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Home Arts, Arts & Entertainment, Comic Strip Land, Comics, Gay 101, Geek, Graphic Novels, In Memoriam, Legends, News, Queer Arts, Queer Books, Queer MediaLegendary Cartoonist Howard Cruse Dies

Legendary Cartoonist Howard Cruse Dies

December 4, 2019• byMichael Strangeways

Sadly, iconic gay cartoonist Howard Cruise passed away November 26, 2019 from cancer. He was 75 years old and is survived by his husband, Eddie Sedarbaum and his daughter Kimberly Kolze Venter.

Cruse broke ground in the 1970s in New York City’s underground comic scene as an artist exploring gay culture via his comics. He edited the comic book series Gay Comix and might be best known for the strip Wendell which appeared in The Advocate for many years.

His graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby earned rave reviews and legions of new fans. Via Copacetic Comics:

Stuck Rubber Baby is one of the few graphic novels that really and truly succeeds as a novel on the novel’s terms (at the time this review was written, in 2003 – editor’s note).  It is an extraordinarily complex and rich tapestry of characters deftly woven into the fabric of a specific time and place:  a mid-sized community in the deep south during the civil rights era.  

The story unfolds primarily within the community of Clayfield.  Its downtown, bedroom suburbs, and small college on the outskirts, with buses and bridges connecting it all, together serve as a synecdoche for “The South” as it was then known.  As Cruse grew up in Birmingham, Alabama during this period, he knows whereof he speaks and it shows: Clayfield, though entirely fictional, is nevertheless thoroughly believable.  It is the characters, however, that will stick in your mind long after the images of Clayfield have faded.  The inhabitants of the world of Stuck Rubber Baby are far from your typical Southerners, yet they are every bit a product of The South.  These characters while archetypical in many respects are nevertheless highly original and, with the notable exception of the mayor of Clayfield, Sutton Chopper, fairly free from cliché.

A toast to Howard Cruse.

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About the Author: Michael Strangeways

As the Editorial Director/Co-Owner, Michael Strangeways writes, edits and does about a million other jobs for Seattle Gay Scene, Puget Sound's most visited LGBTQ news, arts and entertainment website now celebrating its 14th year as a media outlet. A semi-proud Midwesterner by birth, he's lived in Seattle since 2000. He's also a film producer who would like you to check out the Jinkx Monsoon documentary, "Drag Becomes Him" now available on Amazon.com. In his spare time, he gets slightly obsessive about his love for old movies, challenging theater, "otters", vodka, chocolate, "I,Claudius", Lizzie Borden, real books made out of paper, disaster films, show tunes, Weimar era Germany, flea markets, pop surrealistic art, the sex lives of Hollywood actors both living and dead, kitties, chicken fried steak, haute couture and David Bowie. But, not necessarily in that order.

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