Starting in 1997, the kids’ book series Captain Underpants has been appealing to young readers’ love of bathroom humor and absurd situations. These are very silly books, in case you’ve never read them. They have characters with names like Professor Pippy Pee-Pee Poopypants and Wedgie Woman. Clearly, they’re books I would have enjoyed as a kid.
The twelfth book in the series, Captain Underpants and the Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-A-Lot, doesn’t hit shelves until August 25, but news of one interesting detail that author-illustrator Dav Pikey included in it has leaked online: One of the two fourth-grader protagonists in the series grows up to be gay.
The series’ two main characters are best friends George Beard and Harold Hutchins, and in the new book the boys meet their future selves. Grown-up George has a wife and two kids. Grown-up Harold has a husband and two kids. How about that?
It’s a nice little touch that will probably cause some negative reaction from the kind of people you’d expect to have big opinions about this kind of thing. But it wouldn’t be new for the books; while popular, they have have also proven controversial. In 2012, the Captain Underpants topped the American Library Association’s list of the books drawing the most objections from library patrons. Yeah, on grounds of allegedly inappropriate language and being unsuitable for its target age group, Captain Underpants drew more complaints than 50 Shades of Grey did.
For longtime readers, this news would be like finding out that Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes grew up to be gay. (Meanwhile, everyone spotted Schroeder from Peanuts a mile away.) And Pikey dropped that info in precisely the right way: as a small aside, as if it weren’t even a big deal.
You know, because it’s not.