In the early years of my coming out I felt it necessary to immerse myself in as much gay literature as I could (partly, I must admit, to find evidence to re-assure myself that being gay was OK).

And so it was that I read such weighty tomes as The Theory and Practice of Homosexuality, Sexuality and it’s Discontents, and Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation. They were certainly informative – but a little on the heavy side too.

There was much joy, therefore, when I finally came across Gay Comix.

As the name indicates, they were in comic book format but, other than that, they were unlike any other comic book I’d come across before. They were funny, sexy, informative, political and unapologetically gay.

And despite the name, it wasn’t just a publication for gay men. It was by and for lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals too. And it told all sorts of stories and explored all sorts of issues in an intelligent and entertaining way.

Established in 1980, it had its roots in the ‘underground’ publications of the 60’s and 70’s ‘counter-culture’. (The spelling of ‘Comix’, for example, is reflective of the style of that period). Publisher Dennis Kitchen – the straight publisher of ‘alternative’ publications – came up with the idea of publishing a comic that explored various aspects of LGBT life.

Knowing he couldn’t produce it himself, he recruited Howard Cruse as editor. Cruse was an illustrator who had done some tentative exploring of gay issues in a non-gay comic series Barefootz some time earlier.

Because he was still relatively closetted at that time – as was the entire cartooning industry – he wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he would get. He even discussed with his partner whether or not it would ruin his career!

Nor did he know if there would be enough LGBT cartoonists prepared to submit work to make it a viable project.

Thankfully (for us all!) there were. Various illustrators such as Roberta Gregory, Mary Wings and Lee Marrs came forward, which was enough to get the ball rolling and encourage other contributors. Cruse himself also created his own strip Billy Goes Out – and Gay Comix was born!

It was such a success it continued publication until 1998, attracting new and experienced contributors along the way. Cruse made the most of his virtually unlimited editorial authority to set the template for the magazine.

He pulled in work that covered a huge range of both style and content and, even though he only edited the first four issues, his eclectic approach remained for the publications entire lifespan. In the words of one commentator, Justin Hall:

“It was a series in which personal, intimate storytelling, as well as bizarre, fantastical concepts, were used to describe queer experiences. Leather zombies, super-powered lesbians, and swishy fish shared space with stories about coming-out, the loss of loved ones to AIDS, and cruising the backroom of a gay bar. Gay Comix was a place where LGBT readers and comics fans could find stories that reflected their lives and passions, providing inspiration and community in a difficult world.”

The illustration below, by Cruse himself, sums up Gay Comix capacity to combine creativity with humour in order to deliver an incisive political point. This one is an extract from his strip Safe Sex in Gay Comix Number 4.

Extracting any sort of humour from those dark days certainly wasn’t easy but I do believe that this sort of material helped us process our own thoughts and feelings at that time. The fact that someone had finally made visible just what we felt and thought – not just on AIDS but all the other homophobic crap we got – came as a great relief.

And some of the cartoon characters were pretty cute too!