A huge brick of a graphic novel, historical fiction spanning from Post WWII through the eighties in Germany, featuring a gay man Karl who is forced toA huge brick of a graphic novel, historical fiction spanning from Post WWII through the eighties in Germany, featuring a gay man Karl who is forced to love in secret since homosexuality was essentially criminalized until 1994 there. I'm not a particualr fan of the shadowy art, but it didn't inhibit my experience all that much, and that experience is so much like my reading of several gay-in-secrecy novels such as Brokeback Mountain, Giovanni's Room, and a few people I have come to know in my life.
So it's sad, of course, painful, an indictment of a world that is still homophobic in many/most places. One moving backdrop for the story is Karl's letters to his daughter, attempts to help her understand who he really is and why he made the choices he did. The very last image is moving, no question. It's all you need....more
#DRCL Volume 2, Midnight Children, continues the infusion of contemporary issues into this nineteenth-century vampire classic. You keep much of the or#DRCL Volume 2, Midnight Children, continues the infusion of contemporary issues into this nineteenth-century vampire classic. You keep much of the original story and vibe, such as bringing in the melodramatic Professor Van Helsing from Stoker’s novel, but adding queer rep and so on. The focus of Volume 2 is the Count's incursion into the elite Whitby school, via a few of the student bodies, of course.
I read reviews noting/complaining that Sakamoto’s Dracula looks like Michael Jackson so was wondering what the purpose of that might be just beyond a mere fun nod to Thriller. So the original book has adults attacked by Dracula and now these are fifteen year old kids. Knowing Michael Jackson’s reputation, this is likely a deliberate move, but makes the vampiric/erotic content possibly questionable. Then there is a lot of sex going on in this school, so that’s part of what seems to be happening as a result of Dracula’s presence. So: Mature audiences, I’d say.
Everyone in this all-boys’s private school seems to be gay, while Luke seems to turn into Lucy at night; that’s an interesting twist on gender fluidity, eh? Mina (the only female character in the book), a maid, is in love with Luke, but she’s not alone.
I think this follows the original decently well, in spite of all I’ve said, and seems to be a little more coherent than the rushed info dump in the last volume. But as everyone notes, the artwork makes it an above average manga read. I'll say this is closing in on a 3.5 rating with its creative ideas, but the worrisome sexual issues may make it problematic for many readers. ...more
It has been almost two years since I read the fifth volume of this gay fencing series set in Kings Row Boys School, written by C. S. Pacat (Dark Rise,It has been almost two years since I read the fifth volume of this gay fencing series set in Kings Row Boys School, written by C. S. Pacat (Dark Rise, Nightwing) and cartoonist Johanna the Mad (Wynd) and I read volume 6, with its promising subtitle: REDEMPTION, in maybe half an hour.
But it was a pleasant enough half an hour, though very little happens. You like foreplay? It has been years in the build-up to a single kiss, and it has still not happened, between Seiji and Nicholas! But this is not uncommon in manga teen romances, including this highly Manga-influenced comic. ...more
Firebugs (2022, In German, 2024 in English by Drawn & Quarterly) is a graphic novel that very much seems of the present moment. The World Is On Fire—rFirebugs (2022, In German, 2024 in English by Drawn & Quarterly) is a graphic novel that very much seems of the present moment. The World Is On Fire—re climate change, and lives are changing in various ways. This has always been true that life changes, but in this book the personal is infused by political realities. Inkgen is (sort of?) in the process of transitioning, and they are in a relationship with someone who seems content. Ingken is not content; the world outside and the world inside is on fire.
They go to clubs, do a lot of drugs, have sex, drink; in short, they seem to be like a lot of twenty/thirty something people, drifting toward the future, toward some more solid sense of identity, stability, finding oneself as the world seems to fall apart. One year in their life, divided into four seasons.
So that seems unsurprising, in some any ways, you say. You ask, what's new? Well, Bulling's artwork seems especially fresh and engaging; the dialogue comes alive, the sort of fluid scene feels real. We care about Inkgen. This D & Q production is superb. I like it very much as a kind of (trans) story of our time. I mean, we are all in transition, all the time. Ingken's trans story is both specific to them (and can't be precisely generalized to everyone else's changes, of course!) and also helps us empathize with their transition as something everyione goes through in their own ways....more
Congrats for the Eisner Award nomination for Best Publication for Teens: Blackward by Lawrence Lindell (Drawn & Quarterly). A pretty lively story withCongrats for the Eisner Award nomination for Best Publication for Teens: Blackward by Lawrence Lindell (Drawn & Quarterly). A pretty lively story without much actual story about a bunch of black queer kids who eventually form a group they call (ha) Blackward, as they themselves are awkward, if not exactly backward. The prototype for this is Family Matters, Steve Urkel, but these folks are not quite Steve. Though they are geeks!
The Blackward guys get a zine event together with the help of a local bookstore owner. There's some humor and a certain sweetness about it....more
I picked up this first volume of a manga series, Adults' Picture Book, because of the cute title, which pertains to the fact that it is in fact a mangI picked up this first volume of a manga series, Adults' Picture Book, because of the cute title, which pertains to the fact that it is in fact a manga, or kind of "picture book" and also that it pertains to the situation:
Souichiro Kudou is a gay erotica manga author whose friend/love interest dies and leaves him a note: Oh, yeah, I have a 4-year-old daughter, Kiki, and thanks in advance for adopting her! He is grieving his friend's loss, and also clueless how to raise a little girl. So he goes online and finds a mate--a woman--who agrees to marry him. All this happens in about 24 hours.
That's basically the set-up, which because of the adorable Kiki, has all the feels/potential for sentimentality and/or sweetness one might want in a short time. Reminds me of every Dads without Moms book or film or tv series you could name that assumes--maybe rightly--that Single Men cannot raise children, or screw up a lot in the process: Charlie Sheen's Two and a Half Men, Dustin Hoffman's Kramer Vs. Kramer, and so on....more
Congrats for Eisner 2024 Best Limited Series: PeePee PooPoo, by Caroline Cash (Silver Sprocket)! Whoo hoo!
This PeePee PooPoo #1 (August 2024) is the fCongrats for Eisner 2024 Best Limited Series: PeePee PooPoo, by Caroline Cash (Silver Sprocket)! Whoo hoo!
This PeePee PooPoo #1 (August 2024) is the fourth short collection of Cash's fun alt comix, PeePee PooPoo, numbered #1 just because (others were numbered #69, #420) sort of diary/memoir/slice of life/gag comix. The first three were based in Chicago, but now she has moved to Philly (boo, though she was here in The Chi this last weekend [August 2024]for CAKE [Chicago Alternative Komix Exposition], a featured and hot emerging artist.
Cash still writes about youthful lostness with snarky humor but also tells a story of being lost, stoned, wallet gone, phone dead, in a new city. Why five stars? And who doesn't like the "First Date" story?! (Sometimes reminds me of Jeff Brown and Noah VanSciver). I can see how someone might rate this three stars, as it seems like the events recounted are unremarkable, but look close and you see an emerging great artist who is really funny and approachable and silly and knows what she is doing with the form.
Cash says her early influences have been Alison Bechdel (Dykes to Watch Out For) (obviously), but also Adventure Comics and Yugioh (so you get the simple manga vibe). I'm in to collect her stuff as she collects every One Piece volume ever....more
Portrait of my Body (2024) by Julie Delporte is my third experience with her graphic work, and once again I am seduced by the intimacy of it; first, tPortrait of my Body (2024) by Julie Delporte is my third experience with her graphic work, and once again I am seduced by the intimacy of it; first, the colored pencil and watercolor washes, the looseness and emotional register of it, all the contemplative white space to breathe and feel, and second, her honesty, her forthrightness. Portrait is a kind of personal essay about her coming out as a lesbian--a “late-life lesbian--at the age of 35, as she just begins to make sense of her past and present life. It has sexual trauma in it and dissociation and friendship/sex with many men, and then, a shift, wherein her life begins to make sense for her (and others). And is not now suddenly Nirvana, of course. But it's an important step in her understanding herself, and so inviting to read.
"What didn't kill me didn't make me stronger. Time hasn't healed all wounds. And yet here I am, still very much alive."
The drawings are in part inspired by this shift to appreciate her and other women’s bodies, lots of Georgia O’Keefe flowers, and so on, but “the point” of the art is never pointed; it tells a related but often peripheral story of who she is and what she values in the world. A range of beauty. She quotes lots of reading she is doing. And she never makes it seem like she is “one thing,” but complicated, as with respect to her epigraph from Adrienne Rich: “If you think you can grasp me, think again. My story flows in more than one direction. A delta springing from the river bed. With five fingers spread.”
I liked it a lot; I read it once in one sitting. Then read it again, mainly looking at the “story” the images seemed to tell me. I think this is not an uncommon story, to come out late. I have family members that did this, and others who I expect still will. Many friends I know. Many will read and relate to it. I think she'll write more and more about this process of coming out. ...more
Victory Parade (2024) by Leela Corman is, in my recently more limited reading of comics than usual, one of the top (three, so far; the first two are LVictory Parade (2024) by Leela Corman is, in my recently more limited reading of comics than usual, one of the top (three, so far; the first two are Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and Leuyen Pham, illustrator. [YA romance, celebrating cultural heritage], and I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together, Maurice Vellekort. Coming-out memoir of a gay illustrator and comics artist raised in a Calvinist tradition) graphic novels of 2024. Corman’s most ambitious and best work so far. Set in 1943 and in Brooklyn, where women are holding up more than their end of the economy and still suffering from daily misogyny, and then also in Buchenwald.
Rose Arensberg’s husband is a US soldier fighting abroad, and she has an affair with a disabled veteran. Anguish, guilt. Ruth is a young German Jewish refugee, probably having come over to Brooklyn via Kindertransport. Rose has taken Ruth into their home, and then Ruth heads into the world of professional women wrestlers (!). But it’s a mainly women story, a group of welders (think: Rosie the Riveter). And yes, we get to Buchenwald.
As with Corman’s own Unterzakhn, we see that Corman loves to drawearly women in period (grandma) underwear (Unterzakhn!) (and other clothes, of course!). As with Emil Ferris, who likes to draw working-class Uptown Chicagoans with interesting faces and bodies, Corman likes to draw the same kind of faces and bodies of working-class Brooklynites of that period.
*I was reminded of Jaime Hernandez, who also writes comics about women wrestlers in Love and Rockets, focused on eighties punk LA (Corman admits to creating an homage to some extent to JH).
*I was reminded of The Boxer: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Harry Haft.
*I hereby promote Marinaomi’s Comics Journal interview with Corman that I read after writing my review:
TY to CV for suggesting I check this manga series out. I like the title a lot, inviting. The story is of two long-time friends; one, Kakeru, smart andTY to CV for suggesting I check this manga series out. I like the title a lot, inviting. The story is of two long-time friends; one, Kakeru, smart and accomplished, attractive and reserved, and the other, Yamato, lacking most of those things. Kakeru clearly "likes" Yamato but is unable to communicate this. So it's a series of opposites attract, and like Komi Cabn't Communicate, it is about teens unable to communicate their feelings. At all.
Then, Yamato's sister likes Kakeru, too. Oh, dear. But Kakeru doesn't want a girlfriend; nor does he want Yamato to have one. And Yamato has no idea what is going on with Kakeru. Who's gay? Who knows whom is gay, including themselves? They can't reach each other! I like it.
An exuberant and highly engaging graphic memoir weighing in at 496 pages, and I read every page, in spite of the fact that it is essentially a coming-An exuberant and highly engaging graphic memoir weighing in at 496 pages, and I read every page, in spite of the fact that it is essentially a coming-out story, but get this: Maurice Vellekoop grew up a decade after me in the (Dutch) Christian Reformed Church in a suburb of Toronto. This is a smallish Calvinist sect I also grew up in, but my early life was in Dutch western Michigan. And what he establishes is still true, that the church condemns homosexuality, and is fracturing today as a result. My family fractured over these issues a decade ago and are now very much fracturing again over this very issue, I sadly report. Making profession of faith, Calvinist Cadets (like Boy Scouts but with The Bible as guide, instead of the Boy Scout Handbook; I was allowed to be in the Scouts, because the Cadets would not allow Sunday camping and my parents agreed to allow me, though the kids in my family could not swim or bike on Sundays; movies were frowned on by the church, no dancing, and so on).
VelleKoop loves three women more than anyone in the world, his mother--featured with him on the cover--his sister, and Carole Burnett (where his title comes from, the closing of the Carol Burnett Show). A lot of love and energy in his early life, in spite of his father's raging.
Maurice/Mo manages to leave his gray CR life find color as an illustrator and lover of the arts--films, opera, art museums, fine food, travel, a successful career in illustration--and the vibrant colors are splashed throughout his book. It ends with a pretty moving series of therapy epiphanies with regard to his mother and father that reminded me of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and Are You My Mother? There's a parade of friends and laughs throughout and some depression that requirestherapy, but ultimately he celebrates his life and honors his family....more
At the opening we are in a place I know well, an optometrist’s office, where a young woman, Miss Odette Biset-Yu, is told she has a jellyfish in her lAt the opening we are in a place I know well, an optometrist’s office, where a young woman, Miss Odette Biset-Yu, is told she has a jellyfish in her left eye. Okay, so you haven’t read THAT sentence before, right?
On the next page of wordless panels, a tiny flying jellyfish floats in the air around her. And these jellyfish become two and multiply.
Odette was just told by the optometrist to “deal with it,” though I have a hard time believing that, given my own experience, but okay, maybe I got lucky. A friend suggests the same, deal with it. Apparently it comes out and floats around from time to time. You know “floaters”? This seems to be kinda what they are, these jellyfish, but they don’t go away, they proliferate.
Odette works in a bookstore, has a pet rabbit and a crush on a girl, trying to gain independence from her parents as she lives alone, has friends. . . but what is this jellyfish stuff all about?! Is this like Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”? Unlike Gregor Samsa, Odette tries eye drops, no luck.
And then I realize, when I see a sign in Odette's ophtholmalogist’s office for macular degeneration, that Odette and I have the same thing, though I am bring treated monthly for injections in my right eye for it, and she is not being treated, for reasons unclear to me. Millions of people now have it, a blind spot that essentially makes you blind in that eye, most of the affected are older, all the people I see in my doctor's office are older, like me, but I also know you can get it at any time.
This is a a powerful queer novel about a woman going blind, who needs to realize what she has more than what she does not have, and learn to accept help from others, though blindness is of course devastatingly serious.
I loved the poetic way of representing this condition, and all the pages of wordless panels to help us see and feel more what is going on. A great book, with a great, lovely ending, so much shown, yay, and almost no dialogue, yay. I like it a lot, in part because it is personal for me, though I have questions, given my treatment options. I guess some people may not be able to be treated, or it’s too late? Poignant story with terrific cartooning.
I want to thank the author of Jellyfish, Boum, and Pow Pow Press, for the early look at this graphic novel....more
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence--Carl Sagan (the epigraph to this book)
Totem opens with a dead body being pecked aTotem Laura Perez
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence--Carl Sagan (the epigraph to this book)
Totem opens with a dead body being pecked at by crows; then a woman hears the news of the discovery of this body. Was it a ritual killing? The body was surrounded by dolmens. What is death? Where does one's spirit go? Why do some spirits hang around?
Totem is a book of magic and mystery where the spiritual is always present. Two women, lovers, make a pilgrimage to the desert, after they meet a woman who consorts with spirits and speaks of different spiritual dimensions.
“In some places, every day life is extraordinary.”
In Totem there are many wordless pages, including many close-ups of hands, one dream like sequence of four girls, pages of close-ups. Many wordless pages, spare images, very reflective.
A gravestone with a picture of a girl--what totem to put at her grave?
In the desert they meet a man who invites them to a gathering in a sacred Pueblo site, where they enter an altered state of consciousness, and the surreal art reflects their hallucinogenic experience.
“I love you,” one of the women says to the other, and maybe at base this is what the elliptical, dream-like experience of this--I hesitate to call it a story--couple is about, the other-worldly state of being that is love. But it's not only that. It's about the mystery of spiritual existence. It'a a mystery.
I love all the spareness. I love it that nothing is explained or obvious. I see so many dislike the book on Goodreads; maybe they were looking for something else. I didn’t know anything about the author or her work but this is what I was looking for and didn't know it. ...more
Pardalita by Joana Estrela features sixteen-year-old Raquel from a small town in Portugal. It’s a first person narrative told by Raquel. Her parents aPardalita by Joana Estrela features sixteen-year-old Raquel from a small town in Portugal. It’s a first person narrative told by Raquel. Her parents are divorced and she’s just been suspended from school for back talk. Her best friend is Luisa. But she’s struggling. And then she meets Pardalita, and joins the drama club to better connect with her.
I see at a glance most people love this book but I just thought it was okay. The most interesting character was Luisa, which means I was less engaged with the two main characters, and which also means it was hard to immerse myself in the relationship. But Luisa brings the energy, with a sense of humor.
One thing that surprised me is that I liked the format, alternating prose poems/letters, within a graphic novel format. Usually I don’t like it when there’s too many blocky chunks of writing, but (and again this isn’t a good sign) these pages were probably the strongest parts of the book. Oh, and the book is Raquel writing to Pardalita.
I unfortunately didn’t think either character or plot development were particularly strong. The novel seems to promise a queer romance, but very little happens, as the focus is on the very beginnings of attraction. Yeah, it has some sweetness, in that respect, at least. I’m an outlier here on this one, I see from the rating average, so good for Estrela. I’d recommend your checking it out based on the fact that most people seem to have loved it. ...more
I've read other issues in this series by Caroline Cash, Peepee Poopoo, that I am sure you will be disappointed to find has no peepee poopoo in it. Or I've read other issues in this series by Caroline Cash, Peepee Poopoo, that I am sure you will be disappointed to find has no peepee poopoo in it. Or maybe it does, I forget. It sure has vomit in it, from excessive drinking. A series of cartoons and short comics reflections written, the (great) cover says,"for girls and gays." So, since I am neither of the indicated target audiences, consider the source, but I liked this a lot.
Cash is a really good cartoonist with lots of potential. This series seems to be (in part?) a kind of queer homage to sixties alt-comix, as the cover reference to Daniel Clowes's Eightball makes clear. She's funny, snarky, insightful, and she writes of a kinda sideways twenty-something life in Chicago. I read her Girl in the World and used it in one of my comics classes and everyone dug it. I think when she finds some subject/story to create in greater depth, maybe in long form fashion, it will be great. I'm a fan. ...more
I am not always sure why I keep reading the horror story that is Kabi Nagata's life, laid out for us in what she calls diary comics--I expect it may bI am not always sure why I keep reading the horror story that is Kabi Nagata's life, laid out for us in what she calls diary comics--I expect it may be serialized in Japan?--but comes to us in thr west as a memoir of a particular aspect of her troubled life: Lesbian, lonely, mentally ill, eating disorder, alcoholic, socially anxiety, and internationally known manga artist chronicling all of it. Her first (?) published work, in her late twenties, documents in somewhat sensational fashion, herself as a lonely and sexually inexperienced woman visiting an escort service: My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness.
My Pancreas Broke continues her struggles with alcoholism, leaqding to severe bouts of pancreatitis and hospitalization. The book agonizingly and with brutal honesty details her "slips' on the road to health. At the close of the book it appears she has been sober for awhile, and in an appendix she urges others with addiction issues to seek the medical help she shows herself resisting for much of the book. We are sympathetic about Nagata's struggles, though our hearts also go out to her paranets, who continue to seek ways to love and support her. At one low point in the book, her father says he sees her as a "treasure," which is very moving.
So why read this horrific train wreck of a life?
1) Because Nagata helps us see herself clearly, in all her struggles, and helps us to see the state she is in; she is honest and writes clearly; this can only be helpful to those millions with similar struggles; 2) Because Nagata is not a "train wreck," but a human being suffering as may today are; 2) Because Nagata is a very fine artist, who manages to entertain even as we agonize for her; I never feel like I don't want to read; I read it in one sitting; 3) I have family members (and students) with mental health and addiction issues, and I am sometimes impatient, lost about what to do, facing the limits of my empathy. I look to Nagata's parents for guidance, just parents who don't know how to help their kid, but do what they can. 4) I have gall bladder issues, and her discussion of eating with pancreatitis is actually relevant for me. ...more
“There shouldn’t be any monsters left in Lucille.”
But of course there are. There always are and they need to be fought.
“We are each other’s harvest. W“There shouldn’t be any monsters left in Lucille.”
But of course there are. There always are and they need to be fought.
“We are each other’s harvest. We are each other’s business. We are each other’s magnitude and bond”--Gwendolyn Brooks
In the middle grade fantasy novel Pet, by Nigerian Awaeke Emezi, the scene is set sometime in a future small American town named Lucille, after a revolution that pitted monsters with angels. The angels seem to have won, but you gotta be vigilant. Monsters can look like strange scary creatures but they can also be people who are cruel as in family separation types who cage children refugees instead of care for them.
Jam, the mc, is a trans girl whose bff is a boy, Redemption, a boxer. Jam’s father is Aloe, and her mother is Bitter, a painter. Pet is a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of Jam’s mother's paintings and a drop of Jam's blood. Pet is really an angel but looks like a monster; Pet has come to hunt a monster, who lives in Redemption's house.
Moss is Redemption’s little bro; Hibiscus is his uncle. Redemption actually has three parents including Beloved, Malachite and Whisper, and his sister is Glass.
*A side game; The naming in this book maybe has something to do with the author’s loves/favorites, as in the town name Lucille may refer to the poet Lucille Clifton; the boy Redemption might refer to Bob Marley’s Redemption Song?
*Jame and Redemption go tto the library for knowledge to help them in their quest. The library is key for history, memory, monster-fighting,
“Forgetting is how the monsters come back.”
*Jam didn’t speak, early on, so she speaks sign language: words are never enough. Art, signs, silence.
“Everyone, everything deserved some time to be. To figure out what they were.”
“. . . unpleasant things must be done for unpleasant purposes out of unpleasant necessity.”
“How fast is your alive? How smooth is your alive? How hard, how resilient? We’re alive because we can be hurt; we’re alive because we can heal. I think it’s beautiful. It’s why I fight.”
*Art and monsters: An angel comes out of Bitter’s painting to fight monsters: “This machine kills fascists”--Woody Guthrie’s guitar
“The first step to seeing is seeing that there are things you do not see, it said. There is the unseen, waiting to be seen, existing only in the spaces we admit we do not see yet.
*Though Redemption is a fighter, he is not a killer. The primary way of dealing with monsters is rehabilitation, not death.
“We must kill the structures all the way to their roots,” the angels had said, “and only then will Lucille be safe.”
*Love and food are keys to the “loving tumult” that is family.
“Akwaeke examines the journey that evil has made, from monstrosity to mainstream”--Chris Meyers, in the afterword. “Akwaeke asks us readers to reconsider our monsters, to look past the comforting illusions and, along with Jam and Redemption, hunt for the true villains in our midst.” ...more
318 pages of adorable in one sitting?! Yup. So the first half of this book is a lot of kissing, mostly that, after the slow buildup of the first four 318 pages of adorable in one sitting?! Yup. So the first half of this book is a lot of kissing, mostly that, after the slow buildup of the first four volumes. So I was a little impatient with the pacing. Then in the second half lots of things happen! Among them, we approach the Big Subject of Going All the Way! Nick and Charlie and a sleepover, ok. But as we all know, many teens do have sex, so others in their friend group are dating and kissing and having sex, and trying to figure out what to do, with all the emotions and complications. So it's not just Nick and Charlie; others have to figure out what to do, too, among their friend group. And many are not dating at all, of course.
But this all happens in the midst of maybe even more serious discussions about Nick going away for uni. Does he stay close, so he can be close to Charlie who has to finish his last year? Other friends who are dating also face this issue and will solve it in various ways, as happens.
Another thread: As we know, Charlie has had real challenges with eating disorders and anxiety, but he's applied for Head Boy at his teacher's urging, and he plays a set at drums with his band at a festival, so things are getting better for him in every way.
Alice Oseman is very good at capturing the layers of complexities of teen emotions, and also is sensitive to mental health issues, obviously. So we know Charlie is gay and Nick is bi; in this volume we find others who are bi/asexual and so on. So many ways to be in a relationship!
In the midst of so much hate today, and with the banning of so many books such as this, this is a wonderfully positive series I wish many more people would read. One last volume, gulp!...more
In the tradition of Gender is Really Strange and other books, and in the face of insistence from the far right that there are only two genders, this pIn the tradition of Gender is Really Strange and other books, and in the face of insistence from the far right that there are only two genders, this picture book introduces young readers to the centuries-old factual observation across various cultures that there are multiple genders, and that things are more fluid than most of us white westerners have ever known (or is it admitted?). The book introduces us to various individuals from various cultures that have been more accepting than, say, current US culture. Did I say more accepting? There are increasing hate crimes against queer Americans right now, and frankly cruel legislation in several states, so books like this are useful for combatting the fear and ignorance that leads to discrimination and violence.
I do think that even for adults the (still fluid) distinctions between genderqueer, genderfluid and bigender (using just three examples!) are hard to understand, so I think it will be especially hard for little kids, but on the other hand, when is it appropriate to tell kids these truths that violent haters were never taught? One point of this book is to educate, but another is to affirm the status of young people who realize they do not fit comfortably in one of two categories.
I am not saying this "new reality" is easy or obvious for everyone. It's huge, and scary for lots of people, including for me. But I have an increasing number of "out" trans students, and ten years ago I had none. Does this mean it suddenly got cool to be trans? I don't think so. I think there have always been individuals who did not fit the two-gender categories, in some cultures.
The art is simple, just basic, and the picture book allows for a small sample, but it is still a pretty useful book. We are introduced to the long held indigenous Two Spirit "category." And the Hawaiian Mahu--feminine and masculine presences in one person, embraced in Polynesian communities. Mexican muxe--gender-non-conforming folks. Chideziri is a female husband in Nigeria. Rabbi Huber tells us that the Talmud recognizes as many as eight different genders. Indonesian Andi is a Bugis, one of the five acknowledged genders there.
As a comics guy I appreciated the page on Japanese Kohei, who calls himself x-gender. His work promotes trans acceptance.
This informative book is pretty good. I don't think it is a book really directed to early elementary kids, but who knows, for the right kids, with the right parents?...more
Lady Camembert does not want to marry a man, and daddy knows this, and even supports her, but he also knows his inheritance cannot go to a woman, so hLady Camembert does not want to marry a man, and daddy knows this, and even supports her, but he also knows his inheritance cannot go to a woman, so he suggests she pass as a man. She readily agrees, and the fun begins. All the character names are cheese, including love object Brie, Gorgon(zola), and others. Oh, really almost everything is a chese name, and cheese puns abound. Obvioulsy all they eat is grilled cheese,
Silly fun glbt romance, colorful, exuberant, and the author's note at the end is terrific, focusing on the process of making this, Deya Muniz's first graphic novel, and sharing the fact of personal connections to the story--their wife Emily, the gowns in the story based on their wedding gown designs, and so on. Cute and light-hearted and fun!
For fans of the similarly adorable The Prince and the Dressmaker!...more
Loading...
