TCampbell wrote:I measure QUILTBAG against Girls With Slingshots and Dumbing of Age, and those strips just completely kick its ass. (If you're looking for enlightened perspective on modern sexuality and/or great characterization and dramedy in a college setting, I'd look there.)
I agree fully with regard to
DoA being an excellent college dramedy. In terms of
GwS as a superior exploration of sexual diversity... I think Corsetto's results thus far are mixed. (The good: the two same-sex relationships, especially Jamie's and Erin's "no labels" one. The bad: Darren, the comic's only gay male character, while certainly likeable, could use some fleshing out beyond the "cross-dresser who sleeps around" stereotype). Nevertheless, I don't read
GwS primarily for the LGBTQQ themes, so those two criticisms aren't a deal-breaker for me in terms of enjoying the comic. It may help matters that Corsetto doesn't market her comic as a "QUILTBAG/LGBT/queer/&c" strip
per se. It's simply a comic--usually funny, often deliberately silly (McPedro and such), sometimes dramatic--about a group of friends and acquaintances who hang out with, date, sleep with, and/or infuriate each other.
And maybe that's where the
P&A spin-off--much as I'll miss it for the Sara-and-Lisa odd couple dynamic and Jason's new, dynamic art style--could've used some more thought. I said, not long ago, that the "beginning almost every strip with the chapter's keynote letter" motif has been at times obtrusive and artificial. Now, in light of your comments here, T, I'm thinking that the same is probably true of, if not the very title
QUILTBAG, then certainly its planned structure where each chapter would centre on one "type" of sexual or gender orientation. Perhaps if you'd simply conceived the new comic's scenario as something "Sara and Lisa go to college and, together with new people they meet on campus, develop in ways neither could have imagined."
To illustrate with an example of one of my favourite
QUILTBAG sequences thus far: Lisa, the parent comic's resident jester or "manic pixie dream girl," now finds herself in situations where being a quirky-sexy "make 'em smile" type
doesn't work, and indeed can make things worse. It would've been wonderful to see that discovery of hers followed up on over time, and perhaps taking root more deeply in her and ultimately transforming her into someone who's still upbeat and fun but is also fine with dialing it back and relating to people in other ways. Maybe, someday, you could still do a series, perhaps set at a different stage in her life, where Lisa gradually develops into someone who, while always recognizably Lisa, is nonetheless no longer "high school" Lisa. The same way that, as Aggie observed in the last
P&A strip, "The high school Penny and Aggie are gone, but they created you and me." Or, you could do a series focusing just on Sara (and perhaps her parents) at a post-college stage of life.
Anyway...something to think about, maybe, T. I'd hate for Lisa and Sara, two of my favourite fictional characters ever, to have the door shut on them forever, just because your attempt to fit them into a somewhat artificial thematic structure didn't work as well as you'd thought.