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.
