THE RUPE GROUP

   Rupert Kinnard, born in 1954, grew up on Chicago’s South Side, surrounded by extended family, developed a passion for art and comics from a young age. He attended the Chicago Public High School for Metropolitan Studies, where he attended a class at the Art Institute of Chicago and nurtured his artistic talents. After high school, he eventually worked for the Chicago Sun-Times where his first illustration was published on the cover of the entertainment section of the Sunday paper. After a year of attending the American Academy of Art, he pursued an art degree at Cornell College, in Iowa. He created the Brown Bomber in 1976 and first appeared in a comic strip on the editorial page of the college newspaper, in 1977.

   After graduating In 1979, Kinnard moved to Portland, Oregon, where he was introduced to the world of the alternative press and became involved in the LGBTQ community. He became the first African American board of directors member of Portland Town Council, Oregon's first lesbian and Gay civil rights group, to address issues of race, gender, and sexuality. In 1983, he played a part in the creation of Just Out, Oregon’s most significant LGBTQ publication, and in 1984 launched Cathartic Comics, starring the Brown Bomber and Diva Touché Flambé—the world's first comic strip featuring Black and queer characters.

   In 1985, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, working as art director for such publications as San Francisco Sentinel, SF Weekly, Out/Look and the Oakland Tribune. Cathartic Comics expanded nationally, appearing in major gay publications including Chicago's Windy City Times. His book B.B. and the Diva: A Collection of Cathartic Comics was published in 1992.

   Kinnard has been honored with multiple lifetime achievement awards, including the Standing on the Shoulders Lifetime Achievement Award (2013) and the Cornell College Distinguished Achievement Award (2020). He was featured in the documentary No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics and has been recognized for his contributions to queer comics and multicultural representation. His work continues to be celebrated in exhibitions and through the Kinnard Awards established in 2022. He has original strips archived at the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum and the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. Ooops...I Just Catharted! Fifty Years of Catharted Comics, published in 2025, was nominated for the prestigious Will Eisner Award in 2026.

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