Dyke comix, from Second Wave counter-culture to the New 52

My Diva magazine feature on the herstory of lesbians in comics is out today. I'm not ashamed to say that writing it sent me a little crazy. Its such a niche branch of comics, with roots in Second Wave feminsim and late 60s underground counter-culture publishing, so all those early artists and volumes proved tricky to track down and draw out. The power of the lesbian phone tree came good, and I ended up e-talking with Mary Wings, Trina Robbins and Roberta Gregory, the real 70s matriarchs of dyke comix. Can you imagine emailing with women who were creating lesbian legacies in a pre-internet world? Seeing the PDF panels of 'Sandy Comes Out' in my inbox one chilly November morning was a BIG deal. I spent an obsessive amount of time drawing up timelines and cruising Amazon and Ebay, to moderately successful ends, for obscure issues, and spent a lot of cash padding out my collection with volumes I could ill-afford. I plan on pouring everything I've amassed into a bumper-sized zine at some point.

In the mean time, head to Queer Zine Archive Project to download a copy of Roberta Gregory's Dynamite Damsels. 
  

And because there appears to be a tag limit in Blogger: Wimmins Comix, Gay Comix, Tits N Clits, The 24 Group, Dianne DiMassa, Leanne Franson, Erica Smith, Girl Frenzy, Alison Bechdel, Erika Moen, Carrie McNinch, Arial Schrag, Michelle Tea, Laurenn McCubbin, the Hernandez Bros, Jennifer Camper, Nicole J Georges, Cristy C Road, Ross Campbell, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Gail Simone.