“THERE ARE STORIES ABOUT KIDS AND GROWING UP, AND THERE ARE STORIES ABOUT THE LGBT EXPERIENCE; BUT THE TWO DON’T OFTEN INTERSECT IN A POSITIVE WAY. LGBT ISSUES AREN’T JUST ADULT ISSUES! MY STORIES ARE FOR ALL AGES: POSITIVE STORIES OF KIDS AND YOUNG ADULTS NAVIGATING LIFE AND HELPING EACH OTHER WHILE NOT IGNORING THEIR IDENTITIES AS TRANSGENDER, BISEXUAL, NON-BINARY, LESBIAN, AND MORE.” – GABI MENDEZ, AUTHOR
A Kickstarter campaign is running now and ending on April 7th in support of Lemonade Summer by Gabi Mendez. This is an all-ages graphic novel about queer children, adolescents, teens and young adults coming of age in positive environments and finding supportive communities. The book is 136 pages with full color covers and chapter covers. Each story is a monochromatic color scheme mirroring the sun from noon to dusk, reflecting the characters’ growth in the book. The stories feature young, queer characters who grapple with the conflicts of their own worlds.
“In the summer of our dreams, young pirate runaways learn to accept each other regardless of gender presentation. The new girl in town finds solidarity in female friendship. A roller derby unexpectedly lights the spark of a first-time crush. Friends find confidence in their own voice, and teens face the uncertainty of growing up.”
— Gabi Mendez
Kickstarter Goal: $15,000 currently funded at 40%
Kickstarter Ends: April 7
Support this Kickstarter campaign right HERE.
“We chose to crowd-fund this project to allow us to donate copies to schools, libraries, youth centers and other organizations that would not normally be able to access this book. Currently, our backers will allow us to donate 65 copies.”
— Gabi Mendez
This book is part of Cow House Press. Visit them right here.
Review: THE COMPLETELY UNFABULOUS SOCIAL LIFE OF ETHAN GREEN
Eric Orner is one of the pioneers in LGBT comics. “The Completely Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green,” published by Northwest Press, is a great way to not only further establish him in the canon of LGBT comics, but simply to showcase the work of an excellent cartoonist.
All of us cartoonists can learn from Eric Orner. Just when you get that first wave of resistance, that’s when you push back a little harder. Orner had tales to tell, just like Howard Cruse before him and Alison Bechdel right alongside him, and they could not wait.
Orner’s comic strip ran in that fuzzy, chaotic, and bubbling time (1989-2005), before the internet and digital and then well into it. Orner grew as a person and as an artist. Collected here are some 300 of his groundbreaking comic strips. Well before Ellen DeGeneres was ready to come out, and perhaps a mainstream audience was ready to accept her, there was this comic strip. And casting the longest shadow, the less understood epidemic of AIDS, which Orner would address with both grace and thoughtful humor. Bit by bit, Orner was there to chronicle, in retrospect, a most confused and dangerous time–and it wasn’t that long ago and it’s still unfolding before us.
By 1997, the Ethan Green comic strip appeared in every large city and most mid-sized cities in the United States, as well as running in Canada and overseas. As Orner states in one of the section introductions, “Given that I wasn’t watering down the content, the fact that this very gay comic strip seemed to be building a readership among straight folks was a source of pride.”
Still, controversy could easily arise when least expected. It was also in 1997 that Baltimore’s alt-weekly, City Paper, had to fend off a church group that took great offense over a mild sex scene in the comic strip, something akin to soap opera content. Maybe they were just waiting for the very next depiction of two men making love anywhere to set them off.
Just as a comic strip unfraid to grow, Ethan Green stands out. As anyone who does a webcomic today can attest, there is an unrelenting grind that a cartoonist can succumb to. But, even in the earliest years, Orner was willing to push his artistic and literary limits. Right from the start, he aspired to reach greater heights of insight and downright zaniness. In one strip, circa 1990, he has The Hat Sisters attempt to save lives through time travel. For every vulnerable penis they find, they sheath it with a condom. Everything in the strip is in balance and it speaks volumes.
Towards the end of Ethan Green’s run, in 2005, a couple of young independent filmmakers from Hollywood adapted the comic strip into a movie. It premiered at the TriBeCa Film Festival and enjoyed a 19-city theatrical release in 2006.
Ultimately, Eric Orner’s comic strip enjoyed a great run. And now it is collected in this deluxe edition and off to begin a whole new life with old fans and new readers.
“The Completely Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green” is a 228-page trade paperback, black & white and in color, priced at $24.99, and available now. For more details, visit our friends at Northwest Press right here.
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Filed under Alison Bechdel, Comic Strips, Comics, Eric Orner, Gay, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, Howard Cruse, LGBT, Northwest Press
Tagged as Alison Bechdel, comic strip, Comic Strips, Editorial Cartoons, Entertainment, Eric Orner, Ethan Green, Gay Studies, graphic novels, Humor, LGBT, Media, Newspapers, Northwest Press, Pop Culture, Satire, Social Commentary