Archive for the LGBTQ Category


LGBTQ Manga: Torikaebaya (とりかえ・ばや) Volume 1

April 16th, 2014

The Heian period was a period of intense artistic creation in Japanese history. Like the Italian Renaissance or the Chinese Tang period; the cycle of life quality for the well-to-do hit a high and with it came the leisure and drive to create. So much of what we in the West consider “Japanese” culture flourished in that period. Mostly everyone is familiar with Murasaki Shikibu’s famous serial, the Tale of Genji. Fewer people are familiar with the ambiguously comedic/tragic/erotic Torikaebaya, which would probably translate to something like “If only they could switch.” You may recall this story from the 4th season of Maria-sama ga Miteru, in which the Yamayurikai’s school festival play is chosen around Yuki and Yumi’s uncanny resemblance.

When it was announced that veteran manga artist Saitou Chiho, the creator of the Revolutionary Girl Utena manga, would be working on a manga adaptation of the Torikaebaya  (とりかえ・ばや), I was downright ecstatic. Saitou-sensei has repeatedly shown interest in trans* characters and this manga deals not with one character or two who merely switch clothes, but who are entirely suited to the gender expectations of the opposite sex.

The story follows two siblings with the same father and two different mothers, born on the same day. The daughter is active, lively, good at sports, rhetoric and other masculine pursuits. The son is retired, shy, good at music and other feminine skills. Circumstances conspire to allow them to switch clothes – and lives.

I have not read the original in either translation or Japanese and before I even read the manga, I realized that my only encounter with the Torikaebaya was as a comedy, when the Lillian and Hanadera Student Councils had some fun with it. But, I wondered, was it actually a comedy…or a tragedy? As it turns out, we don’t actually know the answer to that. It has been interpreted as comedy, tragedy, social commentary and erotic romp by varying critics in varying ages. That actually made me more interested in it than before! We don’t know what this story is, how cool is that?

Saitou-sensei has specifically set out to treat this story as a story of transexuality. This is stated plainly on the cover and the relationship between gender roles and one’s sex is explored within. The daughter, Sarasoju is painfully aware that she really is not suited to be a girl, and her brother Suiren, likewise, really would do so much better as a girl. They switch clothes and roles and as far as I am in the first volume, their father is complicit in this, having just introduced his “son” to the Emperor.

I have not finished Volume 1, but I know that Sarasoju will play her part as a male well, but that that will not stop her from falling in love with a man, or having intimate relations with him. Her pregnancy is a major part of the original story. But she will also be married to a woman, and in one of the two versions of the tale (known as the Ima Torikaebaya Monogatari), both she and her brother end the tale in functional homosexual relationships.

I’m frequently asked for recommendations on trans* manga, and I usually don’t have much to offer, as trans folks are not well represented. This book will be going on my short recommendation list.

Ratings:

Art – 9 Gorgeous, but how could it not be? Saitou Chiho-sensei doing Heian period. Duh~
Story – 8 I’m intrigued, fearful, hopeful all at once
Characters – 8 Not bad, actually. Dad’s not a bad dude, and Sara and Suiren are sympathizable
Service – 4 Nudity, not nakedness
LGBTQ – 4 We meet them just as their self-identity is forming.

Overall – 9

Saitou Chiho-sensei’s version of the Torikaebaya may well become my go-to version of this Heian classic. Here’s hoping!

If you are interested in a garbled version of the story and a mixed bag of scholarship, here’s the Wiki entry on the Torikaebaya. It’s rather less helpful than I had hoped.





LGBTQ Manga: What Did You Eat Yesterday? (English)

April 9th, 2014

wdyey1So there I am, in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, standing in a room full of still life paintings from the 17th century, feeling irrationally rational about Stilleven met vergulde bierkan, by Willem Claesz. This painting, executed in 1634, is photorealistic, almost ridiculously so. The way the light hits the silver salver in the front was so…real. I stood there for a good long time, amazed at the technical skill, but also kind of put off by it.

The thing about still-life paintings is that we don’t need them any more.  I mean, it’s all well and good for 17th century painters to be cranking out photorealism, because they didn’t have actual photos, right? So when I recently encountered Luciano Ventrone‘s work – I have to stop and think, no seriously, why do we still do photorealistic still life?

It makes sense to recognize that in the 1600s they needed painting like this. But in this day and age of photography, there clearly is still a place for painting like this – and the literary equivalent, the slice-of-life story. For a slice of life, we might justify it to ourselves and say, “Well, this is not our life, so this is a glimpse into another world.”  But the best slice of life stories don’t have to be alien, or alienating. The protagonist of Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto, is not me, but I was able to fully engage in her non-engagement with life. Willy Loman’s story is both alien and alienating – and to me, so is something meant to be realistic, but feels not at all real, like Sakura Trick.

In the same way that I am able to observe, but not engage with, still life paintings, I was able to read, but not really engage with Yoshinaga Fumi’s What Did You Eat Yesterday? It’s slice of a life that is not even remotely alien, but was surprisingly alienating.

The protagonist, Kakei Shiro, is a lawyer in his 40s who is off-puttingly attractive and youthful according to his co-workers. His major interest is in cooking and he’s a narcissist. Shiro lives with a boyfriend, a hairdresser. Kenji is out at his work, although Shiro is not. At first I thought Shiro was out, just not at work, but as the story goes on, he comes off as more uptight and closeted, although his parents know he is gay. Kenji’s equally as annoying and I cannot see how he and Shiro stay together with such vastly different approaches to life.

As the story goes on, Shiro become less likable, until I realized that he just doesn’t really like anyone and suddenly I felt as if I was observing a stunningly drafted bit of 17th century tablecloth. Realistic, technically well-crafted, but not all that interesting, ultimately

As a slice of life, I found the story less engaging as it progressed. Shiro and I are not far apart in age, we both are professionals, in committed relationships, love food. and I’d rather have dental surgery than spend half an hour stuck in an elevator with him. The more hyper-realistically his life is shown, the less I cared for it.

I was very much looking forward to a story in which the protagonist is gay, has a relationship and then the story happens, but very disappointed with the lack of any connection between Shiro and Kenji. They may as well have been roommates.  Shiro’s gayness is both talked about and shown as normal, but completely stripped of any affection of any kind. Shiro shows no tenderness towards his lover, his family, his coworkers, clients or self.

Ultimately, the story isn’t ever really sure if it is a commentary on the food Shiro cooks, with his life as the background, or a commentary on his life, with the food as the background.

Ratings:

Art – 9 Excellent as always
Story – Not as compelling as usual, with unlikable Shiro standing between me and delicious-sounding food, like a disapproving aunt keeping me out of the kitchen.
Characters – 3 Honestly, there’s almost no one to like.
LGBTQ – They talk a lot about being gay, but they could be talking about being a fireman, as we see no signs of affection, not even a kind word.
Service – Foodie only, with meals in detail

Overall – 5

Vertical does a great job of getting out of the way of Yoshinaga-sensei, now the story needs to get out of its own way and develop into a narrative. As it stands, it’s a perfect slice-of-still-life.





Interview with Queer Comics Creator Leia Weathington

March 25th, 2014

BRUJust about a month ago, indie queer comics publisher Northwest Press announced a Kickstarter for the sequel to one of my favorite comics of recent years, The Legend of Bold Riley. Written by Leia Weathington, and drawn by several different artists, this book was everything I could have hoped. For the sequel, Bold Riley Unspun, Weathington opted for a Kickstarter to pay her artists well and upfront.

Today we have a special treat. Weathington has taken time out of her schedule to take a look inside her process and her thoughts about Bold Riley. I hope you will all welcome Leia Weathington to Okazu!

Let’s jump right into some questions:

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Q1: How did you get into writing comics? Was it something you wanted to do as a child?
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I was obsessed with the Disney Adventures magazine as a kid. They had all of these serialized little comics from Tail Spin, Darkwing Duck, all of the cartoons I’d run home from school and watch. For a few months they were running Jeff Smiths Bone. I was just…blown away.

I was a really big reader as a kid but until I saw Bone I thought that it was impossible for comics to be as immersive and detailed as the prose books I was consuming. I know, that seems absurd considering how fanatical I was about animated shows. When DA stopped running Bone they included a note on the last page that you could still buy it at your local comics books shop. So imagine a ten year old hanging off of her mothers belt loops, almost foaming at the mouth while said mom flips through the yellow pages.

So mom drives me to some little dark comic book store to get the new Bone issues and I came out with Bone, Ranma ½, MIX Magazine and a few other random comics and no change for her 20. I’m lucky my parents love art, media and books so much otherwise I may have been in deep shit.

After that I was balancing my prose books with comics. I read comics for kicks but Jeff Smith showed me what you could really do with comics.

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Q2: Which artists or writers are your role models?
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Ok, here is the Big Fat List: Fumi Yoshinaga, Emma Donahue (The Sealed Letter, Kissing The Witch), Tarsem Singh, Garth Nix , Jim Henson, Chiho Saito , Goya, Margaret Atwood, Zora Neale Hurston, Yukito Kishiro, and Mike Mignola.

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Q3:How long does it take you to write a story?
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Coming up with a cohesive plot can take a couple years of just…thinking. Writing an actual script can take a month or so depending on length. I have a bad habit (that I’ve managed to break only a couple years ago.) of needing to have the beginning, middle and end of something solidified in my mind before I would sit down and write something someone else could actually read.

Here is a bullet point break down of my process:
● Think of concept while doing something mundane, like showering.
● Make a stupid playlist for thing.
● Aggressively think about thing for several weeks while listening to stupid playlist on repeat.
● AGGRESSIVELY TYPE FIVE PARAGRAPHS ABOUT THING.
● Run away from thing for 2-4 weeks.
● Come back to thing, scrap half of thing.
● AGGRESSIVELY PACE IN A LOCKED BATHROOM AGGRESSIVELY THINKING AND AGGRESSIVELY ACTING OUT SCENES IN THE MIRROR.
● Sit down and type rough draft of thing.
● Have small crisis of faith.
● Sit back down and type final draft.

I cannot stress how important the aggressive pacing and aggressive acting out of scenes is. Also, the neighbors are terrified of me and will not make eye contact. To be fair, there are no curtains in that bathroom.

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Q4: How do you go about choosing an artist?
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When I’m developing a story I usually have a really clear idea of what sort of visual style would be most effective. I’m active on Tumblr and Twitter which is where a lot of artists display their talent. I’ve also been working in comics for about ten years now so I have connections with phenomenal talent. Sometimes there will be a toss up between two artists that would suit a script but that’s rare.

After I select an artist, approach them with the story and have their agreement to work on it I have a meeting with them to go over the script. Typically my final drafts are what I think of as “Bare minimum” meaning they are broken down into pages but not paneled. Some artists like having the structure of pages and panels and some don’t. I talk with them about how they like a script formatted for them to effectively work from. I give them folders of photo reference that evoke mood or setting and discuss the general emotional state and journey the characters go through. then they can also bounce back to me if they think that’s coming through in dialog or pacing.

With Bold Riley in particular I try to select artists for stories they would enjoy drawing and also be suited for.The type of artist I want for stories in the series actually strongly dictates the sort of narrative I want to tell. I have never and will probably never have multiple artists do test pages. I select comic artists who already have a body of work.

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Q5: After you have chosen the artist, how does the collaboration work? Do you vet roughs, or critique the art in any way?
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Generally an artist sends me rough thumbs to show how they would like to tell the story, I give the go ahead and then they proceed in the fashion they find the most effective and comfortable. I rarely edit art. If I ask for changes it’s because something is insanely off model or it’s a consistency issue for artists later in the series.

I believe that in comics if you want to be a writer working with an artist you have to listen to their input and be open to revisions. I may panel out something I feel is perfect but if my artist comes to me with an idea of how it could be more effective visually it’s my responsibility to take that into consideration and then rewrite accordingly. Communication is key. I think if you want to involve another human being in a creative endeavor you have to be able to talk things out and compromise.

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Q6: You’re working on your second volume and your Kickstarter funded pretty quickly. What’s going through your head? What do you feel about your success so far?
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I’m honestly amazed, surprised and terrified all at once. This is my first Kickstarter and Bold Riley is my first book. When I started doing this project I thought maybe ten people, tops, would read my lesbian fantasy adventure comic. It turns out that number is more quite a few more than ten and growing. That’s huge, That’s humbling. I have women come up to me at cons and tell me shit like, “This book is really important, We needed this.” and I want to sit down and cry for a little bit. Artists I admire have asked about doing work on this series. Like, this story I believed in and thought was important it turns out other people feel the same way? That’s huge.

Now I sometimes go to sleep and have dreams about every pledger canceling their reward and the whole industry turning it’s back on me but from what I understand that’s pretty normal for most creatives.

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Q7: Do you read any Queer comics?
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Hell yes! Blue Dellaquanti’s O Human Star, Sfe R Monster’s Eth’s Skin, EK Weaver’s The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ & Amal, Tom Siddell’s Gunnerkrigg Court, Benjamin Riley’s Iothera and Brittney Sabo’s All Night are some of the best comics I’m reading right now that also have a queer theme. I can’t recommend them highly enough. Amazing art and unique voices.

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Q8: Plans for the future? More Riley?
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Oh, so much Bold Riley. If things keep going well the plan is to finish the Bold Riley series with eight trades and a ninth epilogue volume. Book three is already half written and the artist lineup is solid.

I also have a couple projects I’m working on with Joanna Estep, the artist who is drawing “The Lion Jawed,” the final chapter of Bold Riley: Unspun and I’ll be in the Beyond anthology of queer sci fi fantasy comics with a story called “Eat At Chelle’s!” about a transwoman restaurateur who is getting her food stock from bizarre parallel worlds and serving them to a well heeled clientele. I’m really pleased to be working with Lin Visel, who will be the artist for that one.

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Q9: Any message for fans?
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Thank you for reading. Thank you for making all of the time I put into this worthwhile. It means a lot.

Thank you so much for your time today and we wish  you the very best!





Dare mo Korinai Manga (誰も懲りない)

March 13th, 2014

Before we get started today, I’m going to ask you to watch a video. Abuse trigger warning, but if you think you can manage it, will you try?

Did you look away, maybe check how long the video was, or see what time it was?

If you looked away, why? You don’t know these people. This is not even real. It’s a Public Service Message that makes a point. It makes it well. And for a second, it was too hard to look at.

We don’t want to hear about someone else’s abusive situation. We don’t like being asked to confront that we are pretty helpless in the face of someone’s pain. The feels, they hurt. It’s even worse when the victim is a child. Between murderous rage and abject misery there is almost nothing we can actually do to change a story. Tweeting a message, writing a check to an NPO…these are things we do to salve our own pain, and we hope they salve someone else’s, because admitting that we really haven’t done all that much makes us feel bad.

As I’m reading the exceptionally well done, but emotionally brutal, Dare mo Korinai (誰も懲りない) by Nakamura Ching-sensei which was serialized in Quick Japan（クイック・ジャパン, I’m caught between praying to my gods that this is not autobiographical, and forcing myself to not look away in case it is.  I’d translate the title as “Some People Never Learn” and in regards to Nakamura-sensei’s manga, I may be one of those people. No matter how hard it is, I keep coming back for more.

Way back, when I started Yuricon, I wrote a serial for our mascot, Yuriko. At some point in the first book, Shoujoai ni Bouken, (which is online, for free, along with the sequel.) I have Yuriko tell a story about how, when her parents found out she was gay, they threw her out of the house. At that point, she had not spoken to any of her family in years. When that chapter went live, I received dozens of emails from people who were desperately afraid I had lived that, and dozens more from people who actually had. I reassured the former that I had not and sympathized deeply with the latter.  This also came to mind as I read Dare mo Korinai. A good writer writes something you like, a very good writer writes something you can’t imagine is fiction. I kept telling myself, “It’s fiction…it’s fiction” knowing that for someone out there, it isn’t and I feel powerless knowing that.

Nakmura-sensei described the book on social media as a kind of epilogue to GUNJO.  Sometimes when you’ve been working on a really emotionally intense project, you have so much built up inside that the only way to get it out is to get it out. You scream, you write, you draw, you make fun of the rage so it stops being something that hurts as much. Or you cut into it, plumbing the depths of the pain to see where it goes.

Dare mo Korinai, follows the life of Toshiko, a smart, talented girl from a well-off family whose life is shredded by abusive family members and stomped by family politics. Her lesbian lovers are no better for her and the best thing you can say about her life by the end is that she survives. But, by god it hurt to watch.

Ratings:

Art – 8 All hand drawn, without the detailed photographic backgrounds of GUNJO
Story – 9 but buckle up, it’s not an easy ride
Characters – I can’t.
Lesbian – 5 Yes, but no.
Service – Same

Overall – 8

So often I say that when I’m reading a book that I find painful, I wish to pluck the main character out, feed her, and give her a better home in a better story. I hope Toshiko finds herself in a happier story some day.





LGBTQ Adventure Comic: Gun Street Girl

March 11th, 2014

81TK5BKRjrLWith the kind of synchronicity that I’m used to, there has been a lot of conversation in LGBTQ comics and Yuri circles recently about stories with lesbian leads that are more than just a romance. Yuri anime is firmly entrenched in selling school life rom-coms to man-boys, and many readers are looking for something a little more…fun, with action and adventure. I’ve mentioned The Legend of Bold Riley several times and today I want to talk about a new comic – Gun Street Girl is definitely all that. The lead character happens to be gay, and then a story happens. ^_^

Barb Lien, one of the founding members of Sequential Tart, was tired of reading mainstream gay comics characters whose only story seemed to be that they were gay. Rather than looking at the body of LGBTQ comics to find similar role models, she decided to write the story she was looking for. “Because I wanted to read a story about….I wrote it” is the most common reason I hear for creating a work. It’s a totally valid reason, I’m not dissing it in any way. ^_^

And so, Barb created Gun Street Girl, a comic that if I were asked to describe, I would probably sum it up as “if Willow was Buffy”.  Lizzie is the “gun” for a street wizard named Eddie. We meet them in a fun meta-commentary of comic stereotypes “Everybody Want To Rule The Wold.”  The stories are independent of one another, but we get a glimpse of Lizzie’s relationships, her history for a solid volume. Lien has created fully fleshed out characters, with a slightly less fully fleshed out world. Like Buffy‘s Sunnydale, Gun Street Girl‘s world uses magic freely, then imposes random limitations upon itself, leaving it slightly adrift in time. It’s contemporary, but not our world, exactly.

For a story that was going to just have a gay lead and then the stories happens, Gun Street Girl gets a little heavy-handed in other places, addressing sexism in “An Unsuitable Job For A Woman” (a title which was used back in 1972 by P.D. James and, I felt, was an unfortunate choice in 2013. Update: I am informed that the stories were written about 10 years ago and admittedly comics have changed since quite significantly), and racism in the second story “Waking the Witch” in which we also meet Lizzie’s lover, Prana, who has a secret of her own.  Too much of a good thing and also too little. The lessons are good, but – and here is my sincere concern – why are we still having stories about this stuff? If Lien was frustrated that superhero comics were still wrapped in the most basic “gay” stories, here she was pointing big red arrows at “she’s a woman in a man’s world” and “look how not-white this character is.” Ironically, the whole shebang is set in the UK, which is far, far more  integrated  in media representation than we are in the US.

Ryan Howe’s art is solid, easy to follow, even in “magic”-y scenes. It’s very 2-dimensional, hearkening back to comics of my youth. A few panels felt downright Kirby-esque. ^_^ The all-back and white art suited the story well, I think the pages might have looked messier in color, but then I much prefer B&W to color comics now, having had my sensibilities warped by manga. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri/Lesbian – 7 No obligatory sex – which is good, it’s a little *look, she’s a lesbian* but + for her and Prana’s relationship just being a relationship.
Service – 1

Overall – 8

For action, adventure, magic and fighting with a lead who just happens to be a lesbian, definitely give Gun Street Girl a try!