Archive for the Western Comic/Comix Category


Dead Beats, A Musical Horror Comic Anthology

November 4th, 2019

It’s the tail end of the 2019 Samhain season, so, in order for you to understand Dead Beats, I want to tell you a story. ^_^

When I was 8 or so, I had a baby sitter. She was an adult woman who had a kid of her own who was about my age (but who went to a different school. We had 5 elementary schools in the area I grew up, we all went to the same one middle school, then were split back up into two high schools.) Melissa – I have no idea why I remember her name, was a goth-y kid at 11. She seemed very old to me, but she liked comic books so I’d hang with her when she was home and read her comics, which were all horror. I didn’t like horror comics – they weren’t scary, so much as kind of gross and all ironic. You know what I mean, right? The person who always stole lunch from the kids was tortured by being force-fed, that kind of morality play. Terrible people getting their comeuppance. They were so tiresome and full of allegory , l which I didn’t like even back in elementary school. When Tales of the Crypt got on HBO, I was like, “Hard pass – I already read that and thought it blecch.”

So me and horror have a rocky relationship. I hate “Boo!” type scare tactics, and morality plays and guro. What’s left you may wonder. And in response, I will sigh and reply “All the well-written, funny, intelligent, creepy horror of the universe, duh~~!”

Dead Beats horror comic anthology is funny, intelligent, creepy short horror comics that completely lack the morality that made horror comics so tiresome. It’s still has some irony, but that’s to be expected.*

The premise is a visit to a cursed music shop, where the proprietor points out random items, implies horrible fates and leads us to rooms where unspoken-of unspeakable horrors occur. We then get a short horror comic – something rather funny, occasionally touching and frequently gruesome – centered around something musical-ish; an instrument, the music itself, whatever.

It was terrific. A lot of fun to read. From the ridiculous “The Cursed Saxophone of Skasferatu” to “Apolcalypse Demo, which married a bit of the end of the world to a final jam.  There’s a lot of musical demonic invocation, which I always seem to like for some reason…

Overall, I haven’t had this much fun watching people die in a long time.  ^_^

There’s no way to comment on art or storytelling as a whole, most stories credit three to four people on a contribution, so you’re looking a variety of writing and art and letter and coloring, all so different, you can’t really compare. But if I had to pick one story as a favorite, it’d be the ghost story written by Vita Ayala, art and coloring by Raymond Salvador and lettering by Micah Myers, “Let’s Stay Together.” When you read it, you will understand why instantly. ^_^

Dead Beats is also pleasantly – which is to say,  very – diverse. It looks like the actual world I inhabit, with straight and queers folks and people of differing body types and colors and ability and yes, levels of demonic possession. This collection has a number of queer stories, from the self-affirming to the openly murderous.

No fooling,  this variety made the book a lot easier to read for me. I don’t encounter Japanese schoolgirls nearly as often as, oh, just about anything else, which is not – for obvious reasons – reflected in my comics reading.  It’s nice to see comic pages that look like the life I live, full of all sorts of people. People who are either killing or being killed, true, but I’m not going to lie and tell you that real life doesn’t have plenty of that, too.

Creators are likewise a magnificent palette of colors and identities. There are so many top-notch creators here, you should get this book just for the who’s who in the credits. ^_^ Which, it turns, out, you can’t just now, because the book has sold out. Hopefully they’ll get this back in stock sooner, rather than later, and you can get your fill of people being possessed, mangled, devoured, rendered and cursed!

Ratings:

Overall – 9

This was perfect Sahmain season reading.

*Use ironic endings the way you would a monkey’s paw. Sparingly and expect things to go badly.

 





Western Comic: Chronin, Volume 2: The Sword in Your Hand (English)

October 14th, 2019

If you have not already done so, you should definitely pick up Volume 1 of Alison Wilgus’ time-travel epic, Chronin (link goes to my review.) At last, I can now talk about the finale, Chronin, Volume 2: The Sword in Your Hand.

In my review of Volume 1, I go into great lengths about the uncanny parallel between Chronin and an obscure manga series I loved call Amakusa 1637. Although the stories are in no way similar and, in fact are addressing opposite ends of the same historical era, the fact that they both do this through time travel was remarkable. That they both do this with time travel and a female lead that cross dresses is extraordinary.

Where Amakausa 1637 handles the paradoxes by changing the future, in Chronin the characters decide on fixing the past. Why they must do so – and how – make for a fascinating and tensely written story that anyone can enjoy, even if history is not your best subject. In that sense, Chronin is as much historical thriller as a science fiction novel.

Part of what makes Chronin a satisfying read is the characters. They are all well-developed, fraught with their own emotions, successes and failures. Human frailty is a character unto itself in this story.

The ending is super satisfying on every level, even levels you didn’t know you were worried about. Hatsu has a half dozen amazing moments in this volume – ultimately she is my favorite character, having shown common sense, intelligence, competence, humor and a fair chunk of rage at everyone meddling gratuitously in her timeline. Even the antagonist make some really pointed comments about the hubris of time anthropologists, wandering through the past taking samples the way European explorers did with indigenous cultures. Ultimately, it was that raw honestly of the characters that really kept me turning the pages right to the very end.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 8 “Fuck Kuji” is a an actual line in the book.
Service – 3 A little light gayness
Yuri – 8 Not spoiling is pointless, there’s only two characters it could be. Mirai and Hatsu ftw.

Overall – 9

Time travel, cross-dressing samurai adventures sound fun, but Chronin reminds us that people’s lives are not just collateral damage.





Live Action: Batwoman on CW

October 13th, 2019

It’s been said before here on Okazu, but I always feel I must disclaim before I review any DC anything – I really don’t read Batman. I don’t really like Batman. I was a Marvel collector, my wife took care of DC. So you’ll excuse me if I haven’t been following Supergirl with it’s queer storylines (and queerbaiting.) I tried. I watched like three episodes and just couldn’t do it. I’ve attempted to watch Arrow and the Flash and all of them make me feel exactly as I did as a child when everyone loved some movie or music personality and I was like… okay, nice for you. I did try though, honestly! They just didn’t hook me. But I felt an obligation to at least try and watch CW’s newest series, Batwoman, if only to review it.

After one episode, I can say that I think, maybe, I might like it. ^_^

The opening plot is loosely pattered after Batwoman: Elegy, with some fairly significant and much-needed changes. When Elegy was written, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, was the law of the land in the United States. Kate’s story was a real story, the story of Lt. Dan Choi, a man whose illustrious military career was cut short merely for being gay. In the last decade DADT was overturned and so it makes no sense that they’d keep that same scenario. Instead, Kate is busted out of military academy for violating academy rules in a scene that makes the point that the real problem is homophobia. Kate, cut off from a military career, and by her father from the career she really wants in his high-tech security firm, is angry and rootless. On top of this base, the Alice storyline from Elegy has been ported, with modification.

Batman was unable to prevent Kate’s sister Beth’s death – and – has disappeared. Gotham is without a protector, crime is rising and suddenly a new villain is terrorizing the city, Lewis Caroll-quoting, Harley Quinn-esque, manic pixie nightmare girl, Alice.  Thankfully for my sanity, the hideously obvious BIG REVEAL doesn’t make it to the end of the first episode, thus fixing the most tedious bit of writing in Elegy. Now we can settle in and see what the story might actually do.

To quote YNN Reviewer, Chris LeBlanc, Ruby Rose’s hair is 80% of this episode – I am in absolute agreement with this. It’s not that I just like angry, violent lesbians with undercuts, it’s just that I want you to tell me the last time you saw a woman in an American television series with this haircut. Take your time, I’ll wait. I’ll wait a long time, because the answer is ‘never.’ I know Batwoman will be getting her scarlet tresses, and I’m okay with that, as long as Kate gets to keep her undercut.  ^_^ The cowl did look a bit weird without something to tie into the cape.

The acting in the first episode was…all right. Everyone felt like they were trying to get a feel for the characters and their relationships, which left me a bit like I was watching a really good read-through. Ruby Rose as Kate smoulders beautifully.  Meagan Tandy as Kate’s ex, now-married to a guy, Sophie is a wild card that can be played in a number of ways – in this first ep, she’s damseled because she’s the one character in the story Kate would put herself on the line for. Both Kate’s father and Lukas are unfortunately written and I hope to heck they fix them both, because blecch. Especially Luke. I need him to stop being clumsy dorky scared boy. One of those things would be fine, but you cannot convince me that Bruce is leaving his entire billion-dollar set up to a fuckup. This and how absurdly dark the filming is, so the fight scenes are almost wholly obscured, were the weak points.

The biggest pleasant surprise of the opener in both writing and acting is Nicole Kang as Mary Hamilton, Kate’s sister by marriage. Everything about her was terrific. She way set up as a loopy-harmless-bubblehead, then given a twist that made sense and was…fun. Between this and the downplay of “the mystery of Alice’s identity,” this first episode gave me real hope for the writing. Hope for the writing is why I’ll be tuning in tonight for the next episode of Batwoman.

I can’t really rate it fairly after one episode, but it’ll give us a point of comparison later.

Ratings:

Cinematography – 4 Who can tell, it’s so dark.
Story – 6 Alice, but with some improvements, here’s hoping
Characters – 7
Service – 5 Some nice lesbian kisses

Overall – 6 with hope for improvement

I just hope like hell they don’t try and get Sophie and Kate together again. Introduce another character as a love interest, PLEASE.





LGBTQ Comic: Kiss Number 8 (English)

June 14th, 2019

Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable and Ellen T. Crenshaw is the last of the books I brought home from TCAF, in this case thanks to Johanna Draper Carlson of Comics Worth Reading. Johanna and I agree on almost nothing, but I love conversing with her is terrific and I  almost always learn something I did not know when I do. ^_^

I know I talk about TCAF a lot, but one of the things about that I particularly like about it is the proximity to so many reviewers who recommend excellent books to me that I might not otherwise know about. And this year, as the Ladies in a Hotel Room occupied the corner table at the lobby bar, we had a great number of amazingly talented, passionate and interesting people join us. So I actually met Colleen and Ellen before having had a chance to read this book.

Kiss Number 8 follows Mads, a high school girl from a family in a community that is strongly, even strictly, Christian. Church and age-appropriate dances and the like fill her life. Her friend’s brother is into her though she’s not into him, although she tries to be, for a while. And in the meantime, she’s dealing with a pile of normalish growing up things, and a family secret that she’s just kinda pissed about. She’ not pissed that they have a family secret, or, when she learns what it is, but she is seriously pissed at her Dad, who is her best friend, being a dick about it.

Speaking of best friends, Mads has some friend issues of her own. Her one best friend is in love with her, which was kinda obvious to me, but not to Mads and Mads is in love with a different friend, which is obvious to everyone, except Mads.  Mads is trying to be the good (straight) girl her community and family want her to be. So when she has kiss number 8, drama ensues, but not for the reason you might expect.The story isn’t a “coming out” narrative, although that does happen. When Mads and we finally learn her family secret, it’s not at all what we -or she – think it is.

Everything about Mads’ life as it is presented, is alien to me.  But the mass amounts of drama around friendship and dating…that was all as I remember it. So it was both entirely realistic and also oddly foreign, the way going over to dinner at a friend’s house was when you were 12 and finding that all the things you had on the table and thought were normal are nowhere to be seen on your friend’s table and if you ask for Worcestershire sauce they just stared uncomrehendingly…it was like that.

Although the art isn’t photorealistic, it conveys a very realistic feel to the story, with a single-camera perspective. It’s an easy read, even though it can be emotionally heavy.  The story, the characters, the art all combine to tell a poignant tale of learning about life, about one’s self and the people around one.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 6 I only really liked Laura
Service – Not really
LGBTQ – 9

Overall – 8

Like Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, this is a solid YA book that would make a great pride gift for your family member who needs help understanding themselves or others, or the local library. ^_^

 





LGBTQ Comic: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (English)

June 10th, 2019

Freddy Riley is lucky. She’s going out with popular Laura Dean. Freddy’s got good friends who are understanding when she’s required by Laura to run off at a moment’s notice, or go over to her house. And Freddy’s most okay with it, but she really hates that Laura breaks up with her, then they get back together then she breaks them up again.

And the thing is, Freddy’s friends aren’t actually okay with Laura Dean’s behavior. In fact, it’s pretty obvious to them that Laura Dean is jerking Freddy around. They are there when she needs them, but.

Freddy’s not all that okay with it, either, to be honest, but she cannot see her way out of the cycle. And in the meantime, she’s not there when her friends need her.

The configuration of the relationship is never the problem. The nature of the relationship is the problem. But when tables turn and Freddy learns that her absence has made a difference, she also manages to find it in herself to be non-judgey. And, eventually to deal with the problem in her relationship with Laura Dean which, of course, is Laura Dean.

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is an honest, unpretentious and non-judgemental book about being a high school student in the real world. And I think, if a lit teacher is out there still teaching Rumble Fish or, gods help us, A Separate Peace, then there is no excuse for not reading this book as part of the curriculum. I’d suggest this to any Freshman high school teacher. (Knowing full well that some schools would still have a kitten with such an openly queer story and other YA lit themes.)

Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell do a smashing job of nailing tone and feel of high school life and an equally excellent job of taking a look at a queer kid’s life and love without it being a coming out drama. Art, narrative flow and voice are all spot on. Grey, black, white and pink as a color scheme has now become a staple for “emotional drama” in my head. ^_^The visuals are strong, the characters are well-defined and the situations felt exactly the same density of the problems I dealt with at that age.

 

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – Urm, well, this is a tough one. Not sure I’d want any of them over except Dodo, who seems the right kind of dorky. But they are well-done, so let’s say 7
Service – 1?
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 9

I also want to shout out to the one adult in the story who nails the problem and the solution earlyish in the books. Freddy still had to take her time to get there, but yay for adult experience. As an adult reading this book, you’re also likely to know what the solution to Freddy’s problem is before a few pages have passed, but that is not the story. The story is watching Freddy get there.