Kiss me, you big dork

As we all know, women are responsible for original sin, as a result of which mankind was cast from the Garden of Eden and women were cursed with painful childbirth. In addition women have periods, which are the sign of original sin.

Problem: The Virgin Mary was perfect. Can’t have been cursed with original sin. No periods.

Question: Where does the blood go?

For all our wonderful theories about spontaneous generation and phlogiston, we do believe in some form of conservation of matter. If women have all this extra blood all the time, you can’t just have one wandering around with it building up inside her. It’s gotta go somewhere!

Well, we figured it out in the end. You see, as we all know not least from reading the above post, milk is just boiled blood. So for Mary, the blood just sort of condensed and she was in a state of perpetual lactation.

This led to things like a particular saint (it’s Bernard) having a vision of the Madonna appearing before him and squirting her breast milk into his mouth, to apply either wisdom or a cure for an eye infection, which has delightfully been depicted in several works of art.

DEBUTING AT TCAF 2018 - HAVE FUN, LEAVE ME OUT OF IT by Tony Breed

The second collection of Muddlers Beat—queer friends navigate dating, careers, and death, all with a sense of humor.

ROAR Comic Crit Winter 2017

A collection of comics criticisms and reviews published on ROAR Magazine: Literature And Revolution By Feminist People from November-December 2017! Taking on the role of editor (as well as writer) for the Comics Crit section has been a big challenge, and one I’m still adjusting too, but I’m very proud of all the wonderful writers I’ve been able to help spotlight. Here’s hoping 2018 brings lots more opportunities for working with lovely people and publishing my own writing too!

I Can’t See Myself On Venus: Astra and the Problem of the All-Female Planet, Casey Bohn (@bohnbohn)

This potentially cheeky, ribald concept – a princess from a planet of women sent to find a man – is presented with a leaden earnestness, inviting serious inquiry into its plausibility … Even after “millions of years” of evolution, Astra’s people look exactly like Earthly women, and reproduce in the same way. Neither evolution nor the science of a futuristic, space-travelling society can find a better way – or even any other way – for life to go on. The message seems to be that if cisgender, heterosexual human reproduction became impossible on Astra’s planet, that would not be an acceptable variation in a literal universe of biological possibility, but an imbalance that must and will be corrected by the power of love.

Astra isn’t going to hurt anybody who doesn’t go out of their way to find it. The problem is not this one obscure example of bias-reinforcing narrative, but how utterly conventional it is. Genre fiction often sacrifices logic in this way to preserve the ideal of cis- and hetero- normativity as an objective, universal truth.

Minicomic Roundup: The Process of Processing, Rob Kirby (@robkirbycomics)

In this minicomics roundup, I’ll be taking a look at four self-published comics from four different creators [That Night (This Must Be the Place) by Tony Breed aka @tonybreed at Mega Hugs Press,  Evident Truths & Day & Night for It by Tyler Cohen aka @tylerzonia (available at [email protected]), Orbiting by Penina Gal aka @penina-garlic (distributed by Radiator Comics),  Sporgo 2 by Laura Pallmall aka @nothinglefttolearn​, (Nothing Left To Learn)].

While these artists are of different ages, backgrounds, and aesthetics, all the work discussed here focuses on managing the impacts of grief, trauma, or simple day-to-day struggles. While that may sound like heavy-going, the immediacy and open nature of the graphic narrative form has a way of lightening the load of even the heaviest of subjects. Comics can be a great form of therapy, both for readers and creators.

Gods, Grief, and Family in “Cloudia & Rex”, Latonya Pennington

A decade ago, you’d have a hard time finding Black girls in a fantasy comic book. Now, comics like Princeless and Niobe: She Is Life are filling that void and showing that Black girls can be magical. Lion Forge Comics’ newest mini series Cloudia & Rex adds more magic to the mix through a compelling family adventure starring three Afro-Latinx female characters. The completed miniseries was recently collected in a digital and physical trade book.

A Whole Mess of Emotions

The point of these #unpresidented comics are about me processing everything I felt and went through between November 9th and January 20th, but I feel this one is going to apply for the next four years (maybe less if we’re lucky…). I still haven’t figured out to handle this horrible roller coaster of emotions. Who knows if I ever will?