Review by Win Wiacek

It’s incredible to think that a strip that came to define an era was originally turned down by LGBT news periodical The Advocate who eight years later picked it up for serialisation.

Leonard & Larry’s success owes much to Gay Comix editor Robert Triptow who picked them out of Tim Barela’s submission and suggested expanding their roles. Leonard Goodman shares an apartment with his “roommate” Larry Evans. Both are middle-aged.

Barela begins with warmly informative background material accompanied by wonderful examples of earlier strip ventures, before dividing the main feature into specific periods, beginning with ‘Early Stories from Gay Comix‘, and opening with a tale found in Strip AIDs U.S.A., ‘Hi There, We’re the Gay Neighbors’.

Actual introductory yarn ‘Revenge of the Yenta’ sets the scene with established couple Leonard and Larry navigating another meal with Leonard’s formidable un-accepting mother who still ambushes him with blind dates and nice Jewish girls.

‘Lovers and Other Uninvited Guests’ focuses on a dinner party disaster including Leonard’s outrageous former lover Dennis and his new man Leon meeting Larry’s ex-wife Sharon and her Christian Moral Majority champion/fiancé, Gordon.

‘Till Tricks Do Us Part’ features Gordon’s shock return as a fully out-and-proud leatherboy cruiser, stalking Larry from his exotic goods store on Melrose Avenue to his favourite gay clubs in search of all the experiences and passion he’s been denying himself.

A parental milestone is reached and botched during a visitation weekend for Larry’s teenaged sons Richard and David. ‘Chocolate Chip Cookies and Sympathy’ is required when Larry finds (hetero) porn in oldest son’s room and braces himself to have ‘the Talk’. Thankfully, Leonard is there to offer back-up.

An untitled tale provides an origin as Leonard and Larry celebrate a birthday and eight years as a couple, after which ‘Little Victories’ leavens the comedy with contemporary reality as the guys discuss the loss of a friend to a lethal new disease.

Leonard & Larry progresses in real time, and ‘From the pages of The Advocate’ spans 1988-1990 with episodes covering the couple’s home and work lives. There are constant parties, physical deterioration, social gaffes, rows, family revelations, holidays and even events like earthquakes and fanciful prognostications such as ‘West Hollywood 1999′, with the now-decrepit pair whining about the old days.

Rounding off this initial compilation, ‘Recent Stories from Frontiers Magazine’ particularly highlights how the world goes on without regard for personal feelings as one of Larry’s kids comes out and the other makes them grandparents. The couple’s friends and clients win larger roles and offer other perspectives on LA life and the ever-evolving gay scene, while time plays its cruellest tricks on many key players who must re-evaluate their activities and fashion choices, erotic and otherwise.

We meet Larry’s no-nonsense-but-painfully-sheltered mom and dad Earl and Wilma; enjoy another take on inclusion and – during a long-dreaded High School reunion – learn some deliciously entertaining facts about Leonard in the days before he accepted his attraction to men. Through it all, the real world always intrudes, as when flamboyant engineer Frank Freeman loses his aerospace job because his “lifestyle” is considered a security risk by the Federal government or when publicity hungry religious zealots picket Larry’s shop.

Populated by adorable, fully fleshed out characters and in a generational saga about being yourself, Leonard & Larry is an irresistible slice of gentle whimsy to nourish the spirit and beguile the jaded. Continuity is followed in Kurt Cobain and Mozart are Both Dead, or all four volumes compiled by Palliard Press between 1993 and 2003 have been combined for re-release as The Complete Leonard & Larry.