[5] Editor Justin Hall was inspired to put together the anthology after curating a show of LGBT comics at the Cartoon Art Museum for the San Francisco Pride in 2006.

[5][7] This section includes Trina Robbins' Sandy Comes Out, which according to Hall was the first literary comic that "offered gay people a representation of themselves that validated, as opposed to degraded, their experience.

[5] Publishers Weekly noted that many of the comics "hit on concerns and experiences that cut to the heart of the human soul, not just the gay one", and concluded that Hall was "quite successful" at gearing the anthology towards a wider audience beyond the LGBT community, "but without softening the edges that define the genre".

[1] Writing for The New York Times Book Review, Glen Weldon felt that "the decision to restrict selections to the Western world is disappointing but understandable", and concluded that No Straight Lines was a "useful, combative and frequently moving chronicle of a culture in perpetual transition".

[9] Writing for The American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table, Talia Earle called the book "absolutely fascinating, especially in giving the reader a wide variety of topics impacting the GLBT community".