Gay Comics

The first four issues were edited by Cruse; issues #5 through #13 were edited by Triptow. Andy Mangels edited issues #14 to #25 and a special issue featuring Barela; Mangels changed the title to Gay Comics starting with issue #15, in part to divest it of the "underground" implications of "comix".

The idea for Gay Comix came from Denis Kitchen, a publisher of underground comics through the company he founded, Kitchen Sink Press. In 1979, after realizing underground cartoonist Howard Cruse was gay, Kitchen asked him to edit an anthology of gay comic artists. The two had worked together previously; Cruse’s comic Barefootz was published through Kitchen Sink Press.[4] A call was put out for artists through comics magazine Cascade Comix Monthly. Gay Comix aimed to get the gay and lesbian contributors to write about things that had happened to them, and experiences they had had. Originally Cruse had reservations about editing the anthology. “He [Cruse] had never publicly, in print, declared he was gay…he thought coming out would only add to his woes.” Cruse decided that “it would be cowardly” to decline the editor position for these reasons.

Cruse recognized that gay people were viewed as caricatures by most of the world, and wanted to publish comics that showed the humanity and normal side of lesbian and gay people. Gay Comix featured the work of primarily gay and lesbian cartoonists. In an editor’s note in Gay Comix #4 Cruse put out a call for more women to submit to the magazine, saying, “After all, the personal style of comic book storytelling in Gay Comix was pioneered by the women who put together Wimmen’s Comix when underground commix were young.” While it sometimes had suggestive or sexual comics, Gay Comix was not a pornographic comic series. Cruse apparently even expressed hope that he wouldn’t be submitted comics that focused heavily on genitals.