No Straight Lines: Screening and Q&A
8 October 2026
Join us on Thursday 8 October for an evening screening of No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics: a documentary telling the story of five pioneering LGBTQ cartoonists, followed by a talk and Q&A with the film’s producer, Justin Hall.
Hear the story of five scrappy and pioneering LGBTQ cartoonists: Alison Bechdel, Jennifer Camper, Howard Cruse, Rupert Kinnard, and Mary Wings. They depicted everything from the AIDS crisis, coming out, same-sex marriage, to themes of race, gender, and disability.
The film explores how these trailblazing LGBTQ artists resisted censorship and displayed tremendous courage and conviction in providing an uncensored window into queer lives from the 1970s onward, beginning at a time in which there was no other genuine queer storytelling in popular culture.
Against all odds, they helped build a queer comics underground that has been able to grow and evolve in remarkable ways. Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Vivian Kleiman weaves together intimate conversations with these foundational artists and younger cartoonists who were inspired by their work, resulting in a rich tapestry of diverse voices and images to explore the power of self-representation.
Joining us after the screening will be comic creator, educator, scholar Justin Hall, who produced the film. Justin will join us online from San Francisco to share insights into the making of the film and for an audience Q&A.
This conversation accompanies Queer As Comics(opens in new window), on display in our Coal Stores Gallery.
This event will cover themes explored in the exhibition. For more information about the content that may be referred to in this event, please head to the exhibition page. If you have any questions please email events@qbcentre.org.uk.
Justin Hall is a comic creator, educator, and scholar. He created or co-created titles such as True Travel Tales, Hard to Swallow, and Theatre of Terror: Revenge of the Queers, and has work in the Houghton Mifflin Best American Comics, Best Erotic Comics, SF Weekly, and more. He edited the Lambda-Award-winning collection No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics and was Producer of the award-winning documentary of the same name.
Hall is the first Fulbright Scholar of Comics, a full professor of comics at California College of the Arts, the co-creator and organiser of Pride in Panels: SF Queer Comics Festival, and has written academic essays on comics and curated international exhibitions of comics art. He’s currently at work on a graphic memoir/novel for Abrams Books due out in 2027.
Join us in the Cafe from 6pm when the doors open to grab a drink from our sponsors El Rayo Tequila.
Please note the Centre will close at 5pm and then re-open at 6pm for the evening event. The galleries will be closed for the evening. The Shop will be open and purchases can be made.
The screening will run for 79 minutes followed by a talk and Q&A for around 40 minutes. The Centre will close at 8:30pm.
We want our events to be inclusive and accessible.
If you have any accessibility requests or questions, please email events@qbcentre.org.uk or phone 020 4524 2657.
You can find out more about Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration’s facilities and accessibility here: