Max Briggs

Queer Studies
3/2/2019
LGBT Representation in Graphic Novels

The graphic novel is a genre that sprung past basic comic strips. The graphic novel is to

the comic strip, what a full length novel is to the first publications of Sherlock Holmes appearing

chapter by chapter. Loosely defined as text combining both words and visuals, a graphic novel

marries the visual aspects of a comic book with the completed story arcs and a continuous story

of a standard text based novel. The first widely accepted example of a graphic novel is ​A

Contract with God, ​by Will Eisner in 1978. Some more notable works that someone new to the

graphic novel world might recognize include ​Watchmen ​and ​V for Vendetta, ​by Alan Moore,

Maus, b​ y Art Spiegelman, and ​The Sandman​ by Neil Gaiman. Graphic Novels have been a place

to explore themes in a visual way, that breaks out of the typical superhero type piece you see in

comic books, and have more substance and length than a sunday comic strip. This versatile

medium has been a place where the exploration of LGBT+ themes and experiences is not only

possible but accessible.

One of the first examples of LGBT representation within graphic novels, is in the works

we would expect to see in the LGBT+ genre, like in other mediums, the first place to start with

these stories is in the “coming out” experience or autobiographical anthologies. One prominent

example of this is ​Fun Home​ by Alison Bechdel, published in 2006. If the name Alison Bechdel

rings any bells, its because she is also notable from her creation of “Dykes to Watch Out for”

beginning in 1983, and from that creation the “Bechdel test” which is a creation for critiquing

gender inequality in works of fiction, more often in cinema. ​Fun Home e​ xplores Bechdel’s

coming to terms with her own sexuality and her fathers closeted sexuality. As well as their
tumultuous relationship, part autobiography, part exploration of sexuality, its where we might

expect the LGBT representation in this medium to start.

However before giving all the credit to Bechdel for being the breakthrough in graphic

novels it's important to acknowledge who she herself credited as her major influencers, ​Gay

Comix,​ an underground series of comics released in the 80s by the publisher Kitchen Sink Press.

"I got out of college in 1981 and went into a gay and lesbian bookstore one day and

found an issue of ​Gay Comix​- I think it was the first one, that Howard Cruse had edited-

and that was pretty mindblowing. It hadn't occurred to me at that point to put together my

penchant for silly drawings with my personal life and my political interest in gay and

lesbian issues, but there were these people who were doing it: Howard Cruse and Roberta

Gregory and all those early ​Gay Comix​ artists...I'm very grateful to them for all that

groundbreaking work” (Bechdel Qtd in Lynn).

Gay Comix​ was released underground as a response to the lack of LGBT+ representation in the

mainstream comic industry specifically as they fell in line with the Comics Code Authority

enforced in 1954. Comics Code Authority was essentially the gold standard in publishing

anything in the mainstream comic world, which is where graphic novels existed, the CCA was

literally the stamp of approval for publishing, which the CCA explicitly forbid publishing

anything gory, monstrous or sexually explicit, including any openly queer. The CCA can be

considered the number one reason why mainstream graphic novels had a significant lacking of

queer representation until the big name publishers started to break away from the CCA and its

rules in the early 21st century, until then, any explicit queer representation was to be found in
underground work, or indie publishing. After the 00s is when mainstream publishers began to

break away from the CCA and is when LGBT+ representation begins to take off. (Kistler).

This leads us to where contemporary graphic novels are in their LGBT+ representation,

​Bloom, b​ y Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau is a classic coming of age meets

summer love fiction following the two boys Ari and Hector through their introspective

adventures and coming to terms not only with who they are but who they love. It explores the

classic cliches of teen romance, and summer adventure, with restrictive parents that want the best

for you but don’t understand your dreams, and the cute boy who you meet through circumstances

you wouldn’t expect to find anywhere out of a Nicholas Sparks novel. Its portrayal is cute, and

fluffy while feeling reastic and genuine, it feels like a post modernists queer dream, taking the

story we have all come to expect and just making it super gay. Bloom was published by First

Second in 2019 and is a showing of how representation of LGBT+ people is currently. This

novel also has a handful of characters of color, including Hector, the main love interest, which is

typically a place that LGBT representation can forget about intersectionality.

The Prince and the Dressmaker​ by Jen Wang is a unique graphic novel in its

representation of queer identities in that the identities of the characters are never stated but

rather left blank, the story follows Prince Sebastian in his dual life of princedom and in his

feminine dual identity as Lady Crystallia, and his best friend and personal tailor, Frances.
Though it's never directly stated Sebastian is a genderqueer, possibly genderfluid character, as

opposed to the drag queen he is usually read at, one indicator of this is when he states “Some

days I look at myself in the mirror and think, ‘That’s me, Prince Sebastian! I wear boy clothes

and look like my father.’ other days it doesn’t feel right at all. Those days I feel like I’m

actually…a princess.” (Wang 44.) This graphic novel feels like a direct application of queer

theory onto a typical fairytale story where queer theory is “designed to assume a position

against normativity to challenge binaristic thinking and the regulation of identities.” (Matos.)

The Witch Boy ​by Molly Knox Ostertag, is about the journey that a

young boy named Astrid goes through when he finds he has no ability

in shapeshifting, the male aligned magic of his world, and instead is

curious and has a proclivity for witchery, the female coded magic of

the world. Whereas the rest of the examples given thus far have had

explicitly written queer characters ​The Witch Boy​ is different in that

its LGBT representation is hinted at, subtle at best, and significantly

portrayed through symbolism and metaphors. There are only four

characters written as queer sexually, Astrid’s aunt and her wife, and

Charlie’s gay dads, both of whom are mentioned in passing such as

“my dads will be mad” (Ostertag pg 80). The main queer theme throughout this graphic novel is

in gender related queerness, the analogy between magic that follows a gender binary and Astrid

who doesn’t follow the gender roles, or gender based magic shows the questioning of gender

without explicitly drawing that conclusion for the reader.

 Throughout the novel it is shown that the only other character in this world who has

expressed non-gender conforming magic was Astrid’s great-uncle Mikasi who is seen clearly as

a monster and villain. However, Ostertag uses Mikasi's character, as the villain and monster to

explore the relationship between nonconformity and monstrosity, at the end of the book

revealing the reason he turned into the monster was through the ostracization he faced at the

hands of his family for his unusual magical proclivity. JJ Cohen's Monsters theses’ that can be

applied to Ostertag’s writing here is both that the monster polices the borders of the possible, in

that both Mikasi and Astrid have a sort of power that is not deemed normal or natural, nor is it

something that the culture that they are in permits, and that the monster stands at the threshold of

becoming, in that Mikasi only turned into a monster when he was spurred by the society driven

by their own anxieties about what his nonconformity might mean, this example displaying what

the thesis described as “Every monster is… a double narrative: one that describes how the

monster came to be and another detailing what cultural use the monster serves” (Cohen pg.13).

While the story line is predictable and the queer representation is more analogous than

explicit, its clear those choices were intentional seeings how Ostertag’s audience for this graphic

novel was children, and clearly she intended to have it be a part of school libraries which are still

strict in their lgbt representation.

Ultimately LGBT representation in graphic novels have had an uphill battle with in the

struggle of getting published, to being intersectional, to having any sort of traction by being

known by the general public. However, the representation they do have is growing and becoming

more fleshed out and three dimensional in the spaces they exist, most of the exploration of queer

characters has been done by queer authors and maintain respectful representation.
 Recommendations! Do you:

Need a Happy Ending? ​The Prince and the Dressmaker​ by Jen Wang

Like Hockey and Profanity? ​Check Please​ by Ngozi Ukazu

Watch Avatar/ or need bisexual girls who love each other? ​The Legend of Korra

Like explosions and queer girls? ​Oh Sh*t its Kim and Kim b​ y ​Magdalene Visaggio

Want girls being girls and fighting monsters sometimes? ​The LumberJanes
Works Cited:

Bechdel, A. (2006). Fun home. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

Cohen, Jerome J “Monster Culture (seven thesis)”, University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Emmert, Lynn. “Life Drawing” ​The Comics Journal, No. 282.​ Edited by Gary Goth.
Fantagraphics Books. 2007. 36-54.

Ganucheau, Savanna & Panetta, Kevin. “Bloom” First Second, 2019.

Kistler, Alan. “How the ‘Code Authority’ Kept LGBT Characters Out of Comics.” ​History.com,​

A&E Television Networks, 28 Apr. 2017,

www.history.com/news/how-the-code-authority-kept-lgbt-characters-out-of-comics.

Matos, Angel D. ​What Is Postmodern Literature?​ 3 Feb. 2014,

angelmatos.net/2014/02/03/what-is-postmodern-literature/.

Ostertag, Molly K. “The Witch Boy.” Scholastic, 2018

Wang, Jen. “The Prince and the Dressmaker” First Second, 2018.