Noe’s Comics Nook: The Color of Always: An LGBTQIA+ Love Anthology

Review

The Color of Always is a collection of 14 short comics by a myriad of queer creators, all focused on affirming queer identities. These comics range from the dreaded coming out experience, to walking into the wrong café at the right time, to the blushingly sweet love story that we all need sometimes and beyond. No matter the style – and there are plenty – and no matter the difficulty of the subject – and it gets HARD – each of the comics stays true to the desire to present an affirming conclusion.

While I can’t gush over each individual comic here, I do want to highlight two moments from the anthology that are stuck in my mind. First is a moment from the comic by Lillian Hochwender and Gabe Martini titled “Seat Change,” which follows young Morgan facing the treacherous sea – and the equally treacherous pressure to align to a binary identity. In it we come face to face with The Deep, a creature whose hues evoke the same awe I feel when reading Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s comics. A creature who is “like the serpents and dragons one sees on maps.” A creature whose words, “When the unknown was better known, they found better words,” are etched into my mind.

Second, from creators Brent Fisher and Rachel Distler, is the comic titled “Extra Pages,” which begins with university exchange student David realizing he has found himself in a queer café – and being hit on as a result. The immediate reaction is too good to spoil, but let’s just say it leads to a beautiful friendship spanning a lifetime. Set in the 1970s, with the color palette to prove it, this is a comic dealing with the aftermath of a not-so-wonderful coming out story – but it does not dwell on the pain. It acknowledges it and moves forward. There are plenty of painful coming out stories in the world, but fewer that allow someone to move forward than there should be. This is a welcome addition.

The Color of Always is a lovely collection of short stories that can be revisited over and over again. A couple of the comics involve sex and nudity, but the vast majority could be shared with even younger teen readers.

Elements of Story

Plot: A collection of short comics that celebrate being who you are, finding who you are, embodying your truest self.

Characters: N/A

Major Settings: N/A

Themes: Home, life-changing moments, identity, queer studies

Lesson Plan Idea Using Common Core Standards (CCS) CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.6 – Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence.

Directions: One of the comics in The Color of Always, “Drawing Lines || Posting Signs” by Christie Porter and Alina Wahab, revisits a character’s experiences growing up Mormon in California in 1999, specifically about the mobilization of the congregations to lobby for Proposition 22 (2000) that would state that marriage is between one man and one woman. This provision was essentially the same as the federal law known as the Defense of Marriage Act, enacted by Congress in 1996. Many similar laws remained in place and active until 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the same fundamental right to marry as opposite-sex couples (paraphrasing).

For this assignment, students are tasked with exploring California’s Proposition 22 (2000), tracing its origins and eventual appearance on the ballot, to passage, to overturning, to transformation into Proposition 8 (2008), to, finally, same-sex marriage being deemed legal in California in 2013.

Students should begin with the information presented in the comic “Drawing Lines…” and find at least three additional front-line, narrative sources about this journey to legal marriage in California. Students should aim to include a variety of opinions here – and educators are suggested to be available to help with research on this topic as it is likely to result in unearthing of hate speech.

In addition to narrative accounts of the process, students should develop a timeline of events that maps the legal path to legality, beginning in the late 1990s and running up until 2015. Students should seek to make connections between the narrative accounts and the language used in the court rulings (use of newspaper language on the legalese is acceptable here). A potential layout is: Overview, Timeline, Beliefs underpinning arguments, Arguments for Proposition/Case (repeat as needed), Current Day, Conclusion.

For this assignment, students are free to submit a traditional paper of 4 to 6 pages, but are encouraged to explore other mediums for conveying their findings – including but not limited to comics or podcasts.