This month we’re talking about Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando and Alex Sanchez’s Party and Prey and why it’s making me a little unsure… in a good way.
Welcome back to Queer Comics from a Queer Perspective! I hope the new year spoils you well and you read some great comics. I have one I’d like to talk about. Please note that as always, this is just my opinion. There is no way to speak for all queer people because we are not a monolith. Spoilers and queer history are also forthcoming.
Let’s talk about Party and Prey, where Steve Foxe and Steve Orlando share writing duties with Alex Sanchez on art. It’s a serial killer horror thriller with a splash of sci-fi and loads of social commentary. And just like grandma’s cookie recipe that she never wrote down, this book is delicious.
It starts with an older man in a gay club. Alan is experiencing some of the youth obsession that runs throughout our culture. Alan yells for not giving the time of day to a man his age and ends up meeting a PYT named Scott. Alan takes Scott back to his seat, where “Scott” is revealed to be Terry. The horror begins and Foxe and Orlando do everything they can to blow up exactly what you’ve been expecting. They play brilliantly, subverting expectations in every way they can.
From the relationship queer people have had with the police in the past, to the relationship between younger and older, to the relationships we have with ourselves, there is a lot to share in this book.
Alan’s story is sad, maybe even tragic in its own way. No, by no means do I sympathize with him once the full story is revealed. It’s important to remember that men of Alan’s generation didn’t enjoy the forward motion of years before. After Stonewall, LGBTQ+ people could no longer be ignored. Things weren’t great, but anti-gay laws were dropped in some states, people came out, a measure against gay teachers was lost in California, Jimmy Carter met with gay lobbyists, some attitudes changed, and then in the In 1981, after a series of articles in gay newspapers in NYC and San Francisco, an article appeared in The New York Times about “gay cancer”. AIDS decimated entire generations of people. Gay characters on TV that didn’t have to be the villains anymore disappeared. Many went back into the closet, and the fight for equality became a fight for survival. This is a very simplified version of the late 70’s/early 80’s and I would recommend NYPL’s The Stonewall Reader and Paul Monette’s Borrowed Time. They’re great books, but just a small part of a long, complicated, and very nuanced history of queer people in America.
Detective Overall is the cop who thinks there may be something to Terry/Scott’s story. The other officers are anything but friendly towards the LGBTQ+ community. If you’ve never learned about queer history and the law, well, it’s not always pretty. (Read James Polchin’s Indecent Advances or watch a documentary about Stonewall.) An older character’s reluctance to call the police contrasts nicely with Terry’s initial belief that the law works the same for everyone.
What I love most about this book is the same thing I find most difficult about it. The line “Thanks, but we never needed that [help.]It could be me reading into it, but it’s reminiscent of a line from Harvey Firestein’s Torch Song Trilogy, and I’m paraphrasing here: ‘I learned how to do plumbing and sewing and everything else because I don’t rely on it could hit anyone else.” It’s a bittersweet note, but it’s spot on in these times.
Should you read PARTY AND PREY? yes you should If you’ve already read it, should you read it again? yes you should Sometimes we have to live in a place where we feel a little uncomfortable. And sometimes we should be reminded that the history we don’t know, the ugly side of humanity we turn a blind eye to, is always the side that always comes back.
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