Megan Rose Gedris

Megan Rose Gedris (born June 12, 1986) is an American cartoonist whose comics include YU+ME:dream and I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space.

Work

YU+ME:dream

YU+ME:dream is a webcomic begun in 2004, using manga and other types of styles, about a teenage girl who spends all her time dreaming. The webcomic won the second Queer Press Grant from Prism Comics which allowed Gedris to publish the first collected volume of the series.^[1]

The main character of the series, 18-year-old Fiona, lives with her father and stepmother. She is frequently bullied by her classmates at West Catholic High. She develops strange feelings toward Lia, the new girl at school, which confuse her until she learns that girls can be in love with girls. Fiona and Lia begin a secret relationship. However, while attending a school dance with Lia, Fiona discovers that the past few months have been merely a very long dream while she was in a coma.

Gedris writes, "So many stories (bad ones) end with '. . . and it was all a dream.' But I always wanted to know what would happen after that. How would this affect someone’s life." ^[2] Therefore, the "it was all a dream" twist comes not at the end of the story, but one-third of the way through. According to Gedris, "I put my twists in the middle, rather than the end. . . . Instead of ending with it being a dream, we follow how things go after the dream ends."^[3]

The remaining two-thirds of the story follow Fiona's attempts to return to Dreamworld, find Lia, and resume their relationship against the wishes of Sadako, Queen of Dreamworld. The Dreamworld sequences employ a number of art styles, including collage and clay sculpture, to portray different realms in the imaginary world.

I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space

Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space (also known as I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space and LPFOS) centers on Susan Bell, a 1950s secretary who is kidnapped by a group of lesbian pirates, the humorous and risqué situations that develop as she lives with them, and her realization she too is homosexual. The Lesbian Pirates are a race of Amazonesque beings who come from a planet referred to as "Lesbos-1," which is part of the planetary system of Lesbos, named after the Greek island of Lesbos. Early in the narrative, it was not clear why they were kidnapping girls, until it was revealed that they were looking for their lost crown princess. They eventually returned the kidnapped girls.

Gedris created the comic in 2006 as an antidote to the portrayals of lesbians in the comics media. The comic is based on the Cold War pulp novels about lesbians. She entered the Platinum Comics Comic Book Challenge and was a finalist (first place going to D.J. Coffman for Hero by Night).^[4] As a result, Platinum Studios began publishing the comic via the Drunk Duck webcomics site; in May 2008, the first story arc was published in print.

Prism Comics has said that the comic had "laugh out loud moments in every issue".^[5] The comic was one of the most popular titles on Drunk Duck since its debut.^[6]

In November 2013, Gedris took all 18 chapters of I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space down from the web, where it had been hosted by Platinum Studios since 2007. She said the company had not paid her since 2007, and had strung her along for years with false promises.^[7]

References

External links

• Official website
• YU+ME website
• LPFOS website
• Megan Rose Gedris at Deviant Art

Interviews

• Coming to a Comic Store Near You: Lesbian Manga, After Ellen, December 6, 2006
• Comic-Con: Gay comic-dom still runs strong, Gay and Lesbian Times, July 24, 2008