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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 2002)
January IB. 2002 BOOKS W endel A ll T ogether by H ow ard C ruse. O lm stead Press, 2001; $ 1 7 .9 5 softcover. Bunnin' down the house Queer comic collections portray a history of civil rights—and neuroticism thanks to the global reach of the Web. Baldwin has kept this audience by consistently deliver ing a gorgeously rendered and witty saga of young love, artistic aspiration, intellectual con fusion and occasional slapstick. T his latest collection (th e sixth) finds Bruno frustrated with her Massachusetts hometown. Discovering Portland via a theatrical road trip, she falls PROBABLY? IF for our beautiful city and decides NOT. I’LL CALL THEM FROM THE WHITE to live here. HOUSE LOBBY? THERE’S BOUND TO BE A PAY Pretty soon she becomes roman PHONE.. tically involved with two lovers simultaneously, one male and one female. Fortunately, they know of each other and are cool with the sit uation. Unfortunately, not so the emotionally volatile Bruno. Her ensuing trips to a variety of therapists and her confessions to sympathetic friends afford sophisti cated laughs but also thoughtful meditation on the ambiguities of love and relationships. As the title suggests, there is more on the plate; Baldwin serves it up with tenderness and class. n the course of his 30-year career, cartoonist Howard Cruse has lived two seemingly dis parate struggles: the fight by sexual minorities by K evin M oore for civil and social rights on the one hand, and the establishment of comics as a unique artistic and literary medium on the other. t J 4 a / t s BETWEEN sum e Founding the underground G ay NOW AND THEN YOU’LL HAVE C om ics anthology in 1980, he created CONE OUT TO YOUR an outlet for future queer creators to PARENT*..? address themes of sexual identity. Cruse received critical praise for his 1996 graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby, an autobiographically inspired coming-out story set in Alabama dur ing the height of the ’60s civil rights movement. In between, there was W endel. Published in the back pages of the Advocate from 1983 to 1989, the comic strip portrayed the lives o f Wendel Trupstock; his partner, Ollie Chalmers; and a cast of funny, memo rable characters caught up in the per Ollie and Wendel plot revolution over cornflakes in a typical domestic scene from Wendel All Together W endel A ll T ogether can be found sonal and political problems o f the at bookstores or w w w.how ardcruse.com . A new cal? Not really— such is the transcendent topics were fresh, not to mention frightening; era— parental rejection, religious zealotry, Rea- B runo appears six days a w eek at power of good art. for Cruse, they were obviously quite personal. ganaut indifference/opportunism, infighting www.brunostrip.com . Collections can be purchased And Baldwin does not let his artistic fore By training his sharp eye for humor on the oth among gay liberationists and, of course, A ID S. at Reading Frenzy or w w w .m oodycow .com . parents down. His strip, the continuing story of erwise tragic, he avoids the hackneyed and the All disrupt the lives of Wendel et al. as they try an intelligent, talented young woman wander maudlin, finding novel and sometimes illumi to maintain healthy relationships, pursue artistic K evin M oore is a cartoonist-identified graphic ing aimlessly (yet humorously) through life, has nating takes on subjects that, sadly, find ways careers, work lousy jobs, do the laundry and designer at Just Out. attracted a dedicated international readership to vex us still. maybe have a little sex once in a while. Cruse draws as beautifully as he writes. After more than a decade, this long-overdue ^SO THE SUYS SAVE HE A Carefully crafted, his artwork can still be collection of everything W endel demonstrates HARD TIME AFTER YoUUFT. the strengths of Cruse’s writing, his attention to lively and loose— silly at all the right I EASILY HANDLED IT, BUT I WAS SAD Too O IONT STAY. m om ents, tender at others. Inspired by the the nuances of dialogue and the seamless inter Tow BEEN OKAY? I HAVEN'T SCOI MUCH Of TOW LATELY classic "big foot” style o f golden age com ics, weaving of his characters’ complex back stories. he renders his characters larger than life, Consider O llie. A n amateur actor with big with the long legs and thick arms o f figures Hollywood dreams, he endures unrewarding in a social realist painting. low-wage work to support his hyper-imagina Nonetheless, he displays a sensitive eye for tive pubescent son, Farley, for whose custody he must painstakingly negotiate with his neu body type. Men and women can appear ideal, sexy or dramatic one moment, then rubbery, rotic ex-wife. No mean feat that, since Carol, goofy and comic the next, all the while remain still traumatized by his coming out, refuses to ing in character and retaining a warm humanity. be in the same room with Wendel. YOU KNOW THAT MAKES ^*>,e«wuo, was rr a s IT'S TRUE JULES, I WAS T R T V 6 iT EVEN W O R SE THAN IF Such a circumstance could be the stuff of fcooo FOR. YOU AS YOU TO THROW YOU A BECAUSE T o o s im p l y E X P R E S S E D Ybu DESERTED SVEN MORE THAN mCTtMOCD B runo : PD X— L ove , G od , S ex either melodrama or farce. But Cruse succeeds at TO U R D IS IN T E R E S T . THAT. UNFORTUNATELY, EVEN FAtQhlù •IAS MOKE THAN I HAD iN and C inema plumbing humor from these situations by treating iT HAD ITS DEFINITE by C . Baldwin. M oody C ow Publishing, 2001; his characters with sympathy and respect, deftly FACTOR: I NEVER THoUfcHT h e a r Y o u s a y , ‘TXM b a b y ? $ 9 .9 5 softcover. balancing the absurdity of their complications YOU DIDN'T, AND NopoDY NEVER HAS with the sincerity of their love and aspirations. TO KNOW,CAPISCE?^ s W endel inspired Dykes to W atch O ut For, Equally impressive is how well Cruse’s inter so in turn has Alison Bechdel’s work play of the political and the personal remains inspired Chris Baldwin’s Bruno. In other relevant. Some satirical targets— Bible-thump words, a gay man’s comic strip begat a lesbian ing homophobes and social insensitivity toward strip, which begat this daily online strip about A ID S— are so familiar to us now, they risk Bruno is blessed (or cursed?) with compassionate lovers in Bruno: P D X — Love, Qod, Sex and Cinema a bisexual woman by a straight man. Paradoxi- being read as clichés. But in the 1980s, these in 'm Incredible Clearance ALWAYS BUYING January 1 — 31 , 2002 OPEN EVE S S T O R E W ID E ! 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