Cheeky, political, and very, very lesbian: New exhibition celebrates 1990s lesbian comics
On July 13, 2023, the GLBT Historical Society Museum opens a new exhibition, Curve Magazine Cartoons: A Dyke Strippers’ Retrospective, exploring the rich world of lesbian comics published in Curve and Deneuve magazines. The exhibition was curated by Julia Rosenzweig, Archive and Outreach Manager at The Curve Foundation, with support from the GLBT Historical Society’s archives and exhibitions teams.
To celebrate the launch of the exhibition, we invited Julia to share some insights into the show with us. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell us what inspired your project and how you got started on this exhibition.
Comic by Jennifer Camper published January 1992 in Deneuve (later Curve) magazine.
Julia Rosenzweig: When I started as the Archive and Outreach Manager at The Curve Foundation, one of the first tasks I set out on was to familiarize myself with the magazine. Within the first few issues I noticed these wonderful, expressive cartoons peppered throughout the pages. They were cheeky, political, and very, very lesbian.
When the GLBT Historical Society and The Curve Foundation started planning an exhibition, I knew we had to showcase these works. Though the cartoons were only a brief part of the history of Curve magazine, they are a perfect way to accurately document both lesbian culture in the 1990s and the personality of Curve magazine in its youth: sexy, dedicated to culture and journalism, and unapologetically lesbian.
Out of all of the comics in the exhibition, which do you think would have been the most impactful/comical today?
JR: Definitely Jennifer Camper’s piece titled “The Cure” about medical gaslighting. It shows a woman describing her maladies to a male doctor who immediately dismisses her pain and prescribes a terrible treatment plan, saying he’ll “perform a hysterectomy and remove a breast and if there are any more complaints I’ll tell you it’s only your imagination.” She then shoves the incompetent doctor out the window and promptly feels better. I love it because of its duality: it’s both funny and it makes you think about how unethical treatment of minorities in western medicine is still a salient topic thirty years later.
Article by Erika "Maddog" Lopez" published 2001 in Curve magazine.
Are there any pieces you uncovered in the project that stand out?
JR: Kris Kovick is one of the most featured cartoonists in this exhibition and was the most regular comic contributor to Curve magazine. While researching lesbian cartoons I spoke to numerous artists who mentioned her as a force in not only the cartoon world of the 1990s, but also in writing and performance. She was an artist, mentor, and friend to many, and sadly passed away from breast cancer in 2001. Below is a piece published in Curve magazine in November of 2000 titled “Putting the ‘Fun’ back in ‘Funeral.’” It did not end up on the exhibition wall so I’m glad to be able to highlight it here. It was written by a mentee-friend of Kris’s, Erika “Maddog” Lopez, and it chronicles Kovick’s last year of life with punchy humor and lots of lovingly overt teasing. It’s a beautiful ode to Kris.
How were you able to use the GLBT Historical Society’s archives in the exhibition?
JR: The GLBT Historical Society played a hugely integral role in this exhibition. Reference Archivist Isaac Fellman is a wonderful guide and pointed me in the right direction of many queer cartoons. We wanted to be able to diversify the voices included in this show, and the archives’ vast holdings offered material to attempt this. It was also extremely helpful that the archives house a nearly complete run of Curve magazine!
Why is it important to tell this story?
JR: Time and again I heard from queer cartoonists that the only places that would publish cartoons with “subversive” topics (i.e. LGBTQ+) in the 1990s were underground zines and alternative or indie publications. There was a mindset that anything to do with sexuality could be labeled as obscene. This meant that these cartoons were censored in mainstream publications, leaving our community without public representation and the queer artists without a way to express their identities. That’s why the story of Curve magazine, a mainstream lesbian publication, publishing this art deserves to be told. It spread representational belonging within the community at the risk of censorship.
Is there anything about your project that is particularly relevant to the times we’re living in?
JR: I think it’s relevant that lesbians and queer women have always had an opinion on the social landscape of their time. We see this in the journalism and cartoons shown in this exhibit, and we see it today within queer publications and art. You only have to read an article from Them or visit an art gallery to see folks building upon this legacy of truth-telling and expression.
How are you hoping this exhibit inspires visitors?
JR: I’m hoping it inspires critical thought through a comic lens! I also hope that it inspires people to visit the digital Curve Archive. It’s an amazing repository of 30 years of lesbian history, activism, pop culture, and so much more.
Could you go more in depth into the comic addressing family values and the impact it has on your exhibit?
JR: I actually grappled with whether or not to include this comic in the exhibit. The topic is heavy, it’s humorous only in the darkest sense of irony, and some of the language hasn’t aged well. However, I thought it was important to display it so that the audience can see how topics from thirty years ago are still salient today, and so that they can decide for themselves how they feel about it.
Who do you want to come visit, and what can people expect to see in the exhibition?
JR: Anyone and everyone! I hope that lesbians and queer women see this exhibit and recognize parts of themselves, that other folks in the LGBTQ+ community learn about their queer siblings, and that allies learn and celebrate queer comics.
The art here is from a cross-section of lesbians and queer women from the 1990’s. It helps future generations see themselves reflected in the historical canon and it has a distinctly queer point of view…plus it makes you laugh! It can’t be denied that the humor in this exhibition provides some much-needed levity.
Where can people go to learn more?
JR: Please visit archive.curvemag.com and thecurvefoundation.org to peruse 30 years of Curve magazine and learn more about The Curve Foundation’s programs aimed at empowering our community!
Julia Rosenzweig is the Archive and Outreach Manager at The Curve Foundation. She is also an active contributor to the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA), where she co-manages the Lesbian Elders Oral Herstory Project, a project that documents lesbian elders’ life histories through intergenerational dialogue and knowledge-sharing. Julia has researched, archived, and curated a variety of LGBTQIA+ materials, including lesbian activist posters, episodes of Martha Shelley’s 1970s radio show Lesbian Nation, and Community Gallery institutional papers. Julia graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in Italian Studies, and completed her MSLIS at Pratt Institute School of Information. Julia brings an ethos of community-building and understanding through conversation to The Curve Foundation. She is honored to steward archives that center the narrative control, empowerment, and agency of their creators.