#good comics

The comics I ordered have arrived!

Blood Stain, Book 1, by Linda Sejic

Aya: Livet i Yop City by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie

Hello and welcome to the silly world of "Smile You're on Camera"

follow Jamie and Kail through their daily lives and adventures in the start of this fantastical universe; immerse yourself and wonder what could Possibly come next?

this slice-of-life, action-fantasy book has it all (almost)

a good story

meaningful characters

interesting creatures!

ELVES AND WEREBEASTS

drama, trauma and ANGST

oh, and a single lemon 🍋

want to buy a copy now?

Now the second JLA/JSA crossover: Crisis on Earth-3 is actually good. This team-up which introduces the evil-universe version of Justice League (The Crime Syndicate) is a major improvement over the 1st team-up.

This team-up focuses on a smaller group of characters with each team having 5 members on it. It is very fun watching the main 5 Leaguers (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern) face off against their evil mirrors, who invade the main DC universe out of boredom. We get great fights between the Syndicate and the League showing how each member of the League can defeat another member by using their abilities.

However, once the League is subdued by the Syndicate's trickery, the comic shows (a very different) Justice Society take on evil crooks, when they wish to use Earth-2 as a battleground for a final fight against the JL. And we get to see that the Society being competent by defending their Earth. (Starman, in particular, gets an excellent fight winning against Ultraman aka Evil Superman.) But it comes down to a mirror fight between the Justice League and the Crime Syndicate, where the League wins by overloading their foes power against themselves.

Immortal Weakling (Yaruno/Civen): pretty good! It has an interesting story and art, I’m not quite sure where it’s going yet but it looks to be starting out nicely.

Sword interval (Benjamin Fleuter): this one is finished and I have to say it is an insanely awesome story. It’s a great read and has lovely complex characters and lore/world building. Truly a master piece!

Saint Catherine (brusierkee): this one is great too! I think it’s on a hiatus and so far I’m not sure how far into the story we are, but I love the idea so I think it will be really interesting. Plus the art style is adorable.

Souris (littlemothpants): this one is kind of a reread because it had been a while since I caught up, but I definitely enjoyed it. I think the story is really interesting, it’s one of those zombie apocalypses and while I may be wrong, it feels like the author has found ways to make the world building unique despite the commonality of the zombie trope.

The Witch and the Bull (moonsia): absolutely amazing! I love this story, it is so unique and the world building is beautiful. It really feels like the author put a lot of thought into how the story will build in complexity.

so it did address some of my criticisms

HOWEVER

Sokovians are still depicted as vague Eastern Europeans and no real cultural identity beyond generalities 

this COULD be remedied with Doctor Strange 2 (the post-credit ends at Wundagore Mountain - Wanda’s birth place, and where the Maximoffs found and raised them in the comics, perhaps Doctor Strange 2 could be where we get some of Wanda’s heritage?

Ultimately though, perhaps Marvel Studios wants to remove the association of Romani heritage with a ‘witch’ character in their films (and Slavic representation in general is also important and fair, but shouldn’t be at the expense of a Roma character) - which, fair, if so but what character do you replace that with? 

Nightcrawler and Dr. Doom? Neither has been introduced yet, and if they wanted to still respect Roma culture and have the character be a witch it’s entirely plausible. Just don’t say one fact is reliant on the other. Simple as that.

Either way, I wanna leave this on a positive note so here’s a link to Seanan McGuire’s comixology page - she’s a Romani author whose done work for Marvel and in fact wrote a book starring Nightcrawler and Megan (two Romani characters in the books, if you’re not familiar with them)