Queer Comics WOMEN’S STUDIES - OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY Spring 2022
Contributors
This course counts toward the new minor in Queer Studies at ODU. For more information about this class, the minor, or other queer topics courses, contact carhodes@odu.edu. to this issue: Blair
You could say this class was created by the pandemic. Faced with teaching my Queer Literature class over Zoom in the spring of 2021, I knew we needed something to get us through a difficult semester. Comics aren’t as easy to study as many people might assume, but they can offer a kind of lightness that we needed, so we set out to understand queer literature through comics and graphic novels. It worked really well, so when it came time to teach the class this year, I kept the comics focus.
Sarah
It has been such a pleasure working with these students. They were a bright spot in my week as the long, dark days of winter dragged on and on this year. They have been funny and creative, and they have analyzed the heck out of some comics. That, by the way, is a lot harder than it sounds. The final project was to create their own comics, and the submissions exceeded all my expectations. They created sophisticated, insightful stories some of them deeply personal – and each student emerged with a unique voice and style. I have compiled those comics in this anthology because they deserve to be seen by people outside of our class. To the spring 2022 Queer Comics class, thank you for a great semester back in the classroom. Wear your watch on any wrist you feel like!
Printing was generously supported by the Department of Women’s Studies at Old Dominion University. For more information about the department or the major or minor in Women’s Studies, contact wmst@odu.edu.
Kate KaelaAnayaKurtAndreaSummerKaitlynBrooklynSpencerGabrielaKatrynCiprianoCombsA.IgloriaKellyLeeMaguireMarkhamQueenRobbinsWhitneyWilson
Shout Outs
Rhodes
Cathleen
I knew from the beginning of my comic planning that my color choices had to serve a purpose. My title panel shows the distinct pink and blue to mimic the heterobinary color choices for infants. I have two sisters and I am the middle child. I was assigned pastel pink. Within the panels all the photos are distorted and in black and white. They are real places from my life, hometown, and my childhood. This conveys the setting in the truest way and helps because I am not gifted in art. There are three panels that are not in black and white. The first panel on the second page is in full color. Like most kids, I found sanctuary in my bedroom. Although I shared a room with my messy sister, Karoline, it was a place that felt like me. My walls were
In the first two pages gutter space represents time passing. I remember thinking I was always going to be little forever and it takes forever to grow up. The time frame covered in my comic is from age 6 to the present so there was a lot to cover. The last page differs as there is no gutter space and shows my transition into my own person with much needed independence and a new environment.
very pink and, no, I did not take down any photos or posters of girls I had after the incident with my mother. The second is made to represent the ending frame of a Looney Tunes cartoon that was accompanied with “that’s all folks.” I would watch a lot of old TV, especially older cartoons with my father and he loves Looney Tunes.
visit the lost city of Atlantis. SpongeBob is my favorite cartoon and this episode’ Iresonatesacceptanceinnovationrepresentsandwhichwithme.washesitanttotake a class based on a media form I did not know much about, but then we read about closure. For so long I performed subconsciouslyclosurebut did not think to analyze or name it.
I thought adulthood was going to be a black hole of marrying a man, having children, and struggling to raise children. But now I have cemented the idea of autonomy in my head, and I will do whatever I want in my life. On my very last panel is an intermission frame from one of my favorite episodes of SpongeBob where they
SheepBlack by Katryn Combs
I chose a chaotic, sketchy style to depict the emotional charge I have when discussing this topic. Also, using only black and white was an aesthetic choice because adding color would take away from the detail. In many of the frames, there is a “creature” partially drawn outside of the frames to show its overbearing power. It demonstrates how terrifying it is to have an existential crisis and to try to fight one off.
I aimed to define queer broadly and create a comic anyone could relate to. Through graphic style, dialect, and organization, I believe I achieved my goals while telling a raw and personal narrative.
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Regarding how text is organized through the comic, from speech bubbles to text outside the frame, this was a more experimental process in which I organized the text with
With character dialect, I chose to have myself narrating and no other characters in this comic because this is a personal story that is mainly internal dialogue. On the final page, I split the sentences of the dialogue into multiple frames to create a sense of one continuous train of thought. I also made this decision so the reader could fully absorb what they are viewing visually and reading as the closing remarks.
by Summer Markham
concern to what the mood or tone was of that frame. The organization of the comic supports the experience of what an existential crisis feels like in that the order of events is not completely clear. The closure principle aids in this as the reader has to connect what is happening between each frame. This is the key attribute that makes my comic queer because the reader can make the comic their own. The graphic style can also be read queerly because many mainstream comics have a formal, tidy drawing style while I chose a sketchy, chaotic style. With this, I wanted to achieve a more approachable comic as many people, even if not artists, have at least sketched on paper.
For my comic project, I wanted to create a comic that uses “queer” in a broader context, as I am not queer, and it felt it was not my place to create a queer comic as I cannot fully understand that perspective or experience of being queer sexually. The way I address my comic being queer in a broader context is by choosing a topic personal to me that many people could identify with no matter who they are or what their gender or sexual identity is. Through my graphic style, character dialect, and organization,storytellingIhighlight the experience of being a young adult and having an existential crisis on identity and life’s purpose.
there to be two distinct messages and two possible readings. A surface level reading is about how normal grass lawns are boring, bad for the environment, and conformist. However, a more thorough reading reveals ideas about how marginalized groups are excluded from heterosexism.racism,wordingobvious,languagefromspaces.heteronormative,wealthy,andwhiteIwantedtorefrainusingmetaphorsandthatwastoobutIstillincludedthatalludedtosexism,and
While modern households.unfairlyracialhistoryassociation,referencinggroups.crueltyneighborhoodsexclusivelyoppression,worstneighborhoodssuburbanarenotthepartofsystemicthesealmostwhiteshowacasualtowardsmarginalizedIincludedalineahomeowner'sasHOAshaveaofbeingusedforintimidationandtopoliceminority
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by Spencer Kelly
The illustrations were meant to be abstract, with gutter space being part of the setting, and the comic panels being the squares of the sidewalk. The comic panels were inside the illustrations instead of the illustrations inside the panels. This adheres to Scott Mccloud's idea of a comic, as the comic panels are meant to be read in order, and each page changes the illustration very slightly as the comic progresses. A big aspect of this comic is my use of color. I wanted to call attention to the lack of color in modern suburbs in both the lawns and the people, with the diversity of color in ecosystemsdiverseand diverse societies. I drew it like this as a way of drawing the reader into the setting of the story and literally and figuratively painting a picture of the issue I'm addressing. This is also a play on the typical idea of a comic strip, as now the gutter becomes the cracks in the sidewalk where the wildflowers grow.
Regular grass lawns are surprisingly bad for the environment, as they require lots of water and frequent mowing. Some species of grass are invasive species that can threaten the entire ecosystem, and they take up space previously inhabited by native plants and animals. Traditional lawns aren’t the worst example of environmental destruction, but they exemplify a casual cruelty towards nature that you can see in other aspects of our society.
I have seen a growing movement to let natural plants grow rather than a perfectly manicured lawn. I am exploring ideas from this movement and connecting it to the larger movement for Iequality.wanted
I also wanted to talk about the practice of gentrification. Before suburbs, the land was a normal ecosystem full of wildflowers. Wildflowers grow in fields, but people built the suburbs, destroying the ecosystems. This is never directly addressed but is a looms in the background. In order to build perfect “pristine” suburbs, you have to take the land from somewhere or someone.
mean larger ideas. Roses represent death,nightshadespassion,representetc.Iwantedto use this with any plant I mention in the comic having multiple meanings. The entire comic itself is coded to represent a larger critique of languagesegregation.modernCodedhasbeen used by communicatecommunitiesmarginalizedtowhile under oppression, and even today lots of queer relationships and queer themes are written in subtext, so I wanted to include a very queer message in the subtext of my comic.
I wanted to touch on the subtle ways hierarchies are enforced. A perfect example of this is page three, where I talk about flowers being allowed inside easily managed flower beds, but the flowers are always pruned back if they get too big. This is meant to represent how the people with power in society will sometimes accept diversity but only on limited terms. Certain acts of inclusivity are acceptable to those in power, but push too hard for diversity and equality and they will react extremely harsh. Even the flowers mentioned in that section allude to the fetishization of certain minorities. The yellow chrysanthemum is the national flower of Japan and is meant to allude to how Asian Americans are seen as a “model minority” and an
One easy comparison that can be made is how queer people are often compared to flowers. Lesbians were deemed the “lavender menace” by Betty Friedan to exclude lesbians from the women's movement. The Cold War fear of gay people was the lavender scare. Lesbian poet Sappho wrote a love poem wherein she and another woman wore violets in their hair. Violets are now a minor lesbian symbol because of this poem. Feminine men are often called pansies, and nightshade, a large family of plants, has a strong tie to witchcraft.
Flowers have historically been used as a code to
All in all, I wanted to talk about how both practices of modern segregation and grass lawns are outdated, unnatural, harmful, and just plain ugly.
queer is the lack of gender throughout my story. When first writing, I wanted to make it clear that my characters were lesbians, but I kept accidently switching pronouns for the little ghost. I realized the little ghost did not need labels to be an enjoyable character. The reader may either assign a gender to the ghost or accept that the little ghost does not need these types of labels in order to be a good story. The little ghost is a queer story of loneliness and found family/love.
My comic’s layout was intentional. For the main background, I chose creamcolored stationery. I wanted a very neutral background in order to create a very neutral feeling within the reader. The panels are drawn on grey construction paper, and this
The first use of color is seen when a glowing person walks by reading a book, the little ghost looks in awe at that person. After that, the use of color is only found in things that are hot; the fire used by the travelers, the sun, and the fire from the dragon. The little ghost physically bumps into the glowing person.
Whatalone.makes
When the little ghost opens their eyes after, the comic is immediately colorized. The ghost suddenly feels less alone and sees color in the world. They realize that the beautiful glowing person was also a little ghost, and they realize they don’t have to be so
Symphony by Kaitlyn Maguire
shows the lack of color in the little ghost’s world. This was to create a very grey and dull world. I wanted the reader to feel the world was lacking in joy and color; moreover, I wanted the focus of emotion to come from the little ghost’s eyes and actions. The grey background was the medium I chose to highlight how the little ghost feels the world is
My comic follows a little lonely ghost who has lost a lot of color from the world. They have come to feel the world is dull and lonely and have started to tune out the world. They go about their normal adventures and duties, only really feeling warmth from the fires and never truly listening to those around them; this is shown by the lack of real words written when others are talking to little ghost. The little ghost goes about their life with little interest, as if they are merely existing in the world around them not living in it.
my comic
One of the most important decisions I made as an artist was to make this comic completely in black and white. Because I discuss light and dark in different ways throughout the piece, I
“To Be Between New & Full,” is a graphic memoir told in two parts. Through examining the relationship between moths and the moon, I explore my own roots as a Filipino American and my family’s migration story. I revisited a childhood memory of being afraid of moths and being told the story that these little flying creatures were just my ancestors visiting me. Though I’ve since outgrown this fear of moths, this story of spirits that has been passed down through generations has always stuck with me.
To NewBetweenBe+Full by Gabriela A. Igloria
to a curiosity of self and roots. The moths are also my ancestors, so the fear of them dissipates as the comic progresses, as I begin to accept their presence as I get older. This can also be seen as an acceptance of Filipino spirituality and beliefs, which can perhaps be juxtaposed with the idea of being born in America with Western values. The moon as a motif in this comic has a few shifting
wanted to further show this idea visually by using only black ink and the white space of the paper to imitate contrasts between night and day, brightness and shadows. This also allowed me to play with how I used the gutter space and created panels within panels. For example, the windowpanes on page 4 can be interpreted as individual panels while at the same time being part of the entire page’s more unified image. I want the viewer to consider how the parts contribute to the whole. There is interconnectednessan that carries the work and unifies the narrative with the visual Symbolically,elements. the image of the moth represents a story
Atmeanings.first,the moon is representative of a kind of safety or certainty—it is a guide. However, this is complicated by artificial sources of light that look much like moons, which express a sense of being misguided or even being deceived.
on storytelling, it is important for me to continue this custom in my own words. No one will tell our stories for us but Inourselves.thinking about my work’s connection to queerness, I’m attempting to push against the idea of absolutes. Especially being born in a place other than the rest of my family, my views of the U.S. tend to be different, often much more scrutinizing, than my parents’ views of the U.S. which is a tension I have to sit with when I think about why I am here and where I want to be (physically emotionally).andThere are multiple truths that exist at the same time, often in the same households. The truth is that I can’t love or hate this country. Our perceptions can so easily transform, which is more natural than a lot of the polarizing limitations within which we define so much of our day-to-day lives.
The comic shifts its focus to my parents, where I position their migration from the Philippines to the U.S. as a parallel to the moth’s navigation by moonlight, thus situating America as both
While working on this comic, I realized there was so much more I wanted to write about. My hope is to continue this project after class and explore its possibilities. I would like for this to pay homage to my ancestors and my parents and to my future self: the past and the future. Especially coming from a culture that traditionally relies
In part two, I focus more on the moon, describing the waxing crescent as an in between of a new moon and a full moon. Again, the idea of light and dark comes into play, where the waxing crescent is neither light nor dark or is both. But to “wax” is also to become gradually more visible— to reflect more light, or perhaps to grow in possibility, to reach towards fullness and newness. As I grow older and learn more about myself, I feel that I am constantly recreating parts of myself to feel whole, which is what I am attempting to express in this section.
being perceived as a guiding light and as a “false moon.” I pose the last thought as a question— “Did my parents always know they were migrating towards a false moon whose pull was too great to be true, but too bright with possibility to ignore?” because I cannot speak for my parents. I don’t know what they thought about America before. All I know is the result of their decisions to live here, and so I am working my way back in time by asking and exploring my own origins.
my own desire to make a comic about a simple life, or more so a life I see for myself, by gardening, tending to farm animals, spreading joy with food and creating community.
The idea I thought I could make quickly due to my own procrastination was gay farmers. My comic “The Simple Life” features two characters engaging in the act of harvesting their garden to give to their community. The choice to keep the comic lighthearted and simple with funny dialogue and farm animals was influenced by
and clip art examples and traced them on paper. I mostly avoided color in my comic because of the time crunch I created for myself creating the comic. I used shading throughout the panels to create a contrast between objects I found really appealing. The use of transitions in my comic mostly features aspect to aspect and action to action, as explained by Scott McCloud, for the purpose of showing time passing and my characters moving from place to place, but then slowing the events down to show my characters in a specific place and time and what takes place in that one moment.
The queer aspect of my comic besides the featured queer characters, is their ability to create community with food, turning physical work to grow something and using that as an olive branch to create something positive. It’s not very common for people or communities to have direct control or access to the foods they eat, so the aspect of cultivating one's own food and then sharing that with other people in a community is queer.
LifeSimpleThe by Anaya Whitney
The choice of simplicity in my comic matters in the sense that many queer stories feature heavier topics like identity, violence,discrimination,trauma,etc.This is very important in terms of telling authentic queer stories or representing queer history, but I wanted to make a queer story about day to day lives of queer persons without the overbearing outside influence. To keep with my theme of simplicity I chose to draw my comic in pencil but to accurately draw certain images in my comic, I printed pictures from different comics
by Brooklyn Lee Illustrations by Caleb Lane and Brooklyn Lee
This comic follows Lov, a Russian ballerina who is at the top of his craft but desperately wants to be a boxer. The story follows him as he finishes a performance and notices Russia’s most famous boxer in the crowd. He challenges him, and the two agree to Thefight.concept was one I have had in my head for a while; within media we have lots of stories of men who play sports or work some gruff job only to desire a more socially bit.hadfeelscharacterconceptreallyand“break“feminine”recognizedhobby.Theythrough”stereotypesbecomethethingtheywant.IusedtheandstartedtheinaplacethatlessmasculineandhimreversetheideaaTheideatoplaceitin
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lines and details. This could be achieved through pen work but would ultimately be messier. We also chose to make it black and white because that felt like the best palette for this story. Small inclusions of red make certain intense panels pop.
The panel where Lov sees Baba Yaga for the first time all the background characters are drawn in my style which is very different from my friend’s. This was done with the intention of having him stand out from the crowd.
Russia was a comment on the intensity of Russia's homophobia and gender roles. Lov’s obsession with Baba Yaga shows a conflicted love. The idea was this story would appeal to those conflicted in their lives about what they want to do and people who enjoy a good underdog story. The comic was drawn by the two of us and then traced and converted to digital. While writing together we really needed to visualize so we sketched out ideas to help better understand, then converted to digital to make it clean and add color where needed. It also fits the comic more as it is lots of straight
A couple of panels have speech bubbles that cross over into other panels, and we tried switching panel styles. In the action panels we attempted to splice them together in a way that made the action feel fast and intense.
For more comics by Brooklyn and Caleb, follow @dogfoodcomic on Instagram
The fight scene also shows a bit of a romantic bond forming between the
The queer aspect of this was the idea of someone diving more into their gender roles. Media seems to paint a
The fight scene was done so the panels intertwine between fighting and dancing. This was done to show how boxing is itself a type of dance. Lov and Baba Yaga even though they both are in fields that seem vastly different are similar in ways one may find surprising.
picture that “it is impossible for someone to be a manly football player and sing in theater.” The idea was to take this concept and make a piece where the main character is already out of those gender norms and takes the “odd” road of getting back into them.
With each punch realizedI Gaga was not my obstacle. “ ”
The concept was to have a narrative of gender roles are ridiculous and let people just do whatever they want. I hope this translates well through this comic.
issues of LGBTQ+ people, poc, and mental health. This was important because mental health is often not talked about acknowledgedor in LGBTQ+ or POC communities, so this story allows readers to use their imaginations to overcome struggles.
MirrorMirror by Anonymous
In Mirror, Mirror a high school girl raised in a religious family meets her first crush -- a girl. Selena sees the world in black and white and hides the part of herself that she thinks will be ridiculed. Selena does not want to lose her parents' graces or her perfect image. After losing Bay, her first crush, Selena meets Ocean. She tells her parents about her new friend, but they don’t approve because Ocean is gay. Eventually, we find out that Ocean is Selena's inner voice, an imaginary friend Selena created so she wouldn’t feel so lonely and depressed.
she represents getting to know oneself. The black and white color scheme represents the lack of color, individualism, and personality in Selena’s life, but the color comes back into her life when she decides to come out. Red is associated with fierceness, courage, passion, and desire, so I used it first. I did not draw the parents in detail because Selena avoids looking at them in fear that they will see Ocean in her eyes.
I chose the title "Mirror Mirror'' because in the story Selena is displayed as put-together and perfect while Ocean is wild and free. The moral of the story is to not let yourself or anybody else prevent you from being your true, imperfectly authentic self. Some people have a mom, a best friend, or a coworker to guide them, but Selena had herself, which is alright.
Selena depends on Ocean and eventually gets the confidence from her to come out. Ocean is her "imaginary friend” because oftentimes people have nobody but themselves to talk to, and
I chose a black queer character because there is a lack of representation in comics. Homophobia in black religious homes is still common and is not written about in a lot of comics.
The comic is intersectional and features marginalized groups such as LGBTQ+ people, women, and poc. I used different color schemes in order to highlight the
than my sexuality, gender identity, or relationships, but it is the background noise of the comic because it is the background noise of my life. I am queer, and writing about myself is inherently also queer even if it includes no mention of my past or present relationships. I have no idea if this justifies making a comic about my cats and my research, but my sexuality and gender identity are also thinkingthingssubconsciouslythatIamalwaysabout,evenas I do other activities. That is the other part of the title –that these are still puzzles or knots that I am trying to work out.
WithResearcher____________
by Kate Cipriano
___ Researcher With ___ is really only queer in the sense that it’s about me, and I am queer. The title is meant to reflect this with its overlapping representinglabelswords that myself and others have used to describe me over the years. I have known that I was a lesbian since middle school, but then I dated people with various gender identities. Some days I wish I could bind more easily, but other times I feel most comfortable in a dress. I know that other people consider gender to be extremely important, but I find that really confusing most of the time. Clothing isn’t something that I think of as inherently gendered, and anyone should be able to wear any type of clothing they’d like to try on. When I was younger, I was
diagnosed with nearly every learning disability or mental health issue under the sun, so the second part of the title is meant to reflect that. That’s not really queer except that I’ve noticed a lot of my queer friends also have learning disabilities or are on the autism or ADHD spectrum. This probably doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a Theobservation.non-scientificcomic’snameis also meant to be a bit of a sarcastic response to the sort of person who would pigeonhole or stereotype someone like me due to my sexuality, gender, disability, or mental health diagnosis. The comic itself doesn’t really draw attention to any of those aspects of myself outside of the panel about therapy, but I have known people who would center them in discussing me or others in onThemarginalizedsimilargroups.comicismorefocusedmydailylifeandwork
Platonic partners is about two friends who have a lot of love for each other. They are basically soulmates. They express their love and contemplate living together. After considering outside romantic interests they decide to go ahead with moving in together as long-term platonic partners. This storyline is important to me because I feel like long term relationships values are centered around romantic relationships. In some ways, the way we look at life is centered around finding a lifelong romantic partner as a top goal. I think that friendship love deserves a spotlight and to be treated as a legitimate option especially if it has been stable in your life for a long time. We treat romantic relationships as top priority and friendships as less serious, but what if we gave grace to exploring friendship just as seriously as
details were used to convey time. I want it to be seen as though the characters have known each other for a while. I convey this not only through the text but also by using thought bubbles with the text in panel 4. I use icons that should represent important periods in one’s life to convey that the characters have seen each other through a lot of emotional events. I emphasize their bond and connection No matter what the characters look like, the end message of having a friendship that can be considered outside of the norm or queer is still read.
we explore relationships?romanticIwould like to spotlight friendships because for many people they play a key role in surviving life. Friendships can be monumental in growth and support, and this deserves to be recognized. The decision to have a long term platonic partner makes the friendship queer in a sense because it is non traditional and a relationship that people are hesitant to explore due to our romance centered culture. It challenges romance centered thinking and building your whole adult life off traditional romance.
This was also a reason to use pandas instead of humans. The message can be seen as more relatable because of the generic identities, body language and facial expressions. I think the simplicity of the images drives home the simplicity of the decision to live long term with your best friend. Its a simple decision, yet it challenges the norm in a way that makes people hesitant to even consider it an option.
PartnersPlaytonic
by Kayla Wall Green
I chose to use Canva mostly because I have worked with it before. I could have drawn, but I didn’t think detail in any specific image was necessary for this story. Any extra visual
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banned from the bar. I chose this storyline because without the visual app Dick can’t see the symbols. All he sees are beautiful “women” or their appearance. This also makes it highly apparent for us the readers as visual cues for dating that we can’t judge people by appearance alone either. Judging people by appearance is becoming more and more redundant for finding our significant other and in the future might be seen as being… well, a DICK.
I chose symbols based on the digital writing class that I am taking this semester. Almost everything on our computers these days has an icon or a symbol, and I do not believe it is too far fetched that symbols in the future will be used to open a new world or window into gender or sexuality for the benefit of everyone regardless of how we appear superficially. Those distinct symbols will encompass people’s culture and how they envision their place in society. Too much of our culture is based solely on appearance, and every day it causes more problems. Like we discussed in class, gender and sexuality are based on such reasonsconfusing.everythingatdespitestillUnfortunately,lessothergeneralearswemisconceptionsdangerousofwhatarmwearourwatchon,whichwehavepierced,ourappearance,andsillythingsthatmeanthannothing.alotofpeoplelikeusinggenderrolestheiractualgendersbirthwhichmakesevenmoreThatisoneoftheIusedthesymbolsin
The premise of this comic came from Buck Rogers and Duck Dodgers of the 24th and a half century. In those stories you have a man or duck thrust forward in time by being cryogenically frozen in the past and then resuscitated in the future. Many of the episodes were funny or tragic depending on your point of view as we would like to envision the future. In my future, Dick failed to read the operating manual for a visual app that would let him see the icon that designated the gender or sexual orientation of the person he was interacting with in order to form a relationship. The only thing Dick sees is beautiful women.
by Kurt Robbins
my comic; most of them are unknown to me and I bet that some of them are unknown even to those in the LGBTQ community, but I could be wrong. All the words are mine in my comic and the drawings belong to canva.com. It was accidental at first, but I was happy to use facial expressions alone. It helps the tone of the story and highlights the funny and serious sides of the story and eventually leads to Dick and all other insensitive dicks to be
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In the first panel, we decided to fill the background with phrases people say during sex to depict how suffocating sex culture is to Andrew. In the next panel, those words follow Andrew and bleed into the panel after; these experiences stay with him even though he has left the party. We decided to do a close up, more realistic view of Andrew's face in the next panel when he contemplates losing his virginity and relationships with himself and others. We thought doing one panel realistically and leaving the rest abstract was funny. This panel gets serious, and providing a realistic face aids in the seriousness and anxiety of the
PokeSlow
made sex enjoyable. I had not heard of asexuality till I got to college.
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Illustrations: Brooklyn Lee
I wanted to depict Andrew as a tortoise and everyone else as a rabbit. Andrew wears
by Andrea Queen
Due to my
Furthermore,dialogue.
rabbit ears to show his longing to belong with those around him. The characters are based on the literary context of the rabbit and tortoise and their race to the finish. In this instance, the rabbits have already realized their sexualities, and the tortoise is slow to do the same. Hence, the comic is titled "Slow Poke." The rabbits also reference the common phrase, "fuck like rabbits." Andrew is a tortoise because he is the rabbit's symbolic opposite; here, asexual and sexual.
the close-up contrasts considerably with the next zoomed out panel,
drew his room to look longer, like a tunnel, to show that he is now in a pit of depression, thinking that he is a broken tortoise (person). As a result of not knowing that he is asexual, Andrew believes he is alone in his own vacuum.
Andrew has not found out he is asexual yet, but I think that showing the feelings of exile and social inadequacy depicts what a large role not being able to identify with your peers and not knowing why plays in your wellbeing. While not blatantly expressed, Andrew also struggles with depression and borderline personality disorder. Depicting mental illness is essential to me because it has defined my life. It was hard to base a character on my experiences with my sexuality without leaving out this piece because, in my world, they come hand in hand. The comic is queer because it focuses on issues
where Andrew is screaming in anger. We used the same technique later after Andrew came home to his roommates playing spin the bottle and going to his room, then deciding to masturbate. We zoomed in on his face again. By doing this, you are with his thoughts and can feel Andrew's anguish; we can see the release when the panel zooms out. Shading the background of these panels makes you feel like you are in Andrew’s head and focusing on him like he is focusing on trying to enjoy masturbating. Then, Andrew explodes and spirals; we included a literal spiral here.
outside a heteronormative and neurotypical context. As with other sexualities that are not straight, asexuality is very underrepresented, and depression and BPD are often villainized. Rarely do these representations focus on experiences of the characters. If I continued the comic, I would dive into more experiences of asexual people with BPD and depression to provide more thetranslateanddepression,mainasexuality.knowledgemygaslightedaboutReflectingvalidatedwhenasexualdidaaroundunderstandhighthisWhenrepresentation.readingthecomicsyear,IfeltlikeIdidinschool,tryingtothebigdealsex.Icouldnotfindcomicaboutasexuality.Inotlearnthetermuntilcollege,andIdid,thediscoverymyfeelings.onhowIhavefeltmyself,IrealizethatIandinvalidatedfeelingsduetoalackofoftherangesofIthoughtcreatingcomicwithanasexualcharacterandtheinvalidation,crisishefallsintomighttootherswhofeltsameatsomepoint.
The spiral cuts into the next panel that consists of a google search "Am I broken?" Andrew falls into the next panel into his bed, further depicting his descent. In the final panel, we
As she gets home and is feeling more like herself, she not only morphs into her butterfly self but sees people and things as they because this one moment journey, and she is seeing it in bright colors as well.
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started or even worse off. I use the imagery to tell the story much more so than the words; with comics it’s hard to use that many words in a single frame. You will also notice as she starts feeling down about herself everyone’s faces around her show nothing, and I mean nothing. These people don’t give her the feeling she needs as a human and to her they have started to lose their identities as humans as well. I am making the reader decide what these people look like.
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Some of the things I used in my comic to make it my very own was the concept of the drawing. I took a lot of liberties in that and that is where I think my comic can hold up to the genre of a queer comic.
cry,themDon’tletseeyouLissa.
Edith
by Kaela Wilson
I knew I wanted Edith to be made of clay because clay characters can give an otherworldly and distinct look. When making Edith I tried to capture that, so along the way the main character also ended up being made of clay and painted a similar color to the monster she fears. I thought this would give her some form of visual connection to Edith. She does not like the monster but is unable to be rid of it completely. The main character's love interest I knew had to be different from the other characters in the comic. I wanted the main character to feel some disconnect with her love interest, and the easiest way was to make her with a different material.
“Edith” started as an idea during Covid that I kept in the back of my mind. The comic is based on the “monster under the bed” and what that would be like for an older child. This saying is usually used when children are scared in their rooms, so the theme of fear immediately became attached to the story. I connected with the theme of fear because it is something everyone faces, but it is especially true for queer people. There is the fear of rejection from others and yourself, I wanted to encapsulate that when making this comic. You can see fear in the form of Edith, the monster, in this comic. To emphasize fear, I made Edith a very dark color and had her main form of communication be her eyes. I made them large, and most of her scenes in the comic are close up, so you can feel the scale of fear our main character has. I also used Edith’s color around the
Multiple parts of this comic are queer. I tried to create the feeling of fearing rejection. To do this, I focused my story on a queer girl who does not want to accept the fact she is queer. Edith, the monster, represents her fear of her queerness. The materials I used to make the comic also make it queer. Clay figures are seen as strange and unusual in an artistic sense. I have not seen many comics made with clay figures, and of all the movies or television shows that use Claymation, most use it to scare audiences.
Using clay to not only represent my monster but also my main character can be seen as odd. Even I thought it was odd using so many different materials to create “Edith,” but in the end, everything turned out as it should, and I am proud of this short comic.
panels as much as possible to add to the fear surrounding the main character.
