Venus Envy (webcomic)

Venus Envy is a webcomic written and designed by a trans woman, and artist, named Crystal Frasier.[3][4][5][lower-alpha 1] It was first released in 2001.[6][7] In addition to dealing with the themes of transgender people and gender transition,[8][9] the strip also deals with other themes such as adolescence in general, William Shakespeare and women's soccer.

Venus Envy
Author(s)Crystal Frasier
Websitehttp://venusenvycomic.com/
Current status/scheduleConcluded
Launch dateDecember 1, 2001[1]
End dateJanuary 30, 2014[2]
Genre(s)Dramedy, Slice-of-life

Plot

Zoë Carter has severe depression and is sent to therapy after telling her parents about transitioning to a teenage girl, leading to problems in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, with the family relocating to the fictional town of Salem, to begin anew.[6]

Characters

Main characters
  • Zoë Alexis Carter - The 16-year-old teenage protagonist of the webcomic who transitions to a trans woman at age 15, beginning her hormone replacement therapy, even practicing to make her voice sound more feminine. She is often anxious and irritable but makes friends with those at Salem High School, even though her little brother is resentful of this change. She also has red, not blonde, hair, and is bisexual, like Nina.[10]
  • Larson Delgado - A trans Latino boy who is, like Lisa, friends with Zoë, going to the same high school.[10] His transition was similar to that of Zoë, taking HRT, but his parents didn't pay much attention to it, and he often wears chest binders.[8]
  • Lisa van Gogh - A lesbian teen who is friends with Zoë, goes to high school with her and is comfortable with her sexual identity. She is on the soccer team, which is filled with other lesbians.[11][10]
  • Eric Smith - Runs a secret social club, is groomed by a girl named Grace, and was in a romantic relationship with Zoë.
  • Brianna Michaels - A woman who goes to the same high school as Lisa, Larson, and Zoë, who says she is psychic.[8] She is also skilled at dancing, including ballet.
  • Grace Allen - A psychopath who does not care about lives of other people, an actress, and manipulator of people, heading the Casanova Society at the local high school.

Supporting characters
  • Helen Carter - An anesthesiologist and overbearing mother of Zoë, who refuses to see her as a girl.

Release

Frasier said the title of the comic is not original but came from a talk with her roommate and noted the similar title of a book by Rita Mae Brown, and added that the name itself is a comical take on the word "penis envy".[8] She also wrote that the first weeks of the comic were not meant to have any character development or part of a storyline, and noted that the shirt worn by Zoë was a "simplified symbol" for trans woman designed by Matt Nishii. Frasier said she was inspired to begin the comic, after reading Garfield, Sluggy Freelance, and being encouraged by her roommate to put it online.[11] She also said that the comic came out "by accident", developed in a newspaper style with three to four panels in a single row, with each strip made on sheets of sketch paper, and said that the stories of the comic interconnect. The first panels of the comic were posted on November 6, 2001, but the comic did not begin until December 1, 2001.[13][1] Frasier also said that she was inspired by the webcomic Real Life and that the webcomic would not have existed without Jennifer Lynn's Antijen Pages, a resource for trans people.[lower-alpha 2]

By 2003, the independent comic had at least 150,000 visitors visiting the comic's website every day.[7] In September 2004, Frasier, in an interview said she had the whole plot of the entire series "plotted out" with occasional storylines which differed from the normal, like "Unholy Alliance", where a lesbian separatist asks a cross dresser out on a date.[11] In the same interview said that she was receiving occasional fan mail, despite the comic being one of the most popular on Keenspace. In November 2004, Frasier ran a comic expressing her dissatisfaction with the results of the United States elections that year, leading some readers to say she should "shut the fuck up and draw the comic."[14] In 2006, it was said that the webcomic had grown into "a vocation that includes public speaking and organizing about transgender and queer issues" for Frasier.[15] The last issue of the webcomic posted on January 30, 2014.[2] In May 2019, Frasier floated the idea of rebooting the comic as a graphic novel.[16] In April 2020, her Twitter followers expressed interest in her picking up the comic's story ten years after the end of the comic in 2014 and expressed interest in January 2021 of writing a comic where "Zoe's a mom creeping up on middle age with a quirky family."[lower-alpha 3]

Spin-off and crossovers

In 2004, Fraiser convinced Sherri Belmar to write a spinoff science fiction webcomic titled Venus Ascending, with some of the same characters, like Zoë, Lisa, Larson, Chris/tine, and a new character (Kim Tim).[17][12] Some reviews called it a "trans gag strip" which has a "loose storyline".[18]

In 2011, Frasier did a crossover with Evelyn Poor's webcomic, Trans Girl Diaries.[19][20][lower-alpha 4]

In December 2015, Frasier contributed to a holiday illustration featuring Zoë alongside trans protagonists of Jessica Durling's 2punk4you (Jess & Seb), Jenn Dolari's Closetspace (Carrie & Allison), Jessica Udischas's Manic Pixie Nightmare Girls (Jesska), Sophie Labelle's Assigned Male (Stephie), and Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick's Rain (Rain).[21]

Reception

Yes Homo said that in 2015, the webcomic made them "pretty dang excited", although saying that the webcomic is "pretty bad" but made them feel better about themselves, and rated the webcomic higher than Rain which the same reviewer gave an F, arguing that the comic is "capable of making a joke that isn’t based in transphobia" even as it "ran out of steam" toward the end of its run.[10] The review said that the name of the webcomic is problematic, that it is aged, has "digs at" non-binary people, and mostly has White characters, but that it is better than "most mainstream portrayals of trans people in TV and film to this day." Their final verdict on the comic was not recommending the webcomic, calling the gender politics a "bit too antiquated" but said that you can read it if you are interested in knowing how far trans comics have come since 2005. In contrast, Laura Seabrook, in a review for Polare, called the comic "really important", praising Zoe as a well-rounded, believable character, accompanied by a consistent and well-done supporting cast.[18] Seabrook differentiates Venus Envy it from Chris Hazleton's Misfile about a character who has to accept their gender transition.

The comic was later cited as an inspiration by a trans woman, Alexandra Pitchford, who created a webcomic named Bitz, and by Evelyn Poor, who created Trans Girl Diaries.[22][23]

Notes
  1. When the comic was released, she used the name "Erin Lindsey," with the fact she is the author of the webcomic confirmed by various tweets from her account on the topic.
  2. This comes from tweets by Frasier in June 2020 and October 2020
  3. In the April 2020 poll almost 52% of those who voted said that the story should show what the characters are doing 10 years later, while about 32% wanted a "total reboot" and about 16% wanted the story to pick up where it left off. Her tweet in January 2021 was part of a flurry of tweets about the webcomic, beginning with an illustration of Zoe.
  4. All 303 pages of Trans Girl Diaries can be read on the Internet Archive.

References
  1. Crystal Frasier (a). "MTF Nightmare #36" Venus Envy, no. 2 (December 1, 2001). Official website of Venus Envy (webcomic).
  2. Crystal Frasier (a). Venus Envy, no. 2 (January 30, 2004). Official website of Venus Envy (webcomic).
  3. Frasier, Crystal. "Crystal Frasier". RPG Geek. Archived from the original on September 27, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  4. Frasier, Crystal [@AmazonChique] (February 12, 2018). "Overworked in the real world, plus kind of feeling like I'd lost the spark, sadly. Took a long time and working to get out of an abusive situation to find my creative energy again" (Tweet). Archived from the original on March 28, 2021. Retrieved March 27, 2021 – via Twitter.
  5. Frasier, Crystal [@AmazonChique] (February 12, 2018). "No, I'm _THE_ Erin Lindsey" (Tweet). Archived from the original on March 28, 2021. Retrieved March 27, 2021 – via Twitter.
  6. Frasier, Crystal. "About the comic". Official website of Venus Envy comic. Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  7. "Erin Lindsey". Prism Comics. Archived from the original on March 28, 2021. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  8. Frasier, Crystal. "All About Venus Envy". Official website of Venus Envy. Comic Genesis. Archived from the original on March 28, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  9. Frasier, Crystal. "Welcome to Venus Envy". Official website of Venus Envy. Keenspace. Archived from the original on December 14, 2004. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  10. "Venus Envy - Yes Homo: Queer Webcomic Reviews". Yes Homo. April 12, 2015. Archived from the original on January 2, 2017. Retrieved March 18, 2021. This review accidentally calls Larson "Landon."
  11. Frasier, Crystal (September 12, 2004). "An Interview with Venus Envy's Erin Lindsey". Comixtalk (Online). Interviewed by Yolanda Yvonne Janiga. Archived from the original (online) on February 4, 2012. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  12. Belmar, Sherri. "VA Cast". Official website of Venus Ascending. Archived from the original on July 16, 2019. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  13. Crystal Frasier (a). "[Untitled"] Venus Envy, no. 1 (November 6, 2001). Official website of Venus Envy (webcomic).
  14. "Web Slaves". Casual Notes. Archived from the original on October 13, 2008. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  15. "2006 Scholarship Recipients". GSBA Scholarship Fund. Archived from the original on January 24, 2021. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  16. Frasier, Crystal [@AmazonChique] (May 17, 2019). "I don't suppose any pro comic editors following me are looking for a sweet, dramatic slice-of-life book about a teenage trans girl and her eccentric friends? I would love to reboot Venus Envy, and it has a pre-existing audience" (Tweet). Archived from the original on March 28, 2021. Retrieved March 27, 2021 – via Twitter.
  17. Belmar, Sherri. "Venus Ascending". Official website of Venus Ascending. Archived from the original on February 2, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  18. Seabrook, Laura (April 2006). "Transition Stories, Switch-Around, Personal Histories, Theory, Incidentals and Gag Strips". Polare (67). Archived from the original on April 4, 2021. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  19. Poor, Evelyn. "Archive for 'Venus Envy – This Is Your Life… Part 2'". Official website of Trans Girl Diaries. Archived from the original on July 15, 2011. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  20. Hogan. "Trans Girl Diaries". Welcome to the Archive. Archived from the original on August 25, 2016. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  21. "A Very Webcomic Christmas" Rain, no. 772 (December 14, 2015). Official website of Rain (webcomic).
  22. Jefferson Thacker (March 23, 2013). "Pathfinder Socialite – Alexandra Pitchford". Pathfinder Socialite (Podcast). Know Direction. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  23. Poor, Evelyn. "Links". Official website of Trans Girl Diaries. Comic Genesis. Archived from the original on July 16, 2019. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
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