''Stuck Rubber Baby'' is a 1995

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

by American cartoonist

Howard Cruse Howard Cruse (May 2, 1944 – November 26, 2019) was an American alternative cartoonist known for the exploration of gay themes in his comics. First coming to attention in the 1970s during the underground comix movement with ''Barefootz'', he wa ...

. He created his debut graphic novel after a decades-long career as an underground cartoonist. It deals with

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...

and racism in the 1960s in the

southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, in the midst of the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

. While the book is not autobiographical, it draws upon Cruse's experience of growing up in the South during this time period, including his accidental fathering of a child, as referred to in the title.

Background

was born in 1940s Alabama to a Baptist preacher and his wife. He earned a degree in drama and worked in television before turning to a cartooning career. From 1971 he published a strip called ''

Barefootz Howard Cruse (May 2, 1944 – November 26, 2019) was an American alternative cartoonist known for the exploration of gay themes in his comics. First coming to attention in the 1970s during the underground comix Underground comix are small ...

'', which appeared in a number of

underground comix Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, ...

publications, including three issues under its own title. Cruse's contemporaries gave it little regard, deeming it too cute and gentle compared to the countercultural works alongside which it ran. In 1976, Cruse introduced a gay character into the strip, committing to the

gay liberation The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xiii. ...

movement. In 1979

Denis Kitchen Denis Kitchen (born August 27, 1946) is an Americans, American underground comix, underground cartoonist, publisher, author, agent, and the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Early life Kitchen grew up in Wisconsin, attending William ...

Kitchen Sink Press Kitchen Sink Press was a comic book publishing company founded by Denis Kitchen in 1970. Kitchen Sink Press was a pioneering publisher of underground comics, and was also responsible for numerous republications of classic comic strips in hardcov ...

invited Cruse to edit the comic-book anthology ''

Gay Comix ''Gay Comix'' (later ''Gay Comics'') is an underground comics series published from 1980–1998 featuring cartoons by and for gay men and lesbians. The comic books had the tagline “Lesbians and Gay Men Put It On Paper!” Much of the early c ...

''; the first issue appeared in 1980. From 1983 to 1989 Cruse produced '' Wendel'', an ongoing humorous comic strip for the

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

magazine '' The Advocate''.

Publication history

Piranha Press Piranha Press, an imprint of DC Comics from 1989 to 1994, was a response by DC to the growing interest in alternative comics. The imprint was edited by Mark Nevelow, who instead of developing comics with the established names in the alternative co ...

, an imprint of

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

for

alternative comics Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which ...

, contracted with Cruse for a graphic novel. It gave him an

advance against royalties In the field of intellectual property licensing, an advance against royalties is a payment made by the licensee to the licensor at the start of the period of licensing (usually immediately upon contract, or on delivery of the property being lice ...

to cover expenses for the two years projected to finish the book; it ultimately took four years. When his finances became tight, Cruse took time away from the book to raise funds by applying for grants and selling original art pages from the book before they were drawn. Piranha Press was discontinued in 1994, before Cruse finished the book. It was instead published by DC's

Paradox Press Paradox Press was a division of DC Comics formed in 1993 after editor Mark Nevelow departed from Piranha Press. Under the initial editorship of Andrew Helfer and Bronwyn Carlton the imprint was renamed. It is best known for graphic novels like '' ...

imprint in 1995 in hardcover, and in paperback in 1996 by HarperCollins In 2010, DC published a new edition under its

Vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...

imprint. Cruse's agents Denis Kitchen and John Lind moved the book to

First Second Books First Second Books is an American publisher of graphic novels. An imprint of Roaring Brook Press, part of Holtzbrinck Publishers, First Second publishes fiction, biographies, personal memoirs, history, visual essays, and comics journalism. It als ...

, which published a 25th Anniversary edition in 2020, incorporating unpublished material from Cruse's archives; the book was released a few months after his death. Playwright

Tony Kushner Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage he's most known for his seminal work ''Angels in America'' which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. At the turn ...

wrote an introduction to the first edition. Cartoonist

Alison Bechdel Alison Bechdel ( ; born September 10, 1960) is an American cartoonist. Originally known for the long-running comic strip ''Dykes to Watch Out For'', she came to critical and commercial success in 2006 with her graphic memoir ''Fun Home'', which ...

contributed an introduction to the 2010 reprint edition. Translations have been published in French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Plot summary

Decades after the book's events, the forty-something Toland Polk narrates his youth in the fictional town of Clayfield, in the

American South The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

in the 1950s and 1960s. After his parents die in a car accident, he finds he has no direction. He chooses to work for a gas station rather than go to college. Polk becomes involved with the black community and the

. At the same time, he courts a folk singer named Ginger in the hopes of "curing" his homosexuality. Together they have a child they give up for adoption. Polk finds the black community more accepting of his homosexuality than his own white community. The bombing of a black community center, the lynching of a gay friend, and other such events push him to social activism.

Style and analysis

The dense black-and-white artwork is more restrained and less cartoony than that of Cruse's earlier work. Cruse abandons his trademark stippling for heavily

crosshatching Hatching (french: hachure) is an artistic technique used to create tonal or shading effects by drawing (or painting or scribing) closely spaced parallel lines. (It is also used in monochromatic representations of heraldry to indicate what t ...

. He gives particular attention to buildings and other background details, and to rendering characters with individuality. Ben Bolling likens the rounded rendering of the figures to those in the paintings of American artist

Paul Cadmus Paul Cadmus (December 17, 1904 – December 12, 1999) was an American artist widely known for his egg tempera paintings of gritty social interactions in urban settings. He also produced many highly finished drawings of single nude male figures ...

. The pages are dense with dialogue balloons. The frame story, set off with rounded panel borders, takes place in the late 1980s or early 1990s, as the adult Toland narrates with his male partner by his side. The narration appears to occur over a substantial span of time, as the pair's clothing and background reflect seasonal changes from summer to winter.

Overview

The story is not autobiographical, but Cruse draws from his experiences growing up in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

. He also includes such historical events as the 1955 murder of

Emmett Till Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery ...

in Mississippi and the

16th Street Baptist Church bombing The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a white supremacist terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter planted 19 sticks of dynam ...

in Birmingham in 1963. In an interview with

Comic Book Resources ''Comic Book Resources'', also known by the initialism CBR, is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book–related news and discussion. History Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1995 as a development of the Kingdom Co ...

, Cruse said that he based the novel on his own experiences in the 1960s and his "anger at the degree to which the ideals of the Civil Rights Era were being abandoned". In another interview, Cruse stated: "My goal was to create the kind of novel that is too full of incident for someone to simply summarize in their mind in one sentence. I wanted it to be like life, where you spend a year of your life and you can’t just remember everything that happened, but it's all part of a process".

Character list

* Toland Polk, the main character/protagonist * Melanie, Toland's sister * Orley, Melanie’s husband * Stetson, an elderly handyman/gardener who worked for the Toland family * Ben, Stetson's son * Ginger Raines, Toland's old girlfriend * Riley Wheeler, Toland's friend * Mavis Greene, Riley's girlfriend * Sammy Noone, a longtime gay friend of Mavis & Riley * Lester Pepper, the gay son of preacher Harland Pepper * Reverend Harland Pepper, a preacher and nonviolent social activist * Anna Dellyne Pepper, a former New York singer and the preacher's wife * Shiloh Reed, a singer who suffers from brain damage following an accident * Lottie, Shiloh's wife, who has cancer * Sledge Rankin, a black person who is murdered by the KKK * Robert Samson, a friend and bi-sexual lover * Esmo "Esmereldus", a drag queen * Mabel Older, a piano player and Effie's sister * Cindy Neuworth, Mabel's younger, "butchy" girlfriend * Marge, a lesbian, Effie's partner and co-owner of Alleysax * Effie, Marge's partner and co-owner of Alleysax and Mabel's sister * Father Edgar Morris, another preacher in town

Reception and legacy

''Stuck Rubber Baby'' was published with high expectations, given the success of

Art Spiegelman Art Spiegelman (; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel ''Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines ''Arcade (comics maga ...

's graphic novel ''

Maus ''Maus'' is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The work employs postmodern technique ...

'' (1991). ''Stuck Rubber Baby'' won a favorable critical reception, but its sales were modest. The book won the award for Best Graphic Novel at the Eisners, Harveys, and UK Comic Art Awards. It was nominated for the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

's Lesbian and Gay Book Award and the

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

. It was given the 1995 Comics Creators Guild Award for Best Graphic Album in the UK.Freeman, John
"In Memoriam: Those We Have Lost in 2019 – Part Two"
DownTheTubes.net (DECEMBER 30, 2019). It won the 2002 French ''

Prix de la critique The Prix de la critique is a prize awarded by the Association des Critiques et des journalistes de Bande Dessinée to the best comic album released for a year in France. Previously, from 1984 to 2003, it was called ''Prix Bloody Mary'' and awarded ...

'' and the ''Luche'' award in Germany. Comics writer

Harvey Pekar Harvey Lawrence Pekar (; October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010) was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical ''American Splendor'' comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a ...

wrote that, if enough people read it, "it surely will help convince the general public that comics can appeal to adults". Upon its reprinting in 2011, Comics Alliance wrote that Cruse "harnessed a symphony of discordant subtleties". Cartoonist and comics scholar

Justin Hall Justin Hall (born December 16, 1974 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American journalist and entrepreneur, best known as a pioneer blogger. Biography Born in Chicago, Hall graduated Francis W. Parker High School in 1993. In 1994, while a student ...

wrote of the importance of this work: "''Stuck Rubber Baby'', with its complex meditations on race, sexuality, and gender in the Civil Rights era Alabama is perhaps the closest we’ve come yet to the Great American Graphic Novel". The book has generated some controversy because of its subject matter. In 2004, a Texas citizens' group asked that it be removed from the young adult section of the local library. Cruse's earlier work influenced

in her comic strip ''

Dykes to Watch Out For ''Dykes to Watch Out For'' (sometimes ''DTWOF'') was a weekly comic strip by Alison Bechdel. The strip, which ran from 1983 to 2008, was one of the earliest ongoing Media portrayal of lesbianism, representations of lesbians in popular culture ...

''. She later published the graphic novels ''

Fun Home ''Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic'' is a 2006 graphic memoir by the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, author of the comic strip ''Dykes to Watch Out For''. It chronicles the author's childhood and youth in rural Pennsylvania, United States, fo ...

'' (2006) and ''

Are You My Mother? ''Are You My Mother?'' is a children's book by P. D. Eastman published by Random House Books for Young Readers on June 12, 1960, as part of its Beginner Books series. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association listed the b ...

'' (2012), which also deal with an individual's homosexual awakening.

Notes

References

Works cited

* * * * * * * * {{Refend

External links

Cruse's account of the book's development
1995 graphic novels DC Comics graphic novels LGBT-related graphic novels Paradox Press titles Eisner Award winners for Best Graphic Album: New Harvey Award winners for Best Graphic Album of Original Work Comics set in the 1960s American LGBT novels Works about American history Works about racism 1990s LGBT novels