About Your Pal Eric
Location: Chicago IL
Occupation: amateur podcaster, professional aerialist
Bio: I come from Appalachian Hill People.
Posts: 67
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It’s not uncommon on the Comic Book Queers podcast that we talk about the parallels between comic fandom and being queer. Both are prone to activate some people’s prejudicial ideas about the kind of person you are (mincing interior designer who wears scandalously snug clothing, versus the overweight, pasty, socially isolated misanthrope with creepy power fantasies). Both require “identity management,” or quick situational assessments to determine how okay or safe it is to be open about who you are, whether it be fanboy/fangirl, queer, or for the lucky few, both.
I’m writing this in my office at work. I have a painting of Wonder Woman that I bought at an art fair down the street on the wall by the door, a painting by Matt Fagan (creator of “The Love Omnibus”) hanging above my computer, and a tidy little row of superhero action figures glaring down at me from the top of my bookshelf. It took me a long time to get to this comfort level with my fanboyness.
The gay thing? No big deal. Actually, that’s an understatement. In my workplace, roughly one in six of us is queer, and it’s considered an asset, like all forms of diversity. I don’t think there was a moment here when I “came out”; it’s too open and accepting and enlightened an environment for that. For many years, the Executive Director of the agency was an out gay man. To remain closeted in this environment would likely have been considered a slight to my coworkers and managers; “Why aren’t you more open about who you are,” they might have asked had I not readily disclosed my sexual orientation. “Is there something that we’re doing that is somehow unwelcoming?”
Why, then, did I hide being a fanboy up until about nine months ago? When people innocuously talked about the latest superhero movie, why did I stand in the background, cautiously avoiding contributing anything to the conversation, trying not to blush or run away? Honestly, I’m still not sure.
It occurs to me know that my coming out process as a fanboy at work is pretty much exactly like the coming out process I went through in high school as a gay teenager. They both started with something I knew about myself, a little, tightly-wrapped package of different ingredients, kind of like an excitement-shame-fear burrito.
I then began compulsively scoping out potential people with whom to share my secret. In high school, the first person I told was Karin Oberholz. In high school, Karin was a free spirit in that special kind of way that terrifies other peoples’ parents. Karin wore a studded dog collar in the eleventh grade. Karin was fabulous. When I finally got up the courage to tell her that I’m gay, her response was the same one that so many of us get that first time we tell another person that we’re queer: “No duh.” She said this with no judgment, and with warmth, acceptance and no small amount of affection. It was a pure statement of fact. No duh. After that first taste of acceptance, I pretty much told anyone who I felt safe enough with.
I started the same process here at work about a year ago. I had just started the CBQ podcast. Up to that point, I had ducked in and out of comic shops like I was buying pornography. If the shopping bag containing my comics wasn’t opaque, I’d make sure the covers were facing me, and the bag was tucked tightly under my arm.
A year ago, however, I had just started recording Comic Book Queers. I was feeling a new sense of community as Stevie, Kate and I started getting emails from other comic book queers who felt as isolated as we did. I started feeling proud. And I began INITIATING conversations about superhero movies with the people I felt most comfortable around. Sure enough, I eventually found a coworker to talk to. Her name is Jennifer. She came into work wearing “I [heart] Nerds” t-shirts, and hinted at enjoying the occasional Wonder Woman issue. One day, when we were alone, I came out. “I was disappointed in the most recent issue of Uncanny X-Men,” I confided. “No duh,” she said. “That Polaris plotline is LAME!”
I am SO out now…
Hey Eric!
I finally got of my ass and remembered to read these. And I totally feel you: I’m spending the year in London, and I’m meeting all these new people, and now I’m stuck trying to figure out who I can tell. Like, can I tell that chick on my floor who complemented my Superman t-shirt? Or that freshman who’s already hopelessly in love with me that I doubt any revelation about my character will scare him off?
Here’s how bad it is: I’m taking a playwriting course, and the professor had us go around the first day and divulge some of our most personal information. Did I say, “I’m taking this course because I want to write comic books”? Hell no, that was way too personal. Instead I talked about how my mother is only on speaking terms with one of her four siblings because family tragedies like my grandmother’s death and my aunt’s cancer managed to cause irreconcilable rifts between the rest of them. In order to avoid talking about comic books. Yes.
Look forward to reading the rest of these!
if you’re assertion that people who read comic books are queers, i think you’re right on the money