I don’t always put up the comics that I’ve drawn for Critic, but as this one relates to queerness I thought I’d post in on up:
It’s part of Critic’s Queer Issue which y’all can read here. Incidentally I also did the cover for it (Yet another Wolverine!) . which you can also check out in my gallery page.
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Rooster Tails 
True that! Except that as a straight androphile girl, I’d like to claim Wolverine anyway, please.
The black background suits your artwork very nicely in my opinion, by the way.
I think everyone should be able to claim Wolverine! And, thanks, I really enjoy experimenting with the black and white stuff for critic – cos it’s all done in one place there’s not usually enough time to scan and colour on the computer, it’s a good challenge.
And another generation discovers the power of the X-Men. They were the heroes of so many LGBT Gen-Xers back in the 80s (believe me, I have some OLD issues of the X-Men in MY collection!) for all the same reasons you describe here. Straight kids will never understand and identify with the X-Men like we all do. For them, to be hated and feared by those they’re sworn to protect may be cool in a detached sort of way…but for far too many of us…it’s reality.
Keep up the great work, boyface. 😉
🙂 Ooh cool, yeh I only got into x-men when the first movie came out – and as a closeted teen I felt pretty surprised about how much seemed to fit for me.
Oh yeah, man, this is totally true. OOO OOO and it tangentally relates to my new project and so makes me happy.
It’s like this: it occurred to me, as I was penning some character-works for my Anne Rice Vampire comics I mentioned over on FB, it occurred to me that Louis, in some ways, has trans-issues. I actually think Rice’s work (like other vampire based authors I could mention) is helluva problematic in terms of her treatment of sex/uality, so at first my reading of the books’ dynamic was rather less sympathetic (in that it’s kind of: once you accept The Gay you become an immoral killing machine? Yeah, thanks Anne.)
But feeling out the characters, I have a lot of sympathy for the way Louis kind of… has the wrong body, like, he doesn’t feel connected to it, it isn’t him, it’s not Louis, it’s just this body that he’s living in, and he’s kind of repulsed by it. (Of course, that’s a problem again narratively, because his vampire body is imposed on him as part of this sexuality thing, and he’s fated for eternal suffering and despair, so I wouldn’t necessarily call it trans-positive, or queer positive or anything, just maybe sympathetic in a character way.)
(Unless you count the fact that when Lestat and Louis walk around holding hands, they FEAR NOBODY, which actually is cool. I don’t know, it’s complicated. You can’t gay-hassle those guys.)
Anyway, do you watch Queer as Folk? There’s some amazing stuff in that show with Michael talking about exactly this with comics and heroes. Plus Michael and Justin make a gay superhero. Called Rage.
Interesting… I remember reading Interview with the Vampire and thinking it had that “gay = killer” vibe and the yuck sexual violence stuff that vampires are quite often written as holding (lust = blood = hunger = violence = perpetuating rape myths = boring), so I don’t think I read anymore after that. They do have a weird cute family set-up though. Anywho, that Louis is trans, in some way, sounds really interesting – I agree the set up of vampires in Rice’s world doesn’t make for happy endings, but still could be an interesting take on it.
I am totally going to have to watch Queer as Folk now, I’ve been meaning to watch it for aaaages.
YES because it’s AWESOME. Seriously, really thoughtful and complex queer politics aside, it’s just one of the best shows I’ve seen ever, like, narratively and everything. It’s really, really good tv. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Oh, and also, yes, there is SHIT TONS of rape apology in Anne Rice. Not cool AT ALL (which is one of the reasons I am compelled to write about it – why did you think this was cool when you were a girl, Robyn? And etc.)
Also, here is the comic they make in QAF: http://www.angelfire.com/home/qaf/rage/rage.html
Why do I always write walls of text on your comics?
Ooh, a chance for me to have a comic book rant! Yayz!
I think it’s very interesting that the X-Men have been so embraced by marginalised groups at various points, due to the explicit ostracism and hatred the characters are exposed to, which is a key point to their story. At various times, the X-Men have been picked up by just about every group on the planet as something to cling to as fellow sufferers in outsiderism [is that even a word?]
I have the sneaking suspicion that the X-Men weren’t designed as direct allegories for any of these groups, but rather for the world’s largest population of outsiders and misfits: teenagers. I always felt that the X-Men were designed as an allegory for adolescence, who at the time were the primary comic book market. Think about it, it’s a book about characters who go through bewildering and terrifying changes at the age of 12 or 13, causing them to be feared and mocked by those around them. Rather than hair in funny places, their voices growing weird, and acne hitting hard, they instead gain immense power, and rise above their attackers to save the world over and over again. And lets face it, teenage isolation is a universal trait, even among popular kids. Its universality makes it something that is then easily adopted into other groups.
On a vaguely related note, Gail Simone was recently trying to dig up information or examples of transgendered heroes on her twitter feed, and came up sadly lacking. Everyone should follow her, because she’s amazing and hilarious!
Hmmmmm that’s a pretty interesting point – I can definitely see how it fits into multiple categories – and certainly feeling like an outsider or a freak is a pretty universal experience for most people (at least at some point in their life…. or at least it seems to be with the people I’m friends with). I like the teenager analogy, and that makes sense too… and makes sense from a marketing perspective as well.
Superpowers! Yes! Mine is wearing pink ties with green shirts to work, and just generally being awesome at it. *nods*
…yeah… it’s late and I shouldn’t be allowed near the internet…
Ha! Yuss! It takes a special kind of awesome to pull that off – it’s like an ode to miss piggy and kermit and their love 🙂