Archive for the Western Comic/Comix Category


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.





The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire, Part One

June 7th, 2019

Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire, Part One is the beginning of the new three-part comic series following Avatar Korra and her friends, allies and enemies. Many thanks to Okazu Superhero Eric P. for sponsorship of today’s review!

This time, the story begins just before the Earth Kingdom holds a democratic election, as a new general seeks to re-establish martial law and with it, the Empire. General Guan has the martial might and probably the force of personality needed to make him a real threat, but he’s also secretly brainwashing people, which will clearly give him an unfair advantage in the election.

Korra decides to vist former Earth Empire general Kuvira and gain her insight on this situation. The team is uncomfortable with this  decision, but when Korra allows Kuvira to leave her prison to help fight Guan, tensions run pretty high. Asami is not quiet about her lack of trust and unwillingness to be anywhere near the woman who killed her father.

Vivian Ng’s and Michelle Wong’s illustrations are solid, and the writing is now much like stepping into comfortable shoes. We know the people, we don’t need any of the “oh, hey, let’s deal with this thing over here” that we had to in Turf Wars. Korra and Aasmi’s relationship is stable, even if their perspectives are in opposition. That said, there is care taken to remind the reader that they are a couple. Just in case you didn’t get the memo. So while I would not say that this is a “LGBTQ” comic, it is a solid adventure comic (as well as a equally solid “Politics 101: Why People Suck” for tweens ^_^) comic that includes a stable lesbian couple.

Like the previous series, things move pretty fast in this short graphic novel. Whether, ultimately, Kuvira can be trusted is still up in the air. I’m hoping that she will be written as nuanced and complex as she was in the cartoon. For my money, one of the things LoK did best was the portrayal of the adult women as fully developed humans. I’m hoping we’ll see Kuvira in that light, once again. Some of her history is briefly surfaced, so that’s good.

If you’re looking for a YA graphic novel for a kid who likes to think, one that checks multiple boxes on diversity (although there is still room to expand in this regard), has male and female characters who are given the space they need to be seen as whole, and is an good entree into understanding politics and human society as we experience it in real-time, this is a great bet.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – 0
Yuri – 10 In this case, because Asami and Korra just are, together, not because of any grand coming out.

Overall – A very solid 9

The book itself has no ratings or age limits of any kind, which puts it by default into All-Ages. And it’s currently #1 in Amazon’s LGBT Graphic Novels category, to which I say, “Happy Pride Month, Korra and Asami, welcome to the family.”





Western Comic: When I Arrived at the Castle (English)

May 23rd, 2019

Despite the increase in lesbian vampire (or not-a-vampire) stories in recent years, there has not yet been a lesbian horror renaissance. Recently in a twitter conversation several folks were speaking about how in many genres including, but not limited to, both BL and Yuri, horror is often transformed into something “sexy.” As a result, the horror of that horror is never fully felt or addressed, because its presented to the reader wrapped in a cloth of sexual desire.

In my TCAF panel with creator Emily Carrol, (a recording of which you can listen to, thanks to Jamie Coville!) she made the point that, for her, horror must be unresolvable for it to work.  And for me, the horror must have lingering discomfort or it’s just fear and not “horror.” When I Arrived in the Castle ticks all these boxes.

We begin in the middle of a story, one for which we will learn a beginning, but not the beginning and for which we will never truly know the end. An apparently nervous cat-woman arrives at a castle where a predatory female something will taunt her emotionally and physically. Maybe she and we will learn a truth, but never the truth.

Presented in black, white and red, with a variety of visual styles, the art leaves us as unmoored as the narrative and prose.

All though the narrative progresses in a straightforward fashion, the tale is nonlinear and climax does not bring resolution or knowledge. In the end, we are left with unanswered questions, unquestionable feelings and a pervading sense of having seen something, but what, exactly we’d be hard pressed to describe. 

If you are interested in lesbian horror, this is about as close to and as far from Carmilla (original novel or recent web series based on it) as you can get at the same time.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – ????
Service – 6 There are nudity and sexual situations, but whether it’s salacious really depends upon you
Lesbian – Yuppers

Overall – 9

 

This is a brilliant work of horror and you should all read it to learn something about yourself.