Books/Comics

Gay and gay-subtext content in authors, novels, comic strips, and comic books, most read during my childhood. .  

 A

Across a Billion Years: Silverberg sci fi

The Addams Family

Adventure Boys Books

Akim and Jim: Tarzan and Boy of European comics

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alix and Enak: Jonny and Hadji in ancient Rome

Alphonse and Gaston, Mutt and Jeff, and other gay couples in early 20th century comic strips

Alley Oop, the time-traveling cave man

American Literature, 19th Century: The Gay American Renaissance

American Literature, 20th Century: Gather the Faces of Men 

Amiri Baraka: From gay to homophobe in 20 poems

Andre Norton; Gay subtext science fiction in my junior high library

Andy Panda

Archie Comics: Archie and Jughead, Boyfriends

Archie Comics:  Jughead Gets (Several) Girlfriends

Archie Comics Queer Hint: My Date Must Be a Boy

Archie Comics Queer Hint: Veronica and Betty are Going Steady 

Archie Beefcake, Part 1: the Movies and TV Shows Action

Archie Beefcake, Part 2: The Comics

Arthur C. Clarke: Gay Teens in Deep Space

Arthur Rimbaud: Gay poet abandons his art -- and men

August Strindberg: N*de statues and dream visions

B

Batman: Five Boy Wonders

The Gay Beat Generation

Beetle Bailey and his boyfriend Sarge

Benito Cereno: Master and Slave become Lovers

Bertie and Jeeves: A gay gentleman in 1920s Britain and his valet/boyfriend

Better Nate than Ever : Book series about a gay theater kid from Pennsylvania

Better Nate Than Ever: Comic series with gay kids, wacky aunts, and beefcake

Betty Boop Comics: Masculine women, feminine men

Billy Budd: Gay Sailor Romance

The Blue Hawk

Bob Morane: a French James Bond without the girls

Boy in Darkness: Gay Symbolism and Gothic Horror

Boy Who Cried Fabulous

Boys' Life

Boy's Life Beefcake

Bobbsey Twins, Boxcar Children, and Beefcake

Bowery Billy and his boyfriend in a penny dreadful

Bringing Up Father: Gay content in Jiggs and Maggie?

British Boys Annuals

British Literature: Gay Free Great Books

Bugs Bunny Comics: Bugs and Porky meet a drag king

Buster Brown: Beefcake at the shoe store

C

The Canterbury Tales

Captains Courageous: Boys alone on a boat

Captain Easy: Roy Crane's Gay Men

Carl Sandburg: Two gay references and a lot of heterosexism

Catholic schoolboy comics

Chaim Potok: Gay Jewish Romeo and Juliet

Charlton Comic: More gay subtexts than Casper

Cheri: A hustler finds love

Chanson de Roland: Roland and Oliver, Medieval loverss

The Chronicles of Narnia

Chrononauts: Sometimes buddy-bonding is not enough

Classics Illustrated

Collier's Encyclopedia: Finding gay subtexts in a 1950s encyclopedia

Confessions of a Mask: Yukio Mishima on darkness, despair, and being gay

Conan the Barbarian (comic book)

Conan the Barbarian (books)

The Confederacy of Dunces and the bloated white caterpillar

Corentin and his boyfriend Kim

Shocking the Nazarenes with C.S. Lewis

D

Dancer from the Dance: the horror of the gay ghetto

Darkover: Teenager boyfriends in deep space

David Cassidy's comic book career

The DC comics jungle

Death in Venice

Dennis the Menace

D.H. Lawrence and the n*ked Cornish farmer

Doc Savage: The first gay superhero

Disney Comics: Donald Duck's Double Life

Disney Comics:Mickey and Goofy

Disney Comics: Heterosexualizing Uncle Scrooge

Disney Comics: Uncle Scrooge, Gay Adventurer

Disney Comics: Minor Gay Characters, from the Beagle Boys to Super Goof

Donelan: It's a gay life

The gay world of Dr. Seuss

Dream of the Red Chamber: Gay Chinese Literature of the Middle Ages

Die Drei ???: Boy detectives in 44 books and 4 movies, most with gay subtexts.

E

Earthfasts: Modern Yorkshire boy and Revolutionary War soldier in love

Edgar Allan Poe: The homoerotic horror

Elfquest

Ernest Hemingway: homophobic, gay, or both?

F

Fafhrd and Grey Mouser

The Famous Five: Britain's answer to the Hardy Boys

Federico Garcia Lorca: The homophobic gay poet and his boyfriend

The Fighting Prince of Donegal

Flowers of Evil: Hercules and Christ are one

Four Color Comics

Four Color Comics Beefcake

Frank O'Hara: 1950s gay poet and lover

Franz Kafka: 10 surprising gay facts about everybody's favorite writer

The Front Runner: Homophobia and angst in Hell-fer-Sartain

G

Gasoline Alley: Skeezix, 1930s gay icon

Gasoline Alley: Gay couple Rufus and Joe

Gay Comix, from when you read them in the gay magazines of West Hollywood

General Whitman's Adventures

German Literature: Dr. Webber tries to prove that Homosexuailtat does not exist

Get Fuzzy: Is anyone gay?

Golden Cities, Far: In junior high, we write a heroic fantasy novel with absolutely no connection to The Lord of the Rings

The Greeen Library: Beefcake and bonding in French boys' books

Grit: Beefcake and bonding in rural Indiana

Gulliver's Travels: Tie-up games in classic lit

H-I

Hans Christian Andersen: Gay writer of fairy tales about dying

The Hardy Boys are not interested in girls

Harvey Comics: The gay subtext of Casper the Friendly Ghost

Harvey Comics: Baby Huey

Harvey Comics: Little Dot, Lotta, and Audrey: lesbian subtexts in Harvey comics

Harvey Comics: Little Max and his gay dad

Harvey Comics: Heterosexism and booing in Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost

Harvey Comics: Why Hot Stuff the Little Devil wears a diaper

Henry: Surreal comic about oral fixation

Herbie, the Fat Fury

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The blacksmith with brawny arm

Howard Cruse: Gay comics at their most depressing

H.P. Lovecraft: Gay subtexts in the weird tales

Huckleberry Finn

The Human Torch and Toro

The Iceland Fisherman: Gay Romance in Collier's Encyclopedia

Italian Literature and Male N*dity

J

Jack London and the gay surfers

Jackanapes: boyfriends in a Victorian children' s story

James Thurber: Strong women, gay men

James Whitcomb Riley: Even dull, depressing poets can be gay

Jerry Lewis Comics 

Jimmy Olson: Superman's boy pal

Jimmy Olson: A World of Jimmys

John Milton: Ten gay things about the author of Paradise Lost

Joe Palooka, boxer turned single dad

J.R.R. Tolkien, the heterosexual who wrote about men in love

Jungle comics

K

Kalevipoeg (Estonian Epic)

Kamandi, the last boy on Earth

Kaliman and Solin: Spanish Magician and Boy Pal

Kimba (Italian Tarzan)

King of the Golden River

Kon-Tiki: Six guys on a raft

Krazy Kat: Critics keep saying Krazy is a girl, but he is clearly a boy in love with Ignatz Mouse

Kurt Vonnegut

L

Land of Stories (Chris Colfer)

Last Days of Pompeii: the dandy and the gay cult

The Left Hand of Darkness: Homophobic feminism

Leonard and Larry: The gay couple next door that I couldn't stand

Li'l Abner: Backwoods Adonis with no interest in women

Li'l Jinx: Jinx's mom comes out

Little Lulu: the peril of the gay child's world

Little Nemo in Slumberland

Little World of Don Camillo: The town priest and the mayor

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings: Good Beyond Hope

Lovecraft Country: Eldritch horror, Jim Crow laws, and gay men

M

Mad Magazine: Cynicism, guilt, and homophobia

Manawyddan Son of the Boundless: a gay Theosophist writes about two gods in love

Manga with gay characters

Mark Trail: A substandard Tarzan

Markings (Dag Hammarskjold)

Michael Strogoff: Jules Verne's gay couple

Michael Moorcock: Bisexual decadence at the end of time

Mr. Muscles

My Village: Sonia and Tim Gidal find gay kids everywhere

N-O

Nancy: Lesbian panic in  a 1950s comic book

The New Yorker

Orphans of the Sky

Out Our Way: Teenagers before girl-craziness

The Boys and Men of Oz

P-Q

Peanuts: Charlie Brown and Linus

Pearls Before Swine, homophobia and all

The Phantom and Son

P.G. Wodehouse: a gay gentleman and his valet

Pogo: the gay possum of Okefenokee Swamp

Popeye: Finding a family of choice

Prince Valiant

How Proust can bore you to death

Quentin Crisp: Homophobic gay pioneer

R

R. Crumb: From Fritz the Cat to gay marriage (sort of).

Robin: the five Boy Wonders

Robert Howard's barbarian heroes

Robert Louis Stevenson: Tales of boys and men

Robert Silverberg: Buddy-bonding adventures in outer space shift to "Girls! Girls! Girls!, ruining my childhood.

The Romantic Era: 10 writers and artists that you didn't know were gay.

Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles

Runner for the King

S

Sad Sack

Samuel R. Delany writes my first gay novel

See Here, Private Hargrove: To be young was very heaven

Selection Day: Ultra-closeted cricket players don't play cricket

A Separate Peace

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Seven Brothers: Homoerotic rowdiness in a Finnish sauna

Sherlock Holmes, gay icon

Shock-Headed Peter: Castration and gay panic

Signe de Piste: Muscleboys in French class

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Spaceship Under the Apple Tree

Spirou and Fantasio: The journalist and the bellhop move in together

Star Man's Son

Steppenwolf.  "Magic Theater.  Not for everybody"

Submariner

Superhero sidekicks in b*ndage

Superboy: 70 years of beefcake boys of steel

Superman: does he ever take his shirt off?

Suske en Wiske: Beefcake and adventure in Flemish comics

T-V

Tales of the City: boring lives of gay and straight people in 1970s San Francisco

The Tarzan Twins

Terry and the Pirates

That Wilkin Boy and Other Beefcake Wonders of the Archie Universe

Things Fall Apart

Thornton Wilder: Gay author of depressing novels

Three Musketeers: the swashbuckling boyfriends of November

Tintin and Captain Haddock.  Yep, they were gay

Tom Jones: S*x and n*dity in 1749

Tom Swift: the boy scientist turns from gay to straight, and back again

The Tripods: One day soon you'll discover girls...

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

T.S. Elliot: O, swallow, swallow

Tunnel in the Sky

Ulysses: Cruising Dublin with James Joyce

The Universe Between

The Violet Quill: S*x, drugs, and elitism in gay New York

W-Z

Walt Whitman, the good gay poet

Werewolf by Night

"What kind of flower are you?" Queer boys of the 1920s and 1930s

Wildboy: The jungle boy of 1950s comics

William Faulkner: Redneck muscle and boys in drag

William Saroyan: The man on the flying trapeze

William Shakespeare: The original gay poet

The Wind in the Willows

Winthrop: A gay kid in 1960s comics

The Wizard of Id: 1970s satire with buddy bonding, a gay knight, and "the king is a fink!"

Woody Woodpecker: Being a wood-pecker was not gay enough.

Wonderful Adventures of Nils

Wonderful Flight to Mushroom Planet

A Wrinkle in Time

 Xanth: Heterosexual centaurs, demons, and ogres

The top ten ways to dispatch The Young Allies

Zagor: an Italian Tarzan, Batman, and Cisco Kid

Zits: a comic strip for anyone dating twinks