There is a rich tradition of LGBTQ+ cartoonists and graphic novel authors, and you should read them all year long. Storytelling in comics has often been a place for voices that were suppressed, overlooked, and misconstrued, and these authors use the power of visual art and language to tell important, funny, and heartbreaking stories. So I wanted to highlight just a few titles for Pride Month and encourage you yto share your recommendations and favorites on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Allison Bechdel

I cannot rave about this graphic memoir enough. Fun Home was groundbreaking, along the lines of Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Bechdel tells the true story of her family home, a funeral home, and about all the secrets, memories, and tragedy found inside. This is also the story of Bechdel’s coming out, and the crucial role of literature in understanding herself and her family. Fun Home received numerous prestigious awards, and was adapted for musical theatre in 2013.

If you’ve heard of the Bechdel test, Allison Bechdel is the source. She also wrote the Dykes to Watch Out For comic series as well as Are You My Mother and The Secret to Superhuman Strength.

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Lumberjanes, created by Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, Brooklyn A. Allen and Noelle Stevenson

This incredibly fun comics series follows a group of super cool girls through their summer scout camp as they encounter adventures and supernatural beings. The main cast includes trans and queer characters, and explicit inclusivity which is so important for a series that appeals to both adult and teen readers.

If you like Scooby-Doo and Adventure Time, you’ll love Lumberjanes, all 75 issues!

 

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Spinning by Tillie Walden

Tillie Walden tells the true story of her child and teen years as a competitive figure skater, including a move to Texas. Walden negotiates all the familiar teen trauma, including bullying, loneliness, and romance. However, she also must learn about herself while bracing for society’s reaction to her being gay.

Spinning is a beautiful and honest coming of age story.

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The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

Jen Wang wrote and illustrated The Price and the Dressmaker, and it is a beautiful fairy tale about the fluidity of gender and fashion. The two young characters, Frances and Sebastian, become entangled through decadent dresses and secrets. I don’t want to say anymore and give the story away. However, know that it is a sweet story very reminiscent of Cinderella.

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Flamer by Mike Curato

Flamer is a young adult graphic novel about fourteen-year-old Aidan, a Filipino American boy struggling to understand all the influences on his life and identity, including being gay and raised in the Catholic Church. Further, he struggles with self-acceptance in a blazing trial by fire, Boy Scout camp. While The Prince and the Dressmaker is a sparkly fairy tale, Flamer is so down to earth and truly captures the insecurities, hopes, and mercurial nature of adolescence.

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They Called Us Enemy by George Takei with co-writers Justin Eisenger and Steven Scott, and artist Harmony Becker

They Called Us Enemy is George Takei’s firsthand account of years spent behind barbed wire at Japanese internment camps during World War II. It chronicles the fears and joys of childhood in the face of institutional racism.

Takei is best known for playing Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek, but he has also spent decades advocating and fighting for human rights, especially emphasizing LGBTQ+ rights.

 

Whether you are new to comics or are an Austin Books and Comics devotee, there’s a graphic novel for you and your mood! As the Texas Book Festival team shelters in our respective homes, I’ve been getting reacquainted with my bookshelves, specifically my shelf of comics (featuring several TBF authors!). Here are just a few of my recommendations, and feel free to share yours on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! Most of these are for adults and/or teens, unless noted. Links all go to Bookshop.org, which will help support local independent bookstores.

Let’s start easy…

Calvin and Hobbes. All of them. Read them with the family, by yourself, during a virtual happy hour, to your dog. It doesn’t matter which collection you choose or where you start or if you finish. Personal favorites are the strips with Rosalyn the babysitter, and when Calvin’s dad drags them on camping trips.

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For that food love: Lucy Knisley’s Relish

A welcome read for anyone who ever felt more passion for a sandwich than is strictly speaking proper, Relish is a graphic novel for our time: it invites the reader to celebrate food as a connection to our bodies and a connection to the earth, rather than an enemy, a compulsion, or a consumer product.

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For some dark laughs (and cries): Roz Chast’s Can’t we talk about something more pleasant? A memoir.

Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast’s memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.

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For that brassy survivor: Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s Cancer Vixen

In vivid color and with a taboo-breaking sense of humor, Marisa Acocella Marchetto tells the story of her eleven-month, ultimately triumphant bout with breast cancer—from diagnosis to cure, and every challenging step in between.

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For finding survival in art: Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s Hey Kiddo

The powerful, unforgettable memoir from Jarrett Krosoczka, about growing up with a drug-addicted mother, a missing father, and two unforgettably opinionated grandparents.

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For that YA angst: Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese

A tour-de-force by rising indy comics star Gene Yang, American Born Chinese tells the story of three apparently unrelated characters: Jin Wang, who moves to a new neighborhood with his family only to discover that he’s the only Chinese-American student at his new school; the powerful Monkey King, subject of one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables; and Chin-Kee, a personification of the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, who is ruining his cousin Danny’s life with his yearly visits.

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Mariko Tamaki’s This One Summer

Every summer, Rose goes with her mom and dad to a lake house in Awago Beach. it’s their getawy, their refuge. Rosie’s friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had. But this summer is different.

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For that adult angst: Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings

Lauded for its provocative and insightful portrayal of interpersonal relationships, Adrian Tomine’s politically-charged Shortcomings was one of the most acclaimed books of 2007.

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Leslie’s Stein’s Present

Stein is a master storyteller, an urban explorer, and a loyal guide through dark days and simple, blissful encounters. Stein’s curiosity about and generosity toward the world around her come through powerfully: each colorful story flows with vivid watercolors and delicate ink lines.

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Kristen Radtke’s Imagine Wanting Only This

A gorgeous graphic memoir about loss, love, and confronting grief.

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To finally get the Bechdel Test reference: Allison Bechdel’s Fun Home

In this groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father. In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail.

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For all the feels: Mira Jacob’s Good Talk

Written with humor and vulnerability, this deeply relatable graphic memoir is a love letter to the art of conversation—and to the hope that hovers in our most difficult questions.