In an editor’s note in Gay Comix #4 Cruse put out a call for more women to submit to the magazine, saying, “After all, the personal style of comic book storytelling in Gay Comix was pioneered by the women who put together Wimmen’s Comix when underground commix were young.” While it sometimes had suggestive or sexual comics, Gay Comix was not a pornographic comic series. Gay Comix featured the work of primarily gay and lesbian cartoonists. “He had never publicly, in print, declared he was gay…he thought coming out would only add to his woes.” Cruse decided that “it would be cowardly” to decline the editor position for these reasons.Ĭruse recognized that gay people were viewed as caricatures by most of the world, and wanted to publish comics that showed the humanity and normal side of lesbian and gay people. Originally Cruse had reservations about editing the anthology. Gay Comix aimed to get the gay and lesbian contributors to write about things that had happened to them, and experiences they had had. A call was put out for artists through comics magazine Cascade Comix Monthly. The two had worked together previously Cruse’s comic Barefootz was published through Kitchen Sink Press. In 1979, after realizing underground cartoonist Howard Cruse was gay, Kitchen asked him to edit an anthology of gay comic artists. The idea for Gay Comix came from Denis Kitchen, a publisher of underground comics through the company he founded, Kitchen Sink Press. Andy Mangels edited issues #14 to #25 and a special issue featuring Barela Mangels changed the title to Gay Comics starting with issue #15, in part to divest it of the " underground" implications of "comix".Įxcerpts from Gay Comix were included in a 1989 anthology titled Gay Comics.
The first four issues were edited by Cruse issues #5 through #13 were edited by Robert Triptow.
Kitchen Sink Press published the first five issues of Gay Comix thereafter it was published by Bob Ross, publisher of the Bay Area Reporter gay newspaper.