- Doc and Raider
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Doc and Raider is a Canadian comic strip, created by Sean Martin. Published in newspapers and magazines for LGBT audiences beginning in 1987, the strip's main characters were Doc and Raider, two gay men who began the series as roommates but eventually became a couple. Doc was a writer, while Raider was a construction worker.
The strip was usually drawn as a single panel, although for some more complex stories Martin used a multipanel format. Some scenes were set in Toronto's gay village, such as the steps of the Second Cup at Church and Wellesley. In others, they Raider takes part in a rodeo.[1][2]
The series, while primarily humorous, also addressed serious issues in the gay community. During the strip's run, Raider was gay-bashed, and Doc tested positive for HIV. Towards the end of the strip, Doc's HIV status became a strain on their relationship, and a fight between the two erupted into domestic violence. In the final strip, Doc and Raider had reconciled and Raider asked Doc to have unprotected sex, although it was never revealed whether this in fact happened.
In addition to the regular strip, Doc and Raider appeared in safer sex education campaigns in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The strip's appearance in newspapers and magazines around the world also allowed it to underwrite gay-related causes, everything from an arts festival in Scotland to a hospice in New Zealand, thanks to an arrangement Martin had with each publication: they were free to run the comic as they wished, but they had to put something back into the local community as compensation. It's estimated that Doc and Raider raised somewhere in the neighbourhood of $750,000 during its run. Two books were also published, Doc and Raider: Caught on Tape in 1994 and Doc and Raider: Incredibly Lifelike in 1996.
The regular strip was retired in 1997, although in 2002 Martin created two standalone stories featuring the characters, which were published in two anthologies sold to raise money for the Little Sister's Defence Fund.[3] More recently, he has redesigned the characters in a more contemporary cartooning style, and has worked on an animated cartoon starring the redesigned characters.
Recently, Martin has begun releasing new strips as a webcomic on his blog. As of September, 2011, due to continuing troubles with Blogger's new image handling, Martin moved the blog to WordPress.[4]
Filmmaker Randy Riddle released Raider in Canada: A Portrait of Sean Martin, a documentary film about Martin and the strip, in 1998.
References
- ^ Martin, Sean. Doc and Raider: Caught on Tape Introduction. 1994.
- ^ Martin, Sean. Doc and Raider: Incredibly Lifelike. 1996.
- ^ Detained at Customs: Jane Rule testifies at testifies at the Little Sister's trial. Lazara Press, 1995. See the third page for correct spelling of "Defence Fund."
- ^ We're Moving 2011-09-18. Retrieved 2011-10-10.
External links
- Raider in Canada: A Portrait of Sean Martin (includes samples of the original Doc and Raider strips)
- The new Doc and Raider at Sean Martin's official site
- The Doc and Raider blog page (archive)
- the new Doc and Raider blog page
- Doc and Raider Facebook page
Categories:- Canadian comic strips
- LGBT-related comic strips
- LGBT art in Canada
- 1987 comic debuts
- Canada stubs
- Comic strip stubs
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