Seth Scriver: 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 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 #17 it was just another offhanded homophobic comment, the kind
that straight people make all the time without even thinking of it. In
#18, I found it actively annoying, and by the third “cocksucker” in
#20, I was angry it was a running joke. By episode 21, I was flat-out
disturbed. Looks like you started a new storyline in #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 (I don’t), but I do feel bad your strip contributes to
the homo-hating mindset and that it was published in a paper that I
expected a bit more conscience from.
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
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.