After several years as a staple in Outlooks Magazine, the popular comic strip Chelsea Boys is can now be found in the pages of GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine. It is an exciting addition to the magazine for us as well as creators Glen Hanson and Allan Neuwirth.
“I think it is great that we are being read by a whole group of people that probably didn’t read us before. We did the strip for ten years and broke through in a lot of markets around the world, but there are always pockets where you just, for one reason or another haven’t gotten into. It is really nice to be part of the magazine,” Neuwirth told us over the phone from his home in New York City.
However, the strips running in the magazine are not new, since after a decade the pair has retired the strip as they continue to work on their many other projects. Instead, we get to go back to the original storyline and learn where the lives of roommates Nathan, Soiree and Sky came together and progressed. A whole new generation now gets to experience Chelsea Boys from the beginning.
“Glen and I were doing the strip for nearly 10 years and it was not the first order of business for either of us. We both have thriving careers in our own pursuits, on lots of other projects. We always had to stop, put everything down and write a strip,” he explained.
“Yes it was a joy because it’s our baby, we created it and it became very well known and loved by a lot of people. But I liken it to an infant crying in the other room, it needs attention. Every two weeks we had to sit down, put everything aside and come up with ideas, story arcs and it just got really tiring. We came close to taking a break a few times but kept going anyway. It got to the point where I had a whole bunch of TV shows to work on as a writer and Glen had a ton of work coming in as an illustrator and designer and we realized we really needed to take a break, so we did.”
“Kids who were 11 years old are now 21! The beauty of something like this is there is a whole new group of people who can discover it. And we purposely tried to keep it from being too topical most of the time. Occasionally we got angry at things that were going on in the world and had no choice but to put our two cents in, but by and large we kept it pretty a-topical so the stories still hold up.”
The story left as a cliffhanger, with Soiree being asked by his boyfriend Curtis to move in together. Will we ever find out what happened?
”We will probably finish it someday, either starting up the strip again with new installments or write a book that picks up where we left off. Our readers do not know if he moved out or stayed… and neither do we yet! But the whole premise of the strip was about three completely diverse gay men living together as a different family in a gay urban ghetto. If you took one of them out of the mix it would radically change the whole thing. So that was where we left it off, which probably wasn’t very nice of us… but that was the time that it happened.”
Neuwirth says his upbringing in New York, and Hanson’s in Toronto, was an influence on the strip. But while the setting is New York, the characters could be anywhere.
“This city is so energizing and stimulating. There’s a non-stop array of things going on here, it is just endless. And it definitely fuels your work if you’re creative, it keeps you on your toes, and there’s a pulsating energy to a city like this. I’ve been to many places in the world and there is nothing quite like New York City. In fact I was born here and am still not tired of the place! It’s a crazy town to live in, and maybe not for everybody. But it played a huge role in our comic strip, even though the stories weren’t about New York… those kinds of gay urban ghettos are all over the world, not just Chelsea and Hells Kitchen.”
Being city-based did lead to some conflict when they initially syndicated the comic.
“At first we met with a lot of resistance when we tried to get into rural areas and some smaller city markets. They would say ‘why would our readers be interested in reading the adventures of these city boys when that is not our lives at all?’ Well, it isn’t about the city –– it is about the characters, relationships, and interactions that everybody experiences no matter where they live. If they watched Seinfeld, Will & Grace or Friends I would ask why they were interested in those stories, and the argument usually ended there.”
The characters are instantly identifiable within the community. While first glance shows some of the stereotypes that are commonplace, once you start reading you realize there is much more depth.
“The whole point of the strip is that appearances are deceiving. You see these three characters think they are stereotypes, but they really are more archetypes –– and the point was to peel the layers back. As we got further and further into it, and Glen and I evolved in our writing and creating of the strip, you begin to see people who you look at and go ‘look at that drag queen’ or ‘look at that gym bunny,’ but there’s more to that person than their appearance might indicate. I would hope we created characters with a broad appeal. Judging by the fan mail we’ve received, and the many markets we’ve run in, I think we were successful in that. It has always been about the people, and hopefully that’s what we achieved.”
While the storylines are important, what also makes the comic strips stand out is Hanson’s incredible artwork.
“There are very few artists in the comic world that draw like he does. You can see his Hanna Barbara influences there. And there’s also a very sexual component to his work.”
After ten years and two books that made readers fall in love with the comics, it’s safe to say that Chelsea Boys will stand the test of time. 100 years from now historians may look to it as what gay life was like in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
“I hope that’s true. You don’t think about that when you’re doing it, because you would never get out of bed in the morning if you knew you were doing something that ‘important.’ I won’t be around in 100 years, but I hope the work is still around. I hope our legacy is that people will look at it and see that there was some truth to it, and that it was quality work. We tried very hard to craft clever stories and believable and loveable characters. I really hope that history looks kindly on us.”
The Chelsea Boys
Now monthly in GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine!
www.chelseaboys.com
