Synopsis
The dream of a queer separatist town. The life of a gay Jewish Nazi-fighter. A gender reveal party that tears apart reality. These are the just some of the comics you’ll find in this massive queer comics anthology from The Nib.
Be Gay, Do Comics is filled with dozens of comics about LGBTQIA experiences, ranging from personal stories to queer history to cutting satire about pronoun panic and brands desperate to co-opt pride.
Brimming with resilience, inspiration, and humor, an incredible lineup of top indie cartoonists takes you from the American Revolution through Stonewall to today’s fights for equality and representation.
From: IDW Publishing
Notes on This Title
This title is an anthology of comics previously published on The Nib. It contains the following comics:
- “The Final Reveal” by Joey Alison Sayers
- “Gender Bent” by Kendra Wells
- “Brands Love Pride” by Matt Lubchansky
- “Eight Queens” by Sasha Velour
- “Astrological Signs As Classic Queer Haircuts” by Shelby Criswell
- “The Life of Gad Beck: Gay. Jewish. Nazi Fighter.” by Levi Hastings and Dorian Alexander
- “Puerto Rico’s LGBT Community is Ready to Kick the Door Down” by Rosa Colón Guerra
- “I Came Out Late in Life and That’s Okay” by Alison Wilgus
- “Queer Uprisings Before Stonewall” by Hazel Newlevant
- “Visibility Has Its Rewards” by Binglin Hu, Scout Tran, Matt Lubchansky, Sage Coffey, Dylan Edwards and Sfé R. Monster
- “The Undercut” by Shing Yin Khor
- “How Do You Translate Non-Binary” by Breena Nuñez
- “Queerativity!” by Taneka Stotts and Ria Martinez
- “Seeing Others” by Delta Vasquez
- “Queerness Has Always Been Part of Life in the Middle East” by anonymous
- “Dancing with Pride” by Maia Kobabe
- “Gender Isn’t Binary and Neither is Anatomy” by Sarah Mirk and Archie Bongiovanni
- “Pronoun Panic” by Kendra Wells
- “Just Another Day at the Newspaper” by Matt Lubchansky
- “I’d be an Okay Mom” by Joey Alison Sayers
- “Just a Joke: Where Alt-Right Guys Get Their Start” by Sage Coffey
- “The Dream of a Gay Separatist Town” by Archie Bongiovanni
- “Am I Queer Enough?” by Jason Michaels and Mady G
- “Freedom, Joy and Power: The History of the Rainbow Flag” by Max Dlabick
- “Birth Control is About More than Just Birth” by Alex Graudins
- “Dating a Trans Person Changed my Partner’s Life” by Mady G
- “Decolonizing Queerness in the Philippines” by Trinidad Escobar
- “When You’re Invisible in Pop Culture” by Bianca Xunise and Sage Coffey
- “Nothing is Wrong With Me” by Dylan Edwards
- “Off the Rack” by Matt Lubchansky
- “Great Moments in Pride History” by Kendra Wells
- “The Trans Discourse Minefield” by Joey Alison Sayers
- “A Covert Gaze at Conservative Gays” by Sam Wallman
- “The Homophobic Hysteria of the Lavender Scare” by Kazimir Lee and Dorian Alexander
- “Boobs Aren’t Binary” by Mady G
- “How Do You Adopt an Embryo” by Robyn Jordan
- “LiveJournal Made Me Gay” by JB Brager
- “Sometimes I Call Myself Queer. Sometimes I Feel Like a Liar” by Nero O’Reilly
- “A Lifetime of Coming Out” by Joey Alison Sayers
- “I Am More Than My Chromosomes” by Elísabet Rún
- “Jussie Smollett Doesn’t Negate the Reality of Hate Crimes” by Mariah-Rose Marie
- “It’s All for the Breast” by Alexis Sudgen
- “Witch Camp” by Melanie Gillman
- “Take a Hint” by Julia Bernhard
- “The American Revolution’s Greatest Leader Was Openly Gay” by Josh Trujillo and Levi Hastings
- “What’s It Like to Raise Kids in Malaysia When You’re LGBT?” by Kazimir Lee
- “The Wonderfully Queer World of Moomin” by Mady G
- “Judge Not” by Joey Alison Sayers
- “The Important Pundit in: Silent Horror” by Matt Lubchansky
The collection was published in 2020, but some of the comics contained date back to 2015.
Awards
2020 ALA Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table Best Graphic Novels for Adults Top Ten
2020 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Anthology
Reviews
“It’s also a powerfully emotional read, even if even the longest stories here barely stretch to 15 pages. That’s the full gamut of emotion, mind – from laugh-out-loud single page gag comics poking fun at the ludicrous concept of gender reveal parties, to harrowing gay histories. Read Levi Hastings and Dorian Alexander’s biographical The Life of Gad Beck: Gay. Jewish. Nazi Fighter and just try to hold back the tears, the sense of fear, the rush of pride.” (Source: Bear World Magazine)
“The formatting of the anthology is just as unique as the stories that it holds. Some the comics offer a brief snapshot of queer life with just four panels on a page while others use dozens of panels spread across several pages to tell a longer story. Short one-page comics like ‘The Final Reveal,’ ‘Gender Bent,’ and ‘Brands Love Pride’ satirically address the ridiculousness of gender reveals and the tone-deafness of large companies when it comes to Pride month and queer issues. Stories like ‘The Life of Gad Beck: Gay. Jewish. Nazi Fighter,’ a lengthier comic that highlights the life of Nazi resistance fighter Gad Beck, and ‘Queer Uprisings Before Stonewall,’ which recounts queer individuals and protests that paved the way for Stonewall, tell the history of those who embody the spirit of queer resistance. There are also personal stories like ‘I Came Out Late in Life and That’s Okay,’ where writer Alison Wilgus discusses what it was like realizing she was queer in her thirties, showing how different experiences can be within the LGBTQ community.” (Source: CBR)
“Be Gay, Do Comics is the queer anthology for our times; for one, it just won the Ignatz for Outstanding Anthology. Across 260 pages, queer creatives from across the world contribute their unique, yet relatable, experiences in the LGBTQIA+ community. Some stories will make you smile, others will fill you with fear for the author. All of them will tug at your heartstrings and make you feel like you belong.” (Source: Women Write About Comics)
Interviews
The Beat: “Matt Lubchansky on world queer history in BE GAY, DO COMICS“