Buy The Complete Wendel

The Complete Wendel

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Synopsis

The complete collection of the entire groundbreaking gay comic strip series. Originally published in The Advocate throughout the 1980s, Howard Cruse's Wendel is widely considered the first gay comic strip to be featured in mainstream media. A topical and heartfelt chronicle of one gay man's journey through the often–rocky Reagan–Bush years, the strip followed the adventures of Wendel Trupstock, his boyfriend Ollie, and an unforgettable cast of supporting characters.

More realistic than most comics of the time, Wendel did not observe the traditional comic strip formula. Instead, it presented realistic depictions of relationships, politics, personal struggles, and public triumphs, all seen through a gay perspective that was just coming into relative widespread acceptance. Wendel became more than a comic strip as it, and Cruse, were propelled into the rarefied pop culture category reserved for art and artists that not only entertain, but also influence and are influenced by shifts in public consciousness. Its influence was such that Tony Kushner wrote, "Wendel unfolds with the narrative complexity, nuance, detail, and honesty of a great satirical novel."

The Complete Wendel contains every episode of the series and includes a new foreword by Cruse, who contextualizes the story of the creation and publication of the strip within the often tumultuous political zeitgeist of the 1980s. It also features a new cover and a special "where are they now" section created for this book.

Review

Long overdue and extremely welcome, the delightful Wendel comic strips are finally available again in writer/cartoonist Howard Cruse’s compilation The Compete Wendel. All the strips that ran in the leading gay magazine The Advocate throughout most of the 1980s have been reprinted, as well as a brief updating which reveals what has happened to protagonist Wendel Trubstock and his friends since then. Dealing with essential issues such as coming out, self-image, gay civil rights, and of course the AIDS epidemic, Cruse’s sweet, sassy and sexy creation fully lives up to the cover tagline of “Completely groundbreaking, completely gay, completely fabulous.” Gay marriage was under the radar in that decade so is not discussed. The cute, somewhat naive ginger-haired Wendel works in the mailroom of Effluvia Magazine but has hopes of becoming a writer, especially with a science fiction novel he has long been working on. His devoted boyfriend Ollie Chalmers has a dead-end job in a Kinko-type copy store and hopes to be an actor. Ollie has a hostile ex-wife and Farley, a precocious young son who is fine with his dad’s relationship with Wendel. Also totally supportive are Wendel’s parents who every gay person who has not come out, or who has been rejected, will envy. Other members of Wendel’s coterie include his co-worker Deborah and her aggressively butch girlfriend Tina, Ollie’s childhood friend Sterno who works for the paper Gayblaze and is always lusting after unsuitable men, and Ollie’s closeted but oh-so hot-to-trot co-worker Lyle. There are many other memorable characters that amusingly represent all aspects of gay culture. Numerous gay comics have appeared before, most of them one-off underground productions that were often pornographic, but nothing has compared before or since with the utterly delightful Wendel.

-- Roy Liebman