Think Jake and Austin were first famous A & J couple with a following?
Think again.
Way back in there was Akbar & Jeff. Who? Akbar & Jeff were a couple created by Matt Groening before The Simpsons, in his book Life in Hell. Akbar & Jeff are have been a couple since the 80's, and have been showing the ups and downs of coupledom that everyone can relate to in their own unique way. They swing between love and hate within one reading.
Groening was quick to acknowledge that they are indeed a gay couple, when it was not the greatest climate to do so. Here is a great description of them from Bartleby.
Almost radical at the time they were introduced, when few gay couples were being portrayed, let alone in a positive light, Akbar and Jeff have continued to serve not as role models, per se, but as humorous meditations on gay coupledom and the banalities of daily life together. It’s almost an off-handed response to the still-lingering criticisms that gay relationships are short-lived, marred by infidelity, or hard to understand. In one famous cartoon, Akbar and Jeff fret over visiting a gay bar, only to find upon arrival that all the patrons look exactly like them, donning fezzes and wearing similar shirts. The comic absurdity and ultimate likability of the pair is what has given them such longevity. They’re stuck together, they know it, and most of the time, they’re happy with it
Groening did not make them political activists, but allowed comment on many of the things they faced as couple from discrimination, legal issues in the gay community, and during a set of AIDS related strips HIV tests, from in his strips for papers.
Akbar & Jeff show their love by touching fingers and skipping together, the first hint of sex makes them flip their Fez. Seems like Groening did this in a way so for the strip could run in all of the syndicated papers at the time. An archive of his interview with The Advocate (Advocate 571 (February 26, 1991): 30-35) reveals much more about this twosome. At the time Groening was going to have them break up but recognized they couldn't be without the other for that long and said this:
Can you tell us why they break up? [Laughing] It's obvious, isn't it? [More laughter] They can't stand each other. [Even more laughter] But they love each other. They can't live with or without each other. What I like about them is this: When they criticize each other, it's like when somebody exactly the same as you criticizes you. It's hilarious, like you don't see the mirror.
Why do you draw such similar guys?
I like to write about relationships. What's great about having characters who are identical is that I can't be accused of taking sides. If one character were a man or a woman, I could be accused of taking a shot against men or a show against women. Or if it were two women or two men, I could side with the one who is more attractive or whatever. If people say Akbar and Jeff are a comment on gay relationships, fine. But I think that they're a comment on all relationships or that maybe it's time for straight people to be able to see themselves in gay people or learn something from gay people.
Akbar & Jeff opposing the first Gulf War.
