KnightlyVengence says:
"In the end it's just up to the writer. They're gonna portray a character the way the imagined it, NOT based on the turn of social issues. If they imagined him as gay, they're gonna say so, if not? Then they're not.If you want a character to be gay, and push the writer to do so, it's not going to be as good, because the storyline will be forced, because it wasn't their picture being described... I'm not taking a stand just pointing out the facts. Anyone see what I'm saying?"
I completely agree if the character is completely made up by the artist. I think some people have problems with well established characters that have been around are now gay. How sudden it is would depend on the writing and how the character behaved before.
It probably depends on the established character how it turned out that they're now gay. An executive may have looked for a writer who would portray them as gay or a writer may have asked permission to have a character this way or maybe readers wrote in and demanded it. But this has to be planned, for publishers want some kind of continuity for the character, possibly in different titles. One writer can't have the character be gay for their run and the next say they aren't the next. A story has to be approved and will be edited by an editor, who hopefully checks those things out. At least with the major publishers, a writer just can't write anything they want.
Plus there's sales considerations. If a publisher thinks something's "hot" then they'll accept/push for whatever that is. A writer may have a wonderful story, but the publisher may say "sorry, we have too many of that kind" or "I don't think it will sell" The writer can to some degree go somewhere else or self publish it (as long as no copyrighted chars. are in it, but they can always change the chars)
As per readers pushing characters to be gay, I don't know how much influence the readers have on characters. Stories shouldn't be democracies, but if enough people write letters, maybe. I don't know of any case like this. I think somehow publishers saw a demand for gay characters, so they nudged/pushed things in that direction.
Sad as it is, it's the publishers that have the final say. They put the money out for the paper to be printed and made into comics, etc. How much freedom the writer has is up to the publisher. This ranges from total freedom by self publishers to execs controlling just about everything.
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