LGBT Illustrators: Kenton Penley Miller
I first came across the work of Kenton Penley Miller (or Kenton Penley as he was then) in 1987 in the Australian gay men’s magazine Outrage.
He explored various aspects of gay men’s lives in various single-cell cartoons as well as a full-page strip ‘Bent at the Knees’. For example, his first ever cartoon for Outrage (below) highlights the extraordinary parochialism that existed within the Australian LGBT scene.

Copyright 2014 Kenton Penley Miller. Used with permission of the artist
In this case it’s the rivalry between Adelaide and Melbourne but there was even greater rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney. Indeed, Outrage was born, in part, in response to the fact that the only national gay magazine at that time was the Sydney-based Campaign.
I didn’t really know much about Kenton’s work at the time but he recently provided me with a substantial amount of information about his work and his motivations. In a 2010 conference paper, for example, he explained:
“For me cartoons reflect us, even if it is through a fun-house mirror; such a distortion encourages us to see things in a different light. I wanted to show us as we were; living our lives, having sex, having fun, and trying to work things out with our families and in our relationships.”
Whilst the single-cell cartoons were one vehicle for this, there was a more in-depth exploration in ‘Bent at the Knees’ which, “moved from being just a full-page strip to become a regular semi-soap opera, allowing me to explore issues through that timeless institution – the shared household.”
The creation of the householders – Douglas (“the chubby one”), his best friend Lewis, Casper (“the attractive blond”) and Munchkin (“the underage disco head”) – provided the opportunity for themes to be developed and explored over time. And, like most soap operas, it allowed readers to become attached to the characters and thus relate to their issues on an emotional as well as a purely ‘intellectual’ level. For example, when Munchkin died after being hit by a truck:
“I received some pretty sharply worded letters, some of which came from the editors. But it allowed me to explore another common experience – not just grief – but the dreadful funerals we found ourselves at.”
Kenton killed off Munchkin partly in reaction to assumptions that it would be one of the HIV positive characters that would die.
“There was a need to deal with grief. Loss of our loved ones was one conversation in the community that I wanted to cover – but I was also clear that it wasn’t the HIV positive character that was going to die.”
It was an important point to make – especially in the middle of the emerging AIDS crisis – but it was also an incredibly brave move. I remember attending an AIDS education conference where one of the speakers complained that the gay character in Four Weddings and a Funeral had died of a heart attack and not AIDS; as if to say that having your gay character die of something other than AIDS was almost treasonous!
But there were lots of uncomfortable truths about gay life and life with HIV/AIDS and Kenton didn’t shy away from addressing these. Munchkin’s funeral, for example, was used to highlight the way in which families bury an individual’s sexuality long before they bury the actual body.
The humour was often sarcastic and frequently bitterly so, but again this merely reflects the anger and bitterness we all felt at that time. The cartoon below, splendidly illustrates the conflicting emotions that arose from a prospective sexual encounter – albeit with a surprising but incisive twist!
One of my personal favourites was Kenton’s commentary on alternative therapies (as will become more evident in one of my future postings on the subject). With no treatment or cure in sight, gay men often looked beyond conventional medicine for answers. Sometimes this produced rewards but sometimes it led down some very dubious pathways.
When HIV positive Lewis seeks out alternative treatments, this leads to a comical encounter with his partner Stephen.
Stephen – I must say you’ve been handling it much better than…why are you looking at me like that?
Lewis – Your eyes. We did iridology today and I can’t help noticing…
Stephen – Lewis! I’m going to get sick of you staying well at this rate!
Lewis – Honestly, in your left eye! I can see a massive sodium deposit…
Stephen – It’s in the shape of the letter ‘L’ isn’t it?
Lewis – What do you…Hey, wow! Yes it is! How did you…?
Stephen – It’s the label on my contact lens, so I know which eye is which!
Once again, I think this is not only insightful (and extremely funny) but also incredibly brave, given the context in which it first appeared. It’s essentially a plea to ‘get real’ in the midst of all the despair but it’s done in such a humorous and credible way it gets the message across.
Kenton is still producing his cartoons, although no longer for Outrage, which folded several years ago. One of his recent projects has been illustrating the stories told for the NICHE (National Institute for Challenging Homophobia Education) campaign. It’s absolutely inspiring.
Acknowledgement: The bulk of the material in this article was taken from Kenton’s conference paper AIDS Cartoons and HIV Prevention – No Laughing Matter? , University of Adelaide, 2010.
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