No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics is a documentary film set to premiere at the 20th annual Tribeca Film Festival this month. Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design, served as an advisor in the creation of the film.
Hillary Chute was interviewed by News@Northeastern on the rise of comics as an art form, particularly around LGBTQIA+ representation. Read “How queer comics made their mark on history” here.
No Straight Lines tells the story of five scrappy and pioneering cartoonists who depicted everything from the AIDS crisis, coming out, and same-sex marriage, to themes of race, gender, and disability. They tackled the humor in queer lives in a changing world, and the everyday pursuits of love, sex, and community. Their work is funny, smart, and profound, and provides a unique, uncensored window into LGBTQ lives from the 1970s onward, beginning at a time in which there was no other genuine queer storytelling in popular culture. Equally engaging are their personal journeys, as they, against all odds, helped build a queer comics underground that has been able to grow and evolve in remarkable ways.
