| Item Description: | Harry Chess is the central character of the first gay-themed ongoing comic strip. He is a parody of the secret agent trope popularized in the 1960s, as exemplified by The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the James Bond franchise. Rather than the heterosexual romantic themes common to the source material, the adventures of Harry Chess were openly homosexual, intended to appeal to gay male readers. The character appeared in a one-off cartoon in November 1964 in Drum magazine, a homophile publication featuring news and erotica. He then became the protagonist of Al Shapiro's Harry Chess: That Man from A.U.N.T.I.E., which began running in Drum in April 1965 and ended in 1966. These early strips, edited by Drum publisher Clark Polak, reprinted in this collection.
The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy was acquired as part of the Antonio C. LaPastina and Dale Rice Collection. |
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