Howard Cruse, author of the acclaimed graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby and founding editor of the anthology Gay Comix, died Tuesday of cancer at the age of 75, Cruse’s daughter Kimberly Kolze Venter announced. Cruse came to prominence in the 1970s with the strip Barefootz, which appeared in a number of underground magazines and titles,…
Last Thursday, the LGBT Community Center here in Manhattan (a.k.a. The Center) had its opening reception for their exhibit Wendel’s World: Gay Life in the 1980s. For those of you that don’t know, Wendel was a comic that ran in The Advocate throughout the 1980s created and drawn exclusively by the underground comix pioneer, Howard…
Sadly, I’ve started seeing the backlash. You probably have too. A lot of people are being contrarian and saying “I’m Not Charlie Hedbo” in response to this week’s shootings. The most prominent example is David Brooks in the New York Times, but I’m beginning to see similar comments from people I actually respect. To which…
The room was large and dim, the food tasty, the entire evening pleasant. We were at this year’s Eisner Awards Banquet, held annually at the San Diego Comic Con International as a venue for presenting the Eisner Awards, named for the man who probably deserves to be called comic books’s greatest practitioner and used to…
As if to offer a bookend to last week’s column about Neil Gaiman and creativity, Amazon delivered Alison Bechdel’s new book, Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. A companion to her harrowing and brilliant previous book, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which was about her father’s life in the closet and eventual suicide, Are…
Over a month ago, I was assigned to find out each presidential candidate’s favorite super-hero or heroine. It seemed like it would be a fun assignment, a chance to find a bit of insight into how pop culture affects politics and vice versa. Alas, only Ron Paul felt self-confident enough to answer our question. I…
If you’ve always wanted to buy original comic art, but can’t get to a convention or don’t trust EBay, here’s your chance. Howard Cruse is starting a newletter with information on how to buy his work, including original pages from the Eisner-winning Stuck Rubber Baby. Just go here and sign up. If you’re one of…
Famous underground cartoonist (and friend of ComicMix) Howard Cruse will launch his newest project, The North County Perp, a new magazine covering the art scene in his hometown, on Wednesday, August 1. If you’re in the neighborhood, there’s a party at the MCLA Gallery 51 (51 Main Street) from 6 PM to 8 PM. The…
According to this item at Howard Cruse’s blog, a group called the Library Patrons of Texas has made a list of every dirty word, racial slur and suggestive image in his award-winning graphic novel, Stuck Rubber Baby. The group’s purpose is is to encourage "local control of taxpayer-funded libraries and responsible age-appropriate selection, classification and…
We’ve been vicariously living in Spain for the last few days via Heidi MacDonald, who’s taking in Ficomic (officially the Saló del Còmic de Barcelona), but something she hadn’t had the chance to mention yet was that the Spanish edition of fellow NY-er Howard Cruse’s work Stuck Rubber Baby has won their Best Foregn Comic…
Two good reports on cartoonist meetings, complete with pictures: Howard Cruse details a get-together in Massachusetts of some Pioneer Valley cartoonists, and Mikhaela Reid talks about the Women, Action and the Media (WAM) conference in Washington DC, where she and fellow cartoonists Stephanie McMillan (who also has a review) and Jen Sorensen presented a "Resistance…
The more years we all spend involved in comics, the less able we are to escape our past, especially in the Web 2.0 age. And that’s actually A Good Thing. For instance, check out cartoonist Howard Cruse’s blog post where he effusively and rightly pays tribute to ComicMix’s own Martha Thomases, whose family he and…
