Happy Pride!

It's June (for a few more days), Pride Month in the U.S., and I thought I'd share a project I worked on, in various formats, for 23 years. It was about transgender superheroes. The journey is an example of how creativity cna lead you into unexpected directions.

It started in 1997 as a series of watercolors depicting imaginary characters. Long before "they/them" entered the vernacular, both my partner (at the time) and my father's friend/companion identified as "genderqueer" or "other." I witnessed firsthand the kind of misunderstanding and abuse they encountered in public. I was also living in the most diverse neighborhood in Los Angeles, where a battle over a giant commercial development opened cracks along lines of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and class. It seemed everyone was unhappy with everyone else. It was a tumultuous time, and these characters brought me relief. Since they were gendered "other" as well as biracial from different (often opposing) cultures, they were outsiders everywhere they went. They had nothing to lose so they told the truth.

I painted 10 in total, over 5 years. Right after my father died, I got to show the series in a two-person exhibition at Social and Public Art Resource Center in Venice (SoCal). Several people suggested I create a graphic novel around them. So I gave it a try. It was much, much harder than I thought.

I started taking writing workshops with Adele Slaughter, and I decided to try my hand at writing a novel about the main character, Faith. The whole story came to me in a flash. Not just Faith's story, but the entire saga of what I'd started calling the TransAmerican Heroes (TAH). To me, these characters, a collection of outsiders fighting for equality, symbolized what America is really about. By 2008, I was ready to submit to agents. The manuscript was a finalist in the Santa Fe Writers' Project contest. But I never got anyone to represent it.

Then I decided to get an MFA in Illustration. I focused my efforts on learning how to write, illustrate, and create graphic novels. By the time I graduated in 2015, I had two chapters of Faith, and pages in Destiny and Truth, two other books in the saga. I came into some money in 2017 and hired someone to build a webcomic site for me. TransAmerican Heroes was launched into the world.

For the next 3 years, I added pages to the site. I worked the Pride festivals. I sold or gave away tons of printed comics. I met parents with trans kids as young as six who were so happy to be out and proud. The people I met inspired and moved me. My little watercolor characters had grown and taken on lives of their own.

Then the pandemic hit. Even with extra time on my hands, I lost the TAH mojo. I was tired of working so hard on a project that wasn't earning any money. So I put it away. Just 10 pages short of finishing the first book of Faith.

I tried to revive it one more time in 2022 at a writer's conference. I even got agent interest. But the cultural landscape had changed. Agents told me I would get flak for writing about trans people when I'm not trans. Especially if they're people of color. I lost my confidence in the project. I finally took the webcomic down and packed away the printed books.

Sometimes, I wonder if I'll ever finish it. Maybe I'm not the one to tell this story anymore.

But the experience clarified my values, beliefs, and passions. It gave me a reason to get an MFA. I learned that I could tell a good story in words and pictures.

And it embodied my belief in what Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from a Birmingham jail: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside agitator' idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."

With love and light,

Maggie

P.S. If you'd like to work with me, check out www.parrcreate.com for upcoming workshops, online classes, and private instruction and mentoring.