Gay Comics

The Tretter Collection has a good representation of GLBT-themed comics, including a sizable local gift of American comics from Peter Wilson, transferred from the Quatrefoil Library. Recent acquisitions from Japan and Taiwan offer a glimpse into the world of the tremendously popular "boy's love" and "girl's love" manga.

Gay Comics

Gay Comics anthologizes the underground comics series Gay Comix, which have been appearing since 1980. Major themes are finding love and resisting homophobia; the comics features work by artists of all genders.

Leyland Publications in San Francisco (a 1984 offshoot of Winston Leyland's Gay Sunshine Press) has brought out many more comics with gay males, often with much more graphic sexual material, as in the series Meatmen. Other Leyland comics exhibit slightly different styles, often with wry, lewd humor.

Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse is one of the most sophisticated and highly celebrated GLBT-themed comic arts yet written. Main character Toland Polk must come to grips with both racism and homophobia as he comes of age and comes out in 1960s Mississippi.

Wilson's donation includes several titles that are not put out by GLBT presses, nor do they contain explicitly homoerotic themes. And yet, they just seem gay. Perhaps this is a reminder that comic artists generally understand what it means to be marginalized and how important
it is to fight back, which attracts queer readers and can naturally reproduce a queer sensibility.