As they escaped them, they took all their money to Thunder Junction. Eight cards with new illustrations by LGBTQIA2S+ artists, the limited-time reprints celebrate all aspects of the LGBTQ+ community, while also raising funds for LGBTQ+ youth charity The Trevor Project. I’m very excited for the world to see it.
Mia: And we’re very excited to find out.
Good vibes all round!
Gayming even got to learn a little bit about Magic: The Gathering illustrator Jack Hughes (@jackmrhughes), who sat down with us for a private interview.
Jack is a queer artist who has worked on Magic: The Gathering sets such as Modern Horizons 3, Doctor Who, Murders at Karlov Manor, Commander Masters, Streets of New Capenna & more.
Mia: Lovely to meet you.
There are four that I’ve just wrapped that are part of a new setting. I’d done art deco illustrations before so it made sense from that perspective. Even though they aren't actually Theros royalty according to MTG lore, united by their love and freedom, they freed the biggest polis in the tyrant plane of Agnomokhos, where they founded Meletis.
That felt very self indulgent. That said I personally remember them fondly as the original publisher of the Pokemon Trading Card Game, but I digress.
Taking place in a multiverse of seemingly endless worlds (or planes as the game likes to call them), Magic: The Gathering (or Magic/MTG for short) can pretty much be anything it wants to be at this point.
Its most recent set, Bloomburrow, focuses on small anthropomorphic animal adventurers banding together to defend their woodland homes from much larger, angrier beasts.
The community’s response was almost entirely positive, but the Secret Lair's reprint of the green enchantment Bearscape still highlights a frustrating stance many people have towards fat bodies, especially in both gaming and the LGBTQ+ community.
RELATED: Everything You Need To Know About Magic The Gathering's Secret Lair
As a quick crash course of gay parlance, bears are a subset of the community who tend to celebrate the more masculine end of the gender presentation spectrum.
So, we'll also give credit to some artworks that are part of MTG's world building and reference queer culture and tradition.
This seems like a complex task, right? Later on, the writer himself and Wizards of the Coast apologized, stating that they had some issues when the book was released about how Chandra was supposed to be depicted.
I was a bit nervous about starting, as I don’t like being bad at things. Obviously I’d known it since I was a kid, it’s up there with Dungeons & Dragons of the epoch of nerdiness. Even within the gay community, bears are sometimes seen as a niche group nestled just at the corners of 'acceptable' gaydom. Maybe I should have gone back in time!
I also love the work of Gruau, who was an Italian fashion illustrator. Collective Voyage has Nissa and Chandra taking part in a Kaladesh Pride parade. So, in that sense I’ve been loving it.
Mia: So you’ve produced a lot of pieces for Magic: The Gathering, how long have you been honing your craft?
Jack: I did it straight off the bat after University.
