The Gayleague website had its start in the summer of 1997 after a man enigmatically referred to as Ulu Vakk (that’s Color Kid from the Legion of Substitute Heroes) attended Andy Mangels’ “Gays In Comics” panel. The panel served as inspiration for bringing LGBT fans together online. It seemed the perfect solution to the few people who were posting campy and very gay remarks on the old DC message board that were part of AOL at the time.

The initial and very informal email list grew and kept growing. We dubiously decided to use the name GayOLeague, a name that played off AOL and another, larger group that called itself the AOLeague. Don’t hold it against us!

Anton Kawasaki, one of the original members, proposed the idea of a website and to take our little email list public. Drew Moore did a bang up job designing the site’s original graphics. Alas, all good things come to an end at some point. Anton became a staffer at DC and is now an editor in collected editions and Drew has gone on to bigger and better things.