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The groundbreaking 1980s comic about a middle aged gay couple is finally seeing a complete collection of all of the previously out-of-print comics
Tim Barela’s groundbreaking Leonard and Larry will be finally released in a complete collection, featuring all of the original out-of-print collections of the classic gay comic, which was released at a time where there were very little in the way of gay pop culture period, let alone a regular comic about a gay couple.
Leonard and Larry were created by Barela as minor supporting characters in a strip that did not end up working out. Instead, Barela put the spotlight upon the happy couple in Gay Comix #5 (edited by the great Robert Triptow), where a still somewhat closeted Leonard is pressured to go out on a date with the daughter of a friend of his mother and so he and Larry go on a double date with the woman and her roommate. The two women, of course, are also a closeted couple and hilarity ensues. By the end of the story, Leonard is completely out to his mother and his and Larry’s relationship was the centerpiece of an almost 20 year run as a comic strip from the early 80s until Barela’s final Leonard and Larry strip in 2003.
Now, the Rattling Good Yarns Press is releasing a complete collection of all of Barela’s Leonard and Larry strips, reprinting the long out-of-print collections, Domesticity Isn’t Pretty, Kurt Cobain & Mozart Are Both Dead, Excerpts from the Ring Cycle in Royal Albert Hall, and How Real Men Do It.
The collection will have forwards by Charles Solomon and Andy Mangels (who put together a Gay Comix Special spotlighting Leonard and Larry) and an introduction by Barela himself.
On top of the reprints of the aforementioned out-of-print collections, though, the Complete Leonard and Larry Collection will include cartoons from Mountain Man and Barela’s very early Grizzly ‘N’ Ted series. The collection has drawn some outstanding praise, like the legendary Alison Bechdel noting, “Tim Barela’s masterful comic strip offered up an intricately textured story that never failed to melt my late twentieth century cares away” and the brilliant Chip Kidd explaining, “Forget for a moment that the characters are gay, and just consider them as fully flesh-and-blood PEOPLE, people you come to know deeply and lovingly, made out of nothing other than ink and paper and Mr. Barela’s extraordinary mind and draughtsmanship. Okay, now remember that they’re gay and that Barela started this whole thing in the early 1980s, and then you have something truly revolutionary.”
Source: Rattling Good Yarns Press
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