Rupert Kinnard

Kinnard's influences include underground cartoonist Howard Cruse, quadriplegic cartoonist John Callahan, cartoonist and memoirist Alison Bechdel, filmmaker Marlon Riggs, poet Essex Hemphill, cartoonist Lynda Barry, and historian Allan Bérubé. Kinnard's writings, illustrations, and cartoons have been published in Meatmen: An Anthology of Gay Male Comics; A Queer Sense of Humor; The Indelible Alison Bechdel: Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out For; Juicy Mother; No Straight Lines; and in LGBTQ publications such as Portland's Just Out, Bay Area Reporter, Chicago's Windy City Times, and the literary lesbian and gay journal Out/Look magazine. Through his company, The Rupe Group Graphics, Kinnard has worked with Portland's Black United Front, Portland Storefront Theater, PassinArt, Theater Group, the National Organization for Women, National Lawyers Guild, CAP Northwest (formerly Cascade AIDS Project), the Workers’ Organizing Committee, and Oregonians Against the Death Penalty, along with California Newsreel, Gay and Lesbian Press Association, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, Oakland Tribune, and San Francisco's Theater Rhinoceros.

Two of Kinnard's publications received the National Gay Press Association award for best overall design: Just Out (1983) and the San Francisco Sentinel (1987). In 1992, his "Cathartic Comics" strip was featured as part of the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum's "Black Ink: An Exhibit of African American Cartoonists", and original panels from it were included in the museum's permanent collection. The Brown Bomber and Diva Touché Flambé were portrayed on stage in 1994, in Out of the Inkwell, a Theater Rhinoceros production in San Francisco, also featuring characters from Doonesbury. He received Pride Northwest's "Spirit of Pride" award in 1996. In 1997, Kinnard took part in A Tip of the Nib, the nation's first Lesbian and Gay Cartoonist conference, at Oberlin College, which also included artists Howard Cruse and Allison Bechdel. Kinnard's business The Rupe Group Graphics was awarded the Oregon Cascade AIDS Project's Community Angel Award in 2007. In 2013, he received a "Standing on the Shoulders" Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Arts Foundation, which stated that his "artistic talent and leadership to reach out to the LGBTQ community honors the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." He was a featured panelist at the first Queers & Comics conference in May 2015, as one of the "Pioneers of Queer Men's Comics" and a speaker on "Queer Comics, Health and Dis/Ability". In 2019, Kinnard was awarded the Portland Monthly 's Light a Fire Lifetime Achievement Award. On June 12, 2021, the feature-length documentary film No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics, which featured the works of Kinnard; Alison Bechdel (Fun Home); Jennifer Camper (Rude Girls and Dangerous Women); Howard Cruse (Gay Comix); and Mary Wings (Come Out Comics), premiered at the Tribeca Festival. The film was broadcast on national PBS in 2023. On August 20, 2021, Kinnard was one of the ribbon cutters during the dedication of Portland's “Never Look Away" mural which celebrates the struggles and accomplishments of the LGBTQ+ community. The block long mural features Kinnard; David Martinez, a founding board member of Portland's Q Center; activist and musician Kathleen Saadat; gay liberation activist Marsha P. Johnson; and transgender rights advocates Angelica Ross and Aydian Dowling. In 2022, Kinnard was invited to create a show of original artwork in an exhibit entitled "From Cornell to Cathartica: A History of Cathartic Comics" at Cornell College, where he also received the school's highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.