Archive for the Western Comic/Comix Category


LGBTQ Adventure Comic: Gun Street Girl

March 11th, 2014

81TK5BKRjrLWith the kind of synchronicity that I’m used to, there has been a lot of conversation in LGBTQ comics and Yuri circles recently about stories with lesbian leads that are more than just a romance. Yuri anime is firmly entrenched in selling school life rom-coms to man-boys, and many readers are looking for something a little more…fun, with action and adventure. I’ve mentioned The Legend of Bold Riley several times and today I want to talk about a new comic – Gun Street Girl is definitely all that. The lead character happens to be gay, and then a story happens. ^_^

Barb Lien, one of the founding members of Sequential Tart, was tired of reading mainstream gay comics characters whose only story seemed to be that they were gay. Rather than looking at the body of LGBTQ comics to find similar role models, she decided to write the story she was looking for. “Because I wanted to read a story about….I wrote it” is the most common reason I hear for creating a work. It’s a totally valid reason, I’m not dissing it in any way. ^_^

And so, Barb created Gun Street Girl, a comic that if I were asked to describe, I would probably sum it up as “if Willow was Buffy”.  Lizzie is the “gun” for a street wizard named Eddie. We meet them in a fun meta-commentary of comic stereotypes “Everybody Want To Rule The Wold.”  The stories are independent of one another, but we get a glimpse of Lizzie’s relationships, her history for a solid volume. Lien has created fully fleshed out characters, with a slightly less fully fleshed out world. Like Buffy‘s Sunnydale, Gun Street Girl‘s world uses magic freely, then imposes random limitations upon itself, leaving it slightly adrift in time. It’s contemporary, but not our world, exactly.

For a story that was going to just have a gay lead and then the stories happens, Gun Street Girl gets a little heavy-handed in other places, addressing sexism in “An Unsuitable Job For A Woman” (a title which was used back in 1972 by P.D. James and, I felt, was an unfortunate choice in 2013. Update: I am informed that the stories were written about 10 years ago and admittedly comics have changed since quite significantly), and racism in the second story “Waking the Witch” in which we also meet Lizzie’s lover, Prana, who has a secret of her own.  Too much of a good thing and also too little. The lessons are good, but – and here is my sincere concern – why are we still having stories about this stuff? If Lien was frustrated that superhero comics were still wrapped in the most basic “gay” stories, here she was pointing big red arrows at “she’s a woman in a man’s world” and “look how not-white this character is.” Ironically, the whole shebang is set in the UK, which is far, far more  integrated  in media representation than we are in the US.

Ryan Howe’s art is solid, easy to follow, even in “magic”-y scenes. It’s very 2-dimensional, hearkening back to comics of my youth. A few panels felt downright Kirby-esque. ^_^ The all-back and white art suited the story well, I think the pages might have looked messier in color, but then I much prefer B&W to color comics now, having had my sensibilities warped by manga. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri/Lesbian – 7 No obligatory sex – which is good, it’s a little *look, she’s a lesbian* but + for her and Prana’s relationship just being a relationship.
Service – 1

Overall – 8

For action, adventure, magic and fighting with a lead who just happens to be a lesbian, definitely give Gun Street Girl a try!





LGBTQ Comics – The Legend Continues in Bold Riley: Unspun

February 28th, 2014

BRUI’m sitting here in a Kickstarter-induced dopamine rush. Leia Weathington has just posted the crowd-sourced fundraiser for the sequel to her lesbian action fantasy series The Legend of Bold Riley, today. The sequel will be called Bold Riley: Unspun.

Like the original series, Bold Riley: Unspun will be released as several stand-alone pamphlet comics and as a collected volume slated for a winter 2014 release.

There were many things I loved about the first book; the different art styles, the Conan-esque writing, the stunning cover art. I’m still hoping that NorthWest Press will get a Riley t-shirt together.

The kickstarter this time is purely to pay creative costs.  You know how strongly  I feel about artists being paid for their work. So for the first time in my life, I went all-in and pledged the highest level. I know and enjoy the art by a few of the artists and I adore the stories and my birthday is only 7 months away. ^_^

If you like action-fantasy with a lesbian princess who can fight a god, bed a wench and stand up to an evil-eyebrowed wizard with the best of ’em, support Bold Riley: Unspun.

***

While I’ve got your attention, NYC-area friends, I have two NYC events of interest.

Tonight at Jim Hanley’s Universe, some of the contributors to Northwest Press’s QU33R will be doing  a book signing!

Rica Takashima will be joining Jennifer Camper and a host of other feminist and lesbian comic artists at the Feminist ‘Zine Fest tomorrow at Barnard College.

***

Save all that snow-shoveling money, kids…it’s going to be a great year for LGBTQ comics!





LGBTQ Comics: QU33R Anthology

February 4th, 2014

QU33R“LGBTQ characters are also appearing in mainstream comics, and the code of silence that [Mary] Wings fought against  has been broken. But there still remains a profound need for distinctly queer comics.” – Justin Hall, from the Foreword of QU33R.

Where No Straight Lines, Hall’s historical retrospective of western LGBTQ comix and comics, told us where we came from and  how we got here, Rob Kirby’s new anthology, QU33R: New Comics from 33 Creators, tells us where “here” is.

I’m frequently asked whether western comics have an equivalent of Yuri or BL and I always reply, “Of course! There have always been LGBTQ comics artists and therefore there have always been LGBTQ comics.” But the question is not – and really has never been –  “do they exist?” but “Where can I find them?” There are fewer and fewer weekly gay papers and more and more webcomics, which makes it both much easier and much, much harder to find anything to read. I used to read “This Modern World” by Tom Tomorrow in the Village Voice, now I follow him on Twitter.

A search engine search on “gay comic” or “lesbian comic” actually turns up some excellent stuff…it also doesn’t turn up really excellent stuff that gosh, it would be great to know about, but if Google doesn’t show it above the cut on Page 1, it’ll never get seen. And you may not know about Diane DiMassa, because you weren’t a lesbian in the 90s. Heck, you may not have been born in the 90s. It’s perfectly okay to not know a 30-year old series, but how much cooler is it to read Jennifer Camper, or Kris Dresen or Ivan Velez, Jr. or Carlo Quispe and then meet them at a comics event and think, “Holy crap! I just met a legend!”

This book is full of today’s comics, some talking about yesterday, others about tomorrow and a few delving into an alternate today. With my deep and abiding love of ridiculous lesbian tropes, my favorite story was Jennifer Camper’s hard-boiled assassin story, “Another Night in Carbon City”. I was also deeply moved by Steve MacIssac‘s, “Vacant Lots,” a story of coming back to his hometown, a completely different guy than he left, and seeing how life had changed those who motivated him to become who he is. (Oddly, enough, my mother just brought up one of the two people who function the same way in my life. It’s always bizarre when Mom mentions her, because she remembers I didn’t like her, but not that she emotionally tortured me for years, or that I have long, long ago let it go. All that is left is Mom’s memory that I didn’t like her that she always has to remind me about.)

The book cover reminds me of comics collections of my youth; colorful, densely packed with art and giant words over the art. The interior pages have a feature that all anthologies everywhere ought to include – a visible reminder of the artist’s name prominently displayed on every page. I really liked not having to flip back and forth to remind myself who I was reading. I also liked (and always like) when the contributors get a bit of space to talk about themselves in the back.

If you have ever asked yourself something along the lines of “what do LGBTQ comics in America look like?” you’ll definitely want to pick up QU33R, available in 3 digital formats, hardcover and paperback from the terrific folks at Northwest Press (for whom I have to thank for this review copy. Thanks Zan!) Northwest consistently puts out terrific LBGTQ comics and I hope that, if you’re interested in LGBTQ comics as well as Yuri manga, you’ll give QU33R a chance.

Ratings:

Overall – 8





Lesbian Comic: Blue is the Warmest Color (English)

October 9th, 2013

BlueIsTheWarmestColorIf you pay attention to lesbian-themed media, you already know that the winner of the 2013 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival was Blue Is The Warmest Color, based on a French bande dessinĂ©e Le Bleu est une couleur chaude by Julie Maroh. Arsenal Pulp Press has put out an English translation, which is the subject of today’s review. The movie has been the object of much talk and considerable controversy – the actresses have stated that they hated doing it and the director has said it should never be released. Most damning, Maroh has repudiated the movie, claiming it was no more than porn. 

Blue Is The Warmest Color is not an easy book, no matter how you view it.

It begins with a setup similar to June Kim’s 12 Days. Clem has passed away and her lover Emma seeks some solace, perhaps closure. Emma visits Clementine’s family to read a diary that was left for her. The diary begins at the beginning of the story with Clementine, 15, as she starts to navigate the thorny path of human sexuality, love and friendship and, as she sees, meets and falls for Emma.

Right from the beginning, theirs is not a good relationship. Emma has a girlfriend, Clem is hiding her relationship from most of her friends. And when they finally seem to put it all together – we skip more than a decade into the future. Emma is distant, Clem is abusing alcohol and drugs and their relationship is a dead and rotting thing. Clem’s illness and death brings the two of them together in a way that her life never had.

Maroh’s art is very good, very moody. Flashback scenes are done in kind of sepia wash, which I appreciated as a nice cinematic touch. Emma’s blue eyes and hair stand out as a stark, vibrant spot of bright color in an otherwise dull world. The glimpses of Parisian student life struck me as very La BohĂšme or, perhaps, Rent. ^_^

The translation is good in the way that I define good – everything is perfectly understandable, but the rhythms of the words are just ever-so-slightly not American English enough to make me hear accents. Like watching a foreign movie with subtitles. Speaking of subtitles, I absolutely hated the fonts chosen for the English edition. They were both wholly appropriate, but hella hard for me to read – too thin for my taste.

Watching Clem handle her situation and her life so badly, I was reminded very forcefully of my first years with  my wife. It could have gone more like this; either one of our families could have made it impossible for us. I am once again mindful of the blessings which we have been given in our years together.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – A hard 8
Characters – I found both Clem and Emma hard to like, but they were both real – 8
Lesbian – 10
Service – Tough to score. There is sex, but it’s not mean to be – or be read as – titillating, which is why Maroh hated the movie, which had long, lingering sex scenes for the sake of sex scenes. Let’s say – 5

Overall – 8

Don’t expect a delightful tale of coming out, or emotional redemption – this is an excellently well-crafted, well-executed story of a reality in which there is no happily, much less an ever after.





Summer Reading: LGBTQ Comic Anthology – Anything That Loves

July 26th, 2013

Northwest Press, publisher of The Legend of Bold Riley is once again bringing it, this time with a comic collection that looks at non-binary sexuality, Anything That Loves.

This was a fascinating – at times, uncomfortable-making – book. Folks who are lesbian and gay are just as likely to be awkward or rigid when demanding  the appropriate label be applied to a person’s sexual identity. But what does it mean when a person doesn’t fit the 0 or 1 model? What happens when a woman who likes women falls in love with a man, or a man who has always considered himself gay falls for someone transitioning to female? This book is for everyone who feels under-served by “gay” or “straight.”

“The anthology features work from  Erika Moen, Ellen Forney, Randall Kirby, Jason Thompson, Kate Leth, Leia Weathington, MariNaomi, Bill Roundy and many more.

The comic artists here are not apologizing; they are exploring, poking, asking questions (that may or may not have answers) of themselves and their readers.  As society is largely all about coupling people, we tend to focus on the other half of the relationship, saying “Oh, you’re gay” or “Oh, you’re straight” because partners are one sex or the other. It’s not hard to see how annoying that would be to someone who was neither straight nor gay (or, as NWPress’s buttons say, “wibbly-wobbly sexy-wexy.” Fascinatingly, when Zan Christensen of NWP gave me one of those buttons at TCAF, I received a lot of interesting looks from people. Mostly approving nods…maybe some interest? Lots of people who gave it the ol’ eyebrow wiggle/”me-too” nod.  ^_^)

It is clear to me, after reading this book,  that “bisexuality” has much less to do with who specifically a person is attracted to and is much more about self-identification.

I called the book “uncomfortable-making,” as well. It was. All of these comics are intensely personal. Like The Big Feminist But, these artists were letting me inside their heads to explore some of their most intimate ideas about themselves. And, like TBFB, there were more questions than answers. Whatever your sexuality, Anything That Loves will pose a few questions that will get you thinking.

Ratings:

It’s an anthology, so everything is variable and personal taste is going to determine whether you like any of it or not.

Overall – 8