Category: LGBTQIA+

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Operation Liberate Men volume 1 & 2


By Mira Lee (NetComics/Ecomix)
ISBN: 978-1-60009-231-2 and 978-1-60009-232-9 (Tankōbon PB/Digital editions)

Authored by Mira Lee (Land of Silver Rain), Operation Liberate Men began in the late 1990s: a challenging comics concept released in a country where female roles in society were still painfully hidebound, and the concept of the “Ideal Woman” was a very real anchor to freedom of expression and lifestyle. The wild fantasy ran for 9 volumes before going on hiatus.

Now controlled by South Korean publisher Ecomix, episodes are available online with the promise of resumption and a conclusion after Lee concludes her current comics projects.

In volume 1, Sooha Jung is sixteen and an officially inadequate woman. For her whole life, she never fitted in, and has now failed the High School Admissions Exam. In achievement-oriented, socially-conservative, gender-orthodox South Korea, it’s damaging enough just to be a tomboy who prefers fighting to preening, primping or dating boys, but now she must add mediocre student to her list of failings.

Then, all of a sudden, the ethereally beautiful and androgynous Ganesha literally bumps into her…

Sooha is unsure if the lovely but weird foreigner is boy or girl, but quickly realises that it’s not as relevant as the fact that the stranger is completely crazy, claiming to come from another dimension – the Para Empire – where men are slaves and sex objects dominated by sadistic, domineering women. Disbelieving yet inspired by the thought of a world where women are in charge, she humours Ganesha, agreeing to travel to the Para Empire. Unfortunately, the story is completely accurate and she’s soon trapped on a very alien and dangerous world. Moreover, when they first met, Ganesha had assumed she was a ferocious male – the perfect man to lead the downtrodden males of Para to freedom!

Embroiled in a civil war in a fantastical primitive place, Sooha bolts, but soon realises the genuine need of the oppressed in the ruthless, savage society. She also discovers Ganesha has a secret. As the most beautiful man in the worlds, he’s not only a secret freedom-fighter but also the cherished, pampered plaything of the utterly diabolical Supreme Ruler: a woman called The Emperor…
Malevolent schemers, Court intrigues, broad humour and a remarkably progressive take on gender discrimination elevates this old, old plot, whilst healthy doses of supernatural conflict, countered by Sooha’s Bull-in-a-China-Shop temperament, make this tale an unexpected treat.
It’s nice to see a less-than-deferential, plain girl as lead character for once and the cliffhanger the first volume concludes on ensures readers will return to see what happens next. Give it a go and perhaps you’ll feel the same way too…

Operation Liberate Men volume 2 steams straight in with the next step in the campaign of sexual revolution, as Sooha Jung reviews her position. It was hard enough to get by as a mannish young girl, better at fighting than dating, and a poor student too, in modern society, but when you’re so ashamed that you make a foolish decision and end up trapped in a parallel dimension where sadistic, autocratic, bullying women have enslaved men, it’s almost too much to bear.

When you compound all that with the shameful fact that the oppressed men who expect you to deliver them from bondage are all completely oblivious of the fact that you are actually female, you can see why the teenager thinks she might have made a major mistake in travelling to this magical realm to liberate the men of the Para Empire.
Grudgingly accepting command of the Laharshita (“Male Liberation Army”) she now falls foul of the brutal women – also unaware of Sooha’s gender – leading to a savage battle in which rebel conspirator and undercover Boy-Toy Ganesha is near-fatally wounded.

Desperate and on the run, Sooha is soon captured and imprisoned and, as events in the rebel hierarchy proceed without her, suddenly realises that this is not her first contact with the male denizens of the Para Empire. There was an incident so long ago, back when she was just a little girl…

A touch of Aubrey Beardsley and the occasional flurry of Charles M Schulz in the dreamy artwork is so effective in elevating this compelling manhwa (Korean for manga or comics) fantasy. Ending on another cliffhanger, this war story will grip readers in fevered anticipation for that hopefully imminent conclusion…
© 1997, 2001 Mira Lee. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2007 NetComics.

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Artifice


By Alex Wolfson & Winona Nelson (AMW Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-9857604-0-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Deacon sits in a featureless cell. He doesn’t look like much but has caused a lot of trouble and his two guards are each reacting in their own way: one with mounting aggression and bluster and the other with fear for his job and his life. When the taunting bigotry and disgust-fuelled bravado reach a tipping point, the immobile captive finally shows them both why they have every right to be scared…

Later, Deacon is debriefed by an interrogator. Dr. Maven is a highly qualified therapist highly ranked at NoNeCo: tasked with and determined to find out what went wrong on the mission to Da Vinci Four. It is crucial that she learns the truth. The Corporation has spent unimaginable sums building and programming Deacon and his four siblings, and can’t afford to casually scrap them. They were a highpoint in synthetic servants: stronger, smarter, faster than humanity and therefore the greatest potential threat to Man’s dominance ever encountered. Thus, he cannot be permitted further existence if what is reported to have happened there is even partially true…

When the puritanical colony needed pacifying, Deacon and his super-soldier kin eliminated all but one human being. The last battle left the other artificials destroyed in a trap. Now, Deacon explains how he allowed one organic – “Jeff” – to live because the colony systems were inoperable by synthetics and he needed to remain functional until relief arrived. Only organics could operate the rechargers supplying the artificial man with energy and life.

Deacon claims it was simply strategy. The young man was already an outcast, shunned and despised because of his genetic abnormality, and easy to psychologically manipulate. Deacon simply played on his uncorrected homosexual flaw to sustain his own existence until a scheduled follow-up mission landed four months later.

Deacon claims everything he subsequently did with Jeff and to the rescuers was simply to complete the mission, but the doctor isn’t fooled. She realises this android is even smarter and more devious than anyone imagined, but allows one final meeting with Jeff to test her theory… and discovers to her cost just how human and well-constructed the synthetic is, and how powerful is the outdated concept of love…

Alex Wolfson (The Young Protectors) writes a smartly compelling drama about intolerance and forbidden love overcoming all odds, whilst Winona Nelson (If You Lived During the Plimoth Thanksgiving) provides bleak, regimented and powerfully understated realism to the art that makes it so very believable.

A dystopian fable that ends on a note of hope and promise of a sequel, Artifice began life as a webcomic serial dealing in forthright manner with violence and sexual situations in service to a superbly engaging and enthralling drama that would already be a major motion picture if close-minded, parochial movie producers could get past the fact that it depicts guys snogging.

Thankfully, you aren’t so emotionally stunted and can enjoy the tale which closes here with ‘Reader Questions’ answered by the creative team, ‘Writer’s Notes’ by Wolfson describing the project’s genesis and ‘Artist’s Notes’ from Nelson, plus a fully illustrated run-down on their collaborative ‘Process’ and even faux press releases and reader response from evil mega-corp in ‘NoNeCo Responds’.

Proving yet again that there’s absolutely no appreciable difference in sexual orientation when telling wonderful stories of heroes, villains and lovers, Artifice is a lost treat you will definitely delight in, whoever you are and want to be.
© 2011, 2012, 2013 Alex Wolfson. All rights reserved. All characters, distinctive names and likenesses and all related elements are trademarks of Alex Wolfson and AMW Comics.

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Black Knight volume 1


By Kai Tsurugi (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-522-7 (TPB)

So, it’s Pride Month and not all comics are about genocide or racial slaughter. Here’s a lost gem long overdue for another run in the sun – or at least a new English language revival on paper or in digital form…

Japan’s vast comics industry is formally sub-divided into discrete categories to avoid dithering and confusion. This is a fine historical example of a Yaoi story – a romanticised fantasy relationship drama starring beautiful young men in love. The genre was devised for female audiences: like Shounen-Ai (stories of two young men, but with more erotic content) although very mild – to the point of chaste gentility – by that standard.

As Kuro no Kishi, the serial first appeared from August 2003-October 2005 in Magazine Be x Boy, before filling 4 subsequent tankōbon tomes. These were translated via TokyoPop’s Blu Manga imprint and released between July 2006 and February 2009. There’s no English language digital editions that I know of, but the physical copies are still readily available.

This lyrical, sexually explicit fantasy opens by introducing wayward hero Zeke O’Brien: a trainee mercenary of lower class origins who rises to the rank of Black Knight by saving the life of a lovely young Prince targeted for assassination by the hidden enemies of the King of Aran.

When the royal neophyte is assigned to train as a Black Knight, Zeke thwarts every attempt to murder the elfin Prince Chris, but falls hopelessly in love with his charge. He is delighted to discover the feeling is mutual and furtively, frequently, passionately reciprocated. However, the King’s enemies are many and the trials for the young lovers are only just beginning in this splendidly Ruritanian Romance of intrigue and melodrama.

Lavish, ostentatious, beautifully illustrated and inoffensively charming, this initial volume carries an additional, modern tale of boy-on-boy romance that might upset some readers, but not for obvious reasons.

‘Deadly Sin’ tells of the intimate (and naturally, graphically explicit) affair between a young priest (a son of IRA terrorists who subsequently murdered the SAS killers of his parents) and an athlete/poet he meets on holiday. Despite being well written and drawn, this type of material is bound to offend devoutly Christian, sectarian and/or conservative sorts (note the small ‘c’) so if you are the type hanging around waiting to be outraged, please save us all some grief and don’t read it.
© 2003 Kai Tsurugi. English text © 2006 BLU Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Con Artists


By Luke Healy (Faber)
ISBN: 978-1-91274-008-6 (HB)

In modern times, Stand-up Comedians don’t tell jokes. These days, they are perspicacious social observers, wry cultural commentators and introspective self-examiners, exposing themselves on painfully primal and crushingly candid levels to make points of modern philosophy, or about politics, the world and the human condition. Well, at least the ones I watch do…

As such, their own lives constitute the raw fuel of their craft and product of their efforts. In that respect they mirror that brand of cartoonists such as Jeffrey Brown (Clumsy, Unlikely, Every Girl is the End of the World for Me), Tillie Walden (I Love this Part, Spinning, A City Inside), Leslie Stein (Eye of the Majestic Creature), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis) or Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and R. Crumb (My Troubles with Women). Here, that level of studied, curated introspection and revelation have resulted in a very modern exploration of ambition and trust…

Luke Healy studied journalism, graduated from Dublin University and earned an MFA in Cartooning from the Center for Cartoon Studies (Vermont, USA). His previous published work – such as Americana, Permanent Press and How to Survive in the North – have been awarded prizes and acclaim, and he’s also done gallery shows. His comics for VICE, The Nib, A24, Medium, Nobrow and Avery Hill are really good and he likes exposing himself to ridicule on stage. He has combined all that trauma, weltschmerz and experience into this tale exploring basic big stuff like life, friends, friends who aren’t honest and how to keep your head above emotional water.

Frank is a Stand-Up guy. He’s ambitious, London-based Irish, gay, formerly Catholic (as much as any of us can ever escape the early programming), clinically anxious and helplessly honest. With best mate Ro, he plans to storm it at the Edinburgh Festival before going on to conquer the world of Comedy. He’s getting treatment for self-diagnosed, presumed personal problems but always building for the big day. Suddenly, everything changes after a childhood mate – his best one – calls in a panic. There’s been an accident…

Giorgio was out and proud back at school in Ireland when Frank was still an anguished ball of denial, dragged down by Catholic guilt and repression. His example gave Frank strength and they’ve been buds ever since – although, it must be said, not particularly close or constant ones, even though they both now live in London…

Now there’s been an event and Giorgio is unable to cope on his own. He needs someone to move in and take care of him. You know; simple stuff like feeding and changing him and keeping him stocked in the booze and cigarettes he’s been forbidden to consume with his medication…

Initially willing, Frank obliges, but as days turn into weeks, he sees his own life stall and his plans evaporate into Giorgio’s subtly unforceful, blandly adamant demands and begins to suspect something really isn’t right. Tension exacerbates his own clinical anxiety issues, but while he seeks help, Giorgio brushes off every overture suggesting a change in his self-destructive course.

It all really goes south after Frank finds out how his old pal is making money these days…

However, as he tries to navigate his car crash relationships, Frank knows he’s been made – on every level – an accomplice in Giorgio’s schemes and must now reassess himself for his own safety and sanity… and realises that a life of dishonesty is contagious…

Frank hints that he too tells us what he wants us to know, even while “sharing” the minutiae of his intimately platonic relationship with childhood amigo Giorgio: reluctantly carrying his “best friend” through a moment of extended crisis, aiding him in what turns out to be shockingly unwelcome acts and coming away feeling he’s just been the charmer’s first and longest-serving victim and patsy..

Throughout, capital “H” Honesty is key here. Who is lying to Frank and crucially, How, Where, When and Why is Frank lying to himself? Is he doing things we know we shouldn’t or is it just his conditioned response to Giorgio? Is Giorgio being cunningly manipulative rather than simply secretive?

Deftly playing with the fourth wall and directly engaging his audience at most inopportune moments, the narrator’s linear scenario is intercut with moments from painful past and present stage performances, whilst direct interventions with the reader as cartoon actor “Frank” serve to examine the chains of childhood friendships and contemporary relationships. The laughs are good but it’s clear how life is lived for cartoon actor Frank, and for people like him Love and Trust don’t always go together…

Enticingly introspective and painfully familiar to anyone who ever had a mate who was more Trouble than Worth, The Con Artists is no joke, but is unmissable reading.

© Luke Healy, 2022. All rights reserved.
The Con Artists will be published on June 2nd  2022 and is available for pre-order now.

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Welcome Home


By Clarrie & Blanche Pope (Minor Compositions) 
ISBN: 978-1-57027-394-0 (PB)  

Comics are cheap and primal: easy to create, disseminate and understand. That’s why (after music) they are the most subversive and effective form of revolutionary art. To see what I mean just check out straightforward polemical texts such as The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free, Fight the Power, Speechless, Wildcat Anarchist Comics, Willie & Joe: Back Home, or subtler cartoon sagas that couch their message in terms of an ostensible entertainment narrative like Brought to Light, Puma Blues, The Stringer, or Pogo. Welcome Home fits comfortably into the latter category, as creators Clarrie & Blanche Pope concoct a contemporary soap opera cast to carry their observations about the way society is heading and the disturbing questions that path leaves unaddressed and unanswered. Like most of that noteworthy list cited above, the sisters drew from and referenced personal experience whilst cunningly employing humour and pathos to hone their scalpel-like investigations: trusting to the familiarity of shared context to make their point. 

Haven’t you wondered what and who occupied your space before you did? Don’t you dread the fading of your memories and the loss of the places that punctuated your time on earth? And who hasn’t had a mate or relative who was more Trouble than Worth? 

Having both been young, squatters and care home workers, the creators weave a rowdily rousing, frighteningly authentic yet engagingly upbeat yarn of activism riding piggyback on modern need and ingrained privation that begins when a disparate band of acquaintances and old friends break into an empty flat. 

The place is in a tower block that has been condemned, where tenant families wait powerlessly for rehoming and the building’s demolition. The squatters range from die-hard believers in a cause to friends and lovers who can’t afford rent, united in a mission to rouse the entire block and organize resistance to the destruction of homes and a community that only needs a little financial care and attention. 

Sadly, before the final page comes, romance, passion (so NOT the same thing), ambition, confusion and the distractions of everyday life are going to play hob with their good intentions and grand dreams… 

The story is told primarily through the actions of Rain, a professional care worker who can’t make ends meet despite being worked to death with compulsory extra shifts at the Fairview home that was built as part of the original housing estate. Its post-privatisation owners Who Care and on-site manager Julie are positively Dickensian in their blindly self-indulgent hypocrisy, but at least by talking to residents like dementia-afflicted Dottie/Doris – whose vacant flat they now illicitly occupy – Rain gradually builds up a potent picture of the generational community the imminent demolition will finally end. 

Ultimately, the young/old bond will also allow the fraught and confused protagonist to sort out her own feelings and stop looking for love in all the wrong places… 

Shortlisted for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Prize, this bleak yet beguiling monochrome study of urban dissolution societal safety nets, relationship triangles, generational cultural continuity, dementia and the disempowerment of the old, young, different, nonconformist and poor is peppered with ferociously barbed faux ads drenched in the contemporary Thought Speak used by Local Councils, Cabinet Ministers, social engineers and gentrifying property companies who constantly find nonsensically bland and comforting ways to restate “you’re the wrong colour, too poor, and love the wrong sort to live here anymore” 

Welcome Home is an enticingly introspective and painfully universal saga that should appeal to anyone who ever had a moment of monetary despair and emotional outrage at what we’ve allowed ourselves to become. It will not appeal at all to many of the societal predators listed at the end of the last paragraph, but they should be made to read to too. Or maybe hit with it: It’s a free country, after all, if you’re prepared to accept the consequences of your actions… 

© Clarrie & Blanche Pope, 2022.

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The Eldritch Kid™ volume 2: Bone War 


By Christian D. Read, Paul Mason, Justin Randall & Wolfgang Bylsma (Gestalt Publishing) 
ISBN: 978-1-922023-92-6 (TPB/Digital edition) 

Felt like a scary western today. Dug this one up… 

There was a time, not so very long ago, when all of popular fiction was bloated and engorged with tales of Cowboys and Indians. As always happens with such periodic populist phenomena – such as the Swinging Sixties’ Super-Spy Boom, the Vampire Boyfriend or recent Misunderstood Teens vs Corrupt Adult Dystopias trends – there was a goodly amount of momentary merit, lots of utter dross and a few spectacular gems. 

Most importantly, once such surges peter out, there’s also always a small cadre of frustrated devotees who mourn the passing and resolve to do something to venerate or even revive their lost and faded favourite fad… 

After World War II, the American family entertainment market – for which read comics, radio and the rapidly burgeoning television industry – were comprehensively enamoured of the clear-cut, simplistic sensibilities and easy, escapist solutions offered by Tales of the Old West: at that time already a firmly established standby of paperback publishing, movie serials cinematic blockbusters and low-budget B-feature films. 

I’ve often ruminated on how and why, simultaneously, the dark, bleakly nigh-nihilistic and left-leaning Film Noir genre quietly blossomed alongside that wholesome rip-snorting range-&-rodeo revolution, seemingly only for a cynical minority of entertainment intellectuals who somehow knew that the returned veterans still hadn’t found a Land Fit for Heroes… but perhaps that’s a thought for another time and a different review. 

Even though comics encompassed Western heroes from the get-go (there were cowboy strips in the premier issues of both New Fun and Action Comics and even Marvel Comics), the post-war boom years saw a vast outpouring of titles with gun-toting heroes ousting the rapidly-dwindling supply of costumed Mystery Men. True to formula, most of these pioneers ranged from transiently mediocre to outright appalling… 

Despite minor re-flowerings in the early 1970s and mid-1990s, Western strips have largely vanished from funny book pages: apparently unable to command enough mainstream support to survive the crushing competition of garish wonder-men and furiously seductive futures. 

Europe and Britain also embraced the Sagebrush zeitgeist, producing some extremely impressive work, before France, Belgium and Italy made the genre emphatically their own by the end of the 1960s. They still make the best straight Western strips in the world for an avid audience unashamedly nurturing an appetite for them… 

Fantasy and Horror stories, on the other hand, have never really gone away and this utterly outrageous and supremely entertaining sequel sagebrush saga from Australian raconteur Christian Read his latest visualiser Paul Mason (with colourist Justin Randall and letterer/editor Wolfgang Bylsma) superbly blends time-honoured tropes of the wild west with sinister sorcerous sensibilities to create a bewitching alternate reality where dark bloody deeds are matched by dire demonic forces and decent guys called upon to combat them have to dabble in the diabolical too… 

Once upon a time in the west, the world changed and magic – although always real and rare – became part and parcel of everyday life… 

Without preamble the adventuresome action opens with a gunfight against an extremely unpleasant and grudge-bearing witch…  

Our narrator is an urbane and erudite Oxford-educated shaman detailing his life following his return to the land of his birth. His recollections began in the previous volume and began in Spring 1877: the great Indian Wars were over. Custer was dead but so was Crazy Horse. The Whites were greedily covering the entire country and an educated man with the wrong skin tones was reduced to playing scout for a bunch of barely literate morons wagon-trekking across the plains to California. They need him but regard their supremely capable guide with suspicion, disdain and barely-disguised disgust… 

Wicasa Waken, outcast Shaman of the Oglala Lakota – AKA Ten Shoes Dancing of the mighty Sioux and lately graduated Master of Arts and Literature, Oxford, England (1875) – always knew devil magic when he smelled it, but – since his teachers taught him to treasure human life – he remained faithful to their training and always sought to do good. That got a lot harder after saving a strange white from five-headed snakes and zombies … 

Once recovered, the “victim” eagerly joined the fight: his accursed guns making short work of the ravening Heyokas and Ten Shoes Dancing realised he had made the rather prickly acquaintance of a modern Western Legend and celebrated dime novel hero – The Eldritch Kid. 

Sadly like most heroes finally-met, he’s a surly, taciturn, creepy freak. basking in hero-worship, hot vittles and wanton female attention… 

It’s not just this becoming-nation America that is awash with blood and wickedness. The entire world is swamped with boggles, spectres and far worse, but since the War Between the States, the Kid had achieved a certain notoriety for dealing harshly and permanently with all things supernatural and predatory. 

Nevertheless, he’s a mean, mercenary bastard and a tough man to like for the philosophically inclined, poetry-loving Ten Shoes, but circumstances keep them together. Faced with daily mystic mayhem, the mismatched heroes bond even after the Lakotan learned his personal patron god Lord Hnaska was deeply troubled by the cold, dark deity sponsoring the magic-guns toting Kid. Of course, the Great Spirit was far more concerned with the crawling things that hungered for human morsels, and allowed a loveless alliance to be forged. Eventually, the Kid finally opened up enough to share the history that made him the most feared gunhawk in the West. 

In 1865 Camp Elmira, New Jersey held Confederate prisoners.. The detention centre was a hellhole even by human standards, but when a demon began taking inmates, one of the terrified, beaten, sitting duck captives was offered a deal by an ancient northern god. Odin, grim King of Death, was unhappy with beasts and night things increasingly infesting Earth and offered a trade: power for service… 

After a suitably painful and gory “offering” the prisoner was given just enough of a supernatural advantage to kill the monsters – human and otherwise – and escape. Wielding a brace of Rune-Pistols, he’s been doing his Lord’s work ever since… 

That mission continues here as the Diabolist Duo inconclusively clash with bounty hunting old enemy Jacinta Gun-Gunn, and in the aftermath are recruited by former palaeontologist Mr. Othniel. He wants them to steal back his greatest discovery, the full and bejewelled skeleton of a lost prince of a civilisation that perished millions of years previously.  

The astounding artefact was swiped by his rival “Doc” Drinker, but theirs is not a regular scientific dispute. Othniel is a necromancer who survived his own decapitation and now resides a head in a jar, and Madam Drinker travels with a coterie of witches and unruly women. Both parties clearly have secret agendas but Ten Shoes Dancing and the Eldritch provisionally accept the generous commission because of the most pertinent fact: the skeleton has come back to arcane unlife and recalled revenant subjects from its long-fallen, mystically malign dinosaur empire of Tzenshaitchan to raise fresh Hell across the Badlands… 

Thanks to timely assistance from the Lakotan’s Frog-God patron, our heroes are made aware of the true situation and switch sides when  a better offer is made, but they are still bushwacked by Drinker’s presumed ally the Ani Kutani Witch Tsintah who has her own sinister scheme in play and even nastier masters to answer to… 

With dinosaur skeletons tearing the countryside up, the gunslingers are kept too busy to stop Othniel building himself a newer and more deadly body and the witch summoning the almighty horror called the Priest King and restoring an even earlier age of bloody sacrifice and life-extending butchery… 

And as the battle intensifies and all the arcane ages of terror converge to create a charnel ground of warfare, humanity’s deity Odin arrives… 

Ragnarok, anyone? 

The tantalising conclusion is supplemented by a cover/chapter break gallery by Nichola Scott, Douglas Holgate, Emily K. Smith & James Brouwer; original art pages from Mason and Read’s original script pages.  

Rowdy, rousing, purely bonkers and spectacularly action-packed, The Bone War is a sharp, satisfying and mordantly funny yarn to delight lovers of genre fiction and witty mash-ups. Black hats, white hats, lost worlds, haunts and horrors, stunning visuals and macabre twists – what more could you possibly ask for? 

Apparently, another sequel, so hopefully I’ll be getting to that too in the fullness of time… 
© 2017-2019 Christian Read, Paul Masan & Gestalt Publishing Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. 

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Gothic Tales of Haunted Futures


By Trina Robbins, Anne Timmons & Scott A. Ford; Letty Wilson; Luz Bianca & Kaylee Rowena; Mikaela Lucido & Jade Zhang; Leizl Buenaventura & Saida Temofonte; Cameron Lucente; Jamie Isfeld; Cait Zellers; Sztehlo; Leonie O’Moore & Skylar Partridge; Arlo Everett, B. Sparks & Paul Coy; Allison Pang & Irma ‘Aimo’ Ahmed; Matt McGrath & V. Gagnon; Joyce Chau; Skylar Kardon; Merissa Mayhew & Lyndon Radchenka: edited by S.M. Beiko (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-989754-03-0 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-989754-04-7 (digital)

Sometimes, it’s all about enthusiasm and the urge to create and collaborate. Here, I suspect someone said “there’s not enough romance comics” and someone else said “I like scary stories” and another person chipped in “what about science fiction?” and the next thing you know, there’s an entire anthology of spooky, futuristic love stories all mashed-up for discerning comics tastes, just waiting to be kick-starter-ed…

The result is utterly wonderful…

Following an inspirational Foreword by editor S.M. Beiko, we take off for the future with veteran cartoonist Trina Robbins in collaboration with Anne Timmons, Scott A. Ford & Lyndon Radchenka, who reveal a patient devotion that outlasts the grave on the ‘Ghost Planet’, after which a moody illustration from Mika segues into Letty Wilson’s ‘Glasshouse’, which finds an unexpected bountiful blessing from a passing stranger delivered to a strange community in dire need of renewal…

Luz Bianca & Kaylee Rowena recount a fateful chance encounter ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’, before Mikaela Lucido & Jade Zhang update the old chestnut of party kids and dangerous dares in ‘Bloody Mary and the Smart Mirror’, after which Leizl Buenaventura & Saida Temofonte detail how a doomed astronaut finds a spectral reason to live after a visitor helps him go ‘Home’..

‘Under the Bed’ depicts a grim battle between life and death by Cameron Lucente, and following a moody spot illo from Katie Fleming, an unexpected down side to social media relationships is highlighted by Jamie Isfeld’s ‘@LissaTruLuv’…

Alaire Racocot’s monochromatic night illustration leads to Cait Zeller’s colourful tale of ‘The Lichtenberg Lady’ lighting up the lonely nights of a solitary lightning strike survivor, after which a lonely soul rediscovers past passion through musical recordings in ‘Ghosting’ (by Sztehlo) whilst – following a chaotic clinch courtesy of Kielamel Sibal – Leonie O’Moore, Skylar Partridge & Lyndon Radchenka find love for an ancient creature at the bottom of the sea in ‘Sunken Scream’…

A hard science veneer burnishes quasi-spiritual romp ‘Slow Orbit’ by Arlo Everett, B. Sparks & Paul Coy, as an aging computer exorcist looks for an exit strategy that will keep her breathing in deep space and finds love is the answer, before more potent pictorial moments of madness – by Caeles and Seren Krakens – convey us to ‘A Certain Tea House’ where Allison Pang & Irma ‘Aimo’ Ahmed reveal the regrets, ruminations and revenge of an aged spaceport courtesan who repays an old debt with her last breaths…

Matt McGrath, V. Gagnon & Lyndon Radchenka then detail the First Contact repercussions of ancient civilisation ‘The Crowned Ones’ as they impinge on the life of a lost human explorer, after which Joyce Chau reveals how a certain ‘Gap’is closed when a space scavenger awakens a long-depowered and rather clingy automaton, and Skylar Kardon & Lyndon Radchenka’s ‘New Blood’ details how even in Tomorrow’s City of Lights, the erotic allure of a vampire is more than some mortals can withstand…

Merissa Mayhew ends the emotional narratives with a story of hope sustained and finally fulfilled in ‘Until One Day’ as frustrated Josephine endures constant death and rebirth to finally be with the woman of her dreams…

Topped off with a brace of (possibly cover?) illustrations from Nicholai Avigdor Melamed and Cameron Lucente; full ‘Creators’ biographies, and list of ‘Backers’ who contributed to this book’s publication, Gothic Tales of Haunted Futures is a delicious compote of dark passions, sinister fancies and sardonic experiences, perfect for stirring passions and pleasing the eyes.

Gothic Tales of Haunted Futures © 2020 S.M. Beiko. Individual © belongs to each creator in this book. All rights reserved.

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Pass Me By: Gone Fishing and Pass Me By: Electric Vice



By Kyle Simmers & Ryan Danny Owen, with Derek Simmers (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-98890-359-0 eISBN 978-1-98890-371-2 (Gone Fishing)
ISBN: 978-1-98890-385-9 eISBN 978-1-98890-385-8 (Electric Vice)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Enchanting and Chilling Exploration of Life at the End… 9/10

Once upon a time, comics were all thud & blunder action or spoofing slapstick shenanigans. I will always have a soft spot for those Good Old Days, but the world has moved on and is now a far more complex place with more sophisticated and variegated demands.

Oddly, that’s one of the underlying themes in a gently beguiling, award-winning graphic narrative sequence that began in 2019 with the release of Pass Me By: Gone Fishing – a bittersweet human-scaled reverie constructed by visual artist, author and Queer historian Ryan Danny Owen & artist/illustrator Kyle Simmers.

Both are Canadian and their collaboration is very much in the manner of the perceived national character: the kind of funny, weird, no-holds-barred, heartbreaking yet civil, decent human drama Canadian creators are so adept at pulling off (check out movies and shows like Men With Brooms, Slings and Arrows or Bon Cop, Bad Cop if you need further clarification of the easy je ne se quoi, we’re talking about…).

In a rural Northern Canadian town, old Ed is getting used to some distressing news. After the life he’s led and the things he’s done, it’s hard to adapt to his recent dementia diagnosis. As his innermost history, mental faculties and simple patience daily slip away, the few folk he’s allowed to get close try to watch over him, but that’s never been Ed’s way.

Increasingly, with the demands of his existence pressing in on him, Ed’s mind turns to the past he’s resolutely avoided and tried to forget; the travelling; the men he’s loved and the music he played… but some things can’t be erased by time, distance or desire…

Second volume Pass Me By: Electric Vice picks up the story in 1973 via a deferred coming-of-age/out event as a young, frustrated and confused country musician playing local bars and dives is lured away by an androgenous minor god of the glam rock circuit.

Ed has never met anyone like Lou or the bizarre assemblage of ambivalent personalities comprising Electric Vice. Despite being wracked with doubt, Ed jumps when Lou offers him a spot in the band, and they tour north America, making what then seemed like unforgettable memories…

Now, he can’t tell if it was opportunity or love that made him go and made him stay. Decades later, poor brain-addled old Ed is drowning in memories and still confused when life hits him hard yet again as Lou turns up like a tarnished bad penny…

Compelling, wry and cheerily laconic , this is a slyly seductive paean to being human and the obsession with our “Glory Days”, but conceals an emotional knockout punch ready to slip past your so-sophisticated, drama-hardened heart. Pass Me By allows its characters room to act and lets the pictures tell a simple but captivating story. Kyle Simmers’ illustration is straightforward with a winning charm, always promising more and even better to come.

I just can’t wait…

© 2019, 2021 Kyle Simmers and Ryan Danny Owen. All rights reserved.

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Catalyst


By Asia Alfasi, Charlotte Bailey, Jason Chuang, Dominique Duong, Catherine Anyango Grünewald, Shuning Ji, Pris Lemons, Sonia Leong, Calico N.M., Tyrell Osborne & Woodrow Phoenix, edited by Ayoola Solarin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91142-402-7 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Heartfelt, Fantastic, Full-on and Unmissable… 8/10

At its best, the comics biz is companionable, collegiate, welcoming and wonderfully supportive. We all like to help each other along, especially if the end result is more and better stories for all. That even extends to the publishing and managerial arena, as seen here with this anthology of tales resulting from SelfMadeHero’s 2021 Graphic Anthology Programme, which was set up to tutor and mentor emergent talent from diverse backgrounds. The first intake were all people of colour and the broadest range of backgrounds and life experience.

As explained in the introductory Editor and Publisher’s Letter by Ayoola Solarin & Emma Hayley preceding 11 extremely enthralling pictorial yarns, this tome results from a 12-week training course, for which seven participants and their assigned mentors produced many 8-page graphic short stories based on a specific theme: “Catalyst”.

The phenomenally far-ranging works are subdivided into ‘Dissolution’, ‘Reaction’ and ‘Repercussion’, with the entire catalogue of imaginative wonders bookended by extensive biographies of the creators, mentors and Editorial Team.

Dissolution opens with a chilling view of the potential pitfalls of video conferencing in Catherine Anyango Grünewald’s ‘The Host’, after which Shuning Ji reveals horrors hidden in ‘The Camera’ and Jason Chuang offers a disturbing view of public transport interactions in truly disturbing vignette ‘The Guessing Game’.

Tyrell Osborne then wraps up the openers with a quiet stroll through a very off-kilter London and some introspective dilemmas satisfactorily solved in ‘Same Tall Tale’…

Under the aegis of Reaction, Pris Lemons indulges some internal investigation in party tale ‘Orbital Decay’ whilst Sonia Leong shares her love of manga and search for creative camaraderie and approval in ‘Just Like Me’. Calico N.M. then whimsically explores natal wonders and fantastic beasts in ‘Because I’ve Got All Of You’ before we move on to final revelations in Repercussion.

Dominique Duong sets the ball rolling as ‘One Small Thing’ chillingly exposes the monster within, before Asia Alfasi beguiles with an Arabian tale of traditional versus hereditary storytelling gifts in ‘Happily Never After’ after which Charlotte Bailey amazes and amuses with a mesmerising love affair and marriage of ultimate opposites in ‘Cetea & Clay’.

Concluding on a true high, the small sagas cease with ‘Convolute’ by the inimitable Woodrow Phoenix, revealing how the true saviours and secret stars of the 1960s space race was a team of seamstresses led by forgotten black hero Hazel Fellows…

Offering a hand up or a way in is something we can all do, and the rewards are enormous and never-ending. When it also results in superb storytelling and the first full flexing of creative mettle its practically a civil duty to encourage more.

Do that. Buy this.
All stories and artwork © their respective creators. All rights reserved.

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Knock Out! – The True Story of Emile Griffith


By Reinhard Kleist, translated by Michael Waaler (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91059-386-8 (TPB)

Fairness and Justice are human constructs that afford many opportunities to prove that the universe works on other principles. Ritualized combat – like boxing – seeks to even out the most egregious imbalances between contestants to provide a balanced and equitable battle, but no amount of rule-making and legislation can shield participants from society, the environment they live in or the genetic heritage that shaped them.

Multi-award-winning German illustrator, designer, author, cartoonist and comics maker Reinhard Kleist (Berlinoir; Steeplechase; Das Grauen im Gemäuer) has been working in the industry since 1994: setting up a cooperative studio/atelier and beginning his professional career with graphic biography Lovecraft, and supernal dramas Minna, Das Festmahl, and Abenteuer eines Weichenstellers while still a student in Münster.

He has constantly explored and gratified his fascination with notable individuals who have overcome stacked odds and inner darkness in stellar works such as Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness; Elvis – An Illustrated Biography; Castro; An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusaf Omar and Nick Cave: Mercy on Me.

Here his powerfully moody yet joyous exuberant monochrome stylings recount the amazing life of a born fighter who triumphs in the best storybook traditions, whilst never deviating from the inescapable chains of history or escaping the sordid realms of real life…

Even if they’ve heard of him, most boxing fans don’t talk about Emile Alphonse Griffith. Born in the US Virgin Islands in 1938, Emile was black, poorly educated and endured abuse at home before moving to America. In 1956, while working in a New York hat factory, his foreman – a former boxing coach – noticed his astounding physique and encouraged the affable easy-going kid to try boxing as a way to improve his financial woes.

Although Emile preferred ping-pong, singing and making hats (later, at the height of his fame, Emile designed hats for women and made upbeat pop records), he went along with his white mentor. Turning Pro in 1958, Emile was soon a Golden Gloves winner and World Champion in the Welterweight, Junior Middleweight and Middleweight categories.

At that time in America, the sporting barriers to black boxers were mostly gone, but Emile laboured under another “handicap” – he slept with men and didn’t particularly care who knew about it.

Just like showbiz and popular entertainer Liberace, Emile’s status was an “open secret” in the 1960s Boxing community, which maintained a “don’t ask, don’t tell” mentality, but that only went so far in the days before the game-changing Stonewall Riots (look it up if you have to – its important). The happy-go-lucky pugilist’s privileged status evaporated after the third of three fights with Cuban Benny Paret, whom Emile defeated to become World Champion, before losing the rematch.

In 1962, they met one final time. After Paret taunted Griffith with homosexual and racial slurs, the match was a savage and unrelenting bout that resulted in the death of Paret…

However, that’s simply the first act of this tale, which follows Griffith – who was allowed to continue boxing until 1977 – as he confounded critics and bigots, breaking down barriers and living a full and extremely varied life… as much as his troubled conscience would allow.

This is a supremely uplifting story of triumph and tragedy which shows just how meaningless such concepts are outside of fiction. It’s a happy-sad example of how life goes on in a personal and macroscopic manner until it just ends: and it successfully argues that all you can do is the best you can…

Available in paperback and digital editions and supported by a Preface from Kleist acknowledging his influences and debt to Griffith biographer Ron Ross; Jonathan W. Gray’s context-enlightening Foreword ‘The Sweet Science and Open Secrets’ and a socio-cultural appraisal of Emile and other gay black boxers by Tatjana Eggeling (European Ethnologist and expert on Homophobia in Sports) plus a superb gallery of sketches and working drawings by Kleist, this is an unqualified hit that resonates far beyond the square ring and the closeted environs of LGBTQIA+ literature. It’s a surefire winner for everyone.
© Text and illustrations 2019 CARLSEN Verlag GmbH, Hamburg, Germany. English translation © 2021 SelfMadeHero. All rights reserved.