(231) Murphy's Manor - Book Burning

Our opponents for LGBTQ rights are still the same types as in the mid 80s, but the battle lines have sure moved! Today we readily find gay books in book stores and libraries, instead of smoldering ash heaps of burned books.

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(230) Murphy's Manor - the Wisdom of Vernon

Remind me not to take sex advice from Vernon!

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(229) Murphy's Manor - Pill Porn

During the early days of AIDS, many local gay newspapers covered medical developments  closely. It was commonplace to see press releases from CDC as well as researchers. You can grasp the period of this strip by the terminology. HIV had replaced HTLV, and AZT was offering the first glimmer of hope. What I found odd was the level of technical detail ... "Pill Porn" if you like. Being kind of a techie myself (I  am a civil engineer), I can deal with that.

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(228) Murphy's Manor - Playing Doctor

The AIDS crisis motivated gay men to be more vigilant about their health  -- sometimes over the top!

New! Revamped website! 
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(227) Murphy's Manor - Drag Tourists

When I came out and moved to Toledo,  it was an ongoing joke whether you/your worldly goods were butch or femme. Some gay people had an expectation that a gay man should do drag sometime or other  -- Hallowe'en  if nothing else (I never did).  It was simply part of the culture.

The Sparkle Spinsters -- L2R Duchess, Lee, and Vernon -- cling to this tradition  -- even as they realize that gay visibility has grown to the point of attracting gay Ghetto  tourism.

The role of gender dressing has  changed greatly. In the 80s my understanding of cross dressing included cultural drag, as The Sparkle Spinsters are doing, and drag shows; transvestite, where dressing was part of a sexual experience; or transsexual, a person headed for a "sex change operation." 

This omits today's view of transgender/gender identity, which is different and more complex. Let's just say that being the 1980s, the Spinsters are doing drag as a put-on of the stereotype. Okay, drag does have more meaning to Vernon than he lets on ..... we still have another 1000 strips before Vernon recognizes it.

It's a lot to cover in a 4-panel comic strip!

(226) Murphy's Manor -- Hallowe'en Demons

Editors of local gay newspapers  -- especially bar guides  -- liked it when I gave them comic strips to celebrate holidays. Helps get the magazine in the holiday spirit. The bars,  advertising customers of the bar guides, liked it too, because they often held theme parties.

Hallowe'en was a special favorite gay holiday-- because it's so focused on parties and fancy dress. And because most Americans don't regard it as a religious holiday. I found an angle -r- by casting Jerry Falwell as a demon.

The downside for the cartoonist was the deadline. Date: October. Some of these bar guides were monthly, so the press deadline would be around September 1. That requires me to draw it in August!! I found these deadlines hard to remember -- who's got  Hallowe'en spirit in August?

The other holidays that sometimes inspired comic strip ideas were Christmas/New Year's  (of course) and Pride (late June, commemorating the Stonewall Riot.

I don't have to explain who Jerry Falwell was, do I?

(225) Murphy's Manor -- Boys on Parade

What could be finer in life than good looking, scantily clad young men strutting past your house for your edification, while you sit in judgment of masculine pulchritude? [Straights, LBTQ&c feel to substitute your own particular objects of lust]. For Duchess, all's right in the world.

This cartoon came out of an Old West End neighborhood festival. It's as gay a neighborhood as Toledo has. I remember weekend-long parties where gay partiers hung out on the front porch and cheered the passing boys.

What, did you think I made this stuff up? (Admittedly,  I  may occasionally exaggerate just a teeny).

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