CREATORS SPEAK OUT
We asked 16 of the top gay creators in the comic industry their thoughts, and here’s what they had to say.

Do you feel that YOU have a responsibility as a gay comic creator to represent gay readers?

Howard Cruse: Gay readers are too diverse for me to represent them. For every gay person I am in sync with, there's probably another one whose values would appall me. My responsibility as a creator, gay or otherwise, is to reflect on life and to convey through art the fruits of such reflection. Since I'm gay, for me to reflect on life honestly leads to the inclusion of gayness in my work. (It took me a while to learn to be honest, I should acknowledge, so it took a few years for the gay parts of me to begin showing through in my strips.)

Jose Villarrubia: No. I don’t think in those terms. Gay readers should lobby themselves, since creators for the most part have very little power to decide what kind of stories get published.

Eric Shanower: In my comics, I don't have a responsibility to represent anyone not demanded by the story--not gay readers, not any sort of reader. My responsibility in my comics is to tell the story in the most honest manner of which I'm capable. The story is dictated by the characters and who they are. For the most part, the story IS the characters and who they are.

Of course, as a gay man, I'm forced by our overwhelmingly straight culture to face the fact every single day that I'm in a minority. That informs everything I do, including my comics.

In public life, I'm not sure I can really represent anyone other than myself. I'm certainly willing to state publicly that I'm a cartoonist and that I'm gay. If that's meaningful or helpful--if it builds bridges or breaks down barriers--then I'm glad.

Robert Rodi: Absolutely not. An artist has no responsibility to anyone but him- or herself. Anyone who says otherwise is teetering on the brink of fascism. A gay creator can CHOOSE to create works for gay readers, and I would even applaud him or her for doing so -- but it must remain a choice. There are larger issues at stake.

Greg Fox: I feel a great DESIRE to represent gay readers. And I'm very glad to do it. Whether that's my responsibility as a gay comic creator, I'm not sure. But the fact that my main work is populated with a cast of diverse gay characters, and reaches a large gay audience around the world, feels very, very right.

Devin Grayson: I suppose I do have a responsibility, yeah, but even more compelling than that is my creative interest in doing so. I'm bisexual, and I love my life, I love my friends, I love the alt sex community -- these are themes that interest me, and I'm always excited about the ability to explore them in fiction. Both of my creator owned projects (RELATIVE HEROES and USER -- due out later this year) have gay characters in them, not because, to be honest, I felt politically obligated to include Homo- or bisexuality as a theme, but because I found it truly rewarding and exciting to write about.

That said, politics and creativity are tricky bedmates. As a female in a male dominated industry (though I'm always quick to point out that most industries are male-dominated) I'm frequently called upon to work with female characters, and I've been very honest about being less interested in that. I came to write Batman. To be brutally frank, I have almost zero interest in Batgirl. I think that when I do write female characters, my instinct (and, I suppose, obligation) is to represent them in as realistic and compassionate a light as possible. But it would be damaging to my career to be pigeonholed as a "chick writer" and I do have to expend a ridiculous amount of energy defending myself against that.

As I've said before in other interviews, writers -- artists of any kind, really -- are people who can and should transcend race, religion, and gender in their work. So although I do feel moved as a human to work on securing respect and equal rights for gay citizens, I also ask that as artists, we are careful about giving each other room to move and create beyond the boundaries of politics. In the end, if you honor your instincts as a human and as an artist in your work, your entire life will end up resonating with political significance.

Roberta Gregory: Oh, sure! You betcha!

Brad Rader: Sure, as soon as I get (or create) the chance.

Ariel L Schrag: no.

Tommy Kovac: There’s no way I could really represent gay readers since that’s such a huge group of people with different opinions and different likes and dislikes. What I DO feel a definite responsibility about is being open and confident about myself, including the fact that I’m gay. If I had stumbled across even ONE truly positive gay male role model when I was growing up, I might not have spent my high school years contemplating suicide and hating myself. (Don’t worry, I’m quite all right now!)

Sharon Cho: Strangely enough, yes. The reason why I say strangely enough is that as an Asian comic creator, I feel NO obligation to portray Asian characters. Almost inevitably, there will be at least one gay character in my stories, hence Marcus who is based on my best friend.

Marc Andreyko: I don't feel an obligation to put gay characters in stories just to have them there. If a gay character feels right in a story, I'll put one in (for example - making Sam Simon a gay cop in Torso was a logical and organic choice). Gay characters shoehorned into stories are almost as bad as no representation at all.