Luckily, the dead space that is summer TV gives Angy Puppy's Marc & Lee time to catch up on the latest from gay comic artists Brian Andersen (So Super Duper) and Tommy Roddy (Pride High). With all this reading time, Marc's seemingly never-ending foray into the Dune universe and Lee's new-found interest in the Mayfair witches (including the ubiquitous gay and bisexual males found in all of Anne Rice's pre-conversion novels) led to their latest list of 15 favorite witches in geekdom.

Check it out after the break!

WARM UP YOUR VOCAL CHORDS FOR A "ONE OF US" CHANT:
Get your Barrowmania hats back on, cuz a certain Scottish actor has come a-courting. In an interview with the National Post of Canada John Barrowman talks about his love of science fiction, declaring himself a "G-Double-E-K":

"I grew up watching Doctor Who," he says. "I'm of the Star Wars generation; I love science fiction. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica ... love 'em."

"I love every morning, getting up to go to work because that little boy inside of me jumps with excitement every time I'm going to fight an alien or shoot a rocket gun or be on a spaceship or be with the Doctor or get onto the TARDIS," he gushes. "So every time I'm working on it, I'm really, really happy."

Barrowman: "G-Double-E-K"

Okay, so there's a little optimist Lyle on one shoulder and a cynic Lyle on the other. The optimist is going "Aw, sah-woon." while the cynic is muttering something about people who say they like Star Trek and follow the sentiment with a series of imitations of Checkov asking about "nuclear wessels".

METAPHORS FOR QUEER RIGHTS MOVE TO SAN FRANCISCO, FILM AT ELEVEN:
It's been a pretty high-profile change to the status quo, so you've probably heard that the X-Men made a move to San Francisco with the 500th issue of Uncanny X-Men. But editor Axel Alonso gave us an interesting teaser when he talked with the San Francisco Chronicle recently:

Q: Is there a chance we might see one of the X-Men come out?

A: Yes. Yes. The city being what it is, certain characters whose sexuality might have been ambiguous are going to feel free to be who they are. I will qualify and say that I never go into the situation with a mandate or an agenda. It has to come along naturally. We're not going to rush into it. But I see it happening.

San Francisco, open your Golden Gates...

Considering the current team working on the X-Men, I see more than a little reason for optimism. Alonso is the editor responsible for Peter Milligan's excellent run on X-Force/X-Factor and the current X-Men writing team includes people responsible for some notable gay moments in comics. Uncanny X-Men is co-written by Ed Brubaker, who created Holly, the temporary successor to Selina Kyle, in his Catwoman run. The adjectiveless title (currently called X-Men: Legacy) comes from the pen of Mike Carey who's was very gay-inclusive on Vertigo titles like Lucifer and Hellblazer, even though in most cases that was a matter of including gay people amid those titles' high bodycount. Finally, Astonishing X-Men has the mind of Apollo and Midnighter creator Warren Ellis working for it.

From the way Alonso phrases things, it sounds like any gay mutant who might come out would be one who has been quietly coming to terms with their sexuality for a while ... so who's been pinging your gaydar? Anyone think it might turn out that Beast wasn't joking when he came out a few years back?

The new Infinity Inc.

By the way, speaking of Peter Milligan, is anyone reading his gender-twisting work on Infinity Inc. at DC? There's nothing specifically gay about the series, so far, but the series includes one guy who sometimes deals with his insecurity by turning into a woman (leading to plenty of gay teasing from one friend) and another guy whose struggle with narcissism is complicated by his ability to clone himself. Of course, the series is already has its final issue scheduled to come out in a few months. Sigh.

AFTER THE BREAK: New life for the gayest video game never to get a US port, Calvin and Hobbes gets mashed up and more!

Aron E. Coleite, the new writer on Ultimate X-Men, has put the title's two gay characters front and center in his first story arc, though the spotlight certainly has come at a cost. Since the story has gotten gay comic fans talking, I was happy to get to talk to Aron about the story so far, his perspective on Ultimate Colossus and Northstar as well as Perry Moore's list of dead LGBT superheros, "Who cares about the death of a gay superhero, anyway?"

AfterElton.com: Since this is your introductory arc on UXM, I’m curious about what you’re trying to accomplish with this story – what tone are you trying to establish for your run?
Aron E. Coleite: I just wanted to go as far as I could with the characters. I didn’t want to do anything safe, I wanted to try to stir up conversation, try to stir up debate about the characters I love so dearly. I wanted to make tough choices and I wanted to doing things that people could see the characters doing but maybe they didn’t see this coming.

It was really important for me to do a story that I felt was important to me. I didn’t want to do anything that was middle-of-the-road or safe. Jeph Loeb has this really good advice about writing… anything, let alone comic books. When you write it, you want to feel like ‘Okay, am I gonna cry when I see this?’, ‘Am I going to really feel a connection with that?’ These are characters I felt a real connection to and as long as I was feeling emotional about it and as long as I felt like that it was an emotionally based story, I felt like it was fine.

Warning, things get SPOILER-riffic after the break.

There's been a lot of static around here lately about comics publishing giant Marvel's handling of gay themes and issues. If you checked out the recent mainpage editorial about outspoken (vitriolic?) anti-gay author Orson Scott Card, you may be disappointed to learn that in addition to their adapting his novel Ender's Game as a comic book series, the publisher put the writer in charge of the recent Ultimate Iron Man miniseries.

Additionally, recent developments in both the Ultimate X-Men (with gay characters Northstar and Colossus) and Young Avengers (with gay superheroes Hulking and Wiccan) series have gay comics fans appalled and at the treatment of the few gay characters that comics have to offer.

One reader points out that Marvel has generally had a fairly gay-friendly past, so perhaps bringing these points to their attention would do some good. If you'd care to contact them, here's the information. To contact the Ultimate editors directly, here's their email. And here's Editor in Chief Joe Quesada's Myspace page.

In the long-awaited return of Angry Puppy, Marc and Lee take their title literally in an episode filled with puppies. The guys introduce their new mascot, and run down a list of the greatest sci-fi dogs.

But that's not all! Jumping species, the fellas get a little bat-crazy in reviewing The Dark Knight and a host of other bat-related titles. Plus, Dr. Horrible, Dr. Who, a new Mystery Geek Challenge, and much more!

Check it out after the break!

Right now, the biggest gathering of comic book readers and science fiction fans is happening in San Diego at Comic-Con International where geeks of many stripes binge on their hobbies and various entertainment companies try their damnedest to build the kind of buzz that makes or breaks projects.

At a Prism Comics panel yesterday focusing on "LGBT Portrayals in Comics" comics legend Stan Lee and Perry Moore announced a business partnership. The announcement was made before a standing-room-only audience who "exploded in applause as Lee entered the room, made his way to the dais and embraced Perry Moore."

I haven't been able to find details on the business partnership, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Moore develops with the comics legend. It's great to hear how accepting Lee is, though it's not entirely surprising. After all, back when he was taking superheros in a new direction at Marvel, he was breaking racial barriers in comics, seeing him continue to work for more inclusiveness feels like an apt continuation of his legend.

Meanwhile, at the Torchwood panel yesterday, it sounds like oft-bawdy John Barrowman hilariously tried to keep thing a little more all-ages, with Barrowman, Naoko Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd finding creative ways to talk around the pranks and silliness that happen on the set.

One interesting tidbit that came up at the panel was that Barrowman was considered as a possible Captain America for an upcoming movie. I have to admit, I can mentally cast Barrowman as Wonder Man or Hawkeye more easily, but those characters aren't in any upcoming movies (much to my — and many an Avengers fan's — disappointment). What do you think?

Bryan Singer and Neil Patrick Harris tidbits, after the jump!

Happy birthday to director Gus Van Sant, who turns 56 today

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• Hey grunge fans: Remember the naked baby on the album cover of Nirvana's Nevermind (still one of the greatest rock albums ever, IMHO)? He's 17 now and recently did an interview with NPR about it. I just can't believe that was almost 20 years ago...

• Project Runway's Wesley spoke about his romance with fellow contestant Daniel, noting that they tried to keep the relationship secret while they were on the show together. Which shouldn't have been too terribly hard.

Project Runway's Daniel (left) & Wesley

• John Waters is reportedly hard at work on a script about the evil Pinhead's attempts to reclaim his puzzlebox ... wait, what? Oh, sorry ... I thought you said Hellraiser 2, not Hairspray 2. Um ... Viva Baltimore!

• Above, Chelsea Handler interviews Madonna's brother on the occasion of his throwing his sister under a bus for coke money (his words, not mine). (via Queerty)

• And here's a fun article on Batman's gay history. (It was just a phase!)

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

(NOT) SPENDING MONEY IN SAN DIEGO:
A few months back, I told you about how gay activists were boycotting the Manchester Grand Hyatt, a major location for those attending Comic Con International at San Diego, because of the hotel owner’s donations to anti-gay causes including Proposition 8 which will de-legalize gay marriage in California.

It does my heart good to hear that the boycott is being discussed by some of the creators who will be attending the Con this week. At this point, it’s too late to decide to give up a room at the Hyatt as a moral stand. However, as Christopher Butcher points out, the Hyatt is also a popular place to get a drink with three bars that are usually crowded every night and, thus, it’s still possible for LGBT-supportive Con attendees to take a stand – with so many bars in the area, why not spend your drinking money elsewhere?

Being one of the closest hotels to the Convention Center, the Manchester Grand Hyatt is known as a good place to spot comic creators and one reason to get a drink there is the possibility of spending time around popular artists and writers. Hence, I’m happy to see various industry names like SLG Publications’ Jennifer de Guzman, DMZ and Channel Zero creator Brian Wood, supporting the boycott in comment threads at Butcher's site and at The Beat. Meanwhile, the always-outspoken Lea Hernandez suggests people save their bar tabs and send it to the hotel as documentation of how much money they didn’t spend at the Hyatt’s bars.

Oh, and while we’re on the topic of who gets your money when you’re in San Diego, might I remind you about the time the nearby Omni Hotel shut down Margaret Cho’s performance because they disapproved of her material?

WHO WATCHES THE FILM TRAILER EDITORS?:
Last week, we got a trailer for the Watchmen movie and, overall, it looks great. Still, I’ve got to ask – why does a trailer for a movie that’s supposed to deconstruct and examine the superhero genre look so much like a typical superhero movie trailer? I’m a little worried here.

You can check out the trailer here, what do you think?

I know a high-profile, big-budget movie like Watchmen isn’t going to find a wide enough audience by playing up the themes and moral questions raised by Alan Moore, but without those parts why bother turning Watchmen into a movie? Maybe I would feel better if there were a falling bottle of Nostalgia Perfume amongst the visuals?

WE'VE GOT MEET UP SIGN!:
If you want more to anticipate in San Diego (and if you’re going, you’ve got plenty of good stuff ahead) here’s one more thing to get excited about – the Gays in Comics meet up on Saturday night. This year’s event at Flicks will be the first team-up between Prism Comics and gay comics site Pink Kryptonite. I really need to make sure I don't miss another trip to Comic Con next year.

After the break: Anti-gay comics and comic book villainesses!

GETTING CLOSE TO CAPRICA:
I usually end up totally geeking out at this time of the year, as the Television Critics Association is a time when some interesting TV news and discussions starts coming out. Here’s one rumor that has me particularly excited – the Sci-Fi Channel has reportedly ordered two scripts for the Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica.

That’s encouraging news since I long had the impression that Caprica’s pilot would air as a mini-series before the network would decide to make it a series or not, as it did with Galactica. This probably means that The Sci-Fi Channel thinks Caprica is good enough to please us Galactica fans. Hopefully there’ll be some official news when the Sci-Fi Channel has its TCA session next week.

EMBRACING TRACING PAPER:
Scandal apparently broke out last week amongst the YAOI community in Japan when Embracing Love creator Youka Nitta admitted to having traced images from various fashion ads. You can check out a collection of side-by-side comparisons at this Japanese web page. As Brigid Alverson notes, I find it interesting how Nitta frequently took images of opposite-sex couples and changed them into male couples:

The page that got Nitta in trouble and the ad that inspired it.

Nitta’s faced a few consequences as her work seems to been dropped from an upcoming issue of Be-Boy Gold magazine and she’s also canceled her planned appearance at YAOI-Con. I wonder if this will further affect the availability of Nitta’s work in the United States. Embracing Love is hard to find due to financial trouble at Be Beautiful, the publisher who licensed the title, a situation that became even more complicated when the Japanese publisher Biblos went into bankruptcy and put Be Beautiful’s licenses in limbo. DMP just published one of her titles earlier this year and has another title coming out in December.

If it's up to American audiences, I doubt this will hurt Nitta’s presence here. While her tracing is a big scandal in Japan, I’ve seen a few American artists whose tendency to copy and alter images became a running gag (like Greg Land and Rob Liefeld) and it didn’t seem to hurt them. Then again, maybe manga audiences will react differently.

I know Nitta has a few fans here (and I probably would be one of them if I ever could find myself a copy of the second volume of Embracing Love); does this change your impression of her work in any way?

After the break: Gays in games and comics ... and what's Stephen Fry doing in this column?

As you might recall, one of the major difference between Marvel's Ultimate X-Men and the regular X-Men titles is that Colossus is gay and currently dating the Ultimate version of the iconic Northstar. Colossus and Northstar play a large role in the current storyline on the title, the first by Heroes writer Aron E. Coleite ... though the latest cliffhanger is certainly raising a few eyebrows. Do gay comics fans have reason to be up in arms over the next development?

A spoiler-filled look at the story so far, after the break...