Panel by panel, Proud Little State brings to life queer history in Vermont to assure its LGBTQ+ community that it is seen, heard, welcomed, and remembered. The new comic series debuted in April 2026, with the initial goal of sharing joy, pride, and homegrown histories of queer community with Vermonters.
The brainchild of Holly Painter, director of the University of Vermont (UVM)’s Center for Research on Vermont (CRVT) and senior lecturer in the Department of English, Proud Little State tells the stories of topics important to the LGBTQ+ community through cartoons drawn by local artists. Because UVM’s student population has a high number of queer and trans-identifying students, as does the wider community, Painter decided this was an area they wanted to shine some light on. “We thought this could be a way to reach people about Vermont LGBTQ+ history in an accessible format that would allow us to work with different artists,” they say.
Now on its third printing (for a total of 1,500 copies), the first issue, which focused on the 1983 Burlington Pride Parade, has been well received. “At the recent Burlington Pride event, we handed out 250 copies in about two hours,” Painter says. “We’ve emailed all the bookstores in the state and asked them to email us if they want some. We sent a couple hundred to bookstores and comics stores 10 at a time. We also sent them to various other queer organizations around the state. We’ve gotten a lot of good comments from people.”
A pdf of the comic also is available on the Vermont Folklife website for anyone to download. Future issues will be distributed similarly, with print versions handed out at various Pride events and sent to bookstores and the digital version available online. The hope is to publish one issue per semester for a few years and then compile all the issues into a book.
In the past, the CRVT published historical books and other nonfiction. When Painter became director last year, they wanted to do something like that but on a scale that would be more manageable and reach a wider audience. “I was familiar with a project done by Vermont Humanities, Vermont Folklife, and several other partners a few years ago where they had interviewed migrant farmworkers and paired them with cartoonists,” Painter says. “So, I got in touch with Vermont Folklife and said I’d love to do something like that.”
Painter then reached out to the Vermont Queer Archives. “We decided the 1983 Pride Parade [the first in the state] would be the topic of our first issue because Vermont Folklife and Vermont Queer Archives had collaborated several years ago on an exhibit on that topic,” Painter says. They had quotes, interviews, and other materials that the artist could look at for reference. The Proud Little State team worked on that issue throughout last fall and winter in collaboration with cartoonist Teppi Zuppo, an adjunct professor at Champlain College and former adjunct professor at the Center for Cartoon Studies.
Editors for the series include Painter; Mary Burke, director of UVM’s Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies program and senior lecturer in the UVM Department of Sociology; Andy Kolovos, associate director and archivist at Vermont Folklife; and Meg Tamulonis, manager of collections and exhibitions at the Fleming Museum of Art and volunteer curator for the Vermont Queer Archives. They receive input and guidance from an advisory group composed of students, faculty, and community members.
“The editors and advisory group made a list at the beginning of some topics we thought would be important,” Painter says. They currently have six to eight topics in mind, and some are driven by which materials they already have access to. Artists are chosen from people the editors and advisory committee have worked with, UVM faculty, and recommendations from artists they’re working with currently.
“We have a really great team, and I love working with them,” Painter says. “One of the best parts of being director of the CRVT is getting to meet all these folks and work together to make something that I think is pretty wonderful.”
Civil unions are the subject of the second issue, which received support from Vermont Humanities through a project grant and will be released on October 19 at a launch event at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, VT. “This one has required a lot more research because there wasn’t a ready-to-go exhibit with a narrative already in place, but we got everything to our artist this summer,” Painter says. That artist is Juniper (Juni) Kim, a lecturer in UVM’s Department of Community Development and Applied Economics and a graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies. Former legislator and gay rights activist Bill Lippert, who was instrumental in the civil-union movement in Vermont, is a member of the Proud Little State advisory board. Other key figures, including Peter Harrigan, Susan Murray, and Joseph Watson, contributed their perspectives and expertise to this issue.
Painter would love for Proud Little State to be used as a recruiting tool for UVM. “We have students across the country who are living in states that may or may not be safe or joyful for them,” they say. “But we’re saying, look, we have a university where you will be welcome. I think it’s an important time to be saying that, no matter what is going on in the world, we still see you. Particularly, I think that’s important for young people.”
On the other end of the spectrum, a lot of what they’ve done so far honors queer elders who took important steps that benefit everyone. “Recognizing those folks and what they did—and still do—for our community is also extremely important,” Painter says.
“The historical record of Vermont should absolutely include the stories of queer people,” they say. “I think it’s important to just continue to say we’re here and we’re still making history, so please continue to support us.”