Pride 2025: NO STRAIGHT LINES is streaming on PBS to celebrate Pride Month

In celebration of Pride Month, PBS is proudly streaming No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics on the PBS Video app. The 2001 documentary highlights the groundbreaking work of LGBTQ artists who paved the way for queer comics in the 1970s and 1980s. At a time when major publishers like DC and Marvel ignored these stories, it was the dedication and creativity of passionate individuals that led to the creation of zines, comic strips, and DIY underground comic books, giving a voice to an underrepresented community.

Starting in the 1970s, when LGBTQ+ stories were not in popular culture. Through the careers of five scrappy and pioneering cartoonists who depicted everything from the AIDS crisis to “coming out” to same-sex marriage, No Straight Lines captures the beginnings of queer comics, from its origins as an underground art form to its progression into a social movement, culminating with its long-awaited mainstream acceptance into comic books, newspaper strips, and graphic novels.

Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Vivian Kleiman gives viewers insight in the way of interviews with five queer comic book artists, including Bechdel, Jennifer Camper (“Rude Girls and Dangerous Women”), Howard Cruse (“WENDEL,” “Stuck Rubber Baby”), Rupert Kinnard (“B.B. and the Diva,” “Cathartic Comics), and Mary Wings (“Come Out Comix”). 

“No Straight Lines is the story of a DIY art form—often considered junk food for kids—that over the past 50 years has been used by queer artists as a powerful medium to represent our lives,” said Kleiman. “More than a chronology of milestone events, I wanted to create an intergenerational story of our emergence from rejection to acceptance, and help LGBTQI youth feel safe.”

In the documentary, artist interviews alongside their work, are interwoven with stories of landmark moments in LGBTQ+ history—from the Stonewall Riots to the AIDS epidemic and more. Taken together, it’s the story of how the queer comics scene shed light on the experiences of generations in a community previously underrepresented in the media and popular culture.

The film will also be available to stream on the PBS Video app.