The Gay Connection of "Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles"

Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles.  An instant New York Times bestseller!  A cross between J. Rowling and Douglas Adams!  The next Harry Potter!

Ok, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books, and the Harry Potter series isn't bad, either.  I'll give it a try.  Of course, I judge a fantasy novel primarily on gay subtexts: deep, passionate same-sex bonds, or at least a minimum of heterosexual interest.

How much do you want to bet that Ronan gets a girlfriend?

Page 2: Ronan Boyle is a 14 year old intern in the Galway, Ireland garda (police force).

Page 25: He is recruited by the Garda Special Unit, a secret police force dedicated to relations the faerie folk -- leprechauns, trolls, and others,who live in their own world, Tir Na Nog, but like to transfer over from their world to ours to cause mischief.

So far, so good.  No hetero interest, but no same-sex romances, either.

Page 35: Ronan is a big fan of Dame Judy Dench, and when stressed, imagines conversations with her.  The actress is 84 years old, so it's probably not a hetero-romantic thing.

Page 51: His parents are in prison after being framed for the theft of a  4,000 year old mummified Bog Man, the oldest artifact in ireland, so he's living with his guardian, Dolores, "an absolute delight." No romantic interest mentioned.

This sounds suspiciously like the plot of Artemis Fowl

Page 60: Ronan arrives at the training academy and meets the other recruits, including Log, a very tall, muscular, thick-limbed girl with the strength of a chimpanzee.  Doesn't sound like romantic interest.

And Dermot, a "dreamboat," who has broad shoulders and a square jaw, and is so tall he can block out the sun. Definite attractiveness. Ronan dreams of their "becoming mates," but he doesn't seem particularly interested in Ronan. Homoerotic interest!

Dermot is not pictured in the book illustrations, so let's imagine him as the top photo.

Page 115: He visits Lord Diamond Dooley, who he believes actually stole the Bog Man and framed his parents.  Not exactly Voldemort, but close.

Page 131: The Malton Hotel has been robbed of 30,000 euros of wine.  The suspect is probably Lovely Liam, a gancanagh-- everyone who sees him falls in love with him.

In the original folklore, the gancanagh is a male fairy who seduces only women.  Let's hope that "everyone" here is inclusive, men and women both.

Page 145: Ronan and Captain De Valera, must go to Tir Na Nog to investigate. Ronan respects her, but there is no heterosexual interest implied.

So far, so good -- inclusivity and no heterosexual interest.  But it seems that everyone important in Ronan's life is female: his guardian, Log, the Captain, even his police dog partner.

Page 156: The Bridge of Riddles is just the way into the faerie town of Nogbottom.  It provides a brief setback  -- not nearly worth naming the book after.  Someone is trying to emulate Harry Potter "and the Chamber of Secrets" or "the Prisoner of Azkaban."

Page 188: Ronan keeps his eyes averted, but both the Captain and a male troll get a glimpse of Lovely Liam and fall in love with him.

Score!  An inclusive love spell!

Page 220: While transferring the prisoners to Dublin, Log wants to take time out to visit the wax museum.  She wants to see the statue of Liam Neeson, whom she finds hot. Ronan states that he is open to the idea of "meeting a wax Liam Neeson," but would would prefer a wax Judi Dench. 

Page 237: They begin the next case, tracking down harpies in County Wexford.  There's a fight, and Ronan sees something that will propel the plot into the next book of the series.

More after the break

Gay Comics of the 1980s

When I moved to West Hollywood in 1985, I was astonished.  There were no gay characters in any comic book or comic strip I had ever seen before, even in gay magazines, except for an occasional Donelan cartoon or Tom of Finland erotic drawing,  but here there were entire strips with all-gay casts (except for the occasional heterosexual villain). In Frontiers, the weekly news magazine. In the monthly anthology Gay Comix (1980-1988), by Kitchen Sink Press.  In the Meatmen anthology of trade paperbacks, edited by Winston Leyland (1989-1999).

During the late 1980s, they stopped being called "comix" (underground, radical) and became "comics" (mainstream).

Here are my favorite gay comic titles:

1. Murphy's Manor (Kurt Erichsen), about a regular guy who works as a librarian in Black Swamp, Ohio, and his various gay and lesbian friends.

The Sparkle Spinsters, led by the flamboyant Duchess (right), sometimes appeared in a separate feature.

2. Jayson, by Jeffrey A. Krell.  Jason Callohide is an underemployed liberal arts graduate sharing a single apartment in Philadelphia with his straight gal pal, Arena Stage. They are drawn in the clean, spare style of Archie Comics.

 Jeffrey A. Krell has published several trade paperbacks of Jayson's adventures, the most recent in 2012.  He also produced an off-Broadway musical, Jayson

3. Poppers, by Jerry Mills, set right in the heart of West Hollywood, starring Yves, a regular guy who works in a bookstore, his hunky best friend Billy, and the flamboyant Andre. It features all of the glitz, glamour, sex, and drugs that you expect in the pre-AIDS era of sexual liberation (it's even named after a psychotropic drug, amyl nitrite)

But beneath all that it's about friends sticking together in a hostile world, about the search for a place where you belong.

Jerry Mills died of AIDS in 1993.

You can get gay comics now on Amazon -- they arrive in mail, hidden from view in a brown box -- but that can't match the immediacy of walking down to the Different Light Bookstore on Larrabee and Santa Monica and grabbing them right off the shelf.

See also: Donelan; Howard Cruse; and Tom of Finland.

Skyler Gisondo's Hot/H* ung Photos, Part 3: Basketball, beach boys, wrestling, giving a guy his leg

 

This is a collection of cute/cool or hot/h* ung photos of  Skyler Gisondo, star of The Santa Clarita Diet and The Righteous Gemstones, and Jimmy Olson in Superman. As far as I know, he's over 18 in all of them.  

Link to the n*de photos

1. Why is Skyler the only one with his shirt off?

2. "Homie wouldn't help me put sunscreen on my back."  

3. Why not?  Is the dude homophobic, or does he want you to lie on your back so he can see your abs?

4. Obviously they've been wrestling.  I have absolutely no idea what else they could be doing that leaves them on the floor, out of breath.

5. But we're not playing shirts vs. skins, buddy.

6. I dig the lesbian haircut, Sky Baby, but your sweater shrank in the wash.

More ginormous Gisondo after the break. 

Eric Brody: Fashion model from Florida shows his d*ck in his first acting gig

  

Link to the n*de photos

If you've seen Minx, the series that HBO cancelled after one season and STARZ after a second, you know that it's a p*nis paradise, but uncomfortably closeted about the possibility of male viewers.  Ironically, it's about a 1970s Playgirl-type magazine which is also torn between its huge male readership and the need to pretend that it has no male readers.

The "problem" comes to a head in Episode 2.3, "It's Ok to Like It," Eric Brody and Taylor Byron Barr play the models in the proposed centerfold, n*de cowboys tired to railroad tracks. Two men together?  The editor scoffs: "Not playing to our demographic," by which she means "they look gay."

Taylor Barr fills his instagram with pictures of him hugging ladies and a promo for something called the "Ladies' Patrol," so let's do a profile of Eric Brody instead

You can see his junk in the previous shot, but here we see mostly hair. 

Minx was Eric Brody's first acting role. His second, in 2024, was Max the Driver in the short Deuces Wild.  It also starred Jake Locrotondo, who graduated from Centennial High School in Port St. Lucie, Florida, in 2021.  This will become important later in the research. 

More Eric after the break

Husbands, Wives, and Lovers: The opening theme of a short-lived sitcom offers an escape from the "job, house, wife, kids" mandate

During the spring of my senior year in high school.  I devised a clever scheme to avoid having to date girls: I would ask out a supermodel-cheerleader, way out of my league.  Then, when she laughed hysterically and hung up, or more graciously had to wash her hair that night, my parents would "console" me by letting me borrow the car anyway.  So on Friday nights I went out with boys, to movies, to get pizza, to Leonard Bernstein's Mass at Augustana College, to the spring musical.

We would get back to my place or his place about 9:00 and turn on the tv set just in time to hear the jazzy, risque theme song to Husbands, Wives, and Lovers ("and luuv-errrrs"), produced by gay-friendly comedian Joan Rivers.

 It was the first time any man and woman on tv had lived together without being married, and hearing about it made us feel grown-up and sophisticated and sort of dirty.  Luuv-eerrrrs....

I just wanted to watch the beefcake-heavy opening credits,  in which five women approach men in the hope of amorous activity, and are rejected. (I don't know the names of any of the characters).

1. Cynthia Harris tries to get the elderly Stephen Pearlman interested, but he's listening to his own heartbeat with a stethoscope.

Stephen Pearlman (1935-1998) appeared on L.A. Law, Seinfeld, and Die Hard with a Vengeance.  He is not related to Michael Pearlman of Charles in Charge, starring Scott Baio (left)

2. The vain Charles Siebert wrests a mirror from Claudette Nevins' hand and uses it to admire himself.

Charles Siebert (1938-2022) appeared on Trapper John MD, Dallas, Matlock, and the Love Boat.  Although he posed for gay magazines early in his career, he was married to a woman for 19 years.

3. Lynne Marie Stewart tries to get  hunky, open-shirted Eddie Barth (left) interested, but he's busy eating a sandwich.

Eddie Barth (1931-2010) appeared in Alice, Magnum PI, Fame, Night Court, and Men in Black: The Series.  

4. Mark Lonow waits in anticipation while Randee Heller strips, but he doesn't like the results, and rejects her.

More after the break