Salt Lake City-born artist Robert Triptow helped shape gay comics

Robert Triptow’s connection to Salt Lake City begins with his birth here on May 10, 1952. The writer and artist later became closely associated with gay- and bisexual-themed comics, underground cartooning and LGBTQ+ publishing on the West Coast.

Triptow was among the early contributors to Gay Comix, an anthology published by Kitchen Sink Press. He joined the series with its second issue and later succeeded Howard Cruse as editor. Triptow oversaw issues 5 through 13, a run that spanned 1984 to 1991.

His editorial work extended beyond the series. In 1989, he edited Gay Comics, an anthology described as one of the earliest histories of its subject. The book received the first Lambda Literary Award for Humor. Triptow also co-edited and contributed to Strip AIDS U.S.A., a 1988 anthology created for HIV-research fundraising and education, working with Trina Robbins and Bill Sienkiewicz.

As a journalist, Triptow contributed to several LGBTQ+ publications, including The Advocate, the Bay Area Reporter, Frontiers and the San Francisco Sentinel. The source identifies him as a longtime San Francisco resident, placing much of his professional life within the Bay Area’s LGBTQ+ media and arts communities.

Triptow’s career links several forms of cultural work: comics creation, editing, journalism and anthology-making. His projects documented LGBTQ+ experiences through a medium that was connected to underground publishing, while his journalism placed him in the broader network of LGBT publications operating on the West Coast.

For Salt Lake City, his biography offers a local point of entry into the history of LGBTQ+ comics and publishing. Although his career developed primarily elsewhere, his origins in the city connect Utah to a figure whose work helped preserve and circulate gay and bisexual voices in comics. His role with Gay Comix and his work on Gay Comics also show how editing and collecting creative work can become a form of cultural record-keeping.

Triptow has been characterized within the underground-comics tradition as a continuing link to that movement. Taken together, his artistic and editorial work reflects the importance of independent publications in creating space for LGBTQ+ stories, humor and commentary.

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Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://viaf.org/viaf/35978374 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y34HNsv9fjM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-QWH1nGQWA - https://web.archive.org/web/20110720062350/http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-09262008-31295014159130/unrestricted/31295014159130.pdf - https://web.archive.org/web/20120309160150/http://archives.tcj.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=211&Itemid=48 - https://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w6866z8t Image rights Photograph description: Norhteast at the Library station in Downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, with the Salt Lake Community College–Community Writing Center behind, August 2017 Creator: An Errant Knight. License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANortheast_at_Library_station_in_Salt_Lake_City%2C_Aug_17.jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.