Published by Gauntlet Press
GAUNTLET
Edited by Barry Hoffman, with contribution by Andy Mangels
In stores Fall 1992

Gauntlet's byline is "Exploring the Limits of Free Expression," and the magazine regularly features material from both liberal and conservative points of view. In 1992, Gauntlet magazine decided to do a "Media Manipulation" issue. Editor Barry Hoffman wanted numerous comic book creators to be involved with this specific issue, and approached Andy Mangels, who was editing Gay Comics at the time. Other comic creators who were later involved included Bobby London, Larry Welz, Kate Worley, Angela Bocage, Roberta Gregory, and Robert Williams.

Mangels was involved politically, fighting the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA), an anti-gay zealot group, and he agreed to do two contributions for the Gauntlet issue. The first was "Hate and the Art of Queer Media Spins," a prose piece detailing the efforts of the gay community to get daily newspaper The Oregonian to stop skewing stories with a homophobic slant.

The second was titled "No Message Here," and it was a five-page comic book story drawn by Carl Vaughn Frick (Gay Comix, Watch Out Comix). The story detailed Mangels' attempts to create a "True Bigots" trading card set, as well as to sponsor a week-long "Cartoonists Against Hate" campaign to run in newspapers from October 11-17th. The reaction from newspaper cartoonist syndicates was. . . not promising.

The two stories appeared in Gauntlet Volume #4 (1992). Barry Hoffman was so impressed with the prose essay that he included it in The Best of Gauntlet paperback anthology in 1996. Mangels has continued opposing the efforts of the OCA and other anti-gay hate groups, and has produced other work in support of free speech, including The George Perez Archives book for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Mangels would also work with Vaughn Frick as inker in Annie Sprinkle in The Adventures of Miss Timed, and as a contributor to issues of Gay Comics which Mangels edited.

Back issues of Gauntlet Vol. #4 are available from Gauntlet Press.


"No material, no opinion is taboo enough to violate Gauntlet's purpose of ' exploring the limits of free expression ' — airing all views in the name of the First Amendment." — Associated Press.