Gallery
In COVID times, all you need is one heartfelt, fun, and empowering LGBTQIA anthology to cure your woes. So, please, Be Gay, Do Comics.
Consider this a tribute to the old stickmen comics I used to draw as a kid. I usually had 3 pens / markers… a black pen that I’d draw the background with, and then a red and blue pen for the various colored stickmen who’d then kill each other by throwing knives, shooting bazookas, driving tanks, etc.
The case stems from an incident in 2011, when British photographer David Slater, on a visit to the Tangkoko Reserve in Sulawesi, Indonesia, put down his camera and walked away. When he looked back, a crested black macaque monkey was examining the camera, looking at a reflection in the lens, and, as Slater described it, making funny faces before snapping the shutter.
Comics has a long history of ugly, racist caricature. Many of the most important and influential cartoonists used blackface iconography as a regular, central part of their work. Winsor McCay’s
Your depiction of Barack Obama as ape-like is intolerable. Being critical of Obama is not the problem. Through British and American history, blacks have been subjected to racist depictions of themselves as monkeys and apes. No excuse is acceptable for replicating that history no matter what your intent. If it happens again, your posting privileges will be suspended.
The fact is, comics history in this regard is so extensive, and so vile, that, at this point, good intentions aren’t sufficient. Racism is such a staple of cartooning’s visual grammar that a comics creator who is representing black people needs to deliberately choose
An obscure character from the corners of the Marvel universe, Hit-Monkey made his first appearance in a 2010 comic by Daniel Way and Dalibor Talajić.
In the comics, the Bryce character is unnamed and his background is a mystery. All we know is that he was double-crossed on a job, and that he wants to guide Monkey on his journey to get revenge. However, in the show, we learn a lot more about Bryce. He’s a loner whose life was upended because of violence, sending him down a dark and destructive path. He’s a jerk, but he’s a jerk you find yourself rooting for in spite of his many, many flaws.
One of my favorite comics from last year Your Black Friend from Ben Passmore is now animated. This is is so good and important and gives some great perspective.
The panel organization gives the story a deliberate, reflective pace, and primarily uses conversations to develop the relationships around which the memoir revolves. Potts’ black-and-white drawings in these sequences depict the expressions and postures of characters, and emphasize Phoebe’s physical closeness with Jeff and her parents. She punctuates this visual rhythm with full-page scenes of more chaotic settings and conversations, such as those among family members at her mother’s “Jewish Christmas.” These full-page scenes or two-page spreads explore the background against which Phoebe’s individual narrative plays out. Potts illustrates the mothers and children surrounding Phoebe in a coffee shop (xv); a room where the female relatives she calls “the Motherland” have gathered (29); and figures including a “laptop & blackberry toting wonder women,” “driven jogger,” “doting gay men & their plucky surrogate,” and Ultra Orthodox Jewish couple in a waiting room (98-99). This image acknowledges that hers is not the only story of longing and loss, and points to the number of couples who seek fertility counseling and treatment.
These comic books and graphic novels tell stories that will transport readers to various worlds, from elementary school to outer space. They feature characters discovering themselves, relationship challenges and a new take on a legendary hero. All include characters who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Happy Pride!
