Best selling LGBT comics in the US?

[OgreBattle]

Was there a certain work of recent years that showed LGBT themed comics could be a hit in the US?

[Shrapnel]

IDW Transformers.

[Grek]

LGBT "themed" anything is a dumb idea. Having LGBT characters is one thing, but if your sole (or even a major) selling point is "It has gay people in it." nobody will care to buy it.

[OgreBattle]

IDW Transformers.

Which ones?

LGBT "themed" anything is a dumb idea. Having LGBT characters is one thing, but if your sole (or even a major) selling point is "It has gay people in it." nobody will care to buy it.

That's what I mean by themed, like it's specifically about coming to terms with being gay, coming out to folks, hiding it, etc. And not "North Star is a gay superhero taht dies of aids lol"

[Ancient History]

Was there a certain work of recent years that showed LGBT themed comics could be a hit in the US?

Well, Sunstone was a surprise hit. All five volumes of it and counting.

[Kaelik]

I hear X Men was pretty popular.

[shinimasu]

Do the legend of Korra comics count? I can't remember how well they sold actually but I know at least some of the stories were dedicated to fleshing out the lesbian relationship they weren't allowed to actually air on television.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Comics are pretty gay to begin with.

[Shrapnel]

IDW Transformers.

Which ones?

More than Meets the Eye/Lost Light had pretty meaningful and well-written LGBT characters, notably Chromedome and Rewind, and later Anode (Transformers first confirmed trans(!) character) and Lug.

Eventually, in the Optimus Prime series, Arcee is confirmed as also being trans, and ends up in a relationship with a female Transformer. In fact, they share the first ever on-screen kiss in Transformers history:



Also, Blast-Off has the hots for Onslaught.

[Leress]

IDW Jem and the Holograms.

[deaddmwalking]

I know that there have been 'masculine' and 'feminine' transformers since the very early days, but I did not know that they were supposed to have a gender identification.

In the Transformers Animated continuity, it seems clear that Transformers do not reproduce sexually. Optimus Prime appears stunned when Sari tells him where human babies come from. ... On the flip-side, in IDW continuity, female Transformers are specifically created by Jhiaxus.

That seems unnecessarily complicated, but sure, why not.

[Shrapnel]

That info is woefully out of date. In IDW, originally Arcee was once a male 'bot forcibly changed into a female by the mad scientist Jhiaxus to introduce gender into a genderless race... and the process of becoming a woman made her crazy. This was a decade ago, written by Simon Furman, who is a good writer, but has rather... problematic views on gender politics*. He's the guy who did this, after all.

Anyway, flash forward a few years to 2016/17, and it's established that a) Cybertron DID used to have gender millions of years ago, but female Cybertronians disappeared due to unknown causes, and b) Arcee willingly underwent the procedure with Jhiaxus because she had gender dysphoria.

In this ancient era, both male and female Cybertronians naturally coexisted, and the young Arcee was forged into a male body, but this ran counter to how she felt in her spark, later musing that this old identity was a lie she told herself.
...
Arcee, never entirely comfortable with her birth identity, fell in with the mad genius Jhiaxus, who was trying to reintroduce separate genders to the species as part of his experiments to recreate the lost aspects of old Cybertronian civilization. Not seeing the mad scientist for what he truly was, Arcee asked him to operate on her in the hopes of dealing with her gender dysphoria. Jhiaxus was able to successfully alter Arcee's physiology and gender presentation by fundamentally re-coding her CNA.

Ultimately, Jhiaxus felt no need to involve himself further with Arcee and abandoned her after the surgery. She would later come to believe she didn't live up to his standards and was abandoned as a reject. The lack of aftercare combined with the trauma of her experience led to Arcee becoming angry, distant, and distrustful of agendas and experiments done to people against their will.

It would later be established that Arcee was not alone with the gender dysporia, as other Cybertronians would change their appearance and genders to what they felt most comfortable with, minus the insane evil scientist.

So, yeah, gender in IDW Transformers has had an interesting history.


*It should be noted, by the way, that Simon Furman has never been completely comfortable with idea of female robots in the first place, and has been since the original G1 Marvel comics. As he put it:

"Well, I’ve always been fairly outspoken about the redundancy of ‘female’ Transformers (or ‘fembots’). It’s not a sexist thing, it’s just that they’re robots."

Riiight. Whatever helps ya sleep at night, I guess.

[DSMatticus]

I'mma be real, I don't even know what Transformers is. It's an animated cartoon from my childhood that sold a bunch of toys and then decades later got Michael Bay'd (and sold more toys)? Like, what's the source material here? Is there a Dead Sea Scrolls I need to plunder from a Temple of Doom?

That last bit sounds surprisingly progressive, though. Not the Simon Furman quote, that's shitty, the "change their appearance and genders" bit before that. Full-blown transhumanism for robots, bodies are shells, you do you. Gonna go out on a limb and guess that's a totally off-camera explanation for why female autobots exist and not an actual thing the audience ever has to acknowledge, but still, kind of surprising.

[Josh_Kablack]

I'mma be real, I don't even know what Transformers is.

Transformers was Generation X's version of Pokemon.

[Kaelik]

I mean you could imagine a non sexist version of "why would they have women robots, they are robots, they shouldn't have gender."

But that claim falls pretty fucking flat when you relentlessly male code all the robots. Which transformers does.

[Iduno]

I mean you could imagine a non sexist version of "why would they have women robots, they are robots, they shouldn't have gender."

But that claim falls pretty fucking flat when you relentlessly male code all the robots. Which transformers does.

Agreed. "I don't think there should be female robots" is not at all the same as "I don't think there should be gendered robots."

I also love the way IDW used almost exactly the same story (mad scientist changing genders of Arcee, she went crazy), and ended up with a much more positive spin on it.

[Stahlseele]

That last bit sounds surprisingly progressive, though. Not the Simon Furman quote, that's shitty, the "change their appearance and genders" bit before that

Considering that they change into fucking alien vehicles(to them, after scanning earth vehicles. the original cybertronian transformations were much more futuristic of course), i kinda sorta call bullshit on them being locked to a certain shell in their robot form . .

[OgreBattle]

This was a decade ago, written by Simon Furman, who is a good writer, but has

It's been three decades ago. How time flies

lol at feminist mob.

I like how Sakamoto draws ladybots

[Shrapnel]

Well, the issue in which Arcee was introduced into IDW was released in 2008. The feminist mob IS from thirty years ago, tho.

Anyway, all of trans-humanism and such is actually explored and dealt with in the comics, and not as an off-camera thing. It's an important part of who Arcee and several other characters (such as the aforementioned Anode and Lug several posts up) are. IDW was super woke. Japan... still has some ways to go.