On the edge of heaven

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Comic
title On the edge of heaven
Original title Stuck rubber baby
country United States
author Howard Cruse
Illustrator Howard Cruse
publishing company Paradox Press
First publication January 1995

On the Edge of Heaven (Original: Stuck Rubber Baby ) is a 210-page graphic novel by Howard Cruse that was first published in 1995 and revolves around the awakening of the civil rights and gay movement.

action

The story is essentially set in 1963, against the backdrop of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the March on Washington :

Toland Polk, a white first-person narrator, grew up in the small town of Clayfield, Alabama. During the Army health checkup, he claims to be gay . However, due to the reaction of the soldiers and the public climate of that time, he subsequently refuses to admit this tendency.

When his parents die, he soon moves out of the house where he lived with his sister and her husband who hates black and gay men and moves in with a couple of friends. Through his roommate and her friend Sammy, he gets to know a whole new world. So he introduces him to black and gay society, which reflects the social changes of that time. There is Ginger, a student who is involved in the civil rights movement and with whom Toland thinks she is falling in love, Les, the son of the black pastor with whom Toland finally had his first homosexual experience, the self-centered Sammy who deals with the Ku Klux Klan creates.

As the arguments escalate and Ginger becomes pregnant by Toland, Toland has to confess his identity.

background

Although the story and the city are fictional, much of it is based on the living environment of Howard Cruse, who was about Toland's age and openly gay and made this the subject of many of his works. Cruse grew up in the small town of Birmingham , Alabama , to which Clayfield has great parallels, for example in the figure of Police Commissioner Sutton Chopper, whose role model Eugene Bull Connor had a peaceful demonstration forcibly broken up. An attack on 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963 , in which four black girls died, corresponds to the attack on the Melody Motel.

reception

The comic was received very positively. The work, on which the author wrote for four years, was compared with the works of the writers James Baldwin , but also with Art Spiegelman's work Mouse - The Story of a Survivor .

Publications

The comic was published in the United States in 1995 by Paradox Press . A German translation followed in 1996 by Carlsen Comics , a French translation in 2001 under the title Un monde de différence by Vertige Graphique. The current German edition will be published in 2011 by Cross Cult Verlag.

Awards

On the Edge of Heaven received the Eisner Award in 1996 for “best new graphic album” and the Harvey Award for “best album with new material”. The comic received an award for "Best Graphic Novel" at the United Kingdom Comic Art Awards . At the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême 2002 he was awarded the Prix ​​de la critique .

The comic received nominations for the Lesbian and Gay Book Award of the American Library Association and for the Lambda Literary Award of the American Lambda Literary Foundation for published works dealing with LGBT topics.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ dallasobserver: Events of the week (July 25, 1996)
  2. ↑ ComicRadioShow: Review (November 1, 2011)

literature