Huzzah, summer is here!
I’m just about to return to the loving embrace of my family and friends in New Zealand for a month. Sadly, my access to the internets and comic book stores will both be somewhat limited during that period*. I shall doubtless be around from time to time, and I have a couple of interviews lined up, but my loose weekly schedule will become a little looser.
Right now, some housekeeping.
One:
I have shamefully neglected to mention that Girl-Wonder.org has a new comic: The Tower, by Saki Miyamoto and Brendon Bennetts.
The Tower is a wonderful wordless comic about a fairytale princess who refuses to accept the restrictive ‘safety’ her father imposes. Instead, she approaches the world outside the titular tower with joy, courage, and a willingness to improvise in the face of dragons, bee swarms, tree monsters, thunderstorms, and true love.
Saki’s art is beautiful, with characters’ expressions and actions depicted so clearly that no words are needed, and Brendon’s story is an extraordinary tale, delightfully twisty, and with some of the best pacing I’ve ever seen in comic form. Best of all, the whole thing is completed! There’s none of that awful waiting for the next page that you sometimes get with other great longform webcomics, with the even worse horror that maybe the creators will get bored and stop.
You can’t read this comic as I did: sitting in a cafe in Kyoto’s Pontocho district while rain pattered on the roof, turning the pages in a plastic binder with fingers that trembled with delight, and every now and then looking up at the creators and gasping ‘You guys! You guys! You have to submit this to Girl-Wonder. You GUYS!’. But you can read the first six chapters right now, and the other four are coming in whole chapters, one chapter per week.
I like it extremely. Recommended to all humans.
Two:
I am delighted that I’ve been given the opportunity to host the next Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival here at GRC. The festival will appear here on January 5th. Please get your submissions and links to me by January 3rd, via email or use this submission form.
The most recent festival was truly excellent. Hosted by Anna, it contained so much awesome commentary and linkage that it had to be divided into three parts: Women, Gaming and You; These Things We Love And How We Interact With Them; and Reviews, Reactions, and Recommended Further Reading. Also recommended to all humans.
And that about does it for now. May you have happy holidays, whether they be unnaturally cold and wintry, or in the entirely appropriate glorious sunshine!
