Out of the Closet & Into the Costume: A History of Queer Comix
By: Valentino L. Zullo, teaching fellow at Kent State University and Ohio Center for the Book Scholar-in-Residence at Cleveland Public Library
Thursday, October 12, 2017
12:30 - 1:45pm
SCE 605
Comics, a form that exists outside of the boundaries of art and literature is itself queer, challenging conceptions of storytelling. For decades, comics circulated stories about lived experience otherwise silenced in popular media as the lives of LGBTQ people were drawn, preserved, and distributed in a form that was often overlooked as childish or silly. These so-called silly objects, though, created an archive of history for queer people. From the early underground comix to the popular superheroes Batwoman, Iceman and America, this lecture considers the history of queer comics and characters. Together we will explore questions of representation and the many ways that queerness intersects with other identities.