No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics


Justin HallRobert Triptow - 2012
    This book celebrates this vibrant artistic underground by gathering together a collection of excellent stories that can be enjoyed by all.No Straight Lines showcases major names such as Alison Bechdel (whose book Fun Home was named Time Magazine's 2006 Book of the Year), Howard Cruse (whose groundbreaking Stuck Rubber Baby is now back in print), and Ralf Koenig (one of Europe's most popular cartoonists), as well as high-profile, cross-over creators who have dabbled in LGBT cartooning, like legendary NYC artist David Wojnarowicz and media darling and advice columnist Dan Savage. No Straight Lines also spotlights many talented creators who never made it out of the queer comics ghetto, but produced amazing work that deserves wider attention.Until recently, queer cartooning existed in a parallel universe to the rest of comics, appearing only in gay newspapers and gay bookstores and not in comic book stores, mainstream bookstores or newspapers. The insular nature of the world of queer cartooning, however, created a fascinating artistic scene. LGBT comics have been an uncensored, internal conversation within the queer community, and thus provide a unique window into the hopes, fears, and fantasies of queer people for the last four decades.These comics have forged their aesthetics from the influences of underground comix, gay erotic art, punk zines, and the biting commentaries of drag queens, bull dykes, and other marginalized queers. They have analyzed their own communities, and their relationship with the broader society. They are smart, funny, and profound. No Straight Lines will be heralded by people interested in comics history, and people invested in LGBT culture will embrace it as a unique and invaluable collection.

Half Lies


Sally Green - 2014
    Their father drowns his pain at the bottom of a bottle.They begin a new life in Florida, where Michele meets a White Witch boy, but the divide between Black and White Witches is as dangerous as ever. Soon Michele is caught between love and loyalty, truth and lies.Could falling in love be the deadliest mistake she's ever made?

Felix Ever After


Kacen Callender - 2020
    He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle....But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself.Felix Ever After is an honest and layered story about identity, falling in love, and recognizing the love you deserve.

Miss Meteor


Tehlor Kay Mejia - 2020
    But that’s not the only reason Lita wants to enter the contest, or why her ex-best friend Chicky wants to help her. The road to becoming Miss Meteor isn’t about being perfect; it’s about sharing who you are with the world—and loving the parts of yourself no one else understands. So to pull off the unlikeliest underdog story in pageant history, Lita and Chicky are going to have to forget the past and imagine a future where girls like them are more than enough—they are everything.Witty and heartfelt with characters that leap off the page, Miss Meteor is acclaimed authors Anna-Marie McLemore and Tehlor Kay Mejia’s first book together.

Across a Field of Starlight: (A Graphic Novel)


Blue Delliquanti - 2022
    An amazing story that explores the complexity of human nature and what brings us together.When they were kids, Fassen's fighter spaceship crash-landed on a planet that Lu's survey force was exploring. It was a forbidden meeting between a kid from a war-focused resistance movement and a kid whose community and planet are dedicated to peace and secrecy. Lu and Fassen are from different worlds and separate solar systems. But their friendship keeps them in each other's orbit as they grow up. They stay in contact in secret as their communities are increasingly threatened by the omnipresent, ever-expanding empire. As the empire begins a new attack against Fassen's people--and discovers Lu's in the process--the two of them have the chance to reunite at last. They finally are able to be together...but at what cost? This beautifully illustrated graphic novel is an epic science fiction romance between two non-binary characters as they find one another through time, distance, and war.

The Sky Blues


Robbie Couch - 2021
    Determined not to let anything ruin his senior year, Sky decides to make a splash at his high school’s annual beach bum party by asking his crush, Ali, to prom—and he has thirty days to do it. What better way to start living loud and proud than by pulling off the gayest promposal Rock Ledge, Michigan, has ever seen? Then, Sky’s plans are leaked by an anonymous hacker in a deeply homophobic e-blast that quickly goes viral. He’s fully prepared to drop out and skip town altogether—until his classmates give him a reason to fight back by turning his thirty-day promposal countdown into a school-wide hunt to expose the e-blast perpetrator. But what happens at the end of the thirty days? Will Sky get to keep his hard-won visibility? Or will his small-town blues stop him from being his true self?

The Wild Ones


Nafiza Azad - 2021
    Morris Finalist Nafiza Azad comes a thrilling, feminist fantasy about a group of teenage girls endowed with special powers who must band together to save the life of the boy whose magic saved them all.Meet the Wild Ones: girls who have been hurt, abandoned, and betrayed all their lives. It all began with Paheli, who was once betrayed by her mother and sold to a man in exchange for a favor. When Paheli escapes, she runs headlong into a boy with stars in his eyes. This boy, as battered as she is, tosses Paheli a box of stars before disappearing. With the stars, Paheli gains access to the Between, a place of pure magic and mystery. Now, Paheli collects girls like herself and these Wild Ones use their magic to travel the world, helping the hopeless and saving others from the fates they suffered. Then Paheli and the Wild Ones learn that the boy who gave them the stars, Taraana, is in danger. He’s on the run from powerful forces within the world of magic. But if Taraana is no longer safe and free, neither are the Wild Ones. And that…is a fate the Wild Ones refuse to accept. Ever again.

Between Perfect and Real


Ray Stoeve - 2021
    He’s watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he’s a lesbian—including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director, who just cast him as a “nontraditional” Romeo. He wonders if maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now––not just on the stage, but everywhere in his life. Dean knows what he needs to do. Can playing a role help Dean be his true self?

Into the Gray


Margaret Killjoy - 2018
    The other is a thief, who steals lives until a wish can be fulfilled, and a life-changing choice must be made.

Butterbean and the Pretty Princess Make a Home


R. Cooper - 2019
    He’s fallen for Eli, his adorable teddy bear of a roommate, but can’t express himself when said teddy bear is around. Eli is a responsible adult who makes risotto, worries too much, and falls asleep on the couch while watching the news. Riley wants nothing more to fall asleep next to him. He has been trying to shake his younger self’s reputation, but he feels that, compared to Eli, he’s just a pretty but useless artistic type. All that changes when Riley finds two abandoned kittens and brings them home. Eli has no idea what to do with the helpless strays, which means, for once, Riley takes charge and has an excuse to stick close to his roommate—something Eli hardly objects to. If anything, he seems to like Riley around the house. He seems to like the kittens, too, so much that Riley has to wonder if Eli could also like them all together. One soft, anxious bear, one pretty but not useless artist, and two balls of fluff might just make a happy home.

Life of Melody


Mari Costa - 2018
    In the fairy realm, a Fairy Godparent is tasked with fulfilling fairy tales in the human world. The human protagonist's own motivations and wishes are of little consequences to the fairy working their case. As such, humans are regarded as pretty difficult to work with by the fairies, who otherwise don't seem to know much about them. The fairy Razzmatazz decides that the perfect solution to get around how unaccommodating humans can be is to raise the fairy tale protagonist from infancy to her 18th birthday. Despite his superiors telling him the idea is completely crazy, he commits to it, and by extension, commits to becoming co-parent with a beast named Bon, who found the child at the same time as him.

Refuse


Elliott DeLine - 2011
    Unemployed, depressed, mid-transition, friendless, and still living in the upstairs bedroom of his parents' house in a conservative suburb, he can think of little to do but write his memoir. In the third person, he tells the tale of his would-be love affair with his college roommate, Colin, another trans man with a girlfriend and a successful indie rock band. The plot is interrupted intermittently by Dean's first person commentary, often criticizing middle-class conformity-but also the queer counterculture from which he feels equally alienated. He is obsessed with Morrissey of The Smiths and wants nothing in life other than the same level of fame. As his far-fetched dreams become a foreseeable reality, he must decide between honesty and belonging, conformity or isolation, community or self....

My Lady King


Kayla Bashe - 2014
    Finding the young royal delirious and on the verge of death, Keziah saves her life. But while Esdelot regains her health, betrayal comes from an unlikely source: her brother has taken the throne in her absence and declared himself king. As the two women travel to the capital city to stop a false ruler’s coronation, they form a friendship that seems poised to turn into something more. But Esdelot has promised herself in marriage to a woman she barely knows... and Keziah knows she’s fallen too deeply for a woman whose betrothed waits for her along with her throne. When an enemy from Keziah’s past resurfaces, a mere conflict of politics becomes something that threatens to upend the gods themselves. Will love win out?

Wranglestone


Darren Charlton - 2020
    But when winter comes, there's nothing to stop them from crossing the ice.Then homebody Peter puts the camp in danger by naively allowing a stranger to come ashore and he's forced to leave the community of Wranglestone. Now he must help rancher Cooper, the boy he's always watched from afar, herd the Dead from their shores before the lake freezes over.But as love blossoms, a dark discovery reveals the sanctuary's secret past. One that forces the pair to question everything they've ever known.An action-packed and thought-provoking debut, for fans of Patrick Ness, Marcus Sedgwick, DREAD NATION and The Walking Dead.

Where I End and You Begin


Preston Norton - 2019
    The only problem is Imogen’s protective best friend, Wynonna Jones. Wynonna has blue hair, jams to '80s rock, and has made a career out of tormenting Ezra for as long as he can remember.Then, on the night of a total solar eclipse, something strange happens to Ezra and Wynonna--and they wake up in each other’s bodies. Not only that, they begin randomly swapping back and forth every day! Ezra soon discovers Wynonna’s huge crush on his best friend, Holden, a five-foot-nothing girl magnet with anger management problems. With no end to their curse in sight, Ezra makes Wynonna a proposition: while swapping bodies, he will help her win Holden’s heart…but only if she helps him woo Imogen.Forming an uneasy alliance, Ezra and Wynonna embark on a collision course of mistaken identity, hurt feelings, embarassing bodily functions, and a positively byzantine production of Twelfth Night. Ezra wishes he could be more like Wynonna’s badass version of Ezra--but he also realizes he feels more like himself while being Wynonna than he has in a long time…Wildly entertaining and deeply heartfelt, Where I End and You Begin is a brilliant, unapologetic exploration of what it means to be your best self.