Prism Comics

I’ve written several articles for Prism Comics, all focusing on LGBT characters.  A list of the articles can be seen below.

I'll be updating this post as and when more of my stuff gets published by Prism, and I'll be including a link to this post on my blog sidebar.

Secret Six - Six Degrees of Devastaion: It’s a team of 6 villains, with one lesbian and one bisexual character.

Venus Envy: Webcomic about a young trans woman.

Coming out in comics – similar to my series on this blog, this is an overview of LGB characters in modern DC comics, what I think about them and why I think it’s important to have them.

Iono-Sama Fanatics volume 1: A Japanese yuri (girls love) manga about a visiting Queen, looking to build up her sobames (companions).
Paris:  2 women find love in 1950s Paris.

Starman #45: Featuring a gay male couple, and some rather dodgy gay men in prison assumptions.

Starman 80 page giant - Wherein I talk about the concept of bisexual erasure and what this comic does to break the trend.

LGBT Reading Challenge 2011 - Antique Bakery

After yesterday's rather annoyed review of an LGBT book, I thought I'd showcase one that was actually good.  However as I'm short on time (but long on ambition) today's feature is going to be crossposted from New readers..start here!.  I've been debating between showing off Antique Bakery or The Moon and Sandals, and have ended up with Antique Bakery, because this review is at least new and written this month, which I felt was more in the spirit of the book challenge.  Please don't forget about The Moon and Sandals though!  In some ways it's a better book.  And hey, if it's superheroes you want for your LGBT fix, then we have those too.  While you're at it, don't forget about the webcomics!

Anyway, enough plugging, on with the review!

Writer and artists: Fumi Yoshinaga

What's it about?
An old antique shop reopens as a bakery.  A surprising selection of characters staff the shop, some unlikely coincidences take place and some delicious cakes and pastries get baked.

The book opens with some historical episodes.
14 years ago... In high school Ono confesses his love for Tachibana, who responds by telling him to 'Hurry up and die, homo'.  Nice.
13 years ago...Urishihara is being bullied in school for looking different and Miss Ito admires her.
5 years ago...Eiji Kanda is a champion boxer.  Unfortunately for him he develops a detached retina and is forced to give up boxing.
3 years ago...Mr Tadahiro is a grumpy businessman with a wife and son and an obsessive desire for desserts.

This unlikely group of people drift to the Antique Bakery.  We learn some secrets, see some relationships blossom, and, well, learn a lot about different types of cake.

This is a Yaoi title.  Yaoi means boys love and is the name given to manga about male couples.  Yaoi can be explicitly about sex, or can be more about the relationship side of things. Some of it can be a coming out narrative, some of it can just be two men getting it on.  A lot of it is written by women, for women.  The female equivalent is called Yuri.  This book is not explicit and is far more about baking than sex.

What's good about it? Oooh it's simply delightful!
Let's start with the bakery part - throughout the book there are mouth watering descriptions of cake.  If you like cake you'll want to eat them all.  My book comes with a scratch and sniff cover - you get an aroma of strawberries.  I read this on a Monday and it took me until Friday to find a cake that could satisfy my craving (Japanese cheesecake with green tea ice cream, since you ask).

The book is more of a cooking manga than a story about sexuality.  Ono's gayness is present throughout the book, as it is part of him.  His sexuality is part of him, but not necessarily always the most important part, and the story reflects that.  It's normalising of different sexualities in a way that is often missed by mainstream Western media outlets.

Having said that, there is a subplot about Tachibana and Ono.  Tachibana may start as an asshole but by the end of the book he has been thoroughly outshone by Ono.  It is clear that Ono is the better person, and in fact, in one of the best lines of the book, it is stated that Ono has grown up to become "..no ordinary gay. He's a demonically charmed gay, unspeakably gay, a legendary gay" who inadvertently seduces every man he takes a fancy to.  It's enough to send right wing bigots everywhere into a frenzy ;)

Note: Due to computer issues the scans in this post are taken from fan translations on the internet, so some lettering and vocabulary may be different from the official printed version.

If this book were a song it would be a light little summer ditty. 

What's bad about it?
Not a lot, if I'm honest,  The characters are all easily distinguishable (something I often have problems with in black and white books), the plots are fun and the build up to various reveals is done with skill and precision.  There are a few panels where it's not terribly easy to work out what the reading order is but overall it's fine.

Please note that this book is presented in the original Japanese format, so you read it back to front, right to left.  An explanation of how to read manga can be found at the bottom of this post.

What's the art like?
Most panels have little to no background detail, this has two effects - 1, you focus in on the character's faces and body language and the story is told through the way the characters are placed in each panel.  2, the blank space gives a feeling of solitude and contentment that you would expect to find in a peaceful artisan bakery.

Yoshinaga doesn't use a lot of pencil lines for her characters.   This produces restrained and simplified images where little things denote expressions and moods, for example, the angle of an eyebrow or a mouth.  Occasionally a wrinkle or a tear is shown, and it is their very scarcity which increases the impact of the scene.

To complement this simplicity, shading techniques are used quite often to emphasise moods and space.  And then, because there's an exception to every rule, some panels will be bursting with ink:

Other information
You are unlikely to find yaoi titles in mainstream bookshops, as the sexual content is incompatible with a genre still widely (and incorrectly) considered suitable only for children.  Because of this, you will be best off buying yaoi titles from amazon, ebay or British online distributors such as United Publications and Anime Online.

To read more from the same author, try Antique Bakery volumes 2 to 4, or The Moon and Sandals.  Click here to see what other LGBT books we have covered.  Click here to read other romance and Valentines themed posts.

This week's comics!

See I CAN do it on time (sometimes!).  No spoilers.

Superman #702.  Shit cover.  He looks like he's wearing a nappy - where's the creases and folds?  Why are his pants so bulky?  And it's boring as anything.  I think they may have been going for iconic, but it;s just rubbish.
And inside, Superman is a massive knob.  He wants to get in on humanity and ordinary people but he just comes off as a patronising, interfering, self righteous jerk.  Am not impressed.

Batgirl #13.  Better.  Proxy (Wendy) gets some screen time and Steph does her usual dive-right-in-and-ignore-subtlety kind of heroing.  I've worked out what's been annoying me about this comic.  It's the slang.  It's calling Babs 'O' and saying gross or ewww.  I don't like it.  I also think the art could do with more definition - more lines on the faces and the costumes.  But then again, this comic always seems much better on the re-read, so it can't be that big a problem.

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #1:  Someone tell me why Guy was never an earth cop, and was instead a PE teacher.  He loves being in charge I'd have thought he'd tried out to be an ordinary copper.  This has promise.  Black/Red/Multicoloured Lantern promise.

Antique Bakery vol 1:  It's a yaoi title, by the same lady that wrote the The Moon and Sandals.  there's no sex in this one.  I feel cheated.  But I guess the story was alright.  It was very funny in places.

Robin backissues - I got 20 back issues of Robin for £12.99 a couple of weeks back.  Am now reading them (and only one is a duplicate of an issue I already have, hurrah!) and realising how good they are.  Look out for a post on General Ulysses.

Reviews part 5: 3 collections and some old crap

Slowly getting through stuff. I now have a selection of Justice related books and last week's purchases to go. Then on to the speculative posts. Whew.

These notes will cover Extreme Justice, Green Lantern: Rebirth, Marvels and Strawberry Marshmallow volume 2.

Extreme Justice
This is some old crap. Macho posturing rubbish with appalling art to match. Amazing Man inexplicably changes from black to white and back again every other panel, I think it might be dependent on the powers he’s just absorbed, or on the other hand, it could be a shit colourist. Read at your peril. Me, I must be knee deep in peril cos I’ve now read 12 issues and will be reading to the tiresome end.

Green Lantern: Rebirth
Overall I enjoyed this. The one punch reference to Giffen JLA made me chuckle as did all the bits mentioned in the preface. I think I’d have got more out of it had I known more general Green Lantern history and Hal’s history specifically. The book is one for the avid fans, not a general introduction to comics or Green Lanterns - people who don’t know much about the characters won’t get as much out of it.

Marvels
This was bought (as was Rebirth actually) with the voucher my sister got me for being bridesmaid at her wedding. I got this book a good 4 weeks ago but it has been sat on the side table waiting for me to find a good time to read it. A time when I didn’t feel rushed and like I could actually savour it – I’ve had precious few of those recently.

I had already read the book as our local library had a copy. I think this book was my introduction to Alex Ross’ art and Kurt Busiek’s writing, both of which are wonderful. It follows the career of Phil Sheldon, a newspaper photographer, from 1939 to the present day. At the start he’s a young man waiting for his chance to be sent to Europe to photograph the war and make a name for himself. Then the first Marvel, the first Human Torch, appears and over the next few years Sheldon comes to believe that the real story may be found not in the war but in the Marvels back home in the USA.

The rest of the book covers the key events in the history of the Marvel Universe – the arrival of Namor the Sub-mariner, the creation of Captain America, the role of Superheroes in the war, the arrival of the X-Men, Gwen Stacey’s murder, the Sentinals, Galactus and the Silver Surfer, the forming of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. The book is told through Sheldon’s view so we get to see the general public’s view of the Marvels.
I really really like this book. It’s a great introduction to the Marvel Universe and it looks beautiful. An exemplary piece of comic storytelling.

Strawberry Marshmallow volume 2
Fun. A new character, Ana from England is added to the mix. She decides she is losing her Englishness so resolves to never speak Japanese in school, only English. A fine idea, except she didn’t account for her automatic greeting of people in Japanese or that she wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone if she only speaks English.

She accidentally speaks Japanese to Matsuri and so falls in with friendship group This is pretty much the same stuff as volume 1, just with different adventures. If you like volume 1 you’ll like this. If you don’t like this then you don’t have a soul. Fact*.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that one of the kids in this is wearing a Super Furry Animals top. That pleased me no end.


Currently listening to: Rico


*Actually, that's probably not true. If you don’t like Azumanga Daioh then you don’t have a soul. If you don’t like Strawberry Marshmallow you are merely of dubious character.

A review in 4 parts: part one, manga

An assortment of girls stuff, yaoi and horror.

Strawberry Marshmallow by Barasui
The boyfriend asked me to read this as he thought some of it might be a bit dodgy and he wanted my opinion. Well I read it, and although some parts are a bit odd I wouldn’t say it was morally suspect.

It’s a story about 4 teenage girls, one aged 16, the rest are between 11 and 12, who are all good friends. The odd thing is why a 16 yr old is friends with 11 and 12 year olds, and also that the 16yr old is drawn to look much the same as the younger kids. The last point is explained at the back of the book as the author says he can only draw kids.

It doesn’t have a plot as such, just snippets of the girls’ days. It’s fun though, quite humorous and a bit madcap. There is a ferret, and a hat with cat ears and a girl getting dumped in a rubbish bin and unable to get out. I particularly liked the panel where the 16yr old yells at the readers that a 16 year old shouldn’t be smoking.

It reminded me of Azumanga Daoih, which if you haven’t read, you should go read now. Definitely a keeper.

The Moon and Sandals by Fumi Yoshinaga
This is a really lovely and really touching story. It’s yaoi, but not focused on sex, more about a few blokes’ relationships. It’s prettily drawn, the men all look like adults which is good, and it’s just a great story. Not a lot else to say really.

Shinobu Kokoro by Temari Matsumoto and I’ll Be Your Slave by Miki Araya
Both Yaoi and merely ok. Far more sex in these than in The Moon and Sandals. They both have plots, but it’s all very teenage. When you’re just starting to work out who you like and what you like, and start constructing fantasies you’d probably come up with plots such as these.

Shinobu Kokoro is about a ninja who gets seduced by his master, in the guise of teaching said ninja about an undercover assignment which basically involves lots of sex with a bloke. I’ll be Your Slave is set in a modelling agency. The boss finds a new model and sets about doing anything to keep him happy, which turns into sex, and being his slave.
The art is pedestrian, both the younger dudes in each book look very young, which I think is a standard way of drawing yaoi, but it doesn’t do anything for me and at times makes me rather uncomfortable.

Not particularly recommended, but some scenes are good.

The Drifting Classroom by Kazuo Umezu
In the aftermath of an earthquake a whole elementary school vanishes leaving a hole in the ground. This book is mostly set inside the school where the kids and teachers are trying to find out what has happened and work out where they are.

The art is brilliant and the story is creepy. There’s a very real sense of impending doom and despair. Highly recommended.

The Embalmer by Mitsukazu Mihara
It’s about an embalmer, funnily enough. I read this quite a while ago and am having difficulty recalling the details, but I do know that I found it very intriguing. There’s some real humanity in here.
It’s split into several different stories, each about an individual how ends up dying and is then embalmed. It looks at the individual’s character and how this reflects upon their death and it looks at the family left behind.

It’s very very good.

On another note, I am going to a 4th of July party this weekend, so happy celebrations to all you American folks. I may be playing baseball in your honour.

Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women in Asia by Louise Brown

The boyfriend's mum bought this book for me when she was travelling round part of Asia on a 3 week holiday. It's been sat on my bookshelf for a while and I suddenly had the urge to read it. There wasn't much going on this weekend and I wasn't looking froward to re-writing yet more CVs (job hunting sure is dull), so I figured I'd get through it now.

And guess what? Comics get brought into it, hurrah!

First we have the cover of the book:


Rather tabloidy, no? I was willing overlook the choice of image, reasoning that the publisher does want to sell books and what really matters is the content.

Brown is writing from a feminist (possibly Marxist) perspective. She is very very clear that she hates prostitution and thinks it should be eradicated. Whether this is a valid position is not what I want to discuss. Brown talks both about the life experiences of the sex workers and puts forwards explanations for why the sex trade exists. I have issues with the presentation of the information and also some of her conclusions and explanations for the existence of the sex trade.

There are 9 chapters in the book, as follows:
The Market (where the women/children come from)
The Commodity (the women/children themselves)
The Agents (those who find and traffic the women/children)
Seasoning (how the women/children are broken into accepting sex work)
The Customers (those who purchase sex)
The Management (those at the top of the sex industry)
The Law (national and international law and how it is(n't) enforced)
Life and Death (disease and daily life of a sex worker)
The Shame (how the sex workers feel about their jobs, also a conclusion for the book)

Initially this seems like a pretty good way to arrange the information. It appears to encompass all levels of the sex industry. However as you go through the book the details of each chapter become muddled and confusing.

Geography
I have few doubts that her report of life as a sex worker in Asia is fairly accurate. But you'll note I said 'Asia'. Asia is a pretty big area, each country is distinct and has it's own cultural norms, societal values, standard of living etc. Brown doesn't even examine every country in Asia - she focuses on Japan, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

She provides examples of sex work in each country and while noting that there are differences, and being explicit about these differences, she then uses these examples to make generalisations about Asia as a whole. This comes across as rather contradictory.

She jumps between country profiles rather erratically. For example, there is one sentence about Thailand, one about Burma, then one about Japan. In my eyes, it would have been more logical to treat each country as a sub section within each chapter, and then done a mini conclusion at the end drawing together all the information. This would also have made it easier to drop back into and reference the book at a later date. But maybe that's just my personal reference for accessing information.

The work itself
She also seems to jump wildly between writing about the experiences of trafficked women, those forced into sex work and those who chose (or were coerced) to enter sex work. It makes it rather difficult to follow and it then becomes unclear what she is trying to prove. The method of entry into sex work does seem to have a big influence on the lives of the women and children, but I don't think this was drawn out enough. Similarly, the hierarchy of sex workers is not examined enough. She does talk about the differences between poor street prostitutes and high end call girls, but when it's all thrown in with other topics that also affect their lives and work, the distinction becomes blurred.

References and arrangement of the material
Although there is an extensive list of references at the back of the book, I get the impression that a lot of the content is her own opinion. This damages the book's credibility as a serious academic resource. As I said above, I don't doubt that what she's saying about sex worker's lives is true, but I don't think she's argued her case as to why the sex trade exists well.

There's a lot of repetition throughout each chapter. Part of this is an effective method for building up a full picture of the industry, part of it comes across as though she needs a good editor.

Why men buy sex - biological imperative and manga
Having said I agree with most of the information presented there was one chapter which really raised my hackles. This was the one titled The Customers.

My main problem with this section is Brown believes that men have a biological imperative to shag as much as possible. She believes they are genetically programmed to. constantly. have. sex. Because of this, (and because of patriarchy), prostitution, concubinage and polygamy have developed.

Ugh. It should come as no surprise that I have no time for biological justifications of human behaviour. As a species, we are not a bunch of hormones and instincts. We have brains, we have thoughts and we have more complex ways of deciding on a course of action. If we didn't we'd still be shitting in our pants and I wouldn't be here on the Internet writing this to all of you.

To argue that men sleep around because of a biological imperative is insulting and demeaning to both men and women. It also conveniently absolves men of any responsibility for their actions.

It's bollocks and I have no time for anyone who believes in it. To top it all off, Brown doesn't even present evidence as to why she is picking this theory. This leads me to believe she chose it because it's convenient and fits in with her world view, which incidentally, comes across as all men are evil.

The other thing which had me spitting feathers was her reference to manga. I quote:
'An element of sadism runs as an unpleasant undercurrent through Japanese society. Manga are like giant comics principally produced for Japanese men and boys. Torture, mutilation and rape of young women and girls are a regular feature of the storylines*.'

*this line is footnoted, the referenced material is Allison, Permitted and Prohibited Desires.

Oh god, where do I start? Manga is not 'like' giant comics, they are comics. And not necessarily giant. There are many many different types of manga. A small proportion focuses on torture, mutilation and rape. You may as well dismiss all written books as being misogynist and encouraging sadism because Brett Easton Ellis' Psycho exists.

This reinforces my personal view that Brown didn't really research the topic as well as she could have. It makes me wonder if she was only looking for stuff to back up her preconceived ideas about why the sex trade is so big in Asia.

Other
She didn't look at the issue of women buying women's bodies, yet we know it is a possibility because at one point she states that while talking with a sex worker she had to establish that Brown herself wasn't interested in buying sex. She also displays a shocking amount of Islamophobia - her writings on Sharia law were backed up with no evidence whatsoever and no view from Muslim women. I would also have liked to know more about the women who became successful and were at the top end of the sex market.

Conclusion
This book would have been vastly better with more evidence and research. Useful for finding out basic info about the reality of sex work in some Asian countries, but the explanations as to why it exists are deeply flawed. If you read it keep an open and questioning mind.

From whence came this name?

I call my blog Pai, because *ahem* that's what the boyfriend calls me as a nickname *blush*, ok I call him the same back, but still *blush*. Anyway I've known she was a manga character for a while but haven't quite managed to read any of the books. This shall now be rectified! I've found them on the bookshelf, they're called 3x3 eyes. I hope they turn out to be good or I'm gonna be very embarrassed. At least I'll have lunchtime reading at work. I'm completely failing to finish the English patient, because Catwoman is that much more interesting.

Speaking of manga, I've decided to actually buy some yaoi. I won these off of eBay:
The Moon and Sandals (Vol 1)- Fumi Yoshinaga (rated M)
Black Knight (Vol 1& 2)- Kai Tsurugi (rated M
I'll be your slave - Miki Araya ( rated M)

Does M mean rated medium or rated mature? I only chose these ones cos they were going cheap and from the amazon reviews seemed a reasonable place to start. Anyone read these? Will they be good or awful?

Hands, porn, lesbians, libraries, voodoo and lip reading

So, I finished reading Young Justice. As people may have noticed I think it's rather good. But there's always a but, right? Take Empress - cool costume, cool power, cool character background etc etc. I feel that making the sole black chick's power a voodoo one is, how shall we say it, racial stereotyping? And then on top of that she gets naked to cast a spell? Jesus. I call that racist. Probably not racist through maliciousness, more racist through lack of imagination and thought, but still racist.

My other problem with the run is the deaf girl Arrowette makes friends with on the way to the games. I'm fully supportive of including more (any?) deaf people in comics and literature but i think it should be handled well. It should not be inferred that deaf people are experts on lip reading. Only about 30% of all words are formed on the lips, the rest are formed with the tongue and throat. So, it's impossible to lip read 100% of all speech. It really would be nice to see communication issues reflected accurately.

Given Peter David's inclusion of a couple of deaf characters in Supergirl and Young Justice
I wonder if he suddenly came in contact with deaf people at some point, maybe a member of his family or a friend went deaf suddenly? It reminds me of Judd Winick bringing in HIV positive characters. Which again I fully support. Comics can provide a good forum to educate people about illnesses/disability/social issues so bring it on. Just do it right. Please? Do your research first.

(And on another note, I really hate Cassandra Cain's ability to read body movement like a language - it doesn't make sense! People growing up without speech and without hearing don't communicate as she did. It's a stupid plot device.)

On to Buffy issue 12. So she slept with Satsu. Big deal. This doesn't make her gay, or even bi. This simply means she slept with a chick. Some of the blogs I've read that have looked appear to be getting hung up on whether this makes Buffy gay or bi. I say, does it matter? It's just sex. And I don't think you can draw parallels between Buffy's previous unconventional relationships and sleeping with a girl. So Angel and Spike were dead vampires. They're still hot male dead vampires. That's quite different from women. I'm quite offended that some people think women and dead male vampires have something in common.
I should add that fro Buffy to be gay or bi she'd have to actually crush on women. I doubt she has a proper hard on for Satsu, I think she needed comfort and closeness and orgasms. You don't have to fancy someone to sleep with them.
And the rest of the comic? Awesome. This series is getting better and better each issue. But Willow flying really pisses me off for some reason. I'm picky and don't think anyone in the Buffyverse should be able to fly. It just doesn't seem to fit.

And I also just read the whole Genshiken series. I liked. One of the more notable parts of it was the abundance of porn for women they' showed. And showed it as part of everyday life for the characters, it wasn't anything to be ashamed of. It was read the same way the men read their porn, it was discussed openly, and recommended to friends and it was normalised.

By extensions this normalises female sexuality and realises women do have sex drives and desires and fantasies. Compare that to Western attitudes towards porn and women and I see that Genshiken deals with this in an incredibly mature and praiseworthy way. It's a relief to see women reading and buying porn without shame, without being subject to ridicule or name calling. Bring it on.

Superman 674
Their new house. Want want want! Check out that library space. *drools*

Serenity 1
Hurrah for the explosions and the guns! Boo in a big way for the cover. That's an Adam Hughes cover? What, did he draw it blindfolded? Look at the hands! And Mal's neck, and Zoe's very very forced grin - she looks like somethings pinning her cheeks back.

This is not Artemis

Artemis - Wonder Woman art for sale on ebay

Artemis - different hair. not asian. wears clothes. If you wish to sell titillating manga style pictures, by all means do so. But please do not label it Artemis unless you wish it to be recognisable as her.

Edit - actually, I don't mind her being asian. I mind her being generic with no individual recognisable characteristics.