Archive for the LGBTQ Category


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





Yuri Manga: Aoi Hana, Volume 8 (青い花)

October 29th, 2013

And here we are, at the final volume of Aoi Hana (青い花). Wow, have we come a long way.

High school graduation approaches, but before it arrives, the girls of Fujigaya head to London for a class trip. Unbeknownst to Fumi, Akira and Kyouko catch up with Sugimoto-sempai who now lives there with Kawasaki-sempai.

Then graduation comes, and Fumi and Akira are forced to have the conversation that has been building between them for some time. Is there, in fact, a “them” to discuss?

In the meantime, Yamashina-sensei finds that a confidence shared off the record has become general knowledge. The students learn that her lover is female after all.  And in the end, nothing changes. But, it seems likely that she’ll feel less inclined to be honest with the next student who asks. And you just know the rumors will continue.

Graduation passes, and so does time. Everyone is drawn together once again, this time by a happy occasion – Kyoko’s and Kou’s wedding. Time moves on, as Ya-san notes, for all of us.

Yamashina and her lover, Haruka’s sister,  consider holding a wedding ceremony themselves, a scene that made me inexpressibly happy. ^_^

Without spoilers, I will assure you that you the ending does not bring closure. It has the one thing I had hoped for – ambiguity.

Ratings:

Story – 10
Characters – 10
Art – 10
Lesbian Life – 10
Service – 3

Overall – 10

The story began on a day that led to many other days, full of joy, sadness, loneliness, friendship and love. Aoi Hana ends on a day that will lead to more of the same.

Happily Ever After is, as we well know, a process, not a destination. And for Fumi and Akira life is, as well.

This is the third manga series I like that has come to an end in 2013 and for the third time, I find myself left feeling happy, rather than sad. ^_^





Lesbian Comic: Blue is the Warmest Color (English)

October 9th, 2013

BlueIsTheWarmestColorIf you pay attention to lesbian-themed media, you already know that the winner of the 2013 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival was Blue Is The Warmest Color, based on a French bande dessinée Le Bleu est une couleur chaude by Julie Maroh. Arsenal Pulp Press has put out an English translation, which is the subject of today’s review. The movie has been the object of much talk and considerable controversy – the actresses have stated that they hated doing it and the director has said it should never be released. Most damning, Maroh has repudiated the movie, claiming it was no more than porn. 

Blue Is The Warmest Color is not an easy book, no matter how you view it.

It begins with a setup similar to June Kim’s 12 Days. Clem has passed away and her lover Emma seeks some solace, perhaps closure. Emma visits Clementine’s family to read a diary that was left for her. The diary begins at the beginning of the story with Clementine, 15, as she starts to navigate the thorny path of human sexuality, love and friendship and, as she sees, meets and falls for Emma.

Right from the beginning, theirs is not a good relationship. Emma has a girlfriend, Clem is hiding her relationship from most of her friends. And when they finally seem to put it all together – we skip more than a decade into the future. Emma is distant, Clem is abusing alcohol and drugs and their relationship is a dead and rotting thing. Clem’s illness and death brings the two of them together in a way that her life never had.

Maroh’s art is very good, very moody. Flashback scenes are done in kind of sepia wash, which I appreciated as a nice cinematic touch. Emma’s blue eyes and hair stand out as a stark, vibrant spot of bright color in an otherwise dull world. The glimpses of Parisian student life struck me as very La Bohème or, perhaps, Rent. ^_^

The translation is good in the way that I define good – everything is perfectly understandable, but the rhythms of the words are just ever-so-slightly not American English enough to make me hear accents. Like watching a foreign movie with subtitles. Speaking of subtitles, I absolutely hated the fonts chosen for the English edition. They were both wholly appropriate, but hella hard for me to read – too thin for my taste.

Watching Clem handle her situation and her life so badly, I was reminded very forcefully of my first years with  my wife. It could have gone more like this; either one of our families could have made it impossible for us. I am once again mindful of the blessings which we have been given in our years together.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – A hard 8
Characters – I found both Clem and Emma hard to like, but they were both real – 8
Lesbian – 10
Service – Tough to score. There is sex, but it’s not mean to be – or be read as – titillating, which is why Maroh hated the movie, which had long, lingering sex scenes for the sake of sex scenes. Let’s say – 5

Overall – 8

Don’t expect a delightful tale of coming out, or emotional redemption – this is an excellently well-crafted, well-executed story of a reality in which there is no happily, much less an ever after.





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.