Archive for the LGBTQ Category


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!





LGBTQ: Yuri no Real (百合のリアル)

March 6th, 2014

ynrMakimura Asako is a former Miss Japan finalist who is an out lesbian. She is married to a woman from France and works as entertainer (a “talent.”) To answer a lot of questions she gets about being gay and about LGBTQ people, life and sex, she has written a book called Yuri no Real (百合のレアル), or, as we might say it, “Real Yuri.”

This book, as Makimura-san plainly states, is not for people who already consider themselves members of the LGBTQ community, but really for people who just have no idea at all what being gay or lesbian or bisexual or trans…or anything means. It’s for the same kind of audience that Takeuchi Sachiko’s Honey x Honey series was for.

The book begins with, and is interspersed by, a short manga. Five people from different walks of life find themselves at a “How to Be Popular” seminar, taught by Maya, a lesbian. High school student Haruka thinks she might be a lesbian, but isn’t sure, Hiromi is an straight female office worker, Sayuki is a transwoman who has had top surgery and Akira is a straight guy. The five of them will discuss common misconceptions and questions of femininity, masculinity, gender roles, straight and gay sex and they will cover a lot of LGBTQ terms, history, and life.

Breaking up the discussion sections (which are appealingly designed, with little character faces expressing emotion, above the character’s dialogue, Makimura-san discusses her own life – her attempts to be straight, questioning her own gender and sexual identity, her acceptance of herself and her coming out. (Incidentally, she also mentions Higashi Koyuki, who very publicly married her partner at Tokyo Disneyland last year, which is tangentially how I “met” Makimura-san on social media, through another friend who was present at that wedding. It’s a very, very small world.)

It’s all very approachable, with the characters in the seminar voicing concerns, myths, questions and assumptions of the sort that most LGBTQ people have faced. Makimura-san’s autobiographical segments are going to be familiar to anyone who has been down the same road.

Through the book I honestly had only one complaint. The premise was that the seminar was supposed to have been about learning to be popular. After Maya has so thoroughly covered LGBTQ history and current issues, I wondered if they ever would, in fact, talk about how to be popular. Well…they do, and a lot of it has to do with accepting one’s self. And, of course, that is true. ^_^

Ratings:

Art: 7 Simple, magazine-y and appealing
Characters: 7 Morishima Akiko-sensei-esque. But I felt bad for Akira, the only guy in the book
Story – It’s really a non-fiction, with some fictive elements, but as a guidebook to LGBTQ life, it was quite good.
Yuri – 10
Service – A shocking almost nothing. Even in the “explaining lesbian sex” bit, it’s pretty low on service and high on useful content.

Overall – 8

I realize that this entire review will probably get lost in a black hole of no real audience. Japanese LGBTQ community members aren’t reading this blog and English-reading Yuri readers aren’t reading this book. But that’s never stopped me before and it’s not stopping me today. ^_^ Real no Yuri was real and it is yet again another small mesh in the zipper of terminology that is Yuri and Lesbian.





LGBTQ Comics – The Legend Continues in Bold Riley: Unspun

February 28th, 2014

BRUI’m sitting here in a Kickstarter-induced dopamine rush. Leia Weathington has just posted the crowd-sourced fundraiser for the sequel to her lesbian action fantasy series The Legend of Bold Riley, today. The sequel will be called Bold Riley: Unspun.

Like the original series, Bold Riley: Unspun will be released as several stand-alone pamphlet comics and as a collected volume slated for a winter 2014 release.

There were many things I loved about the first book; the different art styles, the Conan-esque writing, the stunning cover art. I’m still hoping that NorthWest Press will get a Riley t-shirt together.

The kickstarter this time is purely to pay creative costs.  You know how strongly  I feel about artists being paid for their work. So for the first time in my life, I went all-in and pledged the highest level. I know and enjoy the art by a few of the artists and I adore the stories and my birthday is only 7 months away. ^_^

If you like action-fantasy with a lesbian princess who can fight a god, bed a wench and stand up to an evil-eyebrowed wizard with the best of ’em, support Bold Riley: Unspun.

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While I’ve got your attention, NYC-area friends, I have two NYC events of interest.

Tonight at Jim Hanley’s Universe, some of the contributors to Northwest Press’s QU33R will be doing  a book signing!

Rica Takashima will be joining Jennifer Camper and a host of other feminist and lesbian comic artists at the Feminist ‘Zine Fest tomorrow at Barnard College.

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Save all that snow-shoveling money, kids…it’s going to be a great year for LGBTQ comics!





LGBTQ Comics: QU33R Anthology

February 4th, 2014

QU33R“LGBTQ characters are also appearing in mainstream comics, and the code of silence that [Mary] Wings fought against  has been broken. But there still remains a profound need for distinctly queer comics.” – Justin Hall, from the Foreword of QU33R.

Where No Straight Lines, Hall’s historical retrospective of western LGBTQ comix and comics, told us where we came from and  how we got here, Rob Kirby’s new anthology, QU33R: New Comics from 33 Creators, tells us where “here” is.

I’m frequently asked whether western comics have an equivalent of Yuri or BL and I always reply, “Of course! There have always been LGBTQ comics artists and therefore there have always been LGBTQ comics.” But the question is not – and really has never been –  “do they exist?” but “Where can I find them?” There are fewer and fewer weekly gay papers and more and more webcomics, which makes it both much easier and much, much harder to find anything to read. I used to read “This Modern World” by Tom Tomorrow in the Village Voice, now I follow him on Twitter.

A search engine search on “gay comic” or “lesbian comic” actually turns up some excellent stuff…it also doesn’t turn up really excellent stuff that gosh, it would be great to know about, but if Google doesn’t show it above the cut on Page 1, it’ll never get seen. And you may not know about Diane DiMassa, because you weren’t a lesbian in the 90s. Heck, you may not have been born in the 90s. It’s perfectly okay to not know a 30-year old series, but how much cooler is it to read Jennifer Camper, or Kris Dresen or Ivan Velez, Jr. or Carlo Quispe and then meet them at a comics event and think, “Holy crap! I just met a legend!”

This book is full of today’s comics, some talking about yesterday, others about tomorrow and a few delving into an alternate today. With my deep and abiding love of ridiculous lesbian tropes, my favorite story was Jennifer Camper’s hard-boiled assassin story, “Another Night in Carbon City”. I was also deeply moved by Steve MacIssac‘s, “Vacant Lots,” a story of coming back to his hometown, a completely different guy than he left, and seeing how life had changed those who motivated him to become who he is. (Oddly, enough, my mother just brought up one of the two people who function the same way in my life. It’s always bizarre when Mom mentions her, because she remembers I didn’t like her, but not that she emotionally tortured me for years, or that I have long, long ago let it go. All that is left is Mom’s memory that I didn’t like her that she always has to remind me about.)

The book cover reminds me of comics collections of my youth; colorful, densely packed with art and giant words over the art. The interior pages have a feature that all anthologies everywhere ought to include – a visible reminder of the artist’s name prominently displayed on every page. I really liked not having to flip back and forth to remind myself who I was reading. I also liked (and always like) when the contributors get a bit of space to talk about themselves in the back.

If you have ever asked yourself something along the lines of “what do LGBTQ comics in America look like?” you’ll definitely want to pick up QU33R, available in 3 digital formats, hardcover and paperback from the terrific folks at Northwest Press (for whom I have to thank for this review copy. Thanks Zan!) Northwest consistently puts out terrific LBGTQ comics and I hope that, if you’re interested in LGBTQ comics as well as Yuri manga, you’ll give QU33R a chance.

Ratings:

Overall – 8