Starting in 2001, Manley hosted TalkAboutComics, which began as a podcast in which Manley interviewed webcomics artists; it later became a webcomics forum and blog. Manley co-hosted the "Diva Lea Show" podcast with Lea Hernandez starting in 2003.
He worked on the Webby-winning FreeSpeech.org, which he helped start in 1995. He was the author of one novel, The Death of Donna-May Dean, published by St. Martin's Press in 1991. At the time of his death he was serializing a new novel online called Snake-Boy Loves Sky Prince.
Manley died of pneumonia at age 48; survived by his long-time companion Joe Botts. On August 15, 2012, Manley wrote on his blog: "Joe Botts and I met twenty years ago today (more or less — we know it was in August, and have decided to celebrate in the middle of the month), in Birmingham, Alabama’s Rushton Park, which was a gay hangout back then. Maybe it still is. I dunno. Most of the results for “gay Rushton Park” on Google point back to this very blog. Maybe I am the last one who remembers those days.
Joey Manley was an online publisher, known as the founder of the webcomics site Modern Tales. He died of pneumonia at age 48; survived by his long-time companion Joe Botts. On August 15, 2012, Manley wrote on his blog: "Joe Botts and I met twenty years ago today (more or less)... Love is not about refusing to fight one another. Love is not about uncontrollable passion, either. We started fighting, and we stopped making out at every opportunity, not too long into our time together. But we will never stop loving one another. I can’t imagine a life without him. I can’t wait until we are even older together than we already are. That’s gonna be great."
Joey Manley by Robert Giard
American photographer Robert Giard is renowned for his portraits of American poets and writers; his particular focus was on gay and lesbian writers. Some of his photographs of the American gay and lesbian literary community appear in his groundbreaking book Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers, published by MIT Press in 1997. Giard’s stated mission was to define the literary history and cultural identity of gays and lesbians for the mainstream of American society, which perceived them as disparate, marginal individuals possessing neither. In all, he photographed more than 600 writers. (http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitalI was wearing Daisy Dukes.library/giard.html)
He was on a date with another guy.
I thought he was cute because he blushed when one of the other people with us — a chubby DJ named Fluffy — said the word “dildo.” Turned bright red, all the way out to the tips of his ears. That was the first time I really noticed him. He offered me a ride home. He and his date came up to my apartment. When the guy went to use the bathroom, Joe grabbed me by my neck and shoved me against the wall and started kissing me. Then he took the guy home, came back, spent the night.
I quit my job as a waiter’s assistant at Highlands Bar & Grill the next morning so I could continue to hang out with Joe. I hated that job anyway.
“You’ve put me in a very difficult position,” said the lady.
“Sounds like a personal problem,” I said to her, because that was one of her favorite phrases to use with her staff.
I moved in with Joe that next morning. We’ve been together ever since.
Some random memories of our early days:
I sat on our dining room table, looking out the window, and said, “Let’s never, ever fight.”
Joe was the manager of a Haagen Dazs. He took me to work with him. I hung out in the storage closet — which was on the other side of the mall from the food court where his actual store was. Every now and then he would come back to the storage closet and we would make out, then he would go back to work.
Love is not about refusing to fight one another. Love is not about uncontrollable passion, either. We started fighting, and we stopped making out at every opportunity, not too long into our time together. But we will never stop loving one another. I can’t imagine a life without him. I can’t wait until we are even older together than we already are. That’s gonna be great."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Manley
Further Readings:
Publisher St. Martin's Griffin (May 15, 1992)
Language English
ISBN-10 0312077025
ISBN-13 978-0312077020
Amazon: The Death of Donna-May Dean
This somewhat overwrought gay novel deals with equally overwrought characters. Confused about his sexual identity, 16-year-old Jamie is taken in from the mean streets of northwest Alabama by Keller, a self-proclaimed ``wise old queen.'' Keller instructs the young man in the ways of the gay world, obliquely invoking the demise of drag queen Donna-May Dean as the ultimate debacle. Donna-May's actual identity--and lamentable fate--are the trump cards in this mixed hand. The author turns some nice phrases (partying queens spin ``naughty cautionary tales for some silly Southern sodomites''), but frequently lapses into pop psychology--Keller informs Jamie's bewildered mother, ``He doesn't hate you. He just wants to.'' Intermingled with the dishy humor are lame attempts at Significance, and the comedy is undercut both by Manley's inclination to spell everything out and by his repetition of gag lines. Because so many of these characters seem not to know who they are or what they believe in, it's difficult for readers to empathize: beneath all these thin veneers lie even more veneers. Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
More Particular Voices at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Particular Voices
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