Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Oni Press | Tagged: gender queer, sdcc

Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer T-Shirts Launch From Oni Press At SDCC

Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer T-Shirts launch from Oni Press at San Diego Comic-Con

The graphic memoir Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe has been the most banned book in America over the last few years. Used by politicians in their election campaigns, with political candidates launching criminal lawsuits against the publisher and bookstores that stock it. Libraries, both in school and in the wider world have been targeted too. But at San Diego Comic-Con, they will be selling Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe T-Shirts at Oni Press' Booth #1829, an understated affair, with a quote and illustration on the back.

Oni Press is also running the Comic Book Legal Defense Welcome Party on the Thursday of San Diego Comic-Con. I get the feeling that this will be the costume of choice for such an event promoting free speech in the comic book industry. As Bleeding Cool previously reported in our Huge San Diego Comic-Con SDCC Party List, Oni Press, The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and The Nacelle Company, the CBLDF's annual San Diego Comic-Con Welcome Party at The Westgate Hotel on Thursday, July 24th from 8pm to midnight. With the support of co-sponsors Mad Cave Studios, Kickstarter, Global Comix, and Raremarq. The comic book industry event will feature silent auctions and free giveaway gift bags for the first fifty attendees, loaded with comics, merchandise, and party-exclusive surprises. Admission to the event is free for CBLDF members and a $25 donation for the general public at the door to support the CBLDF's ongoing work in protecting free speech and creative expression. Click here for tickets and more details. (A SDCC badge is NOT required to attend.) You can find the CBLDF at booth #1629, Oni Press at Booth #1829, Nacelle at Booth 2547, and Mad Cave at Booth #2806.

Bleeding Cool has spent months covering, repeatedly, the rise of New Puritan book bans in American libraries, and the politics that surround them, that focus on books involving sexual orientation, gender identity and race relations. And more often than not, the graphic novel Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and published by Oni Press is the declared bullseye of many of them and has been used by politicians to both win local elections – and also to lose them.

Initially, Gender Queer was marketed toward older audiences, but winning an American Library Association Award in 2020 to "books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18" saw copies ordered by school libraries and public libraries in the USA, while political campaigns have found it an easy touch for "what about the children" style rabble-rousing.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's current Interim Director, Jeff Trexler stated that challenges to this comic had become a hot talking point in local politics and were being weaponised for political gain. He told ICV2; "I mentioned the parent in Virginia who went viral after talking about this. Then, that became the heart of the Youngkin campaign. One could say that the protest of Gender Queer became the hub or the foundation of a movement that ended up getting the Republican Governor of Virginia elected". Since then, obscenity lawsuits against Oni Press and Maia Kobabe have been filed by lawyer Republican Virginia assembly delegate Tim Anderson on behalf of himself and Republican congressional candidate Tommy Altman citing an obscure state obscenity law, though were dismissed.

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