Archive for the LGBTQ Category


Once Upon A Time…Or, How to Make a Great LGBT Comic (and Contest!)

December 5th, 2011

Today I intended to write a review of an indie comic I supported through a crowdsource program. I thought, well, even if it wasn’t to my taste, there ought to be some good qualities right? Well…no, there weren’t. I was appalled through and through at how utterly sub-par the conception and execution were.

Obviously, I won’t be reviewing (or even naming) the book, because that wouldn’t help anyone. What I can do, though, is talk about why I felt the comic was so underwhelming. Because that can be generalized into a discussion of representation of lesbians and gays in comics and manga. And that is certainly worth discussing. The more I thought about it, the more I thought today we might – together – start to create a tutorial for not only independent comic artists, but also large companies on some things to consider when approaching diversity, and LGBT representation in comics as whole.

So, with that, let me talk first about creating a really good story.

A really good story does not talk about the characters. This comic began with the trope of a news report in which a character – and his gayness – were introduced by a reporter, with inexplicable camp puns. Because network news is so well known for its camp punning. Instead of seeing the hero doing hero things, we are told what he did, who he was and that he flew off with…I’m not kidding…a trick. On network news.

A really good story realizes that diversity is not providing multiple stereotypes to chose from, but providing characters who are also completely not stereotypical. Diversity of race, gender, sexual orientation are important, but diversity of perspective is critical. This is the reason why I’ve stopped reviewing series that don’t appeal to me, and started asking people who find that series appealing to write guest reviews. Yes, I can tell you why I don’t like it, but getting a completely different perspective, gives everyone a break and keeps things positive and fresh. This comic went with a “diversity of stereotypes.” There was the big hairy gay guy and the cut gym bunny and the drag queen and the drunk. Amazingly, none of them are like any gay guys I actually know, so as realistic a role model as Superman. Oh well, so much for diversity. This is the problem I’m having with DC’s interpretation of “diversity” as well. It’s still a bunch of middle-aged white guys sitting around a table saying, “Okay, we got one black guy, one Hispanic guy and a lesbian. That covers it.” (I know, I know Renee Montoya is a Hispanic lesbian…my point is, their new reboot was limited in perspective,)

A really good story never tells you the moral of the story. It doesn’t have to, because it was a really good story and either the moral was apparent or there is no moral and you’re free to take away whatever you wanted from it. This story literally sat down with a random child who was inserted in the story for the sole purpose of having the moral of the story told to him.

Which brings me to…a really good story knows who is reading it (and who might be.) This story was presumably for adults looking for a LGBT superhero team and instead we got Timmy being told it’s okay to be different. If it’s for the kids, then why the camp humor in the opening scene? It wouldn’t be suitable at all! Was this series supposed to be Lassie or RuPaul’s Drag Race? I could not tell.

When considering LGBT manga, we should always be mindful of these qualities. Overall, I think manga does “diversity of perspective” better than American comics by a lot. Sure, there’s a lot of pervy lipstick lesbians in shounen and seinen manga. Well duh, Victoria’s Secret is really for guys, too. But even so, there’s a wide variation in perspective between Amane from Strawberry Panic!, Shizuru from Mai HiME and Mina from Air Master.  Saki from Renai Joshikka and Sei from Maria-sama ga Miteru aren’t all that much alike, either, despite them both being the butchy, dumped girl. Fumi from Aoi Hana, Yomiko Readman from R.O.D. and Sarasa from Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan might be visually similar, but they have entirely unique personalities, the manga are written for different audiences and from different perspectives.

I grew up on superhero teams and I was really looking forward to seeing a comic about superheroes who were Lesbian, Gay, Bi , Trans and Queer. Sadly, this wasn’t it. Ultimately, what I was hoping for was a series about a great superhero team that represented the LGBT community. Had they played with stereotypes and had some fun with them, it would have been cool. But to present the stereotypes as the entirely of LGBT representation turns me into a stereotype – the invisible, marginalized (and displeased about it) lesbian.

If I had created this team, I probably would have had each character represent a letter of the LGBTQ alphabet soup. A lesbian, a gay guy, a bisexual, a transgender person and someone genderqueer. Their powers would have had absolutely nothing at all to do with their queerness, nor would their names be puns or tacky uses of perjorative slang. No Dykewomyn for my team.

Which brings me to the one, repeated piece of advice I’m getting in the comments. I thought I had made it plain in the above paragraph, but I’ll make it plainer: The characters being LGBTQ should not be the plot. They should be heroes who are LGBTQ. It can be part of the story…but it should not be the story.

Each person would have a rich backstory – even if the reader never saw it. It’s enough to know that the Scarlet Cape (which is now the superhero name of the Trans character) had a great childhood with supportive, if confused parents, who are *far* less enthused that he’s a superhero than that he is a famous transman. Jezebel (the Genderqueer character) was raised by a pastor and his wife, and has not spoken to her parents in years, but they send her a religious Christmas card every year.  Etc, etc. You, the reader, don’t need to know these stories (although bits might come up in conversation) but I’d be damned before making them the main plot points.

Here are some suggestions from the comments that I thinks are very valid:

No one is LGBTQ in a bubble. Providing context on the environment they are in can lead to a richer experience of daily experience. A closeted person in a hostile environment coming out will have an entirely different experience than one in a welcoming environment. Establish the environment.

This having been said, sometimes the best stories *are* written in a bubble. Fujieda Miyabi’s stories are written in a fantasy space where love between women is surround by soft smiles and encouraging glances from other women. Despite the unreality, I find it all to be a very warm and comforting environment.

Also important, was the comment about not presuming that an LGBTQ relationship is less stable than a straight one. I don’t know anyone who does that, but it’s good advice to, in general, remember that if you’ve created a relationship and had your readers invest themselves in it, then just throwing it under the bus is a good way to alienate readers.

This reminds me of a popular LGBTQ webcomic that started a new arc by establishing that everything that had happened previously was a dream. People stopped reading it in droves, because, well, fuck that. The story had been established, people came to care about it. Then they werejust told, “oh well, none of that ever happened.” This is not a good way to write any kind of story.

***

Which brings me to the discussion portion of today’s post.

I have a gigantic pile of manga here that needs a home, some good, some bad. I’ll open this up to you, my readers, whose opinions and perspectives I value. Books will be rewarded randomly. I’ll announce winners in a separate post, eventually. (Sorry for the pile of vague, I still have a few plates spinning just as yet.)

If you were to teach a class on creating LGBT comics, what *one* thing would you add  to the above list? I’ll move the exceptional answers up into the post so we can make a good tutorial together. Let’s hear your suggestions for making great LGBT comics!

(Note: Perhaps before writing a comment, you all ought to read the other comments too, because so far everyone has said the exact same thing, and it’s something I actually already said in the context of this post….)





Yuri Manga: Fu~Fu (ふ~ふ), Volume 1

December 2nd, 2011

If Yuri Danshi was written to give Yuri Fanboys a taste of what it feels like to have one’s emotions parsed uncomfortably closely, then Minamoto Hisanari’s Fu~Fu (ふ~ふ) was clearly written to explain important things about lesbian relationships to those same Fanboys in the cutest possible manner.

We are introduced to Kinana and Sumi, who have just begun living together after having been a couple for some time. Now that they are living together, they talk about what to call each other, since “lover” no longer is enough. Kinana asks if she can be Sumi’s bride, but that doesn’t feel right either (although Sumi does use “hanayome” 花嫁 later in the chapter.) Eventually Kina suggests a homonym for the word fuufu, which represents husband and wife, 夫婦. Since they are both wives, they should be called fufu, 婦婦. (So, technically a neologism and not really a homonym, since fuu and fu aren’t pronounced the same, but I don’t suppose that anyone but me cares about that.)

The second chapter of this volume is by far and away my favorite. If you are a regular reader, you know how much I long to read stories that focus on domestic life of an established couple. And, perhaps,  you know about my fondness for my big pluffy bed. So to have a chapter in which Su-chan and Kina go out to buy a pluffy bed of their own makes me happy beyond words. The fact that it’s a brutally adorable chapter helps.

Sumi and Kina go on a honeymoon, we meet Kina’s big gay sister Kanana, and their equally gay neighbors Hayase and Komugi. Every chapter is filled to the brim with appallingly cute lesbians.Of course no one uses the “l” word, but Hayase and Komugi do state plainly that they are lovers. Close enough.

The final two chapters are stories that ran in ES-Eternal Sisters, Volume 1 and Volume 2, from back in 2004 and 2005.

What I said in my original comments on Fu~Fu stands – this manga is important. Using moe art and adorable characters, this series quietly, cutely teaches Yuri Danshi what a lesbian relationship looks like, what is important to us, what daily life is like.

My personal favorite scene is the beginning of chapter 3, when Sumi announces work is over, and Kina points out how patient she’s been. They both stare at each other and throw their arms up…and give each other a great big hug. I mean, really. How cute/real is that? That kind of thing totally happens in my house nearly every day. (No, that is not sarcasm. I mean it.)

So, if no one I know was pining for a glimpse into the inner life of a Yuri Fanboy, almost everyone I know has been waiting with anticipation for a series like this, in which a lesbian couple is portrayed with honesty, affection and healthy dollop of cute.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Character – 10
Lesbian – 10
Service – 5

Overall – 9

Fu~Fu  is *so* close to perfect, Minamoto-sensei deserves heaps of praise. I’d like more of this please!





Cute Wendy Comic (English)

November 17th, 2011

girlyset-caseThis summer I contributed to Josh Lesnick’s Kickstarter for the publication of his webcomic Girly in a spiffy hardcover, limited edition box set. I did this entirely because he had a premium of an Otra and Winter figurine set and I’m helpless before the offer of relatively obscure webcomic figurines. (I’d be the first one lining up to buy figurines of Yuriko and Midori, our Yuricon mascots, but as I can’t draw and have no toy industry contacts, it’s kind of a non-starter. PS – This isn’t a request for help or advice on how to do this. As I say, it’s a non-starter right now.)

In any case, I knew once I saw the figurines, I had to be part of the Kickstarter.

 

Who wouldn’t be helpless in the face of this? Okay, fine, lots of people who are not me.

 

Anyway, with my very awesome hardcover limited edition box set and the figurines, I received a copy of Cute Wendy, Josh’s side comic to Wendy. Where Wendy followed the adventures of Wendy and her sidekick, Cute Wendy was the product of many hours of anime watching, potato chip eating, video game playing, masturbation and exhaustion, not in that order.

Cute Wendy is, in short, a slickly printed pile of WTF. Cute Wendy and her sidekick have adventures, but little to no effort is made for those adventures to make any sense, have any resolution, or meaning at all. By the end of this volume, unresolved chaos became the status quo and it was almost disappointing when Wendy and her sidekick actually did resolve a thing.

Don’t get me wrong here – I’m not dissing Cute Wendy. I just don’t want you thinking it’s a story. It’s not. It’s a series of throw-away plot ideas and leftover fast food with some vaguely imagined lesbian sex thrown in for fun. In fact, “Lesbian Sex” is mentioned quite often, although rarely seen beyond a kiss and a smoke afterwards. “Lesbian Sex” becomes a refrain that repeats, just to let us know it’s a thing in the comic.

If you are of the opinion that Lesnick’s art is not up to snuff, then Cute Wendy is not going to convince you otherwise. And the fever-dream story telling isn’t likely to win anyone over, but that’s not why you’d be reading Cute Wendy anyway! You’d only be reading this if you already liked Wendy or Girly and wanted to see the fever-dream side story. Which I now have. I look forward to revisiting Otra hitting people on the head with giant dildos as a return to normality. Cute Wendy was just that WTF.

Ratings:

Art – Still better than anything I can do, so 6
Story – There kind of isn’t one – 2
Characters – 6
Yuri – 8 They have Lesbian Sex, I’m informed
Service – 7 It’s pretty much written by/for Fanboy, but not nearly as intolerably awful as, say, Shin Koihime Muso

Overall – 5 It’s not being enshrined, but I’m not throwing it out, either.

My very sincere thanks to Josh for being so pro-Yuri and for being a very decent Fanboy. Also, cool figurines!





Dolltopia Comic (English)

November 15th, 2011

Abby Denson’s Dolltopia is a light allegory about the plastic dolls we grew up with and what happens when they question their life of plastic conformity and consumerism.

I first encountered Dolltopia back in 2008, when Abby gave me a copy of the mini-comic (that’s western indie comicspeak for doujinshi) of the series. I was captivated by the idea of toy dolls rebelling against their intended fate, and their desire to be unique and independent.

Dolltopia is, as I said, an obvious outsider allegory, that is nonetheless charming for being obvious. Colored brightly in black, white and hot pink, the art speaks of punk roots, and a childhood of cutting and dyeing doll hair. (Which Abby admits to.)

For Yuri fans, there is one established girl-doll couple in the series – Candy O and Candy X. They are shown providing emotional support for one another, even in the most stressful times. Honestly, they are a very cute couple.

There’s also a little guilt-inducing chapter about the way we abuse our toys, both physically and emotionally. ^_^;;

Unfortunately for me, Amazon shipped me a damaged copy, so I was unable to read all of Abby’s afterword, but other than that minor setback, the entire story about identity and being your own person would make a great holiday gift for a budding young outsider in your life.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 1, but only on the principle that there is always someone out there fetishizing something.

Overall – 8

The book comes with dolls you can cut out, and non-conforming outfits for them to wear. I thought that was a cute touch.





Yuri Manga: GUNJO (羣青), continued

October 24th, 2011

It’s been a while since I talked about GUNJO (羣青), hasn’t it? The first volume was brutal and awful and wonderful and the second volume was, as I keep saying, like eating the most delicious razor blades ever.

And now, as the story approaches an end, I want to talk about it once more. Now, while it’s still in that Schroedinger’s Cat phase of not being over, but already ended. (It has to be ended, or nearly so, just because of the publishing schedule of magazines.)

As I read each new chapter, I find myself scanning the faces of the woman who was abused and despised by everyone ever who was supposed to have loved and cared for her and the only person who ever actually did,  wondering how this series could end without them both dead, wondering if they will ever be free, wondering if they will ever smile again, wondering if I’m as or more pathetic than they to even think that they might.

Look at the scan above. (I left in all the ghost images from the pages in front and behind this tableau, because this is what the pages look like when I read the chapters in the magazine.)

“Hey!” says the brunette, who Japanese fans call Megane-san because she wore glasses.

“…Mm?” says the blonde, called “Sensei” by Japanese fans because she was a vet, before she became a criminal.

There they are, facing each other down, having survived so much together and yet not together at all. The brunette gets angriest when the blonde shows her any kindness, the blonde gets angriest when the brunette becomes self-deprecating. Neither can let each other go….neither wants to be left alone….neither wants to be with the other. They are suspended in a relationship so intimate that they loathe each other for it, but when they think about it a little, they don’t dislike each other at all.

Where can this series go? I have absolutely no idea. I sit around sometimes and try to predict the end. Will Megane-san give herself up, and let Sensei return to what’s left of her life? Or maybe they will die in a freak accident, solving the entire problem? Or maybe they will be free, after all, the police haven’t caught up to them yet….maybe they can escape…and then I slap myself for being a fool.

You don’t know what the brunette says next. I don’t know what will happen next. Like every chapter of GUNJO, this one keeps us suspended on a knife bridge, spikes on one side, swords on the other. This moment is not a breath of fresh air – it’s the moment before the breath is punched out of us.

GUNJO has been the hardest thing I have ever read in my life. I love it to the point of incoherence.  It’s long moved past being about a lesbian, and I don’t even know what it’s about anymore…other than life and death.

However it ends, no matter how much it hurts (and it will, of that I have no doubt,) I’ll still consider this one of the greatest stories I have ever read in any language. Thank you Nakamura-sensei. Thank you for GUNJO.

要約:これまで読んできたあらゆる言語の作品の中で、最も優れた物語のひとつ (要約/翻訳 |小松さん)