Cover Galleries

OK, so I put together two galleries of cover scans for some of these Japanese magazines that I've been posting about.


Gallery of Samson magazine covers


Gallery of G-Men magazine covers

Sorry for the Geocities-generated pop-ups, but I wanted to put something together quickly.

(Previously: Samson magazine, G-Project and G-Men magazines, Japanimation Bears, Rainbow Shoppers and Gengoroh Tagame and Aki.)

Samson Monthly

Browsing BigGym.co.jp, yet another online store for Japanese gay men, I discovered a wonderful archive of cover scans for Samson magazine, which is where I got the above image. Doing some web research, it turns out that Samson is an adult magazine focusing on older Japanese men. As far as I can tell from a quick browse of the official website, the magazine features adult photospreads and manga. But I'm mostly interested in the covers, which I believe are illustrated by an artist named Pontaro.

Here's some NSFW links for Samson magazine's official website:

Cover index from June 1998 to December 2003. You can click through to see photos and larger cover scans for all issues from 2002 and 2003.

Cover index for 2004. You can click through to see more photos for each issue.

January 2005
February 2005
March 2005

Current issue

Comics in February

What I'm looking out for from Marvel and DC. I can never find month-ahead previews for other comics companies. Am I just looking in the wrong places?

February 2

Shanna the She-Devil #1 -- don't usually buy comics just because they feature scantily-clad women, but this is a sentimental favorite and the art looks gorgeous. Will it have a story? Will anyone care?


February 9

Fables #34 -- love the cover (above), and it's the first of a two-parter.
Nightwing #103 -- enjoying this 6-part biweekly look at how Robin became Nightwing.
She-Hulk #12 -- bought the first trade for this a couple of weeks back, and I tracked down all the uncollected issues in the meantime. Lots of fun so far.
The Ultimates 2 #3 -- best art in the biz. Totally addicted.
Vimanarama #1 -- I'm giving my trust to Grant Morrison over the next year; don't let me down, Grant!

February 16

Astonishing X-Men #8 -- great creators on the franchise's main title.
Ex Machina #8 -- very surprised when my local comics store employee pronounced this correctly. (Somehow "ma-key-nah" always sounds pretentious to me. It's like someone who tries to pronounce "croissant" with a French accent.)
Promethea #32 -- final issue, and what looks like an interesting art stunt: each page can be reassembled as a huge 2-sided poster. I guess we gotta get multiple copies and run them through the laminator.

February 23
Legion of Super-Heroes #3 -- I'm enjoying my return to this comic, which was one of the first series I ever followed (back when I was in elementary school)
Nightwing #104
Seven Soldiers #0 -- Grant Morrison's crazy superhero multi-miniseries event begins. This fanboy drools.
Solo #3: Paul Pope -- very interesting anthology -- major artists do multiple stories with (sometimes) different writers. Not a huge Pope fan, but I'll give it a shot.

SO... let me know: What else should I be looking out for, and what are you looking forward to?

Czech geeks

Almost naked Czech geeks

(via Fleshbot)

G Project

I really want to download the wallpaper that Sturtle linked to yesterday. (The page is here). But I'm having a problem unzipping the Windows archive version, and I don't wanna download this at work.

Anyway, go look at the sexy salaryman.

And browse this G Project Gallery for other cool stuff.

Update: Ah, here's a smaller version of the sexy salaryman that Sturtle linked to. I'd still like the full-size image.

Bear Street

Via Dell' Orso, in Rome.

Teen Bear

Teen Bear magazine. A joke, for now.

Oy, I'm so afraid that XY will spin off something like this.

(via, of all things, Andrew Sullivan)

Bear Cub at IBR

Just heard that the unedited director's cut of Cachorro (aka Bear Cub) will be screened in San Francisco on Friday, February 18, as part of the kickoff to International Bear Rendezvous 2005.

You can read this earlier entry of mine about the film. I saw the edited-for-US-release version in December. Some of the cuts are pretty blatant; all of them have to do with sex, which is reportedly pretty graphic. The DVD, due out in the spring, should be unedited.

Animated Macho

This image has been added to the Flickr Beefcake!!! photo pool by Sean808080. It's an animated gif (if you click through, hit the all sizes button on the left, and then view the original size, you can see the animation) from the Nashoba BearHistory.com website that I blogged last week.

Sean808080 also posted the film poster to Macho, which I think he found here. (Macho is otherwise known as Huevos de Oro and is available in the US as Golden Balls. Here's the IMDB listing. It stars Javier Bardem and was a follow-up to Jabon Jabon. Funny what Google can teach you.)

Tales of the Closet

Johanna of Comics Worth Reading points out the return of the landmark gay teen comic series Tales of the Closet. Nine issues were released from 1986 to 1993, but those are long out of print. The promised tenth and final issue was never published.

In this Usenet thread, creator Ivan Velez, Jr. reveals that the new Tales of the Closet will collect the published issues in three compendium issues, while the fourth will contain the 80-page finale that would have been issue #10.

PlanetBronx.com will eventually have more info about the series, but right now there's not much to see.

GayLeague.com has archived reviews of the individual issues:
Reviews of Tales of the Closet #1-5
Review of Tales of the Closet #6
Review of Tales of the Closet #7
Review of Tales of the Closet #8
Review of Tales of the Closet #9

(via Cognitive Dissonance. I've been reading Johanna's reviews and writings online since Usenet days. What's odd is that I always have problems remembering that Cognitive Dissonance the name of Johanna's blog. I can remember that she writes Comics Worth Reading, but just barely. I guess to me the "brand" is "Johanna Draper Carlson". It's not an issue with other bloggers, because I discovered the author through the blog, but with Johanna it's the other way around.)

Trucker Fags in Denial

The most recent Trucker Fags in Denial is online. If you're not familiar, this is Jim Goad and Jim Blanchard's monthly one-page strip about two homophobic truckers in denial about their sexuality. It's obnoxious and sometimes funny, but nowhere near as brilliant a satire as, for instance, South Park.

But the title is brilliant.

(Update: Link fixed to point to archives. As a commenter pointed out, the comic seems to have stopped publishing in April 2004. I thought the January issue was from Jan 2005. My bad!)

Goldilocks

PJ at TrustySidekicks scans in a brief scene from the comic Fables that gives us four possible reasons why Goldilocks is sharing a bed with Papa's Li'l Boo Bear. Personally, I think Li'l Boo is on to something.

I love what Bill Willingham has accomplished in Fables, and I'm glad that DC is supporting the book with timely collected trade paperbacks. It's my favorite ongoing series from any of the big comics publishers.

A Non-Hegemonic Masculine Individual in the Urban Community

The Nashoba Institute has for its subtitle "Research Institute for Non-Hegemonic Masculine Identities, Culture and Communities", but the URL is closer to the heart of the matter: BearHistory.com.

It's worth checking out the Artist's Collective. The image above is from the page for Mike Thorn.

Shaft, Stretch and Dick

Shaft, Stretch and Dick, aka The Three Amigos, are cartoon condoms who star in a global campaign to introduce condom awareness in developing countries. 20 animated shorts have been developed so far, and they have been translated into 41 languages. Three English language shorts can be viewed on the website. They plan to rotate the shorts monthly.

Grateful

I've been meaning to blog my thanks to Dorian at Postmodern Barney for linking to this site with such kind words: "Lastly, I'm really happy to discover the new blog Bear in the City. Not only is he another gay comics blogger, but he's a bear blogger as well, and he's got several very nice links to gay art and comics up already."

Dorian's site is one that I check on daily. He was a real inspiration for me in thinking that I might like to start blogging about comics as well as gay stuff, so it meant a lot to receive that notice. Thanks again, Dorian.

Gay Caballeros

Gay Caballeros: Inside the secret world of Dallas' mayates

To a misunderstood and controversial segment of the population--illegal male Hispanic immigrants--Ignacio's claim that he's not a gay man wouldn't seem so far-fetched, even though he happened to be at a bar that any objective observer would consider gay. Ignacio is what's known as a mayate, a Hispanic immigrant, often quite new to America and hailing from rural Mexico or Central America, who will have sex with men but doesn't think of himself as being gay.

Ignacio doesn't consider himself gay, because he is always activo when he's with another man. Among mayates, there is one stark rule: The activo partner--or the person whom gay American men call a "top"--maintains his sense of masculinity, while the person who's being penetrated does not. And among recent Hispanic immigrants, who don't own much, manhood is a crucial possession. Mayates may think that letting another man give them a blowjob or giving anal sex to another man doesn't constitute cheating on their wives or girlfriends back in their own countries.

Interesting article from the Dallas Observer.

GLAAD felt enough concern about this article to issue a resource document titled Problematic Coverage of Latinos and HIV/AIDS in Dallas. The issue is the sensationalization of the men-who-have-sex-with-men-but-don't-call-themselves-gay community (cf. the media interest in men on the down low), and the use of the generally derogatory term "mayate" throughout the article. GLAAD points out another article on the subject: A Grim Prognosis: HIV infection is soaring in the Latino population. Can El Futuro slow it down? from Denver's Westword Magazine. (The Westword article is illustrated with a graphic of two skeletons in cowboy hats standing arm-in-arm. Nice.)

(Dallas Observer article via Towleroad)

Disclaimer

Gregory Sanchez reviews The Mirror of Love for the Prism Comics website. The final paragraph contains the finest "in the interest of full disclosure" disclaimer that I've ever read.

Intellectual honesty requires that I here acknowledge when I purchased The Mirror of Love at the Prism Comics booth at the 2004 Comic-Con International: San Diego, in front of God and everyone else, I got kissed full upon the mouth by José Villarrubia, a warm and affectionate man, as well as a great kisser. If his embrace and passionate kiss has somehow prejudiced my review of their remarkable book, so be it. I was certainly satisfied.

Yee-haw!

(See also my previous Mirror of Love entry.)

Comics in January

Here's what I'm considering picking up this month. What else should I look out for?

Jan. 12
Fables #33 -- one of the comics I most look forward to each month
Nightwing #101 -- kickoff to the biweekly six issue storyline "Nightwing: Year One", detailing how the first Robin became Nightwing
The Pulse #7 -- I've been following Jessica Jones' story since Alias #1
Ultimates 2 #2 -- best superhero art in the industry

Jan 19
Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days -- first trade paperback for this much-buzzed about series (love the art, and I have the first issue somewhere)
Madrox #5 -- conclusion to the intriguing miniseries about a mutant whose power is to multiply himself

Jan. 26
Astonishing X-Men #8 -- amazing art, solid story
JLA Classified #3 -- final issue of Grant Morrison & Ed McGuinness's inaugural storyline
Legion of Superheroes #2 -- enjoying this new series
Nightwing #102 -- assuming, of course, that I enjoy issue #101 (I haven't read Nightwing in a while)
We3 #3 -- finale to the disturbing and moving Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely miniseries.

Plushie bears and comics

Back in November, my favorite SFist contributor Mattymatt wrote a fun article about going on a bunny hop in the Castro. Imagine a bunch of guys and girls in various bunny costumes descending on the relatively straight-laced (so-to-speak) Harvey's. I still remember this bit of the story:

"It's like being a little kid and playing pretend," says Bouncy Bunny. But sometimes the childish aspect can be a source of discomfort, according to ScooterX, who made his first costume - a bear - for the Folsom Street Fair five years ago. At the time, he just thought that it was a high-larious visual pun - he's a bear! And he's in a bear costume! Ha! But it turned out that the fair's frantically sexing celebrants wanted nothing to do with a man in an animal costume. "You never mess with someone's fetish," he says, sort of wistfully. They saw a guy dressed in what looked like adorable PJs and a cute hoodie, which in the fetishistic language of the street fair they misinterpreted to be signals for some kind of infanti1ism thing - or b3stiality - and ignored him. Tonight, ScooterX is dressed as a tiger, and very popular with the crowd. He's delighted by the attention: "Bunnies are an excellent source of protein," he tells us.

Mattymatt has written another article about ScooterX's yaoi comics, which are available at Boy-Sluts.com. I've got some problems with yaoi, I'm starting to realize. On the one hand, I'm not really interested in the usual artistic style. Most yaoi is created by women for a women-intended audience, even though the characters involve male relationships with other men, and often times I feel I'm going to drown in swirling fabric and androgynous knowing glances.

On the other hand, though, much of the yaoi that I've seen seems to be overly interested in underage sex, and that just creeps me out. In the comments to this post, Lyle spells out some of my reservations, talking about yaoi and shounen-ai comics in really general terms:

Underage protagonists seem common; sometimes they get involved with adults. I understand rape turns out to be in the characters' pasts. A lot of shounen-ai and YAOI artists draw rather fey and wispy men, which dulls my interest. Also, a lot of the genre tries to separate the couple into typical male/female roles, with the protagonist usually "being the girl".

Manga isn't the only place that young men are overly sexualized (Ambercrombie & Fitch... XY Magazine... twink porn...), but it's still part of the problem.

No images, because I'm feeling skeeved out a little bit.

Open Up

Last fall Magnet SF, San Francisco's community-based gay men's health organization, sponsored "Open Up", a safe sex poster contest.

Unfortunately, although the winners were announced last month, none of the posters are online. So you'll have to look at the not-safe-for-work Call For Entries poster here instead.

(I originally posted that image directly to this blog, but I made it a link instead just to keep this site from becoming too dirty. Should I bother? Let me know in the comments. Thanks!)

(Update, I think no one cares, so I've put the image back on. Let me know if it bugs you.)

The Mirror of Love

Last year Top Shelf Comics published The Mirror of Love as a beautiful hardcover. Alan Moore's 1988 poem was originally written as an 8-page comic for a self-published pro-gay rights benefit comic against Britain's Clause 28. A few years ago, artist José Villarubia, who has worked with Moore on comics in the past, worked with playwright David Drake to adapt the poem as a one-man theatre piece, which Villarubia performed in the nude. Eventually Villarubia re-adapted the poem, with the permission of Moore and his original artistic collaborators, illustrating the work with a series of gorgeous art-photos.

Newsarama.com has an exhaustive essay detailing the history of the project, illustrated with several photos from Villarubia's adaptation.

Comicon.com has published Alan Moore's complete original script for The Mirror of Love. Villarubia went his own direction with the artwork, but it's amazing to read Moore's scripts (as always).

Jack Parr

Digging through the Japanese-language portion of the Japanimation Bears website (dedicated to the work of artist Go Fujimoto), I found the above drawing of Mr. Incredible in this blog entry. I can't read Japanese, so I have no idea if Fujimoto is the artist, but it's pretty awesome nonetheless.

Be sure to check out the the rest of his site.

SpandexMan

SpandexMan's Super-Hero Unitards. NOW I know where to go for all my costuming needs.

Too bad Edna Mode is out of my price range.

Rainbow Shoppers

Rainbow-Shoppers has a great collection of gay manga that you can order from Japan. It's nice to browse the collection and see artistic depictions that are outside of the "willowy prettyboy" stereotypes usually found in translated US manga. There are plenty of books by legendary artist Gengoroh Tagame, among many others.

(The image is from a calendar by Echigoya Shinnosuke.)

Fleshbotted

Thanks to Andrew, temporary editor of Fleshbot, for crediting me in an entry about Douglas Simonson's art & diary. Who knew the traffic would be so tremendous?

Thanks also to Boss at Renas e Veados, who also linked to me today. I wish I knew enough Portuguese to engage in a meaningful conversation!

True Adult Fantasy

This Gay Comics List review also looks interesting: Batman Adventures and Catwoman artist Brad Rader is self-publishing adult bear comic True Adult Fantasy, which you can sample and order from his Flaming Artist website.

The art is excellent: miles away from the amateurish I've unfortunately come to expect from adult comics.

Sticky

Eros Comix, the profitable adults-only label from Fantagraphics, mostly publishes straight comics. Sticky is a welcome exception. The guys are masculine, hairy and (surprise!) realistic in body-type.

This Gay Comics List review of the first issue has art samples to browse, as does the site of artist Steve MacIsaac.

(Postmodern Barney brought Sticky to my attention, although he didn't post any links. Looking forward to his review.)

Aloha Oe

Honolulu artist Douglas Simonson specializes in fine art male nudes. All of his models are young, smooth and muscular; most are men of color (black, asian, polynesian, hispanic). Like Andy of towleroad.com, Simonson's ideal type seems to be brazilian.

One unique aspect of the website is Simonson's Diary. Each entry is a lengthy essay showing how he puts his paintings together. The entries are illustrated with images of every step in the process, from initial photograph to final product. It's fascinating. For instance, in the May 26 entry, Simonson tells how the painting "Hawaiian Surfer" (above) was created over the course of five days, from the original photo through eight drafts until the painting is complete.

Japanese bears

The art of Aki is sensual and well worth a browse.

(via Fleshbot)

Bear Cub

The Spanish film Cachorro, otherwise known as Bear Cub, has received a little unwelcome editing in its US theatrical debut. This IMDB messageboard post explains that all of the sex scenes and frontal nudity have been removed from the subtitled print currently playing in the US. (That post spells out exactly what HOTT scenes have been cut so far.)

I've read that the US DVD release, planned for the spring, will be of the unedited version.

Porky

The NSFW promosite for the French-language bear-n-chub erotic comic Porky is hella hot. I want to order a copy, although my French is non-existent.

I just wish the guys had normal-sized dicks, you know? I'm tired of the Tom of Finland look in porn.

(via Sturtle.)