George O. Frink: A Pioneer in Queer Cartooning (part two)
In Part Two, Dr. Kevin Cooley examines Frink’s life and other comic strips to provide evidence and context for Lucy and Sophie Say Goodbye queer imagination.
George O. Frink: A Pioneer in Queer Cartooning (part one)
The forgotten cartoonist George O. Frink (1874-1932) laid the groundwork for over a century of queer cartooning, created the comics’ first lesbian couple in 1905, and shared their tragic fate of death in an asylum 27 years later.
“On the Edge of Greatness”: First Ones’ Tech and the Non-Binary Politics of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Looking beyond representation in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and towards the contexts that inform it to consider the narrative structures used to build queer storyworlds.
Harley Quinn’s Sexuality: A Tale of Three Lusts
Laura Grafton and Andew Deman examine the intersection of Harley Quinn’s three central relationships, with the Joker, Poison Ivy, and her audience.
“But We’re Out of Time”: Queer(ed) Nostalgia and The WB’s Birds of Prey
Thinking through how personal narratives also become mediated narratives that enable queer world-building through the example of The WB’s Birds of Prey.
“These Stories Are Out There” – Reclaiming Queer and Trans Histories with Melanie Gillman
Guest contributor, Tiffany Babb, interviews cartoonist Melanie Gillman about their work and the importance of envisioning queer and trans histories.
Imagining What Silence Looks Like: Prince & Queering the Popular Love Song
The dark sound and minimalist instrumentation on “If I Was Your Girlfriend” demonstrates Prince’s willingness to bend and distort expectations with a lyrical and sonic playfulness that challenges the listener to think beyond the obvious gender stereotypes inherent in most popular love songs.
“Lo, There Shall Be An Ending:” Meditations on the End of the Fantastic Four
Marvel Comics hasn’t published a Fantastic Four title in over a year, and its absence marks a serious lack of imagination.
The Queer Silence of The Killing Joke
The intimacy between Batman and the Joker calls for imagining a different “last Batman story.”
La Lucha Femenina: Women Wrestlers in Jaime Hernandez’s Locas
Luchadoras and the elasticity of gender in queered spaces.
“I’m Looking for a Weird Love, Baby. . .” – Romance Comics & the Strangeness of the Normative
The heteronormative values these romance comics reinforce are really friggin’ queer.
The Who’s “I’m a Boy” as Transgender Anthem
Gender identity is over-determined.
Oglaf: Sexual Phantasmagoria (NSFW)
The shock of the queer in Oglaf undermines a genre where uber-masculine hyper-hetero adventures are the norm.
Fantastic: From the First, No Family is “Traditional”
The very idea of a traditional family is a delusion.
Violence is the Normalizing Force
Subaltern characters must punch their way into the “mainstream.”
Gender Policing “This Woman’s Work”
The very act of singing what he is singing is the woman’s work he sings about.
The Middle Spaces 