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FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | NOVEMBER 2025 51 This month our selection for the Famous LGBT Americans series is Mary Wings, a lesbian cartoonist and writer. Mary Wings (née Mary Lee Geller) was born in 1949 in Chicago. She attended Shimer College in Mount Carroll, Illinois. She moved to Portland, Oregon and studied ceramics at the Museum Art School. She came out as lesbian at 21, became an illustrator and lived in the U.S. and Holland. In the 1960s, Wings explored underground comic books and their depiction of lesbians. She discovered misogyny and homophobia. In Portland, Oregon, she started to frequent a feminist bookshop and discovered a comic book, Sandy Comes Out, about a lesbian written by Trina Robbins, a heterosexual woman. The book described coming out in an intellectualized manner that lacked the emotional intensity that would have come from a lesbian describing her own experience. Wings later said that the book's portrayal of coming out "seemed so superficial. I thought, this has nothing to do with what it really feels like." That motivated Wings to create her own comic book, Come Out Comix. It was the first comic book about lesbians, by a lesbian and for lesbians. She self- published the book and advertised it through f lyers. It was picked up by a publisher giving it national exposure within a year. She moved to San Francisco and created two more comic books, Dyke Shorts in 1978 and Are Your Highs Getting You Down? in 1980. She also illustrated her own books. Wings moved to Amsterdam in 1980 and returned to San Francisco in 1987. After her three comics, Wings became an award-winning novelist writing lesbian detective stories. She wrote a series of five books about a lesbian detective named Emma Victor and also another book not part of the series. Wings' comics work has been described as "sparse, but her output remains meaningful in its honesty. … Mary Wings might not have made a ton of comics, but the ones she did remain incredibly important well over four decades later. … (They) remain an underrated classic of LGBTQ+ comics." Wings died on July 3, 2024 in San Francisco at 75. For more information and for the sources for this article, please go to the Rainbow Group's Facebook page or request a copy via our email (rainbowgroup@myyahoo.com). The locations and times of Rainbow Group events are available via our Facebook page or email. ~ Dan Hazeltine and Frank Galvan Rainbow Group Thanksgiving is around the corner and you're going to want to be at this month's meeting to sample some great wines for your holiday dinners. Gino Domico has picked out some tremendous wines to sample. John Wagner, who writes his own music, will entertain us with his songs this evening. He is highly respected by his fellow musicians here in Four Seasons. The doors open at 5:15 pm and the meeting begins at 6 pm. Bring a bottle of wine to enjoy, two glasses, and something to share with your table. This meeting will get us all into the holiday spirit. If you have any ideas for wines or topics, please call or email me. ~ Tom DePaola, tomdepaola@roadrunner.com, (714) 404-1956 Taste d'Vine

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