When I was a youngster, one of my first favorite comic book characters was Katy Keene, the long-legged fashion queen with jet black hair. I was fascinated by her glamorous image and I loved cutting out the Katy Keene paper dolls and outfits that appeared in the pages of her comic books.
No one ever discouraged Little Stana's interest in Katy Keene. In fact, Mom abetted it by helping me cut out the more difficult outfits. (Sometimes I think Mom wanted me to be a girl. She always encouraged me in all of my interests including those on the feminine side of the street.)
I don't recall any crossdressing in the pages of Katy Keene, but I did wish I could wear some of the outfits that Katy wore.
As I grew older, I started to worry about my image, so I stopped reading Katy Keene to avoid being branded a "sissy." Superman, Batman, Dick Tracy, and Mad magazine replaced Katy and soon I encountered crossdressing in their four-colored pages.
I remember a female impersonating gangster appearing in a Batman story. I also recall stories in which Superman's pal, Jimmy Olsen, went undercover en femme. Dick Tracy had so many encounters with gangsters in drag that I still wonder about the Chester Gould's feminine side. Over the years, Mad had numerous encounters with crossdressing.
Meanwhile, Japanese comic books (manga) and cartoons (anime) have lots of crossdressing. Over 10 years ago, Jana built a web site dedicated to trans content in Japanese comic books and cartoons. But one thing led to another and Jana expanded the web site to include television, films, literature and history, as well as Japanese comic books and cartoons.
Jana's TG Lists, subtitled "transgender in media," which is accessible here, is an amazing collection of trans-media. I highly recommend it!
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| Wearing Bebe. |
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| Long-time Femulate reader Sheila attending the Southern Comfort Conference. |
Dear Stana,
ReplyDeleteThank You, sweetie, for posting this photo from last month's SCTC (Southern Comfort Transgender Conference) in Weston, FL (about 12 miles west of Ft. Lauderdale). You would be a hit at Southern Comfort and could do a seminar presentation there.
I wore the pictured cocktail dress (from Roamans.com) on the last evening. On the first evening, I wore an identical dress (except in sky blue) at a lovely dinner at the high-end steakhouse restaurant (IRELAND'S) at the conference hotel, the BONAVENTURE RESORT AND SPA.
As I always do at Southern Comfort, I changed outfits 3 times each day ... various skirt/blouse ensembles and pretty dresses ... a GLORIOUS few days!
Love,
Sheila.
When I was 10, I had a copy of Superboy #78, the one where Superboy offends an alien woman with a chauvinistic comment and she changes him into a girl in retaliation. So she becomes Claire Kent, Alias Super-Sister although it all turns out to have been just a few moments hypnosis. I literally wore out that comic book reading it over and over and over and over. You can read the comic book here.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tgfa.org/comics/superman/superman.htm
I have some resources for anyone that wants to delve into Jana's site.
ReplyDeleteThese first two are completely legal public domain sources for older comics:
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/
http://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1507
These others are more modern comics and may be in that grey area of legality:
http://readcomiconline.com/
http://www.readcomics.tv/
http://view-comic.com/
TGFA is a great site but it hasn't been updated in a decade, and sadly Closetmonster's site has yet to return (to my knowledge). Metamorphose.org can be a helpful source, and is often updated.