GAY AND LESBIAN THEMES 245
storylines to less controversial science-fi ction titles, EC Comics stopped publication
of all comics titles in November 1955 with the release of the February 1956 issue of
Incredible Science Fiction.
Gaines remained active in the magazine publication industry thanks to the birth
of Mad magazine in 1952. Mad ’s status as a magazine rather than a comic permit-
ted Gaines to evade CMAA regulations while still using its publication for biting
social satire. Under the goofy grin of its mascot Alfred E. Neuman, Mad poked fun
at the same political authorities and polite sensibilities that eventually drove Gaines
from comics publication. While many other comics went out of business in the mid
1950s, Williams Gaines continued to prosper by adapting, much like his father, to
the changing industry.
Tim Bryant
GAY AND LESBIAN THEMES. Gay and lesbian characters in comics have often been
more conspicuous by their historical absence rather than their occasional and often
problematic inclusion. Th e representation of sexual minorities in comics has tradition-
ally been inhibited by social prejudices that lead to both self-imposed and externally
enforced censorship. Changes in social attitudes toward homosexuals, in addition to
the gay liberation movement, however, led to a proliferation of gay and lesbian-themed
works by underground and independent comics artists, and to a parallel (if much
more muted) shift in the restrictive policies of mainstream publishers. Accordingly,
the history of gay and lesbian themes in comics can be roughly divided into several
periods, with the early- to mid-20th century marked by a near-total absence of homo-
sexuality, the 1950s featuring a rather explicit disavowal of homosexuality in comics,
and the last three decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century
signaling a signifi cant shift toward more inclusion.
Virtually no gay or lesbian characters appeared in any comics in the fi rst half of
the 20th century. However, the subversive “ Tijuana bibles,” small, pornographic
underground comics whose popularity peaked during the Great Depression, con-
tained many sexual themes, among them homosexuality. Milton Caniff ’s Terry and the
Pirates comic strip featured both a gay and a lesbian character in the 1930s. A storyline
begun in the October 18, 1936 issue of the strip included a character named Papa
Pyzon. Th ere was no explicit statement regarding Pyzon’s sexuality, but his numerous
and emphatically negative statements regarding women made his homosexuality as
clear as it was possible at the time. Sanjak, a French naval offi cer who fi rst appeared in
the February 12, 1939 strip disguised as Madame Sud and later dressed in men’s attire,
was never explicitly introduced as a lesbian character; Caniff made it known in later
interviews, however, that both characters were intended to be homosexual.
Th e lack of homosexual themes in comics was, of course, a direct result of the
status of homosexuality as a taboo subject matter in society at large. Ironically, the
most famous explication of homosexual themes in comics during that era proved to
be the most damning as well. Fredric Wertham devoted only a few but nevertheless
