When it comes to the representation of queer issues in comics, Alison Bechdel, active since the early 1980s, is certainly among the pioneers. Lesbians to follow (Not even bad, volumes 1 and 2, 2016 and 2018) until Secret of superhuman strength (Points, 2024) through the essentials Fun Home (Points, 2022) and Are you my mom? (Points, 2022), the American’s autofictional universe is both psychoanalytical and political, as erudite as it is hilarious.
In 1995, with an intersectional comic ahead of its time entitled Stuck Rubber Baby (Casterman, 2021), Howard Cruse addressed homophobia and racism in 1960s America in a very moving way. At that time, manga of the type yaoi And yurithat is, centered on sentimental or sexual relationships between characters of the same gender, entered into global popular culture.
Since 1996, Frenchman Fabrice Neaud has been engaged in a vast autobiographical enterprise, notably with his four-volume diary (Delcourt, 2022), a fresco that takes us into the intimacy of a provincial homosexual, a daily life where desire and alienation, recognition and self-denigration, introspection and activism are intertwined. “He manages to create images that are likely to speak to everyone,” says Jean-Dominic Leduc, a cultural mediator in comics. By starting from something very personal, marginal some would say, Neaud manages to touch the universal: that’s the mark of the greats!”
Over the last two decades, addressing adults, but also adolescents, queer comics have explored multiple avenues, from autobiography to fantasy, from romanticism to science fiction, from historical to superheroes, from documentary to eroticism. With What I like are monsters. (Alto, 2018), Emil Ferris has given birth to a masterpiece, an object that demonstrates mastery in both form and content. The second volume has just been published in English: let’s keep our fingers crossed that Alto will publish the French version as soon as possible.
In Quebec, we must mention Obom (I like girlsOie de Cravan, 2014), Mirion Malle (This is how I disappearPow Pow, 2020), Sophie Labelle (Assigned boyDandelion, 2022) and Julie Delporte (Living bodyPow Pow, 2022). In this list, Leduc also wants to include the names of Axelle Lenoir (Secret passages. Trompe-l’oeilPow Pow, 2023) and Dimani Mathieu Cassendo (The little suckerBerBer 13-13, 2016). “We must not forget the fanzine,” adds the specialist enthusiastically. “The zine is the place where all possibilities are possible. In these self-published works, with limited print runs, queer, feminist and anti-racist issues have always found a precious space.”
In recent years, we have seen the range of topics covered expand. Among the comics artists who will deal with transidentity and intersexuality, but also asexuality and aromanticism, let us mention Maia Kobabe (whose Queer genderpublished by Casterman, was censored in the libraries of some American schools in 2021), Quentin Zuttion, Jul Maroh, Alice Oseman, Hubert and Emma Grove (who recounts her gender transition in The third persona funny and poignant book which has just been published in French by Delcourt).
Attentive observer, and in particular collaborator at Montreal JournalL and to the review The BooksellersJean-Dominc Leduc speaks of the current era as a prosperous period for queer comics. “We don’t have enough perspective to say with certainty, but there is certainly an unprecedented openness, an unparalleled profusion and plurality. I sense a real movement, something embodied, which goes beyond the fad or commercial opportunism.”
Our gourmet events
★★★
Gengoroh Tagame, Akata, Rancon, 2024, 188 pages
Sensitive Strings Diary of my 17 years
★★★★
Marguerite Boulanger, Les Arènes, Paris, 2024, 168 pages
Alan Turing
★★★1/2
Aleksi Cavaillez (drawing) and Maxence Collin and François Rivière (screenplay), Casterman, Paris, 2024, 264 pages
Ladybug Looking for the woman
★★1/2
Luca Conca (drawing) and Gloria Ciapponi (screenplay), Boîte à bulles, Saint-Avertin, 2024, 144 pages