Interview: Queeroes Webcomic Creator Tony Smith

I recently had the honor of speaking to Tony Smith, the creator of the up and coming webcomic, Queeroes. A freelance writer, Tony lives in Boothwyn Pennsylvania with his partner Jim and their Superbeagle Molly.

Tony has previously contributed stories to Queerbait, Prism Comics, Fan-Atic Press, and Twisted Gate Entertainment while at the same time contributing freelance articles and interviews to websites such as Associated Content and PrintNPost.com.

While Queeroes certainly isn't Tony's introduction to the LGBT comic world, it's definitely his most exciting individual endeavor. I was fortunate to be able to ask Tony about Queeroes, its creation, and where he hopes to take his unique web-comic.

DD: What gave you the original idea for Queeroes?

TS: Well, hopefully I'm not setting myself up for a future lawsuit here, but I was heavily into watching the first season of Heroes on DVD and it occurred to me there's not one gay or lesbian character on the show. They do a great job mixing in different ethnicities, but they're showing zero diversity as far as sexuality is concerned. I realize 90% of the world is heterosexual, but you'd think there has to be at least one gay hero out there somewhere. Anyway...that led me to thinking about what a queer hero could add to the show. What would be unique enough about them to be worth adding one - or several - to the mix.

After that, my brain exploded.

I started thinking about all the diversity within the LGBT culture and realized that we're really a mixture of minorities within a minority. Bisexuals are different from gays, transgenders are different from drag queens, etc. What would it be like if only LGBT individuals developed super powers. How would the world react to such a thing? Is there something unique about LGBT people that could trigger that kind of occurrence? Something different about their brain chemistry maybe? It's a proven fact that a very high number of gays and lesbians are highly creative people, so maybe they're also prone to turn invisible or to fly..

That's where Queeroes was born.