LGBT themes in comics

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In comics, LGBT themes are a relatively new concept, as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) themes and characters were historically omitted from the content of comic books and their comic strip predecessors due to anti gay censorship. LGBT existence was included only via innuendo, subtext and inference. However the practice of hiding LGBT characters in the early part of the twentieth century evolved into open inclusion in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries, and comics explored the challenges of coming out, societal discrimination, and personal and romantic relationships between gay characters. With any mention of homosexuality in mainstream United States comics forbidden by the Comics Code Authority (CCA) between 1954 and 1989, mainstream comics contained only subtle hints or subtext regarding an LGBT character's sexual orientation or gender identity. Starting in the early 1970s, however, LGBT themes were tackled in underground comix, independently published one off comic books and series produced by gay creators that featured autobiographical storylines tackling political issues of interest to LGBT readers. The first openly gay characters in American comic strips appeared in prominent strips in the late 1970s and gained popularity through the 1980s. Since the 1990s, equal and open LGBT themes have become more common in mainstream US comics, including in a number of titles in which a gay character is the star. Today comic strips educating readers about LGBT related issues are syndicated in LGBT targeted print media and online in web comics. The popularity of comic books in Europe and Japan have seen distinct approaches to LGBT themes. A lack of censorship and greater acceptance of comics as a medium for adult entertainment in Europe has led European comics to be more inclusive from an earlier date, leading to less controversy about the representation of LGBT characters in their pages. Notable comics creators have produced work from France, Belgium, Spain, Germany and Britain. Japanese manga tradition has included genres of girls' comics that feature homosexual relationships since the 1970s, in the form of yaoi and yuri. These works are often extremely romantic and idealized, and include archetypal characters that often do not identify as gay or lesbian. Since the Japanese "gay boom" of the 1990s, a body of manga by queer creators aimed at LGBT customers has been established, including both bara manga for gay men and yuri aimed at lesbians, which often have more realistic and autobiographical themes. Pornographic manga also often includes sexualised depictions of lesbians and intersex people. Portrayal of LGBT themes in comics is recognized by several notable awards, including the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards and GLAAD Media Award for GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book. The Lambda Literary Foundation, recognizing notable literature for LGBT themes with their "Lammys" awards since 1988, created a new category in 2014 for graphic works. Prism Comics, an organization formed in 2003 for promoting LGBTQ themes in comic books, has provided the "Queer Press Grant" for comic book creators since 2005.

Early comic strips also avoided overt treatment of gay issues, though examples of homosexual subtext have been identified. The 1938–1939 edition of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates features a primary villain, Sanjak, who has been interpreted by some as a lesbian with designs on the hero's girlfriend. The first widely distributed comic strip to tackle LGBT themes and include a gay character was Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury. This storyline led to a Pulitzer Prize nomination for Trudeau, but three newspapers of the 900 carrying the strip refused to publish it as being in bad taste. Two years later, the long standing character Mark Slackmeyer was revealed to be gay, continuing a reputation for controversial content. Over 100 newspapers ran replacement strips or canceled the comic. One result of the storyline was that Johnston was made a jury selected "nominated finalist" for the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1994. The Pulitzer board said the strip "sensitively depicted a youth's disclosure of his homosexuality and its effect on his family and friends." Subsequent appearances of the character have not focused on his sexuality, and the creator has said that this will continue. Many openly gay and lesbian comic creators self publish their work online as webcomics, giving them greater editorial freedom, and some of the strips are printed in collections. One example is Greg Fox's Kyle's Bed & Breakfast, a series focusing on a group of gay friends who live together and face realistic problems associated with their sexualities, including relationship troubles and being closeted. Since the late 1980s specifically gay publications have also included comic strips, in which LGBT themes are ubiquitous. Local LGBT newspapers sometimes carry their own strips, like Ron Williams's Quarter Scenes in the New Orleans paper Impact. Strips including Wendel by Howard Cruse, It's a Gay Life by Gerard Donelan, and Leonard and Larry by Tim Barela, have been syndicated in national gay magazines like the Advocate. Bechdel's 2006 graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was lauded by many media outlets as among the best books of the year. Other noted LGBT themed comic strips have included Doc and Raider, The Chosen Family, Chelsea Boys and The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green. Ethan Green has also been adapted into a live action feature film.

Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, has been described as "the first gay cartoonist". He began producing erotic comics in the 1940s, distributing them via a clandestine mail order business. Laaksonen's drawings were published in the beefcake magazine Physique Pictorial starting in the 1950s. Due to obscenity laws, Laaksonen's full, sexually explicit comics could not be published at the time, and were instead distributed privately. Other artists who regularly contributed to early homoerotic periodicals during this time include George Quaintance, and Dom Orejudos (under the pen name Etienne).

LGBT themes were found first in underground or alternative comics, often published by small independent presses or self published. Such comics frequently advocated political positions and included depictions of sex, usually not intended solely to cause arousal but included as part of the exploration of themes including gender and sexuality. “Captain Pissgums and His Pervert Pirates” by S. Clay Wilson in Zap Comix #3 (1968) featured explicit sexual homosexual acts and was instrumental in making other underground cartoonists approach taboo subjects. However, gay characters rarely featured in underground comics from 1968 to 1975, and when they did they were usually lisping caricatures and comic transvestites. An installment of "Harold Hedd" by Rand Holmes in 1971 stands out for attacking the homophobia of David Reuben's sex manual Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), featuring explicit mutual gay sex acts, and promoting gay liberation. Eventually comics appeared aimed at a gay audience: the first documented example of a widely circulated underground gay comic was Gay Heart Throbs, which produced several issues in the mid 1970s, but struggled to find an audience. Gay Comix also served as a source for information about non mainstream LGBT themed comics and events. Excerpts from Gay Comix are included in the 1989 anthology Gay Comics, one of the earliest histories of the subject. Meatmen: An Anthology of Gay Male Comics and its sequels collect works by a range of artists and cartoonists. The work of "every gay cartoonist of note" at the time appeared in the series, including works by Howard Cruse, Jeffrey A. Krell, Brad Parker, John Blackburn, Jon Macy, and Tom of Finland. Tom of Finland was a prolific fetish artist, specializing in images of men with exaggerated primary and secondary sex traits, such as extreme muscularity and improbably large penises. His drawings frequently feature two or more men either immediately preceding or during explicit sexual activity. Howard Cruse has been described as "the most important gay cartoonist" of this period, and his work explores both pop and gay culture. In addition to being featured in Meatmen and Gay Comics, his LGBT themed work has been syndicated in publications such as Heavy Metal, RAW, and Village Voice. Creators have used the comics medium to educate readers about LGBT related issues including safe sex, examples being Strip AIDS; and to influence real world politics, as with the British comics book AARGH (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia), produced by British, American, and Canadian artists in response to a law that made "promoting homosexuality" illegal by the British government. The comic book format and humour has been described as giving such works a more positive message than typical education material. Fiction comics produced specifically to foster AIDS prevention include the widely distributed French language La Sida (1995), created by the Institut Alfred Fourrier as part of its "Prevention Sourire" series. La Sida was aimed at a young audience and used humour to de dramatise the subject, with HIV status indicated as a metaphorical "little green monster". Sexile, a graphic novel by Latin American writer Jaime Cortez, is based on transgender HIV activist and educator Adela Vazquez. Published through AIDS Project Los Angeles, the novel is narrated in English and Spanish while commenting on themes of gender identity, sexual experiences and HIV/AIDS awareness. Vazquez's life is highlighted in the graphic novel, particularly her transition from the political uprising in Cuba to the vibrant LGBT community in San Francisco during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Sexile, a work commenting on HIV/AIDS prevention, was collaborated with Gay Men's Health Crisis. Such educational comics have been criticised for ignoring the special relevance the subject has to the LGBT community, with homosexuality marginalized in favour of depicting HIV as a threat to conventional heterosexual relationships. This has been blamed on the continuing perception that comics are for young people, and as such should be "universalised" rather than targeting specific groups, and hence are heteronormative, failing to provide characters that LGBT identifying young people can identify with. Other educational comic books such as the Swiss Jo (1991) also exclude explicit reference to homosexuality (as well as drug taking and prostitution), in spite of their target audience being older. In 2010 Northwest Press began publishing LBGTQ themed works, focusing primarily on graphic novels and anthologies of artists' shorter works. No Straight Lines, a 2012 anthology published by Fantagraphics Books edited by Justin Hall, presented an overview of comics by and about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people since the 1960s.

Mainstream comics have historically excluded gay characters, with superhero comics in particular and the publishing houses Marvel and DC, the two largest publishers in the genre, and were criticized for their lack of inclusivity. British comics author Neil Gaiman has said that he included transgender characters in his works, such as Sandman, in response to the lack of realistic representation of such people in comics. Queer theory analyses have noted that LGBT characters in mainstream comic books are often shown as assimilated into heterosexual society, whereas in alternative comics the diversity and uniqueness of LGBT culture is at the forefront. Mainstream comics have also been labelled as "heteronormative", in comparison to "integrationist" alternative comics.

For much of the 20th century, creators were strongly discouraged from depicting gay relationships in comic books, which were regarded as a medium for children. Until 1989 the Comics Code Authority (CCA), which imposed de facto censorship on comics sold through newsstands in the United States, forbade any suggestion of homosexuality, and stated that "The Batman type of story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies." Storytellers subsequently had to drop subtle hints while not stating directly a character's orientation. The trend has prompted both praise from the LGBT community and organizations like the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), and criticism from conservative groups.

Psychologist Fredric Wertham, who in Seduction of the Innocent asserted that "Batman stories are psychologically homosexual," claimed to find a "subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism which pervades the adventures of the mature 'Batman' and his young friend 'Robin.'" Frank Miller has described the Joker as a "homophobic nightmare," and views the character as sublimating his sexual urges into crime fighting. In the first appearance of the Nightmaster, a fat man who seems to be a closet homosexual gay basher repeatedly calls Jim Rook a "cutie pie", compliments his hair, and grabs his girlfriend, saying (to Rook) "And what? You gonna hit me with your purse?" after which his friends start hitting Rook with a chair. The first obviously gay character featured by DC was Extraño, an effeminate Peruvian man whose name means "strange" in Spanish, created by Steve Englehart and Joe Staton, and appeared in Millennium and New Guardians in 1987. New Guardians was not successful, but during its short run it also featured one team member, Jet, contracting AIDS. An official aftermath to Millennium, The Spectre (vol. 2) #11, depicted a "mostly male and mostly gay" AIDS rally. Several characters, including the Enchantress (describing them as "filthy disgusting men") and a police helicopter pilot named Ed (screaming about "fags") are influenced into attempting to crush the rally by a seven headed spirit. Thanks to the actions of the Spectre, Doctor Fate, Deadman, Madame Xanadu (later herself revealed to be bisexual), and Ben Turner, the men are saved. In 1988's Wonder Woman Annual #1, Kevin Mayer, brother of Diana's late publicist Myndi Mayer, shows up at her will reading, saying she was the only member of the family who didn't hate him for being gay. Later in the same series, an Amazon historian mentions widespread homosexual activity, as well as asexuality, amongst the population of Wonder Woman's homeland, Themyscira. Mitch Sekofsky, mechanic for Task Force X, is a gay dad. Simon La Grieve, the organization's head psychiatrist, refers to this as his "choice of sexuality" and wonders how Sekofsky's son is adjusting. Priest Kramer counsels Mitch and tells him that his homosexuality is a natural part of himself that does not conflict with Christian scripture. The early 1990s saw a few more LGBT minor characters portrayed in DC titles. John Constantine dealt with gay bashers in Hellblazer #6 and 7 and Swamp Thing #74 (1988). In the latter issue, Constantine, having jumped from a train at the end of Hellblazer #6, is found by gay bashers in a weakened state and severely beaten until rescued by Swamp Thing. While Constantine is not gay (he is bisexual), one of his gay friends was beaten to death in Hellblazer #7 by a fundamentalist Christian cult. In an earlier issue, a group of skinheads follow a man they presume to be gay into a toilet with the intention of killing him, but he turns out to be the demon Nergal, who tears them apart. Both this run and The Sandman story arcs Preludes and Nocturnes and The Kindly Ones arc featured elderly gay men. Transsexual themes were explored in The Sandman: A Game of You (1991) and in a 1992 storyline in Legion of Super Heroes with transsexual character Shvaughn Erin. In 1993, writing duties for the Doom Patrol comic series were taken over by the transgender writer Rachel Pollack who used the series to explored many LGBT themes as well as introduced the character of Coagula, a transgender lesbian, to the team. Notable storylines featuring LGBT themes include the coming out of Kyle Rayner's assistant Terry Berg and an arc about his "gay bashing" in Green Lantern. An example of a gay character in a starring role is the violent vigilante superhero Midnighter, who appears in comic books published by Wildstorm, an imprint of DC Comics. The Batman like Midnighter was revealed to be in a relationship with the Superman like Apollo during their time as members of the superhero team The Authority. The comic book Manhunter (which focused on a female lawyer hunting down super villains who dodged trial) was notable for featuring the gay supporting character of Damon Matthews, a well adjusted gay lawyer who later starts dating superhero Obsidian, and also Manhunter's son and successor, Ramsey Spencer, who is also openly gay and dates the metahuman hero and his partner named Justin. In 2006 DC drew widespread media attention by announcing a new, lesbian incarnation of the well known character Batwoman. The number of minor DC characters being identified as LGBT continues to increase, and includes the bisexual superheroes Sarah Rainmaker Additionally, The New 52 also introduced Bunker, the first openly gay superhero ever to be featured in the Teen Titans ongoing series. Another of the changes brought about with the DC reboot was the reinvention of a classic character as an out gay man, with DC as of 2012 depicting its longtime Green Lantern Alan Scott as a gay man in stories set on the parallel world of Earth 2. In 2020, as part of its Infinite Frontier relaunch, DC established the mainstream continuity's elderly Alan Scott as canonically gay as well, by having him come out to his adult children. This incarnation of Alan Scott has been depicted on and off since 1940. Anti villains Catwoman and Catman were reinvented as bisexual characters, as well as anti villainesses Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, who form a non monogamous couple. Supervillain Prometheus is now a gay man who dated Midnighter. Demon Knights brought back Shining Knight, who previously appeared in Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory as a girl crossdressing as a male knight. In the new series however, The Shining Knight says that (s)he is “not just a man or a woman[, but] both.” This makes them the possible first intersex hero. In 2016, DC launched DC Rebirth, in which some characters were established as being LGBT. Flagship superhero Wonder Woman was shown to be canonically bisexual; among her same sex romantic interests is her companion Amazon Kasia. Her mother Queen Hippolyta and General Philippus are also shown as having a love relationship, and Hippolyta previously dated Amazon sorceress Derinoe as shown in the New 52 era. Aqualad (Jackson Hyde) of Teen Titans was reintroduced as a gay teenager, while The Ray was reintroduced as a gay man in Justice League of America, dating his JLA colleague Xenos. Mother Panic, from Young Animal imprint, is a bisexual female vigilante of Gotham City. In 2021, coinciding with Infinite Frontier, several high profile male characters came out as LGBT in canon: original Green Lantern Alan Scott came out to his children as gay; Robin (Tim Drake) began dating a man after acknowledging he has feelings for both men and women; and the junior Superman, Jonathan Kent, came out as bisexual.