Qomics for Queers - Hillbillies can l'arn to love too

Here's this week's Qomics for Queers, where I turn my expectations of fair representation in the comics into innuendo. All I can do is read between the lines, reinterpret artwork, and completely make shit up about the past week's comics.

This week, we have some music to set the mood for the first comic:


And here are the top panels of last Sunday's Snuffy Smith:


Post-Brokeback, there have been a whole lot of fun made regarding men going off into the woods, being manly, going "fishing", etc. All it is, really, is silliness. There's an older idea of what it means to be masculine, and it includes a whole lot of things that Jerry Seinfeld wouldn't do.

That being said, I have to say that this is the first time that I've seen John Rose draw a man who could be interpreted as attractive. In fact, all we know about this guy is that he's big, comics-world attractive, and he enjoys singing. Snuffy and Lukey seem pretty attached to the privacy of their "fishing spot" when they don't have full picture of this guy, so attached to their privacy that Snuffy is already undressing before he gets there. Once they see him, the mood changes, and all Snuffy can think about is l'arning to share. Share what? Well, I'll let you fill in that blank. But whatever it is, the gulp!!, wavy lines, and eyebrows tell me that they're afraid of the consequences should their plan to share not work out.

This Friday's Hi and Lois:


These girls to whom Chip is talking, who don't have names, remind me of a teenage version of Peppermint Patty and Marcy. In fact, the Glasses Girl on the right in panel two has the same no-eyeballs-thick-glasses-straight-hair look that Marcy sported back in the day. But the similarities to the funny pages' most famous Sapphic story are a bit deeper.

First, we know that GG is sending romantic emails to Curly Hair Girl. That's right, one female character in Hi and Lois is sending romantic emails to another. Chip may think this is a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerec situation, but CHG betrays GG in saying "those" while he said "email", singular. There are a lot of other emails that CHG didn't send off to Chip, that she's printing out and keeping for herself in a shoebox under her bed. I really wish that she lived in a world where she didn't have to hide her true feelings, but she lives in Hi and Lois World, where no one is allowed to express their true feelings.

Second, GG seems to be following CHG at school. CHG's talking to a boy that she "likes", and GG is right there behind her. If only we could look beyond those thick lenses at her teenage despair as the object of her affection "hits on" a Flagston with an email that she wrote, but all we get is a wide-eyed sadness the size of a beached whale.

Thursday's and Saturday's Speedbump had a few references to queer people:



These don't need explanation, but is the peacock one an erection joke?

Oh, and about Kudzu's weeklong "same-self marriage" storyline (this is Thursday's):


HAW HAW! You let dem gays marry and what's next? Marrying dogs and box turtles? What about marrying ourselves? HAW HAW! And those Episcopalians! They bishopped a GAY? You only do that if you don't love God! YUK YUK! What about domestic violence? HAW HAW!