Graphic Novels and Coloring Books With LGBT Themes Take Center Stage

Misha and His Mon Go to the OlympicsAn antidote to Michael is Misha in Misha & His Moms Go to the Olympics.  FCKH8.com, a for-profit T-shirt company based in Michigan, will send 10,000 copies of this coloring book featuring LGBT people and their families to children in Sochi and Moscow in response to Russia’s law imposing fines and perhaps jail time for any positive expression of LGBT issues in proximity to minors. Since then, people have been indiscriminately beaten, even if no minors were present.

Written in Russian, Misha tells about a Muscovite boy and his two lesbian mothers as they attend the Olympics in Sochi. The boy meets families of both opposite- and same-sex parents. The book also shows two straight female Olympic medal winners kissing on the winner’s platform and the Russian police beating a gay couple for holding hands. On another page, police take Misha out of his home, illustrating the recent Russian effort to legally take children from lesbian and gay parents.

As a bonus, the book is offered as a free pdf at FCKH8.com. The company also plans to distribute wristbands at the Olympics that state “GAY OK” in both Russian and English.

Luke Montgomery, founder of FCKH8.com, said, “The message of this coloring book is to let kids in Russia know that being gay is normal. Beating and imprisoning people just for being out of the closet or arresting them for simply saying that it’s OK if someone in their family is gay, is an attack on human rights and a trashing of the Olympic spirit. We’re going to be breaking this homophobic law, and there’s nothing the government can do to stop it.” Montgomery worked with ACT UP and Queer Nation after coming out as a teen in the early 1990s and helped plan the 1993 LGBT March on Washington.

BatwomanJ.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman have resigned as the author/illustrator team on Batwoman, citing DC’s editorial interference and the publisher’s refusal to allow characters Kate Kane/Batwoman and her partner Gotham City police officer Maggie Sawyer to marry each other. Heather Hogan reported in afterellen.com:  “Like DC has been wanting all along, the first issue after their departure strips Kate of her independence and mystique and folds her right into Batman’s world with a tie-in to his Zero Year issue… This isn’t a Batwoman origin story at all. It’s a Batman origin story. And Kate is just a minor player in his major drama.” The page layouts and general art of Williams, who had been with Batwoman since its Detective Comics relaunch in 2009, “were so innovative and stunning they had the potential to make you gasp out loud,” according to Hogan.  [Visual 16]

[Visual 19] Archie comics is more accepting of same-sex relationships than DC. Kevin Keller, Archie Comics’ first gay character, is now dating Devon, a young man who ran away from home because of his father’s reaction to Devon’s being gay. Now Archie Comics has shown its first gay kiss. Thanks to writer and artist Dan Parent as well as Archie Comics Publications for their current approach toward culture.

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