Archive for the Western Comic/Comix Category


Jook Joint Comic, #1 (English)

October 17th, 2018

The one thing I still love best about cons is the chance to walk through the artist alley and discover original works, speak with artists, and get to see the stuff you might not find in the Dealer’s Room. At NYCC this year, I was pleased as punch to get my hands on Jook Joint, #1, the new venture by Bingo Love‘s Tee Franklin with Alitha Martinez, Shari Chankhamma, Taylor Esposito and Mike Hawthorne.

The title comes from an American black southeastern colloquialism, Jook, (aka Juke) Joint, a honkytonk that served the black population. Think “Jukebox.” A Jook Joint is a place for people to escape their lives, grab a drink, some companionship and relax. THIS Jook Joint is also a place where women can get revenge on those who assault them., among other things.

The book comes with a trigger warning for sexual and domestic abuse, and violence, it also comes with a raft of hotline numbers. (See the bottom of this post for those numbers, if you need, there are people who can help you. Call them.) Because I felt this book’s violence to be entirely therapeutic, it didn’t strike me as violent at all. Nonetheless, it is violent.

In Jook Joint #1, we meet a lineup of women who need shelter from men and the witches who protect them, all centered around Mahalia, who uses her magic to offer the sick and frightened protection and, if they desire, vengeance for the abuse.

There is a touch of lesbian sex and my gut tells me Mahalia loves both the women and the men who treat her with respect. Hopefully we’ll see some of that in upcoming issues.

This was such a great comic, honestly. It felt like a throwback to the horror comics of my youth in which the grotesque was eclipsed by the everyday horrors of real life, for which revenge would be no more than a bandaid. Slasher horror and psychological horror wrapped up in some beautiful art. So good.

#1 ends with the story of Heloise, the victim of domestic violence, but now that her husband is turning his wrath on their daughter, she’s had enough. Will she go through with Mahalia’s spell? Tune into Jook Joint #2 to find out! You know I will. These are all available in print and on Comixology on Kindle.

Ratings:
Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – 9 Nakedness, but for me the service is the vengeance
Lesbian – 5 Only a few panels in the beginning, but pretty blunt

Overall – 9

Some excellent American horror comics right here. It felt good.

Call, if you need help:

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-27-8255





Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network Anthology (English)

October 11th, 2018

This past weekend at NYCC I had the very sincere pleasure of sitting in on the Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network Anthology panel featuring Alex de Campi, David Lopez, Genevieve Valentine, Brendan Fletcher and editor Alejandro Arbona, Moderated by Kodansha USA’s Ben Applegate, it was an hour-long celebration of the joy of being able to contribute to the iconic Ghost in the Shell canon.

Immediately after the panel, I went and bought the book at the Kodansha booth – it sounded that good. And, having read it, I can say with all honestly that it is that good. 

Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network is not an attempt to copy the original Ghost in the Shell manga. Only one entry has art that is reminiscent of Shirow’s work, while the other stories consciously reach for a out-of Japan look. Giannis Milonogiannis offers a consciously manga-like effort, with many notable nods to the original, including chibi characters  (as de Campi pointed out in the panel.) Lopez focuses on China for a more realistic look;  Brent Schoonover went full-on American comics for Valentine’s moving look at the remnants of The United States in the GitS universe (a story in which Section 9 never appears, but is nonetheless brilliant.) And LRNZ’s art is recognizably European for the final story that, in many ways, is one of the most profoundly Shirow-esque stories of the post-original-manga variations, right up there with Ghost in the Shell: Innocence.

None of the stories have the hyper densely crammed word balloons of the original and I frankly do not believe we in the west will ever truly be able to capture that until GitS is transformed into a neural network-shared media stream. Then we will understand Shirow’s point, I think.

Aside from that, I felt that every story in the anthology really grabbed onto one or more aspects of the original and ran with it. Issues of access to information, healthcare, safety; the meaning of identity in a world were you can be  – and are – multiple people; the meaning of borders, of ageing, of family all were highlighted in extremely smart ways. Every story took these concepts and delved into them for the rest of the world, people outside Section 9 and outside the borders of Japan.

There were no stories I didn’t like, although, of course, your mileage may vary. But the thing I found the most refreshing was that the members of Section 9 sounded like the people I remembered from the manga. Snarky-funny, loyal to each other, but always joking, picking on one another, poking at each other like siblings. That was the thing I loved best about Section 9 and it was fully represented here. 

The final story, “Star Gardens” by Brendan Fletcher and LRNZ focuses deeply on identity – the idea that Kusanagi is all the personas she has shown us over the decades, not one or another but all of them at once – and this really rang true for me especially in the light of Innocence, when Kusanagi no longer exists as a physical entity. This story also has a magnificent panel where we see the many fragments of Kusanagi from the movie, the manga, the TV series, the OVA, even the recent live-action movie, simultaneously. It was a fantastic image, which spoke volumes about the range of the canon and how we each have our own idea of the “real” Kusanagi. This story also contains an homage to the lesbian sex scene of the original manga, but with more meaning and emotion contained in those few panels that the original, where it was meant to be gratuitous.

Every story had strengths and weaknesses and, for any fan of the larger body of Ghost in the Shell I think this must be considered a meaningful addition to the canon, as Shirow has overseen and approved all of it. 

Ratings:

Art – 9 Variable, but I say damned good.
Stories – 9 Also damned good.
Characters – 10  Listening to everyone bust Batou’s chops made me so happy.
Service – 4 Some, but not half of Shiro’s ass fetish.
Yuri – 3 There’s a thing, yes.

Overall – 9

If you only like one version or another of Major Motoko Kusanagi, it might miss you, but if what draws you to Ghost in the Shell is the larger questions of identity and access, memory and reality and perception, it’s a must-read. 





LGBTQ Comic: Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, Part 3

September 16th, 2018

The final volume of Legend of Korra: Turf Wars has dropped! 

In Part 1 and Part 2, Korra and Asami were rudely interrupted on their vacation in the spirit world by the intrusion of a greedy real estate developer on the spirits’ domain, a humanitarian aid crisis being mishandled  by the Republic City government and a violent gang turf war. All of which had it been written in 2014, might have seemed absurd happening all at once but, in 2018, feels a bit on the nose.

Because this is a 3-part American YA comic that was meant to be a sequel to a popular cartoon, the plots and any and all emotional complications were wrapped up relatively quickly and neatly. Any discomfort family and friends had with the idea of Korra and Asami as partners is wiped away in a panel or two per complication, long traditions of homophobia are declared “need to be changed.” The greedy real estate developer – after having been saved more than once by Korra – comes around to the only actual sensible idea. Asami asserts her corporate power, Zhu Li takes over the Republic City government (and I weep with joy at the idea of a world in which police, military, corporate and political power are all held by women with a sense of responsibility, wrested from the grasping hands of selfish and greedy men.)

Art is once again handled beautifully by Irene Koh, who has reported on her Tumblr that a sequel series is in the works, although she won’t be working on it.

It would all be perfect, except for one nagging thing. Several times this volume Korra and Asami agree that they “should talk.” I understand that thin page count means that neither plot nor development get the time they deserve in this comic, but the thing that annoys me most is that they never have that talk. A panel or two where they agree that they work better as a team isn’t really the talk they need, and while I deeply appreciate that the final pages are focused on their love for one another, I really wish we had seen them have that talk. ^_^; On the one hand, I think it’s that I’m just more used to manga, where longer page counts means that talk takes two chapters, and on the other, I’m old and that talk is really an important tool in terms of healthy relationships. ^_^

On a lot of levels, though, I’m not unhappy that we get the end we wanted from the cartoon here in the comic, with Sato Asami and Avatar Korra saying “I love you” to one another, as they celebrate the victory of peace and progress in the city they love. There’s a bunch of young readers out there, for whom this will be a life-changing comic.

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 0
Yuri – 10

Overall – A very solid 9

Thank you very, very much to Okazu Superhero Eric P. for his sponsorship of this series! 

If we do indeed get a sequel, I’ll be really interested to read it. (And I look forward to whatever Koh has planned, as well. She’s definitely someone to follow.)

What did you think? Let me know in the comments!

 





Live-Action: Blue is the Warmest Color (La Vie Adèle)

August 5th, 2018

In 2013, the Palme d’Or, the highest award at Cannes, went to a movie adaptation of Julie Maroh’s comic, Le Bleu est une couleur chaude. That year I was able to review the English-language edition of the graphic novel, Blue is the Warmest Color. It was an uncomfortable read, but for all the right reasons.

This summer, as part of my unusually high consumption of LGBTQ non-print media, I’ve watched several gay movies, including Call Me By Your Name and Love, Simon and the live-action television adaptation of Tagame-sensei’s Otouto no Otto (My Brother’s Husband) , I thought it only fair that I finally make some time to watch the movie Blue is the Warmest Color.

I rented this movie on Amazon Prime Video, but it is also available on DVD, if you prefer a hard copy.

The movie is just under three hours long. The best thing about it is the acting. Both Adèle Exarchopoulos (Adèle) and Léa Seydoux (Emma) do a fine job of making stone soup out of a mostly empty plot. 

Where the comic was nuanced look at Clementine’s spiral into drugs and death, the movie is a very conventional “girl realizes she’s gay” story. Adèle is a typical high school student. Her friends are obsessed with boys and sex and she isn’t. She tries to care about the attractive classmate who wants her, but realizes she’s faking it. When she sees Emma, she finds herself interested and when she meets her, even more so. Emma and Adèle become involved, they move in together and, ultimately after some years, they break up.  As the movie ends, Adèle has become a school teacher and she seeks Emma out once more to talk, hoping, somewhat pointlessly, to get back together. 

All of this would be satisfactory to me but for the director’s specific foibles.  Abdellatif Kechiche, the director, has some serious issues about mouths. Clearly this director wants to be *in* the mucus cavities as things go on. There are many extended, close-up eating scenes, including 3 scenes of eating spaghetti in red sauce. The first one was weird, the second one was gross, by the third one, I just felt like I was being forced to deal with the director’s fetish. All kissing and sex scenes were likewise extended and focused on oral activity.  

What was a fraught tale of dysfunction and emotional pain becomes a nice, slightly bourgeois, weepy romance, with some lesbian pulp moments.

IF you are looking for a lesbian romance with explicit sex, with good acting filling in the many spaces between the dialogue, this is a good movie. If you were looking for an adaptation with any reference to the source comic, this is not it. Adèle is not the comic’s Clem, this Emma is not Maroh’s manipulative Emma.

Ratings:

Acting – 10
Characters – 8 They were all too likable
Story – 7
Cinematography – 1 This movie is a brutal waste of the medium of film. It could have been filmed on a cell phone for all these closeups. No need to take up a movie screen.
Lesbian – 10

Overall – 7 I was hoping for more drug despair, not breakup despair.

Where the comic is about two people who were extremely bad together, this movie is about a woman who met the love of her life and lost her for no particular reason, just because that’s how it goes sometimes. 





Western Comix: HOW THE BEST HUNTER IN THE VILLAGE MET HER DEATH

May 23rd, 2018

If you’re a regular reader here on Okazu, you are familiar with the name Molly Ostertag. I’ve been a fan of her work since 2013, when I encountered her and her work at MoCCA. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of backing and reading her masterwork Strong Female Protagonist, Volume 1 and Volume 2.

HOW THE BEST HUNTER IN THE VILLAGE MET HER DEATH is a little allegorical tale about facing one’s darkest fears in secret and accepting the truth of one’s self in the light. It’s also a modern fantasy in the style of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, in which need for/desire to change is expressed as physical transformation.

It’s a tale about obsession and how that can lead to negative consequences…or positive, if the truth is faced. And, it’s a tale about love.

This comic is simply told in first-person narrative and simply drawn, in black, grey and white with splashes of red for emphasis. It’s a tale that will resonate with most folks who have come through their own dark forests and transformed into their true selves. 

The link above leads to the ebook, but I think the physical book would make a great gift for a young queer friend who wasn’t yet sure of themselves or was unsure if there’d be a place at all for them in the world. It’s s lovely little book that will also make great stocking stuffers and secret santa presents. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

For your own piece of Molly Ostertag‘s journey (and possibly your own,) HOW THE BEST HUNTER IN THE VILLAGE MET HER DEATH, is a worthy investment.