Alex Ross: Wizard Interview follow up

I was quite happy to see Ross very quickly and very publicly respond to a number of posts, mine included, that suggested his initial comments could and were being perceived as homophobic. I thought that his remarks, which I have linked to, are worth reading in their entirety, which is why I've not exerpted them here.

Ross addresses all the points that have been raised by others, which is nice to see. He was paying attention. Yay.

Geoff Johns has also responded, and while I don't have to link to it, it was nice to see calming words on his side as well.

The problem here, and why I think that this really deserves a follow up is that the internet is pretty much forever. You make a comment that gets mis-interpreted and no matter how many denials its going to float around google and yahoo in cached server pages forever. Ross has certainly addressed all the points that were leveled against him and refuted them well. I would hate to think that people can google "Alex Ross Homophobe" for the next decade and get my first post without getting any of the follow up. Not fair to anyone. Period.

Alex Ross and Obsidian: the Wizard interview

Sorry to have been absent, but the holidays have taken so much time away from important things like blogging and comic books. I did run across this almost bizarre Wizard magazine interview by Alex Ross where he goes off on the character Obsidian, who has come out of the closet. The oddity, if you read the interview, is Ross' choice of words when describing how the character has been "handled".

Now, not following the character at all, I would have read the interview and not noticed a thing, but over at superunderwearperverts' blog, we have a gay man who has a real problem with the interview, and once you read his points, I can certainly see why.

I have greatly admired Ross' technique and many of the pieces that he has done. I even own a single page from Marvels, which is a phenomenal piece of work, and it was worth every penny. But I've always had a bit of a problem with him thinking that he's the only one who "gets" a certain character, and that "he's taking the character back to their roots", when, lets face it, there are a lot of roots to follow on the JSA, the JLA, the Wonder Twins.

Now I can see how a gay man might really be offended by Ross' comments to wizard, using odd "code words" that seem to imply the Johns might agree with him (which is even worse, since Johns might not agree at all; we simply don't know) about how Obsidian has been "molested".

I don't know. Does Alex have a problem with a gay character? I wouldn't have thought so, but this is an odd interview. The internet certainly puts a premium on watching what you say.

Amended to add: Please read the follow up post here: http://inkdestroyedmybrush.blogspot.com/2006/12/alex-ross-wizard-interview-follow-up.html