The Gomer Times #21

Seth Scrivner: I know you probably didn’t really intend for this response, and I know that you were probably just being “ironic” or using a lazily cliched character, but using the phrase “cocksucker” as an epithet in numbers 17, 18, and 20 of your strip The Gomer Times, and then having the character who was repeatedly using the term shoot the alleged cocksucker in strip number 21 was something that I (as a proud cocksucker) found to be insulting and outright hateful. There is still too much violence and hatred directed at my queer brothers and sisters to make this kind of humour anything but ignorant and irresponsible.

In the first episode (#17) it was just another offhanded (and assumedly unintentional) homphobic/homohating comment, the kind that straight people make all the time without even thinking of it. In the second episode (#18) I found it actively annoying, and by the third repetition of the insult “cocksucker” in The Gomer Times #20, it actually made me angry that it was a running joke. By episode 21, I was flat out disturbed. Looks like you started a new story line in episode 22, so I’m guessing the bear character is, indeed, dead. Nice.

So what if his bullet just grazed the hair off of the top of the bear’s head, so what if it’s just a stupid comic strip (You CAN draw better than that, right??), and so what if another cocksucker gets shot? And so what that yet again we, as readers of your strip, are reaffirmed in the (untruthful) lesson that it’s cool or funny or acceptable to hate non-heteros, even (or especially!) if those non-heteros are the readers ourselves? I’m not saying that your strip made me feel bad about being gay (because I’m don’t), but I do feel bad that your strip contributes to the homo-hating mindset and that it was published in a paper that I expected a bit more conscience from.

Interesting that I’m apparently the only one who has even bothered to comment on this (online). Would it be any different if your redneck character had been calling the (black) bear character a “nigger” three times instead of a fag (or should I say “cocksucker”) before shooting him? Or if the bear was female (considering it has stubble, I’m hazarding a guess that it’s a guy-bear) instead of male? I’m guessing you’d have been flooded with outraged letters.

Coast editorial staff: In all the years that I’ve read the Coast (since the beginning!), I’ve never been rankled enough to comment on anything else you’ve published until now. I know you pride yourself on political correctness and try not to offend too many of your readers, and that you must balance that aim with not censoring the “artistic” output of your contributors too much, but you really disappointed me on this one.

Troy Fourbeers, Halifax, NS.