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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Comics that Get Stuff Right

So in the comments for "Why I Don't Like 'Gender Bending' in Fiction" people seem interested in reading comics with a transgender slant/storyline.

I thought I'd let ya'll know about another one that I do like quite a bit. It's called Khaos Komic.
It's the intertwined stories of a bunch of high school students. Told from the point of view of each of the characters one at a time.

Some problems up front: it is very "couple" focused, which is to say that all of the storylines are about people finding that the person they like likes them as well, and the subsequent twists and turns of their budding relationships. It's also a litle tokeny, as in there is one cis gay boy couple storyline, one cis lesbian couple storyline, right one trans/cis gay boy storyline, and (as far as I can tell) one upcoming cis/trans straight couple. However, that is already a cast of at least eight main characters, so it can be hard to not have character overload in this set up if one were to try to make them less tokeny.

In the positive categories: it deals with many of the difficulties and frustrations of being gay or trans in a sympathetic and I'd say non-cliched/accurate way, and it has a a cast of main characters that is multi-ethnic (however the cast is all very currently abled, skinny, and I don't see class being dealt with either). Also, I have a character crush on Tom, the trans guy (mmm, piercings and tattoos!).

So, a comic that I really like that has gay and trans themes! Drop more comic or story links in the comments!

5 comments:

  1. Umlaut House(http://www.maskedretriever.com/comics.html) is a good webcomic overall and has a IMHO well handled Trans charter but zie’s not a member of the core cast.
    I haven’t really read these ones yet, but they have reasonably good reviews and have many GLBT characters with a nice focus on the T.
    www.transe-generation.com
    http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/
    http://betweenthelines.sosdg.org/
    http://www.jadegordon.com/leanonme/

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  2. I make a comic called Lucky Lottery (www.luckycomic.net) that focuses on the hillariously(?) turbulent relationship between two guys. The comic is T-friendly but I hesitate to say that since there's not much in the way of T-related goings on. There's one character who's been through her transition for years, so she's not treated any differently from any other woman, outside of a one-off gag that reveals a hint of her past.

    I'd also like to wholeheartedly recommend Mr. Normal (www.mrnormal.com) and Magical Transvestite Cherry (www.footloosecomic.com/cherry/cherry.php). Great, funny comics!

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  3. this site has some good links
    http://www.dolari.org/dor/links.htm

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  4. The webcomic section for these two pages is may be useful(warning http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife ):
    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CastFullOfGay
    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsBi
    Also, a fairly new comic that may get good http://www.riotnrrdcomics.com/?p=101
    This last one is mostly just me using a teeny bit of queer stuff to support a webcomic I love, but
    DMFA http://www.missmab.com/
    I think it does a pretty good job of being a non LGBT comic that still acknowledges our existence in a fairly respectful way. It has a gay character, asexual character and the supplemental stuff includes some nice detail about in universe trans issues. For example WoG explicitly states that bathroom wards work based the gender you consider yourself to be a member of rather than you assigned or physical gender, which isn’t much but’s still nice.

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  5. I wasn't sure if you knew, but the writer of Khaos is trans and his partner is male, which I would assume helps with accuracy. Also Tom? SO FRIGGIN HOT. :-D

    My ex has two webcomics that are lesbian themed (Yu+Me: dream & I Was Kidnapped By Lesbians From Outer Space) and wrote an article on how to write gay characters that got a lot of responses and attention (I think it was the third most read under its category for awhile). While there are currently no trans characters in her works, I know she would 1) like to eventually write some and 2) is attempting to write an article for how to write trans characters. She set up a forum for trans people to write about what they'd like to see, what would like to never see again, etc.

    You can find it here: http://writingtrans.omgforum.net/

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