Tag: tee franklin

Behind the Scenes for Winter 2022/2023

gurinskasLeave a comment

This winter hasn’t really felt like winter. It’s just been so warm. Snow was here and gone within a week… It’s been warm and wet, which is not what an Ohio winter should be. I ended up spending a lot of time indoors because of the rain, and also it was frankly just depressing to go outside in January and be met with 50-60 degrees weather, so I wound up reading a lot. I also had a lot of substacks kick off in January so the “In Progress” section has gotten pretty big and so will be going under a cut.

A pile of comics and books leaned up against a pile of blankets. The back row has "Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel," "Strixhaven," "Candlekeep Mysteries," and "I Had Trouble getting to Solla Sollew." The front row has the first two issue of "Harley Quinn, The Animated Series: Legion of Bats!" and "The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour."

Finished:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – A Christmas classic that I’d never actually read before. I was scared of the illustrations in the copy my mom had when I was a kid and then I converted to Judaism and couldn’t be bothered with Christmas—the primary Jewish irritator in December. But I do still adore “A Muppet Christmas Carol,” and there was an email substack like Dracula Daily called A Dickens December, so I thought, why not? I enjoyed it immensely, especially in seeing what made it into the Muppet adaptation. The answer is quite a bit.

I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew by Dr. Seuss – I lived and breathed Dr. Seuss books as a child, but had never read this one. I was gifted it for the holidays this past December because my mom had been recommended it for the philosophy of the book. What did that mean? I wondered, having not read the book. Well, this is the “Now my troubles are going/To have trouble with me!” book that I have seen quoted all over the place on Tumblr. It’s a Dr. Seuss meditation on handling the troubles life throws at you and it’s great. 10/10 would recommend.

Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: Legion of Bats! Issues #1 & 2 written by Tee Franklin – Harlivy limited series TWO! Following “The Eat, Bang, Kill Tour” and season three of “The Animated Series,” which I have still not seen. I am simply not a man who has time for playing TV show catch up, and, honestly, picking this up without watching is no different from picking up any comic series for the first time. Most comics reference things that happened in previous issues/series or other associated titles, and “Legion of Bats” and “The Eat, Bang, Kill Tour” are even more explanatory than most, since the TV show audience and comics audience aren’t necessarily a 100% overlap. I’m a prime example of that. Anyway, Harley is fighting crime with the bat-fam and Ivy is set up to take over the Legion of Doom, what could go wrong!

Letters from Watson: The Gloria Scott, The Musgrave Ritual, The Spotted Band, The Resident Patient, The Noble Bachelor, The Second Stain & The Reigate Squires by Arthur Conan Doyle – Much like A Christmas Carol, I’ve seen a variety of Sherlock Holmes adaptations, but I’d never actually read the original stories. I’m enjoying them a great deal, especially seeing how they’ve been presented in a roughly chronological fashion rather than publication order and we can see Holmes’ and Watson’s relationship develop. My favorite currently is “The Spotted Band,” which, while not the first to involve a murder, was the first presented about solving a murder.

Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos – So, I know I’ve said before that D&D books often don’t need to be read from beginning to end, but when you’re developing your own campaign from scratch sometimes it’s a good thing to do. Strixhaven is also a really cool setting, though the pre-written campaign bits that come with the book don’t do a ton for me, they’re fun, just not my cup of tea when adventure planning. What I do adore, however, is the emphasis on accessibility and queer inclusion. There is official book art featuring disabled students and same sex couples, a whole sidebar about accessibility magic at the school, and flavor text for an NPC about her work running a support network for transgender students.

Candlekeep Mysteries – Another D&D book, a collection of campaign modules based on the sprawling library of Candlekeep and very easy to adapt for a variety of settings. There are some really interesting stories in this collection, each based around a book held at Candlekeep. My personal favorite is “Mazfroth’s Mighty Digressions,” which presents not only a mystery about why a book has suddenly turned into a monster but a moral question about monsters and what makes a monster. There’s also another module that has an explicitly nonbinary NPC.

Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel – This is another collection that offers modules with some really fabulous and nuanced moral conundrums. It also provides 15 new settings/civilizations based on various cultures of color and written by people from those backgrounds. I’ve talked about this book before here, but at the time I had only read the set up and introduction to the book and the citadel itself and a few of the new setting gazetteers. I cannot recommend enough reading through the whole module and not just the gazetteer, even if you don’t think you want to run it because a lot of world building is captured within the modules themselves.

The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour by the McElroys, illustrated by Carey Pietsch – So this was by far the most changed of the TAZ: Balance arcs adapted as a graphic novel so far. Entire subplots are cut, traps are altered, motivations are changed, Sazed becomes Phillipe. I really don’t get why that last changed happened, but the rest of them I do understand. The Eleventh Hour was a long arc, with a lot of exploring and fucking up and exploring again. There were also a lot of classic ttrpg traps and puzzles in this one that might make a good game and podcast, but don’t make such a good graphic novel. That said, I am sad we lost Chekov’s bush. All the changes are really good though and make for a great, cohesive graphic novel.

Continue reading “Behind the Scenes for Winter 2022/2023” →

Let’s read books by Black authors!

gurinskasLeave a comment

I made the spur of the moment decision to compile a list of the books I have reviewed by Black authors in a handy masterpost for Black History Month. I have a vague recollection of doing something similar for Pride month years ago when I was still operating primarily on Tumblr, and this seems like as good a time as any to pick that idea up again. The reviews will be (mostly) in order from oldest to newest, with that “mostly” being that I will be lumping reviews together if they’re books by the same author.

1. An Anthology of Fiction by Trans Woman of Color edited by Ellyn Peña and Jamie Berrout

I first reviewed this book back in April 2016 and fell head over heels in love with it. At the time it was only published as an ebook on Gumroad by the Trans Women Writers Collective. Sadly, the collective is no long active. It was forced to shutter in the middle of publishing an expanded edition of the anthology under the new name “Nameless Women: An Anthology of Fiction by Trans Woman of Color.” Despite the shuttering of the collective you can still find “Nameless Women” in hardcopy through Amazon’s self publishing service. As of November 2018, editor Jamie Berrout reported than any remaining royalties and sales would be donated to organizations supporting trans women of color.

2. Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson is a Jamaican-born Canadian writer. I acquired this book as part of a Humble Bundle of LGBTQ fiction, again, back in 2016 and it is honestly one of my favorite books from that collection. A short story anthology, “Falling in Love with Hominids” is a beautiful blend of urban fantasy, queer identity and more. I found it to be an incredibly refreshing read and it definitely revitalized my interest in the fantasy genre. While the aforementioned book bundle has long since ended, you can get a copy of the “Falling in Love with Hominids” here.

3 + 4. StreetSlam: Wishes of a Broken Time and StarLion: Thieves of the Red Night by Leon Langford

“StreetSlam” was the debut novel of author Leon Langford. It is an action packed sci-fi/superhero story with fight scenes right out of a Final Fantasy game. Another review from 2016, it was self published as an ebook, but I’m not sure that it’s available anymore.

We aren’t at too much of a loss however, because “StarLion” came out just last year and it is absolutely riveting. A superhero academy novel, it is the first novel of a series and I, for one, will be watching excitedly for the next book. If you’re looking for a YA novel with a complex and passionate Black protagonist, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. You can find it at Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Bookshop.org.

5. The Opal Charm series by Miri Castor

There are four books in this series so far. I first began reviewing these books with “Path to Dawn” in 2016, followed by “Hope in Nautical Dusk” in 2017; then came the prequel novel, “The Path to Dusk,” in 2019; and, most recently, “Melody of Astronomical Dusk” in 2021. The “Opal Charm” series is a unique take on the “inherited powers emerge at puberty” trope that deals heavily in family legacy and the very real consequences of child heroes through the protagonist’s (our titular Opal) journey to save both her world and the world of her ancestor. The books can be found on Amazon.

6. The Known World by Edward P. Jones

Another review from 2016, this book was brought to my attention during a college course I took on early slave narratives. “The Known World” is a novel set in antebellum Virginia that explores the story of a Black slave owner and the slaves he owns. A beautifully written book, it shows a part of history that isn’t often seen when it comes to popular modern media about the history of slavery. Jones noted, in the Q&A he gave to our class, that he had been inspired by a single footnote about Black slave owners in an old textbook. Definitely worthwhile if this is a time period you are interested in reading about.

7. Bingo Love by Tee Franklin

Now writing for DC, my first introduction to Tee Franklin was through her graphic novel “Bingo Love,” which tells the story of two women of color who fell in love as teenagers, were separated and then reconnected and fell back in love as older women. It’s a wonderful, heartfelt story and, I think, much needed representation for queer individuals who came into their own at an older age. I first reviewed this in 2018 and there are now three editions, with various levels of bonus content. All three editions can be found here.

8. Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton

“Black on Both Sides” is an excellent and much needed exploration of how race and transgender identity has overlapped in history. Providing a solid theoretical frame work, the book takes us from mid-nineteenth century slave narratives to present day narratives of race and gender. I said it before and I’ll say it again, the discussions of the Brenden Teena archive and the Christine Jorgensen narrative are some of my absolute favorite. I would highly recommend it to anyone studying the history of gender and queerness. Pick up a copy here.

A few honorable mentions:

The following books are all short story/comic anthologies, which I was able to confirm contain stories by Black creators, though not every story is, for which reason I did not want to put them in the same list as the above books.

  1. The Dates anthologies, edited by Zora Gilbert and Cat Parra
    • Of Arms and the Man I Sing written by Paige S. Allen
    • Lulu and Diana by Joamette Gil
  2. Wayward Sisters: An Anthology of Monstrous Women, edited by Allison O’Toole
    • Solid Shadows written by Rachel Simon with art by K. Guillory
    • Cold Call written and illustrated by Xia Gordon
  3. 99% Chance of Magic: Stories of Hope and Strength for Transgender Kids from Heartspark Press
    • The Sisters from the Stars and Melody Song & the Hymns of the Infinate Sadness written by Amy Heart and illustrated by Wriply M. Bennet

Bingo Love written by Tee Franklin

gurinskas2 Comments
image

[Edit: Originally published June 22,  2018]

Bingo Love is the utterly sweet and heartwrenching story of Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray, two young girls who find love in 1963, however, the homophobia of the time ends up tearing them apart and they don’t see each other again for almost 50 years. 

Something I really loved about Bingo Love was seeing an older queer couple. We get Hazel and Mari’s story from the moment they meet to the moment they pass away from old age. We get a bit more of the Hazel’s story, because Hazel is the primary protagonist. Seeing stories that show older queer people gives me such joy, partially because they make me feel less lonely and scared about my future, showing that queer people can make it to that age and still find happiness. 

Honestly, the fact that the book was focusing on two older queer women was the reason I picked it up in the first place. 

I also really appreciated the Hazel’s family’s reactions. Now, I’ve never had an older relative come out and shake up my world, but I know how my parents have reacted to me coming out and I appreciate so much the variance in reaction and how, even when people are angry and shouting, they’re never demonized or made into the Ultimate Villain™ of the story.

So if you’re in the mood for a sweet, heartwarming, and incredibly emotional story this Pride Month I would highly recommend Bingo Love.

You can find it here.

Related Reviews: Iceman: Thawing Out, Opal Charm: Path to Dawn, Opal Charm: Hope in Nautical Dusk