Archive for the LGBTQ Category


Summer Reading Lesbian Novel: Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante

August 16th, 2013

MaxieMFrom Monica Nolan, the woman who brought you Bobbie Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher and Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary, comes the eagerly-awaited Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante.

While I had visions of a spoof of The Fourth Sex in my head, Nolan has put together a fairly taught mystery novel which is wholly unfair of her. I didn’t expect to have to pay attention! But about the point where we learn that the Swedish Mafia runs the gay bars in the town and the milk trade, I finally caught up with the idea that I was actually going to have to be a little more invested in this story than I originally expected. ^_^

Maxie Mainwaring, debutante and playgirl in Bay City, daughter of the dairy company Mainwarings, is cut off by her mother after a…small indiscretion at a meeting of the Daughter of the American Pioneers Luncheon and for the first time in her life, has to actual work. In between her not-terribly-successful attempts at budgeting and finding a job, Maxie finds herself following mysterious women, falling for a gangster, dealing with police raids at the local gay watering hole and learning who was responsible for stealing the children’s milk at the local youth center. And if all this wasn’t enough, Maxie finds herself at odds with her on-again off-again girlfriend, Pamela, and the drama of her fellow residents of the Magdalena Arms.

If this sounds like at lot for one book – it was. And most of it ties in pretty neatly at the end. There were a few zingers though, which I won’t spoil.

Unlike Bobbie and Lois, Maxie isn’t naive about love, or lesbian life. Her naivete was firmly about the “get a job  to pay the bills” life most people have, and this is strung out pretty far, as Lois’ and Bobby’s naivete were. They don’t grow ’em very sharp in Bay City, apparently. ^_^ But for a summer read with action, adventure, thrills and a lot of girls kissing and having pulp-y sex, this was a really fun book. The book equivalent of a County Fair, with lots of colors, sound, flavors and fireworks at the end, ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I’ve already asked Ms. Nolan about the possibility of a (vaguely alluded to) military story, but she commented that the next one in the series is probably going to be the secret life of the Bay City lesbian bartender. I can wait. These books are a blast.  And perfect for summer reading. ^_^

 





Wandering Son Manga, Volume 4 (English)

July 30th, 2013

WanderingSon4We’ve covered a few volumes of Shimura Takako’s Wandering Son, published in English by Fantagraphics here on Okazu, but it hasn’t been featured regularly.

We’ve covered Volume 1 and Volume 2 and I hope those reviews were enough to encourage you to buy and read Volume 3. The early volumes introduce us to Shuuichi, a boy who wishes to become a girl and Shuu-chan’s classmates, friends, enemies (among whom I have to count his sister, the aspiring model) and Yoshino, a girl who wishes to become a boy.

In Volume 4, the story remains complex and emotional as always. By this point, Shimura-sensei’s characters are finely wrought, so the tension in each panel is palpable. Manga scholar Matt Thorn has gotten out of the way of his own translations, so the story flows as smoothly as a story as jangly as this can possibly flow.

The children are just beginning to enter puberty, and their bodies are not necessarily their friends. In this story we see the complexity of sex, gender, gender roles and sexuality laid out in the messy mishmash that it is. After reviewing Anything That Loves last week, I found myself paying attention – for the first time – to Anna, another aspiring model and peer of Shuuichi’s sister, Maho.

Anna is not presented to us as a nice person. She’s mean to Shuu-chan…but then her introduction to him was dismissive and unkind and Maho is selfish, not supportive of her brother and uninterested in him as a person. (The last, admittedly, pretty common among siblings.) Anna, taking her cue from this, has teased Shuu-chan in an immature way – but also in a way that clearly indicates to the audience that she is interested in him.

It’s hard enough as an adult to understand the mechanism for “showing interest in” another person. As a tween/teen, there is pretty much no socially acceptable mechanism for this at all.  Any expression of interest of any kind is grounds for teasing. And here is Anna, interested in a boy who would prefer to not be a boy….she’s got to be asking some questions about herself in the middle of the night. Is her interest in Shuu-chan in the boy-girl he is or the person he might become? There are no answers for this at this point, and as we saw in Anything That Loves – there may never really be an answer. Anna is immature enough to take her confusion out on Shuu-chan…which puts us in a bad place as readers. We might be sympathetic to her if she was merely angry at Shuu-chan for not being what she wanted, or at herself for having confusing feelings, but in her (and Maho’s) hurtful words and actions we’re seeing something that is way too close to bullying and bashing for us to be sympathetic at all.

Next volume they start middle school with the addition of the rigid gender-identifier, the school uniform. What, for so many shoujo heroines is a looked-for right of passage, will be for Shuu-chan and Yoshino-kun, a political and social statement. This gender/sex/sexuality/ thing is really complicated. I’ve already got my fingers crossed tightly for them and I don’t even have Volume 5 yet.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – ?

Overall – 9

The best, perhaps the only real way to  describe Wandering Son, is that it is compelling story-telling.





Summer Reading: LGBTQ Comic Anthology – Anything That Loves

July 26th, 2013

Northwest Press, publisher of The Legend of Bold Riley is once again bringing it, this time with a comic collection that looks at non-binary sexuality, Anything That Loves.

This was a fascinating – at times, uncomfortable-making – book. Folks who are lesbian and gay are just as likely to be awkward or rigid when demanding  the appropriate label be applied to a person’s sexual identity. But what does it mean when a person doesn’t fit the 0 or 1 model? What happens when a woman who likes women falls in love with a man, or a man who has always considered himself gay falls for someone transitioning to female? This book is for everyone who feels under-served by “gay” or “straight.”

“The anthology features work from  Erika Moen, Ellen Forney, Randall Kirby, Jason Thompson, Kate Leth, Leia Weathington, MariNaomi, Bill Roundy and many more.

The comic artists here are not apologizing; they are exploring, poking, asking questions (that may or may not have answers) of themselves and their readers.  As society is largely all about coupling people, we tend to focus on the other half of the relationship, saying “Oh, you’re gay” or “Oh, you’re straight” because partners are one sex or the other. It’s not hard to see how annoying that would be to someone who was neither straight nor gay (or, as NWPress’s buttons say, “wibbly-wobbly sexy-wexy.” Fascinatingly, when Zan Christensen of NWP gave me one of those buttons at TCAF, I received a lot of interesting looks from people. Mostly approving nods…maybe some interest? Lots of people who gave it the ol’ eyebrow wiggle/”me-too” nod.  ^_^)

It is clear to me, after reading this book,  that “bisexuality” has much less to do with who specifically a person is attracted to and is much more about self-identification.

I called the book “uncomfortable-making,” as well. It was. All of these comics are intensely personal. Like The Big Feminist But, these artists were letting me inside their heads to explore some of their most intimate ideas about themselves. And, like TBFB, there were more questions than answers. Whatever your sexuality, Anything That Loves will pose a few questions that will get you thinking.

Ratings:

It’s an anthology, so everything is variable and personal taste is going to determine whether you like any of it or not.

Overall – 8





Summer Reading Lesbian Novel: Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary

June 14th, 2013

Lois-LenzI adore lesbian pulp novels. Even more than the novels themselves, I adore the tropes of lesbian pulp. And I extra specially adore authors that adore those same tropes in all their absurdity and revel in them as I do.

Monica Nolan is one of those authors. She gets every trope and enjoys playing with them as one might a beloved stuffed animal. She writes with just enough dry humor to make sure her novels do not drag or drown themselves out in sarcasm. Her Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories was a work of genius. Since then, Nolan has embarked upon a series of character trope novels, The first, Bobby Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher was an enjoyable romp at (quelle shock!) an elite private girls’ school. Well-worn territory here at Okazu. ^_^

Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary is a direct nod to  Ann Bannon’s Beebo Brinker series, which was a classic series about New York City in the 1960s. A tribute, in a way, to Bannon’s character sorority girl Laura who finds herself far from home in the big city with all sorts of desires she doesn’t have a name for.

Lois is a character much like Laura – a gay girl with no understanding that that is what she is, a manipulative lover at school, who is desperate to have her privileged marriage and her piece on the side – and a desire to do something Big and Important. With the help of a school mentor, Lois is given an opportunity to interview at a firm in the big city, and  a recommendation for an apartment in a boarding house.

Lois is thrown into the middle of a mystery…only it really isn’t *much* of a mystery. In order for there to be a plot, Lois has to remain naive to the point of pathological cluelessness throughout the entire book. Even the other characters begin to wonder if there’s something wrong with her. ^_^; When the coin finally drops and Lois clues in to the entire plot as we’ve seen it, it is a little excruciating, but only a little so. We, the readers, and the other characters nod, pleased that Lois finally gets what’s been going on.

In the end, it’s a sweet, sappy, predictably amusing look at “country gay girl comes to the big city”, “lesbian boardinghouse”, “lesbian hardass boss lady” and “gets caught up in a mystery” tropes all at once.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

In truth, this is actually the last “Summer Reading” book I read last summer, but then I completely forgot to review it, woops. Since Nolan now has a new book in the series, Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante (I so very much hope it’s an homage to the move The Fourth Sex, oh, please, please….!) and I’m about to start reading that now, I thought I’d get this one out of the way before I forgot again. ^_^

Dear Monica Nolan, please do a military story next. Pleeeaaaasssse, beg, whine.





LGBTQ Comic: No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics

March 19th, 2013

nsl4dqcComix: The doujinshi of the western comics scene.  Small press or self-published, comix are typically tales told of underground or fringe “lifestyles.” Very often intensely personal, they are a window into a life that may be yours.

I never read many comix or indeed many comics. When I did read comics (back in the Stone Age) my choices were superhero comics or Richie Rich and Archie. (Archie definitely deserves a read these days, as they lead American comics in positive presentation of gay characters.) I knew comix existed – there was a Spencer’s in my local mall, after all – but the whole sex, drugs and rock and roll of them didn’t appeal to young me. And I did encounter gay comics as a teen, but the drawing was inelegant, and again the whole sex, drugs, rock and roll and angry gayness of them left me unengaged.

So as I sat down to read No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, edited by Justin Hall and including artists that I have now had the opportunity to meet, talk with and grow to admire, I felt trepidation.

I was prepared to not feel – part of the thing. I expected the allegories of gay life, the “darling, we’re so gay” comix, the angry “you are ignoring AIDS and we’re dying you fucking fuck” comix. None of them would represent me, my coming out, my life, my dreams, my challenges. In fact, I considered this book to be more “other” than any manga I have ever read.

I couldn’t put it down.

Of course the pages include well-known names like Tom of Finland and Trina Robbins. It also taught me about Mary Wings, Lee Marrs and a host of writers I had never heard of.  I marveled at how many of the creators I read in this collection I have been blessed to meet and chat with – my jealousy of their skill knows no bounds. So many of them are still creating now, right this very second. I marvel too, at how many of them make time to talk to fans on Twitter and Facebook.  Above all, I am so proud to know so many names in this book. Their talent is amazing and so is their sheer niceness.

These are stories that had to be told, so they told them. They are still telling them.

If you care, even a little, about stories told by and for LGBTQ people, this book is an absolute must-have, must-read, must-evangelize.

Thank you to all the artists here and to Justin Hall for this collection that is raw and brutal, beautiful and surreal, totally wtf and wonderful!

Ratings:

Overall – Fabulous ^_^

Just FYI, Amazon JP has told me it’s going to be like 2 months or more before they send my next shipment of manga, so expect reviews heavy on the “related media,” while I mark time! ^_^ Lesbian novels, queer comics, Light Novels and random stuff I find on the Internet, ahoy!