A Hot Mess of Gay Stereotypes: Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #4

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Snagglepuss Chronicles 4

I could build this up, but why don't we just forego with the niceties and small talk and delve right in.

I think it's safe to say if we had to guess at the sexuality of any of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters (yes, we're actually having this discussion), probably nobody would bat an eye at the suggestion that, at the very least, Snagglepuss would be gay. The stereotypes were all there. So that fact that he's a gay character in DC Comics EXIT STAGE LEFT: THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES is anything but a surprise, and a perfectly acceptable notion for the character.

It's the rest of the world that, quite properly, falls under the category of WTAF.

Snagglepuss is gay.

Huckleberry Hound is gay.

Quickdraw McGraw is gay.

I've got Kurt Cobain singing "All Apologies" in the back of my head now.

The milieu seems to be a McCarthy era on a world where humans and anthropomorphs coexist (and commingle) with nary a shock. Which is fine, that's how it was in the cartoons and when that's the world you're given you just accept it and run with it. The storyline has something to do with atomic weaponry, mutually assured destruction, and a government agent looking to capture Snagglepuss and publicly break him for reasons only she knows. To do this, she orders a police raid on the gay bar and hotel where Snagglepuss has his relations. It's also where Huckleberry Hound and Quickdraw McGraw have met up for their own trysts. When Quickdraw is ordered by his leader to help in the raid, he has to put on face and beat Huck during the capture, which lands Huck--an established novelist--on the front page under an ignominious headline.

But the raid doesn't net Snagglepuss, because he's decided to finally have dinner at home and introduce his gay human lover to his platonic panther wife.

So our government agent is unhappy, and is consoled by her roommate. Because--you guessed it--she's gay too!

Snagglepuss, upon hearing the news, tries to console Huck, who comments that they can't hide who they are any longer, and must change the world or be destroyed by it.

Doing a fairly good job of mixing humans and talking animals in an artistic realism perspective, I can't fault Mike Feehan and Sean Parsons for their work. It's quite interesting seeing their adaptations of the cartoon animals into these new forms, and I'd appreciate seeing more of the interactions in this world -- if it wasn't for the fact that this world, as developed by writer Mark Russell, is populated either with gays or gay-bashers, with nothing visible in the way of moderation. It's a dichotomy of ideals I could live without. Fortunately, this is a comic book, so I can do just that.

 

Grade: 
2.0 / 5.0