Read Dateland

Because Jennifer Parello is a funny woman. A can of Heineken is apparently like Proust's madeleine to her: something with a taste or scent that will torment you with the godforsaken memory of some ex for the rest of your life. I believe every girl has one of these. Mine's a certain brand of Aveda conditioner--thank god it got too expensive for me to keep compulsively buying. What's yours?

posted by Joan at 12:37 AM · 1 Comments

Post Toasted

I really am sorry I don't post more often. This website and blog ground to a balky, cranky start when I belatedly realized there's just no other way to self-publicize and stay in touch with readers in the 21st century. Unfortunately, none of that cold hard truth makes me a faster adapter. I instinctively dislike conducting my professional and social life on the Web, but I'm just gonna have to learn to loosen up. While that unfolds (unloosens?), your patience is most appreciated. Anyone else out there have as much trouble with this as me?

posted by Joan at 2:36 AM · 5 Comments

Graphic Diction

As mentioned a while back in News & Notes, a few words about queer creators in mainstream graphic fiction.

Nothing published today would be possible without the seminal autobiographical works of Mary Wings, Howard Cruse, Roberta Gregory, et al. They made (and continue to make) it possible to define modern queer identity by breaking all kinds of literary taboos to write and illustrate out gay life, though out of necessity they mainly did it within the context of gay communities. Nothing wrong with, or limiting about, that. It was new territory with endless possibilities.

There was then a second wave that broadened the narrative of the gay comics landscape with respect to race, nationality & class, including but not limited to Rupert Kinnard, Jen Camper and Rob Kirby. (I'd also have to give grudging, no-names mention to some straight creators who took their work into queer zones, though much of it has been about bi-curiosity rather than queer sexuality.)

Now we've got the likes of Alison Bechdel, Ellen Forney and a whole bunch of young creators --young enough to have grown up with queer youth groups, out parents raising planned families, etc., as viable norms-- all achieving mainstream success & recognition by making queer perspective into universal perspective in their work. This is very cool. And it's cool because it's an expansion on what's come before. Not an evolution -- that would suggest the seminal works are inferior or limited in some way. They're not. They're timeless and permanently influential. And now they've got lots of company.

posted by Joan at 10:45 PM · 2 Comments

Catch up in Seattle

The Bitter Girl archive on Gmax is still stalled at the October 30 "Weightlifting" strip due to dreary publishing drama I'm too much of a lady to discuss (that's got to be a first), but now you can catch up on strips from November 2007-onward, thanks to the Seattle Gay News' new back issue archive. Go here for details.

posted by Joan at 9:53 PM · 3 Comments

Super Tuesday

Vote Clinton.

Yes, Obama's great. So's Clinton. And she'll get the job done.

posted by Joan at 10:00 PM · 2 Comments

B(i)G Shots

Some fine fan art from reader Quatre. Really, I can't add anything further. These babies sell themselves.

Happy 2008.

posted by Joan at 9:52 PM · 1 Comments

Liberty Belles

Victor Hodge blogged the Juicy Mother 2 reading in Philadelphia. Thanks, Victor -- and thank YOU, Jane, for the B&W photos that made us all look so young and fetching.

For me, the evening's million-dollar bonus was the attendance of the wonderful Roz Warren --the humorist & editor whose feminist anthologies Dyke Strippers, Kitty Libber (both of which I contibuted to) plus many others gave invaluable support to queer female cartoonists and pushed back significantly against the notion that feminism and humor are irreconciliable ideas. I've known Roz for years but we've never met in person, and it was a thrill to see her!

posted by Joan at 10:19 PM · 0 Comments