Minutiæ

In 1997, fol­low­ing sev­eral years of world­wide suc­cess, Minutiæ’s comic strip Pudgy & Ralph shocked read­ers when the char­ac­ter Pudgy became the first openly gay car­toon char­ac­ter to appear in print. The strip was sub­se­quently banned in the United Arab Emi­rates and across libraries in the United States, but cel­e­brated in Ire­land, for some reason.

Fol­low­ing the ban­ning, the strip’s cre­ator Jim War­ren came out of the closet him­self. It became clear Pudgy & Ralph was based on his life, with many of the famous Pudgy & Ralph story lines, includ­ing when Ralph worked as a dis­crete chauf­feur for élite politi­cians, Ralph’s eat­ing  of pizza, and Pudgy’s con­stant wear­ing of sun­glasses to mask the sad­ness and iso­la­tion from being scared to present his true self to the world.

Pudgy & Ralph ended three months later with three pan­els: Pudgy look­ing in a mir­ror. Pudgy remov­ing his sun­glasses to reveal tears. Pudgy step­ping out his win­dow and soar­ing into the sky like an angel.

War­ren later sued Tony Kushner.