Pride Week

The 2013 queer coming of age movie Blue Is The Warmest Color, directed by Abdellatif Kechiche and starring Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, has been acclaimed as one of the most emotionally complex and compelling movies of recent years. A beautiful story about two women's love for each other, and their eventual heartbreak, it's based on the graphic novel by Julie Maroh. The movie is available to watch on Hulu and Netflix, so if you've seen it once, there's a chance you've seen it two or three or four times. If you're thirsty for more sorrow, love, or troubled adolescent relationships, here are some creator-owned or independent comics that you can check out next.

There’s a term in the transgender community called “eggmode”; parlance for transgender or nonbinary people who haven’t figured it out yet. A while back on social media, #eggmode trended with tales of behaviors that in retrospect seem like giant neon signs. They include thinking constantly about what it would be like as a gender other than the one we think we are; undergoing experimental living as said gender; or reading and writing stories about characters who have transitioned (even if those stories get just enough wrong to put some warped ideas in our heads.) Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen is totally an egg. Jimmy’s next startling metamorphosis could be into an actual egg, and it wouldn't make the character any more of an egg than they are now.

When you look at the sheer range and number of original stories being told in comics form today, it’s hard to imagine a better time to be a comics reader. Online and in print, from all around the world, artists and writers are telling stories with their own voices and styles, and there’s so much to choose from that it’s sometimes difficult to know what to read next. With Should I Be Reading… ?, ComicsAlliance hopes to offer you a guide to some of the best original ongoing comics being published today. Do you like Vikings? Do you like lesbian heroes? Do you like comics about Viking lesbian heroes? Then you might just like Heathen, Natasha Alterici’s creator-owned comic series.

Everyone loves trivia about their favorite animated features and series, but with over 100 years of animation history behind us right now, there’s always some new obscure fact to learn. That’s why ComicsAlliance is going deep into the minutiae of your favorite names in cartoons in this new video series. You think you know cartoons? Well, here’s a few things you might not know! In this inaugural episode, we'll be taking a look at one of the most beloved series on TV right now: Steven Universe, the continuing series created by Rebecca Sugar and airing on Cartoon Network. This video covers the history of Steven Universe, from its inspiration and creation, to the various styles of music, dance, and personality associated with each of the main Gems, to the various non-cartoon merchandise available for fans who can't get enough of Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl and Steven.

It wasn't that long ago that Archie Comics made headlines with the introduction of Kevin Keller, the first out gay character to go to Riverdale High; he quickly became a hit with fans, and he was one of the first signs that Archie as a publisher was willing to shake up what people thought they knew about the company. Since then Kevin has become a mainstay of the Archie books and has proven to be a successful spinoff character in his own right. He'll even appear in the cast of the upcoming TV show Riverdale This week, Archie Comics launches Life With Kevin, a new digital first series starring an adult Kevin Keller living away from Riverdale, chasing his dreams in the big city. ComicsAlliance caught up with cartoonist Dan Parent to talk about the unique style of his new book, adapting the Archie formula to adult characters, and of course, Kevin's love life.

Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comic book adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist. During Pride Week we've invited a couple of guest writers to contribute their ideas for movies with a strong LGBTQ focus. Today we’re casting an imaginary Y: the Last Man movie. Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s comic has a number of queer characters, most notably by Dr. Allison Mann --- and I would love to see a movie filled with this many women. The series has been optioned for film and television before, but adaptations have floundered in pre-production. For this movie, we’ll narrow down the focus to Yorick, 355 and Dr. Mann and their odyssey to the doctor’s lab in San Francisco. It’ll be a road trip movie with the trio encountering lots of trouble and a little help along the way.

Steve Rogers is a trans man. I don’t say this as an argument, I say this as a truth. Steve Rogers is trans. Rebirth is fundamental to who Captain America is. Before his rebirth, he was scrawny Steve Rogers, who fought in the streets of Brooklyn. Then he became Captain America, the soldier that he always dreamed he would be.

Queer characters in comics have had a slow burn. There are more LGBTQ characters appearing in comics narratives than ever before, but there’s still room for improvement, and rather than being content just to see queer characters represented at all, readers want to see series that explore a range of LGBTQ identities and stories. The Wicked and The Divine by Jamie McKelvie, Kieron Gillen, Matthew Wilson, and Clayton Cowles is one of the best representations of the queer community in comics. The characters are complex, multi-tiered, sexual --- and even permitted to be strange and disturbing. Near half of the WicDiv casts falls under the LGBTQ umbrella, yet they're all fiercely differentiated from each other. (Note: This article contains spoilers for the series.)

When you look at the sheer range and number of original stories being told in comics form today, it’s hard to imagine a better time to be a comics reader. Online and in print, from all around the world, artists and writers are telling stories with their own voices and styles, and there’s so much to choose from that it’s sometimes difficult to know what to read next. With Should I Be Reading… ?, ComicsAlliance hopes to offer you a guide to some of the best original ongoing comics being published today. Rival gangs! Sweet cars! Rockabilly hair! Teenage love! If any of those things interest you, you should be reading Rock And Riot.

Superhero comic books have a long way to go when it comes to representing LGBTQ people in a way that reflects the beauty and diversity of the real world, and the genre would benefit from more experiences being displayed and more stories being told. For Pride Week here at ComicsAlliance, we're looking at some of the established characters who could be used to explore LGBTQ identities, and I want to talk about why I think that Aquaman should be bisexual.