Barefootz had never been a dishonest series, exactly. It simply avoided revealing anything about its author's sexual orientation, a form of discretion of which most of the hetero undergrounders could never be accused. And as many a closeted gay will attest, to refrain from proclaiming one's gayness will in most instances leave the default assumption that one is straight safely in place.

I had decided early in the decade that I wanted eventually to ditch the ambiguity and create art that clearly came from a gay perspective. Exactly how and when I would take the Big Step was unclear.

1976 provided the first test of my resolve. Any alert comix reader would infer, of course, from the tone of "Gravy on Gay" that its author was gay. But I wasn't yet confident enough to unequivocally say the words. The inference would be reinforced by the 1979 Headrack story "A Little Night Misery." But the job remained unfinished, I knew. Leaving critical information to be merely inferred falls short of true honesty.

The private sketchbook drawings I submitted in 1978 to Playboy served as a therapeutic rehearsal for finally calling a spade a spade. Publishing "Barefootz Variations" felt even better. I sensed that I was turning an important corner.

Then in 1979 Denis Kitchen (to whom I had come out several years earlier) asked if I would serve as editor of, and contribute stories to, Kitchen Sink's projected new series Gay Comix. Accepting Denis's offer provided a perfect way to finally level 100% with my readers once and for all.

It was an easy decision to make and a scary one to follow through on. But I think that anyone who has followed my work from the beginning will acknowledge that "Billy Goes Out," the story I drew for Gay Comix's premier issue, represents an artistic breakthrough. Honesty gives art power.

Barefootz had for years been the central pillar of my cartooning; now it became a prelude to the stuff that soon defined my career. It had been a fun prelude, though, and a fruitful one. Barefootz taught me loads about my craft, generated some hearty laughs, and let me begin toying with themes that have continued to surface in Wendel and even in Stuck Rubber Baby.

Looks are important, however, and I'll be the first to acknowledge that it would have been hard to set the right tone in Stuck Rubber Baby had Toland Polk had to cope with a head as big as the rest of his body.