Archive for the LGBTQ Category


Nijicon Event Report

October 25th, 2015

website header I have only good things to say about Nijicon. ^_^

Nijicon, in it’s second year, is still a small con, but gets top marks on friendly and engaged staff and attendees. All of the panels had small, but very attentive and interested audiences and the questions for panelists were thoughtful and intriguing.

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GIRL FRIENDS by Milk Morinaga

The dealer’s room had far more diversity than I expected and, while BL was strongly represented, there were still very some fun Yuri-related items. Nijicon was running a tricky-tray raffle for baskets of manga and goodies that were a delightful mix of Yuri, BL and gay media, the proceeds of which went to an organization that supports Philadelphia-based LGBTQ homeless youth. I was pleased to see offerings from Seven Seas, Vertical, Funimation, SuBLime (Viz) and other anime/manga companies. I really appreciate when they help out with charity prizes.

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What Did You Eat Yesterday? by Fumi Yoshinaga and ramen. How cute is that?

 

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Citrus by Saburouta

Nijicon’s current location in the Philadelphia suburbs, means it is most accessible for folks with cars but, it’s got room to grow and they had folks coming in from Canada, including creator of The Young Protectors Alex Woolfson, and the folks running a new con in Toronto, Yaoi/Yuri North , so it’s clearly off to a good start.

I would like to thank manga researcher Fujimoto Yukari-sensei, who was kind enough to spend the day with us, and my wife for many things, including driving me to the event, being my keeper, a ringer, a prompt and extremely cute. ^_^

And I definitely want to give many thanks to the staff of Nijicon, especially Lauren and Lyndsey, who were just fabulous ladies, classy and kind in every way. And they get what being a panelist is like, as you can see in this lovely gift basket they gave me: It included caffeine, protein, sugar, water, and Tylenol. I loved this so much. ^_^ I strongly recommend every con consider doing this. Its says “we know how hard you’re working to make this con fun, panelists. Thanks.”

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Overall, I felt that Nijicon made a very obvious good-faith effort to be LGBTQ-conscious and friendly and not at all just BL-focused with a side of Yuri. Panels included discussions of trans-positive titles, Yaoi fandom and feminism, as well as a broad and really fun conversation about the future of LGBTQ comics.  And the attendees were also a nice mix of BL/Yuri fans, male/female, LGBTQ/straight, cis-/trans.

I’d recommend Nijicon for folks interested in the weird intersection where western LGBTQ fans meet Japanese BL and Yuri in all their uncomfortable tropes and the occasional glimpse of honest representation.

Once again, I come home from a con thinking that the future looks bright for LGBTQ audiences and comics. Thanks, Nijicon! Hopefully I’ll see you again next year. ^_^





LGBTQ Anthology: How Much Queer Work!

October 2nd, 2015

HowmuchqueerworkEarlier this year, the Side-by-Side film festival,  focusing on LGBTQ movies, was held in St. Petersburg, Russia. Despite a strongly homophobic climate right now, folks braved 5 bomb threats over ten days to enjoy and discuss LGBTQ films from around the world.

To support their work, they created a comic anthology, starring comics creators from Europe, Russia and America. How Much Queer Work is that comic anthology. I was privileged to obtain a copy at the Queer and Comics conference last spring. The anthology is self-described as having 18 well known authors, including Jennifer Camper (USA), Helene Junecic (Croatia), Ariel Schrag (USA), Tiitu Takalo (Finland) and from Russia Viktoria Lomasko and Lena Hek, have their work presented in the volume. Stories of coming out, first-love, discrimination, gender identity and much more drawn in different comic artistic styles.

Many of the USA creators are well-known to us, Jennifer Camper, co-founder of Queer & Comics, Howard Cruse, one of the pioneers of Gay Comix and creator of Wendel, Ariel Schrag, Justin Hall, Roberta Gregory, are all folks I have had the pleasure of meeting. And in many cases, I’ve read and enjoyed their works. So the content that interested me most were from European creators I was less familiar with.

I very much enjoyed Anna Bas Backer’s tale of two friends, one about to embark upon a transition. Viktoria Lomasko’s illustrated essay on the circumstances of the festival, literally surrounded by threat of violence and hatred, and the internal misogyny and distrust was painful to read, but vital.

And Elke R. Steiner’s work of an awkward youthful relationship in a Christian environment was both excellent and stereotypical…making me long for the day when tales like this go unneeded.

Tiitu Takalo’s art deserves a special call out, as it acts as filler pages between the stories and in and of itself, tells many stories. I loved Takalo’s use of body language in many different styles.

The cover by Helene Janecic recalls to mind the American classic figure Rose the Riveter, and the Soviet glorification of the worker in a pose that indicates to us that while a great deal of work has been done, there is so, so much more to do.

During a summer in which those of us in the USA were celebrating the legitimization of our relationships, it was important to remind ourselves that for LGBTQ communities in Russia and elsewhere, the past few years have seen significant changes for the negative.  There is still so much queer work yet to be done.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

Some of the best the world has to offer, gathered together. I love anthologies for their constant reminder that our stories, told over and over as they are, are still pertinent to someone, somewhere, who believe that they alone feel this way.





Summer Reading: The Grave Soul by Ellen Hart

September 30th, 2015

GSELHJLOne of the most delightful things about the novel Maria-sama ga Miteru ~Ibara no Mori was the description of Sei, the compulsive reader, looking for stories that reflected what she was going through, this unspoken, confusing and many ways, distressing love of another girl. She found things about homosexuality, of course, that treated it as a pathology and, based on the descriptions of the stuff she read, she found herself staring down the Well of Loneliness and other dire lesbian classics.

I loved this section of the novel, because I too was young, and combing through the library, trying to find books that didn’t make me want to stab myself. I wasn’t, thank the gods, looking for confirmation…I just wanted to read a good book with lesbians.

I was lucky. I found Desert of the Heart, by Jane Rule and Beebo Brinker,  by Ann Bannon and I found lesbian mysteries. Murder at the Nightwood Bar by Katherine V. Forrest launched me into a 1990s full of volumes of lesbian-protagonist mysteries. Naiad Press was publishing them in droves and I was haunting Barnes and Noble, (this was so long ago Borders did not yet exist and B&N’s “Gay and Lesbian Fiction” shelves were a second home) buying them and borrowing them at the library, Dozens, maybe hundreds of lesbians with long-dead lovers, with drinking problems who weren’t out, who were out and suffering from institutional homophobia, being stalked and tortured and beaten and eventually catching the bad guy. So, so many mysteries. So many, in fact, I became absolutely sick to death of mysteries.

At then end of the decade, there were two authors left I could stand. Forrest kept writing, left Naiad for a major publisher and her character, Kate Delafield, out and comfortable at last, became more comfortable for me to read. And Ellen Hart, whose Jane Lawless mysteries scratched an itch for lesbian characters who were not suffering from homophobia, alcoholism, or trauma. Although Jane had the prerequisite long-dead lover, she ran a restaurant, had a female Oscar Wilde as a side-kick and was quite likable. I always liked Jane.

But, as I mention, I left mysteries behind me. And I had not realized that Ellen Hart was still writing them. Until last year, when I discovered Ellen Hart on Facebook,I also discovered Jane once more. And just after I had caught up to Hart’s last book, (the Fates must have found this hilarious, I swear I can hear them giggling,) it tuns out that her new publisher is an imprint of a large publisher and her editor is a friend of mine.  And so, with thanks to the publisher, I had a chance to make the last of my summer reads, Ellen Hart’s newest Jane Lawless mystery, The Grave Soul.

It was an excellent book.

The construction was turned inside out a bit, so we begin with the aftermath of the crisis, then work our way back in to it. We, the reader, always know that aftermath and so the tension is turned way up throughout the book without us actually having to go through the crisis itself. When all too many novels these days are merely prologues to violence, stalking and torture scenes in the name of “suspense,” this approach worked to create a lot more suspense without having to subject us to violence porn.

It was good to revisit Jane Lawless, the restaurateur who sleuths on the side, good that she broke up with her horrible girlfriend in the last novel, good that they did not get back together in this one. Cordelia, her side-kick, is always too much to be believable, but that is what we like about her. She’s the comedic relief in the Shakespearean sense of the word.

The story was tightly written. The mystery was a classic small-town murder, but one in which Miss Marple had to come from out of town in order to make sense of it. And the ending was appropriately Agatha-Christie-like as well.

All in all, an excellent revisit to an obsession of my youth, long before Yuri manga, and long before Jane (or I) was so comfortable with saying the word “gay.” In this case, I was able to come home again and find that what has changed, has changed for the better.

It was a good read, and I’m glad that Ellen Hart is still out there plugging away at it. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Facebook is your friend. Ellen Hart, Katherine V. Forrest, Ann Bannon and many other lesbian writers of the past and present are there and you should totally take a look at their books. This is your literature.





LGBTQ Manga: Torikaebaya (とりかえ・ばや ), Volume 7

September 10th, 2015

TKB7In Volume 6, Sarasojuu lost the child, and Suiren left court to look for her…and found her. In Volume 7 of Torikaebaya (とりかえ・ばや ) by Saitou Chiho, together they visit Yoshino no Miya-sama, a man wise beyond his years, who already knows about their secret.

While they are at Yoshino no Miya-sama’s place, the Mikado comes to visit and their learn some amazing things. The Mikado is Yoshino’s older brother and Toguu-sama is Yoshino’s daughter. In exchange for a vow to protect Toguu-sama, as she has few allies in the capital, Yoshino promises to help the siblings. They, to the utter delight of their family, return home. (Their family has been a high point of the series from the beginning. Totally supportive and loving.)

At which point we come to the most interesting moment to date in this amazing & infuriating manga. Because the “help” Yoshino offers is to assist them to trade places. In the original Torikaebaya, the “trading” was the original choice for them to take the place of their sibling in the other sex’s world in order to be more comfortable with themselves. In this version, it is the moment they leave the life they had known and were comfortable in to “trade” to the world that did not suit them at all. In short, Sarasojuu would become Suiren and serve Toguu-sama and Suiren would take the position of a man at court, as Sarasojuu.

And so they do. Suiren still can’t stand being too close to men, and has a tendency to be delicate, but passes as Sarasojuu. Sarasojuu walks too fast and speaks too loudly for a woman at court and, although mostly everyone just assumes she is Suiren, Toguu-sama sees right through her instantly.
Sarasojuu confides in Togu-sama, and even allows her to speak to Suiren, who assures her that they are her allies from beginning to end. And in this, they are completely in synch. They will do everything to protect this young woman.

Finally a good thing happens. The Udaisho, Sara and Suiren’s father, begs the Mikado to *not* ask for Suiren to come up to the palace to be one of his women.  Mikado graciously agrees, so I steeled myself against something else horrible happening instead. ^_^;

The “something” turned out to be an assassination attempt on Toguu-sama. Sara (as Suiren) is able to move quickly, but it is another lady-in-waiting that makes it possible to capture the miscreant. Her name, she says, is San-no-hime. Sara-Suiren is shocked…is this her wife’s sister? Indeed it is. And now that they have become confidants, will Suiren help her? She’d like the Mikado to take notice of her. Um, sure, Sara says, wondering what on earth she could possibly do.

This series makes me chew my liver out, it really does. But that the “trading places”is not in the initial switch but here is so fascinating and modern, I’m foolishly still holding onto my hope that there is some small possibility of this all working out. Hey, I wanted only one thing from Gunjo, and I got that, so yeah. I’m sticking with foolish dreams.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 1
LGBTQ – 7

Overall – 9

Compelling like a train wreck, I cannot stop reading this.





Lesbian Comic Anthology: Freya – Sequential Love Stories

September 6th, 2015

Freya_2015This past year I mentioned a crowdfunding effort for a series of European LGBTQ manga anthologies, Frey and Freya (both named after Norse Gods.*) I jumped at the idea of getting it off the ground and have now had a chance to read it. And, it was fun and good. But while I read it, I realized that we really need to talk about something.

Young lesbian artists, may I ask you politely to stop saying you drew this “because there’s nothing like it out there”? Yes, there is. You may not know where to find it, or have seen it, but yes, yes it is “out there” and we’re long past this being a valid sentence. Just because you’ve never searched “Lesbian comics” or  you don’t know about “Yuri manga,” does not mean something does not exist in the universe – just as series’ don’t end just because you stop following them. ^_^ We are at a point in human existence when it is both self-indulgent and foolish to insist that something doesn’t exist before you do it. It’s way more likely that you aren’t forging a brand-new never-been-done-path in LGBTQ storytelling, but are merely walking a well-trodden one. Other people are gay. Other people draw comics. Lesbian comics exist – and have existed for many years.

Also, crowdfunders, please make sure to print a few extra copies of your books, so when I review it, people can buy it. It’s depressing to say “Well, this was great, but you had to fund it to get one. Sorry.”

So Freya Anthology arrived and, like all anthologies, it has variable art and stories. A number of things really stand out to my American eye – the artists in this anthology, who are mostly from Sweden, like those from the Finnish anthology, Lepakkoluola, are way better at diversity than Americans and Japanese are. Also, I found the collection to be a really pleasant mix of fantasy, slice-of-real-life, history and sci-fi.

There were any number of stories about competent and strong women, although the girl-as-reward trope was too prevalent for my comfort. Balancing this out, there were few coming out stories, and even those were “go tell her you like her” rather than, “Do I like girls?”

 

The art styles are decidedly western – the one manga-inspired story, “Bubble” by Elise Rosberg, really stood out as an exception to the rule. Natalia Batista‘s wordless, and heavily black-and-grey work, “La Perte” was my personal favorite. The dark pages too my aback at first, but the story was solid, had emotional depth and the art really grew on me.

Ratings:

Art and Stories variable. It’s an anthology.

Overall – 7

An excellent anthology and one that I will gladly add to my growing “international” lesbian comic collection. I know that the Frey and Freya circle is making the round of European events, and they do have a Facebook page, and it looks like you you can order a copy directly from them, so definitely contact them!

*The Frey anthology will focus on gay relationships.