It’s maaaaail time~!
Arqaz says:
suggestions?
hello! when i found your review site, i was pretty excited. i’m also one who’s tired of the same old depressing formula for this influx of independent gay comics…(and when i only say gay, not lgbt, i Mean Gay since so much stuff that i’m seeing now is primarily about gay men)…despite my frustrations, i read the not-so-good stuff, too. just for the hell of it. which brings me to the suggestions. i’ve been reading transfusions, star trip, witchy, sakana, and stereophonic. that last one it’s so hard to parse through all the flagrant homophobia if i’m supposed to expect gay to happen (between major characters), but otherwise the other comics are very obviously inclusive. (i’m not saying sakana, witchy, or star trip are necessarily bad comics. i mean, i prefer witchy and sakana, and i’ll keep my full opinions on transfusions and stereophonic reserved…) i don’t know what the status is on gay & lesbian or bpq characters in witchy, but there is a trans girl with…over-the-top revealing dialogue, but otherwise not dealt with too shabbily. star trip has a non-straight girl character but i don’t expect romance any time soon. sakana has a gay guy with what appears to be an abusive ex boyfriend and a Lot Of Drama…so especially for stereophonic and sakana, i would approach those with caution if some things upset you, although telling from your list and your objective you’ve seen it all before i bet! and of course transfusions is your average BL inspired comic about a vampire holding a dude hostage, basically.
Thanks Arqaz! I guess I forgot to put Witchy on my list somehow, but I have been reading it since like three people suggested it to me a couple weeks ago. I’ll add it now, whoops. As for the others, I checked out Stereophonic (which I found dreadfully boring), Transfusions (which has a lot of really upsetting consent issues, like a lot things that call themselves “BL” or “yaoi”), and Sakana, which seemed ok except that it’s about a fish market and the very first page has a joke about threatening to boil a crab. Like, this might sound silly to some people but I care deeply about animal rights and while I can ignore little things here and there in a story, having the entire premise revolve around killing fish and boiling crustaceans alive is too much for me. Sorry!
Merriam writes:
Desert Grey
Hello. I am the writer and artist behind the webcomic Desert Grey. I don’t know if you’ve looked at it, but if you haven’t I’ll leave you this link: http://desertgrey.webcomic.ws/comics/first/ I send this to you because I’m a lesbian artist and the cast of the comic has a wide range of LGBT characters as well as racially diverse characters which seems right up your alley. I do hope you enjoy it. I also have an art tumblr if you’re interested: http://starkillerarts.tumblr.com/aboutme -Merriam
Great! This is great. I’d like it if more queer/trans artists brought their work to my attention, because I want to help them find the audience they deserve. Just be prepared for an honest review. Merriam, I’ve read a bit of your comic, and while the pacing is a bit hard to follow in places, I definitely want to know where it’s going. I’ll add it to my reading list once I’m caught up in the archives. Thanks for writing!
That’s all for this week. Keep those suggestions coming!
I searched Sakana on your site, because it has great queer characters in it, and was disappointed that you didn’t really give it a chance much past the first page. The fish market is just a setting, it’s where many characters work and know each other from, but there are only like 2 references to actually killing fish (and a few more to preparing already-dead fish). So… I would implore you to try again. The plot certainly does not revolve around their workplace. They could be architects and the story could be more or less the same. I personally love it.
If you read this outdated comment, than thanks very much for that!
-Mr Steak