I'm a bit of a writer and artist/cartoonist/illustrator... been doing comics since I could draw. Been doing webcomics almost since the internet. Anyway, one of my projects has been
Magellan a superhero comic, started a bit over ten years ago. It has a small readership, maybe one or two thousand regulars (believe me, compared to some webcomics where the readership is 100,000 a day, mine is small change). I've been treating those readers badly for the last few months - I've been MIA, distracted by "other developments" in my life, aka "transition".
Anyway, I've decided to bite the bullet and tell them, not only am I now getting back to production but that I'm also trans.
The whole thing (and my webcomic) is
here.
If you just want to read the pertinent part here it is...
Well, I've been going through some "stuff" lately, which I kind of alluded to a while ago. It hasn't been the core cause for my muse skipping town on me but it no doubt played a part.
Essentially, I'm transgender and over the last few months I have transitioned to my preferred female gender identity – and I am now Grace Crowley. Nope, this isn't a joke, no my account hasn't been hacked. But yes, I am now living as a woman. Living, breathing, writing, cartooning and everythinging as Grace. The pronouns I'd ask you to use when referring to my work – past, present and future – are she and/or her. If you would I'd be deeply grateful.
I don't know what you know about trans people, chances are 99% of that is not all that accurate anyway given the portrayal of trans women in the media isn't particularly realistic. Stereotypes of trans women are generally demeaning, derogatory and wildly inaccurate. But hey, whatever, right? Stereotypes, gonna stereotype. I'm not about to try and lecture you on what being trans is all about, I'm not going to bring the politics of that into my comics – I'd link to something useful that really simply, clearly, non-condescendingly explains what the issues and processes are, except I'm yet to find that page. Anyway, the only thing you really need to know is that I'm so much more freaking happier now than I've ever been in my life. You seriously have no idea (unless you're trans too, I guess).
If you're cool about all this, then cool. Yay. If you don't care what flipping gender I am because all you really want is for me to pull my flipping finger out of my flipping butt and start drawing flipping Magellan again, then, uh, cool! If you're not cool about it and think nasty things about it and me, then please keep that to yourself, I'm not interested in hearing it.
The only change you should notice about the comic is that underneath, where it currently says my previous male name, it will begin to say "by Grace Crowley" instead. As there are almost 1,000 pages this might take a bit of time for me to accomplish but I'll get there...
So yeah. Gulp. And whew!
