RAUNCH HANDS
Lesbian sex comes to life in the funnies thanks to these inky-fingered women

by Pat Tong

Lesbian—or lesbian-friendly women—cartoonists drawing lesbian sex: these, gals, are the good old days. What luxury to have so many fabulous inky-fingered women churning out panels and pages of truth, justice, and the lesbian way, instead of weird male-generated porn. And how empowering, thanks to the internet, to have more options than comic stores, which still mostly cater to teenaged boys. At the risk of sounding like a cranky old coot: Back in the day, if you loved comics and you loved women, nearly all the territory from Heavy Metal to Archie’s Pals ’n Gals was a spiritual wasteland. Not that some of us might not have enjoyed a little 2 Hot Girls on a Hot Summer Night.

But I never could really get off on those Victoria’s Secret–type babes. The blank stares unnerved me. The tits...never seemed quite right. I just wasn’t comfortable with Monica being so completely interchangeable with Babette. The idea that sex with Monica might be exactly like sex with Babette went beyond boring to a little creepy.

There were—and are—some guys doing a bang-up job of drawing and writing real women, like the Hernandez brothers of Love and Rockets fame. And I still remember the thrill of discovering tough, quick-draw Billy the Kid was really Billy Jo in drag, searching for her Pa’s killer (All Star Western #6, DC Comics, 1971). Some guys come close, like Terry Moore, who gives us well-drawn and likeable women, but unfortunately feels the need to give us their measurements on the Strangers in Paradise website. And it’s not like a woman cartoonist can’t be maddeningly obscure or coy; was Hank of Brenda Starr a dyke or just a gutsy iconoclast with a thing for tartan?

But most often, when a woman is wielding the pen, Monica and Babette blink, emerge from the fog, and suddenly acquire quirks, foibles, emotions—otherwise known as personalities. Then there’s no confusing Monica with Babette. Nor is there any doubt that sex with
Mo(nica) from Dykes To Watch Out For would be the polar opposite of sex with Hothead Paisan (whose given name might or might not be Babette).

Comics are still largely the domain of the less fair sex. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles recently mounted an exhibition attempting to “establish a canon” of cartoon art, and there wasn’t a single woman on the walls. There’s a reason minorities flinch when they hear the word canon. My cartoon mind always pictures a cannon.

But whiners never prosper. Some women have always ignored the dominant paradigm and just gone ahead and created great cartoon art. And lil’ lesbians like myself have always been willing to brave inhospitable environs (have you ever been in an average comic book shop?) to find authentic—and, if very lucky, hot—images of women.

Our Foremothers
Mary Wings’ pioneering 1973 Come Out Comix’ sex appeal lies in its earnestness and earliness. The sex happens under covers, starry-eyed and sweet, and, near the climax of the tale, with our leaping heroine joyfully proclaiming her lesbianism. The patchouli and psychedelia are pervasive. In a time of sexism and rampant homophobia, it took some chutzpah to offer this up.

Roberta Gregory, another trailblazer (Dynamite Damsels, 1976), gets more graphic but is less eager to apply labels. From her early work for various gay and women’s underground comics to her more recent self-published Winging It, impatience with being misunderstood and misidentified is a frequent theme. There’s more than a little dialogue, angst, and self-explanation before, during, and after sex, be it between girls or girls and boys. You get both flavors in the three-part serial Artistic Licentiousness. Her most famous character, Bitchy Bitch (a.k.a. Midge McCracken, in the no longer published Naughty Bits), goes for the boys, and occasionally for their jugular veins. She runs amok on a regular basis—life is either in her face or biting her on the ass. This woman is over self-explanation. Her lesbian counterpart, Bitchy Butch, is more likely to be mistaken for a man or otherwise irritated by the women she encounters than cruised by them. Naughty Bits comics are short on orgasms (although Bitch does nicely for herself with the help of the microwave, assorted veggies, and mechanical aids) but long on cathartic fire breathing.

Other women riffing on lesbian themes during the seventies through the nineties were such greats as Jennifer Camper, Trina Robbins, Lee Marrs, Joan Hilty, Phoebe Gloeckner, the late Kris Kovick, and Leslie Ewing. There were many relatively lesser-known creators as well: T.O. Sylvester (a.k.a. Sylvia Mollick and Terry Ryan), Jacki Randall, Karen Platt, Anina Bennett, Julie Franki, Cheela Smith, Beck Main, Lucy Clare Byatt, Rhonda Dicksion, Noreen Stevens, Catherine Doherty. A lot of this work was published in Tits ’n Clits, Wimmen’s Comix, and Gay Comix, or in Dykes’s Delight from the U.K. Some were included in gay and mainstream magazines and newspapers. Some of this work was mildly sexual and some was wildly explicit. Most of it was full of attitude. Some artists even made it into paperback books, like N. Leigh Dunlap’s breezy Morgan Calabresé collections, or Andrea Natalie’s Stonewall Riots collections. If New Yorker cartoons were a little racier and had anything to do with our lives, or if Gary Larson cartoons were just a little pervy, you’d have an Andrea Natalie cartoon. Who knew Ms. Potato Head came with that extra special attachment?

Our Veterans
Often a woman contributed to one issue of Gay Comix or some other periodical and then disappeared off the radar screen (without even collecting royalty checks, in at least one case), but many have persevered and are creating lesbian images today. Alison Bechdel’s Dykes To Watch Out For has been reflecting lesbian experience with insight, heart, and incredible talent since 1983. Some say that Bechdel doesn’t do sex in the strip. It’s true that there are never tight close-ups of genitalia, but the cast of DTWOF lick nipples, toes, and clitorises with the best, inserting fingers and sundry other delights with abandon. And not just under a nice down comforter, either. There’s the floor, the living room futon, an office chair, the library stacks—and Lois has even had her (rubber) dick sucked by a sexy FTM mechanic while pinned against a VW bug in a greasy garage. No sex, my butt plug! Bechdel is self-syndicated and appears in numerous publications, as well as online and in several paperback collections.

Jennifer Camper has been mincing penises, not words, since forever. In 1980 her first strip, Cookie Jones, Lesbian Detective, appeared in Gay Community News; that’s a long time to keep your game face on, but she’s pretty remarkable. She excels at twirling paradigms and creating opposite realities in order to drive home a point. Good examples are “If Men Got Pregnant” and “Heterosexuals in the Military.” She’s got a collection of cartoons called Rude Girls and Dangerous Women and an apocalyptic, surreal graphic novel, subGURLZ, about three variously super-powered women living together in derelict subway tunnels. She’s straight-ahead X-rated with the sex and her sweet-faced heroines are often just as forceful in their dealings with men as Hothead Paisan on a very, very bad day.

And speaking of Hothead, Diane DiMassa’s homicidal heroine is so lustily busy righting the wrongs of the world that she seldom pauses to enjoy plain old lust. Occasionally she does tumble—rowdily, as you would expect. One raucous tryst/chase/wrestling match happens all over the neighborhood and finally all around Hothead’s apartment, causing her cat, Chicken, to leave in disgust. There is an interesting romance with (I’m assuming) an MTF charmer named Daphne. I can only wonder if Hothead’s brashness with her is beguiling or offensive to a trans audience. Check out her huge (428 pages!) compilation called The Complete Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist.

Leanne Franson draws very cute characters having sex that sometimes makes me wince. No matter how lovingly cradled in the palm of a hand, a knife inserted into a vagina just brings out the “don’t try this at home, kids” reflex in me. Her strips are wry and very honest examinations of lesbian manners, societal hypocrisy, love, loss, and relationships. They’re often very funny and sometimes poignant. Her Liliane, Bi-Dyke mini comics, which she started drawing in 1992, have been collected into two volumes: Assume Nothing and Teaching Through Trauma. Her day job is children’s book illustration. She does a daily Liliane comic online (see below).

Joan Hilty is currently doing a strip called Bitter Girl about urban lesbianhood, available online (see below). She sold her first cartoon to Lesbian Connection in 1990 and afterward popped up regularly in publications like Gay Comix, Real Girl, Wimmen’s Comix, the Advocate, and the Village Voice before becoming an editor at DC Comics; she is now in charge of the Powerpuff Girls and other features in DC’s Kids’ Line.

Our Future
Women are creating all kinds of lesbian comix/comics, and you can access a lot of them, no matter where you are, if you’re connected to the internet. Some women are publishing exclusively online (like Justine Shaw, who draws Nowhere Girl), some are doing print and web (like Alison Bechdel and Leanne Franson), and at the very least, you can use the net to read all about your favorite artists, discover new ones, and find out where to send your check or money order for a book, mini comic, or imprinted underwear. You can even still order a copy of Roberta Gregory’s vintage Dynamite Damsels (until she empties that last boxful, anyway)!

Some of the relatively newer artists depicting the lesbian universe are Paige Braddock, who does Jane’s World, a jauntily drawn slice-of-life ramble about a group of friends, some gay, some straight, some canine. The car windows don’t get completely steamed up, just a little foggy. Ditto with Kris Dresen, who draws gorgeously and specializes more in poignancy than in pornography.

You’d think with a title like XXX Live Nude Girls, you’d have some pornography thrown in, but Laurenn McCubbin and Nikki Coffman’s creations are more like art books: spare, taut, short stories with beautiful, painterly illustrations, full of girls making dubious life choices.

And while we’re on the subject of dubious life choices, we have Ariel Schrag’s sometimes harrowing accounts of her high school years in Berkeley. In Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise (serialized and still in progress), she obsessively details every crush, toke, biology exam, high, and low she experienced. When I wasn’t cringing and wondering where her parents were, I was touched by her insatiable zest for life and experience or empathizing with her terrible disappointments in love. Her graphic style veers from very crudely cartoony to quasi-photographic wash drawing. Often the cue for a sex or dream sequence is this stylistic change, with these scenes rendered in the latter style. She is published by Slave Labor Graphics.

Elizabeth Watasin’s Charm School is about Bunny, “The Good Lil’ Teen Witch,” and her drag-racing butch vampire girlfriend, Dean. It becomes a triangle with the addition of a voluptuous faerie, Fairer Than. This is a campy little fantasy world on amphetamines. It’s endearing and flirty, just hugs and kisses (and one vampire hickey), but it has the over-the-top histrionics of a good Shangri-las’ song like “Leader of the Pack,” complete with sound effects.

Colleen Coover’s work is a magical mix of smut and cuteness. This is adorable pornography— spirited, fun, positive toward sex, sexuality, women, lesbianism. Up with pretty girls! Up with vibrating dildos! Yay!

So if you happen to live near a pretty hip establishment like Comic Relief in Berkeley, go there and ask for the lesbian stuff. But no matter where you are, you no longer have to depend on a store carrying— or the staff knowing about—comic art that’s relevant to you. Get on the internet and you will find something validating, titillating, happy-making. I promise.

Searching for Strippers

CARTOONISTS ONLINE Donna Barr www.stinz.com Alison Bechdel Dykes to Watch Out For www.dykestowatchoutfor.com Paige Braddock Jane’s World www.janesworldcomics.com M.K. Brown Surrealist cartoons www.benway.com/mkbrown Jennifer Camper Comics include subGURLZ, Rude Girls and Dangerous Women www.jennifercamper.com Colleen Coover Comics include Small Favors colleencoover.livejournal.com Diane Dimassa Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist www.hotheadpaisan.com Kris Dresen Comics include Max and Lily and illustrations for Manya www.krisdresen.com Jamaica Dyer Comics include Echoes in the Ashes www.jamaicad.com Leanne Franson Liliane: Bi-Dyke liliane.keenspace.com Phoebe Gloeckner Graphic novels include The Diary of a Teenage Girl and A Child’s Life and Other Stories www.ravenblond.com/pgloeckner Devin Grayson Writer for mainstream superhero comics including Batman, X-Men, and Nightwing www.devingrayson.com Diana Green Tranny Towers and Ink Tantrums prismcomics.org/profile.php?id=262 Roberta Gregory Comics include Bitchy Bitch, Sheila and the Unicorn, Winging It, and Naughty Bits www.robertagregory.com Joan Hilty Bitter Girll www.joanhilty.com Gina Kamentsky T-Gina www.t-gina.com Erika Lopez Books include Hoochie Mama: The Other White Meat and Flaming Iguanas www.erikalopez.com Lee Marrs Comics include Wimmen’s Comix www.leemarrs.com Laurenn McCubbin XXXLiveNudeGirls www.laurennmccubbin.com Dylan Meconis Web comic Bite Me! Available at girlamatic.com www.projectkooky.com/dylan Erika Moen Barefoot and Pregnant www.projectkooky.com/erika Tintin Pantoja Comics include Seven Plains www.mentaltentacle.com Hilary Price Rhymes With Orange www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/orange/about.htm Mikhaela B. Reid The Boiling Point www.mikhaela.net Rivkah Steady Beat (manga) Available at www.tokyopop.com Ariel Schrag Previews and purchasing information for Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise available online www.slavelabor.com Justine Shaw Nowhere Girll www.nowheregirl.com Elizabeth Watasin Comics includeCharm School and Adventures of A-Girll www.a-girlstudio.com Kathryn Williams Manga comics including Shadowlander’s Dream www.KatAndNekoManga.ca OTHER RESOURCES Artbomb.net Resource for graphic novels and online comics www.artbomb.net Comic Relief Comic book store in Berkeley, California www.comicrelief.net Gays and Comics Forum “A comics forum for queer comics fans and their straight sympathizer friends!” forums.delphiforums.com/gaycomics The Gay Comics List News and reviews gaycomicslist.free.fr/pages/welcome.php Gay League “The FAN Site for Gay Comic Readers and Creators” www.gayleague.com GirlAMatic Free and paid subscription web comics, mostly by women girlamatic.com Global Hobo Hand-made and hard-to-find comics www.hobocomics.com HOMni Comics Compendium of LGBT-friendly comics www.geocities.com/homni_ca/comics.html Lambiek Searchable, illustrated comiclopedia with entries on thousands of international cartoonists www.lambiek.net PlanetOut Archives comics including Dykes to Watch Out For and Bitter Girll www.planetout.com/entertainment/comics/ Prism Comics A nonprofit organization promoting LGBT comics www.prismcomics.org Sequential Tart Web zine about women in the comics industry www.sequentialtart.com Superfag Radio Blog-style radio concentrating on LGBT comics www.superfag.net Yuricon Lesbian anime and manga www.yuricon.org

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