Indie Comics Publishers, Creators, Bi, Queer Characters

This is an edited copy of my transcript and images I used for the talk I gave to the Bi Arts Festival on June 18, 2020 about independent publishers having a renaissance, opening up new opportunities for creators to tell more personal visions and often create bi or queer creations. 

The Creating Worlds Panel is archived online here. I am at the 46-minute mark. 

In an independent publisher renaissance for comic books and graphic novels, artists and authors can tell more personal visions and sometimes make bi and queer creations.

A lot of this started with Allison Bechdel, who paved the way for so many queer creators with Fun Home. She wrote about growing up in the funeral home family business, realizing she was queer, how she had OCD, how her father was closeted and may or may not have committed suicide. But I will show you my favourites.

In decades past, creators used to start in the indies with the ambition of breaking into the Big Two, Marvel and DC. Not so anymore.

John Siuntres has hosted Word Balloon, the Chicago comic-book podcast Chicago, for 15 years.

“For years the pinnacle of a comic book career was to get hired by DC or Marvel Comics and make superhero stories,” Siuntres said.

“Today it's a mid-career stop to make a big audience aware of your name and work, then take them with [you] to read and support [your] creator-owned comics.”

“Robert Kirkman did this by getting exposure while writing Marvel comics including a popular mini-series called Marvel Zombies, then creating the Walking Dead, which has become a pop-culture game changer.”

But you might not know about a lot of the independent publishers because you have to find them in a crowded market.

Marvel and DC are flooding the direct-market comic shops with books, overcrowding the shelves.

Single-issue sales are also down. It is hard to make money with them. Trade paperback sales are up; trades usually collect at least five issues of a comic. They are more economical and spine better on the bookshelf.

Superhero comics sales have been slipping for years. Marvel and DC want to hold onto older fans and woo new fans. About every five years, the Big Two revitalize their characters by reframing and modernizing their origins, usually in an event storyline spanning many titles in order to boost sales.

Danica LeBlanc, co-owner of Edmonton’s Variant Edition Comics, said it is a renaissance of independent publishers for customers and readers - but not for retailers. So the sales aren’t there and the big companies could be headed for trouble unless they streamline, particularly in this pandemic.

During the late 1960’s, the heyday of comic-book sales for Marvel and DC, the Big Two accounted for about 95 % of comic book sales in North America. For an exceptional and insightful rundown of the history of this legendary comics-industry rivalry, see Reed Tucker's Inside the Epic, 50-year Battle between Marvel and DC. For a focus on Marvel,  with the necessary contextual allusions to DC Comics, I strongly recommend Sean Howe's Marvel Comics The Untold Story. In fact, I consider these two well-researched and fascinating books companion volumes. They're must-reading for any curious comic-book aficionado who wants to brush up on their industry history.

As of 2017, their share was closer to 65. Nowadays, independent publisher,  kid-oriented fare and Japanese (or Japanese-inspired) Manga, account for the remaining 35 %.

An independent comic book publisher is viewed as being smaller and free of editorial constraints that come with preserving the value of an established brand. It also worked as a marketing brand. Labeling a comic publisher as an “Indie” differentiated it as David from the Goliaths of Marvel and DC.

Independent publishers offer many advantages by encouraging original creator-owned books.

For artists and editors, this means a lot more freedom.

Artists do not have to worry about renewing copyright on a character such as Spider-Man, who must remain alive so the copyright remains active.

They can kill their characters.

They can tell stories with a beginning, middle and end.

They can be more personal.

Creators can tell stories with non-cookie-cutter heroes- heroes of colour, queer heroes, trans heroes, bi heroes. Here are examples of these characters, and publishers.

Artist Sanford Greene and writers David F. Walker and Chuck M. Brown are part of the all-black or African-American creative team behind Bitter Root. The premise is that the Sangerye Family holds a longstanding tradition of fighting monsters, monsters fuelled by hate, and it’s set in the Harlem Renaissance.

It is no surprise that this monthly series is now selling out, given the current political climate in the U.S. They take up arms and fight in the street and are clearly the protagonists in this dynamic. The Red Summer Special occurs during the Tulsa race massacre.

Bitter Root is published by Image Comics.

Image was founded in 1992 by a group of young, disgruntled male artists including Todd McFarlane, who left Marvel Comics to start their own company. It’s bigger now, but arguably still retains an indie spirit. About half of what they produce is quite good, and usually creator-owned.

SFSX #3 cover by Alejandra Gutierrez.

Image publishes a monthly called SFSX written by former sex worker Tina Horn and drawn by Jen Hickman. In this dystopic future, all sensual pleasure is outlawed or regulated. SFSX features sex of all LGBTQ+ flavours, non-monogamy polyamory and topical essays in the back of each issue.

Tina Horn’s story “Barrier” with artist Jen Hickman appears in Theater of Terror: Revenge of the Queers! from Northwest Press.

Edited by William O. Tyler and Justin Hall, Theatre is a wonderful queer grind-house/Tales from the Crypt-style horror anthology featuring a frightful cover by gay artist Phil Jimenez - perhaps best known for his Wonder Woman and The Invisibles work.

Robyn Adam’s story “Dead Name No More!” features Lorelei Fontaine, transgender ghost hunter!  I really hope to see more of her.

Northwest Press, in Seattle, was founded in 2010 by comics writer and LGBT comics activist Charles “Zan” Christensen, and is dedicated to publishing the best comics collections and graphic novels and celebrating the LGBT comics community.

 

Anything That Loves a bi-focused anthology from Northwest Press, which won the Bisexual Book Award for Bisexual Non-Fiction and for Bisexual Biography/Memoir in 2014.

Fantagraphics Books, another remarkable indie, started in 1976.  

Perhaps the most remarkable series to come out of Fantagraphics is Love and Rockets created by the Hernandez brothers, Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario in 1981.

Comics creator Justin Hall says, “Arguably the most important bisexual in comics is Maggie from ... Love and Rockets.”

 Maggie and Hopey are the Latin-American heroes and sometimes lovers in this legendary series, set in the 1980’s punk scene.

 

A mainstream comics writer of note is Greg Rucka, who co-created Batwoman, an openly gay heroin, now with her own T.V. show.

Gorgeous postmodern panels and artwork by J. H. Williams III.

Here she is with her beau at the time, Maggie Sawyer head of the Special Crimes Unit, Gotham PD. Sawyer is one of my early favourites. She was originally introduced as a supporting character in the Superman title in 1987 as Captain Sawyer, of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit.

Rucka also wrote the hell out of Detective Renee Montoya, also openly queer. The character was created preemptively by Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and Mitch Brian for Batman: The Animated Series before it debuted in 1992.

Pencils by Michael Lark. 

Montoya was outed against her will in the Line of Duty story line in the gritty Gotham Central, which focused on the cop characters and back-grounded the superheros or 'capes'. She soon resigned from the force, disgusted by the rampant corruption. 

Pencils by Mike Perkins. 

But while Renee was down, and outed, she was certainly not out. She eventually became the beloved legacy character, the Question, a gumshoe detective into Zen Buddhism and martial arts. Here, Montoya (aka the Question) appears in the current Lois Lane title, issue #1.

Rucka created Dex Parios, a P.I. in the Stumptown series set in Portland, Oregon, now an ABC show. Parios is a funny, quirky hellraiser and the show has successfully captured the feel of the book.

 

Parios is openly bi. The comic, Rucka admitted, is a direct descendant of The Rockford Files.

 

Stumptown is published by Oni Press, another independent publisher based in Portland, since 1997.

In British writer Alan Moore’s 12-issue Providence, from Avatar Press, Moore posits that a queer, male, Jewish protagonist confronts H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos.

Pencils for both covers by the amazing Jacen Burrows. 

In doing so, Moore subverts the xenophobic, racist and homophobic beliefs of Lovecraft. All of the mythos is explored, with lushly detailed artwork by Jacen Burrows and the scrutinizing eye for detail for which Moore is comic-book famous.

There are many great indies out there including. But I can't mention indies without giving a shout-out to the Canadian Drawn & Quarterly, founded in 1989 by Chris Oliveros in Montreal. It has published a long list 0f oustanding comics creators, including Lynda Barry, Daniel Clowes, Seth, Chris Ware, Kate Beaton, Joe Ollman and an international roster. They do beautiful creator-owned books and I'm proud Drawn & Quartely is a fine Canuck indie.

The big houses are doing some interesting things, but they often can’t compete with the originality of the indies.

John Constantine is the openly bi street mage in Hellblazer. The current creative team, writer Simon Spurrier and artists Aaron Campbell (Campbell's panel below) and Matias Bergara, are giving him a fantastic treatment. Here the bounder wistfully recalls a deaf fellow he dated in the 1990's.

Constantine with another beau, post New 52, a re-configuring of DC's characters.

Riley Rossmo and Vaness Del Rey and  various artists
penciled the Going Down story arc.

The Immortal Hulk features a trans scientist character. Dr. Charlene McGowan, who recently came out in issue # 32 as trans. She gave a speech about self-identity. Immortal Hulk writer Al Ewing is doing remarkable things, here, including describing Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in the Hulk/Bruce Banner character himself. So the book's protagonist is struggling with a mental illness, while the trans character is well-balanced.

Pencils by the ever-talented Joe Bennett.

Charlene is not the first trans character in mainstream comics, however. No Mercy, writer Alex de Campi's and artist Carla Speed McNeil's 2015 Image Comics series, featured a mainstream trans character. The protagonist is Charlene and, as of issue # 9, they are Sebastien.

In issue # 9, de Campi dares to examine troubled teen programs, brutal aversion therapy camps designed to traumatize and brutalize kids into acting good and straight. 

I wonder if Al Ewing is giving Alex de Campi a nod in using the name Charlene for his supporting character as well.  Ewing's Charlene is female, while de Campi's is male. In No Mercy, Charlene is Sebastien's dead name or given name, even though he knows he is in the wrong body.

No Mercy concerns a group of Princeton-bound teens going to a remote part of Central America who experience a horrible accident that changes everything. Think Lord of the Flies meets Battle Royale meets William Friedkin's Sorcerer. 

Disclaimer: I like everything U.S. comics writer Alex de Campi does in comics - sci-fi, horror, grindhouse, fantasy, thriller and drama. Lately I like No Mercy. de Campi's work is particularly important in a business often criticized as cis-male dominated.

The first trans comic character credit goes to Rachel Pollack (an openly trans writer and Just Hall’s writing mentor). Pollack created the trans superheroine Coagula in the pages of Doom Patrol way back in 1993. 

According to Hall, ”It was one of the only times that the mainstream was actually ahead of the indies, as it wasn't until 1995 that Diana Green created Tranny Towers, the first openly trans series (though I date the first openly trans comics story by an out trans writer as I'm Me by David Kottler from Gay Comix #3 in 1983). "

Also, Neil Gaiman's character Wanda from the A Game of You storyline in Sandman also pre-dates No Mercy.

The Incredible Hulk, under the tenure of fan-favorite writer Peter David, featured other queer characters. These include Hector of the Pantheon super-team. 

Jim Wilson, a longtime sidekick, whose sexuality identity was not made clear, contracted HIV/AIDs and died from AIDs-related complications back in 1994 when no one had tackled the topic in mainstream comics.

Cover by Gary Frank. 

Here the good trans Dr. McGowan is objectifying Doc Samson. Doc has been a recurring secondary character since The Incredible Hulk # 141 (vol. 2) in 1971. It is amusing, then, to see Charlene cruising such a longstanding, musclebound, and intellectual, character.

Thank you for all listening to me talk about my passion today. 

There are so many indie publishers out there. If I have encouraged one of you to go out and pick up a book and discover a passion for yourself, I will feel like I have done my job.