Welcome to February and LGBT History Month! Our newest recommendation is an Anthology series, edited by Justin Hall, called No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics. Covering the decades between the Stonewall riots (1969) and the modern day, this Anthology incorporates a host of legendary underground comic and cartoon artists. From established artists like Eric Shanower, Alison Bechdel, Howard Cruse and Trina Robbins, to up-and-coming talent like Ellen Forney, Erika Moen and Ariel Schrag, this anthology has it all. The comics range from comedy to drama, from the literary to the erotic. It encapsulates queer comics history and challenges the reader to think about questions concerning identity, belonging, community and the challenges of a (slowly) changing society. Its attempt to catalogue LGBT History also includes European comics which have been translated to English. With such a wide range of creators, this anthology has something for everyone.
Our previous recommendation already highlighted Alison Bechdel’s work, including Dykes to Watch Out for, which you can also find in this anthology. One of my personal favourites in this collection is Roxxie’s Boys and Sex, which is more like collage art-pieces combined with cartooning than traditional ‘sequential art’ comics. Yet, the art definitely contains a story within itself and its fragmented imagery works perfectly to encapsulate both the isolation and the claustrophobic feeling of being under a microscope.
Justin Hall is a teacher and cartoonist who initially curated a show called “No Straight Lines: Queer Culture and Comics” at the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum in 2006. He’s currently teaching at the California College of the Arts, working to inspire a new generation of comic and cartoon artists. Catch his insightful interview with CBR.com here, published in 2012, when the anthology first came out. To read the anthology, visit our catalogue to find it in the library!
