One of my trials as a younger cartoonist was drawing men. It was common for my cartoon men to be mistaken for women. In frustration, I would draw mustaches on these characters to prove their manhood. For fun in college, I added a mustache to my superhero parody comic, Mapman. When our ASL class reviewed vocabulary and the hand sign for Mustache was covered, I knew which word I would draw next.
Mustaches can be a challenge for the deaf community. It’s hard to read words or ASL mouth memes when the lips are covered. Mustaches are tricky to add to my ASL artwork too. The trouble with drawing a mustache in ASL is there’s not much space to work. In a still image, the hands overlay each other making it hard to see their position on the face. To avoid this complication, I used two faces, one in black and white and one in colour. For a fun twist, I also shaved Mapman so his whiskers wouldn’t block his hands signing Mustache on his face.
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