Don’t miss my virtual author talk for Under the Umbrella bookstore Wednesday, tonight from 8-9PM Eastern time!
RSVP with Under the Umbrella or register directly on Zoom!
Bring questions and I’ll see you tonight!
By Your Side Digital Bookplate Giveaway for June!
June always presents a host of conundrums, among them how best to mark Pride month – this year I’m going with the historical precedent of rioting against cops as our spiritual ancestors did – and, for the first time, how best to celebrate my own achievement of writing a book on the history of the Yuri genre, as well. ^_^
For the remainder of this month, I am giving a signed digital bookplate away to anyone who has purchased a digital copy of By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Aime and Manga in a digital format! (Click the link for all the online sites I have links for and for Bookshop.org if you want to support a local bookstore. Any legitimate digital format is allowable, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or directly from the publisher.
All you need to do is send me a copy of your receipt for the e-pub, Kindle, etc, to bys@yuricon.com and I’ll send you back a signed digital bookplate with original art by Rica Takashima, especially for By Your Side!
Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith
Rarely have I read a more captivating biography and rarely have I read so beautiful a comic. Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith by Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer is a magnificent work about a deeply flawed and complex person….a person who would likely have loathed this book about herself.
Patricia Highsmith is a name well-known in older lesbian circles as the real name of Claire Morgan, the author of the first lesbian novel with a happy ending published in the United States. That novel, The Price of Salt, was one of my foundational novels as a young lesbian, as it has been for many others. It was made into the fabulously well-done movie Carol, which I have reviewed here. But to the rest of the world she is far, far more famous as the author of suspense novels, the first of which, Strangers on a Train, was made into a rather famous movie by Alfred Hitchcock.
That said, Patricia Highsmith is not the hero we need. Even if we take away the obvious stress of being a lesbian in a time where that was understood to be a form of mental illness, Highsmith was an unpleasant person; anti-Semitic, racist, and often extremely nasty to the few people around her she could call friends. Ellis addresses this in the foreword, but the script isn’t nearly vulgar enough to have any impact. One can see that they were juggling the idea of making her a bigoted harridan and a semi-sympathetic protagonist, but failed. There’s really no way to sugar-coat hatred and give it any impact, sadly.
What did have impact was Templer’s art. Templer portrayed Highsmith’s life in three different templates, using one style for the day-to-day experiences, a second for the comic book scenarios Highsmith was cooking up for her job with Timely Comics, while struggling with her sexuality and her writing career. Her suspense novels are given a third style, and they and comics alternately fill Highsmith’s head as she balances all of these things with an increasingly difficult life as a lesbian.
Ellis and Templer’s portrayal of Highsmith is, simply, outstanding. We are left with a very heartfelt portrait of a miserable person who did little to many anyone else happier than she. Highsmith would have hated this book, which is why I love it to much. It’s more sympathetic to her than she ever was to anyone, including herself.
Ratings:
Art – 10
Story – 10
Writing – 9 Balancing the shittiness of a shitty person with making a books people want to read is hard.
LGBTQ+ – 9 Highsmith might have been happier if she was alive now…or she might not
Overall – 10
If you’re looking for an excellent Pride month read in comic form, I’m going to strongly recommend you reach for this comic. It’s only weakness is that it is just slightly too kind for the real Patricia Highsmith, which works just fine.
Yuri Network News β (ηΎεγγγγ―γΌγ―γγ₯γΌγΉ) β June 4, 2022
Yuri Studies
I want to start by thanking everyone who has bought By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga so far. I wake up every day to see it back up at #1 on Amazon in it’s category and am filled with pride for all our work! ANN’s Rebecca Silverman has given By Your Side a lovely review. ^_^
If you’ve enjoyed By Your Side, please feel free to review it at Amazon or Goodreads – your reviews can make a difference.
I will be doing an author talk with Under the Umbrella, a fabulous queer community bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah on June 8, 8-9PM Eastern US time by Zoom. Your can register on their website, or directly on Zoom!
This week I was very honored to be able to write for John Scalzi’s blog Whatever, as part of his The Big Idea series. I took the opportunity to write about my love of and hopes for fandom. Here’s my article on The Big Idea.
If you have written anything about Yuri, please let me know! I’d love to add your work to the Yuricon Essays page!
Yuri Manga
My Next Life as a Villainess Side Story: Girls Patch is now out from Seven Seas. They have also released a 4th Volume of Syrup: A Yuri Anthology.
I’ll finally take some time this week and start updating the Yuricon Store, promise. ^_^; I’ve been kinda busy.
Whether this is actually Yuri remains to be seen, but Assault Lily: Bouquet (the anime based on a line of dolls, reviewed here by Day) is getting a spin-off manga, Assault Lily Last Bullet: Secret Garden Sweet Memoria. Check out Crystalynn Hodgkins’ article on ANN for more details.
Take a moment to watch this video of an absolutely beautiful, queer, flipbook comic by shinranshinge on Twitter.
Yuri Webtoons
Mage & Demon Queen will return to Webtoons on June 22 – COLOR Les made the announcement and we’re all bouncing out of our seats for the climax of this epic webtoon.
Okazu needs your support –
Become an Okazu Patron today!
Yuri Games
YNN Corresponent Patricia B writes in to say that the “Queer Games Bundle for this year has launched. Just like last year, it is a collection of over 500 games made by LGBTQ+ game developers for the price of one AAA game.” This is always a great way to find lots of fun Yuri to play and read.
Tabletop RPG Thirsty Sword Lesbians won the Nebula Award this year for best game writing! How exciting for the creative team. Congrats to them.
Check out YuriSoft Games, an indie studio making games about lesbian romance.
A beautiful immersive game/story came across my feed last night, via YNN Correspondent Prairie Rose – The Blooming Bounty Apothecary is available for 50% all month with the code “I love lesbians.”
Anime Collaboration News
Sailor Moon Vans? Yes, finally this collaboration has reached the US. Sailor Moon Fandom News has all of the relevant links. Thanks to ANN Correspondent Amy M for this!
You can get (and presumably wear on the links) the golf gear featured in the end credits of Birdie Wing! Kim Morrisey has the details on ANN.
I refuse to make any jokes about the collaboration between The Executioner and Her Way of Life anime and a ramen shop that is creating themed bowls, but luckily I don’t have to. Check out Kim Morrisey’s article on ANN for the punny ramen names.
Other News
Inori-sensei posted a pretty great conversation between herself, hanagata-sensei and Aonoshimo-sensei on her Pixiv account. If you support her there, you can read it in full.
Speaking of Pixiv. Last week a Japanese trans employee of Pixiv went public with horrific treatment by a male boss. As a result, a number of queer users of Pixiv have canceled their accounts and are looking for replacements for their Booth.pm stores. I’ve pulled the paid plans off Pixiv Fanbox for Okazu, as well, but am leaving Fanbox account as a free news feed. If you’d like to support Okazu, we still have our Patreon and Ko-fi (which really seems to walk the walk, at least so far.)
Support Okazu on Ko-fi! We’re building a community!
Berkely Hermann has a lovely article on The Geekiary about Examining Socially Awkward Anime Characters that was worth a read.
Grumpycroc’s Strength Unsaid: How Moribitoβs Main Characters Normalize Gender Equality for Anime Feminist, is also very worth reading. This series is so under-appreciated. I love this anime a great deal for this and many other reasons.
My review of Summer Time Rendering, Volume 2 is live on Anime News Network. This is a great manga, even with a lot of fanservice. I’m definitely going to keep reading (and, I hope. reviewing it for ANN. It’s nice to have a writing credit there that isn’t Yuri, just to prove that, seriously I *do* read other stuff. ^_^)
Thanks to our Okazu Patrons who make the YNN weekly report possible! Support us on Patreon or Ko-Fi to help us give Guest Reviewers a raise and to help us support Yuri creators!
Become a YNN Correspondent: Contact Us with any Yuri-related news you want to share and be part of the Yuri Network. ^_^
Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau, Volume 6 (γγγγγγγ«ζγεγ)
It’s summer! It’s time for one last gasp of wholesome fun, hanging with your friends, eating ice cream, going on dates. Both Yori and Himari are very interested in going out on dates together. But, sadly, Shiho’s deal has pulled them apart. Himari is acting as manager for the SS Girl’s #1 rival band, Lorelei and it’s eating at Yori.
Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau, Volume 6 is filled to the brim with emotional conflict and tension, but done so cutely and with such sincerity, it doesn’t feel like…well, it doesn’t feel like conflict. It feels like a bunch of young people living their best lives and heading towards what they will one day think of the best battle of the bands of their lives. ^_^
Yori is torn. She’s thrilled to see Himari learning about band stuff and being a great manager, but the fact that she’s doing it for someone else’s band hurts. Himari is torn. She’s thrilled to be learning so much and hanging with talented musicians, but it’s killed her time to be with Yori and summer isn’t that long…
The week of the local summer festival arrives. Himari and Yori are determined to eke out time together and just enjoy each other’s company. A date to a karaoke booth ends up making things awkward between them, but as the fireworks at the festival go up, they finally have their first serious kiss. Were happy for them. This series is so completely lacking in anything prurient that we can just be the old ladies on the bench who are happy for them, while we hold hands and kiss, out of sight and not feel anything other than how lucky they are to be young and together. ^_^
My summer has yet to begin. I’m pounding the boards all month flogging my book. (Hey! Did you know I have a book about Yuri? I do! You should buy it!) Next month I am rewarding myself with fireworks and ice cream and all the kisses I can get. In the meantime, I’ll watch with elder joy at the young people kissing, parading and throwing bricks at cops this Pride Month. ^_^
Ratings:
Art β 8
Story β 8
Characters β 9
Service β 0 Still so adorable
Yuri β 8
Overall β 8
Volume 5 of Whisper Me a Love Song is out now in English from Kodansha!
