PRIDE MONTH 2024! Across our Pride Month coverage this month at Broken Frontier we have attempted to bring relevant work from every facet of comics publishing to you. From small press comics through to big industry franchises, this year we’ve hopefully reminded you of the full spectrum of LGBTQ+ representation available. Today we are looking at work from one of those staple areas of BF interest – DIY culture and self-publishing – in the form of Rowan Frewin’s A Potted Trans History.
Frewin’s name as an illustrator has already come up this Pride Month when we reviewed Comics Youth/Marginal Publishing’s Where We Are, Where We SHOULD Be: Shaping a Future for Trans Young People a couple of weeks back. A Potted Trans History also originates from the direction of a Comics Youth project with Frewin adapting their presentation slides into a zine format. Not just a piece of historical research it’s also a reminder that the terminology we use to describe the trans experience is largely relatively recent. One of Frewin’s objectives with the zine is to note that, contrary to some transphobic claims, transgender and non-binary identification is not a “new” phenomenon or a “trend.”
Moving from classical antiquity all the way through to the Stonewall Riots in just 12 pages underlines why Frewin has chosen to use the word “potted” in the zine’s title. It’s a fascinating collection of mini-biographies (usually two or three on a page), alongside short accounts of key moments in trans history. Some of these figures may be familiar to readers – novelist Radclyffe Hall, for example, or sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld – while others will be less so. There’s a fascinating account of the medieval Marinos the Monk, and subjects like 16th century soldier and spy Chevalier D’Eon will entice even the most casual reader into investigating further.
Strictly speaking A Potted Trans History isn’t sequential art (even if it does occasionally use some of the visual tools of the medium). Rather it’s illustrated prose with Frewin occasionally interjecting themselves into the narrative to pose interesting questions to consider or to add extra context. Nevertheless this is still the kind of zine work that falls within our remit at Broken Frontier and a great starting point for further exploring the historical players herein.
Rowan Frewin (W/A) • Self-published, £7.00
Review by Andy Oliver
