Kris Dresen

In her 30-year career as a comic story artist, Kris Dresen is still amazed every time readers tell her what an impact her work has made on them. “From day one, I have heard from all aspects of gender and orientation how my comics and drawings helped in the process of being okay with who they are,” says the writer/illustrator of comic strip Max & Lily, which tells the story of gay best friends. Dresen’s other works include Eisner Award-nominated Manya (with fellow Woman We Love, Academy of American Poets Executive Director Jen Benka); Grace, a webcomic about a woman who finds herself attracted to a female artist model; she said, a story of a relationship, told in sound bites; and Gone, a visual poem. Her comics have been included in Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, among others. Dresen is currently at work drawing the illustrated novel Punk Like Me, and is preparing to release in 2019 a collection of her comics called Her Curve. Being out for her entire career and using her artistic skills to tell LGBTQ stories has proven its importance time and again, she says. “I sit in my studio and spit out these drawings and stories that I think nobody will read, only to learn that they are seen and that they have an impact,” Dresen says. “It’s humbling and I try not to think about it. I simply create stories I want to read and be as honest about myself as I can. That it resonates with even one person is a generous compensation for work I more often than not distribute for free.” —SEJ