March 6, 2016
John Doe
Book Requisitions
LGBT Books
100 Gay Lane
Atlanta, GA 30303
Dear Mr. Doe:
I'm the writer of "Pride High," an independent LGBT-themed comic book. With Issue 2 complete
and Issue 3 on the way, I'd love to see if LGBT Books might carry the title.
Pride High follows the adventures of five friends who create the first gay-straight alliance at their
high school for super-powered youth. Released on September 29, 2006, Issue #1 features thirtyone full color pages of narrative and five pages of free advertisements for various LGBT
advocacy groups, including California GSA Network, Blind Friends of Lesbians and Gays,
Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere, and Prism Comics.
Pride High will explore the following themes through its two-year, bi-monthly, 12-issue run:
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Homophobia in the school environment and the isolation many LGBT students experience
The intersection of racism in the LGBT community and homophobia in communities of color
The lives of queer youth with disabilities
Young, queer love
I’m confident that the combination of these themes with a superhero setting will connect with
LGBT and LGBT-friendly readers. Pride High is currently available in San Francisco through
“Whatever,” a local comic book shop in the heart of the Castro District. It’s also available for mail
delivery through IndyPlanet.com, as well as direct PDF download from PrideComics.com.
Unfortunately many of our youngest potential readers do not have access to credit cards and are
unable to purchase Pride High unless they live in San Francisco. For them, having Pride High
available in more locations is vital. For LGBT Books to be a partner in this endeavor would be an
honor.
Sincerely,
Tommy Roddy
Head Writer
Pride Comics
3946 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
info@pridecomics.com
415-368-4714
"The Out Crowd"
by Jonathan Riggs
[Print-ready Version]
Ah, high school. No matter how old we get, there’s always a little part of
ourselves that still remembers how we felt over those four years.
Whether your experience was closer to Dawson’s Creek or Carrie, most
likely, as a gay man or woman, you wish you could do it over again in a
more accepting world…preferably with amazing powers.
I definitely would!
And that’s the most
appealing thing to me
about Pride High #1
(aside from all the cool
superhero-y stuff): the
idea of a group of gay
and gay-friendly teens
banded together at a
superpowered high
school. You know, like
Charles Xavier’s School
For Gifted Youngsters,
but this time, Wolverine
is doing Colossus.
Pride High #1
Story: Tommy Roddy
Writing and Lettering: Tommy
Roddy
Pencils, Inks & Colors: Brian Ponce
Editor: Carl Hippensteel
Dutch & English Translation:
Andrew Van Marle
Japanese Translation: Tony J., T.
Shoji & Mikan Watanabe
Web Administrator: Justin Wellman
Special Thanks to Michael Millard,
Eric Stevens, Jane Aceituno & Dale
Everett
For me (and all apologies to the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, etc.), but
Pride Comics, 2006
the X-Men will always be the comic gold standard when it comes to
teams of characters you actually care about. Even though it’s got a long
way to go before it reaches those X-alted levels, Pride High succeeds in appealing to a broad spectrum. The
characters are a wide cross-section of sexualities, abilities and ethnicities (hey, it worked for Captain Planet) and
it’s easy to picture growing to love the characters over the run of the entire series.
You’ve got blind lesbian Suravi, who’s channeling the whole Storm-peaceful-warrior vibe; Scotch Bonnet doing it
up Rachel Summers-meets-Banshee-style; Kid Mischief, Changeling and Nightcrawler’s sexy lovechild who looks
good in a jockstrap; and Mindsweeper, the handsome leader who’s like the sexy version of Professor X. There’s
some Eurotrash cheetah dude, too. Oh, and extra points to the creators for preventing Scotch’s Scottish accent
from being the torment that reading Dr. Moira MacTaggert’s always was…just thinking about it is making me
angry…(and you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…)
Anyway, the first issue does the job of introducing everyone in a
very quick and clever way—the students are returning to
Poseidon Prep for Heroic Youth, and are given the year-long
challenge of competing to be the best team-of-five in the school.
Of course, there are villains (the cute but bullying Argonauts),
but they’re given more depth than the usual one-note offerings.
Kid Olympus, the leader of the Argonauts, even has a cool,
complex Hawaiian chick as his girlfriend. We haven’t met her all-Hawaiian superhero squad yet (what a lei-tastic
idea, by the way), but that’s something I’m looking forward to. Plus, I’m a fan of anything where a main
character is named Beowulf. It might have been cool to give the villains a greater variety of superpowers rather
than super-strength (and super-snobbery), but we’ll see where that goes.
A series lives or dies by its characters, and the Pride High kids are ones I’d like to spend as much time with as
possible. I’m not usually a fan of the leader characters (sorry Cyclops), but Mindsweeper won me over by
managing to be wise and NOT annoying. His romance with Kid Mischief made me smile. As someone way past
high school age, I like the book now, but if I were actually IN high school, this would be something I’d be thrilled
to read.
As with any new series, there are a few kinks that’ll have to be ironed out.
Throughout the book, some of the slang native to each kid’s country is defined at
the bottom of the page. Sometimes this is helpful (now I now what a “Johnny-nostar” is or what “Crivens!” means), but some of it is a little redundant. Does
anyone really need, “This is going to be brilliant!” translated into “This is going to
be fabulous!”? Still, the slang is a cool touch to remind the reader that these kids
come from all over the world. That inclusiveness goes a long way.
Poseidon Prep seems to be a fertile ground for lots of stories to come, as evidenced
by the ad in the book for “The Dropouts,” a series about the kids who don’t make
the grade. It’s a testament to the richness of the comic’s concept that I’m eager to
read both series, and that I found myself looking at the background characters,
wondering what their names were or what their powers were (especially one girl
who seems to be wearing a nun’s habit with white go-go boots…now there’s a spinoff I would buy faithfully).
Overall, I really dug the book. The pro-gay stuff feels very natural and it’s nice to
read something where being gay isn’t the sum total of what a character is. The Kid
Mischief/Mindsweep romance was fun, sexy and playful, and the story ends on a
good cliffhanger-y moment.
Can the creators sustain such a good idea? I’m hoping so. I may not be able to
redo my high school experience as a hot, openly gay superhero (at least not yet), but I’m thoroughly enjoying
the experiences of Pride High.
I highly recommend it.
Editor's note: Buy this comic here or ask for it at your local comics shop.
Jonathan Riggs, Senior Associate Editor of Instinct magazine, owes his love of comic books to Erica Ann
Neyer, who got him hooked on X-Men comics in elementary school. He would like to attend Pride High.
All images and characters TM and © 2006 Pride Comics. Review © 2006 Jonathan Riggs.
Prism Comics promotes the works of the LGBT community in comics. It does not implicitly endorse any other material or products associated
with those works. Any opinions expressed are those of the author(s).
Pride Comics Donates Comics to YES (Youth
Empowerment Summit) in SF!
posted November 22nd, 2006
[Print-ready Version]
SAN FRANCISCO - On Saturday, November 18, 2006, Pride
Comics handed out 150 free copies of their comic, Pride High, at
the Youth Empowerment Summit (YES) in San Francisco,
organized by the Gay-Straight Alliance Network.
The summit was a free Bay Area conference for lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning, and straight
ally youth dedicated to fostering safe schools and youth
activism, focusing on giving youth organizers tools to combat
homophobia and transphobia in schools. An estimated 350
middle and high school students from across California attended
the event, which included workshops on gay-straight alliances in
religious high schools, transgender inclusion, zine creation, and
the history of LGBT activism.
"Meeting kids as young as thirteen who were out and proud, was
simply amazing. We'll definitely be here next year," says
Tommy Roddy, writer of Pride High. Blake Curia, creator of the
upcoming Pride High spin-off The Dropouts was also in
attendance, along with Pride Comics volunteer Desmond Miller.
Together, they gave away over 150 free copies of Pride High #1
to the kids who inspired the comic book in the first place.
Visit www.gsanetwork.org for more information about the summit and www.pridecomics.com for
more information about Pride High and other publications by Pride Comics.
Prism Comics promotes the works of the LGBT community in comics. It does not implicitly endorse any other material or
products associated with those works. Any opinions expressed are those of the author(s).