Price: Bonus material with Queer as Folk: The Complete Second Season on DVD when preordered between Nov. 15^th 2002 and Jan. 15^th, 2003.
Publisher: Showtime
Writers: Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman
Art: Joe Phillips (inked by Jon Kent), various (B&W; 16 pages)
Cover: Jerry Ordway
Cover colors and inks: Jon Kent (Queer as Folk staff artist)
Suggested retail price for Queer as Folk: The Complete Second Season: $119.98 (DVD/VHS)

I have no choice but to review this comic book.  Every Sunday night, as if it were gay church, my significant other has the cable box set to Showtime and Queer as Folk comes on.  With that, I have learned a few things about the characters on the show and that the young one named Justin Taylor (played by Randy Harrison) is an artist in college on the show and Michael Novotvy (played by former TALK SOUP host Hal Sparks) owns a comic shop and aspires to write a comic book.  RAGE Gay Crusader is the comic that they collaborate on in the fictional QAF universe, and Showtime has produced a comic book as a bonus to the people who preorder the DVD set.

Let me first establish that the comic is indeed a superhero comic.  It is an adolescent power fantasy for the gay set.  The hero in the story, RAGE, is based on the fictional character of Brian from the QAF show.  The story revolves around the bashing of a young man and RAGE’s reaction to the bashing.  It is similar to the recent storyline in Green Lantern where a young artist teen gets bashed and the hero engages in old school vengeance. Unlike the recent issue of Green Lantern dealing with the same issue, this is very much a story that centers around sex.

RAGE has a sidekick named Zephyr.  They live in Gayopolis (no, I didn’t make that up).  Each of the characters looks like one of the characters from the show, as it is supposed to reflect a translation of events that took place at the end of season one if they took place in a world with gay superheroes. At the end of the day, it is a decent read for viewers of the program.  It is an excellent pastiche of a comic book right down to the name of the comic company (RED CAPE COMICS) and the MATURE READERS logo on the front cover.  Ironically, it also has a print run that will make it one of the better-distributed comic books coming out in February 2003.

The cover is actually the most gorgeous part of the book as it is a Jerry Ordway cover and it takes the protagonist and places him in the now classic pose from CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #7, which Jerry Ordway inked.  I wish that the book were in full color instead of just black and white.  It does include a section devoted to conceptual sketches for the book, and that certainly makes up for some of the lack of hues.

The question of the day: Is this a reason to get the DVD set?  The answer is: no.  The DVD set is a reason to get the DVD set.  Is this a nice bonus for those who are going to preorder the DVD set anyway?  Yes.  It’s a decent read and a good first attempt by the writers of the book (who happen to be the creators and executive producers on Queer as Folk).  If anything, I wish there were more to the book.