The presence of a penis in a comic will tell you a lot about a man’s maturity level. For some, it’s just another image, another fact of life. For others, the reaction varies from the shocked to the slightly uncomfortable to the blatantly homophobic and beyond. What I’m saying is, a lot of men react to cartoon penises differently, and that’s a strange thing to know. Such is the life of a comic shop manager.
This week, in the pages of Tooth & Claw #2, there’s a very prominent penis featured. It’s presence isn’t sensational or done for shock value - it’s factual. Very clinically, it needed to be there, swinging around like so many weapons in this series. A couple of customers took it upon themselves to chuckle very loudly when they flipped open to a page that featured the penis. One of them pointed as stated quite loudly, “That’s gay.”
“That’s not gay,” I replied, pointing at the picture myself, “That’s a penis.”
The pair looked at me as though I had two heads, smiled weakly, closed the book and sauntered out of the store slowly. A note: one of them had bought the book the month before and had apparently loved it. He was showing it to his buddy when the penis happened at him, and his buddy told him it was gay. Things got awkward, and they both left without making a purchase. That one guy might never buy an issue of Tooth & Claw again. Was it worth it to make the joke?
For me, the answer is a resounding “yes”. I might be leaving the company at the end of the month, but I would have said that regardless. Tooth & Claw is a fantastic series, one with a craftsmanship that rivals some of the industry’s very best. The story is deliberate, articulate and entertaining. The art is lush and evocative. The world that results is positively vibrant and vital. This was being reduced to base homophobia. I’m not just going to let that stand.
In my opinion, Tooth & Claw is an important book, and while I’d never judge a person for the hows and whys they enjoy a comic, I will certainly question the hows and whys a person might not - especially when the core of that is a fear of cartoon penises with a layer of homophobia. More to the point, I’m not going to tolerate the misappropriation of the term “gay” to degrade a work or describe something dumb. That’s not the kind of culture I want in my life, let alone in my workplace, and if I can make a couple of homophobes uncomfortable about their inappropriate jokes, then all the better.
Beyond all of this, Tooth & Claw was my favourite book of this week. I’ve talked about the contents of it very little in this column, but whatever. You can stumble your way across the internet and find a few reviews that will let you peak into the book beyond my penis rants. This, is an important book. It’s doing wonderful things, and if it stays on track (I’m hoping for a nicely paced Saga type schedule), then there’s no way it can’t be one of the next big classics.
(Additional note: yes, yes, I know that the series is now technically called The Autumnlands: Tooth & Claw, but honestly, that’s all legal semantics, and the original intended name still gets across the needed information. So calm down.)
