Project

Opal Age Tribune, “the queer publication of our dreams,” wanted support with editorial decisions, print magazine design, and marketing.

I reviewed submitted essays, short fiction, photography, and art for the literary magazine, created on-brand graphics for each issue, and developed blog posts to keep Opal Age in its readers’ minds in between issue releases.

The Work

Page Design and Layout

Blog Post: “What We’re Reading” (excerpt)

For my birthday this year, my boyfriend got me a bright red little book with an even louder title: The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions.

It’s written by Larry Mitchell and illustrated by Ned Asta, friends and Lavender Hill commune cohabitors whose experiments with queer modes of group living in Ithaca, NY, in the 1970s inspired this fable of radical queer survival. Whimsically illustrated and delivered in short segments with a heavy dose of refrain and repetition, the book is reminiscent of a children’s story, although longer and with content unsuitable for kids.

…

Being a leftist queer very interested in the diverse ways that sexualities and genders have been constructed throughout history, I was delighted by the identity categories that The Faggots & Their Friends defines. The queer men pass for men but fuck each other in secret, the fairies are those woo-woo, earthy crunchy gays you can find IRL at those Radical Faerie campgrounds, the queens are androgynous, fabulous, and live amidst Ramrod’s literal garbage, and so on. They’re united in their nonconformity and the objects of their sexual desire, but they’re decidedly not a homogeneous group. Each brings their unique tools to the fight against the men, and only together do they survive in the face of the men’s oppression of them. Beautiful.

There’s so much to appreciate about this book, so read it yourself! Courtesy of the Internet Archive, here’s a free PDF of The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions. Enjoy, and do please let me know if you’d like to start up a queer commune.

In solidarity,

Angel