It occurs to me that after all these years Murf remains a pretty queer comic strip. I have been accused of being a traditional cartoonist, but put this strip next to "Hagar the Horrible" or "Zits." If there's a similarity in approach, it makes Murf seem all the queerer. Come to that, "Beetle Baily" might be improved by a strip or two about masturbation.
In which Jeff gets a date with his beloved Mister Clem the Hairstylist, and learns that everything is political. From the beginning, may help set the tone at Murphy's Manor.
Meg enters the strip, bringing high explosives to the opera. Pure heaven!
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Here's one significant cultural change in the GLBT (excuse me, LGBT) community in my lifetime. The ability to work together. When I came out, the community was absolutely --at least in Toledo -- segregated by gender.
The word I heard from the Wymyn's community: men not welcome. Not that I really wanted to attend a Wymyn's Dance anyway.
Men ran the gay rights group --Personal Rights, PRO. Its stated policy was that men and women were equally welcome at Pro Toledo . The reality was that it was nearly all men. Perhaps because of a somewhat cruisy atmosphere in the social periods with lots of sexually charged banter and small talk. At least this is what we heard from the women who did not participate.
We've come a long way since then. Due in part to dropping the gender barrier.
Does anybody use the term "Wymyn's" anymore?
I've always said that Sid Jacobs was based on Toledo's Jan Suter. This strip illustrates it. And it's an exercise in self-censorship'.
Perhaps half a dozen people who knew Jan will read this post. We recall how open Jan was about his sex life; he noted that it pays to advertise. If he cared what other people thought about him, he knew how not to let it bother him. I on the other hand, was a freelance cartoonist who was trying to keep editors happy. That required that I not be too explicit about sex. Yes, gay bar newspapers had their limits, and Murf lost more than one subscriber who thought my cartoons too racy. I thought they were no more explicit than "Three's Company."
Jan also viewed life as a series of virginities to be lost. This became a joke. "I lost my Ring Cycle virginity when I was seventeen," he might say.
He also likened publicly acknowledging one's interest in S&M to coming out for a second time. Again, it pays to advertise. He socialized with a Midwest group called FFA. I'll give you a clue. These boys were not Future Farmers of America. And "FF" does not stand for French fries.
Here's where my self-censorship came in. In the comic strip below, where it says "leather" substitute "S&M." At the time it seemed generally assumed that leather meant S&M 75% of the time, so leather could be understood by the readers as code for S&M. Today I don't know readers would make that presumption.
Oh, Sid and the woman have just finished an opera performance. Hence the costumes.
This strip is a relic of the end of my bachelor days. I always felt ill-at-ease in bars, gay or otherwise. I never met anybody at a bar, never had a conversation with a stranger. If I went to a bar with a group of friends, it was okay -- although I didn't mix outside my group. Not because I was snooty, just very defensive with people I didn't know. Yes, I knew by body language and lack of eye contact were probably why I never met anybody. Take this strip as self-parody as much as a poke at gay barflies.
About the time of this strip, I met John. (Not at a bar)
Jeff doesn't know how to use the Yellow Pages, but understands exactly where Clem would go to cruise!
This is a continuation of the story of Jeff and Clem, in which Jeff falls in love with a hair stylist. That's all you need to know about the plot.
Yes, the storyline is going on concurrently with effective cruising.
In the entire run of the comic strip this is the only time Jeff ever has a steady boyfriend.
