Friday, January 18, 2008

Readers' Forum Friday

Welcome to the second edition of Readers' Forum Friday! I got some tremendously positive feedback from readers on this new feature, and plenty of new questions & comments to address in this week's edition. I won't be able use all of the questions this week, but I will save them for future weeks. And please, by all means... keep those questions & comments coming. It's very cool! (Note to Bobby... yes, you were right about my grammatical error. I've changed the name of the feature from Reader's to Readers'. ).

Harold from London, (England, I'm assuming, although there is a London Ontario, and plenty of others, too), would like to know why none of the B&B characters have been married yet. Well, Harold... aside from the fact that gay marriage is still illegal in most of the USA, I don't think any of the characters feel they've reached that level of commitment yet. Except for Andrew & William, who live next door to the B&B, and probably would get married if it were legal. Perhaps there will be a commitment ceremony for them in the future?

Tom of Chicago, (is that a play on Tom of Finland?), wants the B&B guys to make a road trip to Chicago. Almost anything's possible, Tom... although it's not in the immediate plans. I do appreciate all of the loyal readers of the strip who see it in the Chicago Free Press, so... who knows? Stay tuned.

Speaking of road trips, several readers have asked if I've used that plane ticket to anywhere in the continental USA or Canada that I won in last summer's Lambda Legal cartoon contest. No, I haven't... I've been so busy, I haven't had time to travel anywhere, save for a quick weekend jaunt to Arlington, Vermont last October. Any suggestions on where I should go? I'm open to 'em. One slight downside of that prize I won, (and believe me, I'm not complaining here... I'm very grateful to Lambda Legal, and everyone who voted for me, for the win!), is that the prize is only a plane ticket... it doesn't cover lodging at all. So, wherever I do choose to go, I have to be concerned with lodging expenses. Who knows, maybe a gay B&B owner somewhere out there will invite me to come for a free visit! I'll keep you posted...

A reader simply known as "M" posted the following on last week's edition's comments: "I like it when you include details from Long Island. Are there gay B&Bs in Long Island proper or just in Fire Island? I would like to hear more about the community/town. What kind of people live there? What is their reaction, if any, to the B&B. Also, how is the couple who adopted a child doing?". Well, M, thanks for that. I actually don't know of any other gay B&Bs on Long Island, but I could be wrong. (I'm sure I'll hear now, if there are any). I do like to think that the town of Northport adds more than bit of character to the comic strip. What kind of people live here? Well, gosh... a whole range of folks, I suppose. Northport is a friendly town...despite being fairly close to New York City, it still has a smalltown feel. What is the reaction in the comic strip to the B&B? We haven't really seen much neighbor reaction, but... I would assume, at this point, they're pretty OK with it. Perhaps that will be explored in the future. And Andrew, William, & Heath, (who also happen to be next-door neighbors of the B&B), are doing fine. They show up in the strip as often as time, (and space) permits. William was seen most recently in the book group episode last summer; Andrew seems to be headed in an activist direction; and Heath & Brad are fast friends.

HKevyn, (no, that's not a misprint!), along with a whole lot of other readers, wants to know when the next volume of Kyle's B&B will be published. (Hopefully, in about a year.... I'm working on it!).

Finally, in light of the recent Siberian Husky appearance in the comic strip, Terese wants to know how my cat Ginger is doing. (She's fine... as much of a crazy green-eyed lynx as ever! Here's a pic of the wildcat, taken on January 2nd of this year. And no, that's not fat, that's just fluff. Her winter coat is thicker than ever this year, which seems to mean we're in for a cold, snowy winter. Click it to enlarge!):

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for showing Ginger again. I love her! And thank you for adding a Siberian Husky to the B&B. They are such beautiful dogs. I hope he gets into a lot of the storylines.

Are you accepting suggestions for names for the Husky? How about Minnesota?

Dave (from Minneapolis, of course)

Anonymous said...

Andrew is going in an activist direction? Please show more. We don't see enough Asian-American characters in the media, especially gay ones. Thank you for including him in kyle's B&B, but please show more!

Anonymous said...

Seconding the More Andrew request. Gorgeous cat.

M.

Anonymous said...

Here's my name suggestion for the husky dog: Wolfgang, or Wolfie for short. Those dogs look like wolves. Somebody on my block had one for years, very threatening looking with that wolf-like appearance, but it was actually a mellow dog, almost shy.