I just realized that I'm going to be reading a new comic book from DC Comics in a few months: SNAGGLEPUSS! Writer Mark Russell recently announced that he will be writing a SNAGGLEPUSS series as part of DC's reimagined Hanna-Barabera comics featuring the pink mountain lion. The concept? "
Gay Southern Gothic playwright":
RUSSELL: Yeah, it was not much of a stretch at all. I envision him like a tragic Tennessee Williams figure; Huckleberry Hound is sort of a William Faulkner guy, they’re in New York in the 1950s, Marlon Brando shows up, Dorothy Parker, these socialites of New York from that era come and go. I’m looking forward to it; that’s what I’ll do after The Flintstones. [Russell’s contract in the gravel pit is for 12 issues.] I’ll go right from that into Snagglepuss.
HILOBROW: I’ve long admired the affirmative gayness of Snagglepuss.
RUSSELL: Yeah, it’s never discussed and it’s obviously ignored in the cartoons ’cuz they were made at a time when you couldn’t even acknowledge the existence of such a thing, but it’s still so obvious; so it’s natural to present it in a context where everybody knows, but it’s still closeted. And dealing with the cultural scene of the 1950s, especially on Broadway, where everybody’s gay, or is working with someone who’s gay, but nobody can talk about it — and what it’s like to have to try to create culture out of silence.
The newly reimagined Snagglepuss will make his debut in an eight-page story in the SUICIDE SQUAD/BANANA SPLITS ANNUAL that's scheduled for publication in March. Snagglepuss will find himself forced to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Snagglepuss' own series will then launch in September or October 2017.
