I’ve been reading the Adam & Andy comic strip for about a decade at this stage, after first coming across it when the strip was hosted in the same place as my very first website (Fortunecity.com – circa ’99 / ’01 kinda time). It’s always made me smile, and the old longer format version of the comics were published as a book by the strip creator James Asal Jr. I bought a copy of the book back when it was first on sale, and my copy now sits comfortably well read in the shOUT! lgbt youth group bookcase where those two wonderful characters can bring a smile to the face of whatever young LGBT person flicks through it.
But, randomly enough, James namechecked me in one of the recent strips, for no particular reason other than my name being in his head after some recent photos I put up on my Flickr. But it really made me smile, and made me want to share the comic strip with you lot. I’ve been reading the little short strips about Adam & Andy for longer than I’ve ever read any other comic. Only A Softer World by the talented duo of Joey Comeau and Emily Horne comes close. While I enjoy a softer world for the dark humour, wit, and zombies (amongst other things), what I love about Adam & Andy is the fact that they’ve been the longest running gay couple in my own personal media consumption. They’re a same sex couple I’ve been reading about for about a decade or so, and I like to check in and see how they’re doing. The utterly normality of their existence is a very simple, clear message, and there’s something about the strip that just works for me. Dig into the archives and root around in the older stories. The website archive only goes back to 2006, but you can see the style of the old format comics in the previews for the book.
