For everyone who loves comics and has felt the thrill of discovering an LGBTQIA+ artist who drew about – and celebrated and skewered – one’s own realities, this is your documentary. This beautiful love letter to five pioneering queer cartoonists will introduce you to the first black gay superhero (drawn by Rupert Kinnard), the first queer comics done by a lesbian author (Mary Wings), unsparing racial justice critiques in the US South (Howard Cruse), and many other topics addressed with candor and love. Learn about Alison Bechdel (“Dykes to Watch out for,” “Fun Home,” and the newly released “The Secret to Superhuman Strength”), Howard Cruse (Wendel, Gay Comix), the man who inspired Alison Bechdel, and Jen Camper (Rude Girls and Dangerous Women and Juicy Mother).
Learn how these artists started in underground venues (often head shops) and risked their careers to create a community that would support and recognize Gay Comix. Gay Comix #1 opens with this great statement from Howard Cruse: “Each artist speaks for him or herself. No one speaks for any mythical ‘average’ homosexual. No one speaks for the Gay Movement… In drawing this book, we gay cartoonists would like to affirm that we are here, and that we live lives as strewn with India inked pratfalls, flawed heroics, and surrepetitious truths as the rest of the human race.”
– Lisa Aspinwall, Damn These Heels programming committee member
