Memorial for Pioneering Gay Cartoonist Howard Cruse
Scheduled for New York City on Sat., March 28
Celebration to be Held
At LGBT Community Center on West 13th Street;
The Public is Welcome
(NEW YORK CITY, March 28) – A celebration of the life and work of Howard Cruse, a pioneer in the LGBTQ cartooning movement, will be held in New York City, it was announced by Ed Sedarbaum, Cruses’s husband of 40 years.
The memorial will take place on Saturday, March 28, 2020 from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. at The LGBT Community Center, 208 W 13th Street, New York City. The public is welcome.
Howard Cruse, a veteran LGBTQ and civil rights activist, was the author of the award-winning graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby, a semi-autobiographical epic about race and sexuality in the South during the 1960s. Stuck Rubber Baby will be reissued in a 25th anniversary edition by First Second Books in May, 2020.
Howard Russell Cruse was born May 2, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama. His first published work was a 1959 comic strip called “Calvin” in the St. Clair County Reporter. Young Cruse also had cartoon art published in the humor magazines Fooey and Sick.
In 1980, Cruse was named founding editor of Gay Comix, an underground anthology by lesbian and gay cartoonists. His work has been collected in several books, among them, Barefootz Funnies (Kitchen Sink, 1975-79), Wendel (Gay Presses of New York, 1986), Dancin’ Nekkid with the Angels (St, Martin’s, Kitchen Sink, 1987) and Wendel on the Rebound (St. Martin’s Press, 1989).
Howard Cruse died on November 26 at the age of 75, succumbing to complications from lymphoma. In addition to his husband Ed Sedarbaum, Cruse is survived by his daughter, Kimberly Kolze Venter, and his brother, Allan Cruse.
Learn more at howardcruse.com/