Queer and Trans Comics by Dylan Edwards
My comic for the June issue of OFM is a little autobio thing about a trans punk show I went to a couple of months ago, where I was one of the oldest members of a very queer, very trans crowd. I ponder what has changed about trans culture since I came out 24 years ago (well before many members of the audience were born).
You can read the whole comic in the digital edition here, where you will find me on page 6: https://www.outfrontmagazine.com/june-2024-queer-christmas/
Cheers,
Dylan
MY comic for this month’s issue of OFM takes a look at how easy and fun it is to access healthcare when you’re trans. A total snap! No problems involved ever! They’re just GIVING trans healthcare away! HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Anyway, yes, these are all 100% true stories of roadblocks I’ve encountered over the years, with some dramatization for comics. (What the therapist from panel 1 actually said was, “Can you maybe turn the volume down?” when I said, “I think I’m trans, and it’s like this noise that’s buzzing in my head all the time.” But he did sit like that, curled up in a ball as he told me to maybe just try not being trans. The doctor from panel 2, meanwhile, said more or less those very words verbatim, at least as far as I can remember many years later.)
You can read the whole comic in the digital edition of OFM, where you will find me on page 6.
Cheers,
Dylan
My comic for this month’s issue is all about the various iterations my fashion sense has gone through over the years. You can read the whole thing in the digital edition of the magazine, where you shall find me ensconced on page 6!
Cheers,
Dylan
The September issue of OUT FRONT Magazine is all about digital queerness! My comic takes a look at how online spaces give us access to information about queer and trans identities, info that was often very difficult to come by in the pre-internet world.
Read the whole comic on the OFM website, or pick up a print copy at one of their drop locations! You’ll find me on page 6.
Cheers,
Dylan
The July issue of OUT FRONT Magazine is all about Queerdos, and my comic is all about queer and trans feels from playing D&D. Read the full comic online on the OUT FRONT website (I’m on page 26) or pick up a free copy at one of their drop locations in the Denver area!
I know, I know, shocking for a nerdy kid to use Dungeons and Dragons as a way of exploring gender identity and sexual orientation without realizing what they’re doing. I am probably the first queer/trans person to have EVER done this. Amazing.
Cheers,
Dylan
My comic for this month’s edition of OFM takes a look at some of my international encounters with trans people. One thing I’ve definitely found to be the case, especially in our modern internet-enabled era, is that there’s a lot of solidarity amongst trans folks across the globe, even to the point of transcending (pun intended) language barriers.
You can find the comic on page 44 of the online mag!
Cheers,
Dylan
The topic this issue is “queering mental health,” so I elected to do a comic about the high correlation between being trans and being autistic, and how this can affect mental health outcomes for folks.
You can read the whole comic in the digital edition, available on the OFM website (flip to page 40): https://www.outfrontmagazine.com/may-2023-queering-mental-health/
Obviously a half page comic is too small a space to get deep into this extremely complex and evolving topic, but the TL;DR is simply that trying to force autistic people to act more allistic leads to poorer mental health outcomes, and trying to force trans people to be cis leads to poorer mental health outcomes. If you’re both trans and autistic, you get a double whammy.
At this point, it’s clear that an unusually high percentage of trans people are autistic, but the why is unknown. One possibility, hinted at in the excerpted panel, is that autistic people often take exception to following rules if the underlying reasons for the rules make no sense. So it’s possible autistic people have a leg up in figuring out trans stuff, because a lot of society’s rules about How to Gender don’t really make a lot of sense if you pick them apart.
Cheers,
Dylan
Perhaps you would like to watch a documentary about queer comics? Well, you can now stream No Straight Lines on PBS!
I was interviewed for this film back in 2017 while I was at the Queers & Comics Conference organized by Jennifer Camper and Justin Hall, so yeah, you’ll see me and my work in there!
The film, directed by Vivian Kleiman, shares the same name as the anthology Justin published through Fantagraphics back in 2012, in which I also have some work. The book and the film focus on the last 50-ish years of queer comics history, how we get from utterly marginalized underground indie comics to Alison Bechdel’s bestseller-turned-hit-musical Fun Home.
The film will be available for streaming for the next three months on PBS, so head over and watch at your leisure: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/no-straight-lines/
Cheers,
Dylan
My comic for this month’s issue of OFM tackles the difference between Gender Affirming Care and Gender Exploratory Care.
Nearly identical sounding names, very different agendas.
You can read the whole comic in the online edition here (I’m on page 6), or if you’re in the Denver area you can pick up a free print copy at one of their drop locations.
Cheers,
Dylan
Why yes, I do indeed have a new comic in the January 2022 issue of OUT FRONT Magazine! Grab a print copy if you’re in the general vicinity of Denver, CO, or read online here (I’m on page 6):
https://www.outfrontmagazine.com/january-2022-look-ahead/
Cheers,
Dylan