Cover Reveal: ‘Decoded Pride Issue #3’ Story-A-Day Anthology for Pride Month

Decoded Pride returns for 2022 with its story-a-day anthology of queer and trans comics and speculative fiction. In an OFM exclusive reveal, Decoded Pride is sharing the cover for Issue #3, featuring 30 new comics and short stories by 31 queer and trans creators set for release throughout the month. Take a first look at the issue right here!

The anthology is led by editors Monika Estrella Negra, Sara Century, and S.E. Fleenor and began with Bitches on Comics, a podcast the trio collectively hosts. Fleenor says the idea of Decoded Pride first culminated in September 2019, as the creatives explored what written element could accompany the podcast. Fleenor references digital media as a “really tough industry” to break into, and they wanted to be conscious about writers who have previously faced rejection from other editors, whether it’s due to style, quality, or inclusion of queer and trans narratives.

“We were hearing through the podcast, people talking about being given similar rejections,” Fleenor says. “Then we were like, ‘What if we could bring an editorial team that has a real focus on queer and trans expression, without an expectation for what that expression looks like?'”

As the conversations helped Decoded Pride take shape, the next step was exploring the format. Fleenor recalls discussing the frustrations that come with Pride Month, as corporations suddenly promote their allyship in order to make money off of the LGBTQ community, “without any commitment to those communities and without any commitment to sending that money into those communities,” they say.

Around this time, the pandemic hit, pushing the team to explore how they could help folks in the community celebrate Pride without the usual events, while also allowing queer and trans folks to share their own stories on their terms.

“We’ve given this other avenue for connecting with Pride, through fiction expression, which felt like a very different way of saying, ‘Let’s celebrate what makes us us,’ and it’s still weird and fun and unexpected,” Fleenor says.

The team tries to avoid creating a hierarchy, always meeting writers and artists where they’re at to ensure they understand and maintain their creative visions. It ultimately ties back to the idea that many queer and trans artists aren’t provided a platform and that many publications and editors don’t recognize the promise in their voices and ideas.

“Our goal isn’t just to publish a great issue, which it is, but also to help cultivate writers and help them learn what their gifts and strengths are, so that when they go out into the wider world—that is by and large not populated with queer and trans editors, right—they’re going to be able to know, ‘Oh, this person said this mean thing about my piece. That’s a ‘them’ problem; that’s not a ‘me’ problem.”

If they had to describe this year’s theme, Fleenor settles on “defying tropes.” Not only does this apply to general stereotypes and patterns within LGBTQ literature and media, but Fleenor also references the different backgrounds of the Decoded team members, which in turn help to uplift the many voices with intersecting identities and how those writers explore those topics.

This year’s cover was designed by Denver artist Craig Hale. They initially connected with the Decoded Pride team through Bitches on Comics, to talk about stories centering Black people and Black queerness. When Decoded Pride put out a call for artists, Hale says they were eager to get involved.

“I love the fact that the publication does a lot of work with trans and queer people to tell stories that aren’t just centered especially in trauma and are about fantasy, sci-fi, and speculative fiction, created by people who have other stories to tell,” Hale says.

For the cover, Hale says they thought about the wide range of queer and trans experiences and expression. Being nonbinary themself, they say they feel like their gender is often treated as a third option, “whereas I more see it as something that’s beyond the spectrum of gender, so I wanted to portray that with this piece.”

Hale blends celestial elements, merging ideas of sci-fi and fantasy, elements of magic, and embracing the concept of royalty—”like art-nouveau inspiration, but also kind of putting my own spin on it,” Hale says. They wanted to portray an image of strength that also has a softness and warmth.

“As Black people, and for Black women in particular, there’s a lot of talk about strength, but not really a lot of opportunity for vulnerability, warmthness, and softness,” Hale says, citing that Black femmes and Black women are some of the most vulnerable and persecuted members in society.

“It’s very rare for them to have an opportunity to be vulnerable and feel safe in expressing that, because outside of finding that community within ourselves, the world outside kind of forces us to put up this shell of armor and have to move through the world with this barrier, between ourselves and our emotions and the outside world.”

As the team prepare to share the new issue with the community, Hale extends their gratitude to Decoded Pride for offering them a platform, along with other featured artists and writers, especially given that all the contributors are compensated.

“It’s always nice to pay artists, especially when those people are queer and trans, and Black in particular,” Hale says. “A lot of people in a lot of creative spaces have talked about how difficult it is to maintain a lifestyle—There’s all these different barriers to compensation and actually making a living off of it. It’s nice that Decoded Pride is playing a part in making sure that people are actually being compensated fairly for the work they do and that they are able to tell their stories the way they want to tell them.”

Fleenor also shares that author Tina Horn is writing the introduction for this year’s issue.

“It’s exciting to bring that to the table, to be able to pair that with Craig’s beautiful cover, and to have these little pieces that help elevate the whole issue,” they say, “so that people can read these stories that are 200 words, or in the thousands, that are going to show you something about what it means to be queer or trans that maybe you’ve never considered, even if you are queer or trans!”

They conclude that every year brings new surprises, with Fleenor themself learning more about writing, what it means to be queer and trans, and how creating this space can allow these ideas to flourish.

As for the future, Fleenor teases that the team is working on a new narrative fiction horror podcast, in the style of “old-timey radio.” Beyond that, they say the future is open. Decoded could very well take the same form next year, the team may decide to incorporate more audio and voice-acting elements to future issues, or it could look shift to something entirely new.

“Our goal, with all of our prospect projects, is to try things we’re interested in to see how it goes,” they say, “to move with the way the spirit and the flow move us, you know? If it needs to take a new form, then we’ll take a new form. We’re kind of just open to whatever that looks like.”

Subscriptions to Issue #3 are $14.99, less than 50 cents per story, and can be purchased here. All artists are compensated, and subscriptions include PDF and eBook formats once the June 2022 series concludes.

Photos courtesy of Scott Lynch, Decoded Pride, and Craig Hale