But I’m going to make up for lost time, and you’re going to help–and with luck, so will your friends.

Here’s the deal: I’m going to do two National Coming Out Day posts (after this one). The first is going to be a round-up of coming-out scenes in comics; if you’re interested in contributing one of your favorites, you can do so here. I’ll be posting them at Inside Out on Thursday, October 9.

The second is going to be more personal: it’s going to be about coming out around comics and the comics community. If you have a personal coming-out story in which comics or the comics community play a role; have created a comic about your coming out story; came out via a comic or in context of your involvement in the comics community; or are an openly queer comics fan or professional, and you would be interested in sharing your story, you can do so here. I’ll be posting those stories on Inside Out on National Coming Out Day (Saturday, October 11). If you’d like to share a story on the forum but don’t want me to post it in Inside Out, just let me know in your post or in a PM; likewise, if you’d like to share a story anonymously, you can PM me on the Girl-Wonder forum or email me at rachel(at)girl-wonder(dot)org.

In the meantime, here are some links to check out for inspiration–creative or personal:

Prism Comics
A nonprofit organization that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) comics, creators, and readers. They’re one of the coolest advocacy organizations in comics.

The Gay League
An online community for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Transexual, and just plain friendly comic fans, collectors and creators worldwide. The purpose of the Gay League is to have a safe, hate-free, fun environment to read about, discuss, review, discover, trade, buy, sell, and learn information about comics – and make some friends online along the way. For some historical perspective, check out their LGBT Comics Timeline.

Coming Out in the Comic Strips
David Applegate writes about queer characters in newspaper comic strips.

The Cartoon Closet
Another article on queer characters in comic strips.

Creators Speak Out
PopImage’s Q&A with 16 queer comics creators.

Queer Comics Make Impact
A brief roundup of GLBT comics-related news from July of this year.

Why It Still Matters
In which I talk about queer comics characters and paper mirrors.

Talk Back:
Tell me about your favorite coming-out stories in comics here.
Tell your own coming-out story here.
Discuss this column and share more GLBT comics and resources here.

I’d like to be able to say that I’m back and rarin’ to go, but honestly, I’m still pretty run down. It’s been a hell of a month. Months. Year. And what I’d like to do more than anything else is call in to work and curl up under a big, fluffy blanket with a mug of hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps and watch Miyazaki movies for the next week or so.

But here I am.

I’ve been deliberating lately over whether I should continue to write Inside Out, and, if so, what (if any) kind of schedule I can commit to. I was very, very close to either scrapping the column altogether or putting it on indefinite hiatus. I may still be – I’m honestly not sure.

Here’s the deal: I’m doing a lot of writing these days. In addition to freelance gigs, I’m writing a series (among other content) for Sequential Tart, judging at Project: Rooftop (Joan Rivers, eat your heart out!), doing independent scholarly research, and – and this one’s the clincher – working on my application to a low-residency M.F.A. writing program. Lots of words, and that’s in addition to working full-time and then some, serving as a board member and treasurer of Girl-Wonder.org, moderating a couple fora, building a loft in my studio, getting ready to teach wireworking classes, and developing a top secret super-awesome charity project (I promise I’ll tell you soon!), maintaining personal relationships, and occasionally sleeping – and I’ve got my country’s 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it; I’m swamped.

So, where does all of that leave Inside Out? As I said, I’m really not sure. To some extent, I think I’m going to leave it up to you.

Here are some options:

-Inside Out could become a more general blog, in which I write about my relationship and reactions to comics but spend less time on the industry and more time on scholarship, reviews, and personal observations.

-I could continue to focus on the industry but make more of my posts more personal and anecdotal.

-I could post long critical and informative columns but do so only sporadically.

-I could make Inside Out primarily a q/a and advice column.

-You tell me.

The column will resume–on its new biweekly schedule–in mid-November. Seeya then!

This past weekend, I joined Girl-Wonder members Livia Penn and Noah Brand at Girl-Wonder’s first-ever convention table, at Stumptown Comics Fest. To say that it rocked would be an understatement–we were totally bowled over by the tremendously positive reactions we got from both fans and professionals, and from the number of both who were familiar with and fond of Girl-Wonder. Next week, I’ll be teaming up with Noah and Livia to take over the world post a detailed con report, complete with photos of our booth and scans of the awesome sketchbook we had there.

If you just can’t get enough of my witty, incisive commentary, you can get a double dose this week by stopping by Project Rooftop, where I’m a guest reviewer on the current feature, Spoiler Warning: A Stephanie Brown Special. The designs are awesome (I WANT KNEE-HIGH RED SPATS SO BAD!), and we have long philosophical discussions about superhero footwear.

And, a bit of mixed news: after next week’s Stumptown Con Report, Inside Out is going to go biweekly. I have way too much on my plate right now, and I’d rather post half as many good, polished columns on time than twice as many rushed, late jumbles. I’ll try to make up for the schedule change with more, better content–and maybe on off-weeks I’ll do some brief linkblogging or post fan art. Who knows? Not I…

What do you think?

Every once in a while, you get a chance to see first-hand how awesome people can be. I’ve had plenty in the last couple months, but none so incredible as organizing the Girl-Wonder Art Et Cetera Auction.

Girl-Wonder.org is a labor of love. The admins cover most of the operating expenses out of pocket, and everything we do, from site building and maintenance, to forum moderation, to columns, to convention presence, is done on donated time.

We’ve grown exponentially in both size and scope over the past year: what began as a small fan campaign dedicated to a single character is becoming a nexus for the feminist comics community. We’re dreaming big, too, making plans for projects far beyond anything we could have imagined a year ago. Eighteen months ago, we weren’t much more than a live-journal community; now, we’re about to incorporate as a nonprofit organization.

Which brings me to the story behind the auction.

When we started looking into incorporation, we were floored at how much it would cost. Girl-Wonder is a nickel-and-dime business: our operating budget–most of which goes to cover band width–pretty much consists of what admins can scrounge out of their pockets. This stuff was on a scale we could hardly conceive.

Around the same time, we got an email from Supergirl artist Renato Guedes. He was contacting us, Renato explained, to express his gratitude for the support for his work that he’d seen on the G-W forums and to ask if he could do a drawing for us, which he suggested that we might auction as a fund raiser.

Aha.

We did some cursory planning and began to solicit donations from everyone we knew, on the forums, on blogs, at conventions. Our starting goal was to raise enough money to cover incorporation costs, although we were pretty sure that we’d still be paying a hefty chunk out-of-pocket.

The response floored us.

Artists, writers, and fans came out of the woodwork to offer support. Many sent items to auction; many others shared time and connections to help us publicize our drive. As the auction has grown, so have our plans: as the line-up currently stands, if every item gets at least one bid, we’ll have enough not only to cover incorporation costs but to start an actual operating budget for future projects like scholarships, convention travel, and publications. The auction has also been the seed of a slew of ideas, from a Girl-Wonder calendar, to ongoing partnerships with craftspeople in the Girl-Wonder community, to a million and six other projects that we’ll soon have the capacity and capital to dive into.

But the most important thing we’ve gotten from organizing the auction is a sense of just how much support there really is for Girl-Wonder and our mission. The dialogues with both fans and professionals that have been born out of this give me a newfound sense of hope in the future of comics, and in the fact that, however slowly, we’re actually accomplishing something.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the artists and artisans who have donated items to the Art Et Cetera auction:

Ross Campbell
Guy Davis
Jennifer Estep
Robyn Fleming
Audrey Fox
Laura Fox
Austin Grossman
Renato Guedes
Katie Moody
Trina Robbins
Jim Rugg
Jessica Trevino
Dean Trippe
David Willis
Chris Wisinia
Pascalle
Kel McDonald

The fans and community members who’ve dug into their personal collections:

Mary Borsellino
Hannah Dame
Kate Fitzsimons
Valerie D’Orazio
Tommy Roddy
Melanie (whose last name I don’t know)

And finally, special thanks are due to Joshua Dysart, who has been instrumental in contacting artists, publishers, and other comics professionals on our behalf as well as helping us to publicize the auction.

The auction itself will take place from October 7-14. In the meantime, keep checking the preview page–there are still a few more items to be posted!

You can discuss this column–and the Art Et Cetera Auction–here.

[A correction: Kel McDonald and Pascalle's respective donations were unintentionally omitted. The Editor regrets the error.] –September 30th

I missed SDCC ’cause I came down with appendicitis and spent most of the weekend in the hospital. Three sets of parents visited. Three of my best friends from college moved to the area. One of my best friends from elementary school died of an overdose. I went blackberry picking.

The point of this is that my brain is pretty fried.

So, I’m going to get you to do the hard work for me: you get to tell me what to write about. Ask questions on the forum, and next week’s Inside Out will be an old-fashioned letter column, in which I will answer your burning questions.

Ask away!

Oh, my! I am awash with blushy pride, for the fine folk of The Hathor Legacy have awarded Inside Out a Thinking Blogger Award!

The deal with Thinking Blogger Awards is as follows:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here are five blogs that make me think:

Digital Femme is the blog of Cheryl Lynn, a brilliant comics creator and critic, and founder of The Ormes Society. Her writing is a constant challenge to the complacency of the comics community and feminist blogosphere, particularly regarding women of color in comics.

Polite Dissent is one of the best-kept–and one of the flat-out best–secrets of the comics blogosphere. Its creator, Scott, is a doctor who writes marvelous reviews of the medicine–and psuedo-medicine–in comics, punctuated by fascinating and accessible forays into real-life medicine.

Badgerbag is the blog of the marvelous Liz Henry, who describes it far better than I could: “Badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books is my general interest blog. Its baroque digressions attempt to capture my reality in the tradition of complex personal memoir. I write about everything interesting that comes my way. Books, computing, social media, other blogs, poetry, literary translation, family, parenting, my own memories, relationships, news, and especially my reflections on gender, feminism, race, class, and intercultural politics.” Liz is also Oracle to the Girl-Wonder/WisCon Birds of Prey and is responsible for introducing me to disability activism.

She’s Such a Geek is the companion blog to a book of the same name, and like the book, it’s all about women in traditionally geeky fields: hackers, programmers, comics creators, and other such folk.

PostmodernBarney is a snarky, smart comics blog with a focus on queer and feminist issues and a lot of really damn sharp general criticism.

If you’ve noticed my recent trend of my linking to other blogs rather than, y’know, writing my own, you’re kind of right. I’ve been hit with a slew of positive but time-consuming real-life stuff–visits from family, dear friends moving into the area, etc.–at the same time that work has exploded into (more) chaos (than usual) in anticipation of San Diego Comic Con (Yes, I’ll be there. PM me or post in the SDCC thread if you want to meet up!). So, I’m leaning on links a bit more than usual at the moment. Next week, I’ll have a proper column, I promise–and the week after that, you’ll get a con write-up, along with a marvelous guest column from Katherine Keller of Sequential Tart.

In the meantime, you can discuss this column here. Seeya in San Diego!