Let's be gay, let's make some whoopee

 In honour of pride month, let's celebrate a great superhero of the past!

He's not gay in THAT sense, of course. This was 1941, and the first issue of Sensation Comics, from DC. The headline star of that comic was a controversial and radical piece of diversity and inclusion - Wonder Woman, the FEMALE superhero! DC probably would never have dreamed of allowing that kind of thing as a lead feature without the insistence of the illustrious Dr William Moulton Marston that it was a good and acceptable thing to do. They printed endorsements from heavyweight boxers Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey in the first two issues of Sensation, just to show how it's okay and manly to read Wonder Woman.

The Gay Ghost was one of the five backup features who filled out the monthly anthology comic - another was The Black Pirate, who of course wasn't black in THAT sense. It was decades before DC, always slow to move with the times, dared to introduce an African-American superhero, and even more decades after that before they finally gave us a homosexual one! Little Boy Blue wasn't blue, either, and nor was Wildcat a cat. Mister Terrific was the only other hero of Sensation who came close to living up to his adjective, and some have suggested Mister Mediocre would make a better description of his adventures (I've always liked him myself...)

But that adjective has really hurt The Gay Ghost over the years. In the eighties, DC's Who's Who wanted to include him, but saw fit to rename him The Grim Ghost to avoid all the giggling and innuendo. It's a ridiculous thing to call him - the Ghost was entirely gay, in the sense the creators understood it at the time, and not at all grim!

His love interest, Debbie Wallace, has to win the title of 'stupidest superhero girlfriend', though. The Gay Ghost's setup is that when playboy Charles Collins was killed, the ghost of Keith Everett took over his body and identity (and girlfriend, without her noticing). To go into action against crooks and fifth-columnists, the ghost leaves Charles's body, which drops down dead, and flies into action as a spirit. Debbie thinks it strange that Charles has suddenly started acting completely differently and displaying ignorance of any technological developments since 1700, and is surprised by his new habit of 'falling asleep' on the spot at any moment when the Gay Ghost arrives to save the day, but never makes the connection in her mind. Mr Terrific, meanwhile, has a girlfriend Wanda Wilson who breaks all the superhero rules and immediately recognises Terry Sloane in superhero costume, even though he wears a mask over the top half of his face! Lois Lane could learn a lesson or two from her!

So go out and enjoy life! Be gay!

Performing Arts

I'm an actor now, you know. The puppet show on the bank holiday went very well, in fact! I'm not sure my acting and puppeteering skills were first-class, but I think I achieved "almost acceptable", or "not totally disastrous" at any rate. And I had fun doing it, which is the important thing! Indeed, the director observed that the soundtrack consisted mainly of me giggling into the mic, but that's clearly the fault of the writers for making it so funny.

"Oh look, it's a Housepets reference!" See, I would share video footage of the show, but it's kind of 'special interest' - not in the way you might be thinking a puppet show at a furry convention might be, but just because it's aimed at an audience who would naturally say that line when they see someone with a paper bag on their head.

Although to be fair the majority of the script was a combination of classical references to Greek mythology and excessively nerdy technological jokes, so perhaps it's more exclusive to geeks rather than furries...

Anyway, the point is, Blogger just reminded me of this old post in which I talk about performing in front of a live studio audience for the first time (and a really great trip to Dublin that I'd almost entirely forgotten). I've appeared in front of an audience other times since then, but it's never been something I've done regularly or been particularly good at. I've probably got better at ignoring whether or not they laugh at my jokes since then, but it's still hard to forget they're there. This time, though, I was performing a script written by someone else, and it was a lot of fun to see which lines got a big reaction!

I need to find more acting gigs. It needs to be my new thing.

Hidden depths!

Okay, I know Sonic the Hedgehog is full of secrets. I mean, I've been playing the game since 1992. Or even the year before, if you count a couple of times I got to play it before I owned a copy myself. But I'm really impressed to discover something brand new about the game in this video! Six minutes in, we get an astonishing revelation about the Scrap Brain Zone!

Yes, it's possible, with some VERY careful play, to have 50 rings or more when you enter one particular teleporter. And if you do, it takes you to a different, higher level! I never knew that! I did know the rest of the stuff in this video, although I admit it took the advent of the internet before I learned about the Labyrinth Zone secret route, but this new knowledge absolutely delights me!

It's not some kind of modern cheat, either - this video uses modern-day emulations rather than a real Mega Drive, so I thought it might be, but no, I checked on that 1992 cartridge that's been in my possession all these years, and it DOES work! Took me about a dozen tries to get past all those traps with fifty rings intact, and I don't think I've ever actually done that in all my years of playing the game before. They really don't make games like that any more, and I think it's a terrible shame.

I can take comfort in knowing that I knew all about the bonus for finishing a level in exactly 9:59 on Sonic 3 before everyone on the internet was talking about it - I discovered it myself inadvertently one day all those decades ago. And I know that the orbinauts/uni-uni/things-with-spiky-balls in Star Light Zone turn yellow and fire their spiky balls at you if you create them with debug mode, which nobody on the internet seems to be talking about anywhere. I should make a YouTube video of it. Sonic's the best, isn't he?