After 6 volumes of daily gay romance comic strips, Young Bottoms in Love is coming to an end at PopImage.com. But just like in the anthology strip, this slice of bittersweet life has a silver lining to its cloud. Howard Cruse, renowned underground comix artist, returns to gay comix with the final webisode of Young Bottoms in Love in a story entitled “My Hypnotist”, scheduled for February 13 and running through the week of Valentine’s Day.
Created by cartoonist and Young Bottoms in Love editor Tim Fish in August 2002, Young Bottoms in Love is a daily web comic anthology of gay romance stories. Dozens of creators have contributed to the strip over the years—gay and straight, amateur and professional—in styles that range from the familiar to the abstract.
“When we decided to end the run of the daily strip at PopImage, both Tim and I thought it would be amazing if we could convince Howard Cruse to contribute the final strip,” said Ed Mathews, Co-Editor in Chief of PopImage. “We wanted to do something very special for our loyal fans. To have Howard Cruse on board to do a brand new, original gay comix strip is a dream come true.” As with all the content at PopImage, it is 100% free to the reader with no registration process and no pop-up ads.
Howard Cruse is no stranger to gay comics. In fact, he was the first editor of Gay Comix, the groundbreaking gay anthology series that started in 1980 and published through 1993 under various editors and publishers. Five books have been published compiling Cruse’s own comic strips and stories from underground comic books and elsewhere: Wendel, Dancin’ Nekkid With The Angels, Wendel on the Rebound, Early Barefootz and Wendel All Together.
Cruse’s critically acclaimed graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby, a moving coming out story set against the backdrop of the segregation-era civil rights movement of the sixties, was published in 1995 by Paradox Press/DC Comics, and has since appeared in German, Italian, and French editions, with a Spanish version currently in the works. His most recent book, his illustrated adaptation of a fable by Jeanne E. Shaffer entitled The Swimmer With a Rope In His Teeth, was published by Prometheus Books in April 2004.
Tim Fish launched Young Bottoms in Love in 2002 as a showcase for his own gay romance comics as well as ones by other contributors. His three volume bittersweet soap opera Cavalcade of Boys continues to gain critical acclaim and an avid fan base. Tim’s 2006 releases will be his two books, Meet Me in Saint Louie and Baby Makes Three, as well as projects with Marvel Comics.
PopImage launched in 1999 and sought ever since to showcase the very best in comics and popular culture. Primarily a comics journalism site, PopImage has focused on the best and brightest talents in modern comics history, with interviews and contributions covering everyone from underground comix creators, novelists, professors, to the Editor in Chief of Marvel Comics. Updated every Wednesday, reviews, interviews, Op/Ed’s and previews featuring sneak peaks of future works are brought to the reader in magazine format on a weekly basis. This tradition extends to its PIComics section, which has seen contributions from some of the industry’s top talent and continuously brings new talent to the attention of our audience through the magic of webcomics. 
