Join Wendel Trupstock and his significant other, Ollie Chalmers, as they navigate gay life in the '80s. Howard Cruse's Wendel ran in The Advocate during one of the most tumultuous periods in gay history, and the lives of his characters are a snapshot of the era-from the bar scene to long term commitments, from AIDS to activism, from Reagan to right-wing homophobia. Big issues and everyday life mingle in this strip with hilarious results. And Cruse is a master with pen and ink! Wendel All Together brings readers this classic comic strip complete in one volume for the first time ever!
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*Starred Review* At last, a classic gets collected! "Wendel" was the first successful, long-lived gay comic strip, run in the Advocate in the years 1983 to 1985 and, after a year's hiatus, 1986 to 1989. Its hero, Wendel Trupstock, was initially fresh out of college and lookin' for love in a middle-sized city cosmopolitan enough to have an arts and theater community and, more important, a gay and lesbian community. Because of the first community, Wendel met Ollie Chalmers, an aspiring actor. The two became lovers, and the strip thereafter dealt with their relationship, their friends and families, their gay community, and their interactions with Ollie's ex-wife and small son. 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 championed gay liberation, and he brought AIDS forthrightly into the strip, but his humor and ebullient drawing style prevented "Wendel" from being sententious, self-righteous, or maudlin. Because the strip appeared amid the Advocate's sex ads, Cruse could indulge ribaldry and nudity to his heart's content, secure in the knowledge that his style would make "Wendel," whose cast look like older siblings of "Archie" and "Fat Albert," merely cheerily bawdy. Indeed, one of the strip's greatest accomplishments was to portray sex as just another component in the lives of characters who do all the other things "regular" people do, albeit more hilariously. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By David Scott
Format:Paperback
Howard Cruse's Wendel comic strip chronicled the adventures of Wendel, Ollie, Sterno, Deb, Tina and the rest of the gang in the Advocate Magazine during the 1980s - a decade on unequaled turbulence, triumph and tragedy for the gay and lesbian community. Seeing these strips together for the first time, I am struck by what an important legacy this represents. Cruse brings a face and heart to the central topics of the day. Creeping conservatism, outing and coming out, gay parenting, queer politics, bashing, gay normative behavior, AIDS, rifts in the community, the rise of the gym cult and homophobia in the media - it's all here.
His little community is our community, and he renders his characters' adventures with such loving care and compassion that you cannot help but be moved by and relate to their world. I always thought of Wendel as a "cute little strip," but this collection proves that it has the epic sweep, vision and, on occasion, even the gravity of an Angels in America or Tales of the City. And, as a portrait of the everyqueer, it runs circles around flashy fluff like Queer as Folk.
Wendel All Together isn't just one for the time capsule, however. Its insight, humor and drama remain fresh today. In many ways, only the shoes, hairstyles and AIDS meds have changed!
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