Read what the old gay uncles and lesbian aunts have to say in colorful picture stories. And let’s all continue to fight together so that this will never happen again.
― Ralf König, Back Then: A queer journey back in time
CBR16 Bingo: Pride
I picked this up a couple of months ago at a literary festival. Other than Heartstopper and other Alice Oseman books, I’ve never bought graphic novels or comic books. One of the illustrators was selling this book as well as her own, individual comics, so I grabbed the last English language copy and got her to sign it for me.
Back Then includes thirteen stories of Germans who came of age during the seventies, eighties, and nineties. The stories are based on interviews, which were then condensed and turned into short stories, complete with illustrations. While much of it details each person’s coming-out story, some stories focus on what day-to-day life was like as an LGBTQIA+ person living in former east or former west Germany in the seventies and eighties. Some stories are illustrated like a traditional Japanese manga, and others have a unique layout and illustrative style.
But the thing that surprised me the most, and the thing that will make me read this book again and again, is that these are stories of hope and of love.
As someone who grew up in small town America, it is still shocking to me how broadly the fear of AIDS permeated everything. If you asked me thirty years ago, I would have guessed that the AIDS crisis would be the defining memory of my generation. Now, it is hardly a blip in our national discourse.
For this year’s CBR16 Book Bingo Reading Challenge I’m choosing albums from the 1970s that helped raise me. When I think of Pride, I think of the song “Somebody to Love” from Queen’s 1978 album “A Day At The Races” and as part of the Queen Greatest Hits album I owned as a teenager.
