Dylan NDR Edwards

@dylanndr

Maker of queer & trans comics (Transposes, Valley of the Silk Sky) and monsters (Feeping Creatures). he/him

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Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Jul 6

"Queer people, by refusing to accept second class citizen status ... by responding to the attacks against us by becoming even more defiantly queer, shifted the culture to one of much broader and more durable queer acceptance." www.patreon.com/dylanedwards...

And yet, queer folks won the same-sex marriage battle in the end.

It didn't start with the Supreme Court generously bestowing these rights upon us out of the goodness of their hearts. It didn't start with individual municipalities offering marriage benefits to same-sex couples (which, as the cartoon at the head of this post notes, were hardly reliable wins), before Massachusetts finally legalized same-sex marriage at the state level in 2004. All of that was preceded by a very long series of culture wars over queer social acceptance.

Progressive legal gains generally tend to follow AFTER cultural shifts have already taken place, a reaction to the zeitgeist rather than a cause of the shift. And queer people, by refusing to accept second class citizen status, by coming out in greater and greater numbers and causing more and more people to know a queer person in real life, by responding to the attacks against us by becoming even more defiantly queer, shifted the culture to one of much broader and more durable queer acceptance.

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Jul 6

"So, each time we lost a legal battle on same-sex marriage, each time yet another state passed a law banning equal marriage rights for queer folks, it left an oppressive feeling of doom. We knew it wouldn't end there, but how far down the dark path would we go?" www.patreon.com/dylanedwards...

The bigots, by the way, were not at all subtle about their true intentions. They were too gleeful in their hatred to hide the very obvious fact that they never meant to stop at banning same-sex marriage. They fully intended to eradicate queer people altogether, to complete the project they started in the 1980s when they allowed HIV/AIDS to ravage the queer and trans community, openly cheering for our deaths. So, each time we lost a legal battle on same-sex marriage, each time yet another state passed a law banning equal marriage rights for queer folks, it left an oppressive feeling of doom. We knew it wouldn't end there, but how far down the dark path would we go?

The parallels to the current fight over trans rights are striking in no small part because the wealthy elites who funded the efforts to increase queer suffering in the 2000s are largely the same wealthy elites who have been funding the efforts to increase trans suffering over the last decade. The campaign against same-sex marriage gave bigots an excuse to parade their nastiness, something they'd longed to do after the (woefully incomplete) gains queer folks made during the 1990s. The current campaign against trans rights again offers bigots an excuse to parade their nastiness after the (woefully incomplete) gains trans folks made during the early-to-mid 2010s.

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· May 24

If you wanna read a queer/trans SFF adventure comic, you can get caught up on the preceding 114 pages over on the Valley of the Silk Sky website: www.valleyofthesilksky.com

Book cover for Valley of the Silk Sky: The Long Run, a queer and trans sci-fi/fantasy graphic novel by Dylan Edwards

Two figures face each other with a strange flower between them. The person on the left is a human, the person on the right a humanoid creature with insect-like features. Behind them is an an otherworldly landscape

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· May 23

Anyway, if you (a human, presumably) would like to read the book that I'm not actively promoting because it's out of print, I do have it available in a digital edition. You can read the intro and an excerpt here: www.studiondr.com/comics/trans...

Cover art for Transposes by Dylan Edwards

A trans man in a suit and straw hat, and carrying a cane, dances across the cover in front of several excerpted panels from the book

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· May 23

Awww, I got one of those AI-generated scam emails offering to help me promote my book that came out almost 14 years ago. The part that made me LOL was how it claimed to have engaged with my work for reals, while offering up what reads like a book summary from a kid who clearly didn't do the reading

Screenshot of an excerpt from a scam email:

I came across Transposes, and what I found was a creator who understands something that many narratives about identity miss entirely. That gender and sexuality are distinct yet intersecting experiences that deserve to be explored with both humor and profound honesty. You have captured the precise tension between the societal expectations of masculinity and the lived reality of queer transgender men, showing how each individual’s journey is unique, challenging, and deeply human. It is not just a graphic novel. It is an honest reckoning and a call for empathy that forces us to confront the reality that there is no single way to be a man, and that our stories of struggle and joy are worthy of being told.

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· May 11

Here's the introduction for my zine TrannyToons Presents: Annotated Trans Comics of the Early '00s (The alt text for page 1 is officially Too Long for Box, so I made a separate graphic for the inset comic) You can get a copy here: ko-fi.com/s/9d8ee9fb79

To the degree that trans men received any representation at all in the media landscape of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, it was usually either tragic stories of our violent deaths (Boys Don't Cry), or anecdotal case studies centering the pain of dysphoria and societal rejection. These were the narratives that greeted me when I came out in 2000.

I had already been creating humor comics centering queer culture at that time, so it was a short hop for me to draw comics centering trans culture. I had no interest in earnestly explaining transness to the cis. I mostly wanted to make jokes about trans life for the edification of other trans people. That's how TrannyToons came to be, a name I chose without first Googling it (actually I'd have probably used Alta Vista to do a search in 2000). If I had, I might have learned that it was already in use as a descriptor for porn comics featuring trans women, largely intended for a cis male audience. But I didn't, so I didn't. Oops.

The style of my earliest work is reminiscent of old panel comics, published in venues like the New Yorker, Punch, Life, etc. I have a particular interest in late 19th and early 20th century works. I find that these comics often speak to cultural trends in a way that more august essays about the times might not convey. For example, in the 1890s, there was a boom of what I would call "gender panic comics," a reaction to the popularity of bloomers for women. Mutliple cartoonists at the time suggested women would grow massive and muscular from wearing pants, towering over tiny, effeminate men (who themselves were still depicted as wearing pants, I feel I should point out; do pants make you hulking or not?). These are largely offered without any explanation of the cultural assumptions underlying them. You, the contemporary reader, already knew what the cartoonist was talking about, amirite?

[INSET]
comic by Frederick Opper
a short, effete young man in a suit glances at a large, scowling older woman coming down the stairs, wearing bloomers and holding a gas lamp and a paper. The young man stands next to a tall, muscular woman who has an arm around his shoulder. She wears bloomers and a monocle, and is carrying a hat and cane.
caption:
WE ARE GETTING THERE FAST.
STERN PARENT: "Willy, isn't that Miss Bloomers going soon? -- it's nearly eleven o'clock."
SON: "Yes, Mama; she's just saying good night!"

But time marches on, culture shifts and changes, and many of those old comics become difficult to parse once you're no longer immersed in that era's zeitgeist. This is as true for my early trans comics as it is for those gender panic comics of the 1890s. I didn't explain myself back in 2000, because my intended audience Already Knew, amirite? Well, trans culture has shifted and changed in the intervening quarter century, and many of my old TrannyToons comics no longer speak with a wink and a nod to a knowing contemporary trans audience. Bloomers have ceased to be feared as a potential cause of giantism in women, and trans men don’t de facto bind with Ace bandages anymore. The comics in this zine have, by dint of the passage of time, become Historical Artifacts.

I feel it necessary to annotate them, since some of them have resurfaced in the intervening years and been met with confusion by younger trans folks: "Isn't 'trannyboy' a slur?" one asked. I mean, everything queer and trans people have called ourselves has been weaponized as a slur against us at some point, but no, this was very much what a subset of trans mascs called themselves at the turn of the 21st century. Trans history is often obscured specifically because of our marginalization. This collection aims to preserve a little bit of that history, that future trans folks may have context for the niche jokes of an earlier trans generation.

[INSET]
TrannyToons Presents: Transman Names You Never See [comic by Dylan Edwards, signing as "NDR"]
Drawings of four trans men, each with a name over him: Hubert, Orville, Buford, and Lloyd
[caption]
The first TrannyToons comic I made riffed on trans guy naming trends. At this particular point in time, a common joke was that if you walked into a room full of trans guys and shouted, "Hey, Alex!" about half of them would turn around. "Alex" is still a popular trans masc name, of course, but I’d say naming trends have diversified a bit since then. Grandpa names still not trendy, tho.

Cover for TrannyToons Presents: Annotated Trans Comics of the Early '00s by Dylan Edwards
Black and white art of two trans men dressed as superheroes

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· May 10

TrannyToons Presents: Annotated Trans Comics of the Early '00s collects my earliest trans comics! I put this together to archive the in-group language and cultural norms of my own early transition years You can get a copy here: ko-fi.com/s/9d8ee9fb79 #zines #transgender #TransElder #TransHistory

photo of an interior spread from TrannyToons Presents: Annotated Trans Comics of the Early '00s by Dylan "NDR" Edwards, showing black-and-white comics with lots of text explaining cultural artifacts of trans culture from 25 years ago when these comics were originally created

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· May 8

Why yes, I AM going to be vending at the Denver Comics & Arts Festival on Saturday, May 9 from 11am-7pm! You'll find me at table 23, with zines and queer comics and stickers and bat pins and whatnot. It's free to attend, so you oughta come! Schoolyard 1115 Acoma St Denver CO

poster for DeCAF: Denver Comics & Arts Festival
Saturday May 9th, 2026
11am-7pm
at Schoolyard
1115 Acoma St, Denver CO
FREE EVENT

a stack of star-shaped stickers featuring artwork by Dylan Edwards depicting a beefy muscle cat

photo of an enamel pin of a Butterfly Bat, designed by Dylan Edwards

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Apr 29

In 2021 I created this short explainer comic about the right-wing groups behind the anti-trans hate campaign, and their coordinated, multi-pronged attack strategy

Comic by Dylan Edwards

Panel 1
TERF: The all-powerful trans lobby is trying to take away MY rights as a REAL woman!!
Trans ppl: What power?? What lobby???

Panel 2
Men in suits labeled ADF, FRC, and Heritage stand behind the TERF and hand her bags of money
Men: We LOVE what you're doing! Keep it up!
TERF: Also, "queer" is a slur. If you call yourself that, you're bad and wrong.

Panel 3
Wacky Fun Facts! (May not actually be fun)

Panel 4
The poverty rate for trans people is 29%, versus 15% for straight cis people.[1] The Trans Justice Funding Project, which funds trans rights groups across the country, raised a total of $2.7 million between 2012 and 2017.[2]
Meanwhile ...

Panel 5
... the tax forms for the Alliance Defending Freedom, an evangelical Christian legal advocacy organization, showed annual revenue of more than $65 million in 2019 alone.[2] The ADF is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.3 They help fund the anti-trans LGB Alliance.[4]

Panel 6
The Family Research Council’s Value Voters Summit instructed attendees to frame transphobia using the language of feminism, and to claim that “gender identity” is a concept offensive to women.[5] "If you separate the T from the alphabet soup, we’ll have more success.” --Meg Kilgannon, Value Voters Summit panelist [5]

Panel 7
Along with the ADF, the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation helps draft and distribute anti-trans bills for right-wing legislators to turn into law.[2] These and other interconnected right-wing groups lobby against abortion and same-sex marriage.[4]

Citations:
1. williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/lgbt-poverty-us/
2. newrepublic.com/article/163113/behind-gop-strategy-outlaw-trans-youth
3. splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/alliance-defending-freedom
4. pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/03/lgb-alliance-gary-powell-center-bioethics-culture-alliance-defending-freedom-anti-lgbt/
5. lgbtqnation.com/2017/10/christian-rights-new-strategy-divide-conquer-lgbt-community/

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Apr 22

Imagine making AI slop when bearded vultures already exist #birds

photo of a bearded vulture, with bright red and yellow eyes and reddish feathers on the neck, a cascade of black feathers around the eye, and a sharp beak

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Mar 31

Finally, I have monster-themed art creations called Feeping Creatures, which aren't specifically trans-themed (other than monster culture and trans culture having significant overlap), if you wish to support trans creators! www.etsy.com/shop/feeping...

Photo of an enamel pin of an orange and black butterfly bat designed by Dylan Edwards

Photo of a stack of star-shaped black-and-yellow stickers featuring a muscular cat flexing, art by Dylan Edwards

Photo of a spooky bat sticker by Dylan Edwards

Photo of a Feeping Creatures polymer clay sculpture of a blue dog-like creature, created by Dylan Edwards

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Mar 31

I'm a freelance trans cartoonist with many fine zines and comics for sale! Everything from earnest autobio and non-fiction to silly joke comics to sci-fi/fantasy. There's also a ton of stuff on my website that can be read for free: www.studiondr.com

Cover for QAT Person 4: Queer Asexual Trans Autobio comics by Dylan Edwards
Cover art shows the creator fully clothed in a bathtub, brandishing a fist and shouting "in your FACE, 'phobes!"

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Mar 31

It's Trans Day of Visibility! And it just so happens I'm trans, and I create visibly trans comics and zines, which you can peruse on my website: www.studiondr.com #tdov #TransDayOfVisibility

Cover for Transposes graphic novel by Dylan Edwards, Foreword by Alison Bechdel
Drawing of a man in a suit with a hat and cane dancing across the cover, background of several panels of art

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Mar 15

This piece is also Ides of March posting, just in case you were worried that I might be failing to celebrate another important historical event www.patreon.com/posts/153047...

I never did find out what it was about me that didn't quite pass muster with Dr. F. I never bothered to ask. The gate was creaking open, and I wasn't about to jeopardize my opportunity to sneak through by asking too many questions. On March 15th, 2001, I officially started testosterone injections, and have never stopped laughing about celebrating the Ides of March by getting stabbed (even though I have long since switched to gel).

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Mar 9

Sacrelicious

top text: Christ krispies treats

A photo of communion wafers piled together into a cut square, like a rice krispie treat but with communion wafers instead of Rice Krispies cereal

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Feb 12

My newest zine - TrannyToons Presents: Annotated Trans Comics of the Early '00s - collects my very earliest trans comics creations from 2000-2006. You can read more about this zine here: www.patreon.com/posts/150606... #zines #TransHistory

Photo of a hand holding a zine, whose cover features a comic drawing of two trans guys in superhero garb

text:
TrannyToons Presents: Annotated Trans Comics of the Early '00s
by Dylan "NDR" Edwards

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Feb 12

I'm going to be at Pride in Panels in San Francisco on Feb 15 (this Sunday!), and will be a guest on the Up From the Underground: Queer Comics Pioneers panel! www.prideinpanels.org I'll also have copies of my new zine TrannyToons Presents: Annotated Trans Comics of the Early '00s #QueerComics

Pride in Panels event poster featuring cartoon art of various cartoonist people.

Text:
Pride in Panels SF Queer Comics Fest 2026
Feb 15th 12-5 PM
SF Main Library
100 Larkin St.

graphic for Pride in Panels event Up From The Underground: Queer Comics Pioneers
two figures inside a comic panel cling to each other

text:
Moderator: Maggie Dahlstrom
Robyn Adams
Dylan Edwards
Leslie Ewings
Lee Marrs

2pm - 2:45 pm [Sunday, Feb 15]

Graphic for Pride in Panels featuring a photo of Dylan Edwards

text:
Tabling at PIPfest
Dylan Edwards

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Jan 17

I've been using the loudly anti-fascist Sticker Guy for many years. Their current limited special is "in honor (and memory) of the brave Minnesotans who have stood up for their (and their neighbors) rights." stickerguy.com/monthly-spec...

Screenshot of Sticker Guy web page, white text on purple background:

Purple on White vinyl

Purple on White – with hearts!
In honor (and memory) of the brave Minnesotans who have stood up for their (and their neighbors) rights. Printed with PMS Purple.

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Dec 15

I got the flu for the first time in many years, despite having gotten the vax. Turns out the current dominant strain emerged after the vax had been formulated. And indeed, mine has been relatively mild (I thought it was a cold at first until the fever came on) 1/2 www.cnn.com/2025/12/13/h...

Vaccines vs. a new flu variant

This new variant wasn’t included in this year’s flu shots because it was identified after scientists had chosen the four strains to include this year.

The flu shots contain related strains, though, and they seem to be working pretty well against this variant.

A recent look at the efficacy of flu vaccines in the United Kingdom by scientists with the UK’s Health Security Agency found that even though antibodies generated by this year’s shots didn’t neutralize subclade K viruses as effectively as other strains, the vaccines still cut the odds of an emergency department visit or hospitalization for the H3N2 strains, which were dominated by subclade K, by almost 75% in children. The effectiveness was lower for adults, including those over 65. This years vaccines cut the odds of needing to go to the ER or hospital for the flu by about 30% to 40%.

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Oct 27

It's Asexual Awareness Week, and I happen to be very aware of being asexual, it turns out. I have created many comics on the subject, which are available in print form as minicomics, or on my website for digital consumption! www.studiondr.com/comics/autob... #AsexualAwarenessWeek #Asexuality

Cover the QAT Person #1 minicomic by Dylan Edwards, featuring comics on Queer, Asexual, and Trans identity. The cover art shows a cartoon drawing of the artist at his drafting table.

Cover the QAT Person #2 minicomic by Dylan Edwards, featuring comics on Queer, Asexual, and Trans identity. The cover art shows a cartoon drawing of the artist looking nervous as off-screen crowds discuss him without his input.

Cover the QAT Person #3 minicomic by Dylan Edwards, featuring comics on Queer, Asexual, and Trans identity. The cover art shows a cartoon drawing of the artist in a selfie with several other people outside a Japanese trans guy bar.

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Oct 19

Anyway, did you know that leftists can set up booths at the big normie protest marches and pull in people who are socialism-curious but don't know where to start? It's true!

Hand-painted banner on a booth at Denver's No Kings October 2025. The banner reads: "Queers bash back against Trump! Stonewall was a riot! FRSO Freedom Road Socialist Organization"

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Sep 28

what’s your sign

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Sep 14

qrp with something watery 🌊 #art

Concept art from Valley of the Silk Sky by Dylan Edwards: a person carrying a lantern walks through a strange subterranean swamp filled with aquatic plants and dome buildings that resemble anglerfish. Inside one of the buildings a large insectoid creature coils up defensively as it stands near some egg sacs. The figure is walking perilously close to the creature without seeing it.

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Sep 1

Apparently we just missed each other! I saw a few of these signs in this last set, but was a little further back from them. I did very much enjoy this Guillotine Care Bear sign!

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Aug 28

One of my favorite books as a kid was a collection of editorial cartoons by Ben Sargent. BIG BROTHER BLUES came out in 1984 and covered much of the first Reagan administration. For some mysterious reason, I've been thinking about this book a lot lately

editorial cartoon by Ben Sargent (1983, Austin American Statesman)

A speech bubble points to a rundown shack: "SURE he's loonik' at a 200-billion-dollar deficit, Pa, but he'll just have to raise it somehwere ELSE this time! He's cut us to th' NUB already! You can't get blood out of a turnip! [text fades]"
Second bubble: "GOOD LORD, MA - HERE HE COMES AGAIN!"
Ronald Reagan is carrying an axe, sneaking up to the house

editorial cartoon by Ben Sargent (1981, Austin American Statesman)

A frenzied mob leads a bound person labeled "The Poor" up to a guillotine labeled "Reagan Budget"
A member of the mob tells The Poor: "Hey, it's for th' good of th' country! Think what an honor!!"

editorial cartoon by Ben Sargent (1981, Austin American Statesman)

An impoverished couple dressed in rags in a ramshackle kitchen. The woman heats up a can of dog food on the stove. The man sits at a table reading the "help wanted" section of the newspaper

A voice on the radio: "This just in - David Stockman today revealed the Reagan tax cuts were an outright ploy to fatten the pockets of the rich ... I repeat --"
Man: "- That's NEWS??!"

editorial cartoon by Ben Sargent (1982, Austin American Statesman)

A high-ranking military officer points to bars on his uniform. His hat is labeled "Pentagon Budget"
He says: "This one's for Medicaid ... That one's for food stamps ... Welfare ... Low-income housing ... school lunches ..."

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Aug 8

Did you know I make weird little monsters out of polymer clay sometimes? They're called Feeping Creatures, I started sculpting them in 2004, and I just released a new batch for the first time in 3 years. You can find them here: www.etsy.com/shop/feeping... #polymerclay #monsterart

Polymer clay sculpture of a snake with a cat head (a cat snake, if you will). The colors are a swirl of glittery black and orange-yellow-red stripes.

Polymer clay sculpture of a strange creature with an angry face. The colors are a marbled swirl of black and glittery red. The creature has a classic villain mustache, one eye, and a single eyebrow. Its mouth is open and three teeth are visible.

Polymer clay sculpture of a snail with a surprised expression. The shell colors are a swirl of glittery black and orange-yellow-red stripes. The body is glittery black, and the eyes yellow with black pupils.

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Jun 28

I have, at long last, finished sorting and photographing and listing my new enamel pins! The Honduran White Bat and the Butterfly Bat are now available in my Feeping Creatures Etsy Shop: www.etsy.com/shop/feeping... #bats #EnamelPins #HonduranWhiteBat #ButterflyBat

Photograph of an enamel pin of a Honduran White Bat, designed by Dylan Edwards. A bat with black wings, a white body, red legs and arms, and yellow fingers, ears, and nose leaf flies in front of an image of a full moon printed on fabric.

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Jun 12

You've been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who is coming to save you? Not only am I saved, she somehow gets the kidnappers to kidnap themselves

Photo of Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale in Poker Face: a woman with long curly red hair leans forward with a serious look on her face

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Mar 13

This sketch from Jan 2021 sums up why I rarely post art on socials anymore. I find self-promo difficult at the best of times; mustering the wherewithal to do it now is wherewithain't. But I still post weekly to Patreon, with many free public posts: www.patreon.com/dylanedwards #TransArtists #queer

pencil drawing by Dylan Edwards: a hand wearing a fingerless glove and holding a pencil surfaces from the water as a wave labeled "Horror News" washes over it. A speech bubble points to the downing artist: "Look, I made a thing ... -glub-"

Dylan NDR Edwards@dylanndr· Nov 18

If you see this, post your bird art 🐓