Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Julie E. Washington writes for Cleveland.com that fans of artist P. Craig Russell who live in or visit Cleveland, OH will have the opportunity to view a screening of “Night Music: The Art of P. Craig Russell” this coming Wednesday evening (8/26). Starting at 7:00 PM, Director Wayne Alan Harold and Russell will be in attendance to talk and answer questions afterwards. Click here to read Washington’s full article. Information about the Cleveland Art Museum may be found here.
Archive for August, 2009
Night Music – The Art of P. Craig Russell
Monday, August 24th, 2009New Stuck Rubber Baby
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009Pamela Mullin, writing on Vertigo’s Graphic Content blog, noted that the comics imprint will reissue a new volume of early gay comics pioneer Howard Cruse’s Stuck Rubber Baby graphic novel. The new edition will contain an introduction by Alison Bechdel, creator of Dykes to Watch Out For and Fun Home. Mullin gives only 2010 as a publication date.
Set during the civil rights movements in the 1960s, Stuck Rubber Baby is the story of a young man who comes to terms with his homosexuality while he fights for civil rights for African Americans. A new edition of this book seems poignant in the aftermath of Proposition 8′s passage and the confusion and high emotions felt by some in the LGBT community that it had become a lightning rod for prejudice at worst and let down at best.
Found via Robot 6.
LGBT Biographical Comics
Thursday, August 13th, 2009President Obama recently honored sixteen individuals by awarding them the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Each of these individuals have made remarkable contributions in their own rights, but of particular interest to me were Billie Jean King, Desmond Tutu, Joe Medicine Crow-High Bird, and Harvey Milk. An idea occurred to me after someone had commented about the awards in a post to the GLA Yahoo email list.
Indy publisher Bluewater Productions, helmed by Darren Davis (who just happens to be gay) has published of late a number of biographical comics focusing on political and media personalities. Bluewater is currently soliciting in the August Previews (for comics shipping in October ’09) Female Force #8: Barbara Walters; a Female Force trade collecting the issues on Hilary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Carloine Kennedy, and Ms Maverick herself, Sarah Palin; First Family: The obamas: and Political Power #4: Ronald Reagan. The copy for the last comic indicates the story focuses on how Reagan went “from B-movies to revitalizing the Republican Party and orchestrating the end of the Cold War” while seemingly avoiding the consequences of the president’s willful negligence for people during the early years of the AIDS pandemic. I should also point out that Bluewater has printed other comics about Clinton and Obama, also including one about Joe Biden that I’ve overlooked, and I used the current Previews as a handy reference.
So, here’s my idea for Davis: publish a comic telling the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician elected to an office in the United States. Sure, there was an outstanding film, but one can’t deny the power of bringing words and drawings together in a printed story. Other comics that could feature LGBT people whose lives have impacted following generations for the gay community: pioneers Harry Hay, and Phylis Lyon and Del Martin who were finally able to marry two months before Martin’s death, author Oscar Wilde, or Jewish doctor Magnus Hirschfeld who formed an organization in 1897 trying to repeal Germany’s Paragraph 175, or stories focusing on events such as the Stonewall Riots, or the persecution and internment of homosexuals under Nazi Germany.
I’d pay $3.99 for those comics.
