CBR Live! Archive
A Month of Good LGBT Comics - Chelsea Boys Steppin' Out!
In conjunction with Prism Comics, the preeminent website for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) comics and creators, every day this month I will be detailing one good comic book/graphic novel with LGBT themes.
Here's an archive of the featured works so far!
Today we look at a popular comic strip that might eventually be making its way on to television!
Chelsea Boys is a long-running popular comic strip by Glen Hanson and Allan Neuwirth about three extremely different gay men who live together in an apartment in the neighborhood of Chelsea in New York City.
Nathan is the short, forty-something member of the group, probably the closest the strip has to a "main" character.
Soiree is a self-proclaimed fabulous black club diva, and his tempestuous nature leads to many a confrontation.
Sky is the young, buff and naive art student whose naivete gets himself into trouble often.
The strips had been collected into an earlier collection titled simply Chelsea Boys, but I think the second one is a better one to spotlight, mostly because you really don't need to start from the beginning with these strips, and also because the second collection is in full color, which looks quite good on Hanson's drawings.
Here are a sampling of the strips (to clarify, Richard is Nathan's gay best friend and Ricki and Lucie are a lesbian couple who live in the same building - Nathan donated sperm for their baby) ....
As you can see, they mix in pretty straightforward sitcom-esque humor with more down-to-Earth storylines, like Nathan and his sister dealing with their mother's sickness.
There was talk awhile back that MTV was planning on turning Chelsea Boys into a cartoon series for its Logo network. I do not know if anything came about from that, but these characters would easily make the transfer to a TV series, I think.
The images are courtesy of the official Chelsea Boys website, where you can get links to purchase the collections as well as read some other strips.
- Posted on November 14, 2008 @ 10:21 PM
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6 Comments
joe c
November 16, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I really enjoy this strip. Also, Allan Neuwirth wrote a very good book on the animation industry a number of years ago. I wrote him a fan letter on it which he actually answered, so he gets extra points for also being a nice guy.
SageShini
November 16, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Why always the stereotypical black "queen" gay guy portrayal? I mean, I'm not gay (though I am black) but I've got to imagine seeing that all the time eventually gets old. (Its gotten old for me, in that "I'm sick of seeing stereotypes when I see a black person in stories" kinda way.)
Pam Harrison
November 17, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Awww, this is CUTE!!! It's too bad it wasn't on Saturday morning cartoons when *I* was a kid.
Of course, that would be Soiree's fault. XD
Pam Harrison
November 17, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Sage, I've been backstage at many a drag show...and they do flame on and on. If people are getting tired of seeing stereotypes then they need to shrug the stereotypes off and start being examples of how to live as individuals.
I love 'em anyway. I have transgender friends and I'm afraid I've gotten used to it.
Pam Harrison
November 17, 2008 at 5:22 pm
And I wasn't talking about just blacks. Every party boy I've ever seen acts that way, regardless of race.
Let's take the new era we've been given and break stereotypes.
Pam Harrison
November 17, 2008 at 5:30 pm
NOW look what you did...the image of Michael Clarke Duncan popped into my head............XP