image via northwestpress.com
The last few months, I’ve been occasionally helping out with moving boxes and such for The Beguiling, Toronto’s amazing comic and art book paradise that many people will tell you played a huge role in changing the game for the genre in North America. Although it’s legendary Markham St location closed yesterday, its new shop on College St is well on it’s way to creating the same Beguiling vibe, with eyes to a new chapter.
Of course, while sorting through books and of course, exploiting the steep, steep discounts of the Beguiling’s last days, I got to gander at tons of comics I never knew about and might never seen again. One that I took home, to my delight, turned out to be a real winner — The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green. From 1989 to 2004, the serialized strip appeared in gay papers around the country. I guess I came out just after it’s run, so it was really a joy to discover the wry, campy, somewhat neurotic humour of the creator, Eric Orner.
image via northwestpress.com
As the title suggests, there’s a bit of a normie, I-don’t-party-like-the-gays-on-Queer-as-Folk concept, but the comic is pretty awesomely non-judgemental about sexuality, drugs and drinking, and so-called morality. And while few comics or other queer media can claim a perfectly diverse representation, I was almost surprised to see how thoughtfully and thoroughly repeat characters of colour made there way in and out of storylines. The comic also deals directly with HIV stigma and dating.
I’m no expert on queer comics (regrettably), but I’d say Ethan Green is something of an equivalent to Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch out For, but with a focus on queer men. Maybe I’m just way late to the party on this, but I find Orner’s strips totally funny and smart and I’m super happy to have discovered them. Turns out the collected edition came out from the queer comics press Northwest Press only two years ago, so it’s been under my nose all this time. Apparently a movie was made of it too — not holding out too much hope for it, but I’ll have to press play sooner or later…
Jonathan Valelly is the assistant editor of Broken Pencil.