Denver Zine Fest is today!
If you want stuff made by creative humans using their own hands, you should totally go to a zine fest. They're where it's at, I'm tellin' ya! I will be there with many of my comics and zines
Denver Public Library Central
10 W 14th Ave Pkwy
11AM - 5PM
#zines
![[INSET]
comic by Frederick Opper
a short, effete young man in a suit glances at a large, scowling older woman coming down the stairs, wearing bloomers and holding a gas lamp and a paper. The young man stands next to a tall, muscular woman who has an arm around his shoulder. She wears bloomers and a monocle, and is carrying a hat and cane.
caption:
WE ARE GETTING THERE FAST.
STERN PARENT: "Willy, isn't that Miss Bloomers going soon? -- it's nearly eleven o'clock."
SON: "Yes, Mama; she's just saying good night!"
But time marches on, culture shifts and changes, and many of those old comics become difficult to parse once you're no longer immersed in that era's zeitgeist. This is as true for my early trans comics as it is for those gender panic comics of the 1890s. I didn't explain myself back in 2000, because my intended audience Already Knew, amirite? Well, trans culture has shifted and changed in the intervening quarter century, and many of my old TrannyToons comics no longer speak with a wink and a nod to a knowing contemporary trans audience. Bloomers have ceased to be feared as a potential cause of giantism in women, and trans men don’t de facto bind with Ace bandages anymore. The comics in this zine have, by dint of the passage of time, become Historical Artifacts.
I feel it necessary to annotate them, since some of them have resurfaced in the intervening years and been met with confusion by younger trans folks: "Isn't 'trannyboy' a slur?" one asked. I mean, everything queer and trans people have called ourselves has been weaponized as a slur against us at some point, but no, this was very much what a subset of trans mascs called themselves at the turn of the 21st century. Trans history is often obscured specifically because of our marginalization. This collection aims to preserve a little bit of that history, that future trans folks may have context for the niche jokes of an earlier trans generation.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sbngjuz6akvjhslof7uzpmj6/bafkreielzijtfou4trvghyz6pcgpkxm6zfmqhja2x5lq22fpcnm2dhkpdy)
![[INSET]
TrannyToons Presents: Transman Names You Never See [comic by Dylan Edwards, signing as "NDR"]
Drawings of four trans men, each with a name over him: Hubert, Orville, Buford, and Lloyd
[caption]
The first TrannyToons comic I made riffed on trans guy naming trends. At this particular point in time, a common joke was that if you walked into a room full of trans guys and shouted, "Hey, Alex!" about half of them would turn around. "Alex" is still a popular trans masc name, of course, but I’d say naming trends have diversified a bit since then. Grandpa names still not trendy, tho.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sbngjuz6akvjhslof7uzpmj6/bafkreifze3kempufq5fssyw3tut2kq6tewvpwjy3dqm6ctv3lvxk2cpdbq)
![Comic by Dylan Edwards
Panel 1
TERF: The all-powerful trans lobby is trying to take away MY rights as a REAL woman!!
Trans ppl: What power?? What lobby???
Panel 2
Men in suits labeled ADF, FRC, and Heritage stand behind the TERF and hand her bags of money
Men: We LOVE what you're doing! Keep it up!
TERF: Also, "queer" is a slur. If you call yourself that, you're bad and wrong.
Panel 3
Wacky Fun Facts! (May not actually be fun)
Panel 4
The poverty rate for trans people is 29%, versus 15% for straight cis people.[1] The Trans Justice Funding Project, which funds trans rights groups across the country, raised a total of $2.7 million between 2012 and 2017.[2]
Meanwhile ...
Panel 5
... the tax forms for the Alliance Defending Freedom, an evangelical Christian legal advocacy organization, showed annual revenue of more than $65 million in 2019 alone.[2] The ADF is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.3 They help fund the anti-trans LGB Alliance.[4]
Panel 6
The Family Research Council’s Value Voters Summit instructed attendees to frame transphobia using the language of feminism, and to claim that “gender identity” is a concept offensive to women.[5] "If you separate the T from the alphabet soup, we’ll have more success.” --Meg Kilgannon, Value Voters Summit panelist [5]
Panel 7
Along with the ADF, the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation helps draft and distribute anti-trans bills for right-wing legislators to turn into law.[2] These and other interconnected right-wing groups lobby against abortion and same-sex marriage.[4]
Citations:
1. williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/lgbt-poverty-us/
2. newrepublic.com/article/163113/behind-gop-strategy-outlaw-trans-youth
3. splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/alliance-defending-freedom
4. pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/03/lgb-alliance-gary-powell-center-bioethics-culture-alliance-defending-freedom-anti-lgbt/
5. lgbtqnation.com/2017/10/christian-rights-new-strategy-divide-conquer-lgbt-community/](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sbngjuz6akvjhslof7uzpmj6/bafkreia3rzoz7cvdpu7qbrnnscnctqb3nscypxzgqjolzcnt6ncoiqitee)
![graphic for Pride in Panels event Up From The Underground: Queer Comics Pioneers
two figures inside a comic panel cling to each other
text:
Moderator: Maggie Dahlstrom
Robyn Adams
Dylan Edwards
Leslie Ewings
Lee Marrs
2pm - 2:45 pm [Sunday, Feb 15]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sbngjuz6akvjhslof7uzpmj6/bafkreib3457xs2hog3kmdv66cl4abmkhwvsseoj7tgbuqk7qh2vqsgxn7i)
![editorial cartoon by Ben Sargent (1983, Austin American Statesman)
A speech bubble points to a rundown shack: "SURE he's loonik' at a 200-billion-dollar deficit, Pa, but he'll just have to raise it somehwere ELSE this time! He's cut us to th' NUB already! You can't get blood out of a turnip! [text fades]"
Second bubble: "GOOD LORD, MA - HERE HE COMES AGAIN!"
Ronald Reagan is carrying an axe, sneaking up to the house](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sbngjuz6akvjhslof7uzpmj6/bafkreietnq343zs55lzbjlsyhnripta7764vqgc5yzbfe224mxwt5eqtei)
![Book covers for comics created by Dylan Edwards. Text reads "Queer & Trans Comics By Dylan Edwards"
Titles from left-to-right:
Valley of the Silk Sky [a human and a humanoid insect person look bashfully at each other over a strange flower]
Politically InQueerect [a blond man looks over his shoulder at a creepy Tudor mansion; a smiling old woman stands in front of the house]
The Outfield [a pile-up of football players; the man on the bottom seems to be enjoying himself quite a bit]
QAT Person issues 1 and 2 [self-portraits of the author drawing at a drafting table, and looking worried]
Transposes [a man in a suit and straw hat dances across the cover while holding a cane in an homage to the poster for the musical Funny Face]
Bleating About the Bush [cartoon of George W Bush smiling and holding a long scroll of paper listing some of the many atrocities of his administration]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sbngjuz6akvjhslof7uzpmj6/bafkreiggvgl6a77arbkrhzgyqupyvzb734k6iv2t5lfepqwtudomowkbsm)
![Screenshot of an Instagram Story by Dylan Edwards
Black background with a still of Gandalf on the bridge fighting the Balrog
Text reads:
"I apologize profusely and with the utmost sincerity for joke I am about to make [ahem]"
"You know Gandalf has IBS because he fought a fierce battle with the Bowelrog"
[in very small text]
"You: you could have just ... not posted this"
Me: No but see it's a shitpost, so"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sbngjuz6akvjhslof7uzpmj6/bafkreicw6bcxpnkydq4326itnzqipjucwxryfgwn3o2ialvsgq52i3ve7m)
