Comics – not just for geeks anymore! Well, in my opinion, comics have never been explicitly geek-centric, but as geek-chic is making its way into the mainstream, comics are being more and more embraced in popular culture. Queer comics, however, have been created and printed for decades. As an alternative art form, comics have historically been a great outlet for LGBT and Queer artists to create art for a certain audience, as well as comment and respond to relevant political, socio-economical and historical issues that affect the Queer community. The Archives is home to a number of Queer comics and collections for you to browse through at your leisure. Here are a few that caught my eye: The Killer Condom – Ralf Konig 
Brash, explicit, and raunchy, this 62-page comic revolves around the bizarre plot line of a gay cop and his lover investigating a string of penectomies in room 408 of “Hotel Quickie” of New York City. Thought to be victims of angry women and sex workers, nearly sixteen men had fallen prey to what turned out to be, in fact, a pack of serial pseudo-living beast-condoms with razor sharp teeth. This hilarious comic is entertaining, but NOT for children or the faint-of-heart. Written by Konig in 1987, The ArQuives hosts an Americanized version translated from the original German print. It was also made into a horror-comedy movie in 1996 with the tagline: The Rubber that Rubs YOU Out! Visibly Vera – Cath Jackson 
This cheeky comic strip collection chronicles the life of Vera the Visible Lesbian and her hyper-feminist, anti-patriarchal friends. Written in 1986 out of London, England, it recounts many of the issues the lesbian and gay community had to face in that time, such as the AIDS crisis, dating covertly in gay bars, and patriarchal power structures. Jackson manages to have fun with these tough matters and tackles them with a fabulous feminist humour. Vera struggles to find love after a bad breakup; as her personal ads denote: “Witty warm-hearted Wonderwoman recently wounded in love seeks sensitive sapphic Supergirl for holding hands, healing hearts – maybe more?” Among the funnier stories: Vera’s friend tries for a baby with a gay male friend, whose womb is “colonized” by a hyper-masculine man named Gordon AKA Rambo and a lesbian named Klittoris from the planet Sistitis; and Vera dates a woman who bares a striking similarity to Radclyffe Hall’s Stephen Gordon. A Queer Sense of Humour – A Collection of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Cartoons 
This gallantly gay anthology of Queer strips and cartoons contains contributions from an assortment of Canadian artists. There are many Queer perspectives and identities represented in the collection, spanning from delicately funny to the explicitly hilarious. A couple of my favourites include a piece by Leanne Franson, wherein a lonely self-proclaimed Dyke who can’t find a romantic partner drowns her woes in a club for gay men, where she’s hit on by a leather-clad stubble-chinned gay man. They exchange pleasantries – switching between Quebecois and English – and eventually engage in a passionate makeout session at the bar. Note – they both know the other is very, very gay. Afterwords, she proudly exclaims her confirmed bisexuality to the world, as the gay man smiles and leaves. Following this strip, Franson drew a spread on the endless possibilities of Queer identity called “More Radical Than Thou Wars”, featuring sketched portraits of women with multiple personal identifiers and personal opinions of the meaning of “lesbian”, ranging from “I’m a femmy butch” to “I love women but I refuse to say the ‘L-Word’!”. A Queer Sense of Humour is a great way to spend an hour, and leaves one feeling fresh and satisfied with the various art styles, Canadian references, and impressive jokes. Rubyfruit Mountain – A Stonewall Riots Collection by Andrea Natalie 
“Andrea Natalie has angst in her pants. Draw that!” Kate Clinton is spot on with her back cover review on this delightful single-artist collection. Rubyfruit Mountain contains mostly single-page, single-panel sketches with various socio-political allusions with twists of snark, sarcasm, and Queer humour. One particular panel that made me hoot featured two female cows dressed in leather (how dark is that?), with one cow in ropes begging “Oh Mistress! Not the teat clamps!”, and another one depicting two unsheared poodles chastising a dressed up, poofy poodle for her haircut (“I’m sorry, Ashley, but it’s the truth. You’re propagating a breed stereotype.”). Natalie’s collection dances the line between political humour and the downright bizarre. 
Also check out “The Night Audrey’s Vibrator Spoke”, a saucy anthology by Natalie, part of The ArQuives Collection. Here at the Archives, we have over 250 comic titles in our collection, some one off as part of our library collection, and multi-issue comics in our periodical collection. If you want to browse our awesome comic collections, contact us at (https://arquives.ca/contact/). Author: Laura Arner, The ArQuives volunteer
