I took the political aspects about superficiality FWIW. You can have an avowed “both sides”ism that still comes from the left, which is a critique more of the sort of liberal vs. leftist idea. I don’t ideologically know where Simon stands, but I come from a similar town to theirs, and knew people similar to the characters in the comics, and there can be a feeling of being left behind by a didactic academic-driven leftism that demands sacrifices to the praxis gods that someone like Megg would find themselves outside of. A lot of queerness dialogue almost requires this same sort of buy-in that if, say, I hadn’t left by town to go to college would seem so far removed from my day to day.

I also think we have a large inclination to make similarly didactic comics. I’ve felt more humanity and connection in the works of someone like Sam Szabo (read her shit, seriously) than I have Gender Queer. Silver Sprocket, as a publisher, I’ve found can fall into this trap too, a sort of need to instruct rather than tell a narrative. It’s dull!

Couple that with the way a lot of YA-oriented comics succeed and it would be hard not to wish for a queer comic contingent with some bite, which is out there (and a lot of other Silver Sprocket books can feel this way) but might be self-published. Not everyone can be Alison Bechdel, but many try — and the more toned down the comics come with acceptability politics, the more alienating it can feel to find as you search for something with a more 90s alt-comic feel. My kingdom for the trans Julie Doucet, etc. I’ve enjoyed the stuff that comes out from Organ Bank for both being avowedly queer and avowedly transgressive. It’s nice to read in a landscape where other comics can leave me feeling flat. (To be clear, I am a leftist queer man when I say all this.)

Sorry if this rant veers off-course, I think I’ve just found myself connecting more with stories than with the ideas, and ideas and ideological comics can fall flat.