Donelan

Donelan
Born	Gerard P. Donelan 1949
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Cartoonist
Notable works	"It's a Gay Life"

Gerard P. Donelan (born 1949), known primarily as just Donelan, is an openly-gay cartoonist. Part of the first wave of LGBT cartoonists, he drew "It's a Gay Life", a regular single-panel cartoon feature in The Advocate, for 15 years.

Donelan was born in Boston, but grew up in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the son of advertising artist Paul Donelan. He studied art at Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute but did not finish a degree, and went to work in retail.

In 1977, disappointed that Joe Johnson's pioneering gay comic strips Miss Thing and Big Dick had ended their run in The Advocate, Donelan submitted a cartoon to the publication, which turned into a long-running series of his own. "It's a Gay Life" gently lampooned the gay "clone" culture of the time, focusing primarily on young and middle-aged gay men in their everyday lives. He continued to work in retail while producing the series, which also yielded two paperback reprints: Drawing on the Gay Experience (1987) and Donelan's Back (1988).

For eight years Donelan also created sexually explicit comics in color for Advocate Men, the magazine's erotica sister publication. His work has appeared in Frontiers, Gunner, Gay Comix (including one front cover), and Meatmen (including two front covers and several back covers).

In May 2015, he was a featured panelist at the first Queers & Comics conference, as one of the "Pioneers of Queer Men's Comics".

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