Skip to Main Content

LGBTQ Literature and Film: Graphic Novels and Comics

Books, graphic novels, films and TV series with LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) themes in the Davenport Public Library and RiverShare collections.

Resources

The Gay League: The fan site for gay comics readers and creators. News, articles, profiles, reviews, resources, fan fiction and art, message board, and links.

Prism Comics: A nonprofit organization that supports LGBT comics, creators, and readers. Prism’s goal is to promote the work of LGBT creators, artists, and employees in comics as well as LGBT issues in comics in general. News, articles, interviews, creator profiles, a message board, an online store (heavy on self-published and small press comic books), and links. Look for a Prism booth at larger comics conventions.

ALA's Over the Rainbow Booklist - Annual "best of" bibliographies from the ALA's GLBT Roundtable

Superheroes and Icons

Otherworldly Reads

Memoir, Nonfiction, and Slice-of-Life

Pregnant Butch

The author explores, in graphic novel memoir format, her adventures of being a butch/dyke and becoming pregnant, while dealing with the stereotypes and judgment of those around her.

Fun Home

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic, and redemptive.

Calling Dr. Laura

When Nicole Georges was two years old, her family told her that her father was dead. When she was twenty-three, a psychic told her he was alive. Her sister, saddled with guilt, admits that the psychic is right and that the whole family has conspired to keep him a secret. Sent into a tailspin about her identity, Nicole turns to radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger for advice.

The Fifth Beatle

The untold true story of Brian Epstein, the visionary manager who discovered and guided the Beatles - from their gigs in a tiny cellar in Liverpool to unprecedented international stardom. Yet more than merely the story of The Man Who Made the Beatles,' The Fifth Beatle is an uplifting, tragic, and ultimately inspirational human story about the struggle to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

Stone Fruit

Bron and Ray are a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray's niece, six-year-old Nessie. Their playdates are little oases of wildness, joy, and ease in all three of their lives, which ping-pong between familial tensions and deep-seeded personal stumbling blocks. As their emotional intimacy erodes, Ray and Bron isolate from each other and attempt to repair their broken family ties.

Giant Days

Susan, Esther, and Daisy started at university three weeks ago and became fast friends. Now, away from home for the first time, all three want to reinvent themselves. But in the face of hand-wringing boys, "personal experimentation," influenza, mystery-mold, nu-chauvinism, and the willful, unwanted intrusion of "academia," they may be lucky just to make it to spring alive. 

Young Men in Love

Haphazard pirates, wayward ghosts, dashing knights, rampaging kaiju (and down-to-earth regular joes!) are all assembled here to amaze and delight you in a wildly unique anthology celebrating love between men, from an astounding array of comics creators who know exactly how it feels.

Flung Out of Space

A fictional and complex portrait of bestselling author Patricia Highsmith caught up in the longing that would inspire her queer classic, The Price of Salt. Flung Out of Space is both a love letter to the essential lesbian novel, The Price of Salt, and an examination of its notorious author, Patricia Highsmith. 

A Man's Skin

In Renaissance Italy, Bianca, a young lady from a good family, is of marriage age. Her parents find her a fianceĢ to their liking: Giovanni, a rich merchant, young and pleasant. The wedding looks set to go smoothly even though Bianca can't hide her disappointment at having to marry a man she knows nothing about. But before the marriage, she learns the secret held and bequeathed by the women of her family for generations: a "man's skin"! By donning it, Bianca becomes "Lorenzo" and enjoys all the attributes of a young man of stunning beauty. 

Queer: A Graphic History

A kaleidoscope of characters from the diverse worlds of pop-culture, film, activism and academia guide us on a journey through the ideas, people and events that have shaped queer theory.

Syrup

A beautiful new yuri anthology about women in love, featuring stories by some of the hottest names in manga! This short story collection explores the many different ways these women navigate their love for each other while dealing with the ups and downs of a working life-stories that are all too often overlooked but are yearning to be told!

My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness

The heart-rending autobiographical manga that's taken the internet by storm! My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is an honest and heartfelt look at one young woman's exploration of her sexuality, mental well-being, and growing up in our modern age.

Locas II

A second collection of "Locas" comics by Jaime Hernandez, following the lives of Maggie, Hopey, and Ray, beginning shortly after Maggie and Hopey's reunion, and continuing through Ray's relationship with Vivian.

Strangers in Paradise

Based on the bestselling comic book and graphic novel series, this is the ultimate compendium of Strangers in Paradise, the critically acclaimed story of two ordinary women whose friendship turns to love during one violent summer.

Husbands

Husbands tells the story of famous gay newlyweds Brady and Cheeks, who sparked a media firestorm when they woke up legally wed after a drunken Vegas weekend. Now, a mystical wedding gift launches the couple on a series of adventures-- a tongue-in-cheek journey through iconic genre realms-- filled with obstacles that threaten to tear them apart. 

The Freddie Stories

The Freddie Stories traces a year in the life of Freddie, the youngest member of the dysfunctional Mullen family. These four-panel entries - each representing an episode in the life of Freddie - bring to life adolescence, pimples and all.