Synopsis:
The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader explores the exemplary trove of LGBTQ+ comics that coalesced in the underground and alternative comix scenes of the mid-1960s and in the decades after. Through insightful essays and interviews with leading comics figures, volume contributors illuminate the critical opportunities, current interactions, and future directions of these comics.
This heavily illustrated volume engages with the work of preeminent artists across the globe, such as Howard Cruse, Edie Fake, Justin Hall, Jennifer Camper, and Alison Bechdel, whose iconic artwork is reproduced within the volume. Further, it addresses and questions the possibilities of LGBTQ+ comics from various scholarly positions and multiple geographical vantages, covering a range of queer lived experience. Along the way, certain LGBTQ+ touchstones emerge organically and inevitably—pride, coming out, chosen families, sexual health, gender, risk, and liberation.
Featuring comics figures across the gamut of the industry, from renowned scholars to emerging creators and webcomics artists, the reader explores a range of approaches to LGBTQ+ comics—queer history, gender and sexuality theory, memory studies, graphic medicine, genre studies, biography, and more—and speaks to the diversity of publishing forms and media that shape queer comics and their reading communities.
Chapters trace the connections of LGBTQ+ comics from the panel, strip, comic book, graphic novel, anthology, and graphic memoir to their queer readership, the LGBTQ+ history they make visible, the often still quite fragile LGBTQ+ distribution networks, the coded queer intelligence they deploy, and the community-sustaining energy and optimism they conjure. Above all, The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader highlights the efficacy of LGBTQ+ comics as a kind of common ground for creators and readers.
Edition:
Paperback
My Thoughts:
Are you interested in looking into more of the history of comics than just the cis white guy part of it? Because if you are, The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader is probably a good starting point. While there is no arguing that it is just a primer, it is full of interesting information. For example, I was unaware that William Moulton Marston was a bit of a freak in the bedroom. So, that was fun to learn. Makes me like Wonder Woman a titch more, knowing that all the bondage imagery had some stank behind it. I LOVE TO SEE IT. And I’m sorry WW, for always thinking you were a little bit lame.
I also learned about the history of Gay Comix, which I think everyone over the age of 30 has probably heard of. And there is a couple mentions of Tom of Finland, who, I’m sorry, was a fucking incredible artist. I love his stuff. Very gay. Very good. And there’s a bunch of stuff about how the gay community used comics to spread information and awareness during the peak of the AIDS crisis. It’s really good stuff.
Anyway, if you want to launch a study of the subject of LGBTQ+ comics/the presence of queer people in the comics world, this certainly isn’t going to give you a whole ton of information, but if you’re looking for a quick-ish overview to whet your appetite for further knowledge, this is exactly the ticket. I have so much more reading to do now!
Rating:
The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader is definitely interesting. With that being said, it was a little to heavy on pictures/light on information for what I was hoping for. As I mentioned above, I definitely want to read further on this subject.
The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader Edited by Alison Halsall and Jonathan Warren University Press of Mississippi Published: September 20, 2022 ISBN: 9781496841353 Paperback, Hardcover 364 Pages
