[Featured image is a Buffy cross-stitch created by my friend, Elin Malmqvist, after we bonded over the series during the pandemic]
In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.
Twenty-five years ago today, viewers were welcomed to the Hellmouth in the premiere episode of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. To say that a part of me has stayed in the fictional town of Sunnydale would be an understatement. I have watched and re-watched the series too many times to count, listened to podcasts about it, read comics and novels set in the Buffyverse, and documented my love for the show and my déjà viewing experiences of it in both fan art and academic work.
Over the course of the series’ seven-season run, Buffy Summers encountered monsters representational of different aspects of the human experience and set an example for viewers to persevere in the face of adversity. I watched the entire series as it aired, through the end of my sophomore year in high school, and I return to it often in times of transition or uncertainty—after I graduated from college, when I moved to South Korea, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The series has always been a reliable source of comfort, levity, and above all, hope.
The project is a mixture of comics and character drawings with scenes mostly from seasons 1-3. Some of the pages feature lyrics from songs from the podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer.
Picture it: New York, 2018. It was summer, I was between semesters of my graduate program at NYU, and I was attending Flame Con, the world’s largest queer comic convention, for the first time. A bunch of creatives I loved were going to be there, and I was eager to meet them and buy (more of) their work. I was perhaps most excited to meet Sina Grace, whose work on Marvel’s Iceman series became a major focus of my thesis project. When I met him, Grace asked if we met before because he thought he recognized me from somewhere. I said no, and we chatted a little about how much I love his work and about my thesis project. He signed a copy of Iceman #1 for me, and I also bought a copy of Nothing Lasts Forever(2017) because I wanted to read more of his non-Marvel work (and I love a graphic memoir). I walked away from the experience a complete fangirl and got awkwardly flustered later in the day when Grace walked past my friends and I having lunch downstairs in the hotel café area.
When I’m reading something by Sina Grace, I often recall that moment at his table when he thought he recognized me because of how much I recognize myself in his works. This is not a creepy stalker fan account of me being like, “He’s writing about me, I swear it, can’t you tell?!!”, I can assure you. What I mean is that one of Grace’s greatest strengths as a storyteller is that he operates from a place of vulnerability and authenticity, creating narratives that he and other LGBTQIA individuals have been waiting for forever. Instead of having to dissect every issue of a franchise for queer scraps (cough cough X-Men cough cough), Grace’s stories are indelibly tethered to so many facets of queer culture, it’s hard not to feel seen.
In Rockstar and Softboy(2022), his latest work released by Image Comics earlier this month, Grace presents a pair of protagonists that readers will enjoy playfully arguing over who they identify with more (I’m like 25% Rockstar, 75% Softboy). Rockstar, a touring musician and songwriter, is an extrovert with a penchant for drugs, thicc men, and bold fashion, while Softboy, a narrative designer for video games, prefers weekends in with tabletop games and red wine. When Softboy gets stuck in a rut creatively (he can’t figure out what to do with his latest video game narrative) and sexually (he hasn’t had sex in nine months), Rockstar decides the best way to get all his juices flowing is to throw an epic house party for the ages. Suffice to say, hijinks ensue!
Fans of Grace’s supernatural slice-of-life series Ghosted in L.A.can expect monsters and mayhem, with the more surreal elements perfectly grounded in the title characters’ relationship. Rockstar and Softboy battle emotional and physical demons with the help of their friends, including a mythical cat woman, and occasionally with a boost of super-charged queer sexual energy when the occasion calls for it (there is a fantastic cosmic power-up costume change moment featuring “Power Bottom Power” and “Big Dick Energy” that makes me regret not ordering one of Grace’s Sailor Moon-style commissions when I had the chance). Those familiar with the underrated Getting It Togetherwill be satisfied with the music mentions throughout the story: the one-shot starts with the author asking you to “Please listen to ABBA while reading,” and Rockstar meets Softboy at an ABBA tribute concert where they bond over their love of “Keep an Eye on Dan.” I listened to Cher’s Dancing Queen album before reading, and Thank You for the Music during reading, and I can safely say I was thoroughly cackling when Rockstar suggests to Softboy that he put his “tussies” on a foot fetish account called @feetpraylove as “Waterloo” played in the background. These very specific details are what make reading a work by Sina Grace a joyous, meaningful, multi-sensory experience.
Beyond ABBA, the book is teeming with musical and cultural references to everything from Orville Peck to Doug Funny to Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. Rockstar and Softboy share a lot of genetic material with Romy and Michele, as best friends who love each other and are unabashedly themselves. In his author’s note at the end of the book, Grace points out that, “For the better part of two decades, [he] had to project [his] bff relationships onto female pairings…[because] there aren’t many iconic gay male-identifying pairings that persist in pop culture.”
This is something I’ve often thought about in my own history of media consumption; typically I relate to female characters more than male characters, because I don’t recognize myself in the men onscreen/on the page. In Rockstar and Softboy, Grace gives queer male-identifying readers their own iconic duo to root for and relate to.
Rockstar and Softboy is currently available wherever comics are sold, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. To hear more about Sina Grace’s past, present, and future projects, visit his website or follow him @sinagrace on Instagram and Twitter.
Hi everyone! Instead of a written review this week, I have something special to share. I was fortunate enough to guest star on my sister-in-law Brooke Bove’s podcast Lawterature, and the episode is out today. We talk about the YA novel The Fascinators by Andrew Eliopulos and LGBTQIA issues, as well as other random things like Teen Girl Squad and The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Check it out at one of the links below! And follow Lawterature for more fun discussions on literature and law.
Ever since it was announced in February that Disney was closing Blue Sky Studios—which they acquired in their purchase of Twentieth Century Fox—and was canceling the animated film adaptation of Nate Stevenson’s webcomic-turned-graphic novel Nimona, I haven’t been able to put the series out of my mind. It is one of my favorites, and in my disappointment over the movie news, I thought I would revisit the comic.
What began as a webcomic and senior thesis at Maryland Institute College of Art became a bestselling graphic novel (published by the HarperCollins imprint Quill Tree Books in 2015) and earned Stevenson an Eisner Award, a Cybils Award, and a Cartoonist Studio Prize. The story follows a young shapeshifter named Nimona, who shows up in the secret hideout of the villainous Ballister Blackheart one day and insists on becoming his sidekick. Together they antagonize the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics, the governing body of do-gooders that Blackheart once belonged to. Amidst all of their exploits, Nimona and Blackheart uncover the corruption at the heart of the Institution and work together to take them down and expose the truth. However, their mission isn’t easy, especially with Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, Blackheart’s ex-boyfriend, attempting to foil their plans at the Director of the Institution’s bidding. Goldenloin’s constant interloping tests Nimona’s already tenuous promise to Blackheart not to murder anyone; and when her lust for vengeance threatens their friendship, Blackheart begins to wonder who exactly he’s taken on as a sidekick.
Thematically, Nimona’s narrative lays the groundwork for some of Stevenson’s later projects—namely, Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018-2020)—in its exploration of the grey areas of good and evil and its challenging of stereotypical notions of gender. While the form she typically presents herself in is that of a teenage girl, as a shapeshifter, Nimona can transform into any living creature within a matter of seconds. Her powers of fluidity and identity construction are a threat to the Institution, which is itself a representation of a heteronormative, hegemonic patriarchal structure. This is clear in the Director’s plan to kill Nimona for the danger she poses as a “monster”/queer figure and as a young woman. It is also clear from the Director’s secret plan to expel Blackheart from the Institution because she disapproved of his relationship with Goldenloin and because she “didn’t see” him as a hero. In Blackheart and Goldenloin, former friends/boyfriends on two different paths, Stevenson gives his fans a sweet queer relationship (albeit one that is not explored in such depths as some of his other ones, that I won’t spoil here); and the epilogue hints at an optimistic future for the pair and Nimona.
In addition to the narrative, the artwork is beautiful in its simplicity and its movement. The cuteness of the character design belies the darker, more complex story in a way that creates deeply emotional moments for the reader that will stick with you. I discovered Nimona on Tumblr the same way many others did, nearly a decade ago, and was enchanted with it immediately. Along with other webcomic creators like Danielle Corsetto and Jeph Jacques, Stevenson was one I followed regularly and religiously. I was very lucky to meet Stevenson at Flame Con in NYC in 2018, and he could not have been kinder. He signed my copy of Nimona and drew a little shark and a heart in it, and it was so meaningful to have such a great interaction with a queer writer/artist whom I admire so much.
If you like stories of science and schemes, frenemies and fantasy, and queers and quests, Nimona is the tale for you. I also highly recommend Stevenson’s other projects, including She-Ra (available on Netflix) and the comic Lumberjanes, which is reportedly being turned into an animated film and television series for HBO Max. For more information on Nate Stevenson, you can visit his twitter here.
*Note: There are light spoilers in this review, but nothing is said that cannot be surmised by the blurb on the dustjacket of the book*
“What’s the point of living if you only do it how others want you to?”
This is one of the themes at the center of The House in the Cerulean Sea (Tor Books, 2020), the first of two books released in 2020 from Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune. Klune’s YA novel introduces the reader to Linus Baker, a kind-hearted 40-year-old with thinning hair and a few extra pounds around the middle. Linus spends his days as a case worker assessing magical orphanages for DICOMY, the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, and his nights at home listening to records with his cat, Calliope. Linus’s habit of doing everything by the book—specifically, the DICOMY’s RULES AND REGULATIONS—lands him a special, classified level four assignment from DICOMY’s Extremely Upper Management to spend a month at the secluded and mysterious Marsyas Island Orphanage, run by the charmingly enigmatic Arthur Parnassus. Though Marsyas Island appears to be the real-life version of the sandy-beached blue ocean on Linus’s faded desktop mousepad at work, he soon realizes that the place and its inhabitants are so much more than he ever could have expected.
At its core, The House in the Cerulean Sea is a story of love. Klune illustrates how powerful familial love can be when fostered in such a warm environment as the one created in Arthur’s home. Arthur and his children—the devilishly delightful Lucy; the sensitive, introverted Sal; the optimistic Chauncey; the tough-but-sweet Talia; the pragmatic Phee; and the curious Theodore—open the rigid case worker’s heart to possibilities Linus thought unimaginable, and help him realize the difference between living and existing. The narrative shines when Linus and Arthur are helping the children—and each other—through their emotional trauma. In a poignant scene when Sal—who has been shuffled around to more orphanages than any of the other children, and fears Linus’s visit will lead to another displacement—finally invites Linus to appraise his room for the DICOMY evaluation, the two have a touching conversation about feeling small and how it’s okay to allow oneself to take up space. Through this and other moments of vulnerability, Klune also illustrates the wonderful audacity of self-acceptance.
While the language of the novel can come off a bit twee at times—do not turn Linus’s use of the phrase “oh dear” into a drinking game, you will lose—the book generates an aura of genuine goodness that will warm you from the inside out. Part of this goodness can be attributed to the easy romance between Linus and Arthur. Klune’s bio emphasizes the author’s belief in the importance of having “accurate, positive queer representation in stories,” and it is more than refreshing to read a queer narrative that isn’t centered on coming out or anti-LGBTQIA discrimination or violence. Klune creates characters who are admirable, complex, and relatable. By the end of the novel, it’s hard not to feel like a member of the family at Marsyas Island Orphanage.
The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting, uplifting fantasy that offers readers a welcome escape from the turmoil of reality. While there have not been any announcements about a sequel, fans of Cerulean Sea will enjoy the equally-heartening The Extraordinaries. For more information on these and Klune’s other works, visit the author’s website here.
“Sometimes you just jump and hope it’s not a cliff.”
Red, White & Royal Blue (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2019), the debut novel by Casey McQuiston, begins less with a jump and more with a trip and tumble as Alex Claremont-Diaz, First Son of the United States, causes a diplomatic disaster when he and his archnemesis Prince Henry, grandson of Great Britain’s Queen Mary, have an altercation at the royal wedding reception of Henry’s older brother Phillip that ends with the two of them ruining a $75,000 wedding cake. To smooth over U.S./British relations, the heads of state devise a plan to dupe the media into believing Alex and Henry are friends, putting an end to their tabloid rivalry. However, what starts out as enemies faking a friendship for good publicity soon turns into something more as the pair become closer, creating a whole new set of political and personal problems for Alex, Henry, and their famous families.
While this easily could have been a frivolous queer twist on the American-meets-European Royal fantasy in the hands of a lesser writer, McQuiston offers a narrative that is emotional and engaging, creating a perfect tension of humor, drama, and romance. Alex and Henry’s kinetic relationship drives the novel: through clandestine encounters, lakeside getaways, late-night texts, and e-mail exchanges, the reader is caught up in the whirlwind of their transatlantic affair. By weaving in love letters from prominent historical figures suspected of or confirmed as queer, as well as references to Jane Austen and Star Wars, McQuiston firmly situates Alex and Henry as a new classic pairing—and the placement is apt. From their cake mishap to their first kiss, the duo’s Elizabeth and Darcy, Han and Leia sexual tension could be sliced through with a lightsaber. Because this is a work of New Adult fiction, targeting an audience slightly older than the YA crowd, these moments of tension occasionally lead to horned up (but well-written and totally tasteful!) sex in any room that is vacant and available. These scenes are more gratifying than gratuitous, an unburdening of the restraint of hiding their relationship in public, where Alex and Henry can only communicate their feelings through an arm thrown over a shoulder or a brief meeting of their knees under a table. Their physical relationship is strengthened by their open communication and weighted with the significance of other moments between the FSOTUS and the prince, like when Henry shows Alex his favorite spot in the Victoria and Albert Museum after hours, or when they drunkenly sing karaoke with their sisters and friends.
At times it is difficult to not draw comparisons between Prince Henry and the real-life Prince Harry, as they are both the “spare” to their older brothers, have lost a parent, and are in relationships heavily scrutinized by the media. When Henry confronts his brother and the Queen about his relationship, his message is reminiscent of statements Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have made in the past, most recently in their interview earlier this year with Oprah Winfrey, regarding the discriminatory treatment Markle and their son Archie faced at the hands of the British royal family. While certain aspects of the novel may speak to real-world events, the narrative stands on its own and remains what McQuiston states is “a tongue-in-cheek parallel universe,” offering a rewarding, joyful fantasy that—if you are like me—you will tear through over the course of a 24-hour period.
For more information on Casey McQuiston and their upcoming novel, One Last Stop, visit their website here.
From Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic Frankenstein to Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House and beyond, gothic horror novels have captivated readers for generations with their use of the mysterious, the supernatural, the psychological, and the grotesque. Mexican Gothic (Del Rey, 2020) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and What Big Teeth (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021) by Rose Szabo continue the legacy of their literary ancestors while adding their own unique twists and turns on gothic tropes.
Set in Mexico in the 1950s, Mexican Gothic begins with the young socialite Noemí Taboada receiving a curious letter from her cousin Catalina, who is newly married and living in the remote countryside town of El Triunfo. At the behest of her worried father, Noemí reluctantly agrees to visit her cousin in exchange for her father’s permission to enroll in a master’s degree program in anthropology. Upon arrival at High Place, the mansion where Catalina lives with her blond-haired, blue-eyed English husband, Virgil Doyle, and his family, it is easy for Noemí to see why her cousin might be feeling so frantic. The mansion is in a state of disrepair, with mold growing on the walls and rooms vacant under cover of dusty sheets. There is no electricity, only candles and oil lamps, adding to the dreariness of the place. The ouroboros, a symbol depicting a snake eating its own tail, is unnervingly visible everywhere in the home’s décor. Outside, an adjacent cemetery is perpetually thick with fog, and an abandoned silver mine is a physical reminder of the Doyle family’s fading fortune.
With the exception of Virgil’s introspective cousin, Francis, the family is somehow even less welcoming than the house: Francis’s mother Florence is immediately cold to her, policing Noemí’s actions and her time spent with Catalina; Howard, Virgil’s father and the aged and ailing family patriarch, comments on Noemí’s dark skin and is expressly clear in his interest in eugenics; and Virgil oscillates between being congenial and callous. It isn’t long before Noemí is having nightmares and wondering if the things Catalina wrote in her letter were true.
While the prose of What Big Teeth differs because of its target audience—it is a work of young adult fiction—the narrative style shares similarities with Mexican Gothic. After an incident at her boarding school, Eleanor Zarrin returns to her home in a remote town in Maine, with little memory of the family she hasn’t seen or heard from in years. The Zarrin family is an eclectic menagerie of supernatural creatures, to say the least, who are simultaneously welcoming and terrifying to Eleanor. After a tragic event leaves the Zarrins broken, Eleanor finds purpose in putting her family back together and working through their grief. However, things go awry and their situation goes from bad to worse. To say more would be to give away the secrets of the house and the family who inhabit it—and this is not a novel you want spoiled for you.
The influence of works like Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper is evident in both novels, and readers will delight in the slow unraveling of the mysteries at the center of each narrative. While Mexican Gothic is slightly better-paced, the twists in What Big Teeth are less opaque. However, both novels offer satisfying revelations and resolutions, and will stay with you long after you turn the last page.
For more information on Moreno-Garcia and Szabo, and for additional information and examples of gothic horror, visit the links below.
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