Universitätsverlag WINTER is an academic publisher located in Heidelberg, Germany, who covers the whole field of Humanities with particular interest in literature and language studies.
Picturing the black gay and lesbian characters Les, Esmeraldus, Marge, and Effie as being rooted within the black community, he circumvents the fallacy of stating that both forms of oppressions are analogous and effectively counters common stereotypical assumptions about the prevalence of homophobia in black communities. Cruse is careful not to equate racism and homophobia. These three devices allow Cruse to explore and interrogate the interrelated politics of black and gay liberation. Analyzing the narrative functions of music, the translinear leitmotif of a crushed head, and Cruse's manipulation of panel frames and gutters, I argue that Stuck Rubber Baby uses these three devices to connect Toland's biography to black history. This graphic novel shows that Toland's personal developments are closely and necessarily linked to racist violence and the politics of the Civil Rights Movement. On three different narrative levels, Howard Cruse's Stuck Rubber Baby portrays the coming of age and coming out of its white narrator, Toland Polk, in the American South in the 1950s and 1960s.