Christian Cooper ’84
Government concentrator
Mather House
Christian Cooper doesn’t remember how many comics he’s written. It’s a lot, he guesses. Same goes for the birds he’s seen. Both have fueled his life as a storyteller in innumerable ways. And they’ve been constant through lines in his life as an editor and writer, creator of pioneering gay and lesbian characters for Marvel Comics, and memoirist in his 2023 book, Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. Most recently, he’s shared his love of ornithology as host of the National Geographic series Extraordinary Birder, which has been nominated for two Emmys. As he prepares for his 40th Reunion, he shares why he always makes time to come back and how the new rendition of "Fair Harvard" changed how he felt about being an alumnus.
Why did you want to go to Harvard?
I must have been a junior and I visited campus because they had this program where you sleep in the dorm. I fell in love with it. I thought: “Oh my God, this is such a great way to live.” I remember telling the interviewer I wanted to go to Harvard, be a lawyer, practice law, retire, go back to school to study ornithology, and then practice it after that. He kind of looked at me like, Oh-kay.
In your memoir, you retell some of your pivotal memories of Harvard, which include becoming president of the Ornithological Club and coming out. Can you share more on these?
Well, becoming president of the Harvard Ornithological Club was kind of by default—because there were about five of us.
And I knew I was gay from a very young age, but I had also metabolized very early that it was something that needed to be hidden, supposedly forever. Finally, when I got to Harvard, I realized that was not going to work. Change of plans. I’m not going to be a lawyer anymore and oh, yeah, I’m gay.
When you think about those years back on campus, what comes to mind?
It was a very progressive environment. I was experiencing a lot of things for the first time as a young adult while being surrounded by some really good friends. And we're all still friends to this day. This is one of the reasons why I go back to Reunions. We’ve stayed in touch across the years, and it’s a great opportunity for a more concentrated gathering.
You're about to return for your 40th Reunion. What have you observed when you come back for these weekends?
A lot of us have commented on how, at the 25th, a lot of pretenses dropped. We'd all been through the ups and downs, whether it was family tragedy or career success or failure—just all the things that life throws at you. It's the great leveler.
Also, something interesting happened at the 25th, which is that I went to the memorial service. We sang "Fair Harvard." And it was the first time I had sung "Fair Harvard" with the new lyrics.
I had thought it would be great to bring these things up to modern times. But I never really thought much beyond that. And when I sang it, suddenly it mattered. I realized I feel like a part of this now. I suddenly had a feeling that a lot of things were going to fall apart in my life and change in my life. Things will come and go. We’ll lose friends, we’ll lose family, but I’m a part of Harvard, the Harvard family. And that was a really comforting feeling. It was weird all that came from singing the new lyrics of "Fair Harvard.” [ED note: Harvard changed the final line of “Fair Harvard” in 2018 from “till the stock of the Puritans die” to “till the stars in the firmament die” to be more inclusive.]
You are a storyteller and a longtime creator of comics. Did that start at Harvard?
No, like birding, that predated Harvard. But it continued there. Freshman year, I amused myself by writing a comic superhero adventure of a group of people who were all based on the people in the dorm. I posted it on the wall so everyone could read the latest installment of these adventures. They all had superhero or super villain alter egos. I think everybody was bemused by it. I don't think anybody took it seriously, including me.
As a comic book writer, you’ve been a pioneer in creating characters who are openly gay. Did you set out to expand representation in these stories?
I write about what I know. So, with maybe one exception, I wasn't necessarily trying to break ground. One of the biggest points of representation I did was with a horror comic called Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins and there were three lead characters. The central lead character was a lesbian, Victoria Montesi. But then one of the other lead characters of the three was an elderly black woman. Nobody puts elderly people as the lead in comics. But my grandmother was a kick-ass person and she would be doing this. So, I put my grandmother in the comic.
When you published your memoir last year, was it very different than writing a comic?
It was much harder because when I'm writing fiction, I'm the master of the universe. Everything conforms to what I tell it to do. Real life isn't like that. I have this messy, long, convoluted life. And I've got to try to—while still being true to what actually happened—give it some shape and narrative structure. I found that much more of a challenge than writing fiction.
What’s your favorite memory of seeing a certain bird?
It’s spring migration right now. So this is the sacred month for birders.
I have a memory that goes back 20 or 25 years now when I was in Central Park during spring migration and saw a bird called a Blackburnian warbler. Warblers are small, smaller than sparrows. Nonbirders never even know they're there. But we key into them like nobody's business. They come in a variety of colors, and I’ve always described them as butterflies with personality.
Blackburnians tend to stay high up in trees, but this bird was eye level and maybe an arm’s length away. It was just sitting there on this branch, and it was throwing its head back and belting out its song over and over again for what must have been a good five to seven minutes. And I was paralyzed. I could not move. All I could do was drink in that bird.