The Complete Wendel

The cover of The Complete Wendel

Welcome back to the Queer Comics Blog, my devoted readers, for a second improbable year! I thought I would start with another entry about one of my favorite artists, the inimitable Howard Cruse. Before writing his autobiographical masterpiece Stuck Rubber Baby, he wrote an ongoing comic strip for The Advocate magazine beginning in 1983 entitled Wendel. It ran for most of the decade and was collected into The Complete Wendel by the Universe imprint of Rizzoli Publications in 2011.

Howard Cruse’s influence cannot be overstated, and Wendel is one of his greatest creations. It displays a technical mastery of pace, character, and form on par with Wil Eisner. The cast is sprawling, but introduced organically, while still being centered around the adorable titular character—and eventually his boyfriend/lover Ollie—and displays the full panoply of expression that can be found in the queer community. Each strip is presented in two-page spreads to preserve its original presentation, including when The Advocate changed formats in 1985. This expanded format for the comic strip allows Wendel to achieve a more realistic vibe that involves more than the setup for a joke; the ending is just as likely to be poignant or contemplative as it is to be funny.

The strip is also consciously political, with an extended storyline about the characters attending the The March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation in 1993. Yet Wendel is perhaps most political when nothing political is happening. The characters live their lives in the quotidian drudgery common to human experience, as much a part of mainstream society as anyone else. As Mr. Cruse writes in his preface, “we would trudge home to the mildew that waited to be scrubbed from our bathroom tiles” after all the marches and demonstrations were done. It is a time capsule from a much scarier time for the LGBT community. It can be difficult to communicate or fathom the persecution of the Reagan-Bush era, but this volume captures it perfectly while maintaining a light, friendly tone. Lesser works are undone by such a connection to the past and become instantly dated, but the historicity of Wendel does not diminish its artistry.

The Complete Wendel is a definitive collection of a groundbreaking series that has not received its proper accolades. It includes a great deal of supplemental material, including an extremely funny “Where Are They Now?” feature that catches up with all the characters and an insightful introduction by Alison Bechdel. It is available via Northwest Press and Amazon.

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