Western Comic: Small Favors: The Definitive Girly Porno Collection

May 29th, 2017

Colleen Coover’s “Girly porno comic” Small Favors was first published by Eros Comix in the early 2000s. I had heard of it, of course, but by the time I was interested in getting it, it was already out of print, woops.  So, although I’ve known about and seen some of Small Favors for years, I hadn’t ever had a chance to read all of it.

2017 has already been an amazing year for lesbian comics and Yuri manga. We have comic essays and romances that aren’t exploitative or annoying (and romances that are exploitative or annoying) but we were missing some good old-fashioned porn. Well…that’s been taken care of now.  Small Favors: The Definitive Girly Porno Collection is exactly what it says in the title. 

Annie is a young woman who enjoy masturbation. A lot. So much that the Queen of her Conscience feels Annie is wasting her life. She sets Nibbil, her own daughter, to inhibit Annie. Unfortunately, Nibbil is just as interested in sex as Annie and together they sex it up in a variety of ways. As the story develops, Annie and Nibbil add a friend, Sage, to their fun and eventually get to include Annie’s neighbor and another emissary from the Queen.

The art is very competent and tends to lean toward fun over anything else. Backgrounds and characters are rendered in simple black and white line work, with hand-drawn shadows and backgrounds. A very “western” looking comic. The later chapters include a full-color story, sketches, character studies and mini-comics. This collection includes all the published chapters of Small Favors and a previously unpublished chapter. It also has a delightful Foreword by Kelly Sue DeConnick.

This is a very sex-positive book. If there is a moral, it’ “Sex is fun, we should all have more sex.” And the sex is also very explicit and creative. Nibbil’s natural size is that of a small figurine, which allows her to enjoy Annie very up close. She can also take on a human sized form. But along with being sex-positive, this comic is also love-positive. Nibbil and Annie love each other, but that doesn’t mean they have sex exclusively with each other. Their friends are welcome to join in.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Story – 7 It’s porn, so a set-up each chapter, rather than a “story” per se.
Characters – 8 All likeable, which is good, because we spend a lot of very intimate time with them.
Service – 100 It’s women having sex. Sometimes group sex.
Yuri – 9 It’s women in love who are not lesbians, per se.

Overall – 8

If you’re in the mood for some fairly explicit lesbian sex in a variety of places, poses, positions, costumes and with a varying number of participants, you will enjoy the heck out of Small Favors.

Posted in Western Comic/Comix | 1 Comment »


Okazu Welcome to Summer Special Lucky Box! – Claimed!

May 29th, 2017

Thank you everyone who wrote in to claim the Lucky Box. It’s been claimed.

****

It’s that time of year again …time for a Lucky Box!

I’ve collected a pile of the randomest stuff I have sitting around the house, and shoved a DVD box set, a pile of manga magazines, some comics, manga, random goods, stickers, clearfiles, whatnot and candy into a USPS medium flat rate box and offer it to you as a Lucky Box!

This Lucky Box is $50 and is first come, first serve.  See below for eligibility

There’s only the one, so I promise you will get well more than your money’s worth. I got loads of stuff here and I want it to not be here any more. I’m motivated to make it fit in that box!

How to be eligible to buy a Lucky Box:

1- You must live in the Continental USA (contiguous 48) only, no APO/FPOs – sorry about that, really.

2 – You must be over 18, I am not policing which books you get.  

3 -Email me at anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com with the subject “Lucky Box”. Use an email you check regularly. Please include your name, age, mailing address.  

4- I will contact you at that point and give you details about payment by Paypal. Please be prepared to check your email and get payment out so this post doesn’t linger like a dead animal. Thanks in advance. 

This whole process will be handled with utmost capriciousness. ^_^

I’ve literally spent the last few minutes trying to cram one more thing in the box. I hope you enjoy all that crap! ^_^

Posted in Miscellaneous | No Comments »


Summer Reading: The Quantum Thief (English)

May 28th, 2017

Raffles. Bandette. Ana DuPre. Jean le Flambeur.

What do all these names have in common? They are members of the privileged class who, for one reason or another, make their living as thieves.

In The Quantum Thief by Finnish author Hannu Rajaniemi, we meet the last of these – Jean le Flambeur – in prison. Sentenced to die repeatedly in a series of video game-like scenarios until he can convince his warlike and violent partner to work together. So far, he’s not having any luck, but then a sentient ship, the Perhonen, and her pilot Mieli break him out of prison at the bidding of Miele’ goddess. And we are catapulted into an adventure that was so complicated and so damn interesting, I can barely describe it.

Jean is competing with his other self – the self that locked him into the body he currently has – his ex-lover, and the arch-detective who his following his trail after the death of a chocolatier.

Rajaniemi writes at a blazing pace and he presumes you can keep up. From the Oubliette, a shtetl filled with Qabalistic references, to the gaming Zoku of space and the Vir, the virtual realities of a dozen different simultaneous layers of existence and society, you are expected to grasp the obscure and the created knowledge with equal fluency and speed. 

I loved this book.

Which is all well and fine, Erica, you say, a hint of impatience in your voice, but why are you reviewing it?  

Because of Mieli. Mieli is an Oortian, a tribe of people who are portrayed as rather…Finnish…in a mythological manner of speaking. Mieli’s former lover was Sydan, another woman with whom she had a complicated and involved history. Mieli is currently seeking Sydan, who disappeared when Earth was destroyed. Mieli now serves the Founder, pelligrini. Along with her sentient ship, the Perhonen, Mieli is as critical to the plot as Jean is…although I might put Perhonen slightly higher on the cast listing.

If you’re confused about now, no worries, this was just the vaguest, most superficial taste of the high-density information dump that is The Quantum Thief.

Did I mention that I loved it? 

Mieli is another cool, competent lesbian, with a nicely melancholy backstory. She’d fit nicely enough with all the cool lesbian detectives of the 1990s. Kate Delafield, meet Mieli. You’ll get along swimmingly.  

Ratings:

Story – 10
Characters – 9 all the way around
Lesbian – 3, but it’s there

Overall – 10

I adore writers who assume I can keep up with them, and Rajaniemi is the best I’ve ever read in this regard.This book relies on obscura and slang from Japanese, Russian, Yiddish and a few other languages, but if you’re a patient reader, everything is given context in an Escher kind of way. Just hang on for the ride.

Thanks to bestie Daniel H for the recommendation – you are now among the very few who can recommend things to me. ^_^

Posted in Novel, Queer Fiction | 6 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – May 27, 2017

May 27th, 2017

Yuri Manga

Big news on the next volume for the Kase-san series! July will see the fourth volume of the manga, Apron to Kase-san. (エプロンと加瀬さん。) and a special edition will be bundled with a Blu-Ray with the animation clip and booklet. Yeah, I know which one I’m getting. ^_^

It looks cute, and the description says it’s a “Yuri Love Comedy,” but don’t let Black Lily to Shiroyurichan (ブラックリリィと白百合ちゃん ) fool you, it’s a Young King Comics series. I expect it won’t be as bad as a Champion Red series, but call me skeptical. ^_^;

Via YNN Senior Correspondent,, this cute comic First Date by Trianglart.

Web Comic Ryu (the online edition of manga magazine Comic Ryu) has launched a Yuri furry comic, Mofu Kano no Pot-pourri, which looks kind of cute. 

ANN has a revolutionary report – Revolutionary Girl Utena is getting a new manga chapter in the September issue of Flowers magazine!! The new chapter will drawn by original artist Saitou Chiho. Be-papas isn’t dead yet, apparently, because Crunchyroll News reports that Utena musical score-writer, J.A. Seazer, has a new album coming out with bonus Utena tracks played by Seazer himself. A friend of mine once described Utena duel songs as “a magical cookbook on acid.” ^_^

 

Other News

Via YNN Correspondent Louis P (via Matthew P) this fabulous and fascinating Guardian article on Wu Tsang, the trans artist retelling history with lesbian kung fu.

 And another from Erin S., Autostraddle has this amazing article – Drawn to Comics: 15-Year-Old Maggie Thrash Interviews Herself in This Brand New Exclusive “Honor Girl” Excerpt.

Both Comics and Resistance news – Hazel Newlevant is spearheading a worthy Kickstarter – Comics for Choice: Anthology for Abortion Rights.

 

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find.Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Posted in Yuri Network News | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Hoshikawa Ginza 4-chome, Complete Edition Volume 1 (星川銀座四丁目)

May 25th, 2017

Some things wear well over time. Some things don’t. I am inclined to think that Hoshikawa Ginza 4-chome, Complete Edition Volume 1 (星川銀座四丁目) is among the former.  

This volume covers the original Volume 1 and first half of Volume 2.  It follows the story of Otome, a young woman living in a neglectful household after her teacher literally pulls her away from uncaring parents in order to give her a fresh start. Otome and Minato become very comfortable with one another, but instead of settling into a mother-foster daughter relationship, they clearly feel more akin to wife and wife. This is problematic for Minato on several levels, not least because she is perfectly aware that she will be held responsible as the adult in the relationship and she is not all right with being cast as a criminal.

When I was reviewing this originally in  2010, I felt that, given the deeply problematic set-up of a student and teacher living together, it was handled reasonably well. Now, distance has given me a fresh perspective and among several other issues I have with the narrative I can see that the beginning of this story is a complete wreck. Clearly this was meant to be a few chapters long at best, but Kurogane Kenn’s audiences particular interests means that it became more popular, so he circled back and developed a longer narrative.

The main relationship is not comfortable for two reasons.In this story Minato is indeed portrayed as immature and hopelessly childish and Otome as the party that is pushing the relationship and I am really not okay with that at all. However, as I pointed out originally, “while I can’t say I enjoy this book, I have to at least give it credit for being really honest, sometimes brutally so, about the problematic nature of the main relationship.”

Perhaps breaking up the original series into three volumes worked to desensitize me, but with the distinctive time frame of Otome returning to school and her joining cram school in this 2-volume set, it just feels ickier than ever. 

Ratings:

Art – It’s still Kurogane Kenn, so for me 4, but for others 8
Story – 6
Characters- 6
Yuri – ? It’s Yuri, but….
Service- 10

Overall – 4

The entire same story could have been written with Otome at an older age. But it wasn’t. I blame Kurogane Kenn and his readers. 

 

Posted in Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »