Cruse, Howard 1944-

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CRUSE, Howard 1944-

PERSONAL:

Born May 2, 1944, in Birmingham, AL; son of Jesse Clyde (a minister, journalist, and photographer) and Irma (an executive; maiden name Russell) Cruse; partner of Eddie Sedarbaum, beginning in 1979. Education: B.A., Birmingham-Southern College, 1968. Politics: Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Playwriting, stage direction, flash animation.

ADDRESSES:

Home—P.O. Box 100, North Adams, MA 01237. Agent—Barbara Hogenson, Barbara Hogenson Agency, 165 West End Avenue, Suite 19C, New York, NY 10023. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, graphic artist, illustrator, comix creator. WAPI-TV (now WVTM-TV), Birmingham, AL, assistant to art director, 1964-65; Birmingham News, Birmingham, staff artist, 1967; Mag Computer Corporation, New York, NY, paste-up artist, 1969; WBMG-TV, Birmingham, art director and puppeteer, 1969-72; Atlanta Children's Theatre, Atlanta, GA, actor and scenic design assistant, 1972-72; Art Service, Inc., Atlanta, staff artist, 1973-74; Luckie & Forney Advertising, Birmingham, staff artist, 1975-76; Starlog, New York, art director, 1977-78; freelance writer and artist, 1963—; Gay Comix, founding editor, 1980-84.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Schubert playwriting fellowship, 1968; Eisner award, Critic's Choice award (for French version), Harvey award, United Kingdom Comics Art award, and British Comics Creators Guild award, all for Stuck Rubber Baby; Luchs Award for Am Rande des Himmels, German translation of Stuck Rubber Baby, 1996; Prix de la Critique for Un Monde de difference, French translation of Stuck Rubber Baby, 2002.

WRITINGS:

(Illustrator) H. William Stine and Megan Stine, How to Succeed in Sports without Ever Playing, Scholastic, 1981.

(Illustrator) Steven Bloom, Video Invaders, Arco (New York, NY), 1982.

Wendel (collection), Gay Presses of New York (New York, NY), 1985.

Howard Cruse's Barefootz (collection), Renegade Press (North Hollywood, CA), 1986.

(Illustrator) Delaney and Goldblum, Strategies for Survival, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1987.

Dancin' Nekkid with the Angels: Comic Strips and Stories for Grownups, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1987.

Wendel on the Rebound (collection), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Early Barefootz (collection), Fantagraphics Books (Seattle, WA), 1990.

Stuck Rubber Baby (graphic novel), introduction by Tony Kushner, Paradox Press (New York, NY), 1995.

Wendel All Together (collection), Olmstead Press (Milford, CT), 2001.

Swimmer with a Rope in His Teeth (illustrated adaptation of a fable by Jeanne E. Shaffer), Prometheus Press (Amherst, NY), 2004.

Creator of cartoon strips, including "Tops and Bottoms," Birmingham Post-Herald, 1972; "Barefootz," 1970s; and "Wendel," Advocate, 1983-89. Contributor of cartoons and illustrations to periodicals, including Village Voice, Playboy, Advocate, Harpoon, Crawdaddy, American Health, Artforum International, American Photographer, Success, and Heavy Metal; writer of column "Loose Cruse" for Comics Scene, 1981-83.

SIDELIGHTS:

Howard Cruse is a comix creator whose first published work in comic-book format was a strip that ran in Quad, the literary magazine of his school, Birmingham-Southern College. The four-page satire about the conservative John Birch Society ran unaltered, but because of concerns by the faculty, it was preceded by a statement to the effect that Cruse was not being critical of any particular group, but rather spoofing general cultural. Cruse now writes and draws whatever he pleases, and his readers are glad of it.

Cruse's early published work ran in comix like Mad clones Fooey, Cracked, and Sick, as well as in Yellow Dog, Snarf, Alien Encounters, and Dope Comix. His first popular strip, "Barefootz," was the vehicle with which Cruse first introduced "gay" subject matter, and in 1979, he agreed to become a founder of Gay Comix.

In 1977, Cruse went north to New York, and in 1983, his strip "Wendel" became a regular feature in the Advocate, the national magazine of the gay and lesbian community. Wendel Trupstock, like Cruse, is a gay man and a writer. He has loving and supportive parents, loyal friends, and a boss who is too kindhearted to fire him, even when he screws up. His actor lover, Oliver Chalmers, is out only to his friends, wife and son, who gets his kicks by announcing to strangers that his father and Wendel are a couple. The story is about Wendel and his love of Oliver, but also about how he deals with the side issues of their relationship and straight society in general. It is important to note that Cruse was writing this strip during the very volatile period when AIDS first became an issue, particularly for the gay community.

Richard Goldstein reviewed Wendel, the first collection of the strips, in the Village Voice Supplement, saying that Cruse "is on to real Americans in all their ambivalence: quite prepared to cherish a child, a trusted worker, or even a former spouse who's gay, but disposed to torment homosexuals as a class. The zany subculture this paradoxical response produces is a source of humor for Cruse—the gay community, in its purist frenzy and sex-drenched utopianism, has never been more lovingly dragged through mud of its own devices."

In Wendel on the Rebound, Wendel learns that his first lover, Sawyer, has AIDS and has been thrown out by his parents. Wendel is stricken with guilt and feels anger and remorse in this tender and intelligently rendered story. Charles Solomon reviewed the collection in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, commenting that it "has an innocent appeal that transcends the boundaries of sexual preference."

Dancin' Nekkid with the Angels: Comic Strips and Stories for Grownups is a collection of Cruse's work from a variety of sources and done in a variety of tones, from satiric to dramatic, realistic to fanciful. Only eight of the cartoons have a gay theme, and these include "Dirty Old Lovers," about gay male age prejudice, and "Billy Goes Out," which finds the protagonist seeking sex and love in a backroom bar. In reviewing the collection in Booklist, Ray Olson called Cruse's style "sweet … sort of a mixture of Dr. Seuss, R. Crumb, and Archie."

Olson also reviewed Wendel All Together, writing that "Cruse's superb comedic sense made 'Wendel' funnier than nearly every other gay strip (then and since) and most nongay strips with continuing characters and situations."

Cruse took four years to produce his graphic novel, Stuck Rubber Baby, which has since received multiple awards. Tony Kushner (Angels in America) writes in the introduction that Cruse is "a pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay comics." And he is, because his are the first gay-focused comics to delve into the gay character as a complete person rather than a stereotype.

The story is about two kinds of discrimination—against gays and against blacks. It is about a man whose background is similar to Cruse's own, in that he was raised in the fictional Southern town of Clay-field, the details of which the fiftyish Toland reveals in flashback. Toland lost his parents in an automobile accident and moved in with friends, then became involved in the 1960s Civil Rights movement, while at the same time dealing with his homosexuality. He dates women, but is attracted to men. He becomes involved with the gay son of a minister, and is close to Sammy, who is targeted by bigots when they discover he is both fighting for integration and gay. Another thread involves Toland's liberal sister, Melanie, and her racist husband. Melanie, who is unable to conceive, offers to adopt the child of folksinger/activist Ginger, which was fathered by her younger brother.

Comix icon Harvey Pekar reviewed Stuck Rubber Baby for Tribune Books, commenting that the writing is "compelling, particularly when Cruse focuses on Toland's growing awareness of his homosexuality and his efforts to deal with it." Pekar continued, saying that Cruse's work "is full of textural variety, and he employs complex and imaginative layouts. Barren of superheroes or talking animals, Stuck Rubber Baby certainly isn't standard comic book fare. The people most likely to enjoy the book will be enthusiasts of good contemporary fiction, although most of them are unused to shopping for comics. But those who do seek out Stuck Rubber Baby are in for an edifying experience."

Olson wrote that if Cruse "set out to show why the black civil rights struggle inspired the later gay one, he succeeds brilliantly."

In reviewing Stuck Rubber Baby for Rational Magic online, the writer remarked, "This is an amazing, moving story that I have read at least six times and still cry over.…The story is surprisingly sad in the whole; few victories are won, and because the racist forces have the backing of the police force, little or nothing is done when someone is killed. The major victory in the book is Toland's self-acceptance."

In a 2001 interview with the Advocate's Alonso Duralde, Cruse talked about writing "Wendel," and said he felt that "often we sort of viewed activism as if we all turned into this sort of movement of beings, as opposed to still going to the demo and keeping your eye out for somebody cute. I felt that it was unreal to behave as if people stopped being individual human beings just because they were political. I wanted to reflect that duality in the characters. Almost all of my comic strips, one way or another, are my life seen through a prism—not necessarily the details of it but my emotional observations of it."

Cruse told Duralde that in writing Stuck Rubber Baby, he "had the advantage of hindsight. I was looking back over thirty years. 'Wendel,' I was in the thick of it, and nobody knew how things were gonna come out. And so if the characters were feeling scared, it was because I was feeling scared. If I had a regular strip going now that reflected daily life, then that would be a document of the era we're living in. Right now I'm not actively documenting things, so the only way I'm going to give my reactions to the turn-of-the-century period will be if I do something retroactively."

"As a writer, Cruse will take the time to mention how Toland's friend's dog loves car rides," noted David Frankel in Artforum. "Economically sketching the aura of a social world, he'll fill an empty corner with a newspaper and its barely legible headline." Frankel noted the scene in which Toland tries to convince Ginger, with whom he has just had sex, that he loves her. Frankel wrote, "The anxiety, guilt, and enduring regret of this pained but far from unrewarding relationship are among the book's most sensitively rendered shadings. It's a pleasure to look at a novel in which the characters are so beautifully drawn."

Greg McElhatton reviewed both Wendel All Together and Stuck Rubber Baby for icomics online. Of the latter, he wrote that it is "one of those books where by the time you're done, you know that this is something that pushes the medium of sequential art to a new level. It's a deeply moving story that can affect a wide variety of audiences; my hope now is still the same as it was when it was published in 1995, that it will reach that wider audience."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Advocate, March 15, 1988, interview with Cruse; September 5, 1995, Michael Willhoite, review of Stuck Rubber Baby, p. 64; June 19, 2001, Alonso Duralde, "Wendel and Me" (interview), p. 87.

Artforum International, November, 1995, David Frankel, review of Stuck Rubber Baby, p. S21.

Booklist, October 1, 1987, Ray Olson, review of Dancin' Nekkid with the Angels, p. 202; September 1, 1995, Ray Olson, review of Stuck Rubber Baby, p. 27; August, 2001, Ray Olson, review of Wendel All Together, p. 2071.

Cartoonist Profiles, June, 1980, "Me, Barefootz, and the Underground Comix."

Comics Journal, September, 1986, Steve Ringgenberg, interview with Cruse; December, 1990, Rob Rodi, "Homosequentiality," and Craig Maynard, "Gay Voice in a Mainstream Wilderness"; #182, Anne Rubenstein, interview with Cruse, Chris Brayshaw, "The Struggle to Communicate," Ray Mescallado, "Easy Comparisons," and Ho Che Anderson, "Rings True."

Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 3, 1989, Charles Solomon, review of Wendel on the Rebound, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, August 14, 1995, review of Stuck Rubber Baby, p. 72.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), December 3, 1995, Harvey Pekar, review of Stuck Rubber Baby, p. 6.

Village Voice Literary Supplement, May, 1986, Richard Goldstein, review of "Wendel," p. 3.