World Enough and Time

Jennifer Smith's "Fantastic Fangirls: Comics and Culture", has a piece on Daken Akihiro, For Your Entertainment, comparing Daken to Adam Lambert:

My new appreciation for Daken stems directly from my realization that he is the Adam Lambert of comics. Though maybe not always progressive, or always appropriate (or, frankly, always deserving of attention), Daken challenges fans’ expectations and makes them uncomfortable in a good way. In their quest to buy everything X-Men-related, or Dark Reign-related, or Wolverine-related, conservative fanboys have been confronted with a book starring a man who is actively seducing Bullseye, flirting with male H.A.M.M.E.R. employees, and accusing Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm of a gay affair. And this man is the son of Wolverine, Marvel’s very portrait of gruff hyper-masculinity. Daken has gone from cliched to subversive, and I largely credit Marjorie Liu — author of X-Men tie-in novel Dark Mirror, which is subversive itself in its use of a gender-swapping plot device — with the transition.

Nice to know I'm not the only fangirl who's appreciating Daken! Now, I agree with her about the "depraved bisexual type", but Daken - so far at least - seems to be more than a vehicle for shock appeal. Like her, I'm curious to see where this will lead.

And with regard to the canonical Daken/Bullseye kiss, I was amused to see Bullseye's journal entry on the subject. (The second item on the page.) No more teams!

Another commentary on the kiss says, "That’s Bullseye there, dressed as Hawkeye (if you’re not reading Dark Reign/Siege, don’t ask). Bullseye, with the ability to turn anything into a deadly weapon. Apart from his tongue, it seems."

Anna Paquin says she's bisexual. Cool. Too bad I still don't like her, but still. Cool.

Out of curiosity, I was browsing the Wikipedia site Fictional Bisexuals and I wasn't very happy with what I saw. I was hoping to be steered to novels with bisexual characters; it didn't work. In fact, it seems the venue for bi characters is almost exclusively comic books and soap operas, with the occasional TV comedy (specifically, Nip/Tuck and Will and Grace thrown in). Otherwise, there is a smattering of villains. Not much. Shouldn't Velvet Goldmine be mentioned? Torchwood is a wonderful exception, where not only are characters bi, they also aren't marginalized, bit characters, or villains. Then there are other books where the 'bisexual' characters are transgendered, hermaphrodites or otherwise intersexed.

Perhaps the trick is that the person has to be explicitly bisexual in the source - does that mean the word "bisexual" must be used in the dialogue? In that case, Captain Jack Harkness shouldn't be there, since he's only ever described as "omnisexual" - and Ianto describes himself as straight, albeit in love with Jack. The novels listed are mostly vampire books, especially Anne Rice novels.

Not very impressive. I'd add Aral Vorkosigan (from the Lois McMaster Bujold novels) and Bridgett Logan (from Greg Rucka's Atticus Kodiak series)... For the sake of everyone's sanity, I won't even mention Lymond here. Who else? The Elizabeth Lynn novels? Tanya Huff, Diane Duane, Heinlein, Marion Zimmer-Bradley - ? Not to mention erotic novels. How can there be so few bi people in books when there are so many of us in real life, and in history?

There are lists like this one which are useful, but not quite what I was looking for.

Okay, I know, I shouldn't be hung up on a label. But I find it frustrating that when I look up a list of GLBT characters, though the title or headline includes "bisexual", the characters on the list are all (or almost all) gay or Lesbian.

How invisible can bisexuality be?