Northwest Press Serves the LGBTQ+ Stories You Haven’t Yet Seen

Northwest Press is about elevating LGBTQ+ stories in whatever form they may take. They do some superhero stories and anthologies as well as horror, adventure, mysteries, and slice of life. They publish everything from kids’ comics to adult erotica. It’s all in service of bringing more people to the art form through a story that relates to them.

Comic books have a certain reputation. For decades they have been thought of as inherently heteronormative endeavors. The majority of comics being written by straight men, even today, has not pushed that idea very far beyond that bias. It doesn’t help that many only equate comic books and graphic novels with the superhero genre. 

It is true that that market has dominated the medium for the better part of 80 years, but it’s also true that comics support many genres and categories. Though, those, too, are rather homogenous in sexuality and gender balance. For the longest time, LGBTQ+ folks have had to look for subtext within these books in order to satisfy a need for representation.

Super books are especially laced with subtextual characters. The often socially progressive writers, editors, and artists balked at their publishers’ conservative values. Most publishers did not want to be explicit as they worried it would hurt sales. They wanted to keep their eager young straight men happy with stories that gave them an ideal to strive for. The writers, though, snuck in all kinds of winks and nods.

One of my—and many a queer comic fan's—favorite examples of this is X-Men's Kitty Pryde, who while editorially mandated to fawn over hunky Piotr, grew ever closer to his kid sister Illyana, Kitty's best friend and roommate, who was closer in age to Kitty. The two were so in sync, and obviously in love, that when Kitty was able to draw Illyana's soulsword, a sword constructed from the life force of Illyana, which only she may wield (comics are fun and weird), it was tantamount to a blessing of their deep, and more than platonic, love for each other. 

There were so many winks and nods toward characters' deeper relationships that eventually the subtext just dropped. The references became explicit and characters the queer among us loved now matched how we had always seen them. This opening of the valves of queerness in super comics was slow, and publishers are still fearful of backlash.

These fresh takes on mainstream comics have been welcome, but it is one thing to have a superhero be gay and stop crime—or a long-standing series to add a supporting LGBTQ+ character—but it is quite another to have characters who live their lives and just be regular humans. We should be for gay superheroes, space adventurers, and post apocalyptic champions, but it’s so much more fulfilling to have typical narratives with queer main characters who just live their lives.

Charles “Zan” Christensen, Publisher of Northwest Press, at Emerald City Comic Con, 2016.

The Evergreen Echo

That is the work of independent, Seattle-based Northwest Press. They champion LGBTQ+ stories that are not the typical comic book fair. 

I recently flipped through their catalog and found a collection that immediately spoke to me: Literally Everything is Outside of My Comfort Zone by Tony Breed. It is a collection of strips from Breed's web series Muddlers Beat, which is itself a continuation of Breed's other series Finn and Charlie are Hitched.

Identifying with the title aside, there is a lot about this collection that speaks to me. The characters are a mix of genders and sexualities, who are dealing with the issues unique to life as an LGBTQ+ person. It is rare to get a comic that is so funny and poignant while also feeling so elegantly banal in the best way. In this strip format you could see Muddlers Beat sitting easily alongside Peanuts, Marmaduke, and Mary Worth on a print newspaper's page. Though, it might only be printed in certain markets as not many heteronormative people yet understand the negotiations of gay couples in open relationships.

It is refreshing to have a press dedicated to queer stories. It is even better that these stories are so accessible. Many of Northwest Press' offerings are available digitally for download as well as in traditional paper and hardback. The price of each is much more affordable than the latest from the big publishers as well as in a beautiful package. There is something for everyone at Northwest Press, and as it says on much of their wonderful merch: Comics are for everyone. 

It’s simply wonderful to have a local publisher telling diverse and terrific LGBTQ+ stories.