By Casey Stepaniuk
The Vancouver Comic Arts Festival—or Van CAF for short—is a really rad event. Last year when I was there I noticed that there was an especially great group of LGBTQ2 creators, who I just stumbled upon while wondering aimlessly. This year I decided to do some real research before going about which creators are LGBTQ2 and/or which ones are telling LGBTQ2 comics stories. Here’s the fruit of my labours!
Julia Hut is a comic artist and illustrator who often writes funny and light-hearted comics. Her latest project is One Lucky Bride, a queer remake of the 1925 silent film Seven Chances.
Blue Delliquanti is a queer comics maker from Minneapolis. Her AMAZING character-driven science fiction comic Human Star is about queer and trans robots, among other things.
Fangdangler, aka Adriel Forsyth, lives in Vancouver and started his comics career being published by sex-positive and LGBT comic websites. His current project is a naturalistic political romance called Medicine.
Al Neun is a trans/queer illustrator and comic artist from California whose work features LGBTQ2+ characters, including most recently, Transformed!, which stars a trans guy protagonist in a magical girl style story.
Christian Haruki Lett is a queer Vancouver creator writing and drawing about “magic, monsters, ghosts, queerness, creatures, conspiracies, mad science and love.” His projects include Site 17, Anthozoa Noxia, A Least Abomination, and The Ignorant Boy’s Guide to World Maintenance.
Arsenal Pulp Press will probably sound familiar to you if you’ve read my other columns, this Vancouver press publishes LGBTQ2 graphic books like The Case of Allan Turing by Eric Liberge and Arnaud Delalande and Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh.
Kurtis Wiebe writes the super rad fantasy D&D-inspired comic Rat Queens, which features a kick-ass group of women, one trans and one queer.
Hazel + Bell is a Vancouver-based writing team who produces Always Raining Here, a comic about queer teen boys and awkward teenage adventures.
Kathleen Jacques is a Vancouver comics maker who is the creator of Band Vs. Band, a fantastic story focused on queer femme characters and band rivalry that also features characters across the LGBTQ2+ spectrum.
Alexis Sugden is an animator and fiction comics maker who inks traditionally. Her comic The Disappearance of Melody Dean is about queer and trans people in relationships, violence in self-defence, and time travel.
Joamette Gil is a creator, podcaster, and publisher of comics. In 2016 she founded P&M Press, whose debut book is Power & Magic: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology.
Kel McDonald writes a series called The Misfits of Avalon, a YA comic about “magical girls who are jerks,” some of whom are queer.
Kiku Hughes is a comic artist who aims to create stories for people who are overlooked, like queers and people of colour. Her work has been featured in Beyond: The Queer Sci-Fi/Fantasy Comic Anthology.
This may not be everyone who identifies as LGBTQ2+ or who’s making comics with LGBTQ2+ characters who’s going to be at Van CAF. If you know of others, let me know in the comments!
Where: The Roundhouse in Yaletown
When: Saturday May 20 and Sunday May 21, 10:00am – 5:00pm
Pricetag: Free to attend! However, bring your wallets since you will definitely be wanting to buy comics and other memorabilia. You can also buy a patron package which comes with a bunch of sweet swag if you want to support the non-profit festival.
Casey Stepaniuk is a writer and librarian-in-training who runs the website Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian, where you can find LGBTQ+ Canadian book reviews and a queer book advice column. She also writes for Book Riot. Find her on Twitter: @canlesbrarian
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