“My Ward Is A Junkie!”
Image: DC Comics

Soon DC Comics will reveal that an established character is gay. Marvel Comics recently made an appearance on The View to discuss the wedding of Northstar. Last week President Obama announced his support for gay marriage. Agree or disagree, gay marriage and civil rights are at the top of our current cultural zeitgeist. The KoPoint comic book panel – Jon Lazar, Jeff Newelt, and Dan Patterson – use this as an opportunity to discuss socially conscious comic books.

Here are a few of the links we discussed in this week’s episode:

• Northstar Gets Married:
  • http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/05/21/marvels-gay-marriage-news-to-hit-the-view/
• DC making an established character gay:
  • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/dc-comics-gay-superhero-i_n_1533105.html
  • http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=38787
• My Ward is a JUNKIE!
  • http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/de/Green_lantern_85.jpg/250px-Green_lantern_85.jpg
• X-Men First Class (and X-Men in general) as metaphor for minority communities:
  • http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2011/06/06/236993/x-men-first-class-gay-rights-and-the-intelligence-community/?mobile=nc
• Shadowhawk:
  • HIV superhero
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowhawk
• Cloak and Dagger and drugs:
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger_(comics)

Download Audio: KoPoint Comics, EP 008 – Socially Conscious Comic Books