Where Everybody Knows You're Numb

Psych Lit · Guru

RE: ill see you in the funny papers

nesea · Senior Member

funny and clever

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline .

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

nesea · Senior Member

MyCat8it wrote:

nesea wrote:

MyCat8it wrote:

That reminded me of a client I used to have back in Philadelphia.

Hey .. you're from philly or do you just have clients from the area?

I was born and raised in the burbs, but now I live in Florida. Was in Philly last summer for a visit. No immediate plans of returning. I used to love South Street, and the city in general. Last summer, I took an afternoon and just walked and checked out the stores all the way down to the water. Except they were doing all sorts of construction in the streets, it wasn't as nice. Did they finally finish that?

yep ..... if you use a wheelchair it's much easier to travel south street now.

MyCat8it · Senior Member

nesea wrote:

MyCat8it wrote:

That reminded me of a client I used to have back in Philadelphia.
::::caution-thread drift ahead::::

Hey .. you're from philly or do you just have clients from the area?

We go into philly a lot ... matter of fact, friday we went to Claudios and Fantes on 9th street and had lunch at Shanks (smallest place I've ever eaten in) and walked south street before coming home. Fantes is so much fun to walk around .. they have every kitchen gadget known to womankind .. and Claudios has the best cheeses, olives and whatnots. Not to mention the fresh produce being sold on the street .. beautiful stuff ...

lol .. ok, so I went off on a bit of a tangent and I don't even know if you're from around here or not ... if so, cool !! If not ... well .. as Rosann Rosannadanna used to say .. nevermind.

I was born and raised in the burbs, but now I live in Florida. Was in Philly last summer for a visit. No immediate plans of returning. I used to love South Street, and the city in general. Last summer, I took an afternoon and just walked and checked out the stores all the way down to the water. Except they were doing all sorts of construction in the streets, it wasn't as nice. Did they finally finish that?

nesea · Senior Member

MyCat8it wrote:

That reminded me of a client I used to have back in Philadelphia.

::::caution-thread drift ahead::::

Hey .. you're from philly or do you just have clients from the area?

We go into philly a lot ... matter of fact, friday we went to Claudios and Fantes on 9th street and had lunch at Shanks (smallest place I've ever eaten in) and walked south street before coming home. Fantes is so much fun to walk around .. they have every kitchen gadget known to womankind .. and Claudios has the best cheeses, olives and whatnots. Not to mention the fresh produce being sold on the street .. beautiful stuff ...

lol .. ok, so I went off on a bit of a tangent and I don't even know if you're from around here or not ... if so, cool !! If not ... well .. as Rosann Rosannadanna used to say .. nevermind.

Nightowlhoot3 · Guru

MyCat8it wrote:

The posts are a little long for me to quote, but I'll paraphrase.

Owl was saying something about lesbians in regular comics for kids. I wonder what that would look like? How do you depict a lesbian different from another girl, without offering sexual connotations, like having the girl be "interested" in another girl.

What if the girl was just a very strong, self-sufficient woman?

That'd be a good start for women in general (and I think there's been an effort to do that) as for lesbians, they'd probably need to be introduced at first as already established couples. Wouldn't it have been nice, though, if Kal-El's ship had landed in the field of Ma and Ma Kent, or Pa and Pad Kent, instead of Ma and Pa Kent, though? Wouldn't it have been WONDERFUL if he'd been raised by gay or lesbian parents? biggrin

I wonder how he would have been different because of that...

Probably not the flashy outfit he now wears... too conspicuous, and "light in the loafers probably... would need to be something not so form fitting and flashy, for SURE. Of course, the problem there, is the fabric, which is the stretch-stuff which was the blanket he was found wrapped in as a baby (which is why it doesn't burn, or anything, it also being "super" -- indestructible) so it would be hard to make it more loosely fitting ...

MyCat8it · Senior Member

The posts are a little long for me to quote, but I'll paraphrase.

Owl was saying something about lesbians in regular comics for kids. I wonder what that would look like? How do you depict a lesbian different from another girl, without offering sexual connotations, like having the girl be "interested" in another girl.

What if the girl was just a very strong, self-sufficient woman? That reminded me of a client I used to have back in Philadelphia. He worked for DC Comics at the time, and created a couple of characters, Monsterman and G.I.R.L.

Here's a link, if you're interested:

http://www.actionplanet.com/creators/mike.html

Time to get ready for work. Have a great day, all!

Psych Lit · Guru

Nightowlhoot3 wrote:

Nightowlhoot3 wrote:

Interesting article, Psych.

It will be a grand day, I think, when comics aimed for kids have gay and lesbian characters, just as "normal people" (with maybe a Superhero or two for good measure.)

When I was a kid I did love my comic books. Never felt ANY affinity with ANY of the women in them, though. I don't have any "gender ID" discomfort -- I mean, I'm a woman, have always felt myself to be a woman, and am thrilled it turned out that way for me. Even so, I always IDed with the guys in comics.

i wonder if this was because of the one dimensional "drawing" of women in those comics? the only comic strip that i recall depicting women with a bit more dimension was the old apt 3g tho written by a guy the women characters had some "realness" to them. what struck me in this article was the drawing of womens sexuality, not as a means to an end for male sexuality but as a powerful force with its own desires and needs and i wondered if this was a lesbian phenomenon which led me to think again about assimilation and what gets lost. I wondered about the depiction of sexuality across all forms of writing and whether or not it was accurate in the range of desire or whether this too, aside from the lesbian entries, was male centered with womens desires not clearly spelled out? and then earlier this morning i was doing some research on the topic of love which was a result of reading helen fishers essay dumped the other day. the essay gives the scientific genesis of love which reminded me that before we operationalized love and other non quantifiable expressions that love was viewed by cultural historians as recent in the area of human expression and yet heres helen fisher saying its one of those reptilian functions with a nod to darwin. going back to the bedoins or the troubadors or the poets all have one thing in common the lack of a female voice with the historical exception of a few lesbians and witches. and yet helen fisher is a woman and shes apparently reduced love and its expression into a tidy category of efficient breeding and mate selection but what helen doesnt take into account is the voice of lesbian love which has no foothold in reproduction in mate selection. its that voice which may hold the answers to questions not readily apparent in a brain scan.

"Superman" was my dude. Had quite a collection at one time (it was stolen.) I still am known in some very small circles as somewhat of a Superman trivia freak. But it wasn't just Superman who interested me, it was also the less featured characters... like Jimmy Olsen. I'm SURE Lois Lane made more money at the Daily Planet than did cub reporter Olsen, but even so, and even with his ... at times, bumbling ineptitude, he still was, for me, a more interesting character
he was one of my favorite characters too. i wonder if he went on to do other work or if he was so typecast by that role that it made it impossible to do anything else.

. Lois always seemed just a ditzy backdrop for Superman, a
Just as an observation, my "willing suspension of disbelief" was always severely tested, even in grade school, by people's inability to recognize either Superman when he wore glasses, or Supergirl when she put on a brown wig. I mean, come on! Maybe that's partly why I wasn't so drawn to either Lois Lane OR Lana Lang. I mean, here they were, supposedly IN LOVE WITH the guy, and couldn't even recognize him when he put glasses on??
yep that particular aspect of disguise was either a giant metaphorical leap of genius on the part of the writer or a social commentary on the intelligence of the average american citizen.

Anyway, I didn't much like the women (expect for Ma Kent) in those comics, but they were a heck of a lot better than those two b-words-with-tits Betty and Veronica. GAWD! JUGHEAD was more appealing than either of them! Even so, I think the gym teacher was probably one of the first "dyke" characters in comics, although she was terribly stereotyped, and we surmise, only through the stereotype that she IS, in fact a dyke.
and jugheads sister. she always struck me as a lesbian too. funny you should mention jughead i was talking to one of the very butch buds about comic books last week and she was saying how she always purchased the archie comic books but it was jughead that was her fav. lol. i liked them because they were teens and they were cool and could go on picnics or take the roadster to the beach or dance and listen to music. things my lil 8 year old self could only imagine

The other problem with comics world when I was a kid, was that everyone was Anglo. EVERYONE. Marvel had "The Black Panther" but he was about the only one (DC had "The Black Canary" -- a woman whose "superpower" was to scream really loud, --think about THAT for a second!-- but she wasn't Black, she was Anglo) and no black or hispanic people ever attended or taught at any of the schools, or worked in any of the business' -- comics when I was a kid were essentially sexist AND racist, when you get right down to it.
and that was really the whole of the world back then. think of all of those early tv series. how many people of color were there and the families portrayed were all white and upperclass. the first person i recall that wasnt white was bill cosby on i spy well aside from the carson show or ed sullivan. it wasnt till the 70s that i recall seeing black families or hispanic families on tv. im thinking of this now and wondering how many of those shows were norman lear shows? i know he did all in the family and good times. and the jeffersons was a spin off of that?

Nightowlhoot3 · Guru

Nightowlhoot3 wrote:

Interesting article, Psych.

It will be a grand day, I think, when comics aimed for kids have gay and lesbian characters, just as "normal people" (with maybe a Superhero or two for good measure.)

When I was a kid I did love my comic books. Never felt ANY affinity with ANY of the women in them, though. I don't have any "gender ID" discomfort -- I mean, I'm a woman, have always felt myself to be a woman, and am thrilled it turned out that way for me. Even so, I always IDed with the guys in comics. "Superman" was my dude. Had quite a collection at one time (it was stolen.) I still am known in some very small circles as somewhat of a Superman trivia freak. But it wasn't just Superman who interested me, it was also the less featured characters... like Jimmy Olsen. I'm SURE Lois Lane made more money at the Daily Planet than did cub reporter Olsen, but even so, and even with his ... at times, bumbling ineptitude, he still was, for me, a more interesting character. Lois always seemed just a ditzy backdrop for Superman, and while Jimmy too was always seeming to find himself in some sort of bonehead jam, from which Superman had to save him, LOIS seemed to make a career of it. Plus, she always seemed such a ... shallow person -- LOVED chalkin' up those "frequent flyer" miles with Superman, loved his big muscles and all, but what? Couldn't give Clark Kent the time of day? She was downright rude to Clark sometimes. Jimmy never was, though. Superman's cousin "Wonder Girl" wasn't much better. She always struck me as a little whiney, to be honest. Maybe it was the cat/dog thing (I'm a dog person, and Superman had Krypto, the dog, whereas Supergirl had "Streaky" the cat.)
Just as an observation, my "willing suspension of disbelief" was always severely tested, even in grade school, by people's inability to recognize either Superman when he wore glasses, or Supergirl when she put on a brown wig. I mean, come on! Maybe that's partly why I wasn't so drawn to either Lois Lane OR Lana Lang. I mean, here they were, supposedly IN LOVE WITH the guy, and couldn't even recognize him when he put glasses on?? Sure, Clark was always billed as the "meek, mild-mannered reporter" but geezopetes, what's wrong with that, anyway? He held down a steady job, was always kind and decent, but NOOOOOOOOOOO they had to go for the flying dude in the sorta-swishy-when-you-think-about-it cape. Maybe it was also that he was so "complicated" and "mysterious." Anyway, I didn't much like the women (expect for Ma Kent) in those comics, but they were a heck of a lot better than those two b-words-with-tits Betty and Veronica. GAWD! JUGHEAD was more appealing than either of them! Even so, I think the gym teacher was probably one of the first "dyke" characters in comics, although she was terribly stereotyped, and we surmise, only through the stereotype that she IS, in fact a dyke.

The other problem with comics world when I was a kid, was that everyone was Anglo. EVERYONE. Marvel had "The Black Panther" but he was about the only one (DC had "The Black Canary" -- a woman whose "superpower" was to scream really loud, --think about THAT for a second!-- but she wasn't Black, she was Anglo) and no black or hispanic people ever attended or taught at any of the schools, or worked in any of the business' -- comics when I was a kid were essentially sexist AND racist, when you get right down to it.

Psych Lit · Guru

an interesting article from on our backs.

RAUNCH HANDS
Lesbian sex comes to life in the funnies thanks to these inky-fingered women

by Pat Tong

Lesbianor lesbian-friendly womencartoonists drawing lesbian sex: these, gals, are the good old days. What luxury to have so many fabulous inky-fingered women churning out panels and pages of truth, justice, and the lesbian way, instead of weird male-generated porn. And how empowering, thanks to the internet, to have more options than comic stores, which still mostly cater to teenaged boys. At the risk of sounding like a cranky old coot: Back in the day, if you loved comics and you loved women, nearly all the territory from Heavy Metal to Archies Pals n Gals was a spiritual wasteland. Not that some of us might not have enjoyed a little 2 Hot Girls on a Hot Summer Night.

But I never could really get off on those Victorias Secrettype babes. The blank stares unnerved me. The tits...never seemed quite right. I just wasnt comfortable with Monica being so completely interchangeable with Babette. The idea that sex with Monica might be exactly like sex with Babette went beyond boring to a little creepy.

There wereand aresome guys doing a bang-up job of drawing and writing real women, like the Hernandez brothers of Love and Rockets fame. And I still remember the thrill of discovering tough, quick-draw Billy the Kid was really Billy Jo in drag, searching for her Pas killer (All Star Western #6, DC Comics, 1971). Some guys come close, like Terry Moore, who gives us well-drawn and likeable women, but unfortunately feels the need to give us their measurements on the Strangers in Paradise website. And its not like a woman cartoonist cant be maddeningly obscure or coy; was Hank of Brenda Starr a dyke or just a gutsy iconoclast with a thing for tartan?

feature

But most often, when a woman is wielding the pen, Monica and Babette blink, emerge from the fog, and suddenly acquire quirks, foibles, emotionsotherwise known as personalities. Then theres no confusing Monica with Babette. Nor is there any doubt that sex with
Mo(nica) from Dykes To Watch Out For would be the polar opposite of sex with Hothead Paisan (whose given name might or might not be Babette).

Comics are still largely the domain of the less fair sex. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles recently mounted an exhibition attempting to establish a canon of cartoon art, and there wasnt a single woman on the walls. Theres a reason minorities flinch when they hear the word canon. My cartoon mind always pictures a cannon.

But whiners never prosper. Some women have always ignored the dominant paradigm and just gone ahead and created great cartoon art. And lil lesbians like myself have always been willing to brave inhospitable environs (have you ever been in an average comic book shop?) to find authenticand, if very lucky, hotimages of women.

Our Foremothers
Mary Wings pioneering 1973 Come Out Comix sex appeal lies in its earnestness and earliness. The sex happens under covers, starry-eyed and sweet, and, near the climax of the tale, with our leaping heroine joyfully proclaiming her lesbianism. The patchouli and psychedelia are pervasive. In a time of sexism and rampant homophobia, it took some chutzpah to offer this up.

Roberta Gregory, another trailblazer (Dynamite Damsels, 1976), gets more graphic but is less eager to apply labels. From her early work for various gay and womens underground comics to her more recent self-published Winging It, impatience with being misunderstood and misidentified is a frequent theme. Theres more than a little dialogue, angst, and self-explanation before, during, and after sex, be it between girls or girls and boys. You get both flavors in the three-part serial Artistic Licentiousness. Her most famous character, Bitchy Bitch (a.k.a. Midge McCracken, in the no longer published Naughty Bits), goes for the boys, and occasionally for their jugular veins. She runs amok on a regular basislife is either in her face or biting her on the ass. This woman is over self-explanation. Her lesbian counterpart, Bitchy Butch, is more likely to be mistaken for a man or otherwise irritated by the women she encounters than cruised by them. Naughty Bits comics are short on orgasms (although Bitch does nicely for herself with the help of the microwave, assorted veggies, and mechanical aids) but long on cathartic fire breathing.

Other women riffing on lesbian themes during the seventies through the nineties were such greats as Jennifer Camper, Trina Robbins, Lee Marrs, Joan Hilty, Phoebe Gloeckner, the late Kris Kovick, and Leslie Ewing. There were many relatively lesser-known creators as well: T.O. Sylvester (a.k.a. Sylvia Mollick and Terry Ryan), Jacki Randall, Karen Platt, Anina Bennett, Julie Franki, Cheela Smith, Beck Main, Lucy Clare Byatt, Rhonda Dicksion, Noreen Stevens, Catherine Doherty. A lot of this work was published in Tits n Clits, Wimmens Comix, and Gay Comix, or in Dykess Delight from the U.K. Some were included in gay and mainstream magazines and newspapers. Some of this work was mildly sexual and some was wildly explicit. Most of it was full of attitude. Some artists even made it into paperback books, like N. Leigh Dunlaps breezy Morgan Calabresé collections, or Andrea Natalies Stonewall Riots collections. If New Yorker cartoons were a little racier and had anything to do with our lives, or if Gary Larson cartoons were just a little pervy, youd have an Andrea Natalie cartoon. Who knew Ms. Potato Head came with that extra special attachment?

Our Veterans
Often a woman contributed to one issue of Gay Comix or some other periodical and then disappeared off the radar screen (without even collecting royalty checks, in at least one case), but many have persevered and are creating lesbian images today. Alison Bechdels Dykes To Watch Out For has been reflecting lesbian experience with insight, heart, and incredible talent since 1983. Some say that Bechdel doesnt do sex in the strip. Its true that there are never tight close-ups of genitalia, but the cast of DTWOF lick nipples, toes, and clitorises with the best, inserting fingers and sundry other delights with abandon. And not just under a nice down comforter, either. Theres the floor, the living room futon, an office chair, the library stacksand Lois has even had her (rubber) dick sucked by a sexy FTM mechanic while pinned against a VW bug in a greasy garage. No sex, my butt plug! Bechdel is self-syndicated and appears in numerous publications, as well as online and in several paperback collections.

Jennifer Camper has been mincing penises, not words, since forever. In 1980 her first strip, Cookie Jones, Lesbian Detective, appeared in Gay Community News; thats a long time to keep your game face on, but shes pretty remarkable. She excels at twirling paradigms and creating opposite realities in order to drive home a point. Good examples are If Men Got Pregnant and Heterosexuals in the Military. Shes got a collection of cartoons called Rude Girls and Dangerous Women and an apocalyptic, surreal graphic novel, subGURLZ, about three variously super-powered women living together in derelict subway tunnels. Shes straight-ahead X-rated with the sex and her sweet-faced heroines are often just as forceful in their dealings with men as Hothead Paisan on a very, very bad day.

And speaking of Hothead, Diane DiMassas homicidal heroine is so lustily busy righting the wrongs of the world that she seldom pauses to enjoy plain old lust. Occasionally she does tumblerowdily, as you would expect. One raucous tryst/chase/wrestling match happens all over the neighborhood and finally all around Hotheads apartment, causing her cat, Chicken, to leave in disgust. There is an interesting romance with (Im assuming) an MTF charmer named Daphne. I can only wonder if Hotheads brashness with her is beguiling or offensive to a trans audience. Check out her huge (428 pages!) compilation called The Complete Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist.

Leanne Franson draws very cute characters having sex that sometimes makes me wince. No matter how lovingly cradled in the palm of a hand, a knife inserted into a vagina just brings out the dont try this at home, kids reflex in me. Her strips are wry and very honest examinations of lesbian manners, societal hypocrisy, love, loss, and relationships. Theyre often very funny and sometimes poignant. Her Liliane, Bi-Dyke mini comics, which she started drawing in 1992, have been collected into two volumes: Assume Nothing and Teaching Through Trauma. Her day job is childrens book illustration. She does a daily Liliane comic online (see below).

Joan Hilty is currently doing a strip called Bitter Girl about urban lesbianhood, available online (see below). She sold her first cartoon to Lesbian Connection in 1990 and afterward popped up regularly in publications like Gay Comix, Real Girl, Wimmens Comix, the Advocate, and the Village Voice before becoming an editor at DC Comics; she is now in charge of the Powerpuff Girls and other features in DCs Kids Line.

Our Future
Women are creating all kinds of lesbian comix/comics, and you can access a lot of them, no matter where you are, if youre connected to the internet. Some women are publishing exclusively online (like Justine Shaw, who draws Nowhere Girl), some are doing print and web (like Alison Bechdel and Leanne Franson), and at the very least, you can use the net to read all about your favorite artists, discover new ones, and find out where to send your check or money order for a book, mini comic, or imprinted underwear. You can even still order a copy of Roberta Gregorys vintage Dynamite Damsels (until she empties that last boxful, anyway)!

Some of the relatively newer artists depicting the lesbian universe are Paige Braddock, who does Janes World, a jauntily drawn slice-of-life ramble about a group of friends, some gay, some straight, some canine. The car windows dont get completely steamed up, just a little foggy. Ditto with Kris Dresen, who draws gorgeously and specializes more in poignancy than in pornography.

Youd think with a title like XXX Live Nude Girls, youd have some pornography thrown in, but Laurenn McCubbin and Nikki Coffmans creations are more like art books: spare, taut, short stories with beautiful, painterly illustrations, full of girls making dubious life choices.

And while were on the subject of dubious life choices, we have Ariel Schrags sometimes harrowing accounts of her high school years in Berkeley. In Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise (serialized and still in progress), she obsessively details every crush, toke, biology exam, high, and low she experienced. When I wasnt cringing and wondering where her parents were, I was touched by her insatiable zest for life and experience or empathizing with her terrible disappointments in love. Her graphic style veers from very crudely cartoony to quasi-photographic wash drawing. Often the cue for a sex or dream sequence is this stylistic change, with these scenes rendered in the latter style. She is published by Slave Labor Graphics.

Elizabeth Watasins Charm School is about Bunny, The Good Lil Teen Witch, and her drag-racing butch vampire girlfriend, Dean. It becomes a triangle with the addition of a voluptuous faerie, Fairer Than. This is a campy little fantasy world on amphetamines. Its endearing and flirty, just hugs and kisses (and one vampire hickey), but it has the over-the-top histrionics of a good Shangri-las song like Leader of the Pack, complete with sound effects.

Colleen Coovers work is a magical mix of smut and cuteness. This is adorable pornography spirited, fun, positive toward sex, sexuality, women, lesbianism. Up with pretty girls! Up with vibrating dildos! Yay!

So if you happen to live near a pretty hip establishment like Comic Relief in Berkeley, go there and ask for the lesbian stuff. But no matter where you are, you no longer have to depend on a store carrying or the staff knowing aboutcomic art thats relevant to you. Get on the internet and you will find something validating, titillating, happy-making. I promise.