TOW #20 - The Backstagers by James Tynion IV and Rian Sygh

Typically, when people go and see a performance they focus mainly on the people on stage acting, but what they don’t realize is that there are others who help keep the show going who they don’t see. In the real world they’re referred to as ‘stage crew’, but in James Tynion IV and Rian Sygh’s newest comic they’re referred to as The Backstagers. Tynion is a bisexual theater nerd who felt that most stories regarding theater only focused on the actors and not the stage crew, so he decided to try and change that by creating The Backstagers. To help him create the wonderful story he grabbed Rian Sygh, a trans male who doesn’t have a background in theater but is an amazing illustrator. Both authors also felt that their sexuality and gender identity weren’t being shown much in the media and stories so they made sure that most of their characters identified somewhere in the queer community.

                Tynion & Sygh’s characters’ sexualities and gender identities aren’t directly stated throughout the 8 issues. Growing up they both felt that every time someone included a queer character in one of their stories they made that one aspect the focus of that character’s personality. They didn’t like that, so in their comic, they made sure that it was obvious the character was queer by showing it through an action or the character’s clothing. By doing this they made their characters really relatable to their main focus audience of people in the LGBTQ community. As a queer woman I found it really hard to relate to the queer characters in the media because they were so flat, they were never developed beyond their sexuality/gender identity, but Backstagers was different because I felt that I could really relate to the queer stagehand who held the same aspirations as me.