If you paid any attention to my social media this weekend, you knew that I was attending FlameCon 2022, back in New York City for the first time in a few years.

My FlameCon started with…a panel! And, in the tradition of this particular panel, technical difficulties!  ^_^  But being one of the first panels, meant that I had the rest of the con to enjoy myself. This year, that mean hanging out with Rica Takashima, selling her self-published mini-comics edition of Rica ‘tte Kanji!? and, of course, By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga!

The energy  at FlameCon was amazing. It took Rica and I 20 years, but there I was at a queer comics convention not explaining Yuri manga, so much as just telling everyone to go watch Birdie Wing. ^_^

It was great to see some folks who have been following Okazu for years! Thank you all for coming by and chatting. It was also really lovely to catch up with old friends.

Day one, I spoke with Jennifer Camper, who was in to do a retrospective of Howard Cruse with co-chair of Queers & Comics, Justin Hall, along with Rupert Kinnard, Carlo Quispe, Denis Kitchen and Karen Green. Howard is among those first-gen gay comix artists who we have only recently lost. The Queers & Comics conferences were designed to create an archive of their stories, so when they were no longer with us, we would have a record. (It was incredible for the years it was held and the information is and will be invaluable for years to come.) Jennifer said she’s working on a collected retrospective of her work. The world actually needs this. While it’s true that we’ll start losing first-gen gay comix folks, we still have second-generation folks like Jennifer and Alison Bechdel, whose recent success – I hope – signals interest in other queer comix artists. 

Jennifer noted that the one thing this con had very little of was queer comics. She wasn’t wrong. As I walked the floor, there were some comics by queer folks, but surprisingly few queer comics. I especially felt there was very little comics by/ about/for queer women. Most of the comics on sale were by/about/for queer guys, with a small showing of women doing fannish comics of queer guys.

I spoke with Justin Hall about that on Sunday. Justin is an amazing comic artist as well, and the editor in chief of No Straight Lines and QU33R anthologies. Justin noted that it’s relatively easy to create a print, and with digital tools, you can make it shiny and colorful and print off a bunch and sell them, in the time it takes to make one page of a comic. Then you have to do the next and the next and tell the story…. so folks are going for merch that is easier to make and sell over comix/comics which are much less so.

I also had a theory that maybe, with so much queer content out there these days, there isn’t the desperation to tell those stories there used to be. Sure folks want their story and art on the table , and I did see some lovely minicomics for sale, but fan art and merch (fannish and original) was primary.

That said I did meet a bunch of folks doing fun stuff!

I spent a moment admiring Shauna Grant’s new book, Mimi and the Cutie Catastrophe, which is out now from Scholastic Books (how exciting!) about Mimi, who wants to be valued for more than just her cuteness. I love her work. It is, actually, quite cute. ^_^ The one ‘zine I picked up was by Ruya Hopps, Mannish Women and Violet Decor:The Language of Lesbianism in Pre-Code Hollwood. Rica immediately pronounced this “precious” because of the level of work creative ‘zine work. To be very honest, I really felt that way about every comic there.

And I love Emily K’s, “off-brand Sailor Moon” (her quote) comics, Gothic Cosmos Child and Lunar Felines. She’s got some of these up on Twitter. Really funny stuff.

I was gifted a beautifully dark Sweeney Todd comic by Nakata “Knack” Whittle, when she dropped buy Rica’s table to get a signed copy of BYS. And I met a lot of great new friends there, plus I was able to see some old pals and just hang around with Rica for a couple of days which we have not been able to do in years. Put a pin in that, I want to get back to us.

But, very importantly, I was able to speak with the adorable and talented folks from Yuri soft Games! Their new game The Songbird Guild is going to be out by the end of this year, hopefully, but I told them I’d tell you and you’d make them get it out. ^_^ This Magical Girl story started life as a jam. You can wishlist this on Steam and follow them on itch.io.  Here’s the synopsis from their site:

“The Kotori Mori has always looked up to her father.  As one of her town’s only (competent) magical boys, he almost singlehandedly protected their community from the dark creatures that tried to tear it down.

Now, at the age of 21, Kotori is finally old enough to pursue her own magical girl dreams in the biggest city of them all: Larimar.  However, she finds the life of a big city magical girl more difficult than anticipated, and soon the decision will threaten her life.

Kaida Hikari, a slightly older magical girl, becomes inseparably close to her during this ordeal, but will their bond be enough to get them through it, or will they crack under the pressure of being the city’s guardians?”

It’s really cute and also kind of dark. ^_^ Emily, Kale and Tess introduced me to the spider lady villainess, Elledonna. I made a deal with them that if they gave her a wife who loves how evil she is, I’d actually read the VN. By Sunday they had a sketch. I’m doing this thing, I hope!

Overall Flamecon was exceptionally well-run and super welcoming and friendly. I was busy at the table so saw none of the other panels (and nothing short of being drugged insensate will get me over to the stage to see the performances, I am allergic to skits,) but I heard all sort of great things about them.

Justin and I agreed that we’d like to see more narrative work and, we’d like to see Flamecon if not require, then prioritize and feature folks making narrative content. The room we were in would have been perfect for the “mini-comics room.” But, then I am always wanting to recreate Comitia at every event. Probably why I like TCAF so much. ^_^

Lastly, I want to thank and celebrate Rica Takashima. In the 1990s, she wanted to see a comic about real queer life in Tokyo and so, she drew one. In 2003, Rica ‘tte Kanji!? became the first Yuri manga published in English. Since then, Yuri has blossomed around the world and as we signed copies of By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga  – and just about sold out for the weekend! – we high fived, because it took us 20 years, but we actually changed the world. It felt damned nice. ^_^

And check these out! Rica brought me a pair of the Family Mart Tokyo Rainbow Pride socks from Japan. She gets me. ^_^

So thank you, Rica, for a great weekend and thank you, FlameCon, for a lovely convention. I hope to see you again next year!