Being new to Toledo, having come out relatively recently, and being a fledgling classical music/opera fan, it seemed to me in 1982 that the stereotype of gay men as opera queens had some truth. Today I would not assume this level of interest in opera of readers because they were gay. Sid was modeled on Jan Suter, who was an avid opera fan. His idea of a hedonistic retreat was to spend the weekend in bed listening to the Ring straight through.
Murf, always articulate, quick with a turn of phrase. Just like *koff koff* me
Gay engineering differential calculus jokes. Let's see "Zits" top that
Forgive my jumping ahead so many years in comic strips, but this is so timely there's nothing but to do it.
You probably didn't know that the late Justice Antonin Scalia once wrote a Murphy's Manor comic strip.
Of course he didn't know that's what he was doing at the time.
I didn't exactly ask his permission.
And I never shared with him the bountiful royalties I realized out of his golden words.
In pace requiescat, his molestation of the Latin language and all.
Here's something that hasn't changed. Gay literature splits into camps of tacky (raunchy) or PC, and "Either type will bore or offend somebody."
Too true of cartoons in general. Hey, maybe if I try hard enough I can do both at the same time!
On the whole I have probably worried too much about giving offense in trying to make everybody happy with my cartoons. Result: it avoids offense but takes the bite out of cartoons. It's how we get comic strips like the Family Circus. O a private buffoon is a lighthearted loon if you listen to popular rumor…
Poppers - now there's a subject matter you don't see in mainstream comics. I'd call this a distant blast from the past --- but I gather they still exist, and still fly under the radar of public attention. In their day, they were a fixture in gay culture. Jerry Mills even named his comic strip after them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Mills Note the reference to the hepatitis vaccine. Much, much more to come about that--and what followed it!
Political power or hot sex. Hot sex or political power?? If you were given a choice, which would you take? Hmmm ...
