A Personal History of a Queer Cartoonist and Self Publisher

(i.e. Me)

(Read Part 3 here)

In which the cartoonist makes more comic zines and further aligns with the lesbians

From the beginning the lesbians were right behind me, I have to say. It was a dyke that first sent me the nuts ‘n bolts practical advice on how to make a zine. It was Cynthia and Vicki at Equal Time who gave me the shove to create the recurring strip. And it was mostly girls that were submitting comics to SLE. Soon SLE would even acquire a lesbian publisher, but that part comes a little later. For now, let’s go back to fall 1991, back to the release of Strange-Looking Exile #2, with its tagline: “The All-Cartoon Zine for Queer Dudes and Babes!” and to the third issue, which debuted in (I believe) early 1992.  

For my stories in SLE #2 I’d mined my distant past and told a six-page tale of my late-teen sexual dalliances with older men in “At Seventeen” and my brief (mostly miserable) stint as a help-line volunteer in “The Phone Counselor From Hell.” The former recounted some rather painful memories in a mostly jokey manner, which just came naturally to me (it’s a lot easier to see the humor in things, retroactively anyway). I also drew a goofy little one-pager called “Blind Date” which was about just that, and a brief episode of “Father ‘n Son,” two characters that I’d introduced in SLE #1 that have always been popular with my cartoonist peers. The father character was always totally, cluelessly positive at all costs and way over-supportive of his gay punk son, who for his part was incredibly hostile and angry (the son was based on certain zine editors for whom Pure Rage was something of a calling card). I remember seeing a really funny single panel cartoon by Kris Kovick (sadly deceased in 2001) around that same time with a caption that said: “Imagine perfect parents, who totally accepted you as you are. You’d still need therapy, although for different reasons.” The drawing depicted a pair of elderly parents, the woman holding up a placard beatifically: “Love however expressed, is Beautiful.”  So yeah, that was the kind of hell the son in “Father ‘n Son” had to deal with.

For SLE #3 I drew a longer “Father ‘n Son” tale, which broadened their story a bit. I revived “Father ‘n Son” on and off over the years since SLE and they were always a lot of fun to do. I’ve always felt I maybe should have done even more with them but other projects came along and I never got around to it. Other comics I drew for the third issue included a few one-page “Rob” comics, and I illustrated the paper doll style “SLE Guide to Bookworm Fashion” by longtime queer zinester and SLE fan, Jeffery Kennedy. Jeffery and I would collaborate a few more times in the next couple of years. Finally, I drew a three-page comic of the ever-popular “weird job” genre, “On Guard,” which recounted the “fun” of being a museum guard at the Walker Art Center. It’s always enjoyable to blast the pretensions of the higher ups at an organization like the Walker, and I heard much later that this particular comic had a place of honor on the wall in the guard lounge at the museum for a while, which was truly gratifying to hear.  As Matt Groening once pointed out in an old Life in Hell episode, “It is unwise to annoy cartoonists.” We always get to have the last word.

Among the few boys I was able to drum up for issue three, there was good ol’ Nick Leonard, always welcome in my comic books. I’ve always particularly enjoyed Nick’s parodies of my Rob character and “How to Draw Comics the Nick Way!” was the first of several. Another one-page comic, “Dirty Old Men,” was by Quetzal, the last of the three boy cartoonists for this issue. Quetzal’s characters were much older, heavy-set, and quite naked in this strip, complete with big old heavy erections, making them the first flat-out erotic characters in SLE. I liked that they weren’t the stereotypical young muscle hunks everybody else was drawing. Quetzal’s real name is Jon, and he drew a self-syndicated comic strip called Max Buck that ran in a few gay venues around the country, most notably in Contax Guide out of Miami. We corresponded for a while. Once we got together for coffee when he was in Minneapolis on a business trip, and we talked for a couple of hours about alt-comics like a pair of nerdy fanboys. Jon/Quetzal is one of many cartoonists and zinesters I eventually lost track of, sad to say.  

Other than Quetzal and Nick, I wasn’t getting any work from guys, which was disappointing. I did get a couple things from some straight guys here and there; one of the strips I received was a very sincere piece about the artist making friends with a gay guy and how happy he was to know this gay person. An “I’m okay, you’re okay” sort of thing, which I politely declined.  The cartoonist graciously conceded that it was indeed an overly earnest effort and that I was right to reject it. 

The rest of SLE #3 featured the gals. Roberta Gregory, a very friendly veteran/pioneer of Alt-comics in general and queer comics in particular sent me “Bedroom Politricks.” This piece was a reprint from (I believe) an issue of the defunct underground women’s anthology Tits and Clits. Now, I normally I don’t like to run reprints in my anthologies, but with someone of Roberta’s caliber I figured it was okay, and I doubted many SLE readers had seen it anyway. Plus like Quetzal’s piece, it featured sex and nudity in a straightforward but playful manner, which I liked. Also featured was another droll single-pager from my pal Michelle Rau; a one-pager called “Alternative Restrooms,” which was this issue’s from-out-of-the-blue submission from a Minneapolis local named Riawa Smith; and the four page auto-bio “The 24 Stages of Being a Slut” by my art director boss at Equal Time, Vicki Jedlicka. Vicki was inspired to do her own comic by all the zines she’d seen, many of which I’d been showing her. She eventually published her own zine with Frank McQuarry called 3000 Eyes are Watching Me, proving once again that zines do indeed spawn other zines.  Included in 3000 Eyes was Vicki’s affectionately funny parody of Dykes to Watch Out For and McQuarry’s parody of Curbside, which depicted my character as a hopelessly chattering neurotic, which of course I loved.

Rounding out my gal pal contributors in SLE 3, there was the lovely two-pager “Born Queer” by Diane DiMassa. Diane was the blazingly talented creator of Hothead Paisan, the Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, published by Giant Ass Publishing. Hothead quickly established a fiercely loyal cult following and Giant Ass became quite the hub of activity for a number of years. With the character of Hothead Paisan, Diane had tapped into a primal rage that women the world over responded to, making Hothead an instant classic cartoon character and elevating Diane to the status of a bona-fide heroine of the queer subculture. Although the action was often very violent, as Hothead dispatched rapists and misogynists with guiltless, brutal efficiency, Hothead’s cat Chicken provided all kinds of adorableness and laughs, stealing the hearts of cat lovers everywhere. 

I’d written to Diane after reading a couple issues of Hothead and she liked my work, but her girlfriend and head honcho of Giant Ass, Stacy Sheehan, really loved it. Stacy and I became good pals. Eventually Tony and I took a trip to Connecticut and stayed with Stacy and Diane, where a new alliance would be formed.   

Next: The next step up in Micro Publishing