RfB-News-Leonard + Larry "Excerpts" Review

It isn't easy to categorize Leonard & Larry. Are they the Lambda League's answer to Hi & Lois? Well, they are a rare committed couple in a culture where monogamy is more exception than rule. But unlike that other happily married couple, Leonard & Larry don't always kiss and grin in panel four. They bicker, often hilariously.

As gay icons, they appeal to a wide range of homosexual tastes. Larry Evans owns a leather shop replete with big, hairy bikers and uniform fetishists. He is also a divorced parent and proud grandparent. Leonard Goldman, the nice Jewish boy from the furniture store family, is a mustached gay everyman, a witty, down-to-earth wolf in seasoned San Francisco clone clothing (with apologies to Dolly). Both have deliciously bearish traits, as do most of their huge supporting cast. If you pay attention to Barela's work, you can almost always identify the "bad guys." The straights, fundies, narrow-minded pigheads and even the flaming queens in Barela's world are almost inevitably clean shaven while the men's men who just happen to be gay sprout some form of facial hair.

One character, Jim, who works at Larry's Leather, identifies himself openly as a bear. His significant other is gorgeous, mustached (and formerly bearded) Texas hick-cum-movie star Merle Oberon. They have been haunted by the ghosts of two classical composers for several years now, a plotline which continues in this latest collection, often with hilarious results.

One of the great joys of Barela's work is that he allows his characters to age naturally and not linger in eternal mid-life like most other comics. And so in this third Barela compilation, we see characters with receding hairlines and bald patches and deliciously hairy paunches. Slight, half-formed teens have grown into strapping young men and toddlers have grown into precocious children. Time marches on.

I have heard it argued that Barela's characters are drawn so similarly that it's difficult to tell them apart. With so many mustaches and beards running around, it does get a tad confusing, but the individualized plotlines help keep everything, er... straight, so to speak. I find Barela's style very human and alive. Hell, I found myself seriously turned on by the sight of bearded, hairy-chested Larry stripped to the waist and climbing into bed on page 44. Likewise, his gay son David has matured into a sexy young bear in his own right and the spitting image of his father back in the early strips. Woof!

Larry's other son, Richard, is the breeder of the bunch. He maintains a warm, open relationship with his father and encourages the same with his two small children. Like any grandparent, Larry overindulges the grandkids every whim, whether it means buying a tarantula or letting the oldest, Lauren, take a whack at drawing their comic strip a la Family Circus.

Excerpts... focuses a great deal of attention on the zany L&L supporting cast, especially Bob Mendez, the classical pianist with the fag hag stalker and the aforementioned Jim and Merle and their ghostly roommates. And everyone's favorite big bear nursing practitioner, Nurse Mike lurches in for another visit. If you are new to the Leonard & Larry universe, the illustrated character and plotline recap on pages 10-19 is required reading. The strips are funny without the background, but knowing the characters' histories adds still another layer of comedic meaning.

One warning: Leonard & Larry is highly addictive. One reading won't be enough. Each time a new compilation is published, I read it first and then inevitably drag out the previous books for an L&L marathon. They make me laugh out loud, sniffle on occasion and fan myself from "the vapors." How many comic strips can you say that about?