In Charlotte, North Carolina, a Heroes Con panel devoted to LGBT visibility in comics was hosted by Kate Leth, Bryan Pittard, Terry Moore, Eric Punzone, and Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. The sextet spoke on internal censorship, Internet trolls, and straddling gender boundaries in print:
During Q & A, a fan asked how the panelists felt about being straight, writing gay characters, and whether they’ve been criticized for it. Jaime gets comments like “Lesbians don’t do it that way”, but no one has ever thrown his comics in his face, at least. Gilbert said that people say things like “It’s not like that”, meaning “You must do it like my life”, concerning the comic. But Gilbert feels he’s representing “a lot of peoples’ lives” and that’s not wrong to be different. He tries to represent everybody, he said.
It’s worth noting that North Carolina is the site of the ban on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, Fun Home, a retrospective on growing up queer with a closeted father. (Do yourself a favor and check out her Rumpus interview here.)
