FOUR-COLOR COMMENTARY

Strip Tease: 7 Queer Web Comics You Should Be Reading

While traditional comic books may touch on LGBT themes and storylines, if you want full-on queer graphics gold, the place to go is the Internet: With the freedom to publish just about anything, LGBT web comics range from gay Family Circus types to more salacious three-to-five panel romps. (You can also find traditional print comics converted to digital format, like Tim Fish’s anthology series  Young Bottoms in Love, that’s now available on iTunes for $9.99 for the entire run.)

Click through to check out seven of our favorite LGBT Web comics

Got a favorite web comic we didn’t recommend? Share in the comments section or on Facebook.

 

The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal
E.K. Weaver

If you’ve been looking for something to fill the gay road-trip shaped hole in your heart, this is it: Amal, who is out to everybody except his conservative family, finally comes out when his folks push him to marry his childhood sweetheart.

But rather than face the fallout, he splits—taking a leave of absence from medical school and heading to Providence to see his younger sister graduate from college. After a night of black-out drinking he wakes up to find a tall, blonde and dreadlocked TJ making him breakfast and offering to fund his excursion. From there, the pair explore the country and each others’ lives on the road to Rhode Island.

 

Khaos Komix
Tab Kimpton

Set in the British suburbs, Khaos Komix follows a group of teenager friends coming to terms with their sexuality and gender expression. Every letter in the LGBT rainbow is represented through eight intertwined stories about Steve, Mark, Amber, Nay, Tom, Alex, Charlie and Jamie. And while some aspects are fantastic the characters’ experiences ring true, as evidenced by the fertile on-page discussion boards. There may be plenty of LGBT coming-of-age stories but Khaos stands out for acknowledging real-world prejudices while still delivering (mostly) happy endings.

 

 

Young Protectors & Artifice
Alex Woolfson (writer)

A new ongoing series from Alex Woolfson’s Yaoi911 site, Young Protectors centers on two super-powered characters: Kyle, a closeted teen hero, and the villainous Annihilator, who also happens to be gay. The two titans meet, ironically, at a gay bar Kyle has snuck into. After a few punches are thrown, the Annihilator stops the fight and questions Kyle’s desire to be closeted. Along the way the reader sees that perhaps he’s not such a two-dimensional bad guy after all. The series, which just got under way, is energized by artwork from Adam DeKraker and colors by Veronica Gandini.

Though now finished, Yaoi911’s Artifice (written by Woolfson with art by Winona Nelson) is a gay romance set in the far future, where homosexuality is borderline illegal but android assassins are perfectly fine—until those androids begin to fall in love. When robot killer Deacon fails to slaughter the last member of a rebellious colony, Dr. Maven is called in to analyze how independent thought can spring from a pre-programmed heart.

 

 

 

Finn and Charlie are Hitched
Tony Breed

It’s a perfectly innocuous newspaper comic about marriage, work and city living. Well, it would be, except the couple in question is gay. Still, the eponymous Finn and Charlie are still pretty innocuous—even if their queer trials and tribulations are a breath of fresh air in the heteronormative world of slice-of-life comics. So put down those For Better or For Worse reprints and pick up Finn And Charlie are Hitched!

 

 

 

 

Kyle’s Bed and Breakfast
Greg Fox

Like Finn and Charlie are Hitched, Kyle’s Bed & Breakfast is done in a more traditional newspaper comic-strip style—it actually appears in the Washington Blade, Philadelphia Gay News, Dallas Voice and other LGBT print publications—but tackles the kind of serious topics, including marriage equality, HIV/AIDS, body fascism and conversion therapy, you won’t find in Mary Worth. Fox focuses on the lives of B&B owner Kyle and his diverse guests (some of whom are more temporary than others).

The new anthology, Kyle’s Bed & Breakfast: A Second Bowl of Serial is out now.

 

Capitol Hillbillies
Chris Lange

Revolving around the lives of four queer men in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Hillbillies is a gay pop-culture nerd’s dream, with clubbing, post-college life, gaming, porn and dating just a few of the topics covered in the regular adventures of Stu the Bald, William the Naked, Jon the Professor and Clark the Bottomless.

Girls with Slingshots
Danielle Corsetto

While the main character is straight-as-an-arrow Hazel, she surrounds herself with a diverse group of friends, including a promiscuous gay man, a bisexual best friend with an asexual girlfriend, a gaggle of lesbians, and a dominatrix-cum-librarian. While humor and wackiness are important components (a talking cactus is a recurring character), Girls with Slingshots takes relationships seriously.

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