Gay Heart Throbs

Gay Heart Throbs was an underground comic featuring gay erotica. Only three issues were published, in 1976, 1979, and 1981.[1] It has been described as the first gay comic.[2][1] It was edited by Larry Fuller.

Cover of second issue, illustrated by Mike Kuchar.

The short-lived comic struggled to find an audience. It has been compared to the more successful and influential Gay Comix, which debuted in 1980 and opted for more emotionally nuanced content, as opposed to the "campy erotica" of Gay Heart Throbs.[3]

The title is thought to be a reference to Heart Throbs, a romance comic published from 1949 to 1972.[4]

The second and third issue were illustrated by Mike Kuchar, who described the artwork in the first issue as "not good".[5] Though already known as an underground filmmaker, Gay Heart Throbs was Kuchar's first job as an illustrator, and he was contacted for many more jobs involving erotic illustration on the strength of his work on the comic.

References
  1. M. Keith Booker (2010). Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 247. ISBN 978-0313357466.
  2. Bramlett, Frank; Cook, Roy; Meskin, Aaron (2016). The Routledge Companion to Comics. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 978-1317915386.
  3. Justin Hall, ed. (2013). No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics. Fantagraphics Books. p. 13. ISBN 978-1606997185.
  4. M. Keith Booker, ed. (2014). Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 599. ISBN 978-0313397516.
  5. "A conversation with Mike Kuchar". Open Space. 19 July 2016.
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