Archive for the LGBTQ Category


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.





LGBTQ Comic: The Complete Wendel

August 30th, 2015

TCWen Back in May, I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural Queers & Comics conference in NYC. At the very end, as a panelist, I was given a copy of the definitive collected edition of Keynote Speaker Howard Cruse’s serial Wendel. Originally begun back when The Advocate was a tabloid, Wendel ran in the pages of the magazine through the 1980s (a decade that I spent mostly without a TV or car, working 2 or 3 jobs at a time and therefore somewhat limited in my participation in the world.)

I have just finished The Complete Wendel and both liked and disliked it in equal measure. It’s important to remember that while this was the Gay Community of the 1980s, I was not ever part of this community, so reading it is as alien to me as reading a book on being a mother of 5 children.

Wendle is a young guy, with a supportive family, working at a small tabloid magazine. He meets Ollie, an aspiring actor and, through the pages of the story, their relationship develops through years of political crisis, AIDS, and regular family and friend nuttiness.

The early stories were the hardest for me to enjoy. They are supposed to be funny, but there are not my sense of humor and so left me sort of “meh.” Wendel is earnest and openly feminist and progressive, but the actual female characters we meet are abrasive and irritating.  Particularly Tina, the butch lesbian girlfriend of Deb, one of Wendel’s coworkers who, as the comic pointed out, if you didn’t hope she was being ironic, was a horrible person. Ollie’s ex-wife, father of his child Farley, is pretty much a one-note  neurotic rant from the beginning to the very final page.

It’s not just the women who are irritating. Ollie’s best friend Sterno, an out-of-control hedonist is tedious. So, here we have Wendel and Ollie, whose main schtick is to be neurotic out loud and adorably in love and their terrible friends. ^_^ It took me a while to warm up to them. But…I did warm up to them.

They lived through the Reagan years, during which I came into being. Had I been 5 years older, I might well have been a lesbian Wendel. In a moment of complete irony, the book ends with some promotional posters featuring Wendel after the comic had ended, one of which was the March on Washington in 1993, which I attended (and wow, what a day that was). So Wendel ends as I began, in a sense. And that, in a nutshell describes my feelings about it.

Lesbian and gay comics have been with us since the beginning. Queer & Comics was about those comics and about the people who drew them. We’re incredibly lucky to have so many of them still alive and willing and able to tell their tales. It’s up to us to read them and remember them and pass them along.

The world of the bathhouses and the early Gay Liberation marches, are the history I read about, the shoulders that I stood upon. Wendel is my fictitious older brother’s age, never my own. But once I  got to know him and Ollie and his friends, they came to have meaning to me.

Ratings:

Art – 8 (It’s a style that is so wholly unlike manga, it’s fascinating to delve into. Every background, every cross-hatched shadow was done by hand.)
Story – 7 Slice of life with “silly” filter
Characters – 8
Service – Lots of male nudity and sexual situations, no explicit sex shown
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 8

I’d never have Sterno stay the night and would probably have told Tina to shut the fuck up, but I could see myself sitting and listening to their stories and understand that without them, I might not have been here.





LGBTQ: Manga de Tsuzuru Yurina Hibi /まんがで綴る百合な日々

August 13th, 2015

download5-e1429832392551Tanu is a careerwoman, Negi is her lover, and their story – how they met, what their life is like together, what their plans for the future are – make up this non-fiction comic essay, Manga de Tsuzuru Yurina Hibi (まんがで綴る百合な日々).

Their story is fairly typical – they talk about recognizing that they liked women in school, how they met at a drinking party and became friends, then lovers and eventually moved in together. The very calm predictability of it is what makes it worth reading. It’s utterly relatable. The end of the book is a Q&A with Tanu and Negi, moderated by lesbian talent and author, Makimura Aasako (author of Doukyonin no Bishoujo ga Lesbian Datta Ken and Yuri no Real.

The text is all handwritten, which makes this book a challenge for readers like myself and the story is not exciting, per se, but this is another great addition to our comic essay library of adorable examples of lesbian life in book form.

Ratings:

Art – 5 Cute cartoons, rather than sophisticated art.
Story – 6 Slice of life
Characters – 7

Overall – 7

I would have given this book a higher rating if Tanu and Negi were comfortable enough to show their faces. As it is, they are clearly not out, so the normality of their life depends upon a certain amount of secrecy and is therefore not actually normal.  I sympathize, but….





LGBTQ: Steven Universe Season 1 (English)

June 26th, 2015

SUlogoIn 2013, Cartoon Network ran a pilot for a possible new series that received rave reviews. As a result, it was launched for a full Season of 49 episodes that same year. In 2014, it was announced that Steven Universe had been picked up for a second season.

The original premise was described as a “magical boy” series because creator Rebecca Sugar, a former writer for Adventure Time, was looking to make something that anyone could enjoy and she was a bit fed up with the gendering of “magical” series.

In fictional Beach City, Steven Universe is a little boy whose mother was a “Crystal Gem”, Rose Quartz, and who now lives with three of his mother’s former compatriots – Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet (above, left to right.) His father lives nearby and runs the town car wash, while Steven trains to be able to use the Rose Quartz gem embedded in his body that he inherited from his mother.

This is all presented with a handwave and a declarative sentence. “Steven is….” But the whole story actually takes all 49 episodes to play out. We learn slowly, over time, as Steven unlocks new abilities and learns new facts about the true nature of the Gems, what his mother was, and what it all means to him.

Steven at the beginning of the series is rather annoying, in the time honored fashion of magical series protagonists. But almost stealthily, he starts to grow and mature. He makes friends with a local girl, Connie, and they two of them have some pretty great adventures together. With Connie at his side, Steven starts to unlock some of his abilities.

Each of the Gems has a distinct personality and skills, as well as magical weapons. Pearl is a bit of a pedant, and a stickler for the rules. Garnet is badass, and Amethyst is an Id on legs, causing chaos as often as shes helps resolve issues. It’s very apparent that all three Crystal Gems care for Steven, for himself and because he is Rose Quartz’s son.

About halfway through Season 1, we start to get an idea that the Gems do develop various levels of intimacy between them. When they are in sync, they can “fuse” into stronger, larger Gems, although clashing personalities can make that dangerous. We know right away that fusion is an act of intimacy, but when Steven  manages it for the first time, the look on Garnet’s face – Garnet, who never smiles –  is brilliant.

garnet_grin

Garnet confirmed my thoughts on fusion with her advice to fused Steven – “You are not one person…or two. You…are an adventure. Go out and make it a good one.”

We also learn that Pearl’s feelings for Rose Quartz went way deeper than just friends. This is confirmed later in the season, when she tells Steven just how much Rose meant to her.

In the season climax, we get another glimpse of fusion being an act of intimacy between gems, but I’m not spoiling that, except to say it involved a kiss (the series forums exploded trying to dismiss or deny it had any meaning, which was hilarious) and a reveal so good I completely did not see it coming at all. (If you know it, please kindly do not spoil it in the comments. If you do, I’ll delete the comment- – it was too good to spoil. ) Some fans are adamant that the Gems are gender neutral, but I’d say that’s not a fixed state, since Rose was able to have a child with a human.

Remember what I said about musicals? I lied. I guess I really like musicals after all. Maybe I only like cartoon and comic-based musicals. I dunno. I do know the music in Steven Universe plays an actual role in the show. It’s not the same kind of singing to one’s self one represented by “Bacon Pancakes”…the songs add meaning and depth, and occasionally critical expository commentary and character development. So, just on the strength of character and storytelling, I’d say Steven Universe is a must-watch. But there’s also music!

 

It takes no effort at all to see that Steven Universe is probably the queerest cartoon on American television right now.  And it’s really good.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Fun and fanciful
Story- 10 Really.
Characters – 9
Service – Not as such, no
Yuri – 5

Overall – 8

I’ve been binge-watching this series this week. It’s really quite good.





LGBTQ Manga: Wandering Son, Volume 6 (English)

June 18th, 2015

511cg24nZpLIn Takako Shimura’s series Wandering Son, Volume 6, the school festival rolls around again and again Shuu-chan’s class has chosen to do a gender-switched play. Not just a gender-switched play, this one will be an original work. But as the festival nears, it is morphed back into a typical Romeo and Juliet. Chiba-san objects and with her steamrolling the class, she and Shuu-chan rewrite the play again to reflect the more realistic concerns of trans people…and add some random violence.

I feel I understand Shuu-chan and Yoshino, Mako and the rest, but still find them rather on the prickly side. Hormones and alliances and identity all mixing up, as Shuu-chan worries how hairy his legs will be, or as Yoshino suggests switching names…or as Chiba-san stays angry with almost everyone.

I was discomfited by Yuki-san appearing  – again – in a suit.With this series, I constantly feel like we’re do-si-do-ing back and forth every volume over the same three of four steps.  I understand this in regards to Shuu and the others, but am much less forgiving in regards to Yuki-san, whom we are meant to believe is living her life truthfully.

Finally, as the pages of the book come to a close, I cannot stop thinking that Shuu-chan is going to have to talk to Maho sooner or later.  There is also one serious flaw with the entire narrative in this volume – no school would have allowed a play like that to be performed. Educational administration in both Japan and America are notoriously conservative. Combined with the feeling of going over the same territory again and again, I’m starting to feel the narrative grind down to a halt.

Still, I’m rooting for the kids in Shuu-chan’s class to find themselves and grow up with a chance at happiness, so I’m still reading.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
LGBTQ – 8

Overall – 7

Seya is the only character that seems to have actually matured so far, and he’s done a good job of it.