Wendel All Together - Softcover

Cruse, Howard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1587540126 ISBN 13: 9781587540127

Publisher: Olmstead Pr, 2001

Synopsis

Join Wendel Trupstock and his significant other, Ollie Chalmers, as they navigate gay life in the '80s. Howard Cruse's Wendel ran in The Advocate during one of the most tumultuous periods in gay history, and the lives of his characters are a snapshot of the era-from the bar scene to long term commitments, from AIDS to activism, from Reagan to right-wing homophobia. Big issues and everyday life mingle in this strip with hilarious results. And Cruse is a master with pen and ink! Wendel All Together brings readers this classic comic strip complete in one volume for the first time ever!

About this title

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* At last, a classic gets collected! "Wendel" was the first successful, long-lived gay comic strip, run in the Advocate in the years 1983 to 1985 and, after a year's hiatus, 1986 to 1989. Its hero, Wendel Trupstock, was initially fresh out of college and lookin' for love in a middle-sized city cosmopolitan enough to have an arts and theater community and, more important, a gay and lesbian community. Because of the first community, Wendel met Ollie Chalmers, an aspiring actor. The two became lovers, and the strip thereafter dealt with their relationship, their friends and families, their gay community, and their interactions with Ollie's ex-wife and small son. Cruse's superb comedic sense made "Wendel" funnier than nearly every other gay strip (then and since) and most nongay strips with continuing characters and situations. Cruse championed gay liberation, and he brought AIDS forthrightly into the strip, but his humor and ebullient drawing style prevented "Wendel" from being sententious, self-righteous, or maudlin. Because the strip appeared amid the Advocate's sex ads, Cruse could indulge ribaldry and nudity to his heart's content, secure in the knowledge that his style would make "Wendel," whose cast look like older siblings of "Archie" and "Fat Albert," merely cheerily bawdy. Indeed, one of the strip's greatest accomplishments was to portray sex as just another component in the lives of characters who do all the other things "regular" people do, albeit more hilariously. Ray Olson
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About this edition

• Publisher: Olmstead Pr
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1587540126
• ISBN 13: 9781587540127
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280