Long a proponent of sexual and bodily autonomy (see Sugar Town and Comics For Choice, respectively), cartoonist Hazel Newlevant has always shown a frankly uncanny facility for communicating the political and the moral by means of the personal and intimate, but Newlevant’s 2019 self-published mini Queer Uprisings takes a different, though equally successful, tack : originally published on The Nib website, this is a nuts-and-bolts recounting of various instances of largely-impromptu LGBTQ+ anti-injustice rebellions that actually predate Stonewall and place the community’s struggles and triumphs as they exist today within a larger — and, who are we kidding, lengthier — historical framework than many are/were aware of previously.

And, let me be perfectly clear so as to not to absolve myself of any lame-ass ignorance on my own part : that “many” includes me, which means that I’m squarely among the audience this work aims to educate.

If…