Archive for the Western Comic/Comix Category


Lesbian Comic: The Legend of Bold Riley (English)

May 17th, 2012

lobr1She has hunted the wildest game and dallied with countless beautiful girls, but still longs to know the world beyond the city wall. Princess Rilavashana SanParite, called Bold Riley, leaves behind her station and sets out to travel through distant lands and find forgotten ruins, fearsome enemies, inscrutable gods, and tragic love.

I was brought up on Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. They were so stereotypical – fierce, strong, heavily muscular barbarian swordsman, confronting evil priests and bizarre monsters and bedding wenches of all kinds, that kind of thing. I loved “that kind of thing.”

I have basically been waiting my entire adult life for someone to write “that kind of thing” starring a lesbian Princess who leaves her home to find adventure, because she can’t stop herself, and who confronts gods, creatures, demons and the like. And, of course, beds wenches.

Leia Weathington’s The Legend of Bold Riley, is, at last, that story.

The feeling of “yes, this, this is exactly it” I had while reading the new collected volume of Weathington’s Bold Riley stories, was endlessly repeated. It was like finding a treasured book from my youth and loving it all over again.

This collection gathers all the chapters from the Bold Riley stories, with full-color pages, story by Leia Weathington, and art by Vanessa Lynn, Jason Thompson, Konstantin Pogorelov, and Kelly McKlellan. The different artists for each chapter gives the reader a chance to re-meet and re-learn to love Princess Rilavashana over and over again.

The different artists also means that, realistically, you might not love the art for each chapter. One chapter might appeal to you more than another, but I kind of admit to finding the wildly different styles charming. Each story was told to me by a different story-teller, each a different adventure. It was a full day’s worth of entertainment. (And heaven help me, I want to write a Bold Riley story so badly now that I can taste it….)

Ratings:

Art – Variable
Story – Awesome
Characters – Doubly Awesome
Yuri – Triple-y Awesome
Service – There is nudity

Overall – Really, really awesome

Anyway, I don’t think I need to tell you what to do, do I? Obviously, go buy this book. ^_^ I have already pre-ordered my copy.

“She’s a hero, you’re a reader. You were made for each other.”  – Jane Espenson, from the Foreword.

Thanks to Leia (who will be interviewed sometime soonish here, as soon as I get my lazy ass in gear) for the preview PDF copy. I cannot *wait* to have the real thing in my hands.





Lesbian Comic: she said (English)

May 14th, 2012

Readers of Okazu frequently see me request more “After the happily-ever-after” manga; stories in which the girl, having gotten the girl, proceeds to make a life with her.  Well, there’s a good reason why we don’t get that so much. For the presumed male audience who is really only interested in Yuri as fantasy, there’s relatively little interest in the building of a real relationship. Take Shizuma and Nagisa out of Miator and their relationship, which is doomed to fail once it hits the real world, is a bore.

But, if there’s one thing that keeps people from exploring the after the happily-ever-after moment in comics, it’s the harsh reality that after happily-ever-after comes, sometimes, not happily, and not ever-after.

When the Prince rides off with the Princess, we fade out so we don’t have to listen to the Princess wondering why his friends are such losers, or listen to them screaming at their kids. Obviously.

Equally, when the girl gets the girl, we often fade out because its really hard on reader and writer to have to wade through the period after 6 months or so, when the fires of lust burn less hotly and people are trying to figure out where they fit in to each other’s lives. One of the ways to do this is to create a death off-screen, and have the character deal with it, as in June Kim’s 12 Days. This kind extreme crisis, what I call “hand of god” writing, is not easy to do well, but it makes the situation fait accompli for readers. We deal with the situation as it was presented to us. (June did it very well, btw.)

What is significantly harder is a deft handling of the end of a relationship. One of the finest I’ve ever read is “Your Hair” by Niki Smith, which we included in the Yuri Monogatari 5 collection. It’s tense and frank and uncomfortable and sad. Absolutely stellar work.

Up until now, I have never read a story that covered the beginning, middle and end of a relationship in a way that was worth recommending. Today I say to you, run, do not walk over to Lulu and buy she said by Kris Dresen.

This story starts with the beginning of a relationship, goes through the flirting and the getting together, the being together, the discomfort of a growing rift, and the final throes of a parting all in few words. Each page has single spoken line, at most two. Nonetheless the story is rendered in depth with terrific facial expressions and evocative body language. (I’m a sucker for this especially, as shockingly few comic artists do more than pose their characters. One day I will show you Nishi Uko’s “Collectors” and you’ll all cry at what you’ve been thinking is good art.)

The most interesting thing about this story is the piece that’s left out. By the end of the book, we have no idea what, really, split them up. Although one can hazard a guess, that’s not the point. The point is that this story is every relationship cliché stitched up together to tell a story we’ve all heard a thousand times. But never once like this.

One of the things I like best about Tsubomi magazine right now is their willingness to deal with the not-so-beautiful parts of lesbian relationships. Abuse, both physical and emotional, and even overt homophobia, never grace the pages of other Yuri tales, but these are the realities that real women face.  If we want our stories to evolve, it’s necessary to face the whole thing and not stay stuck in childhood fairy tales. (Now that I think of it, we sort of got that backwards, with lesbian literature so focused on the end in early stories, then tentatively adding in happy endings, and now going back to face those endings more realistically and honestly. Less knife fights and predatory lesbians.)

Kris Dresen tells us a fable about the before, during and after happily ever after. It may not be happy, but it’s damn good.

Ratings:

Because all my ratings are really geared for Yuri manga, I’m going to stick with an overall for this one.

Overall – 8

My very sincere thanks to Kris who inscribed my copy with something inspiring and who inspires me to do more. ^_^

Quick disclaimer – although she inscribed it, I bought my own copy of this book. Don’t want you to think I’m sucking up to her! ^_^

 





Yuri Webcomic: Girly, Volume 4 (English)

January 15th, 2012

girlyset-caseThe last volume of Josh Lesnick’s Girly series, Girly Forever, is a testimony to passion. Passion for cartooning, first and foremost, but also the obvious, laudable, passion Otra and Winter have for one another.

Having established Winter and Otra as a couple in previous volumes, Josh felt comfortable splitting them up for a good chunk of this story. But, before we get there, in Volume 3, there’s a number of flashbacks and story building leads that we need to get through, then a few digressions and premature story starts and stops and then, suddenly, in Volume 4, the plot is a gigantic ball of story elements moving downhill and gathering complications like a webcomic version of Katamari Damacy.

When I was reading the chapters that would become the last volume as a webcomic, it was maddening. I would save up a few months of strips at a time, in order to feel like something was happening. Reading it as a volume, I found it worked much better than the previous volumes in terms of narrative. In effect, this was the closest Josh comes to a “graphic novel” rather than a comic strip collection.

The story as a whole has a pretty Yuri-riffic ending, in which Love saves the day – and is suitably rewarded with Sex, which is as it should be. And the things that made no sense still make no sense, which is also as it should be.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 9
Service – 5

Overall – 8

I’m kind of sorry that Girly is over. Reading these volumes (or re-reading the strips, however you look at it,) has made me miss it. Girly was the only webcomic I ever really followed. Nothing else has been consistent enough, cohesive enough and wacky enough to hold my attention for any length of time. I seriously want to thank Josh for Girly, it cheered me up on many a day that I needed a smile (since shooting someone into space was not an option) and congratulate him on this complete collection. I’m proud to have helped contribute to the Kickstarter and hope he’ll do another series some day that I can follow at irregular intervals and still enjoy.





Girly Comic, Volume 3 (English)

December 16th, 2011

girlyset-caseVolume 1 was getting Otra and Winter sorted out as a couple and Volume 2 was them dealing with being a couple…so what on earth could Volume 3 of Girly even be about?

That’s a darn good question and the book itself had a really hard time getting around to answering it.

Volume 3 starts with 4-color pages, that probably took a very, very long time to draw, and the art is actually quite decent. But you know, I don’t look at the art in a comic, except as an afterthought. (I know, I know, reading the words first, then looking at the pictures is a really strange way to read a comic, but it’s what I do. So sue me.) So the art is sort of wasted on me when the story is focused, basically, on there being no story. Or, no story as far as we, the readers are concerned. There *is* a story of course, and eventually we get around to being told it, then it ends and we all have a good laugh and move on.

Volume 3 has some of the best individual comics Josh drew for Girly. I probably laughed out loud while reading this volume more than I did for CuteWendy and the first two volumes combined. Otra and Winter’s relationship has settled down so, when Gelady shows up with a pretty intense crush on Otra, we’re never really worried for an instant, and neither is Winter.

I like the idea of HappyCo., as the bad guy. I know they’ll be back. Steak was a terrible idea and someone should have stopped Josh from bringing him back..surely he has friends who could have warned him?…but what was a terrible plot idea did genuinely create the best line of the entire volume, when the entire campus of Cutetown U. mobilizes to stop Otra and Winter from looking for a girlfriend for Steak. “We’ve been doing this for 10 minutes!” made me laugh for an hour.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 9
Service – 5

Overall – 8

So, while not the best start out of the gate, probably the best writing and art overall, both separately and together.





Batwoman Comic, Issues 1-4 (English)

December 15th, 2011

As a present for being a good girl all year and working hard at my three jobs, I bought myself a tablet as a replacement travel computer. Objecting as I do to Apple’s content-censoring decisions, I chose a Samsung Galaxy Tablet, which is now named Tabibito.

I spend the first few days getting the hang of the interface, downloading a few apps and rearranging the screen the way I like it. You know, normal stuff. Once I got myself up and running, I loaded up with a bunch of books – first things first. (Over My Dead Body by Nero Wolfe and The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette, in case you care.) Then I decided that, if I had the chance, I’d try my hand at reading Batwoman as a digital download.

As I’ve said before, I never was a DC comic reader. And I’ve been out of American comics for a very long time now. This was as much a way to test out the tablet as to read the comic, but what the heck, while I went through all the steps, I might as well get a review out of it. ^_^

Comixology punted me to the DC app which was a no-brainer to download. In fact, all the downloading so far has been so painless, I kind of don’t really believe it’s working until I try it out. Obviously, I had to register to buy and download.

I found Batwoman, Issues 1-4 with a simple search and downloading was maybe two or three clicks. Overall, the app issue was simple, straightforward and painless.

Opening up Batwoman, Issue 1, I knew going into it, the art was very detailed, and the panel structure was crazy paving. The cover and those few pages that were laid out in regular panel format looked absolutely breathtaking. Most of the book, however, is 2-page layouts with irregularly shaped panels (including one pretentious Bat-logo shaped layout which made me stabby.) These presented no problem and gave me a chance to test out resizing, and layout on the Galaxy. Both get top marks from me – there was great sensitivity to touch, I rarely had to fix a resize and it was very intuitive. Layout on the tablet was instant, from landscape to portrait with no fuss.

Story-wise, this arc instantly held together better than that in Elegy, although there still are a few holes. Kate Kane, socialite and wastrel, is out training with Bette Kane, her cousin and sidekick, Flamebird. Kate’s manner is imperious, commanding Bette with little context. Bette is impetuous and the setup was foreshadowed pretty heavily. Worse, later on Batman comes around to warn Kate to keep Bette under wraps. Ow ow ow! Keep that foreshadowing stick off my head!

Kate is apparently seeing Detective Maggie Sawyer who, as a smart, competent cop, was the only other really big hole in the story so far. That Sawyer hasn’t even vaguely considered that Kate might possibly be Batwoman strikes me as strange. Their relationship is pretty decent and I have no qualms about them together, except for the one thing I really can’t get past. Kate’s hair is unnaturally red (which I approve of) but she has a really ugly hairdo. And her skin is unnaturally white. With that hair and that skin, I can’t help but think that making love to her would be like making love to Ronald McDonald. Ick.

The badguy is a mythic watery temptress that allows for some very lovely visuals, although succubus-esque behavior of evil females is really tired.

In Volume 4, the foreshadowing stick lands hard and the thing that Kate was warned to not let happen happens. Which brings me to the only really major issue I had with the series. In Volume 4, there is a very beautifully drawn sex scene between Maggie and Kate. In black and white, it’s artistic, understated and erotic without being porn-y. Unfortunately, it floats above a very unappealingly rape-ish assault on Flamebird. The action isn’t rape-like at all, but the language is. I realize this was meant to be ironic, but it really just came off as a cheap shot.

Nonetheless, the sex scene itself was really nice. I liked Maggie more after volume 4 than I did when I first saw her in Volume 1, and seeing that she really cares for Kate made them completely work for me as a couple.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 7 (needs time to develop)
Characters – 7 (same, not sure if I can like them yet)
Lesbian – 10
Service – 7 (fair amount of T&A pandering)
Tablet reading experience – 6 not quite as natural as paper

Overall – 7 I’m willing to give it time.

I still am not a fan of the super-saturated colors of modern comics, and really am distressed by Kate’s skin tone, but other than that, I have to say that Batwoman, so far, is pretty good.