“There are so many transgendered teens living on the streets hustling, using illegal hormones, getting pumped full of silicone and doing all sorts of drugs,” complains Madison “Mek” Potts. “A lot of them back themselves into a cycle that can be really hard to get out of. Many [people] who have it better just turn a blind eye.”
Frustrated by the dearth of realistic portrayals with disenfranchised trans youth, the artist created Between the Lines, a graphic comic strip that follows the struggles of two young transgender women, Dani and Shay, who are best friends.
“Nothing comes easy for them,” Potts explains. “But they try to be who they are despite the ostracism they face from society. As for the plot line…things will get darker before they get lighter.”
Potts decided to showcase the comic online, where it didn’t limit readership to those with the luxury of affording a paper version. “I got into online comics back when I was a kid because they are free and some of them are better than anything the big comic companies can come up with. [Still], for every great online comic out there, there are 15 others that will want to make you take a shotgun and put a hole through your monitor.”
Potts says she was drawn to graphic comic storytelling because, “It’s the marriage of words and pictures and you can show things in a different way that will have a different emotional impact than when you’re working with video or prose.”
Some of the characters in Between the Lines (betweenthelines.sosdg.org)are composites, drawn from people Potts has known and the character Savvas is based directly on a friend with the same name.
“There are bits and pieces of real life in the comic, like when Shay is talking about the skirt rebellion - that was a joke me and a friend had between us when we started transition. There are a few more instances in chapter one taken from real life, like the window shopping and the love for hot dog vendors, which is something I can’t resist.”
While some of her own experiences are reflected in the comic, Potts - who grew up in Lexington, NC - says she was fortunate not to end up on the streets. “I came out when I was 17 even though I had an intense fear of them kicking me out. That never happened. I was lucky that I just had to endure a few years of doing nothing but arguing with my mother. She came around eventually.”
Still the 24-year-old feels a commonality with her characters and relates to the problems faced by trans teens.
As an artist, Potts mixes traditional methods with the benefits of computer graphics; drawing and inking each panel by hand before scanning them into Photoshop, where she puts the panels together and completes the coloring. It’s time consuming, and although she tries to update the comic every week, Potts says, real life sometimes gets in the way.
Fortunately she doesn’t have to do it all alone. Potts is sharing Between the Lines artistic duties with a handful of other trans cartoonists - Katt, Maddy and Moria - each of who will draw one or more chapters. “A wonderful new artist named Katt will be drawing chapters two and three,” Potts says. “Her style…leans heavily toward a detailed manga style. The editor will still be Dana and I’ll still be coloring.”
“I’ve always wanted to make art my life,” says Potts, who doesn’t think trans artists get the kind of visibility they deserve. That needs to change, she argues, “Because…art and story can be a major component to [cultural] change.”
She hopes Between the Lines will have that kind of impact, opening people’s eye to the real struggles trans teenagers face, especially when they’ve been forced from their homes. By working with a collective, Potts is enhancing the visibility of other trans artists as well as herself - and that’s a refreshing change in itself.”
Trans author Jacob Anderson-Minshall has an essay in the anthology, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power, which examines his transition from lesbian feminist to straight white guy.
