Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Now playing at the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum (655 Mission St.), under the auspices of the California College of the Arts, a show (which opened December 17th) on queer comics — a combination of two of my interests. The poster:

(Hat tip to Alan Hayes, who’s an architecture student at CCA.)

[Elizabeth Closs Traugott and I have been plotting a freshman seminar at Stanford on Linguistics in the Comics. More on this in a future posting.]

Text from the CCA calendar:

Comics and queers! Two great tastes that taste great together!

The San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum is hosting a show curated by the students of CCA’s “ENGAGE: Queer Comics Project” course. The show, situated in the museum’s Small Press Spotlight area, will feature original and printed art from Bay Area artists, showcasing the remarkable world of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) comics from the last four decades. [show opened 12/17/11]

A film composed of interviews of major figures in queer cartooning conducted by the students over the course of two semesters will also be on display as well as copies of Quilt Bag, a zine of original material created by the students themselves. [QUILTBAG is an acronym for QUeer / Intersex / Lesbian / Transgender / Bisexual / Asexual / Gay]

The creators whose work will be presented are: Burton Clarke (Gay Comix), Jaime Cortez (Sexile), Ed Luce (Wuvable Oaf), Jon Macy (Teleny and Camille), Mari Naomi (Kiss and Tell), Trina Robbins (Wimmen’s Comix), Joey Alison Sayers (Just So You Know), Christine Smith (The Princess), Mary Wings (Come Out Comix), Rick Worley (A Waste of Time)

The course description:

Engage: Queer Comics Project

Queer comics have traditionally existed in a parallel universe to the rest of the comics world. These underground comics were almost exclusively serialized in gay newspapers, published by queer publishers, and sold in gay bookstores. This created an internal dialogue within the LGBT media ghetto that dealt with subject matter ranging from bawdy humor to racism within the gay community to the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic. These last forty years of LGBT comics may soon be lost to history, however, unless more attention can be brought to the work. The Queer Comics Project examines the evolution, subject matter, forms, conventions, and the future of the LGBT comics. Partnering with a major LGBT community organization, students will participate in the creation of a publication that will serve as a comprehensive survey of both the artistry and history of queer comics. As part of this larger archival project, students will have the opportunity to conduct interviews with queer comics writers and artists in an effort to create an oral history of this vitally important underground art scene.

(You won’t be surprised to hear that I have quite a collection of queer comics.)

Another product of the CCA enterprise:

No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, edited by Justin Hall, is slated for release in April 2012! (link)

with this draft poster:

For another posting: reflections on the nouns comic and cartoon, and on the usage of sg comic, pl comics., and yes, sg comics.

This entry was posted on January 26, 2012 at 11:17 am and is filed under Gender and sexuality, Linguistics in the comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.