Donelan

Who is Donelan?

Gerard P. Donelan, known primarily as just Donelan, is an openly-gay cartoonist. 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 the pioneering gay comic strip Miss Thing had ended its 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 gay culture of the time, focusing primarily on young and middle-aged gay men. He continued to work in retailing while producing the series, which also yielded two paperback reprints: Drawing on the Gay Experience and Donelan's Back. His work has appeared in Frontiers magazine, in issues of Gay Comix, and in the gay comics anthology Meatmen.