New Arrivals: First Edition of THE GAY COLORING BOOK [Washington, DC: Guild Press, 1964].Extremely u
New Arrivals: First Edition of THE GAY COLORING BOOK [Washington, DC: Guild Press, 1964].Extremely uncommon pre-Stonewall celebration of gayness, featuring a protagonist named Percy (“color me gay”) and his assortment of friends, all representing various iterations of gay stereotype from fey to femme to rough-trade. The final, poignant panel depicts Percy in an army uniform and is captioned: “My name is Percy. / Color me drafted.” Though riddled with what would in time come to be considered offensive stereotypes, it is inconceivable that this coloring book could have been produced for anything other than the gay market; it is full of inside jokes - bath houses, cruise bars, and sugar daddies - that would have been lost on the uninitiated reader of the era. We thus imagine the market to have been resultingly tiny, a supposition reflected in the lack of any evidence of this title in commerce and the presence of only five copies in institutional collections (per OCLC, as of 2016). -- source link
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