GAY AND LESBIAN THEMES 247
Regarding gay male characters and comics in the 1970s, Gay Heart Th robs #1
became the fi rst exclusively gay male comic upon publication in 1976. It was followed
by two other editions, in 1979 and 1981. Th e gay magazine Christopher Street featured
many cartoons which were gathered in two collections, published in 1978 and 1980.
Gerard Donelan’s cartoons for Th e Advocate , including the It’s a Gay Life page, began
to appear in 1977 and were also published in two collections in 1987 and 1988. Rupert
Kinnard introduced the fi rst African American gay characters in comics in 1977 in
Cathartic Comics , a strip which began its run in a student newspaper.
September 1980 saw the appearance of the fi rst edition of Gay Comix , arguably the
most important gay and lesbian comics anthology. Howard Cruse was the initial editor,
until Robert Triptow took over with issue #5 in 1984. Andy Mangels replaced Triptow
in 1991 (issue #14). Th e anthology changed its name to Gay Comics beginning with
issue #15. Th roughout its run, it featured a wide variety of works from a number of
gay and lesbian artists, among them Cruse, Wings, and Gregory, and functioned as a
resource guide for the gay and lesbian community.
Cruse, in addition to his editorship of Gay Comix , worked on a wide variety of
comics throughout his career, beginning in the 1970s. In his Barefootz comic strip, Cruse
created Headrack, a friend of the titular character, who came out in an April 1976 issue,
thereby becoming the fi rst gay or lesbian character to be featured continually in comics.
Cruse additionally produced a comic strip titled Wendel , about a young gay man and
his relationships with his lover, family, and friends. Th e strip ran in Th e Advocate from
1983 until 1989. Cruse’s comics were collected in a book titled Dancin’ Nekkid with the
Angels: Comic Strips & Stories for Grown-Ups , published in 1987. In 1995, Cruse com-
pleted Stuck Rubber Baby , a highly acclaimed and deeply stirring graphic novel about a
young gay man named Toland Polk growing up in the American South during the Civil
Rights era.
Poppers , a strip centered on two characters named Billy and Yves, was begun by Jerry
Mills in 1982. Th e comic initially appeared in In Touch magazine but was later featured
elsewhere, including in Gay Comix. Gay Comix was also the publication that fi rst fea-
tured, in 1984, Tim Barela’s Leonard and Larry. Th e strip, about the lives of the titular
gay couple, was subsequently featured in Th e Advocate and Frontiers. In 1986, the fi rst
of many volumes of Meatmen was published. Th e anthology series featured gay (usually
erotic) comics from a large number of artists. 1989 saw the beginning of the syndica-
tion of Eric Omer’s Th e Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green. As suggested by
the title, the comic centered on the lives of the unassuming Ethan and his boyfriend
Doug. Andy Mangels’s important, two-part article and interview series titled “Out of
the Closet and Into the Comics” was published in Amazing Heroes #143, and #144 in
- In the same year, Mangels moderated a panel called “Gays in Comics” at the San
Diego Comic Con, which has since become a fi xed feature at the convention. Mangels
was more recently responsible for the fi rst edition of Out in Comics , a comics guide.
Th e 1980s and early 1990s also produced a number of important lesbian artists,
foremost among them Alison Bechdel, who began her Dykes to Watch Out For strip in
