Beyonc, Jay-Z ... and a Newfoundlander? Snagglepuss illustrator snags GLAAD award

Mike Feehanwas in St. John's getting ready for Sci-Fi on the Rock when he was tagged in a tweetsaying he'd just been honoured alongside Beyonc, Jay-Z and the cast of Queer Eye at the GLAADawardsin Beverly Hills on Thursday night.

"I'd known that we'd been nominated last month but I did not expect us to win," the Newfoundland illustrator said.

He'spart of the team behind DC Comics'Exit Stage Left: TheSnagglepuss Chronicles,which picked up the GLAAD award for outstanding comic book.

"To know that we also won an award on that same stage is completely mind-blowing to me."

The annual awards celebrate films, television shows, music, writing and even video games that fairlyand accurately portray members of the LGBT community.

"I think that there's a lot of ways to handle LGBTcharacters badly," he said. "Getting the acknowledgement that we would have done right by people I think is a huge honor and something I'm really proud of."

Queer Eye got a nod for outstanding reality program and Beyonce and Jay-Z were given the vanguard award, which celebrates queer allies who have done important work for the LGTB community.

From a joke to a McCarthy-era playwright

The Snagglepuss Feehandrew is a lot different from the pink cougarwho first strolled ontotelevisionscreens in the late 1950sas an aspiring stageactor who made a lot of theatre references and worecuffs, a collar and a string tie.

"I think for decades he was kind of the butt of a joke [that] was, 'OhSnugglepuss is gay,'" Feehan said. "We take it as:It's not a joke. This is something that is very serious. It's true to the character, it's canonical now."

In the DC Comics reboot, which was written by Mark Russell,Snagglepuss is a successful playwright in the 1950s McCarthy-era U.S.

"He's being essentially blackmailed by the U.S. government to out his friends and family, and they're essentially trying to ruin his career," Feehan said.

"Every time I got a script. I was like,'Oh we're doing this? OK.' Like, it was amazing."

Feehan was the so-called "penciller", which means he laid down all the initial drawings for each of the 134 pages in the six-issue series. Someone else inked over his drawings, another person coloured them, another added speech balloons and letters, someone else did the coversand then there was an editor, he said, to "keep us all in check."

The whole team behind the series, which is selling in stores as a collected paperback, got the award.

The talking-animal guy

Feehan said the reception to the comic, even by fans who may have been shocked by the series' dark reimaginingof the character, has been overwhelming.

"I've been completely blown away by the response and the amount of attention it's got and the sales that we've had," he said.

"It's just been really cool to be a part of it, and also it's cool to be part of something that seems to really mean something to people."

He's hoping the gig with DC and now this GLAAD award will lead to more opportunities to draw for himself he's in the process of pitching a series with a character he created and for moremajor players in the comics universe.

"I'm the guy who drew a bunch of talking animals. Maybeif another series comes along where someone wants me to draw talking animals,I might be the guy that they think of but I'm trying to branch out now and say, 'Hey I can also do other things.'"

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