''The Chosen Family'' was a Canadian

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

, written and drawn by

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

cartoonist

Noreen Stevens Noreen Stevens (born 1962) is a Canadian cartoonist, who illustrated and wrote the lesbian comic strip ''The Chosen Family''. Her work in the field of comics began in 1984. ''The Chosen Family'' is featured in the ensemble comic book ''Dyke Stripp ...

from 1987 to 2004.Beverly J. Rasporich, ''Made-in-Canada Humour: Literary, Folk and Popular Culture''.

John Benjamins Publishing Company John Benjamins Publishing Company is an independent academic publisher in social sciences and humanities with its head office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The company was founded in the 1960s by John and Claire Benjamins and is currently managed ...

, 2015. . p. 203. The strip evolved from an earlier project, ''Local Access Only'', published in the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.The Manitoban ''The Manitoban'' is the official student newspaper at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Published for the first time on November 5, 1914, the ''Toban'', as it is called for short, is one of the oldest and largest (by circulation a ...

''."Closing The Chosen Family album". ''

Xtra! ''Xtra Magazine'' (formerly ''DailyXtra'' and ''Xtra!'') is an LGBTQ-focused digital publication and former print newspaper published by Pink Triangle Press in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The publication is a continuation of the company's former pr ...

'', October 28, 2004. ''The Chosen Family'' used social and political satire to shine a light on late 20th century queer experience through Stevens' lens as lesbian feminist. It featured four on-going characters, lesbians Kenneth-Marie and Weed, whose relationship was undefined, and the couple's friends and neighbours, Puddin' Head and The Straight Chick Upstairs. Later the strip also featured Kenneth-Marie and Weed's two fostered/adopted children, a daughter named Rosebud and an unnamed son. The strip appeared in many

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 ...

publications throughout North America, including ''

'',"Winning in the 'Peg The city of 600,00, where the air is crisp and clear, is bursting with mainstream arts groups. The air is fine in the underground scene, too". ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', November 30, 1996. ''Xtra West'', '' Swerve'', ''

Perceptions Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

'', ''

off our backs ''Off Our Backs'' (stylized in all lowercase; ''oob'') was an American radical feminist periodical that ran from 1970 to 2008. It began publishing on February 27, 1970, with a twelve-page tabloid first issue. From 2002 the editors adapted it ...

'', ''Chicago Outlines'', ''

Herizons ''Herizons'' is a Canadian feminist magazine published in Winnipeg, Manitoba and distributed to subscribers throughout Canada. Billed as "Canada's answer to '' Ms. magazine''," it is also sold on newsstands. History Founded in 1979 as a voluntee ...

'', ''

Ms. Ms. (American English) or Ms (British English; normally , but also , or when unstressed)''Oxford English Dictionary'' online, Ms, ''n.2''. Etymology: "An orthographic and phonetic blend of Mrs ''n.1'' and miss ''n.2'' Compare mizz ''n.'' The pr ...

'' and the ''

Washington Blade The ''Washington Blade'' is a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area. The ''Blade'' is the oldest LGBT newspaper in the United States and third largest by circulation, behind the ''Philadelphi ...

''. It also appeared in mainstream general interest publications such as '' Geist''. Stevens retired the strip in 2004 after producing almost 400 biweekly semi-serialize installments.

References

Canadian comic strips 1988 comics debuts 2004 comics endings Fictional families Lesbian-related comics LGBT-related comic strips LGBT literature in Canada Comics characters introduced in 1988 Canadian comics characters 1980s LGBT literature 1990s LGBT literature {{LGBT-fiction-stub