For ‘Lara Croft Is My Family’ Comic Artist Carta Monir, Her Life Is Her Art
Anni Arbour is an award-winning, bestselling author and journalist. Based in Ann Arbor, Anni attended both Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan. She has recently been accepted as a member of the Trans Journalist Association. Anni’s monthly Trans Lucent column will shine light on wide-ranging transgender topics and individuals.
Keith Haring famously observed that “Art is life. Life is art.” In Carta Monir's case, her life is her art.
Attempting to succinctly put into words the breadth of Monir's creative talents to someone who doesn't know her is as fruitless as trying to describe the colors of a sunset to a person without sight. It's a task best left to Monir herself, who offered Pride Source this self-description: “I'm a writer, performance artist, adult film performer and visual artist, most generally. And it's inescapable that you can engage with my work without knowing I'm transgender.”
Born and raised in the Midwest, Monir came from a family dominated by her emotionally and sexually abusive father. As a young person, Monir clung to her nearly fanatical religious faith and kept her gender dysphoria private.
Throughout her childhood, Monir had created her own comics. While attending a small liberal arts college in Minnesota, she founded and published a student comic magazine. The comic pages she created delved into the most intimate of subjects. Monir was, in her words, “groping towards some unknowable problem in my life that turned out to be transness.”
It was not until after graduation, four years after she moved to Ann Arbor, in the wake of a personal tragedy, that Monir finally embraced her true self.
“I finally came out after my mother's death and could express herself without self-censorship… Once I came out, my work got much more interesting.”
She began creating and publishing small-press comic books — mini-comics that were small in size and produced in small print runs. Uninhibited, unrestricted and uncensored by a publisher concerned about offending social norms.
Her big break came when she introduced her dysfunctional family dynamic in 2017, in the online publication, Zeal. It presented her autobiographical comic strip, “Lara Croft Is My Family,” which spanned the early years of Monir's life. Its title came from her father's obsessive playing of the “Lara Croft” video games, while the rest of the family hovered around him, watching obediently.
Monir's “Lara Croft” is depicted in 40 comic strip panels. Each one occurs as memories actually do: in short snapshots of recalled emotion and trauma.
This subtly harrowing tale touches on her father's relentless criticism, Monir's gradual coming out, her mother's cancer diagnosis and death, and the beginning of her transition in its wake. These life-defining events are told in a series of quick withering jabs that accumulate viscerally and with devastating effectiveness.
The effort won her the 2018 Ignatz Award for Best Online Comic, the top award given out in the small-press industry. She soon became a sought-after guest and panelist at comic book conventions around the country. Her art became the subject of academic study. She became a revered creator in a burgeoning medium.
If she had produced nothing more, Monir would have already fixed her place as a rising comics star. But she did not stop there.
She acquired an old Risograph from a local print shop. In times past, this digital duplicator was popular with churches as a cost-effective way of reproducing their weekly bulletins. Monir saw it as an art tool and embraced the freedom it provided. So was born Diskette Press. “I started Diskette Press because I wanted to be able to print and experiment with my own projects without having to rely on a print shop,” she said. “I got my hands on an old Risograph printer and once I got it working it only made sense to offer printing to my friends as well.”
Monir's entry into the realm of small press publishing allowed her to produce her increasingly intimate work uncensored. Both small in dimensions as well as in print run, Monir's raw, sexually explicit and sometimes shocking visuals and text developed a strong following among adult comics fans and rave reviews by critics.
Even as she was enjoying the first flush of notoriety for her work, Monir confronted a devastating new reality.
“I threw out my back in a serious way. I knew that I most likely had EDS because my brother had been diagnosed somewhere in 2011 or 2012, and I had been extremely 'double-jointed' all my life.”
Only 24 years old at the time, Monir's diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) was life-altering. EDS is a genetic condition that affects the connective tissue in a person, whose first indication of it is double-jointedness (hyper-mobility).
Over time, Monir experienced a painful progression of her condition, from continually sprained wrists, severe back and neck pain, down into her legs. Incurable, her EDS is currently managed with painkillers and physical therapy. At present, Monir wears leg braces that allow her to stand and often needs a wheelchair to get around.
“I had to step away from [Diskette] press as my disability got worse, but it's now in the hands of a very capable team who are continuing its mission of spotlighting up-and-coming queer — and especially trans — creators.”
Undaunted, Monir persevered. Circa 2020, Monir started “exploring and deconstructing taboos and fears instilled in her around sex and identity.” She pushed back on societal restrictions as she began producing and appearing in transgressively adult films involving graphic masochism. A niche pursuit, but as with her comics and writings, she developed a dedicated following.
In 2022, her interest in sexuality and erotica led her to apply for the Artist-in-Residence position at the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles.
“Tom of Finland” was the pen name used by legendary artist Touko Valio Laaksonen, whose renowned homoerotic artwork influenced gay culture in mid-20th-century America. Late in life he established his foundation, which serves to both preserve his artwork and to provide a venue to showcase the cultural merits of erotic art.
“It's a place where artists are never told to reel themselves in or censor their work. It was an amazing incubator for my own work, and a place where I could do a ton of research and networking with other artists,” she said. “I am not for everyone. I am an acquired taste. I don't have any interest in mass appeal, and I love my fans who specifically want what I offer.”
The constant pain and mobility issues have understandably limited Monir's filmmaking recently, a challenge she is working around through a podcasting venture. Under the title of “Huge Pages,” Monir reads vintage erotic magazines cover-to-cover to her listeners. It's a unique and typically creative effort, describing the graphic imagery through words alone.
And Monir continues to explore boldly creative outlets. Rather than hide her disability, she incorporates it into her art. She journals her battle with EDS on Patreon, providing intimate details of its effect on aspects of her life.
Physical photographic prints and print comics are still available via Diskette Press (diskettepress.com).
Read More
The Trump Administration Has Declared War on Trans People. Fight Back.
Well, it’s happening. As I write this, the absolute worst president of my lifetime (and quite possibly ever!) is being sworn in to do the job again. At [...]
Mark Zuckerberg Makes Facebook a 'Safe Space' for MAGA
Once upon a time, surf mime and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago and then it was OK to use slurs against LGBTQ+ people on Facebook [...]
Discovering Janet’s Closet: Michigan’s Haven for Transgender Shoppers
Driving down Fort Street, you cannot miss the boxy, cinder-block building featuring an exterior that still feels like a testament to its first incarnation as a [...]
‘Governor Buttigieg’ Has a Real Ring to It, Don't You Think?
A new year has arrived and it’s brought a most unwelcome guest to the party: new and improved political anxiety and uncertainty. We know what’s [...]
One Million Moms Declare War on ‘Wicked’ Because It's a Little Queer
I’m writing this on Jan. 6, 2025, the day Congress is to certify the election of Donald Trump for a second term. Noticeably absent from the United States [...]
The D in Democrat Stands for Disappointment
By the time you’re reading this, 2024 will be nestled in the dumpster of history, being nibbled on by rats. I’d say good riddance, if we [...]
