Growing up with gay comics
Cartoon pocketbooks, with their colourful covers and stories unwinding in the frames of each page, are always a hit with children.
A lot of parents prohibit their kids from reading the comics, like mine did, but they read them anyway once out of sight.
I’ve known I was gay since I was in kindergarten. (Yes, I’m serious!) And when, on very rare occasions, I found gay characters in the comics, I was really excited. Here was someone like me in my own books.
One story that lingers in my memory was a parody of the Japanese anime “St Seiya” that published in a magazine I can’t remember – was there a Cartoon magazine?
The cartoonist gave female characteristics to many of his male “saints” (knights). In one scene, one gold saint was repairing another’s clothes while onlookers discussed them in a knowing way.
In my teen years I was addicted to Yaoi comics. The best parts were the love scenes, which went from gentle kissing to nudity and even a form of underground pornography, but ultimately the romance theme got too predictable.
I still read comics. I recently came across “What Did You Eat Yesterday?” (“Kino Nani Tabeta”) by Fumi Yoshinaga. I think that it’s Y comic with a cuisine plot, but to me it’s gay comic. It’s not Yaoi, because there’s no obvious seme (active person) or uke (passive person).
I don’t think it’s Bara – targeted at a gay male audience as opposed to boys and women like Yaoi – because I haven’t come across any extreme sex scenes or power relationships.
The main feature is the kitchen recipes and cooking techniques. It’s not exactly exciting, but the sub-plot about the life of middle-age gay men is fascinating.
There is lawyer Shiro is 43 and his partner Kenji, 41, a hairdresser, living together in an apartment and sharing the expenses.
They face various situations with family and co-workers. Shiro’s parents join a support group so they can understand their gay son better. His mother encourages him to be proud of being gay, but also prays that he’ll find and marry a woman.
This comic also examines the fear of living alone that’s common among middle-age gay men, a topic I can’t find in other Y comics.
Y comics entertained me in my teen years, but the romance was always overshadowed by more interesting aspects of gay life.
“What Did You Eat Yesterday?” is quite a contrast, filled with realistic characters and plots. This is a comic that truly belongs to the gay community.
