worked out for the best.

Yehl and White came up with the idea to do the panel just a few months ago and wouldn't it be great to have some of their favorite queer comic makers together to talk about their lives and work. Yehl is from Orlando, Florida and his friend and his friend's partner were two of the victims at the terrible shooting at Pulse. Yehl dedicated the panel to his friends in an emotional moment, as well as discussing the #PutDrewInStarWars campaign to try and petition LucasFilm to include a queer character in Star Wars in his honor.

Tynion IV discussed how when he first started out in comics he'd kind of slipped back into the closet, as he didn't come out in his new place of work. He feared that if he did come out he'd be labeled the queer writer, and be told he couldn't write certain characters and books because of his orientation.

Two years ago it culminated in him not feeling like he was being honest with his new friends and colleagues, and came out online. He pointed out wonderfully that he faced no negativity over it.

Onto Steve Orlando, and the intersection of queerness and nerdom, and how they're kind of intertwined. He again discusses how Midnighter meant so much to him when he was younger and reading the character, and how Midnighter didn't conform to the norm. Orlando says his platform became there's no one way to be gay, queer or anything. And all that comes from the message he learned from that character. First time he worked at DC in 2012, he found a connection of queerness and geekdom all together in one place.

Anka talked about how he didn't realize himself as bi until more recently, and talked about how it's made it easier for him to draw anyone, regardless of gender as hot. He mentioned lots of women tell him his Captain Marvel is hot, and lots of men are the ones to tell him his Puck is hot (which led to whooping appreciation from an audience member).

Stevensson again talks about realizing she was queer relatively recently, and talked about the intersection of queerness and geekdom, and how she once walked in to see the X-Men film and was getting feelings from Mystique as portrayed in all her naked blue glory by Rebecca Romijn. It felt like that was the only way she could access what she needed to see, even before she realized it was what she needed to see.

White talked about growing up as a Southern boy, and a Southern Baptist background, and picking up X-Men #1 and seeing Wolverine at the beach in a Speedo cooking hot dogs. And how he'd been asked to write an article about DC's Bunker, and how by that point he lived in New York and was out to his friends but not his parents, and he realized he had to come out to his parents before that article came out. Now his intersection is covering the queer topics, unofficially, in his job which is also his fandom.

Yehl talked about how when Iceman came out, and at this time was in charge of IGN Comics, and him being gay too, all eyes seemed to fall on him to write about it. And it became one of his most popular article.

Moving onto favorite queer characters, Tynion IV mentions how Northstar is such an interesting character for him, as for some of the queer audience, they had to focus on him quite a bit as the only openly gay character. He mentioned the plot line of when Northstar had an attraction to Iceman before the latter had come out, and dealing with that idea of being attracted to someone who will never reciprocate the feelings, the longing and pain, and how different that felt to him to see. But does point out how Northstar is kind of an asshole, but even the scraps you get are important. Looking back it's really how starved he was for representation. So he says maybe cheap answer as he's writing her would be Batwoman, because she's so badass and unabashedly who she is.

White says Iceman, because he didn't come out until he was 21, so seeing adult Iceman coming out later really struck a chord with him. Being a comics journalist it feels like he had to weigh in, and when it happened it also happened to be the ten year anniversary of him coming out to himself. He does wish that Iceman would wear better clothes.

Stevensson feels she gravitated more towards women characters who were more fluid in their gender presentation, so seeing female characters with short hair and such, and really feeling excited about that representation. It was more excitement at seeing people who were strong and confident in themselves. But definitely latched onto Mystique, though didn't realize she was a queer character until much later. Then struggling to think of queer characters when she was growing up until it strikes her – oh, Velma. It's never been canon, but everyone knows it.

Anka's is actually from Black Sails, and Captain Flint, and how bi male characters are so hard to come across, but he's super intense, and Anka felt an affinity to that.

Q&A begins, first member comes up to thank Anka for his presentation of topless, sweaty working out Puck in Captain Marvel #1, and thanked him for the beary hotness. He then went on to thank White for his post Orlando shooting article on CBR, and how it spoke to things he didn't even realize he was feeling and enthusiastically thanked him.

White talked about the controversy over 'not wanting to label' Angela and Hercules as queer characters, but they don't seem to have any problems 'labelling' a character as Muslim American, or a black character, so what's up with that? How labels can be okay and useful, especially if it's the label the character chooses.

Discussion on thoughts between retconning or revealing an existing character as gay, or creating a new gay character – Tynion IV felt it's a false argument to say you can't do either method. As long as you don't break the character, you can change or add to their story and character, Stevensson goes onto to add about how people are more flexible than people think and sexuality can change over time, so why not with characters, but both impressed it's just as good to create new characters too.

Orlando says there's no real simple answer to it, as there is a certain power to aligning a queer character to a legacy that's lasted decades, but then there's also potential for added controversy. But you just have to be confident about making the new characters too, and the answer really is to just have more, not an either or.

Orlando talked about how the book Enigma was hugely effecting on him, by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo, it was horrifying and romantic and powerful. Tynion IV talks about how a lot of his queer characters in his indie work like The Woods is all taking from his own life and each character is an aspect of things he struggled with, and Backstagers is about finding community, and mirrors his own life experiences finding his own community.

If could take an existing character from anything, who would you want to give a queer storyline to? Stevensson says Velma and Jubilee, Anka says Namor, and White says Dum Dum Dugan, Tynion IV says he can't say because he does write the character, but needless to say there's certain relationships in Geoff Johns Teen Titans that meant a lot to him. Orlando says Ted Grant Wildcat.

Discussing about can you enjoy the work if you know the creator is homophobic? Stevensson says she can't enjoy work from someone who is outspoken and public in their homophobia.

Joe Glass is a Bleeding Cool contributor and comic creator. He's the writer of LGBTQ superhero series, The Pride, which is available here and on Comixology. He also co-writes Welsh horror comedy series, Stiffs, available here and on Comixology.

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