I was just reading For Better or For Worse and noticed that, hey, I think they are bringing in a gay character. Elizabeth needs a date for a wedding, they fix her up to meet a guy, and are making comments like, “He’ll be more interested in your mind,” and, “Too bad she’s not a guy.”
This isn’t something they do often in the strips. Comic books, perhaps, but mainly, up until now, I’ve noticed that it is used more like a joke or very much in passing. Nothing very serious. I could be wrong, though.
Any other mainstream comic strips that have gay characters, or introduced them seriously?
There’s been a gay character in FBoFW for YEARS. Michael’s best friend (whose name I can’t remember). He was involved in Mike and Deana’s wedding, which really, really upset her mum.
That’s Lawrence. He came out to Michael when they were teenagers and caused the biggest hoo-hah you ever saw: papers dropped the strip, Lynn Johnston got scads of hate mail, etc. But Johnston stuck to her guns, and eventually it all blew over. Lawrence is an adult now; his partner is Nicholas. Elizabeth is their new employee: they’re going to fix her up with a friend so she isn’t dateless at her ex-boyfriend’s wedding.
As for gay characters in other strips, how about Marcie and Peppermint Patty? Okay, I’m kidding.
Who, Weed? I didn’t know that! I used to read FBoFW years ago, then stopped, and only got back into it a year or so ago. How funny! I’ll have to try to find the archives. But the question still stands. Are there any other mainstream strips with regular gay characters?
Nah, not Weed, Lawrence, like snug said. I’d forgotten to take Weed into consideration in the Mike’s Best Friend reference. (I still say that title is Lawrence’s by longer precedent.)
Doonesberry- Megaphone Mark Slackmeyer went gay a few years back & occasionally is shown doing a radio show debating his portly conservative Republican boyfriend.
Probably not super-mainstream, like FBoFW, but have any of you read Jane’s World? I’m surprised Ellen Degeneres hasn’t snagged it for development. The main character Jane is gay and she has friends who are straight and gay.
I’ve been reading it for about a year through comics.com and find it to be generally well done.
Doonesbury, of course, is way out ahead of the curve. As mentioned, Mark is gay, and is in a committed relationship with Chase. Some hilarity has arisen from this… “Gay cuisine… is it tops?”.
Earlier, there was a character named Andy Lipincott who was a good friend of Joanie Caucus. (This was back in the early 80’s or late 70’s…) Initially, Joanie had a crush on him, and in a classic strip, he told her she was gay, and she had no reaction for several panels, and then said “are they sure?”. He then died of AIDS, after surviving long enough to hear the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds on CD.
(That whole sequence was full of dark humor. In another great one, Joanie comes to visit Andy while he has AIDS, takes one look at him, and faints. Andy’s doctor then says “You still can make 'em swoon” and Andy says “Women, sure, a lot of good that does me.”)
There are some weekly newspaper strips like “Hothead Paisan” and “Dykes to Watch Out For” that feature nothing but gay characters. Not sure how widely distributed these are, though.
I was nicely surprised when I read FBoFW this morning! I don’t get a paper but was reading my mother-in-law’s.
I love it, and I love Lynn Johnston. She does a great job, without pulling punches, no matter what the subject. I mean, when was the last time a strip author killed off the family dog? I am still upset about Farley!
Her strip is mainstream but she doesn’t shy away from real-life issues- elder parents, children becoming sexually active, loss and grieving, whatever.
I enjoy her real life take on things, but, just curious, whatever happened with the Alzheimers direction she was going with the Father? I’ve missed a few weeks, did she ever expound on that?
And people don’t like it, which wastes space for good comics and then the unfunnyic gets pulled.
FBOFW follows this logic up to the last two lines(Or in my case, the last line).But it hasn’t been pulled. Why is that when most “Serious”(And old) comics went dead?
Is Lynn involved in the largest sex scandal of all time? Does the comic have a demonic influence?
If you actually get into researching Batman and Robin in the early years… It was rumored that they were in fact gay. they had rumors going around that batman was slapping “dick’s” butt. robin was also parading around in short tight short’s and was always near batman when thoughts of his parents came around. its quite intersting.
If I am understanding the fairly incomprehensible post from the uncomfortably long-named poster, there is some degree of upset because FBOFW is not three panels and a punchline every day.
This completely ignores the fact that there are all sorts of comic strips. Funny ones, serious ones, soap strips, adventure strips, surreal strips, etc. If FBOFW does the job of engaging the reader then it has earned its place on the page.