Cathy Camper

In the past, LGBTQ+ kids were forced to discover heroes where ever they could find them. A friend of mine shared that he’d had a crush on Astro Boy, and it’s easy to see why other fictional characters like Peppermint Patty and Harriet the Spy became role models, when most real celebrities were closeted, or presented to kids, as straight. For decades, biographies written for young people tiptoed around issues of gender and sexual preference, lauding folks like Walt Whitman, Tchaikovsky, Michelangelo and Virginia Woolf, but sharing their accomplishments as if they were just part of one straight, cultural legacy. […]

If Act Up politics of the 1980s were somehow jettisoned into the present, blended with psychedelic pastel salt water taffy, and scored with a soundtrack of Incense and Peppermints, you might end up with something close to Eric Kostiuk Williams’ new book, Our Wretched Town Hall (a finalist  for a 2019 Lambda Literary Award). Don’t underestimate this slim compilation of comics, posters, and commentary: it’s easily one of the best comic books of the year. The flow of these short tales, both true and imaginary, all merge to become Williams’ commentary on the state of the world around him. That includes the title, which Williams explains, […]

Japanese illustrator Gengoroh Tagame has drawn erotic gay manga for decades. His innovative work champions hairy and large men, an anomaly in the world of Japanese manga, where skinny, hairless boys tend to be the norm. His exquisitely drafted comics intertwine beauty with BDSM and violence, expanding the boundaries of how eroticism is expressed in comics – and all this, in Japan – a country where LGBTQs are more closeted than in the U.S. Tagame’s latest book, My Brother’s Husband, opens a series that is aimed at decidedly different readers from his earlier work – this story is for an […]