Jes & Cin

As Pride comes to a close, I want to celebrate Lunar Boy and talk about what including explicit queer terms in a middle grade graphic novel means.

This was really difficult to summarize in comic essay form haha. I had done extensive research while I was in school over how middle grade comics often avoid saying words like "gay" "lesbian" or "trans" and its connection with bans and censorship. While I was at school, it felt like Raina Telgemeier's "Drama" was the last time I saw a character say "bi" in a middle grade graphic novel, and that was published in 2012! Why haven't we built more from that bravery since then? So I vowed to make sure Lunar Boy wasn't going to be a kids book that talked around queerness,

As I continued to develop Lunar Boy, I realized how this would affect the larger intersectional context of honoring Indonesian history. And that led to another rabbit hole of pressures! Inter-cultural discourse, the way so many Indonesians don't have access to broader knowledge about our history, it's a lot!

Happy Pride, be nice to each other 🌈

This Pride month, Lunar Boy celebrates the closeted and questioning ❤️ Sometimes Pride can feel like a party everyone's celebrating without you, but that's not the case!! So celebrate Pride in your own way.

We also felt that bi and especially pan rep is severely lacking in middle grade graphic novels, so we hope our contribution through Lunar Boy could help combat that 🌈
Do yourself a favor and check out Lunar Boy this Pride month, get yourself something nice!

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Special fact! Did you know there are enough named trans characters in my graphic novel Lunar Boy to fill up each color of the trans flag? No way! It's too clever to be true! I guess you gotta buy and read the book to find out huh.
It was important for us to have a story with multiple trans characters across several generations, all identifying with transness differently, and accepting each other as a community- along with showcasing Indonesian specific gender identities. Celebrate Pride Month by getting a copy of Lunar Boy for a queer kid in your life, that kid can be yourself btw.

🌈 Indu and Aminah, your local transpria and transpuan wish you a happy Pride!

I don't know if I'll ever find the words to say how much working on this graphic novel means to me, but maybe you'll get an idea when you finally read it someday 😌