Qidge's policy regarding BL content

It is inevitable that when navigating Japanese fan content that you'll happen upon some weird shit. I say this with respect—I love the Japanese people, the language, and the culture. I've lived there and visited several times, with more plans to return. I've drawn dumb little comics of my own in the past (though not about Queen). But Japan has a reputation for churning out bizarre content for a reason. I struggled a little bit when fleshing out my concept for this site because I knew that if I really wanted to research Showa-era Queen fan materials, this would be an elephant in the room that I had to address.

Gay fanfiction, or "slash", is in the zeitgeist right now due to shows like Heated Rivalry—and the average Western nerd might know that this type of content has roots in the Star Trek fandom of the 1960s. But what they might not know is that the Asian equivalent, known as shounen-ai, yaoi, or "boys love" ("BL"), has roots in the rock music fandom of 1960s Japan. Western rock acts enjoyed explosive popularity in the Showa Era and informed the creation of manga and doujinshi, or fanzines. Of course, Queen was included in this.

As a result, 70s rock doujinshi in general is rife with (sometimes very explicit) fictional gay relationships. I spent a long time thinking about how I wanted to approach the subject of Queen BL content, and how to touch on it in a way that was both tasteful yet honest. I deeply respect the members of Queen, and I don't want to be flippant with their image as that would be dishonest to myself as well.

I don't have a moral issue with gay fanfiction at all in principle; I'm not a homophobe and I'm neither religious nor puritanical about sex. But I feel strongly that explicit fanfiction should stay within the realm of fictional characters, and not involve real people with real lives and real souls, especially if those people identify as straight, as 3/4 of Queen did. Fantasy in and of itself is not a problem, but when pen is put to paper and it has the potential to cross paths with the people depicted, it enters a moral grey area. It's easy, and arguably harmless, to privately caricature actors or singers and to draw silly comics about them, or to use them as models for our own drawn versions of them. But fashioning them into dolls and forcing them to kiss (or more) is another thing entirely.

On the flip side, a lot of the art found in doujinshi is of a very high caliber and I think worth celebrating, especially since a lot of these artists were young women or even sometimes girls. It's also clear that these artists truly loved the band, and I genuinely have an interest in cataloguing all the stuff from the Japanese Queen subculture.

So after much reflection, ultimately I have decided to only translate comics that don't involve BL—content that can be enjoyed for what it is and seen as a reflection of Showa-era rock culture, especially content that's genuinely amusing. If the BL content is only a few panels and I can easily excise it, I will. It's also fair to say that the people who drew these comics probably never intended for them to be posted on what is essentially a global bulletinboard, as most of these rock circles were pretty insular. That's why I've chosen to use the artists' pseudonyms unless they've publicly identified themselves in recent years. I don't think it's fair for someone's ancient explicit fanart to pop up in a google search just because some random lady had an interest in it fifty years later.

But some of this stuff is so ridiculous and creative and fun, I really feel like it's worth sharing. I hope you enjoy it too.

Addendum: I have a college degree of varying usefulness in Japanese, but I am not Japanese. Japanese is a very different language from English, so any translations on this site should be considered rough translations only. Additionally, please note that comic panels should generally be read right-to-left, the opposite of what an English-speaking audience is used to.

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